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EP. 22 LAIC 2025 Recap
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 22 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 talk about the Latin American International Championships! LAIC is the the first - and most hype - International competition of the season, and it did not disappoint! Championship Sunday boiled down to a clash of LATAM titans, each proudly hoisting their banners on a warm morning in Sao Paulo: The blue and white of Argentina, the green and yellow of Brazil, and the green, white, and red of Mexico. Only one trainer could claim victory that day, though, and it took every single ounce of grit, sweat, and HP these trainers could muster to claim the title. We'll discuss the sudden return to Shadow Feraligatr / Clodsire core, how we ended up in the Planet of the Hedgehogs, MartoGalde's place on the Mount Rushmore of PvP, and much more. We hope you enjoy this episode. Leave us a review on whichever platform you are listening!
With that said, if you're ready, Lock In, press play, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Introduction & Overview of LAIC
00:00:00
William Dunphey
Welcome into the Show 6 podcast, where we break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. Today, we're taking a look at the Latin America International Championships, where 266 trainers competed, making it the biggest event of the season so far.
Highlight Battles & Results
00:00:16
William Dunphey
Championship Sunday boiled down to a clash of LATAM titans, each proudly hoisting their banners on a warm morning in Sao Paulo, the blue and white of Argentina, the green and yellow of Brazil, and the green, white, and red of Mexico.
00:00:30
William Dunphey
Only one trainer could claim victory that day, though, and it took every single ounce of grit, sweat, and HP from these trainers to claim the title. We'll discuss the sudden return of Shadow for Alligator Claude Sierkor, how we ended up in the planet of the Hedgehogs, Marto Galadez's place on the Mount Rushmore of PvP, and much, much more. So, if you're ready, let's lock in, and good luck, have fun.
00:01:18
William Dunphey
Well, the Latin America international championship trophy stays in Latin this year, but it was not a Brazilian this time. I'm speediest chief to here with my co-host disease wireless, man. That was a finals and a tournament overall for the ages.
00:01:34
Zzweilous
you are exactly right and big shout outs to the latin community for claiming the top four spots at the tournament.
Unexpected Team Compositions
00:01:42
Zzweilous
Like I remember EU sweating like last time all the Americans infiltrated our tournament and Dunbar came so close but the entirety of championship championship Sunday was just like the best of latin going up against each other and it was it was a sight to see and honestly like
00:01:45
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:02:04
Zzweilous
I didn't expect it to go the way it did with like I think five alone in sand slashes in the top six. So a Pokemon that was just barely um coming in at 12th place in the day two usage stats actually dominating the competition.
00:02:23
William Dunphey
I really feel like ah when we first started the max out season, I remember talking about ice. And yes, I know I brought this up in a ah previous episode, maybe one or two weeks ago, I'm gonna bring up it again. So I was I said ice was going to be the core breaker for this meta. And yes, the targets have changed a little bit. ah But as we've seen from J Jans metrics, Claude sire is still the number one overall picks Pokemon in this entire meta.
00:02:46
William Dunphey
and sand slash coming to the meta was kind of a shock because when you look at the at the phases ah as I like to call them up the meta I thought we were entering the annihilate primate phase and looking over these top 32 teams I actually looked for fighting type weaknesses so almost every team in the top cut had at least one counter weakness whether that was done sparse sand slash dugong Seven teams had no counter weakness at all. That was Ashton Ash, the C2U, Pocket, Palasha, Nighttime Clasher, Andre Tenzalas, and Sanjurigo. And then three teams actually had two counter weaknesses, which I found really astounding. That was Toonbug, Ellen DST Steiner, and Ellen DST Joa Victor. So ah yeah, I mean, what happened? Alolan Sandslash for alligator Claude Sire. I mean, what's going on here?
00:03:34
Zzweilous
So to to the point of Feraliketa Klotzai returning, my take on that is actually that it never really went away. I think we had other Pokemon briefly taking the spotlight and like really claiming the top spots such as Azu, which is still really on every team realistically, um and also Ariados. And I think that like That just merely influenced how Klotzer and Feraligator found their way around those two.
00:04:03
William Dunphey
Mhm.
00:04:05
Zzweilous
For example, for Feraligator, it now had to compete with Azu for a water type spot on a team, potentially.
00:04:06
William Dunphey
Mhm. Mhm.
Key Pokémon Dynamics
00:04:12
Zzweilous
um But I guess people just found enough grass answers to um essentially be able to just put multiple waters on a team and still call it balanced.
00:04:23
Zzweilous
So Feraligator is still just so, so flexible and also like spammable. You don't really have to be worried about anything if you have four other gates on your team because so it does have play into just about everything that it could face.
00:04:37
Zzweilous
um And with Claude Sire, I think it kind of fell out of the meta once everybody shifted to Sludge Bomb and then people started countering the Sludge Bomb variant.
00:04:45
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:04:46
Zzweilous
But I think because the Ryze and Ariadors brought Stone Edge to the forefront again, um that really lifted up CloudSire because all the text that people um figured out to to combat the original Sludge Bomb CloudSire weren't as powerful or as potent anymore now that it returned to its stone edge.
00:05:09
William Dunphey
It's really ironic, right? Because in the same breath, we are saying sludge bomb cloud side fell out of the meta, but Azu is like rising back up. It's like, wait, I thought sludge bomb was for the Azu. I thought that was like the main reason. um I wanted to say that I felt like grass was one of the most polarizing ah bench pressure typings that you could carry on a team. Obviously, we saw jump bluff on the winning team. That was really, really cool. We saw a lot of superior though. um All of our ah second, third, and fourth place finishers had superior on the team, but it felt like you were either going to run it into Vitor's shadow, can't excuse me, shadow Alolan Marowak, sand slash Galeri Moltres trio, or you're going to run it into something like Marto's jump love Alolan sand slash duo. And it just felt really tough to bring grass, but also incredibly punishing. And it kept a lot of of Pokemon kind of on the bench.
00:06:01
William Dunphey
In particular, things like Gastrodon had a hard time when you saw and a grass type on the other side. But um yeah, I think it's really fascinating because, like you said, Shadow for Alligator, ah in my, in my mind, Shadow for Alligator has stuck around the whole season. We've seen it here and there. I think Claude Sire has kind of rubber banded a little bit more, but um it's interesting to see how trainers are countering it and how it used to be a Pokemon like Sandslash was the most polarizing Pokemon on a team when you had so many counter users. Now it seems to be grass types.
00:06:31
William Dunphey
In my opinion.
00:06:31
Zzweilous
So I think, I think grass types in this meta, in this max out meta are a little bit of the ace up one sleeve. Like they always exist and they have to be accounted for. Um, occasionally people will go ABA water and just disregard the superior that might be coming. Um, and sometimes it works. I think there was a game in the grand finals actually where that tactic was run successfully and so far as that there was no superior on the opposing team. um But sometimes it can also backfire if we like think back to the championship winning game for Ton-Ton Matusz against me and in Gdaan Square. I had the Gastron Azumaroku and that was met by a superior. um So yeah, you can be like you have to take a risk and then you have like the option to punish that risk if it is taken or you just like
00:07:25
Zzweilous
bank on the mental pressure that this superior or the grass type exerts. And honestly, shout out to Marto for always making the spicy grass types work, because I did not expect him to um get a trophy at Worlds with Wimsicott back in the day.
00:07:41
Zzweilous
And I was also I think on the record of like, I think Jumpluff and Mandibas were both on fraud watch earlier in the in the season.
00:07:48
William Dunphey
Yes. Yes, they were.
00:07:50
Zzweilous
um And I still maintain that when I said that, um that was warranted. But I think the meta shifted in a way that gave Jumpluff more play and it was just a really good call by Marto.
00:08:03
William Dunphey
Yeah, Jumpluff's unique typing, right? Flying and grass. It definitely has to fear things like ah like a sand slash or a dugong, but I feel like that was such a a clever counterplay to kind of like straddle typing coverages. So you needed to cover for things like for alligator or zoom roll, but you also needed to cover for annihilate, primate,
00:08:25
William Dunphey
ah Pangoro, things like that. And I feel like Jump Luft just does that really, really well. So as long as the rest of your team supports the Jump Luft, I think that that actually makes a ton of sense. And I'm really excited to get more into and the team building process in particular for Marto as we move through the show. And we definitely will get to that. um I actually messaged i messaged Butters about this, because Butters, Amanda, Tomahawk, and Martine were all casting the event. And I messaged Butters. I was like, man.
00:08:55
William Dunphey
Tomahawk and Martine are getting spoiled because this crowd is insane I feel like once you go to LA I see for the first time you really see it and it's not the the golf claps of NA and it's not the Country-based cheering that you might hear here ah sometimes in in EU in my time It's so loud.
00:09:01
Zzweilous
yeah
00:09:15
William Dunphey
Everybody gets so hyped and the atmosphere is so so awesome And I really would would love to just spotlight the latin community one more time for their support and their cheering because that was actually insane
00:09:25
Zzweilous
Especially when when it's like one of the one of the locals, the Brazilians, the Lindos on stage, where like they they don't only have a crowd of of people that are supporting the battler, they have a whole team of 30 players dressed in and their iconic jerseys and just really cheering each other on.
00:09:31
William Dunphey
yeah
00:09:44
Zzweilous
and um That is always an amazing atmosphere. like Where do you like, where in Europe or in North America, do you hear like player names chanted from the crowd?
00:09:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:09:56
Zzweilous
Excuse me, that is just not a thing elsewhere. Um, and yeah, I think this is, this is why I definitely have sat on, I sat my eyes on, um, going to LAIC in 2025.
00:10:09
Zzweilous
Didn't really work out this year for me, but this is an experience that I do want to make during my time within the competitive scene.
