Wolfe Glick is well-known in the world of professional Pokemon. He has been instrumental in shaping the careers of many players through his own achievements in competitive play. But through his style of content creation on YouTube, he also paved the way for many competitive players to make a living off of their gaming. Wolfe Glick is an accomplished player in his own right. He has won numerous tournaments, most notably the World Championships in 2016. Glick is known for his calculated approach to the game, and he has an expert's eye for team building. He has also brought famous names from YouTube to try the game's competitive side, hosting multiple tournaments of big-name creators on the site. He has shared his insights with other players through social media and other online forums and has even coached some aspiring competitors. In this way, Wolfe Glick is a shining example of a YouTube content creator. His competitive success gave him notoriety amongst hardcore Pokemon play...

Recently, a whole subgenre of platformers has risen, led by the new release Pizza Tower. These games take after the Wario Land series in their designs.  Much like Wario Land, these "wariolikes" offer challenges that reward skill with the abilities of the character you're playing as. Oftentimes, this means slightly more variable levels that can be tackled in many different ways.  Most of the time, a player character in a wariolike has a wide range of moves and skills at their disposal, which players slowly master throughout a playthrough. In many ways, this design philosophy also is held by Pokemon. There's the obvious parallel between unique player characters in a wariolike and any given Pokemon being equally unique, of course. But further than that, much like a player might lean on certain moves in these platformers, the moves a Pokemon learns and can use can be adjusted to taste. Not only that, but much like the series that spawned wariolikes, Pokemon has created it...

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are getting a patch slated for the end of this February.  Among the updates in this patch are many bug fixes and great quality-of-life changes! Below is a list of some of the most important new fixes to look out for! From a Pokémon’s summary, players will be able to change Pokémon’s nicknames, markings, held items, and mark- or Ribbon-related titles, as well as being able to reorder moves, have Pokémon remember moves, have Pokémon forget moves, and use TMs. This is a huge time save for competitive players, shiny/ribbon hunters, and casual battlers alike!   Players will be able to swap out held items by pressing the Y Button when in the Held Items view. Another pretty big quality-of-life improvement for competitive players.  This is a very important thing this generation, as the competitive VGC scene has an amazing meta and exciting competition currently. Keeping competitive players from pulling their hair out in team building is great ...

This year's Super Bowl is today.  While this blog isn't the place to be marking my predictions or hopes for any of that, I do think it brings up an interesting topic.  For all its huge fandom, massive revenue, and worldwide recognition, the Pokemon franchise doesn't have any gigantic yearly event that's hyped up to the extent of the Super Bowl.  Sure, championships exist across almost every major facet of modern Pokemon games, but most people turn a blind eye to them.  People aren't jumping out of their seats in droves to watch the same 20 or 30 animations play dozens of times each until someone wins the whole thing. Then again, there might be one event, though not yearly, that Game Freak attempts to bring to worldwide attention: big anniversaries, like the recently passed Pokemon 25. This was Pokemon's big year. For both Pokemon fans and non-Pokemon fans, Pokemon 25 was the year for Pokemon. The long-awaited gen 4 remakes got announced alongside a brand-new...

To many, a Pokemon game's replay value is reliant on a solid post-game to look forward to. However, this might not be the only way.  In fact, many of the most successful RPGs go a very different route towards replayability: The humble, but serviceable side quest.  Often, players will glaze over these quests during the main story, which effectively makes those undone story beats a post game matter for many. Some games even build side quests into the core of the main game, allowing for a personal feel to each run. Different players will get different games, based on the side quests they choose to undertake.  So why, in Pokemon, where many of these ideas are considered crucial, are there so few side quests? Sure, you might get a small reward for catching a tiny pokemon and showing it to some guy in Kalos, or some Ribbons from the Pokemon Contest.  But it all seems a little shallow. There's so much potential, especially with the open-world direction the mainline Poke...

