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Ep. 13 - The Return! NAIC + End of 2024 Regular Season Wrap-Up!
155 Plays4 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 13 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This week, we wrap up a TON of past events, including: Santiago, WCS S Korea, CDMX, Los Angeles, Lima, WCS Tawian, Bologna, the PJCS, and finally, NAIC 2024. It was a lot of fun to discuss the evolution of the meta over these events, and take a closer look at player storylines throughout the season. It's a longer episode than usual, but a great one!
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction and Championship Series Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome into the Show 6 Podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. Today, we're looking at a slew of regional championships that wrapped up the regular season for 2024. In particular, we'll highlight NAIC, where 253 trainers competed. We'll discuss the changing meta over time, the rise of Quagsire, ah one and a half tournaments in the Shared Skies update, and much, much more. So if you're ready, lock in, good luck, and have fun.
Hosts' Return and Personal Updates
00:00:53
Speaker
Guess who's back, that go again and this is back Oh god, you won't believe it. I was thinking the exact same, like I was trying to make the exact same joke if you didn't. And we did not talk about this at all before the podcast. We both made an imminent Well, I guess that guy is also kind of back as of recent, so it's it's quite fitting. I feel like our comeback is a lot more anticipated these days for sure, right? I agree. I think everyone's been waiting with with bated breath. I think everyone's like, where's showstick start? Are they coming back? Did they quit? Did they have a fight? Did they break up? No, no, the band is back together. We just took an extended break. We've been pretty busy. I think Swylers, you've been pretty busy with work and I've been busy with travel.
00:01:43
Speaker
Which is a great thing to be busy with, like travel especially. Yeah, but you're also covering some pretty exciting things in your day job. That is
Dual Roles and European Football Insights
00:01:51
Speaker
true. That is true because while while I am a Play Pokemon competitor and podcaster by night, I'm also a sports journalist by day. And um as I am from Germany, the biggest thing for the last month or so was definitely the euros. And yeah, that was um just so many, so many games to cover. And that was a wild ride in my regular life. But now there's only the finals left. And um I can basically go back a little more to to being the Pokemon guy in my free time. Fair. If I can ask you, who's in the finals this year?
00:02:30
Speaker
It's Spain versus England. and Yeah, that will be definitely an exciting match. England, one of the um favorites going into the into the Euros, but then kind of with the disappointing run of form, um a little more luck than skill involved in getting to at least the semi-finals. But now they actually had their best performance yet and are challenging Spain, who had an amazing run. The only team that won all their games Knocked out Germany, but at least Germany I had to like manage to take it to extra time and it was a very very narrow loss so yes It's gonna be fun, but I feel like we have too many North American listeners to actually ah be be able to afford Euros talk for too long because um if if I if I go on with that people might just tune out of the podcast so
00:03:22
Speaker
I don't know about that.
Global Soccer Debate
00:03:24
Speaker
I think ah there are a lot more soccer, aka football, of fans then than we think, right? And maybe sometimes the culture in the US s is like, oh, we like American football. We don't like soccer. So they don't bring it up. And maybe the soccer fans kind of keep to themselves and they don't mention it as much. But I think i think they're around. But that's really exciting. yeah and Also, like jokes on you guys, because um the U.S., Mexico and Canada will actually be hosting the 2026 World Cup. So no no escaping the soccer. Oh, yeah, it's it's coming. It's coming. and And it'll be a great event no matter what. I know that it I know that football has the largest fan base in the world for any sport. It is the world sport, if if we're being honest. Right. But I will say that the U.S. has more Super Bowl victories than anyone else in the world.
00:04:12
Speaker
That's true. That is true.
Travel Experiences and World Wonders
00:04:15
Speaker
As for myself, I'm currently in Mexico City. I was in Peru for a week. We went down to Lima. And it's wireless and I were discussing this before recording, but it's actually winter time in the Southern Hemisphere. So Lima was cold, rainy, overcast. Definitely not what I expect from, not what I expect when you think of Latin, right? You think of Latin ten as being very sunny, very bright, very tropical. Uh, definitely not the case, but I will say we went to Machu Picchu and Cusco, which is the oldest city in the Americas. It's over 3000 years old. And in c Cusco, it was very warm. It was very sunny the whole time. And the elevation was killer. It's like 11,000 feet up was Cusco. And then Machu Picchu is only about 8,000 feet. So, uh, to go down the mountain, to see the mountain is definitely an oxymoron I was not prepared for.
00:05:09
Speaker
Uh, but it was incredible. I think I posted some pictures on Twitter. Definitely recommend everyone should see it. And it kicked off this, this, um, challenge in my life to see all of these new wonders of the world and also the original wonders of the world. I don't know about you as well as if you are interested in doing a similar campaign, but after I saw the first one, I'm ready to do another. Well, it all depends on where play Pokemon will host next season's events, right? But yeah, I did, I did see ah your tweets and I love the pictures. It looks so impressive. Like the structures right up there in the mountains. And yeah, I've never been to South America. I've never been to any Latin country yet. And I would love to go one day. No, it's definitely, it's definitely incredible. It's a great experience. I know that those are like,
00:05:58
Speaker
canned words that sound like you could apply them to any experience. But it really is like taking a photograph
Pokemon Regions and Meta Discussion
00:06:05
Speaker
that you feel like you know. You feel like you've seen mountains before. You're like, oh yeah, you I've seen pictures. It's whatever. But when you're actually standing there, you put yourself in the photograph. you It actually becomes a lot more real, a lot more grounded. And luckily for me, the ground was was really stable because if you look down that mountainside, you can see thousands of feet down and it was really a staggering experience for me to look down and say, oh, yeah, if I if i fell and started to roll, I don't know when I would stop. I might stop when I hit the train that's at the bottom that I came in on, but I don't know for sure. So i'm I'm just going to try to keep my footing. But I think that's for anyone who's grown up around mountains or traveled around mountains, you probably have a similar feeling. But ah yeah, it was incredible. And I hope that Play Pokemon will host a tournament maybe ah at the base of the pyramids in Egypt.
00:06:55
Speaker
ah yeah
00:06:58
Speaker
Could you imagine? Could you you Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Could you imagine? Like, we don't know where Pokemon's 10th generation will be set. We've had like regions based on Hawaii, regions based on Paris, regions based on, or just France, I think, just Paris was the one city that now gets a spin off.
00:07:43
Speaker
but like um a region based on New York city. So why not Egypt? i would I would be, I would be there for like, um, Pokemon based on ancient Egypt, Egyptian gods. That would be exciting. That would make for some fun legendaries because those are like animal hats and, um, that kind of stuff. And that's kind of like how Pokemon works. Yeah. TPCI, if you're listening, you know what to do. Um, but so I was turning our attention back towards Pokemon. We have a lot to cover. Uh, we did take some time off, uh, between traveling work and on all the other obligations. So we're going to have a pretty big episode here. Uh, quick questions wireless. How much does a mama swine way? Um, just, just picturing a mama swine in my head. It's an easy answer. You got this.
00:08:37
Speaker
Oh God, that that makes me feel as if there's like a wordplay involved or something. I'd probably like a ton or something. No, a man must find ways enough to break the ice. Let's break the ice with Santiago, followed by WCS South Korea. We have Mexico City hosted by TPCI. That is opposed to the Mexico City event hosted by Niantic, followed by Los Angeles, Lima, WCS Taiwan, Bologna, the PJCS, which is the Pokemon Japan Championship Series, And then we'll conclude everything with NAIC where we'll spend the most time.
Tournament Highlights and Strategies
00:09:11
Speaker
So we're going to kind of speed run through these events. We've got some bullet points for each one. We want to give all these trainers the spotlight they deserve and talk about these events because we have missed a lot and there have been a lot of changes. So let's kick off things with Santiago. ah So why this when I think about this event, I think about the Shadow of Obama snow versus Mandibuzz finals, because both Vero and D-Sync had those on their team.
00:09:34
Speaker
I don't know if you're able to catch much of the stream, but I'm curious what your impressions were. um I feel like the stream just has been, like it's it has been a while since those battles aired. um But the one thing that I think about when I um look back at the event is that every single trainer in the top eight actually had a dark type on their team. And that was, kind of a new development at the time. And I think that speaks to something that I want to call delayed adjustment um during like a meta cycle. Because like one good performance doesn't necessarily bring about a meta shift. like When one Pokemon does well, it doesn't immediately spark a counter reaction. But as soon as like um a Pokemon establishes itself as a threat,
00:10:25
Speaker
um the reaction will follow. And we had some of those reactions during the season. um For example, like at the beginning of, I think March, um there was a moment, a shift, where suddenly, Altaria usage picked up a lot. And subsequently, Whiscash became a lot less successful just because, you know, with this meta Pokemon that you had to be worried about, that basically walled all the energy and just could farm infinite um ah infinite amounts of energy itself. um And that led to the shift from Whiscash to Quagsire in part. But with Darktypes, I feel like that's a similar story. Because if you look at, I think PVP Steve was the one who posted a graphic of all the Pokemon that won regional competitions this season.
00:11:15
Speaker
And Cresselia was really, really high up there. So basically, almost every second team that won a big event had a Cress on there. And how you do you how do you wall a Pokémon? How do you um just scare away a Pokémon that is so flexible as like a Cresselia with its bulk and its coverage? And I think Dark Types are just an amazing way to do that, especially because um They have such unique and flexible utility. Like with Umbreon, you um have this neutral bolt monster that um also can draw out and annihilate really safely and sometimes draw a shield. With Mandibuzz, you have an answer to Mud Boys, an answer to Annihilape that walls all the energy and isn't even weak to the counters. And with Guzzlord, you just have the benefit of the Dragon Tail, which just chunks everything as like a fast-move damage option.
00:12:12
Speaker
and also has the unique resistance profile of the Dragon type and and therefore does really well against electrics, fire types, water types, all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I feel like Darks really had their moment in May when Cresselia was basically at its peak and people were thinking of ways of how to counter Cresselia. Because, like, Mandiboss and Amrion are too bulky to even be too short with the Moonblast. And if we recall, like, the beginning of, like, the current meta, which I would say started at around December with, like, some slight updates, because they're used around the future side. I can't afford to do so anymore, because darks are everywhere, and you need to have at least some flexible counterplay against those.
00:13:04
Speaker
And I feel like Santiago was definitely the event where dark types got to shine. Um, it was clear before day two that a dark type would win it all. And yeah, I think it's really impressive that Varro managed to pull it off with the Mandibas, um, Obama snow core against De-Sync with his Mandibas Obama snow core. But like Varro. I looked up their Dracovis profile and I didn't see any previous results. So to go 7-0 in such a stacked tournament, because you had Paulin Jotard, regional champion, you had D-Sync.
