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EP. 42 | EUIC 2026 Recap
99 Plays6 days ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 42 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
Today, we're taking a look back at the largest Pokemon GO tournament ever: EUIC 2026! We'll begin by diving into meta trends. Why did practice tournament teams look so different than the teams that actually placed well? Where did Dragalge go? Was Grimmsnarl always a fraud? Then, we'll get the elephant out of the room by addressing the TzSteinar controversy. After that, we'll dive into player storylines and try to uncover the secrets behind P4T0M4N's dominance. Finally, we'll talk about this new battle system rollout...as of right now, it looks like a TOTAL DISASTER! All of this, and more.
So, if you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
London: Pokémon Go Hub
00:00:03
zzweilous
When it comes to competitive Pokemon Go, there is just no place like London. Ever since the 2022 World Championships, the most capable battlers from across the globe have made it a habit to descend upon the XL Convention Center and shatter expectations.
Record-Breaking 2026 Tournament
00:00:20
zzweilous
2026 is no exception, setting yet another record for the largest tournament in history. 512 trainers attempted to conquer a custom meta that revolved around outlandish picks such as Seaking or Spiritomb.
00:00:33
zzweilous
But when the dust settles, there can only be one. What the wolf is to VGC, the duck is to Pokemon Go. So let's get ready for a deep dive into the latest masterpiece of PvP prodigy, Pato Man.
Show 6 Podcast Highlights
00:00:46
zzweilous
You are listening to the Show 6 Podcast, coming to you yet again with all the big stories around the championship series for our beloved TapTap game. So lock in, good luck, and have fun.
Zencastr Glitch
00:01:22
zzweilous
Welcome, welcome, welcome. My name is Z Zwalus and as always, I am joined by, I am joined by a second intro apparently and also speediest chief to apparently also the second speediest chief.
00:01:35
zzweilous
um How are you doing today speedy? Uh,
00:01:38
William Dunphey
Everything was going so perfectly, ZZ. And apparently there's a setting on Zencaster that's called Infinite Loop, and it will play the soundbite over and over and over. But we're past that.
00:01:50
William Dunphey
ZZ, great intro.
00:01:50
zzweilous
ah
00:01:51
William Dunphey
Great intro per usual, my friend. You always nail it. I was just going to give something very generic, but the duck to the wolf comparison, I mean, that's absolute poetry.
00:01:59
zzweilous
Like, honestly, I'm a little disappointed in Wolfie for not having pulled off the back-to-back EURSE championship because that would have made it even better. I did have this this comparison prepared a little ahead of time. But yeah, I guess, like, this sentiment is still sentiment is still the same because um both a duck and a wolf can be a goat.
00:02:22
zzweilous
I am not your biology teacher, but I feel as if we are witnessing greatness in real time right now.
Pato Man's Resilience
00:02:28
zzweilous
Five day threes in a row. ah What is Patoment doing?
00:02:33
William Dunphey
Yeah, there must be something in the water in Spain, right? Absolutely unreal. And it was one of those storylines too, where you you assume that after falling to that loser side bracket in round three, that it was likely over for our former EUIC champion. but He then turns around and wins as many rounds as a trainer that won two separate events, one combined, right? When we look at somebody like Inadequance. So Potsiman is absolutely unreal. I cannot wait to get into his story and so much else as well.
Focus on EUIC
00:03:02
William Dunphey
We're going to cover EYC primarily in this episode. If you are a longtime Show 6 listener, you know that we have a backlog of tournaments to cover. And we're going to kind of shelve those Open Great League tournaments. And we're going to take ah a new approach to covering those in a follow-up episode that we will record soon. But for right now, in the in the immediate sense, we wanted to cover EUIC while it's still fresh in everyone's minds. And ZZ, it was great to run into you. In in London, we bumped it into each other at ah China Palace. These internationals, they just get bigger every single year. As you said, 500 plus players registered. It's tough to see everybody, ah but I'm glad we actually had a few moments and we actually got to take a picture again.
Casting at Internationals
00:03:42
zzweilous
Yeah, you did post it on the socials. I'm very appreciative of that because I am historically very bad at taking pictures or requesting pictures. So yeah, another encounter. i wonder when the next one is going to be. Likely NAIC.
00:03:55
zzweilous
Maybe I can swing something before, but that is still very much up in the air. But yeah, it was ah was a great time. And as always, it's one of the busiest weekends of the year.
00:04:06
zzweilous
For you as a cast here especially, because I don't know, how many hours do you work a day at these?
00:04:11
William Dunphey
Well, I think on Friday and Saturday, it tends to be a long, a long day. So at the internationals, we have to show up and this is going to sound so bougie. We have to show up a bit early for makeup and hair. ah But that translates instead of like an 8 a.m. m or an 8.30 a.m. call time, we're essentially arriving at 7 7.20 a.m. So.
00:04:31
William Dunphey
Essentially, we go from, I would call it seven to seven, more or less on Friday and Saturday. And then Sunday is an easier day, of course, because you only have, in this case, losers, winners in grand finals. But yeah, I'd say 12 hour days are pretty, pretty standard for Friday, Saturday, but we work in bursts, right? We've got so many weekends off and then we work a big tournament and then we're off again.
00:04:51
zzweilous
Yeah, and I would imagine that it's a pretty rewarding job to work as well. Just like being able to be a big part of like the greatest tournament thus far in history.
00:05:04
zzweilous
um Again, like I think we had about 100 no-shows, but that would still leave us at more than 400 competitors.
Rising Attendance Concerns
00:05:11
zzweilous
So um despite what people might worry or or say about the game,
00:05:11
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:05:18
zzweilous
At least the attendance numbers are still going up for these big events. So that is something to be optimistic about.
00:05:25
William Dunphey
You could argue that we had maybe 100 or 150 people that just wanted the welcome kits, right? The competitor kits and just signed up for that. But I don't know, it's hard to say. These events are are getting so packed. And I think we had over 7000 total competitors across all games, which is absolutely staggering. And the question then becomes, When do we move to a bigger venue that can house even more players, right? But to your point about the casting, I guess we could talk about that briefly because we will dive into the meta here shortly. But um just while we're on this topic, Marto had his casting debut here at EUIC and that was really fun. Essentially, we were in a position where Martine recruited Marto to join the team for this particular event. And
Marto's Casting Journey
00:06:06
William Dunphey
Marto obviously is not a native English speaker, although his English is very good. And he had never commentated before. So Martai did some practice runs with him. Apparently they were over voice calls in the weeks leading up. And Marto was very, very anxious, very nervous. Right.
00:06:22
William Dunphey
So we get to rehearsal on Thursday, still very anxious, very nervous, kind of looking around, you know, ah very jittery. ah But I was really pleased to hear that on Friday, after his first rotation with Martijn, he said all the nervousness when the camera came on, all the nervousness just went away.
00:06:41
William Dunphey
And he was flowing. He was having a good time. He really enjoyed casting. And to your point about being tired after casting, I actually asked him on Sunday. I said, Marto, you got to tell me, is it more tiring to be a competitor or to be a caster?
00:06:55
William Dunphey
And he said, he said, well, it's a different kind of tired, but I would say that casting is more tiring. And I was like, you know, you know, there it is.
00:07:02
zzweilous
yeah i can see that you do not play for 12 hours straight like even like i don't know maybe maybe part of man did with his run but um
00:07:08
William Dunphey
Sure. Sure.
00:07:12
William Dunphey
Right. Mm-hmm.
Shadow Drapion's Surge
00:07:13
zzweilous
like normally you would have a lot more free time time to get like lunch take a break depending on the schedule of the tournament but yeah i didn't actually like watch all that much of the broadcast just because i was just there's so much to do during an event like that so you don't actually like
00:07:22
William Dunphey
easy
00:07:31
zzweilous
get to experience it the same way the people at home do which like has a lot of benefits but also the downside that i can't weigh in on the cast's performance as much but what i did hear from mato when i uh watched the broadcast was very much in line with the mato energy like a toned down version because it's obviously the official broadcast but um still like
00:07:54
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:07:56
zzweilous
quick on his feet with a certain humor to his commentary, but also a lot of insight and knowledge. So um <unk> I'm glad that it worked out this time because I do believe that something like this was planned for NAIC already and then fell through just before the actual event because ah getting a work visa for the US is a little
00:08:02
William Dunphey
Yeah.
EUIC Meta Dynamics
00:08:16
zzweilous
more difficult these days.
00:08:17
William Dunphey
Very.
00:08:18
zzweilous
So um I'm glad that even with a little bit of a delay, we got to see Cast Amato.
00:08:19
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:08:23
zzweilous
And I bet some of the competitors will also be very relieved because they had to deal with one less powerhouse in in the bracket. There was still enough left for sure, but.
00:08:33
William Dunphey
ah Yeah, if you have both Marto and Martijn kind of on the periphery, not in the bracket, I think that that ah that's a big relief.
00:08:40
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:08:41
William Dunphey
Martijn has publicly said multiple times, he says he's happy whenever you don't show up to an event, because that means his path is a lot more clear, right? So I think that's a a huge compliment.
00:08:52
zzweilous
He's just trying to be nice.
00:08:53
William Dunphey
I don't know about that. But ah yeah, I found that Marto is a huge fan of efficiency. Whenever players made extremely efficient plays, for example, not allowing farm downs, getting maximum energy generation or throwing as many charge attacks as possible. He was he was all he was like his eyes just lit up.
00:09:11
William Dunphey
Very, very excited about that. But if you'd like, we could dive into some meta trends. ah What really surprised me about this EUIC limited meta, and again, this was a limited meta, almost almost like a a whitelist in a sense that we had typing typings allowed, typings banned.
00:09:26
William Dunphey
certain Pokemon were exceptions, they were excluded from the bans, and then you also had certain Pokemon that were explicitly banned, even though they matched the typing um typing requirements.
00:09:37
William Dunphey
So this is a little bit complicated. And when i previewed this, or when I talked about this on the preview show, our host, Skarzyk, he said, man, I need a spreadsheet to track all the different bans and like figure out what's actually viable here.
00:09:47
zzweilous
Okay.
00:09:49
William Dunphey
But essentially, you had a meta that was based around bugs, dragons, a lot of normal type Pokemon, and then Ghost and Dark types as well. So what really struck me about this meta, it's easy for all the people that watched it, is that the practice tournaments that i I participated in, spectated, the teams that I was looking at, they were wildly different than the teams that actually performed well.
Practice vs. Success at EUIC
00:10:12
William Dunphey
So I'm curious ah if you have any insights on this as a competitor, did you see these trends coming before they were apparent?
00:10:19
zzweilous
So I will want to contrast this with the LAIC meta, right? Because this ah this is the second instance of us having a custom meta to figure out for one of these big events.
00:10:23
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:10:30
zzweilous
So now we can actually contrast and compare these two. um Where the LAIC meta had 17 different species in top cut, ah being a top 32 top cut. um The EUIC meta, still more limited than an open meta, but 23 different species. So that's like a 35% increase.
00:10:48
zzweilous
um And yeah, I feel as if you could feel that and practice as well, where the optimal strategy felt a lot less obvious. Like the meta was a lot less solved than the LAIC meta was.
00:11:01
zzweilous
With LAIC, you had 100% Oranguru usage in day two, um and you had very little movement from one strategy to another during practice.
00:11:05
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:12
zzweilous
Essentially, not really much happening other than people realizing that Metachem was one of the best Pokemon in the meta. And other than that, it was essentially just like stale eight to nine Pokemon in various configurations with a couple of inefficient spice picks here and there. And EYC was different because I think it was like advertised as the big Spidops meta. Everybody was expecting another Oranguru experience just with Spidops as the top dog of the meta.
00:11:42
zzweilous
um But this meta had a lot more variety and strategy, like with the airdrops of Milotic, Seeking, Frostlass, and just with great variety in what the various Pokemon that were allowed and whitelisted could do.
00:11:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:58
zzweilous
on And so i feel as if from week to week, the meta shifted and shifted and shifted. um Very early on, people were mostly going by PVPoke, paying Spide Ops as their main bug type, umm experimenting with the stuff that was
EUIC Meta Shifts
00:12:13
zzweilous
highly ranked.
00:12:14
zzweilous
And then eventually people figured out, okay, there's going to be one bug on every team. Everything else is kind of weak to Tyranitar. People were experimenting with that as the Spice Pick.
