"Lopunny Casting Paths For Sisterhood" ft. DPhiE250 from GOCast PVP Corner | TRAINER'S EYE #43

A deep dive into DPhiE250's journey reveals her passion for Pokémon GO, PVP battles, and her significant role as a caster for Play Pokémon. From co-hosting the PVP Corner on GoCast Podcast to her early days training at JigglyDad's Shoutcast School, her story is a testament to women's empowerment and representation in the Pokémon GO community. As an advocate for inclusivity, she shares how her path in PVP content creation has helped inspire others to find their voice in the Pokémon world.

 🎧 Hear how women shape and celebrate Pokémon.
Hit play on the Women Pokémon Trainers playlist today! 

Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

David Hernandez 0:00

My name is David Hernandez and you're listening to As The Pokeball Turns!.

Introduction

David Hernandez 0:44

Welcome to As The Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. Women have played an important role within the Pokemon franchise. In spite of women unable to select a female avatar in Gen one, their role has increased over time within the Pokemon franchise. The voice of Ash has been voiced by a woman during his entire existence in both the English and Japanese versions of the anime. For the English version, it started with Veronica Taylor and transitioned over to Sarah Natochenny. For the Japanese version, the series started with Rica Matsumoto Before transitioning to Hana Takeda. In Pokemon Crystal, Game Freak finally added a female avatar, and with it came Whitney, a normal type trainer who gave plenty of players PTSD with her Miltank. We jump over to gen four where we have our very first woman champion, Cynthia, who would beat us senselessly with her Garchomp. We then have Professor Juniper, who was the first female professor in the main series games when she debuted in the Unova region. Finally, with Riko as the new female protagonist for the Pokemon franchise, one thing is certain, the journey for women within Pokemon has only begun as they continue to leave their mark in Pokemon history. My guest for this episode is not only a caster for play Pokemon. Just like the woman I've mentioned before, she's blazing the trail for women everywhere as the first woman caster for Pokemon Go. She's the co-host of the PVP Corner at the Go Cast podcast. Here is her origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is DPhiE250!

Interview with DPhiE250

David Hernandez 2:20

Welcome to As The Pokeball Turns, where the stories are real and people still play this game. I'm your host David Hernandez, and before we dive into today's guest, if you have any Pokemon Go stories, send 'em to my email. I would love to read 'em. You can send them at asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com. Again, it's asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com. Your story might be recreated into a skit, or you may even be invited onto the show. Now today I'm joined by a very familiar name. You may know her as the co-host of PVP Corner at the Go Cast podcast. Others may know her as the caster on the play Pokemon Circuit and her involvement with the PVP scene. Let me welcome DPhiE250! Welcome to the show.

DPhiE250 3:01

Thank you so much for having me on, i appreciate it.

David Hernandez 3:04

Definitely, and I'm excited to finally have you on the show, but before we dive into, you know, your story and everything, right now, you're raising money for St. Jude. Can you talk a little bit about it and just let 'em know what you're doing.

DPhiE250 3:13

Yeah, for sure! So St. Jude has a project that is called St. Jude Play Live, and it's a big fundraising campaign, there are a lot of people involved, specifically, there's a group of women in the Pokemon space called the Lass Project. They work a lot to do fundraising throughout the year together, just women who play Pokemon in general, not just Pokemon Go. I can't do their big three day live event this year, but I really wanted to help out with the fundraising and supporting their Tilt five campaign because as I've been saying on a lot of my Twitch streams recently, the world kind of sucks sometimes, like the world can have a lot of bad things in it, and we should work hard as people to try to lead the world better than we found it. Try to put good into the world, and I think St. Jude is a fantastic organization that deserves that support that makes the world a little bit of a better place and fighting childhood cancer is definitely something you know near and dear to my heart, as someone who works with kids. Its really important to me to try to raise money for this big project, this big community effort.

David Hernandez 4:17

Without a doubt. I've always said that it's important as people for us to get involved within the community cause like you said, the world's not a good place sometimes and we can't change the world by ourselves. But I've always believed that as a community, as a collective group, if we all just do what we can with what we have, we can make the world in a better place for some people. that's how we change the world and I applaud you and every other creator who's involved with that, cuz that is such a very noble and important part to just be able to kind of give back to people.

DPhiE250 4:46

I completely agree and yeah, I've been really excited, it's been great seeing people post on social media about what they've been doing to fundraise, what incentives they've been using. it's just really heartwarming. It 's good. I think it's important as people that we work on projects like that.

