The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Orlando, Mad Party, Brilliant Stars and more!

February 09, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 74
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Orlando, Mad Party, Brilliant Stars and more!
Transcript
Brit:

What we sort of joke about happening happened. We were, we were supposed to have gone yesterday. We accidentally didn't but had we gone yesterday, we would have been a day early for

Mike:

Yeah. Right.

Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche from Halliburton, Mike. Fouchet we're all on Twitter. You could follow us. We're sponsored by channel fireball. There was a nice article on channel fireball where they go through. I think Stephane goes through the new set and identifies cards that he thinks are good. You should subscribe to the channel fireball. They help pay for the stuff that we do on the pot. We got two, five star review updates guys, as, as a loyal listeners may record. Last week Britt was like people that leave reviews might get to be on the pod. And low people started leaving reviews. We've really come full circle Britt, like first pod. We were like, no guests Brits. Now Brits like leave a review. You're on the pod. We're going to have like a hundred people at a time on the pod. We're just going to do like group chat pod. It's going to be insane. All right. First review, R T E C C C C a Z like our tech to kill. I don't know, great pod for intermediate skill players. A lot of great pods out there for the competitive cheese too. But this one doesn't assume that you're a beginner, which can get old as a more seasoned player when they try to explain the simple parts of the game. These guys get into the in-depth of the strategy of the game and are much more focused on discussions on the state of the game and predicting the Metta great pods out there. But this one might be at the top of the mountain.

Mike:

High praise.

Brent:

Yeah, we appreciate that review that review.

Mike:

Yeah. And I like just re uh, one small thing. I like how it points out that we kind of catered to more than just like a beginner. And I think that's true, but I hope, I hope that it's like a little bit of both. Right. I hope that we're like inviting enough and accessible enough that like newer players can still get stuff out of it. But I do think we don't try to. Baby our listeners by, by any, by any means. So I think that's a nice observation from, from you.

Brent:

You're in the Trashalanche community or you're in the community. You can just jump right in and we do have a book. You can go by if you are a beginner and you're like trying to ramp up, it's the easiest way to get leveled up to another pod book blog. Let's go, Dan, the trainer. Excellent Pokemon TCG podcast. Great podcast love the insight on deeper parts of the game. And all the host clearly have expertise and experience in the game. Definitely recommended if you're a Pokemon person also absolutely leaving reviews so I can join the podcast.

Mike:

Nice. You have joined the podcast.

Brent:

So guys, we said, we're on Twitter. Be Halliburton. You guys can find haze wise. You guys can find Mike, Fouchet send us a message. If you send them a message, they'll probably bounce you to me. But you know, they all, they've also figured out guests themselves before. So we'll get you on the pod. We'll do, we're going to do a giant supergroup pod, something like that. Let's make it happen. If you leave a review, we are arranging podcasting opportunities for you to speak your mind and more

Brit:

I mean, I, that was a one time. That was a one time thing. It's not ever

Brent:

not every review. I mean, this is working. What are we doing here?

Brit:

I mean, that's

Brent:

No, stop now.

Brit:

on like the wrong way, if we were full-time content creators, and absolutely this would be making videos till the end of time for us, you know, meeting those daily outbursts algorithm needs. Um, I mean, we, we can do whatever we want. I just want to let the record show that I was, I was only attempting to solicit a one time I one time guest, but I am happy to go with the, uh, the majority opinion. Should that be more guests?

Brent:

Well, will that be the majority once they're all on the pot and we take a vote.

Brit:

Simple majority 1, 2, 3.

Mike:

Yeah, it seems

Brent:

right. We, we covered, we covered a bunch of good stuff already, but let's say let's talk about the bad stuff. We should talk about the Greg sock for a second.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

want to say you probably know him best. Although I interacted with him plenty as a, a parent in that book of mine. I think anybody that's been involved in Pokemon has interacted a ton with.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, especially in the Northeast, like Greg has been around for so long. Um, so Lee, yeah. Listen to it. For those of you that don't know, Greg sock passed away recently, very unexpectedly. From what I know, I don't really know all the details, but Greg had two sons that have been playing the game for. Forever Ben SOC and Jeff sock. Um, both really incredible players, um, have lots of accolades to their names. Um, and Greg has been a supporter of both of them, but not only has he been a polka parent, he was a judge, a tournament organizer, um, for pretty much as long as I've been playing. So that's like over 15 years or 15 years or so. Um, when he was really a staple of the Pennsylvania community in particular, but the larger Northeast and, and national and world community as well, he he's staffed multiple national championships, internationals world championships. So, uh, it's really sad. It really is really as a loss.

Brent:

He's he was the absolute goat, a friend to everyone. I don't think anybody has a single bad thing to say about him. Just a super nice, super, super supportive of the community. A really one of the good guys.

Mike:

like, he wasn't, he wasn't that old to like, I dunno, he was probably late fifties, early sixties, somewhere around there. So it's pretty early for him to bring them to pass.

Brent:

Thank you, Mike. Fifties is not old. I'm closing it on that. I'm going to get the too fast, but like it's good. It's good to hear. It's good to hear. Uh, all right. Let's talk about the, the, not quite as bad news, but like, yeah, we, we thought about recording the pod last night and the sheer act of thinking about it made news break. Orlando has been canceled,

Mike:

Yeah. Uh, did you guys, what was the, what was the reason based on COVID stuff like mandates? They can't, I didn't really receive any

Brit:

mean, I don't think I'm an official reason was given, but I'm sure that I'm

Brent:

Yeah, no. So I hear that there was, there was a, so the breaking news was the, Santa's signed a law saying that you were not allowed to, um, restrict events based on vaccination status

Brit:

Right.

