After a day of rest,
the fourth round of the Master League began.
The six matches in the 1-2 and 2-1 brackets
were all held that same day,
deciding who would advance and who would be eliminated, three of each.
Hammerlocke Stadium.
Of Ash and Steven, the first to advance
was Steven, just as Li Wei had predicted.
Ash's team might have included Incineroar, Charizard, and Infernape, along with the Metagross killer, Pikachu,
but this was hardly Steven's first time facing a Fire-type team. He already had ways to deal with them.
Mega Metagross's Earthquake countered them all.
As for Charizard, who could fly,
Metagross knocked Charizard out of the air with Hammer Arm.
Mega Metagross displayed absolute dominance,
while in the head-on clash between Melmetal and Aggron, Aggron neutralized Melmetal's moves.
Kingambit, making a first appearance,
gave Greninja a harsh welcome.
Even Ash-Greninja failed to defeat Kingambit, one of Steven's new aces.
Only leaders among Bisharp could become Kingambit, so Kingambit was already a veteran of countless battles.
Tinkaton took Ash's Snorlax down as well, but that trade was clearly a terrible loss.
Ash had gone from a glorious 2-0 start, better than any he'd ever had,
to the brink of elimination at 2-2...
Life really was full of soaring highs and crushing lows.
Now Ash had to wait for an opponent from the 1-2 bracket, but he had already battled both Mustard and Wallace...
There really weren't many options left for Ash.
In the next crucial match, Blue advanced first, reaching the Top 8 with a 3-1 record.
The match turned into a showdown between Gigantamax Charizard and Gigantamax Blastoise, though neither settled it during their Dynamax turns.
In the end, Blastoise claimed victory.
Blue defeated Leon 6-4.
The main reason was that the Pokémon Blue sent out