Transcript
William Dunphey: Welcome in into the Show 6 Podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. In this episode, we're going to do a Precious Paths roundup, covering key points in Birmingham, Merida, Auckland, Santiago, and Sydney. Then we'll move on to Seattle, where apparently, at least according to Stone Collection, NA is pretty free.
William Dunphey: That concludes our Precious Paths meta, and we segue beautifully into the Memories in Motion. In the Memories in Motion meta, we'll give our first impressions and answer the question, which Pokemon are back?
William Dunphey: This plus a little brief overview of the new PvP system rollout disaster. What the heck is going on? Get all that and more here on the Show 6 Podcast. So lock in, good luck, and have fun.
William Dunphey: All right. Welcome back, everybody. Sweeties Chief 2 here with my illustrious co-host, Z Zawailas. How are you feeling, my friend?
zzweilous: I'm feeling very surprised I must say. Like these days we never really know what kind of intro we are going to get. um Obviously we always switch these spoken intros up but also i feel like the theme music has been like taking on a life of its own recently a little bit. I don't mind it. i will not say that this is something that I'm upset about, but yeah, it did certainly catch me off guard here.
William Dunphey: It's one of those things where it happened the last time we recorded because during our recording, I had to delete the clip that I had because it was playing on infinite loop. I had to delete it and then I added in a clip mid conversation and that's what we use as the outro music.
William Dunphey: And then I just forgot to go in and find the original recording and put it back into Zencaster. So here we are. We've got a lot of surprises. I was shocked to see Stone Collection win in NA and then immediately talk trash.
William Dunphey: but we're gonna talk about all that and a lot more because we've got,
zzweilous: okay Like, Stone immediately talking trash wasn't the biggest surprise for sure.
William Dunphey: It's so funny, too, because ah I think he's he's attended what to any events so far this season um at both of them. I talked to him. He's such a nice person. So easy to get along with.
zzweilous: He is.
William Dunphey: He's all smiles. And then he'll turn around with that crap eating grin and he'll say, yeah, any kind of free. Right. I'm a little stuck on that, but we have to we have to do our our chores here on around the Show 6 podcast.
William Dunphey: We have a lot of events that we kind of skipped over due to scheduling problems. We weren't able to give these events a full scope of what they deserve. So we're going to hit some of the high points. If you if you want to come to a Championship Series podcast and you want to hear the best of the best, the crispiest of the takes, the hottest of the stats, you came to the right spot.
William Dunphey: So ZZ, let's jump right in, my friend. Let's talk about Birmingham.
zzweilous: Oh yeah, Birmingham, that was starting off, or i think starting off kind of ish. Like there was a triple header weekend all the way back in January. So this was really kind of at the start of the previous season. We are now memories memories in motion.
zzweilous: um But what were we in? It was Tales of Transformation. Was that what it was?
William Dunphey: I believe so.
zzweilous: Jesus.
William Dunphey: Yes.
zzweilous: um So yeah, so that was kind of fresh still. It wasn't the biggest of updates, but we had the Toronto Regional Championships before that. And then people in Birmingham, in Auckland, and I believe in Merida were all tasked with finding a response to that.
zzweilous: And Birmingham's response saw Maximilian P, Maxi, the Utrecht runner-up from last season, finally claim his gold. with a double ghost strategy focusing heavily on annihilate and jealousy.
William Dunphey: Yeah, speaking to that core, if you look back at the games that were actually played, he brought that duo of both the Jellicent and the Shadow Annihilate in all eight games of the Grand Finals and Grand Finals Reset. He did not leave those two Pokemon on the bench. And this is a little bit surprising to everybody, right? Because we did have a couple of Dark-type Pokemon that were pretty popular. I think Galarian Moltres always kind of lurking around. You might see the occasional Guzzlord here and there.
William Dunphey: um But fun fact, Guzzlord has only won one championship series event this entire season. It feels like it should be more, but it's actually only the one. So I guess Maxi kind of saw a hole in the meta.
zzweilous: you
William Dunphey: He saw what wasn't there and was able to exploit it. So very, very good grand finals. You always get that though with Maxi and Pato Man. And this grand finals actually was what really locked down my interview that I did for EUIC because I brought on both those gentlemen, right?
William Dunphey: We had Pato Man, the previous EUIC winner who would go on to win it again. and then we had Maxi who had just won Birmingham. so A couple of shout outs I wanted to make before we get deep into the grand finals is Tonton Batus. He finished fourth overall with a Clefable, Shadow Dragonite and Foratress team, which is really sick. And then we saw Jox and Arceus Aurelius tied for ninth with Gorghast and Guzzlord Core, which I think is a very nice kind of prelude to what we're going to see in Merida here in a few minutes.
zzweilous: Yeah, for sure. Especially that Goregeist, which ah was probably the most prominent Tales of Transformation edition. um Really, this was the weekend where it first came to shine.
zzweilous: a couple more shoutouts. I think there is actually some ah personal best placements here as well. Like, I think Limefang hasn't top cut before. i don't particularly know exactly what that Jason top cut before, but there's a Toadscrew a Bastion team that actually made it into the top 16.
zzweilous: No comment on the that selection.
William Dunphey: Uh-oh.
zzweilous: But you have to like you have to first pilot it well, right? um
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: So that is a thing that happened. Martijn not winning. i feel like that is international news. Martijn not winning a tournament. um
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: It wasn't Giratina's day, but it was still tied for ninth. And then personal bests for...
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Smejo, a Polish battler in fifth place, and as well, I think, for AeroBubble66 as well. um I don't know whether there was like something similar in the past, but I was certainly pleasantly surprised to see some of the um like less of European staples, right? You have the Collins, you have the PvP Davids, you have the Emmy Wheels.
zzweilous: There's just such a depth of talent, and I do love when the hard work pays off. And I believe the same goes for C. Leonardo, who is obviously no stranger to top cuts, but I believe the third place finish was his best performance to date.
William Dunphey: Oh.
zzweilous: And i do want to point out that he did that with a Shadow Charger bug. And the idea behind the Shadow Charger bug, to my knowledge, is that you are actually able to force alignment in the Artaria matchup because over time, the 20% bonus from the Shadow um adds up with the world switches and discharges. So Atari S-Borg is actually not able to match ChargerBox pacing in the two-shot scenario anymore.
William Dunphey: Interesting. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. I was planning to talk about Chargebug, but not yet. So it's actually cool that we got a little a little anecdote about Chargebug there. And that's always the big question, right? We saw ah like like a mix of Altaria and Shadow Altaria in Seattle and tournaments prior. And the question always becomes, you know if you already have a bulky Pokemon and the shadow is not obviously better, then what matchups are you picking up? And for Chargebug, I did not know that. So that's actually really interesting. Yeah, Inadequance, he always says he's not bringing Giratina, and then he does.
zzweilous: Bye.
William Dunphey: ah And this time, i think he tweeted out, if my memory is not failing me here, he tweeted out and said the spice was too much. So he brought double dragons in shadow Giratina altered form and Guzzlord, as well as a Clefable Gastrodon. Grumpig and Shadow Talonflame. Now the Grumpig, we are going to see a flash of that in Seattle as well, but I want to point out the teams that that beat Inadequance here. He fell to Potaman, who was running a Shadow Fortress, Azumarill, Abomasnow team, which feels like very, very hard counter unless he's very lucky with his Talonflame. And then he lost to Smegyu, which had double steel in Corviknight and Shadow Scizor. So when you have double dragons,
William Dunphey: and a Clefable and you're going up against a double steel team that's got to be tricky so maybe a little bit of uh not a very lucky draw there for inadequance uh but yeah some very very nice finishes here and Arrow Bubble is a name that I've seen so many times before he's been around the scene for quite a while so it's great to see them finish fifth overall with Ninetales actually yeah
zzweilous: Yeah, and like he's been playing at Worlds before too. like This is like no stranger to to good finishes, but still, the top five is it's always really, really nice to take that away, especially from such a big tournament tournament as the UK ones are always somewhat the most well-attended.
zzweilous: um But yeah, grand finalists between Maxi and Partoman, the Worlds runner-up and the Worlds fifth-place finisher, I believe.
William Dunphey: yeah
William Dunphey: Wow.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: So yeah, it certainly... goes to show that Europe very much is not free. um one thing about Patermain's team is the Obamasnow that really then stood out to me, which is a Pokemon that I haven't, like, I've barely seen people try that out at all over the course of this entire championship series season.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: But the last time I actually actively perceived Obamasnow was in Lille when Hikami actually won it all with the Obamasnow. So, will be other obama snow users but the two that i remember came first and second so maybe there's something to that
William Dunphey: Yeah, maybe so. that's ah It's a fascinating Pokemon because you know you assume in Europe when the European bird Talonflame is more prevalent than anywhere else in the world, and then you also have your fair share of Annihilate and other counter users that could potentially beat up on the Obamasnow pretty badly. It is surprising to see it, but yeah, I could i could kind of see the the place for it. A lot of teams with, I see Jellicent, Cradilly, Guzzlord, Azumarill, Unova Stunfisk. There's tons of targets for that Pokemon. so Yeah, I think that makes sense. Just a little bit of a tough draw there for Pato taking on Maxi in the finals. I'm sorry, go ahead.
zzweilous: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. what What is nice about Obama's snow is that with the ice subtyping, it always breaks up the ground and flying course, which is one of the most prominent course.
zzweilous: Um, and also one thing that was evident after Toronto is that floor just is actually a very, very strong pick on these standard floor just moves set in trailblaze and chilling water.
zzweilous: has both of the charge attack walled by grass types. So can see that be a calculation as well.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: But yeah, as it I feel like it happens a lot with Pato that at least in Open Great League, um he finds himself in matchups where he's really heavily disadvantaged just looking at the team composition. And he still somehow finds ways of making that close.
zzweilous: And yeah, if you look at If you look at his team here against Maxi, there is no dark type on the team. There is no normal type on the team. So what is really discouraging the ghosts from coming every game?
William Dunphey: Yep. Nothing.
zzweilous: um Not really much at all. And yeah, Maxi managed to leverage especially the Jellicen really, really well here. Because like even a grass type, such as a Vitalsnow, needs to hit the energy ball to really threaten that unless you opt for leafage as your fast attack. but That comes with other issues. So for sure, the Jellicent, standout pick, now pacing a little faster since the Shadow Ball rework, getting to the big move in just four Hexes.
zzweilous: So um certainly a Pokemon that we will see more of in the future.
William Dunphey: Oh yeah, being able to stack Shadow Balls is one of the best feelings. I mean, noticed in scrims or even in Go Battle League, being able to bank two and switch out or throw one and then come back in later and have another one already ready to go is such a nice feeling. But you're right, Pottsman was at a massive disadvantage here. He ended up losing coming. He came in on the winner's side. He ended up losing zero to three to force the bracket reset. And then he lost two more to Maxie and was on the brink right then and there of going. Oh, and six before he was able to win two games against Maxie and tie up the series. So realistically, even though he was at such a massive disadvantage and lost five games in a row, he really made it the difference of just one battle.
William Dunphey: ah He could have ended up winning Birmingham, which is insane.
zzweilous: Yeah.
zzweilous: There's unwinable team compositions and then there's the part to man unwinable, which is like, okay, it's very close to a 50-50 still. um But yeah, like Maxey obviously also not somebody who really gives his opponents too many opportunities to cash in on like slight inaccuracies.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Like he's been really consistently performing well over, I would say the last year at this point, because if you, if you remember this is his second grand final set the first time.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
William Dunphey: Oh, yeah.
zzweilous: I was in Utrecht a year ago and he had a move ready.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: He just needed to click it. He over farmed anyway and then lost the match on a miss count. So it was as close to a gold medal as somebody possibly could have been in their PVP career. And yeah, now claiming it.
zzweilous: Sometimes you just need to make the right team composition call, right? It's not just, it's still not luck if you have a comp advantage.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: It's just building the correct team. I don't know whether Steelix Weekly Tough is morally correct, but I guess you'll have some you allll have some things to say on the Weekly Tough for sure.
William Dunphey: hey Hey, that felt personal. okay Whenever we talk about Seattle, yeah everybody will hear why.
zzweilous: a
William Dunphey: um i just want to give a few stats about the Grand Finals. As we alluded to earlier, Maxie was really leaning on the double ghost. He brought Jellicent, Annihilate, eight out of eight total battles that were played.
William Dunphey: His third Pokemon cycled out a little bit. He brought Wigglytuff six times. He brought Shadow Steelix once and then Shadow Kanto Marowak just one time. So He was willing to change it up here and there, but it didn't always work out for him. When he did bring the Shadow Steelers in the Grand Finals reset, he did lose that game to Potemann. That was Potemann's first win of only two in the entire Grand Finals. But I'm so proud of Maxi and in Pato as well, because during that interview for the EYC pre-show, Maxi said he came off the stage in Utrecht and everybody was so you know distraught. They're like, oh, Maxi, you almost had it. You almost won. You know you came so close.
William Dunphey: And Maxie said that he felt happier than they did. He said, you know, I really outperformed my expectations and I made it to grand finals and I was only a couple of plays away. And I take that as a win. And I think that's a really important mindset to have. And I'm glad he was able to have that mindset because I don't know, I would have had ah i would have had some sleepless nights over that personally.
zzweilous: yeah I guess like maybe there was some confidence already there that he can repeat that like if you if you have like some trust in your ability that okay I'll just i'll just get it done the next time um maybe that is something that helps in that moment but or like
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: oh, this is a personal best placement have so much to be proud of, which is also a very valid and encourageable feeling. um So yeah, he certainly kept his setup.
William Dunphey: Yeah. I agree.
zzweilous: And yeah, he followed up the Utrecht run with a top five finish at Worlds, as we alluded to. So certainly didn't lose sleep over it.
William Dunphey: Yeah. Yeah, he's insanely talented. Very good. And Maxie, Shadow Steelix is morally acceptable. You can keep playing that thing because I think it's awesome and I like it too.
