The results of the first major Pokémon Video Game Championship (VGC) tournament of 2020 are in. The Dallas 2020 Regional Championship took place over the weekend, and veteran Aaron Traylor took home the victory with his Charizard-led team.
The tournament took place on Jan. 18 and 19 and aired on both Twitch and YouTube. Only a portion of the battles aired throughout the weekend, but it was pretty clear that Trick Room comps dominated in Dallas. Both finalists had Trick Room users in their teams.
Trick Room has always been popular in competitive Pokémon due to its ability to turn speed against an enemy. The move twists the dimensions of the battle so that the slowest Pokémon moves first. Having strong Pokémon that can invest in stats other than speed gives the user a huge advantage.
Togekiss was another popular pick in the tournament. The Flying/Fairy-type serves as an excellent support Pokémon to help protect sweepers. The move Follow Me forces Pokémon into attacking it while its partner can safely deal damage.
The winner
Players battled one another in a tournament format to determine the winner, with Aaron Traylor and Bingjie Wang making it to the finals. Traylor used Charizard and Togekiss along with Conkeldurr and Jellicent to sweep Wang 2-0. Wang attempted to use a team built around the Bug/Steel-type Pokémon Durant, which was quite literally burned to ashes by Charizard’s G-Max Wildfire.
Traylor’s victory earned him a $3,000 prize and 200 Championship Points. The Championship Points go towards an invite to the World Championships in the United Kingdom later in 2020. These points can only be earned by participating in Regional events.
Following his victory, Traylor posted his winning team on Reddit, and he plans to release it as a rental team in Pokémon Sword and Shield. Once the team is posted, fans will be able to use it if they have the code. Traylor is a mod on the r/VGC subreddit and is very active in the community.
The next Championship event will take place in Collinsville, IL, on Feb. 28. This will present another opportunity for players hoping to obtain an invite to the World Championships. It will follow a similar format and will stream on Pokémon‘s official Twitch channel.
