The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Top 12 Players in Pokemon TCG Today, Salt Lake Results, Meta moving forward
Oh, the new one? The, the, No, it's not the new one, but the, the tool with Path to the Peak. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah.
Brit:Yeah. That's strange
Brent:to me for sure. That's a, that's a wild ruling, right? Yeah.
Brit:I guess because it's on the ability stays on the item, even though it's attached. I guess that actually does kind of make sense. I think it's strange. It's, it's a strange rule, but now, now that I'm chewing on it a little more, I does see, I think it is consistent, but there's not, there's just not a lot of similar cases with these, with these tools and, and things getting in their.
Mike:Yeah, it's just like the wording on both things is so specific. Like the tool says the Pokegear V, this card is attached to can use this VStar power. It doesn't say it has this VStar power so it can use it. And then Path to the Peak says, Pokegear with the rule box have no abilities. And so it's like, it doesn't have the ability, it's just able to use the ability. It's a very weird interaction. I don't, and I know it was ruled like that from Japan. Right. I wonder if that was like the intention though, of like the card design, or I guess if it was the intention, they would've just ruled the other way. Mm-hmm. but I don't know.
Brent:Uh, it just, I mean, what, what's crazy is I feel like the default would be to say path of the Peak turns it off. So that implies that they were like, Oh no, we thought about that and we didn't want to do that. Right. but. Really Yeah,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:I mean, why, why would they think, Oh yeah, we should do that. Like, does it really matter that much that you want to like draw a distinction like that? Like what's weird, I guess, is I feel like that has some sort of cascading downstream implic. Where like in the future some horrible thing is gonna happen because of the way this was ruled and like they didn't have to do
Mike:that. Yeah. I don't even know if, like, I'm curious now if I look back at some of the old cards, like the first one that I can think of or like some of the old technical machines, um, Let's see, like ancient technical machine rock. So attach this card to one of your Evolve Pokegear that Pokegear may use this card's attack instead of its own. So I guess it still is consistent with that part. Like it's not, it's not giving the attack or giving the ability, it's just that they can use it. Um,
Brent:fool
Brit:jammer, stop it. I was trying to, trying to think like tool jammer were in similar with like, would tool Jammer stop G
Brent:Booster? Yeah. Apparently the rumor. Tool Jammer can turn it off, but ability lock cannot. Yeah, that
Brit:makes sense.
Mike:Yeah. G Booster. Yeah, same. Same wording. The Gensec this card is attached to can use this attack. Yeah. So Tool Jammer should shut it off, but Tool Jammer only does tool shut off tools on the bench. Um, no. Tool jamer only shuts off the opponents active. So doesn't really seem, even though it would shut it off, it's not effectively gonna shut it off because you just put on, Cause like M'S just gonna put it on a Gen X and really M is the only deck that I can think of that would play this card.
Brent:Well, so here I, I mean, I think this is the interesting question. So like if you look at Garbodor toxin's wording, Garbodor Toxin says this, Pokegear has a tool attached to it. Each Pokegear of play in each player's hand and each player's discard pile has no abilities. And apparently the way this like. Tool Jamer turns it off, but Ability Lock does not, is like Garbotoxin would also not stop this tool from working, right?
Brit:Yeah. I mean I was even thinking of the Garbodor toxin's interaction with the eol that shut off tools
Brent:when it was right. Cause it says Pokegear have no abilities, but like apparently this is not considered giving the Pokegear ability, but like, I mean, once again, that just feels a little wrong to me. But then I guess what I was gonna go a step further and ask you guys is, is there a scenario where some smart guy call it, uh, an RCS player or call it, uh, God forbid, uh, like an expanded format player says, Well, I'm gonna put one of these in so I can like have an out to. Like my rcs, you know, he, he passed my rcs and then I'm like, No problem. I'm gonna attach this tool. I just wondered if there were situations where you would say, I'm gonna put one in to Bump Path to the Peak, or something like, I don't know. Right.
Mike:I mean, yeah, but again,
Brent:maybe not Bump Path to the Peak, but get around Path to the Peak. Like you could attach it to your rcs V, get your double Turbo energy, evolve to RCB Star, attach your double Turbo, and you're like, We still got there.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, yes, it's possible. Be, it's possible. Besides, M Beu is like a hundred percent. Yeah,
Brent:yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, uh, any VMax deck, you're like, that's a thing. And, and you know, I recognize in the next set, like it's not all VStar. They're still printing more VMAXs, which I like. I think so. So I think there'll be other opportunities for other decks to use that card. And ruling is wild though. Yeah, I just, uh, I don't know. I don't know if I can get on the train. I guess it is what it is, but there you go, guys. All right. Welcome to the Trashalanche. We're the most official of all unofficial Pokegear podcasts. Attendance is a hundred percent. Mike Fouchet, Fred Halliburton, Brett Pybas. We're on Twitter if you, uh, just can't get enough of our podcast and want the written word as well. Uh, we have not gotten a five star review update this week. If you are thinking, Wow, I've enjoyed listening podcast, you could write a quick review. We would Lele read the review on the pod and discuss it, and then you would be interacting with us on the pod and it would be awesome. And apparently when people leave, Uh, that helps people find the podcast because it makes people, uh, it makes the algorithms do what they do and recommend this podcast to people that wanna hear about Pokegear. Um, guys, big news. We have a new sponsor to replace eBay and TCG player. Dragon Shield has entered the arena. Woo woo. Very excited about Dragon Shield. Uh, I'm, I'm gonna have you guys in the coming weeks tell your stories of how much you guys love Dragon Shield sleeves. But, uh, the story I wanna tell you guys is so, so a large box arrived at my house for me to bring to you guys, uh, in Arlington. And, uh, when, when we unpack. Liam was like, I know I said black sleeves, but those pink diamond and nebulous sleeves that Brit ordered are
Mike:crazy. Is that the one Brit said?
