The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

We are a Marvel Snap pod now + Regis deep dive, Lille, Warsaw

October 26, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 107
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
We are a Marvel Snap pod now + Regis deep dive, Lille, Warsaw
Transcript
Brent:

You know, the, the, we're in such a weird place because there's no silver temp set list, and yet there are no tournaments until silver, silver temp is legal. That even my son is contemplating, like he said to me this past weekend. I would like to go to a pre-release next weekend.

Mike:

Whoa. I

Brent:

haven't been to, apparently we're that hard up for information.

Mike:

I haven't been to a pre-release in well over 10

Brit:

years. I'm trying to think. Cause I could re, I pulled a really rare card at it. There was a, it was a set that had like a shiny charizard in there. You could get it misprinted, where it had a fighting energy instead of a fire energy. And I pulled that at that pre-release. But what's, what set would that have been? Uh, so that would've been like the, the shiny Pokegear that they were doing. And it was like next destinies, like, you know, the, the chandel and things like that. It was so it would've been in that block of cards. But yeah, that's probably pushing. Seven or eight years. I don't know. I was probably a sophomore junior in college. I'm gonna guess that sounds about right. Yeah. Figure I'll figure it out and post it after the episode goes prerelease. I've definitely to zero since they started doing the, the better rules for them. I've, I've never done the, the build of battle stuff yet. Uh, that's, I was gonna say, you,

Brent:

you guys should go try out a pre-release if only to try out their, their new thing. Like on the one hand, their new thing a little bit kind of sucks all the like, fun out of it in that, you know, you're like, well I'm definitely playing one of these four decks, But, but I mean obviously old pre-release has totally sucked and were a complete waste of time and. There's still a complete waste of time, but it's, I don't know. I mean, I guess there's like a, a modicum of an attempt to create, uh, a level playing field. Mm-hmm.

Mike:

Yeah, that's true. I might, I might go so that, uh, that win a case or break a case tournament that I went to, I ended up taking store credit instead of taking packs and they said I could use it for entrance to a pre-release, so maybe I'll go do that.

Brent:

But then, but then you just end up with like a bunch of Boltund cards around the house and you're like, Well, these are terrible

Mike:

cards. That's true. Yeah. Like I took the store credit to not get Boltund cards and then I'd be using the store credit and to get more Boltund cards.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, All right guys, let's get into it. Yeah. Uh, welcome to, uh, the Trashalanche podcast. The only Marvel Snap podcast in the entire game. Uh, 10 is a hundred percent Mike Shay, Brit Pybas, Me, Brent Halliburton. We're on Twitter too. Uh, no new five star reviews. If you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. It doesn't even have to be five stars, but if it's five stars, that's nice. Um, Dragon Shield is our sponsor. Mike has never tried Dragon Shield sleeves. We're gonna absolutely blow his mind. Come Arlington, it's gonna absolutely rock his world, although they're like a little, like a little sticky when you first shuffle him. I worry that that might put you off, but like, if you just give him a little shuffling chance, you'll find that they're the finest sleeves in all the land. Um, guys, why don't we kick it off by talking about Marvel Snap for a, a few. Because apparently Marvel Snap is the most important thing going on in the Pokegear. First

Brit:

I mean, it's that time period. We don't have, we don't have events. We don't have a, we don't have the next set list. It's could be a mystery. Like we might not even get luga, I guess for all we know in the set, like the main thing we've seen the Vol picks. I'm not sure. I think we've seen the Red Gelecki in English thing. I think so. Yeah. Marvel Snap. Let's talk about it. I like, I feel like I, I was just posting some thoughts on it a couple, like an hour or two ago, and I've been like, I feel like I, I wrote the honeymoon phase really fast and now I'm just kind of like, not all that interested in it, I think. But I do think it's a good game. Like I, I think it, it succeeds at everything that it wants to succeed and I'm just at my limit and it, I don't feel it being like super competitive. Like it feels like something that would be a real hit at like a board game. Mm. Um, but I like, I really like it. Like it's, it's, I'm gonna be very critical of it at the same time, but none of that is like, I think it would be ridiculous for me to say it's a bad game or something like that. And I, I do think it's very well designed and like card design is good and economy is interesting and things, so I just like feel like I've just like gone to the limit of what you can do with six turns in a 12 card deck,

Mike:

But for me it's really interesting because I'm kind of like, the way that I approach games in general is like all or nothing. So, you know, when I. When I play Hearthstone, like I play a lot of Hearthstone, I played thousands of hours of Hearthstone. I played Pokegear for a long time, and I've like kind of been all in. And especially as I've gotten older, I've played less and less console games because of that fact. Like, if it doesn't draw me in enough to make me wanna play like the whole game and get close to a hundred percent of whatever the game is, I'm not as interested in it. Um, and I feel like that has changed with me over time. But, so this game is really interesting because it is strategic and competitive and there's depth and there's variance, but you literally can't play more than like 15, 20 minutes at a time and feel any progression because it, unlike other games, it's like time locked. So you can only gain, you know, a certain amount of experience. Every eight hours or so, um, based on the way the missions and and reward progression just is, is rolls out. Um, and so I'm kind of in this weird phase where I initially you can play a lot and you gain a lot, but then it plateaus like significantly. And so now I'm at this spot where like I kind of wanna keep playing, but the only way to keep playing is only play a little bit at a time. And so I gotta decide, do I wanna play a little bit at a time or not

Brit:

Yeah. That, that's one thing I don't think I've, I've put out in, in like writing yet. But yeah, I think that, uh, it just feels really bad to play. Right. When you're, when you're not working on these missions, on your sort of, your daily quests, which reset multiple times per day, like not just once per day, it's like a couple every eight hours. Yeah. Rather than just like a daily reset in the middle of the night, which is what, which is part for the course for not just these like mobile card games, but like Gotcha. Games in general and things like that. So that's definitely different. I definitely, uh, play the 20 minutes here and there, but like when you don't have that progression is just really slow. Like, I wish, like I'm really missing the, the wind streak from Hearthstone. I feel like I would just be like, I would've hit infinite already if I had had that, like, for sure. And similarly, like one of, one of the problems I've been running into in like the higher ranks, I don't know where you are now, Mikey. I'm like in the sixties to seventies now. I've, I've lost like every game for two days straight. So that's probably where some of my negativity is coming from. But it's really slow. So I guess for viewers who don't know, the Snap is like sort of one of the core mechanics to the game, which I think is really, really fun and interesting and I think tugs on the, the gambling at, in all of us. And so the way you rank up in Marvel Snap is each game is, is worth a point and you have to, you each rank is worth like 10 points. And so you get like one point for a win or, but you can snap at any point in the game, which doubles the rewards. And your opponent then has the option to snap back, which doubles the rewards again. But if you've snapped or you can do this at any point in the game, you can just retreat. You can just leave. Sort of concede early. And if you concede during a snap, you only lose half of what you would've lost otherwise. So like it, it maxes out at eight and if you, if you retreat there, you only lose four. But usually it doesn't get that high. You only lose like one or two. And so the problem I'm running into the higher ranks is it like day one, early games, I was mashing, you know, wouldn't play a card and I would hit Snap just for fun, you know, It was just felt like the best way to do it. But now people are like gaming, definitely gaming that mechanic a lot more. And I just, I barely get any points anymore. Like, no one people, people are just really, really interested in leveling up and they're doing, they're, I don't really care. I'm trying to do it as fast as possible, but I just like, people are retreat really early. No one snaps as much anymore. And I just, I don't feel like I can climb very efficiently. And again, it just usually feels bad to be playing if you're not like working towards the rewards and stuff too. And I haven't spent any money yet either. And I, I feel like. I'm at the limit of the, the card progression as well. And so the way the game works is that you just, you acquire cards like randomly and NAIC and naturally just through playing, you don't have any like choice. Some of them are predetermined, like a handful of early like basic cards you get no matter what. But then after that it's just a random card or, um, a random variant, which is like the artwork, the cosmetics to the cards. Um, and I, I haven't spent any money and I feel like I'm, I'm playing people that clearly have, because I just, every game is nothing but cards I personally don't own or have never seen before. Um, and so I feel like at first the progression was really good, sort of like Mikey was saying, because I think it's sort of tailor made to get you hooked from the beginning and then pitters out, um, the higher up you get and without, I'm like not gonna spend any money. And I definitely feel like I just don't have any of, I think there's like two sets of cards basically. I don't exactly know how it works, but I've heard people talk about, Pool one and pool two, they're being two separate pools of cards. And I like don't have any of the pool two cards myself and I'm only playing against pool two decks. Um, and it feels bad as well.

Mike:

Yeah. So like I'm in the low fifties, um, and I definitely, I still snap quite early as well, just cuz I, but I, but, and I don't retreat enough. Like there's, I don't retreat enough either.

Brit:

That's part of my problem. I don't really think about it.

Mike:

There's plenty of games where I've lost eight. Yeah. I've lost eight points and, Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah. So Brent, hearing, hearing our description of the game, I know you haven't played it. What, do you have any questions or thoughts?

Brent:

So, so I, the, the one contribution I, I have to all this is, uh, so, so Liam picked up the sword and like, if you're looking for what the, the like. FOMO of Pokegear. Twitter is like, he was like, Oh my God, I'm a disgrace. I lost like my seventh game. And apparently that's like everybody goes on these 50 game winning streaks when they first start

Mike:

That's funny. Yeah, we were saying in our group chat, like someone was like, When do I, when do I start losing like

Brit:

Yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. Definitely at first Pub, Pub stomping, TCG casuals or what have you. I would just like, I just have games or like every play that they did was wrong. And it would just funny. I was just like, What are you doing? Did you read that card? Things like that. And that's always fun. And that's an experience. I, we don't often get in card games. Like there's not like take. Call of Duty or a fighting game or something. I think that's one of the sort of enjoyable parts of picking up a new one when you're a seasoned veteran with all the fundamentals is that sort of, you get a lot of really, really fun, just sort of stomping wins early on. So it was nice to have that for sure. And I know the game is doing a. Very well. I guess it'll be curious to see how long it was, but it was like the number one game on launch day, which is mm-hmm. great for them. Like, again, I do think it's a, a well-designed game. I think they're doing what they're supposed to do, but I just think there's a, there's a limit to how competitive it can really be, but I do think it would be great. I'm looking forward to there being an unranked mode so I can actually like deck build. Like it feels like I just have to, I'm just sort of playing what I think is best. But there's lots, there's cool, lots of very obvious like combos and things like that, you know, it's sort of just like, feels like you pick the five or six drop that you wanna build around and then your early, you have some early game strategy and then like a combo around your, your later curve. And there's lots of cool cards that I own and like never see and don't play with, but feels I don't like, I, I never like having only a ranked option. So having an unranked, presumably if you can do your missions and stuff with it as well, and playing with friends will both be. Good additions. But yeah, I think like it's a mobile game at the end of the day. And what that means is sort of people playing exactly how Mikey described, just like it's your 20 minutes a day sink. And outside of that, I don't know if it's really meant for more than that. Like, we'll see, that would be surprised if it really gets, I don't think it has a trajectory for eSports or anything like that. Usually mobile games like this don't, um,

Mike:

I agree. I don't think it's gonna be a super competitive game at all. Maybe there might be some like grassroots stuff once they initiate. I, I did see Ben Broad, so, Oh yeah. Yeah. So for those of you that don't know, um, this game was created by Ben Broad and some other people that were some of the initial designers of Hearthstone. So, uh, I saw Ben Broad post on Twitter that they are working on like friend battles, so there could be, you know, right now there's literally no way to play with anybody else that you know. Um, oh, one other thing you said, Brit that I wanna say, so I also haven't put any money in, but my understanding is that if you put money into the game, at best, you can double the speed of your progression. Like, that's not like a ton. Like obviously that's good, but it's not like you can buy specific cards or anything like that. You're just doubling, uh, the speed that, that you can progress. The most frustrating thing is not being able to have access to any given cards to, So if you want to play a certain deck, like you can't, like I just finished pool one and like now I can play all the pool one decks, but I don't even want to go into pool two right now because I know as soon as I go into pool two there's gonna be lots of decks that I won't be able to build completely for weeks.

Brit:

How do you know, how do you know that you've crossed over? Like, I don't actually know the, those numbers.

Mike:

So the threshold is, uh, like collection level two 14, I think. Okay.

Brit:

I think that's like exactly where I am. Like some, somewhere like that. Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. So whatever. Yeah. I

Brent:

recognize Twitter's full of people saying, uh, I wish I could play Xander Deck, but I don't have Kill Monger. Right.

