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Ep. 4 Knoxville & Melbourne 2024
165 Plays9 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 4 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This week, we reflect on the Knoxville and Melbourne Regional Championships, where Doonebug97 and Yacobervitch become the first trainers to win 2 Regional Championships in the same season!
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Championship Series
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome into the Show6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokémon GO.
Regional Championships Spotlight
00:00:05
Speaker
Today, we're taking a look at both the Knoxville and the Melbourne Regional Championships, where over 200 total players competed. We'll discuss Shadow Whiscash dominating both sides of the planet. We'll answer who truly is the GOAT of regional competitions and much, much more. So, everyone, prepare for trouble and make it double, because we had a double regional weekend, double back-to-back champions, and double night slash boost as well.
Meet the Hosts
00:00:49
Speaker
All right, everybody, welcome into the show six podcast. I'm Swedish chief two here with my co-host Z Zweilis. Zweilis, I just have to say your intro for last week's episode was a chart topper. It was incredible. People loved it. How are you doing this week?
00:01:06
Speaker
I have to say, I'm feeling pretty boosted today to quote one of our regional champions. No, Speedy, I'm doing fine. I really hope that I don't have to do this award-winning intro another time.
Weekend Battles and Highlights
00:01:20
Speaker
But thankfully, we didn't have any European competitions this week on the North American and Oceania.
00:01:27
Speaker
And yeah, so Europe is safe for now. And we still got a lot of great battles to watch this weekend. Only half of them we actually got to watch. But still, that was a stacked top card.
00:01:43
Speaker
Oh, no, definitely. And we're actually going to point out because, you know, it's why I and I both patrol social media. We're friends with a lot of folks in the community. We're going to show you where you can watch all of the Melbourne battles. But of course, because there's no official stream, we didn't get to see that. So we'll touch on both regionals. We'll kind of, uh, I guess shift our focus mostly towards Knoxville. And I agree with you. I think the top cut in particular in Knoxville was probably the most elite top cup we've ever had in North America.
Tournament Dynamics and Performance
00:02:10
Speaker
If you look at the winter side bracket, our top eight players.
00:02:13
Speaker
Every other pairing, excuse me, every pairing had a former regional winner. So every other player in our top eight, you know, four out of eight were all previous regional winners, which is pretty insane. I don't know if that's ever happened in EU before. Yeah, like I honestly think that at this point,
00:02:33
Speaker
I would almost say that Onion Frank, who made it the furthest on the winner's side, basically proved that he is kind of due a regional title just by virtue of making it that far where like only Magic Mason, Rice to Occasion, and Dunbar prevailed. There's some loser-bracket battles going on as well where we could take a look at some newcomers that might make a name for themselves in the future.
00:03:02
Speaker
But yeah, so many big names. Basically, I do think one reason why we have this is seeding. Because we only have had seeding for a couple of events, and before that, those people would knock each other out in day one, and now they all make it to day two, and that's what we get for it.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. Because of course with our separate pods, you know, we have the championship points and the previous tournament performance kind of come into account.
Established vs. Up-and-coming Players
00:03:33
Speaker
So maybe you're somebody, you know, that a lot of success last year, like, like, uh, for example, if you're looking at 2021 or excuse me, 2022, 2023, you could come in as dancing Rob, you know, into a seated bracket. And whereas previously dancing Rob would be tossed anywhere in the lineup. A lot of the times it just depending on what time you signed up, right?
00:03:52
Speaker
In this case, he actually, the, the world championship victory would be weighted into his seating. So we have like the top seeds for the entire tournament, top seed for each pod. And I agree with you. I think it really helps to like, uh, match players based more on skillset. And then it gives us the best battles as the stream goes on. I think I mentioned it in Knoxville. It feels like the heat just keeps getting turned up the longer and longer the stream goes on. Yeah, definitely. And.
00:04:19
Speaker
The one person who definitely turned up the heat, and this time not with the Skeletorch, but with another Ghost-type is Dunberg97, three times regional winner, and yeah, definitely the main character of the weekend.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Doonbug was, it was absolutely unstoppable. It's, it's always like a, I don't want to say it's like cliche, but I do mention it a lot. Whenever you see certain names signed up for a tournament, you say, Oh, that person might be able to win it all. And whenever you see Doonbug sign up, you're thinking, okay, yeah, this is going to be a top five contender, top three contender.
00:04:56
Speaker
You look at somebody like Wedaj, you maybe feel the same way. A lot of these players are just that good. But I think that for me personally, the story of the weekend was really kind of like established names versus up and comers. And up and comers has a bit of an asterisk on it because we have some trainers who top cut before. Some of them have had really impressive runs in Go Battle League.
00:05:17
Speaker
But just that winner's side bracket was just the perfect snapshot, right? It was it was regional champion versus a player that had maybe top cut once before, but was looking for their big breakthrough moment. And one player that really stood out to me, my favorite trainer to watch the whole weekend, had to be Yusuku.
00:05:34
Speaker
I thought Yuzuku was as talented as anybody in the room. I thought his play calls, his energy counting was as good as anyone I've ever seen. And in particular, the matchup against Hot Pocket. I love Pocket, right? But Pocket got picked apart by Yuzuku. It was absolutely a piece of art.
00:05:53
Speaker
I have to say I'm a Yuzoku fan after this weekend because you see players who know their accounts, who know their win conditions and who just have generally very sound and solid gameplay. And then there's this extra level of really
00:06:10
Speaker
Understanding the entire depth of the game where like people are way to turn to prevent catches and sometimes it's not even in a crucial moment but you you just if you watch the game you just see those little details that basically go above and beyond to like whenever i have like battles versus matine inadequates in europe
00:06:32
Speaker
I just see the things he does. And I feel like, you, you cheeky little, like, you are, you are, you are really one step ahead of the competition with those, with those little plays. And I saw the same in Yusuku the entire weekend. And this was his second ever regional competition. He placed seventh in Peoria, fifth in Knoxville. I checked his Drake of his page and he also reached
00:07:01
Speaker
beyond 3500 Elo in the Go Battle League. I think he's on the Chicago Stars faction, the grassroots team. And they already have multiple regional winners on their side.
Meta Analysis and Adaptation
00:07:15
Speaker
So, yeah, I would not be surprised if Yuzupur is someone we will have to keep an eye on in the future.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, I heard a rumor. He was their master league specialist, which also, you know, blows my mind because we typically don't see trainers succeed at a high level in great league and also master league. Uh, but I guess it's not unheard of, right? You have a lot of trainers that really memorize the counts and the match ups down to a very fine details. Uh, but I just feel like there's always been a bit of a gap between.
