Yeah. I'd say we just start and then we can like, uh, we're gonna realtime research
Brent:welcome to the Trashalanche Ranch. Uh, a hundred percent attendance. Mike Fouchet rip. Brent Halliburton. We're on Twitter. We have not gotten a review recently. You should leave a review. We will read it on the pod. It's your way to be part of the pod, and also we need reviews. You should leave one and then we'll read it. Our sponsor is Dragon Shield. They are the goat, and the plan for today, I think, is to just do an old fashioned set review. We're gonna grind through silver temp a little bit. My son said he wants to just hear Brit and Mike explain what the good cards are. That way he knows what to buy. He doesn't,
Brit:He seems pretty convinced that Lu is bad, which I think it just seems wrong. Like I, I know we don't have results yet, but just like the paper fantasy is so clear, just don't understand how it could be anything, but great. Is it a tier zero deck? Like, I guess that's a little more up in the air, but yeah. Mm-hmm. I feel like in the little conversations we've been having in that, that group chat that sprung up around, uh, like Baltimore has had pretty negative takes about it, but like, it's always really funny. It's just like, how is this even good? It just, you know, and then explains what it, what it does. I'm like, Why is that good? I'm like, What are you talking about? Of course. That's good. Like special, Too special for special energy. A turn at two minimum. Like, it's crazy.
Brent:I mean, here's, here's the real thing, right? I think what's interesting is Louie is not good, but Arceus is really good. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Like that's fair. Uh, um, Arceus is completely insane, but Lua is the only practical way to set it up. So I wouldn't be surprised if. Like, you know, the February set, they drop us a bunch of ex's that hit for 400 damage and everybody is like lua into Arceus, into like Gensec EX for 5,000 damage.
Brit:So frustrating because like we again, just so I guess harp on Pokegear design philosophies. So like Arceus is a fossil Pokegear and like fossils have just not been playable in like well over 10 years. Yeah. And there's just like, there's no refinement to the mechanic. No. Like attempt to make them Okay. They have no problem making the evolutions good. Right. This is only our second Arceus that is, is busted because it, because you can cheat it, cheat it out, and just go around completely. Go around the fossil mechanic. And I just like, why do they do this? Like why not just make fossils good? Like give it a good, give it a good supporter in like, That's it. And like it's probably playable or something like that. And instead it's just like, no, we have all these, this, you know, this entire group of Pokegear that all evolve in this sort of unique way. But they're just, they're just, it's just so clunky. Like it makes evolutions look good sometimes, like in a lot of ways, just like needlessly not being able to search them and things like that. But I guess that's just my little tangent, but it's just like, I don't get it. And so like you're saying, what you're saying is definitely true. Like Lu is perhaps not all that good, but it is the best way to make Arceus work. So you could look at like almost in the set, which is similar, like clearly some kind of like fossil support, but even still, And then at that point, like your parody is just, you're a regular Pokegear now, but all it took is playing this useless v and having to attack with it. Being able to just like search your bench for the, the tool or the the trainer versions of the basics.
Mike:Um, Yeah. The big thing about Lugia that I didn't really fully realize until I started thinking about it was that you use the, It's an ability, right? So you get the two Arceus and then you immediately get four energy from your day. Right?
Brent:Right. Which is, Which is the two, You're smashing them to pieces. Yeah,
Mike:yeah, yeah. So like the almost oar being an attack is like a much fairer thing. And I think like the almost Arceus could even, I don't think the almost Art can get Arceus straight up. Right? No, it just Cause it would have to get archon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even if the Almost Art could get Arceus straight up, it would be like significantly worse than Lugia, But would be fair, I think. Um, also, before we get back into the, Yeah, I do wanna give like a quick history lesson to those that are not familiar with the various fossil mechanics. So when Fossil Pokegear. I don't know if when they, I don't remember like the old, old base set type of fossils, but I know that when I first started playing in like the Nintendo era, like the EX era, 2004, fossils did not count for prizes. So root, fossil and cloth fossil, if you knock them out, you would not get a prize. And so even though it was still awkward, because there are still trainers and you can't search for them the same way that you can with basics, but there was a bit of a, an advantage of running them because your opponent didn't get prizes for knocking out your quote unquote basic Pokegear. Um, so fossil Pokegear were at least a little bit more viable. Then, however, I think the reason that they really decided to get rid of that part of the mechanic is that the fossils were actually best in non evolving decks because like imagine a control deck that could just play eight. Robo substitutes or Lily's Pokegear. Right,
Brent:exactly. The, the, the can't take a prize for knocking this out. It's always been a super strong mechanic in the game.
Mike:Exactly. Like, regardless of the fact that they could evolve into fossils. So there was like a deck that wasn't like the best egg in the format or anything, but it's pretty good there. Uh, in 2004, 2005, it was a Polito EX that would do, I think 40 damage and switch to the bench. And then you just played eight of the fossil cards. And so that deck was super annoying and I just think that they were worried that if they kept this mechanic around, it would, it would be too good, you know? Um, But it was nice because it did give Fossil evolutions a chance. Um, so I don't really know what the medium is, but I agree Brit that like that they haven't changed it in 12 years and it ha it hasn't worked. So I
Brit:feel like they have tried like slightly different things. I'm trying to think of. Cause I think they, they've just been fossil that basically never been playable in, in my entire career of playing Pokegear. Like as far as being like actually viable. There was like a imparts in the, uh, like storm front ish era that like just could don and it was okay. It was just like gear you could candy into it, turn one just like a basic. And so it was. Okay-Ish for that kind of deck. But yeah, other than that, like I do not think there has been even like a tier three fossil deck. And because I remember there have been different supporters. I think at one time there was like maybe only one fossil card and all the cards, every evolution could come out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they've tried different things. But yeah, like I definitely agree. I don't think the solution is making them robo subs, like that's probably terrible. That will do be much, much worse, I would guess. But yeah, it's just, it's annoying for sure. I feel like they just need a supporter that cheats them out or something. And I mean then, then you're this balance issue where like that that concept is maybe too strong with something as strong as Arceus, but all that to say, I don't know, just like a lot of other things. It's just like frustrating that they just, they don't exist competitively speaking. It's just all about, you know, these card sets are bigger and bigger and bigger, but as they get bigger, like the percentage of actually competitive cards is like probably smaller or growing, grow smaller every time. It's just
Brent:like, yeah, this is, this is the of the, like evolutions typically aren't good in Pokegear, right?
Mike:Right. Um, there was the stadium that got like, it ended your turn and you got to search your deck for two things that evolved from fossils. I think it was used with, uh, there's like some pretty good attacking aerodactyl. Um, I forget exactly what set that is, but a stadium where maybe it didn't end your turn, but you only got to get one. I feel like that is reasonable. That could be like a reasonable solution. And it would, and like in this case, you know, get arching from your deck, you're not getting Arceus out immediately. I dunno.
