"The Return of the Nidoking" ft. Mongoose Gaming Burrow from Off The Wall Nerds | TRAINER'S EYE #96

Mongoose Gaming Burrow opens up about his journey from Pokémon Red to Sword and Shield, including his thoughts on Pokémon Sun and Moon. His love for Pokémon GO and Raiding has kept him engaged, and he shares his ambitions to grow the Pokémon GO community in New Mexico. Don’t miss his unforgettable Aquapolis Nidoking story. It’s one for the books! 

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

Transcript

Mongoose Gaming 0:00

my name is Greg with Mongoose Gaming and this is my Pokemon story.

David Hernandez 0:43

Welcome to As the Pokeball Turns, where we interview people about their experience with Pokemon. My name is David Hernandez. Today, I'm joined by the co host for off the wall nerds podcast, Mongoose Gaming. Welcome to the show.

Mongoose Gaming 0:57

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

David Hernandez 0:59

Anytime, and you know, we were talking about it before the show, you're the second non Pokemon focused podcaster I've had. And in the same breath, You cover nerding and gaming and stuff like that with your podcast. And I told you, Pokemon's kind of that branch of nerdom. So we kind of are like distant cousins. Wouldn't you say that?

Mongoose Gaming 1:15

Yeah, I agree with that one. Totally.

David Hernandez 1:17

What made you want to start doing podcasting real briefly? Like what made you want to dive into it?

Mongoose Gaming 1:21

So, about five, six years ago when I started doing this, generally my in game names of Pokemon and like stuff in general has always been like Mongoose. And I kind of got it to a point where I was heavily involved in the community of Pokemon Go and Pokemon in general. and then I met a couple of friends online who had their own podcast and when they actually, they decided to split up, they kind of like did their whole out, ran our course. I met this guy, Justin, and he and I decided to start our own podcast, which was, as you introduced it, Off The Wall Nerds. And we've been doing that for now for the last couple of years. So, yeah, it was just something we popped in our head, like, Hey, let's do it for fun. And that's basically what we do.

David Hernandez 1:54

And you know, when it comes to the Pokemon specifically, like how much of a dedicated fan are you? Like, what does the fandom look like on your end?

Mongoose Gaming 1:59

on my end, so me, I'm a hardcore fan. So the communities I was in, so in California, growing up, a lot of my friends, we were at the time early two thousands, it was collecting the cards. It was still on game boys, link cables. There was still a lot of fun getting in trouble at school for having the game boys. So, that, that's where it kind of started up here though, with, like Pokemon Go just as how it exploded because being one of the OG fans, you know, we're like, Oh, when Pokemon Go came out, we lost our minds. Like, Oh man, we're going to get red, blue, yellow. We're getting all, you know, all the generations and stuff like that. So it was really, it was more of a dream come true for us,

David Hernandez 2:31

you mentioned how, you know, for, it was a dream come true and I heard that a lot, you know, when Pokemon Go first launched that, you know, we finally get Pokemon in the real world. We get to kind of go and travel just like Ash Ketchum at 10 years old. You know, it sounds like that was kind of what you were expecting. What was it like in those early days to play Pokemon Go to kind of live up to that dream?

Mongoose Gaming 2:50

Oh man. I was running into stop signs. I was having to look, I was having to look three ways and a crosswalk. Cause I'm like, Oh, I'm about to cross the street and not paying attention. it was a lot of fun when it first came out. Cause while the tracking system is way better today, it was probably a bit more fun then, cause then you really had to explore like, you're like, okay, I don't know where this, Growlithe is. I'm gonna have to go down this street. I'm gonna have to turn left here. So you had the, you know, the footprint. So it was a lot of walking around. It was, it was quite a bit.

David Hernandez 3:16

you say running the stop signs, I'm assuming walking to them, or are you actually in a car or just like, Oh, ran over the stop sign.

Mongoose Gaming 3:22

Oh, it was walking into them. Just like, you know, walking around. You go to catch that Pokemon. All of a sudden I look up and I, you know, kind of stop myself. Oh man, I was right in the stop sign. And I just kind of go around it like nothing happened.

David Hernandez 3:33

I always called myself to where, you know, I was the same way where I was glued to my phone, trying to see what Pokemon would pop up. And I would always hit myself on like, we have like these stone benches here in my area where the bus stops are. And I'd be like, where did that bus stop come from? It's always been there, but you never noticed it. Cause you always saw it when you were always, I was always looking at my phone. So that's when I started learning about those.

Mongoose Gaming 3:52

Yeah. Same. There were street, there were street signs on my, I've never seen these street names up on this particular corner. I'm like, Oh yeah, well at this corner now. it helped explore the area a lot more.

David Hernandez 4:01

Oh, did you become more familiar with the area thanks to the game?

Mongoose Gaming 4:04

Oh, definitely. that, that helped me come way more familiar. Like, and so I lived on the street called moon gate. That's the only street I knew to take my exit. Get on my street playing Pokemon go now all of a sudden I knew like the 30 other streets that were around there So yeah, it helped out a lot.

David Hernandez 4:18

You know, that helped me too, because I worked in downtown at the time. And because downtown's always usually the better areas for around the world generally to play Pokemon Go, I knew my downtown like the back of my hand. But whenever people would come in who weren't familiar, I'd be like, how do you not know this? And I'm thinking like, oh, the only reason why I know this is because of Pokemon Go.

