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Ep. 3 Liverpool 2024
216 Plays9 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 3 of "The Show 6 Podcast", where we bring you the highest quality coverage of the Play! Pokémon Championship Series for Pokémon GO! We explore the plays, the players, and everything else happening in the competitive scene.
This week, we reflect on the Liverpool Regional Championships, where NiteTimeClasher (an American??) won it all! If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction: The End of Pokemon Go in Europe
00:00:01
Speaker
It is with a heavy heart and to my utmost embarrassment that I have to read today's eulogy.
Liverpool Regional Championship Overview
00:00:10
Speaker
We have congregated to say our last farewell to the European Pokemon Go competitive scene. It is the aftermath of the Liverpool Regional Championship. We are Zeez Wireless and Speedy as Chief 2. This is the Show 6 podcast.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome to the Show 6 podcast.
Nighttime Clashers' Victory and Impact
00:00:50
Speaker
Today, we will be covering Nighttime Clashers' victory at the Play Pokemon Regional Championship in Liverpool. The biggest European regional to date, 192 people, and an American wins it all. So that will of course have some implications for the intercontinental rivalries.
00:01:10
Speaker
And yeah, there's also been some interesting meta developments, two dugongs in the grand finals, multiple flavors of Annihilate making it far, and also some other moveset surprises. So yeah, I am Zweilis, and I am joined today as per usual by my co-host Spedia's Chief 2.
Emotional Reactions and Tournament Highlights
00:01:29
Speaker
Speedy, this is a big one. What's on your mind? So I am. I'm so sorry. I promise I'm not laughing. I didn't have to mute my mic. Well, I did have to mute my mic because I was crying instead of laughing, right? I'm just, I'm, I'm so upset. I'm just crying in solidarity with all the pain trainers.
00:01:50
Speaker
USA. Sorry. Sorry. That, uh, that came out there, but no, in all seriousness, I'm really excited for this episode. Liverpool is a lot of fun. I took a look back at day two in particular. I watched it pretty closely. And, um, yeah, I mean, it was, it was just a thrill. A lot of really close matches, uh, a lot of, a lot of animated people on stage as well. I noticed a lot of folks were, were having a lot of fun, uh, with their, with their wins and you could see it on their face that they lost. You didn't even have to look at the screen, right?
00:02:19
Speaker
Uh, but no, it was an incredible experience and you were actually there in person as well. So I'm really excited to see what you have to say, but let me just take one piece of what you said earlier about the dugong.
Strategic Insights: Key Pokemon and Movesets
00:02:29
Speaker
Yes, there's a skull debuff, uh, infestation, right? There's there's just running wild with the skull debuffs from whisk hash, but do go through more debuffs than, than whisk hash did in the grand finals by a long shot.
00:02:43
Speaker
That's what 100% debuffing makes in terms of a difference compared to the 50% from Skoda, I would suppose. Well, we'll talk about it. Yeah, I have some figures for you, but once we get to the grand finals, I'll drop some numbers. Speaking of figures, if we take a look at the general usage statistics, I do think looking back at Charlotte, the big story was the arrival of the ape in ILA.
00:03:13
Speaker
Um, it actually went down in usage. Like you would assume that people might pick it up more because, um, yeah, like now more people have access to it, maybe evolved a good one, use the event to evolve one with like the, the fitting IV spread. But no, and I like this down 13%. Um, the ketone is up 10%. Guess, uh, many people just feared, um, like the ape and wanted to put this counter weaknesses on their team.
00:03:42
Speaker
And also Zoom roll is down 17% from Charlotte. So maybe people felt as if they were over preparing for an ILA, but now they course corrected a little bit. Everything else kind of stayed the same. So the matter is somewhat stabilized, just the annihilating made for a bit of movement. But curiously enough, I do think this was actually more of an ILA breach now than the previous one.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think there's a really important discussion that needs to be had about the difference between targets and environment. Now, what I mean by that is a lot of Pokémon come out and they have just incredible targets. We looked at Toxapex when it first came out. We said, oh, this is the hardest wall in the world to Azumarill. If Toxapex finds Azumarill, it's GG's, it's over. We saw when Cloudsire came out, like, oh man, if Cloudsire encounters a Bastiodon or even a Stunfisk, you know, it can just really just pummel those Pokémon with Earthquake.
00:04:42
Speaker
And sure, like there are a lot of targets there, but you also have to think about the environment that these Pokémon are coming into. I mean, we saw Toxpecs come in when Lantern was getting a lot of prominence, when you had Galarian Stunfist still very prominent in the meta. We saw Klytzer come in, and we thought that was the next big thing. And you saw a lot of Skarmory, a lot of Whiskash, a lot of counters to that. And now that we have Annihilate, it's almost like
00:05:05
Speaker
almost like a perfect environment for this Pokémon to succeed. And that's really how I think about it, because instead of having a flying type Pokémon like Skarmory that would just air slash through it, all the Skarmory's are running Steelwing. And with shields, Annihilate can win those matchups. I mean, granted, if you even see a Mandibuzz that has Snarl, Annihilate, due to its dual typing, can endure
00:05:27
Speaker
some aerial aces, some foul plays, and they can actually win against Mandibuzz in certain shield scenarios. So, I mean, there are so many different targets for Annihilape, yes, but it's also in the perfect environment. I don't know if you agree with that or disagree with that, but I think you have to have both of those things to have a Pokemon really stick in the meta.
00:05:45
Speaker
While I generally do agree with that and while I do also think that that's partly what made Pokemon like Medichang great in the future and in the future in the past probably also in the future like it could be back. But yeah like I do think the the interesting thing about Annihilate and
00:06:11
Speaker
what I referred to earlier as the different flavors of it is that you can kind of
00:06:17
Speaker
mold your Annihilape in a way that you prepare it best for the environment it finds itself in. Because we actually had two Annihilapes facing off in the Grand Finals, but they did run different move sets. I think that Nighttime Thashers, victorious Annihilape, went for the most standard move set of Ice Punch and Shadow Ball.
00:06:42
Speaker
while Tomahawk UK traded the Ice Punch for the option of Night Slash, which fires off a little bit quicker. It's only 35 energy you get there in five counters. Overall, we did see a little drink from Ice Punch to Night Slash, but
00:07:04
Speaker
In the final matchup, Ice Punch actually came in clutch, fighting targets like the Gligar, like the Venusaur on Tomahawk's team. It really depends on what you're up against and how you want to tackle that.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I, I, I actually have in my notes, are we going to talk about the correct annihilate moveset? I'm curious what you think the correct moveset is. And I'm just going to ignore the fact that you said earlier that we should pick an annihilate that fits the rest of our team. I'm just going to ask you straight up. So why, what's the correct moveset ice punch or night slash? Um, I can tell you, I can tell you right now, if you want to have success in the go battle league, I would recommend night slash personally. I agree.
