I had like a balance sort of quandary question that I thought would maybe be an interesting discussion. I like just came up that just like we had that discussion at work and it's like, this is what designers think it might surprise you.
Brent:Let's let's, let's jump right in. I can go back and put the intro back at the top of you. Let's talk about balance or the perception of balance.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, like, I think there's like a lot of ways to talk about it, but I guess just the question is like, what's, what's better for the game or what's, what's more important for a game that it's balanced or that it's perceived to be balanced. Um, and I guess, I guess I can just start with the spoilers as I was, this just came up in one of my work conversations in my, my boss. I basically am learning everything I know about game design from like things that the PR is perception that matters more. And I think that's like, I think, I think when we get into it, I think that it might make sense, but as like someone like an outsider, just like listening in or something like that, I think he would hear that and be like, no wonder our games are awful. They only, they only care about if it seems balanced, not actually balancing them. And I think too, just a lot of the time when we talk about these, um, kind of design and just balance in general, a lot of the time when we were talking about old format, Is that it's just like, it's difficult to do. Like, like we, we, there, the example I like to use all the time is like chess seems like a pretty well-balanced game. Like just go play that then if you're, if you're really sort of like, if that's what you're after, it's fundamentally like what a good game do you as a balanced game, like there's plenty of options. It just might not be one where like randomness in variety or sort of like a core part of the, the experience. Um, but yeah, like, I dunno. What do you guys think? I just sort of off
Brent:here's my question for you at, um, can you give an example of a situation where your. Creating the perception of balance without creating balance. Like, I can understand how you might say for a player base creating the perception is important, but I think like the way you create the perception is like balance.
Brit:Well, I think like creating, creating is sort of like its own thing. Like you have targets and aims, but. W the end result is always kind of like a little plan and a little knot. And I think that's, that's the, the whole sort of the ultimate sense that I'm trying to talk him. Like, cause he, you, you aim for something to be balanced. I don't think you're, you're not designing with just like, oh, design. So it seems things are balanced. Like that's sort of out of the question. I think, I think you're always trying to do like your best job in designing, but then just like what we're meta games actually go is just sort of like always a little unpredictable, like things there's just always something that could have, can slip past you and things like that. Um, if that makes sense. So like from a design perspective, I don't, I don't this question isn't sort of cache from, from that phase, we're talking like cards of shipped cards they're out. Um, and just sort of like from there, like what is actually more important, like for a game from like, from like a player for outsiders? I think it's sort of like a multi-faceted question.
Mike:I think it's hard. It's hard to define, I guess like what perception of balance means as well, because. So lots of people have different perceptions of what balance might mean. Um, I've seen like going around Twitter, Jake Gearhart was saying how he really enjoys that this is a somewhat centralized meta-game because you're, you know, you have the best deck and then every other deck kind of plays to that Dex game. And then you can build your decks within that box, I guess, where he's a decentralized meta-game would be like, you know, there's eight really good decks. Um, and you're building your deck more, more in a more in its own vacuum rather than the vacuum of the format itself. I feel like the metagame about a year ago, it was more like that where we had, you know, peak her arm and re Raul eggs and Blacephalon, and, you know, you had Urshifu and you had all these different types of decks that were all good, but so you just kind of built your deck, not really thinking about other exits. So there's, so that's just like one.
Brent:You couldn't, you couldn't really counter. It was just like you built your deck to do its thing, right? Like Victini V max, you're just gonna pray. You don't hit water and we're just going to do.
Mike:right. And I think there's pros and cons to both of those kind of sematic formats. But depending on what your perception is, you might think one is quote, unquote balanced or not. And that's just one distinction that you could make about a meta-game I'm sure there's quite a lot of others. And so when we say perception, are we saying the majority? Like, so like, I feel like everyone's everyone's perception of what balance is, is also different. Um, so I don't know that it's not an answer to your question at all. It's like a question.
Brit:No. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of like, I think in that sense, like, yeah, and I do think like, not just in terms of. You know, talking about card games, talking about what makes sense and good. What makes something bad? You know, what makes something healthy? I had like a Twitter little thread with like, look more so not too long ago. And I was just like, yeah, it's all, it's all set positional. Right? Like we're all, we're all like, sort of operating behind every so slightly definitions of all these things. Um, and sort of on a deeper level, I think that's tends to be the case with most of our communication like that. There's like, I've mentioned this before, but there's like a 20th century philosopher that like that's sort of his take, like all of our problems are kind of like situated and just like language misunderstandings, like more than everything else. People are just so consistently talking over each other in their arguments and things like that. But anyways, yeah. And so like, I'm not sure really to, I think Micah, you just sort of pose a good, just like problem for the question in general, but like maybe to think of, try to think about it in this way.
Mike:Um,
Brit:Maybe like, like our perception, like the format is good, but our perception of the balance is bad and things like that. And so like in an example like that, like Gardevoir, I think is such a good example because like, it doesn't seem balanced. Like in the perception of balance, there seems like skewed, like Gardevoir was like the centralized stack, but sort of, as you were just using in the, our current metagame Jake Gearhart example, like everything's sort of responded to it accordingly. And even if like, Gardevoir didn't necessarily win every event, it was kind of like probably the most important factor in your deck building kind of throughout, I think it emerged at like the state championships or so that year just kind of from that level of Exxon word. Um, and yeah, and then at the same time, too, like you can contrast that maybe with like the ADP format where that seems like the perception is bad and it might actually be kind of bad. if that makes sense, just sort of like, I guess all that, to say that. It's just, it's just so difficult to nail down. What, what makes a, a format good and bad. Cause we have, we could just kind of have these examples that seem to be in opposition to each other. Right. Um, like, and I think that's just what makes just sort of the whole enterprise of balancing something like so hard and so challenging is that in that, you know, for all that Pokemon gets wrong, like, do you think they get it right every now and then? And that's
Mike:Oh yeah.
