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Ep. 7 Goiânia & Vancouver
146 Plays7 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 7 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This week, we recap the Goiânia Regional Championships, where LNDsTSteinar made quick work of his competition! We also discuss the Vancouver Regional Championship, where LyleJeffsIII cemented his name as a favorite going into World's.
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction to Show6 Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome everyone to the Show6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. We take a look at the players, the plays, and the overall meta surrounding the events.
Goiania and Vancouver Regionals Overview
00:00:11
Speaker
Today, we're taking a look at the Goiania regionals, where 62 trainers competed, as well as the Vancouver regionals, where 72 trainers competed. So if you're ready, lock in and good luck. Have fun.
Busy May Schedule and EUIC Plans
00:00:46
Speaker
I am Speedy's Chief 2 here with my co-host Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
00:01:02
Speaker
What could be better? Well, I think may might be better because we were looking at the schedule and there's like three or four regionals every weekend in may, but that's yet to come. So if you're, if you've been enjoying the show, right? Our first six episodes. And if you're enjoying the show right now, make sure to follow on whatever platform you're listening so you can get all the coverage coming up in the coming weeks. But so I was, we're here in March. It's late March. We're heading into EUIC next weekend. We have a couple of regionals to recap.
00:01:27
Speaker
First of all, Goyaña and secondly, Vancouver, but for all the people listening, I'm pretty sure they want to know how we've been as well. A little bit of personal information. How are you?
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm good. I'm fine. I had a little bit of a break. I didn't compete in any events this matter yet. We are in the world of wonders and my world of wonder has been a lot of work, a lot of just staying at home, maybe saving at those travel expenses, but I'm very excited with the UIC approaching. I'll be there in London competing.
00:01:59
Speaker
And yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And now it's only only a week until I have that little vacation. Yeah, but doing, doing great. Otherwise.
Speculations on EUIC Winners
00:02:11
Speaker
Awesome. That's good to hear. So, so you said competing at EUIC, but I'm pretty sure you meant to say winning EUIC. We should, we should get to that another week potentially and something like a preview episode that might or might not drop next week.
00:02:28
Speaker
Because there'll be plenty of talented trainers attending the event from various countries, from various continents even. And it will be competitive. It will be very competitive. And we do have opinions about who might do well or not. Maybe I will win it. Maybe
00:02:50
Speaker
One of the other 319 competitors will take it all. Um, remains to be seen. Well, it's going to be one of those, those villain origin story moments when, uh, we give our EYC predictions and I say mine, and then these wireless is silent. And he just says me, I predict me to win it all. And then the base drops and it's way too dank.
Top Competitors and Nicknames
00:03:24
Speaker
way to dang, I should, I should set something up like that. Um, yeah, actually like interesting fun fact. Um, I was listening to an episode of one of our competing, um, PVP podcast, the tap tap cast with, um, Martin and Amanda and eloquence and lump burger the other week and, um, doing back 97, um,
00:03:46
Speaker
back to back, basically, um, North American regional champion. One of the favorites going into EOSC, um, was asked to name his top five competitors currently in the world. Oh, okay. Yeah. I see, I see where you're going. Okay. And, um, he was, uh, naming it Saxon the reigning world champion. He was naming himself and fair play. Um, I think there's nobody who wouldn't name, who wouldn't name Doomburg. Um, he named Jacobovich who.
00:04:17
Speaker
It's just the Oceania goat, basically. Who else did he name? I think that was it. That was all, right? I think he also mentioned Rise to Occasion, who is one of his biggest rivals.
00:04:37
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's it, right? There wasn't any European names on there, right? No, no. There was one more name. Who was it? It's me. It's you. No, seriously. It was you. It was me all along. I actually disagree with him on that, respectfully, but I appreciate it a lot. I already made a first draft of my EUIC rankings. We're shooting for the top 16 each, too.
00:05:08
Speaker
have like the, like together that's an icy top card, right? Because day two is 32 people. And I would say,
00:05:21
Speaker
I was, I was considering putting myself on there, but I didn't even make my own top 16. So like the margins are so slim, right? Like on a given day, anyone could beat anyone. And I really appreciate that I, that some people even consider me to be in that conversation. But honestly, it's, it's anyone's game. There's so many talented battles.
00:05:42
Speaker
It's a, it's a huge honor, right? And, and when Doon Bug calls somebody out, it really does mean something because he's, uh, he's very straight. He's very direct, right? He's straight to the point. And, uh, even to a fault sometimes, right? If you ask, Hey, dude, what'd you think of my games? He would say, man, you really sucked. You know, he'd be honest. And he would tell you exactly. So the good thing is I don't even know the guy. Like I've, I've met him like once or twice, uh, we've, we've maybe exchanged like two or three sentences.
00:06:12
Speaker
But it's not like, oh, we're best buddies and he just names me because we're tied like that. This was like, apparently, apparently this was something that I earned by, I don't know how I did that, but maybe it was the Ampharos gameplay back in Liverpool, 2022 or 2023 rather. Yeah. You may, you may Caleb sweat with the Ampharos game. So we got to do, I hope to repeat that at EOSC, but maybe not with Ampharos.
Analysis of Goiania Regionals
00:06:39
Speaker
uh i i've kind of toyed with this idea of introducing players with nicknames and i know this is this is not in our our script right we're going to get to go yanya very soon but i wanted to hear what you thought this is going to be a live reaction okay i have some ideas the so the first idea is i i've considered nicknaming inadequates the dapper dutchman um well it doesn't sound like you like it yeah yeah i feel like i feel like
00:07:10
Speaker
I feel like it needs to be more menacing. I feel like Martijn is a very, he's a very aggressive player. And I feel like the dapper Dutchman that looks like, oh, like he's so, he's so elegant and he appears on stage and like a suit and a bow tie. And then he just, um, I think, I think he's, he's more aggressive, especially now that he grew out his beard. I think he's, he's more like the, the,
00:07:38
Speaker
he is, but definitely, definitely something, something a little more. The, the gear team, the gear team, something like that. Okay. And last thing, a nickname for you. Do you prefer the Pelipper pilot or the Obama snow wizard? I think the Pelipper pilot could actually be my time himself, but he did abandon. He did abandon the Pelipper.
00:08:04
Speaker
Like you've heard from cast regionals, right? Whenever a Pelipper hits the field, oh, this is such a good Pokemon whoosh to the Hurricane Pelipper. That's what it sounds like when my time witnesses a Pelipper in any given play Pokemon scenario. He's not really playing that himself. I did play that.
00:08:24
Speaker
So I wouldn't mind a Pelopon name per se. I do think Abomasnow, I don't deserve credit for Abomasnow. I think people have done it before me and people have done it better. So if I had to pick between the two, I would take the Pelopon one. But if we're talking about like
00:08:45
Speaker
WWE style nicknames. I do think that people have almost established the soul, the German engineer thing, because in my very first Play Pokemon interview, I was asked, like, why did you bring Tapofini and Ampharos? And I was like, Oh, yeah, I went on PVPoke and reverse engineered the meta.
00:09:06
Speaker
And because I'm from Germany, they made the sole German engineer thing out of it, which has nothing to do with myself because I make my money in my day job by just writing words. Like I have no engineering background whatsoever. I'm a journalist. So it's not quite fitting, but it plays with a stereotype. And I think that's just fun.
00:09:31
Speaker
Hmm. Interesting. Well, I'll give it some more thought, but I think, I think there's something there. I think is, uh, is, is pretty good. But anyways, everybody who's, who's listening, let us know if you like any of those names we listed and if you want to see any four players, because I think there's a lot of opportunity to give more trainers.
00:09:50
Speaker
a bit more personality or color. And you know, we talk about consistency over and over again. We talk about that kind of thing. And in Vancouver, we found a workaround for Lyle Jeff's bald and famous. So you'll have to listen to that when it comes up. But that's why why don't we jump right into Goyaña. So this was a regional in Brazil that went down on March the 9th and the 10th.
00:10:15
Speaker
There were 62 trainers that signed up. And as we kind of talked about before we started recording, this was in the center of Brazil, which is kind of a curious place to get to, right? Exactly. Exactly. Like, um, typically you would expect like, if you look back at LAIC, for example.