Brit:

Yeah. That's the, that's the card that's hurting me the most. And again, I'm like in this new, sort of a different Meta game, and I think that's part of where the, some of the fun and like the initial day came from is cause everyone had the same cards. So like, Yeah. Even like, and even then, like, because people had the same cards, I feel like you had more like player choice because you had a little, you had like a greater degree of prediction, like available to you. Cause you're like, Oh yeah, they'll, they'll play Hulk or they'll, they'll play, you know, this card or that card where, and then at, at pool two, I'm just like, I don't, I have no idea what you could possibly do. I don't know what your cards do. Uh, you got a six drop, what does it do? Okay, you got me. Like, and they're just like, that's just kind of the game, I think at a, at a certain point. And it just feels, Well, it reminds me of that, that point in Pokegear, which I think is just like the worst feeling in Pokegear is that like, it just sort of doesn't matter. It's you, you entered this sort of scenario, this game stay where it's like, well, you have it or you don't. Mm-hmm. and there's nothing in my power like, you drew it or you didn't. Um, whether that's like off the Roxanne or naturally, you know, within the context of Marvel Snap. And that's what a lot of the games feel like. It's just like, Oh, I didn't draw into my five six combo. Did you? Okay. You got me. Like, and that feels bad too. And again, I. That all just circles back to the smallness. And I think because it's so small, like even, you know, six turns, 12 car decks, like you see about half your deck most of the time depending on variants and locations and things like that. And so like, you should do what you want to do a lot of the time, but sometimes you don't. Sometimes you still just get six duds or something like that. And that just like, feels bad and like it's, it's very clear I think that they, they don't want the game to, I think be like a super like deck building enterprise. And what I mean by that is not necessarily the points that they've made. As far as like deck building should be easy. It shouldn't be a blocker for these kind of games, which I think is true. But as far as like, like there's, they're never gonna make cards with card draw, is what I'm trying to say here is because they're never gonna be like, Yeah, it's a combo deck. Here's what you do, you draw all of your cards and then you hit it 100% of the time. It's like a game that takes the sort of fun r and g and variance from Hearthstone. And I think kind of like cranks it up a notch by sort of narrowing the parameters of the game. Um, but yeah, there's just a lot of randomness. Um, yeah. And I think that's why it's like fun, but not good or fun and not competitive, like that sort of thing. And one of the things I've been running into a lot, again, as you get higher in ranks, playing better decks and better people is that they're starting to be counter play. Like you're playing counter cards and trying to read your opponent in specific spots. Your counters don't even work half the time if you just flip in the wrong order because you're, what you do is both players take their turns at the same time and then there's this, like you take turns revealing cards on where you played them on the board and you can just lose if your card flips first. Things like that. And so that happened to me earlier and there's like, it's just like there's just coin flips on top of location reveals on top of the cards that you draw and so on. Like yeah,

Mike:

like one of the most frustrating ones of those for me is just turn one, Like if you play a one drop and they play a one drop, one of the ones that is like reveal and you played one at the same location, then they get some bonus effect. Like if the first drop, like almost always, it's just like a one out of three, you just kind of randomly pick one of the places. There's some like strategy depending on what the first location is, but like generally you're kind of just picking a random place and. That can be game losing like immediately, Like on turn one, if they have like the, the one that like draws a card from your deck and you just lose if they pick, if they pick your best card So yeah,

Brit:

it's weird. It's fun. I think it's very, I think it, it, like for me this something like this. I, I would only, I would have a blast, you know, playing like at a board game night. I think it's very fast and that's sort of, at least for me in my experiences with those, like you want these kind of fast paced games where you can kind of learn it, play a game to learn it, and then play a couple to really understand it and like, like the DC tech building game or something like that. And like, yeah, I feel like this in like that setting is where it will thrive. But yeah, I'll be curious to see if there's any real like, I mean I, it's fun again, as I keep saying so like, I'm sure there will be content creators and stuff doing cool things with it. But yeah, I just like kind of feel like I'm at my limit already. I like it enough to see where it goes and like, Am can, am not spending. So it's not like I've lost anything or you know, other than a little bit of time. And like, it's fun to play, easy to play. It's got really good, you know, UI and so on, things like that for a mobile title. But,

Brent:

uh, you know, it's, it's funny obviously that the context that's lost on me as I watch, like Pokegear Twitter lose its mind and, and kind of, but as you described, I think a lot of people are wired the same way as you. I don't think it was apparent to me that this was a Midco game because all the Pokegear players are like, it's a hardcore game to me.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I think that's just something in general. I've, I've talked about this with, in like a gaming interview recently, and like there's just something about, and I, I guess with Marvel Snap, like you could blame it on there only being a ranked mode, but especially. With card games in the Pokegear community. And I, I would think this is fairly consistent across any card game community, but I feel like we have this like such an immediate pressure to like prove that we're good. It's like, hey, you know, you're, I'm, here's me on my Pokegear Twitter, you follow me because you know I'm good at Pokegear or something to that effect. Here's a new card game. So it's just like, I have to be good at this one too, so I have to grind it and I have to show you how good at, you know, how ubiquitously good at card games I am. And that's just like, I don't know, it doesn't super interest me anymore, but I feel like that's why like when there's just this huge buzz of mouse, like I think that's psychologically what we're really doing is we want to just be like, Look, see I am good at card games. I did this and you know, I'm this at Pokegear too and I. Fatigued by that, like, as a concept. I just like, I just wanna play games for fun sometimes and not really worry about if I'm good or bad. And like, that's how I play Battlegrounds for the most part. And I guess, like, I do know I'm not very good at Battlegrounds, but I, like, I don't really consume any content. I don't wa I don't look anything up. I don't, I don't read, I don't look up high ELO builds and things like that. I just kind of clicking and playing and doing what seems right to me. And like, I talk to Mikey, that's sort of my cheat code, but But I do okay. And I'm like at a, I'm at a new, like elo higher than I've been before. And like, that's fun. Like not every, not everything has to be, uh, grinding 500 CP equivalent every day, every part of the day. Yeah.

Brent:

Uh, you know, I don't think we've ever talked about on the pod, but uh, uh, I think during Pandemic I started playing Clash of Clans again. And Clash of Clans is like, You know, perfectly designed Midco game. Like you play it for five minutes and then you have to stop for hour while it like builds new armies and stuff. Mm-hmm. But like, uh, uh, I definitely, uh, and, and it's, it's the kind of thing where like I recognize there is some sort of competitive circuit and there is some sort of like pro thing, but if you're free to play person, you're never gonna participate in that because like, you'll never have everything maxed out everywhere because it literally takes two years to three years to max out everything. Like, it's just not a practical thing to do. You know, they, they just released the new town hall and like, somebody figured it out. Like it takes 18 months to upgrade everything unless you pay. It's like, and like, I'm, I'm not gonna do that. So like, the thing that I'm doing is just a thing that could entertain me for five minutes. Uh, you know, every couple of hours if I like, get bored or whatever, you know? Right. Exactly. Mid core games, it's, they're super fun, but like you, uh, um, you just have to enjoy the process because you can't get to engage in the outcome. Right,

Mike:

right. Exactly. And this is like a new, I've never played one of these, I've never had one of these in my life, so I have to decide if, if I want one or not. mike's

Brent:

like, I don't know what to do with this thing that doesn't want me to grind it all the

Mike:

time. Yeah.