Brent:The, the other, the other comment that I thought was interesting about, uh, uh, uh, about your rant Brit was the, uh, uh, comment about like lazy set design. And the thing that like, I think disappointed me a little bit when I first realized what was going on with this whole Louie Arceus thing was like, it was like, I wish there was another stage too, that it made sense for Lua to get out, but they just fed you such a parasitic combo. They're like, this is the only thing you could possibly do. Right. And in the same way that when, when they gave us Rapid strike or fusion strike Pokegear, they were like, You can copy attacks of all kinds of fusion strike Pokegear, but like, there's only one that's any good. Yeah. Just
Brit:fy. Yeah, no, I think, I think that's the exact, the perfect example and fusion strike is just, is my, just kind of like defacto case of just like, when it's just gone too far in terms of horse feeding. But yeah, that's definitely true and I, I do think that like, I mean, we we're just waiting for Sander to post his, like his quarterly deck list or something. Like, I feel like there's definitely things to explore outside of Arceus. Like there's a. Blanking on Jimmy McClure has been, PO has posted a little bit in our group chat about, there's a Ursula Luna, which is like the history and evolution of hering. That's kind of silly looking, but it has like junk hunt, I think as just for colorless and like things like that. And like bile is interesting, you know, just as like a consistency thing. I see. Don't see that very often in the legal Arceus I've been seeing, but like in my head I like it, but perhaps there's just not the tempo to ever really get it out. You always want the RPS instead.
Brent:Right? Right. Why? Why? Why would you say, let me get five cards when you could just like get free energy acceleration. Turn
Brit:at, Right? I mean, yeah, like drawing. Drawing a card is strictly worse than attaching a card from your deck. Like it's like drawing it and then doing something with it. Right? So it's like it steps ahead, but yeah. Yeah, definitely too. One another thing about Lua too. I, I mean, this is hard, like I'm, you know, such a novice to game design myself. I don't exactly have like the good answers and things like that, but I don't like Lua, just like sort of, again, the icing on the cake, like it's path proof too, which is sort of, which is kind of frustrating in terms of just like, how do you design a card like that has adequate weaknesses or something like that that isn't overtly broken. And I feel like. You know, it's not even, that path isn't even that good because it, it's like, you know, star portal, it's, it is early game tempo. It's not something you sit on and then, and then hit. It's probably popping in the first turn or two. But path can still really hurt in the early game and things like that. But here it's just like, mm, uh, can't really path me. I mean, I guess if you path early and they never get it out, like attaching four energies is probably pretty hard. But again, it's just one of those things where just like these, the main cards that we get, like the main decks that come out of the set, just have like so few weaknesses. Like, yeah, let's, let's compare Lua to all the other VS of VStar in the deck and just like talk about how they're not competitive in comparison. And it's just like one of those things like, why is this card just already the best? And then you give it this extra tool too. Meanwhile, like Mew Wild or whatever, things like that are just never, ever gonna see play. Um, it's just bizarre. It's like the rcs thing to me. I was like, why does RCS have to do all of these things? Like it would be good doing two of these things still, like. And so on. But Luke's good for
Brent:sure. Luke is super good. Luke is super good. Right. I
Brit:wonder too, I've seen people talk about this, and again, just anecdotal for me who haven't, hasn't put any time this set yet, but like, does, is the lost zone deck just like dead too? Does it, does it, can it really compete anymore? Still? I feel like we'll still see Paia and like, maybe even cure'em, stick around, but my like initial intuition, maybe even write it down as like a hot take like Mikey likes to do for the set. Like, I don't know if las is all that playable anymore. Like I just doesn't see, it's just so slow in comparison to I think how the, the tempo I perceived from Lua, like a lot of the lost, like not just the lost box spec, but even guarantee decks are pretty grindy and methodical and I feel like they, they lose to decks that are. Killing things every return. And like that's sounds a ki match goes a lot of the time ki starts taking prizes from the second turn every turn and like doesn't slow down. You have to find the guino, uh, response quick enough or you just get blown up. And I feel like Lu's gonna be able to do similar things to that. But maybe the, the HP difference will, will matter a lot and being able to kill a Lua versus a cure. But then Lua has the, the V guard energy and things like that too, so it's like, it's even harder. They can be harder to kill too. Like effectively having more h hp with the defense boost from the energy.
Mike:It's a good question. Yeah, I'm not too sure. That's a good hot take though. I like that. I do think Garina is probably in a better spot than Lost Box. Like what? How does Lost Box take prizes against Luie as a really good question. Like Arch Cap says 150 HP. So Sableye is not really spreading damage that effectively. Uh, Lugia can tank a little bit with the Vard energy, so like Radiant Charr, it's gonna struggle to take a lunch. Oh wait, wait. The Vard energy only stops these, so I dunno. Maybe Charar can still do it, but Lugia might play Law City, um, because it needs, uh, at least some stadium counters anyway, so, yeah, I'm not sure.
Brent:Uh, guys, am I missing something horrific? Like is there, Uh, I feel like the lu lists I've seen so far haven't played, haven't like gone a whole hog on Cheren's Care, and it seems like Cheren's Care would be really good, but
Mike:is it not good? So it, it seems, so here's. Okay. There's a lot of, I think there's a lot of things to consider, to answer your question. I mean, I just
Brent:have to marni all the energy back into my deck, the next turn.
Mike:Okay. So that's one thing is right, the energy goes back to your hands. Um, so another thing is that you're not really playing, like part of the reason that Arceus, the Cheren's, we saw Cheren's be very good in Archis Inteleon specifically, and it hasn't really been that good beyond that. And that's because you have the Inteleon injured, so you find Cheren's when you need it. The LU list haven't really been playing many draw support type of things beyond like a Crobat and Aluminion. I do wanna go into a little bit why I think you should run bi potentially, but even bi, I'm not sure if that's very good with, uh, with Cheren's. And then the I had another reason too. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you just don't actually have that much space in these lu decks. You have to commit so much space just to consistently getting out your. Turn to maybe turn three Arceus stuff like you have to run four Arceus, four Ultra ball, four quick ball, probably four evolution incense, and that's already 16 spots and we haven't even like added the LU stuff. Um, so, and then you have to run probably at least 13 energy I've seen lists with up to at least 15. So like, so many spots of your deck are already accounted for just trying to get your combo out. They, I was surprised when I was building my first list, how few spots I had for flexible things like that at the end. Hmm. It could be good. I don't wanna say it's not good, but that's, that's, those are some things to consider though, right? Right.
Brent:Yeah. I was like, I was like, it seems, uh, I haven't built the list at all, but it seems wild to me that a, a card that lets you pick up a damaged colorless Pokegear and they're like, Here's a colorless Pokegear and here's free energy acceleration to power up all of them that you want. That would seem like you could do something there.
Brit:Yeah, sense. My sense was more just that like at least I don't disagree with anything Mikey had to say, but more so that just like, I don't know how much you're really attacking with Lua. Like Lua I think is a good attacker in a lot of circumstances with Belt and the powerful energies and things like that. So like, it's probably taking prizes for you, but like, I don't think it's, you know, you're not leading, What's the whole game like once Arch you get, you use it, it gets Arceus out and then. Your amazing rares and your your radiant chars are and things like that. Go to town after that. I don't know. Like, and like, you definitely play like all the lists play like heavy livia, so it's not like you're gonna play a low line. But my, my sense is just like, you're not like, you know, take rcs Inteleon or something where you Crobat you attack with Rcse entire game other than like maybe a quick shooting. You're not quick shooting, but a aqua Bulu here or there. And this is more, more of a toolbox index. So you're just like the utility, I think like playing one is probably worth trying or at least, I don't know if the lists have already like ironed them out, but like, it's not a bad thought, but I think the games, it's just like faster and you're more proactive with your, your energy attachment in other Pokegear than to really need to worry about Right.
Brent:It's so fast that it doesn't matter. You never need the extra turn if you're just blowing them off the board. Yeah.
