Reds @ Red Sox - Thu, Jun 01

Game Status: Pre-Game - First Pitch is scheduled for 07:10 PM EDT

Links & Info

• Current conditions at Fenway Park: 82°F - Clear - Wind 7 mph, R To L
• TV: Reds: Bally Sports Ohio, Red Sox: NESN
• Radio: Reds: WLW 700, Red Sox: WCCM 1490 AM (SP) (es), WAMG 890 AM (SP) (es), WEEI 93.7
• MLB Gameday
• Statcast Game Preview

NLC Rank	Team	W	L	GB (E#)	WC Rank	WC GB (E#)
1	Milwaukee Brewers	29	27	- (-)	-	- (-)
2	Pittsburgh Pirates	28	27	0.5 (107)	3	- (-)
3	Cincinnati Reds	26	29	2.5 (105)	6	2.0 (105)
4	St. Louis Cardinals	25	32	4.5 (102)	9	4.0 (102)
5	Chicago Cubs	24	31	4.5 (103)	10	4.0 (103)

	Probable Pitcher (Season Stats)	Report
Reds	Hunter Greene (1-4, 4.18 ERA, 56.0 IP)	No report posted.
Red Sox	Chris Sale (5-2, 4.72 ERA, 55.1 IP)	No report posted.

Reds Lineup vs. Sale	AVG	OPS	AB	HR	RBI	K
1 Newman - 3B	-	-	-	-	-	-
2 McLain - SS	-	-	-	-	-	-
3 India - 2B	-	-	-	-	-	-
4 Steer - 1B	-	-	-	-	-	-
5 Stephenson, T - DH	-	-	-	-	-	-
6 Fairchild - RF	-	-	-	-	-	-
7 Senzel - LF	-	-	-	-	-	-
8 Barrero - CF	-	-	-	-	-	-
9 Casali - C	.429	1.429	7	1	1	3
10 Greene, H - P	-	-	-	-	-	-

Red Sox Lineup vs. Greene, H	AVG	OPS	AB	HR	RBI	K
1 Verdugo - RF	.500	1.500	2	0	2	0
2 Devers - 3B	.500	1.500	2	0	0	1
3 Turner, J - DH	.400	1.000	5	0	0	0
4 Yoshida - LF	-	-	-	-	-	-
5 Duran, Ja - CF	-	-	-	-	-	-
6 Hernández, K - SS	-	-	-	-	-	-
7 Casas - 1B	-	-	-	-	-	-
8 Wong - C	-	-	-	-	-	-
9 Valdez, E - 2B	-	-	-	-	-	-
10 Sale - P	-	-	-	-	-	-

Division Scoreboard

MIL 1 @ TOR 3 - Final
^{Posted: 06/01/2023 05:10:00 PM EDT}

Trading Thesis: Tracking the float along with daily volume along with company financials helps to narrow down moving tickers Fundamental and technical analysis is often used to find growth tickers and information about them. Fundamental analysis looks to see whether an investment is overvalued or undervalued based on underlying economic conditions, as well as the finances of the company or other organization that issued a stock or bond. Technical analysis instead looks at patterns in the price of an investment to predict future movements in that investment’s price. I look for tickers that are trading at least 2 million in volume a day, with a market-cap of no less than 500 million. The shares traded are compared to the average volume to determine how much of the float is used (Or shares traded). That information is compiled with data on how profitable the company is and how much cash do they have compared to what is expected.
Uptrending Tickers

• DG 6/16/23 170C 1.20
• STX 6/16/23 62.5C 1.20
• JNPR 6/16/23 30C .90
• MU 6/16/23 70C 1.94
• ZIM 6/16/23 13C 1.61
• M. 6/16/23 13C 1.17
• MO 6/16/23 44C. 1.07
• ABNB 6/16/23 19C 1.70

Downtrending Tickers

• AAPL 6/16/23 170P .66
• META 7/21/23 230P 1.98
• INTC 7/21/23 32P 1.80
• BABA 7/21/23 75P 1.90
• BIDU 7/21/23 110P 1.62
• IBM 7/21/23 120P 1.20
• QCOM 6/16/23 113P 1.94
• DELL 6/16/23 45P 1.50
• WDC 6/16/23 40P 1.68
• PSTG 7/21/23 29P .25
• TLRY 6/16/23 1P .61
• UHAL 6/16/23 50P .55
• STLA 6/16/23 15P .20
• RBLX 6/16/23 42.5P 1.65
• TWLO 6/16/23 65P 1.77
• OXY 7/21/23 55P 1.29

Things to consider when finding the plays-
· If the stock volume has traded 1 million or more in volume premarket, I will use that and calculate a rough estimate on what the stock will trade for the day.
· If the ticker looks to be trading more volume than the day before, I will consider it for a long play. If trading less than the movement of the ticker, I would consider a short or put play. (If all the other factors previously mentioned checks out.)
· The trades are researched afternoon daily to find possible tickers making a big move. Some of the prices may be less depending on day and time trade is executed.

https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/nws41crypticcollaborators_igs_rep_page_1/
cryptid's Tradable https://barter.vg72d3/t/?filter=0,9,0
Steam
DEATH STRANDING
Praey for the Gods
Monster Hunter: World
Syberia - The World Before
Devil May Cry 5
Deep Rock Galactic
Orcs Must Die! 3
DOOM Eternal
Devil May Cry HD Collection
DEATHLOOP
Superliminal
Sable
GreedFall
River City Girls
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Baba Is You
Planet Zoo
Ion Fury
Ghostrunner
Gang Beasts
Wasteland 3
Besiege
Desperados III
Destroy All Humans!
Creaks
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition
DUSK
HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated
Ghost of a Tale
Sunset Overdrive
AMID EVIL
House Flipper
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
The Last Campfire
Batora: Lost Haven
We Were Here Together
INMOST
Metro Exodus
Starbound
DARQ
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning
Necromunda: Hired Gun
Fallout 76
The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos
Monster Sanctuary
Monument Valley
The Surge 2
Project Wingman
Dread Templar
Pumpkin Jack
Hedon Bloodrite
Monument Valley 2
Vagante
Second Extinction™
ECHO
The Long Dark
Surviving the Aftermath
Phoenix Point
The Falconeer
LIBERATED
Tribes of Midgard
Wingspan
Eldest Souls
Sonic Mania
Project Winter
DIRT 5
The Survivalists
Othercide
Carto
Intravenous
Heat Signature
The Henry Stickmin Collection
Descenders
ScourgeBringer
Miscreated
Monster Train
We Need To Go Deeper
Forgive Me Father
Shady Part of Me
UnMetal
DESYNC
Aragami
Timelie
Shortest Trip to Earth
People Playground
Black Book
Cube Escape Collection
Raji: An Ancient Epic
Sid Meier's Civilization VI
TOEM
Yes, Your Grace
Them's Fightin' Herds
Encased
Disciples: Liberation
Partisans 1941
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Wizard of Legend
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice
Borderlands 3: Super Deluxe Edition

• Borderlands 3
  
• Borderlands 3: Season Pass
  
• Borderlands 3: Toy Box Weapons Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Gearbox Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot
  
• Borderlands 3: Retro Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Neon Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Guns, Love, and Tentacles
  
• Borderlands 3: Digital Deluxe Extras
  
• Borderlands 3: Butt Stallion Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Booster Pack
  

Kingdom Two Crowns
Grow: Song of the Evertree
Drake Hollow
Street Fighter V
FTL: Faster Than Light
Hellbound
Maid of Sker
Blacksad
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel
Secret Neighbor
DmC Devil May Cry
Chicken Police
The Darkside Detective
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Greak: Memories of Azur
BioShock: The Collection

• BioShock 2
  
• BioShock
  
• BioShock Infinite
  
• BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds
  
• BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1
  
• BioShock Infinite - Season Pass
  
• BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2
  
• BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den
  
• Bioshock Infinite: Columbia's Finest
  
• BioShock 2 Remastered
  
• BioShock Remastered
  
• Minerva's Den Remastered
  
• Bioshock 2 Pre-order
  
• BioShock Infinite - Upgrade Pack
  
• BioShock Infinite - Comstock's China Broom Shotgun
  
• BioShock Infinite - Comstock's Bird's Eye Sniper Rifle
  
• BioShock Infinite - Industrial Revolution Rewards Pack
  
• Bioshock Infinite - Industrial Revolution
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX CE Upgrade Pack
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Industrial Revolution
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX China Broom
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Birds Eye
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Season Pass
  

Just Cause 4 Complete Edition

• Just Cause 4
  
• Just Cause 4: Digital Deluxe Content
  
• Just Cause 4: Golden Gear Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass
  
• Just Cause™ 4: Deathstalker Scorpion Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Renegade Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Neon Racer Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: The Dragon
  
• Just Cause 4: Dare Devils of Destruction
  
• Just Cause 4: Los Demonios
  
• Just Cause 4: Toy Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Soaring Speed Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Adversary Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Danger Rising
  
• Just Cause 4: Sea Dogs Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4 : Shark & Bark Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Brawler Mech
  

Finding Paradise
Ultra Street Fighter IV
Duskers
Red Solstice 2: Survivors
Minoria
Roboquest
Sunless Sea
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
Resident Evil Revelations
Call of the Sea
Blade Assault
I Am Fish
Nobodies
If Found
ATOM RPG Trudograd
PLANET ALPHA
Crown Trick
Raw Data
Pathway
SUPERHOT
Hammerting
OlliOlli World Rad Edition

• OlliOlli World
  
• OlliOlli World "Close Encounter Skate Deck"
  
• OlliOlli World Expansion Pass
  
• OlliOlli World: VOID Riders
  
• OlliOlli World: Finding the Flowzone
  

Project Warlock
Hokko Life
Save Room - Organization Puzzle
In Sound Mind
Paradise Killer
Police Stories
HITMAN: Game of the Year Edition

• HITMAN
  
• HITMAN: Episode 2 - Sapienza
  
• HITMAN: Episode 3 - Marrakesh
  
• HITMAN: Episode 4 - Bangkok
  
• HITMAN: Episode 5 - Colorado
  
• HITMAN: Episode 6 - Hokkaido
  
• HITMAN - Bonus Episode
  
• HITMAN: Episode 1 - Paris
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Suit Pack
  
• HITMAN - Bonus Campaign Patient Zero
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Clown Suit
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Raven Suit
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Cowboy Suit
  

Omno
Killsquad
Astronarch
The Serpent Rogue
XCOM: ULTIMATE COLLECTION

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown
  
• XCOM: Enemy Within
  
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown Elite Soldier Pack
  
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown: Slingshot DLC
  
• XCOM 2
  
• XCOM 2: Reinforcement Pack
  
• XCOM 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
  
• XCOM 2: Anarchy's Children
  
• XCOM 2: Alien Hunters
  
• XCOM 2: Shen's Last Gift
  
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
  
• X-Com: Enemy Unknown Pre-Purchase
  
• Elite Soldier Pack
  
• XCOM 2 Development Tools
  
• XCOM 2 War of the Chosen Development Tools
  
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - Tactical Legacy Pack
  
• XCOM: Chimera Squad
  
• XCOM: Chimera Squad Development Tools
  

Legend of Keepers
Torchlight II
Due Process
Suzerain
Necronator: Dead Wrong
Before We Leave
Not Tonight
First Class Trouble
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Shu
Everhood
Rebel Cops
Railroad Corporation
Bee Simulator
Hob
Tools Up!
Mind Scanners
Lacuna
CROSSBOW: Bloodnight
Beyond The Wire
Sundered: Eldritch Edition
John Wick Hex
PGA TOUR 2K21
Lumini
Nebuchadnezzar
Mad Experiments: Escape Room
Backbone
RAD
Orcs Must Die! 2
Voidigo
As Far As The Eye
Pawnbarian
Truberbrook
Black Future '88
Supraland
Ittle Dew
Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Pirates of the Sword Coast
Five Dates
Undead Horde
X Rebirth
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
Conan Chop Chop
ELDERBORN
Farmer's Dynasty
Nowhere Prophet
Boundless
Orcs Must Die 2 - Complete Pack

• Orcs Must Die! 2
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Are We There Yeti?
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Family Ties Booster Pack
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Fire and Water Booster Pack
  

Kill It With Fire
TOHU
Nex Machina
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
AI War 2
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
Embr
Tooth and Tail
Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe DLC
Electronauts
Ring of Pain
Post Void
Blue Fire
In Other Waters
At Eve's Wake
Cosmonautica
Hoplegs
Super Magbot
shapez
Tower of Time
Retrowave
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Battlewake
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Here Be Dragons
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Fan Edition
Pizza Connection 3
Sprint Vector
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Tyranny - Deluxe Edition

• Tyranny
  
• Tyranny - Overlord Edition Upgrade Pack
  
• Tyranny - Official Soundtrack Deluxe Edition
  
• Tyranny - Ringtones
  
• Tyranny - Wallpapers
  
• Tyranny - Digital Collector's Guide Book
  
• Tyranny - Original Soundtrack
  
• Tyranny - Digital Art Book
  
• Tyranny - Digital Short Story Collection
  
• Tyranny - Faction Banners
  
• Tyranny - Digital Game Map
  
• paradox dummy app sub/133812
  

Cannibal Cuisine
Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor
Railway Empire
Midnight Protocol
Tales of the Tiny Planet
Emily is Away <3
The Doctor Who Cloned Me
The Lovable Rogues Pack
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Rustler
Unexplored
Hard Reset Redux
Shing!
Neon Chrome
FRAMED Collection
EarthX
Paradise Lost
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever: Hail to the Icons Parody Pack
Epic Chef
Out of Space
Syberia 3
Surviving Mars
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
CivCity: Rome
Baby Dino Adventures
XCOM 2: Reinforcement Pack
Hero Defense
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS - Ultimate Brawlers Pass
TaniNani
West of Dead
Möbius Front '83
Calico
Tacoma
The Way
112 Operator
This War of Mine
Lust for Darkness
shapez - Puzzle DLC
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
F1 2018
Evoland Legendary Edition
Aviary Attorney
Treasure Temples
Journey For Elysium
Levelhead
Golf Gang
The Walking Dead Onslaught Deluxe Edition

• The Walking Dead Onslaught
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - OST
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - Art Book
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - Deluxe Bonuses
  

Army Men RTS
BATTLETECH - Shadow Hawk Pack
State of Mind
Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King
Explosionade
Deadly Days
Fling to the Finish
GRIP: Combat Racing
Desolate
ibb & obb - Best Friends Forever Double Pack

• ibb & obb

Radio Commander
XCOM 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Evan's Remains
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
Effie
Paw Paw Paw
Iron Danger
The Amazing American Circus
GARAGE: Bad Trip
Railroad Tycoon 2: Platinum
AWAKE - Definitive Edition
Swag and Sorcery
Popup Dungeon
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!
Between the Stars
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
Amnesia Collection

