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EP. 23 Sacramento & Stuttgart 2025 Regional Recaps + Dual Destiny Introduction
132 Plays3 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 23 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 is a triple-header! We begin with our recap of Sjamesp21's return to form in Sacramento, then PvpDavid07 taking his first tournament win in Stuttgart, and finally, an overview of the brand new Dual Destiny season in Pokémon GO. We'll discuss the rise of team archetypes in Play! Pokémon, potential cores in the era of Dual Destiny, our hopes for the Spring GO Battle League update, and much more. We hope you enjoy this episode. Leave us a review on whichever platform you are listening!
With that said, if you're ready, Lock In, press play, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Intro and Hosts Introduction
00:00:01
Zzweilous
While temperatures are getting colder, the competition has been heating up to close out the max-out season. In Sacramento, California, S. James P. quite literally got the jump on the competition and proved that even a California king can just be a chill guy.
00:00:17
Zzweilous
Whereas in Stuttgart, Germany, PVP David tasted sweet victory for the very first time in his master's career, leading a team of apex predators to glory and fulfilling a prophecy made on this very show six podcast. So if you want to get your bi-weekly fix for all things play Pokemon Championship series and find out which creatures could lead you to your dual destiny in this upcoming season of Pokemon Go, better luck in, good luck and to have fun.
00:01:10
Zzweilous
Hello, hello, hello. My name is Ziz Royalis and I am sitting here with Speedy as Chief too. We are your favorite podcasters, hopefully. ah Your Spotify rep might indicate that or it might indicate something entirely different. um But yeah, it is the season of change, changing of seasons even. And we have a lot to talk about. Welcome in Speedy. um How are you doing today?
00:01:35
William Dunphey
I'm doing so well. smileless I have this big stupid smile on my face because I honestly don't know how you do it. I don't know how you you work a full-time job, you compete in these tournaments, and you also write these absolute fire intros because that was so good. I think about 10 seconds into it, I just i kind of like put my my head down into my hand. I was like, oh man, he's doing it.
00:01:57
William Dunphey
He's doing it. The, the chill guy jump on the competition, apex predators, like, come on, come on. Everybody who's listening right now, likes these wireless said, hopefully we're on your Spotify wrapped, but regardless, you should leave us a review because honestly, this is great stuff.
00:02:12
William Dunphey
Um, and I hope, I hope we're their favorite podcast as well as wireless, but I'm doing,
00:02:15
Zzweilous
The sweet victory for PVP David was in S-W-E-D-E, by the way. it Just to be clear with that.
00:02:22
William Dunphey
Oh my gosh, even the the um subliminal double entendres are coming at us. But yeah, that was ah that was incredible. And I'm doing really well to answer your question. I'm excited. I do like the colder weather and we're heading into a very snowy Toronto. But before that, we've got Bogota and Perth.
00:02:41
William Dunphey
And as you're pointing out, just before we started recording, the Perth stream is actually going to start pretty soon. So if you're listening to the show right now, maybe you should go to PVP Steve's profile on Twitter and, uh, and look at, uh, look at the stream link because, um, yeah, I think the battle's already underway, but we've got an interesting show, kind of a triple header.
Sacramento Highlights and Strategic Plays
00:03:00
William Dunphey
We're going to talk about Sacramento, Stuttgart and dual destiny. So like you said, a lot to cover.
00:03:05
Zzweilous
Yes, and I think we should start in chronological order, which would mean that we're... enter our yapping with the Sacramento Regional, which saw the third grand final of SJMP's career in just his fourth proper regional competition and his second regional championship. So that is quite incredible. And it was not like sometimes um people are talking about the West Coast regionals as if they were smaller ones. This was not a small event. This was 124 competitors.
00:03:38
Zzweilous
And yeah, it was was a stack competition. It had its unique West Coast flavor. And at the end of the day, one of the favorites emerged victorious.
00:03:49
William Dunphey
SJ was really fun to watch, um, this whole, okay. So I want to preface this, this, um, team discussion with something that I pointed out during the LAIC pre-show. I talked about the different archetypes of, of the max out season. When we started with shadow for alligator, Claude Sire, we kind of shifted over to diggers, be toxic pecs. Then we went to Malamar and, um, area dose, I guess, most notably with Colin and boom in the grand finals and EU.
00:04:18
William Dunphey
And then we kind of entered this fourth phase, which I thought was going to be dominated by Annihilate. But it turns out that we just kind of like cycle back. And S.J. really reminded everybody just how fun it is to play a Shadow for Alligator. I mean, he had some of the most vicious Shadow Claw downs, just hydrokin after hydrokin. And there's actually a quote from my favorite ah horror short series, which is called Mary Anne. It's a it's a French series on Netflix. Very, very good.
00:04:45
William Dunphey
Um, the quote, uh, is from a witch in the show. She says, I never leave empty handed. And what I saw from SJ was exactly that. I mean, every time you send in the for alligator, he got, you know, the hydro cannon and swapped, or maybe he sent out for alligator late. He farmed something down. So he went into the next matchup with energy. And I think I said it during the cast, he never left a single matchup empty handed. And that's really what kind of helped him secure, uh, his wins. But yes, why this? I don't know. I guess, uh, shout out for alligators is on top again.
00:05:15
Zzweilous
So I think another thing that you said on the cast, which I thoroughly enjoyed by the way, I especially ah enjoyed your chemistry alongside Ryze to occasion. um Chris Reisner, the ah born sports commentator, finally fulfilling his destiny.
00:05:25
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:05:31
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:05:31
Zzweilous
um I was i also delighted to to listen to and to watch um you guys um commentating those battles. And yeah, like one thing that stuck with me is that if you give somebody like SJ a safe Pokemon, he will always capitalize on that. um And I think Shadow for Alligator is one of the safest Pokemon in the meta. And if you look at the um grand finals matchup, which was um essentially a rematch of the winners finals where SJ already beat out of pocket our reigning NAIC champion,
00:06:08
Zzweilous
You will see that on Pocket's team, the best answers to Shadow for Alligator are Maramar, it's not a great matchup, um Shadow Canto Marowak, a ground type.
00:06:25
Zzweilous
like you You win the two shield scenario convincingly, but as soon as the first shield is gone, you cannot rely on that Pokemon too to do the damage you need anymore.
00:06:34
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:06:35
Zzweilous
and Araquanit, which is a Copium Pokemon. So, obviously it worked out just fine for Pocket against many opponents.
00:06:40
William Dunphey
oh Oh, man.
00:06:48
Zzweilous
Like if you look at the Shadow for Alligator usage, it was a popular pick. The Torian, who was um the opponent for Pocket just like twice in in day two, um had a Shadow for Alligator on his team.
00:07:04
Zzweilous
And I do want to point out that um I think this was a little bit of a breakthrough tournament for the Tarion, converting his ability into a medal after previously having taken the um Puerto Rico in in Carolina special event.
00:07:09
William Dunphey
yes
00:07:19
Zzweilous
um which, uh, is, is like technically, uh, like a championship title, but was also looked down upon a little bit by, by some competitors because.
00:07:31
Zzweilous
Okay.
00:07:31
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:07:32
Zzweilous
I think they had like, I don't know. Was it five or eight people that turned up to that event? So yeah, there were like, there are local cups that are larger than that.
00:07:36
William Dunphey
Eight.
00:07:41
Zzweilous
So. It's like in an iffy situation, if like your claim to fame is having won that, other people might be like, oh, he's not really a regional champion.
00:07:52
Zzweilous
But if you take third place in a tournament of this size, you know that this guy is a regional champion caliber. So I think the Torian did a great job silencing the doubters in this tournament.
00:08:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:04
Zzweilous
um But he did not manage to silence out of pocket, even though he had this very problematic shadow for alligator. And I think that is like um the the little bit of of skill difference.
00:08:18
Zzweilous
Because like you you're always hear people say, OK, Pokemon Go doesn't really have the highest skill ceiling. skille Skill expression is difficult to measure.
00:08:26
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:26
Zzweilous
But when I looked at the Day 2, I saw eight excellent badgers.
00:08:32
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:08:33
Zzweilous
but two all-time grades. And the all-time grades were SGMP and out-of-pocket.
00:08:39
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:39
Zzweilous
And that those two managed to advance to the grand finals, it was not a surprise to me.
00:08:45
William Dunphey
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's it's almost like ah we talk about the difference in skill between like 90 percent proficient plays and the 95 percent or even 98 percent. it It can it can look minor on paper, but it definitely is significant. I agree with you. S.J. and out of pocket, probably the both the two of the both. I guess what am I trying to say? Two of the most well rounded players at the tournament.
00:09:08
William Dunphey
And ah to take it back to the Tarian for a moment, it was really interesting because I came a day early to film segments that they would play on stream. And one of my segments was LAIC to Sacramento because we actually had like eight or 10 different players who went down to Sao Paulo. And then the next weekend they were competing in Sacramento and the Tarian was one of them.
00:09:29
William Dunphey
And I said, ah I talked to him before the cameras turned on. I said, you know, a lot of people recognize you or they remember your name from the Carolina championship last season. And he looked at me with like this deadpan look. He's like, yeah, I know. And I and i said, well, you did really well at LAIC. You know, you finished ninth.
00:09:48
William Dunphey
And he said, yeah, you know, um, and that, that was definitely an improvement. And, um, the Carolina wind was nice. There were only a few people, but I don't expect to go back and defend my title. I want to go to bigger tournaments and I want to play against, you know, more people and more, more notable names in particular.
00:10:05
William Dunphey
So I think even the Tarian right from the outside looking in you're saying oh yeah he went to a tournament farmed it got a win and now he's you know a regional champ but it's kind of you know a foe championship it's not real but if you actually talk to the person he's like yeah I know it kind of looks a little scuffed but yeah I got I got the win and I earned it and I'm gonna prove that I can earn wins in other places and like you said he followed that up with a really nice showing in Sacramento Yeah, I think everybody also forgets he finished ninth at LAIC with a shadow, jump, love, gastron, uh, core, which is pretty, pretty interesting combination, but yeah, very nice guy, very fun to talk to. And, um, yeah, SJ, uh, another win for him. I mean, he really came to life in, uh, in some of our posts, I guess pre grand finals interviews, and then our post game interviews. Um, he's a really nice guy. He comes off as a very chill dude. So I think that the meme was incredibly fitting for him.
00:10:58
Zzweilous
Yeah, it's so this meme like came and went within a weekend, but it was perfectly timed for Sacramento for sure.
00:11:06
William Dunphey
Mmhmm.
00:11:06
Zzweilous
um So yeah, I did not actually take any notes on the grand finals, um but like one thing that I
00:11:09
William Dunphey
Mmhmm.
00:11:14
Zzweilous
like Like Pocket always kind of had to bring enough neutral picks into the Shadow for Alligator. And SJ just had to make sure that his Shadow for Alligator had a shield advantage or an energy advantage, and it could essentially just sweep. And like one game that I remembered from the winners' finals was um like a secondary matchup between, I think, Pocket's Claude Zaya and then SJ's I think it was the alone in sand stash, if I remember correctly.
00:11:46
William Dunphey
ah
00:11:47
Zzweilous
And pocket invested a shield in that matchup. So after landing the earthquake, um he would be able to take out the alone in sand stash with a starch bomb.
00:11:57
William Dunphey
is
00:11:58
Zzweilous
And SJ could have easily just invested a shield to keep the alignment, but he knew that once the shield was down on pocket side and pocket went down a shield, Shadow for Oligator just beat everything.
00:12:12
Zzweilous
So he just didn't care about the alignment and took it from there, won it with an energy lead.
00:12:13
William Dunphey
yeah
00:12:18
Zzweilous
um Yeah, this was definitely like, I think for the March update, um Shadow for Alligator will be the Pokemon with the biggest target on its spec in terms of nerfs. Just because it has so little drawback to its playstyle and it is so safe into so many teams. And I think that has to do with its pacing.
00:12:42
Zzweilous
because Hydro Cannon, it is a very good move. It is a very efficient move.
00:12:46
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:12:46
Zzweilous
But what really makes it shine here is that it takes 10 turns for Shadow for Alligator to get to a Hydro Cannon, which is essentially what we call a nuke move, a Pokemon, a move that um is able to like knock out a squishy Pokemon, two-shot um um slightly bulky Pokemon, and also has just amazing coverage because water is a good typing.
