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Ep. 9 EUIC 2024 Recap
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 9 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 week, we recap EUIC 2024. We discuss a solidified meta, touch on the most exciting players that weekend, the failed NA invasion, and the DOMINANT run of MEweedle. We also discuss some new episode ideas, and our thoughts on Orlando & Perth this weekend.
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
European Triumph in the Biggest Pokemon Go Tournament
00:00:00
Speaker
The biggest Pokemon Go tournament of all time has come to an end. When everybody was wondering who could put a stop to the American Giants onslaught, a world champion rose up to keep the European crown where it belongs. Today, the Show 6 podcast will look back at the European International Championship. So let's lock in, good luck and have fun.
European Regional Championship: ME Weedle's Victory
00:00:47
Speaker
Welcome, welcome everyone. My name is Zees Wylis, and as always, I am here with Speedy as Chief 2 to celebrate the championship of ME Weedle, our new European regional champion. Are you excited, Speedy?
00:01:02
Speaker
Oh, I'm thrilled. And you know, you said, as always, I was kind of expecting for you to switch me out for an EU, uh, co-host after one EUIC, but yeah, I'm really excited to get into this one. This is going to be a fun recap. We had our pre-show for EUIC where we made some predictions, but it's going to be good to kind of look at where the dust settled and how everything kind of fell into place. For sure. For sure. Especially because.
00:01:26
Speaker
it was the exact kind of showdown that we expected. It wasn't even high noon, it wasn't quite noon yet, but we did have Doonbach 97 as the American representative, the American who managed to get double regional championship titles before trying to conquer the European continent, or at least the United Kingdom. And it was basically
00:01:53
Speaker
exactly what we wanted. The Americans facing off against the Europeans and it being so, so close. But yeah, like it was just any real cinnamon. Two years ago, he became the very first Go World Champion, basically at this exact location, the Excel in London, in the Seniors Division back then, but still against competition like Vadash, PVP David. The Seniors are some of the best players and now he's taking on the Masters.
00:02:23
Speaker
Damn, what a performance.
Emi Weedle's Home Field Advantage in London
00:02:25
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, at what point do we start calling the Excel center, like the home field for Emmy Weedle? At what point do we start that conversation? You know, he's got a home field advantage, so to speak, not only just, you know, being from, from the EU region, but also that particular venue.
00:02:40
Speaker
is is pretty stunning but this is something we talked about in our pre-show as well like i really felt like emmy wheedle had been fighting very hard to get the respect of his peers right because in all the in all the recordings and all the the different spotlights always dancing rob first world champion and
00:02:57
Speaker
And Emi Weedle accomplished a lot beating all the seniors. Like you said, a lot of the, a lot of those trainers like Boudage, Birdpower, and Allen, those are trainers that have gone on to win their own regional championships and, and ICs. So it really felt like he was coming up against the next generation. He was holding his own. And there were also some echoes of his 2022 run. For example, on championship Sunday, he wore the same Pokemon pants that he wore in his full Pokemon suit that he won. Yeah, I remember him from that.
00:03:26
Speaker
And everyone in the chat was saying, oh, why is he wearing pajamas? It's not pajamas. It's actually a suit. It's actually the opposite, but people just didn't get it. It's all right. Yeah, like honestly, it was so fun. This is a little bit off on the side, but just when you walk with like your friends through London during the UIC weekend,
00:03:49
Speaker
And not everybody in London obviously knows that there's a big Pokemon event going on. But sometimes people on the sidewalk just stop and ask where you got that gear from, why it's a Pokemon clothing item that looks so good. And then you can tell them about where to get it. And this came up during the weekend where people were just wondering, oh, this looks actually kind of fun.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we are definitely rocking that Pokemon suit or at least the pajama pants that belong to it. Yeah, at least half of it, right? Maybe he just wanted to play Pokemon t-shirt, which I admittedly still do not have one. So, yeah. I believe it's from the weekend. That was a good haul.
Meta Dynamics: Shadow Gligar and Charge Bug
00:04:40
Speaker
Nice, good haul, as they say. Yeah, with the shinies and even the shirts.
00:04:44
Speaker
But I thought the meta was pretty interesting for EUIC. Some of what we predicted, but I have some pretty startling numbers going back over our top 32. I'm curious what you thought. Was it pretty much what you expected? A lot of Shadow Gligar, a lot of Charge Bug, or was it surprising? I have to say that I think most of it at this point is very predictable.
00:05:07
Speaker
in so far as staples will stay staples. And I think we've seen enough from probably about a dozen regionals now that we know what is currently thriving, currently popular and powerful in the meta, but there's still movement. And that is what I'm excited to see. Because if you look at the top 32, it's the largest top cut we ever had.
00:05:35
Speaker
because it's the largest tournament we ever had. It was 20 competitors. So basically the top 10% of those entered the second day of the competition. And I don't think any of us really thought that we'd see four Claude Sire in top cut, which is a Pokemon that really burst onto the scene as, oh, the new core breaker, the new potentially centralizing meta threat.
00:06:02
Speaker
Then it received its moveset, and then it was kind of forgotten about. But I do think that CloudSci actually has a bit of an opening currently, especially if you run it with a dark type such as Mandibuzz or GusLord, which we've seen over the weekend, just because its biggest threats are kind of on their way out. If we look at the overall
00:06:32
Speaker
Like the nuances of the choices that were made, I think a lot more Cresselia opted to go for the move set of Grass Nod and Moondust rather than Grass Nod and Future side.
Strategic Shifts: Cresselia and Mandibuzz's Rise
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah. Emi Weedle's Cresselia that took it all was actually a Grass Nod, Moondust's Cresselia to be better prepared for threads like the Grass Nod that
00:06:56
Speaker
goes from a matchup that you don't even win with a two shield advantage to a matchup that you only lose if your opponent invests two shields and you don't invest any. So that's definitely a shift with the lack of the psychic type damage that really helped the Claude Sire to the forefront a little bit.
00:07:18
Speaker
I mean, back when, uh, I competed in San Antonio and I brought, I brought the bronze zone. Yes, it was a little bit cheesy. It was definitely a cheesy pick, but one of the wins that had picked up was Claude Sire. And I agree with the first part of what you said. I basically blocked you out after that. You said Claude Sire is a Pokemon.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yes, I agree. It definitely is a Pokemon. It is the Pokemon up all the time. It is. It is. It is true. It is true. It felt like it was going to be really tough to bring that Pokemon, given all the whisk, gash, given all the Gligar and even like like you mentioned, the chrysalia with future site, they can hit it for super effective or even the neutral grass knots. It seems like an interesting pick. And I remember when it was first introduced, we had a very, in my opinion, a very RPS kind of grand finals where we had a lot of polywrath.
00:08:04
Speaker
that beat the cloud sire, but then we had a lot of charge bug that the cloud sire beat. And it was kind of like this triangle of of charge a bug versus Poliwrath, Poliwrath versus Claude sire, Claude sire versus charge bug. And that kind of rotating meta, I kind of saw that in the grand finals and I thought, ah, this doesn't look very fun. But I do think it's interesting because when you go to PVPoke and you plug in some of these top tier teams, you know, top four, top five different teams, Claude sire comes up as a core breaker for a lot of them.
00:08:32
Speaker
And I'm, I'm wondering exactly why that is. And of course you have to look deeper into the Sims and see, does it come out with HP? Does it come out with energy? Are you basically spending this Pokemon to beat just one of these picks or can it carry itself through multiple matchups? That's always an important question, but to your point about pairing it with Mandibuzz or Guzzlord.
00:08:50
Speaker
Not only does the poison and dark synergy work very well there as to protect you against fairy types, but it's also HP, right? It's also so much bulk. And we see a lot of trainers like even Caleb, not only at EUIC, but in his, um, his locals.