David Hernandez 5:00

Without a doubt, and I'll make sure to include some kind of donation link directly to St. Jude within the show notes of today's episode. But anyway, DPhi, we always bring guests to just find out your origin story and I'm looking forward to kind of diving into it, but I wanna start where the beginning is, so when did you first start playing Pokemon Go?

DPhiE250 5:15

Oh, I am a day one player. Definitely day number one. I downloaded. That's definitely a little point of pride for me. I was one of those people, you know, walking, trying to catch all the Magikarp to evolve one to a Gyarados. It took me forever. I was walking up and down the riverfront, all summer. That summer was honestly some of the best of just gaming. it was just so peaceful. I've heard jokes, you know, it's the closest we've come to World Peace. It was a summer to remember that summer of 2016.

David Hernandez 5:45

In your area, like where were people going to play? Like I'm sure you had like the massive crowds and people blocking roads or into parks. Right?

DPhiE250 5:52

Oh yeah, we have a riverfront area that was really popular and it's just cuz it had four little Pokestops and you could go to the riverfront cause I'm from a fairly small community and that was a really big place, our little downtown area was really popular as well as a couple parks, you could always see people The same way you do now, you can see the motion they're making on their phone that They're clearly catching something. it's fun to call people out and see like, Hey, it was just friendly and awesome to see people out and about like that.

David Hernandez 6:21

You seemed excited. So what was it about Pokemon Go that you were like looking forward to when they announced it?

DPhiE250 6:26

Well, I got into Pokemon right away when I was little. I think it was my eighth Christmas. I was young. I had a game boy color. I had Pokemon blue and red and yellow. As I went through, I played generation two, generation three, and then like a lot of people I put Pokemon down for a little bit, not ever forgetting about it, but you know, moved on to some other things. when Pokemon Go came out, it just all, like the nostalgia factor was really, really big for me, as it is for, I think a lot of millennials who play this game. it was just something else to see like, oh my gosh, there's like a Pokemon in my living room, going to the park and like seeing everything and just trying to figure out like how the game works. it was just so completely different. I just really love too, how it brought people together.

David Hernandez 7:15

Now, you talked about how you started Pokemon with the first, it sounds like three generations, so you stopped playing after that up until Pokemon Go?

DPhiE250 7:21

Yeah, I've gone back since and replayed at least one game from every generation. I've touched on all of the different generations and a couple of the spinoff games. Pokemon Pinball is the one I wanna see. I wanna see Pokemon Pinball remake on the Nintendo Switch, that would be the dream.

David Hernandez 7:39

Pokemon pinball is such underrated, and it's always easily forgotten, but I've always also wanted to see. I know it never happened, but I've always wanted to see a remake of the trading card game from the Game Boy Color. I'd kind of an updated where you go to different areas and just do the card game.

DPhiE250 7:52

I agree. That was, all of that was very, very good. again, the nostalgia. I think that's what brought a lot of people to this game and then they Kind of found in Pokemon Go, what they really like whether it's the AR community who really likes taking the AR photos, the Pokemon Go P V P community, the Raiders, the shiny hunters, and then people find what makes them happy, there's a lot of different ways to play this game and none of them are wrong.

David Hernandez 8:16

With your experience with Pokemon, do you have a favorite Pokemon at all?

DPhiE250 8:19

Oh, Buneary! Buneary and Lopunny and mega Lopunny. That is my favorite evolution line.

David Hernandez 8:24

Really? So you missed, it sounded like you skipped Gen four. So was it you discovered that Pokemon when you went back?

DPhiE250 8:29

Yeah, I discovered it when I went back to the games, and I just think Buneary is adorable. I like. Rabbits, I think they're cute And then I like how mega Lopunny is a normal and fighting type. I like that She's this badass yoga instructor that's gonna kick your butt. Mega Lopunny specifically is pretty fantastic and I would say that that is my ultimate favorite.

David Hernandez 8:50

Now what's interesting though is you actually named your dog after one of the characters from the anime series, Misty, right?

DPhiE250 8:56

I did because it's funny, my parents are told me like, ah, you better not name your dog, like, Pikachu or something. So I tried to say, I'm like, what's a subtle reference that they wouldn't know, but I know and I think, I think Misty is sassy and funny and adorable. So I, I think Misty's a pretty fantastic nickname. She's looking at me right now, like you talking about me. You

David Hernandez 9:22

Yes, we're talking about you.

DPhiE250 9:24

Yes, we are.

David Hernandez 9:25

That's awesome. Was there any like other name you were gonna think about besides Misty or just Misty was just the closest you could think of.

