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EP. 40 | Buenos Aires, Las Vegas, Stuttgart, LAIC 2026 Recaps
2 Playsin 13 hours
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 40 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.
Welcome in to the Show 6 Podcast, where we break down the Championship Series for Pokémon GO. Today, we're recording our last episode of the year. We'll be covering Buenos Aires, Las Vegas, Stuttgart, and LAIC. In Buenos Aires, LNDsAureo rose from the Loser's Side bracket with his MVP Shadow Kanto Marowak alongside Charjabug and Jellicent to win it all in Buenos Aires. In Las Vegas, Doonebug and his Talonflame folded to Reis2Occasion in the Winners Finals, but went on a heater to reach the grand finals, where he then hit back to back series wins to take the Gold. In Stuttgart, Inadequanec dressed as Team Galactic's Cyrus summoned the titan of the Distortion World, Shadow Giratina Altered, and mercilessly crushed the bracket. Finally, at LAIC, NiteTimeClasher's Metang and Dewgong ascended through the bracket, and culminated in an epic clash with P4T0M4N. NTC would not be denied, as he bounced back from a reverse sweep to win the Grand Finals reset.
In this episode, we'll review the players, the Pokémon, and the epic storylines of these 4 events. We'll also discuss GO Battle League's new Interlude season, what we expect to see in Toronto, and a sneak peek at the EUIC limited meta. That, and so much more.
So, if you're ready... go ahead and lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Festive Podcast Intro
00:00:05
zzweilous
On the twelfth month of this year, my podcast gave to me 12 DuneRise clashes, 11 Guru Mirrors, 10 months worth using, 9 tales in Stuttgart, 8 turns to RageFist, 7-11 gaming, 6 weeks delaying, 5 sets per day, 4 recent champs, 3 Lindos, 2 podcast hosts, and an intro that's kind of festive.
Hosts' Welcome and Focus
00:00:54
zzweilous
Welcome in, everybody. This is the Show 6 Podcast, your go-to address for all things competitive Pokemon Go. As I, Ziz Wireless, and my co-host, SpeedyEachieve2, who is currently losing it, are here to cover the official championship series for this game as well as all things PvP. And we are back from a lengthy break.
00:01:14
zzweilous
It was largely my fault because fell sick for two weeks. But how are you feeling, Sveady?
00:01:19
William Dunphey
ah Tears, literal tears. i I started to tear up during that intro because it was so good. Everybody, I need you to to give ZZ some feedback. If you see him at an event next year, if you just want to DM him, tell him and how incredible that intro was. ZZ, I'm feeling great. You know that scheduling around the holidays is always pretty tricky. This is our first year of the podcast. I think that's also something we remember. Our first kind of holiday special, I guess you could say, for the show. And we have a lot to cover in this one, and I'm really excited to get back to it.
Pending Events Discussion
00:01:49
William Dunphey
So yeah, I'm feeling great. I'm glad that you're feeling better, and I can't wait to get into it.
00:01:55
zzweilous
Yeah, there's still like the odd cough and this will um come up a couple of times during this episode, but I'm not feeling as sick anymore.
00:02:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:02:05
zzweilous
So I'm pretty sure I'll hold up just fine. And yeah, today on the schedule is essentially wrapping up the Tales of Transformation regular season with um three events that are still outstanding that we haven't covered just yet.
00:02:20
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
Buenos Aires Championship Analysis
00:02:20
zzweilous
um Two of them happened before the Latin American International Championships, which is going to be the big ticket item to talk about. Those would be Buenos Aires as well as Las Vegas.
00:02:33
zzweilous
And one happened after to essentially um be the center for Tales of Transformation, and that was in Europe, in Stuttgart. um And yeah, we are going to cover it all. We are going to welcome...
00:02:46
zzweilous
Champions old and new, and I think we should start with the new champion because Elendias O'Reo conquered Buenos Aires. And um even though he came very close previously, i think he even finished as the runner-up of Buenos Aires the year prior, um he hadn't won his gold medal yet. So this was a very special occasion um for Elendias O'Reo. And he won his championship with a team that, to me, featured the Latin American bird, if i if I may use this phrasing, because the European bird, as everybody knows, is Talonflame, Shadow Talonflame these days.
00:03:22
William Dunphey
Oh.
00:03:29
zzweilous
To me, the Latin American bird is Galarian Moltres.
O'Reo's Strategic Team Choices
00:03:34
zzweilous
We had three regional champions from the GB Lindos camp this season already, and all of them featured Galarian Moltres on their winning team.
00:03:45
zzweilous
If that isn't a fun fact, I don't know what is.
00:03:48
William Dunphey
That's a very strong argument. i wasn't I was looking at the top cut for Buenos Aires, and I did see more Corviknight than I do see Galarian Moltres. But when you point out that way, it makes total sense, right? And this is a Pokemon that in the in the days of a furret-dominated meta, where you constantly see that normal type everywhere, it feels like you wish you had that pure dark type Pokemon, something like a Glare and Moltres that could counter it.
00:04:11
William Dunphey
and When I see the Glare Moltres and the Shadow Steelix duo, though, I think of Beezo Boy, right? That is one of the most powerful cores. And to bring that team, to bring that core and that the entire team around it was definitely interesting, right?
00:04:23
William Dunphey
Because there were a ton of picks on here that I personally didn't expect. The Shadow Kits Marowak is probably the most neutral of the options here, but Chargeabug,
00:04:27
zzweilous
Mm-hmm.
00:04:31
William Dunphey
right And then Jellicent.
Chargerbug's Strategic Role
00:04:34
William Dunphey
This is going to come up again when we talk about LEIC, but I was listening to C. Leonardo's conversation with LNDSRAO, and apparently the Jellicent pick was actually a deliberate choice to counter a lot of the Blastoise safe swaps, because you could absorb all the water energy. Ice doesn't do anything, of course, and then Skull Bash, you do not want to throw that into a Jellicent. So I thought that was a very interesting pick. ah Bringing a Ghost-type as well in a Furret meta is always tricky, but...
00:05:00
William Dunphey
I mean, if you look at Aureo or if you look at Inadequance, I think that it can still be done, right? So I'm curious your thoughts on the team because we have the the Latin American bird in Galarian Moltres. We also have what I consider a very EU-centric pick in that charge book.
00:05:15
zzweilous
Well, i actually looked at people the Pokemon that I used recently, and I will say that I am probably the biggest Chargerbug believer out there because it featured on like four out of my last five teams.
00:05:30
zzweilous
um So big Chargerbug fan over here. um And what it does, this makes me think of the line that Oreo brought with Cradilly, Shadowcanto Marowak, Chargerbug, Galarian Moltres,
00:05:30
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:05:45
zzweilous
Shadow Steelix and Jellicent. This makes me sing of like a September, early October type of team, even though it won the gold medal in the middle of November, because I thought that with Lille, with Gdansk, the meta moved a little further towards Unovan, Stunfisk, Altaria, Empolion, Pokemon that we don't see on this team.
00:05:56
William Dunphey
agreed
00:06:10
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:06:10
zzweilous
Whereas earlier in the meta, Chargerbug was really instrumental in keeping the Galarian Moltres and Scizor core at bay, because it's very difficult to break this dark and steel type combination.
00:06:27
zzweilous
And Charjabar does it excellently, because obviously you have the electric coverage um against Galarian Moltres, but you also on have the like the defensive the the defensive property of resisting bullet punches, which is super crucial to stop a Shadow Scissor from wreaking havoc,
Buenos Aires Tournament Highlights
00:06:51
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:06:51
zzweilous
um and also charge a bug.
00:06:55
zzweilous
It's like, I personally feel as if it's the most neutral like electric type. It may not be the most potent because, you know, when Stunfisk has seen more play in success overall, but with its secondary typing of bug, it has play against the ground types out there
00:06:59
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:07:12
zzweilous
And it's an extra fighting resist, which is important if you're like, if your flying type is a Galarian Moltres, you're all of a sudden not that good with your flying type into say a primate.
00:07:25
zzweilous
And we've seen primate win a championship the same weekend. So very important to have like just the role compression that ChargerBug offers.
00:07:29
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:07:34
zzweilous
And yeah, LNDSO, honestly, out of the top three the only name I would have recognized ahead of the event because the Argentinian locals came through in kind of a big way with the big map taking third place and Knicks 96 taking second place and I did make some notes on those trainers and their previous best finishes were um the big map tying for 33rd and Santiago as well as
00:07:45
William Dunphey
yeah
00:08:05
zzweilous
um placing amongst the top 500 on the GBL leaderboard before, whereas Knicks 96 didn't even have a leaderboard placement and came 25th in Buenos Aires the year before.
00:08:18
zzweilous
So going from essentially no Dracovic record to meddling to even making a grand finals in the case of Knicks 96, that is a lot of progress in one year.
00:08:18
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:08:29
zzweilous
And I always enjoy when Original isn't just a showcase of the dozen of trainers that like fights for travel awards, travels to all the events and takes top cut in essentially every tournament they play in.
00:08:49
zzweilous
But also when a tournament can be a showcase of trainers that we don't see as often, or maybe i have never seen before.
00:08:56
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:08:57
zzweilous
And this typically happens in smaller events more often than in bigger ones. And with 48 trainers competing, like buenos aires was a chance that needed to be taken and the big map and x96 took that chance
00:09:13
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's always interesting, right? Especially when you look at LATAM countries, which are these days typically dominated by trainers like Marto Galde or L&D S. Harjeff. I actually checked the bracket to see if Harjeff was competing in Buenos Aires and no, he was he was not there. Otherwise, I think we would have seen him in the top cut. But seeing your local trainers rise us up and do really well is always something that you want, especially if it's a a tournament in your region. I was looking at the the group stage here, and the big mev actually took down Kanan in round three and then took down Lien Bernal in the group finals for group A. So definitely some quality wins against names that that we recognize. Speaking names, we we also recognize in fourth place Zardy. We had Memmi also finishing top eight, as well as Marto Galde and LNDS Core Lash.
Current Meta Analysis
00:10:00
William Dunphey
So Very, very strong trainers across the board. um
00:10:03
William Dunphey
While we were talking about the team compositions as well, I was noticing that Chargebug has probably two positive matchups on just about every single team that you look at, whether it's the electric typing or the bug typing. But it also has such a a solid advantage over Pokemon like Cradilly due to pacing, right? Because it's three Volt switches and then two if you want your X scissors. And granted, you do not want to take a Rock Tomb. It does hurt quite a bit. But I do think there's a lot of utility there. so This going a recurring theme that we talk about in this episode. Not so much at LAIC for obvious reasons, but for the other tournaments, to about these standout Pokemon that really kind of core break things, shake things up. And with our Open Green League meta being the way that it was at the end of last season and starting into this season, it really feels like not a lot has changed. And sometimes you do need something really spicy, something really innovative to to shake shake up the formula, so to speak.
00:10:55
zzweilous
Yeah, I feel like with Elendias Ario, the most, like the big standout to me on this team, just from a, like if we measure it on the Scoville scale, if we take the spice meter, I feel as if Jellicent is probably the standout.
00:11:12
zzweilous
And I see what it does because we don't really have a, like an incinerate resist without it.
00:11:12
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:11:19
zzweilous
So we would be vulnerable to ah Shadow Talon flame sweep potentially. um Whereas if we have the water ghost type rather than a regular ghost type, um such as potentially Galarian Corsola, that's also a big bonus in terms of utility.
00:11:36
zzweilous
um But yeah, I did rewatch the grand finals between LNDS Oreo and Nix96. um Oreo actually resetting the bracket coming from the loser side um and taking the crown with a pretty dominant display, actually.
00:11:52
zzweilous
And that was...
00:11:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:11:53
zzweilous
in part helped by the fact that his Cridilly is essentially without a check on Nyx's team. So he always had that as a fallback option. He essentially played a lot of Moltres Cridilly core and then just executed really cleanly.
00:12:08
zzweilous
there were There was also like one game where Oreo used his Charger bug to dispose of a Cridilly because he tried to initially make a catch of Corviknight energy against Nyx.
00:12:22
zzweilous
He failed. that catch because Nyx was very patient, but that patience then allowed the Chargerbug to get a full world switch ahead on energy. And because the first X-Zer landed, um in the two-shield scenario, that would then be not only the Chargerbug outpacing, but also two-shotting the Cridily because it landed the damage undebuffed.
00:12:44
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:12:45
zzweilous
um And yeah, that was pretty impressive Chargerbug showcase actually taking out the Rock-type and ultimately delivering LNDsOreo his first gold medal.
Las Vegas Regional Highlights
00:12:55
zzweilous
um Also, streams on Twitch. Check him out. um Not only one of the very talented Lindos trainers, but also a talented content creator.
00:13:05
William Dunphey
Yeah, absolutely. And Caster as well. He has casted a few events for the championship series. If you speak Portuguese, which i I don't believe you or I do, ZZ, but if you are a Portuguese speaker, definitely very a talented commentator.
00:13:19
William Dunphey
You mentioned the the grand finals kind of briefly. Of course, we don't have all the footage from the tournament because it wasn't streamed. And I'll admit ah you know right now that I didn't actually watch the grand finals battles.
00:13:30
zzweilous
Okay.
00:13:30
William Dunphey
So I'm so glad that you did. We always do that, right? We always cover each other's bases pretty well. But I did want to make kind of one last note about this top cut. You joked about a, well, you didn't really joke.
00:13:41
William Dunphey
You just mentioned a town flame sweep. Look at Marto Galday's team here. Shadow Altaria, Wigglytuff, Gassardon, Shadow Scizor, Shadow Steelix, and Shadow Annihilate, right?
00:13:52
William Dunphey
So you're either in some kind of like war of attrition with your Thunderfang Shadow Steelix, or you've got your Altaria and you're trying to to win the twos. But outside of that, Man's did not have a single answer for Shadow Town Flames.
00:14:05
William Dunphey
So I don't know. That's not like really pertinent, right? But I think that after you saw what Dunebug did in in Las Vegas and you saw what Inadequates did in Stuttgart, you have to be ready for Shadow Town Flames, especially going to Toronto and the rest of the of this season.
00:14:21
zzweilous
100 and also like one thing that i want to point out now that you mentioned mark drogalde's shadow altaria shadow altaria is a pokemon that we will see a little more often still when we look at the vegas bracket and i believe that the main reasoning behind using the shadow is the prevalence of unovan stunfisk because
00:14:27
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:14:41
zzweilous
Regular Altaria only does two damage per Dragon Breath against the Unovan Stunfisk, unless you go out of your way to choose an attack way to make something crazy happen.
00:14:51
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:14:52
zzweilous
But where regular Altaria loses all even shields and even has a chance to lose up a shield, um Shadow Altaria actually takes the zeros and forces Swab in the twos. So you have a lot more agency in that matchup if you run the Shadow and with how prevalent Unovan Stunfisk ended up being,
00:15:11
zzweilous
I can see why a lot of more seasoned players opted for the Shadow Artaria.
00:15:16
William Dunphey
I'm over here taking notes because that that was honestly kind of a mystery to me.
00:15:18
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:15:20
William Dunphey
I've heard trainers like Pocket and in some others, you know, kind of commentate on which version of Altaria they think is better. i know that there were some specific matchups involved, but I wasn't aware of of that particular one with the Sun Fist.
00:15:31
William Dunphey
So that's actually really good to know because if if the recent...
00:15:32
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:15:35
William Dunphey
tournaments are any indication. We're gonna be seeing a lot more Stunfisk, a lot more Altaria, a lot more Scizor, lot more Furret. In spite of the Precious Path season coming around, there really have been minimal changes, I would argue, to the overall meta.
00:15:48
William Dunphey
So, got to be ready for those matchups.
00:15:48
zzweilous
Yeah, there have been a lot of changes, but the changes that have been made made unusable Pokemon usable rather than that they would really shake up the meta in any too significant way.
00:16:03
zzweilous
um
00:16:03
William Dunphey
That's good point.
00:16:04
zzweilous
So yeah, but we shall get to that eventually. um i feel like it may already be Vegas time.
00:16:11
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think so. Again, with kind of a lack of a stream, there's not as much that we can cover with this, but congratulations, really. A warm congratulations to LNDS Arreo for taking his first gold medal.
00:16:22
William Dunphey
He said he told his chat that he was going to win a tournament this season, and boom, it happened almost immediately when he answered...
00:16:28
zzweilous
We love the confidence.
00:16:30
William Dunphey
in Buenos Aires.
Las Vegas Competitive Scene
00:16:30
William Dunphey
Hey, manifestation, right? there's ah There's a whole book on it called The Secret, right? You got to check that out. Just kidding, halfway. Kind of not kidding. But anyways, that was incredible tournament for Aureo. A rail um ah very good season for Zardy as well, finishing fourth place. I'm excited to see what he does going forward. Speaking of going forward, let's hop over the, I guess, over the continent north to Las Vegas. This was the first regional championship in Las Vegas that I have memory of. Maybe the first one ever. And it was incredible, ZZ. It was so much fun to go out to Vegas. ah
00:17:03
William Dunphey
What they say about the prices are true. the The incredible price to book an Uber, to buy a meal, to buy some clothes. It's insane over in Vegas. But we also had some really high-level competition.
