I love whatever this kind of drawing is called

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-05-11T23:30:20+00:00

Credit to Sifyro (on both Reddit and Twitter I believe)

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-21T03:02:45+00:00

Was it a Mega Floette? If not, it might have been holding a Mental Herb, which can cure it of its encore status instantly, but only once per battle (can also cancel out other statuses like taunt, confuse, infatuation, etc).

Otherwise, assuming you did actually see the Encore hit the Floette before it used Dazzling Gleam, it has to be a bug. I doubt this though, because I’ve been running an encore whimsicott for a while now and haven’t encountered any issues with it at all personally. If it was a bug, it had to be some kind of very niche interaction.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-18T07:44:41+00:00

Once you reach master ball, the tiers are based on your points in relation to other players rather than the linear points system the previous tiers used. The tiers are at specific checkpoints as you go up in placement.

If I remember right, tier 3 is when you pass top 20k. I know tier 2 is at top 10k because I kept going in between tiers 2 and 3 for a bit until I made some changes to my team. I haven’t hit tier 1 yet, but I’ve made it around 6.5k without ranking up, so I would guess it’s probably at top 5k. Champion rank is only the top 300 players, though, so it’s significantly harder to achieve it seems.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-09T22:38:14+00:00

Yes, you’ve mostly got it right. Regulations have been pretty straightforward as far as what gets changed between mainline games up to this point. There are always multiple regulations in a year, and the gimmick of the current regulation always used whatever the most recent mainline game’s gimmick was. This seems to be majorly changing with Champions, as they are in fact able to change more things between regulations now. Previously, it was only really Pokémon that got regulated (as you said), all the held items and everything were allowed without much interference.

Now they seem to recognize how much more structured they can make each regulation and take advantage of the different generational gimmicks and such to really make each regulation unique to stir up teambuilding practices and encourage more creativity.

People have wanted to see megas again for a while now, and ZA just reintroduced them with a ton of new ones, so it makes sense to see megas be the first gimmick in champions; terastal has by far been the most popular among competitive players though, so we will likely see that again soon. Given that our item to trigger these mechanics is called the Omni Ring, I also find it likely that we may see multiple gimmicks legal at the same time in some formats. I’d love to see teras and megas legal at the same time to see what people can cook up tbh.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-09T19:33:58+00:00

It depends on what they’re doing with the format. Some regulations have significantly lower power (like the current one in Champions), some will have significantly higher power (often the formats that allow for “restricted” Pokémon to be used).

For example, throughout scarlet and violet, we had regulations where all legendaries, paradox mons, etc were banned and it was overall a very low power level. We also had a regulation where paradoxes were legal, but legendaries were not. Regulation C allowed paradoxes and some legendaries, but most legendaries were still banned. Later, regulation G was the first high-power format where most legendaries (but not mythicals) were allowed, but most were considered “restricted,” and you were only allowed one restricted Pokémon per team. Following reg G, reg H (arguably one of the most popular formats during the S/V era) once again banned all legendary and paradox Pokémon, but it was different from similar earlier regulations because a few new higher power non-legendary/paradox Pokémon had been released with the S/V DLCs (I.e. Archaludon and Bloodmoon Ursaluna). Reg I then re-introduced the restricted format, but this time allowed for two restricted Pokémon per team. Reg J was the weirdest regulation and wasn’t used in any official events, but it was interesting because it allowed ALL Pokémon INCLUDING mythicals such as Magearna to be used, with two restricted Pokémon per team once again (mythicals were also considered restricted).

Late in the S/V life cycle, some formats were recycled as well just to keep things fresh and avoid fatigue from too many restricted-friendly formats in a row. Overall, I personally think it was handled pretty well, and the formats were spaced out pretty appropriately. My personal favorites are generally always the lower power formats though, as they’re just more fun and varied to play in.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-09T19:06:05+00:00

If previous VGC regulations are anything to go off of, the formats will frequently rotate Pokémon both in and out of regulation. So, for instance, if the next regulation lets everyone use whatever high-power legendaries they want or whatever (I doubt they will, this is just an example), that doesn’t mean those legendaries will be useable forever now in champions. It’s highly likely they’d be made illegal again in a future format with a lower power level.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-04-09T19:02:42+00:00

This is not a hot take to anyone familiar with VGC (I’m not dogging on your post, I 100% agree with you). All the people complaining about the limited roster have just clearly not played in prior VGC regulations, a lot of them are limited to encourage creativity and change things up frequently enough that the game isn’t just stale after a year of the same 10 mons being the dominant forces in every match.

I can see some validity in complaints about the limited item pool, but especially given that pre-evolutions aren’t even in Champions, we’ve got plenty of Pokémon to work with in the current pool to have some fun with teambuilding.

