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Champions' Pride! Lance VS Diantha!! (1205)

-Diantha was strategically superior, Lance himself admitted it when the match ended, this will leave a lesson for the champion, not everything should be brute force

-Leon said that Diantha calls the battles "performances", Since she likes to give a great show to the public and show the beauty of strategies, Leon vs Diantha will be a great battle between two stars who like to show off.

This episode showed all of Diantha's qualities, making up for the poor treatment of the kalos league champion last episode. what a good episode !
 
Lance really thought that surprise hyper beam would work but didn’t count on Diantha’s brilliant strategy of moving out of the way surely the concept of dodging is a new and unique one, it’s not used much in this saga after all
oh come on give diantha some credit
 

pardusco

"The oppression of Poké Balls."
Poor animation and very static choreography. The Pokemon barely even moved, which is incredible considering how important this tournament is supposed to be. I'm a big fan of seeing competitive strats in anime battles, so I was happy to see Dual Screens being used properly instead of bootleg Protect, and Trick-or-Treat making an appearance and being used for super effective damage.
 
Why was Dragonite just standing there when the Moonblast was coming? Did Lance want to loose?
 

BladexFade

Well-Known Member
As a Diantha fan, I'm surprised she won.

While watching this episode, I thought to myself, how are they going to make Diantha lose against Lance because of how grossly she's looked down on because of X/Y game and in XY&Z anime (M-Gardevoir versus Ash-Greninja). I'm glad she won.

I thought it was nice to see the cameo of Ritchie and Sparky, Jimmy and Typhlosion, and Marina. Honestly, it would be cool to see how far and strong Ritchie has gotten.
 

DayQuil95

Well-Known Member
After rewatching the episode, I can now enjoy it much more. I missed so many references, strategies, and move effects being used when I first watched it, that I gotta raise it to a 9/10, might sound a little too high, but I'm just a sucker for episodes like these, filled with interesting strategies, game effects being applied, and references to previous series.
 

DayQuil95

Well-Known Member
Lance really thought that surprise hyper beam would work but didn’t count on Diantha’s brilliant strategy of moving out of the way surely the concept of dodging is a new and unique one, it’s not used much in this saga after all
The animation didn't make it very clear, but his strategy was basically:
1. Keep Gardevoir being hurt by Hail while Dragonite tanks it in D-Max.
2. Surprise Gardevoir and Diantha by instantly firing a move once out of D-Max while they are being hurt.
3. Obliterate Gardevoir with Hyper Beam before it can react.
But Diantha was smarter than him and noticed his strategy before he finished D-Maxing, which caused her to preemptively dodge the move. So yeah, Lance wasn't very smart, since his brightest strategy through the battle involved "attack her but faster!"
 

GLTSRY

Sorry not sorry for my smugness
The animation didn't make it very clear, but his strategy was basically:
1. Keep Gardevoir being hurt by Hail while Dragonite tanks it in D-Max.
2. Surprise Gardevoir and Diantha by instantly firing a move once out of D-Max while they are being hurt.
3. Obliterate Gardevoir with Hyper Beam before it can react.
But Diantha was smarter than him and noticed his strategy before he finished D-Maxing, which caused her to preemptively dodge the move. So yeah, Lance wasn't very smart, since his brightest strategy through the battle involved "attack her but faster!"
I think the battle could’ve been improved by showing Lance’s smarter side. Give him a Pokémon/move that can deal with the screens, give him literally anything else rather than Hydreigon and make it the designated Guardevoir counter, have Extreme Speed on Dragonite instead of Hyper Beam etc…

I mean, this man was the previous world champion and the runner up in the last tournament but he seemed as competent as Barry in the Sinnoh League
 

Kage-Pikachu

Well-Known Member
Lance really thought that surprise hyper beam would work but didn’t count on Diantha’s brilliant strategy of moving out of the way surely the concept of dodging is a new and unique one, it’s not used much in this saga after all
crazy that he didn't even bother to order dragonite to move its mouth. we just saw Paul's Gyarados hit multiple Lucario clones.... Dragonite was a newb at Hyper Beam lol
 