00:07:48
Speaker
I think it's not even about that 12.5% chance to boost your attack, but if you're stuck in the mirror and your bait move takes more energy and one more counter, that's not great. And also, I do think that Annihilape overall just doesn't really have the profile like Pokemon such as Skarmory, where you know, okay, they have great resistances, they have great bulk,
00:08:15
Speaker
Maybe it takes them...
00:08:19
Speaker
eight seconds to get to their move. It doesn't really matter because they have the longevity to stay in a night's job anyway. I don't think Annihilape is quite that Pokemon. It's not as squishy as other fighters, but it still appreciates getting to its moves early. And I think Play with Night Slash, general Play with Night Slash is just far more dynamic. And yeah, just as a general purpose Pokemon, I do think the Night Slash Ape is the better one.
00:08:48
Speaker
It's really tough because a lot of trainers were kind of gravitated towards Ice Punch Shadow Ball. First for the coverage, but second for the prime target of Gligar because you want to be able to force shields from Gligar pretty consistently if you're able to. But just the pacing of Gligar is so hard to match, right? The wing attacks five and then four for the aerial laces.
00:09:07
Speaker
Meanwhile, Annihilape is struggling over here, you know, six counters to the first ice punch, six to the next, five to the third. It's really, really tough to kind of match that pacing. So even if you have energy advantage, it can be difficult to take down the Gligar. And if it's a regular Gligar, that gets even more difficult because it's not going to take as much damage from the ice punch. Something I noticed in the tournament though.
Common Mistakes and Cultural Practices
00:09:27
Speaker
Three different matches. After the second one, I was, I was really kind of like, wait, is this a, is this a trend? Is this something that's happening in three different games? We saw annihilates throw shadow balls into normal types, which was, I know this is like a nitpicky thing, but I was like, am I in the twilight zone? Like, why does this keep happening? The first was in losers round two, zone a 22 versus is this snowman or snowman? How do you, how do you say that name?
00:09:52
Speaker
Um, I am not Dutch, so I do not know for sure. I would pronounce it snowman. Something around that. Um, I do think that's, that's pretty close already. Um.
00:10:07
Speaker
I heard some of the casters, I think say snowman. I'm not sure, but maybe snooze is more accurate. Maybe he can correct us if he, if he finds this episode. Well, the first one was in losers round two, Zone versus Newman. Uh, snooman catches the shadow ball from annihilate onto his lick a tongue, but it still wasn't enough to win. He lost the game with two shields.
00:10:26
Speaker
And then Tomahawk was actually responsible for two of these instances, right? Two out of three. So losers around for game three, Tomahawk versus status stand. Tomahawk was able to catch Shadow Ball onto his Lickitung. Really, really nice swap. I think he ended up winning that game. And then in the losers finals, Tomahawk versus Pablo. He led his Nylape into Vigaroth and the game ended the same way because Pablo is just unable to take back switch advantage. And at the very end, in the last moment, he threw a Shadow Ball into normal type of Vigaroth, but he was already like,
00:10:55
Speaker
at 100 energy and he was just running through that team because he was hard countering it. So I think two of those were maybe, you know, on purpose. The third one was just intentional, flagrant foul, you know, throw the yellow card, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, um, now Nighttime Clash is a regional champion, but apparently his influence was felt even before he got that crown because
00:11:18
Speaker
Like, he did advise us to do just that. It would be considered disrespectful if you don't throw the less effective move to close out the game. So I do think that was just a bit of a bit of Pokemon Gold PvP culture that we witnessed there on stream.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think so as well. It's, it's always a fun moment, right? It's always so satisfying, especially in GBL to catch a shadow ball onto a normal type or a dark type. It definitely can put you ahead in the matchup. And we saw a couple of those, but yeah, I just wanted to point that out because I was beginning to think like, man, is there like a underlying theme or are people going to be afraid to throw shadow ball now with an eyelid? Because they think the Lickitung is going to switch in. Like, you know, what can we expect? It's even more satisfying to just KO a normal type with
00:12:05
Speaker
with the shadow ball. I did that the other day in his week up where my drift and shadow balled a low pony. That was fun and we will never see that anti-Pokemon unfortunately.
Future Predictions for Annihilape
00:12:15
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I do think that we will see more annihilate going forward. I do think this Liverpool regional was definitely, um, a proof of concept. I would not be surprised if we saw, I'd see a search number rise from the 20% annihilate that we, that we had this time to, I would honestly not be surprised if we see it at around 40%. Um, In the next, in the coming weeks. Um, just as you said, like it does have.
00:12:45
Speaker
tools to basically hit the entire meta. And besides Gligar, there's not even really flyers that can touch it too much, depending on the moves that you choose to run.
00:13:00
Speaker
Speaking of Gligar, I also want to point out that with how close the margins are and with how difficult it is to just time the pacing and get everything right.
00:13:18
Speaker
Also, going back to the point of catching shadow balls, I do think players really need to be on high alert because, and I like very unforgiving Pokemon, but high reward as well. So I think people really need to sharpen their skills in terms of waiting a turn and seeing, okay, what is my opponent going to do if there's a situation where you can just wait for the fast move animation to go through.
00:13:48
Speaker
There have been instances where just waiting to see what the opponent is doing would prevent a potential shadowball catch on a normal type. And there also has been a moment in the grand finals where a nighttime clash actually managed to outpace
00:14:12
Speaker
a glider on tomahawk's side because tomahawk swapped in a little late and night time clasher has the ice punch coverage tomahawk did do a three turn ice shot with his dugong and that ended up metering because of that night time clasher managed to get to the killing ice punch one turn earlier than tomahawk
00:14:39
Speaker
go to potentially killing aerial ace. So you really have to be on your A game with annihilate in the meta. It just can be over so quickly if you have a Pokemon that has that kind of coverage, that kind of fast move pressure, and that those possibilities just flip the game on its head with just a couple of counters advantage.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't agree more because there are a lot of situations. I can't remember which game it was in particular, but I do remember a game where nighttime classers seem to be on the back foot in the grand finals. I think he lost lead pretty hard and he went for a protection advantage.
00:15:19
Speaker
And he had his annihilate with two shields versus, uh, versus tomahawk. And it just felt like, you know, he even absorbed a surf, I believe, if I'm not mistaken and took damage on his annihilate. And he still just had an easy path to victory because as soon as you are in a matchup, you know, two annihilates, one on each side, as soon as you go, you walk into that situation, go into that matchup. If you go down a shield, things get so much more precarious because the opposing annihilate can just shadow ball all the way.
