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Ep. 10 Orlando & Perth 2024
168 Plays6 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 10 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This week, we recap Orlando and Perth 2024. We highlight a community-led stream, & a new Perth champion. We also dissect Doonebug97's unparalleled success, after he takes his 3rd Regional crown. Who can stop the DOONE??
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome into the show six podcast where we break down the championship series for Pokemon go today.
Regional Highlights: Perth and Orlando
00:00:07
Speaker
We're taking a look at the Perth regionals where 27 trainers competed and the Orlando regionals where 136 trainers competed as well. Thanks to a strong community effort. We were privileged to see a champion rise in Perth this weekend following a grueling bracket reset.
00:00:25
Speaker
However, in North America, it is a period of utter dominance. The Dune Piers' relentless march turned to the east, claiming an unprecedented third championship in the same season. San Antonio, Knoxville, Orlando, one after the other, these cities have crumbled under the might of the Dune.
Themes and Commentary Style
00:00:47
Speaker
Many have tried. Most have failed.
00:00:50
Speaker
For those of you that hope to challenge Dune at Worlds, I remind you, fear is the mind killer. Fear is the missed shield call that leads to total obliteration. You must face your fear. You must face the Dune Bug.
00:01:27
Speaker
All right, everybody, let's get this picked off. We have the Perth regionals. What? What? What's so funny? That was, that was cinema, right?
00:01:37
Speaker
I was like, oh, we just got Dune II in theaters and we already got Dune III and you basically deliver the perfect trailer for it. Go ahead. It's too obvious, given that his actual name really is Alex Dune. It's pretty amazing that Dune actually ties in that well.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I was trying to write something that was like maybe Star Wars inspired, you know, the evil empire, uh, making its way across the galaxy. Then I said, wait, there's another sci-fi epic that's actually really crushing it right now. And it just fits too well.
00:02:13
Speaker
So yeah, but I think it's, it's been really, really interesting to
Strategies and Community Insights
00:02:18
Speaker
watch. And I think that we have some interesting opinions on, on what can actually be done about Doonbug. Maybe we even have some of our own picks that could actually take him down in an eventual meetup. But I think that we do owe it to the Australian community, the OSEAN community to talk about Perth a little bit.
00:02:37
Speaker
Were you able to catch any of the community stream by PVP Steve and Debbie Pebble and the group? I was. Actually, I did not watch all of it just because of time zones, right? Because that's always a little bit difficult. But I did manage to catch some of it. And I will have to say that I was actually quite the smooth production because going into this, I did not know what to expect.
00:03:06
Speaker
It got explained to me that the European streams last season, before they moved to the official channel, technically were also community streams, but that was basically just identical production compared to the North American streams. Then we have the LATAM streams, which are a little bit middle of the road.
00:03:31
Speaker
not really the big TPCI budget behind it, but still a relatively professional setup. And then we have basically just community members trying their best, which I always go back to like Azarai filming over people's shoulders in Liverpool 2022. Yes. And I did not know which of the three it would be. And I felt like,
00:03:57
Speaker
Last time level production was the best we could hope for given the circumstances and I would say we got that I would say we actually got like very professional child casting thanks to fishy legs and rise to occasion who were
00:04:14
Speaker
Not there in person, but provided their insights from afar. And then we had PVP Steve and Debbie Pebble right there in Perth, doing the on the ground reporting. And I think overall with the graphics, with everything, it was really the best the Australian Oceanian community could have hoped for.
00:04:40
Speaker
I agree. I mean, I thought it was a, it was a great tournament, a great cast. I definitely think that for a grassroots, like you said, like a grassroots powered stream, which did have a GoFundMe to help support it, which, uh, the GoFundMe actually reached its, its, uh, goal and exceeded the goal really quickly, which again, I saw it, I saw it really pop off with like one donation that was like about
00:05:03
Speaker
1k just flat out so yeah like there is apparently a lot of support within the grassroots community for that type of endeavor and i just love to see it
00:05:16
Speaker
Me too.
Australian Pokémon Go Community Resilience
00:05:17
Speaker
It just makes you really happy because PVP Steve has worked very, very, very, very, very hard in order to not only bring us our, our self content back in the day, but also our go battle league met a simplified, uh, graphics that he's been bringing us for at least a couple of years now. And then you turn to the grassroots streams as well. And he was spearheading a lot of that effort. So, uh, great cast by him. I felt like he really drove the show.
00:05:40
Speaker
Uh, he was the engine and it felt like as the show went on, you know, into the wee hours of the morning, he did not lose any enthusiasm generating new topics. I don't know whether this guy can ever lose his enthusiasm. He's been a mainstay of the competitive scene for years now. And the first thing that I always notice about him and like about him is that you're always just really delivers that excitement for PVP.
00:06:10
Speaker
And you can really burn out when casting a long tournament. I would say Perth probably wasn't the longest tournament there ever was. But still, I just love to see the Austrian community be so into their tournaments. They lost OCIC this year, so that was a little bit of just
00:06:40
Speaker
a gut punch, I would say. But responding to that by, oh, we're just doing our own streams now, I think that's the perfect reaction.
00:06:50
Speaker
I do as well. It definitely is a blow because in order to have a growing community, you want it to have opportunities. It feels like an international championship is a huge opportunity to bring lots of new trainers in. There's a lot of hype, there's a lot of pump and circumstance and a lot of production. Once you lose something like that, you have to rebuild.
00:07:10
Speaker
And I think that Steve is doing a great job of that. If you look at the calendar, I believe there's another seven or eight months until a likely Australian tournament. So there's lots of time to plan, lots of time to kind of get graphics together or figure out what you want to do for the next stream, which I think is really important.
00:07:27
Speaker
And I also wanted to shout out to, I believe it was our world champ, It's Axon, who raided into Steve's stream as it started and kind of gave him a massive bump in terms of viewership. And what really made my heart warm though was that those people stayed.
00:07:43
Speaker
There were like 330, 360 people at a time for the entire stream, which given the hours, the time zones, that's actually phenomenal. So I'm really, really excited for that. In terms of the battles, it looks like Rick Flareon took the crown, still one of the coolest names.
00:07:59
Speaker
in all of Pokemon Go, regardless of region. But he did it in a pretty impressive way.
Competitive Strategies and Meta Discussion
00:08:05
Speaker
And grand finals, I thought I thought he was on his heels because he actually ended up losing five games straight in the bracket reset and had to reverse sweep in a sense to win it.
00:08:17
Speaker
This is so impressive just because of the mental pressure. If you lose five in a row, how do you even believe in yourself at that point? But apparently he not only believed in himself, but also in his choice of shadow swampland as his mud boy, which is kind of going against the grain these days. But I do see why he did that.
00:08:45
Speaker
Because if you look at the sims compared to the current dominant matboy, which would be Shadow Wiscash,
00:08:54
Speaker
Like first of all, you just pace to your main damaging move a lot faster. Hydro Canyon is just five, four, five, and Skald is six, six, five. So you're really like, if you're in a hurry, you just get you, you move so quickly. And then you do pick up a lot of important matchups. For example,
00:09:20
Speaker
You really shore up that Skarmory matchup. Sure, you don't want to be in a zero-shield situation where you have to let a brave bird go, but whenever shields are up, the superior pacing just makes that matchup so much more comfortable. You have win conditions against the Likitang, which is still on many, many teams.
00:09:42
Speaker
And you also just don't have to worry about glyga as much because even though you have less bulk to endure a dig, for example, you outpace even to aerial aces and your hydrocannon just takes it out while maybe if you scot it, it hangs on with a little bit. But shadow on shadow, hydrocannon versus a glyga, that's just nothing that a glyga wants to take.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah, the neutral damage output is honestly insane. And we'll talk about this more, but we actually saw JJN play the exact same team as Rick Flareon in Orlando. So if you wanted like an additional blueprint of how to play that high offense, high octane Shadow Swampert,
00:10:28
Speaker
uh in the current meta then you have two basically really good sample sizes to draw from and i thought that uh rick flareon again if you win the first game of the grand finals and then you lose the next uh three to force the bracket reset then you lose the next two so you're really like back against the wall if uh if they love jai gets one more win then they're they become the perth regional champion
00:10:49
Speaker
Rick Flareon somehow managed to come back and win those final three games. He did it off a lot of one HP victories. And speaking of first, you know, the number one, the first game that Rick Flareon actually lost in this tournament was game two of the grand finals versus daylight. That's quite the resume.
