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EP. 38 | Milwaukee, Belo Horizonte 2026 Recaps
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 38 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This episode will release closer to the Lille Regionals weekend than it was to Milwaukee or Belo Horizonte, but it is packed with value. We begin the show with our recap of Milwaukee, where MeteorFallian grinded his way to gold with Bastiodon and FEAROW, toppling the upset-minded Pranav in the Grand Finals! Then, we go south to LATAM, where Zarddy returns to form in Belo Horizonte, claiming the 1st place spot with double Fairy types Tinkaton and Azumarill. As an added bonus, we toss in the Kokoperi Cup community tournament in Japan, where Shadow Salamence and Shadow Charizard made the top 8.... on the same team?! This, plus a mail bag of random social media posts, as Zzweilous and Speedy weigh in on some interesting opinions, and some downright awful takes.
So, if you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction & Overview
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Welcome into the Show 6 Podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokémon GO. Today, we're taking a look at the Milwaukee and Belo Horizonte Regional Championships, where 129 and 72 trainers competed, respectively.
00:00:14
William Dunphey
Milwaukee was truly a cosmic event, as North America's most famous trainers burned up in the loser's side bracket, and multiple NA trainers fielded career best performances. Despite a chaotic burst of notable plays, a Basinon-shaped meteorite landed perfectly atop the podium to claim the gold.
00:00:32
William Dunphey
Meanwhile, in Belo Horizonte, the GB Lindos showed up in force, and dark types like Galerian Moltres and Guzzlord were nearly ubiquitous in the top cut. In an incredible tour de force, Zardy returns to form by toppling LNDS Harjef in the Grand Finals.
00:00:47
William Dunphey
This and so much more. So if you're ready, let's lock in and good luck. Have fun.
Co-Host's US Trip & Anecdotes
00:01:16
William Dunphey
Welcome in everybody. It's been about three weeks. Feels like a little while, but we are back in the saddle again, the show six podcast with a review of the Milwaukee and Belo Horizonte regional championships. I have my trusted co-host here.
00:01:29
William Dunphey
He's wireless ready to rock and roll. How are you feeling my friend?
00:01:33
zzweilous
ah Yes, yes, I'm feeling fabulous. I've just sat a couple of days off. I used them for a journey to the United States of America, this time not for a regional event, but because I was a guest at a wedding of ah fellow Pokemon Go players, ah traded the groom a high rank Aegislash with my last tonage. So feeling accomplished and slowly settling back into life in Europe.
00:01:57
William Dunphey
So kind of you to give away such an incredible Pokemon. I built my own Aegislash for Fantasy Cup, tried to play it. Do not play it as well as someone like Odacolo plays it, but it was definitely fun to try.
00:02:10
William Dunphey
And also when you say journey to the US, don't know, just as a, ah you know, American myself, I think of like the Oregon Trail. And the thing I wanted to say was, I hope you didn't get dysentery from traveling across the US because that's just like,
00:02:23
William Dunphey
what the settlers used to do in their wagons, right? It's a famous old game for all the boomers listening out there, ah like myself. But ah that's great to hear. I'm glad you have some time off.
Milwaukee Championship Meta Analysis
00:02:32
William Dunphey
um We are kind of like closer to the Lille side of things than we are to the Milwaukee and Belo Horizonte side. But I think that also lends us a really good perspective, because we've had some additional time to kind of digest the meta, what's going on, and also look at some practice tournaments, meta trends, even a ah very, very special tournament out in Japan that has a rising star that I would love to talk about. So ZZ, I think the top headline as we look back in Milwaukee is the terror of Basidon continues.
00:03:03
zzweilous
Yeah, I'm really wondering whether this is going to stay a North America thing or whether the disease that is Bastiodon is going to spread further because okay like you know how like sometimes it's like an invasive species almost. like a like It came from LATAM originally. It was brought into the US and now it just like keeps on taking titles.
00:03:29
zzweilous
It's like a lanternfly type of deal, but um Yeah, Bastid does it again. um Also, honestly, carried a lot of the grand finals, even though the real style of the show was not the infamous wall face, but instead a creature that is supposed to be Spice.
00:03:41
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:03:51
zzweilous
It's not supposed to be a original champion. Firo, what do you have to say for yourself? Yeah.
00:03:57
William Dunphey
Hey, the pec buff is definitely OP. And I will say, to honor our Aussie listeners, like PvP Steve, I do think the first ah instance of Bastiodon winning a championship was Australia.
00:04:10
William Dunphey
So maybe it came from Australia to LATAM to North America.
00:04:11
zzweilous
is true
00:04:14
William Dunphey
And I got to be honest, it looks like EU is next for ah for this plague.
00:04:18
zzweilous
and and we know that pvp steve is a traveler he does fly around constantly so maybe he just like let a couple of shield on loose in the brazilian grasslands and then they just spread from there i want to put the blame on somebody and i think pvp steve is a great candidate
00:04:38
William Dunphey
Yes, I agree. We can all collectively, everyone listening can blame Steve for the dominance of Bastion. So thanks, Steve. We really appreciate it. Very, very fun times. um But I agree
Unexpected Outcomes & Player Performances
00:04:48
William Dunphey
with you. I think that the the story of the grand finals and the winning team was definitely the Firo and Bastion core.
00:04:54
William Dunphey
ah But there were also some other meta trends that we could talk about. I think that Peck Murkrow coming from Latin America, which we did see at a previous regional. Now showing up in force in Milwaukee was really cool. We had trainers like Pranov playing it, Dapper Disc, Teddy Bear.
00:05:09
William Dunphey
And I think those were the only three Murkrow players in in top cut, but still very, very cool. a Fortress seems to be returning in terms of ah usage. Pranov, Elam, and Out of Pocket, three of NA's best players were were playing that. You also had J Mills running that Pokemon as well.
00:05:26
William Dunphey
ah Shadow Dustwar, which I know we're definitely going to talk about, you and I were discussing before we pressed record. This is a very interesting Pokemon that needs to be dissected further. Then you had other things like Cridillies, almost ubiquitous everywhere. Mudslap is pretty much everywhere.
00:05:39
William Dunphey
Was there anything in terms of the Milwaukee top cut that stood out to you?
Shadow Dust Noir & Meta Insights
00:05:43
zzweilous
um I think it's very surprising to me personally to see a Shadow Dragonair take a medal. It's not surprising that it is Rise to Occasion taking that medal because Milwaukee is just his hometown regional and he has been just always strong when it when it comes to performing on home soil.
00:06:06
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:06:06
zzweilous
Other than that, i will say um An interesting story to me was how Pocket's team specifically, i don't know whether it got leaked or whether it just got found out because it won so many practice tournaments going into the event.
00:06:21
zzweilous
So we had multiple people playing that, but nobody going as far as the original creator of the line. um And yeah, even though Pocket obviously came into the event as the defending champion, i think a top eight is also nothing to scoff at, especially...
00:06:39
zzweilous
I'm going into day two from the loser side as so many very accomplished, very decorated NA trainers did.
00:06:48
William Dunphey
Well, as I hinted in the intro, Zardy did win the Belo Horizonte Regional Championships the same weekend. And I think it's so poetic and so funny. Because if you look back at 2023 in Natal, when Zardy won the regional there, he was playing a team that was Trevenant, Registeel, Obstagoon, Alolan Ninetales, Lantern, and Shadow Dragonair. And you see Ryze playing it the same weekend. Coincidence?
00:07:13
William Dunphey
I think not. i think I think something was in the stars this weekend. ah
00:07:17
zzweilous
Yeah, meteorites, exactly.
00:07:17
William Dunphey
Turning the page to pocket. Yes. Some shooting stars. Maybe some some constellations were aligned. ah Turning to pocket. Okay, I'm just going
Empoleon & Blastoise's Meta Roles
00:07:27
William Dunphey
say it flat out. I have never seen a Pokemon let Pocket down so many times like that Shadow Talonflame did.
00:07:35
William Dunphey
Talonflame looked terrible. It looked so bad, and it it it couldn't get the farm downs it needed. It was too slow to outpace the opponent. It didn't do the damage that Pocket wanted, and I felt like almost every single time he brought that Pokemon, he was either in a nail-biting Pocket classic situation where he barely gets the win, Or it was just flopping on its face. I could not stand watching him play Townflame. I don't know if you got the same vibe. but
00:07:59
zzweilous
I definitely did get the same vibe. And I also want to say that I think it's kind of good that Talonflame looks bad currently, just because it won the very first event of the season in the hands of Martijn and Eloquence in Frankfurt.
00:08:17
zzweilous
um And after that event, I talked with some European betlers who said, oh, you need to be super strong into Talonflame. Shadow Talonflame is the strongest Pokemon in the meta.
00:08:28
zzweilous
And at that point in time, A lot of people were also like Shadow Charizard truthers, so they thought that thing was going to be top meta.
00:08:33
William Dunphey
uh uh
00:08:35
zzweilous
And now we've just moved along. We've had a meta development. That means the meta isn't solved, the meta isn't static. um Instead, we have Pokemon like Blastoise, Pokemon like Bastiodon taking championships, with Talonflame taking a little bit of
Meteorfolian's Victory & Analysis
00:08:50
zzweilous
backseat.
00:08:50
zzweilous
So it's not its time currently, but I think once maybe more answers to those Blastoises and Bastiodons emerge, it will be brought back at a later time in the season.
00:09:02
zzweilous
It's just like reading the matter of the moment and Talonflame already had its moment in the sun. But again, it's time for different stars to rise at this point in time.
00:09:15
William Dunphey
It's a very funny position to be in because you want fire coverage, right? You see a lot of targets, a lot of steel, maybe the occasional, nevermind, going to say it. The only grass type you see is, is cradilly.
00:09:26
William Dunphey
Maybe you see a couple of bugs like charge bug. ah But basically you want fire type coverage for the bug steels like scissor and fortress or for the ticket tons or for whatever it might be. And you want to be not ah hopeless against mudslap. So you say, oh, well, I'll use a flying subtyping and I'll play some talent flame.
00:09:43
William Dunphey
um But I agree with you. I feel like the moment in the sun kind of was in the past and it might circle back again. a lot of these things do tend to kind of cycle back and become relevant. But I don't think that this was the tournament to bring the talent flame.
00:09:57
William Dunphey
A rare ah meta read by Pocket that didn't seem to really work out in his favor, but I like the rest of his team. I think the Lapras is a bit curious, probably a little more relevant now that there aren't as many Dark types, but man, the Lapras versus any Dark type matchup, whether it's Glary Moltres, Murkrow, whatever it might be, is so abysmal with those sidewaves being double resisted, it just feels like it falls flat.
00:10:19
William Dunphey
Yeah. Either way, and either way, it's fine. um Yeah, I agree with you. I think that there were a few interesting meta trends. Like we talked about, Mud Slap seems to be almost ubiquitous.
00:10:31
William Dunphey
ah Steel types, we see Teddy Bear running Tinkaton, which I thought was a ah solid pick. That seems like, again, when when things kind of move into the spotlight and then move out, we had a Glare and Moltres moment.
00:10:43
William Dunphey
I think Tinkaton on Teddy Bear's team would have been phenomenal in Belo Horizonte. It would have been so sick. And we're going to talk more about Ticketown and Zardy's team. But one steal that I'm still not a believer in is easy.
00:10:54
William Dunphey
I don't care what people say. i don't care how many times Caleb picks it on his caster predictions.
00:10:57
zzweilous
yeah
00:11:00
William Dunphey
I do not believe Empoleon is the sauce. I just don't.
00:11:04
zzweilous
I will say that I did really enjoy the place that the Empoleon players made, namely Delusion, um who isn't actually
00:11:15
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:15
zzweilous
entirely new to the scene there was just a name change to make it a little more tpci appropriate as well as dapper discs who came in fifth place and i think equaled his best ever regional performance um and those players made empoleon look viable but i still feel as if as if it needs a lot of maintenance to be made work and it's not something that
00:11:25
William Dunphey
Thank you.
00:11:42
zzweilous
easily finds utility, finds its targets, and I don't know, maybe it's because it doesn't really take a hit as well, maybe it's because it's so hopeless against most mudslappers, and I think like during the broadcast, I remember like a moment where, maybe it was Caleb, Caleb may be Empolion's strongest soldier, but he was like, oh, you resist all the charge attacks that Gastrodon runs, so the matchup isn't that great.
00:12:08
zzweilous
I think you just get one shield slapped down, so... um Yeah, I think you don't really want to be a Napoleon in the current meta, but it's not totally ridiculous to bring it.
00:12:13
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:12:23
zzweilous
like You do have a pretty nice matchup against stuff like Credily, which is on every team.
00:12:24
William Dunphey
yeah
00:12:28
zzweilous
um If you manage to get a farm down somewhere, the energy essentially goes everywhere, but um it just feels so defensively vulnerable at times, and even though still typing typically a blessing, but
00:12:37
William Dunphey
e
00:12:42
zzweilous
Not really if you have like a pretty meager stat product plus just so much ground type damage going around.
00:12:50
William Dunphey
It's such an interesting position as well for that Pokemon because if you look at... So when you when you think about Empoleon, you think about very, very favorable matchups. I would say the Cradilly matchup or any matchup against, say, a Wigglytuff, those are probably some of your best possible situations that you can be in.
00:13:09
William Dunphey
Metal Sound does so much damage to a Cradilly. You can farm down Wigglytuff, etc. But I feel like... because of Empoleon's frailty and its numerous weaknesses, whether it's to fighting or to ground or to electric, whatever, um you don't really have those same farm down opportunities that you did in the 50 second or 60 second switch timer.
00:13:30
William Dunphey
ah So you can't really like build up a metal sound lead and then make the Gastron matchup competitive, if you get what I'm saying. um But it's such a funny thing because when you look at Pokemon like Bastidon,
Grand Finals In-Depth Analysis
00:13:40
William Dunphey
you can make the same argument. Say, oh, well, you can't really farm stuff down because the switch timer. But they're two steel types that operate so differently. Bastidon relies on that bulk and the fast attack smackdown damage. It doesn't use charge attacks.
00:13:53
William Dunphey
It's very, very fast attack oriented. So it's so funny how two steel types...
00:13:56
zzweilous
yeah It doesn't use charge attacks, especially appropriate when we look at the grand finals, but that will come later.
00:14:03
William Dunphey
Exactly, yes. ah it Sometimes it misfires charge attacks too, but you never know with Bastiodon. But yeah, it's just so funny how you can have two steel type Pokemon that maybe fill kind of similar roles, but they have such different play styles when you pick each of them up. And I think that's such a nuanced thing in the championship series that's not talked about enough.
00:14:23
William Dunphey
um One thing I did want to mention, we don't see it very much here in the Milwaukee top cut. I think we see them occasionally in Belo Horizonte. I believe there's one, two, three, four, five in Top Cut in Belo Horizonte.
00:14:36
William Dunphey
We only see four of them here in Milwaukee. That is Shadow Dust Noir. And if everyone who's a longtime listener recalls back to our Worlds recap or even our Worlds pre-show,
00:14:48
William Dunphey
um I was not a believer in Shadow of Dust and War. I think I called out Lyle Jeffs when he was running it at Worlds.
00:14:50
zzweilous
Amen.
00:14:53
William Dunphey
I was like, I don't know how this thing succeeded because it seems so like such a liability. um But Shadow Dust and War in this current meta is actually sneaky good. And I really do like a lot of the positional play you can gather with it. You and I were talking about this as well.
00:15:08
William Dunphey
um But my main takeaway is that Shadow Dust War seems to be a powerful answer to this double rock duo of Cradilly and Bastion. because we saw Steiner play that, we saw Meteor Fallion play that.
00:15:20
William Dunphey
I think that dynamic punch coverage, plus Astonish for that hard-hitting fast attack damage, it puts Dust Noir in such an interesting place in the meta, and the absence of Dark types helps it so much. We don't see that Minigalera and Moltres here in Milwaukee. We don't see any Drapion.
00:15:35
William Dunphey
um Obviously, no Umbreon. That's from like two years ago. But what I'm saying is that there's a clear path for this Pokemon to succeed. um I don't know if you agree or disagree or what your thoughts are.
00:15:45
zzweilous
Yeah, so I think like yeah we've seen a lot proof of concept for Galarian Corsola, right? Like that is essentially agreed upon to be the second best Pokemon in the meta just behind Credily.
00:15:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:15:59
zzweilous
And if you look at Dusknoir, it's the same Monoghost typing. So in terms of that, it is positioned fairly similarly. And now when team building, you just need to select whether you need another neutral damage sponge, something that you can just throw in a matchup, absorb a lot of energy, and just play like a little bit more defensively, or whether you want to go on on the offense.
00:16:22
zzweilous
And if you can afford to go on the offense with how the rest of your team is constructed, I think Shadow Dusk Knorr is a very powerful, very viable strategy right now. Not only because the Ghost and Fighting type coverage that it sports is only resisted by Hisuian, Zoroa, and Zoroark, both of which are not PvP relevant whatsoever,
00:16:43
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:16:43
zzweilous
um And also because thanks to a Shadow Punch, the pacing on it is even better than Galarian Costola. So um that's a 35 energy move, you generate 10 energy per astonish, so it's 4-3 pacing.
00:16:59
zzweilous
Essentially, it's like 12 turns to 9 turns. And that allows you to keep pace with um Pokemon like ah the Kanto Marowak, which won the event in the hands of Meteorfolion.
00:17:12
zzweilous
um You will also be able to more effectively you fight back against... like I think, personally, I'm okay with the neutral matchup that Kostola has against Credili, but as somebody who had a Galarian Kostola against a Bastiodon in the Grand Finals of Pittsburgh, I would have loved some fighting coverage there, because unless you have a really, really high-ranked Kostola, that matchup is brutal for you.
