The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

On the Precipice of the First World Championship of the Trashalanche Era!

August 15, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 97
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
On the Precipice of the First World Championship of the Trashalanche Era!
Transcript
Brent:

All right guys, we should probably talk some Pokegear.

Mike:

this doesn't have to be like a long episode. We could

Brit:

Yeah, I think thoughts are roughly in the same place, but yeah, I think just some, like, Robust lively conversations going on about just like what's the worst deck that's gonna make top a, you know, or what's like the most fringe deck in top 32, things like that. Um, you are, are interesting enough to just sort of muse about.

Brent:

All right. Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. We're back at all. As always. Attendance is 100%. Brent Halliburton Brit Pybas Mike Fouchet we're on Twitter. You can follow us. We're sponsored by TCG player, which is acquired channel fireball. The great corporate roll up of, uh, uh, the trading card game universe. We are participating. Uh, there's more exciting stuff coming. We're looking forward to doing all kinds of promotions with TCG player. Which is where I buy virtually all my cards. So it's really exciting to be a part of the TCG player universe. Um, and you know, they help defray the bills, which we appreciate. Um, guys, I will be in London in 48 hours. Um, uh, my gut is, uh, Liam would play Pao right now because every time he, every morning he wakes up and says, okay, I've broken the Meta. And then like two hours later, he comes down for breakfast and he is like, we're playing P

Brit:

uh, What was his trajectory? I, I, I haven't ended up messaging him, but for a second, um, like I was like, oh, maybe I'm going, like I signed up for the open and I meant to just message him, say, Hey, what are you up to? Are you still thinking about that Luxray deck? So like why no more. Luxray why have we moved on past, past that deck?

Brent:

you know, you know, what's funny. I think if you look back at what happened in a, I, um, he ended up. Not beating the Pia decks. He like beat everything else. And then didn't beat the Pia decks, even though he was running this like lightning line. Uh, um, but I, I think in the big scheme of things, like the real trick was, that's a hard deck to pilot. Like all these, you know, single prize attacker decks. Like if you mess up, you're just punished horribly. Like if you mess up, you're punished a little and you get pretty much the same outcome, but like one is far more forgiving than the other, because it's just like, it's more broken cards.

Mike:

That's like I've really enjoyed playing the charar deck that we talked a little bit about last week. But that's kind of my experience with it. Like if you MIS sequence one thing, like just one, you immediately lose the game, you can't win and yeah, that's just not the case with something like Arceus or Pia or Mew. Like those three decks are, you know, you're probably, it, it's the difference between making top eight at world or not making top eight, but it's maybe not the difference of, uh, you know, making day two through day one.

Brent:

right, right. I mean, OB yeah. Obviously you're not gonna win the world championship with Pokegear make and misplay, but like the question is, do you want a, like kind of B minus play to lose you the game? Or, or do you want it to just like, make it a little harder for you to win? And, and it, it definitely seems like Paia is a more forgiving deck. Uh, it's like a, you know, more linear and more, a little more logical. Like, I, I think, I think one of the things that really stood out to us was, um, all like all the other decks, particularly all these, like Inteleon driven deck. If, if you bump into Paia, you have to do all the stuff. Plus you have to find Manaphy or you get bought by Gria turned into and like doing all the other stuff. Plus find Manaphy is just taxing. So like you have to draw really well. And the Paia guys, like I just have to do stuff

Mike:

Yeah, they don't even need to attach turn one, which is like, it's so unfair. Like every other deck, like Arceus goes first. They don't attach turn one. They can still sometimes do it with the Melony play, but it's significantly harder. Pia, like doesn't really care that much, cuz they're like, oh, you know, I'll just get bucket next, turn, Gring away. And energy. If I have to use my ability just for one energy, just to get a turn to attack, it's worth it.

Brent:

Right, right. It's just like all the other ones. Maybe it's not even just that you have to get your sequencing. Right. But let's just like, uh, if you draw a little poorly, you're punished Tallia you're like, well, you know, I have a plan for that.