Mongoose Gaming 4:37

Yeah that that same thing was so I lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico for a while That's how it was like it helped me explore the city and then all of a sudden after about two three years I knew that city extremely well somebody say oh, where's this like I could point it to it on a map immediately because the game Oh, I don't know where this is. I'm like, don't worry. I got you. I'm like, and I would literally would actually from memory, create a map of like, okay, this Pokestop leads here. This Pokestop leads to this gym. So it was, it became easier to do it that way.

David Hernandez 5:02

Do you still like, see the gyms and the pokestops in your mind whenever you drive through? I don't know if you're still in La Cruces, but even in your current area where you're at now, do you still like, see them in your head?

Mongoose Gaming 5:10

Oh yeah, of course. I'm like, because that's how we tell, that's how we tell directions to each other. Now, basically if I know it's, in the Pokemon go community up here where I live now in Albuquerque, it's just like, Hey, I'm at this park. Like what park am I? Okay. Hold on. It's called the. It's called the meme gym or something like that. Like, Oh, I know where that's at. And then they had there. So it's, it went from streets and addresses to, Oh, I know where that gym is at.

David Hernandez 5:33

Now, you said you're from New Mexico, and me, I'm from Texas, so we're kind of distant cousins, you'll relate to this question. How do you play when it gets a little more, warmer in the summer months? Hahaha!

Mongoose Gaming 5:45

so,

David Hernandez 5:45

Just get a water hose and just spray yourself down?

Mongoose Gaming 5:47

exactly. yeah, just walk around with that. Walk around with water was the key. Like it's one thing in the winter, cause you're moving around, dress a little warm. You can keep warm like that, but when it's hot out, it's hot out. So yeah, you just walk around with a, you know, a water backpack with on your back and douse yourself and walk around and find some shade when you can. Yeah.

David Hernandez 6:03

Wow, so you still walk around even in the hot summers for this game.

Mongoose Gaming 6:06

Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. Especially with the, especially with GoFest coming out in the middle of summer. Yeah, I'm going to be out and about walking around on that one.

David Hernandez 6:13

Dude, you must wear a lot of sunscreen to

Mongoose Gaming 6:16

I don't, thankfully I don't need it. I've got a dark complexion, so, I'm like, I sit there, I'm like, I don't, I don't burn, I just get darker.

David Hernandez 6:21

So real quick, before we dive further into Pokemon Go, let's talk about your history with Pokemon. So you said like how you started with the original games, I'm assuming red, blue, and yellow, which game did you start with out of the three?

Mongoose Gaming 6:31

when I was younger with my brother, our mom bought us both Pokemon. She goes, what do you guys want? And without even me and him didn't even look at each other. I just said red, he said blue. So that made it easier for her. so she got us red and blue, each, one game, a GameBoy pocket, not the GameBoy color, the big GameBoy, but the GameBoy pocket,

David Hernandez 6:48

That's the black and white one, right?

Mongoose Gaming 6:50

but I got the blue game boy and he got the red one. So just a little fun in color.

David Hernandez 6:54

What the hell really?

Mongoose Gaming 6:57

I think the blue game was red version. He took the red game boy, the blue version.

David Hernandez 7:01

Ooh, what about the starters? Did y'all choose the same starters, different starters?

Mongoose Gaming 7:04

so I was actually a little unorthodox in my starters. Now, don't get me wrong. I love Charmander, Bulbasaur, Squirtle. Those will always be my OG favorites, but when I did play, I actually relegated Charmander, which I did pick originally, but my, my, my go to. Through any playthrough of Pokemon I've ever done in my life has always been Nidoran and Nidoking.

David Hernandez 7:23

Really?

Mongoose Gaming 7:25

cause Nidoking is an absolute monster that's so underrated cause it can learn most of the HMs. It can learn ground moves, poison moves, it can learn ice, all that. It has such a huge movepool. when I got that and made it to Brock, I'm like, oh, you know, it had double kick. I'm like, cool, it'll take out Brock. And we got to Misty and all that, but then I had like a, I think I had like Bellsprout at the time, you know, moving your way through Moon Cave and all that, but yeah, Nidoking was just an absolute monster at that point, but yeah, I always relegated Charizard to number two, so like, if you look at my levels, my Nidoking was always a higher level than my original starter.

David Hernandez 8:01

So, you still kept the starter in your party, you just always focused more on Nidoran whenever you could catch it.

Mongoose Gaming 8:07

Exactly, yes.

David Hernandez 8:08

Oh, okay, I thought you benched your starter. I'm like, dude, this is mind blowing. I've never heard anybody say they benched their starter before in my life.

Mongoose Gaming 8:15

okay, I have benched the starter, it was actually when I started playing, Gen 3, Hoenn, with Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire. I got to about, I want to say, sail port, I believe. And that's actually when I started benching my starters. Cause I did at that point, I had Flygon. I could get other stronger type Pokemon. So I was doing that. I actually benched my gen three starters.

David Hernandez 8:35

well that's more understandable if you did Gen 1 though. Dude, you would be a renegade right now. Like, Gen 1, it's like, I would say it's almost a sin if you did bench your starter. Like, that's why I was more prepared for that. Later gens, I can understand. Gen 1, ooooh, if somebody says you benched your Bulbasaur, Charmander Squirtle, you'd be on your own.

