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EP. 30 Monterrey Regionals, Seville Special Championship, Milwaukee Regionals, Johannesburg Special Championship, APAC Playoffs, Indonesia Playoffs
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 30 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This episode is a MASSIVE one, as we'll be covering 6 Play! Pokémon events! We'll start the show with Monterrey, the largest Regional EVER, where Doonebug97 reset the Grand Finals bracket to defeat one of Mexico's best, TzSpenx. Next, we'll discuss Seville, where HkAssassin16 held off reigning EUIC champion P4T0M4N after a Grand Finals reset. Then, we'll venture to the US Midwest, where OutOfPoket rocketed to his 2nd consecutive NA Grand Finals, this time resetting the bracket to defeat Snotsss and win gold. Finally, we'll wrap up with a recap of Johannesburg South Africa's Special Championship, and review the successful TPC Playoff runs of Metranjar (APAC) and Minicokeee (Indonesia). You don't want to miss this episode! Listen on any podcasting platform, and catch our YouTube version for even more content.
If you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Overview of Championship Series: From Monterey to Johannesburg
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Welcome into the Show 6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. We've got another blockbuster episode with 6... Six different Championship Series events.
00:00:11
William Dunphey
We'll start with the largest regional of all time in Monterey, and we'll wrap up with the smallest event of all time in Johannesburg. Over the past weeks, we've seen Azumarill completely vanquished from the meta, Ticketton has hammered in its place among the top usage graphics, and the meta overall is in flux more more now than ever.
Podcast Style and Approach
00:00:31
William Dunphey
We've got a great episode today, so if you're ready, lock in, good luck, and have fun.
00:00:59
William Dunphey
No, ZZ. In the history of intros, that was definitely one of them. I would say that ah that was an intro for a podcast at one point in time. Not quite as good as your your poetic ah intros that you you treat us to every now and then.
00:01:13
William Dunphey
But welcome on, my friend. It's so good to see you again. I'm so excited to talk about all these events. I know that we wanted to get out more episodes this month, but it just feels like... There's so much going on. Everyone is so busy. I'm really excited to wrap up all these events kind of together in one episode because there's a ton to talk about.
00:01:29
William Dunphey
How are you feeling? Are you excited?
00:01:31
zzweilous
I am ah very much excited and I will have to say that I did think that your little stumble in the intro, it was very charming. I think if it is too rehearsed, if it is too robotic, robotic um maybe it will...
00:01:38
William Dunphey
Ah.
00:01:42
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:01:44
zzweilous
like i like if a creative product such as a podcast doesn't feel like too business-like and even though we are both very, very serious people, of course...
00:01:50
William Dunphey
Hmm.
Monterrey Regional Highlights
00:01:53
zzweilous
um ah
00:01:53
William Dunphey
of course very that's true
00:01:54
zzweilous
At the end of the day, we're just we're just two dudes talking about Pokemon, so we we allow ourselves a little imperfection here here and there. um But yeah yeah, from imperfection to perfection, i feel as if we have a bunch of really high-profile events to talk about, probably starting off with the largest Pokemon Go regional to date in Monterrey, Mexico.
00:02:15
William Dunphey
mm-hmm
00:02:20
William Dunphey
I'm so excited to talk about Monterey. I've been there before. It's a beautiful city. It's it's really, really lovely. I was excited to see the number of signups. I believe we had 275 signups for this event, counting no shows. I'm not exactly sure. Maybe 220 competitors, maybe a few more than that. We'll have to check the challenge bracket.
00:02:38
William Dunphey
ah But yeah, I'm really excited about this one. I'm a little bit You could call me a little bit biased, right? I love Mexico. My my wife is from Mexico.
00:02:44
zzweilous
you yeah
00:02:46
William Dunphey
But ah Viva Mexico. Let's talk about Monterey. ZZ, we had a top 32 at this event, if I'm not mistaken. I was looking at the challenge bracket. I was scrolling. i was like, damn, that's a lot of players.
00:02:58
zzweilous
This is the first time we have a top 32 for regional, I think, because even though something like the kicker for championship points is decided by how many people actually turn up and play, and um the structure of the tournament, how many groups there are, how large the top card is going to be, that is actually just decided by straight up taking the signups.
00:03:18
zzweilous
so yeah also definitely the largest day two of all time on a regional level and it was like a nice mixture of local talent of mexican players getting to shine and also a couple intruders from specifically um north america and the us um there was also like some um
00:03:18
William Dunphey
Mm.
00:03:41
zzweilous
more Southern Latam representation with mar Marto Galde, obviously in Topgad again with Emilio from Chile. um But also um from the US, we had nighttime pleasure competing we had a rise to occasion competing we had just dirk in top cut and we had obviously one of our um most most decorated medal collectors that we have in the championship series it is dunebug 97 taking it all um even with the bracket reset if i'm not mistaken and getting his first regional win of the season
00:04:16
William Dunphey
Correct.
Monterrey Grand Finals and Strategy
00:04:20
William Dunphey
Yeah, you're absolutely right. um It was really cool to see some trainers, like you said, from other parts of LATEM as well. That's always ah an interesting question because Mexico is, I mean, geographically, technically, it's it's right on the equator there, right? So there's some debate as to whether or not it's North America or South America.
00:04:38
William Dunphey
But seeing a lot of trainers from Argentina, from Chile, come up and compete was really, really exciting. I wanted to shout out to Arbisora as well. Arbisora from Mexico. i battled I battled him in um Mexico City qualifier hosted by Niantic last season. Very, very good player and and one of my good friends. Very, very funny person.
00:04:56
William Dunphey
um Like you said, Emilio, some really talented trainers attended. A lot of 7-11 representation in our top cut. We had Eomero. ah We also had Spartan L17 as well as Richie. You know, we love Richie on the show. Talk about him all the time.
00:05:10
William Dunphey
um But this was a really fun tournament. And I'm just like, I'm still like kicking myself that there wasn't a stream. I really wish that there was ah so many talented players, so many awesome games we could have watched.
00:05:21
William Dunphey
And I heard really good things. I heard that the people that traveled down, whether it was Rise or Dune or whoever, really enjoyed the city, had a great experience with the tournament, had a lot of fun with the battles. um But we actually, you and I, ZZ, and some other select folks, ah were treated to a grand final stream, Javi, excuse me, Javi,
00:05:40
William Dunphey
by by favor of a trainer named Javier, who actually pulled out his phone in the venue, live streamed to the Discord, and we were able to watch at least half of the grand finals battles through Dunebug's perspective.
00:05:53
William Dunphey
And as you pointed out, there was a bracket reset. I gotta say, though, the story of this this Grand Finals really comes down to team compositions, and I was so, so happy to see TZ Spanx playing Swalot. It's one of his favorite Pokemon. He's loved it for years. He loves Swalot. He loves Chansey, and being able to play one of those two, even though I joked with him before the tournament said, you should totally do the Galax timeout strat. You should try it, TZ. Just try it.
00:06:20
William Dunphey
He said, no, I'm gonna play you real team. So he played Swalot and Unova Stunfisk, and... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think on our last episode, I mentioned that Unova Stunfist was a good-looking corebreaker for this meta, and I think TZ was listening.
00:06:32
zzweilous
Yes, yes. You know, it will be a recurring theme within this episode. And I think I was still very hesitant to...
00:06:44
zzweilous
acknowledge its potential within the meta. was like a a lot more optimistic when it came to Furret, but at least TZ Spanx also had a Furret on his team.
00:06:51
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:06:54
zzweilous
So those two those two show six favorites have actually, like they did work together to secure that silver medal,
00:06:54
William Dunphey
True.
00:07:03
zzweilous
um In order to to win the gold, I feel as if Dunbarg's combination of the Shadow Alolan Sandslash and the Malama was a little bit too much for TZ to overcome.
00:07:14
zzweilous
Especially the um sweeping potential of that Alolan Sandslash was... It was just very, very difficult to stop. Because if you look at TZ's team, there's an Alolan Sandslash of his own.
00:07:31
zzweilous
Shadow Jump Love, which is like one of the main ways to stop a Malamar, but also horrendously weak to um a Shadow Alone on Sandslash. Then Swallowed does not have a good time against Sandslash.
00:07:42
zzweilous
um The Unovan Stunfisk, which like, okay, it can hang a little bit, but It does take super effective from Ice-type damage for sure. Then the Azumarul, which is a neutral matchup, and then the Furret, which, well, you only hit that for resistant charge to attack damage as well.
00:07:58
zzweilous
So if you are in a matchup where your opponent's Alolan Sandslash can be a safe swap, you are probably at a little bit of a disadvantage.
00:08:07
William Dunphey
are All right, ZZ. I'm going to i'm gonna have to jump in here. um For all of our friends that are watching the YouTube version, you can see ZZ's wonderful blue eyes. i mean he's got very striking, wonderful, beautiful blue eyes.
00:08:20
William Dunphey
But i you might need some glasses, my friend, because if you look at Doombug's team, the Gastrodon. That is the real issue here when you when you're paired up against TZ Spanx. Because if you're TZ, you have an Alolan Sandslash that's a Steel-type, you've got a Poison-type Swallot, and you've got Unova Stunfisk.
00:08:36
William Dunphey
So even if you want to bring your Unova Stunfisk and core break Azumarill Sandslash, core break the Shadow Drapion, deal some neutral damage to to the Malamar, and not even really be afraid of a Shadow Jump Bluff with Doublet Flying-type attacks, you have to watch out for the Munt Slapper.
00:08:52
William Dunphey
So you you you were right when you said that Malamar and Shadow Lull and Sandslash were really, really problematic for TZ, but the Gastrodon, the Gastrodon limited so much of what TZ was able to do when he tried to counter this team.
00:09:05
William Dunphey
And I really feel like what we were watching through Javier's perspective, I kept seeing that over and over again. TZ was basically playing like a guessing game. If the Gastron comes out, I'm going to lose three of these matchups hard, and then the Azumarill is going to be very neutral. My best answers are Furret and Shadowjump Bluff, and guess what?
00:09:21
William Dunphey
Those two get hammered by the the other core of
Dunebug's Journey and Adaptability
00:09:24
William Dunphey
Sandslash and Malamar.
00:09:25
zzweilous
Yeah, I think what you mentioned with how it limits the team building is a very important point because if you are in a position where you're just like, there's this Pokemon that looks decent for me, but if I get it misaligned, I lose the game and there's like a two thirds chance I get it misaligned, um then you probably will not bring the Pokemon.
00:09:49
zzweilous
And yeah, therefore I do believe that we only saw the Ufisk once within...
00:09:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:09:54
zzweilous
The um grand finals matches, it didn't actually come out all that much, even though, like, on DuneBug's team, there was the ShadowJumpLove, there was the ShadowDropion, there was an Azumarill, there was the AlolanSandslash, and then the Malamar and the Gastrodon. And against four out of those, like, arguably against five out of those um six, the UnovanStunfest would have had play.
00:10:17
zzweilous
But if you get it on the Gastrodon, it's essentially game over.
00:10:21
William Dunphey
Exactly. Yeah. I think that for a trainer like TZ as well, who likes to play safe, likes to play flexible, ah very, very talented player, but ah has you know certain certain attributes about how he likes to play. i think that that risk that you mentioned of two thirds chance of misaligning your Pokemon and starting the game off two steps behind, he was not interested in doing that.
00:10:43
William Dunphey
ah So I wanted to mention that Dunebug actually lost to Nighttime Clasher in round two of day two. He then beat Diakis, Eduardo Lomas, Paul Garcia, and Javier C2182 to advance to day number two.
00:10:58
William Dunphey
ah He was able to 3-0 revenge sweep against Nighttime Clasher, and then he won 3-1 the grand finals and 3-0 in the grand finals reset. So once Dunebug found his footing, he was able to just run through through literally everyone else that was standing in his way.
00:11:14
zzweilous
Yeah, he's no stranger to Loser's Runs. I feel as if one of his most infamous titles came from the ah came from the lower bracket with one of the longest trajectories through the Loser's Bracket that we've ever seen.
00:11:27
zzweilous
This was a little shorter, but still, it was the largest Pokemon Go original of all time. And yeah, like... i was like wondering about where we would place DuneBug within the current like power level of North America specifically.
00:11:43
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:44
zzweilous
Because there was like a time just about 12 to 13 months ago where DuneBug was undoubtedly the best player in the world, um both by performance and by results.
00:11:56
zzweilous
um But I feel as if he was like getting his top cut still semi-regularly, but had some tournaments that weren't up to his own very lofty, very high standard.
00:12:08
zzweilous
So for him to just come here to bring out the Malama, which up until that point wasn't widely used at all. like I'm having a brief glance at the rest of the top cut.
00:12:20
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:12:21
zzweilous
There was like one more Malama within top 16, but but Look at all the Shadow Sableye.
00:12:26
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:12:28
zzweilous
There are so many Shadow Sableye and very, very few Malamar. So this was an off-meta pick, but it appeared to be the exact right read at the exact right time.
00:12:38
zzweilous
And yeah, I think I will think i will um move back to that discussion a little little later when we talk about Milwaukee. But with that with that win, um especially with how Dune and his longstanding rival rise to the occasion are...
00:12:38
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:12:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:12:53
zzweilous
just kind of collecting championship titles left and right.
00:12:57
zzweilous
I think that was definitely a gold medal at the right time for Dune just to really cement himself and establish himself as like one of the top, top trainers, not only historically, but also in this season.
00:12:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:13:10
William Dunphey
Agreed. And to your point about Dune's um performance this this season, I mean, honestly, like any normal human being would look at this 2025 record and be like, yeah, I'll take multiple top cuts.
00:13:23
zzweilous
Thank
00:13:23
William Dunphey
I'll take third place at and a tournament and first place at another one. Like, ah that sounds really good. ah But it is kind of like been been a ah bit of hit or miss. For example, Dune finishing fifth in San Antonio and then turning around next month and finishing 25th at EUIC.
00:13:39
William Dunphey
Then he rebounds and is third in Vancouver with Shadow Fortress, which is awesome. ah But then Atlanta flops down to 25th, wins Monterey, you know, the the following um the following tournament. And then he is 65th in Milwaukee.
00:13:53
William Dunphey
So it's kind of like, you know, up and down, up and down. This isn't the the back-to-back back back-to- back-to-back regional ah grand finals appearances or even victories that we saw from him last season. And I feel like in terms of the North America power vortex, Pocket has really kind of taken that that dune bug ah spotlight ah this season. You know, he's a trainer that seems to be perpetually in the top cut or in the grand finals. But ah we'll talk more about Pocket soon as well.
00:14:19
William Dunphey
um Interesting fact as well is that Dunebug actually did play Shadow Sableye in Atlanta just before the Monterey regionals. And he switched out that Shadow Sableye for the Malamar.
00:14:29
William Dunphey
And that was the only change he made to his team. And that led to his his first place
Sevilla Event Highlights
00:14:34
William Dunphey
victory Monterey. So that's a really, really nice touch by him. Interesting. Interesting. He always finds a way to to upset the apple cart, as they say.
