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EP. 46 | Prague, Los Angeles, Utrecht, Campinas 2026 recaps + TPC Playoffs: India, APAC, Taiwan, Indonesia
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 46 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.
Today, we will recap 9 Championship Series events. This is the busiest part of the season! We begin with Prague, where Tontonbatteuse and his Shadow Hydreigon shocked the tournament. We continue on with Los Angeles, where Arrohh and his Dartrix/Aegislash combo clutched an emotional Grand Finals. Then, we go to Utrecht, where Nesabethan flops to 1st place with... Shadow Sealeo?? We conclude this portion of the show with Campinas, where TzSteinar toppled DarknessKyu in the Finals.
Then, we break down some of the Pokemon and players in a variety of TPC Playoff events, including: NekoparadiseOwO and his Pangoro, Shadowlord2770 with Shadow Dusknoir, MasterMihir295 with Umbreon, TeddIness with Shadow Sealeo, and RifqiAditya23 with... Furret?? This episode is a long one, but a good one!
If you're ready... go ahead and lock In, good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction & Show Setup
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Hello and welcome to the Show 6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. This is episode 45, and we have nine events to cover, from Prague to l LA, Utrecht and Campinas, and then a slew of TPC events, including the India, APEC, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia playoffs.
00:00:19
William Dunphey
There's a lot to get into, and we're not going waste any time. So if you're ready, good luck, lock in, and have fun.
00:00:48
William Dunphey
Welcome back, everybody, to the Show 6 Podcast.
Personal Health Stories & Apologies
00:00:50
William Dunphey
We have a very fun episode for you today, and I want to start off by apologizing for being away for so long. Sometimes schedules don't line up. Sometimes health is a bit of a factor, and luckily for ZZ and I, we are both healthy, ah happy, and ready to rock and roll with episode 45. ZZ, how are you feeling?
00:01:08
zz
I am feeling fabulous, actually. So this time, i know I don't know, like last year I had some health health issues that, among other things, made me miss the Latin American International Championships.
00:01:22
zz
This year I've been feeling great. um So that is fantastic. And I'm um also delighted that you are feeling bad better, Speedy, because i've already talked about it a little bit ahead of this episode that there were things going on for like two weeks straight and that's not really where you want to be.
00:01:38
William Dunphey
No, you're exactly right. On ah on May 1st, I managed to pull a muscle in my lower neck at the gym. And then the next day, I started to develop ah fever symptoms. And that fever lasted all the way through at l LA. I think on Saturday morning, my temp was over 100 degrees when I was getting my suit on and getting ready to go and commentate. So... Luckily, I wasn't contagious or anything, but if I did make any mistakes or screw ups, like, i don't know, saying that Rise beat Busa Boy, then that was definitely the fever talking there. And Henry was such a trooper to to carry us through. So I'm glad that you're feeling healthy, ZZ. Also, there's some kind of new audio here on on my interface. I'm just going to play it and see what it is, okay?
00:02:21
William Dunphey
Whoa, what's that?
00:02:25
William Dunphey
What? Hold on. Hold on. I'm catching a vibe here.
New Audio Setup & AI Sounds
00:02:30
William Dunphey
Hold on.
00:02:41
William Dunphey
Woo! This is weird.
00:02:42
zz
i like it
00:02:49
zz
I was wondering whether this was AI. It was it is most certainly AI.
00:02:56
William Dunphey
This is 1000% AI. And you know, it's so funny. i found the song for free. and then i I converted text to speech for the German ai but it was originally a woman's voice. And I had to slow it down to match the song and it became deeply unsettling. So I just kept it.
00:03:13
William Dunphey
Instead of changing the pitch, I kept it and then I just named the audio clip unsettling birthday song. So
Birthday Thoughts & Aging
00:03:22
zz
it was very uncanny but also much appreciated yes i did have my my birthday weekend around the weekend of the utrecht um regional championships it's not a special championships anymore first year is the regional championships in the in the netherlands and yeah was i know you like you felt almost guilty for not initially thinking of it but like
00:03:22
William Dunphey
happy belated birthday.
00:03:25
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:03:46
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:03:47
zz
It's just a It's just a day. don't really care that much about it.
00:03:49
William Dunphey
oh Well, I know as we get older, right, we kind of wish the birthdays stopped coming as quickly as they do. So I completely understand. But happy belated, my friend. I just wanted to to get a little surprise for you in there as as uncanny as it was.
00:04:03
William Dunphey
But ah that being said, I think we should jump into these events.
Prague Championship Series
00:04:07
William Dunphey
ah We should start with the streamed ones, right? Because these are the ones that people watch, the ones that people remember. And there's so much to talk about with Prague.
00:04:13
William Dunphey
I would i would love to dive into that one first if you're if you're interested.
00:04:16
zz
Oh yeah. 100%.
00:04:19
zz
Prague, first time on the championship championship circuit that we made it to the Czech Republic. And you could tell that it would be a very hyped, a very stacked tournament right from the get go, because obviously Prague is such a beautiful, historic city.
00:04:35
zz
And if you were going to go to original, not only for the competition, but also just for sightseeing, for maybe a cultural experience, maybe cheap beer,
00:04:45
William Dunphey
Thank
00:04:45
zz
Prague is certainly one of the best bets on the circuit as a whole. So we did not only have a very stacked field of European competitors, but we also welcomed international competition. um For example, Duneburg was there, Rise to Occasion was there, Out of Pocket was there. I believe the highest placing North American finisher was Sustenance Eater in ninth place.
00:05:09
zz
um We also had nighttime pleasure commentating the event. So it was almost like a ah little international championships that we had. But at the end of the day, um we did have our European talent prevail.
00:05:22
zz
And I'm just looking at this top 16 graphic. You have like Colin Six and Partaman in 13th place.
00:05:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:05:30
zz
I'm not even on this. Like I didn't even make top 16 first in a while where I didn't feature on my beloved Dracovus graphics. But yeah, we had ah we had a top four emerging of Nezabethan.
00:05:44
zz
um This is already foreshadowing something that is to come in a later part of this episode. Then Inadequance, bringing Giratina again and getting yet another medal with it, with a team that vaguely resembles the team that used to finish as a runner-up in the 2024 World Championships.
00:05:50
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:06:03
zz
And then Boom20, because obviously whenever Boom competes in a regional, at worst it's a top eight. it's It's usually the grand finals and number one of the Prague Regional Championships.
00:06:14
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:06:18
zz
It's none other than Tonton Batous, probably the best Spice player in Europe over the years. International champion, regional champion, now multi-time regional champion, piloting a core of Shadowhide Dragon and Aegislash. Both of these Pokemon had not won a championship before.
00:06:37
William Dunphey
Wow. Shadowhide Dragon. Insane to watch. I remember watching the grand finals. I actually woke up just in time for the grand finals. It was almost like the stars had a
European vs. American Strategies
00:06:45
William Dunphey
line. Woke up, pulled out my phone, and i was like, oh, I'll check on the stream. And it literally was game one of the grand finals. So I was able to watch that live, which is really, really fun. um But I'll tell you what, you know, I'm the North American on this podcast, and I was so curious about Dunebug, Rise, and Pocket. going all the way over to Prague and then essentially falling flat. So I did a little bracket research. I just want to recap this real quick. I feel like I can, right? Because I'm the NA player. if If you did it, ZZ, they just get mad at you. So Dunebug overall went two and two. He lost to Boom 20 and Pocket.
00:07:16
William Dunphey
So a little NA on NA violence there. He played Shadow Townflame though, which is which is notable. But two, two for Dunebug, not a great outcome. Rise went one and two. I think this marked... one of the only events in quite a while that he has not earned points. He lost to the Reeve 18 and HK Assassin, so two European trainers.
00:07:33
William Dunphey
Then out of pocket, went 3-2 overall. He lost early in round two, knocked Doonbug out of the tournament two one so As you said, no NA within the top eight. Best performing one was Sustance Eater. Meanwhile, you had Boom second place, Inadequance third. Pata Man went 3-2. He was actually beaten by Sustance and Nezevathan. Colin was 3-2, playing Clefable and Gorgais, but he lost to Kaifia and Nickname.
00:07:57
William Dunphey
And then Paula did really well. Nickname, seventh, tied for seventh, lost to Tauntaun and Inadequance. But overall, I would say that our our three NA trainers that we always look to to perform really well,
00:08:09
William Dunphey
Completely flat in Prague. I didn't talk with them about it directly when I when i saw them at post events. But um yeah, I'm a little disappointed and ah and a little ah a little worried about NA when it comes to Worlds because this is not ah not a good look.
00:08:18
zz
and
00:08:23
zz
So I believe, so first of all, they'll be fine, right? Because if you if you look at their resume across all the many, many tournaments that they've played, there's always like a little bump in the road, just once or twice per season.
00:08:35
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:08:39
zz
But then the next four tournaments are going to be finished in the top eight. That's just like, what happens?
00:08:43
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:44
zz
Nobody is like a machine, but these players are probably as close to one as we get on the circuit. So yeah.
00:08:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:52
zz
theyll They'll be alright. But also, I believe it's a trend. or like I believe European team building requires a different set of skill compared to American team building.
00:09:04
zz
Because, so this was the first event, at least the first streamed event, I will believe on that same weekend. We also had the, or maybe the weekend before, but like we had the Indian playoffs where
00:09:04
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:09:20
zz
That was also happening within the Tinkerton meta because Gigaton Hammer Tinkerton was just released in a community day. And so this was the first time it was legal at a TPCI tournament.
00:09:20
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:09:36
zz
And in North America, you would probably just like see the top meta picks that you would see reflected in, like practice tournament usage.
00:09:47
zz
You would see a lot of Tinker Tone. You would see a lot of Feraligata. You would see the usual suspects.
00:09:50
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:09:52
zz
Whereas in Europe, I believe players are more thinking along the lines of, okay, if this is the meta, how do I counter
Tinkerton's Role & Unexpected Outcomes
00:10:01
zz
the meta? How do I find creative and unusual ways of getting around what I can expect rather than to actually play the picks that people would expect.
00:10:11
zz
And between that and just the outstandingly correct nature of this tournament and all the competitors at the tournament, um I think that just bred this incredibly difficult to navigate environment where top players had to build for something that they weren't used to and maybe also weren't expecting, and then also ran into each other and essentially cannibalized each other through facing in the bracket early. um For example, I'll give you the example of Nighttime Clasher himself.
00:10:43
William Dunphey
hmm. hmm.
00:10:43
zz
Obviously, i don't know whether he's still like leading the NA leaderboards, but if he doesn't, then he's probably at least top two or three. um But if you look at the start of his season, And he was competing in Europe still at the Frankfurt Regional, at the Lille Regional, and also in Gdansk. And he came, I believe, 17th, 17th, and 49th.
00:11:05
zz
So those are actually, like, none of these were, like, terrible tournaments by any means, but it was just, okay, the European meta is so unpredictable, and there are so many good players that you can get knocked out out by really early in the tournament that even the best of the best aren't safe. So it's not really like an indictment of the continent, it's just more of a feature of European competition.
00:11:31
William Dunphey
It's so ironic too, because back in the SILF days, I remember one of the cups came around and this was, I guess, during the pandemic when the cups were open remotely. And I said, well, I i need my, you know, my August whatever cup. So I joined one in in the UK and was,
00:11:49
William Dunphey
And, you know time zones were a little bit different, of course, but I remember battling against the trainers in the UK and that itself felt different. And i recognize that years ago, right? Different play styles, different approaches. And and luckily for me, it was a more limited meta. But I think you're right. I think that in NA, when you have this open Great
Cultural Differences in Gaming Strategies
00:12:06
William Dunphey
League meta, I think the focus is on optimizing, shaving off the you know the last two to four percent of of mistakes and just playing the same Pokemon, just playing them better than your opponents. Meanwhile, and you and I have talked about this before.
00:12:19
William Dunphey
Everyone in Europe wants to win with their signature pick. They want to be known as the Shadowhide Dragon player or the Dartrix trainer, right? So there's a lot of impetus and a lot of urgency when it comes to kind of reaching into the bucket and picking out Pokemon that nobody else would use.
00:12:34
William Dunphey
And I do think there is there's a clash of styles there. So a lot depends on this this meta change coming in June, right? and And whether or not Worlds is open Great League or limited format. Personally, I want it to be open Great League, but I know there's some folks who want it to be limited too.
00:12:47
zz
yeah
00:12:48
William Dunphey
so I don't know if if it's limited Europe might have a little less of an edge I would say. And they might be ready to hyper optimize. One trainer I wanted to shout out to just briefly is the Reeve 18.
00:13:00
William Dunphey
I looked back at his career and I noticed that that finishing fifth overall was his best career performance. Previously tied 13th in Stuttgart 2026 and tied 13th in Birmingham 2025.
00:13:11
William Dunphey
So I did want to give a shout out to Reeve. And i believe the Reeve did it with with Malamar and Grumpig double side wave users, which is cool.
00:13:17
zz
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was really happy to see that run. um I don't know when I first noticed the Reef in these events, but he's a lovely guy.
00:13:25
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:13:28
zz
Like, I remember in Prague, he also, like, um he offered me, like, some Czech sweets just because he said, like, oh, every time I go to regional, I want to get some of the local treats and try them for myself.
00:13:43
zz
And he was like, willing to share and willing to lift people around him up and he's always just been such a positive force when i saw him around european originals so i'm happy to see him have the success um and yeah grumpig and malamount on the same team honestly i can see it i can see it because none of the neither of these pokemon are
00:14:00
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:14:03
zz
terribly rps into anything but the like bugbite fortress for example like that is probably the one big culprit here but other than that it's like psychic types with fighting type coverage with quick pacing and with the one turn fast attack that also gives them maneuverability that um allows them just to dip in and out of matchup so quickly
00:14:08
William Dunphey
yeah
00:14:25
zz
So doubling up on a flexible pick like that, people will not see it coming. They may be able to deal with the threat once, but if it just comes again a second time, what are they going to do?
00:14:34
William Dunphey
There's another side wave user.
00:14:35
zz
Exactly.
00:14:36
William Dunphey
Another one. ah No, I think you're right. and And I think as well, people, I think Martijn is probably one of the best trainers in the world, inadequants, at doing this. He builds his team with specific weaknesses with the intent to make his opponents more predictable. So if you have both Grumpig and Malamar on your team, if you're the Reeve, you probably count on them bringing their Bug Bite Fortress to every single game, which then you can start to game plan around and you can start to make it i guess a guessing game of just two of the three Pokemon on the line instead of all three, right? So I'm sure that that was a factor. I'm just kind of reading into it a bit.
00:15:09
William Dunphey
um But yeah, I definitely love to see the double sideway of users and they have different utility and they're not hopeless either. If you're Malamar, you can superpower and switch if you're in the lead or if If you're Grump Pig, you can always dynamic punch and Shadow Ball and fight your way through the fortress anyway. um Something else I wanted to mention here. oh you made a comment. You said that this was the Tigaton GigaTon Hammer release, and it kind of was dead on arrival. But ZZ, it still finished 4th, 5th, and 9th overall.
00:15:34
William Dunphey
So obviously there's a little bit of something to GigaTon Ticketon.
00:15:38
zz
There is something to it, but you were expecting it to be the dominant fairy going into this because like if you remember the start of the season, essentially everything was just Wigglytuff.
00:15:44
William Dunphey
True.
00:15:49
zz
and You would think that, oh, like just from practice usage, Tinkerton would probably sit around like roughly 50%, would probably compete with Fortress even in terms of the Steel-type role.
00:16:01
William Dunphey
and
00:16:03
zz
But really, it's only sitting at 18.8% usage in top card, whereas Togekiss, a Pokemon that you would think loses to Tinkerton,
00:16:15
zz
surged all the way up into a fourth place in usage and 50% overall, um featuring on both teams in the grand finals. and That is probably something few people saw coming.
00:16:26
zz
But actually, if you are ahead just one pack, and the Tinkerton doesn't bait you in the matchup, Togekiss is able to, just by virtue of pacing and eventually chipping away to the point where Aura Sphere is a two-shot, Togekiss is able to take that matchup against the Tinkerton. So even though you would think, okay, like a Steel-type with a massive one-shot button and Gigaton Hammer,
00:16:54
zz
Horrible matchup for Chogekiss. Not really, as long as you don't get baited and as long as you are two turns ahead.
00:17:02
William Dunphey
It's so counterintuitive, but I feel like Pokemon Go is constantly like that. Whenever TCG players or BG players look at our game, they're like, wait, how how are these Pokemon viable and what are they doing? And then you have, of course, like you said, Tinketan Hammer with the Control-Alt-Delete button, but it just takes so long to get there. If you're if you're not in a zero shield scenario, it's really tough to beat Togekiss. And we see that as well later on in l LA.
Team Building Insights & Strategies
00:17:25
William Dunphey
So I think it makes some pretty good points. But know beats both of them? And it's in your notes.
00:17:30
William Dunphey
Yendovan Sunfisk. And this Pokemon popped up a lot in the prog meta.
00:17:35
zz
Yeah, the best finish that it gets is second place on Boom20's team. And I think the one reason why people um resorted to Stuntfisk is, on the one hand, it is um a Tinkerton answer.
00:17:51
zz
It's also a core breaker to Tinkerton Feraligatr, the Pokémon that topped the practice usage. But also, it is one of the strongest answers to Togekiss, which was like one of the European favorites of that weekend. So just a lot of good reasons to use that Unovan Stanfisk.
