The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Milwaukee, NAIC, all-in on Mewtwo V-Union

June 28, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 91
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Milwaukee, NAIC, all-in on Mewtwo V-Union
Transcript
Brent:

Have you guys looked at the Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear go set at all.

Brit:

I, I think it's pretty good. I think it like it being a world set. I think it, it definitely will shake up the format.

Mike:

like just enough, right? Like just enough. Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah, like Mewtwo is viable ish at the very least, I think like the incubator card is viable ish. All the radiants are very good. I think all of the radiants will see play, um, in some form, like maybe not in great decks, but like I saw I've seen like a, saw it a week or two ago. I don't remember. Um, but just, it was just a Reggie Gigis or not a Reggie list, um, that just like had the Charizard in it. And like, that seems fine to me. Like I, you know, I guess. Yeah, just like you've got, you've got all the colored energy, all the, the wild carnet energies and you just like whack for two 80 at some point in the game, something like that. Um, and yeah, because you have enough nets and things, and the probability is probably pretty low to start with it. So like, I don't think it will ruin your game, whether it does anything for that deck sort of at the end of the day. I'm not sure.

Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche. Uh, it's everybody's favorite Pokegear Pokegear podcast. We got the whole crew together. It's a Mike Shavis. Me Brent bhalliburton my son Liam bhalliburton is sitting as well. Don't act like you're not here. So, so it's 133%. Uh, we missed last week because, uh, as many people at N a must, no doubt have noted. Mike got the COVID. That's

Mike:

Yep. Got the COVID couldn't make it, but feeling a little bit better excited to do the podcast. I watched almost every single minute of the stream. Cuz what else was I gonna do when I was sick? Um, so I can at least provide that perspective. That's

Brent:

fantastic. I, I watched just a little bit of the stream. I was traveling from Milwaukee down to, uh, Columbus. Brit was having to jam in a quick work week in between. So things were hectic. We thought we were gonna make it happen. If, if the COVID had not happen, we would've figured out how to make it happen, but, but Mike gives a good excuse to, to take the week off and spend the week testing. Instead. We're gonna talk about Milwaukee. We're gonna talk about N a I we're gonna talk a little, probably I guess, about the implications for worlds. Um, but, uh, uh, let's dive and talk about Milwaukee guys. I think what's interesting at a hundred thousand feet is. Milwaukee seemed weird. And then N a C seemed normal more or less in terms of like looking at the

Mike:

true. So actually kind of going off that, my first one of my first questions to you guys was gonna be the Meta game from a spectators standpoint of an AIC seemed very streamlined. A lot of Pia. A lot of our C Inteleon good amount of Mew and not that much else. Was that an accurate portrayal of what people were playing or was it just that those are all the decks that did well, and all of the other stuff did poorly and that's why I didn't see it, or a little bit of both.

Brit:

I would say a little bit of both or at least, you know, maybe somewhat expectedly that the N IIC Meta game was like a lot more centralized than Milwaukee. So people like, ah, maybe P is good. Maybe PKI is bad. I mean, problem. I personally ran into in Milwaukee and I don't, I didn't need to acquire cards for N IIC, but just like none of the vendors had anything in Milwaukee. And I think that just is, you know, largely just a part of the supply demand. They're just not printing enough cards compared to what people are buying. But like, I, I couldn't find E readers. I couldn't find like every single vendor was out of like anything relevant. Um,

Brent:

Pia, like people were, it was like cabbage patch, kids trying to get Pia, these stars in Milwaukee. Like, if, if somebody said that, that they had a penalty view star for sale, it was like all out war. People were trying to get the penalty view star so bad. It was crazy.

Brit:

Yeah, it was like, do, do you remember Mikey at 2011? NAS? I don't know, like ya, everyone needed a Y

Mike:

yeah, yeah.

Brit:

selling hot cakes.

Mike:

that. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that, was it better at N a I C easier

Brit:

I just, I, I didn't run into it because I wasn't trying to track down cards. I, I would guess maybe. I mean, at the very least there's more people, a lot more people at N a. So your avenues to finding cards are probably a little more reliable. Um, but yeah, I just, like, I think that there's just a general problem with the supply chain. And I think even too that, like, this is something I learned, I think in my frustration, I was like, why did none of the vendors have cards? If I were a vendor, I would've, you know, I would've gambled. And I would be here with 800 PAs even, you know, even if I paid more than I probably should have, but I, I guess vendors at events like really don't make a lot of money on selling. They're there to, they're there to buy, buy up your cards. Everyone's selling out, selling out their sorrows for doing poorly and then flipping on what they're buying for more than they're at regionals to make a profit or at least anecdotally, this is what people explained to me. And I was like, oh, that, that makes sense. You know, I didn't really question it, but yeah, I.

Brent:

The, so the only experience I had, we tried to buy PAs. We, I mean, there were like a couple of cards that we bought. We tried to buy some PAs and failed in Milwaukee and, and then after the event, we were able to find a vendor that had some B stars and we hoovered those up in anticipation of N a I, we got to N a I C I'm sure we're gonna talk about this a lot. Brent, put us on YouTube B union. And I was like, okay, that's a card that no vendor's gonna have. Cause like that's an insane card. So I was assuming that I was going to the vendors, looking for the box. Thinking I'm gonna have to buy the, the set or whatever that like the YouTube union came in and I was like, surely one vendor will have it. And I went to all the vendors and none of them had the box, but one of them had like one set of the cards and we hoovered those up like a day before the tournament. And I don't know if other people tried to buy Mewtwo V unions, but, but I assume you you'll only hear tales of sorrow in that regard, because I tried to do that. And, and, you know, Liam in his infinite wisdom today expressed regret that we did not jump on the PT CGO and start arbitraging Mewtwo union the day before the tournament, that really, really was a absolute goldmine opportunity that, that we missed out on, because I know everybody's saying that P C G O is unbearable right now.

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's definitely been an interesting sort of, uh, aftermath of the event. There's like less, you know, like the EX that really did well are not terribly surprising. Like the, the, like Raul Jon Ang, Isaiah, like their, their group really just like kind of improved from towards list, like more or less, I think kind of just like a direct iteration on. I mean, then Azul played the same thing the week before, like, you know, people knew about flying Pikachu already. And so, yeah, it's just, it wasn't terribly interesting. What did, well, it just happened to be a V deck, um, that everyone is interested in now. I know. Yeah. I've just seen lots of good sort of comments and tweets about like how the ladder is just hard now because people are just jamming that deck for fun, more than anything, you know, all the content creators gotta get their video in with it. You know, things like that.

Mike:

saw someone tweet. I think it was Chris Franco. He was like, I'm gonna take a break from playing ladder while people get this out of their system.

Brent:

exactly, exactly. Seems insane. Um, so, uh, I think if we had tried to record this pod last week, I, I would've said, uh, BLIS and DLA, you know, new Meta and you guys probably would've said no, probably not.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah,

Brent:

any reaction, I'm sure you watched some of that stream too. Uh, as you like became sick or something like that,

Mike:

yeah, yeah. I did watch well. So I think one of the reactions that probably led to people being less interested in those decks is it's really easy to play Stary in Paia or RCS Inteleon and improve your matchups against those two decks plussy and RCS Adon significantly. And we saw a lot of people play Stary at N AIC in both of those decks. Um, so I think probably. There was kind of a compounding effect there, people that were considering bliss and Arceus or Adon realized very quickly in their testing, leading up to N AIC, that Stary makes a big difference in those matchups. And then they were put off a little bit because of that fact, and then for the people that still did play it, people literally did play Stary and then they kind of probably got bopped because of that. So, uh, yeah, I feel like that is probably a pretty big contributor, um, to the downfall of those decks.

Brent:

know, my, my like super top level read coming out of Milwaukee was people were, weren't gonna pick up and start playing. Uh, Dodon. But some people would pick up BLIS because when you watch the stream, bliss just looked super fun to.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And, uh, Connor's list was leads better than every other bliss list that we saw. Um, The, the RCS down list was good. It was fine, but it wasn't like that much different from other iterations that we've seen before, but Connor's list was like a lot different than what the standard bliss was. Um, so yeah, I am a little surprised as well that we didn't see a bit more bliss. Uh, I, the only bliss that I know of, even that made day two was Aaron Tarbell.