00:13:05
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:13:08
Zzweilous
um And the problem is that even though a lot of Pokemon like Ariados, for example, are able to beat the Shadowfur alligator in the head-to-head matchup, once they return behind, it's not that easy anymore for them.
00:13:21
Zzweilous
So I feel like
00:13:21
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:13:24
Zzweilous
Like, I don't know whether they will go through with this change, but I could see that Niantic will eventually say, okay, like maybe Hydro Cannon should be a little, should cost a little more energy, maybe do a little more damage, but Shadow for Alligator is so difficult to contain right now.
00:13:41
Zzweilous
And especially in the hands of a player like SJ, it's just game over if you don't have hard answers.
00:13:42
William Dunphey
Mm hmm. Yeah. I just really am still baffled at how the meta has kind of been like this, um this Ferris wheel where we go around and up and down. And sometimes we have, you know, Toxapex just smothering for alligators. Other times we have, you know, Ariados taking taking it down. And it just ah it feels like there's still a lot of of gas left in the tank, so to speak.
00:14:09
William Dunphey
with the current meta and I think it would be cool in the spring update to see some changes because in dual destiny it looks like the the changes are really minor and I'd love to talk about that more as we move on and see which pokemon would be impactful but ah one thing I wanted to call back to is arachwinid he said it's a straight up copium pokemon um i'm gonna have to agree with you it's top cut four times this season and i actually went back and i looked at all the top cut trainers and i can tell you that we have had 136 trainers top cut so far this season so our metrics are going to be are going to be on point when we talk about this later on but first of all let's spotlight uh the raccoon for just a moment
00:14:28
Zzweilous
with
00:14:49
William Dunphey
in Leo and a core, finished 10th with that Pokemon. And then in join Villy, we had two Araquanids. It was a sixth place, Garavello, Andre, and then the runner up, LNDS Kanan. And then most recently in Sacramento, of course, out of pocket with Araquanid as well. um I think it was last season, PVP Steve kept on saying that Mandibuzz was always the bridesmaid, never the bride, never won a tournament. I feel like Araquanid is very much um in that kind of role.
00:15:19
William Dunphey
I mean, when's the last raccoon championship? You can remember, except for Emmy Weedle winning it, ah winning it all in 2022 in London. I mean, it seems kind of spread out, but, um, Yeah.
00:15:29
Zzweilous
yeah You kind of really have to feel for Araquanet because it's not even the best spider anymore. like It used to have at least that going for it, but now that Ariados has won championships, I don't know what Araquanet has in terms of redeeming quality.
00:15:42
Zzweilous
like I see that it is bulky, I see that the typing is quite interesting, but um I think it just suffers from really bad attacks that are available to it because
00:15:46
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:15:54
Zzweilous
Bugba is not the greatest move, very like middle of the road, average energy generation, average damage output. Bubble beam, it does no damage and especially with the short and switch timer, people can just swap out of the debuffs in most cases.
00:16:08
William Dunphey
is
00:16:10
Zzweilous
And then the coverage moves of water pulse and bugbuzz. Bugbuzz is a solid move, but bug is a horrendous offensive typing and water pulse is what the kids call mid. So,
00:16:22
Zzweilous
Yeah, tough times for our acronym, even though the typing and the bulk are actually quite interesting.
00:16:23
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:16:28
William Dunphey
Yeah. and And when you're using bug bite to get to all your moves, that also does not ah help your case whatsoever. Um, and to, to kind of segue back to the, the grand final situation, araquanid versus SJ, I'm going to be honest, like sometimes as commentators, the matches really are that exciting and they really are, uh, balanced back and forth. You have no idea who's going to win the next game.
00:16:50
William Dunphey
And I feel like maybe Colin and boom was like that, or even back at um the world championships, 2022 with, uh, Nancy Robin got on Hada. That was very much back and forth like a seesaw. But, uh, the challenge that rise and I had in Sacramento was just to make that grand final sound exciting because like you said, once that for alligator went up a single shield or even a few shadow claws, even the answers that pocket had on his team.
00:17:15
William Dunphey
we're going to have a tough time and when you are giving so many of your resources just taking down one pokemon and you're going up against a titan like sj it really feels like it's incredibly difficult ah to hold your own so for pocket to take one one game off sj in that in that finals was really impressive i think he did a bit better in the winter's finals if i'm not mistaken might have gone to a game five i can't recall but um yeah that was that was a tough finals for for pocket and he did his best but SJ, I think just had a superior team comp advantage there.
00:17:47
Zzweilous
Yeah, 100%. But still, I think pockets still kind of on a roll. I would say that like the latter the latter half of 2024 was kind of pockets.
00:18:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:18:00
Zzweilous
I don't know. Do we count any IC to that? That was technically in the first half, but I feel like competitively with the summer break, it still feels fairly recent. um
00:18:09
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree.
00:18:10
Zzweilous
So yeah, definitely. Again, like when I looked at the day two bracket, um like I want to shout out some of the trainers that um we we have seen and maybe haven't seen all that much of um in previous tournaments. um For example, I think Ayo Meru and Mystic Mamba were quite impressive with their Sable Guy. a sar guy It's like so ingrained in my brain that I just always call this Pokémon Sable Guy.
00:18:35
Zzweilous
It is Sable Eye, obviously. But with their gameplay, like the Toxapex Sable Eye Core, um finishing 5th and 7th respectively, that was um nice to see.
00:18:41
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:18:47
Zzweilous
There's a Pokémon that has kind of been written off, but I see the vision, especially now that people are expecting an Eyelape to make a splash again. um And also,
00:18:59
Zzweilous
First time competitor, I think, Sovtove, appearing on the Dracovist graphic um with a team of Jumpluff, Malamar, Shadow Rapion, Dunsparce, Gastrodon, and Shadow for Alligator.
00:19:13
Zzweilous
So top 16, that is very respectable.
00:19:13
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:19:17
Zzweilous
But tied with a team from the competitor PCF52, who had a Shadow Gyarados, my boy, Scrafty,
00:19:22
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:19:27
Zzweilous
a shadow typhlosion, a shadow bay leaf, a shadow pipe of swine, and I think it was a confusion shadow chrysalia.
00:19:36
Zzweilous
So and this was like, this guy, I don't even know whether a that was cooked in a kitchen or somewhere else, but whatever lab that was cooked in, I went to visit it.
00:19:36
William Dunphey
Yes it was.
00:19:48
Zzweilous
um that was That was great to see.
00:19:51
William Dunphey
So many of those games as well ah felt a little bit one-sided once they reached the midpoint. But if you look at the teams on paper, it felt like just a different lead or a different rotation of the Pokémon, you know, putting the Pilots one in the lead or in the back or whatever, ah could have been a lights out situation. And um I had a moment to catch up with them after the tournament ended. And he basically said,
00:20:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, you know, some of my best games were at the tables and I played really well and I got good matchups and I felt really proud of them. And some of my worst games were on stream. And I was like, what? Those are your worst games?
00:20:27
Zzweilous
yeah
00:20:27
William Dunphey
Like, I can't even imagine your games at the tables. You must have been crushing it. And that was a ah that was a magical leaf shadow bay leaf. What on earth?
00:20:34
Zzweilous
god It does have ancient power for coverage. So maybe like an andext unsuspecting talent flame that doesn't read the team sheet um could get taken down by that one.
00:20:38
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
00:20:44
Zzweilous
But yeah, I do want to see more of that trainer going forward. And yeah, it always looked as if like one or two Pokemon that he had on his team had some play into the opponent and then the rest was just awful.
00:20:48
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:20:57
Zzweilous
But the two Pokemon that actually could do something did a lot. So that was very enjoyable to witness.
00:21:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:21:03
William Dunphey
Yeah. to Five out of five stars for the, for the shadows, for the spice, for all of it. Uh, yeah, again, like you said, I'm not sure if that was made in the kitchen or maybe just like ah a food truck outside that, you know, was rested out and was just trying to do its best.
00:21:17
William Dunphey
But that was, that was so much fun to watch and I would love for them to compete.
00:21:19
Zzweilous
I think food truck team building is a very apt description of what has happened here.
00:21:25
William Dunphey
Hey, you got to work with what you got, you know, and if you've got a, um, a shadow pilot swine, then you better bring it. Cause it beats Claude sire. So there you go.
00:21:32
Zzweilous
yeah
00:21:33
William Dunphey
But, um, yeah, Sacramento was really fun. Um, ah in my notes as well, I have shout out to rise occasion. That was only his second tournament cast. And I felt like he was really, really good.
00:21:45
William Dunphey
We always knew he'd be good based on his YouTube presence, the content that he's been making over the years. so Um, but rise is a natural and he definitely brings kind of like a, an ESPN feel as I call it, kind of similar to what butters will do from time to time.
00:21:58
William Dunphey
Definitely very ah buttoned up and formal, but also has a very punchy delivery, lots of, lots of puns and good quotes. And yeah, it was fun for me because I know he's a very talented competitor.
00:22:09
William Dunphey
So a lot of the time I would like ask him, I would say, rise, what does this mean? Or like, what do you think of this situation? And I know that for co-casters, you know, it can be a hit or miss when you do that.
00:22:20
William Dunphey
But with Ryze, it just felt very, very appropriate because he really is like, I mean, three years, three regional championships. He's looking for his fourth one this season. I mean, he's really doing it.
00:22:28
Zzweilous
Yeah, like the only one to do it, the only one to do it every season, so...
00:22:29
William Dunphey
So.
00:22:32
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. So I really hope that rise gets more, uh, casting events. Cause I thought he was absolutely phenomenal, but Sacramento was fun and, uh, yeah, looking, looking forward to heading back to California sometime in the future. And, uh, it was always great to catch up with everybody. Um, I'll shout out quickly. You already mentioned him, mystic Mamba.
00:22:52
William Dunphey
Mystic Mamba versus Abhinav was my favorite series of the tournament. That was day two, winner's finals group B. And I really appreciate all the energy that the SoCal Swabloos brought to the broadcast.
00:23:03
William Dunphey
Uh, it was sick because, you know, Limon Lime won the LA mega, you know, pre-COVID.
00:23:09
Zzweilous
Oh, like way back in the day, yeah.
00:23:11
William Dunphey
Way back. Yeah. Back four years ago now, he wanted in, uh, in December in LA and there, I think there were 400 people there or something. And Lehman line one, like nine or 10 or 12 rounds or something, just an insane run.
00:23:24
William Dunphey
And then to see his brother, mystic mama go up there and crush it was really fun. So excited to see what mystic mama can do with the future.
00:23:30
Zzweilous
I didn't even know they were brothers. Like there's so many, like, there's so many brothers within the PVP community.
00:23:32
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:23:36
Zzweilous
I just talked about that today, like with, um, some teammates and friends.
00:23:42
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:23:42
Zzweilous
And we were like talking about how Colin six is brother, um, who goes by the IGN Keelio. Uh, I think Kelvin is his real name.
00:23:52
Zzweilous
um Has also picked up PvP and actually done really well in some practice tournaments I got to play him in the cup in Stuttgart and yeah, definitely Like definitely some some some brothers taking on the competitive scene and yeah mystic mamba apparently also part of a duo of brothers and
00:23:52
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:24:12
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. As Ryan said, he's got that Mamba mentality, maybe bothered, bothered, maybe borrowed that from the late great Kobe Bryant. But yeah, that was, that was, that was incredible.
00:24:21
Zzweilous
100%
00:24:24
William Dunphey
Incredible to watch.
Stuttgart Max-Out Season and Team Compositions
00:24:25
William Dunphey
But, uh, so we had Sacramento and then across the ocean, we had Stuttgart where we wrapped up the max out season. Let me know if I'm saying it correctly.
00:24:34
William Dunphey
It's kind of like an SH, right? Stuttgart.
00:24:36
Zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah you you do you do have the of Stuttgart's definitely you you do have that you do have that down um so
00:24:44
William Dunphey
Nice.
00:24:46
Zzweilous
Yeah, in Stuttgart, ist fürgnest passeit.
00:24:46
William Dunphey
Okay. So yes.
00:24:50
Zzweilous
Okay, enough German for the for this podcast. um So yeah, we we did see so much spice. I am so proud of my region, honestly.
00:25:01
Zzweilous
um Because if you look at the top four, you have in fourth place, can I call him the do-it-all Dutchman?
