TRAINER'S EYE #12 - "Conkeldurr Always Delivers" ft. VroomVroomPow

TRAINER'S EYE #12 - "He Always Delivers" ft. VroomVroomPow
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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 Pokeball Turns. Today is episode 12 of Trainer's Eyes A Segment where get to hear from you, the community, on how your Pokemon Go journey started, where it has been, and where it is currently going. PVP was a highly anticipated feature for Pokemon [00:01:00] Go that finally made its debut on December 12th, 2018. Before it even officially launched, one of the pillars of the Pokemon Go community, The Silph Road, announced the debut of the Silph Arena. The Silph Arena was designed to help local communities participate in a global rank system for both, quote unquote, " extra fun and extra pressure." From the early beginnings in the rainy streets of Chicago to the now online atmosphere of Twitch, numerous trainers have walked through the Silph Arena with only an elite few becoming victorious and becoming the very best like no one ever was. Fast forward to season four of Silph Arena, where eight trainers battled it out to determine who would be crowned the new Silph Arena champion. After all the shields were down, the baits were called, and the battles concluded, the championship officially belonged to The City of Rallies as an entire country rallied behind this trainer's victory. My guest today hails from the country of India and is a member of the Dews and Gongs faction. My friends allow me to introduce to [00:02:00] you the Silph Arena 2022 World Champion, VroomVroomPow!



David: I'm joined by the 2022 Silph Arena World Champion VroomVroomPow! VroomVroomPow, Welcome to the show!

Varun: Thank you, David, it's a pleasure to be here. 

David: Well, first I gotta ask you about the name, like when I first heard of VroomVroomPow, I thought it was something with a car, like you just run over somebody. How did that IGN VroomVroompow start? 

Varun: So Vroom sounds very similar to my real name and it's a nickname my friends used to call me. There's this famous song, "Boom Boom Pow" by Black Eyed Peas. So, I came up with a pun, so I was looking for a gaming IGN, I didn't have a gaming IGN before and I really thought that pun fit. So I created this name, VroomVroomPow. 

David: So It's a mixture of the Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow" and your name combined into one?

Varun: Yes, I've been told it's a pretty catchy to be honest. I saw the car puns they were really funny. 

David: Oh yeah! Well, let me ask you this, you know, when did you first start playing Pokemon Go? 

Varun: I first played Pokemon Go in [00:03:00] 2016 when the first release, like in the most basic form, like where you just go out and catch the Pokemon and there was no PVP at the moment. I just played for about three months from July 2016 to September 2016. I didn't pick it back up until for almost three years, to be honest like November 2019 is when I first remember playing it again. It's kind of like what happens with memes, when everyone shares them and then they suddenly die away. initially like Pokemon was a huge thing, like everyone was playing it, but then suddenly like everyone lost interest and I figured the same happened to me.

David: When you reopened the game back up, what was your first initial thoughts when you saw the game again?

Varun: I was really happy to see that, like in the beginning in 2016, they only had a handful of Pokemon, like the original 1 51 Pokemon, and I was really happy to see that the game was expanding, that the game was changing. I saw the new Raid feature, I saw that PVP was slowly becoming a thing. GBL was [00:04:00] not in place but I saw that there was a PVP feature and just knowing that they were also progressing towards the game really made me come back to the game. 

David: There was a lot more content, it sound like, compared to the bare bones we had back in 2016.

Varun: Definitely. And I am one of those people who has been following Pokemon for a long time and outside of Pokemon Go, I also play the main series games. Just seeing all the Pokemon that I've ever seen, like actually being included in the game, like really made the attractive to me and just the process of even catching them or like going out and grinding, that was really fun for me.

David: Let's talk about your experience with Pokemon real quick. How familiar are you with the main series games? 

Varun: Oh, I'm quite familiar. In India, we did not get the games first, we got the anime first, so like at first started watching Pokemon and a few years after that, I'm probably embarrassed to say this, but there were these, emulators that had the basic games. I played a lot of these early games, like Red and Blue, Gold, Silver, on my PCs. Recently last year I bought an Nintendo Switch and I have the [00:05:00] Pokemon Sword and Shield games, as well as Pokemon Arceus Legends. I have been pretty hardcore when it comes to playing Pokemon games. 

David: Why weren't the games available in your country right away? 

