Battle of the Gods-Heat B

So White Kyurem, Terrakion, Volcarona, Palkia have eliminated Dialga, Regigigas, Groudon and Keldeo in the early heats to secure their quarter-final places, and we get to the other 8 now. Onwards!

Heat 5- Mewtwo vs Reshiram
Huh, I've just got here to watch the battle and Mewtwo's already stood over the defeated Reshiram glaring at me. I guess it must have abused its brilliant speed and nightmarish special attack to hit Reshiram's poor physical attack with its Psystrike. Mewtwo insists that you bow down.

Heat 6- Shaymin-S vs Giratina-O

This is the only battle of round 1 that could function as a sky battle in Gen VI. Shaymin-S is built for special attack, while Giratina-O is a beautiful mixed attacker. Neither has any form of defenses, but Giratina's HP bolsters that a little. This allows it to take up to 2 hits from Shaymin-S's chosen attack, Air Slash, meaning that if they both result in flinches it takes a third and is knocked out. And it flinches twice. Shaymin-S, against all odds, takes out Giratina-O

Heat 7- Darkrai vs Zekrom

These are two of my favourites, and I'm actually pretty sorry that one has to eliminate the other. But them's the breaks. Darkrai knows exactly what to do and how to do it. It harnesses its enormous speed (only just lower than Mewtwo's) to instantly use Dark Void, giving it an 80% chance of sending Zekrom to sleep, and it can then just sweep, using its equally huge Special Attack, its superb STAB move Dark Pulse and its ability Bad Dreams to make sure Zekrom is out for the count in no time. Zekrom has one hope. It is one of the best physical attackers in the game, and since it's running a mixed attacking set including Focus Blast, if Darkrai's 80% sleep chance fails and its 75% hit chance makes it it wins the battle. But the gods of fate (by which I mean another random number generator) have decided Darkrai does send Zekrom to sleep, and wins the battle.

Heat 8- Rayquaza vs Genesect

These two ubers powerhouses are actually very similar in stat distribution; mediocre speed, horrible defenses and high and balanced offenses. Genesect has the weaker stat total, and by far the lower offenses, but the better typing head-to-head. If Rayquaza can get in first, though, many people, me included, like to run Fire Blast on Rayquaza, and that will just destroy Genesect. Genesect has the higher speed, but the strongest neutral or better hit it has for Rayquaza is Flash Cannon, and that is only just good enough to take down Rayquaza. Genesect takes out an early favourite to win the final heat
WINNERS!
1) White Kyurem
2) Terrakion
3) Volcarona
4) Palkia
5)Mewtwo
6) Shaymin-S
7)Darkrai
8) Genesect

6 vs 7- Shaymin-S vs Darkrai
2 vs 4-Terrakion vs Palkia
5 vs 8- Mewtwo vs Genesect
1 vs 3- Kyurem-W vs Volcarona
Bring it on!

Battle of the gods

OK, here's how it works... first I'll choose what I consider to be the best pokemon of each type (one type per pokemon) then we'll use alphabetical order and a random number generator to create matchups and play them off head-to-head. Now this could make dragon pretty much invincible, but there are pokemon it still doesn't wanna face. We'll start with the legendaries...

1)Bug-Volcarona  (Yes, it has loads of weaknesses but it does great things)
2)Dark-Darkrai (Well, yeah)
3)Dragon-Dialga
4)Electric-Zekrom
5)Fighting-Keldeo
6)Fire-Reshiram
7)Flying-Rayquaza
8)Ghost-Giratina-O
9)Grass-Shaymin-S
10)Ground-Groudon
11)Ice-Kyurem-W
12) Normal-It'll have to be Regigigas
13) Poison (Sorry, poison's out, no legendaries apart from Arceus and that's not fair)
13)Psychic-Mewtwo
14)Rock-Terrakion
15)Steel-Genesect
16) Water-Palkia

There are loads of dragons here, but that seems only right, I've genuinely gone with what I see as the best. And the fixtures for round 1:
11 vs 3 Kyurem-W vs Dialga
14 vs 12 Terrakion vs Regigigas
1 vs 10 Volcarona vs Groudon
16 vs 5 Palkia vs Keldeo
13 vs 6 Mewtwo vs Reshiram
9 vs 8 Shaymin-S vs Giratina-O
2 vs 4 Darkrai vs Zekrom
7 vs 15 Rayquaza vs Genesect
7 vs 15

Just the facts

More from Corocoro, as the details begin to firm up about MegaPokemon.
First of all, Megaevolution does happen via Mega Stones. The Blazikenite that event Torchic will be holding is one such item.
Megaevolution will raise stats in various ways, with MegaLucario having higher Attack and MegaAbsol having increased Attack and Speed.
There are two slightly disappointing pieces of information. First, which I sorta thought was so obvious it wasn't worth saying but which they've announced so I'll pass it on, not all pokemon will have these Megaevolutions but it won't just be the 6 announced yesterday. Second, megaevolutions will only be in effect in battle. One other thing that has been announced is that Blazikenite will not be found in normal gameplay, which somewhat suggests all the Megapokemon will be distributed via events.
The Master Tower will somehow be involved in Megaevolution.