Technical Issues & Tournament Structure
00:10:16
William Dunphey
It's one of those things you just need to check off your list, right? Uh, if you don't live in the area and it's a, it's a long, uh, trip for you, I do think it's at least worth it to go just once. But, uh, the, the GB Lindos in particular are so kind. They have a social every LAIC and then last year, um,
00:10:32
William Dunphey
Har-Jeff actually gave ah jerseys to all of the NAA casters who traveled to the event. So we all got some LNDS jerseys, and they're they're now called the legacy jerseys because they've switched over to a white one ah for the for the upcoming season. So if you saw Har-Jeff was wearing his black and gold legacy on Friday, and then he was wearing his white one on Saturday,
00:10:56
William Dunphey
And I don't even know what he was going to wear on Sunday, because I think ah they only have two jerseys. but But anyways, it was a really, really fun tournament. um The character of the competition was also insane. We had so many international trainers traveling this time. You and I kind of talked about this at the back end of our previous episode. We had 20 or so North Americans in almost equivalent numbers from Europeans. And they performed really well, actually. Looking at the ah the top 32, we had Colin and Polasha up there. We also had Dunbug and Elam.
00:11:25
William Dunphey
By the way, Elam was my pick for the LASC pre-show and it was awesome to see him ah really perform finishing six overall.
00:11:32
Zzweilous
Yeah, like that is not a bad prediction whatsoever. um And yeah, like if you look at the winner's round two in ah um day two of the competition, you will see um Out of Pocket against Vittorello, Start Muffins against Richie, Colin Six against Elam, and Junebug against Marto.
00:11:53
Zzweilous
So each pairing had at least one invader from elsewhere essentially competing.
00:11:53
William Dunphey
Wow.
00:11:59
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:12:00
Zzweilous
um And then you even had Colin versus Elem, which is Europe versus north North America. So it truly felt like a little worlds this time around, where competitors from all around the globe really excelled and brought their A-game.
00:12:13
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:12:15
Zzweilous
Yeah, it's it's all the more impressive that actually the top four managed to be the Lataan players.
00:12:17
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:12:22
Zzweilous
said um like Some of them were players that everybody expected to do well. like Obviously, Marto is no stranger to i trophies even.
00:12:33
Zzweilous
I think it was the the event in Lima that here um he managed to take earlier this season. Um, and also like Ashton Ashton in fourth place was somebody that I shouted out like, Oh, I feel like he could make another run at an international and like almost made his, his second day three and his second attempt. So yeah, just overall really strong showing from, from the Latin player base.
00:13:00
William Dunphey
We're going to talk a lot more about Marto's trophy moves here as we progress through the show, but I just wanted to take just a second because we have this, we have this in our notes. I do want to talk about this. ah You're exactly right. The LAIC competition this season felt more like worlds because we had so many international competitors coming down to play. And I really sincerely feel that there were a high number of of mechanical inconsistencies in the game, as I'll as i'll call them. right ah Some one-turn lag, some um strange fast attack movement, you know some some fast attacks taking more turns than they should, some visual lags at the game. um I heard there were some Wi-Fi issues as well, which is something that we're accustomed to at this event, unfortunately, ah which should not be the norm, but unfortunately it is.
00:13:45
William Dunphey
um And while we're still early in the show, I just want to get this out of the way. I really feel like the LAIC competition is one of a kind and our players deserve the best possible experience. So I would just highly encourage anyone from TPCI or anyone that's a venue organizer or manager that's listening to this.
00:14:03
William Dunphey
I really sincerely hope that we continue to step up the infrastructure and get a flawless gameplay experience for our trainers because they've traveled thousands of miles. They've invested thousands of dollars and they've put thousands of hours into prepping for a tournament like this and they deserve the best possible experience. So there were some, uh, some blemishes on this tournament, but I do feel like it was a bit, a bit of improvement from last year. I hope we can continue to improve for next year.
00:14:30
Zzweilous
Yeah, I think your call out to the venue organizers, especially as is warranted. I am very certain that everybody involved does the best they can and like everybody's only trying to um deliver an experience that is worthy of the competition. And I think like for the most part that.
00:14:49
Zzweilous
is working, but if there are like decisive moments, um even in day three where the championship is decided, um that comes down essentially to the game malfunctioning.
00:15:01
Zzweilous
And even though that is something that happens like just inherently in Pokemon Go from time to time, which is then on Niantic, which Matsu aptly called out on stage, um by the way.
00:15:14
William Dunphey
on stage and on and on Twitter.
00:15:14
Zzweilous
um
00:15:16
William Dunphey
Oh my God.
00:15:17
Zzweilous
Yes, yes he did he did manage to raise the official Pokemon Go account, which is quite impressive in and of itself. um
00:15:25
William Dunphey
Oh no.
00:15:26
Zzweilous
so So obviously there is work to be done from Niantic's side, but um I also think that just like delivering the best connectivity possible and just really treating this game as like a very fragile kind of thing, um because it unfortunately is in in many ah in many respects,
00:15:48
Zzweilous
um I think that is what needs to be done. And I think there has been a step forward that has been taken on the um regional and special, at least on the regional level um for LATEM, where I think there have been reports of iPhones at the venues rather than Android devices, which um is better for um PVP functionalities.
00:16:10
Zzweilous
um So that is already like one way of improving an event like that. And I think the ICs always are played on iPhones, so that is that is also good. um So there are efforts being undertaken, but I feel like especially when it comes to venue infrastructure, we need a little more. And one personal gripe of mine is also the brackets.
00:16:34
Zzweilous
I know that it's difficult to account for no-shows while also giving everybody enough time to register their teams, but I think if you if we have like around 40 no-shows in a tournament like that, and some players have to win two rounds to advance to day two,
00:16:52
Zzweilous
Um, I don't know. it It just feels a little off. It feels a little off. And I see why people register if they can't get into, into like TCG or VGC. And maybe you want to get the swag from the, from the competitors, a kid that everybody receives.
00:17:06
Zzweilous
Um, I see why this happens, but I wish we could just like weed this out ahead of time a little more to, um, not have so many no shows.
00:17:08
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:17:13
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:17:16
William Dunphey
Yeah, I, I looked at this a lot last season, um, in terms of trainers that made day two, and sometimes you'd have, um, around one by, which was automatic. And then you'd have around two no show.
00:17:27
William Dunphey
And I think it was maybe it was NAIC two years ago. Um, I think, I think our, our friend shiny hunter Ben, I think he, he won like three or four rounds in a row, but he wasn't even there at the tournament.
00:17:38
William Dunphey
It's just, it's just everyone else was just a no show as well. And I guess.
00:17:41
Zzweilous
At this point you're getting championship points for that, so...
00:17:44
William Dunphey
Yeah, yeah, what the heck? So ah yeah, I know we have a lot of discussions internally as commentators and and as community members, we talk about Swiss. ah That's one of our favorite things to discuss these days, but I feel like the current bracket system for double elimination is a little bit tricky. And the sad part about it is that you don't want anyone's day two top cut or maybe and eventually their win to be kind of soured or kind of uh blemished by a bunch of buys or a bunch of you know opponents that were no shows or whatever because then other people will look at the record and say oh well did they really earn it you know did they really go through as many rounds as other people is it really fair and i don't think anybody wants that kind of uh that kind of weight it kind of makes it makes it difficult to carry
00:18:21
Zzweilous
but
00:18:25
Zzweilous
Yeah. i think I think because the rounds get progressively harder, there is not really a leg to stand on for people who try to ah try to say, okay, this is the case like about this person where they got so far. like I think Vittorello was in one of the groups that had a lot of bias and only needed to Fight through two rounds to make day two, but he made day three and so many players who might have Needed to go down the so-called proper route didn't manage to beat Vittarello head-on like in the head-to-head. So um, yeah, definitely like I think the the further you go the more like the less arguments your Haters have when it comes to whether you deserved it or not um but still I think it just
00:19:12
Zzweilous
It's just awkward for people like, um, I think there were like the match ups between rise to occasion and while Victor, who is like one of the best GBL players from Brazil, but it hasn't really competed in show six all that much yet.
00:19:20
William Dunphey
Yeah. Hmm.
00:19:27
Zzweilous
Um, but it's just really tough when in some groups, uh, as a, as a seated player, your first round is somebody who consistently places like on the front page of the data board, when in another group, people just need to be two people and are already in, in the next day of the championship.
00:19:31
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:19:46
Zzweilous
So and it's difficult to strike the balance. Um, And yeah, i think I think really Swiss would solve a lot of that because that way, like the the randomness of seeding doesn't really um come into play or like the randomness of the unseeded and the buys rather.
00:20:03
William Dunphey
Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like as community members, if if like an ah event organizer or Niantic or TPCI listens to us, sometimes we might come across as like complaining or we just want everything because we we thought that seeding would be a good idea and we got seeding. And ah earlier we were talking about game glitches. If you remember last season in the grand finals of LAIC in a decisive game, ah Hard Jeff It had just had a total game freeze and it was a GPS location error. I remember this distinctly because ah Jim and Sophia were casting and just the the game like totally locked up and totally froze. And it was because due to the venue and the way the building was, the GPS signal can only be tricked into staying in that location for a certain amount of time. So after each round, production would have to go and reset.
00:20:55
William Dunphey
the GPS in the phones in order to to allow them to remain in the same spot but because the venue has such a massive metal roof it would send the location at all kinds of places and they had already gone through ah so many games on stage there was no no reset of the devices so when the finals actually came it was like oh man this is it biggest game of of these trainers lives is could be international championship victory And the game totally bricks and just absolutely falls apart and they have to restart.
00:21:23
William Dunphey
And it's such a ah tough mental thing to do. So if you look at and if you look at that, compared to this year with the one turn lag, okay, that is a pretty massive improvement. I must admit, that's a that's a quantum leap forward.
00:21:33
Zzweilous
but
00:21:35
William Dunphey
So I'm not trying to like come across as a complainer. I know you are not either. But there is still work to do is really what we want to impress upon everybody, whether it be the ah technical issues or the bracket system or just how the general tournament experience is.
Marto's Influence & Achievements
00:21:50
William Dunphey
Because, um yeah, we care about it so much. We want it to be the best.
00:21:55
Zzweilous
Absolutely.
00:21:56
William Dunphey
Yeah. Well, I think it's time to talk about one trainer that has really gone the distance. He's won a lot of tournaments. And you know what he's also done?