Brit:

Right. Yeah. I remember having a similar discussion with this about, just about the format in general. I think with like Danny at any IC, just talking about like, you know, which is interesting. I don't know why I've sort of been juggling. RCS versus pakia like pretty lively in my head in terms of what's better. But I think I'm definitely just like back then. I definitely would've said Paia and right now I think I'm definitely like definitely PA and like, like that's just, it, that like dynamic where it's just like, if you miss the attached first turn with RCS, like even with the Melony play just usually feels really bad. It's just like, like if you have to use your VStar power and like a drizzle, like some, some conjunction of the. To get Melony like, and then Melony online and then attack. Like it, it's never as good as like when you just raw open with like X and Y and only need only need that third piece for like the really powerful turn to, and I think we said similar things like that before, at least like, I remember more so in testing for N I C just sort of thinking about this format, thinking about the format in this kind of a, you know, more, um, Card game archetype terms. So like RCS is like the control deck. Pia is the midrange and Mio is like the agro deck and Pia is the midrange deck. Just like basically no matter what happens, just like always has like the most powerful, like second turn usually, or I think a very consistently. Sets it so to have, and that isn't to say that it's as consistent as say RCS, but I think when Pia like hits that stride, whether, you know, with a triple, triple VStar attached, things like that, um, it's just so hard to be. And I feel like the RCS players are just have to play so like reactively behind that for their, for their game plan to work. Like it's not as sort of, um, Like forward as Paia, Paia is always just sort of on the gas, always the aggressor, whereas RCS Inteleon like it does have very realistic paths to beat Paia. Um, but it's almost predicated on a comeback almost. Whereas in that, you know, when we're, when we're talking about. Gosh, how however many rounds people, people from day one are gonna have to play to make it all the way through. Like, you're just not gonna be able to tie really more than two, two or three times over the course of three days or something like that. And when you're playing a deck that almost is naturally going to fall, you know, fall onto the back foot. Um, and just hope the charms loop so on is enough to make a combat. It just feels. Like the aggressor just might be the way to go. And again, similar thoughts about how we've talked about. Dialga just like, well, it's clearly not as powerful as these other two decks, but it does have these other like kind of time tempo issues, um, solved. Should they become an issue?

Mike:

Yeah, I dunno if you guys saw, uh, Gustavo made a huge tweet like thread, maybe 20 tweets and the translate was good enough. On Twitter that I could kind of follow it. And it was basically just spelling out all of the reasons why Paia is insane. and how, like, how it's so good and why it's so good. And it was, uh, it, I would recommend any listeners to go check that out. Like the, the Twitter translate is good enough that you'll understand what he's saying.

Brent:

Yeah. Like if I, if you told me I was gonna draw perfectly, maybe I play ental like, I like Arceus Italian. The matchup seems good, but like, uh, I think the trick is every time you look at that matchup, you're like, okay, this turn, I need X, the next turn I need Cheren's Care. Like you just have like, there's stuff you have to draw and you gotta draw it in the right order. Like there's, there's just very little margin for error.

Mike:

does so. I don't wanna spend the whole time talking about Pia, but, uh, does Liam have a preference on Pia list? Is he like the four VIP pass? Do he like not four VIP pass or any sense?

Brent:

I think right now he's more on the V I P train than I, I think I would've expected.

Mike:

Mm-hmm

Brent:

Uh, um, I, I think as you were talking about last week, like if you're gonna go nuts, you might as well just go nuts. Right. Like, it's so much of it is like, if you have a strong start, you just roll.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Where are you at on that?

Mike:

I mean, that's kind of where I'm at as well. I wouldn't. So like part of me. I was listening to Azul and Chip's podcast and Azul was kind of EX saying how he thinks that a lot of top players will not play Paia at worlds. And he's talking more from a day, two perspective. So keep that in mind. Um, but he thinks that if you want to really give yourself the best shot of winning this world, you shouldn't play Paia. Um, and I don't know. I don't know if that's true, actually. I think. As I said, Gustavo just outlined all the reasons that the deck is insane and the more that I play it, and I'm a little late to the party. Clearly all these people figured it out five weeks ago, but, um, Paul's just like really, really, really good. Um, and you're like, it's I'm I was trying to think about like previous worlds or N a I C type formats, like where does it compare to. Index strength. And it might be like Zekrom Garb, like Zoroark Garb won N a I right. Did it, did it win N a that year? Cause Stefan won, right. Stefan won, uh,