Brit:

Yeah, he played it in Milwaukee and just, uh, I think kind of fizzled at the end, like had an okay start and just didn't, didn't quite convert into day two, but yeah, like I had, I had another friend that made day two in Milwaukee with Bussy and they did real bad at an AIC, just like, um, they like, they weren't playing tornado, but that's just kind of like all they changed and yeah, it was definitely like, even too like, like Luke Mew, Mew so's for instance, you don't ever really see or people certainly weren't talking about Stary in RCS Inteleon but it's like a pretty good inclusion, especially in there. Like people probably aren't gonna see it coming. If you can keep it hidden.

Mike:

Yeah, well, and there was a significant amount, um, of Stary Arceus Inteleon just on the stream. Like I think, um, I'm pretty sure Tanner Hurley played it. I think that might not be right, but I saw at least two or three people just on stream. Yeah, he did. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And there was at least one other person. Oh, um, Cal Connor, cuz he started one of the games with the star me and it was pretty funny cuz like if his opponent didn't know he was playing RCS Inteleon he didn't know until like turned two or three. That that's actually what it was. Um, so like I saw a number of people on stream playing it so I can imagine it was at least a fairly popular tech in the field.

Brent:

Well, and it only takes, it only takes like, I mean, if you have two of your nine games, people suddenly tech for it. Like you go from 6, 2, 1 to, you know, four for one drop. Right. And you're like, this was a terrible tournament. Right?

Mike:

Yeah. Um,

Brent:

take, doesn't take a huge swing to push people out.

Mike:

yeah, one of the big, somewhat surprising to me is the amount of RCS Inteleon that I saw and what it, cuz it seems like that was very CLO. I mean, Pauly was clearly the most popular deck, but RCS Inteleon felt like a very close second. Um, and that's very surprising. That's, that's probably the biggest difference between Milwaukee and IIC. Um, Like I knew ouris Italian was a good deck. Uh, I think it has a fine Pia matchup if you play it correctly. Um, and whatnot, it has like a great Reggie matchup. It can be played pretty well against all the random stuff. It's new matchup is okay with Roxanne path. Um, the one indicator that I saw that RCT was gonna be significantly more popular was there was one large online event the week before AIC, one of the late nights and RC Inteleon was the most popular deck in that event. And so when I saw that, I was like, huh, okay. A lot of

Brit:

were looking at that data really closely and we're just like, this is looking really good. Like there, there, there, the like last two big online events were all P Inteleon and all RCS Inteleon. And I was just like, I, I was just like, you know, we can't, we know we can't draw two startup conclusions from this, but I was like, I, you know, I referenced some other stuff and was like, after you, I see like, um, whim KO went way up and things like that. And so there's just like, there, there are occasional trends that I think are at least, uh, somewhat, um, useful in making predictions and IRL, even though it's, you know, strictly online. Um, at the very least, I think even, you know, even if it doesn't, um, End up being anything. I think it can gauge, you know, not like, you know, strong enough to make a prediction with statistically, but it, I think it gauges like player sentiments as well at the very least like you see what's going on. I guess even the, the last part of that story too, is I think in one of these events, like RCS, Mewtwo got taught for, and we were also just like, wait, they're onto us.

Mike:

Yeah. I thought that, I think it's, it's really interesting that this online event was actually a much better indicator of the Meta game for N AIC than Milwaukee was, which is cool. Um,

Brent:

I think, I think your assessment of, of how the Meta game centralized is, is pretty accurate. Like, uh, I mean, I, I think one of the things that surprised all of us is like Reggie kind of went away completely,

Mike:

yeah. Brit.

Brent:

which was strange. Um, uh, some of the RCS Inteleon, you know, Liam and I talked about it, the, during that, that middle week, um, we had kind of few Mew up a deck, very similar to what Regan REL ended up playing where like, you know, should you bring BD back? Cause Bres obviously a really hard counter to some chunk of the Meta game. Um, you know, God forbid people are gonna pick up bliss. It doesn't take a whole lot to body that up. Right.

Mike:

I had also, um, made Arceus speed drill lightning list. I didn't have flying Pikachu. I had Zekrom or RKU, but yeah, I think that deck totally made sense for the event.

Brent:

Yeah. Like it doesn't take a whole lot of cards to kind of be able to play that. Cuz you know, once you are CSV star, you can do whatever you want.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah, I,

Mike:

That's what Ian Rob played as well. Yeah,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That's uh, yeah. Recognize there was a, a part of the whole, uh, um, whatever that group is called.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. Sam ended up playing it. He, uh, he called me the day before, because I was talking to Xander Pero about Dialga and that's what Xander ended up playing. And Sam called me, like, should I play this deck? And I was like, well, you know, I, I personally wouldn't wanna play Inteleon deck because I'm too scared of tie in too much. Cuz you know, that's what happened to me at New Jersey. And he is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Then he ends up playing this and he, he starts the tournament 1 0, 3 I was like, maybe see, this is what I'm talking about, man. You gotta be so confident if you're playing Inteleon um, yeah, it's just funny.

Brit:

I think I ran into Sam one, one and three

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

The best tables, the best tables,

Mike:

yeah,

Brent:

uh, um, yeah, you know, I think Diala is another one where Liam played Diala in Milwaukee and like Diala basically nowhere to be found. So, you know, uh, as you said, I think there were a lot of decks that didn't do well in Milwaukee and people were off of them. And then the weird stuff that did well in Milwaukee, I think people felt like they were gonna be counter and the result was only the, you know, three or four kind of acknowledged best decks in the game. Ended up showing up. Right.

Mike:

Yep. Yeah. I mean, if grant manly plays super Meta deck, everybody's playing super Meta deck.

Brent:

That's true. We talked to grant several times, both before Milwaukee, before in AIC and, and every time he is like, well, I tried, I tried to figure out blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But didn't work out.

Mike:

yep.

Brent:

Um, now yeah, the fact that he played Pia in Milwaukee and then RC Inteleon, uh, uh, and then the IC just goes to show, apparently there's no tricks.

Mike:

Yeah. Okay. Before we get into YouTube union, that is actually one other point that I feel like is really, really interesting is that is, is Pia and that how so many different groups of incredible players all ended up on Pia. Um, and you know, their lists were still different. They're starting to converge into a heavier ARITA package, but you know, even, so Jon and Isaiah, and Boari played four ARITA for VIP pass, everyone else kind of ran four IITA, one VIP pass, other stuff and, and whatnot. Um, But I think it's, I just think it's so interesting. Like Gustavo played it. Who's kind of separate from a lot of the other groups toward and Pedro played it, that group, the, we know Bradner and John played it. Um, the Australians played it. Like there's so many different groups of incredible players that all just decided that Pia is just so far and away the best deck, even though everybody knows it, that they should just play it, which I think is not that good. It, it doesn't speak that highly of our format if that's the case, at least from my perspective,