Mike:Um, so while we're talking about lu. The I some of the, I haven't seen like that many lists. I saw a couple of the lists from Japan. Most of them have played some, like they've run the Aurora energy and they usually don't play like a ton of different attackers, but they play radiant Charizard and then one, maybe two of the, um, not radiant Pokegear, but whatever they're called. Like the evil tall and the ream. Rare believe. Yeah. Amazing. Rare. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they're called. So then they play the evil. Tall seems to be the most popular one as a way to kind of just blow something up. Uh, I think that could be good. That might be the best way to play the deck. I'm not a hundred percent convinced. I made a list, my first list of this format I made where I just ran Radiant Charar and um, Slacking v I think Slacking V is like potentially quite good in Lua. It's a basic that is a little bit thicker. It has a little bit more HP than like, I think it's two 30. So it's just a little bit more than the two 20 guys. Uh, you hit really hard, you know, for four energy, you're doing two 60, you add a powerful color list in there. You're at the Magic two 80. If you want, you can, uh, like you can run dts and so with two powerful colorless and one dte, you're still at two 80. You throw choice, be on there, you getting a three 10, an extra powerful color list, you get to three 30. So it gives you a way to really one shot stuff, um, and potentially do it two times in a row. So I think a list with that would have to play Path to the Peak because you wanna shut off your own ability path yourself. Yeah. Um, but I think slacking be, that's a card that I have not seen people talk about at all in Lua, and I think it's something that seems pretty good to me. It might end up not being as good as some other single prize attackers. That's a card that I think is cool. And I, and, and I mentioned Bial. I think Bial makes a whole lot of sense cuz you're playing the four four Ultra ball, four quick ball, four evolution incense anyway. And otherwise you don't have any like mid game draw support. And I feel like that's a way that the deck could kind of fizzle out. Again, I haven't played any games, I just done a couple test hands. Uh, but I don't know. You have the engine anyway, so why not play one, one big role is kind of what I'm thinking. So those are my two potential contributions to the ether about how to build Lud decks.
Brent:That seems very, uh, coherent. Yeah, I see a lot of
Brit:the enlists and I like kind of skeptical about that one. It like, it's a lot of energy for. The wrong Meta game. I think like, it's just not a lot of VMAXs and I, I wonder, it just doesn't seem that good taking two prizes when like, there's probably other cards that can take the two press knockouts with less energy and like less stringent in colors and things like that. Like maybe it's just so good that it's always worth having and like it's just good enough to pop muse and things like that. But I've been, I've wondered about it and like, I even, like at, uh, Peoria, I played against, like, one of the Reggies I played against was like a Thornton version that like played that card and I read it and I was just like, Why are you playing this? Like, your deck just does this already? Like what, what matchup is this magically winning you with your Thornton? And like, I just like don't have strong thoughts on it. Like char Art, you know? Makes sense. Char art is very good. Yeah. For obvious reasons, but, Like even the, like Raku is, I like, I, I don't know how like pertinent spread damage is, but like it can kill Arceus, can't it? So like, um, it seems strong. It does. Doesn't it do like one 60 twice?
Mike:Let's see what to do. Uh, no. One 20. One 20. Oh, okay.
Brit:Yeah. Off on the damage. So
Mike:nevermind. Yeah. But that one, like, that one takes three auroras to do. It's grass lightning Melmetal. The evil tall is also three auroras plus a double colorless. Yeah. Like three Auroras is so much like, part of the aurora of running Aurora is that you can use it to discard the Arceus early on to know you attach it and whatnot. Uh, and, but if you do that, you know, you're already down to three and you prize one, like maybe you have to discard one away from a juniper. Like it feels so. Like you said, Brit, the situations where these cards would be helpful already seems not that often. And then you compound that with how many times you just won't be able to do it because you've juniper away the Pokegear or you've juniper away too many auroras, like early on by the time you wanna use it, it's just not usable. Um, charge art's different because it only takes one, one colored energy. Right, Right. It just seems, these cards seem too gimmicky to me when you can just play, you have so many good colorless energy already in the format that just like, build off your strength, which is, which is those cards.
Brent:All right. Should we, should we dig into the set? Are you ready to, Yeah. Alright. Uh, um, should we start with grass?
Mike:Did I write any grass Pokegear down? I've been going through and I didn't write any grass Pokegear down
Brent:All right. All right. So that, that's, So then that's my first question because, uh, I wrote down one grass Pokegear, and the one I wrote down was, is there anything in the universe that you can do with amongus? That's the,
Mike:like if they discard this or, Yeah. Yeah. If they discard this from your hand, then you get to discard their hand. Yeah.
Brent:Like, I was like, I don't think we've seen an ability like this. I just don't think that they'll ever do it
Mike:to you. Yeah. Like how there's like what car? There's no cards really that are played right now that discards cards from your opponent's hand. So like
Brent:Right. Okay. I just want, So as it turns out that I think there is a crocodile in this set. That when you play this Pokegear from your hand, uh, um, you could discard a random card from your opponent's hand theoretically, like, like parasitically, they printed a incredibly bad card that could trigger this effect. But I was like, I love this ability. There are no cards in the format that like, Yeah, do this
Mike:thing you would, And what you really need is you would need a card in the format where it said, like, your opponent chooses to discard a card from their hand Right, Right. So then you can at least choose random is not good enough even.
Brent:Yeah, yeah. Like, uh, um, like a, yeah. All of, all of the card discards from like two formats ago are gone and it's a sad, sad state of affairs for me, but I, I love the idea of this somewhat novel ability. It is completely lost on the current format. Maybe they'll print some cards in a future set that will we'll move the needle and suddenly make among us relevant. But probably not because
Mike:they're mean. Um, there is I guess one gra other grass Pokegear. So the radiant Serena it's ability is once you're in your turn, you may heal 20 damage from each of your Pokegear. This doesn't seem good at all right now, but it's not a bad ability to have on a radiant Pokegear. Uh, so probably just worth keeping in mind.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, um, did you put uh, Aica exam on your list or do you wanna just talk about Radiant
Mike:Pokegear for a second? We can talk about radiant. Okay. So there's a radiant Serena, there's a radiant aza, which is ability is you may move two damage counters from one of your opponents Pokegear to another one of their Pokegear. It's cool. And then the attack sucks. 20 damage for each of your each card in your opponent's hand. Um, Exam also probably bad, but worth keeping in mind.
Brent:Yeah. And then there's, and then there's a radiant Jirachi and I, I think my react and, and its ability is if this Pokegear is knocked out by damage from an opponent's attack searcher deck for up to three cards that put them into your hand. And I think my reaction to these was, uh, no reason why you would ever play these radiants when you could play other radiants today. Yeah. Unless you had some very specific idea with Serena that you were trying to do, like
Brit:Serena and Gardevoir are like functionally pretty close. Like, and obviously, obviously it's not equivalent, but in a lot of ways it's not like too many degrees of separation. I'm sure. Like truly there's like at least one case where one would be where Sereno would be better than Gardevoir. Yeah. But I would think generally Gardevoir is better, but mm-hmm. it's like active versus passive kind of things. I forget, there's like a, I remember there was like a tool debate years ago that was something similar on like damage reduction on like mm-hmm. which would be better to like defend her versus EV light or something like
Mike:that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is. I'll save it for in, in a little bit, but I do think there might be one possible deck where Serena is okay, but I'll save it when we get to that type Yeah.
Brent:Objectively worse than Grin Ninja InSAR. Yeah, which are actually just like incredibly good cards. All right. How about.