00:14:42
William Dunphey
But ah again, I wish we had a stream for Monterey. Unfortunately, we did not. Those trainers in LATAM deserve streams because they're some of the most talented in the entire world. And I really hope that we get those next season or maybe even, you know, season after that. We'll see what happens.
00:14:55
William Dunphey
um That's all I i really will had to say about Monterey. I wish we could have seen more, but shout out to Javier for sharing the grand finals with us.
00:15:02
zzweilous
Yeah, we can we can use that as a segue to um maybe move to another tournament in a Spanish-speaking country, Spain itself, which did have a special event in Sevilla, which I unfortunately could not attend.
00:15:12
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:15:17
zzweilous
I do enjoy traveling to as many European regionals and special events as I can, but the Sevilla case was a little different from most other events because Sevilla itself has a fairly small airport.
00:15:34
zzweilous
and And also um happened to be the case that um the Copa del Rey final, Copa del Rey is the, um for our European listeners, football, for our American listeners, soccer um cup competition in Spain.
00:15:51
zzweilous
And it's a big deal. It makes hotels a lot more expensive. And the final of that competition just happened to also ah take place in Seville on the weekend of the regional.
00:16:04
William Dunphey
Oh, gosh.
00:16:04
zzweilous
So a lot of factors that might have played into the fact that while we had 120 signups, only 65 actual competitors showed up to the event, which is um a lot of no-shows.
00:16:21
zzweilous
um And even though that might have in part been because of um the special event being a free signup and in part because of how difficult it was to travel and stay there, um i think there is also...
00:16:36
zzweilous
a little bit of there was also a little bit of a problem with the tournament organizer and how they managed to um mitigate the no-show issue because special events in Europe had various methods of addressing no-shows in the past and I think my favorite used to be when a week ahead of the tournament you were asked to fill in a provisional team for the event and if you hadn't filled in the team up until then
00:16:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:17:05
zzweilous
ah you were removed from the tournament and could sign up again, but ah in case you weren't ready, you hadn't really signaled your commitment to the event ah by entering a team, you would have just been removed and the competitor slots would have been opened up again.
00:17:21
zzweilous
This is not the case anymore this season. um What instead is the case is that on RK9, on the website where you do sign up, um you have a self-removal button ahead of the tournament.
00:17:36
zzweilous
And that typically is supposed to mean that you... um get to say okay um i don't want to play anymore i cannot make it or i don't want to make it but i can give up my slot for another interested competitor but what was the case with um this event's organizer was that um and they didn't make these slots available again after people removed themselves So there were trainers like Stone Collection, we know as one of the more consistently successful um players in Europe, who actually were under the impression that they would be able to sign up um because after it filled up to 128 competitors, which was the cap for the event, it went back down to 120.
00:18:06
William Dunphey
Weird.
00:18:29
zzweilous
So, okay, there's there's room now again. um So Stone Collection book, travel and stay for Sibir for that weekend. um But and at the end, couldn't actually sign up because there was no way of um making that happen with I don't know what exact technical reason um prohibited that.
00:18:53
zzweilous
But apparently it was an issue on the organizer's side that affected all three games that were played that weekend. So that was really unfortunate. um But I do have good news in that the Utrecht and Bologna special events that are yet to be played in Europe, um hosted through another organizing company, Fanfinity, have announced on ah social media already that um if people make use of that unregister button, those spots will actually be made available again.
00:19:27
zzweilous
So it feels as if it was a one-off incident, but it left us with a fairly uniquely ah small European field of competitors, um which like you could say, OK, maybe I want everybody to be at every event and everything is like a little icy and the best of the best always go up against each other.
00:19:29
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:19:39
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:19:50
zzweilous
But I kind of enjoyed that this was original in the truest sense, in that a lot of the trainers that we did see were from the Iberian Peninsula, were Spanish, were Portuguese. And out of the top 30 trainers in Europe by championship points, we only had two non-Spanish competitors showing up in Culfier and Emy Riedel.
00:20:13
zzweilous
So this really the um left the spotlight to trainers that we might not see every tournament.
00:20:21
William Dunphey
Hmm. Yeah, I so I was aware of some of it.
00:20:24
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:20:24
William Dunphey
For example, I saw stone collection tweeted or posted whatever. And he became stone pigeon collector for the weekend, ah which was, you know, a little bit disheartening. But it was, it was good to see that he was kind of, you know,
00:20:39
William Dunphey
Raising awareness, making the most of the situation and making some new friends at the same time. But a trainer like Stone Collection, we always want to see him compete. um To your point as well, yeah that, yeah, that's actually correct. There's lots of trainers here from Spain, ah Portugal as well.
00:20:54
William Dunphey
Our champion, it looks like according to DracoViz, they are from the UK. ah in HK Assassin, but a lot of trainers from that area. And then, ah like you pointed out, Kufia as well, a trainer that did very, very well in EUIC.
00:21:08
William Dunphey
ah Made an appearance and finished within the top eight, it looks like. um So I'm curious... In terms of, ah well, before I ask you this, I'm looking at the top cut. A couple other trainers, or one other trainer I wanted to mention was Borja.
Sevilla Grand Finals and Strategic Plays
00:21:22
William Dunphey
Borja MN, I believe is how you say it. ah This is actually his 10th play Pokemon appearance. He finished 13th overall with Buzzwole in Bologna. Last season, which is definitely an interesting spicy choice. We'd love to see that from our EU players, but Borja seemed very impressive. I wasn't able to watch all of the stream bod, but I did see some clips and seeing how, ah how we got to third place overall. I mean, that's not a, it's not a coincidence for him to succeed at that level.
00:21:48
zzweilous
Yeah, I do want to mention that even though like I've been um going on about how some of the best in Europe haven't been at the event, um like if you look at the top eight there there's no surprises there like there's nobody who like doesn't belong quote unquote because either it's um players that have been doing really really well in grassroots for a long time like i feel as if the name vision prod has been popping up here and there but it might have been their first actual play pokemon event so yeah they are representing portugal and
00:22:15
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:22:23
zzweilous
piloted a Primeape team into fifth place, which is quite impressive for a first outing.
00:22:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:22:29
zzweilous
And then obviously we have players such as Pablo Andinas, who had Amor Peco on his team alongside a Corvinite.
00:22:34
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:22:37
zzweilous
ah you may know him from the Utrecht Grand Finals of last year, like a very, very talented Spanish competitor. Kofi obviously made day three at EUIC this year.
00:22:48
zzweilous
Wolfpack, another trainer from France, I think, who has been... um I think in TopCut a couple of times and close to TopCut a lot of times. um Also making the meta read with the Inovan Stunfisk that you like so much and really um having success with that one, um beating some of Europe's best.
00:23:05
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:23:09
zzweilous
And then the top four with Marcos Shiny, a content creator from Spain actually, streaming on Twitch.tv a lot of the time. um I think he has been one of the names where Like I said, oh, it's only two from the top 30 that aren't Spanish, but he was one of the top 30 that is Spanish, right?
00:23:29
zzweilous
Like he already had a lot of championship points.
00:23:30
William Dunphey
yes
00:23:32
zzweilous
um A lot of accolades to his name, but now I think it's his first medal. And the same goes for Borda, who um has, like, I feel it's another one of, like, he's another one of those trainers who have been consistently improving.
00:23:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:23:46
zzweilous
um And very nice to see how he essentially piloted a team that um would look very similar to what we saw succeed in Milwaukee with Borda.
00:23:46
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:23:57
zzweilous
a diggersby a shadow jump love a ferralligator then the double sidewaves in malama and lapras like the clods is like kind of the odd one out i feel like that was not really a thing in milwaukee but it feel it felt as if he was ahead of the curve with his team selection and his team building and yeah the third place is a great reward for that um and like
00:24:20
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:24:22
zzweilous
Then we had the grand finals and I did not expect to see the teams that we did see because we have on the winning team, there's a superior, there's a shadow swampert,
00:24:37
zzweilous
There's like a Talonflame on both sides, a Tinkleton on both sides. On the losing team, there's a Jellicent, a Gastron, a Charjabuck, a Golisopod.
00:24:42
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:24:47
zzweilous
This is really spicy Europe at its best, in my opinion.
00:24:53
William Dunphey
No, like I agree with you completely. i i was just scrolling through the the other teams as well. ah Yellow Ripper with Blastoise, Jax with Shadow Dusk Lops. You've got ah Left XAV with Emolga as well.
00:25:05
William Dunphey
All these trainers within the top 16 to top 20.
00:25:06
zzweilous
And the Melmetal too. like
00:25:08
William Dunphey
Yes, exactly. So i've really I really...
00:25:10
zzweilous
And it's Sogetik too. There's a lot to be discovered here.
00:25:15
William Dunphey
it I really admire ah the the creativity in EU. I mean, it it kind of feels like if you were working like at ah um like at a concession stand or something and you're at this convention and everyone is like really dressed up and having a really good time and there's so many interesting things going on.
00:25:33
William Dunphey
But being in North America is kind of like being behind that concession stand and just watching all the fun in front of you and be like, okay, well, I have to go back to hardcore meta when I compete in Portland or whatever.
00:25:45
William Dunphey
yeah, Yeah, to your point, the team here, um some EU staples, I would argue. Talonflame on both sides between HK Assassin and Potoman. You had Chargebug, which I know has been an EU staple for quite a while for Potoman.
00:25:58
William Dunphey
Galaxic Abulted Superior, I see that with HK Assassin's team.
00:26:01
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:26:02
William Dunphey
The return of Shadow Swampert was really, really cool. And ah we started we started to see as well here in Sevilla the rise of Tinkaton, which is going to be a recurring theme, especially when we talk about Milwaukee.
00:26:14
William Dunphey
ah But I wanted to mention that the, ah first of all, the Jellicent pick from Potiman, I don't know how he makes that thing work. I hate playing Jellicent in the current meta.
00:26:21
zzweilous
with
00:26:23
William Dunphey
It's way too difficult to play. But I want to mention the final thing is that Golisopod, That reminded me a lot of Pato Man's run in Gdansk earlier this season. I remember him playing Glice Pod. very, very familiar with It was really sick to see that Pokemon.
00:26:36
William Dunphey
ah In terms of the Grand Finals, I feel like I don't want to say luck, right?
00:26:37
zzweilous
Thank
00:26:41
William Dunphey
Because luck is not the right word that I'm looking for here.
00:26:42
zzweilous
but
00:26:43
William Dunphey
But Pato Man, just the stars aligned for Pato when he won the Grand Finals. And then, of course, because he came from the loser side of the bracket, it went to a reset. And I feel like HK Assassin really adjusted in the reset, started playing a lot more Lapras, started to to go back to some other picks, and it really threw Pato Man off.
00:27:02
William Dunphey
And I think that ah his adjustment was really good. But it was a 3-0 grand finals for Pato, and then the table spun right back around for a 3-0 for HK to win the grand finals reset.
00:27:12
zzweilous
think also, um if you look at the teams that made it to the Grand Finals, and this also like kind of reminds me of Gdansk again, because there was like a very similar team composition that Tronton Matus leveraged against yours truly to win the Gdansk Regional Championship this year.
00:27:33
zzweilous
Which featured a lot of these same Pokemon, I think. I feel like I remember a Superior, I remember a Talentflame, I remember a Chargerbug, and those types of...
00:27:41
William Dunphey
No radicate.
00:27:43
zzweilous
This is very true, but it never came out in the Grand Finals. I do remember that, even though I would have enjoyed the rat. Big rat proponent myself. um But yeah, like those types of Pokemon, um they offer you a lot of interesting core breaky neutral play into more conventional teams.
00:28:03
zzweilous
But if you have two unconventional teams going up against each other, sometimes it can end up a little RPS. And then i still wouldn't say that, oh, this is just luck based.
00:28:10
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:28:13
zzweilous
This is just alignment based. But I think um the skill expression is less within playing out the game necessarily. and more within adjusting the macro strategy going into the battles and i feel as if we had seen some shifts from assassins to partman's side and then back again and how those strategies developed for example in the winners finals i think that's where they met originally um
00:28:30
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:28:44
William Dunphey
It was.
00:28:45
zzweilous
um the Unovan Stunfisk was a little too difficult for Part 2 to deal with. um And then he essentially settled on a line of three that was made up of Golisopod, Gastrodon, and Talonflame.
00:28:52
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:29:01
zzweilous
And the strategy essentially was that Golisopod was a breaker to a lot of the cores that HKSS could have relied on, including the Superior, including the Talonflame, including the Shadow Swampert,
00:29:15
zzweilous
um Then there's like neutral matchups against Lapras and Tinkerton, and then also has some counterplay against Unovan Stunfisk, but typically loses that matchup.
00:29:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:29:28
zzweilous
So what Pato meant to do is either win the lead, align the Gastrodon that he had in the back to the Unovan Stunfisk, and win the match like that.
00:29:39
zzweilous
Because like that goes back to the Monterey finals almost, where the Unovan Stunfisk becomes a liability if there's a Gastrodon present. um Or he soft loses the lead, um takes out the Unovan Stunfisk, or like not takes out the Unovan Stunfisk, but damages it enough where it's not a threat anymore, because um you do pace...
00:30:04
zzweilous
ah to the first aquajet on golyzopod at 10 turns, which is the exact same for Stunfisk's first discharge. Therefore, you could always at least guarantee either shield advantage or landing one aquajet.
00:30:19
zzweilous
And once the Stunfisk is significantly damaged, the Talonflame was kind of free to sweep for Pato in the back. And the Grand Finals reset essentially looked like that.
00:30:31
zzweilous
There was one game where he let into the Ufisk, damaged it with Eagle Eye support, and then set up a Talonflame sweep. Then there was um a game where let into the ah Superior.
00:30:46
William Dunphey
ye
00:30:46
zzweilous
i think there was like even an eventual switchout on HK Assassin's side to a Lapras, but at that point, Pato had energy on the Glycer pod and knew that he could just play out the Lapras matchup, align his Tannelflame to the Superior and his Gastrodon to the Euphysk.
00:31:03
zzweilous
essentially went on the alignment there and then there was another game where the golycer pot went up against the talon flame and because of the um better pacing on the golycer pot that is also just a positive matchup for the buck water type and yeah as soon as you secure alignment there it's also essentially smooth sailing in the back so
00:31:18
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:31:24
zzweilous
this um superior talent fame core specifically became a little bit of a liability for HK Assassin. And what he had to do was to adjust.
00:31:32
William Dunphey
agreed
00:31:36
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree i agree with you completely.
00:31:37
zzweilous
Okay.
00:31:38
William Dunphey
um Looking at the team, I mean, Fire, Water, Grass, that's something that we've seen a lot in competitive Pokemon, not just Pokemon Go. ah But you're exactly right. You called out the winner's finals where they met previously. HK went three and o um That series was was interesting because, like you said, the Golisopod,
00:31:55
William Dunphey
was putting in a lot of work, but the Unova Stunfisk was definitely a very stubborn pick and setting up the Town Flame sweep is something that HK did in the Winter's Finals and in the Grand Finals. I have all the Pokemon listed out in the teams, you know, as I as i usually do.
