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Ep. 12 CDMX & Stockholm
203 Plays6 months ago
Hello, everyone! This is Episode 12 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 highlight the competitive experience & spicy teams in the CDMX Qualifier tournament, JavierV20's run, and Paulasha97's thunderous Grand Finals in Stockholm. We also review the Champions of the Bogota Special Event and WCS APAC Playoffs!
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
End of Season Challenges in The World of One
00:00:00
Speaker
The World of One this season, approaching its final stretch, players across the globe are still seeking to challenge this familiar meta in unique and exciting ways. In Stockholm, we got to see the light that is Shadow Madness on its electricity, while in Mexico City Bogota, and during the APEC qualifying tournament, a unique array of dark types has risen to the top. We have a lot to get through today, so lock in, good luck, and have fun.
Insights from a Mexican Competitor
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome in. Welcome in Spideus. I'm currently calling from Mexico City, or at least from Mexico. I don't know whether you're still in the city itself, but we have a competitor on this podcast today, somebody who almost made day two.
00:01:07
Speaker
We have two competitors, right, yourself and myself. And exactly right, I am still in Mexico City visiting with my lovely fiancé, Morita Pokemon. It was really fun to support her while she casted the Mexico City qualifier tournament hosted by Niantic and TPCI. And yeah, I'm here for a few more days. I'm really just blessed and excited to spend time with her. But man, what an exciting weekend. I finally got a taste of the competitor's side. Is this what it's like, Swylos, to sweat?
00:01:36
Speaker
to sweat constantly every single match. I love how they just put you on stream again and again. I don't know how many people got multiple stream appearances during their first date. But it makes sense. It makes sense. You are a celebrity after all. And yeah, it was great to see you give it a go on the big stage. And you came really close to the top god, I have to say.
00:02:00
Speaker
It was a lot of fun. So I told Mariana I had three goals for this trip. The first was to support her and her casting because I wasn't able to attend the tournament the past couple of years. The second goal was to support the community and show the trainers in Mexico City that trainers from NA will come down and compete and just try to spotlight the trainers here that are just so talented.
00:02:27
Speaker
And I know that in our grand finals, it was Argentina versus Peru, but there were so many talented Mexican trainers that a lot of people had never heard of, like Marvez finishing third place. That's a player that nobody had really talked about, but he was incredible to watch. And my third goal was to win some battles. And luckily I won some battles. I wanted to shout out TZ Spanx, who I feel like is everyone's coach these days, at least on the Western hemisphere.
00:02:53
Speaker
But TZ and I were spitballing teams. We sent about five or six drafts to
Strategies: Double Ground Team and Guzzlord's Rise
00:02:58
Speaker
each other. And I sent him the Guzzlord team, and he said, this one is a winner. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. We went with Double Ground, inspired by Doonbug. And then I wanted to bring Skarmory for its ability to shut down Gligar. And then, of course, some Guzzlord. And I like Annihilate, because Vigoroth gets too hard countered by Annihilate. And Poliwrath just does a lot of things decently, but nothing too great.
00:03:21
Speaker
And yeah, just kind of rounded out the team and had a good time. Yeah, I enjoyed your team choice. And I have to say that the Gosselord especially, it's also a proven winner. It has become a proven winner recently. I think the very first title it took was in Buenos Aires, actually, where I think Desync piloted it too.
00:03:43
Speaker
a tournament win and now also one of the winners this week, right? Was it? Let me go through the graphics. There are so many graphics here. Yup, Jacob Locro in Bogota with the Gaslott and his team.
00:03:58
Speaker
And it's amazing too, because, uh, you know, PVP, Steve has made a wonderful graphic that shows the Pokemon that have come up, uh, second place, but never won a championship. And I felt like for a long time, Guzzler was always relegated to second place or third place or top cut. Uh, but yeah, you're right. Exactly. Seeing Jaco Loco and desync performed so well with it was, was really inspiring.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, now I actually have like among the thousands of graphics that I pulled up. There is also the most recent updated PVP Steve one. And I'm currently the most top eights without a win. Gaslode no longer in that because it did a mass two wins as of recent. Currently the front runner with 29 top eights, but no single win Mandibuzz. What is wrong with Mandibuzz? I almost brought Mandibuzz. Yeah, I think it's good.
00:04:50
Speaker
It is good. It has to be good. You don't place in the top eight 29 times without being good, but probably really allergic to a championship title. But yeah, let's not talk too much about Nanderbuss because like, why don't we, why don't we just start like typically we, um,
00:05:08
Speaker
kick this off with the event broadcasted on the main channel. But why don't we start with the Mexico City qualifier? Because you were there in person. You got to experience it all. And one of the unique dark types that I teased in the beginning actually took it all with Javier V20 and his shadow Sableye.
Mexico City Qualifier: Uniqueness and Key Highlights
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. I'd love to talk about it. So the Mexico City qualifier is unique in the sense that it's hosted primarily by Niantic, but in partnership with TPCI. So again, when Play Pokemon first came to the forefront, a lot of people were confused.
00:05:46
Speaker
They were like, oh, well, is it Niantic's fault that there's lag on the stream? Technically, if it's a game state issue, then you could argue yes. But if it's a connection issue within the venue, then ultimately that falls on the tournament organizer, which would in turn be TPCI. So there is a difference. But this event was special because it was only Pokemon Go. It was held at a venue that was different from the past two years. It was called Casa Battler, which just means House of the Battler.
00:06:14
Speaker
which is really sick if you look if you look on google images it's a really cool like old style mansion i think it has like three floors there's a big staircase that takes you up in the center area it's got big doors and there was like a outdoor area with tables and they set up a big screen and you could watch all the games
00:06:33
Speaker
But it was a really just awesome event, and it was an honor to talk with Alan, who is our Niantic lead for LATAM, and also with Sonora Man, who is our TPCI lead for LATAM. They were both in attendance and just made sure that the event ran beautifully. But yeah, no, the Mexico City qualifier was great. Dark type Shadow Sablai for Javier V20. Javier was just very calm, cool, and collected the whole way.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I look through some other top eights, and the most similar team to Javier, because I look at these Shadow Sableye teams kind of in isolation, because I know that a lot of trainers in EU played it. I know that Lyle Jeffs won a tournament with Shadow Sableye. Javier's team is most similar, actually, to LNDS Steiner's team from Sao Paulo. They share four Pokemon. They shared Shadow Sableye, Crystallia, Vigaroth, and Skarmory.
00:07:25
Speaker
But Javier V20 had charge bug, whereas Steiner had lantern and Javier had whiskash, whereas Steiner had Altaria. So a little bit of an adjustment there, but the most similar team I found was actually Steiner's. But I'm curious what you thought about the level of competition because I felt like a lot of the battles are really sweaty. I have all my recordings because we were allowed to play on our own devices.
00:07:48
Speaker
So when I wasn't on stream, I have the recordings. And I might do a recap of the games, because I thought they were really, really intense. But what did you think, kind of watching from the outside? Do I comment on your gameplay, or do I comment on the overall gameplay first? Whatever you want to mention. You can roast me all you like. I felt like Lalo's team was really tough for me. With the shadow, lowland, sand slash, and annihilate, it felt like Guzzlord was good. But I made a couple of mistakes, I'll admit.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not here to roast you and I know also that you are the type of guy who would take criticism to improve your gameplay rather than to be upset about it. Lado finished within the top eight, so this is just like proof that he was one of the best battles at the event.
