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EP. 33 NAIC 2025 Recap
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 33 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.
In this episode, we are recapping the 2025 North America International Championships (NAIC), where over 360 players competed! Championship Sunday was the most competitive it's ever been, with P4T0M4N, Ilqm, and ItsAXN as our final 3. In the end, our 2023 World Champion ItsAXN caught every other competitor in his Araquanid's watery web. All of this, plus bracket surprises, major upsets, the monumental meta shifts in the Delightful Days season, increasing accessibility to competitive Pokémon GO, on-stage controversy, and more!!
If you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction to NAIC and Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Welcome in into the Show 6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. In this episode, we are recapping the 2025 North America International Championships where over 360 players competed.
00:00:13
William Dunphey
Championship Sunday was the most competitive it's ever been, and our 2023 world champion, It's Axin, caught every other competitor in his Arachnid's watery web. All of this plus but bracket surprises, upsets, meta shifts in the delightful day season, and much, much more.
00:00:28
William Dunphey
So if you're ready, lock in and good luck. Have fun.
00:00:55
William Dunphey
Welcome back everyone to the show six podcast. I am speediest chief two with the illustrious Z Zweilis. ZZ, you had to check an additional bag or something to get back to Germany because you had a lot of hardware to take back with you.
00:01:10
zzweilous
So I actually was really smart because, um, like my entire stay in the United States, that was like one and a half weeks. Actually, it wasn't just the tournament. I made a ah whole little vacation out of it, uh, which was absolutely worth it by the way.
00:01:23
zzweilous
um But I only checked one large bag and i could have just taken some of my clothing, some of what I was bringing to the United States in like a little piece of hand luggage.
00:01:38
zzweilous
But I decided consciously to leave that at home. So I would have a free piece of hand luggage on the way back and it actually paid off in a big way.
00:01:47
William Dunphey
Nice.
00:01:47
zzweilous
um Because yes, yes, yes, you may be able to see it right there. There's a second trophy and it's a fourth place this time. like kind of only can do even numbers, but maybe I'll i'll leave not one for for August.
00:01:58
William Dunphey
e
00:02:02
William Dunphey
I think we need to get you a trophy case eventually instead of just on top of the the cabinets.
00:02:06
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're they're chilling there, but it's not really the most flattering um place to so have them rot for the end of their days. um So if you are wondering what I'm talking about, ah there's a YouTube version of this podcast. So you can see that um wonderful fourth place trophy and next to the second place EUIC trophy.
00:02:28
zzweilous
ah Very proud, very proud for sure.
00:02:28
William Dunphey
Wow. it It was really funny. And we're going to get into all the the tournament coverage. I can't wait because there's so much to talk about. ah But we actually spent some time together at some of the social events.
00:02:39
William Dunphey
And it was really funny telling the story of how you and i started the podcast together because I had at least two or three people ah come up and ask me like, hey, you know, I enjoyed the show. How did you meet ZZ? How did this whole thing come to come to be?
00:02:53
William Dunphey
I said, well, you know, I was looking around the community for very smart people, and I noticed that ah this one trainer in particular was a sports journalist by trade. And I said, well, I want to create a show that's basically like sports journalism for competitive Pokemon Go. So that seemed perfect already, you know, on it's on its ah on the face of it.
00:03:11
William Dunphey
But then we come to find out that ZZ is top cutting tournaments. He's winning events. He's top cutting ICs.
00:03:16
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:03:16
William Dunphey
He's finishing top four. He's taking home medals and trophies galore. And I just feel like the smartest investor at this point, right? Because I'm working a lot of the big events, you know, as a commentator, I get to see like a bird's eye view of everything.
00:03:28
William Dunphey
And I actually competed at NAIC this past weekend, which is a rarity for me, but actually really, really fun. And I enjoyed it a lot. But having, ah you know, arguably someone who's who's at the the upper echelon of commentating and then obviously someone who's at the upper echelon of
Challenges and Preparations for NAIC
00:03:44
William Dunphey
competing. I mean, this is just like a perfect blend. And I had a really fun time, like telling that story over and over again, because it was like I got in, you know, to to Uber or Facebook back when it was still, you know, needing seed capital. It's like, yeah, you know, I just ah made a pretty good investment, you know, asking my co-host to join me. And I'm so glad that you did.
00:04:01
William Dunphey
Thank you so much.
00:04:02
zzweilous
Honestly, like before I joined the podcast, um I was almost doing nothing. Like I did have that Barcelona special championship title. That's for sure.
00:04:12
zzweilous
So I had that breakout tournament, but there was a whole lot of duds along the way.
00:04:15
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:04:18
zzweilous
And maybe maybe it's because now I actually, this is like doing your homework, right? Like um like my my teacher, Mr. Dunphy is asking about what I did for NAIC.
00:04:30
zzweilous
um And yeah, I need to do my homework to actually ah show up with something. um and Yeah, I feel like I've gotten a lot more consistent at a very high level ever since I've i've started professionally yapping about it all.
00:04:36
William Dunphey
I
00:04:43
William Dunphey
Yeah, well, the additional research you know comes in handy, and I hope it comes in handy for everyone who's listening to the show as well. Again, ah lots of of fun compliments and notes. PvP Steve ah was was actually very, very kind. I spoke with him while we were at a ah pizza shop, and i hung out with Steve a lot this weekend, which is awesome. He's he's a wonderful, wonderful human.
00:05:02
William Dunphey
But I talked to him and he said that our podcast is one of the main things that he consumes on a weekly or biweekly basis. He says he checks actively for when the next episode is up because he really, really wants to listen to it. yes.
00:05:16
zzweilous
I think this is the perfect time to apologize for the lack of a preview episode.
00:05:16
William Dunphey
ah
00:05:20
zzweilous
i know that we teased it and we kind of under-delivered on that by not recording an episode at all, but I think we we tend to underestimate how busy those weeks ahead of NIC actually get.
00:05:21
William Dunphey
yes
00:05:31
zzweilous
So every time it's...
00:05:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:05:34
zzweilous
cut so close with like one week between um essentially like the last meta shift to the next ic and like you have to report on bologna you have to get on a plane you have to fly um you have a lot of social obligations that obviously always come first um
00:05:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:05:53
zzweilous
it's It's kind of tough to find the time, but I guess we will not have the problem for the foreseeable future because there's only the PJCS Scent Worlds for the rest of the summer.
00:06:01
William Dunphey
yeah
00:06:06
William Dunphey
Yeah. I had just gotten back from GoFest in New Jersey. landed on Monday in the afternoon. and then I ah you know basically settled in on Tuesday. And in order for us to record, it would have it would have had to have been Monday, land back home.
00:06:20
William Dunphey
Tuesday, relax. Wednesday, drive down to New Orleans, rent a studio somewhere, set up all of our recording equipment, get that done. And then Thursday, you know check into the hotel and get ready to compete on Friday. So it would have been Bang, bang, quick turnaround. And meanwhile, everyone else has plans. I know that you were also doing things around the city. So yeah, sorry, everyone, that we didn't get the NAIC preview done. I'm so glad that ZZ pointed that out because I know everyone looks forward
Strategic Discussions for NAIC
00:06:44
William Dunphey
to it. um And we kind of agreed. We kind of had like a ah moment where we looked at each other and we said, maybe we should try not to overpromise too much and just kind of make what we can and and make it the best product we possibly can.
00:06:56
zzweilous
But we do have a big backlog of episode ideas over the dry spell that would be the summer month. So um maybe there is something to come.
00:07:04
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
00:07:07
zzweilous
i do not want to overpromise yet again, but it's looking better.
00:07:09
William Dunphey
but
00:07:10
zzweilous
It's looking better.
00:07:12
William Dunphey
Yeah. No, to your point, we've got a lot of fun things that we're planning. We're going try to execute on all those for you. And sorry, we're not going to give you any previews because we don't know what we're going to be able to get done. But just stay tuned because we're going to try some new things if we have the bandwidth, the time, et cetera, et cetera.
00:07:27
William Dunphey
ah But ZZ, it's good time to to kind of dive into NAIC. i guess we could start with some ah meta breakdowns because ah based on the scrims, right? And I cannot thank Inadequence and the Candle Cult and all the incredible TOs there enough because I joined as many practice tournaments as I could within the 72 hours between landing home and then competing at the tournament.
00:07:51
William Dunphey
And my goodness, I got a pretty good read on the meta. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. And there were tons and tons of shifts. My prep was different from yours. We didn't really talk too much.
00:08:01
William Dunphey
And you were running some wild stuff in practice. And the gist I was getting from you is that you felt very confident probably by like Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday, you were feeling much, much more confident about your team.
00:08:13
William Dunphey
And you're kind of doing a practice tournament here or there, but you were like, yeah, I feel like i'm I'm ready to go. So what was your read on the meta coming into NAIC and do you think that your read was correct?
00:08:24
zzweilous
um So that is an interesting and layered question. So the way I prepared was to essentially just throw everything I had in my Pokemon storage at the wall and enter as as many practice tournaments as possible.
00:08:38
zzweilous
It was one of those where registered like a Galarian wheezing, a Piloswine and a Guzzlord on the same team. And honestly, I liked quite a bit about it. um Not the Pydospine. The Pydospine came to one singular game.
00:08:52
zzweilous
um It looked fairly good on paper because it kind of tackles the Dedane and the Diguspy, which are two of the main threats that emerged from early practice. um But it struggles even with Pokemon like Drapion, which you want your Ground type to be, typically.
00:09:09
zzweilous
And you don't really want to bring it into any team with the Water type, which is any team.
00:09:15
zzweilous
um So that found itself ah way like on the on the last place of the bench really, really soon. um i tried out Dragapult.
00:09:15
William Dunphey
Or Scizor, right?
00:09:27
zzweilous
I tried out Ice Fang Hippodon. And I tried a lot of meta alongside that as well, just to get familiar with um which of the more reliable Pokemon would still be good, would still be around.
00:09:41
zzweilous
And eventually i essentially managed to analyze first thing, which Pokemon are very common. That is easily done by just looking at usage data that, um especially the Candy Cult, Candy Cult, Candle Cult.
00:09:58
William Dunphey
cant Candy Cult. new It's a new new tournament, everyone.
00:10:01
zzweilous
this This feels like a trick or treat version. Um, um, The Candle Cult practice hosts, they tend to compile very useful data when it comes to that.
00:10:13
zzweilous
But then also just like my personal experience as to what Pokemon are being brought against me. And one thing that i um found myself up against lot was the...
00:10:27
zzweilous
Drapion and the Dusklobs core, which are two Pokemon that if we actually look at the usage in day two of NAIC, found their place is within the top three most used with Dusklobs being on almost 72% of teams.
00:10:30
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:10:41
William Dunphey
ye
00:10:44
William Dunphey
ye
00:10:44
zzweilous
and Shadow Drapion still 53%, so over half of the trainers in Top Cut were relying on those two Pokemon. And then there's also the shift from Mud Slappers, specifically Claydol was very prominent.
00:11:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:01
zzweilous
in the um might and mastery meta to diggers b as the main ground type because um with the rise of ghosts such as dust cops and as well um bug type fast attack users um the psychic subtyping on cladal was more and more of a liability and people shifted to diggers b to still fill that role um
00:11:07
William Dunphey
ye
00:11:23
zzweilous
And so it was fairly clear fairly soon that the top three Pokemon to beat would be Dustclops, Digaspy, Shadow Drapion. And one Pokemon that tackles all of those really, really well is Greninja.
00:11:39
zzweilous
So I took the Weezing from a very early practice tournament attempt because that thing is a good core breaker against the classic fighting type plus ghost type core.
00:11:52
zzweilous
We did talk about it in previous episodes where I pointed out the ah strength of cores like Galarian Corsula and Primate, for example.
00:11:52
William Dunphey
yeah.
00:12:02
William Dunphey
oh yeah
00:12:02
zzweilous
And if you have brutal swing on your Galarian wheezing, you are actually able to break that core apart fairly well. um But Weezing does fear Diggersby.
00:12:15
zzweilous
Weezing does fear the spamminess of Shadowed Rapion, especially if you don't have a neutral ah charge attack like Overheat or Player Off.
00:12:21
William Dunphey
yeah
00:12:25
zzweilous
So one Pokemon that covers Weezing really, really well was the Greninja.
00:12:32
William Dunphey
Yep. Mm-hmm.
00:12:32
zzweilous
So those two were um yeah they were on the team fairly early. I did try to round the team out with some bulk. um One thing that I definitely wanted to be prepared for is Dedenne, the fourth most used Pokémon in day two at 46.9%. Nice.
00:12:49
zzweilous
um So I brought Cradilly with Acid as its new fast attack, which gives it a lot more neutral play and farmdown potential than with the previously Lester Bullet Seed.
00:13:00
zzweilous
um So that was um pretty much guaranteed to be on the team. then I decided that Lapras looked really good because um most Dusclops don't get the bulk point against Lapras' Psywave.
00:13:09
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:13:15
zzweilous
And because it's a one-turn fast attack, um you can essentially just shred through the low HP but high defense Pokemon Dusclops. um Again, Lapras wins against Digglesby. Lapras even beats the Shadow Drapion, again, because of a fast attack breakpoint.
00:13:33
zzweilous
And it also functions as a Pokemon that can draw out the fighting type for Geninja to shine. So those four were essentially guaranteed to be on the team.
00:13:41
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:13:45
zzweilous
But I was still like a little soft-ish to Dedane. really wanted to have play against Dedane because I don't like how um a lot of Pokemon that were previously really strong in the meta, like Azumarill, were just shut down by the relentless boosting with Parabolic Charge.
00:14:04
zzweilous
And Pokémon that I personally considered really, really neutral, and that was also really well protected by my two water types because because it only has one type weakness, was Shadow Scizor.
00:14:14
zzweilous
Shadow Scizor is underrated on Peavey Poke because Peavey Poke rankings only really account for the zero and the one shield scenario, whereas Shadow Scizor is a Pokémon that you like to play in the two shield scenario.
