The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Logan Paul, American Dad, TrickyGym, Reality TV, TCGPlayer, Ice Rider/Palkia, Sandaconda and more!

July 11, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 93
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Logan Paul, American Dad, TrickyGym, Reality TV, TCGPlayer, Ice Rider/Palkia, Sandaconda and more!
Transcript
Mike:

Did you guys see this also just came out today? There's like some casting call for,

Brent:

I did I did. I,

Mike:

So we can mention that for LA

Brit:

as for a family for I think, or

Brent:

I mean, I, I was trying to figure out if I would send my kids to go live with their uncle in San Diego. And if that would count

Brit:

yeah. I was a little disappointed to see it, uh, region locked or what have you, but LA only I was like, ah, I would, I would've tried pretty hard for this. I think that's been fun. Like we got to talk, uh, a couple cringe clips out there on the internet of Jay Whis on his little reality show. Like we gotta, we gotta get better representation out there.

Brent:

oh. And, and it see, and it was like, the way it was worded was very interesting, cuz it was like, if you would benefit from like a, a, a TCG expert helping you for something.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. They should get a, I feel like Soso would be a really good candidate. He's got a couple kids. Maybe they're a little bit too young

Brent:

They're a little bit, they're a little bit too young. I talked to them about that in AIC,

Brit:

Yeah, I got a drink with him at any IAC and talked to him about his kids. It was nice. It was good to talk

Brent:

as it was, uh, if you're trying to learn the trading card game to connect with your loved ones, hone your TCG skills to get to the next level or already a competitive player, we would like to hear how a Pokegear Pokegear TG expert can help you. So, so Brit, what would you say, I guess, I guess trying to get back to top 16 would be the, uh, the, the Brit hives pitch.

Brit:

to him. Yeah, I dunno.

Brent:

I mean, I wonder what expert they think they're gonna send out, like, like, is this, is this the Puca reality show?

Mike:

Yeah, dude, that would be so sick.

Brit:

It's uh, it's just Pokegear Pokegear right. It's not just the card game or.

Mike:

no, it's just the card game. Yeah,

Brent:

Yeah, it's as you're trying to learn the trading card game, hone your trading card game skills. If you'd like to hear how a Pokegear Pokegear trading card game expert can help.

Mike:

Yeah. And the press release says they're announcing the initial development of a new unscripted series involving the Pokegear trading card game. So whatever. So it sounds like a reality TV show to learn the Pokegear trading card game.

Brent:

I

Mike:

Maybe it would like follow people as they like learn and then go to increasingly high profile tournaments. That's

Brit:

I guess, yeah. I have no idea what they're cooking up or what would who's interested in watching this? Like, isn't that like the card game's biggest problem is that it's just like, not accessible to watch, like as a lay person that it's just like, not terribly interesting, unless you're already pretty immersed in the game. I don't know. I feel like the video game or go is gonna track the bigger audience, but.

Mike:

why they're doing this to drum up the excitement.

Brit:

I know that's what, uh, the Lele Leon Hart like content creator is doing. He's trying to like start, like, I think it'll just end up being another like, sponsored team, but trying to do like, at least the way his pitch for it was that he wanted to do like a hundred thieves. But for the Pokegear Pokegear, Pokegear

Mike:

interesting.

Brent:

like that, that seems like a great thing.

Mike:

I like that too. But like you said, the, the, the viewership and whatnot is probably not there for something at that scale.

Brit:

I would just assume it's Netflix as Netflix, you know, has a sword history of just green lighting, anything, but like something will stick maybe. I mean,

Brent:

So, so guys, let me, let's, let's really drill down on this for a second. If, if we're gonna, if we're gonna do something about the pod, let's talk about it for real. If they're gonna recruit a trading card game expert to coach people up in a TV show, um, is there any like, uh, uh, like celebrity bigger than Azul Mahome Mahomes a good choice.

Brit:

Mew. Own's pretty big. Um, I actually don't know sort of sizeably is he a bigger, he has a bigger audience than Azul do I think?

Brent:

I think so.

Mike:

I would say definitely on YouTube. I think TWIs they're probably pretty comparable. Um, but I think tricky gym is a much bigger YouTube channel. Yeah. Um,

Brent:

What about the Wasi? Is the Wasi bigger

Mike:

that's a good question.

Brit:

Uh,

Brent:

mean, conversely, if they said we've, we've brought in the Wasi to make you a trading card game champion. I, I don't know if I'd be like, Mmm. I don't. Oh,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

right. Like it seems like, I don't know, tour is just like, you know, indisputably, the best player in the world. It seems like. A logical fit to me. Like he's like really has a decent like content or content creator presence too. Like, you know, it's his full-time job now with TCG park and coaching and things like that. Like is he, you know, he is not a personality in the same way that like Mahome might be, but yeah, it just really depends on their angle. I really, I feel like, like, we'll be shocked no matter what happens. Like it probably won't be anything like, we're what we're thinking. Like I don't, Logan, Paul will be involved, you know, or something like that rather than, rather than.

Brent:

a great one. Like, yeah. Like I, what, the funny thing is when they introduce the expert, it's supposed to make people gasp, right? Yeah. But like, but like the things that would make me gasp are probably not the same things that would make. Literally any viewer guess like tour it I'd be like, okay, that's actually legit. Great job. But the problem is, I think when they say tour, rock love, like I just don't know if viewers would be like, yeah, that is actually the best Pokegear Pokegear Pokegear player in the world.