00:17:19
zzweilous
Well, yeah, just win a tournament and the prizes will feel a lot less significant. and
Regionals in Exciting Cities
00:17:24
William Dunphey
Dinner's on Dunebug. That's what I heard.
00:17:24
zzweilous
wall yeah a And yeah, like who else would win a tournament that probably, i don't know whether this is the largest regional level championship we ever had, but it's certainly up there with 216 competitors.
00:17:41
zzweilous
And not only have the best of North America made their way to Las Vegas, but but also with the world champion Beelzeboy returned to the United States to, i think, run Malmetal or something.
00:17:53
zzweilous
I don't know whether he was like super competitive about it. He obviously, as the defending champion, has his Worlds in White locked in already. um But I guess he just wanted to have some fun. And like honestly, kudos to the Play Pokemon circuit to host a lot of regionals in cities that are a little more alluring than Peoria, Illinois.
00:18:17
zzweilous
um Because...
00:18:17
William Dunphey
The Peoria is like the punching bag we all.
00:18:19
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah. like
00:18:22
William Dunphey
But if you say something's awful, you're like, oh, Peoria, that's the one.
00:18:22
zzweilous
it's like It's like... It's like famous for being boring in a way.
Personal Regional Experiences
00:18:28
zzweilous
like i've I've never even been there. like My boring NA regional experience is Hartford, Connecticut.
00:18:35
zzweilous
like That is a ghost town.
00:18:35
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:18:37
zzweilous
A couple months after I went there, i got a YouTube recommendation of a video that um was essentially...
00:18:38
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:18:45
zzweilous
like about great American cities that decayed in recent decades. And it was like ah like a million views about the fall of Hartford, Connecticut. And honestly, there's truth to that.
00:18:55
William Dunphey
Oh,
00:18:58
zzweilous
The tournament was fun though.
00:18:59
William Dunphey
yes.
00:19:01
zzweilous
Like sometimes it's about the people and not necessarily about um the destination, but great if you have both, right?
00:19:09
William Dunphey
Yeah. Right.
00:19:11
zzweilous
And Vegas probably had both because it attracted a crowd.
00:19:15
William Dunphey
i have ah I have a very funny story kind of outside of the venue, right? Because to your point, you can go inside the venue, have the best time, but then when you walk outside and you're like, oh, what going to have for dinner? What are we going to do? The question arises, right? Especially if you're in a Hartford or Peoria. But I have a really funny anecdote. I've only told one other person this, right? So this is this is a Show 6 podcast exclusive. So it was Friday night before the tournament. I was walking across a crosswalk to go meet Amanda, Amanda Lundberg, one of our casters. We were going to talk about the commentary for the weekend, what we wanted to do, that kind of thing. So I'm crossing this this crosswalk.
00:19:54
William Dunphey
Middle of the night is probably like, and don't know, eight o'clock or so. And I just choose to to walk across this particular path. And I see somebody coming from the opposite direction coming towards me.
00:20:07
William Dunphey
I'm kind of, oh, looks like a guy. he looks pretty tall, actually. ah Do I know this person right? Sometimes when you're at a Pokemon event, you might say, oh, well that's Swylus or that's you know ah Jingles or whoever, you know whatever friend.
00:20:21
William Dunphey
Coming towards me, i notice it's Beezle Boy. Just like two ships passing in the night. I had no idea that he was going to be out here. No idea. I guess he was going back to his hotel. but I said, I saw him. And as soon as I realized it, I said, oh my God, it's Beasel boy. It's the world champ. And I shook his hand and we both just kept on walking. And he said, oh, hi. And we just kept walking.
00:20:42
William Dunphey
And that was it.
00:20:42
zzweilous
I love that. not That's the entire interaction.
00:20:44
William Dunphey
That was it.
00:20:44
zzweilous
And I also i also want to i also want to think, like, my headcanon is that this happens to Beelzebub like seven times a day.
00:20:45
William Dunphey
Like, it's because, because.
00:20:53
zzweilous
And this is just like one of the interactions.
00:20:56
William Dunphey
Yeah, no, seriously, good because we met at like the middle of the crosswalk and there were three lanes of traffic. So if we would have stopped to talk, we would have been run over, right, if we would have done that. So we said hi and then passed and then saw him the next day for the event.
00:21:10
William Dunphey
So, yeah, that was that was a a really cool little moment. And you always wonder, like, who am I going to bump into when I'm at one of these events?
00:21:15
zzweilous
This is honestly like the vibe that you get a lot at internationals or worlds-level events where worlds collide, where like you expect like to see somebody such as Doonbug or Rise to Occasion at one of these events in North America, right?
00:21:19
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:21:29
zzweilous
Because there are so many of these, but all of a sudden you have Beelzebaw from India, maybe...
00:21:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:21:36
zzweilous
at Worlds or an international, you all of a sudden bump into Raj F and
Creative Player Strategies
00:21:41
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:21:41
zzweilous
it's like, oh, this is like a little micro celebrity from my bubble that I didn't quite expect.
00:21:46
zzweilous
And also like kind of a friend, acquaintance-ish type of person. Let's just say hi, let's just shake hands, talk about the game or about life for a little bit and then just go ways and randomly bump into each other again in this place that is also kind of a touristy destination.
00:21:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:22:02
zzweilous
And Just overall a very fun, serendipitous time.
00:22:07
William Dunphey
Yeah, there's always this this big difference, right? When you're in a convention hall around a ton of people, you know, like, oh, well, i you know I see Elam over there on that side, or I'm looking over here. Colin's standing over there talking with this group. it's It's always different, that setting, compared to actually just having like a one-on-one, just random, you know, you bump into each other in line waiting for food, or you bump into each other when you're walking on the street. It's definitely a very, very different feeling, but a very warm one, I would say. um But ZZ was not joking. ah It looks like Beansleboy did bring Melmetal to Las Vegas, which is an incredible thing. Melmetal, Gastrodon, Furret, Cradilly, a best buddy, Galarian Corsula, and an Altaria. But as we know, being the world champion, he's already qualified for next year. So he's she's just messing around.
00:22:53
zzweilous
yeah yes here's the license to run down that line one of these
00:22:56
William Dunphey
ah Yeah, he can run whatever the hell he wants, right? He's he's the world champ. But ah sorry to get a sidetrack there. Let's go ahead and talk about our top cut, our meta, some things that surprised us, some things that kind of stood out. I do think that Sceptile Ice piloting his trusty Feraligatr to a top eight finish is always noteworthy. That's always impressive. Firestar with Shadow Mighty Yenna, which I thought was really cool. Then we had Trent playing Fortress. I've got to shout out Fortress as well as Puffleguy.
00:23:25
William Dunphey
playing that bug and steal type. Rise Occasion, Shadow Dust Noir, and then Rockhaven in third place with Bastion on. did i Did I take all the good ones or is there any else any other teams you want to point out?
00:23:36
zzweilous
There's honestly like so many good ones in there. Like the whole Rockhaven storyline was really fun because the two previous tournaments in North America were won by a Bastiodon.
00:23:47
zzweilous
So at the end, you only had Rice and Dunebug left, which is always a storyline because Those are just the rivals of the play Pokémon scene.
00:23:53
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:23:56
zzweilous
And then you still have Rockhaven, who not only is called Rock, but he also was famously bringing Carbing to one of his very first regionals, where he also made at least a top-eight finish.
00:24:05
William Dunphey
Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:24:10
zzweilous
And now he's back at it with a very polarizing, but also very potent pick, and partnering it with Gudra, which is essentially the opposite.
00:24:10
William Dunphey
easy
00:24:19
zzweilous
Super flexible, doesn't win anything hard, but just gives you that like that maneuverability in and out of matchups that Bastille doesn't really have as much.
00:24:30
zzweilous
um So that was really fun to follow along, like rooting for that anti-hero, making it all the way. want to stress that Puffleguy, I think that was Puffleguy's first tournament, immediately making it to Day 2.
00:24:46
zzweilous
And the Quagsire, the Shadow Quagsire that we see on the team, I think it ran Water Gunn. which is also something that we see sometimes as a tag in like a GBL-themed cup, but not really on the regional stage ever.
00:24:52
William Dunphey
It did.
00:24:58
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:24:59
zzweilous
And top-cutting with that, about as impressive as Enhoff with her shadow Auroras, which also made top 16, and certainly bolstered Hoff's hopes of qualifying yet again for the World Championships this year.
00:25:15
William Dunphey
It's really funny because if you go to PV poke and you put in, you know, the core four that we keep talking about the Altaria, the, you know, a stun Fisk, uh, the scissor, my mind is blanking on the fourth one for it.
00:25:27
William Dunphey
Yeah. If you put, if you put those four into the, uh, to the simulator and you look for across the open great league, what some of the best counters are Aurora's actually does come up beating three out of four, of course, losing badly to scissor. Uh, it comes up with a similar performance to something like a little, the nine tails. So, To see Anna bring this Shadow Auroras was really, really cool. And I do think she connected a couple of Meteor Beams as well, which is always super satisfying.
00:25:52
zzweilous
to send this is just so fun to Like, see the little dino on the graphic.
Dune vs. Ryze Rivalry
00:25:57
zzweilous
like you always This is like half of why I really enjoy bringing Spice to tournaments.
00:26:04
zzweilous
How does the Dracovus sprite look? Because you don't know until you have the Pokémon on there. And there it is.
00:26:10
William Dunphey
It's true.
00:26:11
zzweilous
um So yeah, always always big shout-outs to everybody who dares to bring the unusual stuff to these events. And yeah, probably onto something with the Ice types.
00:26:24
zzweilous
as we will see later on in Stuttgart. But before that is going to be on the menu, I feel like there's still a lot of Vegas to cover because this is Dune vs.
00:26:33
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:26:36
zzweilous
Rise, the 12th edition, kind of, sort of.
00:26:41
zzweilous
I alluded to it in the intro, but we do have a tweet from Rise to Occasion who claims that now it's 6-6 between the two.
00:26:41
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:26:45
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:26:49
zzweilous
I don't know whether that just means encounters... at a tournament or like sets of like either best of threes, best of fives or um so like the exact metric um escapes me right now.
00:27:02
zzweilous
But these two have been added so many times and given their respective profiles, typically in high stakes situations as well, like a grand final, for example.
00:27:14
William Dunphey
Exactly. i think, was it, I'm trying to remember if it was Arlington or if it was San Antonio, one of the Texas tournaments, we we kind of, as casters, we dubbed it the Tangle in Texas.
00:27:27
William Dunphey
And we're trying to think of more fun names to call these different clashes. I i don't know if we have one yet for Las Vegas, but maybe we'll think of one. ah But Ry's actually, sorry, go ahead.
00:27:35
zzweilous
Let me check.
00:27:38
zzweilous
then Let me check whether I have something in my notes. I know that I thought about it.
00:27:41
William Dunphey
Okay. Okay.
00:27:41
zzweilous
I don't know whether I came up with something. I may have i' may have just blanked on it.
00:27:46
William Dunphey
the the rundown The rundown roulette.
00:27:46
zzweilous
I probably blanked on it. There's a lot of... thing
00:27:49
William Dunphey
I don't know. um No, but Ryze actually messaged me actually probably just 10 minutes ago now. He says that 6-6 is correct. He says, one more interesting thing that we can talk about is that Dune and I have each won a grand finals against each other now. I've beaten Dune twice en route to a championship, and he's beaten me three times en route to a championship. So...
00:28:12
William Dunphey
we I joked with Marto and Harjef about when those two face in Latam, whoever wins that series tends to win the whole tournament. And they've actually like taken turns going back and forth doing this.
Doubles Tournament Speculation
00:28:22
William Dunphey
And it seems like Rise and Dune are almost like similar, right? If they get past each other, then it's almost like a clear runway to to gold.
00:28:32
zzweilous
I wonder whether we should, okay, this is just like me spitballing here, but what if we had like a doubles type of tournament?
00:28:36
William Dunphey
All right.
00:28:39
zzweilous
I know there have been grassroots events like that. I know like Matai and Netiquins once hosted the Muddy Cup. The Muddy Cup was themed around Quagsire and Clothsire, and one player had to run a Quagsire team, the other had to run a Clothsire team.
00:28:55
William Dunphey
I love that.
00:28:55
zzweilous
And this was like a two-on-two. And I wonder, like if we had that as like a grassroots tournament. Who would be the most potent teams of two?
00:29:07
zzweilous
I feel like Ryze and Dune, if they decided to team up and join forces?
00:29:07
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:29:11
zzweilous
Just about the scariest sight to see if you're in a bracket wondering who to go up against next. Like, those two, I don't know how many medals they have between each other.
00:29:19
William Dunphey
Yeah, they would they would be insane.
00:29:23
William Dunphey
Yeah, I could see. i don't know. we maybe We can think of some other fun duos. Maybe we should like host this tournament and recruit folks. What about Colin and Emmy Weedle as a pair?
00:29:34
William Dunphey
That would be insane.
00:29:34
zzweilous
oh that's like a tea and pizza type of pairing i see it i see the vision
00:29:36
William Dunphey
Exactly. we could do Pato and Paulasha. That would be insane too as a duo. I don't know.
00:29:43
zzweilous
oh yeah oh yeah if it's like a national team type of deal that could also be like everybody is like wondering who the best dutch battler is maybe not so much anymore after this past tournament but like if we had like a colon and adequate pairing that would be pretty pretty strong
00:29:46
William Dunphey
Ooh.
00:30:00
William Dunphey
Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness. All right. We might be cooking here, everybody. Sorry sorry to get off track, but ah yeah, I agree.
00:30:05
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:30:07
William Dunphey
The the Dune and Rise rivalry goes all the way back to 2022 when everyone was still wearing masks and we were still coming out of the pandemic. This is going to be a thing as long as as the both of those traders are competing.
00:30:18
William Dunphey
So I can't wait to see what happens next. But I will say... In the grand finals, excuse me, let's take one step back. ah Rise actually sent Doonbug down to the loser side bracket in the winner's finals, beating him three to one.
00:30:33
William Dunphey
Doonbug then had to overcome his opponent Rockhaven, which he did in a nail biter of a game number five before asc sending it to the grand finals.
Primeape's Meta Effectiveness
00:30:41
William Dunphey
Now, what I found interesting about this grand finals was on paper, it looks like Dune just has an incredible team comp advantage.
00:30:49
William Dunphey
And I think that he kind of figured this out over time. It was obviously not gradual, having lost the first set grand finals. He only won game number five. to to seal it.
00:31:00
William Dunphey
But then in the grand finals reset, DuneVeg actually won 3-0. So don't know if you've shared the same sentiment, but I actually heard a rumor that Ryze after the tournament said that he was just happy to play it as close as he did because he did feel that the team comp disadvantage was that massive.
00:31:18
zzweilous
I think like one thing that makes it really difficult for Rise is just that Shadow Primate. um
00:31:25
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:31:26
zzweilous
I'm honestly like super happy. Like I didn't really have a horse in the race between Dune and Rise. respect both of them a lot. And I was just like rooting for a good show. But I was kind of happy to see Primate win because Primate would have been my meta call for that weekend specifically because it,
00:31:45
zzweilous
it's a fighting type that can beat flying types.
00:31:48
zzweilous
And I was thinking Ice Punch for the Altarias, and Dune actually did face quite a lot of Altarias and dispose of them pretty handily on his way to the grand finals. But a flyer that Primabe is even stronger against than against an Altaria is the Sucker Punching Gallerian Moltres on Ryze's team.
00:31:49
William Dunphey
isn
00:32:08
zzweilous
So the Gallerian Moltres didn't come out at all in the grand finals, and that just gave Dune so much freedom for his own Galarian Colsela to roam free, for his Shadow Talonflame to roam free, and like the pressure that came from that Primape, and also the Primape was very bringable.
00:32:27
zzweilous
The only real answers, like quote-unquote answers, were Florgis and like maybe if you play the fast move game with um Shadow Dusknor or Gastrodon, but it's not like, oh, I have this
00:32:32
William Dunphey
Florgis.
00:32:38
William Dunphey
Dustamore.
00:32:44
zzweilous
Dominant counterswap that really scares the prime ape away. like That's just not really the case, especially with how volatile a flogist can be against a team that features like a credily that may feasibly come, a shadowed talonflame that obviously you now have chilling water for it, but still you don't really love to be in that matchup as much.
00:33:07
William Dunphey
Yep. yep
00:33:07
zzweilous
um And just like not as convincing in in neutral situations either. so I see how how ri felt as if he was a a little bit on the back foot because without that Moltres, the Galarian Corsola was just really a big problem and just so safe for Dune.
00:33:26
zzweilous
um But one thing that I will say about the team that Ryze brought to this to this encounter is that Gastrodon was kind of like a ah wedge that he could bring into essentially every situation as well because
00:33:43
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:33:44
zzweilous
The only true answer to Gastron on Dune's team would be the Cridilly, but that may just be an answer in theory because it is very bait dependent if you counter swap the Cridilly. Like if you're not on even energy immediately, you will be pressed either get a Grassnut through a shield or successfully bait with a Rock Tomb and lower the Gastron's attack.
00:34:13
zzweilous
Otherwise, one water pulse will be enough to essentially have the Cridillion slap down range.
