We Played Pokemon Champions - Kinda Funny Gamescast!

0:00Ready, set, co-gate your Toyota today with great deals on your favorite SUVs at your local Toyota dealer, like the all-new 2026 RAV4 or Spacious Grand Islander. Visit Toyota.com for more Toyota Let's Go Places Now at the Home Depot, receive 12 months special financing and free basic installation on carpet projects with life proof, life proof with petproof technology, home decorators collection, and traffic master carpets. Bring a new look to your floors, or give them a durable surface that stands up to life's tough messes. Get 12 months special financing on installed carpet projects right now at the Home Depot. Offer valid March 12th or March 29th, 2026, exclusions and additional charges may apply for licenses at Home Depot.com slash license numbers. This episode is brought to you by Whitecloth Surge. Nice choice, hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving in and tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like Whitecloth Surge, it's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the nights just begun with bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume unleashed the night.

1:06Unleashed Whitecloth Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard Celter with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. Whitecloth Celter works, Chicago, Illinois. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking. She even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, March 25th, 2026. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes, 30 under 30, AKA New York Game Awards nominated, AKA Jacket Poppy, Blessing, Eddie O'Yea, Jr.

2:10Good day, Greg. Good day to you. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? I am excellent. Excellent. Oh yeah. Wow. Formerly, Forbes under 30 or 30. Now just Samir's father at Tim Gettys. Yes. We got Tim here and he's in a great shirt. But more importantly, I haven't told you yet that in yesterday, we previewed Tomo Dachi life right now. I made you in the game. They knew that. Yeah. But at one point, me who remained redacted needed your name and they started calling you Poppy. And I think you'll like it. Oh, that's cool. I love that. Exactly. And then joining the group from GameSpot is Jake Deckard. Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. That is an absolute pleasure to be here. We love to talk about Pokemon. We love having you here to talk Pokemon. You know what I mean? Because you and blessing got to go play Pokemon champions. We did so Joe. Yes. We battled each other too. We battled you and like I felt that as Jake Deckard from GameSpot. It was one lesson. We're like, I loosely knew that Jake was into Pokemon competitive and then he reaffirmed it when I asked him, like, oh, how much are you looking forward to this? He's like, dude, up and this is something I've been waiting a long time for.

3:12I was like, damn. And then they ushered us into the room and they warned us. They're like, whatever you sit across from, that's the person you're going to battle. And I was like, Jake, get over here. Jake, we're going to battle. I can't wait to dive in. Jake, your preview on GameSpot is excellent. If you want to go check it out, GameSpot.com title, Pokemon champions is something we've needed for a long time. I like this graph from it. Based on my limited hands on time with champions, it's hard to say if it will be the end-all-be-all of turn-based Pokemon battles. But what I can say is that champions is something that Pokemon community has sorely needed for a long time. It shatters the barrier of entry for competitive Pokemon while keeping most of the depth intact. And it provides clear tutorials that onboard players into the more technical aspects of battling. Perhaps the best thing about it, though, is that you can obtain, train, and battle with a new Pokemon in minutes. I want to know so much about this game. But first, of course, this is the kind of funny gamescast each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games. Whether they be previews, reviews, or just things we need to talk about.

4:12Of course, if you like that, be part of the show. Watch live, youtube.com slash kind of funny games where you can super chat your questions about Pokemon champions. So we can get those answered from our panel of experts. Of course, I am just the new voice of Pokemon. You guys know Pokemon champions. And tape is washed. It's washed. I hate it so much. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Listen to the show, what is and forever will be the Rapper report. No. Top of the show. Stuck,иц,Men. Stuck,sut,suts,sut,suts,I'm right back to back, it's so hard. I know. Break the river. You donít know. You know what I mean, and I love it. Like when you bring the roper report here no we can do it too. My contract says I can only do it for games next. I appreciate that. Of course, your top of the show is the Pokemon Champions preview. If you've been living under a rock Neges official description is Battle with Pokemon against other players in the Pokemon Champions Game. single and double battles use familiar mechanics from previous Pokemon series games such as Pokemon

5:16types abilities and moves enabling the rich and varied battle strategies you may already know and love. It is coming April 8th the Nintendo Switch mobile devices later this year when Nintendo continues to make a gigantic big deal about is that this will be the primary platform for the video game championships at all play. Pokemon premiere events beginning with the Indianapolis regionals from May 29th to 31st ahead of its debut on the main stage at the 2026 Pokemon World championships in August. Where Timothy San Francisco that's right right here baby can't wait on top of all that we'll get into this but there is the base game and then there will be Pokemon champions plus starter pack that will launch on April 8th on the Nintendo e shop that includes the base game and additional in game bonuses that support early progression. I wanted to know how much you guys know about that the pay to win out here for champions I'm not a fan of and of course if you have a switch to the switch to you can look forward to an enhanced visual performance for Pokemon champions by downloading a free update on April 8th. I've said everything I need to say