00:25:03
William Dunphey
Of, of course.
00:25:09
Zzweilous
People love this nickname because it's a little bit goofy. um But Martijn, inadequance, on his return to the competitive scene, um after casting a lot, taking home yet another medal with Forretress, your Pokémon Speedy.
00:25:26
William Dunphey
I know he, he actually, uh, he's such a gentleman.
00:25:26
Zzweilous
How did you feel about this?
00:25:30
William Dunphey
He, he DMed me after day one and he said, Hey, just wondering if you saw the sauce that I was using in Stuttgart. And I said, hell yeah. I saw it. We are so back.
00:25:41
William Dunphey
And I like sent him a picture of his, uh, his team from the Drake of his graphic and like some sobbing faces. And I was like, Oh man. And, uh, he said, yeah, I'm going to do my best to to get a medal with it tomorrow.
00:25:52
William Dunphey
And turns out he did.
00:25:54
Zzweilous
Kept his promise, that's what this man does. um But he did fall to probably the greatest European battle of this season so far. Not probably, I think we can definitely settle on Tauntaun Vatous being the best player of the max out season in Europe.
00:26:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:26:13
Zzweilous
This man has reached the grand finals in his very first tour tournament. I think he came seventh in Lille, then he won Gdansk, unfortunately for me, and um finally brought his Greninja charge of our core back to Stuttgart to take home yet another medal in third place.
00:26:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:26:36
Zzweilous
so really like he's he's so correct like this guy is just out of this world with his team building and his calls and yeah even though he ah he like turned up to Stutt got sick like he was wearing a mask during stream and apparently ah had some illness to to fight off but managed to do that in impressive fashion fashion and um yeah the Greninja play the energy management um i was it was sublime
00:26:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:27:06
Zzweilous
um and he was only bested by our grand finalists um my fellow german stone collection with a team that he showed me before day one And I was like, okay, he's bringing a meme team.
00:27:20
Zzweilous
He's not taking this as seriously, but no, this man is serious. um If you look at the Pokemon, it doesn't even seem that crazy. Azum, obvious, like staple pick.
00:27:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:27:32
Zzweilous
Jugong, not super common, but also like bulky, staple, safe, you know that. um Shadow Drapion, kind of the same, less bulky than Dewgong, but also also quite safe. Gastron, just a mad stepper, just usual stuff. Shadow Feraligatr with Kranish. Okay, we're getting into these spicier territories here. And then, should you run Cloudsire without Earthquake?
00:27:57
Zzweilous
What's your opinion on that 3D?
00:27:57
William Dunphey
Absolutely not. Oh, I thought I thought we were quoting.
00:27:59
Zzweilous
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:01
William Dunphey
We were quoting.
00:28:01
Zzweilous
Ah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:02
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:28:02
Zzweilous
I was like, I was like, I was, I was, I was wanting to quote, but I was, I didn't know whether we would do it together. We are not as in sync as Tomahawk and Nighttime Clasher, but nobody is as in sync as those two guys, so.
00:28:12
William Dunphey
yeah
00:28:15
William Dunphey
It's true. It's true.
00:28:16
Zzweilous
oh Yeah, that was a wild choice. The Stone Edge Sludge Bomb Cloudsire.
00:28:22
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:28:23
Zzweilous
And I see why he did that. Because typically you have to choose. You have to pick and choose when you bring out your Cloudsire. Do you want to be good versus flying types? like Galarian Moltres, like Talonflame. Do you want to have a safer Mandiboss matchup? Do you want to threaten Ariados with your cheaper move? There's many reasons to run Stone Edge, but it typically comes at the expense of Sludge Bomb, which is a fantastic move if you want to take the Zero Shield scenario against Azumarill, which is on essentially every team. If you want to have safe matchups into Grass-type Pokémon,
00:28:58
Zzweilous
if you want a cheaper move that you get to a little more quickly. So both of these moves have merit, but you only ever run one of them. You never run both. But stone collection was of the opinion that because he had like four water types, um, he wouldn't really need the earthquake to hit opposing clothsires because there was so much water type or ice type damage on his team, um, that like there was essentially no way this opponent could ever bring a Claude's Eye into him. But unfortunately for him, this also makes the Annihilate matchup abysmal, and it makes the Toxapex matchup a lot worse. So guess what PvP David had on his team? It was Ape, Pex,
00:29:46
Zzweilous
Shadow Typhlosion, which I called very early in this season on our Maxar prediction podcast.
00:29:51
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:29:54
Zzweilous
So it's like Shadow Typhlosion is going to win a championship and it took it to the very last weekend of the season, but it did win a championship.
00:30:01
William Dunphey
ah
00:30:03
Zzweilous
So proud of that one. And then, yeah, gm-ultris also dig a speed, double bunnies.
00:30:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:30:10
Zzweilous
Yeah, very interesting. Also fairly spicy team, I would say with the Typhlosion taking it all the way.
00:30:17
William Dunphey
Yeah, it was, it was really funny to watch the, uh, the cast, because in that particular series, we, we would have like PVP David lead, uh, toxapex. And then you would see the Claude Sire come out from stone collection and, uh, nighttime classroom is like, Oh, this looks really good. And then Tomahawk's like, hold on.
00:30:35
William Dunphey
Look at the move set. This this is not going to be nearly as clean as we expect it to be, because you expect, you know, two earthquakes from cloud sire to knock out the tox specs. ah It paces just about the same as the brine. But still, it's it's pretty dominant in cloud sires favor. So it made those matchups a lot more interesting to watch. And like you said, the annihilate ah from PVP David was tough. And then the diggers be on top of that. And ah this kind of segues into into one of the points I wanted to talk about. ah We talk yeah On every episode, we talk at least a little bit about cores and team archetypes. If you look at this, this spread here in Stuttgart, it really is just a blender of different archetypes. So outlining the cores here for our top eight, PvP David, Digger's Beatox Pex, Stone Collection, Claude Sier's Shadow for Alligator, Tontan Batus, Greninja, and Chargibog, like you pointed out a moment ago.
00:31:27
William Dunphey
Uh, then inadequates with shadow for alligator shadow Kanto Marowak. Uh, then we had, I'm, I'm blanking on how to pronounce the name K U I F J E. co
00:31:40
William Dunphey
Oh. coifia
00:31:47
William Dunphey
Okay. Uh, I'm so sorry. If you're listening, I'm so sorry that I failed to pronounce your name. It is my, my very, um, awkward American, uh, dialect here. Um, Ari does valor Mark core. Then we had Snorek with Claude sire shadow for alligator, Colin with the same exact team as PVP. David had diggers be talk specs.
00:32:06
William Dunphey
and then xxx cactus had cloud sire shadow for alligator so we really have like a blend kind of like um you know a cornucopia of different cores that have ah bubbled up here in the max out season and and something you and i've discussed from time to time is actually building a team guide to show people how to build around these specific cores.
00:32:26
William Dunphey
It's a shame that the max out season came to an end. Cause it really feels like this is the formula. You could go Malamar area dose like coffee. Yeah. You could go cloud, sire, shadow for alligator, like stone collections, no wrecking cactus, or you could go diggers, be toxic specs like PVP, David or Colin, or you could just say, screw all that and throw a bunch of spices in the pot and bring Greninja charge bug.
00:32:47
Zzweilous
yeah
00:32:47
William Dunphey
Um, which also.
00:32:48
Zzweilous
I want to say, I want to point out about the team that Tonton ran, because I was like, okay, I know this Greninja, this Chargerbug also is fairly familiar.
00:32:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:32:57
Zzweilous
Is this just his little team? It is not. He swapped out two Pokemon from his little team, which were the Cresselia and the Pangoro. And instead, he opted to bring the Dunspars and the Superior.
00:33:10
Zzweilous
And going into the tournament, I actually made a little list of cores that I expected to see. And I think Dunspars' Superior Core is actually also a legit combination of two Pokémon that cover each other really well.
00:33:24
William Dunphey
yeah
00:33:24
Zzweilous
um Obviously, they have some shared weaknesses, like for example Sludge Bomb Glotsire is not really clean for either. um But you can think of superior and downspars a little bit like as of the old school grass hole, just a lot more flexible because you have this grass type superior that um obviously is really strong against ground types.
00:33:46
Zzweilous
And then you have downspars, which is weak to fighting types like a Basioron would be, but also has that rock type coverage and rollout and rock side and really um helps protect the,
00:33:51
William Dunphey
Yeah. Hmm. Hmm.
00:33:56
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:33:59
Zzweilous
um the superior from both flying types that might give a trouble but also ice types such as alolan sand slash so i think those two are also like a very potent pairing and yeah so i think If you really would just write up a guide of teams and cores, I think you could find so many combinations that they would even go beyond what we just pointed out because like the synergy between these Pokemon
00:34:32
Zzweilous
um they They just are, they go so many ways and sometimes you can just have a team of like three different separate cores of Pokemon that are probably also fairly neutral. Or you can just lean on one or two cores and then have like three, like more radical picks that just go core break everything else.
00:34:54
Zzweilous
um Or you have like one Pokemon and you have two partners for it that can form a core alongside it depending on what the opponent has. Because sometimes ah the opponent might be super weak to Shadow for Alligator and you bring that and other times they might not really have a good ground resist and you bring your Mud Slapper out.
00:35:13
Zzweilous
so I think there's like always like a lot of combinations within these teams and yeah we should really should really get a little guide going maybe maybe I'll um set that as a task for myself over the holidays so you could get something out because I think a lot of these cores that did shine in Stuttgart I almost said Stuttgart like I didn't know how my own city is closed I think I think those cores will still be relevant going forward
00:35:40
William Dunphey
Uh-huh.
00:35:44
William Dunphey
and It's such a um an interesting challenge for a lot of players who play Go Battle League. Because you could say in Go Battle League, you only have ah three Pokémon on your team, of course. And you could say, well, I know that these two are good together, and I just add a complimentary pick. But I don't really understand why. And then you go into the Show 6 format, and now you have to double that. And not only do you have to think of them as two separate teams of three, but now you look at all six Pokemon and you have to you know decide which combinations of three you can make. And there's just so many different options. I think it's ah it's a big barrier, honestly, because in Fiji, TCG, even Pokemon Unite, you can just kind of assemble a team ah in in practice play that you would then bring to a tournament. But we don't have that in Pokemon Go, at least not right now, hopefully one day in the future. So yeah, I think it'd be really helpful.
00:36:34
William Dunphey
um Another thing I noticed was inadequates with Shadow for Alligator and Shadow Kanto Marowak. I looked back at my my notes and I didn't see very many of those cores. So what I found that was interesting is that 136 trainers have top cut this season so far. Only 9 trainers out of those 136 have used Shadow for Alligator and Shadow Kanto Marowak specifically.
00:36:57
William Dunphey
The ones being Sir Corey and Leo, uh, it was very popular actually in LAIC, Colin out of pocket, Palasha nighttime, clasher and Andre ten Silas all brought that, that duo to LAIC. And then you had SJ and the Torian play it in Sacramento, but I think it's staggering that only nine total trainers have used that particular combination to top cut this entire season. I felt like it would be more.
00:37:23
Zzweilous
I think like whether this core can succeed or not kind of depends a little bit on superior usage, I would say, because superior um it feels like one of the strongest Pokémon of this past season that barely anyone ever actually brought out.
00:37:32
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:37:40
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:37:44
Zzweilous
um Because most teams have like three, sometimes even four weak weaknesses to grass types. And then it depends on, okay, how can you play around that? And with um Shadow for Alligator, the nice thing is that if you get one Shadow Claw ahead, you can CMP tie the Counterswap Superior with an Ice Beam on their Frenzy Plant. You would survive an Aerial Ace,
00:38:10
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:38:10
Zzweilous
and essentially knock out with an Ice Beam so you could get a Shield advantage. um But it's still not something that you would, like you would essentially be unable to bring both Kanto Marowak and Shadow for Alligator on the same team in a superior, like against a superior team and lead one of them.
00:38:31
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:38:33
Zzweilous
Because then it would just be over unless you um maybe have like a really safe Pokemon to swap get a farm done on Feraligata later and then hit the ice beam.
00:38:44
Zzweilous
But
00:38:44
William Dunphey
Nice, I see what you did there.
