In this Pokemon interview, we're joined by JetForceGemini, a Pokemon GO player who loves to participate in PVP and Factions. He shares with us his experience with Pokemon GO, how he got involved with PVP and Silph Arena Factions, and how he met his co-host TacoDog8.
JetForceGemini also shares his insights on why both he and his co-host decided to start Enter the Dragaonair's Den, a Pokemon GO podcast focused over covering Silph Arena Factions. He shares the reasons behind having it based in Johto and what it has been like covering Factions on a weekly basis.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Introduction Music: "Blackthorn City: Remastered" by Zame
Connect with JetForceGemini: Podcast | Discord | Twitter
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
In this Pokemon interview, we're joined by JetForceGemini, a Pokemon GO player who loves to participate in PVP and Factions. He shares with us his experience with Pokemon GO, how he got involved with PVP and Silph Arena Factions, and how he met his co-host TacoDog8.
JetForceGemini also shares his insights on why both he and his co-host decided to start Enter the Dragaonair's Den, a Pokemon GO podcast focused over covering Silph Arena Factions. He shares the reasons behind having it based in Johto and what it has been like covering Factions on a weekly basis.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Introduction Music: "Blackthorn City: Remastered" by Zame
Connect with JetForceGemini: Podcast | Discord | Twitter
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As The Pokeball Turns. Welcome to As The Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. Factions are a team-based competitive Pokemon Go PVP league introduced by the Silph Arena, where competitors work together to prove their skills on various battlefields. There are seven primary roles, starting with the Great League specialist, Ultra League specialist and Master League specialist, which is how they sound, trainers who primarily battle in the respective leagues. The remaining four roles are all field specialists, which battle in specialized rotating metas organized by the Silph Arena. Each team is divided into different factions tiers ranging from open, where every faction team starts their journey. It progresses through eight different tiers, ranging from iron all the way to emerald, the highest tier within self arena factions. A comparison could be drawn to the early history of sports where leagues were organized locally through sports clubs or local colleges. Over time, factions has evolved introducing many new teams and players, and in spite of the recent announcement of the Silph Road ceasing operations, the idea of organized team play for Pokemon Go PVP is far from dead and the future of how it evolves and makes its way within the Pokemon Go community remains to be seen. As with any sporting scene, there are people who analyze and cover the faction scene. Starting today is part one of the two-part special learning about a podcast that covers factions, how it all started, and why they decided to cover such a niche part of the Pokemon Go PVP community. My guest is the co-host of Enter the Dragonair's Den podcast. Here's his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is Jet Force Gemini! Today I'm joined by one half of Enter the Dragonair's Den podcast, JetforceGemini. Jet, welcome to the show!
JetForceGemini:Thank you so much.
David Hernandez:Definitely. And I had the chance to speak with Tacodog8. He's your co-host for the podcast, and he told me that the eight in his name stands for how long it took for you to beat him in PVP like it took you eight sets to finally get a win off him. And my first question is like, was it demoralizing to lose to him like seven times in a row?
JetForceGemini:Did, did he really say that like, Because, because, uh, I, I remember it a little differently.
David Hernandez:Oh, how did it happen? Like, I'm just the middle man in here, so I'm just curious.
JetForceGemini:Well, I, I, I showed up at his home community and, and swept his tournament, so I don't Ha ha I don't know about these, these eight battles he's talking about.
David Hernandez:He didn't really say that. I just made that up, but he didn't want me to ask you. How do you put up with him?
JetForceGemini:Oh, I, it's, it's the easiest thing in the world. He does all the admin stuff, so I'm a happy little battler over here.
David Hernandez:Well, in reality, he actually said you were actually a very good battler like he really spoke highly of your skills and what you're capable of doing, so like how did you get so good so early on?