00:22:06
Zzweilous
but What did he do?
00:22:11
William Dunphey
Let's talk about Let's talk about how Marto has made trophy moves his entire career starting in the grassroots Being a bit of a like a cultural influence as well.
00:22:12
Zzweilous
yeah
00:22:22
William Dunphey
He's taken over the Pokemon go ah twitch community ah He's definitely beloved and as I said in my ah my world's recap from last year I said he was charming spectators both far and wide so Martel is one of those players i've I've played against him a lot.
00:22:39
William Dunphey
We used to do some duo streams. Uh, I battled against him in ADL. He's one of those players that on stream he's very unserious. He plays a lot of weird stuff like she not because the last time I battled against him, he was playing like trip.
00:22:51
Zzweilous
I love Shinotic. Can I inter interject here?
00:22:54
Zzweilous
I have picked Shinotic in a draft tournament and this thing is insane. um Okay, go ahead. It's just like big fan.
00:22:54
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:23:01
William Dunphey
No, no, no, I want to hear more about it ah more about it soon. But yeah, he was playing like a triple mushroom team or something, which I know that that his chat does really ah convince him to actually play. But um but yeah, I think there's a lot to be said about Marto because he's a he's a player that really cares about the game. He's made a lot of people laugh. A lot of people have felt, you know, emotions, whether it be ah joy or sadness, and maybe sometimes fear. You know, he's gone a little off the handle.
00:23:26
William Dunphey
But um I feel like Marto kind of saying, yeah, the game is screwed up and I don't really care. And then placing third at Worlds and then winning LAIC the next season after already winning another special event. I mean, what's going on here?
00:23:41
Zzweilous
yeah like I think I'm just really happy for Marto. I never really had much to do with Marto on a personal level. i just I've just been from the outside looking in, but even when I started PvPing, Marto was already an established presence. like Back during the Sylph days, um back during like the early Twitch days, even back when he and it was like streaming in English, that was the thing once.
00:24:06
Zzweilous
um And yeah, I feel like um and just having somebody who has built his own platform, his own community, and also uses it to um advertise for the game in a way, and also for improvements for the game, is actually really valuable.
00:24:26
Zzweilous
Because once you have the trophy, people have to listen to you in a way.
00:24:30
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:24:30
Zzweilous
so
00:24:31
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:24:31
Zzweilous
um I think it's like even though I would have loved to see Vittorello pull off the upset upset of a century with the shadow Elolan Marowak, which I didn't think that Marowak would be the one to go furthest in this tournament.
00:24:48
Zzweilous
um I can't help but be really happy and even grateful to have a presence like Martu in the community um just because I think it's more felt even in the Spanish speaking half of the community because ah both of us, like me probably even more than you, are largely refined to um the English speaking half of it.
00:25:11
Zzweilous
um But there's like such a large and thriving Spanish player base because of not only Spain, but also all the Latin countries from Mexico to Argentina. So just having somebody who's really an um an ambassador for the community is great. And there's still so many just meme-able moments from Marto's career as a creator that still have stuck to this day. like To this day, trainers find wide,
00:25:38
Zzweilous
are throwing the double resisted poison move into steel types when it chaos.
00:25:43
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:25:43
Zzweilous
And sometimes when it doesn't chaos, sometimes when it doesn't chaos, that is the thing. And the the iconic clip where I don't even know what happened, but it's just like, Machu going, K, K, just really not.
00:25:56
Zzweilous
um
00:25:56
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:25:58
Zzweilous
just really not understanding what happens because the game is probably broken again. But whenever I see a ghost-type grunt where it says KKKKK, I just refer to that as the macho grunt. And that is that is me who never really had anything to do with macho on a personal level. So the influence can be felt.
00:26:17
Zzweilous
And on top of that, he's just one of the best bettlers this game has ever seen ah winning. So he sent out a tweet earlier this season um outlining his goals for the season. And the goals were to win a regional and to place top four at an international.
00:26:35
Zzweilous
And it's not even December, and he is one regional and one an international. So like even by his own high standards, he has already surpassed that.
00:26:41
William Dunphey
Wow.
00:26:45
Zzweilous
And that is coming on the heels of a third place finish at Worlds. So yeah, definitely. If we are talking PvP Mount Rushmore, my hot take is that Marto is the only person not from North America that would feature.
00:27:00
William Dunphey
whoa that's a very hot take actually yeah so if you're if you're listening to the episode uh on x or on social anywhere drop us a comment about what you what you think about that the mount rush from our pvp is north america plus marto interesting
00:27:14
Zzweilous
I think so. So one caveat is that if we are talking influence, I would say Martijn inadequences on there, but he casts a lot and he doesn't compete as much anymore. So I feel like just in terms of, um, the competitive resume, I think Martijn just about XMR and some North Americans also just about I come up because they are more focused on competing. If we were like just talking influence, I think we would have a European on there too.
00:27:44
William Dunphey
Of course, of course. No, I think that's that's definitely accurate. Looking back at Marto's record, ah the first tournament win he had him play Pokemon was 2022 in Mexico City. He finished fifth overall at Worlds in 2022. Then he finished ninth in Santiago in 2023. LAIC last year, he actually had one of his worst performances. I think actually the worst performance of his entire career.
00:28:08
William Dunphey
Finishing tied for 65th at LAIC with Araquanid on his team. But he bounced back third in Goyania, ninth in Buenos Aires, fifth in the Mexico City special event, and then 33rd at NAIC. And then as we all know, third at Worlds. And then already this season, ah fifth and in Joinvili, he won another special event, and then he won LAIC.
00:28:31
William Dunphey
and In the 2025 season, keep in mind, he's doing all this when already qualified for Worlds. He got the automatic qualification for finishing top three last year.
00:28:41
Zzweilous
He has three automatic worlds right now, one from placing third at worlds, one from winning the regional, one from winning LAIC. It's insane. He's really starving the rest of the continent at this point because it can't trickle down anymore if the same guy always gets the automatic invitations.
00:29:00
William Dunphey
Right. Right. It's, it's really astounding. And he's played a variety of Pokemon to do it as well. I remember last year at the Mexico city Niantic qualifier, he was playing like a shadow Charizard Guzzlord, which was a very high octane, high offense team. And he was playing that in, in the old wild Jeff's meta of, of a shadow, Gligar whisk, cash, figure off.
00:29:21
William Dunphey
And that's what Javier was playing when they when they met in the finals. Javier was able to get the victory there. But Marcho's never been afraid to bring new and unique and exciting Pokémon. And like you said, ah third place in the world. not not in Not in Latin, not in one regional, not not even you know ah anywhere else in the world. Third place with Whimsicott at Worlds last year in Hawaii. And then he takes Jumpluff.
00:29:44
William Dunphey
and wins LAIC. So I want to talk a little bit about his team building, uh, a lowland sand slash Malamar jump, love shadow for alligator, Klotzire and Azumarole. One of the cores we can easily identify there is Klotzire shadow for alligator. And I think that Azumarole Malamar generally categorizes safe swaps, but I mean, how do you read the rest of this team?
00:30:05
Zzweilous
So I can personally, I would personally identify two cores, the one that you already mentioned, which is just Cloud Gator.
00:30:10
William Dunphey
Hmm.
00:30:12
Zzweilous
This is the season of Cloud Gator and always has been. um And then ah Zoomeral and Alone in Sandslash. I think those two also are seen together a lot.
00:30:22
William Dunphey
Mm.
00:30:24
Zzweilous
And I think Matou also leaned on that pairing a lot on his way. And then there is Malamar, which I think is just one of the most neutral Pokémon that you can bring, and Jumpluff. And I do want to ah zone in on both Malamar and Jumpluff for different reasons. Because Malamar is not an unusual Pokémon to bring, but the Malamar that Matou brought was unusual because um When the season started, Toxapex-Digaspi core emerged. And I think Martu even ran that core during his championship win in Lima. So that was the thing people need to be prepared for at one point in time. And the way they prepared for that is Suran to run an attack-weighted Malamar. That gets a breakpoint, that makes the Toxapex matchup and the Digaspi matchup a lot better. um Now Martu,
00:31:15
Zzweilous
smartly reading the meta figured out that oh everybody has dropped digaspian toxapex i might just go back to a higher rank malamar because what a high rank malamar enables you to do is to take the one shield matchup against shadow for alligator whereas an attack-weighted malamar loses a shadow clawball point and um just gets farmed down in the one shield. And you can tank a Hydro in the zeroes, but not in the ones. And you just basically lose before reaching a second superpower, and your opponent exits with a very healthy Feralogator and a lot of energy, um like depending on whether you let the first one go or shoot the second.
00:31:55
Zzweilous
um But so high rank Malamar actually wins the one shield versus Shadow for Alligator. And I think if you look at the team that Martu brought, other than that, this was a very deliberate choice specifically for that matchup.
00:32:09
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:32:09
Zzweilous
Because Alolan Sandslash, a zoom roll core, is typically core broken by Shadow for Alligator for the most part. I think it wins all even shields. um Jump Love has ah one source of grass damage and is it is the more expensive energy ball. Fairy Wind is neutral, Aerial Ace is neutral, you need to land the big move to take out Paralligators, so depending on baits, this can even flip in in the Gator's favor.
00:32:37
Zzweilous
um and like Claude Saya for alligator core even though Claude Saya is surprisingly good and neutral into shadow for alligator both of these are not pokemon that you would counter swap into say a shadow for alligator safe swap so Being able to maintain that neutral play with the Malamar and like neutral to winning play, I think was crucial to ah like formata to fight his way through a field of a lot of shadow Feraligator.
00:33:08
Zzweilous
If we look at the day two usage, Feraligator was on more than 50% of teams, um the fourth most used Pokemon in fact.
00:33:14
William Dunphey
Mhm.
00:33:16
Zzweilous
So being able to have reliable counterplay against that was crucial in this championship run.
00:33:22
Zzweilous
The spice pick of choice jumped off, but go ahead. You can you can ah give your give your opinion on the squid.
00:33:22
William Dunphey
Mhm.
