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Ep. 6 Utrecht 2024
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Hello, everyone! This is Episode 6 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 recap the Utrecht Regional Championships, where Inadequance dominated with a controversial Pokémon! We discuss the "once-in-a-season" meta, notable trainers at the event, and look closely into the metrics behind Inadequance's very special victory.
If you're ready, Lock In, and good luck, have fun!
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Transcript
Podcast Kickoff and Championship Series Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome in to the Show 6 podcast, where we, Zeez Rylus and Spidey's Chief 2, break down the championship series for Pokemon Go. Today, we're taking a look at a special event, a special meta, and a very special champion.
Highlights from Utrecht Event
00:00:15
Speaker
This is the Utrecht episode, so let's lock in, good luck, and have fun.
00:00:40
Speaker
Welcome in, everybody. This is going to be a very fun one.
Banter about Sleep Schedules
00:00:44
Speaker
And yeah, I am Zeez Wireless, and I'm here with my co-caster, co-host, Sleepiest Chief 2, who actually overslept a little bit, so we are recording at around midnight German time. But that is entirely fine. I just want to spice up our dynamic a little bit, because I watched so much of Tomahawk and Nighttime Clasher.
00:01:02
Speaker
You know, I've heard, I've heard sleepiest chief. I've heard slowiest chief as well. I don't think that rhymes as well. I think, I think we should go for sleepiest. It does it. Yeah. You really nailed the nickname there, but, uh, my apologies. I'm really, I'm really excited to get into this episode. Uh, before our call, you were saying that you've got, uh, you're very excited. You have a lot of energy about this one. I'm really excited to get into it. Yes. Yes. This was a lovely tournament,
Utrecht Tournament Details
00:01:26
Speaker
right? Um, 216 people, if I remember correctly.
00:01:30
Speaker
Not all of those are real people. Keep in mind, this is a special event. So you do not get any prize money for competing in that, but you also don't have to pay for signing up. So I actually was expecting even more invaders from the United States because I saw some names on the bracket that I typically recognize from West Coast tournaments.
00:01:51
Speaker
Turns out those didn't actually show up, so some people just registered, maybe put in a team, maybe didn't, and then didn't show up. But yeah, still a really big and really unique event, right?
Missing Players and Team Dynamics
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, the North American spared you, I guess is what we should say. I mean, we already put Nighttime Clasher in the booth to get him off of the field. Yeah, yeah. Just as a safety measure, right? Because I wasn't there to keep him from winning at all, so somebody... We had to find another way, right? Exactly. There was no Kryptonite available to stop Nighttime Clasher.
00:02:24
Speaker
But yeah, I've seen, you know, before we got into our recording today, I actually listened to the Tap Tap podcast. I'm hearing a lot of energy, a lot of excitement for quote unquote, taking down the Americans or invading N.A. And you know what? Well, I'll believe it when I see it because- You're gonna see it. Okay. All right. We'll see.
00:02:49
Speaker
We'll see what happens. Yeah. You've seen what happened in your case, right? Like, have you seen those plays in North America? I doubt it. Well, you know, it was a European versus European competitor. Would those plays work on a North American player? No, because those just play up. Yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it depends. Right. Depends. Team reading is a valuable skill. So I don't know if you're familiar. But anyway, I'm just being provocative.
00:03:14
Speaker
It definitely was a very good event. I actually have the VOD on my second monitor here, and I'm watching Dinoski drink his special brew. Which I turned him out later. The thing is, oh yeah, I don't know, do we want to get into that later? Yeah, let's get into that later. We'll keep that for a special moment later on. Yes, yes. Special event, special meta, that is what I announced in the intro.
New Meta Rules and Seasonal Changes
00:03:44
Speaker
It is a special meta because it is the only meta, like the only tournament that takes place in this meta. It is a new ruleset, so Pokemon that get introduced with new moves aren't immediately legal.
00:04:01
Speaker
That's been an update to the rulebook which means unlike the annihilate situation that we had the other week where it was basically out for just about a day before the tournament happened and that was enough to make it legal for that specific event.
00:04:17
Speaker
Now competitors will have to wait until the Tuesday afternoon to use new Pokemon or newly added moves in any competitive official event. So that made for a unique blend of updated moves, but not really the new Pokemon that we would come to expect from a new season, right?
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, this was a, this was a once in a season meta. I think that's a good way to phrase it. And it also depends on the seasonal rotation for go battle league. So if go battle league, you know, let's say that, that the next rotation, uh, kicks off on Wednesday. Right. And then Wednesdays, when our moveset changes would go through those Pokemon would then be eligible for a tournament, say on Saturday.
00:04:59
Speaker
But because the season rotation is on Fridays, that's why this was such a weird situation. So we kind of had pre-existing moves that got changes to energy cost or damage output. Those were allowed. But if a Pokemon learned a new attack, right, like for Alligator, Shadow Claw is the most obvious example.
00:05:16
Speaker
It wasn't allowed. And I saw a lot of kind of discourse discourse on Twitter as well. A lot of people saying, you know, these rules are stupid. Some people saying these rules are great. It was definitely like a weird situation.
Team Building Challenges and Strategies
00:05:27
Speaker
And I almost feel like TPCI did the best with what they had. But I'm curious as to why. I mean, do you think everything should be allowed just immediately? I mean, they're TM-able, right? Should we just have access?
00:05:37
Speaker
My personal take on this is that the main issue here is kind of just with when the tournaments actually take place because I don't think TPCI, because when TPCI schedules regional events, historically they had to keep in mind the GC and the trading card game.
00:06:03
Speaker
So those kind of formats don't really have to rely on the external factor that is Niantic. And while Niantic is predictable in rolling out moveset changes every three months, it is rather unlucky that for a tournament like this,
00:06:22
Speaker
Um, such a huge batch of, of changes. Um, like it's, it's not huge compared to, um, other seasonal updates, but it's bigger than all this Pokemon got added. And therefore we can't use annihilate for like a week and like half a week.
00:06:38
Speaker
That would be like a pretty minor
Giratina Origin Controversy
00:06:41
Speaker
change, right? But this held back, I would say about four Pokemon that people would realistically want to put on their teams. And that makes it a little more noticeable and makes it more of its own standalone meta than others. We will have the same situation, maybe even more pronounced in Bologna in Italy at the beginning of June.
00:07:08
Speaker
And that might be, that might get interesting because I have heard people say that the move update will actually take place in the middle of the tournament. So that would be, that would be very, that would require very unique team building to build a team that is good day one, but also as simple as viable on day two. So yeah, so the timing of the event is unfortunate, but I do think that just keeping
00:07:38
Speaker
Keeping those out of the official tournament circuit for
00:07:45
Speaker
a week or half a week is actually fine because we've seen it with an ILA, right? People had access to it, but it didn't perform well at all. People still need to get used to it. A lot of people tried it out. Very few people did well with it. And while it is, it's one unique skill to immediately pick up a new Pokemon and do great with it.
00:08:10
Speaker
I think that the fullest potential of a new meta would not have been realized anyway, even if those spoken were legal. So I don't actually mind it too much.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, the Bologna special event is going to be very interesting because, yeah, if it flips from day one to day two, that's, uh, yeah, I don't even know how, how I would tackle that. You know, if I made the decisions at the top level, um, the number one pick that you were, you were expecting, right? If we would have allowed all the adjusted Pokemon into the tournament, the number one pick would have been Dragalge, right? With buffed Aqua Tail. Was that your number one?