00:11:10
Speaker
He was going for the LNDS hard Jeff Curitima resume, you know, just a hundred percent win rate. Um, but a few one HP wins. I really thought that the grand finals bracket reset was fascinating to watch. Uh, game one of the reset, there was a one HP whisk cache that mud bomb KO'd and Altaria to win that battle for they love Jai. Uh, game two, we had, they love Jai with a one HP Regis deal to lock down a vigor off with even less HP to get the game to win.
00:11:39
Speaker
And then game four for Rick Flareon, Gligar only had like two or three HP, but it got to a dig against the register to get revenge. And then, believe it or not, like we were talking about, Shadow Swampert mudshot down a mandibuzz to win game five and seal the title for Rick Flareon.
00:11:56
Speaker
None of these are things that should happen in a regular game of PvP, but this is why this is the grand final, right? Because you have to get creative, you have to find win conditions where there are none, and sometimes you just have your Pokémon up against its hardest counter and still pull it out somehow.
00:12:17
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Exactly. And speaking of hard counters, this is something I want to kind of plant the seed for later as well, because in two of the first four games, uh,
Impact of Team Compositions
00:12:29
Speaker
they love dry. Didn't just win the lead. They won it hard in game number two. They love dry led shadow Lola Ninetales into Altaria, won the game. And in game number four, they read, they led Registeal into Skarmory and won the game.
00:12:41
Speaker
So first question for you is why? How do you feel about Shadow of the Nine Tails in the current meta? Because I felt like with all the Skarmories flying around, I know this is something we're going to talk about a lot this episode. With all the Skarmories, it seems really tough to bring that Pokemon, but it had some success, I guess.
00:13:00
Speaker
I do think that Skarmory does make it really hard to bring, and you will have to be willing to take risks if you're interested in bringing that to a tournament. But I think we did already get some proof of concept for how good Chalmers can be.
00:13:22
Speaker
during some of the most recent European events like if you remember EUIC Scarfo made a really deep run with the Wigglytuff and in Utrecht an eloquence just won the entire tournament with a Wigglytuff and even though Skarmory only does one time super effective damage to a Wigglytuff with it with its steel wing
00:13:43
Speaker
and not two times like against Shadow of the Night and Night Stash. Shadow of the Night Stash, the best Pokémon there is. Nice. And Ninetales, obviously. This is still like not any better of a matchup. If anything, it just means that the Skarmory gets a little more farm. So, Chalmers are always risky, and especially in a Skarmory environment.
00:14:10
Speaker
But with high risk it does come a lot of reward and the thing that Alolan Ninetales has going for it is that it is available as a shadow. And that just makes it so much more oppressive than Wigglytuff in some matchups where the non-shadow charm damage just falls short.
00:14:34
Speaker
So I do still think that you could put it on your team and do reasonably well in tournaments even bigger than Perth, especially with all the Altarias flying around and your ice tap coverage for the Gligas. But yeah, it will always be a risky pick, but Chalmers always have been that.
00:14:59
Speaker
It's just like it's bench pressure if nothing else and that can help.
00:15:05
Speaker
Um, I know that you, you don't know where I'm, I'm going to go with this. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of leaving you out in the dark as well. But I feel like Pokemon like Alola Ninetales, like Registeal, uh, maybe even like a Bastion or God, God, do I say Victory Bell? These kinds of, these kinds of Pokemon, uh, I think are going to be more important for taking down some, some high level trainers, maybe even trainers like Doonbug in the future, because I feel like.
00:15:34
Speaker
neutrally it's so difficult to outplay your opponent and we saw they love jai kind of doing that you know making these hard read hard reads in the lead and the swap uh really kind of putting rick flarey on in a hopeless position i think in game one he or game two he didn't even shield his last pokemon he just let the charge attack through because he knew it was over
00:15:53
Speaker
Uh, but eventually the Rick Flareon, uh, outlasted him. So seeing that kind of, uh, that kind of competition, I think there's a little bit of, uh, of an interesting kind of wrinkle that we can take away from it. But Rick Flareon, definitely one of the main stays in Australia. And we see exactly why after he won the tournament this weekend, but, uh, there's another trainer I wanted to spotlight, which is actually our third place finisher rocket Claire.
00:16:18
Speaker
So, Rocket Claire has obviously been one of the most powerful women battlers in Australia, maybe worldwide. I think he made that argument as well. Worldwide, she's very, very strong. And day two, after an unfortunate loss in the winner's side bracket, she fell to the loser's side bracket, but she went full Furiosa. She had seven rounds in a row where she just won every single match. I think every single match was a 2-0 from not mistaken.
00:16:45
Speaker
And just absolutely, yeah, there was 2-0, 2-0, 2-0, and then finally lost to They Love Jai in a 1-3 set, but still incredible run by RocketClaire. And I really love to see her succeed at that level. And I think she's doing a lot for women battlers everywhere.
Challenging Stereotypes and Unconventional Choices
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, I do want to point out three things about her run. First of all, I feel like there's a bit of a stereotype going on about Australian regionals and not only outside of the region, but also within Australia as well, that some of the people that are like more Melbourne based, more Sydney based, maybe say, or like Perth isn't a real regional, that's just so few people. But like,
00:17:29
Speaker
If I look at Rocket Clear's loser bracket run, that started out with a win against Avrib, who came, I don't know the exact placement, but around top 10 in Worlds, I think, last year. So it's actually the highest caliber of Battler. Then I want to point out that she didn't only came third here in Perth, but also in Melbourne. So it's basically back-to-back third place finishes, back-to-back medals.
00:17:59
Speaker
Um, and she qualified for worlds, uh, with the championship points from this UN. So yeah, all around, uh, impressive showing from rocket clear for sure. Absolutely insane. You're right about, about, uh, have rip. I think you finished ninth only losing to scaffold and Wadaj to knock him out of the tournament. So definitely anyone kind of losing a scaffold like that is.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah. The best of the best do that regularly. Even when it doesn't seem like it's possible, the RNG can, can, uh, uh, what, like a 7% chance of, of a win. I think it was like a 9% chance, but like even then I have to say like, even if, um, I didn't get unlucky in that game, it still would have only been a one to, uh, a one to one at that point. And that's true. There's, there's no knowing whether Scuffle wouldn't have just all played in the third game.
00:18:51
Speaker
anyway, which is a thing that he does on the regular. Fair point. A fourth place finisher in Perth was actually a trainer called Z Tarp, who I'm not super familiar with, but they did it with Claude Sire and Mantine Core.
00:19:08
Speaker
I don't hate any Pokemon, but I kind of despise Mantine. And I think that Mantine, Claude Sire is a strange way to get to fourth place. And I'm not sure if you have thoughts on that or if you just think they're good Pokemon and I'm wrong.
00:19:23
Speaker
The problem is that they are a good Pokemon. I don't necessarily think that you're wrong because, like, you know me as one of the Pelipper guys, right? And Pelipper is basically just a man-team that enjoys doing damage a lot more. And then recently I have discovered the greatness that is Shadow Gerritos. So I would say that in terms of just fun and culture,
00:19:52
Speaker
Mantine is probably the third best Water Flyer, but in terms of competitive performance, it's unfortunate that Mantine is probably just by far the best in the current meta game. So I can definitely see how ZTAB utilized that core. I actually did run that core in a Grassroots tournament that an eloquence hosted in his server a couple months ago.
00:20:18
Speaker
It was centered around Quagsire and CloudSire Gaming and it's some CloudSire business and Mantine really covered it. It's a weakness as well. And apparently that translates into the open great big meta too. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, if you're CloudSire and you're weak to mud boys, like Whiskash, Quagsire, Swampert, Mantine absolutely annihilates those due to its typing in bulk. And then if you're Mantine and you're weak to charge bug lantern, guess what? CloudSire just eats up. He eats up those.
00:20:48
Speaker
especially when it's a charger bug, right? Because lantern, even though two serves don't knock out, you at least have some counterplay. But if you see a plot sire on your opponent's team and you have a charge about yourself, you might just leave it on the bench entirely, because you know it's probably over if you get it locked into the plot sire.