00:12:23
William Dunphey
I mean...
00:12:25
zzweilous
Then people were countering that by bringing Quick Attack Furret. And then after that development, I feel as if the meta started to settle a little more. Because the reaction to Quick Attack Furret was Spiritomb.
00:12:37
zzweilous
And Spiritomb ended up being one of those gravity wells that the meta revolved around. One of those Pokemon that had staying power. So going into EUIC, had a little bit of her split preparation because I work as a sports journalist and we're recording this on Sunday, the last day of the Winter Olympics.
00:12:58
zzweilous
In the lead up to EUIC, had seven straight days of work where I couldn't really practice as much.
00:12:58
William Dunphey
Hmm. Hmm.
00:13:06
zzweilous
So essentially, I was very, very, very well prepared for the meta as it shaped up a week before the tournament. but so much has happened since. The overall formula that I was pretty much set on and that turned out to be um fairly consistent even at the actual event was that four Pokemon were essentially a given.
00:13:27
zzweilous
A bug type, in my opinion, preferably a shadow bug type with the extra bug bite pressure. um a rollout user, this could be Lickilicky, which end up being more popular.
00:13:41
zzweilous
But it could also be Dunsparce, which ended up being more effective because you had an easier way of hitting Spiritomb, said Gravity Well, without having to successfully bait the Pokemon.
00:13:45
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:13:54
zzweilous
Because Drilleron is just much cheaper than an Earthquake. And then Spiritomb, obviously being a big player, and also the Shadow Drapion, which is just such a flexible pick, resisting the Sucker Punches and having a lot of neutral play into a lot of the meta.
00:14:11
zzweilous
So bug, rollout, spirit room, drapeon was something that you saw on essentially every successful team. And then there is two flex picks, two picks that you can choose from the whitelisted list. You can double up on rollout users such as Colin6's team that did finish second. You can bring in it a dragon like Kingdra, like Zvylis, like Dragalgy. You can run Frostass because that has so much sweeping potential.
00:14:39
zzweilous
You bring Grimmsnarl, which is a little obvious, but it's probably going to be fine, right? At least you double resist Dragon Breath. Or you could bring like the waters that were whitelisted in Milotic and Seeking, which also ended up a very popular strategy, um taking first, taking a third, and also um taking up two further top eight places on the teams of Nighttime Flesher and Sustenance Eater.
00:15:00
zzweilous
um So yeah, essentially you had those four locked-in mons, then you had two flex picks, and I was prepared for the wrong flex picks. Because um originally a lot of Kingdra was being played and that had a last second adjustment on many teams for where Milotic as the dragon type damage dealer that doesn't take super effective from dragon type damage and also functions as a neutral pivot.
00:15:25
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:15:28
zzweilous
So that was essentially a counter reaction to Kingdra. And then essentially like the last slot, guess like the Seeking helps with just like the flexibility of play that it allows you um because it's a debuffer, it has a hard hitting move and crucially, it is pack user, meaning it has flying type damage in a meta where flying types are banned and you are able to pressure the bug types that otherwise you can just run through your team pretty well.
00:15:56
zzweilous
So that was essentially like what the meta ended up being and my whole like, oh, I bring a furred. Oh, I at least jam it to sucker punch so I have some play into spirit to him. That was still very much last week.
00:16:06
William Dunphey
yeah
00:16:08
zzweilous
So was a little behind. Other people adapted a lot better. But overall, I really enjoyed the process of figuring out this meta because it was much more dynamic, dynamic much more ever-evolving than what we saw during LAIC.
00:16:25
William Dunphey
Correct. I think you absolutely nailed it. I have i had a list of questions, right, that i I DMed ZZ before the recording. And you essentially answered in one shot. You answered, I think, 75% them. Right. ah Such a fascinating look. So the first question was, where did Ferret go? I think the spirit, the rise of spirit tomb is a great um answer to that question because you do have the ghost typing. And I think I think I ah day two during the broadcast, it finally clicked for me that if you have spirit tomb and you have a body slam user or a rap user like Milotic,
00:16:58
William Dunphey
if you're in that matchup and your opponent catches a double resisted normal type attack on your spirit to it's like absolutely devastating.
Spiritomb's Edge
00:17:05
William Dunphey
And it does put you behind in terms of in terms of the energy gain and how the the matchup is going. So that makes a lot of sense. um Next question I had was, why do some spice picks like Tyranitar not work?
00:17:16
William Dunphey
But others like Hisuia and Samurott do. We haven't really dived into that yet. I think that Tauntaun was the only trainer in Top Cut to finish with Tyranitar. We did get to cast one of his matchups on stream.
00:17:25
zzweilous
um
00:17:27
William Dunphey
He went for the regular instead of the Shadow, which I thought was a little interesting too. but I do want to come back to the team composition layout that that you presented. So I absolutely agree with you.
00:17:38
William Dunphey
I'm going to try to throw this graphic up on screen when we do get the YouTube version up, fingers crossed. But we have the Bugbyte user, which is Shadow Beedrill, Spide Ops, ah or Shadow Venomoth.
00:17:50
William Dunphey
But with some exceptions, we had one Golisopod on Galaxic Bolton's team, and then we had a couple of Ariados, like L&Ds, Ario, and Zardy were playing. Second slot, Licky Licky or Dunsparce. Slot three, I actually have here a Flex Pick.
00:18:07
William Dunphey
So this this could be Seeking. It could be your second
Seeking's Flexibility
00:18:10
William Dunphey
normal type. If you already pick Licky Licky, it could be Dunsparce, for example. It could also be Grimmsnarl. Or in the case of Stone Collection, it could be Da Dunsparce, which is a really, really nice choice. Slot four, have Primary Dark.
00:18:22
William Dunphey
So Primary Dark, I classify as Spear Tomb. Or in the case of C. Leonardo, it's his Hisuian Samurott. but mostly it's gonna be Spiritomb. Slot 5, this was a huge surprise, I think, as well, because you mentioned Shadow Drapion being on so many teams. It was everywhere, especially on top-performing teams, and we saw this really in the Day 1 to Day 2 usage stats. Shadow Drapion just rocketed up. I think it was either number 1 or number 2 most common pick overtaking Licky Licky, which is insane. And then the 6th slot, i I have Dragon or Pseudo Dragon.
00:18:55
William Dunphey
It seems like every single team with a couple of of exceptions had either Milotic, Kingdra, or Zylus. And then you have maybe Shadow Milotic on Zardy's team, or you have Kaifia's Shadow Frost Slice, which is definitely a different look. But that seemed like the six slots. And going into this, my flex used to be the second normal primarily, but then it kind of pivoted towards Seeking or Grim Sorrow or something like that. So...
00:19:22
William Dunphey
um Yeah, I think it's it's really cool that we both kind of arrived at the same talking point here. And I know that I've been going on for a little while here. um
00:19:31
zzweilous
Okay.
00:19:31
William Dunphey
But I have one assumption i have one assumption here. Spidops is overtaken by Shadow Beedrill just because it was too slow. It's a solid setup Pokemon. I don't know if any trainer played it better than ah Steinar played it or TZ Gabs. I don't know if any trainer played it better than he played it. But it felt like Shadow Beedrill was overrepresented, especially in top eight. And that was for... a good reason. So we can kind of take this any way you want. i don't know if you want to talk about Shadow Beedrill, if you want to talk about Spice Picks, or if you want to talk about why Water is the best offensive type and defensive type in Pokemon Go and that will never change.
00:20:08
zzweilous
I feel like that would be an all-timer. I think, like, some interesting numbers are also how the top 64 from EUIC differs from the 64 entrants that participated in the Zygarden prized practice tournament that was held the week before. So we have actually the exact same sample size of teams.
00:20:29
zzweilous
um And I feel as if, like, the level is also relatively similar because if you play a Zygarden tournament, you are very much, like, ingrained in the grassroots scene and probably a little bit of a try hard at least.
00:20:41
zzweilous
So I think the most notable changes just over the last week were a plus 39% increase in Shadow Beedrill. This is like just like adding up the percentages, it's like not that percentage of what it was previously.
00:20:50
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:20:56
zzweilous
So it went from 23.4% to usage. mylotic plus twenty eight point one dance plus dance viruss plus So um these are essentially, okay, we have Spiritomb at 21.9 as well. So those four were really the big winners.
00:21:17
zzweilous
B, replacing Spidobbed, because as you mentioned, it's much
Adaptation to Meta Shifts
00:21:22
zzweilous
faster in that some of its pace doesn't even really come from reaching its charge attacks, but just doing immediate damage with the Bugbites.
00:21:30
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:21:31
zzweilous
Milotic being the anti-Kingdra, adjustment because Kingdra on the other hand went down a substantial amount over the same amount of time and then Spiritomb rising people are realizing okay this is just like the I can throw it into everything that isn't a dedicated dark type even dropion is fine for it kind of Pokemon um and Dancebars as either the primary rollout user on many people's teams or a secondary rollout user just because it's so much more fine into Spiritomb than Lickilick is and yeah that's all just like
00:22:04
zzweilous
major shifts that came one week ahead of the tournament. um Yeah, I guess like you really had to be on top of your meta reads there.
00:22:16
zzweilous
And yeah, we can we can jump into the bracket and see who of our trainers actually figured it out the best.
00:22:17
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:22:25
William Dunphey
so So just before we jump into the bracket, I did have one additional question for you that you didn't one shot in your first response. So I wanted to to have a chance here to ask you. And this is a great segue to because on the Zygarden graphic, we do see Khaleesi Fitzy in seventh place. with Dragology and going into this event, ah the casters are always asked at excuse me the casters are always asked for our top picks. And for best in class dragon, we actually picked Dragology, which was in hindsight, a grievous error. And we should have leaned more towards Kayndra or even towards Milotic.
00:23:01
William Dunphey
Where did
Dragalge's Challenges
00:23:02
William Dunphey
Dragalogy go? Because it felt like that Pokemon was so good in Go Battle League and the EYC limited meta there. It was pretty popular in practice. But then when we actually get to the tournament day, it's like nowhere to be seen. I don't think anyone was playing it.
00:23:15
zzweilous
I think one problem that Dragalgy had was um its matchup into other dragons. So if you reserve your dragon slot for that Pokémon, you want it to have solid play into its counterparts, but you cannot aquatail a Kindra, you cannot aquatail a Milotic, and you don't really want to aquatail as wireless either.
00:23:32
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:23:35
zzweilous
um So while there is utility in resisting bug type damage and and having a pretty solid matchup into Drapion, which To be fair, the other dragons can also replicate or even improve upon in the case of Zoilus.
00:23:47
zzweilous
um I think there's just too much, um like too little aqua tail damage, non-step aqua tail that offers from a Dragology, as well as the poison typing defensively being both a blessing and a curse, because on the other dragons, you will easily be able to take a drill run from a dance bus or on even an earthquake from a licky licky.
00:24:13
zzweilous
Whereas for a drug allergy, that is either going to put it very low or even straight up take it out.
00:24:20
William Dunphey
I agree. Yeah, I think that um your point about Kingdra rising in popularity, Milotic also re rising in popularity, and then Dragalge's inability to hit back against it, I think that really stood out. um When you look at Dragon-type Pokemon, you have... obviously the Dragology with Aqua Tail and Outrage. You had the Kingdra with Swift and Outrage. I kept, I didn't say it on the broadcast, but I kept wanting to call Kingdra Coin Flip Kingdra because either you connect with the Outrage and you hit a home run and everything's going great, or somebody, you know, calls your your Swift mate and you're screwed, right? So when you put it in that context and you say, well, if somebody calls my Outrage on Dragology, then I'm i'm just a force to throw an Aqua Tail into a Kingdrow, which is double resisted. And that's just awful. Or into a Milotic, which is single resisted. And that sucks too.
00:25:09
William Dunphey
So yeah, I agree with you. I think that the the potential upside was just not there for something like Dragalgy. So that's an important lesson. And hopefully next time when we make our caster predictions for an IC, we don't have that kind of misplay.
Steinar's Controversy
00:25:23
William Dunphey
And hopefully nobody noticed that, but I'm sure somebody did.
00:25:26
William Dunphey
um But yeah, if you like, we can get into bracket now that we've kind of given you an overview of the meta for EUIC. What an insane bracket, even without ah even without Marto, even without inadequance. So many, so many talented trainers. um I'm not sure if you just want to address the elephant in the room here before we get into the player storylines. It might be good to kind of get it out of the way.