Mongoose Gaming 8:52

Yeah. You would be, you'd be alienated from your friends.

David Hernandez 8:55

Now I will say though, I actually agree with you on Nidoking cause I used Nidoking myself. I always used it in conjunction, oddly enough, with Charmander. Because they kind of both, the only downside they were both weak against water, which helped, which sucked against Misty. But I like Nidoking as well because Nidoran always learned Horn Attack at level 8. but then it evolved into Nidorino at level 16. And it was just a very strong attacker for the early game. And even late game it wasn't too bad cause like you said it learns serve, it learned strength, and the stuff you kind of need.

Mongoose Gaming 9:22

and that's, and that's, I'm glad you brought up with Misty again, even though it was weak to water, if you didn't get the Moonstone right away, like you didn't use it right away, Nidorino was actually very strong against Misty, because it was just pure poison, so water was doing neutral damage against it, so I evolved my Nidoking after Misty, so then when you go to Lieutenant Surge, it has the ground typing, and his electric moves won't do anything to you at that point.

David Hernandez 9:42

so we talked about, you know, the first generation, it sounds like you at least played till gen three. Did you continue to play throughout the entire team or did you take a break at some point with Pokemon?

Mongoose Gaming 9:49

I took a little bit of a break about, I want to say sun and moon. I did like, and I did like gen three a lot. Holbein was, I was like a really a breath of fresh air. Cause, gold, silver crystal are my favorites, but like you got to rehash Canto. So it was a lot of fun when gen three came out and kind of had the same graphics from, Emerald till about. Sudden Moon on the 3DS, it was like, okay, it was a breath of fresh air, but Sudden Moon is kind of where I took a break and I kind of came back after Black and White 2 with, Sword and Shield and Sword and Shield was absolutely, I had a blast with Sword and Shield, with the connectivity from Pokemon Go, so I kind of, you know, I cheated a little bit, sent over a couple of Shinies, you know, that I could pick up and then train, so, I will say this, in Sword, I benched my starter, I did not like the starters, So when I got to the point where I could, I dumped Cinderace like a, like a sack of coal.

David Hernandez 10:34

Oh, wow. He just didn't like any of the starters from sword and shield.

Mongoose Gaming 10:37

yeah, no, none of, I, I, I just picked Scorbunny just because you had to, I had to pick one of them. After that though, when I got, further in the game, I was able to transfer, you know, my Nidoking, one of my Eeveelutions and all that, I, I dumped Cinderace.

David Hernandez 10:50

Now you said like, you know, you were cheating with the Chinese. I'm like, you're not really cheating. You actually did still catch a shiny Pokemon just in Pokemon go though.

Mongoose Gaming 10:58

Exactly. I don't have to put in all the work into sword.

David Hernandez 11:01

I know there's kind of a, I don't wanna say debate, but some people consider getting Shinies in Pokemon Go and transferring them over as kind of like you quote unquote cheating because it's easier. Are you kind of to that level where it sounds like you're more laid back to where like, as Shinies are Shiny, I'd rather go ahead and get it over with and get it on my decks.

Mongoose Gaming 11:16

Yeah. A shiny is a shiny. That's how I looked at it. and in sword, honestly, with, I've logged about, I want to say a little over 200 hours in sword and shield combined. I've never actually caught a shiny in sword and shield. The only shinies I have are, oh yeah, the only shinies I have are the result of from Pokemon Go to home and then into sword and shield.

David Hernandez 11:33

Wow, so you wouldn't have any Shinies if it wasn't for Pokemon Go. Not even with the Raid Dens? I know a lot of people would do the Shiny hunting in Raid Dens.

Mongoose Gaming 11:40

I did raid dens a lot. I never got a shiny. I did quite a few of them. And when those things were like first came on, we're first really popular. I didn't get a shiny. I got a lot of strong, Evie Pokemon. Like the Evie's were great, but no shinies.

David Hernandez 11:52

Now, at the time, you know, we're recording this, you know, Sword and Shield, the Pokemon, they aren't really in the game yet. And there's looming rumors of Gigantamaxes and all the different raids that were introduced from that generation. You know, what are your hopes for whenever Pokemon Go does bring the Pokemon from that generation into the game?

Mongoose Gaming 12:08

it should have been sooner than later. I don't want to say Pierce, but I was a little more on like, they should release each generation in order with the exception of legendaries and megas. I get the concept of like, okay, hold back mega Mewtwo for a little bit. you know, don't release Lugia when you release gen two, that kind of thing. Okay. But the fact that we have over 40 Paldean Pokemon and still only I think what 15 from Galar. It's like come on We're we essentially skipped a generation

David Hernandez 12:32

don't even know if we have 15, do we? I feel like it's less than

Mongoose Gaming 12:34

It's something like that, but it's it's not many from Galar. I just know it's Zashu, Zamazenta, and a couple others But yeah, I'm really looking forward Galar because I did like that. I'd have to say from Galar sword and shield like Drednaw was one of my favorites. I really liked that one really strong physical attacker and just an absolute goofy looking Pokemon. but yeah, I'm looking forward to that one.