00:14:15
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:14:26
William Dunphey
ye
00:14:26
zzweilous
because it is very frail, it can't really take a charge attack, but Shadow Bullet Punches after the Bullet Punch buff, with the option to boost either guaranteed through Trailblaze, or if you like to live a little more risky with Night Slash, um can just...
00:14:42
zzweilous
give you very, very strong two-shilt matchups, even against Pokemon like Mandibus that should typically wall all your charge attacks. So that was also another Pokemon that I really wanted to try out.
00:14:53
zzweilous
And in practice, I found that Greninja and Shadow Scizor worked super well. even on the same team, because even though Greninja doesn't really live a lot of moves, um with its resistance profile, it does live the charge attacks of the very common Drapion, Dusclops, and the um low attack Digga-Speed quite well. So I could still save my shields for Scizor.
00:15:16
zzweilous
and yeah, it's my very last Pokemon, because I felt fairly well prepared for opposing Digga-Speed. I did opt for the... um Galarian Corsula, that used to be a Runarigas, but more on Runarigas later.
00:15:29
zzweilous
um I did swap that out because I didn't want to be too weak to Shadow Quagsire, which I know some top players were using.
00:15:35
William Dunphey
yeah yep
00:15:37
zzweilous
um And yeah, this is how I arrived at my team of six.
00:15:37
William Dunphey
yep
00:15:40
zzweilous
And I have to say, the team call was not at fault for me not winning at all. And coming forth is still something that I'm really, really proud of. um So yeah, did I make the correct meta read?
00:15:52
zzweilous
I have been rambling on for five minutes, but the short answer is yes, absolutely.
00:15:57
William Dunphey
ah you You call it rambling, but I honestly think there's so much to unpack ah from what you said. Very interesting that you first started this whole setup with the Galarian Weezing.
00:16:08
William Dunphey
That's like, honestly, looking at your team, that's probably like the last Pokemon I expect you to put on there. You're like, well, I need an answer for fighting types because not only am I weak to annihilate in the form of Cradilly, Greninja, to a two degree Scizor, depending on the shield scenario and the energy scenario, and also a little bit soft Lapras,
00:16:27
William Dunphey
I need an an Annihilate answer. Let me lock in Galarian Weezing. You're like, no, let me put Galarian Weezing first. um
00:16:32
zzweilous
Yes.
00:16:32
William Dunphey
But I just have to i to call you out on one of the crazier points that I just heard.
00:16:33
zzweilous
yeah
00:16:37
William Dunphey
There was a lot of chatter in the crowd, not only for your team, but also for Apatoman's team. And that was because of the Greninja Shadow Scizor duo. And a lot of people sitting around me in the in the bleachers or in the stands or chairs, whatever, in the crowd, we were wondering...
00:16:53
William Dunphey
Is it possible to bring both Greninja and Shadow Scizor on a team with only two Protect Shields? It feels like both those Pokemon need Protect Shields. And you just said the most bonkers thing that I think I've heard in this regard.
00:17:06
William Dunphey
You said, yeah, well, like if I brought both of them, I could just save my shields for Shadow Scizor.
00:17:06
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:17:10
William Dunphey
What? You're not shielding Greninja? Wait, really? I'm sure everyone that that was listening, their ears kind of perked up. They're like, wait, what is he talking about? is is it because Is it because of the typing? Is it because this Pokemon, like, you know the damage calculations very well and bug was relatively rare.
00:17:27
William Dunphey
And as long as you could avoid the Electro-type matchup versus like a Dedenne, you were in good shape. Is that the reason that Greninja suddenly didn't need shields?
00:17:36
zzweilous
So it obviously always depends on what team you're going up against. There are some teams where you know, okay, they only have one Caesar answer and that's a Diggersby, which isn't even that bad of a matchup um as long as you like catch a move or um get a shield advantage somewhere.
00:17:54
William Dunphey
Or shield the fire punch.
00:17:54
zzweilous
um so like sometimes you you knew like there was um a matchup against um adip khan that i did play on the loser side of day two uh on the like at the tables where greninja was six and oh in the two shield scenario like i knew that i could just rely on greninja and i didn't actually need the scissor as much um So there were always those s matchups where I knew, like, okay, I can really go all in on this one win condition on this one trump card, whereas um other matchups...
00:18:18
William Dunphey
wow
00:18:30
zzweilous
like those two core breakers were almost my safest Pokemon because yes, they don't have a lot of bulk, barely any bulk in fact. But sometimes if both of those um very aggressive Pokemon just beat like four out of six and also have perfect synergy, it can make sense to bring them together because...
00:18:49
zzweilous
a lot of people will still want to account for all your six Pokemon that you have on your team and then have to bring, for example, a Shadow Drapion because maybe that is their one response to um a Galarian Corsola.
00:19:03
zzweilous
If you have a Shadow Drapion against Greninja, you can confidently no-shield a Crunch and even another Aqua Tail if you really like to live dangerously.
00:19:03
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:19:15
zzweilous
So I feel like what was popular in the meta, ghost-type damage, ice-type damage, water-type damage, dark-type damage, all of that is resisted by Greninja.
00:19:16
William Dunphey
Like Austin Powers.
00:19:27
zzweilous
So while some matchups I did like to save shields for it, in others it just didn't need them.
00:19:34
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. That's so fascinating to hear. And yeah, I agree with you. I think that a lot of the offensive pressure, Greninja, in spite of its lack of bulk, its typing just made it such a a unique niche pick.
00:19:46
William Dunphey
I'm looking here at the top 24 teams from DracoViz. I don't see Galarian Weezing on a single other team in this top 24. I believe that's correct. I've looked over this list like three times and I do not see the Galarian Chimney Pokemon anywhere besides your team.
00:20:02
William Dunphey
And then the two Greninjas with
00:20:03
zzweilous
It's very much unique to the stop cut, yeah.
00:20:06
William Dunphey
with with you and Potta Man, both the Thinker Ninjas. And I think there might be one sprinkled somewhere else in here. But yeah, I thought it was interesting that both of our European trainers, to take it the furthest, were both running a similar core.
00:20:19
William Dunphey
And then there are a few other similarities as well, mainly the Acid Craydilly and then the Fairy-type Pokemon in Azumarill and Galarian Weezing. ah There were some broader meta trends that I wanted to just highlight ah with this shift from the ah previous season to Delightful Days.
00:20:33
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:20:36
William Dunphey
umm just going to throw out some facts here real quick. So Bologna was the last event before the Metashift, right? I just want to list some of these these Pokemon that were very popular and that were basically nowhere to be seen at NAIC. Just to give people an idea of the scale of the Metashift in case you weren't actually watching the event.
00:20:55
William Dunphey
So in Bologna, six teams out of the top eight had a Tinkaton. In NAIC, only four of the top 24 teams had a Tinketan.
00:21:06
William Dunphey
In Bologna, four of the top eight teams had a Corviknight. There were zero Corviknight in top 24 at NAIC. And Bologna, this is the most obvious one, right? Because with this Delightful Days update, we got a lot of buffs to bug types.
00:21:19
William Dunphey
In Bologna, 11 of the top 16 players had Malamar, and six of those 11 were Shadow, right? If you look towards NAIC, there were zero Malamar in top cut in the top 24 period.
00:21:33
William Dunphey
Five of eight teams, of five of the top eight teams in Bologna had a Zoomeril and nine out of 16 overall had a Zoomeril. And then there were three Zoomeril in the top 24 of NAIC.
00:21:45
William Dunphey
This is a big one too. In Bologna, 10 out of the top 16 teams had jump bluff. Nine out of those 10 were shadow. There was one jump bluff in the top 24 at NAIC that was piloted by Toad343 and it was a shadow jump bluff. So I think this is... I'm trying to like...
00:22:04
William Dunphey
Zoom out a little bit. Because as as you know competitors, commentators, we are in this all the time. We're looking at these meta shifts all the time. We're doing the show about it. We're commentating, competing, whatever.
00:22:17
William Dunphey
We are very much with our finger on the pulse, so to speak, of this meta game. I think this is like a moving target that a lot of more casual trainers probably have no idea how to anticipate, how to prepare for, what to do when these things are happening. Because let's say like, oh, I live in Louisiana and I kind of dabble in PvP a little bit.
00:22:36
William Dunphey
ah Let me look at the Bologna results and see what team I should lock in for NAIC this weekend. And if you did that, you would be so far behind. It wouldn't even be funny, right? You'd be so far behind.
00:22:47
William Dunphey
and And for all of my my searching over the internet and through the community, I really feel at this point that Inadequance and his Candle Cult tournaments, his meta usage charts, his victorious team graphics that he posts, I feel like that's like the only guide that we have for casual players who are not in the server scrimming. They're not in ORAC. They're not in the Candle Cult. They're not in the weeds, so to speak.
00:23:13
William Dunphey
And I feel like we need more resources because this is just such a drastic change from one week to the to the next due to one meta update. I mean, what do you think? Do you think we need more resources for casual players or should we just not worry about this?
Future Aspirations and Game Enhancements
00:23:27
zzweilous
I think we always can use more resources. The question is how those resources would look like. Are you thinking um just like an easily accessible way of practicing yourself or an easily digestible way of accessing practice tournament um results and um maybe it's like plugging something
00:23:35
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:23:53
zzweilous
more immediately accessible into the candle cold um results essentially.
00:24:01
William Dunphey
yeah so So I guess what i what I have in mind is two things. ah First is more people running practice tournaments, whether it's you know ah my server in GBLA or whether it's somebody else's server.
00:24:12
William Dunphey
We need more of these practice tournaments and we need to share these these winning teams more often, just get them out on more channels. And the second thing is maybe like a video guide to a new season because here's the thing.
00:24:23
William Dunphey
In a lot of our competitive servers, everyone is working through the meta. They're trying to scheme about what to bring. And especially if you're competing, you don't want to actively share your trade secrets like a week before the tournament or three days before the tournament.
00:24:37
William Dunphey
So there's like this barrier where a lot of top trainers just don't even want to talk about it. ah Famously this weekend, there was an example regarding Axon's Araquanid. And um I believe Axon was not the only one to play it. I believe Dunebug also played Araquanid.
00:24:51
William Dunphey
But ah ah one of my friends, I won't i won't name them for the for the show, one of my friends was like kind of frustrated. They were like, man, ah Legends United and Dunebug and Axon are just totally gatekeeping the Araquanid.
00:25:03
William Dunphey
And they're not telling anyone about it. They're not talking about the breakpoints. They wouldn't even scrim with me before the tournament. They only scrim with their own teammates. Like, what is this this wild gatekeeping maneuver? I mean, who are we?
00:25:14
William Dunphey
Tea and pizza? You know, what's going on?
00:25:15
zzweilous
Yeah, I was about to say, there's a copy pasta for that. um But yeah, um so like, obviously, i feel like this should be the case in a way that um top players who have great and unique meta read, like they shouldn't just be expected to put that out there for everybody to consume, copy and prepare for it.
00:25:21
William Dunphey
You know what i mean?
00:25:39
zzweilous
So in that way, really like what NAIC had to offer because we have a lot of interesting and unique takes on the meta really succeeding in their own way, be it the Arachronid, which obviously took it all, be it the Shadow Sizzle Ninja Corps, be it the Rune Rigas on Arceus Aurelius' team.
00:25:57
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:26:01
zzweilous
um there's a tentacruel in top card there's a pangoro in top card there's an alolan nine tails in top card there's a cantonian nine tails in top card there were a lot of very um unique and unusual picks that people probably wouldn't have predicted to rise up and i think that's that's kind of fun that's kind of cool um and i am okay with those staying secret but
00:26:04
William Dunphey
yeah
00:26:30
zzweilous
I still like the idea of, don't know, just like maybe compiling show six usage in a more public place.
00:26:42
zzweilous
I don't know whether there's like, maybe you integrate into Dracoviz, maybe you integrate it into PvPoke, just like one of those big sites that if you're like even a casual PvPer, you will probably have heard
00:26:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:26:57
zzweilous
um
00:26:57
William Dunphey
yeah
00:26:58
zzweilous
because I like the idea of having a central a centralized hub where everybody can just go and find what they're looking for. And with practice tournaments, this is still very much relegated to Discord servers, which is um like one layer of accessibility removed from just finding it on social media or clicking on that site that you always go to for all your PvP needs.
00:27:24
zzweilous
ah You have to become a member of a community. um you have to then sign up on another site. like there's always like and It always comes with strings attached to a degree.
00:27:29
William Dunphey
yeah
00:27:34
zzweilous
um
00:27:34
William Dunphey
ye
00:27:35
zzweilous
And yeah, if you follow the right people, if you follow right influencers, so to speak, you will find some info. um But it's not really as if we have that one central place. And another thing that um is I know is important to you as well as to me is that I think we need to have that show six option integrated integrated into the game sooner rather than later I'm not really holding my breath for it to happen super soon but if Scopely is listening to this um yeah if we
00:28:03
William Dunphey
Yes, please. Mm-hmm.
00:28:13
zzweilous
just were able to do like whole remote competitions that emulate the official circuit i know that vgc is able to do that a lot of the time um and even is able to award championship points for it and we don't even have the infrastructure to play the show six mode that is so instrumental for how this game functions on a competitive level um
00:28:38
William Dunphey
Yep. yep
00:28:39
zzweilous
I feel like we we need the infrastructure both on a grassroots level, but also in a way um just in-game. um Because right now it's really like, okay, do you know the right people? Do you know the right places?
00:28:53
zzweilous
And obviously, like I think we have a very welcoming community. It's not too difficult to find people to link up with. And a lot of um big creators um in the PvP sphere have um a lot of the community dedicated to play Pokemon and the chinese and championship series.
00:29:13
zzweilous
But still, i wish it was ah little more out in the open, a little more immediately accessible for sure.