JetForceGemini:Uh, it, it was, it was not out the gate, I'll tell you that. I have a vivid memory of the night that PVP dropped, just having a couple friends in the living room and being frustrated that all the moves that I thought were gonna be good were, were no good at all. We only had such a small piece of all of the numbers that we actually needed. I don't, I don't know if you were in the beginning, and I guess it is still this way, where if you're just looking at your screen, there's only damage values and nothing else. So that whole energy component and the actual turn length for moves and things like that, none of, none of that exists in a viewable sense in the game, so it didn't go well at first, but after taking my licks and at least picking up some of the then very valuable Sinnoh stones to evolve some new Pokemon, I kept at it and I found some resources because again, those hidden values were super valuable in actually becoming good at the game because it was, kind of a community effort to even know what moves were good and how to know who had what at that point. It's still weird looking back on the time Pre-PVP oke. It was really wild west as far as finding places with reliable information. And then when we got the first Silph tournaments to actually put your, plans into action, because again, this was all before there was any actual simulating of battles, so, anything that you thought might work or be good, you had to test on your own and so I have a few early day battle buddies who really were the reason that I could compete at all because I had practice against the things that I thought would be good apart from the move locked Pokemon because there were so many. I'm looking at like last resort Umbreon or any of the other community day restricted moves before you could elite TM.
David Hernandez:These are like way back in the day cuz I remember when PVP came out, we didn't know how good those communities would moves and people were like, if I had known that, of course I would've TMD or had one for, I don't even think we knew about the leagues either cuz nobody knew about the Great League or even an ultra league existing. I think everybody thought mm-hmm. You'd be like pure on what we know. Master league where you need like a maxed up Pokemon.
JetForceGemini:Well, and it's something that we so take for granted now, we have the data miners that give us pretty much any line of code that they add to the game as like a, Hey, this is kind of in the works, like obviously grain of salt, but I remember again, back to the day before PVP dropped, I had powered up Blaziken to like just over 2,500 and was heartbroken when that was the limit for one of the leagues.
David Hernandez:Oh no. Was it like 2,600 or 2,700, something like that?
JetForceGemini:No, it was, it was literally right over, it was like 25, 10 And obviously I know now that that wouldn't have been a preferable IV spread if it, if it went to literally just over.
David Hernandez:You mentioned how you were expecting the moves to be good or certain ones to be good, but turned out they were awful in pvp. What do you mean by that? Can you gimme an example of moves you thought would be good but turned out to not be so good in pvp?
JetForceGemini:So the one that comes to mind quickly is, this, this particular Pokemon also will, will tell you a lot about where we all were starting from, but I had a Jolteon, or a bunch of Jolteon at that point, and I had changed them all from Thundershock to Volt Switch just because the damage value was higher. That is also kind of one of the oldest changes that we had was that Volt Switch originally was unusable in pvp. The damage and the energy we're not what they are now where it's a fairly fun move. despite being one of the longer duration ones where it just takes longer to complete your, your cycle on the fast move and being a little predictable that way. It was kind of like where Zen headbutt is sitting now, where it's fine for your gym defender Pokemon, where you might get some coverage, especially if it's like a normal type and you're hitting the fighting types that'll come in to try to beat it. But as far as how that translated to pvp, it really didn't and Thundershock as you might know, is a reliably good move to get to charge moves because it has always been the energy generating monster. Both me and Taco ran Raikou and that's, one that literally only has Thundershock and Volt Switch. And I'm pretty sure we ran it opposite of each other where he ran a normal Raikou with Thundershock and I ran a shadow with volt switch and I liked the extra fast move pressure and he was going for those Wild Charges specifically.
David Hernandez:It sounds like you have two different battling styles between y'all two.
JetForceGemini:Yeah. At least when it comes to the Raikou but in general, just to speak to our difference in battling styles for a second, Taco really hones in on his favorites for any given meta and brings them every time and really wants them to be the heroes of his battles. I am no stranger to a little bit of spice, but I need it to work like, I need it to be surprising, not just because it's there, but because it does well.
David Hernandez:Right. So It sounds like you stick more to the meta picks while Taco will, I mean, it sounds like he's spice all over.
JetForceGemini:Oh yeah, he is a hundred percent committed to the spice value.
David Hernandez:So obviously, you know, PVP came out, but was that your first time playing Pokemon Go or did you play before PVP came out?