William Dunphey: All right, we promised a quick roundup, ZZ. I think we should slide over to Merida unless you have any closing thoughts on Birmingham.
zzweilous: ah Closing thought is that I am of the pocket school of if I don't have a good version of that Pokemon, you you should not use it. Non-Shadowsteelix all the way.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: okay
William Dunphey: Fair enough. Fair enough. all right.
zzweilous: speaking of Speaking of pocket and players like him, because I feel like Merida is one of those, like it's it's really a sweet spot location between Latam and North America.
zzweilous: Like geographically, Um, North America, culturally Latin and just such a nice place to visit. Um, friends of mine always encouraged me to eventually take Merida as one of my vacations each year and just play in that tournament because even beyond the tournament, it's just, uh, such a beautiful place to visit.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: And apparently all the elite performers of all the continents also were of that same opinion. um Because in top eight, we have Ellen Deezerad Jeff, we have Marto Galladay, we have Out of Pocket.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: We do have some local Mexican representation in Paul Garcia 7, Rocha Babyface, Ashton Ash, just like somebody who really bridges that US-Mexico gap, and Spartan ls l seventeen
William Dunphey: Correct.
zzweilous: um with I think a personal, I don't know, was it personal best or was it like personal second best? But certainly...
William Dunphey: Here, I'll show you in a second. Go ahead.
zzweilous: um Another very impressive performance. The player who knocked me out of EUIC, by the way. So, um certainly on the form the last couple months. um And yeah, only following two, the one and only rise to occasion.
William Dunphey: Yeah. For Spartan,
zzweilous: Doing it again.
William Dunphey: my pal My apologies.
zzweilous: okay
William Dunphey: So for Spartan, I just wanted to get this before I forget. ah This actually ties his best performance. He's been to the grand finals at three events and he's finished second every single time. So 2022 Mexico City, he was second overall.
William Dunphey: And then 2026 Monterey, he also finished second. So Spartan has yet to win an event in his career, and I'm sure he'd love to do it in Mexico.
zzweilous: Oh yeah, like certainly as somebody who like I have won an event, not to brag, but I've also come a second four times in a row now. So I have a lot of empathy for the people that come close, but don't quite make it.
zzweilous: Spartan's certainly on a hot streak. um The problem is if rise to occasion hasn't won an event yet this season, he will do it eventually. so maybe now we're safe, but the Merida competition certainly was not safe and they were not safe off
William Dunphey: True.
zzweilous: in particular, that Gore guys that we alluded to earlier.
William Dunphey: I mean, he might just become Thanos to the occasion because he's inevitable, right? Rise seems to win a tournament every single year and it doesn't seem like it's slowing down anytime soon. um It was really funny in the Uber ride to the venue in Seattle. I asked him because he actually, he offered to share the Uber with me, which is really nice. I said, Rise, so how does it feel to get the win? You know, I know you don't like to think about this. I know this isn't something that's at the top of your mind all the time. And he kind of, you know, he did this, this rise look where he kind of looked down and looked a little shy and he was like,
William Dunphey: Not going lie, man. feels pretty good. i said, yeah, I bet it does.
zzweilous: i would imagine
William Dunphey: Yeah, but he's he's so bashful, right?
zzweilous: okay
William Dunphey: He'll never come out and just scream it from the rooftops. But yeah, ah this definitely meant a lot a lot to Rise. a Very interesting team ah for him as well. Florges, Gorghais, Guzzlord, Lapras, which I mean, this feels like this was like Toy Story.
William Dunphey: You know, you pull your old toy out of the box and you're like, hey maybe this thing can can still do some some fun things. some fun things and apparently Lapras can still work. it's Also the Shadow Scizor and Unova Sun Fist.
William Dunphey: So fun team here from RYSE, very solid team. Gorggeist is going to be the the main topic of our discussion. But right before we get into grand finals, I just want to mention one thing here, CC.
William Dunphey: So as you look at this top 10,
William Dunphey: We had a lot. We had an infestation of electric bugs. Third place, fourth place, fifth place, sixth place, seventh place, ninth place, and tenth place were all running charge a bug.
William Dunphey: So what in the world is going on with the charge bug? And I noticed that none of them are shadow.
zzweilous: Okay, so first of all, I consider myself Chargerbuck's strongest soldier. um I bring that thing to almost every event I attend. um I believe it's so good because it's so flexible, so neutral. It's an electric that doesn't immediately fall to ground-type damage.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: um It is... very spammy. It has good coverage. It has actually like it's a bug type, which like typically isn't considered a very good typing, but it has such useful defensive utility against fighting types, against ground types.
zzweilous: And the reason why I believe Charger Bug was so prevalent in Merida has to do with Toronto. We only had Toronto as an indication of what would be good in that meta.
zzweilous: And Toronto had Empolion as a water type, And then three flying types. Shadow Gyarados does not want to get world-switched. Corviknight, not a fan of that matchup either. And then the Altaria for which you maybe need the Shadow tech that hasn't really made its way to Merida just yet. But still, feel like there's just so much neutral play to be had or even very positively polarizing play in your favor to be had that electric types were a little bit of a theme this tournament.
zzweilous: And if you look at the teams that didn't run Charger Bug in the top eight, One of them had Unovan Stunfisk. So there was not a team without an electric type, although we just saw a triple flyer and an empoleon sweep a tournament.
William Dunphey: No, you're exactly right. Yeah, now that you frame it that way, yeah, the electric type coverage is everywhere. I mean, Chargebug also has good targets in in things like Azumarole. And I think the matchup versus Scizor is very playable, right? Very competitive. So it's got a ton a ton of neutral play, like you mentioned, the flexibility. Yeah, I was looking at this...
William Dunphey: This list here on Dracoviz, I'm like, man, where are all these freaking bugs coming from? but That makes perfect sense. And I think that in context of Toronto, that's what a lot of people have to consider because it might feel like the meta is always a moving target, but it's always a response to the previous meta, or at least in most cases it is.
William Dunphey: um But yeah, what ah what a fun set. I think for this one, I do have ah notes on the grand finals. I forget exactly where I saw the stream, but I was able to watch it. I think there was a YouTube video.
William Dunphey: Yeah. So there's a YouTube video that was actually posted by Karma Beam, which I think is the organizer for the event. And this was a this was a quick grand finals. This was a 3-0 in favor of Rye. So he was very comfortable in this.
William Dunphey: And ah fun fact for you, ZZ, this is only the second 3-0 grand finals of the season. The only other player to sweep 3-0 from the winner's side was Inadequance in Stuttgart.
zzweilous: That's a very inadequate thing to do.
William Dunphey: It is. you know He gets good alignment, and and you can't stop him. I'm just kidding. He's very, very talented. But yeah, Rise and Inadequacy, only two trainers to come in on the Winterside bracket and sweep 3-0. through the grand finals. So um something I did want to mention about Ryze's team as we circle back towards the grand finals is that Ryze was running Disarming Voice and Chilling Water on his Florges. He dropped the Trailblaze, which going into Seattle, I expected to see more Ryze-style Florges, ah but I did not. um
William Dunphey: But yeah, what are your thoughts on the Disarming Voice Chilling Water over the Trailblaze and Chilling Water?
zzweilous: I think with Trailblaze, obviously boosting your attack is quite nice, but having all resisted moves does make the Artaria matchup kind of iffy, and you do want your fairy to be a good response to the most popular dragon.
zzweilous: And if you are running a grass type, such as Gorghuis, maybe you just get your grass damage from elsewhere. and Speaking of the Gorghuis, because obviously that is the standout pick, we just talked about the meta as a moving target.
zzweilous: and What I really like about the Gourgeist is that it is the anti-anti-meta pick. You are looking at the meta, oh, that's a lot of Flyers and Waters. You bring the anti-meta pick of Charger Bug or Unovan Stunfisk, and then you bring a Pokemon that not only has Incinerate to burn down the Charger Bug, but also walls of the entire moveset of Unovan Stunfisk.
zzweilous: So truly Ryze being a step ahead of the game once more.
William Dunphey: No, absolutely. And if you look at the grand finals matchup, we had Ryze's team, like I mentioned earlier, real quick, Florges, Gorghais, Guzzlord, Lapras, Shadow Scizor, Inova, Sunfisk, Spartan, L17, with Shadow Altaria, purified Cradilly, but not running return, don't worry.
William Dunphey: Furret, Gastrodon, Shadow Scizor, and Unova Stunfist. So ah just immediately looking at the team here from Spartan, I would say the Gorghais can hit ah at least three out of these targets for a lot of damage and basically control that matchup. It looks like Gorghais also wins the zeros and ones versus Cradilly, so there's a ton of play there as well. I think the toughest matchups obviously being Shadow Altaria and the Furret with Sucker Punch. But my goodness, Gorghais looks so free into this comp.
zzweilous: Yeah, and especially if you look at um what do a Sucker Punch Farid and a Shadow Altaria not want to see? ah Maybe Floor just with Disarming Voice? That could be pretty tricky.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: Good point, good point. Yeah.
zzweilous: Also, Rai's Guzzlord is essentially unchecked into the comp of Spartan, so there's certainly just so many good options for him that I don't really i can't really blame Spartan for not taking Game of Rai's because This again feels like a very tough comp to overcome.
William Dunphey: Yeah, this is almost an impossible team composition, especially in the hands of someone like Rise, who's just so experienced. He's not going to let anything slip by. i don't want to spend too much time in the grand finals. If you were able to watch the VOD, it is a nice little watch.
William Dunphey: A good showcase of Rise and his Gore Geist. When he knows he has an advantage, he does not let it go, as I just mentioned. But one thing I wanted to call out was in game number three, Ryze just applies a full court press to Spartan. He throws a brutal swing into Spartan Scizor. Spartan shields it. And then Ryze immediately insta-swaps his Scizor. And I guess ah Spartan maybe waits a turn. They both throw a Night Slash at the same time.
William Dunphey: And Ryze's Scizor wins the Night Slash. and And just you can feel the momentum in that series just really... swing all the way firmly over to Ryze's side with that single play alone. But a lot of really good plays here by Ryze. He was able to ah align his Gorghuis versus the Unoman Sunfisk at least twice. And once you do that, it's pretty much game over. So cheers to Spartan, though, for another great performance. He beat a lot of really talented trainers on his way to the grand finals, including Ash Nash twice, Rocha Babyface, Corlash, and the lovely Kelsey Kaye with her Guzzlord. But ah just wasn't enough to overcome the rise to occasion.
zzweilous: Yeah, it's like like like Spartan really, like Kelsey K, a teammate of mine, then Spartan comes to EOAC, beats me. I don't know what he has against the team of Sharks and Recreation, but he's he's certainly keeping the water Sharks free.
William Dunphey: don't know.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: But yeah, again, Merida, certainly um and event that I do want to attend eventually, and maybe I get my revenge. But yeah, not that there are any hard feelings or anything, because they are not.
William Dunphey: Oh, all right. Yeah.
William Dunphey: yeah
zzweilous: But, you know.
William Dunphey: Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's I got the ah sweet and savory vibes. They are sweet to see the city and savory when you're actually able to take that victory and avenge those previous losses, especially against your fellow sharks. I mean, maybe Spartan is ah is a fan of the Jaws movie. He thinks that all those sharks need to go.
William Dunphey: Who knows? But ah we promised you a speedy episode. We're going to keep on rolling because i think we've exhausted our Merida coverage. We can talk about Auckland, which I think we'd have to shout out to PvP Steve because he actually has footage of this event.
zzweilous: Yeah, like always shout out to PvP Steve, one of the most involved people in the community, delivering community streams, traveling the world. He was in San ju Juan today for the Puerto Rican special event.
zzweilous: um He did not get his first win that he was ah teasing that he wanted to take. He did finish ninth place. But again, this is still a fantastic journey to make.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: um Nothing but love for Steve. And yeah. Aukland, another destination type of regional, but I don't actually believe that people from abroad tried to contest that title. I think this was just very much an Aussie plus New Zealand affair.
William Dunphey: Yeah, i I really, really admire Steve so much. And I saw his post, right? Because he looks so so serious. I'll try to put it up here at 29 minutes in the show if you're watching the YouTube version. But I saw his post and he's wearing his glasses and he looks so serious. And the post says, time to win one. And then I checked the bracket and I'm like, uh-oh.
William Dunphey: Just didn't quite did it quite get there, Steve.
zzweilous: ah yeah yeah yeah there's there's still so there's still south africa
William Dunphey: Maybe next time, my my dear friend.
William Dunphey: It's true. it's Oh, wait, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm not talking about Auckland. I'm talking about the one that's happening this weekend. I got a little a little carried away.
zzweilous: yeah yeah yeah like we've just been on the topic of pvp steve who is like synonymous with um aussie pvp here right um so
William Dunphey: um
William Dunphey: Yes, yes.
zzweilous: No, he did it he did come seventh in Auckland, by the way.
William Dunphey: Well.
zzweilous: So maybe that is the transition that we need to get into that tournament. That was won by maybe the new powerhouse on the Australian PvP scene in Jamethy, actually taking it with a team of Altaria and Empoleon, the Classic Core, Wigglytuff, speak of the devil, Kanto Merowak.
zzweilous: No more of that in the next season. as well as Liki Liki and Shadow Annihilate.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: A lot more of that in the next season. Taking down Godzilla in the grand finals, so as a team that overlaps three times, well, two and a half times because Godzilla's Atari is actually Shadow.
William Dunphey: No, absolutely.
zzweilous: And there's also Liki Liki, also a Marowak, but Shadow Scissor, Charger Bug, so two bug types, as well as Azumarill, round out Godzilla's team.
William Dunphey: Very nice. I can tell you're maybe a fan of Godzilla Lama's team with the double bugs. That looks so looks pretty interesting. um I do have a quick recap here of our grand finals. This did go to a game five. So Jomothy really had to fight his way through this. Game one, the highlight was that Godzilla Lama caught a shadow ball onto his Licky Licky and Jomothy actually lost that battle with two shields.
William Dunphey: It was kind of like, all right, you've outplayed me and we're just kind of going to punt to the next the next battle and just see how things go. Game number two belonged to Jumothy. Jumothy got a 2-0 shield advantage and sent out his Empoleon versus Azumarill to sweep things up.
William Dunphey: Game number three belonged to God's Lama. Jumothy insta-swapped into his Licky Licky, which was, I mean, that's pretty much what you expect because Jumothy led his Wigglytuff into Shadow Scizor. Gasp for all of our Wigglytuff fans that are listening. um Scizor got the boost and absolutely just swept through the team.
William Dunphey: So there's really nothing that Jumothy could do. But then in the fourth and fifth battle, Jemothy did strike back. he kick He started off game number four strong. He was able to connect Flamethrower from his Altaria into Charjabug, tank two discharges to win the lead, which according to the expert Z's wireless, that would not happen against a Shadow Charjabug.
William Dunphey: It would absolutely, it would crush it, right? So...
zzweilous: Exactly.