Varun: Game Boy wasn't really as popular in India back in 1999. Maybe it's because like when we import the games, they really put a lot of tax on the games like they really put a lot of custom duties on the games. So it's very difficult for us to afford them to be honest. 

David: For you growing up, what was it like to be in a country to where you could watch the anime but never be able to experience the games?

Varun: It was strange because for the longest time, this is a time where internet was still in its infancy, you know? At the moment, we wouldn't even know that there were games for this. I discovered the games some time around 2005. I didn't even know, like the games were coming before the anime. In my mind, it was like, "Oh, these games exist!"

David: What was it like to when you first got your first gaming experience with Pokemon after so long? 

Varun: Oh, it was, it was amazing. So one of [00:06:00] my best memories is because at the moment, you had no guide into the game, you didn't know where to go. You were mostly figuring out everything on your own. I didn't even know some of the Pokemon that exists, to be honest, but it was a really amazing experience, like solving everything on your own. I discovered that Gold and Silver famously have a post game of the entirety of Kanto is available, Right? it was a joy to me as a kid, to be able to discover there was a game after the main Pokemon League, you know?

David: Real quick, which one are you gonna choose, Scarlet or Violet? 

Varun: I'm choosing Violet for sure. 

David: Do you have any particular favorite Pokemon at all?

Varun: Yes! I made a list of my favorite Pokemon, but if I had to name one of them, I would say it's Conkeldurr. It's a Pokemon I used in the main series game and I won the Pokemon League with it. If you've heard of Pokemon Showdown, which basically simulates the main series PVP structure online, I used to use Conkeldurr a lot there. My preference for Pokemon is extremely design based like Roserade and Runerigus. 

David: And obviously you're from India, what is [00:07:00] it like to play over there?

Varun: It's really fun to be honest, like both when it comes to Pokemon Go and when it comes to the main series game, because I know people who are interested in both like Pokemon Go, has huge following in India, but also the main series games. Like I have a lot of friends who own Nintendo Switch and they play Pokemon. It's a really fun experience, but we miss out on these major events like VGC, for example. 

David: Just for Pokemon Go specifically, where are the places to go for like a community day or if you wanna do raids? 

Varun: In Delhi, we have this place called Lodhi Gardens. It's named after one of the past emperors who used to be in Delhi. It's a pretty huge garden with lots of Pokestops and people have really put in work to make it a proper grinding spot over the past few years. So that's where all most of the community days take place and there's plenty of spawns, you can catch like over a thousand Pokemon in just three hours. 

David: A thousand Pokemon in three hours?

Varun: Yeah, during community days, not normally, of course. 

David: How did you first get introduced into PVP? 

Varun: [00:08:00] It's really simple because, when I came back to Pokemon Go, at the moment there was a basic PVP system. I used to just have friendly battles with some of my friends like we would have some battles, we would like have fun, we would use anything we wanted. Unlike main series games, which are really time consuming, like one battle takes like maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes, this was a really short, way to like, you know, like live a dream, which is to have your own Pokemon battle. I think it was just an extension of that. 

David: Now with your experience with the Pokemon franchise, and of course now with Pokemon Go, in your opinion, how important is the PVP aspect for Pokemon? 

Varun: I think it's the most important aspect when it comes to the franchise in general. I think catching is a great mechanic and catching is essential to Pokemon Go, and I know many people like the catching aspect way more than the battling aspect, but as a franchise as whole, I feel that the battling aspect, the entire dynamics of having 18 types and the interactions between them, like dual types, abilities, natures, different move effects, like all the interactions that make a battle [00:09:00] really feel like a chess game, to be honest. We are seeing PVP is now represented in the international play Pokemon event alongside Vgc and the Pokemon Go, PVP Twitch streams had more views than the Vgc streams. I think everyone would agree that the future of Pokemon Go is PVP. 

David: Was the way PVP introduced in a Pokemon Go how you hoped it would be or were you hoping for something different?

Varun: I feel that at the core, when it comes to the basics of it, Niantic got most of the basics right. I really like the, dynamic between having a fast move and a charge move. Very simple mechanics that everyone can learn like that's what a mobile game should be about. We can question how the infamous lag that happens in PVP sometimes or like some other issues, but I feel that the core mechanics they got completely right. 

David: What would you like to see implemented or added into PVP that doesn't already exist?