Brit:like
Mike:So another thing that, uh, this is making me think about, and it's a, it's a battlegrounds example, so won't be super relevant for all the listeners. But so right now, uh, a lot of people complain about poison in battlegrounds and that's battlegrounds. You know, you have minions that gain stats and poison is a type of minion that allows your minion to just. automatically kill another minions. And a lot of people discuss. Poisoned because they feel like, you know, they make this really, really, really big guy and then a poison doesn't matter. It kills it. And so I feel like this is an example of where the perception is that poison is not balanced. Poison is not good, but I think it is. I, I think, I think it's balanced and I think if they removed poison, then a lot of people would see that they actually one poison back. So this it's kinda making me think of like, this is, that is a case where I think the game actually is balanced right now, but the perception is that it's not. And I don't know. So that's like, that's like a count, I think probably you're right. That you do want perception is more important, but if perception and reality. Are often that way and you change something. You're not going to fix the perception. If that makes sense. Like, do you know what I mean? Does that kinda make sense? What I'm saying?
Brit:Yeah. And like, sort of like some of the, just maybe to go back to my own original conversation is what sort of had happened here is that we had to make sure I get it right. We had, we had nerfed a card, but it really was under the surface. It was actually above, but it was sold as a nurse. Um, and then that sort of the, this whole kind of like reality versus perception contrast is just like, well, how are, how are, how are the people reacting to it? And I was like, they're happy. And then it's like, good. You know, that, that sort of thing. So like sometimes too, they're just always like, like underlying, underlying. I don't want to say underlying, cause it's not like the mechanics themselves are like hidden, but just like you, you have to be parsing the whole design from the right perspective. Otherwise you can sort of miss it. Cause some of it just goes a little unnoticed, but yeah. I mean, I think it's such an interesting question. And I think like, again for sort of how easy it is to like beat up on Pokemon. Like I, again, some of it is just, I think, just trapped in the designs there just overall just design structure. Like I think that's where most of the problems are coming from, but like we do for how much we can play. And I think we have, do get these like pretty good formats all the time. And then another thing I've wondered about too is just. How much, like, do we do our, like our legends, our stories are sort of like historic dication like of these formats. How much has that require the physical play? Like, just do, do it, does our like nostalgia sort of reflect better on the events we've play physically. And we'd be there for like, think of, think of the format, some sort of a better light than we do. And we had, and so it was for the online format students, like, wouldn't be maybe think about all of them, like a little more positively or, I mean, even negatively if there had been this sort of the same, like let's say COVID, I'd never happened. Just kind of like consistent play and like worlds and things like that. And it always seems like at least part of it, like we're missing that kind of like with our worlds there wasn't that like real sort of like culmination of like a year's worth of events to kind of like cap off cap off the format cap off the year. And so, like, I'm not sure, like, it seems like, like on one hand, like maybe, but on the other, like at the same time, and we would always joke like last year I was like, to, you know, paying, paying hundreds of dollars to go to regionals to lose. So like these ADP, like off the top bosses and things like that. So maybe some formats are just bad, but I do think like we reflect on them differently, just like truly based on how we interact with them, like with our friends and things like that. So,
Brent:I mean, I think we have the perfect person to ask the question like Mike, when you, when you think about your, uh, big players cup run, does it, does it hit different because you did it sitting in your room?
Mike:A little bit. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think,
Brent:I definitely would have been different if you were at a physical location and we were all there going, you've got this, you got this.
Mike:yeah. And part of that is also the pricing, to be honest with you, like, I didn't get anything for making top 16. In the global whatever, if the, if it was top 16 of an internationals, that'd be walking away with some money, some boxes. And just like that there's, I don't play for the prizes, but there is something about getting prizes that, you know, gives you a, makes you feel like more accomplished for something. Um, so that is certainly an aspect of it and, and you're right. Yeah. It's cool that like, people can be like, come up to you right before, around of top eight or whatever. And they're like, good luck then like, hope you win. And yeah. So it definitely feels different.
Brit:Yeah, there's just always that air, like, especially the larger the event is the more of this, I think is the case just like, as the player play a field, just like progressively tens and tens and tens, just kind of like, there's just something about that experience of like, of walking back, walking back, you know, just ear that, you know, only, you know, one less person walking back to the ground each time. Like, there's always something about that that I think just like gets you jazzed, get to you, you know, pumped up. Appropriate music while you're walking in. But yeah, I think there's just like, especially, I don't know, it's a competition and there's just like, in the same way that, like, I always find it like statistically straight or strange that like home field advantage is, is like a real statistic and things like that. Like why, you know, why, why is it physical location, like enough to boost, you know, one team's win percentage, but it, it just is just these, these sort of things are just like part of our psychology, I guess. Um, but yeah, I think, I think that's definitely a lot of it too. Like, I dunno, like what world is always such a great, just showcase of dogs, both the good and the bad ones, plenty of people show up to worlds with some of the biggest regrets of their life. Just as, just as much as the, the decks, the, the Robeks that go on to do very well. Just as many are horror stories.