Brent:

then Pokemon like 24 hours later. Cut the tournament.

Mike:

Oh, oh, I didn't realize. Okay. Okay. So it was that quick.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think they very rapidly gave the scientist, the big finger for like, you know inhibiting the growth of businesses in Florida that want to be supportive of the vaccination effort. And in that respect, I still do Pokemon for like a standing firm and not bowing to the Santas is a petty political place.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

I am I feel fairly confident that. If we had said, Hey, people don't have to be vaccinated or masked to go to this Pokemon regional that would have dramatically changed the composition of people that attended the tournament. And it would have been really weird. And we, I don't think we would've gone for sure. So, so in that respect, I appreciate Pokemon standing by their own values.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

No more hypotheticals about which players would go to Florida. Thankfully there's just no more Florida.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. So, so here's the big question I had about the regional schedule guys coming out of that as, as a competitor, as I tried to put it together, like, so here's the weird thing that was going to be two weeks after salt lake city, salt lake city is March like 16th to 18th, I think. And then the next tournament is not until like May 8th, I think.

Brit:

and now. Yeah, Indianapolis. Yeah. It's a lot.

Mike:

So there's like a home.

Brent:

I don't know if you guys want to take a break and use some Google food, does a set drop between then,

Mike:

Um, good question. My guess is no, my guess is that like towards the end of may, a set will drop.

Brit:

Yeah. In my head I'm thinking like, yeah, like the Wisconsin, it's not mental. It's not a. Madison anymore, but the one that's in Ms in like Milwaukee or whatever now that's always Jimmy Ballard's event. Like that, that usually has a set around it, which will lead in national. It's usually like, usually usually the way it's worked is like the NAI sea is like not the fresh tournament for that set. It's usually like, um, like the last regionals or something to that effect. So I would guess, no, but I truly don't have a.

Mike:

The other interesting thing too, or the other interesting thing for me was that by announcing Orlando is canceled. I feel like it has strongly affirmed that events will happen. I don't know if you

Brent:

right. There's new announcement about salt lake city. That's all. It seems to be center, right.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I've taken that and like just the general, like, um, whoever's running like that would reload events just being like, winkling like, you're out of time. If you need it to get vaccinated, like I've taken that to more or less be like official lines of communication. Like things could still change. Like, I, we, we never know. We're not that close. Like who knows, like we are, I think talking before we recorded, like the next next onto the next variant and just time to mask up again. Um, but Yeah. it's looking at least good for now. I think, um, Yeah. I think, I think there would have been, I mean, I think like the, the impetus to like make a decision was driven or could have been easily driven by this new having to sort of make a new decision on Florida. Like, I think that would have been the moment to do something regardless. Like, not just kill Florida, but like kill it. All right. That in there, like that might've been like the nail in the coffin kind of thing, but it looks good for now. I think I would definitely definitely salt lake city for sure. And who knows after that? It might be a little too far away to speculate.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so here's, here's my questions about the upcoming schedule with Orlando app? I, I think I've always told you guys that like the worst attribute that my eldest son has is he gets excited about testing after he plays the tournament. Like he's like, oh, now I understand the badda. Let's we? Why couldn't we be like, testing like this yesterday? She didn't didn't understand what was really going on until I got into the real heat of battle. So, so historically Liam does most of his testing, like the week after tournament. So I'm really sad that there's like, it doesn't seem like there's a plan to being, bring league cups and championships back because I feel like the way that energize Liam going into salt lake would be to do a tournament the week beforehand and really get them going. And the good news is there's online tournaments and maybe I can engage, but I know on that tournament just haven't done it for him like this, but, but I think I had been, I've been thinking, okay, we'll do salt lake city and then we'll do Orlando. Cause that way I'll get the, like we'll come out of salt lake city. He'll have played a couple of rounds. So feel like you understand what what's going on and what Dex do. And then he'll test for two weeks. It'll go into Orlando. We'd be like ready to play. And now I'm like, oh, maybe I won't go to salt lake city because that seems to beat.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

Like, you know are we really going to figure out brilliant stars and then go to this tournament and then take like six weeks, seven weeks, seven weeks off, I guess before the next thing do you think people are just so dying to do it, but salt lake city will become more popular because Orlando is off the table or, or less popular because Orlando is up.

Brit:

Ah, that's a tough question. I just, I think in general I would expect a lower turnout. I think just the, the season involved with getting the salt lake city flights are just basically very high, regardless of where you're from. Like, um, I guess it's probably worse if you're like on the coast. I know Frank per sec was complaining. Uh, like Cleveland, I think somewhere in Ohio that he couldn't find anything for like under 700. And I was looking from here and it was like about 500 or so I actually found a pretty good one if I'm willing to wait until Monday to fly back, which I might be. But, um, Yeah. I just it's it's ski season or something, I believe like it's just a bad time to try to be in the city. Um, and like in general, the west west coast events never have the kind of attendance that Midwest, Texas east coast stuff's like California is sort of its own thing. But like, um, like I remember they used to be, cause there was like, Yeah. nevermind Utah, just to get their own regionals. And that was always like pretty on the smaller side. Like not as small as like Portland could get sometimes, but still just like, like I think one of the last ones they had was just like eight rounds still back in back then when like most regionals almost always had nine rounds. Um, So, Yeah. I would, I'd definitely. And that's, you know, speaking, honestly, that's some incentive for me to make it. They're like, ah, probably, probably less people here easier to make day to sort of scenario. But, um, I don't think, I don't think anyone well, yeah, I'll just go with it. I don't think anyone who is like, not going to Utah already is suddenly going to go there because Orlando is out of the option. I would think a lot of the people like banking on Orlando or more like just closer to it. And that was the regionals for them. Like the people that are going to travel or you're going to be at all of them. Um, and so it's kind of more just like a local area that are losing out because of Orlando. I would guess there's not a significant downturn in attendance because Orlando doesn't exist anymore, but I could see it going either way, but that's what all submit.

