Honolulu hosted a packed weekend of Pokemon excitement. While many still think Pokemon's competitive corner mainly being the core video games and the ever-popular Trading Card Game, one game is continually rising in popularity. It's Pokemon Unite, the franchise's entry into the MOBA genre. A packed house at the Honolulu Convention Center watched Fennel come in from Japan and claim the Pokemon Unite championship. Among those who witnessed the team's total domination was Jake 'Spragels' Sprague, who was one of Unite's vast caster roster on the call.
A day after the smoke cleared, Shacknews had a chance to meet and chat with Spragels. We asked about the grand finals, Pokemon Unite's increasing popularity, his start in content creation (he does call himself the "Content Cowboy," after all), and what to watch for as Unite heads into its fourth year.
Source: The Pokemon Company
Shacknews: I want to start by asking you about last night's grand finals. Is that how you expected it to go down?
Jake 'Spragels' Sprague, Pokemon Unite caster/Content Cowboy: Honestly, yes. I did expect Fennel to be that good.
So, Fennel out of Japan won the entire thing. They were 3-0 in the grand finals, and they looked like they couldn't be beat coming into this tournament. They had such an amazing run through the Japanese regionals. I felt like this was the team to stop. If anyone could stop them, they were probably winning this whole tournament, and nobody could.
Shacknews: They were so dominant through the entire weekend. I wanted to ask, is there another team out there that maybe in the near future you think can reach their level?
Spragels: Yeah! The exciting thing is, the previous two years we had, North America in fact... the same team essentially, with a couple of members switched around, won back-to-back championships.
Now we have Fennel coming in. They look just as dominant as those teams did in Year 1 and Year 2. So I think in the next year of the championship series, we could absolutely have a team that rises to that level. I would always love to see, somehow, the championship team from Year 2 against the championship team from Year 3. We'll see if something like that could ever happen. But yeah, in Year 4, absolutely! In fact, I think a lot of the Asia-Pacific teams have a real shot.
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Shacknews: Looking back at the weekend as a whole, I wanted to ask if there was anything that really surprised you. Was there a wild off-meta pick that you saw at any point during the tournament that may have shocked you?
Spragels: Yeah! Zeraora! Zeraora so much! It was so surprising!
I thought I'd see more Charizard. Charizard, early on, was kind of looked at as, "Hey, we can't ever let this thing get into a match. We're going to ban it every game." Then as the tournament went on, people were like, "Yeah, I'd kind of rather have Blaziken or something like that." But Zeraora was shocking and, at the same time, our former world champions were knocked out in Day 1 playing Zeraora. I didn't expect to see it and we didn't get to see too much of it, because they ended up losing because of it.
Shacknews: The hardcore followers of the scene probably know the answer to this question, but for our readers that maybe haven't followed Pokémon Unite as closely, is there a particular Pokemon that seems to be dominating the meta at the moment?
Spragels: I think one of the best things we saw all weekend was Blaziken. Blaziken is amazing. The combos that this thing throws, it's kind of like a high-skilled player's absolute dream. It's able to switch its move set on the fly and go into this huge Blaze Kick to pull its opponents into this Overheat that is this massive area damage, and then switch it back up into uppercuts and Focus Blast. Plus, it feels like if you're really good at the game, you are even better on something like this.
Then, from sort of a defender perspective, I feel like Umbreon just took the cake as the number one pick. It's a tanky Pokemon that every team could use, whether you use it in a kind of more supportive role where it's healing allies or if you're stunning your opponents, even sometimes use it really aggressively, almost in their face all game, which is really cool to see.
Shacknews: Now I'd like to ask about you, Spragels the Content Cowboy. When did you first get your start in content creation and how did that get you here as one of the faces of Unite esports?
Spragels: Yeah, so I started making content early on during COVID when we were all locked down. I was at home, I didn't have much to do, I always wanted to do something in gaming, and I felt like, "Hey, here I am, let's give it a shot."
I just started making content around games that I enjoyed. I started streaming and then when I saw Pokemon Unite on the horizon, I was really excited. I love MOBAs. I love Pokemon. I thought that if this works out, it's like a match made in heaven. I just started making content about it. There was kind of news like, "When's the release date? They haven't exactly said," so I was making early content. I played the beta, and I was going, "This is who I think is really good in that."
And luckily, everything started to align. My videos started to get noticed on YouTube. People were clicking more and more, Pokemon Unite was blowing up, and I was right along with it. I went from having, I don't know what it was... 5000 subscribers, and then it was 25,000, and then it was 100,000. It was happening so fast. And I think that's just what happens when the game is taking off and I am covering everything I can with the game.
Since then, I've been casting the Unite Championship Series. They found a few of my videos early on. I happened to have a video, like watching one of the early, early Pokemon tournaments before it was the official series. That video happened to get a lot of views. I think everyone was going, "What's a Pokemon Unite tournament? What's that look like?" And I think through that, they probably went, "Okay, we'll give this guy who thinks he's a cowboy a chance." And they brought me on the broadcast and they thankfully let me do it ever since.
Shacknews: The people who follow the scene, they know you. They know DoobSnax. They know Zoinks. They know Kelosaurus. Why is it important for any esports scene to have those recognizable personalities?
Spragels: Well, for me, it's so I can continue having a job. It's really huge if they decide they need to keep me around, because that's great for me.