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  
• Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
  

Tropico 4 Collector's Bundle

• Tropico 4
  
• Tropico 4: Modern Times
  
• Tropico 4: Apocalypse
  
• Tropico 4: Propaganda
  
• Tropico 4: The Academy
  
• Tropico 4 DLC Junta
  
• Tropico 4: Megalopolis
  
• Tropico 4: Pirate Heaven
  
• Tropico 4 Plantador DLC
  
• Tropico 4 DLC Quick-Dry-Cement
  
• Tropico 4: Vigilante
  
• Tropico 4: Voodoo
  

Sid Meier's Railroads!
Star Vikings Forever
Syberia 3 Deluxe Edition with An Automaton with a plan DLC

• Syberia 3
  
• Syberia 3 - Deluxe Upgrade
  
• Syberia 3 - An Automaton with a plan
  

Fury Unleashed
Moon Hunters
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Torchlight
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Fallout
GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
Layers of Fear (2016)
Cygon Customisation Pack
Corridor Z
Family Man
Yoku's Island Express
Guppy
WARSAW
Crying Suns
System Shock: Enhanced Edition
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
Railroad Tycoon 3
Vintek Customisation Pack
Terra Customisation Pack
Retimed
Divekick
X-COM: Complete Pack

• X-COM: UFO Defense
  
• X-COM: Apocalypse
  
• X-COM: Enforcer
  
• X-COM: Interceptor
  
• X-COM: Terror from the Deep
  

Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Deluxiest Edition

• Knights of Pen and Paper 2
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Here Be Dragons
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Digital Art Book
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Soundtrack
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Epic Mount
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - DDE Location
  
• paradox dummy app sub/99331
  

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove
1993 Space Machine
911 Operator
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack

• X-Morph: Defense
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Soundtrack
  
• X-Morph: Defense - European Assault
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion
  

Golf With Your Friends - OST
Chroma Squad
Click and Slay
Marooners
Guts and Glory
Driftland: The Magic Revival
Valhalla Hills
Jagged Alliance 2 - Wildfire
Blackguards
Broken Age
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Hiveswap Friendsim
Beholder
Monaco
Soulblight
Telefrag VR
Ruins to Rumble
AI War: Fleet Command
Last Resort Island
Draw Slasher
Boreal Blade
Crash Drive 2
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Drawful 2
Orbital Racer
Oh My Gore!
A New Beginning - Final Cut
Patrician IV: Steam Special Edition
GameGuru Classic
Slinger VR
TRAUMA
Earth 2160
GOG
Wanderlust Travel Stories

cryptid's Tradable https://barter.vg72d3/t/?filter=0,9,0
1685652476 (Unix timestamp)
Steam
DEATH STRANDING
Praey for the Gods
Monster Hunter: World
Syberia - The World Before
Devil May Cry 5
Deep Rock Galactic
Orcs Must Die! 3
DOOM Eternal
Devil May Cry HD Collection
DEATHLOOP
Superliminal
Sable
GreedFall
River City Girls
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Baba Is You
Planet Zoo
Ion Fury
Ghostrunner
Gang Beasts
Wasteland 3
Besiege
Desperados III
Destroy All Humans!
Creaks
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition
DUSK
HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated
Ghost of a Tale
Sunset Overdrive
AMID EVIL
House Flipper
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
The Last Campfire
Batora: Lost Haven
We Were Here Together
INMOST
Metro Exodus
Starbound
DARQ
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning
Necromunda: Hired Gun
Fallout 76
The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos
Monster Sanctuary
Monument Valley
The Surge 2
Project Wingman
Dread Templar
Pumpkin Jack
Hedon Bloodrite
Monument Valley 2
Vagante
Second Extinction™
ECHO
The Long Dark
Surviving the Aftermath
Phoenix Point
The Falconeer
LIBERATED
Tribes of Midgard
Wingspan
Eldest Souls
Sonic Mania
Project Winter
DIRT 5
The Survivalists
Othercide
Carto
Intravenous
Heat Signature
The Henry Stickmin Collection
Descenders
ScourgeBringer
Miscreated
Monster Train
We Need To Go Deeper
Forgive Me Father
Shady Part of Me
UnMetal
DESYNC
Aragami
Timelie
Shortest Trip to Earth
People Playground
Black Book
Cube Escape Collection
Raji: An Ancient Epic
Sid Meier's Civilization VI
TOEM
Yes, Your Grace
Them's Fightin' Herds
Encased
Disciples: Liberation
Partisans 1941
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Wizard of Legend
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice
Borderlands 3: Super Deluxe Edition

• Borderlands 3
  
• Borderlands 3: Season Pass
  
• Borderlands 3: Toy Box Weapons Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Gearbox Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot
  
• Borderlands 3: Retro Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Neon Cosmetic Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Guns, Love, and Tentacles
  
• Borderlands 3: Digital Deluxe Extras
  
• Borderlands 3: Butt Stallion Pack
  
• Borderlands 3: Booster Pack
  

Kingdom Two Crowns
Grow: Song of the Evertree
Drake Hollow
Street Fighter V
FTL: Faster Than Light
Hellbound
Maid of Sker
Blacksad
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel
Secret Neighbor
DmC Devil May Cry
Chicken Police
The Darkside Detective
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Greak: Memories of Azur
BioShock: The Collection

• BioShock 2
  
• BioShock
  
• BioShock Infinite
  
• BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds
  
• BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1
  
• BioShock Infinite - Season Pass
  
• BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2
  
• BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den
  
• Bioshock Infinite: Columbia's Finest
  
• BioShock 2 Remastered
  
• BioShock Remastered
  
• Minerva's Den Remastered
  
• Bioshock 2 Pre-order
  
• BioShock Infinite - Upgrade Pack
  
• BioShock Infinite - Comstock's China Broom Shotgun
  
• BioShock Infinite - Comstock's Bird's Eye Sniper Rifle
  
• BioShock Infinite - Industrial Revolution Rewards Pack
  
• Bioshock Infinite - Industrial Revolution
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX CE Upgrade Pack
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Industrial Revolution
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX China Broom
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Birds Eye
  
• BioShock Infinite - OSX Season Pass
  

Just Cause 4 Complete Edition

• Just Cause 4
  
• Just Cause 4: Digital Deluxe Content
  
• Just Cause 4: Golden Gear Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Expansion Pass
  
• Just Cause™ 4: Deathstalker Scorpion Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Renegade Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Neon Racer Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: The Dragon
  
• Just Cause 4: Dare Devils of Destruction
  
• Just Cause 4: Los Demonios
  
• Just Cause 4: Toy Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Soaring Speed Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Adversary Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Danger Rising
  
• Just Cause 4: Sea Dogs Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4 : Shark & Bark Vehicle Pack
  
• Just Cause 4: Brawler Mech
  

Finding Paradise
Ultra Street Fighter IV
Duskers
Red Solstice 2: Survivors
Minoria
Roboquest
Sunless Sea
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
Resident Evil Revelations
Call of the Sea
Blade Assault
I Am Fish
Nobodies
If Found
ATOM RPG Trudograd
PLANET ALPHA
Crown Trick
Raw Data
Pathway
SUPERHOT
Hammerting
OlliOlli World Rad Edition

• OlliOlli World
  
• OlliOlli World "Close Encounter Skate Deck"
  
• OlliOlli World Expansion Pass
  
• OlliOlli World: VOID Riders
  
• OlliOlli World: Finding the Flowzone
  

Project Warlock
Hokko Life
Save Room - Organization Puzzle
In Sound Mind
Paradise Killer
Police Stories
HITMAN: Game of the Year Edition

• HITMAN
  
• HITMAN: Episode 2 - Sapienza
  
• HITMAN: Episode 3 - Marrakesh
  
• HITMAN: Episode 4 - Bangkok
  
• HITMAN: Episode 5 - Colorado
  
• HITMAN: Episode 6 - Hokkaido
  
• HITMAN - Bonus Episode
  
• HITMAN: Episode 1 - Paris
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Suit Pack
  
• HITMAN - Bonus Campaign Patient Zero
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Clown Suit
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Raven Suit
  
• HITMAN - GOTY Cowboy Suit
  

Omno
Killsquad
Astronarch
The Serpent Rogue
XCOM: ULTIMATE COLLECTION

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown
  
• XCOM: Enemy Within
  
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown Elite Soldier Pack
  
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown: Slingshot DLC
  
• XCOM 2
  
• XCOM 2: Reinforcement Pack
  
• XCOM 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
  
• XCOM 2: Anarchy's Children
  
• XCOM 2: Alien Hunters
  
• XCOM 2: Shen's Last Gift
  
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
  
• X-Com: Enemy Unknown Pre-Purchase
  
• Elite Soldier Pack
  
• XCOM 2 Development Tools
  
• XCOM 2 War of the Chosen Development Tools
  
• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen - Tactical Legacy Pack
  
• XCOM: Chimera Squad
  
• XCOM: Chimera Squad Development Tools
  

Legend of Keepers
Torchlight II
Due Process
Suzerain
Necronator: Dead Wrong
Before We Leave
Not Tonight
First Class Trouble
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Shu
Everhood
Rebel Cops
Railroad Corporation
Bee Simulator
Hob
Tools Up!
Mind Scanners
Lacuna
CROSSBOW: Bloodnight
Beyond The Wire
Sundered: Eldritch Edition
John Wick Hex
PGA TOUR 2K21
Lumini
Nebuchadnezzar
Mad Experiments: Escape Room
Backbone
RAD
Orcs Must Die! 2
Voidigo
As Far As The Eye
Pawnbarian
Truberbrook
Black Future '88
Supraland
Ittle Dew
Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Pirates of the Sword Coast
Five Dates
Undead Horde
X Rebirth
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
Conan Chop Chop
ELDERBORN
Farmer's Dynasty
Nowhere Prophet
Boundless
Orcs Must Die 2 - Complete Pack

• Orcs Must Die! 2
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Are We There Yeti?
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Family Ties Booster Pack
  
• Orcs Must Die! 2 - Fire and Water Booster Pack
  

Kill It With Fire
TOHU
Nex Machina
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE
AI War 2
8Doors: Arum's Afterlife Adventure
Embr
Tooth and Tail
Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek
Jurassic World Evolution - Deluxe DLC
Electronauts
Ring of Pain
Post Void
Blue Fire
In Other Waters
At Eve's Wake
Cosmonautica
Hoplegs
Super Magbot
shapez
Tower of Time
Retrowave
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Battlewake
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Here Be Dragons
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Fan Edition
Pizza Connection 3
Sprint Vector
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Tyranny - Deluxe Edition

• Tyranny
  
• Tyranny - Overlord Edition Upgrade Pack
  
• Tyranny - Official Soundtrack Deluxe Edition
  
• Tyranny - Ringtones
  
• Tyranny - Wallpapers
  
• Tyranny - Digital Collector's Guide Book
  
• Tyranny - Original Soundtrack
  
• Tyranny - Digital Art Book
  
• Tyranny - Digital Short Story Collection
  
• Tyranny - Faction Banners
  
• Tyranny - Digital Game Map
  
• paradox dummy app sub/133812
  

Cannibal Cuisine
Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor
Railway Empire
Midnight Protocol
Tales of the Tiny Planet
Emily is Away <3
The Doctor Who Cloned Me
The Lovable Rogues Pack
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Rustler
Unexplored
Hard Reset Redux
Shing!
Neon Chrome
FRAMED Collection
EarthX
Paradise Lost
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever: Hail to the Icons Parody Pack
Epic Chef
Out of Space
Syberia 3
Surviving Mars
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
CivCity: Rome
Baby Dino Adventures
XCOM 2: Reinforcement Pack
Hero Defense
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS - Ultimate Brawlers Pass
TaniNani
West of Dead
Möbius Front '83
Calico
Tacoma
The Way
112 Operator
This War of Mine
Lust for Darkness
shapez - Puzzle DLC
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
F1 2018
Evoland Legendary Edition
Aviary Attorney
Treasure Temples
Journey For Elysium
Levelhead
Golf Gang
The Walking Dead Onslaught Deluxe Edition

• The Walking Dead Onslaught
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - OST
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - Art Book
  
• The Walking Dead Onslaught - Deluxe Bonuses
  

Army Men RTS
BATTLETECH - Shadow Hawk Pack
State of Mind
Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King
Explosionade
Deadly Days
Fling to the Finish
GRIP: Combat Racing
Desolate
ibb & obb - Best Friends Forever Double Pack

• ibb & obb

Radio Commander
XCOM 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Evan's Remains
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
Effie
Paw Paw Paw
Iron Danger
The Amazing American Circus
GARAGE: Bad Trip
Railroad Tycoon 2: Platinum
AWAKE - Definitive Edition
Swag and Sorcery
Popup Dungeon
The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!
Between the Stars
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
Amnesia Collection

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  
• Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
  

Tropico 4 Collector's Bundle

• Tropico 4
  
• Tropico 4: Modern Times
  
• Tropico 4: Apocalypse
  
• Tropico 4: Propaganda
  
• Tropico 4: The Academy
  
• Tropico 4 DLC Junta
  
• Tropico 4: Megalopolis
  
• Tropico 4: Pirate Heaven
  
• Tropico 4 Plantador DLC
  
• Tropico 4 DLC Quick-Dry-Cement
  
• Tropico 4: Vigilante
  
• Tropico 4: Voodoo
  

Sid Meier's Railroads!
Star Vikings Forever
Syberia 3 Deluxe Edition with An Automaton with a plan DLC

• Syberia 3
  
• Syberia 3 - Deluxe Upgrade
  
• Syberia 3 - An Automaton with a plan
  

Fury Unleashed
Moon Hunters
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Torchlight
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Fallout
GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
Layers of Fear (2016)
Cygon Customisation Pack
Corridor Z
Family Man
Yoku's Island Express
Guppy
WARSAW
Crying Suns
System Shock: Enhanced Edition
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
Railroad Tycoon 3
Vintek Customisation Pack
Terra Customisation Pack
Retimed
Divekick
X-COM: Complete Pack

• X-COM: UFO Defense
  
• X-COM: Apocalypse
  
• X-COM: Enforcer
  
• X-COM: Interceptor
  
• X-COM: Terror from the Deep
  

Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Deluxiest Edition

• Knights of Pen and Paper 2
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Here Be Dragons
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Digital Art Book
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Soundtrack
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - Epic Mount
  
• Knights of Pen and Paper 2 - DDE Location
  
• paradox dummy app sub/99331
  

ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove
1993 Space Machine
911 Operator
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack

• X-Morph: Defense
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Soundtrack
  
• X-Morph: Defense - European Assault
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest
  
