A German player was able to impress with his impressive performance at the Pokémon World Championship 2023 and fought his way to the final.
What was that tournament? The Pokémon World Championships will be held in Japan in 2023. In addition to Pokémon GO and the Trading Card Game (TCG), there was of course the VGC World Championship, in which the best players from Crimson and Crimson competed against each other.
In the VGC format, the trainers fight double battles, in which they send two Pokémon onto the field at the same time. A total of four of their six pocket monsters are available to them. The final is won by the coach who wins two out of three duels.
The final of the VGC World Championships was on Sunday 13th August 2023 and was broadcast live on Twitch and YouTube.
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Kelsch is the first German in the World Cup final
Who is the person you are talking about? Michael Kelsch aka “MichaelderBeste” is a German Pokémon trainer who successfully qualified for this year’s Pokémon World Championships.
Kelsch paved his way to the Pokémon World Championships in three regional tournaments in Europe. In Bochum he finished a strong eighth place, in Utrecht he was among the top 32 players and in Malmö he made it into the top 64.
It was Kelsch’s first participation in a Pokémon World Championship. Although he started watching the World Championships every year 5 years ago, he has never had the opportunity to take part in the tournament himself.
But that lack of World Cup experience didn’t stop Kelsch from sending coach after coach home and clawing his way to the finals—an achievement unmatched by any German Pokémon player before him.
How did the final go for Kelsch? Kelsch lost the final of the world championship against the Japanese Shohei Kimura, who was ultimately to win the world championship in his home country. Kimura won the clash 2-0.
What Pokemon does Kelsch use? For his six pocket monsters, Kelsch chose the giraffe Pokémon “Farigiraf”, the three legendaries “Wulaosu”, “Baojian” and “Heatran”, the ghost dragon “Katapuldra” and the drum-playing gorilla “Gortrom”.
In Match 1 against Kimura, Kelsch used Farigiraf, Katapuldra, Gortrom and Baojian. In Match 2, however, he did without the plant gorilla Gortrom and instead relied on Wulaosu.
Apparently, the opposing Hutsassa caused him particular problems, because the plant poison monster repeatedly put Kelsch’s Pokémon to sleep with the “Mushroom Spore” attack.