00:15:46
Speaker
So it almost feels kind of similar to facing a frost slash or a Charizard, because when you go down shields against those Pokemon, their sweet potential is so massive that it actually kind of puts you at a real disadvantage. So I agree with you in terms of maintaining awareness, waiting a turn, anticipating catches, all those kinds of things. But I think also trainers need to keep an eye on their shields as well, especially against opposing annihilate teams, because my gosh, like once you go down a shield against annihilate, it's so hard
00:16:15
Speaker
to, to win the mirror match to, to no shield, you know, call a potential shadow ball. It's so tough to try to do that in that situation. So, uh, it's high risk, high reward, I guess. I'm curious because you actually went to Liverpool and I did a little bit of, uh, of research on the map here. I've only flown into Heathrow airport. Obviously I was in, in London for EUIC one year and I went to worlds in 2022.
00:16:38
Speaker
But I've never been as far northwest as Liverpool and that's the spot of our first ever regional championship, right? When we had Azray filming everything on his phone and trying to stream it, you know? And I think there's a lot of history there and I think that's a very important kind of location for us as trainers.
00:16:59
Speaker
I mean, in our pre-recording talk, you said you had a lot of fun and you've been there, I think this is your second time, if I'm not mistaken, and you really enjoyed it. Could you speak to your experience going in person? 100%, like Liverpool, I really hope that they will keep the regional there because
00:17:17
Speaker
I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of the city. It really feels alive and vibrant, and it's not as overwhelming as London is, because with London, it feels as if you have a city and a city and a city. You have the city center and all the touristy stuff, then you have the Excel area where the
Tournament Experience and Challenges
00:17:42
Speaker
tournament takes place, and that's a little bit
00:17:48
Speaker
away from everything. And that's like, you can probably spend like two or three weeks in London and you could see something new every day. I think Liverpool is a little bit different, but it still feels just like a big and alive city. And I think it speaks volumes that we had the biggest European regional, like we broke the record.
00:18:15
Speaker
for like the second year in a row. I think last year's Liverpool was also at that point in time, the biggest European regional we had. And just for meeting the community, I think there is probably no better experience to have. Like if you are an American or from another continent and looking for a tournament to go to that might not be an IC,
00:18:44
Speaker
Um, I can definitely recommend Liverpool. Like, of course it's, it's a big commitment and there's maybe more, more touristy city, like anything Mediterranean that can definitely also recommend. Um, uh, just, just the energy, uh, socials that they organize year after year. Um, like ginger ninja, who is a local, does a great job. Um, Italian, the, the London's finest crew are typically involved and they always, um,
00:19:14
Speaker
make a really memorable weekend out of it all. Then there's also the tournament part.
00:19:23
Speaker
If you, if you let me, I could speak a little bit about my personal run as well, because, um, it was, it was eventful, I might say. I'm excited for this because, uh, because why and I have, have shared notes going into each episode and he just wrote the good, the bad and the ugly. And I want to know, I want to know what the, uh, what the good, the bad and the ugly are of, of the experience. So yeah, I think, uh, everyone's really interested to hear.
00:19:52
Speaker
Okay. I'll start this off with the good part because I didn't do too much prep before the regional, but I did feel okay going into it. I wanted to try my prediction from last week, the Obama snow and ability on it that I was very, very confident about and very familiar with my Pokemon and GBL. And lo and behold, first game,
00:20:22
Speaker
Um, like I get to skip round one because I luckily got seated. So, uh, round two, when I was around two, I faced a team that has six losing match-ups against Savannah Snow. That was sweet. Um, that was a, that was a 2-0 that my opponent couldn't even do anything about. Um, because people didn't prepare for that and I took advantage of that.
00:20:45
Speaker
Next round, I faced Matt Beer. Matt Beer is a streamer from the UK, highly rewards player, really good at the game, and he did run the exact same team nighttime clash I eventually piloted to victory. I managed to call an ice punch bait from his annihilate in the lead against my Skeletor, and did some good line calls, two and all, onto the next round. Feeling great.
00:21:13
Speaker
Next round, Dionoski. I think he was the runner-up of Stuttgart, if I remember correctly. He was famously piloting the Gas Lord to New Heights. I was kind of excited to see more Gas Lord gaming, because as we all know, I'm a big fan of those Dragon Dark types. No Gas Lord inside. There's a Bastion on the team. There's a Wigglytuff on the team.
00:21:38
Speaker
I'm shaking in my boots. But I make some good predictions, some good line calls. I even managed to not get my Rechi Steel baited out by the Wigglytuff safe swap and instead counter swap my Wiscash to preserve the Rechi Steel for the Pelopon in the back. I feel really good about my gameplay going into the winner's finals. And then,
00:22:05
Speaker
The ugly happens. The ugly is massive on stream lag. I didn't manage to catch much of the day one stream because I was mainly battling.
00:22:16
Speaker
But yeah, the right phone was not working as intended at all. The left phone also had some slight hiccups. But yeah, it so happened that game one I lead ABA week to Vigoroth and the lead Pokemon was Vigoroth. So I was immediately put on the back foot.
00:22:40
Speaker
I managed to make catches, manage energy, and put myself into a position where, upon rewatching the Twitch stream, I actually had a win condition, and I faced with it quite well. And unfortunately, I lost multiple Powder Snows from my Obama Snows, allowing the Vigoroth to escape with some more health and preventing me from eventually snapping it with my Shadow Dragonaire.
00:23:09
Speaker
I talked to the stream judge about the situation and asked whether he thinks it was decisive in that game because I didn't want to push for a rematch if it could be seen as bad sportsmanship. In the moment, I didn't know exactly how many Potter Snows I lost. It was all happening so quickly. I couldn't rewatch the footage.
00:23:32
Speaker
And yeah, basically the idea was, oh, yeah, it probably didn't matter. The game will stand. And I'm like typically okay with that. But then in the second game, basically the exact same situation happens with the one difference is that I win the game. And even though I benefit from a little lag on my opponent's end,
00:23:56
Speaker
I didn't really need switch advantage and probably would have had a very solid chance to win the game if the lag didn't occur in my favor. Anyway, that game gets rematched. So we have game one, a loss where I could have had a wincon and do not get a rematch.
00:24:16
Speaker
and game 2, a win that does get re-merged, where I probably still would have won the game. So if there was no lag, I'm not 100% confident, but like 80% confident that I would have too odd again and reached the
00:24:34
Speaker
like day two on the winner's side of the bracket. But unfortunately, like the rematch, new teams, because it's different rules than grassroots formats, like previously Silph or, you know, Battle Frontier. And yeah, I don't get the team call right. I just go in with the same team thinking maybe my opponent will just honor like, just gentlemen's agreement ish, the rematch rules. But yeah, this time I lose lead, I lose the game.