00:18:09
zz
um And another thing that I have found with ground types in this current meta is that the main ground type in Shadow Quagsire tends to be relatively vulnerable to Licky Licky, which is most people's neutral comfort pick.
00:18:23
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:18:26
zz
And there's ways of playing around Licky Licky that involve switching up your ground type of choice. So some people were essentially splitting up their water type and their ground type role into two team slots and gave Unovan Stunfisk a shot as the ground type um just because um the superior bulk in terms of being non-shadow and having a slightly higher stat product does give it a favorable matchup over Licky Licky, where Shadow Quagsire can actually lose that because it essentially gets to it knocked out. um
00:19:01
zz
So that is one reason why, you know, Instant Fisk was used, that it also has a very solid Licky Licky matchup. Other ways of ensuring that your ground type beats Lickie Lickie is either to go for Diggy Spee, which we will see in North America later on, but also something that is a very recent trend.
00:19:19
zz
People have been dropping the Shadow bonus on Quagsite and instead went for the regular, which does reduce the rollout damage taken from, believe, four to three, and also makes it so that two Shadow Balls can be survived.
00:19:24
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:19:32
zz
um So that also helps with that ever-present Lickie Lickie.
00:19:37
William Dunphey
Wow. Very well said. i hope I hope everybody's taking notes. I i know we're going get a meta change soon, but we still have Indianapolis coming up. And I hope that people are are studying what ZZ is laying out here for us. um Following in our notes here for the show, Martijn revives the Giratina Poliwrath core from 2024 Worlds. Is there merit to this duo? I really like this point you you you brought up. So I looked at The Sims. This duo destroys Quagsire Fortress with Bugbite.
00:20:08
William Dunphey
and Empoleon, right? So already you can see why Martime would run it. It struggles against Jellicent, Altaria, Wigglytuff, and Galarian Weezing. I'd say the most popular Pokemon of those four is probably the Wigglytuff. Altaria has essentially fallen out of the meta for for you know all intents and purposes. And then we've seen flashes of G. Weezing here and there. Sir Corey played Jellicent, I believe, in Utrecht. I was watching back the bot earlier. But again, these Pokemon are like far few and far between. So I don't know if there's a whole lot of merit to this. We have seen some Polywrath gameplay, but it might just be Martyn. And we we mentioned earlier about trainers that are machines that are consistent.
00:20:46
William Dunphey
I don't know if anyone is more of a robot than Martijn after winning two events and then placing a third at this one and bookending the season, right? First event and then near the end of the season, he's still placing third.
00:20:58
William Dunphey
it's It's inhuman.
00:21:00
zz
Also, one thing that I always like to do when looking at those brackets and at the Dracovis statistics about those tournaments is not to only look at the placings of every player, but also um just to like trying to quantify their runs. And if I look not at um the placement, but at matches won and at games won,
00:21:21
zz
Martijn actually tops the Prague Regional Statistics, winning 11 matches and 23 games. So that is essentially saying that even though he lost relatively early to a carving team, which is obviously, sometimes you just cannot beat a carving. It happens to the best of us.
00:21:40
William Dunphey
yeah
00:21:40
zz
um It was beyond that the most successful team of the tournament. So obviously it takes a very experienced and a very confident pilot.
00:21:54
zz
But given what the top meta threats are, I believe that it's like actually two valid Pokemon, especially because ah we talk about, oh the top two Pokemon in terms of usage are Quagsai and Lickilickie.
00:22:01
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:22:08
zz
um Why not just throw a Polirath in there? That makes it very difficult for your opponent to save swap either of them. And also, one fun thing about Giratina is that the way the pacing works out, if you run it with Shadow Sneak,
00:22:22
zz
um you will reach two Shadow Sneaks before an opposing Tinkerton, which you would imagine is a hard counter, reaches two Gigaton Hammers. So if they don't go ahead and deploy their two shields first, if they instead decide to let a Shadow Sneak go, you will be able to just two-shield your Giratina and farm the Tinkerton all the way down before even taking a Gigaton Hammer.
00:22:47
zz
So these Pokémon, they have... so many intricate intricacies to them and if you know them well you will be able to pilot them through matchups that just on face value you wouldn't think are winnable at all.
00:23:02
William Dunphey
Wow. Okay, be honest. How much have you studied these Shadow Guillotina Altered matchups? Because it sounds like you know
00:23:08
zz
I I studied them a lot. I brought this team to a a local the weekend before Utrecht, and I did get technically 65 points from that local doubleheader, but only 50 have been added to my profile thus far.
00:23:11
William Dunphey
Oh, I
00:23:24
zz
I have to press for the challenge to also be reported.
00:23:25
William Dunphey
know.
00:23:27
zz
But anyways, it was very successful, and I was close to doing my best Martijn impression and bringing Vigilatina to Utrecht, but
00:23:28
William Dunphey
a
00:23:34
zz
then i felt too inspired by arrows around in la um but yeah i guess that's like that's future regionals for all intents and purposes because i guess we still have um some very exciting games from from prague to at least touch on like briefly because i don't know how present these are for many of our listeners given that prague was all the way back in april and we have the 21st of may currently
00:23:38
William Dunphey
i know
00:23:50
William Dunphey
Of course. Of course.
00:24:03
zz
um But yeah, it was a very...
00:24:03
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:24:04
William Dunphey
Well, sorry.
00:24:06
zz
ah yeah, you go ahead.
00:24:06
William Dunphey
Go go ahead. Go ahead, ZZ.
00:24:08
zz
I was like already like trying to segue us into the grand finals of Prague because I thought...
00:24:13
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:24:15
zz
Yeah, no, you go ahead.
00:24:17
William Dunphey
OK, sorry, I just want make one honorable mention before we reach jump into Grands. It doesn't show up on the graphic here, but I just wanted to to give some flowers to Cookshack and Elephant Flashe because Cookshack finished tied 17th with a Go-Goat, of all things. And then the OG, Elephant Flashe, whose name I always butcher, tied 33rd with Greedent.
00:24:37
William Dunphey
and i And I know that it's not going appear on our on our graphic here, but i just I just have to send some love over to our trainers in Europe who who play these spicy Pokemon. um But yes, let's let's go ahead and transition to the grand finals. I'm going to be honest with you, ZZ.
00:24:51
William Dunphey
Boom is one of the most capable players on the planet,
Prague Finals & Notable Performances
00:24:55
William Dunphey
regardless of region. Boom, like you said earlier on, he's either top eight or he's in the grand finals, and there's in between. We were actually talking about Boom in l LA. I believe that Soth brought up some stats about him and said, look, he's he is the highest performing trainer, pound for pound.
00:25:11
William Dunphey
on earth right but if he enters a tournament it's it's either it's either uh all the way or nothing right boom against tauntaun's hydragon looked hopeless i've never seen boom uh broken in that sense and um i really think that it just speaks to the team building here because boom is so capable but in the grand finals it just felt like he could get nothing going uh he only won one game that was game three of the initial grand finals bracket
00:25:13
zz
Yes.
00:25:37
William Dunphey
And then Tauntaun won four straight, resetting the bracket and then and then sweeping. um And I think that, I mean, all my notes, right, ah to sum it up, Tauntaun calls a body slam bait, catches shadow ball on his own licky licky. Tauntaun psycho cuts down in blade form. Triple Brutus swing overwhelms boom and Tauntaun wins it all. That's essentially what my notes say, right?
00:25:57
William Dunphey
It was just absolutely dominant. Yeah.
00:25:59
zz
yeah we don't have to do a full play-by-play and just because there's so much to get through but i do want to highlight you mentioned it there with like the bait calls like the catches multiple of those incredible high-level actions done in the same game i felt as if tauntaun reached a flow state in the middle of those grand finals that was just impossible to recover from on Boom's side and that really doesn't say anything about like his own qualities as a battler. It's just like very difficult to recover from Tauntaun in Tauntaun mode when he has like his crazy dragon type Pokemon that just seems to overwhelm a team.
00:26:43
zz
And with Hydreigon, he had the perfect Pokemon because it has win conditions against the entirety of Boom's team.
00:26:43
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:26:51
zz
um Whether it's the ground types, whether it's Liki Liki, I believe you can even get a breakpoint into Liki Liki that makes that matchup even more comfortable. Then there's Empoleon, which you beat just from like by outpacing it, um because you get the 9-turn pacing, it gets the 10-turn pacing, eventually Dragon Breath and Brutal Swing will add up.
00:27:11
zz
Then you have Galarian Korsula, which obviously is just a straight-up positive type matchup for the Dark Dragon type. And then you think the only answer that Boom has is Togekiss, the one fairy type, the last bastion against Hydreigon's onslaught.
00:27:24
William Dunphey
Yep. Yes.
00:27:27
zz
But you look at the two shield matchup, you bait two brutal swings, you land a fly, Togekiss is gone!
00:27:27
William Dunphey
but
00:27:35
zz
Hydreigon essentially did not have an answer. um
00:27:39
William Dunphey
yes
00:27:39
zz
So the interesting part of this matchup to me was that in the winner's finals, Boom managed to cleanly sweep Tauntaun. Because what Boom did was to always just lead Togekiss, expecting like, oh, Tauntaun would probably lead Hydreigon because there's like a five and six chance that it's a strictly positive matchup and the other one he can get with Bates, right?
00:28:01
zz
um And yeah, essentially, boom just did a lot of really good line calls and Tonton did a couple of futile catches or catch attempts rather and was just like overwhelmed with how the alignment never worked out in his favor.
00:28:03
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:28:15
zz
And just like it was it was Boom who was calling the shots in that series. But Tonton made a very interesting adjustment in the...
00:28:28
zz
Grand Finals in the in the eventual reset as well where it didn't always Try to rely on Aegislash even though like the Aegislash gameplay was very exciting but It's very difficult to use Aegislash against somebody who leads Togekiss if Togekiss is in the back and eventually um There will be like a certain alignment situation um that is a very fine matchup but just by leading togekiss boom was able to potentially avoid that
00:28:59
zz
um And if you then use Aegislash to try and defeat a lead Togekiss, you will be on the back foot as soon as your opponent switches out into safe swap like Blicky Licky.
00:29:11
zz
Because there is no strict Blicky Licky answer on Tauntaun's team, not one that doesn't have to go down shields.
00:29:11
William Dunphey
Correct. Mm
00:29:19
zz
And Aegislash, because of the charging fast attack, which actually doesn't charge as fast and also doesn't do any damage, it is not a Pokemon that can chip and dip the same way like a Shadow Feraligatr would be able to, where it takes you 10 turns to the Hydro Cannon. You can issue damage that will probably take your opponent to half health and then go into your secondary matchup.
00:29:41
zz
Eggie Slash lead cannot do that. It is too slow. So Eggie Slash lead is always a little exploitable and even if you find the Togekiss, it's risky.
00:29:44
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:29:50
zz
So what Ton Ton did was he didn't rely on the Eggie Slash, but at least two times he brought his own Togekiss in a position where he was essentially able to just neutralize the Togekiss lead. And once the Togekiss is gone, Hydreigon has essentially free reign.
00:30:09
zz
And that was such a heads-up adjustment, and it gave Tonton the momentum to then bring back the 80-slash, switch it up a little with all the options that he had on his team.
00:30:20
zz
And yeah, eventually he was able overwhelm Boom, just like really play out of his mind and crown himself the champion yet again. and And in what stylish fashion, like Hydreigon Eggerslash Core?
00:30:33
zz
did you Did you see Hydreigon win the first original in the Tinkerton meta? It's like the last Pokemon you would give a shot there.
00:30:41
William Dunphey
It's such a fantasy coded team, right? I kept thinking of fantasy cup when I was watching it because you have the sword shield each slash and you have the dragon on the other side of it.
00:30:51
William Dunphey
And he whittled them to perfection. I think you're exactly right. so in games one and four of the grand finals initial bracket, Tauntaun did lead his Togekiss into Boom's Togekiss. Boom favored that Togekiss lead quite a lot. The only game that Boom won, though, was when he led his Togekiss into Shadow Hydreigon.
00:31:09
William Dunphey
And I think that he also had the Galarian Corsula for the Aegislash. So there's just no way, really. for Tauntaun to get out of that one. Boom just called the line perfectly. um You raised such an interesting point too about their previous set.
00:31:20
William Dunphey
I actually didn't watch that one, but I need to go back and watch it because I don't know how Boom...
00:31:22
zz
yeah
00:31:25
William Dunphey
Looking at the grand finals, right? The question becomes, how the heck did he do it the first time? um And to go back a little bit earlier to one of the first points we made about pacing, the only Pokemon...
00:31:36
William Dunphey
Get this, everybody. The only Pokemon on Boom's entire team that has a faster charge attack than the Shadowhide Dragon Brutal Swing... is the quagsire to the aqua tail which is only eight turns i mean you're looking at nine turn brutal swing into basically 10 turns plus on on every single pokemon on boom's team and and the licky licky you win you you tie right on nine turns with the body slam and then you win charge check priority so i think you absolutely nailed it on the head when togekiss was gone hydragon just ripped through the remaining pokemon and there was nothing boom could do
00:32:11
zz
I love how it's 2026 and we are considering 10 turn pacing too slow. like What is even happening?
00:32:16
William Dunphey
Right? Right? right The power creep is insane. Maybe we need to just throw the meta out and then just create a slow meta where things like Loma Mola can be used. How about that?
00:32:26
William Dunphey
um
00:32:27
zz
Oh, Jesus.
00:32:28
William Dunphey
I know, right? The fish. But ah yeah, what a grand finals. What a performance. Boom. Again in the grand finals, as we expect from him, one of the best players in the world. But Tauntaun, you said it earlier, was in a total flow state.
00:32:39
William Dunphey
He identified public enemy number one, which was the Togekiss. And when that Pokemon was gone, Hydreigon, I mean, he played Hydreigon literally every single game, as expected, all ah for all seven games total, and played a lot of Aegis Slash 2, which is a nice prelude to what we're going LA, which is really fun.
00:32:58
zz
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
00:32:59
William Dunphey
But yeah, congratulations.
00:33:00
zz
I bet we, I think we probably, yeah, like honestly i was, I don't know. i don't really like have like serious, like regional pride.
00:33:14
zz
It's like all in good fun, but I was like kind of proud of just like the, the way those trainers represented Europe for the international audience that was watching the stream because Everybody had their own take on the meta, especially Tonton and Martijn.
00:33:16
William Dunphey
Aha.
00:33:32
zz
But like even Bumu was just like running a team that was like less flashy, but was still such a good adjustment to what we were expecting on that weekend.
00:33:44
zz
And even Nezebethan in 4th who had these Seelio, which was also a Pokemon that would eventually carry him to a gold medal even, um but back then was still very fringe.
00:33:56
zz
um There were just so many good ideas, and that succeeding, that rising to the top in what was probably the most stacked EU tournament of the season, I was just like very lovely to see, because it's like this old...
00:34:11
zz
pokemon quote of like real trainers try to win with their favorites or whatever and it's it's mostly cope but in europe cope can still win tournaments so like i'm i'm really i'm really happy to play in my region where crazy stuff always succeeds
00:34:24
William Dunphey
no I don't know.
00:34:29
William Dunphey
ah In Europe, it doesn't it doesn't feel like COPE. it It feels like ah like a mantra right that trainers live by, which I definitely respect.
00:34:36
zz
Because everybody plays it, so whoever wins, it will not be the meta team because nobody runs it.
00:34:42
William Dunphey
Exactly, exactly.
00:34:42
zz
like
00:34:43
William Dunphey
And I respect it tremendously. i did want to shout out just briefly, I'll try to throw this graphic up in the YouTube version when that's ready. But I, yeah, Amanda actually posted the the research was done by Dragapult Simulator, which I think is ah is a relatively new resource in the community.
00:34:59
William Dunphey
But she posted a Shadow Hydreigon IV spread graphic where you can kind of pick your Hydreigon and see which breakpoints it gets against the current meta. Obviously, the meta will change over time and different Pokemon will cycle in and out.
00:35:12
William Dunphey
But I think for right now, this is a really good example of how, I don't know, a 314-6 Hydreigon might actually be optimal in the current Open Great League or a 12-attack Hydreigon might pick up some other matchups you don't know about.
00:35:25
William Dunphey
So this is a very valuable valuable resource and I'll go ahead and toss that up.
00:35:30
zz
I always enjoy these. Also just as a general rule of thumb, um If you catch a shadow Pokemon and maybe it's weather boosted and it's like one of those pseudo legendary dragon types such as like a Dratini or a Dino, like if those have like a little bit of an attack weight, just by the way the um stats on those Pokemon shake out because they're relatively attack weighted, can still get a higher rank one with like five attack or so.
00:35:43
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:35:57
zz
Like oftentimes the top rank Pokemon out of those species they actually like don't mind a little bit of extra attack just because oh they already have this much attack so doesn't actually like cost them too much stat product by by having like a little more ivs in there um i know that because i got a weather boosted shiny shadow dragon knight and it's still like a rank 50.
00:36:17
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:23
zz
so
00:36:23
William Dunphey
Oh, nice. Yeah, it's it's so funny how how certain Pokemon stat distributions work.
00:36:24
zz
always
00:36:29
William Dunphey
Like you can have a very bulky Pokemon that has a ton of HP. You know, it could have 15 HP on your your appraisal, but maybe it doesn't actually need that much HP. Maybe a 10 HP version is actually the rank one, right?