00:07:45
Speaker
you know the whales as we call them the master league players who raid all day long and the great league champions right who only join a join a cup or a tournament or whatever if it's 1500 cp yeah i think there is there's a little bit of of a stigma surrounding master league specialists because um there's just this accessibility gap between the great league and the master league
00:08:08
Speaker
So to become a master league specialist in a grassroots format, sometimes teams just pick the player that rates the most and it's not necessarily the most mechanically gifted player they have on the roster. That's the stereotype.
00:08:26
Speaker
user code just showed that that is by far not a guarantee and it really pays dividends if you have someone on your team who does not only have the roster from our sleep but also just understands every little detail about this game and can put it into action even on the biggest stages.
00:08:45
Speaker
Well, you heard it here first. If Yuzuku has a million fans, Swylus and I are two of them. If Yuzuku has 2,000 fans, we are two of them. But that being said, let's talk about some meta changes, meta developments. I think we're seeing Annihilate get a stronger and stronger grip on the meta. But there was one pick I had in my caster predictions. I actually want to hear what your thoughts are on this because this Pokemon was pointed out by a different trainer.
00:09:11
Speaker
Excuse me. How do I say this? Another trainer suggested that you should look at this Pokemon for the meta. Whereas I heard it from a different trainer. That doesn't really make sense. Anyways, two different people told us to look at the same Pokemon. That's what I should have said. And I think you know what I'm alluding to there.
00:09:27
Speaker
Um, please, please enlighten me because I'm actually quite confused right now. Okay. Well, don't worry. We'll get it in post. Um, two different trainers that are very, very talented, both recommended shadow whisk, cash. Now I'm taking a look at your notes here. Uh, maybe a trainer, some people I've heard of actually told you this might be a pick.
00:09:49
Speaker
It is true, it is true. Just like days before the NOx4 Regional, I have seen on my timeline on Twitter, or X, however you prefer it,
00:10:06
Speaker
that the world champion its accent labeled shadow with cash the most underused and underappreciated pokemon in the open grade league and i was skeptical i was like
00:10:20
Speaker
This is more of a defense and HP-weighted Pokémon. Do you really want to give up that strength of Wiscash for just a little more of an oomph or with its skulls and mud bombs? But apparently you do want that and there is good reason for that.
00:10:39
Speaker
I think the shadow Gligar matchup in particular is something I heard called out quite a bit. So, uh, the first time shadow was cash was recommended to me was actually from jangles 21. He told me going into Knoxville that he was definitely going to play it. He thought it had way more utility than people were expecting. And actually I lied. There's a third trainer who told me shadow was cash was good.
00:10:59
Speaker
And it was actually on his stream. And that player was Doonbug 97. I was watching him play, yeah, ironic, right? I was watching him play ABA Flyers. He was playing Shadow Gligar Lead with Skarmory and Wiscash. And he was telling me, you know, I was in the stream chat. He said, yeah, Shadow Wiscash can close the window, close the gap in the matchup with Shadow Gligar. And I think that that was a great read because looking at the usage here for top 16,
00:11:26
Speaker
12 out of the top 16 trainers had Shadow Gligar on their team. Yeah, it's like Shadow Gligar, Lickitung, and then it's basically Wiscash and Chargerbug. That's probably the big four right now. And if you just
00:11:45
Speaker
look at those Pokemon versus Charger bug, you're always good. Like you are the ground type against the electric type, you're fine. Versus Lickitung, it's simply a negative matchup just because Power Wave one shots, but if you are in a dynamic game situation, you would rather want to have the Pokemon that does a little more damage to knock out the Lickitung,
00:12:09
Speaker
rather than something that stays in and survives more hits, because if you can't survive a hit anyway, if a power whip just straight knocks you out, of course, sometimes you get the skull debuff and survive on 1 HP, but you don't really go far from that 1 HP, so might as well go for that bit of extra dynamic counterplay.
00:12:32
Speaker
And then there's the shadow Gligar and now you threaten the knockout with Justice Gold. And I'm really, I'm really like, I'm not, I don't want to call it now, but I could see a shift back to regular Gligar just to counteract the shadow bonus that Wiscash now receives.
00:12:53
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think a lot of the other kind of areas where shadow Gligar really excels is against fighting type Pokemon. I think namely shadow poly wrath was a big target for shadow Gligar because against a regular poly wrath, the shadow Gligar can throw the area lace and you still probably need to throw another charge attack depending on how healthy the shadow poly wrath is.
00:13:17
Speaker
But with only one Poliwrath, I believe in our top 16 in Knoxville, it really doesn't justify that usage quite the same way that it used to. And then you look at Annihilape, right? And Annihilape just feels like a little bit, maybe just like five or 10% glassier than Poliwrath in some ways. And I feel like- And also, we have seen a whole weekend of night slash propaganda. So- Oh, it's true. It's true.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah. Well, is there, you know, I wonder if there's merit to that. We'll talk about that in a second, but no, I think you make a great point, right? Because a lot of annihilate players, uh, we're running ice punch for coverage. And we've seen this, this broad pivot almost over towards the night slash side of the force. So I don't know, uh, regular glide guard. That's a pretty bold call. Um, I'm actually not sure if we'll see that or not.
00:14:05
Speaker
But speaking to the rest of the meta, you rounded out our top two, right? Shadow Gligar, Lickitung with 12 and 11 respectively in our top 16 in Knoxville. Wiscash, Skarmory, and Annihilape were all tied at seven, and then we had Chargibug with six out of our top 16. I wanted to point out something that surprised me. The prominence of Skarmory Wiscash cores on these teams of six, right? There were so many games where we had Skarmory Wiscash for each player.
00:14:35
Speaker
And if that's like a classic go battle league core, and it just feels like, are we in the twilight zone? Is this season three of GBL? Like what's going on? We are in the season of tennis travelers after all. And it's like, infamously unbreakable. Like, of course there's, um, Pokemon that are neutrally strong against it. Um, which is, uh, in part what led to the rise of do gone, um, as a pick that succeeded in Europe. And that also made it to another grand finals in North America.
00:15:05
Speaker
Um, so yeah, like being able to, um, play, especially like a lead Pokemon that if your opponent opts for that, okay, I have Whiskash in the lead, Skamri in the back or Skamri in the lead, Whiskash in the back. If you just have one Pokemon that can neutrally win alignment, so you, you're basically good into that core. Um, that's incredibly valuable currently. And I do think that will be the same for Dortmund and
00:15:34
Speaker
Maybe, if we don't see major changes coming for the upcoming meta update, because we're less than a month away from that, Skamri, Wiscash, Skamri, Mudboy is here to stay. It's been here for years and it will not go anywhere.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely feels powerful. And I feel like even when watching the grand finals, right, because Magic Mason brought Dewgong on his team, that makes it, if not mistaken, two grand finals with three Dewgongs, you know, back to back when we count Liverpool. It just felt like he really couldn't do much in the matchup. And I think it was, you know, for other team reasons that we can talk about later.
