By Contributing Writer Aaron Zheng

After weeks of intense battles, the stage is set for the Pokémon Players Cup Video Game Championship Finals. With over 100 Pokémon introduced to the fray through the first part of the Pokémon Sword Expansion Pass and Pokémon Shield Expansion Pass, competitors had to rapidly adapt to a brand-new metagame this summer.

Our finalists fought tooth and nail through a grueling qualification process to make it to the Pokémon Players Cup Finals. In the end, 16 video game players qualified for the finals between the four regional brackets and the Pokémon Players Cup Kickoff Invitational.

Europe: Alessio Yuri Boschetto, Antonio Sanchez Cervan, Nico Davide Cognetta, Edoardo Giunipero Ferraris, David Koutesh
Latin America: Gabriel Agati, Julian Eduardo Martinez, Geovanni Polanco, Caio Romanini
North America: Jiseok Lee, Santino Tarquinio, Conan Thompson, Joseph Ugarte
Oceania: Christopher Kan, Ben Madigan, Alister Sandover

The Pokémon Players Cup has a unique tournament structure, both in how players advance and the information they have going into their matches. The Region Online Qualifiers and finals follow a double-elimination bracket, which isn’t typically used in Play! Pokémon events. In addition, players have access to their opponent’s team lists (without stats) before each match, allowing them to see what items their opponent’s Pokémon are carrying and what moves they have.

With so many new Pokémon in play and a brand-new tournament structure, the Pokémon Players Cup has been an incredibly challenging competition and every finalist should be proud of making it this far. Let’s look at our finalists and imagine what we might see from them this weekend!

You can watch the Pokémon Players Cup Finals live at Twitch.tv/Pokemon or YouTube.com/Pokemon on August 21 and 22.

Standout Teams from the Qualifying Stage

Players are free to use a brand-new team for the finals, but we can learn a lot by looking at some of the standout teams from the Region Online Qualifiers. Because of the visible team lists, it is also likely that many competitors will feel comfortable using the same team in the finals that they did in the qualifying stage. Here are some of the qualifying teams that were especially impressive.

A Coalossal Feat

Out of the 16 players who qualified for the finals, Santino Tarquinio’s team was the only one that included Coalossal. Santino went undefeated through the North American bracket with a unique team centered around Gigantamax Coalossal, supporting it with Pokémon such as Dragapult and Rapid Strike Style Urshifu to activate Coalossal’s Weakness Policy held item and Steam Engine Ability. (You can read more about Gigantamax Coalossal in this article by contributing writer Barış Akcoş.) Santino also relied on Rillaboom and Urshifu to counter common threats to Coalossal.

Gigantamax Coalossal is often seen as a high-risk, high-reward Pokémon. If set up properly, it can sweep through teams and disrupt the opponent through its unique attack, G-Max Volcalith. However, Coalossal must be wary of supereffective Water-type and Ground-type attacks, especially from opposing Dynamax Pokémon, which can often knock out Coalossal in one hit.

Santino said that the open team list format greatly assisted his team since he could easily identify where Water-type and Ground-type attacks were on the opposing team, allowing him to play more confidently with Coalossal right from the start. Santino has been using Coalossal on his teams since April, and as one of the world’s premier Coalossal players, he will likely continue to show us its true potential in the finals.

Creeping Up from Down Under

Ben Madigan’s team from the Oceania bracket heavily resembles Alessio Yuri Boschetto’s winning team from the Pokémon Players Cup Kickoff Invitational, using four of the same Pokémon—Bisharp, Togekiss, Rillaboom, and Cinderace. Ben replaced the Trick Room support of Dusclops and Primarina on Alessio’s team with Porygon2 and Araquanid, which fulfill a similar role. We saw in the invitational that Bisharp and Cinderace are an incredibly strong lead combination that can easily overpower teams in the early game. The Trick Room option gave Ben a way to get around common Cinderace counters.

Araquanid was an interesting choice and an uncommon Pokémon in the VGC 2020 format—no other finalist is using it. Ben opted to equip it with a Safety Goggles to protect it from Venusaur and Amoonguss, and he gave it a physical move set, opting for Liquidation, Lunge, Protect, and Wide Guard. Water-type Pokémon are incredibly valuable in this format due to the prevalence of Fire-type Pokémon such as Arcanine, Incineroar, and Cinderace. However, most popular Water-type Pokémon, such as Wash Rotom and Primarina, are incredibly weak to Rillaboom, which has established itself as a frequent threat. By choosing Araquanid, Ben was able to have a Water-type Pokémon that could threaten opposing Rillaboom, thrive under Trick Room, and counter opposing Sun teams through its Water Bubble Ability.

