The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

LAIC had it all: Sander, Grant, Tord! Look at Lugia and Lost Zone Box

November 29, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 111
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
LAIC had it all: Sander, Grant, Tord! Look at Lugia and Lost Zone Box
Transcript
Brent:

all right guys. I, I mean, I gotta confess, uh, for reason, somewhat unclear. I'm super excited about getting into it. Uh, uh, this week let just, uh, lemme just, uh, get rolling. Welcome to the Trashalanche. It's everybody's favorite Pokegear podcast. The most official of all unofficial Pokegear podcasts. Um, uh, attendance remains 100%. It's Mike Fouchet Brit Pybas. Me. Brent Halliburton. Or on Twitter? You can do that thing. Uh, dragon Shield is sponsoring US Dragon Shield controversy this weekend. Yeah. Did you, did you see that? And it were you, Mike?

Mike:

It did a little bit. Are we, so I saw James post like afterward that it was his particular color that apparently has some defects and I don't think we got that color. Is that correct,

Brent:

What color? I did not see this.

Mike:

Some type of red

Brent:

color. This is baffling to me. I, I did not see the comment that it was a particular color that was defective.

Mike:

Yeah. See that part

Brent:

I, I got obviously, so, uh, Ultimate guard sponsored me for many, many years and like, I gotta say, katanas have rarely ever split on me. Maybe like, never they, their corners got dinged up and they just don't shuffle as nice. And there's like so much to be shed for like, awesome shuffling sleeves and sleeves that just feel awesome in your hand. Um, that like, it makes me love Dragon Shield. Uh, but like, I don't know. I feel like every sleeve I've used, like the corner split at some point. Yeah. I mean, he looked like he did something horrible to his sleeves. It was like, so like you really have to bang your cards together to get that

Mike:

mojo. Yeah, he must be a pretty well, and I, I'd have to go back and watch some of his dream games, but I have, I have this like lingering memory where I've seen him on stream and I felt like he shuffled very aggressively.

Brent:

Yeah. Like, like if you're not shuffling and blending at the, like the back corners, the bottom corners, what are you doing? Like Yeah. Like that kind of thing is going to happen eventually. And it sucks. I dunno. Do you, do you guys have like, sleep checking best practices that you guys try to do?

Brit:

No, I like, am honestly worried about this, like all the time. I'm just not as, like, you have to really be kind of militant about it to like truly have that like certainty that you're not gonna get in trouble over the, throughout the course of an event. And like, um, like I, I, you know, especially more recently, I've only been using the Dragon Shield mass and I, I think I'm a pretty rough shuffler. I've been told I shuffle like a junior before Um, But anyway, so I break sleeves pretty consistently, um, just in rounds and things like that. And I, you know, I of course always have the sleeves on me and like, like ways to just like, I'm just gonna switch it with a card in, you know, the prize card, you know, card in the discard pile and we'll worry about switching the sleeves later, like physically switching, put the broken ones outta play essentially. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Like, I mean, like I said, I basically, at the last couple bigger tournaments I've been at, have more or less like, just assumed I was gonna get penalized. Like I just didn't care enough to like truly, truly like I it down. And I like, I understand that's just sort of the game that you have to play and I like, it's a little unfortunate I think, but I, you know, I think maybe just on the general topic of everything, penalties being so, so severe across the board, like not just within the game itself, but in these, these sort of other parts of it as well.

Brent:

I point, I think getting ded is really rough. I think a lot of players expect that from time to time they will get a random one round game loss. Like, they'll get a game loss because of their sleeves, because it just feels so arbitrary and capricious, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right.

Brit:

I, I'd definitely be on that side of things. I

Brent:

don't know, but like, I don't, I don't check'em a lot, like between rounds, I never pull out my sleeves and like check to see if they're dinged up, but like, I'll try to, like, I'll try to kind of look maybe for a second while I'm shuffling up for a game.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty much right. I might check like, yeah, like I can catch

Brit:

shuffling a lot too, and I'll, I'll, that happens in between games too, where I'll, I'll be shuffling Oh, and notice it and I'll change it out there and things like that, but, Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious, like ask, ask someone who is on their game on this all the time, like what are the, what is Christian mansky up to when he plays, like being the, the judge overlord knowing how to spot these things. How consistently is he changing sleeves? Cause I feel like, I don't think I've ever even really, and this seems to be a con common sentiment about the incident. Like I don't, I mean, it's obviously been a long time. Um, but I don't, I definitely don't consistently releve between day one and day two,

