Board 8 > Pokemon Masters 8 Match-ups Revealed *SPOILERS*

(+) Yeah! (+)

The bracket for the Masters 8 tournament has been revealed. Despite people wanting an Ash/Alain match, the top 4 seeds will face the bottom 4 seeds.

Leon vs. Alain
Lance vs. Diantha
Cynthia vs. Iris
Steven vs. Ash

The winner of Leon/Alain will face the winner of Lance/Diantha. While the winner of Cynthia/Iris will face the winner of Steven/Ash.

I guess they didn't want to make Cynthia a first round loser and have Alain defeat Steven so the two can meet in the semis. Regardless, this should be a great tournament.

Okay, my bracket looks like:

Alain > Leon
Lance > Diantha
Cynthia > Iris
Ash > Steven

Alain > Lance
Ash > Cynthia

Ash > Alain

Lance/Diantha doesn't matter much since neither is making the finals to face Ash. I have Lance winning solely because nobody cares about Diantha.

I wouldn't be surprised if Iris upset Cynthia but even though Iris was a traveling companion, I believe Cynthia's still more popular. I think they want to satisfy the fans with some great battles and Ash/Iris wouldn't have any real emotion attached to it. Ash/Cynthia, meanwhile, would be EPIC.

An Ash/Alain rematch is what they probably want to set up. That would feel like Ash/Paul in the Sinnoh Conference. Ash wins and then his character is retired. No place for him to go from here.

No way does Leon lose in the first round. He's in the finals against the winner of Ash/Cynthia.

Yeah, it's really hard to see Leon losing before the finals.

Leon's the #1 trainer in the world in the series. He's not losing round 1.

Leon is beating Alain for Charizard supremacy. Sucks that Lance won't face Iris

Alain is the guy who jobs to establish how strong Leon is. Alain beat Ash at his previous strongest, so we already know he's really strong, so him being beaten by Leon establishes him as being even stronger and shows just how much of a challenge Ash has ahead of him.

Ash won't fight Iris here, because he already fought and defeated her earlier in this series, so a rematch at this stage would be anticlimactic. As mentioned already, Cynthia is a fan favourite, while Iris is one of the less popular companions. (She was the least popular for a long time, but she's been redeemed a bit by now. I'm guessing Max is the least popular nowadays, since he's the only companion who hasn't returned or been mentioned in this series. He wasn't even popular enough to come back with May for her cameo in Sinnoh, so now that she's been retired because of her VA's retirement, he doesn't stand a chance of coming back alone.)

Fingers crossed Tobias returns after the tournament as a Tapu Koko style bonus boss for Ash to fight.

All I know is Im hoping Iris loses because shes terrible

See I haven't been watching (or really following) the current series but am definitely interested in this. I didn't know how Leon had been portrayed. My bad. Switch Alain and Leon, then!

I thought Max was always the least popular companion. Iris was bottom 3. Though I'm not sure who from the many in S&M would be that low...

GavsEvans123 posted...

Fingers crossed Tobias returns after the tournament as a Tapu Koko style bonus boss for Ash to fight.

How many people in Japan would remember Tobias? I definitely remember him as the guy who won the Sinnoh League with hacked ubers, because how could I not?

comedy option Ash doesn't make it to the finals

Not a good start to the tournament, they tried cramming the opening ceremony and Leon/Alain into one episode so it felt rushed.

I haven't watched the anime in a long time but this has me interested since it seems like it may end up being the finale? I can't believe Leon is the one who is supposed to be the best though, his design is just awful.

I'm guessing there's a chance Ash doesn't even make it past Cynthia?

EDIT: Just trying to watch a really bad sub of the episode now. Gigantmax seems like a silly mechanic to me. I'd seen it in the game but hadn't played sword/shield past a few hours

Not sure what the plan is for after the tournament.