Varun: I think more dynamicism maybe because in the main series game you also have abilities and you have a lot of different mechanics. PVP, while quite interesting to be honest, it's [00:10:00] relatively more straightforward. It still requires a lot of strategizing and like deeply thinking, but like the core mechanics are still pretty straightforward, like you have a fast move, you have a charge move, sometimes they buff and de-buff. Maybe some more features like abilities, which makes some Pokemon unique. 

David: Yeah, it might give Shedinja some viability. Anyway, do you have a particular favorite League you like to participate in?

Varun: The Great League formats, but not just Great League formats, but also these restricted cups where a lot of new Pokemon have use like Holiday cup, Halloween cup, like I really enjoy them. 

David: How far have you gone into rank when you do GBL?

Varun: I have been hitting legend from season six to season twelve. I have been on the front page of the GBL leaderboard. Unfortunately, I haven't hit rank one, but I have been on the front page like I was rank 26 couple of seasons ago and until recently, even this season, I was like rank 75. 

David: There's some people who struggle between trying to get to expert and legend. In your opinion, what separates those who struggled from expert to legend? 

Varun: I think two things. One is [00:11:00] understanding your team perfectly. Understanding all the damages, understanding all the mechanics, understanding every single matchup. like not understanding every single Pokemon count. You don't have to learn everything about other Pokemon, but you have to be really specific with your own team and know everything in your team. But also at the same time, you need to know how to call other teams effectively. How to know the meta, how to know the latest teams that are in the meta, how to know what other people are using. Just knowing your team is enough to reach expert, but to reach legend. and especially reaching legend earlier in the season, like you need to know what other people are using. You need to know what other people might have in the back. So like if you see a Skarmory and you see a G-Fisk, you need to know what the third Pokemon needs to be. You can't make those mistakes, no matter how good your understanding of your own team is. You need to be able to protect different team backlines. You need to be able to trick the other team as well. You need to be able to play according to your conditions. 

David: And to add on to that, what that also helps you whenever you do like show six pick three [00:12:00] format, whether it be Silph or even regional tournaments because it allows you to get into the head of the opponent on which team to, or which three to pick, to face off against your opponent.

Varun: Definitely, definitely, I mean, I've often said to people that, more than the battling, especially in show six, pick three, this is pretty true that more than the battling aspect, the team building aspect and there are, I would divide this process into three stages. One is the team building aspects where you build your team of six. You understand that there will be certain Pokemon that will like, you make a very solid rounder team of six. Then the second aspect is choosing your team of three from that team of six, like whenever I'm facing a certain opponent, I'm choosing a team of three And the third aspect will be the actual battling, like how you actually master the mechanics of the game.

David: Now what's interesting is that, you came back three years later after PokemonGo was introduced. When PVP was finally introduced to PokemonGo, did you ever feel like you were behind at any point because you hadn't played the three years? 

Varun: Yes, for sure. because I started playing at a certain moment in 2019, I had missed all the previous event. I had no [00:13:00] roster of good Pokemon, to be honest. I was just playing with like maybe three or four Pokemon and especially I was level 32 at that moment. It became really clear to me that without being level 40, it's very difficult to play this game.

David: So how did you close the gap or catch up?

Varun: I mostly did it through friendship, trading locally for Legendaries. I think from playing in October, 2019 to within five months, I would say March or April, I was Level 40. It's seems like a long time, but like, I took my time. A very notable fact that might be interesting to you is that I have over 25,000 battles in GBL. That might be more than most people, so I would say I got good just by I just kept playing, even when I was bad. I didn't really hit legend until season six, but before that I was doing almost every set and to be honest, it was just for fun. I just really enjoyed it. I think when you battle enough for a long time and you watch a lot of content creators, you get better. 

David: Obviously PVP has unfortunately had a lot of glitches. What [00:14:00] keeps you motivated to continue to play?

Varun: I would say it's just my love for Pokemon, to be honest. outside the lag, outside the glitches that happened in PVP, I feel that Niantic developed a pretty consistent and pretty basic gameplay behind PVP. it's not like really complicated or like really difficult to master of course, but like I feel that it's a really simple and entertaining format. 

David: Well, obviously you're also part of Dew and Gong Faction. How did you first get involved with factions? 