Brent:Welcome to the Trashalanche everyone's favorite podcast. Tendons is as always. Mike Britt me all here. None of us in Germany, but we're going to talk about a UIC. Uh, you can find us on Twitter. Uh, we're sponsored by channel fireball, who had an excellent article on the channel fireball this week. If you guys had the chance to read it, uh, as always, he's a super thoughtful about things. We haven't gotten a five-star review in a while. I encourage you guys to leave a review. We will read it on the pod. We will discuss it on the pot. It's a thing that you can do, Dan. We've still not forgotten you. It will happen. It will happen. Um, let's talk about RCS where you guys want to start. Should we talk about RCS Lycanroc first?
Brit:Uh, we can mostly, if I, can you explain it to me? Like, is it just a fighting Pokemon? I don't, I don't know why this is popular right now. Like, it doesn't seem because there's been, I know cause Edmund, Chris played it, um, at the, the regionals, um, RCS Urshifu I guess I was just like, why would this be better than that? Uh, sort of like what I, what I need to figure out, but yeah, I just like, it doesn't seem that good to me. It's just a fighting Pokemon and it's enough.
Brent:I have a hot take on this. And then Mike, you can tell us what the real answer is, but my take is you're 100000% correct. Brit, the Halliburton family opinion on this is why would someone go to all the trouble to power up a Lycanroc to hit for 200, you're already hitting for 200.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And if you were going to play a fighting type, you can play rapid striker, Shifu, and have like a snippet. And that would seem like you would seem like you're doing something more interesting than doing that.
Mike:Do you guys have a list anywhere that I can look at? I'm looking at the Lycanroc card. Cause I didn't know what it did, but
Brit:Uh, yeah, let me see if I can find right. It's like, I don't know the name. It's just someone I've like, I get recommended tweets too, so I'm not going to be able to find them, but I know it's been in some limitless topics.
Brent:Yeah. It's definitely a thing making the right.
Brit:I don't think there's like a, just to talk about, like, I remember the list off the top of my head, at least loosely. And it's just like, it's an, a stack with like a three to Lycanroc. Um, I don't, I don't, you don't play in it. Doesn't hasn't played Inteleon I don't think I've seen any in Inteleon that goes with it. Um,
Mike:interesting. So my questions are, or like I can see a couple of things being okay with it. Um, But if the list of play those cards, then maybe I'm on mute. But so, so it's attack does three energy for, I mean, it's playing the V max two, I assume, right? Or just the baby? Yeah. Okay. So the basic one is, is nice in the sense that they've one shots in our CSV star, um, for three. And so does the V max. Um, but the only other thing that I can think of is its first attack is one fighting knockout. One of your opponents Pokemon that has 60 HPR less. So that could be good against, um, anything with Inteleon. Could we get against Mallomar? Uh, and if you played like big charm plus Cheryl, it could like take some free knockouts. And since you're just replacing one fighting energy, that
Brent:the list. Here's a
Mike:not too bad.
Brent:I got it for you. This guy went six to at underground 38 last week. This is, uh, RC is Lycanroc. Beedrill fly guy.
Mike:Okay. Yeah. All right. So now looking at, yeah, No, Cheryl's. So with this list, I don't see any reason to play Lycanroc over the Sandaconda. The Sandaconda seems significantly better. Um, if you're just playing in. Or Sandaconda, or Urshifu seems significantly better if you're just playing. Um, it has a fighting Bookman Sandaconda honestly seems like the best to me because it had, cause the basic has whatever, minus 30, I think as it's ability. So it's much easier to survive much better to survive. So I don't really know why, and I don't really know why you would play Lycanroc then, but I think if you're going to play like a Sheryl or two, I think I could see an argument.
Brit:Yeah, that doesn't seem too bad. Just like, no, it's like, Urshifu that never cares about Manaphy for the cost of only knocking out one Pokemon. It looks fast, I guess. Like, I, I just like, it's just, it doesn't beat you. Like I just like, I mean, that's kind of the big, the biggest question is like, our RCS seems so good, but like everyone seems basically agreed in their opinion that it doesn't beat me even. Like, I, I saw poco Hawkeye one, um, last night with a deck that interests me a lot. That's just kind of like the straight Urshifu, but just spat splashes, mold trace, and some darks. And he's just like, I don't think it has a good immune match up, like even playing the dark stuff. Um, which is interesting. I was talking to talking with, uh, Ahmed earlier this week. About decks and we worked on and things like that, but he's just, I think just on you kind of for, for the same reasons. And he just, like we were talking about match-ups he doesn't even think that dark match-ups are the worst matchup. He thinks the only bad matchup is suing. He's the only man bad Metro, as soon as if they don't have a, to Prizer on the board, like on the second term. Um, that's just really funny to me. It was like, you don't even notice, like, not even really that worried about the dark decks, if they're just like randomly double stage two water deck as your worst match.
Mike:that's funny. Yeah.
Brit:Yeah. I guess, I guess some of it too, is that like that just like the real I'm sure there are like counter decks that are just bad. And I think that's another, just another question.
