Thread: Club Battle, Clubsplosion, Junior World Cup. What are your thoughts?

Over the course of best wishes we've had 3 tournaments, the Club battle tournament, the Clubsplosion, and the Junior world cup. Which did you think was the best/worst. What did you like/dislike about them? Did you like/agree with the outcomes? How would you have improved the tournaments?

Discuss


Also to the moderators, should this thread go in the pokemon league? cheers

The Clubsplosion one was the best one. Although none were particularly great tournaments, its still nice to have them.

I never understood why we didn't have mini-tournaments like this in all of the other sagas. DP had the tag battle tournament...but then that was it till the league. I would much rather sit through a not-so-great tournament than 4 awful filler episodes, so I can't say I disliked them.

It was a nice thing to have every now and then, but my primary complaint about them is that there's been too many of them. It's like the writers don't know how to fill in time creatively without resorting to this, and furthermore, that they can't make character development for the rivals without this, either. I do realize the underlying problem with that, in that there's so many rivals that it'd be difficult to pace them out in a fair way if they just got eps all to themselves. The tournaments have also allowed for a lot of banter that wouldn't otherwise happen if the rivals' appearances were scattered. I still don't think there should've been this many tournaments, though. They have helped to make the rivals more memorable, though, one of the few good things I can say of this saga.

I thought that the Don Battle was a great idea, if implemented poorly. It gave us a chance to see a bunch of characters we liked but thought we would never see again, and see how they would interact with other characters they would otherwise never meet. I mean, all the running gags were used to death by the second episode, but overall it wasn't a bad idea.

The Clubsplosion only allowed people to use one Pokemon. It was a great tournament besides that point, but I did get tired of seeing Scraggy and Emboar all the time.

And I hated the Junior Cup.

Overall, I think they're a great idea. But I sort of dread them now because the results are always spoiled by magazine scans or episode titles, and because it means our heroes are trapped in one location for four episodes in a row.

Good idea, horrible execution. Rushed sloppy battles, stock footage, lame ass running gags...ugh. It's great for rivals like Stephan, Trip, Georgia to get more screentime and to look like threats, but then everyone else is treated horribly during the actual battle portion of the tournament. So it's kind of a win/lose situation.

The concept had potential, but I don't think so many tournaments were necessary if it was just an excuse to reunite the rivals. The Club Battle gave the fandom more of a reason to dislike Iris, but I did like the Clubsplosion better, as it was nice to see someone other than one of the main heroes come out on top (good on ya, Stephan). The Junior Cup was meh at best, except for Krokorok evolving into Krookodile.

In short, as I said, they had potential, but didn't go in the correct direction on some points.

Donamite was the best of the three, though compared to other pre-BW non-League tournaments it was "above average" in quality, at best. At least Donamite served its purpose well in improving Stephan as a character and as a rival (despite the name gag being ever-present and meh), there was actual build-up to Stephan's eventual victory since the episode before Donamite began, plus a very fitting rivalry with Montgomery and Throh. Montgomery himself was a more interesting character/rival figure in his limited amount of screentime than Trip has been in the whole series. Speaking of, my favorite Trip moment in the series was in Donamite: Bianca kicking his ass with Georgia and Burgundy talking about what a sore loser bitch he is. Ash using Scraggy for the whole tournament was risky, but well worth it as it gave Ash's babby Pokemon some very appreciated development. The humor and character interactions were much better this time around, much less annoying gags, and even funny stuff you wouldn't see anywhere else like Stephan cockblocking Cilan's Tasting Time. :') The fact that Bianca made it to the semis also got me excited, as it added a bit of an element of suspense as to how far she might end up going even though the real main even was going to be Stephan and Montgomery. Overall it was just great to see Bianca succeeding as a trainer.

