VGCPL Coverage

By zeefable. Released: 2021/09/30.
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VGCPL Coverage art

Art by Meganium1579.

Introduction and Origins

The very first edition of Smogon VGC PL has just completed after seven exciting weeks of regular season and two thrilling playoffs weeks. After discussion stirred around which formats to include in the first edition of Smogon Champions League, VGC entered the fray off of the recommendations of accomplished tournament players such as Prinz and Lax. While VGC in SCL was quickly shot down, it showed that there was a decent amount of support from the established Smogon playerbase for VGC, something that would have been quite unheard of years ago. This prompted the creation of VGCPL, the first major VGC team tournament on Smogon since the revival of its VGC section. The tournament opened signups almost immediately after the conclusion of Smogon VGC Major, a tournament with over $1000 in prizing and 600 checked-in players. Additionally, VGCPL would include legacy formats in VGC 2017, 2018, and 2019, attracting accomplished players from the Generation 7 era like Spurrific, emforbes, Gramgus, Brady1225, Melvin (deathstroke), and Agati to manage and/or play. As such, hype for VGC on Smogon was really at an all-time high, and the tournament amassed over 150 signups. We'll dive into highlights from the tournament, starting from rosters, moving on to metagame-specific coverage, and then the race for a coveted playoffs spot.

Rosters

This tournament did not have a formal power ranking, so these teams will be listed by their draft order. Managers who purchased themselves will be in italic text.

Geosenge Gogoats

Gogoat

Mt. Pyre Magmas

Mt. Pyre Magmas

Seven Island Stoutlands

Stoutland

Eggseter Elekids

Eggseter Elekids

Motostoke Eiscues

Motostoke Eiscues

Motostoke Eiscues

Lumiose Luxrays

Lumiose Luxrays

Pacifidlog Politoeds

Pacifidlog Politoeds

Hau'oli City Ohana

Hau'oli City Ohana

VGC 2021

VGC 2021 was played under Series 9 rules for the first two weeks of the tournament and switched to Series 10 rules afterwards. This resulted in a pretty drastic change of gameplay, where the former was dominated by staples of the Dynamax era like Regieleki, Coalossal, and Dragapult. There were some creative concepts in the limited time the metagame was showcased in the tournament, such as Sylveon, Perish Song rain, and even a long-forgotten relic of VGC 2017 in Mudsdale! The usage stats were dominated with the staples you'd expect: Landorus-T, Incineroar, Rillaboom, Regieleki, and Porygon2 claimed the top five spots, although it is interesting to note that Rillaboom amassed a dire 25% win rate.

New life was breathed into the tournament for the Series 10 metagame, as players were now racing to solve a fresh metagame instead of perfecting teams from an old one. With the use of one restricted Pokémon allowed and the removal of Dynamax, everything was extremely new and exciting. Players quickly gravitated to the restricted Pokémon that dominated Series 8: Zacian-C, Calyrex-S, and Kyogre. Additionally, those that had been around since metagames like VGC 2016 or VGC 2019 rejoiced to find that Xerneas was once again viable after the deer laid dormant for Series 8. These restricted Pokémon were accompanied by the usual subjects: Incineroar, Rillaboom, Urshifu-R, and Regieleki topped the usage stats with ease; however, Pokémon that hadn't been in the VGC scene in ages, such as Landorus-I Suicune, and even Cherrim, also made appearances. A lot of talented players got their chance to give Series 10 a shot, but the top competitors were AuraRayquaza, Ace Emerald, and Clipperz1235. Check out some of the exciting replays from VGC 2021 matches below!

VGC 2019

VGC 2019 is well known for having a small, vocal, and dedicated fan base. Funnily enough, though, it actually ended up having the most unique players out of the three past format slots! This resulted in a lot of players showing up with a strong mix of comfort picks as well as teams designed to throw off opponents. For instance, JoeUX9 ended up chugging along for most of the tournament with his signature Yveltal + Groudon team, while zeefable attempted to get creative with a mix of Rayquaza + Kyogre and Xerneas + Groudon cores in addition to her trademark brand of Lunala + Xerneas. The largest trend from this metagame was by far the explosion of Mega Rayquaza usage, which, while common in VGC 2019 in its own right, really soared to new heights in this tournament. JoeUX9, zeefable, and dev611 (Sohaib) emerged as the top three players of this incredibly contested pool of talent.

