Would Paul have won if he had used all his powerhouses?

[Queen Cynthia]

There's something I've been asking myself for quite a while:
If Paul had used his all-star team in his final match against Ash in the Sinnoh League, I'm pretty sure Ash would hardly have had any chance of defeating him.

Let's say Paul would have used his strongest Pokemon Torterra, Electivire, Magmortar, Ursaring, Honchkrow and Drapion. I bet you he would have won by a large margin then!
Let's not forget Torterra's and Electivire's stamina and powerful attacks or how Drapion and especially Ursaring mopped the floor with many of Ash's Pokemon.

For some strange reason, however, Paul didn't use his powerhouses which makes me wonder if the writers just gave that win to Ash out of compassion given his terrible former losses.
To be honest, the more I'm thinking about it, the more I'm becoming convinced that Ash's victory wasn't an adequate revenge because it was just too easy. He should have earned that win by defeating all of Paul's strongest Pokemon and not just his B class selection so to speak.

What do you think?



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EDIT: I tried to post this in Prof. Orchid's Live Caster but the thread just won't appear! Mods, please help.

 

[Tye Taylors]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

He should have won anyway except for electivire's intervention...so the powerhouses would have been overkill.

 

[Cybersai]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

No. Ursaring was already beaten twice by Chimchar once, and then Monferno a second time. Obviously Infernape would have killed Ursaring a third time.

Magmortar seemed strong, but it probably wasn't any stronger than Drapion or so, so Ash probably would have beaten it.

Staraptor already more or less beat Honchkrow in Pokeringer.

Electrivire as we know was beaten.

Drapion was beaten.

Paul's Torterra is the only exception, could have gone either way there.

 

[TeddiUrsa]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

I agree with Scott on this one.
The writers would have found a way for Satoshi to beat Shinji's team anyway, even with his used his "All-Star" team.

You shouldn't forget that the Pokémon from Shinji's "AllStar"-Team are Pokémon who have been trained for a very long time.
Had Shinji used his "best" Pokémon it would have been fair for Satoshi to do the same. A battle between Shinji's best and Satoshi's best Pokémon ( i.e. Jukain, Oosubame, Lizardon, Goukazaru, Glion and others) would have been the fairest solution, but Satoshi still would be the winner in any scenario.

Anyway, I can't really complain about one of the best battles of the Pokémon Anime in its entire history.

 

[Queen Cynthia]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

No. Ursaring was already beaten twice by Chimchar once, and then Monferno a second time. Obviously Infernape would have killed Ursaring a third time.

Do you really think Paul would have been dumb enough to fall for the same trick three times?

Magmortar seemed strong, but it probably wasn't any stronger than Drapion or so, so Ash probably would have beaten it.

And how? Ash's only water-type Buizel could already have been defeated by Drapion by the time Paul brings out Magmortar (as seen in the Sinnoh League)

Staraptor already more or less beat Honchkrow in Pokeringer.

Well but that's a whole new ball game. You can't compare a Pokeringer tournament with a real battle!

Electrivire as we know was beaten.

Yes but only with a lot of difficulty!

Drapion was beaten.

After deafetaing two of Ash's Pokemon and severly injuring the rest

Paul's Torterra is the only exception, could have gone either way there.

Drapion and Magmortar/Electivire/Ursaring would at least take out two of Ash's Pokemon respectively. So by the time Torterra comes out ( as a sweeper at the end of the match I guess) Ash's remaining Pokemon would already have been weakend to such an extent that Torterra, Paul's strongest Pokemon after all, would have no difficulty mopping the floor with them.

 

[Zoro]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

It wouldn't have made any difference!

He was supposed to lose, doesn't matter who is used, this is not real life where you can say, oh maybe if I didn't do that, it wouldn't have happened, or even real life pokemon virtual battling, where you can do an error in swaping and lose.

This is fiction, it was written that way, it would happen that way, regardless of pokemons used.

 

[WatcherMark]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

But it does beg the question why the writers decided to almost completely overhaul Paul's team in the first place. I mean, a few rivalries had already been set up. Torterra vs. Honchkrow, Gliscor vs. Gliscor (to a lesser extent)... those were all demanding pay-offs and yet we didn't get any. I can only imagine the conversation in the writers room.