William Dunphey: So maybe he got a ah little bit lucky there. And then Jumothy's Licky Licky survives Rock Slide on 1 HP to land a ah charge attack against the KWAC and wins. Now we're all tied up going into game number 5.
William Dunphey: Jumothy leads his Empoleon into Azumarill. ah And then, yeah. So Jumothy wins lead. He swaps to Altaria to save Empoleon. Godzalama brings in the Kanto Marowak.
William Dunphey: Jumothy recognizes his win condition is to Mudslap through. Godzalama loses with two shields, which is highly poetic because that's just how Jumothy lost game one of the grand finals. So...
William Dunphey: Very well done by him. And yeah, Godzilla Lama, a trainer that I recognized from last season when when he was able to win an event. And yeah, it's it's really cool to see Jemothy win events. And I'm telling you this purely from a personal bias because Jemothy beat me at NAIC last year. And now I can say I lost to a two times regional champ.
zzweilous: Yeah, like honestly, like really proved his himself as a giant slayer even all the way back then. i Trying to look up the match up. Oh, you had a fun team.
zzweilous: You had a fun team. You had a Galarian Huizing back then. i was bringing i was bringing a Galarian Huizing as well to that tournament.
William Dunphey: Oh.
William Dunphey: Yeah, I was a little inspired by you.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: That was a 2 a.m. lock in. And yeah, it worked for a little while until it didn't.
zzweilous: Oh, but you but you faced twice, so each of you won one. So you're technically tied up, right?
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Ooh, yeah.
zzweilous: So like yeah that that kind of makes you a two-time event winner as well.
William Dunphey: You know what?
William Dunphey: Hey, I'll look at it that way. That sounds ah that sounds good, actually. i'm I'm getting a nice confidence boost from that. To round out our top eight, we had gone in third place with another Clefable.
William Dunphey: I think there's a lot to this Clefable. I faced one in round one in Seattle. I think its ability to beat Dark-type Pokemon as well as to have that Meteor Mash tech to beat other Fairy-type Pokemon is actually very good.
William Dunphey: It's very flexible. I looked at it for my team as well, but decided to go more RPS, I guess. But um the fable is definitely very fun. It's cool to see it finishing top eight. Another fortress, this time from our Spice Lord, Yusei Faroe, finishing in fifth place overall. And then Steve, he finished seventh, but he did it with Toadscrew, Wigglytuff, and also Basidon, but a fortress to boot. So he recovered a few aura points there with me.
zzweilous: I will say that I am a big fan of the Fortress Call, even in the previous meta. I guess this is also a Pokemon that like not only is very dear to your heart, but also is something that we may see much more often in the next season, just because we have that Sand Tomb buff now actually being a cheap attack that not only debuffs the opposing, the opponent's defense, but also does 15 more damage from 25 damage to 40 buff this season.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: So while it's still not a hard-hitting move, it is at least a move now. it's It's something that you can run without being ashamed when it's no-shielded. um
William Dunphey: Yeah, that's fair.
zzweilous: So yeah, like back then, I think both Yusei as well as Steve were running it with the earthquake as a secondary attack. Now I believe we will be seeing a lot more sand tooming, even on the World Switch variant.
William Dunphey: yeah Yeah, you're exactly right. Both of them running Volt Switch as well. And this is something that I should have considered for Seattle. i kept My mind was so locked on Bug Bite that was like, I really need to play at least one Steel-type Pokemon.
William Dunphey: Maybe I should run Fortress. But then I didn't consider the Volt Switch tech, which was quite good against Empoleon, right? So... maybe Maybe these guys are on to something. But given that, all i had all I really had access to was the grand finals footage.
William Dunphey: We recapped that really briefly. We talked a bit about teams. Was there anything else that you wanted to highlight about Auckland before we move on? OK.
zzweilous: I think we could move on to Sydney maybe because we are already in in Oceania, in Australia, New Zealand. um And it takes a lot of time to move between places.
zzweilous: So we should just stay there for the time being.
William Dunphey: It's true.
zzweilous: And this is actually a a very international field now that I look at the top 16 graphic.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: In top eight, we had Yeti Runa yet again, yet again, making it down from South Korea. with a Pangoro and a Firo on her squad, um finishing type for seventh.
zzweilous: Pokimani Maker, um another APAC trainer from Japan, taking third place. And also, miss a Worldwide Nighttime Clasher in fourth place, with a with the old reliable Corviknight Guzzled Core that I personally am very fond of.
zzweilous: um But yeah, once again, this event was won by Jonathan with the exact same team of six.
William Dunphey: Yes.
William Dunphey: All right, ZZ, I have an honest question for you. This is not scripted. We're going to get a real reaction here. Yet Aruna has Firo on her team. Have you also seen a suspicious amount of Firo in Go Battle League this season? I feel like I'm seeing it on every other team that I encounter. Be honest.
zzweilous: I have not, but...
William Dunphey: Ah.
zzweilous: I'm kind of wondering why, because pack users used to be all the rage back in back and fall, but then they fell off, kind of. They had a fall off, if you will. um I don't know where they went. I guess the prevalence of electric types doesn't really help them.
zzweilous: um But yeah, I remember being on that Shadow 2 cannon train fairly early. I remember Fero winning, I think, in Milwaukee. So yeah where did with the packers go?
zzweilous: Speedy.
William Dunphey: Well, well this is this is how I know that you ah actually care about me as a friend. It's because you could have said, well, they're all in the sub rank five ELO, and that's why. So you could have said that.
William Dunphey: You easily could have gone there, but you chose not to, and I respect it.
zzweilous: i could have I could have said that, but like it depends on... like when i When I shit talk a Pokémon, it will have to commit a war crime.
zzweilous: And the Pentas are all right.
William Dunphey: Ah, true.
zzweilous: like they They did nothing wrong. They deserve justice. There are sets of Pokemon that don't. I would not have defended Toad's Gruul, a Shadow Steelix.
William Dunphey: Hmm.
William Dunphey: Oh, that's fair. That's fair.
zzweilous: But... wep We are pro-pec in this house.
William Dunphey: Yeah, um I'm going to I'm going to get you a ah bumper sticker that says I love Peckers and and we'll have that you can drive around with in Germany.
zzweilous: Ah yes please, yes please.
William Dunphey: Well, but we'll have like a a picture of a Firo there so nobody will get confused.
zzweilous: i should I should have gotten that after our segment in Pittsburgh, arguably, but I'll get back to you.
William Dunphey: OK, maybe if I if I actually develop the stickers and you do another segment, then then we'll give them out as as participation gifts.
zzweilous: Jesus.
William Dunphey: um But OK, so funny, Fero fallacies aside, let's go ahead and talk about the the winning team. And my goodness, does it ever look familiar here, Z's Wireless? We had Altaria, Shadow Annihilate, Empoleon, Licky Licky, Shadow Kanta Marowak, and Wigglytuff. And these two events, if I'm not mistaken, so Sydney was the 7th and 8th of February, and Auckland was the 25th of January. So these were, ah what, basically back-to-back weekends, right?
zzweilous: They would have been two weeks apart, right? So this is like as as back-to-back as it gets typically.
William Dunphey: Two weeks.
William Dunphey: Okay, yeah so yeah, exactly. Two weeks. So almost virtually back-to-back. Cool fact, Jomothy is actually the first trainer in Championship Series history to win two events with the exact same team. Nobody has ever done it until Jomothy has done it. And I was scrubbing through my notes yesterday trying to find another example of it. I looked at the Lyle Jeffs. I looked at the Dunebugs. I looked at the Collins. I looked at all the multi-winners. Nobody had done it except Jomothy, which is a huge accomplishment, I think.
zzweilous: Yeah, this is also like something that I would not have guessed if you asked me like, oh, how many people i have done that before?
William Dunphey: He just... ah
zzweilous: I would have said like two, maybe. um yeah, actually, actually a world's first.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
William Dunphey: Yeah, so just just to back up my claim here, in case we have any doubters that are listening, the closest comparison is actually Dune in 2024. He shared on his two winning teams, Annihilate, Shadow Gligar, Lickitung, and Shadow Whiskash.
William Dunphey: But on his Knoxville team, he had Chargebug and Skarmory. And then on his Orlando team was the famous Shadow Pidgeot, Shadow Alone, and Sandslash. But that's as close as it gets. Four shared picks. Everybody else had three or less. So pretty close.
William Dunphey: um Let's see. So... We, ah when we did our, um, our pre-show chat, I told you I had a weekly tough fact for you. Check this out.
William Dunphey: This win for Jemothy, right? After winning Auckland, he went to win Sydney. His win in Sydney marked the fifth tournament win this season for Wigley tough. The others being inadequates in Frankfurt, doombug in Vegas, Maxie in Birmingham, and then Jemothy's two wins in Auckland and Sydney.
William Dunphey: ah other pokemon that had more tournament wins this season than wigglytuff altaria has six shadow kentamaruwak has six galarian corsela has six as well which feels like a relic from the past but there was ah a period where corsela was winning constantly and then tied for fifth tied for five wins are empoleon and shadow talon flame and i'm pretty sure that all the shadow town flame wins are in europe i'm pretty sure
zzweilous: I would not be surprised for sure. i like Galarian Kostela was so big in September and early October, but haven't really been around much since.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Even though we actually came fairly close to another Galarian Kostela winning because runner-up Daylove Jai did feature the Galarian Kostela on their team, um as well as yet another fortress and a obviously an Alolan Ninetales, a Shadow Alolan Ninetales.
zzweilous: which is the They Love Jai signature pick.
William Dunphey: I love that Jai ran Ice Ferry and Bug Steel. I mean, just two prime targets for a Talonflame and luckily did not encounter one as far as I know in his run.
William Dunphey: Just a quick...
zzweilous: Very far away from Europe, too, so they probably felt safe.
William Dunphey: That's fair. Just a quick addendum here. I was incorrect, but we do have the majority of our Talonflame wins coming from Europe, that being Inadequates in Frankfurt, Hikami in Lille, and Inadequates again in Stuttgart. However, our two out-of-region Talonflame winners are gone. who actually won in Brisbane, and then Dunebug, who won in Vegas. So three out of five are European to firebirds.
William Dunphey: um Okay, so I have one more note that I wanted to make here. Okay, one more note I wanted to make is about Poke Moneymaker. Poke Moneymaker from Japan. As you pointed out, this feels like a more international competition. You had Aruna from Korea. We had a Poke Moneymaker from Japan, Nighttime Clasher from the US.
William Dunphey: Poke Moneymaker finished third overall. This is the fourth Oceania event in two years that po Poke Moneymaker has finished within the top three, which is crazy. four Four events, two years, top three every single time. Finishing third in Perth in 2025, first in Melbourne 2025, second in Brisbane 2026, and third in Sydney 2026. So, Pokemon Maker has won one, but it's come close several times.
zzweilous: this is quite the impressive statistic and like it kind of plays into a question that obviously it's very difficult to compare between years and seasons and just like general levels of dominance but um with the with the geometry back-to-back win what i was immediately reminded of was the era of jakobovic dominance in oceania because
William Dunphey: Okay.
zzweilous: Obviously, it's like a little bit of a smaller field, a little bit of um less opportunity to compete as well. So it feels like a prime region for like very defined top contenders to emerge.
zzweilous: And Jonathan kind of coming out of nowhere into that top spot, third in Brisbane, then two top one finishes. But it would be like kind of fun if we could claim that the top Australian competitor was actually a Japanese battler that was just flying in every time. feel like Pokemon Maker's resume is actually fairly close to that.
zzweilous: So yeah, a very, very talented trainer. And yeah, just like looking at the record, there's there's just so much winning. just i'm I'm looking at matches won and games won as well. It's like, oh, eight matches won, 18 games won.
zzweilous: Those are deep, deep runs. that's The only time there weren't at least seven matches won by Pokemon Maker was not in Australia, but at Worlds, which had four matches won, which is still a sizable amount.
William Dunphey: Yeah, especially at Worlds. I mean, that those matches go a long way because you're battling against the best of the best. That goes without saying. um But yeah, that that'd be really funny if the best player in OC was actually a Japanese player who kept flying in.
William Dunphey: I mean, we'll see. We'll see if Poke Moneymaker wins the the next one in Australia. And I'm sure the Australians also kind of unite against the other trainers from out of region, right? They're like, oh, we have to stop Yeruna from winning or we have to prevent po Poke Moneymaker from taking other titles.
William Dunphey: So then you get kind of a...
zzweilous: They've been pretty resilient. Like they don't have the the same numbers that North Americans or Europeans have.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: And they have quite ah quite a fair few intruders. But they've been holding strong for the most part. Like we, I don't know, do we have like one instance of somebody from out of reach and taking it?
zzweilous: But overall, like Australia is not free.
William Dunphey: Yeah, absolutely.
zzweilous: I'm like, we know and we will get into that. We will get into that.
William Dunphey: Yeah, sorry, I got got a little ah a little shaken there by what you're suggesting. um All right, let's do a quick grand finals recap.
zzweilous: it
William Dunphey: This VOD is available on PVP Steve's channel. So if you do ah listen to the podcast and you're not following Steve, you better pause right now, go follow him and come right back. Excellent content creator, beloved by all in the community.
William Dunphey: So... Grand finals, I'll just run through real quick. Jumothy was able to win battle number one versus They Love Jai, but then Jai struck back, winning three in a row to force the grand finals reset. And that's also including a game three where Jai led their Galarian Corsula into Wigglytuff and still managed to win that game somehow.
William Dunphey: In the grand finals reset, though, Jumothy made some adjustments. um I messaged Steve about this and I was like, man, the first grand final set was so dynamic. But then in the grand finals reset, Jemothy just locked in. He found a new gear and he was winning all the leads and he was winning all the matchups. I mean, just to give you an idea, game one of the grand finals reset, Jemothy leads Wigley Tough into Glaring Corsola, does not let history repeat itself, wins that battle.
William Dunphey: Game number two, he leads his Wigglytuff into Gastrodon, which is generally pretty neutral. But after the safe swap comes out, Jemothy just absolutely punishes the Glare Moltres. Game three, Jemothy leads his Empoleon into Shadow Alolanite Tales. And that is a really disastrous spot to be in. And then I think i think we saw the Glare Moltres come out and then the Wigglytuff aligned against that. So it was real rough for a...