00:10:33
Speaker
that all those Brazilian regionals would be overflowing with competitors. And this being a very small regional in comparison with only two groups on day one, it was kind of a surprise just by the initial looks of it. But if you actually look at the geography, then if you look at Brazil, there's those coastal cities like Rio or Sao Paulo that are easy to fight into, easy to fight out of, and maybe even popular for just
00:11:03
Speaker
a week long trip. So regionals there would probably be more easily accessible. But if you look at Goyaña, that is pretty much smack down the middle of Brazil. And this is like, probably not the most touristic destination. And maybe not something that a lot of trainers would just fly into for a regional. And like, it's it's relatively like there's still millions of people living there, don't get me wrong. So there is
00:11:33
Speaker
um, enough opportunity to attract a lot of players. But I can see why, um, like out of those, um, what was this 62 63 something along those lines. Um, I think six, about 60 of them were Brazilian. And then you had a couple of Peruvians and Marto, um, from, from Argentina. So yeah, that does make sense. And fun fact that we talked about earlier, um, just before we hit record, um,
00:12:03
Speaker
Goyangia is not that far from Brasilia, which is the capital city of Brazil. And that city didn't even exist 100 years ago, just because the then government of Brazil decided that it would be really neat to build a new capital city in the geographical center of the entire country. So that is why seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Brazil has a couple of really big cities.
00:12:31
Speaker
And yeah, like one of those, Goyanya. And even though there weren't all that many trainers competing, we had so many big names still, like about everyone who actually made it there. Actually, it's just like a really well-known name in the competitive community.
00:12:49
Speaker
You're exactly right. We saw so many of the GB Lindos, right? We call them the LNDS crew. And then we also saw Marto and like you said, the Peruvians, but it felt like even though the stream was hosted by Copag Pokemon two, first of all, thank you Copag Pokemon for hosting the stream and great job by the casters. I think it was LNDS Guizal's casting debut. I thought he did great. Of course, my Portuguese is very bad, but I definitely noticed a lot of enthusiasm and hype.
00:13:18
Speaker
But even watching the stream, you could see so many big names going up back to back to back. And if you remember the champion who won Goyanya was L.N.D.S. Steiner. And Steiner competed at L.A.I.C. earlier this season with Araquanid, which just in my mind made no sense. But somehow he's able to make it to day two, which I think is a testament to how good he is as a player. It was also his seventh event overall. So I guess seventh time is the charm.
00:13:45
Speaker
Uh, especially when you're competing against, uh, trainers like JW Naldo, like Zardy, like, uh, hard Jeff, you know, doing that on the regular winning a tournament, uh, after that many tries is, is definitely noticeable. But, uh, there were some pretty nice highlights. The VOD unfortunately for the stream, uh, has gone away. I don't know where to find it. So I'm just going to kind of play off a memory here. I will say that Zardy had a very nice reverse sweep of Marto and the loser's finals.
00:14:09
Speaker
He was down 0-2 and then came back and won three games straight, which is what we expect from a player like Zardy. But he pivoted to Watergun Lantern and Registeal, which I thought was pretty interesting. We don't see Watergun Lantern too often, but Zardy definitely stands by it. Something I wanted to mention to you in particular is that when we look at the top eight meta,
00:14:27
Speaker
Six out of the eight top eight teams had the same exact formula. They had Cresselia, a counter user, which was either Vigoroth or Annihilate, an electric type, which was either Chargibug or Lantern, and a flying type, which was mostly Shadow Gligar, but there were a few Altaria. So four out of the six slots were the same. And then you kind of pivot around with maybe a Lickitung, a Skeleturge pick, maybe a Guzzlord, and there was some, you know, a little bit of room for creativity, but those core four
00:14:57
Speaker
I feel like we're seeing that not only in the last time region, but also in EU, NA and everywhere. I mean, do you agree? Do I agree that those are excellent Pokemon to use? Yes. Am I surprised that those teams in Goyanya looked almost identical for the most part? A little bit, I have to say.
00:15:20
Speaker
What was especially surprising just looking at the top cut for me was the prevalence of Azaria as the flying type of choice, especially because
00:15:35
Speaker
This is actually not, I prefaced this wrong. I can actually see why Altaria is the flying type of choice. Sometimes over Gligar, in very few cases also additional to Gligar. But if we look at the top eight, there's only one Wiscash in there. And I do think the influx of Altaria really made it so that Wiscash team set it a lot more difficult
00:16:05
Speaker
to succeed in Goyanya. And this is just because typically if you have Glaga as the flyer, then West Cash is a check to that. Not necessarily a hard counter, but at least a check. But if the opposing team has an Altaria, which just walls the entire charge move energy, you have to take a risk if you even want to bring West Cash. So I feel like Altaria is just
00:16:35
Speaker
um, a reaction to a matter that has remained largely unchanged from the timeless travel season, um, during which Whiskash won about a dozen tournaments back to back to back.
Winning Team Composition at Goiania
00:16:49
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that is something that, um, we, we saw in Brazil for the first time that people found not only the frequent chrysalis to have something that's really anti-Whiskash, but also something to
00:17:04
Speaker
deny all those Swiss caches their typical play of, oh, I might shot this down. And then I just hit a bunch of skulls and maybe even flip the matchup with like a debuff or just a large enough energy advantage. That just didn't happen in Brazil.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I think there's something interesting there as well because I didn't notice this until you were talking about Altaria. I feel like there's a connection between the success of that Pokémon had in Goyanya and also Rubik's Master's team in Vancouver.
00:17:35
Speaker
right so we'll get to we'll get to Vancouver soon but I feel like Altaria is the answer that you pick if you just want to be like above the fray if you don't want to fall into you know uh the rps matchups if you don't want to try to pick Skarmory but fear lantern or if you don't want to uh try to go whiskash but fear dragons you just go Altaria and you fly above all the other neutral picks uh maybe with the exception of Likatang
00:17:58
Speaker
and you're able to kind of go toe to toe with those Pokémon. So I think it's interesting and I feel like a lot of people gave up on Altaria after all the Skytech nerfs and it's good to see it kind of resurging. I mean these are Pokémon that have been good since the beginning of PvP and to see them cycle back in is really impressive.
00:18:14
Speaker
The winning team for LNDS, Steiner, had Crystallia, Vigoroth, Lantern, Shadow Gligar, Skarmory, and Lickitung, which I think is a good combination. We had, I believe, three Moonblast Crystallias and three Future Sites, so it was really balanced, because six out of eight teams had Crystallia. We also had either Vigoroth or Annihilape on every team, and the Annihilapes all had Night Slash. And I believe the only Watergun Lantern, like I said, was Zardis, which is pretty shocking.
00:18:41
Speaker
and uh yeah all the guzzords were crunched so nothing too out of the usual i did see i believe it was flame charge and fly talon flame which is another interesting thing i don't know how much of vancouver you watched but i did mention i did mention these these wireless yes yes yes i heard that i appreciated that
00:19:00
Speaker
Again, I don't know if I invented that, but maybe I was the first to top-cut with it. That could be the case. I want to talk about that later when we get to Wankova as well, but I guess we should zoom in onto Goyanya for a little while still, because you mentioning the Cresselia movesets is actually interesting, because when the update dropped for the World of Wonders meta, I do think
00:19:29
Speaker
plenty of us thought, okay, dragons might become a little more prevalent just because, okay, Gudra got an update. And also, Gazlow just looked really strong into plenty of the ones that looked popular at the time. For example, the Shadow Feraligator, which did not have any impact on Goyanya yet.
00:19:54
Speaker
Um, but which would make it so that, um, for example, Amato or LNDS Kanan, um, pick the Goslow to, to make top eight, because that's just, um, pretty nice to resist those ghost type, uh, fast attacks. Um.
00:20:12
Speaker
So if you expect more dragons, and especially Gaslord with its double weakness to Faerie, but you don't want to put a dedicated dragon counter onto your team, then I do think it does make a lot of sense to move away from the hard-hitting future side and go for the moon dust coverage. Especially because the main argument in favor of future side is that with it, Cresselia does have a better shot against Likitang. But Likitang has never been a Pokémon that was so dominant,
00:20:42
Speaker
that if you gave up this little bit of extra tech against it, that it would just run over your team. So I can see why this is a trade-off that felt worth it for some people.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, the future site tech was interesting because I feel like for a long time Cresselia trainers opted for the Moonblast for the exact reasons you mentioned, you know, covering dragons. But the future site not only helps you in the Lickitung matchup, it also is a much more guaranteed knockout for a lot of the fighting type Pokemon, whether it be Poliwrath or Annihilape. Moonblast does do a lot of damage, but because Cresselia relies on the charge attacks so much,
00:21:19
Speaker
It's good to have the hard hitting future site and we've seen this as well. We saw it in Goanya as well as Vancouver. A lot of trainers are, if you don't have a Moonblast Cresselia, they're bringing Guzzlord or Darktype every single game because it feels like it's really hard to wall off that Darktype pressure if you don't have a direct answer.
00:21:38
Speaker
And because Fairy seems to be very limited to the occasional zoom roll, maybe a Wigglytuff here or there, it's very difficult to get that coverage. And I don't see anyone playing Alola Ninetales anytime soon because it takes that double super effective damage from Skarmory.