00:29:19
William Dunphey
Something that's fascinating to me is actually the content creation journey of Cybertron and Wolf, right? If you look at VGC, obviously the game has been going on for many, many years, especially in the competitive sphere.
00:29:33
William Dunphey
And Go is still very new. very very new um I really actually need to kind of sit down and maybe chat with one or or both of them at some point. I need to figure out like how this growth happened from VGC being this incredibly difficult thing to to gain and to or to gain access to competitively.
00:29:53
William Dunphey
Because you know you have to find the right Pokemon, you have to train them up, you have to do all these other things, and you have to you have to scrim, and you have to you know figure out the stats you want.
00:29:59
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:30:01
William Dunphey
And and the gameplay itself is like very, very intricate, very detailed. It's, I mean, it's wildly more complicated than Go. Let's just be honest, right? It's Go is mostly counting energy management, damage calculations, predictions, that kind of thing. But setting up terrain, you know, turn speeds, everything else that goes into VG is so, so complex.
00:30:19
William Dunphey
So seeing those creators actually establish enormous bases of viewership. And I'm sure a lot of people, like for the example I just gave, I'm sure if you're a VG competitor and you want to play and in a certain regulation, you go online, you look up,
00:30:33
William Dunphey
Aaron's videos, you look up Wolf's videos, and you can build a team based on you know the video or the information you learn from those videos. So I don't know. I don't think Go is there yet, but I do think there is potential to get there.
00:30:44
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:30:45
William Dunphey
And like you said, adding Show 6 to the game would be a huge, huge benefit to that. There's an interview. I'll just read through this really briefly. There's an interview with Chris Brown, who is our our Esports director for Pokemon. He's been with TPCI for 12 years.
00:31:00
William Dunphey
And he's really seeing kind of the growth of everything over time. And ah with the news that Scopely officially acquired Pokemon Go, and um they are ah taking ownership of of the team and everything else, I thought this interesting this this answer, excuse me, was very, very interesting.
00:31:16
William Dunphey
So just read through really quickly. and The question is about, ah do you work with developers to better enhance the player experience? And Chris Brown says, yes. With Game Freak, it's a long development cycle. They solicit what we'd like to do in tournaments almost two plus years ahead of the game.
00:31:32
William Dunphey
I say an example of some of the things that they've done in the past would be accessibility things like rental teams, obviously, but also the world's finals often have a special stage just for the finals with its own custom music.
00:31:44
William Dunphey
Imagine if Scobly did that for Go, right? So the game developers really care about the community and those competitions to take the time to sort of build this stuff. Pokemon Unite has a tournament mode built into the game product that all players are able to access and play in our online tournaments.
00:31:59
William Dunphey
When they do that, all the licenses are unlocked so that all players can play on equal footing. He continues. We're constantly talking with the game developers and they're looking at, you know, what our needs are to put on a great tournament.
00:32:11
zzweilous
yeah
00:32:12
William Dunphey
Pokemon Unite has another example where they built a LAN mode just for these live events in order to make that player experience more seamless because removing latency makes for a better player experience.
00:32:23
William Dunphey
These things take time and energy for the game developer side and we're very fortunate that we've got a great link between our events and our esports teams when talking with them. So when you hear that and you hear that these these innovations and these kind of like agreements have been made for the other titles, it really begs the question, why not us?
00:32:42
William Dunphey
Why not go? Why can't we get a show six tournament mode in the game? Why can't we get a potential land connection at at these events? So that like me, I wasn't waiting for an hour for my my GPS error to debug itself so I could actually play my games.
00:32:55
zzweilous
Oh, yes.
00:32:57
William Dunphey
Like, why not?
00:32:58
zzweilous
Been there, done that. um
00:32:59
William Dunphey
Yeah, i feel like I feel like we all have, and it's just unfair.
00:33:00
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:33:03
zzweilous
I think... So one thing that always irks me to a degree is that I feel a lot of a lot of the reason why there's no new features being rolled out or maybe our content creation isn't yet as ambitious as it is for other titles.
00:33:26
zzweilous
I feel like a lot of that seems to have to do with us just being a smaller game and there's just um less players that would appreciate something like that.
00:33:37
zzweilous
But I honestly just look at this as the best way of growing the scene. um And I think a lot of what... um what happened to VGC has directly, like directly has to do with, um, the videos that people like Wolfglick are putting out.
00:33:57
zzweilous
And it's not only Wolfie, it's a lot of medium to small sized creators who, um, just produce very digestible, um, not super cookie cutter.
00:34:03
William Dunphey
True. Mm-hmm.
00:34:09
zzweilous
This is the GBL team for the week type of content. And honestly, like I can't fault any, um, goal creator for doing what works best for them because everybody is putting a lot of work and effort into that and wants to um just see it work out for themselves as well as possible.
00:34:29
zzweilous
But I still always... think about what you could do if you were to just study what works for other titles and then blatantly copy everything that works really well but give it a go twist i think that is possible i think there is a lot of potential out there and i've seen people do it in the past like one uh creator that comes to mind um Any I see top cutter, Arceus Aurelius, who, um i don't know, was that two years ago? Was that 2023 even?
00:35:00
zzweilous
Like he had like a brief stint of narrativizing Pokemon Go content a little more, be it talking about top competitors going into worlds or um what makes a certain Pokemon strong.
00:35:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:35:07
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:35:14
zzweilous
And even though that may not have immediately taken off, I thought that was super refreshing.
00:35:19
William Dunphey
Me too.
00:35:19
zzweilous
And I think there is... there is potential for this to pop off in the long run. um But it's an issue that isn't really filled out just yet for Pokemon Go. And again, this is not meant to be and attack on any one creator who um has their own way of setting priorities that make sense to them.
00:35:41
zzweilous
But me, as somebody who is very lazy, I'm not very lazy, I'm just very busy, but Like I get to sit here and yap about what I would like to see. And this is what I would like to see.
00:35:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:35:50
zzweilous
This is like the content that I would consume. Like I find myself consuming more, um, VGC content on YouTube than Pokemon Go content because it's catering to this competitive audience a little more and in an interesting and entertaining way.
00:36:07
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:36:10
zzweilous
like I think we have a lot of good teachers in the community, a lot of people that are good at not only um showcasing excellent gameplay but also talking through it.
00:36:22
zzweilous
But I don't think we have that many, is not meant derogatory, but influencer types, like like people who you would return to their channel because of how interesting they make their content in a way.
00:36:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:36:38
zzweilous
Like, you know, you come back to them because they're really good. They're really educational. um They may have... great Go Battle League teams that you want to use for yourself, or they may showcase your Go Battle League teams because you can submit the battles to them.
00:36:53
zzweilous
And then there' that's like that's valuable content. But I still feel as if there's another layer that we can still unlock as a community.
00:36:56
William Dunphey
yeah
00:37:03
zzweilous
And I don't know who will fill that void or if that void is going to be filled, but I think it exists. And i'm I'm really hoping that there will be somebody who goes viral with Pokemon Go PvP content because I do believe that um especially like in this day and age, that's like even in the world of chess, like this is a tangent, but people are talking about how the Gotham Chess YouTube channel is the third most influential figure in um competitive chess or at least the online community when it comes to growing the scene on like a casual first level and yeah just to just to be that figure I don't know whether we have that yet but I think we could really use it
00:37:32
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:37:36
William Dunphey
yeah
00:37:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think you're right. And it it ah a lot of it comes down to player awareness, right? I mean, only a fraction of players know about the the championship series. Many, many, many more players know about Go Battle League, obviously, because it's in the game itself.
00:38:02
William Dunphey
And again, introducing a show six mode just absolutely opens the floodgates, hopefully, to more players joining and into the competitive circuit. I also wanted to shout out to Zionic as well. He published a video about a month ago.
00:38:14
William Dunphey
It's titled How the Worst Pokemon Typing Became Champions, and it's about bug types. And on his thumbnail is a Glyzopod. So ah yeah, as Zionic did a really good job with that video. It was ah over 30 days ago now, so I hope he makes another one very soon.
00:38:27
zzweilous
Bye.
00:38:28
William Dunphey
But that kind of storytelling and editing was very, very good, and I wanted to encourage him as well. And yeah, I agree. a lot of the players that make the GoBattle League content, I don't fault them at all. If anything, I actively admire them for for braving the seas through the the bad seasons, the down seasons, the buggy seasons, everything else. They've continued to make content. you know Folks like Jonkis or Henry or...
00:38:53
William Dunphey
or any of the other ones, eight they continue rise. They continue to make incredible videos over time. And there's like a formula to it. But I feel like that formula also needs to evolve just like every other form of content. Things need to improve and get better in order to hold attention and to grow and to reach new audiences, right? So...
00:39:11
William Dunphey
i think that's I think everyone listening probably agrees with that. So hopefully we get that.
00:39:14
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:39:15
William Dunphey
And hopefully, to come back to our previous point, now that Scopely he is assuming more ownership and they have more direct ties to esport activities, hopefully they see that potential.
00:39:25
William Dunphey
Because... Again, Scopely, if you're listening, competitive Pokemon is a rocket ship. If you go to Chris Brown's profile and you scroll through there for more than a minute, you'll see the player numbers like a hockey stick shooting way up. You'll see the viewership shooting way up. You'll see all the metrics that he posts on his page.
00:39:42
William Dunphey
And honestly, if you want to get in on this rocket ship, you've got to start somewhere. And ah if Pokemon Go is your gateway into it, we're we're welcoming you with open arms. Please, our Scopely overlords, please ah help us to get more competitive.
00:39:54
zzweilous
We are like like a year away, maybe like a year and a half away from Generation 10, from ah Pokemon anniversary, from a huge year for the franchise.
00:40:06
zzweilous
And if one was able to actually get this competitive game mode implemented right now, I think we could just ride that wave, that that tide that lifts all boats when there's just like this general Pokemon c craze that will benefit all the titles.
00:40:07
William Dunphey
Perry Kivolowitz- yep.
00:40:21
William Dunphey
yeah
00:40:23
zzweilous
And yeah, i would I would hate to see us be be late for that, but there's still time. There is still time.
00:40:30
William Dunphey
Yeah, and I just want to emphasize to everyone as well, one point that I've i've kind of had discussions about with friends over the past couple years, and something we need to understand about Pokemon Go is that as far as competitive, it's not going anywhere because of Pokemon's PVE leverage.
00:40:48
William Dunphey
And what I mean by that is you can pick up a Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 and you can play Scarlet Violet, you can play Z to A, but that's for a lot of the primary poke Pokemon fans, right, who are either...
00:40:59
William Dunphey
ah getting their sixth or seventh title and they just love VG or they're younger and they're getting a game as a Christmas gift or whatever it might be. And then there's the trading card game where you can essentially walk into a Walmart or a hobby store and you can buy cards and you can trade them, you can sell them, you can do whatever.
00:41:15
William Dunphey
But everyone, especially in the US and and EU, and I think in in most areas of the world at this point, almost everyone has a mobile device. And Pokemon Go is basically like an invaluable asset of the Pokemon brand at this point, because it is a gateway more so than walking through a Walmart checkout lane and buying a pack of cards, more so than buying a Nintendo Switch and downloading or or buying a game or downloading a game.
00:41:41
William Dunphey
More so than that, you can download it for free. You can play anytime. It's a massive gateway to the brand. So the value in Pokemon go doesn't appear to be on the competitive side right now, but the PVE side is enormous. And we found that out with the, uh, the go fest stream in New Jersey as well.
00:41:58
William Dunphey
Um, I won't share all of the metrics, but I will say, i don't know if I told you this yet, CC, but that GoFest stream in New Jersey was the second most viewed Pokemon stream of all time. Behind EUIC grand finals of last year for VG, we had over 5.5 million people come to that stream at some point.
00:42:17
William Dunphey
So...
00:42:18
zzweilous
That is insane. Yeah, I was like about to ask, you mean Pokemon or do you mean Pokemon Go? But you do mean Pokemon, apparently.
00:42:26
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:42:26
zzweilous
and
00:42:26
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:42:27
zzweilous
I did see that the drops attracted a lot of ah folks and attracted a lot of folks to um non-event streams as well if drops were enabled.
00:42:37
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:39
zzweilous
um So I think that was a nice way to incentivize just even passive participation is better than no participation. And it also showcases just like this untapped base of players that does exist out there that we could interest for the championship series.
00:42:47
William Dunphey
yeah
00:42:57
William Dunphey
Yeah, i'm I'm telling you, if we have if we have a PvE stream and 100 people subscribe, just just for example's sake, and then you know they all get a notification for the next regional tournament that comes up, and then 50 of those people tune into that, or maybe 30 or so tune into that stream, and then 10 of those people sign up to compete next season, if you scale that out by 5.5 million, you know, who just watched the GoFest stream, there is growth potential, and it's all about widening the top of the funnel.
Surprises and Performances at NAIC
00:43:26
William Dunphey
ZZ, I just noticed we've been yapping for 40 minutes and we're still talking about like accessibility.
00:43:31
zzweilous
and This is true. have we managed yet Have we mentioned yet who even won NAIC? don't even know whether we did.
00:43:38
William Dunphey
i i think briefly in the intro, we might have been mentioned.
00:43:38
zzweilous
ah ah that That could have happened. That could have happened.
00:43:42
William Dunphey
let's let's um Let's do this real quick, if you don't mind, if you're if you're okay with this. Let's talk about some of the upsets, some of the people that did not win that we thought had a good shot to do it. I've got four trainers in mind. Are you ready?
00:43:55
zzweilous
Oh yeah, let's punch down.
00:43:57
William Dunphey
All right, upsets. let's Let's start low and we'll build up. We'll build up from here. Some trainers that you always see on a bracket and you just assume this trainer has what it takes to go all the way, out of pocket.
00:44:09
William Dunphey
Knocked to loser side bracket in his round one. After he got a buy round one, he competed at round two. Knocked to the loser side by Poncho. And I just want to tell everyone that Yu Poncho's team included Dragalgy, Wigglytuff, and Gastrodon.