6:18to get all of this out there blessing yes we sent you to Pokemon HQ up north yes tell me about that up in Bellevue which is really cool they didn't let us take any pictures except for in the in the lobby area but obviously Pokemon company there's a lot more to the office that they're like they're very secretive right like hey don't even take selfies don't take any videos like if you want to take picture you can take it by this Pikachu over here but that was really cool I I feel like it's always we go to video game studios all the time but I feel like it's always cool when you go to something that's Nintendo because Nintendo it feels like more of a rarity that feels like more of a or my I might never come back here again I got a chair show on here so that was fun but yes of course we got to go to check out Pokemon champions and I think you set it up really well in so much of that specifically when you bring up in Jake's preview where Jake mentions it shatters the barrier of entry for poke for competitive Pokemon I'll keep him most of the depth intact right that shattering the barrier of entry is the part that's most important for me because one of the reasons why I'm really happy to have Jake here is Jake is way more hardcore into Pokemon competitive I am

7:23somebody who loves Pokemon and I am I'm competitive curious you know what I mean like I'm somebody who I like the idea of getting into the hardcore aspects of it but I feel like the Pokemon games have never really been about that you know what I mean like I'm playing Pokemon leaf green right now and I don't really have to think that hard about the movesets I have in Pokemon leaf green even as a kid I came up playing so much Pokemon stadiums one into and those games did get hard but like that's another one where it's like I never really felt like I that was you know putting me into that competitive PVP like you know I'm I'm turning it ready style Pokemon player and so can I interject to go for it as the new voice of Pokemon here happy to carry this crown to him you know what I mean you did a great job for a long time I'm happy to be I was quoting so many articles for the 30th anniversary I'm the same thing and if you remember I got laughed at on our shows because I've done a Greg where I was like man all of a sudden violence kick in my ass I was like Pokemon you stupid idiot and I was like I've never had to think about matchups I've never had actually think about moves strategies in any of the other Pokemon's I've played to that even like I remember

8:27there's a joke that Andy likes to talk about where you know you're creating your Pokemon moveset and like you look at a growl and it's like why do I have growl here like that I'll put in like a quick attacker like a flamethrower or something you know all my moves for all my Pokemon are like offensive moves which is you know not the way that I think a true competitive game would work right you want to have these moves like protect or whatever it is that I don't really get to think about and so Pokemon champions has been exciting for me for the prospect of having an accessible way to play Pokemon competitively against people in a way that's official and it is just download and play during our time with it we got to play about an hour of Pokemon champions started off with the tutorial that breaks down very basic mechanics but like it seems like there's some more intricate stuff that's in there that I'm excited to get into because again like there are some mechanics I don't often think about right like things like special attack that I actually do think about sometimes but like there's more depth there that I'm sure Jake would be able to get

9:28into we did the tutorials we then recruited Pokemon and then we battled I had a fun time with it I'm very much looking forward to this game coming out for basically the reasons of I like the idea of having a way to just jump in and be able to battle Pokemon against each other so I'm positive on the get go to jump in you did miss an important step we recruited Pokemon train them and then battle yes so traditionally if you wanted to do something like that say charizard you know you start with your charizard and you want to train it competitively that could take hours that could take an incredibly long time in order to get the stats how you want them in order to get the right IVs if you're resetting to get the right nature there's all these different grindy aspects that I would say like with newer releases it's gotten easier and easier but if you're still not into competitive and you decide to get in with scarlet and violet there's still hours and hours and hours of onboarding that you need to do and that's not even counting like the money you might have to spend in order to get legendary Pokemon from the other game that you don't have in the game in order to

10:32catch it there's all these different steps that you need to go through before you can actually battle and the other thing is too is like so you build your team you go through all that work you battle you realize it doesn't work and then you can't just like there are ways they're getting better about ways to reset your stats and sort of change things around but that still takes time and resources and energy and the way that like Pokemon champion seems to me is competitive Pokemon is like a full-time job champions seems like it could be a part-time job that's a good way to which may sound really good way to put it's a lot more fun than a job but there is a lot of time you need to invest in order to like fully understand how competitive works and now obviously don't need to like put you know you don't need to invest as much as some of these pro players in order to enjoy the competitive side but I feel like to get that base knowledge and those base teams ready takes a lot yes I think that full-time versus part-time thing is such a really really great way to put it one of the things that I came out of this game thinking about was Magic Arena playing

11:33else right before this we were talking about if you're awake if you're awake if I think about Magic Arena right but right before this me and Jake were talking about Magic and Magic Arena is a mobile slash PC title where you can just like get into matches the gathering matches against people online you collect cards you play online but it's a way if you're just like trying to get into the competitive thing quicker online that's the app for it this feels like in ways like it's Magic Arena for Pokemon where it's a way to recruit Pokemon or import them from Pokemon home build a team make it easy use your VP which is kind of like the currency in the game those you're I believe victory points is what that stands for use that to adjust your skills and like adjust your abilities and all that stuff and then go in there and battle Pokemon in ranked or unranked modes right it feels very like straight to the point and straightforward in a way that I don't know is going to appeal to the large amount of Pokemon fans like this feels like such a more niche Pokemon product which is funny because you think of battles as being one of the main things in Pokemon but battles in a weird way can't get hardcore like when I when I battle against Jake