Mike:

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they get yeah. Some random person that is tangentially involved in Pokegear Pokegear like they could do like,

Brit:

a big name, like, like maybe Logan Paul, like is the host or something, but yeah, just thinking about like marketing and viewership, like, who's go, who's gonna watch the torch show, right?

Mike:

yeah,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's what I'm talking about. It's like they have to try to find some intersection of celebrity and TCG credibility and that Venn diagram might not

Mike:

just

Brit:

we've got like a decent list of kind of like AF list celebrities with William Hong and ChuChu Lele and people like that. They could all be involved.

Mike:

William hung would be the greatest thing ever for him to come back after all these years to his roots.

Brent:

Uh, I, I mean, like I like, like, like what if like Logan, Paul and American dad are the MCs.

Mike:

that'd be really funny actually, right? Yeah.

Brit:

I don't know if, I don't know if it's even well known that American dad is like from the Pokegear Pokegear community or anything like that. Like, obviously we know, obviously the community knows, but as like a general point, I don't know how vocal he is about it. And like, obviously Dick was doing kind of a lot of like pack opening stuff during quarantine, but

Brent:

Yeah. But, but I think he's a guy who could seamlessly transition, right? Like, like he has, he has more credibility in the community than Logan. Paul does.

Brit:

yeah, I mean, I, I love rainy, but I just, I don't, I don't think that's the kind of person that Pokegear is gonna be looking for. Like,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

but like with

Mike:

content's a little,

Brit:

would it be the same for Logan Paul? Like, I don't know.

Mike:

well, I wanna go back to William hung just for a sec, cuz probably a lot of the listeners don't even know that William hung was involved in Pokegear for a number of years. Um, really like back in the day, really, when I first started playing Pokegear William also played competitively. There was like this one famous story maybe a couple years after he was on American idol where he flew, like he lived in California and I think he flew to like Iowa or Idaho for a gym challenge. And a gym challenge was one of those events where if you won the event, you got a free invite and trip to worlds. And so he flew to like one of the most rural ones and then went and won it. Um, so yeah. Will William hung played? I, I have tested with him previously in the past. I've actually messaged him a little bit here and there over the years cuz he got really into Hearthstone for a time. And so we talked about that. Um, But yeah, he played pretty competitively. He was pretty good. Um, which is funny.

Brit:

I

Brent:

You know, I knew he had played, but I was unaware of all this stuff. So, so what is he up to today? Do I, you know, was the last time you talked to him like pre pandemic or

Mike:

yeah. Pre pandemic for sure. Probably like five years ago. Um, but he, I think he has like a day job where he does some type of data analytics. Um, but he also has taken the American idol fame and has been a motivational speaker for at different times.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. My mean, my impression is he's he successfully kind of became famous for being himself.

Mike:

Right, right, right. Exactly. He does have a day job though.

Brent:

Right, right. Right, right,

Mike:

Um, also to kind of go back to question about S ability of some of the, the content creators. So to give you some scale, Azul on YouTube has 23,000 subscribers. Maho and tricky gym have 90,000 subscribers. So like almost five times the amount and then PTC G radio. The Wasi has just over a hundred thousand. So he's a little bit bigger than Maho, but they're very comparable. Both are significantly bigger than Azul will actually.

Brent:

right, right.

Mike:

And I don't know of anyone else that does competitive content. That would be bigger than Mew or PTC, radio and PTC radio from my understanding is like some competitive and some collecting, right?

Brent:

on his mind. Right? And I think, I think like me these days, he, he has more like hot takes than actual competitive, uh, gameplay perspectives. Right.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brent:

And, and he's, he's, he is like, he's trying to transition into like variety streaming a little more.

Mike:

Oh, I see.

Brent:

I mean, he doesn't even do the podcast anymore. PC radio, no longer thing. It's very sad.

Mike:

Oh really? Oh, I didn't realize that he just does videos. He just does videos like under that name.

Brent:

exactly. Exactly. He, he has, he has recognized that the market has moved away from podcasts

Mike:

Yeah. unlike us. Um, they could also get just, you know, big pack opening streamers, I suppose. And YouTube creators. I'm sure those are magnitudes larger than any of the people we just talked about.

Brent:

right, right. I mean, the question is, yeah. Like, so who are the biggest of those, like Leon Harts, a great example of like, he's a guy who I could imagine pitching this. Right. Logan, Paul's a guy that I can imagine pitching this, but like, I wonder if they would say that if they would've the hubris to say that they're like, they will be the expert or will do they just bring in Mahome to support them?

Mike:

Right. Yeah. Leonhard has like over, over a million subscribers. Yeah. Almost two, 1.7 million. So

Brent:

Yeah. Like, like there, I agree. There's definitely collectors that are gigantic.

Mike:

yeah,

Brent:

Um, alright. Alright. So last, last word on this. Is there one name that you guys think will definitely be on the show? Totally agree. Really? I was gonna say

Mike:

I would, I, I bet Leonhardt will make an appearance, whether he's a regular or not. I would be surprised if he did not make some appearance appearance at some point. Yeah,

Brent:

he's on there for sure.

Brit:

I'm not sure. I was just thinking, you know, going through these thoughts in my head, I've definitely decided that like TP C obviously they'll. Involved in some sense, but like we're not getting Pika, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Like, they're not gonna, they're not gonna take a, an employee or anything like that. I would think really. I mean, I'll, I'll betcha on it. I like, I would, I just think the opposite. Um, but as far as anyone, no, I, I like Lele Hart. I like Jake Paul or lo Logan, Paul Logan. Paul's the Pokegear one.