00:09:05
Speaker
He'll bring Manda buzz. He'll bring basket on. He'll bring Claude sire. I think as well. Car bank just loading up on HP is so important in order to find flexibility and match ups. That's another reason why I think Manda buzz was so prominent at EUIC, which is something that also kind of popped onto the scene. Cause we had seen a lot of, excuse me, a lot of talent flame, a lot of Pelipper, a lot of Gligar, but seeing much more Manda buzz I thought was also interesting.
00:09:30
Speaker
I think like you just talked about, Oh, what comes up as a core breaker when you look on PV poke and see, okay, how can I, how can I target these top meta teams? I feel like Mandiboss is probably the one Pokemon that comes up the most. It has positive match ups against.
00:09:46
Speaker
So many meta staples, like Laiga has to throw its less energy efficient move in aerial A's. Wiscash can't much shot this down ever and probably needs like three to four skulls depending
Shadow Gligar's Dominance and Team Strategy
00:10:00
Speaker
on whether it's shadow or non-shadow.
00:10:03
Speaker
and try licking down a dark type. Even Annihilate, which typically Manibar's biggest problem used to be that it's a flier that can't really hurt the fighters. If you run it with Snarl and Aerial Ace, that's not much faster pressure at all.
00:10:23
Speaker
especially against bulky fighters, also a charge attack that barely even two shots. But an ILA, unlike Pokemon such as Poliwrath, Vigoroth, or back in the day Medicham, typically does not run moves that hit the Mandibuzz for super effective. There's no ice coverage on it, there's no raw coverage on it, there can be ice coverage on it, but Ice Punch has not been the preferred secondary charge attack for it. So yeah, Mandibuzz really a Pokemon that
00:10:54
Speaker
was very close to making my core breaker prediction, but I'm glad it didn't because those three core breakers that I predicted actually placed first or fourth. The best man of us came in fifth place with PVP David.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I went back through the numbers and I sent you those screenshots. And in our, in our DMS, you were saying, yeah, I pretty much nailed all these core breakers. I don't think I could have predicted much better than this. And yeah, yeah, you know, you have that. I think, I think Palasha saved you with the shadow of Magneso, but that's just my opinion.
00:11:30
Speaker
But yeah, Mandibuzz is definitely a Pokémon that can go toe-to-toe with a lot of the fighters, but also the hard-walling Likitung is incredibly valuable. Having Flex Play against Cresselia is actually crazy. And if you look at the top picks here for our top 32, I broke everything down by Pokémon choice. And Mandibuzz was actually the third most popular flyer in our top 32 with 10 teams.
00:11:52
Speaker
out of the 32 having it present. So seeing a lot of Mandibuzz, interesting. I think that's also kind of harkens back to Aries winning the first ever EUIC with his air slash Mandibuzz. So kind of echoes of the past here and there.
00:12:07
Speaker
What I wanted to ask you as well, like, I think like, as we move through the meta conversation, there, there's probably a few other things we want to point out, but keep this in your mind. I want to ask you if you feel like we need more changeups before worlds, or if you're happy with the meta as it is. So let's bank that. We'll talk about that in a couple of minutes, but, um, were there any other picks that really shocked you? Because, uh, honestly, the most used pick in the entire top 32 surprised me a lot. Uh, we talked about NA and EU having their differences, but.
00:12:37
Speaker
We really united on Shadow Glagar at 19 out of 32 teams having it.
00:12:44
Speaker
I am not at all surprised at that for the simple reason that unless your opponent has an ice type, which is very difficult to bring in this current environment, there was some alone in Sandslash. One actually took it all. And there was like a 2-1 or two. But ice types were a lot more prevalent in the previous meta, where Frostless won multiple tournaments, I think.
00:13:13
Speaker
Um, like even, even an Obama Snow, a Gligar can fight back against. So like, if you have a Gligar on your team, that is a Pokemon that is a relatively, relatively reliable safe swap.
00:13:26
Speaker
We do have a lot of teams that are built to have at least one polarizing answers to all the meta staples. And sometimes people opt for the Skarmory to really wall the Glyga and all its energy. But for about 50% of teams, I would say, Glyga is a really safe thing to just bring in, get ahead on energy, and either set up a farm zone for a better secondary matchup,
00:13:55
Speaker
or it just fell out takes which advantage. So I do think that with its quick pacing, it's great natural bulk and it's amazing coverage. Gläger being the number one staple of this tournament is not at all surprising.
00:14:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Well, I you know, I went back through the footage I tracked a lot of the matches on day two and I didn't look at the exact numbers But what I noticed a lot is that in particular dune bug was safe switching his shadow Gligar and not only safe switching it consistently but also giving it all all of his protect shields it almost seemed like he leaned on that Pokemon more than anything else and
00:14:33
Speaker
And as you watch these matchups, right, you can kind of pick up on things, especially upon the second viewing, because I watched the tournament VOD, and then I watched it again in order to to track teams and try to get up to date. But it felt like people were leaning on Shadow Gligar, like you said, not only to take switch advantage, but also to set up secondary matchups. And you would see a lot of the time where where Doonbug and other players would chip and then bring in the Shadow Gligar. And it was often against Pokemon like Cresselia, which you would think that
00:15:01
Speaker
it was
00:15:16
Speaker
He only brought his shadow lowland sand slash one time in all of his day two battles. And he did not bring it at all in the grand finals. It's such a polarizing Pokemon, such a tough bring. And I feel like if you guess wrong and you leave that sand slash into anything, a whisk, cash, a, a, a polywrath, a vigoroth, then you're just so far behind, especially against a high caliber player that there's no way really to come back.
00:15:41
Speaker
I have actually, I will not mention names, so I don't give away strategies, but I talked to a friend of mine who is preparing to enter a qualifying tournament. And we were basically cooking up a little team of six, and we settled on five pigs really quickly. He likes to play safe, bulky Pokemon that have flexible play into a lot of things. And while I do think
00:16:07
Speaker
um sand slash alone in sand slash is a pokemon that has flexible play into a lot of things it is not safe or bulky and i was trying to make the case for putting it as the sixth one on the team anyway um just because it is bench pressure
00:16:26
Speaker
You, you've been talking about, um, like we've been talking about the whole Gligar situation. Um, especially if you have, um, the Alolan sand stash with the faster tech powder snow, which I am still a little bit more of a fan of, even though I do completely see how, um, the shadow claw faster tech makes sense on certain team compositions. Um, but especially if you have that pressure, like the threat of, um, the powder snow is just farming down this
00:16:57
Speaker
Supposedly save Gligar or an Altaria or taking the Likitang matchup rather comfortably, then you just prevent a lot of strategies because not only do you want a Pokemon that does well when it's brought onto the field,
00:17:15
Speaker
You also want to have a Pokemon in your team that just makes your opponent think twice about opting for certain strategies.
Team Building: Doonbug's Approach vs Other Players
00:17:24
Speaker
If you look at Emmy Wieder's Team of Six, you will see that the Skeletorch actually breaks a core that Junberg really likes to rely on, which is the Skarmory Annihilate Core.
00:17:38
Speaker
This is basically a combination of Pokémon that we see in the Go Battle League a lot, and it's only really core broken by a handful of viable Pokémon, and Skeletorch is one of them. So even though DUMBUG is really well prepared for a potential Skeletorch on this opponent's team,
00:17:57
Speaker
he will still always have to consider that threat just because it exists. And therefore, especially with somebody like Dunberg, who does like to, like Dunberg does not like, he's basically the opposite of Arrow, right? Like Arrow just struts in his team calls. And if he gets it wrong, he doesn't mind losing the game immediately. We saw that during EUIC. And that is like a high risk, high reward strategy.