00:08:37
Speaker
So no shame in losing there. I think you actually could have almost eked out the stream match if you commit to the Scott. I was like, commit to the Scott, really commit to the Scott. This is not my mom range, but maybe you live the content. You live the content on one HP, exactly one HP. I was like, Oh, so close. So close. But like, yeah, this is, this is the margins that decided this event because overall it was, it was amazing to see, um,
00:09:03
Speaker
like so many known names, like players like Rocha Babyface, who we've known for years and years, also a beloved content creator within the scene.
Regional Identity and Competitive Growth in LATAM
00:09:14
Speaker
And then there were names that we've seen in tournaments, even in other regions, like Io Mero also really high finish, I think a shared fifth. And he's been proving himself at, I think also at the world stage, if I'm not mistaken, but definitely also at a couple of North American tournaments. Like Mexico is North America, but it's a different, like, it's still like,
00:09:40
Speaker
different in terms of how TPCI handles it. So the thing is, geographically, Mexico considers themselves to be Latin, but when you look at the split on the regions, you look at the equator, and if you divide the world that way, then it technically is North America. But yeah, I agree with your sentiment. It's kind of like on the bubble, so to speak, in both.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, like in school, I've learned that Mexico actually technically belongs to North America, but both for TPCI purposes and probably also for regional identity purposes, it's more actually to call it part of the Latin community.
00:10:23
Speaker
Um, so yeah, cross, cross the region success for Io Mero. But honestly, I was the most impressed by the two players that ended up in the grand finals. So yeah, like many people told me like during day one, even that they think, oh, Kabia v20 has a great chance of winning this. Also just like a really consistent player where, wherever he shows up. And Lato, I think if I'm not mistaken, Lato won the event before.
00:10:52
Speaker
Um, so definitely someone who has, yeah, who has like just connects great memories with this event, specifically the Niantical Mexico City qualifier. And I looked at Martha's team and I was like, Oh, this looks really fun. Like I could see myself playing something like it. And it took me a whole day and a half before I realized, Oh, I did.
00:11:16
Speaker
is something like that. I just had talent flame over Shadow Charizard and had a shadow rather than a non-shadow above us though. But other than that, the team basically is identical to what I brought to EUIC. And I thought the team was actually super, super strong. I didn't do it as much justice as I would have liked to during day two of the EUIC competition, but I would have definitely played it again.
Team Building and Corebreakers: Charizard's Potential
00:11:43
Speaker
And I think Marto's take on it.
00:11:46
Speaker
that he like he probably did not get the idea from me but this is just something that you tend to come up with. Like these are just really strong cores, Shadow of the Tiger Lantern, Abama Snow, and the Fire type. We've seen that. Those are like especially like Abama Stone and the Fire type of choice. More on the unique side of things but they just cover each other really well.
00:12:09
Speaker
And then there's like the gazlord that you chose that other people chose that is just so strong neutrally with the dragon tails and its natural bulk and dragon is just a really strong defensive typing. So yeah, I really enjoyed watching
00:12:25
Speaker
Matos team in action. But yeah, the one thing that also Javier managed to capitalize on a little bit is that other than like, unlike Tonflame and Skeletorch, who have like a solid or a strong matchup against Charjovac, with Fields Up, Charizard does not want to be looked in against the Charjovac at all. Yeah. And yeah,
00:12:52
Speaker
that happened during the grand finals. Like, oh, we save, stop the Charizard, but whoops, there's the world switcher and then the health disappears rather quickly. And that's the thing as well. I feel like there's so much intrinsic strategy in team building and when you face certain opponents. So for example, if Marto is facing a lantern team, he's probably not going to say switch the Charizard at all.
00:13:22
Speaker
But if he's facing the charge bug team because the blast burn will one shot it, he can probably safe switch it with the caveat that shields need to be down. He needs to have shields down in order to to have an effect in that matchup. So I feel like again, like there's so much implicit skill in team building and and how you approach matchups that I feel like is is all in our heads, but we need to get it out onto paper.
00:13:44
Speaker
And, uh, that was definitely a, a really tough moment for him. You know, Tarja booked his volt switch all the way down. I think that he went straight for the Yolo blast burn and Javier also called that. So that was really tough. Um, but leading into the grand finals as well, I wanted to shout out to, uh, Marvez who was actually the only, uh, Mexican trainer left in the tournament at that point. He finished third, uh, his series against Marto and the losers finals was really tough. Um, if I recall right in game number two.
00:14:12
Speaker
He tries to call it blast burn our trust call a dragon claw bait on the shadow of lowland sand slash But it turns out to be blast burn and that KO'd like a whole family of sand slashes, you know It was like decimation and then again number five. He tried to catch air delays from Gligar
00:14:28
Speaker
onto ShadowLone's Sandslash, but it turned out to be Dig. So it felt like he was playing almost like a 2v3 in most of those games, and he still took it to game five, which is really impressive. And as Maritza and I were talking about it, nobody knew who Marvez was before this tournament. And apparently, his first ever Play Pokemon experience was actually the Mexico City qualifier last year. So he's relatively new.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah, I honestly love to see that because we will talk about something similar for Stockholm later, but I think it's just a sign of just a healthy game when people take those top placements that maybe don't just
00:15:11
Speaker
make it their life to travel to all of these events, right? Because we love to have those big names, those staples, those characters that represent Pokemon Go to the outside world. Like, Matu is one of those. He's been a content creator for years. He's been competitively successful for years. But if you have someone who is newer to the game, but still proves that he can go toe to toe with one of the greats, I think that's amazing to see. And that also showcases to other trainers out there
00:15:41
Speaker
that you don't have to have all those accolades and all that experience from all those tournaments to really do well.
Alolan Sandslash's Strategic Role and Risks
00:15:50
Speaker
I just root for everybody who brings an Alolan Sandslash on their team. I can't help it. I just think that Pokémon is so versatile. People love to call it RPS and it can be. It's also one of the few things that has
00:16:10
Speaker
almost unworld energy. The combination of ice and ground is what made wall rain so strong back in the day. And being able to leverage that against team like Martos, like
00:16:24
Speaker
He has two eyesight weaknesses, he has one ground type weakness, and then there's Charizard and Abama Snow, which Abama Snow gets destroyed by A-slash, and Charizard has stayed. So I can definitely see why he did try to pull some A-slash shenanigans in that matchup.
00:16:44
Speaker
I'm in the ladder camp. I definitely believe that shadow lowland sand slash is a bit too rps. And I feel like while it has a ton of potential, trainers can only get lucky with that Pokemon so many times. And what I mean by that is you can only, you know, not catch an annihilate bleed or you can only
00:17:04
Speaker
not see the growth in the back so many times throughout a tournament. And one of the only successful runs that really comes to mind for me is is accent at worlds with sand slash. I think I thought he did really well. But when you watch trainers like Crimson in Indianapolis with mandibud sand slash core, eventually his lectures ran out. And it's you see a lot of players like Lyle, like Dune,
00:17:27
Speaker
uh yes it's a little bit more boring to watch but their safer approach to gameplay tends to allow them to fully express their their skill ceiling and then win big tournaments but if you're kind of risking things with the sand slash and yes i'm i'm i'm committed to this notion that it's risky if you're risking things with sand slash then eventually someone is going to call your team someone's going to call your lead and that's all it takes to really put you behind because uh
00:17:54
Speaker
Like we said before, you don't have to catch a blast burn on the sand slash or catch a dig. It can still feel like two versus three if sand slash finds something that's a hard counter.
