Content Creator Tony is here to talk to you about the Pokemon World Championships!

The Pokemon World Championships are happening this weekend. Yes, that is a thing. Trainers from all over the world raised a team, and are now testing their knowledge, strategy, and Pokemon against each other in what are sure to be thrilling matches.

Typically, the most powerful Pokemon do the best at these tournaments. Fully-evolved, strong Pokemon like Charizard, or the many strong and rare Legendary Pokemon you’ll see in this tournament, are going to have an advantage over weaker ones like Pikachu or Magikarp.

But not always! Sometimes a weaker or overlooked Pokemon can come out of left field and steal the show. Maybe it can even win a tournament. Or, if you’re South Korea’s Sejun Park in the 2014 World Championships, that overlooked Pocket Monster can even make you the best player on the globe.

It’s time to meet Pachirisu.

Pachirisu is in a group of Pokemon known as “the Pikachu knock-offs.” They’re Electric-type rodents, like Pikachu, and they’re in the games mostly to remind you that Pikachu, a Pokemon you probably like, exists.

That’s about it. These knock-offs are rarely special, particularly strong, or used in competitive battling. Unless you love this cutie — or even if you do! — you’re probably just catching one and never using it in the game.

But in 2014, Pachirisu was a Champion. Why?

To understand this, you’ll need to understand how Pokemon battles work in the Video Game Championship (VGC) format. Most battles in the game are fought one-on-one. That makes for long competitive games, so VGC games play in a way that is much faster.

Each player has a team of six monsters, but can only bring four to a particular match. Those Pokemon then fight two-on-two in a Best-of-Three series.

Every Pokemon has its own elemental typing, and has four moves. Some of these moves deal damage to the opponents’ health points. The elemental typings of these moves will dictate the damage based on what is, essentially, an 18-way version of Rock-Paper-Scissors. Other moves may block attacks, change the turn order, or affect the field of play.

This turns into a guessing game based on the position of your Pokemon. You might want to use a super-effective Fire move against your opponent’s Grass type, for example. But what if they switch in a Water type, which Fire is weak to? What if they use a move to block your attack, then use their other Pokemon to launch a super-effective move against you? These are just some of the questions a Trainer has to consider on every turn.

That’s a lot of information, but you can boil it down to this: A trainer wants to deal super-effective damage against its opponents, while protecting key offensive Pokemon from strong opponents.

It’s that last part where Pachirisu shines, at least in 2014.

Pachirisu has a rare move called “Follow Me,” which causes all opponents to hit Pachirisu, regardless of who the opponent was aiming for. That sounds like a bad move at first, but not if you’re using it to protect another Pokemon. With Follow Me, Pachirisu can redirect attacks meant for other Pokemon to itself. Park maximized Pachirisu’s defensive stats, meaning it could redirect many attacks.

Pachirisu helped Park win Game 1, using Follow Me to redirect a powerful attack from hitting Park’s Garchomp. It also inflicted Paralysis on an opposing Tyranitar, rendering it slow and ineffective, and then used Follow Me to absorb a Burn meant to weaken Garchomp’s attack. With Garchomp safe from Burn, its full strength Rock Slide attack was able to seal the victory on the final turns.

In Game 2, Park brought out his Pachirisu again, to the massive applause of the crowd. On Pachirisu’s first turn, it used Follow Me again. That protected Park’s Dragon-type Garchomp from a super-effective Draco Meteor attack, one of the most powerful in the game. Pachirisu was bulky enough to survive the Draco Meteor, allowing the Pachirisu and Garchomp to attack on the next turn, winning the game.

Park turned Pachirisu into a sensation overnight. Even two years later, a Japanese popularity poll placed the previously anonymous Electric mouse 124th among the then-720 monsters. That’s the 82nd percentile among all Pokemon, and one spot ahead of Charmander, an iconic Pokemon from the first games ever.

2014 was the only time Pachirisu ever performed well in the Pokemon World Championships, but she serves as the patron saint of all overlooked Pokemon looking for their moment in the spotlight. Will another obscure Pokemon follow in her footsteps this weekend? Find out!

As for Park, after taking the World Championships in 2014, he never quite climbed back to the top. Park does compete still, just not in VGC. He’ll play in the World Championships for “Pokemon GO” and “Pokemon Unite” this weekend. He’s also expanded his horizons to “Super Smash Bros.,” where he ranks as the sixth-best player in his country.

Even though Park won’t be competing in VGC this year, don’t worry. He’s still enjoying the Pokemon series and, as this incredibly cute photo shows, continues to find time to catch up with all his old friends.