00:18:25
Speaker
And I do think Dunberg just trusts his ability to outplay his opponent so much that he never really builds a line that could immediately lose the game because it's ABA weak to a major threat. And Pokemon like Alolan Sandslash, Pokemon like Skeletorch establish those threats from the get-go and thus make it more difficult for the opponent to build a safe and solid line to tackle those potential threats.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, the core breaker discussion is always an interesting one because in my mind, going into this tournament, I didn't think Skeletorj would be that strong given the prevalence of Skarmory and not Annihilate core, but Skarmory and Whiscash core. I mean, we see it all the time, even in the freaking Jungle Cup. You can't get away from Skarmory, Whiscash. It feels like- Tell me about it. Typically, you have a Quack Zion also. They have all the mud boys.
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, once I see a skarmory lead, if they say swap a water type, you know, maybe it's quag, maybe it's, it's lantern. I always think, yeah, there's a, a dam was cashed in the back no matter what. Um, but that aside, right? It seems like that core is, is very, very tough to break, but I think that's another, another level as well for these trainers is not only predicting picks, you know, we talk about a lot about individual picks like mandibas, or we look at Gus Lord, for example, but.
00:19:46
Speaker
predicting cores is definitely super important and something that a lot of trainers that Succeed at a high level do very well, and I feel like there's not enough discussion about that, right? We talk about good picks good solo, you know Pokemon that that are wild cards But I think that maybe we could even do like a whole a whole segment one day dedicated to course because I know actually like I don't know whether you read through my notes already, but I actually I
00:20:11
Speaker
have like, I made some cliff notes about both the grand finalist teams. And my first sentence on Dunberg is basically, or Dunberg builds in course, like he always goes with like Pokemon, okay, they are neutrally safe and strong and sometimes bulky. But they also always have this one counterpart on the team, like our lantern.
00:20:34
Speaker
Licki Time and Annihilape, Skarmory and Shadow Viscash. Those Pokemon, they are played together a lot in the Go Battle League just because they cover each other so well. And Dunmark basically took the three most powerful cores we currently have that also can intersect in a way. I talked about the Skarmory and Annihilape core when the actual
00:20:57
Speaker
core on paper would probably be Skarmory and Wiscash, but those Pokémon can stick together, like the puzzle pieces fit in various different ways. Interesting. Yeah, that way, that way, Dromberg maintains a high level of safety when team-building, just because he always has a Pokémon that covers the weaknesses of his others.
00:21:17
Speaker
This is something I've thought about quite a bit actually, and I think a lot about the, the gap between go battle league and show six pick three. And I feel like we do, we create tons of go battle league guides, right? We talk about how to play a certain team, you know, what to do in certain leads and that kind of.
00:21:33
Speaker
you know switch scenarios and that kind of thing but i feel like creating a show sixteen guide like saying you're matching up against this other team of six which core is most optimal or which which other course you do pivot to give in the situation based on what you're seeing i think that is worth like its own study and that's something we all do kinda mentally but i don't think it's ever been really written down.
00:21:54
Speaker
Not trying to get too much on an aside here, but I feel like as we look to grow our community, you know, with podcasts like ours and other things that we were doing, I feel like discussions like that are super important. So I don't know, maybe we should do a core breakdown as well. A lot of ideas today.
00:22:09
Speaker
I would love to see that.
Unique Strategies: Palasha and Lurgan Rocket
00:22:10
Speaker
Also, I think a while ago, I saw a visualization on X, formerly known as Twitter, by the very successful North American trainer, Anhoff, who basically gave a little insight in how the course on her teams of six worked together and how those course enabled lines.
00:22:32
Speaker
going up against specific team combinations. I would love to see more content such as that one. Yeah. Anna's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And a lot of the things that she analyzes and points out are just at another level, but yeah, definitely. Maybe we should touch base with her as well.
00:22:49
Speaker
Uh, but that being said, there were some pretty impressive runs at EUIC. Um, some interesting, interesting picks, right? We have our top 32 and that that's all all funding or excuse me, our top 16 that you and I predicted and that's all fun and good, but there were a lot of surprises. Are there any trainers that you wanted to single out? Um, I actually don't know that I would call them surprises. Like there were some people that did really well that I didn't necessarily have.
00:23:18
Speaker
on my radar in terms of how will I put them into my top 16. But all of these trainers have accomplished notable things before, I would say. The one thing I would love to talk about is the magnet zone in the room, Paul Ascher 97's run to fourth place.
00:23:39
Speaker
It was probably the spiciest pic to do well, and as someone who ran Magnezone to legend this season in the Ultra League, as someone who's been a Magnezone enthusiast for years now, I just love to see the spokesman do well, and I think with a little bit of
00:24:00
Speaker
Like, a little bit less Whiscash than usually. Still a lot of Whiscash, but some people opted to not double down on the grass sweetness and just run the lantern and not the Whiscash. With that, the Shadow Magna Zone had so much play. Versus some of her opponents, she could basically save swap it. She didn't do that, she typically had it in the lead because if you're Wildshark, you want to clear the debuff, but
00:24:27
Speaker
Um, damn, like those more charges, they just came flying out and they rarely ever got shielded. Um, Polish are also amazing stage presence. This is the exact type of content that we want to see at home. And I've talked to, um, plenty of people like competitors, um, casual PVPers and.
00:24:50
Speaker
Everybody was basically just cheering for the Magnezone in the way Paul Ascher piloted it on stage. Definitely a fan favorite. Very, very sensible call as well with the Artaria being the very hard answer to Wiscash and Castalia a more flexible secondary answer. That really kept the Magnezone safe and in a position to do really well in this tournament.
00:25:16
Speaker
I feel like Palasha should trademark that the Palasha pop off, because, like you said, her pop ups are awesome right so jump out of the chair so look at the crowd and she'll, she'll you know clutch her fist and say, Yeah, let's go you know let's go baby. It's like if I if I was like working for TPCI.
00:25:36
Speaker
assembling those highlight reels for the big competitions. I will always hope for a Deep Polasha run just because all of these combos are exactly that what play Pokemon wants to be. Just high level gameplay, huge emotions and just the celebration of this competitive spirit and doing it in style as well.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, Palasha was incredible to watch. And like you said, putting the Magnezone in the lead, which is when you see certain Pokemon like Defense Form Deoxys with Psycho Boost or like a super power user in a Go Battle League Cup, you might see like Melmetal in the lead because it can super power and it can switch out. We saw Palasha leading the Magnezone, which was definitely a bit predictable, but it was still unstoppable. And it was for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. I was looking back over our top 32 numbers and what really shocked me
00:26:28
Speaker
just absolutely floored me was that we had exactly 14 shed of Wisconsin, our top 32, but we had only three regular ones in our top 32. So total of 17 was cash, which is half the field basically, but.
00:26:43
Speaker
majority shadow, which is really, really interesting. And when you see the Magnuson wild charge hit against a whisk cache, even though it's, you know, single resisted or a Gligar where it's also single resisted, resisted, it still slaps. I mean, the wild charge is vicious. And I think she even, uh, one-shotted, if I'm not mistaken, a Poliwrath with the wild charges. The infamous, Oh, I will call the bait here because obviously they, they know that I have the shields and.
00:27:11
Speaker
want to preserve some energy. Nope. Nope. That's just, that's just another one church. I'm sorry. Yeah, that was wild. I really liked, um, uh, I'm not sure there's anyone ahead is wild, wild indeed. I really liked her matchup against Lurgan rocket because, um, when we look at, at trainers, it really stood out to me. I thought that Lurgan rockets catches, uh, were insane. He was just on fire all weekend long.
00:27:37
Speaker
Uh, for example, game two versus Mr. McAlvin, he caught grass, not on his dugong to seal up the game. And then versus stone collection in game one, he actually got the peekaboo play. And whenever I see a peekaboo happen on stage, I always hope that butters is casting because he just loses his mind. Let's see. Oh my God. That's the peekaboo gets from Logan. He does it again.