00:21:54
Speaker
A lot of obstacles to most of the fairies and finding your fairy coverage where you can is important. But I feel like it also depends on how you balance rest of your team. You know, if you have a skarmory on your team, maybe you don't need moon blast because steel does serve as kind of like a, a pseudo counter due to its resistances. You can also take down dragons that way. So, um, I like the way the teams are designed and I actually took Marto's team, uh, and I entered one, one of inadequacies practice tournaments with it. And it was really fun.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, I really loved his team design. I thought it was really creative. Unfortunately, my last round was against a Wigglytuff team, and I did not win that round. I lost one to two, so... Looking at Marta's team, I think with the Ligitang, the Gaslord, and the Annihilape, that's just...
00:22:38
Speaker
If you have them misaligned against the Wigglytuff team, it's almost over. There's counterplay with Skamri or Lantrum. I recall that I also see way too often in the open grade big these days. But yeah, I do agree that you don't necessarily want to run into Wiggly with that.
00:22:58
Speaker
I will say I do have a feather in my cap from that tournament, though, because my first round was against none other than the nighttime clasher.
Grand Finals Recap: LNDS Steiner and Zardy
00:23:06
Speaker
And I actually went ABA weak to Faerie and beat him. So that was fun. So he's still got it. He's still got it, folks. The next time we enter this original tournament, like, at least he's capable of taking down EU regional champions. I don't know whether that counts for anything, but
00:23:27
Speaker
Wow. Your words, not mine. No, just kidding. Just kidding. But, uh, the grand finals are really exciting. We had LNDS Steiner versus Zardy. Uh, Zardy actually went down zero two in the grand finals, but even the series at two and two, but then went on to lose game five.
00:23:44
Speaker
versus Steiner. So a very, very close series. We always expect that from Zardy. And it was really good to see Steiner succeed, because in my experience meeting him, a very nice guy always is very involved with the GB Lindos and tends to boost his friends up around him. So it was really good to see that. Steiner actually had one of the quickest runs through a regional. He went 6-0 with 14 game wins and only four game losses. And because the tournament was a bit on the smaller side,
00:24:14
Speaker
there were only two pods. So the way it worked out was that Steiner was actually the champion of pod A, if I'm not mistaken, and Zardy was a champion of pod B, and then they ended up meeting in the grand finals, which was kind of interesting. But really, really fun to see that and the consistency paid off. There were a couple of close games where I think Zardy tried to make a play or maybe he
00:24:34
Speaker
He tried to get off a charge attack, but could not quite get it done. And that resulted in a loss, but Hey, if you, uh, if you take down a trainer, I think it's worth it to, uh, to call yourself a regional champion. So Steiner's got a lot to be proud of.
00:24:48
Speaker
And I also have to say that I think Steiner was really close to just quitting the game at one point over the last year. And he basically just decided, okay, I'll give it another go. Then he did really well at LAIC.
00:25:05
Speaker
And now I was actually surprised to hear when I just read the coverage of the event that this is his first regional championship. This is like his first gold medal. Because I always thought, I always had in mind that he already did that in the past. But I think he came second. He was the runner up for an event last time. So that qualified him for Worlds. But definitely one of the most consistently great Brazilian trainers.
00:25:35
Speaker
If you just look at that top three between Steiner, Zadi, and Marto, who also made a fantastic lower bracket run, I want to shout that out as well, because he dropped in winners round three, day one, to, I think, yeah, I think he dropped to LNDS-Kana. And then he actually went on a 10-1 run in the lower bracket.
00:26:06
Speaker
to make, I think it was top four or five at that point. And during that run, so 10-1 means he only dropped one game. That was in a 2-1 victory against LNDS Rajev, arguably the most successful Latam trainer of the season.
00:26:25
Speaker
Um, and then he actually got his revenge to owing LNDS cannon to, um, basically make it to, um, the top four. Um, so yeah, really impressive stuff. And I do think those, those top three and also like fourth place JW Nardo, like all of these things are like, okay. Like if you, if you face them, like if you face them at worlds, you would.
00:26:52
Speaker
definitely just think, okay, this is someone who could go really far and everybody will have to be on the A-game. I think it was a little difficult at Goyanya just because I might remember having watched quite a few frame drops here and there, which I think that was some player frustrations, but the circuit is still developing, right? It took some time for the North American and
00:27:19
Speaker
the European circuits to get onto the flagship devices and get all the connection issues sorted out. It's still a work in progress, and I'm pretty sure we'll see more improvements in the future. But still, all these top trainers rising to the top through all of it proves that there was still enough skill factoring into the results because
00:27:44
Speaker
That's the only way you get a top three or two for like that. I think given the talent of the LATEM community, they deserve the best resources in order to have the most fair competition, right? Because I did see lots of posts, like you said, on Twitter where people were saying, oh, you know, it was a great tournament.
00:28:01
Speaker
But I was, you know, dealing with flame frame drops the, the entire tournament or my opponent and I had lag and we had to replay multiple times. And that's a story that we've heard before, uh, even with LAIC. So the, the fact that it hasn't improved yet is definitely concerning, but I, I'm fully confident in play Pokemon and TPC eyes plans to.
00:28:22
Speaker
increase the resource allocation because I think LATAM, you and I discuss this all the time, LATAM is one of the biggest potential growth markets that we have in the world because of the prevalence of mobile gaming. So I think that they deserve the best resources and they deserve to have a fair competition because we need to let that talent shine and LATAM talent is unlike anything else. Your memory serves you really well because last year Steiner lost in the grand finals versus Paulino Tad.
Creativity in Team Compositions
00:28:49
Speaker
in the regional he was competing in, I believe it was Sao Paulo. And Paulino Ted's team was the wild one, and my eyes went really big when I read this team. Shadow Charizard, Shadow Sableye, and Chestnut. That was our Chestnut qualified team. Yeah, I remember the time. There was a time in
00:29:09
Speaker
in the Go Battle League when Chestnut was really big. Actually, by virtue of another regional champion we are going to talk about in just a minute, Lyre Jeffs, who designed a team that was centered around a Chestnut lead with Frostars as a pivot, as a save swap, and then Shadow Charizard in the back. That was all the rage for about two months in the Go Battle League back in the day.
00:29:34
Speaker
I thought Wholesome Underscore designed that team. He designed so many teams like Wholesome Underscore and also his neighbor Radlot who is also an up and coming PvPer. Radlot is a real person. I don't know whether there's a disagreement about that.
00:29:54
Speaker
So yeah, definitely. A lot of talented team builders out there that tried out Chestnut at the time, but there's a difference between getting Chestnut to work in the Go Battle League and getting it to work in and play Pokemon against the best of the best. But yeah, Polina top, also very talented player. I think he top-cut with Greninja another time, which is just crazy.
00:30:17
Speaker
That's just a flex. Like if you can do that, that's an absolute flex. Again, congratulations to LNDS Steiner winning his first regional championship. Hopefully he continues with the game and plays a lot more because he's definitely an important piece of play Pokemon competitive history and also in grassroots history too. So best of wishes to him. He's already just raking in championship points. I believe he's qualified for Worlds now.
00:30:43
Speaker
And if Marto wasn't already qualified from the third place finish, they just announced the Buenos Aires regional coming up as well. So I know he's got his sights set on that and he wants to win it all there. That's going to be exciting. Yeah, I know the battle towers in Argentina were always always massive. So I'm definitely excited to see I think it will it will sell out. It'll be a full event for sure.
00:31:06
Speaker
But that being said, Vancouver was just this past weekend.
Vancouver Regionals Highlights
00:31:11
Speaker
Did you have any closing thoughts for Goyanya? I would say we can probably move over, especially because I feel like Goyanya was
00:31:25
Speaker
A little bit of its own thing still just because it was so early in the season and you couldn't have really gotten that many practice tournaments with the new stuff in. So all the top eight teams still looked relatively similar. They were centered around the centerpieces that we talked about just now, like Chris Elia, a counter user.
00:31:45
Speaker
There were charger books, there were lanterns, there was Altaria, which is like one of the big developments from Goyanya. There was also Skeletorge, which I feel like is the fire type of choice for that, specifically. A lot of talented, especially Brazilian trainers, run that and practice tournaments a lot of the time.
00:32:05
Speaker
But yeah, Vancouver people had a lot more time to prepare and a lot more time to experiment. And I do think that that is reflected in the usage, especially for day two. If you just look at the overall usage stats, it actually looks a little bit almost monotonous. If you just look at the top six, you have Charjova coming in at essentially 45%.
00:32:34
Speaker
And then it's Cresselia, Annihilia, Wiscash, Lickitung, Liger, all between those 45%, 51%. So basically those six Pokemon basically make up half of the teams already because they're all at about 50%.
