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EP. 26 EUIC 2025 Recap + Might & Mastery Season Preview!
133 Plays27 days ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 26 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.
In this episode, we briefly revisit the San Juan Puerto Rico and Merida Regional Championships, before moving on to the BIGGEST competitive Pokémon GO tournament to date: EUIC 2025! A staggering 400 trainers registered for the event in London, and our very own "Reverse Engineer" Zzweilous battled his way to the grand Grand Finals, where he met the Spanish Prodigy P4T0M4N! After that, we discuss the myriad of changes in the new Might & Mastery season of the GO Battle League. This episode is a fun one, and we hope you enjoy it! Please leave us a review on your podcast platform!
If you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction and EUIC 2025 Recap
00:00:01
William Dunphey
Welcome into the Show 6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. Today, we're recapping the largest Pokemon Go tournament to date, EUIC 2025, where 400 trainers competed.
00:00:14
William Dunphey
We'll talk about the epic clash of the Show 6's very own Reverse Engineer and the Spanish prodigy Pato Man in the Grand Finals. Also, we'll provide you with our takes on the upcoming Might and Mastery Season update, plus much, much more.
00:00:28
William Dunphey
So let's lock in, and good luck, have fun.
Hosts and Key Highlights from EUIC 2025
00:00:54
William Dunphey
How's it going, everybody? Welcome in. Welcome in. Sit down, grab yourself a coffee or a tea, depending on the time of day.
00:00:58
Zzweilous
Thank you.
00:01:00
William Dunphey
I'm here, Speedy's Chief 2, joined by the one, the only, the runner-up at EUIC 2025, Z Zwylas. My friend, you were there. You experienced it on the battle side.
00:01:11
William Dunphey
I experienced it from the commentary side. I can't wait to get into this recap because EUIC was one for the books.
00:01:18
Zzweilous
Oh yes, I certainly was there. And I will have to say that this was speediest chief one type intro. Like you were so quick to the point. You probably had a coffee or two already. So I'm excited to dive into the substance of it all.
00:01:32
Zzweilous
And yeah, just like recap it from the onstage perspective, because I've been there until the very, very end.
00:01:40
William Dunphey
ah I always wonder personally if that throws you off because before we start, we start the recording. I'm very much like, yeah, I think this is exciting and we can talk about this.
00:01:48
Zzweilous
Thank you. and
00:01:49
William Dunphey
And then when the recording starts, I'm like, welcome in everyone, you know, all fired up. um But yeah, we bring, we bring some positive energy here to the, to the podcast. And I wanted to shout out as well, before we get started, I had some folks who,
00:02:01
William Dunphey
And honestly, Zwaylis, I think it's the EU folks. Some of the EU folks walked up to me at the event last weekend and they said, I love the show. i love what you and Zwaylis are doing. Can't wait for the next episode.
00:02:12
William Dunphey
So thank you, everyone, whoever walks up to myself or Zwaylis and says thank you because we do it for you. We do it for the community and we really appreciate it and have a really fun time. But...
00:02:23
William Dunphey
Yeah, what what an incredible event. EUIC 400 trainers competed. We actually maxed out all of the available spots. was the biggest tournament to date. I thought for a moment we would have a top 64, but we whittled it down to a top 32, which I think that was for the better.
00:02:39
William Dunphey
um But there were some interesting things. And ah yeah, I can speak from for myself from a commentary perspective. I worked with Amanda again. We always have great chemistry. We're able to pick the ball up and and just run with it.
00:02:50
William Dunphey
had a really fun time working the event, seeing these incredible battles, because I always talk about EUIC as being like the halfway point in the season. And we really get some of the most ah invented inventiveness, the most, you know, ingenuity in the teams and the strategies. And this EUIC did not disappoint.
00:03:07
Zzweilous
Yeah, like I have to say that ahead of the UFC, the general meta talk was kind of into the day into the direction of, okay, this has
Diversity of Strategies and Pokémon at EUIC
00:03:15
Zzweilous
been solved. There's no innovation to be had. um But ahead of the show, I counted all the different species that we saw in day two of the competition, the top 32 teams, and there were 31 different Pokemon on all of those teams.
00:03:28
Zzweilous
So trainers definitely found their very own angle.
00:03:29
William Dunphey
whoa
00:03:31
Zzweilous
And I think that is also um especially well represented. by the fact that going into into the event, um Shadow Annihilate was um a Pokémon with a bit of a target on its back, but also with a lot of promise, as it did really well in the previous weeks.
00:03:47
Zzweilous
And now, if we look at the top four teams, there are zero Shadow Annihilate on there. Shadow Annihilate left the tournament without a trophy.
00:03:52
William Dunphey
wow
00:03:55
William Dunphey
Wow, that's actually a really, really good point. um I've seen online a lot of discourse about whether or not Annihilate is the problem, right? If Annihilate is making the metamor RPS, or maybe it's Galarian Corsola.
00:04:07
William Dunphey
It seems to be pretty divided, but it always seems to be to be about the ghost types. And I really like that that you let in with that as well, because... I think that the tournaments coming into EUIC that were not streamed actually did influence the meta quite a bit.
00:04:22
William Dunphey
And maybe that's like a good preface as well as as we gear up to talk about the European internationals. Because we did have two tournaments. I believe they were both in LATAM. We had a San Juan special event in in Puerto Rico, and then we had the Merida regionals in Mexico.
00:04:35
William Dunphey
And um out of pocket, bringing Wigglytuff, I will say um he won the tournament in San Juan. And then when we finally got to EUIC, there were actually seven Wigglytuff in the top 16.
00:04:47
William Dunphey
So I definitely think that he had a bit of pull and influence there. And then in Merida, Marto Galde won the championship event there, and he brought the exact same team into EUIC with Shadow Annihilate.
00:04:58
William Dunphey
So... that's ah That's pretty prescient that it it didn't finish top four.
00:05:03
Zzweilous
I feel like with the Mato team specifically, um it somewhat made sense why that wasn't um copied by too many trainers. um Firstly, because it is pretty standard, because Azumarill, Digger's B, Shadow Drapion...
00:05:18
Zzweilous
um Shadow Annihilate, Shadow Ferragi Gate, all of those kind of have been topping the usage charts anyway. um So you'll be hard-pressed to really find these special saws in those six. There's a jump-love too, we don't talk about that.
00:05:33
Zzweilous
um But yeah, like people will just look at that and see say, okay, it's Mato, right? He used the best Pokemon and then he just pilots them better than everybody else.
00:05:41
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:05:45
Zzweilous
Whereas with the Pocket Team, even though it was a fairly small tournament, um you had this one innovation in Wigglytuff that really targets those two Pokemon that you already mentioned in Annihilate and Galarian Corsola.
00:05:45
William Dunphey
a
00:05:58
Zzweilous
um which many have um essentially accused of making the meta more RPS, and which also kind of have a RPS relation into each other with Corsula, Heartbeating, Annihilate.
00:06:09
Zzweilous
um And then that makes people run more digger speed to Heartbeat the Corsula, which then again Heart loses to Annihilate. So there's one of these RPS triangles that we have seen in the past.
00:06:16
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:06:20
Zzweilous
and which nobody really appreciates. So Wigglytuff is one way of breaking that up. Wigglytuff itself is known to be a fairly RPS Pokemon, but in this current meta environment, it's actually a somewhat of a neutral pick that just core breaks um those two key pieces that a lot of trainers rely on. So um yeah, it was no surprise to me that a lot of ah people took a page out of Pockets book and brought the Wigglytuff. I feel like one third almost, or like...
00:06:50
Zzweilous
One third of day two trainers actually had a weekly top on their team, um which is quite the uptake because I don't think we've seen it in top 12 much at all this season before.
00:07:00
William Dunphey
Yeah, it was really ironic too, because we we saw Air Slash Manabuzz kind of take over the San Antonio regionals. And then fast forward just a few weeks and there are barely any Air Slash Manabuzz to be seen. I think there might've been, i would say less than eight in our top 32. I might be wrong on that. I'll i'll check the graphic, but ah yeah, shout out to Out of Pocket for winning that event. um You mentioned it was a small tournament. It was last year as well.
00:07:23
William Dunphey
There were some talented trainers like Arceus Aurelius, Bulk88, Chen Yu, and Blepnir that also finished in the top eight. And I want to say that CAG MPWTPD, forgive me for not knowing how to how to pronounce that, but um I believe they were from Japan and actually finished second place overall.
00:07:40
William Dunphey
So that was cool to see a trainer from TPC, ah from the TPC region, which is mostly Japan and in parts of Asia, actually come over to a TPCI event and try to win their world's qualification. So that was ah that was cool to
Global Participation and Notable Performances
00:07:53
William Dunphey
see. They got really, really close.
00:07:54
Zzweilous
Yeah, this is something that i want to see more of in the future as well, just because we don't really get the opportunity to see those trainers that often. And um we did have some um excellent APAC trainers come over to EUIC as well. They didn't actually make Top Guard, but that was probably just due to um them entering the tournament without any seeding and therefore being grouped with people that are like very difficult to overcome.
00:08:22
Zzweilous
And like if it's if it's not your day and you're playing against Europe's best, if you're playing against Latim's best, if you are playing against an ace best, even if you bring your A game, sometimes you can just fall short.
00:08:29
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:08:35
Zzweilous
um But players like... um and Goji or Yeteruna from um South Korea have had their fair share of accolades in the past. And I love that um we truly embrace this global community. And I can't wait for the next outing of um Korean Japanese players um at a TPCI-ran tournament. And I think...
00:08:56
Zzweilous
um Ishikawa Boy of ah World's 2023 fame actually booked or already like registered for an Australian regional.
00:08:58
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:09:05
Zzweilous
um So we might be seeing a little bit more of our Japanese friends, not not too far in the future.
00:09:12
William Dunphey
I remember Worlds Yokohama 2023. Excuse me. um not rob Not Rob May was really excited about Ishikawa Boy. And i was like, wow, Rob is really going crazy for this guy. i I really don't understand the hype. I don't know what he's about, but I don't think he can possibly be that cool.
00:09:29
William Dunphey
And then he takes the stage and he's he's literally playing... Pokemon that his his stream viewers, you know his his audience, his community chose for him on his team at Worlds.
00:09:40
William Dunphey
And he's actually crushing with him. And he wears these sunglasses on stage the whole time. And i was like, all right, Ishikawa Boy is cool as hell. He is the man. And I really, really um want to see what he can do in Australia.
00:09:47
Zzweilous
Yes.
00:09:51
William Dunphey
ah Speaking of of TPC and Ishikawa Boy, he also retweeted the link. to the website where you can register for those TPC qualifiers. ah There are actually six of them this season. I believe there were six last season as well.
00:10:04
William Dunphey
And I will kind of allude to those as we move through the show. um But the hype trailer for that showed a lot of trainers from APAC, a lot of trainers from South Korea, from Japan, ah from Thailand, and of course, our world champion, Yakai, as well.
00:10:16
William Dunphey
And that got me really hyped to see those APAC trainers you know getting ready to throw down in Worlds just a few months away. So I'm really excited for all that as well.
00:10:26
Zzweilous
Yeah, I love that. And especially if you look at Last Worlds, um two out of the top four were actually um from the APEC region, Beelzebue in fourth place as well. So those already have their auto invites, and I can't wait to see what talent um joins them um for Anaheim.
00:10:43
Zzweilous
And also, I just looked up on Ishikawa Boy's profile. It is the, I think, Brisbane Regional Championship that he's entering. so
00:10:51
William Dunphey
o
00:10:51
Zzweilous
um But I can't prepare, Aussies. This is going to be a tough challenger.
00:10:56
William Dunphey
Yeah, and I don't know. i mean, do you think PvP Steve is still going to run Whalmer? I guess he has to because now it has rollout, right?
00:11:02
Zzweilous
Yes, too. Whale-mer is meta now. Hard, hard meta. Rollout will crush the opposition. Like, imagine lining up your Whale-mer against the Lapras, which you would then wall, and you also do super effective rollouts.
00:11:14
Zzweilous
Like, um that's going to be a thing.
00:11:16
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:11:17
Zzweilous
But, yeah.
00:11:18
William Dunphey
True. i ah One of my ah one of my my jewels in my Pokemon storage is actually an extra, extra large Wailord for the Great League. And I cannot wait to deploy that absolute unit onto the field.
00:11:31
Zzweilous
Oh god, oh god. People will not be able to see anything on the field anymore. But I actually, like,
00:11:37
William Dunphey
It's like Guzzlord, but worse.
00:11:39
Zzweilous
Like one of the few Pokemon that i actually put the effort into for for best buddying is a super high rank Shadow Wailmer for Great Leagues. So I could technically run that at any event.
00:11:49
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:11:52
Zzweilous
um I don't know whether I will be feeling as daring, but there is the option now is it's It's only 80% cope, whereas previously it was 100% cope.
00:12:04
Zzweilous
So maybe maybe there'll be an opening for Wailord or Wailmer.
00:12:04
William Dunphey
Mm, true.
00:12:09
William Dunphey
Maybe, maybe. I i was looking, i will admit I was looking at the simulations for this next season, ah whether or not either one would be good. i think that the the Shadow Whalmer is better than the regular, and then the regular Whal Lord seems to sim better than the Shadow Whal Lord, so...
00:12:25
William Dunphey
ah Don't hold me to it, but I do think it will be fascinating to see. And I might try those when, when GBL, when the GBL season rolls around. um I do want to give some flowers to the Merida regional as well in Mexico.
00:12:37
William Dunphey
um There were some, some pretty tough out of region competition as well. We had, um i I should say out of country. We had Javier V20, Arceus Aurelius and Marto Galdi coming in to ah try to take the championship there out Outside of that, it was majority Mexican trainers, which is always cool to see.
00:12:56
William Dunphey
um Marto did end up winning it, as we alluded to a couple times already. Brought the same team over to EUIC. ah What I want to highlight, though, is that Arceus Aurelius actually posted on X. He said that
Regional Influences and Tournament Rules
00:13:07
William Dunphey
this was probably the best run tournament he's ever been to.
00:13:10
William Dunphey
which I found like pretty surprising because a lot of trainers you know have have their gripes about the tournaments in LATAM because the structure is little different. There's no stream for them. Sometimes the organization is is different from event to event, and that can be kind of jarring. So I was happy to see archcu Aurelius you know throw that kind of praise onto the tournament organizers, and I hope that we get more of that going forward.
00:13:32
William Dunphey
And also, please, TPCI, we need some of these streams. I would have loved to see Ashton Ash and Marto in the grand finals so in Merida. That would have been so sick. Yeah.
00:13:41
Zzweilous
There was like a makeshift ah Twitch stream that filmed little display, little screen that the... um other attendees of the regional were able to to watch the matches on in person.
00:13:56
Zzweilous
um But that was like, that felt 2022 Azaray at the Liverpool regional trying to film over the shoulders of of other competitors. Like that was the vibe that we got from that.
00:14:04
William Dunphey
yeah
00:14:06
Zzweilous
But I feel like this level of competition definitely deserves um a high quality broadcast.
00:14:12
Zzweilous
um I think like, obviously there's um considerations that...
00:14:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:14:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:16
Zzweilous
um TPCI has to make but I feel like we kind of owe it to that community um ah off battlers because we've seen time and time again ah players come out of Mexico do well elsewhere um like I think the first trainer that actually um took a regional out of region ah might have been Richie with his regional championship but ah a couple seasons back So yeah, to have like a a stream for especially like those regionals, I understand if a small special event doesn't always warrant a full stream setup.
00:14:40
William Dunphey
e
00:14:51
Zzweilous
um But like those big regionals, you had I think 129 signups, not quite as many teams submitted, which ended up being a little annoying for people who had hoped that the 128 or people of Kika would have been reached.
