I Wanna Be the Very Best – a VGC Breakdown

In 1996 Nintendo released what would become one of the most well-known game franchises in video game history: Pokémon. Everyone has heard of Pokémon and most of the time when someone hears the word, the universally known electric mouse, Pikachu, comes to mind, as it is the mascot of the series. The game originally started out as a fun role playing game, where the player begins as a young inexperienced trainer and embarks on an amazing journey, capturing and raising these amazing creatures known as “Pokémon”, as they climb their way up to the ultimate arenas of the Elite Four, and become the Pokémon Champion. It’s a relatively basic game for children of all ages, but as seen later on in the franchise’s development, it would evolve into something far more complex and aggressive than stereotypically regarded. 2008 became the birth year of international Pokémon battling competitions known as VGC.

What does VGC stand for?

 VGC stands for Video Game Championships, and is the name of The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo’s official competitive Pokémon tournament circuit. Much like the League of Legends Championship Series or the Global StarCraft League, Pokémon also became an extremely popular eSport, connecting people globally. The Video Game Championships consist of tournaments across the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, this year’s rookie, South Africa, and online over the Nintendo Network. By competing in tournaments throughout the VGC season, players earn the right to play in the invitation-only Pokémon World Championships – the most prestigious tournament known to the game of Pokémon. Those who are top placing in this event walk away with thousands of dollars in scholarships, exclusive merchandise, and a free trip and invite to the next World Championships.

Tournaments and Championship Points

            As mentioned previously, tournaments are held globally, and of these, there are four types: Select Online Competitions, Premier Challenges, Regional Championships, and National Championships. Select Online Competitions consist of various miniature wifi tournaments hosted online by Nintendo, such as the Nugget Bridge Winter Invitational, or Summer Scramble. Premier Challenges are those tournaments which kick off the VGC season in each individual country. Canada’s Premier Challenge, for example, happened to occur this past Saturday, September 27^th.  Regional and National Championships are the two main events that follow throughout the season. By earning a specific amount of Championship Points throughout the season from Regional competitions, a player can earn his right to the National Championships. Depending on the country, the amount of Regional competitions may differ. For example, the United States generally has close to twenty regional competitions, while Australia may only have three, as there are less players competing there.

            Championship Points (CP) are known as the ranking system to display the top players and how they change throughout the season. The ranking chart can be found on the Official Pokémon website. Because of the thousands of VGC players internationally, the CP-system and the live competitions are separated into three separate age divisions: Juniors, Seniors, and Masters. Here are the listings for the ranking in the Masters Division as of right now in the starting VGC’15 season. As players continue to compete in more and more competitions, their CP scores will grow, earning them access to higher level competitions. Those with the highest scores by the end of the National Championships will be rewarded with a free trip to the location of the Pokémon World Championships, in addition to a hotel room for the players during the competition weekend.

It’s Just a Child’s Game Though!

            As Pokémon has evolved (get it?) over the years, it has turned into a fierce battle of prediction, wits, patience, and the ability to do math. (Yes, Pokémon requires math. It’s actually offensive how much math is involved.) In order to perform at a prestige level similar to many other players around the world, you need to create a team that can synergize well together, and be able to take a hit during the actual battles.

            Breeding at an elementary level in Pokémon is known as simply just making eggs that eventually hatch into little baby Pokémon; they’re cute and everyone likes what’s cute. But to a competitive player, it’s probably the most nerve-wreaking two weeks of his life, especially if he has to rebreed an entire Pokémon the night before the competition. If you care to read more on breeding, follow this link for a brief overview of hellish chain breeding.

            You’ve got six little baby Pokémon in your party now, but what do you do with them? You level them of course! But there’s a catch. A mathematical catch, and probably the second (next to breeding) most frustrating part of generating a competition team: EVs, or Effort Values. These are 508 of the most painful points to ever encounter, and yet they are absolutely vital to a trainer’s team. In short, these boost a few of your Pokémon’s six stats by a certain number of points, and thus make it stronger. Back before the age of online stat calculators, the equation for figuring out how many points a specific stat may grow was determined by [root(x)]/8, where x is the number of EVs being added to the stat.

            “Woah, woah, woah, how do you know how many EVs you need to put into each of your Pokémon’s stats?” The simplest answer to this is to watch for trends, and what Pokémon are most commonly used in the metagame during the time of your competition. A great competitor will always look around for what common threats there are and prepare for them. Then, plug a multitude of numbers into the formula ((2A/5+2)*B*C)/D)/50+2)*X)*Y/10)/255 to determine how many EVs you need to survive the enemy’s attacks. Of course calculators to figure out these sorts of insane equations have been developed, and are very regularly used when developing EV spreads.

Let’s Analyze a Team!

            Generally after a tournament is completed, a player who has done well may post his team to a well-known website in the VGC community known as Nugget Bridge. Aside from the occasional snobbish ding-dong that is present in every community, the VGC community is a very friendly and resourceful environment, all helping one another out with ideas and team combinations to assist in strengthening our own play styles. Nugget Bridge in essence provides a window for the community to share ideas with all other players globally.

            When making a team report, the author may include an in-depth look at his team, damage calculations and percentages, reasoning for specific EV spreads, and his experience throughout the tournament. Because I have not entered in any competitions through my career as a player, here is only a brief write up of the team I'm currently using on an online simulator, in order to give an understanding of what a team report generally looks like.