00:16:14
Speaker
I feel like Dewgong looked decent, but it didn't have that same kind of dominance that it did in Liverpool just a short week or two ago. So I'm interested to see, you know, a Skarmory Wiscash is something a lot of trainers can pilot very well. They have a lot of experience with it. And those Pokemon are both relatively accessible. So I'm interested to see, especially, you know, with the recent Team Rocket event, I'm interested to see if Skarmory Wiscash will stick around. And I'm interested to see how many Europeans adopt the Shadow Wiscash.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to say that I haven't checked my game yet, but I'm pretty sure I forgot to TM my shadow barboaches because I didn't know whether it was such a high priority Pokemon. And everybody's short on TMs, right? So I just don't think I actually have the option to even bring a shadow weskage to a tournament.
00:17:10
Speaker
unless I'm really into that frustration gaming. But yeah, I do think if people actually grind it for that and have one prepared, it's probably the Pokémon of choice now, because we were talking about the Dewgong matchup. That is actually a lot closer if you have the Shadow West Cache and also other bulky neutral Pokémon that you might want to bring into
00:17:37
Speaker
Scammery, Wiscash, like Azumarill, or even Jallicil, which we did see in Top Cut. Those are significantly weaker if the Wiscash is Shadow, because the mag bombs just add up and they come out so quickly.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, I was trying to think of like an equivalence because you've got, you have a Pokemon like Shadow Dragonite where its main role is just to dragon breath through everything. And because it's already got a double weakness to ice and it's not the, not the bulkiest Pokemon, you can technically like lean on it towards, towards just being shadow, just cause it does the job a little bit better.
00:18:10
Speaker
Arguably say the same thing about Charizard, right? And Whiscash is kind of like, it almost feels more like a Hypno, like when Shadow Hypno was very prominent, it hit just a little bit harder, but it still retained quite a bit of bulk. But if you're going to lose a matchup, then just go ahead and lose it no matter what.
Player Spotlights and Strategies
00:18:26
Speaker
But we did see some situations where Double or Triple Scald
00:18:31
Speaker
had the result of a power whip from Lickitung not quite knocking out the whisk cache. And that was truly, it felt like we were in the twilight zone. There's another trainer, right? We talked about Yuzuku, but another one of these up and comers that I would really love to discuss a little bit more. A trainer that ran Car Bink actually last season in Peoria. You want to chat about Rock Haven?
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah, because I have to say that I was a bit of a rock haven doubter at first, but that was purely due to a lack of information about the guy. Because you see someone play the first regional and bring a carving on their team.
00:19:11
Speaker
And you'd think, okay, this is one of those alignment-based players, right? Like, people who just wouldn't need RPS backline, and maybe this was a fluke, maybe he's not actually that good. And then the next regional came around, and Rockhaven didn't do that well. I think he finished like 49 or something? Yes, correct.
00:19:33
Speaker
It's not the worst in the world. I have finished lower at events, but it didn't really solidify him as
00:19:45
Speaker
a trainer to keep an eye on. But yeah, I checked his regular profile, same as Yuzukuo, also a 3500 elo plus player. The guy knows what he's doing. And this time he didn't bring a carving. He brought a team that was not RPS at all, did have an Umbreon, which was an interesting meta read.
00:20:06
Speaker
And he came up third in Oxwell, which is just like, if you play three tournaments total and you get fifth in Peoria and third in Oxwell, that is like elite level finishes. And another thing I want to point out about Rockhaven, because I was so wrong with my initial read about, okay, this guy is probably just carving ping pong. Okay, I do fast move damage.
00:20:35
Speaker
He brought a total of
00:20:39
Speaker
15 unique Pokémon and 14 unique species to the three Regionals he played in. There was one time where he brought Shadow Glagger and regular Glagger, so you can count those separately. You can count those as the same, whatever thoughts you bought. But the only thing that he brings to every Regional is a Likitung. Everything else he switches up. So he is comfortable with a lot of different picks. And yeah, basically, same as Yuzupu,
00:21:06
Speaker
He just played incredibly well. There's nothing you can do if you're avoiding just double boosts on you. So that might be unfortunate in some situations, but just from the gameplay side, impressive showing.
00:21:23
Speaker
I want to speak to his bracket run for just a minute here, because obviously all of our day two battles are streamed. We try to show as many of those games as we possibly can. And a lot of trainers will probably remember the tournament and say, oh, yeah, on the round one of day two, he got two by Doonbug and knocked down to the to the losers bracket.
00:21:41
Speaker
This was his run through the loser's bracket. 2-1 over out of pocket, 2-1 over jingles 21, 2-0 over rise to occasion, and then a 2-0 over onion frank before finally falling to magic mason in game number five where honestly they both sweat their asses off trying to win that series.
00:22:00
Speaker
Super intense what a lot of people don't know though I don't think I don't I'm not I can't recall if these games are streamed What a lot of people don't know is that rock even had to be? Abhinav in round three of day one which he did to one and also Spartan L 1 7 who's one of the top players in Mexico and finished near the top of the Mexico City qualifier last year so
00:22:21
Speaker
again like you said this this guy is not fooling around the only two people he lost to in the tournament you know obviously by virtue being third place he'd lost to the first two but our dune bug and magic mason those are the only two people able to beat this trainer he failed everyone else which is just mind-blowing yeah yeah yeah i talk about strength of schedule like yeah for like those are like sometimes you know when you play in the go battle league and to
00:22:48
Speaker
cue into like one of the the bigger more known names in the community and you want to show your your friends by taking a screenshot like Rockhaven would have had to take screenshots after or before every single match basically especially in day two and I think he played in a way that going forward people encountering in the go battle league will take screenshots of him like that was that was a clinic
00:23:16
Speaker
Oh, it was. Yeah. I think that's like the Kevin Saladeris strat, right? Where you screenshot the big wins. Oh yeah. Yeah. The infamous, the infamous Kevin Twitter, like you, you, you, you made it when you actually get tagged in the tweet office. It's true. It's true. We all love Kevin.
00:23:32
Speaker
Uh, I want to talk about another, another run here just briefly. My, my dark horse pick, right? And maybe it's because we've been friends for years, right? Maybe it's because I know that he's really talented and I want to see him succeed, but jingles 21 also had a very solid run, uh, losing to awesome Ev, but defeating with Dodge bulk King Alexander, blob in a and Lyle Jeffs before finally losing to rock Haven to get knocked out of the tournament. Definitely a strong trainer and the original person that recommended shadow was cashed to me.