00:14:51
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:15:08
Zzweilous
ah That was not quite the case, so that had implications for championship points. But um overall, it was was's a large event, and it was a well-run event, and won that actually.
00:15:19
Zzweilous
um have talked with some of my grassroots teammates about this event, and they only had like um positive things to say about it We had two attendees there.
00:15:31
Zzweilous
um And yeah, it inspired me to now essentially pledge that next year I'll do a Mexican event. It apparently has been such a good time, so why not join in in the fun and experience all of the Merida goodness for myself if um that ah location is still going to be around next year.
00:15:31
William Dunphey
a
00:15:50
Zzweilous
So yeah, very excited. But also what I want to mention just for the competitive side of the event, it was um the first regional that actually allowed Corvonite to be used um on Team 126.
00:16:03
William Dunphey
Perry Kivolowitz- Perry Kivolowitz-
00:16:05
Zzweilous
Whereas a lot of social media already pronounced Corviknight dead on arrival. think we did have ah four top 16 Corviknites. And one of them even got a medal.
00:16:16
Zzweilous
So I guess it's a Pokemon that is usable.
00:16:17
William Dunphey
yep
00:16:19
Zzweilous
It might not be dominant, but it is usable.
00:16:22
William Dunphey
You know, I saw something really interesting. i was watching one of Home Size Henry's videos and he actually was playing a attack weighted Corviknight that instead of only getting one Sand Attack damage versus Diggersby, it got two.
00:16:35
William Dunphey
And um that was a really interesting kind of ah kind of dynamic because he was actually able to win that matchup in certain scenarios. And he also made the point of switching it in and getting an energy lead, whatever possible.
00:16:46
William Dunphey
And it just being a lot more useful that way. I feel like when you're in even shields, even energy situations in matchups that are maybe, you know, 50, 50, For example, against something like Annihilate, it can be really rough for the Corviknight. But if you're able to get up shields or get up energy somehow, you can find your win conditions. And yeah, I'm so happy that you mentioned that.
00:17:04
William Dunphey
The Corviknight players were Spartan, ah Rocha Babyface, as well as ah Daniel Vetter23 and Eomero. So honestly, three of those four names I recognize, obviously, right off the bat.
00:17:16
William Dunphey
And those are not new players. Those are veterans of the game. And they were able to make Corviknight work. So I'd be interested to see more Corviknight's. We also had a, looks like a Morpeko make it into top eight on Morato's team.
00:17:29
William Dunphey
We had an Umbreon getting resurrected from the dead by DanielVetter23. We might see more Umbreon in this next season due to the foul play adjustments. And I think it's it's it's one, ah two, three. I counted them and I had it in my mind, but then I forgot. Three,
00:17:45
William Dunphey
um four, five, five out of the top eight teams had the Azumarill Shadow Drapion core. So we're definitely going to talk about that more as we move into the EUIC meta trends, but ah Shadow Drapion Azumarill meta abusers ah were in full swing here at the end of the dual destiny season.
00:18:04
Zzweilous
like i definitely like I don't even necessarily remember the last event that has not been won by a team that had both Azumarill and Shadowdropion on the roster. like Those two have been so dominant. like Even if they are not necessarily um overpowering the competition on their own...
00:18:23
Zzweilous
I think just a lot of top players just love the flexibility that having those two Pokemon on the roster grants them. So if all the top players have those two Pokemon on their team, they will like essentially you always end up winning the event too, because there the skill difference between the people that are at the top and know that these two are like the best pairing to run um will make it very difficult for players any maybe less experienced player who are willing to experiment a little more to to overcome that. So I like it's a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but yeah, I guess like this was truly the season of Azul Drapion.
00:19:03
William Dunphey
Yeah, I actually scrolled back through my notes while you were talking. ah The last time that a team without Azumarill and Shadow Drapian won championship series event was actually December 7th of 2024. This was Richie's run in Bogota.
00:19:18
William Dunphey
He had Azumarill, Diggersby, Galarian Corsola, Alolan Sandslash, Jump Bluff, and Primeape.
00:19:18
Zzweilous
Wow.
00:19:23
William Dunphey
But every event since then, one, two, three, four, five, six events straight. ah Not to mention Puerto Rico and EYC because I haven't updated my notes. But at least six events after that is all Azumarill Shadow Drapian.
00:19:35
William Dunphey
But hopefully, fingers crossed, Swylar, fingers crossed, we get ah we get a bit of a shakeup here tomorrow, Tuesday.
00:19:36
Zzweilous
wow
00:19:43
Zzweilous
I do have some takes on that and we will get to those, but I guess we should get in into the meat of the meta when it comes to um championship series events, because you are a CEO spectacle.
00:19:47
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:19:57
Zzweilous
And um honestly, i don't know.
00:19:58
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:20:00
Zzweilous
How do we want to do it? Do we just like ah highlight some notable trainers, notable runs, notable storylines? Or do we immediately you want to jump to the winner, to Paterman and um to the grand finals?
00:20:12
Zzweilous
Yeah.
00:20:12
William Dunphey
ah Mm-hmm.
00:20:13
Zzweilous
Honestly, it's up to you.
00:20:15
William Dunphey
Yeah, it it sounds like somebody's eager to talk about themselves. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, no, no. Let's let's highlight some some special trainers. um And I can actually start us off here because there's one trainer I wanted to talk about, and that is actually Bar the Gamer.
00:20:29
William Dunphey
And I wanted to talk about him for a couple of reasons. ah First of all, Bar the Gamer had a really, really nice run. I believe they finished, um looks like they were ah maybe 18th overall.
00:20:41
William Dunphey
Team was Ariados, Mandibuzz, I believe with Air Slash, Shadow Feraligator, Dugong, Shadow Drapion, and Shadow Canto Marowak. ah He had a really nice win over Colin in the Group C finals of day one.
00:20:52
William Dunphey
ah Whenever you see somebody like Colin go down, you know that that that trainer has to be for real. And Bar the Gamer ah could only be defeated. by it by your very own Ziz Wireless to knock him down to the loser's bracket and then Statistan ended his tournament run.
00:21:07
William Dunphey
ah But what's really interesting about Bar the Gamer as well is that he's actually from Israel. And that means that he's part of what I've dubbed the MESA, the Middle East, South Africa Championship Points Leaderboards.
00:21:19
William Dunphey
And with his placement at EUIC, he now has 200 points in his region. And the next closest is actually Shep88 with 120. with a hundred and twenty So he's 80 points above second place. And I think that ah the region doesn't have that many trainers that compete actively because there are no locals, no challenges, no cups there.
Top Performers and Strategic Plays at EUIC
00:21:38
William Dunphey
ah So he actually is doing really well in terms of qualifying for Worlds and maybe getting tribal awards and things like that. So ah yeah, shout out to Bar the Gamer. He was very, very impressive this weekend.
00:21:47
Zzweilous
yeah I would love to see that. um So my match against Barthegamer was actually a rematch from last year, but last year we um matched in the second round of EUIC.
00:21:58
Zzweilous
This time it was ah winners like first winner's round um in in day two of the competition after he just took took out or like took down the supposed final boss, Colin Sixx.
00:22:10
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:22:10
Zzweilous
who still had an amazing tournament right now.
00:22:10
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:22:12
Zzweilous
But again, like this is not something a lot of people can claim to have ah beaten Colin Six at an international. um So definitely um some tangible improvement from last season in terms of BartheGamer's result.
00:22:28
Zzweilous
And also is a name that recognize from... a ton of practice tournaments so he's really been putting in the work and i've seen like a bunch of uh five one uh six rounders um maybe even a six oh i don't i don't know for sure but definitely seen a good amount of very impressive uh runs in preparation for the event so it wasn't actually it didn't hit me as like too much out of left field to see him do well because
00:22:43
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:22:57
Zzweilous
um I know he's been putting in the work and I would love to see that rewarded maybe with the world's qualification as well. um and don't exactly know how um that specific um regional subdivision works in terms of travel awards, in terms of qualification slots, but I really hope that um TPCI is generous there and provides opportunities to those trainers that probably have to travel a further distance to these events than most Europeans do.
00:23:16
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:23:25
Zzweilous
um Yeah, I love that you highlighted this trainer in particular. um Another trainer that I do want to highlight is actually um another opponent of mine who I faced in day three of the competition and who I think is a pretty good um example for...
00:23:45
Zzweilous
what i would dub like the the second generation of top eu trainers which is uh koifje uh the the belgian uh bronze medalist or trophyist um who is uh also a shadow primate enjoyer or like primate enjoy in general um i'm i'm more of the uh non-shadow primate school of thought um
00:23:51
William Dunphey
who?
00:23:54
William Dunphey
ae
00:24:02
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:24:09
Zzweilous
But yeah, Kofi had a pretty impressive 2025 season. i think he um placed, and don't let me lie, it was probably fifth place in Stuttgart.
00:24:20
Zzweilous
He came pretty far there. i don't want to have it pulled up right now.
00:24:22
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:24:24
Zzweilous
um But I know that um he grinded for Worlds qualification last year already, um but that was partly due to the Belgian and Dutch regions having um fairly impressive or local infrastructure, ah whereas the actual top tier tournament placements i hadn't yet manifested but this season he's been fairly consistent with um some solid placements and now essentially two breakout tournaments in a row with the fifth place in Stuttgart and now the third place in the UIC and I feel like players like him
00:24:48
William Dunphey
in
00:25:06
Zzweilous
who have really made their way through a gauntlet of incredibly talented and scary trainers. like If you take down inadequance, you have to be pretty impressive at the game.
00:25:19
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:25:20
Zzweilous
um and players like Korky just show that um you can go from... like interested and passionate to actually really good, threatening and a real contender for maybe a future original win ah within the span of like a year or a year and a half.
00:25:38
Zzweilous
So ah feel like those runs are especially inspirational to newer trainers who might feel like it's a little intimidating to see the level of gameplay that is display it displayed on such a big stage.
00:25:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:25:53
Zzweilous
And I think we have had um a couple of breakout performers. Like Kazim comes to mind to finish in fifth place at EUIC. Already has won a tournament this year. Yeah. um And then there's other trainers like Icelandic Vapuris, obviously with the recent Birmingham win, didn't have the greatest EUIC, but tournaments like that happen.
00:26:14
Zzweilous
Also, um another another German trainer that I want to highlight is Udin, who ah had to skip EUIC because of work obligations, but ah got a medal in Gdansk and is another one of that category of up-and-comers that I think
00:26:20
William Dunphey
yep
00:26:32
Zzweilous
um are really lovely to see that in europe and Europe, we obviously have those powerhouses that have been at the top of the game for years, but we also have those new people that come in and can really challenge the more established trainers. And this just shows that despite like occasionally shaky numbers, the European scene is very much alive and well still.
00:26:53
William Dunphey
e ah To recap, or actually to circle back, I should say to Koufia, I looked at his ah profile on DracoViz. He did ah seven championship series events last season.
00:27:04
William Dunphey
He finished actually ninety seventh at EUIC last year. So for him to go from 97th and shoot all the way to number three, is astounding progress. That's absolutely tremendous.
00:27:16
William Dunphey
His average ranking was not very good through those events in 2024. He had a lot of 33rd place finishes, which is basically tied for He had 49, 65 at Utrecht. So not ah sixty five at utthrech so not you know nothing nothing that spectacular.
00:27:31
William Dunphey
But then I think this season really turned around. 25th in Lille to start, or excuse 33rd in Dortmund. Then he was 25th in Lille, 49th in Gdansk, 5th in Stuttgart, and then 3rd at EUIC. So I really, really like um to see his progress, like you were saying before.
00:27:47
William Dunphey
Also, very kind of poetic. And I just want to insert this point here. Very poetic that I recall a certain podcast co-host calling out Primeape and Glaring Corsola as being a very powerful core.
00:27:59
William Dunphey
And we see it in not only in third place, but also in second place at EUIC 2025. So ah I don't know, a little bit of Zwaistradamus there, I think, is is what's happening.
00:28:10
William Dunphey
um I'd like to spotlight just briefly um Nighttime Clasher as well. Nighttime Clasher has been really tough for me to figure out. And i obviously i love the guy. He's so much fun. Really, really good personality, great energy.
00:28:22
William Dunphey
And he learns incredibly fast. I actually had a friend who told me, think it was last year, maybe a year and a half ago. He said that if Nighttime Clasher keeps improving at the rate that he was moving at at that time, he said that an NTC could easily be one of the best trainers in the world just because he's like a sponge. He just absorbs all the information, learns so, so quickly.
00:28:42
William Dunphey
um For a lot of us, like like myself, like yourself, we've been involved in PvP for a very long time, basically since the beginning. It's really refreshing to kind of see newer trainers like Nighttime Clasher pick it up.
00:28:54
William Dunphey
Speaking of pick it up, picking it up, he played Zapdos all the way to, it looks like a sixth place finish at EUIC, which is honestly remarkable. Full team with Shadow Annihilate, Zapdos, Shadow Feraligator, Azumarill, Shadow Drapian Core, and the Diggersby to round it out.
00:29:11
William Dunphey
But... ah Eric was really impressive. I mean, he was really fun to watch very close games, uh, on stage time and time again. And the part that I can't figure out, I mean, maybe you can lend some, some, you know, um, explanation here.
00:29:24
William Dunphey
I can't figure out why he seems to either have just an incredible, like pop-up performance where he's crushing everybody and he, and beating Tomahawk to win an EU, or he's like,
00:29:30
Zzweilous
like
00:29:35
William Dunphey
you know, kind of, kind of mid kind of picking things up as he goes and maybe has, you know, ah kind of a mediocre finish, but nothing too spectacular. He seems to be either boom or bust. Do you agree with that? Or do you think that's just the nature of the game we play?
00:29:48
Zzweilous
um I kind of agree. So let me let me just quickly check his 2025 results. So he really popped off at the start of it, where he um placed third in Louisville, fifth in Buenos Aires, and then had a tied for 13th finish at LAIC.
00:30:06
Zzweilous
Which again, i feel like Nighttime Clash is one of those trainers who um maybe excels at the really large, really big events. um This is like his second top 16 at an IC this year. um and And he just like always strikes me as somebody who like the the larger the competition, the more um the more intimidating the competition, the less he cares about it really.
00:30:30
Zzweilous
Because maybe he like thrives in this like little bit of ah of a scrappy underdog type of role.
00:30:36
William Dunphey
yep
00:30:36
Zzweilous
Whereas then he... i i don't know. like His teams don't even seem all that risky. like There was like an Iraq win on a Sacramento team.
00:30:45
William Dunphey
yeah
00:30:45
Zzweilous
um like The Toronto team felt fairly standard, but Toronto is just like... Toronto can be difficult. I don't know whether that is whether whether there's like any merit to that, um but some locations feel as if the local trainers that you just run into um just have so many surprises that...
00:31:05
Zzweilous
um you you are never really super safe, even if you're very mechanically sound player. And just checking his Toronto results kind of proves my point, because he eventually went out against Smartball, who had a Shadow Ferrowthorn, a Greninja, a Malamar, a Shadow Marowak, a Shadow Typhlosion, and a non-Shadow Zapdos.
00:31:27
William Dunphey
what
00:31:27
Zzweilous
That non-Shadow Zapdos probably... like It didn't traumatize him too much, so he could still pick it up for a great run of his own. But um yeah, this is like the type of teams that you then run into and maybe fall to, even though you have high expectations of yourself.
00:31:45
Zzweilous
um But yeah, I feel like you you hit the nail on head when you said like that's kind of the nature of the game we play. um Overall, NTC has been consistent enough where I would say that, yeah, it's fair to call him one of the best trainers in the world. like He's been taking down trainers that are undoubtedly some of the best trainers in the world, almost routinely at this point. So... um yeah I feel like like the guy deserves his flowers. and Even though I've now beaten him for the second time in an official tournament, um he he he will he will get there one day.