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I've thought about this a lot and obviously kind of the biggest, I think one of the biggest parts of PK is it's like our, like the RCS Inteleon matchup and, you know, just go watch the seniors finals. It's like an interesting dynamic where like, I, I feel like the RC Inteleon is maybe favored, but you know, you just never know how, how much, how you know, much pal can really just blow you outta the water. And so, like, one of the things I've thought a lot about is like, you know, again, you know, I don't think these sort of labels are terribly useful. Um, within Pokegear, but sometimes it can be, it can be neat to draw from. And so Paquis just like such a, like mid-range deck to me and that like, even even more so it's like sometimes, and, you know, look at the history of horror stones sometimes, like the mid-range decks also have like, are very, very aggressive in their first two turns like such that they're like can be aro at their own games sometimes, and don't even need to go into the midrange. But, and I think that's what pakia is, is that it just like, it clearly has like the best, like turn one and two of like every deck in the format, I think like, and again, I think you can argue against that obviously like turn two RCS V star search, you know, double computer search is hard to beat, but as, as the, the way the format has developed, um, you know, not to say that that's not a powerful play, but we've just kind of moved past where RCS was so much about goon belt, KO boss, like on, and as kind of a lot of a big part of, of their turn to plan. And they're playing more of a. Controlling kind of let me stabilize and then I'll do my thing, um, with Sharon's Sharon's care and things like that, but, and that's just why I think Paia is so strong is that it's just like, it's going to pop off on you on the second turn. Like basically, no matter what, like I forget who, who tweeted it, but there's a good, you know, ARITA really just says do anything with in an Inteleon engine. Right? Like it just like get three cards, go get the three cards you need right now, like with searching for the item and then say the stage two shady dealings or something like that. Um, and then, yeah, there's just obviously a lot of power there. And so it just like, whether that's like a really big tempo gr ninja, or just like also doing the, the, but turn to like boss KO, Paquis just so kind of like reliable with that. You know, it's a lot of moving pieces, um, with things like bucket, like, you know, if, if they didn't have bucket and only had energy search, like that would be a big deal. So there's, there's a lot of things that I, I think. Or why Paquis is good, but like, I think it's just, that is that it's just, it's gonna do, it's just gonna be so a little bit stronger than I think RCS is on like the second and third turn and like, hopefully that's enough. Um, you know, or hopefully just like, if they get into the chairman's loop, you can kind of, you can do something else just to still have a chance that winning the game. Um, and then I think, you know, at a more general point, something we've talked about a lot, is that like with, I guess, potentially the exception of the card that Lele have made use of like the lightning, Pokegear just kind of stink. Like, I, I don't, I don't think the lightning counting box has ever really went anywhere, like for good reason. Um, and even too, like the tool Jamer, doesn't seem as relevant in PA as it was. Um, and that's just, again, just like, ah, just like, I guess as they play the lightning, they'll just beat me, but like, it's just like a lot that they need in PA. Again, it's just gonna be so fast that it may just not matter, you know, you know, it takes something like Raku, it just like almost doesn't matter that it trades in the pakia cuz Paia is just. Hit it and kill it too. And the prize, the prizes will be the same or just like now Paia is ahead again. If were they to be the ones who took the first knockout.

Mike:

Um, so two, two points. One immediately from that is I found in testing that the street RCS Inteleon just had a better matchup than if you tried to play lightning things, because your strategy was just. Have your RC SV star active, have an RCS bench and one BLE daze bench. And then you would, you know, Sharon's care loop. And that was just a more effective way to battle Pia and stave off their aggressiveness than trying to Koko them at various times, which I thought was really funny. Um, and it seems like most people also kind of came to that conclusion too, because straight Italian just did quite well. Um, the second funny thing about Pia from watching the stream there, wasn't a ton of P mirrors streamed, maybe like three, three, maybe four I'd have to go back and look, but I have no idea how the mirror mirror plays out. If both people draw well from any of those games, every single one was decided on someone drawing very poorly. So I thought that was really weird.

Brent:

I, I love it tells you a lot about the Meta game composition when you're like, I didn't see a whole lot of P mirror, just like three or four games.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

so much mirror that. I mean, but, but like, you're absolutely right when I I'm sure when the casters were picking the stream game, there were like, well, there's hundreds of P mirrors going on right now.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

So we should try to pick the, not mirrors because top A's just gonna be PE mirrors people.

Mike:

Yeah. It was it's insane though. I was like, I was so hyped for Gustavo versus Isaiah in top eight, because I mean, I really wanted to see the, the union or, or another matchup, but once, once they were picked, it was, I was like, okay, cool. I got two really good players. I'm gonna learn how the Mew really plays out. And then Isaiah, like dead draws the first game, Gustavo dead draws the other two games. I'm like, what the heck? Like, um, and part of the dead draw is like Player that's slightly ahead knowing to Path to the Peak and then like you just completely shut off your opponent draw engine, um, and whatever chance they have making it, you know, making a comeback into the game, but still,

Brent:

any opinions on the P mirror? I know you played a lot of P mirror games with Caden, right? No, no. Is it just who goes first? I don't know. I like, I think, yeah, when you, when you go first, you it's like really difficult to like, um, how do I say? Yeah, like manage getting two pound down. So they only cross which, or KO turns to. Getting Manaphy down. So you don't get radi gr and still like set up SOS. We can just lose. And then like, none of that happens or like, if it doesn't all happen and then you also have to try and keep your skinny, so you don't get one hit,

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

but like yeah, managing all of that is like very difficult. I, you know, the one thing I would say that I thought was interesting was, um, if you think about where, uh, uh, the cul was in Melbourne, one way people tried to fix that problem was they were playing the sweet Coon. And, uh, uh, the, I felt like, um, even though there was like diversity, there was a little more like, uh, regression to the mean, and vanillas of paolis come in AIC and, and like, we tested sweet Coon deck, uh, a fair bit, like if you decide, Hey, I want to go with the sweet Coon. It's really hard. We need so many pieces. And you're like, oh, and also I need this one of Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear. So we're gonna have to ball for it. Like it just turns out there's like it, it's adding an extra moving part and like, theoretically, if you get there, that's great. But it's a low hit 0.2 Prizer. And, and if you don't quite get the numbers, all of a sudden you're like, why'd I do all that.

Mike:

Well, and. Additionally,

Brit:

I could just get to

Mike:

we saw this on stream a couple times, the basic Pia can take the knockouts without too much difficulty as well. And so that's pretty, that can be pretty strong, um, and can do what sweet Coon does at least a good chunk of the time.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. But, but the result is, uh, um, the, the idea of attacking turn one, going second, and calculus kind of went away because people weren't playing.

Mike:

right, right, right, right. Um,

Brent:

Uh, interesting. Um, what else should we talk about? Or should we jump into talking about Brit and his life?

Mike:

yeah, let's do that.

Brit:

guess.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. So Brit Brit played the best deck at the tournament. People.

Brit:

Yeah. And I guess I'll, you know, I guess it's probably best to start with a qualifier. I'm gonna use the word we lot, but I personally did not really contribute a terrible, uh, terrible much, uh, to the stack. It was interesting. Like, it actually seems like they like just kind of solved it on the first draft. Um, Which is, which is, I think maybe an interesting part of the story, but at the very least, I, I was mostly involved because I'm good friends with mace and like have built decks with him for years, was staying with them, you know, which is awesome. I, I just sort really had a phenomenal time at N EIC. I did not enjoy Columbus. Columbus was a little suss this year. Um, but, um, in general it was very good energy. I loved the poker center. Um, staff seemed great. Like the COVID check was just better than. Regionals, I guess, expectedly, like all the stuff was just really well handled. Um, but anyways, yeah. So, um, I guess to start the story is that we were, they, um, being, I don't know, I don't quite, um, have a good sense of when the, um, like mace and Sander Alliance was formed. Um, I don't think they've really worked on decks much this season, but, um, they've just been working on a lot of control concepts, I guess. And, um, I guess being from, you know, both being from the Netherlands and things like that, and also just like having an interest in like playing off Meta, um, It's just like a obvious, like things in common and being able to meeting Sander for the first time and kind of just being able to hear him talk about his own, just like thought process around cards and things like that is, was very interesting. Definitely. I think, um, you know, surely he will be on a lot of podcasts in the coming weeks. You, you check him out there. Um, and I'm, I'm sure you'll be similarly informed, but yeah. And so like, just like any deck or any of these control decks, or even kind of the same story with Frank and whims, um, just, you know, looking at the format very, very particularly, and being like what, like, where is like a common weakness or two, what is something that like, all these decks are doing it once that maybe I can prey on. Um, and so initially the deck that they were working on and this one, I actually tested a fair amount and it, it, it went through more iterations I think, than, um, the Mewtwo union deck did. Um, but were similarly just kind of building kind of like a lot, like Alexander's usual control decks, like not necessarily, um, you know, the super she loop stuff, but more just kind of like war of attritions with gala minds and things like that. And so kind of where the, the deck was initially was, um, or at least the, the hotness they had found on top of this, just the kind of like usual disruption. Um, I guess before I even say that mill tank is like, was kind of the build around for both, both this control deck and, and the Mew too is clearly sting. Um, that certain decks not only is, you know, not just, not necessarily that. They just, weren't bringing the right Mewtwo counter, but like certain decks just really don't have access to good ones. And I think like dark, dark, dark eye is a good example of that. Like, and so like on paper you would think that like, we'd, we'd have a bad dark cry matchup or something like that. Like the Mewtwo is weak to dark. Um, you know, baby Mew trace is so good, blah, blah, blah. Like how don't that? Why, why doesn't that deck have a good answer? Um, but like the thing is with the control deck, you don't take prizes. So like the Mew traces never go online hoops really pretty bad because, you know, you spend resources to, to attack with it any turn and it doesn't even kill the mill tank. So, um, and things like that. And you know, a lot of decks, you know, they could bring cologne, which we. Didn't think they would. And so cologne. So like Frank at this event, for instance, was playing like an ice Rider with Silene and cologne. And I was just like, oh, that's gonna beat us really badly. I hope we don't. I don't hope we don't play him, but in general, like, and so like we played like mace and Sander, uh, not Sander, but Xander played on stream. Um, and that was an instance of just like, it wouldn't have even mattered if they played one cologne. It still would've been a good matchup. But yeah. So back back to the, the sort of initial control deck is like more Pika. There's a more Pika with torment that, um, was called the, the rest of the build around, I would say like there's other, other little ingredients, like, you know, we, they had found that. Against Reggie Gigis. Like if you just, if you played collapse stadium and a psychic energy and Shadow Rider V they just scoop you, they can't do anything to that play. There's no, like, at least in the way the lists are currently constructed. If you got that down, then Reggie's would just be done. And so, you know, with the chaos wheel effect, they, all of their energies can't be attached and you've locked them out of being able to attach energy with, um, Reggie gigas. And so like, obviously some other stuff have to go in that, like, it doesn't quite work in a normal deck. You either have to like play it with a KO or in a control deck. You have Ry or something like that to ensure that like the preexisting energies on board don't foil you. Um, but so with Mor Pika with torment, um, Is really good or at least in theory was very good because, um, you know, most of these vs really only have one attack and not only do they only have one attack, but they're not playing a lot of switching cards right now, like switches are fairly uncommon. There's a lot of just manual retreating through, you know, the extra energy that you get on board with P and things like that. Um, and so it was just a general mill deck, like a war of attrition. I'm gonna frustrate you while playing gallery mine and lots of bosses. And hopefully just to run you out and I guess. Also like, interestingly you'd think like, oh, Mew, Pika is lightning. It'll be really good against pakia that you, the key is that double Turbo made it do no damage. So you would, you would never like accidentally progress the board state or like let them like kill something. And they would be able to, you know, fi finally able to respond with what they needed. Um, and so there was that, and then also too, I think you end up like, she looping at the end with El Degos and certain matchups as well, as well as clearly having found that you knows as being a big ingredient and, um, you know, the play pattern of I'm never gonna deck out, but I will guarantee that you deck out. And so I think, and then for the story from there is just that, like, I think we were, that deck was like fine. And even interestingly enough, uh, Alex Koko, I'm not sure how to pronounce his name. Um, from like Eastern Washington from Spokane did actually okay. Decently with something that with Mew Pika, something like fairly similar, it was Mew Pika mil tank celebrations, veal. But that deck, they were kind of stumped. They just didn't think, I don't think they were ever really able to get comfortable with, um, Inteleon matchups and obviously going into naps. Like, I don't think you could lose to an Inteleon deck. So they were just starting to look for other things. And, um, they like stone, journaler was like an obvious thing. And so they, you know, similarly just like something that heals, but just like, they Sojourner just isn't very good at the end of the day. Um, and just like, there was no way I don't think to like, make that work. And so like, they looked at it and I think just said, like, this is a terrible idea. But the, the, the core idea, or at least what they're aiming for is well-intended in the sort of heal effect. And I think they just, the me from there just like gets on limit list, you know, on the really good search engine and just looks up every card that can heal and they find, they find the Mewtwo. Um, and from, there's just like, okay, this card, you know, this mechanic is terrible. Can we make it work? Can we find a way to make it work? And they just did, um, with the more or less what we saw, um, over the weekend. And, um, really only a handful of cards changed from the initial draft. And I, you know, I didn't get to be a part of the testing until I showed up to Columbus. Um, but they had gotten in, they had gotten into mace and, uh, David, David Roff, uh, just another Dutch player who I stayed with as well. And just like doing a lot of testing and just like changed a few cards, but like the core idea of just like, we're gonna burn through our deck and we're gonna get Mewtwo out. Um, Came along pretty quickly. And it just like, like quickly saw how easy, how good of, uh, ion and RCS Inteleon matchups it had, and just like ironed out, ironed out a handful of kinks from there. And like did a lot of play testing against Dedenne. Who of course went on to play the deck and got top 32, a Dedenne was really into Mew at first. Um, and that was like kind of a shaky matchup, but they just like played it and played it and played it and like edited the deck a couple times. Um, in fact, like the reason we play rose tower is just from, we were testing, they were testing against so much Mew and just kept using the rose tower. And just like, maybe we should just play this ourselves. Um, And yeah. So I guess for those of you who didn't pay too much attention over the weekend, or just like, don't know how the deck works still is that it's really very simple. It's in a lot of ways, it's just a solitary deck. Um, you just burn through your deck until you get Mewtwo with two energy in the discard. And then ideally from there, you just need to, um, understand. And like a lot of cards are really important. And so you, you probably play likeone both. Pybas like almost every game, like not even necessarily. Um, the combo itself needs a lot of things, but just like, it's helpful to just like, be arranging your deck in that way. And so in some ways the P ends up kind of being a mill effect. You can put cards in your prizes that you don't need anymore while making sure to take other ones, but you just, you Snorlax Mize for as many cards as possible, almost every turn and eventually get you done to your deck to just like PPA and yell chair. And so like the loop then is that, um, yell chair puts back, PPA, puts yell chair back and, um, puts P PADD back. Silene puts PPA back. And just you, you do that. You, you know, ideally like it really takes a lot of tails for this to not work. You really, really have to get super unlucky, assuming like assuming you've manipulated your deck in the right way. Um, and that was definitely something like I was doing. I, it took me a while to really get the, um, You know, to really understand, okay. Like what cards do I have to have in my deck at all times answering those sorts of questions. Um, but yeah, like on paper, it just. Against RCS and Paia, they just don't do enough damage to ever push you to pressure you to the point where healing 200 a turn isn't just enough and you deck them out. Um, and like some things like you need the tool jammer in certain instances, but obviously Paia is so like, as the opposing player, it's damage is very easy to manipulate. So like when you have no Pokegear, Pokegear on play, but the Mewtwo and maybe even a tool Jamer, it's just, it just isn't doing anything. And there's, there's nothing else in the deck that really can do anything. And like stormy Stary doesn't really do anything either. It doesn't, it's usually not enough. It can be in certain scenarios. I know, I know Meese lost Mays lost to one, um, just like a surprise Starman and he just wasn't able to play around it. Sometimes the, the sequence of the cards that you see can just be UN ideal. And like, if you have a twin energy that's not supposed to be there. It's just like sometimes not a lot you can do with do about it. Um, but yeah, other than that, I just think that it's, it was definitely a, like, clearly was a great call for the event, but definitely kind of a like matchup roulette deck. There's just certain things on paper that you will not be. Um, and if you avoid those, you did well. Um, and if you don't, you might have done. Okay. And so, um, David and I missed, uh, David got like, went like 5 31. I dropped it four and three and, um, Dedenne got top 32 mace just in the top 1 28, I think, or something like that. And then Sander of course, got top four and had a really good, really good top four series with Azul.

Mike:

the top four was very reminiscent of Jason versus, uh,

Brent:

Lord Enrique Avila.

Mike:

yeah, yeah. It was very, very similar, right. Like, you know, you take one game and then you make sure, I mean, no Juul did not slow play at all. He just played the game out. yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, you know, uh, uh, Azul had played him in like, Around 13 around 14 and, and it had gone almost exactly the opposite Sander won a very long game one and then Azul won a fairly quick game two and won game two on like first turn of time.

Mike:

Oh, wow. Interesting.