Brit:

crushed toward

Mike:

and then, and then Zekrom Garb won worlds too. Like, so that was a year where Zoroark Garb was like, clearly just the strongest deck and it wasn't. So far and away the strongest deck, but it was definitely the strongest deck and Pia kind of feels the same. Like it's just really solid against everything. It doesn't have any glaring weaknesses. Uh, you can't really target it. Like there's no, there's not enough good lightning Pokegear to target it. And there's nothing else that really, I mean, maybe we'll see something come out of the blue, but it just doesn't seem like it has any glaring weakness that you can target down. So I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of top players said, Hey, I'm gonna take the ni N I C list change, maybe one or two cards. I could see people like doing really well with Brad's exact 60. Like there's not a whole lot to change. Um, there is some spots that you could change, but I don't know. I, I wouldn't be surprised if, if a lot of these groups just brought PE again, cuz it's so good.

Brent:

I feel like the, you know, we talked about this last week, the, the, like the logical question is, um, Everybody you play is gonna have a plan, right? Cause like if you didn't play test against Paia and feel like you had a good match up against Paia, what are you doing? So if you're a Paia player, like the big fear you have is like, you don't know what deck you're gonna play against, but you know that they've been testing against your deck. And, and like that asymmetry is, is a scary thing to, uh, to have to deal with, but that wasn't not true at an AIC.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

And, you know, Isaiah Bradner was in the.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, and like, and let, let's take that thought a little bit further too, if I'm one of the best players in the world, if I'm Isaiah of Bradner and, and I choose to play P world, it doesn't mean that I haven't tested everything else. It means I've tried so many different things to try and convince myself not to play P. But I just haven't come up with anything. So even though there is always the chance that someone brings like something totally outta the blue and you don't know how to play against it. A lot of these players have certainly been working to try and find something else. And so there's a pretty good chance. They'll have game plans versus, uh, different decks. It'd be really strange to see something like the Pito control like that came totally out of the blue. The format has not. The P Pokegear go set was not significant enough to change the format that much from AIC that, uh, I just don't think anything like that will really happen. People have been, and maybe this is a good segue. Um, people have been asking on Twitter, like, what do you think the big surprise deck, if there's gonna be a surprise deck, what do you think it's gonna be? Um, and so we can talk a little bit about those possibilities, but everybody, all the top players have been considering those possibilities as. More or less. Um, so of surprise, EX what have we seen talked about? I've seen Isha food talked about a little bit. I've seen like Zoroark box, slow road type of stuff. Talked a bit. Anything else that you guys have seen as like potential surprise decks?

Brit:

I think, I think someone has said this, so this, like, I don't remember which thread or who specifically said this, but this is, this is the kind of the only a deck I wanted to bring up today that isn't really quite a secret. But I do think that it's, it's under the radar and that people, I definitely think, uh, Jose Marrero will certainly played again, but where, so I'm talking about RCS, Koko, Desi. This sort of like RCS corner box, counter box kind of deck. Um, forget how well they did in EIC. I believe like a good chunk of Jose and the people playing his list, like made day two. And I think there was one in top 32 or something like that. Um, but it's a deck that I think just like. It's interesting to me. It's see. I don't know, sort of, I don't have great answers for, like, why would you play this over Azul deck? Or why would you play this over RCS? Inteleon like, at least some of those questions seems like, like good ones to be asking, but I think there's, some people are just going to stick to the fringes kind of no matter what, and you know, Jose A. Good player. I think who, who does that very often always does very well. His own deck. Like not very many people, um, play like archetypes, like Jose, or he'll always just like stick to Rayquaza, things like that. And, but this is, this is a deck that I think at least on paper when it has the first, like the, the first really good turn two that I think it does have, you know, pretty solid answers to the format. You've got, uh, Desi for the mirror, taboo Koko for PIAA. Um, Some other, just kind of like tangential benefits, like you can hit through Miltank on the de decid. I, I believe,

Mike:

Oh, yeah, the basic.