00:32:20
William Dunphey
Yeah, and and to ah to piggyback off of that, you know that he beat Out of Pocket and Tonton Batus before he got to you? So, yeah.
00:32:28
Zzweilous
Two IC champions. Two IC champions. so
00:32:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:32:32
Zzweilous
He's got what it takes.
00:32:33
William Dunphey
Staggering, right? Yeah, I really think he does. I'm excited to see what nighttime Clasher can do with the rest of the season. i think I saw on socials today, he was talking about going to a tournament in Mexico or or maybe somewhere in LATAM. I'm not exactly sure, but you know he's going to fly wherever he can fly to ah to pick up some wins. I hope that he keeps on battling and improving, and i'm really excited to see how his his career progresses.
00:32:57
William Dunphey
I'm not sure if there are any other trainers that you want to shout out to because this list is absolutely so stacked. I mean, Tenacity was really impressive. I liked watching Settile Ice, even though I hate Mantine.
00:33:09
William Dunphey
I think Mantine is a trash Pokemon.
00:33:10
Zzweilous
thank
00:33:11
William Dunphey
Watching him beat Dunebug with it was actually wild. um You can't forget the do-it-all Dutchman Inadequance with his Shadow Palkia that he played maybe once or twice.
00:33:18
Zzweilous
Yeah, he like really, really taking a page out of L. Che's book and just competing with five Pokemon. That was quite impressive.
00:33:28
William Dunphey
Yeah, to get fourth place with only five Pokemon, that's, ah yeah, ah the only ah the only other person that's done that is Elche, right? So it's true at at Worlds, nonetheless.
00:33:35
Zzweilous
It's true.
00:33:38
William Dunphey
um I thought Arcus Aurelius was really, ah really outstanding. I thoroughly enjoyed ah watching him play against Inadequance. That was ah the amount of banter on stage.
00:33:48
William Dunphey
those Just those two talking to each other.
00:33:51
Zzweilous
Uh,
00:33:51
William Dunphey
Amanda and I almost did like a bad lip reading, but we weren't we weren't quick enough on our feet to do that.
00:33:55
Zzweilous
I wonder whether TPCI would a approve of that. um But...
00:33:59
William Dunphey
Probably not.
00:34:01
Zzweilous
Yeah, like, this was, like, in true Marcus fashion, like, the Arceus Aurelius special, ah where he just, like, um storms everybody, just, like, completely demolishes the competition with an excellent meta read, and then throws the A-Cortel, and he has a crunch to then knock out not knock out the superior on Martijn's side.
00:34:19
William Dunphey
Oh, I i know
00:34:22
Zzweilous
It's like, this guy is really, like... um but between between madness and genius. and It was mostly genius this weekend. um But yeah, like honestly, this is actually um one of my like one of my personal favorite storylines because even though like i
00:34:42
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:34:44
Zzweilous
um Wish the guy nothing but the best. And we have a very cordial, friendly, um like friendly relationship as two community members who ah respect each other a lot.
00:34:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:34:53
Zzweilous
But I was rooting against him so hard. Like we were trash talking like um on Discord before day three because we were competing for the NAIC Travel Award.
00:34:56
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:35:04
Zzweilous
That was...
00:35:05
William Dunphey
Ah...
00:35:05
Zzweilous
um like a four-way race at the start um with Colin and Martijn essentially being in first and second and like fairly certain to not drop out of those top four.
00:35:19
Zzweilous
And then Pato obviously on a great run starting in third also um obviously at the end of the day winning it all but also like securing the travel award fairly convincingly.
00:35:19
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:35:29
Zzweilous
And then behind that, we had a four-way race between Stone Collection, Sanjurigo, Arceus Aurelius, and myself. And if I did not get at least second place, um Marcus would have gotten their travel award for NAIC. I needed to finish second or better.
00:35:46
Zzweilous
And yeah, I just like, I i played optimally to that win condition, I guess. Yeah. um Just about eked it out. I'm very, very happy about that.
00:35:57
Zzweilous
Kind of sad for the guy because um he's obviously been putting in the work and he's also just like, and want I want to see him at all the events because I think his pop-offs are just a great advertisement for the game that we play.
00:36:09
William Dunphey
true
00:36:10
Zzweilous
um but But yeah, I don't mind taking that spot from him either for sure.
00:36:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, he was a ah he was a special guest on our Speedburger skit that Amanda and I did as well. I thought he did great on that, even though I tried to throw throw him off with the first question about Fido.
00:36:27
William Dunphey
um His first pop-off, he actually told us that ah he almost passed out because you know he was sitting down for so long.
00:36:33
Zzweilous
Oh God.
00:36:34
William Dunphey
Yeah, he was sitting down for for all three games of the series. And then at the end of game three, he stands up, shoots up out of his seat and he's fist pumping and he's, you know, jumping and he's, you know, I guess like lawnmower cranking or whatever you call that.
00:36:46
William Dunphey
And ah he says he got he got lightheaded and he had to sit down. Otherwise, he really was going to like fall down. And and that would.
00:36:53
Zzweilous
You should bring Rotom Mo to one of these events just so you can do like a lot more celebration.
00:36:53
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:36:58
William Dunphey
ah
00:36:58
Zzweilous
feel like that would be great content.
00:37:00
William Dunphey
but You know, if um I don't think anyone's done it, but somebody should Photoshop that in. If they find the clip, just Photoshop the Rotom. What is it? Grass Rotom Mo and.
00:37:09
Zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like that's like, i don't know what the official names are. There's like a grassy road term and that would fit quite well.
00:37:13
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:37:17
William Dunphey
That'd be awesome. I want to give um ah Marcus a little more credit as well because he has resisted running the Shadow Drapion Azumarill Core and he has fought tooth and nail to not play those Pokemon. He does have the Shadow Drapion on his team for EUIC, but if you look back at Merida,
00:37:35
William Dunphey
ah excuse me, the San Juan special event, he actually has Shadow Drapion, Shadow for Alligator, and there's no Azumarill on his team there either. So, and if you continue that trend all the way to Merida, yes, i I knew it was all three.
00:37:47
William Dunphey
If you look at Merida, he's got Shadow for Alligator, Shadow Drapion, but no Azumarill to be seen. So shout out to Arceus Aurelius for for playing Azumarill and Shadow Drapion. And one more note I wanted to add.
00:37:59
William Dunphey
um i don't know if this is true or if like the other casters were messing with me. But apparently in the UK, you're not supposed to say Arceus because it sounds like arse, which means ass and And when ah when Adam Skarsig went on stage to do the day two intro, Arceus Aurelius was one of the trainers that I wanted to mention.
00:38:13
Zzweilous
good
00:38:21
William Dunphey
And he read the name and he read it Arceus Aurelius, even though I don't think that that is ah kosher. You know, I don't think that that is for Pokemon fans. It's not kosher for the UK. It is.
00:38:31
William Dunphey
If you get I'm saying, he had kind of had to flip it around. So interesting.
00:38:36
Zzweilous
Yeah, honestly, I don't even know what the official version of saying that Pokemon's name is.
00:38:41
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:38:41
Zzweilous
I just always think of like, okay, this is based on Zeus from Greek mythology. So feel like the soft C is like, like there's there's an argument for it, but um I can understand if people just can't be arsed and just want to do the Arceus instead.
00:38:59
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. I can understand either way. We know who you're talking about. The Norwegian who pops off and almost faints on stage when he wins it, wins a match. That's, that's the person we're trying to highlight. Right.
00:39:11
William Dunphey
um
00:39:11
Zzweilous
cinema.
00:39:12
William Dunphey
Absolute cinema. I wasn't sure if there's anyone else you wanted to shout out because there's so many talented trainers. I encourage everyone to look at this top 32 and just see ah the decorated names of the folks that, that made it into Top Gun. mean,
00:39:26
William Dunphey
EYC was staggering, not only in terms of performance and in players, but also in terms of gameplay and and the crowd as well. i thought the crowd was great.
00:39:34
Zzweilous
Yeah, 100%. Especially, um even though like I love my friends and the support that they provided to me over the course of the weekend, um but they have nothing on the Spanish if it comes to just putting on a show and cheering on their guy.
00:39:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:39:52
Zzweilous
Because like those Pato chants were out of this world. That was like... ah such a great atmosphere and even though it was like and don't even think it was against me it was more for pataman for my opponent um but that really made me feel like the stakes of the moment and how special this whole event is for so many people and i honestly love that i think that really added to the atmosphere and the experience and
00:40:06
William Dunphey
True.
00:40:21
Zzweilous
Yeah, like, honestly, like, um Spanish names are also just a lot more shoutable because you have those nice vowel sounds. And um so that's a built in advantage.
00:40:28
William Dunphey
true
00:40:33
Zzweilous
But yeah, it was it was really fun to experience.
00:40:36
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm not even sure how you would do it. A chant for your name. Would it be like Z's?
00:40:41
Zzweilous
yeah
00:40:43
William Dunphey
i don't I don't know if that's how would go or not. But ah I think that's a perfect segue, my friend, because Pato man was in the grand finals and you, you yourself were his opponent. And you were just coming off of a, correct me if I'm wrong, a 14 and 0 games one day, day one and day two combination.
00:41:01
William Dunphey
And I think you did pretty well in day two or day three as well.
00:41:01
Zzweilous
Yes.
00:41:04
William Dunphey
Right.
00:41:05
Zzweilous
i didn't I did all right. I did all right. But yeah, I was very close to making history. um i went up 16. I was 16-0 at one point because I actually managed to win the first two battles of... um my my winners finals against Pato because I fortunately managed to align my digger speed to his Corsola and that's typically a win condition.
00:41:30
William Dunphey
Oh, yes.
00:41:30
Zzweilous
um So at that point, I feel like there was one instance where Rajiv in Latin America actually managed to go undefeated and entire regional.
00:41:39
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:41:41
Zzweilous
I think it was like an 18-0. um And at that point, that was like...
00:41:44
William Dunphey
Kiritiba.
00:41:46
Zzweilous
I was like four wins away from doing just the same, but at the international stage, which I think would have been a feat that um could not have been replicated.
00:41:58
Zzweilous
um But yeah, why why make history when you can make mistakes?
00:41:59
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:42:02
Zzweilous
And I misread Pato's backline twice.
00:42:03
William Dunphey
thou
00:42:06
Zzweilous
Um... and like you he won another game but that like there was something that um i consider like almost a specialty of his where he um plays a line of three um and then changes the very last three um between two games where um he essentially tries to bait out a certain Pokemon.
00:42:33
Zzweilous
Then I um see his entire line of three revealed at the end of it. And I play to the exact same line of three the next game, but he switches it he switches it up. So I um essentially like save my Diggas B for a Galarian Cosoa expecting the exact same line.
00:42:52
Zzweilous
But then it ends up being like an Azumarill that I save it for, or
00:42:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:42:55
Zzweilous
I feel like that was more of like, oh, is it Korsola or is it Kanto Marouac and where do I need my Azu situation?
00:42:56
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:43:03
Zzweilous
And Pato did the same thing um in the Barcelona Grand Finals because um staying true to the season of dual destiny, Pato and I actually met before. it was the 2023 season where and at the Barcelona special event, it wasn't even the 2024 season, but in 2023. think that was it.
00:43:25
Zzweilous
Um, um,
00:43:25
William Dunphey
I think you're right.
00:43:26
Zzweilous
um where he um and like we essentially met in the grand finals and um he played ah game in a way that I thought, okay, like this Licky safe swap is drawing out my Medichamp to free up his Dugong because he did that before.
00:43:42
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:43:42
Zzweilous
um so i just like chipped and dipped into my own LickyTongue back in the day, but then it ended up being Gligar in the back and he essentially trapped my Medichamp by pretending to do a thing he did before, but then doing a different thing and essentially playing that mind game, throwing me off. And he did that again here and um he succeeded pulling off the reverse sweep to actually win the winners finals with three and two.
00:44:07
William Dunphey
Yeah, no, I'm so glad that you highlighted this because I felt like Pottoman was doing different things on stage. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there was a whole series. Maybe it was the first set of the grand finals where he was like trying to hammer you with Mandibuzz.
00:44:22
William Dunphey
I think he brought Mandibuzz all three games of that that grand finals.
00:44:25
Zzweilous
i think I think that was that was yeah the the grand finals series where I actually managed to ah win 3-0 and reset the bracket.
00:44:34
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:44:35
Zzweilous
um And I can see like on paper why he would lean ah into that Mandibus play a lot because um he knew the Pokemon that I was going to bring.
00:44:43
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:44:47
Zzweilous
So he knew I was not ever going to bring out the Galarian Corsola.
00:44:51
William Dunphey
yeah
00:44:52
Zzweilous
um Just because it doesn't really have a clear target on his line. Like I could bring it as a somewhat safe and neutral ah pick against Azu or Kanto Marowak, but there's nothing that Mike Hosler really hard beats. Yeah.
00:45:08
Zzweilous
So that was not going to come. Then I had the option of bringing my Talonflame, but it wasn't too attractive either because Azurapion core, which was very bringable for him, kind of shuts that down for the most part.
00:45:21
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:45:22
Zzweilous
And then I was kind of locked into a combination of Azur, Primabe, Chargerbug, and Diguspy. um And he kind of figured that if I always bring Digger's B to have a good play against um his guy in Kosala, like that's the only of my four bringable Pokemon that um beats Galarine Kosala, then And if I bring that, and I also bring my Primeape, because my Primeape overall looked like my strongest Pokémon, having played into essentially all of Pathos VI, then he already knows two Pokémon that are on my team.
00:45:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:45:56
Zzweilous
And Mandibuzz has a solid to good matchup into both of those. So there was like a two-thirds chance that Mandibuzz would be um in ah in an advantageous situation. um But the thing about Metabus is that while it has pretty solid head-to-head matchups, um I consider it a liability in a dynamic, fluid game situation. And I managed to leverage that pretty well during that set of of three.
00:46:23
Zzweilous
um where I just always manage to desync the switch timer, bank energy, pivot out, um and essentially um make use of the slow Mendebus pacing and the fairly low Mendebus damage output.
00:46:24
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:46:39
Zzweilous
um Always just loading ah energy onto my Digusby, taking damage on my bulky Pokemon, and then ah utilizing my my Azu to finish it off.
00:46:51
Zzweilous
um And yeah, this really allowed me to get into the type of gameplay that I do the best in, where it's like, okay, like, um the the switch timers are desynced, I can get cheap energy against a vulnerable target and then switch out, use it elsewhere, um just play this little dancing game where I just manage sure to outplay my opponent like that.
00:47:15
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:47:15
Zzweilous
um And yeah, the mana bus wasn't really a threat for me. It was a liability for him. And i so I already had a team comp advantage just on paper. And him bringing that mana bus so much in that set of battles um essentially made it so that um my my team comp advantage was impossible to to overcome for him during those moments.
00:47:36
William Dunphey
e And this is what this is what was so fascinating about this grand finals. And I feel like as we get more of these events under our belt and we experience ah more variety in terms of gameplay and in strategies, ah you mentioned it earlier, you nailed it.
00:47:52
William Dunphey
ah You called out the switch timer manipulation. I feel like that is very much um basically a signature part of your play style. And I told you this when we were when we were at the at the Fox after the event.
00:48:05
William Dunphey
I said that... um Basically, when people try to look at your team and they try to prepare to play against you in a tournament setting, ah a lot of them just say it's a waste of time to try to scrim other people because nobody plays the team exactly the way that you do and the way that you kind of move the pieces around, displace switch timer, gather energy and swap and try to really apply it tons of mental pressure to your opponent because they have to track energy constantly. They have to track the switch timer constantly.
