I’ll level with you: I’m exhausted and hadn’t planned anything structured for the Pokémon World Championships, which I was lucky to attend with a spectator pass I purchased on Friday. So here is a quick recap of Championship Sunday, including the 6 finals (TCG and VGC):
- Kosaku M. beat Kiara Nyugen in the Juniors VGC final with a team including Blastoise and I LOVED it. But even better, the winning attack was Quick Attack from Zacian. Pr0 strats!
- Yasuharu S. beat Nicholas K. in the Seniors VGC final and the worst part was that Nicholas’s Shedinja went down to the hail that he set up which confirmed the win for Yasuharu. Ouch.
- Eduardo Cunha beat Guillermo Castilla in the Masters VGC final and therefore went unbeaten throughout the tournament
- Tsunekazu Ishihara made three major announcements in the closing ceremony:
- ex will be the new TCG format in 2023 when Scarlet and Violet’s first expansion launches
- A host of new moves, abilities, and a new Pokémon called Cyclizar were revealed as part of the Scarlet & Violet update promised in the opening ceremony
- Speaking of hosts, Yokohama was revealed as the venue of the 2023 Pokémon World Championships to the jubilation of the crowd at the ExCeL Centre yesterday
Other opinions
- I’ve warmed to Incineroar thanks to a lot of move diversity (lots running Protect) and at least two that Dynamaxed non-ironically.
- The fact that the Blastoise and Venusaur won the World Championships in the Juniors and Seniors respectively is incredible but Charizard fell in the Masters final, after G-Maxing and without hitting an attack before it went down.
- A lot more Weakness Policies than I expected but I respect it!
- Rinya Sun didn’t win Worlds and wasn’t even in the final
- Lunadon was (Castilla’s team), but lost
- Japan was notably absent in the Top 4 despite the reigning champion making it to the Top 8 and Rinya Kobayashi, the architect of Rinya Sun which dominated much of the meta, finished in the Top 16
- And Gastrodon is a World Champ, against all odds
- I LOVED it and I’m considering taking VGC more seriously to try and qualify for Worlds so I can go again
- Alternatively, I need this blog to take off so please comment, link back, and share posts so the site gets more popular