Mike:

I don't think. Yeah, I don't, I haven't, yeah, done that. I didn't do that in Baltimore. Um,

Brent:

I mean, I'm not made of money. I can't be relev every, uh, well, I mean that's, that's ultimately

Brit:

my point. I would always get frustrated at like city championships and stuff. I would be forced to switch sleeves and I'm just like, this seems like a racket, like the store told you to do this or something. But yeah, that's, that's obviously the only, my only pushback against like always changing your sleeves or something. And I was like, I think I can make my sleeve like a sleeve of 65 or so. Cause like I said, I'm gonna break a couple no matter what, but like, I don't need, I don't need to buy a whole new pack of 100, like every nine rounds. Like that seems bad. But again, another, another argument for digital only.

Brent:

No. Yeah. Oh, speaking of me not being make made of money, uh, um, uh, I broke down about, uh, enough coats to get loo is online. I am, am made of money. I take it. I take it all back.

Mike:

Did you buy LU in real life after we talked last week? We

Brent:

did. We did. Nice. Yeah. Why? Yeah. Give us a pricing update. Let's see. PTCGO store or, or TCG player. This is your chance to sponsor the pod. We could be doing the, these kind of breakdowns and plugging somebody.

Mike:

All right. Do, what did we say last week? It was like, it was 2020. Okay. It's gone slightly up. So now it's about, the average is like 22, 23. All right. That's what

Brent:

I like to hear. This is fantastic news. Thank you. Yeah.

Mike:

So that was some good advice at the very end there last time.

Brent:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, hit it outta the park. Love it. Love it, love it

Mike:

guys. Um, before we get into other substance, we were talking about this dq. Uh, do you wanna touch on the other probably even worse, dq? I do. Yeah. Cause I know you're pretty close with this family, correct?

Brent:

I, uh, absolutely, absolutely. Uh, I mean, I am, I'm getting coffee with. Uh, Mr. Dialga, uh, later, uh, this week to, uh, chat about it because, uh, no surprise, he's still a pretty bent about it. And I feel, uh, I feel horrible. So, um, I, and I thought this is a great pod to talk about it on because, um, I recognize other pods have so many people who have some formal association with Pokegear that they might not be, uh, willing to wade into calling out injustice. But man, it's unjust. Yeah, it is unjust. It's as unjust as it gets. So here's the real irony, and this didn't, so nobody's talking about this yet. So trash exclusive. I'm gonna break some story here. I was hanging out with Cliff like three days before they flew down and he was telling me, um, uh, uh, we were talking about going and he was like, you know, I have heard that there are so many bad calls at that tournament specifically. Bad calls against American players where they bias around towards Brazilian players. It makes me wonder that like this tournament is, you know, might not be like a great experience for American players and I think he was trying to make me feel better about the fact that we were not going, um, uh, uh, so, so like right before he left for Brazil, he was telling me, man, he has heard so many stories about Brazilian players just getting incredibly favorable calls. Um, but yeah, so, so his son is playing a win and in round to top eight wins the round and then afterwards, uh, is told he is being disqualified because his father was giving him hand signals from across the room, right? And, and then they said it was not hand signals, it was face signals, even though he was wearing a mask the entire time. I don't understand what face signals means. But I accept. Yeah, exactly. I accept that there are face signals and from like 10 tables away, you could give face signals. But like, uh, it seems like the evidence that face signals were actually taking place was super weak and there was no attempt to get the American player side. Like they, they came over and said, we have decided you guys were cheating. And, and your son's disqualified. Like, is that how it works? I don't know. Like, like what's I I mean, what's weird is, I guess in situations where there's been a disqualification, like, uh, so I understand how deck checks, like they have your deck, they look at your deck, they decide that you're disqualified and you know, like you're hanging in the balance the entire time. I don't know how, like in other cheating situations, do you ever just, like, you never even knew that. Like you were under consideration for that. And like then a ruling comes down.

