We Played Pokemon Champions - Kinda Funny Gamescast!

0:00You said you were over him, but his hoodie is stealing your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics, and sell it on D-Pop listed in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure and ride on cue. Nope, but I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on D-Pop. We're taste, recognizes taste. List now with no selling fees. Game and processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. 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 a gay, a jacket poppy blessing at a yo-yay, good day Greg, good day to you. How are you? I'm doing well.

1:00How are you doing? I am excellent. Excellent. Wow. I'm just here. Tim's here. Of course. Formerly, Forbes under 30 or 30. Now just some of yours 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 Dachie life right now. I made you in the game. They do that. Me who remain redacted neither your name and they started calling you poppy and I think you'll like it. That's cool. Exactly. And then joining the group from GameSpot is Jake Deckard. Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. We love talking 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. We battled each other too. We battled you and like I thought that was 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. This is something I've been waiting a long time for. I was like, damn. And then they ushered us into the room and they warned us.

2:01They'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 on-board 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 games cast 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. Of course, if you like that, be part of the show.

3:02Watch 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. Doesn't do shit. I hate this so much. I hate it. I hate it. I need a pair of things. God. Of course, thank you to our Patrons producers who make the show happen. Patreon.com slash kind of funny. Thank you, Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster in Delaney, the song twining. For now, let's begin the show with what is and forever will be the Roper Report. No. Top of the show. Tots, tots, tots, tots. But it's like back to back. It's so hard. I know. I break the rhythm. You know what I mean? I love it. No, it's not. No, it's not. I don't like that. My contract says I can only do it for games. I appreciate that. Of course, your topic of the show is the Pokemon Champion's preview. If you've been living under a rock Nintendo's official description is battle with Pokemon against other players in the Pokemon Champions game. These single and double battles use familiar mechanics from previous Pokemon series games,

4:02such as Pokemon types, abilities and moves, enabling the rich and varied battle strategies. You may already know and love. It's coming April 8th, the Nintendo Switch mobile devices later this year, what 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 Indian apolis regionals from May 29th to 31st, ahead of its debut on the main stage at the 2026 Pokemon World Championships in August. Where are Timothy? San Francisco. That's right. Right here, baby. Can't wait. At the 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 eShop. 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 2, the Switch 2 can look forward to an enhanced visual performance for Pokemon champions by downloading a free update on April 8th.

5:04I've said everything I need to say to get all of this out there. Blessing. Yes. 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 of, 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 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, I might never come back here again. I got to cherish you while I'm 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, 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

6:08into Pokemon competitive. I am somebody 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 and two and those games did get hard, but like, that's another one where it's like, I know, I'm not going to be never really felt like that was, you know, putting me into that competitive PvP, like, you know, I'm, I'm turning it ready to now 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 had done a Greg where I was like, man, all of a sudden, violets kick in my ass and I was like, Pokemon, you stupid idiot. And I was like, I've never had to think about matchups.

7:08I've never had actually think about moves and strategies in any of the other Pokemon's I've played. To that even, like, I remember there'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, put in like a quick attack or like a flamethrower or something, you know, all my moves are all my Pokemon or 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

8:12more depth there than I'm sure Jake would be able to get into. 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 jump in. You did miss an important step. We recruited Pokemon, trained them and then battled 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

9:15Pokemon from the other game that you don't have in a play through the game in order to catch 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 put that down. That's a really good way to put it. That'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, you 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.

10:16One of the things that I came out of this game thinking about was Magic Arena playing out right before this. We were talking about, if you're awake, if you're awake, if I'm awake, 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, uh, Magic 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, 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 are your, I believe, victory points is what that stands for, um, use that to, um, adjust your skills and like adjust your abilities and all that stuff and then go in there and battle Pokemon and rank your unranked modes, right? It feels very like straight to the point and straightforward in a way that I don't know what's 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

11:17of battles as being one of the main things in Pokemon, but battles in a weird way can get hardcore. When I battled against Jake, right, 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. They just clown you. I have to imagine he set up like tail and turn one and then just swept through everything. I felt bad. Yeah. Well, like, but it was fun though. It's 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, these, uh, the, 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.