Brent:

what is, what is the purpose? All right guys, how about we, we talk about Pokegear just a little bit. Uh, um, how was France

Mike:

this weekend? I watched a bit. Did you guys watch any, Any of it?

Brit:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I did. I watched it. It's sizeable amount. The European tournaments, like are, I think I've said this a couple times, at least once, just like time wise, always work out better for me. Like the, the time that I'm on and around my computer, even if even on the weekends is just like always in the morning for the most part. And so when it's, you know, I'm coming into the, like later in the day for Europe, it's always like a really good time. So yeah, I watched, I watched most of the Top Cut on Sunday and just kind of had it on during the day on Saturday. And, well, I guess one, one thing to say as we get started, shout out to Limitless as always. I was very impressed with their, their production and things like that. Various, like even in, even in some of like the player interviews, I thought what they were doing with, uh, the camera angles and things like that was cool and interesting. And not just your two people, one with a mic, two people just staring at each other with a mic, like it was cool. Changing shots during the same conversation and things like that, but just like always so, so impressed by them as an organization for, you know, you know, I mean, obviously they're like a real institution at this point, but just being like a, a fan product, you know, something that's just generally better than what the official stuff gets us a lot of the time. But mm-hmm. That's great. Meta game wise, it like, I think it was largely most of the same. Um, the finals match itself was a little silly. I don't know if you saw or watched, but some crazy flipping happened.

Mike:

I didn't, I did not see what happened. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't really watch the finals.

Brit:

Oh. He just gets a double silent heads for, for games. That's, I didn't know that. And doesn't win outside of double. Oh

Brent:

really? Wow.

Brit:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess, I guess I take that back, the Meta game, at least I think like Reggie's didn't do very well, and that, I guess was the main takeaway compared to, um, Gosh, where's the Salt Lake? Salt Lake? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, It wasn't Peoria. Why am I blanking? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think I, I think a lot of people were doing, like Temple of Syno I heard was, saw was I think a fairly popular card choice as a read's answer. And it's, it's good against Mewtwo, of course. Mm-hmm. um, Or is it, Yeah, it's, yeah. Okay. I couldn't remember for the reason my head had stopped. It wouldn't, couldn't remember if it would stop the double colorless effect. It just turns it into a single one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah,

Brent:

I, I thought it was interesting, uh, uh, like I didn't look at a lot of lists outside the top eight lists, but the top eight lists, there were a lot of Reggie counters. Oh, was there? Uh, yeah, the, the cur list that came in eighth played two collapse stadiums. Um, the, uh, uh, RCS Guillot list that came in seventh played a collapse stadium and like, and that's kind of all, And in that respect, I thought it was, Oh, I was sitting there playing rcs and they played Cheren's Care. So like they have a little more counter play there. Um,

Mike:

Does it have Dunsparce? Oh no, no. Dunsparce though.

Brent:

The Garina played Collapse stadium. Um, uh, and that's it. But like, obviously Collapse Stadium was nowhere to be found in Salt Lake City. And then Fabian Calculus played two law cities Echoing Horn. Um, so that's like pretty hard counter. Yeah. Oh, when Cameron played no counters really. He played, he played the Corbo versus like, he

Mike:

was big charm. He was big charm. At least big charms. Relevant for sure.

Brent:

Right, right. Um, and then, uh, I gt played one template to Hmm. But, so I was like, there's definitely like people trying to do stuff.

Mike:

Yeah. And then the Blissey played Dunsparce and obviously for Avery, like that Blissey, that Blissey deck is never losing to a Reggie with, for Avery and a Dunsparce.

Brent:

Right, right. And the Mew list played Avery and two Lost Cities and Echoing

Mike:

Horn. Yeah. Yeah. So pretty much everything in the top eight has at least some, some card, at least one spot in their deck that it's, you know, like Club Stadium is like a decent stadium anyway, and Big Charm is like good anyway, and Lost City is good anyway, so it's like Reggie is, is not. Super hard to tech for in the sense that a lot of the cards that are good against Reggies are good-ish cards anyway. They're not, they would always be like, you know, the 62nd card in your deck, but like, you're not that upset playing these cards.

Brent:

Yeah, yeah. But there's no question. I think everybody made sure the 62nd card made the necklace this time around. Like everybody had a plan for Reggie's. Uh, and, and I think that really bears out. Like, so, so the top Reggie's player was, uh, Dominic icky. He was 8 0 1 after day one, and then he, he finished 8 24.

Brit:

Wow. He

Brent:

went oh two three in day two. It just goes to show like when you start playing the top players, like they had a plan and like he was going to deal with it. Right. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was, I thought that was absolutely wild that he could have such a good run day one and such a bad run day two.

Brit:

Yeah, that's, I've had that for sure. Yeah, there was, there was a tournament. I went like seven, one and one and just like went like one, one and three or something like that. Or one or one, three and one. And it felt, it feels really bad. You feel like so good having a decent lead into day two and just like get pooped on by matchups or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Brent:

I mean, obviously, uh, uh, it's, uh, I didn't bother to try to go back and look at whether or not he had like, bad matchups or beat draws. Cause I recognize mean, hey, when you get to 8 0 1, you played two or three super tough rounds, uh, at the end of day one. Like, you can't freeze today too. But I thought it was interesting. So, uh, I, I did like seeing Blissey do well. I felt like Blissey was a, a like deck that had, you know, uh, there's every reason to think that it would do well. After coming outta Milwaukee and did well there, like Blissey, it's uh, one of those tier two decks that just hangs around.

Mike:

Yeah. And we talked about it a little bit, I think, heading into Peoria as it, I think it was when it was doing pretty well online and then it kind of didn't do anything at the two North America tournaments. But I'm not surprised, honestly, to see it do well once. I think it's always one of those decks that if you're not, it's kind of like Reggies in a sense that if you're not, if the Meta game is not respecting it, if it's not thinking about it, there's always a chance that it could do pretty well.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, the, you know, the, the other thing that I, I thought was probably worth taking a moment to note is while, while the guys in the finals, this was like their first top cut at any tournament ever, um, Uh, uh, props to our incredible list of the top 50 players in Pokegear because, uh, Nico aas, Owen Cameraman and Fabian Pus all made that list and made us proud. Mm-hmm. way, way to validate the wisdom of the crowds guys.