00:34:19
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:34:19
zzweilous
And that is not where you want to be necessarily. So there was some neutrality to be had. I don't think these were RPS grand finals by any means, because both trainers essentially had this neutral Pokemon. May it be the Galarian Corsula, which was just really well protected and therefore didn't really have to fear the Moldris, or the Gastron, which only really had the credibly to quote unquote fear but i don't even believe the credibly came from doing side so really a lot of a lot of neutral a lot of like like unpredictable matchups i want to say because you rarely ever knew what was going to happen based on the lead matchup alone which was pretty enjoyable to see as a spectator
00:34:49
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
Dune's Mastery and Achievements
00:35:08
William Dunphey
I remember commentating that with Amanda and I just kept on asking like, when is rise going to make that really risky call? What is he going to just send out that Galarian Corsula capture that, excuse me, send out the glare and multrice to capture the glaring Corsula and then just try to RPS, right? Just try to just grind out a win however he can, because you can, you could feel it right and in the venue on stage. You could feel his momentum kind of slipping away from him.
00:35:36
William Dunphey
Uh, Dunebug winning the first two games rise evening, the series, uh, with two wins and then falling in that, that game five of the grand finals was tough. Uh, you're exactly right. Because when you look at the teams here from Dunebug, he played a lot of Wigglytuff, a lot of Galarian Corsa, a lot of Shadow Primate and Unova Stunfisk. Uh, and then occasionally the Shadow Townflame.
00:35:54
William Dunphey
He brought the Townflame out in games three, four, and five. of the grand finals. And he also brought it out in game one of the reset. But there's not a single instance of Cradily. And I think a big reason for that is because Ryze did have dynamic punch Shadow Dust Noir. He did have Empoleon.
00:36:10
William Dunphey
And he did have, like you said, that that matchup with the Gastron is not always clean. And then your Florges even is not awful either. So... Ryze did play Florges. I think he played it one time and lost that game.
00:36:23
William Dunphey
That was game number two in the grand finals.
00:36:24
zzweilous
yeah
00:36:26
William Dunphey
So tough sledding for Ryze. And you would think that after coming that close to a win, having all this pressure on his shoulders, right? Everyone everyone else in the room is saying, oh, is Ryze going to keep his streak alive?
00:36:37
William Dunphey
Is he going to win another event? Is he going to continue his run? Does that mean that he's not the same player he was if he doesn't win? Everyone in the room is saying that. And then you talk to Ryze off camera after the the series, after the grand finals, and he says, yeah, man, I was actually pretty happy. I'm just glad that I kept it close. I had a pretty tough team comp and Dune's really good. So I'm glad that it was a good series and that we had fun.
00:37:01
William Dunphey
Which...
00:37:02
zzweilous
Yeah, Reiss also just strikes me as a pretty introspective dude and I'm pretty sure he's very well aware of how much of a privilege the so-called pressure to keep the streak alive is because he's the only person to be able to keep such a streak alive.
00:37:20
zzweilous
He's the only person to have won a championship in every single season and that alone
00:37:20
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:37:24
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:37:25
zzweilous
Like that just should fill you with so much confidence that like you've already cemented your place in history because nobody matched your feet. If it ends, it ends. Still a great tournament.
00:37:37
zzweilous
And also you're like the turn the season isn't even half over and you've already reached a grand final in a 216 people tournament.
00:37:42
William Dunphey
Exactly.
00:37:46
zzweilous
That just should have you very confident for what's yet to come in this season. And yeah, I don't know. i don't know what this tournament really saw like a winner and a loser rather than a bunch of winners, honestly, because I think it was just like one of the best shows I've seen in like a play Pokemon tournament like this because it was close, right?
00:38:00
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:38:11
zzweilous
It was not one-sided. It had a record reset after already being like a grudge match. And I want to ask you one question that's like a little less...
00:38:22
zzweilous
like a little more granular, but also not really factual, but a little more and emotional.
00:38:24
William Dunphey
sure
00:38:28
zzweilous
In the very first game of the grand finals, Dune makes two decisions. He plays out the zeros with his weekly tough against Ryze's Gastrodron, survives on one HP, comes out with an ice event.
00:38:42
zzweilous
Later, he lets a shadow punch from Shadow Dusknoir on his Galarian Corsula Go, and survives on one HP.
00:38:55
zzweilous
Do you think Dune knew this for a fact? Or do you think Dune just has a sixth sense for damage ranges and just figured that that was what's going to happen?
00:39:12
William Dunphey
Is there a way to to just say both? Right? To say that both things can be simultaneously true, right? So,
00:39:19
zzweilous
yeah I think both of this can be true, but what informed these decisions?
00:39:23
William Dunphey
yeah. So I know that Rise and Dune are not on the same grassroots team, and I don't know how often they actually scrim against each other. I'm sure they do occasionally, but I don't know if they scrim to the degree that they would know each other's individual Pokemon damage calculations to that to that level. So I'm going to go with with the option that Dunebug just has a six cents for damage for damaged calcs. He just is a freak of nature in that way. One of my favorite facts about Dunebug, and I think I've said this once or twice before, is that you can ask him any combination of moves, and he will just tell you immediately what the energy cost would be. He would say, for example, you say, how many psi waves to giga impact?
00:40:06
William Dunphey
And he would immediately be able to tell you. right This is a trainer who can can kind of see through the matrix like Neo. And I think that he he thinks the damage calculation is in the same way. Whereas a lot of us would just go through the motions with our Go Battle League battles and say, oh, well, that did a lot of damage. Oh, I lost this game. oh I won this game. He's like recording everything.
00:40:25
William Dunphey
Record button is always turned on when it comes to Doom Bug's brain. And I do think that those two 1HP survives, I have those noted as well. And I think he does another 1HP survive later on in the series to just kind of cement that this was not a one-off.
00:40:37
zzweilous
I think he repeats the Gastro-Wigley-Tough matchup and it just plays out the same way.
00:40:40
William Dunphey
Yes. Yes. Exactly. so So it proves that not only did he make the calculation and that he knew he would he would survive it, but he doubles down and he just does it the same way again. And having the confidence right to just go ahead and play it played out the same way and not deviate from your strategy, I think is really important. So yeah, I would say my answer is Dunebug is a robot. He knows the damage calculations. He knows the counts. And he had no fear at all because robots don't feel fear.
00:41:12
zzweilous
Introducing the Dune bot now with new and improved damage calculations.
00:41:13
William Dunphey
Dunebot 97. Exactly. Hmm. Hmm.
00:41:17
zzweilous
um
00:41:18
William Dunphey
exactly
00:41:18
zzweilous
So my personal theory is that Dune simped this matchup, like not necessarily the matchup against Ryze's team, but against some common Pokemon that he may encounter, maybe even between day one and day two, um and then knew exactly like, How many Astonishes plus a Shadow Punch can I survive to still get my move off?
00:41:43
zzweilous
How can I play out the Gastron matchup with my Wigglytuff? Like, how many moves can I take and still come out with an attack without having to throw it?
00:41:54
zzweilous
I feel as if the way he nodded when those 1 HP survives happened, that made me feel as if he had planned that, as if that was not just like, a happy coincidence that he willed into existence by virtue of being dune bug i think this man is man knows while being a magician but like those were certainly moments that that stood out from that series just like my notes say dune's super strength match up knowledge because you need to know what your pokemon can do sometimes you even choose your individual values based on what you want your Pokemon to do.
00:42:10
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:42:34
zzweilous
Maybe you need a little more HP, maybe you need a little more defense, maybe you need a little more attack. Yeah, it can can swinging swing anyway. Sometimes also depends on the values of your opponent's Pokemon.
00:42:45
zzweilous
You probably didn't know the exact values of Rises.
00:42:46
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:42:48
zzweilous
um But yeah, it certainly worked out for him. And yeah, another not a note that I made for, i think it was the decisive game in how like this how this is not RPS at all.
00:43:05
zzweilous
um oh Oh yeah, that that was not actually the decisive game. This was the game that led to the reset because the game that led to the reset, game five of the initial series, it starts with Ryze leading Gastrodon into Unolan Stunfisk.
00:43:21
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:43:21
zzweilous
So you would think, okay, if he just keeps alignment, he probably closes out this series right here. But not only um and do we see another instance of Galarian Corsula being super important for Duneburg in that it doesn't really have a clear answer. He, like, Rize can only chip it and go into his Dusk Noir.
00:43:47
zzweilous
But he has to go down a shield to keep alignment. And that shield that shield advantage is all that Shadow Talonflame in the back needs to sweep this game for Duneburg.
00:43:59
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:44:00
zzweilous
Crucially, Dune takes out Ryze's Empoleon in the endgame with a fly after initially having a Flame Charge shielded. And that is so important because even though Empoleon was still at like half health, um he needed to throw that 45 energy move to then get to um his next fly in time to outpace the Gastron that was still alive on Ryze's side.
00:44:26
zzweilous
If he didn't trust his damage calculation there, and through the neutral flame charge instead of the resisted fly, he would have needed more than the 140 energy that he generated from all the incinerates he did to get to a third attack, and probably would have lost the game and the tournament right there.
00:44:45
zzweilous
So again, just confidence in your matchup knowledge, and yeah, after that, the reset, little more one-sided, but still a great fight overall.
00:44:49
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:44:57
William Dunphey
That's such a good point. I have it in my notes as well. Dunebug throws one Thundershock, then swaps to Glaring Corsola. Ryze, his Dust Noir, lives on 1 HP to get a dynamic punch off against the Unova Stunfisk. And then Dune Shadow Talon sweeps with a Flame Charge Fly Fly combination. So ah speaking of 1 HP survives, I have in my notes that game 5, Ryze's Shadow Dust Noir lives with 1 And then again in game three of the reset, his one HP Dustin war survives after a nightshade, which allows him to get one more charge attack as well. So there were one HP survives on both sides, right? Whether it would be Dune or rise, just a, just a testament to how close these trainers are. But I really appreciate that you pointed that out because you're right. I saw him throw the flame charge and I was like, man,
00:45:43
William Dunphey
and Polion obviously being a steel type is going to resist the fly. So you need to boost yourself up just a little bit. And he does that he's able to close that out with Talon. And at after that, after that game five of the grand finals, you could really feel that rises on the back foot and kind of no matter what happened next, this felt like Dunebugs tournament to win. so Very well played by him. Rise did his best. I do think there were a couple of team comp things that were tough to overcome, but he's an incredible player, and I'm sure that he'll find his way back to another grand finals pretty soon. Like you said, we're not even halfway done with the the season. I know that Rise has a bunch of tournaments he's probably probably planning to attend. And Dunebug, I think he just became, if he wasn't already, he became the all-time winningest competitor in the championship series for Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go Competitive Challenges
00:46:30
zzweilous
i wonder who's second would it be like probably like somebody from latam right maybe mato or rajiv
00:46:38
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think it would have to be. but I think that was his sixth gold medal, if I'm not mistaken.
00:46:44
zzweilous
that is that's just insane especially because like i don't know like there's obviously not a clear hierarchy of difficulty between regions but i feel as if whenever
00:46:46
William Dunphey
ah
00:46:58
zzweilous
Dune takes one of those gold medals. It's also like one of the biggest tournaments of all time. Like I remember Monterey, now Vegas.
00:47:05
William Dunphey
True.
00:47:07
zzweilous
It always feels like it's just so difficult, but the higher the difficulty, the better the Duneberg apparently.
00:47:15
William Dunphey
Exactly. Second place at EUIC, which was ah a huge tournament. And I think that even San Antonio back when he fell to losers in round two, I think even San Antonio back then was a big tournament.
00:47:26
William Dunphey
So, uh,
00:47:27
zzweilous
Yeah, I feel like only the very best trainers get second place at EOIC.
00:47:33
William Dunphey
Yes, I would agree. The very best, you know. But, um yeah, I'm excited to see what Dunebug does next. I'm excited to see what other second place EUIC finishers do next, especially with the whole um of next year rolling around here very shortly. But...
00:47:49
zzweilous
yeah
00:47:49
William Dunphey
Dunbug was wildly impressive. In our top eight, right, we had so many stack trainers. We can't even talk about the top 16. We had Rockhaven, Out of Pocket, It's Axon, Set Tide Lice, Ash Nash, and Nighttime Clasher to round out our top eight.
00:48:02
William Dunphey
And if anything, that eighth place finished by Nighttime Clasher is almost like ah a prelude to what is is to come next for him.
00:48:09
zzweilous
Yeah, like honestly, the entire fifth to eighth bracket from Vegas, I feel as if Septalize and Ash Nash, those are like the two names that would feel like next in line for a big win.
00:48:10
William Dunphey
Then we had All.
00:48:13
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:48:25
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:48:25
zzweilous
Whereas with Axon, we had the storyline from am having like won everything, a tough one and a half years, and now finally achieving top level consistency again.
00:48:36
zzweilous
And then all the way at the bottom of the graphic from fifth to eight Nighttime Clasher just lurking, just watching and waiting for his moment.
00:48:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, which actually did come pretty soon after this one. So I'm really excited.
00:48:51
zzweilous
Just a week after, in fact.
00:48:52
William Dunphey
Just a week, right? And in in a different meta too, which is also really important to point out.
00:48:57
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:48:58
William Dunphey
um I don't know if there's much else that we should add to Vegas. I'm really ah happy with how the tournament went. I know we had some technical issues towards the end of the tournament, um but I'm glad we got those sorted out.
00:49:11
William Dunphey
I'm glad we got a champion in Dunebug. And yeah, it was great. I hope we go back to Vegas. even Even though it was expensive, I hope we go back.
00:49:16
zzweilous
Yeah, it certainly appeared to be a fan favorite location. And yeah, um certainly congratulations to all the trainers for their incredible results. And now the question would be, do we move on to sao Paulo or do we move on to Stuttgart to close out the regional level competitions first?
00:49:38
William Dunphey
Hmm. One more thing I'll say before we move on from Vegas. I almost forgot. Before I went to Vegas to commentate, you and I talked about Primeape being a potential core breaker.
00:49:50
William Dunphey
And I did include it on my caster predictions. And I did verbally credit you as well for for giving me the idea.
00:49:53
zzweilous
Oh.
00:49:59
zzweilous
I do appreciate that.
00:50:00
William Dunphey
i guess i guess we worked together on the idea because we both kind of arrived at the same conclusion independently.
Stuttgart Regional Highlights
00:50:04
William Dunphey
But I trust your opinion more as a competitor than my own. So... Yeah, I absolutely had to give you your flowers there because shadow primate was impressive. Um, how about we do this? How about we stay on the shadow town flame train and we go to shoot guard and we talk about a trainer who played it even better than doing bug did.
00:50:23
zzweilous
Yeah, let's do it. um And that trainer is no other than Team Galactic bo boss Cyrus, apparently. i saw a tweet and I didn't recognize the guy from our championship circuit at first, but I think he played a pretty significant role in the Sinnoh game.
00:50:30
William Dunphey
Correct.
00:50:39
zzweilous
So yeah, that guy that guy took first place, I think.
00:50:40
William Dunphey
Agreed.
00:50:44
William Dunphey
I actually, so um I'm going to scroll here while I talk. I actually want to see how many likes that post is up to because I thought it was something like 20,000 or 30,000 likes
00:50:55
zzweilous
The likes are one thing.
00:50:55
William Dunphey
on that one post
00:50:56
zzweilous
i want to see the impressions because we may be past 2 million at this
00:51:03
William Dunphey
Oh goodness. Okay. I like a lot of things on, uh, on X formerly known as Twitter. So I'm trying to find this, but yeah.
00:51:11
zzweilous
here let's see what that impacts.
00:51:12
William Dunphey
So,
00:51:12
zzweilous
Oh, 1.7 million views. Okay.
00:51:15
William Dunphey
Oh, you found it. Okay. Perfect.
00:51:17
zzweilous
And 5.6 thousand likes. But maybe there's like a quote tweet that's even... more like liked more than the original play pokemon yeah i think the like the most liked tweet is actually a quote tweet whereas the impressions count for the original tweet as well as all the quote tweets
00:51:32
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:51:38
William Dunphey
Oh, yeah. Here we go. This is another good one. This is a quote tweet from, trying to think of how to say this, or just lakes underscore nebula. It's not a big account, right? Only 822 followers. um They're a TCG player.
00:51:54
William Dunphey
And they quote tweeted, play Pokemon, and said in all caps, Did this MF-er come dressed as Cyrus and then win with four question marks? 48,000 likes, almost 2,000 bookmarks, almost 4,000 retweets. And looks like it has almost a million impressions.
00:52:13
zzweilous
Pokemon Goa hasn't gotten this viral since 2016. That's my opening opinion.
00:52:17
William Dunphey
Yeah, I mean, to to to I was just going to say to your point, this is super important that that Pokemon Go is elevated more to a a stage akin to TCG or VG and that more people take note of the game.
00:52:19
zzweilous
But yeah, you go ahead.
00:52:34
William Dunphey
And I think that something like this that Martyn did cosplaying as Cyrus, just it breaks the fourth wall. It breaks a lot of those barriers and it puts Pokemon Go on the map for a lot of people that probably aren't even aware that we have a championship series.