William Dunphey: for They Love Jai in the Grand Finals reset. But a valiant effort nonetheless, and I do respect the commitment to the Shadow Alolan Ninetales. That's a sick pick.
zzweilous: Yeah, especially like it's a Pokemon that has always been on the brink of viability kind of. Then we had the proof of concept when Inadequines won a tournament with it.
zzweilous: And honestly, it's been it's been treated well by Niantic's scope, the Pokemon Go as of recent, because it did receive the Powder Snow buff, the Weather Ball buff, and the addition of Chilling Water to its moveset.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: So really a lot more potent than it used to be just a couple of months ago.
William Dunphey: what's What I find really ironic is that not only, I'm so happy you mentioned this, I almost forgot, not only did They Love Dry run Dazzling Gleam Weather Ball, but I believe that's also the set that Pocket ran at Seattle.
William Dunphey: So it feels like people are just kind of leaving the chilling water behind.
zzweilous: It is.
zzweilous: Like, i don't I don't know. Maybe it has to do with um getting walled off by other water types. Maybe that is a consideration where you have so much like so many Azumarill in this meta.
zzweilous: You maybe see the Odd Lapras, like Rhyse, one with in Merida, where like even though that is still a bad matchup for the Ninetales to be in, At least you can do something with, say, a shield advantage. So I can see the argument for why you would not commit to moveset that is entirely rolled off by one of the most powerful types in the game.
William Dunphey: That's a good point. Yeah, I think you're right. I think if you can find coverage in other places as well, it really helps. I mean, you're probably looking to check Talonflame as the number one fire type Pokemon, you know, something that's weak to ah to water that can't be beaten by ice, right? Because if you look at something like Marowak, you can beat Marowak with ice. It's still weak to that. You'd rather just run the weather ball. But if you have on your team, like Jai does, if you have Power Gem, Glaring Corsula, Rock Tomb, Foratrice, Water Pulse, Gastrodon, Rollout, Licky Licky, and then a neutral matchup in the Glary Moltres. Maybe you don't need the Chilling Water. So that actually makes a lot of sense. But um yeah, check out the VOD if you would like to watch those battles. Those are really fun. Jemothy, again, finding a new gear or in the Grand Finals Reset. and He's like, no, I'm locking down two tournaments this season and they love Jai. It's not going to stop me.
William Dunphey: And he succeeded.
zzweilous: Yeah, it's a very impressive accomplishment.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: So big shout outs to the Oceanian region and to Geomathy in particular. um Okay, I think we can move on to our very last tournament ahead of Seattle and ahead of the here and now, which was, i believe, the Santiago. Was it a regional? Was it a special event?
zzweilous: it It is special. original on this Jacobus graphics, I will call it original.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: They are equivalent in function regardless.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: So this one was won by in Argentinian battler, but it was not Marto Galle.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: It was Andy Coby.
William Dunphey: hu
zzweilous: And Andy Coby is an Argentinian battler that I think I know from gym breakers.
William Dunphey: Yes.
zzweilous: So certainly somebody who has a big presence within the grassroots community and somebody who
William Dunphey: yes
zzweilous: um is no stranger to playing the best of the best. And taking ah taking on a bunch of Chileans on his way to the crown here, he's the only non-Chilean battler in the top eight, um with that top eight also featuring household names such as Memmi, who, perennial third-place finisher, this time second-place finisher, he's getting there.
zzweilous: He will claim his title eventually. DekuPai is a name that we've seen before. Emilio is certainly one of the more recognizable names Ice Chris, DeSinct, Elche, and not as much of household name, but the car list 28 also made it all the way to fifth place.
zzweilous: um So yeah, very, very strong Chilean showing, but the title does go toward Argentina.
William Dunphey: It does. A bit of an Argentinian invasion there during this Santiago Regional. Before we jump to the the overall team outlook, I just wanted to give a special shout out. I feel like every time he's at a tournament, we have to talk about him.
William Dunphey: De-synced, right? De-synced with Altaria, Shadow for Alligator, as well as Florges with Disarming Voice Chilling Water, Lurantis, which I had not seen since... Oh my gosh, blanking on his name, but he was a trainer that played Lurantis as well.
zzweilous: Chun. Chun.
William Dunphey: Chun, thank you.
zzweilous: Yeah, yeah. I think a Dutch, a Dutch battler who brought it to at least Utrecht, but potentially also a couple of other events like Bochum back in the day.
William Dunphey: Tune was...
zzweilous: Yeah, like ah big on the Lurantis and also big on the Dedene early on before that thing got buffed and nerfed and went in and out of the meta.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: But yeah, Lurantis very interesting Pokemon because it is a fragile, pure grass type with so many interesting moveset options in that it looks like a bug.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: It can do bug stuff by doing Fury Cutter and it does have access to Exesor, but typically you do run it with a Leaf Blade, which is one of the the most efficient attacks.
zzweilous: 35 energy, 70 damage, fantastic move, as well as super powerful coverage to really give it a very good shot against those Steel types like the Empolion, for example.
William Dunphey: Yeah, and also running leafage. I mean, this might be one of the one of the only leafage users in TopCut that we've seen maybe ever, right?
zzweilous: That is true. That is true. That is the move that I forgot, even though I wanted to mention it initially. But yeah, Leafledge, I believe that's one of the many, many Shadowclaw clones we have these days.
zzweilous: So it is a an attack that pairs energy generation with fast move damage. It is also the move that DeSync opted for in this tournament. So whereas you would have struggles taking down a for example, like an Azumarill, which has the fairy type resisting Fury Cutter damage, um you would have to take that down on charge attacks alone.
zzweilous: You are able to get a little bit of farm, do a little bit of fast attack damage with that leakage.
William Dunphey: Yeah, when when I saw that, i I almost felt like I needed to shake my Walker and say, back in my day, Laurentius ran Fury Cutter. know, that's what we expected to see.
zzweilous: ah
William Dunphey: But leafage is such a cool tech. um Also to round out the team, Alolan Sandslash, a Pokemon that I've considered it at multiple points. But I think the ground weakness is just a little bit too much to overcome.
William Dunphey: I guess a decent found a way around that, at least for the time being. And then the trusty, Saipel. Maple syrup pancake. Definitely a mouthful, even for an English speaker like myself.
William Dunphey: But yeah, very, very fun team.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: DeSync always deserves a shout out.
zzweilous: I like staple syrup. I guess like you know in Stunfisk is common enough to call it a staple. um But
William Dunphey: Yeah, yeah. The trusty staple maple syrup Stunfisk, something like that. um But yeah, I wanted to to point out one thing about this. We don't have footage of this. I'm not sure if you were able to find anything. I was not. I scoured the internet to look for footage of this. I don't think it's available. Something I wanted to mention is that this is also an instance of a Florgis takeover. So within the top 10 teams, we had six including first through fifth place overall 20 floorages total in the tournament 13 of the 20 running trailblaze chilling water six of them running Disarming Voice and Chilling Water, and then one was actually running Moonblast and Chilling Water. So again, kind of a mix, maybe you know two to one mix, ah almost exactly of Trailblaze to Disarming Voice.
William Dunphey: But um yeah, again, i think you made a really good point earlier. You said it depends on the team composition. If you already have Trailblaze Scizor, if you already have Trailblaze Furret, if you already have uh credily if you already have grass coverage somewhere on your team maybe you don't need that maybe you need to actually be able to handle altaria a bit more seriously for example
zzweilous: especially because many of the grasses are not that great into Altaria. um So yeah, that is certainly a consideration that many trainers will have when constructing their teams. And one thing that I was wondering is whether we want to also get into the little bit of drama. It's not like really terrible drama, but there was a little bit of chatter on the socials going around this regional because um We are very grateful to the services of our Dracovis team where the volunteers are coming up with these really neat graphics that showcase all the teams by all the players.
zzweilous: But the day one graphic um supposedly had inaccurate information, which was supposedly in inaccurately reported. um So that was a matchup where I believe in Altaria was assumed that a Galarian Moltres appeared and all of a sudden that matchup looked a little more difficult than it may have looked in scrims.
zzweilous: But even though this is like a little like, do we, is this like touching on that sportsmanship or is it just like voluntary to reveal your teams?
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Because there's like no, ah you have no obligation to reveal your teams. um
William Dunphey: So,
zzweilous: I will say it was probably not tournament deciding.
William Dunphey: So that's the thing, right? You don't have an obligation to reveal the team, but then you could just not submit a team, period, right? If that were the case.
zzweilous: That is a very fair point. That is a very fair point.
William Dunphey: So it's like it's like not submitting a team versus misleading somebody on your team. And yeah, I'm aware of what you're talking about. um And to give everyone a little more context, right? We don't have footage of this. There was no stream for this tournament.
William Dunphey: So when you went into this this venue in Santiago, you were just sitting across the table from your opponent and doing your battles. You weren't watching other people's battles. You weren't able to, unless you it came up in discussion, you weren't able to figure out what they were running.
William Dunphey: So there's a bit more secrecy surrounding this one. ah But yeah, I think that the deliberate ah misrepresentation of your team in order to try to get a better day two matchup with two very notable players.
William Dunphey: i i won't dox them by name on the broadcast here, but i do I do know who they were and I'm familiar with it.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: But yeah, I mean, you think ah you think we operate in a high trust community, but sometimes people are willing to do things just to get an edge. And yeah, frankly, i heard i've heard excuses too, and I don't really buy the excuse because I don't think it was a mistake on Draco Business Park.
zzweilous: Yeah, I will say that I do know the people involved as well, but I haven't actually reached out to the players accused, so I will not dox them because I feel like that would just be bad practice.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: but Overall, I would just encourage um everybody in the community to trade others the same way you want to be treated because you would probably also not think it's the best move to be misled by your opponent like that.
zzweilous: um Especially like if you if you obfuscate the Pokemon on your team that is the best into your opponent's team, that Pokemon will still be good if they know what's coming.
William Dunphey: Yeah. Sure.
zzweilous: um So it was, again, i feel as if it's It's so insignificant that you could have just been honest about it.
William Dunphey: Yeah, I agree. Such a weird thing, right? Like, I don't, this never crossed my mind. It never crossed my mind to to lie about my team. You know, if I ever made top cut and was going into day number two, and I think I could get a small advantage. it never crossed my mind to do that. So it's funny. It's funny what people think up, but.
William Dunphey: All that said and done, I think that your point still stands. This wasn't a tournament deciding outcome, but it definitely was disruptive. So hopefully that doesn't happen again because I don't think the upside is worth the potential downside of everyone looking at you and thinking that you're a turd for doing that. So...
William Dunphey: um But yeah, we don't have a whole lot to go off of for this one. Like we alluded to, Andy, Kobe, and Manny in the grand finals. ah Similar teams ah sharing the Altaria, although the Shadow variant was on Andy's side. Sharing Empoleon, sharing Florgis, sharing Shadow Kenta Merwack and sharing the Licky Licky. The only difference is being Malamar for Andy Coby versus the Glaring Corsa for Mami. So I do think that Malamar has a little bit of an edge there, obviously, in this matchup. And there are some subscribers to the Church of Malamar. I believe that Dunebug is one of them. He worships there as well. So... Maybe Malamar is something. But um one more point I wanted to make, excuse me, I know I'm going a little long. One more point I wanted to make is that this is by far Andy Kobe's best performance. If you look back, 25th at LAIC this year, last season finished 49th at Santiago, 97th at LAIC, 17th at Buenos Aires, and then in 2024, finished 33rd overall in Santiago. So this is like miles from where Andy Kobe has been, and I think that he should feel really proud.
William Dunphey: Very well done.
zzweilous: 100%, but also I will say that um his most recent performance at LAIC was already trending into that direction. Again, I really liked the matches won because that puts into perspective how long the road of the trainer was to get where they where they eventually ended up.
William Dunphey: You're right.
zzweilous: So even though his best placement before that was the 2025 winners area 17th place, that was only two matches won, whereas the LAIC 25th place, leading up to Santiago was six matches won, which is essentially s sonom synonymous with a deep run already.
zzweilous: um so yeah, really really coming into this on form and locking in for the day of the event.
William Dunphey: Yeah, and and to your point, I looked at the LAIC matchup a little bit closer. He actually lost to Colin, and he pushed Colin to game three, which I think says a lot definitely about himself as a player.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: So you're right. Andy has been trending upwards, and this is just a result of of great performance. So um that being said, unless you have any closing thoughts, I think that might conclude our roundup.
zzweilous: Oh yeah, I feel like we are almost done with the Tales of Transformation season. If only there was not ah a tournament in which you competed in Speedy.
William Dunphey: ah Yes, of course. let us Let us move forward to Seattle and essentially kind of the the bookend for this entire meta, which is funny because it happened from the 28th of February to the 1st of March. So it really straddled this season update in a sense. But luckily, we were on the legacy PvP system.
William Dunphey: Think all that's holy. And we were also playing in the previous meta. So I didn't have to learn a brand new meta. But yeah, let's talk about Seattle. This is a very fun event. ZZ, I don't know what's going on with any events, but our attendance is exploding. I mean, we had over 220 players show up for Seattle, which is crazy.
zzweilous: especially because i think I saw a graphic on Twitter about the events in the pacific Pacific Northwest specifically, which haven't actually been that well attended in the past at all. And then Seattle just shooting through the roof really, and obviously attracting players from in-region. But I also believe that the Indian top competitor, Master Mihir, did make his way to Seattle to test the North American waters.
zzweilous: And i always do enjoy when there's players just traveling the world for these because obviously it's it's something that I've also been doing a lot in the past. And um yeah, I just but just really like to see those familiar faces in unfamiliar places.
William Dunphey: I agree. And very well said, too. No, it was fun to to see Master Mahir. I bumped into him momentarily before conversations pulled us apart. i bumped into the Taurian as well. Ashton Ash, I was able to hang out with him quite a bit. Very, very smart Ashton Ash. I mean, very intelligent guy. i always thought he was shy and not very talkative, but...
William Dunphey: Once you get him going, he's ah he's a chatterbox, I'll tell you that. Avinov also attending, placing within top 16. Absol Train Best, which I see on the Dracovis graphic, has a dual, it looks like Japan and US flag, which is cool. But Absol Train Best actually doing very, very well this tournament. I think their best overall performance. And then... Final boss AJ crossing the border from Canada to come down and battle in Seattle. But yeah, I think i think the Seattle event was cool too because there's a lot of nostalgia surrounding the 30th anniversary and the 10th anniversary of Pokemon Go. And I saw a lot of Pokemon employees attending this one. And there were tons and tons of players who I think maybe...