00:18:05
Speaker
That is fair. There's more successful runs. I think in Barcelona, somebody won a special event with that Pokemon once. But yeah, I personally just believe that because Alolan Sandslash is so unique with its typing, with its coverage, it puts a lot of pressure on your opponent's team building.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I really love it when I have a Pokemon on my team that just makes it so that my opponent can't, in good conscience, bring a certain core. So, Alolan Sancer is just one of my favorite Corebreakers that just
00:18:45
Speaker
makes so many strategies so risky. Like back in the day, everybody freely spammed that super safe and super successful Shadow Gligar, Liquitung Core, or I think back in the day it was even regular Gligar still, but Pardesno, Alolan, Sandstash just completely broke that. So just prohibiting an opponent from using a certain strategy has tremendous value and
00:19:10
Speaker
I do agree that it can, like the losses are hard losses and they feel especially bad because unless you have a really solid team of three and a strategy in mind, it might look really embarrassing if you have a speed match where your lowland sand slash gets misaligned. But I think the value that it provides in putting this pressure on the opponent
00:19:38
Speaker
it cannot be underestimated. And therefore, if it's part of a team of six, you can still put five safe picks on there, but your opponent will still have to think about that alone in sand stash. This is the same reason why last week I got called out by friends for this, but I claimed that Bastiodon, Bastiodon, that's its name, is actually,
00:20:07
Speaker
not a brain-dead Pokémon in Sure 6, but something that
00:20:13
Speaker
can actually be leveraged in a really interesting way because it makes your opponent think about, oh, which core can I even bring? What potential strategies from my opponent do I have to consider? And therefore, their safe lines against a team that has a busted on or has an alone sand slash might become very predictable for you and you can capitalize on that. That's my take on the alone sand slash.
00:20:37
Speaker
I think you and Caleb would actually agree on the Bassedon choice. Because it's such a neutral monster that if you aren't like Sandslash, but still slightly different, if you're lined up against a neutral pick like Cresselia or something like a Lantern, you can still deal tons of damage to that Pokemon with the Bassedon. Plus, the bench pressure is just undeniable. So yeah, I just picture a meme of you and Caleb shaking hands and Bassedons in the center. You both agree.
Meta Dynamics in Grand Finals
00:21:07
Speaker
on that at least, right? Well, I was trying to make this about Alolan Sandslash and one thing I want to say about this is that I do think that Caleb from one of his tournament experience probably can also recall another successful Alolan Sandslash run, but we don't talk about that.
00:21:24
Speaker
out. Yes, yes. It was a very elite performance in that tournament, I will say. But throwing things back to Marvez in shadow, Alolan Sandslash. I actually wanted to provide a little bit more lore on Marto's team. So I was hearing rumors leading up to the tournament that Marto was playing a lot of Charizard and Guzzlord in Greatly Remakes.
00:21:51
Speaker
And he was kind of using it to practice. So Marvez, of course, being a trainer, that first experience to play Pokemon Championship Series last year, relatively new, was going up against Marto, who was cooking with Charizard. And we talk about new players. We talk about Nighttime Clasher, right? He's like a favorite player to bring up. He also was trying to cook with Shadow Charizard at previous tournaments, but did not cook quite as well as Marto did.
00:22:15
Speaker
But I think that this is just another example of how we can kind of get tunnel vision on a meta, and we can say, oh, well, Talonflame might work or Skeletor's might work due to the coverage and the typing, but Charizard is too glassy. There are too many Chargibugs, too many lanterns. You'd be crazy to play it.
00:22:34
Speaker
But through his experience in Great League Remix, I believe that Marto was able to actually test that Pokémon quite extensively. And in particular, the Guzzlord Charizard Core. And I think that that was kind of the proving ground for him. So while it was a pretty dominant grand finals, it was a 3-0 for Javier. He was running a much more meta team. It was exciting to see something unique and something that he had designed that was really interesting.
00:23:03
Speaker
It was fun to see that team in the grand finals there, but but alas hard meta prevailed Skarmory whisk cash and and the like for For Javier, but regardless I thought it was really fun And I think that again time back to my point go badly can be a proving ground for unique strategies Definitely, and I would like to take the opportunity to zone in on shadow char is that in particular? because
00:23:30
Speaker
There's two things about it that make it still worth the consideration in my opinion. One thing being its maneuverability because wing attack is a two-turn fast move.
00:23:41
Speaker
is obviously a lot easier to pilot than the 5-turn incinerate, which makes it so that you, like, with a fragile Pokémon, such as Mutarizat, but also Tal of Fame is not that much more tanky. It can probably take a move, like a neutral move more easily, but still not a bulky Pokémon by any means.
00:24:04
Speaker
And you will never be able, unless your opponent misplays, you will never be able to catch a charge attack while you are stuck in a matchup with Talonflame just because of 5-turn incinerate. How would you do that? Even if you await a turn, your opponent can probably just
00:24:25
Speaker
be super safe and wait for the super long fast move to go through. Charizard, a lot more, a lot more flexible in terms of catches and, oh, you can store energy, dip out, just really, really dictate the pace of a certain matchup. And the other thing, I think we'll have to quote Arrow on this one actually. It is one of the few Pokemon that can break the Skarmory Whiskash core. Yes.
00:24:53
Speaker
People don't really believe that. Yeah, yeah, well, like, if Shield's up versus Javier E20 and his non-Shadow Whiscash, it's actually a lot more difficult. But as long as Shadow Whiscash goes straight Scald, Shadow's up is so fine. Like, that is very similar to the matchup that it had against... The Shadow Swampert. Yeah, we just win the two shields without taking damage, basically.
00:25:20
Speaker
Mm hmm. Exactly. And I do think it's a bit overrated or underrated, I should say. When Arrow first told me that, I've just replied to him and I said, yeah, maybe you can do that. Maybe you can break Wiscash Skarmory with Charizard, but I don't think a lot of other players can. And I think multiple times throughout the tournament, Marjo proved that he could do it.
00:25:40
Speaker
Now, speaking to Javier from Peru, he actually competed in both of the previous Mexico City qualifiers hosted by Niantic. In 2022, he made top cut. In 2023, he did not. So the kind of feeling that I was getting, the kind of vibe around the arena was that this was his time.
00:25:59
Speaker
Right. This was Javier's time. He had worked really hard. He deserved it. And we talk about, you know, we'll get to Stockholm later and all the moonblast debuffs. Sometimes it's very obvious, like what trainers are destined to accomplish on a certain weekend, but for Javier, it was definitely kind of the feeling in the venue that he was, uh, he was on the right path, uh, to winning it all. So very proud of him. And he was, he's a very nice, nice person as well. It's great to catch up with him.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah. He also like, I'm just checking a circle, his profile, and he came fifth at LAIC, which is like, just goes to show that, oh, also he did it with Alolan Sandslash.
Performance Highlights from LATAM and Europe
00:26:36
Speaker
So maybe the difference between fifth and first is not having Alolan Sandslash, but yeah, definitely someone who, like this was, this was a long time coming for him, just like a breakout tournament like that.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, maybe for some players, right? Maybe not for the Barcelona champ or the world champ, but maybe for some players, it can make a difference. So we talked about my gameplay a bit. We talked about the grand finals. I'm interested to hear again, I'll ask again, what your opinion is of the total level of play in Mexico City. Were you surprised? Were you pleased? Did you think it was what you expected?
00:27:18
Speaker
Um, I expected to be the, uh, I expected the gameplay to be on a really high level. And I think I got that from the event. Like a lot of those names, I just know from the GBL leaderboards, I know from previous tournaments and like they delivered. And also in terms of team building, like we've, we've talked about the shadow stabilize taking it all. We've talked about Matzo. Um, but honestly, there were, there were more interesting picks, um, within like, let's say the top 12, like
00:27:47
Speaker
Rocha bringing the Talonflame out, Mongo Kachem actually bringing the Shadow Zone to Mexico City, which we will talk about later as well some more, and also a Trevenant taking fifth place from Morato 98. So yeah, people will definitely
00:28:07
Speaker
I'm willing to experiment a little bit. Hot matter is still king, obviously, but I had a great time watching. I didn't catch all of it, but the things I did catch, I just, I knew the Mexicans were pretty good at the game. And I do think that they just played that at this event.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, I agree as well. We said it so many times. I'll say it again. I do think Latem is the biggest growth potential market for competitive Pokemon Go. So it was great to see the stream. Shout out to Niantic and TPCI for partnering to produce the stream and produce the event for the third time, the third year in a row. I really feel hopeful when we see Niantic and TPCI work together to host these style of tournaments that we could get more tournaments like this. I mean, who's to say that we can't have a tournament at Go Fest?