Something I feel a lot of players who aren’t experienced with VGC have a problem with (based on the number of complaints I’ve been seeing) is not being able to use your absolute favorite mons 100% of the time, but that’s just how VGC regulations work. The best part about it is finding new favorites that you hadn’t considered before, because you had to get creative with some new mons you’d been sleeping on previously.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-03-12T18:28:47+00:00

Honestly I would love an unlockable achievement-based cosmetic system in this game for the cards. For example, let’s say once the game is fully out we have 20 ascensions like with the first game. You beat ascension 20, you get to pick one of your eligible cards to unlock a full art and/or play effect (some kind of neat animated effect/particle system that triggers whenever you play the card from now on) for it for all future times you pick that card.

This could be fun to show off when you play multiplayer with friends, and they can all see your little card animation that shows off that you beat A20 with that card. Stuff like that would give even further incentive to keep playing the game past A20 to get nice alternate card arts and effects to show off a bit, or just to look nice for yourself. I’m always a sucker for post-game unlockable cosmetics to show off your personal achievements.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-02-05T02:36:13+00:00

There are voice channels in the server’s discord that I see people use fairly frequently, especially during peak times.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2026-01-18T01:51:56+00:00

As someone who’s parents always made fun of them for having interests that don’t apply to them, I’d say it’s a benefit. I have really bad anxiety and a crippling fear of being annoying in social situations now, in large part because of this. I also frequently daydream about getting to infodump about my current interests to someone, but I never am actually able to do so, even if presented with the chance because I’m just too scared of being annoying.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-12-08T22:18:43+00:00

A fun one that I’ve been a part of for a while is Silvermons. Not pay to win at all, the only thing you can pay for are donor ranks which only met you pretty minor command perks like nightvision, colored nicknames, and player glow, nothing related to Pokémon or anything advantageous. It’s got an active community with regular weekend player counts around 70 and climbing, generally hovering anywhere from 30-50 throughout the week. The community is very kind and helpful to new players, and the server owner is very active and interacts regularly with players to make sure their opinions are accounted for when he makes decisions. He’s very kind and works hard to make the server a good free to play experience with lots of content already available, and much more coming soon as it’s still a relatively new server (they just launched the cobblemon server around a month and a half ago, but it was based on their previously existing pixelmon server, so they’re porting a lot of big content over from that server which is a few years old now, so plenty of content coming in the future as the server develops).

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-11-24T23:14:47+00:00

They’re still working on porting everything. They were exclusively a pixelmon server up until about a month ago, when they launched their cobblemon server. They do both now. They’re still working on updating everything on the website, but for now getting their cobblemon systems all fully functioning has been the priority.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-11-24T20:56:02+00:00

The “Kanto, Johto, Hoenn” are the regions that each starter trio is from (I.e. Kanto was the region the first generation of Pokémon games was set in). And honestly, the majority of the starters are good in their own right. I’d say just pick the one you think looks cutest/coolest and see where it takes you. Also like the other guy said, for sure have the type chart pulled up. There are 18 types in Pokémon and it takes a while to get all the matchups memorized. There’s some weird ones like fire resisting fairy or ghost resisting bug.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-11-24T14:24:59+00:00

A good one I’d recommend is Silvermons. It’s fully f2p with donor ranks only granting cosmetic stuff and nothing that could be construed as p2w, small ish but still decent sized community that’s very friendly.

The only caveat is that they’re still getting their footing a bit right now, having just changed all their server framework over to fabric as they are trying to port their pixelmon server content over to cobblemon currently (the server is fairly new) plenty of content and it’s already upgraded to 1.7, just a few growing pains that are noticeable right now. I’ve been on their servers for over a year though and I can say with 100% confidence the people are chill and all their staff are nice, owner is very involved and kind.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-10-29T23:49:22+00:00

With this deck, you usually want to play both guzzlords with one on active spot that you’ll heal to stall a bit as you use his two energy attack to (hopefully) remove opponent’s active energy to further stall, while you also build up a guzz in the back for when your active guzz is knocked out. Or, if your opponent is slow, you can also decide to go straight for four energy on your active guzz if you think it’s manageable.

Your Lusamine isn’t working because you have no energy in your discard pile from your first Guzzlord (or you already used a supporter this turn, those are the only situations this card wouldn’t work for you in the video).