Too excited to write witty title

OK, I think it was in a post I never published that I said the last Corocoro promised a huge reveal in today's, and I was skeptical, but this is a huge, potentially game-changing reveal, and it's all to do with that new Mewtwo.
Confirmed in Corocoro for X and Y are "Mega-evolutions" of existing pokemon, namely Absol, Ampharos, Blaziken, Lucario, Mawile and Mewtwo. Their names will be Mega(current name,) e.g. MegaMewtwo. Two of their typings have been announced: MegaMawile will be steel/fairy, and MegaAmpharos will be electric/dragon.  Steel/fairy is also the typing for Mawile, it has been revealed to be the newest retyped pokemon, which could really help it, but MegaAmpharos has not been confirmed as a new dragon, suggesting the Mega-evolutions may not always share the pokemon's typings. Their abilities have been announced: MegaAbsol will have Magic Bounce; MegaAmpharos will have Mold Breaker; MegaBlaziken will have Speed Boost; MegaLucario will have Adaptability; MegaMawile has Huge Power and MegaMewtwo has Insomnia. These abilities mostly work very well, especially Speed Boost, which oddly I was talking about in my last post yesterday, and Adaptability which is RIDICULOUS on a fighting type like Lucario. The one that doesn't really is MegaAmpharos' Mold Breaker, which essentially works only on pokemon an electric/dragon has no problems with. But whatever.
Mega-evolution will apparently be a new form of evolution, which the event they also announced may give us a clue towards.
The first X and Y event, from October 12th to January 15th, will give away a Torchic holding something called Blaziken Knight (probably Blazikenite.) It will make use of a new item called a Mega Stone, and can eventually evolve into MegaBlaziken. This suggests the MegaStone is kinda like the evolution stones we have already.
A new gym leader, whose Japanese name is Koruni, will hold the key to understanding MegaEvolution. She looks a bit like Maylene, and seems to be a fighting type.
Quite how MegaEvolutions work, and what they do, has not been confirmed.
More as it comes (including pictures,) and I'll get to the rest of Corocoro tomorrow. It's not really that interesting.

Outfoxing Fennekin

Gamefreak have tried so hard to toy with us, again, and I'm getting a little irritated. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thoroughly intrigued but I am a little bored of the misleading spoilers, half-truths and unfinished reveals. So ha ha Gamefreak, this one I've cracked. I think.
The absolute last thing ANYONE wanted for Gen VI was a 4th fire/fighting type starter. In Gen III Torchic evolved into the first of these, Blaziken. It was a pretty good pokemon, and in general pokemon players applauded the move. In Gen IV Chimchar evolved into Infernape, and Infernape was a very very good pokemon indeed. As far as I can see pokemon players were happy to accept a second fire/fighting because Infernape felt like a polishing and a boosting of Blaziken. Its stats, movepool, concept and design were all way better, and when it was released it became arguably the best starter of all time. In Gen V something strange happened, and Blaziken leapfrogged its OU rival Infernape to go from languishing in UU to being the only Ubers starter ever...for now. This was thanks to its Dreamworld ability, the almost unjustly good Speed Boost. But Gen V also brought a nasty surprise for fire/fighting, in the form of lame younger cousin to the family Embor. This fat, lumbering pig tries to copy its older relatives and fails miserably. Why is it a pig anyway? That makes no sense from a conceptual point of view. There is just no line you can draw to get from pig to punching stuff, although I have just mentally created the superhero Bacon Man. Anyway, Emboar sucked, and with so much potential still left in the fire type for new things, players rejected Emboar as a waste of a starter.
I said, in one of my very first posts, that not only did I not see Fennekin becoming a fire/fighting I didn't see how it could become a fire/fighting, when they'd done three and anyway it didn't look fighting-y (not that Tepig did either.) But then they showed us it using a move called Glow Punch, and alarm bells were set ringing. Oh, no, it's punching stuff now! But.......I'm pretty sure that not only is Fennekin's unrevealed evolution not a fighting type, the move isn't even fighting type. OK, i have just seen that it deals super-effective damage to fire/normal and fighting is one of 4 types to currently do that. But I say currently for a reason. This punch really doesn't look like, say, Mach Punch. I bet this is a special punch. Specifically I bet this is the fairy equivalent of fire/thunder/ice punch, and Fennekin will be a fire/fairy. That is, based on what we already know, frighteningly good typing. Specifically it will be a specially offensive monster. I mean, dragon, normal, steel, ice, grass, these are very good types to be super-effective against (and potentially not all,) and should slot it into ubers as an amazing counter to a lot of things you most commonly find there. Also, the fairy type IS super-effective against fire or more likely normal type or both, and isn't resisted by either. Now, Gamefreak, have you got any unintentionally very informative spoilers on Chespin or Froakie? 

