The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

No intro, Ship of Theseus, Arceus, Mew, Arceus, Arceus, just like the meta

May 16, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 86
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
No intro, Ship of Theseus, Arceus, Mew, Arceus, Arceus, just like the meta
Transcript
Brent:

Liam has a variety of hot takes in the middle of PTCGO games. That would be perfect for the pod. There, there was a, what, what was your Urshifu comment? That'd be, oh, uh, his big insight into Urshifu while playing today, it was like, he's like every hand I have is absolutely trash, but it's like all the best attackers in the game. So you just hope you can get an attack off every turn and it always works out.

Mike:

Yeah, that sounds about right. There's some games with our shoe. I'm like, man, there's no way I'm going to win this game. Or like, Hey, I did it sweet. Yeah.

Brent:

Why isn't, Urshifu a bigger part of the battle. I don't get it.

Mike:

So I think the biggest thing is is probably the biggest addition in the RCS decks that makes the Urshifu match up a lot different than it was before. I think Dunsparce, and Manaphy have their place in, you know, bringing the match-up away from. Urshifu is, you know, taken away or she was win percentage and the matchup, but I think it would be as kind of like the big outlier there. And it makes the biggest difference because Dunsparce, and Manaphy are susceptible to quick shooting and Metta CHAM, and you can kind of get around those to some extent, but hoop is really hard to deal with because. Just don't have any, like if you use a V max to kill an RCS and then they hit you back with a hoop, a V what are you doing? The following term? It has 220 HP. Um, you don't as the Urshifu player, have a very good response to that. So I think that's kind of a really big deal. That's so one of the things as someone that likes her, she grew a lot. I've been thinking about that. Like, what do I do about that? So there's kind of two options from the Urshifu side. I think one is to rely on the the glaring Moltres fee. So then you go, you know, they, they kill you with the Hoopa and you go Moltres ability. Reihan attached choice belt, which is kind of a lot to ask for, but it does get the Kao right back. Um, The other option is to play grass Pokemon, which can one-shot Hoopa. So of those there's two options. There is Celebes the radiant syllabi that Noel. played and that does for grass energy does 30 for each energy on your, on the defending Pokemon. So to do a 90 to a Hoopa with the choice belt and you get a one shot for one energy, that's an option. The other option is Tropea Tropea has one of those classic revenge attacks, 30 plus 90. If something got knocked out the previous turn, but it takes two energy. So nothing is really a great option to deal with Hoopa. I think if I'm playing Urshifu, I'm playing Moltres V anyway for the new match-ups. So I'd probably just kind of rely on that. And I've been playing around a little bit with the syllabi grass energy, um, Seemed good, but I don't really know if I want to use two spaces just for that. So probably just lean more heavily on the mattress. Maybe play an ordinary rod to get back Moltres or I don't know, but I feel like that's kind of the. Thing that RCS has gone for it. And you can see that even in Kevin and Dan's list from last week, they play Hoopa and they don't play Manaphy or Dunsparce. And I think that is probably enough to make the Urshifu matchup, you know, 50 50 at the very least. Um, I think. If you're playing Hoopa, plus one of the other ones, either Dunsparce or Manaphy, you're probably slightly favored. If you're playing all three, you're definitely slightly favored. Um, but even just the hoop of V if you're not expecting a ton of Urshifu is enough to make you very competitive in the matchup. Yeah,

Brit:

Yeah, I

Brent:

be depressed.

Brit:

the other, the only other sort of thing, I guess, as a segue, not a good transition here, but like in, so I guess I have been sort of going a little crazy in my thought and as I was trying to put like parasols and AMU or, um, like more basic energy and row. To just like, you know, like, so, cause I just think, I just don't like, and I, this was a question I asked in our group chat. Like I don't, I just don't really think that I think the new match. It's better than 52, 48 against like Pablo's RCS. Like I, I just, I, my own testing. So maybe this is just where it's limited and anecdotal, but I just, like, I've never, ever been had good, good games against me. You as an RCS player, like, unless I'm also playing dark and, or presumably the Beedrill, I'm doing the same thing. And so that's why I just feel like, um, Yeah. Without these like hard counters, I just think new is going to be at RCS. So, okay. Like what's the next generation it's, it's adapting to be durable, which I think you can do, um, somewhat seriously. Like, parasols seem pretty good to me. Like I was going to the initial thing I was going to try. There's been some of these muralists floating around with, uh, hero's metal and I was just probably going to take that and. Replace them with the parasols instead, um, Rosa rose could sort of do the same thing. That's just like too much work and it's kind of like, you need more, whereas I can just cram a Matic for the parasol and hopefully get it. And things like that. Like, I don't know how good it would be, but I just, like, I can't, I feel would feel very confident as a new player. I think going up against these RCSP drill lists, if I had to parasol in my list,