00:32:08
William Dunphey
And in the Grand Finals reset, in spite of leading Unova Stunfisk into Gastronaut, which is exactly what Pato needed in order to win a game, HK still was able to win that game number two.
00:32:19
William Dunphey
Unova Stunfisk, Superior, and Lapras. Um... the The variety is something I wanted to speak to because Glycopod and Chargebug were brought multiple... ah or Excuse Glycopod, Gastron, excuse me, were bought brought multiple times by Potoman.
00:32:34
William Dunphey
He basically played four Pokemon. Glycopod, Gastron, Townflame, and Chargebug. Whereas HK was able to play a lot more variety. He's able to switch things up a lot more, ah play a lot more Lapras, play some Shadow Swampert as well.
00:32:46
William Dunphey
um But yeah, i mean... This was really fun. and It was interesting to see as well, because I was thinking about your matchup versus Potaman at EUIC. And I was recalling back to the fact that in the grand finals, the first set, Potaman was playing a ton of Mandibuzz. He was trying to force you to leave the Claydol, to leave the Primate, to kind of play the way that he wanted you to play.
00:33:07
William Dunphey
And then in the grand finals reset, he adjusted and changed up his strategy. I felt like Potaman had a winning recipe going into the first grand finals. The 3-0 is obviously you know pure proof of that.
00:33:18
William Dunphey
But then in in the grand finals reset, he didn't make the adjustments, you know, quickly enough or aggressively enough to to match what HK was doing. And ah like we said, it's not luck based or maybe alignment based. Maybe we can maybe maybe there's a different phrase we can use.
00:33:34
William Dunphey
We can call it prediction based, right? The grand finals became a very prediction based battle, especially in the resets.
00:33:36
zzweilous
yeah
00:33:41
zzweilous
And I think like after the reset, Pathos struggled a little bit because HK just had, like, as you as you mentioned, he had he just had more options to rely upon and still have neutral play.
00:33:56
zzweilous
For example, in the first game after the bracket reset, HK decided to run Unovit, Stunfisk, Lapras, and Swampert, giving the Talonflame no room to breathe.
00:34:09
zzweilous
So that essentially completely... invalidated Pato's winning strategy from the games before, but there was no way for Pato to predict that because um if he brought out his Jelicent, which would have been decent answer to both the Swampert and Dilapras, um he couldn't really have brought his Gastron anymore because that would have made him incredibly weak to um the Superior in particular.
00:34:17
William Dunphey
Nailed it.
00:34:40
zzweilous
so Just like reading your opponent's mind as to when they will leave the superior superior on the bench. I feel like that's a very, very difficult thing to do that cannot really be reliably performed.
00:34:49
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:34:55
zzweilous
um And therefore I can't really blame Pato there, but also good on HK to make the perfect adjustments um when it will really mattered.
00:35:06
zzweilous
um Also, like to HK's credit, um second game after the reset, Pato wins the lead, um actually leads Gastron into Unuven Stunfisk.
00:35:14
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:17
zzweilous
but then gets met with the Lapras safe swap and kind of struggles um finding a good formula to deal with it. um He ends up just immediately swapping the Goliath support into the Lapras. And even though you resist all the charge attacks, you just get severely outbulked and um the Psywave pressure is just a lot over, like in the two shield scenario. And therefore, know,
00:35:42
zzweilous
Probably would have needed chip and dip strategy in that situation, but it's very difficult to figure that out in the moment and come up with a game plan against a line that you might not have seen played like that before.
00:35:49
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:36:01
zzweilous
um So game two, HK wrestles back alignment in the secondary matchup, wins that game. Game three, it's a Lapras into a Goliath support lead, so fairly neutral.
00:36:14
zzweilous
But the back line is fairly troublesome for Pato again, because this time he brought the Charger Buck to deal with a potential... um but the potential of superior instead of the Talonflame, being fairly afraid of the double water strategy again.
00:36:26
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:36:31
zzweilous
um But what HK has in the back is double ground with the Ufisk and the Shadow Swampert. So therefore the Chargerbug doesn't find the alignment that it needs, and the Gastro just can't do it all on its own.
00:36:38
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:36:44
zzweilous
There's a nice catch by HK as well, where he saves Hydro Cannon on his Swampert and catches Body Slam.
00:36:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:36:51
zzweilous
um to essentially deny Pato all hopes of coming back from this. And yeah, it's a 3-0, 0-3-3-0 with like, especially like the macro strategy adjustments being what makes this a back and forth.
00:37:09
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think that HK, as you mentioned, just he found the weaknesses. He found the pressure points. And I just have in my notes here, game one of the grand finals reset, as you mentioned, Stunfist, Shadow Swampert, Lapras.
00:37:22
William Dunphey
Talentflame has nothing to do for Potaman. It's got nowhere to go. So my notes, it's like Talentflame has nowhere to go. And then you fast forward to game number three, and i I see the charge bug versus the double ground back line from HK. And I'm just like, in my notes, charge bug has nowhere where to go.
00:37:36
William Dunphey
So basically, h k did a really good job of turning these battles from 3 versus 3 into 3 versus 2, you know, as as closely as he could in terms of team composition. So ah I know it's intimidating to play against really high-skilled players. I think anyone who sits across from an international champion or regional champion, ah if they've never won something like that themselves, they probably think, oh, well, I'm on the back foot here, like Pato.
00:37:59
William Dunphey
Yeah. He's one of the goats of Europe. like This is definitely very intimidating. ah But for somebody to not only sit sit down across the table and hold their own, but also impose their will on what they want Pato to do in the grand finals and take these risks, roll these dice, that's very,
Competitive Behavior and Community Reactions
00:38:15
William Dunphey
very impressive.
00:38:15
William Dunphey
So HK Assassin, very, um very well executed in the grand finals.
00:38:17
zzweilous
right.
00:38:20
William Dunphey
That was really fun to watch. And again, the final thing I'll say is it's just so serendipitous to see a trainer like Pato Man who who's been able to bend his opponents in real time in grand finals competitions prior.
00:38:33
William Dunphey
It was really serendipitous to see HK Assassin get up there and say, hey, I can do it too.
00:38:38
zzweilous
um And speaking of intimidating situations sitting across a European international champion um in the grand finals, um have you been aware of the Paltrowman's stare down controversy that has unfolded apparently in YouTube comments and on other social media sites?
00:38:56
William Dunphey
Yeah, man.
00:38:59
zzweilous
Do you have a take on that? Because I do have a take on that.
00:39:02
William Dunphey
um So I saw that there was an apology post, right? Potty Man felt pressured. a lot of people probably forget how young he is. He's he's actually still a very young guy. um Honestly, like, okay, I'll say this.
00:39:17
William Dunphey
All the times that I've done remote tournaments or remote practice battles or whatever, or even go battle league, there have been times when I totally pwn my opponent and I'm just stomping them.
00:39:28
William Dunphey
And I like look up or I'm like, you know, ah f yeah yeah or whatever, but whatever I want to say. And I get really, really amped. And I think that it looking at this matchup, looking at how tough it was for Pato to get a dominant 3-0 in the grand finals.
00:39:42
William Dunphey
I think it's perfectly natural to try to kind of like ride that momentum, to feel that energy, to to feel like you can you can, you know, press your opponent and just kind of like look up and just see what their reaction is. And you see this a lot with charge attack button or charge attack throws and that kind of stuff.
00:39:59
William Dunphey
Players like Pocket actually does, they do look up at their opponent to see if they're going to react or like squirm in their chair or whatever. I don't know. it To me, it it read it read equal parts of of let me see if HK is shook and let me ah assert my dominance in a subtle way that I feel like I'm really on fire here.
00:40:20
William Dunphey
That felt like two halves of the equation there. And i don't know, it didn't bother me. If I was in the other chair and Pato looked at me like that, I don't think i I'd be upset with him at all.
00:40:25
zzweilous
Yeah. yeah So from my EOIC experience, um I got to experience the part of men's stare firsthand.
00:40:39
zzweilous
I just stared back, like like like kind of kind of smiling.
00:40:41
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:44
zzweilous
like It's like all all like good sportsmanship, right? like We are not we not enemies. We are just rivals, and we are playing a competitive game, and we are both... ambitious, we want to win. and like You should be able to hold eye contact with your grand finals opponent. I mean, that that is not the highest bar to clear and I have no issue whatsoever with Pato just like really making sure that, okay, like I am here. Maybe you need that for yourself to to feel present in the moment.
00:41:15
zzweilous
And like, I've seen HK's reaction on Twitter as well. Like he was unbothered. Like he says, you're you're you're good, man.
00:41:20
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:41:22
zzweilous
This is, we're competitors.
00:41:24
William Dunphey
but
00:41:24
zzweilous
that's that's just Let's just play. it's It's all good. This is just YouTube comments being YouTube comments.
00:41:29
William Dunphey
ah
00:41:29
zzweilous
um Yeah, drop your toxic YouTube comment down below.
00:41:29
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:41:32
zzweilous
By the way, we will upload this on the YouTubes. So please insult us in any way possible.
00:41:39
William Dunphey
Exactly. And and honestly, ah okay, I'm going to be even more candid. Let's let's say let's take it this up a level in terms of candor. When I read that comment and I saw that people were upset about that,
00:41:51
William Dunphey
that was That was so coded. ah Okay, here's here's what I thought. When I read that, I thought, tell me you've never been in a competitive environment before without telling me you've never been in a competitive environment.
00:42:04
William Dunphey
If you played any kind of sports, if you played any kind of competition in in any other game, you know chess, ah boxing, whatever – pet opponents stare at each other. They make the eye contact.
00:42:15
William Dunphey
That is part of being a competitor. So when when I saw people complaining about that, I was like, ah, this is the first competitive thing you've ever done, isn't it? ah That's what came to mind for me. I'm like, oh, you're you're new here.
00:42:28
William Dunphey
i get it. I get it.
00:42:31
zzweilous
Yeah, so I think we we very much agree that there is no issue whatsoever with Pato's behavior during the grand finals.
00:42:31
William Dunphey
That was my opinion.
00:42:39
William Dunphey
I mean, what do – okay, going to tell you a really funny story. So when i when I was young, ah my my brother and I are only about a year and a half different in terms of age, very, very close in age.
00:42:42
zzweilous
Please do.
00:42:49
William Dunphey
And if you have a sibling or if you know anyone who has siblings that are close in age, you know that they fight all the time. It's just – when there's too small of an age gap, it becomes more like a rivalry instead of like a sibling love your relationship.
00:43:03
William Dunphey
ah i I would make faces at my brother at the breakfast table before school. And we'd be eating our cereal and I would just make faces at him and try to like, you know, get under his skin, kind of irritate him.
00:43:14
William Dunphey
And it got to the point where my parents put a literal flower arrangement in the middle of the table so that we couldn't see each other. And still, I would like lean way over and try to look at him from around the flower arrangement just just to mess with him, right?
00:43:30
William Dunphey
Do we really need to get to a point where up on that main stage, we put a flower arrangement between the players they can't look at each other? Like, are we are we really like seven years old at this point?
00:43:40
William Dunphey
Come on. Come on, guys.
00:43:40
zzweilous
It would be really funny, but I think i think it's probably not needed.
00:43:45
William Dunphey
No, I don't think so either. um glad I'm glad you mentioned that because I did see some discourse about that. But honestly, like like you said, those there those are YouTube comments. People are always going to talk. Let them talk.
00:43:58
William Dunphey
That's my opinion.
00:43:58
zzweilous
yeah i agree. um I think this is essentially all that I have for the Sivia special event.
00:44:07
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:44:07
zzweilous
So we we may as well move on to the big one.
Milwaukee Regional and Strategic Insights
00:44:12
William Dunphey
Yeah, um one little segue I wanted to make here is that in Sevilla, it looks like Pablandinas was our highest finisher with Corviknight, finished tied for seventh.
00:44:22
William Dunphey
And then in Monterey, we actually had a couple of Corviknight, Iomero in fifth place, and then Ryze in tied for seventh as well with Corviknight. Will Corviknight ever win a medal, ZZ? It came pretty close to winning a championship in Milwaukee.
00:44:37
zzweilous
It has won a medal already. It has won a medal already. In Merida, it got um fourth place.
00:44:37
William Dunphey
So, ah which one?
00:44:45
William Dunphey
Oh, sorry.
00:44:45
zzweilous
I think that...
00:44:46
William Dunphey
i should be more specific. When is it going to win a championship? That's what I want to know.
00:44:50
zzweilous
All right. Oh, okay, okay. Also, like, Snorts, Milwaukee. That's, like, second place. So, like, that's another medal.
00:44:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:44:56
zzweilous
But I think it's it's really interesting because... So, okay, like this is like a little bit of a segue into what we have seen in Milwaukee because Milwaukee had Tinkerton, the new meta demon, the hammer swinging fairy, on every team within the top eight.
00:45:17
William Dunphey
Ooh. Agreed.
00:45:17
zzweilous
And if you want to shut down Tinkerton, Parvanade is one of your best bets.
00:45:24
William Dunphey
agreed
00:45:24
zzweilous
um So that is something to keep in mind if you want to um like just go really strong against Tinkerton, then Corviknight is one of your better options.
00:45:38
zzweilous
But with Corviknight also making it so that, or or rather with Tinkerton making it so that Azumarill Drapion core is played less, Dorsa to Pokemon that Corviknight was fine in against Drapion was arguably pretty good even.
00:45:55
zzweilous
Um... which may now be like, which may now leave fewer targets for it to actually shine. And then there's like iffy matchups against like Digger Spear that is now um making a return to the meta where you actually need little bit of an attack way to get a sand attack breakpoint to make that a little more comfortable rather than absolutely miserable.
00:46:16
zzweilous
um But if you invest in the attack of your Corviknight, that also means that you lose more neutral bulk and may be able to like take tank one less charge attack. So it's like it remains a delicate Pokemon that I think will see um repeated success in Top Cut.
00:46:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:46:34
zzweilous
But with with the little events, like with the little number of events that are still left in the season, I would say no, we're not seeing Corviknight Gold.
00:46:43
William Dunphey
Ooh, okay. I feel like ah we should give all all of our listeners a little bit of context. I know we're covering a lot of tournaments here. The first one we covered was Monterey. That was the weekend of April 19th and 20th.
00:46:53
zzweilous
Hey.
00:46:54
William Dunphey
We skipped over the TPC APAC playoffs, but we will we will mention that later. Sevilla was actually the weekend following Monterey in April 27th. Now let's go into Milwaukee. That's kind of the the where i was trying to lead us with the Corbinite discussion.
00:47:11
William Dunphey
That was May 3rd and 4th, which was just this last weekend. um um I'm actually scrolling through all of the the top teams here on DracoBiz. And um I think that the highest finishing Azumarill...