00:28:02
Speaker
He loves it. It's probably his favorite, his favorite play in the, in the playbook. Right. But seeing Lurgan play so well was, was really impressive. And then when he finally met Palasha, I felt like he met his match in Palasha versus Lurgan was definitely one of the most hype match-ups of the entire weekend.
00:28:18
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. Lurgan, another of those trainers where you just see the reactions that we want to get out of this, just because he comes into these matches with confidence. He comes into these matches with the knowledge, for example. I don't even know who he played in that particular matchup.
00:28:40
Speaker
But on Thursday night we talked a little at the Fox, which is the bar next to the Xcel Center, the little pub that provides all the competitors with whatever drinks they desire the night before.
00:28:57
Speaker
And we were talking about strategies, and it's basically his favorite topic, IVs a little. We didn't get into it too deep, but he was talking about, oh, I'm still looking for an even better Cresselia. I already have a really good Cresselia, which is the signature Pokemon, by the way.
00:29:20
Speaker
And like a really good Cresselia can pull this off. And then he showed me like a PV pokesim where Cresselia survived two Exorcers from Chargerbug on exactly one HP and then got to the move that took out the Chargerbug.
00:29:38
Speaker
And he pulled that off on stage once, where he just let the Exorcist go, survived on exactly one HP, and then got to, I think it was a Moonburst, and I think it was a Moonburst Cassandra as well. And that didn't knock out the Chargiburg, maybe because it was HP-weighted, but just the confidence in knowing
00:29:56
Speaker
that your Cresselia will survive this exercise on exactly one HP. Having basically a PV poke sim in your hand, even though the modules are so slim and you can't really... How confident can you really be that the Charter Bug is not attack weighted and it does like one more HP?
00:30:14
Speaker
But no, not even a flinching. He had that moment and he had another moment against Mr. McAlvin. And this one just set off an alarm in my head. But game one versus Mr. McAlvin on day two, they both led Chris Elia and Mr. McAlvin through a moon blast. And and I think the commentators actually pointed this out. Logan was just going straight for the grass knot because he knew it took two grass knots to take down the opposing Chris Elia. And then after you moon blasted, you'd be a little bit further behind on energy. Right. Which which makes sense.
00:30:42
Speaker
But just watching that play out and thinking that, you know, we talked about Emmy Weedle's home field advantage, right? Facing Emmy Weedle in the Excel is, is kind of a death sentence. You don't want to do that, right? It's, it's not, not going to turn out well for you in most cases. Facing off against Lurgan Rocket in a Cresselia Mira match also not going to go.
00:31:01
Speaker
It's not going to go your way, my friend. I'm sorry to say it, but that he is just much more comfortable, much more in tune with that Pokemon.
Signature Pokemon Picks in Competitive Play
00:31:08
Speaker
And I really think it's fascinating because in the first season of Play Pokemon, we just kind of talked about the matchups, what was going on, because we didn't have player history. But now that we have all this history that's compiled over the last two or three years, we can start to point these things out. And I think that if anyone owns a signature pick, it's definitely lurking in his Griselea.
00:31:26
Speaker
A lot of players like, uh, like arrow, just kind of having, um, you know, betting on their, on their leads, betting on their team compositions. And then when that doesn't turn out, it is a little bit unfortunate. I think he had a pretty tough run against, if I'm not mistaken, status, Stan, uh, running ABA flyers into a, uh, a lantern of, if I'm not mistaken. And, uh, I, I screenshotted his face, uh, after he, um, because it, because arrow, arrow actually messaged me. He was like, Hey man, you know,
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, I, um, I had, I had a tough run with, with my ABA calls, but, uh, it's, that's just how I play, you know, ABA will be the death of me, but that's just how I play. And, uh, I was watching back the VOD and it was so creepy because as he wrote me that I was watching the VOD and I saw the moment and I just screensharted the moment where he threw his head back and he was like, Oh man, the year we go. But I noticed that Stan also playing a ton of ABA, a lot of, a lot of Skarmory and Altaria, uh, combination teams, if I'm not mistaken.
00:32:24
Speaker
I remember starting knocking me out of the Liverpool Regional Championship with a hard ABA to Skeletorch. So yeah, he's not a stranger to ABA either. ABA, I think we should... I think I finally figured out what ABA stands for, which is the arrow battle approach. Oh my god!
00:32:47
Speaker
So this is actually this is actually not how the Pokemon are are placed in the line. It's just it's just his trademark. It comes from the name Arrow. And apparently it worked out for him like he top cut the largest event of all time. He made top 16. I think shared ninth place.
00:33:07
Speaker
Which is just really impressive, especially with another Spiciest. There's a Shadow Charizard, which I will get to another Shadow Charizard in a second. But then there is a Gaslord, another one of those little off-meta Corebreakers, and a Whimsicord. A Whimsicord is not off-meta. Whimsicord is just Spice. It's just straight-up Spice. Kind of does what Cresselja does, but worse.
00:33:33
Speaker
But that's kind of what makes it fun, because people know the Cresselia matchups because they prepare for them. Maybe they don't know all the winsy-caught matchups.
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah, another funny anecdote about Arrow is on his team, like you pointed out, the Guzzlord and the Wimsicott are the two picks to stand out. But when you look at the rest of the team, you know, Guzzlord, Shadow Charizard, Lantern, Shadow Gligar, Skarmory, Wimsicott, he sent it to me and I was like, dude, you know, there's a Pokemon that exists and it's called Skarmory, right? And he said, yeah, but I only have like one or two hard losses and I could play around the other ones.
00:34:09
Speaker
And I said, that's the difference, right? Maybe you can do it, but I look at your team and I say, how the hell are you going to run? Whimsicot into a Skarmory meta shadow, Gligar into a Skarmory meta, Guzzlord into a Skarmory meta without a Skeletor without a, you know, a Bastion or something that really backs it up. And he just made it work, which is, which is definitely impressive. You can't bet against arrow, uh, and what he's able to do, but yeah, finishing ninth, not good enough for him, but I think getting the championship points is definitely worth it.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't even on his home turf, right? I think he probably has set his sights on NEIC and will definitely give it another go there.
00:34:46
Speaker
I would be surprised if not. And yeah, like speaking of Skarmory, that was another thing that got a little bit unnoticed just because of the lantern situation in game two versus Datastan. But his team composition in game one was the Shadow Glider lead with the Whimsicot in the back, if I'm not mistaken. Oh my gosh!
00:35:09
Speaker
Stan brought the Skarmory, but it was not elite. So it was not as immediately obvious that that was another hard, hard ABA call. But yeah, like taking risks is part of being a successful competitor. So I have to give it to Arrow. Like he, he definitely tried to overcome a really difficult team composition and he took those risks and this time it didn't work out for him. But yeah, why not? Why not the next time?
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely could. Now, there's so many fun trainers to watch and watching their progress through the top cut, especially, especially making it deep into top cut. Like you mentioned, Palasha was a fun one to watch. She had a lot of pop offs. I really enjoyed seeing a bit of shadow for alligator play in the tournament. We won't touch on that too much, but I did. I do think it's cool to see those those Pokemon succeed and in tough situations. But yeah, I mean, I'm not sure the meta.
00:36:07
Speaker
I feel like that thing that we banked for later might need to come up now. Unless there's another player you want to highlight. There's one player that we have not talked about, and we should talk about him. And his name is It's Axon. The world champion of the European continent with an appearance.
00:36:30
Speaker
And he did make top card, just barely managed to sneak in, but that's okay. Nobody is doubting accessibility. Nobody is in a position to do that. And I think it's very noteworthy that he did it with the exact core that won last year's EOSC. He had the Shadow Dragonaire and the Shadow Charizard.