Brent:It's the dog. This is the great editing, right? What does the dog see? It is upsetting the dog.
Mike:As long as we don't move we're good. Cut It all out.
Brent:Good times.
Brit:guess like alongside the RSTs Lycanroc question is what happened to artsy as gang is it's just a bad deck. Why did it, when you tell them it's just doesn't exist anymore. I'm that's another, just like I've RCS questions. I need them answered, but I think the answer is yes, but it's just like, I don't, I don't, I don't have a good story for why or, or what might've happened, but at least from what I've seen and like tier lists from content creators, going into the UIC this week, it's just like nowhere to be found. Um, in, in my habit, doesn't seem that much worse. I am I be better than, um, some of these other like RCS, dark pairings, but I'm confused. And I guess, like, maybe that's just drew, like drew never plays, um, popular decks for the most part. Like never plays like terribly outlandish decks, but they're always kind of like, they're always pretty fringy or like fringe, parents, like we see here and maybe he's just a really good player with an off meta-data it worked out, but it just, I haven't seen RCS gain guard anywhere.
Mike:I do think maybe part of that is through all it's a little weird. It shouldn't be completely gone. I think probably the main part is the deck. Can't be like a fighting Pokemon. Um, cause both of the Pokemon are weak to fighting and fighting. Did see like this uptick a little bit with the UI or, uh, the Liverpool and just in general and RCS getting better. But yeah, I agree that it's probably not in a terrible spot because you are actually decent against other RCS decks. Cause you have gang guard to one shot. Um, other RCS is so yeah, I don't know. Maybe we'll see people play that again. That'd be interested in, um,
Brent:I think you hit the nail on the head. Just like, like, I mean, everybody's, everybody's testing, splashing, these fighting types in, I think part of the challenges, RCS is just so much more prevalent. People are splashing more fighting types of decks,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:right? Like, I mean, I feel like going into Utah, we were hearing, oh, you got to splash dark in your deck to deal with like, like mew come out of Australia. It was like, you got to have a plan to be new coming out of Utah. It was like, you got to have a plan to be at RCS. And I think even now that's like RCS Inteleon feels like the deck that people talk about almost as much as me, even though like, yeah. It kind of outside of their mouth, they always say, but obviously me as best I can format.
Mike:Yeah. I do feel like, I don't know if you guys saw, um, the numbers like Chris Mansky and labs put out all the data from the regional so far, which was cool to see. And it certainly seems like. My view is the most popular deck, but if you take all of the RCS decks, it's more popular. Like RCS has a card is more popular than you, but there's just so many different variants. Um,
Brent:We have not yet. We have gotten, I think pretty much every card now in PTCGO except for muse.
Mike:mm.
Brent:And, uh, like as we start getting closer to Indy, we started playing a lot more online. But, uh, and like, I think the number one thing that my son says is he's like, oh, I should just break that and play music. I should just break that and play me you because, eh, it's just the consistent.
Mike:Yeah. Well, if you guys want to borrow a muse, muse and whatnot, um, yeah, I mean, I played. So I got together with bolt two weekends ago and we played, I don't know, maybe 10 games and I won like every game pretty much should I, I think I lost one game with you. Like I beat as ice rider twice. And then we played the, oh, we played the Mallomar mew matchup three times. And I think that matchup in theory should be like favorable from Alomar. But I think I beat it. I think I won with me twice at two out of three times, or you won twice. Um, there's just like the, I think the more you play, the more you see different lines, like against Mallomar you can do a lot of weird things like psychic the shuffle. Yeah. Psychically you can attack with the Oricorio at one point in the game. Um, Yeah, I don't know. There's just, there is like a lot of plays and. You don't have to go, go, go, go. That's the thing like, uh, if you're, if you're more experienced with the deck, you know, when to go and you know, when to slow down and just chill. Yeah. It's like, I think that like the Mallomar matcha, for example, Probably unfavored from Alomar with Oricorio in the list, like the difference between having eight rapid strike cards and nine rapid strike cards for one shot is a huge, huge, monumental difference. And then, like I said, there's also the random scenarios we can just attack with the Oricorio, which is pretty cool.
Brent:Right. I know, uh, like my son was testing a deck where like, I think the struggle he had was like, you got to kill the mellow Sweta right after it kills something. And like, you'd like to do it with not a two Prizer
Mike:Right?
Brent:you know, like sometimes, sometimes a Mallomar can struggle to do that. And then you're, you know, in the Oricorio makes it hard.
Mike:Yep. Yep. Yep.
Brent:like throws your math off a little in like very, very early game. And if you suddenly realize, oh, that mellow is going to attack twice, you're going to lose.
Mike:Yeah. There's, there's not for any deck Koa in a mellow widow with a one Prizer is really hard if, especially if they have Oricorio out. Cause like one 10 is not the easiest number to hit for a random
Brent:Right. Well, you, you want to kill it like a lot of times you want to kill it with Inteleon. If you're going second and like that's living the dream, but yeah, if they have the Oricorio out, you're not going to be able to hit it
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:and you can't ping it. Cause they've got the, uh, energy.
Mike:Yup. Yeah, Um, what do you guys think of the, so I see like RCS liberal here. I know as Zulu has been playing a lot of RCS liberal.