00:38:47
Zzweilous
but But so if there's like Pokemon like jump love then you have more of more of a play with Feraligatr because who wins that matchup depends entirely on baits. If you have Pokemon like Ariados then that's also grass type coverage but it might not be as immediately threatening as a vine web user such as Superior would be.
00:39:11
Zzweilous
or if you have something like a Cresselia to go up against, that is also a pseudo-grass type, but it loses the two shields versus Kanto Marowak, and also really struggles with taking the Shadow Claw damage from Shadow Feraligatas.
00:39:24
Zzweilous
So, um those two Pokémon are really strong together, but they will necessitate grass answers. And the way Matine played around it, with a Fortress, a Dewgong, and a Shadow Drifblim as his grass answers,
00:39:37
William Dunphey
Yes. Yes.
00:39:39
Zzweilous
um it was It was a bit shaky at times, right? If you remember the, I think it was the final game against Tonton. He ended up having the Drifblim aligned against the Superior, but because he was down shields, the Superior could could essentially cleanly take out the Drifblim with two Frenzyplans.
00:40:00
William Dunphey
That was so heartbreaking to watch.
00:40:00
Zzweilous
um Yeah, I was like... Drifblim? It is not quite Arachronid levels of bad, in my opinion, but it also is also fairly a fairly bad Pokémon, if we're being honest.
00:40:09
William Dunphey
ah
00:40:15
Zzweilous
So, like, Riftland Fortress, both really interesting, um both really shaky at times, and it speaks to the caliber that Matine is as a battler to pilot those two Pokémon to such heights.
00:40:22
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:40:29
Zzweilous
But yeah, I think like the Pokemon that everybody should look at on his team are Shadow for Alligator, Shadow Canto Marowak, Primate especially.
00:40:39
Zzweilous
I think the Primate was really impressive and potentially also Dugong if you want something safe to glue it all together.
00:40:42
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:40:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, but I think it was interesting that we saw Dewgong on a lot of these these teams that succeeded over the past weekend, because that's so that's one Pokémon we thought maybe Dunsparce had supplanted you know in terms of its coverage. um And to call back to your... you Sorry, not to get off topic, but to call back to your Dunsparce example, Dunsparce and ah Superior reminds me a lot of Glarian Stunfisk and Venusaur.
00:41:11
William Dunphey
You know, that grass and rock slash steel ah core is actually very, very strong.
00:41:11
Zzweilous
Soon.
00:41:16
William Dunphey
And I think this is like a, like a new take on an old core. So, um, but to bring it back to Stuttgart, uh, I'm glad you mentioned the prime ape because my favorite series of this tournament was, uh, day two losers round two inadequate versus Snorak.
00:41:32
William Dunphey
And in particular, it was the game two heads up play from inadequate because, uh, he had two very weak Pokemon in the back. He had a primate that was ah probably the 20% health or less. And, uh, Snork had a high octane, high offense, shadow dragonite on his team, which is really cool. And, uh, Snork switches it in and he tries to snipe the primate and, uh, inadequate. His eyebrows go way up. His guy, his eyes get real big as he's looking at the screen and he presses the rage fist.
00:41:59
William Dunphey
He's like, Oh, I need to stop this, uh, stop the bleeding from the dragon breath damage, uh, ends up KOing the, um, the dragonite. He karate chops through. No, he he throws another reach face. I believe into zoom roll and then he karate chops through the Dunsparce. That was really, really fun to watch. So, uh, yeah, definitely my favorite series. It was like can shadow fort can, excuse me, can fortress take on a shadow dragonite? Like this is a real meeting of two spice masters in, uh, in day two. And that was a thrill.
00:42:27
Zzweilous
Yeah, I actually did go up against Snorik in day one. It was my last match of the day um because I actually did comp compete in Stuttgart.
00:42:33
William Dunphey
the
00:42:36
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:42:36
Zzweilous
I just didn't compete for the entirety of the tournament because I got a little unlucky with my seeding. So I was seeded into group D and you started this podcast with questioning how I was able to be like a podcaster, a competitor, and also working a full-time job.
00:42:54
Zzweilous
The answer is I don't manage to actually get all of that done in one day. And I had to leave for work because I could do essentially everything, but a group D losers run.
00:43:02
William Dunphey
oh
00:43:06
Zzweilous
And at that moment, I knew that if I wanted to proceed today too, it would have to be the group D losers run, unfortunately. And so I said, eh, I'll just win the cup tomorrow.
00:43:14
William Dunphey
oh Okay.
00:43:17
Zzweilous
So, um,
00:43:19
William Dunphey
Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. It's tough to balance all those things and I still respect you.
00:43:24
Zzweilous
But fortress Fortress did well. I did run Fortress as well. And even though I did not manage to beat Snorik with it, because the superpower from Dragonite actually does a lot, um it managed to to help me too.
00:43:35
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:43:37
Zzweilous
My first cup victory ever, because I don't get locals. So I have to miss out on day two as at regionals to then play my locals.
00:43:41
William Dunphey
Mmm
00:43:45
Zzweilous
and That worked out quite well.
00:43:47
William Dunphey
Fair enough. Fair enough. We'll still ah just like SJ in Sacramento. It doesn't sound like you left empty handed, which is, uh, which is important.
00:43:54
Zzweilous
Hmm. True. Very true.
00:43:56
William Dunphey
Um, I guess we can, uh, talk about grand finals for a few moments, uh, stone collection, taking on PVP, David, like, like we kind of alluded to earlier, I felt like the team composition advantage was definitely in PVP, David's court.
00:44:10
William Dunphey
However, I will say it was very impressive the way that, uh, stone collection played. I know that, um, watching him watching him play over the years there have been several moments where i don't want to say like the frustration is not the right word i don't think that's the word that i want to use and again i'm just like a spectator at this point but i do i do find it interesting that stone collection will look at look at who he's up against right he'll look up across the table and say okay I'm playing PVP David. I'm playing inadequate. So I'm playing Tom, Tom or his wireless or whoever he says, they're not going to make a mistake. So at this point, when I think the game is over, I'm just going to say that it's over and he just kind of allows it to play itself out. And, um
00:44:54
William Dunphey
Yeah, I guess ah if you watched, uh, if our listeners watch back the world championships from Hawaii, it's kind of like when, um, Martine sent out his Giratina origin form against your guys like a tongue, just kind of put down the phone. He's like, all right, this is over. Um,
00:45:09
William Dunphey
In game four, the decisive game of the grand finals stone collection had pretty much exhausted most of his options. I'd say his his opportunity to win that game was probably like three to 5% chance off of some weird happenstance thing. And, uh, he noticed that, you know, everyone else noticed that and he just kind of top left it in the decisive game of the grand finals. And, um,
00:45:31
William Dunphey
I don't know, like everyone can play the way they want to play. And I don't want to say it's like frustrating from my perspective. Maybe, maybe it's frustrating when he watches me play cause I, cause maybe I'm just in denial that I would play the match out and just see if I could win it. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. did Did you think anything of that? Does anyone else, uh, kind of have that opinion in EU like, Hey, stone collection, just finish the game. Or do you think that that's just and imaginary?
00:45:53
Zzweilous
So so um I think I have two opinions on that actually. So I think the main reason why top lefts are not necessarily Considered good sportsmanship quote-unquote is mainly because of production reasons, right? Because if somebody like top left it in the middle of a best of three Then they would have to resend and it would take time and it would be just annoying for everybody involved
00:46:25
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:46:25
Zzweilous
If it's the last game, I think it's typically fine to do that, especially if both sides essentially know, okay, this is not going anywhere. We can just like, okay, before we sit through another 30 seconds of essentially like no tension and everybody already knows what is happening.
00:46:45
Zzweilous
um And that is like, okay, I think it's fine to top left them. I'm like almost like calling for more top lefting at the tables when you know that the game is over because it is not on stream.
00:46:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:46:59
Zzweilous
Just like we can you move on. But like no, everybody is entitled to play out every single game, obviously, and um search for that win condition. um But I think because this was a championship game, um I would have wanted the moment of victory to be one that PVP David anticipates in that moment and not like, okay, but I can't really tell when my opponent is going to top left and then it just hits me and I need to like, first think of, okay, what what happened now?
00:47:28
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:47:32
Zzweilous
Is this game over? Did I win it? Okay. Okay, good. Fine. So like, honestly, I don't, I don't blame Stone Collection for this, but if it's like the the title the decider, I probably wouldn't do it myself.
00:47:43
Zzweilous
I would like just sit there. Like I, maybe I would stop tapping, but I wouldn't go out of the match. I don't think.
00:47:51
William Dunphey
yeah yeah Yeah, again, maybe that's like really nitpicky. I don't know. um I'm curious. like I'm curious what everybody's listening. I'm curious what your thoughts are. Let us know if you're listening to it on X formerly known as Twitter. But yeah, I don't know. That's something ah something I wanted to point out. ah Interesting fact about the grand finals. ah Speaking to the matchups in particular, ah Stone Collection, I mean, really rapidly reset the bracket here, going 3-0.
Grand Finals and Strategic Control
00:48:17
William Dunphey
In all three of those games, Stone actually controlled Switch Advantage.
00:48:21
William Dunphey
And then if you look at the grand finals reset, PvP David won game one, stone collection bounce back in game two, and then David won games three and four. All four of those games in the reset, though, PvP David was the one to control switch. And if you're listening to the the show for the first time, the way that I determine that is just that ah the player who switches out first or who gets KO'd first is the one that is essentially giving switch to the to the opponent.
00:48:47
William Dunphey
So if you see a bad lead and you save swap, then your opponent just got switch. Or if you play out the zeros and you lose your first Pokemon, then your opponent has gained control switch. And I think that was really important because um pv PVP David with his toxapex was hunting for that Azumarole every single game. Game in and game out wanted to line up those Pokemon. He didn't get his wish that often, which is accredited stone collection and his game management. But you could tell PVP David started to lock in He ran the same team multiple times in a row and ah he started to kind of dial in and say, all right, if I just control switch here, or, if you know, if I play this a certain way, I can get the target I want. And then there's nothing stone collection can do. So, uh, it was a real, this grand finals is really fun to kind of watch the strategy evolve throughout the series. After a quick, uh, sweep from stone collection, PVP David struck back.
00:49:37
Zzweilous
Yeah, I want to um just talk more about the evolving of strategies, because I think PvP David had like not only some good calls with, okay, what do I lead? It was mostly like an ILA or Toxapex, because there's no Pokemon on Storm Collection's team that cleanly beats both of those.
00:50:00
Zzweilous
um So obviously, if you get the good lead, then you get the good lead. But there was also like some strategies that I really enjoyed. For example, in Game 1, before the Bracket Reset, um he like PVP David did lose that, but he did a play where he... um I think it was Game 1. It was one of the games where he... um farms up energy with Annihilape against an Azumarill and then essentially goes into the mirror to sponge the energy and then he has like seven counters worth of energy for the late game so if he then brings back the Annihilape he can immediately go for the Rage Fist and just start the final matchup with a boosted counter essentially so
00:50:47
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:50:48
Zzweilous
I think that is something that um every Annihilate player should take a look at. If you're in a situation where you can just essentially chip and dip um what we like to call when we like throw, move, and then go into ah the secondary matchup, I think with Annihilate, it is sometimes smart to only chip with fast attacks and dip while banking the energy, because many teams currently don't have a hard Annihilate check.
00:51:08
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:51:16
Zzweilous
So if you have annihilate with energy, that can actually sweep entire teams in in most cases. I think in that particular game, um David actually led two full three turn faster tech sneak.
00:51:28
Zzweilous
And I don't know his annihilate IVs, but that thing seemed really vulnerable to faster tech. So maybe it was more on the attack rated side.
00:51:34
William Dunphey
Yes. Mm hmm.
00:51:37
Zzweilous
um So that didn't actually pan out for him in that game, but it was still something that I do want to point out. The other um gameplay quirk that I want to point out is an actual learning during the matchup, which is that in game three before the bracket reset, like the last game that um Stone Collection needed to win to reset the bracket,
00:52:00
Zzweilous
um David is in a lead matchup with, I think it was Annihilape versus Feraligatr.
00:52:08
William Dunphey
Yes, correct.
00:52:08
Zzweilous
And Annihilape does win the two shield scenario there and essentially comes out with a move. um But what David does is he catches the Hydro Cannon on his Azumarill in the back.