Mike:

bet they have whoever the current world champion is.

Brent:

Right? Henry brand.

Brit:

Yeah,

Mike:

I mean, by the time they film it, it might be a different person. Right, right.

Brent:

True. True.

Mike:

Whoever wins worlds,

Brit:

it really up the stakes for worlds. I would think like, not in like an intelligible way, I suppose, but I mean, that certainly is a cool prize to win on top of everything else.

Mike:

Yeah. And, and again, probably I wouldn't expect whoever that is to be on regularly, but probably make an appearance in one of the episodes.

Brent:

Right, right, right. They're they're gonna kind of blow through town. I feel that, that, that's how I feel like a, a PKU would appear is like he would appear in an episode as like commentator, former champ, like blah, blah, blah, one of the all time greats, just cuz he's like around, you know?

Mike:

Could be

Brent:

Uh, um, but, but yeah, like the, because probably they bring in, uh, who knows, who knows it's completely crazy.

Mike:

wasn't there some other, uh, some other potential TV show at some point in the last couple years. What am I thinking of? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. There's like a collecting show right on Netflix. That.

Brit:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike:

That like, there was some, I don't know if it was a casting call as well, but yeah, I think we talked about it on the pod at one point. Um,

Brent:

me.

Mike:

launching collectable show

Brit:

Yeah, I think it was, it was like announced during the pandemic sort of

Mike:

Yeah. Last November.

Brit:

So, but I'm, I vaguely am remembering it now, but I don't, I don't really have anything to offer beyond what you've said.

Mike:

I wonder if this is the same thing or different. Probably different.

Brit:

I don't know. Yeah. Maybe it was like a, a rework of that idea or something, and they're just going in this direction instead. It seems like a reasonable theory. I'm pretty sure that one was Netflix, for sure.

Mike:

that was Netflix. Yeah. I'm reading the article now is Netflix. Um, and the guy that, one of the producers of pawn stars

Brit:

I

Mike:

that that was, who was behind it. So. Yeah, I guess it could be the same or it could be different. Interesting. All right.

Brent:

right. All right, let me, let me. You guys, a couple of questions, assuming I'm filling out this casting call form on behalf of my Elvis son, who you guys know as well as anybody. Um, what does the applicant need to be ready to take their TCG skills to the next level?

Mike:

that's the question? What

Brent:

There's there's like 35 questions. I'm asking you guys a couple of random ones.

Mike:

okay. And the question is like, what do you need in order to.

Brent:

What does, what does Liam need to be ready to take his TCG skills to the next level?

Brit:

mean, see, for me that seems to imply like a, a starting point, a starting point that is like already non-competitive, you know, something like that.

Brent:

No, they, so they, they have a bunch of questions about that, where they're all over the board there, like, uh, um, uh,

Mike:

I mean, I don't know if this is like the best answer to the question, but the, the, the one thing that I try to tell people when they're learning Pokegear Pokegear and really learning anything is you gotta be willing and okay with being wrong all the time. And we've talked about that on the podcast, like being willing to be like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I know I'm doing something wrong. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Brent:

Right, right,

Mike:

and not being so sure of, you know, uh, I. I'm losing and I don't know, and I'm getting so unlucky and it's not my fault. I'm just, you know, I could have drawn my cards in the wrong order, in a different order. And you know, that's, you guys know what I mean? I

Brit:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent:

right. Uh, alright. If the applicant could have a dream TCG battle, who would it be with and why?

Mike:

mean, I guess that depends on who you are. Right. But

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, that, that question seems to be loaded with the assumption that, you know, competitive players, like, how do you answer that as an just complete outsider? Like Ash, I guess like, like, I don't know, like, like.

Brent:

You know what I gotta, I gotta tell you my, in, in an effort, I actually, my first instinct, when I saw that question, I successfully broke the mold and figured out how to answer it correctly. My first answer was the aliens new mirror match.

Mike:

Oh, the

Brent:

That's a good answer, right.

Mike:

Yeah, that that's good. I like that.

Brent:

That, but that's so inside baseball, I don't think the casting call people appreciate it,

Mike:

Yeah. They'd be like, what are they, what is this

Brent:

that's, but that's a super good, uh, uh, dream TCG battle answer.

Mike:

I don't even know. Like, if you put like Jason Klazinski, I don't even know if they would know that. Right.

Brent:

right, right.

Brit:

Yeah. I don't know. I'll just say like, I'm just throw like a weird one and just say like, I don't know, like troll the application, be like Matt Mew.

Brent:

See, I, I would be like, LeBron James

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brit:

Yeah. I don't know what that one's looking for. Yeah. I haven't looked at it as soon as I saw the like LA only I was, but it sounds great. Would stand out or not.

Brent:

they, they have the, they, so as I told you, they have a bunch of questions about like TCG skills, like has the applicant ever played in Pokegear Pokegear TG tournament and then they have asterisk. If yes, has the applicant tried to qualify for the TCG world championships? Is there someone the applicant plays with hopes to play with, learn from, or teach the game to, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, there, there was one other one that I thought was, uh, vaguely, uh, related. Nope,

Mike:

tho those answers could vary wildly depending on their knowledge and experience with the game,

Brent:

Yeah, right.

