funny thing is if he did win people would complain about it, because the fandom can not be satisfied
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funny thing is if he did win people would complain about it, because the fandom can not be satisfied
My (hypothetical) money's still on him losing the quarterfinals.
He's simply not that good. How far he gets depends on what the plot wants.
There'll always be someone better (in-universe)
And there's always more money to be made (out-of-universe)
Considering there is no reason Ash's Unova team shouldn't be able to beat Eeveelutions, I don't see the problem.
If anything Kotetsu's team seems much stronger than Virgils, yet we know Ash will likely beat him.
If the writers want him to win then the'll have him win.
Do they want him to win though? I doubt it.
Would it be realistic if he did? Nope
His team just isn't developed enough. They just don't feel like a team that could win a league. In Sinnoh I could see him winning it, but here, no way.
But here's a more logical reason for Ash not to win. The Kotetsu battle is in the 4th round, which means there are 16 competitors left. This is also a 6 v 6 match, so its safe to say that the rest of the tournament will be 6 v 6 battles. That means that if Ash beats Kotetsu, which I believe he will, he still has 3 challengers left for him to beat in order to win the entire thing. Now the only established rival left at this point is Virgil, who fits all the criteria set by past leagues as the guy to beat Ash. This means that Ash would have to beat 2 random cotd/ts in order to win. If this were the case then they should be the quarter and the semi matches, because the writers aren't likely to have Ash face someone in the final that the audience don't know or care about.
So, are the writers going to have Ash beat Virgil than have him have full battles against random's no one cares about? Unlikely. That would be pretty poor story telling and a very anticlimactic way to end the league. Are they going to have Ash breeze through the Quarter and Semis with a bunch of montage clips, keeping in mind these are 6 v 6 battles, to then face Virgil in the Finals? Also very Unlikely, that again would just be really really disappointing and poor storytelling.
Honestly, the only thing I can see happening Is that Ash loses to Virgil for a top 8 spot, Or given the recent revelation that Kotetsu has a Hydreigon, he loses to him and gets top 16. Then those 2 can have a quick match to end the league then one of them goes on to win.
It will be the Top 4 round if the preliminaries don't count as the first round, but it doesn't matter as far as the chance of winning the league is concerned. The writers are not going to skip any full battle or bring an important character out of nowhere.
It should be obvious that the Top 4 is as far as Ash can go here.
If its top 4 then there would be a skipped 6 v 6, which is massively unlikely, and then what? Ash Vs a no name in the finals? Yes that sounds realistic (not).
Or if Virgil is the final then there are 2 6 v 6's to get through until then, which I already explained.
I would hardly call it biased. I Like more members of Ash's Unova team than I did of his Sinnoh team, but when you line up Sinnoh vs Unova, his Sinnoh team comes out on top in terms of Experience, move set and strength
and yet when the league came, that development didn't ammount to anything, outside of Gible mastering Draco Meteor and Infernape getting revenge on Paul, but that was it, what did the others really accomplish?
You can't compare the two teams because the key difference is the ammount of pokemon both teams have so of course the development is going to be different in the end.
Still, i'm hoping this isn't because of Snivy and Oshawott not being evolved because that is just plain sad reasoning to claim the unova pokemon suck
So,
Top 128-vs Trip
Top 64-vs CoTD
Top 32-vs Stephan
Top 16-vs Kotetsu
Top 8-?? Probably vs Virgil
If the writers had wanted Ash to win they would have put in a Katie (from AG)-like character in the Top 16 match. They would also have put Burgundy in the League to be the Top 64 or 32 battle. As it is, they want Ash to be humiliated.
Virgil and Kotetsu are there but yeah, I definitely see the possibility.
Iris won the Club Battle tournament.
Stephan won the Clubsplosion.
Trip has Junior Cup.
It might be the time for Ash, but yeah... Writers are pretty much about creating new road blocks, so who knows...
It amounted to believable wins for everyone except Torterra, who in all fairness had a believable loss. And Its not that Snivy and Oshawatt haven't evolved, If anything Snivy is one of his better pokemon, and his un-evolved pokemon have for the most part been handled the best out of his Unova pokes. No its the Pokemon that have had rushes mid battle evolutions and next to no training and very little experience with boring move sets that make me think his team is undeveloped. IMO Leavanney, Unfezant, Boldore and Palpitoad have not been handled well at all, Snivy hasn't developed but was established as strong from the get go, Pignite has been ok but still knows tackle and doesn't have a fighting type move, Oshawott still knows tackle and Krookodile and Scraggy have been handled reasonably well.
Don't get me wrong, I like these guys, most of them anyway. Snivy, Oshawott, Scraggy and Krookodile all have good personalities, Pignite really redeemed himself in his evo ep, Palpitoad, despite hardly being seen and only knowing 3 moves amuses me somewhat, and I can't really explain it but I really like Boldore, possibly because Ash has never really had anything like it before.
Why would they skip a full battle for Ash? They usually only skip most of the preliminary rounds for him since in most cases, it consists of either one-on-one matches or at the most three-on-three. There's no reason to skip full battles. That would just make it even harder to find any satisfaction in Ash getting a high rank if we don't see all of the important battles. Plus, I don't think that he's had full battles against characters of the day before, although I could be mistaken since it's been a long time since I've seen a couple of the Leagues, but either way, the chances of the writers skipping full battles sounds pretty unlikely.
As for the question itself, I don't think that Ash could actually win the Unova League. There's really nothing about either his team or the opponents introduced that makes me think he could win. His Unova team is clearly underdeveloped, which would make a victory rather unbelievable to anyway, and Virgil does fill in the usual role of the League rival Ash meets shortly before or during the League that ends up beating him. Saying that his team couldn't lose to a team of Eeveeultions doesn't make sense to me since Pikachu lost to a Meowth, so it isn't like it's impossible. Personally, I'm still hoping that Ash gets to the Top 8 this time around. That's about as far as I think he could go with his Unova team in a believable manner and I wouldn't mind Ash having a lower rank than the last League. It would kind of make sense given how I don't think he's improved as a trainer during his Unova journey and it would still be a pretty good rank all things considered. Besides that, I think that they'll have to do that eventually if they don't have Ash win a League and I wouldn't mind if that started with this League. Though, I agree that Top 4 is the highest he could get given how I doubt that he'll have two full battles either before or after the match with Virgil.
I disagree with the writers skipping a CotD full battle. Unpredictable as Unova League is, this is possible so Ash can get to the 4 Top instead of what should be the Shooti x Ash battle.
I think he can because:
A.He's lost every minor tournament in Unova
B. This series was noticeably rushed through (up to the league)
C. No one stands out as a sure thing loss for Ash, like Tobias did in Sinnoh
I know Virgil fits the bill of the league rival that beats Ash, but I just don't see him loosing to a team of Eeveeultions. As far as the adding an important COTD battle goes, I don't see why not. They have indeed done it before. (Katie from the Hoenn League as someone mentioned was a 6v6 battle, top 16 I believe..) So beefing up a COTD to give Ash a run for his money but ultimately loose is not out of the question. That fills the "filler full battle gap".
As far as his team being underdeveloped..who cares? I feel like the competition is underdeveloped, much much more so than Ash. His Hoenn team wasn't that great and he barely lost to the Tyson, the guy that won the whole thing. I'll go a step further, I think his Unova team is better than his Hoenn team. Granted, having 10 Unova pokes oppose to 6 in Hoenn helps that case, but still.