They should've dropped Iris for Tobias. Cowards. :P
Not to mention where are other previous League Champions like Harrison, Tyson, and Virgil? Plus I don't think we didn't see any Frontier Brains or any other non-League trainers that were in the games. While I get the mentality of not wanting Ash only battling important characters from the games... actually, no, I don't get it. Or at least, if they're gonna have non-important NPCs from the games why didn't they stick with already existing trainers Ash had met previously?
The premise of the Coronation was there was 10k competitors. Yet, before the the Masters Rank, they've only shown Ash battle with 15 trainers on screen. Now some of these were important characters like Korrina, Flint, Bea, Marnie, Volkner, Drasna, and Raihan... but then we have these random trainers like Kricketina, Rinto, Dozer, Tony, Visquez, Hayden, & Lob. Okay, some of these were just few minute battles before focusing on the main battle/plot of the episode, but some were the main opponent of the episode. Notably Kricketina, Rinto, and Visquez. Visquez is most notable here because she was standing in for Lt. Surge. Hey, writers, how about instead of Ash battling Visquez which no one cares about, have Ash battle Lt. Surge (and Pikachu vs Surge's Raichu). Instead of Kricketina who you only had cause you wanted to play with Kricketune, have it be Aaron who just so happened to be training a Kricketune. Instead of it being Rinto who was observing Ash and later used a Gallade to battle him, maybe have it be Wally. Or, since they were in Kanto and Rinto was the one who told Ash about his synchrony problem with his Pokemon, maybe pull a surprise pull and have it be AJ (and show his Sandshrew had evolved into a Sandslash).
And not all cameos needed to be big. Have more tournaments happen and fill them with a few previous trainers Ash have battled. Ash and them would share a quick "nice to see, doing good, let the best trainer win" just as the battle is about to start, but then after Ash wins the battle they can vanish with it implied they just moved onto their next battle (maybe at most showing them in the background doing their own thing). Heck, probably could even do this with some Gym Leaders just to have them cameo.
And this all comes back to the Master 8. I get having the Champions, especially trying to have one representing each region (Ash for Alola (probably should get some of his Alolan mons...), Lance pulling double for Kanto & Johto (hence his ace being the Shiny Gyarados from the Lake of Rage instead of Dragonite)). But, as I said, makes it feel too predictable and no purpose in having all the previous battles. Alain was a nice surprising pull, but just shows they could have done more. I would say drop Iris (since Ash battled her already), Diantha (she's too busy acting to compete, maybe even had an episode where Ash & Goh (& Chloe) run into the filming and do a days work as background extras), and Steven (is involved in a major archeology discovery which they could have based an episode on) and instead have Tobias (one of Ash's most notorious challenges and a League Champion who uses Legendaries), Palmer (to get some Frontier representation), and maybe another random pull. Like, imagine if it was revealed Gary had been secretly competing his way up? Or have it be Gladion who was also competing while on the search for his father. Something to mix it up so it's not all Champions.
Gonna be kind of boring if half of the teams have Charizards, Dragonites, Metagrosses, and Lucarios. :P
I did have a bit of a laugh with two of the ace mons shown being Charizard plus Ash having his he can call up and Lance possibly could also having one. Sadly I doubt we'll see Ash's Charizard, though maybe they would also have Lance use a Charizard and have it Mega Evolve into Y (since Alain uses X) just so Leon can show how super powerful his Charizard is and defeat both Mega Charizards (cause the only way you're showing your Charizard is stronger is by it defeating other Charizards).
We've already had the Dragonite fight between Ash's and Iris's and don't think there would be any point having Ash's Dragonite fight Lances, so I say if Ash battles Lance he could switch Dragonite out for one of his reserves. Iris's Dragonite vs Lance's Dragonite needs to happen though, if Iris is gonna be the ultimate Dragon Master she's gonna need to defeat THE current Dragon Master in an OG dragon all-out battle.
Only Ash and Cynthia have a Lucario and they could easily have Cynthia use another Pokemon as we haven't seen her use a Lucario. Though if she did use a Lucario I guess it would maybe be the "ultimate" challenge for Ash's Lucario to test its might against. *shrug*
Someone has a Metagross aside Steven... OH, right, Alain. Yeah, honestly there's no rivalry there (Alain didn't use it when he battled Steven previously) so they could have Alain use something else.
Masters 8 seems like it'll be a tournament format with three rounds (eight participants->four->two for quarterfinals as R1, semifinals as R2, and finals as R3). Assuming Ash reaches his endgame and battles Leon, this means Leon will be the finals, and this also means Ash has two battles before he reaches Leon. In other words, he has three battles for the Masters 8 tournament.
My guess? His three Masters 8 battles will most likely be Alain, Cynthia, and Leon, with Leon as the finale.
Sadly very likely the case. Also they probably not gonna do full battles either... which in that case they should make it a round robin at the very least. Not all matches need to be dragged out, all of them are Champions so it wouldn't be too much of a surprise if one has the Type advantage they could end a round in a few attacks (aka leave the longer rounds between notable Pokemon like the aces). And it would build up Leon if he defeated everyone (including Ash initially). Then after the round robin have the two who won the most have the final battle which would be Ash (who would have won all his non-Leon battles with some quick situation adapting & out-of-the-box strategies) and Leon (who would have won all his battles with just sheer power).