00:21:09
Speaker
Oh, it's, it's definitely a top left situation. It just, it's so dominant of a matchup and Claude sire just devours charge. Well, there's really nothing you can do. It's very, it's very hopeless. Um, but yeah, I thought that Perth was a great tournament. Uh, I heard allegedly, I have to, I have to use allegedly in this sentence.
00:21:27
Speaker
I heard allegedly that Miss Mystic produced the stream from her hotel room, which allegedly could have been in Orlando at the same weekend. So allegedly she was able to do that with some dark magic of some sort, but she's able to conjure a stream 14 hours away in terms of time difference. Like conjuring dark magic to make streams happen sounds like a very Miss Mystic thing to do.
00:21:57
Speaker
I would not put it past her. Exactly. Impressive stuff either way. But I think that kind of encapsulates my thoughts on Perth. Great stream, great cast, incredible trainers. And like you said, a much higher skill ceiling than a lot of people give them credit for. So I'm interested to see what they'll do in the future. I'm not sure if you had any other thoughts. I have one thought in particular because we've seen trainers like
00:22:24
Speaker
Rob Drogo utilized a certain Pokemon in the Australian competitive circuit. And you know that they say there's like a thousand animal species that can kill you in Australia. And I was always under the impression that Bastionon is one of them. But there are no Bastionon in the top card, but six Skarmory.
00:22:46
Speaker
Explain that to me. Six Skarmory. Rob Drago, you're our only hope. You need to bring back the bass seat on it and do well with it. No, I mean, that's fascinating. You had this perception that it was more indigenous to the area, but I thought it was just Rob Drago. I thought it was just him.
00:23:06
Speaker
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe just top cuts so much in the Australian circuit that I just thought, oh, one eighth of Australian top cuts always have Bastion on it. It's just the same guy. True. It was funny when we were first starting off with Play Pokemon, you know, Caleb has always been a Bastion enjoyer. We would see these top cuts and then suddenly we'd turn to Australia and say, what? Even in 2022, Rob Drago top cut with Bastion.
00:23:33
Speaker
We were like, wait, why? It's actually good. And Caleb's like, oh, I told you so. And then he performs incredibly well with it, too. So maybe there is something there. But you do raise a valid point. But speaking of speaking of copying Pokemon and even teams, I have a segue already lined up. I already have it. It's all here.
00:23:54
Speaker
Jay Jan copying Rick Flareon's team and running it in Orlando this weekend, but also I want to throw a little credit to EU out of pocket competing in Orlando with Dean Oskey's team from EUIC. Why are these trainers borrowing teams, do you think? I think this is just my take on the meta and I could be wrong.
00:24:18
Speaker
I think those teams look so similar to the point where they are identical because the meta is so settled that it is very difficult to come up with something that is entirely unique and viable. I do think that it is a lot more likely that people just looked at what is good, thought about what could cover the things that are good, the best, and then arrived at the exact same conclusions as other top trainers in other regions.
00:24:48
Speaker
hmm I think it's a fair point it's definitely a fair point because you're right it does feel like things are very settled I mean seeing shadow Gligar usage just go through the absolute ceiling at Orlando I mean if you look back at Perth right the same weekend Rick Flareon battling in Perth
00:25:05
Speaker
there were nine games in the grand finals and he brought shadow gligar to eight of those games and then you look at the usage for top 16 in orlando it's metacham numbers it's 87 percent it is metacham numbers i think that is a very up comparison um because like metacham
00:25:25
Speaker
Shadow Glider does something that probably no other Pokemon does the same way.
Meta Evolution and Challenges
00:25:32
Speaker
And it is so flexible, it is so spammable, it is very difficult to really hard counter a Shadow Glider. And I did a little Twitter thread on that.
00:25:45
Speaker
that because Shadow Gligar is so good, that brings with it a lot of Skarmory. Because there's two types of counterplay against the Pokémon, such as Shadow Gligar. The one is the more offensive-minded counterplay, which would be attacking its double weakness to ice.
00:26:04
Speaker
and thus bringing in an ice type such as Dugong, Alolan Sandslash or Obama Snow. But ice types are pretty difficult to build around, they're pretty volatile. They're not as reliable and also some of them like Obama Snow which has a weakness to the aerial ace or Alolan Sandslash which might get taken out by a shadow dig.
00:26:27
Speaker
They actually do have loose conditions against a Shadow Glyga if you fall behind on energy or shields. While Skarmory just is the perfect wall to flying and ground type damage. So I think these two pair really well together and that is why we see them on so many teams together time and time again.
00:26:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's almost I'm not sure like So so from a philosophical standpoint whenever we have a new meta come around we have season updates I always kind of look at the season updates kind of as Pieces as components and I try to I try to anticipate for example when talks croak got shadow ball I thought to myself this is our best chance to replace meta-champ because it's another fighter that can take down meta-champ although I know it can lose maybe there's still hope there, but I feel like I
00:27:22
Speaker
For whatever reason, it takes myself and the entire community a long time to boil down what actually is hyper-optimized and good in the meta. I feel like you pointed out a moment ago, we've already reached this point in maturity where we're only in April. We had our season update in March.
00:27:42
Speaker
we're only a month and a half into the season and it feels like into the the go battle league season and it feels like everything is already pretty much written in stone in my opinion the only thing that could really change the meta is for a brand new pokemon to just get introduced a new annihilate or a new clod sire you know a newcomer to just totally shake up the meta that feels like the only thing that they can really do
00:28:05
Speaker
And yes, we have the season update coming in, in June, which we typically get every three months, but I don't know why. So I'm concerned that it's not going to change too much. And we're going to end up with like five months of Gligar. So I do want to, I do want to say that I agree with your point that we would need something such as an ILA, such as like, even GloZi would not be enough. It would need to be another metal staple that, um,
00:28:35
Speaker
probably has to do really well into the Skamari-Glyga core. And I don't really see that coming along. It's certainly not what magical leaf Wigtribble will do to the meta, which is our upcoming community day this weekend.
00:28:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I don't actually see a short term solution to the problem. I just really hope that, um, Niantic realizes that, like you are saying that this matter feels figured out one and a half months into it. I would argue that we're actually four and a half months into the matter just because so little has changed from timeless travels to worlds of wonders or world of wonders or other.
00:29:17
Speaker
and therefore Niantic should really try and freshen things up a little bit. Currently the situation is as such that if you try to reverse engineer some core breakers to the most prevalent meta Pokemon in PVPoke,
00:29:36
Speaker
most of the Pokemon that get suggested to you are just the current meta. So the Pokemon that are currently used are also the Pokemon that play the best into what is currently used. So it's basically just cyclical and you don't really have a way of breaking out of that. And I do think that is a key difference if we compare it to the meta we had from September to November where we basically
00:30:06
Speaker
I'm started with one thing and ended with Clefable, Arctobex, and Seaking. I always bring up these three and maybe that's a bit of an outlier because September 2 is just a bit different. But still, it just felt as if the core meta was a little more
00:30:27
Speaker
It allowed for more energy management counterplay, because you didn't really have ones that just out-booked and shut down certain plays, which I think is mainly what Skarmory does. It has very strong neutral matchups, and then also really polarizing matchups against grass types that aren't to be found in the meta at all.
00:30:51
Speaker
that was actually also good okay then you also always had like a shifting meta of the week meta of the month and could react to that and the reaction to that would not just be the previous meta um it didn't really go in circles but it just evolved further and further and i feel like currently we just
00:31:12
Speaker
We're just running in circles. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like Shadow Gligar is almost like a gravity well. It forces so many other Pokémon to come in order to deal with it. I mean, just like Medicham used to be such a centralizing Pokémon. Gligar is the same way. For example, in our top cut in Orlando, we had 14 out of the 16 teams with Shadow Gligar, but we also had 11 Skarmories.
00:31:41
Speaker
And honestly, I don't hate it as much as I hate playing Mantine, but I don't like playing Skarmory in the current meta because of the Charger Bug, because of the Lantern. It's just such a desperate matchup when you can't do anything besides throw brave birds into Lanterns. It's so defeating.
00:31:58
Speaker
And I feel like that Pokemon exists. Yes, it's very solid neutrally. It does decently well into normal types like Lickitung. It helps to wall dragons and Cresselia. So there is other utility, but it's number one job. It's number one priority in its workflow is get lined up versus Gligar and just absolutely destroy Gligar. And I feel like a Pokemon that's that powerful forces other things to come in around it, which in turn warps the entire meta.