Mike:

Sure. I think kind of you bring up a more interesting point in general. RCS. So like what's, what's the, are all of these RCS decks going to continue to be played? Are we going to see more? So, so we saw at Indianapolis, right? We saw in win with his list and then Bradner got second with the Beedrill list and a bunch of Bedros did well. And then, you know, Brett has been talking about the, kind of the straight liberal Carbonite list. Um, but then there's other ones, you know, there's the Mallomar, VMX there's, um, some there's Pablo's water, like there's so many different ones. And I don't know if there's just going to continue to be all of these different variants or if one or two of them are going to become more dominant, you know, my Initial reaction is okay. Ian and Isaiah got top two. So their variance will likely be the most popular, but I don't know, or even necessarily think that they are going to be that much more popular than all the other variants. Um, and each of these different archivists variants have slightly different metrics kind of across the board. And like you said, bridge, like you kind of need to have some dedicated. Hard counters for, from you, for example, like Ian's list, against me, you, I think is very good. The Beedrill list is good unless they, but other, I guess, I guess my point is other decks can't really adapt to just Archaeus right. They have to adapt to specific variants of Archaeus and. Those different things look different depending on the decks. Do you play more stadiums? Do you not care about stadiums? Do you play parasol? Do you, um, play more mellow EDIS to deal with all of these dark Pokemon? Like there's just so many different ways that you can attack mew and these Archaeus decks attack, different, different decks. That it's really hard to know how to build your deck right now.

Brent:

What if I, what if I stripped it down? Like if I, if I told you that the meadow was a dark RCS and the RCS with the Beedrill thing, is it even just that confined space? Is it possible to solve that? Like, is there a, oh yeah, this is the answer to that.

Brit:

I think that's really interesting. And I think some of this will come up and maybe some of the other topics we get to today, but I think that's kind of just like, The puzzle or at least, you know, a more basic level when we're just talking about it, statistically, like that's where, how do we group these decks? Like w at what point is one archetype, the next archetype, you know, it's like identity problem, right? Like a ship of Theseus, just like, all right. And now, you know, at the 59th card, it's suddenly the new archetype or something like that, even though there's of the same cards between all the archetypes or, you know, whatever the case may be.

Mike:

So I was just think, all right. So I thought about your question for a second. I think if I knew that those were the only two architects I play against and the rest of the meadow is kind of like as is right. I think. Something like Stefan's dark box with Zappos is actually quite good because Aptos is really good against Archaeus decks that don't run Path to the Peak and those two variants do not. But then when you throw in. The Mallomar BMX Pablo's list that have passed the peak zap dose becomes a much less reliable RCS counter. And so I'm very hesitant to play a deck with zap to send it because I, I personally think, you know, half of the Archaeus techs that I'm going to play against are going to run Path to the Peak. So, you know, if my, my fighting tech is only working half the time against the decks it's supposed to work against, it's not really worth it. Um, Yeah. so that that's like one thought that comes to mind when you ask that question.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, you know, it's interesting. I felt like one of the things that we saw in testing was you, uh, there's so much Path to the Peak. You have to have a stadium removal strategy. If you're playing RCS. Like I think, uh, you know, there's gonna be a lot of RC stacks that just run Path to the Peak. And if they get turned one path, all of a sudden they can't like execute their strategy.