00:28:56
Speaker
And you could see at Worlds, the Mexico City qualifier champion, Javier V20 versus the 2024 Pokemon Go Fest champion, Eomero, right? That could definitely be something that we could get in the future or so. Niantic has shown that they are capable of it. They put on a great show. Casting team was fantastic. It was great to see Swagron Tablemon, AKA Pablo, who traditionally cast TCG.
00:29:21
Speaker
as well as TZ Spanks who got his first kind of exposure as a caster and I thought he did tremendously well. I'm really excited to see him cast more in the future because he's definitely has the brain, the mind for the game and the brain for casting. And then of course, the lovely Mariana returning to the format. So I'm excited and I'm hopeful. But there was another tournament this weekend as well, which I believe happened a bit closer to use wireless.
00:29:46
Speaker
It did it did it was Swedish regional and We are moving over to the Stockholm event which had a hundred players competing and I have to say um Let's let's get the big the big thing out of the room obviously Palasha took it all with shadow magnet zone and just absolutely spectacular fashion Like the grand final
00:30:14
Speaker
the grand finals came down, like she came into the grand finals from the loser side, reset the bracket and then won the last game, like basically made it three and two in the bracket reset by taking out
00:30:30
Speaker
Matt Beer's final Pokemon, the Lantern, just at the moment when it reached the thunderbolt that would have knocked out the Altaria. So this was super exciting to watch. It was one of the best grand finals that I have ever witnessed. But let's just take a step back and take a look at how we got here. Because I have to say, it was a top 12 day two
00:30:56
Speaker
And if you had asked me to provide a list of names that would be likely to make day two at this event, I don't think I would have, like maybe I would have gotten six of the 12 correct, but even that would be pushing it because there were so many upsets and so many newer players that actually went on pretty impressive runs. Is there anybody that stands out to you just from maybe looking at the teams?
00:31:25
Speaker
No, of course. So what I kept getting the sense of, watching back the VOD, I kept getting the feeling that this was a similar experience to what we had in Indianapolis last weekend, where everyone was saying, oh, this is one of the most stacked tournaments. You have so many former champions coming. For example, Colin was in attendance, as well as Galaxica Bolton, Lurgen, Palasha, Scafo,
00:31:50
Speaker
You had Alejandro was there as well. Dinoski too, right? Like so many players that had either won a tournament or been in the grand finals were present. And there were some surprising names. You and I messaged about this a little bit. Trainers like Sami85 making it so far. Blondin making it into top eight with a weird team of shadowloan and sandslashdiggersb
00:32:15
Speaker
Trevenant annihilate Blanton in Altaria. That was a very strange composition. Big Digger is a big fan, I have to say. I did play it in the Jungle Cup and I was really impressed by its ability to take down Vigoroth, the counter user in the Zero Shield scenario. It's actually not bad at all.
00:32:32
Speaker
Well, I think that Blondin had big diggers be energy all weekend because he he performed really well. One trainer that honestly stood out to me so much that I want to shout out before we get too too high up into the finishing rankings here is San Judigo. I thought that San Judigo's match against Palasha, where he sent her down to the losers bracket. In particular, his call on the moon blast from the Altaria into his lantern.
00:33:00
Speaker
Basically, I think Palasha was like two or three dragon breath short of moon blast and send you to go no shields the sky attack Allowing his lantern to get like incredibly weak and then he's able to spark down a Pokemon and and eventually win the game I think I messaged you this in DMS. That was the gutsiest play I think I've seen the entire season and two Spaniards Brawling there in Stockholm was really impressive to watch. But yeah, that was that was awesome
00:33:30
Speaker
Yep. Like, um, I think that was not part of my messages with you during that event, but in my affection server, I actually called after day one that, um, my money was on San Diego to take the whole event. Um, just because of that series against Palasha, like to like, he was the only one to defeat Palasha the entire weekend. Right. And to be able to do that, you have to be on your, on your absolute A game and.
00:34:01
Speaker
Maybe it also had to do a little bit with him having the means to just discourage Shadow Magnezone a little bit with there being two ground types, one of them the more reliable with Skash and also an Annihilape on his team. While against some other team compositions, Magnezone had a little more freedom to
00:34:22
Speaker
to roam and to maybe wild charge the odd Vigoroth. But yeah, still the execution was excellent.
00:34:32
Speaker
It really, it really was amazing to watch. St. Judego's team featured Annihilape, Shadow Whiskash, and Shadow Gligar. So Double Ground plus Annihilape. Definitely a bit unfavorable for Magnezone, and he brought the bulky duo of Lickitung and Cresselia, as well as the Lantern. This actually reminds me of another team that I've seen, but you actually, you and I were discussing this
00:34:56
Speaker
as we look kind of broader at the top eight, Lurgan Rocket bringing SJ's team from Indianapolis, right? He brought the Annihilate, Dugong Core. This is goddamn copycat. Yeah, I know, but he's so good. I think I gained even more appreciation watching Lurgan Rocket's play at Stockholm, but I'm sorry, I'm getting off track. The team was the Dugong Annihilate Core with the double safe switches, as I call them, of Cresselia and Likitung,
00:35:24
Speaker
as well as Shadow Gligar and Lantern. Carbon copy of SJ's team, but Lurgan's really impressive. When we were watching, I was watching back the day one VOD, and I think you and I agree on this. There were a few players that, as you put it, had a certain aura about them that they seemed like they were playing on a different level.
00:35:41
Speaker
Lurgan is definitely one of them. I love how Lurgan can pivot to new win conditions when things start to go wrong. So you'll see the primary win condition. Okay, Lurgan Rocket needs two Grass Knots to win the game. Okay, they catched. That's really bad. This actually sucks for Lurgan. Now his only win condition is to catch himself.
00:36:01
Speaker
And lo and behold, he does it. And he does it again and again and again. And I gained a new, I already respected Lurgen quite a bit, but after this tournament, I gained a new level of appreciation. Just one questionable swap. I forget who he was playing, but he safe switched Lickitung against a Vigaroth team. And that's definitely a risky, very risky play. Did not pay off for him, but he was awesome to watch.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I also just like, um, this, this goes for both Paul Ascher and, and Logan that, um, I think those were the two that I talked about having this aura, this stack. Oh, if you go up against them at any given tournament, um, given their history of top placements, you probably like, if you don't feel.
00:36:50
Speaker
the same level of confidence, if this is maybe a newer environment for you, you could probably easily feel a little nervous going into the match just because, oh, like this guy, Logan, he always talks about like his weird IVs and he knows more about his unique matchups and
00:37:11
Speaker
about his team than even PVPoke does on first glance. So how do I do it against somebody who has all this knowledge inside of his brain and then also still finds the freedom to just do some friendish talking on the side? This is honestly impressive. It's not easy to deal with that, I would assume. Another third place finish.
00:37:40
Speaker
definitely like we definitely saw some of the players that I would say are some of the most promising Europeans that will represent the continent and worlds this year and some of them are really on hot form currently others are still kind of
00:38:03
Speaker
Figuring out their place within the current matter because Europe like no other region is infamous for experimenting and gaining an edge getting an advantage through experimenting.