12:37right in my mind I'm like all right well we recruited like four Pokemon we're creating these teams of six right like there's only so much that a hardcore player can do against me like we're on the same thing he just clown you I have to imagine he set up like tailwind turn one and then just swept through everything I felt bad yeah but it was fun though is like for me that was the proof of the pudding of like oh if you're good at Pokemon like there is a such thing is oh you're fucking great at Pokemon like you know what you're doing but Jake I'm curious to hear more of your top level thoughts but I think to your point I'm really curious to see how much of the audience actually wants to get invested in competitive Pokemon and this side of Pokemon like yes sure it's much easier and there are all these quality of life things and these in these these things that make it more approachable but like to your point like how many people actually want to get that invested into the competitive side I think a lot I really you know as a lifelong Pokemon fan and and somebody that like as played these games they're such a big part of

13:38my life like I similarly what blesses saying it's like I played these games I catch them all I I do the battles I know how to beat the games but I don't know how to actually be good at the games and it's always surprised me how much the games are not the games at all they don't tell you all the stuff you're talking about the setting up tailwind and all that it's like that's they don't ever explain it they don't explain ivies they don't explain ivies they don't explain how to explain like special physical attachments and like pretty much any game they just don't explain that is so core important and and so I I've never really been into the the VGC side of it in that way because of how daunting it all was but the closest I got was with Scarlet Inviolet this generation because I got so into that game and I did everything that game had to offer including a lot of the raids and the raids were incredibly yes difficult like they were it's like the hardest things I've ever done in a Pokemon game by far and if you have the EV train right you have the EV train had to

14:39like what is it showbell for all that stuff helping hand and it's like I started playing Pokemon on a level I've never played and it it made me realize like I just I knew oh ivies evies I don't really know what they were but I knew they were a thing I learned what it's like way dashing smash you know what I mean yeah exactly right I remember when I remember learning about wave dashing the smash like maybe five years ago and being like whoa that's a thing and last week when we went to Bellevue that's when I learned what an ivy was I had never heard of an ivy so I want to stop them so I don't know what an ivy is I don't know what's going on in my question before you take it even just the top level did the tutorials teach you or did Jake teach you like what like what did the game they so the way they set it up we didn't actually get to play through all the tutorials they're like four specific tutorials they wanted us to play and honestly they're basic they were so they brain dead yeah they're all like this is how you poke them on battle and I'm like brother I'm here like honestly where's they put us into some more of the advanced advanced stuff and so it was from Jake that I was hearing about ivies to we should make it clear ivies aren't in the game yes was a big deal for Jake yeah that is that is a question I asked

15:41thinking I wouldn't get an answer because the competitive side has been so like up in arms about whether or not ivies will be in the game so I'm like I'll ask and the director straight up said they're not in there but for those who don't know ivies are basically like stats that a pokemon is born with that affect I don't know if they necessarily affect its growth but they kind of affect the stat spread in a way and basically what this would do is it makes it so like you know say we both have a hallucia one of your favorites I know right of course and I have a higher attack ivy than you even though they're the same level maybe they have the same evies we're using the same move mine would still do a little more damage okay okay so it basically makes the same pokemon slightly different in order to kind of make pokemon feel different and for a long time these stats were mostly hidden like in older games players would have to like do tests in order to see what those ivies the science of your research of course yeah later games have actually introduced like whether or not these are good however they don't even give number values they'll just say this ivy is resting right yeah they'll say

16:44this is best this is no good and you know fans of course know what that means number wise but you don't have those numbers I went on that whole rant say they're gone and champ is kind of going to be controversial I think but I think it's the right move I think okay so with my experience with the raids right that opened my eyes to these ivies these devies how do you even train them the the hyper training bottle caps like all the stuff that like would you believe was it a pokemon game it's like you have to do so much stuff that they the game not only doesn't explain to you it's so convoluted like the way to train your pokemon to get to the level to be able to be competitive it is a game to itself you need to look at wikis you need to follow all of these things that like really blew my mind and then you get into it and then the strategies if you once you train them I'm going into these ways I'm just getting my ask it you need to do teamwork you need to understand how your moves are affecting I'd say all this to say I get to the point that for the first time

17:44ivies evies natures abilities these things all manage me yeah can you explain all of those things like just in one sentence what's an ivy what's an ivy what's an ability so as I said ivies are stats pokemon are born with evies are stats that are gained by training throughout the game another way to make each pokemon kind of feel different um despite being the same species natures uh determine like what stats they will grow more efficiently in and usually there's a trade-off so there's one stat it'll grow more efficiently and there's one it won't famous ones are like I think adamant which increases attack and decrease the special attacks if you have an attacker pokemon you don't want to give them that I might be wrong on the exact stat there of what that does and then what else was it natures natures oh no I don't know ability ability and then abilities are uh like they're like passive they're like passive abilities but the thing is is most pokemon have more than one actually I think every pokemon is more than one and some have secret abilities