00:52:16
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:52:21
Zzweilous
And one thing that I have done in the past and that I will never ever do again in the future is to catch a Fur Alligator's move on my Azumarill.
00:52:33
Zzweilous
Because that looks great, right? It is resisted damage on a bulky Pokémon. But you don't have any fast-move pressure, so you don't force the Feraligator to swap out immediately.
00:52:45
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:52:46
Zzweilous
All you do is give the Feraligator an opportunity to farm up to a Hydro again, and you give up switch advantage and lock yourself into a potential unfavorable matchup.
00:52:55
William Dunphey
Exactly.
00:52:56
Zzweilous
And that is what happened to David in that game, so he lost it. um But in the i very last best of five in the grand finals, I think it was game three, David adapts and he plays the twos and he exits with a move and he he does win that game, I think.
00:53:06
William Dunphey
Game three. Yeah.
00:53:12
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:53:15
Zzweilous
Is that true? Yeah, yeah, he does win that game. Um, so yeah, I think if you are in that lead matchup as the, um, annihilate, you always, if you don't swap out immediately, you want to play the twos. And that is something that David essentially had to learn on the fly. And that was rewarded with his very first gold medal.
00:53:37
William Dunphey
Yeah, I, I absolutely, uh, I adore that you called that out because I have it literally in my notes, uh, game three grand finals, reset David double shields to get alignment smart because he also has toxapex in the back and he's trying to line the toxapex up against the zoom roll. But I even overlooked what you mentioned. He needed to win that for alligator matchup.
00:53:56
William Dunphey
And when you pivot the Azumarole, it takes six bubbles for that play rough. I mean, that's eight free shadow claws that you're you're giving to the Feraligatr if it stays in the whole time. And I mean, giving Feraligatr two or three shadow claws is not a good idea. Giving it a Hydra Cannon and a half seems like a sure way to stay behind in the matchup. so Yeah, those kinds of nuances and quirks are so important.
00:54:18
William Dunphey
And, uh, it really shows that these players are adjusting as the series goes on, but, uh, PVP David gets his first trophy. I got to say, I do not think it's his last. I think he would definitely earn a lot more, uh, in proportion to how he competes.
00:54:33
William Dunphey
Will it be, you know, three grand finals out of four tournaments like SJ? I don't know, but PVP David has been super impressive and he was really good at worlds too. So honestly, this is no shock.
00:54:42
Zzweilous
Yeah, that was another thing that I wanted to point out about him because um In the past it felt like the larger tournament got, the better PvP David did. I think he had a an impressive showing at Worlds, an impressive showing at EUIC.
00:54:50
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:54:55
Zzweilous
And who knows, like the next big tournament is just around the corner. Early signups for EUIC already went live for like the leaderboarders of um every region.
00:55:00
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:55:05
Zzweilous
So i I definitely expect to see him there again and probably in top cut as well.
00:55:13
William Dunphey
Oh man, I can't wait. I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. EUIC coming up in February in London. So circle that on your calendars. I believe it's February 21st or 23rd, something like that. But, um,
00:55:25
Zzweilous
It is that we can for sure.
00:55:27
William Dunphey
Perfect. Perfect. It's going to be a good one.
Anticipation and Changes in Dual Destiny Meta
00:55:29
William Dunphey
Um, well, unless there's anything else you wanted to mention about Sacramento or Stuttgart, I think everybody would like to hear our thoughts on dual destiny because that is, uh, I don't know. It might, it might have a a bigger shakeup in store than I initially thought. I'm not sure if you agree.
00:55:45
Zzweilous
It is going to be, so I think this is, this was a small change, but I think it was a good change. and It wasn't fun change because
00:55:52
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:55:54
Zzweilous
um I don't think we needed, we didn't need Timeless Travels 2.0, because like a year ago, we had a complete shakeup of the meta, like the post-world shakeup was still developing, like the very last tournament of that season was I think the Gdansk one, where we had our good friend Tonton with his seeking Octobax Clefableko in the grand finals.
00:56:01
William Dunphey
Ah, thank you. Hmm.
00:56:22
Zzweilous
Um, so the meta was very much still developing and even part of man with like an Alolan Ninetales non shadow Venusaur also brought some spice back in the day.
00:56:26
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:56:31
Zzweilous
So we basically were like, Oh, this is such a fun matter. Let it cook for a little bit and see, and see what we can get out of this in the next three months. And then Niantic hit us with the complete shakeup.
00:56:45
Zzweilous
Everybody was like. complaining about Scaldy buffs and not with Skarmory, RPS. And yeah, well, we didn't really get plunged into a meta that was unplayable. It was still like a very significant meta shift that maybe came a little too early. And now my hopes are that Niantic have learned and made it so that there's two big meta shakes, meta shakeups per season, but that they're not September and December where you have like one standalone meta for three months and then the other for nine months but you have
00:57:19
Zzweilous
a big meta shakeup, a refinement of that meta, and then a big meta shakeup and a refinement of that meta going into Worlds. I think that would be ideal, and I really, really hope that they're going for this.
00:57:27
William Dunphey
Love it.
00:57:30
Zzweilous
We will not find find out before March, but I think the slide adjustments that we got are actually really fun, and um alongside the release of Galarian Corsola should make for at least a little bit of a shift in in usage.
00:57:41
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:57:47
William Dunphey
i'm I'm right there with you. We need a we need fingers crossed, ah prayers up. um however However you want to say it, we need a big shake up in the spring. I'm really, really hopeful for that. Because like you said, I don't want a nine month meta like we suffered through in the past. um If you didn't see the Dual Destiny Go Battle League page update, I'll give you the cliff notes, rollout, the barrel, focus blaster, galji, all the fangs got buffed and all the punches got buffed, the elemental punches to be specific.
00:58:15
William Dunphey
And that's pretty much it. Outside of that, we have ah some interesting cups. I think Mega Master League is making a comeback. Right now we have Great League a Fantasy Cup, which is a great meta as well. So ah there's something here and there, but nothing too exciting. So the word you used earlier is actually very poignant. You said ah refinement, I think is definitely a refined version of of the max out meta.
00:58:40
William Dunphey
But ah my question is, like, are any of these Pokemon actually going to see competitive play because we got Glarian Corsola and our our art in the game suggests that we're going to get Corviknight soon as well. Is this a strategy where we're going to see like minor updates, but new Pokemon added in and that's kind of our meta shakeup?
00:58:59
Zzweilous
I think we've we have seen that in the past a little bit, right? Like we had, obviously like the Morpeco introduction hasn't really shaken up the meta yet, but we did have the Primeape and iLape community today that gave us two new additions back in the day we had um basically pokemon like charger bug or a cocktail crack sire um the new cloud sire just air dropped in in the middle of a season through community days through events and i think pokemon like gallerin corsola could be that i am really
00:59:36
Zzweilous
i don't I don't want carbonite to be released the exact way it is in the like code currently, because it would just be stronger scarmory.
00:59:43
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:59:46
Zzweilous
And we just agreed three months ago that scarmory was probably a little too strong. So I don't mind Corviknight.
00:59:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:59:54
Zzweilous
I think it is a very cool design, even though the actual Pokémon is just probably a little bit too overpowered with its stats and typing. But I would really prefer it to receive moves that make it A, unique, B, um not overpowered, and also like just fun in a way if that is possible for such a bulky Pokémon.
01:00:22
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:00:22
Zzweilous
um So yeah, we don't know when or if we will get covenant. It's just a loading screen as of now. um But yeah, like we we know that we will get some new additions to the play Pokemon meta, I would say.
01:00:39
Zzweilous
um Because Thunder Shock received received the Poison Sting and Fairy Wind treatment. So it's not only an energy generating fast attack now.
01:00:45
William Dunphey
Oh, you're right.
01:00:49
Zzweilous
It also does some damage. It got a damage increase by one. And I think this targets a whole bunch of Pokemon that at least sim really well.
01:01:00
Zzweilous
So there are Pokemon like Kanto Raichu that sims quite well.
01:01:00
William Dunphey
yeah
01:01:05
William Dunphey
o
01:01:06
Zzweilous
I don't know whether we will see that, but in sims it does look solid.
01:01:08
William Dunphey
ah
01:01:10
Zzweilous
So give it a try. So I don't have to do that. um Some people really like Zapdos.
01:01:18
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:01:18
Zzweilous
That is a Pokemon that excels with its grass.
01:01:23
Zzweilous
Electric and flying typing.
01:01:23
William Dunphey
That, that is a, that is a Pokemon.
01:01:25
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:01:26
Zzweilous
Electric and flying typing. So it's an electric type that can also take on grass types. It was already like one thought ahead.
01:01:31
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:01:33
Zzweilous
The same goes for Emolga.
01:01:34
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:01:35
Zzweilous
We are going to have a Like, there's a little bit of a hybrid meta in Perth and Bogota, because while we are going to see the buff Thunder Shockers, we are not going to see Pokemon like the Barrel with Rollout, Stami with Sighwave and Surf, or Gliscor with Sand Attack, because those new buffs came a little too late for them to be considered for Bogota and Perth. But when we have the entirety of the new meta in Toronto, that will be the first tournament where everything essentially debuts all at once.
01:02:08
Zzweilous
um And the last time in Toronto, we had an Emolga take third place, I think. So maybe, friends of the electric rodents, bring them back to Toronto.
01:02:19
Zzweilous
We are very close to 129 people and therefore 16 people top cut.
01:02:24
Zzweilous
Please sign up, bring the rodents. They will be good. Emolga will be good. Morapeco will be good. It is now a top 20 PV poke. um It didn't make any impact in Sacramento or Stuttgart, but I have seen it win a practice tournament.
01:02:24
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:02:39
William Dunphey
Nope.
01:02:41
Zzweilous
So, more Pekka enjoyers, this might be your time to shine. This little hamster can now not only land really really strong aura wheels, and now also gets actual actual value out of boosting its own attack or debuffing the opponent with psychic fangs, because paneshock does more damage.
01:03:01
Zzweilous
Um, so there's also Pokemon like, you know, when Stanfisk, which is fairly bulky.
01:03:01
William Dunphey
It's true. Yeah.
01:03:05
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:03:07
Zzweilous
If you are into that, there is to get a Maru. So nighttime clasher, if you're competing again, please bring your boy back. He's missing you.
01:03:15
William Dunphey
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, the electric rodents that you've got a toga tomorrow.
01:03:16
Zzweilous
um
01:03:21
William Dunphey
And you also have did any did any got a little boost.
01:03:21
Zzweilous
Did any.
01:03:24
William Dunphey
Right. I mean.
01:03:26
Zzweilous
we We call it Mouserat. In my house we call it Dedenne Mouserat. And it is a very cute Pokémon.
01:03:30
William Dunphey
ah
01:03:33
Zzweilous
Is it a very good Pokémon?
01:03:35
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:03:35
Zzweilous
It is doing its best.
01:03:37
William Dunphey
yes
01:03:37
Zzweilous
um But I would love to see a Dedenne somewhere, so I don't know. Maybe a Ryan Swag needs to come out of it's come out of retirement and run a swag tip like this Dedenne, that kind of thing.
01:03:48
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:03:51
William Dunphey
Yeah. That would be a blessing.
01:03:53
Zzweilous
But I think the biggest player is going to be Morpeko. And I want to give our listeners one recommendation alongside Morpeko, because we were talking about cores earlier.
01:04:05
Zzweilous
what What forms a good core alongside Morpeko? So, Speedyus, do you have any ideas what could go well with this little hamster?
01:04:15
William Dunphey
I have one idea and one idea only, and it looks a lot like a little cotton ball.
01:04:20
Zzweilous
That is a very good idea, because Jumpler, the Pokemon that just won LAIC and Sacramento, looks to be the perfect partner for this little mouse, because if you look at Mopeko's set of weakness weaknesses, um it wants to be nowhere near annihilate, because it just gets counted down.
01:04:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:04:39
Zzweilous
like I think you can like one shield and farm it all the way. Mopeko is very squishy. It also does not appreciate Mad Stepper's whatsoever, um And do you know what really covers well for that?
01:04:48
William Dunphey
Nope.
01:04:51
Zzweilous
It is a jump love, which triple resists ground types, um and does super effective fairy wind damage and has flying type coverage for those fighters.