Brent:

so, so, uh, uh, yeah, Azul really, I, I think reaped the benefits of, he kind, he figured out that matchup little bit over the course for before.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I still think that matchup was fine. Like Azul had, there's a lot of cards in like Azul L's particular list. And just like that, none of the other RCS were playing like the Crobat is really very annoying. Um, but yeah, like I think Sander, I mean, obvi there's a lot of luck involved of course, too, but like I'm pretty sure Sander, Sander wins game three untimed very easily and even something too. And this is something that like may said to me, if like the games, if the games had happened in a different order, like say that game one is the game that Azul prizes, the Phoebe. Like he might have, he might have scooped that game early or something he might, he might have decided, or, you know, especially too, after taking four prizes, just like the dark energy and it being in the very top, um, you know, had that game happen first or something like that. Then obviously this is kind of an empty statement. I'm not really trying to make a point or anything like that, but just more trying to say that, like think the matchup was fine even, even though as well, like have a lot of good cards against it. Um, but yeah, obviously, I mean, obviously I think this is a concern with any control deck is that the top players are going to play perfectly against you. And so there's a lot of just like bad player slipups. You can count on just like running into people in Swiss, but like, you know, go watch Bakari versus Sander on stream or, you know, had we hit tour. And I mean, personally, this was something I was worried about all day is that I'm, I'm gonna punt against a good player who's playing well. Um, and things like that.

Mike:

I, I do wonder. So for game three, for those of you that didn't watch the top four match game three, they had about a little less than 10 minutes left and a Z's top right. Or top left prize card that he put down was his Phoebe. So in theory, if Sander has this information, he just plays milk tank and pretty, not, not a hundred percent wins the game because Azul has Crobat, but pretty much couldn't just win the game with just milk tank. Um, and he started milk tank. And so I wonder as Sander, if you ever just play for that out, like how, what is your other option to win a game three like that? And

Brit:

Yeah, that's, that's a big mystery. And again, it's definitely like, you know, arm being like an armchair, like Kriketune, you can never understand what, what it's like playing on, on stream during, you know, when the stakes are that high, like could have just been like a little slip up, but yeah. I mean, especially even too while they're shuffling where just like, okay. And, and Phoebe has to be fr prize. Like, that's the only thing. That's the only way we can win this game and we, you know, just lose it, of course when it just happens. Um, but yeah, and even, you know, and he's opening the Milick. Um, but yeah, I don't, I don't know why, you know, I don't know what his sort of line was to try to try to win. Um, Even if Phoebe was, or wasn't private, I think you just had to play with it and just like, let the RCS kill you by attaching it second energy and, uh, using the V star ability for the Phoebe. Like, I, I think that's the only way you win a prize is just like, okay, no, Phoebe. And I I'm just gonna do, I'm gonna route every turn until I can finally knock something out. Ideally it would be like a Bidoo for something like that. But like, I don't, I don't think Azul would've ever played into that situation. Um, but

Brent:

mean that, that never works out. Right. You might as well just be like, well, let, let me assume this Crobat VMax is prize and get up

Brit:

Right, right. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't understand what one way or the other I'm sure Sander had, um, had a good thought as to why, or just like. Maybe it, it doesn't super matter at the end of the day. Just like, I don't know. Or maybe, I mean, I think, I think the most reasonable reasonable thing I, I had heard was just that he thought there was more time, something like that just was not acutely aware of the exact time that was left. And just like maybe there was a line in there that he could have, he could have made it work somehow. Um, but I'm not sure. And again, uh, top cut is obviously acute has always been a problem for these decks, um, to, to ever win. Like, I don't think we've ever seen control, still release, win a big tournament, plenty of the make top eight, you know, but Sableye hammers, stall control the doll stall floor. Just things like do well, but always seem to just like, because they don't take prizes the way the inherent rules of the game just makes it all the more harder, all the more difficult to win in top. Cut.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, I know you were talking about the, uh, the core loop for that deck. Uh, Brit, there, there was one game in day two. I was watching Dedenne play. And as opponent after the game was like, you know, I thought about, uh, scooping, uh, right, ready? You got the loop engaged, but uh, Dedenne flipped four straight tails. And the guy was like, you know what? I'm just gonna wait a couple turns and see how it goes.

Mike:

Yeah, the casters were talking about it a little bit, cuz I mean, what else are you gonna talk about during control? Um, I'm kind of like theorizing. What is the breaking point of how many tales you can have before it gets really awkward? And I'm sure, I don't know if you guys talked about this, but they, they figured like seven or eight was kind of like if you get seven or eight tails on silent in a row, that's when things start looking bad.

Brit:

Yeah. And like, it just, it really shouldn't matter. Like, I, I did have one game where I, I, I, I won on time, but I, I had, I, I rolled myself out of the loop. I like was going to lose if, um, if it went on, because it was just like awkward. Like I had a P pad prized and I was out of ponia and I was just like, oh, well just what are you gonna do? And I got like four tails in a row and I was just like, mm, alright. And then time was called. So it was okay. Yeah, I guess, like I didn't do too well, someone, obviously I don't, like I knew going in and like, these events really are that hard, especially with the deck like this, it's just like, okay, you got, you have like one freebie bad matchup. Um, and then you play perfectly from there amount and I'm just like, ah, I'm not gonna do that. I was really very impressed with my play though. I think I there's only like one game that I screwed up, but unfortunately that was on top of getting bad matchups. And so my story ends there, but like, so here here's an example of, so my round one, I played against like RCS fire, but it was just like, it was like calling it RCS, just fire as a is just an insult to Alex Krekeler and, uh, Alex shamans, like playing, playing that jacket was like just a hot mess. And so, so what happened is that he was playing this like Chandel or that gives your fire. Pokegear no weakness and like it's all you can kill miling with it too, I guess. Um, but yeah, and so it was like a really big mess. And like, it was funny because I, like, I benched a mill tank or I started with it and it just clearly sent shivers down his spine. Cause he was playing so poorly to kill it. And I just like went out of his way to boss KO. And I just like, wasn't even in the active position and I'm just like, alright, thanks your heat rant. Your heat rant is going to kill it literally whenever you want it, but feel free to knock it out now. Um, and so I was actually in a decent position to like, cuz he hadn't been powering up the heat, ran my hammer, flips had been decent and I was like, okay, this is all I have to do. I'm just going to, I'm gonna Mewtwo now and I'm gonna play 16 damage counters on it next turn to kill it and hope I can get there with Mewtwo because he had just been like discarding really poorly. And like it was looking fine. I was looking like I might be able to deck him out. Playing against the, just like subpar player or what have you, but then out of nowhere, the chandelier comes down. And so the Chandel lure also, it has an attack. It's just like fire colorless for like one 10 and you're confused. And I was just, and I didn't have, I didn't have my parasol. I like didn't know I would need it. Um, and so, yeah, that was just like a, a hot mess of a deck that is gonna gonna beat Mew two very badly because it has mil tank answers and the heat ran can one shop the vun. Um, and then I also too, I mean, I guess also, like we've said, like you wanted, the point of the deck was to hit P Inteleon and RCS Inteleon all day. I did not hit any RCS Inteleon and I only hit one P Inteleon. I did hit, I played RCS route on it and I beat it very easily. Um, I'd be like a, Zekrom like, um, Zekrom box, uh, worm dam sort of thing. And like that one was really easy because I don't take knockouts. So they're just never doing enough damage. And I just looks like, okay, I'm gonna take six prizes in one turn. You're not, you can't do anything about it. Um, I also took six prizes against the Pia deck too, and that's always a lot of fun. Um, and then I had, I had a good series against Mew where I. It wasn't drawing ideally and M was M is hard. If they know what they're doing, they just like, you're just psychically, leaping with your tablets to make sure you have energy and deck to just like, sort of keep playing the, the tempo and like when you're far behind and like the deck always, you, you always played around echoing horn, if you could. But like when you're, when your tempo is awkward and you're drawing awkward, it just makes it even harder. Um, and it kind of, I like flipped very well in the matchup for sure. But it came down to like a double flip term where you had beat me, but I made a mistake where I, like, I had a really cool play, um, by and energy on top. And, and then I needed to UHA cue pitch for it. And I EX I just wasn't thinking and brain farted and Sied before I had searched for the Pokegear and just like, I think would've definitely won. I would've like knocked three energy off the board while he had still only had a couple of prizes left. And that is what it is, you know, like, I, I should have played better, but at the same time, I like, I didn't have enough time to practice. I knew I wasn't gonna play it. All that. Well, and then I hit Ben. So playing bro playing Diala with bronze song and babe, baby Diala. I'm like, we didn't even really play. I like played the first couple turns and I just like, I can beat the, I think I can beat the bronze song. I think I, I don't think of one, the bronze song are gonna do enough. I can, I can handle this. And then he plays the baby tag that down and I'm just like, I scoop and you get the series. Like, just like nothing I can do, but everyone else did well, relatively speaking. And like, I don't know, like, this is something Brent and I talked about. He is like, you should have played it out. And I'm just like, I'm enjoying the privilege of not having to play it out. When I, when I need points, I will. But as I don't need points, I will go back to my hotel room.