Only things I really didn't like about Donamite was Iris beating Burgundy even though Burgundy clearly had the better strategy and it was awesome to see her show signs of improving as a trainer, only for it to be all for naught as Iris got one meaningless win at Burgundy's expense (who NEEDS an on-screen win more than anyone else) just so she'd look good before Mongtomery smashed her. I also didn't like how my favorite Gen V Pokemon, Mienshao, was only brief jobber fodder for this tournament that focused on Fighting-types. >:| There was also Iris being Iris, but in Donamite that was heaven compared to how she was in the first Don Battle and the Junior Cup.

The Don Battle was awful for a multitude of reasons. Iris was the biggest problem, as she had less reason to win the thing than any other competitor there and there was zero foreshadowing to what our final battle would be there. They actually made a swerve, focusing more on Ash and Luke so it would seem like they'd be in the finals, but then Outrage happened. Literally out of nowhere. The running gags were run really hard into the ground this tournament; one of which was at Bianca's expense. Iris' problems with all her Pokemon mysteriously vanished either just before or during the tournament just to make her reach the finals, and the final match itself was not at all exciting because A) nobody really wanted to see an Ash/Iris battle, as they travel together and don't need a tournament to railroad into that (at the expense of everyone else), and B) it was a painfully foregone conclusion. It should be common sense that you don't end your 4-episode tournament with a Ground/Steel-type who has multiple ways to damage its opponent and an Electric-type who can't use half its moveset on its opponent, and the moves it can use aren't going to turn the tides in any way. Usually when they set up overwhelming underdog scenarios they have the underdog come out on top. Not only did that not happen because Iris, but there was really no believable way to make it happen to begin with. That's how lop-sided the battle was. A whole tournament that culminates in a foregone conclusion is a tournament done wrong.

Though the Junior Cup went one further and let Iris get to the semis WITHOUT resolving her problem with Dragonite at the expense of Dawn and Georgia with the consequences she finally faced in losing to Ash falling flat because the damage had alraedy been done to the other characters as a consequence of the awful writing that composes of Iris' storyline and character. Not only that, but the tournament itself could hardly be called a tournament because 80% of it was a montage of single-screen victories and one-hit KOs. The Junior Cup was more a vanity project for Iris and Trip than an actual tournament, since what few battles we did get in full focused squarely on them. Bianca and Stephan weren't even there, for they were less important than overhyping the unstoppable Dragonite and Serperior to the friggin' moon. Georgia and Burgundy were reduced to comedy fodder, Dawn was just there, and type logic was told to ram it harder than ever in this tournament.

Plus the trainers getting to alternate Pokemon between rounds - the only thing that differentiated the Junior Cup from a Don Battle - seemed entirely undermined as the biggest threats in the tournament did not even once switch out their Pokemon. So basically we had ovepowered Serperior and Dragonite shoved in our faces the entire time. Everything about that tournament was a travesty. It makes me not want to see the staff try their hand at a tournament in this series ever again. Ash got a well-deserved (for once) evolution out of it, true, but man I wish he had gotten it in another way. The Junior Cup was just an endless shit fest.

What made the Don Battle and Junior Cup extra unbearable were the extra weeks of breaks placed in the middle of them, so they really felt like they dragged out forever in their original Japanese airings. Augh.

I hate them. Someone go back in time and cause a paradox so these don't exist anymore. Though I guess Donamite can stay since it wasn't an abomination.

The concept of these tournaments were great especially because it brought together the main cast and their rivals for all sorts of interaction, though they were poorly executed. I would've loved to see at more in earlier sagas especially because the writing was so much better back in earlier sagas. The Clubsplosion wasn't as bad as the Club Battles and the Junior Cup but the problem is the short and rushed battles, the annoying running gags(seriously Zorua and Bianca...), and plus why is it that Ash didn't win a single one? Out of any of them the Junior Cup was the worst especially because Dawn pretty much returned for nothing just to show how strong Dragonite is and they only let Trip win for his lame backstory.