Mike:

Yeah. I kind of agree. I don't think there'll be, I don't think in either direction, there's going to be a huge change because of this. Um, just because like Brent said, I think salt lake is very expensive to get to, so I don't think there's going to be a ton more people that have.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I, I think I hadn't quite realized, you know, I, I know I've been thinking, I mean, Vancouver is one of my favorite cities in the world, love Vancouver to death. It's a huge pain in the rear to try to go through a ritual in Vancouver. But, but it's pretty amazing that there's going to be like over the course of like six weeks, there's four regionals starting like May 6th. That, that is the kind of thing where my son would really like pick up steam and actually. Trying to solve the better, but that's, if they drop a set halfway through that, I'll be like right back at square one. Although, you know, maybe if he's engaged that it'd be fun. We'd work it out. But all right. So, so my second related question is with Orlando off the table, what's, what's like a reasonable over-under on people that will say I'm going to go to salt lake city in Utah on March 18th to the 20th, and then I'm going to fly to Liverpool and do Liverpool March 26, 27. Well, anyone do that?

Mike:

I will say, no, I will say yes, I will say over one. The only thing that's making me hesitant is that, so I mentioned this on the pod a while ago, but like I talked to over the summer when I went to that, uh, the one K I was hanging out with weld Jenkins and Justin Bokhari, and those were two of the grinders

Brent:

Oh yeah, they were, they were super in it to win it two years ago.

Mike:

And they're both like, well, we're not going to do that anymore. And so I don't know who the grinders are really going to be if it's not those people. And so maybe there isn't going to be any grinders this year, just because it's such a weird year. Maybe if there's a full season, you might see different grinders, but I don't know if any of the old grinders are really going to show up again, at least to grind in that same way. So that's the only thing that's making me think. Maybe not.

Brit:

Yeah. I think that, that seems to hold for me. Like, I would think that like the grinders who at this who already have all their invites, like I would think most of them are probably just going to like, take advantage of the situation and like, take it easy, like go to the, go to the, go to the U S ones. But there's no, there's no point to like push it like that, especially to like, Without, without Orlando, that's another big chunk of points that don't exist anymore. Like this, the less events we have, the easier it is for the, these players already in the, in the hunt for the top 16 to just stay there. Like there might not be any change and they're not, might not be like any significant change at all. Like, you know, and so maybe that's, that's the person who grinds is the person who just like hits it big and saw like city. And then, and then that's their, their impetus for chasing the top 16. Like they had two or 300 and then they win or, you know, top four. And then all of a sudden they just need to like, you know, top 16, one more regionals, and that they might get a free trip to London when it, when it happens. So like that's a scenario like that. I, think it seems the most likely to me, but I would expect the grinding just to be on hold and those, those people would be taking it easy.

Brent:

What was the other question I had? So, oh, so they announced Latin American and Oceania, regionals. I don't think we have really any thoughts or insight into that. And they announced a new European, regional and France.

Mike:

Yeah, that's great. The other, the other part of this announcement was Pokemon unite is definitely going to be in the world championships. Right. Am I correct on that? Yeah. Yeah. Which SI, which is cool. I think we had kind of assumed it, but, um, it's cool to like see it efficiently and it looked like I didn't really look at any details about it, but it seemed like that they provided some details about how teams could qualify and whatnot. So that's cool for those people as well.

Brent:

Should we talk about med party?

Mike:

Uh, yeah. That's like a weird, I didn't see all of the Twitter happened to you with that were going on with it, but yeah, that seems like a weird thing that happened where someone posted a mad parties for girls. And then, I don't

Brit:

thought, I thought you meant to have like a serious conversation about the deck because the brilliant stars. And I actually was like, yeah, actually I've been thinking a lot about med party. Um, but just that comment. Yeah, that was a good one.

Mike:

Yeah, very strange. Um,

Brit:

Yeah, just these like quintessentially masculine Pokemon and

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

cross mana.

Mike:

Yeah, that was very weird, but I bet you are right. I think Matt part like mad party with the new set, right. Is like very, in a very, probably a really good spot actually.