00:13:44
Speaker
Regional champion in twice in a month, basically. You had Memi, who has been around the GBL leaderboards for ages. You have Ventuski, who is like one of the all-time self-grades. I think Horov also is like one of those guys that you run into GBL and you think, oh, nice regional champion shirt. Because I believe that he was successful in the 2022 season. and yes Yeah, like just so stacked and just to go in there as potentially a local trainer because he is from Chile or they are from Chile. I don and didn't and don't want to assume. um it's It's really impressive and it just goes to show that um this is what regional championships are about because sometimes you just see a new name pop up who is like,
00:14:30
Speaker
local ish or at least regional to the area and they can actually overcome and defeat some of the biggest names we have in the competitive circuit. and It's quite impressive. I did the same thing. I felt like the name Vero was familiar, but I went to the Drake of his profile and like you pointed out, there's only one tournament appearance and it's a sweep. through Santiago, so I was really impressed by that. I feel like the point you made about dark types is also very prescient, because whenever you look at a meta, I think some of the best meta analyzers, some of the best yeah team builders look at what is there just as much as what isn't. And if you think about dark typing, ah you think about its weaknesses like fighting, bug, fairy. There are basically no fairy types in the meta outside of the occasional azumarole. We don't see any charmers because
00:15:20
Speaker
For example, Alola Ninetales takes double super effective from Skarmory's Steelwing. Clefable was used by S.S. Thorne back in Toronto, and it was, you know, relatively successful, making it to the finals, but we haven't seen it since. And you look at Chargebug with X-Scissor being, I think, one of the main pressure points that kept Darktypes at bay for this long. But if you look at the counter users and the fighting type pressure, outside of Annihilate or Vigoroth, You really don't have any focus blast users. There's no register. You don't have any superpower or close combat users right because it's such a penalizing charge attack and it's just not very meta in the current landscape. So the the the opportunity for dark types to rise up is actually very ripe. And I agree with you. Kind of a late season adjustment, maybe the
00:16:09
Speaker
the masses, right? Maybe the whole, uh, PvP zeitgeist moved a little bit more slowly towards that conclusion. What I found ironic is that, uh, this was Mandibuzz's first play Pokemon championship season, uh, win during 2024. And ironically, desync actually defeated, uh, Austin to, oh my gosh, I'm trying to read this name. Zero ah sent to you sent to you 10 zero and his Mandibuzz in Buenos Aires to win it all just a few weeks earlier. And speaking of D-Sync, right? He made it to the finals against Vero. He was running the double sire team of Claude Sire and Shadow Quagsire. He actually won Buenos Aires in May, or excuse me, May 3rd, placed second in Santiago, which is the current term that we're talking about on May 18th, and then won Lima and May 25th. So we're going to talk a lot more about D-Sync as we go. But I will say in the finals, Vero won the first two games. It looked like it was all over.
00:17:05
Speaker
Desynx managed to win two in a row to tie up the series, and then Vero took that game five victory. um Really fun stream. I was able to watch it here in Mexico City, and I wanted to shout out to Morita Pokemon, TZ Sninks, and Rocha Babyface, who casted the event. So I was sitting here in the room I am in right now, and Morita was casting in the room next to me. ah So hearing her excitement, hearing her hype, watching the battles, I'm just so proud of her. And um I really think that her casting has improved so much too because um she's now started to look at one individual Pokemon in terms of a team preview.
00:17:41
Speaker
and kind of dialing into what that Pokemon can do and what elements it'll be successful in or what it thinks you'll avoid. And she's got a ton of compliments from friends and I feel like it's really added a ton of depth to her casting. So I'm very, very proud of her and proud of TZ Spanx and Roach of course as well. But really fun event. I think at this point as well, this was May 18th. And I think that at this point, people started to realize that Shadow Quagsire might be the real deal. And I do want to credit D-Sync for pioneering that Pokemon this late in the season. 100%. I have i have like three more things to say about this, but I'll ill keep it brief. um The first thing is um shout out to Rocha Babyface because he was actually like one of the the many Mexican representatives at NAIC.
00:18:29
Speaker
And he was actively seeking out people to trade Hawlucha to them, which is a Pokemon that most people typically don't have access to. And I actually got my first Hawlucha for Great League, or just Hawlucha in general, from him. So very thankful for that. It's a very fun, spicy pick. And it's a really nice gesture, especially because you only have so many um special traits for these event days. And many people prioritize like their own like Chris Salias or whatever they want to re-roll and get good IVs for. And to just go out there and basically say, okay, like my special trade will be helping other trainers out. um I think that's that's just a huge service to the community.
00:19:14
Speaker
um Another thing that I want to mention is, um circling back to my delayed adjustment theory, if we look at um the top eight meta, we have two charger bugs and zero fairies. So you mentioned those two archetypes basically as the main counters to dark type Pokémon, and they were basically not around at all for the Santiago event. But if you look at more recent events, Azusa has actually picked up quite a lot. And Shoutout Park is actually the only Pokemon that um was basically mandatory to make top 8 at any IC. So um definitely a shift that
00:19:55
Speaker
Basically after this event where dark times, dark types were so good and so dominant that people actually picked up the counters to those stock types a couple of weeks later. And I think there was like one more thing that I wanted to say exactly, exactly. The desync situation with the shadow crack, I believe I haven't seen a single, like a singular player shift the meta the way desync has with the shadow crack success. um since human catcher bug won the Vapua with the shadow charizard. So that was definitely a Pokemon that was around and has been around for a while, but nobody really realized the potential until Desync basically um made the case for it. And yeah, who would have thought that during the double Sire community day that Quack Sire would actually end up being the more meta defining Pokemon out of the two. Wow.
00:20:49
Speaker
i I just have to say my jaw's on the floor. i I adore that analogy because I think you're right. I think that seeing the shadow Charizard really flipped everything. It made its way across the Atlantic and was in the and the finals for NAIC last season. And then seeing D-Sync to actually pilot the shadow quag sire. And then again, it ripples over to NAIC at the end of this season, which is definitely poetic. I think that, I think absolutely nailed it. Santiago was a great event, but we have a lot to jump
WCS South Korea and Unique Compositions
00:21:17
Speaker
through. Let's go ahead and hop over to WCS South Korea.
00:21:20
Speaker
And I wanted to talk about this event, I wanted to highlight the winners team because this was Goji0408. And speaking of trainers that really shift the meta, this was a Wigglytuff Giratina Origin Form victory, which is very similar to Inadequance's team ah that he was able to win a special hit with as well. um I'm curious, I mean, is this core still OP? Do you think that in the shared sky season, we will see Wigglytuff and Giratina Origin Form at Worlds? um I do believe that it is still very strong, and I have to say that um these South Korean qualifiers had some really unique team building. um Well, I don't know whether you can call it unique if Mata and Payen needed an introduction to a degree, but it was still a little different. It was still a little different. like there were
00:22:08
Speaker
like Goji definitely put their own twists to it. And I also do believe that Giratina Origin also is kind of gate-kept by the fact that not everybody does have access to it. So um maybe we would see more if more people that had one or had a good one. So that definitely, I feel like it might be a little and undervalued because of it, but also it is a high risk and high reward Pokemon just because there are those vigorals, there are those licking tongue. and If you get that muscle line, um then you can basically just give up, stop playing. But um that's like part of, like like the decision making around that is part of the skill, right? So,
00:22:52
Speaker
um I would say that if people like if if players out there trust their judgment when it comes to line-calling or building safe lines um around Giratina origin, it is still a very potent corebreaker. I think its main threat currently is actually Artsaria, probably. And Wigglytuff does a great job of preventing Artsaria from coming out. So I don't believe that core um is something that we will see, that we will see at Worlds as well. And the one nice thing about Guretino Origin, which could be really useful well in the current format, is that with Chargerbug everywhere and with Azumarill around, the two things that I mentioned earlier,
00:23:40
Speaker
um There's very few answers to Chargiburg that are as hard and as able to spiral into something that is very difficult to control the way Giratina Origin does it, because unless Chargiburg opts for crunch, you just resist the entire set and can basically come out with an entire Shadow Ball for the next thing. um And also, if you think about Azu as the premier fairy type, having a dragon that actually has win conditions against Azu, because it needs charge attacks to... Azu needs charge attacks to take out Giratina, and if there's shields in play, you just outpace and out damage with the fast moves. um That makes it a really unique pick, and I do believe there is still... there's still a Meritude Giratina origin, for sure.
00:24:27
Speaker
Yeah, I would love to see it at Worlds. I think that the the Ghost Dragon typing is definitely still unique, it's still powerful, but I want to hone in on one of the points you mentioned, that when you pick a unique core like this, like Wigglytuff, Giratina, Origin Form, you kind of open yourself up to tricky interplay, depending on what you line up against yourself. Maybe you see an Ozu team that's particularly tough, or maybe you see a Shadow Magnezone team that might be a little bit challenging, So your team identity, whenever you choose a core to settle on, whether it's, you know, Double Ground, Bligar, Whiskash, or it's Skeletorge, Abomasnow, or Wigglytuff, Giratine, Originform, whatever core it is, you have to kind of ah align yourself with that identity and become comfortable countering certain things. And I just want to point out the grand finals here for this ah this tournament here in WCS South Korea. 12 unique in the grand finals, not a single Pokemon shared on either team,
00:25:23
Speaker
For example, Goji's team was that patented Wigglytuff, Giratina, Origin Core with Whiscash, Mantine, Registeal, and Talonflame. And meanwhile, of in the other side of the the bracket here, RNX, Legend Push with Azumarill, Shadow Sableye, Annihilate, Shadow Magnezone, Shadow Dragonite, and Dugong. So completely unique teams, completely unique makeups. It felt like like you pointed out as well. Some of these matchups were a little RPS. For example, if you lined up the Shadow Dragonite, from RNX Legend versus Goji's Wigglytuff, that's game over. If you line up, ah for example, Shadow Sableye from RNX Legend versus Goji's Giratina Origin form, that's also a little dicey, but Giratina has some win conditions. There wasn't a stream for this one, but I definitely think it was it was an interesting finals. And according to my notes, all four of these top finishers did qualify for Worlds. So we talked a lot about Goji, his opponent in the finals RNX Legend push, but also Charming Chinda and Buti.
00:26:21
Speaker
also all qualified. And a fun fact here, I looked at the bracket. Apparently, Goji took down Seijun Park during bracket play. And I just want to ask for everyone listening, can we get some claps for the GOAT Seijun Park? I mean, if you're not aware, Pachirisu, world champion in BG, plays TCG and GO as well. Pretty impressive. I was about to say, I was i was like a little disappointed when I saw a Lantern instead of Pachirisu as to the the sd electric type um on on their team. But it's it's still like this is like, sometimes there are people who like to argue about, oh, VGC is the best. Oh, no, TCG is the only game that matters. And then there's Go, and Go just says, hi, guys. Hi, guys.
Pokemon Olympics Concept
00:27:09
Speaker
we're We're also here. and
00:27:11
Speaker
but about What about just embracing all the Pokémon games? And like, Saturn Park becoming a Pokémon master at all of them is honestly so impressive. Like if you talk about best Pokémon players of all time, which is just like a fun, a fun conversation to have, right? um every Every individual title it kind of has their candidates for like a goat. But if you can do it all, maybe I feel like that might make you the best of all time. Here's something we need to set up. Sorry, we need to set up the Pokemon Olympics, where we invite maybe the top eight Pokemon players, Sajun Park, Wolfy Glick. We invite these trainers to a top eight competition, and they play all the Pokemon titles. And then we figure out who really is the best.