18:48which before could only be gotten through like very convoluted ways now there's items that actually let you change ability but still that would cost a lot of polka dollars which would mean you have to grind out money in order to make that happen yeah yeah I think I got everything I shot out the ivy stands for individual value and then somebody in chat says evy stands for effort value okay yeah and so to get even more into it so the way effort values work in traditional pokemon games that there's 512 effort values in total a stat can have 256 or 252 I think technically 252 I think is is what it can have I love this by the way I love to keep this oh yeah four evs equal one stat point because it couldn't just be an even amount it had to be had to be this and pokemon champions you just have I think 66 stats that you can divide in each one equals one point in that stat so it gets rid of this whole convoluted sort of system and all these are represented with number values because in the games in the mainline games they are not

19:51represented there's a little graph and you know you've maxed it when it sparkles but if you want to do more complicated spreads like say you want like some in attack some in speed you want some in defense some in this you just have to like keep track of the math as you're giving them vitamins or you're equipping something okay can we can we call Jake kind of funny pokemon professor I'll get him a lab coat for next time next time I'll bring the lab coat one of the things to I really back into pokemon champions the game right one of the things speaking about ivy's evy's and specifically natures and abilities one of the things that I was blown blown away by you know Jake talks about how this game kind of pairs down a lot of like the time you need to put in you can go into a train menu for these pokemon and essentially like move the meters back and forth you can like look at your pokemon's move list and go all right I'm going to take out flamethrower I'm going to put in ember right I'm going to yeah basically choose from the list of moves that that pokemon can learn on the bottom left of that same menu you can change the nature of your pokemon so that your your stats can align in a specific way you see the stat points you can move

20:56those up move those down whether it be HP attack defense special or speed right and like in the abilities as well you can go in there and choose a different ability for your pokemon so you can tweak mix and match in seconds as opposed to your however long it takes like endless like you're just allowed to do all of that or do you need to get these victory points to be able to unlock the stuff to be able to do that so that's the thing I don't think we have like a full grasp on so you absolutely need to use your victory points in order to change manipulate these sort of stats and moves however it's hard to say like how much you get for winning how much you get by completing missions yeah so I don't quite know how the whole economy of it works I would say I don't I mean that's one of the things that's for an hour long preview you know that's impossible kind of get a read on and like I think that's going to be one of the big factors on how people take to this game is how generous is it with the VP because VP is also used for recruiting pokemon permanent oh we got the presser jacket oh yeah perjake so VP again your main currency chat already said it's professor Jake from the spot region so

22:00there we go pokemon professor Jake is in the building VP is your main currency for like buying and purchasing things right um one of the main things we can do with with VP along with all the stat stat adjustment and stuff is recruit pokemon permanently so pokemon recruitment interesting in this game you get one free recruitment a day what happens is that you go to the recruitment 22 hours technically I think I don't know why yeah they're like every 22 hours you get to recruit a new pokemon so and I was like racking my brain trying to figure out why 22 hours and I was like I don't know it's probably some way to like get more like maybe it's like a global we're trying to make it up I don't know that's yeah weird thing how do we recruit so you go to the recruitment you you get you're hanging out for the name of the character but there's a character that's like welcome on it and it's like a farm kind of thing sure sure sure and then um basically 10 pokemon appear in a lineup you can choose one of these pokemon a day for free okay okay um that pokemon is uh as yours for a trial period it's not yours permanently okay however you can recruit pokemon permanently by recruiting via your VP points which is the same thing you spend VP you get these

23:05choices of 10 pokemon you choose one and that is actually now your pokemon now okay so that's one way that you can recruit pokemon and add pokemon to your team the other way to do it would be to import pokemon from pokemon home and of course games compatible with home I assume the latest like pokemon scarlet and violet probably is compatible I don't it's um is is all compatible not yet not yet it should be yeah and like fire red leaf green will eventually be compatible so you put those pokemon and they're coming with their level or well levels are just flat so yeah I think all the stats are based on level 50 pokemon so no matter what level you're thrown it in it should be set to 50 all the style yeah pokemon go as well as compatible with home so like you can import your home pokemon in here uh and then from there yeah you go in and train and make your team and like give them the items and do all that stuff um so that was one of the first things they they showed us as well am I missing anything there for the recruit stuff don't think so there's the starter pack I know they talked about regularly you had um yeah I was wondering what the upsell is up charge if we know

24:05anything like that on it I'm I'm gonna pull up the page because I actually haven't so see I have it but for my page it just says not available I don't know if there's some so I think at the end of the trip they released yesterday the starter pack includes extra box space it's at like 50 plus extra box space it includes some tickets that let you recruit pokemon without using VP and some tickets to change stats um and I think some like extra battle music I don't think they've announced a price at least in the United States um they have in Japan and I've seen people try to convert the yen into the dollar to see how much is going to cost but I don't think that's very accurate given like how different are I got it you know like I wouldn't I wouldn't take that as the one to one yeah are all pokemon created equal like getting rid of the IVs here so if you have a Pikachu that you're recruiting from champions versus a Pikachu that you are taking from home and putting in is essentially the it's level 50 they're just like making everybody equal there but could too Pikachu be different even if you make all the same stat changes I they should be the same