Brent:Yeah, those are the ones I picked. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They, they look, uh, completely busted. Uh, uh, it's, it's a very exciting times, uh, uh, for Arlington guys, um, Dragon shield sleeves. They are, they are, uh, super fantastic. Uh, there are no, uh, sleeves, more d.
Mike:So I won't have any stories for Dragon Shield until you give me them, because I've actually never used Dragon Shields, so I've heard lots of things we're gonna change your life. Yeah. I've always used the um, Ultra pro.
Brent:Really? Yeah. Oh my God. How do you live like that? And you've been playing so
Mike:long. I guess I'm going see the Good Life soon.
Brit:Yeah, the, I mean, even, I've used Dragon Shields for a long time. I don't know if the, like the OG ones were really my like competitive sleeve of choice, but they lasted forever. Like they would get dirty, but they like basically would never break outside of like a couple and they. I would always just kind of get bothered by the, the dirt and smudge, but like Collin for instance would keep a sleeve of those for like actual years, like 4, 5, 6 years and just like keep swapping'em. I have been using the mat sleeves. I bought them relatively recently for the first time. I think NAIC might have been the first time I used them, but they are phenomenal for sure. I've like really don't know if I haven't been deck checked, so I don't know. Sort of if I, if I would've had to releve there. But as far as my own play is concerned, I don't think I've ever broken a sleeve with them, which is really nice. I've got all my, like one piece decks sleeved in them as well now it's like,
Mike:it's great. So they're Dragon Shield matted is what you're saying? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. I don't
Brit:think they, they don't really make the old ones anymore. Oh, I see. I think all the, all of them now are, are the Matt. Yeah. It's
Brent:all the Matt all the time, right? Yeah.
Brit:But I'm a big fan for sure. So that's, Good news
Brent:has that in our corner. Very, very, uh, exciting. Uh, you guys want do the, the top 12 or you wanna talk about, uh, Salt Lake?
Mike:Do the top 12. Let's do that first.
Brent:All right. Let's talk about the, the top 12 players. A, a as, uh, frequents of pod may recollect. We have been counting it down from the top 50, uh, Pokegear players today, and, and we've made our way all the way to the, uh, top.
Mike:Hold on, hold on. I'm gonna interrupt you real quick. So there was a good amount of discourse on Twitter, um, from last week, which I think is great. Um, I just think it's important to keep in mind that as different people were ranking, they were probably thinking about it in lots of different ways. Uh, and so this is kind of the aggregate result of that. Some people were thinking about it maybe in the. Five years, or some people might be thinking about it all time, or some people might thinking about it in the last six months or a year. So everybody has different frames of reference about where they're coming from. So that's why you get this effect of like, I think one of the big, uh, ways that people were expressing their opinion was they couldn't believe that Ross was so low compared to Piper. To me, like do I think Ross is a more accomplished player than Piper? Yes, of course. But
Brent:think that Ross is more accomplished player than Piper
Mike:Right, right, right, right. But that's not how some people might be viewing the ranking like Ross has done fine over the last six months. Uh, Notably, you know, he helped make the Radiant Charar deck got top 16 at Worlds, but that's kind of it. Like he just has some other like decent finishes while Piper has a regional's win. Um, she's made, uh, other high placements over the last six months. She's been much more visible than Ross. Um, and so. Like to think that she is a better player right now is not a, a, a extreme jump to me. Um, so I think that's partially reflected in the results and we might see that a little bit. We might see that effect or the reverse effect as we go through the last 12, and I'll point out maybe some of my thoughts about that.
Brent:Yeah, I, I think, uh, I think definitely one of the things I, I felt like I heard from the Twitter verses, we'll, we'll need a little more commentary from you guys as we grind through the, uh, top 12. Yeah, right. Just, just to contextualize, I'm gonna do 25 through 13 really quickly to to recap where we are. So, so you guys can kind of think about this top 12 in the right frame of mind, 20 fives and scuba. 24 was Ross Kain. 23 is Diego Casara. 22 is Pablo Mesa. 21 is Brent Toon. 20 is Xander Pero. 19 is Piper. 18 is Danny Altavilla. 17 is Justin Bakari. 16 is John Ang. 15 is Alex Semanski. 14 is Michael Pratt and number 13 is Henry Brand.
Mike:So before we, Before again, before you do that, so like the Danny example is kind of. Going opposite of what I was saying about Piper, right? I think like Danny is a phenomenal player. Like the first part of this past season, you know, the 2019 part of the season, he was. One of the best. I think he was like ranked number two even after multiple regionals in 2022. Uh, but he didn't do anything in 2022. So he has the, somehow he had gotten bumped up in the rankings quite a bit, despite not having any results in the last six months.
Brent:Yeah. Uh uh Yeah, and, and I think to your point, like when people look at Espeon rankings fund, which is like what this is based on, I mean, everybody always talks. When you talk about mvp, like what does that mean when you talk about like, top 100 players? Like what are you ranking? Are you talking trade value? Are you talk, you know, can, can you be the best player on the worst team? Like, uh, you know, should you be the best player and the best team? Like all these things, there's a million things that go into it and, uh, there's, there's no uh, uh, I think, um, absolute criteria that allows you to absolutely make the call in. All right. Without further ado, guys. So as, as we said in the last pod between 13 and 12, there is a big, uh, there was a big break in the ratings. Uh, so people definitely thought that these 12 players were better than the players that preceded them. Uh, number 12, Ian Rob.