David Hernandez 12:53

So, you know, let's come back to Pokemon Go. You know, Pokemon Go, we're back to 2016. Did you stick with the game throughout, or did you take a break as well?

Mongoose Gaming 13:00

I am not even kidding. My, my then friend, who's not my fiance. but she can vouch for it. I have not taken a day off from playing the game. Like I can, if there was a way to track how many days in a row I've played the game, I'd probably no joke, be up there in the top of the world. Who's never missed a day.

David Hernandez 13:14

Do we really want to know, like, the in game time of how much we've really spent in Pokemon Go? Part of me is kind of grateful that I don't.

Mongoose Gaming 13:20

I honestly, I kind of do, but I can kind of put interest into perspective. my gym defending hours is over 300, 000 hours defended in a gym. and, I'm trying to think here, there's not really another way to determine it, like how long you've played the game, just, just the, just You know, July 6th, 2016.

David Hernandez 13:38

Yeah, well, you know, like a lot of people say, like, if you look at the medals, the higher the medals are, the more you play this game, that's kind of usually the best way to kind of gauge how much time you really put into this game, you know, like 300, 000 hours for Jim is pretty high up there. There's, of course, people with higher, but that takes a lot of dedication, takes a lot of putting Pokemon and Jim's being intentional with playing Pokemon Go.

Mongoose Gaming 13:58

And a good chunk of that. So it's 300, 000 hours. So yeah, you're right. It's a lot of dedication, but there's actually no joke. I had a Pokemon traveling one day and came across this gym. It was gray. And I'm like, okay, maybe somebody, I wasn't kind of that nuisance. I would knock somebody out of a gym, but I would leave it gray just to be that person, but I came across this gym. That was great Driving through Texas, actually West Texas, coming from East to West. And there was this gym I came across and again, it was gray. I dropped in. Okay. I'm not even kidding. I'm actually opening my game now. I was in that gym for no joke 1340 days straight.

David Hernandez 14:33

1300 days would be four years,

Mongoose Gaming 14:35

Yeah, it was in that gym for over four years

David Hernandez 14:38

Jeez. It was in the middle of West Texas. I'm

Mongoose Gaming 14:41

it's just I just noticed this the gym is like Southern Texas between El Paso and Dallas.

David Hernandez 14:46

So what's your way to kind of play Pokemon Go? Do you like to like shiny hunt? Are you into gyms?

Mongoose Gaming 14:52

So, I'm actually more along the lines of a hardcore Raider. So of course, you know, the first couple of years, everybody was just catching shiny, no shinies weren't available yet. So it was just a lot of catching. but when raids came out, I was a fiend. Like I was like, I was doing raids as much as I could. you know, at the time you were, everyone was level 40. Alright, well, most people level 40, but like, I didn't hit level 40 until about, I want to say, end of 2017, I'd have to go back and look at my Facebook post, but we would just do raids, like, get four or five of us together, and we actually did some massive raid trains, but I was, like I said, I just had to do the raids, like, when the raids came out, that was absolutely crazy, we did that a lot.

David Hernandez 15:28

What was it about the raids that kind of got you hooked into that part of the game?

Mongoose Gaming 15:31

At that time, if you remember the raids, it was exclusivity. So the first raids were Moltres, Zapdos, Articuno, and Lugia, Ho Oh. And so Lugia is my all time favorite legendary. So we would do the birds and the first time these raids came out. I'm not even kidding. We had in the city of Las Cruces, there's less than a hundred thousand people. We go to the first Lugia raid and it was, I swear, in this little church parking lot that could fit maybe 50 cars. We had 400 plus people show up for the raid. And so I was team Valor. I led all the Valor. My fiance was instinct. She led all the instinct. We found a random mystic player. We were like, Hey, we need you to help out. So they took all the mystic players. So we had literally had, three separate groups of Valor mystic instinct jump into these raids at 20 people at a time. And just to do the one Lugia, because we were all like, we wanted to make sure we all got it. So we were just there as a group. And so, to do all those raids, like those 400 people, it took us about an hour just to do the one raid, and then we moved on.

David Hernandez 16:26

Just to add some context real quick. So back in the day when raids first started, the reason why you had to divide into teams like he did is that there was actually a team bonus. So if you didn't divide into the teams like he did, you would actually not get as many premier balls. Cause I think usually the problem we had here, I'm pretty sure you probably did here using instinct would only get like six or seven balls while this sticker ballot, we get like, I think 13 or 14. We lived in luxury while instinct lived in poverty, basically, but that's why it was so important to do that.

Mongoose Gaming 16:52

it's funny you brought that up, because I watched the original, Honest trailer for Pokemon Go on Fandom Games. And they said the assholes of team Valor, the emos of team Mystic and the paint eaters of team Instinct.

David Hernandez 17:04

Oh my god, that, that, that me?

Mongoose Gaming 17:07

That was, that was great. When I heard that, I am so just going to go with that. And every Instinct player I meet, they're like, you're like, yeah, we eat paint. We play.

David Hernandez 17:14

So, with the raids, you know, you have 400 people. That's gotta be crazy. How do you lead that many people? You just kind of filter them in, like, Did y'all go to the next raid afterwards?