JetForceGemini:So I played for a while before I wasn't a day one player, I was like day, between three and five. I was between phones and so I was sitting there, bouncing, waiting to be able to play and then finally new phone, got to jump in, but I played through about gen two and then took about a year break. I hopped back in as soon as they added like the tasks and the weekly breakthroughs, just because that was about the only way that I could interact with getting the legendaries and that it's exciting for me. It was like, oh, cool, now I can complete the Pokedex and stuff and just like have these Pokemon from the slots that I'm missing at this point were, because, because I had no community for doing raids. After a little while, like I had a group of friends that I started to play with and then found the discord for our entire county.
David Hernandez:Do you live like in a rural area or suburban area? Like what's your area like to play?
JetForceGemini:So locally, it's, pretty suburban. Like, we live kind of in a commuter town. It's, it's, it's between all of the things. At the beginning we played Bebo Park, and the zoo also, just cuz we had passes so that once we got done doing all the tasks in the park, we go and do more in the zoo and it always made for a good day. If you ask any local player, you'll know that Balbo is very divisive just because depending on which, uh, which service provider pulled the short straw that day like it can be wildly good or bad, even like, just in different areas of, of the park. I think we were close to getting like a GoFest level event over there and every time it would come up, within our, our local group, we would kinda laugh about it and be like, oh man, it already barely functions over there, even without extra people, just the locals and the tourists that are there just for the museums and all the, the other cultural sites that are there. We've kind of taken to staying in North county San Diego. Our spot is up in Carlsbad. It's an area called Carlsbad Village. And so there's like a nice long walk that you can do along the seawall if you're looking to hatch eggs or just get a little bit more distance that day. There's also just kind of a as downtown of a beach area as you can get where it's very kind of zigzag, walkable, but also you can get 60 unique stops, which is nice and all of the raid lobbies fill up right away, if, there's any of like the five stars or megas that you want to get in while you're there
David Hernandez:What were you looking forward to the most when Pokemon Go was announced? Did you have like an expectation set for the game?
JetForceGemini:Uh, I think like the irony of it was, I was looking forward to how that would translate to battling as far as, okay, yeah, cool." We get to have Pokemon around and I can add that to my hikes and adventures and my travels and whatnot, but there was this weird disconnect because I, started playing Pokemon when I was nine, I think, and the main motif according to me is, is battling is like, that's how you move the story forward, that's your involvement in the journey itself is that you get to train and battle and do all these things with your Pokemon and there was very little of that.
David Hernandez:So, it sounds like you were a battler at heart from the get-go, even before Pokemon Go and the fact that we didn't even have PVP for three years of Pokemon goes life span Must have been a little disappointing.
JetForceGemini:Yeah. Well, and that's, that's why I took my break. The gyming as it functioned before, and even now, it's something that is, is a little bit of a disparity on my trainer stats, where I have 10 times as many PVP battles as I do gym battles where it's just like, even though the gym battles sometimes can only take five seconds, like if you're being real about it, there is no head-to-head interaction really.
David Hernandez:You prefer the human element to where you know you're facing somebody, you know they have a choice compared to like an automated system like the gyms.
JetForceGemini:Yeah, exactly.
David Hernandez:So you talked about how you played Pokemon. Have you been playing since day one? And if so, like do you have a particular favorite generation that you enjoyed playing?
JetForceGemini:I think in general I like the region of Johto the most. and yeah, just to answer the questions in order, i, I started with R B Y and I played Gen 1, 2, 3, and then I didn't play 4 and the generations that I skipped were essentially for console related reasons, like Four was the Ds. eventually, I picked up the Ds just to play Gen five and by then, I think Gen four was pretty old. Similar then with Gen's six and seven, those were also skips just because I never owned a 3Ds. So straight to eight and nine on the switch.
David Hernandez:I find it pretty ironic that Gen two is your favorite generation, considering where we're gonna talk about the podcast later, it kind of fits the Jodo theme almost.