00:38:18
Speaker
But for some people, that typically would also be considered on that Palasz and Logan Rocket level. I do think that Stockholm was a bit of a disappointing experience. I know that Tonton Batus, former EU regional champion, not regional champion, international champion even,
00:38:40
Speaker
talk on Twitter briefly about how okay this meta doesn't really allow me to run the spice that I typically run and therefore I would really hope for some changes to maybe get some better results and feel more confident and secure in my gameplay because currently he doesn't quite have that and there's other players too that missed out on day two which did allow for this relatively exciting opening for
00:39:07
Speaker
a lot of players that I want to shout out just mention the names on the cast because there were Swedish locals like Bistla Zanya, who had to slightly alter his name to match the TPCI guidelines. It's Bistla Zanya now, but...
00:39:29
Speaker
You got 99 problems, but Abyss ain't one. And then there is Clibi, who I have never heard of before. Apparently a pretty good player, given the Drake with his profile and the GBL history, but kind of taking a page out of Martijn's book with the origin Giratina, accompanied by Wigglytuff and Vigoroth, and very, very surprising but impressive top-cut finish.
00:39:57
Speaker
Then Blondin we talked about with the Digaspy. And then there was also MW22 from Poland, who was also one of those, those Wigglytuff abusers. Who would abuse a Wigglytuff? I would never, I would never.
00:40:17
Speaker
So those were, those were some of the trainers that made a pretty deep run and the deepest run of the, um, of those players who experienced the first top cut, um, made, uh, was made by a German competitor of mine, uh, Oden, I think, uh, he is pronounced.
Adapting Strategies in Grand Finals Showdowns
00:40:34
Speaker
And that was a team that was, um,
00:40:38
Speaker
It's kind of similar to what Javier V20 ran. There's an Azu, which wasn't on that team that won in Mexico. But again, we see the Skamari with Skashkor with the Shadow Stable Eye, the Vigaroth, and the Charjobak. So definitely a really, really flexible team and caused some upsets. So this was definitely one of the stories of the tournament that some of the more household names actually
00:41:05
Speaker
kind of find themselves not really feeling at home within this world of wondrous meta, while other players, even those who maybe ran some more off meta picks, actually piloted really well through the tournament and made some new runs.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And looking more closely at Udin's team, it reminded me a lot actually of Lyle Jeff's team from Charlotte. So looking at Udin's team, it looks like he had Shadow Sableye, Azu, Skarmory, Shadow Whiskash, Vigaroth, and Chargibug. Meanwhile, Lyle Jeffs had Whiskash, Azumarill, Vigaroth, Chargibug, Shadow Gligar, and Likitan.
00:41:47
Speaker
So just a couple of pieces different, but I think that the core, the core four, if I'm not mistaken, are pretty consistent, maybe with a little shadow variation, but that's also cool to see. And, uh, and I agree a lot of players that it's funny, right? Because we see a tournament with so many former regional champions, so many former top cut players. And then we see trainers like Uden and like Sammy 85, making it into a top 12, which is really, really exciting. And I think it's, it's again, like we talked about with Mexico city.
00:42:14
Speaker
It's good to see new trainers or trainers that have been on the edge of performing really well Actually make it deeper into the tournament run and speaking of players who have been kind of on the on the precipice of Breakthrough moments Matt beer and Palasha in the grand finals, right? We already knew Palasha could cook but seeing Matt beer in the grand finals. I was pleasantly surprised I thought he did great
00:42:39
Speaker
Yep, yep, yep. This is like, I saved this one for last because I actually had the honor of playing Matt Beer at the Liverpool Regional earlier this season. And he ran the team that eventually should win it all in the hands of Nighttime Pleasure, but we talked a little bit afterwards on the way to the social.
00:43:01
Speaker
And he basically said, like, okay, like last season or like during USC and during his last Liverpool appearance, he made top cuts, he made really deep runs and he consistently leaderboards, like he's a streamer and he can just pull off
00:43:20
Speaker
like really high level gameplay consistently with an audience watching and so like he knows that he's good and he has had these achievements in the past and even his meta read for Liverpool was correct so there were there were so many pieces that felt like they were about to be in the right place but they didn't quite come together just yet and I think he stressed a couple of times that his
00:43:47
Speaker
preparation for this Stockholm tournament was a little more in-depth than for previous events where he attended. And I do think that really showed during his games because he had a rather neutral team. He did have the Skarmory, which is a little bit polarizing. But if you have a Vigoroth and a Sableye on your team, if you have a Crystalia on your team, and even Pokemon like Ataria in this meta are occasionally
00:44:17
Speaker
able to be safe-swapped into teams. You don't really want the hard alignment here necessarily. You have a lot of room to pivot around and maneuver. To do that most efficiently, you have to know your team really well. You just have to have that game sense, that accuracy when counting and making those split-second decisions in-game. I'm really happy for him.
00:44:46
Speaker
At the end of the day, I think he would have taken it all if he faced anything but Shadow Magnezone in the grand finals. Because his team composition is one that is really soft to that one particular Pokemon. And I think he 3-0ed Lurgan Rocket, right? If you 3-0 Lurgan Rocket, you have to do something, right?
00:45:11
Speaker
So yeah, definitely definitely a really strong showing and at the end of the day
00:45:19
Speaker
coming short by one turn against probably the strongest European battle of the season. I think Paul Aschalo is to the top of the European leaderboards with a win in Stockholm. And that player has a Pokemon that just core breaks basically your entire team and you still make it so close. Incredibly impressive and definitely worthy of that battle. So I have a question for you Zweilis. Are you ready? I'm listening.
00:45:48
Speaker
All right, here's my question. I want you to name the player. The team is Shadow Sabolai, Vigoroth, Lantern, Altaria, Skarmory, and Cresselia. Who is the player that made it into the grand finals with that team? Okay. Okay. So there's an obvious answer. I should, like, I could say Matt Beer and I would be correct. Yes. Um.
00:46:15
Speaker
Is there someone else? Is that what you're asking? This entire grand finals felt like deja vu to me. And the reason why is because Matt Beer's team is identical to LNDS Steiner's team from Sao Paulo. No way! Steiner fought Kanan and Kanan had Shadow Magna Zone as well, just like Paula.
00:46:41
Speaker
this is incredible actually yes i had no idea i went into my notes and i read you steiner's team but that's actually that's actually matt's team as well isn't that wild this is this is just like history history rhymes is what they say
00:46:58
Speaker
Yes, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone watching this happen because I'm like, wait, I've seen this before. I've seen a team that really struggled to answer the Magna Zone safe switch and granted in Sao Paulo, Steiner could not really bring his own Vigaroth because his opponent had an Iolape and Kanan just hammered the Vigaroth with his an Iolape.
00:47:21
Speaker
in the two games that he lost in the in the winner's finals. But Palasha had Mantine, Skeletorge, Cresselia, and Altaria. So four Pokemon that could reasonably answer the Vigoroth. And that's why these finals felt so familiar to me. But yeah, like you said, history rhymes. And I thought this was a really serendipitous experience. I also have some Magnezone numbers for you. I have a lot of metrics here that I broke down.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah, please, please, please enlighten me. I have some notes on the grand finals as well, but I would love to hear from you first. Oh no, my notes are all grand finals based. So maybe we have, maybe we share some notes. So I went into Paula stream about an hour ago and I said, uh, you had a, you had a very impressive run. Was your team inspired by Kanan?