Varun: So I decided to join some of my close friends in PVP and it was a really fun experience like we made it to the Diamond tier and then because of some poor game play, some team issues, we fell down. But we have been in the Emerald tier, for the past two cycles and we have been doing really well. We had third most wins last cycle. 

David: Was your faction able to help you prepare for the Silph tournament at all? 

Varun: So we were not allowed to take help from everyone at all times. But sometimes we were allowed to like consult the others and we were allowed to discuss with others. I was [00:15:00] discussing with my factions teammates a lot and more than just the discussions, they also supported me throughout, they also cheered for me, like when things were looking difficult or when I seemed like I was losing, I might have lost. They were supporting me a lot and they were encouraging me all the time and They helped me with evaluating like the goods, bad, and ugly of my team. They helped me a lot for sure. 

David: How did they respond when they found out you were made it to phase two for the double elimination finals with the top eight? 

Varun: They were really excited because I swept the prelims So that was a pretty dominant win for me and they were incredibly happy and they said, "Oh, we knew you could do it. Like we always knew it." You know, that support really matters. I was able to show them some of the games that I had and they were really encouraging and they were like, really cheering for me. 

David: Sounds like you have some good teammates right there. 

Varun: Yes, I do for sure. 

David: So I wanna talk about something called GBL Samraats real quick. Now is actually the first time you did broadcasting work, is that correct? 

Varun: Yes, GBLSamraats is a tournament that I came off with. It's [00:16:00] mostly inspired from GBLA and basically is a way to highlight best of Indian PVP because a lot of us felt that Indian PVP was growing a lot and we needed a way to showcase it somewhere and GBL Samraats platform were like the best and best of Indian PVP, compete with each other. 

David: How did you find the people to participate for that tournament? 

Varun: So we wanted to use the best thing that would represent skill in GBL, which is your GBL elo. We made everyone enter their GBL ELOs at a certain date. So everyone enters that elo and then we seed people accordingly. We were having the Great League, Ultra League, and Master League brackets so people could apply and they were seated by their GBLs.

David: Wow! And since you're the one who developed it, what was the overall experience like for you? Do you feel like it was a success? 

Varun: I felt like there, there, there have been two seasons. I feel like the second season was a resounding success. The first season was a more experimental approach and I was able to use that to develop the second season, which was definitely really successful. We had some of the [00:17:00] best battle, like that was the first time an Indian, PVP event that happened in India was shout casted on Twitch. I felt that like that in itself was a really huge deal. 

David: And how did you feel broadcasting it? Were you nervous, scared, or did you feel confident for it?

Varun: I believe in this approach that I should be anxious before the stream, before the broadcast, but not during the broadcast. So all my anxieties, everything that I'm worried about that will happen. But it happens before, not during. 

David: And one thing I noticed both, not even in just the tournament, but also with the Silph Arena, which we're about to talk about, the chat went bonkers for you, like it felt like you're almost a celebrity in your own community. Is that true? 

Varun: I would not call myself a celebrity, but at the same time, if you look at the past three seasons of Silph, I wouldn't say not a single Indian person or person of Indian origin, because that has happened, but not a single person playing from India while being in India has ever reached that stage before, has ever been on the finals, like this was the first time we were seeing something like [00:18:00] VroomVroomPow with like the word India written below it on stream. So like when this happens, everyone from India is going to share it for you. But other than that, I think it was because I was like the first person from India and Reis is such a huge name. That definitely made me a bit of an underdog like we cheer for this guy, we cheer for the underdog 

David: And you were an underdog. Is it kind of like national pride almost because we have somebody from India who's going against one of the best players in all the world and it's not only exposure for your country's PVP scene, but it's also representation for somebody from your country as well?

Varun: Definitely. if you look at some of the tweets that followed afterwards, many people wrote something like India and PVP has finally arrived on the scene. Indian PVP has finally taken over like we have finally a person from India being at the very top. This is not the second person of the third position, this is the world champion. That's a huge deal because it's almost always someone from North America or, sometimes Europe at the very top. It was obviously amazing for me, but it must have been amazing not just Indian people but also like people from [00:19:00] A-P-S-C who told me like they were really proud that A-P-S-C holds the World Champion record. 

David: What did you think of the new format for Silph World Championship?

