Thread: BW104: "Fierce Fighting! Win Out in the Rival Battle!"

Originally Posted by Moe

Seriously, a one on one battle against the only rival with a full set of six? Why does the league have to suffer from the same bad ideas of the other tournaments - one on one proves nothing. The writers spent all of Sinnoh drilling this in with how Ash battled Paul - and now Ash is going to go into a league with one on one?

I now bet Ash will win the Unova league - crap like this has devalued that accomplishment so much that it's within Ash's grasp. Why did Ash ever train so hard in all the other regions, all he had to do was go to Unova with one decent Pokemon and win the lot with no effort.

Based on the length of this battle - spanning two episodes - I have no hope that this is a round robin. Even if the later rounds turn out to be longer battles - getting past who should have been one of his major rivals in a one on one battle is pathetic. Make it stop!

....Unless this league was never about that rivalry. Remember, we were supposed to get a new rival, and we have two candidates right now. I think this league was more created to bolster one of them, since technically the Trip climax happened in the Junior Tournament. I will agree, however, that this is not how this plot is supposed to go, but let's face it, this plot was never going the way it was supposed to.

Ah ha, a mere 1v1 battle...

I don't know whether to think they view Trip as a mistake and want to be done with him quickly, or are rushing so something else that will appear later in the League can come sooner. Perhaps both.

Originally Posted by Samurott

....Unless this league was never about that rivalry. Remember, we were supposed to get a new rival, and we have two candidates right now. I think this league was more created to bolster one of them, since technically the Trip climax happened in the Junior Tournament. I will agree, however, that this is not how this plot is supposed to go, but let's face it, this plot was never going the way it was supposed to.

It's not just about Trip, it's about these battles not going to be anything like a representation of the training that is supposed to go into league wins.

Anything with a short form battle format favours one powerful Pokemon over a balanced team - Trip and Ash have balanced teams, while Stephan and Bianca, who will likely both go further than Trip in the tournament, have been shown almost exclusively using one Pokemon.

Why spend all of BW setting up (however badly) three rivalries when they'll all be thrown under the bus for someone introduced at the last minute. There's how I'd like things to go, but then there's just what's good storytelling - deciding anything of the importance of a league with a one on one battle isn't that, no matter who it is.

Originally Posted by pokemonsquared

Originally Posted by Rajagopal90

Please please atleast next one be 3 vs 3 battle.. getting sick and bored of 1 vs 1 battles.. whoever be the opponent next Ash faces let the battle be more than 1.. and what is next round supposed to be.. round of 64/32/16..

Next is 1v1 Ash vs Bianca.

Oh God no! Atleast give the girl some justice. No league is supposed to be this bad that main character vs. rival character should only have 1 on 1 battles.

Originally Posted by Moe

It's not just about Trip, it's about these battles not going to be anything like a representation of the training that is supposed to go into league wins.

Anything with a short form battle format favours one powerful Pokemon over a balanced team - Trip and Ash have balanced teams, while Stephan and Bianca, who will likely both go further than Trip in the tournament, have been shown almost exclusively using one Pokemon.

Why spend all of BW setting up (however badly) three rivalries when they'll all be thrown under the bus for someone introduced at the last minute. There's how I'd like things to go, but then there's just what's good storytelling - deciding anything of the importance of a league with a one on one battle isn't that, no matter who it is.

I will agree, this is not how stuff like this should go down. Can't be helped now, though. Maybe I was already disappointed, so they couldn't do worse. Although I know that could still be wrong, but I don't see too well how that's possible since I'm ready to write off this saga as it is.

Originally Posted by Samurott

I will agree, this is not how stuff like this should go down. Can't be helped now, though. Maybe I was already disappointed, so they couldn't do worse. Although I know that could still be wrong, but I don't see too well how that's possible since I'm ready to write off this saga as it is.

Well yeah - I can certainly write it off as being a good league (though like everything in BW, the actual battles will no doubt be entertaining), but I can't see any reason this battle couldn't be longer - it's not a time issue, it's spanning two episodes - the only reason you could think of is direct vengeance for the battle in the Junior Cup - but even then that could form part of a longer battle.

I'm very worried that Ash will win in the one league where his achievement will seem the smallest, especially after losing in Sinnoh where his strength and training were at their highest.

I think Ash using Pikachu is a really smart maneuver here - Tripe mostly relies on Serperior's speed. Ash is using one of his fastest Pokemon, and arguably one of his most powerful. Sure, Serperior does have size and the ability to immobilize it. But Pikachu's speed does give it a big edge here.

Originally Posted by Musashi

And the winner is...

http://www.dotup.org/uploda/www.dotup.org3559193.jpg
http://www.dotup.org/uploda/www.dotup.org3559195.jpg

Satoshi! And Shooty and Jaroda are taking it awfully well. O_o

Also:

http://www.dotup.org/uploda/www.dotup.org3559197.jpg

Emboar in the next round that seems to start the same episode.