00:52:49
William Dunphey
So this is really huge for us as a community and of course, a really big deal from our time.
00:52:50
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:52:54
zzweilous
This is it is much better if the TCG and VG and just general a Pokemon fans see Pokemon Go as a competitive game in which stuff like this happens rather than this one meme where the grandmas tap the screen in the casino, because I have seen that way too many times when people who didn't know the game talked about the game.
00:53:19
zzweilous
And now they will just think about the Giratina guy who came dressed as Cyrus.
00:53:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:53:24
zzweilous
And I think that is a big step up. And I am thankful to Martijn for that.
00:53:28
William Dunphey
Yeah. That's a huge upgrade. I think I saw a screenshot of the message. I forget who he was talking to, but he said, if I make day two, I'm going to cosplay as Cyrus again. And they were like, okay, bet.
00:53:39
William Dunphey
And, uh, turns out it worked out. Right. But, um, what incredible run by him. i do want to spend a little time on the top cut before we get into grand finals. This feels like like PvP David's meta and we're all just living in it, right?
00:53:53
William Dunphey
There's a lot of stun Fisk, a lot of Furret, a lot of Shadow Cisor.
00:53:54
zzweilous
okay
00:53:58
William Dunphey
And then you have Stone Collection who plays Bellybolt. So there's that.
00:54:04
zzweilous
Honestly, the jump love is almost more crazy after the aerial ace nerf, but...
00:54:08
William Dunphey
True. True. Very talented trainers here in our top cut, including Kashtan FR, who basically has, I think that is PvP David's team, if I'm not mistaken.
00:54:20
William Dunphey
They might just have one piece different.
00:54:20
zzweilous
Yeah. I think it is exactly the team.
00:54:23
William Dunphey
Yeah, ah you got Zephymastics bringing the Latam Galarian Moltres. You've got Cookshack playing Zylus, which I know that you're definitely a fan of. Freaka with Spidoffs and Shadow Charizard. Seeing that on stream was really cool.
00:54:37
William Dunphey
But I wanted to to let you talk about Udin's team because this one I thought was super interesting.
00:54:44
zzweilous
It is double Fox. Like obviously it has some staples like, you know, when Stunfist, Gausteron, Galarine, Kosola, Shadow Talonflame, but behind that, behind that pretty mundane exterior, two Foxes lie. And one of them is the icy Fox that actually ended up taking the entire tournament in the hands of Inadequance.
00:55:06
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:55:06
zzweilous
And that is Alolan Ninetales. But the other Fox is one that is very, near and dear to my heart because I was a big Thievo believer um even ahead of the Vegas weekend.
00:55:18
zzweilous
um What Thievo does is it is a Sucker Puncher with a fairly comparable stat product to a Pokemon like Furrid.
00:55:19
William Dunphey
yes
00:55:28
zzweilous
So little bit middle of the pack but certainly can tank a hit. um It has the 10 turn pacing that is so coveted. um Not too swift to like with Furrid but too Night Slash instead.
00:55:39
William Dunphey
Exactly.
00:55:42
zzweilous
um And then it has player up for coverage, which occasionally comes up but isn't as important. um And what the Thievul does that Furret doesn't really do is, first of all, it wins the head-to-head between Furret and Thievul, those Pokémon that are fairly similar.
00:56:00
zzweilous
The one that has Stab on his own sucker punches and resists the opposing sucker punches will come out ahead.
00:56:06
William Dunphey
exactly
00:56:06
zzweilous
And then it also has like an even better Shadow-Sizzle matchup because you would resist the night slashes, they have to go for trailblazers. um Again, you also always benefit from that extra stab.
00:56:20
zzweilous
um You have um a better, a way better Corviknight matchup actually, because you actually can throw neutral charge attacks at it rather than resisted ones.
00:56:32
zzweilous
And overall, it's just so funny if the boost pops off because it's pretty cheap to get to. And once you have
00:56:39
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:56:40
zzweilous
two-stage boosted stabs, sucker punches, that kind of goes wild. um So, yeah, that was a very interesting choice. And we did see Odin play both Foxes quite a lot, actually.
00:56:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:56:54
zzweilous
um And I know that he team-built together with Martijn, which is why we see some similarities on the teams, even though they are still pretty distinct and have their own character. But I feel like the Alolan Ninetales was kind of the...
00:57:10
zzweilous
the Matai and Reed of the meta that then also helped the other Fox or Nodans team shine a little more.
00:57:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:57:18
zzweilous
Because, yeah, this was the Alolan Ninetales show, specifically because of the PvP David team. um
00:57:26
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:57:27
zzweilous
You have the Unovan Stunfisk, which absolutely doesn't want to see Alolan Ninetales. You have Altaria. Nightmare matchup, even though you now have Flamethrower, but try and get to that with, like,
00:57:39
zzweilous
weatherball spam from a Bouda store.
00:57:41
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:57:43
zzweilous
And then you also have Furret. And Furret is like the Pokemon of the hour, kind of. um But it has a miserable Nightjales matchup because not only are the Sucker Punches resistant, it also gets outpaced and outbored.
00:58:02
zzweilous
So that's a lot of factors that don't really play in favor of the Furret. Now, Martijn is obviously not one not only one of our not only one of our best competitors, um not only one of our best content creators, go check out his Stuttgart video, um but he's also very diligent when it comes to noting down what his Pokemon actually did in that um tournament.
00:58:21
William Dunphey
So good.
00:58:32
zzweilous
And he only brought the Shadow Giratina twice, and he only brought the Gastrodon twice. And now I want to ask you Speedy, why are these two Pokemon not coming out more?
00:58:45
zzweilous
I think there's a very clear cut answer, but I want to play the ball back to you for this.
00:58:50
William Dunphey
I was taking a timestamp so I could put this graphic into the YouTube version when we upload it. You said gastrodon and what was the second Pokemon that didn't show up very much?
00:58:59
zzweilous
Gastrodon and Giratina only appeared twice, whereas
00:59:02
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:59:03
zzweilous
Like the most used Pokemon was Ninetales, which came out 13 times.
00:59:07
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:59:07
zzweilous
Shadowtown and Flame came out 11 times. And then we have Empoleon with nine and Ferret with eight times.
00:59:12
William Dunphey
Yes. so So I will tell you that the Alola Ninetales usage, um for all the reasons you just laid out, is such an incredible core breaker for the three of the top four, I would say, of the current meta. um Martijn told me that his Alola Ninetales, the majority of its KOs,
00:59:30
William Dunphey
was was probably ah against a Furret, right? He was always knocking out Furret. He knew that matchup inside and out, and he knew that he could bank a Weatherball. He knew how much to overcharge. He knew that Trailblaze plus Swift was preferable to double Swift, for example. So he knew that matchup inside and out.
00:59:47
William Dunphey
um Now, you asked about why Gastrodon and why the Shadow Giratina did not show up. Well, that's because Shadow Giratina... as a whole is inherently not that good in in the current meta.
01:00:01
William Dunphey
I think there are a lot of threats to it.
01:00:02
zzweilous
Come on.
01:00:03
William Dunphey
And I just, it's true though.
01:00:03
zzweilous
You can't say that. it It has won two titles already. and must be great.
01:00:08
William Dunphey
OK.
01:00:08
zzweilous
it must be amazing.
01:00:10
William Dunphey
But if you look at his actual usage for the Giratina, I don't think he played it ah single times in the a single time in the grand finals.
01:00:20
zzweilous
I think it only ever came out against Snorik.
01:00:23
William Dunphey
yes
01:00:23
zzweilous
And Snorik's team composition also is part of the answer that I have in my head for why both Giratina and Gasseron stayed on the bench for the most part.
01:00:34
zzweilous
And that answer is Martijn's team is incredibly soft to opposing Furrid somehow.
01:00:40
zzweilous
Like, you have Gastron, which gets one-shot by Trailblaze, essentially. Like, you survive on a slither of HP, but you don't want to be in that matchup. Then you have Giratina, obviously.
01:00:40
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:00:51
zzweilous
ghost-type against a normal-type with Sucker Punch, so not great either. Then you have Shadow Talonflame. You may think it's neutral, but Furrid actually fairly consistently takes a switch advantage against Shadow Talonflame.
01:01:05
zzweilous
Then you have the Mirror. That's not necessarily an answer as much. And then you have Empolion, which looks better than it actually is because you still kind of just do neutral against each other.
01:01:17
zzweilous
And if the Furret wants, can kind of boost through you.
01:01:20
zzweilous
So the only real Furret answer is Alolan Ninetales. The entire team is soft to Furret and Furret is just about the most prevalent Pokemon.
01:01:20
William Dunphey
yep yep.
01:01:34
William Dunphey
yep
01:01:34
zzweilous
That tells me that a lot of his opponents were playing Ferret against him, and he had to leave the things that are weak to Ferret on the bench and just play the thing that beats Ferret a lot.
01:01:44
zzweilous
So that kind of explains why a little Ninetales was the star of the show, because the rest of the six alert the Ferrets in just for the Fox to take them out.
01:01:54
William Dunphey
yep Exactly. No, you said it well. i think I think when you have a team comp like that, a lot of trainers will stress out about covering everything, about having an answer for everything. But some players, like Inadequance, they'll just invite a weakness and they'll say, you know please please bring this Pokemon against me so I can handle it every time. And I think that um because team composition is such an important part of Pokemon Go, I would argue team team comp and and locking in the right trio is more important in Go than any of the other Pokemon titles.
01:02:26
William Dunphey
When you can start to reduce the variables and you can start to predict that your opponent will select a certain Pokemon or a certain couple of Pokemon every single time, it it sends your chances of winning those matchups through the roof as long as they play the way that you expect them to play.
01:02:42
William Dunphey
And Inadequance talks about this at length in in his video.
01:02:43
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:02:45
William Dunphey
And you'll notice time and time again, just watching the battles on stream, he'll lead Alolanight Tales into Furrit. Or he'll leave something, his opponent will swap Furrit, and then he brings out the Alolanight Tales.
01:02:55
William Dunphey
Not only does he know that that Pokemon is coming, but his ability to predict where it's going to be in the line is so, so good. So... If you're listening to this show um on a podcast platform, open up YouTube, type in Inadequance, look at his newest video about his run. it's It's an absolute clinic on basically how to team read, how to team build. And like he says in the video intro, he went through like 12 iterations. He considered Fortress. He considered Corviknight. He considered a bunch of other Pokemon. But ZZ, I just want to say this.
01:03:28
William Dunphey
I just want to talk about myself just for a split second here.
01:03:32
zzweilous
Please do it.
01:03:32
William Dunphey
i guess I asked Rise in Las Vegas if he had considered a Pokemon like Alolan Sandslash because I felt like Ice was in such a good place in the current meta. And he said no, which understandably, right?
01:03:45
William Dunphey
But it made me feel a little validated, right? That I was talking about Ice types and then Inadequates turns around and plays Alolan Knight tails and wins it all.
01:03:49
zzweilous
yeah
01:03:52
William Dunphey
Made feel definitely validated. I just had the wrong Ice type.
01:03:57
zzweilous
Also, one thing that I think kind of went under the radar, we haven't seen this exact team before, obviously, because nobody else plays Giratina, but we've kind of seen the principle of this team before.
01:04:01
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:04:11
zzweilous
Because in Lille, Hikami also had the Talonflame, Empolion, Gastro, three very strong options against Scizor, and those three covered, back then, the Ice-type Obamasnow.
01:04:18
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:04:26
zzweilous
It wasn't Ninetales, but it was a Pokemon that served a very similar function back then. So I feel as if the winning team from Hikami and the winning team from Matayan and Stuttgart, they actually kind of work very similarly in that they essentially have this one core of three that is pretty... You can realistically play those three together and it would still be a balanced team.
01:04:55
zzweilous
And all of them kind of scare away the Shadow Scissor that then would threaten your other Pokémon that may break some course.
01:04:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:05:02
zzweilous
Back then, it was the Snowman Christmas Tree type of creature. And in Stuttgart, it was the Fox, which obviously has the added bonus of resisting Furtick Sucker Punches and ever being uniquely well positioned in this meta.
01:05:19
William Dunphey
Yeah, that's right. And with Hikami's team in Lille, he had the Zwailus as his sixth, which is a dragon type. um And then you had the Shadowgear Tina for inadequance. So I think it's it's one of my favorite quotes is that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. And i think that's such an important thing to consider. and You and I were talking about players and their matchups over time, and I really wish we had a player database so that we can look for trends like this. We can look for cores, trios, even sets of four that have kind of a rhyme to them and just kind of think more abstractly about team building and not just, oh, what's good in the moment, what core breaks right now, and then just getting through it. Because I agree with you. I think this team structure is actually quite similar.
01:06:03
zzweilous
I know that for the Candle Cult practice tournaments, there is um a little bit of extra data visualization in the works where um we may want to, like this is spearheaded by Trip Tando who does a lot of work behind the behind the scenes of the European streams as well.
01:06:11
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:06:20
zzweilous
We may want to not only show usage, but also show the most common cores that people use. So um giving people an idea of what works well together. And yeah, obviously,
01:06:33
zzweilous
There is degrees of course, like you can have two Pokemon core, for example, the primate Gallerian Corsula core, the Doomba Grand in Las Vegas, which only really has like two or three core breakers to it.
01:06:47
zzweilous
um Or you can have like a multi Pokemon core with about like three Pokemon that work well together, just like if you look at them in isolation, but they also all protect a fourth Pokemon that will then be enabled.
01:07:00
zzweilous
um So yeah, certainly. Certainly some trends that are not as easy to spot, but kind of fun when you think about it. And maybe something that people may bring back for the um precious pop season, just because overall the meta hasn't changed all that much.
01:07:20
William Dunphey
Twastell messaged me yesterday and he asked me when you and I were going to release our team building guide that we've talked about on and off for like a year.
01:07:26
zzweilous
Oh yeah. Uh... ah
01:07:31
William Dunphey
i haven't replied to him yet. So if this comes out before I reply to you, Twastell, just know that we're working on it, working on Um, but yeah, so many incredible trainers here in our top cut. Uh, one trainer we didn't mention was Tonton Batusa and his shadow dragon air love shadow dragon air. I'd love to see that Pokemon get a moveset update.
01:07:48
William Dunphey
I think that'd be cool if it got a little more of versatility, maybe make it like a hypno of dragons, give it thunderbolt flamethrower and ice beam.
01:07:54
zzweilous
you
01:07:56
William Dunphey
That could be really sick. I don't know if, if my antics, I scope, he's listening, but let's talk about it. But, uh, I think we can move on to grand finals and, uh, It looks like in Stuttgart, we had an all-Dutch finals, and this seems to be an opportunity for Inadequance to break a three-year curse, if I may say so, that has been hanging over the Stuttgart regionals.
01:08:20
zzweilous
Oh, the tea and pizza curse. I did watch the videos.
01:08:24
William Dunphey
the the p The P and T's a curse, as Amanda would say.
01:08:28
zzweilous
Oh, jeez. Oh, man. Yeah, like, it's it's been, I think it's been Emi Weedle, it's been Colin Six, and who was the the third champion?
01:08:42
zzweilous
I'm blanking right now.
01:08:44
William Dunphey
m
01:08:44
zzweilous
Oh, it was PvP David last year. yeah, yeah.
01:08:46
William Dunphey
Oh, David, that's right.
01:08:46
zzweilous
yeah
01:08:47
William Dunphey
ah My mind was saying boom 20, but I was like, no, it's not him.
01:08:48
zzweilous
So.
01:08:51
zzweilous
okay
01:08:52
William Dunphey
I remember that they were, they were in the finals against each other.
01:08:53
zzweilous
Is he even tea and pizza yet?
01:08:54
William Dunphey
Right. Yeah. Right. When is that going to happen? But, um,
01:08:58
zzweilous
Oh yeah.
01:09:00
William Dunphey
ah This was a fun grand finals to watch.
01:09:00
zzweilous
um
01:09:03
William Dunphey
I do have a few notes on it. It was a swift grand finals, a 3-0. And to me, this just kind of felt like a culmination of Inadequance making all the right team reads, all the right composition choices, but also having a team comp advantage in a lot of ways, I would say, because...
01:09:20
William Dunphey
Town Flame looked insane versus this team. Spite Ops is really fun. And I think it's it's really cool that we just got a brand new Pokemon and it already claimed a silver medal at a regional competition. I think that's a really good sign for it.
01:09:32
William Dunphey
We're going to see a ton of Spite Ops at EUIC, everybody. So if you'd like to watch and call and play it, just wait.
01:09:35
zzweilous
yeah
01:09:37
William Dunphey
But um I'm curious what your read was on the team comp, because to me, this looks like Alola Ninetales, Shadow Town Flame, Go Burr.
01:09:45
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:09:45
William Dunphey
And that was just it.
01:09:46
zzweilous
Do you know the amount of Pokemon on Colin's team that beat both the Alonso Ninetales the Shadow Talonflame?
01:09:57
William Dunphey
Zero.
01:09:58
zzweilous
Exactly. There is not a single one that breaks that core.
01:09:59
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:10:01
zzweilous
um So yeah, actually...