Mike:

Yeah. Um, yeah, it seemed like a lot of top players just ended up playing Paia. Um, I know Robin played it. Uh, I think Stefan played Garina, but he didn't do very well toward played loss box as we suspected. Um, I did not see Pedro, so I'm not too sure what Pedro played. Um, who else I know. Oh, yeah. Ben Benji fam did, uh, got top 16 with Kira Paia, but I felt like I, I just felt like I saw a bunch. Big names just running regular Paia, at least Robin and Fabian. So, yeah. Yeah,

Brit:

there is a, I thought too, I wouldn't

Mike:

be surprised if Pedro also played Paia, even if he didn't do very well. Um, and I didn't, I don't think Philip went to the event.

Brit:

And, and it's

Brent:

worth taking a moment to note because, uh, uh, official, uh, fourth co-host of the Pod Kaya, look, Likeer got second and seniors

Brit:

playing

Mike:

fia. Oh, yeah, Yeah, I saw that. That's great. Awesome for her. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent:

Um, uh, yeah, I was, uh, once again, I assume it's like a slew of bad matchups and beat draws, but toward, uh, started very strong in the tournament and then proceeded to fade, uh,

Mike:

pretty verbally. Yeah. I mean, the Meta seems to be shifting, has seen like it's shifted. Unfavorably for a lost box, not like direct countering it or anything. I just feel like a lot of these decks have some inherent answers to the lost box deck. Um, potentially some of the texts that are good against Reggie's are also good against Lost Box. Like the Lost cities are pretty good, like in Paia, being able to kill the Charr so it can't get two knockouts is pretty big and I think makes the matchup, uh, quite a lot better actually for paia because they can really limit their, their bench with the SOS and not allow SLA to take too many knockouts. And then so if you're able to just kind of end the game with two PAOs out and they need four prizes, if the chars already kills one and you lost City the other or Lost City, the chars are, they don't really have an easy way to KO the second Paia. Um, Collapse Stadium is like, Not bad against lost Box. They, you know, they have a lot of Pokegear they wanna play, they wanna get a lot of comf out. Um, so yeah, it's Lost Box is kind of in a, in an interesting spot. Uh oh yeah. And the Kial are playing a bunch of Wash energy, mostly for Garina, but, uh, those are also good against Sableye life.

Brent:

Uh, guys, uh, when you look back on history so that the Cameraman Brothers played, uh, a win in into Top, are there, are there other times when brothers have had to, uh, play the win in at, at a major tournament?

Mike:

I,

Brit:

I mean, the SCHs surely have played something functionally close to a win in I would, I would bet. Good money on. Like, it might not have literally been it, but it might have been like they get too, the winner gets to ID the next round for top eight or something, you know, that sort of scenario. Right. Obviously I think people played disabled houses as like two example. Yeah. Disabled houses have, again, I'm not sure on the win and end, especially since them being. Old school players, they probably have more history being in top 32 brackets than day twos together, something like that. But they've definitely played each other in like top eight or higher ever regionals, I'm pretty sure. Which I guess is more impressive than a winning in the

Mike:

cracks as well come to mind as there's definitely been cracks in similar situations probably.

Brit:

Yeah, like curriculars are like a weird bunch to me being, you know, kind of from my area, I always feel like, like Andrew, I don't feel like has ever really played and like he was really good in seniors in the younger divisions. I feel like Zacian, like I'm not sure if he's ever qualified for worlds as a master, like maybe once in like the early years, but I always felt like. And Zacian would always like Spike tournament finishes, but wouldn't qualify for worlds. And it was always this like interesting dynamic. I think at the end of the day, I don't think either of them really cared. Yeah. And like if they wanted to, they would play more and do well, but like half the time, you know, I usually, I feel like I usually see Andrew Vending at Yeti at events more than playing. And Alex Krekeler of course does, does, does very well consistently. I feel like he's been the sort of the most active one across, across the years. Certainly in the, the more recent times cuz yeah, I, I mean I would used to have to compete, compete against them all the time. And there was like, never felt like they were like, they're definitely good players, but they always play like weird decks. I never felt they were like all that much of a threat at events, like usually speaking. And I like probably have pretty even records against them, so I'm not saying I like beat them every time or anything like that, but I guess like their deck choice is so consistently unorthodox. It's like hard to. Prepare, like what are they gonna play? Things like that. And like, I know I've tied against Zacian several times at regionals, but Missouri

Brent:

Tangent. Yeah. I guess, I guess the, the SHOs brothers are like probably the closest European equivalent. Right. I'm sure those guys, and I know like there've been probably states and cups and stuff where like, you know, I mean, those guys are probably closed out final rounds, like all these different brothers. Right. But, uh, um, yeah, I thought it was, uh, uh, obviously as, as we've seen from the many, many, many times that we've seen Shaman skis play against each other. Always sad when, uh, uh, it comes down to, it went in and against family, but, uh, it happens. It happens.

Brit:

Yeah, for sure.

Mike:

Um, Right. So Mace tweeted a lot after the event. Did he talk to you more personally about any of the things that he was tweeting about?

Brit:

No. Don I know, I'm familiar with what you're talking about, or at least the, I know the, the gentleman's agreement that didn't end up happening, but no, I didn't, didn't get any texts about, um, the event or anything like that. I, I didn't actually know he was there. I saw one of the friends that I stayed with at NAIC was on the deck day two, and I like messaged him a little bit and just luck, but didn't know me was there until he had sort of made those tweets. Mm-hmm.

Mike:

Yeah, so he went 3 0 6 I think he said like he tied a lot. I think he said he played career Tina. Um, but yeah, the big thing was that he said he played against a player that reneged on a gentleman's agreement. And then a lot of people commented on his tweet saying, Yeah, we played against this person as well. And he was a jerk, or did something like, not exactly illegal, but just was not like a, a pleasant person to play against. So I thought that was

Brit:

interesting. Uh, that was, I mean, obviously I didn't really finish in Peoria, but I felt like I was playing fast with Garina and I went to time, like every single round. Mm-hmm. It's just a slow deck. And a lot of, a lot of matchups in this format are, are slow. I think there's, I mean, it's the first time in a minute we've had. A lot, multiple single prize decks that are viable. Like generally speaking, I think, you know, since the podcast has been started, there's usually just been one and so you're not really thinking about how they interact with each other. Um, and like that, that was my experience and I don't necessarily know as matches, but I mean every match fortina is long I feel like. And cuz you have to, I mean that's sort of the, the goodness to the deck is you have so many like branching paths and what you can do and, and how you strategize during any given game is probably gonna be a little bit different. But because of that you don't just like get into this like tempo moment where the foot's on the gas and you can't lose. It's always just like, okay, what do I have? What do they have? What's the best option here? Things like that. Um, yeah, I mean I think there are very slow matchups this format for sure. It feels a lot different than even just the last format where like Paia versus rcs, you kind of went three turns. A lot of like four turns a lot of the time. Could be either one winning, but like, One person would just hit the first knockout and like never slow down, things like that. But I've, I've, I think just a slow player in general. I've had multiple regionals where I've tied like four times I think.