00:25:03
Speaker
I go out O2, I go down to the loser's bracket, Stadastan goes ABA to Skeletorch twice and perfectly reads my lines. Like, credit to him, like, you have to take a risk. And he did that and it paid off. And that's my tournament run. That's me out of it all after I felt very good about the team, very good about the gameplay.
00:25:25
Speaker
not that great about the connection. No hard feelings towards my opponent or the stream judge in that instance. I was pissed that day. I don't have to sugarcoat it. I was really not happy. But it's what happens. You have to make those split second decisions even as a judge. It's live TV and after the first game you don't know
00:25:51
Speaker
how the second game would look and whether you might reconsider your decisions. And once the decision is made, it stands. On to the next one. Yeah, I don't know how much I can really add to it. I will say that the production team has found really creative ways to try to get the game to work optimally. And I think that some events are just better than others. A lot of that is dependent on the internet capabilities at the venue.
00:26:20
Speaker
And I think that what we can all agree on though, is that we deserve better. Like we deserve a game that runs smoothly all the time, especially when there's this much money at stake, when all these championship points are at stake. Yeah, I don't mean to, yeah, I don't mean to, you know, drudge up bad feelings, but yeah, I think as players, we deserve better. And it's always like a tough spot for me, you know, as a, as a caster, because I can't, I can't like disclose what the team is working on.
00:26:50
Speaker
And I can't just come out and just shake my fist at Niantic or TPCI, whoever, and say, oh, it's all your fault. You screwed up. But it's, like most things in life, there's kind of a gray area. There's a mix of things that are happening. And yeah, I mean, it can be really disappointing. The worst one that I think we ever had was at LAIC when Har Jeff was taking on Ellen D.S. Trix and, I believe, in Grand Finals.
00:27:18
Speaker
and I think it was it was decisive game number five and they get about 30 to 45 seconds into the game and then both devices just completely lag out and you're like come on man like this is just the worst absolute worst time and I mean
00:27:35
Speaker
For trainers like yourself that have already qualified for Worlds and you have all these other social aspects to enjoy and you have such a history playing the game, it hurts, but it's not going to be something that makes you feel like you should never go to an event again. But I think for- Thankfully, not that much on the line for me. It was one evening of grinding my teeth, but life goes on.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah. And I just think that that's important to, to, to kind of distinguish as well, because yes, because we're competitive, we want to win and it does sting and it is, you know, it bothers us afterwards, but at the same time, a lot of trainers who maybe are coming to a tournament for the first time and that happens to them. There's a good chance that they never come back to the tournament.
00:28:21
Speaker
And we just need to stop having that happen because we want more people to enjoy the game. We want them to play the game. If they don't think it's fair, then they're not going to try. Right. So, well, it makes sense. I have seen my competitors, like top GBL competitors, such as Panic 23. Oh, yeah.
00:28:43
Speaker
I'm talking on Twitter about how the state of the game is what prevents them from attending fake Pokemon tournaments. I do think in this specific instance, it had more to do with the venues Wi-Fi rather than with
00:28:59
Speaker
like the Niantic side of things, but like all those bits and pieces have to work together to just create an experience where the competitor can really play a match and think afterwards, okay, like everything that happened is down to my decisions and the decisions my opponent made and not down to anything else outside of our control.
00:29:26
Speaker
Um, yeah, I think we are closer to that experience in many instances. Um, like we've, we've come a long way, but there's still, there's still a way to go to just have this consistency that it's not only, um, like smooth and almost perfect for like 90% of battles, but for a hundred percent.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that you're spot on. It's interesting because I've been looking at other games and how they've succeeded or failed over the recent years. And I think two things I've identified are really important. The second biggest reason for a game to fail or for people to stop playing is lack of content.
00:30:09
Speaker
Right. If you don't have an update, if you don't have a new feature, if you don't have a new item or something that gets players excited, they don't want to play with the same things over and over for months and years. And that's pretty obvious on its face. And the second one is quality and consistency of the game. For example, I've been a big fan of the finals, which is a FPS shooter game, kind of like an arena style shooter, but kind of open map. Essentially, you you gather money and try to
00:30:36
Speaker
have the most money at the end of the round is how I'd sum it up in one sentence. But at the top of the rankings, they have a serious problem with, uh, with players that are aim botting or have like software that, that allows them to just, you know, fry you from across the map. And a lot of the very competitive players, maybe from call of duty from apex legends from halo, whatever it might be that go to the finals. They say, yeah, I want to, I want to do well here. And then they get up to that higher rank and they just start getting annihilated by cheaters. And they're like, yeah.
00:31:05
Speaker
I don't want to play this anymore. And this is kind of a long drawn out analogy, but I think the principle is the same. If you don't have a fair and equal game, then it's not going to survive long-term. And then the second most important thing is, of course, new content. We've got the annihilates, why? But we need a consistent, fun game. That's what we need next, right? It is true. It is true. And also, I'm speaking to the idea of, okay, there needs to be new content. I do think
00:31:35
Speaker
One instance of introducing new content that was actually quite well made this season was PvP spawns being available at those events. And now that I've been to an event for the first time during this in-game season, like this three-month period of the Go Battle League,
00:31:55
Speaker
I do think that maybe somebody should check back with Niantic to potentially update those spawns depending on the
Event-Exclusive Pokemon and Competitive Play
00:32:05
Speaker
season. Because I was able to catch Pokemon like Scraggy or maybe an Alolan Vulpix or a Meditite. And those Pokemon for sure are viable and are not bad at all.
00:32:20
Speaker
But I do think in this current meta, they've kind of fallen out of favor. Their evolutions have fallen out of favor. I wonder whether that needs to be more...
00:32:32
Speaker
dynamic for the future, but that's just a short aside. Like the nice thing about those spawns is that they help somebody who might not be the most prolific badler right now assemble a roster that might make them into a champion a year from now. And that could mirror the story that Nighttime Clasher
00:33:02
Speaker
wrote in Liverpool because I met the guy a year ago before he casted the regional championship in Bochen, Germany and he basically admitted that he was like
00:33:18
Speaker
Almost a casual, didn't really have all of the Pokemon. He enjoyed the spice, he wanted to go to more regionals and he wanted to really put his heart into it and look where it got him. This is honestly just a great example for anyone who is starting out new in my opinion.
Nighttime Clasher's Journey to Victory
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's been incredible to watch a nighttime classroom. He's definitely been big on the memes. He's been a big stage presence. And, uh, I had a chance to, to catch up with nighttime classroom in San Antonio. And I mean, the kid is just a machine. He's, he's very easy going when you talk to him, you know, he's very personable. Uh, he likes to joke.