• X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion
  

Golf With Your Friends - OST
Chroma Squad
Click and Slay
Marooners
Guts and Glory
Driftland: The Magic Revival
Valhalla Hills
Jagged Alliance 2 - Wildfire
Blackguards
Broken Age
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Hiveswap Friendsim
Beholder
Monaco
Soulblight
Telefrag VR
Ruins to Rumble
AI War: Fleet Command
Last Resort Island
Draw Slasher
Boreal Blade
Crash Drive 2
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Drawful 2
Orbital Racer
Oh My Gore!
A New Beginning - Final Cut
Patrician IV: Steam Special Edition
GameGuru Classic
Slinger VR
TRAUMA
Earth 2160
GOG
Wanderlust Travel Stories

Demographics
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Asian
Residence: International (Korean studying in England)
Income Bracket: 200k+
Type of School: British Private International
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
​
Academics
A-levels: Maths (Took in Year 12 and retaking. Just to let you know British education is 13 years), CS, Chemistry (+ EPQ). Predicted A*A* A* (+ A*)
AS levels (max A): CS A, Chem A
IGCSE(A*-U): Maths, Additional Maths, Chem, English as Second language, Bio, Physics - A*s except for the last two, which are As
GCSE(9-U): Business Studies, Psychology - 9s
​
Standardized Testing
SAT: 1500 (Math 800 English 700)
Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):
IELTS overall 8.0 (Listening 9.0, Reading 8.0, Writing 7.0, Speaking 7.5) but I don't think this really affected me in any way since it should be expired by the time I am enrolling
Duolingo overall 145 (Literacy 155, Comprehension 150, Conversation 130, Production 140) - took this because my IELTS was invalid
​
Extracurriculars/Activities
(From here I will write the grades converted to the US system)
#1 Young Business Enterprise - student programme that students form a group and run their own company. Won regional runner-up. (Year 10)
#2 School Glee Club, but more like singing and dancing for school events such as Halloween and Christmas. (Year 11-12)
#3 Volunteered over Zoom to help Ukrainian students improve their English speaking. Had two students doing weekly. (Year 10-11)
#4 Regional volunteering centre that pairs up with a student with disability to become buddies. Went over to her house weekly and helped her and became her buddy. (Year 11)
#5 Internship(non-paid) at an online shopping mall (well-known in the Pan Asian area) over the summer for about a week. Technology department. (Year 11)
#6 Head of IT for a school club that produces blog posts, podcasts and Instagram posts for topics that we are interested in. (Year 11-12)
#7 Ritangle competition. Maths competition that students form a team and solve maths problems weekly during the competition period, and the team that solves the last challenge will be considered for an award. Was the leader for this, and we reached the last stage. (Year 11, but did same thing in Year 10 too)
#8 Charity activity/competition. Find ways to get funding and we donate the profit to the organisation. Was leader for this, and we won winner - entrepreneurship. (Year 11)
#9 School club run for charity for mental health. Creates podcasts and runs fundraising events. Edited podcasts and was an active member. (Year 11)
#10 School club that produces articles every month/two months on your own, in a topic that you are interested in. Articles go up on the club's dedicated website. (Year 10-12)
#11 MUN held nationally by a high school. (Year 10)
#12 MUN held nationally by the University of Oxford (Year 10)
#13 Global Space Design Challenge. Leader of a team consisting of about 25-30 students and created a design of a living craft to be used to settle people on Venus.
#14 UK Space Design Challenge. Created a video to explain our design of a spacecraft. (Year 10). I was invited by the school to participate in the regional heat. (Year 11)
#15 Mock Trial Club (back in my home country, Year 9)
#16 Debating Club (Year 11)
(these are written based on my UC application. It was very similar to Common App too)
​
Awards/Honors
#1 British Maths Olympiad Round 1 Certificate of Participation - Can participate if you rank in Top 1000 nationally
#2 UKMT Senior Maths Challenge - Gold * 2 (Year 11 and 12. The one that I got during Year 11 qualified me for the olympiad I mentioned above, scoring 115/125), Silver * 1 (Year 10)
#3 National Cipher Challenge. Each week we solve a cipher and earn points. We were 3rd place nationally.
#4 School award - most merit points. One person per year group gets it but for that year, I had the most amongst the school. (Year 10)
​
Letters of Recommendation
Counselor: Our head of education. I don't really have a lot of personal connections with her but I think she should have wrote it nicely and well. (7-8/10).But for my mid-year report, I think it was quite messed up due to hard exams + high in-school grade boundaries. She also converted A-level grades to GPA, which I don't even know how she did it and why she did it. Hence I think the GPA must have been lower than what I should be getting if they were put as A-level grades. I am assuming this and the mid-year report might have done something like acceptance -> waitlist or waitlist -> rejection. This happened to someone in our school.
Teacher 1: My maths teacher. He is a very professional, friendly, nice and just a fantastic teacher. One of the best teachers I've ever seen. I do well in his class and I had some sessions with him for my UK application before I started my maths lessons, so I assume I am pretty close to him and he is really nice to me as well. (10/10)
Teacher 2: My English teacher for my GCSE year and my EPQ teacher. She is a lovely person in general. I wouldn't say I am particularly close to her but she is really kind and she was happy to write a recommendation when I asked her. (8-9/10)
Other: CS professor back in my home country. I had personal sessions with him to get introduced to projects that are done in his university (and led by him), had a chance to evaluate these and wrote my own code based on this. He knows me quite well and he is a very nice person as well, and also very professional. (9-10/10)
​
Interviews
UPenn - alumni interview. It was more of a session to learn more about UPenn and the interviewer to learn more about me. The interviewer was really really nice and chill too. I just enjoyed the time speaking to him, he was just amazing.
Cornell - alumni. This is just to ask questions about Cornell. More of a Q&A than the UPenn one. Again, the interviewer was so nice and lovely, and she was just amazing. Both of my interviews had really good interviewers.
​
Essays
The quality of the words or fluency was good in my opinion, but thinking back I think some essays that I wrote might have been too general. I literally didn't know how to write them properly, and I didn't have a lot of feedback until mid-December. So my U Washington Seattle essay was actually so bad (idek why I submitted it), and my UC essay was worse than my Common App essays in general.
For the personal statement essay, I wrote about my challenges and how I overcame them. I think this was a good essay in my opinion. Compared to my other essays, I think was not generic at all.
Honestly, I don't really know how to comment about essays since we do it in a different way in the UK and their writing styles are completely different. Hence I cannot comment too much about if this is a good essay or a bad essay, but overall I think some might have been too generic.
I tried to look into every aspect of their college websites and write stuff, but I don't know how many students do this.
​
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
I will separate these into US and non-US, as my 1st choice is not a US university.
​
US
Acceptances:
UC San Diego (RA) - Math + CS (second choice major) -> committed but second choice; see below
------ below this I applied because I was getting rejected from a lot of universities so I applied to those around like March because my parents were worried about me not getting into any uni ---------
Arizona State University (RA) - CS + $14,500 per term scholarship
University of Arizona (RA) - CS + $22,000 per year scholarship
University of Texas Dallas (RA) - CS
University of Utah (RA) - CS
Iowa State University (RA) - CS + $12,000 per year Presidential Scholarship + $2,000 per year LAS Excellence Scholarship
Oregon State University (RA) - CS + $12,000 per year Europe and Central Asia Award Scholarship, Offered Honors College (if admitted free, which is $1,500 per year)
University of Washington - Bothell (RA) - CS
University of Michigan - Flint (RA) - CS + $14,000 per year True Blue Scholarship (First-year Merit Scholarship)
University of Michigan - Dearborn (RA) - CS + $12,500 per year scholarship
Waitlists:
Georgia Tech (RA) - CS -> Rejected
NYU (RA) - Tandon CS -> Rejected (they are saying their process is not over yet, but their incoming first-year class is full and it is unlikely to change)
U Michigan - Ann Arbor (RA) - CS -> Waiting (but at this point, I think I'm rejected)
Rejections:
Carnegie Mellon University (RA) - CS
UC Berkeley (RA) - CS
Cornell University (RA) - CS
University of Washington - Seattle (RA) - CS
UCLA (RA) - CS
UIUC (RA) - CS
UPenn (RA) - CS
USC (RA) - CS
UC Irvine (RA) - CS
University of Washington - Tacoma (RA) - CS
​
Non-US
Acceptances:
University College London, United Kingdom - CS(G400) -> firm choice and 1st choice (conditional offer A* A* A, A* required in maths)
The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom - CS(G401) -> declined (conditional offer 3A*)
The University of Waterloo, Canada - Math Co-op
​
Rejections:
Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea- CS
King's College London, United Kingdom - CS
University of Warwick, United Kingdom - CS
University of St Andrews, United Kingdom - CS
​
​
Considering I didn't know too much about how to write a good essay + our school didn't even give that much support for US applications + I didn't do a lot of stuff for ECs because I didn't know I would apply to the US, maybe it is not a bad outcome and expected outcome anyway.
But yeah, depending on whether I meet my conditions for UCL, I would end up either in London or San Diego.
What I learnt: well, CS is really tough, especially in the US, and especially as an international.
Hope everything goes well for everyone who reads this, and fingers crossed & good luck to those who have A-level exams remaining just like me :)

Need to continue the downsizing! Open to offers and sending more photos when requested. Prefer not to split the more complete sets. Thanks for looking!
Shipping is included in price.
Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/8rG1X9H
Will pack with care ship out on Saturday morning :)

Title	Volume	Price
Battle Royale Ultimate	1-4 more photos on request will split vol 4 for 250	$450
Kenshin Vizbig (complete)	1-9 *g4 *will not split	$385
Basilisk (complete)	1-5 **see photos of spine	$110
Golden Kamuy	1-15,20	$160
Hi Score Girl	1-6	$55
Kurohime (complete)	1-14	$160
JJK	0-12	$90
Wallflower	1-15, 22/23/24 *omnibus is creased heavy on front	$170
Nora (complete)	1-9	$65
Beauty Pop	1-7	$90
Battle Vixens	3-8, 10-15 + Battle Club 5	$80
Koike LWC	4-7,10,11,15,17,18,20-23,25,28**SEE PHOTOS FOR CONDITION	$60
Koike Samurai Executioner	Omnibus 2, Singles 4,6,9	$65
Love Mode	1-3	$20
Train +Train	1-5	$55
Midori Days	4,5,6	$21
Ajin	1-4	$30
Kagerou Daze	1-4	$45
Undead Unluck	1-7	$50
DN Angel (complete Eng print)	1-13	$90
Gravitation + EX (complete)	1-12 + vol 1 of EX	$100
Vagabond	1	$55
Gantz	15, ex lib refurbished just lib stamp on top	$12
YuGiOh Duelist	1-5	$70
Knights of Zodiac/BTX Bundle	22, 24, 27 KZ 2, 10 BTX	$75
Excel Saga	11-13	$15
Prince of Tennis	1-21, 27	$165
Shonen Bundle 1	Soul Eater 1,2 SpyxFam 1,2 MHA 1,2	$27
Initial D	2, 13, 14, 25	$82
Dragon Drive	1, 4, 5	$15
Misc Bundle	Giant Spider and Me 2,3 Bleach 26,46 MHA 18, Tegami Bachi 3	$28
Rave Master	1 ,2 ,5, 6, 7	$30

​

Wk 14 covers match day 15 and does not include midweek games on May 31st. Freeborg Power Index will be dropped next week if there is no update from that list. Methdology, sites used and bias as well as link to full data is in the source article.

Wk 13 Pos	Wk 14 Pos	Team	Wk 13 avg	Wk 14 avg	St. Dev	2023 Avg	Wk Best	Wk Worst
1	1	Los Angeles (FC)	1.21	1.47	0.51	1.4	1	2
2	2	Cincinnati	1.93	1.87	1.7	4.07	1	8
3	3	Nashville	3.79	3.47	0.94	6.55	1	5
5	4	Philadelphia	5.21	4.6	1.77	8.48	2	8
6	5	St. Louis	5.93	4.93	1.98	19.75	2	10
7	6	Seattle	6.86	6.4	2.03	4.57	4	12
4	7	New England	5.07	6.47	1.7	5.91	4	9
8	8	Dallas	8.71	8.73	2.52	10.93	6	16
10	9	Atlanta	9.5	9.2	4.42	8.23	6	26
9	10	Columbus	9	11.33	3.84	10.81	5	18
11	11	Orlando	13.43	13	3.25	14.75	9	21
14	12	San Jose	14.07	13.2	3.3	15.25	10	23
16	13	Minnesota	14.93	15.13	3.97	12.85	10	27
13	14	New York City	13.86	15.6	4.93	11.17	7	24
14	14	Vancouver	14.07	15.6	3.89	18.75	8	22
12	16	D.C.	13.71	15.87	4.77	20.84	9	28
19	17	Houston	18.79	15.93	4.39	18.65	9	23
21	18	Charlotte	20.36	17.93	4.36	23.76	10	24
17	19	New York (RB)	18.14	18.6	5.06	17.32	7	26
22	20	Chicago	21.14	19.2	4.31	20.3	12	29
24	21	Montreal	22.79	20.4	5.87	22.68	4	29
18	22	Portland	18.29	21.2	3.76	19.19	11	26
20	23	Austin	19.71	21.33	3.8	17.51	13	27
26	24	Toronto	24.86	23.53	4.59	19.75	13	29
25	25	Salt Lake	24.29	23.6	4.11	22.4	12	28
28	26	Kansas City	27.14	24.53	2.74	24.25	19	29
23	27	Miami	22.21	25.07	2.09	19.28	21	28
27	28	Colorado	26.86	27.6	2.57	24.56	18	29
29	29	Los Angeles (Gal)	27.36	28.13	1.71	21.58	24	29

• Highest Standard Deviation: CF Montreal 5.87
• Lowest Standard Deviation: Los Angeles FC 0.51
• Biggest Rise: Charlotte, Minnesota, Montreal up 3
• Biggest Fall: D.C., Miami, Portland down 4

