Pokémon Video Game Championship (shorten to VGC by the Pokémon fanbase) AKA Pokémon World Championships is the official competitive battle format. It is usually held in August by Play! Pokémon, which is formed by The Pokémon Intentional Company.
The differences between the battle format that Smogon used is the battle format is in Doubles rather than Single, thus making the battle more fast-paced. In addition, the player can only bring four Pokémon out of six Pokémon to the battlefield. Item Clause is in effect as well, meaning that more than two Pokémon in the team cannot hold the same item. And Mythical Pokémon aren’t allowed in any VGC format.
History:
The first ever World Championship event was run by Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro, on August 2002 in Seattle, WA, it focuses solely on the trading card game. Eventually, Wizards transfers the right of the trading card game to Nintnedo.
Nintendo resumed the World Championship in 2004. However, the first four World Championships held by Nintnedo still focus on trading card games, it wasn’t until 2009 where they introduced the Video Game Championship format. Each VGC format comes with their own unique rule.
Generation V banned the moves Dark Void and Sky Drop, the latter have to do with a particular glitch, though these bans were eventually lifted in Generation VI. From VGC14 and on, it introduced the blue pentagon rule, a Pokémon must be native to X and Y (later Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire) in order to participate the tournament, otherwise it can’t. VGC16 allows normally restricted legendary Pokémon to participate, but no more than two can be allowed.
Reception:
The video game format is very popular among the competitive Pokémon playerbase.
Despite this, numerous fans have criticized VGC for the lack of variety, VGC15 is a notorious case of it as most teams consist of Cresselia, Heatran, Amooguss Landorus-Therian, and Mega Kangaskhan (shorten to CHALK). VGC16 has also been initially criticized for it as well, this time, most teams consist of Groudon, Kyogre, Xerneas, Talonflame and Smeargle
Another aspect that VGC has been criticized for is slipping hacked Pokémon. People have noticed that Ray Rizzio used an Aegislash with a Dream Ball, which is impossible for a Pokémon introduced in Generation VI to be in it. Despite Ray’s claim, there are evidence that he actually hacked it.
h2.Impact
A website by the name of Nugget Bridge focus heavily on VGC. In addition, Smogon has provided several Pokémon analysis for the VGC format.
Related Meme:
Pachirisu
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As the blue pentagon rule only allows Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres, Zapdos is commonly used because it’s the only legendary Pokémon that isn’t extremely weak to Rock-type as well as being the fastest of the trio.
Se Jun Park, a Korean player, has a Pachirisu in his team, a Pokémon that isn’t commonly used in competitive battles. Pachirisu has a particular move called Follow Me, which redirects any attacks. It happens to have its hidden ability, Volt Absorb, allowing it to recover health from Electric-type moves instead. Other arsenal includes Super Fang, a move which cuts the HP of the target by half and Nuzzle, a weak Electric-type attack that always paralyzes the target. Pachirisu holds Sitrus Berry, allowing it to heal 25% of its max HP if it HP reaches less than 50%.
Many were surprised that how long Pachirisu has stayed in the battlefield than they expected. Eventually, Se Jun Park won the Master Division of VGC on August 17th, 2014. Because of that darkhorse victory, several fanarts, news articles, and memes have spawned for this particular electric squirrel.