00:36:41
William Dunphey
So some Pokemon like like the the pseudo legendaries, like the dragons that are so powerful, they actually benefit quite a bit from a little bit of attack. And plus it just feels good when you're a when you're a dragon trainer, especially in a dragon mirror and you win the captai.
00:36:54
William Dunphey
I mean, that's a really good feeling. So I do like to to pack some high attack dragons as well.
00:36:59
zz
one hundred percent
00:37:01
William Dunphey
Well, I think we have concluded our coverage of Prague. Incredible place to be. I've heard it's a beautiful city. And I'm glad that the event was was really well received and that we had so many talented trainers. NA, you need to step it up.
00:37:16
William Dunphey
Cannot have another Prague. That was very flat. But on the flip side, I'm very proud of our European players being so
Shift to Los Angeles Regionals
00:37:23
William Dunphey
spicy. If you're ready, we could go we could slide on over to l a
00:37:27
zz
Yeah, that is actually a regional where in North American players at least won three out of the four medals, with the final one taken by none other than world champion Bealsboy, who was seen in the Hollywood Hills that weekend, i apparently doing side quests now.
00:37:42
zz
um He has been doing that all season, um and yeah I love that he continues have both fun and success. But the main storyline of the Los Angeles weekend was number 41,
00:37:56
zz
if
00:37:56
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:37:58
zz
41st regional was actually the crowning one for none other than Arrow who rose to fame like I believe all the way back in like 2019 as like a child prodigy of PvP even like one of the yes yes yes like one of the
00:38:08
William Dunphey
Way back.
00:38:10
William Dunphey
I used to call him the Wonder Kid.
00:38:15
zz
original like superstars of of our game always trying to take risks trying to innovate and finally getting his ultimate reward he was in grand finals three times before this weekend and in la he finally managed to clinch that title that he was seeking for so long And he did it in style with such an aero team where we see the Aegislash again. We also see some meta staples such as Tinkton Feraligatr.
00:38:47
zz
Feraligatr, interestingly, as Shadow version, which is like maybe something to consider more often.
00:38:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:38:52
zz
Then Diggersby, which is essentially just North American Unovan Stunfisk. And also Pokémon that I thought were so interesting. Overheat Shadow Kanto Ninetales and also Daatrix the Owl Flying Grass type with a Brave Bird.
00:39:09
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:39:09
zz
And I thought it was so smart to pair a Brave Bird user and an Overheat user with a Pokémon like Aegislash that loves it when shields are down.
00:39:10
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:39:18
zz
Because what are you going to do? Let a Brave Bird through? Let an Overheat through? i don't think so, buddy. um
00:39:25
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:39:26
zz
So yeah, that was like a very unusual but an incredibly successful strategy that Arrow utilized to win a very, like, it was like was almost set up to be a whole different story, right? With Elite, the California King, um one of very few trainers in the championship series to be named after a mattress size.
00:39:51
zz
um just This is a running joke. I think it's like a very, very badass nickname, actually.
00:39:59
William Dunphey
appreciate I always appreciate it because because I want to remind everybody listening, right?
00:39:59
zz
um
00:40:03
William Dunphey
English is ZZ's second language. But ZZ's ability to get these like quips and puns and jokes is just so good. And I respect it so much. i I think a lot of native English speakers would have trouble.
00:40:14
William Dunphey
But ZZ does it so effortlessly. That's actually very funny. I i haven't heard that joke before.
00:40:18
zz
yeah They also call Paulasha the queen of PvP. So like that's like the two trainers that currently... I don't know. There's probably... if If we get like a king, that's probably also something worth considering. Anyways, this is just like me being silly. But what I actually wanted to mention is how... If we search for matches won and games won for l LA, it is actually not even close the way elites losers break it run.
00:40:47
zz
ah Just outshines everybody else.
00:40:51
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:40:51
zz
So he has like 28 games won in that tournament. That is...
00:40:58
William Dunphey
Inhuman, 11 rounds.
00:40:58
zz
Yeah...
00:41:01
William Dunphey
11 rounds straight.
00:41:01
zz
yeah Okay, he has 12 more games won than the champion Arrow and the fourth place finisher Beelzeboy.
00:41:13
zz
And like that takes nothing away from like those those guys' amazing finishes. But this just goes to show how difficult it is to fight through a loser's bracket because you have so many battles to play.
00:41:27
zz
And Elite did it with a Shadow Galarian Weezing. And up until the final moments, it almost looked as if he was going to take it all because he did win the first two um games of the grand final series against Arrow.
00:41:37
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:41:42
zz
And it was like one game away from the reset. But you could also like already hear it in the pre grand finals interview. Elite was...
00:41:53
zz
out of steam, which is like almost a wheezing joke.
00:41:55
William Dunphey
Guessed. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:57
zz
um Because obviously this is like a very long, grueling loser's bracket run and how much do you actually like eat during Regionals Day as a competitor? Typically not a lot.
00:42:10
zz
So it was like visible or that he was like kind of at the end with his concentration and like powering through the entire day and he still did so so well but this was just like it felt as if it was like marathon runner so close to the finish line but then just overtaken by somebody who like what kind of his own route because that's always what what arrow does but then like found the energy found the way of just repositioning his his pokemon um trusting maybe a different strategy because arrow also in the first two games of the grand finals in the same line back to back got counted by the same line back to back then switched it up and really kicked it into his final gear really
00:43:04
zz
found a way of utilizing the Tinkerton, which, like, we called Dead on Arrival in... um We called it Dead on Arrival in Prague already.
00:43:12
William Dunphey
Prague.
00:43:13
zz
It actually wasn't. And was just, like, a ah moment where I was thinking of how so many trainers, if they have, like, a really good team, that typically means that they have, like, three to four Pokemon they cycle through and they just play their games with those Pokemon every time.
00:43:31
zz
But Arrow really had, like... different game plans he could execute with all six of his Pokemon. And I believe that was what eventually like gave him the edge in this tournament that even though it's like an open team sheets format, you know, all the textbook six Pokemon that could come your way, but it's so vastly different Pokemon that you can never be fully prepared.
00:43:38
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:43:54
William Dunphey
Exactly. Just when you when you think you're safe, Shadow Kanto Ninetales is suddenly in the lead, which is like the weirdest thing you don't expect, right? I just want to spend a little bit of time on Elite here, talk about his run, because whenever I i look at this sorry when i look at this graveyard of opponents, it reminds me of the Grim Reaper meme, where it's like walking it's coming down the hallway and it's like knocking on each door. it is...
00:44:17
zz
it's such a long hallway like in jesus christ they have to scroll so far down
00:44:19
William Dunphey
it is
00:44:22
William Dunphey
ah So Elite beats a trainer named I Believe in Truth that was playing Piloswine and Carbink in round one. And then in round two, lost to Cha72Lie. And then the murders began. Dem Grylls, ChemCoop, HungryWolfPack, Cha72 in the rematch, PhoenixDark, DapperDisk, SceptileIce, Andy, CyRhyno, BeezleBoy, KayPine, all of them. either 2-1, or in the case of Kay Pine, a 3-0 sweep.
00:44:49
William Dunphey
And as you alluded to before, he was up 2-0 versus Arrow before being reverse swept, and Arrow was able to hold him off. But oh my goodness. um Something that Henry and I were discussing during this cast was that Elite was really wed to these 45 energy charge moves. He was playing a lot of Licky Licky with the Body Slam, a lot of Quagsire with Aqua Tail and Mud Bomb, I believe. And then he was playing a lot of Shadow Glare and Wheezing with the Brutal Swing. And his ability to keep that Gullarian Riesing alive and then just send it back in over and over and over and spam off these charge moves so quickly was just absolutely phenomenal. And I was doing some segments on Friday before the tournament, and i was doing a segment called Qualified Advice, where essentially you have a trainer that's already qualified for Worlds way up in the in the bracket rankings.
00:45:35
William Dunphey
And then you have ah them give a piece of advice to a specific player in the venue that weekend. And i was listening to the names. i was like, yeah, it'd be really funny if this person gave give advice to this person. And i landed on out of pocket being a qualified trainer and elite, not quite having enough points. He was way below 75 threshold. He's probably in the 90s or so before the ah before the event. But anyways, it was achievable, right? If you had a good performance in LA, it was achievable. So I asked pocket, I said, all right, we're going to record this quick interview ah snippet.
00:46:07
William Dunphey
I need you to give advice to elite. So i don't know if you saw this segment or not, but I started interviewing Pocket. And I said, Pocket, there are a lot of trainers here that are talented. Give advice to one of them on how they can succeed in l LA.
00:46:18
William Dunphey
And Pocket, he starts speaking to the microphone and he says, all right, so the trainer that I want to call out is Elite. Elite is pretty far from qualifying for Worlds. So what he needs to focus on is NAIC. Because at NAIC, you can play Grumpig, you can play Barbarico, you can play this and that. You need to learn this this matchup and these typings, blah, blah.
00:46:38
William Dunphey
And I said, Pocket, you didn't even mention LA. It's like, you don't think he's going to make points here. Pocket said, no, he's not. He's going to have to just go to another event and go to NAIC and try there.
00:46:49
William Dunphey
And Elite did an interview with Soph where he actually called it out Pocket. He said, yeah, you know, i was watching some segments.
00:46:53
zz
that one i did see that was very very funny i love that i get the context though
00:46:58
William Dunphey
Exactly. and and he was like, Pocket said some things that I just didn't like, so I'm going to prove him wrong. And Elite was so like lasered in. We talked earlier about Tauntaun hitting a flow state against Boom, which he absolutely did in the grand finals. To me, and I'm not i'm not saying that...
00:47:15
William Dunphey
I'm not saying that grand finals or pre grand finals interviews like mess him up or anything, but I do think that elite was in his own flow state in that loser side bracket, just claiming win after win after win after win. ah You saw his demeanor on stage, right?
00:47:30
William Dunphey
Not really very emotional, didn't really, you know, react except for one time.
00:47:35
zz
Outside of the ones I'm, yeah.
00:47:37
William Dunphey
Except for the one time in the grand finals when ah when he lost a turn. But ah other than that, he was very stoic, right? And he would smile when the game was over, but he was very, very stoic. ah But there's something about when Elite does his pre-grand finals interviews, and I've noticed this one other event as well, but it almost feels like his demeanor changes. And not that he's not to say that he's like not locked in, but maybe he's only like 80% flow, whereas prior he was at 95%, right? Right.
00:48:04
William Dunphey
but Yeah, I almost feel almost feel bad. I almost feel like we shouldn't have the pre grand finals interview sometimes just so we can see the trainer continue to ride that wave of momentum. But I do I did appreciate that Henry and I were able to vamp for a few minutes because they did give the trainers five minutes to stretch your legs, walk around, cool down, get a snack.
00:48:22
William Dunphey
And I'm glad that we had that before our grand finals in L.A. But yeah, what an incredible show by Elite. I'm a big fan. ah When Arrow won, I gave him a hug and I shook Elite's hand, but I'm i'm still so proud of both of those guys.
00:48:33
William Dunphey
They were awesome.
00:48:36
zz
Yeah, that was like ah like such a storyline too.
00:48:36
William Dunphey
My goodness.
00:48:40
zz
I just like, obviously like not every every tournament is like this big storyline kind of thing, but with like California being so attached to the name Elite and Arrow being so attached to like getting to grand finals with his own unique blend of Pokemon, but thus far always fall falling short.
00:49:03
zz
It felt as if there was so much a stake.
00:49:04
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:05
zz
at stake and it was like like in In Europe, we call Colin the final boss because at this point, that's just his government name. But Elite felt like the ideal final boss for Arrow's quest to eventually overcome this invisible obstacle that was between him and that gold medal. So I really, really appreciate it just like...
00:49:28
zz
the way the tension builds over this entire regional but I guess before we go deep into the like grand finals we may also zoom out a little and just highlight what else we noticed in that bracket which in terms of Pokemon usage like that's obviously the digger speed just for me personally which we didn't see in Prague at all really
00:49:42
William Dunphey
Yeah. so
00:49:50
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think the Diggersby is is a big shout out. I think that we first saw ah Diggersby kind of returning to prominence with Firestar in Orlando because he did play it really well. And there was a debate in LA around quick attack Diggersby versus Mudshot. And then we did see a bit of variance there. The main reason being the Togekiss matchup. If you're throwing double resisted Mudshots to Togekiss, you're getting nowhere.
00:50:12
William Dunphey
ah But at least with quick quick attack, you're able to pile on a little bit of stab fast attack damage over time. But yeah, like you said in in the notes here, the diggers B is kind of like the NA Unova Sunfist. That is the ground type of ah of choice, I guess you'd say, North America. Other than that, if you look at this bracket, you're not going to get the spiciness that we just saw in Prague, right? Let's be real. I did appreciate Dapper Disks running Chestnut. henry and i uh we we pogged out about that when that when that pokemon appeared uh with low kick uh but uh other than that you had a little pidgy out there you also had shadow alola nine tails on septile ice's team and alola nine tails and ryze's team a couple more altaria than i expected cyrino running shadow altaria and then you also had gerald running it but gerald is like an altaria lover so that makes a little more sense to me and then the pixel cheated with umbreon if i' i'm not mistaken Our 16th place in Prague was also Galaxka Bolton, who I believe was also running Umbreon.
00:51:10
William Dunphey
or Am I imagining that?
00:51:10
zz
Yes.
00:51:11
William Dunphey
No, it's true.
00:51:12
zz
No, you you're you're absolutely right on that.
00:51:12
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:51:14
zz
The Pixel Cheetah also with Whiskash rather than Quagsire, which is interesting. have a little like...
00:51:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:51:21
zz
You trade pacing for a harder hitting water type move. um Also, you get a little more bulk with that. and I also believe that Whiskash is... I don't know whether you can already call it a signature Pokémon, but certainly a Pokémon that the Pixel Cheetah has brought to tournaments before.
00:51:36
zz
So that's always like fun to see too. Just like, oh, Whiskash, you're also here? um It's it's like still like half a Pokemon at least, and it was able to make top 16, so that's nothing to scoff at.
00:51:41
William Dunphey
Right?
00:51:47
William Dunphey
It was.
00:51:48
zz
um My personal favorite pick... um So first start with my personal favorite pick, which is Grumpig the Pig. um It did feature prominently.
00:51:56
William Dunphey
Of course.
00:51:58
zz
i took 5th place twice, 7th place twice. It's just like a top card staple, at least in North America thus far. um But my pick, P-I-C-K, of the tournament was actually Psyrino's Drain Punch Sableye.
00:52:15
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
00:52:15
zz
Sableye is such an interesting Pokémon because it is like the original safe swap. When you were around in the early days of PvP and the concept of a safe swap was introduced to you, people probably mentioned Sableye along the lines.
00:52:32
zz
And it is so interesting because it has such a wide array of moves. Foulplay as the stab option with good pacing is typically found on every stable eye, but you can choose between Drain Punch, Power Gem, and Dazzling Gleam as the secondary charge attack and Return, which used to be the go-to back in the day.
00:52:52
zz
but You just have so many options. You can choose certain attack ranges for a charge attack priority against Pokémon such as Feraligatr, Empoljorn, or Togekiss.
00:53:04
zz
um You can try and go for certain Shadow Claw breakpoints, especially with the Shadow Sableye that can be relevant if Azumarill is prominent in the meta. And also, obviously, you have always the decision between whether you want to run the Shadow or whether you want to write to run the regular.
00:53:21
zz
So oftentimes a criticism leveraged against play Pokemon or like Pokemon Go PvP is that, oh, it's not very customizable. You run a Pokemon and you get what you get.
00:53:30
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:53:32
zz
But I feel also for the Sableye, there is so much uniqueness to the way people can run that Pokemon. And Cyreino really was setting a trend there with the Drain Punch, which just makes it a lot more durable through the defense buff, but also not nearly as helpless as you would think it would be against staples like Lickie Lickie or even Diggersby.
00:53:53
zz
So yeah, I believe that we may meet we may see more Sableye with Drain Punch in the future, because currently that appears to be the most promising configuration.
00:54:04
William Dunphey
I'm very proud of Rhino too. Younger trainer, LA local. ah But some of the wins here are pretty remarkable. So for example, he took down Dapper Disc in ah round three. Dapper Disc playing Pidgeot, which I don't think that Sableye would enjoy. He beat Beach, who's playing a Guzzlor Tinkaton team.
00:54:23
William Dunphey
plus Tokakiss, that he beat I'm Salty for You, which was playing Guzzlord in Wigglytuff, which is also pretty tough. And then he, no pun intended. And then he also took down Rise, who was playing Alola Ninetales. So...
00:54:38
William Dunphey
Again, you're not going to see these matchups directly all the time. There's a little there's a lot a little bit more to team reading in show six pick three. But I do think that it it says a lot that he overcame so many hard counter obstacles to a Pokemon like Sableye on the way to his fifth place finish, which is really impressive.
00:54:57
zz
Yeah, that is like, certainly like also just, I feel as if like going from the, like from coast to coast and North America is always so interesting because um especially like on the West Coast, you always have the so-called Swablu representation, which is really fun.
00:54:57
William Dunphey
Now...
00:55:12
zz
There was like like a Jersey exchange on on stage once where like, oh, is this is not actually Deputists. What is going on? um um There was just like a lot of fun shenanigans and also like
00:55:21
William Dunphey
Yeah, that was funny.
00:55:26
zz
just segments between the back holes, so always fun to see like locals succeed with their unique flavor.