*** If we have had a positive trade before or you would like to see more of my free raffles please up vote and/or share this post for me. Your support means a great deal to me! **\*
If using venmo or cashapp NO NOTES, Emojis only, or I will refund the amount.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/PouDDbu
​
**All .999 coins have been tested with my sigma and weight confirmed.*\*
40 BU 1oz private mint Salmon rounds (2004). Front / back in picture. Sequential serials, $29 ea
​
Buy any amount of Junk! ( $1.40 FV (face value) of 90% equals ~1.0 Toz of pure silver )
All junk is in average circulation condition unless otherwise specified.
Up to 400 Washy (Washington) quarters (90% silver): $5.50 ea
Up to 500 Rosie (Roosevelt) dimes (90% silver): $2.25 ea
Up to 90 JFK 1964 halves (90% silver): $12.00 ea
Up to 300 Merc dimes (90% silver): $2.40 ea
​
40% and 35% Junk
Up to 150 (40% silver) Kennedy halves: $3.75 ea ( 7 = ~1.03 Toz of pure silver in fractional units )
Up to 1500 (35% silver) war nickles: $1.45 ea ( 18 = ~1.0127 Toz of silver )
​
Honduras 90% silver (years 1931-1959) average circulation. Made by the US Mint.
I am pricing these 25% or more below recent feebay sales.
10 total, 90% Lempira: $16 ea ( ~ same size and weight and silver content to a 90% US half dollar )
10 total, 90% 50 Centavos: $8 ea ( ~ same size and weight and silver content to a 90% US quarter )
30 total, 90% 20 Centavos: $4 ea ( ~ same size and weight and silver content to a 90% US dime )
​
Use the link below to message me:
https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=jmcsys&subject=&message
********************************************************************************\*
Payment and Shipping information:
Prices are only accurate for the first 48 hours of posting and subject to change with the spot price. If the post is more than 48 hours old message me first to confirm the price.
I can accept Crypto, Zelle, Venmo (between friends) or Cash App no notes or memos. Emojis only if you must put something.
For crypto payments if not sending a stable coin you must send enough o that once I have received the crypto and can convert it to a stable coin the value equals or exceeds the agreed purchase price. Therefore I recommend sending ~3% over the purchase price.
I have no problem using a Middleman and prefer to use ShadyApp since we are in the same state and I have done deals with him before.
Shipping is $7 tracked for up to 12 oz and at cost for any amount above within lower 48. For shipping to Alaska, Hawaii, APO, or US territories I will have to specifically determine the rate which will be at cost.
Shipping is $10.50 tracked priority mail flat rate for over 12 oz and at cost for any amount above within lower 48. For shipping to Alaska, Hawaii, APO, or US territories I will have to specifically determine the rate which will be at cost.
I can ship anything less than $30 in value, less than 3 oz in weight, and not too bulky in a stamped envelope for $2, however there will be no tracking, aka risky shipping.
Please note that anything in a 2x2 may be taped over for risky shipped. With USPS experiencing historic delays and a plethora of other issues, I will not ship out of the country without tracking.
Once I deposit packages in a USPS receptacle, you are at the mercy of USPS and as they are in responsible charge of the delivery, you should take up any issues with USPS.
Insurance(https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c191), Signature Confirmation, or upgraded shipping available at buyers request/expenseI ship fast and pack the items securely.
I pride myself on my packaging and will do my part to make sure the package and its contents will arrive safely.
I try to be the type of seller that I would like to buy from!
Feel free to check my feedback or get a reference from those I have sold to in the past.
********************************************************************************\*
Disclaimers:
I cannot be responsible for delivery after the package has left my possession. I will do my part to make sure the package and its contents will arrive safely but once I hand off the package all responsibility for delivery is between the buyer and USPS. I have never had a package go missing but if it happens I will do everything I can to assist you in your claim. I take photos of the items, the shipping label, and the package before I send it and will always keep the receipt from when I hand it off.
I am not a professional coin grader. Use pictures and/or video to judge for yourself. If the condition is a concern I will upload more videos/photos of any coin listed so you can fully inspect it prior to any money changing hands. I want you to know exactly what you are getting for your collection so there are no misunderstandings. I would rather take the time to make sure you will be happy with your purchase than rush into a sale.
Please no time wasters. I do not guarantee that I will answer PMs in the order received. I will answer them in whatever order I see fit which may be out of order. If I don’t get timely responses or timely payment, I will sell the coins/notes to the next interested party. Reasonable offers are welcome, but I don’t have much room, if any, to negotiate on smaller purchases. Offers of spot will not be tolerated. If I want to sell it at spot, it will be listed as such.
********************************************************************************\*

Hey all
I'm here to just rant and maybe get advice? 👀
I (25 M) started dating this girl (23 F) back in March of this year (the 4th to be exact) and I was going to a residential treatment center for drug use and mental health. She knew this and we said that we weren't going to jump into anything until I got back out.
However, we didn't realize how made for eachother we are. We started hanging out a few times a week, she lives an hour and a half away (same state). We talked whenever she was available, before work, on breaks, after work, and after she had dinner with her family, etc. There was one day when we were spending the day together before I left where were ended up telling eachother we loved eachother. This was almost a month later. I've been in a few relationships and casual shit, so I know how to separate the love from the lust from the chemicals lol. While I was away, I could only use the landline once a day for 15 minutes a day. Most of the time I called her, but sometimes I called family too. We sent eachother letters and drawings. She even printed out memes that she wanted to show me. In her own words, she was so down bad for me she was printing out memes like a boomer lol. She was also the only person that visited me while I was gone, which was 5 weeks long. I wrote her a song as well that I'm in the middle of fully producing. She was the one that picked me up afterwards too. Family was busy and I wanted to see her first anyways.
Anyways, the break up. Not even a week later, I made a snide comment that I shouldn't have. But, imo it wasn't really a big thing. It's just the way I talk and it kinda triggered some trauma in her (I said "whatever"). We got into this weird fight where I was trying to talk things through, having gotten out of Residential Care recently I had a bunch of new tools to stay calm in these kinds of situations. However, no matter what I said she was getting more and more upset (she has a condition where her SSRIs stop working when she's PMSing. It's called PMDS I think). She ended up breaking up with me that night and said we could talk about it in the morning. This was on a Thursday night. The next morning we video chatted, she had talked to her therapist that afternoon before the talk and explained the situation. She said that her therapist said she didn't sound like herself. That what happened that night was unusual and not like her basically, which I agree with I said the same thing. We agreed to be friends, take things super slowly (I have weird expectations of emotional sharing with my partner. I'm very open and used to people also being very open. But she has trouble opening up to people emotionally, which I'm not used to but I totally understand). We talked some that day and then on Saturday we agreed to meet up on Sunday. Somewhere in between both our locations, which happened to be a mall. We walked and talked an were trying to see what the vibes were. She ended up holding my hand and then eventually kissing me. Again, we were taking things slow so we weren't having sex (which was mind blowing btw), we only would really kiss.
So, the week went pretty well after that. We had plans to hang out the following Saturday. But she was feeling off again. I had cleaned the whole house, my roommate left for the weekend so we could be alone if she decided to stay the night, and I was getting the whole place all romanticized lol. So I was really upset when she said she wasn't sure if she was coming down. She had cancelled all her plans for that day actually. At one point she was like "is it okay if I come down in a bit?" I said yes and she asked if she could wear her sweats, which I don't really care about so I said yes to that too. And she said she was leaving pretty soon and she'd let me know when she was headed out. She called me saying she wasn't going to be coming down or wasn't sure because her parents weren't comfortable with her driving in her condition. So I said, okay let me know as soon as you decide so I'm not waiting for you to show up or whatever. A few hours go bye, nothing. I was giving her space. She replied and I asked what she was doing. And she said she was watching a movie and drinking wine. Which kinda made me upset. 1. Because why the fuck didn't you tell me you had decided to stay? And 2. How are you gonna sit there and say that drinking alcohol the way she was feeling was a good idea? So I told her to e joy her fucking movie. She tried calling me to talk, cause I was obviously upset. But ignored it and said to enjoy her movie and getting drunk. I was heated and I didn't want to say anything. I honestly wanted to give her space to feel better too, so I waited a few hours before trying to call to apologize and such.
I had bought alcohol for us to share that night. My recovery didn't involve alcohol and I never had an issue with it really. So I thought that'd be okay for me to do. But it wasn't. I drank a lot of wine (hypothetical I know) and tried calling her a few times to apologize. She didn't answer and she ended up texting me "stop calling me I'll text you when I want to" which got me really upset cause I was drunk, wanted to work it out, and it made me feel like we had to do things on her accord. Being drunk, I threatened to break up with her if she didn't get back to me soon. A little bit later she called and asked what I wanted to talk about. We got into a weird fight, and she broke up with me again. Before I hung up, I said "fuck you, you fucking bitch". I had never talked to anyone like that before (our last fight she had said fuck you to me, not that it makes it right for me to say it). I tried calling her back but she had blocked me right away, everywhere. Snap, phone, iMessage (I have an iPad). I've since decided to abstain from all substances besides caffeine. She made a playlist called "Finish Him" which is about how I was immature and how she doesn't need me, etc, etc. It's a fire playlist tbh.
She sent me the drawings I made SPECIFICALLY for her, a plushie I won't for her, and my beanie that she was wearing all the time back to me in a box. I was trying to respect her boundaries, but I ended up sending a letter in response apologizing, asking to work it out and rebuild trust, and if not that I'll respect her boundaries. She never replied, understandably. My friend is friends with one of her friends and they went out last weekend. He said she's still mad at me for what I said. That she was sitting at a table in the club talking to one of her friends, which is unusual because she loves to dance.
Oh and she is still updating that playlist to this day and it's slowly getting calmer. I was checking it a lot and yesterday I decided to block her on Spotify so I couldnt see it anymore and would stop checking. So I guess, no contact technically started yesterday?
I've been running two miles every day or so, meditating every day, going to IOP, and doing my classes online. I've been bettering myself. Which I was doing before we broke up.
I really miss her, but I know in my heart that we are meant to be. And if not sometimes soon, sometime in the future we'll for sure find eachother again. When we're both ready.
She's going to med school in long Island in July-ish, so I was looking forward to spending the summer with her before she left. Now idk what I'm gonna do besides homework lol
Anyways, I think that's about it. I might have left out some stuff because it's been a while.
We broke up officially on the 13th of May and I put the letter in the mailbox the 17th of May. Which I was counting as my no contact say. But I'm not sure anymore tbh.
Hmu with some comments and perspectives :)

This one's a bit of a yarn, sorry.
On the evening of June 30th, 2022, my dad came home from work to find my bedroom door shut tight. I let him in when he knocked, and he said, “Mom told me something happened today. Do you wanna talk about it?”
(I had been sitting on the couch with my mom when the video was uploaded, and needless to say she was pretty alarmed when I started sobbing in the middle of her Real Housewives episode. I tried to tell her what had happened, but I don’t think she fully understood other than that someone had died. I pretty much ran to my room and spent the afternoon watching Techno’s videos.)
I had held off on crying for the millionth time that day for an impressive 20 minutes or so, but as soon as I had to speak, it was over. “Yeah…” I began, and then just burst into tears. He sat on my bed with me and hugged me while I cried and explained everything. “I know it’s stupid, but I feel like I just lost a friend,” I said. He was quick to assure me it wasn’t stupid at all, and he remembered feeling the same way when one of his favorite musicians passed a few years ago. Once I had calmed down, he asked me about Techno and he let me tell him everything: about Bedwars, about the Potato War, about the Dream SMP. I think it was the first time that day that I actually started to feel better. I'll never be able to thank him enough for that.
My dad and I have always connected through music. He introduced me to some of his favorite bands (and I did the same for him eventually) and took me to more concerts than I can count. I sometimes feel like the two of us can communicate with music better than we can with words. He's played in cover bands all my life and I've had the opportunity to perform with him quite a few times. It just so happened that the next day, July 1st, the country band he was a part of was playing a gig at a local winery with a slightly altered lineup. My dad, who was normally the guitarist and backup singer, would be singing lead, and I would fill in on backup vocals. With that in mind, my dad asked me if I wanted to sing something for Techno during an intermission. At the time I couldn't think of any song that I associated with him other than Pigstep, which as I'm sure you can imagine doesn't really translate well to country. So I said no.
Later that night, though, I told my friends about it, and one of them joked that I should sing Blitz. Coincidentally, my dad and I have done a lot of Taylor Swift songs together since they fit my range. We've been playing an acoustic arrangement of Blank Space at campfires and block parties pretty much since the song came out. I laughed it off, but the thought lingered.
The next day, the show was going well. I was having fun, even if I would have to excuse myself to go to the bathroom and cry during every break we took. After we had finished one of our sets, I thought about it again and made a split second decision. I walked up to my dad, who was on the side of the empty stage. “Can we play something? For Techno?”
No, I did not sing a Minecraft parody song to a crowd of middle-aged people at a winery. I'm not quite that brave. But I did sing Blank Space. I very nearly cried, but knowing my dad was right there with me, I pushed through. It's funny, I never thought a poppy love song would feel like a goodbye, but that was the moment that I felt like I could maybe start moving on. Not from Techno, obviously, but from the grief. Like I could look back with fondness rather than sadness. Like the high was worth the pain. Of course it couldn't happen all at once, but it was the start of a long, long road to coming to terms with all this.
I have permission from my dad to share this video. Please be mindful of the fact that the channel it is uploaded to is his, not mine, and will not be producing any further Technoblade-related content. In defense of the less-than-stellar vocal performance, I was choked up the entire time and it was a little cold outside that day. Please be kind.
Happy birthday, Techno. I miss you every day.
To everyone else, if you are willing and able, hug your dad today. If one or both of these conditions do not apply to you, virtual hugs may be directed to Mr. Technodad, with his consent of course.
https://youtu.be/txupIv_Gf-c

The consistent dmg and cleave is just way too high right now, and I think a lot of it is because of starbursts. Not only do they disrupt with knockups, but they do 50-70k dmg and generate 15 AP for the boomy, generating even more starfalls and more starbursts. This positive feedback loop of pressure is a win condition on its own, especially when dampening gets high and becomes unhealable.
So here are my balance suggestions.

1. Put the knockup on DR. After 3 knocks, you're immune for 20 secs.
   
2. Reduce the dmg by a solid 25-50%.
   
3. reduce AP generation to 5 or 10 from 15.
   
4. reduce the spawn rate by 25-30% so they dont end up literally everywhere and become impossible to dodge or play around.
   

I think the single target boomkin builds are pretty balanced, maybe just a tad too bursty, but its comparable to the other top caster specs like destro/fire/frost/etc.
Another needed nerf is to owlkin adept and fast clones. With the new gear this season, boomkins are nearing 30% haste, and that combined with owlkin, makes these clones near instant cast. It should be 15%, stacking twice, instead of 30%. Clones will still be hella fast, but kickable. Right now its basically impossible to land a kick with 2 stacks of owlkin on top of the extra haste from gear.
Anyone got other nerf suggestions? I want to keep boomy viable and strong, and gutting starbursts wont kill the spec in the slightest.

Hey everyone, I’m a career firefighter. I’ve been running a CrossFit program from Josh Bridges first responders/military over the last 12 weeks, but I’m looking to switch it up and run 5/3/1. It’s important to be strong, but it’s just as important to have a good cardio/conditioning base and be able to put out for 15-20 minutes at a time or more.
I’m looking to run a 4 day program with 1 main lift for 531 then do the 5x5 for FSL as supplemental. For assistance work I plan on doing a push movement for 50-100 reps, a pull movement for 50-100 reps and single leg/core for 25-50 reps. Yesterday, for example I did Strict Press 531, then 5x5 FSL. For my assistance I did 80 pull-ups, 80 dips and 50 hanging leg raises.
Is it ok to alternate between doing assistance work as a CrossFit style/fireground circuit a few times a week and also in the gym? So for example today im on shift, so I’ll Squat for my 5/3/1, do 5x5 FSL Squat then for my assistance I’d like to go to the training ground and do something sort of like 20 minutes of 10 pull-ups, 10 tire flips, 20 push-ups, 50 ft 180lb dummy drag, 100 ft 50lb dumbell farmers carry. Will probably go through about 5-6 rounds then walk some stairs for 15 minutes or so

Real Racing 3 - Radical

Take on the unbelievable Radical SR10 XXR, hit the track in the Lotus Emira, and charge into a new season of Formula E!

