Giving everybody watching the hope of becoming a Pokémon master and baby fever at the same time, seven-year old Avery V. took home the title of North America International Champion for the Juniors division on July 2 in the most adorable fashion.
What’s more impressive is the fact that Avery took down their opponent—Takumi M.—with a strategy that the competitive community deemed nearly unviable: hard Trick Room; and even that comes with a twist.
If it wasn’t enough that hard Trick Room turned out to be a team archetype too tough to play reliably in the current meta, Avery decided to use Oranguru: an underutilized Trick Room setter around whom the whole strategy revolved around.
In every game of the three-match finals, Avery was seen leading Oranguru and keeping it as safe as possible with a defensive Terastallization so that it could stay alive till the end of the turn to set up Trick Room, even if it meant that they had to sacrifice their valuable partner Iron Hands every single time.
Related: Young newcomer overthrows 25-time Pokémon champion, and you have to see his one unlucky pick
Avery followed this up by getting the incredibly slow and hard-hitting Torkoal in under reversed turn orders. This caused the momentum of the matches to swing heavily in Avery’s side, the crowd going wild with cheer every time Avery’s Oranguru used its signature move Instruct to let its partner Pokémon cause double the chaos, leading to Avery’s methodical takedown.
If this kiddie Pokémon master’s plays and team weren’t enough to leave you enchanted, Avery’s pre and post-match interviews certainly will.