00:55:29
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:55:34
William Dunphey
Something I did want to mention, this is a little bit controversial. And again, I don't i don't know if this is 100% confirmed, but I definitely was feeling this a little bit, especially looking at the bracket. I don't know if you heard this rumor, ZZ, but the rumor goes that we had 214 signups for l LA, but we only had like 139 teams registered.
00:55:52
zz
Oh.
00:55:55
William Dunphey
So there was a massive um slice of our overall player base. I mean, 60 plus, 70 plus that, I mean, allegedly were just people trying to get in the venue, people trying to get the competitor back, people trying to, you know, do whatever that were likely VG or TCG players or even spectators. um There's got to be way to prevent this. And this is honestly really frustrating, right? That that Go is kind of like,
00:56:21
William Dunphey
you know we have our our spots and we're still relatively small but then there's like this this cohort of people that think that oh well if i can't get in this way then i'll just buy a go spot and then just not compete and not contribute and then just take what i want from the event
00:56:35
zz
Yeah, I believe it it becomes problematic when there is a registration cap in place, which may or may not be the case for an event like NEIC, which does sell out. So, yeah, I believe like in in l LA, it wasn't really like preventing anybody from participating, but there have been instances before where people wanted to sign up but couldn't, and then there were no shows, and it was just a real unfortunate situation for everybody.
00:56:46
William Dunphey
yeah
00:57:01
zz
um So yeah, the question is whether, I believe there was like a measure in place a while ago, probably like some years at this point, where you were essentially prompted to lock in a preliminary team just to give an indication that you were actually intending on participating. And it didn't have to be like your final team, the teams weren't locked. But they wanted to hear from you that you are actually interested in honoring the slot that you reserved um and that was probably abolished because don't know it's just it's just like another item to think about for the competitors that maybe like putting a little bit a little bit too much on them um but yeah it would be lovely if we didn't have this problem of like
00:57:45
William Dunphey
True.
00:57:51
zz
Anonymous people taking up goal slots without intending to participate. I don't really have the go-to solution as of now on how to fix that though.
00:58:03
William Dunphey
I have the solutions easy. The solution is if you register, you have to compete in at least two rounds before you drop.
00:58:05
zz
listening.
00:58:11
William Dunphey
And if you don't, if you register and then you don't compete, and somebody finds you, you get tarred and feathered inside of the venue.
00:58:18
zz
a
00:58:18
William Dunphey
Okay? That's the only reasonable outcome. And then everyone will know, oh look at that person. They didn't actually play. and They just came for the competitor swag or whatever. I think that's the only reasonable solution.
00:58:28
zz
Yeah.
00:58:28
William Dunphey
And if TPCI hears this, I hope they implement it next season.
00:58:31
zz
and mean Imagine like being, imagine like being Pokemon staff, but your, like your task for the weekend is just to tar and feather no-shows. my
00:58:40
William Dunphey
ah the What's funnier to me is is imagine like walking through the venue and you've got like like people that look like Big Bird walking around just covered in feathers and and goop. And you're like, oh, I see those people, right?
00:58:51
zz
oh yeah
00:58:53
William Dunphey
Because what are going to Leave the venue? Go take a shower? Come on, not TCG players. um So something i wanted to mention here is ah back to the back to the storylines away from the controversy.
00:58:58
zz
well
00:59:03
William Dunphey
I just want to mention this briefly. um I think that the day two bracket and I'm curious about your opinion on this. I think the day two bracket had a very distinctive feel to it. So. When we came into day number two, essentially a lot of our top players in NA had been defeated. So just briefly, Pocket was knocked out in losers round eight by Xgerald X. Doombug was knocked out of the tournament by Puffleguy, losers round four. CTU was knocked out in losers round eight by Andy.
00:59:28
William Dunphey
And Datarian was knocked out in losers round six by Crispy. So typically you would see those trainers in some form competing in top cut. They didn't even make it, right? So when you actually look at the top cut for day number two in LA, the most experienced players in the winner's side, I guess you could say Nighttime Clasher, Arrow, Ryze, and Sceptile Lice and Ashnash. So still pretty pretty solid, right?
00:59:54
William Dunphey
But it was like the upstarts were beating these more experienced players. Arrow and Cy Rhino was the round two matchup. Capine, Ashnash was the round two matchup. And Kaypine and Arrow won those those rounds respectively. Meanwhile, you had those talented trainers like Sceptile fall down to the Vizurcite bracket where you had absolute monsters like Beezaboy and Elite waiting for them.
01:00:15
William Dunphey
So there was kind of like this this vibe that the talent... And the up-and-comers were more so in the winner side bracket. And then as the tournament progressed, the the loser side bracket was so rich with experience that when you look at Arrow's run, right, the day one run doesn't look super impressive. He beat some trainers that are that are not that ah not that heavily accoladed. They don't have as many awards or as much notoriety. But then the day two bracket, I remember Arrow made this comment. He said, dude, After day two, I feel like I really did earn this championship in LA. And I agree with him.
01:00:52
William Dunphey
um But I'm not sure if you got that that vibe because on on its face, the bracket does look like you had some top players in Top Cut. But Cy Rhino beating Rise, K-Pine beating Panda, Ash Nash beating Sceptile. I mean, there were, i i want I want to call them upsets, but there were a lot of less experienced players getting the better of the experienced ones.
01:01:11
zz
So it is interesting. If I had to like just paint a picture of how I experienced the day two bracket, um to me, the upper side of the bracket, like the winner's side of the bracket, um obviously you had like the nighttime clashes, the rises to occasion. um But other than those, it felt as if it was a collection of trainers that were in the conversation for oh, like this person is very, very good, but they haven't had like the results or like the one big result yet. Like Arrow, Ashton Ash, Septalias, probably three trainers where you were in the conversation of...
01:01:51
zz
maybe best trainer that hadn't won original yet in NA. Those two always came up in that conversation.
01:01:56
William Dunphey
Agreed. Mm-hmm.
01:01:59
zz
Then you have CyRhin, Kaypine, maybe two players who have like more of a local reputation, but they do have like a bit of a reputation of being very good trainers.
01:02:10
zz
And there's also Pyro Panda, who I was like very surprised to find out that, because Pyro Panda is always at the top of the GBL leaderboards, but he actually didn't earn any championship points from regional events, despite participating in quite a few of them, before l a So that was like an interesting case of somebody who is obviously incredibly talented, who hadn't really been able to get it together for a proper regional.
01:02:26
William Dunphey
Wow. Mm-hmm.
01:02:37
zz
and like those trainers, whether it's like the locals, the almost champions or Pyro Panda, who is also like maybe not quite an almost champion yet, but somebody who I could see be thought of as that in the future. Like those were in the upper half of the bracket.
01:02:55
zz
And then in the lower half, you essentially just had a glorified Shark Tank with Elite and Beelzeboy on opposite ends of the lower bracket, just chomping through the entirety of the competition. And whoever was falling down was falling victim to one of them.
01:03:12
zz
So it was really just about staying up, staying there with the other hopefuls that wanted to prove themselves and avoiding to fall into the way of one of those giants who are also just having to play way more battles and therefore having way more opportunity to get into that flow state that we talked about so many times already today.
01:03:26
William Dunphey
Yes. Mm-hmm.
01:03:31
zz
Whereas at a certain point you just have like You're just unstoppable because you always intuitively know how your team plays and you will have that slight information gap playing in your favor over your opponent who maybe hasn't had as many opportunities to practice with their team.
01:03:52
William Dunphey
I mean, just looking at some of these matches, right, in the loser side bracket for day two, Sceptilize versus Elite, Ryze versus Beezaboy, Beezaboy versus Nighttime Clasher. Then you had Ash and Ash versus Beezaboy. I mean, those those any one of those could have been a grand finals at any other event. But I really appreciate the phrase you used.
01:04:11
William Dunphey
being a shark tank. This is absolutely a shark tank. And they were just absolutely shredding each other while Arrow and Kaypine were kind of sitting above the cage, you know dangling their feet over it. And the sharks were ripping each other to pieces in that loser sight bracket. Absolutely crazy.
01:04:28
William Dunphey
um But yeah, I just want to mention briefly before we go to grand finals here. Beezle Boy, great performance. Very, very talented player, as we all are well aware. He was knocked down to to the losers bracket in winners round five by Ashton Nash. I remember interviewing Ashton Nash after he got a win on stage. He said ah off camera, he said, wait, who do I have next on the bracket? I think it's Beezle Boy.
01:04:50
William Dunphey
i was like, dude, that's a big matchup. is that sir That's a really big matchup. You know that's a world champ, right? And Ash Nash said, oh, I know.
01:04:57
zz
Thank you.
01:04:58
William Dunphey
I know who he is. and And I want that matchup. I want it bad. I think I can win. And was like, man, Ash Nash is built different. And he did win. So I'm really, really proud of him for that. But after Beezaboy fell, he beat OG Blair Stoys, Swakini, Ryze, Nighttime Clasher, and he beat Ash Nash in a rematch before eventually succumbing to Elite in Losers Round 11, for Christ's sake.
01:05:20
William Dunphey
um What an incredible performance by Beezaboy. And um I think you have here in the notes as well, his first medal, which is exciting for a world champ. It it shows that there's still new new pastures that he can explore and new accolades that he can acquire, which is really fun.
01:05:40
William Dunphey
So, yeah.
01:05:40
zz
Yeah, I like
01:05:43
zz
Speaking of like medals, it's fun to get those get that collection because like, I don't know, we like we'll get to Utrecht, but finally finished my medal collection this this past weekend. So Bilzeboy still has some way to go to get all the medals, right?
01:06:02
William Dunphey
o
01:06:02
zz
So it's not as if he already has won the biggest thing there is to win.
01:06:03
William Dunphey
So, something...
01:06:07
William Dunphey
I know. he He skipped a few steps. we We'll say that, right?
01:06:10
zz
Yep.
01:06:10
William Dunphey
He he leapfrogged a few steps. um One more thing want to mention just before we get into grants here, and and we probably won't spend too much time on on grants. I just want to say that ah you had a question here. You said, Grumpig ascends from spice to meta staple.
01:06:23
William Dunphey
So I looked at the receipts, CZ. All right. I went back in time, in the time machine. In Sevilla, March 28th and the 30th, a mind joke actually tied for 25th with Grumpig.
01:06:34
William Dunphey
And then the dual tournament weekend of Querétaro and Orlando, April 4th and 5th. In Querétaro, we had Paul Garcia, who finished second, Arbisora seventh, and Kiwino tied for 13th with all playing Grumpig.
01:06:47
William Dunphey
And then Orlando, of course, we had Nighttime Clasher. We had Ryza Cajun tied for 17th, and then Pufflegai tied for 25th. So there were some rumblings of Grumpig here and there. I think that a mind joke should get a bit of credit as well for maybe pioneering the pig to a degree.
01:07:03
zz
so interesting because not a lot of not a lot of what grumpy has changed recently right it has been this side wave dynamic punch shadow ball type of pokemon for a while now um i would imagine that the last real change to its moveset was the buff to shadow ball but that has also been around for a hot minute so Maybe it just took a little getting used to this play style because Grampic is not the fastest Pokemon. It's like in the middle ground tier of Bulk as well, but um just like a Pokemon that is very neutral and flexible a lot of the time.
01:07:40
zz
So probably it's just too technical to make an immediate dent in the meta the same way something with like Tentran pacing, hard-hitting community day move would would make.
01:07:53
zz
But yeah, the pick is here.
01:07:54
William Dunphey
That's fair.
01:07:55
zz
It may be here to stay. um the only problem for it remains that Bugbite Fortress that also is ever popular. um But if that's not on the opposing team, pick can do stuff.
01:08:07
William Dunphey
And maybe the the rise of drain punch sableye, that could also be a little bit of ah a hindrance to the pig.
01:08:12
zz
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
01:08:13
William Dunphey
So so we'll see.
01:08:13
zz
It does not want to be in that matchup at all.
01:08:15
William Dunphey
So we'll see. um But yeah, we can talk about grand finals here. ah Arrow, he said in the pre grand finals interview that he's been swept in grand finals before. He does not want to ever feel that feeling again. And he came pretty close. He came right up to the edge there and looked down into the abyss. Where Elite and his Galarian Reasoning were waiting. Elite goes up 2-0 in the Grand Finals, playing really well as expected. But I noticed a trend. Elite was relying on three Pokemon primarily. He was not willing to bring that Quagsire in any shape, way, or form. And Arrow realized that too.
01:08:52
William Dunphey
and arrow started to say you know what if if uh if you're gonna play that way i'm gonna go ahead and play aba steel which aba the arrow battle approach had to had to happen this way you guys it had to happen this way uh he runs aba steel three games in a row with dartrix sandwiched in the middle and uh dartrix just waiting for that quagsire uh was also able to put in a ton of work versus the rest of the team and uh incredible grand finals i really felt we were going to a reset and i felt like this might be another moment where arrow fell short but he did not he relied on that uh double steel team and the dart tricks and i'm so curious to hear your thoughts because honestly game four i'll just say this real briefly game four best aegis showcase i've ever seen
01:09:37
William Dunphey
In that game, if I recall correctly, Arrow took both shields early. Then he brought out the shield. He got one KO in shield form, one KO in blade form, and then another, like he got like a psycho cut down in blade form and then another KO.
01:09:50
William Dunphey
It was absolutely Sinema.
01:09:52
zz
So this is actually so interesting because um this set starts off with Arrow bringing the team of Feraligatr, Dartrix, and Aegislash twice.
01:10:04
zz
but um both times it's met with very unfavorable alignment um versus Elite's team. The second game is actually invalidated by there being a one-turn lag on Elite's side, so they have a rematch.
01:10:19
zz
um But yeah, at the end of the day, there's like... um a shielding decision by Arrow where he lets an ice beam go from the Feraligatr into his Dartrix through a shield.
01:10:30
zz
There's some energy miscounts later and um after it being 0-2 at that point with like some moments that may have been tilting to another player at another time um it already looked as if Elite was just going to take that big sweep.
01:10:47
zz
But as you alluded to um Arrow does not really fear the Quagsire or does not really have to fear the Quagsire and I believe that makes a lot of sense given that those early matches established that Arrow was very willing to bring the Daatrix which is an an incredibly hard counter to Quagsire as well as the Feraligator which is like a decent enough counter, right? Some Pokemon that wins that matchup and also is able to take a lot of momentum into the next matchup.
01:11:20
zz
um And that pays off later. So game three, firstly, is um relatively interesting in that There is a Togekiss safe swap by Elite, and I mentioned it earlier and on the podcast.
01:11:37
zz
um like The Togekiss is actually corebreaker for Arrow. He only has the Tinkerton as an answer, but he brings in the Tinkerton. Otherwise, he has Digger Spee and Daughtrix, neither of which want to see Togekiss at all.
01:11:49
zz
but you actually lose that matchup as the Tinkerton if you go straight Gigaton Hammer and you are down energy.
01:11:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:11:56
zz
Arrow was down energy, smartly baits the Bulldoze, gets the shield, and is thus thus able to take a two-shield advantage, which then enables the Dartrix to just sweep the matchup, which was a very impressive showcase of Dartrix the Owl, just because of Brave Bird hitting just about everything.
01:12:16
William Dunphey
yeah
01:12:17
zz
um then game for the big egg slayer showcase this is also this is where i felt as if like okay we can we can certainly not blame elite for this after an incredible performance but the focus was kind of off because elite doubles up on psy shocks with the togekiss when it's up against the dartrix but it does so at the moment when dartrix can already lock in its charge attack rather than just
01:12:38
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:12:45
zz
getting rid of that Pokemon one turn before, or like one fast attack before, therefore has to give up both shields on the swap to keep alignment and a two shielded Eggie Slash is just able to clean up that matchup from there on out.
01:12:59
zz
um And I think that also crucially or makes it so that Arrow doesn't have to reveal his final Pokemon, which I believe was Tinkerton again. um I may be wrong on that, but I feel like I haven't written that down, but I believe that was my memory where he actually gets to keep a third secret and therefore is able to keep a secret that he went ABA steel.
01:13:22
zz
Elite doesn't know that. So Arrow just gets to freely do that again. There's no incentive to bring quags.
01:13:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:13:29
zz
um And yeah, he he leads Tinker Tuntin to Togekiss. Togekiss is entirely invalidated because there's an Aegislash in the back. And yeah, the moment Arrow catches an Aura Sphere combo attempt from Elite, which would have been a very fancy way of getting back into the matchup, um it was essentially over then. Like, Aegislash had essentially a minute to just load up on energy, prepare prepare the sweep. There was like a Gigaton Hammer loaded as well.
01:13:58
zz
And Arrow just had so much energy on his Steel types to close out the matchup. And moments like this is why we play this game, to...
01:14:03
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:14:07
zz
like Even if we are not ourselves chasing to achieve that emotion, just seeing that emotion in another bed is just something so beautiful and rewarding because you could feel it. There was no way of not feeling just the happiness and the relief that Ero was experiencing in that moment.
01:14:28
zz
And it was like honestly enough to make a grown man cry. it's It was such a... such a cathartic moment on 41 tournaments and this was meant to be the one from an 0-2 deficit um and with a crazy team with the aero battle approach like you couldn't have you couldn't have created like a better scenario for this to happen this way
01:14:53
William Dunphey
We saw a flash kind of similar to Arrow's reaction when Tauntaun realized that he had the brutal swings he needed to beat Boom and to win in Prague. And Tauntaun kind of covered his face, but the the reaction from Arrow, I know exactly the catch you're talking about. Arrow had a big fist bump when he actually made the swap, predicted the combo play, made the swap, caught the Aura Sphere on the Aegis Slash. But there was a moment, right, when he still had, i believe he still had a Protect Shield, and he was farming that Togekiss, and he was using the charging attack. And there was a moment where it just kind of clicked.
