Nishant Joshi - Devon Corp Exclusive Interview
Nishant Joshi is a talented Pokemon player and software engineer from Massachusetts who currently lives in New York City. They’ve led Team India for the Pokemon World Cup, placed top 8 in the 2024 Special Event in Caguas, and top 15 in the Secaucus regional in 2021. Nishant has a very active presence on social media. If you’ve checked out their profile on Twitter anytime recently, you’d see the words “Dreaming of Anne Hathaway and Orange Milano Cookies" on their bio.
When I asked them about this peculiar quote, they responded with a chuckle. “I mean, I love Anne Hathaway! She’s perfect in so many ways. I will continue to love and support my unproblematic queen. I also really love Orange Milano Cookies; they’ve always been a staple in my life. There were a lot of times, especially in college, when I ate them probably more than I should admit.” This quote alone should tell you a lot about Nishant’s uplifting personality.
One of the more interesting things about Nishant is their time with the Pokemon World Cup, a competitive VG event where teams representing 58 countries battle it out to claim who the strongest country in the world is in Pokemon VGC. “I got invited in 2022 during Sword and Shield… Abhay, who is one of the managers, had reached out to me on Twitter.” Nishant had placed top 16 in the Secaucus regional, and this placement caught the attention of Abhay Iyer, one of the World Cup managers. “Obviously I really wanted to be a part of the team. I’d applied the previous year, but I hadn’t had any results.”
“Being a part of the new team was obviously really, really special. We went on to get top 8, and then I joined as one of the managers.” 2025 marked Nishant’s third year as one of the managers for the World Cup. “It’s probably one of my favorite parts of Pokemon! It’s one of my favorite communities. There are people I have worked with so much and love having in my life! If you see me at an event, I’m covered in Team India swag, and I will always rep that team as long as I can!”
“being able to have these new experiences, let people shine, and pop off has been really great! I’m very thankful to be a part of such strong teams both in terms of collaboration and also players.”
Nishant also managed Team Massachusetts for the United States Pokemon Association. Another similar competitive event where regions in the USA compete to see who’s the strongest. “USPA went really well! We finished in the top 4. We unfortunately lost to Pennsylvania in a 4-3 set. Out of every year in the USPA, I think that was probably the hardest roster we have ever had to play against. The fact that we finished 4-3, I was incredibly proud of the team. Massachusetts as a whole always has a very strong roster. It’s very collaborative, very exciting. We had a lot of new people this year. Which was fun because it was people that I hadn’t had a chance to meet with. I obviously don’t live in Massachusetts anymore, but being able to have these new experiences, let people shine, and pop off has been really great. I’m very thankful to be a part of such strong teams, both in terms of collaboration and also players. It really is a special process!”
Nishant’s YouTube Thumbnail for their Hot Ones Challenge
Nishant also has a YouTube channel called GigaWatts94. About a year ago during a Global Challenge in Scarlet and Violet, they did a 3-day stream of the GC along with the Hot Ones hot sauce challenge. Every time Nishant would lose a game, they would do a dab of the Hot Ones challenge. Each time the heat would go up, getting spicier like a Mega Scovillain. “I had a blast doing the Hot Ones challenge. It was so silly and funny! I have ideas of other things, not necessarily hot food, that I can incorporate silly challenges into streaming. I saw a couple other people were also doing similar challenges.” Near the end of the stream, Nishant wanted to take the heat up a notch by drinking some of the Last Dab hot sauce. “It’s just so funny, drinking the final dab was a choice that I made. I still have a lot of that hot sauce in the fridge. Overall it was fun! I highly recommend people try something like that to make their GC more interesting.” I suggested to Nishant that they try a Beanboozled challenge, where jelly beans can either be a nasty or delicious flavor. “This I could do, this is very doable. Maybe I’ll give it a shot!”
Nishant’s first introduction to Pokemon was when they received a copy of Pokemon Gold back in 2002. “I don’t even think my parents knew what it was. It was so long ago. They were just like, "Hey, here’s a birthday gift! And I obviously got really hooked. I have bought Nintendo products pretty much solely for Pokemon games. I think I can name on one hand all the non-Pokemon games I’ve bought for Nintendo products. It’s always been a part of my life.”
“I had a blast doing the Hot Ones challenge. It was so silly and funny! I have ideas of other things, not necessarily hot food, that I can incorporate silly challenges into streaming.”
Like most early-generation players, Nishant didn’t get into competitive Pokemon until Diamond and Pearl introduced Wi-Fi connectivity. This was the era where the birth of VGC as we know it happened at the 2008 Video Game Showdown. Doubles became the dominating format, and trainers made history. Although Nishant did not compete in this major event, they were a part of the generation that experienced the development of what we know VGC to be today. “I used to play singles for a while," said Nishant. “When it transitioned to gen 5, I got into VGC, I got really busy with school, but I always followed it since then. I watched Ray Rizzo win Worlds, I remember 2014, I had followed it consistently, but I never felt like I had the time. There were definitely times I could have got back into it, but it kind of fell to the wayside.”