Mongoose Gaming 17:23

Yeah. So the way we let them, as you did, we did a dead poet society. Oh, captain, my captain, I jumped up on the ledge. Like if you are Valor, come over here. If you're Instinct, go over there. And then so that people were just like, okay, cool. And so we did that. And this is when the, this is like, again, OG raids. The egg still had the timer on it, so it was an hour timer, so we had enough time to divide everybody. The raid was an hour at the time, so like, okay, cool. And that's how we did it, and yeah, after we did that, People actually, a lot of people were able to park away from the church, so it wasn't too bad traffic wise. But yeah, we went to the next raid, which was like an Articuno about 10 minutes down the road, did that, and then we went to, New Mexico City University. And just basically dominated the campus. we just like, you had hundreds of people walking up and down the campus doing raids at that point.

David Hernandez 18:07

Now, something that people will notice if they check out your content, you actually started getting into short man raids. Like you would try to do raids with the least amount of, people as possible. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Mongoose Gaming 18:16

So that started, when I met my friend Nico in El Paso, Texas about, 2018. he was the top player in El Paso and this guy in 2018 already had 5, 000 raids. so he had Pokemon built to take these raids out with a minimal team. Like he was, he, he had his own little group of about six people. They would just go around El Paso taking out these raids, just like that. So met them, you know, headed off. We were friends and yeah. So I became a part of that little raid group. he would show me, he goes, here's, here's what I do. Here's how I divide my Pokemon. Okay. And so now actually he and I ended up dominating the El Paso area leaderboard in a district. They had a raid leaderboard and he and I are one and two. In terms of total solo raids and total group raids for fastest time. And at this point, except for Megalatius, Megalatius, and I believe Lugia. There's no raid I can't duo with my fiance. Or with anybody else that's on my friends list as far as best friends go.

David Hernandez 19:12

do you also include that with party play as well?

Mongoose Gaming 19:14

No, like we didn't, so at party play we did, we do like when there's a bigger group, just to get the raid done quicker. But like when my fiance and I have duo to raid, I actually, we don't, we don't, we forget to jump into a party, so we just go and do the raid. So we actually don't have party power. So if we did, obviously we'd get it a little bit quicker, but, yeah, no, I actually, we, she and I don't use, my friend, his name is Wicked Deebo is another one that I've raided with. And, yeah, we just forget to do party play.

David Hernandez 19:38

You've been listening to As the Pokeball Turns. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. You talk about your fiance. So did y'all met through Pokemon by chance?

Mongoose Gaming 20:49

we did.

David Hernandez 20:50

Oh, you got to tell me this. I love a good love story with Pokemon.

Mongoose Gaming 20:52

Oh man. the game came out and put about the first few months, I was, I wasn't a loner since I had where I was working a lot. So I'd actually started going back to college. I was working, so I would play in between classes or on my way to work. And so finally, during that, my first, break in school, I just walked around NMSU one weekend and I saw the group. So that's where I met her, my now best friend Josh, who I was actually his best man. He used to be my best man. So yeah, we, we all met as like a single group and, Yeah, she and I met through Pokemon, about a year later we started dating, so that was about 2016, so yeah, about 2017, halfway through, we've been together, it'll be 7 years in August.

David Hernandez 21:28

Wow. And y'all play Pokemon go together and y'all go out and do these raids and everything.

Mongoose Gaming 21:32

religiously, we have a 4 year old son, he has his own account, he plays with us, so, yeah, he also, he can also throw a curveball too, so.

David Hernandez 21:40

Hey, howdy. So he's four years old and he's already throwing curve balls. That's crazy.

Mongoose Gaming 21:44

Yeah, and he does have bragging rights over me. His, he's got a shadow shiny Mewtwo while my fiance and I have done so many shadow Mewtwo raids. He's got a shadow shiny on us.

David Hernandez 21:53

Now, I gotta ask, so your wife is Instinct. You're, you're Team Valor, right? What did your son choose?

Mongoose Gaming 21:59

He chose, we let him choose. We just pulled up the screen and he chose Valor. I didn't, we, neither one of us influenced him. Yeah. We just put, we just said, this is red, blue, and yellow. He's like, okay. He sat there and no joke. He sat there a couple, like about 10, 15 seconds and he picked Valor. We're like, are you're like, you're sure you want the red one? He's all, yes. It's like, okay,

David Hernandez 22:17

Wow. You know, it's funny how me, you, we grew up with Pokemon. Our biggest challenge is trying to figure out which Kanto starter. Your son is trying to figure out which team to join.

Mongoose Gaming 22:25

exactly.

David Hernandez 22:26

What do y'all do as family? Like, do y'all like, go to parks and play at times? Like, what does that kind of dynamic look like with Pokemon Go?

Mongoose Gaming 22:33

So we actually, conveniently, live a five minute walk from a pretty large park. So we'll, just go walk over there, play for a little bit. He'll play for, I'm not, he's a four year old. He's attention spans are that large, but he'll play for about 10 minutes and then he'll go play in the playground. But then the playground he plays on has like five stops around it. So we can just watch him and we'll walk around the park and walk around the playground and spend stops and catch the stuff.

David Hernandez 22:54

So he plays on his own though. Yeah. Y'all don't really help him at all.

Mongoose Gaming 22:57

Oh no, we only help him get set up, but yeah, we put the iPad with him, and he'll sit there, he'll catch, he's picked his own outfit, he has, you know, he knows what Pokemon to transfer, sometimes he evolves too many, so he doesn't have any candy left, but yeah,

David Hernandez 23:11

Do you also watch the anime together? I assume.