Mike:Yeah, I mean, so Ian's a player. I think at some point during last season, you could have made an argument that he was the best North American player. So, Agree.
Brent:Agree. I I mean, he, he had so much success in the spring that he managed to become a meme Yeah. and turn himself into like the Twitter illuminati for a, a hot second. It was pretty exciting. Uh, number 11, Natalie Miller. Yeah.
Mike:I mean, so potentially. The best. Uh, I mean, it's hard to differentiate all the different Australian players, but in terms of like, they're all so close, but Right. She won, She won that first regional back, right? With Mew. I think that that was the first regional back, uh, Which is, that's like a pretty big sticking point, I think.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, so, so Mike does not have the list in front of him. Guys, I'm, I'm dropping all these on on them as we go. So before we go further, we should say number 10, Kaiwan,
Mike:Kababi. And I guess that KY is coming off like top pizza worlds, right? Yeah. That's pretty freaking good.
Brent:And, and I think, I think for some of these instances of the, like, uh, uh, all the top Australian players kind of banding together and playing the same deck. Uh, he's helped drive a lot of, uh, those I think in, in some instances. Um, uh, but yeah, uh, yeah, he and Natalie round out the, uh, top Australian players showing in this list. Uh, obviously Henry Brand was like, he was 13 and that's 10 11, like, Yeah. Uh, uh, uh, all, all, uh, great. Number nine, Isaiah
Mike:Bradner. I feel like that's another, when I think of like the top North American players, uh, currently, I think Bradner Ian Azul, who I assume is coming up at some point. Um, so not surprising to see him there, honestly. Surprising to see him so low For me, at least if I'm thinking about the rankings of like right now.
Brent:Yeah. When, when, uh, uh, when I first came up with the list, uh, Mike tried to guess who the top five players were and, and he thought Isaiah was a lock for, uh, top five. Yeah. Um, number eight. The only, uh, North American player that was not on your list just now. Uh, Grant Manley.
Mike:Hmm. Yeah, Grant's a interesting one. I think Grant's great and he's gotten significantly better. I mean, he was always like really good, but I do think he's kind of reached another level in the last, uh, year or two. Um, I always felt, I always felt Grant was a l, he was always a really interesting player for me to. Uh, read his content or hear his opinion because he always felt extremely overconfident to me. Um, he was always like, My deck beats everything. It's like a 90 10 matchup versus every single deck in the format. There's no chance I could lose. And then he like, doesn't do well in event. He's like, so unlucky, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, like it's nice to see that confidence, but. It just always seemed a little too much to me, and especially in a game like Pokegear. Uh, but I feel like I haven't seen that from that attitude exactly from him in a while. Uh, and he's gotten better at the game without that attitude. So, uh,
Brent:It's like
Brit:they just like, there was one point in time where I definitely was just like, I don't think he's all that good. His takes are outlandish at the very least. But yeah, he is been, he's been so consistent the past year or so, and yeah, I think it was just obviously very, very close to winning something very big. Yeah, just completely agree with everything Mikey said. That was just my own personal impressions of him as well across time.
Brent:So, so, uh, this bleeds a little into our Salt Lake discussion, but, um, uh, Liam, I had to stop him like a million times over this past weekend from rage tweeting about decks and his opinion on people of play.
Mike:That's
Brent:really funny. And, and when I was trying to explain to him that, uh, rage tweet. Don't make people, uh, uh, like you more in some way. The example I gave was think about grants, all tweets, Yeah. Uh, you know what the, so the other thing that I would say about Grant that I think is interesting is, um, I mean I think Grant was having an absolute ton of success. Right before pandemic too. And he was the guy who essentially took all the online season off. But I mean, if you guys think about it, he, he was the guy who was putting Jirachi and Pito control and that that's super run at Atlantic City. And like, uh, I mean I think he essentially got recruited into the DG crew because he was building like crazy decks and getting crazy outcomes. I think part of what's been interesting in the last six months and like it's easy to say, yeah, like the wild tweets of pre pandemic have kind of gone away. He also, and you know, this says something about the Meta a little bit too, but like he hasn't played crazy decks.
Mike:That's true. That is
Brent:Reggies is the wildest
Mike:deck. He's white. Yeah, I do think so. I do wanna like give where credit, where credits do. I think Grant is one of the best, probably one of the best deck builders in the game. Yeah, absolutely. At least most creative. Um, like yeah, he hasn't played anything too crazy, but nothing's been like ridiculously standard as well. Like he was the primary architect. Behind that group. Um, playing Ice Rider Paia, I believe at Worlds. Uh, and his list, you know, while it was based off Frank Percy's initial list, it was pretty different though. And he had been streaming and had been playing his different list out there. It's not like it was a super secret, but he definitely made significant changes to the list from Frank. So he is, he's a good deck builder in both ways. Coming up with new concepts as well as refining concepts, which I think there's lots of people that are good at one of those and not good at the other. Um, like I consider myself not a great deck builder in terms of coming up with. New ideas. Uh, but I'm pretty good at refining lists. I think I'm really good at that. Um, but Grant, I think is actually quite good at both.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously like when you look back at, uh, when he played that WFE deck, the quad wafe deck, it expanded. Like that's a wild, just like medical, uh, uh, brand new archetype, like complete weirdness. Um, and then, and then, you know, he is, when he looks at Pikarom, he ends up on the four Jirachi. He's like, he has. Uh, he's been an exceptional deck builder at every level of the game, and I've always enjoyed reading his articles too. I, I know when, um, at the start of this year, I tried to kind of get Liam on the coaching train, and when I tried to get him on the coaching train, I was like, You should work with Grant because if, if a control deck was viable, Grant would play it. And, uh, Grant, uh, has those same kind of weird, uh, insane deck building sensibilities that you. If, if you could persuade Grant that one of your weird ideas was good, then it's probably good Um, alright. Number seven, Uh, Pedro Torres.