00:17:38
zzweilous
Whereas, if you're a Shadow Dusknor, you just...
00:17:38
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:17:41
zzweilous
I don't know, you probably don't one-shot it, but you're probably able to farm down with Astonishes. So that gets a lot better. um But there's two things that you need to be really aware of when building around Shadow Dusk Gnore.
00:17:54
zzweilous
And the one thing is that you need to have enough neutral options that surround it like Pokemon such as Cradily, maybe a Corviknight, Pokemon with a stat product of 2,000 and above that are able to take lot of hits from most of the common meta options.
00:18:00
William Dunphey
yes
00:18:10
zzweilous
um Plus, another thing that you want to make sure of is to have at least 89 HP on your Shadow Dusknoir. Because ah there is this um special fact about the Dusknoir versus Corsola matchup that I think Homestay Sandry pointed out on the Milwaukee broadcast, where every Astonish from Galarian Corsola does 11 HP worth of damage to your Dusknoir.
00:18:36
zzweilous
um Like, you can reach breakpoint, but that's very difficult. A boatpoint, but that's very difficult. um So if you have 89 HP or more, you will be able to survive eight Astonishes.
00:18:48
zzweilous
And that allows you to get to two Shadow Punches, even if they go straight for the fast attack down. And that allows you to win the one-shield scenario. And even if they play the two shields, you'll just be up a shield because before they even get to two moves, you'll be found down. So you'll have a low health Corsola on the other side that maybe comes out with a move, but you also will have a shield advantage. So that's not even that bad.
00:19:11
zzweilous
um Yeah, that's essentially all I have to say about Shadow Dusk Gnower. It is now a play Pokemon Champion. It did get that in Belo Horizonte, but it was a fairly strong choice even in Milwaukee, in my opinion.
00:19:25
William Dunphey
ah So as you were um mentioning that about the HP on Shadow Dust Noir, I opened my account and looked at mine. I've got a rank 153 and it's got, i don't know if you can see it, it's got 90 points, 90 HP points.
00:19:38
William Dunphey
ziy
00:19:38
zzweilous
Okay, let's Let's go!
00:19:38
William Dunphey
ninety
00:19:39
zzweilous
only...
00:19:40
zzweilous
not only Not only does this survive the Astonishes, but also if you like come out with a move and then your opponent has a Pokemon that would win CMP over you, you will not get the Shield KO.
00:19:40
William Dunphey
We are in business.
00:19:42
William Dunphey
Let's go.
00:19:55
zzweilous
Like you will survive even that one HP that the Shield would take. So honestly, this is the ideal Dusknoir.
00:20:03
William Dunphey
We are cooking.
00:20:03
zzweilous
Congratulations.
00:20:04
William Dunphey
We are cooking. I'm going to do the, if you're watching the YouTube version, you can see me doing the fly hand rub. This is what we're doing right here. Okay. So, um, I don't know. It was easy. we We don't do the show for a few weeks and then we come on and it feels like we never skipped a beat. And I, I had the biggest smile when you talked about stat product.
00:20:21
William Dunphey
Because I feel like that's something that not, I don't think any creators are really talking about this in depth, especially when it comes to show six team building.
Championship Reflections & Future Prospects
00:20:29
William Dunphey
But the two teams that I see with Shadow Dust Noir that seemed the best equipped for deep runs were Out of Pockets and J Mills. And the reason is that they actually share three of of the same Pokemon being Lapras, Fortress, and the Clodsire.
00:20:45
William Dunphey
Lapras with 2169 stat product on average. The Fortress with 2050 on average. And then the Claude Sire with 2400 stat product. Then you look at Pockets Guzzlord, 1983, right around that 2000 mark. And that's just a stock IV. If he's a good one, he could push up towards 2000.
00:21:02
William Dunphey
Credily, 2126 average stat product ah like J. Mills has on his team. So... I think that's something that's not talked about enough. And if you look at a lot of these successful regional teams, I did this briefly with some of the teams from last season.
00:21:17
William Dunphey
You have about an average of 2000 to 2400 stat product across the team. And then you commonly have one outlier, whether it's Primate, whether it's Scizor, whether it's Fierro. You have that one kind of wild card that breaks shields and is is just a wedge in terms of in terms of straddling matchups and breaking the meta. But on average, you want to look for those bulkier Pokemon. So as a general rule of thumb, everybody, if you are playing an event and you don't think a Pokemon is very good, for example, Dondozo doesn't look very good.
00:21:47
William Dunphey
Look at its stat product. When you realize that a high rank Dondozo has over 2100 stat product, that's a Pokemon you need to stash because it is one moveset update away from being meta relevant.
00:21:48
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:21:58
William Dunphey
So again, we we take some time off easy, but then we come back to the show and it feels like we never, never skipped a beat. ah Before we get into Grands, there's one thing I wanted to talk about. um When I said in the intro that this Milwaukee Regional felt like a cosmic event, it really did feel like things had been turned upside down.
00:22:16
William Dunphey
ah We had Elam, Rise, and Pocket in this tournament, and they all came into day two in the loser's side of the bracket. which is just such a weird thing to to to have happen in a regional, excuse me.
00:22:31
William Dunphey
um And we had other trainers like LW Josh or like a Teddy Bear or Dapper Disc or Meteor Follyon that were actually on the Winterside bracket. things that we would expect to be inverted so i had the question in my mind i i asked myself what happened to na's top three players did they cannibalize each other was there something else that happened uh so i went through their bracket runs i'll just do this real quick uh pocket made it to group a winners finals but he was defeated by dapper disc uh he defeated rangasami 2-1 to advance to day number two in day number two pocket beat tomahawk and j mills
00:23:03
William Dunphey
But he was knocked out by Rise in round three, which is just such a funny matchup as well. I'm not sure if the casters mentioned this, but this is literally a Milwaukee champ versus Milwaukee champ rematch, showdown, whatever you want to call it, in round three of losers ah in in day two, which is amazing.
00:23:19
William Dunphey
Rise to occasion took down both socks guy, but was beaten by meteor falling in round three of group C and day number one. He did defeat Mormon, that no Cape and flying pizza to punch his ticket to day number two.
00:23:30
William Dunphey
And day two, he had a really strong run. He beat valor, Ash delusion, out of pocket, and he won the rematch versus Dapper Disc, but he was knocked out 0-2 clean sweep by Pranov. And then finally, Elam took down Uzuku and Crispy Chris in rounds two and three of day one.
00:23:45
William Dunphey
Uzuku is one of my favorite players to watch. He was really impressive on stream a year or two ago. I hope he gets back to the podium soon because he's very, very, very good. But he was defeated by Teddy Bear in the Group B finals.
00:23:57
William Dunphey
And then finally, Elam in day number two, he beat Spandilisio and Dre Flames, but was also knocked out by Pranov. So Pranov took down Ryze and Elam on his way to the grand finals. And you and I kind discussed this over DMs.
00:24:12
William Dunphey
ah It says something about the competitive scene that you're not seeing the same champions rise up and win the tournaments this season. Steinar and Meteorfolian as the two first NA champs. I don't think that was on anyone's bingo board.
00:24:25
zzweilous
Yeah, and honestly, i am so happy with this development because this is like a stat that I think I brought up before because I was so frustrated with it.
00:24:37
zzweilous
like Not to take anything away from any NA regional champion that we have seen over the past year and a half, but the last NA champion that we saw that hadn't already been to a grand final in either the years 2022 or 23 was Abhinav all the way back in January 2024 in Portland, I believe.
00:25:03
zzweilous
And since then, every single regional champion in North America already had seen a grand final within the first two years of the circuit.
00:25:14
zzweilous
So it was really only the old guard and people who had already a lot of success who took home the titles. So to see like two surprise champions. Like I feel as if like Steiner wasn't really much of a surprise champion in terms of um previous results and general like acknowledged ability. But with Meteor Folien, we had somebody who also had like kind of his set heyday in 2023, got known for using that Bastion a lot, um finished I think ninth place, seventh place, seventh place, that were the career highest finishes in that season.
00:25:51
zzweilous
Um, still was a consistent competitor in the circuit, but never really reached those heights again, even dropped Bastiodon entirely for the 2025 season, and now returns to become a a champion with his signature pick after picking it back up again and making that Firo meta read that proved so effective.
00:26:13
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:26:13
zzweilous
I think that is just like a wonderful story that even in North America, which we always discuss as so top heavy, you can
00:26:13
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:26:23
zzweilous
persevere and become a champion by just like sticking to your favorites putting yourself out there and just having it be your day for once and it's not just like you have to be the perfect oh i top cut every single regional i attend and i play like a machine type of player you can just be have it be your day like just come back from losing the first half of the grand finals or three then adapting to your opponent's team and it feel felt like an anime moment almost where the hero is an unlikely one and that is something that i as a viewer as just like a fan of the game really appreciate because even though like i have
00:27:14
zzweilous
so much respect for all those super consistent top competitors for that for those repeat champions i'm rooting for the underdog and seeing the underdog take it all even though it was about it on and i still have ptsd from pittsburgh um i i think this was one of my favorite regionals to watch just from the macro narrative that came with it personally
00:27:36
William Dunphey
Wow.
00:27:41
William Dunphey
Yeah, it's, um, Yeah, so I feel like once you get once you get the same result for a certain period of time, it almost starts to feel kind of scripted, right?
00:27:54
William Dunphey
Maybe there's like an invisible hand, not the economic one, but there's an invisible hand kind of guiding the tournament as it progresses.
00:27:58
zzweilous
Okay.
00:28:01
William Dunphey
And you just assume, all right, well, Ryze is in the tournament. We'll see him in the losers finals or winners finals, right? You just kind of assume that these things are going to happen. And I feel like what we saw in Milwaukee was...
00:28:13
William Dunphey
such a a interesting combination of unexpected plays and kind of like awkward plays. it's It's one of these things where, for example, if you watch any other sport and you watch it at the highest level, you say, okay, well, I know this player is going to make the shot or I know that they're going to defend the goal or I know that whatever's going to happen is that usually happens is going to happen.
00:28:34
William Dunphey
But then you put on like college sports and you say, wow, this is this is wild. I have no idea what's going to happen next because there's such a variance in terms of skill ability and skill expression that, I don't know, either team or either player could suddenly trigger an upset. And that's just how it goes.
00:28:51
William Dunphey
So I felt like this was more of like watching college football or or a college matchups, right?
00:28:56
zzweilous
Thank
00:28:57
William Dunphey
There was just many more variables, which I don't normally expect. And yeah, again, when you look at this bracket, you see some of these names, a lot of people that tuned into the streams in 2022 or 2023, they would have said, oh yeah, well, we'll see pocket in grand finals or all here comes Elam again.
00:29:12
William Dunphey
And if would have seen this result, they'd be shocked. Right. And I, and I wonder as well, like, From a skill expression perspective, when you look at the world's results from Anaheim, you look at Steinar winning in in Pittsburgh and yourself being in the grand finals, two non-North American trainers in Grands.
00:29:31
William Dunphey
And then you look at this tournament with our you know our old guard, our top NA trainers falling in the losers bracket. It makes you wonder if if the skill expression in NA is top heavy or if it's degrading over time.
00:29:45
William Dunphey
I don't know. I mean, is that a valid question?
00:29:49
zzweilous
I personally feel as if a moment like this was just overdue because we had this insane level of consistency over so many, many months.
00:30:00
zzweilous
Like you had um in Europe last season. Obviously, it's not as if all the regional champions that were crowned last season were surprising ones, but you still had people that managed to rise to the top for the first time, be it somebody like Kazim, who always had good
00:30:18
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:30:19
zzweilous
GBL results, couldn't really put it together and play Pokemon, won the first event of the season, later followed it up with an insane run at EUIC, whether it be somebody like Icelandic Lapras who took Birmingham after, like, again, a very similar pattern of, okay, like, I'm a leaderboard level player, but when will it really click for me and play Pokemon?
00:30:44
zzweilous
And then you can have games that feel a little nervous, maybe not always... super like you don't really go into your matches thinking oh l2o l3o this opponent but it's close battles it's maybe like a bunch of two ones but i'm winning today and i can really assess my very best competitive self on this day And we had moments like that in Europe.
00:31:11
zzweilous
Like we have them all the time, I would even say. Like we have our top, top competitors.
00:31:14
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree. i agree
00:31:16
zzweilous
Like you know when Parton Man enters the journey is going to make it far. um But we always had room for people who were good but still felt like, i don't know, not to say that any top players don't feel like human beings, but they have like machine-like precision almost in how consistently they achieve their heights.
00:31:39
zzweilous
um and yeah also if you and this is like a fun exercise that I did ahead of our recording if you look at the win percentage so the games won not the overall sets won but just like the games won the this year's Milwaukee event was actually the least dominant event by any champion so far which is
00:31:50
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:32:07
zzweilous
Not necessarily a negative, it just means that this was an event that wasn't one-sided in a way previous events have been.
00:32:20
zzweilous
It just means that, oh, like, you don't have to have a 100% win rate like Rajev or Philbeck when they won their events that they just swept to rise to the top.
00:32:31
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:32:32
zzweilous
Meteorfolian still had a very impressive 62% win rate overall in games. um But yeah, I think it's, it just really goes to show that being a quote unquote normal good player and being a champion are mutually exclusive.
00:32:53
zzweilous
And I think that is such a hopeful message. Not only is it a lovely story for MeteorFolion, but also for people who may have struggled with similar results in the future where They haven't really reached the heights that they feel they're capable of.
00:33:12
zzweilous
And now they have another example to keep on trying is what I'm getting from this event, which is why I love the outcome so much, even though there was some heartbreak associated. Like we've been talking about just like the event itself, about Meteorfolion a lot, but Pranalf on the other side of the table is also, I think, a player who maybe entered the Play Pokemon Championship Series back in the day as somebody who knows he's one of the best in GBL and who was like awaiting Play Pokemon breakthroughs.
00:33:40
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:33:45
zzweilous
And I know he has a lot of real life things going on and can't really dedicate as much time and energy to competitive Pokemon as he maybe could have in the past.
00:33:57
zzweilous
But between his second place and the way he played this weekend, And the fact that, oh, even if you haven't been like a champion all the way back in 2022 and 2023, you can still make it.
00:34:13
zzweilous
I kind of want to see more of Pranav as well after this event, because there's like a category of players. I feel like Maxi, MillionP in Europe is another one of those where you know them from the GBL leaderboards, you know them from occasional deep runs, and you just like kind of wait for this
00:34:26
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:34:31
zzweilous
inconsistent genius to take their gold eventually. I feel like Pranav, again, one step closer um and really hopeful to see him compete more because I'm not saying we're all going to make it. We're all going to be regional champions eventually, but everybody has the chance.
00:34:51
zzweilous
And that is something that I haven't really felt as strongly in North America for a long time.
00:34:58
William Dunphey
Let's be real. Pranov has got about ah billion things going on, maybe 2 billion or 3 billion.
00:35:02
zzweilous
i Things not dollars? Okay.
00:35:07
William Dunphey
Oh, yes. Well, things being dollars, of course. I mean, billion-dollar plays all weekend and, yeah, a billion-dollar smile as well. But, yeah, i do feel like a few of those plays in the grand finals, I mean, you and I talked about this before we pressed record. There was one game where Pranov's Galarian Korsla saved him, and there was another game where the opposing Galarian Korsla absolutely crushed his dream. So, you know, you give some and and you get some.
00:35:34
William Dunphey
Pranov was ninth in Peoria in 2024, 2025. He had a couple of really good tournaments. He had a fifth place overall finish in Milwaukee and then a fifth fifth place overall in Portland.
00:35:46
William Dunphey
And then this is actually his career best finish this past event in Milwaukee, 2026, where was the runner the runner up um i feel like I feel like you danced around it a little bit, but you put a lot of work into this win percentage breakdown.
00:36:01
William Dunphey
And I really would love for you to kind of list it as as you did in the in the DM to me because it's so informative and it really shows perspective.
00:36:05
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:36:09
William Dunphey
I mean... Seriously, guys, we're talking about a 30% difference in win rate between the most mechanically consistent and perfect players to ever do it and MeteorFolion's championship.
00:36:21
William Dunphey
But they both have those gold medals. They both regional champions. And that margin of 30%, that's massive. That's one in three, right? so I don't know. I don't know if you were comfortable doing it, but I would love for you to just run down this list from like best performance to MeteorFolion to show people.
00:36:34
zzweilous
yeah i can I can go through it and I also want to point out that in the Pokemon theme song they say I want to be the very best and not I want to be the very best by the widest margin.
00:36:45
zzweilous
The margin does not matter. Gold is a gold.
00:36:48
William Dunphey
It's true.
00:36:48
zzweilous
um
00:36:48
William Dunphey
I think that was in the first draft of the song, but it was too wordy. they cut it out.
00:36:52
zzweilous
This may be true.
00:36:53
William Dunphey
They chopped it out.
00:36:53
zzweilous
This may be true. um Okay, so in terms of our best ever or like most um dominant ever performances,
00:36:55
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:37:01
William Dunphey
Dominant.
00:37:03
zzweilous
um at regional championships. We have Eleni Azrajev in Curitiba 2024, as well as Philbeck in Bologna 2025, who both went 18-0 and therefore are the only competitors to accomplish the undefeated tournament sweep.
00:37:20
zzweilous
um Then we have ah very a very close second or third, in this case, ah behind those two, Jakubovic at the 2023 OCIC,
00:37:31
zzweilous
who took the title at a 94.7% win rate, only dropping one singular game. And that was in round one against somebody who had a best buddy Aron on their team.