JetForceGemini:Yeah, exactly, well, and that's, that's something that me and Taco like commiserate about is there's a decent amount of overall dislike for gen two in general, like, I really liked the remake versions, they did so much right with, Heart gold, soul Silver, where it's like, okay, yes, this is, this is exactly all the things I loved about it with so many fewer of the things that everyone likes to hate on. But in general, like, I just, I just like the region of Johto, like the feel of it, the music and I know like the whole Kanto side of that game is pretty shortchanged just because of the limitations of the technology. But it, that, that part of it was, was also super fun where it's just like, oh, this, this really does exist in the same world. Like it's, it's not an isolated thing. It's, it really is the next door neighbor and you get to go experience how the world has changed cause it's not just, oh, okay, now you get to go to this place. It's, you get to go to this place after the events of the original. Right?
David Hernandez:And I think that's what made those remakes so good because like you, I remember Gen 2. I played it very little. I didn't play it as much as other generations, but I always felt like it was very empty and like you said, it was due to the limitations of the hardware. When HeartGold, SoulSilver came out, it felt like it lived up to the potential of what Gen two should have been.
JetForceGemini:Mm-hmm.
David Hernandez:To where you can, experience, of course, gen one again, but you get to see how time has progressed. You get to see how that region has changed. I think it was a three year time, skip, if I'm not mistaken, from when you had beaten Pokemon Red, blue and yellow to when Johto had started,
JetForceGemini:Which was very similar to the actual amount of time between the games. Right?
David Hernandez:I believe so. Yeah. Cause it was 1996 and I think those games came out in 1999. Anyway. Do you have any favorite Pokemon at all?
JetForceGemini:I already talked about Raikou a lot. That one happens to be my favorite. My sister recently adopted one of her foster dogs and they named it Raikou with, with a different spelling and they had like a few other competing potential names and I'm just like a hundred percent Raikou. It has to be the name.
David Hernandez:Did you always, like, imagine yourself as a kid riding around on Raikou?
JetForceGemini:I mean, yeah. I also used one of my master balls on Raikou in Original Silver. The roaming Legendaries were tough, I was a child.
David Hernandez:We didn't know any better at those ages.
JetForceGemini:I mean, we'll, we'll not talk about the Donphan I used a master ball on, but you know, it was, it was rare. It was the first time I'd ever seen one. I was like, oh man, gotta have that.
David Hernandez:We're gonna take a quick break with a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back.
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David Hernandez:Welcome back to As The Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. So let's go ahead and go back to Pokemon Go. Where we left off, you had taken a year off, you come back, and PVP gets announced, and you were talking about how you were getting your butt kicked with your friends, and that was a bit of a learning curve. What helped you get better? Like at the time you said it was the wild, wild West, like was it just the practice with your friends or did, were there like certain people you watched or certain resources you would go to as they developed?
JetForceGemini:The birth of the Poke-tubers for Pokemon Go really were the godsend, if you knew who to watch. I, I attended a tournament literally the last day of the month, which, back then they were only in person, right? There was, there was no remote battling.
David Hernandez:Right.
JetForceGemini:And to see if I actually enjoyed the tournaments that they were setting up and the metas and everything and I was glad I went. I found between then and the next month because they ran them as as monthly metas. I found the actual local PVP community, which was the next town over in Escondido, they had a really strong and hypercompetitive gyming community that the day that PVP started, they just all came together and immediately decided,"Hey, we're, we're gonna be serious about this. We're gonna run two tournaments every month. We're gonna have one that's like a trophy event. We're gonna have prizes." There was kind of a alcove just over by the big movie theater that was like an outdoor picnic area that was kind of our initial place to be. And then, the coordinator, He got us into one of the local gaming shops, and that obviously felt a whole lot more legitimate, like, it, it felt better than just kind of loitering near the Starbucks. But to have that many other people interested and to know that I could come and compete against them every month and, do better and better and eventually win one of the events. That kind of changed everything for me. The battlers were the community and that's, really what got me hooked back on the game again was knowing that was gonna be a thing that was here to stay.
David Hernandez:We know that the Silph Arena runs on Great League. Is that like your preferred league or do you have a different favorite league?