Varun: I felt it was really interesting. I was really nervous initially because I have done a few draft tournaments and honestly I am not that good at drafting. Let me be honest, you could really look at some other teams right now, and you could look at some of the mons that other people had like Registeel, Talonflame, Venusaur, Swampert, and like my most well known Pokemon is Empoleon. In my team, neither Runerigus, is a meta Pokemon, neither Kommo-o. Maybe people know them, but like none of them are widely used in GBL. None of them are widely used in show six, pick three.

David: Let's actually give some insight for people who may not be familiar with the Silph Arena format for this past season, so basically the first round was each player banned a Pokemon, and then afterwards y'all picked two, I believe, and then y'all banned again. Two and then band. 

Varun: Yes. It was exactly this. 

David: I know you're not good at draft formats, but gimme the insight on how did you pick what Pokemon to ban first.

Varun: We [00:20:00] discussed this ban approach like initially it was a very, funny thing like normally you would expect that the first person who was banning will ban the strongest possible Pokemon, right? But that is not true because the way the ban format works, let me give you some insight into it. If the seed one is banning the first Pokemon, then it goes from seed one to seed eight, and then the first pick comes to seed one again, right? After that, seed one gets to pick the best Pokemon available. So the ban quality actually does not go seed one bans the best Pokemon. Seed eight bans the best Pokemon because Seed eight does not want seed one to take that best Pokemon And this is something I realized very quickly. I did not ban the best Pokemon. I banned the Pokemon which I did not want to face because I was fourth in the drafting order. The owners of banning the best Pokemon falls not on me, it falls on the seventh and eighth people who are banning, because if they don't ban it, seed one gets those Pokemon, then seed two, seed three, seed four, we get these Pokemon. So I banned Nidoqueen, for example, then I banned Lanturn, and then I [00:21:00] banned Obstagoon. So these are three Pokemon I personally didn't really wanna face. It had nothing to do with them being the best Pokemon around. I just like really hate all three of them.

David: When it comes to crafting a team for draft, did you have a idea in mind of what your team would look like or how did you pick what Pokemon that you ended up with? 

Varun: In the first round, I picked up Kommo-o, which was the best Pokemon available at the moment. Immediately I thought like, "steel types and dragon types go really well together." In GBL, very commonly Altaria and Registeel together. So like people paired dragons and steels. And that's what I did as well. I picked Empoleon. After that I picked up two more cores. I picked up Runerigus, which is a ground type, and I picked up Jumpluff, which is a flying type. Now this is very common to know as well, like how Whiscash and Skarmory are so important because one is a ground type and it it, like, week to grass types or flyer types and Skarmory deals with them. I felt that Runerigus and Jumpluff went really well together and they really covered each other's weaknesses. And in the last [00:22:00] round I picked up two Pokemon. I do not have a safe swap. So I pick up Skuntank, which is a good safe swap. It also beats some of the fairies. And then so there are four, Pokemon in general that beat Malamar consistently, everything else was banned. Like everything else that Beat Malamar was banned. In my head I was like, "Okay, I need a safe stop. This is the most neutral Pokemon I can find. Let me just pick this." And it, turned out to be the best decision possible to pick that Pokemon. I felt that most people did not have a hard answers to Malamar and even if they did, like rest of my team really covered those hard answers.

David: So you face Rhyblet and you get 3-0, you get dropped into loses bracket. How did you bounce back from that? 

Varun: When I lost to Rhyblet, I immediately realized the reason I did lose to Rhyblet was because I did not use the Malamar. So if you look at my first 0-3 set versus him, I do not use the Malamar at all. And after that I think I used Malamar like in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, [00:23:00] 11, 16, 17 battles and I used Malamar in 16 of them. 

David: And then if we just talk about the Dark and Fighting combo real quick. So in the main series, and I think this is still true today, Fighting and Ghost, if you had both those type of moves, no Pokemon resisted both of those moves. And Dark is kind of the cousin of Ghost with only a couple more resistances. I mean, there's not many Pokemon in the entire Pokedex that resists both a Dark and a Fighting move, if you've got one or the other, then you're gonna be doing at least neutral damage to everything at some point.