00:37:43
zzweilous
It's not a Lairon, it's not an Aggron, it's an Aron. on So yes if if his tournament dreams ended then and there, it would have been a very different OCIC.
00:37:51
William Dunphey
while
00:37:57
zzweilous
um Another... very impressive very memorable title run was that of human catcher buck in 2023's liverpool regional championship where he managed to i think there were two losses um the entire tournament and he got a 91 win rate with shadow charizard um then fairly recently dunberg in twenty twenty five s monterey regional with uh one of my favorite
00:38:24
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:38:26
zzweilous
three percentage and one of my favorite tournament runs ever that i witnessed as just a viewer from home was inadequate his first regional or special event championship where he took your Tina to a 26 and three finish.
00:38:45
zzweilous
And that is an 89.6% win rate. So those are some highlights over the years of competitive play from the most dominant performance performance, whereas um on the lower end,
00:38:49
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:38:59
zzweilous
They now 62% win rate for Firo and Bastardon in Milwaukee. And that dethrones out of pocket in Peoria 2023, where he took the title on on a 65.5% win rate.
00:39:16
zzweilous
um Seven of his losses came at the hands of Enhoff, who he beat eight times to um take home one of the most insane 15-game series we've ever witnessed.
00:39:29
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:39:29
zzweilous
And another very memorable grand finals that um had somebody emerge with a title at a fairly low win rate is European Great Pato Man in Gdansk 2024, where he faced Tonton Matus' Seeking, Arctobacs, and Clefable in the grand finals.
00:39:50
William Dunphey
That's right.
00:39:50
zzweilous
But yeah, the Alolan Ninetales prevailed to take that tournament with a 66.7% win rate. um
00:39:58
William Dunphey
Wow.
00:39:59
zzweilous
So yeah, like a lot of ah variation. I think the theme is that most of the low win rates come from tournaments where there's a bracket reset with our third and second place coming from champions that reset the bracket from the loser side.
00:40:18
zzweilous
um Whereas in Milwaukee, we had somebody enter from the winner side and then prevailing and finding the right strategy in the exact right moment after losing the first best of 5-0-3.
00:40:31
William Dunphey
I feel like those dominant storylines get pumped up so much. I very fondly remember the discussions around Human Catcher Bug with his Charizard win. Everyone was asking, oh, is he better than Harjev? Or is he better than Yakko? Or what's going on? you know is Is this the most complete trainer currently in the championship series?
00:40:50
William Dunphey
And feel like these debates are always fun to talk about. And they do dominate the headlines. And I think a lot of trainers that are maybe new to the scene, or maybe they're just kind of on the peripheral, they're not as ingrained as you and I i feel like they probably look at those headlines and they say, well, if this guy is getting 91% win rates, or if I need a 95% win rate, like Yako to win a tournament, then it's never going to happen for me because that's just way too difficult. And so many things have to line up to get that many wins in a row. And it's very, very challenging, but
00:41:22
William Dunphey
Yeah, to your point, I mean, 62% for MeteorFallion, the quote unquote least dominant performance. But hey, he shares that gold medal, just like Harjef, just like Yakko, just like all these other trainers who won their tournaments.
00:41:36
William Dunphey
And I feel like there's some kind of there's some kind of go battle league pun in there somewhere where if you win more than 50% of your games, you will get legend eventually.
00:41:37
zzweilous
Exactly.
00:41:45
William Dunphey
So keep on grinding, everybody.
00:41:47
zzweilous
This is true. This is true. If you win 51% of your battles, you will get that regional title eventually. um But no, like another thing that I want to point out, um when we talk about least dominant, that is, in my opinion, not putting Meteor Foglion down because he shares that podium of the least dominance.
00:41:56
William Dunphey
yeah
00:42:06
zzweilous
with international champions out of pocket and pattern man so honestly that's great company to keep and again like doing it with fero um that's levels of spice that many can only dream of achieving um so yeah are we do we feel ready to jump into those battles or there something else you want to highlight before speedy
00:42:15
William Dunphey
yeah
00:42:31
William Dunphey
No, and I just disagree with your point. I think that sometimes if you are a top tier player like Philbeck and everything is clicking for you on that weekend, everything is perfect and you're winning all your battles, that's fine.
00:42:43
William Dunphey
But not every ah race to gold is as simple or has ah such a straight path as... And I feel like Meteor Folly had the most obstacles and and most kind of stumbles to overcome. And that's honestly a testament to the resilience and the adaptability, which we also saw all the way to the grand finals reset.
00:43:03
William Dunphey
So, yeah, let's talk about grand finals. We had Pranov, who had just disposed of two of NA's best in Elam and Rise to Occasion. He was heating up. He was on fire. And he, I'm sure his butler was in the car waiting for him, thought he would end his tournament run earlier, but he did not.
00:43:18
William Dunphey
He stayed up on that stage. So Pranav defeats LW Josh 3-1, and then he rises up to the grand finals after being, um I think, yeah, Pranav entered day two on the loser side bracket and just grinded through the entire loser side.
00:43:34
zzweilous
yes
00:43:35
William Dunphey
Okay. So, What happened? ah Meteor Follion, I thought he was the champion. How can he go 0-3 in the grand finals? What the hell is he?
00:43:45
zzweilous
Well, it all looked fine in the very first game when we had a Bastiodon staring down the Murkrow, which is the dream, honestly. but this is where I would say that Meteorfolion did learn the matchup on the fly.
00:44:01
zzweilous
And this is the very first game, so there's still some insecurity about around how do I respond to the strategies that Pronov had in mind. Because Pronov in this matchup, it will be displayed on the YouTube screen right here, right now.
00:44:15
zzweilous
um He did have the advantage of his Corviknight essentially being unchecked. I feel like Pronov kind of looked at the IOMero team that did so well in previous events and then thought, oh, how do I tweak it in a way that I have a little bit more flexibility? And if you ask for it,
00:44:15
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:44:33
zzweilous
flexibility rather than hard wins, you're talking Corviknight. So he ah did go for that double curved str- I so nervous to say the double.
00:44:41
William Dunphey
Double flyer.
00:44:47
zzweilous
it's it's It's fine, maybe we cut this from Yeah, he did have the double flies with Murkrow and Corviknight,
00:44:49
William Dunphey
No, it's okay. Everyone the youtube comments, type what you think ZZ was going to say. But for now, we can we can move on.
00:45:03
zzweilous
where he but has like two Pokemon that look fairly identical, but do very different things. And that the one is horrible against Barseodon, whereas the other is like so much bulkier.
00:45:10
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:45:15
zzweilous
It has sand attack to do fast move damage damage as steel as its defensive typing. um So really took advantage of that flexibility and pivots it immediately.
00:45:25
zzweilous
So the response that Meteorfolion has in game one is his Corsola. And while that is not, necessarily a horrible response and it's a fairly neutral matchup and Korsala with the more consistent damage output is typically able to take it.
00:45:38
zzweilous
You will it have to shield paybacks to make that work. So Pranath does get the shield advantage in that secondary matchup. um Essentially decides, oh, I will not be able to win switch advantage shield because the Korsala would farm my Corviknight down.
00:45:56
zzweilous
So what I will do instead is i hard pivot back into my Murkrow to snipe all the energy away from that Corsara that it had built up and therefore denied a charge attack.
00:46:05
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:46:07
zzweilous
That still means that you will have your Murkrow on the Bastiodon, which is not where you want to be, but you chip it into essentially one Mudbomb range and then you unleash your shield advantage, your Noven Stunfisk in the back on that weakened Bastiodon and on a Blastoise that is not only a shield down, but also has to swap in and is therefore never able to outpace your Univin's Stunfisk, which just does consistent, super effective damage with discharges and with Thundershocks.
00:46:39
zzweilous
So even though it looked really favorable for Meteorfolion in the lead, because there was no clear plan to play around Corviknight's safe swap without giving up shield advantage,
00:46:52
zzweilous
And because Unovan's stun fist was so well positioned to break the core of Blastoise and Bastiodon, game number one did go to Pranav.
00:46:58
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:47:01
William Dunphey
I remember watching it. I remember watching back game number one. And when you see Pranov instantly go to Corviknight and Meteor Folly and goes Galarian Corsula instead of Blastoise, I was like,
00:47:14
William Dunphey
What's going on? Like, why would you not ah choose choose the Blastoise here? But ah yeah, to exactly to your point. And I think that also influenced game number two because in game number two, ah we did see the Bastiodon lead for Meteor Follyon. So he doubled down on his his core pick.
00:47:29
William Dunphey
ah This time Pranov led Cradily. And because we didn't see that instant swap to Blastoise in game number one, Pranov swaps to that Corviknight in game number two ah to counter the Bastiodon lead. So ah you notice Pranov in game number one, he went with his Corviknight Unova Stunfist because I thought Stunfist was a great pick, especially against the Blastoise and Bastiodon.
00:47:50
William Dunphey
ah But then he pivots to Cradilly and Corviknight Core ah in order to support more of the Blastoise action. Because, I mean, let's be real. Unova Sunfist doesn't take any damage from rollouts, but it does not appreciate the Hydro Cannon.
00:48:03
William Dunphey
And I think that Cradilly gives a bit more flexibility. ah I think that... Pranav also got to see a bit of how Cradilly plays into Meteorfolian's team when Meteorfolian played LW Josh earlier on on stream because that was a ah really tough matchup for Josh looking at how he didn't have any answers to Firo and the presence of the Unova Stunfist on Pranav's team did keep the Firo at bay at times but um Yeah, I think that he he got to see firsthand that Craterly could be a nice little wedge. Not a strong answer, but a nice kind of buffer to kind of give himself some more play, play with the switch timer and express his skill ceiling, which I think i think was really important for him.
00:48:43
William Dunphey
um But yeah, i don't know I don't know if you want to go into game two in detail or game three, but this was a ah pretty dominant series for Pranav.
00:48:49
zzweilous
I think, yeah, I think in game two, there is um the situation where um Pranav catches a move on his Corsola, the one that we mentioned before, where the endgame comes down to Pranav's Corsola hanging on by like one HP in the fast move down against the Bastiodon.
00:49:12
zzweilous
And because Meteorfolion did throw the Flamethrower rather than the same type attack bonus Stone Edge, um That is why the Corsola was left with that extra HP.
00:49:23
zzweilous
um Also, not to take away from Pranav, there was also some excellent energy management going on to even maneuver himself into that position.
00:49:30
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:49:30
zzweilous
um But yeah, maybe Meteorfolian assuming that there could be something like the Fortress coming in, but a little bit too hastily throwing the energy um and therefore not doing as much damage as he could have entered the Corsola.
00:49:46
zzweilous
and able to enabled Pranav to have that win condition. And again, like, causal IPs matter and IVs matter, and sometimes you do hang on with that crucial 1 HP.
00:49:57
zzweilous
Otherwise, the game probably would have gone to a replay because three-turn fast attack versus three-turn fast attack could have been a simultaneous KO, but in this case, the game goes to Pranav.
00:50:08
William Dunphey
You know, in game number two, seeing the Glare and Corsula survive on just one HP to win the game.
00:50:08
zzweilous
um
00:50:14
William Dunphey
ah In film, they call that foreshadowing. And we will get into that later on in the grand finals reset. um But yeah, you you absolutely nailed it. I have in my notes, Pranav throws double air cutters instead of one payback into Corsula. Pranav catches flamethrower on Glare and Corsula.
00:50:29
William Dunphey
And then Pranav survives with one HP versus Bastion to win the game. So... Heading into game number three, we see the Galarian Corsula lead this time from Meteor Follion into the Koronite.
00:50:40
William Dunphey
It looks like Pranov connected the Payback into the Galarian Corsula, swapped to Cradilly. Meteor Follion goes Basied on. The key in this game for me was Pranov getting to the fourth Grass Knot versus Basied.
00:50:52
William Dunphey
That applied way more pressure than I think Meteor Follion was ready for. And it looked grim after that because... there was this reprieve, right? Oh, fourth grass, maybe I'm cooking here. And then Pranov brings out his Murkrow to match up against Blastoise, which is not good in terms of rollout damage.
00:51:08
William Dunphey
ah But luckily for for Pranov, his Murkrow is able to double up on the drill packs and he swept the Galarian Corsula and Blastoise in the back to win that game. So it was, and that game was really close as well.
00:51:19
zzweilous
Yeah, for that game, i actually have two nodes. The one you pointed out is where Meteor Folien tried to commit to the fast attack down with the Smackdowns against the Cradilly.
00:51:30
zzweilous
um But by taking that Grass Knot, he is getting put into center attack downrange for the Corviknight. So he is not able to get to use all of his energy and may have been better advised to use some of it earlier to avoid that Grass Knot damage.
00:51:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:51:47
zzweilous
And in the end game, I did look at the Sims and if you just go for a Skull Bash early and then never throw charged attack again, Blastoise will be able to survive long enough against the Murkrow to blast attack it down far enough so that the low health or like yellow health Korsola in the back would be able to land three astonishes and farmed on the Murkrow before it gets to its final move.
00:52:20
zzweilous
um This is a little counterintuitive, but just because of that super fast 10 turn pacing to Drill Packs, Blastoise is actually not able to outspam a Murkrow just because the first Hydro Cannon takes 12 turns, just because of how a rollout is like one short of a Hydro Cannon after three attacks.
00:52:28
William Dunphey
Uh-huh.
00:52:42
zzweilous
So you always need the fourth. roll out for your first Hydro, and then you have the nice pacing. um So, yeah, charge attacks fortunately weren't the Meteorfolion does try for a play with a catch, but Pronov actually anticipates it and denies that opportunity.
00:52:58
zzweilous
Then finally manages his Mercrow energy perfectly, gets the two moves, takes out both the Costola and the Blastoise, but yeah, I would have really loved that cheeky Skull Bash just to increase your durability in that matchup, and then
00:52:58
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:53:14
zzweilous
faster to take everything down.
00:53:16
William Dunphey
But that's the difference, right? That's the difference between someone who is maniacally looking at sims and asking for scrims, ah maybe even their post and aurac get reacted to with a job application emote like Pocket.
00:53:28
William Dunphey
but That's where those players that that look at the two shield matchup, they remove Hydro Cannon from Blastoise's tool set and say, well, what if what if I do this? What if I skull bash? What if I roll out through? And they actually...
00:53:41
William Dunphey
get deep into the simulations and look at what's possible and realize those wind conditions in real time. And MeteorFalling just had such a different approach, right? You look at the wind rate, you look at his performance in the past, you look at his unconventional winds in Milwaukee.
00:53:55
William Dunphey
It was a very different tempo and a very different approach from from this trainer. So looking at this grand finals, right? For me, you know, after seeing so many dominant players win championships over these past four years, I was thinking, okay, well, he goofed up by not going Blastoise into the Corviknight in game number one.
00:54:13
William Dunphey
ah He goofed up by trying to smack down the Cradily to death in game number two. And then he messed up again in ah game number three by not throwing the Skull Bash and rollouting down, like as as you pointed out. So to me, I'm thinking...
00:54:30
William Dunphey
Maybe Meteor doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe this is a a situation where Pranov and his ah skill expression is just going to overwhelm Meteor. But what was silently happening in the background, you've alluded to this a couple times, was that the gears were turning.
00:54:46
William Dunphey
There were calculations being made and there were... adjustments being kept in mind much more than all. I think a lot of people give me your credit for. it There was a lot of thought going into what was going to happen next because after an Oh three, a lot of play, a lot of players rightfully so would be mentally crippled.
00:55:03
William Dunphey
And they would say, well, this just ah isn't a good matchup for me. I don't have the team combat advantage. My opponents in my head, whatever, whatever line of reasoning, but meteor falling and kind of pushed against the tide.
00:55:14
William Dunphey
And I think that shows that the leads in the grand finals reset glaring course light into fortress. I'm not sure. Honestly, ZZ, I'm not sure what possessed, uh, Pranav to lead fortress.
00:55:24
William Dunphey
I don't see that many targets for it, but, uh, but he went with it and, that was not a good lead.
00:55:30
zzweilous
I think personally what happened when Pranav brought out the fortress is that he thought he had just baited Meteor into bringing that Cridili that looked so strong into, not even so strong, but it looked like a core breaker to a lot of the things that ah Pranav leaned into otherwise.
00:55:50
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:55:51
zzweilous
Whether it be the Murkrow, which could be one shot, and where you also could tank a move from or the Covenite which does look like a neutral enough matchup but Cradilly is actually surprisingly comfortable in there even with the double resisted assets it's just the power of pacing and Rock Tomb and yeah occasionally Pranav just played soft to that Cradilly and then probably tried to punishing it by inviting it before but yeah this backfires in this instance because
00:56:09
William Dunphey
yes
00:56:24
zzweilous
The fortress doesn't really have a great target on Meteorfolian's line at all, and the Corsona is probably the worst target because the Bugbites are resisted by that Ghost type.
00:56:36
William Dunphey
Exactly. ah Full trios for this game number one, Galarian Corsula, Blastoise, and Bastiodon. So not a whole lot of of changes. I think he ran this line once before. And then Pranav with Unova Stunfisk going back to that Pokemon after leaning heavily into Kravili to close out games two and three of the grand finals. He he goes back to the Stunfisk and has the Corviknight as well.
00:56:58
William Dunphey
I have in my notes here that Pranav swaps immediately to his Corviknight to get out of that Galarian Corsula versus Fortress matchup. And Meteor goes Blastoise. So already, bam, game one.
00:57:09
William Dunphey
We're seeing a correction for what we saw in the grand finals the first time. ah Staying in with the Galarian Corsula versus the Corviknight, no. This time Meteor Falling goes Blastoise into that safe swap.