00:48:29
William Dunphey
It's very, very like suffocating to try to play against somebody with that style. And meanwhile, you had Potaman, who obviously one of the best in class at managing energy, knowing his his counts and his matchups. I mean, nobody doubts Potaman's base skills, but I feel like his signature play style was almost um the line switching, the the kind of luring you into a trap to try to expect certain things and then making pivots at weird times.
00:48:53
William Dunphey
And ah he didn't just just double down on Mandabuzz in that ah grand finals. ah He tripled down. And he kept on expecting you to change something about your line. And you just didn't. And like you said, you had the team composition advantage, especially, you know, having the Azumarill in almost every game.
00:49:09
William Dunphey
And then also with the charge bug on the bench and the 0% chance you were going to bring the glaring Corsula. I mean, things were going well for you then. ah But then Ponto Man kind of like evolved throughout the throughout day three, ah whether it was the winner's finals where he got the reverse sweep, grand finals where he lost, or the grand finals reset where he eventually won.
00:49:28
William Dunphey
He seemed to change his play style, not only to adjust to you, but also to try to anticipate better what you were trying to do and I know it sounds like very, very simple and very topical to trainers who play quite a bit, but honestly, the way that he execute executed was astounding to watch.
00:49:38
Zzweilous
like
00:49:44
William Dunphey
I mean, the grand finals was between two very different players, even though you you both had ah probably a top 10, you know, understanding of the mechanics and the matchups in the region.
00:49:57
Zzweilous
So this is like one thing that I appreciate a lot about um the games that I have been having against Pato because um we've only really faced in two tournaments so far.
00:50:10
Zzweilous
But um at both tournaments, we have played three best of fives against each other. So that's a lot of games.
00:50:15
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:50:16
Zzweilous
That's more games than I played against any other player within the competitive circuit.
00:50:16
William Dunphey
yeah
00:50:22
Zzweilous
um And it's really fun and interesting to see how um these strategies evolve the more battles you have played against each other. And I think what Pato did super well, especially in that last set to to win it all, um is two things. First of all, um he really managed to...
00:50:45
Zzweilous
um find a way of leveraging his Azumarill Shadowdropion core um to the best possible effect against my Primabe in particular.
00:50:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:50:57
Zzweilous
Because um I knew that Primabe was incredibly strong against him, so I leaned on that a lot. If I just give it two shields, can even even overcome Azumarill. um But that's when you play it linearly and have it essentially locked in against the Azumarill.
00:51:12
Zzweilous
But what he did instead was he he led it a lot. And then he had the Shadow Dropion in the back. So he would make me spend energy against the Azumarill, knowing that he would be easily able to tank multiple Rage Fists from my Primeape.
00:51:29
Zzweilous
And he would take a shield with an Ice Beam. um So while his Azumarill would be at half health, that would still be plenty healthy, and I would be a shield down.
00:51:39
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:51:39
Zzweilous
um And then he would come in and pivot into his Shadow Dropion, because now um obviously obviously he would still have to shield first. um But then he would be able to dictate the shielding and the pace of the battle because um the Aqua Tail paces so much faster than what he would have been able to do if he just stayed in with Azumarill and its Ice Beams.
00:52:02
Zzweilous
um So once he had that shield advantage, he was always um essentially forcing me out of my um ah Rage Fist buffs by bringing in the Drapion and applying more shield pressure when i when I was already...
00:52:15
Zzweilous
um on my back foot in terms of shields like um the the way that my positioning within the battle was advantageous for me would have been to just like stay in and do stuff with my primate but at that point um it just didn't make sense because um even double boosted the karate chop pressure isn't really doing enough against the dropion so um that essentially forced me to play a more reactive play style um
00:52:18
William Dunphey
ye
00:52:27
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:52:42
Zzweilous
and really made it so my Drapion or like my Primeape would have a lot less value. That was a very smart adaptation from him that he didn't really utilize um as much during the very first few battles that we had.
00:52:59
Zzweilous
um And the another and the the other and probably decisive adjustment that he made is ah that he left the Mana Bust on the bench, and he really leaned into his Shadow Canto Marowak, which is Pokemon that I had expected to see um a lot more often, just because it doesn't really have a terrible matchup against anything on my team.
00:53:09
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:53:13
William Dunphey
Yes, exactly.
00:53:22
Zzweilous
um It slaps down my primate before it gets to three moves. i would needche I would need a damage registration error to get to my third rage fist, which is not really the intended mechanic as I understand it, because for me, what happens more often is what's probably intended, and not getting that move off is what happens more often.
00:53:34
William Dunphey
yeah.
00:53:42
Zzweilous
So I can't really complain that I don't get that last rage fist. I don't think I'm supposed to. um He really knew that matchup well, and... um managed to use that as a soft answer to my primeape, which then allowed him to dictate switch if i if he caught that in the lead.
00:54:00
Zzweilous
um And also it made it so that my Charger Bug, which um I liked a lot otherwise with Azu as the most obvious target, but also Drapion being a thing that I don't mind facing, um like I felt Charger Bug was fairly useful for me.
00:54:19
Zzweilous
um But if he got the alignment correct, as happened in the very last game, um that would always be a difficult situation for me to overcome.
00:54:25
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:54:28
Zzweilous
um So yeah, just like realizing realizing the strength of Kanto Marowak and also optimizing his Azumarill Drapion play was what clinched it for him in the end.
00:54:30
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:54:41
Zzweilous
and um While there were win conditions for me, um specifically in the very last decisive game to just stay in with my diggerspy, I've seen a lot of questions as to, um okay, why would I swap out of that situation?
00:54:55
William Dunphey
yeah
00:54:58
Zzweilous
um It was because I read the hard swap into Drapion, saving a rock slide on the Cantomarowag. um in that situation as an attempt of his to get in ah something to damage the diggers bee because otherwise why would you swap into a disadvantageous matchup um and that made me think that he would probably have the Gallarian Corsola in the back and just wanted to get as much Aqua Tail damage onto me as he could um because once my diggers bee is low it would have been easy for um a loaded
00:55:22
William Dunphey
exactly
00:55:28
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:55:37
Zzweilous
Kanto Marowak and Galarian Kostler to take out the Charger Bug. It ended up being the Azumarill. So if i stayed in, i would have had like a 50-50 chance of winning that game, probably.
00:55:49
William Dunphey
yeah
00:55:49
Zzweilous
Because at the end of the day, it would have come down to ah bait game if I... um got my Scorching Sense through that would have been great for me. um If i landed a Fire Punched Bait and then got to a Scorching Sense, I would have been able to win the 0-1 shield scenario versus um the Dropion.
00:56:09
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:56:09
Zzweilous
And then I would have had the shield for my Charger Bug to protect it against the Rock Slide from the Cantomero Wack, and then just take out the Azumarill head-to-head. At that point in time, i just called the Galarian Corsola in the back.
00:56:23
Zzweilous
I tried to catch an Aqua Tail and sneak a world switch when swapping into my Charger Bug, and it ended up being the wrong call. But that's a risk that sometimes you have to take. I was already um my back foot in that match, and honestly, there's there iss no more deserving champion than Pato Man after that crazy weekend.
00:56:35
William Dunphey
yeah
00:56:41
Zzweilous
and I'm very happy for him because I know how much it means to him. like The pop-off was heartwarming, and um His family is also just so nice. So um yeah, I'm really glad that he's our champion.
00:56:50
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:56:53
William Dunphey
Yeah. I honestly, i would not have been upset if either one of you won the, ah the tournament. And I feel like you've gotten so close. um You're getting second place a few times already this season.
00:57:06
William Dunphey
And I feel like you're playing at at a very, very high level. um which is just undeniable when you, when you look at the record books and I would love to see you get in another championship soon, but I feel like you've also given us some of like the best gameplay and storylines. And, and you're right. I think heartwarming is, is the best descriptor for Pata man winning because I remember watching back the, the Barcelona event and, and, you know, you were able to win that time.
00:57:32
William Dunphey
And then Gdansk, he's like crying and he's hugging his parents. And then, EUIC was basically Gdansk on steroids, right? Because he was winning a big event. It was a really big deal and and he was so happy. So yeah, I agree with you. um A couple of things about the gameplay that you mentioned that really stood out to me.
00:57:48
William Dunphey
ah i think that the switches and what Potten Man was willing to do, the risk he was willing to take... uh, earlier on in the, in the series you played before the grand finals reset.
00:57:59
William Dunphey
I think that ah eventually, right. It kind of gets into your head. ah for example, he switched the gal glaring course, like into your diggers B at least once, maybe twice. Uh, he switched man to buzz all three games of the grand finals. He forced swap the man to buzz in.
00:58:13
William Dunphey
And I guess, you know, I guess, assuming that you wouldn't have a zoomer on the back, he thought he'd had you, but, ah Of course, you had the the Azu every single time. And then eventually, once once you played so many battles, right? Winners finals, ah three three games in the grand finals, then you're the grand finals reset.
00:58:28
William Dunphey
You've done so many games and you're trying to read this trainer who keeps on trying to fake you out and switch up their lines and make you predict something else. And eventually, right? He's going to get you. And I feel like that is exactly what happened. And um it just it's just a huge...
00:58:44
William Dunphey
It lends credence to to the strategy that Pata Man is able to deploy and how he's able to learn. Because a lot of trainers, maybe after they they lose the grand finals you know bracket the first time, they might say, oh man, I'm i'm fumbling here. like I don't know what to do. Nothing is working.
00:58:58
William Dunphey
And the trainers you know might panic. But Pata Man is not that kind of player. He doesn't panic. He thinks and he processes and he stays very much in the moment. So even though he, he looks emotional on stage, you know, he's throwing his head back and he's, you know, grimacing and he's shaking his head and he looks really upset, disappointed, even though all those things are going on, he still has a very active mind and he's not giving up, even though he's showing all of his emotions, which I think those two things get conflated all lot the time.
00:59:27
William Dunphey
You know, when you start to see an athlete or a performer start to get upset, you assume, oh, they're they're, they're crashing out, right? They're, they're spiraling. This is not going to go well, but a pot to man seems to be able to write the ship every single time.
00:59:39
William Dunphey
um Honestly, ah when you were giving your recap of the grand finals, I thought of one person in particular, someone who keeps on supporting the the podcast ah sends me nice messages probably every episode at this point.
00:59:53
William Dunphey
T was still, I hope you, you enjoy that explanation to you all still. Cause that was honestly like a masterclass in a, in terms of breaking down the matchups, but yeah,
00:59:58
Zzweilous
Mm-hmm.
01:00:02
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree with you. I'm i'm actually watching back the grand finals right now as you were talking. And some of the points you made, I was watching them play out on screen. ah So that was actually really cool.
01:00:12
Zzweilous
Yeah, like this was probably also, even though it was my third grand finals loss of the season, and was by far and away my my favorite series because um versus Tonton, I just felt like I had a big team comp disadvantage and couldn't really make it as competitive just because it was just too much...
01:00:12
William Dunphey
But yeah.
01:00:33
Zzweilous
that would just overwhelm me. And versus Icelandic Lapras in Birmingham, i just like got my line called every single time, so I could make that even less competitive.
01:00:42
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:00:42
Zzweilous
Whereas Sparta, we actually had a little bit of a back and forth, like me going up 2-0, then him reverse sweeping, me resetting the bracket with a clean sweep. like
01:00:51
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:00:51
Zzweilous
That was it was just like, I feel like both of us really played our heart out on stage. and
01:00:57
William Dunphey
yeah
01:00:57
Zzweilous
um like I thought it would hurt more to lose that, but it doesn't.
01:01:03
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. i feel like, again, i would not have been upset if either one of you won. Of course, you know, working on projects like this podcast with you, i was trying to be impartial during the commentary. I was paying special attention not to, you know, talk about what your win conditions more than Pato's and that kind of thing. but ah But yeah, I think a lot of people are are happy and a lot of people are very proud of you. And a lot of people don't doubt your skills or talents, you know, for any for any reason at all. I think that,
01:01:34
William Dunphey
your Your position at Worlds is pretty much locked down. You got the automatic qualification as well by by being a second place, which is insane.
01:01:39
Zzweilous
It's true.
01:01:42
William Dunphey
And you ah you actually did what you ah you set out to do. you You posted a tweet in, I think it was January. You said, i wanted I won a trophy this year. And it only took you one month to do it.
01:01:52
Zzweilous
Yep.
01:01:53
William Dunphey
So yeah, why not?
01:01:54
Zzweilous
ye i just I just didn't drop a game until I got one secured. And after that, I i could i was able to take it a little more easy.
01:02:02
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah. Well, why not just just accomplish your goals for the year ah seven months early?
01:02:04
Zzweilous
oh
01:02:07
William Dunphey
I think that's that's a good way to do it. That's ah a good stretch goal, right? um
01:02:11
Zzweilous
Yeah.
01:02:12
William Dunphey
But yeah, awesome performance. EYC was incredible. I ah highly encourage everyone to go back, look at the VOD, watch the battles, Kofia had some incredible games as well. Very, very talented trainer on the rise. Look out for him at the next EU event.
01:02:25
William Dunphey
ah You got everything. You got line predictions. You got switch timer manipulation. You had um undercharging a power gem from Galarian Corsula into a Diggersby in order to farm down with something else.
01:02:35
William Dunphey
You had everything in this tournament that you could.
01:02:37
Zzweilous
That was like his like a forced CMP as well. like That was that like something super crazy.
01:02:41
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:02:43
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just, again, it just came on, came on the screen while we were talking. and I was like, oh yeah, I remember that. That was insane. That was literal, ah ah you know, literal popcorn moment. Kind of like when Inadequance swapped into Giratina and Charge Sack Priority Sacrificial swapped ah into the Charge Bug.
01:03:00
William Dunphey
I think it was last season.
01:03:00
Zzweilous
Exactly.
01:03:01
William Dunphey
That was also, you know, insane, insane mechanics. um But yeah, EYC was incredible. I don't know if you have any any closing thoughts. ah For me personally, i hope that everyone enjoyed ah the commentary. Again, I really enjoy working with Amanda. She's she's very smart, very quick on her feet, ah very funny as well, even though I give her a lot of crap during the broadcast. and It was great to have Zionic and Leo as well casting. I believe that was Leo's first IC.
01:03:26
William Dunphey
He absolutely crushed it. um He and I also had a good time at the after party because we figured out how to get one more drink out of our voucher. So he's a he's a very, very talented gentleman.
01:03:35
Zzweilous
and
01:03:37
William Dunphey
I would love to work with him in the future. So hopefully we get that opportunity.
01:03:43
Zzweilous
Yeah, like I obviously had a blast at EUIC. I feel like the ICs this year had amazing storylines from LAIC with Mato taking ah taking it all to like Part of Man's special moment at EUIC. And um honestly, it's just like so beautiful to see what this game has grown into. and yeah, well, my my um New Orleans hotel is already booked.
01:04:08
Zzweilous
So NAIC is happening and I'm very much looking forward to that as well.
01:04:09
William Dunphey
Nice.
01:04:13
William Dunphey
Nice, nice. I don't want to say too much, but ah you might see ah one of these two podcast hosts come out of retirement to compete at NAIC. So stay tuned for that.
01:04:21
Zzweilous
Oh.
01:04:24
Zzweilous
Well, I feel like that might be a pretty good segue into what is probably our next segment, which is um the meta that we can assume will also kind of be the NEIC meta.
01:04:24
William Dunphey
Yes, indeed.
01:04:34
Zzweilous
There will be a June move update um before that, but those are typically fairly minor.
Impact of New Moves on the Meta
01:04:40
Zzweilous
um Whereas the March update, the Might and Mastery update was anything but, because I think this is actually a change that will have big implications for the meta.