DPhiE250 9:30

Misty was definitely the name. I looked up a bunch of different names, a bunch of different ideas, and Misty, that was the favorite.

David Hernandez 9:38

So you mentioned how, there's a PVP community. I know that's how you prefer to play the Pokemon games. Right.

DPhiE250 9:43

Yes, definitely. I like my shiny hunting, I play out on community days, I'll do some raids. However, PVP is really, that's how I engage with the game most days.

David Hernandez 9:53

What was it about P V P that got you hooked?

DPhiE250 9:56

I am so competitive. I am competitive to a fault. I love competition, so that is definitely something for Pokemon Go PVP that drew me in. I also just really loved when the Silph arena first dropped. It was so much fun, we had a little test tournament at a friend's house and. we all got together and ordered pizza and just tried playing a tournament and then we opened it up to the greater community after that one went well. PVP I think is one of the best ways to bring people together.

David Hernandez 10:27

So going back to the pizza party, so PVP drops and y'all just do a tournament right then and there?

DPhiE250 10:32

Yeah, the Silph Arena dropped so my very first tournament was one that we just got together. we just invited a bunch of people that we knew to a friend's house, and we were like, Hey, let's try it, let's try this thing, let's see how it works. And then we opened it up to the bigger community. and that was really, really fun. We held it in a more central location that more people could access, but we just wanted to see like, how do you do a tournament? How does this work? What's gonna happen? so we, we did a little test run and it was, it was a really good time.

David Hernandez 11:02

Do you remember what it was like playing P V P in those early days?

DPhiE250 11:05

It was crazy, the first Boulder Cup tournaments, there wasn't a rule about you could only bring one Pokemon of a species, so people were running like double Skarmory, which is kind of bananas to think about now because like, can you imagine like Lanturn, double Trevenant or something like, like, that would be so bad or like Triple Chancey teams?

David Hernandez 11:25

Oh geez.

DPhiE250 11:26

like that would be awful now. But yeah, that was definitely the Wild West back in the day. I used a Metagross, I think on my first Boulder Cup team like, I didn't know what I was doing, I just thought it was cool. That was back when we didn't know a lot about IVs and we just were using our three star Pokemon, or they weren't even three star back then. I think it was just...

David Hernandez 11:49

yeah, we didn't have stars. We only had the, uh, you know, tack defense. Yeah. The descriptions.

DPhiE250 11:54

from your team leader. we used Pokemon with high stats and then we realized, oh, that's not actually what we want. You want low attack and that was crazy to think about because for a while it was like, oh, high, you want your high stats and then there it was going around like, oh, you just want it to be as close to 1500 as possible like nothing else matters. it was a lot of rumors, we didn't have like good, consistent information. I think early on, at least a lot of people in the greater community didn't, and there's still people they get come into this game, they don't know. They just use whatever Pokemon they have until they learn more about it.

David Hernandez 12:26

The benefit for them is they got way more resources than we did cuz you know, we're trying to figure things out in the fly and you know, nowadays people have got PVPoke, they've got the content creators who do pvp, like they've got a lot more access to information than we did.

DPhiE250 12:40

Completely agree. It's much easier to learn about the game now. also we have, cuz we didn't have the team leader battles for a long time like even just to kinda learn what. PVP would be like all, a lot of stuff came later like team rocket battles are good practice for just knowing how to like do your charge moves and type effectiveness. Watching old videos of what Pokemon Go PVP used to be like the switch screen was very different you had to like pull up a switch screen to switch your Pokemon and like the furious tapping of your phone to like charge up a move. it's just so different like the quality of life features when you look at Pokemon Go PVP initially, and now it's just, it's very different.

David Hernandez 13:21

Yeah, there wasn't those, you know, those fancy screens, like the ground types was on the bottom. The, I think the grass is on the right, water's on the left. We were just button smashing, trying to get up to, I think excellent, everything

DPhiE250 13:33

Yeah, it was like rings. It was like three rings that you were tapping,

David Hernandez 13:37

right

DPhiE250 13:37

uh, and trying to power up the move that way.

David Hernandez 13:39

Well, as you learned, pvp, liked, where did you go to kind of get your information? Like who was kind of your go-to place to get your information?

DPhiE250 13:47

Oh, definitely ZyoniK! in the early days, ZyoniK used to do a lot of Silph Arena content cuz that's all there was. Go Battle League didn't exist initially. I joined ZyoniK's Discord, there was a member of my local community that I just really wanted to be able to beat in like Silph tournaments cuz he was very good and he was a ZyoniK patron. So I figured, you know what? I'm gonna do what he's doing. If he's doing so well, I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna try to learn how he's learning. So I joined ZyoniK's Patron community really early on, and yeah, ZyoniK is a great guy, really happy to see him do the play Pokemon tournaments. he's always been fantastic and I am still a Zyonik patron to this day.