00:47:25
William Dunphey
At this tournament, it looks like it belonged to Virgie Virg, and he was able to bring it, i believe, into the top 12, if I'm not mistaken. Virgie Virg with the... I think this this looks a lot like the Charming Pory team that we saw him win ah and in, I believe, South Korea.
00:47:39
zzweilous
Yeah, I did make that connection as well. i did make that connection as well.
00:47:43
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:47:44
zzweilous
Let me pull it up real quick because i do have the graphic here somewhere.
00:47:49
zzweilous
think it was um featuring a dugong as well, if I'm not mistaken.
00:47:49
William Dunphey
I've got...
00:47:49
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:47:54
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:47:54
zzweilous
Yes, yes, yes. The Malamar, Chargebug, Dugong, Azumarill, Digaspi, Shadowdropion. I don't know how many of those were also on the Charming Pori team, but I would wager at least four.
00:48:06
William Dunphey
ah Let me, I'll read it off to you in real time. Azumarill, Diggersby, Dugong, Shadow Drapion, Cray Dilly, and Malamar was on the the Charming Pori team.
00:48:13
zzweilous
Alright, it's 5 out of 6. It's pretty good.
00:48:15
William Dunphey
Five out of six. That's not bad. Maybe our our instincts are still pretty sharp here. um But yeah, so Azumarill falling all the way down. And and this is I just want to juxtapose this against the previous competition ah in Sevilla where we had Azumarill in fourth place. We also had it from Palasha and Alfonso Scope in 10th and 11th.
00:48:37
William Dunphey
And then we had Jox playing it in thirteenth place. And then if you rewind just a little bit further to Monterey,
00:48:43
zzweilous
Okay.
00:48:43
William Dunphey
ah Out of our top 16, there were only two teams without Azumarill in the top 16. And the other two Pokemon that were water types, they were Lapras. So 14 out of 16 Azumarill, trimming that down to maybe four out of 16 in Sevilla, and then only one in a in in Milwaukee. So ZZ, here's the question.
00:49:06
William Dunphey
I've had furious debates with with a ah trainer named Tiwastel about this. Is Azumarill out of the meta? What do you think?
00:49:16
zzweilous
It is not. I think um like whether you like it or not, it's going to it's going to be around still um just because it offers so much neutral play. And I think um while maybe some top players like Pocket, like Nighttime Clasher, who team build together, um have decided that their six are different from a classic Azumarill six,
00:49:45
zzweilous
They also have um some key components like the Digga Spee, like the Malamar, especially the Malamar, where you as the opponent would really be happy to have an Azumarill on your own team, especially if the Lapras was opting to run Sparkling Aria and Ice Beam rather than Skolbash, which I think is like the Skolbash version is, I think, what Pocket ran to win it all.
00:50:04
William Dunphey
Of course.
00:50:09
zzweilous
So maybe that is going to pick up in popularity.
00:50:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:50:12
zzweilous
um but yeah the malamar specifically um it's very difficult to properly take care of without an azu on your team um plus there might be a rise in fire types um given that a lot of the current best teams are fairly weak to the Shadow Typhlosion that we see on Silent Beast's team, who are actually managed to take fourth place with it.
00:50:40
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:50:43
zzweilous
A little bit of, um I won't say a surprise run, because Silent Beast has had pretty strong results in the past, but taking a medal ahead of the likes of people such as Rise to Occasion is definitely a very strong showing with a very spicy Pokemon.
00:50:59
zzweilous
that if you look at it, has fairly great corebreaker potential into teams that have ah shadow jumpla um the the Tinkerton, the Feraligator, where you pace the exact same, but win charge attack priority, and even the Lapras, which you do outpace, and which you do beat in at least the twos, usually also the Warned Shield matchup, unless um you both run the rank one, essentially.
00:51:12
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:51:24
zzweilous
So I feel as if for Firetypes and for Malamar, azu is the better water type option compared to the lapras and therefore i think azu is going to make a comeback
00:51:38
William Dunphey
Yeah, that's honestly, I told something very similar to Toastel. ah not as Not as much detail, but I did tell him that Azumarill has been able to find its way back into the meta before.
00:51:49
William Dunphey
i don't think it's it's outside of the realm of possibility that it does it ah yet again, especially as the meta kind of... um For example, if you look at some of these teams, the number of Azumarill answers is actually very disheartening. And you mentioned the targets, right? You mentioned Malamar being a prime target for it. But also like...
00:52:07
William Dunphey
If these teams are weak to a zoom role, it might be all the more reason to start bringing it in. um I really appreciate that you mentioned a silent beast.
00:52:12
zzweilous
Exactly.
00:52:15
William Dunphey
He had a really strong showing in Atlanta, finishing a tied for 13th and he did it ZZ with a shadow prime ape and a for it. All right. So, uh, uh, and town flame as well.
00:52:27
William Dunphey
A man after your heart here.
00:52:28
zzweilous
Big fan.
00:52:29
William Dunphey
Yeah, big fan, huge fan of Silent Beast and seeing him improve on that performance, finishing fourth behind the likes of Out of Pocket, Snots and Nighttime Clasher. I mean, like you said, taking the medal over Ryze, taking the medal over Teddy Bear, over Vergy Verg, over C2U, over Spartan L17 and even Bopper. I mean, he plays a lot higher than a lot of these really talented trainers. And when you look at the team, I do feel like this is a championship caliber team.
00:52:54
William Dunphey
I mean, the shadow Typhlosion is really, really cool. ah There's another fire type that was, was present in Sevilla that I think should get a bit more attention.
00:52:59
zzweilous
right.
00:53:02
William Dunphey
I think it will get a bit more attention as the, as the month of May goes on, but for now shadow Typhlosion is, is definitely cooking. Um, I wanted to mention as well, Sussanet's Eater ah making day two was really, really good. That is the brother of Nighttime Clasher. NTC says he's been coaching him. He's kind of like his brother slash protege at this point, ah but he had a very tough day two opening matchup against Ryze, was unable to to win that battle, fell to that loser's bracket, but Sustenance Eater having consistent top cuts is really, really exciting.
00:53:32
William Dunphey
The return of Great Wolf. Apparently everyone knows Great Wolf except me. Apparently he was ah an OG player, but I never met Great Wolf. I never had the pleasure. And then it was really sick to see my buddy, the billionaire Pranov making top cut. You know, he just comes out of nowhere, buys his way into the tournament, you know, slips the organizers a few a few hundred thousand dollars and just ends up in in top cut. I don't know how he does it, but ah it's great to see him as well.
00:53:57
zzweilous
I think the only reason why he didn't get a medal is because he already has so many precious metals at home that he just can't fit and another one. So this is it's tough.
00:54:07
William Dunphey
True.
00:54:08
zzweilous
It's tough being being that rich. um
00:54:11
William Dunphey
Yeah, his safe is so full, he just doesn't have room for any more medals.
00:54:11
zzweilous
But yeah. um
00:54:14
zzweilous
Exactly. Exactly.
00:54:14
William Dunphey
It's literally full of gold and silver and precious gems and all that stuff, so...
00:54:18
zzweilous
He's going to buy a second save anytime now. um But yeah, this is like, as as we have come to expect from those um North American regionals, which again, i don't have the exact number here, but it's probably like ah like one and a half the times of competitors we saw in Seville.
00:54:39
zzweilous
um
00:54:39
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:54:40
zzweilous
a lot of A lot of very well-known names and very talented trainers making up that top 16. And yeah, um Really, like as somebody who might not be a regular to medals all that much, which goes for Silent Beast, but essentially also for Snorts, who did have very deep runs at tournaments in the past, but um ah just doesn't appear at as many events as some of those um pockets or nighttime clashes just managing to fight their way through that gauntlet that a North American top cut just is um it's it's very impressive and Snot specifically is a trainer who
00:55:08
William Dunphey
sure
00:55:22
zzweilous
um I really enjoyed watching over the weekend because the Steam Composition was um also fairly different from the rest that we saw with the Carbonite-Ferret-Unovan-Stunfisk combination, which I personally like a lot because it's a unique way of tackling the Tinkerton problem.
00:55:32
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:55:42
zzweilous
You have this these two super hard answers with your ground type and with your Corviknight doing different things, but ah definitely shutting down the Tinkerton. And that frees up your Ferret, which is like this very neutral force in the meta, which has play against just about anything.
00:56:00
zzweilous
And once you are fairly certain that the Tinkerton is too risky for them to bring, Ferret can really go wild. And the second place finish, still not the gold medal. I still believe that Ferret has a decent chance at getting that gold.
00:56:13
zzweilous
um But yeah, I think you can't be too mad at Silva, right?
00:56:20
William Dunphey
That's true. That's true. ah You make a really good point about the overall team composition. Of course, when you look at it on its face value, you want two of the hardest counters you can possibly get to Tinketan. Having both the Unova Stunfisk, which is a great water buster as well, a great poison destroyer. And then you've got the Corviknight, which totally is is flipping the the Pokemon lore on its head by being able to just smash Tinketan left and right.
00:56:43
William Dunphey
And I really appreciate how, and we saw this a bit from Ashton Ash in Atlanta, but I think Snot's kind of really, even it improved on it and took it up another notch in terms of how he played the Korvanite.
00:56:54
William Dunphey
um Safe switching it, getting ah ahead some energy, um kind of using it to to fill the gap, be that 50 second switch timer Pokemon that you and I talked about in the past. He made it look really, really good. I think it it looked like a strong Pokemon.
00:57:07
William Dunphey
Yeah. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I think that that pocket just had the firepower ah to beat it. And I don't think that ah that Snots was able to, to come back from a really tough game five in the bracket reset.
00:57:20
William Dunphey
Maybe for it would have been the answer to, to helping him get back in that game. But, um I already alluded to him a couple of times. We've got to talk about pocket. He started off day two in the loser side bracket, which is actually eerily reminiscent of what happened with Elam in Atlanta, who also started day two in the loser side pocket was knocked down by August August. Let's see.
00:57:41
William Dunphey
I don't know how how you say it. It's L S L e y
00:57:44
zzweilous
Heisley? don't know for sure, but I think he goes by just August in some places, so if we just call him August, he's probably happy with that.
00:57:51
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:57:53
William Dunphey
Okay, August was able to bring down Pocket in round four of day one. Pocket won three more along the way to day number two, including against Kelsey K and SJ. And if you're taking down SJ in order to make day two, you got to be cooking.
00:58:07
William Dunphey
ah Then he wins eight rounds in a row, ZZ, in day number two. Eight rounds in a row, winning 19 battles and only losing eight. along his path to the grand finals and eventually the championship. So, um, I'm just going to be honest with you. Like I, I really adore our casting team. I think, uh, in NA, we've got a lot of experience. We're very talented. Uh, we've got a deep roster as well. I love that we're adding new folks.
00:58:35
William Dunphey
Um, I'm going to be honest with you from a caster perspective. I was a little bit disappointed. No, I was actually very disappointed that we did not hear more about pockets mental game going into this grand finals so because in Atlanta against Elam, we all remember the famous interview, right?
00:58:57
William Dunphey
And then Elam fired back. And you know what? It felt like after Pocket went into the Grand Finals, not only got rolled in the Grand Finals, but also completely smashed in the reset, losing, including the rematch, seven games in a row.
00:59:14
William Dunphey
It felt like any normal person would have had their mental game completely destroyed. Any normal person would have gotten to the Grand Finals, gotten absolutely Rickrolled out of the venue by Elam and just put down the game or maybe it would have affected their mental going to the next one or whatever.
00:59:31
William Dunphey
ah You know, varying degrees of of depression would have set in, et cetera, et cetera. That's what I would probably experience. That's what most people would experience. Pocket not only experiences that, but he turns around, goes straight into Milwaukee, starts losers bracket on day number two and absolutely annihilates everyone in his path leading up to that grand finals.
00:59:51
William Dunphey
And watching back the Atlanta grand finals, I saw pocket making a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. I think that he tried to catch like three or four charge tax in in the grand final set alone.
01:00:02
William Dunphey
All of those catches failed. Elam did not fall for it a single time. um And he just seemed like, seemed like he was off, but this pocket we saw in Milwaukee was a whole different breed. And I really feel like from a player perspective, a trainer that's come into day twos in the past and looked depressed, looked down, looked like,
01:00:21
William Dunphey
deflated. And he's done that over, past over the past years, so came back and won NAIC, proved that to himself, and then gets rolled into grand finals this season only to bounce back and win a reset.
01:00:33
William Dunphey
Like seriously, the next tournament, I think there's so much to say about his mental game. And I could not be more proud of what pocket was able to accomplish.
01:00:40
zzweilous
I also want to issue a little correction because you said that Pocket was going straight into Milwaukee. He was in fact not going straight into Milwaukee. He booked a flight. He canceled the flight because he thought, oh no, it may not be worth it. Maybe maybe it's not my time. um maybe Maybe I've done enough. I don't want to feel the disappointment of going out early.
01:01:02
zzweilous
um But then he scrimmed with the team and the team was cooking. And that's when he made the decision to rebook a flight it far more expensive than the initial one.
01:01:07
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:01:13
zzweilous
Just go to Milwaukee anyway, drop down somewhat early for for her for an out of pocket who is expected to make Wednesday to Wednesday day to every time.
01:01:24
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:01:26
zzweilous
but then still takes it all. And I want to go back to how um you were pointing out like, oh, here he won like 17 and lost like eight. This is such a good showing.
01:01:35
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:01:35
zzweilous
um and obviously it's ah an amazing showing, right? Because he won the entire tournament. But eight losses on a loser's run, That's a lot of losses on a loser's run. This means you're in a decisive game three so many times.
01:01:50
zzweilous
You're like back against the wall. i don't i haven't counted, but it must have been plenty. um But just like emerging victorious every single time from that, um that takes some resilience and Obviously, i think the the team, um especially because it was also piloted by Nighttime Clasher, who finished third place, and Sustenance Eater, who made a top cut without like the high profile that maybe some other trainers that didn't top cut had initially.
01:01:50
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:02:13
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:02:21
zzweilous
and feel like that team now has a little bit of a target on its back.
01:02:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:02:26
zzweilous
um But it also goes to show how Pokemon Go has arrived at a point where um some of the other games, for example, VGC, already are and have been for a couple of years, that you have these friend groups of elite, elite competitors who um essentially work on the same team together, bring that to regional,
01:02:49
zzweilous
um kind of sort of make sure that not everybody has them figured out by the time they reveal it but then just really go to town because they have those they bring their their great minds together and obviously um pocket doesn't have a shadow jump love that's the one difference but we don't talk about that um but other than that i feel as if you not only have your own reps with the team
01:03:08
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:03:12
zzweilous
But also, like, your friend's reps who then tells you, like, oh, I like this, I struggled with this matchup, but when I played it that way, and was a lot more manageable to just have that information and that level of preparation, too.
01:03:25
zzweilous
I think that's also a big secret to Pocket Success, despite him obviously being one of the goals on an individual level to just, like
01:03:34
William Dunphey
he's He's Professor X in ORAC, all right? He's Professor X.
