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EP. 45 | Orlando, Queretaro, Cape Town Recaps + India Qualifiers & NAIC Meta Reveal
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 45 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This episode is a somber one. As you have likely already heard, the Orlando Regionals ended in enormous controversy when FireStar73's game 5 win in the Grand Finals reset was overturned. As of the time of this recording, we have not received an official announcement from Pokemon. However, we can still talk about what Speedy saw in Orlando, and the sentiment that Zzweilous has seen online. After the Orlando discussion, we move on to Queretaro, where official resources were used to support the 1st-ever LATAM broadcast. Finally, we recap Cape Town South Africa, thanks to the efforts of PvPSteve and Dracoviz. We discuss the India Qualifiers teams, and some of the Japanese trainers who have qualified for the PJCS. Oh yeah, and Sustainability Week begins soon! :D
If you're ready... go ahead and lock In, press play, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction to Pokémon Go Championship Series
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Welcome in into the Show 6 Podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. In this week's episode, we discuss a variety of topics, beginning with the Orlando Regionals. I won't mince words here.
00:00:12
William Dunphey
Orlando had the makings of one of the best play Pokemon events of all time. In the end, though, a great darkness spread over sunny Orlando, eclipsing the entire event and spreading far beyond the Pokemon Go community. We'll talk about what we know, what we don't know, and how the outcome will ultimately shape the future of competitive Pokemon Go.
00:00:32
William Dunphey
We'll also discuss the first streamed event in LATAM, being Koeiretaro, and how a South African defended Cape Town and became the champion. We'll give you a preview of what to expect as the TPC region fires up their own events and our first impressions of the n NAIC meta reveal.
00:00:48
William Dunphey
So if you're ready, good luck, have fun, and lock in.
00:00:57
zzweilous
Okay.
00:01:15
William Dunphey
Welcome back everybody to yet another episode of the show six podcast as I alluded to in the intro we do our best to break down the storylines the players and everything in between and I couldn't do any of this without my co-host Z Zweiless ZZ welcome in
00:01:31
zzweilous
Thanks for having me yet again, Speedy. There's a lot of breakdown this time around, I'm afraid, and not all of the pleasant nature that we're typically used to when discussing these episodes where we're just celebrating achievements, celebrating victories, and celebrating our players because Orlando happened. And Orlando was some it was an event that brought the community together to essentially defend one of our own who earned regional title and then got it taken away.
00:02:04
zzweilous
And that individual is Firestar73. And even if you don't follow Pokemon Go PvP that closely, which obviously you do because you're listening to us right now, um but there's a most critical video that has more than a million views on that topic is what I'm saying. So yeah, Orlando Regionals, one for the ages. They have nothing else.
00:02:28
William Dunphey
We need ah all of our moist critical fans listening to give us a like and let us know that you're ah interested in competitive Pokemon. And you know, as I was talking with you before we pressed our course easy, millions of people are finding out that we have competitive Pokemon tournaments. So...
Firestar73 Controversy
00:02:44
William Dunphey
I don't know if it's too soon to look at a bright side here, but ah I'll tell you what, but let's be honest, right? We're going spend the most of this episode talking, or the majority, I should say, of this episode talking about Firestar and what happened in those grand finals. But there were a lot of other narratives. So let's kind of move through those really quickly because a lot of other trainers deserve a spotlight for their c incredible performances. And then we'll get get down to the nitty gritty and we'll answer all of the questions that that we've seen posted. So, The first thing I wanted to talk about, your notes are always so good, man. It says here, Tuzzy's attack on Florida. Our ah our team, our production team, we called it the Samba Shuffle because a lot of these Brazilian trainers are coming in and they were dancing right onto the stage.
00:03:26
William Dunphey
Let's talk about Tuzzy and the invasion because this is actually a very solid performance from all of our Brazilian trainers.
00:03:32
zzweilous
Yeah, this is so interesting to me because typically you would expect the LATAM competitors to compete in the LATAM region. And there was the Carretero regionals on the exact
Brazilian Competitors in Orlando Regionals
00:03:44
zzweilous
same weekend.
00:03:45
zzweilous
But instead, the formerly known as LNDES, probably still known as LNDES crew around LNDES Rajef, TZ Steinar, LNDES Aureo, a bunch of talented trainers who made their way over to Florida to compete in Orlando and The three names that I just mentioned all came top five.
00:04:06
zzweilous
So it was a very successful outing for our Brazilian friends.
00:04:06
William Dunphey
Wow.
00:04:10
zzweilous
And yeah, the entirety of day two felt like a little bit of an international competition with um Americans defending their home soil from the Brazilian onslaught of very, very talented trainers, as well as Sammy 85, who is not one of the Tazis, but as a Peruvian competitor also with his, I think, career best finish and in fifth place, um part of that North America versus Latin America dynamic that played out in very exciting fashion.
00:04:43
William Dunphey
I agree. It was definitely fascinating to watch. And given the history that we have, especially with our Brazilian trainers coming over to Pittsburgh and taking a award there, i definitely had, you know, um my NA bias was showing a little bit and I definitely had a few jump scare moments. I'm looking here at my um my DMs because I got a message actually from Inadequance.
00:05:07
William Dunphey
And I'm trying to see exactly where he said it. But essentially he he said, um i can't wait to see another trophy from NA go over to LATAM. That's going be great. And Martijn was trying to curse us, right?
00:05:20
zzweilous
this sounds This sounds like very much a multi-message, but yeah, it happened twice already this season where the North Americans couldn't really keep their auto-invite and their gold medal in their home region with not only TZ Steiner winning Pittsburgh, but also Stone Collection taking the Seattle title. So the Brazilians were trying to make it three, um but they did not succeed because...
00:05:46
zzweilous
The two trainers in the finals were essentially just like, they really felt at home beating up on the poor, poor Latim trainers, because I feel as if both of them, their claim to fame is also kind of not really being the strongest trainers in North America, but rather being the strongest North Americans when it comes to beating up her other regions with nighttime pleasure, obviously.
00:06:06
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:06:14
zzweilous
the LAIC champion, very well versed in taking down the international grades. And Firestar73, the other grand finalist, being the highest placing American at the last World Championships in Anaheim, California, coming seventh overall. So two trainers with um certainly the accolades to to back up their claim as two of the strongest trainers in the region and also two of the best um defenders of North America against players from abroad.
00:06:47
William Dunphey
So let's do a brief recap, right? Of our top three best finishing Brazilians. They all came in on the winner side bracket for day number two. We did have hard Jeff versus fire stars.
00:06:57
William Dunphey
The first matchup we had TZ Steiner versus Dune bug as our second matchup. And then we had l and D as Oreo versus nighttime clasher. So, Starting with the latter, LDS Arreo was able to pick up 2-1 over Ryze.
00:07:10
William Dunphey
He was not to loser side bracket by Nighttime Clasher. He was also able to beat Pranov and Toad with his Aegislash before falling Firestar ultimately to end his tournament run.
00:07:21
William Dunphey
Then we had LNDS Hard Jeff. He had a notable win over Dunebug actually in round seven. I think I made the the commentary on this. I said, you're going to have six medals slash trophies on each side of the stage.
00:07:34
William Dunphey
They have so much hardware. They might actually fall through that platform if they're not careful.
00:07:37
zzweilous
Thank
00:07:38
William Dunphey
He was also able to beat Frankie a Florida local Orlando native actually, and Sammy. And then you had LNDS T or excuse me, TZ Steinar. He's had a lot of name changes frequently, so forgive me if I go back and forth. He also got a win over Dunebug. So Dunebug's two losses were both two Brazilians, it would appear. And he also beat Firestar before falling to Nighttime Clasher and then Firestar in the rematch. So very well played by all of our Brazilian players. And this was also, I know that it's become kind of like a meme in the NA community. we We make jokes, right? Like, oh, well, as long as Flying Pizza isn't there, LNDS Heart Jeff has a chance.
00:08:21
William Dunphey
And that's like very much hyperbole, right? Because there was that one event. But ah just speaking for him, because because I do feel like i i feel like we're friends, Heart Jeff had to have felt pretty good about this performance in NA, as long as the other... as well as the other Brazilians did too.
00:08:37
zzweilous
Yeah, like Rajev also just coming off his Koritsiba win, so already like starting strong into this half of the season, or like this third of the season rather.
00:08:47
zzweilous
um And yeah, even though like like there's not really like anything that needs to be earned in terms of Worlds Invites or Worlds Travel Awards, because these trainers, like these are the exact LATAM trainers, the exact pres Brazilian trainers that are already essentially reigning the LATAM leaderboard.
00:09:07
zzweilous
But it's still nice to get those points just to get the IC Traveler Awards. like We don't officially know yet um for which international competition we are collecting points and for which Traveler Award
Aegislash's Role in Competitive Play
00:09:21
zzweilous
we're collecting points as of now.
00:09:23
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:09:23
zzweilous
Speculation is that it's going to be la i c so it will be in-region for Rajiv, Steiner, and the likes. But still, positioning yourself well to get like that little bit of pocket money, surely,
00:09:34
zzweilous
Like that surely doesn't hurt. Plus there's a decent amount of prize money as well for being a a high finisher at traveling to regionals like this one.
00:09:43
William Dunphey
Exactly. You have to keep the long run in mind, especially when it comes to our top trainers. This is always something that to me feels difficult to communicate on the broadcast because most of your players that are watching are not going to be competing for the travel award. They're not going to be top eight because obviously being top eight means there's only eight of those people. So it's it's always interesting to to keep in mind the travel awards and what's at stake. for performing well throughout the season, but then it doesn't feel like it's always appropriate to kind of mention that to the broader audience. So I really appreciate that that you bring that up, especially on our our high level show here. A couple other meta trends that I wanted to point out here. Let's let's talk about our top cut, right? 610 Hero. shadow poly toad as well as florgis and metacham dapper discs bringing in the galarian wheezing and murkrow we had toad with aegis slash and his galarian moltres i'm just going to be honest i don't know how you felt about uh what you were able to watch easy but i felt that toad was our best aegis slash player in the event he seemed very comfortable with the pokemon and uh i'd love to discuss that or any other meta picks that you thought were viable
00:10:50
zzweilous
Yeah, I think EG Slash is probably the most interesting and exciting one because that has been legal for the Houston event already. And I think people like the masked Asian were trying it out.
00:11:02
William Dunphey
And arrow.
00:11:04
zzweilous
Oh yeah, true. That was also a thing. um Like people were trying to make it work, but they didn't place quite as highly as they may have liked to. And now we have ah to a young, very talented trainer from North America,
00:11:19
zzweilous
actually breaking into the top eight for I think career best finish. And that does go to show that Aegislash is actually a pick that can carry your team to unforeseen heights, but it needs to be mastered. And there's an argument going around that Aegislash is the highest skill ceiling Pokemon out there right now.
00:11:46
zzweilous
and I'm like off two minds about this preposition, but I don't know.
00:11:52
William Dunphey
Okay. okay
00:11:53
zzweilous
how How are you feeling about this, Speedy? Like, what is your opinion on on this Pokemon that is so unique in how it operates and that it has a unique form change to its gameplay?
00:12:05
William Dunphey
So, okay, so i have I have thoughts on this. So Aegislash essentially affords you a third shield ah in the game, and I look at it that way because it's so bulky. You can take a lot of super effective damage while you're charging. Positionally, I used to believe that you had to play it kind of like a superpower or wild charge user. You had to throw it out in the lead, use your move, and then swap and bank energy, but I don't think that's ah necessarily the case anymore. I've changed my opinion on that. um I think there's a distinct difference between the players that really know how to play Aegislash and the ones that kind of know and they're kind of figuring it out. And you can tell that almost immediately. It's it's one of those Pokemon that's a very good litmus test.
00:12:44
William Dunphey
ah You can't fake your way through playing that Pokemon. That's just the way it is. um I don't know if you've heard of this trainer, ZZ, but I bumped into someone named Kelsey K. And I had discussion with her about Aegislash. She said that ah she's battled a few times in GBL. And basically to the point I just said, she says when you go up against a good Aegislash player, it's very, very hard to beat them. But when you go up against a mid tier player, you can you can figure your way out. It did better than I thought it would. But I was inspired after Orlando to play it in the Fantasy Cup. And I was honestly pretty surprised. So given my battles are still relatively, you know, mid ELO range, I'm not going up against Legends at this point. But I will say that gameplay wise, it felt a lot more flexible than I thought. And I don't even have a particularly good one. Did I hit on your points or or do you have like ah a very different thought?