Mike:Let's see, what did I write down for fire? Uh oh, the, There's like a heat trend EX card, or was it EX? EX. Rapidash.
Brit:Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah. Stage one does what the EX did. I think Canyon was still in EX.
Mike:Oh, CanCan. Not heat. Tran. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. B Canyon, Eex. You're right. Um, they're like the same Pokegear in my mind. Eran in B
Brit:they're pretty similar. Yeah, just kind of four-legged fire things. Monsters.
Mike:Yeah. The Rapidash is kind of cool. I mean, it's probably not good. It's a stage one. Um, but having that, like maybe there's a Fire v Pokegear that it's decent, like it just needs a little bit more damage output and probably better than gym leader. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Gym leader's probably really good.
Brent:This is, this is what we're gonna to, That'd be good in a, you see deck.
Mike:There's not too many fire Pokegear on in this set anyway, so I don't
Brit:think there's really anything else. I, Well, uh, I guess maybe just a note on it here. This, uh, bra is kind of interesting and, and as like another, I think there's just more support for the Zekrom box in this deck. And I think, I think you would play the bra in that, which does double color list does 60 times the number of Serena in your discard, which is confusing. We've got the support of Serena and the Pokegear. Serena as well. But, um, yeah, and there's just, there's the right shoe later on. It both seemed powerful. I doubt that that becomes viable or anything. But, uh, you
Brent:know what, I, I Brit I appreciate you saying that because in my original notes on this set, I had put down that right shoe could be good to Zoroark Zoroark deck. And then I was like, Mans gonna Zoroark, Arceus that kind leave. Like
Brit:saying, saying like, This would be good in Zu deck and this would be good in a GLC deck. Are the same, are the same statements. Like they house the same content. So like, it's not that different of a thought, but I, I just really like those decks and like, worked on Zu Arceus for a decent bit, uh, like last summer and thought it was like, Almost there. And one of the big outliers was that it didn't have a lightning attacker, but mm-hmm. um, we'll probably play some, a couple games online with it, but I don't have high hopes, but it's nice that there's always just this fuel potentially for it.
Brent:Yeah, I mean, I, I want Zoroark Orex to be good because like, I like evolutions and I like creativity and Zoroark orex encourage creativity. But, but, uh, yeah.
Mike:So one, I know one interesting comment about Zurich decks is that if the supporter card, Serena becomes much more popular than bosses order, that's a type of deck that actually gets a big benefit. And we'll talk about Serena later, but that's just something to keep in mind.
Brent:Yep. All right. Let's talk about water type Pokegear, cuz there's definitely some stuff to talk about here.
Mike:Yeah, so I mean, there's the v there's the Bulu picks VStar, which is like interesting. It's probably not good, but, so it's tacked as water, double colorless one 60 and then it can't be hurt by Pokegear with abilities during the next turn. So it's kind of like a, you know, a reminiscent of like old Jolteon X or glac on X, that type of stuff. But it's a stage one, it's a V. It's only got 240 hp. Uh, you can gust around it. A lot of decks, like their VStar, Pokegear might have an ability, but their V doesn't have an ability, so they can still like get there. So it seems cool, but like, probably not great. Yeah, it's just
Brit:like doesn't, it's not strong enough to like cover where. The walling isn't good enough on its own. You, if it like had more HP and like did more damage where you could like out trade, you know, the things without abilities, I think it would be okay.
Brent:And like I, I, I still think
Brit:it will see like maybe a little play. I feel like I have seen a couple lists with it. I think as like an Arceus I wanna say is what I've seen it with. Just like another option, like I want it to be good cause I love this Pokegear, but I don't really see it being viable. But it's like the use cases for it are not like, so far removed from I think like normal play patterns of decks and things like that. Like I think it'll be okay. And it's definitely like one of those cards where you'd be at a local, you'd be at a link cup and it. Go like exo, you know, exo and get their IDs in Swiss and then you'd get them in top eight and be like, I don't know how this person won a game. Like knowing what you're supposed to be doing It's like one of those decks I think. Yeah, yeah. Where like it will beat bad players who like can't be methodical and playing around the attack. Um, but like good players will probably just sort of go right through it. But I hope it's good and it's something I would also like to mess with. Yeah. Yeah. My,
Brent:my Mikey style, like coldest of hot takes would be like, it will like get top four at a late night very soon and people will be like, Oh my God. And then, you know, you'll be like, This is definitely tier three on a good day.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. The number, the numbers are like almost good enough, which means it'll do like exactly what you guys are saying, like Um, okay. The water Pokegear, So there's two water Pokegear that I'm actually kind of into. They're probably not good, but. They're interesting. So the first one is Articuno. It's a basic for two water. It does 70 damage auto paralyze and it does 50 damage to itself. Auto paralyzes, I think is just always, always, always something to look at because it's such a strong effect. Um, two energy is not that ridiculous. You don't have Melony, but we do have Paia. Um, we do have, uh, frost moth for example. So there are ways to power it up. Um, you get to do this at least twice before you, well, three times really. Like you do it twice and you haven't knocked yourself out, and then the third time you would knock yourself out. So I don't know. I don't know what this would be good in, but it's a cool, it's a cool
Brent:card, right? Right. Any, anytime it's non flippy paralysis, you say, Well, like that's a thing you can kind of work with. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Um, and the other card that is interesting is Whale Lord. So Whale Lord's got weller's just a big boy. He's got 200 hp. Its ability is take 30 less from attacks. Um, my guess is you probably wouldn't use the attack. Um, you would just like make a stall deck around this Oh,
Brent:I, I thought you would use this. Like, I wanted this to be like the single prize ish version of Lua. Like you played on your lugia. You get out your Arceus, you scoop up your Luga with Cheren's Care, and then you go like, all in with way Lord and you're just smashing them for two 40 turn
Mike:after turn. Oh man, that sounds pretty funny too. I could do that.
Brent:Uh, you know, my, my, uh, uh, uh, bad take on Arta was, uh, you could, you could use the Radiant Serena and like heal off damage or make it last Euro extra turns. Oh yeah, you feel 40 damage
Mike:Wait, so wait, let me, what's the math? So you go down to 60, then you go back up to 80, then you go down to 30. Back up to 50. Yeah. It's like not quite. Well you could play like giant cape. Oh, giant
Brent:cape though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You obviously you would put a tool on it to give it an extra turn if you wanted to like really invest the resources. Right.
Mike:Um, Arto seems better to me, but like whale Lord 200 and n minus 30. And this is the deck where I mentioned, uh, I wasn't even thinking about Serena for Arto, but that makes sense. But I was thinking Serena for the whale Lord, you can like switch between whale lords heal'em off. Um, you could maybe like algos loop, if that could be like your wind condition. Um, I don't know. This seems like a Sander card. Yeah, I hear that.
Brit:I hear that. Now they're just a tough, tough moment for GLC players which way cannot play. They're all good. They're all really good.
Brent:Yeah. But yeah, I, I, I Crobat, I think I had a similar reaction to you. I was like a 200 hit point, one prize. Surely you could build a deck around that. Yeah. And like, uh, uh, you know, like getting four energies on a Pokegear and having some of them be special energies is apparently suddenly all the rage. Like, so, uh, you could build an attacking whale lord or a defending whale alert. Like there's probably a lot of choices. And, and yeah, like Zoroark works are ways to cheat out whale lords. Like there's a lot of different things you could do to, to like potentially try to build decks there. There's opportunities for fun, but it's probably bad.
