| Event | Victory Road to San Francisco (2026) |
|---|---|
| Location | Online |
| Date | 15–16 August 2026 |
| Capacity | Unlimited |
| Videogame | Pokémon Champions |
| Season | 2026 Season – VGC Regulation Set M-B |
| Format | Phase 1 Tournament: Swiss rounds only Phase 2 Tournament: Swiss rounds + X-2 top cut |
| Organizer | Victory Road |
Table of Contents
Platform and schedule
The tournament is held online through Battlefy. All communication between the players must be done through the Battlefy chat enabled in each round.
Official communication from the organizer staff is performed through Discord, in the Victory Road Discord server.
The Victory Road to San Francisco will feature a structure reminiscent of pre-Scarlet & Violet World Championships, which means this will actually be two separate tournaments, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. This also means that players qualified to the Sunday tournament will be free to change their Saturday teams and submit a new one:
- 15 August at 13:00 UTC:
- Phase 1 Tournament. Any player that does not have a direct invite to Phase 2 can play this tournament, which consists of a single phase of Swiss rounds.
- As soon as a player reaches the amount of victories needed to advance, they will be qualified to Phase 2 and will no longer play. They will receive an invite to the Phase 2 Tournament.
- 16 August at 13:00 UTC:
- Phase 2 Tournament: All players with an invite (either from their results in a tournament throughout the season or the Phase 1 tournament) start this tournament with a clean score. Players from Phase 1 are free to change their teams if they want.
- This tournament will be played as a single stage of Swiss rounds, followed by a single-elimination asymmetrical top cut for those players with 2 or fewer losses (X-2) at the end of the Swiss rounds.
Given the special structure of this tournament, the amount of rounds to be played each day will slightly differ from the usual. Check out soon for more info on this.
Sign-up instructions
Phase 1 Tournament
Sign-ups for the event are done through Battlefy platform. Sign-ups are FREE and open upon announcement of the event.
All players need to provide a team list in text export format, shared in a link such as VRPastes Open Team List, with all open team list data about the team’s Pokémon (including form, ability, held item, moves and Stat Alignment). In the case of Mega Evolutions, it is important to use the base form of the Pokémon with its ability; the held item will already tell you if it is a Mega Evolution, and VRPastes can show the newly acquired ability upon Mega Evolution.
Additionally, all players need to provide another closed team list (only for TOs) with all previous information and either stat values or Stat Points. This list can also be provided with a VRPastes Closed Team List, with password protection allowed.
Please ask any staff member if you need help registering the team lists!
Since this tournament is free to enter, check-in will be enabled in Battlefy 60 minutes before the tournament starts. Remember to check in to confirm your participation!
Sign-ups close right before the event starts. Players that do not show up and get their third loss are dropped from the tournament.
Phase 2 Tournament
All players that qualify to the Phase 2 Tournament will receive a personal, non-transferable invite code and link to a new tournament. They will need to submit their team lists in the same way as before.
Players qualified from the Phase 1 tournament are free to change their team heading into the Phase 2 tournament. Even if they want to keep playing the same team, they need to submit it again for Phase 2.
Take a look at the list of players that have earned an invite to the Phase 2 Tournament. 
Matthew Henry, winner of the VR Oct. Challenge
Pedro Feitosa, winner of the VR Jul. Challenge
Jérémy Côté, winner of the VR Dec. Challenge #2
Louis Markl, winner of the VR Jun. Challenge #2
Lucas Mester-Christensen, winner of the VR Sep. Challenge #1- Nikolaj Høj Nielsen, winner of the VR May Challenge #5 and top 4 at The Champions Arena II
Jorge Tabuyo, winner of the VR Sep. Challenge #2, finalist of The Champions Arena I and top 4 at The Champions Arena II- José Francisco Gálvez, winner of the VR Jun. Challenge #1
- Juan Benítez, top 4 at The Champions Arena I
- Pedro Martínez, top 8 at The Champions Arena I
Théotime Massaut, winner of 2 VR Challenges (Jan. #1 and Mar. #3)
Davide Carrer, winner of the VR May Challenge #2- Federico Camporesi, winner of the VR Mar. Challenge #2
- Francesco Iozzia, top 8 at The Champions Arena I
- Giulio Tarlao, winner of the VR May Challenge #1
- Marco Silva, winner of The Champions Arena II
- Stefano Greppi, winner of the VR Nov. Challenge
Hiroto Hayasaki, winner of the VR Dec. Challenge #3- Naoto Mizobuchi, winner of the VR Dec. Challenge #1
- Shohei Kimura, winner of 3 VR Challenges (Aug., Jan. #2 and Feb. #1)
- Shunsuke Minami, winner of the VR Feb. Challenge #2
- Tota Nambu, winner of the VR May Challenge #3
Hyungwoo Shin, winner of The Champions Arena I
Jiang Jin-Hao, top 8 at The Champions Arena I
Jeff Lehmann, winner of the VR Mar. Challenge #1- Joseph Ugarte, top 4 at The Champions Arena I
- Kyle Livinghouse, winner of the VR May Challenge #4
- Toler Webb, finalist of The Champions Arena II
- William Brown, top 8 at The Champions Arena I
Check out this info soon!
Prizes
This event is a grassroots tournament and is not a part of any official circuit. This means that it does not reward any Championship Points (CPs).
In all VR Challenges of this season since September 2025, $1 of each entry has been saved to grow the accumulated prizepool for this tournament.
The best-placed players receive the following prizes:
| Placement | Prize money |
|---|---|
| Winner | ~30% of the accumulated prizepool |
| Runner-up | ~18% of the accumulated prizepool |
| Semifinalists | ~10% of the accumulated prizepool |
| 5th to 8th | ~5% of the accumulated prizepool |
| 9th to 16th | ~1.5% of the accumulated prizepool |
Overview
The Victory Road to San Francisco is an online event hosted by Victory Road, the culmination of a season-long circuit of online tournaments, to serve as the final step before everyone enjoys the 2026 World Championships that are held in San Francisco two weeks after this event.
It is played with VGC Regulation Set M-B, using open team lists.
All detailed tournament procedures, including rules and penalties, can be found here.
A little bit of history
Victory Road has been consistently holding online grassroots tournaments for years, including standalone events, online invitationals featuring qualifier events, and the yearly biggest online team competition in the World Cup of Pokémon VGC. Victory Road has also provided streams to several official Regional Championships in Europe since 2019.
Last summer, we also held a tournament right before the World Championships, although it was not part of any VR Circuit back then. This was the Victory Road to Anaheim – The Final Stretch, played in Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet with the VGC Regulation Set I. The finals saw 2023 Perth Regional Champion Taran Birdee defeat American Giovanni Cischke to win $1,130 and his first VR tournament, while Giovanni went on to win the 2025 World Championships the next week with the very same team he used here!