00:08:45
Speaker
Oh, God. I have seen you interact with people on Twitter praising Dragology. And I do think its resistance profile is actually quite interesting. But Dragology actually had Aqua Tail before, right? So it was eligible for this specific tournament. We have not seen many Dragology, have we? So it might be one that keeps getting overlooked for the near future, at least.
Martine's Championship Journey
00:09:15
Speaker
Agreed. Well, speaking of a once in a in a season meta, maybe a twice in a season meta, we'll see how things go in Spain. But a different dragon, right? We talked about Dragalgy. How about Giratina Origin not being banned? Because I was honestly watching the ban list up until Friday, you know, midday on Friday, U.S. time, I was looking at the ban list. I said, OK, are they going to add Giratina Origin? Is it going to pop up? How do you feel about that?
00:09:40
Speaker
That is a controversial one, isn't it? I've seen content creator Ryan Swagg, the man behind the Swagg Tips IVs, basically calling out the accessibility issues behind that because you cannot actually obtain your original origin at great big level just from playing the game on your own. You have to trade with a friend and ideally someone you have a low friendship level with.
00:10:08
Speaker
to re-roll a level 15 Giratina to a point where it is eligible for sub-1500 CPE formats. And even that is difficult to do because first of all it's not guaranteed and second of all it's a one-off. You can only get one Giratina on your own account
00:10:30
Speaker
Without trading and even for that you will have to rate six times and During one week of operating and that week already passed So there's just a lot of a lot of accessibility issues that have to do with this specific. You know, um and yeah, it's it's definitely something that
00:10:53
Speaker
A lot of people are trying to get, I've seen people doing half a dozen trades and not getting it with the CP they wanted. So yeah, it is a controversial one for sure.
Accessibility of Legendaries
00:11:06
Speaker
And my personal take on that is that I am happy that it is allowed just because it is obtainable through
00:11:19
Speaker
the thing that Pokemon Go actually wants to encourage, which is, oh, you need to connect with your local community, you need to talk to people, you need to trade with people. Trading has been a part of Pokemon for so long. The first games came out in the 90s, and even then you had to trade to evolve a Kadabra to an Alkazam. That's been a requirement for many
00:11:43
Speaker
things to unlock within the world of Pokemon. So I think just philosophically, I think it should be allowed. What I think should be done is we need more ways of obtaining level 15 legendaries if those level 15 legendaries have been available at all. Because
00:12:08
Speaker
that making it a one-off is probably just the worst example of artificial scarcity that you could introduce to a game like this. And yeah.
Current Competitive Scene Excitement
00:12:19
Speaker
Well, you know, Pokemon Go is all about artificial scarcity. We have a one-time chance to get this thing, and then a few months later, it just pops up and it's common. And it's always a little bit jarring. But speaking of accessibility for Gear Retina origin form,
00:12:34
Speaker
There's actually a very interesting comment made by Tomahawk. He said this in a caster discord, and he also has said this on tap tap cast. He said, what if you added in level 15 legendaries as part of your go battle league experience? And maybe once you reach a certain number of wins or a certain rank, you can actually select your path and you could select, you know, guillotine origin, or you could select deoxys defense form, and you could pick one of these Pokemon or cresselia even.
00:13:00
Speaker
and you can encounter maybe a handful of them throughout the season. Do you think that would be a welcome shift? I genuinely love that idea, and while I have not publicly stated that I'm in favor of that anywhere, so I will not be able to claim that and take it away from Tomahawk, who apparently came up with that on the Tap Tap cast. I'll definitely sign off on that because
00:13:27
Speaker
There is like Niantic faces the difficult challenge to cater to all of their audiences and they have plenty of audiences.
00:13:38
Speaker
You can play this game in so many different ways and PvP is just one way of them. So if you just make it so that the legendaries automatically drop as level 15s from raids or that you introduce a berry that can make it so that the legendary that you catch from a raid is level 15 instead of level 20.
00:14:01
Speaker
Like those are like those are good quality of life changes for PvP. And the second idea is one that I still think could be quite interesting, but it might be too niche. It might be something introduced to a game mode rating that actually like
00:14:21
Speaker
Most raiders don't care about whether their Pokémon is level 15 or level 20. They want it at level 50 eventually. So just tying it to the Go Battle League experience, to the place where all the battlers hang out anyway. I think
Mantine's Rise and Role in the Meta
00:14:35
Speaker
that is fantastic. I think that is the way to go and that benefits those who really want those Pokémon and need them the most.
00:14:42
Speaker
I think that introducing more elements of scarcity into Go Battle League, whether it's a level 15 Legendaries or maybe instead of Pika Libre, maybe one season they switch it out and it's actually like a costumed Halucha or maybe shining Halucha is only available. I've been waiting for that for so long because after your 15th Pika Libre, it does get stale. They're just sitting there. They're having a party in my storage.
00:15:10
Speaker
And it's not really going anywhere. So if they, if they decided to shake that up, I would be all for it. Yeah. It just, I think it comes down to a question of energy and attention. Like how much energy do you want to put into actually thinking of new and innovative ways to make Go Battle League more engaging and how much attention do you want to give to the trainers, the feedback?
00:15:30
Speaker
and kind of pick a solution that really is tailored to multiple trainers or a wide net trainers, right? Because you're right. Training the Giratina origin form is definitely uncomfortable. I know a lot of my friends have been reaching out to their locals, you know, they're more casual friends who maybe only are interested in getting like, you know, 3,500 CP, whatever legendary, so they can raid. And they said, Oh, what am I going to do with the level 15 Giratina? It's got crap IVs and it's way too expensive to power up. Yeah, sure. I'll trade it to you. Give me like, you know, a shiny Pikachu.
00:16:00
Speaker
and it's just a very easy trade for them. Yeah, if you have any rare shinies, this is like, this is what you need them for, the trade photo for the Garettino. Yeah, trade bait. Exactly. Exactly. But in terms of the Utrecht meta, definitely exciting because when we look at the, for example, the top usage charts, a lot of things are the same, right? We see so much like a tongue, we see so much of these common picks, I think Annihilate represented really well at this tournament.
00:16:29
Speaker
Um, I'm just curious in, in, in, I don't want to turn this too much into like an interview format, but I feel like I'm asking you a lot of questions. I'm curious how you felt about the overall meta and how things kind of boil down into day two, because I honestly, to me on paper, it looks relatively healthy. I would say it's healthy. Yeah. I don't think there's much of a question about the health of the matter anymore.
00:16:53
Speaker
I know that I was skeptical and it wasn't really doomerism, but I was not super happy with the meta at some point in January, but I have to say that the way it shook out, especially after the addition of Annihilape, it is relatively healthy and reasonably diverse. The meta that we saw in Utrecht is basically just
00:17:19
Speaker
a slightly tweaked Timeless Travels meta, right? So we basically got all the picks that have been popular for like a month or two months now, basically ever since the Annihilate edition.
00:17:33
Speaker
And yeah, those were basically what led the charts in day one. The most interesting thing in day two is that Manteen shot up from, oh, I'm not even top 12 to I am on 56% of teams. And I run so many different move sets. There might as well be like three or four different Pokemon, right? Because it is actually one of the few Pokemon that got an updated move.