Brent:

After worlds, we're gonna be on the grind. It's

Brit:

Yeah. It was an awesome deck. It was really, I feel like every time you got the union in play, the whole table was looking at you. All the judges were calling their friends over. Take a look at this. So I like, sort of felt like I stumbled into the part of being part of the story of the tournament, which was really awesome. But as I said before, I was, I, I ordered most of the cards. I like was able to find like a local game store and I was looking all over because we needed a ton of cards and I'd just given my experience in Milwaukee. I, I knew that, um, I just, wasn't gonna rely on vendors. Like they're not gonna have anything I was looking and looking and looking and just, you know, don't have time for TCG player found, found a game store. And like in the Atlanta area that just happened to have like, not only a ton of Mew twos, but like the Flannery and the cooks. And I, I made an order and my friend ONED from Georgia picked up all the cards from me. And it was like one of those things too, where it was like, can't stop you, you know, from looking at the cards. Um, I trust you and you're welcome to, but like, we were trying to keep this quiet if possible. And he, he looked at it and was like, I got no idea what's going on here. It's the Sander deck. I, I assume it's, I assume it's genius, but. I mean, I guess, I guess that's just kind of a funny part too, is that like there, a lot of what they're the Dutch friends are joking about is kind of the, the bias that we have in, you know, being Americans and things like that, that all Europeans are the same or that like only Sander could have come up as a stack. And I think it really ended up being more maced than Sander at the end of the day. And just like, similarly, like there was that one instance, I think of Liverpool where there was like a single person playing DEIS in their Mew list. And, but like Octa said, just like all the Europeans are doing it. And so just kinda like making, making those sorts of jokes, um, which is good. Cause I do think we, as Americans are often very sort of near sighted in how we perceive the rest of the world in, um, in general, but also in sort of Pokegear Pokegear and things like that.

Brent:

So, so how many instances did you have, particularly in like the first two or three rounds? There was a senior who was playing Mewtwo V union. He was playing like an attacking. Build, uh, obviously he did poorly start with that. He did, he did very poorly, but like round one, as parents, we knew there was something going on because literally every senior judge walked over and picked up this kid's cards and looked at them and like, there were, there were like two judges that stood there and watched all of round one because they had no idea what was going on. How many, like judge interactions did you have in the first round or two? Anything.

Brit:

not any. I actually don't think I. I think I really only had one let's like hands on judge moment the entire day. And I, I, I called him on myself against, against the Mew player where I like, I, I had tracking shoes and just like had AC, had already seen, I like went straight to discard the other card. And I was just like, ah, I was holding them both. And I was just, I was not explicit about what I was doing. And I, frankly, I don't know what I was going to do, but I just called the judge and it's like, I've seen both cards. Like, you know, here's what happened. But now like, well I not, I think early in the early rounds, it was either round one, my, my great opponent and just knew what the cards did, which I think will speak more to him and his deck. Um, and then round two, you know, some of the other rounds, I just think people assumed I was bad. You know, just like, Hey, look at this, just this scrub playing random cards. Um, but yeah, for the most part, at least in my games, people were. Just, uh, they would read the card here and there, but like seemed to know what the mechanic did. Like I didn't even, I didn't know, going into the, you know, going, Lele driving up to Columbus. I didn't, I don't know. I don't remember when I learned that it came out of the disc card. It something definitely something I learned in the last week. Um,

Mike:

was really funny watching. Uh, I think it was Justin versus Sander. Was that the first time we saw Justin, Justin read that card, the Mewtwo card, like seven times in that match.

Brent:

It's

Mike:

he kept picking like the pieces up and reading it. Like it was so funny.

Brent:

like round two around three. the thing that Liam had to explain to me and I still don't understand is that's like that that's considered an evolved. Pokegear it

Brit:

yeah, two or three.

Mike:

The V-Union is.

Brent:

is there you go, Mike

Mike:

it really? I just thought it was considered not a basic bubble Pokegear

Brent:

yeah, I think they, everything into evolved want everything that evolved. Cause it's

Mike:

oh, like everything not basic is just considered evolved.

Brent:

I think so.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brent:

I mean, I guess this is a, this is the answer to the question. Like if you get attacked by something that says, like, you can't be hit by basic, Pokegear this thing can hit you.

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

Brent:

And if you say you can't be hit by evolved, Pokegear apparently this thing cannot hit you

Mike:

I'm not sure about that. Second one. I agree with the first one. Whoa,

Brent:

Okay. No, I, I know you can incense for the card, so it's considered evolved.

Mike:

whoa, whoa. What? You can incense for the card. Wait, wait, let me read incense real quick. Evolution. Incense searcher deck for an evolution. Pokegear Pokegear Hmm. Okay. All right. This is something to EX explore. Explore. I'll trust you right now, but maybe I'll I'll I'll test it out on PTC. G If I can get Mewtwo unions, um, one, oh, my only comment on the deck that I is like a advancing the conversation. Um, all of other Sander control decks this year, and more generally as well, but just taking his couple different ones that he played this year. I feel like this deck will have the biggest impact on the Meta game. Not just because of the result, but because it's way, way more straightforward than the other ones. Now, I'm not saying it's easy to play like Brit and you or anything like that, but. The strategy is much more obvious. And so someone that like wants to play control, they can look at it. They can be like, okay, I understand the goal of the deck. Let me learn how to play the matchups, where he is like his first one. Or he got like second in Liverpool. I look at that and I'm like, that is just 60 random cards. I don't know what to do ever with that, but this is streamlined enough that I feel like people will play it.

Brit:

Yeah. And I think we've talked similarly about the E I C list as well. That one being sort of like a little more clear of like what you're doing and what the lines are and things like that. But yeah, I mean, I don't think the deck is too hard. I mean, I think I picked it up fairly quickly and got a lot of like good testing in, um, leading up to it and where I was just like playing super poorly and got really good judgemental looks just like, what are you doing? Just like, I do not know I'm bad. They, they helped me through it and learned it, that sort of trial by fire. Um, Yeah, I don't think it's terribly hard. You just, it's just something you, you have to pay. You just have to really look at what's in your prizes and what's in your deck and figure out like how you're gonna make it work. Um, and how to make, you know, weave Pybas in where you can. And I even had the, I even won a game in the kind of like dreaded scenario of just like, okay, what happens when you prize a YouTube piece and miss on your first pone turns out it doesn't really matter. You've usually got a ton of time. Like as long as you get the combo out on. The last turn and they can't echo horn you for game. Like, it really doesn't matter when the Mewtwo comes out. Like it can come out earlier, but like a lot of the time it doesn't come out until you have that like ideal five card deck or pretty small deck with, with the loop guaranteed. And just whatever hand fan full of cards you haven't been able to discard yet. And I guess too, like one of the main things they talked a lot about, or Sander talked several times about the E U I C list and just sort of, you know, really stressed how, how much, if they had had me out at that tournament, that it would've been a completely different deck. And that, that was just like the key ingredient that was missing from the E U I C list. Just more thinning, more ways to just get to the loop, you know, your wind condition faster. Um, and seeing that here and, you know, just being able to actualize it, but yeah, it's really pretty easy. You just, you, you burn, you just go for as big of a goin die as you can virtually every turn. And like, often that's just like you waste nets, you, you, or, or you bend Pokegear Pokegear, you don't need to, with the intention to net them later and then discard them some talk, some get sometimes in testing or in games, like you have two Mewtwo in play and you're discarding both, you know, you're, you're discarding a lot of cards at once. Um, but yeah, it's like, it's something I think you pick up fairly quickly. Like, I don't think you're gonna play it right on, on the first path, but conceptually, I think it's fairly simple and just like, yeah, just like getting to this point of like, okay, like what are the exact cards I need, need to win, like needed my deck right now. And it's just, it isn't, it isn't a whole lot more than. Um, just all the combo pieces is just like all of Mew, two, two psychics in the discard, one more energy after that. Um, and then both, probably both CS, the Yelp gro chair and Hala pad. And then after that, it really doesn't matter. The rest are just like kind of gravy in a lot of the scenarios, Mew. Well, Mew Mew is probably like the only matchup where, um, you just always kind of need to be thinking because you don't like, and again, take what I just said. Um, and just remove the Mew two in certain pieces. It's the same deck, but sometimes mill tank is just all you need. Um, then yeah, so like I, like I was saying, like I beat, I was explaining like dark as an example of like, not having good counters. I beat the dark eye that I played. Like it was close, but like kind of things were always happening in the way they should. So it like felt pretty easy. I would say, like my opponent realized. Too quickly, which I guess made me nervous that he could kill his own Mew trace to turn on the baby Mew trace. And like that ended up being kind of stressful, but like, that's really the only line they have. And like I said too, like he tried attacking me with Hoopa and it's just like, you're just wasting your own cards, buddy.