00:24:02
Speaker
So it's always kind of cool, and I'm sure you get this feeling sometimes as well. When someone that you know from Germany, maybe you were battling in Silf, or maybe you went to a tournament early on in grassroots, seeing that person kind of grow and succeed and do well, like on a global stage, or maybe even a national stage, that's a feeling, the experience I had with jingles this past weekend.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think I saw someone, I don't know whether it was on Twitter or some other platform, where somebody called Jangles the best player to not consistently top-cut. And I would agree with that because like,
00:24:41
Speaker
He's been around and basically on the top of the game for so long that you're kind of surprised by the lack of a really breakout run that he's been having. I played against Jangles in Hartford actually when I
00:25:01
Speaker
made my way to North America. And he was the one knocking me completely out of the tournament in the loser's bracket. And that was like, incredibly intense. It came down to actually one turn, because that was that was how much energy my my register would have needed to get to the killing move. But yeah, yeah, like,
00:25:22
Speaker
Jangles plays precisely. Jangles has what it takes to even win one of those, and I think it was definitely great to see him. Because I've also been there in terms of getting a little bit discouraged and maybe losing trust in my own ability whenever there's a stretch of tournaments that don't really go my way.
00:25:49
Speaker
between like cups and challenges and this regional showing, I really hope that like Jenkins just keeps putting himself out there and just continues on his current track because I do think there is, there's more to come if he just keeps it up like that, like meta reads execution. It seems to be on the right track.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, the most memorable series for me is when he took on Lyle Jeffs and Lyle, I think it was three different times where Lyle came in and sniped Jango's Pokemon and just got, you know, three counters of energy with his Vigaroth versus Skarmory or, you know, five or six licks, you know, licking down a Pokemon and gathering energy for the next matchup. And still, no matter what Lyle tried to do, Jango still kept him at arm's length and was able to win the series.
00:26:33
Speaker
if you remember when jangles got eliminated it was against rock haven game three he actually reached a cmp tie with his power whip onto rock haven's whisk cache lost the cmp and and fainted to the mud bomb which i did not think was going to knock out if you listen to the cast i'm like there's
00:26:49
Speaker
no way. Lickitung has this, but then Shadow Factor kicks in and he gets the win. But yeah, I agree with you. I think he's a great guy, great friend. I can't wait to see what he does in the future. And I think this is a huge like confidence building moment too, you know, to go up against some of the best. This is like logging into a game and playing through the story mode.
00:27:08
Speaker
in legendary difficulty. You know, this is like the hardest tournament you could perform in and he performed really, really well. So I want to ask about our predictions, our core breaker predictions that we made for this tournament and how they turned out. But I just have to preface this by saying, I think you did a bit better than me.
00:27:27
Speaker
I have to say, if we go by quantity, you might just barely take the lead here, because I do think that both Mountain Dewgong and Blob NA had a Cresselia on their Day 2 teams, so that is something. But yeah, it was a rise to occasion to actually pilot the Jellicent even further than those two Cresselias. And I do think it is a good meta read.
00:27:55
Speaker
Resisting the serings from the Scarmory that we saw everywhere, there's a good matchup into Shadow Glider, it has a good matchup into Dookong, it has a decent matchup into West Cash too. A little more iffy with the Shadow West Cash to be honest, but yeah. Also, just a little spoiler for later in the podcast, another pick on Ryze's team will be my caster's prediction for Dortmund.
00:28:20
Speaker
oh okay okay well i won't give away what it is but i'll just recap because this is a pretty unique team and i just want to list the pokemon briefly rise brought jellicent annihilate obama snow talon flame regestile and shadow dragon air and whenever i watched rise play it just felt like
00:28:38
Speaker
When he was on the team selection screen, it felt like he was standing in his kitchen and he was just opening his spice cabinet. And he said, hmm, which court breaker am I going to bring this game and how am I going to just pick apart the standard meta that's in front of me? That's just the feeling I got watching him play.
Meta Evolution and Continuity
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, I actually hopped into Tawtaktikal's watch party of the regionals and he basically told me that he did scrim against Rhystocation and he, like Tawtaktikal used by Liverpool team that looked a little bit similar with Registeal, Abama Snow and the Shadow Dragonaire also being featured on there.
00:29:18
Speaker
And basically the Rise team is a mix of what he used against Toe at that point and a mix of what Toe threw at him. So I don't take credit for the team, but it does feel as if it's like kind of born out of the same school of thought as what I ran in Liverpool. And because I really believed in that team, I also really believed in Rise team.
00:29:46
Speaker
And yeah, he definitely gave us a bit of a proof of concept there because with that stacked off a top cut, making it this far is impressive already. So what you're saying is he was inspired by the team that you thought was good, that was actually originally inspired by Nighttime Clasher. Is that what I'm hearing? Is that what I'm hearing?
00:30:11
Speaker
I really want to know where NTC got that from because I was like, oh, did you play that team? And I just didn't see it. And then I scrolled down his Twitter timeline and he played a similar team in a cup where he had still like a Medicham, something that was shadow that wasn't on my team or vice versa. So there were like still differences.
00:30:34
Speaker
and looked similar. But then again, he was the guy to ask me for the Skeletor Chobama Snow Team before San Antonio. So basically, we were just exchanging recipes back and forth. And yeah, this is like just because like every it's it's the same in PvP as an art where every everything is inspiration for the next piece of art. And that's true.
00:31:01
Speaker
Like I'll say I don't take credit for the Rice team at all, but I do think it just borrows a little bit of the overall idea that I had with my Liverpool team. And yeah, I do think that's an excellent meta read and yeah, like also excellent driver of that car. So no surprises there.
00:31:24
Speaker
Well, before I actually wanted to ask you, because I see in the notes, you have a discussion about the meta being stale. And before we get to that, I just want to make a quick shout out to Zimmy Kid finishing 16th, but brought Surfetched, the only shiny Surfetched that we've seen in a while. And I think that was a pick that I was kind of gravitating towards a few weeks ago. So, so mad ups to Zimmy Kid for that.
00:31:47
Speaker
But yeah, I think a lot of people are starting to have this discussion with skull debuffs and with look at tongue mirror matches and a bunch of things like that. People are starting to feel like the meta is a bit stale or repetitive. I don't necessarily share that sentiment, but I'm curious what you think. I have to say I did discuss that question in a lengthy Twitter thread.
00:32:12
Speaker
And I would say that it feels more stale than it is to me. Because if you just look at the amount of variety and the amount of viable picks, there is still a good bunch of diversity within the meta. And there's also still a bit of a development going on. We always have those storylines after the tournaments.
00:32:35
Speaker
And we basically came from an ILA being introduced to Dugong being the new core breaker for Wiscash, Gligar cores, to Shadow Wiscash replacing the regular Wiscash. So it's basically always those little adaptations. But because the big players of Lekitang, Wiscash, Charjabar, Gligar basically stay the same,
00:33:04
Speaker
And because they're also all quite bulky, like same goes for Zoomeral or Skamari.
00:33:11
Speaker
It does feel a little more conventional than it maybe felt three months ago, where at this point in the season, we all of a sudden had is seeking an active backs and a clefable on the same team, making a grand finals. So that was, that was probably an outlier in terms of how wild the team compositions got.