I would have prefered the Club Battle if it weren't full of five second battles. Dino was showing great potential until has Darumaka was nailed by Palpitoad in a few seconds. I would have loved to see Dino as a rival until that battle. The same was the case with the Junior Cup. The Clubsplosion would have been better if it weren't for the restriction of only Fighting types limited the amount of Pokémon available for use. The Junior Cup would also have been better with Pre-Gen V Pokémon, given that it was an extention of the World Tournament.

I think that Clubsplosion was handled the best. It had some of the better battles, Stephan and Bianca showed some nice improvement and a trainer who deserved to win actually won it. The fact that there had been so much buildup for Stephan to win helped as well. Plus, Scraggy made some nice progress with winning battles and working on Focus Blast and Montgomery was a good rival for the tournament. It still had problems with Burgundy losing to Iris when she really had no reason to get to the second round other than losing to Montgomery to make him look more like a threat, which they could have done without anyway, and Burgundy deserved to win when she showed much more improvement and strategy in that match. Most of the battles were pretty rushed, which is unfortunately a trait that all of the tournaments have since they're trying to cram in so many one-on-one battles in four episodes. I really didn't care for Bianca's running gag of feeling Pokemon's muscles, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first tournament gag at least.

The first Club Battle tournament was an interesting idea with bringing different rivals together for a minor tournament, but it suffered from rushed battles, the Zorua gag making Bianca downright unbearable and unlikable for me and Iris winning the tournament when it was completely undeserved. I still think Ash or Luke should have won since I felt there was more buildup for them to get into the finals and Iris honestly should have lost to at least Luke considering Axew was completely outmatched in every single definition of the term by his Golett. Getting Outrage out of nowhere like that and then defeating Ash with Excadrill made the whole tournament go from fairly decent to completely frustrating for me, although Bianca's running gag didn't help either.

I actually haven't seen the World Junior Cup yet since I still prefer to watch the dub, despite having knowledge of some events in the Japanese version, due to being so used to it. Even so, it sounds even worse than the first tournament with Iris getting so far ahead that whatever impact losing with her problematic Dragonite is completely lost, Trip is being hyped up again, despite not appearing since the Clubsplosion tournament, Dawn's return basically nothing more than a chance to promote Piplup and losing to Iris and the battles being rushed as usual. I am not looking forward to seeing this tournament when the dub reaches that point.

These tournaments could be a good way of showing how far the trainers have gone, but they're just poorly handled with always having to cram in the tournament in the span of four episodes for some reason and almost always giving characters undeserved victories, especially with Iris. I think I actually would prefer four episodes of filler instead of a couple of these tournaments, especially when most of the battles aren't anything to write home about and the filler episodes could be more entertaining than these tournaments as well.

I didn't like any of them. Club Battle was okay, until Iris randomly won the whole thing. I won't even bring up what just happened the past few weeks in the Junior Cup. You saw what happened with Dragonite and Serperior. Clubsplosion was mostly focused on a COTD. Come on, a COTD? Why not give the Throh to Trip instead? I'm not even sure which was the best/worst.

I guess there's just too many characters, which makes it seem rushed when they're all crammed into one tournament.

Club Battle outcome- Accepted it. Would've prefered Ash to win. Axew's Outrage was the dumbest thing ever, and Dino made it too far in the tournament.
Clubsplosion outcome- Fine with it.
Junior Cup outcome- Trip kind of needed all those victories after being a punching bag for like 50 episodes. Fine with it.

I really like the club battle. with the battle with Iris and Clian rivals were nice. Iris and Clian facing off agianst Trip and Shaphan was also a nice touch too. As for the pacing, it wasn't that bad for a frist time for the Bw writers and I agian did enjoy most of the battles. I think they made Dino go to far into the tounment and really made a stupid play on my part. The Bianca joke of this tounment was funny when she didn't had caught Zorua. At first I was mad that Iris won the tounment, but then I wasn't mad about Iris because the battle with Excadrill was good and we got to see the spinning movement that Dp did before. Axew learning outrage didn't bother me because Ash's Scaggy in the next episode learned the most powerful fighting type move it could learn. What I meant was that Axew learned the most powerful dragon type move and Scaggy learned the most powerful fighting type move to give them their third move slot. Also this did make the first time that we see Clian's Pokemon learn new moves offscreen.