00:18:01
Speaker
that they already had as part of the move set. So I know that, for example, Sanduru ran water pools. I think EJB ran water pools. Logan Rocket ran ice beam. Statistan ran bubble beam. So there are tons of
00:18:21
Speaker
really, really talented and highly skilled players that looked at Mantine. Maybe also looked at the previous EU regional, where the grand finals were dominated by Talonflame on Obama's score. And they thought, OK, this is the guy that I want to pick. This is Pokemon that I want to have on my team. And then they looked at what else they wanted to put on their team. And then they customized their Mantine so it fit. And I think that's actually
00:18:48
Speaker
Um, really exciting, more exciting than Mantine gameplay typically is just because there's so many flavors. Mantine gameplay. I want to, I want to attach to that, that phrase there, because I'm just going to say it. So I, I think Mantine sucks. It's just not fun. It's not fun to watch. It's not fun to play. I mean, maybe some people enjoy it, right? It's, it's, it's panopo for people that prefer winning or having fun.
00:19:14
Speaker
This is my take on Nanteen. It's Pelipper for trainers who don't like to knock the other Pokémon out.
Critique of Mantine's Gameplay Style
00:19:21
Speaker
Basically, instead of a hurricane that just whooshes through and gets the knock out, you just chip away with Nanteen and it's so tedious and it's so annoying.
00:19:30
Speaker
It's like a it's like when we saw i'm brown like a tongue course and it's just another body sam another foul play maybe the fourth foul play will knock out it's like oh maybe the next the next area lease will bring it into the red. I have an anecdote from my boss around because when i made a two i already knew that i would be going up against.
00:19:52
Speaker
for the first battle of the second day. So I basically spent the evening simming the matchup my team had against his team. And on that day, I found out that Likitang actually beats Mantine in the 0 to 1 shield scenario, just because Mantine throws like five charter checks, but they still don't knock out the Likitang. This says as much about Likitang as it says about Mantine, but yeah.
00:20:21
Speaker
Ever, ever since I felt like, no, that's not something that I would personally want to run. Fair, fair. I feel like a Pokemon like, like Ligaton and sometimes I guess Mantine, they just have a target on their back, right? Everybody's saying, Oh, this Pokemon is just, it's too bulky. It's too annoying. It's just problematic. But I think we need a bad guy, right?
Praising Martine's Unique Strategies
00:20:41
Speaker
We need a, we need a villain in our lives, but, uh, but I don't know if you want to move on to this yet, but speaking of villains, let's talk about a hero. How about our Utrecht special event champion?
00:20:52
Speaker
The man, the myth, the legend, Marzine, inadequance. He did it. He did it. He tried so hard and he got so close so many times. He used to be Mr. Topcut and he was Mr. Flopcutt. Mr. Topcutt from day two. Mr. Day one. He had so many nicknames.
00:21:15
Speaker
I think this is one of the most deserved championship runs today. I honestly believe that is the case. Not only because after going 1-2 in his first day to match, he just decided to not lose again ever.
00:21:31
Speaker
Um, and when on a 17 old tear, but also because I think my time is just one of the most talented team builders. Like, have you seen, have you seen the stuff he runs in cups and challenges? Oh, it's always, it's always so weird and spicy, right? Uh, the closest thing I've seen in comparison over in, in the North America region was when rise brought both jellison and Obama snow to Knoxville regionals. That feels like a, like a standard Tuesday for Martine.
00:21:58
Speaker
He's always running something interesting and core breaking. Exactly, exactly. And I don't know how he makes it work, but this is actually exactly what makes him so good. Because I think he actually said that about his Kirachina run as well. He doesn't ask whether a Pokémon is good. He asks, how can I make this work? Like his previous top placement in this season,
00:22:24
Speaker
Came with the shadow magnet zone in Neil, where he got third. And now he just threw Giratino Origin and Wigglytuff on a team, and he somehow won it all in a 216 people tournament.
00:22:39
Speaker
Well, I think it's really interesting. I've been watching a few different, uh, so he put out a video talking about his day to run. I haven't finished that yet, but I also, like I pointed out earlier, listen to the tap tap cast episode for this week. Shout out to Lundberger and, uh, inadiquence for always putting that together.
00:22:55
Speaker
But a couple of things I found interesting. So the first is that if you look at the team, right, it's very, very good at protecting the Giratina. And it's just such an interesting Pokemon because Lickitung is a number one usage. It's the number one villain, right? It's like, it's like running Shadow, Lolan, Sandslash in the face of a hundred percent meta champ usage. It just feels like a strange decision, but the way he protects it is so interesting, right? Kicking off with the Giratina origin form, he's got Wigglytuff,
00:23:21
Speaker
as well as Vigaroth. So two normal type Pokemon that absolutely annihilate Lickitung and beat it and basically all shield scenarios. Then he's got Talonflame, Registeal, and Cresselia. So he's got bulk to spare, right? He's got bulk all the way across the board. And one of the main points that I heard him make a couple of times was that he wanted to break up the charge bug and annihilate core, which is just so safe. A lot of players bring it. A lot of trainers rely on it.
00:23:47
Speaker
And, uh, I think that's also really critical when you look at the championship series in a macro sense, if you can identify cores, not just single Pokemon, right? Say, Oh, my team is weak to, you know, to look at talk, not just single Pokemon, but cores, what common duos are likely to appear. And I got to tell you the Giratina in particular, just shreds the annihilate charge of bug duo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The another charge of bug duo is actually what I like, what my.
00:24:15
Speaker
Liverpool run ended against because Stata-san brought that and it's just really difficult to answer. So I can definitely empathize with the desire to break that up. My go-to answer used to be the Skeletorch, but the Skeletorch has its own challenges, especially like really bad with sketch match-up, really bad Liger match-up, and Garatina doesn't have that. Garatina is a far better generalist
00:24:44
Speaker
if you just discount its Lickitang weakness, just because Dragon is such a potent defensive typing. What I think is super valuable in this current meta as well is just to have scald resists on your team. And while Matine does have the Cresselia, which just outbolts and has the Grass Nod for W super effective damage, the fact that
00:25:14
Speaker
where Skysh basically has to go for Magbombs and two Magbombs to not knock out, makes Giratina an answer to probably the most popular non-Niketan Pokémon, as well as everything's so risky in Tomatine's team, right? You would think that he is the risk taker with the Giratina, but
00:25:36
Speaker
you cannot even safeswap a Lickitung because he has three hard answers. You cannot even play the chords you want to play because he has the breakers to that chord. And basically just starting off the Vigoroth Ghost Chord, which is, it is not new, but it is strong. And then, like, with Gurotino Origin, it is new. And then just,
00:26:02
Speaker
building your protection and your secondary core in Talent Flame and Cresselia around it. I think that it is unique. It sets Martijn apart from the other teams, other than Scuffle, but as far as I'm aware, they team-built together the night before.
00:26:21
Speaker
So it's just the same mind that came up with that. Yeah, it just makes for strategies that people don't scrim against, right? Because people scrim against what other people used in previous tournaments and that's typically like...
00:26:40
Speaker
Not what the time. So no, no. So I know now here, here's the real reason. Okay. This, this is the real reason people don't scream against gear, Tina origin, because it's not available because it's inaccessible and it should be banned. All right. That's the real reason I'm just kidding. Uh, but, but no serious is watching back some of our times games would really shocked me about how he played it was that he just wasn't scared to bring it.
00:27:03
Speaker
And I think that speaks volumes, right? Because when you have a bench pressure Pokemon, we always talk about Bastiodon being a bench pressure Pokemon that keeps the other player from running their flying types or their fire types or whatever it might be. He brought the Giratina. It was on his team and it came pretty often. And I actually went through day two, not trying to, you know, buff Martine's ego anymore. But I watched all of his games, every single game. I recorded every single knockout. I recorded every single team he brought.
