Well, I welcome everyone to week two of the pokeballs podcast. I'm your one of your hosts Lee or Saris and joined by my good friend Scott. Also s9 vibe is his handle online. How you doing, mate? I'm doing good, mate. Sorry for another podcast. I think people enjoyed the first one. It was a really nice, really nice feedback for the people. Thank you for watching anyone that watched it all the way through. We've got 12 plays on Spotify as well. So, you know, it's not bad. It's not bad. Hitting the dizzy high. No, big thank you. Big shout out to everyone that obviously listened last week, tuned in and commented and left all that nice feedback. It was it's really great to hear and hopefully as we go forward, we'll keep giving you good, good podcasts and all that good stuff. Yeah. So what have you been up to this week, mate? I've been doing some a lot of practice for a UIC, big Pokemon tournament coming up for people who don't know. That's it. You know, just other hobbies. It went bouldering today. Very good. A bit of exercise. What about you? I've just come back from the pub. Just come back from the pub. I'm wearing my pub. What happened at the pub? Newcastle United. We're playing Manchester United today and I did have to make a quick trip down to watch the match. And it was a good result, mate. It was a good day. Fantastic result. Fantastic. Old Roy come back. Got some easy win against Leicester. We had to play really well. It's all good. All good results today. Anyway, this is not a football podcast, but that is my, I'm going to sneak it in because I'm very happy today. I actually really like that. This is one quick mention is I wasn't sure about that kid, but looking at it on you now, actually, it's been nice. That's such a nice kid. I like it. I know there's a lot of... It's a sensitive subject, but it is a very nice kid. If we just take everything else away and just say it's a green and white kid, which we've had green and white kids in the past, so we have, and I know what it represents, but the kid itself is really nice and I do like it and I thought I'm going to buy the away. I don't generally buy the away kids, but this year I did and I do like it. It's a little snug around the arms, but I don't know whether that's just because they're all a little bit of a... Well, thank you, mate. I'm pleased. They're all like that. We'll just say it's nothing. No, no, no. Seriously, I might not like that as well because they're meant to be tight. It's a football. Anyway, I love football. Yes. Other than that, mate, this week being deep in the Terrarid Battles, the new seven star Terrarid Battle for Samorot, and it was a bit of a doozy, obviously really a difficult raid to begin with because I don't think it was easy for people to figure out how to kind of beat the Samorot. I feel like at that very initial stage when it dropped, a lot of people were left a bit like, oh my God, how are we going to deal with this thing? I think it's definitely been one of the harder ones since... What's the hardest one? I think people struggled with the Greninja one a little bit. Greninja one was difficult because the screen went up quite early on in that one and Greninja did hit pretty hard. I think the thing with the Samorot is obviously the focus energy turned zero before the raid even starts. And I had already put the preview article up in the middle of the week and did go of a cloister in that build and I subsequently posted about the shell armor ability being something if we suspected the focus energy that could be useful against it. So that's what it kind of turned out to be and that's what I kind of fell back on and it worked out brilliantly. Then the Taurus build was mentioned on that video. Actually, the video I dropped an hour after the event went live and then there was a comment on there from Brandon, one of our viewers, said about the Taurus build. He'd been using since the raid dropped.  That's another story anyway. So I was super tired after recording those. I had worked the next month. I had to try and get like a few hours sleep, went to bed, woke up the next morning, tested it first thing and the Taurus build works really great. So I was like, I want to share this with the community, put that up and they're really two really solid builds. But subsequently, since then, there's been a bunch of builds that people have come out with and seem to be it seems to be an easy raid to do once you know how to kind of deal with it. So that's pretty much what I've been doing the latter part of this week and managed to get a bit of luck as well with the shiny or short as well. I did the shiny hunt for it and it got it on 49 eggs, mate 49 eggs, which beats the pants of any of the other ones I've tried. Which I normally give up on a little bit because I think by the time I get it, it's way too late. It's not relevant anymore, but I've been able to do it this time around. So that was pretty nice. But other than that, mate, and then dropping in and out of the regional, it's been going on this weekend and doing a little bit of practice. So that's my weekend. I've probably taken up half the podcast just to explain that. So sorry, man, but no, that's fine. What do you want to talk about first? I was going to mention there was this being quite a lot happening this past week, a lot happening in the Pokemon world. The first thing I was going to mention is the return of in live local events are coming back to play Pokemon, which is it's about time, baby. It's a huge thing, mate. It's a huge thing, right? It makes the game so much more fun. So boring when you can't do locals. I don't know, you know, maybe change the point structure. They don't count towards day one invites or whatever. I don't care, but it's just better for practice. You get to see your friends more often and it makes you more invested in the season when you can only really go to like one regional because it costs us so much money because you have to, you know, like five, six hundred quid to go to a regional, even in the UK is ridiculous, right? It's so expensive now. Yeah, you need the locals. Yeah, you do. And the local scene is like any local scene, if you play competitively, either TCG, VG, whatever. Or anything, like even smash and stuff. Smash like locals are massive for that. So it's really important to help. Yeah, it's like your baseline, right? Of building your community friends, you're building your kind of experience for that season and it just kind of propels you into the bigger events. And I always think as well, mate, I always go back to, if I go into tournaments, which I have done recently, like the two regionals that I've played in recently, Liverpool and then Utrecht, I've went into those super cold. I haven't had much preparation, but I've played no tournaments beforehand. And I hate doing that. I always feel like if I've got like locals are really good for that just tournament, raw tournament experience to feel like, okay, I know what I'm doing. I've learned a bunch. It's best to free practice.  