William Dunphey: Wouldn't come out to an event ah normally, but because this is such a big year for Pokemon, they're like, oh, there's a regional nearby. I'll you know i'll attend this weekend. I'll hang out. Also, a very nice venue. Essentially, the way that it worked out was that we had one enormous hall where most of your TCG players were. You had your your younger TCG divisions and then several other ah tables for the masters. And then there was like this hallway that connected to another part of the venue. So it's almost like a dumbbell shape, right? Big hall, small connector alley, and then another big hall. And in the second hall, we had the stream setup where you had all three of the the broadcasts. you You had a concessions lounge and even more TCG tables towards the back. And then the seating for the actual stream stream matches was actually pretty small.
William Dunphey: I'd say maybe six or eight rows of chairs going back. So it was kind of a more intimate viewing experience. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to sit here. But TCG folks and VG folks are constantly walking behind me. It's bit more open. So a very nice venue Seattle was. And I really hope that we go back. I think it'd be fun.
zzweilous: Yeah, I appreciate the visualizer because I had a bunch of friends going and they were also like leaving raving reviews about the venue. And I was like, what can be so fantastical about this venue that it deserves so much praise. But I think yeah like you you did shine a light on that a little bit. And again, Seattle, not unlike Merida, is one of those places where I was like, okay,
zzweilous: I would want to go there. it doesn't work out this year. But TPCI, please keep that on the schedule because like to take a second look eventually.
William Dunphey: no definitely I'd i love for us to go back and I feel like um that event and then ah Toronto was really well attended this year as well. So hopefully we get at least one on each side of the ah the northern coast of ah of the US and Canada, respectively. Hopefully we we do get that next year. um But yeah, as you alluded to, I did compete at this one. i um I tried to take scrim seriously ah the week leading up to it. i was really on the fence, to be honest with you. i was really on the fence about going up until about a week prior And then I just went ahead and bought my my plane tickets and and hotels. So I probably paid a little bit more than I should have if I would have been preemptive and ordered them earlier. But no regrets at all. I was able to go and attend the tournament. I had a great time hanging out with friends. And then I spent three days with family afterwards. So I was able to kind of
William Dunphey: dual purpose my trip before coming back to to to home base, so to speak. So really fun. Some people said my team was a little bit polarizing, but ah I don't know. I thought it was pretty fun. Although I will sigh i will say that it was very much live by the Steelix, die by the Steelix. And my ah my experiences off stream at the tables were defined by Steelix getting into bad matchups.
zzweilous: So, a more die by the Stinex is what you would say.
William Dunphey: yeah
zzweilous: you you did you did have a like You did get points from this, right? like um This was actually like
William Dunphey: It did. Yeah.
zzweilous: It was not easy to get points from that event because i believe it and it was very large, but it wasn't so large that you would hit the 257 kicker. So actually like pretty selective about who actually gets to take away championship points, but um you did make it far enough.
William Dunphey: Mm hmm.
William Dunphey: Yeah. Yeah, so um my first round, ah i believe, forgive me if I'm butchering the name, it was against Party Hat Pika, and they had a Clefable, and I led my Altaria into Clefable, ZZ, I led my Altaria into Clefable three games in a row, and I was able to win the series somehow.
William Dunphey: So that was a miracle.
zzweilous: All right. So this is is essentially you saying that you're not merely an alignment merchant, but you can also win from a lost state.
William Dunphey: Yeah, that was, I call it a miracle, but ah yeah, I think I made a couple of good plays and I was able to to take that series, which was very competitive, to be honest. um The next series was against Spandilisio and I feel so bad because I RPS the life out of Spandilisio and I really, wish the matches were more competitive, but it was like Licky Licky into Corsola, Steelix into his flyer.
William Dunphey: It was really rough for him, so
zzweilous: Okay, not beating the alignment merchant allegations anymore.
William Dunphey: Hey, no, no, we're tied up. We're tied up at this point. Bad lead, won series, and then series number two, I won based on purely alignment. So round three, I took on Zimikid on stream. First of all, absolutely adore Zimikid. He's been committed to the SurFetch gaming ever since I can remember. Very fun person, very fun battler. And we had a good series, I feel like, on stream. Famously, my my game number two, where I was convinced we were going to game three. i don't know if you watched it, Sorailas, but when that Guzzlord came out with the sludge bomb, I thought it was it was all Jover.
zzweilous: Yeah, like I just know that people were really like hoping that you would eventually throw your Swift. um But yeah, you you made it exciting. um That's that's a quality to have.
William Dunphey: Yeah, entertainment value, right? Entertainment above all. But no, um i had I had a swift loaded. I ended up throwing an icy wind into Scizor. I really had the Guzzlord stop on my mind. And I was like, man, he sends out the Guzzlord now a little bit early.
William Dunphey: Then I don't want it to catch a swift and somehow put me behind. So my brain got a little bit discombobulated. I threw an icy wind to Scizor and I heard plenty of notes about that from yours truly.
zzweilous: Hmm.
William Dunphey: But then I was able to land a swift into the opposing guz sword and and win that battle. But it was really close. He connected sludge. I even let a dragon tail through. And I was like, man, I screwed this all up. But I survived on 1 HP. Rank 7, bow wigglytuff for the win.
zzweilous: Oh, IVs matter. i have, so, I don't know, have I ever brought a Wigglytuff to a real tournament?
William Dunphey: Yes.
zzweilous: I don't know. I did once write reach rank one in GPL with a Wigglytuff, so I'm guilty as charged, um but I did catch a PvP IV extra extra small Wigglytuff at Honolulu Worlds in in Hawaii.
zzweilous: So eventually, maybe the time will come where I bring the small Wiggler and
William Dunphey: Tiny but mighty. Yeah, that's what we'll call it.
zzweilous: It is.
William Dunphey: um
zzweilous: long
William Dunphey: But yeah, we keep alluding to the RPS merchant allegations. I'll let everybody who's listening be the judge. I'll run through the team real quickly here. Shadow Altaria, Shadow Steelix, Licky Licky. It's a great safe swap, right? Gastrodon, Jelicent, another excellent safe switch, as well as Wigglytuff.
William Dunphey: All right. So I do think there are some hard matchups, but I had a little flexibility. But I'll be honest with you, ZZ. I'll be serious for a moment here. Only in team building for this meta did I realize how few actual safe swaps there are.
William Dunphey: And i'm I'm kind of glad that it's over because I'm ready for a more flexible meta, but it was Licky Licky and it was Corviknight. And if you didn't have those two, you didn't have a safe swap. I don't know if you agree or disagree.
zzweilous: I think that is like, obviously, it sometimes depends on the exact team comp that you face. again, some people, like Ghastalord is safe. If they have a fairy, it is not safe. um But if the fairy is a Zoomeril, it's kind of safe again. It's it's complicated. But yeah.
zzweilous: like a classic safe sword, a Pokemon that is really only countered by ah very, very particular teams that you may not encounter that often. i feel like Covenant and Licky are probably the two big ones.
zzweilous: And beyond that, you just have to hope that you get an energy advantage somewhere and still play a way out of it.
William Dunphey: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: Honestly, like something like Ataria is still sufficiently safe as long as all the floor just aren't trailblazed trailing water. But yeah, it's not as if everything is just like, oh, you can run every Pokemon into every Pokemon and whoever plays better wins. There will always be an element of obvious to the game. That's just the game that we play.
William Dunphey: Yeah, I agree. i mean, i definitely felt like if I safe swapped Wigglytuff, I'd get hit with a Scizor. If I safe swapped Jellicent, Glare and Moltres would come out.
zzweilous: Oh, yeah.
William Dunphey: Like, it'd be it'd be tough, right, in those situations. And then, um so I was able to win on stream, but then I went to the tables and I took on my next opponent, which was the Tarion.
William Dunphey: And um game one, I had that. i don't know if you heard about this rumor, but I had the iOS bug where it kept on popping up with the menu over and over, something to do with the settings.
William Dunphey: ah But I had that in game one. And to be fair to Tarion, that game one was unwinnable. he had He had me on hard alignment. So I wasn't likely to win that battle, but I was definitely tilted afterwards. I was definitely frustrated.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: ah Going to game number two, I think he had, if I remember right, I think he had both Cradilly and Trailblaze Florges on his team, which when you consider my team, that's like a death sentence, right? I was just not prepared for double grass coverage. So he kept his Florges in the back and he beat me in game two.
William Dunphey: My next battle was against Shadow Mimikyu. We actually pushed to to game three and game three was um I felt I was feeling pretty good about it until I led Steelix into Sunfisk and I made the swap and I tried to wiggle my way out of it.
William Dunphey: Not with Wigglytuff, but Licky Licky. OK, I try. I tried to save swap my way out of it, but he's just too good and he didn't let me go. So that was a ah one to just kind of make mimic you. So definitely some room for improvement. And I don't know. I'm kind of I'm kind of getting more of the the itch to compete. So we'll see what happens.
zzweilous: yeah i would so this is already like kind of getting ahead of myself but i would encourage you to eventually consider a trip to europe and compete on in one of our regionals because we don't have that big attendance that you guys have and we need to drive up the numbers and i know that for the prague regional at the end of april there is going to be um a prominent like a couple of prominent north americans that will be making their way over so I don't know. Let's see how free Europe is.
zzweilous: um It is certainly a little more free than North America if you just consider food and hotel prices. um So maybe there are some savings to be made there that can justify a flight across the pond.
William Dunphey: Well, if the, I think you're right.
zzweilous: But yeah, just something to think about.
William Dunphey: I would really love to see some of the locations in Europe in particular. I think there was one in Poland. What were you, were you keeping praise on Gdansk? You said that was really nice.
zzweilous: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, Gdansk was certainly high at the top of my favorite places, my favorite regional cities. um Also very affordable too.
zzweilous: So yeah.
William Dunphey: Yeah, I'd love to go. But if I'll tell you what, though, ZZ, if the rumors I'm hearing about Prague are true and the trainers that I think will attend are actually going, oh, my goodness. Prague is going to be a war zone. I hope the Europeans buckle their seatbelts and strap in because it's going to be really, really intense.
zzweilous: Yeah, i like I haven't counted the championship gold medals that would be coming over, but I think it's double digits at least. So um we have to we have to brace ourselves.
William Dunphey: Yes.
zzweilous: The impact is coming. But yeah, we have a couple of talented Europeans, right?
William Dunphey: Yeah. It's going to be insane.
zzweilous: like it's It's not as if we are entirely helpless, right?
William Dunphey: No, far from it.
zzweilous: So...
William Dunphey: Far from it, I would say. But yeah, so enough about my story. i just want to say I had a really fun time. it was great to compete. Great to hang out with all the players as well. I know that when I'm commentating, I'm um primarily backstage and I'm always doing something. So it was good to have a bit more free time and then Sunday, I got to come to the venue and just enjoy the games. And I thought our our casting team was absolutely incredible, absolutely talented.
William Dunphey: um I knew that Rise and Henry would be very good together. And they met all my expectations and more. And then, of course, we had Butters and Sof Tof. So honestly, a very elite team. And I would say... um Three out of the four, excluding old man butters, right? Three out of the four. I really think of them as like the next wave of NA casters. And I fully expect them to carry the torch forward and improve on what's been done before. So very, very excited for that.
zzweilous: Yeah, I do remember just seeing the casters line up and being immediately excited, partially because i just have a very high opinion of all of those casters and partially also because we haven't heard as much of all of them as we have of others.
zzweilous: So always exciting, especially with people with people like Rise who really also had a progression in their casting and um really like improving from event to event, again, made for a very, very good show.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: exactly Yeah.
zzweilous: So yeah, I feel as if the viewing experience in Seattle was only really hindered by the issues at the tables where it held up the tournament on that Saturday for hours even. i feel as if like the latest groups, are like there wasn't even time to get the winners finals on stream anymore. so
William Dunphey: Correct.
zzweilous: really had to make some magic happen in between to keep the content going and pulled from early rounds of middling groups just because the... like There was no other way of getting the matches done just because of the bug that you reported on as well, which was just too prevalent, I believe.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: um And yeah, I guess that comes with maybe maybe just having to iron out the kinks of a new venue, right? Sometimes there's very specific problems that you may know better about the next time.
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: So to that point, this is this is one instance where i want to be just a bit more specific because I feel like sometimes it is the venue and it is the metal roof that's like screwing up the GPS coordinates or it's the internet that the the venue told Pokemon that it had, but it actually didn't. Those things have happened in the past over over the years. um And sometimes it's Niantic, right? And the game is just bugged because there's like a big issue. I mean, who would have thought that could happen? But um Sometimes it's all those things, but this time it was on Apple.
William Dunphey: It was 100% on Apple.
zzweilous: Oh.
William Dunphey: Yes, it was something about about settings and account logins that kept on like popping up. It popped up the very first time was at the tables. Whenever I was battling Shadow Mimikyu, he actually made a point to wait until I was ready to lock in And then he would decline the message and then go into the battle because he thought that gave the widest kind of gap between pop ups that he could actually compete.
William Dunphey: And I think he was right. So that's what we are dealing with. And it wasn't Pokemon. It wasn't Niantic. It wasn't the venue. It was freaking Tim. Tim Apple. All right. Tim Cook.
zzweilous: yet. Jesus. ah don't don't don't Don't let him cook. Don't let him cook.
William Dunphey: No, who would let this man cook?
zzweilous: my... ah
William Dunphey: Liquid glass was a mistake. Roll it back. um But anyway, so yeah, a few notable performances here that I wanted to shout out to Zimmy kid. After I beat him in round three, he actually made top cut. So I'm really proud of him. He was actually standing behind Mimikyu and I, because if I beat Mimikyu, I would rematch against him and he was ready.
William Dunphey: He was ready for the rematch. So Zimmy, DG's man, you probably would have got me in our second go around. Sussan and Cedar, top cutting. ah Mormon Matt also having a great performance. Ashton Nash, top cutting.
William Dunphey: Cheese Curl. um'm I'm sure that we'll have a lot a lot to say about Cheese Curl, but what an impressive series from him. I think he went up against a really talented player and did very well. And then ah Final Boss AJ. I mean, gotta love her She's such a star and such a hero. And in the I swear to you, ZZ, half of the crowd, if not more, was cheering for Yeah.
zzweilous: I can see why. i also did look back at AJ's tournament record because this top 8 is her best performance ever. i believe she had the like overall probably the spiciest team in top card with two signature picks.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Yes.
zzweilous: There's like people with one signature pick, but we have both the Shadow Walrein, which really was the star of the show, as well as the Energy Ball Shadow Canto Ninetales, which did actually hit the field a couple of times.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: I was like,
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: This looks like a mascot to me, but it actually did something. And yeah, I was i was really i'm glad to see Walrein do well, not only on AJ's team, but also on Absol Train Best's team.
zzweilous: Because Walrein was one of my big meta calls if I had competed that weekend. And yeah, with AJ, it's...