Mike:

which is gonna make it really hard for them to sift through those answers. Hmm. That's

Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche. It's an amazing podcast about Pokegear Pokegear um, guys, I thought the other thing that we should talk about for a hot second is how we are now sponsored by TG player. Apparently.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

Uh, we, we welcome our new Pokegear Pokegear cord overlords. Um, you know, I was unaware that TCG player is apparently an absolutely gangbusters business. They, um, just like a year ago, raised 35 million in venture capital. Like apparently they're a, a empire of card distribution and, uh, you know, props to channel fireball for starting up their competitive marketplace. Cuz I assume that that's like step one in getting acquired is, well, we shall have no competing marketplaces, but props, the TCG player, they, they made a brilliant investment in one of the few, uh, uh, remaining written content Creation vehicles and podcast sponsoring vehicles. We will, we will make them proud as we endorse the TCG player brand. I bought a bunch of cards on it just the other day. I

Mike:

you go. Yeah. I saw, um, the magic guy. LSV Louis, Scott Vaga. I think he, one of the co-creators co-founders of channel fireball and he was pretty pumped on Twitter. A lot of people in the comments were saying that they're not so excited because it takes away some competition from the retail side, which I think is fair criticism, but hopefully it's doesn't change too much. Like, I mean, I've found some cheaper prices on channel fireball, but I've also found cheaper price than CG player, at least for Pokegear Pokegear stuff. So I kind of think from my perspective, it's a wash on that side and if it does enable content to be better, more consistent, whatever, I think that's definitely a huge plus.

Brent:

recognize channel fireball, uh, um, was certainly not as well capitalized. And in that way, I hope that this leads to even bigger investments in the content and marketing Creation engine. Gives us the chance to do even more crazy promotional activities in the future, as we promote the heck out of those TCG player guys.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

All right. I feel like we've covered, um, most of the non Pokegear stuff. Oh, the other thing we should talk about is summer is coming up, right?

Mike:

Oh yeah. So. I'm going on vacation for two weeks and Brent, I know you're off or are you, are you going somewhere as well? Or are you

Brent:

I'm I'm out of pocket for like the next four days. And then, uh, and, and then I'm back. So no big deal there.

Mike:

Okay. So definitely, definitely next week we are off probably two weeks in a row unless you guys wanna do something, but I am doing Kevin Clemente, AKA Mewtwo, underscore magic carbs podcast, like of rage, uh, later this week. And I think he'll be posting the episode sometime next week. And he said that he would send me the audio file and then I can forward it over to Brent. Maybe you can just do like a, you know, a 32nd intro saying, you know, Mike was on this and

Brent:

Give people, plenty of

Mike:

yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it'll be a good cross promotion episode.

Brent:

beat that. Uh, um, oh, the other, the other housekeeping, I think we have is, um, this is episode 93, I think, although, uh, like, like all the different things that I use track, uh, to keep track kind of feed me different numbers, but that's the highest number that all the different things feed me. So I think that this is episode 93. Um, that means if you want to get a review in before our 100th episode, uh, you're running out a time listeners, uh, who knows maybe at a hundred, we will call it quits and say, this is enough podcasting for one day. And, and then you will have missed your chance to leave a review on the pod that you cherish so much. And you'll look back and say, if only I had let them know how much I loved them, they would've kept going and done 101, and it'll all be on you. Anyway, if you leave a review, we will read on the pod, we will discuss it. Uh, uh, there's so many people, uh, who have done a fantastic job and we appreciate all of them. You should join their ranks, uh, a loyal listener. Okay. Uh, guys, let's talk about, uh, a book trading cards. Have you figured out for worlds yet, guys?

Mike:

Well, um, that's actually kind of a good transition. Uh, so the thing that I'm going to primarily talk about on Kevin's podcast is he wanted to get some people on that have successfully transitioned from day one to day two. And I have played day one, four times, 2015, 16, 17, 18, and I've made it through three out of the four times. Um, so I would say list all of the specifics on that kind of listen, uh, to the pod, to that podcast episode. But one of the things that I'll be talking about is, and we alluded to it briefly last week as well. One of the strategies that I've used in deciding what to play for day one is to figure out what deck was underplayed and underperformed. Relative to how I actually think it is in the format, how powerful it actually is, and then make some tweaks and play that deck. So in 2015, that was night, March night, March. Uh, this was not the night March year. It was the year before the night, March year, but night March was still pretty strong, uh, for nationals and worlds 2015. Um, and, but it really didn't perform well at nationals that year. That was when way Lord got second and Jason went with to Garb. Uh, and so me and a couple other people, we played a lot of night March. We tweaked it, we refined it. Uh, and it ended up being one of the most successful decks at worlds. And it wasn't just our group that did that. You know, there, it was very successful deck. Uh, the other time that we did that was 2018 with the buzz Garbodor deck, the, the baby buzz. Um, which wasn't really a huge deck of nationals, but it started gaining some traction in between N AIC and worlds that year. It did well at some unofficial event. I forget exactly what it was. Uh, but similarly, a lot of different groups kind of saw that, you know, it was a known ish quantity, but EV there was multiple groups of people that took the idea refined, it, made it their own and then saw a lot of successful worlds. So all of that to say, I think that deck this year could possibly be the ice Rider hockey deck. Uh, and again, we did say that last week, but I played a bunch this week, so I figured we could kind of dive into it a little bit.

Brent:

Let's do it, man.