00:13:34
zzweilous
It's interesting because like I don't actually know exactly where I stand on Aegislash just yet. um andm probably I'm probably there with Kelsey, who is known to be an expert in terms of form-changing Pokémon, notably being a big Morpeko enjoyer.
00:13:49
zzweilous
And Aegislash, it essentially switches from being a Ghost-type Bastiodon to a Ghost-type Morpeko in a way, and that
00:13:50
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:13:57
William Dunphey
yeah
00:13:59
zzweilous
And that like the shield form is so, so bulky, such a high stat product and the blade form is just a sweeper. And I personally am not very fond of Aegislaire's play style and that I believe that with how the shield form is essentially impenetrable in neutral situations, um that interaction can make games very,
00:14:28
zzweilous
uninteractive in a way, especially the way charge attack priority works with Aegislash is that while in shield form, it will take its shield form attack stat and always lose charge attack priority.
00:14:42
zzweilous
Whereas in a blade form, it will actually use its blade form attack stat and essentially always win charge attack priority.
00:14:42
William Dunphey
No.
00:14:50
zzweilous
So if you farm up to a hundred energy with Aegislash, even if you charge attack priority tie that Pokemon, you will win that tie as the non-Ageist Slash player and you will deal your damage to the shield form Aegislash, which is essentially like, the Pokémon doesn't care about that.
00:15:08
zzweilous
If you then try to charge attack priority tie them again on the second move, um and they have already like fired a move that you blocked and now they're in blade form, you will lose that tie that you just won and you will be again in the disadvantageous position where you have to put up a shield or you're essentially deleted off the field.
00:15:27
zzweilous
It's just like, okay, if I don't keep keep two shields for this Pokemon, I am in big trouble. And that is something that limits the counterplay to this Pokemon to one strategy.
00:15:41
zzweilous
And that is just to keep two shields and pray that you encounter it in the right position. And while that is an effective enough strategy, it also...
00:15:52
zzweilous
it changes how the battles play out in a way that to me feels less dynamic than games that do not include Aegislash.
00:16:01
William Dunphey
Mmm.
00:16:01
zzweilous
So that is something that I disapprove of. Whereas I do agree that to properly pilot the Pokemon Aegislash, you do need to be aware of more things than just that interaction. You also need to know when to stay in the blade form for a little while, because in the blade form, you have access to PsychoCut as your fast attack, whereas In the shield form, you have ah access to the charging attack, quote unquote, probably so, which only deals one damage per use and charges up six energy rather than the nine energy would get per cycle cut.
00:16:36
zzweilous
So there's nuance to that. There's nuance to leveraging, especially like a low health, Aegislash in an attacking sense. But just the way forces one specific type of counterplay and nothing else makes it like a little bit two-dimensional and rather gimmicky than really elevating the skill seeding.
00:16:58
William Dunphey
Interesting. Gimmicky is is a strong word. but But the thing is, I kind of see where you're coming from because I feel like a lot of our elite trainers can see through it and they aren't fooled by the Pokemon and they're able to to maneuver around it. But it can be really uncomfortable if you're not prepared for it. So...
00:17:14
William Dunphey
ah one One series that I'm waiting to talk about, I noticed it here looking at the team comps, was the Aegislash Mirror that we got between Alan and Toad. I'm not sure if you remember remember the series, but ah my goodness, this was insane. So Alan, Corviknight for Alligator, Guzzlord, Aegislash, as well as Gorghais, and Karbink, which is another...
00:17:35
William Dunphey
wacky, ah bizarre pick. And then you had ah Toad with Shadow Quagsire, Wigglytuff, Feraligatr, Clod Sire, Aegislash, and Galarian Moltres. And what I remember the most about this series is that Alan saw a team with Toad that was Shadow Quagsire, Hydro Cannon Feraligatr, Earthquake, Clod Sire, Gyro Ball, Aegislash. And he said, you know what?
00:17:58
William Dunphey
I'm going lead Carbink over and over
Strategic Choices in Pokémon Matches
00:18:01
William Dunphey
and over. And somehow Bro Cooked
00:18:05
zzweilous
i was i was very surprised by that decision but i guess a carving is a carving is a carving so i don't i don't know like this is this is such a weird matchup because like when i when i look at a team of six i always like my first my first attention is towards the neutrality that i can achieve with the pokemon i select
00:18:19
William Dunphey
Yeah. ah
00:18:30
zzweilous
And somebody who has a car bank on their team of six, they obviously think differently from how I'd be thinking in that situation. And while I don't always follow the decision making in that situation, it is fascinating to watch, especially if you yourself are not involved and just can watch the car banking on another person's team.
00:18:56
William Dunphey
I've never heard it used as a verb, but that's all honestly ah amazing. Yeah, that series was crazy. And I remember anticipating that a lot because I think Caleb and Soph were commentating that one. And I was like, oh, you know, Aegislash is so much fun.
00:19:08
William Dunphey
I want to see a mirror match. And that's exactly what we got between those two players. But um speaking of carving, speaking of Aegislash. I want everyone to kind of form their own opinions and let us know what you think of Aegislash itself.
00:19:18
zzweilous
you
00:19:20
William Dunphey
But I'd like to move on and discuss another Pokemon that looks really interesting. And we have it here in the notes, Diggersby returning to the meta.
00:19:30
William Dunphey
um A lot of trainers looking for normal type coverage to wall off the ghosts are reaching for Wigglytuff. They're reaching for Licky Licky. We even had a Brick Break Furret on Steinar's team.
00:19:40
William Dunphey
But what what the heck goes up with Diggersby?
00:19:43
zzweilous
I think Digusby is honestly incredible in the current meta just because if you look at the Orlando top card, the two most common Pokemon are Fortress, mostly Shadow, and also notably a lot of Bug Bite Fortress at this regional, whereas previously World Switch was almost strictly preferred, as well as Corviknight.
00:20:03
zzweilous
And Corviknight needs to have a solid, like, it needs to essentially be like Raid IVs-ish type of Corviknight, which most people don't run because
00:20:12
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:20:13
zzweilous
There was a community day, you will have a proper low attack, high defense, high HP IVs on your Corviknight, but you need an an elevated attack stack attack stat to make the Dig Sb matchup even slightly competitive because you would then reach a sign attack breakpoint.
00:20:30
zzweilous
um But yeah, you have those two Pokemon, and then you also have Galarian Corsola in fifth place, actually. and all of those three Pokemon have an abysmal time into Dig Sb. So three of the top five just get completely hard countered by Diggersby and you really need to dance around majestically with all your options and all your flexible picks around this Pokemon to even pull out a victory against the Diggersby team.
00:20:55
zzweilous
So really limiting the team building and still having enough neutral play against Pokemon like Weekly Tough, even Pokemon like a Shadow Quagside. I don't even know whether the two Aqua Tails knock out.
00:21:06
zzweilous
Feraligata, obviously like not the worst answer to a Diggersby, but You still can't ever farm that down because your Shadow Claws are double resisted. There's Leaky Leaky in the top 12. The Rollards are resisted. You cannot Shadow Ball the normal type.
00:21:20
zzweilous
um So yeah, just a lot of utility, especially with the Mud Shot, um which does enable Digger Speed to also take the Empoleon matchup on even energy without needing to bait or doing any funny shenanigans.
00:21:34
zzweilous
And I believe that what held Digger Speed back at the start of the season was the presence of Altaria, But if you look at this top card in particular, there's like, what do I see? There's like one Altaria on Jigglybuff's team. ah Congratulations to Jigglybuff for his first a top 16 placement.
00:21:54
William Dunphey
yeah.
00:21:54
zzweilous
um But other than that, I don't believe there's any really super hard answer to Digger's B in this top card. So that is, um like, I guess like the Togekiss is also a relatively hard answer, but most of the common picks are really just
00:22:08
William Dunphey
yeah
00:22:10
zzweilous
neutral to hard winning for Digus B.
00:22:13
William Dunphey
I think a lot of trainers were turned off by the Scorching Sands nerfs over the seasons too, because now it's only ah a one in 10 chance that you get your debuff. And I remember when Scorching Sands odds were a lot higher, that was a very, very oppressive attack. I believe that was, um correct me if I'm wrong, was that back?
00:22:30
William Dunphey
Was that back in the Claydol days? Were we Claydol gaming with Scorching Sands? i'm trying to remember.
00:22:36
zzweilous
I believe so. Like there was obviously
00:22:37
William Dunphey
no
00:22:39
zzweilous
This obviously, I guess like we were, we were like rock tooming ice beaming with Claydol mostly, but like just before i remember having diggersby on my EYC team and making like sometimes even the Azu matchup competitive by landing a scorching sense.
00:22:39
William Dunphey
Yeah, Claydol...
00:22:44
William Dunphey
Price- that's true. David Price- hmm.
00:22:53
zzweilous
Also like small correction, Dunebug also had an Altaria just identified at first because it is the shadow Altaria, but there's like a couple of answers to diggersby, but even on Dunebug's team,
00:23:06
zzweilous
that four of the Pokemon just lose the head to head to dig SB and two of them lose hard. So yeah, it's certainly, i think it's a breakout stat that we will see more of in future events.
00:23:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, the durability really speaks speaks ah for itself as well. um I remember making the comment, ah there was ah actually Diggersby versus Frialligator matchup, and I said, well, Diggersby can easily eat one of these Hydro Cannons, and it is at no risk whatsoever of being Shadow Clawed down, because all the Shadow Claws are double resisted, plus you're getting to those moves really, really quickly. And fire-type coverage is something that is also severely lacking in the meta, and The best answer we have outside of Fire Punch Diggersby is Incinerate Gorgeist, which Gorgeist invites its own um litany of weaknesses, being a grass and ghost type when you have normal and dark and flying and and opposing opposing Pokemon like that. So... Yeah, I think that's it's a very interesting bring. And I really appreciate the point you made about Altaria on the decline, Diggersby on the incline. It almost feels like, again, we talked about this a couple times. You have to look for what isn't in the meta or what is falling out of the meta and then recognize those windows as well. You can't just look at what is there. You have to look at the negative space, recognize what is lacking. So very interesting teams here from our trainers.
00:24:22
William Dunphey
um steelix from sammy i just want to call that out one more time i called it out in our previous episode i got to mention it again when you are not lined up against quagsire steelix looks like a beast and congratulations to sammy i believe this is if not his best finish this was our one of his uh best uh top cuts ever in his entire career so very very well done there um rzz We talked about Diggersby and this whole time, as I'm sure a lot of people who are are listening this whole time, I keep thinking about the Firestar situation because Nighttime Clasher and Firestar faced off in the grand finals. And from purely a team compositional perspective, I saw the Diggersby from Firestar as being a major, massive problem. for nighttime clasher so nighttime clasher's team corbinite shadow quagsire shadow fortress as well as licky licky alola nine tails and grumpig and then firestar with shadow fortress and poleon diggersby licky licky togekiss and shadow malamar so i guess we could do that one of one of two ways we could either get right into grants or we can talk about bug bite fortress
00:25:30
zzweilous
Yeah, i was this was actually the exact next thing that I would have mentioned that Diggersby and Bugbite Fortress, they just look like a relatively unbreakable core into Nighttime Clash's team. Because with Bugbite, and I believe that is the main reason why some top players like Firestyle, like Nighttime Clash did switch over to the Bugbite on Fortress.
00:25:54
zzweilous
With Bugbite on Fortress, Quagsire becomes... ah very playable if not slightly positive matchup rather than a negative one as we were used to with the world switch um so between that being a decent matchup now between um bug bites just shredding through the grumpig on nighttime clashes team between fortress resisting all the charge attacks available on nighttime clashes um alone in night hills which did opt for dazzling gleam rather than chilling water as its coverage move
00:26:25
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:26:26
zzweilous
um It's like very difficult to bring any of the clear answers to Diggersby without opening yourself up to a big Bugbite Fortress weakness. So to find neutrality in this matchup, um both players actually relied on their Corviknight.