Brit:

It interests me for a variety of reasons. I just always think those decks they're like, I think it should be fighting against you. And that's I think a ticket to going five and four, six and three pretty easily, I would guess. And just like the, there's just such advantages of being a one prize attack. Like I'm sure there's just like things like silly Coon. I would guess like cage couldn't ever beat you. Like, you're just going to be too fast and just out prize trade on there. You just have so much like. Comforter, you can come actually. come back and games, which is sort of rare in these formats. A lot of the times it's just like, who takes the first three prize knockout, and then you've just got so much tempo that you'll close out the game. Eventually at least, um, a lot of matchups, like there are some like jolty on can come back, but it's like not the most interesting comebacks. It's like, you're you start spreading while your opponent is dry passing under peak. Like it's not super dynamic, whereas like with nightmarish or mad party, or like you're going through your like sequence here, your play patterns of discarding and stuff. Like while, you know, taking six prizes before your opponent takes their last two or three, something like that. A lot of the time, I think, um, like Lumina. I don't know how many decks is it? Just an auto include? I don't think it goes into every deck, but maybe it's, it'll just be like a, sorta a real moment of re re-evaluation for the format. Like, I haven't thought that through like is, you know, and I guess this is a good question for the podcast. We'll like, are like Lumion and Inteleon like cutting against each other. Cause it's, it's a little difficult to try to play both. I would think like even a one-off aluminium, like you going to add to your bench space issues and like, not every Inteleon deck has spent space problems, but like Urshifu rapid strike one, for instance, usually just like, they want to get the, like Octillery down on top of that on top of the basics on top of samples and stuff. Um, but Yeah. I would think you can't play them together. And then, but then the question is like, do we just stop deck building with Inteleon now and go shift to Lumina on ultra ball RCS? What do you guys.

Mike:

That's a really good question. It's something that I've been thinking about too, and it's really unclear. And I think that's one of the exciting things about this set is there's honestly, there's not a whole lot of new archetypes that are going to come out of this set, I think, but there's a lot of support cards that are going to make us exactly what you said, reevaluate, how the format is just like as a more at a more fundamental level. Um, and I agree that like Inteleon and move money on will very rarely be played in the same deck if ever. Um, my first gut instinct is to think that Lumina Leon will be more like Geraci X was then taboo. They was in that Geraci was played. In some decks, it was probably a little underplayed looking back on it, but it was still very rarely more than a one of, in some decks. And I think Lumina will probably be more like that because tablet, they, they had pretty good HP for REL in relation to the rest of the format. You know, like other GX is evolution. GX is we're in like the low two hundreds and tabulate. They had one 70, um, and obviously Tapu Lele. They had a pretty good attack with double colorless energy in the format. Um, Lumion in comparison as one 70 HP. So the same as Tapu Lele, but in relation to the other V's and V Max's it's it's significantly lower. So

Brent:

All, all the points are doubled except for Lumina ads. I, you stole my talking points. The 10 points are exactly like Geraci versus like seismic load or something. Right.

Mike:

Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Geraci in relation, it seems much more similar. It doesn't have a good attack. Um, so yeah, I think it'll probably just be slotted as one of, in some decks. Now the thing is we do have a critical mass now of pretty good the coming from cause you know, coming into play abilities, right. We have Crobat we have Lumion, we have Al biggest, um, and like last format, we had the DNA Crobat and LD grass and there was lots of decks that. Just use those as their engine. Right. You know, like Centiskorch, I think is a really good example. It played, you know, to Dedenne a Crobat and INELDA Gus, um, and like peek her arm and lots of decks did. And I feel like that engine was much weaker without, um, one other card, like we've just had Crobat and elder, Gus. It's also funny side note. It's funny to me that elder gas was like a one of in like every deck, last format, and now it's just not, um, but part of that is also not having as many interesting supporters in the format. And that is also something that changes with this set. There's lots of interesting supporters in this set. So cards like got much more enticing to play with. Um, so I do think I do. I do think there'll be lots of decks that play Rumanian INELDA Gus, but probably not more than one. Uh, Maybe to it. I think people will experiment with too, but probably just give me one.

Brent:

You know, I also feel like I mean, all of that contributes to a much deeper card pool and, you know, sacrificing nine or 10 cards in your deck to put on an Italian online versus, you know, playing three or four of these cards and then ultra balls, which are all outs to any of these like flexible tools in your toolbox or, you know, new supporters, whatever, all the new cards that are coming into the pool, right. People are gonna have better stuff.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I actually, so the way that we started this discussion is really nice because I was actually gonna say maybe. This podcast, we talk a little bit more from a macro level and maybe look at just like the, the trainer cards and Lumina neon, basically. Um, and talk about how we think structurally the format will change and then maybe next podcast, we can look at more of the Pokemon and specifics and get into the, uh, more potentially interesting cards. Um, so

Brent:

Oh, you know, I, I had one more super hot take for you guys about the mad party thing before we transitioned away

Mike:

Okay. Yeah.

Brent:

And here is here's my big observation about mad party. Every, every male content creator had a fairly bland statement of like we support women. We shouldn't create a hostile environment for women. Blah, blah, blah. And then every, every like woman got to have a hilarious, hot take of which I thought by far the best was Kaya's what the fuck.

Mike:

Yeah, that was funny.

Brent:

But the, the, like there's clear gender lines of like every man felt like they had a responsibility to say, we stand in solidarity, let's go. And then the women were like that guy,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

what the fuck? So like very, very I, I noticed that I want to save that headache for the pod. You guys got it. All right. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about trainers.

Mike:

Um, well, so here's another kind of like format defining questions. So ultra balls coming out, that's probably sadly. The best card in the set. Um, and so what do you guys think I've seen a lot of people discuss what ball counts might look like in Inteleon decks, not an Inteleon index. We have way more item, ball, search type of cards really than any time before that I can think of. So we've got ultra ball, we got quick ball, we have evolution, incense. We have great ball, which you never play ever again. Um, psychic decks have fog crystal. So there's really a lot. Um, and I don't think ultra volt will be a four of, in every single deck. And I've seen people kind of like debating that they're like, you never played with ultra ball. If you don't think that it's going to be a four of in every single deck. And I think that's a little naive in that. Um, it's different where it's a different world now because. We have so many good cards before algebra was an automatic for it because you didn't have anything else. Um, and ultra ball is still very, very, very good obviously, but I don't know. What do you, what do you guys think?