01:10:01
William Dunphey
ah
01:10:03
zzweilous
ah like my notes on the grand finals are watch martin's video because i think just like hearing it from the man himself is um infinitely more valuable than me trying to like either paraphrase the video or give my own thoughts on what his thoughts could have been um but yeah this certainly does look like a favorable team composition and what while i'm at it with um shouting out competitors that are also creators i'm pretty sure that uh rise also published a video on his finals run in Vegas.
EUIC Anticipation and Speculations
01:10:35
zzweilous
So if you feel so inclined, um check that out as well, because it's always best to get the insight from the people that made the decisions in the moment.
01:10:35
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:10:47
William Dunphey
Agreed. And Adequence had an incredible win. After he won that third game against Colin, he immediately stands up, looks at the camera, and strikes the team bo or the team Galactic boss Cyrus pose and just holds it for probably six or seven seconds straight and just holds the pose.
01:11:06
William Dunphey
So he knew exactly what he was doing.
01:11:08
zzweilous
Yes.
01:11:08
William Dunphey
He he was aura farming on stage like no other. All right. But he deserves it, right? Two tournament wins. I mean, this really feels like the season of inadequacy. And we'll see if anything changes as we turn the page to the next calendar year. But as of right now, he looks unstoppable.
01:11:26
zzweilous
One thing that gives me personally a lot of confidence is that leading up to the event, Martijn asked me many, many times if I was going, if I was competing, and like,
01:11:37
zzweilous
sort of with the intention of don't go, i want to win this, I can't have too much capable competition, and to still be at least considered as somebody that could stop him with the form that he's on right now, like, that is honestly the biggest compliment I could have received.
01:11:45
William Dunphey
but
01:11:58
zzweilous
But yeah, i was not I was never going to go to Shotcut again. Maybe next year if it's still if it's still on the menu, but yeah, I just like,
01:12:04
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:12:07
zzweilous
I had originally planned to take the time off for LAIC. That didn't happen because of reasons out of my control. And yeah, Stuttgart skipped this year, not only for me, apparently for many competitors, because we had only 82 people actually actually competing, which is down at least 20 from the heights of Stuttgart.
01:12:14
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:12:20
William Dunphey
ah
01:12:24
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:12:29
zzweilous
But maybe we can bounce back because at least EUIC as the premier event in the region it sold out at like 512. It's not exactly 512 right now, because apparently like it's probably like cancellations and the the remaining spots haven't been opened up to the public just yet.
01:12:44
William Dunphey
Sure. Yeah.
01:12:49
zzweilous
But we're going to sell out 512 person bracket for EUIC. And that's kind of incredible, even though like the regional level of events are struggling or so-so in terms of popularity.
01:13:00
William Dunphey
yeah
01:13:03
William Dunphey
One of my side project ideas is to map attendance at these events, you know kind of correlate not only region, but also time of the year. For example, you wouldn't want to compare Monterey of this season to Monterey of 2025 because they were at completely different times in the year and the attendance numbers were wildly different as well. so That's something I do want to work on. And I do want to see if these these concerns of attrition are actually valid. They appear to be, right? If you just look at the numbers plainly, without context, they appear to be very valid.
01:13:37
William Dunphey
I saw a comment from Inadequance online just morning. Somebody said that EUIC sold out to 512. They were really excited about it. And Inadequate said, well, you have to consider that a lot of top trainers are dropping off. And maybe if they only pick one or two events a year, they're picking EUIC. So you're kind of getting like this this hyper focus on one event.
01:14:01
William Dunphey
Meanwhile, kind of your roots, right? Your other events around the calendar year are kind of withering at the same time. So... We're going to see if that comes to fruition, but I'm excited. I was a little concerned, to be honest with you, when we saw LAIC only had like 300, 330 around that ballpark.
01:14:16
William Dunphey
That felt like maybe we we had hit a ceiling. But looking at EYC, it's pretty exciting.
01:14:18
zzweilous
yeah yeah yeah certainly inspiring some optimism like really that's like up more than 100 from the previous biggest official tournament which was i think last year's uic because we tend to do numbers in the uk for some reason um but yeah and my only biggest hope is that
01:14:23
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:14:39
William Dunphey
Yeah, it's it's the gateway to Europe, right?
01:14:45
zzweilous
these aren't just tcg swag pirates who want to enter go in the hopes of getting a little bit of competitor merge um but yeah we'll we'll see how it goes
01:14:54
William Dunphey
Oh, gosh. I hope not. Oh, those darn TCG swag pirates every time. But no, i hope not. i I wish there was a way to like validate if this if this person signing up was going to be a competitor.
01:15:09
William Dunphey
Maybe have them like register a team and just kind of have an admin look at the teams and say, huh, they registered Klefki.
01:15:17
zzweilous
yeah
01:15:18
William Dunphey
I don't think that they're actually a serious player. No, I'm just kidding. Then you get into all kinds of great gray area. But I wish there was a way to determine.
01:15:23
zzweilous
yeah yeah yeah i would i would have fixed would have been excluded from gdansk with my toucan and i'm pretty sure so let's not do that oh man getting banned under the suspicion of being a tcg player wouldn't end to a career
01:15:30
William Dunphey
This guy's got to be screwed around. He's playing Shadow 2 Cannon. Get him out of here, right? But no. i
01:15:41
William Dunphey
Yeah, this diseasezwi this is kind of sus. He might be he might be ah throwing this particular tournament. He might not be serious anymore, but that could not be further from the case.
01:15:51
William Dunphey
But um to to kind of wrap things up, Shootguard was incredible. Inadequance, I think in top form, right? If you look across the world, at ah at trainers. Maybe he's only scared of you and and a couple others like Pata Man.
01:16:04
zzweilous
fifty
01:16:05
William Dunphey
But as of right now, Inadequates is in top form. I'm really excited to see what he does. On the turn of the year, Colin returning to the Grand Finals is also a good sign. Europe's best are rising up the ranks as expected.
01:16:19
William Dunphey
And yeah. Speaking of Europe's best...
01:16:21
zzweilous
One shout out that I want to give is to snoreck who came in fifth and that is because i believe that is a trainer who like he and Martijn had a little bit of a controversial history and now this is the second year in a row that Martijn denied him a medal essentially because both this year and last year they faced in Stuttgart but overall I feel ah as if Snorek has come a long way and
01:16:23
William Dunphey
Go ahead.
01:16:26
William Dunphey
Uh-huh.
01:16:51
zzweilous
J.J. With the form that he's been displaying recently, I feel as if the the first medal is just a matter of time and coming coming fifth yet again J.J.
01:17:03
zzweilous
Getting closer and closer, what else can I say it's it's sometimes just like a ah linear but slow progression, but getting there for sure.
01:17:07
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:14
William Dunphey
Martijn actually addresses that in the video as well. I think he says something very akin to what you just mentioned, that he does believe Snorik is on a an upward trajectory and he's going to get there very soon. So I hope that he keeps on pushing himself. What if I told you Z's wireless?
01:17:31
William Dunphey
That Snorak's team is identical to Marto Galdes team from Buenos Aires, just a regional prior.
01:17:38
zzweilous
Oh, I would not have picked that up. It's just like, I look at that and it's like a bunch of Pokemon that I wouldn't bring to a tournament, but it's a strong team.
01:17:41
William Dunphey
It's true.
01:17:45
William Dunphey
But, but the thing is, the thing is, as we roasted Marto's team for this, the shadow town flame weakness is undeniable.
01:17:54
zzweilous
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:17:55
William Dunphey
Double steals, Gastrodon, Wigglytuff.
01:17:55
zzweilous
and now And now he competes in a region where that thing is actually existing. Yeah.
01:18:00
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:18:00
zzweilous
yeah Yeah, that's that's problems.
01:18:02
William Dunphey
And if I'm not mistaken, Snorak did play against Inadequance and lost to Shadow Townflames.
01:18:06
zzweilous
Oh, yeah. yeah
01:18:07
William Dunphey
So I don't know. Journalism at work here, right? We're trying to to put the pieces together and connect the dots.
01:18:11
zzweilous
yeah yeah
01:18:14
William Dunphey
But I really appreciate that you shouted out, Snorak. I do think he's got a bright future. i want to see him continue to
LAIC Limited Meta Introduction
01:18:21
William Dunphey
compete. But I think it's time that we move on to the first limited meta ever in the championship series.
01:18:29
zzweilous
Oh yeah.
01:18:30
William Dunphey
For all of us, exactly, for LAIC 2026, got to say this.
01:18:31
zzweilous
The LAIC meta.
01:18:37
William Dunphey
For all of us old school SILF trainers who came from the SILF arena, something that I noticed over the past few weeks is that the Silph Arena's entire goal was to create some kind of official tournament circuit where trainers competed in limited metas every month and that you had prizes, you had official support.
01:19:00
William Dunphey
I mean, talking with with the founders of the Silph Arena, this is what they told me. That's what they wanted, right? And they felt like all the work that they were doing was kind of building towards this goal. And what shocked me about LAIC is kind of like the reaction from the community, in a sense.
01:19:17
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:19:17
William Dunphey
Because if you were playing Sylph back in the day, back in 2019, 2020, 2021, you knew that this was kind of where things were headed. And then the pandemic hit, everything got derailed. But now we're at a point where in the official championship series, we have limited a limited meta for money, for prizes, an official format with Pokemon support.
01:19:38
William Dunphey
This is the dream of the Sylph Arena realized. This is the culmination of everything that they were trying to build when PvP had no structure and no place and was just a side feature in the game.
01:19:50
William Dunphey
And what shocked me is that the community just... I don't know if people picked up on that or they just didn't want to talk about it or they didn't think of it in that sense or if too much time had passed or whatever reason it was, but people just didn't celebrate it in the same way that I thought they would, which I found like...
01:20:08
William Dunphey
equal parts kind of kind of disappointing, but also made me question like, man, am I just am i just getting old?
01:20:15
zzweilous
is
Legacy of Sylph Arena
01:20:17
William Dunphey
Do I just remember the old goals?
01:20:17
zzweilous
like i do not like obviously a like your personal pvp history is like very tightly connected with sylph like as the i think was it the first world champion or was it just like a world champion not that that just detracts from it in any way
01:20:38
William Dunphey
yeah I actually will die on this hill because the quote unquote first world champion was Shmusev in Chicago and he only beat another trainer from NA. Whereas I had to beat trainers from all of the regions and Shmusev was technically, he was technically just a continental champion, but I was a world champion.
01:20:51
zzweilous
Oh, like actual world champion then. Okay,
01:20:58
William Dunphey
So I will die on that hill.
01:20:58
zzweilous
okay, okay. okay So, we have gotten the technicalities out of the way. um But, yeah, I just wonder whether like Sylph was certainly like huge in the pre-pandemic days and even larger than
01:21:17
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:21:20
zzweilous
LAIC maybe? I don't know the exact numbers, but um I feel like those mega tournaments, like, they drew a crowd, right?
01:21:25
William Dunphey
last So yeah, sorry. lot Los Angeles had over 400. Yeah. Correct.
01:21:31
zzweilous
Yeah, which is more than we saw LAIC now, which is like, I see how you were a little bit disappointed when you saw those numbers and maybe compared them, contrasted them with what we had like five years ago or six years ago.
01:21:49
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:21:49
zzweilous
um Because obviously that's not really where we want to be. um But I think for many players in this day and age, their frame of reference is just the championship series as a whole.
01:22:04
zzweilous
And they may be a little disconnected from the Sylph days, with Sylph having shut shut down um and it having been a while since.
01:22:15
zzweilous
So I don't know, maybe... So I actually... wasn't around for much of Sylph. Like I played during the pandemic couple of remote tournaments, but I wasn't good or too interested in PvP back when all the big stuff was happening, right?
01:22:35
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:22:36
zzweilous
um So I don't really have those memories and I'm already one of the old heads, right? Like I've been at it for a while. So I don't know, maybe maybe that angle isn't one that translated to too many of the current competitors.
01:22:54
zzweilous
um And then the question is, okay, this is now a different meta from what I typically play week in, week out in Open Great League practice. It's like new Pokemon. It's also like kind of the same Pokemon on every team. How do i feel about that?
01:23:15
zzweilous
Do I have all the Pokemon that are good and necessary build? Maybe I'm not somebody who gets to travel to too many regionals and therefore I couldn't access the Turtonator spawns that happened at those.
01:23:27
zzweilous
So how do I now get a PvP IV Turtonator? Oh, Medicham is on the top seven teams?
01:23:34
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:23:35
zzweilous
Medicham, that was a couple of years ago, right? And it hasn't really spawned in a while. And it's a Pokemon that needs to be level 50. How do I get that in time for the tournament? That's not the greatest position to be in And yeah, I feel as if Like Runorygis, strong Pokemon, you have to win how many raids to evolve that?
01:23:54
William Dunphey
Very hard to get.
01:23:54
zzweilous
That's another... That's like another like gatekeeping mechanism that this meta inadvertently
Debate on Limited Metas
01:24:04
zzweilous
introduced. So while I see the fascination, and I was actually one of the voices that was um most excited about limited metas coming to the championship series when they were first announced, and also...
01:24:05
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:24:19
zzweilous
um I am still somebody who says that this is a good meta, a good to great meta, just from like a balancing perspective.
01:24:29
William Dunphey
yes
01:24:30
zzweilous
I still felt as if we didn't stick the landing the way we would have wanted to. And that doesn't need to mean that we just never try anything again, because I love that they tried, but but especially on day one of the competition, I talk to a lot of people who are interested in PvP, hitting Legend consistently, with a casual interest in the Play Pokemon Championship series, but not as deep of an investment in like super technical plays or top player storylines as we maybe are.
01:25:08
zzweilous
They watch because they kind of love PvP and they want to see the different strategies that players come up with.
01:25:08
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:25:14
zzweilous
And then, every player had the same strategy. And a lot of people told me, like a lot of people meaning more than half a dozen, not like 20, but like relative to the amount of people that I talked to about it, it was a pretty prevalent sentiment that I was too much of the same after just like an hour or two of watching.
01:25:29
William Dunphey
yeah
01:25:39
zzweilous
And even though I think limited matters are very fun to explore, um The winning team of Nighttime Clasher consisted of the top six most used Pokemon and that exact team, while not being every team in Top Cut, it also featured, like I think it featured three times this exact combination of six Pokemon in the top eight.
01:26:06
William Dunphey
Yep.
01:26:06
zzweilous
It featured even more often in the top 32.
01:26:06
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:26:10
zzweilous
And when it differed, it differed in one or two slots. So,
01:26:16
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:26:18
zzweilous
This may feel really good for a competitor to play because a lot of the matchups, even though there's a caveat to that too, but we get to that when we get get to the grand finals. um Even though a lot of the matchups that we see are very neutral and the outcome doesn't feel obvious from the lead situations oftentimes,
01:26:39
zzweilous
it also works better for the competitor playing the game than for the spectator watching it. And on a stage as big as an IC, i want this to work as an advertisement for the game as well. And I feel the variety of strategies brings some interest and excitement that kind of has gotten lost with LAIC abolishing the team building component component component to some degree.
01:27:13
zzweilous
But that is just my take. on the issue and I know
Future Event Pokemon Strategies
01:27:17
zzweilous
that's been like controversially discussed on the various social media platforms be it Discord or Twitter X and there's certainly takes on this that are equally as valid as mine um and again like I would have loved to play this meta but there's a lot of things that need to be considered when making such a big decision decision. And I am very curious as to what it looked like what will what it will look like for the EOIC meta. i
01:27:52
zzweilous
like We will get to have a wholly different limited meta with SpyDobs being the top dog, with I think LickyLicky is going to play a big role.
01:28:01
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:28:05
zzweilous
And the Pokemon that I didn't expect that really did shine in that practice yesterday is Grimmsnarl may actually be good enough to take an international championship which is so fun like you wouldn't think of those pokemon as being of that caliber um but will we see enough uniqueness enough individuality in the approaches that the players can take or will it just despair like very technical play that is exciting to watch for a certain clientele will it be
01:28:39
zzweilous
storylines that we want to follow because we know those people already or will it just be a good viewing experience for the casual fan.
01:28:49
William Dunphey
Well, to your point about accessibility, if you look at the two Pokemon you mentioned being s spid Ops and Grimmsnarl, Tarantula had its event. And it was, I think, the first time.
01:29:00
William Dunphey
Well, no, it was the first time that Pokemon had ever appeared. And I think the event only went on for what, like one week, maybe 10 days, something like that. I've just looked at my own.
01:29:09
zzweilous
And it also, i think it went on before we knew that SpyOps would be so crucial for EOIC. So people may not have played that event as much.
01:29:16
William Dunphey
True.
01:29:19
William Dunphey
Exactly. I mean, I open the app every single day. I play every single day. I try to do my daily incense, right? At minimum, at least grind 30 minutes a day. I, in my account right now, have 42 tarantula. That's all that I caught.
01:29:32
William Dunphey
And then I have one Spite Ops that's actually a really high rank that i decided to build. So in terms of accessibility, that already feels like a tough one because you do need a lot of regular canning. Thankfully, no XL, but you need a lot of regular canning to build ah a good Spite Ops. And then second, for Grim Snarl, if you weren't playing the wild area,
01:29:52
William Dunphey
are you going to have, you know, the impidemp that you need to evolve into Grimstarle? Because otherwise you could, you could have a, um, uh, Gigantamax and maybe you could, you could reroll it through a trade to try to get IVs under 1500, but still that's a little bit tricky too. yeah,
01:30:09
William Dunphey
I mean, you pointed out something really well, not only with the Medicham accessibility, but the Turtonator accessibility, which I remember catching a lot of those at New York GoFest.
