Often, Europeans get the bad end of the line when it comes to official Pokemon tournaments. They are often left out of the tournament loop, and as such are often thought of as average players not worthy of a competition. Well, this year proved the year for a lot of Europeans to prove their worth at various stops in three different countries across the pond. On May 30th, the first Europe stop was in London, UK, using Diamond and Pearl instead of Platinum. Platinum version had only been recently released, within a few weeks, and it was deemed not sufficient time for the players to try and get it before the competition. Mike Liesik, the head Pokemon video game coordinator even made his presence at this stop to try and mend the previous relations between Pokemon USA and Europe. Well, after the competition had ended, UltimateUnknow of smogon.com had won the senior division. The winners of the European stops won a trip to San Diego and the Worlds competition. Here is the finals video from London:
The next European stop in Berlin, DE, on June 13th. At this stop in Germany, the user drug_duck from our forums and smogon.com achieved second place. He will be competing in San Diego for the world championships!
The third and final stop of the European circuit was in Paris, Fr, on June 20th. The only user of our forums was froggy25, who unfortunately got a lot of bad luck in the match that would have qualified him for San Diego. In the finals, there was a German player who traveled in order to compete in Paris' competition(this explains why in the finals video below there is German wording on the screen). You can check it out below:
The European stops were a great addition to the VGC, and I can assure you that there will be plenty of anticipation for next year's stops in Europe. The amount of participation can only go up.