00:57:20
William Dunphey
The second payback from the Corviknight does force a shield from the Blastoise. um But Meteor Falling does a couple of interesting things here. I think at the very end, he actually swaps in his Galarian Corsula and then shields a Rock Tomb or something like that. And I was a little bit confused as to why he would do that.
00:57:36
William Dunphey
But it turns out that the energy on his Galarian Corsula was what really tied up the game. And i i kind of ah couldn't see where he was going with it, but in the end, it made sense.
00:57:48
zzweilous
Exactly. Let me check where we are in my notes right here.
00:57:52
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:57:52
zzweilous
Oh, there's an interesting one. The game two is is so interesting to me because now we move to game two with a Mercur lead into Corsula, which is actually exactly where Pranav's Mercur wants to be.
00:57:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:58:05
William Dunphey
Very good for Pranov.
00:58:10
zzweilous
But after just getting dismantled with the fortress the game before, um There's not really a good response to the Cridili that then comes in for Meteor.
00:58:24
zzweilous
um So what Pranav does is he stays in with the Murkrow for quite a long time, um eventually gets to chip it with a Drillpack, but what ends up happening is a Rock Tomb catch onto Unuvin's Dunfisk. So Pranav actually...
00:58:45
zzweilous
um going for a very counter-intuitive play bringing the ground electric type into the grass type but at that point it is ah sufficiently weakened and neutralized and you do catch that um resisted rock type damage.
00:58:58
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:59:02
zzweilous
However, um by playing it out this way in a 45 second switch timer ah economy um that does enable EtoFolian to essentially pivot back in in a pretty timely fashion.
00:59:22
zzweilous
So let mean let me check where... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This game ends up with UFISC energy being the deciding factor as both kind of switch with aligned timers and store energy respectively.
00:59:39
zzweilous
um And that stored energy on the Innoven Stunfisk is then later on used by Pranav to um snipe the energy from Bastiodon that, again, had more than a move loaded up at that point.
00:59:55
William Dunphey
Exactly.
00:59:55
zzweilous
Plus, the Unovan Stunfisk also gets to another move versus Corsola. So really putting overtime ah putting in overtime with that Pokemon that initially got swapped into the Grass-type, which is typically one of its harder counters on Meteorfolian's side.
01:00:12
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I have in my notes, Pronov swaps and CMP ties Bassey with Ufis, gets the knockout. And then there was the double charge move Murkrow winning the game. So Pronov strikes back, evening out the series 1-1 here in our grand finals reset.
01:00:28
William Dunphey
ah Interesting note. This is the last time that Meteor is going to play Bastion in the entire tournament. There's still three more games, but he makes even more ah adjustments going into game number three. So let's jump right in.
01:00:41
William Dunphey
Game number three, we see a Cradilly mirror match in the lead. ah The full team is Cradilly, Firo, and Shadowcanto Marowak. the first appearance of Firo in the grand finals for Meteor, ah taking on the Cradilly, Fortress, and Corviknight. So like you pointed out, with the Fortress in game number one of the reset,
01:00:58
William Dunphey
I think that Pranov wants to see that Cradillion line up against the fortress or maybe go for the Bastion as like a second best option because you can still stand to him to hell, but he gets neither of those in this battle number three. So...
01:01:12
William Dunphey
Um, Cradilly wins a charge attack priority in the mirror, which is really big. Uh, sorry, meteor meteors, uh, Cradilly wins a charge attack priority in the mirror, which is really big for him. And, ah but in spite of that meteor falling in, still swaps in with his Fiero, which again, like doing unconventional things, there was a matchup against LW Josh where God really,
01:01:32
zzweilous
I don't mind this play actually because like once you are in yeah once you are in like drill pack range or like even in foundline range with your credily as like I'm a big enthusiast when it comes to some of those unconventional pack users, right?
01:01:48
zzweilous
I've been playing a lot of Shadow 2 Cannon in JBL as well as in practice.
01:01:51
William Dunphey
you
01:01:52
zzweilous
And it has happened more than once that I hard swap into a Credily that I know will not be reaching a move before I reach mine. Because the assets are not that threatening and the pacing on those drill pack pack users, like it's just 10 turns every time and it's favorable against Credily.
01:02:12
zzweilous
So once it's weakened, the matchup isn't actually that terrible. And another thing that um this accomplishes here is to draw out the Corviknight, which could be a good thing for the Cantor Marowak that Meteor has in the back, um in case the only answer that Planauf brought would have been that flying steel type, um especially because thanks to that aggressive swap,
01:02:40
zzweilous
Firo does get a little bit of an energy head start, and that enables you to get to a third drill pack in the end, which does make that matchup a lot closer than you would think, given that Firo only hits for resistive damage.
01:02:53
zzweilous
um But yeah, the endgame, unfortunately, does end up being quite dire for Meteor, as all shields will still be in play at that point. And if you have a Bug Bite user, which, again, it's now four damage per turn, so it's a very ah high damage fast attack Plus, you have Sand Tomb on your side as the fortress, um and therefore, you will be able, thanks to your debuffing move, thanks to your superior stat product, you just munch through the mud-slapping Cantumarowak, and the Cradilly that was being saved with him little bit of health doesn't really matter, because super effective bug bites just decimate that, making it um a 2-1 for Pranav at this point.
01:03:36
William Dunphey
Yeah. i I remember when a meteor falling and let the sand tomb through and no shielded it. I remember Pranav like looked at the camera. He's like, what is a chance? And, uh, yeah.
01:03:46
zzweilous
It did not matter. It did not matter because even if it was shielded, the fast attack damage would have been overwhelming. But yeah, certainly like might as well shield it.
01:03:56
zzweilous
What else are you going to shield type of deal? But I don't think it really shifted that game into any direction.
01:03:59
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:04:02
William Dunphey
Slightly off topic, but we haven't made any shorts, like clips from our show into short form content. But I feel like I've been playing a lot of Shadow 2 Cannon and Go Battle League has got to be one of them because I never expected to hear such insanity.
01:04:19
William Dunphey
But I shouldn't be that surprised, right? I mean, look what I'm talking to.
01:04:21
zzweilous
It is currently on the draft for my Gdansk team and I am very unlikely to take it off that draft.
01:04:30
William Dunphey
Oh my God. All right. Well, everyone, ah they say that one of the most important things in life is having something to look forward to. So put that on your calendar. Gdansk, maybe potentially shadow to Canon from, ah from ZZ. All right. So we'll see how it goes, but.
01:04:46
William Dunphey
um Pranab is one game away from winning the grand finals reset. He already did a 3-0 in the first grand final set. He stumbled a bit in game number one, but he is right of the ship. He's one win away from becoming your Milwaukee regional champion. Coming from the loser side bracket as well to start day number two, an insanely deep run so far. So...
01:05:06
William Dunphey
Jumping right into it. Game number four, one game away, Pranov, and then Meteorfolian needs to win the next two. He needs to win out to become the champion. and Game number four, we get Galarian Corsula leads on both sides. The full trios are Galarian Corsula, Blastoise, and again, the Firo from Meteorfolian taking on Galarian Corsula, Cradilly, and Corviknight for Pranov. So...
01:05:28
William Dunphey
In this lead situation, Pranov goes Corviknight. He actually captives the Galarian Corsula, connects an air cutter, and then Blastoise comes out to answer the Corviknight again. So at this point, Pranov's kind of got to be expecting this to happen.
01:05:40
William Dunphey
um I have in my notes here two shield Firo. I believe that in the mid game, Meteor Fallion two shields his Firo, uses all his resources on that. um but i I'll refer to your notes as I think they're a bit more thorough.
01:05:54
William Dunphey
Meteor shields, Blastoise, Pranav catches DP on Corsula, which I assume is Drillpeck. And then Firo gets Drillpeck one turn before the Corbonite gets a payback, and that clutches a very close win in game number four for for Meteor.
01:06:08
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. that was like There was a lot of switching on Pranav's end, which didn't really end up working too, too well in his favor, I would say, because there was like a moment where Meteorfolion even sneaks the full rollout with Blastoise after making a making a catch, and at the end of the day, and feel as if
01:06:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:06:34
zzweilous
yeah ah I don't know. I won't say like Pranav on outmaneuvered himself there.
01:06:40
William Dunphey
yeah
01:06:40
zzweilous
um But yeah, just it feels like a very even matchup as it tends to feel when there's a mirror in the lead. um But yeah, just with the superior pacing, it's just that Meteor gets a little bit more value out of each and every of his Pokemon.
01:07:00
zzweilous
And yeah, at that point, I think I was like typing in chat that Blasto is kind of, even though it's not really been the Pokemon that he brought the most, it's been the Pokemon that showed up the most.
01:07:14
zzweilous
Because like, Fearow is nice and all, but like, you look at the teams, it doesn't really have the clearest targets beyond maybe Corsola. um And Blasto is, it's just, it's like the best response to Corviknight, which is coming every game.
01:07:30
zzweilous
Blastoise, even if you invest resources into it. And I think that is something that makes Blastoise so good and makes its potency little bit underrepresented in Sims.
01:07:43
zzweilous
Even if you invest resources into it,
01:07:43
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:07:45
zzweilous
you typically exit with a Hydro Cannon, which is community-day move. Very powerful, very useful, and therefore just having the Blastoise to so move around a little here and there, protect it from opposing Cridulis by chipping that down and bringing in the Fearow with the even better initial pacing to to take on that.
01:08:10
zzweilous
You get so much value out of a Pokémon, which... merely looks neutral in Sims. And again, this is why I feel as if Blastoise is a very good example for why being dominant doesn't equal being good because none of its wins are truly dominant, but you can still get so much value out of it if you play it the right way.
01:08:28
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:08:34
zzweilous
And especially with that catch and sneak, which is one of my favorite techniques, Meteor did a good job at that in game four. um before we go into the very last game of the tournament.
01:08:48
zzweilous
um We have a Pekker into a Pekker. We have a Fearow into a Murkrow. um Then the remaining Pokemon are obviously Corsula for Meteor, Corviknight for Pranath.
01:09:01
zzweilous
And then also and very ah very sneaky matchup with Cradilly on Pranath's side and Shadow Kanto Marowak.
01:09:12
zzweilous
on MeteorFolion's side. And yeah, I think Boom20 was actually the one and only person to shout that out in Twitch chat, that when Meteor found himself shieldless with his Marowak into the Credili, it didn't actually look bad for him, because if the Credili runs acid, which is the preferred move currently,
01:09:32
William Dunphey
listen
01:09:38
zzweilous
you don't just cleanly one shot a good IV Kanto Marowak with your grass nod.
01:09:46
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:09:46
zzweilous
And what instead ended up happening was the simultaneous KO actually, because you just can't really asset that Pokemon down without sacrificing the entirety of your own health.
01:09:59
zzweilous
And yeah, after, so it starts with both peckers investing both shields to neutralize each other. um and we have Corsola into Cradillion to Merowag, and it comes down to whether an air cutter from Corviknight, which is in one Astonish range, um plus one Sand Attack, which Pranav does throw, like people were were wondering, oh did he need to do one more?
01:10:22
William Dunphey
Yes, yes.
01:10:24
zzweilous
you If you look at Meteor's screen during that matchup, you see the Sand Attack animation. You don't really see it on Pranav's end, but you see it on Meteor's end, so the Sand Attack has been performed,
01:10:32
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:10:34
zzweilous
um That one, Sand Attack and the Air Cutter come one, maybe two HP away from knocking out the Corsula. It is the last Pokemon that still stands in Milwaukee, ah Meteor Fallon is the Milwaukee Regional Champion.
01:10:49
William Dunphey
It's such a micro adjustment because when you're up against a three turn fast attack, like astonish with Corvonite, you can throw the one single sand attack. If you throw the second sand attack, that means you're throwing your air cutter on turn three, which is the same turn that the damage from the astonish actually applies.
01:11:06
William Dunphey
So then you're running a really risky gambit there where it one of three things happen, right?
01:11:09
zzweilous
Yes, yes, yes.
01:11:11
William Dunphey
Either one, you faint to the astonished damage to you get DRE and you get the second sand attack plus the air cutter. Uh, and then you might win or situation three, you do get DRE and you get the knockout, but then you go to a match review and you likely get a rematch situation.
01:11:29
William Dunphey
Right. So it felt like,
01:11:30
zzweilous
I personally believe that a rematch can't be granted for DRE scenarios.
01:11:36
William Dunphey
yeah, yeah.
01:11:36
zzweilous
But it would be really awkward for the judges to have to decide that too.
01:11:37
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:11:40
zzweilous
So um yeah.
01:11:41
William Dunphey
Yeah. This one, I'm sorry, go ahead.
01:11:43
zzweilous
At the end of the day.
01:11:46
zzweilous
ah yeah. No, you go ahead.
01:11:48
William Dunphey
ah I was just going to point out this one, if I could if i could draw some more ah vibrant analogies here. This one felt like an old Western showdown where Pranov and Meteor met at high noon and they both emptied their pistols to start off here.
01:12:05
William Dunphey
And you had the Firo and the Murkra both double shielding in the lead. And then no shields were in play for the rest of the game, right? So you burn both, ah you burnt you burn all four shields, ah two on both sides, ah immediately, right? Just right off the rip.
01:12:19
William Dunphey
And then they went into like a fist fight. And it was really just mano-a-mano, Marowak versus Cradily, mano-a-mano, Galarian Corsula versus Corviknight. And in a heartbreaker, as you pointed out, with just one or two HP remaining, the Galarian Corsula did... for Meteor what it did for Pranov earlier on in the series, surviving on just one HP to win the title. And you could see Pranov just put his head in his hands. He just couldn't believe it because I felt like he was close. I felt like he had it, you know, throwing the move. I thought that was it.
01:12:49
William Dunphey
but um But by by the the hair on his chin there, ah Meteor Follion was able to to win that matchup. And I feel like that is just so analogous to his entire run. Just bringing things to the absolute limit, down to the wire, and then getting that clutch win at the very end to to win the championship. So
01:13:08
zzweilous
It was fantastic television. um
01:13:10
zzweilous
And obviously, like this is this is merely hindsight, and I will not say that I would have played it much differently if I was in Pranav's situation in that matchup.
01:13:11
William Dunphey
it was...
01:13:22
zzweilous
But I think a way to win that match, to win that endgame from the position ah the players found themselves in, would have been to use the air cutter to chip the Kanto Marowak into Grass Knot range and then overload on energy on the Cradilly up until the moment where Marowak is like a turn away from reaching the second Bone Club and then trying to make the move against the Corsula to instead take out with a Grass Knot in the end.
01:13:56
zzweilous
I think that it would have been possible, but
01:13:57
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:14:00
zzweilous
how like if you you don't really want to be in a position where you lose turns by making another decision to like throw an attack because you like the Kanto Marouac wasn't revealed at that point maybe it would be important to really switch super fast so you have like a split second like 0.5 seconds to make that decision to make the calculations how do I take out the Pokemon that just appeared on my screen could have still been for different Pokemon at this point.
01:14:33
William Dunphey
Exactly. Yeah.
01:14:34
zzweilous
um yeah Especially if it was so close to just like being enough with the air cutter anyway against the Corsola. So yeah, like a little bit of a heartbreaking ending, but um fantastic run by Pranav.
01:14:51
zzweilous
I don't want to bring up win percentages again, but by virtue of having this very extensive losers run, Branagh's win percentage for a second place finisher was pretty high and it just goes to show that his overall gameplay um that weekend was something he should certainly be proud of.
01:15:03
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
01:15:11
zzweilous
And yeah, first grand finals appearance. ah Historically, most NA regional champions have been to a grand final before. So um yeah, there's probably more to come in the future.
01:15:24
William Dunphey
Well, here's the thing, right? If you're Pranov and you beat Ryze, usually that's enough to win ah championship. If you beat Ryze and Elam, that's definitely enough to win an NA, right?
01:15:34
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:15:36
William Dunphey
I mean, that's what you expect to see in the top three or top four. But I think half thing to do with three times in a row was a tall ask to take down elite trainers. I mean, three times in a row was definitely a tough ask. Um,
01:15:48
William Dunphey
And yeah, I really appreciate your point. I think with perfect information that we have in hindsight, we can look at how the matchup could have gone differently. ah But just to reemphasize how just how singular this this Grand Finals reset game five was, you had the two shields in the lead, you had the simul KO with the Cradilly and the Marowak, and then like ah like a hand of cards and poker, you just kind of were dealt the card, which was the last Pokemon in the back, and you just kind of had to deal with what you had. So it was just a really...
01:16:16
William Dunphey
sticky situation for Pranov to be in. And I'm sure he's played this matchup over in his mind a thousand times trying to figure out what he could have done differently, which is something that a lot of a lot of players do when they get to that level and they don't quite clutch it out.
01:16:28
William Dunphey
It doesn't leave there their minds, right? So um yeah, tough matchup for Pranov, but we have to give Meteor his his flowers. Like you said, breaking through, winning a championship in Milwaukee in impressive fashion. So congrats congrats to our friend Meteor.
01:16:46
William Dunphey
Um, one question for you as we close up our Milwaukee recap here is Firo fantastic or is it, or is it just a fad?
01:16:57
zzweilous
uh my fantastic friend pharaoh is not a fraud i think it's it okay there's some feathers in there that i could also start ruffling but um yeah i personally believe it's a real pokemon i think it has played it does play differently from ah shadow true cannon which i personally prefer um it's a little more flexible in that it sports that drill run coverage which ditched it would did come in handy against
01:17:06
William Dunphey
Ah, nice.