Brit:that's right. That's what I'm talking about. I think someone else played his list or did well with it shortly after the invitation that he won over the weekend, I believe. Um, but yeah, it's just another, I think kind of, kind of, I mean, this is going on in like the Inteleon lists too, but like, do you play path or not as like another big question for these RCS decks play. And I think the biblical version is like kind of your path heavy option. Um, kind of more like almost like zero garden in a way, like it's disruption, but like, you're gonna get, you're gonna use, you know, eat your RCS real quickly and then hopefully have pat out for the rest of the game.
Mike:Yeah. He plays like a higher Marnie count than other RCS decks. He plays the Avery to be annoying. Um, the one Crobat V max has been, gotten so much more popular,
Brit:Yeah, that's another, that was another thing too. Another one of my questions, this card is popular. Just like purely because Crobat doesn't move easily. Is that it?
Mike:I mean, I have to assume at this point, like, especially in a deck like this, like you're playing Crobat V max to attack against me, I think. Um, cause I mean, it's like, like all you gotta do is throw one energy on it? and then It's at least somewhat threatening. Cause you can Reihan and attach koom UV max, at any point you want, Now, as it'll just put a video out about this too, mommy parsley is Inteleon is also really consistent, but this, this looks consistent in a different way in that, you know, you just don't need stuff. You don't need it. You don't need to set up a stage two and you're just kind of one, one Pokemon doing your thing. And you got paper. Payroll is like a secondary draw source.
Brent:Uh, you know, uh, um, we have not tested really the liberal stuff at all, because I feel like we're just like super happy with the Inteleon engine.
Mike:Um,
Brent:And like, I be like, uh, the, the list I see us building, it's like more, one of supporters. And like a pal pad. And if you didn't want to do that thing twice, you can like double drizzle and, you know, grab the pal pad, shuffled and supporter, then grab the supporter if you want. And like, I, what I've found in our test, because we're leaning harder into Inteleon we're on forge Rosa. Cause we don't want to press one.
Mike:it seems
Brent:want to, we want to set up three Savills and make sure we got designs for all of them.'cause uh, it just seems like get in the car and you want super good.
Mike:Yeah. I still don't have like the full RCS line, but it seems. Seems like a deck that I would really enjoy playing RCS can tell you on lists that have been doing well. So you guys seem like you've been joining and enjoying plate.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a super good, um, And we've, we've messed around with RCS. We messed around with like other, you know, all kinds of like the random stuff, you know, uh, uh, like a Robbins Liverpool list, like stuff like that. All those things seem interesting, but I mean, the Inteleon engine in general, um, we're still a believer in it. Why would you draw
Brit:like, I like,
Brent:cards when you could just get the car deal? Like.
Brit:yeah, I just like our shoe or not our, our Shifu RSTs Inteleon um, I just feel like the list that I've been playing with, I'm gonna meet up with a friend this weekend to help him practice for Indi. Um, I just like, I feel like, like Mayo is just like, it feels weird to just like, kind of take a loss to the most popular deck. There's a reason. Me, so many people play mew and not all of them do well. So like, I know, I know I'll be, you know, maybe a third of them, maybe half of them just purely because they're bad and the good ones can cook me. But as far as, as far as their ask, like my, I have to feel really good in mirror with my list. Like I have the double Sharon's care and like, Avery, um, I feel like all the other match-ups they're like pretty straight forward and you just kind of play like a survival game. Um,
Mike:So I'm looking at this matchup chart. Um,
Brent:So I pulled this metric chart out of a trainer hill. I should like show me, show me lists where there were like more than 20 top 16 games or something.
Mike:so one funny thing that Brent kind of proving bridge point that he said before, um, mew against the various RCS decks is worse against RCS Inteleon than it is against dark RCS. So like the regular RSCs and Italians doing better than dark Garcias, according to this,
Brent:right.
Mike:pretty.
Brent:Yeah. I thought it was amazing. Like the thing that really jumped out to me about this was like a or like, so 50 50,
Mike:Yeah
Brent:but I feel like a lot of that, like, I don't know. I feel like in my gut, it's a part of it is like, new is so powerful. The other guys have to like play really well. And, and new, I feel like you have more latitude to like, make a misplay and still grind your way out and due to just the raw power,
Mike:right here, right? That, yeah, that's absolutely true. It's much easier. Like you can win a lot of games, even if you're not the best player with you. You're not going to win as many games, but it just has the most raw power that you could just win games off that for sure.
Brent:right, right. Like RCS, Inteleon like the reason it's good is it gives you a lot of choices. And if you make the right choice, you win. And so, so you have like opportunities to outplay people. I think that's what my son, like, he likes about Italian. He's he's like, you know, I can make plays, no, you got two drizzles and a turn. Like you can pretty much, you know, accomplish whatever your goal is for that term. But, uh, um, it can be tricky, right? You gotta, you gotta do the right thing.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:um, so coming up. We should tell people what that could play is the answer RCS Inteleon.
Brit:In my head, I'm trying to figure out if I can plan a RCS Urshifu Moltres race, but I want to play RCS fighting dark all at once.
Brent:Yeah. That that's like, that's like what everybody wants, right?
Brit:yeah, it was one of the things like it's almost like hypocritical for me to recommend because I, like, I do think it's as good as I say it is, but I like, I don't have the cards for it. I won't be playing it. Um,
Brent:Yeah. That's how I
Brit:obviously I don't learn, I haven't learned to play it. So I'm obviously
Brent:us playing
Brit:on how to play it. Sorry.