25:11okay still I think um so like no matter where you take it from I'm pretty sure they will all be set to sort of the same level same stats I think their EVs might be different depending on how you train them in the game uh and like their moves will be different their abilities could be different but in terms of like stats they should be the same from what I understand I want to keep going with the preview I want to get this super chat and remember super chat in youtube.com slash kind of funny games fill the trucker says my first shift from casual pokemon to entry level competitive uh was the card game on iOS and I'm excited to get into competitive battles outside of the card game and I think that's what's interesting to the top of this is going to bring in more people as I'm interested to go in here and learn pokemon from a new perspective I wonder if I will ever be good enough that if we're just sitting around here like playing if I'd actually be able to hang with anybody but I'm excited to try I'm excited to learn I'm excited to at least do the tutorials and then take that information back to the other pokemon games I play and try to do that against the computer and school their ass like I'm sure Jake does but before we talk anymore I want to remind

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28:23you can get Disney plus and hulu for just 499 a month for three months with a special limit to time offer ends March 24th after three months plan auto renews at 1299 a month terms apply and we're back Tim yes what you got to say so all this VP stuff a little concerning we don't know the numbers we don't know how much it's all going to cost it sounds like it could get predatory pretty quickly just making assumptions here but I'm a little concerned why wouldn't I just take my my Pokemon from Pokemon home and just put them in there not worry about any of that I could question so you could totally do that it seems so as long as that Pokemon can be used in Pokemon champions like we we don't exactly know the roster Pokemon that'll be available on champions I see hall lucha uh I think I lucha is one of the trailers yeah I think that'll kind of be the equalizer with people who don't want to pay for all this sort of stuff the thing is though is Pokemon home still cost money so they're like getting you know one way or another right yeah

29:24one of the things to point out too we did a group interview um afterwards with the dev and I forget who was that asked this Jake you might know but somebody asked about um or somebody pointed out that hey the Pokemon that we're seeing in this game they're all final evolution forms are there Pokemon that aren't that are like pre final evolution in in here and they confirm like right now they're final evolutions they don't have that like maybe down the line more Pokemon get added and like it sounds like this is something that's going to be updated it's the life service style thing right but at launch yeah like all these or most of these at least are final evolution Pokemon which I thought was really interesting I think I just assumed that all the Pokemon we're gonna be available here and they're not are there any non final evolution Pokemon that are competitively viable at all because this is just by definition like their stats are better actually quite a few really which is kind of interesting so there is an item called EVO light uh which basically powers up the defenses of an unevolved Pokemon so people do some strange strategies like uh like it was the the tenor the the tenor curl from scarlet the tenor curl it and violet

30:28like people would give that an EVO light uh and it would crush in certain formats right uh or I think a really famous one is like chancy if you give it to chancy it just becomes a brick wall because un-evolved so there are actually strategies from those un-evolved Pokemon but I kind of get why they may be leaving that out at launch only because that is adds a bunch of extra like mechanics Pokemon to the mix some that are like kind of confusing like I built a team around mercrow with an EVO light and like no one takes it seriously because it's a dumb little bird that just sweeps the team you know not sweeps the team but sets up a team to sweep and like cannot get knocked out yeah this is awesome yeah I'm a little bummed I think I'm more bummed about the lack of un-evolved Pokemon than the lack of IVs because IVs can be a pain to manage and figure out and sort of get where you want it especially if you want Pokemon with like zero speed IV or zero attack IV can be an absolute pain but like EVO light is kind of straightforward so I I don't know I like

31:32mercrow mercrows awesome the IV conversation I know is a big debate already cutting through it let me ask you is this something people are mad about because they've invested a lot of time in it and it's something's changing or is it just like hey now we don't need to worry about something annoying this is a good thing so I think part of it is maybe the time investment but I think it's more so there is a strategy that people use called trick room and basically what it does is it makes the slowest Pokemon on the field attack first so when people people will try to get Pokemon with zero attack IV so they can assure that their Pokemon will attack before that same Pokemon with a high attack IV so I think what it'll do is you'll see less viability for trick room in general to be fair I didn't even see trick room when I was going through all the stuff so I don't even know if trick room will be in it so I think that could be an issue there's also a move called foul play which I'm sure people are familiar with but that

32:34takes the attack of a Pokemon and uses it against them so a lot of times when you have a special attacker you always want zero attack IVs so your attack doesn't get used against you so that gives us a buff to foul play there's I'm sure other minor cases but I think those are kind of the two big ones that people are most worried about but I think I think the meta will adapt to whatever that is which I'm getting probably too into the thick of it but I think the meta will adapt I think best case scenario is that it'll make Pokemon that previously weren't viable because of their speed tier maybe more viable best case scenario but I don't know it'll hard to tell a professor in this vein we have a super chat from Seaberry who says Jake are there any moves abilities or changes you've seen that'll make a big splash for the high level competitive play also welcome back to um I haven't seen moves in particular that that are different what I have seen oh actually wolfy VGC he's like one of the best Pokemon players he pointed out because he was at a different event than us you notice that the pp has been changed a little bit I saw this

