Transcript:
Steven:
Hi, I’m Steven Reich, here at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in
Columbus, Ohio at the Pokémon US Nationals 2016. I’m here with Wayland, who is
the winner in the Seniors division of the Pokkén Tournament event that they had
here. So Wayland, first of all, where are you from?
Wayland:
I am from Douglasville, Georgia.
Steven:
So, you came all the way up here. And Pokkén has only been around a while, but
you were involved in Pokémon before that. How did you get introduced to the Pokémon
franchise?
Wayland:
When I was younger, my little brother handed me a Game Boy. Once he finished
his game, he was like, “Here, go play this.” It ended up being Sapphire for the
Game Boy Advance. And ever since that, I love Pokémon.
Steven:
You said the first video game-you’ve been playing video games since you were 3,
and the first one you played was actually the Mario Baseball game on the Game
Cube. So, you’ve been into video games for a very long time. So, you were
pretty much interested in Pokkén pretty much right when it was announced. What
was your reaction to the announcement of the game?
Wayland:
Okay so, when they announced it in Japan for the first time, when they were
showing the game play of it, I was surprised. I was like, “Is it coming to the
US?” I was super excited, and it was really nice.
Steven:
Yeah, it’s something different. We haven’t had a true Pokémon fighting game,
and of course, now we do. So, the character you play is most of the time, in
Pokkén, is Blaziken. What attracts you to that character? Why do you play as
that for the most part?
Wayland:
When I first played Sapphire, my starter Pokémon was Torchic. So, my favorite Pokémon
is Blaziken. Well, it kind of grew on me. And when Pokkén came out, I remember
my friend calling me at 3 o’clock saying there was an early access event. And I
was like, “Is Blaziken on it?” And he was like, “I don’t know, man.” I’m like,
“Come on!”
Steven:
I could see the connection there. Absolutely. I’m sure a lot of the folks at
home had maybe a similar experience with Smash Bros. or Pokkén, about whatever
their first starter was, they want to be able to play with that in some of the
side games. Alright. Well, let’s tell the folks at home about the finals then.
You were paired against a guy. He used, over the course of it, two different Pokémon.
He used some Lucario and also some Shadow Mewtwo. Let’s start with Blaziken vs.
Lucario. What’s the things to watch out for in that type of match?
Wayland:
If you’re going to win, for Blaziken, you’re going to have to use a lot of Flare
Blitz to cut him off, because he has a lot of counter moves. You can counter
break him. Lucarios love to counter. Another thing is you don’t have to really
stay spaced, because really can’t space you out if you put him towards a wall.
Once he’s in a wall, he’s kind of in a bad position. And when you have Burst
against his Burst, you technically have a huge advantage.
Steven:
And what about Shadow Mewtwo, the other character he used? What are the things
to watch for there, and how did you react to it?
Wayland:
When he switched to Shadow Mewtwo, I really wasn’t fazed. Most people would be
fazed, but Shadow Mewtwo-people switch to Shadow Mewtwo when they want power.
But his health is super low, so it takes only a few hits to take him out. And I
have some counter piercers, some good moves. Everyone says since he goes to
Burst faster and I go to Burst faster, it’s like, I better Burst pretty fast.
I’m like, I have my Burst and it gives me a speed boost, so I’m already good.
Steven:
Yeah. Speed, obviously, in any fighting game is extremely important. So, in
Pokkén, you also get something called a Support Pokémon. I noticed you-I think
you always chose Cresselia, which is a little bit of a healer. Is there a
particular reason for that, other than, obviously, the healing? How do you
decide when exactly to use that? Because you don’t necessarily want to use it
right away when the meter fills up.
Wayland:
Cresselia is only used once per turn, she summons fast, she gives a large
health bonus, a large synergy bonus, and a large-it takes away negative status
on you. So, my moves hurt myself. I hurt myself when I do my moves. When I hurt
myself, it doesn’t take away my full bar, it takes away my green bar. So my
darker shade of green is still there. That’s the health I can recover. So, when
Cresselia is charged and I’ve used enough of her, and I have my Burst-if I know
when I used her, my Burst will come out, I’ll just say I can use Cresselia, get
my Burst and get all of that HP back that I already wasted.