Best. Event. Ever

Actually that's not quite true. The following are the best events ever in order:
1) Arceus
2) Darkrai
3) Shiny Rayquaza

But this is also an excellent event. It is a UK only event, so I'm sorry if it doesn't cover you, but keep reading, it gets funny I promise . The event comes in three parts:
1) August 30-September 12   Shiny Dialga
2) September 13-September 26 Shiny Palkia
3) September 27-October 12 Shiny Giratina
These pokemon will be given away in Game, which works for me because it's one of the few shops I can get to in the Highlands.

Now I must admit that I expressed my excitement about getting three of my favourite pokemon in shiny form before seeing them. The first shiny pokemon I ever caught was a Liepard. It goes from purple to...purple. You'd never know it was shiny. Dialga is only a bit better. It goes from blue to turquoise. Turquoise is a shade of blue. It is one of my favourite colours, and Dialga looks great in it, but again it's hard to tell it's shiny. This irritates me, but not as much as Palkia. There is one major problem I have with Palkia, which is nothing to do with typing, movepool, stats, or ability, which I love, love, love and can't complain about.No, my problem with Palkia can be summed up in three words: GIANT PURPLE PENIS! I know, you can't unsee it now. It even has testicles. How did this pass the testing phases? Some other pokemon, like Castform, bear a passing resemblance to genitalia, but this I just can't with. What is the one thing that would make Palkia look more phallic? Painting it pink. Congratulations Gamefreak, you now have a legendary pokemon with the worst design ever. I am sarcastically clapping, which is an impressive feat while typing. Giratina's not half bad, having a recognisable colour change and looking pretty good. But as a set I'm gonna stick with my usual normal forms. Best event ever. This sucks.

See what I mean?

Burn, Baby, Burn

OK, this is a new bi-weekly feature (because I've done the maths and that lets me do a fairy-type post three days after the new games come out (because the day after is my birthday and this stuff takes me two days even when I'm not busy) and an ice-type post the day before Christmas), where for want of a better way of putting things I take the types apart to see how they work. Since it is as hot as hell here in the UK and my xz and zx keys have melted together, the only type I could possibly start with is fire.
Fire, in battle, is one of the most clear-cut pokemon, with clear stat trends, clear strengths and weaknesses and clear strategies to use with them. See, fire is nearly unmatched in one thing: hitting hard. It can hit four types for super-effective damage (even if the only totally useful one is steel and possibly ice) and only dragon can outdo it for  average special attack stats when fully evolved. But dragon doesn't count, because half of all fully-evolved dragon types are legendaries. Half! 50% 1 in 2! 9 of the 18! Exzpress it how you choose. It's too many and it skews the stats. So strike that, fire types have the best special attack stats of any type. Combine that with a nice range of moves, over 60% having 80 base power or higher, an immunity to pesky burns, and moderate to good speed, with several sitting in the 100-110 region (although I will admit the fastest fire type is Infernape with 108 base speed, and 44 pokemon have at least one faster forme, but 108 is not half bad, outspeeding loads of great pokemon such as Hydreigon, Scizxor, Garchomp and of course Mew and Celebi) fire types often make perfect special sweepers. Basically, with fire types, you want to hit hard and get the hell out of there, because very few of them can take a hit with generally awful defenses and 3 nasty weaknesses, and it suddenly occured to me when writing this post that the biggest thing the fire type needs is a variation on Volt Tackle/U-Turn, which means even when you can't get an OHKO (which you need a lot of with fire types) your pokemon doesn't crumple like burnt paper. So yeah, except in a few very special cases, this is the fire type's only decent use, and I don't recommend using the special cases until you're sure of it (he said, patronisingly). But if you know how to use fire types, they can be a huge asset. And come on, how fun is it to burn stuff?