I was planning on going to the Kentucky thing, but I just I'd, haven't even noticed as my girlfriend was leaving just now she told me I have a flat tire. I just like, I don't think I have time to fix it before I need to leave. So bummer, but, well, I guess an extra bummer is that my NTA deck is good. Like I've convinced people that I was going with. Like one of them is maybe playing. Like he like thinks it's good, which doesn't necessarily mean it's good, but I'm a con I can be convinced. Well, I guess he's tested it as well. I actually haven't done.
Brent:Welcome to the Trashalanche Chris Webbies Webster's laboratory is our intro song. It was like to acknowledge that he recorded that song from time to time, and he seems like a cool guy. So, uh, uh, it's nice that we could use that, that music that refers to Pokemon. Uh, we have a hundred percent attendance as always for Pybas Mike crochet, me, Brian Halliburton. We're on Twitter. You can find us. We're sponsored by channel fireball. We appreciate their support. You can support them by going and buying stuff. Every time you buy stuff and you use the code trash, they say, uh, that Trashalanche guys they're not so bad after all. No new five-star review update this week after the amazing, uh, reviews that were left the last week. If you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. You should leave a review and read on the pod. It's fun way for us to do a thing. Uh, Dan, we've still not forgotten you. It was a little bit of a crazy week. My youngest son was in the Fortnite grand finals and this past weekend. So I've spent zero time thinking about the pod, but a fair amount of time spent thinking about Pokemon because Pokemon is an understood place. We're two weeks out from Utah, Utah originals is coming. We're really gonna be talking about, uh, a brilliant start as a fair bit. Um, as, uh, as always, I try to get all the like non Pokemon stuff out of the way. First, I thought the first thing I should ask you guys is should I spring for all the packs to get RCSP? If I want to like really test the medic, it's just, uh, it's a lot of fricking packs. Like PTCG, it seems like I'll be able to get them easily, but I don't understand PTCGO is coming anytime, super soon to the United.
Mike:That's also my assumption as well that it's not coming soon, but I. Really really don't want, because I think RCS line is similar to how the new line was. Right. It's like something like 150 packs or
Brent:Yeah. It's like, yeah. It's like, it would cost me like a hundred bucks.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm probably not going to, even though, as we'll talk more, I think RCS is actually insanely good. Um, but no, I think I probably won't do that.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, it's probably ill advisable. I will say at least from the, the tech class I've been looking at from this last weekend. Like, no, like, no, like it doesn't, at least for the moment, it isn't abundantly clear that like you need a heavy RCS, slime, like a microcontroller did well with, he had a pretty cool deck in one of the tournaments that he made top four with, and he only plays three, two or STS. And RCS deck. Like that's still kind of the focus just with a bunch of toolbox, he things, but he got away with three, two, so I like Mike and he probably, I mean, it's still kind of not great a dilemma, I guess, but three, three might be enough kind of like how I Strider was for awhile. Like, I mean, I guess for three is I think clearly better, but that happens every now and then
Brent:It's still like, it's still like a hundred and something packs. It's so many people.
Brit:whatever amuse have news been on a downward trend, are they still just the time to
Mike:Yeah, I haven't looked, but my guess is they're still
Brit:I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure they can't be as much, but I bet they're not too far off from the peaks.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah, it can't, it can't be good. Uh, um, yeah, listeners, if you, if you have a XR CSPs, and you want me to talk about all the testing we did with RCC decks, just tweet, tweet, we'll make it happen. We'll make it happen. Um, yeah, it's rough. I feel like I kinda got my son to play some Pokemon, uh, this week as he starts to think about Utah, even though we are definitely not going. Um, but, but yeah, the fact that we don't have RCSP, it makes me feel like I'm just an okay parent. That's rough. Um,
Mike:It's hard to, well, Yeah, let me, let me, I'll just add that Like, it, it feels harder than ever to justify it when you know that it'd be so easy to get in. PTCG Live. That's like, that's the real thing for me. Like if I didn't know, live was like somewhere on the horizon, whether that horizon is three months or eight months, I don't know. But like, just that fact is like making me way more hesitant than I normally would be.
Brent:that that is a keen insight in the human condition right there.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So, so, uh, I assume you do not have our CSPs and yet you decided to plan some tournaments anyway.