David Hernandez 14:28

That's awesome. Now the question though is like, did you ever beat this person?

DPhiE250 14:32

I did! I made a cheesy little YouTube video describing my run like if you go deep, deep into the dungeons of Youtube like on the dark alleyways, if you dig back really deep, you can find an old video of mine where I won, I think it was the Toxic Cup, I wanna say.

David Hernandez 14:49

Were you like excited when you finally beat this person? Like did it feel like validating?

DPhiE250 14:53

Oh my goodness. It was elating, I screamed. I think like it was very, I was. I wasn't sure I could do it. I remember a Drapion, a Bibarel, and a Meganium was my team. A lot of the same Pokemon, like Drapion, still loved Drapion. Gliscor. Still love Gliscor. We'll use it whenever I can. Bibarel, maybe not so much. Toxicroak great. We saw, Emma5cents used one in a play Pokemon tournament love me some Toxicroak action.

David Hernandez 15:21

I'm just excited that you gave Meganium some action or some love.

DPhiE250 15:24

Meganium is great. Meganium is underrated. I wish it could, like earthquake is such a fun coverage move to use in Pokemon Go, I wish Meganium were just a little bit better Venusaur definitely with the poison typing. and its stats tends to win out a little bit, but Meganium is fun when you're allowed to use it.

David Hernandez 15:42

Now one thing that's interesting is that You do not use shadow Pokemon at all.

DPhiE250 15:47

I don't, I don't have a single one ready, it's kind of a joke. I'm in the B.T.W, Beginner to Winner podcast server as well, and I'll ask about teams and it's always, you know, people will recommend shadows like oh, shadow Ducket and Shadow Bulbasaur." I'm like, well, how does the regular one do? How does that one fare?

David Hernandez 16:06

It's frustrating, right? Cuz it's like you understand the lore behind it, how they're suffering, their hearts is closed and they're unfortunately better than the purified ones.

DPhiE250 16:15

I know it really disappoints me that there wasn't a balancing of the scales when shadows were introduced to make like purified ones also have a certain benefit other than having the powerful charge move of return, which is really good for something like a Sableye, but Shadow Sableye is also good because you can get a lot more damage with Shadow Claw, you can run Power Gem, which can do really well against something like a Noctowl, give you some really good, super effective damage.

David Hernandez 16:40

Have you ever thought about like how you would fix purified Pokemon at all? Like do you ever think of some ideas to make 'em better?

DPhiE250 16:46

I think the fact that they are cheaper to power up is really good. It's cheaper to give them second moves. it's cheaper to max 'em out. I think tho those are all really good things, but I'm wondering if like a defense buff would be better for them. if there were ever like more advanced P v P mechanics, maybe something different about like when shadow and purified Pokemon battle, purified Pokemon can resist some things from shadow Pokemon like finding a way to do something like that would be interesting.

David Hernandez 17:14

So one last question I have about PVP. You said earlier your favorite Pokemon was Lopunny. How would you make that more meta relevant for, say, a great league or ultra league? what does it need?

DPhiE250 17:25

I have to go back and find this video. KiengIV did a video a long time ago. So many, many, many Go Battle League seasons ago. He made a video about which Pokemon would benefit most from a move update and Lopunny was number one, cuz low punny actually has pretty good stats all things considered. I like that it has double kick now. Double kick, fire punch and you can do focus blast on it. but I think having a slightly better fast move, charm would be interesting, I know Lopunny does run charm in the main series games. It would have to be something that it has access to in the main series for it to be implemented really in Pokemon Go or even another normal move that isn't like a hyper beam. So something else that's maybe a little bit more for a bait move.

David Hernandez 18:14

Are we talking like maybe a body slam?

DPhiE250 18:16

Yeah, like some, something like that, like something lower cost that can be used as a bait would be good I think for Lopunny. Fire punch isn't a great move, in general in PVP, so maybe giving it's something a little bit better for its bait move would be one potential option.

David Hernandez 18:31

Someday Niantic will give Lopunny some love, and we will hear you nonstop talk about it on the podcast and everywhere else because, you know, Lopunny finally has its day.

DPhiE250 18:41

justice for low punny, hashtag justice for low punny. I do have a level 50 Hundo Lopunny that I use for megas that I really enjoy and I would love to be able to use that more often. It's also just a really good mega to have, being able to mega something to get the bonuses for both normal and fighting types, two of the most common types in the game is pretty solid.