Mike:Yeah. All right. Lightning. So lightning, you mentioned the ride shoe Brit. So for It does for colorless 40 plus a hundred, if you're opponent use their VStar power. Seems like a Zoroark card. Yeah.
Brit:Otherwise, the big star being retro Lucky VMax course bolstering thick volts. Odds of being played or what have you. Like, I don't really know. Like it's, it's such a good ability, but I don't really think there's anything else people are gonna try it with. Like, um, not, I'm not aware. I'm not really aware of any other lightning Pokegear that are good at least. But it's interesting. I kind of don't think it will be good. But you do have weakness on Lugia, so like that's very strong going into the format.
Mike:Yeah, except for Dunsparce. Um, yeah.
Brent:And like it does, it still doesn't even hit for enough damage, you
Mike:know? Yeah. It's like, it's interesting. It's an interesting card. It's worth exploring, but the V of o list need already, like, need to play so many cards to get like the turn one item lock that like, once you fit this in, you don't have, like, your deck is just so linear. Um, one of the great things about Toad was that. All you needed was like four seism to four double colorless, and then you had 52 other slots to do whatever you wanted. Um, and like veb Boltund is just not the same. Yeah. Vi
Brit:Boltund is just like, Oh, I gotta, I have to decide how I'm cheating out energy. And then like, like the problem with the vib Boltund lists a lot of the times, like item lock and the damage is just sort of not enough on its own, but like seism to, like you said, had plenty of space. So you had, you had your hammers no problem. You had your super scoop ups, no problem. You know, and all your disruptive supporters and like, that's always been one of my issues playing these vical decks more recently, like messing with the Inteleon stuff that like Liam played. And we talked a little bit about, um, before Salt Lake City and like these other lists, is that like, it's kind of like you pick your poison, at least how you could construct it. Like you, your list could be bad and consistent. Um, you could have hammers and Melony and that would be just it. And then like those games where you had the hammers and you got the Melony and stuff turned one you usually just like lost if the first item lock like wasn't enough to win you the game. Like if, if they found a way to knock out the first Vic Boltund pretty quickly, you would kind of just fall apart. And then whereas the other list, like the Inteleon lists, they didn't have, they didn't have space for the, the disruption cuz they were doing Inteleon chars art package stuff. And it feel, I've always felt like you needed both and like maybe the, with the damage. You can, but then, then at the same time too, you still just kind of like, you either have to decide, am I attacking turn one or am I gonna try to make like the Melony package work? Um, and I think that's kind of like a, almost pick your poison. Like I don't think either option is good. Like you can't, if you choose not to play Melony, you're never attacking going first. And I think the value of your item lock just goes way down. Um, always giving your opponent a turn. And then I just think the Melony version, like sacrifices too much space to like make that combo work and that you go, you dig and dig and dig and you get the turn one Melony attach a lightning item lock, and then it's just, that's all you have. Like maybe you draw out of it and maybe they're hands down and you win from there. But I've always been, I've played a lot against a lot of different pick Boltund online. And usually if I can just like live through the first one, it's really easy.
Brent:Right. Let's talk about psychic Pokegear.
Mike:Psychic,
Brent:uh, the, the routes Kirlia. Gardevoir will be super good in glc. as long as we're talking
Mike:about glc. That's a lot of good Gardevoir though, too.
Brent:Um, and, and I think, I think people will actually play the routes in Kirlia because the routes has some situational value.
Mike:Let's see, what's that do? Oh,
Brit:it looks like an attack. If you're playing the color.
Brent:If, if you were going to try to build a draw engine every once in a while people will say, Oh, like I play this routes in Kirlia, so every once in a while I can do this route thing.
Mike:Yeah, it's cool. So the thing to really consider, like this is much better than like Cinccinno because you can go, you'd probably play like, like let's say it was your dry injury and you'd probably play like four, four rolls for Kirlia and. One or two Gardevoir. And so you, there's lots of turns where you could go trade with Kirlia, evolve to Gardevoir trade. So you get like two trades for one, which is actually, um, a pretty big difference. Um, probably this won't replace Inteleon as, you know, the defacto engine, but once Inteleon rotates, I feel like this could, uh, be a decent engine. I guess we'll see You do lose scoop up net, which is also like a pretty good thing with this, like being able to go, like you have like two Kirlia is out. You go trade, trade evolve to Gardevoir trade again. Scoop up above the other one to Gardevoir trade four times using two Pokegear on. But it'll, it'll be good. It'll be good at some point. Um, the only other psychic Pokegear that I saw that was kind of cool is the Jinx. So the jinx ability is if it's knocked out by opponent's v Pokegear, your opponent doesn't take a prize. And its attack is double colorless, 10 plus 10 for each damage counter on them. So it could be good, like in the Zoroark deck maybe, or something else where you, uh, you, you hit'em, it, it like finishes a two shot, right. You know, you do like one 60 or one 40 and then you send up Jinx and you hit them and then, uh, it just makes them a lot harder. It makes a lot harder for them to take a prize and keep up with the prize trade. So it's interesting.
Brent:Uh, um, when would people play this versus playing Miltank?
Mike:I think their use cases are pretty different. I think Jinx is a card that you play in a, in an attacking deck that is just trying to race prizes and stay ahead in the prize trade. But Miltank is really more used. I would say more as a win condition. Uh, like in Blissey, Blissey plays three Miltank, Right. And it does like mess people up and, but it gives, and it gives Blissey more time and whatnot. But it's really like they run three Miltank to try and just win the game using mil tanks. Um, and this is not really a wind condition card because
Brent:Yeah. Right, right. I just, I just wonder like, uh, I mean, on the one hand, uh, the attack is like situationally. Okay. I wonder if people, if deck builders will just find it's better to put Miltank in because every once in a while you put the Miltank up and they're like, Okay, I
Mike:scoop. Yeah, that's true.
Brent:the, the odds that you get more value out of putting a Miltank up and seeing what they do seems higher than the odds that like for two colorless, you could take a situational knockout. Mm-hmm. could be true. But, but I did think when I looked at this that it is a shame that it has still been, uh, um, I don't know, I guess like five years since there was a, uh, attacker that spun to the bench that was like even remotely relevant to the Meta.
Mike:Oh yeah, that's true. Like a Don fan. Yeah.
Brent:Like there, there's a lot of like, kind of decent Dewal cards now, but there's no things that take advantage of wall cards, Although there is the maw uh, VStar, which is a, uh, yet another If you move to the act of this turn and attack you to a slightly more damage
Mike:Oh yeah. 180 180 double color. This
Brent:exactly. The anti-war card. Yeah.
Mike:And its ability is Guzma. That's cool. But you can only, it's a VStar,
Brent:so. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like not good enough, even though I want Mew Wild to be good. Cause I like that Pokegear. Yeah. All right. Uh, What color comes after psychic? It's uh,
Mike:it's pretty big, tight. There's lots of cards here. Um, what, Are there any good cards? So the Arceus nine v I think is cool. Um, it's ability, you can move fighting energy to it whenever you want from any of your other Pokegear. And then for four Energy it does 90 plus 30 for each fighting energy. Uh, and it's got 230 hp, so not so above average. For a basic V it can one shot anything in theory. Um, you could like run this with stone energies. You could just try and go like super aggressive. Um, it's probably not as good as just like playing Lugia, but I dunno, It's a cool card. I think Lugia resists it too. yeah. That's a, that's an okay card. The Don fan. I, I was listening to Azul and Chip's podcast like a while ago. This was like a month or two ago. The Don fan got revealed and the Zu was like, this Don fan is the worst card ever printed.