Mike:Correct? Yes. Um, so yeah, I played in Luke's Celio stats tournament. Um, it was nine rounds and going into the event, like I was playing a bunch of the single prize decks last week, things like Duran and mad party and a little bit of the warm Madame deck that Premo played. Uh, I wasn't super interested in playing new. I've played a bit of mew, um, when I wasn't super interested in playing it and I didn't really want to play dark box either, even though I think it is, you know, pretty solid deck. And So I was kind of like looking around at different results and seeing what was out there. And I saw people, some people were playing sweet Kuhn again, and I enjoyed playing. I enjoyed playing squeaky and last format. Maybe not last moment, two formats ago, like before you came out, it was really good. And then like at the beginning of the new format, it was still like kind of good, but then jolt Dionne started getting way more popular because it was one of the few decks that was pretty good against you. Um, but now I think we couldn't set a pretty good spot again, because is much less popular. So you lost arguably arguably your worst matchup and you're just like pretty solid against a lot of things. You're not an overwhelming favorite against anything in particular, but just pretty solid. Um, I think choice belt helps a ton in the mew matchup in particular because. So, uh, what's the math. So before choice belt, if they had a full bench and you had a full bench, you were hitting for two 20 plus Luda, colo would get you the one shot, but that required them to have a full bench because unlike another, match-ups where you can rely on the Inteleon pings to get you there over these little damage pumps. You can't rely on that against you because they have the fusion energy. So it was really awkward. You were almost never one shot into me if they knew what they were doing, because they would just play for bench. And then you're kind of in a tough spot. But now with choice belt, the math is if they have, let's see if they have 6, 7, 8, 9, if they have three beds, Then you're doing 6 79, 180 2 80 with a Ludico and a choice belt gets you to three 10. So they have to bench at least three car Pokemon. They cannot play with three bench. So they're playing with three or four bench Pokemon. You can reliably get the one hit Kao. And so generally the way you win that match up now is you just one shot, two UV max. They can try to boss around and kill your load tags, which is a pretty good strategy, actually for a lot of decks against squeaky. And we can talk a little bit more about that, but, um, if they're doing that, then they're not taking two prizes and, you know, if they Kao two single pricers, then you can force them to kill a third one often. Um, and so just gets a little more awkward for them. So it's not like overwhelmingly favorite first weekend or anything like that now, but I think it went from like 40, maybe like a 35, 40% first weekend. So I think at least 55. Percent, maybe 60 40 for in Sweden's favor. So I think that's like a huge, um, huge change for the deck. Uh, and like I said, and Joel Deon's, um, dotted lines out of the format, he struggled a little bit with against RCS decks and especially the RCS Darale Don, but, um, yeah, I just think it's like, it's really consistent. It does pretty much what I want to do every single game. It's not a lot of Highland maintenance and it's a fun deck to play and there's a lot of decisions to make. Um, so yeah, so for all those reasons,
Brent:So talk to me about the RCS Doral doesn't match up for a second. Is it just because they don't match anything? So it's hard to hit.
Mike:Pretty much. Yeah. Like it just RCS techs in general. Like I also played against Kate Tron deck, which I'm sure we'll talk, uh, quite a bit about, um, but RC is just in general, so self-sufficient that they don't need to bend train many Pokemon. They can just play the one RCS active one RCS bench and then maybe a third Pokemon. And so what's the mat there. Let's see if you have a full bench and they have two bench Pokemon, which pretty, pretty reasonable for them to have to. So you're doing 6, 7, 8 that's one 60 Luda Cola gets you to two 60. So you need a choice belt or an Inteleon ping to get the one hit Kao. Darale add-on, you're never one hit Kayo and that's impossible and they one shot your sweet Kuhn. Um, the other awkward thing that I found against RCS is you're playing giant. K is that what's called the knock giant Cape Cape of toughness. You're playing the Cape to Which is really good again. Sorry. So, yes, because they can actually one shot your sweet tunes with choice belt, but if you put the Cape on, then you can never want shot then. So it's like really this give and take, uh, like you put the Cape on your sweet Coon, you hit. the RSDs, then they boss around it. And then I don't know. It's just like, it's super weird, man. Um, but yeah, so I don't like the RC Australia doesn't match up at all. I think like other RSTs decks are a little bit more winnable, but I dunno, I could even see fitting, like one's Aptos one, fighting energy in the deck to try and deal with RCS a little better. I need more games, more testing. RCS decks need to get a little more out there because I think that was the big theme of this weekend was RCS is actually really good. Um, so I need, I need to, I need to theorize more about how to approach that matchup. It's not like super unwinnable, but it's not great right now.
Brent:The one comment that had, when you were talking about testing single prize decks, um, I think that's, that's all we've been doing. Cause apparently we're not going to trade for an RCS line or a view line. So, so we built the rants and uh, I mean, this is how PTCGO is first game on the ladder Durant mirror match. Uh, it was like, it's like, why, why do I do this? Why do I do this? It's so horrible. Just the absolute worst. But that, that, that is what happens when you go on. PTCGO
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:like, when's the tournament. Oh, we should take a moment to acknowledge props, Mike, like you said to rant that very night, like Durant wins the tournament.
Mike:yeah, no, yeah. That was pretty funny. Yeah. I think the aunt's like not bad. It's like pretty good. I think it's like, obviously worse than it was a week ago now, but, um, it's pretty good if people are. for it at all. I do think it's probably also not very good against RCS decks, but I think Duran could, Um, adapt a little bit. I think it should probably play like four yellow horns. Maybe I played it. I played Duran at the day after it one in, uh, in a small tournament and I went for two, uh, the only losses I had were basically two quad decks. Like I lost a four, four Victini deck and I lost two at four 40 Toby kit's deck. So if I had more confusion outs to that, maybe that go in those ups.