00:25:48
zzweilous
Yeah, I think what you are referring to is that in fourth place, taking home a trophy back to Brazil, we have the trainer formerly known as LNDS T. Steinar now competing under a new name and on a new account.
00:26:03
zzweilous
And this has happened because Steinar was temporarily banned from the Play Pokemon Championship Series.
00:26:03
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:26:10
zzweilous
And his previous account is essentially forever locked. If you're friends with his previous account, it will still show up as a level 50 because that account was permanently banned just before we had the level 80 update.
00:26:25
zzweilous
And there are conflicting, like there's conflicting information, conflicting details on how this actually happened. um The story that has been circulating online has been one of a supposedly spoofed Bastiodon being used at the Pittsburgh regionals.
00:26:44
zzweilous
that Steinar ended up winning against me of all people. And upon hearing that, I was obviously like a little flustered, like, oh no, this is my fourth grand finals loss in a row.
00:26:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:26:55
zzweilous
And it was against a cheated Pokemon. That feels really bad. um But I have moved past that and I have reached out to Steinar and asked him for his account on the situation.
00:27:07
zzweilous
um And again, I do not have any way to verify this. But what he essentially told me is that um none of his Pokemon that were used at either Pittsburgh or Belo Horizonte, which is a Brazilian regional he competed in afterwards, were actually obtained through illegitimate means.
00:27:31
zzweilous
But there had still been an incident at the Belo Horizonte event that eventually led to his um account termination and the temporary ban in play Pokemon.
00:27:44
zzweilous
He was later granted the right to open up a fresh Pokemon Go account, which he used to compete at EUIC and which also probably explains why he didn't have a shadow bugbiter available because it's a new account and you cannot trade shadow Pokemon.
00:27:47
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:28:01
zzweilous
um So yeah, um I am inclined to believe Steiner's version of events thus far because um not only does it feel like Occam's Razor would tell you that it's very unlikely that somebody just spoofs their tournament team one day ahead of the event, which is supposedly um how that was.
00:28:23
William Dunphey
Yeah. Another rumor.
00:28:25
zzweilous
Yeah, like it was like the rumor how it actually like came up that that Bastion was spoofed. Apparently it had the blue background of a newly caught Pokemon. It's like all like very urban legend type of deal.
00:28:37
zzweilous
um
00:28:37
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:28:38
zzweilous
And yeah, supposedly that was a hoax. um I, again, can neither confirm nor deny what actually happened, but it didn't really make sense to me that somebody would do that.
00:28:50
zzweilous
um But still, there had been an incident at the Belo Horizonte event that was still a warranting a punishment, and Steiner didn't deny that there was wrongdoing on his terms.
00:29:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:29:04
zzweilous
um But apparently it didn't really... um impact the integrity of his previous tournament runs. um I can choose to be mad about the Pittsburgh Grand Finals based on rumors or I can choose to trust his account and accept that.
00:29:24
zzweilous
um I did have the feeling as if he was being honest with me so I do not hold any grudges and even though I feel as if this is a very a light sentence if there was serious cheating involved i am not generally against second chances and especially for somebody who i believe um has a lot of personal emotional stakes just with the friends that he's made and just like what pokemon just gives to somebody who is so entrenched in the competitive scene um i hope he can enjoy that again without being harassed about the previous incident which
00:29:57
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:30:05
zzweilous
I do believe has happened. um So yeah, again, there's a lot of ambiguities, a lot of things that we don't know. But if anything, I feel as if EOIC did show us that nobody should spoof for PVP Pokemon because you can start an account in like late 2025 and take home a trophy in early 2026. feel like that should be the main takeaway.
00:30:33
William Dunphey
Right. Driver, not car. I guess some some people could argue.
00:30:36
zzweilous
essentially.
00:30:37
William Dunphey
um Pokemon Go as a community has a very ah strong history when it comes to spoofing, cheating, ah paying paying you know accounts on eBay to get you specific Pokemon or whatever it might be.
00:30:52
William Dunphey
A lot of the OGs remember the 2020 Orlando Mega Tournament and how the EX Raid Pass, ah x I don't want to call it exploit, but kind of like ah the consequence of the EX Raid Pass in revealing people that were spoofers or currently under kind of a shadow ban from Niantic.
00:31:12
William Dunphey
ah That whole thing was insane for for you guys that weren't there. It was basically situation where it was discovered that if you sent someone EX Rate Pass invite and it bounced back to you, that meant that that person was a a shadow ban by Niantic for account violations.
00:31:28
William Dunphey
So essentially you had a situation where we had over 200 or almost almost 300 players gathered together and the the news came out. So everybody was just like sending the the invites to everyone on their friends list, just spamming it to everyone.
00:31:42
William Dunphey
Just trying to check and see who was legit, who was cheating, who was who was lying. And essentially it culminated in ah relationships ending. Friendships that had been going on for years imploded overnight.
00:31:55
William Dunphey
You had people crying and begging and making appeals to to rooms full of their friends, you know trying to explain themselves.
00:32:01
zzweilous
Thank
00:32:03
William Dunphey
The culture of shame is like very, very strong. in, in
History of Spoofing
00:32:07
William Dunphey
Pokemon go. And especially was strong, uh, back in the grassroots days. So I understand this very volatile reaction. Uh, I didn't read the chat during the tournament, but apparently the chat was just in flames, uh, trying to, you know, roast Steiner, make allegations, uh,
00:32:24
William Dunphey
be really rude to him, say mean things to hurt his feelings, whatever it might be. ah But from a caster perspective, you know, we have to maintain a professional air about it and we have to address things, you know, as as eloquently as possible. So,
00:32:39
William Dunphey
um From a casting perspective, you know, I can only say the the basic things. I could say he's qualified for Worlds. He's one of Brazil's best, etc., etc. And obviously can't go into reasonings on the broadcast.
00:32:51
William Dunphey
So if anybody was frustrated with the commentators for not saying more about the situation, frankly, it's out of our hands. There's a rule system in place. There's the TPCI rule system and there's the Niantic rule system.
00:33:03
William Dunphey
obviously, account spoofing, etc. We've known about Niantic's three strike policy for years, a decade, rather, we've known about that. And then you have the TPCI rules, which are new to us.
00:33:15
William Dunphey
And a lot of players don't really look into that because a lot of us don't have any reason to fear punishment because we don't actually engage in any exploits.
00:33:17
zzweilous
Thank
00:33:24
William Dunphey
But I will say that Based on the the rule systems that are in place, the punishments were handed down to Steinar and the appeals were made on his behalf. And like ZZ has said, he's talked with him privately. I've also talked with Steinar privately.
00:33:39
William Dunphey
He seems very apologetic. He seems very sincere in what happened. And I think only when you come to the point where you risk losing your community, losing your friends, losing something that you've really invested so much of your time and energy in, do you actually reflect back and say, man, maybe I shouldn't be an idiot and exploit. Maybe I shouldn't be stupid and try to find shortcuts. Maybe I should actually take take a more reasonable approach. So um I don't know if if Sinar will will stay on the straight and narrow. I don't know if he'll have another violation in the future. I don't know what ah the future holds, but
00:34:18
William Dunphey
um Honestly, people going have their opinions no matter what, but I will tell everyone that it's not like he somehow like cheated the system and tricked Scopely into making a new account and and just found a way out and just continues to to be yeah um continues to deceive people. That's definitely not the case. He's he's gone through all the all the different hoops and rule sets that he needs to in order to compete. Yeah.
00:34:41
William Dunphey
Yeah, I mean, as as ironically as you put it, it does kind of show that if somebody is good enough, they can pick up an account, start a new account, whatever it might be, and they can turn around and actually place really well with it. And if you have a community like ah like he does, where people will trade you Grimstarls and trade you Spide Ops, even though you missed the event, then I guess you can make it work. But yeah.
00:35:03
William Dunphey
Yeah, that was a whole controversy. And of course, internally, um privately, i was getting a lot of messages and a lot of people that i love and respect were were just talking certain ways about Steinar. So, yeah.
00:35:15
William Dunphey
Yeah, there's definitely some feelings, some strong feelings on both sides of it. But I don't know if you talked to Steiner outside of the event, but I bumped into him in the venue hall with all the Brazilians and he seemed to be in good spirits. And and he told me he was excited to go back and and listen to the commentary. So, you best wishes for Steiner.
00:35:35
zzweilous
Yeah. I didn't actually talk to him in person, but so I, do obviously have emotions of my own and i used to be a lot more negative about the situation, but then I was essentially pointed towards that I really only know the rumors myself and hadn't actually reached out to him.
00:35:45
William Dunphey
yeah.
00:35:54
zzweilous
So I did just that. And yeah, he did appear genuine to me. And at the end of the day, what happened happened. And now the question is, how do we move on from that? How is he moving on from that?
00:36:10
zzweilous
Alex Blanchez- likely learning a lesson and treating the game a different way than before and how are we as a Community moving on on from that like we certainly shouldn't excuse cheating on but we probably also should question whether we know all the details of a situation before we cast your judgment on anybody.
00:36:22
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:36:32
William Dunphey
yeah ah We were talking about this before we turned the cameras on. I mean, we've heard so many different stories. it It oscillates between being something like very reasonable and an honest mistake to, like you said, ah maybe a blue background surrounding a Pokemon that's like brand new that apparently is in a new location that he battled with. Like the rumors are crazy and it is a game of telephone. like It's going back and forth and getting more and more. outlandish every time the story is told.
00:36:59
William Dunphey
So I don't know, just like with all things with the internet, I wouldn't believe everything that you see.
Community's Role in Rule Enforcement
00:37:04
William Dunphey
And Steinar, if you've ever encountered him, is definitely a shy and private person.
00:37:09
William Dunphey
So I don't expect any kind of big public grandiose statement. He's not going to record a video and post online, explain everything. It's just kind of, kind of is what it is. So people can love him, people can hate him, but I don't know. ah that That's the thing, right? That's the thing. You can have a personal opinion, but if you really want to change the system, you have to actually appeal to TPCI, i appeal to Scopely or whatever it might be and change the structure around it.
00:37:37
William Dunphey
And that's just the way it is. So I feel like I felt like it was important for us to get get that out of the way. Obviously, I can't talk about that on the official broadcast. And this is a good outlet for us to talk about it. And it's uniquely personal to you and your story in Pittsburgh. So that's another reason to touch on it. but Now that we've kind of got that out of the room, I don't know if people will be happy with that explanation or if they'll think that we're going we're being too soft, but whatever.
00:38:00
William Dunphey
I don't care. That's that's the truth. It's time to talk about some other player storylines.
00:38:04
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:38:04
William Dunphey
All right. but Let's be real. A lot of players competed and a lot of talented ones were in the tournament.
00:38:06
zzweilous
yeah
00:38:11
William Dunphey
So I don't know who you want to talk about first. I've got one trainer on my mind. What do you say?
00:38:16
zzweilous
I think that you did mention that you want to talk to talk about our world champion Beelzeboy.
Beelzeboy's Journey
00:38:21
zzweilous
um i do feel as if the person that I had on my list is actually the one tying with him for seventh place in Sustenance Eater, which is like kind of interesting because Sustenance Eater feels like the trainer newest to the scene in top cut, whereas Beelzeboy obviously as the world champion is just about the highest profile player in the top cut.
00:38:43
zzweilous
um But yeah, like making a habit of attending TPCI i sanctioned events as of this season. And I did talk to Bill Zaboi briefly at one of the socials and he was like, yeah, like I got my, my world's payout.
00:39:01
zzweilous
I got a lot of prize money and I'm putting that back into traveling and competing because that gives me the opportunity to see the community. And I'm very happy for him that he did finish in seventh and,
00:39:10
William Dunphey
easy
00:39:14
zzweilous
made some of the travel money back.
00:39:17
William Dunphey
I don't know Beelzeboy intimately, right? But based on my limited interactions with him, he's just a nice kid. He's just very nice. And and I feel like he's a great representation of us.
00:39:27
zzweilous
I think he's, I think that he's like in his 20s. So he's like not even like, I know he would pass as like a teenager still, but I don't even think he's a kid, but he's very nice.