12:18I really, you know, as a, as a lifelong Pokemon fan and, and somebody that like has played these games, they're such a big part of my 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 to 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 tail and all that. It's like, that's, they don't ever explain it. They don't explain IVs. They don't explain EVs. They don't explain how to explain like special physical attacks. And, and, and, and like pretty much any game they just don't explain that is so important. And, and so I, I've never really been into the, uh, the VGC side of it in that way because of how daunting it all was. But the closest I got was with Scarlet and Violet 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 incredible. Yes, yeah, like they were, it's like the hardest things I've ever done in a Pokemon game.

13:21By far, and if you had to EV train, right? Have EV train, had to like, what is it? Showbell for certain things, helping hand in all this stuff. It's like, I started playing Pokemon on a level. I've never played and it, it made me realize I just, I knew, oh, IVs, EVs, I don't really know what they were, but I knew they were a thing. I learned what it's like wave dashing smash, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly, right? And like, 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 IV was. I had never heard of an IV. So I want to stop them so I don't know what an IV is. I don't know what's going on. And my question before you take it even just to top level, do 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 were like four specific tutorials they wanted us to play. And honestly, they were sick. They were sick, they were brain dead. Yeah, they're like, this is how you poke them on battle. And I'm like, brother, I'm here. I didn't need to do this. Like honestly, I wish they put us into some more of the advanced, advanced stuff. And so it was from Jake that I was hearing about IVs to, we should make it clear.

14:23IVs aren't in the game. Yes, it was a big deal for Jake. Yeah, that is, that is a question I asked thinking I wouldn't get an answer because the competitive side has been so like up in arms about whether or not IVs 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, IVs are basically like stats that a Pokemon is born with. That affect, I don't know if they necessarily affected 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 halucha on your favorites, I know, right? Of course, and I have a higher attack IV than you. Even though they're the same level, maybe they have the same EVs, we're using the same move. Mine would still do a little more damage because of that. 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 IVs the scientific research, of course, yeah, later games have actually introduced like

15:25whether or not these are good. However, they don't even give number values. They'll just say this IV is resting. Yeah, they'll say this 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. Okay. So with my experience with the raids, right, that opened my eyes to these IVs, these EVs, how do you even train them, 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 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 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 raids, I'm just getting my ask it. You need to do teamwork, you need to understand how your moves are affecting.

16:28I say all this to say, I get to the point that for the first time, IVs, EVs, natures, abilities, these things all matter to me. Yeah. Can you explain all of those things, like just in one sentence, what's an IV? What's an ability? So as I said, IVs are stats Pokemon are born with, EVs are stats that are gained by training throughout the game, another way to make each Pokemon kind of feel different despite being the same species, natures 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 decreases special attacks, so 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, that's the ability. And then abilities are like passive abilities, but the thing is, most Pokemon have more

17:30than one, actually I think every Pokemon is more than one and some have secret abilities, which before it 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, I think I got everything. I have to shout out the IV stands for individual value, and then somebody in chat says EV stands for effort value. 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 stack can have 256, or 252. I think technically, 252 I think is what it can have. I love this part. And four EVs equal one stat point, because it couldn't just be an even amount, it had to be this. And Pokemon champions, you just have I think 66 stats that you can divide, and each one equals one point in that stat. So it gets rid of this whole convoluted sort of system, and all these are represented

18:34with number values, because in the games, in the mainline games, they are not represented. 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 to train you. Can we call Jake? Kind of funny. He's Pokemon professor. So Jake, get him a lab coat for next time, next time I'll bring the lab coat. One of the things to reel back into Pokemon champions, the game, right? One of the things speaking about IVs, EVs, 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

19:38your stats can align in a specific way. You see the stat points? You can move those up, move those down, whether it be HP attack, defense, special, or speed, right? And like 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 however long it takes. Is that 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. So I don't quite know how the whole economy of it works, I would say. I mean, that's one of the things that's for an hour long preview, you know, that's impossible to 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 Professor Jacket. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