New Cars

Car	Performance Rating	Cost
Radical SR10 XXR	91.0 -> 101.0	M$2,800,000
Formula E Gen3 Championship Car	57.3 -> 74.9	M$2,250,000
Lotus Emira	51.3 -> 73.2	600 Gold

Round 7 Begins

This update marks the beginning of ROUND 7, bringing new cars, events, and prizes to earn by collecting VP!
SEASON 2 - ROUND 7
Start date: 6 Jun 2023
Last day to start events in this round (without owning the car in the event): 17 Jul 2023
Grand Prize: Porsche 909 Bergspyder
Alt Reward: 100 Gold

Old Rounds Are Expiring

Your time is running out to complete the third Round of Season 2! The following Round is going to be disappearing from the game soon:
ROUND 3 - 1 August 2023
Once a Round has expired you will not be able to start any new events within it, nor finish any in progress events if the window for earning the primary reward has expired. Any rewards in the Round that you have earned enough VP to collect, but have not yet claimed, will be automatically given to you when the Round expires.
If you missed out on the Grand Prize car for a Round that’s expired, don’t worry! These cars will appear again in future Rounds.

New Special Events

All Special Events will be available to start from their unlock date, until the Round ends on 17 July 2023.
Track Day: Radical SR10 XXR
Start Date: 5 June 2023
Duration: 5 days
Rewards: Radical SR10 XXR, M$300,000, 100 Gold, 6,500VP
Maximum Required PR: 98.6

Flashback Special Events

The following Special Events will also be a part of Round 7:
Reign Supreme
Start Date: 10 June 2023
Duration: 9 days
Rewards: Koenigsegg REGERA, 105 Gold, R$100,000, 5,000VP
Alternate Rewards : 25 Gold, 5,000VP
​
Track Day: McLaren Senna
Start Date: 8 July 2023
Duration: 5 days
Rewards: McLaren Senna, 100 Gold, R$150,000, 3,250VP
Alternate Rewards : 40 Gold, R$50,000, 3,250VP
Maximum Required PR: 79.7

New Limited Time Events

Ferrari 296 GTB TTC
Cars: Ferrari 296 GTB
Rewards: Gold and 1,000 VP for participating
Start Date: 13 June 2023
End Date: 26 June 2023
​
Formula E Season 9—Road To Berlin
Rewards: Formula E Gen3 Championship Car, 80 Gold, M$250,000, 5,250VP
Start Date: 18 June 2023
Duration: 7 days
Maximum Required PR: 70.8
​
Lamborghini Huracán Limited Series
Rewards: Lamborghini HURACÁN LP 610-4, 40 Gold, R$100,000, 5,200VP
Start Date: 25 June 2023
Duration: 7 days
Maximum Required PR: 63.9
​
Lotus Emira Limited Series
Rewards: Lotus Emira, 50 Gold, R$120,000, 5,250VP
Start Date: 1 July 2023
Duration: 7 days
Maximum Required PR: 68.0
​
Formula E TTC
Cars: Formula E Gen3 Championship Car
Rewards: Gold and 1,000 VP for participating
Start Date: 4 July 2023
End Date: 17 July 2023
​
Ferrari F14 T Limited Series
Rewards: Ferrari F14 T, 140 Gold, R$200,000, 5,250VP
Start Date: 12 July 2023
Duration: 7 days
Maximum Required PR: 122.3

New Bonus Series

Season 9 (2022-23)
Cars: Formula E Gen3 Championship Car
Rewards: 67 Gold, M$67,000
Location: FORMULA E
Unlocks from: Unlock the Formula E Gen3 Championship Car
Maximum Required PR: 73.3
​
Style from the Isles
Cars: Jaguar F-Type SVR,McLaren 12C Spider,Lotus Emira
Rewards: 67 Gold, R$67,000
Location: SEASON 2
Unlocks from: Unlock the Lotus Emira
Maximum Required PR: 71.1
​
The Radical SR10 Cup
Cars: Radical SR10 XXR
Rewards: 77 Gold, M$77,000
Location: ENDURANCE GT RACING
Unlocks from: Unlock the Radical SR10
Maximum Required PR: 99.9

Exclusive Series

Car	Rewards
Ferrari Monza SP1	130 Gold, R$280,000
Aston Martin V12 Speedster	130 Gold, R$200,000

Weekly Time Trial Schedule

Note that you’ll be able to earn 1,000 VP for each WTT you participate in.

Week	Start Date	End Date	Cars
1	June 5, 2023	June 12, 2023	McLaren Senna GTR (loaned) Hennessey Venom F5, Aston Martin Valkyrie
2	June 13, 2023	June 19, 2023	Mazda Furai (loaned), Koenigsegg Agera R, Pagani Huayra R
3	June 20, 2023	June 26, 2023	Aston Martin Vanquish (loaned), Aston Martin Vantage 59, Aston Martin V12 Speedster
4	June 27, 2023	July 3, 2023	Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 (Racing) (loaned), Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport (loaned), Ferrari 250 GTO (loaned)
5	July 4, 2023	July 10, 2023	Ferrari Daytona SP3 (loaned), Ferrari SF90 Stradale, Bugatti La Voiture Noire
6	July 11, 2023	July 17, 2023	Lexus IS F (2013) (loaned), NISSAN Skyline GT-R (R34) R3 Spec, Acura NSX (2017)

Online Multiplayer Schedule

​

Week	Start Date	End Date	Cars
1	June 5, 2023	June 12, 2023	Bugatti EB 110 Super Sport (loaned), Porsche 911 GT1 Straßenversion, McLaren F1
2	June 13, 2023	June 19, 2023	Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 (2013) (loaned), Bentley Continental GT Speed (2013), Ferrari 458 Italia
3	June 20, 2023	June 26, 2023	Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 (1972) (loaned), Lamborghini Miura, BMW M1
4	June 27, 2023	July 3, 2023	Ford Mustang GT Premium (loaned), Ferrari 360 Modena, Porsche Boxster GTS
5	July 4, 2023	July 10, 2023	Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (loaned), Chevrolet CORVETTE STINGRAY Z51, Aston Martin V12 Vantage (2022)
6	July 11, 2023	July 17, 2023	Porsche Cayman GT4 (loaned), Porsche 911 GT2 (2003), Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS

The Radical update will be available to download on 6 June, 2023.

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

GO Battle League Season 15 is upon us, and along with it, our now-customary move rebalance! What's new, what's improved, what's good, bad, or ugly coming out the other side? Let's dive right in and see!
As per usual, Niantic has made us wait until the 11th hour for information on this coming season. (Thanks, Niantic... love you too! 😝) As is NOT usual for them of late, the rebalance taking place at the start of this new GBL season is massive, with no less than thirty three Pokémon being directly affected. Needless to say, this is going to be a lengthy analysis, so let's just dive right into it, shall we?

A FAIR WIND, OR GALE FORCE WINDS?

It might seem odd to lead off with a move given to only two new recipients, but CLEFABLE is no ordinary recipient. It has faded further and further into obscurity over time as other Fairies have risen up around it, having dropped out of the Top 5 Fairies in Ultra League and almost out of the Top 10 in Great League. It's still decently bulky, and still comes with the awesome Meteor Mash, which is not only cheaper than most charge moves found on various Charmers (that don't rhyme with "Aloe Van Pine Nails"), but is very widely unresisted and, critically in themed Cups where Clefable is eligible, super effective versus fellow Fairies, often delivering a knockout blow. The problem, of course, is that like other Charmers, you're unlikely to reach it in multiples, since Charm only generates a way below average 2.0 Energy Per Turn (EPT), tied for worst energy generation in the game. It also has Psychic for coverage, or Moonblast for big STAB damage, but the likelihood of reaching any of those in a critical spot is rather low since Charm is just SO slow to get there. So it has sat, languishing, as other interesting Charmers have come along and is now, at best, just part of a growing pack of similiar Pokémon.
That ALL changes with the addition of Fairy Wind and its 4.5 EPT. Not only does this allow it to finally break away from the pack and make its own unique mark, but it works REALLY well with its moves. Spamming a Meteor Mash every 6 seconds (or thanks to carryover energy, just 5 seconds between the second and third Mash) sounds pretty good to me! And indeed, as compared to Charm, you can see immediate improvement in Great League, with new wins against Noctowl (!!!), Azumarill, Froslass, Diggersby, Alolan Ninetales, and somehow even Fairy slayer Shadow Victreebel by slamming it with two Meteor Mashes. Even after all that, though, it remains underwater overall as far as win/loss record goes, though beating Medicham and Noctowl and all else that you'd expect of a good Fairy give it some great corebreaking potential.
For the eye-popping numbers, we actually turn to Ultra League, where Clef turns from this into this. Yes, that IS more than double its former win total (and a jump from under 30% winrate to now 60%!), with those new wins coming versus Walrein, A-Ninetales, Sylveon, Aurorus, Cobalion, Dubwool, Snorlax, Drapion, DDeoxys, and even resists-all-of-Clefable's-moves Escavalier! And if its relatively high XL cost is scaring you, fear not... you can build a hundo to 2499 CP and miss out only on Walrein and Greedent, for what that's worth. Put simply, Clefable is one of the biggest winners in this rebalance, moving from a previous rank of #145 in Open UL all the way up now to #28, with Tapu Fini being the only Fairy ranked higher!

• More of a footnote is TOGETIC, which now also learns Fairy Wind, and boy did it need that. Previously having to rely on the mostly awful Hidden Power (in which case you usually had to hope to get lucky with Flying type H.P.) or the subpar Extrasensory, it was left looking quite pitiful. But now, at least it could be spice in the right meta, maybe.
  
• WIGGLYTUFF did not get Fairy Wind, but it is receiving Disarming Voice, a move I've been wishing would be more widely distributed for years. A Fairy-type clone of moves like Psyshock, Magnet Bomb, and Foul Play, it's a more-than-passable move, and quietly the cheapest one that Fairy has available...15 less energy than Play Rough and Moonblast, and better Damage Per Energy {DPE} than the former. Anyway, seeing as Wigglytuff currently relies on Play Rough, Voice likely now slots in as its replacement for a little more shield pressure and new wins like Azumarill and Lickitung. The needle doesn't move too much, but the improvement is still appreciated!
  
• PRIMARINA also gets Voice, but it doesn't really help it... yet. Prima IS a little underrated in Master League, where its Water typing is much more help (resisting Ice, Fire, Water) than hindrance (very little Grass and Electric around to exploit it). But it won't really take off until it also eventually gets Hydro Cannon... sometime in 2025? At that point, it will appreciate having cheap Disarming Voice alongside Cannon more, I think.
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Fairy Wind Clefable is one of those rather rare overnight sensations that could see an immediate usage spike in Ultra League and as a nice corebreaker in Great League (the pickup against Noctowl really pushing it over the top). It really appreciates the extra energy to spam charge moves, and has just enough variety between Meteor Mash, Psychic (the move!), and Moonblast to keep the opponent guessing and shielding when they really don't want to. The other Fairies with new toys (Togetic and Wigglytuff especially) appreciate small bumps in performance, but are unlikely to suddenly appear where they weren't already.

DRILL RUNNIN' 🔥

As with Fairy Wind, there are only two new recipients of Drill Run, but both are very interesting.
We'll start with ALOLAN SANDSLASH. It sees some play already in both Great (including the Shadow variant and Ultra Leagues, usually with former Community Day move Shadow Claw to give it a unique profile, and spammy Ice Punch and typically Bulldoze for coverage. Bulldoze has excellent coverage (primarily versus Rocks, Steels, and Fires that give A-Slash a lot of trouble otherwise), but isn't a very good move (60 energy for only 80 damage). Drill Run is a strict upgrade, dealing the same 80 Ground-type damage for only 45 energy, a big savings.
Looking simply at simulation numbers, Drill Run doesn't seem to be a great improvement in Great or Ultra, with just occasional new wins popping up like UL Scizor or GL Alolan Marowak in certain shielding scenarios. But this goes beyond the numbers. Those who already use and love A-Slash will greatly appreciate the extra pressure that comes with Drill Run, as it can now be sprung for just 5 more energy than Ice Punch, making each shielding decision that much sweatier for the opponent. Even without STAB, Drill Run still deals quite a bit more damage than Ice Punch versus neutral targets, so this isn't just for strict coverage either. In every way, this makes Alolan Sandslash better, and better at covering its backside. I think players that don't already use A-Slash may come to better appreciate and respect it now too, and perhaps not just in Limited metas!
Perhaps even more interesting (and, frankly, unexpected) is DEWGONG, the poor WateIce type that has NEVER had a move rebalance other than taking its two best moves (Ice Shard and Icy Wind) away. Niantic has finally given it a LOT of love in this update, with Drill Run providing new coverage, and new move Liquidation finally giving it a viable Water move too. (Water Pulse and Aqua Jet are both terrible, folks... so much so that I've always recommended Blizzard as Dewgong's second move. For example, did you know that it tends to lose to Alolan Marowak with super effective Pulse but actually wins with resisted Blizzard?!) Anyway, I do think you want to definitely keep Icy Wind, so then your choice becomes Drill Run to have a shot at things like Froslass, Toxicroak, Lanturn (with Water Gun), and the aforementioned Alolan Marowak, or Liquidation to better outrace Skarmory and Alolan Ninetales? Either way, you get things like Azumarill and Dunsparce now, and still beat things that don't show in those sims like Swampert and Sableye by remaining fully commited to Icy Wind spam. And while you don't see a lot of new Rock or Steel or Fire wins popping up, Drill Run especially gives them all serious pause, forcing them to shield where they really never had to worry about it much before. (Because, again, Water Pulse is awful.)
So not really a great case for Liquidation here, but this is at least a way to transition into covering that move more fully next!
LONG STORY SHORT, both Dewgong and Alolan Sandslash immediately get better (and get better coverage) with Drill Run in the mix. I think it will be their preferred secondary/closing move going forward, and both will see a bump in play.

LIQUIDATION... GOING OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY?

So about that new move Liquidation. It's a good if not fantastic move, an exact clone of Crunch... same cost (45 energy), damage (70), and potential debuff (30% chance to reduce the opponent's Defense). Not game breaking, but very, very solid.
But the real question is... do any of the things that recieve it really want it, and if so, do any of them notably improve in PvP?
I'm gonna save you some time (and me some characters!) by immediately pushing many of its recipients right off the raft.