Writer 1: Ok everyone, we need to start planning out the Satoshi vs. Shinji battle.
Writer 2: Yeah!
Writer 3: Let's do it!
Writer 1: Now, I want to devote a whole four episodes to this so it can be truly spectacular...
Producer: Umm... that's not such a good idea.
Writer 1: Why not?
Producer: You've only got another six episodes to wrap the series up.
Writer 1: What?!
Producer: Yeah, Nintendo's rushing out Black and White and the higher-ups want to end D&P before it begins. That only gives you six weeks to have Satoshi and Shinji's battle, get Satoshi out of the League, write Takeshi and Hikari out and get Satoshi back to Masara Town.
Writer 1: But I'd planned for Satoshi to win the League and to have an Elite Four arc after.
Producer: You can kiss that goodbye. Six episodes, remember.
Writer 1: Ok, We can work around this. We can cram the battle into three episodes. I was going to have Reiji turn up, but I can keep him at home and have him and Shinji share a single scene on the telephone. Now to work out the match-ups. Obviously we'll end with Goukazaru and Elekible, but what should we do with Shinji's Dodaitose?
Writer 2: Don't you think Dodaitose is a little too powerful?
Writer 3: Yeah, I mean it's Shinji's starter and we've shown it to be pretty powerful. Defeating that would need at least half an episode.
Writer 1: Ok, fine. Dodaitose is gone. We'll give it a cameo at the end or something. But we need something to replace it.
Writer 2: Wasn't Shinji seen capturing a Tekkanin in a flashback once.
Writer 1: Yes! It's perfect! A nice little call-back but also easy to defeat.
Writer 3: We'll have to lose Dongkarasu though. I don't like the idea of two flying-types in the same battle.
Writer 1: We can't do that. We set up this whole grudge thing with Satoshi's Dodaitose. I wanted to pay that off.
Producer: Six episodes, remember.
Writer 2: Well, if we're losing Dodaitose and Dongkarasu, we might as well get rid of Booburn too. It's appearing in the battle against Jun, so that should count for something.
Writer 3: What about Shinji's Glion? Aren't we going to have it go up against Satoshi's?
Writer 2: Two Glion against each other is too confusing. It's gone.
Writer 1: Wait, we're losing all the good stuff I planned. And have you thought about which Pokemon are going to replace them?
Writer 2: Good point. We could use one of the Pokemon Shinji used against Jindai.
Writer 3: What about the East Sea Tritodon? That hasn't appeared yet.
Writer 2: And I love Dorapion! We'll use it like we would have used Shinji's Dodaitose, and have it talk out half of Satoshi's team!
Writer 1: (to himself) God, at this rate we're going to come up with something really cheap to get Satoshi out of the League.

 

[Zoro]

Re: Would Paul have won if he had used his all his powerhouses?

The only thing in the league that wasn't rushes was Shinji vs Satoshi...and Kohei vs Satoshi why, it had 3 episodes pokemons don't have anything to do with the rushing...

Same thing with Reiji wtf lol, Reiji still had his time at home, having him in the league would be the exact same thing as having him at home, he was still making comments on the battle.

Why did Gliscor have to be used? it was only used once.

The only thing that was rushed was the other 3 on 3 and Takuto fight, which is most of the league but Shinji vs Satoshi had all the time in the world.

 

[Spindae2]

it's so Paul knew that Ash would expect his powerhouse and that in that case he wouldn't stand a chance! so they did it with other Pokes to remain a piece of doubt!
But I liked his choice of pokemon with exception of not using Ursaring cause it needed it's ass kicked! But they created him to be beaten!

 

[Dogasu]

It was obviously done to showcase the differences in Satoshi's and Shinji's training styles. Before BW, Satoshi kept training the same six pokemon while Shinji constantly rotated his team. The writers were clearly going for a "forming strong bonds with your pokemon is better than treating them like tools you can just switch out whenever" thing here.

 

[Cybersai]

Why does it matter either?

Paul also had a Hariyama and Nidoking that we saw when he battled Brandon, why aren't we wondering if Ash could beat those Pokemon? Also whatever happened to Paul's Gliscor? We saw it like once more after he capture it and then it disappeared.

 

[WatcherMark]

The writers were clearly going for a "forming strong bonds with your pokemon is better than treating them like tools you can just switch out whenever" thing here.

As opposed to now, where Ash always seems to have the Pokemon he needs on hand...

 

[Dogasu]

Yes, but at the time, that's what they were going for. They won't be able to do the same sort of thing during the big battle between Satoshi and Shooty that we all assume is going to happen.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

The fact is, Ash would have won anyway - because he was supposed to win that battle since it was the climax of their rivalry.
I'm sure the only difference it would've made is that Drapion wouldn't have been as OP in that battle.

And if that wouldn't seem too realistic, Ash would've just used some reserves to make it even, as mentioned.

 

[Ashfangirl22]

Come on, Ash always wins against his rivals in the league, it wouldn't have changed. However, I think it could have been close call.

 

[Blue1225]

If the writers decided to look at it objectively and were willing to have Ash lose as he has in the past then yes I think that Pauls All-Star team would have beaten Ash's team. However, that would've been a disappointing ending for a lot of fans who really wanted to see Ash finally beat Paul.

 

[Abaddon]

It's not like Ash used his powerhouses. He used his Sinnoh Pokemon, on purpose.

So, kind of a dumb question.

 

[PDL]

They also wanted to showcase different Pokémon: Aggron appeared to show that Paul evolved that Lairon he used against Brandon. Ninjask to show that he still has the one captured in that flashback. Ash hadn't actually faced a Drapion in a proper battle before. Froslass also hadn't been featured in a battle either. Lastly, they needed to showcase the Western variation of Gastrodon before DP ended.

 

[Lord Clowncrete]

If they allowed paul to win,it would caused an outrage among ash fans.Therefore paul was shown to be defeated.

I don't think the writers wanted the ash-paul rivalry to continue to b/w.If ash lost, the rivalry would have to continue.It can't be just cut short abruptly.
Secondly, seeing the same mathups can be boring as well.I was sick of honchkrow by the end of d/p.

 

[Miar]

Would've only made Super Infernape's flip out all the stronger. Like, able-to-beat-Charizard-in-two-hits strong.

I thought the match was fine as it was.