This shit was honestly a lazy cop-out, almost as bad as Tobias. They give Ash his own speshul snowflake frog, a psuedo-legendary, Bravest Bird, and a rat with type advantage. Moreover, there's no attachment to edgelord - he's just there, especially compared to Ash who gets a romance subplot with Serena and the best chance at the championship he's had yet with meme frog. And then Edgelord fucking curbstomps him.
Look, I get why they did it - if Ash ever wins a league, the anime's probably over. But for fuck's sake, they did it in literally the worst way possible with BURASTO BAAN. Better ways include:
>Team Flare interferes, blowing the stadium to hell, and forcing Ash and Edgelord to work together to fight them off, leaving neither of them in a condition to go for the championship, and leaving the real result up in the air. Ash concedes rather than fight, because while the league is his dream it's Edgelord's too and it gives a moral about keeping competition friendly and being a good sport.
>After the match, it's revealed that Flare tampered with the match, boosting Charizard past reasonable power. Edgelord is an unwitting pawn, and Ash+friends beat the shit out of Flare. Alan offers the championship to Ash as an apology for Flare, but Ash refuses it because...reasons I guess?
>Charizard and memefrog are both KO'd by each other's final attack, and neither competitor is able to battle. Edgelord wins on a technicality, because Ash got KO'd when memefrog went down. Edgelord doesn't really like it, but Ash encourages him to take the win, because he earned it.