Some Pokemon players aren't content with simply catching 'em all normally.  Thankfully, Game Freak created shiny Pokemon a long time ago to give players a new quest; they can now catch super rare versions of each Pokemon with an alternate color scheme.  With the graphical advances to all video games, including Pokemon, these shinies are better and more popular than ever. So popular, in fact, that a slew of shiny hunters have sworn against the easiest way of catching these 'mons: the Quick Ball. (Behold, the ire of half of the Pokemon fanbase.) A Quick Ball is simple: It has a higher catch rate, but only on the first turn of a wild encounter.  For many Pokemon, especially those that could flee or know dangerous self-destructive moves like Explosion or Final Gambit, it would seem like a good thing to be able to catch a Pokemon more easily at the start of a battle.  But if you've been on Twitter lately, you might know where I'm going with this.  Quick Balls have...

Mega Evolution was a beloved mechanic by many Pokemon players from the day it was announced (or more likely, the day it was leaked.)  Even from just bare details of the mechanic, Nintendo Life's Thomas Whitehead made it clear that " it's all shaping up nicely. "  The phenomenal reception Megas had eventually led to similar mechanics in every later generation thus far.  Gen 7 had Z-Moves, gen 8 introduced Gigantamax transformations, and Gen 9 brings with it the Terastal mechanic. Needless to say, Mega Evolution is a very important part of modern Pokemon's history.  In fact, it's so important, that in a game with endgame themes of past and future, it makes sense to return to this masterwork of Pokemon design.  Beyond that, it likely will, thanks to the likely upcoming DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. The Mega Evolution mechanic was introduc...

The release of Scarlet and Violet as a Pokemon TCG set, and the introduction of gen 9 cards to the game, is very close. With this, we're seeing a new/old mechanic: Pokemon-ex.  Not to be confused with the slightly more recent Pokemon-EX, which are always Basic, Pokemon-ex are beefed-up versions of Pokemon with high build-around power.  However, this comes at a cost. When a Pokemon-ex (or Pokemon-EX, for that matter) is knocked out, your opponent takes 2 Prize Cards, not just 1.  Despite this, I believe that Pokemon-ex is the perfect mechanic for Scarlet and Violet. Perfect Timing True to the games' endgame theme of time travel, we're seeing a new swath of Pokemon for a past mechanic.  On the surface, this seems like a pretty basic point.  But when you include the specific Pokemon getting a Pokemon-ex, the real genius of this is revealed.  Every single Pokemon is either available in both versions, a new Pokemon, or a past/future form.  This, again, h...

Just a few months ago, I overheard a dormmate playing Pokemon Unite. He lamented the lack of skill his teammates displayed as if he just got paired up with the Three Stooges and Patrick Star. These teammates, to him, were unacceptably stupid.  I interjected to his unanswered curses with this: "you're acting like it's rude to be bad at a game." The only reply I got was "it is!" Surely, if his team could hear him, they'd get just as much of a rude vibe from these claims.  But therein lies the problem. Pokemon Unite, to Nintendo, was a moderate success. With one game, they've marketed to many demographics of both Pokemon fans and MOBA players.  But with that massive pool of opinions on how both types of game should be, you get a massively splintered community. You get people who think it's rude to be bad at a game. You get people who are rightfully a little miffed at those people. You get people who start drama on those people's behalf (or ...

The stage is set.  Leon has only one Pokemon left: the unbeatable Charizard of the unbeatable champion.  The crowd, despite the carnage against their champion, is still singing.  The Hall of Fame theme, a motif reserved for winners, becomes the theme of the cornered.  As Leon Dynamaxes his final fighter, you know he's doomed.  A single Max Rockfall from your Dreadnaw, and Charizard is down.  It feels anticlimactic.  You just downed the supposed strongest Pokemon in the whole of Galar with one fell swoop. But that single decision, the dynamaxed Dreadnaw, is part of why that Charizard is a great final boss. Very few encounters in Sword or Shield can be answered only by a Rock-type STAB move from a high-damage Pokemon. While the decision is fairly obvious, it's still a decision that had to be made.  It was premeditated, and you likely are training such a Pokemon with the Galarian master in mind. And if you don't run a Pokemon to counter that Cha...