00:26:45
zzweilous
Well, no, not both players. Nighttime Clash had relied on his Corviknight a lot, whereas Firestar had the Bugbite Fortress, which essentially had play into every single Pokémon. even the Corviknight in some situations it wasn't as bad as you would imagine it could be um just because like Corviknight while being a defensively sound wall to Bugbite Fortress it takes a long time to really just get the Fortress off the field so sometimes you were able to like build up energy maybe debuff the Corviknight once and then save the Bugbites for later because being a one turn fast attack is just so flexible if you have to get rid of that little bit of health that may be on a lot of Pokemon in endgame scenarios. And that is something that Firestar played to perfection in the series against Nighttime Clasher.
00:27:37
William Dunphey
Such a tough ah Pokemon to overcome. But Nighttime Clasher, so funny anecdote, before he got into the grand finals, he took on TZ Steinar. And that series, I believe, went to five games.
00:27:50
William Dunphey
And that was such a labyrinth to cast through with with Alpha Phi because there were so many switches, so many pivots. There were no um home runs. There were no you know blast burns connecting into fortresses. There were no knockouts that were very obvious to call out. It was very much in the margins and um I caught up with NTC after the event and he said, you know, that series I had against Steinar, I think that was the best PvP I've ever played.
00:28:18
William Dunphey
And I have to agree with him. That series was absolutely insane back and forth. If you have a chance and you want to watch some very high level Pokemon go with tons of switches, lots of energy management, the wind conditions shifting like the sands beneath their feet, you need to check out that series between those two players.
00:28:26
zzweilous
Thank you.
00:28:35
William Dunphey
But Um, these trainers fought through so much to get into the grand finals and a nighttime clasher very impressive, but I wanted, I wanted you, if you, if you feel so inclined to highlight fire stars, miracle run leading into this, cause you actually lined up all the opponents and I couldn't believe it when I, when I first took a look at this.
00:28:55
zzweilous
yeah ah let me let me quickly cycle back to my notes but it is interesting because i mentioned going into this episode how okay the specialists in our in our grand finals were actually probably best suited to take on all of the brazilians and firestar's run included um matches against corelash against rajaf against oreo and against Steiner. And he beat all of those. He beat Rajiv twice. And against Steiner, he lost one to drop down to losers, but then got the revenge in the lower bracket.
00:29:31
zzweilous
And beyond that, the most prominent names in terms of North Americans are um Nighttime Flesher in the grand finals, obviously resetting the bracket, and then maybe winning, maybe not winning. My eyes say he he won that too, and that is still up for debate.
00:29:48
zzweilous
And also beating Natem Klesha's brother Susten and Zita. I believe it was in the group finals, perhaps.
00:29:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:29:54
zzweilous
Certainly it was a day one matchup. And yeah, that is like, I would not, I haven't checked, but I would not be surprised if all of these trainers were within the top 10 championship points of their respective region.
00:30:09
zzweilous
And yeah, like a run like that, you could, Tell me that that was an international or maybe even a world's level competition. And I would not be entirely surprised.
00:30:21
William Dunphey
When i walked into the venue on Friday, it was it was one of the situations where I flew out a day early to film. And we wanted to focus a lot more on player storylines and focus a lot more on individual ah opinions, feelings, ah competitive history.
00:30:40
William Dunphey
just Just zooming in a bit more on the players. I know in Houston we played a lot of games. We played cornhole. We did the spoon relay race. We did the Pokedex with the UFO stuff. We did a bunch of fun things. We wanted to be a bit more esports centric, right?
00:30:56
William Dunphey
And I feel i feel so silly at times because whether it's bumping into Beelzebue in the line waiting to get into register at the Pokemon World Championships in ah in Anaheim or it's like what happened to me bumping into Firestar on Friday in the venue in Orlando.
00:31:16
William Dunphey
And, you know, the guy is just all smiles. He's all happy. Yeah, yeah. I'm really excited to be here. you know, I got here early. I just wanted to settle in and I might do the challenge, but we'll see. And if you need me to film anything, like I'm available, you know, I can, I can jump in and and be a guest on your segments. said, oh, Firestar, that's great.
00:31:33
William Dunphey
And I said, well, we're focused on, on some specific players. We have a list that we need to look through and I i need to wait for them to be ready. And Firestar was not on the list. Of course, this is before everything that happened. um But that's just been my experience with him. Every single time I bump into Firestar, he's so positive. He's ready to go. He's got that like wide-eyed ah look to him that we used to have you know back when we first started competing and everything was new and fresh and exciting. And... um Yeah, I don't know exactly where I'm going with the story, but I just wanted to to provide that that feedback that ah we came in targeting certain players and then Firestar ended up being one of the one of the brightest stars, no pun intended.
00:32:12
William Dunphey
But um yeah, what a run from him
00:32:13
zzweilous
Next.
Firestar's Path to Grand Finals
00:32:15
William Dunphey
to climb through that bracket.
00:32:16
William Dunphey
And we asked several times on the cast too, we said, is this Firestar's time? Is this his time to win an event? Because he's so impressive. He's ruthless in that loser side bracket. I mean, he is...
00:32:27
William Dunphey
He literally just crushes people and throws them into the wind when he's on the loser side. So seeing him come into date number day number two on the winner side, I mean, there was hope there, right?
00:32:37
William Dunphey
There's a lot of hope. And then you saw trainers like Hart Jeff, like Nighttime Clasher in that that top cut. And we said, well, Firestar is good.
00:32:46
zzweilous
Thank
00:32:46
William Dunphey
i don't know if he's that good, right? So to see him make it all the way to the grand finals was absolutely incredible. insane And both trainers have so much merit. But Azizi, I guess we could recount the grand finals. To be honest, even though I did the, I watched it in person, a lot of the battles are kind of a blur. I just remember going into that decisive game five of the reset.
00:33:08
zzweilous
I will say that I have not mapped out the play-by-play the same way i would have had for any ordinary original, because even though the play that we did witness was impressive and would have deserved highlighting, I feel as if with the circumstances overshadowing, especially ah those final moments of the tournament, um I don't actually know whether that people are like super interested in
00:33:16
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:33:33
zzweilous
like, just getting every single detail of that run. Like, there are, like, obviously mechanical moments that you can highlight. Oh, once Nighttime Clasher pivots in a Shadow Quagsire, what does Firestar do?
00:33:46
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:33:48
zzweilous
He doesn't immediately counterswap a Togekiss, but he does a little bit of Bug Bite damage with his Shadow Fortress to build up some energy, put the Quagsire maybe into a better range where a knockout is possible, and just, like,
00:34:02
zzweilous
saving that energy on the super potent Pokemon for the end game is always so helpful. And because of Nighttime Clash's Quagsire also not having Stone Edge, the Torgicus is actually able to so successfully and like easily tank two Aqua Tails and then paste to the Aura Spheres in an adequate time where just keeping the switch advantage is easy for Firestar to accomplish. But like all of those plays, all of these mechanical details, I feel as if they really full short just capturing this moment because like what ended up happening was that in the end game Fyesta did have a solid lead he played the mechanical part of that game to perfection he had a hydro cannon bank on his empoleon to throw on a low health Corbynite the move was connecting um he was visibly and just like
00:34:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:35:02
zzweilous
Shaken from the experience because this was a grueling lower bracket run like you had to take out. Half a dozen of the best players in the world, he had to reset the bracket against nighttime pleasure. He went or two down in not one two down, I believe in the final series of the of the weekend.
00:35:19
zzweilous
He managed to tie it up managed to maneuver himself into a winning position in that game five. And there is so much press pressure. There's so much adrenaline going through a competitor in that moment, especially somebody who hadn't been at that point of the competition before obviously firestar is an accomplished player but um as you mentioned one of the narratives was that he never won a championship before and this was the moment caleb in the podcast or podcast in the broadcast much rather pointed out like just after firestar got up to celebrate like the narrative was oh He was always in the in the running for best competitor in North America to never have won an event, but not anymore because this is Firestar's moment. and This is this event.
00:36:04
zzweilous
He won it. He earned it. He celebrates and he celebrates very naturally. There's like no force beyond what just goes through a person's body when they're like really high on adrenaline and really ecstatic, just like rushing to take off the headphones just tossing them onto the table with some force but not with exaggerated force not whatsoever it just like okay this guy is really just ready to jump up and celebrate his biggest play pokemon achievement to date one of probably the happiest moments in his life like that is
00:36:43
zzweilous
like if you have a passion and you achieve something great in that passion, you should be this happy. This is what we love to see. And this is what the Pokemon loves to see. If you like look at any intro to any original competition, the whole show and what you've got song is playing and you see the pop-offs, you see the excitement, you see the emotion from all the competitors.
00:37:04
zzweilous
And in that moment, Firestar was delivering even like a relatively tame moment in that, category it it wasn't even like crazy he didn't like i don't know like jump into the crowd or anything he was just like okay i'm i put my i put my fist in the air i i won this event i'm so happy i just jump up from my chair because there's so much excitement going on and i shake my opponent's hand because obviously like this was a great series of battles
00:37:34
zzweilous
And none of the competitors had any reason to assume any bad sportsmanship on the part of the other. And I believe that is not even what is being discussed here. What is supposedly being discussed right after this very year happy, very exciting moment, both for Firestar and the audience, is the toss of the headphones.
00:37:57
zzweilous
That was then apparently, like, we don't have... we We don't have official communication towards that, but what we heard like from people who were there were like on the ground getting the info as best as they could.
00:38:12
zzweilous
um Apparently the toss of the headphones was too forceful and that then resulted in Game 5 being overturned and counted as a game loss for Faesta, using him the set and the tournament, essentially while he was mid-celebration.
00:38:31
zzweilous
And that I personally deem the lowest moment in competitive Pokemon Go's history.
00:38:40
William Dunphey
I don't know if I could have said it better. Yeah. um Where to start? Okay. so So just just to just to humanize Firestar a bit more for everyone that's listening. And I think that's that's the one unique perspective that I can offer. And I will go into into what I saw being there at the event behind the scenes. I'll just tell you what what i saw ah so
00:39:07
William Dunphey
Let's back up just a little bit. So just to humanize Firestar a little bit further. Before the grand finals interview, um i remember Firestar and NTC walking into the lounge.
00:39:14
zzweilous
Thank
00:39:17
William Dunphey
NTC, everyone knows him. Everyone adores Nighttime Clasher, right? He's very fun. I can't tell where his brain is at at any given moment. I don't know if he's thinking about Brawl Stars, if he's thinking about opening a pack of cards, If he's thinking about lunch or if he's thinking that he's in the grand finals in Orlando, I don't know what he's thinking, but he's always a good time. And he walks in so nonchalant, so cool behind him walks firesar firestar firestar.
00:39:43
William Dunphey
His hands are shaking. His teeth are chattering. His palms are sweating. He's got goosebumps. I could see goosebumps on his legs. He was like,
00:39:54
William Dunphey
on a different planet, just trying to bring himself back into the moment for that grand finals interview. And he composed himself so well, because when the, when the camera actually comes to us and we do our interview, he's very well-spoken. He's very eloquent guys. I'm telling you, I've done a lot of these grand finals interviews. I've been sit, I've been so seated right next to a lot of these players. Firestar was probably the most emotional player I've ever had the the honor of of talking with. Right.
00:40:22
William Dunphey
The passion was there. i love that you use that word, the passion. just so It leaks out of him. So when he's in that grand finals position and he is is literally like, we'll have the video up on the YouTube version. When he literally has the headphones, they're coming down.
00:40:37
William Dunphey
It's past a 90 degree angle. He's probably at like you know a 35 degree angle and he releases the headphones at that point. It felt like any other celebration. I watched Wadaj do it when he won NAIC.
00:40:49
William Dunphey
Potaman has done it, as you pointed out on on your socials.
00:40:51
zzweilous
Next.
00:40:52
William Dunphey
A lot of players have done this. This is not unusual. This is not weird. This is not unique to Firestar. And um when you compare it against other performances, and I don't, or pop-offs, I don't mean to to compare directly in like a bad sense, but think of Marcus, ah or aka Arceus Aurelius.
00:41:12
William Dunphey
who literally goes down on his knees and is like losing his mind. Pokemon loves that stuff. Or or you have Marto who just like holds his arms out wide. and's just like over the stage, just, you know, bearing down.