For the Clubison I really enjoyed it. The builded up for Spehan was awesome and the rival seem really intressing. Thor and Sawk battle was the best I seen in a long time. The running gag was really funny and made both Spehan and Bianca seem stronger then they were before. Seeing Faildurr loss agian was a highlight once agian. The water and grass monkies that Ash's Scaggy face was good and seeing Fail blast miss was funny. I have nothing to say about Iris and Clian or their rival in this one. I don't care what people said about Iris winning agianst Cabent, I still like Iris as a charter then Misty ever was.

Junior world cup is the wrost tounment ever and I will never get that time and effort of wacthing bull crap flying everywhere in this Arc. I really don't care that Trip won all those battle because he was being cocky and didn't make the battle fun. Iris, I really felt that she shouldn't use Dragonite in all those round and use her other Pokemon so we could have some intressing battles. Trip should have use more then one of his Pokemon. The ending sucked and I still hate Trip for wipping thing out with his starter. The two things that made this arc good was Krokrok evolving and Iris and Dawn fight.

So the score I give the Don Battles is a 3.5/5.
Clubsplosion 4.5/5
Junior cup 2/5

Well, they were all bad, in my opinion. The least bad was the Donamite (Clubsplosion sounds terrible, so I'm not calling it that). As others have mentioned, the battles weren't as unrealistic as the ones in the Don Battle or the Junior Cup. The Junior Cup was probably the absolute worst one of the three, which is a shame, because when I first heard about it, I initially had high hopes that it would be the only tournament in BW to actually be worthy of being called a tournament from the description of it. Come on, a tournament that was supposed to have trainers from all around the world? That would've been so awesome if that's how the actual tournament was. The Junior Cup was garbage, end of. I'm not surprised almost all the Junior Cup episodes had Iris in the title, since it was basically all about her during the entire damn thing.

I am also very displeased with the fact that the writers made Burgundy be COTD-tier (aka losing in the first round easily) again. Why aren't they showing her improving? They could have at least thrown her a bone and let her get to the second round. Whatever. And, of course, I call complete BS on Iris winning against Dawn (as well as Georgia for that matter), but it can't be helped.

Great idea, piss poor execution. That's my opinion about the tournaments in a nutshell. Mikuri Cup, Tag Battle tournament... we know the writers can write tournament arc that focus on a lot of characters and handle it giving us great and memorable battles, and making everyone look good. What went wrong this time? Well, besides Iris I mean... XD I don't know, it's bizarre, the aforementioned DP tournaments were just amazing, almost League like quality, and now these three are just... bad...

Well, not completely. Don Battle had Cabernet and Dent going for it. Cabernet losing early, Dent getting a great win and a great loss, two great battles, but also showed how he tried to help and had Cabernet change her mind about him a bit. Donamite had Bel and Zuruggu being hilarious and showing how much they'be grown. Junior Cup had Waruvile evolving and something for the Shooti/Adeku plot... Yeah, that probably all the good I have to say about them. :D

The major problem of these tournaments: they focused on the characters that had no business being focused on. Shinneth put it beautifully, they were vanity projects meant to glorify characters that honestly had no reason being glorified in the first place because they hadn't done jack to deserve it, as was the case for Iris, and/or because they're pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, like Kenyan. What's worse, it felt like the writers were using those tournaments as a substitute for actually doing something with the characters on a regular basis.