VGC 2018

VGC 2018 is perhaps the most diverse and underexplored old format in the tournament, as it had a much shorter lifecycle than VGC 2017 and way more flexibility in team selection than VGC 2019. Still, players mostly stuck to their roots here, with large amounts of Mega Gengar, Mega Charizard Y, and Mega Metagross dominating the show. One of the standout trends from this tournament was the usage of maovgc's Charizard + Raichu team, a hyper offense sun team that was capable of obliterating bulky builds. The tournament also saw a hefty amount of Mega Salamence usage, something that really only happened at the VGC 2018 World Championships when the format was still active. At the end of the regular season, Rdhm3, Footstool_, and shiloh topped the pool of players with impressive 5-0, 5-2, and 4-3 records.

VGC 2017

A unique fact about VGC 2017 in VGCPL is that every player who played it during the tournament was also around to play it during the season. This meant that literally all matches were clashes of established players using teams they had been well practiced with throughout their time in official circuit. More specifically, this lead to many matchups that were between the FAKE (Tapu Fini, Arcanine, Kartana, and Electric-type, usually Tapu Koko or Togedemaru) and the GACT (Garchomp, Arcanine, Celesteela, and Tapu Koko) cores. Players found their way to put their own unique spins on these teams, such as Gramgus's use of Tapu Lele over Tapu Fini on a FAKE core or ChosenFuture's use of Alolan Ninetales + Snorlax to set up Snorlax under Aurora Veil. In the end, Tagmouse27, Raghav Malaviya, and Brady1225, three of the best VGC 2017 players in the community, finished top 3 in the regular season pool.

Final Standings

  1. Pacidlog Politoeds Politoed (3 - 1 - 3, 9 Points)
  2. Seven Island Stoutlands Stoutland (2 - 0 - 5, 9 Points)
  3. Motostoke Eiscues Eiscue (2 - 1 - 4, 8 Points)
  4. Eggseter Elekids Elekid (4 - 3 - 0, 8 Points)
  5. Mt. Pyre Magmas Mega Camerupt (2 - 2 - 3, 7 Points)
  6. Hau'oli City Ohana Kangaskhan (0 - 1 - 6, 6 Points)
  7. Lumiose Luxray Luxray (1 - 3 - 3, 5 Points)
  8. Geosenge Gogoats Gogoat (1 - 4 - 2, 4 Points)

Playoffs

The results of the regular season had set up the semifinals matches to be the Politoeds against the Elekids and the Stoutlands against the Eiscues. The race for playoffs was extremely close, with the Eiscues making the playoffs by avoiding a last-minute tiebreaker with the Magmas by making a 4-4 comeback after being down 1-4 against the Politoeds. The Stoutlands and the Politoeds emerged victorious from the semifinals, with both teams crucially picking up wins in VGC 2017 and VGC 2018 as well as three of the five VGC 2021 slots. The highlight of the Stoutlands vs. Eiscues game was AuraRayquaza vs dev611, as both players managed to string a perfect 7-0 run during the regular season. AuraRayquaza ended up taking the series in 3 games to put the Stoutlands up early on in the week. Ace Emerald vs Serapis was a rematch from the regular season between two extremely high-caliber players. Serapis was able to get his revenge after losing to Ace Emerald in regular season, winning the match and putting the Elekids up 1-0; however, they were unable to maintain their lead and eventually lost to the Politoeds.

The finals between the Stoutlands and the Politoeds, the top two seeds, started off slow, with only two games being played on Friday and Saturday and the score at an even 1-1. However, what followed can only be summed up as pure domination. Memoric, Oriol Plaza, AuraRayquaza, and Zelda managed to string together four consecutive wins, netting the Stoutlands the necessary five wins to take home the championship.

Final Thoughts and What's Next

Smogon VGC PL I was an incredibly smooth experience for all involved, with no major instances of drama, friendly and exciting interactions and great hosting from Jashsmash and Netherious. As the tournament was winding down, there were a few inquiries as to when the next edition would be, which sparked into a discussion on whether Smogon VGC could run a second team tournament for its community members looking to scratch the itch. After surveying roughly 100 community members on Twitter and Discord, the major consensus was that an additional team tournament would be appropriate, so look out for Smogon VGC Winter League this December!

HTML by Ryota Mitarai.
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