00:27:33
Speaker
The top two Pokemon that Martine brought in game, or excuse me, in day two, were Cresselia, 10 times, right, out of all the rounds he played, and Giratina Origin Form, 10 times as well. He brought those two Pokemon more than anything else on the rest of his team, which I think I thought was incredible. I think that is...
00:27:54
Speaker
very understandable if you see just how well they match up into all those teams. Because again, I think that bringing a Likertang into my time's team is even riskier than bringing one Giratina into a Likertang team. Because if you bring a Giratina, you have one thing you don't really want to see it on. There's other things that have positive matchups against Giratina, but you can do this stuff with energy, right? It's only one matchup where it's game over.
00:28:24
Speaker
But if you have Likitang on Vigoroth, or if you have Likitang on Registeal, that's game over. If you have Likitang on Wigglytuff, if you have Likitang on Talonflame, that's a negative matchup. If you have Likitang on future site Cresselia, you still need to shield to win that matchup in the zeroes. You just aren't in a great spot if you're bringing Likitang into this team, unless you get the perfect call.
00:28:53
Speaker
So I think it's almost stress-free to just spam Giratina after Giratina, just because...
Martine's Strategic Mastery with Giratina Origin
00:29:01
Speaker
What counters are they going to bring? Good luck. Good luck playing the Giratina roulette and having a 1 out of 6 chance to actually hit your target.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah, exactly right. And what really amazed me as well, I picked out a particular moment early on in day two. It was actually Inadequance versus San Giudico. And Martine leads Registeal into the Annihilape, and the instant switches his Cresselia, right? And the instant swap is in order to bring out either the Alolan's Anselash or the Lickitung. And when he doesn't see either of those,
00:29:34
Speaker
then he's able to later in the game force switch in his Giratina origin form. Right. Yeah. I mean, with the Pokemon that you're so worried about being hard counted either by a steel ice type or a pure normal type, right? Both of those Pokemon would destroy Giratina, especially if they're even energy.
00:29:49
Speaker
When you're so worried about those and you identify your opponent doesn't have it. And then you take that next step and you push that, right? You're aggressive with the place. I thought that was incredible. And there were a lot of games where he brought gear, Tina origin form, and he didn't play for switch because it was game three of the series. And he had convinced his opponent not to bring a lick of tongue. Maybe it was vicaroth, rigid steel, right? And game one and game two, who knows, but he was able to kind of.
00:30:14
Speaker
read the temperature of the series as it developed and decide when to bring the Pokémon, which I thought was also just a testament of how comfortable he was with it.
00:30:31
Speaker
Okay, this Pokemon is not coming out, so I will probably be able to safely bring in Giratina later and be aggressive with it. But also just like, okay, I played these Pokemon, I now invite these strategies, and even if I don't just
00:30:50
Speaker
win lead, win swap like he did later in the grand finals. Like that was like at a point, like he lost like four or five leads in a row from, um, the loser's finals to the grand finals. And he always had a game plan to come back from that. And that was so impressive. But at a certain point, you just, you just think, uh, like you just make your opponent think that even if they win the lead, they can't, they can't really
00:31:21
Speaker
can't really play that to their own win condition anymore. Like, oh, I can't play lines against this trainer and his team that are safe. Because even if I win lead, I can't cover for everything that could be in the bag without being ABA weak to something. I think that is
00:31:43
Speaker
That is important in team building that you not only have a balanced team, but also a team that makes it so your opponent's teams feel unbalanced just because of the core breakers you introduce and the way that puts pressure on the lines your opponents create. So you could basically always know that, okay, either my opponent plays a hard ABA line, or I have a win condition by playing it this way.
00:32:12
Speaker
So at a certain point, every opponent just had to make a hard call, had to make a gamble, and couldn't just rely on strategy and neutral play. And that is just such a difficult spot to be in. And Martin really knew how to put people in those spots.
00:32:29
Speaker
It's because you, you kind of remove some of the skill aspect and you just put it down to a 50 50 and you say, I'm going to force you to guess I'm going to force you to be uncomfortable. And you just have to adjust to whatever I decide because I'm, I'm dictating the whole tempo of the series, which is really, really amazing. And going back through his day two battles, I see we both had this in our notes, his series versus maxi P. What happened there?
00:32:56
Speaker
It looks so dire. It looks so bad.
Talonflame Sweep and Comeback Victory
00:33:02
Speaker
So I guess I'll kick us off here in game number one versus Maxi P. Definitely a tough lineup to play Townflame into, to say the least, right? He decided to bring Vigoroth, Registeal, and Townflame versus Maxi's Dewgong, Lantern, and Townflame of his own.
00:33:22
Speaker
So looking at the team, right, that's obviously a solid lead for Martine, uh, leading into the dugong with his Vigoroth, but then there was a safe switch. And, uh, I have a bunch of notes that says Maxie instant swaps into town flame calls the body slam bait, which honestly was ice cold. That was insane. And then later on CMP switch in town flame flame charge versus the dugong, which Martine thought it was a mistake.
00:33:45
Speaker
But then he ends up getting the win at the end. And it was a Talonflame sweep. One of multiple sweeps that he had with an individual Pokémon. Yeah, that was insane. I also love that Matan is one of those players who, like, they're never so much in the zone that you don't see their emotions during the battle. Like, he's very expressive. And you knew that he felt like he lost it when he saw what was in the back.
00:34:12
Speaker
That's still flipping in his favor by just the timing of when both players switched and the way the shields were used. And it really just came down to the tiniest of margins in the end.
00:34:29
Speaker
Um, that was, I think that sets him up for success because if you can, when it came where you basically don't have a lot more left than your talent flame to take out two water types and you still pull it off.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah, at that point, you must feel like you're invincible. There's so many different phrases, right? Like the stars were aligning or it felt inevitable in that moment. But I definitely think that that was a sign of what was to come. Because as he moved through day two after losing the first round, and by the way, Martijn is the only
00:35:04
Speaker
regional champion this season, who has actually lost round one of the day two battles and won the whole tournament. We've had some trainers lose in round two or round three and end up winning from the loser side bracket. He's the only one that's done it from round one, a round one loss, which I thought was really shocking. It's the June back of day two.
00:35:22
Speaker
Day two, doom bug. Let's go Martine. Um, but as we look towards the grand finals, it, it felt like that momentum just kind of carried over and it was like a snowball, right? It wasn't slowing down. It just kept on getting larger and larger and just rolling with so much more intensity. By the time it got to the grand finals, I think you called this out earlier. He was just winning lead after lead, after lead, after lead. And Pablo Dinos was just, he couldn't do anything.
00:35:48
Speaker
It was honestly like I kind of felt bad for Pablo because like I will not.
00:35:58
Speaker
tiptoe around it when I saw the players that made up the grand finals. I was rooting for my time because my time has been a friend within the community for a long time and I just wanted him to have this moment in his own country.
00:36:19
Speaker
But not like this. Not like this.
Strength of European Battlers
00:36:23
Speaker
At least make it so that the second place finisher can have this little high to go out on. Because if you make it to the grand finals from the winner's side, that's an incredible achievement. And I watched the medal ceremony after. And when Pablo was asked how he feels right now, he was like, I'm not happy.
00:36:49
Speaker
How would you be after what happened there? To my knowledge, I haven't actually come through all of the previous results, but I think we had that once in Fresno where Elite came down from the Losers side to 6-0 Caleb Peng in the grand finals.
00:37:10
Speaker
Typically, it's not that, oh, the guy from the loser's side is just like such a fan of course, just rolling over everything, just destroying everything in his wake.