00:41:24
William Dunphey
um these things are part of the fuel of what makes competitive Pokemon great. And so I've heard a few things, right? And I just want to i want to lead in by saying that I've heard a lot of conflicting reports. I've heard a lot of rumors, a lot of things that are floating in the airwaves right now.
00:41:44
William Dunphey
We're recording this episode at 3 o'clock Central Time US s on April the 10th. So if there's going to be an announcement for Pokemon, it hasn't come out yet. We don't know. i believe that you were able to check the the point distribution and that has still not been finalized. So we can work with what we know publicly and Publicly, Firestar has said that earlier on in the event, I don't know if it was Saturday or if it was Sunday, but at least once he got a warning from the judges because he apparently banged the table or he released his headphones too early or he had some kind of um mistreatment of equipment, right? However, they define that. So this this almost feels like it was a follow-up on whatever warnings he had gotten, if it was a judge's call, which we still don't know. And I also want to want to highlight this, right?
00:42:33
William Dunphey
We blame TCG for a lot of stuff. Let's do it one more time. Earlier on on Sunday, TCG had a similar issue. And um essentially, if if I could put this in Pokemon Go terms, imagine you're in a decisive game five and your opponent sends out ah a lead. You win the lead and then they swa swap in Altaria and you have a bass seat on.
00:42:54
William Dunphey
And you click the bass seat on. And as soon as you click it, you take your headphones off, you throw them down. You're like, yes, you know, I've got perfect alignment. I'm probably going to win. That's what this player did. He took his headphones off once he drew the right card. He knew that the board state was what he needed, but he had not performed the following plays in order to win the game.
00:43:11
William Dunphey
So it was an early celebration. it messed up the the board state because some of the cards got scattered and he was given a game loss. He actually ended up playing again later on that day, which is also ironic. he returned to the stage. So I think there was a lot of pressure on on the team there. I won't i will say specifically what team, ah on the team overall to be consistent in their rulings. But I think the context of the two situations, if that's the case, was completely ignored.
00:43:41
William Dunphey
Completely ignored. it's It's like an orange and an apple. Sure, they're both fruits, but they're wildly different ah in terms of of their composition. and flavors you. So I don't know ZZ.
00:43:53
William Dunphey
There were tons of rumors and i'll I'll get the whole spiel about what I saw backstage, but I'm wondering if you want to weigh in on what I've said so far.
00:44:00
zzweilous
Yeah, I think this is very important context, both the prior warning and I will say that issuing warnings for, for example, just like punching you punching the desk with your fist, I think that is entirely warranted.
00:44:15
zzweilous
And if that happens, I think a warning should be issued um because I've heard like reports not directed towards Firestar specifically, but just reports from players on the ground who felt like a little intimidated or just
00:44:16
William Dunphey
Sure.
00:44:30
zzweilous
put at unease from people acting out their frustrations semi-violently against the equipment.
00:44:35
William Dunphey
It's been
00:44:38
William Dunphey
it's a show of aggression.
00:44:39
zzweilous
So that is, yeah, exactly.
00:44:40
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:44:41
zzweilous
And we don't really want to see that um during a tournament, but that is so, so different from the sheer innocent joy and excitement that was on this display when Firestar popped up for his celebration.
00:44:56
zzweilous
And As you mentioned, the TCG situation, that's so apples and oranges just because um like the Firestar thing happened. Essentially, like when the Hydro Cannon animation from his Empoleon taking out the Corviknight as Nighttime Clash's final Pokémon, when that wrapped up and it was like all the inputs were already done, nobody could do anything anymore.
00:45:21
zzweilous
he didn't even need to touch the phone anymore. Everything was just like, okay, We see the Pokemon faint and we see the windscreen and like half a second before the windscreen, the headphones came off.
00:45:32
zzweilous
So it can't really be that. It can't really be the same ruling of like, oh, the game wasn't over and you disrespected your opponent. It can really only be like the headphone toss being too forceful, but I would still maintain that it wasn't overly forceful. He just had like a lot of energy that needed to be unleashed in any manner. And that was a very celebratory manner.
00:45:55
zzweilous
And I don't believe that the headphones were damaged and they didn't even make it halfway across the table and they didn't hit anybody. They were just like, okay, there's like some force behind that, but like really like so far from even being noticeable if you were just watching this casually, because again, so many of those, especially like in those high stakes moments, you expect something like that to happen.
00:46:07
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:46:21
zzweilous
um And again, Pokemon even welcomes that. So this just felt ah very inconsistent, ironically, with all the prior situations in which the essentially identical situation was handled very differently. And I think even though like I do not want to point fingers at the individual judges because we do not know whether they made the call, but I still do wonder how people can just hope people can just go through with that situation in the moment without having a proper discussion around it.
00:46:57
zzweilous
Because if you watch the video clip that is still up on YouTube or the Twitch VOD, it cuts away from Firestar like around 50 seconds after the play wraps up.
00:47:11
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
00:47:11
zzweilous
um And the the last frame of Firestar you see is him turning his head towards the judges in disbelief. So it appears as if a very quick and likely rushed decision was made to overturn that game result in that moment. And i just think that Pokemon owes it to its competitors to not make any hasty decisions, but rather really deliberate around that issue and ask everybody who could possibly weigh in how they
00:47:48
zzweilous
observe the situation. And I know for a fact that Nighttime Clasher as Firestar's opponent was as surprised as Firestar that this ruling was upheld the way it was.
00:48:01
zzweilous
And Nighttime Clasher did mention ah in in Discord, I believe that is something that you can still look up in, I believe, Homeslice Henry's server, um where where he said that, I tried to sign the match slip acknowledging my loss,
00:48:17
zzweilous
but they took it away from me. So even Nighttime Clasher, who would have been the beneficiary of that ruling, decided that he didn't want that, um but was overruled by Big Pikachu, essentially.
00:48:32
zzweilous
You take this win, even though you do not want it, which is just insane to me.
00:48:36
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:48:37
zzweilous
like This is like the person who has the most to gain from Firestar, getting the game lost there and even he says like this is stupid this cannot stand and i don't know like we are essentially like the community is united 100 to 0 on this issue um we haven't heard back from pokemon yet so apparently it's not finalized into either direction but even it taking so long and pokemon allowing this issue to spiral to such an
00:49:09
zzweilous
so to such a talking point that goes way beyond the competitive Pokemon sphere I think it's very negligent and and also ah just like an aspect that we didn't touch on yet it really just like throws the judges under the bus because those judges we'll not name them but people know who they are and they know how to be awful to them on social media if they want to And I don't believe that many people who are really core members of our competitive community have been doing that because we are grateful for people who volunteer to make those um events happen.
00:49:51
zzweilous
But I just believe that Pokemon holds responsibility for their staff and they're not honoring that responsibility by just leaving this all in limbo for so long and essentially allowing online harassment to thrive, especially with especially how this spiraled beyond our core community.
00:50:12
William Dunphey
I think Pokemon in general ah is not a very reactionary media brand, right? They tend to let a lot of things just pass ah because they recognize the outrage cycle rarely lasts too long. People might be upset about a certain thing, whether it's brand representation or how the players are handled or whatever. ah But typically it it washes away in a few days to a few weeks. so It's very unusual for Pokemon to make a big scale response, especially to something like this. I feel like even Niantic is more willing to say, hey, look, we screwed up this event. You can get a free raid pass, whatever. But Pokemon rarely apologizes for something. And a lot of it is just how the brand is managed, right? ah Obviously the most valuable brand in the world. They've done a lot of things really well and you have to respect the leadership style.
00:51:03
William Dunphey
But I agree with you. I can't help but feel that this is something that could have been nipped in the bud almost immediately. And instead, we have like these spiraling conspiracy theories that are starting to to develop.
00:51:15
William Dunphey
I've seen one that apparently the judges were working with NTC to like rig the game so that he would win. I'm going to tell you guys right here, Nighttime Clasher is not capable of that.
00:51:25
William Dunphey
That is not in his wheelhouse as a person.
00:51:26
zzweilous
you
00:51:28
William Dunphey
And ah to confirm ZZ's sentiment, this isn't just something that that he posts on Discord. After the event ended, I caught up with NTC. in front of his friends, in front of other top players in a big group.
00:51:41
William Dunphey
he' He said, he said, I don't want to win this way. I don't think it's right. I want Firestar
Sportsmanship and Disqualification Discussion
00:51:46
William Dunphey
to have this. And I tried, like you said, to finalize the match slip and I wasn't allowed to. So,
00:51:53
William Dunphey
NTC is very much on the community side, even though like, man, what a crappy position to be in, even if you're Nighttime Clasher. What a terrible position to be in. I just ask that everyone extend the same kindness that you're showing to Firestar to Nighttime Clasher and to the other other players, because they really are kind of like everyone is like suffering in unity for Firestar and because of the situation.
00:52:03
zzweilous
It's
00:52:19
William Dunphey
um But yeah, what a what a crazy development. And you and I talked about this before we turned the camera on That moist critical video has a million views now.
00:52:28
zzweilous
bizarre.
00:52:30
William Dunphey
And ah it's so weird because we we seriously, this is such a low-hanging fruit and such an obvious
00:52:31
zzweilous
bizarre
00:52:39
William Dunphey
decision for the judges and the and the staffing team and everyone involved that it's it's like pure outrage fuel this is like kerosene right this is so volatile that everyone can just jump on it and say oh i know it's i know immediately what the right decision is here i don't even need to think about it i don't even need to know pokemon i could tell you this is the bad decision right so
00:52:56
zzweilous
Yeah.
00:53:03
William Dunphey
It's been a disaster. um I'll give you a quick recap here of what happened ah backstage. Again, I'm only speaking from my personal experiences. And although I do ah do contract work for Pokemon, I don't know all the details. I don't know if there's an investigation. I don't know what the ruling is going to be. I don't have insider knowledge. All right.
00:53:23
William Dunphey
Let me just preface that by saying that. And these these opinions are all my own. And they're not the opinions of Pokemon or the production company. um But I'll tell you what what I saw. So. Leading up to the to the grand finals reset, Phoebe was hard at work writing down anecdotes for each of our trainers because he was really excited to do this trophy presentation. He was he had a nickname for Steinar. He was the Brick Breaker right because of his Brick Break Ferret. ah He had um anecdotes he was writing for Nighttime Clasher and for Firestar. and He was really workshopping this. He was very excited.
00:53:55
William Dunphey
And Phoebe was ready to do this award show. I think it was the first one that he would ah he would have ever done in his career. So he was very hyped. I go into the lounge area because I'm going to lead the show outro.
00:54:06
William Dunphey
And I'm like, okay, I'm looking through my cue cards. These are the things that we're gonna talk about. This is what we're going to discuss. The big news of the weekend, ZZ, was supposed to be the NAIC meta reveal.
00:54:17
William Dunphey
That was like the news.
00:54:17
zzweilous
yeah
00:54:19
William Dunphey
And I had worked ah with the production team on that graphic all day. And I was like really excited for it. I put a lot of work into how it was designed and how it looked. And i was like, man, this is going to be so good.
00:54:31
William Dunphey
People are going to be hype. Maybe we should get a crowd shot because people will be excited. You know, that's how I was thinking about it.
00:54:36
zzweilous
well oh man this is
00:54:38
William Dunphey
Well, so we watched game five and we immediately see the Firestar pop off. And I had my IFB, and which is my little headset. And I've got my notes. I'm like, OK, I'm hyped. You know, I sit down. I kind of adjust my suit and I'm sitting there.
00:54:54
William Dunphey
And Caleb and Soph go back on screen. And I'm like, okay, they're just, you know, they're vamping. They're kind of filling time. We're getting we're getting the award set up. And I'm like, wait, they're actually, they're talking for a long time.
00:55:06
William Dunphey
This is kind of weird. You know, they're just keep on going and going, just filling air. and ah And then I get a text and it's so frantic that some of the words are misspelled.
00:55:17
William Dunphey
It basically just says, um there's a problem. We might not have a winner. ah Firestar DQ'd because of celebration. And I'm like, is this is really weird. I don't know what's happening. So a few seconds after that, you know, I'm waiting for more information to come in. A few seconds after that, I get production to my ear. And they say, we're cutting awards.