01:04:44
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:04:53
Zzweilous
um So how do we start into this? Like I could pull up the blog post and we should, we could go over all of the changes, but we could also just zoom in onto some of the big players. um
01:05:06
William Dunphey
Yeah, let's do the ladder.
01:05:06
Zzweilous
So yeah, how how do, how do we want to do it?
01:05:09
William Dunphey
Yeah, I say we do the latter, and i would love for us to to, at the end of our discussion, give a rating ah from 1 to 10 about how good of a shakeup this is. ah Good meaning we get to play new Pokemon, and the Shadow, Drapi, and Azumarill core is dead, and And maybe we can actually have some brand new Pokemon win championship events. I would love to to hear our rating at the end. But yeah, let's zoom into a couple of these top picks. And I really feel like ah we can start off with a very easy one. I think it's pretty much universally agreed that Psywave Lapras is going to be a game changer. I really kind of equate this to how Cloudsire operated the the past two seasons.
01:05:45
William Dunphey
A Pokemon that's incredibly powerful, can be centralizing, will likely be on most teams, and um is actually fun and new and something that we can... ah we can experience for the first time in the championship series.
01:05:58
Zzweilous
So what makes Lapras so interesting and powerful is that like not only is it getting Psywave, which is obviously a move that allows an Ice-type to hit Fighting-type Pokémon for super effective damage and makes it so that a non-Shadow Lapras, for example, beats Annihilate in the One Shield scenario and Zero Shield scenario as well.
01:06:22
Zzweilous
um So that is obviously ah um a big change. Like if you had Lapras's predecessor, Dugong, against the Fighting-type, you could debuff it, but you couldn't win that matchup, whereas Lapras now is able to actually flip that on its head.
01:06:38
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:06:38
Zzweilous
Because Lapras is so strong neutrally, um there's only like a dozen matchups that it doesn't win if it has a one-shield advantage, whereas it beats like a thousand Pokemon with a one-shield advantage.
01:06:51
William Dunphey
oo
01:06:51
Zzweilous
um That is how strong and dominant Lapras is.
01:06:55
William Dunphey
wow
01:06:55
Zzweilous
um That means that this is the go-to Pokemon that a lot of people will um build around either to to utilize to utilize it for themselves or to specifically target and counter it.
01:07:11
Zzweilous
And what that means, especially because Laopras shares some weaknesses with common Pokémon that were really shaping the previous meta, such as Shadow Feraligatr or Azumarill, and that it has all those classic water weaknesses.
01:07:11
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:07:27
Zzweilous
um What that means is that this has wide-reaching implications for how teams are structured overall, because this isn't just a Pokémon that slots into one role that has has already been established, but it's a Pokémon that has the potential of redefining the roles that we see on Teams of Six, and I think that is super exciting.
01:07:50
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree as well. It's definitely i the shielding scenario thing you mentioned is honestly wild. Lapras is a Pokemon that has had a tremendous amount of bulk and HP.
01:08:01
William Dunphey
And I do want to shout out to Khaleesi Fitzy for actually playing Lapras all the way back. And I believe it was the 2023 season in Peoria, if I'm not mistaken. ah That was incredible to watch.
01:08:12
William Dunphey
But this Lapras is just going to be different. And I think there's a lot of debate about whether you want to run Ice Beam or Skull Bash. I've looked at the simulations. I think that Sparkling Arya and Ice Beam might be the early um kind of lead here in terms of moveset choices.
01:08:26
Zzweilous
Thank you.
01:08:26
William Dunphey
But yeah, Lapras with Psywave, there might even be some breakpoints and bulkpoints I'm not certain about. But I definitely think finding a good complement to that will be really tricky. I'm trying to remember, did you and I discuss actually a Lapras Emolga core taking over? Did we talk about that?
01:08:43
Zzweilous
i don't I don't know for sure, actually, but like Emolga is definitely another one that is on the rise.
01:08:46
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:08:50
Zzweilous
I don't think it will be as centralizing, as polarizing as... Like Lapras isn't polarizing at all. That's the wrong word for it. But it won't have the same gravity that Lapras has where everything just falls in its place around it.
01:09:03
Zzweilous
But Emolga is definitely more viable. in that it received both a discharge, I would call it a discharge rework, whereas previously ah was a 45 energy move.
01:09:11
William Dunphey
e
01:09:14
Zzweilous
Now it's likely going to be 40 energy for a little less damage, um so that's why it's not a straight buff, but merely a rework, but... This will will allow Emolga to pace to its moves a lot faster, especially as Acrobatics, which as a flying type charge attack used to be its main damaging move, will now still do the exact same amount of damage, but for 5 less energy.
01:09:39
Zzweilous
So both of its charge attacks um saw a reduction in cost.
01:09:40
William Dunphey
Ooh, nice.
01:09:44
Zzweilous
And I think this is actually a pretty good change. We have seen one Emolga top card Ewa SC already, I think in the hands of Nickname, if I'm not mistaken. um
01:09:53
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:09:54
Zzweilous
But yeah, like Nighttime Clash are reaching fifth place with a non-Shadow Zapdos essentially meant that to really utilize the optimal electric flying type, you wouldn't need a Pokemon that was in research breakthroughs all the way back in like 2019, 2020.
01:10:10
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:10:10
Zzweilous
And I feel like that's just not a reasonable ask, especially for newer players and that... Imolga's buff now makes it the best electric flying type. um I think that's a huge win for accessibility, and I think it should be a really fun one to try out and maybe help target down those zappras that will be everywhere.
01:10:28
William Dunphey
It's so funny too, because the research box Zapdos are now so old that you have a very high chance of them rolling lucky when you try to reroll them with another trainer. So it's like, damn, this is a good, this is a good mechanic, you know, to trade old things and have them go lucky more frequently.
01:10:39
Zzweilous
Exactly.
01:10:44
William Dunphey
But at the same time, if you're trying to reroll and get better IVs, it's like, Oh, another lucky Zapdos. And I only have two in my storage. So I guess I'm just screwed. I'm not going to have one. ah ah One of our ah our friends, Shiny Hunter Ben, he likes to clown on Emolga quite a bit. Sometimes I'll joke with him.
01:11:01
William Dunphey
Maybe on broadcast, I'll say, oh yeah, Shiny Hunter Ben's favorite Pokemon, Emolga. You know, just just to mess with him. But now, finally... emoga is going to be meta i think it's going to be very very powerful and i'm excited to use it i've got a high ranked one and i think trainers exposure to this pokemon might be limited to something like flying cup or maybe a couple of limited metas where you played it but i do think it will be uh it will be a star um so i shouted out lapras that's like the easy one i think that a lot of folks are looking at what do what do you have on your radar are you are you seeing something that i'm missing
01:11:34
Zzweilous
um So one thing that I think is going to be partnered a lot with Lapras could be the Shadow Sableye, especially if they're like in the early stages where people might not have adapted immediately um and could still be running something like Annihilate, which I think is honestly going to kind of fall out of favor.
01:11:59
Zzweilous
um because Shadow Sableye actually is ranked ah fifth on PvPoke right now as the preview rating for the next season.
01:12:00
William Dunphey
Mmm. Whoa.
01:12:05
William Dunphey
wo
01:12:09
Zzweilous
And it saw two buffs in that it got um a rework for the move Foulplay, which is its cheapest charge attack. um Now it's going to be able to pace to foul play, which got a slight damage reduction, but also an energy reduction to what is likely to be 40.
01:12:25
Zzweilous
It's going to be able to pace to that in just five shadow claws, therefore matching the pacing of something like a shadow for alligator and overall just um being able to really pace alongside the meta rather than behind the meta.
01:12:28
William Dunphey
wow
01:12:40
Zzweilous
um And I think that's going to be super, super valuable for it, especially because we know Stableye is like the premier safe swap from back in the day, just like a Pokemon that can really give you an advantage once you get ahead like one or two Shadow Claws and even has play into stuff like Azumarill, which in the two shields, you just straight up beat with ah with a Shadow.
01:12:55
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:13:01
Zzweilous
And Sableye also got access to the new charge attack Dazzling Gleam, which is like not new, but newly improved in that it it also saw a massive energy reduction, um which also goes along with it a little bit of a damage reduction, but it's more accessible now and gives Sableye a little bit of an out against Sableye.
01:13:20
Zzweilous
Things like, for example, Amal Amar, which also benefits from the improved foul play pacing. So you have um you have um play there, especially against other Dark types.
01:13:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:13:31
Zzweilous
And yeah, I think Sableye is going to be one that ah we'll see a lot of play just because it double resists those Psy waves and then just has a lot of ah good utility with the energy that it generates so quickly.
01:13:44
William Dunphey
So I want everyone to take note because we got a massive change with the max out season update. Obviously, Claude Sire for Alligator became the new thing. ah But I just want to remind everybody because prior to that, we had Vigoroth, Whiscash, and Gligar.
01:13:59
William Dunphey
They were very, very prominent. We saw them all over competitive teams. Gligar, five wing attacks to the Aerial Ace. Vigoroth, five counters to the Body Slam. Whiscash, five Mud Shots to the Mud Bomb.
01:14:10
William Dunphey
And I really feel like ah what the Max Out Season update helped us with was the power creep. and We had so many Pokemon that got to their move so quickly, and it really felt like if you weren't running you know this hyper-optimized team of 10 to 12 turn charge attack users, then you were really going to get left behind.
01:14:27
William Dunphey
And that's why Pokemon like Sableye largely fell out of the meta. Now we're kind of building up a power creep in a different way. ah We have a lot of these moves that are now what we call the 70-40s, where they've got 70 damage for 40 energy, and Pokemon-like Stabilite. Now it's only five Shadow Claws up to the to the foul play, and then we we suspect that Swampert's going to be, what, five Mud Shots to the Sludge?
01:14:48
William Dunphey
we're going to we're going to be heading into a new style of power creep. And I just want everyone to pay like really close attention to how these metas are shifting and changing because eventually i might give it till maybe after worlds, right? I think after worlds, people will say, oh, well, I don't want to play this meta anymore because Sableye is too fast and it's too strong and Swampir gets to the move too quickly.
Meta Dynamics and Critiques
01:15:09
William Dunphey
And, ah you know, these 70-40 moves are so annoying, like Aqua Jet on Golisopod or whatever.
01:15:14
William Dunphey
These moves are too good. So I don't know. I don't want to say I told you so, but I just want everyone to to keep notice and kind of understand how these metas come into being and how they change and how these like core 10 to 12 Pokemon that will inevitably inevitably bubble up to the top of the usage.
01:15:31
William Dunphey
just everyone to... to take note of how this process happens. Because I see a lot of suggestions on on X. I see a lot of, you know, my friends are sending me DMs about movesets and questions about them.
01:15:42
William Dunphey
And a few folks, you know, I i love him to death. i I won't name him because I don't want people to come after him with pitchforks. ah But there's a couple of folks who said that the Lantern Trevenant Noctal meta was better than the one we're currently in.
01:15:57
William Dunphey
And I just categorically
01:15:58
Zzweilous
People are forgetting so quickly.
01:16:00
William Dunphey
I categorically disagree with every fiber of me, right? I just think that that meta was so, so awful. Commentating that meta for six plus months was literal torture. And it was even worse for the players that were locked into it. Because again, you know, if your opponent leads Trevenant and you lead Noctowl and then um they switch to Lantern and you bring out your Trevenant, it's GG's. The game is over.
01:16:22
William Dunphey
Like there's there's no there's no play there for anyone. So...
01:16:24
Zzweilous
i think I think if we did a poll and asked what is the worst meta of all time, i would predict like a 60% plus majority for the Trevenant Nocturl Lantern meta.
01:16:37
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:16:38
Zzweilous
And like that's if we really have like 10 different options to choose from, because I think that was essentially universally hated just because of especially the RPS nature of the Trevenant Nocturl matchup, which was just so, so dire for the Trevenant.
01:16:53
William Dunphey
Yeah, you know, I'll take ah I'll take a a matchup between two teams with five XL Pokemon on each side. Lickitung, Sableye, Medicham, Azumarill.
01:17:01
Zzweilous
Yes. is
01:17:04
William Dunphey
i'll I'll take those those games of Medicham mirrors and Lickitung mirrors. I'll take those any day of the week compared to the absolute just depravity. the absolute insolence of this knockdown Trevenant Lantern meta that was so cursed. and And yeah, to to answer a question I got on on X recently, no, I do not believe Lantern should learn Bolt Switch.
Analysis of Emerging Pokémon Strategies
01:17:25
William Dunphey
However, there are some pretty interesting updates as well. um I just want to call this out. All right. Is this is this Pokemon the truth or is it is it fake?
01:17:37
William Dunphey
I'm talking about Grumpig with Psywave. Is this Pokemon actually going to light up GBL and play Pokemon or is it or is it a fraud?
01:17:45
Zzweilous
Grampig the pig. This is an interesting one. I think it's pretty cool, but I don't know whether it will really carve out the niche because it's like a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades Pokémon.
01:17:57
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:17:59
Zzweilous
It could be a master of non-Pokémon too. ah You have the Psywave, stabs Psywave, which is a pretty good move. Some might argue it's just about the best fast attack that you could have.
01:18:09
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:18:09
Zzweilous
on a Pokémon. And then you have this coverage of Dynamic Punch, which is um a good charge attack in its own right, but is um going to be even better next season just because it receives a 5 energy reduction, making it equivalent to Avalanche, which is widely considered one of the best, most energy efficient charge attacks in the game.
01:18:30
Zzweilous
And then Shadow Ball. This is fighting fighting Ghost coverage, essentially unresisted by every Pokémon that isn't his Hisuian Sorrow arc, which isn't even in the game yet.
01:18:41
Zzweilous
So I think Grumpig has ah pretty a pretty interesting offensive toolkit that might see it thrive um in the right hands.
01:18:54
Zzweilous
But Psychic is a pretty lackluster defensive typing as well. And while it is bulky enough to sponge a neutral move, it might not be bulky enough to sponge multiple neutral moves the same way like an Azumarill would be. It's like in that bulk range of, okay, ah you're not squishy, you're not immediately in danger of getting thumped down after tanking one, but you also are not tanking too.
01:19:16
Zzweilous
um So Grumpick, I think it's overrated on PvPoke, as I don't believe that it's a top 10 contender Pokemon.
01:19:16
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:19:24
Zzweilous
I don't think it will necessarily... like Maybe it makes the top 12 usage graphic like once or twice this season, but it probably will reside just below that. But I do believe that it's good. i do believe that if you manage the energy with it really well, um then you can make this work and get medals with Grumpick.
01:19:42
Zzweilous
I think... It has all the tools, it just is like probably not the best Psy Waiver and quite vulnerable to especially the um Ghost and Dark types um that it can fight back against with its shard attacks, but those take some time to load up, and I think especially Ghost types with the buff to Hex, with Sableye being more relevant.
01:19:54
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:20:06
Zzweilous
um I think Ghosts are going to see a lot of play and also a lot of diverse play because the top Ghosts in Annihilate, which now just sees itself in a different environment that won't play it to its strengths as as much, and also Galarian Kossela, which got hit with a targeted nerf to Nightshade, those will fall out of favor and probably open up the field for Stableye, for Dusknoir, for Dusklobs, for Jellicent.
01:20:33
William Dunphey
I mean, you can't really forget about our new Sucker Punch users. For example, Bombardier is getting Sucker Punch, as is Belly Bolt. ah But the real Titan here has got to be Mightyena, right? I mean, that is ah that's really going to tear up the meta, I think.
01:20:48
Zzweilous
Well, Mighty Ina and Mastery is the name of the season, so it's it's pretty much eponymous with the season itself.
01:20:52
William Dunphey
Ah.