KurashiDragon

Well-known Dragonite Enthusiast
The first and greatest mistake Lance made in this fight was giving Dragonite Hyper Beam. At no point did it work out in his favor, it only made him lose that much harder. Seriously, the first thing he did in this fight was call out a hyper beam on an Arourus. A part rock-type. Even if light screen hadn't gone up, it's not like it would've done all that much damage. Then by anime logic, Dragonite is left wide open to take a Blizzard right to the face. It took unnecessary damage for no reason other than its trainer making a brain-dead decision right off the bat. What would've been a game changer and by far the most obvious move Lance should've made was giving Dragonite Iron Head / Tail. He only had a bad strategy and a bad move to rely on to hopefully get him through the Mega Gardevoir fight. This anime has been making a habit of giving trainers a Dragonite only to have them make piss poor decisions that ultimately cost said Dragonite the fight. Maybe Iris will rectify this habit but I somehow doubt it.

As for other parts of the episode, I enjoyed the pre battle banter and the cameos from the other characters we've met along the way. I was genuinely surprised to see Ritchie but also quite satisfied by it. Makes me wish we saw more rivals in the series battling Ash and whatnot but what's this anime if not lacking in forethought on a good idea. I liked that Diantha went into this battle with strategy. Lance just went "I got it. I'll just hit them really really hard" Ala TFS Goku but Diantha actually thought her way through this fight and that's ultimately what gave her the win. I enjoyed this episode more because I enjoyed seeing her strategies and how they play out. Trick-or-Treat might be a terribad move in a competitive game where its as easy to counter as switching out, but in the anime where that concept of switching outside of a ko is foreign to 99% of trainers it seems like a good move to play.

7 / 10 I'd have enjoyed it more if Lance weren't a brain-dead Hammer one trick *Sunbreak Players! Where you at?* but otherwise, I had some fun with it.
 

Dragonsoldier77

Bittersweet Satisfaction
Okay finally watched it. Better than the last episode but that’s not saying much.

First up the animation was bad. Or i guess it’s more like the lack of animation. Probably the blandest fights in terms of choreography and presentation in a while, felt like watching an OS fight. The empty and bland battlefield also doesn’t help.

Diantha had some neat strategy even if there weren’t that many. Only the use of the double screens and trick or treat stood out. The rest of the fight just felt like a slugfest. But considering how most ash fights has been plot armor brute force wins, what little back and forth here was still quite refreshing, as sad as that is.

I’m still mad ash is in the stands. The comments and interactions there are so basic, compared to the more in depth analysis we saw from the champions room that even comments on the personality of the trainers. Not only that, it makes ash feel completely disconnected and not even a part of the event, which i guess because they want to continue to insist ash has to feel like some underdog instead of standing amongst equals?

It also made the last scene with lance feel like a complete mess. Was ash just going to the bathroom which just happen to be between the field entrance and the locker room or something? Having all three meeting there just feels convulted, when it would just be easier to do it in the locker room where the other champions can also consider it a challenge.

The cameos was nice, and looking forward to seeing more.
 

BobbbidyBob

Well-Known Member
I actually like that Ash still sits with his friends....cause they are his friends plus they are his age so it makes sense that he would feel more comfortable with them lol as for the battle I skipped most of it cause I got bored but I did like some little moments like the interactions and team rocket
 

Dragonsoldier77

Bittersweet Satisfaction
Wha? It clearly was Ash going to wish Iris good luck before her match, I assume Lance was there because it was the tunnel that leads to the battlefield so that’s a perfectly logical reason why all three happened to be there
Defintely wasn’t clear to me, since we just suddenly saw ash in a tunnel with no prior context. Not to mention iris being the one who called out to him from in front of him from where lance seems to be coming from and where she went after. So iris was already on the way to the field but then followed lance back to look for ash before heading back to the field?

Alao doesn’t help since it barely felt like ash was encouraging her while they were talking. The most he said was to ‘go all out againts cynthia’. Not even a ‘good luck’ or ‘you got this’.
 
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