William Dunphey: No way, really?
zzweilous: Yeah. i was I was like so big on the Walrein train. Um...
zzweilous: was Walrein, World Switch Fortress, and Galarian Moltres. Those were the three Pokemon that I would have brought to a tournament had I competed. But I didn't compete at all in that meta in Open Great League. So who am I to say what's good and what isn't? But yeah, Final Boss AJ, so true to her brand, to her core identity as the Queen of Ice, actually bringing an Ice type to every single regional she competed in. And this one, like the Walrein, was actually the star of the show. So that was...
zzweilous: very fun to watch very enjoyable to follow along and i guess like before we head into the medalists i do want to give a big shout out to a cheese girl who is another teammate of mine um and cheese girl is probably the person in the competitive circuit that i've met with the best attitude about it because he has like out of his last 10 tournaments before seattle
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
zzweilous: I think he missed points by one game nine of the ten times.
William Dunphey: ah
zzweilous: And he never did it did that experience, like like that never got him down. He always just kept on having a good time and just enjoying the tryingnament tournament experience for what it is and just playing the battles again, practicing again for the next time.
zzweilous: And I personally have seen him battle a lot because obviously Battle Frontier um The battles he shares, I know the quality of player that he is and it just felt like a curse. It felt so unlucky for so long and him having that breakthrough tournament, just really executing so well against such tough opponents um and not only getting points, but getting a top eight.
zzweilous: that Getting that top eight play mat, finishing within like even the money, um it just really made me make me so happy because there's honestly nobody you deserves it as much.
William Dunphey: Mm-hmm.
William Dunphey: cheese curls run two one versus hdmv who i think is one of the most technically talented trainers that's new to the scene that i've i've witnessed in quite a while he beats stud muffins two to one he beat jao loko two to one a trainer that's won a championship series event before And he beat Abinov 2-0 as well.
William Dunphey: So I think it was the Abinov games. I think that those were the the ones on stage where Cheese Girl made some insane catches, some really good plays, and the crowd was losing it. And then when he came off stage, he was greeted by just a group of friends all giving him hugs because you're right.
zzweilous: think the I think the Abanaf games were actually at the table still because he was a late group and I believe that was the the winners finals maybe.
William Dunphey: It can feel like a curse, but he broke it.
William Dunphey: Really?
zzweilous: um
William Dunphey: oh you could be right.
zzweilous: So i believe that was streamed at the tables because we did have a little like a little video stream in our Discord going just from what the table screens were showing.
zzweilous: um But there was some excellent gameplay in day two. I believe he did take on el lead. Was it the elite battle? There was certainly something going on.
William Dunphey: so I'm actually i always check the YouTube comments to see if somebody has provided timestamps, but I don't see timestamps for ah oh, it's oh, he but he battled dune bug. I think maybe that's what he lost.
zzweilous: Yeah, that was losers round three in day two.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Losers round two, he did actually beat elite two and O.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: which again, like a multi-time regional champion, so ah a very, very tough bracket, but pushing all the way through top eight.
William Dunphey: It was elite. Okay.
zzweilous: and He actually has beaten Dune before in a different tournament. I don't recall which of it it was, but um yeah, Chiskul certainly is somebody who on his day can can go toe-to-toe with the best in the game.
zzweilous: And yeah, taking in it all the way, only only falling to Dune, who is probably just like, top five all-time NA players easily, so.
William Dunphey: Oh, yeah. he's He's on the Mount Rushmore of NA Pokemon Go PvP for sure. If you want to see Cheese Curl's win over Elite, the timestamp is roughly 3 hours 16 minutes into day number two on the VOD. So definitely ah a moment worth worth revisiting.
William Dunphey: But yeah, so many incredible performances. The first question, and I'm so glad you mentioned this. The first question that I asked AJ when I saw her at the 8.45 a.m. call time on Saturday was, how many ice types?
William Dunphey: I can't even get that. How many ice types are on your team? She said, just one. so turns out one was enough.
zzweilous: But it goes on. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: and i was so I was practicing with non-shadow, like with the regular Warrain a lot.
William Dunphey: Hmm.
William Dunphey: a
zzweilous: But honestly, the shadow, just the energy. like i remember multiple times where AJ committed to two shielding through a Togekiss, I believe.
zzweilous: um And just the energy. was so threatening that she got a shield from a Jellicent with an Icicle Spearbait because Earthquake is just so devastating.
William Dunphey: That's right.
zzweilous: And yeah, I believe with with the Reshila Warrain, that would have just been an easy North Shield.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: But yeah, the the Shadow actually being a big threat.
William Dunphey: Yeah, I think that was against existing monkey. I think that was the series losers round two. Just super impressive from AJ. um But yeah, really fun to spend time with the community. I guess we can talk about the the medalists and a bit in our grand finals here. So third place overall, we had dunebug97 who actually had a pretty good losers bracket run, if I'm not mistaken.
William Dunphey: I think dunebug here, I'm going to actually get it.
zzweilous: He's no stranger to those. He did come into day two on the loser's side.
William Dunphey: Yeah, right. Ever ever since. Yeah, ever since, what was it, San Antonio, you can never count him out. So he beat Boomer Brel, he beat Overlord Raikou, and the C2U in order to make it to day number two. And then once he reached day number two, he beat Sustenance Eater, Ash and Ash, Cheese Curl, Absol Train Best, Gerald, and he finally fell to pocket in the Losers Finals. So very deep run from the Duninator, I guess I could say.
zzweilous: The Dune Meister, for sure.
William Dunphey: The Dunemeister.
zzweilous: ah yeah it was like very much a signature Dune bug run. um And with that Malamar, which um is one of the Cywavers of all time, and certainly the one that Dune subscribes to, it did have to, or like, not have to, because have to implies that it didn't want to do that, but it got to face off against the other Cywaver in top four,
William Dunphey: It is.
zzweilous: in Grumpig, Gerald's signature pick, which was also very much a star of that weekend in some matchups, just really not caring about switch advantage at all, just getting all that side wave energy and just then having the widely unresisted dynamic punch Shadow Ball coverage.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: Shadow Ball also, like, it is a move that has been on so many Pokemon for so long that all the buffs from the Shadow Ball energy reductions Reduction haven't even revealed themselves really and now we get to find out what Pokemon are all benefiting and Grumbig certainly is one of them because it was a frequent mainstay X-Geralds Lens of 3 and yeah pushing him all the way to 4th place in such a stacked field.
William Dunphey: Yeah, the Grunt Pig is so cool because you get fighting and ghost type damage, but you don't take super effective fairy type damage in return. So it's kind of like kind of like running something like an Annihilate, except ah you don't have to worry about that weakness. You're still a bit weak to ghost, right? And dark as well. But I think there are ways around it. But yeah, Dune is a is a multi-season patron to the to the Church of Shadow Malamar. And he brought it yet again. And when I saw those two match up, I was like, man, if Jero could pull this off, it'll be really sick.
William Dunphey: But I kind of have my doubts because it's just a tough comp. If you look at Doombug's team as well, he's kind of almost triple weak to Wigglytuff in Jellison, Shadow Altaria, and Shadow Malamar. Although I know Malamar has some win conditions. I think it wins the Zeros and some other things like that. But still, looks like there's ah a bit of a hole there. That's why he brought the double steals, right? Corviknight and Empoleon.
zzweilous: I think with Jelicent you will overall feel a little more confident into Wigley Tough teams than with Ghosts like Galerie and Corsara because not only do you wall off not only the Swifts but the Icy wins too um but you also have a way of fairly efficiently outpacing it and hitting it with the decent damage that is served.
William Dunphey: fair That's very fair.
zzweilous: So like it's obviously still a losing matchup but it's a way softer losing matchup with the Jelicent than with some of the other ghosts that we see in the meta.
William Dunphey: Well, let's let's turn to our grand finals as we hit the one hour, 30 minute mark and try to blaze through this. We've got Stone Collection taking on Ashton Ash in order to advance out of round one.
William Dunphey: He then beats Firestar two to one. He sends Pocket down to the loser side bracket, but that just sets the stage for a rematch. And our grand finals is Pocket from the loser side and Stone Collection from the winner's side.
William Dunphey: Pocket with a quick reset. 3-0 versus Stone Collection. Be honest with me, ZZ. Did you think it was all over once Pocket got the 3-0?
zzweilous: Not necessarily. um i just was wondering when Stone Collection would lean into the Corviknight a little more. like I'm a bit of a Corviknight truther. I've been known to rely on that Steely Bird a lot.
zzweilous: And I believe that against Pocket's team, there's just so much upside to it because the only real answer there is is probably the Galarian Moltres double-resisting Sand attacks and not being able to hit for neutral with the hard hitting payback.
zzweilous: So that is even um on the a double flying charge attack moveset, the Mortis takes that match up comfortably. But everything else on Pocket's team is not super comfortable against Corvindyte.
zzweilous: There's obviously win conditions for a lot of Pokemon, but against stuff like the Empoleon taking super effective from Sand attack, the and Shadow Canto Marowak doing resisted damage with its ground-type moves, and even something like the Jellicent really having to fear that super effective payback damage, I thought that Corviknight would be the key to victory for Stone Collection in that matchup.
zzweilous: And as it turns out, the Corviknight was actually quite successful, especially in that Racket Reset, featuring not only in the decisive game four of that set, but also um setting up the victory in game one where um essentially Stone Collection game one of the record reset, Soft loses the lead of Shadow Scizor into Empolion.
zzweilous: He's been doing that a lot. like
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: He's been talking about his Shadow Scizor after the fact that it is rank 11. He caught that at the Gdansk Regional Championship and ever since he has essentially ditched the spice and just played Shadow Scizor because it's OP.
zzweilous: um Yeah, he essentially...
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: loses that uses that to soft-lose to Empoleon, gets the farm with Corvinite, and then Pocket has essentially the options of bringing in a Liki Liki or a Canto Marowak. And because the Canto Marowak has such a bad matchup, the Liki Liki comes out, the Liki Liki doesn't win that still, and in the back there's an Azu waiting for the Canto Marowak. That is why the Empoleon was neutralized to free up that Azumarill, which then just cleans up easily. yeah Again, the second time the Corviknight comes out, it's another win for Stone Collection. So I will put this one down on like, I feel like we're two for two in Germans coming over and doing a lot of Corviknight stuff to do something in the grand finals.
William Dunphey: That's fair. That's totally fair. And ah I'm glad for Corviknight that Stone got the win because that matchup earlier in the season was, yeah, I felt like... Very close. um But I digress.
William Dunphey: Something I wanted to point out, we talked about PvP Steve as a great content creator earlier.
zzweilous: Thank
William Dunphey: i really want to shout out to More Slice Henry, which is Home Slice Henry's alternative channel, where he mainly features Show 6 content and other content that wouldn't be as successful on his Go Battle League-focused main channel.
William Dunphey: So, If you're an enjoyer of the Show 6 podcast, if you like our breakdowns, you need to watch Henry's stuff because he is next level. And um if you get a chance, ZZ, I would encourage you to watch it as well. I watched his casting of the Grand Finals, and he pointed out something very, very remarkable. He said that essentially this whole Grand Finals came down to a guessing game of where the Alolan Ninetales would be. Because if you look at Out of Pockets team, the Alolan Ninetales has positive matchups versus Stone Collections Corviknight, his Guzzlord, his Stunfisk, and his Altaria, it's neutral into the Azumarill, and it's only really worried about something like the Scizor. So...
William Dunphey: What happened was ah Pocket brought the Alola Ninetales out in game three of the initial grand final set, was able to win that battle. But then he just didn't bring it out the rest of the time. I mean, they played, is it, seven games, and he didn't bring it out ah any of the other six battles. And if you look at the teams here from Stone, he brought Azumarill Shadow Scizor every single battle, only changing the third Pokemon. in the grand finals reset it was corviknight then he went to guzzlord for game two then he went stunfisk in game three then he went back to corviknight in game four but that duo of azumarill and shadow scissor were coming no matter what and then it was really up to pocket to find a response to that and pocket refused to lean into the rps and i think that's kind of what opened up the the window for these other pokemon to succeed like the guzzlord like the stunfisk Like the Corviknight even. Because imagine Stone Stave swaps Corviknight and then the Ninetales comes out.
William Dunphey: It's like really rough.
zzweilous: Yeah, especially like, because nobody ever runs Corvinet with Iron Head, so all you can do is Sand Attack, Air Cutter, two moves that are not really known for the damage output. um And yeah, with the Stab Ice damage from that Ninetales, that is not a great time.
zzweilous: um However, i yeah I think you pointed it out quite well. um Stone was sort of forced into the Azumarill Scizor core by that Alolan Ninetales, just to always cover your bases, have probably like either ABB or ABA a positive matchups against it, but also that made Stone's Lines fairly predictable for Pocket and especially for Pocket's Empoleon, which has a very positive matchup, especially against the Azumarill where it is able to come out with energy, um but also just very reliable and neutralizes or beats rather the Shadow Scissor or uneven energy.
William Dunphey: Correct. Hmm.
zzweilous: So... It wasn't really like, oh, I get this Pokemon on that Pokemon. It was a lot of, this threat is coming, how do I neutralize it? And that's how Stone utilized his Shadow Scissor a lot, where he didn't even mind the negative matchup of the Empoleon. He actually favored it, just so his Azumarill, which then otherwise would largely be free to bring into Pocket's team, would have like not would i have to worry about less pressure from that steel type that resists all its moves.
William Dunphey: g Agreed. Yeah, very, very well said. And I feel like at that point, once the Empoleon goes down, what's Stone's biggest fear? That there's like a Jellicent back there too? And if you're Pocket and you're running Jellicent and Empoleon, then you do open yourself up to particularly some Guzzlor devastation, maybe even Corviknight being a little bit tricky or the Scizor, right?
William Dunphey: Shields go down and you've got Empoleon, Jellicent, Scizor is going to tear you to ribbons. So...
zzweilous: Even like a Unovan Stunfisk, if you would just shield that against an Empoleon lead, you will outpace with the Mudbomb pacing from back in the day, which is not the current Mudbomb pacing anymore.
zzweilous: um But yeah, like you would, like the Unovan Stunfisk would come out very, very healthy, probably healthy enough to still live a serve from the Jellison. And yeah, that's that's not a position that you want to be in as pocket who is
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: a player not known for building nonsensical lines, but rather playing very efficiently and reasonably into the opposing team comp.
