Baby Palafin becomes the adorable hero of huge Pokémon tournament with game-deciding KO

The Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Europe International Championship was full of intense matches all weekend in London. Fans saw unorthodox Pokémon like Orthworm and Klefki take the stage, but the finals came down to one very popular core—Flutter Mane, Amoonguss, Arcanine, and Palafin.

In fact, both finalists were running those four same Pokémon alongside Ting-Lu and a Dragon of their choice. Paul Chua went with Roaring Moon, while Gabriel Agati Madeira had a very scary Baxcalibur with the Clear Amulet. Paul even stated in an interview before the finals that Baxcalibur would give his team “a lot of issues” because it’d be hard to get strong hits off on it.

To give himself the best chance to win, Paul left Roaring Moon behind and stuck with the core four led by Palafin in each of the three games.

Game one of the finals quickly confirmed how strong Baxcalibur could be with the Clear Amulet and Poison Tera Type. By choosing to Terastillize right away, Gabriel was able to keep his Baxcalibur relatively healthy even when facing down Paul’s Flutter Mane. Between that and Gabriel’s clever Substitute build on Palafin, Paul was forced to take the first loss in the best of three.

In game two, Paul turned the momentum in his favor by getting a quick knockout onto Gabriel’s Amoonguss. Without Amoonguss around to heal allies or put foes to sleep, Gabriel was in a tricky situation that he couldn’t bounce back from. 

Then Paul made a huge play to open up game three. The past two games saw both players immediately switching their Palafin out on the first turn to get the dolphin into its stronger Hero form. However, instead of switching it out, Paul decided to change it up by Terastillizing his baby Palafin turn one.

After Paul’s Flutter Mane hit Gabriel’s Baxcalibur with Shadow Ball, it was baby Palafin who got the huge KO onto the Ice Dragon with a massive Wave Crash. Zero form Palafin’s base 70 Attack stat sounds pitiful compared to the Hero form’s monstrous 160 Attack, but Paul had faith that his baby Palafin could get the job done. Getting that huge turn-one KO for free was what won Paul his first international title.

And although this might be Paul’s first win at an international tournament, he’s no stranger to VGC like some of the more recent Scarlet and Violet champions this year. Paul is a six-time regional champion who made the top four at Worlds last year, and winning EUIC is another fantastic achievement to add to that list.