Mike:Mm. Okay. So now we're getting into the top EU players as well. So, and I think this foreshadows a little bit of the rest of the top six, but, I would be interested also in the demographics of the people that filled it out. Like where is it? Was it pretty spread out between the regions? Was it more Europeans, more Americans? Um, my assumption would be more North Americans, but I think the results are like a little skewed towards Europe. Maybe. Maybe people just consider these top European players better than North American players. I don't know. Right. But obviously Pedro is great. He has done. Well, in the last six months, but I don't, I feel like he hasn't had any, like, insane finishes.
Brent:Yeah. I, I think that sounds right. I think, I think he had some, uh, uh, success at like, I wanna say like one of the British, uh, regionals or something, but like, yeah, nothing, nothing insane. Um, uh, so, so, uh, it's worth saying six through 12 had near identical scores, and while they were, they were all like dramatically better than 13. They were very, very close. And then one through five was once again, completely differentiated. So, so in six Sander, Sander, Wojcik.
Mike:Oh, by the way, just before we talk about him, I did look, Pedro did get, uh, top four at e u I. So that's like at E U I C. There you go. Um, yeah, I mean, Sander's great. Sander is one of, he's probably like, he's like one of the most well known players in the game now just because of, he does his, he's stays in his lane. He does. Its one thing like really, really well, the best in the game for sure. Um, and it's. Fun to like, follow those player stories.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. He has, he has a, a real, uh, narrative and his success at, at NAIC was, uh, uh, super fun for people to, uh, witness, uh, really, really, uh, um, uh, out of the box thinker and, and fun, right. So we, we got the top five and as I said, there's a big, big gap between five and six. The, the next five. You would say the superstars of the game. If, if we were like tearing them up, we would say these guys are the guys who are poised to win championships at any time. Uh, so no surprise number five. Robin Schultz. Hmm. Yeah,
Mike:Robin. So obviously Robin one World's a couple years ago. It's very impressive. Um, since then I totally forgot about this. He won Brazil. And L a I c like last season, the 20 19 1. Right, right. Um, I totally forgotten that. So that's like his kind of like most recent like super major win. But then he also won that regional obviously just in the spring when they first, he first came up with Urshifu Right, right. So, and on top of being an amazing player, he's also like the God. Online tcg
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, uh, he's contributed a lot more to Pokegear than just, uh, being an incredible Pokegear player.
Mike:Yeah. I think this is a good time to plug if you, you know, if you use Limitless regularly and if you're listening to this podcast, and I'm sure you use Limitless and Play Limitless, uh, it is one of the very few things that I have a, uh, contribute to their Patreon. Right.
Brent:That's awesome. Um, number four, uh, that Stefane, Ivanoff Stefane, He knows how to win, Uh, uh, uh, ics.
Mike:Yeah. This was the one that I didn't get in the top five, but then when I heard it I was like, Yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. You just, just forgot about him for a second. Right. Because there's, there's no question. I think people think of him as absolutely. One of the best players
Mike:today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like looking at, you know, the, just this past half a season, he won a regional, he got second at a special event and he top forward another regional.
Brent:Yeah. And I think he had like one definitely. Oh, I think he was going to come to NAIC and his flight
Mike:got canceled or, Yeah. Or he got covid. One of those two. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Uh uh. And yeah, I think, and I think there was another regional that he couldn't attend for reasons unclear, but like, I think all of us, imagine if he had been able to attend, he would have been a, like, you know, I think people would've expected him to win, given how much he's been killing it this year. Yeah. Uh, uh, absolutely. One of the best in the game. I think everybody thinks, uh, hi. His ability to come up with, uh, like mult deck ideas in the first like six months of the. Uh, I think people thought he, he just knew more than everybody else did about how to build those decks. Mm-hmm. Um, so once again, there's a big gap between three and four that the top three players are, are the best in the game. Uh, number three, Gustavo Wa. Hmm.
Mike:Yep. So no arguing there,
Brent:What? What I will say, what I will say to give you an argument is I recognize that when you looked at the list to do the rankings, it was based on global CP and Gustavo had more than anybody else. So he was the first name on the list. Hmm.
Mike:So pretty easy to keep'em up there,
Brent:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so there, there, there might have, when I say that there was like some bias in the way that the form was constructed, uh, Gustavo may have been the primary beneficiary, but you know, I mean, when you got more CP than anybody else, there's a reason.
Mike:Yeah. It just seems like he's so interesting because I feel like he. I think he does well at regionals and the, you know, the smaller events, but there's so many events that come out of Latin America where I'm like, Oh, Gustavo didn't top four, or he didn't top eight, or like, you know, he only made top 32. But then his international finishers are in state. Like he'd won e I twice. He just top AED NAIC right after that. Like, I, like, I wonder if he's just someone that. Thrives off the super intense competition
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Or, or maybe like, like the way medicals work and like the more regionalized he struggles with more, but like, you'd be like, Why would he struggle with it more? He's like, he's the best, you know? Yeah. Uh, crazy, crazy, Uh, um, in a second place as.