Brent:Um, I felt like it, our testing, the big thing that we learned about Duran was I don't even know that Duran is so great, but the whole like echoing horn boss, Galler mind. Yeah, that's a good strategy. The view, when you do that, you, uh, you know, the switch is switched by abstract. Like they either have what it takes to survive the game or they don't.
Mike:Right. That's true. Yeah. And so that would definitely be the cornerstone of some control deck potentially.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, it was, uh, it was interesting to, uh, see just how strong that was at like putting people to the.
Brit:I wonder if you could like, try to marry like Duran with control and like, maybe that would be the answer. Like you just like, it's less about. You know, using Durant every turn and like more about creating, you know, creating the scenario in which you Drampa a couple, you know, where you've locked them into this scenario where their aunt wins or something like that. And so you're using, you know, like cycle and kind of the other, you know, all the usual suspects and current standard lists, things like that might just be too out there. But I don't know, like, I think the rant conceptually, like, you know, even the original version back in the day, sort of like, I don't know, decks in general are always just like, sort of limited by like good players. Like people in like know how to be, you know, Uber conservative, um, are always good. And so I think that like the, at least the current lists that I've seen, they're like two all in on just like the solo during it strategy, which I don't think works like, like Mike is a good example, like that losing to quad decks. Like, that's just how you do it. You get one Pokemon out. Um, and that's it. And you just like, hope they don't run you out of energies and things like that. And you know, sometimes like that was, uh, one of the cute things of 2012, uh, Duran is that they were, they had like little tricks that would beat you. If you tried to do the like solo Pokemon strategy, they would, they would attack with Rhoda and black belt and kill your Pokemon. Um, but yeah, I mean, that was just sort of spitball on there, but that doesn't sound. Too bad. Maybe there's just not room. Like, I don't know. I don't know how Sandra makes it any, any of his decks, but that's a lot trying to get Duran back. It could be worth exploring. I just know that I guess the biggest point I'm trying to make is I just, I, the folks will have to be good. And I just think there's probably a couple of ways to play it all control ways, but like, I don't think every list has to end up looking like Sanders. I think there can be like maybe more standard ones, but I'm not sure.
Brent:so no surprise. We took a big crack at trying to solve that this week. And it just seems like, like maybe the next set when they have that what's that new support or that comes out that like has some hand reset, uh, elements. Maybe when you get there, it'll be better. But like, obviously the thing you think about when you, uh, say flotillas, you're like, okay, we're going to play just like hammers floats. We'll let's go. And there's so many attackers that just get powered up by one energy right now. It seems like if you don't have a strategy to get hand control, just going for energy, denial is not good. And so, so we tested a lot of energy denial and like, you know, the problem is one energy attackers training court
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:blah-blah-blah, uh, have you don't have a strategy to mill. You just can't stop them from attacking enough to win. And like, and it just seems like the hand control. Stuff's not quite there.
Mike:So I wonder like if Brit your, so your comment about Duran with a control strategy, it kind of reminds me in expanded, I've played a couple of different variants of control, ask decks where they use the Alola in muck that looks at the top six cards of your opponent's deck and discards, any items you want. And that's kind of what it reminded me of like you do enough locking and controlling while recycling the muck to deplete their resources until it's just enough that they can't do anything. And so I wonder if like it's a little bit less controlled than the mux thing is, and you have to obviously use your attack, but I don't know, maybe there is something there. I dunno that isn't, that is not energy or moveable, like you're saying Brent, but maybe like gust lock discard.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, the discard gives you an element of like, you know, acceleration where like they feel tempo pressure and they can't just like slowly wait and draw into the parts. They need to win the game. Right.
Mike:exactly. And like, yeah. Yeah. because maybe you're discarding their switch from their deck or their whatnot.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. It definitely seems like, like a straight energy denial is not good enough. You need some sort of milling effect to like tell them, you know, give them tempo pressure.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:um, and, and like, if you, but obviously if you can figure out a way to, to like, have an item-based tamp control with Flixel, like people would love that. I'd love it. It'd be great. I'm all about that life. Uh, what other tournaments did you play in Mike? I want to go back and like, we should talk about like K trans list and all that stuff. What's the best way for us to approach this.
