Source: The Daily Star

A team from Bangladesh has qualified for the World Cup of Pokémon, a worldwide online tournament put on by Smogon, the biggest competitive Pokémon community in the world.

At this year’s World Cup of Pokémon qualifiers, more than 200 players from 17 teams competed for the last three spots in the major knockout series. Each team represented a country or continent. Each player played two opponents, and the top three teams, based on their total score, moved on to the main game.

Team Bangladesh did the best in the qualifiers, beating countries like the UK, China, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, and South Korea with a 12-4 record. Starting on June 4, Team Bangladesh will be in the main rounds of the tournament with 15 other teams from the US, Latin America, Oceania, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, and more.

This tournament is being held by Smogon, an online community that runs and promotes a number of large-scale competitive Pokémon tournaments every year. About 18.5 million people visit their website every month. The matches are played on Pokémon Showdown, a browser-based game where anyone can make their own Pokémon teams and face each other. Every month, more than 10 million matches are played on Pokémon Showdown. There are more than 100 current formats, and each has its own sub-community.

As of May 2021, Pokémon is the most profitable media brand in the world, with a total income of $76.4 billion. Since November 18, 2022, when Pokémon Scarlet and Violet came out for Nintendo Switch, they have sold more than 22 million pieces.

Even though The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo host official Pokémon events called VGC (Video Game Championships), they are usually hard for Bangladeshis to get to because they are held all over the world. So, online fan groups like Smogon hold tournaments that anyone from anywhere in the world can join by using a browser-based simulator.

Bangladesh is trying for the 5th time to get past the qualifying round for the World Cup of Pokémon. The team members are all members of a Facebook group called “Bangladeshi Pokémon Battlers.” Since its start in 2012, this group has been a hub for local Pokémon fans and professional players.