Mike:

I, I bet the, uh, the stadium from the go set's actually really insane in that deck. It's uh,

Brit:

What does it do? I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one off the top of my head.

Mike:

Reveal the top three cards of your deck,

Brent:

any items put into your

Mike:

take any items and discard the other cards, I think.

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah, that seems really, really nuts. It's Crobat, it's definitely better than rose tower cuz it's just straight up.

Brent:

You can draw three, just draw three. Right. So I, Mike, I, I had one comment on kind of your, as you talked about kinda the evolution of the, the standard deck and obviously you're right. Like the Zekrom deck was totally lunacy. And then, uh, uh, the E I C deck. Was, uh, youre stall was a like more linear deck. And then this is more linear still. So I don't, did you hear the story about Michael Catron playing UMBR on stall at Milwaukee?

Mike:

I saw that he did, I don't really know much beyond.

Brent:

so I, I thought this was, I, I think this, this is, I think interesting about how obviously, uh, Britt's team evolved, like their thinking a little bit. So he played embryo on stall and basically he sat down every game and he said, are you playing cross switchers? And the guy said, yes, said, show me a cross switcher in your deck. And then he scooped

Mike:

That's

Brent:

So he went, he went 5 30, 1, he lost to two decks, the plates, cross switchers, where he Insta scooped and then he lost through DGA deck. But, but like we heard about that. And as you guys know, I was a big fan of, of that deck and, and all stall decks in general and like, Obviously, I think everybody thought going in AIC, uh, Paia decks, playing switchers were gonna be a bigger part of the Meta than they'd been in Milwaukee. Right? Like that was gonna be, that went from a thing, a bunch of people were doing to how people played Paia at N a IIC. So, so you looked at that and you said, oh, well, that's not gonna be a thing. People can play at an AIC, even though Michael did pretty well with it. And, and like this deck, you know what, uh, it, it has the same walling effect that embryo has, but without the need for switches. So, so it kind of cheeses around the growth in cross switchers, which is a super, super.

Brit:

Yeah, I guess to talk about like Milwaukee for a second is that I did, I did poorly at Milwaukee with Pino and I thought we were onto something there because like the Inteleon analyst hasn't really started playing cross switchers yet. And I thought like, Hey, like you more me than me, but I, I did put a lot of testing into this one, um, going into the event and just like, I thought it was one step ahead of the curve with the cross switchers, but it just like that temperature is, is better, but I felt really vindicated, like bet vs Walters did what got top 1 28 in a, with like, The same 60 that I played. And I just did like so bad. I didn't see, I didn't open VIP pass in like a single game. Like also lost a Mew on flips, blah, blah, blah. But like, you know, that was definitely like, okay. I feel like my sentiment for the deck building was right here. I just like was stubborn and should have still displayed Inteleon instead. But I, I do feel like that week we were like, we were ahead on a Rita. We were ahead on cross switchers. And like, I, I haven't been ahead on Meta game calls in a while. So like that felt good. Especially a lot of it, at least in the Chino deco, some of those decisions were, uh, motivated by me, but Milwaukee was, I, I ran into other troubles in Milwaukee with my deck list that won't go into, but I was robbed unfairly.

Brent:

That, that, you know what, yeah. Just go on, uh, Brit Twitter, if you wanna see some like, uh, highway robbery, it, it is a, it is a wild, uh, wild stuff.

Brit:

I got beef. That's all I got to say.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, um, uh, before we wrap it up, cause I recognize we've been going for like a little over an hour. I, I did want, I want put my son on the, the mic for two seconds to talk about his run because I think, uh, so Brit Brit introduced us to, uh, Mewtwo union. And, and what I kept saying to Liam was if you never see Sander play the deck, it's hard for me to imagine you picking up the deck like the day before the tournament and, and getting on the grind, like. We gotta, we gotta like beat in on the secret. And, uh, uh, I feel like we were never able to, like, we just didn't, we either didn't commit fast enough, like wholeheartedly to it, or we just got on it a little too late. I think it was more like we got on a little too late to feel comfortable making the switch. Uh, Liam had played Diala at Milwaukee and, uh, it went poorly, poorly, poorly. and, uh, but, but so Liam had been working on and I know Mike and Brit had played a million games with him. We talked a little about it on this like kind of RCS counter box deck. And, and finally, I, I think after Milwaukee, he was like, if I don't play this deck, then if I play another deck where I regret choosing that deck, I'll be like, why didn't I play that deck? So, so he kind of locked in. Things things end it. Okay. Five to one. So Lele talk to us a little about your deck and, and your adventure. Cuz I, I feel like we should, we should get this down on the pod for posterity. Uh, I made it sort post about it. I thinks really good. It's it doesn't have like, is really shaky and like for something else, like the B D I F going in it's bad to have like a shaky matchup, even, even if it's not like super in favored, like having it be a struggle, like almost every round you play, um, is isn't amazing. But I, I literally played only good matchups and like, I think every game was winnable. I, I just misplayed myself out game. Like the deck is really hard to play. You have to hit a lot of pieces, right. Trying to hit tell, tell me what the deck is for 30 seconds first. Don't don't jump in the middle. Oh yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, it's like, um, it's like an RCS box thing. I cut the RCS line down to a 2, 1, 1 Sharon one DTE. and, um, and I'm, I'm playing Moltres a two on X Ray and Zoroark, those are like mainly the attackers within Inteleon engine. Uh, yeah. I, I don't know. I've been able, I was able to skinny down a lot of the lines, I think, and still keep like the favorable matchups for, for most of the, most of these x-ray like Reggie dark Inteleon box, even with the, the tiny RCS line, I'm still able to auto it. Like, I mean really consistently, uh I had two dark Inteleon boxes and a Reggie and against both of them, like throughout the entirety of games, how RCS is my worst matchup? Of course I have to RCS it's awful. Right? Like I'm just, Sharon's PLP had Sharon's and I get like three free prizes. Um, so, and, and against Mio, I, I didn't hit a really good Mew player, but I was able to take like four VMax and like eight turns. I only hit one Mew, but yeah, I was able to use the Moltres. And just like one Mew is using ordinary rod and Clara. You're able to get like four attacks off, which is usually enough. I think the Degos ordinary rod combo is something that like all of these dark Inteleon boxes or like anything playing baby Mew should be playing because it lets you open up. It opens you up to being able to get the Mew back attack and play a different supporter, which is good for either like just, uh, like resetting your hand with like ambition or something, right? Like if you get R Sander, you can like, uh, Dile ambition, fill your hand and still be able to attack without having to go into, um, it lets you boss and get it back. Like it, it just lets you play like an extra supporter once again, um, instead of having to use Clara. So, so I think like almost all of those matchups are good. The, the only matchup that's bad is, uh, Cal and is okay. Right. Cause you can just, you, you keep calling for shrinks, which is really good. And then you're able to envision the next term. That's the thing that I was, I really didn't like about all of these like dark and tell on box decks. All of these boxes using zero or, and RIQ, like trying to hit Ray haunter and two to attack is really awful. Like it just sets you on a really bad pace for the game because you never play a dressup order, like the entire game. And that's pretty bad. So I, I wanted to find a one attacker and I tried a X. It was okay.