00:32:53
Speaker
It feels pretty centralized, but if you look at the day two usage in Vancouver, you have 30 unique picks. Sorry, not day two, top 16. Not, because it was also one of the smaller regionals, the day two was actually not a top 16. It was basically just, okay, we play out the loser's finals and then we do the top eight. But if you just want to compare it to bigger regionals where you typically have a top 16,
00:33:21
Speaker
There was more variety than in your average original. I feel like I typically count around like 25 to 27 unique picks. Vancouver top that with a lot of unique compositions. Did anything stand out to you, Speedy?
00:33:35
Speaker
No, I couldn't have said it better myself because looking at the top eight, there were 25 unique just in the top eight. And this is actually something that I started tracking last season because we got so many during what I call the dark ages of Play Pokemon. We got so many Lantern, Trevenant, and Noctowl teams that our variety was almost at an all-time low. You saw Medicham every top cut. You saw Lickitung every top cut. It was basically five out of the six for your team were already established because they were so good you could not replace them.
00:34:05
Speaker
So seeing this variety is really wild. And I think Thotetical pointed out a similar thing that you mentioned. He said six Pokemon above 40% usage should be a reason for concern. And those Pokemon being Gligar, Lickitung, Whiscash, Annihilape, Cresselia, and Chargibug. And then the second tier was Skarmory, Lantern, Registeal, Guzzlord, Vigoroth, and Altaria. But I feel like there was also some additional things that didn't show up there, like Talonflame, like Skeleturge,
00:34:32
Speaker
Like wiggly tough, even, or Obama snow, all of those Pokemon made it into our, our top eight in Vancouver, which I thought was really interesting. So I'm really happy to see the meta is shifting and it's more open. And I actually said this in my, in my closing comments in Vancouver, I said that I don't think the puzzle has been solved just yet. I feel like there's still a lot of room for people to improvise, to create new things, to implement new strategies.
00:34:57
Speaker
And honestly, if you compare now to any other point previous in our in our play Pokemon history, I feel like it's more open now than it's probably ever been. I don't know if you agree with that or if you think that the Walbrane Trevenid meta was was better. What do you think? Can I can I sprinkle in a little analogy?
00:35:16
Speaker
Of course. Because you said the puzzle has not been solved yet. I want to go against the notion of the puzzle, because that's easy to understand, right? Oh, you have all those pieces. And if you arrange them in the right way, they present you with a picture. But I feel like team building is even more creative than that, because if you solve a puzzle, it will always basically give out the same picture at the end. But I think
00:35:44
Speaker
Play Pokemon currently is more like Legos. You have all those building blocks, you have those bits and pieces that you stick together to build your little house of Whiskesh and Nihilate Core, or Whiskesh Scarmory Core and Nihilate Blickie Time Core. Those tried and trusted.
00:36:07
Speaker
combinations of Pokemon that give you a backbone that gives you play in about every matchup. But then you can just look at that. Okay, this is my choice of popular picks. I have like four popular picks on my team of six already. They have very certain weaknesses. And I also expect these Pokemon to be popular, popular from other trainers.
00:36:28
Speaker
which spice, which flavor of spice, which Legos can I put on top of my house to build a nice little roof that is different from all the other roofs they see around me. So while the foundation, while the building blocks are very similar, I do still think there's a lot of variety in the Play Pokemon team architecture currently, just because there's so many different things that are viable right now and have their different niches.
00:36:58
Speaker
While I wouldn't have minded a larger shakeup for this World of Wonders update, I do still think there's so much room to just be original and succeed with your favorite Pokémon that I think Vancouver was a great showcase for that.
00:37:15
Speaker
I really, I really liked that analogy a lot. I'm glad, I'm glad you sprinkled it in there. Hopefully it wasn't, it wasn't too spicy, you know, but no, I think that was a, that was really well said because I feel like the focus is not so much on, uh, typing. It's not so much on matchup. It's more on role.
00:37:32
Speaker
Like, you can use, for example, you can use Giratina origin form to be a Denialape, and you can also use Wigglytuff to be a Denialape. So it really is like, depending on which Pokémon you want to fill a certain role, you can start to build your team that way.
00:37:48
Speaker
And you can say, oh, well, I need a strong ghost type attacker. And you say, OK, I'll put Annihilate by my team. And then you say, OK, well, I need to protect it from charm. Do I do that with Skarmory? Or do I do that with Skeletorch? And a lot of this comes down to basic team building that we talked about. Maybe Go Battle League is a better example, where you can kind of move these pieces around very freely because it's a blind format. But this degree of flexibility in Show 6,
00:38:15
Speaker
I don't think we've had that for a very long time. Looking back over the uniqueness in the top eight, believe it or not, Utrecht actually had 20 unique in the top eight. And then if you look at, I believe it was Toronto also had a wide number, but I think that was a little bit skewed because Magmar Man was in the tournament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Magmar Man top eight, he shoots those numbers way up.
00:38:39
Speaker
I think, I think Mac, my man just barely missed out on top eight, the Semiran, but if he, if he had made it, we would have knobsagoon, a jellison, and a, you know, when Stanfisk. So yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely like in the top 1 percentile of spiciest trainers.
00:38:58
Speaker
Vancouver was interesting because we didn't know Magmar Man was coming. We didn't know that there were a lot of trainers that showed up that were actually going to attend the tournament, like Hadonis, like Cindy. We didn't know until the day before. And originally we had like, I think 56 or so signups, but then it ballooned up to 72. And of course we were super happy about that because we want as many players to compete as possible. But I feel like that influx of players was really interesting. And I think that on day one,
00:39:26
Speaker
We got to showcase a lot of different players, a lot of different play styles. And, uh, I think at least the first two stream matches were pretty interesting to watch because I think there were newer players. If I'm not mistaken, it's always good to give them spotlight. It's not, it's not like, you know, arrow beating an NT team and then bragging about it.
00:39:45
Speaker
Right. Well, if you remember that back, I think it was Salt Lake city or Peoria last year. It wasn't quite like that, but it was definitely, it was definitely fun to watch. Um, but I wanted to ask in terms of, uh, Obama snow making, making its way across the Atlantic, uh, talent flame also making its way across the Atlantic. Did you feel like that was more European influence or did you think the Americans are finally getting creative?
00:40:09
Speaker
Um, the Americans, um, not necessarily, but the Canadians, maybe. No, I don't know. Like there's been, I think, I think overall, I know we like to play it up, especially ever since nighttime pleasure took Liverpool. Um, we like to play it up as Europeans against, um, North Americans. But after all, we still have a very global community. Like if you play in one of my times practice tournaments, like one of
00:40:39
Speaker
Once he hosts on his Discord server, then you will always go up against players from Europe, players from North America, occasionally players from the APEC region. There is not only so much variety, but also so much opportunity for
00:40:59
Speaker
players to get inspired from people they play, from events they watch. And I don't think you can always trace it back to this one origin.
00:41:09
Speaker
Um, sometimes you can, I feel like, um, last year dance bar, dance bars was something that was quite uniquely European at the time. Um, there are definitely trends that emerge earlier in some places compared to others. Um, but at this point, um, I feel like ever since, uh, CS Aurelius, uh, won Dortmund with the Obama snow town flame core.
00:41:35
Speaker
That was basically just common knowledge for anyone in the world that that was good. Yeah. I like, I like people experimenting. I also like to, I want to call out Sydney, a previous Vancouver regional champion who went for the shadow of Obama snow.
Shadow Abomasnow and Meta Insights
00:41:54
Speaker
And I actually talked to people today that,
00:41:58
Speaker
Shadow Bomba Snow might even be the way going forward because the previous popular choice was non-shadow with IC win, but non-shadow with IC win was mainly used to really secure up that Lekitang matchup because to win that in every event sharing scenario.
00:42:15
Speaker
With the shadow, you can play a lot more aggressively, but you don't really have that security in the Likitung matchup. But I don't actually think that Likitung is all that prevalent anymore. If you look at the current top 8,
00:42:29
Speaker
You have Likitang on the winning team from Lil' Jeff, so that's still a thing, for sure. Likitang is still viable. I'm not trying to pronounce the death of Likitang just now, but the only other liki in the top 8 was from Jeko Loco in 7th place, I think. So...
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah, there is just not that many around anymore, so you might just as well opt for the more aggressive variant that maybe runs Weatherball instead of Isoin. I actually don't remember what Cine chose on her above the snow, but I would almost prefer the faster pacing of Weatherball on the squishier shadow.