Brit:

things like that. And it just seems like to me, I think it, like, again, I don't have a good answer for why you would play this over Peak at you. Um, but just at least in terms of like, what I think would be more of a surprise, it would definitely be this deck. Um, and I could definitely see it making top 32 past that but I think it's a good deck. For sure.

Mike:

Yeah, I think that's a good call. I haven't played it myself at all. But it's been, it's done decently well, and it's, it's got the core RCS BI engine. Right. And I think something I was thinking about earlier today was I wouldn't be surprised if RCS BI become plus X, whether it's Koko, DEI, Crobat flying, Pikachu, whatever. I think that'll be. If I think that'll be just as popular potentially as Arceus Inteleon. Um, to be honest, uh, I just. I think Arceus Inteleon has fallen outta favor a little bit amongst the top players, as they realize that the POA is more of a struggle. Um, and a way to get an advantage back is to play, you know, something like this with Koko or, or flying Peak. So I wouldn't be surprised if they were pretty evenly, um, represented as our CSX. Brent. What about you? Do you see any other surprises? You

Brent:

know, the, the one thing I wanted to get you guys quick reaction on, uh, is like a deck. We talked about a lot before in AIC, and then we didn't talk about really at all after was, uh Malor um,

Mike:

Craig?

Brent:

uh, uh, no, not even the rep, right? The VMax like

Mike:

VMax.

Brent:

that. That was a, a deck that like Piper and granted well with, at Milwaukee, even. And then like, we didn't see it at all at an AIC. And I wonder, like, I, I think my reaction, we haven't really discussed that part, but I think my reaction is, um, Ray Greninja just gives people more outs to playing around Malamar VMax little. So like maybe the like wild growth of that is, is like kind of changed it a little bit. But, uh, you know, I haven't been like scientific about how I've really thought about it, but it's interesting. Cause I, I feel like that was a well regarded. As recently as like one tournament ago. And then it's like, poof, never spoken of.

Brit:

Yeah. Now that you've mentioned is I I'm blanking now, but I definitely, I definitely remember thinking about this and having an answer for why it did poorly at N AIC. And I, I didn't, I'm, I'm blanking. I think it might just lose a Sharon's loop even still. And that might just be the problem. I, I think there was a very slight, you know, a slight adaption in the overall Meta game, I think is what's pushed it out. But I can't remember. I know I've thought about this and had had.

Brent:

Inteleon and just like, just like. Arceus Inteleon has proven to probably be the most viable of all

Brit:

I think so. I think, yeah, I think we saw just probably a big uptick in, in this, what we, what we've just been referring to as our CS Inteleon for about the last month now. Like that was, I think even, even going into Milwaukee and before Annie, I we're like, no, you can't beat Paia. How do you beat pakia you need. You know too many things on your bench and then we, we should transition to like, oh no, no, no. See, see what you do is you have the one BLE and the, the bench Starcy us with the big charm and the VStar active, and then you can pull out the charms loop. And I think, I think that is the case. That's gonna be my that's my hunch here. And I don't have a better answer rather than that. So it's not like people are playing grass book Pokegear anymore. And like in before that, like people would play the, the, the radiant CEL or not radiant, but the brilliant CEL or, or whatever in the, the Urshifu box index like that, just as a sort of easy punch the Malamar and yeah, I mean, I'm not sure I

Brent:

like the, the shrinking of the Malamar market has been more about just like how much people love RCS Inteleon than it was about some particular problem with RCS Malamar. But. Malamar attack is, uh, fascinating when I think why don't people, why aren't people trying harder with that? The only thing I can come up with is like maybe rating grin injury has been made it a little worse, which like makes sense.

Mike:

other thing. Could play into it is Paia is pretty easy to set up two attackers that are going two shot. The Malamar. So it's not too hard before they go into like a Marnie attack to have two PAs fully powered up, you know, they hit your first Paia. You hit him back, they kill your Pia. You just already have the second Pia and you just killed her. Malamar then where I think before it was a little. Yeah, it was a little bit harder to set up two attackers before they could totally HANDR you. And I think Pia just does it a little bit, a little too efficiently.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That makes.