00:44:25
William Dunphey
And he knocked Pocket down to the loser's side bracket. Pocket then lost 1-2 to Bopper, who was playing Shadow Scizor and Shadow Prime Apes. So Pocket, not the tournament experience he was expecting, especially after having such an incredible run last year.
00:44:38
William Dunphey
Wadaj, another North American trainer, knocked to loser's bracket round two by someone named Daje Doge FH's team was pretty standard. Dedenne and regular Scizor.
00:44:50
William Dunphey
With Doge was then eliminated from NAIC by EU Udin in round four of the loser side bracket. Udin had a pretty standard Mandava Shadow Quagsire core. Let's move on to LNDS Harjef.
00:45:03
William Dunphey
Arguably the best trainer in LATAM. Round three lost to someone named Matcha1984. Matcha's team included Jellicent and Alolan Sandslash. Harjeff was then eliminated by Dr. Roast Beef in losers round five of the tournament.
00:45:17
William Dunphey
And now for the Whopper. Colin six sent to the loser side bracket in the round three of the NAIC. He had a buy no show and then a loss.
00:45:28
William Dunphey
That was his, his ah record for, for the first three rounds.
00:45:30
zzweilous
man
00:45:32
William Dunphey
He was knocked down by garbage baby PAL. I don't even know where to start with that, but let's talk about the team's easy garbage. Baby pals team had tentacruel Corvanite and fled chinder, not talent flame,
00:45:47
zzweilous
Fletch Shinder Ember got buffed
00:45:48
William Dunphey
Not Talent Flame.
00:45:52
William Dunphey
Ember is strong now. Fletch Inder took down the final boss.
00:45:53
zzweilous
yeah
00:45:56
William Dunphey
What? However, Colin did bounce back. He won five rounds straight for day two, but then ah eventually succumbed to Arceus Aurelius in round one of day two. But still, if you're Colin Six, if you are him and you're walking in feeling like the final boss and you go up against a Fletchinder in round three after getting a bye and a no show and you lose, my goodness, that is just something you can't prepare for.
00:46:23
zzweilous
I really hope that none of these trainers are taking these tough runs to heart too much because I feel as if the way you just laid out the variety of teams that those butlers had to face, this is very much a early meta, tough team comp syndrome where you may have prepared for something entirely different and then...
00:46:31
William Dunphey
Me too. Yeah.
00:46:51
zzweilous
another person had a different type of meta read that really took you by surprise. And I have to say, my day one run wasn't much different either.
00:46:56
William Dunphey
yeah
00:47:03
zzweilous
Like I managed to stay alive. um but I had to go up against a Shadow Samurad. I had to go up against a Shadow Blastoise. I had to go up against a Tentacruel.
00:47:14
zzweilous
And in three of my um first four rounds, I did drop a game and was essentially back to the wall already. it was definitely tough times. um But yeah, I feel as if um my team offered me enough neutral play to at least bounce back in game three every time.
00:47:33
zzweilous
um But yeah certainly NAIC of a lot of upsets. And I feel like that has been a theme in previous ICs as well, where there's always been like a handful of trainers that we could easily see win it all um that get eliminated fairly early.
00:47:50
William Dunphey
Yep. Yep.
00:47:52
zzweilous
And honestly, if anybody um this past weekend had a run that they're not happy with, this is proof that it can happen to anybody. Like nobody is ever safe, no matter what the accolades are, because all of those trainers that you just mentioned, um I think there's no doubt about that they are belonging up there in in the conversation of like, who's the best players that we have on the planet.
00:48:03
William Dunphey
ye
00:48:16
William Dunphey
Yeah. It also highlights that our game is, I would say, more front-loaded with ah pressure on exp on ah team prediction than any of the other titles.
00:48:28
William Dunphey
And I feel like, again, if you just lock in Shadow Scissor as your third Pokemon and your opponent locks in Fletch Ender, there's just no WinCon.
00:48:35
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:48:36
William Dunphey
There's like no way to to come back from it. No matter if you have played a million battles and you have all the experience in the world, there's just no way, once those two Pokemon are aligned, that you can even... do anything, right? It's just it's just kind of hopeless.
00:48:48
William Dunphey
So yeah, I agree with you. And I think that it's interesting too, because if you look at regional competitions, people only go to regionals when they're going there to compete, right? They know, oh, you're going to fly to Fort Wayne, Indiana, or you know ah someplace like Peoria.
00:49:03
William Dunphey
Unless you are going there with the hopes of getting points and defeating your opponents. But the net, so to speak, is cast a whole lot wider at ICs. Because a lot of people are coming there for the Pokemon Center.
00:49:12
zzweilous
Bye.
00:49:14
William Dunphey
They're coming there for you know to watch the shows. They're coming there for the city itself. Whether it's London or whether it's Sao Paulo or New Orleans. They're coming there for the experience. And you get a wider variety of things. So I agree with you. I think that the best players are able to handle the curveballs and take care of business. And they're also able to win those hotly contested matches. And ah unfortunately for the the trainers we mentioned, not the best NAIC run, but I fully expect all of them, all of them to absolutely crush at worlds. And yeah, I hope it doesn't get them down, as you said, because we need them and in tip top form because we want to, we want to see them succeed and I believe that they deserve it. So
00:49:52
William Dunphey
And also shout out to the trainers that beat them. I mean, you must be, you must be walking on cloud nine when you take down, you know, hard Jeff and you're like, man, i just beat the LAC champ, you know, one of the goats of, of the game itself.
00:49:57
zzweilous
you
00:50:04
William Dunphey
I mean, that must feel amazing. So shout out to this those players. Yeah.
00:50:08
zzweilous
Yeah, I definitely do want to stress that too, that just because your opponent is well known and your team may look a little funky on first sight doesn't mean that like you got lucky with the team comp.
00:50:20
zzweilous
It's always a big achievement to take down somebody like that because there's a bunch of trainers that have a good team comp into a top competitor and don't manage to take them down. So um definitely shout outs to everybody who managed to take down a giant of the game.
00:50:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:50:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. I agree. I agree. There were a couple of bracket surprises I wanted to shout out to. The first is Sceptile Ice. And if if we were to hypothetically do a Worlds preview, and we were to hypothetically look at the list of top performers in n a this trainer is also on that list. Also really, really a pleasant surprise.
00:50:57
William Dunphey
ah He started out the day as the number two seed in Group E. He had a no-show round one. He took down CO is a beast, i talked to CO in the venue. He said they were very close games, ah took down Dr. Roast Beef, and then they loved Jai.
00:51:11
William Dunphey
Dr. Roast Beef would later bring down Harjef, as we said, and then Jai would defeat Dr. Roast Beef. So kind of funny how those things connect. ah Day two, Sceptile lost to Teddy Bear to start, and then he beat Dilap, Arcus Aurelius, Alpha Feeb, and was stopped by, yours truly, Z Zylus. So Sceptile Ice,
00:51:28
William Dunphey
was popping off. And Sceptile, I think the key to your success, if you're listening, was not playing Mantine. Don't play that Pokemon.
00:51:35
zzweilous
I actually, um like the um evening before the tournament, I had a dinner with a bunch of friends and teammates and my my teammate Ben, she's curl.
00:51:48
zzweilous
We were talking about um okay, these trainers are already signed up on RK9. Let's go through some notable names and predict how far they could go.
00:51:48
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:51:59
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:51:59
zzweilous
And on Septalice, we were both in agreement that they had a fantastic season. And Ben went so far as to say that he could even imagine Septalice taking home a trophy.
00:52:12
zzweilous
And he came very close. He did come very close. So um certainly one of the rising stars in the North American scene this season.
00:52:21
William Dunphey
Yeah, our only Tinkaton in the top eight was Sceptile Ice. So maybe a maybe he knows something we don't. ah Second trainer I wanted to shout out to was Battle Bill. He loses round one, O2, but then he heats up with a really, really nice loser side racket run.
00:52:37
William Dunphey
ah He defeated Alan News, had a no-show in the following round. 2-1s Blepnir, 2-1s Rogue Leader, 2-1s Arrow, 2-0s PDX Dragon, and then two one Tomahawk.
00:52:49
William Dunphey
In day two, though, i believe that he defeated They Love Jai, but then was defeated by Ashton Ash himself. So Battle Bill with a very, very impressive run as well. I mean, don't sleep on Bill.
00:53:01
William Dunphey
i think I think we'll talk about him a lot this episode.
00:53:04
zzweilous
yeah certainly um Certainly one of those trainers who sometimes get maybe a little bit of a worse rep than they deserve. I looked at Bill's previous accomplishments in recent tournaments and there's like a lot of 17th places and 17th places always tell me that um this trainer is like one lucky break away from getting that top cut and getting like maybe even into the prize money and getting a lot of championship points.
00:53:35
zzweilous
And yeah, it's always great when your little breakout happens on the international stage, right?
00:53:36
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:53:42
zzweilous
um Because yeah obviously everything's just sit a little bit larger and not everybody can say with themselves that they have TopCut and IC. So um big shout outs to Bill.
00:53:54
zzweilous
And yeah, I guess like we have a couple of ah topics lined up for um after the after the battle aspect. So maybe we'll get back to him later.
00:54:05
William Dunphey
Yeah, sounds like a plan. and Was there anyone that you wanted to shout out? There were a few surprises to me in our top cut. For example, I thought that RGR was very impressive. I thought that Toad 434 was very impressive. I think I called him Toad 343 earlier, but it's actually 434. Sorry about that, Toad.
00:54:20
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:54:22
William Dunphey
ah We had some pretty pretty impressive players and a nice mix of regions as well. Rocha Babyface from LATAM, Lyle Jess from Canada. We had so many other trainers from other countries as well in our in our top cut.
00:54:33
zzweilous
yeah
00:54:34
William Dunphey
So um know.
00:54:35
zzweilous
we had
00:54:35
William Dunphey
Anyone shout out to you?
00:54:37
zzweilous
21 North Americans, of five Europeans, five players that represent the Latam region, and then they love Jai as the Oceanian top cutter. So really a very nice balance.
00:54:49
zzweilous
And some trainers that stand out to me, like one of them would be the masked Asian, who is of elite TM's fame, a constant top leaderboarder, but also somebody who...
00:54:56
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:55:03
zzweilous
um is not able to travel to those play Pokemon events a lot or at all even. um But he's lucky enough to have NEIC as a sort of local event.
00:55:17
zzweilous
And i feel like the last time we really saw the Master Asian was also at NEIC making a pretty notable run. And again, top cutting, I think, in shared 17th place.
00:55:28
zzweilous
um So that was really like taking the one opportunity that you do have and making the most of it. And I feel like the run that I personally found the most noteworthy outside of obviously our three on Championship Sunday was actually fifth place Tiwastel because um I feel as if...
00:55:49
William Dunphey
yeah
00:55:52
zzweilous
Tiwastel is also in that category of sometimes doesn't really get as much credit. I do remember the Clotsire controversy where um a lot of people were piling up against him and were telling him to essentially shut up with his takes on competitive Pokemon and...
00:56:11
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:56:12
zzweilous
I know that Tiwostel was like heading into the tournament, just trying to get the points to qualify for Worlds, because he definitely needed a good run to make that happen still. And then he essentially came within one set from just qualifying directly as a top four um competitor, and was so close to to even getting a trophy, which is probably not something that he had envisioned heading into the tournament. But yeah, like...
00:56:40
zzweilous
top five at the biggest north american event of the season like that is something to be really really proud of and one of my favorite moments of the weekend as well even though i probably wouldn't have done the same but um rumberto against tiwastel there was a moment where Rumberto actually conceded a match that he did have one, but he won it because of what we call the damage registration error, previously known as the new mechanic.
00:56:59
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:57:07
zzweilous
Is it an error? Is it a mechanic? We don't know. um But it is ah when you get your charge attack off the turn that you would typically feint from the fast attack damage your opponent deals to you.
00:57:20
zzweilous
And there is not enough clarity around whether this is an intended or an unintended way of the game playing out. um What we do know is that it is not rematchable. It is ruled a state of the game.
00:57:32
zzweilous
So if Remberto would have decided to take that win, he could have taken that win. And nobody would have even questioned it because that's just how we have been doing it in Pokemon Go.
00:57:42
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:57:43
zzweilous
But Rumberto actually decided that going up against his ah teammate Tiwastel, he was not going to take that victory and instead awarded the point to Tiwastel.
00:57:56
zzweilous
And I think that is, like especially with so much on the line, this is plaudible display of sportsmanship that, again, like maybe it would have been different if it was me against a teammate, but if that was me against any random opponent, I would have just counted my blessings, um' been happy that I got this lucky, and taken the win. So this was definitely not something that ah would have been expected from any random competitor.
00:58:24
William Dunphey
Yeah. And I want to emphasize as well that it's not the player's responsibility to give these kinds of things away. ah my My memory calls back to Wadage versus Arrow. i remember there was a a error in the game on stage. I think it was another example of DRE, like early, early on the season.
00:58:42
William Dunphey
And Wadage ended up taking the win and just did not, um you know, give the same kind of gesture that Berto gave ah to Twastel. So, I hate that our players are in that position where they have to like rise in the grand finals versus Haydonis, had to give Haydonis back a turn because he you know he got the one turn upon entry. Or Berto he to could see that you know DRE had an effect in the game.
00:59:09
William Dunphey
I hate that our players are in this position where they have to decide this, but I just want to emphasize to everyone watching at home, if you're trying to paint the story of someone as a hero or as a villain, it's not their responsibility to choose either way. They work within the rules and the framework that's established.
00:59:23
William Dunphey
And what Berto did was incredibly kind. And I do think that ah he deserves a lot of praise for that. He's ah he's a really nice guy. Berto and I bonded a little bit over the weekend about our mutual love for coffee.
00:59:34
William Dunphey
And we, I think it was like, we were both ah seduced by the 2 p.m. iced coffee on Sunday. So ah the forbidden iced coffee, I should say, because it For a lot of us, if you drink coffee that late in the day, you end up staying up late at night, but whatever. It was it was a ah it was a pretty hectic weekend.