• I think CLOYSTER actually prefers to hold on to a big closer like Hydro Pump rather than Liquidation, preferring to soften things up with Icy Wind and then go in for the kill. Pass.
  
• Similarly, all of the following prefer to keep existing movesets: SAMUROTT (Hydro Cannon/Megahorn), CARRACOSTA (Body Slam/Surf), BEARTIC (Ice Punch/Aqua Tail), EELEKTROSS (Dragon Claw/Crunch). All remain fringe at best.
  
• VAPOREON basically views Liquidation as a sidegrade to existing Scald, though Liquidation is NOT Legacy as Scald is, so it's worth it for any Vapes that don't have its old Community Day move. But Vaporeon remains mostly on the outside looking in at better Water types in various Leagues. No real boost here.
  
• GOLDUCK sees a slight bump with Liquidation, but remains just a spice play, at best.
  
• There is a reason you have never seen FLOATZEL in PvP... it has terrible charge moves. Bad, bad moves like Swift and Aqua Jet, with Hydro Pump as a passable closer but stymied due to average-at-best energy gains from Water Gun or Waterfall. Liquidation is in some ways just what the doctor ordered, but uh... Floatzel still sinks in PvP.
  
• ARMALDO remains a lost cause as well. If you want a GOOD Rocky Bug, use Crustle. If you want a spice one, go with the new Kleavor. If you want to just tank your ELO, THEN maybe consider Armaldo. That's about it though, even with the new move.
  

Man, quite a bummer, right? Decent move, but really nothing that gets it stands to benefit in a way that will impact PvP. So moving on then to... wait, what? I missed one? Oh... OH! So I did. And thankfully, we can end this section on a good note... because GOLISOPOD just became a bit more interesting.
Remember that when it was first released, it was a completely lost cause, with Fury Cutter, Metal Claw, and Waterfall as its clumsy fast moves, and underwhelming X-Scissor, **Aerial Ace, and somehow even worse Aqua Jet as its only charge moves. That left it in a very sad state. Eventually, it acquired Shadow Claw, which made it at least slightly interesting. And now comes the charge move it's been begging for, with Liquidation elevating it into spice territory, at the very least. Now you can potentially beat things like Charizard, Nidoqueen, Alolan Sandslash, Alolan Ninetales (Powder Snow), Talonflame, Cobalion, and Sylveon that you couldn't before, though even as bad as Aerial Ace is, giving it up means you generally now lose some Grasses like Venusaur and Virizion. Still though, things are looking up for Golisopod!
LONG STORY SHORT, while Liquidation is actually a nice addition to Water's arsenal (a clone of Crunch, including the debuff chance), the only thing that gets it initially that really looks to benefit is Golisopod. Stay tuned to what may get it down the road, though... most of its current recipients just have more problems than Liquidation alone can solve.

THE LEAF AGE BEGINS?

Probably haven't seen Bullet Punch in PvP much, have you? Scizor and Metagross use it, and uh... that's about the extent of it. But it's actually a pretty good PvP fast move, with the average 3.0 Damage Per Turn (DPT) but above average energy generation (3.5 EPT). And now here comes Leafage, an exact clone of Bullet Punch for the Grass typing. The number of things that get it is quite a bit smaller than Liquidation (only three evolutionary lines), but I think this is a clear case of quality over quantity in Leafage's favor.

• I could write an entire article on the injustices done to DECIDUEYE in Pokémon GO. All its interesting moves in MSG, and here it sits with underpowered Shadow Sneak, overpriced Energy Ball, and big but risky closer Brave Bird, and all locked behind low-energy Razor Leaf or arguably worst fast move in the game Astonish. #JusticeForDecidueye! While I do still hope for an eventual and LONG overdue buff to Astonish, for now the addition of Leafage should be a big help, right? Weeeeeeeell..... I mean, yes, it is most certainly better, and will become even a bit moreso when it eventually gets Frenzy Plant. But clearly, it's problems are not JUST the fast moves. Heck, pre-evolution DARTRIX (who has also been trapped behind Razor Leaf) even looks better than Deci in the here and now, thanks in large part to having Seed Bomb as a more workable second charge move to set up Brave Bird. It does seem that even though ROWLETT also gets Leafage, it may still prefer to keep existing Razor Leaf down in Little League, where Razor Leaf can admittedly be particularly dominant.
  
• LURANTIS (and Little League pre-evolution FOMANTIS) operates nicely right now as sort of a Jack of all trades with Fury Cutter (and its Bug damage output) powering up Leaf Blade and Superpower (well, Grass Knot in Fomantis' case). Superpower allows for some nutty wins like Bastiodon, Galarian Stunfisk, and excecuted properly, even Registeel, clearly showing Lurantis' appeal. So does Leafage help or disrupt the good Lurantis has already got going? Eh, I think we're gonna call it a sidegrade, though a tasty one for sure. Lurantis does give up a couple things where the effectiveness of Fury Cutter wins the day (Cresselia, Shadow Victreebel) and loses a little speed, which flips Shadow Alolan Sandslash to a loss. (Luratnis cannot hit a Leaf Blade AND followon Superpower in time with Leafage like it can with Fury Cutter.) But Leafage is able to carve out new wins like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Pelipper with superior neutral fast move damage (as opposed to resisted Bug damage), and also can outrace Walrein far more reliably. So not an upgrade, but a nice sidegrade like this can add some disruption into appropriate metas just fine.
  
• Speaking of disruption, let's check out ABOMASNOW. Obviously it runs more as an Ice than a Grass, humming along nicely in multiple metas with Powder Snow and Weather Ball (Ice) and Energy Ball for a big Grass closer when the situation calls for it. And more than likely, it will mostly continue in that configuration moving forward. BUT, Leafage may be preferred in certain metas now, at least, and not just because it now slams the door on Water types (instead of sometimes merely scraping by with Powder Snow). In Great League, where ShadowBama is usually preferred, Powder Snow continues to shine out, but it's worth noting that while Leafage is an overall downgrade, most of the wins it gives up are versus Flyers (Altaria, Noctowl, Skarmory, Mandibuzz), with new losses to Umbreon and Venusaur as the most notable exceptions. Leafage DOES make some new key contributions like Powder Alolan Ninetales and Galarian Stunfisk that may come more to the fore in Limited metas with, say, fewer Flyers? Just saying. In Ultra League, the biggest knock against Leafage is that it drops the Giratinas (as compared to Powder Snow), but otherwise Leafage makes a pretty strong case with pickups of Poliwrath, Walrein, and Alolan Ninetales (with Powder Snow OR Charm). I think Leafage deserves some real consideration at Ultra League level!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, no huge improvements to be found with Leafage, but it does earn a rightful place as a robust sidegrade consideration for the Lurantis and Abomasnow lines (particularly with Ultra League Aboma). It's an upgrade for the Rowlett/Dartrix/Decidueye line, though Deci itself remains middling at best until it one day gets Frenzy Plant (or just some more synergistic charge moves in general!). Leafage SHOULD start popping up here and there in PvP soon, moreso than Liquidation likely will.

JUST A BRUSH FIRE, REALLY

Honestly, I expected a number of things to get Mystical Fire after it recently entered the game, but for now, Niantic chose to distribute it to only two new Pokémon:

• As I mentioned in my analysis on Mystical Fire back during Delphox Community Day, DRIFBLIM is an intriguing choice. Mystical Fire and existing Blim coverage move Icy Wind share the same stats aside from typing, so this is almost the very definition of sidegrade... against neutral targets they do the exact same thing, so it just comes down to effectiveness. If Blim is facing something burnable (like a Steel, Ice, or Bug type), it will prefer to have Mystical Fire. For things weak to Ice, like Flyers and Dragons and Grounds, obviously it will want to be packing Icy Wind instead. (Grasses are weak to both Fire and Ice, so usually no change there, aside from things like Abomasnow with a subtyping that favors one or the other... in that case, Mystical Fire is double super effective and Icy Wind is merely neutral.) I'm not going to bother with the sims, as they're close to indistinguishable at a high level, but I WILL note that Mystical Fire can potentially beat Galarian Stunfisk at Ultra League level, and more definitely beats G-Fisk AND A-Slash, Skarmory, and even Registeel at Great League level, none of which Icy Wind can realistically hope to replicate. (Its only standouts are things like Gliscor.) Yes, giving up Icy Wind means completely abandoning hope versus things like Ghost-resistant Pidgeot and especially Noctowl, but overall? I think Drifblim might be getting much hotter soon, in several senses of the word! 🔥
  
• Not nearly as exciting, I admit, but note that LITWICK also gets Mystical Fire. It's really only for Little League use, and has been an interesting but lesser-used Fire type, falling behind things like Vulpix, Growlithe, and Tepig thanks to them having some good neutral coverage, while Litwick has been stuck with just Flame Charge and two other rather Fire charge moves. Mystical Fire slots in as a nearly straight upgrade with pickups that include Wynaut, Vullaby, Obstagoon (for LL Cups where it's allowed), and... Vulpix, regardless of which fast move 'Pix is using. Something to look forward to in the next Little League rotation!
  

LONG STORY SHORT, Mystical Fire IS likely the default coverage move of choice for Drifblim going forward, just because of the number of burnable things (as opposed to freezeable things) in its respective metas, Great League especially. Except to see Blim soar up a little higher than it has in a while. It's also a nice upgrade for Litwick, who should finally emerge as a true Fire contender in Little League formats.

ODDS AND ENDS

Going to put everything else together in this last main section, but don't mistake that to mean they're less important... quite the contrary! Just doing this because these are all one-offs, as opposed to the changes above which directly affected multiple Pokémon recipients.
Before I dive into the specific move additions, let's briefly review the existing moves that are being buffed or nerfed in this update.

• Icicle Spear - 60 power → 65 power. Obviously this only affects WALREIN (for now), and is obviously a strict upgrade, since the cost and all else remains the same, just more damage. Specifically, at a high level, I see Walrein picking up things like Skarmory and Umbreon (non-Shadow) and Trevenant, Pelipper, and Azumarill (Shadow) in Great League, and stuff like Shadow Alolan Ninetales and Virizion in Ultra League. So yeah... you didn't need me to tell you this was an improvement, but maybe that helps you decide how much of an improvement and whether you want to turn back to Wally if you ever turned away before. I'd say Great League in particular has reason to fear it a bit more again.
  
• Poison Fang - 40 power → 45 power. More things affected by this than Icicle Spear, but obviously most of you just want to know about NIDOQUEEN, so in the interest of time and... well, interest, we'll just highlight her for now. Again, you don't need me to tell you this only makes things with Poison Fang better, but HOW much better? Honestly not too much changes in Great League (as far as straight wins a losses go, though this is undoubtedly scarier now!), but in Ultra League, I see new wins for Queen versus things like Charizard, Pidgeot, Cresselia, Dubwool, Obstagoon, AND Guzzlord, among others, so this is no small tweak! Might Nidoqueen be "back"? Only time will tell. Admittedly, what made it SO scary in the past was the cheaper cost of Poison Fang, and that hasn't changed, so I don't see it returning to full dominance like she once enjoyed. I also think she was treated rather harshly even before this buff... she didn't fall off quite as hard as many made it out to be. This will reveal that more fully... she's not so much "back" as much as I think she never really left. Also keep in mind things like GOLBAT/CROBAT and SALAZZLE/SALANDIT** that stand to benefit from this as well!
  
• Rollout - 4 power → 5 power. So low power that I can tell you this won't be a big shift, but obviously it DOES help. DUNSPARCE picks up a potential win over Shadow Alolan Ninetales (hey, Rollout is super effective, so....), and MILTANK a new win versus Shadow Swampert, of all things, and sometimes (Water Gun) Lanturn when utilizing Ice Beam instead of my personal recommendation of Thunderbolt (which beats Lanturn as well). It tends to prefer Tackle in Ultra League, though newly buffed Rollout is MUCH improved now with new wins versus Cresselia, Drapion, Umbreon, Alolan Muk, AND Walrein. Perhaps Tackle won't be the default now? As for ALOLAN GOLEM, Volt Switch just remains a much better move in nearly every scenario and meta. Stick with that, I say, and get all the Rock damage you need from the charge moves instead. 🪨
  
• Mud Bomb - 55 power → 60 power. The two big ones that come to mind are TOXICROAK and WHISCASH, the latter of which honestly needed a boost like this. However, this small a bump looks and feels like more of a "win more" where they already won more than anything. The only notable new win I see (at the high level this massive rebalance is demanding of little old me!) is Toxicroak versus Trevenant, though I think that's more due to Trevenant's nerf (which we'll get to in a moment) than Toxicroak's resisted Mud Bomb dealing a tiny bit more damage. (And upon further review, it may be neither of those and instead just come down to move timing.. but leaving Trevor in here as it's a good setup for later.) The big winner here is actually QUAGSIRE, who FINALLY gets a charge move cheaper than 55 energy to reach the same spam potential as its fellow Mud Boys. It's hard to show how this improves things in simulations, as they actually tend to favor Earthquake in many situations (such as in 1v1 shielding, where Quake shows additional wins against things like Azu, Sable, Swampert, and Umbreon), but the difference is more obvious when you go 2v2 shielding, and the extra spam of Mud Bomb shows out with new wins that include Froslass, Jellicent, Toxicroak, Shadow Alolan Ninetales, and Shadow Walrein. I actually don't know if this will actually bump up Quagsire's useage or not, though it's shot up about 60 slots to #15 in PvPoke's rankings. Not sure if that will match reality, but I DO think it's time to see if you have a good PvP Quag to perhaps take out for a spin and see. It certainly has some exciting new potential it's never had before!
  
• Seed Bomb - 55 power → 60 power, Energy Cost Increased. The only thing on this list that's not a straight upgrade, getting the same damage boost as Mud Bomb but increased cost to go with it... mostly, I feel, as a backdoor way to bring Trevenant down a bit. (And indeed, PvPoke has dropped Trev 25 slots from #10 to #35 in Ultra League, and down nearly 70 slots in Great League from Top 10 to outside the Top 70!) I certainly don't think Trevor will be going away -- it still breaks several cores across multiple Leagues -- but this is undoubtedly a hit. In Great League, it looks like it's now at a disadvantage against things it used to be able to beat like Walrein, Talonflame, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, and even Toxicroak. The hit is a bit less severe in Ultra League (where it can hang in longer to somewhat compensate for the increased energy needed), but it does still lose former wins like Jellicent and the re-buffed Nidoqueen. Most of the rest of the collateral damage will be felt in Little League, where several notable things have Seed Bomb (like Bulbasaur, Exeggcute, Oddish, etc.). Note much of note in bigger Leagues, though it IS noteworthy that WHIMSICOTT is getting Seed Bomb for the first time. And yes, I think it DOES become the favorite in most circumstances over existing Grass Knot, despite the latter being a "better" move (50 energy for 90 damage) and using that to get a couple unique wins still like Diggersby and Lickitung, because Seed Bomb brings new bait potential to set up big Moonblast wins over Cresselia, Pelipper, Toxicroak, Vigoroth, and Trevenant. Not sure Whimsie is suddenly going to bust out in Open Great League or anything, but I think it's very safe to say it just became a bit scarier and more versatile in Limited metas for sure.
  