01:15:29
William Dunphey
And his face just turned so red because he was like fighting back the tears. Right. He was fighting back the the joy he was feeling, knowing that the game was won, knowing that the tournament was over and that he was going to win it all. And, um man, I just I have so much respect and admiration and appreciation for for Henry to my ah my co-caster for the event. What an honor to commentate with him.
01:15:53
William Dunphey
But watching back the cast, Henry finds the perfect word. He says the emotions are flowing. Perfect, perfect phrase to capture that moment. And when I really think about commentary for the game, for any game, really, or any sport, is it's a soundtrack to what you're feeling. And if you think back to your favorite movies and you think back to the music that moves you in the biggest moments, that's like the commentary for me when I think about these games. and Yeah, flowing. Just a perfect word to capture how Arrow was feeling and and everything that was bubbling up. 41 tournaments.
01:16:31
William Dunphey
41 tournaments. Being somebody who was such a talented trainer, who King, back in 2019 that we alluded to, he dubbed Arrow one of the elite four. You know, one of the best in North America. One of the most gifted.
01:16:42
William Dunphey
um And it just felt like the talent was not matching results, right? For so long. I think this was his first top cut since Louisville in 25. So, again, almost.
01:16:54
zz
That sounds sounds a wild, but it may be true.
01:16:58
William Dunphey
Yeah, it sounds preposterous, right? But I i went back and I checked Draco Viz. I believe Arrow confirmed it, too. But my goodness, a year off the top cut boards as supposedly one of NA's best.
01:17:09
William Dunphey
And Arrow was finally able to do it. There was a chat message he really liked as well. i forget exactly who said it, but he said that. arrow makes bad pokemon good and arrow like screenshot of that and put that in his victory post as well and i think that that comes down to his dartrix gameplay um but my goodness apparently that thing has the same or similar stat product to meganium which is like insane i didn't realize that but meganium is a thick pokemon
01:17:32
zz
And also has Snap Brave Bird. It's a fantastic Pokemon. Oh, Arrow did Top Cut Pittsburgh in 13th. It's not a Top 8, so it doesn't like stand out as like Top Cut Top Cut, but it was a large enough tournament where Top 16 was Top Cut.
01:17:41
William Dunphey
uh
01:17:47
zz
um 17th at Worlds as well, which like I don't know how Top Cutting that works.
01:17:51
William Dunphey
just outside yeah
01:17:53
zz
Yeah, I believe it's Top 16 there because it's not that many trainers that qualify.
01:17:58
William Dunphey
oh
01:17:58
zz
um But yeah, a lot of like, losers finals appearances.
01:18:03
William Dunphey
yeah Lyle Jeffs against Lyle Jeffs yeah
01:18:03
zz
And then yeah, like, Neuville also was a grand final with a wild team. was It was also the Grass Fire Core. Back then it was Superior and Typhlosion. This time it was Dartrix and Kanto Ninetales. But um just like that combination of Pokemon seems to be a little bit of an Arrow classic at this point.
01:18:24
William Dunphey
Speaking to
Arrow's Journey & Signature Strategies
01:18:25
William Dunphey
to teams, I have one more note here I want to mention. So ah Arrow, when you look at the Orlando to LA pipeline, he retained the same three he played in Orlando, being Aegislash, Star Tricks, and Shadow K9. But in Orlando, he was playing Florgis, Guzzlord, and Shadow Quagsire.
01:18:41
William Dunphey
He rotated those three out for Shadow Feraligatr, Tinkaton, and Diggersby. So i respect retaining the core three, the fire grass core that you mentioned, and then kind of switching things up, play more to his strengths. But um yeah, my goodness, what a tournament, what an event. I'm very proud of elite, but this was just the moment for arrow.
01:19:02
William Dunphey
It was the moment for him to, to finally win. And what an incredible year for him too, right? I mean, he proposed, he's got a fiance. He's he won an event for the first time. I mean, 2026 for arrow. is going to go down as a very special time. And i'm I'm very proud of him. We'll see how he does at Worlds. So I'm excited.
01:19:22
zz
Yeah, yeah, like this last World's Run, we just alluded to it, I was already like 17th. He's certainly the caliber of Battler to go far in San Francisco as well.
01:19:33
William Dunphey
Also, one more apology to everybody. I'm sorry for the fever brain during the commentary. um Henry was such a trooper to carry us through some of those some of those moments. But I remember day
Utrecht Regionals & Unique Lineups
01:19:43
William Dunphey
one, Henry was like, hey, why don't you lead us in? I said, yeah, sure.
01:19:47
William Dunphey
Camera came on and I totally forgot. Totally forgot I was leading us in. was like, and I was almost like, ah like when you when you wake up ah from being asleep, when you wake up suddenly, you're like, welcome in, everyone. We're here at the L.A. regionals. It was very like spur the moment thing. But ah cheers to cheers to Henry. Cheers to the era. What incredible event. um We promised that we were going to speed run this easy, and I feel like we just had so many good talking points. We've slowed down a bit. But I think it's time to move on.
01:20:14
William Dunphey
Our last streamed event, Utrecht, and then we'll do a quick roundup of our unbroadcasted events. How does that sound?
01:20:21
zz
That sounds amazing, especially because I have a lot to say about the Utrecht regionals. It was my last European event of the season and it was like the first time the Netherlands had a proper regional, not just a special event.
01:20:35
zz
That actually did drive down the competitor numbers a little bit. We had, I believe, like 125 people playing or at least being registered for the event.
01:20:42
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:20:46
zz
Like, I remember that from RK9. So it was only four groups. But those four groups were still very stacked. We had Stone Collection playing, we had Part2Man playing.
01:20:57
zz
um But I feel as if the story of the event was mostly just how tea and pizza isolate themselves so nobody else can win when they run their stupid shit.
01:21:10
zz
um
01:21:12
William Dunphey
I love that coffee pasta. Thank you,
01:21:17
zz
Because um out of the four medalists, we have Nezabethan with the second ever regional title after Buenos Aires way back, um taking taking home the crown with a Shadow Drain Punch Sableye, also a non-Shadow Cilio, and the Gorghist, which is um one of my like favorite weird Pokemon, which are doing a little bit of everything.
01:21:36
William Dunphey
Very fun.
01:21:42
zz
um And we have Sir Corrier with a career-best second-place finish, also with that Grass Firecore, but this time with a regular Talonflame, as well as a Bullet Seed Cradilly, alongside a Jellicent, which is like kind of the forgotten force where a lot of people were expecting that to be a dominant factor in the meta, especially back when we had the Artaria-Empoleon meta, where Jellicent acted as a great corebreaker to that.
01:22:04
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:22:09
zz
It fell off a little bit just because so many trainers were relying on Licky Licky lot. But if you look at those top four, there is actually not a single Licky Licky among those Pokemon.
01:22:21
zz
So I don't know, maybe Licky Licky is getting found out. um And yeah, the the third TNP member to take Koma Metal was doing it with Hawlucha, of all people.
01:22:34
zz
It is Kazim33. There you see the non-Shadow Kragsaya that I talked about earlier that solidifies that Licky Licky matchup. um And also the Shadow Sable-Eye and Cilio combo alongside an Eggie Slash, which um this tournament, it didn't win, but it still took Koma Metal.
01:22:53
zz
um and yeah sandwich in between all of those fantastic trainers i got a bronze medal this is my second best performance of the season after runner up in pittsburgh it's my best european performance of the season and i did yoink some ideas from los angeles namely the dartrix canine core from arrow as well as um i think that kpine did with his fortress where he didn't run bug bite but instead ran volt switch again and i thought
01:23:13
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:23:21
zz
Hmm, everybody is weak to electric type damage, so let's just try that again. Put that on my team. um And then Wigglytuff, Quagsire, Staples, and Greninja, probably my MVP of the weekend because it is it is a Dark-type Pokemon that beats the most common Fairy-type in Togekiss.
01:23:42
zz
um I guess like the top Fairies in Utrecht actually ended up being three Wigglytuffs again. So eventually Greninja fizzled out, but I'm still very happy with my run in a very stacked tournament.
01:23:57
William Dunphey
I think you did have a match, actually. Were you battling Kazim when your your Greninja got locked into a Wigglytuff? Or at least the lead situation was Wigglytuff.
01:24:05
zz
Yeah, yeah, That was like...
01:24:07
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:24:07
zz
i did lose that game um because I was thinking that, okay, I don't actually plan on taking a charge attack with Green Ninja anyway.
01:24:17
zz
After taking four jumps, I will probably still be able to survive something like the match shots from Quagsire if he has that. Or if there's like, I don't know, like chargings from Aegislash, I would also be able to survive those.
01:24:32
William Dunphey
Powder Snow, Sneelio, yeah.
01:24:34
zz
Exactly. That's like resisted Shadow Claws. I probably died to those, but I was like, okay, I may not need that much health here. I just want to get the Wigglytuff low or maybe even take a shield and then go into my own Wigglytuff because if I just go, I just have a mirror that I lose because I'm a shield behind and I don't really want him to be able to dictate the um switch advantage in that situation.
01:25:01
zz
It ended up just not mattering because it just aligned the Quagsire to my World Switch Fortress, but honestly, that entire series was just blatantly obvious because Fortress beat five out of the six, and either he got his Quagsire onto it or he didn't,
01:25:10
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:25:14
zz
He got it once, he didn't get it the second and third time.
01:25:15
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:25:17
zz
So, I was like a little unfortunate.
01:25:19
William Dunphey
No.
01:25:20
zz
I really i always enjoy playing against Kazim, also in GPL, because he tends to run interesting stuff, and he did run interesting stuff in Utrecht. But the way World Switch Fortress matched up against a lot of my opponents, um Pato, Stone, Kazim, I always had...
01:25:39
zz
like five good matchups and a quagsire so it was always like a huge advantage that i managed to leverage rich against my opponents which like took the took the skill out of some of the matchups a little bit um in the in the losers finals um so cory greeted me with like
01:25:43
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:25:51
William Dunphey
Well?
01:25:59
zz
um something along the lines of hello Mr. RPS and I was like I'm not actually trying to do this here it just happens to be that my one Pokemon beats five out of six on every team um
01:26:12
William Dunphey
Yeah, come on. you You're not RPS Aurelius. Come on. Different person. Different person. ah No, i thought I thought that series against Kazim was so funny.
01:26:18
zz
oh
01:26:20
William Dunphey
I was watching back some of Kazim's gameplay because I wanted to see if he brought that damn Hawlucha. And he did, but it wasn't against you, right? So ah just just said to...
01:26:29
zz
yeah Okay, so, Holucha looked bad against me, but he also revealed to me after the fact that he didn't bring it, so he could retire it with a 100% win rate, because he always won when he brought Holucha.
01:26:31
William Dunphey
Go ahead.
01:26:38
William Dunphey
Ah... Okay, okay. Fair enough. Well, man, he's he's playing 3D chess then because ah I wouldn't even think about something like that. I just think of winning. ah So funny because Kazim in game three, actually, I posted a poll. Everyone who listens is is more than welcome to to react to it. I posted a poll on on X and I asked everyone if Pokemon Go competitors should stand or sit during the matches. Because if you remember back in 2019, King and Pokéike were standing.
01:27:05
William Dunphey
And then we've moved to like a seated setup. So I just wanted to raise a question and see what was, you know, what the dialogue was like. And Miesch responded and said, well, if we're losing, can we curl up into the fetal position and play that way?
01:27:18
William Dunphey
And I responded with a meme of this of this little kid on his iPad, just like crouched on the stage, huddled over. And the caption is when you use safe swap your quagsire and your opponent sends out dart tricks.
01:27:31
zz
Oh no. Oh no, yeah, this certainly happened.
01:27:33
William Dunphey
Uh huh. So. That was game three.
01:27:36
zz
Oh man.
01:27:36
William Dunphey
and And we knew the writing was on the wall at that point.
01:27:37
zz
Oh.
01:27:40
William Dunphey
ah But to to spend just another moment on Kazim, he did play the Halucha versus Statistan, which was Group B winner semis. Game two brought the Pokemon out.
01:27:50
William Dunphey
ah he I believe he captied Alligator. or no no. I think that Statistan swapped and caught a flying press on his Grumpig. And it did way more damage than than everyone expected. Then he brought out his Sableye and Grumpig was done for. so Fanta C Satisday is still competing. I know he's he's got busy in real life, but also Kazim playing Halucha was really, really cathartic.
01:28:16
zz
Yeah, like, again, like, EU Spies coming through big time here with Alucha meddling, Greninja meddling, um the two Sable Eyes, some Pokemon that were, like, almost expired in, like, Bullet Seed Criddly.
01:28:20
William Dunphey
Right?
01:28:26
William Dunphey
and
01:28:31
zz
Who is playing Bullet Seed Criddly?
01:28:33
William Dunphey
right
01:28:33
zz
i was very close off i was very close to playing Bullet Seed Criddly in Seville, actually. i kicked it off, like, last second, but I do see the merit in that Pokemon because just solidifies the Quagsire matchup in a very convincing way.
01:28:46
zz
um But yeah, it's like, okay, one thing about Nezabithan's team, if you had to think back to a very prominent meta in Pokemon Go's history, what meta would you feel reminded of?
01:28:46
William Dunphey
Fair.
01:29:04
William Dunphey
I mean, with that question, Walrein, Trevenant, Needlequeen comes to mind.
01:29:10
zz
was exactly the Walrein Trevenant method that I was thinking of because once again we have the water ice type alongside the grass ghost type, the Acelio Gorghais bearing, which Nesipithon already experimented with in Prague to some extent, but now I believe he really perfected this core and the way it plays into so many popular Pokemon as of now.
01:29:20
William Dunphey
True.
01:29:36
zz
um And yeah, like you would think that is fairly weak or fairly soft to say Lickilickie. And certainly there's other Pokémon on this team that have better matchups than that Pokémon.
01:29:48
zz
But you would be surprised to see how close Cecilio can actually make that matchup just by virtue of having very good attacks. Like the Podosnow buff a couple months ago got lifted up to, um so i really i believe, like 6 damage, 3 damage per turn.
01:30:05
zz
So actually Shadowclaw clone as of now, alongside that big stat product from the seal.
01:30:08
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:30:12
zz
So able to hold its own against just about everything.
01:30:13
William Dunphey
Surf, yeah.
01:30:16
zz
Non-Shadow Sealeo also crucially important for the Tinkerton matchup, where you are now able to withstand a Gigaton hammer while essentially two-shotting with a serve. um So that is typically why people are playing the Sealeo.
01:30:31
zz
And it does make sense because the Shadow Sableye is abysmal against a opposing Tinkerton, so if you were to face that you would want to have as many positive matchups as humanly imaginable on your team.
01:30:37
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:30:44
zz
And SABETHAN now have has five of those given that he opted for the non-Shadow Cilio. So just also like a very good team to set up that Sableye for Assumption Elegance.
01:30:56
William Dunphey
I had the Shadow versus regular C. Leo question in my mind, and you answered before I could even ask the question. So kudos to you for usual, my friend. A couple other spice picks I wanted to call out. S. Jonah N. L with Shadow Driflim and Blastoise, which is super sick. And then also Anacor rocking the trusty, sturdy Manda Buzz. I saw Anacor on stream several times, but I haven't watched his matches yet. So shout out to Anacor. But there's something else that we need to mention here, ZZ. There's kind of like, I don't know, inclement weather, i could say. um I'm actually going to do something real quick here. Check out my camera.
01:31:38
William Dunphey
i can't I can't tell if you can tell, but it is thunderstorming outside. It's raining something crazy.
01:31:43
zz
Oh.
01:31:45
William Dunphey
And...
01:31:45
zz
Oh, I think, I think like if like your 12 turns away from a weather ball roughly.
01:31:51
William Dunphey
Oh, speaking of that, let's talk about rainy cast form. And also my camera's screwed up.
01:31:55
zz
Yeah. This is very interesting because while I am German, i do not typically team build alongside my German compatriots.
01:32:05
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:32:05
zz
And I don't even know whether they often team build together, but bunch of them were rolling up with a rainy cast form to this tournament, which has a solid stat product. It has water gun, weather ball water, as well as thunder for coverage.
01:32:21
zz
And... Stone Collection even placed 5th with it, which is very respectable and only match away from even getting a medal with it. And he did bring it out a lot.
01:32:32
zz
Like, he used it against me, even though... i don't know, he should have probably brought Quagsire, because Quagsire is his fortress answer, so my World Switch Fortress actually enjoyed the
01:32:41
William Dunphey
yeah
01:32:44
zz
cast form quite a bit um but yeah so i was talking to to stone a little bit backstage and he was like okay the original thought was lantern and i guess like lantern just like has a history of being really good it would help against um fire types which are always a staple in europe you see one in second place you see one in third place um it is like just very very bulky um helps tremendously against
01:32:54
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:33:08
William Dunphey
Yep. Good anti-flyer.
01:33:11
zz
Yeah, like, again against, like, most ground types, it's it's solid. um It is good. And to Empoleon, it does stuff, right? it It does stuff. Lantern always does stuff. And that was, like, the original meta read.