01:17:24
zzweilous
I think there was an Napoleon that was on the receiving end of a drill run before. And if you're up a team with a Bastiod on, you have a way to fight back.
01:17:28
William Dunphey
yeah Oh yeah.
01:17:34
zzweilous
If you have a Claudezei on the other end of the field, um even though drill packs do chunk, um i i believe that you never two-shot with mere drill packs and you need that drill run to really get that done. Like one drill pack, one drill run, probably enough.
01:17:53
zzweilous
um So certainly some utility there. Then the pacing is fantastic. but What I really like about normal flyers too, this doesn't really apply to Meteorfolian's team, but because you are not weak to fairies, you are able to run a normal flyer and a dark type on the same team, which like sometimes you roll those into one and you have like ah mecro or a or Galarian Moltres, but like they don't have the exact same utility.
01:18:19
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:18:23
zzweilous
like pokemon like fortress with its bug bites uh they have a pretty decent matchup into the dark flyers whereas um the normal flyers just resist that fast attack pressure so that is pretty nice as well so yeah i think fero death definitely has a niche um i think it is here to stay in one of the more prominent spots of the spice cabinet um I don't believe it's going to be a consistent Pokemon that makes um regional top 8s and certainly not usage top 8s, but I think it's fairly likely that we will see another Fero medal down the line.
01:18:50
William Dunphey
Thank
01:19:01
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think it takes a specific type of player to make that Pokemon work. And I think, um again, sorry for everyone who doesn't like puns, but ah the stars really did align for Meteor Folly. And all right, I said it ah in terms of aligning his Bastion and his Fearow on the same team.
01:19:19
William Dunphey
And I heard Henry say during the cast that... ah Apparently Meteor Falling had tried other Pokemon, and he just really had come to admire Firo from his Go Battle League practice. He just thought it was such a good core breaker.
01:19:30
William Dunphey
lot of teams were not ready for it, so took it right over from GBL into the championship series, and it did wonders.
01:19:35
zzweilous
Yeah. The the Go Battle weekend is actually coming up the weekend of Lille. So we're we're fairly close at the time of recording.
01:19:41
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:19:43
zzweilous
um You get 20 sets per day. Make sure to get them all in because apparently you can discover some hidden gems if you just play your GBLs. So certainly encouraging everybody to just play the battles. What's the worst that could happen?
01:19:58
zzweilous
um
01:19:59
William Dunphey
Phew, wow.
01:19:59
zzweilous
Yeah. So I think I have two more closing remarks when it comes to Milwaukee.
01:20:04
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:20:04
zzweilous
The one would be, ah we have not really talked much about LW Josh at all yet, but this is a trainer who was yet to top cut heading into Milwaukee and came away with a bronze medal, which I think is just so impressive.
01:20:20
zzweilous
And he's the highest finishing Claude Xayah player of the event, which I thought was probably the Pokemon that I missed most in my Pittsburgh grand finals because it just would have matched up so well.
01:20:25
William Dunphey
Ooh.
01:20:32
zzweilous
It is one of the few more neutral answers to Credily, and it is also a ground type that has the ability to really put the heart on flying types, at least most. um Corviknight, not so much, but it is a fairly versatile Pokemon and really served LW Josh really well here. Certainly like a little bit of an explosion in terms of end placement.
01:20:32
William Dunphey
yeah
01:20:56
zzweilous
Does it have to do with talking for nighttime Clash for one hour? We don't know. um It might. But certainly, yeah josh just a really nice guy. I did talk to him at previous events and really happy for his performance.
01:21:10
zzweilous
um One more thing. H.H.I.R.A.
01:21:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:21:15
zzweilous
casting debut.
New Casters & Community Growth
01:21:16
zzweilous
We have your familiar faces on the NA cast.
01:21:16
William Dunphey
ah that's right. What did you think?
01:21:19
zzweilous
And yeah, i personally personally thought that she really grew into that role over the course of the weekend. I felt as if which is like perfectly normal and natural.
01:21:30
zzweilous
She had a little bit of a nervous-ish start where um it all needed to fall into place a little bit more.
01:21:35
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:21:39
zzweilous
But by the end of it, I thought she looked like a natural and I'm looking forward to see of her on the official cast.
01:21:46
William Dunphey
I was getting a few DMs over the weekend as well, and they basically shared the same sentiment that you had a day one debut H-Shira who maybe had a bit more pauses, more ums, more ahs than she would have liked.
01:22:01
William Dunphey
But day one to day two H-Shira was absolutely a not a step, but a leap forward in terms of ah in terms of commentary. and i think I thought she had some really good insights, um and I appreciate as well that she would fully express her point and kind of take over the the microphone when she needed to in order to really say what what she was thinking, what was on her mind, ah because her insights were very valuable.
01:22:25
William Dunphey
So when she was able to do that, was really nice. And um yeah, I thought that ah Caleb as well, you know he's got a ton of experience casting and he normally pairs with Butters. We all know that. But he was very good at at helping to kind of guide her in terms of you know what she should be focusing on next and that kind of thing and filling the gaps.
01:22:43
William Dunphey
That's what I always say is easy about casting because, you know, I i work with like a different co-caster at every single event. Your main role as a co-caster, especially if you're the more experienced one, is to recognize your co-commentator strengths and then help them amplify those and then just fill in any weaknesses.
01:23:03
William Dunphey
You don't have to do that much. You just have to really make your co-caster shine. And I think that ah that we see that. And I like that we're bringing in new talent. We will allude to this in terms of the EU scene as well pretty soon.
01:23:14
William Dunphey
ah But ah I like that we're bringing in new talent and letting people shine. And yeah, I thought H. She-Ra, I'm excited to see where she goes. If she continues to grow at the pace that she did from day one to day two, she's going to be a force as a caster in NA.
01:23:28
zzweilous
Yeah, I think that's a perfect closing remark for Milwaukee. I wholeheartedly agree. And yeah, I think we may be able to move down to Belo Horizonte now, where we, again, i think we're in a little bit of a time machine where Meteor Folgen had like his his heyday 2023, became known
01:23:51
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:23:53
zzweilous
Zardy, also not only one of the first champions, but one of the first double champions that we had on the play Pokemon scene. um A little bit of a quieter year last year, but now back in full force, I must say, because his path to victory, even though it was one of the smaller regionals, it was stacked. Like, he had to take down Rajiv not once, but twice.
01:24:21
zzweilous
um If you're able to do that... um Well, you've probably just won Brazil is what you did.
01:24:28
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. I agree with you. Seeing he's already returned to form is really nice. I know he shared a few updates on socials over the past a couple of months or maybe even longer than that. It's good to see that he's got the time to compete and then he's able to dedicate more energy and effort to it.
01:24:43
William Dunphey
This is another like similar sentiment that I get from Harjeff. ah for For him, an offseason is not winning every single event, right? And he's told me before that maybe he took a step back and and now he's in full force.
01:24:57
William Dunphey
And seeing a third place finish at Worlds, followed up by a regional championship, followed up by a grand finalist slot here in Belo Horizonte, it really shows that he is putting in that effort. so The meta
Belo Horizonte Regional Highlights
01:25:09
William Dunphey
in Belo Horizonte, we kind of alluded to this. We can go through this real quick.
01:25:12
William Dunphey
A lot of glare and Maltrace here, way more than we saw in Milwaukee. You don't see as many PEC users. You definitely don't see Fero anywhere that i can I can see on this top cut.
01:25:24
William Dunphey
um and Dark type seems to be very powerful, whether it's Glare, Moltres, or the Guzzlord. We saw a lot of Guzzlord and Corviknight pairings. ah There is an uptick in Clodsire here, and I do think there's a lot of diversity in the ground types.
01:25:37
William Dunphey
For example, if you look at the top four, you have four different ground types. You've got Diggersby for Zardy, Shadow Steelix for Harj F, you've got Gastrodon for Junquay F, and then you've got Shadowcantumarowak for Aureo. And then in the top eight, you also have a Clodsire and a Shadowquagsire.
01:25:53
William Dunphey
So there's a lot of versatility here. We did have Marto Galdi competing here in Belo Horizonte. He actually brought the Como-O, which is a little surprising, little spicy, but ah definitely a ah fun pick.
01:26:06
William Dunphey
And then DeSaint bringing whatever preposterous combination of Jellicent and Abomasnow and Shadow Townflame to a ah regional 2026 season regional. just incredible.
01:26:19
William Dunphey
um Was there anything that stood out to you? Because there's one note here that I want to make that actually ties into the Japanese tournament we're going to talk about pretty soon, but I don't know if you are seeing what I'm seeing.
01:26:31
zzweilous
i don't know what i'm seeing the same thing but i do see that uh out of the top three trainers there are no repeat pokemon we have actually 18 uniques in the three top spots and yeah junkie f i think first regional ever at least according to pv poke i don't know and not pv poke dracobus the two sides that i use um i don't know there was a name change or whether this is just somebody who
01:26:54
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:26:58
zzweilous
really rose to the top really, really fast. um
Meta Shifts & Competitive Insights
01:27:01
zzweilous
ah Coming in third with with a um repeat on what Martijn and Adequence did in Frankfurt with the exact same team of six, and just a really good team.
01:27:11
William Dunphey
Oh, that's true.
01:27:14
zzweilous
um Whereas Rajiv did lean on a couple of Pokemon that I personally really like. The Guzzlord-Covonite combination was one that I brought to Pittsburgh, and I have really fond memories of.
01:27:29
zzweilous
um But also little bit more aggressive players in the Shadow Annihilate or the Shadow Steelix on his team.
01:27:30
William Dunphey
Thank you.
01:27:39
zzweilous
ah Both which are, I would say, but really spicy but off meta. um But yeah, he did make them work. And then obviously Zardy with a bunch of standout picks, I would say. like The two things that I wasn't surprised by where um galarian moltres i was more surprised that we didn't see that many galarian moltres in milwaukee actually um i think there's just like a huge influence of murkrow and then obviously the standard fero uh then obviously is already with the credily because credily is the best pokemon in the meta um but then bringing back diggersby as a hard punish to the still pretty common corsola um
01:28:00
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:28:19
zzweilous
bringing back Azumarill, so doubling up on bunnies. That is a thing that we did see a while ago, but not really this season. um But yeah, Azumarill apparently still got it.
01:28:32
zzweilous
I thought it fell out of the meta with the advent of Pokemon-like Gastrodon, which just tanked the move so easily and farmed through it even with just Body Slams, thanks to the Body Slam buff.
01:28:47
zzweilous
um Also, Cradilly just outpacing, hitting for super effective. I feel like it's slightly tougher times for Azu than there used to be, but taking a championship in this season as well. I don't know whether it's the first or whether a previous event already had an Azu champion, but I remember feeling well inspired in Frankfurt, but it's coming back.
01:29:07
zzweilous
It returned to glory, as it always does.
01:29:10
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:29:10
zzweilous
um Then Tinkerton, which appears to be almost like lifetime exclusive. um I am not a Tinkerton believer, but it did take the crown here.
01:29:18
William Dunphey
Same.
01:29:21
zzweilous
And then obviously, like the big standout in Shadow Dusk Noir, we talked about it at length. And yeah, it did it did prevail. It did find a lot of targets on Rajiv's team, if I'm being ah being quite honest, especially if it's one of 59 plus HP Shadow Dusk Noirs, because the only real answer on Rajiv's team, as far as I can see,
01:29:34
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:29:43
zzweilous
would be the Guzzlord. And if you get a little bit of a farm down with your Shadow Dusk Noir, then you would be able to hit that for super effective damage with a very powerful Shadow Dynamic Punch.
01:29:55
zzweilous
So even that is far from the worst case scenario.
01:29:59
William Dunphey
LATAM is becoming known for sharing teams. We see with 7-Eleven Gaming and with the GV Lindos, they tend to bring the same squads. ah What I notice here in this graphic is that Zardy and EllenDies PaulinoTad both brought the same team of six.
01:30:15
William Dunphey
ah But we also have the Lindos sharing teams in terms of the Guzzlord players too. Corlash, Gandok Z and Steinar all ran the same Guzzlord team. ah Corlash was actually the only variant of the three because his Blastoise is running Ice Beam over Skull Bash.
01:30:31
zzweilous
right.
01:30:31
William Dunphey
Interesting wrinkle there. But Harjeff chose to ran Guzzlord, but made a few tweaks, made a few changes. So he went with Shadow Steelix over the Codsire.
01:30:42
William Dunphey
I think that gives you a better anti-flying coverage because you have the consistent Thunderfangs. He went Shadow Annihilate over the Florgis that we actually saw on the other three GB Lindos teams, which is very interesting.
01:30:53
William Dunphey
And then he went Lapras. ah versus Blastoise as his water type. So you got a, you know, same typing water, obviously, but you're a bit better versus opposing fighters and a poison opposed and opposing opposing poison type. Say that three times real fast.
01:31:07
William Dunphey
And then he went with Galarian Corsula for its added bulk over the Shadow Dust Noir. So a few changes there for Harchef, but ah I like that the players are sharing teams, ZZ. I feel like... I don't know.
01:31:18
zzweilous
I
01:31:18
William Dunphey
feel like in EU, you just have folks like T and Pizza who just run random stuff and don't share with anyone and then just come to the tournament and just sweep it. So who knows?
01:31:27
zzweilous
think that was half a copy pasta.
01:31:29
William Dunphey
Half.
01:31:29
zzweilous
um But yeah, I don't know. I think Europe just has so many players who not only value competitive success, but they also want to see their runs connected to like a signature Pokémon, which is not as tangible it's just like purely running the good stuff.
01:31:44
William Dunphey
ah Yes.
01:31:49
zzweilous
But um I appreciate it. It does make for some very interesting compositions that rise to the top. um However, i again, i feel as if with 18 unique species in the top three, we can't really complain about too much uniformity in LATAM either.
01:32:06
zzweilous
And one thing that I personally find really interesting about the runner-up team of Rachev is just the choice of Steelix. There's so many variations you can run if you run that Shadow Steelix.
01:32:19
zzweilous
Feel as if like the default one used to be the crunching one. Then there's now the Psychic Fangs plus Breaking Swipe double debuff variation. But also i have seen people in practice bringing out the good old Earthquake, the Quakening,
01:32:35
zzweilous
um paired with Psychic Fangs. Maybe a reaction to the advent of Cloudsire, where you want to at least hit it back for something. um But yeah, it certainly interesting how this one Pokemon apparently has four viable charge attacks, which may be a a world record, if I may say so myself.
01:32:50
William Dunphey
is it
01:32:54
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree. So Harjef's Steelix was running Thunder Fang, Psychic Fangs, and Breaking Swipe, ah which when you look at the rest of the matchups, you look at especially his grand finals matchup versus Zardy, you see double fairies.
01:33:07
William Dunphey
It feels like, man, I really wish I had anything besides Breaking Swipe here because even the crunch is single resisted versus being double resisted as a dragon type move ah that that Breaking Swipe is. So Very, very tough in that situation. But um we have the top cut. We'll have the top cut graphic on stream so you can look over all these teams.
01:33:25
William Dunphey
ah One final thing I wanted to point out before we move into grand finals is that DVS Daniel with his team of Shadow Canto Marowak, Shadow Scizor, Cradilly, Glare and Mold Trace, Chargebug, and Glare and Corsula This team, to me, really encapsulates where we started with this meta a few short weeks ago.
01:33:44
William Dunphey
And then if you look at the top
Current Meta Appreciation
01:33:45
William Dunphey
three finishers in Zardy, Harjeff, and Junquii, you see kind of the the evolution and the changes in the meta.
01:33:49
zzweilous
Thank
01:33:52
William Dunphey
So the meta in Pokemon Go is always a moving target. i don't know if it's as ah vary if it varies as much or if it's as volatile in VG or or TCG. I definitely think, not TCG, but...
01:34:05
William Dunphey
That's besides the point. the The point is, is that these teams are always a moving target. And if you're not constantly up to date with practice tournament results, scrimming, looking at the tournament streams themselves, it can be very easy to feel left behind in terms of how the meta shifts and changes.
01:34:21
William Dunphey
So yeah, it's easy. We still need to work on our meta guide at some point.
01:34:24
zzweilous
yeah
01:34:24
William Dunphey
We'll, ah we'll get that done eventually, but yeah.
01:34:27
zzweilous
also want to I also want to mention that
01:34:28
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:34:30
zzweilous
um we say, oh, meta moved from a to B, now it's at B. I think the presence of all of these teams in high placements kind of goes to show that so many viable options coexist currently, and they don't push each other out of the meta as much.
01:34:53
zzweilous
I like we have that phenomenon at times where we were earlier in agreement that Talonflame may not be as good anymore. It does feature on Junkief's team, so it may still have done something.
01:35:06
zzweilous
um But overall, i just feel as if we may have the most variety and also like the most options when team building. So there's a lot of self-expression that goes on in that team building phase where oh, I have this Pokemon that I can play really well, that I really like, that I think is really useful. And you don't really like have to micro-target this one meta team, but you can just choose from so many options that coexist without really overpowering each other. And I think that's a beautiful
Grand Finals Strategy Breakdown
01:35:40
zzweilous
place to be within a meta.
01:35:42
zzweilous
And I would say I wasn't always this optimistic about this meta, so seeing this development manifest in that way is a very positive surprise to me.
01:35:52
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree with you. I think got long gone are the days of everyone running ah level 50, Medicham level 50, like a tongue level 50, Sableye level 50, Azumarill, and just kind of brute forcing their way through mirror matches endlessly.
01:35:59
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:36:04
William Dunphey
I think those days are long behind us. And I'm so thankful for that because two or three years of commentating that got very boring. And I can't even imagine as a viewer passively ah tolerating that must've been just awful.