Mike:

do wonder though, um, if some type of RC is Jolteon could be okay. Uh, I know one of, so a couple of my friends from Canada they're, they've been playing in the team challenge and they're actually. They made the top 16 and the team founders is pretty sweet. Uh, they just had their last match this last week. And then the next, the top 16 is the week after worlds. They have to play against Gustavo's team and top 16. Um, but they've every week they've brought Arceus, Garo VMax Jolteon memory capsule, and it's always gotten some, uh, wins for them because everyone, it does pretty good against P um, And so, I don't know. I could see, I could see some arches Jolteon plus X do. Okay.

Brit:

Yeah, I wanted to mention that. I just, I similarly have seen a good, a decent amount. Theo deck, um, recently, and just bouncing that off of Brent's question. I don't like, like one versus the other, like, you know, you go, you have both are disruptive ish, whereas theos one is just gonna hit for a little more at the end, whereas the Malara is gonna try to like solidify the lockdown and, and push you outta the game that way. Um, So, yeah, maybe OSes is just better because it pushes more damage. And like, like Mikey said, maybe the issue is just Paia. That being able to sort of set up enough attackers to where the, the hand description isn't gonna be enough, cuz they can still just like retreat attack, retreat attack and go up. And then presumably I've been trading with you pretty well up until that point. Um, and like I've said last week, I'm very not to say this is the case with either deck, but any deck that has like map checks, that's just like Roxanne go skeptical of those as just like really being strong answers. Like it'll work. Sometimes it won't work all the time.

Brent:

Uh, How do you feel like I recognize that, uh, uh, Mees and Sander are gonna be onto the next weird stall thing or whatever it is that they end up doing, but do you think, do you think people will play Mew two or will they say, uh, or, or will they assume that everybody's got a plan?

Brit:

Um, I think just on a general point, I, I expect people to play Mew too. I expect people to even play RCS, Mewtwo. Um, how many? Probably not, not very many. um, across all three days, like maybe really next to none in day one, but I could see, I could see someone feeling really confident in it day two. Um, and again, I don't know, some people can just be fishing for different things and their outcome. Like if you, if you only want to, if you want top 32 versus you only wanna win the event. You know, for example, I think your deck, you know, your deck choice might end up being a little different in terms of, I don't know what Sander is up to. I don't know, one way or the other, um, if he's got a deck, I, I would, I would bet money. He, he won't ever play anything just Meta. So I would think he shows up a, according to Mees. I talked, I talked to him last week, basically after our podcast last week, he like, you know, I haven't asked him, let me see what's up. And he was just like, I've tried, I've tried 60 different decks and they're all bad. Like just nothing beats the, the, the tandem of RCS and Tokyo. It's kind of just like very different. Skews of how you need to beat both of them, the kind of decks, the kind of way that you need to construct your deck to beat. Both of them is like, it's pretty difficult and there's just not, not the cards in the, the pool for counter box things. And so on that might be able to hit both at the same time to really work. And I know like this is something we've tried, like Zoroark box is so close. I think it's very, very close. And I guess, you know, on that note, someone might be able to make top 32 with it. That won't surprise me at all. If they've just sort of. Found that last puzzle piece, but I think like it's just too difficult to beat both. So yeah, I think, I don't think as far as I know, mace is just on a normal deck RCS

Brent:

box is a perfect example of the kind of deck where you're like, if you draw perfectly, it'll seem like magic. And then if you like, just with a step, you're like, wow, radiant Gria completely wrecked me. And that can happen every game.

Mike:

Mm-hmm Yeah, there's gotta be something with slow, bro. And zurk, but I don't know if it'll ever be consistent enough. I would be, I would love if someone did really well with it, that would be really cool.

Brent:

Any other, uh, uh, hot tips or crazy things that you guys have heard, uh, uh, as, as the people not going to worlds, I feel like you guys gotta, uh, you know, uh, spoil it for everyone.

Mike:

Well, we talked about charts out a little bit last week here. Let's see. Um, we haven't mentioned Mew at all. I think the, we did mention this last week, the conventional wisdom seems to be Mew is in a not super bad place. Um, it's matchup against pakia is okay. It's matchup against the Arceus EX is better than it's ever been because they don't play any direct counters. Everyone has like a R Sander path, but what are you gonna do about that? um, and then other things it's just, it's still, you know, super. Explosive. So I wouldn't be surprised if there a bunch of Mew made it from day one to day two. I don't know. I would be surprised if more than one made top eight, but, uh, I think it's okay. I'm just kind of like looking at the lists on list of decks on limitless.