01:04:52
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:05:00
Zzweilous
And therefore really feels like the perfect fit to um beat Morpeko's counters. And a spicy Morpeko answer that I've been experimenting with is the Guzlord, which is um a bulky dragon that walls the entire moveset that Morpeko has.
01:05:18
Zzweilous
um But if you have a fairy wind user as your grass type, um you actually cover that as well. So I really think that more Peko Jumpthoff Core is something that we will see. um I will go for top 8. I will not say it's going to win a tournament this time, but I think we are going to see a top 8 with more Peko Jumpthoff Core in this upcoming season.
01:05:40
William Dunphey
I like it.
01:05:41
Zzweilous
So, okay, one last um mention for electric types is a Pokemon that I have played in the Go Battle League um previously, um or previously meaning earlier today.
01:05:45
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:05:52
Zzweilous
um It is the Shadow Electivire, and I think that is very cool. because it uniquely has ice coverage. bold beam Thunderbolt ice beam coverage is infamous in in VGC, in the main series games, as one of the best combinations of offensive types to hit essentially most good Pokémon for neutral or even super effective. And while Shadow Electivire is incredibly squishy, it meets Stone Edge Cloudsire and the two shields. No baits, no anything.
01:06:27
Zzweilous
Um, so yeah, that could be really interesting if somebody wants to set up a sweeper with a wild charge and ice punch. Shadow of the Activire, I think it is legit.
01:06:35
William Dunphey
Oh my gosh.
01:06:37
Zzweilous
It is difficult to manage, but I do want to see it and I might even try it.
01:06:39
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:06:42
William Dunphey
I'm a sorry.
01:06:42
Zzweilous
and like
01:06:45
William Dunphey
I, I, I'm just so excited. I've been playing it as well, but I feel like my team sucks. Can can I tell you my shadow like to buy your team and you can, you can
Shadow Electivire and Galarian Corsola's Meta Impact
01:06:54
William Dunphey
ad advise me on how to fix it.
01:06:54
Zzweilous
Yeah, I can, I can, I can fix it. Trust me.
01:06:57
William Dunphey
Okay. Okay. So, uh, my lead is annihilate and my safe swap is the sand attack gly score with shadow. Electivire is my closer.
01:07:08
William Dunphey
What is, what is wrong? Please diagnose this team. Cause it doesn't feel very good.
01:07:11
Zzweilous
All right. All right. So. I would say. Okay. So. I think the idea of Electivire as a closer is just fine, but
01:07:27
William Dunphey
But yeah,
01:07:29
Zzweilous
Again, I feel like you are trying to experiment a little too much on the same team. I feel like Gliscor needs to be like in a, in a special role.
01:07:40
Zzweilous
You have like an ABC style team. And I think that is, um, fine. If you're willing to like play out the neutral match ups with, um, with the, uh, and I live in the lead and it may be, maybe with like a little time, this could work out just fine, but.
01:07:53
William Dunphey
well,
01:07:57
William Dunphey
but But I'm trying to do better than fines. Wireless.
01:07:59
Zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, I think I think you need to think more in terms of GBR strategy, because while like three balance unique Pokemon can make sense in a show six environment, you could have all those three on a team of six if you were to enter another competition.
01:07:59
William Dunphey
I want to do, I want to do good.
01:08:04
William Dunphey
Okay.
01:08:16
Zzweilous
um
01:08:16
William Dunphey
Okay.
01:08:16
Zzweilous
I would just go for a good old ABB style team.
01:08:21
Zzweilous
You lead this to create a superior, you draw out the electric type counter with the Emolga safe swap. You probably will not draw out the electric type counter, but I have seen Gasteron swap into that thinking, oh, mudstep, this will hit the electric type.
01:08:21
William Dunphey
okay
01:08:36
Zzweilous
Um, then you probably just don't, you don't even need to fight for switch advantage. You just need to get a shield. Um, and then you just invest all your resources into the shadow electivire and just close out the game with wild charges and ice beams.
01:08:49
William Dunphey
it And this is Acrobatics Emolga.
01:08:53
Zzweilous
Um, it is discharge acrobatics and mode. Yeah.
01:08:56
William Dunphey
Nice. that That is the correct move set. For anyone out there wondering, please don't run aerial lace. I really think it's a disservice. You need to run Acrobatics. It's so much more fun.
01:09:04
Zzweilous
I agree. um Yeah, this has been going well for me.
01:09:07
William Dunphey
OK.
01:09:08
Zzweilous
um I hit the coveted 69 wins within 95 games.
01:09:14
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:09:14
Zzweilous
So um yeah, Electivire is potentially legit. and is It is a very fun pick for sure.
01:09:20
William Dunphey
Very nice.
01:09:20
Zzweilous
um Okay, Speedy, I have four more picks for you. ah Not all of them are like entirely new or buffed, but I think they will be more relevant in the new meta. um Is there anything that you personally consider viable or interesting or ready to shake up the competitive scene?
01:09:39
William Dunphey
Honestly, I respect you a lot for asking me, and I'm very grateful. But I don't think anyone wants to hear my thoughts. I think they want to hear your list. So let's ah let's keep them rolling.
01:09:50
William Dunphey
Let's keep the good times going.
01:09:50
Zzweilous
You are really selling yourself a short, my friend. But let's let's move on to Galarian Core Solar. This is not a surprise, right?
01:09:57
William Dunphey
Whoa.
01:09:58
Zzweilous
This is just what everybody is trying to trade for. Everybody is trying to hatch. How many Galarian Core Solar have you hatched, Speedy? Isn't more than three.
01:10:06
William Dunphey
Oh. Actually, let me let me look, on I'm looking right now. Give me two more seconds. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I've got seven.
01:10:16
Zzweilous
That is fairly impressive. That is a good haul. I think I have only hatched four of them or something.
01:10:21
William Dunphey
Ah.
01:10:21
Zzweilous
But I did manage to trade away one of mine to the nut 93 Felix in Stuttgart. It is a very good rank, but he has the best body yet, so he's stuck with that now. um I'm still looking for one.
01:10:34
Zzweilous
I know that you are, just by virtue of you living in Louisiana, I think, um you are blessed with a lot of Cosele XL candy.
01:10:41
William Dunphey
Hmm. Yes.
01:10:46
Zzweilous
um I am not, but eventually I will get there, and then Galarian Korsula is going to be a force to be reckoned with. So this Pokémon is very bulky.
01:10:57
Zzweilous
um It is not quite carbon bulky, but it still reminds me of the carbon release, where you have this neutrally bulky meta force that also has like some really polarizing wins and losses.
01:11:04
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:11:08
Zzweilous
um and learns power gem and it needs a lot of excels that most people don't have it's like ghost type carving um but i don't i don't foresee it to be that toxic even though pokemon like gallerin moltres or digaspy um are going to be trouble for it because
01:11:16
William Dunphey
yeah
01:11:30
Zzweilous
um Yeah, it's essentially like mainly attacking with ghost type moves.
01:11:31
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mhm.
01:11:35
Zzweilous
um It has power gem for coverage obviously, so the dark fliers are manageable-ish.
01:11:40
William Dunphey
Mhm.
01:11:41
Zzweilous
I think Mandibuzz, and especially airslash Mandibuzz, is the best for it, whereas Otris, not as much. um Mate, I'm really not a fan of normal types, but super strong in neutral matchups. So I think you do want to have that Pokémon build. I think it can win a tournament. I don't think it will be all over the meta, partly because of accessibility issues, partly because the meta environment currently it doesn't really play to its strengths as much. But we are going to see it around, and we're probably going to see it in Top Guard immediately as well.
01:12:15
Zzweilous
and My pick for a Pokémon that partners well with Galarian Corsola is another Pokémon that we have talked about when we were chatting about Martine's team. It was the Primeape. I think Primeape is really strong alongside Galarian Corsola.
01:12:34
Zzweilous
Because if you look at it, Primeape really doesn't love its big brother and I label that much. like You can occasionally take the zeros, but um typically like the Karate Shops don't do as much. And if the Primeape has shields, then that is just free energy. um Whereas,
01:12:55
Zzweilous
I would say that Galarian Corsola has a really, really good matchup because it's astonishing, so it's always doing super effective damage. It's to Nightshade, which is Ghost-type Drill Run, so really efficient Charger Tag, very quickly.
01:13:09
Zzweilous
and it's going to protect the Primape quite well. But even more importantly, Primape is really good at protecting the Galarian Cozola.
01:13:15
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:13:18
Zzweilous
It is super strong into Pokemon that are mainly like dark type attackers, like Sucker Punch Bird, Galarian Moltres.
01:13:26
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:13:26
Zzweilous
It is strong into normal types, such as Digaspie, such as Dansva, such as Bebarrel, if that is a thing.
01:13:27
William Dunphey
Pangoro.
01:13:34
William Dunphey
Mhm.
01:13:34
Zzweilous
um So I think those two really don't have many natural corebreakers. One thing that ranks them neutrally, for example, is superior, but even that can be a little bit shaky depending on shields. um So I think those two, unless Weekly Tough makes the return, they are a really good pairing that people are going to try to try out and they're going to succeed with it.
01:14:00
William Dunphey
It's so tough to bring wiggly tough because I was looking at certain teams with Galarian Corsola.
01:14:04
Zzweilous
I see what you did there, by the way.
01:14:06
William Dunphey
I'm sorry.
01:14:07
Zzweilous
I see what you did there. It's so tough to bring Wigglytuff.
01:14:10
William Dunphey
Oops. Uh, but no, I was looking at team building with, with, uh, Galarian Corsola and one of the main threats that kept popping up was wiggly, wiggly tough. And I was saying, ah, you know, nobody plays that. So it's not really a ah big concern.
01:14:21
William Dunphey
So right now I think your, your core works really, really well. I really liked the idea of that.
01:14:26
Zzweilous
yeah Wigglytuff, definitely a...
01:14:27
William Dunphey
If.
01:14:29
Zzweilous
Nobody plays that until someone plays it, Pokemon. I think...
01:14:32
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:14:33
Zzweilous
Like you could bring weekly tough. It will be disrespected by one too many trainers at your next regional competition. And once you like get to top four with it, we'll see like two or three weekly tough pop up and top cut for the next tournament.
01:14:47
Zzweilous
I don't think it will exceed that because it's still like a difficult environment for the four weekly tough, but i yeah, I think, I think it can do things for sure.
01:14:49
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. They just need to get past all of the Claude Sire, the Ariados, the Shadow Drapians, the Alolan Sandslash. They just need Talonflame occasionally, the Shadow Typhlosion. They just need to get past all those Pokemon, and then Wigglytuff will be fine.
01:15:10
William Dunphey
um I wanted to provide a little bit of a match-up breakdown here for Galarian Corsola. So ah yes, we've hatched a few, but if you want the maximum stat product, rank 1, it's a 0, 15, 15. So it is all the way turned up to level 50.
01:15:26
William Dunphey
A lot of the hatch variations like the one I'm playing right now has got like 12 attack or so. um The rank one will pick up these matchups over the hatched version in the zeros. ah It'll pick up Azumarill, Guzzlord, and ah Shadow Marowak, which I believe is the Shadow Kanto Marowak.
01:15:43
William Dunphey
In the one shield situation, your rank one Corsola will actually net you wins over Drift Limb, Shadow for Alligator, and Shadow Alolan Marowak. And then in the twos, it gets even nastier. The two shield, level one Corsola, or excuse me, level one, rank one Corsola, will pick you up, Cloudsire, the Mirror against other Galarian Corsola, Drift Limb, Gastrodon, Shadow Canton Marowak, and Primape.
01:16:09
William Dunphey
So if you are playing a hatch version, you're going to drop those match ups. If you're playing the rank one, zero, 15, 15 that you likely traded for, then you will pick those match ups up at least on paper and even energy. So a lot of merit to getting the level 50.
01:16:25
Zzweilous
So yeah, I will definitely keep incubating those seven kilometer eggs.
01:16:30
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:16:30
Zzweilous
Thankfully Galarian Kosovo is here to stay in those. So it wasn't only like an event thing where afterwards it's moved to like the ultimate rarity and you will not ever get it again.
01:16:41
Zzweilous
um it is It is a Pokemon that I do want to have on my roster for sure, um even though like yeah maybe it's too bulky and too solid and too reliable for me to actually enjoy it.