Mike:

So it is worth noting Brent. I know you said that there's no more events in this format, but there is one more actually. There is Poland. Poland Regional. Yeah. Warsaw. Warsaw. Warsaw is in this format, so it's a couple weeks away. Um, I feel like the format has kind of come full circle in some sense with this event. Like all the good decks, in my opinion, all the good decks did well, like Paia did well, Garina did. You did? Well, Blissey is kind of like an okay deck and it did o okay. You know, got second, which is fine. Um, Kira did okay. And that's about where I think it should be. Uh, Reggie is, so it'll kinda be interesting. Maybe we'll revisit it like the week before where the Meta game is, but I feel like people kind of know what the good decks are. They know how to beat the, kind of the tier two or tier three decks that are potential threats in like, you know, the Arceus Gora, the Blissey, the Reggies. So it's kind of like you just play a good deck and try to have answers to as many of these tier two, tier three decks as you can. Uh, do, do you guys

Brent:

have any reaction to like the RCS Guillot versus straight garina? Like I recognize two of the top 10 decks were the RCS build and I felt like. I mean, I recognize people play it, but I feel I'm, maybe, I'm surprised that there's not more coalescing around like a right way to do that.

Brit:

I'm really sorry. You can go ahead, Mikey.

Mike:

No, I haven't played it myself, so I really don't have too much own opinion.

Brit:

I'm just, I myself am pretty cynical about the RCS deck, just like, doesn't seem good to me. Like, and so like the cards are both like strong by themselves. And so I don't think it's a surprise that the deck can work. Like RCS is busted at power, zip garina, garina kills everything, you know, basic math. Um, but yeah, as far as this, like, is it better than another RCS stack or, you know, rcs Gora, like, No, clearly, clearly rcs, Gora is better, um, is, you know, clearly. And I also similarly think like, just, let's just look at the, the stats and the results. Like similarly, I think clearly lost Box T is better if you wanna play. Uh, a different kind of deck. Um, like Orion has a lot of success online with it, but I don't really feel like anyone else has done anything noteworthy with it. And like, again, I think the raw power is, is obvious and so like sure, can it make top 32? Can it make top 64? Why not? But like outside of that, I just, it just doesn't seem very good and like take a match up like Ki'em or something. I don't really know how you would ever be ki'em outside of just like, go out, out temping them. It's, I feel like you just get blown up if they do. Um, if ki'em just like hits beats faster, they just like are gonna go up four prizes before you kill their gu a lot of the time. It seems hard to me, especially for a deck that stays popular. And I think we'll have staying power into the next format too. I,

Brent:

I'm kind of inclined to agree, like when I look at the RCS GU list, that that top aided, it's like, It's like the craziest version of the Malamar VMax text that we're running around like pre NAIC. Like, and

Brit:

like Orion's List always plays like a pretty low Pikachu line. I mean, they go back and forth between playing Pikachu and not playing Pikachu, but like when they do play Pikachu, it's like a one, one or something. And I'm just like, What is even the point of that? Like you really go, are you really beating Pia more consistently with one one and like take that matchup for example too. Like would you, obviously you would rather have the heavier Pikachu and Garina, like Garina is pretty bad in the r. Paia match up, I would think. I mean, I guess it's fine. It's a better answer to Paia than you're Arceus without being able to rely on Cheren's Loop. But like the Pikachu is gonna live a hit almost in every scenario. The Garina is like usually not, or like you're gonna have to play pretty well for it to live a hit and get to do it's two 80. Um, but yeah, I don't, I don't think I have more to say than like, the cards are purely, like in a vacuum, are both clearly very strong. And so mashing them together like is fine. But like there's no way It's tier one. Absolutely not. It's tier probably a very clear like tier 2.5 or something like, Yeah, like it doesn't be red. Like none of the, of the cards in the deck beat Reggies like, and like maybe the one one Pikachu gets you there sometimes, but

Brent:

than the Crobat deck didn't play the one One Pikachu, he plays four three rcs, Line two. Two Guillot line. He plays the Radiant Gardevoir. Which I, I, I guess that's like a soft done, sparse kind of counter. Like you decrease the damage output 20 and you pray doesn't have the choice belt and maybe your RCS survives a hit. I like, and then a one one bial line on Oranguru, a Crobat, a la minion, a pumpable. Like, I, I feel like, uh, somehow he went down a path where like, I mean, he got top seven. He's way better Pokegear than me, but I was like, These are the best cards you could put in your man Like, I feel like, I feel like the straight decks you're playing the good cards, you know? Strange. All right. I tried to promise last week that we'd spent a few minutes really talking about Reggie gigs for a second. Is that, does that sound okay guys?

Mike:

Oh, yeah. You wanted to like, Yeah, yeah. You start it.

Brent:

Yeah. Right. So, so if you guys look at the, the Google Doc, I've, I've put together, uh, you, I think what are like the two, three predominant Reggie builds people play. So I, I pulled Drew's list. I pulled the list that Azul and Grant and Kayla played. And then after this past weekend, I pulled Dominic Malik's, uh, list and Dominic in his tweet about how he did thanked Grant for insight into how to play matchup. So I assume his list was like heavily influenced by grants, and as part of the question will be how much, like, does, does his list represent where Grant looked and said, This is where I would go as the Meta evolves. Right? So, um, one first, first difference everybody plays. Oh, so Drew played two Reggie Gigs and Grant, and Dominic both played three. Uh, Drew and Grant both played the one, uh, asr, Reggie Licky and Dominic dropped that completely.

Brit:

Is that, is that like, uh, uh, smart next level

Brent:

thinking something else?

Mike:

Well, so the main reason that Azul Grant and Caleb played the bad Reggie Leki is they ran the yellow horn. And so they wanted to be able to recur that against Ice Cube like that. Definitely the main reason that they played it. Drew, why did Drew play it? Did he play it for any particular reason? It doesn't look like it. He didn't. Oh, he also played boss. I don't really know why Drew is playing the bad Reggie lucky. I just think he has been playing it and maybe just wanted to keep playing it. But there doesn't seem to be like a reason. The other reason that you would play it is if you don't play boss's order, you have a way to kind of like finish a knockout with the Snipe attack. Um, and so that also makes sense in his old grant and Caleb's list. But Drew has the boss's order, but maybe he's thinking he wants to play two boss order, but instead of playing two, you play the one Reggie, like he and the one boss. Um, Dominic doesn't have bosses order or bad

Brent:

Reggie Leki. So, uh, uh, Drew also played the evolving sky's, Reggie Drago, so he could hit for two 40 and nobody else played that.