And there are all the actual move "rebalances". Now to wrap it up real quick with a final list of existing moves now assigned to new Pokémon!

• PROBOPASS is in some ways similar to Defense Deoxys, in that it has long had three charge moves that seemed almost interchangeable in overall performance. Rock Slide is pretty standard for Probo, and most folks also run it with Thunderbolt, but it's so lackluster than even Magnet Bomb has always hung around as a viable alternative. Well that changes now, as its bulk allows it to make good use of new addition Zap Cannon. I think it and Rock Slide are the new standard, along with Spark to power them out, and that combo brings in new wins over Sableye and Umbreon, along with wider margins of victory over things it just scraped past before like Cresselia and Bastiodon. Probo used to escape them both with less than 10 HP, but now waddles away with quite a bit more than that. Not sure if this will send it up the charts (Bastiodon itself is still usually preferred), but it IS a more intriguing alternative now.
  
• Speaking of funky Rock types, HEATRAN can learn Earth Power now! But uh... you still don't want it, sorry. At least give it Incinerate, Niantic... c'mon!
  
• A MUCH more interesting Rock type is CRADILY, now getting some more speed with Rock Slide as a new alternative to Stone Edge. In my first blush analysis on the day of these many announced changes, I speculated that Cradily may want both Rock charge moves going forward, as it still beat things like Lanturn and even Swampert without needing Grass Knot. But in hindsight... nah, I think you want to instead just swap out Edge for Slide and be done with it. Keeping this short and sweet, here are some of my findings when comparing these side by side (by side): Grass Knot is absolutely needed to beat Diggersby, and is obviously the surest way to beat Waters and Ground (and/or Rock) types in general (including having ANY shot at beating up things like Galarian Stunfisk and Bastiodon). The raw power of Stone Edge is still the best way to punch out things like Alolan Ninetales, Lickitung, and Shadow Victreebel. But the speed of Rock Slide (10 less energy than Edge) adds the potential to now handle stuff like Cresselia, Alolan Marowak, Sableye, Venusaur, and most notably, Noctowl. That's right... Cradily now becomes a handy way to handle Lanturn AND Noctowl, among many others, and can also beat popular Sableye as well. Corebreaker potential on the rise. Dilly dilly!
  
• Look, URSALUNA continues to disappoint and likely always will until it gets a better fast move than Tackle. I know it, you know it, basically everyone but Niantic (and maybe TPCi) knows it. But as I wrote when Luna was first released, Ice Punch at least gives it the most bite of the three main elemental Punches, and until now it was the only one Ursaluna could not learn. Now it can! That gives it a bit more reach in Master League (the one League where it currently has any real play at all) with all the Dragons already. Specifically, Ice Punch allows it to now consistently beat Garchomp and Landorus, so that's nice. But come on, Niantic. Give the people what they want!.
  
• Let's be honest: the addition of Brutal Swing to the arsenal of TYRANITAR is more a cause of celebration for raiding than it is for PvP. (New top Dark type in PvE, I hear!) But yes, it DOES help in PvP too. Tyranitar has the size to work in Master League, but even with Brutal Swing, it's still an awkward fit. The one place I have seen it pop up here and there is actually in Great League, albeit in Limited metas only. While those opportunities are relatively rare, I am happy to report that Brutal Swing is a noted improvement over former best Crunch, adding on wins you would expect of a Dark type (Sableye, Cofagrigus, Jellicent) and a few you might not expect (Drapion, Toxapex, and finally it can beat Altaria!). Still more niche than meta, but at least it's an improving niche!
  
• And finally, we come to humble little EMOLGA, and the first non-Community Day recipient of Acrobatics. Long-time (or even some short-time!) readers have surely seen me write many times about Aerial Ace. It's a passable move -- barely -- dealing 55 damage for 45 energy. Boooooring, but it usually works JUST enough to not be total trash. It's a move I would LOVE to see buffed a little at some point, but it's also a move currently assigned to a massive number of Pokémon, and unlikely to change unless Niantic wants to REALLY shake up PvP. And like way too many Pokémon, poor Emolga has long been stuck with dull old Ace as its only Flying move, leaving what should be an exciting option languishing in obscurity. But now, finally, this mighty mouse may be about to soar! Just look at the HUGE names it can now beat: Medicham. Lickitung. Sableye. Shadow Swampert. Trevenant. Shadow Alolan Ninetales. And Cresselia and even Froslass for good measure. Those are some really big names, folks. Did Emolga just go from being afterthought behind Zapdos to passing it completely? I think it may have! If, like me, you've been holding on to a good one and just biding your time... well, that time is now, my friend! ⚡
  

Speaking of time, though... it's up! The new season is here! So we're gonna wrap it up right here for now. I hope this was as helpful a read as it was LONG. 🙃
Until next time, you can find me on Twitter or Patreon. Or please feel free to comment here with your own thoughts or questions and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends. Best of luck this season, and catch you next time!

Public opinion of TriMet's decisions have been pretty mixed, mostly because TriMet's decisions are so convoluted that they can be a real challenge to understand. In reality, Metro and Portlanders need to have a bigger civic conversation about the future of TriMet, looking at the big picture. We have 3 looming existential crises of TriMet to be concerned about that are bigger than revenue dips, crime, or homeless people.
Civic leaders and the public are focused on a quick "fix" for TriMet revenue drops - even though we've seen this coming for a long time, it's very predictable that TriMet's Board of Directors acts at the last minute. Also, very predictably, TriMet's Board opted for a fare increase because over the previous 20 years that's been a go-to answer to every problem (except for that one time they killed Fareless Square). The politically appointed boards of TriMet and Metro lack the unique specialized knowledge of the issues I'll bring up here. If TriMet knows about these larger issues, they're obviously burring it from public view. In the short term, increasing fares is like putting fresh paint on a house that's on fire; in this situation, that paint is HIGHLY flammable.
First - fare hikes as a tactic is a brain-dead move. Just the most utterly stupid and self-sabotaging response to a looming budget shortfall. I'm dwelling on this because it illustrates their terrible decision-making, which is functional proof they have no idea what they're doing. Some of the core reasons for this:

• Increasing fares reduces utilization. Higher cost means fewer people ride, which will decrease the ridership revenue. It will also marginally increase the number of people who won't pay (funny story, some of those who don't pay actually can't afford to). TriMet isn't a monopoly or inelastic service, and plenty of other choices exist that didn't exist 20 years ago: an actual bike share, scooters, electric bikes, UbeLyft, shared vehicles, and more bike paths. Before the pandemic, it was common that I would bus into downtown for work and then take a Lyft home because it wasn't all that expensive, like $8 more than a bus ride - TriMet's price increases make a system that wasn't very competitive simply less compelling.
  
• Across Portland we need to go through a process of austerity and downsizing government. I absolutely support Wheeler putting a pause on rate increases, but for God's sake, we have far too much largesse in every layer of government. If you need to learn what I'm talking about, read my old article on Parks & Rec. So many divisions/agencies have doubled their staff while reducing service levels. It's bonkers. Cutting throats needs to be an imperative. This is because the great majority of public sector employees in Oregon and Portland are incompetent, redundant, and only exist because Oregon and Portland have been reluctant to use automation. And I don't mean the cutting-edge AI stuff, I'm talking about people who still handle business processes as if they're paper forms. I could tell so many stories from my professional experience - but you'll have to take my word for it for now: culling this bureaucracy is the right move, and until there's a significant downsizing, the political class is taking none of the financial crisis or cost of living situation seriously.
  
• TriMet's operating budget/revenue is primarily Payroll Taxes, not passenger revenue. About 20-30% of TriMet's budget comes from people buying fares, whereas the bulk of money TriMet needs comes from payroll taxes that businesses pay directly. Because of this, transit activists (including myself) have been proponents of increasing the payroll taxes marginally to make TriMet free for riders. Of course, fareless transit comes with a wide variety of new and different problems (that's an article for another time). Still, when you understand that only a sliver of revenue comes from fares, increasing the fare simply results in a marginal increase in revenue. The much bigger problem is going to businesses investing outside of Metro, and changing workforces that 1) won't pay payroll taxes reliably, 2) don't need people to go into the office. Think about the longer-term game here: is TriMet's board going to increase fares as utilization drops and payroll taxes continually diminish? (See my point above about how their default answer is "yes" because it's the only politically expedient answer.)
  

Reading comments about the fare hikes, most of the public thinks TriMet is dealing with a safety or utilization issue. Both of these are 100% true: soft-on-crime progressives have wholly obliterated the working class perception of TriMet safety - there are so many different ways this has happened, but we should thank so many people in the media and political class: Ana del Rocio's crying wolf about racism in fare inspections (and the media entertaining it), or Mike Schmidt deinstitutionalizing of the justice system, or Legislature's inability to act on the massive mental health crisis and drug addiction crisis in Oregon. No matter the underlying cause, we have a system where deranged violent mentally ill tweakers can be disruptive on the train, but working-class people face a $250 fine if they can't afford a $2.50 ($2.80) ticket. TriMet is less safe, especially the light rail and bus lines. We could hypothetically talk about various policy and infrastructure changes, such as turnstiles and security guards - but pragmatically, this won't do shit when our society has adopted a philosophy of transforming the urban core into an open-air insane asylum and opened the doors to the prisons. This safety issue is well beyond TriMet's scope, and even if there was consensus among TriMet and Metro to solve this, the entire justice system and Legislature is still broken.

Fare Hikes and Utilization is the Red Herring - Let's talk about TriMet's future

In reality, multiple design choices made decades ago set us up for failure. But we also have to thank brain-dead progressive lunatics and corrupt politicos who have steered our transit decision-making into the ground.
There are three specific issues I'm going to talk about, with each becoming more consequential and disastrous for TriMet:

• Hub and Spoke Design and the need for a redesign of the entire system to fit new commuting/transit patterns
  
• Portland Light Rail's short cars are a capacity problem not worth the price tag to fix
  
• Autonomous vehicles are here, and it's just going to get worse for TriMet
  

The strategic design of TriMet's system is broken, and it's been broken before.

If you looked at a map of TriMet's bus and rail system, you'd see a design pattern often referred to as a "Radial Design" or sometimes a "Hub And Spoke" design. The Hub and Spoke strategy is building our transit system around centralized locations to connect to other routes. For Portland the idea is to go downtown (or sometimes a Park and Ride) where you can connect to your next destination. This is why the majority of bus routes and all the max routes go downtown, to our Transit Mall and Pioneer Square.
Downtown planning was a smart idea in the 1960s when it was coupled with Main Street economic theory and prototype urban development zones - all of this wrapped up in the 1972 Downtown Plan policy. During these decades, the primary economic idea of urban revitalization was that downtown cores could provide better business climates and shopping districts that amplify economic activity synergistically. In other words, packing all the office jobs and luxury shopping in one area is good for workers, business, and civic planning.
All very smart ideas in yester-year, so TriMet became focused on serving the downtown business community myopically. This myopia became so paramount that it was considered illegitimate (actually taboo, borderline illegal) if you used a Park & Ride facility to park and NOT ride downtown. Amanda Fritz once explained that we couldn't expand Barbur Transit Center because that would result in students parking at Barbur Transit Center and riding the bus to PCC Sylvania. This view implies that TriMet exists only to service downtown workers, not the students, not the impoverished mom needing to go to a grocery store.
How does TriMet's hub and spoke design represent its purpose?
Portland's unspoken rule of transit philosophy is that jobs pay for the system (remember, business payroll taxes pay for most of it), so TriMet should be focused on serving people utilizing it for their job - employers pay for it, and they get value out of it. But this is both unspoken (never said aloud) and largely unobserved. The whole idea of TriMet as a social service to serve low-income people, to help impoverished people - well, those ideas were just lukewarm political rhetoric that is tossed out as soon as some Undesirable with tattered clothing reeking of cigarettes gets aboard - then Portlanders jump right back "this is for workers only!" Sadly, there hasn't ever been a public consensus of why TriMet exists because I could equally argue that TriMet's purpose isn't serving the working class; it's actually vehicle emissions reductions - but here, too, reality contradicts that this is the purpose for why we operate TriMet. TriMet's real purpose seems to be "Spend money on lofty capital projects" and if we want to be cynical about it, we can elaborate "…because large capital projects enable grift, embezzlement, and inflating property values for developers."
We haven't always depended upon a hub and spoke design. A great article from Jarrett Walker written in 2010 on his Human Transit blog explains in "The Power and Pleasure of Grids"

Why aren't all frequent networks grids? The competing impulse is the radial network impulse, which says: "We have one downtown. Everyone is going there, so just run everything to there." Most networks start out radial, but some later transition to more of a grid form, often with compromises in which a grid pattern of routes is distorted around downtown so that many parallel routes converge there. You can see this pattern in many cities, Portland for example. Many of the lines extending north and east out of the city center form elements of a grid, but converge on the downtown. Many other major routes (numbered in the 70s in Portland's system) do not go downtown, but instead complete the grid pattern. This balance between grid and radial patterns was carefully constructed in 1982, replacing an old network in which almost all routes went downtown.

Over the years the grid pattern was neglected in favor of a downtown-focused investment strategy. To a real degree it made practical sense: that's where the jobs were. But again, this is the presumption that TriMet and Mass Transit ought to service workers first, and there's not much consensus on that. But while we can't decide on TriMet's purpose, we can absolutely agree on one important thing: Downtown is dead.
No 5-star hotel is going to fix it. (As of writing, I'm not even convinced that this mafia-connected bamboozle of public fraud will open.) No "tough-on-crime" DA to replace Mike Schmidt, like Nathan Vasquez, will fix downtown. It's not JUST a crime problem: most of the problems we deal with today mirror the problems facing Portland in the 1960s, especially our inability to invest in good infrastructure people actually want to use. That's on top of crime, vandalism, and an unhealthy business ecosystem.
IF we want to maintain TriMet (and that's a big IF, for reasons I'll explain below), then it will be focused on something other than downtown. We need to move back to a grid-design transit system, as this is a much easier way to use transit to get around the city, no matter your destination. If TriMet continues to exist and operate fleets in 20-30 years, this is the only way it exists - because it will just be too inconvenient to ride downtown as a side quest to your destination, especially as we look at 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now.
Of course, we can only transform some parts of the transit infrastructure this way, and there are no uplifting and moving train tracks here. So light rail doesn't have a future in the grid system - but even without the grid system, light rail is doomed.

The fatal flaws of light rail in Portland.