01:03:38
zzweilous
like...
01:03:39
William Dunphey
He's always asking for the scrims and getting hit with the Xs, right?
01:03:39
zzweilous
God, yes.
01:03:42
William Dunphey
You make a fantastic point about the losses. I was actually looking at the bracket. Decisive game three in round one of day two versus Zuokin. Decisive game three against Vergeberg in round two. Decisive game three against Ryze in round four.
01:03:57
William Dunphey
Decisive game three against ah Silent Beast in game five. And then it he went all the way to game, ah excuse me, game three against Silent Beast. It went all the way to game five against Nighttime Clasher in the Losers finals. And I do remember that series being very, very close.
01:04:12
William Dunphey
ah But then Pocket ah was able to win 3-0 in the Grand Finals. And then Grand Finals reset came down to game number five. And I just want to mention, we saw this in in spades back in the 2023 World Championships where um Axon took on Rubik's Master in Yokohama.
01:04:31
William Dunphey
And Axon led the Alolan Sandslash into Altaria. At that point, you know it's going to be a really, really rough ride for Rubik's. When we saw Pocket... for the first time in the entire grand finals, send out that shadow for alligator versus snots in game five.
01:04:47
William Dunphey
I was like, Oh no, this I'm getting like, I'm getting flashbacks. I'm getting the vibes for the grand finals lead call that we got back in, in previous tournaments.
01:04:52
zzweilous
the
01:04:56
William Dunphey
That felt like a special moment. I was like, Oh no, snots is not ready for this.
01:05:01
zzweilous
yeah like the Feraligatr honestly if it doesn't get aligned against the Farae it has so much playing to Snouts' team so just even being able to keep that as like the secret weapon and just unleash it when it really matters that ah that was a moment for sure
01:05:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:05:17
William Dunphey
Yeah, eight games played in the grand finals. Shadow for Alligator appeared once, and that was in the decisive game five of the reset. He leads it into Tinkaton. And I remember Mariana called it out.
01:05:28
William Dunphey
She said, um not only did Shadow for Alligator just destroy the Tinkaton, but it also Shadow Clawed all the way down. And it exited that matchup like four or five Shadow Claws.
01:05:35
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:05:37
William Dunphey
It's like, man, this looks really, really tough for Snots. And it turned it turned out to be insurmountable.
01:05:46
William Dunphey
But yeah, man, what a tournament, what a performance.
01:05:47
zzweilous
yeah
01:05:50
William Dunphey
Shout out to PocketsMental and also Snots, right? We saw this a bit with HKAssassin taking on the IC champion PatoMan in Sevilla. Then we saw another IC champion taking on an up-and-comer in Snots, and that was really, really cool to watch and pushed him right to the limit. So as much credit as I've given to Pocket, I want to make sure that Snots also feels like he earned his his roses
North American Dominance in Competitive Scene
01:06:13
William Dunphey
because he absolutely did. He was outstanding.
01:06:16
zzweilous
hundred percent you have any more to the <unk> like regarding the tournament itself? Or should we move on to maybe like a little bit of a broader discussion? Because we managed like the we managed we mentioned the Power Vortex in North America earlier when we talked about Doomdug's victory.
01:06:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:06:33
zzweilous
And I do want to talk a little bit about um the North American champions versus the European champions this season. um because i've been taking a little look at the north american leaderboard and obviously there's more than five exceptionally talented trainers in north america but if you just look at championship points you have dunberg elam rise to the occasion uh
01:06:42
William Dunphey
I'm all ears. Let's do it.
01:07:03
zzweilous
Nighttime Flash and Pocket um a good 300 something points ahead of the rest of the competition. That is essentially one top four at a regional worth of championship points between those five and the rest.
01:07:11
William Dunphey
Yep. Mm-hmm.
01:07:19
zzweilous
And obviously sometimes that has to do with players like Elite, players like Lyle, players like SJ, maybe not attending as many tournaments as those five. um But it really feels as if the like the the absolute top of North America...
01:07:39
zzweilous
is kind of the top of the world right now as well, just because you see the same faces at essentially every regional and you always see them succeed. There's essentially not one champion this year in North America there's one champion in North America that is a new champion, which is Elam.
01:07:59
zzweilous
But he then again went on to become a repeat champion.
01:08:00
William Dunphey
yeah
01:08:04
zzweilous
And everybody else um has this history of success, this history of grand finals. So grand finals Elam also had before, but like of championship titles.
01:08:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:08:14
zzweilous
And it really just feels as if there's, um for all that we talk about, the supposedly low skill ceiling in Pokemon Go, it feels as if a select group of players have unlocked this extra level.
01:08:30
zzweilous
um Whereas in Europe, um I won't say that Europe is like lagging behind and in any meaningful capacity, but we still see those surprise champions.
01:08:31
William Dunphey
ah
01:08:42
zzweilous
um Where if you if you look at the repeat champions of of Europe and in this season, there's only really Pato who won a regional before and now won an
01:08:56
zzweilous
And Tonton who ah won an IC before and now won regional to really speak of in terms of, okay, like those are players that have done this in the past.
01:08:56
William Dunphey
ye
01:09:07
zzweilous
um Whereas otherwise, there's always like room for surprises, room for those those um dark horse runs that you might not expect. um And this is a very interesting and dynamic. like Would you agree that if we held Worlds today, of the top 10 biggest favorites, five of them would be North American? Yeah.
01:09:36
William Dunphey
I mean, if you're looking strictly at the data and how people have performed so far this season, i think that's totally reasonable. um You make such an interesting point too, because I was looking at the EU leaderboards.
01:09:47
William Dunphey
I see Potemain the lead with 1,925 points. Colin is 100 points behind him. Tauntaun is less than 100 points behind him. You are less than 100 points behind Tauntaun. The gap is very, very narrow. And then when you look at Latin America, you've got Marto. At 2130, I mean, he's got the most points in the world right now, which is crazy.
01:10:07
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:10:07
William Dunphey
Then you've got Richie at 1800.
01:10:09
William Dunphey
You've got Harjeff at 1800. But then there's a steep drop down to fourth place, which is 300 beneath Harjeff, which, like you said, is like a top four, top two finish at at a regional, ah depending.
01:10:22
William Dunphey
So... I agree with you. I think that the gap here in the U S is pretty staggering, especially once you get down to eighth place and it's literally five to six or even 700 points lower than our top three, which is really remarkable.
01:10:38
William Dunphey
Um, Yeah, I think that it's it's such a loaded question you ask as well, because I feel like when we look at the season, for example, last year, we said, oh, Dunebug, he's like one of our favorites to win Worlds.
01:10:51
William Dunphey
And he's just so good. He's just had such a good season. And then he gets to Worlds and it doesn't go at all ah the way that he envisioned it, right? I feel like if we're if we're gauging... If aliens attacked and they wanted to compete in Pokemon Go and we had to assemble a super team from across the world, you probably pick Marto from LATAM. You probably pick ah you know our our top trainers from EU, maybe top two or three. And then you pick five North Americans. I do think that is a valid argument.
01:11:19
William Dunphey
But in terms of Worlds, it's just a whole other ballpark when we talk about how they're going to compete. um But there is like this strange sense. And I think we've we've gotten this in years past as well. But it seems stronger now than ever that you see the same people in grand finals.
01:11:34
William Dunphey
I think it was Soph that gave a statistic in one of the group chats I'm in. She was talking with Ryze and she said – She said, yeah, so Elam has been in you know two or three grand finals this season. Pocket has been in like three or four grand finals this season.
01:11:49
William Dunphey
ah And it's not just like ah a feeling. There are they're actual facts and the statistics to back this up. And I agree with you. I think that the power in North America is very concentrated at the top.
01:12:00
William Dunphey
um Speaking in terms of Pokemon Go, not overall money and politics, of course.
01:12:06
zzweilous
Oh, God.
01:12:06
William Dunphey
just Just to make that clear. Yeah.
01:12:10
zzweilous
Well, there's a lot to say about that, but maybe we are the wrong podcast for that.
01:12:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:12:14
William Dunphey
Yeah, that's Pokemon podcast.
01:12:15
zzweilous
But yeah.
01:12:18
zzweilous
So what what i what i mean to say is that I'm really excited for the North American International Championships that are just about like a month, like five weeks away, maybe at this point.
01:12:30
zzweilous
um So we're getting closer and closer. And I know there's going to be, think, like a few more Europeans than last year. And i think we have something to prove. um just because like we have such a diversity in terms of team buildings in terms of styles in terms of champions um but with that diversity also comes maybe like a lower profile in terms of oh they have a lot of good players how many great players do they have
01:12:30
William Dunphey
oh
01:12:48
William Dunphey
Agreed.
01:13:03
William Dunphey
agreed
01:13:03
zzweilous
um And this is why I really enjoy those international competitions as well, because then we actually see the head-to-head. Maybe Europe just has so many more competitive players that just can knock out anybody at any time. This could also be true.
01:13:20
zzweilous
I'm not saying it is true, but... um yeah i'm just like really i just really um see those numbers and this consistency which is incredibly impressive and i'm just like i know i can't arrive at an answer but i still like pondering the question as to what makes those people at the top the people at the top obviously they have a lot of experience obviously they attend a tremendous amount of regionals um So not only does that give them more opportunity than maybe the average competitor, but it also gives them more practice, especially when we talk about those decisive Game 3s.
01:14:00
zzweilous
If you essentially live on the play Pokemon stage, um whether you're Pocket or whether you're a nighttime Clasher who barely even knows his roommates because he's always traveling for Pokemon,
01:14:07
William Dunphey
I saw that.
01:14:11
zzweilous
um ah this This might give you give you the edge in some of those situations. But yeah, this is not only... Okay, this is these are two challenges. It's a challenge to the Europeans to really show up to NAIC and um maybe show that even the greatest of North America would maybe struggle in Europe.
01:14:30
zzweilous
Like, you remember Pockets Birmingham run? That was, I think, still a top cut, but not even a top eight.
01:14:34
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah?
01:14:36
zzweilous
So maybe there is some truth to the...
01:14:36
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:14:39
zzweilous
overall higher average power level of the european region if we are being very optimistic about that um but also ah challenge to the american trainers or the canadian trainers um anybody who attends one of those um north america events just like show those guys that you can do it too.
Upcoming Competitions and Preparations
01:15:01
zzweilous
Be the surprise run.
01:15:01
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:15:03
zzweilous
Like, Silent Beast came close.
01:15:03
William Dunphey
yeah
01:15:05
zzweilous
Snots came close. But who's going to do it?
01:15:06
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:15:08
zzweilous
Who's going to be the the person who is not a grand finals regular who takes the title home? I feel like we we didn't really have that at all yet this season.
01:15:18
zzweilous
So, yeah, there's there's one more opportunity in Portland. And I'm counting on our West Coasters.
01:15:25
William Dunphey
Interesting. I was looking at the registration numbers for NAIC and we are currently at 328, which is good. I mean, EUIC this season was 400. So ah North America still has some work to do.
01:15:36
zzweilous
Thank
01:15:38
William Dunphey
Hopefully some people will sign up towards the the final moments of the of the um the buildup to the tournament, you know, the week before or whatever. ah You make such a good point because if you look at the two grand finals, if you look at them kind of like sister tournaments in Sevilla and Milwaukee, you see HK Assassin take down the EUIC champion in Potomac.
01:15:58
William Dunphey
And then you see the reverse happen in Milwaukee. The NAIC champion take down the challenger, Snots. So it definitely is it it definitely feels like ah things are are top heavy in North America.
01:16:10
William Dunphey
And this argument we've had for seasons, like if you took if you took spots ah number 25 through 50 in EU and put them up against spots 25 through 50 in NA, you have to give EU the advantage.
01:16:21
William Dunphey
That argument has been going on for a long time. You know, the EU is more balanced and a is more top heavy.
01:16:24
zzweilous
Okay.
01:16:26
William Dunphey
I think it's pretty obvious at this point in the season that it is. Let us know down in the YouTube comments below if you disagree. Personally, I feel like ah EU as a whole is much, much more ah more balanced in my in my personal opinion.
01:16:39
William Dunphey
um So, yeah, we'll have to see how ah ah the North Americans do and if we're able to. To win some championships and take on EU's best. I'm really excited to see how that turns out.
01:16:50
William Dunphey
um I'm trying to think. I think there was something else we wanted to talk about leading into the rest of the show. I'm trying to think.
01:17:02
William Dunphey
Well, I will say this. Speaking of NAIC and the world's qualification, 328 competitors so far, there's still room. So make sure to register so they can increase the cap, whatever that cap may be.
01:17:13
William Dunphey
ah Sometimes it feels a bit arbitrary. Sometimes it feels a bit of a mystery. But if you register earlier, it helps them to know exactly how many people are interested.
01:17:18
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:17:21
William Dunphey
um There are 34 days. If you're listening to the podcast right now, there are just 34 days until NAIC. As ZZ said, it's like four and a half weeks. That's not a lot of time. So get your practice in, get registered for NAIC, and earn those championship points, whether it's a local cup or challenge, because we are running out of time. The season is almost over.
01:17:41
William Dunphey
I can't believe it, but it is nearing the end already. So... That is definitely significant. um I want to mention our upcoming events for May. May 10th, we have the Taiwan playoffs, which is... i i know i know what I forgot. I forgot three other tournaments.
01:17:56
William Dunphey
We have the the Taiwan playoffs.
01:17:57
zzweilous
That's true.
01:17:59
William Dunphey
May 18th is a triple header. Utrecht, Santiago, and Melbourne all on the same weekend. Then May 24th, we have Portland and... portland We have Portland and we go to Durban. I was reading Portland and Durban and I got crisscrossed. Portland and then Durban in South Africa.
01:18:16
William Dunphey
But to that point, ZZ, we had three other smaller competitions. We had no streams for them, but they do deserve their flowers. So let's talk about the TPC APEC playoffs. Let's talk about Johannesburg.
01:18:28
William Dunphey
And then let's talk about ah one more that is slipping my mind right now.
01:18:31
zzweilous
Indonesia, Indonesia Playhouse, we also had.
01:18:32
William Dunphey
Indonesia. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Unique Strategies in APEC Playoffs
01:18:35
William Dunphey
Let's go chronologically. i believe that the TPC APAC playoffs were first, followed by Johannesburg.
01:18:41
zzweilous
Yes. um So this was interesting because essentially the nations that we see are represented in the APEC playoffs are the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore.
01:18:55
zzweilous
And um obviously Hong Kong is where our current world champion is from, Yekai.
01:19:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:19:01
zzweilous
um But he didn't actually compete. He doesn't have to compete because obviously as the defending champion, he is pre-qualified. So um the um qualifier, what actually preceded the playoff, was won by Walker0623. And Walker0623 actually managed to clinch one of the two World's qualification spots, but as a runner-up, he also brought the Corvinite Ferret core.