I can't replicate. People are playing for something. There's something on the line. And it's actually, you know, it is, it is the best you can get, like practice-wise, outside of like actually just going to the events themselves. And you're not paying £60 to play. This is very true. This is very true. Very, very true. So April, as of now, as of when this video is going live, April will be when TCG locals will be returning. VG is going to be a little bit longer. It's going to be into May, which is a little bit sad, but I mean, at least they're coming back right, but it will be a little bit later on. I think VGC, I hope these are going to go well. Yeah, which is pretty, which is awesome for that, because that is just a scene that keeps on growing all the time. And it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And I do have, I do still believe that the goal community, the competitive community in goal is eventually going to surpass VG, TCG, and TC and VG are not going to be able to even compete with them. I think the goal community competitively is going to be the biggest thing in the future. Hot take. Do you want to run on from that? You said there was quite a bit of drama with Pogman Go this week. Well, it's actually here. This is a good segue, mate. Yeah. Do you want to do it? Actually, I've got no idea. I saw bits of people complaining on Reddit, but yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So I'm not like massively familiar with all of the drama, but I understand it all. Yantik came out earlier this week as well, obviously, with an adjustment to their pricing for remote raid passes and a limit on the remote raid passes as well. So yeah, the raid passes will now, packs of three, as you can see here, are going to be 525 coins, which is a huge hike from what they were before prices. Single remote price raid passes going up to 195 coins again, another hike. And then the premium battle passes are going to be up to 250 coins.  And that's what my instant thought was. But when I talked to a friend who's very in the Go community, explained it to me. He said, it's kind of Niantic's way for getting people out again after COVID, after everything's kind of settled down now, getting people out and about playing Go, probably how it was originally meant to. Oh, so forcing them to not pay here. They don't want them to pay because they want them to go out. Yeah, they're excuse. Well, that's what they're limiting how many raid passes you can use per day as well. So that is one of the things that you know, that is making people actually have to go out to these like, you know, exclusive events for exclusive legendaries because legendaries in Pokemon Go have always been very exclusive, like tied to certain events.  I live in the middle of nowhere. So I literally have nothing. I have like, I remember like the whole point of Go is to go out.  So I guess it does make a lot of sense from their perspective. I mean, it's kind of half and half one, they just want to do as a cash grab into this is also a good excuse to be like, get outside. So yeah, 100%. Like I do feel like there is there is a cash grab in there amongst it all. But I think it is pretty much reverting back to how the game was meant to be played in. And it keeps the legendary Pokemon more exclusive, which they should they should be, you know, if I get a legendary Pokemon, you know, I got, I got session at Worlds. If I hadn't been at Worlds, I wouldn't be able to get session. Like I'm saying, like, you know, I've got one poker stop and one gym around me, like for you can walk miles, there's nothing else. I have to go to the local town to get anything else. So for me, it is a bigger deal. Like I've always had to go out and do it. The raid passes were great during lockdown. Yeah, I could go online. I could get access to these more exclusive legendaries that I wouldn't have had before. So I think like I can see where they're coming from. I don't know if I agree with it, but I guess for the good of the game, we'll see hopefully it works out well for everyone in the end. But yeah, I don't think it was it was one of those things where it went down well in the community is you can imagine, you know, like with with the price hike in general, it's not going to go down well with players. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, anything when you're not getting an improved service for something, but you're paying the same, you're paying more for the same thing that you've been, you've been getting that like the last forever however long, you know, and now you're having to pay more for it. And you're not getting anything increased. You get what I'm saying? Yeah.  But I know there's other reasons behind it. But whether or not those are the reasons are just an excuse to do that or not. Who knows? I don't know. You know, I thought you don't have a lot of experience of go. So yeah, I can't really comment. But like I say, the scene is growing. And you're right. I mean, VG is going to get left in the mud really compared to as we've talked about, they might even get rid of it compared to like go, I mean, go center stage now, like all the events, you know, I don't know if they'll ever get rid of VG.  But you know, it's definitely going to get put on the back burner, especially if you night eventually takes off. But who knows if you might as well, hopefully it's all just one of those things where it is all for platforms that are kind of yeah, all do well out of it. And all of them kind of keep going and keep going at the same time. So none of them get left in the mud like, you know, poking did. Yeah, that was such that was such that was yeah. But yeah, so that that was that happened there with that this week. And obviously if there's any golf fanatics that watch this, do let us not get in touch. Let us know more details about it because obviously neither me or Scott are in the competitive scene. I like really like I play golf quite frequently, but I'm not really in the community as as to speak as the forefront of it as much as I as much as other people. So I do like to keep in the loop with things though as they're going on. Yeah. I think why why we're sort of still talking about events and stuff. I think it'd be good. I did mention that Regulation C has started now. Those who play the other game know that similar to the CC as well, it changes recent. I mean, they've only introduced format changes often in a season quite recently. But whether or not you agree, I mean, I personally don't think they should change it that often, especially when we have such a short BTC season. But no, we've moved on to Regulation C, which includes the Ruin Pokemon. Let's hop over to our trusty source. It's therapy. So yeah, it's about season five on ranks ladder and things like that, mate. And yeah, running from 1st of April to 30th of June, this rule set. And all it is including is the Ruin Pokemon, the Ruin Legendary. So we'll Shen, Shen Pao, Ting Lu and Chi Wu. So they are the four Pokemon that have been introduced on top of the existing format, which was Regulation B, which they're coin in it. So the band Pokemon, as you can see, is a much shorter list. So things like Charizard, stuff that we're getting from the Terrarium. Why is quite a band? You can, mate, you should watch my guides. You can get it. It's a trade Pokemon in the games. You can trade a Paladin. So why is it a band? Paladin is regular. Yeah, because it's a regular one. Yeah. So similar to Zoroa, because it's like a gift. These are all the seven star Terraria. Do you think? So notice how you, it says up to June 30th, isn't it there? Do you think they'll change it before Worlds and then include those Pokemon? No, I think they'll keep it. The thing is they might do, right? There's always the argument that Pokemon Home by the 30th of June, praying that it should be compatible by the 30th of June, because that is way beyond early 2023, right? So you would imagine Pokemon Home will be compatible by then. Then we're going to have access to way more Pokemon. It would make Worlds as a format way more interesting if you've got all the Hissui and Pokemon in there. You've got all of the other starter Pokemon. I guess the problem with it is that if you, you probably don't, you have to have, we're not going to get your new game next year, right? We're going to have the DLC. The DLC is impressive. So in order, if you want to have a different format next season, you can't really have an unlocked dex now. That's what I think. Yeah. I think it'll be national dex next season. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe they just add a few other Pokemon in and say, yeah, you can use the Hissui and Pokemon. I don't know what they're going to do, but I think they might just leave it Regulation C until the end of World. The thing is that contradicts is, I believe the Regulation C will be the rule set for Worlds. The thing that will contradict it is if we go into Season 6, which is Battle Ranked Season 6, which will be on the 1st of July and they say everything's allowed now from Pokemon Home that you can actually legally access in Scarlet and Violet through Pokemon Home Transfer. So every Pokemon will be a national dex almost. It won't be a national dex because you're going to get national dex will be when you get like everything from the DLCs as well. So you know, there'll be stuff in the DLCs that hasn't been revealed yet. So they'll be like the new Pokemon. But come July the 1st, say national dex is now the rule set and they don't change the rule set for Worlds. Yeah. And then no one's got, this is my problem, like, and then none of the players have got an official platform to actually practice on, which has happened in the past. And it could happen. So I don't know, mate. Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Hopefully it's Regulation C just dragged over until the end of August because what would it be July, August, September? The next rule set will be till September. So then it will be the end of September. So you start on the new rule set in October after that fall season. That would be season seven, which would then make sense in October to say, right, it's going to be national dex from now on. And then you could add in, if you were still wanting to change the rule set throughout that season, you could add in just the DLC Pokemon after the DLCs launched. So the next rule set, which would be December, which would be season eight, which would be let's add in all the new DLC Pokemon from DLC one. Yeah, because I added in Sword and Shield, that's how you got Urshful, right? Because Urshful was really popular. And that was, I mean, that was an Isle of Armour or whatever, one of the DLCs. That was Isle of Armour, yeah. So that was the first one, yeah.  So you had things like Polytod as something I remember being introduced in the Isle of Armour.  And then Crown Tundra obviously came in and then had even more Pokemon like Mama Swine and stuff like that. And then all the legendary Pokemon after that. So they could do it like that, I guess. I just wish that we just have a rule set for the entire season rather than chopping and changing. It's like personal preference, of course. I just prefer to have a rule set for way longer where it can develop really develop rather than having it for two or three months. And then it's just starting to get really interesting. And then they change the rule set again. And then it starts all over again. So I mean, it makes sense in things like the TCG, I think it makes sense. Yeah. Like with the VG, I just, I mean, like you said, by having, you know, a season long format that doesn't change towards the end of the season, you get some really funky stuff. Because, okay, people have been like, I need to start running, you know, all the sudden a really offensive Pokemon is now super bulky with Assault Vest. Or, you know, you're running specific things to encounter. A lot of people do that anyway, but, you know, it gets like the specifics get really niche towards the end. Because these top level players are like, I need to find a way to counter this for Worlds. I'm going to run Assault Vest Groudon, you know, with Trick Room or something, you know, just because something completely different to the start of the format. Because it means that you are kind of, I guess, restricted in the sense that you are, you know, you're only allowed to use the only the Pokemon that you have access to. But I guess it kind of forces you to be more creative, especially towards the end of the season where everything's become stale.  So I personally, I'm with you with that. I wouldn't mind like maybe like a mid-season adjustment, but not like a free, free format changes, especially when we only start in January for VGC. It doesn't make any sense to me. So because like the two regionals I've been to this year, it's like, both of them have been different rule sets. And both of those rule sets have been like ending a week after that region I've been to. And it's like, maybe when the locals come back, because especially without locals, they're even more dumb because it's like, how are you going to get any practice for this new format happens? How are you going to practice for this region? Or like you said, the one regional that you're going to during that format, how are you going to get practice for that? So it makes even less sense. Exactly. I completely agree with you, mate. I think a mid-season format change would be fine. It keeps it fresh then because there are going to be certain sections of the community that are going to get bored with that rule set. I didn't like it to begin with. So at least with a mid-season rotation, then hopefully those players can come in. You're never going to please everyone either. But then it gives a lot of room for kind of development of the format, like you said, and things to go forward in a way where it's not going to be, oh, we're just changing now and you've got to learn this new way to play and keep going like that. So I don't know, mate, but the trend at the minute seems to be every three months and I don't think it's changing. Like to mention, you also get developments of individual teams. And one of the things I really enjoyed doing in 2019, probably my most successful season, is running the same team the entire season because it really allows you to get into the nuances of the team. For me, as someone who's not really that good at the game, who doesn't practice as much as other people, to be able to play the same team with a few tweaks here and there, it's like confidence-inspiring going into events because you're like, exactly what you're going to do. Okay, the matchups might change slightly, but it's just having confidence going into an event makes a world of a difference to your enjoyment, to the way you play, to how well you do. It's just, I just think that is one of the reasons I think argument white shouldn't change, but I guess we're just going to have to wait and see. You don't want to play when I like. I've got a lot of opinions on it. We could do a dedicated show on this for sure at some point. On the back of that, though, mate, the other news in the competitive world this week was the announcement of updating championship for online events. This is one. This is really used to be like 30 for first place. I think it was 60. I think now it's 160. Now it's 160. It's the equivalent of a regional for coming first in an online tournament. You could cheat with this. This is what I don't understand because I thought that's what they argument before was like, you know, they're not giving out high CP powers because technically you could literally just pay someone to do it for you. Not that, you know, you probably struggle to find someone to do it, but like, well, there's Gawson, isn't there? Gawson, especially in the younger, in the younger scene, right? If you want to see news or juniors, right?  