Hi there trainers!
There’s pretty much a tournament every week in either Europe, North- or South America, but not this week! We have the Regional Championship in Brisbane, and the Thailand Qualifiers in the Asia Championship Series!
My name is Martijn – you may know me as Inadequance. I am the 2024 Worlds finalist, and I’ll be writing most of these articles! The goal is to write the many tournaments that will be held globally as one big storyline.
From here on, all points gained from tournaments held after the EUIC up until and including the NAIC will count for the 2025 LAIC travel award. The total, of course, will count for the Worlds qualification and Travel Award. This is only for Brisbane this weekend, and not for the Asia Championship Series!
Stockholm recap
First off, what is the current status of the meta? I had quite a few predictions of what it shaped up last week, and I must say I was very much surprised by what the usage looked like on day 1 – although, I didn’t look at the usage from my practice tournaments the week of Stockholm itself.
People, including myself, were pessimistic Azumarill would still be meta. Well, guess we’re wrong folks. I thought Drapion and Cradily would lead, but it’s looking like the Drapion and Azumarill core is still as safe, strong and popular as ever.
That’s crazy. Anyway, let’s skip straight to the real point. Swalot. SsThorn was using it to great results in a prize tournament the week before Stockholm, and it looks like competitors picked up on the tech. Swalot with it’s coverage in Mud Shot (Ground), Sludge (Poison) and Ice Beam (Ice, duh) covers exactly those top 4 popular Pokémon. And many of those were on the same team!
In the end, it was Nickname29585 winning the Stockholm Regional Championship. With that Swalot! This was his first non-laggy win ever (which is actually insane to think Stockholm hardly had disputes while they basically were a feature of the stream in Vancouver), though he did also win Bremen 2022.
Nickname played Swalot to absolute perfection, but honestly there just wasn’t a lot to hard check it. PvpDavid had Claydol – but despite the 69 moveset updates Claydol needed to become viable, it’s defensive typing still is weak to like… everything. Ouden covered Swalot a bit harder, but then Guzzlord is also such a good corebreaker in this meta. Furret, Claydol, Skeledirge (without Disarming Voice now!) don’t want to see it, it can put up a really close fight with shields up against Alolan Sandslash with Shadow Claw and we saw that Primeape doesn’t even hard check it! Team composition wise, there was just not a lot that held back the Poison – Dark core of Nickname.
ArceusAurelius had bet that Azumarill wouldn’t win a Championship this season, and it won the first one already. The camera cut off halfway the pour of water, but he was convincingly wet when he came back on camera. Good cinema there Marcus.
Thailand
Thailand has their Qualifiers this week! For those who don’t know what the Asia Championship Series are, here is a copypaste from last week when I wrote about India and their Qualifiers.
The Thailand Qualifiers are part of the Asia Championship Series where a few countries in Asia get one tournament a season – the Qualifiers. This is played remotely in a Swiss format, and a top cut of best performers proceed to a Playoffs, which are held later (and teams can be changed). The top cut of that will qualify for the World Championships.
Thailand last season counted 47 registered competitors. I must admit my knowledge on the competition is… limited. Very limited. From this graphic, I do know Bjpawat and Teddlness, and if they are competing again they are likely very good contenders to qualify again this season.
And it’s probably no coincidence that those two players had reached number one and two last season. Bjpawat has played in a few Regional Championships in North America too, so he does bring the experience with him. He does have ‘Retired PVP player’ in his Twitter profile so we may not see him at all. I kind of do since he did cast a grassroots tournament last month but hey some players are really capable of putting the game down.
Brisbane
Brisbane is on the east coast of Oceania, and is NOT played in the Asia Championship Series. This is played in the same Championship Series we have in Europe, North- and South America, so with Championship Points. And they’re very important for the Oceania competitors – doing well in a single Regional Championship is a huge step towards the Travel Award for an International Championship. That’s because they only have one Regional Championship this season every 2-3 months. The battlers striving for the Travel Award compete in a lot of locals too, so it makes for a very competitive environment.
As for the meta, I’m not going to spend too much time on that in this section. The Australians are known to bring Bastiodon, so do not be surprised if it shows up. In fact, it lines up pretty well into Pokémon like Cradily, Azumarill, Drapion, Talonflame, Lapras, and more…
That said, everytime there’s also a couple top players who basically battle their way through the hordes of Bastiodon. An obvious name would be RicFlareon – he’s qualified for a Travel Award for every International Championship so far, and has made use of them too. I love seeing these opportunities for the international competition.
But it’s time to highlight a few others this time.
In Perth, TheyLuvJy reached second place and mentioned in his interview that he would love to travel to New Orleans. Well, it looks like he is qualified for it now – and with good results in both Brisbane and at the NAIC, he could snowball this further into a Worlds and LAIC Travel Award. There’s some money on the line for this fella.
ValiantVish is back! Or so he said on Twitter. And well, we been messaging here and there. Both him and YACOBERVITCH recently became part of the Pokémon GO dad club so they’ve been busy. The latter is also a well known name from Oceania and reached top 17 at the World Championships last season, too. I haven’t spoken to him so I don’t know for sure if he’s competing, but he would be a contender to win it all here too.
He may read this and wonder why I just didn’t ask since we’re good friends (or at least I consider us that), but for him and anyone else I haven’t asked information if they compete etc; I just have the urge to write the articles in one go and I don’t have the patience to ask and maybe wait for replies. My flaw!
Not done yet with the list; I have a few more! RocketClare is an absolute staple of a battler and currently has 175 Championship Points from local tournaments. She didn’t compete in Perth earlier this season, but do realize that for Australians living on the east coast this is like a 6-7 hour flight. And not a cheap one too. I’m hoping to see RocketClare compete here and snowball some success into the Travel Awards.
And then the last one I will mention is… something we know is happening, and coming. Japan has a rough qualification system, and Australia is the closest for Japanese competitors to travel to. Competitors from Asia don’t win any Championship Points from the Regional Championships, but they can directly qualify for the World Championships by winning it all! A tough task. But, they have tough players too.
ISHIKAWABOY is a name that may shooting for the stars, though at the time of writing he’s not sure if he’s able to make it. Let’s hope so though! From what I saw at the 2023 World Championships in Japan, they are SO competitive and love everything about Pokémon. I’m not saying I want a Japanese competitor to win, but it would make for a great show.
Brisbane counts 55 competitors at the time of writing, and from what I heard is played entirely on saturday.
Closing words
But how would I know it would make for a great show? Because it will be streamed!! PvPSteveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee has once again received permission and will be setting up a broadcast. So we have something to watch this weekend! Make sure to follow his twitch channel.
As always, you can find the link to the broadcast and bracket below.
https://www.dracoviz.com/2025-brisbane
See you next time trainers!!
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