If you haven’t heard of Wolfe Glick before, where have you been living? Okay, maybe you don’t play Pokemon. Okay, maybe you do play Pokemon but you’re not into 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:competitive battling. Okay, maybe you play competitive Pokemon battles but you’re not up to speed with the history of the competition. Allow me to enli💯ghten you.
Wolfe Glick is arguably the greatest Pokemon master to ever play the game. The only opponent who might have a more impressive resume is three-time World Champion Ray Rizzo, but Glick’s longevity in the scene has to be worth something. If you want to find out how to become a World Champion yourself, Glick’s got everything you need to know and 💞more.
However, you can’t just be a professional Pokemon player. As much as it’s heartbreaking to see my childhood dream smashed to pieces on a webpage like that, there’s just not enough money in it. One player wins the World Championship a year, and gets $50,000 for their trouble. That may seem like a lot of money – it’s more than I earn a year – but consider that only the best player in the world gets that. They may pick up other, smaller prizes on their route to the Championship, but every loss is tens of thousands of potential dol💖lars wiped from their salary, a salary which needs to pay for air fares and hotels at every event as well as daily life.
So, professional Pokemon players have another job. Whether that’s working in the gaming industry or a regular 9-5, Pokemon is their side hustle. Think of all the archeologists and bug catchers who battle you in the games – bug catching pays the bil♍ls (somehow), Pokemon tops up the old bank balance.
For the top echelon of players, this regular 9-5 might be content creation, which is a posh way of saying ‘making YouTube videos’. There are countless successful YouTubers who specialise in Pokemon (known colloquially as PokeTubers), including champion 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nuzlocker Pokemon Challenges and a host of Let’s Players🐷, Pokemon Go explorers, streamers, and other assorted Pokemon fanatics. But just as Wolfe Glick changed the world of Pokemon with Mega Gengar and a dream, he’s 💮changing the world of YouTube, too.
“I have goals to be the best VG🎐C player of all time and I𓆏 have goals to make my YouTube channel as big as I can,” he told TheGamer in 2022 in the interview linked above. “VGC is very niche. It’s not enough that you can really focus on and expect to reach a broader audience, so my goal with my channel is to introduce as many people as I can to competitive Pokemon. I mean, it changed the course of my life.”
Hard as it might be to believe with the almighty Pokemon engine perpetually rumbling on, competitive Pokemon is niche. But Wolfe Glick’s presentation of complex mechanics and underrated Pokemon is in-depth and, crucially, accessible. He’ll upload a two hour video about an ancient Jigglypuff and you know it’ll be gold. He’ll attempt to win a Regional Tournament with a Perish Trap team and you&rsq🍰uo;ll hang on every word. In 2024, lots of Pokemon content is short-form TikToks or YouTube Shor💛ts, intended to be viewed once, quickly, and then scrolled past. Glick instead asks you to make a cup of tea, grab a pack of biscuits, and settle in for the long haul.
This is why I compare him to Harry ‘Hbomberguy’ Brewis. Whi🦩le he doesn’t quite have Brewis’ sense for tangential videos that end up so far from the original point he was making that they’re not just a different chapter but a different book entirely, the pair have a similar sense of humour. Glick’s pronuꦗnciation of Pokemon names like Ark-ah-nee-nay are a throwback to when he tried (and succeeded) to make competitive battling fun, but the pair’s editing, involving quick cuts to close-ups and irreverent comments, is similar too.
Glick’s Pokemon video🌄s are for everyone. This may seem like a cop out, but it’s true. His accessible explanations are never condescending to veteran players, and his obscure references to ⛄Pachirisu or Smeargle never leave new fans feeling like they’ve been sucked into a Dark Void.
If you want to knꦚow 🐎about Pokemon history, learn new mechanics, watch full documentaries of the biggest tournaments, or just have fun with Pokemon again, then I urge you to give one of Glick’s videos a watch. He’s a natural comedian with a sarcastic wit, and backs it up with his fathomless knowledge of Pokemon. His videos are as tight as they come, with a team of editors and writers ensuring every cut is perfectly timed and every joke perfectly executed.
In 2024, when more games, YℱouTubers, and TV shows are vying for your attention than ever before, I urge you to settle into something more fulfilling. Instead of nibbling at the TikTok tapas, take your time with the video essay🌸 tasting menu.
