Fevzi becomes first ever winner of new Pokémon tournament The Champions Cup

Fevzi Ozkan became the first ever winner of new Pokémon online tournament The Champions Cup.

The new tournament was organised by Pokémon pro players Dan “aDrive” Clap and Wolfe “Wolfey” Glick, in light of COVID-19 causing the cancellation of the official Pokémon 2020 competitive circuit.

This event was described as a “pilot”, with hopes it’ll become a circuit in the near future after it became the biggest VGC tournament ever with over 1,500 participants.

After two days of matches, the final came down to Fevzi Ozkan and Eduardo “Edu” Cunha, who previously won the Pokémon Oceania International Championships in 2019.

Edu took the first round with a late game Dynamax, managing to answer Fevzi’s moves consistently and largely avoid the damaging effects of his Gigantamax Lapras.

The second round saw Fevzi adjust his strategies to excellent effect, with a critical hit against Edu’s Incineroar serving as pivotal turning point - seeing him level the match 1-1.

The final round saw Edu attempt to shut down Fevzi’s Lapras with sleep powder from Venosaur, but a protect blocked the attack - allowing Fevzi’s Arcanine to wipe out Venosaur in one hit.

Despite his best efforts with Dragapult, Edu couldn’t turn the tide - leaving Fevzi to win the $5,000 top prize.

You can check out the top eight from The Champions Cup below.

1. Fevzi Özkan
2. Eduardo “Edu” Cunha
3. Demitri
3. Alex “PokeAlex” Gomez
7. Mattie “MattieMoo” Morgan
7. Damo
7. Derith96
7. Liliana

As is to be expected from a pilot tournament, the event didn’t go by without any hitches - with a crucial game between MattieMoo and PokeAlex having to be replayed due to server lag causing a timeout.

There were also online disconnects during a few matches, with the tournament using a spectator mode on a third party server due to the lack of functionality in Sword and Shield.

Throughout the tournament, aDrive made frequent pleas to The Pokémon Company to implement a spectator mode into the title to make future online tournaments easier, encouraging viewers to make the message loud and clear. 

Considering the scale of the tournament however and the amount of players involved, it was very impressive - with the potential of a circuit now looking like a bright new future for competitive Pokemon.