00:36:54
Speaker
I don't know whether he thought this was actually the best team of six to bring into this tournament, or whether he just thought it would be funny, because Staunton did it last year, maybe he can do it this time. I think it was funny. I love these Pokémon, especially Shadow Charizard, it's one of my favorites. Shadow Dragonair I don't always love. I have a really good one that gets a Lickitung Breakpoint, so it has grown on me. It is annoying to face in the Go Battle League though.
00:37:24
Speaker
Still, I think it's a very fun team. Yeah, I wonder whether Axim kind of wants to go on a bit of an Emmy Wiedel trajectory, where Emmy Wiedel became world champion in the Seniors Division, won a tournament in the Masters Division in Stuttgart more than a year ago, a year and a half ago.
00:37:49
Speaker
And then he entered, I think, five tournaments total and his average placement in those tournaments was like 30th place. Everybody's still here, okay, Emmy, that's one of the most skilled battles in Europe.
00:38:05
Speaker
It took him a while to go from the victory in Stuttgart back in the day to another top-top performance, where you aren't just like top-cutting or coming close or having some respectable battles, but really that big success. And I wonder whether I accidentally sangri again, because a key play is like 7th and 13th before EUIC, now he came shared 25th.
00:38:31
Speaker
All of these are really good performances, but I feel like the world champion should probably be looking to maybe add another medal to the collection. And that would be really interesting whether there will be like a little bit often. It doesn't even have to be a redemption run because he doesn't have to redeem himself for anything. But I just, I just would love to see my excellent tournaments, honestly. Well,
00:38:55
Speaker
In my mind it,
Competitive Challenges: Burnout and Prioritization
00:38:58
Speaker
so, okay. So you and I, before we started recording, we talked about the difference between a tier players and S tier players. And I feel like a lot of trainers are able to maintain a certain level, but it's very, very difficult to maintain S tier performance all the time. I mean, just this season, we, we heard on Twitter that Wadaj had taken a step back from competitive Pokemon.
00:39:20
Speaker
And he had essentially kind of burned himself out trying to always be at the top, trying to always top cut. And after all of his success to end the season, uh, last, last season in 2023, and then come out and win the first tournament of 2024 against Lyle Jeffs in the finals, I might mention, uh, it really felt like he had a couple of, of, I think two or three kind of very, very underperforming tournament performances. You know, I think he finished like,
00:39:46
Speaker
20th or 30th and a couple of regionals. And then he just announced I'm going to EUIC to spectate because I'm just I'm burned out. And I feel like as a competitor, it's all about balance. And with accident, I mean, he's been streaming consistently. This is one of the only tournaments he's actually competed in. I almost feel like if he pushed himself really hard to try to win all these tournaments all the time, maybe he doesn't have the mental bandwidth to do it. And maybe it really comes down to can you perform when
00:40:15
Speaker
the lights are the brightest and when the stage is the biggest. And do you really need to top cut and maybe even maybe make top eight at every regional or I see that you attend or or do you just kind of bide your time, save your energy and really go hard into meta reading and trying to figure things out when it really matters because he already has his his world's qualification locked in being the previous world champion. So some players are able to do it.
00:40:42
Speaker
They're able to consistently succeed at a very high level, win tournaments over and over. But even at VGC, Wolf Glick won the biggest tournament to date, and then he pushed himself so hard in competitive Pokemon that he actually ended up taking three months off and just not even playing the game, just taking a huge step away from it.
00:41:02
Speaker
because he wasn't enjoying it he didn't like doing it and he felt like he had exhausted himself after that three-month break he came back and won the next biggest regional championship of all time so it really in my mind it comes down to balance and the question is we still don't know what kind of trainer accent is and we still don't know if if
00:41:22
Speaker
twenty twenty three was just something where the stars align and things went well or if we're gonna be looking at you know array rizzo situation in vgc where we see accident in twenty three accident twenty four accident twenty five you know we we don't know what we're gonna get yet there's two things i want to highlight here um the first thing is that um well i don't think we quite have uh a wolf click in
00:41:45
Speaker
Pokemon Go just yet, somebody with that kind of history, that kind of pedigree, and also that kind of passion for content creation full time, basically, with a whole production team behind him and just videos that reach millions of people. That is the best case scenario for a Pokemon game, in my opinion, to have somebody who has the success to back it up
00:42:12
Speaker
who is reasonably charismatic and who just basically carries that torch and inspires others to pick up the game. But I do think that Axiom is actually probably one of the players who is in the most similar position from our pool of elite Pokemon Go competitors.
Community Contributions: Streaming and Outreach
00:42:32
Speaker
just because his stream after his World Championship title grew rapidly. It brings in a lot of players who are newer to the game, who maybe enjoy the vibes that are maybe less reliant on knowing certain inside jokes. And he's very thorough when it comes to his gameplay and explaining his decisions. And I think he really does a great service to the community by picking up streaming as the reigning World Champion.
00:43:01
Speaker
I think that it's just amazing for the outreach. So I definitely don't want to say, oh, like, please, please stop focusing on all your other ventures and go competing because I just enjoy watching you compete. So definitely respect to, to accent in that regard.
00:43:21
Speaker
But also, what was the other thing? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were... I know you didn't mean it like that, but the way you phrased the last portion of it was a little bit as if you were wondering whether 2023 was an outlier for Axon. But wasn't he the 2022 NAIC International Champion already?
00:43:44
Speaker
That's true. I think we actually, if there is anyone we know is here to stay in terms of the performances, it's probably Axan. I also want to point out that Emmy Wiedel and it's Axan are now the two only people that won a regional level event, an international and a world championship title.
00:44:07
Speaker
Hmm. It's hard. It's hard to bet against that resume. Yeah, I didn't mean it as any slight to accident. I'm sorry if it came off that way. Uh, but I definitely feel like I, this is strange, right? Because I feel like there are levels to this. I feel like a regional championship is definitely a huge accomplishment and you should be really proud of it. And in a lot of ways it is equivalent competitively to an IC or, or to, um, to a larger competition.
00:44:32
Speaker
but I feel like an IC is a different level than a regional and a world championship is a different level than an IC because you're at worlds you're up against the best of all the other regional championships and it's just a whole different level. So yeah, it's definitely on an outlier for him. I think Axan will continue to be competitive at a high level. I think that's a name that you read on a roster and you think at any point that trainer could win the entire tournament. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, but I do feel like
00:44:59
Speaker
something special has to happen for a world champion to win it. And in regards to seeing repeat world champions, that's definitely something we haven't had yet, but we will eventually have, by all matter of mathematics and statistics, it will happen. Eventually we will have repeat world champions. Will Axson be the first one? Hard to tell.
00:45:20
Speaker
But, um, there are a couple of other players I wanted to shout out just briefly. Uh, I want to shout out our LATAM community who went and competed at EUIC. Uh, Ventuski, you and I both believed in, uh, was going to make a, uh, a nice run. They did end up, I think finishing 17th overall.
00:45:36
Speaker
It was definitely very impressive for the, for the, uh, the Chilean, uh, battler, definitely very impressive for Ventuski. I also want to shout out to Obed-O-Mek. Uh, Obed-O-Mek actually made a deeper run than Ventuski. I think finishing tied for 13th and he had some pretty impressive wins eventually getting knocked out by, by Pobland, excuse me, not Poblandinas, eventually getting knocked out by Sandodu.
00:45:57
Speaker
And Obed is funny because he's very humble. He competes here and there, but he's not one of these tournament grinders. But knowing him personally, I said, I wanted to feature you on the on the EUIC pre-show, but there was no footage of you in the tournaments. So there was really no way for me to like put you on screen and say, this is a trainer to watch. You should you should definitely tune in. And Obed said, OK, we'll see what happens after EUIC.