I want to preface this by saying I like light rail as a strategy, it's not a bad system or bad civic investment. I could write another 5,000-word essay on why Seattle did an excellent job with light rail and the specific decisions Portland made wildly incorrectly. In transit advocacy the wacktavists inappropriately categorized skeptics of Portland's light rail as some soft bigotry - as if you're racist if you don't like Portland's light rail - even though, ironically, most light rail systems tend to be built for the preference of white culture and white workers, precisely what happened here in Portland and most cities (but this is all a story for another time).
Portland's light rail system has a capacity problem and has dealt with this capacity problem quietly for the last 20+ years. When you see the capacity problem, you can quickly understand this light rail system won't work in the future. All the other smart cities in the world that designed light rail realized they needed big long trains to move many people. Portland decided to limit the train car length to the size of our city blocks to save construction costs - and this has always been a fatal flaw.
Portland's highest capacity train car is our Type 5, according to Wikipedia it has a seating capacity of 72 and an overall capacity of 186 per train. Let's compare:

• Washington DC has 6-car trains capable of carrying 120 passengers per car, or 720 per train.
  
• Salt Lake City has a 4-car train capable of carrying 230 passengers per car, or 920 per train.
  
• Seattle's Link system has a 3 or 4-car train, each capable of carrying approximately 200 passengers per car, so 600 to 800 per train.
  

Portland's light rail lines have roughly the same people moving capacity as a single lane of a highway, maybe marginally more, maybe marginally less. These other cities have a light rail system that can move the same amount of people as an entire 3-lane highway.
You might suspect that Portland could simply run trains more frequently - but nah, that's impossible because the trains run through the central core of downtown Portland, and they're blocked by the real interfaces with road traffic and bottlenecks. TriMet/PBOT/Metro has offered rosy ideas that we could hypothetically run cars every 90 seconds, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, or 6 minutes (depending upon who you ask) - but these are garbage numbers invented out of thin air. For example, you could stand at Pioneer Courthouse Square at 4:50pm on a Wednesday in 2016 - there was a train opening doors to load passengers, and you could visibly see the next train at Pioneer Place Mall pulling into the station behind. Trains were running at approximately a 3 to 4 minute at peak - but on paper, TriMet will claim anything, as they don't give a shit about lying to the public. But the bigger problem is that trains were full. You might have to wait 90 minutes to find a train that offers a seat. And god forbid you had a bike.
I'm not making this very real capacity problem, Metro even acknowledges:

At the busiest hours of the day, 40 light rail trains must cross the river and traverse downtown – one train every 90 seconds. As the region grows and the demand for light rail increases, the region will need at least 64 MAX trains through downtown every hour, more than one train each minute. Our current system can't support that change.

Suppose you're silly enough to trust government propaganda. In that case, you can read the details of Metro study on this in 2019. If we assumed their numbers added up, it's just fucking impossible to run 62 trains per hour, because passenger loading and unloading can take a full minute (sometimes longer). So unless we want to apply substantial g-forces onto the passengers, the train isn't accelerating out of the stops fast enough. Not to mention how unreliable this whole system would be if a sole tweaker, bike rider, or person with a stroller held up the system for 2 minutes.
This is why the bottom line needs to be upfront about capacity - quoting Metro's study here:

Today MAX is limited to 2-car trains because of the length of downtown city blocks. A tunnel could allow for longer trains if the stations outside the downtown core are retrofitted. In the long-term, this could greatly increase MAX capacity.

Do you see that trick? Build a tunnel, yes - but the entire system has to be retrofitted. Literally every light rail station would need to be redesigned, the lines themselves recalculated for larger heavier trains - and extending platforms at Willow Creek might be simple enough, but how in the living fuck is Metro going to afford to expand the Zoo stop? Doubling the size of that platform would cost $500 million alone.
If the city weren't full of cheap dipshits, we would have elevated or buried our light rail lines in the 1980s or 90s, enabling longer train cars to run. Yes, we all knew back then that it was the best practice not to have light rail running on the street - it's less safe, less reliable, runs slower, and limits train car size. Oops.
Just to keep TriMet's own bullshit inflated utopian vision, it would mean spending another billion dollars just to unfuck downtown, bypass an aging bridge, and potentially allow a marginally higher volume of trains - which again is a band-aid on a mortal wound.
The real buried lede is that to add extra train cars means retrofitting all the stops in the system - that's tens of billions of dollars. You can argue costs, but Metro knows we need to do this. It means shutting down the system for a year or years while construction and retrofits happen. It's fucking outrageous. Is this system worth of people per line worth 20, 30, or 40 billion dollars? Fuck no, it ain't. Again, if we had a raging metropolis of industry and commerce downtown, we could reasonably entertain the idea for a moment - but we don't and never will again.
Some folks might argue that if we kill off the light rail system we'd lose out on all those lucrative Transit Oriented Developments. Originally the public was told that Transit Oriented Development strategy would cause a massive infusion of private investment because the light rail was so damn lucrative and desirable for Richard Florida's Creative Class. Turns out the Creative Class is now called today the Laptop Class, and they don't give a flying fuck about street cars, light rail, or walking scores - because most can't be bothered to put pants on during their "commute" from bed to desk. TOD was all a fantasy illusion from the beginning, as multiple studies about Portland commuters showed that college-educated white folks riding Max were equally comfortable riding their bike as a substitute for the same commute. All of these billions of dollars was to accommodate white fare-weather bikers. So here's my hot take on transit: pave over the rail lines and put in bike lanes, and boy, then you'd have a bike system to give folks like Maus a hardon. But of course, Bike Portland would complain because their focus isn't biking; they exist only to favor all poorly thought utopian transit ideas.
Another group of Max/TOD advocates would claim that TOD is better for disabled and impoverished people. And yeah, there's truth there, but see my entire argument above about the Hub & Spoke design of TriMet being the antithesis of transit as a social service. If you believe that TriMet should serve low-income people, you must advocate for a bus-centric grid design.
But even if you're a die-hard believer in light rail - there's another inevitable reality coming that is the nail in the coffin.

Autonomous vehicles will replace mass transit faster than the automobile replaced the horse.

I work in advanced technology, and the thing about tech is that the public and politicians deny that it's going to be there until the majority of the public finally experiences it. You could say this about personal computers, internet, cloud compute, electric cars, smartphones, distributed ledger (cryptocurrency), AI, and driverless vehicles.
Schrodinger's technology doesn't exist until it's measured in an Apple store or your mother asks you for tech support.
No one thought AI was really real until ChatGPT did their kid's homework, and today most people are coming to terms with the fact that ChatGPT 3.5 could do most people's jobs. And that's not even the most advanced AI, that's the freeware put out by Microsoft, they have paywalls to access the real deal.
In 2018 I rode in my colleague's Tesla in self-driving mode from downtown Portland to Top Golf in Hillsboro. We started our journey at the surface parking lot on the west side of the Morrison Bridge. He used his phone to tell the car to pull out of the parking spot and to pick us up. Then he gave the car the address, and it drove us the entire way without any human input necessary. The only time he provided feedback was to touch the turn signal to pass a slow car on the highway. People think self-driving isn't here - but it is - and it's gotten exponentially better and will continue to do so. People will complain and moan about idealized, utopian, pedantic "level 5" full self-driving, how none of it exists or could exist, as a Tesla passes them on the road and the driver is half asleep.
Of course, Portland and every major city have also thought deeply about self-driving technology, and a few places have implemented self-driving solutions - but so far, none of these are really at scale. Though it will be a short time before cost-conscious cities go all-in.
TriMet kicked around the idea of using an autonomous bus for a leg of the trip of the Southwest Corridor project, connecting a segment of the light rail route to the community college. It was bafflingly stupid and short-sighted to think they could use it in this niche application but that it wouldn't open the floodgates for a hundred different applications that eviscerate TriMet's labor model. The simplest example of autonomous operation would be to operate the light rail systems - because they don't make turns, all we need is an AI vision service to slam on the breaks if necessary - that technology has existed for 20+ years. We could retrofit the entire train system in about 3 to 6 months - replace every Max operator with a security guard, and maybe people would ride the Max again? But I digress.
Let's speculate about the far-future, some 5, 10, or 20 years from now: your transit options will expand significantly. The cost will decrease considerably for services using automated vehicles.
You'll look at your options as:

• Drive to work: fastest, takes $100+ worth of gas a month, but you also need $50+ for insurance and $500+ for the monthly car payment, plus those surprise maintenance and broken windows. Also, do you pay for parking? Pick a number for how much it costs to drive your personally owned and manually operated vehicle to work each month.
  
• Autonomous vehicle service: price TBA, but think of how much an Uber costs when you don't have to pay the driver, you don't have to pay for gas. An Uber that runs for $20 today would likely be $10 or less. So, to and from work 20 times a month, $200. $300? Ok, let's just say it's $400 a month. It's still all cheaper than owning a car and driving it to work. No parking fees, and it picks you up quickly enough that it's not a nuisance.
  
• Mass Transit: $150 per month, but ugghhh it's slow, it smells like piss, a guy jacked off in your hair, and you can't schedule a meeting for the first 30 minutes of your anticipated workday in case you miss a connection - and it breaks so often the government actively hides the reliability data from the public and media.
  

Just a few years into this future we'll see a brand new trend, one that already exists: a shared autonomous vehicle like a privately operated bus. For example, Uber Bus - it already exists as a commuter option in some cities, it's just not autonomous yet. The significant benefit of an autonomous bus is that these shared vehicles will utilize HOV lanes very commonly, and commuting in an autonomous vehicle will be as fast as driving to work in your manually operated car while also being less expensive.
Simultaneously automobile accidents in autonomous vehicles will be virtually non-existent, and insurance companies will start to increase prices on vehicles that lack AI/smart assisted safety driving features. Public leaders will see the value of creating lanes of traffic on highways dedicated explicitly to autonomous vehicles so that they can drive at much higher speeds than manually operated traffic. Oregon won't lead the way here, but wait until Texas or one of the Crazy States greenlights a speed limit differential, and self-driving vehicles have a speed limit of 90, 120, or 150 miles per hour. You might think "accidents would be terrible and deadly" but there will be fewer accidents in the autonomous lane than in manual lanes. At this point, it will be WAY faster to take an autonomous vehicle to your work.
Purchasing power of consumers will decrease while the cost of vehicles will increase (especially autonomous vehicles), making ownership of any vehicle less likely. Frankly, the great majority of people won't know how to drive and will never learn to - just like how young people today don't know how to use manual transmission. However, fleets of autonomous vehicles owned by companies like Tesla, Uber, and Lyft will benefit from scale and keep their autonomous bus fleets operating at low cost. This will lead to a trend where fewer and fewer people will own an automobile, and fewer people even bother learning how to drive or paying the enormous insurance cost.... while also depending upon automobiles more than we do today.
Eventually, in the distant future, manually driven vehicles will be prohibited in urban areas as some reckless relic from a bygone era.
Cities and public bodies don't have to be cut out of this system if they act responsibly. For example, cities could start a data brokering exchange where commuters provide their commuting data (i.e., pick-up point, destination, arrival time). The government uses either a privatized fleet or a publicly owned fleet of autonomous vehicles to move as many people as possible as often as possible. Sort of a publicly run car-pool list - or a hyper-responsive bus fleet that runs for the exact passengers going to exact locations. A big problem companies like Uber, Lyft, and Tesla will have is that they'll lack market saturation to optimize commuting routes - they'll be able to win unique rides, but the best way they can achieve the lowest cost service model is these super predictable and timely commuter riders. The more data points and riders, the more optimization they can achieve. These companies can look at the data for as many people as possible and bid for as many routes as possible - optimizing for convenience, time, energy usage, emissions, etc. The public will voluntarily participate if this is optimized to get the cheapest ride possible. If the government doesn't do this, the private sector will eventually.
As a parallel, no one today even considers how Metro runs garbage collection. No one cares. And if you didn't like Metro's trash service, if you needed a better service for unique needs, you go procure that on your own. Likewise, you wouldn't care about the quality of the commuting trip as long as it's up to some minimal standards of your class expectations, it's reliable, nearly as quick as driving your own vehicle, and it seems reasonably affordable.
If the public ran this data exchange, fees could subsidize lower-income riders. This is a theory on what a TriMet like system or mass transit system could look like in a primarily autonomous world where most people don't own their own or drive an automobile.
This system would be far from perfect, opening up all sorts of problems around mobility. However, it's hard to see how autonomous vehicles will not obliterate the value proposition of mass transit.

Another narrative on the same story.

As the working class moves to autonomous vehicles, transit agencies will collect fewer and fewer fares - prices and taxes will rise, creating a cycle of failure. As a result, some cities will make buses self-driving to cut costs. It could start with Tokyo, Shanghai, Oslo, et al. Again, it's unlikely that Portland or Oregon will be the first movers on this, but when cities start laying off hundreds of mass transit operators and cutting fares to practically nothing, there will be substantial public pressure to mimic locally. It will be inhumane, it will be illiberal, to make those impoverished bus-riding single mothers pay premiums. As most of the fleet becomes autonomous, responsive, and disconnected from labor costs, the next question arises: why do we still operate bus routes? Why big buses instead of smaller and nimble vehicles?
This alternative story/perspective leads to the same outcome: we figure out where people are going and when they need to get there - then dispatch the appropriate amount of vehicles to move that exact number of people as efficiently as possible.
But our local government getting its act together on all this is outside the world of possibility.
In a practical sense, we're going to see history repeat itself. Portland's mass transit history is about private and public entities over-extending themselves, getting too deep in debt on a flawed and outdated idea. As a result, the system collapses into consolidation or liquidation. Following this historical pattern, TriMet/Metro won't respond to changing conditions fast enough, and laughably stupid ideas like cranking up taxes or increasing ridership fares will continue to be the only option until the media finally acknowledges these groups are insolvent. I just hope we don't spend tens of billions of dollars propping up this zombie system before we can soberly realize that we made some mistakes and these vanity-laden projects 20 and 30 years ago need to die.
You see, the biggest flaw with TriMet isn't the design, it needs to be outpaced by technology, it's that the people making decisions at TriMet and Metro are going to make the politically expedient decisions, not the right decisions. They won't redesign, and they won't leverage technology for cost savings, so this charade will just get going along until the media simply declares they're insolvent.
Back to fares for a second - the media happily reprints TriMet's horseshit take about "The higher fares will bring in an estimated $4.9 million in annual revenue starting next year, the report says." Just sort of amazing to me there's no skepticism about this number - but most spectacular is no media considerations about alternative solutions. For example, I could tell TriMet how to save $9,548,091 next year - a useless program primarily utilized by white middle-class folks who own alternative methods of transport - and this would inconvenience way less transit-dependent people than raising fares. But, that's off the table - we're not even developing a decision matrix for when we kill the blackhole of money known as WES.