00:28:02
Speaker
That would be, like honestly, that's that's a good content idea. ah if you If you pitch that to Wolf Blake and do it convincingly, um i wouldn't I wouldn't even be surprised if people were interested in doing that. I would be shocked if he hasn't already thought of it. Guy's a genius, right? but But we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe somebody who's listening can can give us the hookup there. to talk with Wolfie. WCS South Korea did not have a stream, so unfortunately we can't go into too much detail, but I do think it is notable to talk about the teams. Let's go ahead and move on to Mexico City. Again, we're bouncing like a ping pong ball around the world here, ah recapping a ton of events. This one was interesting to me because in contrast with the Mexico City event hosted by Niantic, which was only Pokemon Go and which was a double elimination format,
00:28:51
Speaker
This was actually all three titles. We had TCG, VGC, and GO at this event. And GO was actually a Swiss bracket. I know a lot of people's ears probably perked up with that. What? Swiss for GO? What? Is that possible? Can we do that everywhere? Well, this one looked like it was a lot of fun. No stream for this one either, unfortunately. But we do have our winners and our final standings. So I'm going to do my best with this name. I should know it because, you know, I am engaged to as a Spanish speaker. But Marjo, 15, was our winner. And Andrew Menores was the runner up. Albedo Mack finished in third. And we have our whole top eight here. I just wanted to ask you, Swayless, Guzzlord, winning a tournament here. It wasn't the first, but I don't think it'll be the last. Would you all talk about Guzzlord or anything else?
00:29:41
Speaker
ba Um, like when I, when I look at that team, I do see the gas Lord lantern core that, um, I played at EUIC and I considered quite strong at the time. So I do believe that that is, um, definitely. a core that is worth considering even going into Worlds. I've been playing that at a practice tournament the other day, and I swept that. Even though the style of the show was probably Shadow Gyarados, but... um Anyway, that's that's just a quirk of mine. um The Gossela Lantern Core definitely is still strong. One Pokémon that I want to zone in is...
00:30:19
Speaker
like talent flame appears to be a bit of a Mexican thing, isn't it? Because I feel like every time I see a tournament where a ma ah Mexican player top cuts, like at least one of them, like typically multiple Mexican players top cut, and at least one of them always has that talent flame. I think Rocha Babyface was also quite fond of it, um occasionally even with the Fly Bravefoot move set. and Yeah, it's it's ah definitely attempting to become the national bird of Mexico. on And yeah, like Valor Ash, European players in Dortmund and Mexicans, basically ah all Spider-Man memeing with the talent flame love.
00:31:02
Speaker
um I think it's deserved. It's still a very strong Pokemon, and even though people have preferred Skeletorch for the most part as of recent, I do believe both have like their unique qualities. Toneflame is um less afraid of duck-type charge attacks. Toneflame has the potential Luke option with Brave Bird. um There's just a lot of unique properties that Toneflame brings over Skeletorch. Well, I feel like I feel like Talonflame also pairs incredibly well with Guslord because if you look at Guslord, traditionally weak to fairy types, it doesn't do very well against fighting types and also struggles against steals. And Talonflame counters all three of those relatively well, right? So I think when you pair the dark and the fire, it actually works out really well. Marucho won the tournament with Guslord, which is ironic because Guslord was actually the runner up at the Mexico City Niantic event.
00:31:54
Speaker
Famously, Martogal, they ran it with Charizard, Guzzlord Core, which is really intimidating. Although, I do want to point out the first Guzzlord champ of the season was Descent in Buenos Aires, followed by Jaco Loco in Bogota, making Marjo the third Guzzlord champion. ah You mentioned PVP Steve earlier. I just want to give him another shout out. He made a great graphic of all the Pokemon ah that had not yet won a tournament, but it had top cut multiple times. And ah it was kind of like a bridesmaid graphic, I like to call it. And Guzzlord was near the top of the list. I think Mandibuzz might have been number one, but Guzzlord was really high as well. And Guzzlord got its first win and then two more consecutively really quickly afterwards. um But the one thing I noticed though, in in common with all these Guzzlord teams, I kind of expected to see an Abomasnow or a Townflame Skeletorch paired with it. But the common core has been Guzzlord and Cresselia.
00:32:49
Speaker
And we talked about Cresselia's flexibility earlier, and I feel like that really kind of speaks to the the way that you're able to use different Pokemon to fill similar roles. So I mentioned before, Guzzlord struggles against fighting types, steals, fairies. I think that Cresselia has the fighting type weakness covered mostly well, but in other words, you you kind of have to build your other four Pokemon around countering the other two. Would you
Guzzlord and Cresselia Core Exploration
00:33:15
Speaker
agree with that? Do you think you need some steel protection, some fairy protection, if you're going to run Guzzlord Purcellia? Yeah, I feel like we've been talking about cores a lot. And typically we talk about cores in the context of, oh, Pokemon A and Pokemon B go really well together. But I think the truth of the meta, when it comes to building a team of six, like six entire Pokemon, so many options.
00:33:39
Speaker
is that um like one Pokemon can be a great core with multiple Pokemon. And um especially with that fire type Talonflame, I do believe that there's like even a triangular relationship between Cress, Guzzlord, and Talonflame. Or even if we if we take Lantern with that too, like those Pokemon just um First of all, they're pretty good generalists just because of like their stat product or their attack ah their attacks. And then they also just um cover each other's weaknesses weakes almost flawlessly. So if you have... um two Pokemon that try to cover each other's weaknesses and that's kind of it, like a Scarmory Whiskash Core, then you are really good, like you're completely fine if you get it aligned well, but if you have like four Pokemon that are all Corebreakers in their own unique way and then cover each other well, then you can combine them in various ways and shapes and lineups and just really keep your opponent
00:34:46
Speaker
on on their toes and always find at least one line that is um specific to whatever your opponent has in store for you that really does a good job of either giving you safe play, either making um some course of your opponent impossible just because of your own core breaking potential. And yeah, I do believe that rather than always like a two Pokemon core, we we see a three or four Pokemon core here with Gaslord, Lantern, Townflamen, Chris. I agree. I think when you see a lot of these these traditional cores like Swampert, Skarmory, for example, ah you can expect your opponent to play ABC lineups to try to control Switch Advantage and to try to play for literally, like like you mentioned, Switch Advantage and controlling the pace of the game. But if you have more neutral play, more coverage, you can ah kind of afford yourself some additional options. But yeah, it looked like a very exciting event. Again, I hope that we get more streams, official streams for Santiago,
00:35:46
Speaker
for ah Mexico City, for upcoming tournaments in Latin next season. My hope is that we get official streams for all of those. But for right now, we just kind of have to look at the teams and the bracket and how things shook out. Let's hop back across the ocean, though. So let's take a look at LA. And speaking of dark type adjustments.
Ryze's Strategies and Achievements
00:36:06
Speaker
That was so dark. Why is the occasion went overboard? I mean, is he in his email phase? What's he doing with Umbreon? I don't know. He just saw a black cat and thought, oh, this is this might not be bad luck. This might be good luck. And put it put it on his team. Black cat or black dog for Umbreon?
00:36:28
Speaker
Ah, this looks like such a cat to me. Like if you, if you, if you pet an Umbreon, it would, it would meow, it would not bark. I'm like, can can you imagine an Umbreon barking? Honestly, like. No, I can't actually. Darn, you got me. It's a kitty cat. The last regular season tournament, uh, in North America was the Los Angeles regional qualifier. 136 players showed up to be candid. I fully expected more players to go ah with it being the last regular season regional, but I still think 136 is healthy. And a lot of trainers that competed all season had already gotten the points to qualify. So if they weren't in the if they weren't in the travel award race, they probably weren't that concerned. But Ryze's occasion ends up winning it all with famously now a double dark Umbreon with foul play and dark pulse. And if you're curious about this, I want to redirect to you to Ryze's YouTube channel.
00:37:24
Speaker
where he did a extensive breakdown of why, the reasoning, that the method behind the madness of this double dark Umbreon, because he knew every single matchup, sorry, I mean, he knew if he needed to throw dark pulse into a certain situation, if he needed a double foul plays, what the damage ratios were in every single situation, he was well, well, well prepared. And I think that this team was also unique. So built it around the Umbreon, he had Wigglytuff, Annihilape, Lantern, Shadow Bygar, and Dugong, And I saw him play quite a bit of Dewgong, especially as a safe swap, and Wigglytuff looked super powerful. It almost felt strange to not see Wigglytuff paired with a Giratina origin form, but Ryze made it work. Like, channels honestly are...
00:38:11
Speaker
I feel like you could still like always slap a charmer on a team and get some value out of it, right? So even though it pairs exceptionally well with Guretino Origin, I do believe that Wigglytuff is honestly a strong option for basically every team. And about Royce team building, obviously the style of the show is the Ambreon, which I do believe um picks up Annihilape, like potentially in the the Zero Shield scenario, depending on the Annihilape's IVs. um So that is quite nice if you have um like two counter weaknesses on your team with Dugong and Amrion, but the one counter weakness actually sponges up all the charged tech energy from um from Annihilates.
00:38:56
Speaker
um And the other counter weakness manages to just debuff a Pokemon in a way that just sets up a farm down. So basically what Ryze did is play strategic strategically like pseudo weak to counter users. like yes he He does have targets on his team, but none of these targets are really terrible into um opposing counter users. Um, big growth is difficult to bring against him just because annihilate is around. Now that it was difficult to bring just because of how if you, that Ambreon matchup is and how weakly tough definitely also is like a prime answer to it. So if you invalidate one Pokemon that is basically present on everybody's team, which is the counter user.
00:39:43
Speaker
Um, then you are definitely already one step ahead of the competition. And another thing that really interested, um, me about Ryze's team building is like, if you look at his team of six, um, what, what would you say is the lantern answer on that team? Yeah. Right. That's a really good question. I mean, he's, he's got his own lantern. I can't recall if he's running water gun or spark at this point. Um, there really is no hard lantern answer. or an answer and And I feel like there's no, there's also, um, Oh my gosh, I was going to say there's no Umbreon answer, but he's got to be tough. Yeah. To your point, no hard answer for lantern. So how did he get around that?
00:40:21
Speaker
I do believe that um if a Pokemon is a strong and safe generalist into your team, but not really dominant, because like none of the Pokemon that Ryze had on his team are terribly weak too, especially a Spark Lantern. Your Gligar can hit back with Diggs, your Dewgong can hit back with Drill Runs, and even though there's um some danger from Surfsoft Thunderbolts, um both of Both of those lantern weak Pokemon still have a way of fighting back. But if you just invite a Pokemon like a lantern, um then you can basically always anticipate it and you know how to play around it. You can just chip and dip. like The Umbreon is excellent for that because whenever Pokemon is like slightly weakened, Umbreon will win the neutral matchup.