Brit:

Yeah, I mean, I think just obviously this, this particular case, I think it is like super egregious and just like, you know, he might have, you know, there are very, very, very like reasonable explanations for why face signals might have happened, his stress playing game and just like made eye contact with his dad. Like, you know, something as simple as that. But yeah, just in terms of the kind of like the general ask for transparency on disqualifications and things like that, like, definitely not a, I don't think it's a large ask. Like I, again, I'm not super familiar across games, but just seeing. Anecdotal comments and things like that. Like, I think Ugis like is always transparent when this stuff happens. Like who did what and how, how long the band for is, you know, in Pokegear, like it's not announced when people are day, we don't know people are day, the band players list isn't public knowledge. You have to be pretty in deep on like toto side of things to, to see that. Um, and yeah, I definitely think like, especially in, in not, not like this case, but in cases of like rock solid, we caught a cheater. Like why, why does that have to stay quiet? I, I think I, I would love to talk to a lawyer, like an eSports lawyer or something like that. Cause I, I do, I, I

Brent:

do have this general impression that

Brit:

Tp c i when they, when they don't like, wanna ban people, I, I, I, I feel like it's like for legal reasons and I, I just don't understand why, why they can't do that when other games, other companies, institutions like. Have no problem doing it. Um, cause I, I, like, I, again, I don't wanna talk about the Gabe Smart stuff on here, but just like I heard that like the, I heard that like he, he just got lawyers involved and that's why he is un banded. And like I know other cases where that happened, um, and I just don't know, like they just don't want to go to court. They don't want deal with the litigation or what, but like, um, but yeah, it's just strange why they're so hesitant in certain cases and, and then just afraid of legal action and others. But yeah, just in general, I think like, I mean not just for something like this, but in it's like roadmap and so on, just they could be more transparent about almost everything. And I think we, the community would be in a better place.

Brent:

Right. And, and like what's wild is, uh, I recognize I've probably been on the other side of the argument. Like I, I feel like, uh, um, organizational leadership and TOS all the time say that we, we would adjudicate like juniors and senior penalties, like differently than master penalties because like they're the kids and like, yeah. I mean, I feel like this is one of those things where they're like, uh, that kid looked at his dad, we're dropping the hammer. Like, and, and like I know, I know Owen is, and because kids, right? Because kids, Owen is a guy that like, um, will look at people and like smile or frown, like he'll give a reaction. He has no poker face at all on like how the round is going. Um, but like, but that's not illegal. Yeah. And, and like if he smiles and then his dad smiles back, that is also not illegal. And my impression is, uh, like the evidence was incredibly weak. There were people with conflicting stories, but, but because there was an attempt to craft a narrative, like, uh, certain, like people's testimony was disregarded and like all signs seem to point to that and we can accept that, like that's how it went down. Um, but, but like, uh, a grave injustice has taken place and people should acknowledge that. And, you know, hopefully TP c I recognizes a grave injustice took place and like that head judge will never work a major tournament again because like it happened on their watch and they, you know, it's their job to make sure grave injustices don't take place. I can't remember the last time I saw something this terrible.

Brit:

Yeah, I think this is like, sorry Mikey, I keep

Mike:

coming. No, no, you're good. You're good. No, I mean,

Brit:

this is like just useful in general when it comes to like, argumentation. And so like, let's, let's just like, let's say let's grant the, the judges that the, the cheating happened. Like let's pretend that it actually happened. And even in that case, like we're, they're still just like, it's still feels wrong, like in terms of the way it was handled. Like say it did happen, like you need to prove it in a much more like conclusive way. You can't just like have this sort of like side show where you are the judge and jury at the same time and like the full side wasn't heard. And like even just the, like, the ridiculous of the claim, like I feel like needs to be sort of as part of the, the analysis, but. These things happen, judges aren't perfect. Um, but yeah, definitely, definitely terrible. Especially too, like it seems to have caused a big ripple in the stipends for seniors as well. Cutting him out, um, at least. Oh really?

Brent:

That, is that just further underscores? Uh, uh, I mean that's like multiple dimensions of which they take money out of his pocket.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I, I'm, cuz I presume he would've been in the top 16 and now I believe he's not.

Brent:

Oh my God. That is crazy. Yeah. And, and like, and let's keep in mind like the thing that that held him out, was he top Beit at a worlds? So he didn't play in the London Open, like he's very good player. This whole idea that like his father's hand signaling him like they've been around the block, you know, Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. And the the biggest thing for me is, and I know you said it, but to just reiterate it, is there seems to be multiple, multiple people coming forward that said I was right next to him. We couldn't see anything. Yeah. Like that, that is the biggest thing for me is that it's not just, it's not just a, he said, she said with just this one parent. It's multiple people, um, that are corroborating.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, completely, uh, uh, near as I could tell, it's completely insane and very, very upsetting. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that, that, that covers my, uh, Dialga Durant. Thanks guys. I appreciate you letting me get that off my chest. Yeah, it is, it is. Uh, um, uh, I, you know, uh, Pokegear should really think about how they did. They did the, uh, a young, a young child, an incredible injustice. And like you can never fix that. Yeah, you can never fix what just happened. You know? I mean, even if you gave him$10,000, like he's a kid that was trying to win an intercontinental. Yeah. And, and I think that they were, they had a bias against him due to his nationality and like they did a terrible thing to him. And like now, he'll, now he'll never get that opportunity and we'll never know. Yeah. Pokegear is for the kids.