Brent:

Um, I I'll give you my quick take quick you know, obviously prior four minutes, we didn't have quick ball, quick balls busted

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

quick balls, like ultra ball cheating for a big basic decks. I'm assuming, assuming like the stars and V maxes are still really powering. I think the question becomes, how much are you leaning on that? Like Lumion engine. So if you're playing the Lumina on engine, your incentive to like make ultra balls, the next card after quick balls goes like up dramatically versus maybe an evolution incense or something like that. Cause it's out, it's out to draw. Right. And if you're, if you're choosing between drawing dead and like a discard plus way to find a VMX, you might say, Hey, it's worth it to mean be able to go get limited on if I need it, because drunk that sucks. And everyone hates that. Like nobody likes to lose. So I think ultra ball is good, but yeah, quick ball was always a cheater card. It's a cheater card. Now it's a thoughtless format, like a design card. You know, of course people are gonna play.

Brit:

I think that like I'm a little skeptical. I've seen a lot of just like, I guess two things, like one just like general speculation that like, uh, there's no contents, of course you play ultra ball. It's like better, which I, you know, better for like, you know, your light game sequencing, fitting your deck. And I just don't, I don't think that's right. I think, I think it's definitely like quick buffer and, and then I've also seen it just like in conjunction, like with other texts. And so like, I think like mew And like things that are going to be playing like liberal, like we'll be more inclined. Like I think alter ball will go fine into music like that. I don't know where the, where that will be. Do you just play for both? Like for quick for ultra and just, I mean, it would seem fine to me. Like mute, mute just seems incredible

Brent:

And you were playing krama Maddick before, how bad is it really going to be? Right.

Brit:

I would think you'd still, maybe want some chromatic, but just like even just having more discard for more draw, same as in, I mean, it's a, Genesek that the same as a Genesek plus two at the same time almost.

Mike:

you as particularly.

Brent:

Mike, the uh, I mean, if people are playing Crobat, they're going to say, oh, ultra ball, super good card. Culturable super good card. So, so it's more like the more they're playing the the, like the draw engine, the more value they're going to get out of the ultra ball,

Mike:

Yeah. I guess, I guess that's true. I didn't think of Crobat as well. Um, what was I going to say? Mew is particularly interesting because it also, it definitely wants to run four or five crystal, like frog is actually just. Then, um, ultra ball and quick ball because it gets you entered if the turn one energy, energy drop as well. So you're always playing four or five crystal. And then do you have room for four ultra ball and for quick ball, maybe you do, maybe you don't, but like, I mean, you probably play ultra ball over quick balls. Like if you like quick ball would actually be a dropped card. I think first in that deck, probably only that deck though, like mew is like a kind of a pair, like different from the rest of the format because it has Genesek. Right. Um, and so, okay. The more that I think about it, the more, if people, if things are running like this V engine with Crobat and Lumion and whatnot and LD, Gus, yeah. You probably just play for ultra ball, but like Inteleon index. I don't know if they'll play any ultra ball

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

because like he just Inteleon index. Can't afford. They don't have the resources to discard, um, that other decks have, you know, they might play one or two to like search out, search it out and whatnot. The other thing, Brett, that you were saying that made me think of, um, discarding resources or discarding stuff to like in your hand, and then your deck is good generally, and it's still good at, in this format, but it's much less important in a format with no reset stamper and or something like that. And we still don't have anything like that. So, um, that's like another thing that's making me think algebra is going to be great, but it's not the same. This Carney two cards isn't as good as it has been with a format within.

Brent:

So I think pregnant another good point. Like how do you feel about how people will feel about biblical verses? I can tell you, and will people be making that choice and say you know, like drawing five over and over again versus a, a one-time search. Like if you play ultra ball, all of a sudden Dibrell gets a lot better. Cause you're like, oh, you have ways to just discard our hand and get our hand sized way down and draw a cards every time. And like, can we just draw enough cards? Everything will work itself out. Right,

Mike:

yeah. Oh, I didn't even realize. So unlike previous iterations of this card, you can use multiple on a turret, like Octillery when it was out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right.

Brit:

Yeah. Just assume you have been credited reprinted. I, I guess I just assumed that there's the old card still. That's that's Jenna sect again. That's crazy. Like, I guess it's just like, not as bad because obviously like Jenna is doing a lot more for that back in so far as it gives me an attack And like, what are you going to do with four liberals in play? But it's still really good. Like the difference between one and two is a lot,

Mike:

yeah, I,

Brit:

much.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. Like you get a lot of value, like, you know, you you'd probably play if you're playing liberal, you're probably playing a three-three line now. Right. And like, if you set up to you're pretty happy. Hmm. That's really, I'm just looking at the translation, I guess. Technically, maybe it's it could be limited to one to turn once we see the actual English card, but from this translation, it doesn't say anything like that. So that's, that's pretty interesting.

Brent:

Like, like in some ways it's not as good as Chino cause you can't do the like tour direct live massive hand size,

Mike:

That's true.

