Hi there trainers!
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 Atlanta this weekend, and not for the Asia Championship Series!
First, let’s take a look at what happened the last 2 weeks.
Brisbane recap
The Oceania region doesn’t have many Regional Championships, but we were able to watch the battles of the Brisbane Championship thanks to PvPSteve!
Some of the staple names were here again, but household names like RocketClare and YACOBERVITCH were not competing. And of course, a handful of Japanese competitors came to Brisbane to shoot for the stars. They don’t gain Championship Points from competing, but they can directly qualify upon winning. With 64 trainers competing, the odds were pretty real. Last time it was Pokemonemaker competing at Perth, this time we saw ISHIKAWABOY early on and choooooooooooooose (probably took his name inspiration from PvPSteeeeeeeeeeeeve). Furthermore, Yeteruna from South Korea – who had also competed at the 2025 EUIC – managed to grab a top 5 spot too!
But it was not the challengers from Asia nor the Australian staple names that won here. Godzilama had never reached the top 8 before, but now swept the whole thing! His team seemed somewhat weak against opposing Azumarill, but he managed to position his Pokémon extremely well. And that Malamar on his team will be a big one to come for the next tournaments, I think.
Asia Championships Recap
I took a break last week and didn’t write about it, but the South Korea Qualifiers and Indian Playoffs took place!
77 competitors registered for the South Korea qualifiers. The top 16 of these qualifies for the Playoffs – which will be held later. The top cut of the Playoffs then will directly qualify for the World Championships.
What is the most notable here is that CharmingP0ri also won a community prized tournament a few weeks ago – one that had about 120 competitors. And again, there’s that Malamar. It is looking to be the Psychic-type Pokémon that can defeat Lapras, and they really needed that considering they had an Azumarill, Lapras and Dewgong on their team.
Also what the heck, a Florges in 2nd place and a Lucario in 3rd place? And Yeteruna with Whimsicott?
During the same weekend, the India playoffs took place. The top 32 competitors from the Qualifiers would now compete for the World Championship spots and a potential Travel Award.
And here, it was none other than MasterMihir295 who won it all. The guy has been on FIRE this season – getting to the second place in a community prized tournament, winning the India qualifiers and now the India playoffs too!
If I’m not mistaken, the top 4 of the Playoffs qualify for the World Championships and the winner receives a Travel Award. That means India now has 5 players eligible to compete in Anaheim, since Beelzeboy is also qualified from his Worlds 2024 top 4 placement. It’s a bit of an expensive trip from India though, so we’ll see if we get the full representation. MasterMihir is looking to be a serious contender for the Worlds title if he can keep up this form!
Even if that’s with a Bastiodon. This actually makes the first win this season for Bastiodon!
Atlanta
It’s been almost a month, but now we’ll have a broadcast on the official stream again. Atlanta in North America, Georgia currently has 192 sign ups, making it one of the largest Regional Championship North America had to date.
Like I mentioned earlier, I think Malamar may be one of the key Pokémon to look out for in this tournament. Despite Azumarill, Jumpluff and Drapion still being the top core, Malamar tackles pairings that are weak to Fighting and Psychic. The defensive typing of Malamar makes it a decent counter for Lapras as well, as the opposing Psywaves are triple resisted.
I think it’s role is more meant to be supportive or in place of Lapras to avoid a weakness that is for example Cradily, and I honestly have yet to be convinced it’ll be the Pokémon to shine. Perhaps we won’t see it at all since it doesn’t line up well into some of the top meta, but only counters that around it.
So uh, 192 competitors. That’s a lot of people. I’ve noted down 5 names! We start with the top dog.
Reis2Occasion is the 2025 Vancouver Champion, and he is going straight into the next championship. His rival Doonebug97 had won 3 Championships in one season, so obviously he needs to get 3 in one season now as well.
I think Reis is the type of battler you always expect to go far, but I would not be surprised if he does just okayish this time. He kept his record of being the only competitor to win a Regional Championship every season, so there’s much less pressure on him now.
Or perhaps that makes him even better…?
This is an Inadequance article, so there’s obviously going to be some picks based on what I know myself.
LilSpartyy has been hosting and practicing a lot in my server lately, and doing really well in some of them too! I heard CrimsonK19 – the father of the 4th place finalist position – say on his stream that she’s been wooping him at tournaments everytime they face, so I’ve got some expectations here.
I would love to see practice pay off and see some success here, but she hasn’t done too hot in the Championship Series lately. Hopefully this can be the break through moment for LilSpartyy.
Next up I call the ‘W Duo’, which in hindsight doesn’t read as well as it sounds.. I call them this because they are the only people I know that repetitively use ‘W’ when something good happens, and it threw me off pretty hard first time Poket used it in our conversation. My birthday was 2 days ago and people were jokingly congratulating me on becoming 40 (I’m 29), but he sure made me feel like that.
hschirra has been hosting practice tournaments in my server too, and has gained quite some popularity on Twitch with her streams. The 2025 season is the first season she’s been competing and the results have not been similar to that of her results in the GO Battle League. But again, perhaps a break through moment here? I know she’s got it in her.
The other half of the duo – this geezer called OutOfPoket – is the conductor of success. I’m pretty sure he’s reached day 2 in every tournament for about a full year now, which is insane. I’m curious to see if he again brings a team so good and versatile, that Colin6ix would immediately copy it in my practice tournaments.
And then the last one to look out for is… Colins friend! I guess. I mean Colin did take that first place away in Bologna so I don’t know if they’re really friends still… anyway, the antagonist TomahawkUK makes a return! I quote him ‘reaching day 2 in North America is easy’, and he’s been drafting quite some interesting teams.
In fact, he sent me a message 4 minutes ago with 4 team drafts that I have been ignoring until now because I want to finish the article, and I am really liking what I see. For the love of mass-alliance Tea & Pizza, please get further than 2nd place for once Fareed!!
Closing words
As for the Asia Championship Series, I don’t really know a lot about the competition for this weekend. It’s the weekend of the APAC qualifiers (which is Hong Kong, Malysia, Singapore and Philippines combined for this tournament). Below is a graphic of last seasons playoffs.
I think one favourite really stands out here – and that is the 2024 World Champion Yekai0904!
And that’s it for this week! The Asia Championship Series continue, while North America plays their last tournament before the appearance of the notorious Tinkaton.
And who knows… with Caleb Peng casting, surely someone will pull out the big bad Bastiodon?
As always, you can find the link to the broadcast and the bracket down below.
https://www.dracoviz.com/2025-atlanta
As for the Asia Championship Series, you can find most of the information here as well. It’s unlikely we’ll see a broadcast regarding those, however.
See you next time!
Leave a Reply