Mike:Well, you know, I just played the one tournament with sweet Coon and the one point of view with the ranch, I was like, I started playing another tournament last night with Um, but I won the first round and then the second round I went first again to muse, started low tad with a bunch of balls in my hand, and then just accidentally clicked and turn. And, um, then I still like almost won the game. I didn't lose turn one and I almost won. But after that I was like, I'm too distracted. Like let's not play right now. Um, but yeah, like, so I guess to just wrap up this week and then we can talk about RCS stuff. I. Too. So I went six and three. I have lost two of my games to RCS techs. I lost to Kate Tron and Patrick Wall with two different RCS decks. And then I lost to, I lost to a gang Gar V max deck, but I a hundred percent had the game won and I messed up. I just didn't see the line until after the game. It's actually. So one of the things with sweet Coon, that's really interesting, especially with choice belt now is you can pretty much always force them to take seven prizes because you play Reihan and water energies you can attack with. Um, Inteleon usually the preferred choices, sword and shield Inteleon, but you could do the, uh, rapid strike Inteleon too. But so I, so against the gang, Gar is a really good example of, of this, where I had a ping and telling on out and I had sword and shield Inteleon out and I had two prizes left. And so I was kind of tunneled on. Either killing his gang Garvey Macs or killing two hound dudes, but he also had a Crobat V on the board. And I was in this situation where I was never going to be able to boss and attack with sweet Coon in the same turn, because he had gone to two prizes. Um, and I couldn't K O is again, Garvey max that turn with this weekend. So I couldn't play a sweet gun down, right. Because if I place, we come down and he just gusted up and went to the game. So what I have to do is I have to either damage the good Garvey, max enough, such that then I can kill it with the sweet cue in the following turn, or maybe I can damage how neumes enough that I can take two prizes on the turn. But what I should have really done is I had the means to, uh, Ping the Crobat like a turn before and then boss up the Crobat with a choice belt to do 1 50, 2 it with my Inteleon. And so then that would have put it, or I could just ping the Crobat that turn. And then, so one 50 plus 20 would put them at one 70, he can never take two prizes and then I ping him again to win the game. Um, so that's just like a play that I hadn't considered because choice belt is a new card and I just wasn't thinking of that math, but, uh, it's something to definitely look out for in the future, both for me and for other people now, you know that like Crobat and some of these other V Pokemon, like are pretty easy targets for Inteleon to actually take knockouts. So, um, that's really. A really important thing, especially for, for sweet food. Um, it's really not hard to get an energy on an Italian at some time, some point during the game, because you know, you have Melanie for the sweet Coon. You want to be using that as your main draw supporter anyway. So you often end up with your first two sweet Coons, easily, power it up, and then just attaching a random energy. When you can do an Inteleon gives you a lot of options, uh, in that way. So, uh, I was, even though I lost that game, I learned a lot and that's really what these tournaments are for. So, uh, Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. I don't know how much you've seen this. Cause it doesn't sound like you're playing those decks. But, uh, um, you know, my son migrated onto like trying to build different, crazy box decks. And I think he's definitely said the problem with choice belt is Crobat
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like almost anything can kill a Crow better. and it's just so easy to do. And, uh, if you bench one of those, you're like, you're really taking your life in your own hands. They're like, and like, in that way, it's, it feels like Lumion is like weaker than taboo Layla, because like taboo Laylay felt bulky in that meta.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure.
Brent:Right. I mean, in the big scheme of things, taboo, Layla was as killable as anything else. So you were like, you know, you mentioned it it's the same as benching a seismic code. Like, it doesn't really change things that much. Right. Uh, here, like they just feel like they're much more of a, like to price target on the, on your bench.
Mike:Yeah. Agreed. All right. Let's talk about RCS.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:I'm like, I don't know. I was, I don't know if I just didn't like think through all the implications. Of how RCS would be in this meta-game, but it has surprised me over the last week or two, how strong the card actually is. Um, like I think I mentioned on the podcast last week, I didn't really realize that the ability you basically never wished for like, as soon as you, you know, you start with an RCS, you attach an energy. As long as you have to be star, the next turn, you start your deck, you get the B star ability for the double colorless, and you're good to go. You're off to the races. Um, so that's obviously huge. It's a little bulkier than I thought two 80 is just a little bit more unreachable than I thought for a lot of decks. Um, I underestimated how good not having to bench a lot of Pokemon is, and I don't think that's just good against sweet crew. And I think it's good against a lot of things in the format, like against me. like one of the ways mew wants to win games is just pick off three, two prizes and you can't really do that too well against RCS. Um, I didn't realize how good the baby viz attack is. You know, you whiffed the RCS, you just slapped the double colorless energy on get three energy on something else. You didn't do any damage, but now your next guys set up, even if they take a knockout. So then it makes it awkward for them. I'm sure there's other things that I'm not thinking about right now, but I was just really impressed. Both playing against and watching people play RCS this weekend. Um, like I watched, Uh, I don't know if you guys saw toward, has been playing like just a straight RCS deck. It's RCS with two, two Altaria and a bunch of supporters, like adventures discover thing, like the Bridget that gets three V's. Um, it plays like the Acer Rola for koalas Pokemon. It plays for boss. Uh, like I was really impressed watching him play that deck. I don't know. It just seems like a really good card. That's only starting to get explored.