01:36:16
William Dunphey
So I agree with you. I think that the the wealth of options is a great change for a meta, and I'm i'm glad that we have it. I hope it it remains that way. So I contacted Harjef, and he was kind enough to share the teams from the grand finals. So we didn't get a stream in Belo Horizonte, unfortunately, but Harjef always keeps a little notebook where he writes down the first three letters of each Pokemon's name, and then I can kind of see ah how how the matchups must have gone, right?
01:36:44
William Dunphey
So the final record for the grand finals was one win for Harjeff and three wins for Zardy in that order. So um we're going to play a little guessing game here ah based on the team comps and what looks strong and and what looks feasible here.
01:37:01
William Dunphey
Let's make some predictions, right? So I've got the notes in front of me, but Z's why list does not. So let's see if he's going to make some of the same reads. ZZ, take whichever trainer you want or however you want to dissect this.
01:37:11
William Dunphey
What do you think the Pokemon and teams would be?
01:37:14
zzweilous
Okay, so I don't know whether I'll be able to construct all of the lines, but I do want to pick standout Pokemon for each trainer. So I think with Zardy, maybe I'm just overestimating it because my eyes are drawn to the one standout pick that hasn't won before, but Shadow Dusknor, again, like you have so much pressure into the Annihilipe.
01:37:24
William Dunphey
Let's do it.
01:37:42
zzweilous
You have A better pacing than the Corviknight, which just needs to get to its payback to do meaningful damage. It doesn't really do much with its sand attacks at all.
01:37:53
zzweilous
You don't have crunch to fear from the Steelix. And with the right HP stat, you also have a pretty decent matchup against Galarine-Cosela.
01:38:03
zzweilous
Add onto that the dynamic punch coverage against both Lapras and Gazlod. I do feel as if the Shadow Dusk Noir may have come to more games than not on zardi's side whereas for rajef i think it's like a little bit trickier just because um you're really hard pressed to find something that is like strictly safe into zardi um but if i was rajef i would probably try to lean on lapras just because it's very maneuverable with the way the one turn plastic of side wave works and even though um
01:38:16
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:38:42
zzweilous
matchups like Galarian Mortris or Cradilly aren't strictly favorable, you do have Ice Beam to hit them for super effective damage.
01:38:53
zzweilous
So just like as a big equalizer, as like a neutral pick, I could see Lapras coming out quite a bunch here.
01:39:03
William Dunphey
All right. So I'll give you the the rundown here. First, you mentioned Shadow Dust Noir. Zardy did bring it to three out of the four games. And then Harjef did lean on Lapras quite a bit. He brought it to three out of the four games as well.
01:39:17
William Dunphey
So...
01:39:18
zzweilous
okay
01:39:19
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think you may make a really good point. Shadow Dust Noir's ability ah to just close out games against Harjaf's team looks overwhelming. It almost feels like when you see that Dust Noir on the opposing side, you're forced into ah one of three things. so One, bringing Guzzlord, because that's like one of your best answers to it.
01:39:38
William Dunphey
ah Two, bringing Galarian Corsula and just hoping that you've got a shield advantage or some kind of HP advantage to win. Or three, just leaving your Shadow Annihilate on the bench completely, because that matchup is abysmal for the Shadow Annihilate, especially when shields are up, of course. So...
01:39:53
William Dunphey
A lot of pressure just from that one Pokemon placed here on Harjif's team. um I actually looked into the two shields here. And for Harjif, the only Pokemon on his team that beats the majority of Zardy's team in the twos is that Shadow Steelix.
01:40:08
William Dunphey
It's able to beat everything except the Diggersby in the twos. but then you run into a situation where you've used all your resources on Stelix and you have to deal with the insane closing power of dynamic punch, shadow dust the war, brave bird, glaring mold trace, uh, or, you know, whatever you get from, from ticket on or a zoom roll, et cetera.
01:40:27
William Dunphey
So very tough. And then if you're trying to play guzzlord as hard Jeff, you have two fairy types to worry about plus dynamic punch dust the war. So it's like, Man, this is a ah really, really tricky matchup to be in.
01:40:40
William Dunphey
So um I'll paint the picture for you in game number one. Game number one, Zardy is on the winner's side. Harjaf is coming from the loser's side. Zardy leads Shadow Dust Noir into Guzzlord.
01:40:51
William Dunphey
But here are the full teams, right? Zardy's got Shadow Dust Noir, Azumarill, and Galarian Moltres. Harjeth has Guzzlord, Galarian Corsola, and Lapras.
01:41:03
William Dunphey
So you have a Guzzlord that might see Nezumaral down the line. You've got a Galarian Corsola who gets farmed by Galarian Moltres. And you've got a Lapras that deals double resisted sidewaves to Galarian Moltres.
01:41:16
William Dunphey
And somehow, there's no stream, right? But somehow Harjeth won this game. I don't know how.
01:41:21
zzweilous
Holy...
01:41:23
William Dunphey
i don't I don't know how he did it, but he won that game number one. So that was insane. I'll have this graphic up on the YouTube version as well, but if you're listening with the podcast, I'll just give you the verbal recap.
01:41:34
William Dunphey
Game two. Zardy leads Cradilly into Guzzlord. Full teams are Cradilly, Tinkaton, and Galarian Moltres. Harjeff has Guzzlord in the lead again, Shadow Steelix, and Lapras. So again, he's got a Lapras that's dealing double resisted sidewaves to the Galarian Moltres or single resisted sidewaves to the Tinkaton.
01:41:52
William Dunphey
And then he's got a Shadow Steelix, which I think Tinkaton handles that relatively well. But it's probably a pretty close matchup, actually, now that I think about it. Yeah.
01:42:01
zzweilous
Yeah, it's just like Steelix is always so weird because the charge attacks tend to do less than the fast attacks, but yeah, it's on the more awkward side for sure.
01:42:07
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:42:11
William Dunphey
Then game three, Zardy leads Galarian Moltres into Lapras, which obviously is a very nice matchup when the shields are up because you were double resisting again the sidewaves. He's got Shadow Dust of War and Azumarill in the back. Meanwhile, Harjeff has Lapras, Galarian Corselight, and Corviknight as his third.
01:42:27
William Dunphey
And then after two wins in a row, I think Harjeff just kind of goes all in and it backfires explosively because in game number four, Zardy leads Shadow Dust Noir into Shadow Annihilate, the dreaded lead.
01:42:40
zzweilous
Oh no.
01:42:41
William Dunphey
And also the guts of Zardy to lead Shadow Dust Noir when he's seen Guzzlord lead two out of the three games that he just played. So kudos to him.
Impact of Credilly & Team Compositions
01:42:50
William Dunphey
ah Zardy actually goes double fairy this time with Shadow Dust Noir, Azumarill, and Tickitung.
01:42:55
William Dunphey
And unfortunately for Harjeff, not only does he have that Shadow Annihilate Lee that we talked about, his second Pokemon is Guzzlord. And it's absolutely freaking useless in this matchup with two fairies and a Dynamic Punch user.
01:43:04
zzweilous
What?
01:43:09
William Dunphey
And his third Pokemon is Shadow Steelix. So... No diggers be no problem for Zardy as he doesn't even need it to beat hard Jeff here in the grand finals. And honestly, looking back at that game, number one and the team comps, I can't even imagine how hard Jeff won that first game.
01:43:25
zzweilous
yeah oh man i'm just like thinking i'm trying to visualize the very last game just like imagine being that annihilate you get sent out of your pokeball and you're up against a shadow duskner and two fairy types like that is that is pain is what that is
01:43:39
William Dunphey
Exactly.
01:43:43
William Dunphey
Absolutely crippled. um i had I had some notes from Heart Jeff here as well. um He said, me see here. Well, first he expressed the sentiment that he's happy to see Zardy win, but he's definitely a hardcore competitor and he would like to take that trophy, which I totally understand.
01:44:00
William Dunphey
um And then he's got one more note I wanted to bring up. Oh, here it is. ah He says, one comment I was going to make that might be worth sharing is that I was counting and depending heavily on Zardy to make mistakes, which is completely normal. And I think I've managed to win in other difficult matchups thanks to that.
01:44:18
William Dunphey
But he played very well and cleanly the whole time, pivoting his strategy and changing it from game to game. So he didn't give me any openings and made no mistakes. So...
01:44:29
William Dunphey
if you need ah If you needed any more clarification that Zardy was back, I think having our LEIC champ, our third place world's finisher, multiple regional champion say that is is the proof in the pudding.
01:44:43
zzweilous
Yeah, I really hope that... I do want to see Zardy compete internationally as well, partly because we don't really get streams for LATAM events all that much.
01:44:54
zzweilous
So, um yeah, I don't know. This may put him up there for the UIC Travel Award, potentially. So, yeah, I would not be opposed to having some Brazilians invade my continent just because I'm a big fan of their gameplay.
01:45:13
William Dunphey
Yeah, me too. I'd love to see Zardi travel. I don't think he's, I don't think he's come to a North American or European event ever.
01:45:20
zzweilous
I did meet him at 2022 Worlds in London, which is like obviously where you would travel to.
01:45:25
William Dunphey
Ah, fair.
01:45:27
zzweilous
But yeah, I guess like most of the opportunities he takes are just within his home country.
01:45:34
William Dunphey
um Fantastic thing that i that I realized when looking at the simulations, Harjef did not have Cradilly on his team. We've gone over that a couple of times. But when you look at Cradilly versus Zardy's team, right, just mental model this with me.
01:45:47
William Dunphey
If you look at Cradilly versus Zardy's team, Cradilly actually goes 5-1 in the one shield versus Zardy's team. Its only loss is Dust Noir, and Dust Noir has to bait a Shadow Punch and connect with Dynamic Punch.
01:45:59
William Dunphey
So if Zardy is playing Diggersby, Ticketun, Cradilly, Galerimaltrace, Azumarola, and Shadow Dust of War into the ubiquity that is Cradilly, how in the heck did he get to a grand finals without a single clean win across his entire team?
01:46:16
zzweilous
Well, my Pittsburgh team was also pretty much six times weak to Cradeli. So I believe it is a Pokemon that you can build weak to as long as you like have that roadmap in your mind on how to take it out precisely.
01:46:31
zzweilous
Because while it is a very strong Pokemon and a very flexible Pokemon at that, it is not what we would call a sweeper. Like if you are five times weak to say,
01:46:39
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:46:42
zzweilous
a Shadow Scizor, you may just get destroyed by it. Whereas if you're soft to Cradilly, it's like, and don't know, like with Azu back in the day, like you can always just gang up on it and eventually it will fall.
01:46:55
zzweilous
So I don't mind that type of team building strategy as much.
01:47:00
William Dunphey
Okay, okay, fair enough, fair enough. I feel like with the 45-second switch timer and the high skill ceilings as well that you see at this level, you can't really rely on these hardline matchups. um as As Butters always says, you know, there's fluidity in gameplay and there's never, or very rarely, a static one-on-one Full HP versus full HP, ah even switch timer, even shield scenario, right?
01:47:25
William Dunphey
ah So you can't rely on the Sims too much. But it's always funny to think about, like, if you're team building and your top weakness is credibly and you're like, yep, this is the team I'm going to run. It just seems like a very weird, a weird approach.
01:47:36
zzweilous
yeah
01:47:37
William Dunphey
You know what i mean? But something else.
01:47:39
zzweilous
yeah like i think that's like another fun thing where pokemon that just core break the credily plus ghost core are almost viable just because of that because like you know that those pokemon will be around and mostly share like will be on the same team so if you say like a king gambit for example but like
01:47:40
William Dunphey
Go ahead.
01:47:53
William Dunphey
Oh
01:48:03
William Dunphey
oh my God.
01:48:04
zzweilous
I will not go into into that craziness to too deeply again, but when when I brought that to Worlds, it did find its target. It's like some Pokemon that are bad in the grand scheme of things can be made good by Cradilly and Corsula just being everywhere, whereas Corsula and Cradilly being everywhere doesn't really mean that everything that Soft loses to those would...
01:48:14
William Dunphey
It did.
01:48:33
zzweilous
and would be of consideration immediately just because of the nature of those slow like they slow down the play in a way because they're a little like credibly takes 14 turns to its first move course it takes 15 turns to its first move it's not really that dangerous or difficult to maneuver around if you have like a little bit of more aggressive picks like for example a shadow dusk no which is ah perfectly fine into each of these Pokémon.
01:49:05
William Dunphey
Yeah. And I think that's a lot of the, the, um, I think that explains very well the trap that some players fall into where they feel like, Oh, Cradilly's everywhere. So I have to play shadow scissors Cradilly's everywhere. So I have to play fortress because I need that hard answer.
01:49:20
William Dunphey
And I feel like if you, if you, slot yourself too deeply into that, you kind of get stuck. You kind of get pigeonholed into thinking you have to run certain Pokemon when if you play more neutrally and like you said, dance around the matchups, ah use the switch timer and you don't get overwhelmed, then you can you can find your way through. So that's definitely a very important a topic of skill expression that I appreciate.
01:49:42
William Dunphey
um One of my favorite things, ZZ, is I like to take these championship teams. I like to plug them into PvPoke.
01:49:46
zzweilous
Oh,
01:49:48
William Dunphey
And then when I cast an event, I like to say, oh, well, my pick for this tournament is X or Y or Z because I looked at the teams and they this Pokemon came up as one of the top core breakers.
01:49:55
zzweilous
smart.
01:50:00
William Dunphey
Something I wanted to mention to you, yeah, you know Five Head, you know, that's what they pay me the big bucks for.
01:50:00
zzweilous
oh tomorrow
01:50:05
William Dunphey
So something I wanted to mention to you is that I broke down Harjeff, Meteor Follyon, Pranav, and Zardy's teams. And one of the top core breakers for Harjeff, Meteor, and Pranav's teams across all three is prime ape and i think prime ape might have some play going into this uh this next tournament in leal we'll have to see um other pokemon like empoleon show up did na shows up uh glaring corsla surprisingly is on the list three out of four times as well which means glaring corsla is not going anywhere anytime soon but uh maybe some prime ape action and i thought you'd appreciate that so
01:50:36
zzweilous
yeah
01:50:40
zzweilous
i So one thing that I was kind of wondering, I don't know whether we do like little predictions, but and know that last year's LIL was the Malamar show and with Fortress being mostly seen in North America, at least so far we've only had one European event, but it's not really been much of a thing here.
01:50:49
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:51:01
zzweilous
And again, we talk about breakers to Cradilla and Corsola a lot. We maybe want something that puts out fighting type damage like a primate, but we also don't want it to suffer too much against pack users like Fero.
01:51:16
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:51:16
zzweilous
Maybe we could like see a little repeat from last year. fo I don't know. It's just like a thought that I had. I don't know who will put it into action. and Also, I'm still a big believer in Shadow 2 canon, so maybe take my words with a grain of salt.
01:51:31
zzweilous
But yeah, that was like a thing where I was like, okay, you have like a ghost, you have utility for superpower, like for fighting type damage.
01:51:42
zzweilous
like What is good against ghosts?
01:51:43
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:51:44
zzweilous
What has fighting type damage? And and then you would arrive at Malamar, maybe. Also because Floges was tipped to be a big breakout star, but hasn't really, I don't think it meddled just yet.
01:51:57
zzweilous
So... so
01:51:59
William Dunphey
Well, that actually segues perfectly into what I wanted to talk to you about. um you know We already recapped the grand finals. Congratulations to Zardy and Harjef. I feel like we've exhausted our Belo Horizonte recap.
01:52:12
William Dunphey
But the one thing that I saw that I was hoping you would see was the Florges. We saw Florges on three of the GB Lindos teams, it being Corlash, Gandox, and Steinar. We saw it a couple other places as well.
01:52:25
William Dunphey
And if you look back to Milwaukee, BJ Pawat also had Florges on his team. So we were recently made aware of a cup called the Coco Perry Cup, I think this this was the second iteration. It was a cup with very talented Japanese trainers that you probably recognize, like Nayankake, Kip, 20139, Luminous, as well as Pokimichi and Pokimoneymaker, and Katunari.
01:52:48
William Dunphey
So very, very talented top trainers that we see. ah either top cutting or winning the pjcs every single season this is a fantastic graphic to look at and what i noted was that florges was actually at 20 usage which is you know one out of five uh and it was actually on the winning team from china p715137 uh and made it a couple of appearances actually three appearances in the top cut so you don't sound like you're florges believer swyles is that fair to say
01:53:18
zzweilous
um I wouldn't say that I'm a big Flourgis believer, but I think it has utility. So Flourgis is a Pokemon that, again, when I talk about Pokemon that are easy to play around because they can't really sweep you, I think Flourgis does fall into that category.
01:53:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:53:37
zzweilous
But between Trailblaze and Chilling Water, you have so much good coverage. You have so much ability to either boost your own attack or to lower the attack of your opponent.
01:53:48
zzweilous
And I think if you utilize Flourges and like set up the rest of your teammates it by using the Flourges as a little bit of a debuff, soft losing type of Pokemon, um then there is a good chance that Flourges will meddle in the TPCI regions as well and not just in Japanese grassroots.
01:54:16
zzweilous
um So I think like it can be made work. It has been made work in practice tournaments. It's just a fairly delicate Pokemon because you mentioned earlier that your personal cutoff for what makes a bulky Pokemon and what should made up like what should make up like five out of six slots on each team.
01:54:23
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:54:31
zzweilous
It's probably like around the 2,000 start product range whereas a high rank lodges comes in like slightly below 1,900 I would say.