JetForceGemini:I prefer Great League because it has always felt the most accessible. I feel like I would also feel different about it if Silph had preferred one of the other leagues. But I think they were wise in their decision with Great League that it really lent itself to people being able to just show up and play. And it, man, I, I feel like that's the part that a lot of the players who have only done remote tournaments will, will never understand is when we were trying to get a community up and running, just getting eight people registered for a tournament was difficult like even night of where we had like six players and then we had to convince at least two of their plus ones to play.
David Hernandez:Yeah. Just to have an official tournament, you needed an eight back in the day.
JetForceGemini:And that's still true outside of round Robin, which they've recognized this season as equal weight, which I think is really cool that you can be a tiny community now and not be missing out on getting your rounds in. But man, just, just that being in whatever space that you were meant to meet up with everybody and just be like,"okay, how do we get two more people or one more person be that close?"
David Hernandez:Now you've been involved with PVP since basically day one. What's your biggest concern when it comes to pvp moving forward?
JetForceGemini:I'm, I'm trying to decide how I want to like phrase this because Taco and I have talked about our wish lists, especially for the New seasons, because for the most part, been when we've got our move balances and such. There's a lot of types of Pokemon in general that are just kind of underserved by the state of the move pool, where like, honestly I almost don't even wanna say the game works fine, but outside of the trials and tribulations of being a mobile game and having events around that platform, I wonder if Open Great League can continue to be the format. My biggest, I, I don't even know if it's really under the blanket of, Concern, but maybe under, why isn't this a thing already? Just because the, the main series does this with the Vgc where they have their rule sets change throughout a season and they seem fine with that. I'm not sure why their stance on Pokemon Go is so different in that regard where it's just like anything that is available short of the very rare Pokemon is usable, have fun. It just makes such a I don't wanna say stale meta exactly, but you know who the players are, right? Like you're, you're not gonna have big surprises for the most part. shadow Charizard kind of came out of left field a little bit, but only because the thing is so glassy, right? Like you, you needed to have a high level of technical play to get away with it, but all the pieces were there, right? all the signs and one of the most fun parts of this game is how many eyes there are just on the meta itself, because it is so shortlisted. But I wonder if it wouldn't really be a lot more healthy for the game if it had a rotation similar to Vgc.
David Hernandez:So you talked about how basically you swept Taco when you met with him. Was that your first encounter, meeting your co-host?
JetForceGemini:I'm trying to think actually. I think because it's not just tournament organizer taco, it's also herder of Katz Taco. He is part of the team that ran the raid trains through, uh, downtown Iowa City. I'm pretty sure I met him the Wednesday prior, just for raid hour.
David Hernandez:Did y'all hit it off right away? Were like, y'all are best buds or did it just take some time to get there?
JetForceGemini:I guess this is kind of ancient history now, but historically they ran lots of people through raids. Back in that day, it was even to the point where, okay, mystic has this lobby code and the other two teams have this other lobby. That's how we played and especially being a person traveling to a place by myself and there for a different purpose, I was fairly quiet just watching how they all did stuff, especially because we had nothing like that. But all that to say, I didn't really talk to Taco much until after I won his tournament. And then it was like, oh, I guess we should chat.
David Hernandez:Feels like that, uh, scene from Dr. Stranges to where he was asking his teacher to teach me your ways.
JetForceGemini:Yeah, exactly. Well, and it was, it was one of those things where I don't, I don't even think we got to battle that day. I ended up battling his other top roster players and then after that they were fairly consistent at running remote tournaments and having been part of their in-person group, it was fun to be able to hop in from California and have that extra community available.
David Hernandez:I mean, you must have been pretty dedicated or really loved that group to travel all the way from San Diego to Iowa City like, how long of a drive or did you plane? Like...
JetForceGemini:oh yeah, no, yeah, that's a, that's a plane. The, the, the draw to there is that every summer and they're, they're starting up again this summer, if there's any writers listening like I cannot sing their praises enough what a wonderful program they have just outta University of Iowa. The summer writing festival, like the workshops they put on are in the league of their own.