00:39:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:39:35
zzweilous
He's like a very, very friendly and genuine person.
00:39:38
William Dunphey
I feel like, and this is this is such a boomer take, I feel like as I get older, anyone that's like 10 years younger than me, i refer to them as a kid.
00:39:45
zzweilous
yeah yeah yeah i'm out here calling the world champion kid yup yup okay
00:39:50
William Dunphey
Yeah, i mean I mean, heck, and honestly, I kind of look at it, ah when I say it, I don't mean it in a degrading sense.
00:39:51
zzweilous
a
00:39:57
William Dunphey
I mean it as like, they still are they still are young, they still have the entire future ahead of them.
00:39:59
zzweilous
i know you don't yeah
00:40:03
William Dunphey
And when I think of myself when I was 20, I think, man, I was just a kid. like Like that, ah the very famous quote, you know, um I think it's from The Sopranos, right? There's like a character that that passes away and they say, oh yeah, you know, he was 85.
00:40:16
William Dunphey
And the quote is, ah oh, he was just a kid. It's like a one of those one of those situations.
00:40:22
zzweilous
Well, his his name is Beelzeboy. Like, he should maybe rename to Beelzeman if he doesn't want to be called a kid on the podcast.
00:40:30
William Dunphey
Exactly. Or Beelze Onk, right? Something like that. But what a run for a world champion. And honestly, ZZ, I love doing this show with you because the second trainer I wanted to talk about was Sustenance Eater.
00:40:41
William Dunphey
So you're right on the money with that.
00:40:41
zzweilous
Oh, let's go.
00:40:42
William Dunphey
So let's go ahead and jump ah to Beelze Boy real quick. I think it's really cool because... Dancing Raw really set a precedent when he won Worlds in 2022 and then just kind of stopped competing, just went completely into into staffing and judging, which is excellent. And i'm glad he's doing that. But whenever you see a world champ succeed, you really, ah the question just becomes, what do they do next? And we haven't seen Yakai compete as often. Axan, of course, is competing quite a bit. And to see Bielzebue doing so well at EUIC was really cool. Just recapping his run really briefly, he was able to win three rounds against ah some pretty so pretty solid trainers. But then in the semifinals for Group F, he was defeated by Hickamy.
00:41:23
William Dunphey
He went to the loser side bracket and took on it JB Cowell, 9 Alfie, and... Aite 131 and won all three of those matches to make it to day number two. Now, when he got to day number two, this is a crazy run, right?
00:41:36
zzweilous
Thank
00:41:36
William Dunphey
We talk about insane runs. This is a very, very good run. He beat August Isley. He beat Alan Diaz-Canon. He beat Cookshack. And he beat C. Leonardo in his Hisuian Samurott. But he was finally failed by Nighttime Clasher. So it took... the LAIC champion to bring down our world champion, which I think speaks volumes. And I didn't get chance to talk with him in London, but what a good performance. And I think if anybody's questioning if the world champion still got it, that's your answer.
00:42:04
zzweilous
Yeah, I don't think many people were questioning Beelzeboy, but he is actually on the the person with the second most match wins behind Partoman, tied with Stone Collection.
00:42:19
zzweilous
And I believe with the, let me check real quick, yeah, with the second most game wins, so matches being entire sets, games being individual games um of the entire tournament. So...
00:42:30
zzweilous
just like in isolation also just like a very very strong performance like seventh like it's it's that kind of unassuming like top eight is always like the threshold for like okay this was like really really great but still it's it's not a trophy it's not an a day three but it's still like one hell of a run really uh which is fitting because bill's a boy um but
00:42:52
William Dunphey
exactly ah
00:42:54
zzweilous
I also really appreciate that he did it with a team that was very unusual because it was one of the few teams that didn't have a spirit to him on it, instead opting for the Grimm style that I personally despise, but can respect as a bit of a spicier pick.
00:43:08
William Dunphey
Yeah. I don't like it either.
00:43:10
zzweilous
It just feels so RPS in this meta, but a Pokemon that I really enjoy, next to the Zoylis, which obviously is a favorite of mine, is also the Froslass, which
00:43:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:43:22
zzweilous
That's been a little bit of a GBL hero for me in the Championship Meta Cup. um
00:43:27
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:43:27
zzweilous
I didn't feel as if it was super well positioned for the actual thing, just because so everybody can freely run Spiritomb plus a Roll Outer into every match. um But it is one of the better ways of dealing with a B-drill on the opponent's side of the team, because you pace and resist.
00:43:44
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:43:46
zzweilous
um So yeah, that was certainly a fun team. He piloted it. as a world champion would.
00:43:53
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think the the frost size is a good answer, especially when you have two dark types on your team being this wireless and the grim snarl. But yeah, shout out to be able great run by him. I'm really excited to talk about sustenance eater because I actually spoke about this on the EIC pre show nighttime class year was my trainer to highlight, but I kind of like snuck one in there and I said I almost put his brother in this spot instead, but it felt wrong. to to knock out the LAIC champion in lieu of his brother. But my goodness, Susten Cedar, what a a trajectory. This is like a hockey stick straight up into success. And he's just been, he was so good last weekend.
Sustenance Eater's Breakthrough
00:44:33
zzweilous
Yeah, so he's been tying his best performance ever with his seventh place. um But this is EUIC. His previous best performance was the Melbourne Regional, which is nothing to scoff at, but it is not EUIC.
00:44:49
zzweilous
um So to just go in there and essentially like tie with the World Championship in the largest tournament ever, um as somebody who was introduced as like, oh, the little brother of, I feel as if he's like working his way out of just that spot and really becoming a big threat in his own right.
00:45:11
zzweilous
And I believe in one of his very early tournaments, he had a crazy day one run where he defeated Ryze, like multiple top NA trainers.
00:45:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:45:23
zzweilous
So even when he first appeared on the map, it was already like, okay, this... This kid, I will say kid because he's younger than Eric, has potential.
00:45:35
zzweilous
um But now this potential is being actualized and on such a stage as well. So like I would not be surprised if we are talking about the first top four in like a regular sized original sooner rather than later.
00:45:52
William Dunphey
Exactly. And I think his his brother, ah Nighttime Clasher, he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, and he said, regional winner soon for Sustance Eater.
00:46:03
zzweilous
Thank
00:46:03
William Dunphey
And I definitely see that happening. Recap his run just really briefly. He had, I think, a no-show round one. He won rounds 2, 3, and 4, all straight 2-0s, didn't drop a single game. Then he took on Zardy in the Group J Finals, was able to win that 2-1. Went on to day number 2, he disposed of Cookshack 2-0. He was defeated by TZ Steinar 2-0, but in that loser side bracket, he brought down Stone Collection, which I think Stone's playing his best PvP of his whole career, so that's a massive win. And then it took our eventual champion, Pato Man, to actually knock him out of the bracket decisively. So losing to Steinar and Pato, I mean, you can't really, you can't say anything negative about that.
00:46:48
zzweilous
Yeah, like speaking of stone, this is a hot take. I don't know how well it will age and I don't know how many tournaments he'll be playing. I know he'll be playing Seattle, um but I think it's more likely that his name and face will end up on one of these cards that play Pokemon posts where they have all the regional champions by the end of the season.
00:47:08
zzweilous
I think him becoming one of those faces is going to be more likely than that not happening because he's kind of overdue a second victory after his
00:47:15
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:47:17
zzweilous
a very early last chance qualifier victor victory with the Samorad all the way back in 2022.
00:47:26
William Dunphey
he was He was third place in Toronto, so
00:47:26
zzweilous
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he's been having a ah very, very consistently strong season. um Yeah, eventually, eventually there's going to be another grand finals and eventually some of his outlandish picks like the Dundasvars this time around are going to make it all the way through.
00:47:44
zzweilous
um
00:47:45
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:47:45
zzweilous
But yeah, like, like the sustenance each trajectory is is so interesting to me because even even with a nighttime clasher you were like thinking about oh this is like the example to point to when i talk about how quickly somebody can rise from essentially like new to the game to a consistent presence in top cards and actual tournament threat um and now we have the same thing with the younger brother and like Sometimes there's like narratives about, oh, like who's the more talented of the two brothers, like actual rivalries between the two.
00:48:20
zzweilous
feel Like in in regular
Rivalries and Success
00:48:21
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:48:21
zzweilous
sports, that's even more common than in the little PvP scene that we got.
00:48:25
zzweilous
But honestly, i know it from my own experience.
00:48:26
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:48:27
zzweilous
Like I am a little older than Jonkis, but ah the thing that first inspired me to get good at the game was that he got rank one at the GBL leaderboards.
00:48:38
zzweilous
And I wanted to prove myself that I can do that too.
00:48:39
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:48:41
zzweilous
And it took a couple of years, um but I did manage to establish myself.
00:48:44
William Dunphey
Nice.
00:48:48
zzweilous
And I feel as if such a brotherly rivalry can actually go a long way and really i just igniting that flame and helping somebody on that trajectory because it's a lot more fun than just doing it in a vacuum.
00:49:03
William Dunphey
We need to get ah a sibling showdown. I want everybody to to drop us a comment here. Who do you think would win a Z's wireless Jonkos duo versus a nighttime clasher sustenance eater duo?
00:49:14
William Dunphey
That would be.
00:49:14
zzweilous
It's like the Dark Horse pairing of Kaelio and Colin as well.
00:49:15
William Dunphey
Same.
00:49:18
zzweilous
um Partos' little brother has started competing recently. so
00:49:23
William Dunphey
But let's throw in Lyle Jeffs and blob NA. We can have those two.
00:49:27
zzweilous
True.
00:49:28
William Dunphey
Right, right. We got some some brotherly rivalries brewing here. But no, I.
00:49:33
zzweilous
There's a lot of talented siblings in the community.
00:49:33
William Dunphey
I'm sorry say again.
00:49:37
zzweilous
but yeah, you go ahead.
00:49:39
William Dunphey
Yeah, there really are. um I think it's interesting. And I kind of i first got a whiff of this, if I may ah pause a whiff of this when ah nighttime class year said that basically his brother was was building teams and that he would just take a team that his brother built and then he would actually play it and have a lot of success.
00:49:56
zzweilous
right.
00:49:58
William Dunphey
I was like, huh. So maybe Sustenance Eater is actually cooking up at a high level. So I'm not sure what his next event will be, but I fully anticipate he will do well. i Just like you shouted out to Stone Collection, I think Sustenance Eater is is due very soon for a regional win.
00:50:14
William Dunphey
um If I could shout out one more trainer just briefly. This isn't on her script. I'm going a little off script here. But wasn't it incredible to see Palasha do as well as
Paula's Impressive Performance
00:50:23
William Dunphey
she did? I know that if you keep up with Paula on socials, she hasn't had a very good time as of late. A lot of real-life things have been hitting pretty hard, and I think that happens to all of us at some point. I think that Zardy went through some similar things a year or two ago, and he's publicly shared that.
00:50:39
William Dunphey
But to see Paula do so well, make it to day number two, actually defeating Nighttime Clasher, being dropped to the loser side bracket by Hickamy, and then being beaten in a close game three by Pato Man.
00:50:53
William Dunphey
Paula did so well. And I think she was also very proud to see another Spanish prodigy actually win it all. So if you're going to, if you're to be Paula, at least ah carry the torch forward. Right.
00:51:04
zzweilous
Yeah, like Spanish PvP was so well represented by Pato and Pala once again. And let me let me check the top card actually, because I do believe that there was like even more Spanish representation. Oh yes, ChrisLB taking me out of all people.
00:51:20
zzweilous
I did lose my first top 32 round against Chris. And yeah, like just didn't really have like the best answers to his B-Trill.
00:51:32
zzweilous
I tried my best. Makos Shiny also making the top 32, so consistently one of the most high performing PvP regions. yeah Happy for Paola that um the PvP scene could be a little bit of a distraction, if nothing else, after some tough personal news shared on the socials recently.
00:51:54
William Dunphey
Yeah, exactly. So many good storylines here in our bracket.
Hisuian Samurott's Viability
00:51:58
William Dunphey
I know that we can't mention everybody, ah but I'll just kind of give ah a real quick roundup. See Leonardo with the Hisuian Samurott.
00:52:05
William Dunphey
What a fun pick. What a fun play. I did not expect that Pokemon to do anything. I thought it was another GBL hero, kind of like Shadow Titar, but he made it look like it was an S tier pick. ah We had as well, Blissfully, I was really impressed by Blissfully's gameplay, but he's a very, very talented.