Varun: For sure, but Dark and Fighting, as I mentioned earlier, like fairy types resisted, completely and Bug-Fighting type like Heracross also resisted, but there were only two Fairy types in the entire 48 Pokemon that were chosen by everyone. There were two Bug-Fighting types, so, not really a lot. I was able to recognize that in this particular meta, the picks that people made, it would have unresisted coverage 

David: And that goes back to just being able to know, like how we talked about earlier with PVP and what separates [00:24:00] expert and legend is that you've gotta know the Pokemon, that not only you own, but you gotta know the ones that are in the meta and the ones that the other players are using. And you're able to use that to your advantage to ultimately come up with a championship. 

Varun: Exactly and it's very surprising when you do like PVPoke sims, it's not like I was entering those Pokemon and like Malamar was coming out to be the most recommended Pokemon, it was nothing like that. It's something that I just recognized. 

David: Now I need to give some context. So you lost in the second round of the top bracket and you had to go into the bottom bracket from second round all the way to the finals. 

Varun: It was pretty disheartening, but I decided to take it one match up at a time. It was like, if I win against Innerbloom, I reach top four. You take one step at a time and you're like okay, I am not beating Innerbloom to win the tournament, I'm beating Innerbloom to be top four. I am not trying to win against Jaysfan, to be the winner of the tournament. I am trying to win against him to be top three. I am not trying to beat Rhyblet to win the tournament. I am trying to beat him to be [00:25:00] top two. And then Reis is " If I'm at this platform, I might as well play my best." 

David: And it showed, because, who don't know, you faced your first three opponents twice before facing Reis. I noticed a more crisper game from you on your second roundabout going against them. you just seem more in control of what you're gonna use compared to the first time.

Varun: I definitely learned from my mistakes. A very common thing to run in GBL is ABB lineups. Like if you have a Medicham lead, you have two steel types in the back, you use the G-Fisk to bait out other fighting type and you use Bastiodon to sweep. if you see my battles, I used a lot of ABA. For example, I used a team which was Runerigus lead with Jumpluff in the back and Malamar in the middle. I think I even saw a couple of people questioning this on the stream. Why is he running ABA? Why is he going double weak to the Lapras when he knows the Lapras is coming in every game. If you look at how the games played out, the moment I switched Malamar, he brought his Scrafty. And the reason is that he doesn't know what I [00:26:00] have in the back. It could be a Skuntank that can handle Scrafty as well as Jellicent. It could be Jumpluff that can damage both Jellicent and Scrafty. He doesn't wanna lose switch, so like it's a very confusing moment for him. I ran these imbalanced lineups and the purpose of that, if you look at my, some of my games, I do not reveal my last Pokemon until the very end, It's deliberate to throw my opponent off. It's deliberate to make them think that there's something else in the back and then they make crucial error in the game. 

David: Basically from the other player's perspective, You're down to the second Pokemon for both players, you're sending out your Runerigus to either use Shadow Ball or Sand Tomb and you don't know what that third Pokemon is. You might have an advantage, you might not and you've gotta make that quick decision and if you make the wrong one, well, we saw the results of what happened when you made the wrong decision. 

Varun: Yes, for sure. So this is something that people don't realize and you see what Jason was doing? He kept using the same team Pokemon against me. One of the shortcomings I feel that a lot of top players still [00:27:00] have is that they keep using the same three Pokemon, They don't change things around. So I came up with the idea, I am just gonna scramble their predictions completely. If I'm going to use five different Pokemon in three different battles, they're not gonna know what I'm going to use. It's as simple as that, so it's completely a bluff. It's a risk I'm taking. The reason for running Skuntank was simply that I don't want them to know what I'm running. It was just for him to predict something else and play a certain way and for it to turn out to be Skuntank in the back. 

David: You're basically disrupting their thought process or their predictions by switching up between so many Pokemon.

Varun: Yes. this is a strategy that really worked. I played a total of eight battles versus Reis and I used all six of my Pokemon and I plan to write like a short graph on how I switched around between my Pokemon. You see me using something like a Runiergus, Malamar, Jumpluff in one game and in the next game I'm using Kommo-o, Malamar, and Empoleon. I completely changed my team from one game to the next. And if you like really do a [00:28:00] deep analysis of my games versus Reis, you would know there were many times when that won me the game, like him not knowing what I had, that scrambling of his predictions completely is what one me the game. 

David: Now let's get to talking about Reis Now. How did you feel going up against him? 