00:32:27
Speaker
And it's tough to have one centralizing Pokemon that strong. I mean, you talk about, you know, other metas, there's always a big bad, right? In VG, famously, it's Incineroar. In Pokemon Unite for a long time, it was Mewtwo until another legendary Pokemon came into the game. But I feel like right now Shadow Gligar has a target on its back for good reason.
00:32:48
Speaker
That is very true, and if I wanted to stir shit up a little bit, I would say that currently we have the monotony of Melichyam Likitang cores.
Balancing and New Opportunities
00:33:05
Speaker
with the RPS factor of the Trevenin-Notall meta, which is not entirely true because while there is like Skarmory-Lantern RPS and Gligar Skarmory RPS, I think overall it's not that bad. I think this meta is stable and relatively healthy. It's just, it could be better and it will probably not change.
00:33:33
Speaker
unless we do something about it. And by we, I mean Niantic, by just tweaking certain moves a little bit, like maybe reduce the damage output from Steel Wing by one damage point per Steel Wing. That way, you would still leave something like Empoleon, which doesn't really out-book anything, but just wants to get to its hydrocanons faster. That would leave that relatively untouched.
00:34:01
Speaker
while also making Skarmory a little less dominant in its neutral matchups. And you could increase the energy cost of Dig ever so slightly. Maybe do a slight damage buff, but you don't have to do that necessarily. Because you don't have much Connatural if you nerf Dig. It's basically just used on Blyga, which is currently everywhere, so might as well tone it down a little. Yeah, then you could.
00:34:32
Speaker
Maybe do something about the water type matter, but that would be too far.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that Gligar Dig could be a good target just because it has the closing power you need to beat Lickitung to beat Cresselia to win a lot of other neutral matchups. If you're forced to throw nothing but Arialaces into those Pokemon, then eventually they will probably get the better of you. So maybe some stronger minds than ours can figure out what to do over at Niantic. But it does feel like there's a formula in terms of team composition, right? We've got either Lickitung or Cresselia.
00:35:03
Speaker
as your pseudo grass coverage slash slash safe switch option. Then you've got Skarmory with the occasional dugong or Talon flame or other ice type like shadow lone sand slash. Then you've got shadow Gligar, which is about 87% of the field. Apparently.
00:35:20
Speaker
Maybe with the occasional Mandibuzz, like we saw Eomero bring. Then you have an Electric type, which is either Charge Bug or Lantern. And I think you can kind of pick based on if you're weaker to Mud Boys with your previous picks, you probably want to go for Charge Bug. If you're weaker to Lantern, you could probably go for, or excuse me, weaker to Talonflame, you could probably go for Lantern.
00:35:40
Speaker
And then you have a counter user, which, which honestly, the absence of metacham has been really nice. Cause we have annihilate poly wrath, figure off shadow, poly wrath, literally in our top four in that order in Orlando. So the variety is incredible. And then you typically have a whisk cache and a spice pick like a Gus Lord, like a Skeletor, something like that. So the formula is there. And maybe that's why we are seeing a lot of trainers kind of copy teams or get inspired by other other players, you know?
00:36:08
Speaker
or just randomly arrive at the exact same teams. It is entirely possible. It has happened before. It is possible. And you know, on that tangent, I saw, I think it was Gambino Dragon on Twitter, was playing Salazzle, Guzzlord, and Decidueye, and they reached legend with it. First time you've ever bought a Gambino Dragon. Shoutouts to my boy. I was flabbergasted, Swayless, because I was actually playing the exact same team. And I just made it up off the top of my head. I said, you know what?
00:36:37
Speaker
I want to, I want to mess things up with Salazzo and I want to wall vigor out the decision. Why? And I just like Gus Lord. So do you, do you know how you can really grind his gears? Just very publicly sell this line as the speediest chief team. Oh, I hate that.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah. I remember what it did to Lyle after Abhinav won with his team. Lyle said, it's the Lyle team. Maybe I should do that. Why not make an enemy today? Why not?
00:37:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, but Gambino is a fun enemy to make because it will be a friend of me after all. One of my oldest friends within the PvP community. He just recently operated from an iPhone 8 to proper 21st century gear.
00:37:30
Speaker
I do think that when he makes his way to original that will be a name to look out for. I've been on a faction with him for a while and he's typically the guy we call upon when there's like a late Sunday night and somebody like some really high profile opponent has to be defeated. It's always like just give it to Camino. He takes care of business and then he does.
00:37:54
Speaker
Wow. Nice. That's a, that's a good reputation to have, you know, it is. Um, looking at the, uh, the overall meta here, I think, I think we've talked a lot about the meta. My favorite team of the weekend was definitely house Starks. He had Guzzlord shadow, whisk, cash, shadow, polywrath, shadow, Gligar, Skarmory and Chris Celia. I thought that team was really, really fun. And, uh, he ended up in fourth place with it.
00:38:19
Speaker
But I think we could talk about the grand finals because it almost feels like Doonbug is impervious to any damage. I mean, he piloted a damn shadow Pidgeot to a regional championship. I mean, is he just playing on hard mode or what?
00:38:34
Speaker
I actually like I do think that he was playing on hard mode a little bit or rather trying out something less safe because for UIC picked the safest team possible and now he just has like you have to imagine this guy already has two original titles under his belt this season and just came off a second place finish at an international
00:39:04
Speaker
He has so many points, he will definitely get the Traveler Award for Hawaii. He got some prize money out of it. He just feels safe and secure and confident. And he feels ready to take a risk. And there's a difference between taking a risk and doing something funny for spicy content. And I do think Shadow Pitcher is among those Pokemon that are not normally seen.
00:39:32
Speaker
but do have actually a pretty good result when you just sim them against the core meta. I do think it's actually a pretty viable Pokémon, notably with aerial ace and not feather dance for the pacing and reliable damage output, because everybody knows how annoying feather dance pitcher could be, but the more, like,
00:39:56
Speaker
I think it just has a more pop-off potential because what you're used Pidgeot for is actually not the debuffs, but the very strong typing. When Noctowl had a slightly cheaper Chance Attack,
00:40:12
Speaker
It was on every team. And now you basically have something that has an even cheaper move than Noctowl does. And the closing power of Brave Bird and the Shadow bonus. So it's like basically a hyper-offense Noctowl gaming. And that can work in every meta probably. But yeah, let's get into the grand finals. Let's talk about the meat of it.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, I really feel like in a lot of those matches, okay, so I'll preface this by saying it was between Jay Mills and Beach to see who would face off against Dune. And I think that Jay Mills had managed to take one game off of Dune Bug in the Winter Finals, if I'm not mistaken. But Beach had come in and I really felt like
00:40:56
Speaker
it was hard to say because sometimes you look at a tournament format for example NAIC last year you'll see the shadow Charizard on Ryze's team and you'll say okay he's got this house Stark matchup down easy like he just needs to play the spoke about a lot and give it shields I felt like in this situation there wasn't a clear player who I thought had a better chance at dune bug and I think that is what really demotivated me in terms of like how can you beat this player because it felt like
00:41:22
Speaker
there was such a gap between them. What did you think? Did you think that Beach was that far off or do you think that Beach had a shot there? I don't think Beach was that far off. First thing to note, when you look at the teams, I've been probably spending 20 minutes of this podcast episode just ranting about Skamri.
00:41:45
Speaker
And Dromberg does not have a clear Skamri answer on his team. He does have the Shadow Whiskash, which does fine. He does have the Annihilate, which does fine. He does have the Alolan Sandslash, which does fine-ish, but it's still not as easy to deal with for the Alolan Sandslash, as you would think it would be for Steel-type. And the Lyki also has play. And I guess Brave Bird from Pigeon hurts somewhat, and then S. Glaga, which just hard loses.
00:42:16
Speaker
So Scarmory was actually rather safe for Beech. You could bring it every game and have a good time. So that would, at first glance, that would put Beech ahead just from a team comp perspective because here something is so safe against Doon.
Doonbug's Tactical Dominance
00:42:34
Speaker
But obviously with the entire top cut filled with Skarmory, Dune must have beaten those before. So yeah, Dune, once again, relied heavily on neutral plays.