00:55:41
William Dunphey
We're going straight into show closing. We're cutting out this, this, and that. We're going to do these points. And we're just going to we're going to pilot through it. And I was like, oh, okay, this is really weird. And then Phoebe comes in.
00:55:55
William Dunphey
And Phoebe is basically sent to the lounge without knowing what's going on either. Phoebe walks in. He says, what's going on? Why why are we going straight to lounge? I said, Phoebe, I just got word that Firestar might have been DQ because of a celebration. So that the staff is deliberating this, judges, production, whoever, whoever is talking about this right now. And we're just going to do show closing.
00:56:17
William Dunphey
And Phoebe's expression Goes from really excited to do the troph ah trophy ceremony to like furious. He's really upset. It's like, what do you mean? I don't understand. i said, Phoebe, I know, but production says we have 20 seconds. So you need to sit down and we need to smile.
00:56:34
William Dunphey
So he sits down. We go into the show closing. i thought Phoebe did a wonderful job. We tried to be positive. We did the meta reveal. That was really fun to talk about as well.
00:56:45
William Dunphey
We do the show closing. and of course, when the camera comes on us, right, I say, wow, that Orlando grand finals gave us everything we could have asked for and more. Because what else do you say?
00:56:55
zzweilous
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:56:56
William Dunphey
What else do you say?
00:56:58
zzweilous
It certainly gave us more than we asked for. That is that is certainly the case. Oh, man. Oh, man.
00:57:03
William Dunphey
It was way more. So, so to conclude here, so we do the closing, we wrap, they go to, um bumper, you know, replay footage. And then I, uh, I immediately get up, Phoebe and I, and we walk over and what I see is like the swarm of people all on the ghost side, right? Cause we've got a big broadcast. We've got production guys standing around. We've got judges coming in and out, walking around. Uh, we got players who are waiting outside of the, uh, the tarped off areas.
00:57:33
William Dunphey
And it's just like, it's like a beehive. Everyone's just walking around, going place to place, talking. Everyone's having these discussions. um I'm talking with the other commentators. I'm hearing rumors that I don't know are true or not. I'm hearing this. I'm hearing that.
00:57:47
William Dunphey
And then um I look over and just behind the curtain area is Firestar with his face in his hands sobbing. sobbing, destroyed.
00:58:01
William Dunphey
And you have like this rotating door of people that walked by and like tried to talk to him. And he was just, you know, doing his best to try and listen, but he was just destroyed.
00:58:12
William Dunphey
And for what went on for probably an hour, He sat back there just in pieces, right? I hope he doesn't mind me saying this because this is, again, just like the reality of the situation, but what should have been one of the happiest moments of his entire career, maybe even, you know, his his life became this like rollercoaster that just nosedived into like worse situation than than he could have hoped for. So eventually um myself and a ah few others, we walk over to talk to Firestar and um
00:58:47
William Dunphey
I won't name him ah in case he wants to remain anonymous, but one of one of our close friends basically told him, said, look, You won up on stage. You played so well. I don't know what's going on with the deliberation.
00:59:00
William Dunphey
and of course, this this is, again, not an official opinion. This was friend to friend, right? This is not an official statement. But he said, in my heart, you won. My opinion is that you ah you did really well and nobody can take away your performance. So we'll just wait to see what happens next. But for now,
00:59:17
William Dunphey
ah I don't want you to sit backstage and feel sad about what you missed out on. I want you to go greet the people out on the floor who support you and who are waiting just as as earnestly as you are to figure out what's happening.
00:59:31
William Dunphey
And I want you to go be with them and and actually be in that support group and not just here by yourself, essentially. So we walk out with Firestar, everyone claps, but it's still very somber.
00:59:43
William Dunphey
And then um Firestar is able to, you know, group up with his friends and and walk away. And again, guys, like discussions with the other players, discussions with Nighttime Clasher. This is out of the players' hands, right? It's out of my hands as a ah commentator too. And I don't know ultimately who's responsible. And I hope that I didn't shoot myself in the foot for anything that I said here. But um we're still waiting for some kind of decision, some kind of announcement, something to be to be passed down. And I feel like Firestar and our community in general deserves an explanation.
01:00:17
William Dunphey
And I really hope that's what we get. i know that's not the modus operandi for Pokemon, but I really hope that's what we get because... I don't know, ZZ, we had the space launch, we had Artemis take off, and I feel like just like the rocket, this drama has reached escape velocity. It's come out of Pokemon Go. It's come out of esports. It is in the broader social discussion.
01:00:40
William Dunphey
And it's crazy to see that this has blown up so much. And it feels like everyone who watches the footage, if that's what the real situation is, everyone can immediately tell that this should have gone one way.
01:00:55
zzweilous
Yeah. Yeah, there's little little to add here. um One thing that i will want to say is that I truly do hope that Pokemon considers how Firestar took this decision against him, this major injustice as is the only way to frame it.
01:01:18
zzweilous
Because Faesta went out of his way. Like he posted like, thank you to the judges. Do not harass the judges. These people are doing their job. It's not their fault. It's it's out of their hands. Please be be civil, be kind to each other.
01:01:34
zzweilous
And he's only ever been going about this in a modest way and a positive way to the degree you can expect somebody somebody to be positive about something like this happening to them. um And yeah, I think the composure that Firestar demonstrated in the wake of this is something admirable, something that should be looked up to.
01:02:05
zzweilous
And I don't know what will ultimately be the reasoning of any internal decision as to where we go with this whether it's going to be whether the ruling is going to be upheld whether it's going to be overturned whether we'll have two champions because i would imagine that there may be difficulties towards like stripping that time clasher of the first place that was awarded to him um but i just truly hope that pokemon looks at the merits of the situation
01:02:37
zzweilous
and looks at the human being that they wronged because this is not what pokemon should stand for and if you use your energy to make pokemon stand for that for essentially ah like spitting in the face of your player then i don't know you're you're in the wrong spot like somebody with some empathy should make this decision is what I'm thinking. And yeah, the entire community is heartbroken over this.
01:03:16
zzweilous
And another thing that I'm actively wondering is how they will treat this for the upcoming regionals, because there's going to be future broadcasts. There's going to be Prague, there's going to be LA, and there's going to be casters who will be seated behind their desks tasked with talking about the Orlando regional championship.
01:03:36
zzweilous
And you cannot expect a single one of your casters to pretend as if Nighttime Clasher won the Orlando Original Championships. And again, this is nothing against Nighttime Clasher. This is solely against the decision against Firestar. But people will have a reaction to something that is obviously false.
01:03:54
zzweilous
And you cannot expect us to just accept a new reality that essentially deceives our lying eyes.
01:04:04
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:04:04
zzweilous
So... Yeah, I hope there's a resolution. i hope it comes quickly. and I believe this is a very, very easy decision to make. And the fact that it hasn't been made yet is already concerning.
01:04:18
William Dunphey
Yeah. It's one of those things. um Again, i don't, I'm not clear on where the decision came from. I'm not clear on, on, well, obviously, you know, Pikachu has the ultimate decision-making power here, but I'm just not clear.
01:04:32
William Dunphey
And i hope that ah since, since the event ended, I hope that the time between now and then has been spent investigating, trying to figure out how this decision came to be and hopefully putting some scaffolding in place so that something like this doesn't happen again, because, know, I mean, it totally stole the show and it totally just ah overshadowed literally everything else that happened that weekend. Nobody's talking about the incredible series with NTC and Sinar. Nobody's talking about the the come from behind win from Firestar or Sammy Steelix. Nobody's talking about any of that.
01:05:07
William Dunphey
And it's like a disservice to the players, right? Because it should be about the players, but it's just it is, but in the worst way. As Moist Critical said on his video, he he's got ah a flair for the for the dramatic.
01:05:18
William Dunphey
But he did say that if this decision stands, that competitive Pokemon Go should just be shuttered and closed down. So there's that.
01:05:26
zzweilous
like like The thing is, like even though like that is not going to happen, I can easily see how competitors will now think twice about going out there again and competing or even about being happy on stage visibly because apparently you can be penalized for that and that is just like such a like this is such a bad thing to do to yourself and to your brand and i don't know why competitive pokemon go is in self-destruction mode it really shouldn't be and i just hope that i know that there's a lot of advocates for the right
01:06:03
zzweilous
cause in this scenario and I just hope that their voices are being heard because you can like nobody can do this without their players that is literally like the backbone of the competition if you don't have players you have nothing
01:06:08
William Dunphey
Thank you.
01:06:18
William Dunphey
Speaking of self-destruct, ZZ, I feel like we're always in self-destruct. I feel like if it's not the PvP update that falls flat on release, or if it's not the bugs that are happening prior, or it's not a new release getting dropped and then it's banned immediately, or or it's it's just not meta viable.
01:06:25
zzweilous
uh
01:06:34
William Dunphey
If there's not something wrong, then we're not talking about competitive Pokemon Go. And it's really sad that we're kind of like, I feel like we have been dragged through the mud. I want some good news for a change.
01:06:44
William Dunphey
Can I just say that? I want some good news.
01:06:46
zzweilous
and um I'm so on board with that sentiment because it's been a rough year. It's been a rough year.
01:06:53
William Dunphey
It's been rough.
01:06:54
zzweilous
And i still I still believe in the potential of this. like you've You've seen the passion from the community in the wake of this. like Everybody came together. There's so many more people than I believe would still care about this. Even Zionic briefly came out of retirement to then immediately announce that he's pivoting over to Pokemon Champions, which I cannot blame him for because, again, all the news that come out of Pokemon Go are like...
01:07:20
zzweilous
it's It's not great, but...
01:07:22
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:07:22
zzweilous
i don't know like we're still alive we're still kicking we're still hoping for the best and we're still like just like trying to be a community that stands up for each other and i believe that's already quite a valuable quite a valuable feat and yeah like we're not going anywhere unless you make us um
01:07:41
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:07:47
William Dunphey
we've We've survived this long. We'll continue surviving, right? ah But yeah, my goodness. I just want like, I want some good news. I want, oh, the game works. I want, oh, we werere we're doubling sign-up numbers.
01:08:00
William Dunphey
Or I want, oh, we're getting this new mechanic added to the game. We're getting something exciting and something good to happen.
01:08:07
zzweilous
okay picture this picture this they managed to iron out all the kings of the pvp refactor they have a very successful 2026 worlds with all the eyes on the competitive scene
01:08:08
William Dunphey
I want it so badly.
01:08:24
zzweilous
And then we get a huge September update with an entirely new PVP system that will be introduced during Worlds. And everybody will flock towards Pokemon Go and all the exciting new content that comes with this change.
01:08:37
zzweilous
And all of a sudden, we'll have like 300 people at Auricular Regional. How about that? Just manifest it. There's nothing that indicates that this is going to happen, but it could happen. There is the possibility for it.
01:08:51
zzweilous
and I don't know. Maybe just we just need a lucky break. um But
01:08:57
William Dunphey
You know, ZZ, I didn't know what to put on my Christmas list this year, but now I do. That's going straight on my list.
01:09:02
zzweilous
yeah.
01:09:05
William Dunphey
Yeah, so thanks for that.
01:09:05
zzweilous
All Okay. make sure make Make sure to not end up on the naughty list and you may be unlucky.
01:09:10
William Dunphey
me That's fair. Also, i'll I'll add on there a couple of bullet points. I'll add ah Speedy qualifies for Worlds, in parentheses, not washed. And then I'll add ZZ wins an event, in parentheses, hopefully worlds. That's what I'm going write, okay?
01:09:25
William Dunphey
How about that?
01:09:26
zzweilous
I would take that.
01:09:26
William Dunphey
How about that?
01:09:27
zzweilous
When's your next event you compete at?
01:09:30
William Dunphey
We'll see. ah So right now on the docket is NAIC. That one is for sure. But I am also eyeballing Indianapolis. So we're going to see what what the flights look like and what all that boils down to. But yeah, that's that's a possibility. All right.
01:09:46
zzweilous
Well, if you if you need any team building advice, any pyloswine advice, I will certainly have my DMs open. um
01:09:54
William Dunphey
I don't know if PilotSwine is going to work in NA. I don't know.
01:09:56
zzweilous
yeah it it's It's unlikely probably, heard maybe maybe there's some other tech that will be discovered by then.
01:10:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:10:04
zzweilous
um
01:10:04
William Dunphey
Yeah, we'll see.