00:43:11
Speaker
And that can help you out a lot in certain matchups. When you have to pace quickly to outspeed a glider to a move, when you want to win the two-shield scenario against a charger bug, you can do that if you have just a little bit of attack on your Shadow Obama snow. So there's a lot of utility that the non-Shadow doesn't have, like the non-Shadow IC window at least. And yeah, there's been new takes on Obama snow even. People just continue to innovate.
00:43:41
Speaker
While I was doing research for the episode, I actually came across the same thing and I was like, wait, shadow Obama snow. Has that been successful so far this season? And surprisingly, it really has not. So the closest shadow Obama snow placement to Cindy's was actually Vita nasty finishing 11th overall in Liverpool.
00:43:59
Speaker
But outside of that, it's been regular Obama snow, even the, the Arceus Aurelius versus Colin mirror match with the double talent flame, double Obama snow. Those are all regular, right? No shadows to be seen. So I do agree with you. I think the pacing, the aggressiveness is a little bit different and also kind of plays towards the play style, right? If you're going to, if you're going to play shadow, Obama snow, you probably lead it a little more often. You probably maybe even have it as a closer, a little more often. And I saw a couple of times.
00:44:25
Speaker
Cindy was a little unlucky. She got her Obama Stone lighting up against a Skeleturge. But I do think it is very viable, not only for the reasons you mentioned, like Gligar, but also the dragons.
00:44:35
Speaker
right? Altaria, Guzlord, Shadow Dragonite. There's even a Shadow Dragonite that we saw in a previous regional recently where I thought, if you don't have an answer to this thing, it's just going to run rampant. So I agree with you. I think that the, although I disagree in the fact that I think it is a bit more European for Obama Snow, especially when you compare the regions, I do agree with you that I think it's definitely room for creativity. And it's good to see, you know,
00:45:05
Speaker
The Canadians, North Americans, you know, whatever, however you want to draw the line, it's good to see them playing with some interesting Pokemon. I will say, and I will not take this one back. I feel sorry for EU because the first Shadow Stabilite regional champion this season was actually a Canadian and not a European.
Lyle Jeffs vs. Rubiks: The Grand Finals
00:45:23
Speaker
I feel sorry for Storm Collection specifically, who really mastered the art of Shadow Stabilite gameplay and
00:45:31
Speaker
then he sees Lyle basically taking it on his first try. I don't think I haven't checked back with Storm Collection for this specific instance yet. So I don't actually think that he's sad about his own almost signature Pokemon at this point. I feel like it almost moved from Dragonair to Zebulai being successful overseas. I feel like that's just more proof of concept that you've been onto something.
00:45:58
Speaker
But yeah, it's very interesting to see Lyle up for that and making it work basically immediately. That just goes to show what kind of player Lyle Jeffs is who became the second two times regional champion in one season in North America.
00:46:18
Speaker
after Dunberg, it's basically like if you look at the graphic that TPCI or rather play Pokemon posts every time new North American regional champions are crowned, you basically have for the last five events, I think there is one Abhinav in between there, but other than that, it's large Fs Dunberg, large Fs Dunberg, it's only those two.
00:46:43
Speaker
kind of monopolizing gold medals at those events. And yeah, with a very unique team that look nothing like the one he used for his last championship. So very interesting.
00:46:59
Speaker
I think it's, I think it's so, uh, I don't have this problem solved yet. So if you, uh, find a solution to this, please let me know. Uh, because I I've talked to a few smart people and they don't seem to have a solid answer either, but I felt like watching the day to stream once. Motiques, right? Motiques finished third place overall. Motiques just did not seem to have a problem against Cindy against any of the other competition in the tournament. But as soon as motifs hit the Rubik's master matchup.
00:47:27
Speaker
in the, excuse me, the Lyle Jeffs matchup in the winner's finals. And then the Rubik's master match up in the loser's finals. It was like he ran into a wall and it felt like he really could do nothing. I believe he got dispatched zero six in those two series, which is really, really tough, right? Especially when you've had so much success earlier on.
00:47:45
Speaker
But I think it speaks to the level that trainers like Lyle, like Rubik's are on and Doonbug as well. They just seem to be at a different tier, right? Like if you look at like a college athlete versus a pro athlete, it almost feels like the best college athletes can, can dominate most of their competition. But once they get to the pro league, it's like, Oh my gosh, this is another level.
00:48:07
Speaker
And I'm curious, you don't have to tell me now, but maybe, maybe if you have some time to give it some thought, I'm curious what makes Lyle and Doonbug just so elite, just so much better than the competition. Cause it doesn't feel like they're just a couple of percentage points better. It feels like they are at a different level and I don't know exactly what it is.
00:48:26
Speaker
I don't think I can answer you this question in just a couple sentences. I don't know whether I can answer it at all. I want to highlight Motix for just a second because I also had a look at his run. I think his team composition is not spicy by any means. It has some very reliable picks such as
00:48:46
Speaker
like Chargerbug Ligar, which we basically see everywhere, Azumarul Alsaria as some, like, staple picks since season one, basically, that also bring a lot of bulk to the table. And then there's a very unique strategy of two counter users in Vigaroth and in ILA, who serve different functions on the team, but also make it so that anything that is weak to counter is just really difficult to bring against him. And that worked.
00:49:14
Speaker
tremendously well for him. He dropped one game against my good friend Gorn the Flash in this very first round. And then he went on a 10-0 streak. He just was unstoppable for the rest of day one and the start of day two before he met Lyle Jeffs in Rubik's Master. And I think
00:49:36
Speaker
One part of it is, especially for Lara Jeffs, less so for Rubik's Master, is that if you just put yourself out there in these situations a lot of the time, you just get better at
00:49:54
Speaker
both the mechanics, because Lara Jeffs has crazy mechanical gameplay. You can throw on good timing, you can count moves, but there are still levels to the whole art of playing this game well. And I will go into that more in depth once we get to the grand finals. But it's also just...
00:50:20
Speaker
It's almost like mind reading, because if you have been in a situation often enough, you can just predict what your opponent is going to do. That goes both for, OK, which team are they likely to assemble? The famous line calling, which is more than just RPS. It's just understanding the strategies that are available to your opponent and reacting accordingly.
00:50:49
Speaker
And also, when you are in a certain position within a dynamic gameplay situation, there are calls to be made. When do you go for the harder hitting charge attack? When do you over farm and when do you want to preserve your health? And all of these decisions are more often than not, not obvious at all. And I think playing at a very high level, both in the Go Battle League
00:51:18
Speaker
but also at those originals repeatedly makes it so that you reduce your number of errors that you
00:51:28
Speaker
commit in a day to like near zero. And I think Lyle had one of those near zero error performances at Vancouver. And that just made him basically unstoppable. And there's no shame in losing to a player that is performing on that level on a given day.
00:51:48
Speaker
It will just be really fun as soon as two players of that caliber that are just really in the zone and really feel unstoppable collide at one of these events. There were like slim margins and smaller decisions that made the difference here, but I really want to see
00:52:08
Speaker
how the game would look if Lionel Jeffs the third faced Lionel Jeffs the second. I'm just really looking forward to not only UIC and NEIC, but also just the worlds when all of those top tier players are unleashed against each other.
00:52:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's like you said, when we get to the grand finals, we can go into more detail, but I feel like there were not just in the grand finals, but all through day two, there were moments where Lyle would actually lean back. It was usually during a charge attack when he had about 10 seconds to decide if he was going to use the shield or not. There were so many times where he kind of leaned back and it almost felt like he was zooming out.
00:52:53
Speaker
and looking at the macro situation and trying to decide if I protect shield here, do I get to know their body slam? Can I force away a protect shield? How much energy do I get my opponent if they farm me down? Positionally, can I switch after this? He's running through multiple checks. He's running down a long list of yes and no's.
00:53:11
Speaker
And that's how he makes his decisions. I know a lot of the best trainers do this, but I feel like for whatever reason, watching Lyle do it, it was almost like you could see the process in front of you, even though it was happening in his own mind. So I was really impressed by that. And to be honest, watching a lot of Jokobrovich's gameplay, Lyle and Yakko, I think they play very similarly. Lyle doesn't lose a lead very often.
00:53:35
Speaker
And he uses a lot of the same Pokemon as other people, but he's able to really beat you down over time. And whereas Yakko is probably the most defensive oriented player I've ever seen, I think that Lyle is a close second. Lyle will make a call if he thinks it's important and he
00:53:51
Speaker
He has zero doubt in his mind. Yes, he'll lead the Gligar into a risky situation to try to catch the lead he wants. But most of the time, he's just better. He's just a couple percentage points better on making calls, on knowing how much attack we'll do after a debuff. It just feels like his understanding is deeper of the game.