00:42:47
Speaker
Um, and I think the main difference here is between good execution and perfect execution. Okay. I'm intrigued because beach actually, I think that was game one. Um, I might mess up some games here, but just know that it happened. So he, he did have a lead situation where I think he was with the Skamri.
00:43:14
Speaker
against an annihilate. Correct. And he knows that he gets the charge attack priority event versus annihilate on the sky attack. And he knows that he lives a shadow ball. So he could safely let that go and force the shield on Doonbak's side unless Doon wants to give up a really healthy annihilate and just let Beach take switch advantage, which would be of no interest to Doon.
00:43:41
Speaker
So Bish does that and then immediately pivots Gligar. I loved that play when I saw it because Doon's Alolan Sandslash, the hardest answer to Gligar on his team, also Shadow Claw, Alolan Sandslash. That means if you have a slight energy advantage from hard swapping it in and crucially the shield advantage, the Alolan Sandslash can't actually touch you.
00:44:06
Speaker
So Dune counter-swaps the lowland sand slash, throws the ice punch before Peach gets to a dig, which is the optimal play, because that basically neglects or just nullifies a potential
00:44:21
Speaker
advantage from the zero turn swap that Peach got from hard swapping in the Gligar, gets the shield and shields as soon as Peach throws the dig. What happens now is Dune does not throw his second Ice Punch as soon as that's available.
00:44:43
Speaker
But instead waits until Beech's Gligar that still has a shield reaches the dig and goes for the CMP tie basically. And because Alolan Sandslash has a higher attack stat than Gligar, Dune wins that CMP tie and makes it so that Beech cannot over farm.
00:45:06
Speaker
perfect play would have been for Beach to anticipate that. Just keep on doing wing attacks and then throw the dig basically one shadow claw before Alolan Sandslash gets to another ice punch. That would have left him with like about
00:45:24
Speaker
three or four ex-throwing attacks. I don't know whether that would have flipped the game but it would for sure make it a lot closer because I think in the end he ends up throwing an aerial ace into a Likitang because he just fears that he can't make a dig because the Likitang would all pace to attack there. So
00:45:45
Speaker
That was one play that could have been a little more optimal. I don't know whether it was decisive, but I think Dune really just made the better decision in the moment. And this is also one of the games where I would say this is technically a misplay, but it is such a minor misplay that
00:46:09
Speaker
Like it's so far from throwing a game or whatever language people use when somebody just messes up and therefore loses. This is just, oh, there was potential for optimization. And I feel like Dune is a player that nine times out of 10 goes for the perfect amount of optimization. Yes.
00:46:32
Speaker
So this is something that Dool has over so many people currently competing, even really, really good, really, really strong competitors such as Beach. So I think there was another scenario.
00:46:47
Speaker
in a match after that. I don't recall it perfectly. Oh yeah, I do think I remember it now, where the wind condition for beach was basically to get a surf off into a shadow blagger on Dunbark's side, to knock that out.
00:47:13
Speaker
The lantern that had the energy for the serve, even had a thunderbolt, basically came into a secondary matchup against a Likitang that had a body slam loaded. So there was no need to immediately throw the killing thunderbolt into the Likitang just because lantern was still fairly healthy.
00:47:39
Speaker
It would have lived a body stamp easily and it would have still been out of aerial ace range for the glycos, so it would have still needed to go for digs. And I think it would have even been out of power web range. So it would have been feasible for beach, just keep on sparking a little more, building up a little more energy, maybe even go for the knockout of the surf instead of the thunderbolt. So it was like a lot of flexible play possible.
00:48:07
Speaker
But instead, I think he lost track of the Likitung energy just by a little bit, and tried to play it safe by thunderbolting immediately and denying the Likitung's energy. But the Likitung's energy was actually not what decided the game. What decided the game was, Dune getting one successful aerial A-spade with the Shadow Gligar against the Lantern in the endgame,
00:48:30
Speaker
and then outpacing the lantern by exactly one fast attack. I think it was a CMP tie in the end, but like, the lantern needs to be a head one because it does lose CMP. So that was actually a clinic in energy management from Dunberg, but just like a few sparks that Beech missed out on that he could have gotten there without the Likitang being able to punish him.
00:48:56
Speaker
And again, this is not a throw. This is not a terrible play at all. But it is slightly short of optimal. And Doonberg is rarely ever short of optimal.
00:49:08
Speaker
Hmm. I remember the game. I remember the exact moment you're talking about because it was during game two and Caleb and Butters were commentating grands and Caleb literally says, as beach throws the thunderbolt, he says, I feel like this might be overkill. I think the surf would have been enough. And you're exactly right. It comes down to the shadow Gligar from Doonbug versus the lantern from beach. And he does get the bait and then he gets a dig shielded.
00:49:34
Speaker
which and which is also amazing right he takes both shields in that matchup and then he throws a third dig in order to kill the lantern and and you couldn't be more correct either the lantern was like one or two sparks away from from getting to the surf and yeah that was again the margin on that game on paper it'll say doom bug win but the margin when you actually watch it back
00:49:56
Speaker
is a lot smaller than it appears i also wanted to mention that in games two and three beach tried to make some catches on dune bug which is definitely very hard to do uh in the lead situation game two uh dune bug led lickitung into lantern and beach tried to catch body or excuse me tried to catch i think it was power whip onto uh scarmery and failed and then dune came in with all he left with all the scarmery energy
00:50:21
Speaker
Excuse me, with all the Lickitung energy and came in with his own shadow, Whiscash versus the Skarmory from beach. And then again, number three, the only game that beach actually won. He also failed to catch, uh, but it was later on in the game. He tried to catch a Lickitung body salmon to his Poliwrath, but his Altaria was strong enough to kind of melt through, uh, the final Pokemon for, for a Doonbug regardless. But I feel like.
00:50:45
Speaker
Against players like Doonbug, it's incredibly difficult to catch moves. It's incredibly difficult to outplay them. And then when you look at the micro, like you mentioned, the one or two fast attack difference that can determine the energy for the entire game, there's just so many different things you have to be cognizant of in order to beat them.
00:51:05
Speaker
And I feel like that's something that Emmy Weedle did very well was just kind of didn't fall for those kinds of things and also didn't try to catch too often. Didn't try to make these crazy plays because they just apparently don't work on Doonbug. You just have to face him toe to toe and just outplay him.
00:51:23
Speaker
Yeah, like especially, especially against Lekitang, which does have the one turn fast move off Lake. I don't, I would never, like this is easy to say, because like obviously if you lead the entrance to Lekitang, you have to make a fancy play to come back from that. So I understand the, the intention behind attempting a catch, but against a player like Junberg, he knows that if I have
00:51:49
Speaker
among like Lantern with a two-turn faster tag, you can always just throw in the middle of the animation and he will be like just sharp enough with his execution to never let a catch happen. So this is just a really tough spot to be in against a player like Dune.
00:52:08
Speaker
And I think it also just tells you, you have to change your approach and your play style once you're up against Doonbug. Maybe in the earlier rounds against more inexperienced players, you can catch here, you can make a maneuver here, combo play, whatever. But against somebody like Doonbug, it gets exceedingly difficult. It's like in the Go Battle League, right? If you play at a low elo, sometimes you have to just
00:52:34
Speaker
keep on throwing world switches with your charger bug because the opposing Vigoroth might just throw on alignment and allow you a full sneak of a 4-turn world switch. But as soon as you move with a Liar in Elo, that will just stop happening because people just get better and better at the game.
00:52:54
Speaker
And if you face off against someone like Goldberg, you have to look at this as if you're facing somebody who was on the front page of the leaderboard. And therefore, there are certain player tendencies that maybe you can try to understand and counteract a little with your strategies. But there's also some technical place that you just can't really play around anymore.
00:53:22
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly. There's just there's just a different level that you reach once you go up against somebody like like Dunbug or Emmy Wiedel or Lyle Jeffs or those kinds of calibers of players. But Dunbug takes an unprecedented third regional victory in the same season, which is it might it might not even just be history for go. It might be history for all the three titles that we see at the regional. So yeah.
00:53:49
Speaker
I was actually wondering, is this... I personally think this is a good thing for content, but is it a good thing for Pokemon Go as a game that the champion is always the same guy? This is an open-ended question and I would like to hear your opinion on that, sweetie.