01:10:05
zzweilous
But yeah.
01:10:07
William Dunphey
Well, ZZ, I'm not sure if there's much we can add. I really wanted to get my personal experience on the record, and I'm glad that we were able to air our points. We're going to have clips of Firestar Celebration, of the maybe a thumbnail of the Moist Critical video, any kind of assets I can think of. We'll throw those all up on the YouTube version. So if you are enjoying the show, make sure to follow on any of podcast platform, but also check out our YouTube version as well, and we'll get that uploaded ASAP. But ZZ, speaking of overshadowing, I almost feel like this is what a lot of people are tuning into, but we still have a lot of other content to cover.
01:10:44
William Dunphey
If you're ready, maybe we should move on to some of our other very exciting topics.
01:10:44
zzweilous
This is true.
01:10:49
zzweilous
Yeah, we we should do that. And I think the most obvious choice to start off with would be the Kiretaro Regional Championships, which happened at the exact same time. And they were also featured through an official stream, who i believe, the first time.
01:11:04
zzweilous
um And that is an exciting new development that I hope continues and will also continue to be refined. Because when I tuned in a couple of times, one thing that immediately stuck out to me is that when the matches were broadcast, they did not deliver a graphic of the six Pokemon on your respective competitors team, which I always like to see all of them at a glance because that can inform me of like, okay, what could be
01:11:26
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:11:34
zzweilous
strategies that they're thinking of like are they building their line because they want to be abb to a certain threat on the opponent's team what could be their next adjustment um and we haven't had that yet but we had a stream um and i will say that i'm a little ashamed that i did not watch it much further than just like the couple of glimpses because i don't know it was it was a busy week we would have gotten out more episodes earlier if it wasn't a busy week um so I don't know, I'm i'm like kind of feeling guilty about not being able to do the Curator Road champions justice, but we do have a newly crowned regional champion in Gabor Herca, who is a Mexican native who also was a frequent opponent of mine in JBL this season and certainly a very strong player um coming first with a very meta team and featuring Galarian, Kosela, Medicham,
01:12:14
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:12:33
zzweilous
Korvanite Shadow Quagsire and Volt Switch Shadow Fortress, as well as the omnipresent Wiglitov that did top the usage charts in Karetharo's top 16.
01:12:45
William Dunphey
Yeah, I want to make a ah quick distinction here. So while it was not, ah this is this is what
LATAM Stream and VOD Availability
01:12:51
William Dunphey
I was told, right? While it was not an official broadcast, it did have official resources. So um if because we didn't get certain things like the the team graphics, this was very much a bootstrapped production, if I may call it that. But it was a production nonetheless. And we've talked about this for like two or three seasons, ever since we started the show, basically. We're like, when are we getting LATAM streams? And I think this is the real, I think before we had, for one event, we had some streamed games with no commentary. And now this is another step forward where we did have commentary. We had live casters in the venue, including the the goat swag rod. So this was a real step forward. And I think that the next logical step is going to be the full design package. And honestly, what I'm really excited for is the
01:13:35
William Dunphey
the stylistic and aesthetic choices that this stream will take on. So obviously the NA streams look very different from the EU streams. I still really love the the big like Colosseum style backdrop and also the table that the players are battling at looks a lot cleaner than it does in NA, right?
01:13:52
William Dunphey
But NA has its own style, its own flair, and our own approach. I'm really excited to see what the LATAM streams do because they will look different. It'll look similar, but there will be some some signature facets that are unique to LATAM.
01:14:05
William Dunphey
So speaking of Pokemon and teams, I too did not have a chance to watch all of these games. I do want to go back and watch them because I do record all of the wins and losses for the grand finals. I use that in my notes as I i work through the casting through the season.
01:14:18
William Dunphey
But Congratulations to Gabo Herca. This is by far his best finish. I see a lot of 33rd, 25th, middle of the pack finishes. And then he just burst onto the scene here and won in Querétaro.
01:14:31
William Dunphey
And then we had Paul Garcia coming in second with Grumpig, which is very reminiscent of the Grumpig that also was second in Houston.
01:14:38
zzweilous
Okay.
01:14:39
William Dunphey
We had some interesting Pokemon here too. Mark Evans with the Galarian Corsola. Obedomac, you and i ah we're big Obedomac fans. and I know he loves listening this show. So Obed, if you're listening, I hope you're enjoying it so far. Great performance by by him. Always shout out to my goat, Obedomac. We also had a Togekiss and a Cresselia on Kuro MX's team. Shout out to Arbisora, a trainer that I'm also friends with. We competed in Mexico City Qualifier back when Niantic was still hosting them.
01:15:07
William Dunphey
And we hung out in Worlds in Hawaii, too. So shout out to Arvasora, another wonderful person. Rocha with the Shadow Town Flame and Ashton Ash rocking the same team. this ah This feels like a little Mexico staple here with these two trainers bringing the same exact squads. And then a Shogun on Javier, Cersei, TNY's team.
01:15:28
zzweilous
Yeah, I actually believe in Shelgon. I think Shelgon is ah such an interesting pick now that Feraligatr picks up some pace because you get to the Twister at the same rate they get to the Hydro Cannon, but you're opaced to the Ice Beam, so that is always really nice.
01:15:43
zzweilous
So believe Shelgon has a big place in the Feraligatr meta, especially because you also resist World Switches from Fortress and have Flamethrow for coverage. So there's a lot to be enjoyed about Shelgon, but Yeah, I guess like that's a top 16 pick.
01:15:54
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:16:00
zzweilous
The winning Pokemon were mostly the meta staples that we did expect. I really enjoyed the Grumpick shout out yet again. Grumpick, to me, like i was asking myself, what does Grumpick do so well that people are drawn towards it? And I believe it's kind of similar to Medichamp to some degree, because you do have the dynamic punch for coverage.
01:16:23
zzweilous
You do have some fighting damage and some psychic damage going on rather. But what Grumpy gives you that Medichamp doesn't is neutral matchups into the fairy types that are on essentially every team. um So that could be a reason for why you would pick Grumpy rather than Medichamp on your team.
01:16:46
zzweilous
And another, like,
01:16:46
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:16:49
zzweilous
reason why you could be a Grampic enjoyer is also that there is access to Shadow Ball, meaning that with an energy advantage, you can actually put a dent into a Pokemon like Galarian Corsola, which Metacham just struggles massively with.
01:17:02
zzweilous
So I believe that is probably the main draw of Grampic, the pig. And Unovan Stunfisk is probably the most unique to this event standout Pokemon, with actually four Unovan Stunfisk in the top eight.
01:17:17
zzweilous
on the teams of Paul Garcia, Lalo, Obedo Mack, and also Guaiz Mani. So yes, a bunch of really, really interesting new team compositions around that ground electric type, which it looks a lot less imposing than your favorite Steelix, but it does some very similar things.
01:17:24
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:37
zzweilous
So I wonder whether that is going to come back into the meta or whether that is just like a regional tendency. i guess we'll find out in the next events.
01:17:46
William Dunphey
Yeah, shout out to our other swine slingers in Arbisora with the Grumpig, as well as Kiwino with the Shadow Grumpig. I have not looked into those matchups in detail, but I do think that's ah a really cool choice to bring the Shadow.
01:17:53
zzweilous
uh
01:17:59
William Dunphey
I'll have to do some research there. Lalo coming in fourth place overall. I have a personal... competitive history with Lalo. When I competed at the Mexico City qualifiers, Lalo actually defeated me twice, not knocking me out of the event.
01:18:12
William Dunphey
That was the moment when I should have thrown Scald on the Wiscash because it was my only win condition, but instead I opted for the Mudbomb. I don't know if it would have gotten there. Probably not. Alalo would have won regardless, but a very talented trainer for Mexico.
01:18:24
William Dunphey
And I wanted to shout him out in particular because he is running Jellicent. And ah I don't know how how you feel about the Jellymeister, ZZ, but I've been a big Jelly believer for a while.
01:18:35
William Dunphey
It has less targets now than it did in the Precious Path season, but I still think there's a lot of viability here, especially when you do see... the Quagsires, the Empoleons, the Azumerils, and other targets like that.
01:18:47
William Dunphey
I mean, do you think Jelly is is solid or what?
01:18:49
zzweilous
So I rewatched the prediction for our memories in motion. um Like, are they back, are they not segment?
01:19:01
zzweilous
And one of my reasons why I didn't place Medichem higher was because I thought there would be so many Jellicent that Medichem may just find it difficult to find an opening.
01:19:14
zzweilous
um And yeah, there there weren't really many Jellicent at all. And I think that has in part to do with Fortress being a world switching menace.
01:19:24
William Dunphey
Bye.
01:19:24
zzweilous
But if it's now a bug biting menace, that could open up um some Jelicent gameplay again. Because for a Ghost, it actually has a fairly respectable or weekly top matchup where it doesn't outright beat it, but it at least is able to sufficiently sponge the charge attack energy from a weekly top.
01:19:41
William Dunphey
Yeah, I agree. It's one of those things where we don't really know how the meta is going to shake out until it ah it finally makes itself apparent. So I don't know. We say that, but then there's also a Galarian Moltres and a Shadow Drapion in top three.
01:19:54
William Dunphey
So the the Jelly Meister, it looks a little turbulent. it might ah It might not.
01:19:58
zzweilous
Right.
01:19:59
William Dunphey
have a great time but i really love highlighting our latem trainers i'm always going to be consistent about that all of my journeys down to down south down to mexico down to peru down to brazil wherever i might go these trainers are so passionate and they really love our game and this feels like an easy layout victory for pokemon to lean into our mobile first latem community so I'm very happy to get our first broadcast.
01:20:25
William Dunphey
I think it's the first of many. And when that Spanish channel does come out, I hope everyone follows it. I hope everyone subscribes to that because due to the the time zones and overlap, I don't think it's possible to have both the English version of ah of a broadcast and
01:20:31
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:20:42
William Dunphey
the Spanish version on the same channel. You're going have to follow Pokemon Go, ESP, or whatever they decide to call it. But yeah, I definitely think we need to show our support. And I need to watch back those grand finals too, because I bet they're pretty good.
01:20:57
zzweilous
Yeah, the same goes for me.
01:20:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:20:58
zzweilous
it was It was a very turbulent week, so I didn't get around to just yet. um But yeah, I'm glad that we have a VOD because for the bulk of our LATAM events, we do not have the opportunity to even look up the place of our competitors again.
01:21:15
zzweilous
um so I believe the YouTube channel is called Karma Beam or something like that, where you have the VODs of all the events like TCG and VG events.
01:21:26
zzweilous
um broadcast as well just like all the games so yeah definitely check that out and yeah I believe that would be everything that I have on Kiretaro but there's still a little bit of distance that we have to cover in in this episode I believe
01:21:47
William Dunphey
Yes, I think you're exactly right. Well, let's keep the
Upcoming Events and South African Tournament
01:21:50
William Dunphey
momentum going. We've got one more event to talk about, and then we have a brief overview of the TPC region events. And then we're going to talk about the NAIC meta and what we know so far. So there's a big asterisk next to that last one because there's still a moveset update. There's a lot of changes coming. But ah let's talk about South Africa here. We had eight players competing.
01:22:11
William Dunphey
A South African did defend the title there, that being KurtiWordy and his Umbreon. Shout out to PvP Steve. I mean, we you and I both thank the PvP gods that we have PvP Steve because he definitely dives into a lot of these events, especially in Oceania that don't get as much coverage. And he does have the footage of these games. This is a Swiss style bracket.
01:22:33
William Dunphey
Only three rounds. So was quick tournament, only eight players. But KurtiWordy was undefeated, winning all three of his rounds. And he took on Divashan, which, fun fact that Steve pointed out, Divashan won this event last year.
01:22:46
William Dunphey
So it was the defending champ versus the new champ.
01:22:46
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:22:50
zzweilous
It's nice that and we now have two people from South Africa with the regional champion shirt. So actually just kind of elevating the profile of the region by crowning yet another champion.
01:22:59
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:23:07
zzweilous
And yeah, we we see the Jelly Meister that we just talked about as another prominent feature on KurtiWertie's team. Simon Ruetz- obviously the standard standard embryo I could see those two actually work in tension quite well with jellison being a Pokemon that is pretty good at drawing out a weekly tough and therefore freeing up an embryon in the back with its strong neutral matchups.