Brit:

That was, that was one thing we all agreed on to when I was talking with, we, we think that like Mew seems positioned well at the moment as well. Like all agreed that it will probably make top eight, like probably one or something like that.

Mike:

Yeah. And I think like, I think there's a good chance to like, uh, a handful make it from day one to day two as well. Yeah, for sure. Uh, ice Rider, the next deck on this list. I don't know. Ice Rider Rider had more popularity. It's still same old ice

Brent:

Yeah, it just seems a little clun.

Mike:

there. Yeah. Um, Dialga, we've talked about, I think Dialga is a fine play. Uh, then Arceus fine. Pikachu. We've kind of already talked about it. Like I said, I think Arceus BI is in a pretty good position cuz I don't think Arceus Inteleon is in the best position and that's kind of the big. Hurdle for all of the Arceus BI decks is that they struggle so much against a Sharon's loop. And they're sacrificing that to have a better shot against some of the other decks. Most notably Pia, uh Reggie's is next.

Brent:

Man people, people love the, to be talking up, uh, uh, lunar rock and Reggies on the Twitter.

Brit:

I mean, I still think Reggie's is good. We really, really liked it for N I C we almost played it for N IIC and I don't really, like, I, I just feel like it hasn't really been developed at all. And like, I don't know, I watched his a little bit last week and he played. Initially he was playing Urshifu, which I, after watching him play Urshifu I, I came became far less sympathetic about the deck. I'm just, this tech is awful. Um, but yeah, he was playing at Reggie's list, but I just think his list was really bad. So like, I wasn't surprised, like not to say I like it was purposefully bad, it was just playing catchers and stuff. And I was just like, that doesn't make any sense in this stack. Why would you need catchers? You just trade you trade up the whole game. you're stabilized. I didn't understand what they were for. And obviously there's some like novelty in getting them back with the, the item, item, pickup, uh, electric one, but I just was like, this catchers is not this deck's problem. Like you need like energy, lots and things like that. Or you need catchers. Um, but yeah, I've never, I've never found a good reason. Like, I guess it's just too clunky. Um, but yeah, we were really very confident in Reggie's at one point in time. It, it certainly. No one texts for it anymore. Um, and I think that was part of our reasoning of not playing it at least at one point in time. And like, no, one's talking about ice Q and Averies and things like that decks anymore. So like, I don't know, like it keeps doing well, you know, it obviously won a very big tournament in Japan and that's nothing to SC at, especially too with, um, going into worlds. The Japanese deck choices are often hard to pin down themselves and because they're coming off of they're so consistently, this is like the only for the only tournament of the format. That they play. They're usually on their own system the whole time. So it's very common for Japanese players to be playing decks that are not quite as Meta as ours. Um, we've seen a lot of worlds in just showing up with, and this isn't the case with this one, since it's not like a brand new set, but a lot of times it's like, Hey, it's a new set and there's an archetype. We don't think the archetype is good or not. And then Japan just shows up with the archetype at worlds and like gets someone in top eight. That's what they did with folk canyon and things like that.

Mike:

Yeah. I actually kind of agree with everything you said there. There's no Avery clap stadium. I mean, there's some clap stadium, but it's yeah, the, the texts aren't there as much. Um, Paul hasn't been playing tool jammer as much Arceus and ion hasn't been playing dun sparse as much. So I don't know, could be, could be a decent play. I've seen some lists trying poker stop in there. I haven't tested myself. So I don't really know if that's a good way to. To play it. But I do know that I was never super impressed with the other stadium choices, like, um, the mountain cart or whatever it is that gets dragon and lightning Pokegear Pokegear. That was okay. The Juba life stadium was okay. Path to the Peak felt pretty bad in the deck. You just played it so you could beat Al on. Um, but yeah, I, I, Reggie could be like a nice sleeper. Not Luna rock though. That deck's definitely not good. Deck's definitely not good. Um, alright. Now there's Arceus Aldon, which I've expressed my opinion on. I feel like if you're gonna play Arceus Aldon, you should just play the Arceus Mewtwo V union. Like that seems like a better version of our guest Israel to me.