Mike:

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a very good card to make but I just know he's, he's been playing it. I think he played it initially for Mew two reunion, so he could, Yeah, that's,

Brent:

I was gonna say, that was always a Mewtwo counter,

Mike:

right? Yeah. And me two's not really in this format, so I don't really know why you would play it. Like two 70 is not a super relevant number to hit. Like it was good against Mewtwo Union, just cuz you hit them well above 200, so they can't out heal you. Um, but like, you don't play away to get to two 80 and two 80 is the number to hit. So Yeah, it doesn't really seem worth it to me, but whatever. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, that makes sense. All right, so that, that's the Pokegear line. So let's start with the trainers for two seconds. Um, or, or more cuz the trainers are really the big good difference. Um, so grant's list and then Dominic's list. Both were four. Research for Mars. Drew went. For research to Marni two Bruno Bosses order.

Mike:

Mm-hmm. So not too big of a difference there. Also worth noting, uh, Drew does not have Pokegear, but everyone else had one Pokegear That is true. And that's kind of a supporter.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's that, that's a fair point. So they, they have like a little more out to draw. Um, it's interesting that like, uh, uh, Grant decided and even, and when Dominic cuts the Reggie Licky, Annie doesn't play boss. Like there's just no way to attack the bench, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Zero is,

Brent:

I, I obviously Grant Azul Caleb had great outcomes and like Dominic said, that all seems fine. Is Reggie really just a matter of like, you just attack whatever's in the activity and you don't even care. Yes.

Brit:

And sometimes it's like that game you described Mikey in, in the group chat where they just like, they get your paia going second.

Mike:

Yeah. I, I signed up for the late night last week or two weeks ago, I forget. And I was gonna play Paia round one. I play against Reggies. I go first, have a great Paia start, and the turn with Paia and the active Reggies goes, vomits everything on their board. Turn one knockout on my Paia. I'm like, All right, tournament's over for me, like, I don't wanna play anymore. So, Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. I, I guess, I guess that's how it is. I guess that's how it is. Um, is, is, uh, I mean obviously playing for Marney's is always great. Uh, would you ever think I'd rather play Brunos than, uh, Marty's?

Mike:

I don't know. I when I was, I haven't played Reggie in a while, but when I was playing it, I did try various combinations of supporters and in theory, Bruno's great. And I just felt like most of the time you'd rather just have a consistent draw five rather than an inconsistent draw seven. So I think I like four Marty better, just cuz you know what you're getting more of the time. But I think Bruno's okay. I don't really feel that strongly about it.

Brent:

Yeah, I feel like when I was testing Reggies, I was playing, I don't know, one or two Brunos and Brunos seemed generally speaking from, I mean, yeah, I recognize there's sometimes when you're only gonna draw four and you wish you were drawing five, but, but also you, sometimes you draw seven.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

and seven is like theoretically, uh uh, you know, a, a drawing, two extra cards, if that helps you do the thing, then it helps you do the thing. Although maybe just the, the straight hand disruption on the other guy of Marni makes Marty a better choice. Hmm. I don't know. Tricky, uh, ordinary rod, So Drew played four, Grant played three. Dominic played four. Again,

Mike:

playing three Seems so ridiculous to me. I mean, I guess you can kind of get away with it if you're, think you're, if you assume that your opponents are going to assume that you play four, maybe you can get away with three in the one tournament. But I think like, probably never again, That's what I was just

Brent:

about to say. Like the, the three, the three works a lot better if the other guy thinks you have four, right?

Mike:

Yeah. like, cuz then they, the big thing is like they can target Reggie's down much more effectively. Like the one, you know, if they're like trying to kill your Reggie steals or something like that. And they know you only play three rod. That's really bad. Right. And there's just so many games where you end up discarding one or even two between quick balls and researches and things like that. So, I don't know, playing anything less than four seems crazy to me. You get a little bit of mileage knowing that you play three of two different Reggies. But, but still, it's scary.

Brent:

Like, I mean, I just feel like, I mean, the problem with ordinary Rod is like, with this deck, like when you need it, you need it. Yeah. I mean if you wh a rod and you need a rod that turn, like you're, you might as well just scoop your cards and go home. Right? you're like, We're about to, we're gonna, we're gonna miss this. He's gonna take another knock. Like, you're just like, Oh, we completely lose cuz we missed that rod. Yeah, it's wild. Um, alright. Alright. So Drew only plays two tracking shoes. Everybody else played four. Track shoes is a

Mike:

good card. Yeah, so his drops are, he, he played two tracking shoes with two po stops, so that was kind of his trade. Um, two po stops a good card too. Um, so I don't know. I think either way is fine. It's still extra dig either way. Um, the one other change to like modern list that I think is really interesting, they all played, this is three scoop up net and one air balloon. So before Reggies were playing four scoop up nets, but running three net with the one air balloon I think is pretty cool. Um, watching some of the stream games, um, whatever it was couple weeks ago, um, I saw the value in the air balloon. Pretty significantly. It allows you to, you know, throw an air balloon on the Reggie Drago and just, you can use your attachment for the turn to retreat it rather than, uh, you know, needing Scoop up. It just gives you like Mew more ways to, to pivot your guys and protect yourself against Roxanne and Mars and, and stuff like that. So I think, uh, that's a really neat change of the more modern lists. Yeah.

Brent:

I, I know talking with Azul also, like the more likely you are to play against guys that are playing Echoing Horn, the more you have to hoard your scoop up nets. Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't have a good pivot, but like the other guys playing Echoing Horn, then it's a lot easier to suddenly realize, Oh, I lose now. That was great. Sure. Right. So, uh, um, yeah, so I, I totally dig it. Uh, everybody plays a heavy ball. Everybody plays three choice belts. Everybody plays an air balloon, and everybody plays three Path to the Peak. The only other, Oh yes. Then, then, so Drew plays two poke stops. We talked about that Grant and Dominic both played a Pokegear. Um, and so I thought this was interesting. Grant played the yellow horn. Everybody's talked about that. That's an out to ice cube. Dominic drops the out to ice cube and plays the Cape of Toughness.

Mike:

Don't really know where that helps, but It's not a bad card. I just don't know. Like where, what matchup are you playing it for?