Implications of Consistent Champions?
00:54:13
Speaker
No, that's a really good question because, you know, a part of me is, is, uh, the competitor, right? I believe that if you're good enough to win, you should win as many as you can, especially because, you know, we do have limited lives and limited opportunities and you don't know what you're going to be doing next year and if you can compete. So if you are, are really kind of hitting all the right metrics, you shouldn't take your foot off the gas. You should keep going.
00:54:38
Speaker
And I think that's why. I 100% agree with that, by the way. I just want to make that clear. Oh, OK, OK. This is nothing against Junebug at all. I just wanted to. I asked myself for the game as a whole, is it good when somebody just dominates? And will other people get discouraged? Will this give off the impression as if there's no other series Pokemon Go competitors beyond Junebug?
00:55:06
Speaker
Are there negative implications of that? If you have more of a take on that, I'll let you finish because I'm already just monologuing again.
00:55:18
Speaker
No, no, I agree. And I feel like that's a valid question. Like, is it a bad thing for the game? And I've actually had this discussion with the production team about the players that we feature. And this ties really nicely into the Doom conversation, because if you are put yourself in the shoes of a regular player.
00:55:38
Speaker
You know, a player who maybe put down the game for a couple of years and you saw a stream and you said, you know what? I want to go compete at a regional championship. It'd be really fun. I'm going to give Pokemon go another try. And you, maybe you live in, in Florida and the season starts and you say, okay, you know, season's going pretty well. Oh, uh, Doom bug one, San Antonio. Okay. And then you say, Oh yeah, season's continuing again in Knoxville. What?
00:56:04
Speaker
And then you're watching and you're like, okay, I need to watch EUIC so I know what the meta's like so I can be prepared. And you're like, wait, what? What the hell? Dumbo's second place in the EUIC, what? And then you see the Orlando tournament and Dumbo wins again. And you're like, you start thinking to yourself, well, crap, if this person is going to every single tournament, why do I even go? Because I know if I face them, I can't win.
00:56:29
Speaker
So I feel like for from a regular casual player perspective, it can be a bit deflating. But if you zoom out even more, like if you zoom out of the regular player shoes and Pokemon go to Pokemon players in general, just just think about Ray Rizzo's back to back to back world championships in VG. That is crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not without precedent. Like Wolf Click, same regional Orlando, like some people just
00:57:00
Speaker
have all of these accomplishments and that doesn't mean that the scene can't grow or the game is only so interesting that this one guy does it all and the others are all casuals. I just think, personally, this is the conclusion that I arrived, that Dune proves that Pokemon Go
00:57:21
Speaker
is not only a game of skill instead of just tapping the phone, but it also has a higher skill ceiling than we originally might have given the game credit for. Because we know all those names.
00:57:40
Speaker
the people that competed at Orlando were the best of the best. Like we had Abhinav, we had BOG88, we had JJAM. That's like how stark. Like we have so many people that are not only like, everybody in the top cut is really, really good. Some are tournament winning good and still they couldn't take down Dunberg. And I do think that that just,
00:58:08
Speaker
basically proves that even if you consider what we just talked about, how Meech could have actually taken games of Dünberg if he optimized his plays a little more, which you maybe only notice when you watch the games back and not in the moment. It just shows, okay, the skill level is as such that this guy
00:58:36
Speaker
can rise above people that are already incredibly good and I do think that if we if we look at the games and see how there were win conditions when playing against dune bug that just means that even dune bug isn't the end of pokemon go pvp skill
00:58:56
Speaker
You could even be better. You could even beat this guy. You could improve upon that and get better and learn and try and compete. And I think that's just a really fun prospect.
00:59:08
Speaker
Exactly. And you know what? It's not like he's unbeaten forever, right? He's not unbeaten. He's not unbeaten. I think I send you the list before we start the podcast. If we just look at the time this travel season and the world upon the season, Junba competed in five events
00:59:28
Speaker
And I think there's also five people that managed to take him down total, which is like, this is insane. If you like, because it's double elimination, right? So if you get taken down once, that's not even the end of you and the end of your tournament run.
00:59:45
Speaker
And with Dune it's especially interesting because two of the people that beat him in best of threes this season were Salduro and the Poke Mango and both got eliminated by Dunebug in the loser's side of the bracket later on. So Dunebug basically got immediate revenge on those guys but like
01:00:12
Speaker
heads off to them for even knocking down these giant ones. And then there's Lyle Jeffs and Baka Fitsi, who
01:00:23
Speaker
basically had their joint effort to deny Doonberg a top cut in Charlotte, which rarely ever happens. And then there's obviously Emmy Wiedel taking the EUIC crown. But that's all the people that defeated Doonberg ever since the meta is the way it is currently. Because I do sometimes think that, okay, maybe what really would
01:00:49
Speaker
help reign in the force that is doing bug a little bit would be a meta change because some people just
01:00:58
Speaker
have still a very high baseline of competitive performance. It's, by no means, DUMBUG's first tournament win. Even before this competitive season, he already won one. He's got so many wins in his belt. But maybe he just understands this particular meta better than the people around him. But if there's a new challenge, maybe someone else emerges who has
01:01:25
Speaker
the right ideas first. So that is also something to factor in maybe that if the meta changes, if the teams change, maybe someone else masters and pilots the Pokemon that are viable in that new meta, even better than Junberg masters his Pokemon in the current meta.
01:01:44
Speaker
That's interesting you say that because when we look at the rest of the competitive season, we have NAIC in June and that's right when our meta shakeup will happen. So we have June, July, which is basically like an off month or a preparation month.
01:01:59
Speaker
And then we have Worlds in August. So maybe there will be kind of a new meta. And granted, he will have the chance to scrimmage. He shouted out to the Dallas community quite a bit in terms of how they've been able to help him prepare. He'll have all those options available to him. But if he competes at NAIC, maybe he won't be quite as strong as he has in the past. Luckily for everyone, he said that he's not going to compete at Indianapolis or Los Angeles. So those two regionals are open. I believe that Lyle Jeffs is going to Indianapolis. So we'll see.
01:02:29
Speaker
So that's not open anymore.
Future Contenders and Meta Shifts
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. The other guys, they're just taking turns, right? As has been said all weekend. Um, interesting factoid. I want to point out about the teams is that I'm trying to, I'm trying to equip all the other trainers here. Right. And I found this in my research. So bear with me.
01:02:46
Speaker
It seems like Dunbug in terms of team structure has a, has an issue dealing with dark types and maybe even fairy types to a lesser extent. Now, what I mean by that is if you look back at his losses in North America. In Pittsburgh, he lost to no treble clef and his purified Sableye. And then his second loss was to Andrew Minyares in his shadow of all the nine tails. You look at Sacramento, he lost to elite and his Umbreon, and then he was knocked out by bopper and his Gus Lord.
01:03:16
Speaker
Then you look at Toronto, and he was first beaten by that boy Jay with his mandibuzz, and then he was knocked out of the tournament by Arrow with another mandibuzz. Then you look at Charlotte, where Lyle beat him with a zoom roll, and then Buckeye Fitzy knocked him out of the tournament also with a zoom roll. And finally, you look at Knoxville, his only loss of that tournament before he ended up winning was to Mango in round one with, you guessed it, a dark-type zoalis. So maybe,
01:03:44
Speaker
Maybe there's some kind of weakness in the team in terms of typings, and that's how he's kind of approached this meta. Hard to know because meta changes, but it might be something. I really like that analysis.
01:03:57
Speaker
Anybody like I guess to Mike is not competing anymore in in this current matter, but like if people knew that before I would have definitely suggested to just build around mandibles because if you look at to Mike's tournament winning team no Nando
01:04:14
Speaker
Mandibuzz heartbeats in ILA, and heartbeats Nickytongue, has positive matchups against both Rescach and Glaigar. I just flat out don't know how the shadow pitcher Mandibuzz matchup goes. But even the one anti-Mandibuzz pick on his team, which would be the Alolan Sandslash, it was a shadow claw Alolan Sandslash. That's not even that bad. Mandibuzz can probably tank to Ice Punches. So yeah, apparently
01:04:43
Speaker
The answer was men of us all along, but we told them too late. They can't stop them anymore. Well, speaking of answers and not being able to stop Doonbug, let's talk about some trainers that we think can, because I feel like there are two that are almost a consensus here. Maybe we should just get these first two names out of the way. What do you say? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think we should like, these are, these are guys that have beaten him in this current matter already. So just, just get it over with.