20:39The Professor Jacket. This is perfect. I love it. So VP, again, your main currency, Chad already said it's Professor Jake from the spot region. So there you go. There we go. The Pokemon Professor Jake is in the building. VPs are main currency for like buying and purchasing things, right? One of the main things that you can do 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. Every 22 hours you get to recruit a new Pokemon 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 a weird thing. How do we recruit? So you go to the recruit menu, you get, you're hanging out, forget the name of the character, but there's a character that's like, welcome on in and it's like a farm kind of thing. Sure. Sure. And then basically 10 Pokemon appear in a lineup. You can choose one of these Pokemon a day for free. Okay.

21:39Okay. That Pokemon is 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 choices 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 know. Is is is not yet, not yet, it should be, yeah, and like fire red leaf green will eventually be compatible. So you put those Pokemon in. They're coming with their level or the 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. Oh, yeah. Pokemon Go as well is compatible with home. So like you can import your home Pokemon in here. 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. So that was one of the first things that they showed us as well.

22:40Am I missing anything there for the recruit stuff? I don't think so. There's the starter pack. I know they talked about regularly. Yeah. Yeah, I was wondering what the upsell is up charge if we know anything like that on it. I'm going to 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. And I think some like extra battle music. I don't think they've announced a price at least in the United States. They have in Japan. And I've seen people try to like convert the yen into the dollar to see how much it's going to cost. But I don't think that's very accurate given like how different are it 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

23:42taking 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? They should be the same still, I think. 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. 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 and YouTube dot com slash kind of funny games. Phil the trucker says, my first shift from casual Pokemon to entry level competitive 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 going here and learn Pokemon from a new perspective.

24:43I 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 and 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 everybody that we couldn't do this kind of amazing content and have cool lab coats on demand if you were supporting us with a kind of funny membership. Of course, you can pick up a kind of funny membership YouTube dot com slash kind of funny games. Apple, Spotify, Patreon dot com slash kind of funny and get all of our shows ad free, get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Gregway and of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person, 11 year old small business. But right now you're not using your benefits. So here's a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by patreon dot com slash kind of funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'd love you to come give us $10 and get all of our shows ad free, your daily dose of me and get good karma because patreon is the best place that gives

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27:48This episode is brought to you by white cloth surge nice choice hitting up this podcast no surprises you're all about diving in it tastes everyone in the room can enjoy just like white cloth surge it's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made in the nights just begun with bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume unleash the night unleash white cloth surge please drink responsibly hard celtar with flavors 8% alcohol by volume white cloth celtar works Chicago Illinois spring starts at the Home Depot and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300 like the next grill for burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot the patio sets for every budget bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the home depot start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the home depot exclusive supplies the home depot comm slash price match for details and we're back Tim yes

28:50what 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 put them in there not worry about any of that 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 luches in one of the trailers yeah they got to see how luches should be there um so I I think like 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 one 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 jakey 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

29:53Pokemon that aren't that are like pre final evolution 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 live 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 going to 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 like 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

30:54un-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 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 it's kind of straightforward so I I don't know I like mercrow mercrows awesome the IV conversation I'm I know is a big debate already couldn't through it let me ask you is this something people are mad about because they've invested

31:58a 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 have 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 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 takes 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 a buff to foul play there's I'm sure other minor cases but I think those are kind of the two

33:02big 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's so 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 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 which 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

34:0416 to eight to eight yes 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 the mechanic the unique mechanic that I have here currently was 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 and they did say that they're considering more mechanics outside of this 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 and that's the bracelet right and it had all the different yeah yeah it's omnie something sick omnie watch it's like something like that yeah omnie ring omnie ring I think is sounds like some green lantern type shit yeah is this the trailer

35:10there 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 it's up with that uh 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 but 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 I was like with the actual number is that be my guess is yeah so you don't you 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 interested to see what Jake would choose when me and him went again up against each other of all right we're gonna do singles or doubles and you meet you 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

36:14the 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 uh 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 that sort of uh Pokemon stadium vibe 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