00:34:00
Speaker
But his brain is always working. And he's actually worked on a few different mobile games and has casted for other mobile games as well. And he saw Pokemon Go and thought, oh man, this is going to be a really fun game. I should get into this. And yeah, I mean, amazing fact about Nighttime Clasher, this might make you laugh. You know that he still does not have a Defense Form deoxys in his inventory at all? Was it even available for the time he actively played the game for PvP reasons?
00:34:29
Speaker
I don't think so. I don't think he's ever caught defense from deoxys ever. Yeah. Which is amazing to think, right? Because we talk about, uh, for example, mega Absol is coming back in an upcoming event and we're thinking, yeah, when was the last time we saw this Pokemon? I'll say, I'll save you the Google search. It was 2021. It's been three, three years since we saw this thing.
00:34:51
Speaker
And, uh, for, for trainers, like, like nighttime clasher, for other trainers that are looking to get, to get into the championship series, it can feel daunting. It can feel like, Oh, I don't have XL zoom roll. I don't have my, uh, manky for an I leave. I don't have this. I don't have that. And whereas with VGC, you can just sit down on your console and you can play from wherever you are, or with TCG, you can just go buy the cars that you need and go. There really is no way to get these Pokemon without catching them or training them. So I think that.
00:35:20
Speaker
Especially with like defense from the Oxus that can't be traded, right? Yeah, exactly. That's another barrier, right? Which is even greater barrier. But like you said about the regional events, I think they're perfect. The regional events are the best events that nobody seems to know about. That's true. I'm going to say it. Because you get the Stardust bonus, you get Carbink spawns, you get a Metatite and Meryl spawns. I mean, it's just like,
00:35:46
Speaker
It's a perfect place if you want to build a roster, like you said, but I thought that was a beautiful segue into NTC nighttime clasher. Should we talk about him some more? Because I have some notes on his run and his, I got to say, so why his run was one of the most impressive runs I've ever seen.
00:36:01
Speaker
I know that he waved at me from across the tables when he was playing Anton Mattout's reigning European champion. I guess now that automatically makes NTC the reigning European champion. Please enlighten me. Who did he all? It can't be the best trainers in Europe, right?
00:36:25
Speaker
Um, I, I have bad news for you. So I, uh, you, you had a pretty, you had a pretty stellar intro, but I'm just going to, uh, I'm going to cement why that intro was, was so poignant. This is just on the money. Uh, nighttime clashes. First round was against Vincy Wincy. His second round was against HK assassin took down both of those trainers to, oh, both of them finished number 13 at the London last chance qualifiers for worlds in 2022.
00:36:53
Speaker
And after that he took on Tonton Batous, which obviously is our EUIC 2023 champion. It's also hit top five in the go battle league with a number of additional accomplishments, right? Number nine in Liverpool, number four in Stuttgart and number nine finish at worlds all in 2023.
00:37:10
Speaker
He then took on Alejandro DL, which I think a lot of traders call him whiskey, right? Whiskey finished fourth in Turin in 2023, 17th in Lille this season and has hit number one on the GBL leaderboards. He then took on Hikami who finished ninth in Bilbao in 2023 and has various other top 20 finishes. He took on stone collection, which I mean needs no introduction. Stone collection has done really well, won the last chance qualifier back in 2022.
00:37:37
Speaker
He took on the first ever Liverpool champion, Lurken Rocket, who finished obviously first in Liverpool 2022 and then fourth at Worlds in 2022. He then took on Pablo Ndinas, who finished seventh at Torino in 2023 and 13th at Bilbao.
00:37:54
Speaker
These are not pushover players. This isn't somebody we haven't heard of. This isn't a trainer that's going to their first tournament. These are seasoned competitors. And it's honestly wild that the Toga Damaru kid, NTC himself is just running through these players. Like, like it's nobody's business. He literally had zero easy rounds. Like I don't know how familiar, especially like, uh, our listeners across the pond are.
00:38:20
Speaker
with some of the earlier names, but I've played basically all of those people and practice tournaments. Even those who don't have a regional title to their name, those are tryhards. They know their game. I wouldn't be surprised to see any of those on Top Cut, and Nighttime Clash are just eliminating them one by one.
00:38:46
Speaker
You have to give it to him. That's not a fluke run. Nobody expected it to be a fluke run. NTC is the first player ever, if I got that correct, to actually top card on three different continents. Because he also managed to reach top 16 at LAIC earlier this season.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah, I... He's just a force. He's just a force to be reckoned with now.
00:39:19
Speaker
He's cooking. Yeah. He's cooking. I think I remember in the match versus Pablo Nunez, the trainer who managed to knock me down to the loser's bracket. He caught a superpower from a Dragon Knight on his annihilate. How do you do that? Like, I know like he didn't catch his flight, but everything else that there was to catch, he did catch. So like.
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah. Prioritize like the big moments. He even got some shade in the pre-grand finals interview. He got some shade from Tomahawk.
00:40:04
Speaker
I'm going to read this quote, right? This is Tom Hockett, nighttime clasher in the, in the Caster's lounge before the grand finals. And I think, you know, most of the time it's pretty friendly. And I think Dilap Chong had, had a very memorable quote. One of the casters asked him, Dilap, are you hungry for a win? Dilap says hungry. I'm starving.
00:40:23
Speaker
started for a win and that was, that was huge, right? That was, that was really funny. Well, Tomahawk sitting right next to nighttime plasher, right? He looks at dead at the caster and he says, on behalf of everyone in Europe, nobody wants nighttime clash.
00:40:40
Speaker
And I paused, I paused the stream and I said, oh, that's how it is. I love that. I love that. I love that we have this little, it's not just about world's qualification now. It's about the honor of an entire continent going into the next regionals and internationals. I know there will be a ton of Americans and probably some Canadians, maybe also
00:41:09
Speaker
battlers from other parts of the world coming to EUIC and I know that some Americans are already like side-eyeing us like okay okay you guys make sure that you defend that before you talk back at us at all about maybe going to to NAIC and doing something big there but like
00:41:31
Speaker
Mattain, your European co-cast and eloquence already called on his Europeans to assemble and go to New Orleans later this year. I will follow him into Vettel and try to restore the honor of the European PvP community.