00:52:19
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:52:22
William Dunphey
And there was one more I wanted to call out. I think it was, so August Isley didn't have the best day two. He ran into Beelzeboy in round one and was knocked out of the loser side bracket. But on the group stage, I thought August Isley was actually very solid as well.
00:52:36
William Dunphey
So it feels like a lot of European trainers are improving and can't wait to see what they do next.
00:52:43
zzweilous
obviously as not the most European of trainers as a, I think, New York resident making his way over.
00:52:49
William Dunphey
Ah, my mistake.
00:52:50
zzweilous
um But he he has been on a strong runoff form. Won a local just yesterday. um i do have insight in that because a teammate of mine came third in that. Shout out to cheese girl Ben at this point in the broadcast.
00:53:04
zzweilous
But yeah, um blissfully, I have one comment on that. This guy ran Blissy in practice a lot.
00:53:09
William Dunphey
Yeah?
00:53:13
zzweilous
I'm a little disappointed that he didn't bring it to the actual event, but I'm also kind of glad because like who really wants to see a Blissey make day two?
00:53:13
William Dunphey
ah
00:53:24
zzweilous
Like we don't have time for that.
00:53:26
William Dunphey
And if you look at the team, it was weird in EUIC too. He had Kingdra, Licky Licky, and Spide Ops, but then the the the familiarity ends there. He follows it up with Miltank with Gyroball, which you talked about targeting a meta that's a week old. This is targeting like the Grimstarle heavy meta from two or three weeks ago. And then you had Sableye, which I mean was so far off the radar, it might as well have just not been there at all for me. And then Umbreon.
00:53:53
William Dunphey
So what a what a bizarre team six.
00:53:57
zzweilous
Yeah, if it works, it works. I honestly kind of see the Umbreon angle because like it's a sucker punch resist, it neutrally beats the rollout users, but it just really doesn't want to be here up against the Bugbiter.
00:54:07
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:54:10
zzweilous
So it's like hit and miss, but it's bulky.
00:54:11
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:54:14
zzweilous
So can't really go wrong with it.
00:54:15
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:16
zzweilous
um Yeah, like, Overall, just really delighted with the team building because it's a lot more creative and entertaining, in my opinion, than what we saw during the LAIC.
00:54:17
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:54:26
William Dunphey
and And I was so glad I told Amanda this probably three or four times over the weekend. I was so glad that we got to commentate this one because LAIC was great. It was it was really fun. It was a good experiment into limited metas, but this one felt much more alive, much more organic. And there's a lot more skill expression. One one more curveball I want to toss your way, ZZ. See Leonardo.
00:54:47
William Dunphey
Not only did he have the Hsuian Samurai, but he was also carrying the the Shadow Venomoth torch forward, and he finished ninth place overall. I just want to know if you're proud of that performance.
00:54:56
zzweilous
Yes. Big supporter of the Venomoth gaming. i was on Venomoth for like weeks and i still believe that it is very good. it is a little slower than Beedrill but it doesn't have to choose between doing damage and altering the stats in a battle because the Poison Fang kind of combines the best of both worlds between um the Felstinger and the Exusor.
00:55:22
zzweilous
So I really like Like, I like not having to rely on 50-50 calls. So is my opponent going to shield?
00:55:29
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:55:30
zzweilous
Is he not? on So I did like that about the Venomoth. And I also always enjoy when I position myself in a way where my opponent's shields are down.
00:55:41
zzweilous
I have, like, one shield left, and I can just farm up all the way to a bug buzz and take an opponent out. I don't even know whether Acelio or Nota was on bug buzz or on Silverwind, but I was bug buzzing all over the place.
00:55:53
zzweilous
And, yeah. I have like... So one of the reasons why I wasn't on Beedrill but on Venomoth was not only because I want to be very special always, but also because my Beedrills are all kind of bad, whereas my Venomoths are rank 25, rank 24, and rank 9.
00:56:03
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:56:11
zzweilous
I have three top rank 25 Shadow Venomoths for the Great League.
Shadow Venomoth's Potential
00:56:17
zzweilous
um I also have a Shadow Shiny, which is unfortunately a bad rank, but...
00:56:20
William Dunphey
Oh! Ah, ah, well.
00:56:23
zzweilous
oh Yeah, very much blessed by the mod.
00:56:27
William Dunphey
Yeah, that's one of those things where the invisible hand of fate is just kind of steering you one direction, right? So got to play Venomoth.
00:56:32
zzweilous
Exactly. was meant to be.
00:56:35
William Dunphey
But ah there's so many trainers to talk about. i feel like we should zero in a little bit more. If you're ready, we can talk about some grand finals action and our our top three finalists.
00:56:46
zzweilous
Yeah, let's do it that. I will briefly scroll down to my notes because I don't believe that I have notes on the losers finals and the grand finals, not the winners finals, but, um, oh yeah.
00:56:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:56:58
zzweilous
Uh, the losers finals were between Patu who came all the way from winners round three dropping and then just going through the entire field and Hikami who made it to the winners finals undefeated, but then you had to suffer a, uh, I think, Oh three to defeat versus Colin. It was called the final boss for a reason.
00:57:21
zzweilous
Um, I think this was our first um ah first little look at what Pato was up to in day three, which was nice informing our perspective ahead of the grand finals.
00:57:36
zzweilous
and Game one had a nice scenario that really did come into play later again because it was Beedrill lead into a Seaking. And you would think that that is really good for the Seaking.
00:57:45
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:57:47
zzweilous
And Hikami was on the Seaking in that matchup. called a Fel Stinger successfully. So that's like the low damage move. Pato had to shield up the Icy Wind.
00:57:59
zzweilous
um But what a Beedrill can do in that Seeking matchup, and Pato appeared to be very aware of it, was Ikami was hopeful to reach a second Icy Wind, but he did not. the bug bys The shadow bug bites are actually so powerful that you are able to take out a Seeking even if you land as little as a Fel Stinger.
00:58:17
zzweilous
um So that ended up being really, really um important for Pato getting the one shield farm down and exiting with almost another move, or not having to shield up a secondary IC event.
00:58:22
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:58:29
zzweilous
That is just matchup knowledge that really comes in clutch in such tense situations.
00:58:35
William Dunphey
It's fascinating too, because that gameplay echoed in the grand finals.
00:58:35
zzweilous
um
00:58:39
William Dunphey
Just just to jump ahead briefly here, we actually saw kind of an inverse situation where Colin was facing off against Pato and Grands. This was game three of the reset. Colin did the exact same thing because Pato led Spear Tomb into Beedrill. He instant swapped Seaking. Colin connected Felstinger and Bugbit all the way through. So when I was watching back the grand finals to track teams, I was like, my God, that is like...
00:59:03
William Dunphey
Insane to know that if you connect the Felstinger, you can just chew through the rest of the Seeking. But that's wild that both Hickamy and Colin and Pato, I guess, knew that matchup.
00:59:13
zzweilous
Yeah, and like it's it's so nice for the Beedrill user because you come out with such useful energy, you will still be at your original attack thanks to the Felstinger. And then Exusor just like takes out half of every Pokemon, essentially.
00:59:26
zzweilous
So even the shield that you invest is not really going to matter as much in the long run just because you will get it back or you will get a huge chunk of damage with the energy. But not only did that echo, but we also had situations, let me see whether I can find the exact game where that happened.
00:59:36
William Dunphey
Correct. Yeah.
00:59:42
zzweilous
I think it happened twice actually in the grand finals. on yeah Even in the very first game where Pato is the Seeking in the Seeking versus Shadow Beedrill matchup, calls the Felstinger, but instead of committing to another Icy Wind, knowing the matchup, he pivots out into his own Beedrill, which then has the health advantage.
01:00:03
zzweilous
And that essentially forces Colin's hand because, oh, now he's just doing resisted bug bite damage. And it's not actually as cozy as he'd like it to be. And that happens again in the bracket reset in game two.
01:00:13
William Dunphey
Thank
01:00:17
zzweilous
So that is how you could also play that matchup if you just are willing to call that Felstinger bait and then bring in a Pokemon that essentially forces your opponent to switch up their play and make it a little more dynamic and prevent the Beedrill from fully farming down the Seed game.
01:00:36
William Dunphey
Correct. So in preparation for this tournament, I definitely spent a lot of time looking at PvPoke, a lot of just even shields, even energy matchups.
01:00:39
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:00:45
William Dunphey
And I think for the next international or then or just basically the next limited meta that I commentate, I do want to spend more time actually doing the matchups and probably less time on the simulations because that was a big reason i felt like I missed the Milotic call because in in the Sims, the Milotic is like, you know, 18 and 18, it's, it's not going to hard win a bunch of matchups.
01:01:07
William Dunphey
It's not going to hard lose a bunch of matchups. ah But when it comes down to the actual gameplay, like you're talking about knowing these nuances of being able to switch in with the health advantage and bug bite all the way through, or knowing you can win the seeking matchup after connecting the fell stinger, these things are very nuanced and they don't show up in the simulations very much.
01:01:25
William Dunphey
So yeah, I'm not sure if you had any more notes on, on losers or, or grand or sorry, losers finals before we moved to
Proactive Play in EUIC
01:01:32
William Dunphey
grand finals.
01:01:32
zzweilous
exactly so my last note on losers finals game two was just like a bunch of catches from pato's side um game three we actually have um i think it was a mirror lead from b to b um and both let the x-suzzer go i believe but then pato is the one to first decide decisively pivot out into the seeking and i think that is like such a small thing but such an important thing when it comes to the actual top performers.
01:01:38
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:02:00
zzweilous
I think especially with the changes to the switch timer and especially in a meta like this where a lot of picks are very neutral to each other, being proactive matters so much. You do not want to concede farm downs.
01:02:11
zzweilous
You do want to get ahead on energy. You do want to be the one that pivots out early um just because the momentum gained, even like a Pokemon saved for a catch, um or even to clear a debuff from the Icy Winds, from the Rock Tombs, from the Raps that we have in this meta,
01:02:27
zzweilous
it can go such a long way to just save this pokemon to be the one to pivot out early and part of just being a little faster on that swap out um was essentially what won him won him the game and while it was a very tiny moment i do believe it's representative of a greater trend that makes champions
01:02:47
William Dunphey
We need to find a way to help you become a full-time Pokemon Go trainer and make enough money to where you don't have to work a day job. Because when I saw this meta and I saw how important the switch timer was, I personally thought that this was like tailor-made for a trainer like you, but just based on your switch timer manipulation in tournaments past. So that that aside, I agree with you. I think that finding ways to kind of maneuver around your opponent in this meta was incredibly important. um And we saw this a lot in in the commentary. You would see somebody switch a Pokemon out, but then they were in a position where they would get debuffed once or twice and they'd be stuck in that matchup and they'd be at a massive disadvantage. So kind of knowing when to push and when to pull in this meta was very important. And I think a lot of these trainers, especially the high performers, right, ah practice this in scrims and knew exactly how to minimize mistakes, which is not always obvious in this kind of format. So yeah.
01:03:41
William Dunphey
If you're ready, we can move on to grand finals, which was Colin taking on Pato Man. and And to just preface this briefly, right, I looked back at Pato Man's run. We keep on talking about Winner's Round 3 being where he dropped.
01:03:55
William Dunphey
Put it perspective, though, Winner's Round 1, he actually had a bye. His opponent did not show up. Winner's Round 2, he took on Gene Carnero, 0-1, which is a trainer I'm not very familiar with. Round 3, he lost 2-0 to Damon Cash,
01:04:09
William Dunphey
After falling to Damon Cash, he beat Jojo GoGo Dancer, which is still probably the most fun name in all of our competitive Pokemon Go community.
01:04:17
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:04:18
William Dunphey
Then he took on EBQERPL120. one too well Then he took on a trainer whose name I'm definitely going to butcher, Fiantiga Fian, something like that. ah Forgive my pronunciation. Then he beat Withered.
01:04:33
William Dunphey
Then he beat Alan Fian. Then going into day number two, he beat Kelly O. He beat Blissfully. He beat Chris LB. He beat Paula. He beat Sussan and Cedar. He beat Ryse to occasion. He beat Steinar.