Mike:Yep. As I said, he's the, I, I think I've said at least one other time on the podcast, like, I don't think people truly realize how much better Azul is than they are like Azul, and, and this goes for a lot of the players that we're talking about on this list, but Azul is one of the most visible players because he streams so much and like, First of all, the fact that he is able to stream, be entertaining and still play at the level that he can on stream is very impressive. It's really hard, I think, to play at a high level and stream at the same time, and not, not only is he making all of like mostly the right plays, he, um, is explaining them. At a pretty high level, and if he makes a mistake, he almost immediately recognizes it. There's lots of people that make a mistake and they don't even realize it maybe ever, or maybe a few turns later, but Azul like will almost immediately realize that he made a mistake and talk through about like what he should have done and whatnot. Um,
Brent:uh, I think he was the first guy to start keeping a display counter on his stream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and uh, uh, to your point, like I think when he first did it, I. Hey, there's like not that many people that stream that recognize that they're making misplace and there's not that many players that stream that have so few misplays that it's not like, Yeah, yeah. You
Mike:know, Yeah. He's someone that if like, I can trust his misplay counter Um, yeah, Azul was really, really, really good. And we, I mean, his results recently have been insane. Like he, you know, he won an aic, he's. Top, at least like top 16, multiple, multiple regionals, like maybe four or five or something like that. Um,
Brent:he, he got the top four just, uh, three days
Mike:ago. Yeah, right. Exactly. I, how to get it done. And Azul is someone that I, I just like, he's a really good guy. Yeah.
Brent:And, and if it were not for Azul, Sander probably would've won NAIC with the Mewtwo. Yeah. Uh, yeah, Absolutely incredible player. Uh, having said that, no surprise coming in at first with a way, way better score than anyone else garnering more than half of the first place votes that were. Best player of the world today is toward Redcliffe.
Mike:Yep. no commentary necessary. Fairly, fairly obvious.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. He didn't just win everything pre pandemic. He came back from pandemic and once some more. Yeah.
Mike:The only thing we need to talk about at some point is, is it to IT or Jason Yeah. Yep.
Brent:Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, uh, yeah. Well, what what to does, uh, and then give weekend is, is very impressive. All right, guys, that was, that was your top 50 Pokegear players. Hopefully people enjoyed, they'll listen to it and I'll post it all on, uh, uh, the Twitter so people can become angry, which is in line with, uh, my goal Uh, I, I gotta say, as I've told you guys, Uh, generating that ranking turned out so much better than I even imagined it would. Um, I'm super delighted with both. I mean, the fact that tour did so well, like I thought that was the kind of thing that told me. Directionally, the people taking these surveys understood what they were supposed to do and did it right. mm-hmm. right? I mean, people went and found tour on the list and moved them into first place, and I was like, Okay. You understood how these surveys work? Every, every survey where Tod was not in like the top three or four, I was like, I'm not sure if this survey
Mike:is right. Yeah. Do they understand
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So, so, uh, the good news is virtually everybody understood the question and we somehow got to the right answer. Very, uh, very strong stuff. Guys, let's talk about
Mike:Salt Lake City. Yeah. So Brent, you were there. What was your.
Brent:Um, my experience. So, um, let me start by saying, uh, uh, it's weird that that format's over now,
Mike:right? for, We're
Brent:on to the next format.
Mike:So there is, there is the one regionals this weekend. Oh yeah, that's right,
Brent:that's right there. There's a European tournament that I'm not attending, so the, the format is over for me and my son. But, um, so, so my son decided to. Veca Boltund. Uh, his logic was it doesn't have a particularly good paia matchup and it has a dicier Kira matchup. But I think we all thought going into this weekend, there's gonna be a lot more gear and a lot more, uh, a loss box and a little bit less kiem, even though Kiem was the most popular. In Peoria because Kira did, relatively speaking, not as well, and it seemed like lost box and Garina seemed like very strong plays both online and obviously like towards outcome. So, uh, item lock is, uh, pretty strong against, uh, lost box. Very answer. Last box. And, you know, decks like Reggie's, even like, there's just a lot of decks that rely heavily on items to get where they're going. As we have more and more, uh, sets in the format and more and more strong item cards are revealed and people love items cuz you can play'em a lot. So he thought if I lock people outta their items, that'll be pretty good as long as I don't run into something that has a million hit points and one hits ve. Which is like basically Kira Kiron And, and my son had the great fortune of playing against five Kira's Day one And, and he ended up going 4 32 and like he started out just enraged that, uh, you know, uh, I think what was funny was, and I'm interested in hearing, I know Mike, you put some questions out into the Twitter verse about Kira over the course of the week. As, as Kira was surprisingly still every. Um, uh, like I think the way Liam felt was Liam came out of this, uh, and he played all nine rounds versus Baltimore, where he ran, played Dr. Ultimate 2 22 drop, and he was like, It should be easy to go 6 21. I was playing people that like, did not have a. Except to just smash me in the face as hard as they could. The problem was that was an incredibly good play that against my tech
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. And, and by the end of the weekend he was saying, Man, I played a theme deck and I went 4, 3, 2. Anybody can go 6 2, 1 Um, and, and you know, obviously like the real question is, you know, how, how do you realize now that you decide to play a team deck, Thing that would've been nice if we'd realized 48 hours ago. Uh, I mean,
Mike:yeah. Ve Boltund is not a, it's not like an objectively good deck, right? Right. There's lots of decks that are objectively good. Pia is objectively good. New is objectively good. Even keim like isn't, like, not terrible, but like vehicle ball, you're playing it because you expect a certain Meta game and. I'm sure it can definitely feel like that if you don't play against the right decks.
