TRAINER'S EYE #11 - "Mew Growing Wings" ft. BirdPower13

TRAINER'S EYE #11 - "Growing Wings" ft. BirdPower13
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David: [00:00:00] My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As the Pokeball Turns! 

Welcome to another episode of As The Poker Ball Turns. Today is episode 11 of Trainer's Eyes, a segment where we'll get to hear from you, the community, on how your Pokemon GO journey started, where it has been, and where it is currently going. Since early September, the 2023 Pokemon Regional [00:01:00] Championship has made its rounds across the world where trainers compete in hopes of claiming an invite to the World Championship in Japan. One of it stops was the "Crossroads of the West," Salt Lake City, home of the Utah Jazz, Temple Square, and formally hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. However, there was one notable change made this year. Players would no longer be separated by age for the Senior or Master division for Pokemon Go. But people of every age would be grouped together in an open division to battle it out. Some people would argue that with age brings experience and the younger trainers would be at a disadvantage. That assumption would be proved wrong. If you watched the Salt Lake regionals, you would find that the winner was a 16 year old girl from California. But how did she first start? What did she learn along her way? Was there a difference in competition between the age groups? It's time to find out. My guest today went through BigRedBeast5, BrokeTravelerEd, Greenish spelled backwards, [00:02:00] KhaleesiFitzy, and two back to back bouts against BuckeyeFitzy. My friends, allow me to introduce to you the Salt Lake City Grand Champion, BirdPower13!



David: Today I'm joined by the winner of the Salt Lake Regional's BirdPower13 and you know, before we do dive into the questions that I'm gonna ask you, I do wanna give just a big congratulations. I know it's probably like cliche at this point, but congratulations on your regional victory at Salt Lake. I'm pretty sure you're pretty excited to go to Japan.

BirdPower13: Thank you. I am very excited. It meant a lot when I won, especially cuz. I thought I threw the game. I thought I threw so hard. 

David: Which one? The last one? 

BirdPower13: Yeah, when I didn't farm down the Lickitung and threw the Rock Slide with the one hp. I was like, Oh no. Did I just mess up? 

David: I mean all your matches were pretty close. The first day you did pretty well, like you seemed to handle it pretty well. That second day was literally down to like the last move for almost all your matches.

BirdPower13: Insane, like bait calls, catches. 

David: Definitely [00:03:00] and we're gonna definitely dive into that. But you know, before you did do the Salt Lake City, before you even did London, before people even knew who you were, you definitely started playing Pokemon GO at some point, so when did you first start playing? 

BirdPower13: I first started playing in 2018. My best friend started playing around then and he got me into the game. He started doing AR Photos of Pokemon on me, he'd had me pose, which is kind of interesting. I'd look at those Pokemon and go, "Those are kind of cute!" So about a month later I started playing. 

David: Have you ever picked up a main series game even after being exposed to Pokemon GO?

BirdPower13: The only thing I picked up was, Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu, but nothing else.

David: What'd you think of those games?

BirdPower13: It was a lot of fun. I pretty much stopped playing once I beat the game, but I enjoyed it. I played it really hardcore in the beginning, like the first day I got it, I played like 10 hours straight. 

David: Now one thing that's interesting is that, I don't know if it's a generation thing or maybe it's just a Texas thing, but I've always noticed people around your age aren't really into Pokemon GO. There's not many people who can drive around on their own, you know, you're lucky if you have a license and you're even blessed if you have a [00:04:00] car. What is it about Pokemon GO that you prefer compared to like from your experience in Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee?

BirdPower13: Personally, I prefer the community out aspect. I like talking to people, I like socializing, and Let's Go Pikachu, I just kind of played it at home. The cool thing about Pokemon GO is you can get out and walk and explore and just spin stops, get Gifts, do Raids in person. Once I picked up the game, honestly, I just never took any breaks. 

David: Where do you normally go to play, to socialize, to meet people? 

BirdPower13: I normally go to PVP spots. So my local group used to host these PVP meetups. Once a month we would do a practice cup where we would just practice and then a ranked cup, and we would just meet up at like a local restaurant. And then after that we'd go walk around and grind and do raids. Those are some pretty fun days. 

David: Now you are involved in some of the online communities? That's correct? 

BirdPower13: Yes. 

David: which ones? 

BirdPower13: The main one I'm in is Girls That PVP, but I'm also in a lot of the other discords. 

David: How important is the community aspect for [00:05:00] you in regards to just PVP alone? 