Mike:

So the lists have been, I don't know if you guys have seen, so, so Frank's list was a little bit different than what has been. Seen success in the online tournaments. Um, so let me just pull up a, a list real quick. Last, last week's late night was won by Vinny Fernandez and Vinny played a list that ran four battle VIP pass, as opposed to Frank's one battle VIP pass Vinnie ran no Path to the Peak and ran training courts. Instead other significant there's not there's other little differences, but I feel like those are the two big ones. It ran, uh, a Leon and one boss's orders and ion. So like a little tech supporter package that Frank did not run. Uh, and the big thing that Vinny cut was the tracking shoes, which. Frank had the Trek and shoes and the, and the puka Mew. a little bit different style. Um, and I haven't played too Mew. I haven't really played too much with Vinny's list, but I've kind of been trying to find the happy medium cuz there's things that I like about both of the, the lists. I don't really love battle VIP pass as a card in general, it feels super dead so often. Uh, I mean, obviously cuz you can let it turn one and I just don't know if it's worth playing four of in a deck like this, especially one that runs BI and really you already have kind of dead cards in cross switcher throughout the game where you can't really just burn them cuz you need them. Um, I don't know, I, I should try it out before I knock it, but that was kind of where I'm coming from. I really like four ultra ball Vinnie only played three. So I I've been kind of just doing the four quick ball, four ultra ball instead of the four VIP pass. Um, uh, but what else I've been trying like a split of paths to the Peak in training court. I think Path to the Peak or without Path to the Peak. I think your Mew matchup is probably pretty bad. Um, so if Mew continues to not be a very big deck, then I think it's fine, but I wouldn't bank on that, I guess. And path is also just pretty good also against other PEX at certain points in the game, you can Roxanne pat them and it's really strong and you have Viv to draw out of Roxanne, but they don't, they only have Gria and the Inteleon stuff. So, um, yeah. He, I haven't used the Leon yet, but, uh, in theory, it's cool. It's kind with ion, it's a searchable way with ion to deal with, uh, tool jammers and big charms and whatnot to, to, to one shot the two 80 HPV stars.

Brent:

Right. And, and it lets you get the three 10,

Mike:

Right, right.

Brent:

if you need to something slightly bigger.

Mike:

Yeah. Um,

Brent:

Like, is that, is that theoretically how they're trying to fix, um, like new matchups or something,

Mike:

yeah. And, and like big charm Arceus as well.

Brent:

right.

Mike:

I mean, you have tool scrapper, but it just gives you another out to that. Um, I've been playing the last couple games I've played with it. I've been playing three cross switcher and one boss's order. Uh, cuz I find often. with four quick ball, four ultra ball needing to draw cards in the early game. You often have to use a Crobat in order to set up that you end up discarding one cross switcher anyway. And so you very rarely get two uses out of cross switcher with this deck. And so I was like, well, three seems kind of reasonable then to pretty much guarantee that you'll always have two.

Brent:

This is, this is the mythical, uh, uh, anytime you have to do two cards, you you're like, well, I'll run three. Cause it's the perfect thing. Like puzzle a time. Three is the perfect count.

Mike:

yeah. Right. Um, so I don't know. It's probably, I, I don't know for sure, but I've never really played around with different counts of cross switcher. I've always tried four or two. I've never tried three. So I wanna play a bunch of games and see how it feels.

Brent:

you know, I, what I thought was interesting was, I mean, maybe, maybe he put the Leon in and said, that's enough for the Mew matchup, because he, as you said, he is not running path like, but, but I felt like Frank had a lot of techs in for things that he thought would be part of the Meta. Like he was originally running the ice and canned that for a scraper and a canceling cologne army OFS stadium kind goes for the online tournament, consistency, Mew, and just runs like an army of training courts.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I haven't played, I mean, I think that's one thing that's cool about the deck is that there are a number of spots where you can tech cards to beat the things that you wanna beat. You can't really tech for everything. You are a strong deck in general, and you have just baseline a shot against anything, except maybe Miltank, uh, but you can, you know, you can make

Brent:

Well that, that, so he was running the ice cube and the

Mike:

right. Yeah.

Brent:

and then he ran canceling cologne. Oh. And then he ran outside Lele so he's like, I kill two.

Mike:

And with you can, yeah, you can actually,

Brent:

Oh, that's right. And then he's got Pybas he can kill three,

Mike:

yeah. Something like that. Depends how many heads you flip

Brent:

Yeah, exactly.

Mike:

you could kill,

Brent:

there. You could, you could definitely get there.

Mike:

technically you could kill six if you flip a lot of heads

Brent:

Right. Right. And then, and then he was running, he was, he was in the, a, he was running or in Milwaukee, he was running the ditto to try to have a Dialga out. And then he cuts that.

Mike:

Ditto is definitely bad I'm or at least I'm pretty sure it's bad. I, I tried ditto for a number of games and I don't know, I started with it a bunch. It's not really good to start with. It's so Mew it's HP is so much lower, so much easier to kill. It's just really awkward, especially if you are running path, because then you can't play path. If you wanna keep the ditto option open, uh, Frank was not running a heavy ball and I think heavy ball's probably just better than the ditto if you want to play.

Brent:

Right. Right. And, and Vinny did come back with the heavy ball. Heavy ball seems really good. And obviously, I mean, he cut the ditto instance and ice cube going at N AIC. Right.

Mike:

yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think heavy. Ball's good because you're only playing two each of your basics and they're both pretty like you, you you're gonna get a total of three attackers out depending on the matchup, depending on your draws, depending on your prize. They're gonna change, which if you get two ice Rider or two PAs, but you almost always need three. And so heavy ball just makes sense to me.

Brent:

Yeah, that seems utterly reasonable. Yeah.

Mike:

I've also been playing for.

Brent:

when we talked about this a week ago, playing the scraper, cologne, Eileen Brit, you thought this is a terrible matchup for right.