01:30:16
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:30:17
William Dunphey
If people were not playing GoFest or Global GoFest this past summer, then you probably missed out on Turtonator too. so That's such an important point to make because the accessibility is still a big issue. And we kind of take it for granted that a lot of our top trainers already have all the tools. But for new players trying to get into it, it's really an uphill style of battle. So I wasn't even thinking about it in that sense, but I think you make such a good point. And as I was looking over this this top 32, I was trying to think, like, what are ZZ and I actually going to talk about?
01:30:51
William Dunphey
Like we could talk about Turtonator having, if you look at the the top 12, I think I have a note here.
01:30:52
zzweilous
yeah
01:30:58
William Dunphey
If you look at the top 12 Turtonators for LAIC, it looks like we have, oh, here it is. we So we had 10 Turtonators on the top 12 teams.
01:31:09
William Dunphey
Seven of the 10 had Incinerate and three out of the 10 had Ember. And honestly, there's not a whole lot to say about that, but I just want to bring it up because inadequate said that Ember Turkinator was a fraud and then Pato took it all the way to grand finals.
01:31:17
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:31:22
William Dunphey
So we sang your praises and adequate, but now they got to roast you. So that being said, like you, like you pointed out, the teams are only different by one or two picks. Maybe you've got Togekiss on Pato man's team, or maybe you've got um dust of war on dunebugs team or maybe you have bronze on on bruno's team but there other than that there's not a whole lot to talk about this is kind of like this is kind of like 32 clones walk into a room and you just want to know who the best clone is right
01:31:51
zzweilous
Kind of. Like, honestly, we really lucked out with the day three that we got because, like, obviously, like, Nighttime Clasher, just playing the best Pokémon in the best way will grant you an international championship at the end of the day.
01:31:56
William Dunphey
yes
01:32:07
zzweilous
But Patoman with Dusknor and Togekiss, Mato with Runarigus and Vespiquin, like, each at least had two Pokémon that kind of were their own thing.
01:32:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:32:19
zzweilous
so It didn't, like, at face value, you wouldn't initially, like, know that this meta only had, like, 10 Pokémon because they kind of all featured on the various teams in in Day 3.
01:32:29
William Dunphey
yes
01:32:33
zzweilous
And we also had one of each major region. Sorry, Oceania. um But there was, like, there were, like, a lot of good storylines. You had Pato, the young European upstart, who actually made Day 3 four times in one calendar year how incredible is that like imagine like you you win the european international championship then you go to new orleans you make another day three then you go to worlds you make the grand finals and now you have another shot at an international and
01:33:15
zzweilous
only fall at the last hurdle even after resetting the bracket in the most dramatic of passions. And you walk away, you walk away, just like youre recently having turned 18, with four trophies.
01:33:28
zzweilous
Four trophies from this calendar year. That is probably not going to be repeated ever. um So that was a fun storyline. Then, Marto and his Vespiquim. Marto loves a bulky copium flying type.
01:33:42
zzweilous
And...
01:33:43
William Dunphey
i
01:33:45
zzweilous
Like, I loved seeing the Vespi. I feel like the Vespi, even though it's a bug, it's kind of just like a Metang equivalent in a way, because you have the Fury Cartel, you have the answer to Oranguru in that you have the neutral bulk.
01:33:54
William Dunphey
Yeah, very similar. right.
01:34:04
zzweilous
So, yeah, that was fun to see. Honestly, like, kudos to Macho. Like, nobody has ever... just like defended their title at one of these.
01:34:16
zzweilous
um So coming third is as close as one realistically could have expected to get, I suppose. And I guess like like day three Marto wasn't the best Marto that he could be. I think knows that. I think we know that. But even even then, it is so impressive to just like enter high level event after high level event and come so far.
01:34:45
zzweilous
And now we just got a trophy in a different color. Like what's, what's there to be mad about?
01:34:49
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
01:34:51
zzweilous
Um, overall just another impressive run. And obviously the golden boy,
01:35:00
zzweilous
what else, what else is there to say then hard work pays off because if there was to be another nighttime clasher victory,
01:35:11
zzweilous
It would probably be in the meta where just knowing the ins and out of your ins and outs of your matchup is more crucial than anywhere else.
01:35:22
zzweilous
Because I think there's few people out there that put so much effort into preparation.
01:35:23
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:35:30
zzweilous
And like it's like a practice makes perfect type of moment. Because Nighttime Clashback came onto the scene when everybody else was already an established name, and then just put in the work, put in the work, put in the work.
01:35:48
zzweilous
Had some ups and downs. The downs weren't that far down, but I know that he wanted more out of the European events he attended earlier in the season.
01:35:55
William Dunphey
Yeah. yeah
01:35:57
zzweilous
But then already a strong showing in Vegas, but obviously he cannot win in the US ever. He only ever wins on on foreign soil. um And then just an absolute masterclass in terms of execution, in terms of team reading, and also kind of in terms of playing to impossible win conditions and the decision making that goes along with it.
01:36:26
zzweilous
I guess we'll get to that as well once we get to the grand finals, because those were pretty remarkable. And also not day three, a trophy nonetheless, it's Axon fourth place.
01:36:39
William Dunphey
easy
01:36:39
zzweilous
High level consistency achieved again. Congratulations, because
Psychology in Competitive Gaming
01:36:44
zzweilous
I also know that that was one of our top trainers that like had an interesting journey from the greatest to struggling to the greatest again, and now just consistently great, which is, I think, where he wanted to be after his initial Worlds victory.
01:36:59
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:37:01
zzweilous
So that is very delightful to see yet again.
01:37:06
William Dunphey
Yeah, I think ever
01:37:06
zzweilous
and Look at the competition too. I'm sorry, i'm I'm just rambling on, but international champion, international champion, international champion, like NTC, now also international champion, not previously, but hey, um out of pocket international champion, JW Ronaldo, international champion, am I right?
01:37:10
William Dunphey
That's OK. Go ahead.
01:37:24
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:37:24
zzweilous
And then we have Zardy, one of the most on-form trainers, and Sceptilize, one of the, like, is there Sceptilize tournament that he enters and doesn't top eight at this point?
01:37:35
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:37:35
zzweilous
a Again, I mentioned it in Vegas, one of the names that comes to mind when a breakthrough tournament is due. um Like, if we achieved anything, it's the absolute top trainers actually like rising to the top and making up those top spots from this very neutral meta.
01:37:52
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:37:56
William Dunphey
In your top ah ninth to 16th, you've got Dunebug, who just spent so much time just bragging about with six medals. You look at the next column over, you've got Elche, who played five Pokemon at Worlds in Yokohama and still finished in the top four, right?
01:38:12
William Dunphey
I mean, there's just so many talented trainers. i agree with you. The depth is just unreal when you look at this this bracket. um I had a few points that I wanted to make. So the first was actually on on Marto.
01:38:25
William Dunphey
and we talk about expectations, right? I interviewed Marto and Harjeff leading up to the LAIC pre-show. I thought we had a really funny interview. I asked them what they would say to each other if they paired against each other at LAIC, and their answers were hilarious.
01:38:40
William Dunphey
they were They were so good. I think Marto, I put him on the spot. i said, Marto, you pair against Harjeff. What would you say to him?
01:38:46
zzweilous
Okay.
01:38:47
William Dunphey
And Marto said, good luck at LAIC next year. It's like... Really funny answers. But um what I wanted to say about Marto is that you can tell, and I think I know this because I've i've you know been watching his progress for so long. You can tell that there's a new level of expectation on his mind because he changed his profile picture on X to a photo from LAIC. But I saw it on the stream and I saw it again when I looked at his profile picture.
01:39:17
William Dunphey
He's almost like giving giving like a sideways smirk, almost like a, you know, kind of like, happy to be here. I'm going to be polite, but I'm not over the moon. I'm not thrilled. I'm not, I'm not content with, with what I have. And there's like this, this prevailing vibe. I don't know if he's going agree with me or just disagree, disagree with me, but this, this prevailing vibe that he should be that first place winner, that he should be the champion.
01:39:44
William Dunphey
And that's the bar that he set for himself at this point. Understandably so. having won last year. Right. But I just think it's so funny because his previous picture from LAIC was him like popping off.
01:39:54
William Dunphey
It's an iconic thing where he's like screaming on the stage and his arms are spread wide.
01:39:55
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:39:59
William Dunphey
And then he changed it. And if you look at it, it's just him kind of like, Hmm. smirking like okay but uh yeah i just wanted to point that out because a lot of the players will tell you that they're happy with something but then you look at their body language and it tells you uh something a little different speaking of of what players do versus what they say i listened to c leonardo's conversation with nighttime clasher and i was laughing to myself uh when you were talking about nighttime clasher putting in the work studying matchups uh going the extra mile working really hard because when you listen to his talk with c leonardo
01:40:34
William Dunphey
He says the same thing like eight times in a row when discussing the grand finals. He keeps telling Leonardo, I was just trying to, I was just trying to RPS Pato man. Yeah, this late, this lead failed.
01:40:43
zzweilous
yeah
01:40:45
William Dunphey
So I tried to RPS him a different way. Yeah, he kept bringing Turbinator. So I RPS him with Gyarados. Yeah, he kept leading Shadow Dust Noir. So I kept on putting my, or excuse me, leading Dust Noir.
01:40:55
William Dunphey
So I kept on leading a Rangaroo. I RPS him that game as well. That's what he kept saying over and over and over again. I kept RPSing Pato
01:41:01
zzweilous
He is not
Commentary and Viewer Engagement
01:41:02
zzweilous
wrong, but first of all, team rating is a skill, and also the entirety of LAIC cannot just be subsidized by looking at the grand finals alone, because it was quite the gauntlet to get there.
01:41:02
William Dunphey
man.
01:41:03
William Dunphey
I know.
01:41:12
William Dunphey
True,
01:41:15
zzweilous
like let me Let me pull up the challenge bracket.
01:41:15
William Dunphey
true.
01:41:16
William Dunphey
true
01:41:19
zzweilous
um Nighttime pleasure on day two, first round. 2-0 against Dash and Ash, 2-1 against Stubmuffins, 2-0 against Patoman, 3-0 against Martu Galladay, 2-3 against Patum and 3-1 against Patum.
01:41:34
zzweilous
like it's like It's not just like, oh, I up-ass him often enough.
01:41:34
William Dunphey
Correct. Yeah.
01:41:40
zzweilous
like He knew he came from um the winner's side of the bracket, so he could allow himself to just make those calls.
01:41:51
William Dunphey
yeah
01:41:51
zzweilous
um And he just needed to get it right often enough. on And like that was just kind of the name of the game because of the team that Pato brought in which Dusknoir was by far his strongest Pokemon but also by far the Pokemon that could get RPS the most easily because Oranguru is always a free bring and it just has such a dominant matchup so yeah it's just like it became pretty RPS in the grand finals which is what I wanted to bring up to counter the arguments of the people that mostly correctly, but like not entirely correctly, pointed out that this meta was so neutral and it was so good.
01:42:39
William Dunphey
OK.
01:42:40
zzweilous
And I never went to play OGL again. And it was always like, hey everybody always had a shot at winning this.
01:42:42
William Dunphey
True.
01:42:48
zzweilous
And I have three of the grand final matches as just like NTC, RPS, Cisparto, next game. And we just went over the Las Vegas matches.
01:43:01
zzweilous
They weren't like that. They were like a little lopsided because one of the players had a team comp advantage and it wasn't as much the case here.
01:43:03
William Dunphey
true
01:43:09
zzweilous
um But at least you had some interaction. Whereas we really had three individual matches that were decided upon the login. So...
01:43:21
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah, i agree. There's such nuance to it as well, because if you look, if you zoom forward through the grand finals and into the grand finals reset game four of the grand finals reset, a nighttime clasher led Medicham into Dustawar and he had a Metang in the back.
01:43:38
William Dunphey
So he was ABA week to Dustawar and still ended up winning that game.
01:43:43
zzweilous
kind of AAA because the dugong that was in between was like, that's also not a great match up against, against Dusknoir.
01:43:45
William Dunphey
Ah, true. True.
01:43:52
zzweilous
And that is, that is such an interesting last game because you would think like if you lead that line of three into a Dusknoir, that's essentially game over.
01:43:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:44:03
zzweilous
2-2, we go to a decisive game five. um But no, because what Pato has in the bag is two flyers and one problem.
01:44:13
zzweilous
how do i respond to Dugong safe swap? But also, you think that with those two Pokemon, it's impossible that there would be a Metang in the back, right?
01:44:13
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:44:25
William Dunphey
yeah
01:44:25
zzweilous
So you don't really plan for that. And you just use up your Dusknoir to neutralize the Dugong. And then you would still have a solid matchup against the Metichem in the back.
01:44:36
zzweilous
And then you sweep whatever else is there that isn't a Metang. And like your loose condition is it being a metang and it was a metang. Like.
01:44:48
William Dunphey
During Nighttime Clashers' talk with C. Leonardo, I do recommend it, right? It doesn't have a lot of views. I wish people would support these interviews a bit more because they're actually really fun. And C. Leonardo plays the footage for his guests so that they can watch it in real time and commentate on what happened. But um Nighttime Clashers said he played Potaman 11 total games.
01:45:09
William Dunphey
In 10 of those games, he had a favorable lead, but still lost four of them. So... You could argue that you know there was a lot of nuance, and sometimes the unpredictability of the team comps was Nighttime Clasher's advantage.
01:45:23
William Dunphey
But yeah, like you said, the last thing you would expect to see as a third Pokemon was Metang. And you could kind of see it in Potiment's face when it came out. He was just like, man, I think this is it.
01:45:34
zzweilous
yeah
01:45:37
William Dunphey
Tough one. um I do want to say that this was also a very tough challenge for the commentary team. And you know we spent a lot of time talking about competitors, but I also want to talk about the commentator side of it as well, because this is our first limited meta.
01:45:53
William Dunphey
These are Pokemon that not a lot of people play. I mean, you might play Metang in Go Battle League every every now and then if you have the dust, the candies to build one because it is rather expensive. You might play Turtinator occasionally, depending on the cup.
01:46:08
William Dunphey
Gyarados is probably the most palatable alongside Dewgong. But these are Pokemon that people don't really use. They don't really see in a competitive light. And then when you do have such homogeny among the Pokemon that are used, it can be very tough to kind of communicate nuance or to communicate excitement or dynamics.
01:46:26
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:46:28
William Dunphey
Right. When you see the same thing over and over and over again. i just wanted to to compliment ah Rise because I think that Rise put on a generational cast and I message him about this.
01:46:39
William Dunphey
Right. I've told him that I thought he was great. But I think that Ryze did such a good job of speaking to nuance, to making things exciting. I think that Leo was an incredible pair partner for Ryze as well.
01:46:50
William Dunphey
I thought those two were were stellar. And um it was funny because when I told Ryze this, he he replied to me. He said, yeah, you know, Nighttime Clasher watched back the video.
01:47:01
William Dunphey
And he said that he learned some things about the matchups from listening to my commentary. And I said, what? The champ is learning from Ryze? What? But that's just the way it goes sometimes.
01:47:09
zzweilous
Oh, that's fun.
01:47:12
zzweilous
But yeah, towards that, um i earlier i mentioned that I spoke to a bunch of people about their experience with the broadcast specifically. And I've heard more than once that actually Rai's commentary actively stood out to them, like to a point where some of them weren't considering Rai's standout caster in his initial castes.
01:47:12
William Dunphey
But yeah.
01:47:36
zzweilous
but really came around to him and his ability on the casting mic during LAIC because like you you said, he had a generational cast and I feel as if a lot of the like you obviously have an ear for that and an eye for that, what makes a caster a great caster is you're one of the OGs, but it also has to work for the casual listener at home who like,
01:48:04
William Dunphey
Exactly.
01:48:05
zzweilous
is a consumer but doesn't really look at it from the caster's perspective and it worked it worked to treat um and i think it also like that is another part like how do we do our part from the casting side to keep this engaging when maybe we can't just talk about a crazy spice pick every other matchup um and yeah i can only echo your sentiment because it's what essentially
01:48:26
William Dunphey
Exactly.
EUIC Meta Predictions
01:48:34
zzweilous
Everybody who had an opinion on this that I talked to agreed upon that this was a fantastic performance.
01:48:41
William Dunphey
Yeah. I think even Inadequance, I think he he posted and he said, Rise this sort one of my new favorite casters because of what he's doing with this LAIC show. I cannot believe how hard he's crushing this. So I think the the sentiment was pretty universal. So Rise, if you're listening, it's not just me. It's not just ZZ. A lot of folks have given you compliments, man. So you should enjoy it because you really did well. so Incredible show, incredible players. I know incredible is kind of a loaded word, but when you look at this top eight bracket, this top 32 bracket, what other word can you use to describe it?
