>>28028117>>28028125>>28028138I agree with the statement that had Ash won it would have made more sense for Team Flare to capture him.
But at the same time it would have made the confrontation against Lysandre and Alan less interesting because Ash would have already defeated Alan in the finals so he wouldn't pose to be a threat.
There's so much going on behind the scenes that we will never see you have to wonder what alternate scenarios the staff had come up with.
I mean, Alan made his debut around XY25 or something right, Team Flares role in the anime must have been pretty thought out by that point in time as was the Leagues outcome as well. Shota was introduced in the 2nd OP so everything we've seen so far must have been okay'd long ago before Ash had even battled Diantha for the first time.
It makes me wonder when AshGreninja was created. Early on into the series I imagine honestly.