Brent:Uh, you know, I think the bridging that gets three visa card is actually like underplayed. And we're going to see more of that because, uh, I mean these, like these RCS box decks, like a kid trons, that just seems like you're begging to be able to just set up whatever you need for a game. Like, why would you want to do that? Right.
Mike:Yeah, Right. Like it gets the B star and then the V star gets anything you want. Oh, I think the other thing I didn't realize is how good like choice belt on the V star is basically one shots, any, any V right. Pretty much more or less. And, um, Caitlin played a Zigzagoon in his list, which I think it's brilliant because there are a couple of years that have 220 HP. So with the double Turbo plus choice belt, you don't quite get there, but what the things are going to do, and yeah, it's really this really good.
Brit:Okay.
Mike:don't think Darale Don is the, is going to be the best way to play RCS. Like I'm fairly convinced of that at this point. I think it's fine. I think it's like a really good early format deck, but I think for sure, we're going to see better ways to play RCS.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, do you think, I mean, if we had to make a Utah prediction right now, would one of these, I feel like these RCS checkmate decks, like there's an element of, they're just starting to get explored. They also seem super well positioned to do well. Like they just seem really.
Mike:I would say I would put more money on it winning a UIC than salt lake.
Brent:Yeah. Is that w was there going to be another set for UIC? Is that how it works these days?
Mike:I don't think so. That's not an wait. When does.
Brit:we talked about that a week or two ago. We think it'll be like around like the, like the Milwaukee one probably.
Brent:Yeah. I know, historically they've been trying to like release new sets would be a ICS, but I
Brit:Yeah, I guess that
Brent:they might, they might not be doing it now because it's, it's a weird time. They got to kind of get back on the schedule.
Mike:wait, you, I see is way later than I thought. For some reason, I thought it was like a week or Two after you death. Nevermind. No, it's not until the end of April. Okay. Well, I think RCS decks will be more refined before then. So maybe not.
Brent:Right, right.
Mike:So what is this like? What is the schedule? So Utah's in too. I know Australia. Is this coming weekend? I believe, right?
Brent:Yeah. In terms of north American, we have salt lake city next weekend. And then we have like a five week break. And then there's Frankfurt, the UIC, And then two weeks after that is Indy regionals. Two weeks after that, as New Jersey regionals, we can have two that's being Coover three weeks after that's Milwaukee. We can, after that is any of that.
Mike:All right. Let's see. So immediately, Yeah. Australia is this coming weekend, March 12th and 13th, and then into Utah, the following weekend. And then it's Liverpool the weekend after that. So those are kind of like the three boom, boom, boom.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:there's one in Brazil the weekend after that. Okay. So, maybe by Liverpool, maybe the third major. There will be a really broken RCS deck that comes out. And also that's the Europeans limitless. They'll come up with something
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:good.
Brent:so so talk to me about your game against, uh,
Mike:That was a super interesting game. That game was actually on the stream. Um, let's see. Um, so the big thing, so he played for catchers, by the way. I don't know if you guys saw that, but he played for cadres and one boss's order. So he targeted down my low TEDS and I made a, I definitely made a bunch of mistakes, but the most, the biggest mistake I made looking back at the game, I didn't think it was a mistake at the time, but looking back at the game, um, I quick bald away a load tat on like turn one or turn to. I think to get, to get a, all as we could or something like that. Um, but that was a huge mistake because what he ended up doing, he's he gusted up both of the low tats that I ended up playing down throughout the game, the other two, and he killed both of them. So that eliminated any chance of me ever one shot in his RCS. And so we got in this weird, like two shot war and we both ran out of Gustine effects because he used his four catchers. He used his one boss. I had used my two boss. Andy ended up coming down to, I needed to, I had four prizes left and I had hit his first Vistar for like 180 or something like that. And then he brought it to the bench knowing that I didn't have any Gustine effects left and he attacked me with another restart and. And he had two prizes left. So it was kinda similar situation to that game where he had two prizes left. So I can't play this weekend down. Um, so I send up my Inteleon that has no energy on it. No, no, no, it has no, no, it had one energy on it, but I had already used my Reihan or, or I couldn't find the Reihan. I don't know Ryan wasn't available at the time. So it only had one energy and I like use a drizzle to go search for a bucket. I know buckets in my deck, I get the bucket, but then I realized there's no water energy left in my deck. So I wasn't able to actually attack, um, that turn. But if I had, I would have had just enough damage between the two turns to ping the benched RCS to death. And killed the active RCS, the following turn with my speaker. So that's what it ended up coming down to. But in the process, there was a lot of, there's a lot of interesting decisions. I had one hard turn in particular where I boss up something to KOL. It was either a Lumina. Yeah, it was a blue neon, but I had a lot of options that turn like I was, and this is again where, um, RC is not having a bench. A lot of things came into play. I was wondering. Pokemon or one choice belt or one ping away from kaon. Uh, and our CSV, cause it was two 20 and it was like, I was just so close and I was trying to think so hard if I could actually get there. And I was like one card short and like four different ways to be able to do it. But if I had gotten to be able to do that, then he had a on the bench. That that's what I ended up Boston up in, in, but I would've preferred to kill the RCS mini on when it's still been there to take a much easier price later in the game. Um, so like that was like a really, I should go back and watch that turn in particular because there was one turn where I made a lot of game actions and I think I played it optimally, but I could've, you know, made it, I made a mistake somewhere. Um, but yeah, it was basically, it came down to him killing my load. Tad's me with being a little bit at the end and RCS just being big enough to. To only get two shots. Um, and he gusts, he kind of did that thing where he gusted around my Sweden with the Cape so that I couldn't play the choice about my sweet girl and to like get to the right numbers as well. Um, so yeah. it was a really, really good game. Um, I enjoyed playing against them and I'm glad that it was streamed because I think I'll learn a lot going back. And I think people watching it probably were entertained.