01:49:14
William Dunphey
Pata man coming close to another championship, but not quite getting there. Marto begrudgingly taking his bronze trophy home as well. And then it's accident.
01:49:24
William Dunphey
I mean, man, this makes me excited. ZZ. This makes me so excited for EUIC coming up in February.
01:49:31
zzweilous
Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's going to be so fun actually. Like again, I only played five best of threes yesterday um and I'm certainly like very far from having an idea of what team to bring, but i haven't I have an idea now of how some of the Pokemon play and what Pokemon could be utilized to tackle the Pokemon that now emerge as dominant and man, like,
01:49:59
zzweilous
Having a Grimsnair meta for EUIC, Grimsnair hailing from the Galar region, which was based on the UK as well. So kind of tropical.
01:50:10
zzweilous
um
01:50:10
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:50:11
zzweilous
But overall, one of the one of the things that I liked the most about my experience playing this was that even though Spydobs is a very strong Pokemon, it didn't even feel all that necessary because most people designed their team around having strong answers into SpyDops.
01:50:33
zzweilous
Like, they had rollout users. They had bug poison types that resisted the bug bites. They had peck seeking. A lot of peck seeking, which is like...
01:50:42
William Dunphey
Oh my God.
01:50:44
zzweilous
if If I told you, like, a year ago, like, peck seeking is going to be a big deal for next year's EU, I see.
01:50:44
William Dunphey
Tonton? Tonton Batousk?
01:50:51
zzweilous
um Yeah, this this game changes pretty quickly at times. um And, yeah, I just...
01:50:56
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:50:57
zzweilous
was really impressed with the variety of picks that I saw succeed. And I personally tried Shadow Tyranitar.
01:51:05
William Dunphey
Oh.
01:51:05
zzweilous
And Shadow Tyranitar is a threat if you cover it from Spide Ops. So they're like...
01:51:12
William Dunphey
We'll see. there There are a few other Fury Cutters. I mean, let's not forget about Cricketune. Am I right?
01:51:17
zzweilous
trick tune I do not have a PvP Cricketune.
01:51:18
William Dunphey
Rank 11? Hmm.
01:51:20
zzweilous
I have a Shiny. It has horrible IVs. I have three Cricketot that I could evolve. I will not evolve any of them. All of them have terrible IVs and only exist because I never clean my storage.
01:51:32
zzweilous
I do not have a Krikatoon that's worth battling for
01:51:36
William Dunphey
What if I told you, ZZ, that I not only... have one rank one cricket tune, but I have two of them.
01:51:48
zzweilous
Oh
01:51:48
William Dunphey
So too bad, too too bad.
01:51:50
zzweilous
He's playing double Krikatoon at EUIC. watch out, folks.
01:51:53
William Dunphey
I can't put them both on the same team, but that's neither here nor there, but seeing cricket tune in number 11 is honestly crazy.
01:51:59
zzweilous
Putting two Cricketune on the same two a team is even more still of nostalgia.
01:52:04
William Dunphey
That's true. Boulder Cup, the OGs. Exactly. um One thing I did want to mention, and like you said, I'm not really sure where this EUIC meta is
Impact of Recent Buffs
01:52:14
William Dunphey
going to go. i kept on telling myself that I was going to take it slow for December and then really dive in hard come January.
01:52:21
William Dunphey
I've already been announced as a caster for EUIC, so I'm really excited to work on that event, to commentate that. And I'm going to do my best possible rise impression to try to to give good commentary to everyone.
01:52:30
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:52:31
William Dunphey
But one thing I did want to mention is that a lot of the buffs in the new Precious Path season feel a little bit... Like you said, they buff Pokemon from obscurity into being relative, but they don't actually like move the needle on the top meta. One adjustment that I do think is going to show up big at EUIC is actually the Dragon Tail de Dunsparce, which if you look at it on its face, is not a big deal for Open Great League. But in this meta, there might be some play.
01:53:00
zzweilous
Yeah, that felt very catered to that specific meta because dragons do play a role in that in that cup. um I have seen people play Shadow Dragonair.
01:53:11
zzweilous
I have had um a Dragalgy on my own team, which is, again, one of those poison types that resist bugbite and are therefore pretty excellent against opposing spider ops.
01:53:22
William Dunphey
Love it.
01:53:22
zzweilous
um But there's even more dragons that could feasibly be made work. Like, I was considering Octobugs briefly. um Zylas is technically an option. I don't know whether I want to double down on Bug by the Weaknesses after I already am so committed to my Shadow Tyranita.
01:53:41
zzweilous
um But there's certainly a lot of targets for Dragontail using normal type. Like the Rollouters are one thing, but having an anti-dragon specialist among those normal types, it sets it apart in like yeah a more
01:53:48
William Dunphey
susan
01:53:59
zzweilous
distinct option compared to just, oh, like, we have the third rollouter, but this time with fewer sta fewer stat points. That's that's just not as good of a selling point. And between Dragontail and the nine-turn pacing to Body Slam, which is another move that it received, I can see the Dunspar actually being a serious threat.
01:54:21
zzweilous
I just don't have one. This is, like, another thing. I have a bunch of good Dunspar's. I don't know which of them to evolve to the Dunspar's, because... None of them stand out as a top rank.
01:54:32
William Dunphey
Oh, ZZ, do i have to flex again?
01:54:36
zzweilous
Oh, geez.
01:54:37
William Dunphey
All right. I'll just show you. I'll just show you what I've got. so if you're watching the YouTube version, you can see it. I've got a rank two. I believe that is. Yeah. Rank two to Dunsparce. A rank 12.
01:54:47
zzweilous
Incredible.
01:54:49
William Dunphey
Just pretty nice. I've got a rank 395, but it's got eight attack for winning those vital charge tag priorities. A rank five. Alternatively, a ultra league rank four. A rank nine with three attacks. So I get a little bit of attack there if I need it.
01:55:03
William Dunphey
And that's it. So I've got five options.
01:55:05
zzweilous
Okay, but my question is, does any of your Dedanspasses have three segments?
01:55:12
William Dunphey
I think I, I think I evolved one of them that does maybe two. Let me see. Cause I think I just, I just named them three segments. Let me see. I'm searching. Yes.
01:55:23
William Dunphey
I have two that have three segment, but they've got total trash, dirt IVs. So I'm not going to play them.
01:55:29
zzweilous
Incredible.
01:55:31
William Dunphey
One's 96.
01:55:31
zzweilous
This man is the Dedanspassmaster. I did not know that about you.
01:55:33
William Dunphey
ah I don't know about that. um But yeah, this meta is going really interesting. i want to compete in some chemical tournaments. I want to study it a bit more. i want to find my footing so I can talk about it more fluidly. But um for now, I'm not sure if there's anything else you want to add. There's a lot of spicy things here. I'll try to put the top rankings graphic up on the the YouTube version. So we've got Miltank, Licky Licky, Dunsparce, The normal rollouters, as you pointed out.
01:56:01
William Dunphey
Pins are coming in at number 19 as well, which is kind of cool. Some dragons. I think Dragalge is super sick. It's one of my favorite designs. I hope that it's it's successful. And then Grimmsnarl, one of only two dark types, the other being Sableye. So I do think that Grimmsnarl and Sableye will be strong. well Sorry, there's Dwyllus as well. there's a third dark type.
01:56:21
William Dunphey
And there's Hydreigon.
01:56:21
zzweilous
And that's like another... Okay, this is like already like...
01:56:23
William Dunphey
And there's Tyranitar. And there's Thievul.
01:56:24
zzweilous
It's it's like EYC meta nerd talk, but like like right now Dragon Tail Dragology is recommended. But what if you just protect yourself really well from other dragons, for example, with one of those DADAN Spars, and then run Acid on the Dragology to turn the Grimstyle matchup from a bad one to a really dominant one?
01:56:50
zzweilous
That could be an idea.
01:56:50
William Dunphey
Ooh. Wow. Wow. I like what you're cooking. I think there's something there. Again, there's a whole lot of room for for variability, especially as we're early on in this meta and people are still figuring things out. So I encourage everyone to to workshop movesets, to try different things.
01:57:06
William Dunphey
I don't think you'll want to play anything too silly like Waterfall Kingdra, but I do think that there is some some variability there.
01:57:13
zzweilous
Now, god now I'm intrigued and um I'm not going to try it.
01:57:18
William Dunphey
Yeah, you probably will try it. I bet you will.
01:57:20
zzweilous
There's also like with all the Dragon Breath users, um you may want to look at some of the IV thresholds where a little bit of attack weight will actually grant you a full point of extra damage per half second with some of those Dragon Breathers. So sometimes maybe the rank one isn't even the optimal one and if you have like maybe some some funky IV Kingdra may still be worth looking into.
01:57:47
William Dunphey
Oh, interesting. I'm just, I'm just reminding myself as well that seeking can also learn poison jab. So I don't think the energy generation is that good, but maybe,
01:57:55
zzweilous
That is true.
01:57:59
zzweilous
If you really want to be anti-Grimm-Snal, that is another option.
01:58:04
William Dunphey
It is. It looks like... Oh, you actually don't win the Grimmsnarl in the Even Shields with ah Poison Jab, so never mind. But anyways, ZZ, I think we're approaching close to the end of our broadcast. We've already covered several different tournaments. Do you want to talk about the Precious Paths meta and then maybe kind of bits and pieces of things as we close out?
01:58:26
zzweilous
Yeah, let's let's just take a small, like a quick look at what we can expect from meta changes. I have the the blog post pulled up and I'll just go through the attack changes real quick.
01:58:40
William Dunphey
OK. Correct.
01:58:43
zzweilous
I guess we'll probably see that on screen as well for the YouTube version.
01:58:47
William Dunphey
correct
01:58:47
zzweilous
um There's going to be a Powder Snow. There's not going to be. There already has been a Powder Snow damage increase, so that it now mirrors Shadow Claw being six power. um So it's six power, eight energy on a two turn move. Icicle Spear bringing Walrein back to the forefront and also a couple other Icicle Spear users going from 65 power to 70 power.
01:59:10
zzweilous
Now mirroring moves like, I think, Psyshock or Aqua Jet.
01:59:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:59:15
zzweilous
So that's pretty nice. Then a change aimed at the Master League with Geomancy, the signature fast attack of Xerneas going from four power to eight power, making that Pokemon viable again.
01:59:28
zzweilous
Shadow Ball energy cost decreased from 55 to 50 energy. So that means that, for example, a Jellicent now reaches a Shadow Ball in only four hexes.
01:59:40
zzweilous
as well as Licky Licky that now only needs four rollouts to reach that powerful charge attack. um Shadow Sneak, this is a change that has some people perplexed where the power increased greatly to 75, but the energy cost also increased.
01:59:58
zzweilous
So now you just have essentially worse shadow ball by 25 power, which like, I don't know, maybe it,
02:00:03
William Dunphey
Yep.
02:00:07
zzweilous
It encourages Giratina to run the cheaper Ancient power, um but overall not the most impactful change. However, foul play is pretty nice. You don't think much of it on like at first sight, but um going from 60 to 65 power means that now you take a shield off Firid with the Shadow Sableye and the zero shield scenario.
02:00:31
zzweilous
So Shadow Sableye may be a big beneficiary of that foul play buff, um I always want to say Onion Ring, but the move is called Oblivion Wing. That is Iveltal's signature move.
02:00:43
zzweilous
um So the counterpart to Xerneas, both of which will play a big part in the Kalos Tour that we can expect um in February, I'm pretty sure.
02:00:51
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:00:54
zzweilous
So now you have a guaranteed um defense buff. I think Oblivion Wing, other than that, being a clone of Dark Pulse, so 50 energy, 80 damage, which isn't the greatest but viable enough.
02:01:08
zzweilous
And now that you have the defense boost, certainly a strong option and worthy of being a signature attack. Brick Break going from 40 energy, 40 power to 40 energy, 50 power.
02:01:19
zzweilous
um So that is now a more reasonable option to run on a Pokemon like a Furret, for example, in a limited meta. I'm pretty sure that Furret is legal for EUIC as well.
02:01:31
William Dunphey
Correct.
02:01:31
zzweilous
but prefers quick attack because a lot of darks resist sucker punch. And Brick Break may come in handy against all those roll-out normal types or dark types. Nigeomash has its energy cost decreased, meaning now you hit a 100 base power move for only 45 energy. This is a big help for Metagross in the Master League, but also for Clefable in Raid and especially the Ultra League.
02:02:00
zzweilous
where now you have a non-stab Frenzy Plant clone of the Steel-type variety that you reach in only 10 turns with Fairy Wind pacing very efficiently to that 45 energy attack.
02:02:12
zzweilous
Bice Grip, a move that wasn't really talked about at all, but existed in the game for a long time, um going from 40 power to 70 power at 40 energy. This is helpful for a Pokemon like Marwile, Shadow Marwile, but also for a Pokemon that newly received it in this update, Regidrago,
02:02:30
zzweilous
getting a big rework with dragon energy being decreased by 10 power points, but vice grip now being added to its moveset, giving it both a bait move as well as a cheaper coverage coverage option than hyper beam.
02:02:44
zzweilous
um Also there is special f special and spatial rent, a Palkia signature move um being nerfed ever so slightly by a plus five energy increase.
02:02:57
zzweilous
um that essentially just means that you get to your big move a little more slowly, um which doesn't do all that much to deter Palkyrie's dominance in Mastadique, but certainly helps to make it feel a little more balanced. And finally, Parabolic Charge, the energy cost increasing from 45 to 50 energy.
02:03:16
zzweilous
um That makes it so that Dedene doesn't get to the attack in five Thunder Shocks anymore, but needs six for the first. And the same goes for Belly Bolt, which also is a Saka Puncher and overall with either fast move, a big presence in the Ultra League.
02:03:33
zzweilous
And it goes from top meta to just meta there. So that is all the changes in terms of the attacks that are actually being modified.
02:03:44
zzweilous
Now the attack availability updates, there is a lot to talk about. I don't think we need to talk about all of it, but some key changes are Tentacruel receiving payback for the Ultra League, now having better play against the buff Jelicent,
02:03:50
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:03:57
zzweilous
um but Then another move that is newly added on Dooblade is Shadowclaw alongside Sacred Sword. So the pre-evolution of Aegislash now actually viable. Around Swamp at levels of Bolt, you don't need XLs for it at all.
02:04:15
zzweilous
um Very nice that Hornedge now is also a GPL encounter. So you are able to farm those little swords, evolve it once and have a bit of a Spice Pick with good coverage.
02:04:28
zzweilous
Then you have Ludicolo getting also a double attack availability update with Astonish as its fast attack and Weatherball as its new bait move.
02:04:32
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
02:04:38
zzweilous
um Very flexible Pokemon now. Has a decent amount of bulk actually, like Ferret levels, and can do stuff both in the Ultra League where it needs to be near a hundo and in the Great League.
02:04:50
zzweilous
um Other than that, a big winner is Blaziken. now receiving Ember and Aurasphere, being very spammy and being able to put out a lot of damage very fast, still suffering from its general frailty.
02:05:05
zzweilous
And the probably most talked about update um from this last iteration is Gorgeist. Gorgeist receiving Incinerate and therefore becoming a pretty strong corebreaker to Unovan, Stunfisk and Shadow Scissor cores.
02:05:23
zzweilous
which have been roaming the Go Battle League in past seasons. It's the first non-step incinerate user and has a very nice synergy now with the 10 turn pacing to seed bomb and also Shadow Ball now being a move that you can double up on.
02:05:40
zzweilous
So that was my um pretty long-winded review of all the move changes. And yeah, what are you thinking, Speedy? Is this going to meaningfully change up the meta or it's just a bunch of nice halves i feel like i've given the answer away with this
02:05:57
William Dunphey
Well, as Nighttime Cluster said, we're going to be eating the same soup for the next three months, but at least it's a tasty soup, right? I have a couple have a couple thoughts.
02:06:04
zzweilous
i do not disagree with that actually
02:06:08
William Dunphey
So on attack changes, I've heard really good things about Geomancy. I heard some folks saying that they didn't think Xerneas was going to be that viable, but this change from four to eight power actually helps it quite a bit.
02:06:20
William Dunphey
And it's actually a really, really nice way to bring that Pokemon back in. Xerneas is awesome.
02:06:23
zzweilous
I have a Shando build.
02:06:24
William Dunphey
ah
02:06:24
zzweilous
I have a Shando build, so this is very important to me.
02:06:26
William Dunphey
Ooh. Heck yeah. No, it's it's an awesome Pokemon. The roll compression on Xerneas is unmatched. I'm glad to see it be meta. Shadow Sneak changing from 50 to 75 power, essentially becoming a worse Shadow Ball, as you mentioned. I'm pretty sure they meant to type Nightshade here, but they just picked Shadow Sneak instead. I think that was the intent, but we'll never know.
02:06:46
William Dunphey
Oblivion Wing, I've heard, has not helped Evalotol that much, just because there are still so many threats to being a Dark Flyer. Vicegrip, here on the blog post, it's spelled V-I-C-E. That's actually incorrect.