BirdPower13: It's really important. Honestly, anything is better with friends and groups of people. Like honestly, comparing GBL to the regional aspect and just being out and about, I enjoyed regionals a lot more. 

David: How important is the Girls That PVP Discord, Like how supportive are they? 

BirdPower13: They have impacted me so much. They are so supportive and I just wanna represent them as a whole, like as much as I can. And in Salt Lake actually there were a lot of girl competitors there. I think at least five. And I like to see the amount growing. It's grown a lot since, the last season of Play Pokemon tournaments and I hope it keeps growing more. 

David: I bet it was a party when they found out to you were going to the world, it's like they were just ecstatic in that discord. 

BirdPower13: Yeah, they were. They were really supportive. I had my phone in my pocket and it kept buzzing.

David: Now of course, you've been exposed to Pokemon through Pokemon GO. Do you have a particular favorite Pokemon? 

BirdPower13: Definitely Mew and Mewtwo. Even before it was my lucky shirt in Milwaukee that I won [00:06:00] with, it was always my favorite Pokemon.

David: And you even had like a Mew plushy, right? Cause I remember you were holding interview. 

BirdPower13: Yeah and I brought it on stage every time too. It was kind of hard to see because the teams blocked it, but it was like a little flat thing. I actually won it at a side event in Peoria regionals. I took it everywhere Salt Lake weekend. 

David: So of course your primary focus with Pokemon GO is the PVP aspect. How did you first get involved with pvp? 

BirdPower13: Okay, so it's kind of interesting. So at first I had no interest in it at what so ever. And then it was Twilight Cup of Silph and my locals hosted the meetup I talked about earlier and I missed it cuz I had no interest. But I drove by and saw that they were laughing and having fun and joking. So next month I was like, " I'm gonna try this." And I showed up to their little meetups and I had a blast. I lost really bad because I didn't know a thing I was doing and I was using like 1300 CP Pokemon because I didn't have no dust whatsoever. But I enjoyed it. So after that I started watching YouTube [00:07:00] videos and getting better, and then I started sweeping my monthly cups. 

David: Wow. After you just did like a little bit of study and you started sweeping everybody? 

BirdPower13: Yeah, basically. There was always this one person that I had a rival with like every time we face, it'd always be a game three and we'd win by like one fast move or one charge move. 

David: Why weren't you interested in PVP when it first launched?

BirdPower13: I don't really know why I wasn't interested in it. I think I just didn't wanna spend the Stardust or try new things. Sometimes I'm a little bit stubborn. I mostly caught Pokemon and did raids occasionally, so I just don't think I wanted to try anything new, but I'm glad I did. 

David: How would you go out and grind for what you needed? 

BirdPower13: So I'd either walk around like a downtown area or my grandma or mom would drive me around. We had just loop around in circles or I'd walk around in circles. There's this cool waterfront that has lots of spawns and I'd just catch for like hours straight, put star pieces on, put lucky eggs on, until I get the amount of candy I need. I remember having to [00:08:00] make a Kingdom Cup Bastiodon. That was a really hard grind back then. 

David: Yeah cause I think Bastiodon was everywhere for that cup cuz it was just so dominant. 

BirdPower13: Yeah. Kingdom Cup was honestly so rps, I remember there's Steelix, Bastiodon, Lucario, Lapras, Altaria, just basically a big triangle. I didn't have half the Pokemon I needed for these cups, so I was begging everyone I could for specific Pokemon. They were all really supportive and they traded it to me, some of them even double moved them for me. Of course, the IVs weren't good, but I took it, I took it.

David: In your opinion though, speaking of IVs, like how important are IVs to the level that you play now? 

BirdPower13: I think there's instances where it's very important and there's instances where it's not very important. As Kieng says, and lots of other people say "IVs don't matter until they do." Personally, my Sableye and my Stunfisk, as people could tell from the CP aren't very good. But I had multiple instances where I died with a move just because my IVs weren't good. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it don't cause a lot of times [00:09:00] I still won games with them. 

David: That's true and of course you're going to Japan and that's sometimes how the Pokeball turns. 

BirdPower13: Yeah. I of course wanna make better ones. I'm looking for a better purified Sableye right now. The one I have right now does really bad in certain situations. I had a couple instances where I had a Sableye versus the Medicham in the end game and Ice Punch knocked it out. So I'm like, " I really need to build a better one."

David: So, you know, as you were learning pvp, what was your most influential resource to be able to get to where you were?