Latin American Trainers' Impressive Performances
00:46:23
Speaker
And, um, I congratulated him after, after he was knocked out, I said, you know, it was a really tough field, but you did incredibly well. And, uh, you know, I'm super proud of you and you did awesome. And he said, yeah, I wanted to make sure that you had some video for next time when you want to. And I said, that is the right answer.
00:46:39
Speaker
I said, wow, you know, that he, he's so confident that he wanted footage of himself and he said, you know what, I'm just going to go get it. I'm just going to go make sure that I get on stream. And that was insane. So, uh, huge props to, to both to ski and Obed Obed and a lot of the trainers that went from out of region to EUIC. Yeah, I actually got to talk to Obed a little, a little bit at the social, uh, I think it was.
00:47:05
Speaker
It was after day two. I might be mistaken, but I think it was after day two. And yeah, amazing performance. Super, super nice and humble guy. And you might see a lot more events potentially even in the EU region. I would be really, really hyped to see more of his gameplay.
00:47:24
Speaker
Very impressive and losing to the third place finisher is definitely respectable, right? When you lose to somebody, it always feels bad, always feels a bit sour, but when you lose to someone who ends up, you know, top cut, excuse me, not even top cutting, but making top three or winning it all, then you say, okay, the only person that could take me down was the third place finisher. So that's also a very admirable.
00:47:45
Speaker
But outside of the competitors, outside of everything happening in terms of players, I want to know, Zwei, how you feel about the
Meta Predictability Concerns and Calls for Change
00:47:53
Speaker
meta? Because you said predictable. I think predictable is a good word. I almost feel like we needed a bigger shakeup this season in the world of wonders. And I feel like coming up on our final meta shift of the season, we need a big shakeup. But I know that as we get closer to worlds, stability is the number one concern.
00:48:12
Speaker
for Niantic going into the final competition of the year. I'm worried that we're going to have another three months of Annihilate, Gligar, Skarmory, Whiscash. It's just going to be the Cresselia Fest. It's going to be all the same.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah, I have to say that I'm really looking forward to September already, because I kind of do not believe in a large June shake-up, but I would love to see one. Not because the current meta is terribly unbalanced, I do think it is quite balanced, but I do think that it is largely played out. If we look at what really made a deep run in this tournament,
00:48:53
Speaker
We have seen Shadow Alone and Sandslash do well before, we have seen Skeletorch do well before, even Dunberg himself took a regional with it. We have seen Gaslord finishing up to second place. We have seen even the Shadow Magna Zone, it finished third in Lille.
00:49:12
Speaker
If we go through all of the teams, all of the placements, like we have some variation, but it's basically just, okay, you have these three viable fighters, pick your favor. We have these three viable anti-flyers with electric coverage, pick your favor. We have these three or four viable flying types.
00:49:34
Speaker
Choose the one that you really want to bring and then just basically build the team that looks like everybody's team looks every tournament. So we have about 30-ish building blocks that can make up your team. And that is an okay variety. But I think the most exciting times always occur after a huge meta shakeup.
00:50:01
Speaker
Like last September, we basically had three months of constant development and people are bringing some squishier, some spicier stuff to the events. And really like the meta started with the safe options and it ended with seeking Arctobac's IncoFable making a grand final. This is what that meta was. And I feel like if we have that every three months,
00:50:29
Speaker
It will not get boring. And now we are basically, um, like we are currently mid April. We have, we have had four and a half months of basically the same matter. I mean, it took us a while to figure everything out. We also had this one little break with the annihilate introduction.
00:50:47
Speaker
But at this point, all the Cresselius that we see now, they've been around in Stuttgart. Everything that we are seeing currently has been here for a while. I do think the meta has been explored sufficiently, and I would really call on Niantic to
00:51:05
Speaker
do something more substantial in June already. I think a little more fun, a little more variety for the meta that will have both NAIC and Worlds would be really nice, because if we just see a rerun of what we've already known for half a year,
00:51:24
Speaker
While we would still be invested in the competitors and in the games themselves, I think the team building aspect of it all will get a little less exciting. And I do think that team building is where the creativity really comes in, where
00:51:44
Speaker
like the creative minds of the community can really shine because if you're in the game already a lot of it is just predictions and precision but not really creativity like the creativity is it's still there within the three to five minutes that a game typically lasts but it's very limited and I want to see
00:52:07
Speaker
I want to see viable grass types in the meta again. I just want to see Pokemon that are maybe less tanky, like the chryselias that are everywhere, the lanterns that are everywhere, maybe a little bit of a shake up in that regard. And probably also, like the good old skull debuffs, they're not everybody's favorite, right?
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah, we need a bit of an adjustment to Skald. We've been calling for that for quite a while, and hopefully we do get that. But I just wanted to point out, we talk about Skarmory being a top pick, right, with Steelwing and its energy increase that happened. And then we talk about Incinerate users, like Skeleturge or Talonflame.
00:52:51
Speaker
If you recall back, those two changes were made on December 1st of last year. It's been five months, roughly, since we had Steelwing, Skarmory and the buffed Incinerate introduced into the meta. And it feels like the timeless travels in from December 1st was was a huge shift, a huge change up. But it does feel like the World of Wonders was more go battle league based. Right. We got Psycho Cut Gallade. We got Steelwing and Polion.
00:53:20
Speaker
Those are not play Pokemon core breakers. Those are going to be niche picks. They're going to be fun and limited metas. They're going to be go battle league picks. Exactly. Right. So when we look at the upcoming season, it's a little bit tough. It's a little bit rocky because if we, we saw a lot of changes on June 1st, the Bologna regionals actually, or Bologna special event is actually June 1st and 2nd. So the meta shift would happen as that tournament was happening.
00:53:47
Speaker
And then we had NAIC coming up on June 7th and 9th, 7th through 9th. So essentially you'd have two tournaments back to back with a brand new meta, but then you basically have two dead months until August with worlds. So trainers that have a lot of time to figure things out for worlds, but then have basically no time to get anything figured out for Bologna and NAIC. I don't know if that's a worthy sacrifice, but I think from a viewer perspective, it would definitely be, it would be worth it to the viewers.
00:54:18
Speaker
I actually think that having only a tiny window of vibration isn't even that bad because it makes it so that the metal is just less settled, right? People will have their very different takes on it.
00:54:33
Speaker
And we can then go from there to see what actually works out and what doesn't. So you don't really have, you don't really have anyone to copy. And that is something that I would really like to see that everybody has to come up with their own plan going into NAIC. I feel like
00:54:51
Speaker
I really hope that everybody going to the Bologna Special Event will have a great time. But I do think that just the way the timing works out with the move set change happening during the event, I do think that event is probably beyond saving in terms of getting this consistent meta change ready for it.
00:55:12
Speaker
But I would love to see just the Wild West and NAIC. Everybody will still have a week of practice. I don't think it's that big of a deal. It will just make it so everything has a little more variety and it's a little more exciting even.
00:55:28
Speaker
And then before Worlds, it will be two months worth of practice. So I don't even think that that is much of an excuse to keep the meta as is because two months, good amount of practice. That's a good window. Eight months, maybe a little much.
00:55:48
Speaker
So yeah, I would really urge Niantic to even if the September update ends up being a little more impactful to still make it so that you maybe make it so that grass types a little more viable you maybe
00:56:05
Speaker
shake up the flying type meta a little bit. You maybe shake up the water type meta a little bit, just by adding a little bit here and there, taking something away here and there in terms of Scalding buff chance, for example, and making it so that we have a larger impact on the meta than Know the World of Honors, where if we look at the top 32, we have two shadow for alligator, and that is everything new.
00:56:29
Speaker
Nothing else really changed. That's like two Pokemon out of six times 32. It's really not a lot.