00:33:29
William Dunphey
No, I just, I had two, two things to say. The first was just, I wanted to inter interject that if, uh, if you're not writing this down, if you're not taking notes about this, then you're missing out because that was absolutely stellar analysis. And when you look at the team, it really, what you said makes total sense, not having a shadow for alligator answer when the.
00:33:50
William Dunphey
The teams under him, superior, superior, superior, aridos, superior, superior, aridos, aridos, the teams below him all have a, what you would call like a more direct answer that they can actually get to the grass type charge attacks quickly enough to KO the Feraligatr. It's so tough to play a team like that, but you have to kind of build in that this buffer, these kind of win conditions and this strategy.
00:34:11
William Dunphey
It reminds me a lot of Har Jeff's team from Kia or Tiba last year. And if I'm not mistaken, this was like still in the meta champ era. And he brought a team that had no direct meta champ answer. The best thing that he had was like a Pelipper. And I remember screaming with a few friends using his team and we're like, Oh, this is this is the team. This is the sauce, right? He went, he went undefeated. He won every single game. And I tried to play the team and I was getting so frustrated because I couldn't beat the meta champs I was coming up against in practice.
00:34:40
William Dunphey
And I've, I basically said, I don't know how this team works. It makes no sense. Uh, and then you look at Marto's team and you might say the same, you're like, wait, how does he win a title with 50% shadow for alligator usage in the tournament with no for alligator answer? And I think you absolutely nailed it there. I mean, finding counterintuitive ways to win is super important, but another star, we talked about this a little bit. Uh, I, I'm always going to harp on my, my earlier call. I'm going to rest in my laurels at ice was the play, but why specifically the hedgehog here?
00:35:10
Zzweilous
So I think the Hedgehog actually um fills a similar role to the one that um I gave to the regular Magnezone during my Gdansk run, because it is a Pokémon that was a zoomerless energy, and it is also a Pokémon that has a dominant matchup against Ariado specifically.
00:35:31
Zzweilous
so Um, what sand slash gives you over-magnezone is an even better answer to opposing grass types, which, um, Marto might need at some point when he feels like, okay, bringing jumped off is too risky.
00:35:48
Zzweilous
Um, and I also just want to protect my Azumarill and my Feraligatr because those two are some of my strongest and otherwise safest Pokemon.
00:35:55
William Dunphey
Mm hmm. Hmm.
00:35:57
Zzweilous
So having that Ice subtyping is actually quite useful. People say Ice is not a great type, but I think it's offensively one of the best. And if you pair it with the best um defensive type, which is Steel, ah you have a Pokémon that is just really, really good. and One thing that I love to see is the variety in Alolan Sandslash that made it to Championship Sunday, because none of them was like the other. We had the Shadow Claw alone in Sandslash on Richie's team. And that makes a lot of sense, because um with Richie's team, he had an Annihilape to partner with the Sandslash. So the Annihilape doesn't really want to see um a Zoom role,
00:36:40
Zzweilous
um But what it does is it really protects well from um say dark and normal types.
00:36:45
William Dunphey
Mm. Mm hmm.
00:36:46
Zzweilous
So giving up the um potential and neutral fast move pressure against those that you would have had with powder snow and instead opting for shadow claw to make the Azumarill matchup safe and all even shield scenarios was actually just a genius understanding of his own team by Ritchie.
00:37:07
Zzweilous
um And it just goes to show how versatile um the supposed RPS Pokemon alone in Sandslash can be, because you can really customize it to your own needs.
00:37:18
Zzweilous
And Vittorello went another route, which is that he went for the shadow alone in Sandslash. That used to be the more popular pick, but now with especially the Azumarill matchup being a little bit more favorable with the non-shadow, people have largely shied away from bringing it. But the one thing that the shadow one can do is it's so much better at farming um opposing Pokémon down and then unleashing energy for the next matchup that might be more impactful because of the 20% damage bonus. So if you have a Shadow A Slash, you don't really use it as a safe Pokémon that you bring in to absorb energy and just like really play relatively neutral matchups, which you do have against everything that isn't fire or fighting.
00:38:05
Zzweilous
But you use it as an aggressive sweeper. And I think that's a really fun way of using it. It is how I won my my special event in Barcelona back in the day. And yeah, so I have a soft spot for the Alolan Sandslash if it's the shadow with powder snow. And Vittorello really managed to leverage that to perfection.
00:38:26
Zzweilous
But yeah, Mato's choice of non-shadow powder snow is probably the most conventional and reliable one, so and it is probably no no wonder that that he did come out on top.
00:38:37
William Dunphey
One of Inadequance's favorite matchups to talk about when he's commentating is the Claude Sire versus Alolan Sandslash matchup. ah He always says that the shadow cannot survive the earthquake plus the residual poison sting damage afterwards, but the regular can.
00:38:52
William Dunphey
And he mentioned that at least once or twice during his cast in LAIC. So I know we used to, we, we made kind of a meme of the Pelipper Galarian Stunfisk matchup during, during the GBLA streams.
00:39:02
Zzweilous
Oh yes, we have a new Pelipper vs Gfisk, I love it.
00:39:04
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:39:06
William Dunphey
yeah Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We made that a meme because we played that PB poke video dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And I feel like, um, we might need to make a new one. This one with, uh, cloud sire and sand slash, but if you want it, go ahead.
00:39:18
Zzweilous
the fun thing The fun thing is, if we asked Marzain now about the Pelipper vs Gfisk matchup, he probably wouldn't know anything about it.
00:39:24
William Dunphey
I know. Right. Cause it has changed. It has changed so much over the seasons. And there was even one season, um, where I believe it was, uh, I think rock side took a nerf and wing attack got buffed or something.
00:39:39
Zzweilous
um
00:39:39
William Dunphey
And, and then Pelipper was suddenly like winning it even more strong. I was like, Oh my gosh. But, um, yeah, it really, really changes. And yeah, you're right. Without that matchup being a common one, why would you take the time to study it?
00:39:51
William Dunphey
Cause when's the last time you saw a Pelipper in the championship series or GBL for that
Spotlight on Richie & Vittorello
00:39:55
William Dunphey
matter. But if you wanted any more of a, a beautiful illustration of what's wireless just talked about, I've, I recall this distinctly.
00:39:56
Zzweilous
It's been too long.
00:40:03
William Dunphey
It was game five of the losers finals, Richie versus 12 V Torello. Game five, decisive game five at the two hour, 26, 42nd mark of championship Sunday on the VOD. Richie led his regular Alolan sand slash into 12 Vitarello's shadow Alolan sand slash. So if you wanted any more of a Mona Lisa of, of what exactly, um, it's why this has been talking about just watch these battles, but.
00:40:31
William Dunphey
I think this is a great segue to talk more about Richie and our championship Sunday, because I mean, so many people were saying, Richie's the nicest. And I was trying to come up with a nickname for him.
00:40:42
William Dunphey
And he was one of the only trainers in day two to bring in annihilate. So there were four that made the top cut and he was obviously the strongest finisher. He finished third overall with annihilate, but I wanted to call him rage fist Richie, but he doesn't seem like a rager.
00:40:56
Zzweilous
yeah
00:40:58
William Dunphey
He seems like, like, I don't know, like a cool guy.
00:41:01
Zzweilous
yeah yeah he doesn't really use his fist tree he just like extends his hand and goes for the handshake with his opponent at the end of the day or just goes for a really heartfelt hug because yeah like
00:41:09
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mhm.
00:41:15
Zzweilous
we We like to call out good sportsmanship. I almost think Richie is too good of a sportsman, because if you if you ah remember in the original winner's final, Richie against Marto, there was a situation where um the game ended with a win for Richie, but Marto had like lag issues with his shadow for alligator that impacted the outcome so the judge call would have been a rematch but Richie just gave the point to Marto and not only that Richie also lagged in the opening matchup and lost a turn that was potentially decisive and how the game played out so even if Marto had won that battle there would have been grounds for Richie to press for a rematch but instead he just gives the point to
00:42:00
William Dunphey
Yep.
00:42:03
Zzweilous
his teammate and co-competitor. And that is like so nice. It's almost too nice because Richie, you deserve that rematch. This is like not a death win situation for Mato, I don't think.
00:42:16
Zzweilous
um And another instance of that was in the loser's finals, the the game five that you mentioned, which was um exquisitely well played by both competitors.
00:42:27
Zzweilous
But also, I do believe that Richie lost two shadow claws with his shadow for alligator.
00:42:33
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:42:33
Zzweilous
And I think those would have made a difference. so once again just really really good sportsmanship really just maybe not wanting to interrupt the broadcast as much but i feel like a rematch would have been in order um and like i don't mind that vitarello moved on that we got some shadow canto marowak greatness in the grand finals but um yeah i feel like richie didn't really lose that to being outplayed as much as he kind of lost that to the the venue network not working properly all the time.
00:43:11
William Dunphey
Richie is exactly the same off stage as he is on stage. So having met him a few times at the Mexico City Qualifier at LAIC last year, and I'm sure there are other times as well, every time you talk to Richie, he's always so nice. He's like, oh, hey, how's it going? How are you doing? And he always, you know, he's all smiles. he's He's very like relaxed with his body language. He just wants to have a good time. He's very much a team player. And I wanted to shout out to one thing in particular because There was a tournament that Richie competed in. I believe it, it might've been worlds last year, or maybe it was a tournament earlier this season. My memory is a little bit foggy, but what I noticed was that I looked at the bracket and Richie was having some colossal wins. I mean, he was having great wins over really talented players, but then once he got up onto stage, he was mistiming his fast attacks. He wasn't making the right calls. He was two shielding scenarios where he really didn't need to. He seemed different.
00:44:05
William Dunphey
on stage than he would then it would suggest looking at his record at the tables. And that's what I was alluding to it in my tweet about day two. I said that Richie's finally playing the way on stage that he has been doing at the tables his entire career. And I feel like Richie did take a big step forward in terms of competitiveness. I mean, finishing third is absolutely astounding at a at an LAIC, which held some of the most stacked players in the world.