Brent:I saw that Michael with two to one against mew. So like all of his losses in ties came against mute ex
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:uh, uh, have you, are there things that you, uh, uh, on reflection, like he could do differently to improve how that plays out or something like, like, I wonder where people take necklace like that now I assume Michael would say bad luck, but, uh, like 50%, uh, when ready to go.
Mike:I mean, his list is not very good. Like the concept is cool, but I think he would admit the list is not very good.
Brent:I think, I think he tweeted that, that his list was a little bit of a meme list.
Mike:Yeah, Like before, before our game started, uh, I messaged him. I was like, dude, you're really gonna make me read what shaman V star does. And he's like, don't even read it. It sucks. And like, then he attacked, he benches it and attaches it to the game. And like in the middle of the game, I was like, dude, you told me I didn't have to read it. He's like, don't worry, I'm not attack you with it. So I, and there was, there was a game that he was, uh, that was streamed, maybe his top eight match. And he had the game one with shaman B star very easily, but he made a couple more elaborate actions to, to make it, so he one, without having to use the shaman B star. So like, I think he was just like proving to himself. That the shaman is not worth the space in the deck. Um, the thing that was really cool about his list and that probably all of these types of deck should play is the Denovi.
Brent:Yeah, it's obvious.
Mike:Um, cause actually, and that, this is also kind of funny in our game. He started to Adobe and I, I asked him, I was like, can that, and he, so he plays it over, he attaches to it and he's like, I was like, can that evolve next turn to the RCS V star? He's like, I hope so. Um, and yeah, that is definitely what happened, but I think the, I think the data is really good for these types of decks. The Hoopa V doesn't seem very good to me, but, um, I don't know does that, this is obviously very good. Um, and especially in conjunction with Dito, you can get that back a bunch of times. In the mirror match. Um, I think probably you just want to play a bigger RCS line than this though. Would it be my guests? like the biggest thing that stands out. I know Jason and Chartio also did well with the three, two line. Oh yeah. He lost a cage on that's, right? Yeah. But I dunno, RCS just seems too good. Not to play a bigger line. Jason beat a lot of muse, even 1, 2, 3,
Brent:he played, he played the carrot credit destruction.
Mike:Oh, that's cool. Yeah. He went five one against me. You, I wonder if that evil tells like actually good.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Our to say, if that's actually how we got there or not, but that is certainly like, I look at his list and I say, well, I mean, he just played like bigger, like Hilarion Moltres line. Like
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:it played as long as that he played, they like very different line of Pokemon.
Mike:Yeah. It's very different. And he plays like one of every supporter card.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:The peers is something I've seen. A lot of people talk about because it searches out the energy. I don't know. I think it like, it seems like, and the way that toward was approaching the new magic with his RCS deck is probably how a lot of RCS decks need to play the matchup. Maybe, maybe if you play these dark Pokemon, you don't have to. But the way that seemed the strongest to me was just boss three sex and killed them all. Like that seemed like a pretty effective way to go about the matchup. Cause like these dark Pokemon can kill one view for sure. But are you really getting to have these dark things out to Kao, to muse throughout the game? Because if you're not, then it's just not worth it. Right. Because then you're still gonna have to take three knockouts anyway. So that's the only, that's the only thing, I guess they play the baby matrass but know.
Brent:Yeah. I, I was still like the baby Moltres to me just seems like easier to do the thing then, then the big guy.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:But I suppose if you're just really a highly motivated, I mean maybe, maybe if you just fire off the RCSP star attack, you're like it's going to work itself out.
Mike:Yeah. It's a pretty good attack.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:Hmm. Yeah. I'm really interested to see how RCS evolves. I will not be, as we talked about at the beginning, I will not be a testing RCS anytime soon, but interested to see what other people come up with. I think if I was like going to a major tournament soon, I would be more willing to get the cards.