Mongoose Gaming 23:13

oh yeah, he, he loved, He loved the original animes. So what we could find for our stream, it's hard to find a real lot of the original Pokemon anime, but we did get, and Netflix does have the original, Pokemon, so he watched that. He loved it. his favorite character actually is not Ash, it's actually Go from the new Master's series, the Master's Journeys.

David Hernandez 23:32

Oh, really?

Mongoose Gaming 23:32

he loves Go, but we started him first with Pokemon, you know, Indigo series. We found a couple more like Amazon where Ash is in Johto or Hoenn, but, yeah, his favorite so far has been, watching Master's Journeys and his favorite is Go.

David Hernandez 23:46

You know, we talked about how both you and me, we grew up with Pokemon. We grew up with, you know, hysteria back in the nineties. We grew up, you grew up throughout Pokemon and now you got your son experiencing Pokemon. What is it like to kind of see that? Interested in Pokemon come out of your son

Mongoose Gaming 24:00

it's interesting because it's hard for me to gauge it because he's experiencing this at four years old. When we were four, we were eating paste.

David Hernandez 24:08

were team instinct

Mongoose Gaming 24:09

yeah, exactly. But he's four years old and he's understanding this. So he's able to sit there on an iPad and play Pokemon go. And I can say he's not an iPad kid. We just, that's the device we let him use. And so he's an experience of the four years old. I get to experience, you know, like eight, nine years old. So it's fun to see him just react the way he's reacting. When we're sitting on a game boy with one, not even 151, but like 148 Pokemon. And just grinding our way to beating the elite four for the hundredth time. And he's sitting here, like got Pokemon that would decimate our team from back in the day.

David Hernandez 24:41

Now any plans for when he turns 10 years old that you're gonna send him on his own and try to become become a Pokemon master

Mongoose Gaming 24:47

no, yeah, actually. Yeah. So he's, he does want to be a Pokemon master at the moment. Like he's got Pokemon stuff. He's like, he loves his stuff, Charles or stuff Venusaur, but he will be picking his own starter at 10. So what we're going to do is kind of get like a few generations worth of starters and kind of narrow it down, but you pick your favorite from here, here, here, And then, but he will eventually pick his overall starter at 10.

David Hernandez 25:09

Oh, that'd be awesome. That's kind of a cool family tradition. I like it. Who thought of that? Did you think of it, or?

Mongoose Gaming 25:14

Oh, my both my fiance and I, she loves Pokemon. Her favorite Pokemon is Eevee. I swear to God, you could give her a shiny Eevee, a regular Eevee for trade. She will trade you a shiny Mewtwo or anything just to get an Eevee.

David Hernandez 25:27

Oh, really? Thanks.

Mongoose Gaming 25:28

She loves Evie that much.

David Hernandez 25:29

her love for Eevee's deep

Mongoose Gaming 25:31

It is hardcore. and of course it's almost like my love for Nittle King, but I'm like, I'm cool. Like my ni king, like Pokemon cards. I have her just having Nito King, like she will take Evie any which way she can get Evie It

David Hernandez 25:43

What about you? What's your favorite Pokemon?

Mongoose Gaming 25:46

is Nittle king, hardcore

David Hernandez 25:47

Oh, so it is Needleking.

Mongoose Gaming 25:48

It is Nittle King. Yeah. So I have, a friend of mine, 3D printed, a ni king, a shiny new king for me. I had a custom ni king card made. I have a couple old school Nidoking cards from back in the 90s. one's a crystal Nidoking, one's a Giovanni's Nidoking, first edition. So yeah, those are ones that are like graded and I keep those, those are like my keepsakes.

David Hernandez 26:07

It's unfortunate, you know, when you talk about just the trading card game, I don't really remember much Nidoking good card art, you know? Like the first one, which is base set, it's just a standard, image. There's nothing really too special to it. I think Giovanni has it like just standing forward in a different angle. It's not really, there's nothing really different from what I can remember.

Mongoose Gaming 26:26

So that's generally, that's pretty much true. Like the, like, and I have the cards just because again, Nidoking is my favorite, but I see where you're going on that one. My, I have to say like the most unique Nidoking design is definitely the crystal one from the Aquapolis series. Because, A, it's, it's got different typings, it's not, it's, it's showing like the colorless versus like the plant or poison. but it just looks way more hardcore with the aqua polis series than it does any other card. And actually I have a great, I have a great story regarding this Nidoking. So I bought this Nidoking off of eBay. I asked my fiance at the time for permission because it was like a little splurge buy, but it's just, it's a, it's a PSA five Aquapolis Nidoking. And it was one of, it's one of my two favorite Nidoking cards ever. So I was like, okay, she's like, yeah, go ahead and get it. I'm like, great. So I bought it and I've had it. so when the, when I bought it, we were actually in the process of, I got promoted my job. So we're moving up to Albuquerque. And one night I'm at work and my truck actually got broken into, got a good old Albuquerque. So they actually stole Nidoking because the Nidoking was in there because I was going to send it off the next morning to CGC for re encapsulation through their system.

David Hernandez 27:28

Just to re emphasize, this is a good story, right? It's not a bad story. Okay.

