He watched hundreds of Pokémon matches.

Two years later, he became the star competitor of one of the biggest ones.

Sophomore Apollo Stephens placed second at the North American Pokémon Senior VGC International Championships (NAIC) Finals in New Orleans. According to Stephens, finding out he advanced to the final round was “crazy.”

“I got really lucky,” Stephens said. “I was like ‘Oh my god, I’m going to be on livestream.’ My main reaction was that I needed to start prepping the matchup ASAP.”

Stephens gained an interest in Pokémon near the end of his eighth grade year when looking for something to play during study periods. At first, he struggled due to a lack of technical knowledge of the game’s inner workings.

“I would watch Pokémon videos, but I wouldn’t understand why certain people were making the moves they did,” Stephens explained. “I wasn’t very good until just a few months ago.”

Having no friends at school who played the game, Stephens’ exposure to competitive Pokémon came through strangers online. He developed experience assembling teams for competition through players needing assistance in informal, online chat rooms. One day, he found a chat room and met a player who needed help assembling his teams for a competition.

“There are so many ways that you can build a team and so many unintuitive things that somehow work together when you actually test it out,” Stephens said. “What’s cool is that there are some Pokémon teams that seem so good when you first think about it but are actually pretty bad when you test them.”

After helping online players assemble teams for competitions, Stephens decided it was time he gave it a shot.

“I kind of wanted to go to NAIC already,” Stephens said. “Since these guys I met online were going as well, I just thought I would try it out and have some fun.”

In order to prepare for his first competition, Stephens reached out to Pokémon coach Joseph Ugarte on Ugarte’s website. Stephens used similar strategies to Ugarte to form his teams and decided to seek help from him.

“My role really is to be a strong supporter in Apollo’s corner along with being able to ground him when things don’t always go to plan,” Ugarte said. “Being able to provide useful advice and insight into high level strategies, ideas and plays is always helpful.”

Ugarte began coaching Pokémon when the pandemic hit in 2020. According to Ugarte, he “knew he had a lot of skills to provide” as a Video Game Championships coach.

“Over the years, I’ve gotten better at not only the game but as a guiding voice for many players,” Ugarte said. “I have luckily been able to have so many intelligent, talented and dedicated students to work with over the years, including Apollo.”

Stephens did not receive coaching from his parents. However, his parents supported him throughout his journey by flying him out to tournaments across the country.

“When Apollo told me about his team design being recognized as team of the week on Pokémon Showdown, I realized what a big deal this all was,” Donpaul Stephens said. “I am proud of his ability to bring unique perspectives to a complex strategy game. I am happy to support him in whatever way I can.”

Step one to competing is building a team. According to Stephens, Pokémon team building is a “complicated process” that is a mix of luck, personal preference and technical skill, but there are no guarantees a strong team wins every round.

Being a varsity debater, Stephens is no stranger to ambiguity.

“Pokémon reminds me a lot of debate,” Stephens said. “Debate is inherently inconsistent because you can just get unlucky with a bad judge, and even if you deserve to win, it doesn’t always work out for you. Pokémon is one of the only games where an objectively worse player can win the round.”

Though the competitions can be unpredictable for players, Stephens said he still enjoys the environment. One of his biggest takeaways is the strategies he’s learned to build his teams.

Competitive Pokémon teams are made up of six Pokémon, with only four used during the actual battle. The ruleset for NAIC permitted the use of two illegal Pokémon. In Stephens’ case, he used Koraidon and Lunala, two legendary Pokémon that are too strong to allow for a level playing field in ordinary circumstances.

“I added Lunala onto the existing team and I was like ‘Okay, the team is fine. Why is this? Why does it feel fine and not extremely good?’” Stephens said. “Eventually, I found Jumpluff and went on the Pokémon Showdown Ladder and ended up doing pretty good.”

There is no qualification process needed for the international championships; however, the competition becomes more competitive as one advances to higher rounds. The 2025 NAIC was the final major international championships of the season, which begins in September, awarding direct invitations to the 2025 World Championships.

According to Stephens, his final round got off to a “rocky” start.

“[Around Game 1], I miscounted a turn that would cause me to be too slow the following turn,” Stephens said. “It led me to think I’d survive an attack I didn’t survive. On video, you can see [me get upset] that ‘Aw! I didn’t live.’”

This mistake cost Stephens the round, but it pushed him to make a comeback. Though he considered some risky plays, such as going for the forbidden mode, he decided against it as his coach warned him that Stephens could instantly lose the set.

“Pokémon is a really unreliable game, especially at the World Championships, where the play level is so high.” Stephens explained. “So I kind of took losing more as a learning opportunity because I knew a lot of the places where I went wrong and I’m a lot more motivated for this season to not repeat the mistakes I made.”

Stephens lost the final round to Brazilian player Isaac Moreira. Despite his loss, Stephens said he is proud of his performance.

“I think Apollo has one of the healthiest and respectable mindsets I’ve ever seen from a competitor,” Ugarte said. “I was very moved by the class he had in finals with his opponent. Apollo is a very capable and excellent competitor and has so much more to give, especially as he continues to play tournaments.”

As he gains more and more experience, Stephens’ ultimate goal is winning the world championship.

“Pokémon used to be just a hobby I had way too much interest in; I would literally just spam games,” Stephens said. “Now, it’s something I know I can do well at. It’s the most fun competitive activity I’ve ever done. It means so much to me.”