Brent:

like, like, you know, I'm going to just have 15 cards in my hand and you know, I went next to her no matter what, but, but like if you said, Hey, I could like play this. I could play this 10 card Inteleon engine that lets me draw or search one or two cards every turn versus this thing that lets me do to draw half a dozen cards. Every turn it's pretty good.

Mike:

Yeah. And if nothing else I'm excited, like the Inteleon engine has been super dominant the last, you know, six, six or seven months. Right. It's really the only way to play anything. Like you have mew, you have single strike and then you have Inteleon decks. That's like pretty much it. Right. And so now it it'll be interesting to see if Inteleon. Survives in some capacity. I think it will. Because even, even in the tag team format, towards the end of the tech team, from that we saw like rapid strike, Inteleon actually be a good deck still with, you know, all those other things. So Inteleon will still have its place, but it won't be the very dominant, um, draw search engine, which I think is good. It's good to have variety.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, obviously it's search. There's super. It's like, it's great. People love search

Mike:

Yeah. Um, and manifests being in the format was probably good for Inteleon. Um, it's also good for it's good for all of these engines, right. To have a card like McAfee that can protect your liberal is it can protect your S V Pokemon that are sitting on the bench

Brent:

right now. It'll make things like CIN Chino viable against jolty Anish, maybe. Right? Like,

Mike:

Yeah. So manifests is another like big dynamic shift. Uh, for this as well.

Brent:

Uh, as long as we're talking about this stuff, we should talk about our CSV star for a second. I mean, well, people play when people play like a one-on-one RCSP star in a lot of stuff, because it's

Mike:

Oh, just for the ability.

Brent:

Yeah. But like, it's kind of, it's kind of in that if you get out the Vistar, it's just like sitting and chilling on your bench, it's not worth somebody trying to gust and kill it because it's too big to kill and, you know, and because you don't have to use the ability when you play it down, you can just kind of chill. And then when the game,

Mike:

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, too. Yeah. That's a good point. I actually hadn't thought of it in that sense. Like, you don't even need it to attack, even though it's an incredible attacker. Yeah, that could be, that could definitely be true. I feel like you're a little more, much more likely to see it. Like if your deck's playing even one or two of the double colorless card, then it feels almost silly not to play a one line, then So, yeah, I mean like RCS is RCS is like the only, I didn't read through every Pokemon, but RCS is the only Pokemon that I know of in this set besides manifest and liberal that are like, it's going to change the game for sure, because it has so many potential partners. And as you just brought up, like, it could just be a tech for, and you might never attack with it. But, um, it seems like it will be an extremely powerful card, especially, especially when B starts are just being introduced to the game. It's kind of like when GX is, were first introduced to the game, you really just wanted to play any GX that kind of made some sense in your deck just to have access to a GX attack, um, because it gave you such an advantage to have that. And now. Having access to some B star ability or attack is probably going to be such a huge advantage that you want something. And RCS probably just fills that something, um, at least for right now until we get more dark cards.

Brent:

All right, right out of the gate. It's the only one that is that it has colorless attacks and, and its ability. Like there's no deck that wouldn't get value out of that ability. Versus I think the other view star powers that are like a little, a little more situational or extremely difficult to you, eh,

Mike:

Yeah. There is the one, um, one of, I forget what one of the evolutions is like a boss disorder. Right? You can use that. Yeah. I forget which one it is, but I mean, that's pretty good too. That's pretty splashy bubble. Even if you never attack with it.

Brent:

Which one is that? I don't know. It

Mike:

Lysandre Leafeon is one of the two. Um, some of the, the trainer is Heather. I was reading through some of that trainers, the

Brent:

I think that's a promo. I don't think it's in the set.

Mike:

Yeah. It's not in the Senate, so it's already out technically. Um, I don't know if you guys like read through some of the trainers, but the trainers are really interesting, you know, not all of them are going to be played, but they're at least very interesting. And in some of the it's one of the first times in a little while that I'm reading through all of them and I'm like, oh, okay, cool. This could be good. This could be good. This could be good. Um, so like starting off with some of the obvious ones we already talked about ultra balls, we have the choice belt card. Which is, you know, plus 30 to these, like that's obviously going to be played in lots and lots of stuff, if not literally everything. Um, the next one to me, that pops out is the giant stump parallel city type of card where, you know, limits bench to four. That's super, that's super good. Like if you don't have a stadium, like, I feel like the format has lacked stadiums that people want to play, like there's Path to the Peak and there's stuff to counter Path to the beak. And there's really not too many, like just stadiums that people want to play. And this is a stadium that is really, really good because it's actively disruptive as well as. Can be used like defensively on your end, especially in these decks that are going to be playing some of these support V Pokemon. Um, you can just knock one of them off your bench, which is really great. So that's like, I'm really excited about that card. Um,

Brent:

Uh,

Mike:

that

Brent:

talk to me. The, the, the card that I thought was interesting for control was Roseanne's backup.

Mike:

And backup. Is that the, um, no, that's not the card. I thought it was. Let's see, where is it?

Brent:

think that there's, there's both Roseanne's backup and there's team yells, cheer

Mike:

these cards. Yeah.

Brent:

females. Cheer is pretty obvious, right? Shuffle up to three of, in any combination of Pokemon and supported cards, except team meals, cheer into your discard pile for me.