William Dunphey: Agreed. So that being said, I really do like it when we get into kind of the push and pull of the team compositions and why players are playing certain Pokemon. I think it it illuminates a lot. And I always learn something when when we discuss it, too. so But to your point, we had the grand finals forced into a reset. Stone took game one pocket to game two. We're all tied up.
William Dunphey: And then stone collection is able to win games four, excuse me, three and four. Game three was actually a simul swap. Both trainers instantly switched their Pokemon out.
William Dunphey: And yeah, things kind of went stone collections way because Empoleon ran out of steam.
zzweilous: Yeah, honestly, I'm not a big Unovind Stunfisk believer, but in that game, Unovind Stunfisk was everything for Stone because he let that Pokémon into a team composition of Lickilickie, Empoleon, and Galarian Moltres.
zzweilous: That's triple soft to the Unovind Stunfisk. the The simultaneous swap occurred in part because Stone wanted to save a little bit of health of health on that Stunfisk to deal with with whatever was in the bag, knowing that there would be the Empolion, which looked so strong into him time and time again.
zzweilous: And yeah, he ended up saving just enough health on the Unovil Stunfisk that it couldn't ever be Metal Sounded down by the Empolion, because Metal Sound is not a very damaging move.
William Dunphey: Correct.
zzweilous: It's also resisted against the Electric Typing, and then Even though there was never a charge attack from the Unovan stunfisk that connected with the Empoleon, just the Thunder Sharks added up so much that it was essentially in range of one player off and a couple of bubbles from the Azumaral in the end.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Yeah, exactly. It was such a good kind of game management Pokemon, and Pocket was just really unable to check it, especially with that comp, because what are you going to Roll out into it? What are you going to do?
William Dunphey: Are you going to fly the Stunt Fisk? Are you going to soak a Mudbomb on Napoleon?
zzweilous: Hmm.
William Dunphey: There's really nothing nothing he could have done there, so very well played. Going to game number five, i felt this one slip away almost immediately because Stone Collection led his Scizor into Canto Marowak.
William Dunphey: The commentators were actually talking about this. I believe it was Henry... that said that Stone loved loves to catch bone clubs on his Corbinites. And guess what? He did exactly that in game five. And I was like, oh man, this is going to really tough to come back from.
zzweilous: yeah and even though there was just a Univin Stanfisk on the field it wasn't enough to convince Pocket to bring that Alolan Ninetales which would have been a good response for the Corviknight instead the energy went to waste and what was left in the back was just Empolion and Licky and with just so much Shed with Scizor left with a full Azumarill left and with Corviknight still getting so much mileage out of that matchup.
zzweilous: um yeah just that Just that energy being denied was enough to to really force Pocketsand here and putting Stone in a very advantageous position.
William Dunphey: Stone Collection, playing his best season of PvP yet. I think that you can say without any kind of argument or trepidation, he is looking better than he ever has. Great season for him so far and adds a a championship to his to his resume, which is awesome.
zzweilous: Yeah, started all the way back in 2022 when he put his name on the map with being the Samurad warrior of the LCQ, where he actually did win his half of the last chance qualifier after the legend has it that he slept on a bench in London, which is a very price conscious move.
William Dunphey: Yes, with the birds.
zzweilous: um And yeah, like he he used to be the Samurad guy. Then he used to be the Spice guy, even reaching a grand finals in Stuttgart a year ago.
zzweilous: a year and couple months ago, actually, with a Cloud Sire that had both Sludge Bomb and Stone Edge on it. Very unusual.
William Dunphey: Correct.
zzweilous: um pa yeah, now actually playing his best season ever, being up there with the with the best European trainers in the leaderboard rankings. Yeah, I do feel vindicated because in the very early phases of our podcast, we did have an EUIC prediction episode.
zzweilous: And I think that was like 2024 something. and I was like, my prediction for this is that Stone Collection wins it all. It wasn't EUIC, wasn't 2024, but he did win something at the end.
William Dunphey: ah
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: And yeah, he did announce that he was not going to any more North American regionals, but he will be back for NAIC because he does have that travel award and he will be at all the remaining European events.
zzweilous: So he is not going to slow down.
William Dunphey: Wow. i don't know. i don't know if the Europeans are scared. I'm a little bit scared here. I mean, come on. And yet to your point with your prediction, I guess a German is never late. They arrive precisely when they mean to.
William Dunphey: And Stone Collection able to arrive his first actually, yeah, his first gold medal of his career.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: You can count the LCQ, right? Because he did win that outright and and that earned him his bid into Worlds. But this is the first time he's actually had hardware, right?
zzweilous: Yeah. yeah
William Dunphey: So, wow.
zzweilous: Exactly.
William Dunphey: I look at all these events. My goodness. He's he's got, on DracoBiz, he's got four pages of events plus EUIC 2022 as his first. So, my god my gosh.
William Dunphey: This is crazy.
zzweilous: it's it's just like I love it when you know that a player is really into the championship series because I'm really into the championship series and I do want people to really make this a big part of their life and get all the joy out of it.
William Dunphey: Hmm.
zzweilous: Just seeing places, seeing people playing the game that we love and Stone Collection has been doing that to perfection this season. So yeah, it's oh it's pretty was really fun to see.
William Dunphey: Yeah. That's true.
zzweilous: It was like, I was rooting for him just on a personal level because obviously like European bias, but also the others that were up there, like the last three, Dune and Pocket have won so much already.
William Dunphey: that's true
zzweilous: um it was it was time for a different champion. was like, one on on laughing and on one crying, a but because I do feel for the North Americans that just don't get their invites passed down anymore.
zzweilous: between Steinar winning Pittsburgh, between Stone winning Seattle. um But maybe there will be some spots opening up eventually. You guys got 75 already. We only get 65. Maybe it's evening on.
William Dunphey: Well, this should be a call for all North American trainers to to grind harder, to scrim more, to team build better.
zzweilous: Okay.
William Dunphey: So the next time a trainer from out of region comes through, we just stomp them.
zzweilous: to travel out of region, do a nighttime clash and steal an invite from another continent.
William Dunphey: Hey, hey, you know, what's fair is fair. We had nighttime clasher win Liverpool, and this is Europe's revenge, taking a trophy out of NA. So it's just going to seesaw back and forth. I mean, the next logical step here is a North American winning in Europe. So watch out, right?
zzweilous: we'll be We'll be watching Prague closely.
William Dunphey: Ah, yeah. ZZ says, not if I have something to say about it. All right. But well, ZZ, it's been fun. We did a big roundup. I'm not sure if you have any closing thoughts. We've covered a ton of events. This has been a very fast moving episode. And it honestly feels very cathartic to just get all these events caught up on so that we're up to speed.
zzweilous: Yeah, it was time that we closed some loops after that we did have to sacrifice some recording sessions for personal responsibilities at the start of February. But now we're all caught it up.
William Dunphey: Sure.
zzweilous: we've We've come at all the events, almost all the events, because I believe the ah San Juan Puerto Rico special event has already concluded. And I believe that Joe Eddy is our um champion of that event.
zzweilous: It was 16 people
William Dunphey: No way.
zzweilous: event that took place on one day, which was earlier today, but we don't have the teams yet. We don't have much to talk about, but personally i am glad for Joe Eddy that he managed to take that.
zzweilous: Not only because he's been somebody who I did briefly, briefly turn to talk to in Pittsburgh earlier this season and who is um just like very enthusiastic about committing more time to the championship series, but also he's been very consistent with, um,
zzweilous: finishing in top 32, 25th in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Toronto. So really grinding away at those championship points and now securing his world's invite by winning San Juan.
William Dunphey: Wow.
zzweilous: And i do believe this is like largely unconfirmed because I haven't actually checked for myself. It's just like friends told me that he is either from Puerto Rico or has Puerto Rican ancestry. i believe there's like a flag in one of his social profiles. So that would be pretty lovely as well, that that this may not even have been a continental American stealing the Puerto Rican invite, but actually is some relation to the region.
William Dunphey: Oh, that's cool. Yeah, let's go. i'm I'm immediately a fan when I look back at his record. Not the not the greatest performance in Las Vegas, but he was playing Fortress and Shadow Dragonair, two of my favorite Pokemon of all time. So, Joey, you have my vote.
William Dunphey: ah Very, very well done, my friend. And yeah. Well, when we get teams, we'll cover that in full on an upcoming episode of the show. So if you want to hear us do that, make sure to go ahead and follow. Leave us a review as well, because we always appreciate it and we'd love to hear your thoughts. um ZZ, we are running a little long here and I won't be respectful of your time, but I still am just itching to hear your thoughts on Memories in Motion. And I want to know if any of our Pokemon are going John Wick.
zzweilous: ah
William Dunphey: Well, are they?
zzweilous: That's a sound bite that you teased two hours back before we recorded.
William Dunphey: Yeah, exactly.
zzweilous: There it is. But yeah, i believe that the memory is in motion. This is very funny, actually, because Niantic have a way of really hitting a certain tone when naming their seasons.
zzweilous: We used to have the season of Timeless Travels, which initially brought back a couple of crowd favorites or maybe some not so favorite Pokémon that all of a sudden became ah viable again after a lengthy hiatus.
William Dunphey: True.
zzweilous: And now we have Memories in Motion, another Remembrance-themed season. And yeah, a couple of Pokémon that were once meta staples are now back in the meta.
zzweilous: and
William Dunphey: Okay.
zzweilous: there's been There's been a couple of changes. We can go over some of them in depth little later, maybe even in another episode. I don't know how much time we have. But Speedy, I have prepared five Pokemon, and i want to ask you whether you believe they are very back, a little bit back, or not back at all.
William Dunphey: Ooh. Okay.
zzweilous: I think we should start with Medicham. Medicham used to be the Countering Menace of the Open Great Leak, Now it's on Psycho Cut, and Psycho Cut did get a damage increase of plus one this season, also sporting dynamic punch and ice punch coverage, making it potentially potent in the prominent into the prominent Empoleon Altaria core.
zzweilous: What do you think, Speedy? Is Metachem a real contender, or is it still kind of not where it needs to be?
William Dunphey: Hmm looking over the top rankings here on this website. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. It's called PV poke. It's pretty good Looking at the top rankings here. only see a few hard answers to meta cham Maybe the wigglytuff glaring course law the jealous in which I think is going to be pretty ubiquitous.
William Dunphey: Um what What are our three gauges we have kind of back we have very back and then we have Not back at all.
zzweilous: Not back at all.
William Dunphey: Um For Medicham, why don't you sign me up for... We are so back. Medicham is all the way back.
zzweilous: Oh, we have a Medicham believer.
William Dunphey: We are so back. Yes.
zzweilous: That is very, very interesting.
William Dunphey: Shout out to It's Accent. Yeah.
zzweilous: um I believe that Medicham can do something, but i'm per I'm personally just a little bit more hesitant about Medicham's impact into the new season.
William Dunphey: Oh, it's back.
zzweilous: And
William Dunphey: Okay.
zzweilous: That is mainly because its bad matchups are very bad. You do not want to be a metachem when there is an Azumarill. You do not want to be a metachem when there is Jelicent. But I may be mistaken. Jelicent, not Jelicent.
zzweilous: Azumarill and metachem used to coexist in the same meta before. So maybe I'm just overly cautious.
William Dunphey: true
zzweilous: um But I believe that especially with Pokemon like Annihilate now being all the rage, even more rage than before because you get to your rage f faster. Now that low kick is an energy generating fast attack and potentially even preferred over counter.
zzweilous: um i feel like the fighting type slot is little too crowded just with that big undead monkey roaming around. So I would say Manichem is a little back, but there are still are still some question marks surrounding it.
zzweilous: where I would say it's it's not quite where it needs to be to really rule the meta once more. um
William Dunphey: That's very fair. That's very fair. OK. I'm keeping track of our notes here so that we can verify these when Houston comes around.
zzweilous: Yes. Okay. The next one may be a little bit of a controversial one, because this Pokémon did not get buffed, but it did receive something that I would call an environmental buff, because Mud Slap got nerfed, Bullet Punch got nerfed,
William Dunphey: Ooh.
zzweilous: There will be a lot less Kanto Marowak, there will be a lot less Shadow Scizor, and who appreciates that? It's Shadow Dropion. It is Azur's partner in crime, it is the dark poison type Pokemon, Poison Sting, Aqua Tail Crunch, very spammy, very flexible, very difficult to hard answer.
zzweilous: Is Shadow Dropion back?
William Dunphey: You know, it's not the Pokemon I thought you were going to talk about, but I do think Shadow Drapion is back, even though I'm not super thrilled about it. I think it is back.
zzweilous: I believe so too. I think we are in agreement here. Shadow Dropion is so bad. I don't believe there is much that really stops this Pokémon anymore. Especially because even some of its hard checks like Guzzlord, which does wall all the commonly used charge attacks on the Shadow Dropion.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
William Dunphey: Sure.
zzweilous: Guzzlord does not have the same fast attack damage from Dragontail it used to have before the rework. And it also doesn't select to run Dragon Claw anymore as its coverage move. So you are essentially caught with two Pokemon just throwing resisted charge attacks at each other, which means that really hard covering Shadow Drapion, I don't know whether it's impossible, but it is a lot more difficult than you would think it could be with the with the options that we have currently in the meta.
William Dunphey: Fair. i've I've had a lot of friends begging for nerf to mudslap. Well, here you go. i hope that we're happy.
zzweilous: Yeah, you'll get your Drapion and you will enjoy it. um
William Dunphey: Yes. ah
zzweilous: ah So yeah, um anyway, okay, this is um another interesting one because even way back before we had the Drapion infestation, not the infestation Drapion, that would be a suboptimal fast attack, but
William Dunphey: All right.
zzweilous: um During the reign of Shadow Dropion in Azumarill, this Pokémon was already already long out of the meta. It was instead a 2022, 2023-ish staple with Noctowl.
zzweilous: Noctowl, the Ghost Slayer, the flying normal type of choice all the way back in the day when the worst thing that could happen to you possibly was to hardlock your Trevenant onto a Noctowl and just throwing so Heat Bombs so importantly until you got a Wing Attack all the way down to the ground, and Noctile coming out with two Sky Attacks loaded.
William Dunphey: Ugh.
zzweilous: Noctile did receive a buff to Shadow Ball. Everybody received a buff to Shadow Ball. But also Sky Attack isn't as good as it used to be back in the day.
zzweilous: um So what do we think? Is Noctile really back? Or has the meta moved on without it, even now that it got Wing Attack back?