BirdPower13: My most influential resources were definitely PVPoke and also YouTube. I watched basically every YouTube video known to man. I remember watching a lot of Kieng and FPSticks, and remember when Battle Hero PVP was a thing back then? He don't make videos anymore, but I remember watching a lot of him on Silph too.

David: So obviously you're known as Bird Power. Where did that name come from? 

BirdPower13: So I really like birds, especially when I was young. I would like to draw them. I'd like to collect plushies of them. I have about [00:10:00] 10 bird books back here on just all the different types of birds. I started my account when I was 12, so I made it to forecast me turning 13. I know a lot of people notice I don't ever bring Bird Pokemon in tournaments.

David: That's what I said when I watched your matches. It's like she's known as Bird Power 13, but she has no bird.

BirdPower13: I was almost gonna bring Noctowl and then I was like, " I haven't had enough practice with it yet. I'm gonna wait until the future.

David: Now you know what you could do? You can turn the 13 into like the unlucky number, like you're coming in front of Bird Power 13. I'm your unlucky opponent right now.

BirdPower13: Yeah. 

David: Did you have like a favorite bird that you loved to always look at? 

BirdPower13: I don't really remember. I know I liked the yellow canary and I liked parakeets. I actually had a parakeet from when I was about five to 12. It lived a good seven years and it was my good pet. It would always climb on my shoulder and then poop on me. But [00:11:00] but we had a lot of good times together. 

David: Take me into the mind of what it's like to analyze your opponent's team. Say like you know, you're at the stage and you see the six that they're gonna choose from. What goes through your mind to pick out the team that you're gonna start with?

BirdPower13: So I like look at my team and then look at their team, and then I compare my six to their six. I like write down my six and then write down what beats what. So like if I have a Shadow Nidoqueen, I write down it, it beats Azu. And then I do that for like all six of my Pokemon I look for the Pokemon that have the best matchups on their team and then I kind of do the same thing for my opponent's side on my side. Like I'm like, " what Pokemon that they have are best against my team?" And then I try to make a team that will counter what they think will be best for my team, but Pokemon that still have good matchups against them. I try to bring one safe Pokemon in the middle as a safe swap. Like for Salt Lake, I liked Lickitung unless I saw like Cindy's team that had the Registeel and the Obstagoon. I noticed most people's main counter for Lickitung was Stunfisk and that could be [00:12:00] a soft loss. And then there's also Medicham, but actually in the zeros it gets kind of close. So I enjoyed using Lickitung big time. 

David: One thing that I noticed that the announcer said is that you didn't bring an ice type. I think you were the only player in the top eight who didn't do that and that you talked about how Lickitung was the one you chose over an ice type. Why did you make that call? 

BirdPower13: This is my thinking based on it. I don't have a specific reason why I made the call. I did it based on my Milwaukee team. My team was weak to fire, so add the azu and then add the licky. I know when I tried to experiment with ice types, it made my team too vulnerable. I wanted to do Frostlass, but I decided last second against it.

David: You did have a world's appearance in London. What was it like to be there?

BirdPower13: It was amazing. It was everything I could have expected and more. When you walked in there, you just saw like thousands and thousands of people, which I didn't even know that many people played the game, which excited me a ton. All the decorations were amazing. It was like the most Pokemon I have [00:13:00] ever seen ever just being there. It was just amazing and it didn't feel real. I was like, " How did I get to being here?" 

David: Did it feel like it was a dream? 

BirdPower13: Yeah! Even when I'm sitting here right now or just doing schoolwork, it's like, did I really go to London? I still don't believe it. 

David: And you were there, you almost came out on top. You came up a little short, unfortunately, 

BirdPower13: Yeah, I made some bad team calls. and my losers bracket match. I just got completely rps. It was painful. 

David: Now thinking about your time in London and the painful defeat you did have, what did you learn between in London to now?

BirdPower13: So one of the biggest things I learned, not really PVP or team building wise, but is to stay calm. I am personally a person that gets stressed out a lot. I get nervous about everything and going into my London matches, I was like, " I am gonna lose so hard. I am not very experienced at this and these people have been doing it for years." I don't think I'm gonna do well. And I came in and I didn't do well. Then I [00:14:00] really thought about my mindset differently for Peoria until all the tournaments I did. I just stayed calm, I breathed, I'll do fine and I actually did fine. So I think your mindset on the matches is very important, it's one of the biggest lessons I learned. 