David Hernandez:Oh, so you would go for the writing festival at the college?
JetForceGemini:Mm-hmm.
David Hernandez:So that's how eventually you just, you're looking for a Pokemon Ghost scene and that's how you found Taco was through that raid. Is that kind of how it went?
JetForceGemini:Yeah, exactly. I'm walking from my B-N-B to the university and then I'm in downtown having dinner and just like that whole time I'm playing Pokemon Go and Wednesday night, I had to figure out where they started. It's like, where to go first? And as soon as there was that giant crowd of people, it got a lot easier.
David Hernandez:Like, I'm pretty sure they're playing Pokemon Go. Either that or they're a mob one of the two.
JetForceGemini:Well, yeah, and that was probably the unofficial meeting of Jet and Taco was hearing taco yell over the mass of people that were assembled.
David Hernandez:Oh. Uh, good times, good times. So what's interesting about how your two work together is y'all are both part of a faction and a podcast. Your podcast is known as Enter the Dragonair's Den. Your faction is known as D'Nair Don't Care. What kind of thought process went into Trying to develop a dragon Ear is your mascot, but b, just the titles of both your faction and your podcast.
JetForceGemini:national Bowler is, one of the Pokemon leaders community people for Canton and we met through him on a faction. He was the one who introduced us to factions, and it was on his faction that we started the podcast, mostly because Taco saw the lower tiers of factions really got very little attention and that felt weird. It was like 10 of us over here trying our hardest and we feel like that deserves a little bit more recognition and to take that on the wider scale. There's a lot of people in open tier like since we started playing factions, there's never been this many teams in open and that was super refreshing to see that many people interested, especially after a good handful of the top teams quit out. And it started to be a little questionable, like, oh, are we done here? Like, is is this gonna keep going? But then to see so many people show up and the word really kind of getting out, I think changed how much attention is coming towards factions in general and I feel like that's kind of where our platform is coming into its own like the timing is, is really good for us. But as far as the name, it started in Johto. That really was kind of our thought process behind it was we, we needed a literal home base in Johto somewhere, and the Dragons Den in Blackthorn City just fit.
David Hernandez:No, and it works. What y'all do with it works. I like how y'all have the backdrop music. I believe it's the, actual theme music. It's a remix, but it's theme music of actual the dragon den in Black Thorn City, right?
JetForceGemini:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. and I, I, I just like that we were in a space and still are to a certain certain extent like there's the factors just of how much time it takes now to cover what we cover because there are so many more teams. That creative piece of wanting to make sure that these battles and the coverage all were coming from somewhere like they were anchored into the Pokemon world somehow, I feel was also one of the things that was, and still is missing from factions a little bit, is you really don't get the story, you get the score. There's not even like a live replay of the score like you, you can't even see how it built up unless you're following along during the week. There's a lot of it that feels too separated and to me that's why we go through the breakdowns that we do, is we want to give special attention to the players who are breaking the mold. As I said, taco really, really loves his spice and then when you have a core breaker that comes outta nowhere, like there's no feeling like that.
David Hernandez:Now, y'all record us first episode, I believe, the last week of September. You know, what was going through your mind when you were like getting ready to record for your first episode?
JetForceGemini:it was just something that I, I'd never really considered, I spent a lot of time prepping for tournaments and then also playing tournaments, but to get to a space, like, I think I was even house sitting at the time, like I had like a little tripod stand for my phone and, we just went for it. We had in our first like six recordings, we lost three of them and
David Hernandez:Oh no.
JetForceGemini:But I think it was the best thing that could have happened, like every time I think we came back and did the re-record, a thousand times better and, and that applied to our very first episode, our very first recording didn't work. It didn't save, so we got through the whole thing and then had nothing and we had to come back the next day and do it again.
David Hernandez:So basically your first episode's not really your first episode, it's like the second recording of the first episode?
JetForceGemini:Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it is version, you know, 1.1.
David Hernandez:That should have been the episode title.