You know, and just like win. Yeah, I think that is a huge problem with it. Yeah. I don't know how you get around that either. I don't think you can online. It's best to one as well. It's one of the one things I did agree with that they've done. They've done for a long time. Is it okay? Yeah, the CP powers aren't great, but you know, if you do well with a nice bit of CP, but also at the same time, if people cheat in, then it doesn't really matter because you know, it's not a payout song. No, exactly. These are impactful though. Yeah, these are impactful. These are big numbers. This is a regional level win. Yeah. And I think this is the disparity between this change and then the, the, the championship point payout for regional level events. It just seems so wrong. They 100% after world, they need to rework the CP structuring for a lot of things, particularly, particularly the changes I think they should make. They need to change. I do agree with people that local shouldn't count towards day one, day two invites. I don't agree with that. You don't think so? No, I think why. I don't know why there would be a problem with that. I think if you've got a best limit, a best finish limit on local events, then what's the issue there? True. True. No, I think you've got to be a, no, I forgot about that. Because normally it's a two, right? It was two. No, normally like PCs are normally like five mid-seasons are normally two or three. And I think that's fine. Like, I think people's argument, but again, you can make the same argument about regionals. Unfortunately, it is just location. I think some people argue that some places they have, Italy used to be one where they would have like events every weekend. And some people would be like, oh, well, my, I live in this tiny town and there aren't any events there. Well, yes, that is, you know, technically not fair. But at least this way, again, I guess the other way you do it, but like everyone is location based, but everyone is on a level playing field. So you could go to as many like locals as you can. I mean, we've got some great stories of our friends going to locals in other countries and stuff, you know, just, just, just fully trying to get the CP. So I think they should stay, but I do understand the argument for not, I think it just comes back to restructuring of the championship points, to be honest, because I think like you restructure the championship points in a way where you, your best finish limits are maxed out on your locals. But even if you win everything from those best finish limits, it's not enough to, it can be enough to get you a day one invite, but it can't be enough to ever get you in a position where just on locals alone, you're going to get a day two. And I think that's where the structure is coming to make it like more fair. But I don't think players should be punished in a way where they're attending locals and performing well. And it's not contributing to what you have to remember this season as an overall. You're right. Do you know what I mean? One of the other arguments is, and again, it does happen, because I'm not like, I've definitely been to a few events where they've been like a couple of people. We know stories, mate. We know stories. But also, if you live in someone like the UK, the PCs and MSSs that we mean you used to go to were stacked AF. And people's arguments, you know, have been like PCs are easy to go to. Like we just said, sometimes you can go to ones, some and they're not there. But other times, in certain places, especially the UK, they can be very stacked. I'm talking about like, we have had mid-season showdowns where we've had like 30 people, but then like 15 of them, just like this week. But then you've got like most of the people that are good, the best players in the UK. So is what I'm trying to say that are also there as well as mid-seasons. And I know you've been at them. They've been like 60 plus players in the mid-season. That's what I mean. It's a wild. So that argument is true, but also not true. It does, again, unfortunately, come back to location, but for us particularly... It's because we don't really have as many of them in the UK, I think, as other places because in places like Liyue, you've got a way more structured local scene. You've got way more choices for players to kind of attend and go to different events. Whereas in the UK, I feel like we were kind of, especially the last season before locals got taken away, you kind of limited to very select number of places that you could go to for your local. So they were always going to be stacked for that concentrated kind of core of players that were attending all these events, chasing invites, day two, day one, whatever. So it was always going to be like more difficult, you know? But I think you're going to get that scenario in a lot of different places where there's not a bit of scarcity, isn't it? I'm getting good. I'm just getting flashbacks to locals now.  Some of them are the ones we've been to have been so cold. I mean, one of them I was recovering from jaw surgery. I just remember being in so much pain, but I wanted to play. I think I was sitting on your lap or Terrence's lap or someone's lap and I was just like, I don't want to be here, but I want to play Pokemon. And then this is like a picture of me, a local, unlike because one of them was like the seniors and juniors were like thrown in with us because we didn't quite have enough. And I've got green hair and it's look like a Christmas. And I've got this Christmas hat on. And I'm so depressed. I must have been playing really badly. I'm playing this junior. This is a picture of me with a frown on. I'm just clicking buttons and I just did not want to be there. It looked like a Christmas tree playing Pokemon. I look like a Christmas tree playing Pokemon. It was like that. But again, we could do a whole episode on stories just traveling to events because you've probably got way more than me. But I've definitely had, again, one of my reasons I play competitive is just the experiences and the people we get to meet is just like next to none. So there's not many hobbies you can do, you know, there isn't, there isn't particularly like, or at least accessible esports where you can compete at this level and travel around the world. So yeah, back to the original point, they do need restructuring regionals in particular, especially if they continue to stay the same size. Because now we're looking at regionals that was the size of what EU like the international championship ones were when they first died, you know, I think the first year we had the EUIC, which is the event that's coming up, if you guys don't know, so they used to, we used to have nationals. So you used to have the locales which were called PCs and mid-season showdowns. Those were like low CP payouts, so 30 for PC and then 50 for mid-season. Then you'd have your regionals and then the big one in India was normally your nationals. And every country would, well, most countries had a decent scene would have the nationals, Italy used to have one, we always used to have one. Did they have one in Germany? Spain? Germany. Well, it used to be normally, it used to be, originally started with UK nationals, France or Paris would normally be the place where it was held. And then you would have Spain, Madrid and Germany. So there would normally be like four per season for Europe. So they'd be European national championships. And then Italy got one. Spain got taken away after, coincidentally, got taken away around the same time as the debacle that happened with Ruben, which is completely something we're not going to get into in this episode. But that happened and then Italy became quite prominent. I think the attendance, the amount of players that were turning up at the French national was not high. So that one got kicked. So it ended up just being UK, Italy and then Germany. And then obviously it transitioned into the IC after that, which I do miss nationals. I do miss nationals. So the international challenges, not challenges, championships, instead of the nationals, we now have like regional ones. So we have one for Europe. We have one for Oceana. One for South America, is South America? Yeah, South America. Yeah. And then one for North America. Asia has its own scene. It's very weird. Again, we could talk about that on one episode because it's so interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting when they're on there. They were on circuit career. They still have that, I think. Yeah, but yeah, we won't go