Brent:Yeah, I hear ya. I hear ya. That's uh, I think kinda to your point, um, given that our tournament, our first term is probably going to be in the May 6th. I'm like, I don't know, you know, maybe RCS will have depreciated by then. Maybe they'll announce like a new set or something and like, or, you know, maybe PTCG Live like May 6th is just far enough away that I'm like, ah, man, I don't know if they can get me all right. What other, what are the decks? Should we talk about.
Mike:Brent. Let's talk. Let's dig in a little bit.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, we can talk about it. I posted my list and the discord for you to look at, um,
Mike:see it.
Brit:Yeah, it's just playing very fast, very aggressively. I'm just trying to do and take things like suey, Coon, and kind of just the main difference, I guess, just in the new Metro is I'm sort of there to pick off Jenna sex a little more proactively. Um, then civic, Coon can probably just functionally kind of one of the only differences and then, uh, Charles art to come in and do 320 damage or something. Maybe more just to take a three pres knockout towards the ends. And then the rest is just consistency.
Mike:So Antaeus two 30, right? really, really important. I think it automatically makes the RCS matchup a million times better than squeaker and because. One shot you. If they played their double energy.
Brit:Yeah. There's a lot of match-ups. It's interesting. Like you don't want to, and again, this is kind of just like a general thing new players will do is they have, you know, did they know that this is what my deck does and I have to do it every single term. And so like, and so the key here is you don't have, I mean, basically is sort of like, I feel like every game I lose, it's just when I struggled to find basin early. Um, but because, because the math is so important and you just, you need to be careful. So a lot of NDAs are getting like double manually attached to, and you're just like letting chars art or something like you, you, you use the Excel as often as possible, but you just have to be careful. And again, like trying to do um, you need like one fresh one, a lot of the time. And so maybe two. Um, and so that's just, you have to just think about it. W where to manual manually attach and when to Excel. And sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes you'll have with, you know, 20 or more getting ready to knock out and you just charge right in there. And it doesn't matter. Cause like it's interesting, like all the, all the knockouts are like two pricers, but that's just like, that's like playing a different prize game than some of these other decks. So like even losing two at a time. Like if you, if you can just like take the initiative and hold onto it, um, you can clean out games generally. I think, um, I thought about it too. Like I don't even think like the water matchup is that bad cause. You know, weakness aside, like newest getting can, like things are one-shot again, regardless of the weakness. So I actually don't think like, like you want to avoid it, I'm sure. But like, it's not like, just scoop up your cards immediately. Like 45, 55, maybe like, well, I take that back. I'm talking about like RSCs ice rider list, which as I've said previously, I think are bad. And I feel vindicated, like cash has been doing very well with like the, the ice rider deck that I had in mind. Like, why wouldn't you just do this instead of RCS? I'm like, that's what cash has been doing very well, like the past week or two. So I feel very vindicated for that. But, um, so yeah, like that match up. Yeah. Probably can't win, but like it's not the end of the world. You could out speed it, you know, get a lucky break on draws. Um, but yeah, I feel like I said last week, I don't think that like one prize match-ups are all that good. Um, you have like, in some of them, like, again, I don't really know how relevant like men party is. I think, I feel like we would've seen it since. Maybe already, if it were like truly viable, but like within those match-ups you have, you just have to knock out a two Prizer immediately and that's kind of your only hope, but play for boss. So it's not terribly unrealistic to like, try to boss every other turn or something like that. I'm trying to think of any other match-ups that are sort of peculiar though. The matchup is good. And I think the RCS matchup is fine. Um, I think like controlling decks, like a control RCS is probably difficult since I don't really have any one shot potential other than kind of the one, uh, chars are the attacks. So like if they're healing a lot, probably not great. Um, it's, it feels good, but like, I just have that burning sensation, that feeling that I just like it's maybe just not as good as Mikey's like colo, like I don't, and I don't know. I haven't really thought about that far enough. Tell us just like. Understand if there's, if the list is there to do all of that, to do like magma based on things like an I don't think so, because like, again, so part of my list is playing like, um, you know, Oranguru and phones, because that's just kind of like the only bowling cards, at least that I'm aware of that help you dig for basin turn one. And that's kind of the only reason for them there. Um, but yeah, I don't think that really fits with like with also Inteleon and lyrical. And so like, I've seen Azule tests like to colo without Inteleon and like, that seems just a little variable to me. Like it just doesn't seem like realistic as, at least after realistic to evolve and politically when you need to compare it to a Inteleon option. Um, yeah, it's not a whole lot. Other than that, it's, it's a silicone deck, but it's red instead of.
Mike:why are you playing three Reihan? That seems like a lot, but maybe not.