01:04:45
William Dunphey
And then on Sunday was the 3L versus Hickamy and then the matchup versus Colin. So honestly, you you mentioned before, and I was laughing. I was laughing to myself when I made the realization.
01:04:56
William Dunphey
You made the point before that Substance Eater won, excuse me, no, Beelzebue won 21 games. And that was the second most games won on the day.
01:05:07
William Dunphey
And i was like, huh, I wonder who's first. Well, I guess it's probably Potsdamian because he's from the loser side. But guess what, everybody? You compare Beelzebue's 21 games to Potemann won 35 games in order to get to where he was and win the entire tournament. 35! That's like playing a whole extra tournament on top of what Beelzeboy did.
01:05:27
zzweilous
this may be like more wins than have done this season and i played in like four events uh i i guess it's close
01:05:34
William Dunphey
Well, i i bumped in I bumped into Doombug briefly after the event and he was a little salty and Doombug knows I love him, right? So I can say this. Doombug said, I'm upset that Pata Man broke my record for the most games won in a tournament.
01:05:48
zzweilous
Oh, yeah. was was it Was it Arlington or was it San Antonio? It was one of the two, right? Arlington? I don't know.
01:05:56
William Dunphey
That's a really good question.
01:05:56
zzweilous
like yeah He had like a yeah like you incredible loser's run once.
01:06:02
William Dunphey
Yeah, it was one of the Texas tournaments. going to try to look it up in the background while we while we discuss.
01:06:05
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:06:07
William Dunphey
But yeah, Doombug was like, well, I hope the commentators said that. But I'm still you know not not thrilled about it that he was able to do that. So I understand.
01:06:14
zzweilous
Okay. So I looked at my performance this season and 35 game wins is my Pittsburgh run, my Gdaansk run, and my EUIC run combined. So yes
01:06:25
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:06:26
zzweilous
it do be like that.
01:06:28
William Dunphey
it So it was San Antonio. That was his ah his insane run. 32 games won after falling to to Mango in round one. So 32 versus 35, that's one one set of difference.
01:06:41
William Dunphey
But still, to do it in an IC at this level is insane.
01:06:44
zzweilous
Yeah, it's wild.
01:06:44
William Dunphey
so So now that we kind of set the table, I guess we can go into into grants here.
01:06:50
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:06:50
William Dunphey
So and I said this on the on the commentary, too. I said you wanted the best. That's what you got. You got the final boss, Colin Six taking on Pata Man. And this was such a fascinating storyline because Pata Man, you know, last year came for the Winterside bracket bracket reset. He was able to write the ship and win.
01:07:10
William Dunphey
This time just feel it felt so much different coming from the loser side bracket. And it's a real test on whether or not a trainer will rest on their laurels or if they will continue to push themselves and ah persevere even when things seem really dark. And they did a couple times. I think Colin was up. He was one game away in the grand finals from winning. And then he was one game away in the grand finals reset from winning at all, if my memory serves. So it was actually very, very close this whole time.
01:07:39
zzweilous
let me hear let me check okay so i think the original grand finals yeah they they were like a three one for pato colin never got the second win so it was never like one away but like obviously the um so the game four of the reset was probably the most exciting one um because so there were like multiple situations that were like super close super dynamic there was leaky on colin's side that lived on one hp but
01:07:41
William Dunphey
Oh no, excuse me. Yeah. You're correct.
01:07:49
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:07:55
William Dunphey
Woo.
01:08:08
zzweilous
In the endgame, it all came down to a Dunsparce versus Dunsparce situation. And both of them were just about in range of a drill run.
01:08:14
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:08:18
zzweilous
So first, everybody was like holding their breath. Who's going to win CMP? So whose charge attack was going to fire first? And it ended up like and then it ended up like both survived the drill run, but then they did one more rollout and Collins Dunsparce fainted.
01:08:25
William Dunphey
I literally said that.
01:08:37
zzweilous
Pato's stunts bars hold on by like 1 HP, 2 HP, certainly not more than that. And yeah, was like, you could probably like have ah an idea of maybe what would happen, but it was still like very, very tiny margins after the game itself was already just like so back and forth.
01:08:59
zzweilous
And yeah, it could have all ended there for Pato if his stunts bars was just a little less tanky, I guess. um
01:09:07
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:09:08
zzweilous
But yeah, pulled through and really like made it work.
01:09:12
William Dunphey
Yeah, I said it ah during during the cast. When the when the first draw run got queued up from Potsdam, I said, I don't know if this is enough. Everyone hold your breath. And I felt like ah i felt like like this the collective arena did quiet for just a moment, and then the draw run connected wasn't enough back and forth. But to to zoom out a bit more, ah I'll give like a quick play-by-play because I agree. I think this was probably the most hyped game that we've had in a grand finals in a long time. um So we start off the matchup. It was Colin's Licky Licky versus Potaman's Dunsparce. Pato absorbs an Earthquake. Then he swaps into his Spear Tomb. Colin goes Drapion. So already Colin is up 2-1 in the series. He lines Drapion versus Spear Tomb. I personally think it's over. I'm like, all right, I think Colin's going to double crunch. this is going to be ah This is going to be all she wrote, so to speak. Colin actually double shields his Drapion. And I think that this was just Potaman applying pressure, getting off the Rock Tombs.
01:10:10
William Dunphey
And then Potiman lets his other two Pokemon go, and his final Pokemon is Dunsparce, right? Potiman brings out the Dunsparce. Colin sends out Drapine.
01:10:20
William Dunphey
It's a charge stack priority tie because he banked the Crunch. So already the last shield for Potiman's Dunsparce is gone. He spends it on the Crunch. Luckily, no debuff. If a debuff rocks there, that whole game is is over, right?
01:10:33
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:10:33
William Dunphey
Uh, he's able to connect the drill run and then it goes into the Dunspar's mirror match, which, which you highlighted. And I actually clipped this moment and posted it on X. I was like, yeah, this is, this is the moment I want to share.
01:10:45
William Dunphey
This is like the peak moment. Uh, and what a fun cast. I remember just like screaming my lungs out. i was like back and forth, blow by blow and, uh, uh, saying it's not over.
01:10:55
William Dunphey
We're going to game five. And, uh, what an insane, insane moment. And you can see Pato when the, he just put his fingers up.
01:10:59
zzweilous
i was
01:11:01
William Dunphey
He's like crossing his fingers.
01:11:02
zzweilous
yeah true
01:11:03
William Dunphey
Like, I hope this doesn't knock out. ah
01:11:07
zzweilous
so i was sitting in the front row and the the crowd was feeling it like there was like such such an atmosphere like everybody falling silent and then oh it survived survived but now what happens and then obviously all the other the parto chants from uh the friends to family the spanish community
01:11:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:11:28
zzweilous
um that was That was a very ah hype moment and really what you want to see on a championship Sunday because like it's just such such a good case being made for our game being exciting and fun and something that everybody should try you love to see it.
01:11:29
William Dunphey
yeah
01:11:45
William Dunphey
Yeah, i I almost I don't think I've mentioned this to you, but I almost wish that there was like a horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen that was actually tracking the turns so that people could see when fast moves were thrown, when catches were made, when charge attacks were thrown.
01:11:45
zzweilous
um
01:12:02
William Dunphey
And you can actually visualize how close these games actually are, because I think a lot of casual viewers, they look at it. They don't realize that rollout is a three turn move. They don't realize it takes you know a half second to switch.
01:12:13
William Dunphey
They don't realize these minor things. So like the skill expression is kind of lost on, on some people, especially if you are used to slower, more turn-based games like TCG or VGC. So i don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe I'll make a video as like a proof of concept just to, just to have that shown, but it's been on my mind for quite a while, but yeah, The margins are insane. I agree with you. i think I was looking back at the YouTube stream and people who love the other games were commenting, being like, that was crazy. This is actually really hype. This is a really fun.
01:12:42
William Dunphey
And I share the sentiment, right?
01:12:42
zzweilous
Yeah, that's what we want to see. um Yeah, I guess we can can try and highlight some of what went on in the other games of the grand finals.
01:12:55
zzweilous
I'll try and walk us through a little bit, just um through highlights of what happened. So before the reset, when um Colin still was allowed to to lose one set.
01:13:06
zzweilous
um The very first game was the example I gave where Pato called the Felstinger on the Seaking, then pivoted into his own B and essentially saved um the Seaking for the endgame, where it actually came in clutch because it did farm down Colin's stance bars for the win.
01:13:22
zzweilous
um Second game, Colin trying to make some plays with B energy, but Pato is just playing the debuff game so well. I feel as if he had so many Pokemon with that debuff utility on his team.
01:13:35
zzweilous
Icy went from Seaking, Rep from Milotic, and in the end game it was like a weakened Dunsparse against a healthy Milotic, and that's just never fun if you're the Dunsparse. Game three, Colin pulls one back, making a very high catch on a 1 HP Rabion.
01:13:50
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:13:50
zzweilous
So sometimes it does pay if you just pivot out aggressively out of a low-health Pokemon, because... With the switch timer, it may just make the difference between win or loss.
01:13:59
William Dunphey
What shocked me?
01:14:00
zzweilous
and
01:14:01
William Dunphey
Sorry, it's easy. I just want to jump in just for a second.
01:14:01
zzweilous
right No, yeah, no, yes, please do.
01:14:04
William Dunphey
What shocked me about that that play right there that you you mentioned is that Pato actually threw on alignment. I believe he threw six sucker punches and then the rock tomb on alignment and Colin sniffed out the alignment throw, which was insane at that level to make the catch on the Drapion.
01:14:21
William Dunphey
But I remember thinking that's such like odd timing, such a weird, that's just game sense, right? Just having a feel for what your opponent's trying to do.
01:14:27
zzweilous
yeah
01:14:28
William Dunphey
And Pato was like, oh, the last thing he'll expect is for me to throw on alignment. And then he does. So it's like really crazy. But yeah, I digress.
01:14:36
zzweilous
this was this reminds me of uh the pittsburgh grand finals against steiner where i also made a catch on my corvinite but not when he had the move but when he would have cmp tied me because he had the information that he was winning cmp from the game before in the creduling era so like sometimes like very non-obvious moments can make the most sense if you have the right of idea of how your opponent plays.
01:14:50
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:15:00
zzweilous
And Colin definitely, like, just, he would, like, he would certainly, like, throw at a moment where when I don't expect it, and I wouldn't expect it on alignment, so I will catch on alignment.
01:15:02
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:15:15
zzweilous
Smart.
01:15:15
William Dunphey
Exactly.
01:15:16
zzweilous
um
01:15:16
William Dunphey
Smart.
01:15:18
zzweilous
Game four, ah the final game of the first set of the grand finals, a lot of catching like A lot of catching and sneaking as well. I feel like we had a lot of catch and sneaks, which is when you not only catch a move, but also get a full fast attack through.
01:15:34
zzweilous
um This is a very
Grand Finals Tactics
01:15:36
zzweilous
commonplace now. It depends on how you time your catch, because depending on whether you catch on alignment or one turn before, you will be able to either get a fast attack through or not.
01:15:47
zzweilous
um But the this, again, did highlight a problem with ah Colin can play really well, But if the catch that you make is on a debuffing move, Pato will just gain so much momentum from the matchup that you are now stuck in that even though the catch in a vacuum is good, um it will still spiral out of control. So that's how Pato essentially took the first series where like even if Colin tried to get fancy, there was always this extra level of insurance where, okay, like you caught that. It's an icy wind. It's a rock tomb. It doesn't help you much.
01:16:22
William Dunphey
And i just want to emphasize your point. You absolutely nailed it. I actually listed the catches and what actually occurred, right? The attempt versus the reality. So the first catch, Colin tried to catch a shadow ball onto his Dunsparce from Pataman's Spear Tomb. but Pato's man through the rock tomb instead.
01:16:40
William Dunphey
So just to your point, you try to switch and make a clever play and you just get debuffed and then bogged down. Colin tries to catch again a few moments later. He tries to catch Aqua Tail from Milotic onto Kingdra, but Pato holds his energy, goes up two more Dragon Tails and throws the rap. So it's like, damn, i tried I tried to switch and I just get stuck and debuff anyway. And then the third time Colin caught, he actually swapped in his Dunsparce but it was on charge attack priority with Seeking's Megahorn.
