>>27079467I thought the Shota VS Tierno battle was pretty decent. Tierno did all the planning though, which is weirdly the opposite of what they should've shown, because they've spent all this time stressing how Shota keeps his little notebook of strategies. It feels like Shota put all his eggs in the basket that Tierno would use Raichu so he could absorb it with Lightningrod. Tierno's Rain Dance team actually had synergy whereas Shota had a Swords dance setup, Slurpuff being a jobber like usual and Sceptile carrying the match.
The DP battles had their flaws too though. The big upper hand DP has is name recognition- Ash bringing back old members.
In Ash vs Nando, Quilava and Heracross got to have some screentime which is cool. He also planned around Sing with Sleep Talk so there's that.
Ash vs Conway would've been way more interesting had Conway used a complete Trick Room team. Instead his team felt kinda disjointed- he turtled with Shuckle and did pretty much fuckall with Tangrowth. But again, cool to see Donphan and Noctowl.
I actually like the idea behind Ash vs Tobias- Ash fighting someone that is just way beyond his level. Being compressed into one episode is ass though. Ash's team also made no sense- Heracross, Sceptile and Swellow I can get, but why did he use Torkoal and Gible out of everything?
Honestly I still can't wrap my head around why they didn't bring back some old members in XY for a bit of fan service, would that have been so hard?