00:41:51
Speaker
um and maybe take a win overseas but yeah like previously we had bibilicious who uh yeah managed to um finish as a runner up a north american regional as about from sweden um that was nice that was um a good showcase of what europeans can do but like no no no they really turned up the heat they really
00:42:17
Speaker
put it all on the line there and yeah like we're on the back foot and you see nice really really um
00:42:27
Speaker
I won't, I won't say like probably, okay. I will say he managed to hurt some, some, some feelings, some feelings of pride, but I still think that this is just, this is just a fun game. This is just like shit talking. Like there, there's still a lot of mutual respect, but every, every region wants to be the best. And, um, it's, it's the Europeans time to prove themselves again. Um, I'm here for it.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah. It's so funny because a lot of the Pokemon go community is very, uh, reserved. You know, we like to keep things to ourselves. If we win or lose, we don't really express it as much, uh, as, as maybe other games, right? When, when you have, uh, for example, like apex legends, they win a match and the players stand up, you know, from their, from their, their station and they look at the other team and they start cursing and they're like,
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah, you're trash. You're dirt. You can't do anything against us. And we don't get any of that in Go. So I think it's always interesting to see the emotions come out. And I think that we should hope for more of that because I think it builds for interesting characters. It builds for people you can cheer for and villains that you want to see lose. And I think all that dynamic is really good because the saying is true. Iron sharpens iron. And when you have EU and NA and a rivalry, it's just going to make us all better.
00:43:49
Speaker
You know, we don't get better if we just say, Oh yeah, you know, EU is pretty good, but I'm not going to really try to win. Right. I think that this, this mindset of trying to win no matter where you are is something that's really unique. And I think nighttime class, or you have it in your notes here, nighttime class, you're really proved what's possible. And I think that's so important for other people to notice.
00:44:09
Speaker
100%. And like, as you said, I do think that this might push the competition to new heights. And I'm especially excited for the storyline. The next European that competes in NA, everybody will be rooting for him. Everybody in Europe, of course not in North America. But there's something on the line now. It's not just, oh, I go there. I have a good time. And I see some friends from the internet.
00:44:39
Speaker
This is a serious business now. And my message to all the Americans out there, thinking like, oh, like, bald eagles, American flags, we are the greatest nation on earth. The tournament was won by a Canadian. Oh, ouch. Ouch. Don't speak too soon, you guys. Don't speak too soon. Ooh, okay, okay, okay.
00:45:07
Speaker
Well, well, I wanted to point out a couple of things about the grand finals, which, you know, I was mentioning nighttime clashes opponents. We didn't even get to the grand finals and his opponent there. He took on Tomahawk UK, which is a pretty familiar face around the PvP community going all the way back to 2022. Tomahawk actually finished ninth at the London LCQ at worlds. He took second at Warsaw in 2023. And then this season he's been on a top cut.
00:45:34
Speaker
Tare, number three in Barcelona, number five in Stuttgart, and number two in Liverpool, his most recent finish. Tomahawk, no pushover either. But there's so much poetry in this grand finals because I noticed that the first game of the grand finals had just a slight variation that turned out in a loss for nighttime clasher, but a slight adjustment in game eight after the reset actually turned it into a win. So almost identical teams here,
00:46:01
Speaker
We had Nighttime Clasher in game one of the grand finals with Shadow Gligar, Lickitung, and Annihilape. And then we had Tomahawk UK with Dugong, Annihilape, and Lantern. So obviously, Shadow Gligar, Dugong, that's not a good matchup. NTC has to pivot. He has to work his way through the matchup. It basically comes down to an ice shard damage coming through and KOing the Gligar before he can get to his final charge attack. And I'm not saying that the final charge attack would have definitely KO'd, but he was pretty close. It would have given him a chance.
00:46:30
Speaker
And then we fast forward all the way to game eight. This time nighttime clash with Whiskash annihilate Shadow Gligar. So he kept the annihilate and the Shadow Gligar just kind of rotated the order. And he led into annihilate Lantern Dugong from Tomahawk UK. This time, though, that Gligar gets revenge. It comes in against the Dugong, gets the final wing attack, and then the aerial ace is barely enough to knock out the Dugong and take the 3-0 sweep.
00:46:55
Speaker
Amazing pivot from nighttime clasher to lose the first set of the grand finals. And he still has a flight to catch that's in the back of his head, but he makes adjustments and takes a three Oh to win the reset, which is really amazing. Yeah. Just showcases the adaptability. And I kind of want to zone in on the, the dugong pick a little more because going into top cut only two trainers brought the dugong had the dugong on their team. Um, and.
00:47:26
Speaker
Both of them ended up in the grand finals and I do not think that is a coincidence. What are your thoughts on the Dewgong pick? No, I absolutely agree. I think the Dewgong, like we kind of teased earlier with the skull debuff versus the icy wind debuff, Dewgong is just so much more consistent. It's a bit bulkier than Wiscash as well. And the ice coverage is definitely underrated when you have a Pokemon like Gligar.
00:47:51
Speaker
Cause you think about countering Gligar and yes, you can use water type pressure. You know, we see the scald from wiz cash, the surf from lantern, but what you really want is ice coverage. And it feels like it's so tough to run shadow lowland sand slash because it's double week to counter and it just gets annihilated. Pardon the pun by annihilate. And then you've cut frost slash, which seems to struggle against the normal types, the bulky or dark types, and a lot of the neutral picks like lantern.
00:48:15
Speaker
So where's your third option? You go for the water and ice type Dewgong, which is a little bit slower, right? Granted, the pacing is a bit slower, but you can take so much damage, especially after throwing the first icy wind. I mean, the first time I really saw Dewgong succeed was at NAIC when both Mountain Dewgong and Wadaj were playing it. But now that we have it making its way across the pond and doing really well, I mean, it just kind of seems like a no brainer. Do you agree or are you surprised?
00:48:43
Speaker
I personally have to say that I had a very similar thought about Corebreakers going into the tournament.
00:48:53
Speaker
But my idea was still to bring in the Obama Snow. And there have been two Obama Snows in top-cut, so I would just say like a little prediction game. I see zero Trevenant, so I think I win this round. But the one thing that Dewgong, besides like the greater bulk, the one thing that Dewgong has going for it
00:49:18
Speaker
is that it actually has a positive Skarmory matchup. So to go on, one of the very few things that manages to beat the Wiscash Skarmory core and I do think that given the fact that
00:49:35
Speaker
Dugong wasn't really a thing before this tournament. I do think actually I want to shout out Pocket who is one of the more inventive trainers in North America. I do think he had Dugong on his team in Charlotte even and it did serve him well. And similar to last season where
00:49:56
Speaker
He identified superior as the strongest brass type early and earlier than others. I don't think he also managed to identify the strongest ice type currently. And yeah, DuGong definitely caught people off guard. Even counter users because an earlobe is not as
00:50:15
Speaker
bulky as Medicham or has as good of a resistance profile as Poliwrath has against Dugong. So even there, there's counterplay now. You can actually damage the counteruser of choice quite a bit with the counter with Dugong. So it's very well positioned in this meta.