Brent:Yeah. Well, and like the problem is when you're hitting for 60 a turn, you just have, uh, like there's turns where the other guy can't do anything, but you're not punishing him for not doing anything. Right. Uh, you know, he, he, he'd wait two or three turns. Then he is like, Okay, now I'm now back on again. I've finally drawn a supporter or drawn an energy. And you're like, Man, I did 120 damage while we were waiting for that that that does not play in the today's power creeped world.
Mike:Yeah. I do think it's unlucky to play against so many ki like ki was the second most popular deck, I believe, but it wasn't an overwhelming, it was maybe like 13%, 14. Of the Meta game. Yeah. So like playing five is like, that's very, very over, uh, the expect, the, you know, the expectation. So that's just
Brent:unlucky. And, and when you look at the guys that made day two, like here was, uh, a very small part of the, uh, uh,
Mike:percentage. Yeah. Actually, let's see. So the top ki was. And then the next ki was 37th. And then you got some, you know, you got a handful that made day two and did poorly. There's 11
Brent:out of the top 89.
Mike:Yeah. So what is that? That's 11 at 89. That's 10% ish, right? 12, 12%. So it's actually, uh, pretty close to how much Kiem was in day one. Um, so like, it did it's conversion. Like basically average. Right. Um, but it did not do well in day two at all. Yeah. Yeah. One in the top 32 is really bad.
Brent:Yes. Five are in the bottom 70, or you know, 70 through 89, like Yeah. Um, 25% of the bottom 20 is, are, are the decks.
Mike:Yeah. So my, yeah, my tweet. Uh, after they showed the first, like the Meta breakdown on stream, which was super awesome to see it, it, this was maybe like around seven, around eight on day one, which was like really early to see this. And Guillot was the most popular deck. Kirin was right behind it. Um, both were Guillotine was slightly more popular. Than Peoria, I think. And Kiem was slightly less, but it was still like pretty high up there. And my tweet is basically like, I don't get it. Like I think Kira is a fine deck, but I don't think it's the top, A top three deck, Maybe not even a top five deck. And the responses to my tweet though, were pretty good. Like a lot of people are saying it's a powerful deck that doesn't. All that much thinking, and I can respect that. Um, if you're a newer player, if you, uh, don't wanna have to use shady dealings or comfy stuff throughout the whole day, uh, it, it's just a little more straightforward, uh, less decisions. I did have Bradner and Natalie, both of who obviously we respect a lot, both comments saying that they think it's better than a lot of people give it credit for, but, and still. Not any top players are choosing to play it, so it can't be like that much better than people think
Brent:right? Right. When they say better, they mean it's not terrible.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Right. Yeah. As a counterpoint to the, the tweets that you got in reply, I, I was talking to Azul on day two, uh, and he was asking how Liam's run went and we talked about it a little bit and he was like, Yeah, Kira sucks.
Mike:Yeah. That's just like, yeah, definitely. More or less my thoughts as well.
Brent:Yeah, he, he, he was, he was definitely not on the train, which I, I appreciated. But, uh, yeah, if, if Liam had somehow been able to, I think, kind of stay at the top tables a little bit, moreish, he might have been able to dodge some of that action. Although, as you said, it was kind of, it was almost pro ratish, uh, advancement. So, so maybe it's, maybe it's inevitable. Um, he did, he did do some testing with a friend where he was playing guillot like the night before. I think he was surprised at how good Garina was. Like I, I, I think he just not had, had the chance to test it as much as he would've liked. Like he realized after he played like five games with it on Friday night, he's like, I should have tested Garina, a little more But we went, when I, um, asked him if he needed to try to jump off the train to a Meta deck, he said he felt like, uh, uh, the loss zone engine is very hard to pilot, correct. It was like I just, You said every um, uh, every time I played, yeah. I would have a moment where I like comfy and I'm like, Do I want this ordinary rod or do I want this Cramorant? But this is the horrible, like we're all, we're going down in flames now. People
Mike:Yeah. It's seems really tough. There's, I think there's lots, there's plenty of games where, You don't have to make very many tough choices. And then there's some games where every choice seems impossible. Yeah. Um, did you Brit, did you watch any of the stream? Did you see, um, Nick Moffitt's Top Cut game? No, I didn't
Brit:see any of the top cut. I had it on for most of the afternoon on Saturday though. Okay. Um, and yeah, I saw a handful of different match ups, but no, I didn't, I meant, I meant to watch that, the one that he tweeted about the being a masterclass in the PAIA matchup or something like that.
Mike:Yeah. It was a good match and I think. The first two games in particular are really great showings of the juxtaposition of how easy a game can go and how difficult a game can go. Like the first game, every decision he makes is like almost like incredibly obvious. He gets going really fast. He has all the resources for later in the. And he wins the game quite easily. And then game two, he ends up losing be in mostly because every single comfy, every single chorus is super, super awkward and he just can't keep enough resources alive to close out the game at the end. Um, and so if people haven't watched that, I think watching those two games and seeing how the lost engine Boston Engine interacts is. Really, really funny, uh, example of how tough it can be.
Brent:Yeah, absolutely. And all the top kick games I thought were entertaining, although mean once you realized it was like gonna be Reggie versus Gure all the way through. Yeah. I don't know about you guys, but I was like, hell's gonna run away with the start Yeah. You looked at top eight and you're like, this is bad news for all these Reggie guys.