Brent:If this Pokegear involved this turn, this tech does nothing. Yeah. Hey, thanks. Thanks. That surely won't come back to haunt me. The entire tournament that I played this deck
Mike:at and then four Energy for one 70, like so crazy It's so bad. Far
Brit:from the worst card I've ever, That's, I mean, a lot of in a limited format for One Energy. I mean like one of those things I guess they're consistent about Don Fan is just like always getting these high damage, one power, one energy attacks.
Mike:Um, but yeah, with the
Brent:drawback. Yeah. Uh, uh, would, will people try to build decks with the clad do and those decks will be terrible, right. What's it? It's, it's like play cla all's ability is if you have no supporter cards in your discard pile, you can attach pile
Mike:Yeah. That seems pretty bad.
Brit:It's just like, yeah. You just compare that I. Lele Newton and Solar Rock, and it's just like, Why
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. You're like, I, I play four pal pads. So, and
Brit:it's like, maybe if they're, I mean, this is a cool design space, like, like a supporter of a deck. I think that would be a really cool thing to, to pull off if like, you had lots of Pokegear that did something like this, and like enough you could build your deck consistently in a way. Like we had, like if we had like abi and shoes and like other cards like that, like also all in the format at once. Like I think that's a really cool concept. Like, I like, again, like Pokegear so, so often like, I think has cool ideas. They just put them on like these sorts of cards and not like the main draw ones, but like, I think that would be really interesting.
Brent:Like, Yeah, well, and, and then, and then they're like, Oh, and also we're gonna feed you this parasitic thing where we're gonna let you cheat out a Pokegear that attaches energy twice as fast, right? Yeah. Uh, uh, and get it out in half the time. So like, if you were thinking that this might be good, here's a combo that's a hundred million times better. All right. Any other fighting Pokegear? I feel like that was, that was really the
Mike:show. Yeah. And the next two are dark and Melmetal and there are no good cards. Yeah. In Dark and Melmetal. There's the Crobat that like does 30 damage and if you knock something out, you take some extra prizes, but it's a stage two and you only do 30 damage. Yeah. I,
Brent:I thought I, I can't even fit that into my Zoroark deck. That's how impossible, uh, uh it is to make that combination work. Yeah.
Mike:All right. But then we got Dragon. Dragon has some cards. Yeah.
Brent:All right. Let's do Dragon.
Mike:So you guys were mentioning there is the Dragon Knight that does 180 and Arceus attack. So deck for three basics attachment to Pokegear. And that is big because
Brent:of Yeah. And the only reason that that card is even remotely playable is so you never play the basic or the stage one. You just. Cheat it into your discard so you can play Reggie drag.
Mike:Yep. Cheating is the way to play the Pokegear trading card game. Yeah. So Reggie Drago is interesting, you know, a very cool card. You get to use the attack of any dragon type in your discard pile, but it does take two grass in a fire. So pretty steep cost, but then you don't have to pay for the cost of whatever attack you are using. So it seems like the biggest hurdle of this deck, cuz you probably do wanna use that dragonite and then power up like the next Reggie Drago. So that the hard part is just getting the first one out. First one powered up and then you're probably good. Right? Right. Um, I don't know how you do that. I guess you have to play that, that grass welder card. That's not very good.
Brent:Uh, I was wondering if you uh, uh, I mean the problem is there's probably better ways to play it, but like I was like, uh, Mirage Gate. Mirage Gate
Mike:powers up everything. Okay. Yeah. You can do Mirage Gate maybe.
Brent:Then you're, then you're like, then you're playing like a cul risks engine and you know, I guess you like really want to go second and play cul risks, turn one and turn two, and then like do like loss vacuum. And you're like, I got to seven. We can do the
Mike:thing. The other issue is, the other issue is Reggie Drago feeds off having cards in your discard. And then so if you have, like now you, you're, you have like competing interests, right? You, you don't wanna law own some stuff and you don't
Brent:Yeah. Right, right. If you have to law on your dragonite, you're like, No, I lose. Yeah. Um, are there other good dragon type Pokegear? We, we said we were gonna make this call on the fly. Let's give the people what they wanted.
Mike:So there's the Dragonite VStar that does two 50. Which is okay. There's obviously gear. Oh guarantee a VStar is just strictly better, right? Cause you do two 80, so you definitely have gt a
Brent:VStar. Well, the Guillot VStar has a, has a discard. So yeah,
Mike:I guess that's true. Yeah.
Brent:Um, but, but like you have energy acceleration too, so like, you know, theoretically, right? Yeah. You can make some, you can make some choices there.
Mike:Um, you have the Flagon v I know you guys mentioned, uh, it does one 60 and if your opponent is a VMax, then you do three 20. So you have a weight to one shot, some
Brent:VMAXs. Yeah. You, you put that in for your to kill Muse, right?
Mike:Mm-hmm. you could play Gerald Don, and that gives you your really good tread attack. Yeah. What else we got?
Brent:I mean, I literally think that that might be
Mike:it. That might be it. Yeah. There could be like a weird deck. I don't know how you would accelerate energy, but using Rayquaza VMax as attack. But that's probably not good. But yeah, I think that's it. Uh, and you could play GRI VStar, I guess. I don't know. Doesn't seem like there's enough options. Like there are cool options, but I think you probably need like more than that. Like Mewtwo Mew, like Mewtwo tag team had a lot, had a lot of different ways you could build the deck.
Brent:I guess the require of VMax. If you thought, man, I'm like gonna get a lot of energy acceleration going on, maybe you would say we're gonna do anything. But it just seems like, like you would be better off discarding two energies and hitting for two 80, like nine times outta 10.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Hard to imagine anybody ever does that. So yeah, like Reggie Durango seems like a super strong contender to be a tier two deck. Yeah, tier
Mike:two, tier three.
Brent:Like nobody plays except when they're having fun. Uh, so colorless, Pokegear are next. Are there any good colorless Pokegear said,
Mike:Well, we've already talked about lugia, so we don't have to go like too in depth. But I do think the big question, as Bri said is not whether Lucia is good or not, but how good is it? Is it, is it way better than Pia Mew lost own decks? Or is it about the same power level? And I don't know the answer to that. I do think though, like the last two times a big card has come out, Paia and Arceus, I was like, I don't think they're gonna be that good. I'm not gonna say that this time I think Lugia will be quite good.
Brent:It seems like it is. Absolutely. Uh, uh, um, like blowing results out in Japan,
Brit:like Robin, Robin Schultz says it's tier zero, like it's, it's better than everything else. And I like that was, at least for me, like, okay, I'm taking it seriously now. Like whether this is right or wrong, like we'll figure that out later. But like that was my moment that I was just like, okay, this is gonna be like worth considering. And not just like another thing that's worse than Paia, you know, sort of some of the dynamics of the newer decks. But like now he posted that and like there's it nothing below it. And then kind of all the medex in the third tier. And I like, I don't see on paper like it being that clear or, you know, even the exact dynamics of the particular matchups. Mew is always Mew like, I don't know, can be hard I'm sure, unless you really get going. But I think, I think a lot of it probably has to do with the fact that you pivot into one pricers and that like, because you do that, like your prize game is always gonna be pretty good, you know, especially compared to Mew first, let's say. Like that being a three prize deck. Um, so I'm sure that's, that's like a decent, um, a decent, when I lost words where a lot of the power is coming from just being able to pivot like that and like trying to force them to take that, that seven prize on like two lugs and three one prizes if you can really control your board. Um, but yeah, lots of, lots of ways to play Lua. I think like, I, I think we'll probably be surprised with what the fir what the first tournament results end up looking like. Um, first official ones. I'm sure online will probably be a little less predictable.