Mongoose Gaming 27:31

this is a good story. so they did, unfortunately broke into the truck. I, as this is where I didn't notice because like they punched the lockout, I didn't notice. So like I literally drove home that night. well, drove to my friend's house, so I was staying with it, and then I was like, just went to sleep, wake up, and all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, I gotta unlock the truck, I'm like, wait, why is it not clicking? So I go over there, I see the lock is punched out, I'm like, oh crap, so that's when I realized in the morning, it was broken into, they stole basically everything minus the stereo, which, I'll be honest, there wasn't much to steal in the truck anyway, but. They obviously got the valuable thing. So, I was, I was devastated. my wife got the idea to ask the Albuquerque community for help. So, Albuquerque obviously has a Pokemon card page, as well as a Pokemon Go page. And we asked, like, hey, here's a picture of the card. We're like, we know it's a long shot, but if anybody comes across this card, you know, we have proof it's mine, through the PSA, it's been re registered, through all that. And people are like, you know, we'll keep an eye out. I'm not kidding that two weeks later, there was a hit, this guy was trying to sell it on Facebook and he didn't even break it out of the case. Like, so this guy hits me on Facebook. Hey, is this your card? And I'm like, I looked at it and he sent me the post straight off the serial numbers matched. I'm like, there's no way. And. Yeah, so I messaged the guy. I was like, Hey, I messaged all nonchalant. I'm like, Hey, you know, I mentioned this card, you know, could we meet up so I could take a look at it? He's like, yeah, and he was like, he was lowballing it. Cause this car is like a four or 500 card. He's like, yeah, I'm only asking 250 for it. I'm like, Oh, you poor sad soul. so. I had actually filed a police report and, I had actually called the cops and told them I want a meeting with the guy and the APD dispatched because she goes, okay, she goes, let us know where you're meeting. We'll send an officer out. She goes, if you feel in danger at all, she goes, leave the sale. But I'm like, okay, but she's like, if you can get the card back, get the card and a cop, you know, officer will meet you. I'm like, okay, great. So I go and meet the guy and I parked my truck like half a mile down the road, so he wouldn't see it in case it was the same person. I mean, I'm at this gas station and like, Hey, how's it going? Shake hands. So again, doesn't recognize you. Didn't nothing. So it's just like a typical sale and he made the mistake. He had, I was like, yeah, I can take a look at the card. He hands me the card. And at that point, I'm like, I'm not giving it back. So I'm like, there's no way I'm looking at it. And this and that, and he's all tell me about it. I'm like, man, this is so great. I'm like, this card looks so familiar. He goes, really? I was like, yeah, cause it's the one that was stolen from my truck. And he paused deer in the headlights. he goes, he goes, this card wasn't stolen. I'm like, oh, it was. I'm like, I've got proof. This card is mine. And he goes, oh yeah, show me. So I pulled up my eBay account, PSA and all that. I was like, serial number is matching. And hell man, it was. Great. Because he sat there trying to deny the whole thing. Oh, well, some kind of casino sold me this. I'm like, yeah, sure. And it was funny because I, what he didn't see is that I had dispatch on the phone on speaker. So they were actually listening to the whole conversation. This guy gave me his first and last name even. And so I was like, they were, they were kind of like, so he had a buddy with him and they were kind of like, still giving me a stink. Like, there's no way this is your car. I'm like, dude, I have the proof. And I'm like, by the way, I have Albuquerque dispatch on the phone. Is there anything you want to say? And the dispatch was like, she goes, if I were you guys, you'd probably want to stay there because if you really did get in front of a casino, we'll need your information for the report. So

David Hernandez 30:40

What? Do they stick around?

Mongoose Gaming 30:42

no, hell no. They took off.

David Hernandez 30:44

Dang!

Mongoose Gaming 30:46

So I was actually, I got my card back and yeah, now I'm not, I'm not sending it back in anywhere. It's going to stay in this PSA case. And that's my story for that card. Like that's what, that's what happened with

David Hernandez 30:56

Have you been to any live events by chance

Mongoose Gaming 30:58

like Okay. As far as like when I had six hosted, no, I haven't been to any of those. So I never got a chance to go to Chicago or go to New York or anything like that. But there was one, that my fiance and I, and our best friend, we actually held a go fest on our own for the city of Las Cruces back in 2017. Yeah. So this one was actually, kind of like a special one. So we were like, we got kind of. We couldn't go to Chicago. We heard, you know, of course that happened in July of 2017, the first go fast, we saw, you know, saw like, you know, what happened, the bad, the good, the bad, and the ugly there. So we kind of got in our heads. Like, what if we do something for the city of Las Cruces? Cause nobody went. So I'm not even kidding. We took months of planning. We rented out a park, we got permits and everything, and we were advertising for this, like what we did. Like we had prizes, we were giving out, we had sponsors locally that were helping us out. And so we were expecting about 300 people. and it was a 5 entry. The 5 was used to like basically help recoup costs. But then it was also like, you know, pay 5. You're entered into the raffle now for all these prizes. And, like I said, about 300 people and We had over 2000 show up. We had

David Hernandez 32:04

What? 2, 000 people showed up for a GoFest in La Cruces?