00:41:08
Speaker
And I feel like you remove a lot of uncertainty if you invite a Pokémon that might be neutrally strong into you, but that you know how to handle. Because as you pointed out, Ryze just knows all his damage counts and um has been into the those situations a ton of times before. So I feel like if few if you If you just embrace a soft weakness to a Pokémon, that could actually work to your advantage as long as you perfect your ways of playing out of that matchup. Speaking of lantern usage, I actually took a look here at my notes for the grand finals. Shady Equation brought lantern all three games against Ryze, and kind of how those matchups shook out is really interesting. For example, in game number one, Ryze baited Shady's lantern with Aerial Ace, took the shield, and then he threw Dig
00:42:00
Speaker
to take the second shield. So he already got the shields down really early in that matchup. And even though Shady made a crazy catch at the end of the game, it wasn't enough to stop Ryze in game number one. Game number two, Ryze threw foul play in the lead. It was actually a Umbreon versus Shadow Gligar lead. He threw foul play into the Gligar, and then he swapped to his own lantern ah in order to kind of apply pressure and I think draw out Shady's lantern as well, because he knew it was going to be in the back. And ironically, Ryze actually caught dig onto his lantern to keep himself in the game and eventually win it. So a lot of lantern play back and forth. And I think that, like you said, strategic weakness. Ryze knew he was weak to lantern. He knew his opponent would bring it, and he was ready. Very, very impressive. One thing I want to point out, ah besides the obvious, right the elephant in the room here is that Ryze is the first trainer to win three regionals in three seasons. I believe he's still the only one to do that, if I'm not mistaken, I think.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah, I do, I do believe he is. I do think that was the big headline. And I feel like after that, like Rice was a powerhouse before, but if you had to carve out like. the the Mount Rushmore of North American Pogo PvP, that would probably be like Dunberg, Itzaks and Vadash rise to occasion. like those Like those trainers are just so accomplished and either had crazy runs, crazy consistency, or both. And yeah, Rice definitely cementing his place amongs amongst the best of the best with that victory.
00:43:30
Speaker
I love Ryze. I hold him in high regard. I respect him a lot. But I know there are some Ryze doubters. Mainly my co-caster, Caleb, is a huge Ryze doubter, as I'm sure everyone is aware. Caleb doubts everything though. That's true, that's true. He wasn't absolutely a stouter. I guess he had a point there.
00:43:48
Speaker
ah Well to to give the doubters a little fuel here I did look at the bracket. Ryze played seven rounds total and that means that he had a round one bye due to seeding. His round two opponent was a no-show so he had to beat Vettix OG, Sick Nail, and Man in the Planet to qualify for day two. Granted those are all really high quality trainers, nothing against them. When he got to day two The bracket did get pretty intense. He took on a lot of powerful players, including, of course, Shady equation in the finals. I do want to say that the the top 16 here in l LA was incredibly stacked. You had trainers like Elam out of pocket, Dr. Rose Beef. You had Dilap as well make top 16, Frostfire and Elite. This was a really, really tough tournament to qualify in. So Ryze kind of saved his best for last, right? Last regular season tournament.
00:44:38
Speaker
one won the whole thing and he did it in a really stacked field. So I don't know. I'm sure there's a lot of people who who have feelings either way about Rice, but I think we can all we can all agree this win was very, very well deserved. um Unless you have any more thoughts, I'm ready to flip over to Lima. Yeah, I have a i have a good idea for a transition because um one one notable matchup that happened very early in day one was between Out of Pocket and HK Assassin. And that is um that was interesting because HK Assassin, I do believe, won that with an exact mirror team. I do believe he just took the team that Pocket ran even in the previous original.
00:45:17
Speaker
And then they both faced off early and then they both top-cut regardless and I think finished it around the same position with um the non-shadow for alligator and the Bastiodon. And I do believe that the Bastiodon and the fact that HK Assassin is a trainer from Europe, from ah the UK, leads us over to um our next competition quite well, potentially. And also the non-shadow for alligator will come up later again. Oh, interesting, interesting. Let's take a look here at Lima, where I just was actually a week ago, which is which is pretty staggering to to think about.
D-Sync's Impact and Tournament Wins
00:45:57
Speaker
But ah in Lima, it was a grand finals matchup between D-Sync and Ice Chris, who's definitely one of the best players in LATAM. D-Sync, though, took the title with Guzlord, Shadow Quagsire, Charge Bug, as well as Shadow Gligar, Skarmory, and Cresselia. Again, that Guzlord, Cresselia core. And he was just too much for Ice Chris,
00:46:17
Speaker
ahs to handle winning the tournament in Lima and definitely making a very impressive showing. I mean like we called like we called out at the beginning of the show when we were taking a look back at Santiago, this is actually D-Sync's second victory ah in this season. So two two tournament wins in LATAM by D-Sync is wildly impressive in my opinion. I think we would talk about Deezing as one of the most dangerous trainers going into Worlds a lot more if the events he he won were on the official channel. Because like that resume just for like one month is is so impressive. like most like there There are trainers that are
00:47:04
Speaker
absolutely go to like amazing at the game and they don't win two to reach those in like two or three years of competing and to do it like almost back to back with like one second place finish in between um that's like one of the greatest runs of all time um So yeah, um definitely definitely excited to see what the Quagsire Maestro can offer for Worlds potentially. I'm excited as well. It looked like Deesync did drop the Claude c Sire, so he did not go double Sire this tournament, ah but he did stay wet to the Shadow Quagsire, which I do think is basically his staple Pokémon at this point in time.
00:47:46
Speaker
He took down Icecrisse's Altaria team, which we've mentioned Altaria before as being a very strong neutral pick, something that rose late in the season. I also want to call call out a couple more trainers. Ventuski coming in third with a Mandabuzz, Vigoroth, and Registeal trio. And then we saw JavierV20, who was our Mexico City Niantic Qualifier champion, come in fourth place with Skeleturge and Mandabuzz, Abomasnow trio. Definitely some interesting team compositions. And this gives me a lot of hope that we will see interesting, not only cores, but also trios and four component teams. What do you call that? like A quadrio? A quadrant quadrant of Pokemon? Quad pairs, whatever.
00:48:28
Speaker
whatever you want to call it. I hope you see some really unique ones. ah unfortunately against whatever Multicore, I like that a lot. Unfortunately, no official stream for this one either, or community stream, so we weren't able to see the battles, but I'm sure they were sweaty as heck, because I know IceChris is incredibly accomplished, one of the best trainers in the world, not only in Latin, time but worldwide. And for D-Sync to win that tournament is a huge, huge boon to his momentum going into Worlds. But yeah, I think with these tournaments that we don't have streams for, there's not a whole lot more we can say, but we definitely want to shout out these trainers. ah If you're ready, we can hop over to Taiwan. Oh, I would love to. All right. right This one's interesting. I know, I only have one note. My only note here is that Gamebird TW1 Taiwan with Umbreon. But also in second place was Vincent 070400.
00:49:25
Speaker
And you mentioned Attack Form Deoxys. How in the heck did Attack Form Deoxys finish in fifth place? I think I did see a YouTube video about the attack Deoxys run and the the secret to attack Deoxys success is that it stayed on the bench.
00:49:45
Speaker
like um um That was basically just a trainer willing to um essentially compete with five Pokemon and still doing super well just to give attack Deoxys a little bit of spotlight and make for a fun moment with um the graphic coming out. And like it's it's know what it's not like, oh, it this is such an easy competition in Taiwan. I can just ring whatever and do well. like There are players, i I think I remember Sausage487.
00:50:16
Speaker
from like high leaderboards in GBL. And they finished like I think shared ninth or something. So while that is still impressive, it's not like, oh, like any top GBL player could just roll up and take top four or anything. It was still a very competitive tournament. And other than attack the oxes, all the other teams are real teams. um so Yeah, it'ss it's a flex to to get this far with basically just five Pokémon. Yeah, I think Kimi Sui finished in the top eight as well. and We know Kimi is very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is an interesting point to make just because I was not even aware that you could basically play both in the TPCI and in the TPC circuit.
TPC vs TPCI Circuits
00:51:05
Speaker
But I guess as like a Taiwanese-American,
00:51:10
Speaker
you would be able to compete both for championship points within the TPC so tpci circuit and sign up for like one singular TPC qualifier, but you would only ever get to take up one qualification slot if you made it through on on either end. So yeah, like, oh, you go ahead. No, I just had a ah point to make here. So I saw something interesting on Twitter. um Let me go ahead. Or I should say X, formerly known as Twitter. This is actually a post from Yoko Clover. And this is, let's go ahead and plant a seed here. So this is an email that a trainer in Japan received. The email opens up. This is from TPC, not to be confusing TPCI, which is based in the US.
00:52:00
Speaker
or at least the US offices. This is from TPC in Japan. Hello, Yoko. We would like to apologize as the information provided regarding your inquiry is not correct for the 2025 championship season. Beginning with the 2025 championship season, players in Japan, South Korea, and the Asia Pacific region will all have the ability to earn automatic world championship invitations for winning a regional championship special event or top four of any international championship worldwide. That is the method. I want to see this. I want to go to EUIC. I want to go to NEIC and I don't want to, I don't just want to play the best trainers of the region or like the best players from North America, Latin time Australia.
00:52:50
Speaker
um I want to i face crescent angels in NAIC Day 2 or something like that, because we only ever get to see those top trainers from um those those major Asian countries compete at Worlds, basically, or at like grassroots tournaments. or in GBL, but we know that there is so cracked, like especially the the Japanese occupy like half of the GBL leaderboards every day. And um international specifically, I think have a really great incentive for people to fly out and give it a shot because if top four qualify,
00:53:32
Speaker
um That is a lot more attainable than just a winner takes it all system, even though it's still like incredibly difficult to play stop for it. Um, and international, but I could definitely see that change motivate some people to fly out and give it a go. Well, well, here's the thing as well. The qualification system in the TPC region is incredibly challenging. It's a lottery system to get in. Then it's a series of best of ones to qualify for, for bracket play.
00:54:03
Speaker
And then when you get to bracket play, you have to play like six or eight rounds depending. And then you go to the playoffs where the winner of that will actually win a position at Worlds. So when I look at all of my win-loss tracking amongst these regional champions, it is without question that the players in the TPC region and the Asia Pacific region have the the most daunting gauntlet to get through in order to qualify for Worlds. It's absolutely incredible what they endure. and how many battles they play. They play more battles than NA, LATAM, EU, any trainers from those other regions. So finding another way to help these trainers qualify, if they can make that travel across to the two EU region, to LATAM, to NA, if they can make the travel and win a tournament, they absolutely deserve another way to qualify for Worlds. So honestly Swayas, I said we should plant a seed. Maybe that seed should be how to qualify.