00:33:35
Speaker
And I do think the meta currently is stable, but it's not stale. It just feels less out there than the previous meta felt.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like with every meta, there's a progress bar to determine at what point something becomes solved. I'll use the word solved because I feel like when you have all these picks and you have all these different dynamics, I feel like at a certain juncture, maybe it's six tournaments in, maybe it's eight tournaments in, trainers have locked down to a point where they think it's going to be effective and it's really bold to vary outside of that at all because it feels like you're taking too much risk.
00:34:17
Speaker
And I feel like in the past we've had some metas that were just completely solved out and didn't need any other tweaking. And still you'd have some upstarts, right? When we were locked into the Lantern Trevenant knockdown nightmare, we had some trainers that would bring in Alola Ninetales, right? A shadow Alola Ninetales came out. We thought, oh, is this the core breaker? You know, like the famous anime meme of the guy with the butterfly, is this the core breaker? And people would try it out and granted that they won a couple of tournaments.
00:34:45
Speaker
I feel like eventually things kind of bubble down to where they've been. I think that we're pretty mature in this meta. I'll say that. I think we're about maybe 75, 80% of this meta solved. But I do think that when the rotation comes in about three weeks time that we will need that refresh and that refresh will be really good. So I'm excited for that. I just hope that there are big changes because I know
00:35:07
Speaker
It's been said before that Niantic doesn't want to change the meta too much before Worlds, but we're still months out, right? We have plenty of time. Let's experiment a little bit. And I am 100% in the same boat just because I think
00:35:24
Speaker
Even though this might not be personally the meta that I enjoy the most just because a lot of the Pokémon that are currently viable are those that I won't typically choose for my GBL teams just because I gravitate towards Pokémon with a lower stat product and stuff like
00:35:41
Speaker
Zoomeral and Skarmory, and those Pokémon are still very technical and skill intensive. I do consider them a little less forgiving than Squishier Pokémon, but it does take nothing away from the amount of skill needed to master them. I just have less experience, and that's why I feel worse about it.
00:36:03
Speaker
But I do think Niantic did a really great job, both in the last meta and in this meta, to make it so that you basically had three months of fun with it, and then you wanted something new. You didn't feel like, okay, we still haven't solved this, we still need more time with this meta.
00:36:25
Speaker
But you also don't feel as if for the last month and a half everything has been the same. I do think the Lantern Travelant meta was probably the worst offender in that regard. But ever since, we've never really had that kind of a situation.
00:36:45
Speaker
And yeah, if we keep this three-month cycle up in the same way we did for the past six months, I would say we are really on track for a great competitive year of Play Pokemon.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah. I, I mean, I couldn't have said it better. I feel like a lot of people will look back and the nostalgia factor is real. I see so much nostalgia for Trevenant wall rain meta. Uh, a lot of people say, Oh my God, it was the greatest thing of all time. I did enjoy it. I did enjoy it. I have to say, but I don't necessarily need it back. I just need something that is equally as fun. And you can provide that without wall rain or Trevenant.
00:37:26
Speaker
There's some merit to breaking down the past metas as well, because if you remember, we're just coming out of this superior Gligar metachim lantern meta that we had for, for a few months.
Dunbug's Dominance in the Finals
00:37:37
Speaker
I mean, that's the meta where, where hard Jeff won LAIC with double electric when charge bug really started to, you know, rear it's, it's little face.
00:37:44
Speaker
And I feel like, uh, we've kind of moved through these things so quickly that it'd be fun to kind of do like an analysis, you know, segmenting these metas, breaking them down, kind of stamping some kind of identity on each era of the championship series. And if people are interested in hearing something like that, then let us know. And so I, and I will, we'll get to work doing that. But so I wanted to ask, are there any other thoughts you had regarding the overall meta or do you want to touch on the grand finals?
00:38:09
Speaker
Howard had straight into the grand finals or rather into the day two of the competition and especially Dunebug's annihilate because Speedy, what do you think out of the 10 Night Stashes thrown, how many of them did boost?
00:38:27
Speaker
Oh, this is a great question, but I think I already know the answer. Yeah, I think I deleted it from the document after like leaving it up for a minute. I don't know. Maybe you counted. No, no, no. I think I counted. I think I counted. Okay, okay, okay. And in his round against Rockhaven, he got two. And then he had another round in the winner's side bracket where he also got two. And then in the grand finals at the very end of game three, I believe he got a boost. So it's five out of 10.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yes, yes, it's a 50% chance for a 9-slash-to-double-boost-story tag. That is exactly true. Yeah, that's why he's Boostbug, I guess. I loved his interviews, by the way. That was because Doomdahk started out as a bit of a Pokémon Go villain, right? With the Registeal dispute and all the drama around that, and people were really like throwing shade at him.
00:39:18
Speaker
But now he's really won over people, I would say. And like his interviews, like I referenced it earlier with, I'm feeling pretty boosted today. And also before the Onion Frank match out, like first I'll have to chop some onions. Like he had this one-liners down and I was so here for that. So yeah, like definitely the main character of the event.
00:39:46
Speaker
We could do, honestly, I've known Dune for quite a while, right? We have a long history of playing each other, especially in the 2022 or 2020 self season. And I feel like there's so much to be said, right? But I agree with you. He started off as somebody that.
00:40:02
Speaker
was abrasive, was definitely hard to get along with, had unshakable views about certain things and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But I feel like the dune bug that you met back in Indianapolis for our first season and the dune bug of today are almost completely different people. I think the dune bug today is happier. He's more confident.
00:40:24
Speaker
He's definitely proven himself in so many ways. And I know a lot of people that pour so much of their time, their energy and their attention into a competitive format. Once they get that success and they kind of validate all the work they put in, it definitely kind of rounds them out as a person.
00:40:39
Speaker
Whereas if you feel like you aren't getting what you deserve or you are letting yourself down, which I want to put more emphasis on that when you don't, when you don't perform the way you believe you should, it can definitely kind of eat away at a person. And I feel like Duneburg has just been incredible. I have so much love for him and I'm just so happy to see what he's been able to do.
00:40:59
Speaker
And I think the confidence factor, like you pointed out, is just unreal. I think it all comes back to confidence. I mean, after dropping in the first round of San Antonio and sweeping the tournament, you have to have the strongest mental game of anyone that walks in the room. Like you have to feel like your brain is made of iron, right? You can do everything. You can do literally anything, right? Yes.
00:41:21
Speaker
Apparently he can. Apparently he can. He just wills the boosts into existence. I loved how on stage when he was closing in on the grand finals win, he just held up the number two. He says, I want two. I want two regionals in the same season. Give me another one. Yep. And he gets the two stage boost because it's just like divine intervention at that point. Yeah.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And like he said as well, a famous quote from his dad, one that really stuck in his memory is that, as long as you keep trying, as long as you keep persevering, eventually you're going to reach your goal. And I definitely think he's been able to do that. I'm so incredibly proud of him.
