VGC ’14 USA vs Germany International Friendly
Three days after the FIFA World Cup match between the United States of America and Germany, the two countries will face off in a friendly exhibition Pokémon tournament this Sunday. While previous International Friendlies featured seven members per team, this one will cut down to five members to save time for viewers, commentators, and players alike. Germany dominated the European circuit this season, earning 15 out of the 34 European invites and 7 out of the 17 paid trips. Their star-studded roster, lead by two time Worlds Competitor and 2014 Germany National Champion Markus Stadter (13Yoshi37), features five players who have all qualified for the 2014 World Championships as they seek to solidify Germany’s dominating strength in the VGC scene. The United States roster, lead by Aaron Zheng (Cybertron), features both familiar and new faces to international competition who are all currently in contention for a invite to the 2014 World Championships. This friendly will not only feature excellent matches but will also put the spotlight on multiple American players who are expected to do well at US Nationals the following weekend.
The entire battle will be streamed on our Twitch channel for spectators to watch beginning at 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM Central Europe on Sunday, June 29th, 2014. Commentary will be provided by the cast you’ll see featured at the US National Championships and the 2014 World Championships this summer, brought to you by Scott Glaza (Scott), Evan Latt (plaid), Duy Ha (Duy), and Justin Flynn (TheJustinFlynn). The first team to three wins will win the friendly, but all five sets will be played out. Match-ups will be determined the day of.
Roster
USA
- Aaron Zheng (Cybertron)
- Blake Hopper (Mrbopper)
- Collin Heier (TheBattleRoom)
- Gavin Michaels (kingofmars)
- Wolfe Glick (Wolfey)
Germany
About the Author
Cybertron is a five time Worlds qualifier ('08, '11, '12, '13, '14), a three-time Regional Champion, and a two-time National Champion. Aaron also placed 3rd at the 2013 Pokemon World Championships. He is sponsored by CLASH Tournaments and aims to promote competitive VGC through his YouTube channel, CybertronProductions. Aaron is currently a senior at Trinity School NYC.
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81 Responses to VGC ’14 USA vs Germany International Friendly
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Such a fantastic series, with excellent commentary from all too. Thanks for the show!
Wow, this was amazing! All good matches and good commentary. Thanks for the show!
Absolutely amazing games. Please host more of these in the near future! Would love to see a UK vs Japan or similar matchups
Excellent commentary, excellent stream, and excellent Pokemon. Great games from everyone, Worlds this year is going to be quite the show.
Was an absolutely stunning series of matches, really close and competitive in all five matchups! Commentary was excellent all round, and some of the flair and absolutely mammoth predictions from these guys really shone through. I certainly look forward to more of these going ahead in the near future, too!
I look forward to being able to enjoy watching the US Nationals stream next weekend, especially as I have the weekend off, so definitely looking forward to more high-grade play and commentary.
An excellent set of matches today. So many close matches that had the firendlty go right down to set 5, game 3, with a most ridiculous finish. I think this was my first time listening to commentary done by Justin. While it felt like he made noticably more frequent minor errors, like mixing up pokemon names and such, I felt his commentary when paired with Duy or Scott was very solid.
Also, how many D/Cs were had during this friendly? Zero. And that’s a great thing.
Well of course a red, white, and blue Pokemon would close it off for USA.
Super fun to watch. Thank you all for setting this up
Thanks for watching everyone, I hope you all enjoyed it.
Thanks to the players also — I really appreciated how fast everyone was about getting streams up and having friend codes entered. Getting this done in 4 hours instead of 8 was awesome. You guys were great. Awesome games, too — it was a shame anyone had to lose in all of those matches, but I hope you all enjoyed it. You really put on an amazing show.
Thanks everyone! That was really fun! Big ups to the viewers, the players, and the team (especially Rushan, and not Evan). XD
See you in about a week for nationals. This is going to be epic!
Had a hell of a time in my game vs yoshi, it eventually turned into who could make the ballsiest reads which was really enjoyable. Turn 1 of game 3 might be the funniest turn of pokemon I’ve ever had. Got bailed out by a flamethrower burn after choking a near win by switching in talonflame, which yoshi expertly punished, but that’s the game we play though, really enjoyed playing with you guys and hopefully will get to play some of you at worlds.
Every game was fun from the start til the very end. Good job guys, I think we all had a good time. Thanks to the NB staff for the organization, to the players for those awesome games, and last but not least, to commentators.
#Flamethrowerisgod
#8888888888888888
This was an amazing tournament to both watch and play in! Before anything, I’d like to thank Rushan for helping us on production and to the commentating cast of Duy/Evan/Scott/Justin. It was a pleasure to hear Evan and Scott together again, the synergy between them two is absolutely amazing. Duy and Justin also were fantastic, and I was really happy and impressed by Justin’s commentary especially. He was honestly excellent and it’s clear the practice with the other guys is paying off. Scott wanted me to organize this mainly to help the commentators practice and they sound pretty darn ready for next weekend.