01:20:58
Zzweilous
So maybe they just want us to run this...
01:20:58
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:21:01
Zzweilous
like you You can have a Shadow Mighty Ina with Stab Sucker Punch and the opportunity to Poison Fang through any neutral matchup. ah that That sounds pretty convincing to me.
01:21:09
William Dunphey
sheesh
01:21:10
Zzweilous
and Now you ah you imagine um a lack of Annihilate as well, a lack of Fighters in general, which is like one of the main threats. Mighty Ina? Maybe it can win a tournament.
01:21:21
Zzweilous
um I honestly don't believe so, but it's fun spice.
01:21:23
William Dunphey
no ah
01:21:25
Zzweilous
I feel like people will enjoy it in the Go Battle League.
01:21:27
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah, I think so too. It'll be one of those picks that you see and you're just like, seriously, this is your third Pokemon. This is what you have. ah But speaking of Pokemon weak to counter that I do think are going to make a bigger impact, I like Furret, actually.
01:21:40
William Dunphey
ah it's got ah It's actually got a very healthy stat product. It's going to get Swift and Trailblaze and it already learned Sucker Punch. So I think this Pokemon actually could be ah a a Kryptonite of sorts to some of these psychic and ghost types that we're going to see. For example, the Grumpig obviously will not appreciate all those sucker punches, especially after a Trailblaze.
01:22:00
William Dunphey
And if you're going up against something like Sableye, I don't know how close that matchup is, but I figure it's got to be competitive, right?
01:22:07
Zzweilous
I think like as a Furt, you're in really good shape if you go up against anything with a ghost subtyping.
01:22:12
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:22:12
Zzweilous
And especially the synergy between Trailblaze as an attack that boosts your attack and Sucker Punch as a fast attack that, while generating a solid amount of energy, is also rather damage-oriented.
01:22:25
Zzweilous
I think that should play really well, and I think that Furt is a legitimate threat. I think it's... um A very neutral option overall, but one that makes very efficient use of the tools that it has. And as you mentioned, it's by no means frail. It's by no by no means flimsy. It very much is able to take a hit.
01:22:45
Zzweilous
um And I think it will enable a lot of very dynamic gameplay as well.
01:22:45
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:22:49
William Dunphey
sir So here's interesting matchup facts for you. i just went and simmed on PVPoke. I went to the new season predictions and I simmed for it versus Save-A-Li. In the ones, you go straight Trailblaze and you win that game with half of your HP, with 50% of your HP remaining.
01:23:05
William Dunphey
In the twos, you throw the first Trailblaze, it gets shielded. You throw a Swift, it gets shielded. And then your third Swift is actually enough to KO. And you lead that matchup with 105 of 158 HP.
01:23:17
William Dunphey
So dude it is it is a slaughter.
01:23:18
Zzweilous
God, that is dominant.
01:23:22
William Dunphey
The Sableye actually gets broken down into little tiny bits against for it. So I don't know. I think there might be something there. I think that's really interesting. um We're going to allude to this as well.
01:23:33
William Dunphey
But ah one interesting point that I heard on Butter's Roundtable was that now that Roserate has Poison Sting, it's actually going to have the same pacing as Drapion does, meaning you'll play Poison Sting to Weatherball in just four and then Poison Sting to Leaf Storm in five.
01:23:52
William Dunphey
And Leaf Storm, ah it Fs things up. It really does.
01:23:55
Zzweilous
Yes, it very much does. like You think you resist the grass damage, you do not resist Leaf Storm.
01:24:02
William Dunphey
Nope.
01:24:02
Zzweilous
There is no resisting this move. It is so powerful. And especially coming off a Pokemon such as Roserade, which has... essentially only an attack stat. It has no stats beyond the attack stat, but that it does have.
01:24:14
William Dunphey
Yep. yep
01:24:15
Zzweilous
So I feel like this Pokemon is one that, I think Tomahawk called that out. Somebody will do well with the Roserade, but it's not going to be a Pokemon that makes top 12 usage anytime soon.
01:24:28
Zzweilous
It is too frail for that. it is too vulnerable to side wave damage ah in particular, but its pacing is amazing. And if you actually get the bait correct, and you can get a Weather Ball shielded and then land the Leaf Storm, it has like a 75% win rate against stuff.
01:24:45
Zzweilous
So it is it is very much like high risk, high reward, but that's the kind of Pokemon that we like to see, where you kind of...
01:24:45
William Dunphey
Gosh.
01:24:53
Zzweilous
um need to play it optimally to really get all the value out of it but it's not so like overwhelming overpowering that you can just spam it and do well no matter what roserate is not that type of pokemon but it's a sweeper in the truest sense of the word and if you get shields down if you save a shield for it if you get a little bit of an energy head start i will not be surprised to to see people just go down to a single roserate
01:25:05
William Dunphey
Hmm. Hmm.
01:25:21
William Dunphey
Yeah, it could absolutely sweep. And I think it's going to be a serious threat in GBL for the reasons that you mentioned. If you see that Pokemon coming on a team of six and you're able to align your Psywave user or your Mandibuzz or whatever it might be, you will find answers to it.
01:25:36
William Dunphey
But if you can't see it coming and then suddenly it's in the back with a shield advantage, it can be really, really rough to get through. um
01:25:42
Zzweilous
I think it will like it will play fairly similar to ah what we have in Morpeco right now.
01:25:42
William Dunphey
was
01:25:48
Zzweilous
like Other than Morpeco, it doesn't really boost itself.
01:25:48
William Dunphey
oh good point.
01:25:52
Zzweilous
is actually able to doubly self-debuff itself. um But it doesn't even need the boost. The move is strong enough.
01:25:59
Zzweilous
um But just the combination of super high attack stat, super fast pacing, and ah maybe being a little baity at times, I feel like it will play very much similar to MoPeko, which also I think is in a little bit of a better spot this season compared to the last one, um with the probable decline in counterpressure and also the ability of double resisting Psywave as a dark subtype.
01:25:59
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:26:25
William Dunphey
That's a good point. I feel like ah what's what's been holding back Morpeko is also the prevalence of ground types in Clawed Sire and the Mud Slappers. And if we see less of those, I do think Morpeko would actually be very, very useful.
01:26:38
William Dunphey
um i actually recommended a team of three to Inadequance. He's putting together a Go Battle League graphic for the new season. And my team does feature Morpeko, but I have a a specific strategy about how to use it.
01:26:49
William Dunphey
um
01:26:49
Zzweilous
um
01:26:50
William Dunphey
i'm I'm itching to talk about one Pokemon in particular, Z, but I'm not sure if there's any others that you want to spotlight first.
01:26:56
Zzweilous
Well, I will definitely spotlight some as we go through them, but I'm very eager to hear your um your your special sauce for this upcoming Maiden Mastery meta as well.
01:27:00
William Dunphey
Okay.
01:27:07
William Dunphey
All right. Well, here goes. Big man blast. Big man blast.
01:27:13
Zzweilous
What?
01:27:16
William Dunphey
All right, if you haven't heard that song, if you haven't heard the big man Blastoise song, you need to listen to it. It gets stuck in your head, and it's actually awesome because Blastoise is definitely my favorite Pokemon of all time. Of course, I love Fortress for all the Silphurina success, but man, Blastoise with Rollout.
Speculation on Meta Shifts and Pokémon Roles
01:27:34
William Dunphey
Is this the real deal? Because it looks really good, and I'm so euphoric that we are going to live in a meta where Lapras and Rollout Blastoise can be on the same team, and it would be totally viable.
01:27:46
Zzweilous
I think it's going to be such an exciting time for water types, just because like the new meta environment and the new move additions just make it so competitive. Like there's probably like half a dozen picks that could reasonably win a tournament um as a water type. And most of those haven't really been viable before at all. Like previously, like you had like the odd mud boy, like maybe a Gastrodon, maybe a Quagsire. Then you had Shadow Feraligatr and then you had Azu.
01:28:19
Zzweilous
But that was essentially it. um Now you will have rollout blast toys, which is like, you have a rollout user that spams Hydro Cannon and is also bulky. That sounds amazing.
01:28:29
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:28:30
Zzweilous
You still have Azure, you still have Feraligatr. But what I'm most interested in is the question of, and I feel like we should make that maybe like a poll on on like whatever social media site we favor.
01:28:43
Zzweilous
um where we could ask, what is ah the best water starter to run in play Pokemon right now? Because we will have a Big Man Blastoise competing with its newfound rollout fast attack.
01:28:51
William Dunphey
Ooh.
01:28:56
William Dunphey
Yep. Mm-hmm.
01:28:57
Zzweilous
We'll have a Shadow Feraligatr still trying to go somewhat strong.
01:29:01
William Dunphey
yeah
01:29:02
Zzweilous
It hasn't been nerfed. It hasn't been touched. It's probably still going to be a good Pokemon. um and Then we are going to have Swampert back again. That still gets Hydro, obviously, but it also has Sludge now, which is one of those 40 energy, 70 damage moves ah that are new and improved that you mentioned.
01:29:21
William Dunphey
Ooh.
01:29:21
Zzweilous
And then we also have Greninja still. which um obviously has Water Shuriken as its unique fast attack. But I think the dark subtyping is and is a real asset for a lot of Pokemon in this upcoming meta with um the amount of ghosts that are viable and also with Lapras just being everywhere. Like if I talk about Sidewave, Lapras and Shadow Claw, Foulplay, Sableye, what better to run into that than a Green Ninja? So I feel like there's really four starters that all could reasonably win a tournament.
01:29:54
Zzweilous
I really want to like look back at this maybe and of May and see, okay, how many top top eight does each of these Pokemon have? How many top fours does each of these Pokemon have? And I think it can be really competitive between all four.
01:30:07
William Dunphey
Oh, very nice. I love that. I'm honestly so excited for people to be able to play this, this iteration of the meta. You know, the season update goes live tomorrow. I'm really excited to see people test these Pokemon. And I would love to do that poll. I think we should throw it up maybe on Friday once everyone's gotten a chance to play some Blastoise and we'll see what everybody says, because I'm really curious.
01:30:28
William Dunphey
um Yeah, I'm really excited for Blastoise. I think it's going to really impressive. Water types in general are good. And honestly, i had I had the same thought that you did about the water types. But I also have like a sneaking suspicion that this could also be a very good season for Superior.
01:30:45
William Dunphey
And not for any other reason besides the fact that it's just going to hammer water types and ground types just relentlessly. And yes, there will be, you know, dark type pressure. I don't think Shadow Drapion going anywhere.
01:30:56
William Dunphey
um I think Guzzlord might actually get more play, but I feel like Superior is still going to have its own place in the meta. And even though it didn't get an update, I think it's still powerful.
01:31:04
Zzweilous
Yeah.
01:31:07
Zzweilous
Yeah, i think the Grasses, which is mainly Superior and Jump Thoth, they're not going anywhere. They're still going to be around just because the sustained presence of Water types at the top of the meta, and also because of Superior's excellent neutral matchups, right? Because you have your Frenzy Plant, which is obviously a very strong move, Community community Day Attack.
01:31:28
Zzweilous
um You have solid enough pacing for a Pokemon of its bulk, and you obviously have the ability to withstand um enough neutral moves, fast attack pressure to really um be able to um stand your ground in those long drawn on matchups.
01:31:43
Zzweilous
So I believe superior is going to be a factor still, jump up is going to be a factor still.
01:31:44
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:31:49
Zzweilous
um And also, um this might be a little bit more of a sleeper pick, but I think Cradly is going to do something next season.
01:31:56
William Dunphey
Ooh, yeah.
01:31:57
Zzweilous
Cradly benefits from the ah somewhat doubly buffed Rock Tomb that is now ah less expensive and also more powerful in terms of its damage output. um It will probably be running Grassnaught and Arokjum both at 50 energy, meaning it can double up up if it wants to.
01:32:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:32:14
Zzweilous
And Credibly not only has this good coverage, it also benefits from um very few Steel types being part of the meta.
01:32:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:32:22
Zzweilous
Annihilabe as the main counter user probably seeing less play now. um the main Ice type not doing Ice type fast attack damage anymore.
01:32:33
Zzweilous
Like there's a lot of things going right for Cradle right now. And as a Pokemon with pretty respectable natural bulk, plus Rock Tomb to even increase increase that bulk further artificially, i think it's going to be a pain to remove for a lot of teams. And I think Cradle is, it's good enough to win a tournament.
01:32:52
Zzweilous
It's good enough to win a tournament.
01:32:53
William Dunphey
Wow. All right. I do like the the Cradily shout out. And I feel like the Rock Tomb buff is also a significant one. If it does have the energy value that we are assuming, it's going to be cheaper. It's going 100% guarantee the ah the debuff.
01:33:08
William Dunphey
And it's going to be ah devastating because the problem with Rock Typing and Pokemon Go is that if your Pokemon is Rock Typing, anything out of you know the the occasional Regirock,
01:33:19
William Dunphey
or maybe you played like Alolan Graveler in some kind of limited cups, anything outside of that, rock is just not a good typing. It loses to way too many things, but rock damage is actually very, very valuable ah for hitting bugs, flyers, and fires.
01:33:34
William Dunphey
It's really, really good. And I feel like having that coverage and in ice types as well, you know, for example, um the Crideli versus Dugong matchup, right?
01:33:39
Zzweilous
Yes.
01:33:41
William Dunphey
Maybe you rocked him at first to debuff it instead of, you know, ah it debuffing you, and then you're able to win the matchup more cleanly. So, I do think we will we will see a lot of that. um A couple other Rock Tomb users I want to highlight. First of all, my boy Fortress.
01:33:55
William Dunphey
I think Fortress is ah potentially in a good spot and um in Spirit Tomb as well.
01:33:56
Zzweilous
just
01:34:00
Zzweilous
I think it's in a great spot, actually. I think it's in a great spot.
01:34:02
William Dunphey
Yeah?
01:34:03
Zzweilous
I feel like it was it was very close to being excellent last season already. It got a medal in Stuttgart, piloted by inadequants.
01:34:12
Zzweilous
um And then it fell off a little bit just because of the ah increase in both Diggersby and Annihilate usage.
01:34:12
William Dunphey
Shout out to Martyn.
01:34:20
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:34:20
Zzweilous
But now that Korsler won't be as prevalent, Diggersby might not feel like as much of a necessity. And also with, like, I feel like the diversification of ghost types um with their various coverage options make it so that this just, like, makes Annihilate less useful, less prevalent, um and maybe other normal types come to the forefront that aren't Diggersby.
01:34:47
Zzweilous
um And if you have, like, the the aforementioned Furret as um the normal type of choice to maybe deter the ghosts, um that has a way worse matchup into um Fortress compared to Digger Speed.
01:34:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:35:01
Zzweilous
So yeah, I believe that Fortress already used to be an excellent corebreaker. Now it has a better meta environment and its cheap move is actually a good one now.
01:35:12
Zzweilous
So yeah, I believe like the current PvP ranking of Fortress doesn't do justice it justice whatsoever. i think it's actually very powerful and um dare I say like...
01:35:20
William Dunphey
yeah
01:35:25
Zzweilous
maybe like top 15 best options to to put on your team right now.
01:35:31
William Dunphey
Whoa.
01:35:31
Zzweilous
um I would i wouldt maybe even go that far, yeah.
01:35:34
William Dunphey
Wow. All right. All right. ah You know, this is just music to my ears. You know, I love to i love to hear this, especially with the absence of fire, right? Fire is is Fortress's worst nightmare. And when you have, you know, rollout, blastoise, sidewave, lapras, and you combine that with all the other water types that are already prominent in the meta, I think that a Talonflame Typhlosion might fall even further out of favor.