00:42:04
Speaker
Let's talk about Pokemon usage in the grand finals because this was a quick one, right? When I was watching the grand finals, I was thinking, okay, you know, magic Mason, Toronto regional champion, you know, he's no pushover. He plays a lot of different Pokemon and he's going to do well. Well, didn't bug actually became the fourth trainer this season to three Oh, in the grand finals, only four out of our, our so far 16 tournaments. We've had a sweep in the grand finals.
00:42:30
Speaker
The others being King Alexander in Peoria elite in Sacramento versus Bopper and Lyle Jeffs versus K-Shawn in Charlotte. So this was definitely a dominant one-sided grand finals victory. Uh, in terms of usage though, Dunbug brought shadow whisk hash to all three games. We saw shadow Gligar twice at a Mason and dugong only once. Now I remember last time we did a really fun kind of like mud bomb versus scald counter for nighttime clasher versus Tomahawk. Are you ready for our updated counter here?
00:42:59
Speaker
For sure, for sure. All right. So in game number one, Doonbug brought Whiscash, but he didn't even need to show it. He actually beat Mason with Chargerbug and Lickitung and Whiscash never appeared. So there's that. However, on the other side, Magic Mason did bring his own Whiscash. He scalded three times and he mudbombed once. You want to guess how many debuffs he got from three scalds? I would say one. He got all three. Oh.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah. Game number two, Doon, Doon bug brings whisk cache again, right? This is his, his shadow whisk cache second game. He threw four mud bombs in zero scalds. And a particular note I made here is that Doon bug, his shadow whisk cashers match up against do gone. So it makes sense to just throw mud bombs. Mason did not bring his whisk cache game to game three, final game of the grand finals. Both players brought their whisk cache.
00:43:55
Speaker
Doonbug through one scald, Mason through two. You want to guess what the debuff percentages were for each of them? I know that at least one of the Mason scalds did not debuff because I do think I remember that. Let's just say zero for Mason, one for Doon.
00:44:12
Speaker
Perfect. You nailed it. Doombug threw one scald. He got one debuff. Mason threw two and got no debuffs. And then Doombug threw a parting mud bomb against Annihilape. So yeah, I kind of, I don't want to say one sided, right? Cause Mason got three scalds in game one and three debuffs and Doombug got one scald and one debuff in game three. So kind of distributed. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you, if you just go by the total number, that's about what you would expect. So. Mm-hmm.
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah, I just think it's interesting, right? Cause cause a lot of people have, uh, maybe they're, they're predisposition to see certain things or maybe once they've seen it once, that's all they can see. For example, a fun exercise to do if you are driving and you say, yeah, you know, I saw a red car today. I promise you without fail, you will see more red cars along that drive that you take than you have seen in weeks because that's what you're looking for. So a lot of players are saying, Oh, the skull debuff is too strong. It happens constantly. Well.
00:45:08
Speaker
the numbers say a different story, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of the law of attraction at some point where you just think, okay, this is a debuffing move. Sometimes you have this feeling where you think, oh, my whiskers or my registry is broken. And then as soon as you think that, sometimes you just get
00:45:36
Speaker
an unlucky streak and go with like four or five charge attacks in a row without a debuff. And then you will, even like weeks later, you will look back at your Pokemon and you will hesitate to bring that Pokemon because, oh, I got so unlucky that one time, maybe I should really leave it on the bench and not trust in it. But that's all in our heads. That's just biases.
00:46:00
Speaker
Well, so I'll tell you one thing that I know to be true. Pass any shadow of a doubt. Every single time my opponent uses crunch against me, I get debuffed. And every time I throw crunch, they don't get debuffed, okay? There's no disputes. It's just facts. I think that's not even to do with the percentage. It's just that your account is on hard mode.
00:46:22
Speaker
I think I'm cursed. Legit, I think I'm cursed. But it was a quick grand finals. 3-0, Doonbug takes down last season's Toronto champion, Magic Mason. Fun fact about these trainers, we talked about unique Pokemon earlier. We talked about excluding shadows, shadow variants, for example.
Controversial Judging and Sportsmanship
00:46:39
Speaker
If we exclude the shadow variants for Wiscash and Gligar
00:46:43
Speaker
Doonbug and Magic Mason both went into the grand finals with completely brand new teams of six as opposed to their previous regional wins. And that's amazing considering that Doonbug's was just in December a few weeks ago. Yeah. That also goes to show that this meta is actually quite dynamic and allows for, um,
00:47:04
Speaker
team building that isn't as clear cut as it might seem just from the amount of liquor that we see. There will always be staples in a matter, right?
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. There's always going to be something that bubbles to the top and that, uh, that really is effective. But speaking of bubbling is why there was a little bit of a, a judge ruling that had a lot of trainers boiling over, uh, kind of, kind of pissed off, right? Especially if you are a fan of one of the players that it happened to. And a lot of people were kind of confused about consistency and things like that. Of course, I'm speaking to the valor Ash ruling, particularly the matchup with where he had a Gligar mirror.
00:47:47
Speaker
And it looked like Mason lost at least one or two wing attacks. Do you want to talk about the judge ruling a bit?
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think what really made people upset about their judge ruling is the way it was later explained on stream, basically indicating that it happened too early in the matchup. And that is just, if that was actually the explanation given, there's always, it's always a bit of a game of telephone where you don't really know what the actual reasoning was and how it maybe was changed from people passing it on.
00:48:21
Speaker
But that is just not a good argument to not grant a rematch. If you have game breaking early, it doesn't really make a difference if you have it early or late. Because the outcome is the same, right? You lose valuable fast attacks, you lose health, you lose energy, and you might not be in a spot where
00:48:47
Speaker
I would have had the same win conditions. So I do think the reasoning behind the ruling definitely was what really made this from just an unfortunate decision to a bit of a scandal on social media that in the fact that with Valor Ash, like he did his utmost to not stir
00:49:10
Speaker
stir up the riots too much on Twitter. In fact, he spoke out against people basically talking bad about the judges. And I think that just shows his sportsmanship. But people were upset because that is not what you expect from such a high stakes matchup and such an
00:49:34
Speaker
such an important ruling. But as someone who basically got into a discussion like that just a week ago with the Liverpool Originals for one of my own matches, I want to say that the judges are
00:49:51
Speaker
only liable for those situations, like how much text they actually have to go by. If you have a clear rulebook where it says, okay, if you lose two faster texts in the lead matchup, you get a rematch. If that is basically defined, then you would have had no issues. Then you can just
00:50:14
Speaker
apply that to the situation in question and it would be, it would be solved so quickly. But because a lot of it is just, oh, like, you know, the game judge, please do it by feel. Um, like, of course there's, there's rules and, um, they, they have to be applied, but a lot of the, this applying of the rules is still very subjective and, um, probably difficult to handle in the, in the situation.