00:44:32
William Dunphey
But I feel like Richie's really stepping into his own, but he still has some more growth to do. And I know it's uncomfortable. I know ah it's, it feels like it might be a slight towards your friends to ask for a rematch. But like you said, it's wild as you nailed it. Richie deserves those rematches. He just needs to ask for them. He just needs to say, I miss some turns. There was some visual inconsistency. Just ask the judges to take a look.
00:44:58
William Dunphey
Because once you get that far, I know that he's not doing it for himself. He's doing it for, for the seven 11 team, uh, for Mexico, for everyone that, that supports him. I know that's why he's doing it, but still the people that support Richie want to see him succeed.
00:45:13
William Dunphey
And it would mean a lot for somebody that's so kind, so gentle with everyone around them to actually reach those heights, because then it shows that nice guys really can pull off the wind.
00:45:25
William Dunphey
And that's not to say, it's like a that
00:45:26
Zzweilous
i I love that notion. I love that notion. And yeah, I 100% agree that Richie deserves a shot to be the main character more often because sometimes the main character can be a nice guy.
00:45:36
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:45:38
Zzweilous
The hero can be a nice guy.
00:45:40
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:45:40
Zzweilous
um
00:45:40
William Dunphey
I mean, please, and please hear me out like, like Vizzarello, Marto, Ashton, Ash, Colin, Elam, Dune, all the people that made top cut. I've met all of them. ah so I don't think I've met Colin yet, but I met most of them and they're all very, very kind people.
00:45:53
William Dunphey
I don't want to say that, that anyone is mean or or rude or evil.
00:45:55
Zzweilous
100%
00:45:57
William Dunphey
Yeah. 100% agree. But one more thing, Richie's the nicest. All right. Let's just get that out of the way.
00:46:04
William Dunphey
Another exciting story from Championship Sunday has to be 12 Vittorello. He's not a lindo. He's not ah the character you would expect to see on stage, a Steiner or a hard Jeff, but he is an absolute monster, especially with his bait calls. He called so many stone edges on Sandslash. He called so many hydro cannons into his Galeri Moltres.
00:46:24
William Dunphey
he always seemed to have the right place. The reverse sweep of Richie, right? Rematches aside, I don't want to to give credit to Richie and say that he should have gotten rematches and have that take credit away from Vitarello because Vitarello was absolutely stellar and he deserved every single win that he got.
00:46:41
William Dunphey
I really had a fun time watching him because not only did he reverse sweep Richie after being down 0-2, then he went into the grand finals and frankly kicked Marto's butt. 3-0.
00:46:50
Zzweilous
Yes.
00:46:51
William Dunphey
No disputes, no questions, absolutely stomped, right? And Marto really had to collect himself in the grand finals reset to come back into it. So, Beatorello was a pleasant surprise and after watching him play, I have no idea how we didn't hear about this trainer earlier.
00:47:07
Zzweilous
I think it's honestly just down to a lack of opportunity. I think if we had like more tournaments or seen him at more tournaments, then we would have known how good he is. I think his GBL success also reflects that. And honestly, just from a pure gameplay perspective, I think I was most impressed by Vittarello on his championship Sunday.
00:47:31
Zzweilous
Um, I guess like he did win the most games on championship Sunday with like eight games total. Um, but like the one thing that stood out to me is just his confidence in his bait calls.
00:47:45
Zzweilous
He's not even sitting there and thinking for the five seconds that you get to think about whether you want to put up a shield or not. He just immediately goes, no shield. I don't care. I believe this is a bait and then it's a bait.
00:47:57
Zzweilous
And then he looks like a genius and he did that like two or three times.
00:47:59
William Dunphey
Hmm. Mm hmm.
00:48:01
Zzweilous
So that was that was really incredible. And also just the mental prowess when you have your back against the wall and you know that it's win or go home. And he had that three times against Richie and he came back.
00:48:14
Zzweilous
And also another thing that I'm a big fan of, which he did against Macho a lot, is that he trusted his signature Pokemon. He trusted the Shadow Alone and Marowak, which is something that we haven't really seen since I think Baltimore when I think
00:48:23
William Dunphey
yes
00:48:29
Zzweilous
Murphy was able to pilot it to top 16, but ever since I've really been on the lookout for a lowland Marowak, but all I see is Kanto Marowak, which plays entirely different. um But yeah, I think think the reasoning behind that was that Vittorello already had a flying type on his team in the Galarian Moltres, and he might not have wanted to go double flying because of um the implications that that would have for like being a little more vulnerable to ice types, and um also just how clumsy Talonflame can feel, whereas the three turns from Firespin are a little more manageable.
00:48:47
William Dunphey
Yes. Hmm.
00:49:07
Zzweilous
Um, and also like if you want to have some neutral bulk, it would probably go over on the Alolan Marowak rather than the Teflosion, which would be the and the other popular fire dive that we've seen this season.
00:49:11
William Dunphey
Mm.
00:49:20
Zzweilous
So I can see how he lands on that Pokemon for a specific team comp, and actually seeing it find its targets in the grand finals with the jump-off and the Alolan Spanish, especially.
00:49:29
William Dunphey
Yeah. Mm.
00:49:31
Zzweilous
Uh, that was really, really fun. And it almost pulled through. It was so close.
00:49:37
William Dunphey
Yeah. No, Marto thought the game was over. Once he saw that shadow, Lola Marowak come out into his sand slash, he put his.
00:49:42
Zzweilous
I thought the game was over like I was like so like it was okay we can we can go I don't know how deep do you want to dive into the whole grand finals between the reset and the the final five games had decided the title because I have notes on all of them um and I think the most high octane one was probably the game five title decider
00:49:44
William Dunphey
Me too.
00:49:54
William Dunphey
Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:50:04
William Dunphey
Yeah, I want to give one one side note. My favorite series of the entire tournament. Like I know the grand finals were incredible. Really, really insane to watch. But my favorite series in the entire tournament was actually the last series of day two. It was Ashton Ash versus Vitarello. And that was at the eight hour 42 minute mark in the VOD. If you want to go back and watch it. But the first two games were so quick, so decisive. And then game three was absolutely wild and just having like All the pressure on it, on both of their shoulders, decisive game three to make it into championship Sunday. And Vittorello just barely squeaks out a win with just a couple of HP remaining was just so awesome. And then the lights are flashing and the crowds going crazy. That was, that felt like a championship win there. And Ashton Ash, definitely one of the best competitors in the world. He proved that again here at LAIC. But yeah, that was why my favorite series. and And the grand finals was just more bangers. It was just banger after banger after banger.
00:50:59
William Dunphey
And to your point about Shadow Lola Marowak, looking at my notes here, Vittarella brought it in game one of the grand finals, and he also brought it in games four and the decisive game five of the
Grand Finals Analysis
00:51:10
William Dunphey
grand finals reset. So he trusted in that Pokemon a ton.
00:51:14
Zzweilous
Yeah, definitely. And I almost wish he could have trusted in it more because there was like at least one situation where I was like, just, just shield it. Just keep it healthy because there was like a loaded Azumarill in the back.
00:51:28
Zzweilous
And you know that Azumarill energy is actually not strong at all into, into the shadow Kanto Marowak or Elolan Marowak, excuse me. I'm so used to Kanto at this point, but it is the Elolan version.
00:51:39
William Dunphey
right
00:51:41
Zzweilous
um And yeah, sometimes I would have just like just shielded more bring it more often just trusted double water I don't care.
00:51:47
William Dunphey
so
00:51:48
Zzweilous
It's it's such a good Pokemon. Um, yeah big big fan of that I brought it to like the the shadow um Elora and Marowak to my first ever play Pokemon tournament So another one of those those guys that have a special place in my heart.
00:52:00
William Dunphey
Right. Hmm.
00:52:02
Zzweilous
Um So yeah, I want to go a little deeper into the game five of the um grand finals, like the already reset grand finals. Like the record reset has happened, now the title is on the line.
00:52:14
Zzweilous
And you have the Galarian Mortress from Vittorello, leading into the Shadow of Ralligator on Matos' side. So this is a one lead for Vittorello. And not only is it a one lead for Vittorello, he keeps the Gator away from the Azu and the Alolan Marowak he has in the back.
00:52:14
William Dunphey
Okay.
00:52:31
Zzweilous
So the way the game plays out is, okay, the gate stays in for a little while, um but essentially, um at some point, it gets to a point where the Azumarill pivots in, the Galerian Moltres baits an ancient power, takes a shield, and then we have an Azum Mirror.
00:52:50
Zzweilous
um And in this Azumira, you know it takes a while, right? It's it's just like two of the bulkiest Pokémon against each other.
00:52:56
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. Hmm.
00:52:59
Zzweilous
And in this Azumira, Macho always makes sure to keep a lot of energy on his Azumarill to eventually dip out and use it somewhere where it's more useful, for example, against the Galerimotus that he has already seen.
00:53:14
Zzweilous
um But what... um Vittoretto unfortunately does in the endgame of that mirror match, is that he farms one bubble over a play rough.
00:53:26
Zzweilous
He could have thrown the play rough and threatened shield on the Azu.
00:53:29
William Dunphey
Hmm. Yeah, I remember.
00:53:29
Zzweilous
um But just because of that 1.5 second bubble, Marto's timer comes up again. And because the Galerian Mortress earlier threw the ancient power to grab a shield, now the Azu is stuck for a while against the Alolan Sandslash that Marto brings in.
00:53:47
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:53:47
Zzweilous
and that can just tank all that resisted energy. And also, you don't want the sand slash to farm up infinite energy because you take super effective ice punches on Galarian Moltres and super effective drill runs on your Elona Marowak that you have in the back. So this extra bubble was like the first play that gave Macho an opening from a matchup that was almost RPS against him.
00:54:12
Zzweilous
um So playing out from that, um the Alolan Marowak eventually gets brought into the Alolan Sandslash, it takes a drill run, it farms up energy, it manages to, I think, take a shield from the Ferala Gator even. um there's There's definitely a lot of energy loaded, and um yeah the Gator essentially farms down,
00:54:36
Zzweilous
And so the endgame essentially comes down to, OK, where do I use my shield on Vittor other side? Because he had a modus with a little bit of energy. But there was a very, very low health Azu that had like two moves loaded, essentially. And Azu can never have two moves loaded, but it was essentially maxed out on energy.