00:54:10
Speaker
I think this also just corresponds to the type of Pokemon that especially Lyle likes to bring into those matchups. Against many teams, Gligar, Likitung, Sableye, even Polirath,
00:54:26
Speaker
are very safe choices and that even if they get misaligned and if Lyle loses the lead there's always some counterplay if you get like a shield or an energy advantage and just play the mid game to perfection and just
00:54:45
Speaker
really, really maximize what those Pokemon can give you. And there's Pokemon that are really satisfying to utilize, but that are a lot more limited in what they can do. I feel like to some degree, the Registeal on Lyle's team falls into that category, but some of these Pokemon are just necessary to prevent certain strategies that might be interesting to your opponent. Like for example,
00:55:11
Speaker
If you have a register on your team, your opponent probably can't save swap Lickytongue anymore or only at a very high cost. So while there are some of those picks, I think the one that Lyle actually uses the most and prefers are just those that allow him to play out of neutral situations and
00:55:32
Speaker
flip matchups down the road if he just really, really maximizes the potential that his team gives him. It seemed like he focused on his core four and then just had to kind of pivot Pokemon or Pokemon that he could use against certain team compositions. What I mean by that is that his core four in my mind was Cresselia, Poliwrath, Shadow Gligar, and Lickitung.
00:55:58
Speaker
I feel like those four, he brought a solid amount to a lot of games. Maybe you could argue he brought shadow Sableye a lot as well, but shadow Sableye and Registeal were his two kind of pivot Pokemon. And I feel like, you know, like you said, if he's expecting an opponent to stage, which look at tongue, he can punish them with the Registeal choice. And that goes back to him actually making a call about team compositions.
00:56:19
Speaker
Which, when you watch Jokobrovich play, he doesn't really do that. He just kind of relies on... He was operating the previous meta his last win. He relied on Superior, Metacham, and Gligar in so many matchups, or Superior, Metacham, Azumar, or whatever it might have been. He just kind of ran the same Pokémon and just shifted the order. But Lyle is a little more unpredictable than that, which makes him a lot more dangerous, right?
00:56:42
Speaker
As we take a look at the at the top eight, a couple small shout outs I wanted to make. I was really hyped that Hadonis brought Goudra. I thought that was fun. That was a really awesome Pokemon to see in action and I thought it looked really good against the Jellicent team in particular. And he also brought Dewgong, which saved one of our caster predictions.
00:57:01
Speaker
Uh, there was one moves that I wanted to shout out and I don't know if this is somehow the, the praise Z's wireless episode, but I guess it is. Um, there was a talent flame on Rubik's master's team that was running a very unique move set that we had only seen at one other tournament in a top cut. And, uh, and so I saw, I'll let you explain this because it didn't make sense to me at first, but once I saw it, uh, the proof is in the pudding.
00:57:29
Speaker
It is the Fly Brave Bird Talonflam, actually two flying type charge attacks, which makes you wonder why would you give up the fire coverage and the boost potential that Flame Charge presents you with. But you basically do all the fire damage that you need to do with Incinerate alone.
00:57:46
Speaker
And Brave Bird just gives you this out in a pinch, right? Like if you're stuck against a Wiscash, for example, you really need to take it out in one hit and maybe it's chipped a little, but the Fly wouldn't do it. So if you have the Brave Bird option, you can win those matchups if you are just a little ahead on energy or just manage to preserve just a tiny sliver of health.
00:58:12
Speaker
But also what it helps you with is shield pressure, because if you know, okay, I'm up against a Flame Charge, Fly, Talonflame, it might be a long matchup, and I don't want to shield all of the moves, then you might just let the first one go, because it's not boosted, because it can't be this one big move that will take you out entirely. So basically what Brave Bird gives you is closing power and an additional mind game.
00:58:40
Speaker
But I will like, I don't know, do we want to move into the grand finals immediately? Or do you have more to add to just the Vancouver top card and the overall variety of teams? Because there's like, it could still be plenty to talk about, but I'll let you decide how quickly we want to move on.
00:59:00
Speaker
Yeah, one more thing I'll mention. I had one more nugget about the Talonflame. I think I actually called this out on the cast as well. It was during Rubik's Master's Day 2 battles. He was up against, it was a neutral matchup. I can't recall exactly if it was a Gligar or if it was a Likitang or something. But basically, he was in a position where he had his Brave Bird and the Fly loaded up, but his opponent had already used a Protect Shield, and they were not within Fly or Flame Charge range.
00:59:29
Speaker
But because he had the brave bird and because he had talent flame in the lead, he throws the fly and gets the protect shield anyway. And I think I called that out as being the brave bird difference, because a lot of the time in that matchup, you know, you kind of budget your HP, you budget how much an incinerate damage will do and that kind of thing. It felt like talent flame was much more dynamic when it had fly and brave bird, unless you're up against a steel type like Regis Steel, but that was a rare occurrence because of how how the team was built around it.
00:59:58
Speaker
But yeah, I pointed that out specifically. I said, this is the brave bird difference. If Rubik's doesn't have brave bird here, he doesn't get the protect shield. And this, the rest of this game gets a lot more difficult. But speaking of Rubik's and Lyle, they met in the grand finals. And what I wanted to mention to kind of kick this discussion off is that Lyle didn't really lose a lead until game three. He played very neutrally, right? A very, very controlled in a lot of situations.
01:00:24
Speaker
Game 1, leading Lickitung into Chargibug. Game 2, leading Shadow Sableye into Talonflame. Game 3, actually leading Shadow Gligar into Shadow Alolan Sandslash, which is a huge yikes. And then game 4, he led Lickitung into Shadow Alolan Sandslash. So a lot of the times when I review these matches and review the teams, I look at who controlled Switch Advantage and if it was a hard win or a hard loss in terms of the lead situation.
01:00:49
Speaker
Lyle Jeff's actually controlling Switch Advantage in games 1 and 4, Rubik's Master controlling it in games 2 and 3. The game I want to talk about in particular is game 3, because that one was really, really hype. That was the first match of the Grand Finals where Lyle lost lead, leading Shadow Gligar into Shadow Lone Sandslash.
01:01:10
Speaker
So what he does is he instantly pivots to Poliwrath and the Poliwrath pivot not only is going to deal double super effective damage to Alolan Sandslash, it's going to force Rubix to switch out quickly and make a decision. And on Rubix's team behind the Shadow Alolan Sandslash were Townflame and his Shadow Poliwrath.
01:01:29
Speaker
Being a counter down in the mirror match of the two poly rats is tough, especially when the opponent's a non shadow, right? You're doing a little less damage to them. So Rubik's had to pivot to to Talonflame. But what Lyle does next is really impressive because he actually builds to the to the scald and he baits the icy wind and Rubik's calls it, which was insane, right? No shields, potential scald.
01:01:54
Speaker
But then Lyot gets to another icy wind, and it was because of the extra counter advantage that he gained, allowing the Incinerate Damage to come through earlier. And the second icy wind actually slows down the Talonflame so much that when it finally throws a fly at the Poliwrath, it doesn't KO. And Poliwrath lives on just one HP, forcing the second fly out of Rubix, which just puts him even further behind, right? Not only did he have to use a Protect Shield, but he also had to lose Switch Advantage, which is devastating.
01:02:22
Speaker
And then to compile on top of that, Lyle brings in his shadow, Gligar, wing attacks down the town flame, and it denies it another fly. And then it gets even worse because the Gligar now has a dig and Rubix is forced to catch the dig on Poliwrath in order to save his shadow, low and sand slash. So it's like this snowball effect where it's like bad to worse to worst case situation. And, uh, and while, I don't know, he just capitalized it every turn in every, every sequence he had the opportunity.
01:02:50
Speaker
Exactly. And I want to dive a little bit deeper, especially into that team composition from Jeffs in that game, because we were just coming off a game two that Rubix actually won pretty decisively.
01:03:06
Speaker
And that was despite Lyle really pulling out all the stops. In the mid to end game, there was the Artaria on Rubik's Master's side. And first of all, Lyle counts to a Sky Attack in a way that he manages to
01:03:24
Speaker
throw on exact CMP with his Gligar, basically denying Altaria the opportunity to farm up more energy. Because if he just threw the aerial ace as soon as he got to it, the Altaria would have had a very comfortable time to just wait until Gligar gets to an extra aerial ace and throw the Sky Attack just before to take it out and farming up extra energy there. So while
01:03:52
Speaker
counts perfectly to the first Sky Attack and gets the CMP there. Then he counts perfectly to the second Sky Attack, catches it on the Sable Eye, but in the end, it's just not enough because the entire team combination from Rubik's Master was just really strong. The one thing that Lyle has to really fight against is not even the Altaria per se, but it's the unchecked Town Flame on Rubik's Master's side.