00:50:42
Speaker
Um, because if I recall it correctly, even if, uh, Balor Ash got those swing attacks, the back lines would have still favored his opponent in that situation. So if you are basically, um, in a position where you have to say, okay, do we have to replay this and replace and play Pokemon are also done with different teams. Um, is this really enough to take away the victory from the other player?
00:51:12
Speaker
And that is a more difficult question than, oh, was Valarash affected by the lag? Because of course he was affected by the lag. But then it's basically, oh, would it have affected the outcome? And that is so subjective because you can't predict how the game would have played out. And it was probably more likely that Valarash still would have lost the series, but
00:51:37
Speaker
Um, this being such a murky gray area, um, really makes it so that people have different opinions and strong opinions. And that's, that's how drama arises. And if we had like it codified in a way that would be a lot easier.
00:51:55
Speaker
I always find it ironic because the Silphurina went through so many different kind of growing pains over the seasons. And I remember rematch ruling that was kind of given, the last rematch structure was same leads, different back lines, right? That was like the phrase that was used quite a bit. And I think that over the years of testing in battles and trying to find the most fair and equitable way to carry out these rematches, Silphurina kind of arrived at certain decision points.
00:52:23
Speaker
And I always find it slightly ironic that play Pokemon kind of hit the reset button on this and we're like figuring this out as we go. And it's not like you can borrow directly from video game or from trading card because go is just such a different game. You know, if you're in the middle of a match of Pokemon unite.
00:52:41
Speaker
and one player drops out and there's three minutes left on the clock and you're up by 400 points or whatever it might be. If one player drops out, you just have to restart the game. It doesn't matter. That's just how the rematch rules work. I agree with you. What you said is actually perfect. Judges have to operate within the structure that they are provided. If a rule book doesn't have a condition on how to deal with a certain situation, then they just have to interpret the rule. It's almost like law.
00:53:10
Speaker
Right. You just have to interpret the spirit of the law, the spirit of the rule in order to determine what the best outcome will be.
00:53:17
Speaker
Now, another point you made about people attacking judges, that's what Mason said as well. Honestly, if you're a kind of person who's going to attack the judges personally, you should just go kick rocks. Like put down your phone and quit being an asshole, right? Just don't do that because the judges are just there volunteering their time and their effort to do their best job, right? It's like the same people who go after referees and like American football.
00:53:40
Speaker
Like, oh, my, my team lost the game because of this ref's calls and I'm going to call them. I'm going to drive by their house or something creepy like that. Just don't do that. Don't be that person, you know, don't be that weirdo that does that kind of stuff. So.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, all the points you made are perfect, right? Like they have to operate within a certain framework, et cetera, et cetera. The question becomes like, how do we grow from it? I get so sick of people always just pointing out what's wrong. You know, Oh, I didn't like this episode of the show or I, Oh, I didn't have a very good day. And I say, well, what was wrong with the show? What would you like to be improved? Or what went wrong with your day and how can, how can you prevent that from happening next time? And a lot of the time people don't have an answer.
00:54:16
Speaker
So I'd really rather people start to come up with more answers than they have problems. I think everybody would be better off if we started thinking more solution oriented. And once you think of a solution that you think is good, send a support ticket to play Pokemon, right? And we'll see, we'll see if something could come of it. I think that's just the most constructive way to go about this.
00:54:35
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. And I do think what you mentioned about maybe borrowing from the self-rulebook, that's like one of the constructive solutions that I hope to see implemented. And also like just talking about my personal experience in Liverpool, I was really upset for a day or two and I do think it's
00:55:01
Speaker
perfectly human and fine to experience those emotions, especially if you're personally affected. But I did make a point of not really taking that to Twitter or social media, because whenever it actively affects volunteers that basically spent their free time to make this game better and this championship circuit better, all you do by
00:55:30
Speaker
putting your negative emotions out there publicly and amplifying them on social media is that you make it so that fewer people are willing to take on that responsibility to put in the work to make the game better and make the championship series better. So yeah, like you're only hurting yourself if you
00:55:52
Speaker
go after people on Twitter or other social media sites. That would be the ultimate own, right? Like if you really would just, you know what, everybody who's pissed off at the ruling, right? Just hear me out. If you really just want to get in there and just make things right and make all the other judges, you know, look less intelligent, then you become a judge. You go in there and become a judge and start to rule on these games, how you think it should work out, right? I think that's a good way to get back at everybody. I think that's what you should do. Exactly.
00:56:23
Speaker
Well, so I, we have a few more topics to touch on already. Um, as we, I guess we're already at the one hour mark. This episode went pretty quick.
Melbourne Regionals Review
00:56:33
Speaker
Um, I want to say again, we had a tournament double header this weekend. We had the Melbourne regionals as well. I think we can make a few quick notes on this, but I think it'll get more coverage once we see the battles.
00:56:43
Speaker
And, uh, we'll, we'll include that in our next episode. So famously, right. Jokobrovich beats out Doonbug 97 by mere hours, becoming the first player to be a back-to-back regional champion in the same season. He also won Brisbane earlier this season.
00:57:00
Speaker
And I remember watching back that battle footage. That was when Zoey2Dots was recording over Yako's shoulder to watch the battles. And you kind of get the glare of the screen and you're kind of trying to look where his thumb is covering up the switch and all this other stuff. But I actually listed out all the teams he used, all the Pokémon, who won Switch Advantage, and how the series went. And I got to tell you, Yako just destroyed
00:57:23
Speaker
with the lantern meta champs superior. He just absolutely played it better than anyone else he was sitting across from. And he actually won this weekend with a completely different team that I think you actually admire a lot, right? Yeah, because the one thing that I mentioned earlier is, okay, those Pokemon in this meta are typically too bulky for me to enjoy using them. And while Jaco's team did have the staple Lickitung,
00:57:48
Speaker
He also went for a Pelipper. Both the Glyga and the Whiskash are shadow. He did have the Abomasnow on his team, which was my caster's pick, my podcaster's pick for like two weeks in a row. And he did have the Chargebuck to round it out. And none of these are like really Pokemon, like besides the Likitung that you will want to take multiple hits. And yeah, like piloting those Pokemon to, um,
00:58:16
Speaker
like probably the biggest Australian regional to date, if I'm not mistaken. That is nothing short of impressive. And he did also post a very interesting Twitter thread on that very topic, how he built his team and what he built his team for, and how he went strategically weak to Likaton, but managed to build a team that
00:58:45
Speaker
Basically it was designed to always make them bring the Leakey, but also minimize its utility. And I do think that is just advanced team building strategies. And I really enjoyed reading that. I can just only encourage all our listeners to check that out. Jakobovic, OCIC, the last OCIC champion, two times regional winner in Australia.