Mike:

which Luxray, Luxray the one that does 50 times.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. It, it makes bliss really favorable as well. Cause you can them, but I overextended against bliss and myself. So you know, one thing that, one thing that I thought a lot about as, as Liam was building his deck and, and it's interesting, this speaks to, uh, one of the, we were talking about earlier, uh, um, the new heavy ball is really, really nice because it lets you pay, play these thinner lines and not get punished for. Right. I mean, if you wanna play like a one, one tech. As, as like a counter box thing, it just becomes so much more reasonable like I think every, when people complain about prizes, like that's what they complain about when they complain about like Pokegear, Pokegear having this concept of prizes is like being punished by randomness and, and heavy ball kind of decreases the randomness punishment, which is really nice. But, but also Mike. To the point we made earlier. There's no heavy ball in the Mewtwo list cuz you can't heavy ball for Mew pieces. there you go. People it's crazy. Um, any other, any other games or matchups or anything you should talk about? I don't think so.

Mike:

So what were your two losses? Both podcasts.

Brent:

I was wonder PK. I wonder see I

Mike:

Oh, B BLI, right, right, right.

Brent:

and, and what, what happened in the P game? I know you said PKI is your toughest matchup. So why, why play a deck where Pia is the toughest matchup in a tournament where palak is the most popular deck. So it's really good against everything else. And like the pal matchup isn't unwinable, it's like it's solid. It's okay. Um, I like, yeah. It's you just, you just have to respond to a lot of direction really fast. I think that's the one takeaway that I, I think coming out of this tournament I had, which is like when you're playing a single prize deck to answer Cal. have to find Manaphy turn one on with all your other pieces and not lose a cross switcher. It's really, really difficult. So I think, I think going forward and looking to world, I wanna play something that has like lightning fees or something like that, where I don't just lose to gr put that extra pressure on myself to find Manaphy. Um, but like the mattress is fine. Like assuming you hit everything, being able to keep going shakes is amazing. Right? Like if you open, Sableye just like global one and you're like completely set up. Um

Mike:

Yeah. And to be fair, like Paul is pretty much everything's worth match up.

Brent:

yeah, yeah. yeah, it wasn't that bad, but I, yeah. Finding the luxury return too, even with, I think it's better than walking yourself into right. Hunt turn, which is just awful. Um, it can still be difficult cause one of your Al goes to ambition and then finding. This three piece combo where you only play like a couple of each, right? So you have to draw like two of the pieces raw and then use the last dil to, to find the third is like really rough. Right? You play two candy, right? Two biting finding all of those pieces. Like you have to draw two of those raw off the ambition, uh, or you miss an attack, which can just be pretty difficult. But I mean, it, it's not that bad. Like usually you start with one in your hand and you can draw the other off the a, because like, if it's not in your hand, it's usually like, you're usually fill your bench. There's literally nothing the deck. So were there, were there any times when you didn't try to energy crush people, everyone, do you mean by that? Like go, what, what do you mean by that? Like when I use the second attack. Yeah. Yeah. If, no, in general, like, were there, were there games where you didn't get the X Ray out? Yeah. Um, or. I mean against like most xray, like the, the deck kind of is built. Like, I don't know. I build a lot of counter box decks. Cause for me, those are like very easy to build. Right? Like you have a deck and then you, or like if there's a deck, you struggle with you just go to like the typing and look through all the dark cards or something. Right. Um, so, so like the deck is built to have like a strategy for each of the main deck. And don't look at like the other parts of the deck. Um, other parts of the deck in each of those matchups, right? Like against dark tell box against, uh, and Reggie, you literally just look to the RCS pieces, right? Like the, luxury's not a terrible attacker in those matchups, but like you set up the RCS, that's your like number one priority and you win. Right. Right. Again, something like, um, like meal benching, the RCS is actually how you lose. Um, or like, uh, what, what am I saying at this point? Yeah. Again, like something like meal, you literally just look to the pieces, right? Like you don't look to like those other parts of the deck. Right. And it's, it's just a counter box, right? Like you use like specific attackers for specific matchups and don't really look at the other attackers. Like the luxury's not terrible in those matchups. Right? Like it's usually a good chip. Like they, they walk right into it cause they don't know what Lele does. It's cool. But yeah, I mean, so, so Liam was testing with Israel Sosa before the tournament and, and he goes like double shanks and, and Israel is immediately like boss kills. And when he does it, he's like, I have no idea what this does. So

Brit:

assume it's good and

Brent:

exactly. Exactly. He's like, I assume you're getting this out for some reason. I don't know what these hearts do. um, yeah, that was another funny thing. Funny takeaway I had was like, if against like a really solid Meta, you can just play like a basic to some stage two and just bench it. Like, if it has good typing or whatever, and they assume it's like your counter and they have like, no clue what it does and it, like, it becomes like a distraction away from all your other was like super scared of

Brit:

Me. Yeah,

Brent:

the, do I have to kill it?

Brit:

BA baiting your opponent's bosses is always very, a very powerful feeling. I did. I did that in my like Mew series. I just like, I he's gonna go out of, he's gonna overextend Azul. It's gonna scare him. I'm just gonna it and hope that happens low and behold.

Brent:

Exactly. People just jump right into it. And then the other, the other story, Liam, Liam told this on Twitter, but I, I thought it was funny was he said the, the only person that knew what luxury did, uh, over the weekend is he was meeting people and talking with him about the deck was, was Sander.

Mike:

Yeah. of course

Brent:

Exactly. Exactly. So, so ed, yeah, if you're, if you're wondering, who has the encyclopedic knowledge of the most obscure cards in the Meta, there you go. People, anything else we should talk about before we, uh, call a week guys?

Mike:

uh, we're sending cards out, right?

Brent:

We are sending cards out. Um, uh, yeah, so I've built, I've built. I cracked as committed. I cracked that astrol radiance box. We have pulled together two super janky decks that that are the absolute best of, uh, one random astrol radiance box. We also, uh, um, cut the worst cards and threw in some ultra ball. Because Liam was like, we have, should make this deck less stinky. And, uh, um, and then we're gonna throw in a bunch of sleeves and stuff like that and throw it all together in a care package. We have two seven year that are just getting into the game. We're hooks. Super, super

Mike:

Sweet.

Brent:

You're feeling better. Brit. It was great to see you, man, such a fun, such a fun week and a half. Exactly.

Brit:

both weekends are really awesome. I'm I'm glad I, uh, can rest a little bit and don't have too much traveling left and like was really wavering back and forth. Am I gonna do world? Am I, am I not? Definitely just like, I'm just not messing with it, but it'll be a good time. I'm sure.

Mike:

Yeah. And yeah,

Brent:

Yeah, well, and hopefully they'll start publishing the schedule, uh, as soon and like getting back on that train. Cause I think they look and they say, they must say all these regionals went. Okay. We can just like publish a schedule and get back on the train. Right?

Brit:

Yeah, we'll see, I'm interested to see what what's happening with like the rotation and whether that's maybe indicative of like other kinds of restructuring.

Brent:

Um, I, I'm also interested in whether like, if they keep the same social distancing, like philosophy,

Brit:

Like, should we have so much more space?

Brent:

it's so awesome. I know it must be like a little more expensive or maybe a lot more expensive, but I love it so much.

Mike:

Yeah. Alright guys.

Brit:

it's just comfortable. I mean, even, even before, regardless of like germ spreading protocols, like I we've all, we've all played a, a regional or nationals or something where you just like, you're jam packed at a table with three people and some idiot with two, a giant play mat is like genuinely encroaching on your space and things like that. Like never again.

Brent:

All good times guys take it easy.