I love to read comments where people talk about DEM or Sue-ness when they've been proven wrong about two posts beforehand...
The failure to the transformation is in the visual cues and dialogue. Ash wants to show it off to Swayer, when he's in battle he's trying to force it to happen, causing his battle pulse to go crazy and get nowhere near Greninja. The episode implies that they were in two different frames of mind, and especially considering all the focus that they gave to Ash it's also implied that it's Ash's fault that the transformation didn't occur. Greninja didn't look like he was actively trying to achieve the transformation himself, much like every other time this has happened. They've let it happen when it happens before. It comes about because their feelings have to be synchronised and I think it's pretty clear they weren't here. I don't even think it's that much of a problem anyway because all of what I've just said isn't necessarily apparent to the characters, especially Ash. Sure he knows they need to be synced, but does he ACTUALLY know how to do this? No. He took his new toy for granted and it bit him in the *** because he's not 100% cognison to every aspect of it, or should I say, the very essence of it. The anime is very specific in what they want to imply.
Sawyer winning is good because it makes their next match a revenge match for Ash, and it's far better he won in a close fight now then pulling something out of his *** at the League after being curb stomped every other time. Doublade isn't that weak, it was able to take a few hits with Iron Defense then retaliate with (Sacred Sword/Fury Cutter?), it's just Ash's own counter-strategy with Noivern caught him out. His Clawitzer is a strong opponent, it reminds me of Ramos' Weepinbell in some ways. Mega Launcher just made it a potent threat to increase damage output, but he's a cheating *** for using Heal Pulse in a Single Battle, lol. Sceptile is still as capable as it was before, helped by the Greninja strategy, he's a worthy rival for Greninja. Sawyer is meant to get stronger and train off-screen, he's the main rival. It's apparently bad in this situation because unlike Paul or another equivalent he started off weaker than Ash. Let's not forget the kid has purpose-built strategies to defeat Ash, I don't think it's weird in the slightest. Knowing how Ash battles I actually expect him to throw something different at him the next time around which causes him to improvise.
Is his win legitimate? Yes. Ash's distraction is no different an event to Sawyer looking at his notebook while Slurpuff got obliterated by Hawlucha. Granted, it seemed Ash had one eye on showing the transformation during the battle which took him out a little, but the only time that really played much of a part was at the end. Sceptile wasn't losing at that point anyway, you could argue it had the advantage.
We also shouldn't be making power comparisons to say Sawyer is better than Diantha. Power is relative and can be influenced by additional factors, like Sawyer's strategy for Ash. Plus there's the obvious example of Ash-Paul-Brandon before the Sinnoh League. Was Paul able to beat Brandon? No. Unlike Greninja, Sceptile currently doesn't possess the means to trouble Gardevoir IMO, plus it took base Greninja a fair few moves to actually land one hit in the first place. The Synchronisation > ME point is debatable, I'd certainly say they're equivalents, but Synchro has certain perks and negative qualities which make it function differently. Plus MC-X beat Ash-Greninja in their first match without too much trouble, and they seemed somewhat even in Round 2 with Greninja just gaining the upper-hand.
Slightly unrelated to what others have said: quite frankly Pikachu in for Hawlucha would change the entire complexion of the battle. They clearly wanted a full-health Greninja vs Sceptile battle instead of having Sceptile weakened or defeated. I mean, come on, it's Pikachu. He's been pretty dominant the last few times (Hawlucha was too but that's slightly different and I cbf explaining why).
Oh and yay Noivern! Dragon Claw looks odd with those big wings in my opinion, kind of why I wanted Dragon Pulse. He does have the Boomburst ranged attack still so I'm fine with D-Claw tbh, better he gets in a fist fight with Metang than charge head-first at him next time, haha.
The failure to the transformation is in the visual cues and dialogue. Ash wants to show it off to Swayer, when he's in battle he's trying to force it to happen, causing his battle pulse to go crazy and get nowhere near Greninja. The episode implies that they were in two different frames of mind, and especially considering all the focus that they gave to Ash it's also implied that it's Ash's fault that the transformation didn't occur. Greninja didn't look like he was actively trying to achieve the transformation himself, much like every other time this has happened. They've let it happen when it happens before. It comes about because their feelings have to be synchronised and I think it's pretty clear they weren't here. I don't even think it's that much of a problem anyway because all of what I've just said isn't necessarily apparent to the characters, especially Ash. Sure he knows they need to be synced, but does he ACTUALLY know how to do this? No. He took his new toy for granted and it bit him in the *** because he's not 100% cognison to every aspect of it, or should I say, the very essence of it. The anime is very specific in what they want to imply.
Sawyer winning is good because it makes their next match a revenge match for Ash, and it's far better he won in a close fight now then pulling something out of his *** at the League after being curb stomped every other time. Doublade isn't that weak, it was able to take a few hits with Iron Defense then retaliate with (Sacred Sword/Fury Cutter?), it's just Ash's own counter-strategy with Noivern caught him out. His Clawitzer is a strong opponent, it reminds me of Ramos' Weepinbell in some ways. Mega Launcher just made it a potent threat to increase damage output, but he's a cheating *** for using Heal Pulse in a Single Battle, lol. Sceptile is still as capable as it was before, helped by the Greninja strategy, he's a worthy rival for Greninja. Sawyer is meant to get stronger and train off-screen, he's the main rival. It's apparently bad in this situation because unlike Paul or another equivalent he started off weaker than Ash. Let's not forget the kid has purpose-built strategies to defeat Ash, I don't think it's weird in the slightest. Knowing how Ash battles I actually expect him to throw something different at him the next time around which causes him to improvise.
Is his win legitimate? Yes. Ash's distraction is no different an event to Sawyer looking at his notebook while Slurpuff got obliterated by Hawlucha. Granted, it seemed Ash had one eye on showing the transformation during the battle which took him out a little, but the only time that really played much of a part was at the end. Sceptile wasn't losing at that point anyway, you could argue it had the advantage.
We also shouldn't be making power comparisons to say Sawyer is better than Diantha. Power is relative and can be influenced by additional factors, like Sawyer's strategy for Ash. Plus there's the obvious example of Ash-Paul-Brandon before the Sinnoh League. Was Paul able to beat Brandon? No. Unlike Greninja, Sceptile currently doesn't possess the means to trouble Gardevoir IMO, plus it took base Greninja a fair few moves to actually land one hit in the first place. The Synchronisation > ME point is debatable, I'd certainly say they're equivalents, but Synchro has certain perks and negative qualities which make it function differently. Plus MC-X beat Ash-Greninja in their first match without too much trouble, and they seemed somewhat even in Round 2 with Greninja just gaining the upper-hand.
Slightly unrelated to what others have said: quite frankly Pikachu in for Hawlucha would change the entire complexion of the battle. They clearly wanted a full-health Greninja vs Sceptile battle instead of having Sceptile weakened or defeated. I mean, come on, it's Pikachu. He's been pretty dominant the last few times (Hawlucha was too but that's slightly different and I cbf explaining why).
Oh and yay Noivern! Dragon Claw looks odd with those big wings in my opinion, kind of why I wanted Dragon Pulse. He does have the Boomburst ranged attack still so I'm fine with D-Claw tbh, better he gets in a fist fight with Metang than charge head-first at him next time, haha.
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