01:16:42
William Dunphey
yeah
01:16:55
Zzweilous
That occasionally happens. I
Bibarel's Emergence as a Core Breaker
01:16:57
Zzweilous
think what Galarian Cozola does, if it becomes popular and successful, is that it might invite an opening for Pangoro again.
01:17:03
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:06
Zzweilous
Because right now, that thing is kind of out of the meta because of an aisle ape and a prime ape monopolizing the fighting type role.
01:17:06
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:17:16
Zzweilous
But if you really need a fighting type that is good against ghost types as well, as well I think maybe Corsola could even have some ripple effects on the meta.
01:17:27
William Dunphey
Yeah, I definitely think and there's merit to that. i yeah You know, we haven't seen much Guzlord as of late. We don't have as much Shadow Drapian as we had even a few weeks ago. I feel like Glerion Corsola might be that forcing function that sends you know the dark types, plus mana buzz, plus pangoro, back into the meta.
01:17:45
William Dunphey
especially because there isn't um a fairy presence outside of azumarole. So if you can find something that straddles azumarole and corsola, I think that you have a ah really good pick. But you've outlined glaring corsola and prime ape. What else are you cooking up over there?
01:18:00
Zzweilous
So, one potential answer to the Galerian Corsola, not as much for the Primeape though, is the barrel. This beaver received roll-out as a new fast attack, and you you definitely know the dance bar spacing of 434 to um its drill runs and rockslides, non-stab moves.
01:18:17
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:18:22
Zzweilous
um Imagine having stab, serve, on a Pokemon that is also really attack weighted with that pacing. And this is essentially what the barrel is.
01:18:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:18:32
Zzweilous
um There's various schools of thought around the barrel, whether you want the shadow to lean in even more on the attack-weighted aspect of it all, um or whether you want to get a return one, like a purified one, that has this big nuke option that everybody has to has to dodge or shield. But I honestly believe that non-shadow with Surf and Hyper Fang is probably the most reliable way to run the barrel.
01:18:59
Zzweilous
um just because like the big normal type nukes, normal type nukes, it does get hyper beam as well. But this just takes a while even with the move that roll out. And the barrel will not stay on the field for too long with its stat product.
01:19:15
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:19:15
Zzweilous
So it is it is really squishy. It can win CMP over Pokemon like Ariados. um But its coverage is really, really strong into the top meta, so it doesn't need all the stat product, but it can core break Claude's sire and Feraligatr, as well as zoom roll and sand slash, and also beat Digaspie, which is probably also a Pokemon that we we will see a lot more of after the fire punch buff, after Corsola makes its presence more relevant.
01:19:46
Zzweilous
and also just generally to fend off the cloud sire much better like Digispy won the last event right so it's probably viable right now and now it's only getting better but the barrel can take it out the barrel can take it out um so even though it's um wins are not too plentiful overall it has like a balanced win rate of around 50% against the Pokemon that we typically see in top card. What makes it so enticing is that the Pokemon that it does speed are the Pokemon that I use the most. So I think the barrel is a great core breaker. It is a side grade to Dunspus as a normal type rollout user that is obviously weak to fighting types and even weaker than Dunspus is to a Pokemon like Superior. But because of its attack rate,
01:20:39
Zzweilous
I also think that what the barrel can do is if it gets a farm down, it actually threatens Pokemon like Primeape or Annihilape for like 60% of their health essentially with a Surf.
01:20:49
William Dunphey
Mhm.
01:20:55
Zzweilous
And that is something that non-step Drill Run just could not do when you had the Dunspar still.
01:21:00
William Dunphey
Mhm.
01:21:00
Zzweilous
So it's difficult to use, but I think it's definitely a high reward type of Pokemon.
01:21:07
William Dunphey
It's still got that novelty factor as well because, like you said, regarding the counts, a lot of people don't know the Bibero counts quite yet. It might take them a couple weeks to catch on. But um I was playing a little bit of Shadow Bibero with ah Surf and Hyper Fang, and that thing hits hard.
01:21:24
William Dunphey
I mean, there are so many situations where I think it was against a Wigglytuff, ironically enough.
01:21:25
Zzweilous
Because.
01:21:30
William Dunphey
um against wiggly tough it had about half health and I could only muster a surf before I got charmed down and I I did a single roll out into the surf and it KO'd I was like wait what really this does that much damage and and when you hit a surf against a Claude sire it's devastating I mean the Claude sire cannot take two surfs Uh, it's going to have to shield the second one.
01:21:41
Zzweilous
look
01:21:51
William Dunphey
So I think it's going to be really fun. And I mean, we've seen stranger normal types, like, um, a little eradicate when tournaments already. So I don't know, maybe shadow of a barrel could win one, but, um, in terms of team building, how would you even protect it?
01:22:04
William Dunphey
You'd have to protect it from annihilate from superior from primate. Uh, and I guess outside of that, it's got pretty solid coverage. I don't know how the, um, the other match-ups go, but how would you protect that?
01:22:16
Zzweilous
Yeah, like it technically also has an exploitable weakness to electric types. So if you're on that undershock train, you might want something to protect it from those guys as well.
01:22:21
William Dunphey
Ah, true.
01:22:27
Zzweilous
But I think for the most part, if you want to form a core around the barrel, um You want a flying type and a flying type that beats the fighters as well.
01:22:38
Zzweilous
So Moltres is, like Galarian Moltres is technically a flying type, but it struggles with Annihilape and it just straight-up loses to Primeape.
01:22:46
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:22:47
Zzweilous
So you would probably not want to pay your Moltres with Bibarel even though that would provide coverage against Pokemon like the Superior that would give it trouble. I think the barrel Talonflame is actually a really good core. I think those two cover each other really well.
01:23:04
William Dunphey
Okay. I wasn't sure if you were going to say something off-handed like Pidgeot and just go double normal. Um, because I know that at least Pidgeot has the fast attack pressure to really put away a primate or an annihilate, but talent flame is, is interesting. You know, you get your fire type coverage for the superior and then you get a, you get fly and brave bird, presumably, uh, for the fighting type coverage and for the new coverage. I don't know. I could see it working, but, uh, as soon as that any, any Mulga shows up, you're in trouble.
01:23:33
Zzweilous
Well, Emolga is squishy, right? We just do some rollouts. We maybe we maybe sneak and incinerate.
01:23:40
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:23:40
Zzweilous
There's play for sure. There's play. But yeah, Emolga looks like a good co-breaker into those two.
01:23:45
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:23:46
Zzweilous
Just saying. um Yeah, but i have I have seen people run the combination of Bebarrel and Talonflame in practice tournaments already, and it looks to be really strong.
01:23:48
William Dunphey
Interesting.
01:23:55
Zzweilous
And I think, like, we've been talking about how Shadow Feraligator might be on the nerf list earlier. I think Bebarrel, being popular, could be an indirect nerf for Feraligator, because not only is Bebarrel good in the head-to-head against Gator,
01:24:12
Zzweilous
It also competes for a similar role because ah you have this Pokémon that is weak to um Grass-type damage, you have this Pokémon that is maybe weak to Primeape, and now you can decide whether you want it to be Feraligato or um whether you want it to be Bibarel.
01:24:31
Zzweilous
And both of their their pros and cons for sure. um and Yeah, I could ah could see them coexist and just give the trainers out there a little bit more variety in their team building. And we are all for more variety.
01:24:46
William Dunphey
Interesting, interesting. Okay, okay. I like what you're cooking up so far. Galarian Corsola and Prime Ape, and now the Barrel and Talonflame. I'm not sure that there was a lot else in the update that really benefited from these move adjustments. I mean,
Move Buffs and Evolving Meta Strategies
01:25:02
William Dunphey
I've i've tried to play some Hypno in GBL with confusion and double punches, and that's, you know, it's pretty fun. and it's It's not great, but it's fun. I haven't even looked at any of the fangs. I guess you've got Sighwave Starmie, which I've seen some people picking up.
01:25:15
William Dunphey
I'm not really sure.
01:25:16
Zzweilous
Starmie is interesting because some top-level players have been experimenting with it. I have um watched a very recent It's Accent video on YouTube where he was like, okay, I originally thought Starmie was copium, I played it in GPL and this thing slaps.
01:25:33
Zzweilous
and So people are coming around on Starmie. I've seen Junberg try it out in a practice tournament. So those two are some of the fiercest competitors in the NA region. So maybe they will bring it out to one of the events going forward. I don't i don't know for sure, but I would love to see it. Sigh waivers are really flexible and dynamic with The quick pacing, the one turn fast move that allows you to dip in and out of matchups really quickly.
01:26:04
Zzweilous
um So I can see some potential there. Even though same as the barrel, Stami does struggle a little bit with um it's just like overall stat product problems.
01:26:13
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:26:15
Zzweilous
That can be an issue for it.
01:26:17
William Dunphey
yeah
01:26:17
Zzweilous
um But yeah, like the two last Pokemon that I have on my list of things that could thrive in the upcoming meta are two things that actually did thrive in the most recent meta and actually won Stuttgart.
01:26:30
Zzweilous
Because um Shadow-type Flosion is a beneficiary of the Thunder Punch buff and I think it was
01:26:36
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:26:39
Zzweilous
like it was a really good Pokemon to pick up already so I think like it is kind of Typhlosion's time to shine um and the one thing that changed by it getting the Thunder Punch buff is that if the opponent even has as much as a like rank 2 zoom roll and you have a good IV Shadow Typhlosion you are able to take the zero shields now So if people are relying on just a mere zoom roll as their fire type counter, that might not be sufficient any longer because shadow type floristion is coming to get you in the zero shield scenario specifically.
01:27:20
Zzweilous
Um, so I want to see more of that. I want to see people experiment with that. And I know that it's always difficult to justify bringing that because if you want to bring a fire type, you most often open yourself up to a mudslap weakness.
01:27:37
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:27:38
Zzweilous
And because there's so many good Pokemon, like Claude's I are like toxic packs, like Drapion that are already weak to mudslap. Also like the new more Pekko. um You would probably not double down on that type of weakness and instead go for Talonflame. But there are so many perks to Shadow Typhlosion with its faster pacing and um ways of fighting back against Pokémon like Feraligata and Cloudsire that I think more people should try building around that even though it is quite difficult to actually facilitate a good team around it.
01:28:13
Zzweilous
um And the second Pokémon with a newly buffed punch that I want to shout out is one that didn't run it yet, but that maybe should run it. And I'm talking about Annihilape here, because we saw what it could do with Rage Fist and Close Combat, but how many Close Combats did Annihilape actually throw and land?
01:28:26
William Dunphey
No way.
01:28:36
Zzweilous
Isn't it mostly just ragefist anyway? Might as well go for a cheap ice punch that gives you more play into fighting types without, and not fighting types, flying types without having to debuff yourself. That gives you play into clothsire a little more. That helps out against grass types like superior that could otherwise give you a little bit of trouble. um So yeah, I generally believe that um we might have
01:28:39
William Dunphey
True.
01:29:04
Zzweilous
seen the most of Close Combat and Eyelape already and we might be in the Ice Punch era.
01:29:10
William Dunphey
man, that you know that didn't even cross my radar, but it it makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of the superior matchup in particular, because you aren't really threatening it until you get up to your your second rage fist. And even if you connect to close combat, it's not really going to be enough ah to threaten it with with with one hit.
01:29:29
William Dunphey
That's actually really interesting to think about much more consistent damage because I think out of the two apes, the prime ape has really benefited from the close combat, uh, you know, explosive offense that it it can provide very similar to pangoro.
01:29:42
William Dunphey
You know, the karate chop close combat, I i guess the karate chop close combat combination is very, very solid, but an highly just feels too slow in a lot of those situations.
01:29:52
Zzweilous
Yes.
01:29:53
Zzweilous
It's all about the synergy, right? Because you already have the fighting type damage with the counters. You don't actually need the close combat in many situations. So why not pick up one of the best offensive types in the game and get some ice type coverage?
01:29:53
William Dunphey
Um, yeah.
01:30:03
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:30:08
William Dunphey
Damn, I would not be surprised if if somebody adopted that as early as as this weekend, um because, yeah, if if the Pokemon already knows the move like primate already knew Ice Punch, they can run it in Bogota and Perth, correct?
01:30:22
William Dunphey
But like the barrel, they cannot run rollout. That's how it's going to work.