00:59:51
William Dunphey
But yeah, I agree with you. I think um Berto was really impressive. so I thought Toastel was incredibly impressive. Like you said, top five at NAIC was insane. ah My competitive history with Toastel goes back quite a ways. I remember playing him in the grand finals of the Tampa...
01:00:06
William Dunphey
ah regionals ah in order to qualify for Continentals back in Sylph 2021. Twastle was my opponent in the grand finals of that tournament. So that was definitely an interesting moment.
01:00:18
William Dunphey
And then Paul, aka the masked Asian, it was so funny because I was like screaming with Paul, talking with him before the tournament started. And he's just such an easygoing, you know, fun person to be around. ah But he's a, he's cutthroat as a competitor, you know, he knows what he's doing. So very, very ah proud of him.
01:00:34
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think you highlighted some of the best bracket runs and shout out to everyone who competed. ah Firestar as well, who was a very competitive in the Spice Bowl that Henry and co-commentated together. And then he ended up within the top 16.
01:00:47
William Dunphey
Very, very impressive by him. And um good run by AlphaFeeb as well. I'm sure we'll talk more about Feeb later on. But yeah, Adib Khan doing Adib things after we saw how good he was in Portland.
01:00:57
William Dunphey
So that wasn't super, super surprising to me, but I'm happy to see him consistent.
01:01:00
zzweilous
You could call it a deep run.
01:01:03
William Dunphey
Ah, a deep run. A deep run in the tournament. Absolutely. ah Let us know in the YouTube comments if you got the joke. um and Let's talk about Sundays, EZ. Because honestly, of all the Championship Sundays I watched, this one felt like, especially the Pato versus Elim series.
01:01:22
William Dunphey
My goodness. This felt like probably the most competitive, ah I guess, sequence of battles that we've we've ever had. I mean, this was absolutely insane.
01:01:32
zzweilous
Yeah, I feel like we we say that after just about every IC, but the stakes for this one, like you had arguably the most successful North American trainer in Elam who just came off back-to-back championships.
01:01:36
William Dunphey
But
01:01:48
zzweilous
um Then you had Itzakson, former world champion, former IC champion, just repeated his Portland regional championship after like one and a half years of really searching for his form, but now back to his best. And then you had Pato Man, who was who like had the opportunity to be the first trainer to get that double IC crown in the same season.
01:02:11
zzweilous
um one u i see um reach the grand finals in severe and no really back with ah with a very spicy team, not unlike ah my own team, but piloted just that little bit better. um And yeah, you have have that continental showdown between Pato and Elam. You have essentially like this generational showdown almost with Ed Saxon.
01:02:38
zzweilous
um i don't know, like, can you really say that he's representing the old guard, but he's like this force from 2023 re-emerging as Pato re-emerging as potentially the best in the world and coming from the loser's side to um take on those those top competitors. And even though he was able to close it out with a clean 3-0 at the end of the day, um up until then, all the series that we witnessed were so incredibly close that, yeah, like if like if if somebody, if we had like a script writer for this tournament, this is probably the exact day three they would have come up with.
01:03:17
William Dunphey
yeah Exactly. I saw some comments as well. um ah The series, I mentioned Elim versus Pato. That was an insane series. But the one I was like actively visualizing was actually Pato versus Axan.
01:03:27
William Dunphey
ah I saw comments on the YouTube video that went up. It's about 35 minutes long if you'd like to watch it online. I saw comments saying this was the real grand finals, right? This was the peak of the entire tournament.
01:03:38
William Dunphey
And for everyone that ah that missed it, this was a sequence of games where Pato boosted on his Greninja Four times in a row. And I think the mathematical probability of that is what, like 0.2% or something like that? twelve twelve point five percent 12.5% to the fourth degree, which is absolutely like unimaginable. i I heard some jokes in the crowd. You'll love this, ZZ.
01:04:00
William Dunphey
You probably heard the same jokes. I heard some people saying that they need a new drop for worlds with Pantaman's Greninja that boosts on every single night slash.
01:04:11
zzweilous
So honestly, like I have a um strong opinion on that sequence of events because I actually disagree with the notion that Pato got all that lucky in
01:04:17
William Dunphey
OK.
01:04:27
zzweilous
day three overall. And I think I will have to explain that because we just went over how he night slash boosted four times in a row.
01:04:30
William Dunphey
OK.
01:04:36
William Dunphey
Yeah, what do you mean?
01:04:36
zzweilous
And we're just like, obviously like incredible, incredibly fortunate to have that happen to you. um But what I mean by that is that in the winner's finals against Elam, I think Pato was like, you could reasonably call him unlucky for having um the game one overturned where, like not overturned, but essentially he started lagging with his Marowak when he was in a position where he had...
01:04:57
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:05:04
zzweilous
um at least a decent shot at winning that game because he essentially went two and a half times as strong against Elim Stigarsby in the back and probably had the energy on both his Marouac and his Azumarill to close out the game and potentially,
01:05:22
zzweilous
um pull ahead 1-0 in that series. But that's not what happened, because all of a sudden, the mudslaps of the Marowak go into slow motion. Pato isn't getting the damage, Pato isn't getting the energy.
01:05:33
zzweilous
It's an obvious rematch, but he loses that advantage. He loses that um line call that he made. Elim adjusts, Elim doesn't bring the diggers anymore, and instead he trusts the golycer pod and again, like this goes back to we can't ever blame player for um their actions because they have to operate within the rules and unlike in grassroots tournaments there are no there is no rule that um prescribes same teams for the competitors so was ah it was unfortunately just the name of the game that Pato would lose his um team call there and would have to
01:05:43
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:06:01
William Dunphey
yeah
01:06:08
zzweilous
um essentially prepare for that game as if it was a new game one, but I would call that unlucky. And the other thing that I would call unlucky is um the situation in the decisive game five in the losers finals against its Axon, where um Pato leads the Cradilly into the Shadow Drapion.
01:06:26
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
01:06:28
zzweilous
Axon pulls off a genius bait because he kind of knows that Pato is probably really into switch advantage here.
01:06:28
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:06:35
zzweilous
He aqua tails early, um meaning he gets to save a little bit of energy um and still gets the shield. um And they I think they play out the one shield scenario, if I'm not mistaken. And the way this plays out is that Pato lands one rock tomb.
01:06:52
zzweilous
Azen lands, I think, two crunches, but they're debuffed.
01:06:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:06:55
zzweilous
um And at the end of the matchup, the Cradilly assets down the Shadow Dropion the exact same moment the Shadow Dropion poisons things down the Cradilly. So it's just a flat-out tie. There's no switch advantage achieved for either competitor.
01:07:10
zzweilous
Both players sit there, they wait the timer, they wait the full 10 seconds, then its Axan presses the Slapras, whereas Pato presses nothing. but its Axan actually presses too late.
01:07:23
zzweilous
The ah decision to go into his Lapras doesn't go through.
01:07:23
William Dunphey
yeah
01:07:28
zzweilous
Instead, his Araquanid is selected and Pato's Greninja is selected. And this seals the game. Because even though Pato's Mandibas has decent enough matchups in the back with Axan's Lapras not being on Ice Beam,
01:07:41
William Dunphey
Lapras.
01:07:43
zzweilous
It can't a Pokémon that has very pitiful damage output. and ah It tries its best, but at the end of the day, you just have the Araquanid on that Greninja.
01:07:55
zzweilous
It is that RPS win, it was decided by fate, essentially, and it didn't go in Parto's favor, which is why I personally think that Parto actually did not get lucky that day three,
01:08:07
zzweilous
His last two Night Slash boosts were inconsequential. You could argue that the second nine Night Slash boost, he may have won that anyway because he kind of had the decent alignment and he just needed that chip damage. and the very first knight slash boost, it did win him the game.
01:08:24
zzweilous
But what I want to stress is that to be in a position and have those two charge attacks loaded on your Scizor and that you are in a position where you have that win condition of boosting, I think that requires really...
01:08:39
zzweilous
like really precise play to even maneuver yourself into that spot. Because even though Pato had only a 1 in 8 chance of winning that game, 99% of players would have had 0% chance at this point in time because he just played that so excellently to his 1 win condition.
01:08:45
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:08:57
zzweilous
So obviously it was a very hype.
01:08:58
William Dunphey
yeah
01:08:59
zzweilous
It was a fantastic series to to watch as a spectator. But I do want to dispel the notion that Pato got lucky and Axel would have just wiped the floor with him if he didn't get lucky.
01:09:10
zzweilous
Because I do not believe that's what happened.
01:09:11
William Dunphey
yeah
01:09:12
zzweilous
I think they were evenly matched.
01:09:14
William Dunphey
So things kind of balance out, right? You you have that game restart versus Axon. You lose that advantage that you secured as Pato. And then ah there's a rumor, right? I've tested it a few times with with House Stark, but I don't know if my testing exactly holds up.
01:09:31
William Dunphey
But there's a rumor that if you have a Simo KO, that the go the Pokemon Go app just selects the Pokemon on the left. I think that happens a lot of the time, but not every time. And in this case, it selected the Greninja on the left and then the Arakunid on the left for Pato and Axon respectively.
01:09:47
William Dunphey
ah Yeah, I will say that the the first and second boost that Pato got, I do think that those boosts secured him those game victories, especially when he boosted right before the Lapras came back out from Axon and then he's able to Night Slash and actually get the KO because he had to throw the energy immediately.
01:10:02
zzweilous
yeah
01:10:04
zzweilous
Like the first Night Slash was 100% decisive.
01:10:04
William Dunphey
That that was for sure.
01:10:08
zzweilous
Like there's no way the Night Slash chaos without that boost.
01:10:08
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah. The second one, he was able to pile on a lot more damage. I think it really helped him to close the gap. And if I remember right, ah he lands the Night Slash into the Lapras, and then the Lapras gets pretty weak, and then the Mandibus comes out, basically at full health, and Axum was unable to do anything, if I'm recalling that correctly.
01:10:27
zzweilous
yeah.
01:10:28
William Dunphey
But ah yeah, but how exciting was that in the crowd and for the commentators as well? I mean, my gosh, I listened back to it. ah Wholesome and Martijn. Wholesome said he was going to have a heart attack in the booth, you know, just watching.
01:10:41
William Dunphey
And you could see Pato popping off on stage. He'd get the boost. He'd look up at everyone. Everyone would cheer. And by the third one, we were like, okay, this is insane. And by the fourth one, we were like, what is happening?
01:10:53
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:10:53
William Dunphey
But when it's all said and done,
01:10:55
zzweilous
Just for like those was two boosted water shurikens, fine.
01:10:58
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:10:59
zzweilous
While you're at may as well boost again.
01:10:59
William Dunphey
Yeah. But, but by the fourth one, we were like, all right, he's going to get it a hundred percent of the time. So even though he's losing, it almost felt like the icing on the cake a bit that he was, he was getting this boost. He was getting this like surge of, of a late game luck, but,
01:11:14
William Dunphey
You know, judging by the the macro of the matchup, we could tell it was pretty much done. And then, um yeah, just so flowers flowers to Potom Man, absolutely. ah But then we moved on to the grand finals and I was talking with some some friends and I just didn't see anyone beating Elam twice.
01:11:31
William Dunphey
I didn't see that in the cards. It wasn't in the stars. It didn't feel like that was even a ah potential. But Axson did it, and he was able to win that Grand Finals 3-1 and then win the Reset 3-0, which beating Elam six times is unprecedented. I don't know how many people are capable of that, but Axson is apparently one of them.
01:11:54
zzweilous
And I think this grand finals actually mirrored another one. ah let Let me check quickly when that happened. Was it Atlanta where Elam just masterfully utilized his shadow dropion to outmaneuver out of pocket um and take that championship crown?
01:12:04
William Dunphey
Yeah, Pocket...
01:12:12
William Dunphey
Yep. Yeah.
01:12:16
zzweilous
I think even though it wasn't directly comparable, um one thing that we pointed out back then was how Elim was able to consistently win Charge Attack priority with his Shadow Drapion against Pocket's Shadow Drapion.
01:12:30
William Dunphey
ye
01:12:30
zzweilous
But Axan's Shadow Drapion is built different, and we know that Axan is very particular about his um IVs that he has on his Pokémon.
01:12:39
William Dunphey
yeah
01:12:39
zzweilous
ah We do remember the infaous infamous Medi Slayer Medi that took him to the 2023 World Champion title.
01:12:45
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:12:45
zzweilous
He did have that dropion, Slayer dropion, that ah he could just ah send out every time, very intentionally CMP the opposing dropion and be very sure, very certain that he would win that charge attack priority.
01:12:46
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:12:59
zzweilous
So that was something that he was able to wager very effectively. and then I think another... team building choice to be pointed out on Axum's side is that while many trainers, maybe in anticipation of more jump love, maybe just like an anti-Kridili tech, have opted to run Ice Beam on their Lapras.
01:13:22
zzweilous
But Axum actually did not do that.
01:13:23
William Dunphey
Yep. Yep.
01:13:25
zzweilous
He did opt for that Skull Bash. And what that gives you is a very dominant mirror matchup.
01:13:30
William Dunphey
ye
01:13:30
zzweilous
And so while there was Lapras on both sides and a Shadow Dropion on both sides, I do believe that Axen's team did have um a pretty sizable advantage over Elim's team.
01:13:43
zzweilous
And if you would then pair that with the pinpoint perfect execution that Axen displayed the entirety of the weekend, um even for player of Elim's caliber, that's just going to be tough to overcome.
01:13:57
William Dunphey
I had a second to catch up with Rosemary before she went into the lounge. After the Go Grand Finals, there was a lounge segment with the other commentators plus Rosemary. And they just kind of recapped things that happened up on stage. And she was standing saying next to me while the grand finals were going on. And she said, wait.