00:54:57
Zzweilous
um and there was a low health varaligator with a hydro cannon. The mortress had like 60 maybe 65 percent health and now it had to decide okay where do I put my shield and Vittorello makes the call he says okay if I let this hydro cannon go I'm in danger of getting fast moved down and I have my brave bird loaded so I can is expect the combo play anticipated and once I shield the hydro cannon I just press my brave bird and oh no like oh yeah yeah the Azu was actually like healthy it wasn't in the red just yet it was in the red after the brave bird landed that is how it ended um but yeah essentially he says okay this is brave bird range so I will just anticipate the combo play CMP tie the Azu and this brave bird has to KO
00:55:37
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:55:51
Zzweilous
and it didn't. It left the Azur in range of like two Saka punches. So essentially, there would have, like the more optimal play would maybe would have been to let the Hydro go because the Hydro doesn't do as much as the Nice Be More Play Rough. Hang on with a Slither slither of eight HP, do two more Saka punches, taking only one bubble in the process, then Brave Burning, and then getting the Saka punch down against the low health Feraligatr.
00:56:21
Zzweilous
But it is such like this is not a call that you can make in that decision. that You had to go for either the one thing or the other thing. And I don't blame Vittorello at all for just trusting the Braveford, trusting that this would be enough and that this could close out this championship series for him. um and It wasn't quite enough.
00:56:44
Zzweilous
but it just goes to show how close these matches are and how little the difference is between, like we've talked at length about how much of a titan of the PvP scene um Marto is, but just just one split second decision. And it's so tough because you don't see the health bar of the Azu, the Azu swapped out earlier. um You don't know where where this is going from here.
00:57:12
Zzweilous
um and you have to still make the call and the call just went slightly into Matos direction but in another universe this would have been Vittorello's championship title and I love how close and how ambivalent this final matchup was because it just goes to show that this is a game that isn't just um rps you win by winning lead it's those tiny margins those close calls and that is what makes a champion and at this time at this point in time it was osmato who played the game to perfection
00:57:47
William Dunphey
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm just, uh, just absorbing what you said there. You know it definitely nailed it. when When you talk about other sports like, uh, American football, we like to say that not every play is a touchdown, right? Not every play scores. Sometimes it's just grinding out two or three yards here or there on a run play and trying to open up something else.
00:58:06
William Dunphey
And after leading the shadow for alligator into glaring Moltres, it really felt like Marto was in a very tough spot. Granted, he did have two answers for the Moltres. He had the alone sand slash and the zoom roll in the back. ah But like you said, it was just very uncomfortable. And I remember that moment when Vittarello gathered the energy for the play rough and he went up the additional bubble. And I was like, why didn't you throw? Why didn't you throw there? but Again, there's so much pressure.
00:58:31
William Dunphey
This is game five, decisive grand finals at an international championship, right? This is not little leagues, as as they say. And, um, if you look at it that way, Vittarello was maybe anticipating a swap into Jumpluff where he didn't, he wanted to throw maybe an ice beam into it, or maybe he didn't think that the switch switch timer was, was up yet.
00:58:51
William Dunphey
And he was off by 1.5 seconds, which help. Can you blame him? Right? For being off like that when there's so much pressure and.
00:58:58
Zzweilous
It's not an unreasonable but unreasonable play at all. like Sometimes, because Marto was overfarming to have energy for the back-end matchups, if there was no Lolan Sandslash, then it would have made sense to overcome as well, because the energy basically hits everything else.
00:59:01
William Dunphey
no No.
00:59:05
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
00:59:13
Zzweilous
like What if there was like a Claude Sire and you throw the player off and it's resisted, whereas you could have thrown this super effective Ice Beam.
00:59:13
William Dunphey
Yes.
00:59:19
William Dunphey
Yeah.
00:59:20
Zzweilous
um So it's just...
00:59:21
William Dunphey
And and it's interesting because Marto Marto caught two play roughs on his cloud sire in one series earlier in the tournament. So this wasn't like unprecedented.
00:59:28
Zzweilous
exactly it's not your without precedent yeah
00:59:30
William Dunphey
Oh, damn it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and in the, the key moment you talked about, I remember watching back the VOD and I was like, can you, uh, can your glaring Moltres eat a, a hydrokin from this range? Would you have enough left in the tank, uh, to get to the next charge attack and, and farm down the Feraligatr and all this stuff? And, uh, again, the, the way team, the way that the way team, the way that Marto's team was absolutely, uh, sculpted right with the shadow Feraligatr instead of regular. with the regular low and sand slash instead of the shadow. That for alligator with the shadow potency just had enough, just barely enough punch to threaten that fast attack down. And, um, the way you described the wind condition, right? That, that survive a hydro cannon, get off the brave bird, sucker punch down the for alligator. The way you described that, it kind of read like a heist movie to me. It's like, well, there are two armed guards and then there's a series of lasers. And then you have to enter in a special code. And once you do that, then you have to blow this one seal and you get into the vault. It's like, okay, easy.
01:00:30
William Dunphey
Yeah, I can do that, but.
01:00:31
Zzweilous
It would have looked like that too, like this would have been such a hype moment if Vittorello did the thing that he did so many times.
01:00:34
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:00:37
Zzweilous
I called it out earlier in the episode where he just lets the move go knowing that there is more hard-hitting moves in the back and then just executes the game-winning play. But one thing that I also want to say is that this would have likely been highly IV-dependent because
01:00:53
William Dunphey
Yes, highly.
01:00:53
Zzweilous
um Rank 1 versus Rank 1, a Hydro Cannon from Shadow for Alligator against Galarian Mulches, does a little more than half, does like 54%. And I think in that case, if it was Rank 1 versus Rank 1, the Galarian Mulches would have been able to hang on.
01:01:11
Zzweilous
but which Who has a Galarian Mortress that is a rank 1?
01:01:14
Zzweilous
So I generally don't blame anybody for just like trusting the win condition of Brave Bird is enough to take Azu out from here, rather than the win condition of, okay, I survived this hydro barely, I get two more Sucka Punches in, only take one bubble because it's four turns against six, and then the Brave Bird is enough.
01:01:15
William Dunphey
Yeah, right.
01:01:30
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:01:35
William Dunphey
Mm
01:01:36
Zzweilous
Because you don't see the health bar of the Azu in the back too. like
01:01:40
Zzweilous
and the it's It's not easy.
01:01:40
William Dunphey
-hmm.
01:01:41
William Dunphey
Yeah. And, and this would be tough, like sitting on your couch, playing, playing a practice tournament, you know, against, against a a talented player, that would be tough. But on stage grand finals game five at LAIC with thousands of dollars on the line, a spot at worlds on the line.
01:01:57
William Dunphey
I mean, this was just incredibly high stakes and we can go back and armchair quarterback this to death, but it's really hard to fault either player for the choices they made. Like you said earlier, it totally reasonable to hold the play rough on the Azu.
01:02:11
William Dunphey
absolutely reasonable to shield the hydro cannon and try to execute that wing condition. There wasn't a bad play to talk about. It was just a difficult situation. It was a very gray situation.
01:02:22
William Dunphey
There was no black or white answer. So incredibly impressive.
01:02:24
Zzweilous
Exactly.
01:02:26
William Dunphey
But in the end,
01:02:30
William Dunphey
as he's able to win the entire tournament outright and you could see him just screaming on stage and then sitting down getting emotional. I mean, you can tell the the love and the energy and the enthusiasm that the LATAM community puts into the game. You look at any of the community today meetups from Swagron to Marto in Argentina to any trainers in Brazil or Mexico, and there are hundreds of people playing.
01:02:58
William Dunphey
LATAM has been one of the biggest growth markets for competitive Pokemon Go from the very beginning because those trainers have mobile devices and they love the game and they have loved it ever since it first came out. So I really, again, one more time want to call for additional resources and investment. I know TPCI has a long roadmap ahead of them. I hope Niantic is also on board and investing in this kind of stuff because these trainers deserve the best. They they really pour their hearts out.
01:03:25
William Dunphey
I remember Har Jeff last year crying on stage after he won. And then Marto pretty much did the same thing. This is a big deal.
01:03:32
Zzweilous
Yeah yeah yeah, that was that was so heartwarming to see.
01:03:35
William Dunphey
this is a big deal. I mean, they could barely even give their victory speech because they were choking up, right? So these players have the passion and they just need the resources to make it work. But
Notable Players & Upcoming Tournaments
01:03:45
William Dunphey
grand finals were absolutely astounding. I highly recommend everyone to go back and watch them. Our producer, like I was telling you earlier, messaged me and said that was the best grand finals we've had ever in all three of our competitive seasons. So I highly recommend people go back, watch the VOD, give it a like, and leave a comment as well to show your support because it was absolutely insane.
01:04:05
William Dunphey
There were so many other players that I think maybe could get overshadowed here. I just wanted to run through a quick list of folks that I would love to shout out to. Elam from North America actually did an astounding job finishing sixth overall, the highest finishing North American outside of, I believe, Ashton Ash in the tournament there.
01:04:23
William Dunphey
so Very, very, very well played the CTU. When are we going to start taking the CTU seriously? Because they had an insane bracket run winning nine rounds in a row between day one and day two, which is, that is a Herculean effort.
01:04:39
William Dunphey
That's like, we would attribute something like that to Doonbug or to dancing. Rob at the first world. So that's how, that's how we would talk about that accomplishment. We need to talk more about the CTU. I also really appreciated it.
01:04:49
Zzweilous
can i and like the the c2 u this is the second time he did that at a major event he was the guy who went like 18 and 0 in like game wins at worlds at one point because
01:04:50
William Dunphey
Good.
01:04:55
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:04:58
William Dunphey
Wow.