00:48:09
Speaker
in Sao Paulo and she laughed she laughed and she said no actually Kanan's team was inspired by my EUIC team yeah so yeah so so Kanan ran an identical team to Paula at EUIC but Paula switched up her Annihilate for Skeletorge and her Skarmory for Mantine for Stockholm and those are the only two differences between Paula's EUIC team Kanan Sao Paulo's and Paula's Stockholm
00:48:36
Speaker
I have a question that you might not be able to answer, but is Paula's team the first championship team that wins a tournament without a counter user on it this season? No, because I know that Doonbug's team in Texas did not have a counter user either. Oh, interesting. Did that have a Skeletorich? Was that the Skeletorich run?
00:49:08
Speaker
I guess that's the go-to option then to fight back against CO types. When you don't want to use a counter user, just trust the crocodile.
00:49:18
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Trust the crocodile and maybe bring a mud boy as well, right? Because ground operates very similar to fighting in the current meta. But, um, all right. So after, after I got the team inspiration thing out of the way, I watch back to grand finals and I'll run down these really quickly. Paula ran shadow magnet zone and Altaria core in every single game of the grand finals, nine out of nine games, which is exactly what Kanan did as well.
00:49:46
Speaker
Paula also used Mantine in six out of those nine games. Nice. Cresselia, one out of nine, only in the decisive game five of the bracket reset. She also brought Shadow Whiscash, two out of nine games, but only started to bring it after the reset. She did not bring it in the initial grand finals. Paula did not bring Skeletorge a single time in the entire grand finals. So she basically played five Pokemon versus six. Paula ran the first
00:50:13
Speaker
Excuse me, Paula ran the same three Pokemon for the first four games of the grand finals. And she actually ran them in the same order three times in a row. So she was, she was definitely committed to the, the Magna Zone at double flyer strat, which was the maintain in Altaria. Right. Paula got three moon blast debuffs in three consecutive games, games two, three, and four.
00:50:36
Speaker
Games two and four were actually mirrors of each other because Paula caught a body same for vigor out under shadow shadow Magna zone both times to win the game Paula volt switched down three Pokemon being Chris Elliott vigor out in skarmory and of 18 potential shields in nine games, right? So you get two shields per game nine games are played 18 total shields Magna zone stripped 15 out of the 18 shields that belong to Matt beer and
00:51:05
Speaker
And I want to make an argument that it should have been more. It should have been more shields allocated to the Magnezones while in charge. Because I was going through my notes. And I was wondering, this was looking so dire for Matt Beer just from a team comp perspective. Were there any wind conditions present? Obviously, hindsight is 20-20.
00:51:35
Speaker
This is not really helping anyone at this point, but game two, I think was a really good showcase. Like game two before the Bracket Reset was a really good showcase of, okay, you make this mistake once against the Magnezone team, and then never again.
00:51:54
Speaker
Basically, Matt Beer had a Vigoroth Sableye core, and in between he had an Altaria, I think, that was caught in the Altaria mirror and debuffed.
00:52:09
Speaker
if I remember correctly, but I do believe that he did fight for switch advantage in that secondary matchup and
00:52:25
Speaker
From a shield advantage, a two to one shield advantage, she basically invested a shield to keep swap, but make it so that there is shield parity. With the team composition that he had, the Sableye was not answered by anything on Paula's team.
00:52:43
Speaker
And the Vigoroth was only answered. It was answered technically by the two fliers and Skeletorch, all of which take super effective from rockslide. So how much of an answer is that really? And then it was also Cresselia, which only came out in the very last game, when Paula felt secure enough to have scared away the Shadow Sableye.
00:53:05
Speaker
So there was not really anything to gain from keeping switch advantage, but everything to gain from keeping shield advantage.
00:53:18
Speaker
allow yourself, like you don't even want to win a matchup when there's the danger of Magna Zone just coming in or switching you down and then you will just get outpaced to wild charges and a wild charge takes out everything. And I think Mad Bear really learned from that experience and after that game too, like obviously there were still losses but I don't really think there were questionable decisions after that anymore because
00:53:44
Speaker
He knew that, um, okay. Like at some point he figured out, okay, Magnezone is coming every game. I guess he knew that going in, but also Ataria is coming every game. Yes. And also, okay. These, these Pokemon that I have are more useful with energy or more useful with shields. I need to keep my shields for this Pokemon or that Pokemon. And I do think that he really learned Paul Asher's team as the grand finest went on.
00:54:11
Speaker
But this is the advantage you get from bringing a unique team such as Palasha's Magnezone 1 that your opponents have to do that. They don't practice against Magnezone if 99% of people don't use Magnezone on their team and therefore your scrims will not have many Magnezone matchups.
00:54:34
Speaker
So this is like learning on the fly and that it did that and did that well but at the end of the day it wasn't enough and it wasn't enough because of IVs actually. This is another point that I want to really highlight because the last game
00:54:55
Speaker
The last game of Out of the Bracket reset, Palasha leading her grass node future side Grisellia into Azaria. It's very smart, I think I even... I was kind of cheering for both because I like both.
00:55:11
Speaker
But I was commenting in Twitch chat, oh, Palasha really needs to bring out Cresselia, because Madbeard kind of settled on, OK, I want to have the lantern in there, because it has neutral enough play, and it really hard punishes that manteen, which is super annoying. He settled on, OK, I need Vigoroth, because that way I have fast move pressure against Magnezone, and I also have coverage against basically everything else.
00:55:38
Speaker
And he wanted to bring the Artaria, because midway through the series, he figured out, oh, Artaria into Magnezone is actually quite good, because those dragon breasts actually chunk it, and if they debuff themselves, you can just force swap in the two shields. And I think he did go down two shields with Artaria in the lead matchup against the Magnezone in one of the games, and managed to take the victory in that game.
00:56:04
Speaker
So yeah, he pretty much knew which is strong as the three Pokemon were. And Polasha made the adjustment and brought the one thing that core breaks those, but because she doesn't have Moonblast, the lead matchup against Ataria actually was pretty close. So Ataria manages to invest one shield and take switch advantage.
00:56:25
Speaker
which is fine. And after that, it's basically, oh, Magnezone comes in, but we still do Dragon Breath damage with our own Altaria, and if we are looking at it from the perspective of Matbir, and then we have Vigaroth aligned against the Magnezone. And the Magnezone debuffs itself with Wild Charges, so the counters actually add up a lot.
00:56:48
Speaker
So we basically end up in a situation where Vigoroth just barely survives a wild charge, takes out the Magna Zone. It's 0 to 1 shield, Palaszas still has a shield, but Vigoroth actually manages to do one counter and reach the Rock Sign against Altaria, which is Palaszas' Pokemon. So it was pretty much just a 0 shield 1v1 for the very last
00:57:12
Speaker
Like the very last match-up of the series of the tournament and it was lantern on Matt B's side it was Altaria on Palasz's side and the lantern Altaria match-up is so IV dependent because some people are opting to run a higher attack Altaria
00:57:31
Speaker
mainly for a breakpoint against Cresselia, which actually makes that matchup kind of okay for you as the Artaria. But there's also a breakpoint against Lantern. So if you don't have a really defense-weighted Lantern, which maybe doesn't have the classic 0, 15, 15 spread, which is actually not great for Lantern because the CP gets ugly, but you actually do want maybe a little less HP and a little more defense for Lantern and no attack as per usual.
00:58:00
Speaker
So you actually get that bolt point against Ataria, so that the Dragon Breath does 3 damage instead of 4. That flips the Zero Shield matchup in Lantern's favor, but because the Ataria that Polasha brought to this event was attack-weighted enough to do 4 damage per Dragon Breath against Matt B.S. Lantern, the Lantern actually fainted with the Thunderbolt. So I at least don't meta until they do. Wow.