01:33:24
zz
But in scrims, it appeared as if it that if it was just too slow. Because Surf is 45 energy, um and that's, like, 10 more energy than cast form would need to remove.
01:33:34
zz
while sporting the same coverage, even though the Thunder, the electric coverage is not stab on Castform. So instead they went with the slightly faster pick and apparently like the water gunning, the way that like very sneakily adds up, enabled a lot of farm downs. There's also like some breakpoints around the roughly 110 attack mark. so If you have the right cast form, you can achieve a lot of water gun damage, even though the move is on paper just mediocre.
01:34:07
zz
um And yeah, apparently it's like or a recipe for success because that is not a bad showing for a cast form to show up twice on a top 16 graphic.
01:34:18
William Dunphey
Yeah. and And as you mentioned, in the hands of ah two German trainers, which is is is also very funny to me. Actually, they were in the same team, exact same team. Stone and Freaka.
01:34:28
zz
Yeah, I believe that...
01:34:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:34:30
zz
Yeah, like this was this was certainly like by design. like It wasn't like multiple people independently coming up with Rainy Castle.
01:34:35
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:34:38
zz
That would have been...
01:34:38
William Dunphey
Imagine.
01:34:39
zz
so like Like that happened before, right? Where in Seville, like Pato and I were like independently coming up with Piloswine and Paula ended up winning the whole thing with the pig.
01:34:42
William Dunphey
Yeah. Uh huh.
01:34:47
William Dunphey
A pig. Yeah.
01:34:51
zz
um So it wouldn't be the first time something crazy like caught on in such a fashion. But yeah, this was just like... a deliberate effort to get some readycast form gaming going yeah it certainly was not the worst meta call
01:35:04
William Dunphey
Yeah. Well, I'm curious if if there are any other bracket runs you wanted to shout out to any other performances or if you want to dive into the grand finals.
01:35:14
zz
I do want to shout out one more German player, which is Oden, who didn't compete at all ever since last year in Stuttgart.
01:35:16
William Dunphey
Yeah. Hmm.
01:35:19
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:35:22
zz
So that was almost half a year of a hiatus, and he almost managed to make it to top 16 again, eventually falling short in and tying for 17th, with ah none other than the only Giratina in the field. um So in essentially Martijn's home regional and Adequenz's home regional,
01:35:42
zz
Yuritino almost made it on the graphic, on the Dracovus graphic, and I believe that is still worthy of a shout-out.
01:35:49
William Dunphey
That is too funny. Yeah, it was Azumarill, Empoleon, Shadow Giratina altered with Shadow Claw, Lickilickie, Shadow Quagsire, and Togekiss. But Udin fell to status stand and was knocked out. Actually, Udin lost round one, had a really good loser side bracket run, but then ah ultimately succumbed to status stand.
01:36:08
zz
He told me that he hadn't even GBL'd in months, so like if he's warmed up again, maybe he can he can win another medal. know he has like two fourth place medal ah medals already, um and taking those with crazy stuff like Dragapult and Skellidurge.
01:36:08
William Dunphey
Interesting.
01:36:18
William Dunphey
Let's see.
01:36:22
zz
So certainly not somebody who would shy away from a more spicy match.
01:36:24
William Dunphey
Really cool.
01:36:29
William Dunphey
Very, very cool. So looking back at the VODs, I mainly wanted to to watch, to ah to hear some commentary, to roast Amanda's outfit, pink and red Amanda. Come on, you can't combine those two. But also to to you know scan through, watch some of the battles. I noticed Sir Corey on stream quite a bit. And Sir Corey actually did incredibly well. I believe this was his best career finish, making it to those grand finals and then ultimately falling to Nezavethan. But My goodness, great performance by him and off the back of some Pokemon we mentioned before being the Jellicent and the Bulletsy Cradilly that most people have forgotten about ah back when ah Bullet Punch Scizor was such a menace and Empoleon was just metal sounding through all the Cradillys. Nobody wants to play that Pokemon anymore except Sir Corey. So grand finals, Nezabethan, Sir Corey, I'm curious what your what your observations were because I felt like Nezabethan did such a good job of containing Corey and Corey's, I guess, best.
01:37:27
William Dunphey
I think it was scheme game one looked a little. way No, game game one and two were super hairy. What am I talking about? Those are super close games all the way to the very end.
01:37:37
zz
Yeah, so it it always like starts off pretty well for Nessa when he leads the Shadow Sableye into Jellicent, but the problem with Corey's team is that there's so many core breakers where sometimes you can't just like align all the way through and be happy.
01:37:45
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:37:54
zz
like You have to play a lot of neutral matchups, swap out at a certain time, um And yeah, there was like, um let me check, there was like a Bugbite Fortress as well, which was like a little bit of a menace.
01:38:07
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:38:09
zz
um
01:38:09
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:38:10
zz
And yeah, like and that game one was so close actually, because in the end game, Nisabethan needed to utilize an Empolion to take out Jellicent.
01:38:21
zz
um So that is certainly not something that you want to do all the time, but yeah, the Empolion was able to just barely hang on to a Shadow Ball by a slither of health.
01:38:33
William Dunphey
Yeah, and that was after the Empoleon won the cap tie over Sunfisk to KO with the drill pick because Neza wasn't sure if there was going to be a swap.
01:38:33
zz
um
01:38:40
zz
Just like...
01:38:41
William Dunphey
yeah
01:38:42
zz
Always covering for the catch, for sure.
01:38:44
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:38:45
zz
Yeah, game two. like Another like very tricky situation with Sablelight and Tangella, you think you're fine, but then the save swap of Gradilli comes in, and... When there's like a Unovan Stunfisk in the bag, when there's like a Cilio in the bag, you do not really want to take any charge attacks on any of your Pokémon, really.
01:39:05
zz
um So yeah, it's essentially just Nesabithan staying in, Kori getting a shield advantage with the Cridily from playing out that matchup neutrally.
01:39:17
zz
um And yeah, like, the goal then is for an Espeethan to align his Cilio away from the Jellicent. He needs a Unovan Stunfisk on the Jellicent, because you do not want to pull the snow surf, body slam, or water ghost type.
01:39:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:39:32
zz
um And what he needs to do in order to facilitate that is let his sableye go down to the wiggly tough that Socorri has in the back.
01:39:43
zz
And a very crucial play that Nezabithin does in this matchup is that once the wiggly is low and out of energy in the Cilio matchup, he hard pivots into the Unov and Stunfisk to just get ahead on energy a little and yeah get himself into a position where the discharge spam gets the jelly into a position where yeah like the Cilio that is left over, which still needs a Charter Tag to be taken out, well as Unov and Stunfisk are able to clean that up.
01:40:21
zz
um
01:40:22
William Dunphey
What, uh, sorry, I just want to say real quick, what what really cracked me up about game number two was when Sir Corey sack swapped the Wigglytuff when Neza threw on alignment with his discharge and Neza was, you know, he was playing and then Corey made the swap and he just like death stares at Corey the whole time.
01:40:23
zz
Oh yeah, game three is... Oh
01:40:40
zz
yeah.
01:40:40
William Dunphey
And he doesn't charge the the discharge at all.
01:40:42
William Dunphey
Right.
01:40:43
zz
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like...
01:40:43
William Dunphey
And he thundershocks all the way down, but he's like glaring at him. He's like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh, but yeah, comes out with a super close win at the end.
01:40:50
zz
They had good fun in the end as well. It was like a BM moment as well. um Anyways, yeah, that was like...
01:40:58
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, game three.
01:41:05
zz
There was still a low health day jelly that is forced to dump energy to Cilio.
01:41:05
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:41:10
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly.
01:41:11
zz
Anyways, so that was that was game two. Game three, Buckbite Fortress for Corey in the lead against Nessa, Suno, and Stanfisk. And it really goes from bad to worse because not only um does Nesabithan go down his shield, he also um doesn't even win the lead.
01:41:32
zz
he essentially gets bug-bitten down because one turn fast moves.
01:41:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:41:36
zz
like they take priority over charge attack activation and sometimes it's just really difficult. um And yeah, without... Like, down a shield and without swap, there's just no coming back from that lead matchup, unfortunately.
01:41:50
zz
But game four is an entirely different story because that is an important lead into a Wigglytuff Cridgly core. So, Jellicent, as the only answer, gets neutralized by by a Unovan Stunfisk and um Once the entire line is revealed, Nisabithan already knows what's up and that his Empoleon is just able to sweep this entire game and therefore clutch him the tournament once and for all.
01:42:17
William Dunphey
I was laughing so hard ZZ when ah when Corey had double rock to the gore guys and then and then Neza throws the shadow ball and Corey catches a double debuff shadow ball on his Wigglytuff, which is already double resisted.
01:42:30
zz
Yes!
01:42:33
William Dunphey
I'm just like, God.
01:42:34
zz
that was ah That was the BM moment.
01:42:34
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:42:36
zz
like It wasn't like a BM because it was just a catch, but like at that point, the Empolio was just in the win condition.
01:42:43
William Dunphey
yeah
01:42:44
zz
Nice play. It didn't end up mattering, but fantastic tournament by both of those trainers. and it was It was fun to see that both of them enjoyed their time on stage together, for sure.
01:42:54
William Dunphey
Well, as you pointed out, Sir Corey's team was was exceptional, right? Made it all the way to second place. Played incredibly well all all weekend long, but it was full of core breakers. And I think that when you when you try to stack core breakers, as you alluded to, and suddenly you're ABA week to Empoleon, I think a trainer as intelligent and as gifted as Corey, ah he knew. He's like, all right, well, the the luck has run out. Yeah.
01:43:20
zz
so i think that was that was during the medal ceremony as well i don't know maybe it was there or maybe it was at a previous time but a lot of the tea and pizza members um when there was like a moment to celebrate cory they were not shouting shouting his name they were shouting a b a a b a there was like a lot of a lot of like they were They were conscious of what was happening and they they did choose have a lot of fun with yeah it's like it.
01:43:47
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:43:50
William Dunphey
They lean into it.
01:43:50
zz
like... There was a lot of calculated risks and it did pay off. Like, he did take me out as well in the Losers' Finals in a five-game series. There was... Very enjoyable, but also like very uncomfortable in that, again, there were so many core breakers that didn't make the top 12 usage.
01:44:07
zz
I always try to cater my teams really beat the top 12 usage, but oftentimes in Europe that isn't the recipe.
01:44:12
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:44:14
zz
And once you're up against credily, a jealous end, and a talent fame, um your opponent may have more options than you would like them to have. um So yeah, I ended up save swapping a um World Switch Fortress and got answered by a Talonflame.
01:44:30
zz
And sometimes that that's just how it goes.
01:44:30
William Dunphey
yeah
01:44:32
zz
So Talonflame rode the bench for four games in a row, but it came out in the perfect moment. And that is really just the team reading aspect of of what we call Pokemon Go PvP. um So i'm very well played to Sir Corey there.
01:44:46
zz
um it is what it is.
01:44:48
William Dunphey
a question for you it it happens right it happens to the best of us uh a quick question for you is that extra extra small wigglytuff your best wiggles or did you pick it just for this tournament ah
01:44:52
zz
I live and die by the RPS.
01:45:02
zz
It is my second best Wiggles by a very tiny margin, but it is very small and it was caught at Honolulu Worlds and it doesn't drop a matchup compared to my best.
01:45:06
William Dunphey
ah
01:45:10
William Dunphey
okay ah
01:45:11
zz
So small Wiggly, like there was no real downside to it.
01:45:13
William Dunphey
fair fair
01:45:17
zz
So may as well.
01:45:19
William Dunphey
Okay, yeah, I'm always curious, right? if Especially with people that run primarily Shiny teams, I'm always curious, like, what are you what are you giving up here? what what what ah What are you sacrificing? And for the extra small, extra large, it's pretty funny.
01:45:29
zz
ah was I was very close to bringing Skeledurge rather than Kanzo Ninetales and looking back I would have preferred to because um i was like scared of running into Gators and I didn't face any um
01:45:42
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah. Wow.
01:45:44
zz
because like
01:45:45
William Dunphey
Yeah. yeah
01:45:47
zz
Canine fun fact, Overheat can actually win against Gator. Like, you don't even need Energy Ball if you get the baits correctly.
01:45:56
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:45:56
zz
um So I was, like, thinking, okay, I have, like, some play if I see this very common Pokemon, then I didn't see it at all, didn't bring my Skeletor, but I do have a rank one Shiny Skeletor. So if you ever see me run a Shiny Skeletor, it may just be the rank one.
01:46:11
William Dunphey
It's absolute stonks. Yeah, i don't know. I mean, I can see the merit to it, but then you have other teams like Sir Corey with the Rock Doom Dily and the Stunfisk and the Jellison. It's a little tough sledding for SkeleDurge here and there, but yeah, I kind of see it.
01:46:26
zz
Dirge can probably like quote-unquote degen its way through both Stunfisk and Credily. And it cannot do that against Jellison.
01:46:35
William Dunphey
Torch Song, Torch Song.
01:46:38
zz
Exactly, exactly. This is like... I'm currently playing Skeletrge alongside Aegislash in Go Battle League. And after the second Torch Song, your opponent will just shield everything, which really beautifully sets up your
01:46:50
William Dunphey
Yeah.
Campinas Tournament & Brazilian Highlights
01:46:51
zz
Aegislash.
01:46:52
William Dunphey
Interesting strategy. Take notes, everybody, especially if you're playing open great league, um man, Nezabithan, another win. His only other. So I remember he was the runner up at EUIC, lost to Tauntaun. And then his other win was Buenos Aires.
01:47:08
zz
Yes, yes, yes.
01:47:09
William Dunphey
Okay.
01:47:09
zz
It's kind of fun how that grand finals pairing now won back-to-back European regionals.
01:47:16
William Dunphey
I didn't even realize it, but you're right. Prague and Utrecht. Wow. Interesting. All right. Well, incredible tournament from our trainers in Europe. i always love to look at the teams because they are always spicier than NA. But yeah, shout out to Nezabithan and flowers to Sir Corey and whoever this ZZV guy is in third place. um Very well done.
01:47:37
zz
Just some random.
01:47:38
William Dunphey
Some random guy, you know, picking up medals left and right. But incredible tournament. Very fun to watch. Love the Halucha. Thank you for playing it, Kazim. And yes, you can retire it, I guess. But that being said, I'm not sure if there's anything else we want to talk about with Utrecht or if we should move on to Campinas.
01:47:54
zz
Yes, I believe we should move on to Campinas, which um is the last TPCI region and regional that we still have to talk about. um But it was not streamed, unfortunately, even though i would have loved to see what our LATAM community has in store.
01:48:11
zz
It's certainly another Eggslash win, and also the second regional championship won by TZ Steinar this season, after taking Pittsburgh, now also win on home soil, um with a double ghost strategy, pairing that Eggslash with the Shadow Dusk Noir.
01:48:18
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:48:27
zz
That is certainly also a Pokemon that precious feels.
01:48:31
William Dunphey
It definitely is. I was looking at some of ah some of Steinar's opponents throughout this event, and I was pretty surprised to see that Steinar not only beat a Malamar team in round one, but the other six opponents he had all had Licky Licky. So obviously on it on the face value, if there are shields in play, I don't think that Shadow Dust Noir really appreciates it. licky But it does have dynamic punch to strike back.
01:48:55
William Dunphey
The only caveat is that you have to land two of them. because a double resist his shadow punch is not going to get the job done so i was pretty impressed to see that he brought it into such a um a meta heavy with normal and dark type opponents and was still able to win it so steinar ever talented we have here in our notes that heart jeff was undergoing knee surgery so you didn't see that familiar name in the bracket hopefully everything went well heart jeff and that you are on your way to a speedy recovery But that being said, very well done by Steinar. Because we don't have the battle footage, there's not a whole lot we can say in terms of team comps, what was played, what the strategies were. But we can talk about some of the other trainers. And you and i so I have your notes in blue, and then I made my notes in red. And I realized that we both want to talk about D-Sync's team.
01:49:42
William Dunphey
Because my goodness, D-Sync'd.
01:49:45
zz
This thing is like a European in spirit. He always wants to win with his favorites.
01:49:49
William Dunphey
My gosh.
01:49:49
zz
And he does super well. He placed fifth at this event. And he brought the other form-changing Pokemon, Morpeko.
01:49:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:49:58
zz
It's like baby Aegislash. um Alongside Shadow Gliscor, which like people were talking about that in the wake of the Acrobatics Edition and Sandtoon buff, as well as the um wing attack rebuff, but then it hasn't really done anything. But apparently it's a really good partner for Morpeko, giving insurance against both versions of Fortress, resisting both Bugbite as well as um World Switch, which not a lot of Pokémon can say of themselves.
01:50:31
zz
um And then we also have Dondozo, which is...
01:50:31
William Dunphey
Ha ha ha.
01:50:36
William Dunphey
ah
01:50:36
zz
A waterfall user, a very bulky Pokemon, access Surf and Outrage. And I guess it works as a very neutral force in the meta a lot of the time. And also you probably appreciate some bulk if your other star Pokemon are Amorpeko and a Shadow Gliscor, which like may not be the squishiest, but with the Shadow form also not the bulkiest Pokemon out there.
01:50:59
William Dunphey
Yeah, Dondozo with a ah pretty hefty 2150 stat product. The counts are 5454 for the surf and then six straight for outrage. Dondozo, if I'm not mistaken, we have seen it succeed in the TPC region recently.