This style of team has proven itself to be quite successful in both the Kickoff Invitational and the Region Qualifier brackets. It’ll be exciting to see if Ben sticks to his adapted version with Araquanid or decides to try out an entirely new team composition.

Drapion’s First Appearance

Geovanni Polanco went undefeated through the Latin America bracket with one of the most unique teams in recent memory, featuring Pokémon such as Drapion and Lilligant. Geovanni’s Drapion combined Scope Lens and the Sniper Ability with Night Slash and Cross Poison—both attacks with increased critical-hit ratios. These attacks are super effective against common picks such as Togekiss and Rillaboom.

In addition, the combination of Torkoal and Lilligant is incredibly powerful. Torkoal can set up harsh sunlight for Lilligant through its Drought Ability, making Lilligant one of the fastest Pokémon in the game thanks to its Chlorophyll Ability. In return, Lilligant can put its opponents to sleep with Sleep Powder and use the move After You to allow Torkoal to use Eruption immediately. The team also has a lot of pure offense from Gigantamax Hatterene and Rapid Strike Style Urshifu.

While risky, using unorthodox Pokémon can result in huge success if done properly, and Geovanni was able to do just that. I expect Geovanni to use a similar team in the finals—or something equally creative.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Antonio Sanchez Cervan didn’t just have one Pokémon that was unique to his team…or two…or three… He actually had four Pokémon that no other finalist used—Gastrodon, Corviknight, Grimmsnarl, and Dracozolt. He shocked the world on stream with a fantastic play in Week 2’s broadcast, using Will-O-Wisp on his own Gastrodon to prevent it from being put to sleep by an opposing Amoonguss.

Antonio’s team is much more defensive than the average Series 5 team—his Pokémon outside of Dracozolt don’t have much potential to pick up big one-hit knockouts. However, it is also incredibly difficult to knock out Antonio’s Pokémon in one hit due to their excellent bulk. In this metagame, players often gain a significant advantage if they can Dynamax after their opponent without losing too much in the meantime. Many teams struggle to do so because they are frail, but Antonio’s team can hold off on Dynamaxing far more effectively.

Antonio is a veteran with this team composition, having used the team’s core since Series 3. Antonio made one of the deepest runs out of all competitors in the Region Qualifiers—after losing in the third round, he won nine best-of-three sets in a row to qualify for the finals. His experience with this team shows, and we should expect to see him use a similar team for the finals this weekend.

One Final Show

Our players have had a couple of weeks to rest and recharge between the qualifying stage and the finals. They’ve also had some time to think about what team they want to bring and how to prepare against their fellow competitors. Let’s take a deeper look at some of the Pokémon and strategies we should expect to see this weekend!

Individual Pokémon

The most common Pokémon from the qualifying teams were Incineroar (75% usage), Togekiss (62%), Rillaboom (50%), Dragapult (50%), Porygon2 (37%), Tyranitar (25%), and then Excadrill, Amoonguss, Ferrothorn, and Primarina (18% each). Going into the finals, we should expect to see these Pokémon frequently due to their general strength and consistency.

Ferrothorn’s performance was surprising and impressive, making it through on three separate teams (Gabriel Agati and Caio Romanini from Latin America, and Alister Sandover from Oceania). When asked about Ferrothorn, Caio said, “It is one of the most underrated Pokémon right now and makes a great core with Primarina and Incineroar... I’m trying to shape out the rest of my team to complement this core [for the finals].” Ferrothorn is often able to win games single-handedly through the combination of Iron Defense, Leech Seed, and Body Press, and it’s likely that players will continue to use it as a late-game win condition in the finals.

Overall, 34 unique Pokémon made it through the qualifying stage. Of those 34, 15 appeared on only one team. This pool of Pokémon included picks such as Santino’s Coalossal, Ben’s Araquanid, Geovanni’s Drapion, and Antonio’s Dracozolt. It will be interesting to see if these players continue to stick with their signature Pokémon and strategies going into the finals.

General Strategies

Sun: While only one player, David Koutesh, used a Sun team to qualify for the finals, this strategy is still incredibly strong. Sun teams typically use Torkoal to set up harsh sunlight, enabling powerful attackers such as Gigantamax Charizard and Gigantamax Venusaur. In addition, they often have a Trick Room component with Pokémon such as Tyranitar and Dusclops, making open team lists incredibly challenging; it’s difficult to cover both the harsh sunlight and Trick Room components with one lead. Sun teams have already been dominant throughout the VGC 2020 season, and the inclusion of Gigantamax Venusaur has made them even stronger.