Mike:

I also think, like, I think Jolteon is like in a really interesting spot. Um, then we talked a little bit about Toga kiss last week and that has Jolteon in it. Like Jolteon is really good against parking is Inteleon and it's really bad against Archaeus fibral for example, um, like you're just wasting so many spots that if your game plan like Toga kiss, for example, it can usually. It will go like 50, 50 ish against Archaeus Inteleon because it can get, it can like, even if it has a slow start, it can kind of get guilty on out, Marty them and get to a point where you're kind of like grinding them out. They start dead drawing and whatnot. But if you're planning, it's arguably. It's like the matchups impossible. You almost never win because they still have access to drawing cards and they can boss when they want. And it's just really not good. So that's another example of, you know, I bet I can beat these types of archaea stacks, but I can't beat these. Um, and I've probably, and I think probably most decks with Jolteon will like if anybody's trying to be cute with Jolteon right now, I think you'll probably run into that same issue.

Brent:

Yeah. I, I, I, you know, I definitely one of the questions I wanted to ask you guys today is like, is it Jolteon time yet is like, like, are people gonna say, but, but I, I think you hit the nail on that and you feel like 50% of all the RSQ sticks, you see play liberal. And you're like, well, that was a super useless thing I did now. I'm just gonna like, take an L because. Like four bed cards in my deck and they put four good cards in their deck.

Mike:

right. Yeah, Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah, I think just, I guess maybe it was like a general point in with like some experience trying it and towed your kiss is that I think that like, Jolteon just like is too, as far too much to commit to for any casual, you know, like. Take RCS liberal and replace it with Jolteon or something like that. Like I think though that just doesn't work. Like it's, it's too sort of just like stringent of requirements. And just like, even though it doesn't seem that way, even though it's just like, it's one evolution and then finding that extra tool, it's just, I think, awkward for any deck, but like, like I think it's fine in Tajik Tajikistan and I think it's good in, um, like Sander controlled acts that I think are sort of dedicated to these. Um, just like counter strategies, sort of trying to pray on a weakness within the metagame or something like that. But I think if you're just like, ah, that's how I'll, I'll be, you know, I'll, I'll be our CSB drill with my RCS deck by like playing Jolteon and like, you might sometimes still beat them, but I just think your deck would be just so much worse at that point than every other RCS deck that it's just like, just beat them through these other avenues. Don't don't waste these sort of dislike. It doesn't advance the game state at all. And so I think that's why it works with like a control deck. They're sort of advancing the game state sort of on their own. Whereas like when you're playing in an aggressive deck where you're playing like something, I mean, again, like the, the nomenclature never quite works for Pokemon, but like mid range or something like that. Whereas our ICS seems to be somewhere in there. Right.

Brent:

Yeah, you're investing a lot of resources and

Brit:

it all. That's the problem with RCS, but anyways, um,

Brent:

Yeah. If you're, if you're playing a mid range or aggressive deck, you have to invest your resources to execute that strategy. And if instead, like turn on turn to your, uh, uh, expending all your resources to set up this thing to slow down the tempo massively, like you're slowing down your tempo.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, this is like something that I've just kind of learned like through design, but like w when, like, You know, when you, when you're an aggressive deck and we're talking about these like, like taking cards for match-ups and things like that, like your texts, your text should be like consistent with your game plan. And that's to say that they should, anything you take into your deck should be like advancing, you know, your, your usual strategy. So it's just like, I'm an aggressive deck. So my texts are also going to be aggressive. Whereas it just like, I'm an aggressive deck and my texts are going to be passive for some reason. Right. And that's just kind of like that doesn't work. And so I think that's like a good example of why just like, I would be surprised to see. I mean, it still could work. And again, maybe that'll get us into this fire RCS. I don't think it was all that good of a design. Um, but yeah, I would think that just like that, that, that RCS deck is just like not doing isn't as optimal as these kind of aggressive iterations that we've seen. I don't know, like, that's just, there's just so many things and I don't have the time to task, but it would also wouldn't surprise me if there's just like, you had another iteration of RCS that we've we have yet to find that will be kind of on this, on the, on the level we were talking about of just like, when we're talking about playing against RCS, what we really mean are it's like one of these two decks.

Mike:

With all of this, I don't, I don't know what I want to play. I have Toga kits built. I have Urshifu built. I have Mallomar built. I don't own you or Archaeus is so not like super considering them, but maybe if someone says, Hey, this is a good Archaeus deck and I can borrow them, then I'll build it. I wouldn't be surprised. Um, I don't know. We'll see.

Brent:

So, uh, speaking of artists, this is an ultimate segue, a Brit you, you unleashed a wave of fantastic. Uh, promising to let some vitriol loose on other fantastic tweets.

Brit:

I mean, I actually forgot, like we had started, we had started recording and it like hit me in the middle of it and I was like, oh, I got it. Jog my memory real quick. What was I going to say? So, um, but yeah, and so I guess, like, I guess to start, I already lost it. I kept pulling it up, but I closed out of the, the original tweet, but I think it just like my general problem is not, it's just sort of with the argument itself, there are points within the argument that are fine. And I think people sort of like seeing the initial comments, like all of this camp. On like, well, how do you disagree? And like, I think that's obviously true. Like, I think there are plenty of points in here, but it was just. Bad logic. It was like poorly argued. And I just said, it feels like breaking the premises down to the point where I don't think they work. Uh, but anyway, so I guess I'll just, I'll just read the tweet. So like format has four turns, per average, new power creeps all the games. And then, and then all of a sudden we get this RCS printed and then that it's a card printed on muse power level. It promotes long resource and skill based games. And. Tons of creativity and that's sort of the gist then is just like, it's a hot take to cert that RCS is bad cart design or bad game design. And I saw, I'd be curious to see, I saw I've seen Andrew Mahoney has, um, voiced similar thoughts, but I don't know particularly where he's coming at it, but sure. Where to start. There's a lot with this. So I guess. First and foremost, you can have bad card design and a good format. Like those aren't like neck sort of what, what am I looking for mutually exclusive? Right. And so, like, I think, again, a format we, we here on the podcast talk a lot about, or at least seem to like way more than everyone else. Um, the Urshifu right. The, I forget. Oldest that would have been, but right when battle cells came out like that, that format was a really good format, but I don't know if you would necessarily have to, you, you wouldn't have to argue at the same time that like those cards were well-designed like we could, everyone hated ADP. Right. And I think that's just like, again, There's just, there's just logic. That's a miss in a lot of these statements. And I think that would be just like kind of a base, a good base to start on. Is that good card, like good, good card design could lead to bad formats and ad formats can, you know, can come from bad card design and things like that. There's just not always, it's not always this, like one-to-one correspondence with each other. Um,

Mike:

So I was actually thinking about that format in particular when comparing it to this format, because I think both are good formats, but for very different reasons. So I think this format, well, let's look at, let's look at the format from a year ago right now. Um, to start, I feel like that format was good because. Every game, like the way to get really good at that format was to understand the different match-ups every map, like every time you play. Even if, even if you are only playing peek around, for example, you had to play every up, slightly differently. Like you had your general game plan, you know, you want to go second and you want to Boltund. But after that, the way you played against Blacephalon versus the way that you played against ADP or the way that you played against, um, Executor. Like it was all different. Blacephalon similar. Like they wanted to use Cramorant in some match-ups and never play a Cramorant and other match-ups and they wanted to use Rashid's ARD in some match-ups and never play a three Prizer down another match-ups. So the format, like the skill of that format was very, very matchup based. It was, Um, you could win really with any deck, if you really knew the match-ups down very Well, This format, I think, is not. Really as matchup based. Um, and I think the skill comes from deck building and sequencing more than anything else, like mew we've talked about, it's a very sequencing, heavy deck it, but it really doesn't really, it doesn't really care what your opponent's doing. Right? Like it kind of just does it, same thing. Every single game RCS is really the same. Um, you know, different builds have. Different has varying amounts of caring about what your opponent's doing, but generally RCS wants to go first attach an energy turn to, they want to the star, get the, get the DT. Maybe they, maybe they Boston Kao your guy. Maybe they don't. But generally it's a pretty straightforward game plan. They don't really care that much what your opponent is doing. And I just feel like a lot of decks like that. They're kind of just playing their own game where, you know, the format, the format from a year ago was you really had to consider very much what you're putting was doing in order to play optimally and there's pros and cons, I think both have, are ways to show your skill, but they're different. And I feel like it's worth making that distinction.

Brit:

Yeah, and I think that's baked into, at least part of my next point is just the, the, like, Uh, of the format and things like that compared to like where where's the game now? Compared to where is the game like class format in terms of like the way things are playing out. And I basically just say what you say. I do think it's that I think RCS decks do have, um, such a, just kind of clear flow, um, to what they want to do. And that's, again, as my kids already said, sort of like irrespective of what your opponent is doing. The time, especially, you know, you do your thing and then you look up and like, okay, which two cards do I need in this moment? Right now? It might be that boss. It might be something else, but like, you know, you just, you hit your. From the second it's on the pedal from the second turn on where it, and you just like AF after you sort of like that, the VSR kind of like locks your, it locks your tempo in, so to speak, like once, once you pop that, like you've kind of decided the direction that you're going to go for winning the game, um, and things like that. And I think, again, it's just like, it's kind of flowy and just like, there's an RCS, I think in this, this, I think of point points to why I think it might. Like just not a great card is because it's, so it wants to go first, like so, so badly, but then it just, doesn't also, it doesn't have to. Right. And so, because, because of DTE, because of it just the V itself, having such a powerful ability, like, you're just like, And again, like, this feels strange, like I'm not complaining. Like it's always good for it. That for it, it's always, you know, you know, you're playing a good Decker when you don't have to worry about, I need to go first again. I need to go first. Like you're, you're in a good spot when you you're happy going first or second. Um, but it's just kind of, it's just too strong in that, in that sense. I think like it's really high variance then going first, like you're, you're going to be guaranteed to do the thing, turn to the variants for. Going going, going second on your first run and having the DTE for the immediate acceleration. As just a super high variance. Right. And especially as we see the list really, really start to thin down on DT. Like, and that's one, that's kind of one of the differences in like Ian's list and the core of an EIT list. There's a lot of, a lot of our artists has shifted away from like four DT and they just played two. And like, you know, and you'll always get the one ideally with your V star ability, whereas, um, And that, so yeah, if these lists are only playing two and still just like creating these games where like, oh, I just have it, this turn here's three energy. You know, I have five energy on the board on the second term. Um, it just seems like. Just no other deck sort of has that. There's no like parody for these other archetypes. There's just like nothing for them to do. And mew, I think is kind of the standout. The MEO is kind of already from fusion strike was just like printed with such ridiculous support that like it's the only deck, but this doesn't apply to. And it just like has its own particular engine that literally nothing else has access to. Um, but I think sort of is its own challenge. Um, whether good or bad kind of, I think. Set aside, but then like, I guess just sort of on that point is I think. That you can just then from there, like compare the meta games and just like, how did the game work around you and how has the game warped around like new and RCS? Um, and obviously I think probably one of the big parts of that story is like grasses deck. I think that's kind of just like the, the, around here, the forebear. Uh, like all of these dark Inteleon toolboxes, I don't think we kind of like get to and like, maybe we do, like, it's not like rocket science, but I do think at least like where we are now, I don't think the format would be where it is without artists, without rasa stack. And I think that's such an integral part of the whole story about the, this format and the last format that I don't think you can, you can sort of look at the creativity that we're seeing in necklace now. And just sort of say it's only ours. It's only because of our. I think there's, there's a lot of moving, moving parts in the natural evolution of the format that has sort of led it to being a, um, a good format. Like I, you know, again, and I, I do think it's quite a good format we have now. I said that last week and I, I do still think that even if I think there are parts of RFCs that are, uh, designed outside of my own nostalgia complaints. I think RCS is too strong, even ignoring like, you know, the joke I made last week of like back in my day, the inefficient card did this. Um, and yeah, and I think just again, on a, on a more general point, like inviting creativity doesn't mean anything. Um, good create a format being like diverse or creative, like particularly can lend itself to that. Being good or bad, but you can't just say like, format good, because you can be creative. Like that's not, that's not a good claim. And equally, like, I don't know, like how creative it really is. Um, to like, if RCS has kind of like the driving force behind it and you need like a two, two or three, two or more, and all of your decks, that seems like restrictive more than creative. Like you're just playing RCS, X. You're not playing like it's a separate archetype or anything like that. And then on that point too, I think New Jersey will be, I guess they're really just sort of like linchpin in the data. But I think just like, based on Indianapolis alone in which is just kind of the natural culmination of all of the IRL events so far, I think if you just like, if we played that tournament, like 10,000 more times, I think the day. Would not, would not be reflective towards a creative format. I think it would just be more, we would refine RCS more and more and more and more. And like maybe to the point where it's like even less, there's even more of it in the top 32 and even less of everything else. Um, which would be again, such a sort of point against it being like creative and diverse. And so.

Mike:

yeah,

Brit:

yeah, and like all that to say, and again, you throw the, like on the, on the specific conversation of variants, like in going first and whether or not you hit that DT on your second term. Then you just put that in terms of the mirror now, too. And that's just like, I think RCS then the mirror is kind of like ends up being, not a, not an enjoyable matchup and sort of, not all that skillful of one. It can just be like, who hits the brakes and who doesn't. Um, but yeah, I guess just to conclude from there then that I think it's not mew or it's not just RCS. I think it's just a lot of elements that have led to it being the format that it is. And then you just, it's just silly to say like, ah, ha it's RCS. Everything's good. Like, no, it's, it's how, it's how we've, uh, multiple archetypes have evolved to meet new multiple archetypes have now evolved to meet our associates. And I think it's all of that in the mixing pot together that is sort of responsible. Kind of the goodness of what we have now. And that's my sort of like Ultimate. Is that, and especially too, I guess, just the cash it again, in so much of the conversation that we've had, um, just like so much as just like ban mew. Should we ban news? Should we ban metadata? And it's just like, it's clearly fine. Like the format, I think very clearly had a natural evolution to the point. That I don't think we have any, there's no reason to still talk that way. Right. Like, I don't think anyone is still legitimately thinking, like still got a band me. It's still got a band after all these results of me not winning tournaments. Like, and so that, that's just the general point is that I just slept a lot. The, the piece was just like, what I was initially disagreeing with was just loud and it's just like, but that's it.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Like I'll just kind of reiterate a little bit, the creativity argument doesn't make much sense to me cause it's just, yeah. There's like a lot of. But it's a very shallow level of creativity, Right.

Brit:

Right. It's like, yeah, it's creative. You can go play RCS. Centiskorch if you want.

Brent:

Yeah, you can play RCS with any V Mexican.

Brit:

Right.

Mike:

kind of like that joke, uh, from, I don't know, maybe like the last summer or the fall when all of these different beam actors were coming out and it's just like blue Victini BMX green, Victini gay max. And like, they were all basically very into Victini V max. It's kind of the same thing here. It's like, they're all just RCS plus X card and

Brent:

Yes, a V max that gets powered up by three energies and hits hard

Mike:

Yeah, And it's kind of like, cool, play your, play, your color of choice. Um, it is good that we have something to compete with you because maybe if Archaeus, maybe if RCS didn't come out, we would still be complaining about you. But, um, but I'm not sure if that's even true because you know, a deck like dark box really, really struggled with RCS just in general. Like it has to play some type of big fighting attacker to deal with it. And if it didn't have to do that, you could have a deck like that. I think just straight, regular dark box, like Russ old deck would be much better. Because it can just more directly counter mute and not have to worry about other stuff. I think the format itself would probably be worse, but I think you would, singularly would be easier to counter. Now you have to like counter mew and archaea stacks, and that's just not really possible for pretty much Any other engine in the game. Um, so I, I agree. I think it's a good format, but I don't think it's created.

Brent:

Any other stuff we should talk about before people get ready for a neutral.

Brit:

Was there any let's see, I saw no nothing really interesting from the heck Strix tournament. It was just kind of another RC, a show. I believe just

Brent:

Yeah, no, it was a, yeah, it was mew. Uh, um, what was the other deck? Uh, new. Oh, uh, um, dark Inteleon and then six RCS texts, but one of them was direct.

Mike:

Right, right, right. yeah. It's eight. That's another, we didn't even mention that the whole pot, but that's another variant that I don't think will be very popular, but it's something you have to consider, I suppose.

Brent:

yeah.

Mike:

Um, I do really think the big. Question mark for this tournament is Urshifu kind of in two ways, like, what is the, what do people think about Urshifu and if that'll show up and what is the reality? Because those are two very different things. And the answer is, you know, may be the same. They might be different, but, uh, you know what people think if people think there's going to be a lot of harsh. And there's not, then, you know, you have a lot of ways to deck space. If people do anticipate it, then Urshifu will not do well. Um, but if people don't anticipate Urshifu and then there is there isn't a lot of Urshifu it's I don't know. That's kinda like the big, uh, question mark, I think for this tournament,

Brent:

I think what's, what's funny is it seems to me like the part of, I think the beauty of like the reason why RCS has so much success and it's displaced so much is the power of turn to get two cards that have your deck ending to your like, is, is like so incredibly powerful. It's almost hard to understate it. Like it lets you. Run a relatively thin line of things that hard counter mew and know that like your, your counter to me, it was going to work out fine because you can find it like you don't have to take 10 cards to counter meal. You can tech, uh, four cars to counter mute and it's fine. And I feel the same way about Urshifu like, I mean, if, I don't know if people are going to play it or not, but I think to your point, if people are playing like a Hoopa and a Manaphy or hoop and a Dunsparce. They're testing it's that? And there's food. Player's going to be like, man, it's really hard.

Mike:

When they have it, every game turn two or three,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Like the Dunsparce is always on the bench before I continue max rapid flow. Like it never works. And, and like, you know, they've, they have a plan to get the Dunsparce back, even if you kill it. And like, they're going to go in with the hoop, the turn, after that the hoop was already powered up and ready to go, like, uh, I mean to your point, the matchup feels like it's not as advantaged as you'd like it to be because Dunsparce is a card. And, and like, and because it's so easy to get a Hooper out and it's even easier to power it up. And you just wonder like, uh, how an Urshifu player like rises up and says, yeah, I'm going to play that. So I don't know if people cut the cards, but it isn't like it's such a heavy investment to counter or should. Like I, you know, I think people, I mean, I guess the real question is will they run the Manaphy and have the third card in their deck or will they be like, I don't need Manaphy because Dunsparce hoop was enough.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, and Ian played, so he and Rob played Manaphy and Hoopa, but no Dunsparce so, you know. Yeah. So like that's an option too. I don't know. I don't know if you're only playing to what's the optimal too. It also changes, you know, if you're playing dark, I think Hoopa dark energy in general, then. An obvious inclusion of the three, but if you're playing Pablo's version and you know, you can't play hoop best, you probably need Dunsparce and Manaphy.

Brent:

Who's, who's had success with Urshifu in the last three weeks toward Petro Robert Schultz. If you're one of those guys run, Urshifu knock yourself out. Kids like,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

like, uh, you know, I, I suspect that the reason why we've seen so, uh, so little Urshifu is when other people play Urshifu they're like, doesn't seem as good.

Mike:

It's true.

Brent:

But, but I want it to be, I mean, I, you know, you feel like, uh, I mean, weaknesses, such a big part of Pokemon, you feel like that should be a thing like everyone's playing RCS, so you're supposed to play a fighting type and like, that's how you succeed in the Metta, but Dunsparce. There is no way to turn off like a liberal and Dunsparce short of wheezing and the format that's really, uh, it, um, makes it hard to counter a lot of those. The place

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

guys is that everything people need to know before they go to New Jersey.

Mike:

I think so. Yeah. Play what you're comfortable with. If you're second guessing yourself, I think anything can, like any other big decks can win it. If you've been playing our guest X, just playing our use deck, it's clearly clearly the strongest card in the format by a lot.

Brent:

Yeah. And, and we will all be in the New Jersey. We look forward to seeing everybody and you should come say hi and all that. Good. And if, uh, if people are not in day to, uh, you know, if you see us all huddled around a table, maybe we'll record a flat or something.