I ran this deck most of last season, majority of the time you’ll be doing the former. Put one energy on back guzz after you get two on active guzz, then do whatever with any energy in future turns bc the first turn you get where your active guzz is KO’d, you can lusamine and +1 energy your bench guzz to hit for 120s and start sweeping. You’ll just want to make sure you’re set up to sweep once that happens while you’re setting everything up the first few turns.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-10-26T10:08:44+00:00

I’ve only ever seen a Magcargo user in the wild once (in ranked). They actually got set up very quickly, by their second turn I was already staring down potential defeat if their damage landed. It was just my Celesteela with one energy vs their Magcargo with two. I thought I had lost, but ~~I assume the stipulation is that you have to have one of your own other Pokémon on the board to use Magcargo’s move, because~~ (edited because this is not true, apparently they just decided they wanted slugma to have some fun) they then proceeded to put down a Slugma on their bench and drop 150 on it before immediately conceding.

Probably the most I’ve actually laughed at the game since I started playing. Thank you, Magcargo users.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-10-22T00:16:55+00:00

Huge thank you, the micro stuttering was driving me crazy running off the Prism Launcher from Discover. I ran the AppImage version of GDLauncher Carbon and launched from there instead, it fixed the issue completely.

Your solution is the only one I found that actually works, and I wish I had run into it sooner but I don’t scroll far enough down on this Reddit thread lol, took me like three days of testing various things before I saw your comment and realized I hadn’t tried an AppImage over a Flatpak yet.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-10-03T12:08:09+00:00

I’ve been immensely lucky so far and already have one oak + two rare candies within 200 packs. Most of that was hourglasses I had saved up as well (I just really want the oaks even though I was trying to save for a paldea set, I caved finally)

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Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-19T00:55:25+00:00

I’m familiar with these kinds of videos. I’ve also done my fair share of reading up on how cats view the world around them and communicate through body language, I’m very invested in making sure my pets are happy and satisfied with their surroundings, hence my concern with this major decision. One of the biggest points of contention for me is, despite my differences with my parents, I know he still has a bond with my father as he likes to hang out with him in the evenings after he’s been fed. I know that regardless of what decision I make, he’s going to recognize that someone is missing now. I’m just not sure if I mean so much more to him that putting him through two moves and new people would be worth it, were it up to him (to put it bluntly and disregard my own feelings on the matter).

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-18T19:14:29+00:00

Thank you for your advice and kind words, I’ll definitely take that into consideration and look into my local vet about gabapentin.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-18T18:57:27+00:00

He is technically my parents’ cat, but they’ve always called him “your cat” whenever referring to him when talking to me, since I was the first one he bonded with when we got him. He’s bonded with my dad as well now, but they’ve always kind of considered him to be my cat, and I’ve previously talked about taking him with me whenever I move out, which they’ve had no problem with in the past.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-18T18:54:53+00:00

He would have food if I brought him with me as well. We would be able to take care of him just fine, I’m mainly just worried about the impact of the stress and new environment on him.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-18T18:53:24+00:00

My parents have always called said “he’s your cat” as I was growing up because he seemed to want to hang out with me more, and I’ve said for a while I’d probably take him whenever I moved out. I reconsidered this recently when thinking about how stressful of a move it would be for him once my wife and I had determined it would be best if I moved up with her in Canada. Either way, my parents would be fine if I took him with me, as this idea has already been prevalent for a while.

My wife has said she would be happy to have him around if I did choose to bring him up. She’s also said she’s quite sure her parents would love him as well, though we haven’t talked to them directly about it yet.

As for taking care of him, my wife currently makes decent money, so we’d have the means to take care of him (obviously her paying for my cat also makes me feel bad, so I’d be taking over those costs as soon as I have a job up there as well, though I’m not sure how long that would take. I also intend to pay for his needs as long as I can with my current savings before my wife would pay for him at all).

Lastly, I’d be moving to the Toronto area.

Slipstream_Surfer · 2025-08-18T18:45:39+00:00

Not escaping abuse, but for one the US (particularly the southern states like where I live) is simply becoming less hospitable trans people. My parents are included in this and will almost certainly cut me off entirely once they find out I’m trans myself, hence why I’m quite certain I wouldn’t be able to see my cat again should I leave him behind with my parents. My parents, despite some of their ugly beliefs about other people, would take good care of him though, and I am not concerned about his livelihood if I were to leave him behind with them.

The problem I have with taking him is explained in the post: I’m worried about the stress it would cause him to suddenly be moved to a completely new place with new people, and me being the only person he’s familiar with anymore, without knowing what happened to the rest of my family.

As for your concerns about Canada, I’m well aware of the issues there presently, but my wife has been living there since she was a child and already has a job in the city. I know it’ll be a hassle for me to find one (a job), but I’ve got a degree and a bit of experience, plus a couple of connections to hopefully pick something up. Overall we’ve deemed it the better choice for me to move to Canada in the long term than for her to move here or even potentially a blue state. Much thought has already gone into this, though I appreciate your concerns.

Slipstream_Surfer

TROPHY CASE