01:19:31
zzweilous
um which i personally like because covenant shuts down tinker ton so well for it can hang against essentially everything that isn't a tinker ton so that's pretty great uh he does have the azumarill um or they do i don't know much about walker um claude xia shadow primate and shadow sableye still so that thing also is still around despite the tinker tone But speaking of the Devil, the Tinkerton, Mitran Jar, sorry for potentially butchering that, um from Malaysia, i think, if I place the flag correctly, won the event with a very spicy team, honestly.
01:19:53
William Dunphey
Oh yeah.
01:20:09
zzweilous
There's the core, there's the Jellicent that we did see Sibir as well, the Tinkerton, obviously. um Then the Shadow Quagsire, which apparently is back and still thriving, and the Shadow Steelix, which we only really saw in that half meta at the start of the season.
01:20:31
zzweilous
um So very interesting team composition team composition there.
01:20:31
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:20:35
zzweilous
A bunch of other fairly um high profile trainers. Falling just short, I think ex Xervos is somebody who has like one of those nice championship winner shirts who managed to get a top eight with Blastoise.
01:20:52
zzweilous
ah Silent um piloted the Basiodon to a fourth place finish, which is also a Pokemon that some love to see, some hate to see. and And um one personal favorite competitor of mine is NEC84, because NEC84 always brings dance bars to essentially...
01:21:15
zzweilous
every tournament every year and the dance bars came again and it was enough for a top 16 finish but didn't go further but hey dance bars mentioned
01:21:24
William Dunphey
I really admire the commitment. I think that's ah that's such a cool fact. I wasn't aware, but now that you mention it, I do remember seeing Annie play a lot of Dunsparce. So even in a meta where it seems very unfavorable, it's not nearly the core breaker a matchup straddler that it used to be. It's great to see Dunsparce having some success.
01:21:43
William Dunphey
um I was going to make a point here about ah this tournament. um Oh, actually, i wanted to mention this. Of all the tournaments we're covering today, right we're covering six different events.
01:21:54
William Dunphey
You pointed out the grand finals teams as being very different. This is actually the only tournament we are covering in this episode that had 12 unique in the grand finals.
01:22:03
zzweilous
Oh.
01:22:03
William Dunphey
There's not a single shared Pokemon between either of these teams. Like you said, Steelix looked like a very strong pick in our midway meta. ah with the Gleispod Shadow Steelix that our friends in Brazil and Rise ran in the same weekend.
01:22:18
William Dunphey
um And you know what? It was on my caster predictions for Atlanta too. I thought there might still be a little bit of gas in that Shadow Steelix tank, but we didn't see it ah nearly as nearly as um as prevalent as I would have hoped.
01:22:26
zzweilous
yeah
01:22:30
William Dunphey
so But um yeah, we've got another Firewater Grass instance here with Jellicent, Superior, and Talonflame, which reminds me a little bit of the Grand Finals from Sevilla. But Metranjar, double steel, ah double water to protect it from the Talonflame.
01:22:45
William Dunphey
and Looking at the rest of the meta as well, I don't see any Typhlosion. I see two or three Talonflames, but no Typhlosion here in the ah APAC playoffs, which is definitely an interesting turn of events. But yeah,
01:22:59
William Dunphey
but yeah
01:22:59
zzweilous
I think Typhlosion is the thing that more people will wake up to being good now that they saw the Milwaukee teams.
01:23:00
William Dunphey
i
01:23:07
zzweilous
Whereas I think those tournaments still were, like the teams were still designed with the with very little knowledge of how the Tinketon meta would shape up. So I've i've seen some Typhlosions in practice since, but they weren't really around before.
01:23:16
William Dunphey
Fair.
01:23:21
William Dunphey
Fair, fair. i'm I'm not sure if you, uh, if you mentioned this or if I, um, disassociated missed it, but our WTF heel running six shadows. That's also super sick.
01:23:31
zzweilous
Oh, i actually I actually did not catch that.
01:23:35
William Dunphey
Yeah, in in top eight, Arb WTF Heal with Shadow Blastoise, Shadow Keto Marowak, Shadow Lone Sand Slash, Shadow Drappy, and Shadow Jumplift, and Shadow Sableye. Six shadows, top eight. You love to see it.
01:23:45
William Dunphey
The last time I think we saw...
01:23:46
zzweilous
I think they did that in the qualifiers as well. i think we we had that conversation as well.
01:23:50
William Dunphey
yeah
01:23:50
zzweilous
and I just always overlooked that because all of those are real Pokemon and then I don't put together that all of them are Shadow.
01:23:57
William Dunphey
Right. i think I think it was EUIC either two or three years ago. We had a full team of of six shadows. I'm trying to remember exactly ah who that was, but it it escapes me at the moment.
01:24:09
William Dunphey
But anytime you see something unique like that, that's definitely freaking sick because shadows are awesome. um Again, no stream for this APAC playoffs. The structure for TPC tournaments is that they have a qualifier round and then the top trainers from the qualifier make it into the playoffs.
01:24:26
William Dunphey
As you pointed out, the top two, I believe, are the ones that gained their WCS invites in Metunjar and Walker0623. I really hope they're able to come.
01:24:36
William Dunphey
um Something you and I can talk about maybe on the next episode is that a lot of these TPC tournaments, especially um considering that they're based in Asia, I feel like these tournaments are late in the season.
01:24:49
William Dunphey
April, May, you're looking at PJCS after NAIC this year, ah PJCS in Japan.
01:24:54
zzweilous
Yes.
01:24:57
William Dunphey
I can speak firsthand with my experience getting over to Japan. ah it is very difficult to get visas lined up for international travel. ah Coming from Asia to the U.S. is also very, very difficult.
01:25:10
William Dunphey
I am concerned, deeply concerned, that a lot of these players who fought their hearts out, qualified for the world championships, played their hearts out, and earned their spots are not going to have time to get their visa for the U.S. if they don't already have it.
01:25:25
William Dunphey
I've heard this from competitors in India. I've heard this from competitors APAC. um It looks really challenging. So we can talk about that on a later episode, maybe potential solutions as well.
01:25:33
zzweilous
yeah
01:25:34
William Dunphey
But I'm very, very concerned because I want to see these players. I mean, go back to Worlds 2022. Godun Hada from South Korea in the grand finals. Asia has a history of showing up and showing up big at Worlds.
01:25:46
William Dunphey
And I really want them to have that chance.
01:25:47
zzweilous
Our current world champion is is from the APEC region, right?
01:25:51
William Dunphey
Exactly. Thank you.
01:25:52
zzweilous
And then we had Beelzeboy in fourth place as well. So we we need those trainers from the TPCI regions at Worlds because they're some of the best.
01:25:54
William Dunphey
Exactly.
01:26:01
William Dunphey
You nailed it.
01:26:01
zzweilous
That's it. And they earned it
01:26:03
William Dunphey
They earned it. You absolutely nailed it. You're exactly right.
Johannesburg Tournament and Point Allocation Debate
01:26:06
William Dunphey
um Let's turn the page. Let's keep on moving through these tournaments because, again, we didn't have streams, but we do have records. This one, we have kind of like a like a pseudo record, right?
01:26:15
William Dunphey
we've got ah We've got a personal perspective from our beloved PvP Steve.
01:26:15
zzweilous
thank
01:26:19
William Dunphey
Let's talk about Johannesburg in South Africa. So we had...
01:26:22
zzweilous
This is so fun.
01:26:25
William Dunphey
So it's so, it's such a rich thing to talk about. There's so much to mention. um But the player count is not one of them. There were four. There were four people that competed at this tournament.
01:26:35
zzweilous
And there needed to be four people as well, because the tournament would not have fired if it was only three.
01:26:35
William Dunphey
And I actually have a very...
01:26:40
zzweilous
so
01:26:41
William Dunphey
Oh my gosh.
01:26:42
zzweilous
amazing that they got like enough people to show up to play the battles, um because it would have been a disappointed for a disappointment for like three people if they weren't able to actually compete after traveling all the way.
01:26:43
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:26:47
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:26:54
zzweilous
But yeah, it actually managed to go off.
01:26:55
William Dunphey
Right. And and and i'm not I'm not exactly sure where Detective August hails from, but I can say that 75% of these players are not from South Africa.
01:27:07
zzweilous
This is true.
01:27:07
William Dunphey
Three out of four.
01:27:09
zzweilous
So um if i if I recall correctly, Detective August went there because um I think his children are playing in one of the other games and they just had like a little vacation and he decided to take on the Go competition, which was a very fortunate circumstance for the rest of the Go competitors.
01:27:34
William Dunphey
Very nice.
01:27:35
zzweilous
um So, yeah, I think it was like a big family occasion to travel down there and try their luck.
01:27:44
William Dunphey
That's freaking awesome. I actually didn't know that, but but that makes it like even more even more poetic. um So I heard some complaints about the venue. ah Apparently, this card shop was inside of someone's house.
01:27:58
William Dunphey
um And before you you know jump the boat, I don't know how things are in EU, but I can speak for North America. ah Sometimes you do have businesses that...
01:28:04
zzweilous
Oh.
01:28:07
William Dunphey
where the home is on top. For example, I worked in college, I worked at a liquor store and I guess in order to save money on taxes or whatever you know the rules might have been, the owner of the liquor store actually built on a second story above the store and that's where they lived.
01:28:23
William Dunphey
And you might see this in places like New Orleans as well, where you kind of have like more dense cities. um But apparently some people were not thrilled that this wasn't some enormous venue hall that was exclusively rented out for the weekend and hundreds of thousands of dollars was invested into it.
01:28:40
William Dunphey
This is somebody's house. And Steve took a really candid photo of of him and the other Go players out by a pool, which is actually in the back of this of this house. So um of all the places they could have taken a photo, they're like, hey, why don't we just use their the family's pool? Because that'd be really funny.
01:28:56
William Dunphey
Yeah. I don't know what your thoughts are on on that, but this tournament essentially, it looks it looks on its face like a round robin, but it was Swiss. And Alan was able to to win the tournament. ah Steve taking second place.
01:29:10
William Dunphey
A lot of Tinkaton. This was actually Tinkaton and Azumarill. This is some kind of weird hybrid.
01:29:14
zzweilous
Yeah, 100% Azumarill usage. And you were saying, no, you weren't saying Azumarill is dead. QSL was saying Azumarill is dead. I don't know whether he said that. I don't want to misquote him, but what can I say?
01:29:25
William Dunphey
Yeah. don
01:29:26
zzweilous
like
01:29:27
William Dunphey
Double fairy.
01:29:27
zzweilous
But like Azumarill won the whole thing, but Azumarill also, like every game in Azumarill team won, and Azumarill team also lost.
01:29:37
zzweilous
So it's like the Azumarill equilibrium. There's like, you don't know what the, it's the best or the worst Pokemon.
01:29:41
William Dunphey
This is, this, it's Schrodinger's Azumarill. It's either.
01:29:46
zzweilous
It's true.
01:29:47
William Dunphey
It's either in the box or out of the box, and nobody knows which one it is. A lot of Claydol usage as well. Top three players are playing Claydol. Take a ton on three out of four teams. Shadow Drapion limping its way in here with 50% usage overall.
01:30:01
William Dunphey
little shout-out Primate from Steve. I'm sure you're excited to see that. And some Furret gameplay as well as the Furalligators. So this is ah this is a fun composition. Again, if you wanted to see some of the battles, check out our friend PvP Steve's channel. I believe it's PvP Steve number one.
01:30:15
William Dunphey
ah So you can you can watch some of those some of those games. But um yeah, this is exciting. um Question for you, ZZ, if you don't mind. We talked about controversy earlier on in the stream.
01:30:26
William Dunphey
we talked about Palteman's intimidating, gut-wrenching stare down.
01:30:27
zzweilous
Um,
01:30:32
William Dunphey
Another controversy has cropped up about Johannesburg. And that is that this tournament was only for people.
01:30:35
zzweilous
no
01:30:39
William Dunphey
Some people are arguing that the championship points, the auto world's qualification, the prize money, whatever, should not be the same amount because this was such a small tournament.
01:30:52
William Dunphey
I have a very strong opinion on this. What do you think?
01:30:56
zzweilous
um
01:30:59
zzweilous
It's difficult. so So there was no prize money. So we can get that out the out of the way. i feel as if there would have been more players there if there was prize money.
01:31:07
William Dunphey
and Okay.
01:31:12
zzweilous
um One thing that I can understand people on if they would be upset about this is if, for example, like PvP Steve is not really in contention for a travel award for the Oceania region.
01:31:29
William Dunphey
Sure.
01:31:29
zzweilous
because um he has taken on the duty of delivering just like the the broadcasts from the event, the community streams. He's not really competing in his home regionals.
01:31:41
zzweilous
um But somebody else from Australia could have gone there, um gotten like... It's not three points because there are still points that you have to defeat, but it's a lot, a lot easier to get those like 300 something points um for a top two appearance.
01:31:56
William Dunphey
sure
01:31:58
zzweilous
um Could have taken that home to a region that is already very limited as to how many regionals there are. Like the Oceania region doesn't even have the five tournaments that would make up the best finish limit.
01:32:14
zzweilous
And then... through that amount of points, um they could have essentially made it so they get the IC travel award, and then they could just travel to the next IC, and when they get if they get points there, that might spiral into a subsequent travel awards.
01:32:33
zzweilous
So this could be like an infinite money glitch. It isn't in this case, um but I see where the complaint is coming from. um and I don't have a great answer because this goes back to should you be able to earn championship points from events that are not within your own region.
01:33:02
zzweilous
And i am personally somebody who travels like not a lot a lot to regionals outside of my own region. I ah do like one a year. it was like Toronto this year. It was Toronto last year. It was Hartford the year before.
01:33:18
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:33:18
zzweilous
um But like I compete abroad. And I love that because I am... like a part of the global community and I want to see my friends and I went i think like these competitive events are the best opportunity to do so.
01:33:33
zzweilous
And don't want any I want don't want to rob anyone of that opportunity or make it a lot less appealing by reducing or cutting the championship points from of region events.
01:33:46
zzweilous
But in the same way, i think it would probably more for more fair and equitable so that the rich don't get richer.
Incentives for Small Tournaments
01:33:55
zzweilous
I think there would be some fairness achieved if...
01:34:02
zzweilous
people were only able to earn championship points from events from within their own region. um So I'm very much split on that. I don't have a strong opinion on that because my personal way of um
01:34:18
zzweilous
competing within the championship series puts me at an advantage that I think one reasonably can argue is unfair. and therefore like i don't know i think the you shouldn't just give out fewer championship points because it's small or anything that's why you that's why there's a kicker that's why you still have to beat somebody and you have to make an effort to show up if nobody else makes an effort to show up it's okay it's like this is regional level event you have to set the cutoff somewhere um
01:34:41
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:34:55
zzweilous
So yeah, i don't I don't think it should strictly be um less valuable, but the out-of-reach in competition, I can see why that is um a little bit controversial.
01:35:07
zzweilous
And like in this case, there wasn't actually any South African competitor that could have been quote-unquote robbed of a world spot by those people competing.