01:14:15
William Dunphey
So you're telling me that Axan has multiple Shadow Drapion that are all competitively competitively viable, and he just picked this one for the tournament for this particular reason? And I said, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying.
01:14:26
William Dunphey
Like, Axan is just built different. ah But speaking of builds, i just I'm really floored at how similar the teams ended up being for our first and second place finishers.
Team Strategies and Tournament Learnings
01:14:35
William Dunphey
The Pokemon they shared are five out of six.
01:14:37
William Dunphey
Dusclops, Diggersby, Dedenne, Shadow Drapion, and Lapras, with the notable difference in the moveset. And then the final picks were more similar than you think. They both picked a Waterbug as their sixth and final Pokemon.
01:14:49
William Dunphey
Axan with the bulky, slow, lumbering Araquanid. And Elam with the hyper-offensive Golisopod that he used to to topple Potaman's core of Greninja and Scizor just a few rounds prior. But yeah, eerily similar teams.
01:15:05
William Dunphey
And ah they're not even on the same competitive team, right? I mean, ah Elam is Elite Tamsa.
01:15:09
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They probably did not team-build together, I would imagine.
01:15:13
William Dunphey
Exactly, which makes it even more surprising. I was trying to Dene in scrims. to be honest, EZ, either you were feasting on Azu, Mandibuzz, or you were absolutely decimated by Cradilly and Diggersby.
01:15:24
William Dunphey
But if you look at these teams, there is a notable Mandibuzz weakness. I mean, you've got Pokemon like Lapras, which, you know, Mana Buzz is double resisting the side waves. You've got Dusclops, which can hit with Ice Punch, but it needs three of them to pick up the KO.
01:15:37
William Dunphey
And then you've got Diggersby, which can only reach up there with puny fire punches. And then the Drapion, which is neutral. So you really need that Mana Buzz coverage. And I think that's the reason they both had Dedenne. So it was really cool to walk around the venue and look at the grand finals and say, oh yeah, Pokemon Go has a Dedenne mirror to start our grand finals.
01:15:55
William Dunphey
what What a time to be alive.
01:15:57
zzweilous
So one thing that I am looking for, if you see me ah in Anaheim at Worlds and you are low friendship or no friendship with me, and you have spare Holiday Dedene with that little costume, i do want that because it's always fun to have like a little bit of a funny Pokemon, whether it's like extra extra large, extra extra small, whether it's shiny or whether it has a costume.
01:16:02
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:16:18
William Dunphey
yeah
01:16:20
zzweilous
If you have that with PvP IVs, that's a very fun flex to bring into battle. And for Dedenne, we actually have something that exists that looks a little goofy, looks a little funny, and may just spice up the visual experience of battling.
01:16:34
zzweilous
There it is.
01:16:35
William Dunphey
It's
01:16:35
zzweilous
There it is. Any YouTuber, YouTube audience is now feasting their eyes on that very cute Dedenne. um And I do not have one with PvP IVs just yet, but I am looking for one.
01:16:47
zzweilous
um That being said, I do agree with you with that Dedane does lend itself to RPS scenarios in a way, um but...
01:16:47
William Dunphey
it's
01:16:58
zzweilous
This is just something that always kind of happens and that sometimes needs to happen just to make it so your opponent doesn't have this one free line that can go essentially like ABA water, for example, like we had.
01:17:13
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:17:14
zzweilous
metas where everybody just had that superior sitting on their bench just trying to make sure that they're not doing the ABA water strat but not actually coming out to actively take part in the battle and I feel like with Dedane it's usually somewhat similar that being said um with how annoying that defense buff gets very fast um I think so when I built my team originally um Obviously, I walked us through the process already, but essentially one of the, like, there were two main things that I wanted to accomplish.
01:17:51
zzweilous
The one thing, don't auto-lose to Shadow Scissor because Shadow Scissor is like the great equalizer. Like, it has so much neutral play into everything that isn't, um,
01:18:02
zzweilous
A fire type. And okay, I did all to lose to Shadow Scissor once. um But other than that, I did feel somewhat prepared. I think Ninja played a big part in protecting me from that.
01:18:14
zzweilous
And the other thing, don't go too weak.
01:18:14
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:18:17
zzweilous
Like, don't let your team building be too limited by Dedenne. Because that thing is just so neutrally strong while also shutting down Flyer-Water combinations super, super hard.
01:18:30
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:18:31
zzweilous
So you will want to have a lot of neutral play into it, because otherwise you you may just get your Pokemon entirely misaligned. And um yeah, this again a thing that we may want to talk about in more detail a little later on.
01:18:46
William Dunphey
ah I think um people that are listening have heard me say that I competed this past weekend, but they have not heard me say anything about my run or how things went. There's a reason for that, everyone.
01:18:58
William Dunphey
But no, i actually went 3-2, and I'm very happy with that. But I was laughing not at at you or your point. I was laughing that I made the mistake that you just said, please don't make, which is being weak to Scizor.
01:19:10
William Dunphey
That was, I think, one of the biggest mistakes that I made with my team composition.
01:19:12
zzweilous
you
01:19:14
William Dunphey
Um, my personal run, I, I went through nine different team drafts on Thursday alone. And then by like 3am on Thursday, uh, ready to go to bed.
01:19:24
William Dunphey
Team lock-in was due Friday morning, 8am. I just said, you know what? I'm going to throw all this out and I'm going to play something that I want to play that I'm comfortable playing. And I'm proud to say that I got, um,
01:19:35
William Dunphey
Some of the equation correct. I did play a dark type paired with Galarian Weezing, which is something that you yourself did. Only my dark type was Guzzlord, which is a Pokemon i I adore.
01:19:44
zzweilous
Oh, again I did try that in ah in an initial practice.
01:19:46
William Dunphey
I play a lot of.
01:19:48
zzweilous
So honestly, this is not that far off.
01:19:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:19:52
William Dunphey
Not that far off. I felt like it was fun. it crushes a lot of these matchups. If you look at the winning teams, I mean, there are two Pokemon that Guzzlord really fears in the Dedenne and the Waterbug type. Otherwise, Dusclops playable, Diggersby playable, Drapion playable, Lapras playable. there's There's utility in that Pokemon.
01:20:10
William Dunphey
But ah my final team ended up being Guzzlord with Galarian Weezing. I had Shadow Primate. I had Lapras, Diggersby, and Gastrodon. So it definitely ended up being a bit more RPS than I initially intended.
01:20:23
William Dunphey
but I am proud to say that I won my first three rounds. Then I went up against Ashton who can fault you for losing to someone like him. He's absolutely incredible. And then my first losers round battle was against Jemothy, who I had already defeated.
01:20:37
William Dunphey
And Jemothy leaned into the RPS, called my lines perfectly, and executed a beautiful ah game or a beautiful series to win 2-0. So that was the end of my tournament run. But I learned a lot, and maybe I won't throw my team out at the last minute, but...
01:20:51
William Dunphey
For everyone listening, you can probably tell, um yeah, I've got a a bit of a Scizor issue with my team and a bit of a Dedene issue because it's really tough when I come up against Dedene plus Scizor because then I have to straddle both matchups and there's only a couple of Pokemon that can do that really successfully. So it really limits your team.
01:21:10
William Dunphey
And I think that's an important part to consider, at least for me going forward. You know, I want to compete some more next season and we'll see what happens.
01:21:16
zzweilous
Yeah,
Commentary Roles and Tournament Reflections
01:21:17
zzweilous
I'm very much looking forward to that because um if we see one previous world champion excel and take tournament titles, why couldn't another one do it?
01:21:27
William Dunphey
Well, I will say I did feel a lot closer to the meta after scrimming, after doing the practice tournaments, after team building over and over again. I felt a lot more in tune with how things actually go in terms of matchups, things like that.
01:21:41
William Dunphey
And that's definitely something I want to bring into the world's cast coming up in Anaheim. ah The announcement's already on the website, so I can officially say I'll be one of your commentators for the world championships. And I'm very, very honored to do it yet again. And my goal is to deliver the best show. And I think that scrimming being close to the competitive scene, knowing the matchups is going really important to, to casting the best I can possibly cast. So definitely going to do that. And then we'll see what the 2026 season holds
01:22:09
zzweilous
I'm looking forward to it. 100%. and percent
01:22:11
William Dunphey
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. maybe Maybe we can share the stage some point. i won't just be watching from the sidelines.
01:22:16
zzweilous
okay
01:22:17
William Dunphey
we'll we'll We'll see. We'll see what happens. um So we've covered a lot. We covered the meta. We covered some of the bracket surprises, some of the bracket upsets. ah We've covered the grand finals. Championship Sunday was incredible.
01:22:29
William Dunphey
I just want to highlight ah one more time Pato Man's run and how incredible it was. In day one, He defeated Jet Force Gemini. He 2-0'd Kay Pine, who was tied for 13th in Atlanta earlier this season. He 2-0'd Mango, who was ninth at NAIC last year.
01:22:43
William Dunphey
Very, very talented player. He 2-1's Sustenance Eater, who made top 10 two times this season. Then day two, he brought down yours truly and Zizuelas. ah He to Ostell. He 2-1'd Richie, 1409.
01:22:56
William Dunphey
And then his two losses were by one game each to Elam and Axan. So you could argue... And this is totally a valid point. You could argue that Pato Man was two games away from winning it all at NAIC. If he just wins those games five those game fives, he is your NAIC champion, the first trainer ever to win two ICs in the same season.
01:23:17
William Dunphey
That close, inches away. So I hope that he takes that and he builds on it and he and he looks at it as a positive and not as a missed opportunity because it's absolutely a very positive thing to consider.
01:23:30
zzweilous
I also think that this tournament essentially is cemented who we are looking at as our frontrunners for the world championship. We will have, and this is true, this is not just me overpromising again, but we will have a world's preview episode.
01:23:45
zzweilous
This is a guarantee.
01:23:45
William Dunphey
Yeah, let's go.
01:23:46
zzweilous
and promise it. um But yeah if we just look at, okay, who do we like who is front of mind if we consider potential world champions?
01:23:59
zzweilous
I think this top three would probably, like maybe alongside Marto, who had a last-minute change of plans, because there were like visa issues after he was originally...
01:24:09
William Dunphey
pivot
01:24:14
zzweilous
um supposed to be on the casting team um and then when that didn't come to fruition he instead opted to go on a little or run of his own as a competitor but there was very little prep time and it didn't go really his way but that doesn't take away from him being the laic champion and also a three times original champion on top of that just this season so like he's definitely a top contender um but then like
01:24:17
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:24:40
zzweilous
what Elam, Axan, and Pato did over those last couple of months especially, it's it's honestly... and you have top competitors, and then you have a few people that just feel even one step ahead of the rest.
01:24:56
zzweilous
And I feel like those three are definitely um to be considered as such.
01:24:56
William Dunphey
yeah
01:25:02
zzweilous
And yeah, it's definitely... It will be maybe a little bit of pressure going into Worlds because um now the target is on your back. You can't really go into it the way maybe like Yekai did last year where, okay, the last known result was ah was an O2 at the previous World Championship and nobody knows that you're secretly the most correct player on the planet currently.
01:25:23
William Dunphey
yeah
01:25:26
zzweilous
um This is very much known about Part 2, about Elam, mo about Axum.
01:25:29
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:25:30
zzweilous
their battles very much out there everybody watch them I suppose so yeah there's definitely and there's like positives and negatives about being so successful but yeah i would't I would not be surprised if we were to recruit our future world champion um from that um day three NAIC crowd
01:25:52
William Dunphey
There's a post that Axon made. And as you said, going into the next world championships, these players have a lot of eyes on them. a lot of people are going to expect them to perform. There's a post he made I found really interesting. He shared the Drake of his recap graphic of his season.
01:26:07
William Dunphey
I shared this on the 17th, which was three days ago as time of recording. ah But would you believe that Axon actually had four tournament appearances in a row? where the most rounds that he won was four.
01:26:19
William Dunphey
He went 2-2 in Sacramento, 1-2 at EUIC, 4-2 in Vancouver, and then three two in Atlanta. And then you look at Portland and you look at NAIC, 7-0, 16-5 in games played. NAIC was 26-7 in games played.
01:26:31
William Dunphey
and i was eleven and one twenty six and seven in games played His post says, this season was weird. Got off to a great start, but man, I struggled through the middle. With all that said, I've never ended off a season this strong.
01:26:45
William Dunphey
I changed my tournament mentality before Portland, and it was a huge help. Now onto Worlds. I don't know what changed, and i kind of want to ask him, but at the same time, if you're a player like Axon, and you are this hot, basically red hot, and you're going into Worlds, why not just keep that up your sleeve, lock into Worlds, and we'll talk after Worlds.
01:27:05
zzweilous
yeah
01:27:08
William Dunphey
Maybe that's the best strat, right?
01:27:09
zzweilous
it's also like um this is like again like a little bit of a wolf click vgc comparison but everybody was so in awe of his victory speech and um uic and uh what kind of like um big moment he created for himself by accident honestly did the same where he went on about he how he repeated his Portland victory how he repeated his um NAIC victory and how there is one more um achievement that needs to be repeated which is obviously the world championship um
01:27:41
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:27:48
William Dunphey
yeah
01:27:49
zzweilous
So yeah, being able to say that, um I think Gen Z would call that infinite aura. um So yeah, we we definitely know what we're up against and just being able to just casually say that, oh yeah, like I had like a little bit of a rough middle of the season, but then I just flipped the switch and I won everything.
01:28:08
zzweilous
um Just like i'm I'm used to doing.
01:28:09
William Dunphey
yeah
01:28:11
zzweilous
yeah. so It's just like, honestly, like really impressive and let's keep it a mystery for now. We can still ask him after Anaheim what he changed exactly.
01:28:19
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:24
zzweilous
um but yeah, he's definitely back, very much so.
01:28:24
William Dunphey
yeah
01:28:27
zzweilous
Okay.