Mongoose Gaming 32:09

For GoFest, that wasn't like, that wasn't like Niantic approved per se. It was just, that was just something we set up. So like I said, we had 2000 people show up because we had a line for the ticket booth and we're like, damn, that's a lot of people. So I'm on the mic on, on the stage of the park directing everybody. My fiance is up helping with tickets and helping the vendors. my best friend was at the ticket booth doing all the tickets and stuff. We had, people provide food. We had sprint, actually the corporate sprint store helped us out bringing water and snacks. we had, dominoes at the time provide food for us. My work was, one of those, event rentals. So they gave us a bounce house for the fun for kids. And all we did was we lured up the park. We actually, we didn't intend to, but we timed it right. We had a couple of raids at the time. So we had about three or four raids in the park. And yeah, we just had people walk around, like, you know, we had concerts from our shinies, we had concerts from our catches, and it went off, like it was, it was a huge success. Like I said, we had over 2000 people show up because we counted everything the next day, how many tickets we sold. We're like, wow, that was actually crazy. So just an unsanctioned Niantic event. And that's what we ended up having happen was, yeah, that made people show up.

David Hernandez 33:16

I'm impressed you had enough pizza from Domino's to be able to feed 2, 000 people. That's crazy.

Mongoose Gaming 33:20

Yeah, it was, it was actually really crazy. and we had a, we had a local cafe sponsor food and,

David Hernandez 33:25

Also, it wasn't just Domino's. It was different

Mongoose Gaming 33:27

yeah, it was Domino's in this place, that, it was a cafe that put sponsor. They did great. They helped us out a lot. sprint did bring enough water for everybody. So that wasn't a problem. the level 40 badges, sprint brought those. So if you sprint with giving out those, those old level 40 badges, I don't know if you got, yeah, so everybody who was level 40, if you hit level 40 that day or whatever, they gave you one, it's obviously had to show your account. But the thing was, we had people from Albuquerque, New Mexico, from Deming, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas show up for this event and it was crazy.

David Hernandez 33:56

like, what was it like to kind of expect only a couple hundred and get 2, 000 people? Like,

Mongoose Gaming 34:00

Oh, it was.

David Hernandez 34:01

Were you scared? Or

Mongoose Gaming 34:02

It was total shell shock. Cause like, I'm up there and I'm, I'm okay with public speaking. So I'm up on the stage and we have the DJ behind us and yeah, my, my fiancee's just like, I mean, she's all. She's like, look at me. I'm like, we'll see the line of the ticket table and booth. And it was like, Oh God, there's a lot of people coming in. And so, yeah, we intended to start around like four o'clock. We didn't officially start till five. Cause we had to get everybody, in and then, yeah, it just took off from there. It was, it was a lot of fun.

David Hernandez 34:27

I mean, all things considered, you started faster than the one in Chicago in Niantic, so Starting an hour late compared to six or never is pretty good.

Mongoose Gaming 34:35

It started, started late, went off without a hitch. Like there was no cell phone, there were no cell issues. There were nothing like that. People came in and were able to play without an issue.

David Hernandez 34:42

Any hopes of trying to recreate that, or is it just too time consuming?

Mongoose Gaming 34:46

It's time consuming. I'm trying something up here in Albuquerque. we have one community ambassador up here. He's been leading his community for a while. I work at a place that's willing to sponsor food and stuff. So like when I go do an event for Pokemon. My regional director has already given the okay. She's like go take food. She goes do food drops. She goes put our name out there She goes hell tell Pokemon players. They get a discount when they come in. So

David Hernandez 35:09

Well Mongoose Gaming, you've been a wonderful guest. I gotta ask the last question I every guest I've asked lately. Say somebody's coming to New Mexico and they're going to challenge you in a Pokémon battle. What six Pokémon are you going to bring?

Mongoose Gaming 35:21

og favorite team. I'm gonna bring in if it's a six on six like that. It's gonna be Charizard, Agron, Arcanine, Nidoking, and Lugia.

David Hernandez 35:30

There you go, guys. If you challenge Mongoose Gaming, you got those six Pokémon, so come prepared. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Before you go, if people want to connect with you, if they want to check out your podcast, where can they go? By all means, please plug away.

Mongoose Gaming 35:42

they can find me at youtube. com forward slash at mongoose gaming burrow. That's got pretty much everything content wise I've ever produced. you'll find my podcasts, my gameplay from Pokemon go from Xbox, from Nintendo switch. anything like that is all on my YouTube. And then my Twitch is a twitch. tv slash mongoose gaming burrow is also. And yeah, that's where the magic happens.

David Hernandez 36:04

Thank you for listening to As the Pokeball Turns. If you want to support the show, consider becoming a Patreon by either clicking the link in the description or going to patreon. com slash asthepokeballturns. Now, I'm actually going to New York City Go Fest, and hopefully I get to meet every single one of you. If you meet me, make sure to get yourself a free Necrozma wristband. I'll be giving out those to everybody that I run into, so I definitely want to make sure I can give it to the people who listen to this show. If for some reason you can't make it to GoFest New York City, don't sweat it. Contact me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever have you and let me know like, Hey, David, I can't make it to GoFest. Can I still get a wristband? And I'll make sure you get one because I want to make sure that everyone who listens to this show gets one for GoFest. So please hit me up if you can't make it. Until next time.