David: Definitely. Cuz even though you counted yourself out and you said everybody was more experienced, the world champion played around the same time you started the game, right? 

BirdPower13: Yeah, like middle of 2018 and I started pvp halfway through 2019. 

David: What do you tell yourself now to kind of help yourself calm down and to keep yourself focused? 

BirdPower13: I just tell myself like, do my best and I just go with a neutral mindset like I'm not gonna go into it over confident going, "I got this," but I'm not gonna go into it going, "I'm gonna lose" Even if I start out rough and bad, I'll just play the match until the very end and see what happens. And I think that helps me a lot in R-P-S scenarios. I'm always thinking of ways to catch. I'm always thinking of ways to potentially store a move and win the back. 

David: So one thing the announcers always said is that you just could [00:15:00] make gutsy calls and of course you talked about how you just stay calm. How do you do it? Do you just go on gut instinct or is there some secret calculation you would be willing to share? 

BirdPower13: It's a little bit of both. I calculate my win con. The biggest guty call was probably calling the Rock Slide against KhaleesiFitzy and I was thinking in my head, " she could go double earthquake, but my wind con is her baiting." Cause I was pretty in trouble in the back, like her Noctowl had almost double Shadow Ball. I had a no shielded Stunfisk and a dead Lickitung basically. I calculated that my only one condition is calling to bait and luckily she baited. That's what I do for basically all the matches. I know when I called the Dazzling Gleam on Buckeye's side, I was like, I'm sorry if I count wrong, but I believe it's like five to a Weather Ball, nine to a Dazzling Gleam. So I was like, I really need to call the Weather Ball, but he just went straight dazzling gleam. So sometimes gusty calls don't payoff. 

David: Right. Oh, I remember that cause you had one shield left and you didn't use it. 

BirdPower13: Yeah. 

David: And you decided to just chance it. 

BirdPower13: And if it was [00:16:00] a weather ball, I could've built up the two Foul Plays, but if I would've shielded a Weather Ball, then he would've probably got to a Dazzling Gleam before I would've got the two. 

David: Does knowing your opponent's tendency plays a factor into when you shield and when you don't? Or are you 

BirdPower13: Oh, definitely.

David: How do you find out the tendencies? 

BirdPower13: So I was battling Khaleesi and in the second game she was baiting me a lot, going sky attack on my Stunfisk with her Noctowl instead of Shadow Ball. I was like, in the third game, she's likely to bait cuz she likes to bait and it paid off. The finals against Buckeye, after he landed the dazzling claim on me, I was like, "he likes to go straight for the nuke. So after that I basically tried to call all the nuke decisions.

David: So, of course you were very familiar about BuckeyeFitzy because you not only had to play in one match, you had to play him twice, both in the Winner Finals and the Grand Finals. What was it like to face the same opponent that many times cuz in total y'all played nine times?

BirdPower13: Yeah, so, I picked up on a couple strategies from Buckeye. I noticed he liked to play ABA with Trev. He would like [00:17:00] to have Azu or Stunfisk or Stunfisk or Medicham. By the end, I started realizing I need to bring Trev and Licky is a must cuz his only answer to it was like the G-Fisk and so I just made teams with Licky Trev core every time against him.

David: You got to know them so well that you had a solid three like I'm going with these three and nothing else because these were the counters for his team. 

BirdPower13: I liked using Trev and Licky combo and then either Medi or Stunfisk in the lead or Licky in the lead 

David: So of course you talked about how you got to meet Kieng like, you know, when did that happen and you know, what advice and tips did he provide to you?

BirdPower13: I got to meet Kieng in Seattle Go Fest. I first met him at the Battleground, it was like a little PVP battleground event, and he didn't really gimme tips then, but he really gave me tips when I saw him again in London. We sat next to each other to watch the worlds after we both got out the competition. It was the 50 battles of GBL, so he just picked my GBL team of Licky, Sableye, Medi and we practiced with it every day for the remainder of the week. So we probably did at [00:18:00] least 150 battles with the team and he taught me when to throw on Licky, managing my energy well, and he helped me understand catches better.

David: It sounds like he invested a lot into you to battle 50 times with that team. What did that mean to you?

BirdPower13: It meant a lot. I was really happy that he saw potential in me, especially from the start in Milwaukee like he made a tweet saying how good of a battler I'll be when all said and done. For someone who was new to all that, it meant a lot and I just wanted to keep doing well to improve, to show like what I can do. I'm constantly practicing and getting better. Already from Milwaukee I learned a lot cuz during Milwaukee I didn't know about move timing or anything. 