Brent:

Yeah, I don't either. I'm sure. I'm sure there's some, uh, thing. But it's interesting that like he completely abandons the, uh, a yellow horn. I wonder how much he regretted that in day

Mike:

two. I mean, they, he didn't know about Yellow Horn, right? Like,

Brent:

No. No. So Dominic knew about Yellow Horn. This is Dominic playing it the last weekend in Lil Oh oh, oh. He tweeted, he tweeted and he thanked Grant for his insight into matchup. So I

Brit:

assume Grant had some influence on his list and obviously very close to grants.

Brent:

So the fact that he drops the horn and goes Cape of Toughness,

Brit:

that's kinda interesting.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised that, you know, Ice Cube didn't do anything in, in, uh, Salt Lake, so I'm not surprised that they felt like they didn't need to play that. But I, I wonder if Cape is for the mirror. Like, is that what it's for?

Brent:

I like that. I like that thinking. That seems pretty

Mike:

good, right? Like it pushes your guys. Because like Reggie Drago is the thing that hits the hardest at one 60 and so Yeah. Pushes you to, to 180 on most of your guys. So I guess that's, that's probably it. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent:

I mean, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm sure despite the fact that Reggie ended up doing terribly in a little, like, I assume expectations were that a lot of Reggie would show up after Azul and Grand Caleb Ball did so well, and like the good players played, uh, played the deck. Like it was gonna be popular choice,

Mike:

right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the other thing about going back to the Rod, um, and it makes sense now thinking about Dominic, uh, adapting to the Meta game, going back up before

Brent:

Rod, he goes up before cause can't, can't sell. Right.

Mike:

Right, right, right. And Rod is really good against the counters, Avery and, and uh, collapse stadium. Right? Like you need to recur your guys back even more against those cards.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. The more Avery you expect, the more you're like, we're gonna have to find Rod all the time. Right. Uh, the, so the last difference was in the energy counts. So Drew was playing three speed lightnings and one gift energy and grant. And then Dominic played two speed lightnings and two gift energies. That's like six and one half a dozen of the other, I think.

Mike:

Right? Yeah. I think you're playing the second, just so you can find it earlier. That's really the only reason, right?

Brent:

Right. Like gift energy gives you like a little more value. Late game spin energy gives you more value early game. Yeah. Um, I, I suspect, uh, I suspect that it turns out that the gift energy is better because, um, uh, like you, you know, you actually have to attach the speed lightning, so you have to be finding them and attaching them to do the speed lightning thing versus gift energies, like you're just recurring them turn after turn after turn. So I wonder how many, I mean, when you run three, the odds that you get to attach one are higher. But I, I just wonder how many you attach and are in an average game. Right? Yeah. Like you prioritize it cuz it's really good. It's like the best card to attach, except I guess maybe a capture energy if you really need a capture energy. Yeah. Um, but, but yeah, I mean the fact that capture energy is probably equally important in trying to do red-ish stuff implies that, you know, uh, all these things are just okay-ish. So if we had to talk about Warsaw, do people play yellow horns? Do people play

Mike:

capes? I'd probably say neither. like none. Reggie doesn't seem like it's gonna be big enough, assuming that I called that. Right. And Cape is for the mirror. Not a hundred percent sure that's correct, but that seems right to me. I don't think Reggie is, I don't think Reggie is big enough to warrant teching for the mirror. Um, I don't think IQ is big enough to warrant teching for it. I'd rather just play another good card that's good against general decks. Um, the counters might, you know, die down a little bit, but I'd still be prepared for collapse stadium in Averies. You could play. One reason that I like potentially playing two PO stops like Drew did, is because it just gives you more outs to the Clap stadium. And so seeing so much collapse stadium, I would think you probably want a fourth, at least a fourth stadium, maybe the fifth as.

Brent:

I like that thinking. Yeah. You know, it's, it's an interesting question. Uh, and what I was gonna ask you guys is like, will there be a lot of reds in Warsaw given that like, like it's it's in an interesting place now because it just did bad at the last tournament and that's because it was like counter pretty heavily. Do people cut all their counters and then people play Reggies and then people play regs do well, right?

Mike:

I dunno, that is a good question. I have to look at the

Brit:

data a little bit closer. I'm not actually sure that Reggies did bad is like the true narrative. It could have just not been played very highly. Like, you know, regardless of whether people were countering for them or not. Like, and like, I don't know, maybe like Americans just gravitate it towards it more for just no reasons beyond explanation. Like, I don't know, like Drew, it's like a goofier deck and I feel. Solid European players don't ever play these like weirder things. They're a little more like archetype driven, like I would think. And whereas like Drew, even Grant sometimes too can play pretty strange things and, but maybe that's not fair. Like the lis come up with rope decks all the time too, so you never know. But

Brent:

yeah, Point's a good one. Uh, I mean, the same players are gonna be in Warsaw that were playing last weekend, right? I mean, are, you know, were, are any of those people looking and saying now's the time to pick up Reggie's? I mean, maybe to your point, like, uh, uh, the limitless crew would say, Now's our time, but like, they just saw it get super hard countered, Right? It's a brave thing to do.

Brit:

I mean, it could be a good time, like, cause I think it does have good, such good loss box matchups for the most part. Um, depending on what else is being played, but I, yeah, I think I would agree with Mikey. Like, I'm definitely not gonna, I'll lose to the ice cube for sure. I don't think you would ever, you would play the, the horn again. I would think that that was definitely motivated by the online scene and the, the Ice Q twin deck, twin energy deck that was going around and like, we again didn't really see that here. We didn't see it in Salt Lake City, so I just like, it kind of remains to be seen at outside of the online events. But yeah, I think just Reggie's is just a consistency test. Like if you draw well, you win. And so having more cards that facilitate that just like always seems better. I like, I like the heavy stadium counts myself, I like heavy, like heavy stop and some like, I think that's always strong, but I've played a game with the deck, so I'm certainly not anyone to ask about it.

Brent:

Guys, other things, uh, you think we should cover today?

Mike:

Uh, I just think worth noting, Silver Tempest will hopefully have the set list after next weekend. As Brent mentioned, the pre-releases are happening this next weekend, so we can talk more about that. Um, I've looked at a little bit of the cards. Nothing is super exciting, but we should go through next week and say what cards we think are good. Cause we didn't actually really get to do that for loss origins cuz it was so

Brit:

rapid backwards. Yeah, that'll be good. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a cool set. I like things said last week, I, it will be surprised if it's as impactful as either of the last two, but you never know. There's, I mean, clearly there's at least one good deck. Yeah,

Brent:

yeah. I'm, I'm super interested in talking about, uh, um, what people are gonna do with Lou give VStar, like, I'm sure there's gonna be some innovation in terms of like, what two cards you gotta get outta your discard and put onto your bench like, I feel like gather, there's probably lots of big brains thinking about big brain ideas. All right guys, that's the pot. Sweet.