Mike:

Exactly. Yeah.

Brent:

They're, I mean, we have literally caught kids palm cards and, and like nothing was done to them and, and like these people did nothing and they got ded from a major IC after winning a win and in round and I just, uh, yeah. I mean every player has seen people cheat. Um, And see nothing done. And then to see something done in this situation is, is an absolute affront to uh, uh, like everything Pokegear values. Agreed. We should that, right? Should we talk about some L aic

Mike:

the good stuff or the, yeah. Or I don't know if it's the good stuff, but it's Yeah. I guess to

Brit:

start, I'm definitely will admit, eat my words being wrong about eal. I think, you know, couple episodes now, I've been pretty cynical about it, and I think most of those concerns were just about energy coloring and things like that. But after watching, you know, the stream of quite a bit this weekend, it's just, Part of why I think Lugia is so good, and you might have seen the cool like infographics and things like that, is it just has such good like prize mapping and like EAL is just the part of that EAL is just like, is a lot of your games in match ups are just races and EAL is just like, is your,

Brent:

your anchor right before it's time to bust out the chars are, you can bust out the EOL and like destroy something massive for one prize, right? You

Brit:

just have guaranteed one hit knockouts from three different Pokegear at three different times whenever you want, basically. And so there's just like, you know, you don't even necessarily, like, obviously you need to be drawing well enough to get into Archeops on your second turn, but like your, your game plan is fluid as a result because you have all these sort of great ways to navigate the prize raise and not only navigate it, but always have like comeback potential because these, both of these chars aren't an one prizer of course. And so, yeah, I was like little, like some a, some of the like Lugia and like decks that were made to beat Lugia, to play against Lugia were like good to watch like the grains top four and things like that. But a lot of the Lugia mirrors were mostly,

Mike:

they weren't very exciting at all.

Brent:

And, and, and I know everyone was like, I mean the choice in top eight for casting mm-hmm. let's show this Lugia mirror instead of Sander versus tort. Holy cow. Oh my God. That was crazy. Yeah,

Mike:

I, someone made a comment that, uh, the, I forget his name, I think it was, I think Pedro that lost on stream in top eight, like he had been at the top tables all day and had never been streamed and he is from Latin America. So I think that part of went into the whole decision to do that. And like I understand that, but still

Brent:

right, right. Right. Still. Yeah. And, and like toward one, right? That, I mean, Pablo's Twitter or, uh, Pablo's Twitter stream at that moment was like the most fire thing going on in Pokegear, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Probably just as many people watching that thread as the stream.

Brent:

I, I did not watch the Stream. I was just reading the thread right? Cause like the thread was fire and I was like absolutely here for it. Uh, um, speaking of Pablo, he was great. Pablo was,

Brit:

uh, expectedly fantastic. Like, I was super excited. I mean, we, you say it yourself almost every week. We're big friends of Tableman here on the podcast, but yeah, I just like, Even, I forget, I've seen lots of good comments that basically put these thoughts into words already, but just like, yeah, I mean, I just, I, I don't know, I don't have a way to say this like delicately, but just like it really shows when you're good at the game and casting and like, and I don't, and I mean that past, just like whether you're prepared or not. Like there's just, there's, and obviously Pablo is as og is as og as you can get from the very beginning, more or less. And like, it just like, and also being a isn't just, you know, old and was good and now Commentates, he's actively good as well, you know, top, top 16, um, caliber player actively too. But yeah, he was, he was great. I definitely hope this is not the last we see of him.

Mike:

Yeah, it would be cool if they had at least one of the forecasters each time be someone that is actively playing a lot. Um, and it doesn't have to be just Pablo every single time. Um, and it's not to take away from any of the other casters, but I think it's, uh, it's good to have at least one person with that perspective on the team. Uh, and so, you know, if they got, if they convinced Azul or Grant or any of these other like very good players just to hop on for like one event throughout the year, that would be pretty sweet.