00:37:25
Speaker
This was just not a day to be Mattain's opponent, but I have to give it to Pablo. If we were discussing which countries in Europe, because we have this European-American rivalry, and I love that we have that,
00:37:45
Speaker
But if we were to discuss which countries in Europe, like within the EU circuit, have the strongest battlers, I do think that after the recent events, it is between the Dutch and the Spanish.
00:38:02
Speaker
And Pablo's runs in both in Liverpool and now in Utrecht play a big part in that. You have Paula Ascher, regional champion, you have Tatoo Man multiple times in the grand finals, regional champion in Gdansk.
00:38:19
Speaker
You have Andres, who has been to a grand finals. You have John Joa, who won Utrecht the year before. There are so many talented Spanish battles, and I think that Pablo, this was his first grand finals, it probably wasn't his last, right? Yeah. And the next time the opponent might not be the one who just makes a historical run. So yeah, those were just really difficult circumstances to step more times away.
00:38:46
Speaker
And don't forget other trainers like Vani as well. He's typically in all staffing, I think, but if he is competing, he's definitely one to keep an eye on. He's giving everyone else a chance, right? Which is really kind of him.
00:39:01
Speaker
But yeah, I agree. And Pablo is a fighter. And I think that's also a testament to the kind of mindset that he has as a player. You know, he had a really tough grand finals. Uh, we'll go through the leads here in a second because it is daunting and daunting is definitely the word, but, uh, Pablo wants more, right? I think a lot of the best competitors do want that unless they've won the championship. The job is not technically done.
00:39:22
Speaker
And you're exactly right. Inadequance is the only player this season to sweep six and oh from the loser side bracket in the grand finals. The closest player to almost replicate that success was actually Jaco in Brisbane versus Stumpy. He gave up one game to Stumpy and ruined the perfect six. Oh, but inadequate is able to capitalize.
00:39:42
Speaker
Now that being said in Adkins, uh, does have a ton of other impressive stats as well. After losing round one to normal Hein on day two, he went on a 17 game win streak, sweeping six different opponents in seven consecutive rounds, which like you said, is, is the day two Doon bug of EU, right?
00:40:02
Speaker
Uh, when we look at, when we look at the overall leads for the grand finals, though, things were not great for Pablo. An eloquence led it figure off into shadow, a little in sand slash game one. He let his figure out again in game two, this time into Lickitung. He led his registered game three into the man team.
00:40:18
Speaker
In the grand funnels reset gear, Tina origin form into whisk, cash. I was actually curious about this matchup, but gear, Tina origin form wins all even shields unless some wacky scald shenanigans go on in game two of the grand finals reset. He led his talent flame into shadow alone sand slash. I remember the crowd getting really engaged when they saw that everybody was really excited. And then who could forget game three leading gear, Tina origin again twice.
00:40:42
Speaker
He actually brought it all three games in the grand finals reset leading at twice because he had scared away the sand slash and Lickitongue in the previous series with his vigor auth, right? He led his gueritina again into whisk hash for that decisive game number six. But, um, yeah, I mean, just total, total dominance dominance, the leads dominance with the swaps. I think Pablo and Dina says whisk hash got lined up against his Chris Salia four out of the six total games, which is just, it hurts. It's a disastrous, right?
00:41:11
Speaker
I know we talk about the skull debuff counters and I think there was one game where Pablo file fired off two skulls into Martine, but neither of them debuffed. And I was, I looked at it outside. It's, are the stars really aligned for Martine? Like he's not getting debuff like nothing, nothing is slowing him down. And I went through and I looked at the numbers into my shock, right? To my, to my. Incredible surprise. 10 skulls were fired off in the grand finals and only five of them debuffed 50%.
00:41:41
Speaker
that is such good game design isn't it perfect perfect coin flip game design let's go rng
00:41:50
Speaker
You have to see it. But yeah, I mean, there's, there's so much we could say about the team here. Uh, inadequate said the third best battle efficiency rating of the season at 69%, which, which is pretty nice. He only played 69% of the total battles that he would have needed to play. Doon bug has the second best at 67% efficiency. And I think we all know who the number one, 100% win rate efficiency rating belongs to. I'll let everybody comment which trainer that is.
00:42:17
Speaker
But, um, yeah, and he also has the third best win rate of any regional champion holding an 89% win rate throughout all of his battles. And he controlled switch advantage in games one through five of the grand finals, arguably game six as well, but Pablo switched in his sand slash to snipe the gear Tina. So debatable.
00:42:36
Speaker
Overall, I love that we have the stats to back up how it felt, because some of it is also just the eye test in terms of dominance. I think the most impressive and most publicly discussed example is the CMP catch, where he managed to, in the grand finals,
00:43:00
Speaker
not only catch an Exorc from Pablo's Charger Bug onto his Giratina, which was at very low HP, like probably it won't switch away from fainting, but he also had a Shadow Ball loaded, and to actually secure not only the CMP, not only the catch, but also the charge move priority,
00:43:24
Speaker
you need to basically wait a turn and then swap and then press the button. So the moment of charge attack activation is precisely aligned because, oh yeah, switching also takes a turn. So if you just swap, that will not be the same turn if you just swap the moment Pablo presses the accessor. So this was just really, you don't have any
00:43:52
Speaker
You don't get any help from the game doing that. You just have to be aware of these half seconds and press the right buttons at the right time in the grand finals. Everybody's looking at you. Everybody has these super high expectations. And you just pull off one of the most difficult plays. And yeah, this is just...
00:44:15
Speaker
Like it made it surround some Twitter. I think it definitely also function as an opener to various YouTube videos already. Like that is one of the all time moments of play Pokemon. And I'm just I'm just glad also that not only
00:44:33
Speaker
Not only that, Martijn is a champion, a competitor, but also someone who, through his content, makes it so that more people find out about not only how the game works, but also just how fun it can be and how dramatic the situations can be. Because if you watch a sport, a friend of mine brought that up in the context of PvP earlier today. Shout out to the boy who lived.
00:45:01
Speaker
If you learn a new sport, just the rules of the sport when you watch it, that opens up such a new world because when you do that, you can appreciate all the greatness that happens with the athletes. And content creators like Matain, who
00:45:19
Speaker
make it so that these advanced mechanics are more accessible and easier to understand for more people. Make it so that more people can appreciate the types of plays he makes at those events. And it's like, oh, you have the best of both worlds in that. And yeah, this was one of the most impressive runs and we get to see all the videos about it. And I'm honestly happy because that's just a good way to grow the competitive scene, to have those highlights showcased like that.
00:45:47
Speaker
It's such a difficult thing to showcase, right? Because if you look at, uh, you know, maybe you're playing a video game and you, you're playing a fighting game and you want a certain combination, you have to press a B, you know, X, Y, AB, or whatever the movement is to get the combination. That's one thing when it's written down. But if you're looking at, you know, like pool, right? If you're trying to make a trick shot in pool, it's, it can be very, very tough to get the right spin on the ball, to get the angle that you want.
00:46:12
Speaker
to get things to bounce just the right way or to ricochet off of each other. The way that Martine does it is he's able to show it to you. It's one of those things that you really don't know unless you're shown. You can see the theory, right? You can see on paper, this is how the turns line up and this is what I should do, but you don't know how to do it until you see it. And I agree with you. I think he does a really good job.
00:46:33
Speaker
of showcasing not just how to win lead and play hard for switch advantage, but when to manipulate your opponent throughout the series, persuade them to bring certain Pokemon or not bring certain Pokemon and then higher level mechanics like the CMP swap in. He had yet another one with town flame versus the dugong versus maxi. And he just had just really, really fine tune things. I think that's what a lot of the best players do is they have
00:46:56
Speaker
They can reach into their bag of tricks and they can pull out whatever tool they need in that moment to win that game. Because if you don't have that CMP switching tool, then that matchup gets a lot harder to win. And I think Martin just put it all on the board, right? He just laid everything out.