01:51:16
William Dunphey
But um still, because we don't have a stream for Campinas and we don't have streams for our TPC playoffs and qualifiers, I don't know how the heck it plays. I just assume, like you said, it's neutral.
01:51:24
zz
Mm-hmm.
01:51:25
William Dunphey
It waterfalls stuff. It might threaten an outrage and it's just a bulky beast. But other than that, I have no idea how that Pokemon works.
01:51:34
zz
Yeah, I would love if we got some Dondosa footage or maybe even people trying that at a streamed event. And yeah, the APAC player that you were alluding to was XRWAS, taking second place in the APAC playoffs um behind champion Shadowlord, who was also running a Shadow Dust Noir team.
01:51:55
zz
and ahead of previous world champion Yekai in yakai in the third place. So certainly a very stacked field in which Dondoso was also able to thrive.
01:52:06
William Dunphey
So I do have a few bracket shout outs here. i dove into the challenge bracket and I've got some notes. So first thing i wanted to say is the return of Elche. if ah If you have been following the championship series for a while, you remember Elche as the trainer who went to Yokohama, apparently misregistered his Umbreon in some way and was unable to play it the entire event. So you would assume, oh man, I went to world the World Championships. and i screwed up and now either I can take a round loss or I can just play with five Pokemon.
01:52:36
William Dunphey
You would assume that tournament run would be over. You would assume wrong because Elche finished fourth at the World Championships with only five Pokemon, which is fucking insane. The more that I think about it and the more time that goes on. Very, very well done by him. Elche, he ran Corviknight, Shadow Fortress, Bug Bite, Licky Licky, Shadow Quagsire, Togekiss and Drain Punch Shadow Sableye's easy.
01:53:00
William Dunphey
He pushed Steinar to game five in the winner's finals. So Elche really well, um really well done by him. He finished, I believe overall, he finished third, which is insane for him.
01:53:13
William Dunphey
Very, very proud of him.
01:53:13
zz
it
01:53:15
William Dunphey
um Some other notes I wanted to mention real quickly. L&D S Coralash. just going to go through some of our notable Brazilian trainers here. Coralash was knocked to losers side bracket by Darkness Q in winners round four. He was knocked out of the event by Paulino Tad in losers round seven. 12 Vitarello. If you remember, this was the runner up at LAIC who Marto defeated to win it all. He was knocked to losers side bracket in winners round four by desynced. So he got desynced. He got pet code and then knocked out of the event by Victor Hugo.
01:53:45
William Dunphey
Zardy was knocked down by D-Sync as well in the Group C finals, but he made Day 2 on the loser's side. L&D's Canaan was knocked in Group D finals by Elche, but made Day 2 on the loser's side. And then finally, L&D's Aureo was knocked down to the loser's side bracket in Winners Round 4 by Elche, and he was eliminated by L&D's Estatistico in Losers Round 6. So...
01:54:10
William Dunphey
I always like to check on our Brazilian trainers and see how they do because when you think of Brazil, you do think of Corlash and Canaan and Zardi and Vitarello. So I always like to provide those updates. But yeah, i'm not sure if you have any thoughts on Elche or any of the Brazilians and how they did.
01:54:23
zz
I have fire with some thoughts, especially given the Pokemon used on some of those trainers' teams. um Shoutouts to LMS Canaan's Spiritomb, which does take a medal in fourth place, which is pretty fun. It's like a little bit of a variation of the Sableye pick that we talked about, with the added benefit of being able to play into that Lickie Lickie with the Sucker Punch damage a little more consistently, but also struggling a little more against the Torikis, just because you do not quite have the pacing that a Sableye provides as well as um you do resisted fast attack damage into fairy types rather than neutral shadow claws such as Sableye.
01:55:03
zz
um The old Drico in seventh place bringing a shadow can to Marowak. um Certainly the old Draco, because that is not a new Pokémon.
01:55:14
zz
But apparently it still works, it made a top 8, and this was a very stacked field, so we're not judging, we're just observing.
01:55:15
William Dunphey
ah
01:55:23
zz
um And also, Elendias Bernardo in 5th place. um ah Also, as Lilwini likes to call him, the goat. um because Elgin Hispana is very strong train a very strong trainer in the Go Battle League and has been seen around play Pokemon more and more with a little bit of a twist on Tauntaun's core of the Shadow Hydreigon and Eggislash but also with a Shadow Araquanid recently released not been legal for that long and from a Twitter post I believe I have inferred that this Araquanid was not really doing anything for him
01:56:01
zz
But also it was a shadow shiny, so that is just beautiful.
01:56:04
William Dunphey
Okay. Yeah, i guess I guess the best matchup for it would be what? A Mud Bomb, Aqua Tail, Quagsire? It would just devour that Pokemon. So it might have had a couple targets.
01:56:16
zz
and it's say It's like not without merit, and if you have a bad enough Shadow Arachonid that actually achieves a breakpoint against Lickie Lickie that allows it to win, I believe, the 1 and 2 shield matchup against Lickie Lickie, which is like a bulky rollout user.
01:56:31
zz
So Arachonid can pull some shenanigans, but a good Pokemon it is not. um However, it did take 5th place, so there's like somewhere to it.
01:56:43
William Dunphey
Yeah, there's there's some merit. We might see more of it. wellll We'll see what we get in terms of balance updates in June. Zardy with Shadow Dust of War, Shadow Steelix. DVS Daniel SMB still rocking that Galarian Moltres.
01:56:55
William Dunphey
12
APAC Playoffs & Strategic Innovations
01:56:56
William Dunphey
Vitrella with a Shadow Sealeo. finishing in the top 16. And I just realized that Corlash and Steinar are were in the exact same team. We do see this pretty often ah in LATAM.
01:57:06
William Dunphey
A lot of trainers from 7-Eleven Mexico, or if they are L&DS, run a similar team, or if not the exact team, once they agree on on what's actually good. But...
01:57:16
zz
Oh yeah, one one interesting part of that team is also how it features a non-Shadow coaxial. We did talk about it, that is mainly there to shore up the potential leaky leaky weakness.
01:57:27
William Dunphey
Yeah, and and when you are running Shadow Dust of War on the team, I think you need to be prepared to see a lot of Licky Licky. So that makes total sense to me.
01:57:34
zz
Exactly.
01:57:35
William Dunphey
Wow. In terms of the the bracket, I believe that we can infer, if I'm not mistaken, that Steinar won a three one Grand Finals versus Darkness Q. I haven't in in the time since the event, I haven't reached out to Steinar to get the actual um results like I'd like to do. So I'll probably send him a message after we're done recording and see if I can get those actual Pokemon used in the in the gameplay. Because I know id I'd like to have that in my notes. I love to share it with everybody that listens. But as of as for right now, don't have detailed notes.
01:58:07
William Dunphey
um I'm not really sure what else we can say about Campinas. Again, due to the lack of the broadcast, it might be time to slide over and look at our TPC playoffs, which this is the busiest part of the season. We always have tons of playoffs, so we can recap those quickly if if you're down.
01:58:24
zz
There have been so many. Start us off speedy, I don't even know where to begin.
01:58:29
William Dunphey
Well, the first note I see that that you so thoughtfully wrote was that Nico Paradise Uwu winning Taiwan with a pangaro, which is really sick.
01:58:39
William Dunphey
So maybe we should talk about Taiwan first and and see what else.
01:58:42
zz
Yeah. I believe they did also shout out that Pangoro as their MVP and it's easy to see why given that the start and The third and second place finisher both had that Galarian Corsola alongside with multiple Pokémon that really do not want to see a pun Pangoro coming in terms of its fighting type damage output.
01:59:04
zz
um yeah I believe like there's only really a Togekiss on the teams of Michang 1978 as well as Weekend KHS.
01:59:15
zz
um So as long as the Pangarrow is protected, and to protect it from Togekiss there's a Unovan, Stunfisk, an Aegislash, and a Tinkerton.
01:59:15
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:59:25
zz
So quite the diverse cast of um supporting Pokemon. um Yeah, if Pangoro doesn't find that one bad alignment, it is either going to take shields or just straight up going to take the matchup.
01:59:39
zz
um So yeah, I can certainly see how this was a very powerful Pokemon to bring to this particular event.
01:59:47
William Dunphey
ah Some familiar names here as well. I guess, well, I guess only one familiar name for me. That's Yodata30, also finishing within the top eight with Grumpik as well as Diggersby, Shadow for Alligator, Wigglytuff, Shadow Fortress, and Lickilickie. So relatively, I guess, standard team, maybe by NA standards.
02:00:06
William Dunphey
um Then you had Hengi Icy with a Sableye, which I only assume is Drain Punch as well. I haven't actually checked the Draco base to confirm it, but I assume it's another Drain Punch Sableye. And then Roger Wu with a double Ghost team of Gorgeist and Jellicent, a Guzzlord stacked in the middle. So I always love to see yeah these teams here. And again, there's so much pressure on the TPC qualifiers. I mean, competing online or if you're in Japan competing at Pokemon Centers, is Very little room for error. And if you do make it this far, and you do make it through through the playoffs and qualify for Worlds, you know that they're going to be an absolutely stacked trainer, as we have seen from Beezaboy, Yakai, and our other 8-pack players. so
02:00:45
zz
I wish I was slightly more prepared and knew exactly how many trainers from this region were going to go to Worlds, but I believe with how the um like the qualification threshold has been increased for essentially every APEC country, I would not be surprised if even all of these trainers made it, but it's at least the top four.
02:01:08
zz
That much I know.
02:01:10
William Dunphey
Yeah, I almost want to, I almost wish we could like phone a friend, right? Like this would be, ah who wants to be a millionaire or something? I'd call Twastel and I'd say, hey, is it top six? Is top four?
02:01:20
William Dunphey
Is the top eight? Because you're right, the the cutoff was expanded.
02:01:22
zz
very good It's a very good call on on who to who to call for that.
02:01:27
William Dunphey
Oh, I mean, come on. I mean, the first person comes to mind for me. But um yeah, I'm not really sure there's a lot more we can say about Taiwan. Again, no streamed matches, so we don't have the battle footage, but we do see the record as it stands. And I'd really love to see all of those trainers from Taiwan making their way over.
02:01:45
William Dunphey
um In terms of other playoffs, we can go ahead and talk about APEC.
02:01:51
zz
um I would love to. i also want to note, I don't know for which of all of these it does apply already, but and for certain TPC playoffs, Homeslice Henry does upload footage from those runs on his Homeslice Henry channel, which is essentially the channel for every show 6 lover.
02:02:14
zz
So um keep your eyes peeled, there may be some of those trainers being showcased. on that channel either already or fairly soon.
02:02:25
zz
um But yeah, the APAC playoffs, we did mention this already, where we have Shadowlord2770 in first place with a fairly standard team as far as um the like staples of Liki Liki, Chogikiss and Shadow Quacksayago, rounding it out with Wigglytuff, Empolion and poo and n yet again that Shadow Dusk Noir.
02:02:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:02:49
zz
And one thing I want to mention Speedy, um you did previously say that you likely need two dynamic punches to take out a Liki Liki.
02:02:49
William Dunphey
I
02:02:58
zz
But I have played a Shadow Dusk Noir um fairly recently, and I believe the Licky Licky is all the way down in the deep red. So I can even see a scenario in which you are either fine with landing another Shadow Punch or even able to astonish all the way down in a two-shot matchup. I haven't really simped that yet, but I have like anecdotal evidence from fairly recently where a Shadow Dusk Noir may even be slightly better and to licky lickier than what you may think.
02:02:58
William Dunphey
am i wrong
02:03:31
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm looking at PB poke now. Apparently that dynamic punch does about 67.5% damage, and then each subsequent astonish is 3% damage. So it is reasonable, especially if you're willing to double shield, to land one and then just astonish all the way down, which is pretty gnarly because you're definitely loaded with energy after that.
02:03:52
zz
Yeah, so certainly a Pokemon that um I believe, who who does have the Duskull currently? I believe it's like um Sierra in terms of Rocket Leaders, where you can actually hunt for a good Shadow Dusk Noir.
02:04:05
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:04:08
zz
i do not know when the next Rocket Event that allows you to TM away frustration will be. But there's certainly going to be one ahead of the World Championships, so make sure to grab a Shadow Desk Noir just in case.
02:04:20
zz
And also try to make sure that the HP stat on it is at least, I believe it was 89 that you want, because that would allow you to survive enough Astonishes from Galarian Kossela so that you get two Shadow Punches off before getting thumped down.
02:04:39
William Dunphey
Very good note. I will. so I now suddenly have a desire to fight Sierra. So I'll definitely definitely take care of that.
02:04:45
zz
Hehehe.
02:04:47
William Dunphey
But yeah, such a cool Pokemon to use. Shadow Dust Noir on the team. And it wasn't the only one. Probably i would say the best name in this entire bracket. Noobified Chad. Also running Shadow Dust Noir with an Ombreon to accompany it.
02:05:02
William Dunphey
And yeah, man. That's a really fun team as well. I love the dynamic nature of it. And remind me again, so this was May 17th that we had the APAC playoff, and l LA was... I'm checking my notes here.
02:05:18
William Dunphey
i'm I'm trying to to date the Dartrix here, because Hoenn, who also played it?
02:05:22
zz
The Daughtrix...
02:05:25
zz
That was after Arrow won LA with Daughtrix. That was the same weekend as Utrecht, and Utrecht was already like inspired.
02:05:30
William Dunphey
Okay, okay.
02:05:35
William Dunphey
Oh, you're right. So LA was May 9th and 10th, and this was a week after. So hey, Arrow's starting a movement. I saw it pop up in in Europe. I saw it pop up in APAC.
02:05:46
William Dunphey
What's going on, Dartrix?
02:05:47
zz
for For what it's worth, I believe that it is a real Pokemon currently, because there's very few Pokemon that actually wall its energy.
02:05:47
William Dunphey
This is awesome.
02:05:54
zz
Like, you can still have a positive matchup on paper, such as like, oh, if you're a Togekiss, you probably feel as if you're in a good spot, but you still need to shield Brave Birds, and a bulky enough Dartrix is going to be able to withstand that pack damage and those non-stab Psy Shocks in a way that allows you to win the one shield matchup with the bait and the zero shield matchup every time.
02:06:20
zz
So only the twos are really safe for Togekiss, meaning Dartrix has a lot of play into it its would-be counters.
02:06:20
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:06:29
zz
The same goes for Liki Liki, which you connect with a Brave Bird, you just win that matchup. So a lot of things to like about Dartrix.
02:06:36
William Dunphey
Well, what I appreciate, ZZ, is that you mentioned some of the more nuanced matchups, some of the more meta-relevant matchups. But all I can think about is whenever that thing sees a quagsire and it tumbles down an endless pit of stairs into a bottomless well of despair when it sees the dart tricks, especially if it's Aqua Tail Mudbomb.
02:06:45
zz
ah
02:06:55
zz
i can i can so i can I can totally see a Quack Zaya tumbling down an endless well of stairs too. I feel like that's the perfect Pokémon to do such a thing.
02:07:03
William Dunphey
Just rolling down, down, downward spiral, literally, when it sees the Darkrix. But yeah, I think you make ah you make a really good point. um I don't know if you're hyped about this, but seeing Yakai finish though overall, that has me very, very excited. Because
India, Thailand, & Indonesia Tournaments Recap
02:07:18
William Dunphey
obviously when you win the World Championship, you get the auto invite next year. We haven't seen too much of Yakai. And Yakai, being third, definitely qualified for the World Championship this year. And it's going to be awesome.
02:07:30
zz
Like, the the longer Pokemon Go stays part of the competitive scene, the more world champions we're going to get. So the more stacked a field is going to get.
02:07:38
William Dunphey
Yes.
02:07:41
zz
Like, imagine, like, a year from now. I guess, like, Dancing Rob has essentially retired from competition, but Yoseboy is still very much traveling to places and competing.
02:07:48
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:07:53
zz
Axon is still very, very involved. And now Yikai coming back. um There's probably going to be a showdown or two already set up for San Francisco.
02:07:58
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:08:03
zz
And it's only going to be more people off that profile.
02:08:07
William Dunphey
I honestly can't wait. And you know what? Speaking of world champions, I think we should slide over to India to talk about their playoffs, because I believe that was the oldest one that we haven't discussed quite yet.
02:08:18
zz
It is.
02:08:19
William Dunphey
As I search for the team graphic.
02:08:20
zz
was April nineteenth
02:08:22
William Dunphey
Oh, gosh, it's easy.
02:08:23
zz
but back like Back during April 19th, Tinkerton wasn't even legal in the rest of the world.
02:08:24
William Dunphey
We're super late.
02:08:29
zz
In the TPCI-regulated parts of the world, that you couldn't even run Tinkerton. But the TPC region, so all the Asian playoffs, um they already allow the Pokémon essentially the moment after its release.
02:08:44
zz
um So Gigaton Hammer was legal to be used in that tournament. And where does it rank? Where's the best ranking Tinkerton? It's in fifth place. It doesn't even make top four. What is happening there?
02:08:56
zz
Why isn't Umbreon winning this tournament? It's probably because it's in the hands of Master Me here, who already won the India playoffs the year before. and I don't know, was it like a top eight at Worlds?
02:09:04
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:09:06
zz
It was like close to that at least. So certainly um another Indian trainer who may have what it takes to become a world champion.
02:09:09
William Dunphey
Very good.