00:56:38
Speaker
That was a mic drop moment. I definitely felt the quietness after you said that. We had two shout out for alligators and that's all that changed. That was really the exclamation point on the whole discussion, right? Because I mean, come on, we thought shout out for alligator was going to be the core breaker. We thought it was going to be everywhere. We thought it was going to be-
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah, depending on the moveset. I'll say that. If it was Ice Beam for Alligator, it would have a tough time against Lantern. But May is actually going to be a very crazy month for Play Pokemon. And as we look at the meta changes, we're going to have like 14 tournaments in May alone.
00:57:23
Speaker
And I feel like after 14 tournaments of the same meta, once we, we limp into June and that, that season update, and then three months later head into worlds, I think everyone's going to be burned out if they weren't already. So yeah, so I agree with you. I hope that there's some changes, but.
00:57:40
Speaker
I don't know what we have in store, but as we approach our hour mark, I don't think we really touched too much on the grand finals. It was pretty dominant, but I'm wondering if there's anything else you wanted to mention before we talk about grand finals and wrap things up.
00:57:56
Speaker
I feel like we can move right into that. It was, it was so interesting because you have seen what all these three competitors that made it to day three did during day two.
Grand Finals: Emi Weedle vs Doonbug
00:58:09
Speaker
Sanduru being the only one to defeat Doonberg. And we will being entirely undefeated. Like those three players felt like, hadn't showed us above the rest. And then it was basically,
00:58:26
Speaker
The very first game of day two in the winners finals, um, Sanduru took that because Emmy Wiedel called an aerial ace bait from Iglaga that ended up being a dig that connected onto the Skeletorch. Yeah. So it was really just, I wouldn't even call it a blunder, but just a very risky call. That was probably not worth it.
00:58:48
Speaker
The, the, the day two bait calls were kind of crazy. Like I remember PVP David doing something against, I think it wasn't, it wasn't set aside. It was, it was something like that where, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he just low shielded aerial aces twice. Um, then there were situations where maybe it was really confident to just not shield and take a huge lead by, by calling them bluff. But.
00:59:18
Speaker
Yeah, that same thing didn't really happen during the very first game of Windows Finals. But after that, it was just so dominant. It was just like, oh, okay, we don't win three in a row to wrap up the Windows Finals. Then...
00:59:34
Speaker
I think that is really difficult to come back from as the loser of the winners' finals, because I've been in Sanduru's shoes in Barcelona once, but I think that was different because the Barcelona Day 2, it was not just the top three, it was a top eight.
00:59:53
Speaker
So if you already played that day, you're probably more in a competitive mode and don't really have to pick yourself up going into the loser's finals match. Because it is very discouraging if you prep for a match all night and then that just
01:00:15
Speaker
hits you with three defeats in a row. So I definitely empathize with San Nuru going down to face Dunbach of all people who was the American Eagle landing at the XL Center and really, really just eliminating European after European.
01:00:36
Speaker
And yeah, then Dumark basically, I think he even got the boost game one. So good old Boostbark made a return. And from that on out, it just felt like the deck was so stacked against Sanduru. And
01:00:52
Speaker
Very early into the Sunday, we already arrived at the grand finals. And that was a very interesting matchup just because of the team comps of our two competitors. Skeletorj, arguably the MVP for Emi Vidal, Rumbach's team,
01:01:09
Speaker
One core is broken by Skeletorch. The other four months have good two amazing matchups into it. So it was a big mind game what would unfold afterwards. And Dune did not want to take any risks and played Likitsang Double Water, game one basically. So really tripling down in terms of going hard against Skeletorch.
01:01:34
Speaker
Uh, yeah, uh, we don't actually took a little bit of, uh, the, the arrow battle approach and, um, played, um, It still tickles me. That tickles me when you say the arrow battle approach. That's hilarious.
01:01:51
Speaker
He played a hard anti-Whiscash team with Atsaria Krasseliakor, which would have been rough if he let into the Skarmory. But I think he set up the Skeletorch threat really well. Also, the lantern on his team definitely helps with keeping the Skarmory at bay. So it was probably a risk worth taking. And so, yeah, that was basically
01:02:22
Speaker
Not really much that Dune could do there, because if you have the Licki on Artaria, that's okay. Your Licki can do stuff there, but if you have the Cresselia with the super fast grass notes against the double water backline, there's just not really all that much that you can do in that situation.
01:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, you made some really good points because I feel like in days one and two, the Skeletorge really carried Emi Weedle through a lot of tough matchups due to its core breaking potential. I think he had a couple of games in day two where he basically swept the opponent's back line with the Skeletorge and we saw him doing that, saving his Protect Shields, calling baits, and just putting everything on the dirge. But then you go into Championship Sunday and what really stood out to me was the Altaria pick.
01:03:10
Speaker
was so difficult for Dune to deal with. And like you said, Altaria versus Skarmory, that's probably Dune's best matchup in that situation. Altaria versus Licky is playable, but a lot of his other Pokemon, whether it be Night Slash, Annihilape, or Scald Whiskash, or Shadow Gligar, had really tough matchups against the Altaria. And then once you pair the Altaria with Crystallia, that picks up even more of those matchups, like the two aforementioned water types in the Annihilape.
01:03:38
Speaker
It's very, very difficult to kind of get out of that situation. But the grand finals are really fun to watch. Game one, Weedle and Dune at the very end, you knew the catch was coming. Everyone in the stadium knew the catch was coming and so did the players. So seeing them actually both wait.
01:03:55
Speaker
Pause, stop playing their game for about two seconds. It felt like an eternity. They stopped playing their game, and they both waited. And then Dune tried to go for the catch. Emi Weedle saw it coming, sparked down the switch in Pokemon, and then surfed the Wiscash to win it. That was really fun. And then game two, I wanted to mention that in that game, Weedle led Altaria into Wiscash, and Dune safe switched to Shadow Gligar. But upon the first playing,
01:04:22
Speaker
It turned out that there was a bit of lag. I think there was a missed fast attack or something like that. And both competitors decided to restart and start over. And there was a mutual decision between the two trainers. But what happened next was actually, I think, Dune deserves an enormous amount of credit because they decided to play the same teams.
01:04:43
Speaker
And granted, I'm very glad that you highlighted that because this is not mandatory in grassroots format formats. Sometimes it's between playing the same teams and playing out the same leads. But Jun, it was entirely Jun's right to just change up his line entirely.
01:05:04
Speaker
And Doon is someone who was criticized in the past a lot for basically disputing his way to more attempts at winning a game, whether that was legitimate disputes, which was probably by far the bulk of it, or disputes that were maybe something that not every trainer would have pushed for. But he got a really bad reputation from that.
01:05:32
Speaker
And basically this is the inverse of old Doonberg where this time he could have legitimately gotten this advantage of getting rid of that bad lead, but still decided to say, okay, we don't make that call and we'll just play it out now. I will not, I will not basically do what I could do here and just push for the win at all costs, but I will honor this gentleman's agreement and just play out the same teams.
01:06:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And as you watch back the footage, there are also some subtle cues, right? Something that Dune does a lot is when he knows he's going to win a matchup. And this is typically like when his third Pokemon will come in or when an opponent will throw a charge attack and there's still about 30 to 45 seconds left of the game. I saw him multiple times actually start to smirk because he already knew that he won the game, right? Because he knew the pacing would not line up. He saw into the future, you know, towards the end of the game and he said, yeah, this is already over.
01:06:31
Speaker
There was actually a moment in that replay of game number two where Dune saw the Skarmory, excuse me, he saw the lantern come out against his Skarmory. And instead of throwing up his hands, getting irritated, you know, being bothered that he picked the same team to run back in the replay, he smiled.