Sand: The combination of Tyranitar and Excadrill has been a staple since the start of VGC 2020, and it continues to thrive due to Excadrill’s capability to speed past and do heavy damage to major threats such as Togekiss and Cinderace. Dragapult is often seen with this core—both Edoardo Guinipero Ferraris and Nico Davide Cognetta expressed their belief that Dragapult is one of the best Pokémon in the current metagame due to its incredible Speed and damage output. Three players qualified for the finals with the exact same six Pokémon—Tyranitar, Togekiss, Excadrill, Amoonguss, Incineroar, and Dragapult. These Pokémon have worked exceptionally well with each other all season, and it is likely we will see some version of this core in the finals.

Hyper offense: This strategy typically revolves around enabling several of the strongest attackers in the game, such as Porygon-Z and Cinderace. Alessio Yuri Boschetto gave viewers a masterful performance in the Pokémon Players Cup Kickoff Invitational, showing just how powerful the lead combination of Bisharp and Cinderace can be. Jiseok Lee also went undefeated through the North American Region Qualifiers with a hyper offense Porygon-Z team. Hyper offense teams typically include redirection users such as Clefairy, Togekiss, or Amoonguss to help protect their main sweeper (the Pokémon whose role it is to deal most of the damage). They are also often paired with Pokémon that know Tailwind, such as Whimsicott or Talonflame, to further enable their sweepers. Whimsicott, however, had a surprisingly poor performance in the Region Qualifiers—while 18% of teams used one, not a single advancing player had one on their team. Similarly, despite being considered one of the best Dynamax Pokémon in the format, only three players qualified with Cinderace. Despite this, hyper offense is still an immensely strong option and cannot be underestimated.

Trick Room: One of the best counters to the hyper offense strategy is Trick Room. Hyper offense cores typically use Pokémon that are very fast and frail. As a result, these Pokémon struggle immensely under Trick Room, as they often rely on knocking out opposing Pokémon before the opponent can attack. Trick Room was on most qualifying teams and was often used by Pokémon such as Porygon2, Dusclops, and Hatterene to enable slower attackers such as Tyranitar, Torkoal, Ferrothorn, Araquanid, and Primarina. One thing to note is that none of the qualifying teams rely solely on Trick Room, giving them flexibility in how they can play. European qualifier Edoardo Guinipero Ferraris notes that “Porygon2 is probably the best Trick Room setter for teams that do not rely on always setting up Trick Room… [I]t gives the option of a slow mode.” This slow mode is effective “in the late game after having dealt a lot of damage with faster Pokémon.” Going into the finals, it’s likely that players will continue to incorporate a Trick Room mode onto their teams while also using faster Pokémon.

Comfort Is Key

In preparing for the Pokémon Players Cup Finals, many players are focused on finding a team that they are comfortable with and understanding how that team matches up against the other qualifying teams. Given that players will have access to their opponent’s team lists before each match, there is less value in catching an opponent off guard with surprise strategies. Antonio Sanchez Cervan thinks that “players will opt for safe teams going into this tournament as opposed to trying to break the metagame with some niche choices.”

Alessio Yuri Boschetto stated that since “the field is large and varied enough this time, being generally comfortable with the team is very important,” and he doesn’t expect to see too many similar teams since the finalists have different play styles.

Joseph Ugarte, one of the North American qualifiers, believes that he will use a Sun or Sand team because his focus has “always been [on] using teams that give [him] plenty of opportunities and are low-risk given how consistent they have proven to be.” He also pointed out that customizing a proven team/strategy to one’s personal playstyle is incredibly valuable.

It’s clear that the majority of competitors value comfort and experience with their teams. I am personally eager to see if anyone decides to push the metagame by bringing a completely new Pokémon and/or strategy that no one was preparing for. While it’s difficult to pull off, I think it could potentially carry a player all the way to the top! Two players to watch out for with regard to creative team-building are Geovanni Polanco, who we profiled earlier, and David Koutesh, who is one of the most innovative team-builders in the VGC 2020 format.

Closing Thoughts

This weekend is sure to be packed with incredible Pokémon action. Our 16 finalists include several VGC International Champions, such as Alessio Yuri Boschetto and Christopher Kan, as well as many players who have made the top cut of the Pokémon World Championships before, such as Gabriel Agati. Most of these players are still looking for their first major win, and with Series 5 being such a fresh format, it will be especially exciting to see who comes out on top after three months of incredible play!

Again, remember that you can catch action from the Pokémon Players Cup Finals on Twitch.tv/Pokemon and YouTube.com/Pokemon August 21 and 22.