One of the GOATs of the Pokémon Video Game Championship series, Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng, has officially secured his invite to Yokohama, Japan to compete at the 2023 World Championships. It would be his first appearance at a major event in six years.
The beloved VGC player is known for his YouTube channel which has gained over 200,000 subscribers since he started back in 2010. Between content creation and competing, he’s also been busy with school, his career, and commentating events such as Knoxville and Portland Regionals this year.
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A run at the June 10 to 11 Fresno Regionals didn’t start out great for Zheng, though—he missed the deadline to submit his team for Fresno Regionals, resulting in an auto loss for the first round of the Swiss stage. This meant he would need better than a 6-3 record on day one of the tournament to secure his Worlds invitation.
He ended up going 8-1, undefeated on the first day with the exception of his first-round penalty.
Zheng ultimately finished in 24th place at Fresno, but regardless of the result, he earned enough championship points to qualify for Worlds this year. This would be the first time he’s competing at the pinnacle tournament since 2017.
Last year, he flew to London for the World Championships, but not to compete. He instead took on the role of an analyst on “The Couch” segment of the tournament. During that time, he also mentioned his dream of winning Worlds someday. He’ll finally get another chance this year—if he decides to go.
Based on his strong performance in Fresno this weekend and Vancouver Regionals earlier this year, Zheng would be among the top North American players to watch out for at Worlds alongside Wolfe Glick, Justin Tang, Emilio Forbes, and more.
The Regulation D ruleset for Worlds is expected to give us the wildest meta so far in Scarlet and Violet, with the main event set to begin in mid-August.
Update June 12, 2:20am CT: Zheng told Dot Esports he hasn’t committed to competing at Worlds yet. He may have to choose between competing and commentating.