00:47:12
Speaker
He has so much depth to his game. And I think even in a very recent episode, I called him out as one example for a player who just does stuff that goes above and beyond.
Spotlight on Lesser-known Players
00:47:24
Speaker
And I love that that was put into practice in such an exciting way. And yeah.
00:47:32
Speaker
Two other trainers that I want to highlight from the overall Utrecht top card are actually Dana, who is a Swedish barber. And I actually looked through some of the competitors' placements in tournaments, and Dana actually never finished worse than 25th.
00:47:54
Speaker
And he played more than half a dozen tournaments already. This is somebody who I feel like is a little under the radar, just because the Scandinavian battles don't make it to that many tournaments compared to more and more central European people. But I've rarely ever seen such a consistency on that level. And yeah, one of the few people who didn't go for Mantine, but for the more cultured Mantine and Pelipper,
00:48:19
Speaker
I was just I was just going to say you're so biased. You're so biased. You pick the one developer player in top 16 and you're like, oh, let me talk about Don. Oh, yeah. So talented. And that's not to say he's not right. Obviously, he's absolutely insane and really good at the game. But I just think it's it's very poetic that you chose the developer player.
00:48:40
Speaker
It's a championship-winning Pokemon, what can I say? Another one, another player, I want to shout out. No Pelopon on their team, but no Malhein. He only played three tournaments in his entire play Pokemon career.
00:48:56
Speaker
And to my understanding, he is just the most local Utrecht local there is. So this is actually like, he would be the hometown kid. Like, an eloquence is from the Netherlands, but he lives in Rotterdam. He doesn't even live in Utrecht. It's his country, but it's not technically his city.
00:49:13
Speaker
but normal Heine made top card last year in Utrecht, top card again, and this time with the spicy shadow gold art, which I think was the closest thing to actually overcome Marzhein and his plays, because this spicy pick with the shadowball coverage for the Gerotino, with the charm resist against the Wigglytuff,
00:49:39
Speaker
And it's just so difficult to deal with. So huge shout-outs to normal Hind for actually daring to bring a Pokémon of that caliber, which I have never seen in play Pokémon outside of fringe Japanese top battlers who always use different stuff. It's its own category, basically. But piloting Shadow Golda to a third-place medal,
00:50:07
Speaker
Uniquely impressive. I love it. In certain situations, I think it was Martine's first encounter with normal hind in day two when he knocked him down to the loser's bracket. Shadow Golbat just ran wild. And it was so oppressive. It faced off against the Giratina origin form and the Vigoroth. And it fired off like something like five or six different poison fangs. And by the time the charge bug finally came out after Golbat had just melted inadequences Pokemon,
00:50:34
Speaker
Inadequences looked across the stage and said, yeah, you got me. There's nothing I can do against the charge bug, but, uh, so I was, I'm going to make a bold accusation here. I'm going to accuse you of deceiving our listeners. Do you know why? Uh, I do not know. The reason is because, yes, you're right. Normal Hein has participated in Utrecht as a, a local, right? A hometown hero. He participated last year as well, finishing in ninth place.
00:51:03
Speaker
and on his team of six was also Pelipper. Come on, Swylus, you think you think you're gonna fool us? You can't fool us. Okay, okay, okay, you got me, you got me.
00:51:14
Speaker
But who doesn't love a bit of Pelipper propaganda? It's such a good Pokemon. Secret Agenda uncovered. The Pelipper Agenda. I see. I see. But no, in all seriousness, yeah, Normalheim was really, really fun to watch. Very, very talented trainer. And finishing third overall, not only with the Shadow Golbat, but also the Shadow Poliwrath. Are people still playing that Pokemon?
00:51:37
Speaker
I think they will again, but we can discuss that once we move away from Utrecht and towards the world of wonders, which will be the new method that we'll have to figure out over the upcoming months.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think the last thing that I wanted to touch on in regards to the tournament, and we can do this before or after because it's kind of outside of the battles, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the new caster that joined the roster. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We briefly touched on that at the very beginning of this podcast, and I made this little joke at your expense.
00:52:15
Speaker
There were a lot of jokes at each other's expense when Tomahawk2k made his caster debut alongside his Liverpool grand finals arrival, Nighttime Flasher. And those two guys who basically started off the entire North America versus Europe feud.
00:52:37
Speaker
I loved it. I loved it. It was so different. Not to say that any of the other castes either in Europe or North America that we have are worse. But I don't think anyone has ever made an effort to be that entertaining in just like a way where they could just
00:53:01
Speaker
I think the Brits call it banter. I think just relentlessly making fun of each other, but it's never mean-spirited. And it just really contributes to the overall entertainment while not distracting too much from the actual knowledge and insight offered by the two. Because both of them, obviously, they met in a grand final.
00:53:22
Speaker
They're insanely knowledgeable and I do think they had a very, very entertaining and enjoyable dynamic between the two of them.
00:53:35
Speaker
Even when Nighttime Clasher went on a tangent, just talking about the knowledge he has on the game and specific matchups, there was always a tomahawk to just say, Eric, just stop talking. I remember that. And it got right back to the action. So they actually managed to balance each other out fairly well. I love their shenanigans. I want to see more of it. I want to hear more of it.
00:54:04
Speaker
Definitely, definitely. Tomahawk, very good with words. Love the guy. But this duo, probably even better than just this singular edition.
00:54:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think Nighttime Clasher is the kind of person who, at least in my perspective, you go to a party and you think, oh yeah, you know, this guy's cool. He's pretty casual. He's very easy going. And then you step into his arena, right? You step into an area that he knows a lot about. Maybe you challenge him to a chess match, for example, and you sit down across the board and you just get absolutely annihilated, just destroyed in pieces, right?
00:54:45
Speaker
And I feel like nighttime classroom is that way. He's very easy going, but he's so committed and so hard driven to really learn about what he wants to do and delve into the topics a lot deeper than a lot of people think. His insights and his knowledge kind of go under the radar, in my opinion, right? Because he'll say, oh, town flame up energy. There's just no answer for that on so-and-so's team.
00:55:07
Speaker
And that's like a high-level read that not a lot of trainers think. They think in solid match-ups, right? And then you pair that with somebody like Tomahawk, who Tomahawk is incredibly suave, right? He comes in, looks great, beard looks incredible, right? Hair looks great, suit looks tailored. You know, he looks like he's out of a men's fashion magazine, right? He looks awesome. And then he matches that with what he says, right? He's got great insights.
00:55:32
Speaker
He's got great play-by-play commentary. His color commentary between the matches I thought was also really good. Tomahawk, in my personal opinion, might be one of the highest floor casters that we've seen in a long time added to the team. I feel like if you put Tomahawk on the cast this week or next week, or if you just wake him up in the morning and tell him to cast a match, he would still be solid no matter what.
00:55:53
Speaker
And I think that he really hit the ground running. I can definitely see inspiration from other casters kind of picked, you know, pieces here and there all assembled into this really awesome product. And, uh, honestly, as a casting debut, I was super impressed, super impressed with Tomahawk. And when you, when you pair that very suave, you know, confident demeanor with nighttime clasher, who you just want to sit down and have a beer with.