The Don Battle, I didn't mind the first few episodes. Good battle between Cabernet and Satoshi and Dent and Shooti. So far so good... Bel losing isn't that bad as she hasn't had her "I need to get my shit together" moments that'll come later on and show some real progress. See, here, Iris could have beaten the CotD with Doryuuzu, but really? Emonga? Who has expressed no interested in battling or getting hurt for Iris or anybody else? That Emonga that presents a challenge to Iris suddenly sees the obstacle disappear by magic? Second round, good battles between Satoshi and Langley and Dent and Luke, but here's where it gets dicey. First off, Antonio is beaten... what? :P But mostly, once again, Emonga is completely derailed to make it easy on Iris to reach the semifinals, which is where the writers took the bullshit of Iris winning in the quarters to a whole other level with Iris getting a BS win in the semis, not getting at all karmic backlash for not doing shit with Kibago and then she beats Satoshi in the finals? What?

The Don Battle... was the best out of the three, but still really kinda bad. First off, the final was bullshit. Kenyan is a CotD like rival and Masaomi just pretty much mean nothing, so why are they in the finals? There's no reason for them to be there. This is a second round match at best, but not the finals. Bel and Cabernet were the two characters that needed a deep run here and lots of focus.

The Junior Cup was bull, through and through, except for Waruvile evolving.

Originally Posted by Hellion

Great idea, piss poor execution. That's my opinion about the tournaments in a nutshell. Mikuri Cup, Tag Battle tournament... we know the writers can write tournament arc that focus on a lot of characters and handle it giving us great and memorable battles, and making everyone look good. What went wrong this time? Well, besides Iris I mean... XD I don't know, it's bizarre, the aforementioned DP tournaments were just amazing, almost League like quality, and now these three are just... bad...

Well, not completely. Don Battle had Cabernet and Dent going for it. Cabernet losing early, Dent getting a great win and a great loss, two great battles, but also showed how he tried to help and had Cabernet change her mind about him a bit. Donamite had Bel and Zuruggu being hilarious and showing how much they'be grown. Junior Cup had Waruvile evolving and something for the Shooti/Adeku plot... Yeah, that probably all the good I have to say about them. :D

The major problem of these tournaments: they focused on the characters that had no business being focused on. Shinneth put it beautifully, they were vanity projects meant to glorify characters that honestly had no reason being glorified in the first place because they hadn't done jack to deserve it, as was the case for Iris, and/or because they're pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, like Kenyan. What's worse, it felt like the writers were using those tournaments as a substitute for actually doing something with the characters on a regular basis.

The Don Battle, I didn't mind the first few episodes. Good battle between Cabernet and Satoshi and Dent and Shooti. So far so good... Bel losing isn't that bad as she hasn't had her "I need to get my shit together" moments that'll come later on and show some real progress. See, here, Iris could have beaten the CotD with Doryuuzu, but really? Emonga? Who has expressed no interested in battling or getting hurt for Iris or anybody else? That Emonga that presents a challenge to Iris suddenly sees the obstacle disappear by magic? Second round, good battles between Satoshi and Langley and Dent and Luke, but here's where it gets dicey. First off, Antonio is beaten... what? :P But mostly, once again, Emonga is completely derailed to make it easy on Iris to reach the semifinals, which is where the writers took the bullshit of Iris winning in the quarters to a whole other level with Iris getting a BS win in the semis, not getting at all karmic backlash for not doing shit with Kibago and then she beats Satoshi in the finals? What?

The Don Battle... was the best out of the three, but still really kinda bad. First off, the final was bullshit. Kenyan is a CotD like rival and Masaomi just pretty much mean nothing, so why are they in the finals? There's no reason for them to be there. This is a second round match at best, but not the finals. Bel and Cabernet were the two characters that needed a deep run here and lots of focus.

The Junior Cup was bull, through and through, except for Waruvile evolving.

I would have to agree with you on the Junior cup being bad. I hate the endding and the battle were too quick for my taste. I would have to disagree on the Iris thing because I think that the Pokemon could grow closer to her offscreen.