Brit:Uh, health, power up the charts are, um, and it's also helping me create these scenarios where entail is a damage. Um, and it's just fast. I just like accelerating it, lots of energy, every turn, always like always hitting you hard. And you know, in some match-ups like, if you miss a beat and I'm hitting you that hard, like consistently, like it doesn't necessarily matter what you're playing because it's just hyper, hyper consistent, I think. And it'll prey on you, you know, if your deck misses a beat, I, I think mine will be less likely to miss a beat. Um, just kind of simple like that.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Here's their two choice belt. Oh yeah. I see one choice about Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Choice.
Brit:I posted this list in a chat and they like complained to me cause I was like, I like to like write my list of stuff still. Like I just like I'm old school like that. I typed them the same way and like just kind of the way we would format them six presidents articles and things like that. That's just my immediate inclination. When I want to write a necklace, I'm just going to write it. I'm going to type it out in a word document like that when these people are in the chat, all these 20, 20, 20, 20 players or whatever, just like just post the picture of it. Like, why did you, that's easier to read and that's a lot of work. I have to go on limitless and do it like there's this is just straight from Brits decks. The Google doc. Like I was just funny. It's like old school player thing. Like I just thinking, thinking about, I don't know, I had a random thought today just thinking about. Ah, there used to be this like polka Jim troll that all he would do is he would just comment. Cause there used to be like, we didn't know any, no one, nobody knew each other and we only interacted on Pokegear and there would be these, like, who's going to this event thread this weekend, which, you know, for smaller stuff, um, weren't very popular, but obviously for regionals or something, it would be a decent way to understand what players were going. And this person would just comment on every single one of them and say that he was going. And I just always thought that was really funny. Um, but yeah, all that was just old school reminiscing about poker and Jim being the main source of information, nothing else has entail. Like, I don't think I've tried a lot of different belts. Like I've tried I've tried energy switches, um,
Brent:Yeah. So, so this for a second. Cause I saw the one empty list that I saw from, uh, um, the term, his last weekend played a bigger role and obviously you chose not to.
Brit:Um, I just I've found that I just needing the balls for Pokemon, like a non-biblical Pokemon pretty consistently. And like, what's the capture energies now, which is a fairly new inclusion. Like maybe they're a little better, especially with Reihan getting them and so forth, but I'd like to try it. I mean, I have tried it, but I just, when I did have it in the list, I couldn't, I wasn't getting out consistently. I was, I was finding my searches needed. Consistently finding the next end day or something like that instead. And I could never just find the beat for it. Um, but it seems good in theory, like I'm not, I mean, frankly I'm not, I'm not very keen on Oranguru or the phones. Um, and so that, that would be like a pretty easy swap, I think, but that's just like, I just want to maximize my turn one potential for the basin. And I think that's a very important thing for the deck and I think Kindler is bad and that's, that would certainly be a card that could help you do that. I think, but I think it's bad. I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty convinced it would just be too slow for the kind of deck that I'm playing
Mike:What does that do again? It's like, look at the top seven.
Brit:You have to discredit energy, I think. And you look at the top seven. Yeah, just kind of fire the top seven, but tune two of them into your hand. It's like seven, five discard new.
Mike:Yeah. Okay.
Brit:So it seems slow.
Mike:What do you think of the matrass? It seems like you have to play It but every time I've seen people play it in various things, I've been like, ah, this isn't as good as I thought
Brit:It wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I had to initially and thought they would be sort of my avenue to like soften things up. Um, and again, when I have the energy switches to like, I would always try to get the energy on the mole trays for the damage and switch it off. Um, it just, it's kind of just gonna, it trades with mellow ETA and then you can, um, kill Agena second killing you. It's about it. I think like, I mean, again, like the, there are like, it's not a fringe case just suggests that like it can soften something up and I'm one of the other two attackers to can finish it. Like that's a very realistic scenario that can happen a lot. Is that, is that like what you want to be happening? Like probably not, but it's not the end of the world. So like definitely think you want one. Um, I'm trying to think if there's like safeguard, is there anything like, I guess that Altaria still exists? Um,
Mike:I mean, it's nice to just be able to like force seven prizes. Right? Cause you don't play any three pricers, like the mew you do, you get, do try and get them, you out every game or just sometimes.
Brit:uh, it's kind of like your best balloon target, if you just kind of like find it at the right time. Um, but now I would say kind of, I guess, along that line of thought, like when it's convenient, like sort of like, like CX or something, like you would never go out of your way for OCX, but if you just like stumbled into like a turn to promote it and it had the unknown queue on it already, like you would get the OCX over, like anything in that scenario, but it would never be sort of your first premier bar ball target or something. Like probably describe it, something like that. Like it's, it's good. And when the stars align, like you definitely go for it, but I don't find myself going out of my way.
Brent:Yeah. I feel like with the mew and Oranguru and the road, Tom phones, you're just like consistency. That's the goal.
Brit:Um, I'm living, I'm trying to be as, as fusion Striki as possible. Like I just, I don't draw as many cards, but this is like, kind of like what a turbo deck looks like when you don't have a Genesek durability.
Brent:All right, take it easy guys.
Brit:Okay.