Brent:

Uh, um, yeah, you know, like obviously Chip is always fantastic. Chip is fantastic. He's fantastic. And, and I think one of the things that had always stood out was like, chip plays a fair bit, but like, I think everybody knows Pablo is like a top 5% in terms of just grinding games. Like it's all he does all day long. And, and it kind of showed up in the casting and in that respect it was super fun. Yeah. Top 1%. I mean, he plays a lot.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, it's his job. He coaches all the time. Exactly,

Brent:

exactly. Like he literally just plays Pokegear all day. That's all he does, right? Mm-hmm. that, uh, um, uh, astounding. Um, alright, uh, so before we, before we jump into like the, the, the three big decks that I think we should talk about, uh, there was like not really any Mew. I know we spent a lot of time talking about Mew control last week. What did you guys think? I think Mew was probably better than it showed. Like, it was like, there was like one deck in the top 16. There were like a couple, uh, like a handful of decks in day two. But like, I don't think it was as big as people thought it was gonna be. I think,

Brit:

yeah, I think top players just coalesced on Lugia. Cause I think, I think if you look at the data still that it, it doesn't have the worst Lugia match up. Like, it's not, it's like fairly, even if, if memory serves. Um, I think, yeah, I think everyone's just like a. Just Lugia time and you know, obviously a couple players did do well with Mew. Um, but just not as many brought it. I think people were just confident in the new deck rather than trying to play the old stuff. I could be wrong about the matchup. Like I, it feels fairly dynamic to me and I, like, I don't want, I would rather be the Lugia player than the Mew player, but I see lots of, you know, very realistic scenarios where Mew beats you pretty quickly. I mean, if you miss a beat, you're probably dead. Like if you miss Archeops fast.

Mike:

Yeah. Uh, I haven't played too much with either Mew Deck against Lugia, but from what I've heard, Mew Mat Mew is a little unfavor, but it can be pretty close. I did see Caleb Broon, I believe, who made day two with Mew. He played a big parasol, which seems to be a really good idea for the matchup because. The biggest thing is the amazing rare evil tall that, uh, they can just come and kill a U VMax right away. Uh, and so if you're able to prevent that, that seems pretty good. Um, so I don't know. I agree that Mew will probably do a little bit better in Toronto, but I don't think, I don't personally think it's gonna do a lot better because I just don't think a ton of top players will end up on it. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brit:

I, I think I agree. And like I was also was gonna say, I think you have to play the Perol for sure. Yeah. Um, but yeah, my sense going into this weekend is that like Lugia will see similar amounts of play loss index will see much more play.

Brent:

Uh, yeah. Uh, you can tell me if you wanna hold this off to the Toronto preview in a second, but like, there was no beat drill.

Mike:

There was no B drill. Yeah. There wasn't any like super hard counters for Lugia. It seems like at this event, um, like Grant and UL's law deck, I would not consider a hard counter or anything like that. Uh, it seemed like it had a plan for Lugia, but it's not, it wasn't trying to counter Lugia by any means. And we saw Grant lose to toward relatively convincingly. Um, I don't Did you guys watch that game, the grant verse toward No, I saw the series. Okay. That was like one of the very few, quite interesting matchups and games played on stream. Um, the Stoutland that Tort had is obviously very good against Lost Box and both games. Grant was forced to use Raku as a. To Stoutland and cuz if you don't answer Stoutland immediately, you just immediately lose the game cuz it takes four prizes. So he was forced to use Raku. But the problem with Raku is that it's a V and then, you know, to takes two prizes again the next turn. So it's kind of a wash, like either way. Uh, grant did place one Snorlax and one Choice Belt, I believe. Let me just look at the list real quick, but I'm pretty sure that is true. Uh, one Snorlax, one Choice Belt. So he has that answer. If he's able to get Snorlax Choice Belt to respond to the Stoutland, then he is able to keep the prize trade not, uh, you know, relatively favorable for him. Um, so I believe in game one, he had almost, he had the opportunity to get Snorlax and just with it. Um, game two, I don't really remember if he even had the opportunity to or not. Uh, so, but other than that, yeah, there was no like, There's no B drill, there's no Zoroark box at least that we know of. Um, no super hard counters for Lugia. So it'll be interesting to see how hard people go for Lugia while trying to not take complete auto losses to other decks.

Brent:

Uh, so the, the last deck that I wanna mention is no Zoroark Box. Yeah.