01:05:13
Speaker
Let's do it. So when we look at the players that have the best shot at taking down Doonbug in tournament play, I'm going to go with the NA trainer, Lyle Jeffs. I think that everybody has been hungry to see Lyle Jeffs versus Doonbug ever since they started switching places in terms of regional championships. I want to see how that matchup would go. And I think that he's probably got the best chance out of any North American trainer to take him down. But there's another one that's already proven they can do it, right?
01:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's our very own European international champion, M.E. Wiedel, the Skowiefirch master, the guy who maybe inspired the Alolan Sandslash on Dunberg's Orlando regional winning team. Definitely, currently the reigning strongest European competitor and
01:06:01
Speaker
one who has proven that he is capable. But there are more trainers in the world, right? So if we think about NAIC, if we think about Worlds, I have brought with me three people that I would consider worthy opponents for the Dune.
01:06:19
Speaker
And I should probably just get us started with the trainer. I wonder whether you will have him in your top three as well, because we were talking about optimization. And one trainer who is really good at optimizing neutral plays and might be one of the few true matches for Dunbar in that regard would be Jakobovich.
01:06:46
Speaker
I think he is one of the guys who... Like, you were pointing out earlier that, okay, maybe it's too difficult to just outplay Duneberg, and you need to go for a little more bench pressure, a little more risky picks. But I think the opposite can be true. I think if you just meet Dune where he's at, and...
01:07:13
Speaker
maybe play a little bit of a more defensive playstyle, one that really relies on efficient counting and very much precision gameplay, then you can basically face off as equals and it just depends on who's superior on a given day.
01:07:33
Speaker
Mm. I see what you did there because Yaco did win a tournament with superior. I see. I see what you meant. Um, honestly, so I know we agree on a lot of things, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one because I really feel like trying to out optimize dune bug is like trying to, I said this on the cast. It's like trying to beat a calculator at math. It's just not going to happen 99% of the time.
01:07:57
Speaker
Honestly, my pick here is someone who actually ran a very unconventional team, but beat him twice in Baltimore. So beat him once and then got revenge and knocked him out of the bracket in Baltimore of last season. And that's actually out of pocket.
01:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, out of pocket and Dunbug have a long history, uh, competing itself, competing in tons of grassroots formats. And I think that out of pockets, willingness to actually bring, uh, to hard call teams, to bring bold leads and bold closers, I think is going to be a huge difference maker. And like I was like, I kind of alluded to when we, when we were discussing Perth, sometimes you just need to freaking lead shadow all the nine tails into Altaria.
01:08:41
Speaker
You just need to lead Regis Steele and disk armory and you have to win the game on the lock-in screen. And coming from personal experience too, there was a decisive game that Doonbuck and I played at the North America finals, uh, back in still 2020, where I, I chose, uh, Medicham lead into, into Bassed on. And then I just knew, I knew that that game was probably in the bag.
01:09:03
Speaker
And I feel like you have to go on that wavelength in order to beat Doonbug. And I picked out a pocket not only for his skill and because he's due for a breakthrough, but because he was bold enough to take down Doon twice already. Yeah, I would totally be here for another pocket top cut.
01:09:22
Speaker
He's been doing quite fine, actually. I think he barely missed out on top-cutting Orlando, but 9th place in Knoxville, 5th place in Charlotte. He definitely can hold his own in this meta. And I always feel like with Pocket,
01:09:39
Speaker
he's probably overdue for another big breakthrough. Maybe he needs even another meta than this one, because I'm just currently scrolling through his most successful tournament runs. And there was the Pittsburgh run where he just called the superior early. He had a shadow charge out on his team.
01:10:05
Speaker
And there was the hard-fought run where he actually brought the Bastion on. And I feel like currently it's so settled that the pocket surprise strategy is not really available. But Doon isn't competing anymore this season, so there would not even be a chance for a match between those two.
01:10:29
Speaker
So if we get a few nerves, a few buffs, and everything shakes around a little bit, I could definitely see that be a measure of equals. We'll see. I'm curious who your second pick is.
01:10:44
Speaker
My second pick, actually, I'm not going to say it's a very similar trainer to Pocket, but it's one of his good friends, I would say. We need a Vadash comeback. If Vadash comes out of retirement, he's the one player who pulled off a run that is comparable to what Zunberg is doing now. And I feel like those two,
01:11:12
Speaker
players who have a legitimate claim to be the goat of Pokemon Go, to see them go up against each other, that would be something that could really be a crowning moment, not only for whoever emerges victorious, but for this season. And I think I have heard through the grapevine that Modash is actually hoping to compete at Worlds, but there's also
01:11:41
Speaker
maybe a little bit of a time crunch in some regard. So we don't know just yet what's going to happen. But yeah, we're getting excited to see that.
01:11:54
Speaker
I can read you the tweet. I can read it to you. Ready? Yeah, please do. Uh, what Dodge posted on April 15th, he said, my graduation weekend is NAIC weekend and my college move in weekend is worlds with classes starting the following Monday. Yeah. Everyone else is cooked. So basically he doesn't think that, that if he thinks if he doesn't show up to worlds or to NAIC that, uh, he, nobody else is going to be Doonbug. That's what I took away from that.
01:12:25
Speaker
That is entirely fair.
01:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. Again, I only have two other players written down that are capable of doing so. So the chances, the chances, okay. It's late. I can't talk anymore. The chances would be a lot, would be a lot lower if Wudash ends up not competing, but there might be a new season. There might be like, especially like those, those young PvP prodigies that are currently going through a phase in life where
01:12:58
Speaker
Like maybe not every single minute of your free time can be dedicated to a tap-tap game. Maybe if they settle into like the college days and then find a little bit of time to maybe go to a tournament here and there, just maybe not.
01:13:18
Speaker
just travel from city to city, but really pick and choose. I could see like a comeback eventually. And I have not, I didn't say when Vadash would be Dunberg, I just said that he could.
01:13:34
Speaker
My next pick is actually you're gonna be shocked another North American trainer who has What a surprise who has a history of beating dune bug actually beat him. I said earlier I said that pocket beat dune bug in Baltimore. I was incorrect. It was Hartford Hartford is where out of pocket beat him But the other trainer I have actually did beat dune in Baltimore and that is elum
01:13:57
Speaker
I think that Elam has a very, very good chance because not only did he beat Doonbug in a two to one in order to knock Doonbug to the loser's bracket, but Doonbug tried to get his patented revenge strat onto Elam and Elam took him down in a decisive game five back in Baltimore last year. Again, different meta, different time, but I feel like trainers that show they have the resilience to beat Doonbug in the past can, uh, can definitely do it again.
01:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think even more so. Like one of the top picks for battles here are yet to win a tournament, but feel like they are overdue a tournament win. It doesn't play as many tournaments as other players do.
01:14:40
Speaker
But he's so consistent. I got second place twice in Hartford and in Baltimore in the 2023 season. And the season here only competed in two events if I see that correctly here. But he top-cut both.
01:14:57
Speaker
Definitely a strong candidate. I would still think that in this current matter, Dune would probably be the favorite. But if somebody has done it in the past, I cannot plausibly deny that they would be able to do it again.
01:15:20
Speaker
I'm giddy. Yeah, I'm giddy. I'm excited. I'm ready to hear this final pick. We should move on to my last pick. I was very close to just pulling off that stance again where I pretend to announce myself.
01:15:36
Speaker
um but and i could have done that by claiming that he's a special event champion from the season in europe um but that was not a special event that was that was the event that was special in some ways but it was not a special event um i think i think an eloquence just um had one of the most
01:15:58
Speaker
impressive tournament runs just from a mechanics perspective, like the way he got the CMP catch in Utrecht and basically outplayed everyone in his way with his own unique team, which I think is also important, just bringing something that surprises people and that they might have not prepped for.