01:35:16
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:35:18
zzweilous
But yeah, it's like a little bit of a gray area for me.
01:35:22
William Dunphey
So, so, so how about, I'm going to make a proposal here. So in the same way that, that you can earn a set limit of local points from cups and challenges, what if there was a set limit of out of region points that you could earn each season and that maybe you could only earn, you know, 300 points from a tournament outside of your region, and then you were capped.
01:35:45
William Dunphey
And then after that, it wouldn't benefit you to compete outside of region anymore. That might be, you know, that might be a fix. You know, we can talk about it, think about it.
01:35:53
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:35:54
William Dunphey
Um, my personal opinion, right. When I see people look at this tournament, uh, I got a similar sentiment from the San Juan, Puerto Rico event. I believe it was last year or the Torian went and, and won that tournament.
01:36:06
William Dunphey
Um, The people on that are saying that, oh, there's only four or six competitors or six competitors whatever, they shouldn't get the world's qualification. They shouldn't get as many points. Like this isn't fair because I have to battle a hundred other people and I have to play Doom Bug in Atlanta. And i I just feel pissed about that. I feel i feel salty about it, right?
01:36:27
William Dunphey
I think that everything, or not everything, but most things in life come down to incentives. And I think that if you are looking at a brand new tournament experience in South Africa, a region where not a lot of trainers compete, not a lot of trainers can travel to compete.
01:36:43
William Dunphey
It's definitely ah arguably one of the least accessible places that we have play Pokemon events. If you look at that and you say, oh, well, I'm not expecting a big turnout, so I'm actually going to cut the the water supply, so to speak. I'm going to cut the resources because I don't think this thing is going to grow.
01:37:01
William Dunphey
Then you're going to get your wish and it's never going to grow. If people aren't able to earn points, if they aren't able to earn a world's invite, if they aren't already earning money, then what incentive do they have to even go and attend this tournament?
01:37:12
zzweilous
that's entirely fair
01:37:15
William Dunphey
You know, what incentive do they have to even go? And I think it's a really silly thing to say, oh, we're starting this new thing. And if it isn't immediately successful, then we should just gut it.
01:37:24
zzweilous
yeah
01:37:25
William Dunphey
We should just kill it and we should just move on to things that are that are successful.
01:37:27
zzweilous
yeah
01:37:29
William Dunphey
Honestly, you could go the other direction and you could say some of these tournaments like the San Juan Puerto Rico event, like the Johannesburg event, like the upcoming event in South Africa. What if we gave more points in order to drive incentive for people to go?
01:37:43
William Dunphey
And then you actually let people know about these events, right?
01:37:44
zzweilous
but
01:37:47
zzweilous
So that that would drive people to go from further away, right? That would not really... Because I think like what would be important and desirable is to build up a local player database to a degree.
01:37:58
zzweilous
yeah And with how few points are available, like, um world's qualification would come down to like the relative amount of points. like You don't have to be like and 500, 600 points like you would have to be in like North America. You could probably be... i don't even know whether there's any um South African player who has earned championship points this season.
01:37:58
William Dunphey
Of course.
01:38:25
William Dunphey
i don't know
01:38:25
zzweilous
um But yeah, i think like your general takeaway is the right one in that, oh, you see this something currently isn't working to cut back on your efforts probably isn't the correct response. You should rather ask yourself, oh, why is the turnout of South African trainer zero?
01:38:47
zzweilous
um What do we need to make it more accessible to spread the word, to make it more appealing um and to actually have a proper local scene to to kind of build that up?
01:38:52
William Dunphey
great
01:38:57
zzweilous
um as much as you can do that from the top down. um
01:39:01
William Dunphey
agreed
01:39:02
zzweilous
But yeah, like also it's like such a niche phenomenon still. Like it's not really something that, um earns you a ton of money outside of the fringe case of travel awards spiraling for a small region like Oceania.
01:39:20
zzweilous
I don't believe that Alan, who won the event with his team of Tinkerton, Shadow Lapras, Claydol, Cradley, Azumarill, and Shadow Drapion, I don't believe... um that there's a profit to be made by winning an event that has no prize money and that merely gives you ah couple of championship points that might help you to world's qualification, but also not far beyond.
01:39:40
William Dunphey
Agreed.
01:39:43
zzweilous
like You're not getting travel award from winning one regional in a competitive region. like Not that Oceania isn't competitive, but they just don't have the sample size.
01:39:54
zzweilous
like They have fewer tournaments than there's a best finish limit, so that keeps them a little...
01:39:55
William Dunphey
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Global Competition Dynamics and Visa Challenges
01:39:59
zzweilous
down or makes them more so subset susceptible to um events like that where you can just like get quote unquote easy points. um But honestly, like all this did is to give the North American region one extra Worlds qualification slot because Allen is now directly qualified.
01:40:18
zzweilous
um and that might like I don't know whether he was top 75 before or whether um he just takes that slot and doesn't have to care about championship points anymore but it's definitely a plus one for North America and um like it it will help a person um so it's like every event should be valuable to some degree otherwise it makes no sense to hold it
01:40:34
William Dunphey
Those darn North Americans...
01:40:47
William Dunphey
Agreed. Yeah, exactly. I think that everything, everything needs to be. And again, it comes back to incentives. It comes back to growth. ah You pointed out something really important, having a good local scene.
01:40:57
William Dunphey
I mean, this is the the proof is written all over this, that TPCI needs to invest in the local scene in South Africa. Yeah. Whatever it takes to to build up some players. Because I have a couple of friends that that do compete um or at least do play like Go Battle League and whatnot from from South Africa. And I'm sure that they would love a shot to qualify for Worlds.
01:41:18
William Dunphey
We talked about championship points from South Africa. I went to the leaderboards here. it looks like Shep88 is actually the leading South African trainer with 120 championship points.
01:41:28
William Dunphey
so
01:41:29
zzweilous
I did play Shep in my EUIC run actually.
01:41:33
zzweilous
I don't know whether he is currently living in South Africa or just earning points as a South African um because I think like he does have a history of attending a lot of UK events.
01:41:33
William Dunphey
yep
01:41:41
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:41:46
zzweilous
But um yeah, like there's definitely options how that makes sense from just a personal life history but type of standpoint.
01:41:55
William Dunphey
There are ways to quantify this as well. For example, you can hold ah the rules. are I'm not entirely clear on the rules, but you can hold a passport. For example, let's say you have dual citizenship and you hold a passport ah from from somewhere like India.
01:42:12
William Dunphey
And then you also have a U.S. passport, but your residency is based in one of the two countries. Then I think that there is a determining factor there. So maybe Shep has a home address in South Africa that he registered to compete with. And then maybe he has, you know, ah maybe he is working in EU or ah or going to school in EU, whatever might be.
01:42:34
William Dunphey
so you kind of have those situations that are in a gray zone, which is a little bit harder to to decipher. But ah as far as TPCI i is concerned, we've got Shep as ZAF country coach in South Africa.
01:42:44
William Dunphey
And behind him is Moxian Harris with only 67 points. So 67 and under is what we're working with with the South African trainers. and And hopefully more attend in Durban, which is coming up ah later this month.
01:42:59
William Dunphey
um I think there's one more tournament we need to cover, and that is the TPC Indonesia playoffs. I'm not sure if you have anything else you want to add about Johannesburg, if you want to move on to our final event.
01:43:08
zzweilous
ah I think we've actually gotten a lot of value out of the Johannesburg discussion, given that it was only for competitors.
01:43:14
William Dunphey
Yeah, we have.
01:43:16
zzweilous
um
01:43:17
William Dunphey
Exactly.
01:43:17
zzweilous
But yeah, Indonesia, that is actually a fairly stacked region as well. i did have the honor of facing some Indonesians ah in Gym Breakers just the other week, including Joe DiAnga, who finished third place with ah Shadow Swamp and Shadow Steelix again.
01:43:30
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:43:37
zzweilous
That is a recurring theme, um but just barely missing out on Worlds qualification. um That instead went to Redcliffe, who piloted a team of Azumarill, Claydol, Corvanite again, still a silver, not a gold, Shadowdropion, Regular Swampert, and Colisoport.
01:43:56
zzweilous
And the actual champion of the event resetting the bracket against Redcliffe was Mini-Coke, who... um piloted Azumarill, Shadow Marowak, regular Alolan Sandslash, um Shadow Dropion, Cradilly, and Golisopod, which is also a team that like the archetype of that team with the Azuae Slash Core, with the Golisopod, with the Cradilly.
01:44:23
William Dunphey
Mud Slapper.
01:44:23
zzweilous
I feel as if I have seen that before. So that combination of Pokemon seems to work together really well.
01:44:31
William Dunphey
Looking at this grand finals matchup, obviously, again, we didn't get a stream for it. I'm not sure if these matches were ever published online, but looking at mini Koki's Krayt Elite against Ace Swampert, Glycipod, Claydol, and Azumarill team, you got four very solid targets there.
01:44:46
William Dunphey
Maybe you you bring the Alolan Sandslash to complement it because there's no counter user, no fire type on the opposing side. I could see where Minikoki would be able to to win this series based on just the strength of those two Pokemon alone.
01:45:00
William Dunphey
ah Then you add in, you know, the ever flexible Azumarill or the Glycopod safe switch. And it looks like there's a lot of a lot of play for him here. I really appreciate that you called out the Shadow Steelix in third place from Jody.
01:45:10
zzweilous
Thank
01:45:11
William Dunphey
I think the Shadow Steelix recurring theme this time paired with Glycopod is definitely a fun one to mention. Glaring Corsula hanging on somehow in fourth place from Tendu. I'm not sure how g Glaring Corsula still succeeds. It is very high on the PVPoke ranking still, but I have not seen one in many, many moons.
01:45:28
William Dunphey
um Very interesting teams. i Again, I really want these players. I really want these qualified trainers to be able to attend Worlds. So I hope that Mini Koki and Redcliffe are able to to get their visas in order because I know I can speak firsthand experience in this regard as well, that the U.S. immigration system is definitely a gauntlet to get through.
01:45:48
zzweilous
and
01:45:49
William Dunphey
um
01:45:49
zzweilous
It's not getting easier either. um
01:45:51
William Dunphey
No, it's not. it's not ah It's not a fun time. Do not recommend. If anyone wants to get ah get a visa for fun, I do not recommend it.
01:45:55
zzweilous
is
01:45:58
William Dunphey
You were choosing Pain. um But anyways, in terms of this competition, Shadowcanto Marowak resurfacing. Another silver medal for Corviknight ZZ. Come on, man. I want to see the the metal bird get a gold.
01:46:11
William Dunphey
What's it going to take?
01:46:12
zzweilous
It's on my Utrecht draft. It's on my Utrecht draft. So...
01:46:15
William Dunphey
Oh, okay. little spoiler alert there. Everyone's scrim against Corviknight.
01:46:19
zzweilous
You might be able to guess another Pokémon that is also on my huge case draw and like
01:46:19
William Dunphey
If you're going to Uthra.
01:46:24
William Dunphey
The ape. It's gotta be the ape. Ah,
01:46:29
zzweilous
draw. That is a consideration, but I was like talking about the Corviknight Furred core that we have um mentioned before for like, oh, this one thing shuts down Tinkerton, this other thing thrives when there's no Tinkerton around.
01:46:34
William Dunphey
ah
01:46:43
zzweilous
I like that combination. um
01:46:44
William Dunphey
See, it and now if our viewers were watching the YouTube version, you would have seen ZZ's poker face. I gotta tell you, bulletproof. I could not tell if if Ape was anywhere remotely close to what to what he was bringing. So make sure to watch the YouTube version, everybody.
01:46:59
William Dunphey
um But yeah, again, I wish we had a a stream for this. I see that ah Zero Sir Panic a lot also competed. That's a trainer's name that I definitely recognize. Outside of that, I'm a little bit um unfamiliar with a lot of these players, but...
01:47:13
William Dunphey
I gotta love it. I see Korvanite on Barbaria's team, Korvanite on Yandathia's team, Riefke's team as well, another one in Kipelier. We're going to see more Korvanite, I feel.
01:47:25
William Dunphey
And the Ticketown is a huge reason for that. Even in the absence of Shadow Drapi and Azumarill, I still think Korvanite has a ton of play.
01:47:33
William Dunphey
But yeah.
01:47:34
zzweilous
tend to agree. There's also one shadow type lotion, but didn't make it that far.
01:47:38
William Dunphey
Didn't make it too far. One Bastied on as well from Rosebrand X-Force. ah Maybe I'm missing a Bastied, but that's the only one that I see on my radar right now.
Future Meta Predictions and In-Game Events
01:47:47
William Dunphey
um I got to point this out, ZZ. I'm going to be honest.
01:47:51
William Dunphey
One of the biggest disappointments, and this is not scheduled, this is not planned. One of the biggest disappointments that I've seen in the metagame for the White Mastery season has got to be that Galarian Wheezing. I thought Galarian Weezing had a lot of flexibility. I thought it looked really strong.
01:48:05
William Dunphey
But in the era of Mutsap users and Psywavers, it just seems to be totally, totally out of its element.
01:48:13
zzweilous
Yeah, I think the PsyWavers are the main big thing. And especially now that people have shifted from Azumarill to Lapras for the most part, um...
01:48:17
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:48:23
zzweilous
it's It's a little bit of a challenge. i I still think that it can be made work. So there was like a recent practice tournament and VBasis did manage to qualify for the um Indian playoffs, but then ah wasn't able to compete in those, had to skip that day, unfortunately.
01:48:43
zzweilous
is a creative team builder who has been building teams around the Jelicent, Galarian, Weezing, Gazlod core, which always is like, ah like Those are Pokemon that you don't see too often, but they have great synergy. So I feel like if people were willing to think out of the box a little bit, there may be partners for Galarian Wheezing that would enable it to shine, especially with like the Jellicin that um makes it so that the Lapras energy goes nowhere, or the Guzzloid, which has the Dark typing that makes Scyrwis even less appealing.
01:49:17
zzweilous
So I think there's still play, but it's certainly a Pokemon that isn't as spammable, not as flexible as you would as you might have hoped it to be at the start of the season.
01:49:27
William Dunphey
Agreed.
01:49:27
zzweilous
ah yeah like I think it's on Fraud Watch for sure, but maybe some some bold trainer can can make it work still.
01:49:36
William Dunphey
Speaking of ah Pokemon to watch, I have two that I want to highlight here. and We didn't prepare this either, but my core breakers for the rest of May, we've already alluded to both of them. Number one has got to be the Unova Stunfisk, the lovely syrupy pancake. we all We all enjoy the flip-flopper itself.
01:49:53
William Dunphey
The second one is Talonflame. I think that the trainers in Sevilla were onto something.
01:49:56
zzweilous
Oh.
