OCHS grad to compete in world championships next month
For Tanner Mask, Pokémon isn’t just a game — it’s a lifestyle.
The Crawford native who graduated from Oglethorpe County High School in 2024, originally started playing the Nintendo Switch game with his friend George McMaster in early 2020, when he was in eighth grade and McMaster was in seventh.
What started as a pandemic pastime quickly turned lucrative for Mask after earning high rankings at several local and regional tournaments.
In the five years that he’s been playing, Mask has gone from a dedicated hobbyist to qualifying for the Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, California which will take place from Aug. 15-17.
“Before COVID, the new game had just come out and the Switch was a cool new system,” Mask said of his early days playing the video game. “I just wanted to try it and then we were like, ‘I wonder if there’s a competition for this.’ Then we kind of found the stuff from there during COVID and played a lot of online tournaments, and I don’t know — I just kept playing.”
Participation in the international event is invite-only with competitions for four different types of Pokémon games. Mask will compete in the Video Game Championships, or Pokémon VGC.
McMaster, who graduated from Athens Academy this year and is headed to Florida State to study exercise physiology, also plays competitively and remembers the amount of time they spent playing together online when the pandemic hit.
“Tanner and I both did it all the time,” he said. “We talked to each other about teams. We played each other online. We’d spend a bunch of time laddering. I think what really got both of us to start doing it was we heard that there was going to be this unofficial world championships online, because the official one had been canceled. And so we both played a bunch leading up to that because we wanted to do well.”
More about the game
According to the Play! Pokémon website, Pokémon VGC is played between two competitors who use two of their six Pokémon at a time for battle. The competitor with the last Pokémon standing wins that round.
In the Japanese media franchise, Pokémon are fantasy creatures based on animals from real life or mythology that have unique powers that competitors use in battles. Players collect Pokémon in a process called teambuilding, with teams of six Pokémon being brought to competitions.
“There’s a horse one called Calyrex-Ice and I always say that’s my favorite because it made me the most money across my life,” Mask said, “and there’s another mushroom guy that I always use called Amoonguss. Those are two of my favorite ones to use.”
For McMaster, his favorites in competition are Koraidon, Solgaleo and Aerodactyl.
By competing in sanctioned Pokémon tournaments, players can earn points that go toward their rankings on a global leaderboard. The 75 players with the most points in the U.S. and Canada were invited to represent North America at the Pokémon World Championship this year.
On the world scene
By competing in Pokemon tournaments, Mask and McMaster have been able to travel to cities across the U.S., like New Orleans, San Antonio and Baltimore. More recently, Mask competed in tournaments in London and Toronto.
“I got top eight in San Antonio (Regional Championships), and I made like $2,000, so I used that to buy a flight to London because I wanted to go to Europe for the first time,” said Mask. “but it was definitely a culture shock. London was crazy.”
McMaster, who is from Athens, said one of his favorite things about competing in large tournaments is being able to meet people from around the country and all of the “shenanigans” that happen during these trips, such as a surprise roommate assignment during a recent trip to New Orleans.
“I didn’t know who we were staying with. Tanner did all the room stuff, and we get there and one of our roommates got second in the world championships a couple of years ago,” said McMaster. “I was like, starstruck, but I just had to play it off.”
Mask is studying marketing at the University of North Georgia, but plans to continue playing Pokémon competitively and has been able to work in tournaments and training with his school schedule.
“I was on the dean’s list twice, I’m getting paid to go across the country and it’s not affecting my school,” he said. “So I don’t know why I would stop right now, and I’m enjoying it.”
Mask compared training for Pokémon VGC with training for the wrestling team at OCHS saying most of the game is understanding how different people react to situations and that he was only able to progress as much as his opponent could challenge him.
McMaster also remembers during their early days of competing that Mask’s success wasn’t just because of his skill, but also his stamina and love of the game, which he thinks will earn him the world championship title this year.
“He’s just ridiculous, man. I’ll play for an hour and get exhausted, but Tanner’s just like ‘One more game, one more game,’ ” McMaster said. “Tanner is super hard working, he does so much and he’s incredible. I can’t wait for him to inevitably win the world championships this year.”