Mike:

so they didn't give it the loose meet effect.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. So they didn't want it. They didn't want, but, but like Roseanne's backup is, is a, you can put four cards into your deck if you play the supporter

Mike:

Yeah. Pokemon problem on tool stadium and an energy, not a, not a basic energy. Any energy? I can't see. They're like cheer is definitely not getting played in anything except control Roseanne's has potential to get played in something besides control. Um, just

Brent:

energy recovery. It's I feel like it's been a long time since we had a card that had special injury recovery.

Mike:

yeah, it would be, it's such a weird, um, like way to say this, like choose one or more. It would be, it would have been cool if it was like, choose one. Yeah. Like if you choose one, put it into your hand or choose more than one and shuffle into your deck, like that would have been cool,

Brent:

We

Mike:

then it would be really

Brent:

that actually would have been a really cool.

Mike:

Yeah. That would have been really good then, because then like lots of decks would just play it for, you know, get a special energy back in your hand or something like that. Um, but it's still going to be a good card, like for sure. Um, but I agree with controlled benefits a lot from these cards.

Brent:

Yeah. I know you had said previously that there's a lot of interesting cards that are gonna kind of change the format. Marnie's pride is another one that like a lot of people are going to play.

Mike:

Is that the attachment interview on?

Brent:

Yeah. Accelerate energy from your discard.

Mike:

Um, yeah, it's definitely interesting. I'm not sure if it's not sure. Cause like we have like Melanie, right? Like one is just better than this, right?

Brent:

Melanie only works for watertight, right?

Mike:

Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's true.

Brit:

I think we've seen similar steps to this before. And I just think like a supporter cards that needs that extra, like for it to be playable, there's like, isn't there another card I'm blanking on. Isn't there one that like, can attach to V you can attach to like or something and extra time, there's something there to support a card now that lets you cheat out in energy somehow. And it's just like, it's also not played just because it just doesn't do anything. Maybe I'm making that up. I feel like

Brent:

No, I feel, I feel like there's one where you have to attach from your hand or

Mike:

Yeah, bet there was beta or

Brit:

That's what I'm thinking of. Right, right, right. Where it's like similar or like, you know, welder for, you know, regular for non-fire Pokemon. It's just like, it's just missing it. And so here it's just like, maybe there's like there could be uses for it, but I, I would be, I don't think it's playable the main domain one. I don't think we've we haven't hit yet is like the Cynthia's it's not Cynthia's feelings. That's the old card that it's basically like, that's what I'm like kind of torn on. That card, at least in the past. Like it, let me make sure I've got that right.

Brent:

There's the, there's also the Gloria. It's just like Bridget.

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah. Just for non real box.

Mike:

the Cynthia is not as good as the old one though. So it's, cause it's not shuffle.

Brit:

Oh, it isn't.

Mike:

It's just, draw. So it says it's like a professor Birch, like draw five until you have a drawn until you have five in your hand. And then if your things were knocked out last turn drawn until you have eight. So like, it could be good, but it's definitely not as good as like shuffle draw for the older one, I think was shuffle draw four. And then if something was Kao, draw eight,

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah, that one was definitely better than this. This still could be good though.

Brent:

Yeah. Although that one, that one was like a one-off and I recognized, like, I think the neat thing about this is, you know, people have low on, you can play like one of supporters that do janky stuff.

Mike:

Yeah. What is the Bridget card? Oh, the cafe. No, no, no, no, no,

Brent:

it's a, it's a Gloria.

Mike:

whatever. Yeah. So should I, for three basic, they don't have a roll box. Oh yeah. Um, it's probably not.

Brent:

good enough.

Mike:

Yeah. Like in a format with quick ball and ultra, Bob's probably just not good enough, like decks that are not doing robot stuff can just play quick balls, capture energies, ultra balls. Probably not strong. Like if you could play a sport or going for it, if they said you can play this going first. Okay. Um, um, I could be in, but since it doesn't say that, not in,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

there was another supporter that was super well. Okay. I actually. To other supporters too. So a cafe master choose up to three of your bench Pokemon, search your deck for that many basic energy cards of different types and attach one to each one. So like the, the Marnie's card.

Brent:

but then your turn it,

Mike:

Oh, I didn't see that

Brent:

ah, yeah. Cafe master is like you, you got to have a real plan to slow roll. The other thing.

Mike:

Um, oh actually I was looking though that makes more sense because I did see, as I was reading through there's a Pokemon, um, is a stage one. So there's a stage one Alcremie that says if this Pokemon is your active Pokemon, your turn does not end when you play cafe master. Uh,

Brent:

Eh,

Mike:

was a, if it was a basic, um, I could see it. Um, okay. So

Brent:

We're going to do a thing

Mike:

yeah. Okay. Captain master. No boy, no, but the other card, um, the. No, not the Acer Rola but it's like a casserole it's not called a Serola as Sharon Sharon's care. Is that what it is? Yeah. But one of your colorless Pokemon that has cat damage on it and put it into your hand, like that's pre

Brent:

that is interesting. That isn't.

Mike:

V max coming back to your hand over and over again, and we have double colorless energy. So that seems pretty good to me.

Brit:

Yeah.

Brent:

Uh, the killers that can lose obviously a good card or, or fire decks,

Mike:

his card. If you just kind of fire card from your hand, look at the top seven and put up to two. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Brent:

and then shuffle the other five back. I feel like historically, like a ho Hapa was discarding all this cards.

Mike:

Right? Right, right.

Brent:

You did a, really a hit yourself to a play at, or, or be doing the thing that evolved decking yourself quickly.