too deep into that. So anyway, so that's my point was the original EUIC. So the first one we had in Europe had 517. We went to that. It was in the 500s and that was mad. We've never had events like that before. The numbers was awesome. The following year, we had slightly less than that. So it had gone down a bit in 2018. And then I don't know how the following, so I don't know how 2019 went. That was in Berlin. That was in Berlin because I went to that as well. It was probably around the same as the previous year, to be honest, mate, because you're always going to get gone. No, go on. No, I was just going to say, those are the numbers we used to be getting for these big tournaments. We're now getting those numbers in regionals. Which is crazy because most regionals, you'd be lucky. You'd want big numbers because you want a larger top cut, not just a top eight cut. But now we're getting 500 people at a regional, which is crazy. So they need to change. I mean, like EUIC now, we're looking at 1,000 players, which is double, which is crazy. So they definitely have to reshark to the format next season, especially if it stays the way it is. I think it's a good year to do it after the World Cup in Japan. It doesn't matter if they change it for a larger audience, so then it gets less popular again. Did you change it back? And I think the one thing I would say with obviously being a caster as well, I do have a little bit of knowledge about, I don't have all the knowledge, and I definitely am not an employee of Pokemon, so I don't know the ins and outs. But from what I've heard, how things operate, it is very difficult to make changes in the actual circuit because of the layers of kind of sign off of anything that has to be done. So it goes from TPCI in America, it has to go all the way to Japan and then signed off by them. They have to do all the changes before the season starts. The one thing I would say is you've got people like K, you've got people like Chris Brown, and they are always wanting feedback and wanting to improve things. And we have seen massive improvements to the circuit over the last few years. And a lot of the things that do get implemented in the game are always down to them, and they are aware of things that should be changed, but maybe don't have any control over. They're still playing the games, right? They're not idiots. They know that if there's a problem, like, even when they do work for Pokemon, they're going to be like, well, they want to do what they have to do. Yeah, but I think my point comes back to, I think a lot of people kind of that play the circuits and things like that, think that, you know, all of the issues are down to them not listening or not being able to implement things quickly.  What I'm saying is I think they do know what the issues are, and I think they are trying to make changes. And I just think it is an easy process. And I think if that was communicated, I think it would make it a lot easier for the community to accept. But I think because obviously it's a hard thing to come out and communicate, because are you allowed to communicate certain things? Are you allowed to come out and say that this is the situation? You know, it's a difficult one to do. But I think, yeah, things are improving, have been improving. I think it's just a slow process. And I think over the next few years, hopefully, things keep going in the direction that they're going. And Pokemon do listen. So I think that's that's a big thing to keep in mind. I think just have a bit of patience. And although some things are happening right now, you might not agree with, I don't agree with a lot of things. And I'm going to talk about it. You can't play everyone. That's the other thing. Someone's always going to be upset with something that is made changed or whatever, or something that isn't working out. I mean, they can make a change that's really good for like TCG and Go. That would be fantastic if you were the employer, but it could massively impact, let me see, you know, that could easily happen. So, you know, it's going to happen at some point. Oh, like I said, we've seen it happen. But that is, you're just not going to place everyone. So it's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible. Yeah. So that's that. Anyway, mate, it's good. I like that. I like that, mate. Well, on the subject of Scotland, I'm just going to throw up this. Oh, the little advert, because it was a little latron thing that I made. I haven't seen it, mate. I haven't seen it. Okay, I'll see the advert. Why talk about that? And I'll get the little advert. Yeah. So now there is a mystery gift running at the moment in Pokemon, Skull and Violet, for a flying Terra type lechonk that you can get in your games. I don't think there's anything really exclusive about the lechonk, other than it has got the flying Terra type, which isn't something that is impossible to get in games anyway. But it is available at game stores around different game stores worldwide. Obviously, Canada, US, it'll be GameStop, UK. It's going to be it game and GameStop in many other places, GameMania over in Belgium, in the Netherlands, and Micromania in France. So they're all the dates. They're running to about mid-April. So if you're in your local store, you can ask for a code from the cashier or employees that work there, and they should give you a little code that you'll be able to get this free mystery gift. Yeah, a code as well, I think. How do you get it? Thinking game, you get a little card, unless it's just that thing there. I'm sure I saw a post about it on Reddit today. It might just look like something that you get, and that might have the code on the back of it, maybe. Maybe. I know they did that with the... Which were the last ones that they give cards up for, I think, Xerneas in New Veltel at game, where you got them and there was a little scratch thing on the back, and you got the code from that. So that was what they did for that. So maybe they're doing something similar. I'll just send you the link to the little video they made on Twitter. Twitter? Twitter. I mean, it's on the official Pokemon channel. I don't know if they're trying to tease something, but they're like Pokemon together. Don't know what they're trying to do, if they're trying to do something, or it's just like just, you know, chunk le chunk, everyone loves the chunk type thing. So everyone loves the chunk. I mean, it is adorable.  What have you done? Got rid of you. Sorry, mate. That was like, solo me for a minute. Sorry.  Found it again. Right. Here we go. Here it is. Yeah, it's really cute. Full screening. The mighty new Pokemon has arrived with an incredible sense of adventure. It's so cool. It's very wholesome, isn't it? They just know how to, I'm like, I want to like on the chunk plushie now. Like, I feel like it's on like a similar level to like a Bidoof or something. It's just got that. It's just, it's just got me, man. I mean, that's it.  That was nice. I liked it. I enjoyed that. It's a cute little one. Send that over. Where were we? We were le chunking it, so. Oh man, this is playing. I was like, who's that talking? There's a little video in the corner there. Confusing. So confusing. And yeah, that's le chunk. And yeah, go out and get it. Get it in your games where you can. I will. I don't know if I'm going to be even near a game before the 14th of April. So I will. I'll try if I can get extras. I'll give some out on the next poll. Oh, like, remember why I used to give like, we're going back now. But like events inside of like, like toys are us and stuff. Yeah. Like to get, like, I mean, you'll remember it more, but like, I never really got a chance as part of the era, but it's like the only way you get dark cry and shame in like all the years when you had to go. I remember when I was young, I was like, just constantly trying to look up like, how could I get this Pokemon? But then the events would have finished. I'm like, I can't get a shame in them.  