David Hernandez 18:59

Now, eventually, your interest in pvp eventually got you involved into the Go Cast podcast, which is the PVP Corner. how did that happen?

DPhiE250 19:07

It started as a joke, like a meme, which is the best part. The part that makes me the happiest is it started as a joke. GoCast Chris and Kyle used to be a little bit more involved with like Twitch, and they would do some streaming and myself and Fish, along with some others were moderators and still are moderators for the Go Cast podcast Discord Server. And we were chatting around in Twitch chat oh, wouldn't it be funny if the mods did a takeover stream and would they took over the podcast? What would that be like? What would it be like if these two took it over? What would happen if like these couple moderators took it over? Oh, what if Fish and DPhi took it over? It would just be about PVP! Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that be hilarious?" cuz the joke was always Chris and Kyle know nothing about pvp. So whenever they would record, we would just comment every single episode about like, no, you said that wrong, like, no, that's not right. and it was funny. And then Chris just kind of commented back like, "I'd be down for that. you wanna do that? Let's go." and then we did. We approached him and Kyle with a plan of, this is what we could talk about, it was ideally gonna be 15 minutes every week, and now it's an hour every week in its own separate, Like within the same feed, it's a different release and the same feed each week. That's definitely grown and it's been really exciting, all of the support and all of the love that we've been getting. Fish and I talk about all the time, it's the best feeling when people email in or comment on Twitter or tag us in something saying that we have helped them somehow, it's the absolute best.

David Hernandez 20:39

Definitely, and I've listened to y'all's, PVP Corner. First off, y'all outgrew that corner a long time ago. Y'all need y'all's own show for a long time.

DPhiE250 20:47

Now we got our own room.

David Hernandez 20:49

Yeah, you your own, you upgraded.

DPhiE250 20:51

We've upgraded.

David Hernandez 20:53

But honestly like whenever I listen to you guys, it makes sense to me cuz I'll be honest, I know a little bit about pvp, I understand the type matchups, but after that I'm kind of really casual. But whenever I listen to you guys, it makes a lot sense when y'all talk, meaning y'all don't really go into like the full in depth of say, I'll say at B T W B T W, they break it down a lot more further than you guys do. Y'all kind of keep it pretty basic to where I feel like any person who listens can kind of understand what they're talking about.

DPhiE250 21:19

We try to make it really beginner friendly, but in a short amount of time, you brought up B.T.W. I love those boys, they are great, they are a great group of guys, but I do not wanna talk about P V P for three hours. They also go on a lot of tangents, to be fair. I know, but like three hours a week, that's a long, that's a long podcast. I need my beauty rest.

David Hernandez 21:41

Fair enough.

DPhiE250 21:43

so I l I Real, something I love about us and the PVP Corner, I like that it's shorter, I like that it's only about an hour. I like that we cover all the different aspects of PVP, we cover the Silph Arena, go Battle League. Play Pokemon, I like all of that and I like that we keep it, it's beginner friendly, so we explain things to a level where someone who's just getting into PVP can understand it and we answer questions that are both, you know, high level and beginner level questions. And yeah, we also try to have content there that if you're a more of a nuanced battler and you're more skilled, you can still get something out of the podcast too.

David Hernandez 22:20

And I think what helps is that, you know, you're in the education field and Fish, he has this thing with Pallet Town PVP, where he's teaching people. And I think that ability for both of y'all to Come from The aspect of teaching really helps you kind of approach us as students, if that makes sense.

DPhiE250 22:34

Yes, that's definitely a big deal for me and I, I honestly credit my ability to stream on Twitch, my ability to do casting a lot of that, I think a lot of those skills that I have definitely come from working in education, working with kids.

David Hernandez 22:48

Going back to GoCast Chris and Kyle, were you kind of shocked that they actually, I guess, called your bluff to let y'all do like 15 minutes here for their podcast to do the PVP corner?

DPhiE250 22:57

I was astounded. I didn't think it was real. I thought it was just gonna maybe be like a one-off thing, but when we presented it, we thought like, "Hey, we could do this, you know, every week." I'm still so thankful and honored that they were able to give us that space and that trust. this is a Niantic partnered podcast, like recognized by Niantic.

David Hernandez 23:17

You're official.

DPhiE250 23:18

Like, yeah, this was a big deal to us that they let us have that space and I will be forever grateful for that opportunity.