01:49:59
William Dunphey
I think Talonflame has a lot of resistances that Shadow Typhlosion lacks. And yes, you're giving up the Thunder Punch coverage. But i think Talonflame's durability and that flying typing is all the more reason to pivot towards it. So I expect to see Talonflame in the upcoming events later on this month, especially in that triple header May 18th and 19th of Utrecht, Santiago, and Melbourne. I think we're going to get a lot of Firebird.
01:50:25
zzweilous
So I am like generally a Talonflame enjoyer and have been on the record as a Talonflame enjoyer. But what makes me a little hesitant to really fancy its chances at this moment in the meta is the little resurgence of the Shadow for Alligator because that is a Pokemon.
01:50:46
zzweilous
I know that Martai and Inadequance actually considers that a fine matchup to bring the Talonflame into because if you just get a little ahead on energy, maybe you can do something. But I dread that matchup. I think it's so, so bad for Talonflame.
01:51:00
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:51:00
zzweilous
And obviously you are a little more durable, you have the better defensive typing, you have ah more stats than the Typhlosion, but where Talonflame falls a little short for me personally is just the pacing to its moves. I think now with that um Shadow Dropion is kind of out of the meta, there's not really that many things left that get to an attack in eight turns.
01:51:24
zzweilous
And with Typhlosion getting to its Thunder Punch in only 10 turns, it's able to keep pace or outpace a lot of the current threats. um
01:51:34
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:51:35
zzweilous
Therefore, i would like if I had to nominate two Pokemon that um would be Core Breakers that could get a gold before the end of the season, um those would be Shadow Typhlosion.
01:51:46
zzweilous
Because we don't see that many Mud Slappers. There's still Claydol. There's still um the odd Cantomarowak. But Claydol actually is Pokemon that I think can be targeted fairly well. like There's...
01:52:00
zzweilous
um a good amount of Cladol answers that I believe in um and that ah essentially leads me to my second core breaker pick I still think Furrid can do it I still think we will see a Furrid champion so Furrid and Typhlosion actually my two Pokemon that haven't been crowned champion yet this season but Typhlosion actually did it in a previous season in Shilkut I'm pretty sure but yeah I think I think both of them are in a good position and maybe even on the same team
01:52:11
William Dunphey
Oh, really?
01:52:23
William Dunphey
oh
01:52:30
William Dunphey
We'll see. Everyone needs to tune and tune into the stream to find out. um Still a Furret believer.
01:52:35
zzweilous
Oh no.
01:52:36
William Dunphey
Wow, wow. i I actually went over to PokemonDatabase.net, a really, really fun site where it's unofficial, right? fan created. But there are lots of different movesets and in ways to explore different Pokemon.
01:52:50
William Dunphey
It looks like in the main series, Talonflame can learn Swift. which is even cheaper energy than Thunder Punch.
01:52:54
zzweilous
oh no
01:52:58
William Dunphey
So maybe if we wanted to give our our Firebird a little buff, maybe we could ah we could give it Swift somewhere down the line, and then it would be even faster than Typhlosion is to the Thunder Punches, right?
01:53:09
William Dunphey
35 energy Swift.
01:53:09
zzweilous
Ah, be careful what you're wishing for.
01:53:12
William Dunphey
Right. I don't know. maybe Maybe one day, maybe one day, everybody. Talented flame ah enjoyers rejoice. um I do like your your core breaker picks. Shadow type flosion. I think there's still some gas left in that tank.
01:53:24
William Dunphey
Do I think it's better than town flame? ah It's arguable. Maybe it gets the water types ah for it. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. It's easy. um I think there is something I wanted to mention in terms of upcoming events.
01:53:39
William Dunphey
I'll just run through them really quickly. Upcoming in-game events. We've got the Crown Clash from May 10th to the 18th. We're going to get King Gambit. I don't know what moveset it's going to get.
01:53:49
William Dunphey
I've seen some speculation online, but I don't know exactly what it will learn.
01:53:51
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:53:53
William Dunphey
May 11th is Palmy Community Day. It's going to gain Brick Break, which is, you know, a fun ah new shiny electric type. Electric types are fun. And then keep your eye on May 13th, which is Sandy Gas Spotlight Hour.
01:54:05
William Dunphey
Palisand, not the best Pokemon. Maybe in Ultra League, it could be some useful spice, but what I'm looking at is the double transfer candy. So clean out your bag, especially with GoFest right around the corner.
01:54:15
William Dunphey
Make sure to transfer as much as you can on Spotlight Hour on Tuesday.
Impact of Rule Changes on Competitive Scene
01:54:19
William Dunphey
Other than that, we've got more GBL, more Great League Remix, some Ultra League, whatever. Go Battle Week is coming up as well, so get ready for a lot of sets.
01:54:30
zzweilous
Also, um one thing that I want to mention, um I think regarding the King Gamut release and that event, um that event is actually going to have a taken over portion.
01:54:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:54:40
zzweilous
So we are going to be able to tm away frustration from our Pokemon. um we are maybe going to um see yeah we're going to see some new shadows. And I think the main ah star of the show is going to be that Shadow Malamar, which um is supposedly supposedly a straight upgrade in the Ultra League and has some very interesting play in Great League as well. So you should make sure to pick one up. TM away frustration if your charged TMs let you still.
01:55:11
zzweilous
That is also like, oh man, we we still, we do need that TM system overhaul because a bunch of friends of mine are not thriving right now.
01:55:13
William Dunphey
ah
01:55:21
zzweilous
Yeah,
01:55:22
William Dunphey
No, including me. I'm not thriving at all.
01:55:25
zzweilous
yeah, yeah.
01:55:27
William Dunphey
TMs.
01:55:27
zzweilous
It's a tough life out here. um But yeah, one important thing to mention about the Shadow Malamar is that the first... event where it is going to be tournament legal, um to my knowledge, is actually going to be NAIC because there have been changes to um what Pokemon can be used at what point in time after its release in the TPCI rulebook.
01:55:49
William Dunphey
OK. Yep.
01:55:50
zzweilous
And there was new rules. I don't have them um right in front of me, but I think I remember them fairly well, which means that if a new Pokemon move or shadow version gets released in the middle of a season,
01:55:57
William Dunphey
okay
01:56:03
zzweilous
um I think the Tuesday, two weeks after release, is the first day that you are allowed to use it in an official competition.
01:56:14
zzweilous
It used to be like a one-week cooldown, but now we are up to a two-week cooldown.
01:56:16
William Dunphey
ye
01:56:19
zzweilous
um But another thing I think is a great addition.
01:56:19
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:56:23
zzweilous
like That is not even a bad change because I think if you look at Seville to Milwaukee, a lot of people have been able to only get their proper tournament-ready Tinkerton within that week.
01:56:35
zzweilous
Therefore, um maybe the imbalance of the two grand finalists having a Tinkerton and then a lot of other top card trainers not having a Tinkerton, um maybe that maybe that can be mitigated a little better with the new ruleset.
01:56:35
William Dunphey
yeah
01:56:50
zzweilous
um But the other thing that is going to change is that we are not ever going to have another half meta again. um If you remember, I think it was Vancouver when we we just had um the moveset change, but you couldn't use a Pokemon that had received a new attack.
01:57:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:57:08
zzweilous
You only could use Pokemon that already were able to learn an attack that maybe had received an update. um which left us in this weird limbo of, okay, you cannot use all the new stuff.
01:57:15
William Dunphey
Yeah, correct.
01:57:21
zzweilous
This is not going to be the the s thing anymore. um Starting with the June meta update, um Play Pokemon will allow... All blog posts feature meta rebalance updates immediately. So once you see um start of June, blog post is dropping, maybe end of May still, but it's going to be implemented start of June.
01:57:45
zzweilous
um New name of the season, they give you the big blog post, they list all the updates. They are good to use immediately.
01:57:53
William Dunphey
So this is interesting because when we look at the rest of the season, the Bologna ah event in Italy is actually May 31st through June 1st. But if you recall, the Go Battle League shift is going to happen on June third so um This date actually works out. And in spite of, like like you said, we might hear the updates early. We might get the blog post a couple of days before.
01:58:16
William Dunphey
ah None of that will be relevant because the updates won't actually get pushed into the game until June 3rd when the season switches over. So ah folks in Bologna, don't worry. Everything is going to stay consistent. You're not goingnna have to catch and build a new Pokemon over the weekend, so to speak, in order to to be competitive.
01:58:34
William Dunphey
So that's a nice change. But yeah, I think this is a good change. um It's been very confusing. I'm going to be honest, like we gave rise and i believe it was, um was it, cut was it Kazim who was able to win in Brazil ah the same weekend as rise?
01:58:51
zzweilous
My name is the European competitor. Kourlash?
01:58:54
William Dunphey
No, it's not Kazim. It's another K, right? Oh my gosh. I feel so bad.
01:58:57
zzweilous
Kourlash.
01:58:58
William Dunphey
I'm blinking.
01:58:58
zzweilous
Kourlash.
01:58:59
William Dunphey
Corlash. Corlash. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Corlash is able to win. We gave them a lot of flowers because they they were able to adjust to a brand new meta, able to really scrim hard and figure out the gaps within a very short window.
01:59:12
William Dunphey
But from a viewer perspective, I'm sure it's confusing as hell from a player perspective. It's very, just you know, dissuasive. If you, if you have to build a one-time meta to compete and have to invest a thousand dollars or so to stay and a hotel and buy a flight and whatever else it's, there's very little incentive to go and actually take that risk.
01:59:30
zzweilous
like You want to watch a tournament and take something away for the next tournament from it, right?
01:59:36
William Dunphey
That, that as well.
01:59:36
zzweilous
And I think we'll we'll get more of that with this change, and I'm a big fan of that.
01:59:42
William Dunphey
Exactly. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that you want to be able to build on things. You want to be able to learn from the best and understand what to do in your own ah tournament appearance. Because a lot, I mean, the majority of trainers only go to maybe one regional per year if they're able to to muster that. So you don't you don't want to spend it on a half meta that you halfway understand, and that's going to be gone the following
Conclusion and Key Announcements
02:00:04
William Dunphey
week. So.
02:00:05
William Dunphey
I think that's a great change. TPCI, always adjusting things. I really appreciate that. and I hope that um players receive it well. It kind of flew under the radar. There wasn't a lot of buildup to this announcement. It just kind of dropped out of nowhere.
02:00:17
William Dunphey
ah But that's you know it's good. We'll see how it how progresses.
02:00:19
zzweilous
just like Just like the change to to remote raiding, right? The cap is going to increase from five to 10.
02:00:24
William Dunphey
Oh.
02:00:26
zzweilous
You will be able to remotely raid into shadow raids now. And you'll also be able to ah go into a max battle from afar if you spend a remote raid pass on that.
02:00:37
zzweilous
So changes are coming to the game.
02:00:38
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:00:40
zzweilous
It's not all stale.
02:00:41
William Dunphey
Now, now all we need is easy is we need that cost. So that will those remote rate passes to come down, just bring that cost down, just bring, bring the, the coin, the coin amount down for those remote rate passes.
02:00:47
zzweilous
Yes, yes, yes.
02:00:52
zzweilous
I want to spend the exact exact same amount, but I want to rate double the amount.
02:00:52
William Dunphey
And we'll be happy.
02:00:57
zzweilous
I think if we can do that, that would be pretty neat.
02:00:59
William Dunphey
Now you're cooking. Now you're cooking. Players would love it. I don't know if ah Niantic HQ would love that idea, but we love that idea. um One more thing I wanted to mention, just just kind of a last ah last point here.
02:01:13
William Dunphey
You were not hallucinating earlier because when we talked about the team from the Indonesia playoffs, Mini Koki running Azumarill, Shadow Kanto Marowak, Alolan Sandslash, Shadow Drapian, Cradilly, and Golisopod, that team...
02:01:29
William Dunphey
If we look at the first event that's going to happen this weekend, that is the TPC Taiwan playoffs. However, the trainer that won the Taiwan qualifiers and is going in as a number one seed to the playoffs is Vincent 070400.
02:01:46
William Dunphey
And guess what Vincent's team is? Azumarill, Shadow Cantamaruwak, Alolan Sansa, Shadow Drapion, Cradilly, and Golisopod. So will that team stay the same for the playoffs?
02:01:56
William Dunphey
It's unclear. But Mini Koki in Indonesia and Vincent in Taiwan both are running the same exact team to this point. So, It was familiar.
02:02:07
William Dunphey
Your instincts did not betray you. You were actually on the money.
02:02:11
zzweilous
Nice.
02:02:12
William Dunphey
I noticed that.
02:02:12
zzweilous
I like being right. I like being right.
02:02:14
William Dunphey
yeah Yeah, i just I was looking at the teams and was like, wait, ZZ is actually on something. But again, i know ah I know that I kind of got it derailed in the middle of the episode and talked about the different events coming up. i Just want to run through this really, really quick so you can mark your calendars.
02:02:28
William Dunphey
May 10th, Taiwan playoffs. May 18th and 19th is a triple header. Utrecht, Santiago, and Melbourne. May 24th and 25th, we have Portland and Durban, South Africa. 34 days to earn championship points because that is when NAIC occurs. So make sure to get in your local cups and challenges.
02:02:47
William Dunphey
The Race to Worlds is wrapping up. So if you're if you're on the leaderboards and you're at number 45, 47, even ah number North America or EU,
02:02:58
William Dunphey
You need to push that number up higher. You need to get those points. Make sure you qualify it for Worlds because this is a marathon this season, not a sprint. Unless you've already won an event. And then you can kind of rest on your laurels.
02:03:08
zzweilous
Thank
02:03:10
William Dunphey
But ZZ, that's all I've got for today. i think this is a really fun episode. We covered six different events. These episodes are huge. ah And I think we did a good job of it. So um I'm pretty proud.
02:03:19
zzweilous
Yeah, i let like I was like, oh, certainly the next episode will feature fewer events. But then I remembered that it's going to happen after the triple header weekend. So, well, no no rest for the two of us, but I love it.
02:03:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:03:34
zzweilous
I'll be at Utrecht, so please say hi if you see me. It's going to be a fun time.
02:03:40
William Dunphey
Uh, everyone don't forget, ZZ charges, uh, 15 us dollars per autograph that goes into the show six fund, which we use to, to, uh,
02:03:47
zzweilous
Yes, this is true. ah used to be five, but tariffs, you know.
02:03:52
William Dunphey
The tariffs are so tough and and it's just the world we live in. So get with the program, everybody. um That money actually goes into the show six podcast fund, which we definitely do not use to buy beers at any IC later this season, but that that's besides the point.
02:04:07
William Dunphey
Anyways, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the episode. ZZ, thank you so much for all your insights. ah Brilliant, insightful as ever. And I hope everyone enjoyed the show. And as he alluded to, we will be back and maybe we will speak with someone who had a great tournament run, had lot of success with Furret and Korvanite.
02:04:26
William Dunphey
Maybe. I'll just leave the emphasis there.
02:04:28
zzweilous
Potentially.
02:04:30
William Dunphey
Potentially. All right, ZZ, have a great one. Talk with you again soon, my friend.
02:04:35
zzweilous
See you soon.