pA surprising Pokemon has emerged as the MVP of the Seniors Division of the Pokemon VGC competitive circuit. Tomoya Ogawa won the Seniors Division World Championships using a team filled with Pokemon not heavily used in the Pokemon metagame. Ogawa’s MVP Pokemon was arguably Sylveon and also featured a Hisuian Arcanine and Zapdos in addition to meta standbys Urshifu, Rillaboom, and Gastrodon. Ogawa emerged victorious against Robbie Schaaij, whose team included staples of the metagame, including Flutter Mane, Heatran, and Amoongus. Ogawa’s victory was even more impressive in that he never Terastallized one of his Pokemon in the final match.ย
The Masters division was a bit more focused on the dominant meta, although finalist Michael Kelsch did bring a Dragapult and a Farigiraf to the finals. However, it wasn’t able to crack Shohei Kimura’s team that was made up entirely of Pokemon with high usage rates in the tournament. Kimura’s team included six of the top seven most used Pokemon in the Pokemon World Championships, showcasing why these Pokemon tend to be dominant in competitive play. Kimura utilized Amoongus’s Spore attack to devastating effect, putting multiple Pokemon on Kelsch’s team to sleep and setting the pace of play.
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This year was also notable in that Japanese players swept all three VGC tournaments, as Sora Ebisawa won the Juniors division to join Kimura and Ogawa as champion.
While the Pokemon core series games focus mostly on singles battles, the Pokemon VGC circuit focuses entirely on double battles. Because of the format, unusual Pokemon have emerged at the forefront of competitive play. In fact, over 70% of players in the Pokemon World Championships had Flutter Mane on their team, while nearly 50% of teams featured Urshifu and Iron Hands.