They won't completely end the anime, there's too much money for that to be a possibility. My thoughts is that they either retire Ash and start focusing on a new protagonist (may also backfire) or turn Ash into a mentor type character and we follow the journey of a new trainer.

Ash becomes the companion.

Btw, where can I watch this?

The champ with the all legendary team not even being in this seems wrong.

Question from someone who hasn't been paying attention to the anime for years. What is Ash using for a team? Is it the team he won a league with or like an all star team from all seasons?

It's a team he caught during the current generation plus Pikachu...

Pikachu
Gengar
Dragonite
Lucario
Dracovish
Sirfetch'd

Yeah they deconfirmed reserves during the last episode which sucks so they're sticking with his on hand team.

Lucario is the ace and has had the most screentime.

Thats.quite a team for Ash

They couldn't just give him NFE Pokemon (besides Pikachu) and make it believable that he could compete with the top trainers of the world.

Though to be fair, given what he's achieved at previous Pokemon leagues you could argue that he's around a top 50 trainer in the world while using NFE Pokemon.

I havent watched the anime in a while, but the team choice is just kinda weird to me. Dracovish is not something I thought would see any real screen time and the rest is basically Gen 1 and Lucario.

Fetch'd is gen 8 tbf

OK that might actually be as strong as any all star team you could make for him.

Is still an evolution of a Gen 1 though. Ash has so much Pokmon experience surely they couldve made his team more diverse at least

I think it was based around giving him a kind of intrinsic credibility. Like swordz said, it's "quite a team" on paper - everyone knows Gengar, Dragonite and Luke are powerful Pokemon and Dracovish was banned competitively. And Sirfetch'd is a fan favourite I think

So it's designed to be like "ok yeah Ash is serious now"

Maniac64 posted...

OK that might actually be as strong as any all star team you could make for him.

It is. Pikachu/Gengar/Dragonite/Lucario aren't going anywhere so at best you could replace Dracovish or Sirfetch'd with a previous ace Pokemon.

It has been mooted, given the calibre of opponent Ash is now fighting and beating (he's beaten one Champion, an Elite 4 and is ranked number 8 in the entire known Pokeworld), that Ash's current team is literally just his strongest possible team.

It's a bit cheap and there are narrative shortcuts involved but just in terms of pure feats, the Zard etc might no longer be his best

It would have been nice to have Charizard come back for a last hurrah. Pikachu + Charizard + Dragonite + Gengar + Lucario + Greninja (if possible) or Squirtle would've been a pretty killer team, combining current stars with fanservice. Especially if they do plan to retire Ash after all these years. That would not shock me since it's always possible that Rica Matsumoto is ready to be done after 25 years.

XIII_rocks posted...

It's a bit cheap and there are narrative shortcuts involved but just in terms of pure feats, the Zard etc might no longer be his best

Pretty much. Given what happened to Alain in his match against Leon, on paper Greninja would likely job to most opponents in the Masters 8. We have to remember that up until recently, Ash couldn't even defeat a single Pokemon from the Elite 4, yet with this team he's going toe to toe against Champions.

So... Is there anywhere to legally watch this??

The series is going up on Netflix dubbed in English on a delay. (It has up to like episode 90 where the stuff currently happening is around 115.) It's also for the time being on the Pokemon website with an even larger delay. I don't think there's any other way unless you speak Japanese. (ie. I don't think there is any official English version dubbed or subbed of the most up-to-date content which includes basically everything discussed in this topic.) I don't know where to legally find the series in Japanese if that's what you're looking for, since I never bothered to look into it.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81193140
https://www.netflix.com/title/81291575
https://watch.pokemon.com/en-us/#/season?id=pokemon-journeys-the-series

I just had an idea about what might happen with the anime if Ash is indeed retired after this arc. Scarlet and Violet are doing past and future, so what if the anime did the same, switching between past and future every few episodes? The past episodes could have younger versions of adult trainers, and the future episodes could be a Boruto style time skip with Ash's children as the protagonists.