It's impossible to get it now. Yeah, I remember doing like websites now that replicate the codes for the games. So you can go on to a website and if you want to play get it in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, you can get the shame in. They do it for you. That's amazing. That is amazing. I remember going to the 20, no, sorry. 2001 world championships, red, blue and yellow and queuing up is a little me with my copy of Reds and my Game Boy and getting a Mew from the trade event from this like machine, this huge machine then they plugged into your Game Boy and then they traded you a gift Mew. And that was pretty cool. And the best one that I ever did was the Celebi Tour. I don't know when that was, but it was just a pre-release of Crystal and they did a tournament on Golden Silver. And we begged me, my brother, also called Scott, not you Scott, but also called Scott. You're my other brother. We begged, begged, begged our parents to take us down because it was like in Leeds, the closest one we begged. And my dad was like, okay, I'll think about it.  So I think it was like an Easter break or something.  So this whole week, we'd been doing all of these jobs for my dad because he was the only one at home. My mum was at work that week. So we were like cleaning the windows. We were like scrubbing his shed, like repainting the shed.  And I mean, he definitely milked it, right? And he got to Friday night and we'd been asking him all week. And he was like, well, we'll see by the end of the week. We'll see how he get on at the end of the week. Got to Friday night and we were sitting down for dinner. And we're like, okay, dad, so are we going tomorrow? He's like, nah, I don't think we will. And I'm like, what? What do you like? He literally, literally enslaved us for an entire week. And he was like, nah, we'll go.  But he obviously, it went on for a lot longer than just that momentary second. But yeah, so we went down to that anyway. And me and my brother had actually built our teams in-game. Golden Silver hadn't been out too long. Like the competitive seniors started to develop singles teams and things like that. It started to develop. I can't remember what we played on online. Was it Pokemon online or Shoribut or something like that that you could practice online? Anyway, we built our teams in-game. And we were feeling good about going down, doing well at this tournament. And we got there and we've gotten the line. We've got talking with people about their teams. Still feel good thinking this is going to be a good day here today. And then they announced today's tournament is going to be on Pokemon Stadium 2. We were like, brilliant. We can play on Pokemon Stadium 2. It hadn't been released yet. Get to play on that. And you'll be using rental teams only. We were like, what? And I got, so you had to beat your first opponent to get into the tournament. Got randomly paired up. I managed to do that. And then you obviously, it was single elimination. GS Cup rules, so three versus three, rental Pokemon that you could beat. And I got cheesed out and like round two by, what was it that flinched me? I was using one buffet because I was like, I was like, what buffet will be really good in this tournament? And I got cheesed out by this guy who just flinched me for like six turns in a row. Flinch, flinch, flinch, flinch. So I couldn't counter or mirror or anything. And then that was that. And then it was very sad. But the whole takeaway from this, why I'm telling you this, is because everyone that got into the tournament got given a special copy of Pokemon Crystal, which had 20 celibies, 20 guest celibies on the cartridge, right? So it was a full copy of Crystal and 20 celibies on the cartridge. And what you had to do was you had to trade, there was, they give you a list that's like a sheet of Pokemon as well, where you had to trade each celiby with friends, supposedly with friends, and you had to trade them with friends for specific Pokemon. So you had to trade like one celiby for Charizard, one for Snorlax, all these different things. And you had to trade them all away for these specific Pokemon, have them in your box, and then you sent this copy of Crystal away, and they would send you a real copy of Crystal back in the post, which is pretty cool. So I just kept it. Well, what I did was I traded them all to my copy of Pokemon Red. Oh no, no, my copy of Gold or Silver, whichever one it was at the time. So I traded them all for these specific Pokemon, I did it, and then I sent the cartridge, when they actually sent me a copy of Crystal. So I've got my Gold or Silver cartridge, wherever it is, my parents has all these celibies on it. So you just traded the other Pokemon for anything? Yeah, I didn't really have any anyone locally around that time that still played, the crazy kind of died down then around where we lived. So there wasn't really anyone that played that we knew that would even want one of these celibies. So I just traded with ourselves, yeah. And then they sent us a copy, yeah. That was cool, that was one of the coolest things that I did. That's sick. I miss the core cartridges. Yeah, they do. We don't get that anymore. No, we don't. You used to get colored cartridges. Crystal's cartridge is awesome. It's shiny. It's so sick. Glittery, yeah, amazing. It's amazing, yeah. Emerald as well, the green one. I love that cartridge. Diven up with like making them look, just even like a shiny sticker makes it look so cool. Like when you look, when you see like, again. Like a white, like a hologrammy sticker on it, I think, I'm trying to think. Like a white two, no. No, no, I had, no, and go check. I don't think it was. I've got, I've got the box for black and white too, I think up here. Give me two seconds. Entertain the people while I just go and get this. Hello. It's not like I'm going far, but you know. Oh my God, he's completely disappeared. What do we do? I'm wearing a Puget onesie. Um, yeah, I love it. Back, don't worry people. That was quick. You've gotten his own by yourself too long. Bad things will happen. So this is a box. So the box is not in any way glittery. I mean, the art looks nice, but the art normally looks cool. No, you're right. You're right. No, it's just normal. So it's sad about that. There's a mega Ruby Alpha Sapphire. Are they not blue and red cartridges? Did they really just stop doing it in DS land? Are you sure? Are you sure? Omega Ruby Alpha Sapphire aren't. Are they? I should know this, but I want to say that they're red. They're obviously not. That is sad. Yeah, I mean, they started out with colored cartridges. Red was red. Blue was blue. Yellow was yellow. Gold was gold. Gold was gold. Silver was silver. Crystal was the cool looking. Crystal color. It was like a terraslized crystal, wasn't it? And then, um, Ruby Sapphire Emerald. Front red is green. So green again. Yeah. Diamond of Pearls are a lot. Yeah, I know. We don't care anymore. They're all gray, weren't they? Not very cartridge. Yeah. It's not. No, why? No, that's such a good point, mate. It wasn't like the boxes. I know they do like the, um, get the still cases. There's even stadium. Stadium two was like a gold, like a, like a gold. Yeah. Cartridge. Yeah. Yep. Lazy, mate. Lazy. It's a little things as well. That's what I mean. The fans like. We like those little details. One is something to collect and two, it just makes it a bit more exciting. The only thing they do is they've got the steel back version, which aren't, there's nothing. Yeah. Oh, they're just steel.  I'm not a fan of those. I've got, I've got them because I buy the double pack stuff. It's like, damn. What was that? What was that? My new kebab album just fell down. Oh my God. It's a sign.  