02:07:00
William Dunphey
It's Visegrip with an S. And that just shows that Niantic misspelled it on their official comms, which is interesting. um Spatial Ren energy costs being increased. I've heard that they're trying to rein in Palkia in Master League, and it's still really strong. i don't know if Spatial Ren, the nerf on that is enough to do it. You might need to hit Aquatail as well, which I know would also hurt a lot of other Pokemon. So there's a lot of collateral when you look at an adjustment like that. But let me know if you think the Master League feels more balanced, if there's less Palkia. And Parabolic Charge, this honestly feels like...
02:07:35
William Dunphey
This feels like Dedenne was the most wanted a villain in the meta for like a few months. And Niantic is like, all right, let's nerf it the season after. And then Dedenne is like far gone, retired, like Thanos living on a farm somewhere, all shriveled up, just doing whatever. And then Niantic is like, no, hit him again.
02:07:57
William Dunphey
Nerf him again. hit parabolic charge. and then Thor shows up with with his axe. And you know what happens after that. But this feels like
02:08:03
zzweilous
I don't mind it because of the Ultra League implications, right? Because Bellyball was just like very dominant.
02:08:06
William Dunphey
Ah, true.
02:08:10
William Dunphey
It's actually a really good point. That's that's a very good point. i didn't consider Ultra League, so maybe that was the intended target. ah As far as the attack availability updates, I did try Tentacruel early on. I agree with you. It's really fun, especially in Ultra League. I want to try Go-Goat with Rock Slide.
02:08:25
William Dunphey
If you remember, this move was removed from it before it went live because it wasn't available worldwide to players. And everyone thought that that pure grass-type Go-Goat with Rock Slide was going be too strong and it was going to destabilize the meta.
02:08:38
zzweilous
Yeah.
02:08:38
William Dunphey
So we actually didn't see the Rock Slide edition until now, after it's gotten a few more releases. Da Blade, I've been impressed with that one. i like seeing it in Go Battle League this past rotation.
02:08:49
William Dunphey
It was really fun. Ludicolo, to me, seems like one of the biggest winners with the double buffs. Scroll, scroll, scroll. I tried Blaziken. Still really, really flimsy. Milotic with Dragon Tail and Aqua Tail is going to be interesting. I do want to see how that performs in the EUIC see meta.
02:09:06
William Dunphey
Ludicola with Weatherball. Good good adjustment there. Kyogre with Avalanche. I've heard not so good things about this because it already has such good moves.
02:09:13
zzweilous
or not.
02:09:15
William Dunphey
You don't really want to give up um something else for Avalanche. At the same time, It's so weak to dragons that even if you do eventually get to the avalanche, it doesn't really make that big of an impact in the battles. So it's a little disappointing. Tyranitar with Dragon Breath. I know that that there are Tyranitar whispers like yourself, like Home Size Henry, that can make this Pokemon work, but I've struggled with it pretty mightily. It does seem fun, but it's just so flimsy and so glassy. I don't want to call it a fraud because I know that maybe it's just a skill issue on my part, but it's not as hot as I thought it would be.
02:09:50
William Dunphey
And then Gorgias, I agree with you. think Gorgias is the biggest win. I think there was a a very prominent battler who actually posted and said that they were going to make Gorgias part of their personality for the next three months.
02:10:02
zzweilous
I
02:10:02
William Dunphey
I think there might have been a trainer from from Germany, but um my memory escapes me. And also, I haven't tried Solrock with Cywave and Fire Weatherball yet.
02:10:12
William Dunphey
So maybe that'll be fun in Limited Metas.
02:10:14
zzweilous
i want to see that in Love Cup when we have that again.
02:10:16
William Dunphey
Oh, good call. Yeah, that could be fun. But that's my rundown. That's my scoop on my my big buffs list. I have double aid Ludicolo and Gorghist Pokemon. I want to try our dadun sparse and go go.
02:10:30
William Dunphey
And then my frauds are actually dragon breath. Tyranitar, our sphere, Blaziken and Avalanche Kyogre. So that's my list.
02:10:39
zzweilous
Yeah, like I think honestly like my biggest buffs, they're a little boring. Like I definitely, I'm i'm a Gorgas believer. I think that we may see Shadow Ball, Jellicent and Licky Licky a bunch more just because you just pace to it to to a very strong move very quickly now.
02:10:55
William Dunphey
Yes.
02:11:01
zzweilous
um Yeah, in terms of frauds, like I do agree with the Blaziken fraud. assessment i just feel as if that is it's just not it's just not bulky enough to like if you can you can be like squishy and still good but i think you can't just rely on charged attack pressure because if you can't farm anything down which you can't really with ember like what what are you even doing with your attack start half of the time like
02:11:17
William Dunphey
yes
02:11:35
zzweilous
The energy generation doesn't really care about your stats, so we're just you're just being flimsy for no reason.
02:11:38
William Dunphey
You're just winning charge tech priority.
02:11:41
zzweilous
um Oh, like, I actually like Hydreigon. I do rate Fly Hydreigon. do have that in my winners category as well.
02:11:51
William Dunphey
Nice.
02:11:51
zzweilous
um In terms of frauds, I think Smackdown and Playruff and Orsaluna are just draining RTMs at this point, especially Playruff.
02:12:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:12:01
zzweilous
like Why do you give this Pokemon this move? It has a lot of better, cheaper moves, and this is not even Stab. This is not even good damage per energy. um Everybody wants to see Shadowclaw or Saluna.
02:12:14
zzweilous
We'll get there eventually. i think Regidrago is a winner. i think Satitan is a winner, but not really an OGL winner. um And there's two Pokémon that I want to point out for if they get one more attack, I think they'll be good.
02:12:29
zzweilous
And those two are Milotic. I think Milotic needs a coverage move beyond water type charge attack that is cheap enough to get to like maybe that would be a good avalanche target and then there is hisuian samurai which now has really interesting coverage with fury cutter with sacred sword which with icy wind with dark pulse but there's two things that i want to point out about hisuian samurai which i currently consider a fraud um
02:12:42
William Dunphey
so
02:12:54
William Dunphey
It's very good.
02:13:00
zzweilous
It seems way better if you give it Sucker Punch, which it does learn, I'm pretty sure. um And also, it currently does not have a way of doing water-type damage outside of Razor Shell.
02:13:14
zzweilous
And that cannot be it. I don't know whether it even is eligible to receive Hydro Cannon because it's not the original recipe Samurad, but they need to do something about it because a water Pokemon losing to Talonflame is not what I signed up for.
02:13:33
William Dunphey
Um, so I just went on Pokemon db.net. One of my favorite sites to look over move sets and things like that. Um, I don't actually, oh man, I don't actually see, oh wait, here we go.
02:13:47
William Dunphey
Uh, we're looking for hydro cannon.
02:13:50
William Dunphey
It can, it can learn it actually.
02:13:51
zzweilous
Probably. oh let's go?
02:13:54
William Dunphey
It learns it in generation 7. It's available to learn it as a tutor move. So you can learn that. ah You can also learn Water Pledge, whatever that is. So
02:14:04
zzweilous
it it does learn both Aquatail and Aquajet aquachet through level up. So maybe like a nice Aquajet would be another option. And yeah, it does also learn Suggabunch as a level up move.
02:14:17
William Dunphey
Wait, ZZ, we can give it Brine.
02:14:20
zzweilous
Oh, Jesus. and Let's not do that.
02:14:21
William Dunphey
yeah that would be the best thing ever, right? and I'm just kidding. Everything else you said was preferable. But yeah, there is potential. I agree with you. I think that's a really cool way to look at things too. Like, which Pokemon are right on the cusp of being good? And I think that for Hussu and Samurott, it just needs a stab move, right? I mean, you can run Icy Wind, you can run Sacred Sword, but you really want something like Dark Pulse that at least has stab. You really want a Water move that at least has stab.
02:14:47
William Dunphey
So yeah, I think that's something that's kind of hamstringing it a little bit. But ah yeah, like like we talked about a few times, this meta doesn't feel like it's really moving the needle with the top ah six, the top 12 usage Pokemon in the championship series.
02:15:02
William Dunphey
You're probably going to see a lot of the same things over the next few weeks, unless a new Pokemon releases like Torkoal. Not Torkoal, what's it called? Colossal, for example.
02:15:10
zzweilous
Yes.
02:15:12
William Dunphey
So if that comes out, maybe things will change. But as of right now, it's going to be the same soup for for a little while.
02:15:18
zzweilous
Yeah. The roly-coly line that does involve Colossal as the last stage evolution is actually such a funny release because it is part of the second half of the Christmas event and it is literally coal. We are getting coal for Christmas, BD.
02:15:35
William Dunphey
a
02:15:35
zzweilous
I guess we weren't the goodest of boys this this season.
02:15:35
William Dunphey
i
02:15:39
William Dunphey
I guess we we deserve it, right? There's no other way I can look at it. Diantic is like, hey, you know you guys complain about the game so much. Well, you've been bad players, so what can he give you coal?
02:15:50
zzweilous
Yes, we'll be we'll be on our best behavior next year.
02:15:51
William Dunphey
I guess that's what it is.
02:15:54
William Dunphey
Surely, surely for the 10 year anniversary. we will We will stop complaining as Pokemon Go PVPers. Don't think it's ever going to happen, but we'll try. But um yeah, I mean, we covered it a lot. We started over in Buenos Aires. We talked about Las Vegas. We talked about Stuttgart. We talked about LAIC. We talked a little bit about the EUIC meta that's upcoming. We talked about our new Precious Path season.
02:16:17
William Dunphey
i had an idea. I'll say this real quick. Side tangent. I pitched to Niantic that they should have an Ultra Beast event.
02:16:25
zzweilous
Oh.
02:16:25
William Dunphey
And in order to actually make routes more appealing, they should change the entire in-game map to look like an Ultra Beast realm based on what part of the world you're in. So if you remember in the anime, they go to different kind of through spatial gateways to encounter each of the Ultra Beasts. And they all have like a different look. Pheramosa's world is little different than Buzzwole's world. Stack Attack's world is a little different.
02:16:48
William Dunphey
my idea was to have basically a global goal where people had to explore routes through the Ultra Beast realm. And once we reach a certain amount of distance as a global community, we would get like a mega cool unlock. And that'd be a cool way to get people to do more routes, to do more exploring, to look at the in-game map and actually be excited about it a little bit more. That was my idea. And when Precious Paths was announced, I was like, huh, paths, routes, sounds similar.
02:17:17
William Dunphey
Maybe we'll get a crossover, but I haven't heard any announcement thus far. so It might be another idea of mine that went down the drain. We'll see.
02:17:25
zzweilous
it does sound more intriguing than just like exchanging a postcard with Matteo um so what is he even doing like
02:17:30
William Dunphey
Yeah, Mateo's useless.
02:17:34
William Dunphey
I don't know.
02:17:36
William Dunphey
He's just posted up.
02:17:37
zzweilous
especially now that we like like since we last got together like they introduced remote trading like we don't even need a postcard from like a far away person we can just like get a pokemon from them we're a high enough friendship level which is far more intriguing than a postcard
02:17:52
William Dunphey
That's true.
02:17:55
William Dunphey
That's true. And I cannot wait to knock out my lucky trades. So if you are lucky friends with me, please open gifts when I send them to you. Let's get that lucky trade done because I'm sick of looking at like 70 lucky friends on my list every time I open it.
02:18:08
William Dunphey
So yeah, let's get that done, everybody. But ZZ, not sure if there's anything else you want to mention or if you want to start to wrap up.
02:18:15
zzweilous
um I want to mention that the last few north American regionals actually got announced in our downtime because we do have the Los Angeles regional for um early May. We have the Indianapolis regional for late May.
02:18:31
zzweilous
And I think there's also a special event in Puerto Rico again, but I'm blanking on when that is.
02:18:37
William Dunphey
Yeah, very, very good question. So San Juan, Puerto Rico is March 7th and 8th.
02:18:40
zzweilous
All right, so
02:18:43
William Dunphey
So
Evolution of Competitive Scene
02:18:44
William Dunphey
shortly after Seattle.
02:18:44
zzweilous
essentially like, this yeah, that's starting off the, that's probably like the first regional or special event with the new ruleset from the March update.
02:18:54
zzweilous
So that's going to be exciting.
02:18:55
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. So on my graphic here, I have all the different events and I have them kind of cataloged by which season they're in. So the season we were just in the Tales of Transformation, we had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 events.
02:19:13
William Dunphey
This current season we're in Precious Paths. We're going to have a lot fewer. we're like we We're only going to have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight events. So we had 12, then we had eight. The third season of the calendar year tends to be our biggest. I think last year we had like almost 20 events in that meta.
02:19:34
William Dunphey
So if you're not a big fan of Precious Paths, you only have to eat that soup for eight events. And then we're going to go into ah a much longer season with a lot more events. So that's always substite something to look forward to. And then our fourth in-game season is going to be NAIC.
02:19:49
William Dunphey
I guess there's an event in EU and then also PJCS in Worlds. So only four events for that. So pretty short. But yeah.
02:20:00
William Dunphey
That's about it. It's been a long episode. It's been a good one. ZZ, I'm glad you're feeling better. Hope you have a wonderful time with ah your family for the holidays. And I'm still like so impressed with your intro and your willingness and your guts to sing it out.
02:20:16
zzweilous
it was like half-sung but it was the best i could do at the time
02:20:17
William Dunphey
I admire it so much. And, uh,
02:20:23
William Dunphey
You sold me on it. You sold me. But ah yeah, I'm excited for next year. a lot more content coming for you. going to to revamp a few things. I think this month I just was kind of taking things a little bit easy, trying to conserve energy, get ready for next year. But ah come calendar year 2026, we're going to hit it really hard. So I'm excited for that. It's easy. It's been a pleasure. It's been an honor as it always is. And unironically, I'll see you next year.
02:20:49
zzweilous
Oh yeah. um Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to you, Speedy, to everyone celebrating at home. And yeah, we'll be back with probably the Toronto recap then. That's going to be an exciting one because there's a lot of talented trainers up there in Canada.
02:21:07
William Dunphey
That's true. I can't wait. It's going to be cold, but it'll be really intense, really good competition, and a heck of a way to kick off our 10-year anniversary for the game and so many other things that are coming down the pipeline in the competitive circuit.
02:21:21
William Dunphey
So it's been great. It's been a great year of the show, our first complete year of the podcast, and we're going to...
02:21:27
zzweilous
Is it the first or the second?
02:21:29
William Dunphey
I think it's the first, right? Or is this the second...
02:21:32
zzweilous
We've been doing this for a while.
02:21:34
William Dunphey
I thought we started at the beginning of the calendar year, like around January, February. Am I wrong? So technically, technically we did half of last season and then we did the first half of this season.
02:21:40
zzweilous
like this may be the second already.
02:21:47
William Dunphey
I'll
02:21:47
zzweilous
When was our first broadcast?
02:21:50
William Dunphey
have to look for it. I'm not sure. Let me see. I'll look it up right now. Okay.
02:22:02
William Dunphey
It's so funny because I opened Zencaster and it says that I'm not logged in, but I am. All right, here we go.
02:22:10
William Dunphey
First episode we ever published was Portland 2024 recap. year ago.
02:22:18
William Dunphey
one year ago
02:22:22
zzweilous
But...
02:22:25
zzweilous
Like 2024 recap means that was before 2024 Worlds, right?
02:22:33
William Dunphey
Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm looking for the date and it doesn't give me the date. it just says one year ago.
02:22:41
William Dunphey
me see.
02:22:42
zzweilous
like this must be... i feel like we must be nearing the end of our second year then. Because...
02:22:48
William Dunphey
Yeah, you're probably right.
02:22:48
zzweilous
Wait, it was portland was Portland the one that Abhinav won?
02:22:53
William Dunphey
I think it was.
02:22:55
zzweilous
Because I always use that as my threshold for somebody who didn't make a grand final in the first two years of play Pokemon for Pokemon Go, like winning a tournament.
02:23:09
zzweilous
And that was a thing that didn't happen until Meteorfolion won in Milwaukee. And that was almost two years. So now we're two months past Mitchell Fulton winning Milwaukee.
02:23:27
William Dunphey
Yeah.
02:23:27
zzweilous
So this must be like almost two two years ago.
02:23:27
William Dunphey
the
02:23:32
William Dunphey
Yeah, no, actually you're right. It says the 2024 Portland regionals were January 6th and 7th of 2024. So first episode was January last year.
02:23:43
William Dunphey
And now we're finishing out this year. One, two.
02:23:46
zzweilous
Holy time flies.
02:23:47
William Dunphey
Yeah. We're going into year three.
02:23:49
zzweilous
Incredible.
02:23:50
William Dunphey
Wow. I can't believe it. I honestly can't believe it. I was so sure of myself. And I said one year. Well, Like we were talking about off camera, time has a funny way of moving.
02:24:03
William Dunphey
And I think that we've got a lot more of it than a lot of people think. Don't be so fatalist, everybody. Have a positive outlook and stay young. I think that's the most important thing.
02:24:14
zzweilous
Yes, yes. And be like us. Be perpetually stuck in the season of timeless travels and you'll have a good time.
02:24:21
William Dunphey
I don't know if there's a more fitting way to end that. All right, it's easy I appreciate you so much, my friend. I'm looking forward to year three and we'll see all of you 2026.
02:24:45
zzweilous
Amen.