Brent:Yeah. I, I feel exactly the same way. Mew is really, really good. I just don't see us playing it because I like, I want to play a deck. They haven't practiced as much again.
Mike:Yeah, that's always like the, one of the biggest points about not playing the absolute best deck is everyone knows more or less how to play against it. The counter argument is maybe it doesn't matter. Like it's the best deck, so who cares? But, um,
Brent:No, I mean, I think that's, that's my son's frustration. It testing. It seems like, man, I don't want to play the tape, but like man, everything I build, even though I knew it was coming, they were like, run me over anyway.
Mike:Yep. Um, I, if I was going, I would either play mew or rapid strike Mallomar. Those are the two decks that I enjoy a lot. I also, I need to get, play more games with sweet Coon. I think actually, um, I thought about, I haven't played any game to speak on in the last couple of weeks, but I've thought about the deck a lot and I think there's a fair amount of changes that I would make for thins lists to kind of adapt to the newer metagame. And so I'm interested in, uh, messing around with that maybe before New Jersey.
Brent:So, um, so you know, one of these things, when I, when I pulled all the data out of trainer hill, one of the things that surprised me was how it seemed like rapid strike Mallomar was not good. Like it, according to trainer hill has a unfavorable immune.
Mike:Right. Yeah.
Brent:uh, um, and I feel like some of the hype, like coming out of Utah, everybody was really, really hyped about it and had a pretty good showing at Liverpool because people were hyped about it. Um, isn't really good.
Mike:I think it's a good deck. And I think it's probably like after mew and RCS decks, I think it's probably the best deck after those. Um, at least from my, what I've maybe sweet Coon is third, but like, it's probably like sweet and Mallomar are practically, at least in my opinion, like the next two best decks, which is pretty good. I think, um, Yeah, I think it's just like, it's really good against, um, it beats me, you and RCS players that are average and like pretty good, but I think you probably start having a harder time as people get better with those decks.
Brent:Right. Right. All right. Let me ask the question different way. So happens in like a couple of days. What Dex do toward the limitless guy show up?
Brit:I saw Nico. I think it was placed like top four with, I think the same in an online tournament with like the Urshifu Inteleon, um, of course, toward plague, mew and Liverpool. Um, I would think they have a deck. Like, I would be pretty surprised if like limitless doesn't have something interesting and like Raul, Sam Chan, those guys don't have something. I don't know if Sam's going, but just the same people, the people that play it, like Zander was also not going, but that, that kind of group of players, I associate deck building together. Um, but I'm not sure. I like, I don't know what that would might be. I think it would just probably be more iterations on what we've already seen. Like a better list, a different list of Inteleon dark Urshifu maybe. Maybe with a more standard support account I've noticed from this tournament, um, that he had played in that he had cut the zinnias I think, um, and maybe a couple other cards. So I'm not sure. Um, maybe it's been adapted quite a bit. Um, it still seems like a dummy. I haven't played any games with it, I guess sort of just after hearing everyone saying that it plays so strangely. Um, but like that's, I mean, Urshifu is a good play. Like it's, it's a gamble you won. Um, but I think if you like find a way to make your new matchup, like tolerable for you to win, like two against one or two of them across, uh, a day, like go to a two or something, like, it just seems like such a good play. Um, There is no good psychic Pokemon, like other than mew or not, of course, mellow ADOT, which sort of requires the whole fusion site strike patch it package. And so like countering Urshifu is very, very difficult. You just sort of have to hope that mew does it for you,
Mike:Yeah. I don't know. I don't have a, I don't have an answer, man. I think they could play something really random and surprise us. I don't know. Maybe like as, maybe as a work deck and attacking Zoroark deck, I wouldn't be surprised if something like that popped up.
Brit:Like maybe they got a good, good worm, a damn list going like that. Doesn't that's not, um, terribly. Um, inconceivable or anything like that. I was like, I'm not good at speculating. Cause I just haven't been prepping as hard as they have. So I don't, I don't have any like juice. I don't have any like secrets that like definitely no one else knows about the format. Um, I wouldn't be like, like I said, just initially, like, I, I bet they have something, whether it's just like two cards different than everything else, or if it's like a brand new archetype that remains to be seen. But I mean, I'm just trying to think of some of the handful of years we've had the international championships. How many of them sort of have been won by not a, or at least like kind of the, the story toward ones. There's always a deck. There is always kind of something new. Um, but yeah, just in the side, gotta bring something juicy to these really big, these really important tournament.
Brent:any conversation on the optimal RCS list? So, so to contribute to this discussion, I pulled from trainer hill, the RCS Inteleon card counts for DEXA placed at the top 16 and had at least 20 games. Plus. And, you know, I think the problem is you just wins all the time. So you look at all the card counts and you're like, I mean, mew one 70% of the time would that mean one 70% of time with that? It almost doesn't even matter. You just always win 70% of the time. There are, I'm sorry. I say it's Italia always wins 70% of the time. Like I look at this data and it's, it feels somewhat uncomfortable.
Mike:Yeah. I don't know how useful it is to think about especially RCS as an optimal list, because the thing that so. Compelling about playing the deck is that it has so many options and you can play so many different things. And so where he's, I think it's maybe a more interesting discussion when you talk about, um, mew, because it's a deck like me, I guess it's because it's just more, uh, it's more straightforward in what it's trying to accomplish and RCS can adapt so well with its partners, its ability and whatnot.