Mike:

Yeah. Oh yeah. I had read the stadium to the stadium through really good. The stadium was really good. Um, fire stadium, magma basin. Once during each place turn, they may attach a fire energy card from their discard to one of their bench, and then it takes 20 damage. But who cares about that? You get to like, you just get a free energy attachment. It's like a Firestarter as a stadium. That's really good.

Brent:

Yeah. Well, and if you're playing that with the supporter where you just start fire energy and you get to essentially like pick two cards, that seems like a you're set up for combos there.

Mike:

Yeah. It don't, there's not really any good fire Pokemon right now, but, um, you know, if there is a good fire Pokemon and discards really insane.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I assume that's a card teed up for next set.

Mike:

Yeah. I think I saw that there's a charge. That would be sorry. I didn't actually read it. Um, but if that's any good.

Brit:

good with like the NTA and there's a mold trace in the step that pairs quite naturally with it. I think both are good. I don't know. Like I've, I've been thinking about like, just like, can they do anything that like suey Coon decks, like, or like, like, would they be better than like Sui CUNA is now? And like, I don't think so. I'm not sure what place will be in this new Metta, but I do think entail just sheerly because it has the most, HP is probably going to be the best. Um, and I don't think the water weakness is that bad. Um, probably about the same as the lightening weakness. Like you have a bad matchup, but it doesn't super matter. Um, but Yeah. and this would be sort of like your mellow. Kind of like, so you can, but it's not a supporter, so you can maybe be like more aggressive and like, uh, I mean, maybe even play Lou to colo too. I'm not sure, but like, I haven't think of it work, but it's just, you don't have, it just gives you a little more freedom. You can be more consistent with your supporters since you, it's not just relegating you to drawing three, you can, and I'd have to think about if the 20 damage ever matters. Cause I sort of cuts against it being good because it has a lot of HP.

Mike:

Right.

Brit:

it probably even just ends up being about the same as Sui Coon in terms of survivability against mew and things like that. Um, but I think it would be good. I'm not sure. Um, and like ryku probably not, um, it just wouldn't be better than jolty on, I would think as like, if you having to pick them electric Pokemon, um, but like maybe it's. Potentially like you could play it, but it would need to be your focus.

Brent:

You know, it's easy to see how and Tejas turns out to be like a much better version of this weekend, right? Like, like you're running, you're running stadiums to counter the stadium and limits of people's deck before you have like this energy acceleration thing. And instead of being like, kind of feeling forced to play this Inteleon engine, now you have a whole bunch of different engines that you could play to fill your bench. And you get, you get just like the raw draw off the NTA. They have like weird fire supporters that could help you. Like, there's, there's a lot of pieces here.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Um, okay. We've pretty much covered all of the trainers, but this is very strange to me. There is not one, but two supporters in this set that are vanilla. Draw three.

Brent:

I noticed that too. I thought it was strange. Yeah. So there's Barry and then there's friends and gala. And I was thinking that there were that, like, when I first read it, I assumed that the friends in gallery was going to be like a professor's research where there was going to be like friends and Galler, Sharon friends and Galler. How, like, it would be different friends. They don't roll like that.

Mike:

This is so straight. And just to like, I'm used to them reprinting draw three, but reprinting it on two different cards in the same set. Very weird.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. It makes no sense at all. It makes no sense.

Mike:

Um, I, I've mentioned it a couple of times, but I think also another, like a big, huge card PA. Uh, I dunno what the word I'm looking for, but anyway, big, huge card in this set is the double energy. So it's a double color it's energy, but your attacks do 20 less damage to your opponent's Fogelman. So I think this is going to have lots and lots of implications. And we talked about mad party a little bit, like it's huge and mad party. Now mad party is twin energy. Yeah, we still have twin energy and this card, um, this card probably gets played up at least as a one of in mew. Maybe two of the RCS loves it. Like there's so many there's the, and those are just like the three most obvious things. I feel like there's going to be so many implications with having this card, um, in the format.

Brent:

I like how they trended, Nerf, DCS. Like on the one hand I love, I love me a double color list. Listen, I recognize that, that it demonstrates how this card will never see any play in expanded, but like the double colorless was such a like you know, we, yeah, we only liked big basics and we only like certain kinds of big basics for so many years.

Mike:

Yup.

Brent:

Makes me happy to uh, force players to be a little more thoughtful, I guess when it comes to deck building than just like, oh, this takes two colorless energies.

Mike:

Yeah. All right. Think that's it for this week. I think that's good for this week. We can, and there's a lot more to cover in this set for sure. There's lots of, there's a bunch of interesting Pokemon. Um, in addition to kind of like the obviously good ones that we've talked a little bit about. Um, so yeah, I think it'll be, uh, uh, we, there's lots to talk about both in, in the actual cards of the set and then thinking about how the current decks are going to just change. Adapt does do things that were okay. Become really good, do things that were, that were good. Do they not become as good? There's just, there's going to be a real big shakeup in the format, even if very few new decks enter.

Brent:

I think, I think printing manifests makes for a big shakeup in the.

Mike:

So I'm, I'm excited to have these discussions over the next couple of weeks. Uh, and, um, and then I think the set comes out like the last week of February. So, um, hopefully by our theorizing we'll have prepared decently well.

Brent:

Exactly. Exactly. And, and then, and we'll be like going right into the first regional of, of the podcast, a podcast history,

Mike:

Oh yeah. True. Didn't think about that.

Brent:

like 80 episodes in the making regional let's go. Alright. Good stuff guys.

Mike:

All right. See you later.