Winners of the US Nationals yesterday were Aiden McKinney (Juniors), Ben Piercy (Seniors), and Toler Webb (Masters).
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Two Champions Rise to the Challenge!
Aaron Zheng and Wolfe Glick discuss meeting each other again at the 2015 National Championships.
July 03, 2015
Masters Division players Aaron Zheng and Wolfe Glick are both elite Pokémon video game Trainers, each winning back-to-back National Championships in 2011 and 2012. Aaron was in the Senior Division at the time; Wolfe was the Masters Division champion. They’ve met a number of times throughout the years, and once again squared off here in the fourth Swiss round at the 2015 National Championships. We sat down with both of them to discuss their matchup, and the Nationals experience as a whole.
Pokemon.com: Which of you won your match?
Aaron: I did. It was close. In the third game there was one move that I did that sealed it. I was reading the predictions that he was making and if I had done what he expected I think he would’ve won that one.
Pokemon.com: You two are more familiar meeting in the top cut than in the Swiss rounds. What’s it like to meet this early in the tournament?
Wolfe: It’s a little unfortunate because you don’t want to get matched against a friend or a really good player too early. One of us has to take a loss but it’s early in the tournament and you just have to make the best of it.
Aaron: We met up in the seventh round of Swiss at the Spring Regionals this year. Wolfe won but I thought we were both safe for top cut. But then lost my last round and missed the cut.
Pokemon.com: You have to both feel pretty good about making the top cut, don’t you?
Aaron: Hopefully, yeah. It’s such a long tournament now. Like Wolfe said, playing someone you know well is always really scary.
Pokemon.com: Do you have a pretty good idea of what each other will be playing before the match even starts, or is it a surprise?
Wolfe: I had no idea what was on Aaron’s team, and I’m guessing he didn’t know what I was running, either.
Aaron: Yeah, I had no idea.
Wolfe: You go into these matches blind except maybe later in the tournament when you have a little more information.
Pokemon.com: Nationals has grown a lot over the years, and you two have been at a lot of them. What do you think of this year’s competition and the choice to move to best-of-three rounds?
Wolfe: This year it’s definitely longer, and it can get tiring. I made a few suboptimal plays and I feel like fatigue might be a part of the reason. With the best-of-three format, you can play nine games through three Swiss rounds. In past years that would be all the Swiss rounds, but this year’s there’s still a long way to go.
Aaron: The best-of-three format lets you make adjustments between games. If you choose the wrong Pokémon in one match in the first game, veteran players will make adjustments and bring in the right Pokémon in the second and third games to help them win.
Wolfe: I also like it better because I’m less likely to lose to a gimmicky team or get some bad luck. It’s better suited to support better players, I think.
Pokemon.com: With over 400 Masters Division players, the size of the field is certainly growing. How has this affected the level of talent?
Aaron: It just means there are more good players. I know that the first three rounds before I faced Glick were all tough matches. The players know what they’re doing—I haven’t seen any teams and thought, “Oh, I know what they’re doing. I can win a couple turns” They really make you think and the general level of skill is rising overall.
Wolfe: I agree. All of my opponents were pretty good, too. Like, even if you look back the past few years, you can tell we’re getting better players and more of them.
Pokemon.com: You have a chance of seeing each other again in the top cut. How will this match influence you if you play each other again?
Wolfe: There’s a lot more information on both sides, and we’ll understand the matchup better.
Aaron: Playing Pokémon is all about information management. I think it’ll certainly be more interesting, at least. It’ll be intense.
Pokemon.com: You guys probably know each other’s battling philosophies pretty well by now. How does that come into play when you actually meet?
Aaron: It’s interesting because when you look at Wolfe, he has so many different ways to win. In the recent Regional Championships he won, it was a team that only Wolfe would come up with and win with. It was a Perish Trap team—instead of attacking, you use Perish Trap and swap your own Pokémon out as much as possible. When I played him there, I thought that it was a completely new way to play the game. I had to try to think four or five turns in advance instead of making decisions after each turn. We played in three different tournaments this year and each time was different.
Wolfe: And even though I know Aaron’s general sense of play, it’s not like every move is telegraphed. It’s hard to make predictions. I think at this point if we play again it’ll be all about the matchup, and choosing which Pokémon are essential and which should be left out.
Pokemon.com: Have you both qualified for the World Championships already?
Yeah, but we’re qualified only for Day 1. We’re looking to earn the Championship Points to get that first-day bye.
Good luck to Aaron and Wolfe at the rest of the Pokémon National Championships!
— Pokémon News
Source: Pokémon.
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