00:58:31
Speaker
No, I mean, that was, honestly, everybody, if you're listening, you should take notes. If you didn't know about the Lantern Breakpoint, about the Altaria Dragon Breath Breakpoint, you know now. And yes, the meta will probably change for NAIC. But if you want to make the most of your final moments of the season, then you need to know things like this. So that was tremendous. And yeah, when the Altaria, so like you said, the rocks light connects, the Altaria comes out, the Lantern is there. It was like cinema, right? It was like a movie.
00:58:57
Speaker
One versus one, you know, samurai on either side or an old Western cowboy cowgirl on either side shooting at each other at high noon. It was just cinema. And those two, those two Pokemon just fought down to the wire. We saw the moon blast come through, did not get the debuff. That was of course the hope, right? If you get the debuff there, then Paula has already sealed that. But when the debuff didn't occur, it was like, Oh my gosh, this is really going to go the distance. And, uh, like you said, the, the spark.
00:59:25
Speaker
fires the thunderbolt button ignites and then the dragon breath applies and the lantern faints and it was just absolutely breathtaking uh the final moments of that series yeah i mean it was it was again it was a movie it was a pre oh it was a movie to watch it could not have been closer and some people said oh why didn't he throw the serve maybe the serve would have knocked out it's an ataria from that range a resistant surfer will not do enough exactly exactly
00:59:52
Speaker
Well, Altaria actually had seven knockouts in the grand finals, which is the second most. Shadow Magnezone came in with 10 KOs through nine games, nine times three, right? So that's how many Pokemon that Matt Beer had. You had Mantean with five KOs and Shadow Whiscash for Paula had two. Cresselia did knock out a single Pokemon and Skeletorge wasn't used.
01:00:15
Speaker
Now, MagnaZone shield breaking potential, right? We highlighted this earlier. Took 15 shields away from Matt. Three of those were mirror shot baits that Matt shielded. Six of those were wild charges that connected. And six more were actually wild charges that were shielded. So, excuse me, it only took away nine shields then because six wild charges connected.
01:00:42
Speaker
So nine shields from Shadow Magnezone and six wild charges landed. That is a ton of damage, because like you pointed out, there's no place on Matt's entire team that resisted it. So he had to get creative. He had to use the Altaria, had to leverage the dragon typing, even though it's a flyer, too. He had to leverage the dragon typing to just try to bleed down the HP. And I agreed to your point earlier. I don't think I committed your point that you made about game two. But I felt like Matt Beer's play style completely changed after game two.
01:01:11
Speaker
And miraculously, the game that he won in the initial grand finals is actually game three. And that was after Magnezone got a five volt switch farm down of the opposing Altaria. And Matt still won that game, which is actually wild. Was that the game?
01:01:30
Speaker
Wait, was that the game where... His lantern found the man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was... Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I was like, you could tell at some points during the series, you could just tell when players were really fed up with the one problem Pokemon that the opponent brought. Like, I felt that way when Matt beer first revealed the lantern to really punish the man team.
01:01:55
Speaker
I felt that way when he brought this Garmory to maybe lock it into the Ataria because, as you mentioned, Paula brought it every single game. And I also felt that way when Paula, like, she just reset the bracket. So she must feel really good about herself and her gameplay. And she did it with only three Pokémon.
01:02:16
Speaker
But she still brought out the new thing, the Shadow Wiscash, because that lantern was really a not the name. I really love to see those developments and these adjustments that those top players make. Because sometimes you over adjust, sometimes you find exactly the right Pokemon in the right spot. And I think both had really good moments of just
01:02:44
Speaker
reading from the experience that they had made the previous games and then adjusting perfectly.
01:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think that, uh, as we look towards worlds, I think that Paula is, uh, arguably in the best shape of any EU competitor going into, uh, into the final stretch of the season. I think that she is absolutely cooking. And I wanted to commend her perseverance as well, because in, in the tweet that she published, she said, uh, if you remember, I was at EUIC with shadow, uh, Alola nine tails. And it was an extra, extra small shadow. Alola nine tails. I remember.
01:03:20
Speaker
And she faced a lot of lag on stream. I think there was an incorrect moveset that was registered. She was basically eliminated almost immediately from the tournament, or at least knocked down to the loser's bracket. And a lot of people would get really deflated by that. But Palasha has fought really hard, has had some tremendous top cuts with spicy picks like Shadow Magnezone, and this weekend was definitely her weekend.
01:03:43
Speaker
It just goes to prove you can have a lot of missteps early on. You can have things that maybe should be obvious that you overlook, like move sets or team registration. But it doesn't mean that you're a bad player. And it definitely should send you the signal that if you keep trying, if you control what you can and you keep persevering, you can achieve incredible
European Stars Heading to Worlds
01:04:05
Speaker
things. I think that's what Paula did this weekend. So much love to her and huge props. Going into Worlds, it's going to be exciting as well.
01:04:13
Speaker
I would argue she's currently the best European player. Like she has the consistency, like the high-level consistency. I would consider myself consistent, but I'm consistent in getting like, oh, sometimes I play 17th, sometimes I drop-cut. This is still like consistent on a good enough level.
01:04:29
Speaker
But Powder has like top eight consistency, medal consistency, tournament winning consistency almost with this being like she's the first person, the second person, rather like after after Colin who also took two titles in Lille and in Stuttgart if I'm remembering correctly. So she's the first two, second
01:04:54
Speaker
Okay, the second two times regional winner from Europe. Yes. So this is already impressive. And like, she also did all of that basically within the span of just about a year and a half. Basically, like it's not even a year from her Turin victory, right? So
01:05:15
Speaker
Less than 365 days for all of those achievements and yeah, like going into world's definitely one of the favorites and somebody that Europe can really be proud that She's representing us as well exactly exactly. I agree and I think that having competitors that work as hard as she does can be the best representatives and
01:05:37
Speaker
So I'm really excited to see how things shake out for the rest of the season. Of course, we have NAIC on the way. There were two other tournaments that I guess you could say concluded over the past weekend, but there were not streams for them. So if you'd like, maybe we can touch on the teams a bit, but there's not a lot more we can offer besides that just because there's no footage of the games.
01:05:56
Speaker
Speaking of no footage, we are currently actually waiting on the third because there was a special event in Puerto Rico, but that was neither broadcast nor do we have the info on teams and such yet. So I would not be surprised if over the course of the week we get some more info on what went down there. But unfortunately, we don't quite have the infrastructure just yet to
01:06:22
Speaker
really get you all the information from there just now. But we do have the information from the Bogota Special Event, which concluded with a trainer that emerged victorious that we have seen, for example, at Canadian Regionals because it is Jaco Loco 2.
Special Events and Emerging Meta Trends
01:06:44
Speaker
who I think is based in Canada, but I just have Colombian roots if I interpret the flag on the Drake of his graphic correctly.
01:06:57
Speaker
So yeah, he took it all with Skarmory, Cresselia, Shadow Gligar, Gaslord. This is the second victorious Gaslord in play Pokemon history in Island and Lantern. So overall, a very solid meta team with this one Corebreaker sprinkled in.
01:07:16
Speaker
And he won the grand finals against C9 Snow, also a name that I would think to remember from GBL leaderboards and such, with Nataria, Cresselia, Shadowgliger, Ambreon, so Ambreon actually making waves outside of Asia, which is interesting to see, Vigroth, and then turn the fish.
01:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, we talk about dark type Pokemon a lot. Mandibuzz still the ultimate bridesmaid in terms of winning tournaments, but Guzzlord on the number one team and then Umbreon on the number two team. And outside of that, actually, as you look at the top eight, I think those are the only two dark types.