01:16:22
Speaker
I think those are factors that can really help take down someone who like even though there was like a shadow picture that would definitely play well into a Giratina origin. I just think that in terms of innovative team building and also just
01:16:42
Speaker
understanding of the game. Yeah, Matzheim definitely has what it takes to beat the Americans. And I also know that he really wants to beat the Americans. So let's just say that there's a target on Dune's back for NAIC for sure, because that is where the match could actually happen.
01:17:06
Speaker
Interesting. So a little, a little extra fuel for the fire there for the, for the chandelier fire for an adequate interesting. Okay. I also, you know what, we didn't play in this, but I also think it's poetic that we're picking trainers from different areas of the world that we think could take down doing bug. I think that's good. And, uh, we don't have any picks in common, believe it or not.
01:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, picks from all around the world, and he just goes, oh, I have this North American, I have that North American. No, and you have this European and the other European. I mean, come on. No, I have a North American, I'm Australian, and a European. I'm actually like, I'm the diversity guy here. That's true, that's true. You're going to beat me by an even larger margin now, because my third pick is also North American.
01:17:57
Speaker
I don't know how, uh, I think it's because he hasn't been coming to tournaments recently, but I don't know how you can look back at the 2022 or 2023 season and think of a more iconic rivalry than rise to occasion versus dune bug.
01:18:14
Speaker
That is just premium content in terms of the championship series. Whenever those two trainers met, it was typically near the finals. You know, it was at least in top cut near the finals in most cases. I mean, they're literally the Superman and Lex Luthor of the North American, you know, the North American competitive scene here. So I think that that rise hasn't, like I said, casted in a, this is actually something I wanted to mention. Yeah.
01:18:43
Speaker
Rice actually was casting the Perth Regionals and that's why he did not compete in Orlando. So by virtue of doing a different engagement with a different stream, he was spared the Doonbug matchup. So I'm very curious how that would have gone.
01:18:58
Speaker
But, uh, like we've said before, maybe a meta shift will be the, the, uh, ignition that's needed to kind of flip this and get this turned around, get another trainer able to be Doonbug, but we'll have to find out. And maybe the real answer as to who could beat Doonbug is actual, actually Michael Staranker by just flipping the right switches in terms of, of meta changes. Uh, yes, yes. I know he's a dedicated PVP guy.
01:19:25
Speaker
The true mastermind, right? No, but. Also a very good battler, by the way. I've seen those new move sets and I was impressed. Yeah. I thought you were going to say Michael would compete and I wish he would. Yeah, I wish he would. I don't know whether he's allowed to, but probably like TPCI and Niantic are different entities. Yeah. I still remember how he beat me with a maxed out Malamar in Ultra League. Oh, that is spicy. I would sell it for a couple days. Yeah.
01:19:56
Speaker
But we are approaching the, I'm sorry, these episodes seem to be getting longer. We are approaching the hour 20. It was a double header. It was a double header. It's okay. That's fair. That's fair. I think unless you have any more thoughts on taking down Doonbug, maybe we can touch on the WCS and then we can wrap things up. Yeah. Yeah. I think we should do that.
01:20:15
Speaker
OK, perfect. So in the midst of all these regional championships, we actually have other competitions that are going to be going on.
Global Impact and World Championships
01:20:23
Speaker
Actually, they started, I believe, this month, and they will continue through the month of May. Those are the WCS followed by country. So it stands for World Championships India, World Championships Series India, World Championships Series Indonesia. I think there's one for Taiwan as well. Well, currently, we are in the qualifying stage of both the India and Indonesia WCS competitions.
01:20:45
Speaker
For India, they have two qualifiers. The first one, they had 256 players sign up. And the second one, there are 101. And then for Indonesia, they had 99 players sign up. Both of those tournaments will be whittled down to a top 16, which will then be a playoffs. So as you can tell, over in Asia, the qualification system is different than it is in the other regions. But there isn't a whole lot we can glean from this so far. We'll have to wait until the playoffs are done.
01:21:13
Speaker
However, we can look at some of the team graphics that the great team at DracoViz has put together. And there are a few standout picks. I don't know if you want to jump in here first. Yeah, I think like, I feel like we should talk about the Hypno in the room.
01:21:30
Speaker
Agreed. And that's in, I believe that's in Indonesia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like one of the currently, like, battles with the best record in Indonesia has a lot of, like, their name is Sashu Siku. And they have a lot of picks that don't really stand out as much. Like, there's a Skarmory, there's a Whiskash, there's a Vigoroth, there's an Ataria, and there's a Lateral. But then there's also a non-shadow Hypno.
01:21:55
Speaker
And that is interesting because PVPoke does suggest that a lot, but I don't really believe in that. But apparently maybe I'm just not, not spicy enough. And maybe I should take a page out of the book of this battle because it seems to be working.
01:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think you can, you can fry Pokemon like Poliwrath. Maybe you can do well against Annihilape as long as you avoid the Shadow Ball. And Psychic-type damage is definitely overlooked, especially when it comes to poison. So maybe if they fought Claude Sire, they would do well in that matchup as well. Hard to know, but there are some, are some other interesting picks. For example, there's a Shadow Wall Rain.
01:22:31
Speaker
Apparently, that's being played by Andrew HM. There are also two Bassedons. I see two Wiggly Tufts, at least. There's a Giratina Origin form with a Diggersby on the team. So, a lot of spice in Indonesia during the qualifier stage. I love to see it. I'm always here for that.
01:22:52
Speaker
me too. Turning our attention to India, Beazleboy, which I think has definitely been a top competitive for a number of years in CELF and other grassroots formats, is currently leading the pack at 8 and 0 with Umbreon and Skeletorge core, which is definitely very exciting. But some other standard picks here, some Talonflame, some Guzzlord,
01:23:14
Speaker
I see some shadowloan sand slash, even a Claude sire on Supa diamond 95 team. And then when we look at the Indian qualifier part two, not a whole lot of standout picks, but there is an occasional mandibuzz and dugong, but I'd like to see our self champion room for him. Pow competing. He's in the second Indian qualifier.
01:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, I see a lot of names that I recognize from grassroots tournaments from the Go Battle League leaderboard, so there's definitely a lot of talent in India. And I'm really curious to see not only how those qualifiers turn out, but also what they can do at Worlds, because I do think that with the success, players like Room Room Power have enjoyed in the grassroots formats,
01:23:57
Speaker
I would not be surprised if the whole Europe versus North America rivalry might end up not even mattering at Worlds if there's players from Asia that just swoop in and maybe surprise us as just the biased viewers from the respective regions.
01:24:19
Speaker
I mean, that's absolutely what happened at Worlds 2022, right? We had a dancing Rob from Germany versus Gordan Hada from South Korea, but don't forget trainers like Creston Angels were also very deep into the tournament finishing in the top five. Creston Angels currently number one on the Go Battle League leaderboards, by the way, so still going strong.
01:24:38
Speaker
still going strong, but, uh, but speaking of that's wireless, the, the season is still going strong. If you're listening to this episode, you've got about 50 days. That's five zero 50 days to get championship points to try to qualify for the world championships. Of course, the cutoff is NAIC in June.
01:24:55
Speaker
In terms of upcoming events, we have Sao Paulo and WCS Thailand kicking off, which will be a qualifier structure as well. I don't think we get a stream this weekend. Maybe we get the Sao Paulo regional stream from Copag, so be on the lookout for that. I really hope we do because Sao Paulo is always one of the bigger ones, if I remember correctly. I would love to see some Latin action this weekend.
01:25:18
Speaker
Me too. It's always a thrill. I love to see what the LATAM trainers bring and their community, the hype, the energy, the love in their community is definitely number one in our entire world championship circuit. As well as I think that's all from us for this week. You know, like you said, we covered Perth in Orlando. Any closing thoughts? Um, I think we can say good night for now. It's 3 AM Germany time currently. So I would not be against wrapping this up.
01:25:47
Speaker
Oh. Okay, I have some bad news. Oh, no. The episode wasn't recording. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what he says. So he gets a reaction out of me and then it's fun because he can leave us in the episode and the listeners will enjoy that a lot.
01:26:07
Speaker
Damn, I was really hoping you would fall for it. Damn. All right. I thought I had you, but no, it's, it's been, it's been recording just fine. And I think, I agree. I think it's time. Uh, it's time to turn in for the night, but as far as I appreciate you, thank you for your incredible analysis and thoughts. And I can't wait to cover more tournaments with you in the future. I'm looking forward to it.