GavsEvans123 posted...

I just had an idea about what might happen with the anime if Ash is indeed retired after this arc. Scarlet and Violet are doing past and future, so what if the anime did the same, switching between past and future every few episodes? The past episodes could have younger versions of adult trainers, and the future episodes could be a Boruto style time skip with Ash's children as the protagonists.

That's a super interesting theory. I kinda dig it.

Maniac64 posted...

The champ with the all legendary team not even being in this seems wrong.

Question from someone who hasn't been paying attention to the anime for years. What is Ash using for a team? Is it the team he won a league with or like an all star team from all seasons?

IIRC tobias didn't actually become a league champion, he won a conference in the sinnoh league where cynthia reigns. It's possible he just chose not to pursue that much competitive battling or something. But he'd probably be way too OP for this.

Also I get why they did it but this bracket doesn't make IRL sense lol, #1 leon should be facing #8 ash, 2/7, 3/6, 4/5. It's too bad my guy steven has to get the first rd job.

What I'm rooting for is somehow ash beats lance along the way so he can claim championship of kanto in spirit but then losing to leon.

Considering how badly Ash got beaten by Elite 4/Champions back in Sinnoh, the fact that Ash took out two of Tobias' Pokemon probably suggests he would probably lose easily to Cynthia/other champions.

Keeping this alive until after the short anime break...

charmander6000 posted...

Keeping this alive until after the short anime break...

I'll do the same.

Diantha vs. Lance airing right now

Ritchie of all people made a little cameo as well as some secondary xy or bw characters

Good match. Lance looked to win with brute force but Diantha battled smarter and won.

XIII_rocks posted...

made a little cameo

oh sweet

The cameos are a nice touch.

A much better battle than Leon/Alain.

oh did leon/alain already happen? I guess alain got crushed?

Emeraldegg posted...

oh did leon/alain already happen? I guess alain got crushed?

That he did

Most skilled trainer without plot armour?

Depends on your definition of plot armour. Like does Ash win because of skill or plot armour? You could stretch it and argue that the only reason that the champions win is because they are champions and therefore must win to progress the plot.

In terms of on screen victories up until before this tournament I think Cynthia has the most impressive wins as she's defended her title against Aaron, Flint and Lucian, all Sinnoh Elite 4 trainers. Leon of course has on screen wins over Lance and Raihan (and now Alain).

Pokemon Masters EX currently has an anime collaboration event featuring Ash as a an opponent in daily battles. He's not playable yet, but a very special character has been promised for the 3rd anniversary next month, which is likely to be Ash.

Cynthia/Iris in about 12 hours from now.

Cynthia likely to destroy, but I guess there's no guarantee. Iris taking this to a 1-on-1 is a good result for her.

Cynthia wins, as expected, though it was much closer than I thought. Iris nearly had her but Cynthia is more or less unbeatable. Iris didn't use Megas, Z-Move or Dynamax, while Cynthia used Mega Chomp.

Ash/Steven next week, then a break before we get into the meat of things.

After Ash beats Steven, how many episodes will each battle go for? I'm hoping Ash/Cynthia lasts at least two since that's going to be crazy good and I don't want it to feel abbreviated. Leon will assuredly beat Diantha in a single episode, but Ash/Leon will go for longer.

That said, we know who wins each of the semis here so them expediting the main event wouldn't shock me, either. If Leon wasn't the final boss for Ash, his opponent certainly would not have been Diantha. Cynthia would be the most logical alternative, honestly. She's probably the most popular champion even still (overall, I mean - Japan alone may be different). But there's no way Ash doesn't make the final. Whether he wins that or not is another story.

The semi-finals seem likely to be one-episode 3v3 battles.

Hopefully Ash vs. Leon gets a minimum of three episodes. They gave Ash vs Kukui 4 episodes ffs. They can stretch to three for Ash/Leon.