The Kanto region's Pokemon and mechanics garner a lot of nostalgia, even for people who weren't alive when the original Pokemon games released. It's no surprise, then, that RBY Smogon battles are quite popular on Pokemon Showdown. The tiers found in this generation have been set in stone for a long time. Those tiers, however, are for a 6v6 Singles battle. What happens to the ranking a Pokemon accrues if it is the only Pokemon you can use? What happens if we pit every Gen 1 Pokemon against every other in a mano a mano fight to the fainting? Welcome to the Kanto 1v1 Round Robin. (This series assumes all Pokemon have their best 4 attacking moves, all multi-hits hit the maximum damage, and no moves crit. Chance effects that decide a battle round to the nearest whole number, meaning an over 50 percent chance indicates a success.) Alakazam Alakazam, for a long time, was considered the best OU Pokemon in Gen 1.  While it is still excellent, it's usage has declined due to th...

The Kanto region's Pokemon and mechanics garner a lot of nostalgia, even for people who weren't alive when the original Pokemon games released.  It's no surprise, then, that RBY Smogon battles are quite popular on Pokemon Showdown.  The tiers found in this generation have been set in stone for a long time. Those tiers, however, are for a 6v6 Singles battle.  What happens to the ranking a Pokemon accrues if it is the only Pokemon you can use? What happens if we pit every Gen 1 Pokemon against every other in a mano a mano fight to the fainting? Welcome to the Kanto 1v1 Round Robin. (This series assumes all Pokemon have their best 4 attacking moves, all multi-hits hit the maximum damage, and no moves crit. Chance effects that decide a battle round to the nearest whole number, meaning an over 50 percent chance indicates a success.) Over the next few articles, we'll look at premier OU threats in a 1v1 context. Snorlax Snorlax is an excellently bulky Pokemon with a 160 base H...

 The Kanto region's Pokemon and mechanics garner a lot of nostalgia, even for people who weren't alive when the original Pokemon games released.  It's no surprise, then, that RBY Smogon battles are quite popular on Pokemon Showdown.  The tiers found in this generation have been set in stone for a long time. Those tiers, however, are for a 6v6 Singles battle.  What happens to the ranking a Pokemon accrues if it is the only Pokemon you can use? What happens if we pit every Gen 1 Pokemon against every other in a mano a mano fight to the fainting? Welcome to the Kanto 1v1 Round Robin. (This series assumes all Pokemon have their best 4 attacking moves, all multi-hits hit the maximum damage, and no moves crit. Chance effects that decide a battle round to the nearest whole number, meaning an over 50 percent chance indicates a success.) Mewtwo Mewtwo, needless to say, is easily the best Pokemon in the game for 6v6. For this experiment, Mewtwo will have Psychic, Thunderbolt, ...

 The Pokemon franchise spans almost every medium that art can take - Writing, drawing, animation, music, video games, card games, and likely a few others I can't think of.  However, as a series, there's a gaping hole: Not a single official tabletop Pokemon RPG has been made.  A couple of fan teams have put their hat into the ring, however, most of these translations are either extremely rules-heavy, or simple ports of the iconic creatures into other games.  Almost all of them make keeping track of your team a nightmare. Enter the RPG format known as Powered by the Apocalypse (PbTA.)  The rules of almost all PbTA games are fairly light, leaving much of the rulings to the character sheets themselves.  And in addition to those character sheets, every character has a playbook.  (An example of a playbook from the Monster of the Week RPG.) Playbooks are very well-organized, having a set number of stats and "moves" a character can use.  Remind you of...

Introduction On Sunday, February 5th, Noibat will be the focus of the latest Pokemon GO Community Day.  For established players of the game, Noivern, its evolution, isn't likely to be more than a Pokedex entry.  But for those without many solid Pokemon for gyms, Noivern becomes a very attractive option.  Normally, the 400 Noibat candy it would take to evolve Noibat into Noivern would be nearly impossible for a new player to rack up with any efficiency.  However, with Noibat spawning all over the place, and all candy from catching being doubled, this evolution gets much easier for one day only. (This guy right here? Keep an eye on him, newbies.) Why Noivern Saves Noobs While Noivern lags behind its Dragon-Flying counterparts in most ways, the availability the dragon-bat gets for this one day is very important. While Dragonite takes only 125 Dratini candy to evolve, Dratini is a wildly rare spawn.  Even using Pinap Berries on every catch means you'll have to c...