01:07:56
Speaker
which when you think about the overall meta and you think of the occasional Azumarill or maybe the one-off Alola Ninetales, and then every team having primarily one counter user, whether it's Vigoroth, Poliwrath, or Annihilate, to be honest, Dark is in a really good place right now. And I think that Dark-type Pokémon that you can lean on as a safe switch or a closer,
01:08:17
Speaker
like Guzlord or Umbreon are actually very, very valuable. So maybe there's something to be gleaned there. And we thought the meta was solved, I think, a few weeks ago, until we started to see Annihilate Dugon Core rise up. And now we're starting to see more dark types actually come up. And maybe they straddle some of those matchups too. Umbreon in particular,
01:08:38
Speaker
I think it's not that bad against annihilate and we know it can go toe to toe with dugong. So I don't know. Maybe a trend that began over in APAC in India, maybe it's actually making its way over to Latin America and beyond.
01:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, I would not be surprised, especially because like even with those Pokemon like Shadow Magnezone, which in my opinion is kind of in a similar spot as Shadow Charizard was last year around this time, where you had
01:09:11
Speaker
like a breakout tournament and suddenly everybody started using it and having success with it. I think we'll see more of that around. And one answer to those Pokemon that are just like, they can really just spiral out of control. Like one answer to them is to have a Pokemon that just neutrally outbooks.
01:09:31
Speaker
And I think Umbreon is one of the kings of neutrally out-bulking something, especially with having the ways of neutrally hitting back also, while something like the Likitan, which is otherwise used in that role, or even in Cresselia, only does neutral damage, not neutral, resisted damage with their respective
01:09:54
Speaker
So I could see Rion just be that little flexible pick that people bring in to sponge the damage from one of those heavy hitters and it's a Pokemon with a lot of utility which doesn't really necessitate a whole team build around it just because its neutrality is pretty much universal and even its bad matchups aren't really that bad.
01:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think Umbreon is one of those kind of old toys. You know, if you imagine the Toy Story meme where Andy drops Woody, you know, you could see Andy, Andy just dropping Umbreon. I'm done playing with you now, but it's something that definitely needs to be kind of respected because it's very, very powerful. There's one other tournament here that if you would like, we can take a look at. There's actually the
01:10:46
Speaker
APAC playoffs, where Yekai0904 became victorious. And Yekai also was running Umbreon. Yekai with Umbreon, Cresselia, Shadow Gligar, Skeletorge, Vigoroth, and Lantern. And he was in the finals versus Shinlena, which this is fascinating. Shinlena had Dugong, Cresselia, Gudrah,
01:11:09
Speaker
Claude Sire, Purified Zavalai, and Chargerbux. So, 2-0 Butters, if you're listening right now, I'm telling you, man, this is your time. This is the Googer time. And it appears to be a Googer meta. And I do want to point out, first of all, Yekai, definitely one of the names that I expected to do super, super well just going into this tournament. There were more really recognizable names.
01:11:31
Speaker
um like in third place NEC84 um actually bringing a dance pass on her team which um stood out to me and i was like oh why why why is daddy pick again and then i checked her drake of his history and apparently she did qualify for Worlds last year with the dance pass and then also brought the dance pass to Worlds so it might be a little bit of a good luck charm
01:11:55
Speaker
And then in fourth place, Zervos, if I pronounced that correctly. I hope I did. It's one of those trainers that I always look at in jealousy when I match them in GBL because they do have that regional champion shirt. Well, I do not.
01:12:14
Speaker
But yeah, it just goes to show that it was a high-level competition, which at the end of the day, Yekai took with, I do think, the team that Beelzeboy piloted to victory in India already. I do think those teams are, not only do they share the Ambreon, I do think they are identical. So maybe this is one of those cookie-cutter teams that, like the Lyle Jeffs team, which is also the Abhinav team, which is
01:12:43
Speaker
it seemed that everybody claimed at some point or like previously like even in the last matter we had some teams that in North America just got copied a lot because they were so consistent and strong maybe the North American and European scene can um or even the even the Latin American scene can just borrow a page out of the book of Beelzeboy and Yekai because
01:13:08
Speaker
Apparently Umbreon's Skeletorge core wins tournaments and qualifies Super Worlds, so that is really impressive.
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just think about it. Think about the gameplay. I think Umbreon Skeletorge, the more I consider that, it just sounds nastier and nastier. Because you have almost perfect coverage, right? Ghost and Dark is very similar to Psychic and Dark coverage. Compliment each other very well. You have your anti-steel, anti-grass, if you occasionally do see it, anti-fairy with your Skeletorge. And then your Umbreon basically wins almost every other neutral matchup.
01:13:42
Speaker
So, I don't know, maybe they are cooking. And I do want to give you props as well for recognizing that's the same team that Beelzeboy ran. I just went back through my own notes and I can confirm it is identical. So, very exciting. And this is always something we look for, right? Worlds is so exciting because in 2022, we were introduced to Crescent Angels. We were introduced to Goronhara and so many other trainers from Japan, from South Korea, from the APAC.
01:14:09
Speaker
It's so fun to see these teams and just kind of get a sneak peek of what we're going to get at Worlds 2024. I mean, Ishikawa boy, right? He let his chat pick his team and he still made a deep run in Yokohama, Japan, which is absolutely just tremendous to see. Ishikawa boy is just a bit different, to be honest. That guy is crazy.
01:14:31
Speaker
I fancy myself someone who occasionally picks some more of meta stuff, but I could never be that much of a spice lord.
01:14:40
Speaker
Right? And I remember during the cast at Worlds, it was Rob May. He noticed that Ishikawa boy was going on stage and he just started, Rob May started to pop off. He was like, oh my God, it's Ishikawa boy. It's him. Look, look, he's on stage. And I was like, okay. Like he looks really cool, but I don't really know what this guy's about. It's a bit of a question in the Japanese scene. He is.
01:15:02
Speaker
And the thing is, I didn't really know. I wasn't familiar with his game, but now a year later, all the, all the, you know, following him on Twitter, watching all of his battles, all of his team compositions, I'm an Ishikawa boy fan as well. So if, uh, if I could rewind and go back to Yokohama, I think that not, not Rob May and I would both be popping off like, Oh my God, it's Ishikawa boy. Now that I, now that I know who he is. Yeah, I guess.
01:15:29
Speaker
But yeah, well, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add. I think we've covered the four tournaments that we set out to cover. Do you have any final thoughts? I just want to highlight that even in the APEC qualifier, we have a shadow map zone in top eight. So yeah, I do believe that shadow map zone transcends regions and is now here to stay.
01:15:51
Speaker
All right. There you go. Shadow Magna Zone for, for president of Pokemon. I agree. Shadow Mag for Perez. All right. Well, if you are keeping track of the season, we only have about 24 days until NAIC, which is the cutoff for championship points for this season. So if you are fighting for qualification or fighting for the travel award, you are quickly running out of options to do so. So make sure to get out and do your local cups and challenges, get as many points as you possibly can.
01:16:21
Speaker
And, uh, stay in the race until, uh, until we get to worlds because after June, uh, you have a month break until, uh, through July and then you have a month until August. So there's a bit of time there that you can practice, you can scrim, but you won't have any more opportunities to get points. So definitely make the most of the time that we have left.
01:16:39
Speaker
But that's why this has been a great episode. Thanks for recording with me. Still here in Mexico for another few days. We may or may not have an episode for next week. We're kind of leaning towards no, just because none of the events will be streamed. But we will definitely honor those events and recap them at a later week, probably after LA, I would suspect.
01:17:00
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. Yeah, LA, potentially the first victory for Gudra. It is on that graphic of Pokemon that have a placement, but no title. So yeah, two Obutters. This is your opportunity. Draco something. Couldn't have said it better myself. Well, thanks, wireless. We'll see you and everyone else in the next episode. Looking forward to it.