00:54:56
Speaker
for the World Championships in the 2025 season. Maybe we could do like a special episode on that. What do you say? I would love that. I didn't make a Twitter thread on that already. And I think so many things changed that it would be worth to talk about it in depth for sure. Well, I think as well, a lot of trainers who listen to us on the podcast platforms might not follow us on Twitter yet. So they might not have seen your thread. And I got to say, your thread's incredible. I would love to even just go step by step through that. and break that down. So everybody stay tuned. Make sure to follow the show if if you've enjoyed this episode so far and you want to hear the the whole, I guess, crack the the egg wide open regarding qualifying for 2025 Worlds, because it is a slightly different system than we're currently in right now. But that being said, WCS Taiwan did not have a stream. We have two more events to cover, one in Bimonia and one in the PJCS before we get to NAIC.
00:55:54
Speaker
So unless you have any more thoughts on Taiwan's wireless, let's hop over to you. Oh, i wouldn't I would love to go back to my home continent, even though I could not be ah in Malonia for the event just because it was so close um to NAIC. I feel like I was somewhat there in spirit because my boy Shadow Magnet Zone did a thing. And I'm just always happy when that Pokemon does well. Yeah. I just want to call out here. The champion is a thief. All right. I'm just going to say it. The champion is, is like the Hamburglar. He just keeps stealing teams and winning with them. And I don't know what to do about it. I don't know if there's a way to stop him, but Colin was very, very impressive with the shadow magnet zone. And the theft I'm referring to is that this was actually Palasha shadow magnet zone team from EUIC. If I'm not mistaken.
00:56:50
Speaker
Um, that might be correct. I don't actually know whether she changed it between UIC and Stockholm. Um, cause she has so many correct shadow mechanism teams. And if you, if you'll look at, um, that top graphic. Parasha comes in third as well with her own shadow Magnezone team. But that one is that was a that one is a new original with, um I think the newly released Nature's Madness, Tapu Fimi on the team to make it even spicier.
Bologna Tournament Successes
00:57:20
Speaker
So yeah, Magnezone taking two out of three top spots. um Colin becoming the first European to win two regionals in one season. And I think three overall now, if I'm not mistaken.
00:57:34
Speaker
um And also, TomahawkUK with a shadow Basjiron becoming probably the player with the most second-place finishes, is that true? Oh, I think you might be right. it' It's between him and Caleb, right? No, I'm just kidding. It's definitely the Basjiron, guys. yeah Yeah, always a bridesmaid, as Caleb likes to say. But no, I think you might be right. Maybe maybe he is the one with the the most second-place finishes. But making it to the grand finals that consistently is absolutely wild. I was not a shadow Basudon believer, but I know the Gligar matchup is a lot closer, and I know that it keeps a lot of things on the bench, just like regular Basudon does. So maybe Tomahawk was cooking there a bit.
00:58:19
Speaker
ah Series record in the grand finals was Tomahawk for game one and game two. He was one game away. One win away from becoming the Baroque champion. But Colin strikes back with a 3-0 to reset the bracket. And I think at that point, I think it was game five, if I'm not mistaken. It just felt like Colin just sucked the air out of the room. All the momentum was gone. Colin was able to win games one and two of the reset. Tomahawk fought back a bit in game number three. And then Colin sealed the deal and gained number four of the reset to become the champion. So, very impressive. Shadow Bass, you don't carry Tomahawk quite away, but not to the title, unfortunately. Stealing the team from Kholasha, stealing the victory from Tomahawk2k.
00:59:06
Speaker
Like, somebody somebody needs to put out an ah arrest warrant for Colin because, like, this this guy this guy might run away with a world title if he continues like that. He just might, right? I think Colin is is definitely one of the top trainers in the EU. I think he was on our list when we were discussing, I believe it was EUIC, what trainers we thought were most kind. He was one of the top ones that we listed off. Oh, it was actually game four. and Oh, excuse me, game three. Yeah, it was game three. So this Grand Finals is really, in my mind, a story of momentum. Game number three, Colin's Wiscash survives with just two HP to get off the Mud Bomb. I saw this as the first kind of crack in the armor.
00:59:46
Speaker
for Tomahawk. The crack in his Bassidons armor was that it was Cash hanging on to game three to keep Colin in the tournament. Game four, Colin gets a back-to-back Shadow Ball to KO the Annihilate from Tomahawk. And then game five, his Nan team double ice beams Altaria to win it all. And game six, which is crazy, I think this was really the nail in the coffin, Altaria from Colin is able to drag his breath down a Bassidon. And when that happens, and to fit That's a backbreaker that absolutely takes your will to live out of your body. That's really, really tough. It's all over at that point, for sure.
01:00:23
Speaker
But yeah, just just like looking looking at the the bracket as well, I feel like there was no better way for the EU season to end than this Bologna event, because we had a lot of like star competitors from ah the season in top card. We had Arceus Aurelius, who won Dortmund. We had Skafo, who obviously is the EU starboy ever since um finishing highest um out of the Europeans at last year's Worlds. We had Parthoman, Gdansk champion. We had Emmy Wiedel, EUIC champion. We have Palasha, Stockholm champion. We have Tomahawk, obviously like one of the the most consistent methods of the season, and also um a YouTuber now. Check out his content as well.
01:01:15
Speaker
um And then then Colin to to top it all off with his second victory of the season. I feel like um this this tournament really showcased how much EU talent we have and um that maybe this year's Worlds could be a little less lopsided towards um the the North Americans. And also, there is some EU spies that I see um among among trainers, like Bocha M.N. coming um top 16 with a bus wall on his team. So Koches with a whimsy called Shadow Hippowdon Core. So the Google EU spies made it all the way to day two. And um yeah, i was I was like, this was just great television to watch, honestly.
01:01:59
Speaker
It really was, like you mentioned, Sir kohead Cohes with the Shadow Hippowdon. I believe he and Paula faced off on stream. And we know Paula's great, right? We've known Paula's talented for a very long time. It made me so happy to see that she faced off against something that was off meta, that was non-traditional in the Shadow Hippowdon. And there was a really vital C and P tie, or C, A, P tie, to win the game. I think it was, it might have been game two. where she's able to trigger that, and seeing her know the counts for a sand attack rock weather ball to pound on was so serendipitous. It was so good to see, and she definitely pulled out a big win. I think Sir Cohes thought that he had the win there, but Paula was just one step ahead. It's like ah like that that reverse meme where the astronauts looking at Earth, and Paula was the astronaut behind the astronaut saying, yeah, I knew the counts all It was just ready for it. So that was really, really fun to watch. I'm curious how Skofo is going to do this season at Worlds. I think that mentally, he hasn't really enjoyed the meta over the past season. And I feel like he's got all the raw talent he needs to succeed. But I think that his headspace going into Worlds is probably the most important factor. I don't know if you agree.
01:03:14
Speaker
I feel like F9k Scufo is one of those players who doesn't need to have a good time to do to do well. I feel like Italians always hold themselves to a really, really high standard. And um like this this like this comes from a place of love because I really like that competitive sentiment behind those thoughts and those those emotions. Also, I feel like Italians are the European nation I have the worst record against in Play Pokemon, so that's that's another thing. But I feel like we could, I could totally see a version of Worlds where um Scuffle, like,
01:03:54
Speaker
tweets his grievances with the meta out in the middle of day one and then makes it to the very end of day two and potentially day three like that's that's entirely on the cards in my opinion and yeah it always depends on like um like the momentum on the day, the the team building, and maybe like one or one or two um games to just go your way and just give you that confidence. But if it just comes to a raw ability at the end of the day, like um he can definitely match anyone at Worlds. so So you're saying that Skafo is kind of like that coworker you have that walks in every day to work and says, oh, I hate it here. I hate this job.
01:04:37
Speaker
And then they turn out to be like the best performing employee in the company. It's basically that for sure. Well, um only time will tell, right? We've got a few weeks leading into Worlds. Um, those were all the thoughts I had on, on Bologna. Very fun bracket reset. Like you said, it reminded me a lot of LA as, as in l LA was a great showcase of some of the best trainers from North America. I felt like Bologna, like you said, was just a star studded roster. A lot of really impressive players. making top cut and just trying to sharpen their tools on the eve of Worlds and the final competition of the season. And I definitely think ah there's some strong showings here. So very impressive. If you're ready, we can move on to the PJCS. And then after that we have NAIC. Let's do it. PJCS is the Pokemon Japan Championship
Pokemon Japan Championship Series
01:05:27
Speaker
Series. Now this is the only, to my knowledge, the only ah Japanese Pokemon Go tournament we get streamed all season.
01:05:34
Speaker
There was a lot of pomp and circumstance. The stage looks great. A lot of kind of dark atmosphere. Very intense, very fun. Team graphics looked great. There was a ah live stream, live chat. Commentators were working really, really hard to deliver a lot of hype. It looked like a great show. And I wanted to shout out to NotRobNay for hosting a watch party of the PJCS. As much as he could, he invited guests to come in and and spectate and commentate in voice call. I thought that was really cool of him and I appreciate him a lot for doing that. In terms of teams, we know the PJCS is always unique. They always cook up incredible stuff. Was there anything that stood out to you in terms of players or teams?
01:06:16
Speaker
I have to say that like looking at the top 16, there are some teams or like some individual Pokemon that I don't really think we've seen a lot of anywhere else. like I think the most, like the Pokemon that stands out the most to me is actually the Shadow Empoleon that Olingo piloted all the way to 9th. And that was actually paired with the Gudra as well. So um the the Steel Dragon Core in like a very off-meta interpretation. And um yeah, i and I enjoyed that a lot. And I feel like I was and might not even been the only Empoleon that was at the tournament. Definitely the only Empoleon that made it to top 16. So and maybe maybe there's some and i say there's some hidden gems.
01:07:03
Speaker
um over there, and then there's Kianti with the Shadow Charizard, which very few people are still playing. I know Matos still believes in it for the most part. I know that in Europe, like, Snuman used to bring it a lot, but and typically Talonflamis, it'll be preferred over it, but apparently still good enough to finish top eight um at the biggest Japanese event of the season. um And like, the only the only one that matters after all, right? Because that's where world's qualification gets decided. um And then there's also a whimsy card um from Pome Totoro. And I've seen that name, like not a whimsy card, Pome Totoro, um a lot on like the the highest heights of the GBL you bought as well. So um I just know that these players don't only bring those poker on because ah it's so funny, um especially because they only get that one shot. But because
01:07:59
Speaker
They found unique ways to become some of the best players in the world through Blind3s and GBL. From that, they probably thought, okay, I can... build around my like knowledge, my advantage in terms of the knowledge that I have about this Pokemon that others might just not have, because they don't typically play against wings you caught every day, but I play it every day and I reach like page one on the leaderboards with it. So I'll just basically play to, to that Pokemon's strength and, um, make it work. And yeah, like plays like Poemitoto did make it work. The, the main.