Steven:
There’s definitely a management aspect there that you have to keep any eye on,
and think very quickly. That’s quite impressive. It sounds like Cresselia is a
very interesting Assist Pokémon to use in this game. One more thing about Pokkén.
For a while, we didn’t think there was going to be any DLC beyond the initial
release. But it seems that recently there’s been some rumblings in Japan. Why
don’t you tell us about that and what you’re hoping for.
Wayland:
Japan’s official Pokkén tournament, they announced there’s going to be a new
character on July 20th on the arcade version. But, we don’t know if
it’s coming to America. Everyone’s hoping it would be Darkrai or another
Legendary or Empoleon. But I feel like it’s going to be a different type of Pokémon.
Because we have a fire type—I’m thinking it’s going to be a water type, because
we don’t have any water types.
Steven:
Well, we’ve got Suicune, but that’s about it. So, we don’t have any
conventional bipedal ones. So maybe if they want to fill that void. Of course,
I know some folks are still wishing there was a playable Hawlucha, ever since
Pikachu Libre.
Wayland:
Hawlucha, Hitmonchan. And I think that’s it.
Steven:
So, we’ll have to see what happens. Hopefully, whatever does get revealed later
this month does come to the console version. Alright. Well, thank you very
much, Wayland. This has been Steven Reich from the Greater Columbus Convention
Center in Columbus, Ohio at the Pokémon US Nationals 2016.
Transcript by GetTranscribed.com
Second, we got a chance to interview Brady Bourgeois, winner of the TCG event in the Seniors Division. Brady used a Giratina/Seismitoad deck, with a few tweaks for this event:
Transcript:
Steven:
I’m here with Brady Bourgeois, who is the winner of the TCG Seniors division at
this year’s tournament. And Brady, we just have a few questions. First of all,
where are you from?
Brady:
I’m from St. Louis, Missouri.
Steven:
So yep, we get people from all over the country. And what was the deck that you
decided to play for this tournament?
Brady:
Giratina-Seismitoad.
Steven:
And what made you choose that particular deck for this tournament? Were you
expecting a certain metagame? What went into the strategic choice there?
Brady:
I knew there was going to be a lot of Night March and Vespiquen bees and
Vespiquen. So, I decided that Giratina-Seismitoad would have amazing matchups
against those. And it also had a good matchup for Mega Rayquaza, because of
Giratina’s ability blocking Mega attacks. And it also had a good matchup
against Mega Manectric. So, I knew it had good matchups most of the way around.
It had a bad matchup to Greninja, which people thought was going to come. I
thought I was going to hit a few Greninjas today, and might lose a few matches,
and might get kicked out of the tournament.
Steven:
Well, you certainly didn’t in the last couple rounds on your way to the
championship, so that was pretty fortunate. Were there any fine tuning
adjustments? Any specific cards you balanced out of the deck? Any adjustments
you made there for this specific tournament?
Brady:
I got rid of Hex Maniac and all the Super Scoop Ups and AZ and Garbodor, a
two-one Garbodor line to block Abilities to further beat down Night March
because of Mew, so that they can’t use Mew anymore, and I also have a better
matchup against Greninja.
Steven:
Yeah, being able to shut off abilities is obviously very important. Now
obviously, your Giratina has one, but unless you’re playing against a Mega, you
don’t have to worry about that too much. Alright, so you had your deck, you had
your strategy there. Let’s go to the finals. You were on-stream for those, as
well as the top 4, if people want to take a look at that. But let’s focus on
the finals. You were pairing up against a deck that was playing Mega Manectric
against Jolteon EX. So obviously, Giratina has a good matchup against that,
just Jolteon EX is something to watch out for, isn’t it?