33:38which the smaller pp or bigger pp smaller well depends on the depends on the move yeah does it work or no work I think one of the biggest ones he pointed out was for protect which I think what went down from 16 to eight to eight or like that which is very so very big adjustment for a competitive Pokemon and protect being a move that you're going to use a lot usually most your Pokemon will have protect yeah and so stuff like that seems interesting um the mechanic the unique mechanic that I have here currently was um was it mega evolution right which they've shown off in the trailers and stuff one of the questions that was asked during the group interview was could we get like cross-gen mechanics could we get like a mega evolution versus a gigantic max um and they did say that they're considering more mechanics outside of just mega evolution right and so it seems like that's on the table yeah which is interesting the announcement showed off terrestrialization I think but this was years ago so I have to imagine terrestrialization would be in it at some point but also that trailer showed like a mega fighting a terrestrialized Pokemon

34:41and they're the bracelet right and they had all the different yeah yeah it's omnis something sick omnis watch it's like something like that yeah omni ring omni ring I think is that sounds like some green lantern type shit yeah is this the trailer there is it's just footage I think this is footage yeah super weird question but something I noticed was it looks like on your side you see your HP numbers and on their side it's a percentage yes so about that uh I I I think it's just so you have more information you know I think previously you don't actually see what number their their HP is at I think you just get the bar I could be wrong um and I think this is just extra information I'm like why is it different like why is the percentage versus like the actual number I think their health is supposed to be like a mystery to you as far as I was like with the actual number is that be my guess is yeah so you don't you're not you know doing the math yeah you don't need to remain at it um it was fun doing these doubles matches so like that was one of the things where I was

35:41interested to see what Jake would choose when me and him went again up against each other of all right we're going to do singles or doubles and you immediately are like oh yeah let's do a doubles match right and I overheard other people at their stations be like oh yeah doubles is the way is doubles like the competitive like is that the all right this is the way to play that's that's sort of the standard I mean when they do the champions or the uh the uh worlds in San Francisco all the professionals are playing doubles a lot of these different events are doubles there are like side tournaments where they'll do singles but I think singles is kind of interesting because it limits your potential and and how Pokemon play off each other in a way that I wouldn't say waters down the experience because I know there are some people who play singles that are just they think about it in a completely different way but for a majority of competitive players they stick to doubles I would encourage people who've you know been playing Pokemon for a long time didn't really care much for doubles maybe if they pick up this and they want to get into competitive I would just go right to doubles I don't even think I'd spend too much time doing singles unless you're in it for

36:43that sort of a Pokemon stadium five where you just want to like get some Pokemon together with your friend and battle it out do you have any control over what your character looks like or is it just your tossed in for our preview we're just tossed in but I did look at the wardrobe and it seems like there okay tons of options uh there were no options to choose from in the build itself but you can you could like focus in on the hair the glass you know so I think there's going to be plenty of I'm looking good as I lose every battle the overview trailer did mention you you can use VP to buy items like okay items for your trainer there's also different Pokeball throwing styles animation was really cool and then also you have that too there's also like unique battle music which I thought was cool when we battled they were they had like the traditional like gen 1 style battle music yeah which got me hyped and I was curious about that one of the things I asked he was like are there different stadiums that we could like choose from I didn't they said they are there are different arenas in the game but they didn't really go into like how to choose them so

37:43I don't know if they're mode specific or there you end up having like a arena selection but I mean the one thing I did notice kind of on that is uh you know the tutorial had a different arena than the actual battles themselves yeah I wonder if it's more mode specific I think it might be mode specific demon hacker says is there an announcer in this I don't believe that is something that I forgot audio here just to be sure I'm yeah no I don't remember they're being an announcer I'm gonna be crazy these days to like have that many like dialogue so many but you know it'd be worth it though it's the point of this yeah that's my thing is you know I'm coming into this is somebody who loved Pokemon stadium and very obviously like it's this game oh mouse hold I love mouse hold um this game isn't Pokemon stadium but it does scratch the itch in a very interesting way like it's Pokemon stadium if Pokemon stadium was specifically locked in and focused on like we want to usher in hardcore battles we want to usher in PVP battles right Pokemon stadium had a lot more

38:47going on as far as yeah the announcer the mini game for most mini games gym leader castle right like Pokemon stadium felt way more like a full fledged game whereas this feels a bit more like a like a tool slash abs like it is a game don't give me wrong I don't want to install to buy six out of game it is a game but it feels a bit more dialed in as far as what it wants to be and how it wants you to play it which is we just want to find a way to have people battle each other in a way that's official and easy yeah I also think to uh something like champions even if you're not really into the competitive side or this doesn't really interest you I think it does have exciting implications for the future of Pokemon right because now that they have this battle simulator that in theory they will continue to update continue to support they can take more risks with how battles work in future games I mean we saw in ZA where they switched to real time battles which was cool it was a nice change of pace uh but I hope that like they can really kind of just play around with how battles work maybe tried different styles different different ideas that you know you couldn't do

39:49in a mainline game normally because you might just be alienating a maybe not giant part of the community but a important part of the community right so yeah I'm really curious to where they go and like you know wins and waves we hardly know anything other than that trailer but I wonder if they're cooking up some like different battle style it definitely brings you back I remember talking I think it was to Tim actually about this maybe last year or so this is pre Pokemon ZA and I think Tim brought up the idea of like they could they could experiment with battles in like mainline Pokemon games and like I didn't believe it now I believe it right like to Jake's point this feels like them preserving what this is and yeah this opens up that potential of like if Pokemon wins and waves is different like if you want traditional Pokemon battling we got it right here in Pokemon champions so this is going to be I mean obviously we would already talk about what they use that at worlds but in addition to that this is now going to be competitive Pokemon going forward are you are into competitive Pokemon how does that function with like Scarlet and Violet there's these seasons and that's going to continue with champions what what's a season look like I guess we don't entirely know