Mike:Yeah. I um, so a couple, uh, prediction things that I had said on the pod last week. So I. That I thought Kirin would be much less popular. That wasn't quite true. I said that I thought Reggie Gigas would be about the same popularity, but not piloted by the same quality of player. Also not true, clearly. Really wrong on Reggie. Really
Brent:wrong. That's, you know what, what? What's crazy is I guess with the exception of Drew, like a bunch of people switched off of it and then a bunch of people switched onto it, right? Sure.
Mike:Um, yeah, so that was funny to see, but I will say the two. The, the three decks that I think I said were, in my opinion, pretty good plays, ended up still doing pretty good. I mean, Paia obviously is still great. I think I said I would've played that. Um, only one made top eight, but it did pretty well overall. Still a great deck. Uh, I said Arceus guru, I thought was a pretty good play. Um, It won the event. I have played with it. I played it in the late night last night, and I don't love it. Um, I like got smashed by two Zoroark. Like that matchup is so bad. Um, and then at the very end of the last pod I mentioned that Arceus, Pikachu could be a good deck and lo and behold, they got second
Brent:there. There you go. Yeah. So Liam played on on Sunday while we were just hanging around. Liam played a lot of Paia and he was just playing the list. He played at Worlds and he was astounded at how very reasonable the Guillot matchup was for Paia like. It just seemed like, uh, you would think that that's like somewhat unfavorite and that's like the pressure palky faced in the Meta, but you thought it seemed, He was surprised at how manageable it was. Once again, things, uh, would've been good if we had somehow tested, uh, three days earlier.
Mike:Yeah, I think Pia is like slightly favored against GU to be honest. Yeah, it's just like you have a slightly easier time. Gustine and KO and two prizes and streaming your VStar than, than they do. Right. And you have the, you have access to the hand disruption later in the game and whatnot.
Brent:Yeah. I, I think, uh, I think Liam had thought it was not quite like that and, uh, um, I was surprised that, uh, how right you are. Yeah. Hmm. Any other big, uh, uh, takeaway? I feel like
Brit:my, it's just kind of disappointing. Um. I just feel like this format could maybe go, keep going a little more and it's just kind of over, like, it's just feels kind of like a bummer that missing just missing cups or something like that. I just, I just feel like we haven't fully flushed it out yet. Um, and that we're just kind of moving right on. Like there's no, there's no IC to sort of capstone it or anything like that, and we're just, uh, about to start pre-releases for the next set, or, you know, relatively speaking. And it's so, it's so cool, like, so rare that I feel like we get a set design that's so kind of cohesive. Concept a mechanic. And it's not just like the, the, the Mew fusion spec is such a good example of what I think is like bad set design, bad archetype design. It's just like, all right here, you know, the whole set is just like, you know, there's other cards, but then you've got Mew and supporters and Gensec and so on, and it's like it's own thing. But here it's, it's really cool, especially like, As we've seen with the loss zone being viable for a handful of things, not, not just the guino deck. There's, there's
Brent:a couple different ways to go. Like people are putting chorus in everything. Right,
Brit:Right. And I just feel like, um, maybe there's a best EX awaiting re found, I guess. I guess as a takeaway, just to add to that, I was a little surprised to see,
Brent:um,
Brit:The, I guess it was being called Reggie Gate, the Mirage Gate Single Prize, like Twin Energy, like that didn't do very well, relatively speaking. Um, I don't think very many people played. Um, but yeah, that was a deck I thought was, was almost certainly gonna make top eight. Like it had seemed to just like sort of solidify itself with the online results and yeah. All that to say that, I think still there's just another iteration of things to come. Maybe they're just worse than Reggie's. Still, like maybe that's just kind of, um, withholding the salt, like bringing it all together. Like Reggie's having pretty good matchups with all the lost zone stuff. And that I think is being realized to a greater degree as part of the story for the Salt Lake City Meta game. Um, but yeah, that's just kind of like, I really like this set. Um, and I think it could be maybe refined a little bit more, but I'll ask. We have bit of a break here. Um, events, couple EU and Latin American events, The L A I C and then the Warsaw Regionals, I think that's all. And then Toronto in December. So kind of a nice little break.
Brent:Yeah, Yeah. What what's strange for me, uh, uh, is like now I'm, I'm at a part where at least like me and my son, like we don't have a break. The format changes and we don't even know what cards are in the next format. Like, Silver Tempest isn't out. That's crazy. Right. And normally I don't take a break. That's, uh, uh, I don't know if it's the, that it's so long or it's so just so awkwardly placed kind of to your point.
Mike:Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both.
Brent:So, so guys, if you were, uh, hopping on a plane and flying to France, uh, tomorrow, what's the, what's the.
Mike:So, to Britt's point, I am interested in where the format goes from here in terms of Reggie's because like it was a reasonable, like, you know, it's a good play going into Peoria seemed like a reasonable play to this event, but you know, not like a crazy play. And now it's clearly one of the top decks to beat and it's not that hard to play cards that are quite good against Reggie's. Like you play a couple Avery, that's pretty good. You play uh, Clap Stadium. That's pretty good. So there's lots of like soft ways to make your matchup against Reggie's significantly
Brent:better. I know there were, and there were people playing Mew, both Mew and I think there were one or two PAL players who were playing like the double lost. Right, Right, right. Auto wins
Mike:it. Right? Yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how much, if any, like, players in Warsaw, uh, or wherever the tournament is this weekend, go that route. And I'm really interested in it. Like I, there could be two more events and we could see like where, uh, the format evolves In terms of Reggie's, I don't, I don't know. Um, but I personally would be, I'd probably be looking at Mew. I think Mew is kind of in a cool spot, not having the greatest finish. I think it's probably pretty solid. And obviously my go-to is paia. Um, I think Zurich is also a pretty interesting deck now that lists are pretty refined.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, uh, I thought, I think it's interesting to think that, uh, kind of to Brits point, like Zoroark work. Um, I think people are refining the lists to where it's kind of a viable archetype apparently.