•••

Talonflame @ Life Orb
Ability: Gale Wings
Level: 50
EVs: 44 HP / 204 Atk / 12 Def / 76 SpA / 172 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Brave Bird
- Overheat
- Tailwind
- Protect

Mawile @ Mawilite
Ability: Intimidate → Huge Power
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 76 Atk / 64 SpD / 116 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Head
- Play Rough
- Protect

Venusaur @ Venusaurite
Ability: Chlorophyll → Thick Fat
Level: 50
EVs: 220 HP / 20 Def / 188 SpA / 12 SpD / 68 Spe
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Sludge Bomb
- Sleep Powder
- Synthesis

Hydreigon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
Level: 50
EVs: 12 HP / 52 Def / 252 SpA / 20 SpD / 172 Spe
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power

Gothitelle @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Shadow Tag
Level: 50
EVs: 236 HP / 188 Def / 76 SpD / 8 Spe
Calm Nature
- Psyshock
- Tickle
- Thunder Wave
- Protect

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 156 SpA / 76 SpD / 20 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Flash Cannon
- Substitute
- King's Shield

•••

            To pick out a quick point to talk about for some explanation from a competitive player’s perspective, let’s looks at Talonflame, Mega-Mawile, and Gothitelle. This format is played in Doubles, meaning that two Pokémon are out on the field at the same time. During the team preview, the players must select carefully what four out of their six Pokémon will do best against their opponent’s team. This is a crucial key to understanding the strategy in VGC.

            Talonflame serves as a very basic Pokémon, only there to either set up or attack, then die. It’s incredibly frail, therefore does not have a high survivability on the field. Brave Bird is its main move, which is combined with its ability “Gale Wings”, giving it priority. This means it may move first before other Pokémon. In the given metagame, Mega-Mawile and Ferrothorn have become threats to teams without a strong fire-type move, therefore Overheat was chosen. Flare Blitz is usually the move of choice; however some players, like me, prefer not to have the additional recoil, which can decrease Talonflame’s HP further.

            Mega-Mawile is a Pokémon that has become very popular in the doubles format and because of this, it’s very important to run a unique version of it to fit your own play style. As personal preference, I decided to give my Mega-Mawile speed EVs, something that is generally frowned upon due to her already incredibly low speed, and calculated to make sure my own can outspeed a number of threats under Tailwind, which doubles the speed of all Pokémon on your team for four turns. VGC is an incredibly fast-paced format, sometimes only lasting five minutes, so speed control is very important to keep an edge.

            Gothitelle, lastly, is a very unique Pokémon to this format, as it is not used frequently; however ironically helped Sejun Park, South Korean player and the 2014 World Champion, claim his well-deserved victory. Her ability, Shadow Tag, forces Pokémon to stay in the battle, rather than letting them switch out. Switching out is a very important mechanic in the VGC world, as it lets you switch a Pokémon that may be targeted for Super-Effective damage out for a Pokémon that takes Not-Very-Effective or no damage, as well as resetting stat drops. In conjunction with Mawile’s pre-mega evolution ability, Intimidate (which drops Attack stat), I can whittle down the enemy Pokémon’s stats and render them useless, and unable to switch out and fix their drops.

            Despite its seeming complexity, this is a very basic outline of what a team overview may look like, as it only shows the team itself, and doesn’t delve too much in depth in terms of explaining what everything about each Pokémon does. For a deeper and more complex example, please visit this published article about the only Canadian representative and his experience during the World Championships this year.

International Top Cut

            Based on the chart of Top 8 competitors, it wasn’t particularly surprising to see Ryosuke Kosuge of Japan (Masters Division semifinalist in the 2013 World Championships), Jeudy Azzarelli (A recognized player in the VGC community), and Sejun Park (winner of numerous Regional and National Championships, and fifth place at Worlds 2012 and 2013) at in the Top 8 this year. What was particularly interesting about this year’s top players was the diversity in countries. In past years United States and Japan have fought neck and neck for the top places; however this has been one of the only years where there was international diversity. It was exciting to see a number of different competitors from various countries because it shows that there are players everywhere who enjoy the same game and a similar interest, but have brought their own unique spin to how they play it.

Pokémon World Championship 2014

            After two long days of intense battles and easily the most nerve-wreaking thirty minutes of their lives, US competitor Jeudy Azzarelli and South Korean player Sejun Park clawed their way up the international competition ladder, ending with Sejun Park bringing a clean victory of 2-1 with his favorite Pokémon, Pachirisu. The event was held at the Walter E. Washington Conventional Center in Washington D.C. from August 15 to 17, 2014, and streamed for all viewers to watch on twitch.tv. A recording of the finals in the Masters Division can be found here. Congratulations to both players, it was a fantastic best-of-three match!

Personal Career in VGC

            In November 2013, I came across the video clippings of the 2013 Pokémon World Championships, showing the insane battles which international trainers had, and became infatuated with VGC. I played other formats for recreation on an online simulator called “Pokémon Showdown”, began communicating with people in a chatroom on the website dedicated to this format, and eventually learned how to function in the competitive scene. Although my only major accomplishment was placing first once in a 48-Player Single Elimination Online Tournament, I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and befriending people all over the world. And as funny as it sounds, constantly chatting about a large chunk of my childhood on an academic level has been unimaginably fun.

            It’s been nearly a year since I began playing VGC, and although I have a plethora of knowledge on the subject (because that’s apparently easier to memorize than my school work), I’m still very unexperienced in the live tournament environment. Hopefully this year I’ll be able to compete, earn my own title in the VGC community, and make it to the more prestigious levels of the eSport. Until then, my mediocre leaderboard rankings and occasional chatroom tournament wins on Pokémon Showdown will have to suffice!

            The Autumn Regional Championships are the next three weekends; I better get cracking on my in-game team (-laughter-).