JetForceGemini:We can always go back. Oh, and yeah, so we, we've had a few technical issues with things like our MJ interview is one of the lost tapes because Taco's mic refused to work properly. But I feel like I still enjoyed that time and then also it, it just felt good to know that there were other players who had been through a lot of that similar experience with just kind of showing up to other people's tournaments and have those sorts of stories because there are so many of the players that I've talked to especially in the last couple seasons of Silph, really were gbls and just said, what the heck? I'll try this other thing, but man, it, I love hearing people's like in-person tournament stories.
David Hernandez:Right. And you've had a couple of guests on your show. You had MJGettit, I think you had, didn't y'all have AJ as well?
JetForceGemini:We did!
David Hernandez:Yeah. Who's been your favorite guest so far?
JetForceGemini:Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm not going to say they're my favorite, but we did interview one duo twice
David Hernandez:Enough said, if you wanna know who he's talking about, go check out Enter The Dragonair's Den, you'll be able to find out who he's talking about.
JetForceGemini:Yeah, they, oh man. They, they were, they gave so much good info and our, our first interview with them, like, if we wanna be cryptic about it, they were giving us a lot of great insight as we were about to start our own team. So it was all these very honest questions from our end like we wanted to know, what does it take to grow a champion team? What's the magic formula? And they had as much of it as I think you could ask for.
David Hernandez:One thing I wanted to ask you specifically, I know right now y'all are a faction, right? Had you ever talked about, if for some reason you and Taco go on to different factions, what would happen to the podcast? Has that ever even been a thought?
JetForceGemini:I mean, not the, not the other teams part, just because I, I feel like if we're done with this team, I feel like that'll just be, that'll be it for me and Taco at least. But I don't foresee that being an issue for the podcast. It would, it would definitely be, have to be a conversation. But I suspect that even if we handed off the team, which again, that's kind of outside the, the conversation at this point that we would still be in for the podcast and we would still be there cheering them on.
David Hernandez:No, that makes sense and the information y'all provide is very valuable like I always enjoy understanding what's going on around the league for lack of a better word. Y'all have got something going and I look forward to seeing what y'alls podcast turns into. I look forward to seeing what's gonna happen in the next six months and even beyond.
JetForceGemini:Yeah. And, and I feel like we're still playing with that balance like the piece that I would love to have a little bit stronger is just the community engagement. But I feel like that'll just also be part of getting a little bit more attention. I'm very happy just that we have, a fun crew in our Discord server showing up for our tournaments and everything, and people, listening in and, giving value to what we're doing, especially after it, it took us a couple rounds to figure out even how to talk about some of the matchups, right? If you listen to, I wanna say even like through the third episode, we didn't even talk about actual team comps or if we did it was, it was very limited and that has really become the meat of what we talk about like yeah, we do a recap especially the round robin tier, like we kind of take the top chunk of open because, again, 2025 matchups every week, like even reading through them is a lot. But, picking a team to follow for each tier that we cover and having that be really our focus where we get to look at teams, we get to look at how metas are changing and how players react and anticipate to other players idiosyncrasies, especially as far as team building, because that's kind of all you get to see as a player is what they've brought before and how that worked for them and like what they won against or like what they lost against and just bringing more attention there made it more real. Honestly, I would love to have that be a more integrated part of factions where if you have at least one match that you can link from the entire bout, that I feel would be such a good step in the right direction of just show us what actually happened.
David Hernandez:Well, Jet, that's a show. Thank you for coming on to the podcast. Before you do go, if people wanna check out y'alls podcast, where could they go listen to it? By all means. Please plug away.
JetForceGemini:So we, we are at Dragonair's Den and we're on Spotify. We also have Enter The Dragonair's Den discord as well and we host monthly tournaments there and we love to have anyone that wants to check out the Silk Cups
David Hernandez:Cool Beans! And I'll make sure to include links to everything that was said in the description of today's episode. Thank you for listening to another episode of As The Pokeball Turns. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you wanna support the show, consider becoming a Patreon by going to patreon.com/asthePokeballturns or by sharing the podcast with your friends and family. And I'll see you next time. Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.