01:08:42
Speaker
A team that I want to focus on is actually not even the winning one, because the winning one from K-san, also one of um the best trainers, period, one of the most well-known names on the leaderboards. And that that team feels relatively standard. out There's and an Annihiliplica tankour, there's a Skarmory and a Lantern, there's a Natsari and a Shadow Wiscash. All of those are very straightforward. um The way they interact is um like pretty well um understood at this point in time. But Kip2139 is our second place finisher and I want to really highlight their team just because even though the Pokémon are not
01:09:29
Speaker
super unique. There's a Shadow Swampert, which is fairly unique. But what i I think is interesting is that Kip's team has not only the Shadow Swampert, but also an Azumarill and a Lanto. So three water types on the same team. um And I do believe that most people would shy away from a strategy like that because you always think that, okay, if I build a team of six, I basically want six Pokemon that do different things and maybe not even share a weakness because that would leave me vulnerable, right? Like I want to have all my bases covered.
01:10:06
Speaker
But I think what Kip understood really well with their team building is that even if you have a team of six, only three can ever hit the field. And if you just have um enough cover for the Pokemon that might threaten the things that I want to bring, I can like double up or triple up on a certain certain outside of Pokemon. Because they all of these water types, while they share weaknesses, they also have very unique individual strengths to them as well. And I do believe that you don't have to be but you don't have to have six different things on your team that all do their own unique kind of thing.
01:10:52
Speaker
But if you have like various flavors of water, in this case, you can have multiples of that on your team because you only have to combine it with two other Pokemon anyway. So if you have like three Pokemon that cover your Pokemon's weaknesses, you can just basically always bring the one water type or even the two water types that are best into the specific team that you're facing off against. For example, um like If you are up against Kaesan with their team, um maybe Shadow Swampert isn't the water type of choice just because there's an Altaria lurking, and you might instead want to go for Azumarill, which has a lot of great matchups. And then you pair that with um like whatever Pokemon you you want to um maybe defeat the Chargerbug, which is the biggest threat. And so you have um just like...
01:11:51
Speaker
Depending on what Pokemon your opponent's team has, just a lot of flavors, and even if you overload on the water side of things, can still make four unique combinations of three, even though the six might not seem that balanced. I feel like it also speaks to the the sense that there are certain typings in the championship series, especially this season, that are totally overpowered. I mean, water grounds are the two that come to mind that just have very few counters, are very, very flexible, and you can make the most ah out of most situations. Looking at the rest of the this top cut, there's tons of Cresselia and tons of Lickitung. So when I look at the Triple Water, as you mentioned, the point comes to mind that I'm sure that Kip played a ton of Chargibug and Shadowbone and Sandslash. Because if your opponent sees Triple Water on the opposing side, they're like, oh, yeah, I'll bring Lickitung every game. I'll bring Cresselia every game. And then it allows you to more accurately predict if you're Kip, what you're going to see next.
01:12:51
Speaker
So bringing charge bug, bringing sand slash, I think those are great plays. And this team looks very hard to handle given the current safe swap meta, right? Namely those two that that i just I just mentioned. Because Altaria doesn't hard win Cresselia. It doesn't hard win Lickitung either. And then if if the Cresselia or Lickitung get past your Altaria, it can chew through a zoom roll, it can chew through swap bird and lantern. So it almost feels like bringing the charge bug and the sand slash was almost like vital for most of Kip's matchups, which but you could argue makes them a bit predictable. So it's kind of like this, again, we always talk about the circular thinking, you know, does my opponent know what i but I think they know that I'm going to do, that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean, building certain weaknesses into your team and knowing it inside and out, we talk about this all the time on the show in all kinds of different contexts. But I think this one is actually a bit more unique
01:13:44
Speaker
than most things that we've looked at. So I'm really glad you highlighted this team. And one thing that I want to highlight as well is how well the Charger bug on Kip's team is protected. Because if you have um an ice type and shadow alone and sand slash and three waters, who's going to bring a gligar into that line? yeah s on like like multiple waters that probably win the neutral matchups and in Artaria, it's really difficult to bring mud boys into that team either. so um like Also like fire types, it brings a fire type into a team that could be made up of a zoom roll, a shadow swap, and a lantern. like I feel like the the charger bug definitely had a great time with that.
01:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I agree. The charge bug is incredibly well protected. Like you said, shout out to NotRobMay for hosting the watch party and and being our translator and in and Japanese ambassador for for that particular tournament stream. Definitely love when our community is able to connect in unique ways like that. And NotRob is just a stud, man. We love it. But that being said, it's wireless. I think there's only one more tournament to cover. It feels like we've already done a full episode because we basically have Yes, we definitely have. But yes more there's But there's more. And now we have NAIC.
NAIC Highlights and Underdog Stories
01:15:03
Speaker
I just have one note for this tournament because I want this to be like a three wheeling conversation. Quagsire fans rise up.
01:15:11
Speaker
I do believe that Quagsire, like out of all the Pokemon that have been viable in Go PvP over the years, who ah who would have thought that Quagsire would be the one to win back-to- back-to-back NAICs? Because I do believe that it was on ah um last year's winning team as well. Let me i me check that real quick. But I do believe that we live in, like, this is Quacksire's world and we're just living in it is what I'm saying. I think Wedaj was toxicroke, chrysalia, dugong, shadow charizard, quacksire and... Umbreon was on there as well. Umbreon. It must have been Umbreon, right? Has to be.
01:15:57
Speaker
Yes, yes. Yeah. Shadow Quag, back-to-back NAICs. And basically, um the same friend group taking it as well because Vadau's successor is none other than Out of Pocket. Wow. It's really serendipitous as well because having known Out of Pocket for several years, as I'm sure you have as well, Quagsire has always been one of his favorites, right? There's always that that famous quote. you know Trainers win with their favorites. Weak and strong Pokemon are a myth. They always win with their favorites regardless. But out of pocket actually did it. He's been a Quagsider fan since the beginning, ever since ah he first was in... He's on record with it too, because during the breaks, during the broadcasts, you always get those little interviews with notable trainers um that have done well in the past. and
01:16:51
Speaker
I think when Pocket was to talk about his favorite Pokemon, he did explicitly mention Quaxias, so that soundbite has been around for a while, and now the prophecy basically um came to its conclusion in New Orleans, and like a lot of eyes were on the non-Shadowfur alligator that was um also on the winning team, so speak about overloading on water types. um But yeah, I do believe that a lot of lot of credit belongs to the Shadow Quack. I don't know how many times I've seen that thing just take out manteens, which typically you would put a manteen on your team as your prime answer to Mud Boys, but yeah. Like, if if it's a stone edging Shadow Quack Sire, that matchup is not safe at all for the manteens, so definitely an impressive showing.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the Stone Edge absolutely slaps. Like, if we're just being honest, Stone Edge absolutely slaps. And it's very strong. And after you land a Stone Edge, the Man Team is magically now within Aqua Tail Rage, which is also, like, disturbing. And I, I love about that fact that even if you like bait with the nacotail and they call it, you needed that damage anyway, because you need to land a nacotail and a stone edge. So they'll just be in the same position the next time and need to make a call. Um, so yeah, like I definitely, I definitely don't hate being the shadow crack in that matchup at all. I wanted to start off the, I know we've already kind of ah jumped into the NAIC conversation, but I want to jump
01:18:30
Speaker
to the top cut. And I want to talk about this this top cut because this was honestly just staggering to watch. There are a few individual stories, but I want to mention region-based stories first. The number of LATAM trainers in top cut at NAIC was incredible. I mean, I think there were, if I'm not mistaken, there were either six or eight LATAM trainers in Topcut, which was phenomenal. I think I did count 8. Yeah, that was like, everybody was on about, oh, is it EU versus NA? But it was it was really a story of LATAM excellence all weekend. Yeah, it really was. The LATAM players, not only from from Mexico and the 7-11 team, but also from Brazil. ah We definitely need to talk about Har Jeff and Steiner.
01:19:17
Speaker
We'll do that in a few minutes. that That was the heart of the show. The beating heart of NAIC was definitely their story. ah There were also some pre-talented Europeans that made their way into Top Cut. I have to say, we probably did better than we were expected to do, not because um ah like the the Europeans that went over didn't have it in them to I have like 60% in top card, like 60% out of the Europeans, which just means three out of five, right? There were not many Europeans there at all, but having the majority top card in such a stacked field, especially because um I think Triptando and Adequance shared a group and managed to avoid each other, which is
01:20:02
Speaker
ah like They play each yeah each other all the time in Locals. They share us the same group, but somehow managed to both progress from that to Day 2 without playing each other. That is kind of impressive. um So yeah, but I do believe that the the EU performance was actually a little bit better than it could have been expected, because while I know that Trip is an excellent battler, I also know with that He was not expecting, like he didn't go into NAIC with the expectation to make top 32. Like he knew he could do it, but he also knew that he wasn't expected to because there were just like bigger names. But he prevailed against the competition and um with the European trademark Magnezone as well. So definitely a strong run from um a player to watch for sure.
01:20:53
Speaker
Exactly right. Speaking of strong runs, I just wanted to, I mean, this is our show, right? So we can talk about what we want to talk about. I want to talk about one of your games. And you remember this in much more detail than me, of course, because you were actually in it. But if I'm not mistaken, you were able to, and I think I caught you backstage, but you're able to play your way out of one of the most difficult situations I think I had ever seen with your Shadow Dragonite. I believe it was against an Azumarill and something else. But it basically it looked like the Dragonite had no play and your ability to kind of make the right decisions at the right time I think we could spend just a moment on that because it was definitely it reminded me a lot of how Inadequance in his tournament win was able to swap CMP tie with the charge bug with his gueritina origin form it was just a very high level of skill expression and
01:21:44
Speaker
Who better to hear it from than yourself? Thank you, thank you, thank you. It means a lot. um Yeah, I always hesitate to to make this about myself too much. I'm making it out of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you taking the lead here is definitely appreciated because um I love that moment that I got to have in the winner's finals of day one against Bopper, who was a real pleasure to play against. like um One of the top NA players made top cut as well. And yeah, he had that Shadow Mac zone on his team. And I was not really p preparedf prepared for that. I don't fully remember my line, but I do believe it was um Shadow Dragonite with Skeletorch and Azumarola in the back.
01:22:33
Speaker
So leading the Shadow Dragonite into the Shadow Magna Zone, I felt corebroken, right? like That is not the lead that I wanted to see. um I had plenty of positive matchups with my um shadow Shadow Dragonite, or at least matchups where I could have maybe taken a shield and then fumped down with a Skeletor. I had ideas in mind. My main idea was not to face the Shadow Magna Zone immediately, but I basically made it so that I um pretended to just stay in the lead up until the very moment um he reached his first charge attack with Magnezone. So one turn, because Dragon Breath allows you to really um precisely adjust at which turn you want to swap out. So one turn, before he reached his wild charge, I swapped and um brought in my Skeletorch.
01:23:33
Speaker
But I also knew that I was a Dragonite, right? I'm so squishy. I shield everything. So he was very likely to just go for the mirror shot. um And I know that like, Well, while Charch would decimate my Skeletorch, I can take a mirror shot, no problem. So me swapping out a little earlier, not just the right moment when he got it, but like just so early that I could still trigger the Incinerate from my Skeletorch, knowing that he would click the Charch attack immediately after. That allowed me to get um a full Incinerate worth of damage onto um the Magnezone.