David Hernandez 23:25

You've been listening to As The Pokeball Turns. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be

Skit/Intermission

David Hernandez 23:31

right back. Now, eventually you dove into content creation, you started doing Twitch, you did YouTube for a while. You know, how did that come about? Was that because of the podcast or different reasons?

DPhiE250 25:54

I started recording my battles to get better. I didn't have a video camera or anything, but one of the first things Zyonik taught me was recording my battles and I just had whatever cheap microphone on my headphones, like on my earbuds,

David Hernandez 26:07

That's all you need. Yeah.

DPhiE250 26:08

that's all you need. so for a long time I just was recording my battles and I was used to that and kind of sharing those. when the pandemic happened, I got a webcam and I wanted to try that cuz I think a lot of people turned to YouTube and Twitch and that space when we all were stuck inside for a very long time. And that kind of got me into streaming on Twitch, which got me into Shoutcasting and doing that. My first experience with that was Jiggly Dad's Shoutcast School, which is no longer, around, but that was definitely my first experience. And then getting involved with Sosaflo and his Friday night fights and all of those that he did when he was working with the Team Rocket Academy. He's now on Pokebattle Network he's got his own channel for that now. But those were two really important experiences for me where I got started, and then opportunities just kept happening from there and again, I am, grateful, I am humbled, so thankful for every opportunity that I've been given along the way.

David Hernandez 27:08

You know, thinking about what we've covered so far. You talk about how playing Pokemon Go day one, would you have ever imagined that not only you are on a podcast, not only are you streaming, but you're also a caster for play Pokemon like how crazy is that?

DPhiE250 27:22

I still have very surreal moments with it. it's strange. I don't, I, hope it never, I hope it never stops feeling kind of weird, like, oh my goodness. I hope I never quite get used to it and I don't think I will of people being excited to meet me who I've never met before. people saying that I've inspired them is incredibly heartwarming and touching, and again, surreal and just brings a smile to my face every single time.

David Hernandez 27:50

I bet. I mean, just to hear that journey of where you're going to or, because we're about to get into the streaming part, but just thinking about how far you've come, like it's amazing. what we're about to find out you're the first woman castor for go like, that's such a huge honor.

DPhiE250 28:02

It's amazing and I I say it sometimes and it's still hard to believe that I got to be the first Women caster for Pokemon Go.

David Hernandez 28:10

Now you said it started, your casting started with jiggly dad stream called Shoutcaster School. Like what was that about?

DPhiE250 28:16

it was a while ago, like it hasn't existed for a long time, but it was the idea of like teaching people how to shoutcast and 20Butters, that was how I met him and then another trainer named AJ were judges. So it would be two kind of newbies, two people who wanted to learn what Shoutcasting was about and then these two quote unquote professionals, two experienced judges and you would shoutcast matches and they would rank you, they would give you like a letter grade, A score, and give you Ways to improve. I thought that was really fun, I think I did it twice. after that, Sosa had put it out there that he was looking for shout casters specifically, he was interested in some female faces that he could help use his platform to promote. And yeah, I got started getting involved with Friday night Fights. So really have enjoyed having, that professional relationship with him as well.

David Hernandez 29:07

Now, when you were doing the Shoutcaster school, or maybe as even when you did with Sosa, was there ever a point to where you felt like this was kind of meant for you? Like, this is the thing that I love doing?

DPhiE250 29:18

I am not sure when that really hit for me. It was definitely scary at first. I definitely wasn't great the first few times I did it, but I know that I have just some good skills, some good transferable skills of being able to command a space with my voice and being fairly articulate. And also being able to explain things and I think that also comes from working in education, taking high level concepts and being able to explain them, for people at an entry level, at the ground level.

David Hernandez 29:47

And is that kind of the role of the caster? Like they kinda explained it for the normal person, like what makes a good caster?

DPhiE250 29:51

Oh my goodness. There is a lot of things. I think being able to adjust on the fly, having that flexibility, being approachable, being able to work well with a partner and being able to pick up and work with whatever your partner is putting down and being able to pick up and adjust off of that. Again, being articulate, being able to explain things and making the stream interesting again, not just for people who just happen to find the Twitch stream and are turning it on and are wondering what Pokemon Go PVP is like, I didn't know you could battle Pokemon Go. Is it just whoever taps the fastest? And being able to explain like how the game works, but also being able to do those high level, more nuanced plays and being able to talk about those for the people, who are interested and who are craving that high level analysis. I think it's not just being a good caster, but being able to be part of a good team of casters.

David Hernandez 30:42

And that was actually something I was curious about. is there kind of a dynamic that y'all look for as casters regarding to like who you wanna work with, like do you feel like you work better with some people compared to others?

