Pokemon Orlando Regional sees Wolfe Glick defend his title

Winning the Pokémon VGC Regionals event is challenging, especially when you’re the defending champion and have a target on your back. The 2016 World Champion and defending Orlando Regional winner took a reportedly last-minute flight to compete and attempt a two-peat. After two days and over 16 rounds of Pokémon matches, the Pokémon Orlando Regional crowned the pro as its champion for the second consecutive time.

Image Credits: Pokemon

This wasn’t supposed to happen

The player was not originally expected to attend Orlando, having just returned from London for the EUIC, where he bubbled on Day 2 at 13th place as part of a several-person tie with a 12-3 record. This meant that the remaining slots of the Top 8 would be determined by the performance of opponents Glick and others during their runs through the bracket. Luck was not on his side at the EUIC. With just three hours of sleep, he relied on the core staples as his tools for the trade in Orlando.

The World Champ Difference – Pokemon Orlando Regional decided by the Damage Roles

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Despite some very sleep deprived eccentricities on camera, the team and the pilot performed well enough in day 1 to make it to the second day, barely. X-3 is where runs tend to go to die, as proven by the weekend before, and a narrow 7-2 score line would leave him mostly at the point of no return for the rest of the event.

Sunday’s stream would see 2-0s kick off its first two sets. Ben Grissmer and Glick both putting on masterclasses on how to play their respective teams. As the last event of Regulation F, many trainers were looking for one last chance to stamp their name in the ruleset’s hall of fame. A tight game 3 against Zachary Weed decided by a Bleakwind Storm hitting its target first try would take the team into Top 4 where he would play Ben Grissmer, who started the day off with that strong 2-0. This time Grissmer would be on the receiving end with a 2-0 finish.

Pokemon Orlando Regional Finals came down to the wire

Image Credits: Pokemon

Despite what the records coming into finals said, these two looked comfy going into finals. Neil Patel made short work of his on-stream opponents, and Wolfe’s core was on top form.

Patel actually, the Yin to Wolfe’s Yang, missed his original flight home due to having made it further in bracket than expected. The two would trade a game each going into the final where Patel’s Urshifu would fire off a close combat into Glick’s final Pokemon Amoongus. It would come down to whether the Close Combat could not only secure the kill but do so without the Rocky Helmet on the Amoongus from KOing in retaliation.

Amoongus would barely hold on, with rocky helmet chipping Urshifu to just 6HP, well in range for the follow-up Sludge Bomb to net Wolfe the tournament.

This win for Glick marks the first time that someone has won two regionals in the same season, and the first repeat winner for 2024’s regional graphic. Despite Single Strike Urshifu taking majority top spot for usage across the last few events, Orlando marked a return to the water type multi-hit attacker, making great use of a slight decline in its counters, Amoongus and Ogrepon Wellspring, being in lesser attendance.