00:50:36
Speaker
But nobody knew about it because it wasn't top 12 in usage and not on too many top-cut teams the last time around. I would actually predict that the meta for the upcoming originals will keep Duong in mind. I do think more people will pick it up and I do think more people will actually prepare for it and bring out the Duong contest too.
00:50:57
Speaker
not just get caught totally off guard like this time where the two dugong basically ran through day two with no real resistance. Interesting. What do you think some prominent counters could be? Because I don't think it's favorable for grass. I think you'd have to go either more lantern, more counter users, or even, I don't know, rock coverage somehow? I'm not sure how you'd beat dugongs. I personally do think that there is a place
00:51:25
Speaker
I can't believe that I said that. Please beep that out in the post-production, but I believe there is a place for Bastionon in the current show six minutes a game. I'm just going to burn the episode. Yeah, thank you so much. People might also
Pokemon Strengths and Tournament Outcomes
00:51:39
Speaker
just bring their charger box. They have brought their charger box, but it wasn't enough. I could see more Skeletorch actually.
00:51:49
Speaker
Because we had some fire types in the top card, but I don't know whether there was actually a manage to get aligned to Dookwong teams. Because Skeletor Duch lives a drill run, and the incinerate is just chunked. So that's not the worst matchup.
00:52:11
Speaker
And I also just believe that an ILA will definitely shoot up from its current 20% usage to probably about double that for the next regionals. So that will also help cover for the Dewgong better because
00:52:25
Speaker
There's been some top-cut teams that just don't have a counter-user. For example, Logan Rocket placing forth without a counter-user on his team. I don't think we'll see that happening going forward. I think counter-users will become stable again.
00:52:42
Speaker
Agreed. So maybe Doonbug's run in San Antonio with no counter user. Maybe that was one of the last times that we're going to see that, at least for a while. I could totally see that. Well, I have a question for you, actually. So Wiscash has been a big topic of debate. I have some notes here. This is in regards to the grand finals. So Wiscash was on Nighttime Clashers team. It was not on Tom Ock, UK's team.
00:53:08
Speaker
A lot of people are saying, ah, skull debuff too strong, you know, don't like it, you know, drop it down to 30%, get rid of it. Whatever you, whatever the dialogue might be. I would, my question, you would agree. Oh, okay. Well, well, my question to you here is we saw, I actually did all the numbers, right? We saw whiz cash in five out of eight total games in the grand finals.
00:53:30
Speaker
I want you to just guess, right? Don't, don't look at the notes. I want you to guess how many mud bombs nighttime class you're through and how many scalds he threw five out of eight games, five out of eight games. Um, let's say eight scalds and format bombs. Is that your final answer? It is my final answer.
00:53:56
Speaker
nighttime clasher through one scald in the grand finals. Oh, he threw one scald and he was in game number two. When he, he played shadow, Gligar whisk, cash annihilate versus the opposing annihilate lantern do gone. So I assume he scalded the annihilate. He threw one scald and he got one debuff.
00:54:15
Speaker
Now that's juxtaposed against the mud bomb number. I was shocked. He threw 12 mud bombs in the grand finals and one stalled. I think that might actually be a sign of understanding the whiskers better than the general public because I was basing my numbers, not on the grand finals because we're recording, it's already Thursday for me. So the grand finals are some days behind.
00:54:46
Speaker
But just in GBL, I see just people scalding, scalding, even if it's a resist, it's just scalding. You might get the debuff, you might flip it. But matbump is a good move, and it's cheaper. Sometimes you need two moves anyway, so why fish for a debuff you might not need if you can just get two matbombs way faster?
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah. And especially considering the match-ups, I mean, he was up against the annihilate quite a bit, the lantern quite a bit. And, uh, if annihilate is getting tonight slash every five counters, then it just makes more sense to outpace five, four mud bomb. Right. Well, unless you have any other thoughts on Liverpool, I think we can move on to our Knoxville predictions and a little bit of a leaderboard update with championship points.
00:55:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's, that's look ahead. All right. So Trevenant did not work out. I thought that Trevenant was going to be a prominent pick in Liverpool. Turned out not to be, but I have a new pick, my pick for Knoxville coming up this weekend. Drum roll. This one's, this one's actually really spicy. I don't know if you're ready.
00:55:48
Speaker
I might not be. My pick is Cresselia. I think Cresselia is due for a resurgence. It's spicy. It can beat Annihilate, Whiscash, Lantern, and Gligar. And that's four out of six of most of these top meta teams, right? Yes, you have to avoid the Skarmory. Yes, you need to avoid Likitang in most situations. But I think Cresselia, it's kind of fallen out of the meta, but I think it's undervalued. I'm curious what your thoughts are.
00:56:18
Speaker
I think you did identify a very good core breaker.
00:56:22
Speaker
My issue with Cresselia is just its availability, because you do want a really good one, you do want nice PvP IMEs, there's even like both points and breakpoints you kind of don't want to miss out on. And it's very difficult to get that kind of Cresselia like tournament ready. It's like going back to the accessibility problems that we talked about earlier. So I do see Cresselia being a successful Pokemon,
00:56:51
Speaker
I could see... I have two picks written down, but one of them is a meme that I might bring to Droughtmont, and the other is Jealousant. Because you will have to cover for Likitang quite a bit, because that is an ugly, ugly matchup.
00:57:10
Speaker
Other than that, Jawasend looks to be super well positioned in my opinion. Like, you can beat the Gligar. You look really strong against an ILA. If you, like, if a Shadow Ball connects, you know, Cresselia also doesn't really want any part of it. I think that's still, like, pretty close, because Cres paces to the grass nuts rather quickly. Yeah. But still, like, the one thing that I think Cresselia has over...
00:57:41
Speaker
No, that jellison has over cresselia is the skarmory matchup because with the amount of whiskers going around and also just with what i've seen what has been partnered with an ila in the go battle league i would assume that skarmory will be a big player going forward
00:57:59
Speaker
and jellisoned resisting the steel wings, having the bolt to even tank a brave bird. I do think that you do want those those corebreakers for the the popular course like whiskers, skarmory, annihilate skarmory, that kind of deal. And you basically force dugong to not pull any debuff shenanigans because that would be resisted.
Future Predictions for Upcoming Tournaments
00:58:27
Speaker
So I do think that Jellison could find like up to like four, like I would say three to five targets on about every top meta team these days. That might be good enough to maybe top cut. I wouldn't be surprised.