Brent:I'm trying to just scroll through this list and see if anything jumps out at me.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:mean, I don't know how am I not be all that interesting of a conversation, but there's just a lot of variable cards in the last, like 55, 56, just for the last couple of decks loss. Like you play to Sharon's care. Is that optional? Do you play, you know, so I'm like, if someone has seen them too, I've seen, uh, I don't even know what that card is called. The researcher. I think it's called the one that just like gets you basics. I thought, uh, Jason and a chair cosplaying that has been doing well with he's been playing, he's been playing like RCS, birds, like no Inteleon. Um, but he had kind of has a lot of interesting card counts in his deck list as well.
Mike:I don't even know what card you're talking about.
Brit:That's like the supporter that gets basics or something.
Mike:I'll look like one thing that I'm looking at is the Sharon's care. So like it says like 60% of people play two copies, 36% play one, and then just a couple of percent play none. But the win rates are all pretty much the same. like, I dunno, but like Sharon's care in theory is really, really good in the mirror. And you basically don't win mirrors if you don't play. So like, why is it not affecting wind rates? That's a strange.
Brit:I mean, it's probably just felt like you need one. You need, you need to hit that, play the one at the key time, and that's all you need for it to be impacted impactful in a meaningful way for you as a player and playing to increases your chance to have that one moment. But then sort of contrast that with like just the sheer consistency of our CSM. Inteleon that like, assuming it's not prized, you have to have the sort of means to get the job done is how I would interpret that. Is that, is that enough to conclude that two Sharon's care is bad? I'm not sure potentially though.
Brent:You know, the thing true. We need trainer hill to add to this is the ability to kind of filter by match-ups too. You can say like what cards make a difference in them? You match up because like, it all kind of gets lost in the north. But I'm sure like the real questions you have is if I want to like, try and do a little better in this one dimension, is there a card that like moves the needle?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Uh, because otherwise, yeah, there's just like, there's enough decks that it seems like it's pretty polarized. can do whatever you want people,
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:but you know, one thing that's interesting is if you look at that the hill document for the Marni counts, like very few people play zero Marnie's, but the Marni win rate is 85% decks. The play zero mornings.
Brit:That reminds me of another question. Why do people just play judge? Sometimes? I I've seen that enlist commonly too, and I don't understand,
Brent:They don't want to shuffle it to the bottom. That's the only thing I've seen that too. And I thought the same thing, it was the only reason I could come up with was then more put the cards in the bottom.
Brit:But
Brent:does that, like
Brit:that's that just seems like, that just
Brent:is so good.
Brit:it's that just seems like rooted. Uh, folk psychology, just like a phobia, just being like, I don't know. Marnie always scares me, so I'll play judge instead. And just that just won't, it just won't work the same way, but just like, I just don't understand that. Cause it's not like they run out, they play for Marnie and they want some more disruption or something. It's just like, sometimes I'm not even sure if they always have the money or like a one, one split. Right. I know. I haven't understood. Like it's there. I'm just like, is there a combo? I don't see here. Or like the judge is just, do you like judge path? Why wouldn't you just do, why wouldn't mind path be better?
Brent:Yeah, my, my, my initial reaction was, oh, this is a weird name that I guess I am, I'm not in the loop on,
Brit:I had, yeah, it just seemed like some
Brent:but I feel like if you're, if you're doing that meme, wouldn't you tweet about it more.
Brit:carving your niche is kind of play a little bit different.
Brent:Exactly. Exactly. All right, guys. I think we've given the people who are going to UIC, something to think about why that they can listen to while they're out for their run or something like that.
Mike:I just wanted to mention some expanded decks briefly.
Brent:Oh yeah.
Mike:So the first one is, okay, so did you guys see the gang bar that is coming out? Okay, so is a Pokemon that says if, if it's your discard pile, you can put it onto your bench during your turn and then put three damage counters on it. So it has a lot of synergy with that, the new Zoroark, whatever, but in
Brent:you see in the Zoroark? Is that how that's pronounced?
Mike:Yeah, exactly. But in expanded, what you can do is you have the card damage mover, which, um, moves three damage counters from one of your Pokemon to another one of your program. And they also came out with like a new damage mover type of card as well. And, um, and you have team magnet space. So take all of these ways that you can damage your own Pokemon. So you, so you put gang car from your discard onto your bench, takes three counters. You get an execute and you put it onto your bench. You move the damage over from your good guard. You kill your own execute. You propagate the execute back and with the V's various cards, you are able to kill your execute five times in one turn you play like scoop ups, blah, blah, blah. So you kill five, five executes
Brent:I mean, if you've got the magma base down, you only have to move one damage counter every time. So you only need like two gang guards to do it. You don't even have to fill your bench to do the stupid.
Mike:Right. Yeah. So isn't, it's pretty easy to kill five executes in one turn, and then you're going second. So you play N to one on the very first turn of the game, and then you get to do whatever you want. So maybe you that the list, the list that was presented had, um, what did it have? It had like shaman V and shaman B star with counter energy to do a lot of damage. But I think that's probably not the way you want to play this. I think you probably want to do something much more degenerate than
Brent:Yeah. I mean, discarding one card sounds like the easiest thing in the world.