William Dunphey: That's a very fair question. you still have Pokemon like Rollout Licky Licky, which I do think you need to be worried about that. You've got Steel types. Empoleon is not going anywhere either. um and But you do have some targets, right? If you want to answer for Jellicent, it's very, very solid, I think, to look towards Knockdown because it does give you a lot of flexible, neutral play. And I haven't played too much Go Battle League this season, but I was running a Knockdown team earlier today, and I did like the feel of it. It did feel like it was very sturdy, very reliable, very strong Pokemon.
William Dunphey: um I think Knockdown is kind of back. I don't know if we're going to see it top-cutting, but I do think it will get some play in tournaments.
zzweilous: I think Noctal is a fraud. I think it is not back at all.
William Dunphey: Whoa! Sure.
zzweilous: um It is like, it did make the top 100 in the PvP rankings, but the PvP rankings only take in account into account the zero and the one shield matchup, which are the strongest shielding scenarios for Noctal.
William Dunphey: Fair.
zzweilous: But as soon as you have two shields in play, it really gets exposed for its lack of pacing with the cheapest charge attack that it commonly runs, of being 50 energy, which is still very expensive, even with that eight energy per wing attack.
zzweilous: So I feel as if Noctowl, while looking good on paper, is just going to be outpaced by too many things now. I think the power creep really hasn't been kind to it.
zzweilous: And with the lack of prominent ground types, prominent mud slappers, giving more of an opening for electric types as well,
William Dunphey: Fair.
zzweilous: I believe that flying types really need to set themselves apart properly in this iteration of the meta. And I don't feel as if Noctowl can really do that just now.
William Dunphey: Very solid argument. No rebuke. No retort.
zzweilous: All right, all right, I will take that. And I will move us over to Pokemon that had a very funny matchup into Noctowl actually, because there were like breakpoint, boltpoint scenarios, oh, two shadow balls, can they eventually knock out?
zzweilous: what I'm talking about is Galarian Stunfisk. We've seen a lot of Unovan Stunfisk these days, but Galarian Stunfisk, it used to be like nerfed in all compartments.
William Dunphey: Oh.
zzweilous: Like every aspect of its being was just being hit with a sledgehammer. Much short worse. Rockslide worse. Earthquake worse than at its heyday all the way back in 2022-ish.
zzweilous: um But now we have the old Mud Shot back. We have a rebuff of Rockside a while ago. Earthquake, still not where it used to be, but it's not as if it's a bad move. It's just not as powerful as as back in the day.
zzweilous: So now that Mud Slappers are out of the meta, is Galarian Stunfisk in the meta again?
William Dunphey: The answer is no. And the answer is no for one very specific reason.
zzweilous: Oh.
William Dunphey: There's still too much water in the meta. There's water all over the place. And I feel like Stunfisk, while you're going to hardwall opposing fairy type Pokemon, like maybe the Clefable or the Wigglytuff, Flor just has chilling water now. There've been a lot of moveset updates since Stunfisk was prominent. And I feel like a lot of Pokemon have gained the coverage that they need in order to beat it. So Stunfisk, I've heard some rumblings about this Pokemon, but I'm not sold. And it's because water is the best typing in Pokemon Go.
zzweilous: All right, all right. I can't really deny that. i still do have Galarian Stunfisk in my, it's a little bit bad category. It's towards the lower end of that category.
zzweilous: um So it's below Medicham in my personal ranking. um But I do believe that Stunfisk has some things going for it just because of that 10 turn pacing to rock side again, which is the threshold that you need to be viable in my opinion.
zzweilous: and also because of what the VG players would call Edge Quake coverage. It's not Stone Edge, but it's still a Rock-type attack, plus the Earthquake that is just so powerful into so many different Pokémon.
zzweilous: There is stuff that holds it back. um The waters are one thing, the lack of fast move pressure is another thing, and do not look up the even energy matchups against Artaria. It's also not great.
zzweilous: um So still a couple of arguments against Galarian Stunfisk, but I think it's in a better position and maybe you will eventually, um maybe you just need something that really hard punishes electric types on your team.
William Dunphey: sure
zzweilous: And you maybe want to roll that into your steel role and you don't opt for Empoleon, but rather for Galarian Stunfisk. And there will be scenarios where that could make sense I just don't believe that those scenarios will be plentiful.
zzweilous: So I have it on the, like towards the lower end of, yeah, it's kind of viable, it's not going to dominate the meta.
William Dunphey: Yeah, well, yeah, and that's what I'm saying as well. I mean, you've got a flamethrower Altaria, you've got Sand Tomb Fortress, so it doesn't even need to get to the Earthquake anymore. You've got Ice Punch Dusclops, you could argue, has a little more coverage. Celia with Surf is another one. I mean, there's just so many different, Chilling Water Floridists, there's so many different ways to hit the Stunfist now that these Pokemon prior to this did not have access to these moves at all. So it was like, if you had Stunfist into Altaria, that was a hard win.
William Dunphey: Not anymore. I think it's competitive now, at least more than it was so before.
zzweilous: That's fair.
William Dunphey: So, yeah, I'm not a believer.
zzweilous: That's fair. Okay, we have one last Pokemon.
William Dunphey: I'm not.
zzweilous: and Let's see whether this can make you a believer because this is a Pokemon that was fairly prominent all the way until i believe 2024 Worlds.
William Dunphey: All right.
zzweilous: um But then it got kind of pushed out of the meta because its neutral potency wasn't as important anymore in an environment where everything was sucker punching and astonishing.
zzweilous: We are talking about Cresselia, which is obviously ah legendary with an insane stat product and the coverage of Grass Knot and typically Moonblast.
zzweilous: There were instances where Future Sight was preferred, but I don't believe those were common. And it is running Psycho Cat as its default fast attack, which just charges very, very quickly.
zzweilous: and now also does one more damage, the same as with Medicham. So do you believe that Cresselia now with no more Shadow Scizor and with just generally um maybe like a little bit of a meta shakeup is going to be good enough to content with the current meta with that plus one damage buff?
William Dunphey: You know, was easy. I've really given this a lot of thought. It's been a lot of deliberation. I've considered all the positives and the negatives here.
William Dunphey: My final opinion is actually fraud. Chris Selle is a huge fraud.
zzweilous: Aww.
William Dunphey: Come on. There's way too much ghost and dark type coverage in the meta still.
zzweilous: Aww.
William Dunphey: Come on. Be real.
zzweilous: That's pretty rude. That's pretty rude.
William Dunphey: Be real.
zzweilous: i will actually say that if you cover well for it, Cresselia can be such a nice core breaker because it is not an electric type, but it still does a thing that you want your electric types to do, which is to really break up those Altaria plus Azu Altaria plus Quagsire, like the Mudboy type of coverage, like you can really play super well into that with your Grasslock plus Moonblast. And you now have just the amount of better neutral matchups to at least have a reason to run this Pokemon.
zzweilous: And I personally believe that Cresselia is just a little better than Medichem. And the reason why I believe that is that been playing a lot of Cresselia. I got a rank three Cresselia from a trade
William Dunphey: Oh,
zzweilous: just when it became bad and now i have now i have something to like i just need to make up for that okay and i've playing it in go battle league i paired it to a protect my king gambit which is another pokemon of all time but i just really enjoy it i wouldn't recommend people to try that at home but it's just been covering it so well there's no more talent flames so i can i can run those two together um
William Dunphey: that's fair.
William Dunphey: Hmm.
zzweilous: and I have also played a practice tournament with it where I modified my 2024 Worlds team by only changing ah a lantern for a Charjabug and a Shadow Dragon Neal for a Ghastal to go with the time set a little bit.
zzweilous: But I kept the entire rest and one of the Pokemon was the Cresselia. And thus far, I've not dropped a set with that team. So I went 5-0 in my practice tournament and Cresselia came to almost every game.
William Dunphey: Really?
zzweilous: So It must be doing something right. So while I still feel as if on paper there's reasons to not believe in it, my practical experiences with Cresselia lead me to believe that it is on the upper end of maybe.
William Dunphey: Well, one of our two hosts on this show has made five grand finals appearances and the other one has made zero in the championship series. So I really should trust in the ZZ. I do think you are an incredible chef and you always know what's up long before I do, to be fair.
William Dunphey: But I just can't help but look at the matchups here on PVPoke. I mean, key losses, Empoleon, Furret, Shadow Drapion, Wigglytuff, Florges. I mean, these are not uncommon Pokemon.
William Dunphey: So, whereas, you know, we might see Cresselia in Go Battle League having success, and I think if you can maneuver it just right and avoid some of these tougher matchups, you do have that core breaking potential.
William Dunphey: I don't know. I'm just not, I'm not sold on it as ah as a so ah new staple Pokemon going forward. Okay.
zzweilous: Okay, one more argument in favor of Cresselia. This is the first time Cresselia has been available to the general public in a 45 second switch timer economy.
zzweilous: So you can leverage that immense bulk on that Pokemon, rivaling Pokemon like Azumarill, to just tank a bunch of charge attacks, tank a bunch of energy from other Pokemon, farm up your own moves, dip out again, maybe use those against the squishy Pokemon later in the matchup, just really play that switch timer really well, which is maybe be why I like it so much.
zzweilous: um I feel like Cresselia is just a Pokemon that really lends itself well to that playstyle.
William Dunphey: Okay. Interesting. It might be situational. It might be people like yourself that understand the switch timer and can pull it in and out and make the most of of its utility. But I don't know. i don't know as easy. i'm not I'm not a believer currently, but I'm sure you'll make me one when you win an event with it.
zzweilous: I will be at Sevilla, and maybe Cresselia will be too.
William Dunphey: So there's that.
zzweilous: have not yet decided. I will have to look at the upcoming regional competitions. I believe there's the Curitiba Regional in Brazil coming up. And a week after there is the Houston Regional in North America.
zzweilous: So that is going to be televised and I am looking forward to watching.
William Dunphey: Excellent. Excellent. I'm curious to see if our predictions turn out to be right. I would love for everybody to ah to drop us a comment if you are watching the YouTube version when it comes out or if you just see us in person.
William Dunphey: Like ah one lovely lady that I bumped into in Seattle complimented our show. and i first i feel so bad that I didn't mention until now, but She was so wonderful. I wish I would have gotten her trainer name. But yeah, she says she listens to every episode, really adores the show. And sometimes she says when she's prepping for a regional, if she hasn't been able to listen to a new episode of the show six podcast, she feels unprepared.
William Dunphey: So.
zzweilous: oh Oh, we have that level of influence.
William Dunphey: I'm telling you. I'm telling you.
zzweilous: That's flattering.
William Dunphey: and I feel so proud, right? It's it's definitely um it was a very, very sweet moment.
zzweilous: Now I feel bad about our uploading schedule, which has been fairly infrequent
William Dunphey: I know. I know.
zzweilous: but we're getting better about that we're getting better about that yeah
William Dunphey: Hey, it's never too late to change. I've been quietly uploading our YouTube versions on YouTube. And if you'd like to watch those, those are available. I need to upload, i need to add an upload EUIC recap.
William Dunphey: And then this one, which this one is a bear. ZZ, I think this is our biggest episode we've ever done at over three hours. So Tostel, I hope you're happy because this was a long one.
William Dunphey: And I'm keeping ZZ from his his restful night, so.
zzweilous: yeah
zzweilous: If people have a long drive ahead, they have something to listen to. so I do enjoy it. We you originally set out to keep this like very short, very concise, like 30 to 45 minutes. That was your original pitch to me like years ago.
William Dunphey: Yeah.
zzweilous: we we we have strayed away from the line. But it's it's for the better, because how else would we do justice to all those events that we covered if we only had 45 minutes for that?
William Dunphey: That's true. I think the one hour episode works if there's like one event. I think we covered Toronto in one hour.
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: We've done several events in one hour. But when there's more than one, it's tough.
zzweilous: arguably we would be on the one hour rhythm if we just like had a regular uploading schedule but again this is like very much partly on me because there lot of late shifts and then it may be just a little too late to get a recording going but hey march is a little more free for me um almost as free as north america so it's going to board well
William Dunphey: Sure.
William Dunphey: No. Well.
William Dunphey: well
William Dunphey: On that note, I'm recruiting a new host. If you'd like to audition for the... Just kidding. Just kidding. But yeah, that does still sting a little bit. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see if our trainers North America can defend ourselves in Houston. We'll see how the meta develops as we move through Curitiba and the other events that coming up this month. And... um Yeah, we'll see how the battle system looks.
William Dunphey: I don't even want to get into that. But ah let's just let's just rest assured, knowing that we're on the Legacy battle system for now, and and we'll see how things progress, okay?
zzweilous: Yeah.
William Dunphey: So, hey.
zzweilous: I think we can be confident that they will not force this on us before it's good enough to be a forced on us, even though there's like test runs. But i I feel as if they know well enough how this would look if it was rolled out for a regional that we don't have to worry about that.
William Dunphey: I agree. I agree. I think um everybody can kind of simmer down for now. I know there have been a lot of a lot of people really upset with the new version. And i'm I'm grateful as well that that is not what we are working with right now. So we'll see. We'll see, everybody.
William Dunphey: Don't hold your breath, but we'll see. And you know what? It made me appreciate our current version so much more. I will say that it makes me so so grateful for what we currently have.
zzweilous: This is true. oh
William Dunphey: So but that being said, ZZ, it's been a it's been a long show. We are three hours and and nine minutes in roughly. I think this is pre probably it. If you're road tripping on the way to Houston, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. If you're listening to it in the shower, make sure to wash the back of your ears because I always forget mine. So we appreciate you all for listening. i don't know if you have any closing thoughts, ZZ.
zzweilous: ah just feel as if like you are probably pretty awash if you are in this shower for two hours and 10 minutes, but all right.
zzweilous: Almost as much as not Americans. All right.
William Dunphey: Okay, on that note, we are really ending the show. All right, ZZ, get some rest. You're obviously delirious, and it's making you say things that are just out of character. But it's been a fun one, my friend. I'm glad that we are all caught up. I'll work on getting those two YouTube versions uploaded. We'll get them done this week, no matter what happens, even if there's a meteor that strikes the planet.
William Dunphey: But we'll get it done. All right, ZZ, always a pleasure, my friend.
zzweilous: Just
William Dunphey: Get some rest, and hope everybody enjoyed the show. We'll see you very soon. Bye-bye.