Varun: So of course Reis is one of the best players in the PVP community. But to be honest, there were really close games and there was like no out skilling Like there was just really close game that he happened to lose. I would not say I played much better than him, they were like pretty even games. See, I am doing a world global level stream. I am playing on a global level stream, perhaps a second time in my life. Reis does this every day. Like Reis is an experienced battler who's been one of the best for a long time and does this every day. So I was a bit anxious about this, but as I had said earlier in this podcast, I follow this golden rule that I should be anxious before the games, not during the games. During the games. I should be completely confident, focus and know what to do. Before the game I can think, "Oh my God, I'm gonna lose, I can't win against this guy." During the [00:29:00] game, I have to win against this guy. It's something that people are not often able to separate because they also get nervous during the games and before the games.

David: And like you said, like you gotta have that nervousness. It's okay to have the nervousness before, like I'm nervousness whenever I do a podcast every episode cause I don't know what it's gonna be like. But when you get in the zone, get in the mood, you get focused in all that feeling should go away because you should have confidence in what you can do and try to go out there and just do your best because you know, that's part of the game of competition, whether it be Pokemon Go PVP, or whether you do podcasting or a video or whatever. 

Varun: Exactly. Like you've already started doing it, there's nothing to lose now, you just gotta go ahead and do it. So there's a very key thing I want to say. Some people get nervous when they lose in a best of five. I came up with a very weird strategy, which was to deliberately lose one of my games. This is a world championship where if I win versus someone 2-1 and if I wins versus them 3-0, it is the same thing. So why not deliberately play some lineups, Like it's a setup where [00:30:00] I lose, but I win the next games by running something very weird. But that just that idea that I used sets up some ideas in Reis's head about what I'm going to do next. So like losing isn't necessarily bad, especially in this tournament, losing one game isn't the end of world. After I lost Game one versus Reis, I was not nervous because I have four games left. I don't need to win all of them. I just need to win three of them. So why? be nervous? 

David: Well, let me ask you this, cuz you had to flip the bracket in order to beat Reis. how did it feel when you actually flipped the bracket? 

Varun: It was amazing, like I definitely could not believe it. I had been taking every single match up, one at a time. Like I was completely happy with being the top two, to be honest. I was completely okay with losing because as I said, this is the first time an Indian player has come up to this stage. It's, not necessary for me to win, to gain any appreciation. That really drove out some of the anxieties I had and I was just like completely focused on the game. One of my favorite moments from the stream is in game four, when he [00:31:00] baited with an Aqua Tail and I call it Aqua Tail and everyone goes crazy on the Malamar. It's like a very crazy call, but, uh honestly I was a bit nervous. I don't want to sound really pretentious saying this, it sounds fucking pretentious to be honest, but Caleb talked about being in the flow, being in a psychological show at the moment and honestly speaking that was that like I was completely inside the game. It's part of line prediction and it's part of getting inside your opponent head and trying to see what he's gonna do. 

David: What does it mean to you to be the Silph Champion of 2022? 

Varun: It feels amazing. There was a major difference between when I flipped the bracket versus when I actually won the championship. So when I, when I flipped the bracket, I honestly like exhaled a bit. I was like, " Oh, wow. I did it, like, Oh wow that was insane!" Like just to myself, like I was in my room. When I won the championship, I was completely speechless. 

David: You're probably also pretty tired because wasn't the championship like three to four in the morning by the time it was all over for you? 

Varun: Yeah, I definitely got tired. [00:32:00] It was definitely, pure, like adrenaline. just the excitement of it. I think like Reis was amazing, like an amazing battler. The part of the battles being so intense and so amazing comes with Reis being there. 

David: So with everything you've done so far, what do you consider your biggest accomplishment when it comes to Pokemon Go?

Varun: Oh, I would say being the world champion. It's a title that stays, like you can, probably go to the Silph Hall of Fame page and you could go there and my name would still be written there. So I think that's a big deal.

David: Awesome, man. Do you have any last minute words for people who are in India at all that you wanna share on this podcast? 

Varun: I'm really thankful to all everyone who supported me, like, I'm really thankful to my friends who stayed up till 3:00 AM to watch my streams, who are really happy, who celebrated with me. I woke up and went to bed with like a lot of heartfelt messages and it adds to the tone that I got a couple of messages from some of my friends who said they were really happy to see someone from India make it to that state, I think that matters a lot.

David: [00:33:00] 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 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!

On the next episode of Trainer's Eyes.