01:17:08
William Dunphey
So he was able to kind of catch, but he also gave up all the energy on his Dunsparce and he lost the Pokemon too. But then in the end, Pottsman had the Shadow Ball to win the Spirit Tomb Mirror. So yeah, three catch attempts.
01:17:20
William Dunphey
One was it was a knockout where he'd lost a bunch of energy. The other two, he tried to catch resisted or double resisted actually, and ended up getting debuffed and switchlocked. So it's like, damn, Pottsman, like you said, he just built a moat around himself for that game four.
01:17:34
zzweilous
yeah it's a tough time having to go up against that um but yeah like colin did manage to adapt quite well in the grand finals reset which did come down to the decisive game five um i think the like i thought the game one was quite interesting because um pato essentially just played the zero shields with beedrill into kingdra um and won that zero shield scenario because
01:17:38
William Dunphey
did.
01:18:02
zzweilous
Honestly, even though you think, oh, it's like a Bug Bite Felstinger user, I want to spend all my shields on that Pokemon so I can ramp up and do a lot of damage. But the zeros with B are surprisingly solid because it's typically bulky enough, just bulky enough to survive one small move if it's neutral, like a Kingdra Swift.
01:18:21
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:18:22
zzweilous
And the Exozoar, as we've established, is pretty much a delete button from half health or lower. So that... so that um was pretty like interesting how that played out.
01:18:36
zzweilous
At the end of the day, it still worked out in Colin's favor though, um because he managed his energy so well that he stored a charge attack on his spirit tomb that he could then later use to essentially snipe the energy from Patoman's tomb, where Patu was like one or two fast attacks away from reaching a charge attack of his own.
01:18:52
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:18:57
zzweilous
But all of that got deleted and that put Colin in in the driver's seat again. Yeah,
01:19:03
William Dunphey
Yeah, the shadow ball sniper was huge. Sure.
01:19:05
zzweilous
it was a game winning play. Game two is something that we've seen time and time again in like on this day three where Pato is calling a Felstinger bait from Colin's B on the Seeking and rewatching it. i was like thinking, hmm.
01:19:24
zzweilous
This would look really fun if he just exited and the seeking was gone, but I guess like it's it's the low risk play and um we will come back to this later, but sometimes the risk taking is more necessary than we might think.
01:19:28
William Dunphey
ah
01:19:41
zzweilous
And again, the pivot into his own Beedrill and then something interesting happens because Colin, counter swaps his Licky Licky, which you would imagine is a really good answer to Beedrill.
01:19:55
zzweilous
But Pato's Beedrill is actually a head-on energy and also just bulky enough to barely hang on to body slam and the rollouts and make two exorcists, which actually lets it win the one shield scenario.
01:20:10
zzweilous
And this essentially makes it so that after Colin already shielded an icy win from Seeking in the lead matchup, um this matchup ends up being like, okay, costing Colin his second shield and therefore leaving him defenseless in the endgame.
01:20:27
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:20:27
zzweilous
So we're back to 1-1. Game three, this is where Colin goes up 2-1. And I think this is one of the rare part to misplace in these grand finals because he has a lot of energy on his spirit tomb when Colin brings in the dance bars.
01:20:47
zzweilous
But this time he doesn't build the mode around him. He doesn't go for the debuff. Instead, he swaps out with almost two Rock Tombs loaded. And the Dance Parse can then just wear down Pathos Milotic by ah throwing full strength drill runs at it.
01:21:02
zzweilous
And yeah, this doesn't work out too well for Pathos and Colin is one game away from winning it all, which does...
01:21:08
William Dunphey
That's that's my my sorry, it's easy. Go ahead.
01:21:11
zzweilous
ah no, no, no, you go ahead.
01:21:13
William Dunphey
I just want to jump in for a moment. that That's actually my notes almost verbatim. ive I wrote here rare misplay by Pato, but the follow up was different.
01:21:17
zzweilous
yeah
01:21:20
William Dunphey
I said he shielded body slam on spirit tomb. So he also not only banked the energy on spirit tomb, bailed it out, but he also kind of got a little lost in the sauce and shielded a double resisted body slam, which he easily would have survived.
01:21:31
zzweilous
Okay, so so I will say that I don't believe he got lost in the sauce. um This was a catch, but Colin did have the earthquake energy. I think Pato's thinking in the moment was, oh, Colin is such a high-level player, he could have feasibly thrown the earthquake anticipating the catch,
01:21:52
zzweilous
And if I let that go, that would be really rough for me. So he does protect shield for the potential earthquake, but he actually had executed the body stem catch and just didn't really trust himself there or just gave Colin a lot of credit, which to be fair, Colin deserves given his reputation and his record, like he's backing up that reputation.
01:22:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:22:09
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:22:12
zzweilous
But yeah, there would have been a win condition if Pato, like maybe would have been a win condition if Pato anticipated that. um But yeah, then we move on to the
01:22:19
William Dunphey
Fair.
01:22:22
zzweilous
crazy Dunspar's endgame that we already talked about. And finally, um this is again where the risk-taking comes into play. um In game five, which is one of the more one-sided games of the series, Pato gets both of Colin's shields by um baiting Icywinds, like like so successfully baiting the Megahorn, throwing Icywinds onto the Shadow Dropion.
01:22:38
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:22:49
zzweilous
I think calling that could actually flipped the series. Would have probably been a very close game still, but would have called it a much more playable position at least. But this is something that I have noticed throughout the entire back and forth between Colin and Pato, where Pato is much more willing to make those gutsy calls than Colin. I think there was like one instance where there's Colin's King Joe with more than an out Outrage loaded, swifting a two shield Milotic that just lets it go because
01:23:22
zzweilous
This is an obvious swift, right? and
01:23:24
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:24
zzweilous
Sometimes you really have to you have to risk it all to win it all, and Pato was just more more willing to do that.
01:23:33
William Dunphey
and That's that's ah very, very similar to what I have in my notes. Pots of Shield's initial crunch, Bates Icy Wind, Colin Shields it. Colin catches Megahorn on Dunsparce, so even though he gets out of the debuff situation, he takes an enormous amount of damage on the Dunsparce. And that's when I kind of personally felt the momentum start to really slide in one direction. I felt like Pots of Man was just building himself up.
01:23:56
William Dunphey
Seeking connects another mega horn to Colin's spirit tomb. And then this is when Pato swaps in his spirit tomb and he realizes that he's about to win EUIC the second year in a row. And he just looks out at the crowd, looks back at his phone. He's like, got to finish the job, but I think I've got this.
01:24:14
zzweilous
Yeah, I was it was very hyped.
01:24:14
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:24:16
zzweilous
I will say that even though I do feel for Colin for coming so close and barely not pulling it off, being in that same position the year before, um To me, winning my first trophy felt still like such an accomplishment.
01:24:31
zzweilous
And I do hope that the same goes for Colin this year because like he earned it after so many years of consistent top performance. And yeah, as a EUIC runner up, I will say that one can be very proud of a performance like that.
01:24:40
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:24:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree. I think our our host, Fareed, had a chance to bump into Colin after ah day one or start excuse me, day day two, going into day three.
01:24:58
William Dunphey
And um he said that, you know, Colin's obviously won events before.
01:25:00
zzweilous
Thank
01:25:03
William Dunphey
He's top cut numerous times. He said he's never seen Colin as happy as he was when Colin realized that he had locked in a trophy tournament. at the European Internationals. So I definitely think that ah he was riding high. i don't know how he's feeling now. He's a very stoic person. Colin doesn't give you much emotionally when you talk to him. So I know he's got a really strong support system and I'm sure a lot of people are proud of him and I agree with your sentiment. I hope he's proud of himself because honestly, when you look at somebody like Pato Man, said it during the cast, he's like the unstoppable force. I don't know if anyone in the world right now
01:25:39
William Dunphey
Actually, I'll say it. Nobody in the world right now can argue with that level of high, high level consistency, right?
01:25:43
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:25:46
zzweilous
And I will say that one thing that I really liked about day three was also the interviews ahead of the grand finals. um This time we actually had time for that. I feel like last year we were running so late with Unite taking longer than it should have that we skipped over that entirely.
01:26:01
zzweilous
But both players and their loved ones got to talk a little bit.
01:26:02
William Dunphey
hmm.
01:26:06
zzweilous
And between Pato and Colin, there was just like, a lot of acknowledgement of each other's greatness. And I do always enjoy when competitors treat each other like that, even though there's so much on the line.
01:26:20
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree. I agree. What an event. I know Hickamy didn't have the showing that he wanted to on Sunday. It was definitely ah a very rough couple of rounds for him, but also um making it to third place is really impressive for our French trainer.
01:26:35
William Dunphey
And yeah, I mean, Colin is due for his own IC crown very soon. Potaman, I don't know who can stop him. I don't know what what else there is really to say in terms of those players. I just can't wait to see Potaman at Worlds.
01:26:49
zzweilous
Oh yeah, oh Jesus. um But yeah, ah another word to to towards Hikami because um this was his, like his two best performances of all time both came from this season with their little victory and his first trophy as well.
01:26:50
William Dunphey
yeah.
01:27:04
zzweilous
So I think he has like such a strong season and certainly a lot to be proud of as well. And I can't wait to see what Hikami does next because I do believe that there is also like some team building creativity there that i like to see a lot, especially in the open Great metas.
01:27:22
zzweilous
And
Controversy Over Battle System Update
01:27:23
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yes.
01:27:23
zzweilous
yeah, we are very, very close to a shift of said open Great meta.
01:27:27
zzweilous
I feel like we are probably days away from the reveal of the upcoming Pokemon Go Battle League season with all the changes that that will entail. um i don't know this this may already spiral us into uh the next point that we may want to discuss unless you have more things to add to our uic coverage
01:27:45
William Dunphey
yes
01:27:49
William Dunphey
No, no, no. I think this is a this is a great segue into the the final topic for us to discuss. um The honestly is easy. The Internet's in flames about this and I've seen it on the Silver Arena Reddit page.
01:27:59
zzweilous
fifty i've i've been i've been stoking those flames like i'm i'm like kind of guilty
01:28:03
William Dunphey
And I see. I see you just, you know, shooting kerosene on on this whole thing. And ah honest honestly, in the competitive community, it just sounds like the end of days. But let's go ahead and talk about this just briefly as we wrap up. um This new battle system, at least right now on the day of recording, February 22nd, it looks like an unmitigated disaster. What is going on with this rewrite?
01:28:31
zzweilous
It's like a, it does feel like a better version of something that they intended to roll out like three months from now. But I know that they've been working on this for quite some time. So like one thing, okay, let's start with the positives.
01:28:46
zzweilous
I really love the communication that with went alongside with this update because it all started with a blog post that announced that we would be strengthening the foundations of Pokemon Go Trainer Metals.
01:28:46
William Dunphey
okay
01:28:52
William Dunphey
okay
01:29:00
zzweilous
which does sound very promising, doesn't it? um Well, set foundations do look a little janky as of now, but um the overall idea of just communicating, oh, in these game situations, this is the intended behavior, and we are now enabling and gradually roll rolling out a new PvP infrastructure, like an entirely new system, not just affixed to the old one, but a refactor of the code that will make it so that these intended behaviors consistently apply and you will have like security and like, oh, like if this happens to me, this is maybe even worth the dispute at regional and I can really stand up for myself if this doesn't happen.
01:29:45
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:29:47
zzweilous
um But I also may have to do that less because the game is going to function better in the future. There's like so many positives about what is being promised. And also the fact that ah Ben Lee, who is like part of the leadership when it comes to the battle systems at Niantic slash slash Scopely slash Pokemon Go.
01:30:10
zzweilous
Like I have gotten to talk to Ben briefly at Anaheim Worlds. Now he gave our previous world champion, It's Axon, a lengthy interview on the refactor.
01:30:17
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:30:24
zzweilous
And I will say that I do have a lot of trust in his st ability and also a lot of respect for the openness which which with which he communicates.
01:30:36
zzweilous
um So that was like a lot of interesting insight that you guys can watch on the Ed Saxon YouTube channel if you're interested in some more background info.
01:30:48
zzweilous
So like all the communication, all the intent behind it, I really liked. And I technically believe they can make it work. However, they have rolled it out and it does not work.
01:31:00
zzweilous
So it's like a very limited rollout thus far.