01:54:35
William Dunphey
yeah
01:54:41
zzweilous
So it's comparable to Sableye in that regard. um Therefore, not necessarily the squishiest Pokemon around, especially not with the chilling water artificial bulk, but it's a little higher maintenance than some of the reliable picks that you can just slap on every team.
01:54:59
zzweilous
And it may require a little bit of finesse, but the well-played Florgis is certainly a real Pokemon. Like you don't have to be declared crazy just for bringing a Flawgis. I think that's a perfectly viable choice. And I'm pretty sure that in Lill, we are going to see at least one Flawgis in top card as well. I think it's still, think because it's so unexplored, it will immediately appeal to Europeans too, um just so they can be the first to make it work.
01:55:30
zzweilous
um So yeah I think Flawgis, even though it hasn't really risen to greatness just yet i don't believe it's dead in the water either either i think it did make its top cuts it did show some promise um it may just need a little tweaks in terms of the supporting costs and maybe a little like we've been like it's two weeks between milwaukee below orizonte and lil so that's two weeks of figuring out the pokemon a little more and yeah but if there's there's more good flotches runs to come
01:56:05
William Dunphey
Well, I will say it's annoying as hell in Go Battle League. I hate playing against that Pokemon because if you don't have a a strict answer, it can be very spammy and very annoying. Ten turns to the chilling water is super cringe. it's ah It's a much more annoying than than I think a lot of people are willing to to say.
01:56:20
zzweilous
but
01:56:24
William Dunphey
but this um This top cut graphic is so interesting. um um i was trying to find the bracket for it earlier, but I didn't i didn't see it. My Japanese is not very good, admittedly. But I will say that we had some fascinating fascinating picks, right? And we always look at Japan as being like like a wild card at Worlds every year because we don't really get to talk about what they play.
01:56:43
William Dunphey
So when we do get a tournament like this, I feel like we got to talk about it at least a little bit. So Nayan Kake in third place with Miausica Rada.
01:56:48
zzweilous
one hundred percent
01:56:53
William Dunphey
which has made a couple of waves here and there and ah seeing it finished in, you know, bronze, so to speak in this tournament is definitely surprising. Again, we saw multiple floorages, but I want to talk about GG's 489 hero Maru's team.
01:57:10
William Dunphey
What in the world is going on with this?
01:57:14
zzweilous
i think I think they're doing this on purpose. like There's no way you organically arrive at a point in your life where you think Shadow Salamence is what is going to lead you to victory in the Open Great League.
01:57:29
zzweilous
And
Innovative Team Choices & Spice Picks
01:57:30
zzweilous
I'm the two-cannon guy, okay? If I say that, it means something. Yeah,
01:57:35
William Dunphey
Yeah, it was good in Fantasy Cup. I really like Shadow Salamence there, but...
01:57:40
zzweilous
yeah, yeah, with Firefang, right? But I don't believe we have the actual moveset data for this tournament. I believe it's probably on Dragontail. That's what I'm thinking. And you do have the nice pacing now with Dragontail actually only taking nine turns to yeah to get to the Brutal Swing, which is nice coverage, especially against those ghost-type Pokémon.
01:57:54
William Dunphey
To Brutal Swing. Mm-hmm.
01:58:01
zzweilous
But, like, don't quote me on this, but I would almost be surprised if, like, Galarian Corsula wouldn't just farm this thing down in the tubes because it is very much made of glass.
01:58:10
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:58:13
zzweilous
And Yeah, interesting resistance profile, good pacing, but non-stab brutal swings. Is that really what we're going for here? um I really appreciate them for running this Pokemon.
01:58:24
zzweilous
Like, do not get me wrong.
01:58:24
William Dunphey
yeah
01:58:25
zzweilous
I'm a big fan of goofy stuff like that having some success, but I do not know how replicable that strategy is.
01:58:33
William Dunphey
Yeah, what makes it even more preposterous is that as you look at the rest of the team, and we'll have the graphic up on screen for you, but as you look at the rest of it, he not only has a Shadow Salamence, he also has a Shadow Charizard on the team.
01:58:45
William Dunphey
So two frail, flying-type Pokemon that are going to get crushed by something like Abasidon ah ah Coexisting in the same ecosystem. ah They used to say this town wasn't big enough for the two of us, but I think Charizard and Salamence just disagree because having one of these would be preposterous, but having both is diabolical.
01:59:05
zzweilous
i will say that generally like these two pokemon do share the weaknesses of their flying typing which makes them like not the ideal core to run but it wouldn't be the first time a flying fire and a dragon type find sex success on the same team um i do believe that i think it was tauntaun matuse who actually ran it Ran a combination of Shadow Charizard and Shadow Dragon there back in the day to win UAC 2023.
01:59:32
William Dunphey
Correct. Mm hmm.
01:59:35
zzweilous
In the season, at least. Yeah, that wasn't 2023. Okay.
01:59:40
William Dunphey
isn
01:59:40
zzweilous
um So, yeah that core has kind of proven, it has proven itself in the past. Just like, again, like with Bastiodon just coming off a tournament victory, a little bit ambitious to run those two together for sure, but Well, like if you get Shadow Salamence on a usage graphic, like, Fair Play, that's almost as good, if not better, than First Place.
02:00:06
William Dunphey
Yeah, that's a flex. I think the only way this can be outdone, ZZ, is if you get Shadow 2 Cannon on and a top graphic. All right? That's the only way.
02:00:14
zzweilous
Well, but I'm not worried about the graphic as much. I'm just wondering, like, oh, can it medal? Can it win? um um I'm certain it can get top eight.
02:00:24
William Dunphey
Uh, yeah, ah just so I no, I just, I'm just picturing you like going through your collection of spice picks and you're like, ah, shadow salamons, you throw it away and you pick out the shadow toucan.
02:00:25
zzweilous
He's not believing me at all.
02:00:38
William Dunphey
And you're like, yeah, this one, this is the one.
02:00:40
zzweilous
It's is very well ranked in like in terms of two cannons.
02:00:40
William Dunphey
All right.
02:00:44
zzweilous
It's like a high rank shadow that I caught in Pittsburgh. It has flash cannon. You would... like and i I don't know, maybe I sent you the screenshot of me flash cannoning a car bink in GBL and we can put it up on screen the YouTube version.
02:00:57
William Dunphey
Oh,
02:00:59
zzweilous
um This thing is, it's it's incredible. It won multiple practice tournaments already for me. It swept them, didn't even drop a game. think I got three practice tournaments wins with it.
02:01:12
zzweilous
It's good, it's real.
02:01:14
William Dunphey
OK. So that's you?
02:01:14
zzweilous
Trust the token.
02:01:16
William Dunphey
That's you on the CandleCult graphics? Is that what I'm looking at?
02:01:20
zzweilous
So actually i I did sweep one, I think was yesterday even. Then there's one that should have been on this week's graphic, but it was omitted, which was very sad.
02:01:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:01:31
zzweilous
It was only a four-rounder, but I did have Aqua Breed, Paldean Taurus, and King Gambit on that team as well. So that one I just entered because it would be funny if Martijn had to put that on a graphic.
02:01:44
zzweilous
But the week before this one, you will find one Toucan and team. And there is one error with it because there's two ghost types on the graphic when it was one and a cloth sire. But two cannon certainly is on there.
02:01:58
zzweilous
And I will say it comes to more matches than it doesn't. Like it doesn't stay on the bench a lot.
02:02:03
William Dunphey
boom Interesting. Okay. All right. Well, I think I've doubted you in the past to my detriment. So I might come around on this one eventually, but we'll see. We'll see what the the results in Gidans say.
02:02:17
William Dunphey
But that's
Casting Community & Content Creation
02:02:19
William Dunphey
besides the point. ZZ, I feel like we've we've covered Milwaukee. We covered Belo Horizonte. And we even talked about the Coco Perry Cup in Japan. I think there's kind of like some random miscellaneous things that we could touch base on and kind of discuss those. But We are approaching the end of the show. we just hit the two hour mark. So ah yeah, where to start?
02:02:39
William Dunphey
um How about with a humble brag and just say that the level 80 outfit was designed and inspired by Amanda and I from our Anaheim Worlds outfits? I mean, this is clearly the case, right?
02:02:53
zzweilous
Yeah, certainly the official world's casters don't get any insights as to what's to come for their game and therefore will have their outfits picked out for them, right? Like that would be a preposterous to even suggest.
02:03:05
zzweilous
I'm pretty sure they just saw how hello amazing you guys looked while performing the world's broadcast and they were like, okay, like maybe maybe we do a speediest chief inspired legend pose or a do we do like an Amanda sticker?
02:03:23
zzweilous
No, I haven't. I will just select their outfits as something that we you can choose in-game. And yeah, let's make it the level 80 rewards because those guys look so cool. It needs to be something truly special.
02:03:35
zzweilous
I think that was the exact thinking process going into that decision.
02:03:39
William Dunphey
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I think you you basically laid it all out there for everyone to to see. And um it was really funny because ah when these outfits dropped, I think Amanda made a post about it and she got over a thousand likes on her post.
02:03:54
William Dunphey
I mean, for Pokemon Go Twitter, it blew up.
02:03:57
zzweilous
It did go viral, yeah, for sure.
02:03:59
William Dunphey
Yeah, absolutely blew up. There's this really cool picture of a man and I standing in the hotel lobby after worlds wearing our outfits. I remember her friend asked us to turn on the jackets just so she can take a picture. And I'm so glad we did because that's such a funny picture. We're going back to back.
02:04:15
William Dunphey
And, um, Yeah, it was really funny because I had this idea to do the neon suits months ago. I mean, months before Worlds, like in May or something like that. And um I was inspired partially by another game I really love playing these days called The Finals, ah where there's like a neon cowboy outfit.
02:04:34
William Dunphey
And I thought, man, if we could put this into our Worlds fits, We'd be the only people to do it. It'd be the most unique thing that we could possibly do. And it would be f freaking sick because, I mean, people would ask questions like, oh, my God, how did you get the lights in your suit? ah Are you catching on fire?
02:04:50
William Dunphey
is it hot?
02:04:50
zzweilous
Yeah.
02:04:51
William Dunphey
Does it burn? You know, we get all those questions and we definitely did get all those questions and more. um But yeah, seeing the the outfits was so funny. One of the lead designers on Pokemon Go actually did reply to the post because somebody asked him if um the suits were designed after Amanda and i And he replied and said, no, it's just a happy coincidence. We've had these in the pipeline for a few months.
02:05:14
William Dunphey
And I can't clarify. I won't reveal my sources, but I can clarify to all of you that I did see some internal messages with Niantic. And When Amanda and I went on screen and our suits were lighting up, a lot of folks in the in the design team lost their minds.
02:05:32
William Dunphey
And there was a lot of chatter back and forth. And they were like, what the hell? Like, did somebody tell them? Like, is there a leak? Like, what's going on? This is insane.
02:05:39
zzweilous
I love that this is genuinely just a coincidence because i was convinced it wasn't.
02:05:39
William Dunphey
Because...
02:05:42
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
02:05:43
zzweilous
convinced it was
02:05:45
William Dunphey
Yeah, me too, for a while. um But I mean, i I had no idea this level 80 outfit was coming. I truly did not. it's just Again, when you but do you see the the the genesis of this idea and how it came about, I think you'll start to believe me. And also, yeah, i got confirmation directly from Niantic that... ah they had They had put this in the pipeline a few months ago, which makes sense because these things normally take a long time, but it's just such a funny coincidence.
02:06:11
William Dunphey
Yeah, Niantic and and I are on the same page, and I'm so thankful as well. Shout out to Amanda for trusting me because I think any other co-caster, if I would have told her, yeah. So the biggest tournament of the year, I'm going to do this super experimental experimental thing that no one's ever done, and I think it's going to work.
02:06:27
William Dunphey
But I have to repeatedly order and return lights from Amazon. I think I honestly use why as I returned like five different sets of lights because they weren't what I needed.
02:06:36
zzweilous
Yeah, like,
02:06:37
William Dunphey
And then I have to hand sew them into the suits. And then hopefully when we plug in our battery packs, they don't overheat and catch our suits on fire or melt or anything like that. And we're just going to see how it goes.
02:06:49
William Dunphey
And she trusted in me and it turned out really, really well. So We might bring him back. We might bring him back. All right. So, so if you like the streams, keep an eye on that.
02:06:57
zzweilous
yeah like greatly looking forward to that.
02:07:00
William Dunphey
Keep an eye on that. Speaking of watching the streams enough about me, we've got another caster debut. The Leo casters were just announced a few minutes before we started recording and Jay, the underdog is to be casting in Leo immediate reactions. Wireless.
02:07:13
William Dunphey
I'll hand it over to you.
02:07:15
zzweilous
I think Jay is a great choice, even though he's not a choice that I would have initially thought would even interested or on their radar. Because even though Jay is a PvP community mainstay and streamer who had a very impressive journey from being more of a PvE person, getting into the game mode, and then slowly improving over time, um he hasn't really ever like he didn't ever really strike me as somebody who was like um just like a big play pokemon nerd the same way you and i would be and like i feel like a lot of the um recruited casters like it's it's not all of them but plenty of them
02:08:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:08:04
zzweilous
were in part recruited because people know them from the competitor's side already or know them from like big PVP YouTube levels of content creation. Whereas um I bet there was like an application process where Jay was selected. And I personally think that's going to be such a great choice because this guy,
02:08:30
zzweilous
um while not really having been around play Pokemon as much as others, in terms of the way he makes Pokemon go an enjoyable experience on his streams, there's few people that I would much rather see on the big screen than him.
02:08:45
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:08:51
zzweilous
Like, Jay is always such a good time. He's like a theater kid in the best way, i would say. And very personable. I think he will elevate the experience for the people around him as well.
02:09:05
zzweilous
And yeah, I'm like a little curious as to what to expect, but I am expecting ah really good initial showing and hopefully looking forward to see him on more casts because he's always somebody that I just found found super, super likable.
02:09:23
zzweilous
And yeah, therefore...
02:09:24
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:09:26
zzweilous
Hearing those news was something that made me personally quite happy, I must say.
02:09:32
William Dunphey
I haven't watched too much of his content, but I do think you make a very, very good point that having different perspectives and not having everyone be so similar in terms of you know the the standards of what they're looking at, how they talk about matches, what their verbiage is.
02:09:48
William Dunphey
I think having new blood kind of added into the mix ah in terms of someone like Jay, I think it's going really good because you're right. I have no idea what to expect. I don't know if this is going to be more like a watch party vibe cast or if this is going to be um hyper technical. I kind of doubt it'll be the latter. I think the EU is known for being extremely technical with a lot of their cast.
02:10:09
William Dunphey
So Jay is kind of like an outlier in terms of what we're what we usually expect. from the eu scene so i think that's gonna be really good um yeah i'm really excited i think everyone should watch the leo broadcast i know if you're hardcore enough to listen to this podcast you probably are but tell your friends to watch it all right we need to uh cast the net a little wider we're also gonna have amanda lundberg i don't know who that is but i heard she's okay uh we have inadequates returning to the casting booth so he's kind of this revolving door of winning tournaments casting events winning tournaments casting events
02:10:39
zzweilous
yeah yeah yeah yeah now he doesn't have to do anything for the rest of the year anymore he's done with the season yep uh
02:10:41
William Dunphey
ah
02:10:45
William Dunphey
Yeah, job is done. Exactly. And then I'm really excited to see our fourth caster, Arceus Aurelius or Marcus, right? Marcus to me is such an entertaining person.
02:10:58
William Dunphey
he's kind of He's kind of that unique blend of entertainment, but also analysis where he's so smart and he's so brilliant in terms of understanding the game, but he also can make a joke and crack you up and ah have water splash on his head in a downtime segment for a stream and still be completely professional the next time the camera's on him, right? So I feel like he's got a lot of the right ingredients.
02:11:21
William Dunphey
I want to see him make a a leap forward kind of in terms of growth. in terms of presentation, kind of like what we saw Shira do, ah just continue to grow into the caster role.
02:11:33
William Dunphey
And I think that ah he's got a great chance to do it. He's got two very experienced casters in Amanda and Martyn. um I'm not sure what the pairs going to look like, but I assume we're going to get kind of one of the two experienced ones with one of the two relatively newer ones.
02:11:48
zzweilous
Yeah. I like the point that you made in that Marcus probably will develop as a caster pretty quickly because I think the only criticism that one could leverage against him is being a little rough around the edges at times but he has everything when it comes to personality and everything when it comes to knowledge.
02:12:11
zzweilous
And knowledge is very difficult to get the same way he has it already because he is a top competitor and personality is just something that you can't even learn so i feel like as if he has the two-thirds that are the most difficult to obtain already down to perfection and now if he just smooths out the casting a little bit when it just comes to like i don't know it's just like being
02:12:23
William Dunphey
True, true.
02:12:44
zzweilous
going from one point to another in the moment fluently and without second thought in a way. I think that's just like something that happens naturally the more you cast. And yeah, the more opportunities he gets, the more think that will manifest as well.
02:12:53
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:12:58
zzweilous
um Yeah, I love the idea where he poured water on his head because he made that bet. That is also something that few people would dare. I'm still mad the broadcast cut out.
02:13:11
zzweilous
um
02:13:11
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:13:11
zzweilous
But yeah, just make another bet. Just do it again. we will not get tired of the bit.
02:13:17
William Dunphey
You know, this is a little bit off topic, but i kind of wonder if there's some kind of guideline around that in terms of, um in in particular, like in terms of of Japanese media, I wonder if you can show like water about to hit a person and then the after effect, but you can't show it actually in the process.
02:13:25
zzweilous
Oh.
02:13:37
William Dunphey
I don't know.