01:30:26
Zzweilous
Exactly.
01:30:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:30:27
Zzweilous
And one thing I also want to mention about Annihilape, to everybody who not only is running Annihilape, but also trying to build against Annihilape, make sure that you have some fast move pressure on your team that can actually hit it and potentially force it out and when it like rams up with its energy.
01:30:29
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:30:46
Zzweilous
Because Annihilape is actually scary against Pokemon like Azumarill and Claude Sire if it has a little bit of an energy lead.
01:30:53
William Dunphey
Mhm.
01:30:55
Zzweilous
And then it might just spiral out of control because those two Pokemon are typically the main counters to it. So I think it makes
01:31:02
William Dunphey
Yes.
Current Meta Reflections and Future Changes
01:31:03
Zzweilous
a lot of sense to really have this one reliable Annihilape answer that actually does some degree of fast-move pressure into it in this current meta.
01:31:12
William Dunphey
i think I think it's not only energy advantage like you outlined, I think it's also protection advantage. I think when you get into a two shield situation, playing a zoom roll versus annihilate, for example, it is not comfortable, especially after the the annihilate has started to ramp up. So yeah, there's actually two different, in my opinion, two different dimensions that they can attack you from the shield advantage and also the energy advantage.
01:31:35
William Dunphey
a lot a lot to be worried about there. And again, this comes back to the lack of wiggly tough, the lack of charmers, lack of direct pressure, you have to find creative ways to beat annihilate. So yeah,
01:31:43
Zzweilous
Yeah, honestly, this podcast has been weakly tough propaganda in some ways.
01:31:47
William Dunphey
That's true. That's true. It just has so many targets to avoid before it can become great again. No pun intended ah with that one there. um This has been a pun-filled showcase. And I really out like the cores you outlined here, ah glaring Corsola and Primate, ah the barrel and Talonflame, and now Shadow Typhlosion and Annihilate benefiting a lot from the punch buffs. The one person I thought of when we talked about Typhlosion was actually Arrow. I was like, man, I bet Arrow is just Over the moon, I bet he's licking his chops here, seeing the boosted type flows in, uh, that he already brought to the grand finals against Lyle earlier on in the season. So I would, um, I really love to see that Pokemon tear it up.
01:32:29
Zzweilous
Yeah, i would be I would be excited to see Arrow run that back.
01:32:33
William Dunphey
Yeah, that would be freaking awesome. um But yeah, I mean, your overall impressions though, I really liked the chords you outlined, but overall impressions, i I want to call back to what you said earlier on in the episode. ah we We get a brand new meta shakeup and then we get a refinement and we kind of oscillate between those two things.
01:32:51
William Dunphey
So I do think this is a refinement stage. I honestly don't mind it that much because I don't feel like the meta was ever really settled in the max out season. Uh, like I said, we're kind of like circling back to for alligator cloud sire. And I'm honestly glad that we didn't get a big update because I think there's still a lot of depth, a lot of things to explore here, but I think it'll be a massive, massive misstep. If Niantic does not.
01:33:14
William Dunphey
create another, uh, you know, injection of enthusiasm with the, with a big meta shakeup in the spring. I think that would be a massive mistake if they don't. So fingers crossed that they do. Um, I don't think the fang users will be a player and play Pokemon. I don't think, um, most of the punch buffs will really have an impact. And I definitely don't think focus blaster analogy will have an impact because I've tried that thing and it is a curse. It is so difficult to play.
01:33:43
Zzweilous
Yeah, like Dragalte is looking at the move update, like I didn't expect anything and I'm still disappointed.
01:33:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:33:50
Zzweilous
It's, it did not need a third or fourth nuke move. I think it gets gank shot, outrage. I think it even gets like hydro pump or something.
01:34:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:34:00
Zzweilous
It's not getting there. It has dragon tail.
01:34:03
William Dunphey
yeah
01:34:04
Zzweilous
Yeah, it would need an energy generating fast attack to ever make use of that. It does not have that at this moment in time.
01:34:12
William Dunphey
I was, I was trying to put on my, uh, my Niantic, uh, hat, you know, with my, uh, my blimp and my logo on it. And I'm trying to think why focus plaster Galchi? I don't think anyone asks for this. And I noticed an upcoming event. We have the aspiring dragons event, uh, actually coming up tomorrow and Scrub will be a featured Pokemon. And I'm just, maybe I'm pulling at strings here, but I'm like, ah maybe this kind of goes with the season theme because there was a dragon event, but either way kind of feels like a flop in my opinion.
01:34:43
Zzweilous
Yeah, yeah. Like, so like we we have seen updates that didn't really serve any immediate purpose in the past, right? Like, we've seen boom bursts on so many Pokémon.
01:34:54
Zzweilous
And feel I feel like Focus Blast might just be the boom but burst of our time. um But i'm I'm honestly okay with that.
01:34:59
William Dunphey
True.
01:35:02
Zzweilous
like If each and every update that we got was just targeted towards the competitive scene, well, I would love that. It would take you it away a little bit of the charm. So I hope we get a huge March update with 80% relevant buffs for the competitive scene and 20% just Niantic being silly with a big move. So I would be i would be very much fine with that.
01:35:27
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think that's the recipe for success with the future updates. I really hope that's what we get. um Dual Destiny is still unfolding. Like you pointed out earlier, we're going to get a real look at it in Toronto. We're going to see what what ah it really has in store. So there's a lot of meta shakeups,
Upcoming Events and Game Evolution
01:35:43
William Dunphey
a lot of ah room to grow and experiment and try new things. And I hope that people continue continue to do that.
01:35:49
William Dunphey
um Once again, this season, I feel like the EU is the leader in innovating and trying new things. We've seen that in our our grand finals and our top eights over the season. So umm I'm definitely going to be looking towards EU, especially when we arrive at Birmingham in um January of next year, which should be a ah really fun tournament.
01:36:08
William Dunphey
But speaking of events this weekend, we've got Bogota and Perth and then Toronto coming up December 13th and the 15th. If you're listening today, you have 189 days to get your championship points because the cutoff is NAIC of next year. And we are coming up really rapidly on 2025. I don't know about you Zorailos, but I feel like 2015 was five years ago. I feel like I i blinked.
01:36:33
William Dunphey
and ah and And the four years, five years now since 2020 have just flown by.
01:36:33
Zzweilous
ah
01:36:39
William Dunphey
so um So here we are heading into 2025.
01:36:42
Zzweilous
yeah i have like had another talk just like a day ago where i was telling people that oh i'm so excited not necessarily like obviously also for next year's worlds but also for like 2026 worlds and like in my mind i was thinking okay like this is going to be like a big pokemon anniversary and it's going to be maybe generation 10 probably hopefully and this is what would make me excited but then
01:37:08
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:37:12
Zzweilous
ah They pointed out this is also the 10-year anniversary of Pokemon Go, right?
01:37:17
William Dunphey
No.
01:37:17
Zzweilous
And yes, like we are only like a year and a bit away from this game being 10 years old. um Very soon and we'll be able to drive and drink and probably not both at the same time.
01:37:31
William Dunphey
I hope not.
01:37:31
Zzweilous
um
01:37:34
Zzweilous
But yeah, the the forever game is is manifesting.
01:37:39
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah. and i And we're going to, um I think we're going to start to revolve back around with our content updates, where we're going to start to see things like Armored Mewtwo returned for the first the first time in like four years.
01:37:51
Zzweilous
Where is it? Where where has it gone?
01:37:52
William Dunphey
I don't know. I don't know. It only came out during the, um they they remade the original Pokemon movie, right? And that's the event that Armored Mewtwo was centered around, I believe.
01:38:02
Zzweilous
Yeah, they need to release more movies.
01:38:04
William Dunphey
Yeah. I know. I know.
01:38:07
Zzweilous
Can they have a movie where Shadow Xubon features prominently?
01:38:07
William Dunphey
That'd be awesome.
01:38:13
William Dunphey
du i'm I'm just so I'm still so grateful to uh, to Lyle Jeffs for winning that tournament and then immediately taking the mic and saying, yeah, we need shadow Cuba and back in rockets, please.
01:38:24
Zzweilous
we like Our tournament winners have been so good about this. We had Lyle, we had Marto.
01:38:28
William Dunphey
They know.
01:38:30
Zzweilous
It's been great.
01:38:31
William Dunphey
Yeah, the, the Niantic please fixer game that one turn lag was so bad. That was an all time quote. I mean, that was literally.
01:38:40
Zzweilous
PVP David.
01:38:45
William Dunphey
it it Oh no, it's on a loop.
01:38:47
Zzweilous
It's just one stop.
01:38:49
William Dunphey
it's It's on a loop.
01:38:49
Zzweilous
ah
01:38:50
William Dunphey
I meant to play it once.
01:38:51
Zzweilous
PVP David used to be called PVP lag, if you remember that.
01:38:56
William Dunphey
No.
01:38:56
Zzweilous
So yes, it's all very on topic these last few weeks.
01:39:01
William Dunphey
very nice very nice but yeah i'm proud of our champions and they continue to stand up for our game and hopefully we get those changes we're asking for uh speaking really briefly of events the current in-game event is just my cup of tea where uh sinister is uh coming to the game what's shocking to me here is that it started on the third and it's ending on the seventh i mean Shoot, if you put this game down for less than a week, you wouldn't even know that this event happened, which is just, I think these events need to be longer. Galarian Corsola event should have been longer. Cup of tea event should be longer. That's just my opinion. If you're looking to gather Stardust, there's a really cool task that i've I've taken a few of these and knocked them out. Catch 25 Pokemon for either Pidgeot or Noctowl. Put that in your stack, give it a golden raspberry, and then save it for a double dust event, because that would be a really, really big payday.
01:39:52
William Dunphey
Upcoming this weekend, we've got Aspiring Dragons, as we mentioned before, and also Gigantamax Lapras on the 8th. So not really competitively relevant, but you know fun events, like you said before, kind of keeps the charm of things going, more or less.
01:40:07
Zzweilous
Yeah, I am feeling terrifically well informed now because I actually did not manage to keep up with all of these events.
01:40:14
William Dunphey
I mean, there's so many and in, for example, the Dragon event and the Lapras event are both just one day over the weekend.
01:40:20
Zzweilous
ah
01:40:20
William Dunphey
So yeah, if you, uh, if you miss it, you're kind of s so well, as we say, but that being said, it's why this has been a really fun one. We're approaching, I think an hour, 40 minutes.
01:40:30
William Dunphey
We knew it would be a longer one because it is a triple header, but I know it's also getting quite late over in Germany. So I think we should, uh, give our, our final thoughts and then sign off.
01:40:42
Zzweilous
That is true. So yeah, my my final thoughts are that I am very excited to see both the Perth and the Bogota results. They should roll in, not really any minute, but I think we're like one hour away from the Perth stream starting.
01:40:57
Zzweilous
So that is getting close. Maybe I'll watch it a little bit now that I'm still up at 1 a.m. Germany time anyway.
01:41:03
William Dunphey
so
01:41:04
Zzweilous
um And yeah, I'm going to enjoy my weekend.
01:41:04
William Dunphey
yeah.
01:41:07
Zzweilous
I hope ah you will too. And I hope everybody listening to us will as well.
01:41:11
William Dunphey
Awesome. Sounds good. We'll have a, um, a recap. I guess, I guess we should talk about this off off recording. We'll, we'll talk about when we're going to record Bogota and Perth, uh, just because we only get team graphics from that.
01:41:23
William Dunphey
And maybe the the community stream from Steve, I'm not sure how much there'll be to cover. We might need to save our energy until we cover Toronto as well, which I believe you'll be competing at.
01:41:33
William Dunphey
So we'll, uh, Okay.
01:41:34
Zzweilous
Yes, yes, yes. that's like I will be traveling next week, so I think knocking out the recording the week after would probably be most ideal.
01:41:39
William Dunphey
Perfect.
01:41:43
William Dunphey
Okay, sounds like a plan to me. And yeah, I'm excited for our champions that are joining the roster. We are heading headed into 2025, which is going to be a big year. And don't forget the 2026 season will start next August. And even bigger things I've heard are happening then. So It's going to be a great time. So I appreciate your time, ah patience, incredible writing, stellar insights, and awesome overall coverage of this competitive circuit per usual. And that's all from us for this one. So leave us a review and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye.