So channel fireball has given us a box of astrol radiance. Here's what we are gonna do. We are gonna crack the box. If you guys DM Mike or Brit, or I that's that's Mike Fouchet, uh, Hayes wise. Or be Halliburton on Twitter with the name and, uh, um, address of a person who is getting into Pokegear, Pokegear preferably a small child, but we're open minded. We will send that person getting into Pokegear a bunch of cards and they will just have magically gotten a bunch of cards from the Trashalanche, uh, podcast. Uh, uh, you may think sending them, sending an address would be weird, but as you guys know, two sets ago, we gave away cards and mailed out like 40 sets of cards to people who just asked for cards, uh, previously. And it worked perfectly and everyone was super happy. Especially people like Alex Wilson who got like a secret rare or something, or I can't remember what it was wild, but, uh, we want to introduce people to the game. You know, we got the book, we got the podcast, we got the whole freaking package. We're. Now we're gonna send new players cards, DMS addresses, and we will get them cards.
Mike:Yeah, that sounds great. And then based on however many people we get will divvy up packs based on that, I suppose.
Brent:Exactly. Exactly. But, but yes. Think about friends, you know, that need to get into the game. We are gonna hook people who don't have a whole lot of cards up with a bunch of cards. And then they'll say, oh my God, I love Pokegear. I got a whole bunch of cards. Incredible.
Mike:Incredible. Sweet.
Brent:Let me, let me do the intro and we'll jump right. Welcome to the Trashalanche attendance is back to 100%. Last week. We had a nice segment with Mike that I, I think that was the second time maybe that I forgot to hit the record button, but like we talked about like you turning on recording, I'm amazed. I didn't hit the record button. I don't understand what went wrong there. It it's a, it's a sad story. We're sponsored by channel fireball. Uh, no new five star reviews, but Mike had some nice comments about the, uh, the, the review, but they were basically the same as the thing that Brit and I discussed last week. Last week, keep the Fivestar reviews coming. When you leave a review, we read it on the pod and, and then that's like a fun thing that everybody does. Um, guys, dad, to kick this off, I thought I should let you know that. I don't think me or my son have played a single game of Pokegear Pokegear since the freaking Melbourne top eight was published because Liam literally just like threw all the decks in the air was like, oh my God, what the heck?
Mike:That's funny. Yeah. I haven't gotten a message from him in a couple days, so
Brent:Yes. He, I mean, he literally was like, okay, I don't know what to play anymore. I quit
Brit:Uh, that's funny. I sort of, I got similar vibes from him. I was, I like was mess. I've been like messaging him a little. I like, and similarly, like, could tell there was just some sort of discount, but I, I was similar a table flipping moment for me. I'm just like, what. Okay. First, I gotta figure out what's in this Turbo list. And then I gotta figure out if KO is really the only deck like that,
Brent:Exactly. Exactly. Like if P is the only deck then, then I guess we don't have to spend a whole lot of time working on this.
Mike:what.
Brit:one, you know, it's one that, I mean, you can talk about it from a variety of different angles, I think, but at least, at least where I started is really just thinking about like a, you know, I guess Natalie had a funny treat tweet that just referred to it as an Australia moment. And I think there's some, uh, something to that, just in the sense that like, You know, I do think that like, you know, if we're gonna just talk pretty generally here that like, I think the consensus more or less is that like Europe is Europe is the best. But then like the question then is, but is like, is, is the play percentage, you know, is there a higher percentage of good players in Australia? Like, you know, or something to that effect, there's just, there is always something interesting to the way that their tournaments and their Meta game shake out like this. And there's peculiar to me. And like one, one, obviously there aren't as many players and two, like for how few players there are. It's also interesting to me that they all, they're all so comfortable playing the same deck as each other. I feel like they would be more like, you know, a little more, not like factions necessarily, but like a little more like one, one upsmanship or something like that. I don't know. I was thinking a good sort of funny story. I might have told it on the podcast, but. Like Arkansas states a couple years ago, like Sam Chen and I were down there together. We both had decided to play plasma together, but neither we, and both of us played tech against each other without telling the other person.
Brent:uh,
Brit:So, you know, I guess so if that's the sort of Maia, Elian sort of things going on for us, like, I guess maybe Australians are just nicer. I don't know. I, you know, I've met a game, I've done that before I played same 60 as Ty at like a, and I took a out to tech sociopath.
Mike:Right.
Brent:definitely there, there's a like, uh, I mean, I think just like the last Australia regional with Mew, there's a little bit of, yeah. Uh, the top Australian players all played, uh, uh, like the best deck and it was like DDG, uh, times a million or whatever. Right.
Brit:Great.
Brent:Very, very strong vibes of like best players all play in the same 60.
Brit:even before that, like even too, like, not even like the Mew Mew was kind of an interesting case of like this tournament kind of being at the very beginning of the format when we're, we're pretty speculative in our, our Meta game, we don't know like, what's good, what's bad. And there's like, oh, here at low and behold, like, have they all, like Natalie wins with M when we're all talking about Mew is clearly the best deck. And like, aha here comes PKI at a win, like things like that. And I know they, they all played, uh, RCS speed drill at, uh, later. Like, I don't remember if that was also a regional or a special event, but again, kind of just the same, the same player group playing what was like pretty clearly the best deck or like a top two deck kind of scenario. But yeah, it is very interesting to me, just like, I don't know for how good they are and how small their scene can be sometime I'm always very impressed. Both with. They're they're the list himself and they're on technical play. Like obviously Henry's our currently current world champion still. So, you know, so there's some news that Australia is like super good at the game, but there's definitely a time period when, like, I don't know, Mikey, can you think of, like, I don't have really ever to see Australia as being like terribly relevant in the like 2004 to 2008 and kind of 2012 to 2016, following that, like, like I know Marcus, Raj and he's was sort of more of a judge figure even then. And that's kind of all he is now. Um, but yeah, it's.
Mike:I don't think, Yeah. I don't think Australia's been super, I hate to use the word relevant and I, cuz it's like, it feels like so negative, but Yeah. there hasn't been like world class, consistent world class players and performances from them since really, probably like when Henry Ron, it was Crobat it probably started happening a couple years before Henry won, but that was the first like big thing, right. That an Australian did. Um, but now I feel like since then people have recognized how strong, uh, at least that small group of players are, you know, the top 10 players, whatever, from that.
Brit:Yeah. I feel like I had heard of like Taiwan maybe a little bit, like early, like kind of around the Dawn of the, the modern area or what have you, like, that's a name I've, I've known for a little while I think. And, uh, Brent to has been very good for a long time too. Um, but yeah. Yeah, just in terms of like world's placing, I'm kind of drawing a blank on like famous Australians who like top Florida worlds or something like that, but I'm sure there's a couple that I'm just not thinking of.
Mike:Yeah,
Brit:I guess, I guess just one sort of, you know, thing to cap that off. I do think that like American players are sometimes sort of like, like ignorant to the data, I guess, in terms of just like, ah, America's the best look at how many worlds they've won or something like that when you just like, well, look at the data and just look at how many Americans are like at those tournaments. Like we're always the biggest, the biggest player base. Usually by quite a bit, like definitely less as, as the world has had more and more incentive to travel. I feel like our that's, we've shown ourselves to be weaker and weaker as, as there've been more reasons to play against us. But like, yeah, there's just, you know, because a lot of, for the most part, at least there's always kind of this back and forth, like Japan would win it and then us would win it and then Japan would win it and kind of something like that seemed to happen here and there. Um, pretty consistently in the early oh four to 2010 era, roughly in that time period, like.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Like other than the like Tom Russ in 2007, trying to think of like the European that won.
Mike:Yeah. I agreed. Um, alright, so let's talk about Pia So I know you guys talked a lot about Pia. week. So I'm curious to get Brit, especially you, your initial thoughts on the P both. Cause I mean, obviously there was the Turbo and that's probably where a lot of our discussion will be, but there was. a very significant amount of P Inteleon as well, like Henry played P Inteleon list. Um, and they're all like, you know, more or less what we've been seeing. It didn't seem like the Inteleon list had anything too crazy in them. Um, but yeah, as, as the three you've played the most out of the three of us, so what, what do you, what do you thinking? What do you got.
Brit:I'm really kind of conflicted on the Turbo sort of build as, as a concept. I do think that it's hard to know and I, I, I don't have the data to sort of back up a lot of this, but like, I, I do think, or at least I'm willing to offer this kind of like as a cursory analysis and that, like, I think that like the Turbo builds are. Was sort of a perfect thing for like Australia in so far as like Australia, I think because it's a smaller tournament. You, I think just have a lot more your, your, your prediction, power and your sort of agency and sort of your ability to build your deck, I think is just all it's so much stronger. I think you can really just nail down the Medicaid better because it's smaller somewhat naturally. Um, and so I think that the Turbo build is better. When you have those matchups, like sort of down, there's just like, there's, I think fringe decks that are gonna beat the Turbo list that wouldn't beat the Inteleon list. And so, but I think that's okay. Like when, you know, just like, okay, here's what people are playing. Here's the matchups like, okay. If someone plays RCS on, I guess I lose. Um, and you know, like the smaller your tournament is the less likely that is to happen. The more likely you're kind of only gonna spike, uh, Meta game decks round after, after round. Um, and I think that's just kind of my take, I, I don't think, or at least I'm willing to wait on saying like, this PKI is the best or this Pia is the best, but I think for kind of the Meta game that they were, and I guess this is really sort of like a safe and lazy answer too. Maybe not all that sort of informative, but I think that, like, I, I don't feel like I would feel comfortable playing the Turbo list in, into like an N a I field. It might even still be fine for Milwaukee, but I think that just like, and this tends to be the case for any like Turbo build where you just kind of like, you. You, you remove answers again and again and again, and sort of just streamline the consistency. Um, and so I think there's like weird fringe stuff that probably really is gonna want on, um, Pia certainly on the Turbo version, if it like doesn't start super strong. And I think even as sort of like powerful and obviously fast, these Turbo lists could be like, I don't think they're like, um, like dead draw proof. I think you can still like easily fizzle with these lists. Like I've, I've played lots of these decks before and even quite a few in the past couple days with similar engines or just like straight up using the same thing. And like, sometimes you just like Mew into nothing scoop up Mew, nothing like just lose Crobat for three, nothing like, and then you just pick up your cards. Um, and yeah. And so like the, I mean, I guess just to talk conceptually, I think that like what, what's been an interesting part of this format and in the last format too, is that. It's just kind of been so much on the first turn kind of, almost regardless of the deck that you're playing, you've discuss, there's so much like of an, like honest on you on your first turn to just like do the thing. And that's usually like benching a lot of Pokegear Pokegear and so like, and the di is almost kind of like a soft answer to that. Like with the di you need like, kind of one less piece, because you're able to secure like your one, um, your one basic. And so it no longer becomes the case that like, you've gotta stick like two RCS and some so will like, no, like DIY and one RCS will hopefully get you there. And that's, that's kind of the logic behind it. I think that it's kind of like, it really helps in this format where that, that turn to knockout, whether you're RCS, whether you're a PIO, you know, whatever the deck may be. If you can block that from happening, it just gives you, I think, sort of an advantage or some staying power in a game that you sometimes don't have. If you just get, if you're attacker, you, you want attacker goes down. Um, the turn you bench in, and then you're just always sort of failing because you couldn't stagger them and you could only ever get them in play and then blah, blah, blah. You never evolve. Um, and yeah. And so I think too, like obviously some of these other lists are gonna have like, well, I mean, I guess, and part of that too, is the Turbo list. Isn't quite as linear as turbulent can be sometimes like, sometimes it's just like the trainers and the one attack and we kind of have a lot of attackers here. And so that's really convenient too. You've got the soy KO, just kind of the same thing, but just, uh, faster, not evolution and has the utility of drawing on top of the Stary too, which kind of just naturally answers some problems that like Pia has and, and the ability to kind of take a different kind of knockout on a different kind of threat. Um, yeah, that's a lot. Keep
Mike:It's. Yeah, no. Um, I am curious, so clearly the Turbo list one, but when I was watching I, so I didn't watch it live, but I was watching, um, I watched top eight and top four so far, and I was watching Azul stream and it seemed like a lot of people thought that the Inteleon version should be favored against the Turbo version. Um, but obviously that's not what we saw, but that's kind of what some of the thought processes. And I don't know if you had any insight into that. If you think one is favored against the other. Yeah.
Brit:well, I mean, I have, one of my coworkers is playing Pokegear Pokegear and we were sort of talking about this earlier. And I think that like, I just think the Turbo version would still be better because again, I think so much of the way the matchup plays out, just depends on what you're able to do on that first turn. And I would just think in theory, the Turbo deck, given that it just sees so, so many more cards is going to be all the more likely to just get, get that bench that it wants on the first turn. Um, whatever that may be, whether that's like double Pia and some stuff like one Pia and di I just think the probability of them to get where they want to get on the first turn is much higher than, um, the Inteleon deck cuz the Inteleon deck like has these concerns has these same, like I'm I need more than one P on the bench. On top of just like, well, my deck doesn't work. If I also don't get a bunch of, so on the bench at the same time. So it's just like, it just seems like, and it always, we, we come back to this a lot, this, this kind of, this basic question of simplicity, like which version needs to do less to accomplish the thing, you know, or however you wanna put it. And I think that just like, that's. That's just it like, I, you know, because I have Mew, you know, I have some basics that are live starters and just like all these other things. Whereas the other version is just like, I open with a lot of level balls. Great. Like, I'm good to go, but like, what do you do if you don't like, what, what do you do in those games where you open like one quick ball? Well, you just keep calling and that's it. Or, you know, and at least with say Urshifu or something, keep calling has the benefit of being able to get your attacker. Um, and that maybe that will just segue us into, like, I just do not really like Inteleon right now. It just, because I feel like my debt, so many of my decks need all these other things for them to go well on the first turn, it just like becomes increasingly harder to like commit the time or the soles and things like that. I've just been playing a whole lot more like chin Chino and a lot of things. Um, because I just feel like I don't, I don't need as many to get going and I can, I'm kind of like. I can start doing thinning my deck and doing other things like right from the get go. And like also too, we have, we have other concerns with Roxanne. Um, obvi, Chino and BI are good against Roxanne, whereas Inteleon. Might not be, it's gonna depend on what, what you actually draw. Um, and then there, the Jolteon Avery too. I just, I feel like there's a lot of cards that are really good in the format now, and they're not good because they're good against Inteleon, but they are conveniently also very good against Inteleon and that's part of why they're good. And so that's why I think that like, like Avery, for instance, is very strong against Reggie Gigis, which is gonna be a live deck. I think moving forward the next two weeks, um, after we saw do well in Japan. Um, and just little things like that. Um, well, Avery is good here. It's also really good here and that's just like, that's something I've played a lot with, um, PLA test a lot of like Chino, Pia, and being able to just sort of like meaningfully play around Avery while also having my Manaphy and things like that. I just feel like. There's just a lot. The Inteleon like has to commit to it and it just doesn't feel like in the same place as it did before. I just feel, it feels just so much weaker to me right now. And I don't know if, I mean, grin, Joe might be a part of that too. There's just more, there's more things out there at least one more, very relevant card that that's trying to knock them out consistently. Um, but yeah, it just seems like, I don't know. We, we had our good run with Inteleon the last year, but as it's sort of gearing up to rotate, I feel like maybe it's finally been out class. I'm not sure. Like it's, I don't think they're quite the same engines. Like I don't think it's like, oh, we just play Mew shoes or however people want to call it instead. Like, I don't, I don't think it's just like a, it's not, um, just transitivity I think they're different decks when you, when you talk about them as a consistency engine, but. and obviously I don't, I don't think the Turbo list is gonna work with everything it needs. It needs to work with something that wants energy's in the discard. Otherwise the grin, I don't think really does anything for you other than draw a couple cards, which obviously is good, but it's also good for these other reasons.
Mike:Yeah, well, okay. So there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of ways we can go from here. Um, based on what you've talked about and things that we should talk about. So maybe the first thing based on EX what you just ended with other Turbo decks. Um, so I dunno if You guys saw Christian Franco Christian, Franco's been putting out some really nice tweets recently and,
Brent:You know, ever since he got locked out of SaaS and just sat on that picnic bench outside of SaaS
Mike:Yeah. He's just been, uh, really giving a lot of insights about the game freely to people on Twitter. And it's been really cool. Some of the things I had thought of and some of them I had not, um, applying this Turbo engine to a bunch of other Pokegear was something that I was like, just starting to think about. And then I saw his tweet and I was like, wow, you did the work for me. Thanks, man. Um, so some of the ones that he mentioned were the, let me pull it up. But the first two that come to mind are, uh, Gengar VMax and Carbonite, VMax. Uh, Gengar VMax actually. Got with the Turbo build, got 10th, I believe, uh, in Australia. And it was pretty much the same thing. It was four Mew, two, two Gengar, two Crobat, uh, it did play one Hoopa and one Glar Moltres kind of similar to the one Stary and one sweet KO in the Pia deck. And it played Gria and as Brit said, you really want Greninja in a deck like this, but you also want to be able to play something that can get energy from the discard. So you have dark patch, right. And then Carbonite VMax, um, has the Melmetal saucer. So Gria though it can attack still has, um, quite a lot of usefulness. Um, and so,
Brent:every, every deck that gets value outta putting energy in the discard gets value outta reading Gring and, and there's, there's dark patches for Melmetal and for dark, uh, these days.
Mike:Yeah. So. I re I recommend, um, the solicitors go to check out that list. I feel like there's probably some things that we can learn from the P list to make this list a little bit better. For example, it should probably play Zigzagoon. I think Gengar math is a little bit better than POS, but I don't know. I just feel like if you're playing a deck, like this seems quite good, you probably want four nets, uh, probably wants to include at least one di um, things like that. So, uh, but I think this is a really cool idea, Carbonite. Um, like I said, similarly seems pretty good. It has, um, fruit treat has access to Melmetal saucer with a choice band and his Zigzagoon. It can one shot all the V stars, the. Downside of Carbonite is that it's Mew. Matchup is not very good, probably. I mean, I'd have to test it out, but my guess is it wouldn't be that good, whereas Gengar takes a very nice Mew matchup. So Gengar right in theory, um, has 2 50, 2 80 can KO the KO, all the V stars KO Mew is pretty easily, so that's something, uh, definitely look into. Right. Let's see. I have to tweet up now, what else does he have? Malamar VMax. And that kind of makes sense too, right? Um, can just like use Marnie dark patch. Yeah. Um, I would bet that that would be weaker than Gengar with this, um, with this engine, but who knows. And then, uh, Samara also kind of similar to Pia, It's just kind of the dark version of it seems. Okay. And then the last one that he has on there is ice Rider. Which I guess, you know, it also hits kind of the same math that Gengar does, but the fact that you have to discard energy, that's The one I'm most skeptical about.
Brit:worst one by far, like none of, none of what Turbo does answers any of the problems that ice Rider has,
Mike:Right, right, right, right.
Brit:or at least not without creating new ones.
Mike:Yeah. So, but maybe there's some, and this is just a start, right. I mean, there could be other Pokegear Pokegear, uh, that are not on this list. So I think it's an interesting engine to be able to, to explore and look at. It's nice that it's nice that we have other engines that we can explore. You know, we thought that, you know, my prediction was that BI is just gonna be the engine and BI is not doing very well right now, but Inteleon also doesn't seem great as, as Brit said for, uh, I agree for similar reasons.
Brent:So I think the thing that we have to talk about next is then there will probably a bunch of tournaments in America where PE did terrible. I, and, and I think. Maybe that as much as the, the mail board result is what like made my son say, what am I supposed to do with Pokegear
Mike:well, so what, so what, what tournaments we talking about? We have the card trooper 5k. So
Brent:yeah, I, I was thinking of the card trooper 5k, when I say that, cause obviously Pokestats did a good job of highlighting how here's another tournament full of super competitive players happening 60 seconds after that tournament and Paia is literally nowhere to be found.
Mike:Let's see. The first Pia is 18th.
Brent:Yeah. Like, like out of 123 players, you can't even pull a top 16 finish playing AAL.
Mike:Yeah. And it doesn't seem so, like my first question would be like, are, is everyone playing already playing like an insane amount of Pia hate? Um, yes and no. I mean, so the RCS list that made, um, top eight.
Brit:one thought I did have one thought I do feel good about, I guess, as, as a Meta game prediction for Milwaukee is I think people are going to overcompensate with lightning 100% this weekend, whether that's text like full on like Tapu, Koko, RCS, or something, like don't know exactly what it's gonna be, but I guarantee it. And that's, I guess part of my, like, I guess just to speak of my own, just like issues and difficulties. Cause I don't, I don't think the lightning cards are that good. Like I don't, it's just, I don't think it's very reliable answers and that's like part of why I just, I don't know what to play like on paper. I feel like. You know, I put ryku and some Hans in my deck and I'm good to go. And it's just like, has not been testing that way for me. If the P are good and play tool jammer when they need to. And things like that.
Brent:Uh, that's I, I know we, we talked last week about how, uh, we felt like our results playing just a, a single zero and a single lighting energy was going okay. And now we're like, it must not be good enough because surely other people did that. It didn't work.
Brit:I mean, I, I, I feel good about that because I have done that and I'm telling you it's not good enough.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, uh, yeah, it, it, it must be much harder, but, but yeah, I think you look at these lists and like they have about what you'd expect. I mean, Jake PIL who won the, uh, trooper tour tournament played a Raku, the Zoroark and won lightning energy.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, this is like a deck that, well, I really like this deck in general, but this is a type of deck that doesn't run any other two prize Pokegear. So it's very different from RCS, for example, um, throwing in a couple lightning things, because RCS is losing the prize trade against PE is just trying to jam in something to help offset that. But this deck was already like the, this, this type of deck. Builds itself to win a prize trade. If that makes sense, like RCS is trying to like really like slap a bandaid on, but this is the type of deck that is literally designed to win a prize trade by using weaknesses correctly. And it has a way not to just use weaknesses correctly to one shot as well, um, in the Glar Moltres. Right? So you actually, if you have Azul or a IKU, that's potentially KO two PKS, and then you force them to one prize. They literally, can't not go to one prize and then a Glar Moltres can KO, uh, the last PIAA. So I think it depends on the type of deck. Um, but that also speaks to the power of Tokyo that you can't throw, even in a very strong core deck, like RCS throwing these cards in there is still, probably not good enough. Um, and you have to build like your whole game plan around. Luckily this, luckily this Inteleon dark box, whatever we wanna call it, type of deck. It already had that game plan for Mew, right? Like Mew is very similar and that Mew just out trades and out speeds, anything. And so you really need to design your whole deck around trading efficiently with it based on weakness. And so this shell was already there and then we just kind of adapted it. I like this deck, by the way, I think this deck is gonna be extremely popular this weekend. I would be shocked if, um, I think this has potential to be like a top three deck, maybe a top four deck in popularity because it seemingly is one of the very, very few decks that takes favorable Mew and PA matchups. And I don't know, I haven't even played it against PA. So maybe me saying that is favored is, um, going a little bit too far, but. I don't know. It seems like it could. Hmm,
Brent:you know, it's interesting. I was just going and looking at the, uh, at that 18th place, uh, uh, finish for, to try to understand what happened to the calculus that, uh, played and like, it's pretty interesting actually. So drew ho drew ho had two losses, he lost to a, uh, RCS Maar deck and he lost to Thomas Brophy playing, uh, Paia. And you're. You know, I mean, hard, hard to, hard to maybe look at, I mean, the, the guys that did well at the Astro radiance or at the card trooper 5k like that, that first place list. He didn't play any Pade EX
Mike:Hmm. Yeah. Oh really? Oh, interesting.
Brent:uh, Nicholas Shockley. Who, who came in second with RCS, uh, uh, dark. He played no. Oh, oh no, I'm sorry. Jake PCH played one. Pia
Mike:Okay.
Brent:and Nicholas Shockley who came in second, played zero. Pia PR played zero Pia third, like, like what's weird. Is there just wasn't a lot, like for some reason, those decks didn't quite navigate their way to the top table or Charles Stevenson who came in fourth, played one Paia. Like, you know, I mean, obviously when top eight has no PE in it, obviously index did well. Didn't play that much. Wasn't top tables.
Mike:Yeah. And I mean, like I've said this before, but it, it is worth just saying real quick, the difference of. All the Australian, all the best Australians played Pia, all the best players at this event did not play Pia.
Brent:Yeah. So does that mean PE is the best deck or does it mean that, you know, it's, it still just continues to be the best players play. Yeah,
Mike:right. Yeah,
Brent:I,
Mike:I, dunno. I'm really, while, while I'm looking at this page, um, I know there was a stream for this, right? So I, I wanna go back. I don't know if they streamed the top format of Pratt versus Jake PIL. Cause I feel like the Reggie deck should be quite strong against the Inteleon box deck and pram lost him. So I don't, I don't really understand that that
Brent:I was thinking, I was thinking the exact same thing too. And I wanna say, uh, frame tweeted. So we'll, we'll pause the pod for two seconds so I can try to track down tweets about this very event. Here we go. Uh, Michael Pybas lost in top four, not playing heavy ball caught me in top four when I prized double rock game one and Aus, I couldn't fish out in four prizes in game three.
Mike:yeah, not playing heavy ball
Brent:And then he tweeted here's the list heavy probably.
Mike:yeah. So part of the discussion that Brent And I had last week pre pretty significant chunk was about the Reggie deck and some things that I liked and didn't like, In builds. Um, so yeah, heavy ball is very good. I think I mentioned last week, I might even play two um, cause you often prize a a Reggie or two, so it just kind of becomes a quick ball, even if you don't need to fish something out of the prizes. So I think playing one or two, and as we saw the Turbo list ran two heavy balls. So, um, obviously they, I mean, I guess they're similar in that if they prize OCIA they need to get it out. If they prize Gria they need to get it out. Um, I feel like Reggie's is kind of similar, so you definitely need one then I, and I kind of like too as well. Uh,
Brent:card. Like technical is.
Mike:yeah. Um, some other stuff that we talked about was for ordinary rod and pram does have the four ordinary rod seems really, really good. Um, we talked about this. Supporters being pretty weak overall. Like, I didn't really like anything except research. And I mentioned wanting to try Pokegear and pram does have a couple Pokegear along with two Cynthia's. So I feel like that's probably a nice medium that I'll give a shot. Um, we talked about the other Reggie Drago and how I didn't like it and pram did not play it. So that's cool too. Now, some things that are different from prams list, um, he plays two Path to the Peak in three stormy mountains. I didn't really like stormy mountains very much. And I started testing out Juba life stadium. Um, but I do like the idea of Path to the Peak right now because of RCS D Adon, which seems to be coming back into the Meta game. And you can't beat Aldon without like you've you just can't hit it. So you need probably at least. One or two Path to the Peak for that. Uh, I also just mentioned in general, you want at least four, I think you need four stadiums because you, I think clap stadium is. not a bad card right now, and I wouldn't be surprised for things to start playing that. So, uh, having out to that, as well as the, the new stadium, the crystal beach stadium, what's that called temple Temple of, yeah. Yeah. temple of SUNO. So like, those are both like pretty good cards just generally in the Meta game. So having a lot of outs to those is important. Uh, what else is different? Oh, he played, so he played three Reggie licky, but he played one of the other one. And I think that one's attack is one 20 to a bench Pokegear Pokegear
Brent:this is the new, uh, um, ice cube counter,
Mike:right. Right. Or that's what I was gonna say. Yeah. So.
Brent:boss it and then you kill it
Mike:Or escape rope as well. So like Ross or escape rope, and then hit it with the Reggie. Like, I think that makes a lot of sense. You still, um, I mean, I guess you could beat flying Pikachu in the same way. You just, uh, you have to bring it back up with, with, uh, and then hit it with red rock. Um, so I guess you probably need a escape rope. I think like otherwise the escape ropes are okay. They're probably not the worst thing, but scoop up net is really good in the deck. So you can't really fit for scoop up net to a escape rope. So you definitely have to drop an, a scoop up net, which kind of sucks. But I think escape rope is probably like an okay card in general. Um,
Brent:with the Reggie lick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is, is, is the era of ice cube already over like, I know that was like a really popular card for like two days. It was like, it's like a city's be or something, you know?
Brit:Yeah, it's pretty bad. I think. Like it's one of those cards where it's just like, yeah, I answered them on paper. And then it just like, you just like similar experiences with the flying Peak ChuChu or something too. Like, if that's your only answer. In fact, I had this game, the same game earlier today, but, uh, Alex Schmank had like the tweet, the picture of his, his Pikachu attacking the it's just like, like you just deck each. Um, and it's just like, yeah. Or if they play like a single or if they, if they decide to for it's just like, if no one knows what it does, I guess it'll beat them.
Brent:Right, right. Yeah. But I, I feel like, I feel like all of the Reggie players now know it's a thing and they're like, okay, I just put in these two ropes and it's fine.
Mike:Um, the last thing I'll kind of say about Reggie is. when we talked last week, Brent, I was like, Reggie's pretty good. Like, it's actually a really good deck. and uh, the more I play it, the more I realize like how powerful it is, if people are not really respecting it that much. So there are lots of good cards that you might play in your deck anyway, that are also very strong against Reggie, namely clap stadium and Avery. And those are pretty good cards in general. Um, and so the fact that they're strong against Reggie's is annoying, but if people aren't really playing those cards, I think Reggie is really, really good. And we saw you guys mentioned before it won the Japanese tournament as well. I don't know, if I've seen that list yet, but, um, not super surprised. The deck is pretty favored against a lot of the VMax and V star decks. Uh, it's just a little clunky. Um, if you can start attacking. If you can start attacking turn two, you're usually gonna win the game. If you start attacking turn three, it's, a little bit close, but there's some games where you don't even attack turn three, and then you almost always lose those games. So, yeah, I dunno. I don't.
Brent:it's interesting that I feel like, uh, there's a single prize deck in the meadow where you have a hope of finishing three.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.
Brent:Like, like weirdly you're like, well, you know, we are gonna probably finish three games by play this deck.
Mike:it could. I mean, for a lot of reasons, but especially the, you can know pretty quickly if you're Yeah,
Brent:Right. Right. If it, if it's turn four and you're, you're not sure you let's go to
Mike:yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, the Mew matchup is the one like popular matchup that I quite difficult still. Like I think it's probably slightly favored for Reggie's, but I don't think it's. Very favored at all. Um, they have a lot of counter play with, you know, using Mewtwo at the Right. time and, uh, or choreo makes sure it can make your math a little weird. Um, so I'm sure Path to the Peak helps a little bit there, but
Brent:Yeah. I, you know, I haven't tested with the, this or Reggie with the one 20 tonight, but I wonder if that helps some of that.
Mike:yeah. Yeah, that's true. Cause you can more easily go like 3, 2, 1 in prizes or something like that.
Brent:Right. And, and if, if you don't, if you don't like boss, uh, Mewtwo to turn one, like there there's a lot of stuff you can do. Right.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So, so if tournaments tomorrow, what do you guys play?
Brit:Dark dark bar, Turbo, dark, I guess. I don't know, Turbo, dark, or, uh, the deck that Mike was talking about, just like a answer box kind of thing. Like, I don't have any testing with that. I played a lot. I played it last week. Liam was playing something similar. Things did well over the weekend that were very similar to things. Liam was playing against me. And I just like, it's one of those things. I just, I don't believe in it at all, like in my head, but like, and I on paper, I, I see, I see its appeals. Um, and so
Brent:mean, ironically, I think Mike beat him so bad, uh, uh, in, when they were testing it that he's like, those decks are all bad.
Mike:Well, it, it, I was also playing like a pretty vanilla RCS Inteleon, which may not really be a thing anymore. Um, Hmm.
Brit:Stefan talked about it in his channel fireball article, like last week. And it's, I think a Meta game call at the end of the day, but like thinks it's fine. If I think if you catch the Meta game, I don't know. I've just, I've never had luck with these RCS deck. I've I've talked about it so many times on the podcast and I've I've yet to be wrong in my own testing, I cannot be Mew with RCS unless I play dark Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear every other game I play. It's just, you just cross your fingers and hope path works, and that's just it. And that's just not a reliable strategy. I played one earlier and I like rock Sander them just like straight into the nuts. So like, it doesn't even matter. Sometimes I just can't do it. I need, I need, I need Kiara and I need baby Mew traces. Otherwise I've got nothing. I.
Brent:you, Mike? What's the play
Mike:If it was tomorrow, I'd probably play. Reggie's like, it's the deck. Uh, it's Crobat, it's not the deck I've played the most, but I've played enough with it that I feel pretty comfortable. Uh, I like prams list. I might take, you know, change a couple things, but
Brent:you gotta put in a heavy ball.
Mike:yeah, I definitely gotta put in happy ball. I gotta ask him, maybe I'll message him and ask why he played the, um, the powerful energy. I, I haven't really found where the math for that is very helpful. Um, I guess, no, not even. I was just thinking like, maybe it's helpful verse Mew, but it's not helpful. Verse. If they have a or KO out, you need choice band, the energy's not enough. And if they have a or KO out, you band is enough. So the only situation gets me where it's helpful is if you don't have band, but you have the energy, but I dunno, that seems weird to me. So I gotta ask him why he plays that energy. I'd I'd rather just play. Like another capture or another speed lightning, I think. Um, but sorry. Anyway, but yeah, I'd probably play Reggie's. Uh, I do like the frost Mew deck that got ninth is very similar, very, very, very similar to the lists that I have been messing around with. And I think that deck is fun and pretty good, but it's not, it just always feels like so much to get up. Like you need like double, double SN frost, Mew, you need some mentality on stuff and then you have bigger Gria if you need Manaphy as well. You just like your board's just always full with, with
Brent:right. If everybody's playing Avery to counter Reggie's, you're like I'm gonna play a deck that's even more board dependent and see how it goes.
Mike:so I think right now my strategy for N a I C might be if Reggie doesn't do very well in Milwaukee, I'm probably just gonna sleeve up Reggie. Then if it does do really well in Milwaukee, then I'll probably look elsewhere. Yeah.
Brit:Yeah, I think red chase is a really good play. Like I, I think it's good. I don't think, um, it's as bad to the sort of text as people were sort of initially thinking like it's weak to things like Avery and horn, of course. But like getting those in conjunction is pretty hard with, without Inteleon or something like that to Fe them exactly when you need them.
Mike:And, and with four ordinary rod, you recover pretty well from Avery. And so your opponent really has to play multiple Avery for it to really drain your resources. Um, cause like you're playing four rod, but often. Like one or two rods just kind of go to waste. Maybe you research them. early. And so if your opponent, let's say you're, let's say you're chilling with a rod in your hand and your opponent was gonna knock out your actives. Maybe you're gonna rod one Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear back. Let's say they Avery that turn as well. Now you have three Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear in the discard. So you actually get more value out of that rod. Like that's happened quite a few times. Um,
Brit:And
Mike:so yeah, they really have to play like two, like two is even like doable. What if they play three it's really bad, but, um, like two is even pretty doable.
Brit:I think you can kind of do that and cause like that's I guess, and one, maybe one other thing where it's talking about in like, how do we construct these Turbo lists? And so obviously a big, a big player in P is the Melony and there aren't, there aren't any really sort of. for Melony. So I think you could, you can potentially play just Avery is the only other supporter you play on top of boss, potentially. It's actually what my, like the dark one I'm doing, I have one research and one Avery with four bosses orders, but I could play three Avery if I really wanted to no doubt. And it's like, doesn't outside of like the Crobat, which of course is just one return. Like you're not, you don't have, you don't like burn through your deck, like these, like the, and things like that would, so it's okay to get these giant hands. Um, so just your plus three, ain't so bad as weird as it might sound sometimes. So.
Mike:Yeah. And like I said, Avery's pretty good against other things in the format too. Like it's good against Mew. Pretty good against Inteleon EX it's good against Pia in, in some instances. Um, so yeah, Avery's not bad.
Brent:Uh, as long as we're talking about, should I ask you guys how popular alga is going to be in Milwaukee?
Brit:I just don't think people thought it was serious. And then it's just like the, the Meta gave me shifts. Like, I don't think we even had time to talk about the, on the podcast. We've just, we've evolved already straight onto the P version. And I just. The, the Dago version is so cheesy. Like, I don't think it does anything if it doesn't just win the game off the, when it attacks you, um, more or less like, like obviously it doesn't have to take the six prize on your second on your extra turn, but like, if you kind of just like lock the tempo up, it shouldn't be usable. But yeah, I would just think that these other Turbo options are probably better at the end of the day, or at least there's like other options to them. I'm not sure Doug is really interesting. And at least in my online games, it's like kind of hard to play against. There's not a lot you can do. They're gonna run you over or they're not, I will say, I guess on that note that it does the not seems to happen more often. I, I haven't lost them too often and I've had plenty of games where they've like, if they, if they had just finished the combo, they would beat me, but they just end up passing, you know, on their fourth Mew or something like that instead. And I have all in mentioned other Pokegear Pokegear and the game is over. Uh,
Brent:That sounds about right. I mean, it's definitely, uh, your prayers all the way around when, when you, uh, uh, start trying to do the thing,
Mike:I wonder as we were talking about Carbonite, I was thinking like, could you run a one, one to two Carbonite and make that like your Turbo Melmetal deck. It's probably too much to include in the Melmetal deck, but
Brent:right?
Brit:that maybe, I mean, I was playing both Gengar and Samara at one point in this dark deck. I I'm, I'm talking about, so like, I think you could potentially play both.
Brent:I mean, the question is just, are, are you really gonna go for it? Like, I mean, the deal gonna go for it or not. Right.
Mike:That's true. You can't really like half go for It takes a lot of energy.
Brit:Right, right.
Brent:you, yeah. I mean, you, you got saucer in hand and you have like one energy on the dial. You either have to be like, we are going in here or like get on. Right.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:there's, there's there's yeah. There's no like testing the waters or seeing if you're gonna get the dialog this game. Like, I think you have to just completely yellow
Brit:Yeah.
Brent:and you know what props, obviously, to the people who built the, uh, the dial list, because I think most people looked at it and were like, that's never happen. any other stuff that we should talk about, guys? I feel like, uh, that's a pretty good run through of preparing yourself, uh, emotionally for
Brit:Like I've, that's where I am. I don't have, uh, any stronger thoughts cuz I'm, I'm pretty lost myself, but like, I, I feel like, uh, what happens in Milwaukee? I feel like I'll have more, a lot more clarity for N a I C. It's like a, just a weird caught at a weird time with not a lot of time to react to a male born, basically.
Mike:Yeah, I think if I was offering like advice to others on what to play, like Pia seems really strong. I don't think that there's that many good lightning Pokegear so I don't think it's an easy deck to just hard counter. So I think if you were thinking about playing P. I would consider just continue to play it and maybe test out the different builds to see which one you like better now that you've seen some different things. Um, I think Mew is still incredibly strong as well for obvious reasons. Uh, I think the Inteleon counter deck is probably also extremely good. And I would probably put that as the, like the third, most popular deck. So both if you're playing it. And if you're just thinking about the Meta, I think that deck should very, very, very much be on your radar. Uh, and then it's really unclear where RCS kind of fits into all this. Uh, and if you feel like you have a good RCS deck, you could probably just play it, but you really gotta, I don't know. It it's such a weird thing. Uh, so I mean, those are kind like the four main things, four main decks, and then I guess Reggies kind be like number five. Um, but I feel like that won't be super popular. So I. I don't think I would worry about teching too much for Reggie's. If you are just kind of like, think about these soft, uh, counters that you might play anyway, as we talk about with Avery.
Brent:There was a lot of like RCS Inteleon decks and RCS, dark decks that did really well at the card trooper tournament. Do you think, like, was that just a function of, I mean, as we discussed, they didn't bump into Paia and like people had ental and that's what they played or like, they, they didn't have access Toia cards. Like why was RC so popular? There was it just like, I, I had this.
Brit:I think, or everyone decided that they weren't gonna buy Pia for the nonofficial first event of the format that they would play. Like I would guess. And like, I think that RCS, Pia matchup in the way they're like normally constructed is like, Fairly dynamic. I mean, as we've been saying, I think sort of, regardless of what happens, the person that goes first always has the potential to win on their second turn. If they knock out the only, if they knock out the one RCS or the one P like that usually just locks up the game. Um, and I think that's where RCS will just will now struggle and struggle in Australia. I think that this Diane really locking RCS out of that boss play is, is really gonna, is what's going to sort of, I think start the down trend potentially in RCS results. I don't wanna say that too confidently cause I RCS easily can adapt, but at least in my sort of current understanding of where the Meta game is like RCS doesn't beat these di plays. I don't think like, I think that so much over RCS power has been is on the, just basically like because of double computer. They're gonna get that turn to boss knockout, like when, when they want. Um, and if they don't have that, like, I just, it's not a convenient way to answer, like, especially within like a two card combo or something like you have to have a rope, you have to have cross switchers. And I think both of those cards are gonna see, start to see more play as a result. But in terms of like reliably ans answering the dancy on your second turn seems hard to do. And I think that just like that's, that's where, where these Turbo decks are just get so much tempo from, by just guaranteeing their evolution, guaranteeing that they need one list thing on the first turn, and then they just like pop off from there. You, you know, the first Pia powers grin and then you manually attach to another Paia for your last two prizes and are just able to go from there's just, again, three, six prizes and three turns after your Turbo. First turn, usually. Yeah, Monday or
Brent:had it.
Mike:Yeah. Um, are we doing a pod next week? Okay.
Brit:Tuesday
Brent:Uh, I could do a pod next week. I think that I, I, I might, I might have to shuffle between Monday and Tuesday, depending on where I am, what I'm doing, but I don't think there's any reason why we can't do a post Milwaukee recap pre in AIC people gonna wanna know.
Mike:Yeah. True. Okay, cool. So maybe we'll
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:okay. Sweet