DPhiE250 30:52

I wouldn't necessarily say that. I think that there's better compliments, for example, Speediestchief, he can work with anyone. He can be the hype man, he can do the in-depth analysis, he's good at everything, he's phenomenal to work with. and then there's other casters like AlphaFeeb, you know, like quick math with Feeb like that is his strength the technical analysis. So it's really good to pair someone with like Feeb with maybe someone who's a little different, who has different strengths. I think it's good to have a team of two that they can play off of each other's strengths and make the cast as a whole better. It's the idea that one plus one is more than two like you can do more when you bring two different kinds of people together. you can elevate the cast to more than what one person or one type of person could do on their own.

David Hernandez 31:41

That makes sense. It's like, you want people who kind of, y'all can work together no matter what, but there's just some people to where y'all compliment each other better. I'm thinking of sports analysis and I'm trying to avoid that, but.

DPhiE250 31:52

No, but that's, that's how it is too in sports, that's how casting is throughout eSports, that's how casting is in regular sports in football, baseball, however you want, whatever sport you connect with, you tend to have two people together who have different strengths, and because of those two different strengths, you can elevate the production, you can elevate the experience for the listener as a whole by having people who compliment each other well.

David Hernandez 32:15

Now, your first cast was Indianapolis, right?

DPhiE250 32:18

it was, I was so nervous, I was so excited and nervous. I feel like I have improved so much since then and I am again grateful for every opportunity I have with Play Pokemon to show, my improvement and my passion for this game.

David Hernandez 32:34

Do you remember that first cast at all? Like do you, or you kind of blocked it out at this point?

DPhiE250 32:38

I, I blacked out, like I was so nervous and it, it's hard cuz you're used to at that point, all of us really. Speediest and butters, they had, you know, experience doing E U I C, but Holesome and I were new

David Hernandez 32:54

Yes. were the, y'all were together, I think,

DPhiE250 32:56

and we were together. So trying to figure out like how to play off of each other, where do you look like, I remember, like, "I don't understand, am I supposed to look at Holesome or am I supposed to look at the camera?" Like, how often am I supposed to to do that?" It's just a lot to think about. it's very different than when you are casting like in the comfort of your home with your nice chair and your couple computer screens that you have in front of you, it's a very different experience.

David Hernandez 33:22

Now I know you don't remember it. I actually went back and looked at it. What was crazy.

DPhiE250 33:26

Oh, no.

David Hernandez 33:28

what's crazy about y'all too. It appeared there was some kind of delay going on with trying to get the devices set up and y'all were just like trying to buy time. Does that happen just not even with staff, but just in general, like where y'all just have to kind of keep the audience entertained while they're trying to fix some technical difficulties?

DPhiE250 33:43

that can happen sometimes and I think it's a lot smoother now that we've all gotten practice with it. but sometimes you're like, you're just not ready. Sometimes people forget with the two factor off authentication on their phone. And sometimes, you know, you think the battle's gonna be ready and then it's not, and you have to improvise and using those moments as educational moments for people or opportunities to review and I think the production level too, you might have noticed, I think the production level has increased so much...

David Hernandez 34:12

oh yeah.

DPhiE250 34:12

in the last, it's only been a year like Indianapolis was just about a year ago

David Hernandez 34:18

Ooh, happy anniversary.

DPhiE250 34:19

Yeah, that's cool. It's, it's very cool. in the last year it has gotten so good and I credit a lot of that to Daniel being hired on as the producer for Pokemon Go and he has such great ideas and he's so passionate and has been working so incredibly hard. And I think that having him on the team at play Pokemon, I think has been making a world of difference.

David Hernandez 34:43

Without a doubt, and I would definitely recommend just checking out any, you don't have to do Indianapolis for the sake of DPhiE, don't do Indianapolis, but just check it out from a year ago. It's what it is now is definitely a lot more. I'll say it's more dynamic now compared to back in the day to where it felt like, you know, y'all were all new and they didn't know where to take the good shots and whatnot.

DPhiE250 35:00

it's so much better, and I'm excited if that's the improvement we can make in just one year. I'm excited for what the future holds and what we can improve upon and what we can make even better as we continue forward.

David Hernandez 35:12

Now speaking of the future, one question that I'm sure you get asked a lot, fish, he possibly could win the worlds,

DPhiE250 35:18

He could win worlds. He very, very well could.

David Hernandez 35:21

what would you do if he wins it?

DPhiE250 35:22

Scream. I'm not sure. That would be crazy. I would be co-hosting a podcast with the world champion of Pokemon Go, that would be very, very cool.