I’d also like to thank Markus in particular. He helped me organize this friendly very quickly and was great with communication throughout the entire time. One reason why the stream ran so smoothly today is because of the great organization (and because of Rushan). I made sure that all the streams were up and running last night (thank goodness, since we actually ran into some problems), and all the players were timely in getting each other registered.
Finally, a huge shout-out to all the players. Those were honestly some of the most exciting matches I’ve watched in a long time, and it’s crazy how close the series and individual games were the entire time. Think about this: It all came down to a game 3 of the final set, and Gavin won 1-0. USA won a total of 7 games while Germany won a total of 6 games. The momentum shifted with each individual set: USA up a set, Germany ties it up, USA up a set, German ties it up. The very last game obviously could have gone very differently, but so could each individual set. I think that’s the beauty of competitive VGC when you put the best players in the world against each other.
Not to mention the insane amount of comebacks we witnessed this tournament. In every set, I felt that at some point one player was about to run away with a game before the other one recaptured momentum and completely turned things around. Playing in the games was nervewracking enough but we really witnessed some awesome sets. And of course, there were a lot of awesome Pokemon featured in the sets (six different Megas in Kangaskhan/Mawile/Gyarados/Tyranitar/Lucario/Manectric, Heal Pulse Gothitelle, Raichu, Vivillion, Reuniclus, Substitute Leftovers Chandelure, normal Lucario just to name a few).
And of course, thanks to my teammates (TBR/Wolfe/Gavin especially) for bailing me out after a loss on my end…
In all seriousness though, I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did, because I haven’t had this fun with Pokemon since Worlds last year. It was a treat to watch, the stream was smooth (for the most part), the commentary was on point, and the games were just fantastic.
I’ll make sure to help organize more of these in the Gen. 6 era. Until then, thanks everyone for tuning in!
We would like to see a team uk vs team usa finley
Thanks for the organisation and the great commentators.
This was really well done. After Collin finished his match (and I played Borderlands so I wouldn’t be tempted to try to coach him) we played it on his TV using the Wii U. The commentary was great and the quality of the games had me passionately involved in every match, something I can’t say is true for some Pokemon I watch. This event was definitely something I’m glad I watched, and the game going down to the very last game of the very last set and then being decided by a burn was crazy. It’s also great practice for anyone going to nationals if they try to play the game from each of the players’ perspectives, since it helps you to learn about teams and ways that people play. Wonderful job everyone. I’m really glad I watched this.
Congratulations to you guys I really enjoyed the show. Some of the matches had me on the edge of my seat. I think more of this would be awesome. Once congratulations and thank for the awesome show of fun and skills keep it up.
Definitely enjoyed these matches today. Props to all the commentators – I think you guys have really great synergy together. You were very animated and excited about the matches, and I imagine you will all be even more excited at the real event. Everything was entertaining to listen to and I’m looking forward to your live performances at Nationals and Worlds!
I had a lot of fun. I’m really glad I could’ve apart of it. I hope we do these in the future!!
I was super honored to be a part of this. While I didn’t get the win like the majority of my teammates, I still feel I played well and had a great time battling Lajo. Great job to the team and here’s to more wifi friendlies in the future!
Great matches ,great commentary thank you for putting this together
This Friendly was really great and I enjoyed every minute of it!
Thanks to everyone who rootet for team Germany, we did our best and have no regrets! We even had the matchball, so I´d say this was a very evenly matched friendly where it could have gone the either way. I think Germany showed how strong it is to the world, so be prepaired to face us at Worlds!
Shoutout to MrBopper, which did his best to maneuver around my team and drove me in a corner g1, where a ballsy Rock Slide saved me the game. I think g2 showed that I had a slightly better matchup, though I think it could have been much closer without the hax- it will be much closer next time!
Shoutout to all the commentators for doing excellent work. You guys ALMOST spelled my name right!
In fact, you spelled it like most Germans, the crux is that my name is originally hungarian, so the “s” is spelled like “sh”
Aside from that, you entertained us quite well, and I really like our new commentator (what was his name again?^^), he´s totally into it
Last but not least, shoutout to all fellow Germans who played in this. Porengan tried his best maneuvering around his worst matchup, even winning one game. Billa tried his best to avoid his perish, but wolfey cleverly pulled it of regardless- well, we all missed the Roar on Gyara this time
drug_duck for showing excellent plays against Aaron, this was a hell of a fight!
And of course Yoshi, who showed excellent predicts in every game against Gavin, but the lack of fast hitters was something Gavin could capitalise on, and he did that pretty well.
Can´t wait to see more of these Friendlys!