01:23:14
William Dunphey
a
01:23:30
William Dunphey
Well, if you look at the movesets here, Curdy Wordy was running Disarming Voice Chilling Water on his Florges and also Vault Switch on his Fortress. So when you look at this Grand Finals matchup, you did have a Shadow Quagsire from Divashon and a Shadow Malamar.
01:23:45
William Dunphey
I think this is an easy time for Divashon to just bring that Shadow Quagsire because you don't have Trailblaze on Florges and you don't have Bug Bite on Fortress. So you have to find a different way to beat that Pokemon.
01:23:57
William Dunphey
I think a lot of it came down to... the bulk and the reliability of the Umbreon. But just a quick roundup, just briefly here, some interesting meta picks, Lego sets with Swampert and Quagsire, double Mudboy.
01:24:11
William Dunphey
You love to see it as well as solar beam, nine tails with Ember.
01:24:12
zzweilous
you
01:24:15
William Dunphey
We did have, you know, Gasai with, Empolion, another Jellicent, as well as the Alolanite Tales. Obi-Wan Kenobi, you got you got to check that, Jedi. There might be a a copyright infringement claim there. You've got Clefable and Talonflame. I want to shout out as well, ah Billy DeBravebird with the Aegislash and Galarian Moltres duo, which we did see earlier on in Houston, or excuse me, in Orlando, if I'm not mistaken. um And then two Quagsires out of the top three, which is pretty cool.
01:24:44
William Dunphey
But ah I have some some match results for our grand finals, if you'd like to hear them.
01:24:49
zzweilous
Oh, yeah, please.
01:24:51
William Dunphey
Once I locate my notes, I will have those on deck for us. It'll only take me a moment here.
01:24:55
zzweilous
I know that Dracovus defaults to calling everything a 2 and 0, which may not be entirely accurate, but...
01:25:02
William Dunphey
Yeah, it's one of those things where because it was Swiss, a lot of the matches were just a two o There was no best of five in this ah this environment, but I do have some game results. Thanks to PvP Steve.
01:25:14
William Dunphey
Not sponsored, but it should be. um So game one, KurtiWordy led his fortress into Divichon's Galarian Corsula. Kurti really in this game just needed to find an opening for Ombreon.
01:25:26
William Dunphey
Because that was such an obvious pick for him to bring, you could bet that Divashan was going to bring his Wigglytuff every game, which he did. um Kurt goes his shot at Quagsire, Divashan sends out the Wigglytuff, and that means that the Umbreon is free to go in the mid-game. So that was an easy game one. for Curdy. Where you? Game two. Divichon strikes back and he does so in the lead. So Curdy leads Umbreon. Divichon leads Wigglytuff. Checkmate.
01:25:50
William Dunphey
We gotcha. And Curdy instant swaps to Florgis. He absorbs a chilly water, throws a swift on his Wigglytuff to weaken the Florgis and then goes to Quagsire. Again, no trailblaze on the Florgis. So it's very easy for something like a Quagsire to bring it down.
01:26:05
William Dunphey
Kurti-Wordy sends out his Quagsire, absorbs an Aqua Tail, and then he catches a Nightshade on his Umbreon, but it's still not enough to win because the inevitable Wigglytuff resurfaces. Game three, Kurdi picks up an incredible lead, Umbreon into Galarian Corsola, and this is doubly bad for Divashan because he went Galarian Corsola lead with Shadow Malamar and Wigglytuff in the back. So he's kind of ABA soft to this Umbreon, which is really tough.
01:26:32
William Dunphey
Divashan pivots into his Malamar, but he basically has no answer. If I remember right, Kurdi just shields his
01:26:40
William Dunphey
Umbreon once and takes down the Malamar. Um, Kurti brings his Claude Sire into the Willy Tough matchup and then, uh, Claude Sire eventually delivers the final KO.
01:26:50
William Dunphey
Willy Tough is only two charms away from its next move though. So this was pretty competitive from Divichon, just really unable to, uh, to really wrap it up. So if you want to watch the full video, I will provide a link over to PvP Steve's coverage of it. He covers he covers not only the Grand Finals, but a lot of other matches from Kirti Kirti's run. So shout out to PvP Steve, one of our goats. And yeah, you know what, ZZ? I'm starting to get the feeling that whenever there's a weekly tough in the meta, things are kind of RPS.
01:27:19
zzweilous
You would think so, but then there's also matchups where, like with Elim versus Dunebug, where the hardest Wigleytuff answer really is just a Corviknight, and all of a sudden Wigleytuff becomes a safe swap.
01:27:30
zzweilous
So, I don't know, maybe if you can't beat them, join them.
01:27:34
William Dunphey
Maybe so. Maybe so. Well, speaking of joining them, it sounds like KurtiWordy is able to join the South African champions there after winning Cape Town. Does get his Worlds qualification. That's that's very exciting. I hope he can make it because I don't think Divashon was able to travel to Worlds in Anaheim last year. So I hope he's able to come out.
01:27:53
William Dunphey
But um South Africa fun events, I think these these smaller events are important. I know there's there's very divisive opinions on these, but this is a good chance to build your local community, to have a tournament that's not going to be infested with Palasha and Itzaxen and Dunebug and Stone Collection, right? This is just a good, honest tournament you can compete in. And I hope that we go from 8 to 16 players or 24 players or however many next year.
01:28:19
William Dunphey
I think that'd be really exciting. But yeah.
01:28:22
zzweilous
Yeah, that's what these tournaments used to be. like the The regional events used to be really for the region, whereas as of now, like okay you have this regional and there's Europeans traveling, there's Brazilians traveling, it happens somewhere in the US.
01:28:38
zzweilous
Maybe there's the odd APEC player who tries to win it all for an instant qualification. um But yeah, I do enjoy those events that may not be...
01:28:50
zzweilous
as big in scale as the ones that we see on the broadcast, but um give an opportunity to a scene that is otherwise cut up cut off from the circuit.
01:29:01
zzweilous
So always a big fan of those happening for sure.
APAC Region Events and Japanese Qualifiers
01:29:04
zzweilous
um Speaking of APAC competitors trying to punch the tickets to Worlds, that is also starting up again with just a lot of events happening throughout the spring.
01:29:17
zzweilous
um mostly in a style of okay we have the qualifiers first and then we get the playoffs and we did already see the indian region um home to our very own world champion beelzeboy as well as a bunch of other top competitors um starting off with their qualifying tournament essentially allowing people to punch their tickets to the playoffs and from then on out
01:29:23
William Dunphey
Price- um.
01:29:44
zzweilous
I believe they have an increased number of qualification slots compared to last year. And I believe it was quadrupled even. i think that went from four to 16, if I'm not mistaken, which I know that like there's going to be issues with the visa process most likely again.
01:29:52
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:29:54
William Dunphey
Correct.
01:30:02
zzweilous
But in case the qualifying trainers are eligible and are able to get their paperwork done in time, which I do not envy them for every tournament that happens in the US because that is a very tough prospect to face.
01:30:18
zzweilous
um But if they can make it, which I thoroughly hope, there's going to be a lot more trainers from this very, very talented and honestly in grassroots often dominant region, including players who now made at least the playoffs like MasterMeHir, who we saw, I think, make a top eight finish last year. It was like very, very high up.
01:30:43
zzweilous
um Now the Empire, who is also one of the most infamous grassroots players from the Indian continent, um as well as players that we've seen before, like Shagun Bora, FakeSoul, those are names that I recognize.
01:30:56
zzweilous
But also players who I've seen around the community.
01:30:57
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:30:59
zzweilous
I believe TigerSony17 is somebody who acts as a moderator for some of the more prominent creators in the scene. Eevee Fun I've seen around, that PvP person I've seen around.
01:31:08
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:31:11
zzweilous
Ezerox, another name that I've probably seen years and years ago already. um People that I recognize from practice tournaments. It's Ryuga, another um member of the community who often interacts with the North American side of things as well.
01:31:27
zzweilous
So a bunch of trainers who are essentially now at a 50% chance of making it at least two words qualification. um And yeah, I believe we are a week away from the playoffs actually taking place.
01:31:42
zzweilous
and i can I know we can always like have the teams up on the screen. There's a bunch of meta trends that are pretty much in line with what we've seen before. Another empire prominently on that Piloswine that we saw in Seville.
01:31:57
zzweilous
um But also players like Vet99Ant with Pokemon such as Breloom on their team. so certainly an amount of variety that we are used to seeing from those massive remote um apec qualifiers um so i don't know how serious the braillums of this world are but i'm always a big braillum enthusiast so i had to highlight that
01:31:57
William Dunphey
Bye.
01:32:22
William Dunphey
I love how the Breloom just overshadows the fact that there's also Toxicroak and a Charizard on that team. What in the world?
01:32:30
zzweilous
charizard is like half a real pokemon that's like
01:32:33
William Dunphey
oh my gosh.
01:32:34
zzweilous
It feels nearly serious.
01:32:34
William Dunphey
Yeah, it... It really is. And then you have AK and Barats with a low punny, it would appear, as well as the Galarian Moltres and Cliff Abel.
01:32:43
zzweilous
Oh boy.
01:32:44
William Dunphey
So there's a lot of spice. Also, Judgment of Time with Mandibuzz is crazy. And wait, what is that on Dark Phoenix's team? Is that a Morgrem?
01:32:56
zzweilous
Morghum honestly looks so good into the meta if you just plug in the the top Pokemon from previous regionals and try to reverse engineer on PvPoke.
01:33:06
zzweilous
So Morghum may actually be a legit pick. So I would not be surprised to see more Morghum action in the actual playoffs.
01:33:10
William Dunphey
ooh.
01:33:14
zzweilous
um But yeah, one one fun anecdote about the trainer Judgment of Time, who made it with a Mandibus of all Pokemon.
01:33:14
William Dunphey
Morgan might might be the sauce.
01:33:20
William Dunphey
yeah.
01:33:25
zzweilous
They are a frequent competitor in the CandleCult practice tournaments that I keep shouting out.
01:33:30
William Dunphey
Ah.
01:33:30
zzweilous
They have a very good record in those as well. But one fun thing about them is that they are usually the last pairing of the Swiss round that wraps up. So I will not be judging your judgment of time, but certainly helps to think a matchup through as it appears um because it is reflected in some very impressive success by this particular trainer.
01:33:57
William Dunphey
Interesting. Yeah, maybe living up to the name there, maybe asking not to be judged on the amount of time they need for each round. um Also, i got to shout this one out, ZZ.
01:34:04
zzweilous
It is true.
01:34:07
William Dunphey
We have ah three different teams that I can see just kind of no scoping this. We've got Deb Gaming, Champ Ramesh, and Nava Empire all rocking the Talonflame.
01:34:20
William Dunphey
So maybe there's something to it. I see a lot of targets for the Firebird there.
01:34:26
zzweilous
Yeah, like if you look at the most used Pokemon, just in the top column, you have Corviknight. Town of Flame hard answer stat. Wigglytuff, Town of Flame hard answer stat. Medichirm, same thing.
01:34:38
zzweilous
Fortress, yet again. And then there's also a 34.4% Goregeist usage, um just slightly trailing Quagsire to come in as the sixth most used Pokemon.
01:34:49
zzweilous
So that's already five hard targets for Shadow Talonflame. People should make sure to bring their Shadow Talonflame counters because if this is the meta, it does look kind of saucy for the actual players.
01:35:02
William Dunphey
It really does. Ever since Vroom Vroom Pal won the Sylph World Championships, I've known that India was legit and Beelzebue proved that it's arguably the most legit place to compete. And these TPC events are always, they always feel such like high, so excuse me, they always feel like they are such high stakes because you don't have a bunch of regionals all season long. You don't have a point system where you can try to build up your race and locals and cups and challenges. You don't have that.
01:35:30
William Dunphey
You basically have an online competition and then you have a playoff and then that's it. And you get one shot to really get into it.
01:35:37
zzweilous
Yeah. No second chances.
01:35:38
William Dunphey
So no second chances whatsoever. So these trainers that compete, they were forged in the fires of competition and they know exactly what to do when the stakes are at their highest.