David Hernandez 35:35

Right, and y'all talked about potentially doing a episode over there. Right?

DPhiE250 35:39

Yeah. We talked about like, even if it's just something short, like not a full episode, but it's just a quick upload of, Hey, we're together, we're in the same room or like a quick little, like TikTok, youTube shorts video. Just having something that shows that we're together, documenting it for history. I already have my tickets to Japan. I have a hotel booked, like I'm going,

David Hernandez 36:00

Oh, she ready? She flying?

DPhiE250 36:02

I'm flying. I am taking this once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Japan with people that I know, people that I'm familiar with and do the play Pokemon in the birthplace of Pokemon like that is,

David Hernandez 36:14

that's a dream.

DPhiE250 36:15

it's the dream and I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna miss it. I'm so ready, this is gonna be a good summer.

David Hernandez 36:21

Is this your first go fest or you've been to one before?

DPhiE250 36:23

Yeah, I've been to Go Fest before. I did not the first Go fest, but I did one in Chicago and then I did Seattle last year.

David Hernandez 36:31

Ooh. What was the one that Seattle like?

DPhiE250 36:33

Oh, it was so much fun. I really liked how they did and how they're continuing to do like there's the park experience and then you go and leave the park and you still have a good experience.

David Hernandez 36:44

quality of life improvement. Yep.

DPhiE250 36:46

it's very, very good. I think it allows more people to experience the event, and it's also just less congested But Seattle was gorgeous, it was so much fun to meet other trainers walking around. the Space Needle I went to the top of that and looked around and I went to the marketplace. I did not go to the first Starbucks. I've been told by people that the first Starbucks sells the same coffee as any other Starbucks. So it's not, it's not that worth it to go, but I had such good food. and again, meeting people and seeing people, that whole community coming together. It's a whole nother level.

David Hernandez 37:23

Now, if somebody was on the fence about going to go fest, what would you tell 'em? Would you tell 'em to go?

DPhiE250 37:28

go. I would say go, like you could go and not buy a ticket and just do all of the community meetups, and it would still be awesome. I say it's probably worth buying the ticket, but you could just go, and I know there are people who are doing this, they're just gonna go hang out in New York, or go hang out in London or Osaka and just experience the people and the community, which is the most important part of this game is the people who play it.

David Hernandez 37:51

For sure. Now DPhi, you've been a wonderful guest. I have one last question before we close this taco Stand for today. So I listened to your episode on Battlecatz with Caleb Pang and SpeediestChief. Speediest asked a very good question about who did you look up to as a female caster. You answered that you looked towards your peers, you looked towards Zyonik, you looked towards Kieng, you even looked towards up to SpeediestChief himself. My question is this as we said earlier, you're the first woman caster for GO. What are your thoughts that there are now women, both now and in the future, who can look towards you and say, I can be just like her someday, or I hope to be just like her someday. what does that mean to you?

DPhiE250 38:34

Makes me a little teary-eyed just thinking about it. it's very proud, especially as someone who has been such a big advocate for the girls that PVP movement, for as long as that movement has been around and that community, the Discord community, the Twitter community, it means everything. I'm a big, big advocate for women in gaming and having inclusive spaces and having spaces that are welcoming, empowering women cuz it is hard, it is hard to go to a play Pokemon tournament, it is hard to go to like a local tournament and you're the only woman there. It's intimidating, it's scary, and a lot of women find those spaces to be uncomfortable, uh, unfortunately or worse, even worse than uncomfortable. So the fact that I can show people that it can be done and there's a community of women out there that will support you and we can learn from each other. It's, it's everything. I don't know how else to put it. It means the world to me.

David Hernandez 39:24

Defi, that's the show. Before we do go, if people wanted to check out your content, if people wanna check out GoCast, where can they find you, by all means, please plug away.

DPhiE250 39:32

I can give you a link to my link tree that has everything on it. I have a link to the girls at PVP official Twitter, if that is something you are interested in joining. I'm most active on Twitch and Twitter. I also have my own Discord server where I chat and mostly talk about Formula One cuz I really like Formula One. Discords mostly me talking about Formula One, but we talk Pokemon and Pokemon go on there too. I also have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, I'm not as active there. And then PVP Corner on the Go Cast podcast, I have a link to the Go Cast podcast website and you can find that on pretty much any podcast catcher, so something like Spotify, apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, stuff like that

David Hernandez 40:10

For sure and I'll make sure to include links of everything she said down in the description of today's show.

Thank You For Listening! :)

David Hernandez 40:15

Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.