Brit:Yeah, I was a little surprised like it didn't do as well. But I guess that's way more Reggie's I think explaining that, like I remember talking to Ahmed who was big on Zo Arceus for Peoria, and Reggie's was just like a deck he needed to dodge. And so if you kept running into that, it makes sense that there was not as many, none in top eight and not as many in top 32 or top 16. Again, uh, as for my own personal tech choice, that's a good question.
Brent:Um,
Brit:I do like the RCS guru deck. Um, but I do also sort of agree that it's pretty, pretty boring. Doesn't have a lot of options, but I think I saw someone tweeting about just like RCS decks in general boring. And for me the answer is yes. I don't, I test tested a lot of RCS decks and don't have a lot of fun playing them. Like Luke moa, who's sort of a diehard fan for Archist Inteleon still. Uh, that's just so boring. It's like one of the more boring decks out there for me. Um, so yeah, I would probably, I guess I just hyped up the Reggie Gate deck a little bit. I would keep refining that. The, the Charles art box. I'd probably play that. I think I like, I like the Garina deck a lot, but I don't know if I could play it. Um, like I, I don't think that it's Kira matchup is like that. Good. I think ki I'm going first is pretty good against garina. Like you're on just a, if you hit 10 quick enough, like sure no big deal. It's a really easy matchup. But if you sort of stutter. Um, in your quick cloth zoning. It's pretty tough, I think cuz they can just, like, it's hard for you to ever bench garina cuz they'll just kill it. And if they, even if they kill one free one, like an extra one, they can probably deal with your other one. Even still, they can obviously have access to Paia and Grin Ninja themselves. So you, you have to be, Considerate of your own board and benching things. And if you need the aluminum, then that's, again, potentially can take you out of the prize race. Um, trying to think if there's anything Fringier. Oh yeah, yeah. I would wanna mess with the, the Aldon deck a little bit more like the r not Rcs D Duraludon, but the like was stone aldon I, that was pretty interesting. And it's like maybe just worse than Gora, I guess. Very similar decks. Yeah, probably one of those like G just seems really good to me, but it's just like, not only is it a little boring, but it's matchups are pretty polarizing. Like yeah, you just don't, you just don't beat certain things and that's like, I don't really like these matchup roulette decks. I mean, people's succeed with them very clearly at events, so it's like wrong of me to always sort of, Be disinterested and just like, well, if I get this, I win. If I get this, I lose sort of, as far as my matchups are concerned. Um, but yeah, I think this format's really pretty good. I think a lot of things really can win still. And like even one thing we really haven't talked about still is just like rcs Garina itself sort of has been seeing more and more play and did reasonably well.
Brent:Salt Lake City and like that's another
Brit:deck that like,
Brent:just doesn't seem great to me, but clearly
Brit:it's fine. And like on paper I understand. Sort of functionally why it is fine. Um, but yeah, there's just a lot of decks right now. It's hard to
Brent:really go wrong. I guess I'll be curious to see what the,
Brit:that's a really, really strong EU players themselves choose to bring, like toward gonna play the same deck again. Will he have switched? Like that will be a curious
Brent:development.
Mike:Yeah. Especially considering like loss box did very. At Salt Lake. That's another like surprising thing, is that not only did the Mirage Gate single prize lost box deck not show up at all seemingly, but just lost box in general. I think there's like two or three in day two total. Like that's not what I was expecting.
Brent:Yeah, the, I think the highest ranked one was, uh, Keanen at 34th.
Mike:Right. It'll be interesting if to like kind of sticks with the same thing. Uh, and the rest of the, like the EU players always like to bring something a little spicy, so it'll be cool to see if, see what they do.
Brent:Yeah. Well obviously didn't help those guys that, uh, obviously many good players showed up playing Reggie's. I know. Uh, like Keon played Azul in, uh, day two and they tied and Azul was like
Mike:me,
Brent:How can, uh, you know, I, I, I really have to with stuff to uh, mess up that match up and Right. We just drew super poorly there. Uh, um, yeah, so next week we'll we'll see uh, what people took away from this to, uh, show up with And, you know, another thing I would love to do is try, try to like dig a little bit into, uh, Drew's Reggie list and compare that to the Azul grant Caleb list. And see if there's, there's like anything really meaningful in, in the delta between those decks, which would be a, uh, a fun thing to try to dive a little deeper on maybe. Yeah, that makes sense. Anything else guys?
Brit:No, we're excited to see the new set. I know we've seen a lot of it, but I'm sort of, I guess, pessimistically. Thinking it's not gonna be all that impactful. I
Brent:don't, don't see anything that's like,
Brit:at least on paper is gonna have the raw power of even Paia, like, let alone garina and cure'em. But like there's, there's interesting things. Um, yeah, it's, I'm just a little skeptical about the set that, so I guess maybe that would be a solution to earlier. We do get the format even longer,
Brent:potentially.
Mike:I was gonna say that there's
Brent:200 new cards that don't do.
Mike:It'll feel somewhat like the, uh, could feel somewhat like the Pokegear go set where it's like kind of the same format, just a little bit different
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. You can add PokeStops, uh, into three, uh, into like two decks and then you're done. Yeah. You add
Mike:the tool into Mew. That's the, that's the difference of the format
Brent:Exactly, Exactly. All right, guys. Uh, the John Pauls are our outro.