Brady:
Yeah. You have to keep pressure on really early. And you have to use your
Giratina to make sure that it can’t attach Double Colorless Energies so their
Jolteon doesn’t get setup really fast. And you also try to use Crushing Hammers
and Team Flare Grunt and other Items that discard energy to get rid of all of
the energy on Jolteon until you can Lysandre it up twice and knock it out.
Steven:
Yeah. Jolteon, because it had the attack that makes it temporarily invulnerable
from Basics, is obviously a big problem. But, you work very effectively around
that. Although, you did have some help in the finals. First of all, you hit
heads very heads very consistently on the Crushing Hammers that you played to
get rid of the Energy on your opponent’s side of the field. Even though earlier
in the day, you had a streak in the top 4 where it just wasn’t coming for you.
What’s it like with that card when you going from both the positive and the
negative, how does that make you feel?
Brady:
Well, when you hit a ton of tails, it just gets really annoying because your
opponent gets a very big window to get back in the game in Energy. So, they
might get a big attack off and knock out one of your main attackers, and it’s
just annoying. It’s not fun. But when you get heads a ton of times, it helps
you very in the long-run. Your opponent runs out of energy slowly. And, you’re
also preventing them from attacking you.
Steven:
Alright so, if folks have watched the finals stream, if folks at home have done
that, then what they might have noticed is that during the finals match, there
were a couple things that kind of got through for a little bit that shouldn’t
have happened. Mainly on your opponent’s side. But, the first one happened, I
think in game 1. He played a Rough Seas in order to get some damage off one of
his Pokémon, even though you had used Giratina’s attack and he couldn’t play
Stadiums. That was rewound fairly quickly. But, in the second game, there was a
more major error. Your opponent actually had Parallel City out. And he had it
pointed to him so that he could only have 3 on his Bench. And all of a sudden,
he put more on, including a Shaymin. So, how did that all resolve out, and when
did you realize that he had made a mistake?
Brady:
I didn’t really notice it at first, because I usually have Parallel City
pointed at me, because that’s the only Stadium I play in my decks. So, I’m used
to having about 3 Pokémon on my Bench. And I didn’t notice it at the time,
because it didn’t really matter. Actually, before they caught it, I was
thinking about playing my own Parallel City in my favor to lock out his
Parallel City. But, you can’t do that, actually now that I think about it. But,
he got a major penalty, but it was only one Prize Card and it didn’t really
affect the rest of the game. And they effectively just took the Shaymin, the
cards he got from the Shaymin, and put them back on the top of the deck after
showing me. It didn’t really affect the game too much, so it wasn’t a big deal.
Steven:
It would be nice, obviously, if they had caught that a little bit sooner,
before he had progressed and they could have at least gotten a warning instead
of you getting a Prize for that. But, stuff like that does happen. And people
can get a little nervous and move forward a little too quickly sometimes and
that can happen. Alright. Well, of course, next month is Worlds in San
Francisco. And there’s kind of a big question mark over this one because we
have another set, Steam Siege, that comes out very early in August. And they’ve
changed the legality rule so that it will be legal for Worlds. Do you have any
opinion on that? Or, are you going to be planning anything out based on what
happens with that set?
Brady:
Not too much. I know I’m probably going to switch my deck from
Giratina-Seismitoad to YZG or something else. But the reason why I don’t want
to play Seismitoad anymore is because I think Night March is going to have a
falling out with the new card that shuffles all Pokémon from both discard piles
into the decks. So, Night March will not be played as much, which is one of my
best matchups. So, I’m thinking about whether or not I want to play
Giratina-Seismitoad or another deck.
Steven:
Yeah, that’s the big question mark with Steam Siege. There’s a card coming out
as a promo in Japan called Karen that is sort of a less broad Lysandre’s Trump
Card, because it only shuffles Pokémon in. But, we’re not 100% sure if that’s
going to come out in Steam Siege or somewhere separately, or it could even be a
while. So, that’s the big question mark and we’ll know a lot more in a couple
weeks. Alright. Well, thank you very much, Brady. This has been Steven Reich
from the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio at the Pokémon US
Nationals 2016.
Transcript by GetTranscribed.com
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