Brent:Yeah. Although I, I predict that Lu will do very well. seems super good. Uh, alright. Should we talk about, uh,
Mike:trainers? Trainers? All right. Let's see. Brandon. Terrible. This card is so disappointing. Like it would've been awesome if they reprinted the old chorus, Draw a card for each of each bench. Pokegear in play. That would've been so great. I would love that. But the fact that it has to be the last card in your hand. Terrible. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. There, there's nothing else to say. Completely unplayable.
Mike:Yeah. Capture aroma is interesting. Flip a coin. Have had searched deck for an evolution. If tails search deck for a basic,
Brent:I thought this was the most interesting trainer they gave us, frankly. Aside from like the cheater trainers, obviously.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably not good. Enough to be played, but like, I don't know, maybe there's some deck that will play a couple. Like they just want so much search that they would just play a couple of these. It's probably better than great ball, right? Yeah,
Brent:yeah, yeah. I looked at it and I thought the odds that I always flip the opposite of what I'd really like is pretty high. Higher than 50% for sure. but, But like the odds that there's a deck where you're like, I just like to get a lot of cards. Like I could see Sander saying this gets both Zarus and Zoroark works. like it's Miltank and ride shoes. What else do you need?
Mike:There's no cost of playing it too, right? Like unlike quick ball and inter ball, you don't have to discard anything. Like Level Ball is the only just straight up search card. Well, and Evolution incense, I guess so like level ball. So you'd probably usually. Max those out first. But then if you really didn't wanna discard stuff, you could play a couple of these too. Right? Um, the tools or, Okay. That's just the first tool. Okay. I didn't read this card until just now, but it makes my ar deck even cooler. So it's, uh, emergency jelly, it's a Pokegear tool at the end of each turn, if the Pokegear this card is attached to as 30 H ps remaining, heal 120, damage from it, then discard the card and then discard the card. Yes. But that's a lot of paralyzing.
Brent:All right. Alright. And you would play that and, and risk that you played that over, uh, um,
Mike:giant Cape, Uh, giant cape. Yeah, I think this would, I don't know. I'd have to think about it. Yeah, I think it'd probably be a little bit better
Brent:though. Yeah. Like, like you're, you're really counting on you being the only thing doing damage to that art Youo when you play this card, right. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the thing about Giant Cape that's a little scary is, so it would get you three paralysis in a row. On the third one, your opponent could just, uh, tour scrap.
Brent:Right, right. Yeah. Well that's, uh, yeah, like if they play a tool scrap where you got problems, Right.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. Emergency drills. Funny card.
Mike:Yeah. And then we get the real good tool of the format. The computer search for Seal Stone or Seal Stone seems pretty good. Yeah.
Brent:Uh, will people play more than one of them in Munchlax?
Mike:I think so. I think you probably play two. I, yeah, I think two. Like you wanna be able to find it relatively early, and the second one you can just matic away or you just play so many discard cards.
Brent:Right, Right. Or you can just attach it and be like, whatever. Right. I mean, Yeah, that's true, Jim. So in that way, maybe it's really good because like yeah, you're all about trying to get your hand size down and you're like, Here's a card that I both a need and then B, like instantly disposable. Yeah.
Mike:As burnable as it gets. Yeah. Two seems probably the ideal amount. Three is probably too much, but two seems really good. Yeah. I think, by the way, I think new is my choice for maybe like the strongest deck in the format now with this tool and just kind of the way the Meta game is shifting. We do have drap on, so I don't think it'll ever be like, you know, the Tier zero deck that it was before. But um, you know, if people aren't. Playing a ton of drap on if Lui is not playing drap on, for example, I think you might just beat Lu most of the time. We'll see. We'll see. I could be wrong, but we'll see.
Brent:Right, right. Fair, fair enough. What, what's the next stop on our tour here, guys?
Brit:The camo, like the tool's pretty good too. Anything
Mike:Which one? Leafy camo. Poncho. Leafy camo. What's this? Uh, so yeah, it's pretty good. So v if it's attached with VStar or VMax, your opponent cannot, uh, cannot, Stickers don't affect it. So they can't bust it basically.
Brent:Yeah. This is, this is, this is all code for future standard deck, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. you're like, So let me get this straight. I can slap this onto, uh, a, a VStar or VMax and you can't boss it, and I can still play Cheryl later.
Mike:Yep. Okay. This is like the, the carbonite, the carbonite VMax stall deck where you go double carbonite, you send one up, they hit it, you retreat to the next one, it's protected. You share all the following. Turn you el degos,
Brent:boom. Right, right. Slightly better. And, and you could put this thing on the El Degos. You have to bench the El Degos early. Right? True. Right. Like Lele, like there, there's, there's a lot of, uh, playability and flexibility there, which, uh, uh, so it's a, a, a better version of the embryo VMax deck is coming. Mm-hmm.
Mike:All right. The big trainer to talk about is Serena.
Brent:Serena. Can, can we, can you just tell me that, uh, no one will ever successfully pull off a quad stone before we go
Mike:the, like, the, the effect is like, not worth it at all. Right? Like, we didn't even play like, uh, what was it missing Clover? Was that the one? Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Like that's a great effect. Whatever. Like, yeah. I mean, there, there are all these good cards where they're like, if you do something incredibly stupid and you invest all the resources in your deck to do it once every 10 games, you will do
Mike:it. Yeah. Like, these type of cards need to say like, you win the game. Maybe not win the game, but like really close to that
Brent:Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Onto Serena. Serena is actually a good card.
Mike:Yeah. So Serena is, uh, a choose one card. We've seen these supporters before. I always, I, I like this idea. I wish they would do it more. We saw it on Taton, Lizza, I think was the last one, and Giovanni is like an older one. Yeah.
Brent:Every, every time they give you, uh, a card that, that has like a, you know, make a real choice, uh, it increases the skill, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big, big fan. And I don't mean ordinary rod, that's not
Mike:Um, and so it's, you can either use it as a boss's order but only on a bench Pokegear V. Or you can use it as a very bad draw supporter, which is discard up to three cards from your hand. You must discard at least one and then draw until you have five. So a bad boss's order or a bad Professor Birch, I guess. Um, so you're like bad versions of both of those cards, but you have the choice, which is potentially good. My hot take is I don't think Serena is as good as a lot of people are saying. I think most decks will end up choosing to just play boss's order more often than Serena. And I think a lot of people think it's gonna go the other way.
Brent:I agree. I think at Quad's probably.
Mike:Uh, the draw effect is just like so mediocre. Like I don't even know how often you're gonna get value off of it when you would want it and you're sacrificing the ability. And like Dex might build themselves around assuming that people are gonna play this more over boss and like, so you could just like straight up lose to some decks because you play two Serena and one boss where you would've won if you're in three boss
Brit:separate. Yeah. No, it reminds me of it was a city's format where we, we are supporter Pool was like pretty bad. And
Mike:there was Giovanni's scheme.