David: So if somebody was listening to this podcast and they were, competing for upcoming regionals, what advice would you give them?

BirdPower13: The biggest advice would be to stay calm and never give up and always look for a win con. Even if you're in a bad situation, your opponent can always misplay or you can see a opening to winning. You could do a combo play, like you could build up a move [00:19:00] on one Pokemon, get the shield, and then nuke them with another. There's always ways you could win. 

David: Now, you've talked about how your aunt has accompanied you on all these trips. You know, what are her thoughts about what you're doing now, especially now that you've become a regional champion on the way to Japan? 

BirdPower13: She is really proud of me and she is very supportive of me. Let me do a little backstory on this. Before the regional tournaments, I enjoyed the community and all that, but I was really socially awkward and shy. My family would always have to like push me to talk to people cuz I wouldn't talk to anybody. But going to the regional tournaments have really pushed me outta my comfort zone. I talk to everyone now. I go up to people, I say hi and talk matchups with them and strategies with them and just talk about life. So I really grown as a person from doing all of this and it's helped me in school and everyday life too. My aunt's just really impressed with me how much I've grown since Milwaukee, which has only been like five months. 

David: So all this change has been since Milwaukee that you're talking about? 

BirdPower13: Yeah. I remember in Milwaukee, I was just sitting in the chairs, like waiting for my battle. [00:20:00] I didn't know anybody, I was like, people don't know me, they'll just think, Who's this kid? But then after Milwaukee, I just really came out of my comfort zone and I think going on stage did it for me too. That was the first time I have ever been on stage in front of probably like 2000 people watching. So it was a huge step for me. 

David: Were you very nervous when you were on stage?

BirdPower13: Oh yeah, for sure. Even in Salt Lake, if you look closely, you could still see my hands shaking, my hands shake a lot. I tap my feet a little bit and nobody knows what's going through my head. My head is just processing all tons of thoughts, especially in Milwaukee. I was like, " Oh my God, what are these people thinking of me?"

David: It sounds like you were very self-conscious. 

BirdPower13: Yeah, I was. especially cuz I was out of practice going into Milwaukee. My main inspiration go to Milwaukee was seeing Cindy win Vancouver and going "if she can do it, I could do it too." But looking back at it, people are really supportive of me. 

David: You know, obviously you're pretty involved in the PVP scene. In your opinion, who is a player that people should watch [00:21:00] out for that hasn't qualified yet?

BirdPower13: Definitely Reis and ItsAXN. They had really strong showings in worlds last season, and they haven't qualified yet, but they both place top twelve and they're just really strong altogether. Definitely with Dodge and pvp David and for some of the seniors too. 

David: You talked about earlier how it's important to have women in the PVP scene. What would it mean for you if you went to Japan and became the first ever female champion for Pokemon GO? 

BirdPower13: Oh my God, that'd be amazing. I would love to do that and represent. I think it's possible. I think it's definitely possible for female to become the first champion in Worlds. It doesn't have to be me, it could be Cindy, it could be Licia, it could be anybody. I think it's possible and, and I'd love to see it. 

David: So before we do go, I have this one last question. With everything you've accomplished from starting in Silph Road, to winning Milwaukee Regionals to go into London, to now winning going to Salt Lake City, to even going into Japan now for [00:22:00] Pokemon GO, what do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

BirdPower13: I think my biggest accomplishment is just going to these regionals in general cause I know there's a lot of people that hear about 'em, but just don't go to them and I think going to the tournaments is a big step itself. My biggest accomplishment I'd say is getting up the courage to go to Milwaukee because I heard about the tournament and then I was like, " I don't know what people think of me, I'm rusty, I'm bad, but I could say I'm glad I went. And then that accomplishment has led to all the others. 

David: What were you hearing about Milwaukee that scared you?

BirdPower13: I didn't hear nothing about it. I just know how mean Twitch chat could be sometimes, and they could be more judgmental of a newer player. I know at Salt Lake, there are a lot of new people using Entei and stuff, but it's honestly great to see new people, you know, in the community, You get exposure, the more people playing, the better. 

David: Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your podcast streamer of choice. If you wanna [00:23:00] support the show, consider becoming a Patreon by going to patreon.com/asthepokeballturns or by sharing the podcast with your friends and family. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of today's show. Remember to give the show a rating of five stars and I'll see you next time!