00:56:17
Speaker
It's just the best, the best combo, right? I agree with you. It was really fun. Um, I think there was one point where nighttime classroom said, yeah, he's still got like a tongue in the back. And Tom Hock says, Eric, are you watching the same game that I'm watching? What are you talking about? Anyway, here we go. It was just so good. It's so, so natural, right?
00:56:38
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. You just need a very quick, you need to be quick on your feet to just adapt to the situation, be engaging towards your co-cast serve and also just always get the audience involved. And if you have those moments where you just
00:56:59
Speaker
Not only, like if you talk just about the game, it can become background noise really quickly because everybody's just watching the game and just feels like subtitles. But the way they too just had their back and forth, I really, really enjoyed it.
00:57:14
Speaker
So there was one critique and I see this in your notes and honestly, I agree with you and I'm just, I'm just going to just start it off.
Caster Dynamic and Entertainment Value
00:57:22
Speaker
The only thing I can point out is that they, they called out the boost button way too much. They did way too much.
00:57:31
Speaker
I want to introduce a boost button button so they can press the button once and then they can mention the boost button but they only get to do that once per day. Agreed. And it should be on the caster desk and we should flip the camera to them and then you slam the button. That's so much better. They should have buttons for everything. Catch. Just physically press a button to activate this effect.
00:57:55
Speaker
Yeah. Press, press the button for make fun of nighttime clasher. Bam. There we go. But now I agree. I think honestly, whenever I think about the regional championships and the tournament and the, and the casting and the tournament broadcasts, I think there are new players that are watching this that have no idea how PPP works. Let's not make it more complicated for them.
00:58:16
Speaker
And I know it sounds silly, right? It's like, it's like when you see a meme online and somebody says, Hey, I have a power outlet. And somebody says, yeah, stick something metal in it. It's a joke, right? Cause it's obviously not going to turn out well for that other person, but I feel like maybe it's the innocent part of me. I feel like if you keep on mentioning the boost button, so people are going to get frustrated. They're like, I fired off six night slashes and the boost button didn't show up on my screen a single time. What am I doing wrong? I don't know if you were thinking that way as well as wireless, or maybe it just annoyed you in general.
00:58:43
Speaker
I think that this is actually a point that is absolutely fair to make because this is kind of what we want those broadcasts for, not only to entertain the audience that is already totally into play Pokemon and super engaged,
00:59:03
Speaker
but also just people that maybe watch it for the first or for the second time and still want to develop an understanding of the mechanics. And yeah, like if you just overuse it in a way, like they've probably talked about the boost button about as much as they've talked about the rectangle whisk cache. So like a naive viewer might just assume that this is a thing and it is not a thing. Don't be fooled by those guys.
00:59:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Don't be fooled by them or as wireless picking all of the Pelipper players. All right. There, there's the method, a method to the madness, but, uh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Are you, are you like, is, are you paid by big whisk cache or something?
00:59:49
Speaker
Big bucks, big, big daddy cash. Yeah. Yeah. The daddy cash, you've got the daddy cash. Yeah. Don't look at my PayPal in the recent transactions. Okay. Okay. Just don't worry about that. But, but in all seriousness, it just felt like the perfect combination, right? You had nighttime clasher and Tomahawk casting the grand finals. You had Mar time winning it all.
01:00:08
Speaker
And, um, a lot of the eloquent things were said, right? I made a, I made a post about it on X. Uh, Martine's a man that does everything for the community, right? He really gives himself over to all the community and finds ways, like we talked about earlier, to help people understand the game, to get them introduced to it, to help show the depth of the game and what's possible.
01:00:26
Speaker
And he's really relentless with what he does. Right. I respect it a lot. And I feel like as well, other quotes like these aren't his friends, these are his family. I think that was also a really powerful, powerful moment. I'm sure Martin teared up watching back the broadcast because, you know, I've got a couple of myths in my eyes, too. So I'm sure he was, you know, sobbing. But but that being said, he deserves it all. I thought the cast was really, really outstanding. Obviously, Amanda was great as well. And so technical. He's the goat. Right. So you can't go against him.
01:00:56
Speaker
But, uh, yeah, I thought it was an incredible tournament broadcast. It was, it was 100%. Well, so I, we are headed into the world of a wonder season. I think we should talk about that meta a bit and then maybe give everybody an update on the championship series and, uh, how long they have to gain points. What do you think?
Upcoming Tournament Predictions
01:01:17
Speaker
Let's do it. Let's do it. I love to talk about the meta because there's what we're here for. This is what UIC will be played in, which is only a month from now. But yeah, the next upcoming original championship will be held in Goyanya, Brazil. So I looked it up. I looked it up online. I won't take credit for this. It's pronounced Go-ani. Go-ani.
01:01:43
Speaker
Yes, but I always every time every time is why I have to I have to I have to write that somewhere I just copy paste from either document because I don't know how to get those symbols above those characters I don't know how to do that on a keyboard because Portuguese is such an interesting language But as far as I understand maybe hard JFR just meanest can you correct me? But I think it's go on he's how you pronounce it. I will go on and say it like that from now on So yeah
01:02:12
Speaker
I think we should talk about, um, at least for Pokemon that might make an impact. Um, just, just very briefly, like I will, I will just, um, hit you with the Pokemon and you will, um, tell me your opinion potentially. All right. What do you think? There will be two in the top eight. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
01:02:37
Speaker
I personally played it in GBL a little bit, and I really enjoyed it. I do think the power whip really comes in handy when you have a shield-style whiskers, closing scenarios, and Gudra just has a bulk to it that many other dragons do not have. So I can see it half play, but I actually don't think it will even top cut in Goani. I will tell you later why I think that.
01:03:07
Speaker
Um, and Paul John shadow on our channel. I feel like the jury is still out on that one. I tried it and go battle league and I didn't like it. I thought I would like it, but, uh, it's just not bulky enough. I think that you have to go regular and poly on if you're going to go that route. And I think the pacing is an upgrade. It's, it's basically the same pacing as Venus or with vine, whip and frenzy plant. You get a six, six, five to the hydro cannons, which is an upgrade, but it's still not as fast as Gator.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, I personally think that Empollyon is going to be a limited meta Titan. I do think it will be very strong in those GBLF formats that allow it. And it is a water type that can really put a hurt on the grasses because of the steel sub timing and because of the way it paces really quickly to Drill Pack.
01:03:56
Speaker
Um, but there's not many grass in the meta currently. So I don't actually think that Napoleon will see that many targets, especially because you want to be careful with both your counter and your charge bug weaknesses. Agreed. Um, so let's move on to a Pokemon that, um, shares a typing with a previous staple, um, shadow Gallade, the new better improved meta gem. What did you say earlier? It's a limited meta Titan. I feel the same way about Gallade.
01:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, that might be true. I don't think it's viable Open Great League spies, maybe on the fringes of the meta even. But you really need to set it up well. If you can surprise your opponent and just keep a shield advantage, I think it can do really, it can do a lot of work in a blind format. But when the opponent knows that there is the threat of a shadow galade,
01:04:51
Speaker
um they can just keep two shields and its two shield matchups are just horrendous it doesn't have any fast move pressure anymore and um it just has like
01:05:01
Speaker
Anything with fast move pressure basically melts it in the tooth, and you're just really out of luck if you are the Galade in that situation. Exactly. Looking at the top usage from Utrecht, and I just don't see Shadow Galade performing very well, and then you're also introducing Pokémon like Shadow for Alligator, whom I'm sure we'll get to. It just seems really tough for Galade. Exactly. That would be my very last question to you. What do you think about the Gator?