02:09:19
zz
not, this year than in the future because he appears to be so consistent like he never has like a bad showing only seeing like whether it's like grassroots events whether it's the playoffs the qualifiers whether it's world championships never a bad tournament by master me here so remember the name
02:09:23
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
02:09:37
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Remember the name confirmed. Master me here. Winning with Umbreon when Ticketon was all the rage back upon immediate release. Fake Soul in second place with Shadow Malamar. Also Nava Empire, a name that I ah will always associate with elite Indian trainers.
02:09:55
William Dunphey
Let's see. Judgment of Time. We had Suvange PVP, which I recognize that name as well, as well as Dane's Life, which we've seen competing over the years. Austin Prince, another name I recognize.
02:10:07
William Dunphey
um That PVP person, of course. Let's see if there's any more. Dark Phoenix, 0007.
02:10:14
William Dunphey
And Itzriyuga is another name that I recognize. So it's it's cool as well to see ah these Indian trainers compete year over year.
02:10:18
zz
yeah
02:10:21
William Dunphey
And then a lot of other trainers rise up and make a name for themselves. Also, I believe that India, in terms of qualification slots, expanded the most out of the TPC regions, if I'm not mistaken.
02:10:33
zz
Yes, it used to be four people who were invited to Worlds, now it's 16.
02:10:39
William Dunphey
Wow.
02:10:39
zz
half of the people that you will see on this graphic if you watch the YouTube version as soon as that is up and running. um
02:10:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:10:48
zz
half of the people will be at least qualified for Worlds. So it's like a little difficult, especially when the World Championships are being held in the US because these regulations are fairly strict and sometimes the timing doesn't line up super well because these events have been at the end of the competitive season.
02:11:05
zz
So i don't know how many of these trainers we are going to see at San Francisco Worlds, but i certainly hope it's as many as possible because they have earned their spot at the World Championships.
02:11:17
William Dunphey
And we know what they can do at Worlds too. We've seen it, right? So we've seen it firsthand.
02:11:21
zz
Oh yeah.
02:11:23
William Dunphey
Shout out to India.
02:11:23
zz
I also want to... 100%. misen I also want to shout out AustinPrince44 for qualifying with the Toxicroak. I don't think I've seen this Pokemon since like 2021.
02:11:33
William Dunphey
Holy cow, I didn't even realize. That's awesome. Heck yeah. Oh, I i guess on DracoViz we can figure out if it's running counter or poison jab, but I assume it'd be running counter.
02:11:44
zz
I would imagine it runs Poison Sting because it paces so quickly.
02:11:46
William Dunphey
Oh, poison sting.
02:11:49
zz
Let me let check that real fast. so
02:11:52
William Dunphey
I'm racing you. I'm going figure it out first. All right, chat chat, please your bets.
02:11:56
zz
Yeah, you're probably... Yeah, you're probably...
02:12:00
William Dunphey
No, there's no team info. Oh, well.
02:12:03
zz
Aw, not yet now.
02:12:04
William Dunphey
Well, then then neither of us lose, which which I like.
02:12:04
zz
Yeah, that's unfortunate. Anyways... Fantastic.
02:12:09
William Dunphey
All right.
02:12:10
zz
fantastic
02:12:11
William Dunphey
But that being said, shout out to India. I cannot wait to see what those trainers bring. And as EZ said, i just want to echo that sentiment. I hope as many of the qualified players can make it to SF as possible because we definitely want to see them compete. We've got two more to wrap up here and then we're done with our TPC playoffs. um On our list, we have Thailand where Teddyness returned to form and won again, i believe, either the second or even the third freaking time.
02:12:39
zz
It's a very familiar name for sure. And it's also like some familiar Pokemon from the tournaments that we've already discussed because there's that Cilio again that we've seen win in Utrecht.
02:12:42
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
02:12:53
zz
But crucially, the Thailand playoffs were held um some weeks before the Utrecht Regional. So that was already like a little bit of proof of concept for that Cilio. There's the Shadow this time, which does...
02:13:06
zz
um make the energy from it a little more impactful, but also gives it a slightly worse head-to-head matchup against the Tinkerton, which was also legal during this tournament. We also see the Umbreon again, also not that great against Tinkerton.
02:13:21
zz
um
02:13:22
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:13:23
zz
um But yeah, it's like these are being paired with Jellicent, fairly strong against Tinkerton. These are being paired with Shadow Fortress, also good against Tinkerton. Doesn't even matter the fast attack necessarily. And also Digger Speed. So there's like enough to fend off Tinkerton, really. And we've already already talked about Turgicus, how that is a Pokemon that only needs the slightest of head starts to have a pretty solid matchup there as well.
02:13:48
zz
So yeah, like overall, certainly a balanced team as far as I can tell. And one that managed it managed to take it all, even against the competition of 12th to Chia 21 and the all-Evolution team in 9th place.
02:14:03
William Dunphey
I was waiting for you to mention that. Yes. Umbreon, Leafeon, Sylveon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Glaceon. Total EV team, which is super sick. We also had Yorke Zaza with a Shadow Girafferig and Togetic Core. Not Togekiss. Togetic, which is really, really fun. ah Mech...
02:14:26
William Dunphey
Mechs exists, I guess you would say, 1994 with a Greninja. Maybe a little bit of of inspiration there. And we also had, oh, I wanted to mention this one, Mecha Mech with Shadow Glyscore and Morgrum with a Poliwrath and a Lantern.
02:14:42
William Dunphey
What in the world is going on with that team?
02:14:45
zz
Morgrem honestly comes up a lot when you like try to search for core breakers in the current meta. It has some really hard losses as well, but between its unique typing of of Dark and Fairy, as well as Stab Sucker Punch, there's some things that Morgrem can do.
02:14:53
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:15:03
zz
and Apparently one of them is coming top 8 at the Thailand playoffs, so... Certainly a Pokemon that if you don't have it yet, there's maybe like a target to build as next.
02:15:15
zz
I believe it's like an extra large type of Pokemon as well, where you need some of the impotent XL candy to really get the full value out of it.
02:15:23
William Dunphey
Yeah. So...
02:15:26
zz
Yeah, like the rank one is um level 49.5, so and it's a lot of Excels.
02:15:31
William Dunphey
So, and to give you an idea of how this Pokemon plays, right? Because the XLs are really what's holding me back from from making a Morghum. It's got roughly the same attack and stat spread as Empoleon.
02:15:42
William Dunphey
ah Overall, 1,800 stat product. It's essentially a tiny Grimmsnarl with basically the same moveset of Sucker Punch, Foul Play, and Play Rough, but a little more potent on the attack side and a little less defense than Empoleon too. So it's a little bit of an HP-weighted Pokemon, especially defensively speaking. But
Viability & Diversity in Current Meta
02:15:59
William Dunphey
my goodness, yeah.
02:16:00
William Dunphey
I have no idea how it plays. And um I was an idiot and I was working on my Dynamax Gigantamax Pokemon. And I powered up my Grimmsnarl moves, not realizing it was taking my XL candies.
02:16:14
William Dunphey
So I powered up my my G-Max Grimmsnarl or whatever at this at the price of not now being able to power up my Morgrum.
02:16:14
zz
Oh.
02:16:22
William Dunphey
So I got to grind some more Excels.
02:16:25
zz
Yeah, i'm I'm so glad. like I was never happier to not really care about Dynamaxing because I still have my Excels.
02:16:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:16:32
zz
I i just haven't gotten a candidate that I wanted to build just yet. but
02:16:37
zz
like I'm just simming the Morghum against the meta on PvP, the Play Pokemon Championship Series meta. And it wins more than it loses. It wins more than it loses. So maybe there's some...
02:16:37
William Dunphey
Clever.
02:16:48
zz
ah Maybe that's actually the sauce.
02:16:50
William Dunphey
Merit?
02:16:51
zz
like
02:16:53
William Dunphey
Oh, who knows?
02:16:53
zz
There may be something behind it.
02:16:55
William Dunphey
bring it Bring it to Worlds, all right? How how about that? how about ah How about you bring it to Worlds, I couldn't imagine a world like that.
02:16:59
zz
Ah, well, we'll wait what the um what the updates say for for june for the June meta. also don't know whether it's ah even Open Great League. Maybe Morgrem isn't legal because it's Open Great League minus Morgrem.
02:17:18
zz
like Imagine like they show the world's meta and it's a themed meta and it's but just like everything, only Morgrem has the one singled out ban. It's like...
02:17:28
William Dunphey
It's the only one that's crossed out. No, Morgrem.
02:17:30
zz
Because you personally are not invited.
02:17:31
William Dunphey
Don't even think about it.
02:17:32
zz
my.
02:17:33
William Dunphey
Yes. Don't even think about Morgrem because you can't bring it.
02:17:35
zz
100% agree.
02:17:36
William Dunphey
OK, it's the one thing. My goodness. Speaking of one thing, we have one more to get through in this behemoth of an episode. That is the Indonesia.
02:17:45
zz
one hundred percent degree
02:17:47
William Dunphey
Indonesia playoffs. And ZZ says we should just record this whole episode again because it's not late enough for him. He wants to record late into the night. So.
02:17:56
zz
It is true, it is very true. um But yeah, the Indonesia Playoffs won by RifkiAditya23. um Please forgive me if I botched that name, but I believe that is how it's pronounced. Also, Surpanic a lot, also known as Findpanic in second place.
02:18:15
William Dunphey
Yes.
02:18:15
zz
i'm Probably the most famous creator from Indonesia in the Pokémon Go space. yeah I will say that the successful teams from this tournament looked at actually fairly um fairly standard in the top spots.
02:18:33
zz
um Then go like a little crazier the further down you go. For example, in the fourth place you have Barbarbunner with a Seeking alongside Chargerbug, which is always a favorite of mine.
02:18:45
zz
But yeah Seeking certainly, if you expect a lot of Empoleon plus Flying-type course, then you have the Drillrun as well as the Icywind that both are being charged up quite fast with the Pack Fast Attack.
02:18:53
William Dunphey
You know.
02:18:59
zz
So even though you don't do a whole lot of damage with Seeking, The typing of your damage essentially covers the entire meta, which is really nice. Then you have Tom Sian in fifth place, also a GBL leaderboard regular with the interesting picks of um Shadow, Alolan Ninetales, as well as Fearow.
02:19:19
zz
Two Pokemon that exist on the fringes of the meta, but always do something. So I certainly can see how that worked out here. So also on Nvishi7's team, there's Clefable, a Poliwrath, and a Dusklobs.
02:19:36
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah.
02:19:36
zz
um This is like classic ghost fighting core between the Poliorath and the Dusklobs. um So certainly a lot of those Pokemon that are like meta adjacent, but certainly not meta, that were able to thrive here.
02:19:51
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. I've always been a fan of Clefable because it does have Meteor Mash, so you could fight back versus other fairies. and when you look at Novici's team, there's also the Stunfisk as well. So if you do come up against any kind of flying type opponents, he's got checks for that. um Like you said, things just get weirder as you go deeper down the rabbit hole. You had Rosebrand X-Force with a triple weakness to charm, being Galeri Moltres, Medicham, and Shadow Sableye.
02:20:18
William Dunphey
So probably played a lot of Tinkaton if they went up against any wiggly tough teams.
02:20:21
zz
Perfect.
02:20:23
William Dunphey
BangBungBotus coming out with the Claude Sire, reaching way back into the toy box to pull that one back out. Zylotic with Mandabus. Shout out to our friend Anacor over at EU.
02:20:34
William Dunphey
Demas Akira with Galeri Weezing. And then ah ah I don't know if this is like a trend or it's easy. Honestly, I feel like I'm schizophrenic and I'm seeing shapes. But why are all these graphics, why do they all have an Umbreon team in the 16th spot?
02:20:49
William Dunphey
This is weirding me out.
02:20:50
zz
This is like, like when there's like an AI generated picture, you sometimes have to list like this like Gemini symbol in the bottom right corner.
02:21:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Yes.
02:21:02
zz
So if if it's like a Dracovist generated picture, you have the Umbreon in the bottom right corner.
02:21:07
William Dunphey
I'm telling you, I...
02:21:07
zz
It's just like a signature at this point.
02:21:09
William Dunphey
I feel like i'm I'm seeing shapes in the radio waves or something. But yes, another Umbreon finishing within our top 16 here. um I don't know how you feel about this, ZZ, but I just want to ask.
02:21:20
William Dunphey
I'm a fan of Clefable, but I'm an even bigger fan of Shadow Typhlosion. When I look at some of these teams and I see the target-rich environment that they provide, is Shadow Typhlosion Cope? You got to be honest.
02:21:32
William Dunphey
I know there's a Quagsire
Closing Thoughts & Future Tournaments
02:21:33
William Dunphey
in every team.
02:21:36
zz
I think it is viable. um I think you can like get a medal with Typhlosion. That is not something crazy.
02:21:44
William Dunphey
Okay.
02:21:47
zz
But also, you probably have enough Pokémon that you would rather have on your team compared to Typhlosion. So if Typhlosion is your favorite, it will not necessarily impede your competitive prospects.
02:21:57
William Dunphey
Fine.
02:22:03
zz
But if you are just about winning or if you have like other Pokémon that you like more, you don't really you shouldn't really go out of your way to put a Typhlosion on your team. like The Quackzire matchup is just so dismal.
02:22:13
William Dunphey
All right.
02:22:15
zz
So...
02:22:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, let me down easy. appreciate that. Well, I know that ah other fire types like Shadow Canto Ninetales might get a little more love these days and for good reason. So ZZ, that finishes our recaps of nine different events. We knew this was going to be a bear of an episode because we have been away, but we got through it. We got past it. We got over the hump.
02:22:36
William Dunphey
And now we can look forward to the future.
02:22:37
zz
Let's go. Oh yeah, and the future holds many, many tournaments. So this upcoming weekend, there will be events in Melbourne, Australia.
02:22:48
zz
There's also going to be the Lima Championships in Peru, plus the South Korean playoffs.
02:22:52
William Dunphey
Correct. Mm-hmm.
02:22:54
zz
So um all around the world, there's going to be exciting tournaments being played. And we will be back probably after the Indianapolis Regional Championships the week after, um which will be streamed.
02:23:08
zz
So we have a lot to say on on those tournaments compared to the ones that we only see the graphics of. And when that is going to happen, when we are... coming back to you with a new round of reporting on Play Pokemon for a Pokemon Go.
02:23:23
zz
We should also already have some more info on the move updates that are awaiting us um in this upcoming
02:23:29
William Dunphey
Correct.
02:23:35
zz
three-month stretch that features, among other things, the World Championships in San Francisco, California. so stay tuned. Maybe the um changes that are awaiting us will also do something for the North American International Championships meta, which is a limited format um that features, I believe, normal types, water types, fairy types, and psychic types.
02:24:01
zz
So certainly, like practice tournaments have already begun, there's no telling whether the current meta environment will hold, but we will be much smarter in just like about a week and half from now.
02:24:05
William Dunphey
Thank you.
02:24:14
William Dunphey
I'm telling you, ZZ, I'm so skeptical of what's coming that I have ive just refuse to scrim. I tried to ask a bunch of people at l LA if they had started scrimming for NAIC, and they said, absolutely not. I don't want to learn matchups. I don't want to learn teams and become comfortable and then have the whole meta flip. So I understand that. And I also understand that you've had a pretty good practice run. So i don't i can see that the merits of both sides, right? Getting your feet wet early and being adjustable, that's great.
02:24:40
William Dunphey
ah But for a rigid old person like me, I'm going to wait until the change comes and then start screaming. So I will be competing at NAIC.
02:24:46
zz
That is entirely fair. Yeah.
02:24:48
William Dunphey
Yeah. Which I'm really excited for competed last year, was knocked out by Ash Nash and Jumothy. Still remember your names. And if I see you in that bracket on a beach, your ass. I'm just kidding.
02:24:58
William Dunphey
um But no, that was a really fun event and I can't wait to compete in it again because I live so close, right? I can just drive right over ah and offer airport rides and things like that to friends. So That being said, ZZ, it's been a great episode.
02:25:10
William Dunphey
um Keep in mind, everyone, it's already May and your last chance to earn championship points is NAIC. So if you have any local cups or challenges or any way that you can get a slight edge on the leaderboards, you should go and do those as quick as you can. Check your Play Pokemon event locator to see if there is a May cup or challenge in your area, and especially if there's one in June in the two weeks before and a i So yeah.
02:25:33
William Dunphey
so That being said, we have a really exciting GoFest coming up. I will be in Chicago for that. And I'm really excited to get back to where it all began. i mean, that was my first GoFest in 2019. I remember sleeping on my buddy's couch in order to afford going because I was just out of college and pretty broke, which, you know.
02:25:51
William Dunphey
I'm so super grateful for those memories and everything that that happened. So going back to Chicago is going to be crazy. um And I can't wait to see you all there. But that being said, ZZ, it's been a really fun episode. I think we're ready to wrap up unless you have any closing thoughts.
02:26:06
zz
I have no more thoughts. My brain is entirely empty.
02:26:09
William Dunphey
All right. Well, let me just ah flawlessly click the outro music here. And we'll see you all in the next one. All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait.
02:26:20
zz
ah but
02:26:22
William Dunphey
Not this one. Not this one.
02:26:23
zz
You're so good at flawlessly doing stuff.
02:26:23
William Dunphey
All alright right, all right.
02:26:25
zz
This must have been intentional.
02:26:25
William Dunphey
Okay, here. There we go.
02:26:28
zz
Hey!
02:26:29
William Dunphey
There we go. There we go.