Brit:

mean, I don't know if it's too bad, but when there's the reliable answer for Miltank, I think they would be you probably more often than not. Um, but yeah, like even, even then, like cologne, not super reliable, or at least it's like already playing the odds, just sort of like at the base functionality. Um, but yeah, I try to just like push its damage can be difficult, but like it discards so much. Like I think maybe I was just in my head, like, it's probably fine cuz you just hammered them. And like if your hammers are good throughout the game, even like with PAOs, like I don't know if they can really start to threaten the YouTube later on. I'm not sure how I'd have to play out. Um, but yeah, I mean maybe as a segue, I think Mewtwo is going to be a very real deck for worlds. Like had people just aren't really playing it in tournaments, but it, it does fine when, when it does see play, like when a good player plays it, they seem to make like top eight, they're pretty close to it. Um, and like POCT might be a pretty interesting addition into it. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think it's just a question of just like, and we see this with formats all the time where like the nationals are sort of the, the, the final tournament of the year ends up being won or somewhat dominated by like a very polarizing deck, like, like, uh, Goel uhor, uh, PI, things like that. And then, you know, the big question for worlds is during those years is like, do we counter, this is a ton of this gonna show up again. And it always tends to vary like the, the Pikarom year was really interesting with no one played Pikarom at worlds. Um, even though it was like one of the huge, one of the biggest decks at nationals that year and. No one really played, got to tell either for worlds either. And like, I, I came in like over, really over prepared for it, myself at that world, as I remember. Um, yeah. And like, and something that's been said on the deck too, like I think like some decks, just like don't have good Miltank and, or Mew two answers already. So I don't know, like not every archetype is gonna be able to compensate. Um, but I think certain ones will, and I like, I've talked to Mac a little bit about like where his world's testing is and he doesn't seem, it doesn't seem like he's interested in playing YouTube from what I can tell. I don't know. I don't think he's very far in his testing. He's just like, wants to figure out, like, try to, is just trying to break the pal mirror. Like one more time. I think seeing if he can get it to like one more stage of like iteration from like Isaiah's list or something like that.

Brent:

Seems

Mike:

Yeah, I, I haven't seen P lists or RCS lists

Brent:

reasonable.

Mike:

too much in order to try to make a better Mewtwo matchup. There's not a whole lot of incentives to do that, I suppose, in the online events, but I'm sure good players that are preparing for worlds or thinking about it, like

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, you just like watch the like Bakari stream games and things like that. Like, if you want older, how to play the matchup at the top player, like OB, obviously the Israel series is a good one, too. Um, Yeah. Like I that's a good, you know, a good point. One, one that I think is right. Like, I don't really know how P as a list can adapt, but I think their play can adapt. And maybe even just like a, like a little more Marnie hand disruption kind of thing, just like getting you that extra turn, like double echoing horn probably gets you there. Like, cuz that's, that's such a key part of your game plan. And a lot of matchups is that you, you have to get the combo, but you have to get the combo basically with, um, essentially assuming that they, they can echoing horn you for their last prize. So if they echoing horn, you consistently for their last two prizes, it probably gets pretty bad. Um, whether that's like a good enough. Call for the deck at large. I'm not sure. Um, that's definitely something I'm really trying to fix or something that's on my mind as I'm kind of in the off season is that I like, I need to learn Pia for the next season. Like ASAP. I, I haven't ordered the cards for it yet, but I just like, if I had like local tournaments or once they announce like league cups or something again, like I just feel like I would just like mash pal just to try to learn it. Cuz I assume I don't doesn't seem like it's gonna be going anywhere. Like I guess, um, not to start talking about the law zone set, but like as far as like Japanese results are concerned with their future card pool, like it, it would seem that like the Zo art card that people really hyped on kind of is a flop and that like PA Inteleon and RCS are just gonna continue to be the top X moving forward. But obviously the SETSS not outlet yet. A ton can change.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Brit:

we see that a lot with Dex. Like the, I don't know that just like they kind of, or at least they're only like printed at the tail end of the season. And then they just go on to dominate all of the next season anyways, too, like, like dark eye, something like that came out as kind of right before worlds before there were sets right before worlds

Mike:

Right. Or like rash sheets are

Brit:

rashes are too. Yeah. And that's, that's another good example of a deck that, I mean, for your world's choice, that like was kind of underrepresented at nationals and then it went on to be the best deck basically at worlds. Cause I think like not very many people really played, uh, Rashi Rushi floss at, uh, um, at NATS, like I think pram got like top 64 and like maybe there was a top 32 or something like that, but it like, it just

Mike:

you're talking. Okay. You're talking about 2011 right now. Okay. Okay. I think what I was saying was actually like 2019, like

Brit:

Oh, sorry.

Mike:

Rushi ARD, but I think both are actually true. So you're talking about the Tylo deck for the listeners that are unaware.

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brit:

Yeah. Sorry. I IARD you and did

Mike:

yeah. No, but that's true. Like Magon mega was like kind of the most played deck, I would say by good players at nationals. And then Tylo was the most played deck by the best players at worlds. Yeah, but I think it's also true. What you said about Jirachi. Like Jirachi was kind of underplayed a little bit at N a I C in 2019. And then I know the format shifted obviously the rotation, but it was the most powerful card at worlds. And even though Henry won, I think there's an argument that, to had the best deck, right. With the, the big fire Rushi Ninetails deck that year. Um, alright. What else is going on? There's also Luna to, so rock is still on the ladder and it is doing actually okay. In events now, uh, it's gotten a couple top eights this past week. Shinx played it to a, uh, top four finish in a the other day. Whenever a really good player plays a deck. You should, you should look at that. Uh, and Stefan came out with an article today as well, quite different lists. I mean, you can only be so different I guess, but, um, for, yeah, I don't know. They're, they're different enough. played to Han he played a wordier V which I think is a, a good card that it's not clear where it goes, but it's a good card.