01:05:02
Zzweilous
he just was on an insane loser record run and just like repeating that at LAIC is incredible and I think he's one of the um one of the west coasters so I hope he shows up to Sacramento and yeah I would not be surprised to maybe see him do the same on the winner's side at at one point in his career.
01:05:21
William Dunphey
Exactly. I i wanted to ah to clarify my earlier point, Ash Nash from Mexico, but I've seen him compete at NAIC as well. So I got my wires crossed a little bit there. So yeah, Elam, highest finishing North American from the US s slash slash Canada. ah Yeah, absolutely. CTU deserves a ton of praise. We definitely need to keep a spotlight on him. If he can do that in the losers bracket, there's no telling what he can do in the winner's side.
01:05:43
William Dunphey
I really love the return of Elche. Elche was getting the crowd fired up. He was already looking at the crowd sometimes when his wind condition was present and that was fun to watch. And then the Tarjan as well. I know, I don't want to say anyone was dissing the Tarjan, but I do feel like people looked at his win in Puerto Rico last season and said, ah, really? There were like eight people there. Is that a big deal?
01:06:05
William Dunphey
Well, the Tarian made his way to the big leagues and played really well, finishing 12th overall ahead of players like hard Jeff, nighttime, clasher, D sink to LJ Steiner, crusts out Chen Yu.
01:06:16
William Dunphey
I mean, he real and Lyle Jeffs. I mean, he really, really played well and the Tarian deserves a lot of respect.
01:06:22
Zzweilous
Yeah, he's been catching some side eyes because, oh, there is a regional shirt giving out for an eight-person tournament. But honestly, this is just proof of concept.
01:06:31
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:06:34
Zzweilous
And I know that this will not be the last um big tournament that the Torian will top-cut.
01:06:41
William Dunphey
Exactly right. I wasn't sure if there are any other trainers that you wanted to shout out, but I want to say I'm proud of, of Hartcheff, Steiner, all the Lindos as well. I know they really wanted the tournament victory, but I hope that this is fuel for next year.
01:06:54
Zzweilous
I want to wrap this up by mentioning that I think you had talked earlier about how in the grand finals, there was like world's qualification on the line. It actually wasn't because at internationals, the top four get their world's invite. So congratulations to Ashton Ash, Richie, and Twelff Vittorello, because all of them are, will actually be, if not present, then at least allow it to compete at Worlds in Anaheim next year.
01:07:20
William Dunphey
Very, very good stuff. Thank you for that because, uh, yeah, I think it's important. The, um, the championship point system does change. Uh, sometimes that we did have an update for this year. So that's really, really good to know, uh, which trainers are already in.
01:07:31
William Dunphey
And I was going to say, if, if Marto's invitation passed down, it would go to Colin, but I think Colin's already got, he's going to get that handle. That's not going to be a problem for him.
01:07:39
Zzweilous
Like Colin also, like, I already know that it will be really tough for me to compete for any of these European travel awards spots, just because of like the Collins of this world, who just like, Oh, I go to this big tournament, I top guard, I go to this big tournament, I reach the finals.
01:07:47
William Dunphey
Uh,
01:07:56
Zzweilous
Like, it's just like European excellence that was shown there, like Palasha as well. It's just only falling to Dunberg eventually. And she's not the first to fall to Dunberg.
01:08:07
William Dunphey
um
01:08:07
Zzweilous
like That was i was a good showing by my Europeans.
01:08:11
William Dunphey
Speaking of Palasha and a few other trainers, I do believe that we had some strong finishes at LAIC that actually locked down the travel awards for EUIC as well. So I'm not sure if you have a full list, but I've seen a few posts on X of of people that um are qualified for it and will be attending, which is really exciting.
01:08:31
Zzweilous
I have actually, um, so I don't know how it works for the Oceania region. Um, and generally if anybody at TPCI i listens to this, to to this, which I don't know whether they do, please put up like, just like a concise page of information on all the travel awards.
01:08:48
Zzweilous
Cause I don't know whether it's like top eight or top eight, and then like stipends for 12 for like world's travel.
01:08:53
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:08:56
Zzweilous
I don't know anything about 2025 world's travel at this point. But I think we can say for sure that the travel awards for the ICs are top four, at least in the big regions.
01:09:09
Zzweilous
Maybe also for Oceania, I'm not entirely positive on that though.
01:09:09
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:09:13
Zzweilous
So, EUIC travel award. in first place still. The dominant European battler. Then there is Nasebethan, another regional champion who went out of region to claim that title in Buenos Aires. Tomahawk UK, two out of the top four um European competitors got the bulk of their championship points out of region. And then the final the final travel award, Heather is also the final boss, the man with the coolest nickname and all of Pokemon go Colin six. um They all will get to um drive to London in the limousine. um This is amazing. So
01:09:55
Zzweilous
Yeah, have people people have been joking about that because it's actually like not that much of a distance for many of the Traveler Award winners.
01:10:01
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:10:03
Zzweilous
So um it's it's going to be quite the distance for Elam, Nighttime Clasher, Lyla Jeffs III, and Out of Pocket. These are the four players that have qualified for the NAIC Traveler Award.
01:10:17
Zzweilous
According to what I can see um on the leaderboards right now, I don't know whether it's like, oh, I want a cup just after LAIC wrapped up. And now this messes with the standings, but those four are ah in top four currently. yeah um when it comes to the standings.
01:10:34
Zzweilous
And from the LATAM region, it is in first place. Mr. Trophy moves Marto Gallade right ahead of Javier V20, who did compete in a lot of events and was very consistently good at them.
01:10:48
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:10:49
Zzweilous
Then it's the two Lindos, Rajev and Kanan in third and fourth.
01:10:52
William Dunphey
Hmm.
01:10:54
Zzweilous
And for Oceania, I think I've only wrote written down Rick Flareon because he is in first place. Um, and therefore like probably guaranteed to get to travel the world and show up for UIC. Um, but yeah, I don't know what the exact mechanics of Oceania travel was in the season.
01:11:11
William Dunphey
Yeah, I have seen that discussed a little bit on socials as well, so hopefully we can get a more clear picture. If ah PVP Steve, I know he listened to our last episode, Steve, if you're listening and you can give us some some input, let us know and we will absolutely include it in our next episode.
01:11:27
William Dunphey
I know we usually do this at the end of the show, but because we are talking so much about championship points and travel awards, let's do a quick little rundown. We are wrapping up the month of and of November, which has been absolutely action packed, a tournament every single weekend. Well, it's not going to stop anytime soon because we have Sacramento coming up this weekend and we have Stuttgart to wrap up the month.
01:11:48
William Dunphey
which actually kind of bleeds over into December as well. If you're listening to the show, you've got 205 days to get Championship points.
New Pokémon in the Competitive Scene
01:11:56
William Dunphey
The cutoff is NAIC next year. I think this is a good segue as well because we got some ah some electrifying news here coming up for Sacramento and Stuttgart and beyond. Two new electric-type Pokémon are going to be eligible, and I want to talk about them.
01:12:15
Zzweilous
Yes, so the two Pokémon that are potentially the the most interesting new additions for the Sacramento Regional are Morpeko. This little hamster has been unbanned. It was previously not allowed to be used in Play Pokemon competitions, because there was an issue with its form change um mechanic, which is um the first form changer that we have in Pokemon Go. um So essentially, its move aura wheel changes type whenever it um attacks with any of its charge moves, but that was slightly inconsistent.
01:12:53
Zzweilous
So it flips between dark type and electric type coverage. Plus Aura Wheel is one of the most, though it's I think it's the best charge attack in the game. and Incredible damage point and per energy, fairly cheap to get to, especially with Thunder Shock pacing there in 10 turns.
01:13:09
Zzweilous
um And also it comes with a guaranteed attack boost. So even though it has a vulnerable typing and a fairly low stat product, I think Morpeko can be a real threat and I have its i have seen it when um practice tournaments already.
01:13:25
Zzweilous
So definitely come prepared for that.
01:13:25
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:13:28
William Dunphey
You've seen it up close, I believe. Yeah, yeah. and for for For those.
01:13:33
Zzweilous
Do you have any any more thoughts on Morpeko or should I lead over to the um secondary electric type that we see?
01:13:40
William Dunphey
So for Morpeko, I asked actually because I was prepping for the LAIC pre-show, I asked if Morpeko would be eligible. Unfortunately, the answer was no. And I was a little bit sad about that because I i wanted to see the interaction between the prime apes and the annihil apes plus Morpeko. So you're kind of throwing three ingredients into the pot instead of just two.
01:14:01
William Dunphey
But um having Morpeko come to the meta is going to be really fun. I did play it quite a bit in Willpower Cup towards the end, because everybody and their mom was leading Mandibuzz. And I was just like, all right, screw this.
01:14:12
Zzweilous
Mm.
01:14:12
William Dunphey
I'm just going to start leading Morpeko. It's dangerous to run electric types in a ground meta, which is what we have with Gastrodon and with Shadowkanto, Marowak, and Claude Sire. But man, Morpeko absolutely nails the targets that you want it to nail.
01:14:26
William Dunphey
And when it gets to a R-wheel just as fast as Feraligatr gets to Hydro Cannon, It is a true, true threat, especially if you can thunder shock something down. So I i sincerely hope that people bring this Pokemon because the form change is fun. ah We might even, you know, talk about the form change mechanic during the stream in order to inform the viewers. I've heard kind of discussions about that. So I'm really excited to see what TPCI has in store. But um I think Morpeko could be really fun. I think if you protect yourself against ground types,
01:14:54
William Dunphey
Maybe you bring like a superior or a jump-luff on your team. I think that Morpeko could be a really, really good staple. But there's another one that fears ground types even more. And I got it its name wrong a few times because i I used to listen to a lot of System of a Down. I would say the toxicity of our city, but this is the toxicity of our city.
01:15:15
Zzweilous
It is the toxicity and it does come with a move set of I think poison jab, power up punch and wild charge. So consistent fast move pressure, a big nuke to threaten and also a way of not only baiting a shield potentially, but also just ramping up, amping up that um fast move poison jab damage.
01:15:32
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:15:38
William Dunphey
I see you did there.