Mike:

Well, we can talk a little bit about more Zoroark box, I think in Toronto, but my guess is just nobody really played it. Yeah. Um, some of the other interesting decks that made day two, there was some Palkia, uh, I think it was William as a Beto who's a pretty good and well known, uh, Brazilian player. His list is not on Limitless right now, but he was streamed one round. He got 31st. I'm pretty sure he played Articuno, which. Is probably the only way that Palkia can keep up with Lugia. My guess is the match is still slightly unfavored. Um, but I haven't played it myself, but I thought that was an interesting, uh, deck and worth mentioning. There was the Archist drought. There was an archist drought on in day two, but the, there was one Archist Aldon verse Lugia streamed and it an Archer Aldon just got destroyed. it wasn't even close. So I feel like if anybody was considering Archist Aldon, you just watch that one match and you're like, oh, that's okay. I don't wanna play that deck. Um, well, and then of course they're send deck, we should probably talk about Sander deck.

Brent:

Yes. I, I thought, I thought talking about Sander Grant and Tod was probably the, the three big things we should talk about when it comes to recapping L aic. Yeah. Um, Sander, the people's champion. I mean, I know, I know we're just always riding Sanders, uh, uh, junk here, uh, on the Trashalanche, but like it is has there, I guess, I mean maybe the answer is like Ross and the truth, but like throughout history, are there other players that people look at and they say they just, they have a very specific style. Uh, they never play the Meta and like they always see success?

Mike:

I don't think so. I don't

Brent:

think stand is just super novel in that way. And I think everyone finds that the joy he brings to the fact that like, you know, it's gonna be control. Every single, uh, tournament is, uh, uh, super fun. And you know, the fact that, you know, he's never playing the Meta like just. Brings joy to people to know that he's showing you can do whatever you want. And like, it's fine.

Mike:

It'll be really funny if one day he does just bring, like, like

Brit:

imagine if you played Lugia. I feel like the general like doom and gloom about the format would just be that much worse. You know? It'll, it'll just be that like towards plays me or towards the best player. Sometimes you gotta play the best deck,

Brent:

but like Right, right. Shades of when, uh, um, uh, Israel showed up playing Buzzroc, right? You're like, okay. I guess the Mees, the Mees just decided that there's, there's no better deck. Now. He could play Ave but he is not, he's playing Buzzroc, I guess. I guess it's all over here. But yeah, like I, I, I definitely, I think the first thing that I thought about AIC was I patted myself on the back and said, Isaiah Brad team group is totally playing lu. They've come up with some optimal version of the, in their mind Lugia and like that's what they're playing because yeah, they just try to like figure out what the best deck is and then optimize the 60 Sander. Man, it's the wacky 60 every time.

Mike:

Uh, I do wanna talk about Sander Deck, but this also reminds me of just a thought that I was having after toward one and then comparing toward, I saw people like, uh, talking about, you know, toward verse Jason again, and I don't really wanna get into that debate, but one similarity that I actually realized is that all the times that Jason has won a super major event like Worlds and pretty much every single time that Tod has won a super major event, they're both pretty much just playing a super consistent version of the best deck like Jason played to Win Worlds. It was, that was a pretty wide open format, but it was pretty well accepted. That was like the best, most consistent deck in that format. Um, Oh eight. He played Gardevoir, obviously the best deck in oh 8 20 13. He just played straight dark eye, uh, like straightforward consistency. And then obviously we all, all up towards stuff with, you know, coming out with super consistent Drampa Garb. Uh, and it's true with this Lugia as well. There wasn't like anything crazy in this Lugia deck. It was just like for capture energies for research. Uh, and I think that's so interesting when you look at both of them. They're, the parallels are quite similar.

Brent:

Yeah. I, uh, I, when I was talk, when I was talking with Liam about it before his list came out, I was like, what are the odds that it's like a four four Lugia? Because like, he doesn't even care, you know, the odds are not, they're non-zero, like Mm-hmm. Um, uh, and, and like Liam's reaction when, when he saw the list was like every time, the only thing Tod cares about is that he wants to play the game.

Brit:

Like what? I was really sort of surprised by seeing like other lists. Like I really, really don't feel like, I mean, I haven't played any Lugia, so Texas was a grain of Saul, but like the, the Bradner list, John. And so I'm only played like three Archeops and like three, three Lugia. And I'm like, that just seems dangerous to me, man. Like, you win, you win if you go first and turn two pop off, like I just, I certainly like, I'm, I'm more open to the lu lines, especially with like heavy capture energy, but like, I don't think you could sell me on anything. But for Archeops, like with, cuz like you just, you play three and like you prize one, just so like that, that in and of itself is like already a difficult game. And like Ford just seems like, like the plain and obvious answer. Like, I, I don't feel like I can be moved an inch on this point.