Brent:

That is a good card. I think, I think that's a card that's gonna seem more play than, uh, I think people have talked about.

Brit:

I think I was actually played in, I don't know if they played it in, in AIC, but I was doing some digging just cause I. Wanted to think about it for a little while. And it was just like, have, you know, in some group chats, like has the Alex Schmank Alex Krekeler, is that like RCS fire been posted anywhere? And I think I found their Milwaukee list and it was playing the weird ear, I think. And like, that's a cool place to play it. I think like here accelerating a little more than other RCS decks and like get a big knockout potentially. But yeah, I don't even know, like off the top of my head, like what sort of energy you need to like really just sort of like take a surprise knockout with it.

Mike:

Cause it does 40 times, right? Not 40 plus yeah. 40 times. So you need like seven to kill a VStar, which is a lot, but it's not unreasonable if it's like your last KO and you can kind of go all in, even with Theone, cell rock. Because you can, you know, four soul rocks plus attach plus two scoop up nets. It's a lot, but again, not unreasonable if you're kind of saving your resources for the end of the game.

Brent:

well, there was, uh, uh, I was trying to think of what there was some situation where this was like highly, uh, oh, so I think, I mean, I think that the interesting thing is it's got the frontier.

Mike:

yeah,

Brent:

So when, when they move it from the bench of the act that you can move any amount of energy from your other Pokegear to it. So I feel like where I've seen this C play in our testing is as like a splash into an RCS stack.

Mike:

Mm-hmm

Brent:

And you, so you've got three on the RCS and you accelerate three to some benched thing, and then you can bench the wordier, switch it, attach, and then you have seven energies on it.

Mike:

right. Yeah.

Brent:

you can like really kill some stuff.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seems

Brent:

So that, that lets you take like a big, uh, um, a big like RCS, knockout, something like that, like right outta nowhere. Right, right.

Mike:

while we're talking about lots of energy on the field, I do have to tell you guys about a very cool deck I played against on the ladder the other day. The concept is really cool and maybe could be tweaked to actually be good. Not sure it might just be not good, but it's very cool. So, uh, it ran the stage two blast. Do I told you about the, the, the ARD blast do one last week. It's not that, so it runs the blast do and it runs Sandaconda V and Sandaconda VMax. So Sandaconda V has that ability that it's minus 30 or 20 or 30, I think from a tax. Um, so it's a little bit tanker for a V and I don't know if they ran D they didn't have it active when I played against it, but, um, so use blasto, you accelerate four stone energies. And to DTE to the Sander county beef. So now it's taking minus a hundred, 110 depending, uh, and then use the DTS to leverage hyper potions. You run other healing. And so it ends up becoming like this huge tanky deck that is enabled by getting all of your stone energies onto the initial Pokegear Pokegear. And then you can, uh, pretty much two shot everything because SantaCon VMax attack is 180 for whatever. Uh, and so even with one DTE, you're still doing one 60. Um, I ended up beating it with ice Rider Pia, because ice Rider just does this, you know, a lot of damage.

Brent:

damage.

Mike:

Yeah. Right, right. So they, but I, I had to do 2 84 times. To before they like ran out of healing. Um,

Brent:

right. I mean, I'm sure I'm sure in their matchups, they run a super skinny bench

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

and, and like, as a result they have, and it's a good matchup against our systems fighting type.

Mike:

Mm-hmm

Brent:

So, uh, yeah, I'm sure they have a lot of mojo the whole way. Right.

Mike:

yeah, like if I was a P Inteleon deck, I definitely wouldn't have beaten it, but you know, being able to use ice Rider and the fact that, you know, they're a little clunky cuz they have healing. So I was able to like hit with an ice Rider, um, switch it, switch to a Pia, hit with Pia. They hit me, I switched to the second ice Rider. I hit them. They hit me. I hit right back. They kill my ice Rider. I hit again with Paia. Now they go, they take five prizes. And then I finally go up my, my, with my damaged ice Rider and finally kill the thing. Like, so, uh, you know, that matchup just seemed pretty good because they don't really, I don't know if they play boss, but even if they did, it's kind of hard to find. So I was just kind of able to slowly chip away with them with a, with, I mean, a lot of damage, but a lot of things probably don't have the damage capacity, um, to do it. So I don't know. It seems like a concept. It was the first time that I've seen blasto use where I was like, oh, that's actually pretty good. Like create in such a tanky thing. And it's not like you're requiring a lot of stuff. You need the, you know, you need the squirt over a kidney, blast ice and you need a Sandaconda V that's it. So,

Brent:

right. That's I mean, they're able to keep Cal damage output really, really low. Were

Mike:

I didn't see it, but that I, they might, they also did run Miltank so, but they didn't get it out against me until later. So I, I tried to look at their list after the game, you know, how some people have that on. Um, but they didn't. So maybe they were a serious player and maybe I'm adding their secret deck right now. But, uh, yeah, very cool concept that if I was going to a world, I probably would take time to explore a little bit, at least. Um, but I don't know if I'm going to have the time to do that.