37:16options 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 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 really cool and then also you have that too but 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 I was curious about that one of the things I asked to 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 I 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 yeah demon hacker says is there an announcer in this I don't believe I want to let so yeah that's the that is something that

38:20I forgot audio here just to be sure I'm yeah no I don't remember they're being an announcer I mean it'd be crazy these days to like have that many lots of 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 mousehold I love mousehold 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 going on as far as yeah the announcer the mini games 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 like it is a game don't give me wrong I don't want to insult by say excited 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

39:25find 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 in 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 me back I remember talking I think it was to Tim actually about this maybe

40:25last 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 and 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 what will 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 ban Pokemon that you could use and that would change team building that would change out which Pokemon are viable my guess with champions is they will do something similar but I have to imagine they'll

41:29also 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 to rasterization 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 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 can 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 100 Pokemon I would fully predict them to do a season just highlighting the 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

42:30the 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 8th it's coming to mobile later one of the things I'm sad that is that it's 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 see a 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 how 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 jump 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

43:31wanting to get into this right is more of a casual person who we've learned something learn something 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 and it'll bake 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 oh I had something else I lost it oh one of the things I wanted 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 you'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 are 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

44:33this 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 gonna 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 wordish 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 and 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 this boost ice type attack by Pokemon 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

45:38really 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 uh no 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 spall 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

46:39it's something that could be added but it doesn't seem like there's a button where you can just 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 so I think that'll still be useful for a lot of people as well another thing I want to shout out it seems like this game is purely PVP like in the battle menu I didn't really see an option for like fighting against a bot now of course it's probably the thing of like why would you want to but obviously 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 either and I think that might be one of the bigger missed opportunities if there's not

47:40bot battles I think just giving a safer spot to test out teams yeah people 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 going to 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 going to be a home in this game for the people that despite this game being the new home of real competitive that 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 going to 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

48:44did you return to something like stadium over the years right like maybe not a whole lot yeah just like you played I know I still 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 when 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 got fingers crossed that Greg's going to be into it but I can also see Greg being like oh 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 but I'm going to 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

49:47whereas you were able to just commit to it yeah where I can ever 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 going to be more sticky for a casual audience but at that point it's like well you can also just boot up a cope that's my thing it's like I'll go do there's other Pokemon yeah I was going to say I'm hoping is where I go but I you know go play try to catch them all in violent yeah going that way I definitely do also like because so 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 me like no no way I'm not going to 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

50:49champions 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 Moscone Chase Center like it's grown like exponentially so I I think there is a very real opportunity for this to like really blow up yeah the scene but I think for me it still comes down to like is that what 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 if 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

51:50worlds is the debut yeah the debut of course in his August here in San Francisco worlds will be covering it will be there my my god tells me that the mobile versions finished they just want people playing on switch sure you know I think I think it'll be before worlds 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 do you guys anything else you want you didn't talk about do you want to talk about and 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 there's the 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 and 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 that's gonna work yeah fair enough that could really affect how I feel about it now I would 100 percent well crazy that you will know in two weeks you know they set you there to play the damn thing and to give you any of that information that's never a great sign it's never a great sign for what their monetization strategy will be

52:54but of course we'll be covering here on games daily I'm sure when it comes up of course we're gonna games cast place in this hopefully review to some degree we'll see but Jake where can people keep up with you uh game spot okay yeah game spot I there 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 the shows rarely ever stop right after this we're right into this stream can Nick and Mike keep another business afloat or will it fail is what they're wondering as they go back to their video store business in retro rewind you can catch that stream later of course if you're watching live twitch youtube of course wherever you are like subscribe share remember we need you to pick up a kind of funny membership patreon dot com slash kind of funny youtube dot com slash kind of funny games apple spotify get everything out free get your daily dose of me and of course get good karma for supporting 11 person 11 year old

53:56small business until next time it's been our pleasure to serve you this episode is brought to you by athletic brewing company no matter how you do game day on the couch in the crowd or manning the snack table athletic brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long no hangovers no buzz no subbing out for water in the second half stuck the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online at athletic brewing dot com near beer fit for all times