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Long before Wolfe Glick became a world champion and attracted millions of YouTube subscribers, he was a McLean High School freshman entering a nearby Pokémon tournament for fun.

That decision launched one of the most successful careers in competitive Pokémon history.

Glick, a 2014 McLean graduate, won the 2016 Pokémon World Championships and has accumulated two international, two national and 10 regional titles. His regional total is the most achieved by any player in the game’s history.

“I firmly believe Wolfe is the greatest of all time, and no one’s surpassing him any time soon,” McLean sophomore Ivan Nguyen said.

A surprise victory starts a career

Glick entered his first competition at the 2011 Pokémon D.C. Regional Championships after learning the tournament would be held in Chantilly.

“I’d been playing the video game just for my own enjoyment, but when I heard there was going to be a tournament in Chantilly, I thought I’d go for fun since it was close by,” Glick said.

He won the tournament, earning a flight to the national championship. Despite his limited competitive experience, he then captured the U.S. national title and finished fifth at the world championship in San Diego.

Glick credited much of that early success to team building, the process of selecting Pokémon and determining how to train them. While most competitors believed only five teams were viable that year, he brought a different lineup.

His opponents had little experience facing his team, Glick said, while he understood how to play against theirs.

Away from competition, Glick was president of both the men’s choir and the McLean Madrigals. Chorus teacher Linda Martin remembered him as a talented singer whose performances became more expressive as he matured.

“He was always very charismatic and analytical with the way he approached things, which is easy to see in his new career path,” Martin said.

Glick nevertheless concealed his competitive success from many classmates. He said he felt insecure about spending so much time on the game, particularly when its global competitive community numbered only about 300 people.

He continued winning tournaments throughout high school and qualified for the world championship every year. After enrolling at Virginia Tech in 2014, he kept competing—but the world title continued to elude him.

A second-place finish at the 2012 world championship had convinced Glick that victory was inevitable. Looking back, he said he misunderstood the reasons for his success and developed poor habits that took years to correct.

An unconventional path to the world title

During the 2016 season, competitive play was dominated by a combination known as the “Big 6”: Primal Groudon, Xerneas, Mega Kangaskhan, Talonflame, Mega Salamence and Smeargle.

Glick struggled against that lineup throughout the season. While some players believed the championship would go to the luckiest or most skilled user of the Big 6, Glick and his friends searched for a way to defeat it.

Their answer was an unusual team featuring Mega Rayquaza, Primal Kyogre, Mega Gengar, Hitmontop, Bronzong and Raichu.

“My favorite team I ever created was the team that I won worlds with,” Glick said.

The group developed a decision-making flow chart intended to give Glick an advantage regardless of his opponent’s choices.

He finished the 2016 world championship’s preliminary stage with a 6-1 record and entered the elimination bracket as the fifth seed. In the semifinals, he defeated his friend Markus Hamaan of Germany in a contest between identical teams.

The championship match presented an unexpected challenge. Jonathan Evans used a lineup closely resembling Glick’s but substituted Mega Manectric and Talonflame for Hitmontop and Raichu.

After winning the opening game, Glick looked down and saw his hands shaking. He was nervous, he said, but trusted his plan and concentrated on playing his best.

Glick swept the final 2-0 to become the 2016 world champion.

“It was just so many feelings all at once, but the biggest thing I felt was relief,” he said. After years of dreaming, coming close and falling short, he had finally won.

From consulting to millions of viewers

Following his world championship, Glick devoted more attention to producing online content while continuing to compete and working full time as an Accenture consultant.

He found video production to be another form of self-expression. The work helped him improve as a writer and challenged him to explain concepts in engaging ways, including finding what was remarkable in seemingly ordinary subjects.

His YouTube channel, WolfeyVGC, began growing rapidly in late 2019. That left him weighing the stability of consulting against the risks of pursuing Pokémon full time.

Glick said he had intentionally avoided considering Pokémon as a career because of that uncertainty. But after about a year in consulting, he was unhappy with his job and exploring other opportunities just as his channel was gaining momentum.

His videos now range from histories of competitive Pokémon to detailed accounts of his tournament performances. Through that work, he has introduced millions of viewers to the franchise and its Video Game Championships scene.

“He’s definitely created more popularity in the VGC [scene] and somewhat [also in] Pokémon in general,” McLean senior Zach Sutanto said. “He’s a very strong idol to look up to, especially with how hard he works and how in-depth he plays the game.”

Glick has amassed more than 2.1 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 800 million views, more than any other Pokémon creator on the platform.

Despite his record, he said proving himself as the greatest player is no longer his priority.

“At this point, I probably am the best player of all time, but I also don’t think it really matters that much,” Glick said. “I don’t play to cement the fact that I’m the best—I just play because I enjoy it.”

More than his victories, he hopes to be remembered as a kind and respectful representative of competitive Pokémon.