Ready to be. Did you just break? No, it's fine. We're all good. Hopefully. It's all right. All good. We're all good. All good. I can't even remember what I was about to say. It was quite, I'm sure it was relevant to the topic at the time. But never mind. Oh my God. Ah! Hey, sorry. Sorry. Panic over. If you could buy the, if you could buy the DLCs as a cartridge, would you buy them or would you just download them? Like with the game. So you could buy Scotland Violet with the DLC or like already, like downloaded, updated to the update with the DLC as a cartridge. Would you buy it or would you just say, no, I'll just get the download because I've already got a bit depends on it. Again, like you'd have to give me a reason to download it. Like, I mean, download it or to buy it. No, it's in like, sorry, sorry, sorry. To buy it, you'd have to give me a reason because I mean, normally I've always bought games because I don't see the point in downloading them. Someone bought me Scotland Violet as a downloadable code. So I was like, that's fine. But I mean, they're not really giving me, like going back to what we said, like what's the incentive to buy a physical cartridge? Like, because I'm never going to sell it because that is my argument normally for having a physical cartridge. Yeah. So I'm just like, well, what do I do then? You know, so no, basically my answer is I'll just download it. Even if I had the physical copy, they would have to go some way in order to make me want to buy it. Yeah. So I just want to know. No, what do you do? I think as a collector's piece, I would probably buy it, but I'd probably keep it sealed as like it. Because I've got, I've got Sword and Shield sealed because I really enjoyed those games. So I'm like, I do have quite a few Pokemon games sealed because like, eventually I would like to get them graded so I can have them as like display pieces. So I think in that case, I'd be like, yeah, I'll buy those ones is my kind of part of my seal collection for those. Do you know what I mean? I'm very tempted to buy. This is a total tangent. I'm very tempted to try and get myself the Legend of Zelda or Led Limited Edition. Yeah. Fortiers of the Kingdom. It does it nice. It's so nice. So nice. The dock. The dock just completes it. The crappy dock completes it. Anyway, mate, we're going off and tangent all over the shop here. We need to, we need to talk about this new TCG set before this one, this is the 151. This is going to be worth so much money. I'm telling you now. I mean, it's pretty obvious to anyone with a brain and has any human problem. This is just going to, yeah. I'm very excited. It is 151. You can kind of self-explanatory. It's going to feature all of the original 151, 121. Interestingly, I think May 16th and May I think, interestingly though, it's a first set to have Kadabra in it for the longest time because obviously there's always issues with Kadabra with the lawsuits about not being able to use Kadabra because of, is it Yurigela? Yeah. Yurigela thing. So this one's actually going to have it in. It's going to have Kadabra in it, which is, which is pretty awesome. So that even details it here. I want to get that in Japanese as well as the English set. Yeah, I think it'd be really cool. Definitely going to go that as the Japanese one to keep. So it'd be good. Let's see when is it set to come out. I want to see the 16. I don't know if it says here, does it? We want the set release 16th of June in Japan. 16th of June. Okay. So it was a little, I was a month out. No word in the UK. So yeah, very cool. I'm very excited for it, mate. I think it'll be a cool set. I wonder if it'll just be a side set rather than a expansion to anything that's like current. Maybe a holiday set. Yeah, maybe, maybe make sense, make sense. Yeah. So there is that, which is quite exciting this week. What else we got to talk about? We've got the Switch 2 you're talking about. Switch 2, the saga continues with the Switch 2. Maybe you mentioned something about backwards compatibility possibly, which we talked about. Yeah, which we talked about last week. On the pod last week we did talk about. He brought up the point. It's a very good point as well, mate. And one of the things that I would say about this is Connor, who we covered last week, talking about the new Tegra chip. Also kind of updated again, according to my source, next gen Nintendo Switch dev kit have been sent to developers. So that is big because now the developers are going to be able to make games for the new system, which is I'm calling it next year. Now announce it this year, coming out next year. I think early 2024. Yeah, I think that's probably like around February, March time, right? Do you think? I've honestly got no idea on actual days. I don't know if they dropped the original Switch. Was it like January or anything like that? Maybe it feels too, like it obviously feels optimal time to drop it just before Christmas so people buy it for Christmas, right? But it feels too late now for them to... Is it too late now for them to announce it to market it? Unless they do it for the following Christmas. The original Switch come out on March 3rd. Oh, so they're probably going to do... So maybe another March release. You could be right about that. Yeah. It's interesting because there is a lot of chatter down here, I think, about backwards compatibility. Do you think there's some cartridges? If it ends up having backwards compatibility, my guess would be a slot that fits original Switch games and Switch 2 games would have a slight change in shape. Why change the card? Why? Use the same one. No, they're saying it would be the similar one, but you know between DS and 3DS is just a notch. Yeah, but why? Why change it? It doesn't make any difference. I guess because then you can't use Switch 2 games on the Switch. So you have to only use it on the Switch 2. So that would make sense for that. So that's the rest of that.  Yeah. And then the only other thing I've really got that I want to mention this week was Ridleyku. Ridleyku, a good old friend, Ridleyku. So if you aren't aware of Ridleyku, he is a very reliable leaker within the community. Puts out riddles, which are in the form of kind of leaks, always very accurate. And it's left up to the community to kind of decipher them. But this is a very interesting one that you put out earlier this week. Your both version info. Here's a first batch of Mons who are going to wear special hats or masks in Sudachi, which is where the first DLC will be located. Got a clue and not a surprise. So it's interesting that all of these are the ones that are referring the masks are referring to this, which is the scene in the DLC trailer, which obviously depicts, obviously Pikachu, Evie masks, as well as the what we imagine are the other starters. But it would make sense that all of the seven star terror aides are somehow tied into this special feature as well. So I thought that was pretty interesting. And it's always going to be something that Charizard and Pikachu big fan favorite. Well, big Game Freak favorite. Big fan favorite. I mean, Jesus. Yeah. They're going to get everything on there because they're so popular with Game Freak in particular. But I just thought it was interesting to know. I think Sol Silva, who's a leak analyst, goes on to say a little bit more as well. And the first DLC, I am all but certain that the three new Pokemon will be able to get all pawns mask or have their own masks and transform into something close to what we saw in the live action trailer. They kind of look like Power Rangers, but I'm excited to see the redeem these designs for me. So yeah. Well, how big the DLC will be as well? I think it'll be big. Mate, I really do. I think it'll be a good size because it's coming out quite late, isn't it? And it's coming out quite late. I do have some extra things for this week for you. There's a couple of... After last