Brent:

Yeah, I, I definitely felt like, like watching the stream, um, I mean, there are just so many games where guys are slow to set up. They get out one, Arceus turn three, like, like it, it just does, it isn't quite as tury as they want it to be because like the deck has a fundamental like consistency challenge and you, you wanna smooth that out, but then everybody wants everything else to, you know.

Mike:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, the, a funny list that did well, Kirin, uh, got top eight with three, two Lugia in his list, and he played four tracking shoes. So that's like trying to Turbo but not playing as much of the actual Pokegear, but just a little bit more Turbo in that sense, which I think was funny. Uh, one, so a couple things with Lugia, just I guess in general, uh, obviously we saw the John Ang Bradner group, they played Raku in their deck, but they were like pretty much the only. Top group of players that chose to play Raku and pretty much everyone else that did well played Stalin and like Tor played Stalin number two, Lucas played Stalin. Uh, Pedro played, oh, he played Raku. Okay. Pedro and John both played Raku, Kirin played Stalin and we don't know about the eighth place person. Um, so I do think going forward Stalin will kind of be the standard card. So you'll see evil to, you'll see Stalin obviously, you'll see Radiant Charizard. Um, and I think those are like the three. Secondary attackers. I don't even know if I call'em sec secondary, but, uh, yeah, they're,

Brent:

they're the, they're the things you would tag with

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Um, and I think Stalin especially makes a lot of sense going forward too, because I think Lost Box will continue to be prevalent in the format. And Stalin is much better against Lost Box than Raku because, you know, they all play Manife, so you have to like boss kill the manife and then they could get it back and it's just not, not really worth it. But Stalin, it's like, you know, you take two prizes on a comb or a stable eye or, or something, and then if they don't immediately kill it, you win the game. And even if they do kill it, you're, you've, you know, made the prize trade, uh, at least potentially favorable for you. So Stoutland seems like it'll probably be a mainstay. In the deck going forward. Um, I also think probably two, like a lot of us were playing three Serena one boss, but toward one with two Serena two boss. Uh, and the second place was also two Serena two Boss. So I think that will probably be the more common split of those cards as well. That just kind of makes sense to me. We've talked a little bit about how, or I've talked a bit about how I think Serena was a little bit overrated. Serena makes a lot of sense in Lugia because you want to discard cards, but, um, the inflexibility of it, especially with deck's like Boss Box and um, potentially other single price X xor in the format, uh, probably necessitates two copies of Boss and Brit. You also mentioned the prize mapping of Lugia and it's really good prize mapping and it's so much easier if you have access to a second boss rather than only one throughout the game. So those are some of the things that I think coming out of this, you can expect the lu list, I think, to standardize a little bit around some of those things.

Brent:

So, uh, couple, couple of questions. Um, is Dun sparse gonna be like common, less common?

Brit:

I think the double combo seems right. Still going into Toronto, playing Manaphy and Dun sparse. It's just safe. I don't feel like you're like scrapping for space. Really, really wishing you had these other cards. Like there aren't any other like, tech options really out there anymore at this point. Like you could play Reggie gigs still. That's about it, I think. And so, yeah, it just seems safe and like there's not a whole lot of lightning out there in general. And I, and I think, I guess that's, I think an answer to an earlier question is like, where was the dedicated like anti Lugia deck and you know, electric stuff or what have you. And I think the answer to that is just that it's bad. Like it might be, it might be Lugia, but it probably beats nothing else. Um, as we've seen no results from, uh, Reggie luck and Vical, things like that, that seem to have at least more potential to revisit reasons to revisit them in the new, into the new set. Um, but yeah, that, that's, that's my sense. Um, it just, it's just such a safe card and like you just discard it if you don't need it and it's not starting with a one prizer that you don't need is like better than starting with a two prizer, like going second. I think usually like, cuz you don't want, you don't want the. You wanted them to have to chase down those prizes and try to have to make them work, uh, for harder on the etel and prizes. And so if you just have to like let die, you'd obviously that rather that be a dun sparse or something. And again, it just pressures the boss earlier, things like that.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think Dun sparse, well Manatee is like a hundred percent in no matter what. Dun sparse I think will probably continue to see more play than not as well. Um, the one card that is not as obvious, but I think will also be much more played than it was before, is Oranguru. Uh, like both, again, both toward, and Lucas number two, uh, played Oranguru. And it just makes a lot of sense I think in Lugia because, for a number of reasons, right? You protect yourself against Marni, of course. But, uh, I watched the game where Justin Boari got streamed and he ran into this awkward situation where, He needed, he had one of his special energies in his hand and he had one in deck, but he needed both in deck. And so he mard to put the one energy in deck, but drew the other one. And so if he plays Oranguru, he avoids that situation completely because he just puts it back in his deck, but they didn't play Oranguru. Um, so I think Oranguru is just like a, a really, really good card in that deck. Uh, and you see it in most of the top eight lists as well. So I think Oranguru is around Pump Taboo as well. Uh, played in most of the top eight lists. I'm less sure about Palkia Boo than the rest of these cards. Path doesn't seem to be extremely popular outside of being in Mew, which is so weird to say But, um, But, uh, it's probably still a safe card to play. Like the list, the list that got second played, four collapse stadium. That seems quite excessive to me. Uh, but like I'd rather just run one collapse than one pump Kaaboo and have two other deck spots. But clearly he did