01:05:30
Speaker
The Gator is going to be meta. I think that eight of the top 16 teams will all have Gator and it'll be shadow. I would honestly not be surprised. I do think Gator is hard meta and it will cause the most noticeable shift in the meta going forward, in my opinion. That being
01:05:53
Speaker
Mainly Pokemon that either have fast move pressure against it, or Pokemon that resist ghost type damage. Because between Feraligatr and the Ubiquitous Lickitung, I do think there's just Pokemon that
01:06:12
Speaker
do a lot of the damage they do through a lick or shadow claw so I can actually see either other normal types or even dark types being really popular. I feel like I'll take this to segue into my
01:06:30
Speaker
my caster's pick for the upcoming tournament, which would actually be Gaslord. I do think Gaslord is uniquely well positioned currently, because it's quite the hard, the guitar answer. It does have to fear the Ice Beam from Shadowfur Alligator, but
01:06:50
Speaker
If you play your cards right, you just come out with a lot of health and a lot of energy. You have win conditions against Charger Buck, especially when shields are up. You have the option to, even though an ILA is technically a really bad matchup,
01:07:06
Speaker
to tank the energy from a low health annihilate when Dragon Tail down. There is so much flexible play that Gas Lord has, and among the dragon picks, it is probably next to Gudrud, the bulkiest option. So I could really see the Gas Lord do well, especially if Cresselia sticks with Grass Lord in Future Sight.
01:07:29
Speaker
I don't want to say you stole my pick Silas, but it feels like you might have no, but, but, uh, but seriously, yeah, I think Guzzlord is definitely well positioned. If you look at the other meta staples, right? A lot of Pokemon that we had in timeless travels that were very prominent, whether it be lantern or Gligar or, uh, whisk hash, or maybe even, you know, in shield shooting scenarios, you can look at charge bug. Those are all Pokemon that Guzzlord can beat. Um, but I think I'm going to counter your point. I'll counter your point and then I'll give you my caster pick.
01:07:57
Speaker
So my counterpoint is that I think the introduction of shadow for alligator is going to have a gravity effect that's going to pull in more figure off and more polywrath. And I think that those two Pokemon, both being counter users and both giving gazord a hard time are going to push that Pokemon a little bit more to the fringes. So if you are going to team build around gazord, I think it's possible, especially after seeing Marta and team build around guillotine origin form. I think you can team build around anything if you're as talented as him.
01:08:27
Speaker
So maybe Guzlord will work. However, I do think the environment is going to get a little bit tougher for it. So that being said, my caster pick, I already called it out before I said there were going to be two in the top eight. I think Gudra is definitely going to have an outsized impact because like you said, bulkier than most dragons, maybe only second to Guzlord, but it's ability to kind of straddle so many match ups, whether it be Gligar or Wiscash.
01:08:54
Speaker
And also just Dragon Breath through so many things. Obviously you have to team build with Pokemon like Wigglytuff in mind, who Scaffo and Martine ran. You have to team build in mind with Registeal and Skarmory. I think those are probably the biggest three that you need to look out for. But hey, what if you did Gujur Talonflame? That could be a really fun core.
01:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Dragon and Fire are really complementing each other well. I would be here for a Gudra meta. I have a shiny Gudra build. Really proud of this. It doesn't have great IVs, but it is shiny. It's a very beautiful shiny at that.
01:09:33
Speaker
So yeah, give us all the Gudra action. Brazil is historically a place where dragons can shine. Just remember Zadi and his Shadow Dragonaire. So I would not be opposed to that at all. I just don't think that Gudra is going to
Impact of Dragon Types in Future Tournaments
01:09:51
Speaker
be the one. I think it's Ghazalor.
01:09:53
Speaker
Well, I do appreciate that we both pick dragons and I do appreciate that we both pick dragons that are a little bit fringe, a little bit of an interesting dynamic with some of their matchups. We're going to see what happens. I'm curious as well, everybody that's listening. I know we don't have like a YouTube format yet where people can comment directly, but I would love to see people comment maybe on this post if you've gotten this far. Which Pokemon you think will be a big upset or a huge kind of impact player in Goani? I'm really excited to hear that.
01:10:20
Speaker
But is there anything else that you wanted to touch on before we wrap up this week's episode? Maybe, oh, championship points. Oh yeah. I definitely saw a Twitter post from FlyingPizza that he actually qualified for Worlds. Let's go Pizza. But I'm not as in the loop currently about
01:10:43
Speaker
potential other trainers that might have made it. I think Scarfo definitely must have made it through Utrecht, so that is exciting. He was our best European the last time the World Championships were held, so that is something good news for Team EU.
Championship Standings Update
01:11:02
Speaker
It's true. What I'm interested in personally, I'm interested to see how the travel award race begins to play out. I don't have all the details in front of me, but maybe we can discuss that next time. But I'm really excited to see because if you look at the global leaderboards Doonbug in first place with 957 points.
01:11:21
Speaker
And this is a big shocker, right? We just saw him casting nighttime clasher in second place with 856 points. How the heck is able to do that? Top card. And I see remember LAIC nighttime clasher was there. He's everywhere.
01:11:37
Speaker
It's true. He's kind of across the Atlantic, whatever he needs to be, needs to be, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Pat's a man still leading the field for Europe with a colon and a mind joke, not far behind him. Nobody has, or dethroned, I should say, nobody has dethroned Harjef.
01:11:55
Speaker
in the latin, but Andrew Minarez is close and Javier V 20 is right on his heels. Yaco with 400 points is the leader in the APEC region as well. So really interested to see how this continues to shake out and, uh, which trainers make it to worlds.
01:12:12
Speaker
There's still so many more opportunities, especially during the season. After that, it will only be Bologna and NAIC. So yeah, the World of Wonders will determine a lot of our next world's competitors, so I'm here for it.
01:12:31
Speaker
Make sure to get those local cups and challenges in. It looks like there were 93 days as of the publication of this episode. I remember when there was 120, 130 days, there's only 93 days to get championship points, basically three months to get points to qualify for the world championships. So make sure to do your cups and locals and do your best at those as well. Maybe even in preparation for regional, right? Yes.
01:12:54
Speaker
But yeah, so it's been a really fun one. Was there anything else that I missed? Anything else that we should touch on? I would say we covered all the bases. And if we didn't, we can just touch on it in next week's episode.
01:13:07
Speaker
Next week, right after GoAni, I think that we'll also give our thoughts on the upcoming Go Fest. We'll talk a little bit more about the meta, especially after we have a very informed look at it because, uh, you know, I published a team graphic Martine did as well. We're kind of speculating what's going to happen, but we never know until tournament actually goes down. So really just interested to see what all of our Brazilian trainers and trainers from outside of Brazil coming to GoAni decide to bring. It's going to be a really fun stream. I'm going to watch that. I think Copag is producing it.
01:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen the Castor's announcement and Elenia Squizal was actually casting. So that is one of the many, many talented trainers that now make their first appearance behind the Castor's desks. While I will not be able to understand it, unfortunately, because I'm limited to German and English, I will still be tuning in and watching those incredible battles.
01:14:03
Speaker
Right. Even if you don't speak the language, the battles speak for themselves. Well, that being said, so I think we're about ready to wrap up. It's been an honor. It's been a pleasure. Another European champion has been crowned. A lot of ambitions to come over to the US and take over NAIC. We'll see what happens. All right. You need to lock down EUIC first. All right. Don't get ahead of yourself. The Europeans need to win in London first. Just wait and see. Just wait and see.
01:14:28
Speaker
All right. I'm waiting. All right. Sorry. I hope you have a good rest of your night and everybody listening. We'll see you next time.