VGC Reflections - A VGC Podcast

​@CybertronVGC and  @13Yoshi37 are back for another episode of VGC Reflections! Both Aaron and Markus attended the first Champions majors in North America and Europe respectively and have lots to talk about... we cover the tournament experience, what it's like competing on Champions, takeaways and things we'd do differently, and the metagame.

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
04:26 Aaron's preparation for Indianapolis
06:31 Preparing for tournaments
13:52 Aaron's Indianapolis team and tournament run
22:25 Results of Indianapolis and implications for NAIC
28:12 Connection issues in Champions tournaments
51:00 Indianapolis winning team
57:58 Markus' T32 run in Turin and Top Cut rules
1:10:11 Analysis of Markus' team
1:14:16 How to improve
1:18:52 Reasons for Markus' success this season
1:27:36 Turin metagame
1:39:45 Japan Nationals and the new Big 6
1:48:45 Aaron plans to co-stream NAIC
1:52:10 Japanese veteran players making a comeback
1:56:38 NAIC hot takes
1:59:32 Outro

​ @CybertronVGC and  @13Yoshi37 are back for another episode of VGC Reflections! With the release of Pokemon Champions, we catch up on our seasons have gone so far, the huge influx of new players attending tournaments, and our first impressions of Pokemon Champions... from what we think the game has done well to our criticisms and what we hope to see in the future.

VGC Reflections is a Pokemon VGC podcast hosted by VGC veterans Aaron "Cybertron" Zheng and Markus "13Yoshi37" Hamann. The two of them have won a combined 8 Regional Champions, 4 National Championships, two Worlds Top 4 finishes, and over 20 World Championships qualifications.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
02:41 - Markus's 2026 journey so far
06:18 - Aaron's 2026 journey so far
12:45 - Attendance caps at tournaments
17:00 - Potential changes to tournament registration
19:48 - Infrastucture needed for large scale events
27:13 - Markus's thoughts on Champions
31:50 - Criticisms of Champions
35:03 - Aaron's thoughts on Champions
39:50 - Communication from game publishers
43:03 - Importance of the mobile launch
47:52 - Thoughts on the format and Mega Evolutions
50:40 - How the last few formats were different
55:51 - Aaron's first team & what he's used
57:50 - Early metagame developments
1:05:00 - What format will we use at Worlds?
1:06:40 - First Champions winner potential
1:08:33 - What Pokemon are underrrated
1:14:05 - Early staples of the format
1:15:35 - 2014 World Championships
1:16:40 - Teras vs. Megas
1:19:30 - Magic of a new format
1:22:15 - Outro

@CybertronVGC and  @13Yoshi37 are back for another episode of VGC Reflections! We spend the first half recapping the 2025 World Championships, from our new World Champion to Aaron's experience commetnating Pokemon's first ever arena finals and Markus's experience as a player once again! We then cover the new/old formats in Reg J/H briefly and talk about our plans for Reg H before diving into what we think Pokemon Champions means for VGC and how it can impact the scene.