01:31:02
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:31:04
zzweilous
I feel as if like some regions and in LATAM do i have it as of now. There's like rumors about Asian players having access to it, um but that's also not like too widespread.
01:31:13
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:31:16
zzweilous
um But what changes is essentially, so like the intended change, let's get that out of the way, is that um right now, if...
01:31:24
William Dunphey
Right.
01:31:29
zzweilous
say you are an empoleon you do two metal sounds which takes four turns your opponent is a talent flame during one incinerate taking five turns as of now on the old system the damage from that incinerate would apply before you are able to click your hydro cannon and potentially get a charge attack off if it happens differently if you do get your hydro cannon off we would call that the damage registration error but Now that inconsistency is supposed to be the rule. It's no longer going to be an error. The Empolion should always get to get this move off, which will change how PVPoke sims work. It will change how um like fast move timing works to to a large degree. It's like going to be like minor changes to how mechanics play out, but it's going to be like a relearning of things just because we have enabled like
01:32:27
zzweilous
a little a little something that will have different implications. And that's a lot of minute details, but it's essentially the gist of it that you want to have that inconsistency fixed and therefore have an entirely new system.
01:32:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:32:43
zzweilous
The problem is, yeah, you can you can jump in.
01:32:43
William Dunphey
I'm going to coin. ah sorry. Go ahead,
01:32:47
zzweilous
Like the problem is that even if that would be working right now, the new system Like the camera pans all over the place. It feels more laggy than before, if anything.
01:33:00
zzweilous
And overall, it even in a game where the biggest bugs don't appear, it just feels a lot less smooth and less presentable than previously. And people are like people have opinions on whether that is a worthwhile trade-off or not.
01:33:19
William Dunphey
So I'm going to coin this acronym here, right? So everyone can say they heard it on the Show 6 podcast before they heard anywhere else. Everybody's familiar with DRE, as you mentioned. ah The way I think of this this update primarily is that it's changing the DRO, the Damage Registration So in this new system, the charge attacks, as you pointed out, will take priority over the fast attacks. So ah you you give the example of Empoleon versus Talonflame. Another example that's also very relatable, we saw this actually at EUIC, is like one turn moves versus charge attacks when you have one HP on the Pokemon with the charge attack. So typically, if you saw like a Kingdra come in and there was like a one HP Umbreon with a Dark Pulse,
01:34:03
William Dunphey
and the kaintra fires the dragon breath the the embryon would never get its charge attack off because the fast attack would take priority but with this change to dro we actually have the the dark pulse getting priority over the the fast attack right so that's that's definitely change things i had one friend dm me and say that incinerate is officially dead because it won't be as useful anymore now that everybody can get off their charge stacks in in the 11th hour so to speak um But ah to go back to your point about the interview, it was very insightful and I actually really enjoyed listening to it.
01:34:32
zzweilous
Thank
01:34:35
William Dunphey
A couple of takeaways that I had was that basically all of the combat system ah mechanics, whether it's rockets, gyms, raids, PvP, team leader battles, ah max battles, et cetera, anything combat oriented is actually moving into its own cluster of servers.
01:34:52
William Dunphey
So people have talked about like ah Pokemon Go 2 or Pokemon Go PvP being a separate application. going to be honest with you guys, this is about as close as we're going to get. And ah Ben actually pointed out in his interview that our suspicions, our tinfoil conspiracy thoughts from years past were actually correct in the sense that large in-game events can have an impact, can have a ripple effect on the battle system. So if you have like GoFest going on or if there's like a major, for for example, this weekend, GoTour LA and you experience additional hiccups and problems in GBL,
01:35:27
William Dunphey
They are somewhat related, which I thought was like huge validation because people have been saying that like, oh, why is PVP so laggy on community day? Well, that proves it. And then when you juxtapose that against all the battle mechanics going to their own server cluster, it kind of gives you that sense of relief that, oh, things might actually change here, which is really good. So, yeah, I'm just reading over your post here. You shared the the video from ShainerPVP and the first sentence of your post.
01:35:56
William Dunphey
If Scopely aren't able to fix this before the first stream regional of the new season, there may not be a return from this moment. It's so ominous, right? It's so heavy. And if you look at the footage, it's hard not to agree.
01:36:09
William Dunphey
I mean, this looks like hot trash, right? This looks awful.
01:36:11
zzweilous
this is like i will say this is this is meant as conditional as it is phrased like if they fix it within those three weeks this can be a net improvement very easily but i don't have the insight in how easy this is to fix given that the rollout started at a moment when it was obviously not really ready for Like at least the stream tournament where everybody would to see our product.
01:36:36
William Dunphey
So,
01:36:37
zzweilous
And if our product looks like this, nobody will pick it up.
01:36:39
William Dunphey
yeah, I agree. I agree. I think i think your sentiment is correct. um A couple of things I will say ah just with ah with an air of vagueness is that it's important to keep in mind that, like you pointed out, we have some trainers in Latin with the new system. Some trainers in Asia are rolling out the new system.
01:36:57
William Dunphey
The way that Niantic has traditionally rolled out updates is by region and then by device. So you're going to see um Apple devices in LATAM be be updated before you see Android devices in Europe, for example. Just a spitball some you know an example there. um So what you're basically having is you're having some players on the new system battle players on the old system. So there's going to be growing pains there. it's gonna There's going to be a lot of disconnect, a lot of incongruency.
01:37:23
William Dunphey
And the most important point, right, if you don't if you don't take that as a sufficient answer, the most important point that I will say is that the full rollout is not yet complete. Now, you can argue, should they have rolled out piecemeal and scared everybody half to death?
01:37:39
William Dunphey
No, I don't think that was a good idea. But I will say that in order to have a fully formed opinion, personally, Looking at the calendar here, I'm going to wait.
01:37:51
William Dunphey
I'm going to wait another seven to 10 days until the full rollout is complete through the month of February and we are all in the same system going into March. And then I'll start to form my opinions personally.
01:38:03
zzweilous
I think that is a reasonable reasonable approach. on the current like The current clips that we see circulating do not inspire confidence, but I also know that it is not the same, like just testing something in a closed setting with like individual devices compared to testing something that is live globally or even largely across one region.
01:38:24
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:38:31
zzweilous
so i can see how like having having the new system be live somewhere and fail um may be what they need to actually iron out the kings that are currently existing and i will not like i haven't lost hope i'm just like rolling my eyes because can anything ever go smoothly we really we really would appreciate good news and like really
01:38:54
William Dunphey
but
01:38:59
zzweilous
There was such an optimism around the blog post because, hey, that's us.
01:39:03
William Dunphey
yeah
01:39:04
zzweilous
They haven't talked to us like that since the last Dev Diary. um And it was like a little bit really nipped in the butt after we saw what it currently looks like.
01:39:19
zzweilous
But yeah, maybe maybe like seven to 10 days is enough of a time frame to fix things. I will certainly... um not jump to conclusions. I'm merely commenting on the status quo as it presents itself.
01:39:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:39:35
William Dunphey
Well, and to be fair, i think that when we actually have our full rollout, um I will make an effort to collect clips, footage, examples of bugs, and I will expedite sending those over to the team that's working on the game. So obviously I can't change anything myself, but I will offer when the time comes to be a more...
01:39:58
William Dunphey
direct channel in order to to getting these things ironed out. Because obviously we both have an enormous interest in this game succeeding. And like you pointed out, in this current state, it would be an unmitigated disaster. So hopefully that's not the case.
01:40:12
William Dunphey
ah Fingers crossed they can actually fix it. And ah yeah, I wish things were more smooth. But when you're rolling out to, I guess, millions of devices... based on region, based on cell carrier, based on operating system. It's not easy, at least not for Niantic. One funny anecdote, I almost forgot, one funny funny anecdote I want to offer is that apparently Pokemon Unite is even more down bad than Pokemon Go is right now with all the updates that their devs are doing. And they're making all kinds of questionable decisions. I heard a lot about it at EUIC.
01:40:43
William Dunphey
But there was a Pokemon Unite player who referenced ah Ben's interview with Axon and said, my gosh, I wish Unite had better communication like Pokemon Go does.
01:40:55
William Dunphey
My friend, you have been led astray.
01:40:58
zzweilous
Oh, my sweet summer child.
01:40:58
William Dunphey
this is this is you, sweet summer child. You have no idea what you are invoking here.
01:41:02
zzweilous
god, yeah.
01:41:05
William Dunphey
We've when you've been a game for 10 years. We probably had three community interviews in 10 years, if if not, maybe four. So, yeah, unite. Do not look at us as an example of communication and transparency, because that is not the case.
01:41:21
zzweilous
I will say that, like, this could still be the start of something great if Niantic slash Scopely take in the feedback and see that, okay, like the style of communication, even if the end product isn't quite it just yet, maybe that will change.
01:41:26
William Dunphey
Sure.
01:41:35
zzweilous
But like the style of communication, everybody is like unanimously on board with really celebrating and cherishing and yeah, more of that, please. And maybe they can adopt something like that again.
01:41:46
zzweilous
I don't know whether they have the manpower for that or the willingness or even enough projects in store. But one aspect of Ben's interview that really resonated with me was um supposedly coding Aegislash for the new version of PvP took just about half the amount of time that it took to code Aegislash for the old version.
01:42:09
zzweilous
So apparently it will be a lot more efficient to introduce new complex features onto the new system.
01:42:09
William Dunphey
Oh. Mm-hmm.
01:42:17
zzweilous
And that would open up the door for Pokemon like Mimikyu to come into Pokemon Go for maybe broader changes that can maybe allow for more individual modification of how the game interacts. Like, I don't know whether we'll have held items ever or anything like that.
01:42:35
zzweilous
um But apparently, more things will be possible. Let's just see how they look.
01:42:42
William Dunphey
I hope so. Fingers crossed. I'm going to hold my breath the whole time. i don't want our game to die, especially not on the 10 year anniversary, please. But ah only
Future Developments and Podcast Continuation
01:42:51
zzweilous
you
01:42:51
William Dunphey
only time will tell.
01:42:52
William Dunphey
a lot of this is out of our hands. But ZZ, it's been a great episode. I have a local tournament I'm going to drive down to here in a few minutes and hopefully I don't get wiped. So please send me a team once we finish our recording here.
01:43:05
William Dunphey
And it's been fun per usual. um i don't know if you have any any closing thoughts.
01:43:13
zzweilous
and closing Closing thoughts are that people should keep their eyes peeled because not only have we, like we will have to get through a backlog of um OGL regionals that aren't discussed yet.
01:43:25
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:43:28
zzweilous
There's going to be the Seattle event coming up, which a certain Mr.
01:43:31
William Dunphey
True.
01:43:32
zzweilous
Chief may be playing in potentially.
01:43:36
William Dunphey
Maybe.
01:43:37
zzweilous
Um, There's going to be a move update very soon and there's going to be Pokemon day on the 27th and people are rumoring that the 10th generation of Pokemon may be at least hinted at, if not even like starter reveal or something like that.
01:43:55
zzweilous
So this is going to be a very exciting week and we'll do our best to get together as often and as soon as possible to bring you the news a little more quickly than in previous weeks and months. um I had been pretty busy with my day job, but I know that my my schedule will be a little lighter over the next couple months.
01:44:16
zzweilous
So hoping to be able to make more NA-friendly availability so we can get together and record.
01:44:24
William Dunphey
got I've gotten some heartfelt DMs. I had a few conversations at EUIC. I think people really do enjoy the show and they they want more of it and they're wondering when we're going to create more.
01:44:35
William Dunphey
So we're on it, everybody. Don't worry. And ZZ is a saint for putting up with me, not getting the YouTube versions out. Still going to get that done as soon as I as soon as i can. I'm just, ah yeah, I'm just a...
01:44:47
zzweilous
I should push you more towards it. Like somebody has to do it.
01:44:50
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm just a ah ah prodigal um procrastinator, I guess you could say, right? But we'll get it done, everybody.
01:44:56
zzweilous
Very much so.
01:44:59
William Dunphey
I appreciate you all so much. hope you enjoyed this episode, our EUIC recap. We'll be back very soon, as ZZ pointed out, with an Open Great League recap and maybe a potential guest interview, plus Pokemon Day, plus a Seattle recap.
01:45:12
William Dunphey
There's a lot of content coming, so make sure to subscribe and leave a review, and we'll see you all very soon. Bye-bye.