01:24:15
Speaker
and therefore weakened the main threat, the main core breaker, so much that in a very close fought series I um managed to come out on top just because of this sneak and catch technique that I tried to perfect in ah the go battle league over ah weeks and weeks and pulling it off on the big stage was um a really special moment for me um because not only did it mean that I like managed to come back from a really tough spot, but it also just made for great television, which I also always seem to do when going to these tournaments because oh yeah like i don't like I could play it safe, but where's where's the fun in that?
01:25:00
Speaker
um And also I do believe that after EUIC and Dortmund, it was the third time in a row where I made um day two of a competition on the winner's side. So I was actually really proud of achieving that. and maybe being even the only one to top cut both UIC and NAIC. I don't know whether that's true. like if If there are small people, then theres and it's fairly few. But some of the Americans that managed to um take on UIC and top cut there, um actually, like we we kind of have to talk about that because big names dropped early. I do believe that like
01:25:41
Speaker
ahead of the tournament, everybody was talking about Junebug, everybody was talking about it's Saxon, like people who really have the resume to go into the favorite, go into a competition as a favorite every single time. But um yeah, they didn't make day two. I somehow did. I don't know. Shadow Dragonite did its best. um It was Shadow. It was Shiny. um So I like the way it looked on the screen. And I like that I got to have a moment. Yeah. just Just for the content, like you said. You do it for the content. I also do believe that it is strong, but yeah. like like ah Day two, I found out that oh out of the 31 potential opponents that I could have played, um two had a rock type. And obviously, I faced Elam with face carving immediately. and It all went downhill from there. But um for for the time being, Shadow Dragonite really did a good job.
01:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, Elon and his car bank were definitely a staple as well. He used that to great success and a high-level finish. ah But like you said, there were three trainers in particular that all the casters had picked. These are our quote-unquote trainers to watch. Axon, Doombug, and Ryze. Of course, Axon, our reigning world champion. Doombug winning three regional championships and coming second at an IC in the same season is unprecedented, unmatched. And then Ryze, who had just come off his his third regional title in three years after winning LA, we said, oh yeah, you know, for sure. All these players will be top cut. All these players will be in the competition. And within the first four rounds, I think all of them have been knocked out.
01:27:20
Speaker
So it was definitely like a flip of the script, as they say. And it opened up the field in a really interesting way, because i you just knew that there there had to be like like those underdog runs, those stories that you didn't expect. And because they're so unexpected, they would be a lot of fun to to follow all the way to the end. And you definitely got that after. Everybody loves to see a crowd favorite, one of the best trainers in North America. to like have another good showing. But i like was with all due respect to these top trainers, I do believe that just from a viewer's perspective, the underdog is always the one that you would root for. And so the favorites crashing out early definitely made this very, very fun, very enjoyable.
01:28:13
Speaker
i feel like um I feel like as well, Americans really love an underdog. And I say this because there's so many different examples in history, right? During the Revolutionary War, we were just kind of a band of of farmers and settlers with rifles hiding in trees, fighting against the British army, right? And then we had, if you fast forward to media, you look at Rocky, one of my favorite ah series of all time. Rocky is just a guy living in some bomb Apartment trying to be trying to follow his dream of being a boxer and of course, you you know canonically of course the American dream is to just have Start from very little and then to have the white picket fence and the family and the success You know for a lot of people they do share that kind of that kind of feeling that you can come from very little and do very well So I agree with you and in the debate around the best players in the world definitely intensified quite a bit this season because we had you cover which we need to regionals in a pack we had
01:29:12
Speaker
Dune winning three in NA. We had Colin winning two in EU. And the the kind of question that I kept hearing was, is it even worth it to go to these events? Because these top trainers are probably going to win anyway. Well, there's your answer. it's not It's not about history. It's not about what you've done in the past. It's about what you're able to do right now and if you can peek at the right moment. And this ties back all the way back to our intro when you were talking about ah the finals. Uh, between it was, it was England and the other team was Spain, Spain. Thank you. England and Spain, Spain, having a really consistent, very strong record, England getting a bit lucky, but then kind of peaking. I think it really depends on which of those two teams peaks at the right moment. And I think that goes for Pokemon go as it goes for all sports. And I think that, um, leading into worlds, it really is a question of who peaks first. And there's no better proof than, than 2022 with, with a dancing Rob.
01:30:09
Speaker
Somebody had that nobody had paid to win the tournament actually peaked at the right moment and won the whole thing. So NAIC in my mind is a great example of how we can have a season and a narrative that's written over the course of almost a year. And then when it comes to worlds, the final sentence on the page can be completely different than everything that came before.
01:30:32
Speaker
And I feel like um just to adding to that sentiment, we should definitely also highlight just the incredible run that was Ash Snashes. Because while if if top favorites crash out, that doesn't mean that the names that replaced them at the top aren't necessarily the ones that like nobody knows. And it's like, oh, I just picked up the game a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm like, at the top of ah the North American hierarchy here. But um like I feel like Ash and Ash definitely played um regionals before and definitely is also a really well-known name around GBL. So people know that this is this is somebody who has the skills, who knows how the game works and who can outplay a top class opponent.
01:31:23
Speaker
But it's also somebody who, unlike players like out of pocket, unlike Elena Steiner, unlike Elam, like he doesn't really have that resume where you know, like, okay, this is a top-cut regular. This is somebody who, um, like has had these runs in the past. No, this was somebody who had the skills, had the determination, and then built his own momentum by taking down top player after top player with this man team, with his ah shadow alone and sand slash, and somehow has cemented himself among the best of the best in this three-day tournament. And I do believe that even like, especially if you have never been in that situation,
01:32:08
Speaker
um you come into the tournament at a bit of a disadvantage just because other people have been like under pressure like that and know how to deal with it but maybe maybe this is like half of the secret to just go into a tournament without these expectations and then just like You just you just jump and you see whether you can fly and actually I should could fly all the way to the second place on On the wings of his man team, which I don't know. Can that fly probably? Yeah kind of puzzle tus right Yeah, yeah yeah
01:32:46
Speaker
and yeah that was That was definitely the underdog run of the tournament if you had to pick out one. um and from ah let let Let me check real quick. I don't believe he had a top 16 to his name before this tournament. um and coming from that all the way to second place at an IC. Oh, he did have one top 10 as a ninth place in Sacramento, but like no top eight at least. So still, uncharted territory um up against the best of the best, because with all due respect to the Sacramento Regional, that was 87 players. And the IC was thrice that.
01:33:32
Speaker
Um, and yeah, I was, I was really impressed with, with his gameplay all weekend and his, um, just like stamina going all the way through the entirety of day two, making championship Sunday. Um, really good stuff. Some players just, just have the magic, right? And when we got to that finals, it really felt like no other two players deserve to be in the finals besides pocket and ash and ash. It felt like they both had such impressive resumes. They both overcome so many different and unique obstacles that were unique to each of them, that by the time they got there, it was almost like things had just aligned. I feel like sometimes when you look at at finals, you can say, oh, well this person maybe had an easier bracket run, or maybe this person had a spicy pick that people weren't ready for. Or maybe this person just has more experience and they're able to outlast a lot of their opponents and just play neutrally.
01:34:27
Speaker
But given the uniqueness of the teams, right? Like you said, the man team from Ash and Ash, along with the shadow lowland sand slash, which is definitely a tongue twister and out-of-pocket shadow Quagsire Vigoroth team. It just felt like these two players were just destined to be in the finals. And granted it was a 3-0 for out-of-pocket in the grand finals. I was definitely still hype. And like I said, during the commentary, if anyone out of this entire 253 person bracket is able to push out of pocket into a reset, it would be Ash and Ash. But in this particular instance, things did lighten up for out of pocket as he was able to win it all, which is definitely serendipitous for him as well. Because as we've seen throughout the season, kind of similar to Ash and Ash, he can wear his emotions on his sleeve. If he comes in to day two on the loser's side bracket, he doesn't look the same as he does when he comes in on the winner's side bracket. And I think that overcoming that mental hurdle for him and
01:35:24
Speaker
and kind of getting this icy win under his belt. I think this might just be the stamp of approval, the badge of honor that he needs to kind of convince himself that, yes, I can do this. And again, like I said, during the commentary, this, this win matters more to pocket than anyone else in the stadium. And granted that does go for most winners, but it goes at a different level when it, when it came to this competition in particular, because out of pocket really needed this win, in my opinion. to convince himself that he's on the same level as Waddash, like you mentioned, his his predecessor from NAIC last year and had and his dear friend.
01:36:04
Speaker
I do believe that. i do I do believe that to be the case. And I also, I just really appreciate that we did get to see glimpses of um like pockets mental state as a competitor going into NASC, like gradually over over the months or the weeks or the um slew of competitions that led up to this point. Because i he's not been like tweeting every day about, oh, I want to be known as one of the best at the game, yada, yada, yada. But he has let on that that matters to him. And that is something that he is not happy about, that people are having these conversations. Because like look at us. listen Listen to us. Right now, we are doing a podcast about playing Pokemon, and about Pokemon Go PvP.
01:36:52
Speaker
and like there are eyes on you as a competitor now this is different from two years ago when yeah obviously there was a community but there was not that much discourse around oh who is the best in north america in the world and i remember there was um that tier list with a twist where um There were monetary values assigned to Pokemon Go players as if you could like um basically build your team of PvPers on a budget. And I don't believe that pocket was i kind of not super happy with like
01:37:33
Speaker
not being in the conversation of those like really high tier, um highly valued battlers in that regard where, oh, you have that god conversation, you have the darsh there, you have the zax and you have Junebug. And then there's pocket who has been going toe to toe with those people for years now. and um I basically spent his entirety growing up PvPing and chasing for the for those honors. And he's been like, he used to be in a bit of a competitive slump at around the turn of the year. And he was really um looking to prove it to the world and to himself that he is one of the top guys. He is one of the names that
01:38:21
Speaker
Everybody needs to be aware of when and it comes to oh who's the best, who will who might win Worlds, who might win a big event. Like NAIC, NAIC was just about the biggest event to date. like You could argue that NAIC had probably just a few more people registered. But um at the end of the day, this is... the highest mountain to climb at this point at the season. And for him to climb it and basically announce that, okay, this is my goal. I will work towards it and then achieve it. um I think there's nobody more deserving and I can definitely also
01:38:57
Speaker
um like I read his thread reflecting on his victory after the fact, and I can definitely relate to the feelings he described when it came to his team building that he said, oh, I was always chasing like this this next new thing that nobody had done before, just to prove that um i can I can give people this extra level of not only winning games, But also being innovative about my team building and all that kind of and of thing, where he was running Basti for like weeks and weeks. and And he shifted away from that, kept the launch out of our alligator, which also a lot of people were were doubtful about.