40:54what we'll be with champions but I would say with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet a lot of it just had to do with which Pokemon were allowed and weren't so like some seasons they'd bring in legendaries some seasons they'd bring in band Pokemon that you could use and that would change team building that would change at which Pokemon are viable my guess with champions is they will do something similar but I have to imagine they'll also change out sort of the battle gimmick right like we're getting mega's at launch I wouldn't be surprised if maybe the next season they bring back thrastilization or Z moves I hope not but like you know I guess it could happen it look cool yeah but so do you think that the changes are going to be more like season based in the sense of like oh we're we're promoting something so these Pokemon are like the new movies coming out so they're available or is it going to be more like meta focused on I could see would be a bit of both I think you know I think like when a new Pokemon games comes out and they add in a hundred Pokemon I would fully predict them to do a season just highlighting

41:56the new that new decks and you can use all the Pokemon from wind and waves decks in order to make a team and that's what people are working with that time and then maybe another season there could be like this is all speculation but maybe there's you know another detective Pikachu movie coming out or something like that and there's some exclusive I'm not exclusive Pokemon but some Pokemon theme the round detective Pikachu but it's really hard to say because we don't even entirely know what the restrictions will be for this first inaugural season one of the things I want to shout out right the game comes out officially in April athus it's coming to mobile later one of the things I'm sad that is that is sad about is that it's not coming to mobile alongside for sure I'm you know historically not somebody that's into playing games on my phone however magic arena has changed me to where now I'm like treadmill game it's a dude this is going to be my new treadmill game and I cannot wait for it for that like I can easily see a sea taking over for that but I can't wait for this to come to mobile I think that'll also kind of increase the reach dramatically as far as

42:57how many hands you can get this into definitely in terms of installs right yeah off the success of Pokemon go and that for so many people better though you know sleeper agent Pokemon fans that haven't done it forever a free game to drop jump in try a free game to battle Pokemon on your phone I think that's going to speak to so many people coming back to the Greg you're talking about like wanting to get into this right is more of a casual person maybe learn something right like I think I'm right there with you and one of the things they have here one is ranked which I think is going to be good for us right hey here's a way for us to play against people that are our skill level and so ranked is always great for that they also have auto team creation to where your bank of Pokemon like you hit the auto team creation button interval big the best possible team for you okay and so I think that'll be good for the me and you as well along with that I had something else I lost it oh one of the things I want to talk about was the UI I really like the UI of this video game we 10 point out the percentages of like the health for the opposing team but even when

43:57you're choosing your Pokemon right like you go in with that six and they'll show you what the other players team is and for doubles you're choosing for Pokemon to go out with and so like it's really cool being able to see the side by side and going all right I know they have halucha charizard XYZ thing I'm gonna pick in four each okay I'm gonna go with this this this and this and you get in there and like it all looks good um the art style of champions I feel like modern Pokemon hasn't had my favorite art style obviously or I'm not going to say obviously it doesn't look bad is what I'll say but like I wish Pokemon could look more flashy I think it gets the job done um but the UI something where I'm like okay I like how that looks though I think the UI looks looks nice yeah there's some uh nice quality of life stuff in the UI too like now like for a while Pokemon is denoted denoted if something is if an attack is super effective or not very effective but they have extra word is to tell you if it's like four times effective versus okay or minus two times effective or or I don't I don't minus two times effective or minus four times effective whatever

45:00and there's also more descriptive um moves so like if you go to the menu and look at what a move does it'll call out mechanics that like have been mechanics but they don't really call out like even there's boost ice type attacks by Pokemon by 50 percent normally they wouldn't have the 50 percent they just say boost ice attacks you know so there's an extra level of transparency that I think is also really good um that I think comes along with the UI I do also want to shout out the animations right I like I think when I talk about the look of it I'm talking more so about the character models but the animations I think are good I I think it was zap cannon that I used where I was like this fucking sick yeah or like I think I used surf at one point against you and it was just like the entire field was just like yeah which is like flooded like that's some of my favorite stuff of Pokemon Stadium when they would go super hard as far as what those animations were and they're all unique right yes so cool I just wish they had the announcer I know I'm thinking about that now Jake I got another question for I'm sorry professor I got another question for you from super chats

46:02it's ball 23 writes and it says as a huge fan of the site Pokemon showdown for battling parentheses Jake will know I'm curious if champions has a random battle feature without team building uh from what I could tell I think the closest thing is what blessing was talking about where you can like auto build a team okay but it I don't think there's something quite like that I don't know maybe it's something that could be added but it doesn't seem like there's a button where you can just like all right just give me six random Pokemon and I want to try to make this work and also to that point like I know I'm sure some people might be worried about like well are people still going to be using showdown I still think showdown has its uses which is basically a team builder essentially it gives you all those tools you can adjust everything to the minutia and test those teams out I think that'll still be useful for people who really want to dig in and kind of pre-team build before wasting their VP resources sure um so I think that'll still be useful um for a lot of