01:28:28
William Dunphey
Master Axon is back and I'm waiting for the victory speech where he says, and it wasn't enough. And absolutely just the whole crowd just goes crazy. Maybe we'll get one of those speeches out of Axon, but who knows?
01:28:37
zzweilous
ah
01:28:40
William Dunphey
He's, he's very, he's very measured, very polite.
01:28:43
zzweilous
Yes.
01:28:44
William Dunphey
We'll see if, if the emotion overcomes him at a, at 2 PM on a Sunday when he wins, wins it all. We'll see. We'll see.
01:28:51
zzweilous
But I also always enjoy just how well-spoken he is. i feel like that's also a takeaway from the victory speech.
01:28:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:28:57
zzweilous
And I think I did note that after Portland as well.
01:28:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:29:00
zzweilous
So again, like I'm very happy for him that his competitor are um made this little upswing just when it mattered the most. But I would also be very cute curious to see Master Axon become Caster Axon next season because he definitely has both the knowledge and just a way with words that I could really um see behind the Caster's desk as well without wanting to take anyone's job.
01:29:14
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:29:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:29:25
zzweilous
But I think he's um somebody who should consider that if um if at all of interest to him.
01:29:34
William Dunphey
I'm just going to be honest. When Axon streams and he actively talks through his battles, his decision making, the plays he's about to make, the plays he expects his opponent to make in real time, I don't know if there's a better Pokemon Go streamer right now that actively narrates everything that's going on in their mind and on the field at the same time than accent So...
01:29:54
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think there's a spot for him if he ever decides to come to the commentating desk. I think everyone would would absolutely love to to have his insights. Because again, like in
Controversies and Sportsmanship in Competitive Play
01:30:03
William Dunphey
pro football, right? That's like having Tom Brady in the casting booth or having, you know, ah even like a Tony Romo who just knows what's going to happen before it happens. It's like having someone like that. So yeah, I could definitely see him doing it.
01:30:14
William Dunphey
But Axon was incredible. No controversy there. i don't think anyone doubts that Master Axon is back. And we'll see what he does at Worlds. But honestly, it's easy. All I have left on my list of topics is ah controversy.
01:30:28
William Dunphey
But if there's anything else that you want to talk about for NAIC, I'm down to discuss.
01:30:34
zzweilous
um Yeah, let me let me look over my notes as well. There's like some some niche statistics where, oh, there there have been like four back-to-back champions this season, if I've been counting correctcly correctly.
01:30:42
William Dunphey
Sure.
01:30:49
zzweilous
But I feel like Elim, Kualash, a nickname, and its accent um managed to compete in back-to-back events and just take it all every time.
01:31:01
zzweilous
So I don't know whether this like becomes it's becoming a thing, but um that those hot streaks definitely exist.
01:31:01
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:31:10
zzweilous
um And yeah, it's actually one of, I think, four names.
01:31:11
William Dunphey
yeahp
01:31:13
zzweilous
I may have missed somebody, but I hope I didn't. um If I did miss ah one of one of those back-to-back victories, please write it in in the comments. um Shameless engagement bait. um But yeah, other than that, we can move to the little more a little more controversial issues, even though I do want to preface this with how I am not intending to be in any way, shape or form drama farming with this. or just like
01:31:39
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:31:40
zzweilous
I just feel as if there were things that came up during NEIC or in the aftermath of NEIC that are worth talking about just um as far as they relate to a broader context.
01:31:52
zzweilous
um point that could be made about competing in a setting like this.
01:31:57
William Dunphey
So ZZ's point, I agree with him. I think other shows cover drama ah quite well, and that's not what we set out to do. But I will say behind the scenes, I'm probably pushing ZZ a little bit more to talk about this kind of stuff. It might be like a sixty forty relationship, 65-35, whatever you want to call it ah But i I have thoughts on these things, so I think it's worth worth discussing, especially when it comes to larger rule changes ah to the game.
01:32:22
William Dunphey
So why don't we start with the controversial round one, day two matchup, AlphaFeeb versus RGR. If you want to find the link to this, this is about three hours and eight minutes into the day two stream.
01:32:34
William Dunphey
AlphaFeeb takes the stage against a young, very talented player from Europe, And it comes down to a pivotal moment where ah Alpha Feeb has a Pokemon on the field. I believe it's Diggersby.
01:32:46
William Dunphey
And he's got his Blastoise in the back. And then his opponent, ah RGR, has a Shadow Drapion with two Aqua Tails. And just to paint the scene, you can tell that Feeb is a little bit disoriented, doesn't know exactly how much energy is on his opponent.
01:33:00
William Dunphey
ah He made a post about this and we'll talk about that soon. But he basically said that like late game energy awareness was something that he noticed he's not very good at or maybe he wants to work on. I think we can all work on that just a little bit more because it's very, very difficult.
01:33:13
William Dunphey
ah But he looks up across the table, kind of just like a reflex. And he says, do you have two? Right. And he's talking, of course, about the Aqua Tales. And even without getting the audio feed, you can read the lips. You can see exactly what he asked him.
01:33:25
William Dunphey
And RGR kind of hesitates for a moment and then says, yeah, I've got two. um This has been very controversial because a lot of people are saying that Fee basically got information out of his opponent that was related to a win condition at a pivotal moment in the game.
01:33:40
William Dunphey
when it was inappropriate to do so. And um I talked with Martijn briefly about this. I talked with a few other people about this. The problem for me is that some people are saying that we need to develop a new rule where players cannot ask leading questions to each other about win conditions.
01:33:58
William Dunphey
I believe someone online posted that we should just mute the player mics during the battles and then turn them back on when the battles are over so they can discuss. Uh, and then I've heard other people say that, you know, we just need to, to just change the whole system and how this works.
01:34:12
William Dunphey
And that feed was being, um, on sportsman, like to do this. I have thoughts on this and I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I want to hear what you think first.
01:34:20
zzweilous
Okay, okay, okay. I'm very curious about your thoughts on the meta now, but um I can give mine as well.
01:34:25
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:34:26
zzweilous
So... um One thing that I think is somewhat important is that just by the way, feeb reacts to how the information he gets out of his opponent enables him to make the catch and win the game.
01:34:41
zzweilous
um like she Immediately in the moment, he doesn't feel comfortable with it. like He doesn't really express any joy after taking the series. And I think he feels a little bit guilty about what he has been doing, which probably was just like very instinctive, not really thought through as much, even in that moment. So I don't really want to paint him as somebody who willingly like exploited a loophole in the rules to um gain an advantage over his opponent.
01:35:17
zzweilous
on But still, i am not a fan of... asking leading questions, of um interacting with your opponent in a way that there may not be a mutual basis for.
01:35:32
zzweilous
um I'm not a big fan of the idea of just cutting off the mics during the battle because occasionally there's um interesting or fun or joyful moments that arise from having those mics open.
01:35:46
zzweilous
And um we do get glimpses into those on some regional broadcasts as well. So I feel as if um there's not really a need to just um be overly cautious about this.
01:36:00
zzweilous
um But I still feel as if, even if not as a dedicated rule, there should still be like just like ah voluntary agreement like a gentleman's agreement between competitors to not try and poke for something ah like this which is like i think you can disagree on that i think other games do disagree on that um i saw ah jason gbl legend
01:36:37
zzweilous
um make points about that on ah the platform that used to be Twitter, um where he essentially raised the point that this is just part of the mental game and other games may be treating this entirely different, are not seeing a scandal in this, and earn instead think that, okay, like this is a very valid game, valid way of just playing your cards. Yeah.
01:36:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:37:02
zzweilous
um by luring your opponent into a trap like that because nobody forced RGR to give up that information even though it is actually prohibited by the rules of play Pokemon to lie to your opponent so how that would have played out is a whole different conversation that i don't even know that I want to get into like you're probably like allowed to say nothing but you're not allowed to say oh I'm one off when you're not one off um
01:37:30
William Dunphey
Can you say, I don't know.
01:37:32
zzweilous
You could probably say, I don't know, because um who can prove that you can read? um so
01:37:39
William Dunphey
Or maybe you just forgot.
01:37:40
zzweilous
So like like there's definitely there's definitely some liberties that you can take, but um this situation was one where on the one side, you had somebody who was like an official caster for the game, a very seasoned competitor, whereas their opponent was somebody they probably don't talk too much in private, who is a little on the younger side.
01:37:41
William Dunphey
I don't know.
01:38:02
zzweilous
I don't think they were like a kid kid, but certainly um newer to the scene. um and it was like a high stakes situation so um if this is like your first day to it's in the international you get nervous you are you can easily make mistakes and if you are somebody who um maybe not the like may not be the cutthroat competitor first and foremost um I do believe it's like a bad look at least to um put your opponent in a position like this if there is an observable power dynamic in your favor.
01:38:43
zzweilous
And yeah, i wasn't a fan of the scene, um but I don't think there should be massive rule changes undertaken to prevent it in the future.
01:38:54
William Dunphey
The problem for me is that it's such a gray area. And the example that I i come back to was Inadequance versus Arceus Aurelius at EUIC.
01:39:06
William Dunphey
ah That was such an entertaining match to watch. And a huge part of that was because they were talking to each other the whole time. And I, of course, didn't hear the entire conversation, but if at any point in that battle, Arceus Aurelius says, oh, this is a brave bird, you better shield.
01:39:22
William Dunphey
Or Inadequate says, oh, I'm baiting, you know, whatever. I'm baiting Octazooka. You should know shield. Then wouldn't that fall into the same category of people that are asking leading questions or trying to influence or bonus decisions, et cetera, et cetera?
01:39:36
William Dunphey
ah
01:39:36
zzweilous
This would be potentially lying to an opponent, unless you're ah like being truthful about it.
01:39:36
William Dunphey
But yeah. Yeah.
01:39:43
William Dunphey
But then it comes down to...
01:39:44
zzweilous
Which, why would you give your opponent that information?
01:39:46
William Dunphey
Exactly. And it comes down to, oh, well, they're friends, so it's okay. Well, who's to say that Feeb and RGR don't go way back, you know that they're best friends and just nobody knows, right? And and where's where's the the line that you draw with that?
01:40:00
William Dunphey
It just doesn't make any sense. So that's the first thing, is that it's a very gray area and it's very difficult to... determine, you know, oh, if if you really are friends, show us your your Discord DMs, you know?
01:40:11
William Dunphey
Like, where do you how where do you get evidence? Where do you find that out?
01:40:13
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:40:14
William Dunphey
and And where do you draw the line? The second point was actually related to the moment itself. In that moment, I still believe that there is a branching decision tree and either path could have been taken.
01:40:25
William Dunphey
As soon as ah RGR confirms that he's got two Aqua Tails, That informs Feeb that he's then able to maybe catch the second one, right? That that's now an opportunity or even a necessity to win the game.
01:40:37
William Dunphey
But now that um RGR has informed his opponent of that, doesn't it further inform RGR that Feeb will try to catch? Whereas previously, maybe he didn't expect to try to catch because he didn't know that there were two moves ready.
01:40:50
William Dunphey
And he would have just stayed the' left the Pokemon in. So now RGR is working with the information that my opponent is probably going to try to catch the back-to-back. So I should throw one and then do a fast move just to make sure my opponent tries or doesn't try to catch the second one.
01:41:03
William Dunphey
you know It goes both ways.
01:41:03
zzweilous
This is probably true.
01:41:04
William Dunphey
goes it goes both ways
01:41:06
zzweilous
Like... Just, like, talking so to somebody doesn't really absolve either party of the decisions in the endgame that they did make. um I guess, like, Feeb admitted in his um Twitter post to having lost count in that situation, and therefore, like...
01:41:22
William Dunphey
Yep. Yep.
01:41:25
zzweilous
It was essentially like, oh, he was never going to catch there because he thought he was like two to three poison stings off to, okay, this is now a fifty fifty Does he do another poison sting because he expects me to catch?
01:41:37
zzweilous
Or does he just throw the move?
01:41:37
William Dunphey
yep
01:41:40
zzweilous
So it definitely um narrows down the... um decisions the win conditions that could have been undertaken there um which is why i still believe that there was an advantage achieved through that exchange um but yeah again it's like very difficult to really draw the line to okay like is that like illegal is it just frowned upon and or is it like
01:41:49
William Dunphey
yeah
01:41:58
William Dunphey
That's fair.
01:42:09
zzweilous
entirely legitimate to try and gather any type of information you can in that situation. Like, there's players who um try to...
01:42:16
William Dunphey
yeah
01:42:20
zzweilous
Like, if they can win a game... um they tried if they can win a game with only two pokemon and it would be a lot more comfortable if they used their third pokemon they still keep the third pokemon secret to keep that information hidden from their opponent and um the same way if you are losing a matchup you should still strive to at least get to that last pokemon on your opponent's side to just have that info ready to go into the next game So the information information game is kind of always actively played.
01:42:52
zzweilous
Now the question is, is it like should it be played outside of the input that you give into your game?
01:42:52
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:42:58
zzweilous
And is like all of the stage actually a battle stage? um And I don't think we have like a definition for that.
01:43:06
William Dunphey
No, we don't. I'll take it one step further. right What if there's a situation where a clarifying sportsman-like question is asked and that leads to a additional win condition or informs a later win condition?
01:43:22
William Dunphey
What I mean is, let's say let's say an example where we saw Axon versus Pato, and I believe it was Drappian on one side and then Pato's Mandibuzz on the other side. Pato asks Axan if he's missing poison stings, right? Because there's some some lag on stage, things were not going right. I believe they ended up restarting that match.
01:43:40
William Dunphey
But just bear with me.
01:43:40
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:43:41
William Dunphey
Let's say that there was a matchup very similar to that, and there's ah a visual glitch or there's a visual stutter lag. and And then you ask your opponent, hey, are you missing any poison stings? And then they say no.
01:43:53
William Dunphey
right And you're like, okay, well now I know exactly how much energy they have in spite of the visual lag. That might have been a detriment to both of us. Now I've clarified it and they've clarified it on their side as well. So then that later informs, oh, they have the energy for the move and then I know what to do next.