01:04:19
Speaker
If you look at the team that Lyle brought to the tournament, Regisia, not amazing. You can win the zeros, but still, you do no fast-move damage and you take super effective incinerates. Likitung does not technically win the even shields. Shadow Gligar sometimes wins the zeros, but
01:04:38
Speaker
As soon as shields are on play, Incinerate plus Fly just does too much. Cresselia. Okay, you have some counterplay, but not amazing. Shadow Stable Eye, Incinerate's hurt. Nothing is safe, nothing can really safely take the energy. I guess the regi still can, but again, that's like the worst matchup with shields up. So you have to really play flexible and dynamic if you want to take out the talent flame.
01:05:05
Speaker
So what Leo thinks, probably. I'm not in his head. I just want to try to basically understand his rationale here. What he thinks is, okay.
01:05:18
Speaker
I actually win the Zero Shield scenario with Shadow Gligar against Talonflame. If I have a good IV Shadow Gligar, I can do this. If they go for flight, that is. So I could potentially either windily or get a shield advantage, both of which would be good.
01:05:38
Speaker
My second best answer to Time of Flame would be Poliwrath up energy, because Poliwrath up energy just threatens the knockout with a scallop. So he basically builds it around, I think it was like a Lickitung in the back, it didn't even come out in the third game, but he leads Gligar. So if he catches Time of Flame in the lead, it's fine.
01:06:00
Speaker
And then he immediately pivots into the supposed hard answer to Alolan Sandslash, which is Pony Wrath.
01:06:13
Speaker
Like this is genius just because, okay, like you draw out the tunnel flame here, but because you have the energy advantage, you do actually have the opportunity to take shields here. And okay, he gets an icy windmill shielded. That is quite unfortunate. But just because of the energy advantage, he just gets to the next one. Finally, it takes the shield.
01:06:42
Speaker
and even survives a fly. So the Talonflame Bed-Out was perfect here. There would have been a worst-case scenario for him, which would have occurred if Rubik's Master brought the Charger Bug.
01:06:58
Speaker
and counter the Poliwrath with that. That would have been an option, but that would have been fine also, just because Chargerbug Energy is so easy for Gligar to spawn shop, so you could just lose that matchup, farm up a lot, and do something with the Gligar Energy late game.
01:07:19
Speaker
but he's basically in the perfect spot, drawing out the talent flame, neutering it with the icy winds, and even surviving the fly. This is one of multiple instances where Rubik's master needed the Brave Bird to knock a Pokemon out,
01:07:35
Speaker
in the grand finals, but because shields were up, and at this point, it basically flips. Because there is the threat of the Brave Bird, he might think, okay, I will grab a shield anyway, so I will just go for the Fly, and you essentially play the Talonflame as a single-move Pokémon. But it doesn't work. He has to match shields, and then he allows a huge farm down for the Gligar.
01:08:02
Speaker
And because the A Slash is not even powder snow, you can't even just hide behind the shield and fast move down. You have to throw a nice punch. But with the Gligar being so far ahead, it was just like really a perfect example of using two Pokemon that don't even have the greatest matchup against everything to just take out the biggest two threads by perfect energy management and understanding a little better
01:08:32
Speaker
what you need to do, like what is your win condition? So I really enjoyed the team composition from Lyle in that game, the immediate pivot into the Poliwrath. And yeah, I do think that it did put Rubik's Master in a little bit of a tough spot because
01:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, you sometimes don't want to bring certain Pokémon together. So you're basically, oh, I bring talent flame every game, and then I need to protect it somehow. So you will want to bring like the A stash to protect from the Gligar that can win the zeroes against you. And yeah, at that point, you're just really vulnerable to all those
01:09:24
Speaker
energy advantage place that let us set up.
01:09:28
Speaker
You pointed out something really amazing that I didn't even realize, but in game number one of the grand finals, Rubik's actually led the charge bug. And that was the only game that he brought it in the grand finals. And the reason is, is because in game number one, Lyle played Lickitung, Shadow Sableye, Shadow Gligar, and then he brought all three of those Pokemon to the next game, but in a different order. So if you look at Cresselia, Registeal, and Poliwrath as suffering in the charge bug matchup, he basically took those two first, those first two games
01:09:58
Speaker
and said, I'm going to make it so hard for you to bring charge bug that you won't even think about it. And then by game three, he's able to safe switch Poliwrath because he's scared away the charge bug option from Rubik's. And that's the kind of like series development that I feel like a lot of high level trainers really have a good grasp on, but a lot of new trainers maybe don't understand.
01:10:19
Speaker
But that was intentional, fully intentional. He knew that that charge bug was a hole in his team and he prepared for it and he scared it away, which I thought was just incredible. And it makes what you said make even more sense that the Poliwrath safe switch was easy. Because like you said, the only win condition there for Rubik's is that he, if he had charge bug in the back and he didn't.
01:10:41
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And I have to say that I didn't even dislike the call from Rubik's to no shield the icy wind because at that point, okay, you get a shield advantage and you've already seen the polyrat. Like the polyrat is currently on the field. That's the biggest threat to your alone and sand slash. So I think what Rubik's could have maybe done in that game was to just let the second icy wind go also.
01:11:07
Speaker
and then counter down the polyrat with his own poly.
01:11:12
Speaker
and come out with an icy wind for the Gligar on the Jeff's side. I feel like that might have been his initial thought, but then he felt like, oh, my town flame is so strong, I should probably preserve it anyway, but then got a little bit stuck when the fly didn't knock out and he couldn't take any energy into the secondary matchup and instead giving the Gligar an opportunity to farm down. I think that basically turned out to
01:11:38
Speaker
to be the worst-case scenario for Rubik's Master. But it's also such a different scenario to calculate, right? Because you play a lot of practice matches with your Pokémon. But how often do you have to calculate whether a double-debuffed Fly from your Talonflame takes out a regular Poliwrath, which was not part of the meta before Vancouver,
01:12:04
Speaker
takes out a polyref from this specific health range. And just missing that exact calculation by like two or three HP, it flipped the game on its head, but you can't also really hold it against Rubik's master just because it's such a fringe scenario, but one that Lyle beautifully set up.
01:12:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm just going to speak for my personal experience. I fully 100% thought that a stab fly from town flame, no matter if it was double debuffed, was going to KO a half HP poly wrath. I had no doubt in my mind that fly was going to be enough.
01:12:46
Speaker
And somehow, it wasn't, right? Lyle was able to barely hang on. And I think that that game three was really indicative because even though winning game three put him up two to one, it really felt like it was Lyle's series. There's just a moment sometimes in the grand finals where a trainer wins a decisive game or they win a couple in a row, and it just feels like they can't lose. I think we got that feeling really strongly with Arceus Aurelius during his grand finals run where we felt like, OK, it's fate. The stars are aligned. You can't.
01:13:16
Speaker
interrupt what's going to happen because it's inevitable. That's what I felt like for Lyle. So it was definitely really impressive. As a side note, I do want to give a tremendous amount of respect to Rubik's Master, our runner up from Worlds 2023, and also a visionary. I remember asking for a teen graphic when the new season was coming out and he was, I think, the only trainer to pick superior as his grass type.
01:13:39
Speaker
And as we saw, Superior came to dominate the meta for the first three months of the season. So I definitely think that he's an intelligent person, very high level player. And I hope this doesn't get him down because honestly, Lyle just looked unstoppable and everyone has their good days and bad days. And that was a really good day for Lyle. So that shouldn't take anything away from how Rubik's played.
01:14:00
Speaker
I'm not sure if you have any other thoughts on Vancouver. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to, I want, I want to add onto that because I do think that Rubik's master is again, only three points away from qualifying for worlds. Maybe you already did it like the local event, but, um, for someone who barely attends those tournaments, right? Because some, some people make it their own hobby, like their, their only hobby to just, um, Travel around the world and compete in those events. I am one of these people. Um,
01:14:31
Speaker
But Rubik's doesn't really do that. Like he famously at one point in time only lost to its accent ever, but that four times in two different tournaments. So that was like a very like it was very.
01:14:47
Speaker
rare stat that very few other people can boast just because he typically plays so many different matches and opponents, but he just really makes the most of the tournaments he attends, and he does it in such a unique fashion. Like, Shadowclaw alone in Sandslash is something that very few people even consider currently. He piloted it to a grand final. He was, like, we can talk about the fighter meta briefly because
01:15:15
Speaker
We had two polyrath in the grand finals and it is no coincidence that the top two players of the event made this exact call. And then also I have a soft spot for the double flying charge attack, Town of Flame obviously. So there were quite a few calls that were rather unique and if you make a grand final, you made it 98% of the way. You can barely have a better tournament than that.