Brent:

I definitely feel like Sandaconda is, is another in that long line of, um, Pokegear people have really tried to figure out, like, is there a stall deck here? Is there like a long healing deck?

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

Cause it's just so tanky.

Brit:

So there's definitely like some resurgence of OSHA food right now. People are trying OSHA food with radiant blast ChuChu, which seems interesting to me. Um, I've seen a handful of lists. Most of them are kind of just like the, to list, like with one, one Octillery still, but, um, I guess still playing the dark package sometimes, but then just like trying to find like better yoga loop terms, I guess. And I think, I think like compared to grin and like some decks. Um, that the, I think the, the blaster has a better home. Like I, you know, I think I mentioned it last week. Like maybe making a lot more sense in like RCS that isn't you're, you know, necessarily like trying to draw their whole deck or something like that, but could really get mileage out of the extra damage. And so their few is, you know, fairly popular, but the one thing I did see, and this is something I'm not, I think I was conflicted on it last week, but I it's a Taiwanese player that I follow, but he interacts with like Japanese deck list a lot. And so sometimes I'm just like, I get confused and think it's still the Taiwanese format, but this one was just like, was the old Intel or not the old, but the rapid strike Inteleon VMax, like with the blast voice, which seemed really cool to Mees. I really want try it. Um, just again, another card that I think people have really tried hard to make work, and it just hasn't quite been there, but like maybe with the blast and the extra damage it could get there. So it was just like, Inteleon um, I can't remember if it was also playing Inteleon, but like a bunch of energy retrieval on top of like for water and for rapid energy. And then just with like the Cheryl package and things like that. I think I wanna say that it was playing Inteleon and my inclination was to kind of, you know, something that Kevin Clemente has been saying a lot recently. And again, I think Frank agrees trying to just like, if you're not doing like combo things that like BI is the way to go rather than Italian. And so like, obviously it's kind of a combo, but it's, it's not a very intensive one. You just play Cheryl and attach again. So I wanna, I would wanna try to rework it with, uh, like the BI engine. I think that's kind of the first step that I am intending to try, like for fun, maybe in an online tournament or something like that. Um, yeah, it just seems cool. And just trying to make use of these other rapid strike Pokegear Pokegear I guess I, I had a friend who talk, talk, try to talk to me about, um, Just the char art, the radiant char art. And it doesn't seem like that list has really been iterated any further. Like it's, it's out there. I don't feel like I see it really doing anything. Um, whether it's just like in, in totally on toolbox or like a magma basin thing, even though I think I've seen it in like an toolbox. Um, but yeah, that's all I got.

Mike:

I really thought the radiant charts, our deck was gonna be insanely broken and the more I play it, the least EX the less excited I'm a, I am about it. It's really susceptible to Marnie and hand disruption in general. And yeah,

Brent:

I, I feel like, uh, um, I don't know if, uh, if it's necessarily the correct thing to do, but I feel like virtually every list I see now runs at least a Sander. Like people want the option to play a rock Sander. And I think, I think we were on the fence about whether that, that was gonna turn out to be a good card or a met card, but like everybody's playing one.

Mike:

yeah, it is like somewhere in between. Right? It's like, it's not incredible, but it's something that you have to account for when you are doing, when you're building your deck.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. You, you can't, I don't think you can go into worlds thinking you can high roll around Roxanne.

Mike:

Yeah. Right. Exactly.

Brent:

You're just gonna get Roxanne, like every game or three, because everybody's.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

I

Mike:

On a not standard note. I won't be able to play it, but I know Pokestats is running a pretty big old format event towards the end of July. I think the last week of July or the, uh, like second to last weekend. I don't know the exact date, but it's the N a I C 2017 format. So the one that toward one with tra Garb.

Brent:

Yeah, I saw that too. I, and I thought, uh, it's a, shame's gonna be a camp because I know he loves playing in Drampa Garb.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah, that's a fun format. So I recommend anybody that's listening. If you're available,

Brent:

What, what did, what did you guys play at worlds that year?

Brit:

played,

Brent:

when you were Brit.

Brit:

no, I, I, that was the last year I qualified. I actually, I lost my wind in, uh, today too, to Stefan actually in a, uh, Desi tails mirror. Um, and that's what I played for worlds too, but it was like, It wasn't, it didn't end up being any good, but like, it was like, Mason, I deck that year, we played like Desi tails with like a GoPod. I forget why I think it just like hit for numbers against Gardevoir and like, didn't really get pressured in the same way that like Desi would. Um, but yeah, I was, I was a Desi tails player. That format really good. Our list was like the same ass, just like forgot versus seeker and ended up playing trainers. I'm pretty sure is the story. And so that out well for him, he did the best out of all. He made four I where ended. I know he made cut.

Mike:

I played, I also played Desi tales at N a IIC. Uh, and I really liked that Dick. Um, but then for worlds, I played Garbodor and I played me and Pablo played the same list and Pablo did quite good. He made top and then Diego's Lele Diego's list was a little bit different than ours, but close enough, it was closer to us. Like we were closer than anybody else that played Gardevoir

Brent:

Yeah, that, that's, that's a super fun format. Everybody should definitely go play that because that's just good times with Pokegear. And Des details was like such a skill, uh, like high skill cap deck, like all good things came out of playing that year. Uh, I mean, Espeon, Espeon, Garb, like Drampa Garb is like the quintessential midrange deck. It's like as high skill cap midrange as you could possibly get. Um, uh, absolutely fantastic. Fantastic stuff. Stuff's the

Mike:

Mm-hmm

Brent:

Boltund.