01:35:56
William Dunphey
And, you know, even if it does come down to that, you can just throw the rock tomb and you can just punish the fire types that way. So I do think it has a ton, ton of flex play. um So there were some hot takes during 2Obutter's meta discussion today.
01:36:10
William Dunphey
not sure if you wanted to dive into those, but I've got three that I wrote down and I think we should react.
01:36:15
Zzweilous
I love of calling people out for whatever they say, um like naively on a public broadcast. So let's hear it.
01:36:25
William Dunphey
Yeah, right. Oh, this is ah this is a friendly you know chat about the meta. Yeah, let's roast them for their takes. you know Let's do that. um
01:36:32
Zzweilous
earl
01:36:33
William Dunphey
First up on the on the roasting table here is Tomahawk. Tomahawk says that Spiritomb might actually be the biggest winner from this season update.
01:36:45
Zzweilous
um Will it be the biggest winner? I don't believe so.
01:36:48
William Dunphey
the
01:36:48
Zzweilous
I feel like the biggest winner is quite obviously Lapras. um
01:36:53
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:36:53
Zzweilous
Do I think Spiritomb is underrated? Yeah, for sure. and feel like Spiritomb is in a very similar boat as Fortress is in that the current PvP ranking doesn't quite reflect its win rate against the core meta.
01:37:11
Zzweilous
And I also think that um we have a history of kind of underrating Sucker Punch users. Like we used to not really um give a damn about Galarian Moltres at the start of last season.
01:37:16
William Dunphey
That's true.
01:37:24
William Dunphey
Mm
01:37:24
Zzweilous
And then there was point in time when Galarian Moltres was actually preferred to Mendebus. And like Mendebus was seen as strictly inferior just because the the Sucker Punch flex play was so, so valuable.
01:37:37
Zzweilous
um And that only really changed when Annihilate came into play and you wanted the S-Mendebus rather than the neutral Sucker Punches that Moltres could offer. um But yeah, now with fighters kind of being on a downswing again, ah feel like Sucker Punch users will have a ton of play.
01:37:55
Zzweilous
And I think Spiritomb has the stat product and also with Rock Tomb now um and additional um coverage move that it had that before, but it's just so, so much more useful now.
01:38:07
Zzweilous
um And yeah, like Stab, Sucker Punch and a Pokemon with Sable Eye typing and Decent Stab product. Count me in. and I feel like that's actually a really, really good choice.
01:38:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm just looking at the simulations. It appears to be 8-7 is the pacing here for the Rock Tomb and Shadow Ball on the Spear Tomb. So a little bit on the slower side, you know, 16 turns and 14 turns.
01:38:29
William Dunphey
But i looked at I looked in particular at the Mandibuzz matchup and Spear Tomb is going to win the zeros. In the ones, it loses with a 446 rating, which is actually much closer than I thought. And then in the twos, it loses with a 494 rating. So if you chip down that Mandibuzz at all whatsoever before you send in the Spear Tomb, hopefully not behind on energy, ah you can probably flip that matchup in the twos or whatever it might be, even in the ones. So...
01:38:54
William Dunphey
I don't know. that there could be There could be some credence to that. I do think the pacing is going to hurt it, but I think that neutrally it's seriously underrated. ah One of its um notable losses is to Azumarill, and the rating is 357, which honestly, for a dark ghost type, if if you're not named Sableye, I expect that matchup to go a lot worse.
01:39:14
William Dunphey
ah But that's actually you know not too bad. And then 351 for Talonflame as well. ah Notable wins, Lapras, Diggersby, Annihilate, Clodsire, and Shadow Drapion. So um maybe missing the target as we move on from those Pokemon. And I will say the wins are all very close.
01:39:31
William Dunphey
The Shadow Drapion is only by 28 points, Clodsire by 43, Annihilate by 48. And for everyone listening, if it sounds like I'm speaking Greek, essentially this means that you probably win this matchup with like 12 to 20 HP, depending on on the ratings here, if you're above 500. So, or maybe even closer than that.
01:39:48
William Dunphey
um Yeah, I don't know. Spiritomb? ah question mark I'm definitely going to try it, but I don't know if it is if it is a sauce so far. I've got a take here from Martyn. Speaking of Darktypes, he says that Guzzlord, Morpeko, and Bombardier are three insane core breakers, and they are all Darktypes. So he thinks that Darktype Pokemon will have an even stronger presence in the meta this season.
01:40:10
Zzweilous
um Will they have that? I think like you always got to pick and choose your dark types, right? Because at the end of the day, they are all competing for very similar niches.
01:40:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:40:23
Zzweilous
And I think like another point that Martijn made, because I also did watch that panel, is that he's of the opinion that fairies are going to be so good next season. Ferry is probably largely meaning Wigglytuff, but potentially also Togetic, which um does have a pretty high stat product and also gets access to one of the forty seventy moves, which is Psyshock.
01:40:46
Zzweilous
um Same damage as last season, but 5 energy cheaper. um That could be a thing. And also Galarian Wheezing, which like kind of suffers from the two-move-slot syndrome, where always wants to run more coverage attacks.
01:41:01
Zzweilous
But that gets the improved sludge with a stab as well, and it's fairly highly fairly highly ranked. So there's a bunch of fairies that um will make their presence known and will probably keep the dark types at bay a little bit.
01:41:16
Zzweilous
But um particularly Morpeko, as it has all the properties of a classic electric-type Corebreaker, and Guzzlord as a Pokemon that might benefit from ah what I think is going to be downswing in terms of Isomerul usage, um like that could also be be benefiting quite a bit.
01:41:38
Zzweilous
um So yeah, on on those two, I would say yeah, yeah, probably there's something there. Bombardier, I'm skeptic. Like, I'm a skeptic because I just, I don't believe there's a reason to use it over Galerian Moltres.
01:41:54
Zzweilous
Galerian Moltres has better stats, and um even though Fly is a good move, Bombardier doesn't have
01:41:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:42:01
Zzweilous
cheap enough of an attack to really make use of its new sucker punch coverage. So I just believe that you will want to go for the bulkier bird, which always will be Moltres.
01:42:12
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm looking here at the stat distribution. Bombardier seems to be weighted probably about 12 points heavier in terms of attack stat, and it's got about 20 points less in terms of defense.
01:42:23
William Dunphey
ah Stamina is almost equal. So yeah, I agree with you. I think they are kind of similar, but when you're already that flimsy as a ah dark flying type, you don't want to be any flimsier because you can only go so high in terms of winning charge tech priorities, right?
01:42:36
William Dunphey
um But what I'm getting from this wireless is you're telling me that I could run Blastoise, Fortress, and Guzzlord on my team of six. And in the immortal words of Johnny Bravo, Oh mama.
01:42:50
Zzweilous
yeah
01:42:51
William Dunphey
That sounds awesome.
01:42:51
Zzweilous
I would say you would not be crazy for that. You would not be crazy for that. I think a team with those those three is fairly well positioned in the meta. Especially because like um if you would have to have some coverage against fighting types on your last three.
01:43:07
Zzweilous
Because like if you look at it, you have a Fortress, which has like neutral matchups at best.
01:43:08
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:43:13
Zzweilous
You have Ghazalord, which takes super effective damage from fighting. And then you also have Lastois, which rollout is resisted by the fighting typing. So you would need to cover for that.
01:43:24
Zzweilous
But other than that, I really like the idea of having this one Steel type that really deters Fairies. And then maybe like a Dark type such as Ghazalord.
01:43:30
William Dunphey
Yep. And grass. Uh-huh.
01:43:33
Zzweilous
um So I feel like those actually this could synergize quite well with each other, especially because all of them also have good play in into Lapras, which we do assume to be the king of show six in the next season with Gaslord double resisting, um Fortress doing super effective Volts, which is, and Rock Tombs against it, while also resisting Cywaves and Blastoise having Rollout, which obviously is also pretty good against an Ice-type.
01:43:44
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:44:02
William Dunphey
i I just appreciate so much how how you have such like an educated response to my cartoonish declaration that I just threw your way.
01:44:11
Zzweilous
ah
01:44:11
William Dunphey
ah You're definitely not one to get lost by curve balls. um But I will say, ah you mentioned we mentioned Blastoise a few times. The last hot take I would love for your your input on I'm already on board. I think this is 100% going to happen. But ah ah you and I actually messaged each other about this at the same time when he said it.
01:44:29
William Dunphey
But House Stark believes that Blastoise will win a regional this season. What do you think, everybody who's listening? Yay or nay? um I'm excited to hear what you think.
01:44:38
Zzweilous
So my take on that is actually, House Stark, it's not going to win a regional. Maybe it gets a medal, but I don't think Blastoise is going to win regional.
01:44:43
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:44:47
Zzweilous
Not because it's not good, but because there's so much water types to choose from that I don't believe that it will rise to the top so clearly that enough trainers will opt for the Blastoise and ah therefore take home that title. I feel like there will probably be like 10% Blastoise usage at any given regional and I don't know whether that will be enough to to take home victory.
01:45:11
William Dunphey
I feel like House Stark is listening to this right now and he's like, okay, Mr. C. Swylus. Yeah, he's freaking reverse engineer. You don't think Blastroos is going to win? well I'm going to show you and he's going to run it in one of his tournaments.
01:45:21
Zzweilous
Yes, yes. I'm like in part challenging him to Lastoist and win a regional with it. I feel like that's always really fun. Like I remember the time when that was like a thing that was, I think between Butters and Caleb, where I think Caleb said that Ampharos could not win a regional.
01:45:36
William Dunphey
Ampharos!
01:45:39
Zzweilous
I came close, okay? I top cut a proper regional with Ampharos before I got good. So I feel like i was I was very close to doing that.
01:45:48
William Dunphey
yeah for for a long time and and probably still to this day, you you're one of 2Obutter's heroes for doing that because he loves the electric types and and he was unable to make them work.
01:45:57
Zzweilous
Thank you.
01:45:59
William Dunphey
So I think he was living vicariously through you in those moments. So that was really awesome. um But yeah, my friend, I feel like I've i've kind of led a couple of these topics so far. I'm curious if you have anything you want to say about the meta, any buffs or nerfs that are kind of sneaking under the radar, anything you want to spotlight?
01:46:18
Zzweilous
So there's still like a bunch of Pokemon that I feel like are worth mentioning. um So we have Claydol in the top 20 Peewee Poke. I feel like that's, like this Pokemon has just been a running gag for so long and now it's actually supposed to be good.
01:46:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:46:33
Zzweilous
Like it still has Mud Slap, which is like continues to be an excellent attack.
01:46:33
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:46:37
Zzweilous
And then it also gets a cheaper, um more damage, ah like just all around improved Rock Tomb now. and it resists Psywave from Lapras. So I feel like there might be like a little bit of a niche. And if Claydol, after all these years, like just just one more charge attack will fix it.
01:46:58
Zzweilous
Didn't even get new attack, just an improved attack this time around. um I would love for somebody to to not no longer let their memes be dreams or dreams be memes, one of the two, and just pilot Claydol to actual success at original.
01:47:13
Zzweilous
I don't know whether it is like the way, um but it is a way now. It's not entire all lunacy anymore, and I kind of appreciate that.
01:47:22
William Dunphey
Hmm. Yeah.
01:47:23
Zzweilous
um What else? I feel like Pangoro is going to be back. I think Tomahawk UK will be very delighted to see his favorite panda to be probably at the top of the food chain for fighters again, just because the ability to combat both ghosts and psychic types is going to be more valuable than ever.
01:47:28
William Dunphey
Ooh.
01:47:44
Zzweilous
um And especially the Lapras matchup. um Having that dark subtyping is going to be invaluable. um What else do we think is going to make an impact? I'm just like scrolling through all of it. I feel like...
01:47:56
Zzweilous
um The one thing that I don't like is that Shadow Drapion is probably going to be even better next season.
01:48:04
William Dunphey
Yeah, agreed.
01:48:05
Zzweilous
might lose its partner in Crime Azumarill if um enough people think that it will fall off in comparison to the other water types. But yeah, like just spamming the Shadow Drapion onto your team will be as reliable as ever.
01:48:20
Zzweilous
um so yeah, I don't know how I feel about that.
01:48:23
William Dunphey
There's a hex buff.
01:48:23
Zzweilous
Do I have like... Yeah, there is a Hex buff. The Hex buff will impact...
01:48:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:48:29
Zzweilous
So the Hex buff will make it so that you actually have two ways of running Drift Blim, where you can opt for Hex to have better zero and one shield matchups, um especially with like the regular Drift Blim.
01:48:42
Zzweilous
And then there's Astonish, which makes you a little more impressive in terms of fast move damage and will probably even... um like mostly help out the Shadow Drift Glim, especially in the two-shield scenario.
01:48:53
Zzweilous
That is interesting. um There is Jellicent, yet another Walter-type that competes for a spot on people's rosters. I feel like it's slightly underrated.
01:49:04
Zzweilous
um We will have to see how well it can play into stuff like Sableye, which on phase value looks rather annoying for it.
01:49:10
William Dunphey
yeah
01:49:13
Zzweilous
um But it's pretty nice to wall all of Lapras' energy, right? So that that's a plus. um We did mention Furet, we did mention Claydol. One thing that I am surprised whether we are going to see that is a return of Alolan Sandslash to Shadowclaw.
01:49:28
Zzweilous
Like, um with all those psychic and ghost types emerging,
01:49:29
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:49:34
Zzweilous
and like the general lack of steel presence in the meta, I wonder whether that could be something, especially also because Powder Snow would be double resisted by Lapras, whereas Shadow Claw would be neutral. I haven't run The Sims yet, but I'm like cautiously optimistic that Shadow Claw, Alolan Sandslash could be a thing.
01:49:55
Zzweilous
um yeah i i expect a lot of weekly i expect less talent in flame oh yeah the one really fun stuff um then i don't know whether anybody will run that especially because it's very difficult to obtain as of now even though i think it's pre-evolution will be obtainable through the weekly ah field research breakthroughs which is armor rouge armor rouge is going to be able to have typhlosion type pacing with
01:49:56
William Dunphey
Interesting.
01:50:16
William Dunphey
yeah
01:50:23
Zzweilous
two incinerates into one Psyshock, which is also just a very, very strong stab move now. So that evolves from Charcadette, which needs to be level 15. So it fits under a Great Leak.
01:50:35
Zzweilous
And it's such a cool Pokemon, just design-wise, that I would really love for somebody to do well with it, even though I'm not sure what that is going to happen.
01:50:38
William Dunphey
it's sick
01:50:44
William Dunphey
Interesting. Yeah, I didn't even think of Armourish. Something that I believe, um i don't know if you've heard of him, the the YouTuber Jonkis pointed out was that Magcargo is actually getting a bit of a buff because if Rock Tomb is taken down to 50 energy, it means you can store two of them instead of just one.
01:50:54
Zzweilous
Oh yeah, that's a pretty simple
01:51:04
William Dunphey
So I don't know how much Magcargo we will see, but I do think that it's really important to consider fast attacks like Incinerate and how they are able to um allow Pokemon to double up.
01:51:14
William Dunphey
on, uh, on otherwise charge attacks that they wouldn't have been able to before. So yeah, maybe that's a good example of it. I don't know if, um, something like crock of lore will do anything special. I don't think it got any other buffs, but, um, we're going to find out, but yeah.
01:51:28
William Dunphey
A couple of question marks in my mind, honestly, i don't know how much of an impact Psy Shock will make on the current meta because we do have so many Dark types still present and fighters are are being pushed further and further you you know to the to the outer edges.
01:51:43
William Dunphey
Aqua Jet Golisopod people have talked about. Aqua Jet Dewgong has also been kind of a topic of conversation ah Dynamic Punch on Dust Noir and Grumpig I think is a little bit interesting.