47:02people as well uh another thing I want to shout out it seems like this game is purely PVP like when the battle menu I didn't really see an option for like five against a bot now of course it's probably the thing of like why would you want to you but I always think the option is nice like in the in the battle menu right it's ranked battles casual battles private battles and online competitions yeah I didn't see it either and I think that might be one of the bigger missed opportunities if there's not bot battles I think just giving a safer spot to test out teams yeah who are learning can maybe try out some strategies against a bot rather than going into like an actual match with someone who is doing some crazy for your gimmick and you're just like all right well this could work but it's not gonna work with whatever nonsense this player is doing so I hope we see something like that but but I do think like you know you're talking about like the fans of stadium who might just want to like do a Pokemon battle those stakes I think having sort of bots would be very important yeah but do you think there's gonna be a home in this game for the people that

48:04despite this game being the new home of real competitive but do just want to play competitive Pokemon the way that we did when we were kids like is that going to exist or do you think that those people are just not gonna have a good time well I mean there are private matches so you should still be able to like you know one on one play with someone in the office it's not all matchmaking based so there is that aspect and I think I think people get used out of that but like I don't know like how often did you return to something like stadium over the years right like maybe not a whole lot yeah just for the many games like you played I know I like to play the game but I'm all yeah I was also a kid it was one of my six games so yeah but but I think that kind of like is my big question like this puts competitive Pokemon in a place where like anyone should be able to give it a shot and try but I'm curious how many people may not actually want to go that deep and just kind of want to load it up and screw around yeah like I know I know because of what my personality is like I have more faith in me getting into it because I'm sticky

49:05when it comes to games that like want me to get sweaty you know what I mean like I'm sticky when it's a magic arena or like a competitive game but like a Greg right like I'm I got fingers crossed that Greg's gonna be into it but I could also see Greg being like I shit no people are trying to harden this thing I'm bouncing off to the next thing yeah I think that's you know my my concern as well that I'm gonna jump in and do the tutorials but it'll be so much like magic where you and I started you and I fell in love with magic on the exact same stream yes but then my real life got the way right of being a dad and all that stuff whereas you were able to just commit to it yeah to where I can never play with you again because like I don't even remember I'd have to go to tutorial I don't say that yeah you know and then but so like for me being able to log in only do a PVP thing if I'm always ranked garbage you know what I mean like I don't know where it'll be like I almost went another like another mode or something in the game that is gonna be more sticky for a casual audience but at that point it's like well you can also just boot up Poco that's my thing it's like I'll go do there's other Pokemon yeah I was gonna say how Poco is right go but I you know go play try to catch them all in violent yeah going that way I definitely do also like

50:05because so I I've been playing Pokemon since red and blue red was the first game I ever owned so you know I have a lot of strong feelings towards the Pokemon series yeah and I remember third generation people were starting to talk about competitive and I was like this is something I want to get into and I remember just looking at it and be like no I know what I'm not gonna do so I do like you know I think of like a younger generation who's really into Pokemon they're playing the games and they see this competitive side and I think champions though is will be a very good way to sort of get people interested in that and get a younger audience in the competitive which I think is super important for just the competitive scene and like to be honest there has been a ton of growth in the competitive scene like we talked about worlds coming to San Francisco I think they were here what like 11 years ago and they like build a ballroom in a hotel and now it's like the Masconey Space Center it's grown like exponentially so I I think there is a very real opportunity

51:08for this to like really blow up yeah the scene but I think for me it still comes down to like is that would a lot of the audience once though I don't know well we won't have to wait long to find out again Pokemon champions comes to the switch April a mold devices later this year you assume they're working with everybody they possibly have to have it before worlds on mobile right hopefully I mean maybe mobile or maybe worlds is the debut yeah the debut of course in August here in San Francisco worlds will be covering it will be there my got tells me that the mobile versions finished they just want people playing on switch sure you know totally like I think I think it'll be before world's for sure okay well Jake thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with us today is there anything I didn't ask you did you guys anything else you want you didn't talk about do you want to talk about I mean one thing is I we kind of mentioned it but just to reiterate there has been stuff announced about like pricing and all the different models

52:08the starter pack there's season passes there's like a monthly subscription or some sort of subscription it seems we don't know how any of that works at least on a monetary level sure I think that is sort of my big holdout and I know we touched on it but just to reiterate I have no idea how it's gonna work yeah fair enough that could really affect how I feel about it now I would 100 well crazy that you will know in two weeks you know they set you there to play the name thank you to give you any of that information that's never a great sign yeah great sign for what their monetization strategy will be but of course we'll be covering here on games daily I'm sure when it comes up of course we'll get a gamescast place of this hopefully review to some degree we'll see but Jake where can people keep up with you game spot okay yeah game spot I did a breakdown video also the article that we referenced and then some other fun little social videos we got out of it you know find me at Jacob deck on Instagram that's all I use so perfect well thanks for making the time here everybody of course thank you for making the time to hang out with us and hear about Pokemon champions remember of course we're a live talk show network meaning

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