01:15:43
Speaker
I think the counter-user discussion is really important. As a side note, I will say that this is the only Town of Flame to make it to a grand finals in the NA region. So Rubik's Master pulling the heavy weight for the Europeans who really favored the Town of Flame, which has definitely been the case over the past World of Wonder season. In terms of counter-users, in Goyanya, there were actually
01:16:07
Speaker
uh five vigoroths and three annihilates so every single team had a counter user but the vigoroths outnumber the annihilates in vancouver there were two vigoroths which were our bottom two finishers then we had four annihilates all running night slash
01:16:23
Speaker
the shadow polyrath taking second place and the regular polyrath taking first place. So what we've really seen, I actually made, I'm such a nerd. I actually made a graphic for this. The absence of MetaCham has created a power vacuum that these counter users are all trying to fill. And because none of them are as bulky, as consistent, as powerful as MetaCham, it's almost like an even split.
01:16:47
Speaker
And amazingly, we actually have a few regionals where there was not a single counter user on the team to win it. I believe Doonbug San Antonio team is one of them, but most of the time it's a counter user. And ever since Medicham has gone away, it's almost like a different counter user every single tournament. Yeah.
01:17:06
Speaker
I also think that it's always a bit of a reaction to the tournament that just preceded the event. So when I looked at the Goyanya event specifically, and I saw all those dragon types, Altariel, also Gaslord, I felt like, okay, Vigoroth can probably handle these, but
01:17:30
Speaker
If I'm in Annihilape, I might not have a great time just because, okay, if you don't run Ice Punch, Artaria gets really tricky. And while you win Guzzlord straight up, your Charger Texts don't really do anything.
01:17:45
Speaker
So, with those dragons coming into the meta, and also Blyga being as dominant as ever, you might want something that also has some charge-detect pressure to hit these more efficiently. And I do think the Icy Wind coverage on Ponyrath is really what sets it apart, because that way you can actually... I think the non-shadow even
01:18:11
Speaker
can withstand an aerial ace from Gligar in certain situations and get to a nice wind of its own. But also, if you just get a farm down, you can always have that counterplay against fliers that maybe, especially Annihilape, doesn't offer in just the same category. But also,
01:18:37
Speaker
I think what is really nice about it is its matchup against Shadow Feraligatr, which I do think some people still fear. Also with Skash to a degree, because you can't freely scald it the way you can with Vigoroth or Annihilape just because you have that water type resist.
01:18:57
Speaker
Um, so yeah, shadow for alligator, shout out to blob and a actually large Jeff sprutter, um, piloting it to its first top cut. Um, so that might still be a viable spice pick in this current meta, but it does get walled by, by polyarath. So.
01:19:15
Speaker
As usual, the bigger brother achieving the still very talented younger brother. It sounds like you're speaking from experience. It sounds like experience. No, but honestly, I do think that the polyrath color was
01:19:35
Speaker
probably informed by what we saw just recently. And I wonder whether the next step is just another Annihilate resurgence, just because, oh, that can be Poliwrath better. But I don't think Annihilate meets much of a resurgence, given that it was still on four of the top eight teams. So it will be a back and forth, and it will also depend on what role you want a Pokémon to fill on your specific team.
01:20:02
Speaker
I think you and I agreed that Blob NA had the funnest team. Yes, for sure. It looked the most fun. He had the most teeth, the most jaws.
Trends in Counter-User Champions
01:20:11
Speaker
He had a Guzzlord, Skeletorge, and Feraligatr, which in its own is a Go Battle League team. I think a lot of trainers are playing. Yes, yes, it is. It is. And I think we've seen the Skeletorge-Guzzlord core before and piloted successfully as well. But yeah.
01:20:30
Speaker
During the double croc strategy at the Herve, it's almost like you run a theme team in a serious tournament and to make it work to a degree where you reach top eight against elite competition. That is both impressive and just really good television.
01:20:48
Speaker
Well, shout out to the best PVP brothers in Play Pokemon, right? Blob and Lyle. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, we'll see what Junkus can cook up here. Interesting facts to kind of cap off our discussion about the counter users. From the last 11 events, right, both EU, NA, LATAM, and I believe there was one in APAC as well.
01:21:12
Speaker
Of the last 11 events in the post-metachamp era, we've had four Vigoroth champions, two Annihilape champions, one Shadow Polywrath champion, one regular Polywrath champion, and three with no counter user at all. So it is wide open. It could be any counter user. It could be Annihilape again. It could be, I don't know, Shadow Machamp next time. It's really impossible to tell.
01:21:37
Speaker
I actually have seen practice tournament sweep with Shadow Machamp the other day, so I would not even be surprised if that comes up eventually as well.
01:21:50
Speaker
Well, Lyle Jeffs takes his back to, and I guess not back to back, I should say two time regional crown to join the likes of Jukovovich and Doombug97. He went 16 and two for an 88.89 percentage win rate, which is really insane, which I found this interesting. If you look at inadequacies run,
01:22:09
Speaker
Inadequance actually won 26 games to Lyle 16 and still had an almost equal win rate at 89%. So two incredibly impressive trainers, but not to take any shine away from Lyle because I think you and I discussed it. If Lyle was going to EUIC, he'd definitely be a favorite going into that tournament as well.
01:22:31
Speaker
Well, we have a lot more work to do. I think we have an EUIC pre-show that we will record, so we'll save our EUIC discussion for that. But I was wondering as why, if there's anything else that you wanted to touch on with Goyanya or Vancouver before we wrap up? Let me take a quick glance at my notes, but I do think that we covered most of what is currently the talk of the town in the Play Pokemon circuit.
01:23:01
Speaker
Yeah, I would be ready to move on and save all my juicy UIC gossip for our episode next week.
01:23:12
Speaker
Okay. I think we should have some predictions. I think we should have a Pokemon prediction, but also a player prediction. I would love for us to both, uh, try to decide or try to predict who we think is going to win the tournament.
Upcoming Tournaments and Championship Points
01:23:24
Speaker
But EUIC is our next event coming up. That's going to be followed by Orlando Perth, Sao Paulo, WCS Thailand, and WCS India for April, which means it's going to be a very busy month. And if you're listening to the episode, I believe, uh, today's Thursday. If you're listening on Thursday, March the 28th.
01:23:42
Speaker
Then you have 72 days to earn championship points. Definitely get out to your local cups and challenges. Maybe go to a regional because if I'm not mistaken, North America has LA on the west coast. We've got Indianapolis in central US and we also have Orlando on the east coast. So there should be an opportunity for everyone to get some championship points together.
01:24:03
Speaker
But that being said, there's a really fun Team Go Rocket event going on.
Pokémon Go Event Experiences
01:24:07
Speaker
It's one of the events I've enjoyed the most, actually, because of all the in-case spawns, and I'm also catching all the wild Volibees. Can I say something about that? You can expect tons of Mandibuzz and Ketchkub. Yeah, I'm excited to hear what you have to say. Oh yeah, the Ketchkub Mandibuzz. That would be a thing, but I actually have to say, these are, by far and away, my favorite events in Pokémon Go.
01:24:30
Speaker
And I'm tracking my steps very loosely. I'm not super serious about that. But I was just checking yesterday after a day of grinding, like, okay, what was my highest step count this year so far? And I actually broke a new record on the first day of the event because I just went hard for those shiny trappings. I didn't get one yet.
01:24:56
Speaker
But I did collect a nice amount of 12 kilometer eggs. And I also did get a Hondo Shadow Empoleon, or a little penguin rather. I still need to evolve it, but the Piplup. And maybe that is smart to make Premier Spice. We'll see.
Competitive Revival Speculation
01:25:18
Speaker
But very funny event so far.
01:25:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think the Empoleon deserves a spot in the Mash League premiere and also in, uh, in ultra league. I think that ultra league premiere rolling around is going to be really fun to see shadow. Excuse me. Shadow Empoleon, uh, unleashed. That's going to be really, really fun. Historically, one of my favorite metas. Yes, mine as well. Back, back in my days when I was actually a good player in season six, that's when I hit a number two in the world was with Empoleon double dragon.
01:25:48
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. So maybe, maybe the whole speediest competitive revival arc is, is going into its next, its next chapter with the ultra premier rotation. I will be here for it. It's a slow simmer. Let's see if it, uh, if it continues
Conclusion and Farewell
01:26:04
Speaker
to heat up.
01:26:04
Speaker
But I'm really excited because we've got the EUIC pre-show episode that will drop next week. And then we have this one that we got to release today. So like you said, the opening of the show, I'm really excited to get back into it. We have so many tournaments. I didn't even talk about May because May is going to be insane and we need to find a strategy for that. But I think that's all for episode here. Parting words, any goodbyes to anyone because this has been a great one.
01:26:32
Speaker
Goodbye to everyone. If you stuck through all of those, I think we're like almost at an hour and a half. Looking forward to entertain you guys next week as well.