02:13:37
zzweilous
hello
02:13:37
William Dunphey
Maybe, and maybe I'm just, I'm just talking, you know, about nothing, but I feel like there's something there.
02:13:41
zzweilous
I think it was actually not being done on purpose, but maybe maybe if they i don't know maybe if they broadcast broadcast it to Japan, they have to cut out the bit where the water hits them.
02:13:45
William Dunphey
Okay. Fair, fair.
02:13:54
William Dunphey
Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I'll, I'll, uh, I'll ask, uh, I'll ask an AI to tell me what's going on, but no, I'm just kidding. Um, but speaking of good takes, right. Good casters, good broadcasts, good, uh, good vibes all around.
02:14:07
William Dunphey
I saw a really, ah painful take that I think we should just talk about briefly. I mean, this was like, I don't know this,
02:14:14
zzweilous
I'm always here for the painful takes.
02:14:17
William Dunphey
Yeah, this, okay, so on a on a um on a hard copium side, this felt like, okay, maybe creators should work a bit harder to make more engaging content, right? That's maybe one way you could look at it if you're on some heavy cope.
02:14:33
William Dunphey
But if you're not coping that hard, this is just like, um Basically just throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks and who you can piss off. Right. So the taken question, I'll, I'll put it up on screen for us is from a WTM go.
02:14:49
William Dunphey
Who's a trainer that is active in EU. Let me see if I can get the link. Here we go. So I'm just going to read it I'll put it again. I'll put the graphic up. Unpopular opinion, sharing teams in the form of videos and graphics is a lazy way of making content and only benefits the content creator themselves.
02:15:08
William Dunphey
The only way to make the game more dependent would be to play the game for them. I don't dispute that these types of videos could be nice, casual viewing in quotes for some. I also think using usage stats from practice tournaments do not benefit players, but significantly condense the regional meta and negatively negatively impact the viewer experience at Play Pokemon events for the average viewer.
02:15:29
zzweilous
okay
02:15:32
William Dunphey
In combination, It creates a dependent player base that relies on being told what to play and how to play it. It limits the opportunity for creativity except occasional breakthroughs.
02:15:42
William Dunphey
It creates a stale viewing experience for most spectators. And it makes it harder to break through as a grassroots player despite the fact that both sharing teams and usage stats should help newer players.
02:15:55
William Dunphey
There's so much like, there's so much cringe in this post. I don't even know where to start, easy
02:16:02
zzweilous
I feel like he started somewhere and then just reached for conclusions that just didn't follow from the initial point that was being made.
02:16:12
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:16:12
zzweilous
Cause when I just look at it, um when I read sharing teams, videos, graphics is a lazy way of making content up until this point, I don't necessarily know whether I would disagree because it's very easy.
02:16:29
zzweilous
It's very easily done, right? Like you, come up with some basic team ideas before even playing the cup or you ask other notable players to come up with team ideas.
02:16:42
zzweilous
And that is like, it's not too much effort, right? Like you don't need to record something crazy fancy. You don't need to do a lot of research as much. Like you can do some basic research to find out about like, oh, which teams, which course would be good.
02:16:57
zzweilous
But it is it is routine, I would say. Calling it lazy that is already kind of making ah value a judgment. And I wouldn't make that value judgment as much because I don't think there's anything bad about these types of content, right?
02:17:12
zzweilous
And I do think that they are actually helpful as a guideline, as an orientation, not only for newer players, but also for players that have been around for a couple of years, but may have things going on in their lives and will not be able to take those 30 minutes as if easily out of their day to go on PVPoke and see what works or may not have the insights that some of these more dedicated top competitors have.
02:17:36
zzweilous
um So I personally don't really believe there's anything wrong with putting that content out there. I do think there could be a conversation to be had about, should we have content creators that just go out there and like tell stories, react to current events, just be like a little personable with the community? Occasionally, you don't even have to make like a big moving slideshow with graphics and animations and like 13 editors were working on that video you should you could just like sit in front of a camera and talk about a thing that moved you or that interests you and if you are an engaging personality or somebody who has something to say about a topic i think that could work within the framework of pokemon go and we don't really have that as much currently in the pvp sphere i
02:18:27
zzweilous
didn't watch but stumbled upon like a Pokedaxi video the other day we just drove out to a field and yapped for 45 minutes and there was like not a ton of effort going into setting that up either but it is something where a person kind of goes out of their way to do something that feels a little more extraordinary than just going over a blog post that was just posted by Pokemon Go and I feel as if creators could become personalities more in that they don't really need to just stick to GBL rotations and PV poke rankings when they make their content.
02:19:08
zzweilous
So if I was to leverage criticism against Pokemon Go content creation, that would probably be mine. Everything else that was mentioned afterwards, I disagree to strongly disagree with, like to a point where I think it's like kind of silly almost like,
02:19:24
zzweilous
how does How does it make it harder as a grassroots player to break through if people share, like how do you make that leap of logic that that makes it difficult for a grassroots player to perform well if people share their teams at times, especially because it's just suggestions suggestions as to what people could use.
02:19:47
zzweilous
You don't have to use it. You could choose to counter it. You could also look at, oh, there is currently like, 60 plus viable great league options. Just try out what you like and come up with a formula that you enjoy because there is just currently so much creative freedom that you could benefit from.
02:19:57
William Dunphey
yeah
02:20:08
zzweilous
Plus, I do not see the connection between putting out those resources and like, I don't know, like tournament viewing getting stale because everybody is just like,
02:20:22
zzweilous
copying what was being used in practice tournaments.
02:20:25
zzweilous
I think we just made the perfect case to the contrary by talking about Belo Horizonte having 18 different species in the top three teams. Plus, um when you talked about how you plug in the top teams from previous regionals into PvPoG to then reverse engineer what core breakers could arise for the next tournament, that's just your cast of predictions, but everybody is free to do that.
02:20:25
William Dunphey
Yep.
02:20:48
William Dunphey
who
02:20:51
zzweilous
off the basis of previous competitive teams, but also off the basis of something like the mechanical practice tournament graphics, where you can look at the top 10, decide for yourself what is good into that top 10, and come up with a core breaker of yourself that you may not have been aware of otherwise.
02:20:54
William Dunphey
yep
02:21:07
zzweilous
Because if you took away that resource, all you'd be left with is essentially just the PVPoke rankings. And those are not really show six focus. Those don't include with two shield scenarios.
02:21:18
zzweilous
um there still needs to be like a lot of work put in to refine that information. So yeah, I think having those graphics out, having that content out there is great.
02:21:32
zzweilous
I still believe there are steps to be taken for Pokemon Go content to develop over the years. and I would encourage creators to do something that may seem out of the ordinary, out of the box, a little crazier compared to what you usually do more often because
02:21:47
William Dunphey
yeah
02:21:49
zzweilous
I always enjoyed that content the most. We just talked about Arceus Aurelius as like somebody who has the personality and the knowledge of a potential top caster.
02:22:00
zzweilous
And he put out YouTube videos for like a short amount of time, like a year and a half ago.
02:22:01
William Dunphey
Yep.
02:22:06
zzweilous
And I loved those because he made like, oh, who's like the top 10 favorites going into worlds?
02:22:07
William Dunphey
Me too.
02:22:11
zzweilous
Why is this Pokemon good? And this is... very far removed from just oh pokemon go battle league rotates every week this is the new selection of top teams which i think is like the bread and butter of content creation don't get me wrong this is useful to so many people but it's not really interesting for experienced players and i want to be like if if you want to entertain me do something like marcus did back then but also
02:22:20
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:22:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:22:42
zzweilous
That doesn't mean that you need to just stop doing everything else because I don't think there's any negative impact to that.
02:22:47
William Dunphey
yeah No, you nailed it. um I think we're in alignment that ah the second half of this post is is particularly egregious. ah Just this point about not wanting to see usage trends before going to a Play Pokemon event, that's like applying for a job and not reading about the job responsibilities.
02:23:06
William Dunphey
Like they try to hand you the sheet that says, oh, you need communication skills and marketing and this ah email platform or whatever else. And you're like, nah, I'm good. I'm just going to go in and and see what I can do with what I know.
02:23:18
William Dunphey
That just feels like a very unprepared way to go into it. I mean, just not even wanting to see what other people are thinking before you jump in. That's like so there's like there's envisioning creativity and then there's like the far end of the spectrum where you just go on absolutely blind and you're playing shadow swana and whatever else. And you think that that is going to be the winner because that's, what's worked well for you in your own go battle league matches.
02:23:43
William Dunphey
Would we get more variety at tournaments if that happened? Yes. But to your point about Bella Horizonte, when you've got 18 unique in the top three, I think we've already got a hell of a lot of variety um to the first point about videos and graphics in terms of teams.
02:23:59
William Dunphey
I know they can get a bit boring. We get a lot of that for, I think every creator almost publishes some form of like suggested teams, for fantasy cups, suggested teams for jungle cup or great league or whatever.
02:24:11
William Dunphey
But as he as a, as creator myself, who's posted some of those team graphics, you, you do one of two things. Either one, you spend much more time than you would like on PvPoke trying to figure out a meta, trying to look at core breakers, trying to assemble teams, and you make a graphic with maybe three to six useful teams yourself.
02:24:30
William Dunphey
And it ends up taking probably two hours or more of research. And then you have to also um make the graphic yourself, which if you don't have a template, it can take quite a while to piece all the different layers together.
02:24:40
William Dunphey
And the worst part about that is that if your team suck, people will see that and they'll stop interacting with your stuff and they'll start ignoring your opinions. Right. Got bad teams. So there's a downside to that.
02:24:52
William Dunphey
ah The other way you can do it is what Martijn does, where you might ask other players or competitors or creators to source teams. But what are you doing then? You just opened up your project to chasing down six individual people with different schedules, different time zones, ah might get back to you immediately, might never get back to you if you ask them for a team.
02:25:13
William Dunphey
And then you have to cobble all those teams together into a graphic and push it out on a deadline. And if you're a a creative or even just a introverted worker, that can be really tough to kind of track down people, have the emotional bandwidth to remember, oh,
02:25:27
William Dunphey
The deadline for this graphic, I promise my my Discord and my my following is 2 p.m. today, and I've not heard back from one of the players who's supposed to submit a team. It's not easy, right? And to the casual point about team graphics, after Silph Worlds years ago,
02:25:43
William Dunphey
I coached for about six months and it was so eyeopening for me because I, I started a program during the summer where I had like 12 people that answered it. We were doing like a really hardcore kind of bootcamp style coaching program that lasted, i think for four weeks or something.
02:25:59
William Dunphey
And what I learned is that I would teach my students about turn cycles, about charge moves, about, you know, reading your opponent's back line, about all these different nuances.
02:26:10
William Dunphey
I had like a document called the eight pillars of PVP, where I spelled out everything explicitly, very, very succinct. And what I found was that only two of my 12 students in that bootcamp actually really cared about the fundamentals. Yeah.
02:26:24
William Dunphey
And, you know, the other ones would would absorb it. They'd learn a little bit about it. They say, okay, okay, I understand. oh this is insightful. I'll use this. But after the first two weeks, they all started asking me for the same thing.
02:26:36
William Dunphey
They said, give me a good team and tell me how to run it. And that was it.
02:26:40
zzweilous
Thank you.
02:26:40
William Dunphey
And that was it. Like no matter how much you try to preach the fundamentals, I only had one student who actually took the fundamentals and then started building his own teams and actually dominated pretty well on the leaderboards. Page one, GBL leaderboards consistently, only one.
02:26:54
William Dunphey
And that was like pretty unique, right? Um, People need team suggestions. I find myself going through and looking for this because with, you know, other things going in, like going on in life, I'm not on PV poke multiple hours per day. I'm not watching five different streamers every day to figure out what teams are running.
02:27:11
William Dunphey
I like looking for team suggestions and I do find myself doing that. And if there's something I i think looks interesting, I'll give it a try. And then maybe I tweak it after that. But yeah, I think your, your point is so important to call it lazy, I think is, is a bit of a stretch.
02:27:27
William Dunphey
I think it is necessary and maybe it is overdone, but to call it like lazy or to kind of degrade the effort that goes into it, I think is, is a stretch too far, but yeah, I don't know.
02:27:39
William Dunphey
I mean, the more I read this post, I kind of think it was just created just to annoy people ah because these takes are like pretty far on the other side of the spectrum. And yeah,
02:27:49
zzweilous
there's there's one more take that came like a day after that was made on like broadcast viewership and that was um it was written down in a very similar fashion i would say so ah there's certainly i don't know like provocation doesn't need to be a negative but it also doesn't really need to be engaged with assuming that provocation wasn't the goal of it's like
02:27:57
William Dunphey
ah
02:28:03
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:28:20
zzweilous
Like we we we know what you're doing.
02:28:20
William Dunphey
Exactly.
02:28:21
zzweilous
I think it's worth engaging with the points made on their merits, but it's also okay to reject some of it if you think that applies here. And yeah, I personally and personallyly believe that um even though the point that one could aspire to um certain forms of content creation that maybe haven't been represented within the Pokemon Go PVP sphere as much yet,
02:28:32
William Dunphey
yeah
02:28:49
zzweilous
um that does not overlap with existing forms of content that help probably hundreds of players each meta rotation.
02:28:59
William Dunphey
The best form of rage bait, it pokes at some kind of emotional insecurity, right? I think that Go creators have seen that GBL videos have largely not changed since the format came out.
02:29:12
William Dunphey
They're pretty much the same. Here's a good team. Here's a 5-0. Here's how you play it. GG's, right? That's it. I think that there is an underlying insecurity that there hasn't been more evolution in that term in that sense in the of the content.
02:29:25
William Dunphey
And when you have players like or creators like PvP Steve who are actually going above and beyond with his graphics and his storytelling, I think it does help to inject some new inspiration into the model.
02:29:36
William Dunphey
But his viewership is much, much lower than the typical standard that you expect from the GVL videos.
02:29:40
zzweilous
Yeah.
02:29:41
William Dunphey
So it's kind of a ah tough thing. In terms of viewership, Okay, let's be honest, right? The Go viewership compared VG is not anywhere close, right? You get the VG VODs from regionals. They've got 126,000, 150,000 views on day one of Milwaukee or whatever regional it might be.
02:30:01
William Dunphey
And then Go is like, you know, maybe a quarter or a fifth of that viewership. I do think there is like, when you're right next to those other titles, there is a sense of competitiveness and there is a sense of comparison.
02:30:14
William Dunphey
When you look at the viewership and look at the audience. So I do think a lot of Go players are insecure about that. And I do think a lot of us have thought, oh, well maybe our game is not growing or maybe it's not growing at the rate that it should.
02:30:26
William Dunphey
And yeah, again, the best rage bait does have like a grain of truth to it. And i think that's what really hooks people and makes them feel uncomfortable. um emotional enough to respond.
02:30:38
William Dunphey
And I do think that that
Excitement for Upcoming Tournaments
02:30:39
William Dunphey
maybe WTM is doing that. Also, go follow them. ah WTM Go PVP on X, formerly known as Twitter. We talked about their posts long enough.
02:30:48
William Dunphey
We should at least send maybe a few followers their way. So might as well. But ZZ, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add. I think we've pretty much exhausted all of our topics for today.
02:31:01
zzweilous
agree. Matthias Wittmann, it's been it's been two hours 30 minutes I don't know whether this is whether this is a record for us, but it's already difficult for me to speak a straight sentence so.
02:31:12
zzweilous
Wittmann, I guess we're pretty much at the end of it and we'll hear back from another in just about a week from now, when we do have a little regional champion crown oh one more thing there have been more regional locations announced, which is.
02:31:29
William Dunphey
oh
02:31:30
zzweilous
interesting especially for our north american listenership but also for our australians because i do believe that we have houston texas march 20th to 22nd um orlando april 3rd to april 5th as well as melbourne late may 23rd and 24th so three more guaranteed locations where you can earn those championship points and yeah i heard people are pretty excited about Houston. I guess like the Texan ones are always pretty well attended.
02:32:01
zzweilous
um So yeah, that would probably it in terms of housekeeping.
02:32:05
William Dunphey
Yeah. Well,
02:32:08
William Dunphey
the the Houston tournament is my birthday weekend. So definitely very excited for that.
02:32:12
zzweilous
Cool.
02:32:14
William Dunphey
um I will be in Houston no matter what, everyone. So as a competitor, maybe you'll have to see. But um yeah, I'll be there no matter what. I've got family that lives there as well. So I'm going to make a trip out of it. But I'm very excited
Closing Remarks & Reflections
02:32:26
William Dunphey
for those regional locations. Orlando is always special to me because 2020, right before the world shut down, was when we had our mega tournament in Orlando. We had like 230 players or more sign up.
02:32:39
William Dunphey
ah Valorash ended up winning it with Icy Wind Cloyster, which is such a throwback. ah But yeah, very, very special cities to me. And this continues to be a very special season and a special year or so.
02:32:52
William Dunphey
Yeah, we're going to do a recap after the next regional championship, but I agree, ZZ, it's been quite a long show. We won't talk about the last meme that we wanted to share. I'll just throw it up on screen as the outro music plays so you got you can all have a nice laugh.
02:33:02
zzweilous
yeah
02:33:05
William Dunphey
um But it's been ah an honor and a pleasure per usual. Even when we take time off, it feels like we are able to hit the ground running every time. Love doing the show. Love talking with you every every time we get the chance. But yeah.
02:33:16
William Dunphey
ZZ, it's been an honor. And yeah, we'll see you after the next tournament for a recap. And that's all from us this week. Have a great rest of your day.
02:33:25
zzweilous
Same to you.