I can't see these images. :T

Originally Posted by pokemonsquared

Originally Posted by Rajagopal90

Please please atleast next one be 3 vs 3 battle.. getting sick and bored of 1 vs 1 battles.. whoever be the opponent next Ash faces let the battle be more than 1.. and what is next round supposed to be.. round of 64/32/16..

Next is 1v1 Ash vs Bianca.

There's no sure it will be 1v1.

Originally Posted by Karamazov

I think Ash using Pikachu is a really smart maneuver here - Tripe mostly relies on Serperior's speed. Ash is using one of his fastest Pokemon, and arguably one of his most powerful. Sure, Serperior does have size and the ability to immobilize it. But Pikachu's speed does give it a big edge here.

I agree, and it's worth noting that Pikachu's ability can paralyze Serperior at any time, which can both immobilize it and (if they follow game logic) lower its speed. So by using Pikachu Ash is totally wrecking the bread and butter of Trip's most powerful Pokemon. And it's a convenient revisiting of the horrible first battle they had in the series, which was BS and probably won't be cleverly called back to besides the fact that it happened (compare to Paul and Ash's Electivire vs Pikachu match where Paul mentioned a thing that happened in that battle that was just like a scenario in their first battle at the beginning of DP). It's astounding how little material they've had for Ash and Trip's rivalry... which makes sense why they're getting Trip out of the way first, I guess. Like Kenny before him, I love it when the writers do things that tell us they're apologizing for making us sit through a crappy rivalry and a crappy character. It almost makes me think they'll learn from their mistakes after this League.

It's amazing, really. I'd been saying for months that I wished the League would get Ash/Trip out of the way first thing and barely make it last any time (since they're squeezing it into an episode that will surely mostly be about the League's opening ceremony and one other episode that will likely also have some other B-plot going on), but I never believed they would actually follow through with my wish. I assumed they'd think they could make this "rivalry" out to be even remotely deserving of the treatment Ash/Paul got, and Trip doing any better than Top 16 would cause me to never stop bitching. But for once I turned out to be right about something in Best Wishes and it doesn't agonize me that they proved me right! :O Still, it's a pity that their best way to hype Ash vs Trip is the fact that Serperior is fast. Ash has been a notorious speed demon, glass-cannon-using guy for the entire series. "Oh noez how will Ash ever find a way to outmatch Serperior's speed... oh wait he has Pikachu"

I really really hope this 1v1 crap is just contained to Ash vs Trip, but I'm not getting my hopes up. It doesn't bother me for this battle because that's all Trip deserves, but I'll be bummed if the only proper League battles we get are from Eevee guy and/or Kotetsu. D: Emboar appearing this soon also bums me out. Bianca was my dark horse pick for winning the League. Now I'll just have to go with the obvious choice of "guy who was just introduced before the League". Still, I'd rather have that than Ash winning the League. For the first time in the entire series I really think Ash doesn't deserve to win or go any further in than he has before. Now that this is out of the way, I couldn't care less who beats Ash.

^^Stephan could be the dark horse if you despise Virgil and Kotetsu so much.

I'd be surprised if Stephan won this. He already had his moment of glory with the Donamite tournament back in March/April. I can't see lightning striking twice for him, particularly when there are two fresh rivals they'll presumably want to pimp.

I will be disappointed if the Bianca match is 1 on 1. Not merely because I'm totally bored with these 1 on 1 match-ups, thanks to the overflow of mini-tournaments throughout Unova (though that too) but because I was hopeful that we'd finally see her Escavalier again. I really hope that it'll show up again somewhere down the road, and we get to see how far she's gotten with it. Otherwise, what was the point of giving it to her in first place, if she's going to rely on Emboar as her sole powerhouse, and nothing else? They could just as easily have used a couple of COTDs to showcase the Shelmet/Karrablast trade evolution, if that was the sole intention there.

So do we know that it is Ash vs Bianca next? or are we just assuming because Emboar is appearing?

Originally Posted by Ash's Battle Coach

So do we know that it is Ash vs Bianca next? or are we just assuming because Emboar is appearing?

Who else could it be? While I'm all for Pignite evolving I doubt they'll do it.

Originally Posted by garrison-san

I'd be surprised if Stephan won this. He already had his moment of glory with the Donamite tournament back in March/April. I can't see lightning striking twice for him, particularly when there are two fresh rivals they'll presumably want to pimp.

>Kenyan defeats Satoshi and wins the whole League
>He beats the E4 and Champion
>Everyone in the whole Region knows his name
>And no one can get his name right

It'd be the climax and ultimate finisher of his name gag.

Originally Posted by Karamazov

Originally Posted by garrison-san

I'd be surprised if Stephan won this. He already had his moment of glory with the Donamite tournament back in March/April. I can't see lightning striking twice for him, particularly when there are two fresh rivals they'll presumably want to pimp.

>Kenyan defeats Satoshi and wins the whole League
>He beats the E4 and Champion
>Everyone in the whole Region knows his name
>And no one can get his name right

It'd be the climax and ultimate finisher of his name gag.

Lol'd so hard.

Meh, if it is going to have Ash vs Bianca, at least make it a 3v3. Or make it a Ash vs CotD match as well as Bianca just so they can enable 3v3.