01:06:49
Speaker
He saw the lantern come out with two shields against his skarmory and he just smiled because he knew that, you know, he was doing the right thing. He led and he led into the situation with the right mindset. And Emmy, we don't just pick the better team. He just had the better, the better plays and he deserved to win the game.
01:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you saw that in game three as well, which was the deciding game of the tournament. That was basically Wiedel's first match point. And basically, what happens in the end game is that Junberg hard swaps his Glaiga into Wiedel's Artaria, basically trying to get a head-on energy and taking the damage, because Wiedel established his Lantern as a major threat to games before.
01:07:36
Speaker
And Jun was kind of playing towards that, like letting the Sky Attack go because there could be a surf waiting in the back.
01:07:43
Speaker
And the problem is that Riddle left his lantern on the bench for that game and instead brought in the Vigoroth. So, Dool actually had the Likitang waiting in the back, so it was basically a very hard RPS loss. But as soon as he saw that come out, he just said, Gigi, like, you could basically lipread that from the Vod. I think Butters called it out during the broadcast.
01:08:10
Speaker
And he was just congratulating his opponents instead of being irritated that his glorious run to take over Europe basically was stopped by this misalignment. But he just acknowledged that Weedle made the right strategy calls and was just the best battle of the tournament and the greatest recognized other greats. And that was just...
01:08:40
Speaker
Even though it was, it felt so one-sided, Junberg just knowing, okay, we don't get this really well, we don't call this really well, and acknowledging that, I think this was still what we want to see in a final.
01:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, it just feels like a huge moment of growth, right? When you see this kind of, uh, this difference in, in the competitors as they, they, you know, get a little bit older and they move through the, the championship series, it's, it's incredible. And it watching back the VOD, you saw Emmy Weedle run and celebrate with all his friends. And in the background, you can see Doonbug just clapping on stage, right? Like real, recognize real, as they say. And, uh, and Doonbug knew that, that Weedle, it was his day and he was going to be the champion. So.
01:09:27
Speaker
definitely a very poetic ending.
Looking Ahead: Upcoming Tournaments and European Participation
01:09:30
Speaker
And that's the thing too, like despite all the banter, right on stage, every chance he got Doonbug in the interviews would say, Yeah, I know what the American going to come in and win, you know, I'm ready to dominate. Let's go. Let's go baby at USA.
01:09:43
Speaker
He would do all that. But then when he lost, he was humble in defeat and he was, you know, congratulating, congratulating Weedle and accepting. And, um, yeah, I mean, Weedle was the best trainer that day, that weekend, and he deserved to win it all. And he did.
01:10:00
Speaker
Definitely. Yeah. Well, it was an incredible EUIC 2024. We did a pre-show for this. If you haven't listened to that episode, it might be funny to kind of go back and listen to what our predictions were going into this and then see how the dust settled.
01:10:17
Speaker
I'm, I'm becoming a shadow Magnezone believer, especially after Palasha did so well. I didn't know, I didn't know what Z's wireless was on. I thought he was on some magical leaf or something, but, uh, but that was definitely an incredible pick and it was an awesome tournament. I have full hope in my heart that NAIC sells out that we hit the 320 cap or higher if it's allowed and that we have an equally hype tournament. And I'm, I invite all of the EU trainers to come over and try because they will be coming.
01:10:47
Speaker
They will be coming. We have flaunting in the background. That's where it will end. It will end at the attempt. There will not be an EU winner at NEIC, but you can try. That's fine. But yeah, so I'm really excited for that. And I thought it was a great tournament and I'm looking forward to the next one.
01:11:05
Speaker
For sure. The next one, the next tournament will actually be happening this very weekend with the Orlando Regional Championship in Florida and also the Perth Regional Championship in Australia. And even though the Oceania streams, like the Oceania tournaments, I should say, aren't typically streamed, there will be a community stream for the Perth event, which I'm really looking forward to.
01:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, I highly recommend, especially if you support this podcast in the championship series in general, I know that the Australia time zone is out of reach for most people. It's definitely a big gap in terms of NA time and I'm sure EU as well. But if you have a chance to support, you know, on social media to watch the YouTube VOD, to leave a comment, to leave it a like,
01:11:51
Speaker
anything like that it would definitely be very appreciated because this is a grass not grassroots but this is a community-led stream for an official play pokemon event and how this stream does will definitely have an impact on future streams because it definitely takes time and effort and energy and a little bit of money to make these kinds of things happen so definitely go out and show it some support if you can
01:12:14
Speaker
So I don't know if you have a core breaker in mind for Orlando, but I had one that I thought of a couple hours ago, and I'm interested what you think is going to shake up the meta in Orlando. If you want, I can say mine first.
01:12:31
Speaker
You can see yours first. I know that last time, I think it was last time when we visited Orlando with the championship series, we had the very spicy Shadow Marwile taking it all. So it's definitely a place where corebreakers have some precedent.
01:12:50
Speaker
That was a, that was a Bo Socks, Burglar, grand finals, if I'm not mistaken, with, with the, the European Dunsparce. Yes, I do call it European because it was popularized in EU first. My, uh, my corporate career pick for Orlando is actually going to be one of Martine's favorite Pokemon. It's going to be jealous.
01:13:09
Speaker
Oh, the Jellymeister. Yes, the Jellymeister has a ton of play against the Whiskash, against the Shadow Gligar, against the Vigaroths, the Polyrats, the Annihilapes. I think that, especially Skarmory as well, I think that Jellicent or the Jellymeister definitely has a ton of play this weekend. I really like it. I really like it.
01:13:32
Speaker
I'm wondering what I could pick because a lot of the core breakers have already been on display at EUSC. And I do want to try and say something a little more out there that might not have had
01:13:49
Speaker
big success during that tournament. But I feel like I want to go with something that actually did top-cut UIC, but was maybe not the most appreciated pick overall, which is the Shadow Dragonite. It is very similar to Altaria in what it does, but it does have the super power coverage and because of its incredible attack weight rather than
01:14:16
Speaker
the bulk that Altaria brings to the table. I think it can also just put a lot of pressure on certain Pokemon in situations. So it's definitely something for the more aggressive players. But 23ejb made a very deep run with it at EOSC. And it was something that I tried in the Go Battle League a lot. And it took me all the way up to 2950 before
01:14:42
Speaker
Um, it's swapped to alternative. So I do believe in shadow dragon. Interesting. Bringing it back to the Pittsburgh regional where we dodged one with shadow dragonite. Interesting. Interesting. Well, we'll have to see. I think the dragon pressure is real. I think that Emmy wheedle showcase that with Altaria and my prediction for UIC didn't come true. We didn't get a guzz Lord champion, but I do believe it finished third, which is definitely respectable, but, um, we'll see.
01:15:11
Speaker
We'll see what happens. It's been a fun episode, a fun recap of EUIC 2024. I'm excited for Orlando and Perth. And then things are really going to start to ramp up once we head into May. Uh, I still don't know how we're going to cover all those tournaments because there's like four every weekend.
01:15:29
Speaker
I really hope that our friends over at Dracovis put out those graphics. We have like bite-sized tournament recoups that we can go up. But yeah, we'll need to find a way. But I'm really curious because we've seen a lot of NA, we've seen a lot of EU, but we've only ever really seen the Brazilian side of the Latin community. And now we'll get a little bit more diversity. I'm definitely looking forward to that.
01:15:58
Speaker
Yeah. Buenos Aires, Bogota, Puerto Rico. There's Santiago and Chile as well as in Lima, Peru. Yeah. We're going to get a lot of, a lot of Latin spice. So, and plus two in Mexico as well. So we're going to see what happens. But, uh, so I, this has been a fun one looking forward to our Orlando slash Perth recap, which will come up next week. And, um, yeah, I guess I'll see you then my friend. Oh, it's a fun one. See you next week.