01:15:39
Zzweilous
ah um so So yeah, this is going to be interesting. This is a new Pokemon that and is making its debut right now in the lead up to the um Go Wild area event. People who played the in-person event in Japan already had access to it. And now it's available in X currently, and then we'll be able to be fought in, um I think the Dynamax rates, maybe also regular rates. I don't actually know for sure.
01:16:06
William Dunphey
Yeah, I don't know either.
01:16:06
Zzweilous
um
01:16:07
William Dunphey
There's so many different rate formats now. I was convinced it would be in in actual rates.
01:16:09
Zzweilous
Yeah.
01:16:12
William Dunphey
And then I was seeing it was only in the dynamics rates. I'm like, Oh, well,
01:16:15
Zzweilous
and It might just be Dynamax and Gigantamax because Toxtricity is one of those that have a special form that not only is big, but also looks a little different from the regular one. But yeah, it will be able like, you will be able to challenge Toxtricity with your friends um this weekend. But if you want to have one that might be usable for Great League or for mirror trades that re-roll for better Great League IVs, you want to um find the toxicity outside of hours that have it weather boosted.
01:16:48
Zzweilous
It is a poison and electric type, so it gets um the boost in cloudy and rainy weather, which at least in the Northern Hemisphere is every weather at this time of the year.
01:16:48
William Dunphey
Yes. Yes.
01:17:00
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:00
Zzweilous
so you really have to get lucky with like a partly cloudy windy or maybe you're even so lucky that the sun comes out uh maybe you're so unlucky that it starts snowing um either of that works um fog also works another weather mechanic um anyway enough that was the weather um toxicity in combat to play probably
01:17:23
William Dunphey
The weather was these wireless tonight at seven.
01:17:25
Zzweilous
but ah probably a little less impactful than more peccos just because our wheel is so busted and toxicity it just it's almost as squishy slightly bulkier but we're talking still like essentially faints to one charge attack squishy
01:17:32
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:42
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:17:44
Zzweilous
and probably less consistent because, um again, you want to land the Wildshark, you ideally want to get the Power Punch bait, whereas with Morpeko, even though you have the option of baiting with Psychic Fangs, you can also just go straight Aura Wheel, boost your attack, and have a great time.
01:18:02
Zzweilous
I like the design, I like the typing. um And it does have more fast move pressure than Morpeko.
01:18:09
Zzweilous
Both of these Pokemon are very delicate, very technical. um They do have a high ceiling but a low floor. I think Morpeko's ceiling is higher.
01:18:09
William Dunphey
Yes.
01:18:20
Zzweilous
So I expect a lot of hamster and fewer rock stars than we might hope for.
01:18:26
William Dunphey
I think we'll see toxic, uh, toxicity. I can't even say the name. I think we'll see toxicity more in GBL because I think it's a better blind format. Pokemon. When you don't see it coming, when you see it on a show six team sheet, it is going to be a little bit tough to bring. I will say though, uh, with its moveset potential, you you absolutely nailed it. It's got poison jab power up punch and wild charge. It also has access to spark as an alternative fast attack and discharge as well as acid spray. So there's a little bit of of variability there.
01:18:56
William Dunphey
But I will say, I looked at the simulations here. toxic Toxicity in the one shield is going to pick up wins over Abomasnow, Annihilate, Ariados, Azumarole, as well as Chargibug, Chestnut, Cresselia, Dugong, Drapion, the Shadow variant, Driftblim, as well as Guzlord, Jumpluff, Shadowmachamp, Mandibuzz, Pangoro, Primeape, Superior Talentflame, Toxpex, and Wigglytuff.
01:19:18
William Dunphey
So that's not a bad resume at all. ah In the one shield, it's going to go 21 and 14, but it is baiting pup and landing wild charge. So I said, you know, that's a little bit, that's a little bit dicey. I wonder ah how good it really is. Is it a sim hero? Is it not?
01:19:34
William Dunphey
When you turn off the baits, it actually goes 16 and 19. So you do lose, what is that five match ups, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. And this is just basically yoloing wild charge all the time. And you're still picking up 16 wins against the Open Greet League meta, which is pretty, pretty ah astounding. But yeah, I think it's going to be tough to bring in a show six format because of its typing being double weak to ground. Sounds like a death sentence here, but At the same time, we've seen Double Weak to Fire and Alolan Sandslash, we've seen Double Weak to Ice with Jump Luft, and those Pokémon still make it work.
01:20:07
Zzweilous
One thing that I want to call out is that Toxtricity with its own poison subtyping does manage to resist fighting type damage. So if we expect Primeape and Denialape usage to pick up further, now that people had more time to really learn the matchups and master those two Pokemon, then Toxtricity might be the better call than Morpeko with its dark subtyping.
01:20:32
William Dunphey
Mm-hmm. I've heard as well that there might be some trainers that are equipped to play the Pokemon the legend himself The caster for LA I see to Oh butters is rumored to be making an appearance in Sacramento as well as some other casters like Sophia and Caleb so I don't know we're gonna see if we get some ah some electric ah vibes here in Sacramento and
01:20:53
Zzweilous
I will be so disappointed if Butters does not bring an electric type. Like this guy has built a career on being like the electrode emperors guy.
01:20:57
William Dunphey
ah
01:21:01
Zzweilous
I want to see something.
01:21:04
William Dunphey
Me too. Me too. I definitely want to see something from Butters. He's brought ah the Ampharos. He believed in you back in the early days when you would bring Ampharos. You know, he had that whole bet with Caleb.
01:21:13
Zzweilous
well
01:21:15
Zzweilous
I was the one that, I don't know, did I come closest? Maybe there were other people who who made it further, but top-cutting with Ampharos, it happened once.
01:21:23
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:21:24
Zzweilous
um It didn't win the bet, but we we tried.
01:21:24
William Dunphey
Yeah.
01:21:28
Zzweilous
We tried our best.
01:21:29
William Dunphey
We tried, but
01:21:29
Zzweilous
It was not Ampharos' fault.
01:21:31
William Dunphey
but that doesn't mean that another electric type can't win it this weekend. So we're just going to have to see, uh, speaking of, uh, current events this weekend in Sacramento, but don't forget we are in the wild area right now. So hatch those 10 kilometer eggs, get some toxins. I think the talks was actually pretty cute. Uh, for as far as it goes for Pokemon designs and toxicity will be fun. Like I said, I'm going to double down and say, particularly in GBL, it will be a strong, strong pick.
01:21:59
William Dunphey
um As well as I think we're approaching the ah the end of our show in terms of new updates We also have Galarian Corsola or Corsola on the on the horizon here So make sure to pick that one up. That's gonna be an emetta player immediately if I'm not mistaken It's it's a pure ghost or is it ghost and in rock?
01:22:17
Zzweilous
It is actually a pure ghost. I think Ghost Rock is one of the few types that doesn't exist yet. I'm not entirely sure.
01:22:22
William Dunphey
Hmm
01:22:23
Zzweilous
Don't quote me on that, unless it's correct, in which case, quote me on that. um But yeah, Cursula, right now, I think it has been... Like it is expected to get the moveset of Astonish, Nightshade, which is now a clone of the very powerful moves Drill Run or Fly, so definitely very, very efficient ghost type damage, and also Power Jam, which also has been buffed.
01:22:37
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:22:50
Zzweilous
so If this stays like that, it will be a Pokemon that immediately sees meta play. And it will be first legal um at the start of the new season, which I think there is a special event in Bogota in Colombia.
01:23:05
Zzweilous
And then the first like streamed event on the official channel will be Toronto, where I will be actually.
01:23:11
William Dunphey
o Ooh, we might see some, uh, Galarian Corsola tech here from Z's Wireless in Canada. Oh man. What, what, who would have thought we'd be seeing a sentence like that? Z's Wireless will travel to Canada and use Galarian Corsola. Wow.
01:23:26
Zzweilous
unthinkable a few years ago.
01:23:28
William Dunphey
unthinkable. The max out finale begins November 27th at 10 a.m. That is the rollout of Galarian Corsola. If you're a shiny collector, Regieleki and Regidrago will also become available.
01:23:41
William Dunphey
And Galarian Corsola evolves into Cursola. Maybe that's what I was thinking of earlier. I haven't looked at the Sims at all for that Pokemon. I don't know if it'll be good. So let us know in the comments down below, unless you already are aware.
01:23:53
William Dunphey
So iless I don't know if you looked into it.
01:23:54
Zzweilous
I know that it is a lot more attack-weighted. So if that is your thing, go for it. But I think just in the Sims, the unevolved form looks a little better. it can be um like You can run the Galarian Corsola without any XLs.
01:24:10
William Dunphey
Mm.
01:24:12
Zzweilous
Like Hondo at level 40 would come out at like 1496 or something.
01:24:14
William Dunphey
Mm hmm.
01:24:16
Zzweilous
But to really get the most value out of it, you do want a high rank, and that will require some XLs. So maybe get walking too. It's certainly one to look out for.
01:24:27
William Dunphey
Hey, all my time in the Southeast US is paying off. I have almost 600 XL candies for Carcola.
01:24:30
Zzweilous
yeah
01:24:33
William Dunphey
So I'm going to be powering that Pokemon up and getting it ready. But there's so much to look forward to. So many exciting things on the horizon. LAIC was an absolute banger of a tournament. I highly recommend people to go back, watch the VOD, pick out your favorite battles and let us know what you thought of the gameplay, because that is a really, really good bar to set for the rest of the season.
01:24:53
William Dunphey
It's our first international, but it's only the first of three. So we do have EUIC, NAIC, and of course the big one, the Big Whopper Worlds on the horizon. So there's a lot to be excited about. That's why this has been a really fun one. I really loved spotlighting LATAM. We always will do that on the show to the best of our abilities because they absolutely deserve it. And I can't wait to talk about Sacramento and how 2-0 Butters won with toxicity and Morpeco on his team somehow.
01:25:20
Zzweilous
I am very much looking forward to that.
01:25:24
William Dunphey
Well, we'll see what happens, but in the meantime, everybody stay safe and we will see you in the next episode. Also don't forget.