In 2020, the COVID lockdown hit everyone hard. Many people turned to video games to pass the time. Sword and Shield was the current Pokemon game out then, and many Pokemon fans got into VGC online this way. Nishant was one of those people getting back into the game during the peak of the pandemic. “When tournaments came back, I started going full force!” This was around the time in 2022 when Nishant placed in his top 16 finish at their first regional in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Nishant had used resources like Pikalytics and videos by Aaron “Cybertron” Zheng to learn more about VGC during this time. “I knew what Pokemon were relevant, so I grabbed the mons I had available and played around with it. I took advantage of all the resources of teambuilding and following regionals. The New England Pokemon VGC community was really helpful in that, I started working with people and seeing what they were doing. I did a lot of coaching early on, and that was super helpful too!”
“A lot of people are like, 'Don't build your own teams!' but the thing for me was I would get excited playing and even if I was just using the mons that I had available…”
When players first start out, they’re usually told to just use already pre-built teams. But Nishant did not take that advice. “A lot of people are like, 'Don't build your own teams!' but the thing for me was I would get excited playing and even if I was just using the mons that I had available that would get me excited about doing the boring teambuilding part. So I think that was really pivotal, streaming and watching other people. It was really collaborative!”
With Pokemon Champions out, VGC has become more accessible than ever before. This interview was done before regulation M-B came out, so all of Nishant’s comments in this article will only refer to regulation M-A. “I think (Pokemon Champions) is interesting. I was one of the people that initially hated it at first when it came out. But I think it’s fun, I think it’s very fresh, which is really exciting. There are so many mons that would never see play that are showing up. I would like a little bit more variety, but for best of one closed teamsheets is really nice because you don’t have to worry about as many surprise items. I think it’s very interesting! it’s been cool just to see what’s doing really well. I never thought Mega Scovillain would be good but people are showing me that it might not be as bad as I thought!”
Nishant really enjoys the low-power format of what regulation M-A brought us. It allows certain Pokemon to shine that haven’t been able to shine in a while. Including my personal favorite, Mega Gengar! Mega Evolutions in Pokemon Champions have been the stars of the game. I asked Nishant to share their personal favorite Mega Evolution with me. “So I grinded the pre-Champions ladder (on Showdown) so hard. I played Mega Salamance, and I had this incredible team all lined up, and well, here we are.”
Unfortunately, for those who don't know, although Salamance was shown in some of the promotional footage, it would not make an appearance in Pokemon Champions to this day. “So the Mega Evolution I've been using is Mega Glimmora. Solely based on the fact that I had one fully trained in my box. I just took six mons that were fully trained and threw them into the game. I’m not necessarily the best teambuilder, so spending a lot of resources on something that was that volatile was not something I wanted to do.” The metagame for Champions at this time was still evolving, and Nishant went into the early game with a team of mons they'd already built in the past. “I really like Mega Glimmora, it looks kind of silly. I don’t like that it’s got a Pinocchio nose, but I actually really like the mon.” Nishant mentioned that they were really excited for Mega Dragalge and Mega Elektross to come into the game. Now, with Regulation M-B, I’m willing to bet they are using them right now.
“I really like Mega Glimmora, it looks kind of silly. I don’t like that it’s got a Pinocchio nose, but I actually really like the mon.”
I also asked Nishant to share any mechanics or features for Pokemon Champions they were looking forward to. Prior to Dynamax, all the mechanics had been held item-based. Whether it was Z-Moves with Z-Crystals or Mega Evolution with Mega Stones. “I’m really interested to see how mechanics will stack on each other. I think it would be funny to see Z-Move G-Max Charizard going for some really powerful move. I think it will be really interesting to see how they will implement multiple mechanics at once. Like if you choose one you can’t do another. I think that we’re going to get to the point where the format is a bunch of nuclear bombs going off at the same time, and I think that is always really funny.” As of the time of writing, it looks like Mega Evolution will be the only unique battle mechanic in Pokemon Champions until Worlds. But Nishant mentioned how excited they are for more mechanics to surface. “It’ll be interesting, I like Dynamax, so it would be fun to see that again. But I’m excited right now to have megas and not that much stuff.”
Like all my interviews, I ask my interviewees if they want to shout anyone or anything out. Nishant was no different. “Shoutout to all my New England players and all of Team India!” said Nishant. They have a channel on YouTube at GigaWatts94 and a Twitter @nishantaj that you should check out for all their current and ongoing content!