week, you showed me that advert. Now, I don't know whether I show you a shorter one this week because we are getting on for time. Yeah, I think there's one. Or if I... A shorter one? Yeah, just because we're near in the hour mark now. So I don't know if it's too long. Yeah, and I don't really want to spam on with the longer advertisement. Actually, let me just see how long this advert is. I think this one is pretty long, but I have been hunting around. This is only four minutes. Is that too long? Too long to probably watch and then talk about. Yeah, so this is too short because we can save it for next week. We can save it before too. That one was quite special. We're going to have a segment. I think we should have a segment for Vogue One Advert. Right, we can. Yeah, I did find this one as well. I've got quite a few actually. I've been really... This is only 30 seconds, right? Okay. I'm ready. We're there. I'm ready. I'm ready. Can you see this? Not yet. You can't. Right there. I'm going to just... I'm just going to pop this open. Okay, all right. It's not so much weird. You're not going to be able to hear it, are you? No, do I need to hear it? Probably not. Okay, okay. It's kind of weird. I never even knew this existed, but well, I'll just press it and... Yeah, here you go. Damn, that's a Pokemon musical. I've ever seen one. What? That looks... Does it look weird? I mean, that Pikachu looks freaky, man. Jesus. I feel like if you were a child, you'd be like, yes, you love Pokemon and you want to go see that. How good is this? How bad is this? There's some things in here that I just need to go back and say. I mean, I don't know what's going on with Jesse and James there. They're not really... They're not really... I mean, the outfits look good. And I don't know. There's Ash. Okay. Brock. Okay. There's another thing that's accurate. They're not the most accurate. I mean, look at this Hypno at the front. Bro, that is literally things with nightmares.  We've got a victory bell there. That looks... That's probably the most accurate thing. That looks good. Pidgey. Is that the Pidgey? Is that Pidgey Otto in the back? Otsukuna. No, it's not Otsukuna, because there's an Aptos next to it. No, that's Pidgey Otto there. Oh, no, you're all right. Okay. It has to be. It can't be Otsukuna. I mean... No, no, you're all right. It doesn't obviously... Go on the basis of how bad this is, right? And then, yes, Aptos there. Why is Pidgey Otto the same size as Aptos though? I'm not sure that... Yeah. Anyway, was there a picture of Misty? We've seen the other two. Let's get forward. Can we get Misty in here? The luck. Great headshot. I don't think there is one of Misty, you know? How do you feel about this, mate? Have I done well in finding something for us? Yeah, this is weird. I don't know what this is. I wonder if I can find actual feet. What is that? Yeah, a team rocket robot. It gets better, mate. It gets better, because I didn't just find this random advert and leave it there. I found a full recording of the entire stage show. The one hour, 50-minute stage show of this Pokemon Live. No way. I'll have to ask this game for that one episode. This is the... Look at this. Ash and his bedroom with this little... Oh, my God. It's so freaky. It's the same size as Ash. And then, yeah, we've got all this... There must be battles going on throughout it. And then, team rocket, obviously, doing a thing. How do you do a battle? I'm so confused. Yeah, I don't know. Because the Pokemon... Yeah, that must be Professor Oak there. So, yeah, we've got all of this. All of this good, wholesome... I don't know what's going on. But you know what? If this was still gone now, I would pay to go and see this, just for this to be fun to go to watch. Yeah. So, this was one of the things I found, mate, this week. But I do have the... If anyone wants the entire one hour, 50-minute show, it's quite a long show as well, right? For a stage show. It's a long show. It's a long stage show, yeah. If anyone wants the link, I will pop it down in the description, I guess. Maybe do a stream where we watch the whole thing. Maybe that would be actually really cool. That would be a really cool evening. Or watch it long. If people want to take part in that, maybe one Sunday we'll do a live stream and we'll watch it together. That would be really good, yeah. I can put my Snorlax ones on to match your Pikachu one. Yeah, yeah, of course. We can get some popcorn, and we can watch this and see how what tails are unfolding in the world of Ash Kachum, Brock and Misty. It is the picture that I've got the still of here is Ash's mum and Professor Oak. We might get some extra storylines that we've never ever known about before, but I thought it was funny that someone's got the whole stage show on camera. It's classic, isn't it? Brilliant, brilliant. Excellent. That's, I think, everything this week, mate. I don't think there's anything else other than being really fun, mate. Thank you so much for taking the time, mate. Time just flies by. Flies. Whenever I talk to you, I don't mean so. Flies. It gives us, we've got some good ideas from pods coming up. Yeah. Again, we've got so many stories. We're going to do an episode where we talk about someone was asking in the comments about our backgrounds with Pokemon. I think they'll be really good ones to go through because I know Lee has a really sick background with Pokemon as he's touched upon today. And then I'll talk about my experiences and then maybe we'll do an episode talking about some of the stories we have as well because I think that'll be really fun as well. That's a nice idea, mate. I like the idea of that. That'd be good. So yeah, keep the suggestions coming if you've got ideas for what your topic specifically you would like to maybe that we haven't touched upon in this one. You'd like to have covered it in future weeks. Do let us know, of course. But I don't think there's much else that I won't add in. Just say thank you again to Scott and thank you to the viewer, you guys for supporting the pod because we are in the early days and it is just it's really well. We got like almost 1500 views in which for a video podcast is really good. Like especially considering everyone's thank you so much for the support. We're going to keep it on the channel for now probably maybe for a couple months and then we will eventually migrate over to its own channel. We just want to get settled first. Yeah, get it set up, get into a routine, get a good consistency going with it, get a good feel for how we're doing these and because we do eventually want to do the live ones as well integrated with these kind of like static ones that we're going to put out just every week. So we do want to mix up everything in. I think it'd be nice to get the viewers involved as well in them as well. I think that would be a nice part of it. So that is the plan for them along the line and I've just jumped in and cut you off, Scott. So I'm sorry, I let you finish. That was it. No, I mean, you were basically going where I wanted to say so. So you're sorry for listening if you made this far. Yeah, I mean, I look forward to doing this again next week. We'll see you next week. Yeah, sure. Before we go, and I know I'm dragging it on, there is supposedly a little rumor going around that there's going to be some impactful Pokemon news coming out this coming week. So it might have already come out by the time of us putting this pod up on Wednesday. Might not have yet. So there might be nothing at all, but there might be something really spicy to talk about next week. We'll have to wait and see, but definitely come by because if it has happened, we will be talking about it. Maybe. Yeah. All right, Scott. Take care of yourself, mate. I'll see you next week. Everyone else at home. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. In the next part. Bye-bye.