01:39:41
Speaker
I basically stayed true to like his core principles when it came to team building, when it came to meta analysis, but got rid of the fluff and just focused on um the the real heart of it all, which is just playing the game as well as he possibly could. And he
Community Celebrations and Reflections
01:40:01
Speaker
got rewarded in the greatest way possible. And I feel like that's almost an inspirational story of somebody who really set out to achieve a goal, faced obstacles, overcame them, even did some soul searching in the process. And now is the NAIC champion. Yeah. Couldn't have said it better. I feel like um Pocket became a lot more introspective.
01:40:24
Speaker
And like you said, he wasn't so focused on showing other people what's possible. He kind of blocked out that side of the narrative and he just trusted his own instincts. And he said, what do I think is strong? What do I think is going to work? And based on my experience and my practice, if I dig really deep, what will I find as, as, as the best possible solution to win the tournament? and I think that's exactly what he did. Uh, there were a few honorable mentions. I want to, I want to point out a few trainers, and then I would love to talk about hard Jeff and Steiner, a few other trainers that had incredible runs. I was really proud of, uh, Elon with his car bank. His car bank was incredible. It was one of those Pokemon that he showed me at a restaurant the night before. And I said, I don't know, man, it's, it's kind of RPS, but if you can make it work, then go for it. Turned out to be his ace in the hole.
01:41:12
Speaker
And I think Elam's downfall, if you want to call it that, right? He did incredibly well. But if you want to say the one point where he might've tripped up, and I think he agrees with me on this, is that he leaned a little bit too hard into the Carpink and brought it into a couple of match-ups where it just did not have as much play as he had hoped. But again, that's juxtaposed against the fact that if he didn't bring it as much as he did, he would not have done as well as he did. So definitely big shouts to Elam. I want to talk about Shiny Dialga, who's been on an incredible, uh, just upwards trajectory of momentum in terms of his skill, expression and play. Shiny Dialga was very impressive to watch, not only at this tournament, but also a previous one. And I think that he's going to be one to watch out for. Uh, Mango making top cut, actually top 10 with Goudre before it even got Thunder Punch. Exactly. I feel like, I feel like his Goudre experience might prove really valuable going into a new meta where Goudre might be even stronger now.
01:42:12
Speaker
Oh, you're right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Because Gujra, I think, will be a player. How many Gujras will see in Top Cut at Worlds? I don't know. But I do think it's definitely a a a force, especially in my experience in GBL. if I played against a lot of Gujras in remix. It's definitely very strong. um The Masked Asian, who actually finished, I believe this is 13th overall, is a Louisiana local, based out of Baton Rouge. Played him at a local tournament just a couple of weeks prior. And it was really fun to see him succeed and make Top Cut. Uh, JJ and performed really well. Rocha baby face, uh, incredibly strong and, um, yeah. And final shout out to Frankie T 52. Of course I started my PVP journey in Florida and Tampa, Frankie's and Orlando local. And it was really awesome to see him also, uh, finished in the top 30.
01:43:05
Speaker
yeah like honestly Honestly, we could probably even talk about all the 32 trainers in that and that top card. I do believe that the masked Asian, like I remember being um i think backstage for a match of mine and like being all disappointed that the masked Asian didn't have a mask on on stream. But he did actually bring one. He just wasn't allowed to to put it on stream for because of like production reasons. So actually masked, not a f fraud. Real masked Asian, actually. That's awesome. I really think that um Nighttime Clashers started a bit of a costume revolution. Yeah, that is that that' definitely the case. With this chef hat, so I really hope next season and maybe even at Worlds this season, we'll see more costumes. I would love to see that.
01:43:57
Speaker
oh yeah Now I have to think about a costume for words that is that is going to be a struggle You just got to wear a lab coat like ah like an engineer There you go what's it good depend on How warm that will be I'm sure about We'll see maybe everyone should should follow us wearing this on Twitter just to see what what he's got cooking Um, one more thing I wanted to point out the absolute beating heart of the show was definitely Ellen. Yes. Hard Jeff and Ellen. Yes. Steiner, uh, two trainers to come from LATAM all the way from Brazil and do so incredibly well. Hard Jeff finished sixth overall Steiner finished in third place, but their friendship and their camaraderie was absolutely infectious. And I think, uh, my co-caster Amanda said it very well backstage. She said, Oh, I just love when hard Jeff has the microphone.
01:44:51
Speaker
I absolutely adore it because within 20 seconds of him speaking, no matter what he's saying, I feel like I'm about to cry. And it's just because Harjef has this ability to touch people's hearts and his his um the way he expresses himself and how deeply he cares about the community and the game is, like I said, infectious. And I think that Harjef, not only being Steiner's friend and competitor and teammate, but also being his translator during an interview was poetry. It was absolute poetry. And they and the two had the same exact team. So it's like the the best story arc of of the entire thing. Yeah, I adored it. I think that um the the passion, the love that we see from a lot of our LATAM trainers really shine through at NAIC. In particular, Har-Jeff and Steiner, their story was incredible.
01:45:49
Speaker
And I highly encourage people, I'm serious. whyless If you're available, if your schedule is open, if you're able to make it to LAIC, you will not regret it. It's one of the best events of the entire season. The crowd is easily the best of any of the ICs I've ever been to. And I highly recommend it for anyone listening, make your way down to Brazil. You'll have a great time. Really making a strong case. I'll have to see um how exactly those travel stipends for ICs will work next season because LAIC is coming up fairly early. And as as far as I know, even us Go players will now have the chance to qualify for a little bit of financial help for making the trip. But that only applies to like the top four trainers.
01:46:34
Speaker
Um, and I don't yeah know the specifics of that just yet. I don't know whether the specifics are out, but again, um, be sure to tune in into one of our next episodes, which will definitely come sooner than this one compared to the last, uh, where we will go over all the changes that, um, came to championship points, the championship series as a whole and what's codification going forward. Exactly. And everyone listening, I just want you to know that I will be on the same page as you. I will be taking notes. I will be learning because I'm pretty confident. I am 99% sure. Zwylist knows more about the qualification system than I do. So we'll be learning together. So with let let's ah let's learn together. But Zwylist, I think that was a great recap of NAIC. I'm not sure if you had any closing thoughts. I know we were both there in person. And I talked ah with DFI about this on the PPP corner, but it was really a serendipitous experience for me to have everyone come to New Orleans
01:47:32
Speaker
a city that I grew up an hour away from and just all weekend, no matter who it was, whether it was it was you or Crimson or my trainers from Florida or from ah up north in the US or from LATAM, everyone said the same thing. They said, first, the food is awesome. And the second thing they said was, this is way better than Columbus. So I do not have, I do not have the Columbus comparison, but I would, I would be inclined to believe those people. No, it was incredible because, um, I didn't tell many people that I was essentially a local because I didn't want the, you know, the kind of added responsibility of pay. Is this area safe? Hey, should I go in here? Hey, you know, what's the best thing to do at this point?
01:48:19
Speaker
because then it becomes a lot more coordination and I was already you know focused on the cast and trying to make the show as good as it could be. But just hearing everyone say kind things with minimal effort on my part was very nice. It made me feel like ah like the city that I had grown up so close to was just as special as I believed. So the closing remarks that you asked me for originally um before you shared your perspective on New Orleans as an event location, like those remarks would have actually been that I am just so happy, so delighted that we will be back in New Orleans for
01:48:56
Speaker
the upcoming NAIC as well because I just had the greatest time I stayed at a hotel with about a dozen friends like not all in the same room or anything but and basically um independently from each other booked at the same place and it was awesome because every every afternoon every evening we could all just come together like sit poolside because we had a little pool and um just talk about anything, hang out, have a great time. And it was so easy. It was such such a vibe. We had like a little, and we could watch a little bit of this of the city from the pool even. And there was always something happening on the streets and it's such an such a vibrant and
01:49:44
Speaker
The city is always alive in a way that um like i've I've been to like the Hartford Regional. It's not that alive. oh
01:49:58
Speaker
And yeah, I just, I saw so much, I saw so much, but I do believe there's so much more to see still. And I will definitely be at NAIC and not only because um that will be helpful in terms of championship points, but just because I really cherish that experience and I just can't get enough from it. I agree. I agree. I'm really happy that it's going back. I think it is a very central location ah for the US in general. I mean, Columbus is relatively as well. But there were tons of of travel complications getting to Columbus, especially in 2022. So I'm really excited that ah more people are going to come to New Orleans and have fun. Of course, this this goes without mentioning that in any large city, you need to be aware of your surroundings. and You need to ah you know be conscious of going down any dark alleys or any places where the people and traffic and lights are not located. So definitely be mindful as with any location. but
01:50:56
Speaker
If you're safe, you can have a really good time in New Orleans. And also I thought that the the parade at the beginning of the show was awesome. Oh, that was such a beautiful touch. I love that they, um like sometimes they just. take a like obviously like during London Worlds that was also like um everything but like the the optics of the event were all like very London-y and it was like you you would feel as if that that was like the the place where the competition took place wasn't random it was part of the show but like
01:51:34
Speaker
That was worlds, right? Even the ICs typically don't really have that, but then making it an effort to bring the New Orleans spirit onto the NAIC stage, um I love to see it. And also just regarding um the the safety of the city, because like I've seen a lot like a lot of positive feedback on ex formerly known as Twitter. And like one negative story that also happened. So there is a possibility of um maybe being in a situation that is unpleasant. But for the most part, I really felt safe. And I can also just encourage everybody to stay with friends, especially and in the evenings. And you should be all right.
01:52:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think it's the standard rules for any city. Just be mindful when traveling. um I also saw that one of the night casters got into the parade. I believe that dupe snacks was on stilts at one point. I didn't know he was able to do that, but he's definitely a very talented guy. So I guess that's not out of the question. But ah yeah, the sparkly jackets, those those were straight out of the Unite casting team wardrobe. So definitely a fun one to watch. And I agree. I hope that i hope at Pokemon takes more cues from the cities we go to and builds them into the show because it makes it feel like this is a moment in time that is unique to the location and to this particular ah point in the season.
01:53:05
Speaker
Like, a lot of the regionals look the same. If you're not inside the venue, you don't know. And even if you are in the venue, a lot of them are just these giant halls. you know the Giant rectangular halls. There's no doors. There are no you know twists or turns or anything. It's just a box, essentially. So having a unique touch on these venues, I think, is is the future. And I think that it just enriches the show so much more. So this has been a pretty solid episode. We're about two hours in. I was going to ask if you had any closing thoughts because I'm ready to release this. I think this is this is a really nice um episode and a really good way to say, hey, we're back.
01:53:44
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely feel like we've announced our return in style. And I feel like Tualus is... This is fine. This is fair. I think we've given everybody their flowers for some incredible achievements at the tail end of the 2024 season. Can't wait to be back for some special episodes. But for now, I would say goodbye and see you next time. We're definitely going to do a 2025 qualification preview episode, and we definitely owe it to everyone to do a world's preview. So those are two episodes that we will have for sure locked in and maybe even more. So make sure to follow the show. ah Leave us a review, whether you like it or not. Let us know how it was. We always look for your feedback, and we appreciate you for listening to this point. It's good to be back, my friend. Looking forward to more, and I'll see you soon. Until next time.