01:51:54
William Dunphey
I played some Dust Noir in Ultra League last season. It was actually pretty fun because the Astonish really, really chunks. um But I can't recall that many times when I wanted to have Dynamic Punch ah because, you know, ghost typing is is pretty good offensively and you only really want it for the normal types, I guess, or the dark types.
01:52:12
William Dunphey
um Sludge, I think Galarian Weezing with Sludge is something I've heard discussed. Galarian Weezing might be a nice flex pick. It's very fast, it's very flexible. um But of course, it still has to watch out for all the ground types.
01:52:26
William Dunphey
I think Acrobatics, ah the buff, or excuse not Acrobatics, Air Cutter. The changes to Air Cutter are kind of inconsequential because not that many good Pokemon actually learn that move. If I'm looking at PV Poke, the top top listed one is Farfetch'd.
01:52:42
William Dunphey
And then you've got Pidgeot, Golbat, and Crobat behind them. And then you're really dipping low. I mean, when you get to Crobat, you're in the five hundred s in terms of overall rating. So I don't know if Aircutter has any credence at all.
01:52:54
Zzweilous
Yeah. I feel like air cutter is like a move that
01:52:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:53:00
Zzweilous
It made one step into the direction of viability, but a second step will need to follow eventually.
01:53:07
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:53:07
Zzweilous
I'm thinking, like, maybe a 5 to 10 damage increase and maybe wider distribution to more Pokémon. Or maybe, like, an inherent buff to, like, the Pokémon that currently get it.
01:53:21
Zzweilous
For example, like, if you gave stuff like... um Crobat a better fast attack than Air Slash maybe that could be something like if you had like Poison Sting on it um maybe we would talk differently about it but as it stands not a move that needs that much consideration when you build your teams of six for official tournaments
01:53:28
William Dunphey
yeah
01:53:43
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. It's one of those things like, um, I'm trying to remember there was another move that was like, was it astonished that that got buffed like two or three seasons ago?
01:53:51
Zzweilous
I think so, yeah astonish Astonish definitely needed more than one buff to actually be super viable.
01:53:55
William Dunphey
yeah Yeah. Needed a couple of tweaks for sure. um But yeah, I mean, overall, I think this meta looks really exciting. there are a couple of things we didn't mention, like Icicle Spear, Piloswine, Mamoswine, the Psy Shock being added to Togetic and Togekiss.
01:54:11
William Dunphey
um Those seem interesting. Personally, Smylas, I'm trying to... I'm trying to max out and run an ultra league venom moth with side wave.
01:54:20
Zzweilous
Oh god!
01:54:20
William Dunphey
I would check in with, I would check in with you later to let you know how that goes. I'm not expecting very much, but I think i can get away with it in the early season. So, uh, some of those changes are interesting rollout. Whalmer whale Lord, uh, glaley also getting rollout.
01:54:35
William Dunphey
Kanto Weezing might be interesting with Rollout. We're going to have to see ah My goal right now, I'm kind of penciling this in. My goal right now is to try as many um Pokemon with new moves or buff moves as I possibly can within the first week.
01:54:48
William Dunphey
So I hope to ah to publish some videos with some really wacky stuff. So stay tuned for that.
01:54:53
Zzweilous
I'm greatly looking forward to that. And also, like I just went through my Pokemon storage, and I actually do have a Shadow Venomoth for Great League that is the rank 9.
01:55:04
Zzweilous
So I will i think like it's by far and away the worst Psywaver that we've got.
01:55:04
William Dunphey
Ooh.
01:55:09
Zzweilous
um But it's still not a bad Pokemon, right?
01:55:09
William Dunphey
Oh yeah.
01:55:12
Zzweilous
Because if you just get to a stab Poison Fang so fast, you can probably like just degen 2-shield through a lot of stuff. um And I will definitely be trying to do that, so that's going to be a great time.
01:55:24
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Just melt things with side wave after you start debuffing. So it it could be possible. i think it also gets, ah does it get bug buzz or silver wind one or the other?
01:55:33
Zzweilous
Yes.
01:55:35
William Dunphey
Yes. Yes, it does. um But yeah.
01:55:38
Zzweilous
Just yes. both Yes to both.
01:55:41
William Dunphey
Oh man. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. I don't know if it'll be successful. i kind of doubt it, but either way, we're definitely going to give it a try. So honestly, it's wireless on a scale of one to 10. What would you give this season update considering where
Excitement for Upcoming Tournaments and Changes
01:55:54
William Dunphey
we're coming from? How big the max out season changes were?
01:55:57
William Dunphey
ah Is this a good refresh? Is this a midway kind of thing? Is this just okay? How do you feel?
01:56:04
Zzweilous
I feel like a strong 8 on this one.
01:56:08
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:56:08
Zzweilous
i think like there's obviously um maybe some Pokemon that will still be everywhere, like Shadow Drapion. And overall, there's considerations of Power Creep, where you might maybe...
01:56:22
Zzweilous
like one be wondering, okay, how where where is this going to go eventually? um is Is every Pokemon going to be able to keep up with that? Is it possible to rein that in and nerf it again?
01:56:34
Zzweilous
like um For example, I know that on the panel um that Butters held Mato, Mato-Galde, for example, was like, okay, Lapras didn't need Sparkling Aria.
01:56:42
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:56:44
Zzweilous
It's probably a little overtuned now. I tend to agree with that. But um two things that I love about this update are um I think the meta is going to shift significantly, which I think is amazing at this halfway point of the season.
01:57:01
William Dunphey
yes
01:57:01
Zzweilous
Like we are essentially a six months into it. And I think this is the perfect time for larger shakeup. ah This is <unk> sufficiently sufficiently early to allow players to prepare for Worlds and um also just in time for um like like just in time to shake things up so that people are less disappointed when the June update is another minor one um so that is great and another thing that I think is
01:57:22
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:57:28
Zzweilous
really really awesome is that there's just so much diversity that I think is going to be possible now with that um the tried and true ah tried and trusted formula from the last few weeks of the dual destiny season is broken up by the presence of Lapras specifically and all the ripple effects that that is going to have I feel like um we have Like we had 31 Pokemon in day two of EUIC.
01:57:55
Zzweilous
like the amount of viable Pokemon for the upcoming season is 50 plus. And I think that's great because this will allow for so much team building creativity, so much self-expression and so many surprises and just like great, very watchable tournaments.
01:58:00
William Dunphey
Yep. Agreed. agreed
01:58:11
Zzweilous
And I'm 100% here for that.
01:58:13
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think for the first time on the show ever, for the first time, we are going to agree on something that's going to be. i also give this update an eight out of 10. I think it's it's really, really good.
01:58:24
William Dunphey
There's so much kind of ah in terms of ripple effects. I think this this update is really probably being overlooked by a lot of folks right now. I expect some things to to stay the same shadow drappy and I think will be very, very powerful.
01:58:37
William Dunphey
The Mud Slappers are still around. I know a lot of people were were hoping for a Mud Slap nerf in this update. I still think there's time for that before Worlds, but we didn't get it this time. So you still have to deal with that. Still have to contend with those annoying Shadow Kanto Marowax and such.
01:58:52
William Dunphey
But um yeah, I think this is a really, really good update. It's it's honestly more than I expected. i don't know what exactly my expectations were, but this kind of topped my expectations, which is always a good feeling.
01:59:04
William Dunphey
So I'm excited for it. And it also comes to us at a very important time. I posted earlier on, I think it was yesterday but or two days ago on ah on X, and I said that um this is actually the longest stretch in terms of tournaments that we have for this entire calendar's calendar year.
01:59:21
William Dunphey
ah We're going to have 21 events and six qualifiers, which are all TPC region. So basically 27 different championship series tournaments are going to be played in this meta, in this format.
01:59:34
William Dunphey
So...
01:59:34
Zzweilous
That's a lot of podcasts.
01:59:36
William Dunphey
That's a lot of episodes. Yeah, we got a lot ah a lot of recording to do.
01:59:37
Zzweilous
Yeah.
01:59:40
William Dunphey
um But yeah, I'm really excited to see that we had this long stretch of road ahead of us. And instead of seasons past where we looked at that long stretch and we said, oh, God, we have to get through the next three months of knocked out Trevenant lantern.
01:59:54
William Dunphey
And I just don't want to do it. It's going to be miserable. Or we looked back and we said, well, another three months and we got to take Medicham, Lickitung, Azumarill in every and every single game. we're getting something very new this time, which feels really refreshing. And it comes at a really good time. Our, I guess, most dense, I guess you could call it the densest part of the season is this meta. So it's a really good time for it to come to us in not a moment too late.
02:00:21
Zzweilous
Yeah, i think I think it's going to be so fun.
02:00:21
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:00:23
Zzweilous
There's also going to be um its own little standalone meta um next weekend when there's the Vancouver original as well as the Fortaleza original, both of which will...
02:00:33
William Dunphey
Hmm.
02:00:36
Zzweilous
allow Pokémon that already had the moves that got um updated and are maybe more desirable than now, but will not allow Pokémon that um essentially got the attack availability update and now learn moves that they previously didn't learn. So we won't see Sidewave Lapras at that regional.
02:00:55
Zzweilous
um But we might see some of the mons that, for example, a fortress, which already had Rock Tomb, it's going to be able to utilize that buff at that regional already.
02:01:06
William Dunphey
Exactly. We'll see things like ah potentially Hex Drifblim. We'll see the newly buffed acrobatics on Jump Bluff. ah We might even see Dazzling Gleam Sableye because it already learned... Oh no, excuse me.
02:01:18
William Dunphey
It didn't learn Dazzling Gleam. Excuse me.
02:01:19
Zzweilous
It didn't learn as a game.
02:01:21
William Dunphey
I went too far.
02:01:21
Zzweilous
But we could still see SableEye with um the improved foul play and Power Gem, which some trainers have mentioned might still be the way to go, just because Power Gem is also excellent coverage, especially into Lapras.
02:01:26
William Dunphey
That's right. Mm-hmm.
02:01:33
Zzweilous
So, yeah, there's I can definitely see some SableEye gameplay this Vancouver and Fortaleza tournaments.
02:01:42
William Dunphey
I think so as well. um You actually provided, excuse me, a really nice segue as well. ah Let's run down our our list of things. So the upcoming Play Pokemon events ah for the month of March, we've got Vancouver and Fortaleza in Brazil. That's March 8th through 9th. They share the same weekend.
02:01:58
William Dunphey
We then have the India Qualifier. This is the first of six different qualifiers in the Pokemon Company region over in Asia. That is March 15th through the 16th. And then we have Stockholm, March 22nd to 23rd, which is my birthday weekend.
02:02:12
William Dunphey
And Brisbane in March 29th through the 30th. So we have a tournament pretty much every single weekend, sometimes even more than one. which is really, really fun. ah Countdown to Worlds, you have 102 days until NAIC, with which you can earn championship points. So you basically have three months in change in order to get those points.
02:02:34
William Dunphey
And I will say as well that ah the meta we're going to get post Might and Mastery, we're only going to have two events in. It's going to be NAIC and Worlds. So I'm really excited to see ah what Niantic does in terms of tweaking the current meta.
02:02:46
William Dunphey
it Maybe Lapras is too overpowered.
02:02:47
Zzweilous
Still two pretty big events. Still two pretty big events.
02:02:50
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Only two, right? Just the biggest one of the season and the second biggest one, arguably. So yeah, just two events. But maybe Sparkling Aria is too overtuned and Lapras gets nerfed right before the event. Or maybe Foul Play returns to its previous values and Sableye falls out.
02:03:06
William Dunphey
There's a lot that can still change and it's really exciting. um Upcoming, or excuse me, in-game events. We just finished Unovator. ah How many Hundo Kirim did you get, Zarylus?
02:03:16
Zzweilous
I did get one Hanukuram and I'm very grateful for that.
02:03:18
William Dunphey
Nice.
02:03:19
Zzweilous
Thank you, John Hankey.
02:03:21
William Dunphey
ah I had one, a holdover from one that I caught in Mexico over a year ago. It's my only Shundo and it's a Kiram. um That was the only one I got.
02:03:30
Zzweilous
Oh, let's go.
02:03:31
William Dunphey
And I did almost 200 raids and I did not get another Hundo. So it feels bad, man.
02:03:34
Zzweilous
I got two 14, 15, 15 shinies and that was a little bit of a bummer, but that's life sometimes.
02:03:40
William Dunphey
Yeah, it's true. Maybe you can just fuse them to use the adventure effect and not actually battle with them. It's also an option, right?
02:03:48
Zzweilous
That is true.
02:03:49
William Dunphey
um upcoming events season 22 of the go battle league begins on tuesday that is might and mastery that we just spent almost an hour discussing and don't forget mark this on your calendar tuesday night is makuhita spotlight hour what's so special about that speedy it seems like a stupid pokemon yes it is a stupid pokemon but the bonus is anything but because you get two times transfer candy so all those spare curems Russia rums and Zek rums, anything else in your bag that you want to clear out at the beginning of the month of March, definitely take advantage of the two times transfer candy during Makuhita Spotlight Hour.
02:04:22
William Dunphey
You don't have to catch a single Makuhita. Just make sure to do your transfers.
02:04:27
Zzweilous
I'll make sure to not catch a single Makuhita.
02:04:30
William Dunphey
Nice. I think that would be very much in the spirit of ah cleaning out the bag and optimizing for PVP because that's what we do, right?
02:04:35
Zzweilous
but
02:04:38
William Dunphey
um But my friend, it's been a it's been a long one. It's been a good one. i wanted to apologize to everyone. we did miss our EUIC pre-show. um I think Swaylis would have picked himself to win it anyway. So you already kind of got that with what we did today.
02:04:51
Zzweilous
And we've been wrong.
02:04:52
William Dunphey
ah No, just kidding. I think we discussed it in London. You said you didn't even put yourself in top 16. So...
02:04:58
Zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like, like, even though I was, like, confident enough that I was like, okay, like, I could make, like, a top eight. i feel I feel like my season was good enough that I would have trusted myself to to get there on a good day.
02:05:13
Zzweilous
um I would never put myself in a top 16 just because I think it's much more valuable to highlight on Maybe the trainers that aren't on this podcast week in, week out anyway, because I guess i guess our listeners know more of me than they'd like to know.
02:05:26
William Dunphey
true
02:05:32
Zzweilous
So maybe maybe just highlight some some other trainers from time to time.
02:05:37
William Dunphey
Yeah, you know, i really think that Zylas is a very modest trainer. Some would say the most modest. He might be the most modest in the world.
02:05:44
Zzweilous
yeah
02:05:46
William Dunphey
So I do think there's some credence to that. But yeah, I agree with you. It's always fun to spotlight trainers from around the world. And um our apologies if we if we didn't shout out to your name on this episode. There are just so many talented players at these championship series events. And we'll do our best to ah to highlight all of our our outstanding performers as we move through the season. But it's been fun. I'm not sure if you have any closing thoughts on Might and Mastery or EUIC, but i just want to say again, i told you in London, I'll tell you here. Congratulations, Swaylis, on the silver medal.
02:06:16
William Dunphey
Runner-up is no small feat in the biggest Pokemon Go event of all time. You've you've got a lot to be proud of.
02:06:22
Zzweilous
I appreciate it. i certainly am proud of those last few weeks. um But I'm even more excited for the next few weeks just because, as you mentioned, there are so many tournaments to watch, such an exciting meta with so many options. And I want to see those people cook out there and yeah then talk about it on the podcast again because I feel like i feel like we are in for a bunch of amazing content and storylines.
02:06:47
William Dunphey
I agree. right, my friend. It's been a great episode. hope everybody enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. ah Please share it with your friends if you enjoy this this kind of content. And we hope to see you on the next one.
02:06:58
William Dunphey
And with that, peace.