00:59:10
Speaker
definitely one of the goals of the game. I'm very excited to see him compete at Worlds against trainers from all over the world.
00:59:21
Speaker
You Cobra, which is definitely a standout player. Like you said, uh, I see champion double regional champion. It feels like he can do it all. And he's definitely, uh, just, I would say at this point, the head and shoulders above most of the other trainers in Australia, but there are a lot of them that are incredibly talented, right? Like whenever I see valiant Vish on a bracket, I know that player could, could run the gauntlet, could win it all. I know, uh, Caleb is a big fan of AV rip because AV rip. Uh, I think it was, no, I think it's Rob Drago, excuse me, Rob Drago. Uh,
00:59:50
Speaker
The Bastionon player, yeah. No, it's all coming together. I do think there was a Bastionon in the grand finals as well. That might be a bit of an Australian Pokémon after all.
01:00:07
Speaker
Well, well, that makes me like Jaco even more for beating Abbasid on. So, so he's, he's got my respect. Uh, AB rip as well. Very talented. I wanted to mention as well that rocket Claire finished third place. I'm over the moon for her. That's a huge accomplishment. And, uh, it definitely showcases what she's capable of. So I can't wait to see what she does in her next tournament. And I do think they took a picture of rocket player, um, be before the tournament even, and I don't have it present right now, but I do think the, the,
01:00:36
Speaker
picture basically said something along the lines of like the future is female, something of that spirit. Yeah, she showed everyone. That was an impressive run.
01:00:47
Speaker
Absolutely. I can't wait to see the battle footage. And if you're like me, you definitely want to tune in and watch it. Well, luckily PVP, Steve, if you want to follow him on X is at PVP, Steve one. That's the number one. He says we'll be streaming all the battles from Melbourne day to this weekend, Saturday at 10 a.m. AEDT, which I guess is Australian time.
01:01:07
Speaker
or Friday at six p.m. Eastern US. So that's why I'm sorry. I'll have to let you do the conversion on your own. And the channel is twitch.TV slash BVP Steve seven. That's the number seven. So I'm really excited to see those battles and how they went down because the Australian trainers.
Upcoming Predictions and Final Thoughts
01:01:24
Speaker
And they are a different breed completely, but it's why we have some exciting events coming up here, some regionals on the way, as well as a go battle day stream. So this upcoming week weekend, we have Dortmund regionals and the go battle day stream. So what is your core breaker choice for Dortmund this weekend?
01:01:43
Speaker
Um, one thing I also want to point out is that even before the next Brazilian regional, we will have the Utrecht special event. So that will take place only like a day after the new meta changes are actually coming into effect. Um, so that will be exciting and basically no time to prepare at all. Um, looking forward to that. I don't know whether that would be there yet, but.
01:02:04
Speaker
on fun times, regardless. I will be in Dortmund and my prediction for the Dortmund tournament is a Pokemon that has seen some play both in Europe and in North America. It did top-cut, but it's still looking for its breakthrough. It got buffed at the beginning of the season and it is Talonflame, but not just any Talonflame. Talonflame with both flying charge attacks. I don't believe in Talonflame charge.
01:02:35
Speaker
Wait, no flame charge on Talonflame? Yeah, you would think that you want to boost those 4 damage per turn incinerates, but no, you want the accessible fly and the heartening brave druid. Flame charge? What do you want fire damage for in this meta? There's barely any grasses. Registeal is definitely on the down turn.
01:02:58
Speaker
You can't even win the zeroes against Wiscash anymore, now that it's shadow. And you probably do enough fire type damage with your fast attack anyway. And yeah, flying Brave Bird, you can stack them.
01:03:11
Speaker
Brave Bird or Whiscash, and you might flip that. You live a scold from a normal one, and if it's shadow, then it's IV-dependent whether you even lift that and get a move off. So yeah, Phytopite that can beat the best water type in the meta, that's something, right?
01:03:29
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I wasn't prepared for that. That, that feels like, that feels like taking, taking psychic off of Medicham or taking hydro cannon off of Swampert and running surf instead, you know? But then again, we have had superior succeed, right? Like Galaxica Bolton famously with leaf tornado instead of air lace. I would just say the last time I took psychic off a Medicham, I won a tournament. So, okay. Okay. Wow. Well, I should have gone first because your prediction is just way better than mine.
01:04:07
Speaker
No, no, no, no. So, so here's, here's my, here's my prediction, right? I believe that the shadow whisk cache is going to overtake regular whisk cache in the top 16 usage for the first time ever. So at this previous tournament in Knoxville, we had seven regular whisk cache in our top 16 and only four shadows. I think those numbers are going to flip. I think we have at least seven shadow whisk cache make top cut in dormant.
01:04:25
Speaker
I feel like I can't follow you up.
01:04:33
Speaker
I can totally see that. Um, it will depend on whether people have actually Tm3 with Skash. Yeah. Yeah. That's why it will. But yeah, only a very strong showing off of the shadow catfish this past weekend.
01:04:50
Speaker
Mm hmm. Well, trainers have about 120 days to gather championship points, whether it's at a regional championship or a go cup or a challenge. So make sure to head over to play Pokemon and check out your tournament map and find some local competitions near you. Uh, in terms of events, not a whole lot to mention. We are finishing out this, uh, lunar lunar new year, if I'm not mistaken.
01:05:12
Speaker
Dragon takeover, but I'm confused because I don't see many dragons, but, um, we're going to see how that continues to develop. We just had Drutini spotlight hour and we just had the end of our team go rocket takeover. So if you're like, so I listened, you did not TM your shadow bar, Boach, um, F's in the chat for you because that's unfortunate.
01:05:34
Speaker
Well, I think we're approaching the end here. I'm not sure if there's anything else you wanted to mention, anything else we didn't cover regarding either Melbourne or Knoxville or anything you're looking forward to in Dortmund. There is one thing I want to add because I know that one of the competitors in Dortmund
01:05:51
Speaker
A previous EU regional champion is Palasha97, and she actually started streaming on Twitch. I haven't actually managed to tune into one of those streams yet, and apparently there was some confusion whether it would be in Spanish or in English, but if you speak either or both, it's probably worth giving her a follow, because she's one of our European regional champions from last season, and already made some strong showings this season, so yeah.
01:06:20
Speaker
It will be, it will be top tier PVP gameplay for sure. Palasha is so good. She, she had always just crushed me in ADL whenever we played. So I can vouch. I can vouch that Palasha is, is goated. And if you want to learn, you should definitely go over to her channel. Well, it's been a fun episode, fun recap of Knoxville. We'll have even more Melbourne coverage. We'll kind of combine that with the upcoming Dortmund coverage as well. But, uh, yeah, I had a great time. Great show. And, um, I'm excited to see you after the next one. Yes, yes. See you then.