But I actually think one thing that I love, that we get to do, is I feel like we get to help dictate the culture of the esport. And I want this to be a really positive esport. A lot of MOBA communities, they're not as cool as the Unite community. They're kind of known for being pretty toxic and things like that. It's a genre that can lead to something like that. I hope that what we do, especially being on the broadcast consistently, I hope we can help cultivate an environment where we're celebrating these players, we're celebrating these teams, we feel like we're bringing the community together.
I really am appreciative of everyone who is watching these broadcasts. It means a lot that we had... it was like 40,000 people live or something yesterday, seeing these grand finals. That is huge. And I feel like you want to create an exciting, welcoming space and having us on the broadcast so often, I think it helps do that.
And you kind of know, like, "Oh yeah, I get what that guy's going to do. He's going to talk for a while, and then he's going to throw it to the other guy with the mustache. He's going to yell for a while." We let people know what they're coming back for. It's a lot of mustache guys yelling.
Shacknews: How does content creation help you prepare for a job in color commentary?
Spragels: I think content creation helps you prepare for a lot of the technical aspects of it. And also content creation just helps you refine maybe what your voice is, what you care about, and what you want to present.
I think a lot of my background... I used to do a lot of improv comedy. I still do, but I used to, too! I used to do a lot of improv at this place called the Upright Citizens Brigade. It's a comedy theater in Los Angeles. And that, I feel, like it's helped me with so many things. When I first got into commentary, people would go, "Do you do color commentary or do you do play-by-play?" And I'm like, "I don't know what that means." So a lot of what I often do, until I learn more about it, is just, "Yes, and..." and go with the flow. If you want to sit me down and talk to me about Pokemon Unite for an hour, I would be happy to do that. If we're doing it on broadcast watching these games, I'm happy to do that.
Since then, I feel like that's also helped me a bit too, because you get paired with different people, you start to learn each other's styles. And something that I've always thought is really important is this idea of, "My idea is good, your idea is better, but our idea together is the best." So I want to use my background in improv to hopefully make a really fun, exciting broadcast.
Shacknews: Pokemon Unite is entering Year 4. What personally excites you the most about the game's year ahead, whether it's just the game itself or whether it's the competitive scene?
Spragels: The competitive scene is going to be amazing. The EX license is being removed from a lot of Pokémon. If you're not familiar with that, there are legendary Pokemon that have been in the game: Mewtwo X, Mewtwo Y, Zacian, Ho-Oh, Miraidon. All of these Pokemon had this EX classification and they weren't allowed in competitive play. These are legendary Pokemon and they were very, very powerful, but now they're being balanced with the rest of the roster.
So the next time you tune into the championship series, I hope it's ready to go at that point. You could see teams with a Mewtwo on it. You can see teams with a Zacian on it. That coupled with more and more Pokemon coming to the game, I think it's just going to be a really exciting new season. We're going to have more new Pokemon in Season 4 than we did in Season 3, like right out the gate because of all of these legendaries that will be available.
Shacknews: It's opening the floodgates for Pokémon! Sounds like a great answer to this next question, but I'll ask it anyway. What, if anything, do you feel needs to happen to keep the game and the competitive scene growing?
Spragels: Opening the floodgates!
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, with any live service game, it's new. New and new updates! They've actually been updating a lot more often recently with really good balance changes that have taken Pokemon that have not been super relevant, like Charizard. Things like that I think are really exciting, almost having moments where Pokemon have their day in the sun balance-wise is very exciting.
And yeah, "new" is exciting, like having a new supporter, having a new defender. How is that going to affect the meta? I think that makes the competitive scene really, really exciting. Then, of course, just seeing how the teams continue to evolve. We've gone from what felt like a single region being really, really good, to a lot of regions getting kind of competitive, to now everyone is great at this game worldwide, which is really cool.
Shacknews: You sort of touched on this already, but my last question is what makes Pokémon unite an esports scene that's unlike any other in gaming right now?
Spragels: I think a few things. One, I feel like it's easy to walk by and understand what's happening with it. It's fast-paced, so you're not sitting down to watch a 50-plus minute match and really getting in the weeds of what's going on with that. The games are fast, intense. It's clear which teams are ahead and who needs to win. I think that makes it a great entry point, which is really exciting.
A lot of MOBAs are sort of built like this, but Unite is specifically built with these massive crescendo moments in each game. You're kind of funneling the match into a certain point, and you're setting up a huge payoff in a lot of these games. And I think it does that just about better than anything else.
One thing it does is that it creates a moment that I don't know if any other esports game has this. Maybe one does. I'm so sorry to whatever game does. In the last 10 seconds of the game, the scoreboard goes away. We don't know exactly who's ahead. In most games, one team's winning. It's pretty clear and you know that was the team that won.
However, there are a few moments where you're not sure. It's so close. Both teams are pushing. Both teams are scoring. You don't know exactly what happened. You feel it in the arena. The audience is dead silent. We're silent in the casting booth for a moment. We're going, "I don't know if that was enough. Charizard had 14. I'm not sure." The players don't know. You see the scores populate on the screen, like moving back and forth with how they were scoring. It happens pretty quick. Then, boom! One team is three points ahead and it's unbelievable. I don't know any other game that could do that. Yesterday on broadcast, it happened twice in a row! We were screaming! It's crazy! I don't know any other game that does it and if one does, I'm so sorry.
Pokemon Unite recently celebrated its third anniversary and will soon begin rolling out its fourth season. Look for the Unite Championship Series to resume with an all-new season soon.
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replyOzzie Mejia posted a new article, Spragels talks about content creation, improv, and Pokemon Unite esports