Brit:

I definitely,

Brent:

get the stunned silence, because I think we're like, so you're saying you shouldn't play

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

I have no faith in Aldon. That's one. I feel like, like, could, could I see Blissey making top eight? I think so. Could I see RCS, Aldon? Like. No, unless unless, unless the Meta game is Blissey and Reggies and things like that, like,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

um, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't see RC on doing very well at all. I think it's clearly sort of black Lele and very Meta game dependent, and doesn't have just the raw power that these other decks clearly have.

Mike:

Yeah. Like I'm saying Arceus, Inteleon might not be as popular and that might be true, but like the matchup is really, really bad. So even if you expect to only play two of them, one or two of them in a tournament, you're just accepting complete losses there. And then you're so clunky that even some of your good matchups you'll just lose sometimes. Uh, the next deck on the list though is Blissey. So I, I also agree. I think Blissey in the hands of a good player with hitting some good matchups. Maybe there's some, there's a lot of space in the deck and maybe there's a way to innovate on it a little bit. Like we saw, um, Connor, you know, kind of came with a whole different list and totally innovated on the whole arche. Someone could do that again, you know, you could easily change eight cards in Blissey and it's still the same type of deck, but totally change its matchups, which is pretty cool.

Brent:

So one thing we kind of glossed over there, but I think it's interesting and worth, uh, uh, uh, putting a pin in for a second is, I mean, are people not gonna play RCS Inteleon because if you're gonna play a deck that people have tested against, you would rather just play Paia. So like nobody shows up with RCS Inteleon.

Brit:

Now Arceus and Pia are gonna be the two most play decks, for sure. If there's no way that people just don't play them, like, could that be true for top players? Like, yeah, but when we're, when we're, we're talking about the few notches below, like. They're not, they're not as on the ball as the, the Bradner testing group, that's just like my go-to who I expect the innovations to be coming from right now. Um, but yeah, your, your average player isn't that far ahead, they're just kind of like rock, rock, the great manly 60 from an a I, things like that. Um, cause the decks are clearly good. Like we, we can say all these sort of qualifications about them, right? Like it's bad in this scenario. It's good in this scenario, but this, like, there's no denying that the deck like that either deck can beat any deck, um, with the cards just sort of falling in the right order. Um, and I think that in and of itself will always motivate people to play it.

Mike:

Yeah, I agree. And I think there's some players, a handful of players that qualified for worlds that are like the diehard Archis Inteleon like. Justin KU. I wouldn't be surprised if he just stuck with it. He's been playing it all year till a lot of success. So,

Brent:

Right, right. Why, why get off the.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

Right. The, the polarizing. The, the matchups are, I think it has, it has loyalists or what have you, people, people maximally certain that they beat RCS, the Pia players. And then on the, on the converse of that, the RCS players maximally certain that they beat Pia. Like they button heads all weekend. I'm sure. And lamenting their losses.

Mike:

Um, after that, the decks kind of really start, we've talked about some of the other ones, but a lot of these don't seem worth talking about, I mean, we hit on Urshifu. has potential, but as Brit said, everything we've seen is not impressive. Maybe someone come up comes up with something, but I don't know. Uh, we talked about the Mewtwo Miltank

Brent:

Or Urshifu was another deck in that testing circle where like, if the other guy gets rating credential out, you just get bodied 90% of the time. And like, it's easier for him to get radi Cordia out than for you to do all the things you gotta do and find Manaphy

Mike:

Right, right, right. Yeah. That is, yeah. Yeah. I guess that's. A really good point on why Urshifu hasn't survived the P Meta game. Um, it's a.

Brent:

All right guys. I feel like we've give, we've told people what they need to know for worlds. Is there anything else that they need to.

Brit:

Have fun. gonna be a great time.

Mike:

I'm more confused now about the structure than I was last week when we talked, cuz apparently there was some other email that got sent to the competitors that makes it now sound like there could be a nine plus five Swiss thing going on. So I don't know at, at this point I'm just gonna like, wait and see.