00:58:49
Speaker
interesting, interesting. So I, I think that, uh, one of the most famous jealous and players, at least in my own opinion has got to be Martine, you know, inadequate seems to bring the jealous into regionals. He brings it to practice tournaments. He brings it in GBL. He is all about the jelly Meister, uh, as, as it's been referred to, right. And, uh,
00:59:06
Speaker
I can't say I'm overly surprised that you and Martine are aligning on the Jelson pick here. Will it be that good in the face of, you know, the obvious picks like Lantern and maybe like you said, Chris Sally is a close matchup as well. I don't know, but I kind of like the idea of being able to eat a shadow ball and threaten the annihilate with the shadow ball of your own. It kind of at any moment, you know, which I think is a really good feature to have.
00:59:32
Speaker
Okay. All right. So my, my Chris sell you pick for Knoxville and your jealousy. Those are our core breakers. And you said, you said you have a meme pick as well. I think this one's we're discussing. Yeah. Um, I do not know whether this will make its way to Dortmund. Um, because that will be the next tournament where I will be competing. Um, but I have played some GBL matches, uh, with Salazzle.
00:59:58
Speaker
I have to say, I reached a new Season High with it. I'm in the 3200s currently. It gets to a poison fang within two Incinerates. If you look at the two shield scenario versus the entirety of Nighttime Clash's team,
01:00:17
Speaker
There is only one Pokémon you really fear, which is the Wiscash. And if you build around it in a way that you can fend off the Mud Boys, the Wiscashes, especially the Ground-type damage,
01:00:30
Speaker
Then, a 2-shielded Selassal can just snowball into something that is really difficult to stop. Because you just do so much Incinerate damage. The damage from Incinerate got a buff. You still have the debuffing utility with the Poison Fangs that you get to super quickly. And you are basically made of glass. You have so much attack that even like a lantern, after a couple of debuffs,
01:00:58
Speaker
It will notice those incinerates and it's a very risky pick. Yeah. But I could see it being high risk, high reward. I will play test it some more. I will not tell anybody, like, this is not financial advice. I don't invest in a scenario just yet. Um, but it could be fun. And also I do know that, um, friend of the show, Evan, seven, seven, seven, you know, the sevens, he'll be in law school and here's the spice pick of his own this time.
01:01:28
Speaker
I do think that's a good idea too, so maybe we'll see what this trainer cooks up. I remember trying a little bit of Salazzle when the Incinerate buff came through, and I thought, oh yeah, double resist fairy types, you just burn through everything. But to me, Salazzle has always had the Galvangel issue, as I like to call it. It just can't stretch itself further than one matchup, and you definitely have to give it shield.
01:01:55
Speaker
I don't know how you're playing it. I don't know how you're playing it at such a high level. I admire it and it's a mystery to me, but I would be very excited to see it. Even if you decide to bring it as a meme, you know, you know what they say, right? Everything's a meme until it's not, and you find out it's real. Exactly. Remember last season, like Shadow Marv, I want to reach a big team, he want to reach, why not Salaso? Like the weird things that do fire tap damage, I'm here for it.
01:02:22
Speaker
It's true, it's true. I mean, you never know what can happen. So we've got about 127 days as of the publication of this episode that you can gather championship points to try to qualify for the World Championships in Honolulu, Hawaii. But we have a new leader border here, a new number one
01:02:41
Speaker
on our championship point leaderboards. Doonbug 97 has overtaken Har Jeff. It took him weeks for someone to overtake this trainer, but Doonbug at 757 points has the most points in the world, even more than someone who's won an international competition and a regional. So that's a pretty remarkable achievement.
01:03:06
Speaker
But I have to say that I do think that Nighttime Cash's point total has not updated yet. If you add the 200 points from his original win in Liverpool, I do think he would actually be the new world number one. No way. We're living in a timeline, Swylus, where the guy who wore a chef's hat on stream is the number one player on the planet. Are you kidding me? Apparently so. Apparently so.
01:03:33
Speaker
The guy who tells us to throw the less effective move out of respect for your opposing trainer. What is this timeline? What is this? It's the timeline of cooking. We are in the cooking verse here. The NTC multiverse, perhaps. The cooking verse of madness. I would watch that movie.
01:03:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, again, everybody, about one hundred and twenty seven days, give or take after the publication of this episode to get those championship points to try to qualify for worlds in Honolulu. I think we're nearing the end of the episode. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we head out? Why are are you ready to just kind of pack it in and get ready for Knoxville?
01:04:17
Speaker
I want to mention that even though Knoxville is for sure exciting, that also our Australian friends are heading into a regional weekend with Melbourne coming up very soon. And yeah, like I have talked to some of them and yeah, like they're a little sad that there is no more OCIC, but I still do think that especially given last worlds where
01:04:43
Speaker
The Australians actually overperformed in comparison to their comparatively
Global Talent and Future Championship Predictions
01:04:50
Speaker
lower number. We should probably also in the future have an eye on that and see how that goes. Because there's talented trainers all around the globe, and while we've really been focusing on this North America versus Europe divide that opened up,
01:05:10
Speaker
It could all be for nothing if Ed Worlds in Hawaii, in Honolulu, maybe an Australian wins at all. We don't know yet. I'm just excited to see all those different flavors of PVP over the upcoming weeks.
01:05:28
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, yeah. I mean, for the last, uh, regional championship in Australia, I believe it was a combined effort of Debbie pebble, PVP, Steve and Zoe two dots to record over the shoulder of your Cobra bitch and his opponent to record those games. Uh, I actually watched back that footage because I always catalog the teams that we see in the grand finals and.
01:05:50
Speaker
I just watched Jokobrovich just pummel his opponent with lantern superior meta champ. I mean, he just is the same Pokemon, right? The same tools. This is the best like driver versus car argument I've ever seen because Jokobrovich was just the better driver. I mean, he, he had the same exact Pokemon as his opponent, but he just managed to find every win condition. So it was really exciting.
01:06:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Looking back at the bracket, we wish there was a stream. It would have been so much fun to watch. You're exactly right though. We've got a Melbourne and Knoxville double header, and I'm so sorry that it took me so long into the episode to mention that, but thank you Swai. That's why we work well together. That's why I'm here. Exactly. Exactly. Best co-host.
01:06:32
Speaker
Well, that being said, I think they were just about ready to wrap up. So I, it's been an honor, a privilege. Uh, sorry, everybody that the episodes out a little bit later than usual. I'll take the blame for that. That's on me, but we're going to try to be consistent, uh, going forward. But yeah, I'm glad you had a good time in Liverpool. I'm excited to see what comes in Knoxville and Melbourne and then Stuttgart, maybe Salazzle time.
01:06:54
Speaker
Dortmund, but we're getting there. Oh, excuse me. Different city. All right. So I have a good one and I'll see you after Knoxville. You too. See you next week.