01:35:50
William Dunphey
So I'm always very, very proud of our trainers from India and APAC in general because they are so strong, so competitive. Um, You know, it also has been fun to watch the Japan qualifiers, which famously everyone, if you don't know this, famously, they take place at Pokemon centers.
01:36:08
William Dunphey
So it's like, oh, I want to qualify for Worlds. I'm going start my journey by going to the Shibuya Pokemon Center and battling whoever's standing in there. And that's how I'm going to earn my my chance to get into the PJCS.
01:36:22
William Dunphey
That's crazy.
01:36:22
zzweilous
That's fun.
01:36:23
William Dunphey
That's so cool. Well,
01:36:26
zzweilous
If we lived in a culture that was as Pokemon obsessed as Japan, like I would and enjoy that if that was just like the thing that dominated the everyday culture.
01:36:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:36:37
William Dunphey
Well, one of my favorite things to do over the ah over the Orlando weekend was to read those posts. And, you know, all the Japanese trainers, they're also private. So they always have like an emoji covering their face or whatever might be.
01:36:47
zzweilous
Yeah.
01:36:48
William Dunphey
But they have like the bracket behind them and they say, oh, I just won in Osaka. Oh, I just won in Shinjuku. Oh, i just won in Shibuya, wherever it might be. and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to make it to the PJCS. And I'm so excited.
01:37:00
William Dunphey
And I was just going through I felt like one of the the old people on the slot machines. I was just liking every single one of them. i was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Ishikawa boy too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like all these. Right.
01:37:11
William Dunphey
I'm just really, really excited for the PJCS. And as a reminder to everyone, the NAIC is the final chance you have to earn championship points. But the PJCS takes place one week after that.
01:37:21
William Dunphey
So if you want to get another good look at the meta going into worlds, that is your really legit, legitimately your final chance. So we start with
01:37:30
zzweilous
Especially because NAAC, as we mentioned, is going to be a custom meta and will not actually display what we are likely going to see at Worlds, just assuming that Worlds will be held as an open-grading format the way it has been in the past.
01:37:44
William Dunphey
Yeah, and again, I don't have i don't have like the down low on that. I honestly don't know if it's going to be limited or if it's going to be open great. I feel like personally, if you do 80% of the season in open great league, you shouldn't just toss in a limited meta for worlds because then it feels like, ah, well, what what were you preparing for all this time?
01:38:02
William Dunphey
But that's my opinion. I don't know how other people feel.
01:38:06
zzweilous
Yeah, I'm thinking the same.
01:38:07
William Dunphey
Well.
01:38:07
zzweilous
I would be surprised if you saw something different. I cannot rule it out, however. But yeah, I believe that we are nearing the end of our breakdown.
01:38:18
zzweilous
Is that so? Let me check our notes real quick.
01:38:21
William Dunphey
I think that that might be it.
01:38:21
zzweilous
Oh, yeah. yeah Yeah, like we had the NAIC meta announcement, which was kind of wrapped up in the Orlando shenanigans that were much more serious than we had hoped for them to be.
NAIC Meta and New Pokémon Debuts
01:38:35
zzweilous
NAIC will allow Fairy types, Normal types, psychic Psychic types, and Water types, while banning Dark types, Grass types, and Steel types.
01:38:45
zzweilous
And there's also a ban list of two dozen Pokemon, essentially. it'll actually would be much more limited in what we actually get to use. But typically, my first look at a meta comes when the rankings are up on PVPoke.
01:38:58
zzweilous
especially the weighted rankings.
01:38:59
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:39:00
zzweilous
There's been unweighted rankings floating around that highlight strong bulky psychic types such as Hypno or Grumpic being potentially excellent.
01:39:11
zzweilous
But there's probably competition from many of the bulky normals that we that we are used to and potentially even some of the fairy types that are viable as well, because that is just essentially traditionally a very strong type in the meta.
01:39:27
zzweilous
And obviously water types, they come in all the different flavors as well. yeah, I'm just like looking at this.
01:39:34
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:39:35
zzweilous
Is there like an angle for Ludicolo to do anything astonishing on the psychic types?
01:39:41
William Dunphey
I think so, actually.
01:39:41
zzweilous
But then there's also the normal types. Like umll I'll be surprised. I'll be curious to see how um that will shake out. And I'm looking forward to practice as well.
01:39:52
zzweilous
But up until New Orleans, we still have just about two months to go. and plenty of Open Grade League competitions before that. So um yeah, I guess like we'll we'll give it a deeper look once we know a little more about practice usage, about PvPoke rankings, and then we'll do a deep dive into the NAIC meta when the time allows for it.
01:40:01
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:40:14
zzweilous
Other than that, I feel like I could lead us over to ah releases in terms of Pokemon Go PvP that are upcoming or have already happened. For example, Mimikyu is already in the game, but it is not PvP legal yet. You cannot actually select it in battle.
01:40:32
zzweilous
um The theory is that maybe they are waiting for the actual PvP refactor to introduce that mechanic because as of now, it can be selected in rocket battles, but it cannot be selected in PvP battles, and those happen on slightly different systems.
01:40:43
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:40:47
zzweilous
So there's a theory that maybe once the actual update has like is dropping without the previously in-content bugs, Mimikyu may also make its PvP debut.
01:40:59
zzweilous
And Mimikyu's special mechanic is that um once you take the first hit with it, the first charge attack, um you will be able to negate all the damage without using a shield, but your defense will also drop permanently.
01:41:15
zzweilous
cannot even reset that through a switchout, which is a very unique and interesting mechanic.
01:41:15
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:41:20
zzweilous
I have no idea how overpowered or how underpowered that is going to be, but that is what Mimicure is going to do. Other than that, we are, as of right now, um about a day of local time away from the Tinkerton community day, where um it's a Tink-a-Tink community day technically, but we'll evolve into Tinkerton with the Gigaton Hammer,
01:41:44
zzweilous
So yeah, get to grinding because it's not only fun shiny, but it's also going to be PvP relevant with a Gigaton Hammer, steel type attack, I believe 60 energy and 130 damage. That's a clone of moves like Precipice Plates and Origin Pulse.
01:42:07
zzweilous
I butchered that and I was half on purpose, but I didn't originally intend to. So a very, very strong damage per energy attack that may actually propel Tinkerton into um some contender status for the Open Great League as well as the Ultra League.
01:42:23
zzweilous
Then after that, there will be the Sustainability Week event, and that prominently features Galarian Corsula, which is not only able to be hatched from X, but also on 50% hatch distance, by the way.
01:42:23
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm.
01:42:37
zzweilous
But also you can encounter it from doing routes, which then would remove the egg IV floor, which is useful because you do want that 0, 15 something Corsola for maximum PvP viability.
01:42:50
zzweilous
Also, it will come with rose tainted glasses, apparently. I don't know why it has that costume, but it looks cute. So make sure to hatch and catch those Corsola.
01:43:01
zzweilous
Other than that, we will see if the Silicobra, Sandaconda line, which is not going to be PvP relevant. as well as Orthworm for the end of the month, where it is um debuting in the Stealed Resolve event that will come with, I believe that is the event that also has a taken over part, which means new rocketst like a new rocket event allowing us to TMAWay frustration and introducing new shadow Pokemon, most prominently Jupiter, which can evolve into Araquanid.
01:43:32
zzweilous
Shadow Bugbite, we just saw it with Fortress, very powerful in this current meta. I believe I've worked us through all the events that are upcoming for the rest of April. So anything to add, Speedy, or was this it after recording for three and a half hours, roughly?
01:43:46
William Dunphey
Oh,
01:43:49
William Dunphey
I know it. Yeah. it For all of us, for all of our listeners who didn't hear the previous episode and just tuned in for this one, we did do two episodes in one day. So ZZ and I are are, we're really running the distance here. So thank you for bearing with us. um I'll add just a couple of notes on each one of these. Mimikyu, Home Size Henry did a very good video on Mimikyu. It looks Quite strong in Great League as well as Ultra. So make sure to trade away the Mimicues that you caught on Friday because it's double XLs for trades on Friday only. So make sure to do that.
01:44:21
William Dunphey
The Ultra League one looks really, really strong. But then again, like you said, it depends on if the ability works the way we think it does and the new PvP system. Gigaton Hammer. From what I've seen online, it looks busted. It looks like a very good move. That's going to be a very powerful Pokemon. Galarian Corsula, I call it the Elton John glasses, is essentially what it has. It looks really, really cute. And this is a great chance, like you said, to get a good IV Corsula without needing to to do low friendship trades, which are really, really tough.
01:44:49
William Dunphey
Also, shout out to Benji in Mexico, who actually traded me my Rink 22 Galarian Corsa that I already have. I might need to build a new one. So it looks like that's what's on in the stars for me.
01:45:00
William Dunphey
ZZ, you overlooked the fact that you called both Sandaconda and Orthworm boring in the notes. So I really, i really appreciate the candor there.
01:45:07
zzweilous
Yes.
01:45:11
William Dunphey
That's that's very funny. um New Shadows, prominently, Jupiter. As you know, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. and uh a shadow araquanid could be a beast uh hopefully also we get the return of shadow onyx i'm really hoping that that it gets tossed into the rotation please
01:45:28
zzweilous
I will be on the grind and I will also be on the grind for a shiny shadow Magikarp because even though Cliff was the one rocket leader that I was targeting, it is also the only shadow shiny that I haven't gotten yet.
01:45:34
William Dunphey
um
01:45:38
zzweilous
So kind of cursed. um However, there's still a couple of weeks for me to hunt for that red Gyarados. on So just hoping for the best. And if not, it probably will remain in the male water type grunts.
01:45:53
zzweilous
So I at least have that going for me.
01:45:53
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:45:56
William Dunphey
That's fair. Odds are reduced, but it's it's not zero, right? So there's still a chance. ZZ, I got to ask you, I spent a lot of time working with production to get our NAIC meta reveal graphic. it It wasn't the star of Orlando, but I just want I just need you to validate it here. Does the graphic look good?
01:46:13
William Dunphey
Be honest.
01:46:15
zzweilous
I really enjoyed the fact that the bands were listed alphabetically and we got the weekly tough reveal right at the end. I think that was like very, very smartly done. So I will give you credit on that.
01:46:27
William Dunphey
We get the ZZ stamp of approval, everyone. It's worth its weight in gold. Thank you so much, my friend. All right. Well, everybody, we've got about 80 or so days, give or take, until NAIC. That is your last chance to get championship points and qualify for Worlds. Keep in mind your cutoffs across the various regions and leaderboards. Make sure to check out the official PlayPokemon website to get all that sorted. And also, make sure to keep on checking the PlayPokemon socials because I hope as we all do, that we get an announcement soon regarding Orlando. But as of right now, as of the recording, we have not seen anything yet. So fingers crossed we get some ah clarification on that and that it is to everyone's approval. Now, that being said, ZZ, we've done two episodes back to back. This has been a long haul, but I think they've been very, very good episodes.
01:47:14
William Dunphey
Looking forward to recording more with you soon. We're going to have Prague coming up at EU and then we have LA shortly after that. But that being said, the TPC region is firing up too. So we'll cover those as best we can. And we might even experiment with some new content formats in case we want to get a little soundbite out to all of you without recording a full episode. So we'll see. We're we're always thinking of things. It just comes down to time and execution really.
01:47:38
zzweilous
yes and as of now we're thinking about how to better handle those time and execution issues so uh like we'll we'll stay optimistic about how things develop and yeah i'll be at prague i'll be excited to talk about it once things wrap up um yeah it's home stretch
01:47:54
William Dunphey
Well,
01:47:57
William Dunphey
if I've heard any rumors, they may be that there are trainers from NA that will be attacking Prague and trying to take the trophy. So
01:48:08
zzweilous
I'm looking forward to some of them tying for 17. so
01:48:14
William Dunphey
ah Okay, let's see if they take that personally, like Michael Jordan did on his fantastic documentary.
01:48:15
zzweilous
a
01:48:19
William Dunphey
But that being said, ZZ, it's been a great episode. Thank you so much. I hope everyone appreciates our insights and opinions and real life reactions to Orlando and also our insights into the meta. Always a pleasure, my friend. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night. Get some rest and we'll be right back with more coverage on the Show 6 podcast.
01:48:37
William Dunphey
Bye.
01:48:38
zzweilous
Thank you.
01:48:45
William Dunphey
Thank you.