Brent:

Uh, uh, the only comment I have on all that, cuz I, I read it and I was like, I hope none of this applies to me because, uh, uh Liam's and seniors. Um, but I am so I I'm somewhat salty about the fact that apparently like at the 11th hour they told us that this London open thing is now split between two days and the last two rounds happened on Sunday. Our flight out is at one 30 on Sunday. We're just gonna like toss those rounds.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Wow. I did. I didn't. I missed that about the open. That's not

Brent:

Yeah. They're gonna

Brit:

that. That's all that for a league challenge really.

Brent:

on Sunday. And then if you're, if it's like juniors or seniors, it's like five rounds on Saturday and two rounds on Sunday. And so, so Liam's gonna have his first, uh, tournament as a master and we're just gonna like toss the last two rounds. So you guys tell me because I've never, I've literally never been in this situation before. Uh, uh, God forbid there's a world where he's seven and oh, so like we're gonna get some CP or something like that. And like, that's probably good. Um, if you are, are, are we supposed to drop or are we supposed to like scoop twice? Like

Mike:

yeah, don't drop.

Brit:

Don't you say you can't drop.

Brent:

you can't yeah. Yeah. If you drop, you're just gone.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

you have, you have to vanish, but make sure they don't drop you from the event.

Mike:

Yeah. So if, if you have the time, it might be good to like show up for the beginning of that first round scoop immediately and then get out.

Brent:

Right, right. Yeah. I

Mike:

probably the safest way to

Brent:

the.

Mike:

about it. Yeah.

Brit:

sure at that point too, you could probably like, uh, like isn't will post one of the head judges for the open. Like, I feel like the powers that be will understand that this scenario can ensure the dislike. Well, make sure you get your two losses and are not dropped and pick up 15 points or whatever, whatever the case may

Brent:

Exactly. That's that is the plan.

Brit:

Yeah,

Brent:

we are, we are absolutely, uh, uh, gonna just throw all that. And it's gonna be great. Couldn't be more excited about, uh, having signed up for the London open and scheduled all of our flights and then found out the London open schedule. It's great. It's great. Super happy. We have, uh, we have no complaints. I, I think it is interesting that like, I'm assuming that that's part of a mechanic that they wanted, like the top eight on Sunday, the room to be really crowd. Even though they didn't think necessarily a lot of people would come to watch the finals or whatever on Sunday.

Mike:

So more like a optics for like when they're panning

Brent:

Yeah. Like doesn't like when, when I think what they're gonna do, like they're gonna show, like it's gonna be junior finals at like 9:00 AM on Sunday. And they're like, no one will come. But if we tell people ma the 800 master signed up for the line open, have a round at 9:00 AM. Full room. Hey, we did it.

Mike:

a good point. That's probably exactly right.

Brent:

That's kind of weak, but you know, like, I mean, I, so I, I mean, I guess I get why they did it, but I'm like, seems just okay. To me.

Brit:

Yeah, what should we, what's the, what's the exact time difference, you know, for viewers and people like me, what time will I, should I be expecting to watch things it'll be coming it's about a 12, eight hour difference from like Eastern time.

Mike:

It's five hour

Brent:

it's like it's a five hour difference from Eastern.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Uh, it's not bad at all. So yeah.

Mike:

I think this, I think viewing, uh, mattress will probably start around 9, 9 30 their time. So that's like 3, 3 30. My plan. This is, this is good. You brought this up. So my plan is for Thursday and Friday, I'm probably not gonna wake up early and I'll just kind of watch until the end of the broadcast. And then I'll go back and watch the matches that I missed because Thursday, Friday, it's kinda. Whatever. There's not like a whole lot of suspense going on, but I'll probably wake up early Saturday for the top. Cut. Additionally, I don't think the top eight will start until a little bit later because they have to do the play-in rounds. So that might not start until like 10 or 11 their time. So I could sleep until whatever 5:00 AM. So that's my plan.

Brent:

That's another podcast in the books. Uh, uh, the John Pauls are our outro. Hey.

Brit:

Yeah, good luck, everyone. Hope it's a good time.