This week on the channel +773K views this week

NateWantsToBattle prices Pokémon starters by their trading cards with Shady

Seven rounds of card shopping, a budget for boons and buffs, then a best-of-three battle in Scarlet and Violet, edited by KingCorphish.

Channel:

shadypenguinnStory of October 6, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

Choose Your Starter By Their TCG Price BUT!

Nate is back. Shady's one Pokémon upload of the week brought NateWantsToBattle into the Choose Your Starter series. The twist is money: each randomized starter in Scarlet and Violet is judged by the price of its most expensive trading card, and any cash left over in a round buys boons and buffs. Seven rounds of shopping, then a best-of-three battle.

It passed 100,000 views on its first day and is now the busiest thing on the channel. The comments read like a match replay. Viewers do the arithmetic on the budget and decide it was never much of a limit, and they argue over a block Nate spent on buffs that, by their count, Shady never had. One sharp-eyed fan points out that a single glance at a different Pokémon would have turned an expensive card into a ten-dollar one. Others are just happy to see a calmer guest, and to see Ryan, the editor credited as KingCorphish, cutting another one.

The rest of the week went to Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, which Shady is playing blind and asking viewers not to spoil. Days seven through nine follow Cai's route, and each found its own steady audience of around 20,000 in its first day.

The channel as a whole moved more slowly than usual, with daily views a good way under its normal level and subscribers holding at 769,000. Older starter episodes are still at work underneath: the Skip or Take round with NumbNexus and the alphabet-soup episode with Patterrz keep drawing thousands of views a day. Among strategy and role-playing channels of similar size, most had a softer week too. Squirrel stayed close to its usual pace, while PragMagik and iSorrowproductions both ran well below theirs.

Published on Trari

What viewers say

Nate did in fact, want to battle
@NovaSeaFoamSee it on YouTube
As much as I love the usual cast of characters, it's really refreshing to have a nice, lower energy guest on! Nate's a good dude and Ryan kills with the edits every time. Would love to see him back!
@ryujedongSee it on YouTube
Nate pulling not 1, but 2 Shady backgrounds was peak content. Holy moly that was hilarious.
@Dhaxis_ytSee it on YouTube

Public comments from the video's page on YouTube