Brit:Yeah. Um, was a similar card that. I forget what supporters were even legal there, but like, we didn't have n I think you like just had research and a bunch of garbage I think. I think so, yeah. Um, and so Giovanni's scheme was like one of these like good seeming ones. Like you had, I think the other main, one of the main supporters was Professor Birch something or other. I don't think it was research, but it, like you shuffled your hand into your deck and you flip and like you drew four or seven depending on if you got heads or tails. And I like, I never wanted to play that, but like people beat me with that card all the time. And so my middle, my middle option was Giovanni scheme, which was like, you could make yourself do 20 more damage or you could draw until you had five cards. And I like. You know, quite a few cities. I think I was just playing Toad bats at the time and I like won a couple and did, did well at others I think. And I like, I could never ever make the draw work, it's just so few cards. Um, and, um, drawn to the oh five. So like you just, there's not a lot you can do if you can't burn that low. And like, not always realistic to be able to do that, like consistently. And like I see a lot of these early LucMetal lifts, like clearly being like, okay, we play four of these cuz we need to make sure. R Kop is in the discard and that like makes some sense on paper. But I mostly agree with my Q sentiment. I don't know how overtly strong it is. Like there's other decks I've seen that just like play four of it and that doesn't seem right to me either. Like it would, it would have to be a particular deck to play high counts of it, but it's a good card for sure. And I, I think being able to play it and bosses will certainly make things interesting and challenging as a deck builder. But I agree that I, I think boss and like other stuff is probably gonna be better for a lot of decks. Like, I'm trying to think of, you just have to be very discard heavy for I think you to really, really wanna play this card as is compared to anything else. And like m is a deck that is very, very discard heavy, but you wouldn't play that in here because your draw is already so good that it, it's just, it wouldn't be worth it like the, the other supporters, your disruption in saline and things like that just end up being better at the end of the day.
Brent:I had exactly the same, uh, assessment. Like me is the only deck that wants to actively just burn your whole hand every turn. But like, why would you play this in you? Yeah. and, and, uh, uh, yeah. I mean the value of of discarding three, if you can't draw is like, so limited and you like, you wanna build hand just seems like very early game. It might be okay, but it seems brutal.
Mike:Brutal. Yeah. Oh, and I guess the fi, my final point is like, think of the games where like maybe you open up a dead hand and you have like a boss's order or two in your hand. If those are Serena's, the cards that you're gonna have to discard to like maybe draw one or two cards or. Your good cards that you need later in the game. So like you're ditching three cards that you need eventually to win the game to like see one or two extra cards. Like I'd rather just lose that game and move, move on to the next game. like, you're gonna lose, like even if you draw a good card out, those one or two, you might just lose a really long game now because you don't have those resources. Rather than just like Scoop, scoop the game, move on to game two and try to win.
Brent:Well, and and I, and I, I think the real point is you just tried to give, like, the best case scenario for this card is like, instead of Boss, you have this card and this is the situation and like the Yeah, you're so, like, you're gonna lose anyway. You're gonna, you're gonna win 10% of those games Just Scoop gonna the next game, man. Yeah, exactly. Like swinging. Swinging. That specific situation that happens one in a hundred games is not worth the amount of Ls you'll take from not having a boss in your hand. Yeah. And having this card instead. Right. Uh, people, people be loving worker. Right. Anything else guys?
Mike:Yeah. These last two supporters are like kind of interesting. They're both draw three cards with an extra effect. Draw three cards, discard a stadium or dis draw three cards. And then your opponent may draw a card if they, Do you get one more card? Um, probably neither are good, but like at least they're innovating slightly on the vanilla draw. Three.
Brent:I mean, Wallace is objectively terrible. You never play a card that allows your opponent to draw cards. like, like draw three or four if you wanna help your opponent out. Yeah, it's probably true. That's a bad like, You would, There's, I cannot think of any situation where I would say, You know what? I'd like to play Wallace instead of worker. So, so yeah, on the one hand, they, they printed words on a card that they haven't printed before. And in that way we applaud them because so much of Pokegear is just, Hey, we printed these words before and they were good. Let's print those words again. Mm-hmm. but like, these are the wrong words.
Mike:And then last but not least, we got two special energy. One of them I don't think is playable regenerative energy. Uh, if it's attached to a Pokegear V and it evolves heal a hundred from that Pokegear, I think if your v Pokegear has been hit from an attack, it's probably dead. So, uh, you're probably not healing much when you evolve. And then the V Guard energy, though, I think is very good in lugia, might be good in other decks as well, minus 30 from your opponent to Pokegear v. Unformer, unfortunately, or unfortunately it does not stack. You can only get one minus 30. So even if you have two, energy only works once. Um, this card is pretty strong, I think in overall though. Yeah,
Brent:uh, uh, regenerative energy seems objectively terrible and V Guard energy seems a really good, Yeah. All right guys, that, that is kind of the set. We did it. Any other things that we should say about the set?
Mike:Um, I did not know that Order Kuo existed before this podcast, but I am hyped. Try it out.
Brent:Um, I like this whole, uh, trainer gallery thing. I don't really understand, like I re. I've never been a guy who pays a lot of money for cards. So, uh, other people are gonna collect all the trainer gallery cards and I will not be one of them, but, but I like all these trainer gallery cards. I really, really like when Pokegear says, We're gonna go to a little trouble to have Wackier art on the cards. I feel like that's part of the Pokegear advantage theoretically is like the opportunity for Austin
Mike:Pokegear Art or you, When you say the trainer gallery, is that all these like full arts and alternate arts that you're seeing? No, no.
Brent:Scroll. Scroll down further and there's the Silver Temp Trainer Gallery. And when I say scroll down, we're all looking at Pokegear Beach guys. Oh.
Mike:And they have
Brent:this, Oh yeah, they have this like, special kind of set that it's connected to in some way. It's like Pokegear and trainers playing together or something. Mm-hmm. Cool. I'm kind of down with it.
Brit:These are just the charact errors that have been coming out for a few sets now, aren't they?
Brent:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what they are. These, these, uh, all these character errors, uh, I dig'em.
Brit:Yeah, I mean they're probably my favorite arts that have ever existed. I really, really like them in general and I like, I think they're becoming somewhat of a like problem for collectors cuz I think that there's just too many of these now and I think there's like another, like there's a set coming that has no new cards, that is nothing but old arts, I think, um, doesn't bother me. I'm not a collector. I think these things are great and they're not, they're never particularly expensive either. Like some of them are, but for the most part, you know, if the card that it's printed on is bad, then they don't get that expensive.
Brent:Yeah, I mean, I think the primary value I get out of these is every time they like leak a new one in Japan, people put it on Twitter and it shows up magically on my timeline. And I'm like, that's some nice card art. Yeah. And that's it.
Brit:I like it a lot cause I like the, the gotcha game and the gotcha game is all about like, it's your, your pairings, your trainers, and their Pokegear. It's not just, you don't like, just have a Pokegear. It's like you pull ash and Pikachu. It's like, and so a lot of the times it's the pairings that we see on the artwork and so I think that's cool. I'd really love for them to do some sort of collaboration with it in the card game. Like artwork or just like a trainer card or something would be cool. But yeah, these arts rule.
Brent:Yeah. All right guys. Anything else? We've been going a long
Mike:time. Yeah, I think this is good
Brent:guys. That was one of the grindy set reviews in Trash edge history. like 108 episodes in the book. And I think, I don't think we've ever done it quite as grindy as set review. So hopefully people, uh, enjoyed it. Yeah. People apparently did not enjoy listening to us. Talk about Marvel Snap
Mike:It's okay. We gotta we gotta have our, our own, uh, pet episode sometimes.
Brent:The John Pauls are our outro. Thanks a lot
Mike:guys. Sweet.