Mike:Right. So I feel like there's something in there where you can do this on turn one and then having an insane control deck. Um,
Brent:Yeah. Even, even banning chip chip is not going to stop you from discarding their entire hand and controlling
Mike:Right. Exactly. So that seems really, really good to me. Um, so that's one interesting combo coming out. The other combo is there is a diagonal V star that it's V star attack is the same as the old Diagon GX attack where you get to take another term. So the that this works is. So you have, you have the Vistar tack that gives you a second. Turn another, an extra turn. So let's, let me make sure I can remember this. Um, So you play electro GX, which can blow up onto a V Pokemon. And so you blow up you're on your second turn. You can do this, you blow up electrode onto the diag. You play Cyrus, the prism star card that makes your opponent go down to only two bench Pokemon. If you want, you can counter catch your first. Um, but so you put them only to bench Pokemon, and then you use diag viz star to Kao something, whatever the active counter catch or something that you can knock out? And now they only have two Pokemon in play. They have, you know, they had their two bench. So now they have to promote one. They have an active and they have one bench. You get an extra turn, you play guard jumping, guaranteed, a GX scramble switch. And now you can use Gigi NGX to discard their two remaining Pokemon. So, uh, that is a pretty, seems like a pretty consistent turn to when.
Brent:And then this is why we can't even expand the tournaments anymore.
Mike:Yep, exactly. Like, I feel like both of those combos are going to be really, really good. I mean maybe there maybe like silent lab and although in muck are good enough that, um, not going to be as, as dominant, but it sounds like it's a Trevnoir deck just waiting to happen. Both of them do.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. That sounds absolutely horrible.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Expanded as a mistake.
Mike:you say?
Brit:I said, it's just get rid of expanded. It's like I've been banging the drum for, for so long.
Brent:I feel like Pokemon may have already done that and just not told us.
Brit:Well, I mean, they always have, because Japan has never, ever played it. Like.
Brent:Anything else?
Brit:No, I was looking forward to the stream. They announced, they announced that today, which is nice. I think it was a little uncertain if you're going to have coverage for it. Um, hopefully it's a good show. Like hopefully it's ran well, like all the other events and all that. I'm sure it'll be a good time. Looking forward to any surprise decks that might pop out.
Mike:Yeah, I'm pretty excited. I'm not doing too much this weekend, so I'll probably be watching as much as I can. And it seems like they're having separate streams for the different games, which is really important. Hopefully they'll be able to stream more than salt lake. I feel like salt lake. They didn't have the first, whatever, three, four rounds each day. So hopefully we'll get a little bit more gameplay. Um, Yeah.
Brent:I mean, the good news is if they're playing on European time, it's still be student stream. We'll start up. Right. When I wake up, it'll be
Mike:that is true.
Brent:totally great for Americans. And then the Europeans can feel their pain.
Mike:Yeah, That's true. And how, how far is it India? Way? Like three weeks
Brit:Yeah,
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:Okay. And I know,
Brent:this weekend.
Mike:wait, are you guys both going.
Brit:I will be at Indy. I'm not competing in Indy.
Brent:Ouch.
Brit:I have, I've had like a tattoo appointment that week for, well, before the date was announced and I like, just didn't feel like messing with it, but it's in Columbus, Ohio and I'm driving. So in fact, just drive through India on my way home. So.
Brent:Nice.
Brit:I registered for New Jersey though. Where do I fall into?
Mike:oh, you did? Oh, nice. Um,
Brit:anything. I figured out how to reveal it on the podcast.
Brent:Congratulations way to get in,
Mike:All right. And Brent, I assume you guys registered as well.
Brent:where we are in,
Mike:Yeah. Wait, are you, you're not, you're not playing, right. Just William.
Brent:not playing, I'm not playing. I'm going to be selling my book. You can buy my book. If you see anything.
Mike:Um, yeah, I recommend probably fine to Newark. That's probably the best option.
Brit:I was just coordinating with bolts, but yeah, he was, he said that we, it was probably like better to commute in than to try to like fly into Secaucus.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, you could fly to JFK or LaGuardia and then are you going to stay with bolt?
Brit:I don't know. I don't know if he's with a girlfriend or not. Um, I haven't asked, but I probably would probably intend to, if he's not sort of traveling in that way. But otherwise I'll just, I'll book a room for myself and like one other person I'm gonna mold. I'm not staying in these like eight person rooms anymore.
Brent:Wait, widow adult up.
Mike:Yeah. All right. Well, as we get closer, we can figure out travel stuff. Cause if you do end up staying in the city, then I can like drive you probably. Um, but if not, then, then it doesn't matter.
Brent:uh, Yeah, I am. I'm interested in trying to, I haven't looked at the map yet to figure out like where we need to book like rooms in Secaucus or like what the hotel situation is for, for that event.
Mike:Yeah. I think there's a hotel. There's I think there's a couple of hotels, like very close to the convention center. Um, yeah, from what I remember from last summer,
Brent:Perfect. Perfect.
Mike:Well, sweet. We're all going to be a, we could do the live pod
Brent:Live pod live pod Secaucus is definitely happening. Uh, shout out to a team fish knuckles for recognizing that the John Paul is our outro music. We appreciate those guys and we appreciate tweets that recognize when I do a bedrock of editing.
Mike:It's funny.
Brent:I am, I'm glad it mattered to someone else as much as it matters to me.