01:44:08
William Dunphey
So again, like... it's It's a sportsman-like question that you can ask, like, hey, are you missing moves? Hey, did that work properly? Blah, blah. But it also informs your decision tree moving forward.
01:44:17
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:44:18
William Dunphey
So again, there's like a ripple effect. And this was like the most obvious example because it's right at the end of the game. There's only basically one win condition for each player. And this was you know the pivotal moment.
01:44:29
William Dunphey
But does it make it less of an issue if that win condition is explored early on in the battle versus later?
01:44:37
zzweilous
Yeah. Again, like, you're asking... good questions that I don't really have an immediate answer to.
01:44:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, i want I want everyone in the comments to answer.
01:44:48
zzweilous
It's the greys of grey areas at the end of the day.
01:44:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:44:51
zzweilous
um yeah where Where does this leave us? Probably at a point of nothing changes and everybody should just try to be conscious of being sportsmanlike um when interacting with their opponent.
01:45:06
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:45:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:45:10
zzweilous
And yeah, we talked about this a little bit before the recording started as well, that um there may be different standards to which one can be held depending on what game one is playing, where there's like um other proper esports where it's more openly adversarial, like if not outright hostile, then at least...
01:45:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:45:32
zzweilous
um
01:45:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:45:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:45:33
zzweilous
like you know that okay this is like high stakes competitive situation and you need to get every advantage that you can whereas in pokemon i feel like a lot of it is still very community centric like obviously everybody wants to be the champion but you also want to be able to shake hands up the battle and you should always act accordingly
01:45:54
William Dunphey
yeah I think back to other esports and i actually did a little bit of research before we went, went onto the recording. I was looking at other one V one esports, ah primarily fighting games, like whether it's Tekken street fighters, smash brothers, ah but also shooter games like, um,
01:46:11
William Dunphey
I just had it quake like quake is a oneview one view one. ah That is still a, a pretty big e-sport these days. um A lot of the times these players are literally sitting next to each other, especially in the fighting games.
01:46:22
William Dunphey
They are shoulder to shoulder. They're not, there's not even a stage to separate them.
01:46:25
zzweilous
Okay.
01:46:26
William Dunphey
They're literally chairs parallel to each other, looking at the screen. And I feel like there's so many opportunities there to mouth off, to say things. Of course, you're not supposed to like physically touch your opponent in those situations, which I think makes a lot of sense because that would just lead to fights basically every time.
01:46:40
William Dunphey
But ah I find it hard to believe that these players are not talking to each other. They're not saying things. they're not getting inside each other's heads. If you watch like competitive Madden, for example, ah these players are literally talking trash in real time. When they make a big play, they are literally saying, you know, derogatory things to their opponent within reason, right? Not no curse words or slurs, but still like putting them down.
01:47:02
William Dunphey
Yeah. And Pokemon is just such a family-friendly brand that, it like you alluded to, it doesn't feel like there's much room for that kind of animosity between the players.
01:47:05
zzweilous
Thank
01:47:12
William Dunphey
ah But then you look at other esports titles like ah like Competitive Halo. One of the players is is very famous for this. ah He goes by the name Boo-Boo-Doo-Boo. And Boo-Boo-Doo-Boo had a moment where his team beat another team, and he literally reached across the stage with his hand out like emperor pal or like ah like Darth Vader Choke.
01:47:32
William Dunphey
And he like choked his opponents cause they'd lost like a really pivotal game. It's like, you know, you're, you're choking on the spot and we'll never see that in Pokemon, right?
01:47:35
zzweilous
Oh man. Yeah.
01:47:40
William Dunphey
They will never allow that kind of stuff to happen, but still, I mean, i don't know.
01:47:41
zzweilous
yeah
01:47:46
William Dunphey
I don't think that the, that Phoebe's decision was particularly antagonistic. I don't think it was predatory. And like you said, and he said in his post immediately, when he asked the question, he recognized he probably should not have done that.
01:47:59
William Dunphey
So i don't everybody. I, i I feel you know bad for RGR if he thinks that influenced the outcome of the game, but I hope people don't go after Feeb because I think he was just doing what he thought was right. And when it wasn't right, he recognized it almost immediately. so
01:48:17
William Dunphey
Like you said, things might just stay the same.
01:48:20
zzweilous
Yeah, I feel like that's the most likely outcome for sure.
01:48:24
William Dunphey
Yeah. Well, ah there was another another controversy this past weekend. But again, we're not a drama farming ah podcast. And I can tell by my co-host demeanor, we probably don't want to get too far into the weeds. We can just keep that between us.
01:48:39
William Dunphey
um I'll just say... No matter how tired you are, no matter how exhausted you are, how much you've traveled, please treat your opponents with respect. Shake their hands, say GG's. ah Don't leave the table ah before things are finalized. It's just the bare minimum that you can do, no matter who you're playing.
01:48:56
William Dunphey
And i think I think it's fair if we just leave it at that. I think that's a good universal rule across the board. Do you agree?
01:49:02
zzweilous
Yeah, I do tend to agree.
01:49:04
William Dunphey
Yeah. So next time you beat me ZZ, I'm throwing the phone on the ground and I'm canceling the podcast with you and I'm just going to scream and run out of there. Okay. That's what's going to happen.
01:49:14
zzweilous
Let's really do that because that would be such good content, such good marketing. and Like, oh man,
01:49:20
William Dunphey
Yeah, imagine. Imagine the drama. and
01:49:22
zzweilous
our listens would triple.
01:49:24
William Dunphey
And then someone is conveniently like filming it off to the side, and that wasn't planned at all, but they hit capture everything. yeah I think that's that's what we'll do. But yeah, it's easy. NAFC was an incredible experience. I know we say that about a lot of these tournaments, but it really was awesome. I spent a lot more time with the community than I'm usually able to do, just because with the cast and everything, it's it's a full day's work.
01:49:47
William Dunphey
And you give a lot to to the camera, to your your co-host, to the production behind the scenes. And when you're not in the booth, you're backstage researching, you're looking at player metrics, you're watching the battles, trying to stay informed, doing interviews. It's constant.
01:50:00
William Dunphey
So for me, as I get a little bit older, it's tougher for me to actually have the energy to go out and do everything as well. So I'm grateful that everyone invited me to dinner, that we hung out, we had a good time.
01:50:11
William Dunphey
ah You and i actually took pictures together for the first time, which is awesome. And um um I'm happy with that. And yeah, I think I had a wonderful time in New Orleans. was great.
01:50:22
zzweilous
Yeah, i always love to to visit that very unique city. i don't think it's confirmed yet whether NAIC is going to return to New Orleans next year, but um judging by went on last year, we may just be like a week away from 2026 season news. And
Upcoming Tournaments and Future Content
01:50:42
zzweilous
obviously, as soon as that drops, we are going to cover that on the podcast as well.
01:50:46
William Dunphey
I saw one post that somebody made. I wish I could find it, but it was like a leak of the schedule.
01:50:50
zzweilous
Oh, was it...
01:50:52
William Dunphey
Did you see it?
01:50:52
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that we are going to have a original in Horse.
01:50:54
William Dunphey
It was...
01:50:57
zzweilous
Horse is a pretty good place have a original in.
01:50:59
William Dunphey
One was a ah a subway, like a random... not Not like an underground subway, but like the restaurant, the sandwich restaurant.
01:51:03
zzweilous
Oh, man.
01:51:06
zzweilous
class
01:51:07
William Dunphey
at Random subway. I think another one was like Hoth or something from Star Wars. Like...
01:51:14
William Dunphey
That was great.
01:51:14
zzweilous
um man
01:51:14
William Dunphey
And then and then there was there was a a Bourbon Street regional the week before New Orleans. So that was maybe a little oversight, but that was also entertaining.
01:51:22
zzweilous
ah
01:51:23
William Dunphey
If I find the post, I'll put it up and on the on the yeah YouTube version. That was really funny.
01:51:30
zzweilous
excellent yeah like horse definitely on my wishlist for next season
01:51:31
William Dunphey
But yeah, my friend.
01:51:36
William Dunphey
I'm actually looking it up right now. See if I can find it. Because that was honestly super funny. And i hope it gets a lot of likes because it was really good. I'm not finding it immediately. So I'll just try to search it up and put it in the show in post.
01:51:49
William Dunphey
ah But for now, ZZ, I think that's it. If there's anything you want to add or if you just want to ah have a ah wonderful night and then plan our future episodes, what do you say?
01:51:58
zzweilous
So yeah, I think my my parting words are going to be, um please enjoy whatever broadcast we're going to have of the PJCS, the Japanese qualifiers that are going to happen ah this weekend. I don't know when this episode is going to be uploaded.
01:52:13
zzweilous
um You may be listening to this.
01:52:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:52:16
zzweilous
after the tournament already concluded. But if we are fast, it may come out early. So let's hope for that. i' Always um going to be a fun time to see what the Japanese community is cooking up.
01:52:29
zzweilous
We know it's going to be closed team sheets, which is little bit of a change of pace. We may see the odd surprise move on some of the Pokemon. um So that is going to be fun. And also this weekend, we have the Jangmo-O Community Day.
01:52:43
zzweilous
um which is going to introduce the clanging scales charge attack for Komo over the final evolution of that line, which is supposedly a 120 power move that decreases defense by one stage.
01:53:00
zzweilous
And you can think of that as Dragon type close combat with a little bit of extra power behind it and also a slightly less impactful defense debuff.
01:53:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:53:14
zzweilous
So um yeah, that is going to be fun to pick up. Will it propel Komo-O to immediate meta relevancy? I don't believe so. um I think it's still too slow. It may be too defensively vulnerable, and vulnerable but...
01:53:29
zzweilous
Once you hit one of those moves, it's going to be damage like you've never seen before, most likely. So definitely make sure to pick one up.
01:53:36
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:53:37
zzweilous
It's a gorgeous shiny as well. So ah fun community day to play.
01:53:40
William Dunphey
yeah You had me at dragon type close combat. That honestly sounds so badass. That's it's like Dragon Force. You know, there's like a metal guitar in the background when the clanging scales comes through and it just annihilates everything.
01:53:55
William Dunphey
I'm excited for that. But I agree. I think the pacing will hurt it a little bit. Maybe one day, though, ah we'll ah we'll have a Pokemon or we'll have ah an update to the Pokemon where it's able to get to that move a little bit faster. um
01:54:05
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:54:05
William Dunphey
Yeah, we'll definitely have this up before PJCS. I think that NotRobMay is also hosting a bit of a watch party for that. And Inadequance might be working on something as well. So definitely stay tuned. Subscribe to both of those incredible streamers if you haven't already.
01:54:18
William Dunphey
And um yeah, after PJCS, I guess we'll we'll recap that. Then we'll have a little break and then we'll get to some some special episodes in the lead up to Worlds. Because ah July and August, that's about six weeks of no tournaments, which is the longest stretch that we're going to get in a year.
01:54:34
William Dunphey
So we might as well ah might as well do some fun things. But... Yeah, I'm excited, my friend. Thank you so much for listening to the events. And there are no further updates to when you can earn championship points because the window has closed.
01:54:46
William Dunphey
Leaderboards are finalized. ah The PJCS is still going on, but that is only for TPCI, or excuse me, TPC region players. So I hope, I really hope, ZZ, that those players that win that tournament or that are in the top four or whatever it might be, I hope they can get to the US in time for Anaheim.
01:55:04
William Dunphey
But they've only got like five or six weeks to get a visa, which is... crunch time, absolute crunch time.
01:55:08
zzweilous
Yeah, it's really cutting it close, but we definitely need that representation at Worlds because, again, we always go back to last year where we had an APEC player win it all and another one placing top four.
01:55:09
William Dunphey
I hope that happens.
01:55:14
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:55:21
zzweilous
And yeah, the the strength and the strength and like in Japan, like in like essentially all of Asia, like if you look at...
01:55:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:55:31
zzweilous
um VG, for example, like at NAIC, there were more Japanese players in top eight than Americans, which is not difficult to achieve because there were zero Americans in top eight.
01:55:42
zzweilous
um But yeah, like definitely speaks to the international strength of the Pokemon community, and especially in the motherland of Pokemon, I'm definitely looking forward to great competition.
01:55:44
William Dunphey
But still.
01:55:57
William Dunphey
Yeah, I still remember Worlds 2022 with Crescent Angels just catching every charge attack ah and catching that resisted damage wherever he could. i Honestly, like stars in my eyes.
01:56:05
zzweilous
Yeah, I mean, back before counting moose was was a thing. That was that was impressive.
01:56:10
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:56:10
zzweilous
Really ahead of his time.
01:56:12
William Dunphey
And then the goat Ishikawa boy wearing his sunshades on stage in Yokohama. Oh my gosh. I really hope that ah our talented players from Asia can join the world championships this year.
01:56:22
William Dunphey
But ZZ, it's been a good one. Great to talk with you about all things NAIC, recapping the meta, recapping some surprising bracket runs, the grand finals, talking about a little controversy and also talking about accessibility and where we have room to improve as a game, as a platform, and as a competitive circuit. So We covered a lot of ground.
01:56:40
William Dunphey
We're almost to two hours. I would just keep on vamping for two and a half minutes hit that nice round 2-0. But I think that we're going to cut it here. So cheers, my friend.
01:56:48
zzweilous
Yes.
01:56:49
William Dunphey
Enjoy your most recent addition to your trophy cabinet. Seriously, look up the cabinets. You can get nice ones with LED lights, and you can just display them, you know, get a little dust a feather duster.
01:56:58
zzweilous
Yeah, like at this point, I probably should. I probably should.
01:57:01
William Dunphey
Yeah. I think it's worth the investment. you know I don't see you slowing down anytime soon. So we'll see what happens. But all right, my friend, it's been good. It's been a pleasure. Let's do a recap of PJCS and then figure out what we can do after that.
01:57:14
William Dunphey
And I'll see you very soon.