Brent:

well with it. Um, um, so two, two questions. Uh, uh, about other lists I saw, so the brand list, they ran Crobat and I recognize like Crobat is a great card because let's your drug cards like Uh, but it's, but it's two prizes. They did not play the Oranguru or they played the Crobat essentially, I think cuz they were like, Crobat is better Oranguru, but it doesn't let you put energy back in and it's a second prize. And I assume the moral story is benching two prizes is, is a highly risky business.

Mike:

Yeah, I think. My, I haven't played much Lugia or Lugia mirror at all, but my assumption is that if you bench a Crobat in mirror, you've probably lost the game Like even if it helps you set up, if you Boltund set up and you have a Crobat on the board, like you lose the game. So I would imagine that that is the thought, uh, the double ion I think is quite interesting. That, that was my next question, man. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that seems a little bit better than me, than running, uh, one ion, one Crobat. Uh, we saw ion be an incredible attacker. It is a really good attacker in this

Brent:

deck. Yeah. Lu ion's both a good attacker and plus energy in your deck. Yeah. Right, right.

Mike:

That's incredible. Um, so, you know, I think if you wanna run Lu Minion one, if you wanna run Crobat, I would highly consider running just two lu minion. Uh, it gets itself up the board, um, does almost the same thing, so. But I

Brent:

don't know if you, I can't remember who Sander played, but yeah, the guy on stream where when he busted out the second lu minion, I was like, this guy knows what's up.

Mike:

Yeah. I think it was this guy. I think it was Lucas who got second. Oh,

Brent:

oh, nice, nice, nice. But uh, yeah, do double Lu Minion definitely seemed like a credible thing to do. And yeah, like I guess it serve, it gives you kind of the same value as running Crobat. Uh, um, but you know, it also like, lets you put energy in the deck. Yeah. Which kind of like, because Arceus makes it so easy to power up the stuff, like the idea that you could do That seems adorable. Um, let's talk about, uh, grant for a second. So yeah, obviously the whole team Mazu, Altavilla, and then. As we've always said, grant is, is waiting to break through to start winning all these tournaments, gets the top four and runs into the, to Buzz saw. But, uh, um, they played Lost Box. I think UL's tweet was like, this is a meme, but it keeps beating Lugia. Yeah. Anything. So, so I think the thing obviously everybody talked about on Stream when they talked about this list was, uh, the Coio

Mike:

mm-hmm. And I don't think every time we saw it on Stream, I don't think we saw Coio attack once. yeah. So the, the issue with the Coio is if they, if the other player like kind of knows that you're playing this Coyo deck, they can hold benching the Manaphy until the very end of the game and. In some matchups you can threaten with Greninja. If they do do that, like in the mirror for example, uh, you can threaten with Greninja and then if they don't bench Manaphy then you know, you just can take two triess with Greninja. But if they do bench Manaphy, then you can stabilize it and then, you know, maybe take some kos with Kio in, in the very late, late game. Uh, but again, something like Lugia that you can't take two prizes with Greninja, that threat is not there. And so I imagine that the Cuore stuff worked much better earlier in the tournament than it did later in the tournament, as everyone like figured out what they were playing and they were able to just time the manatee to play at the very end of the game.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, um, was kayaker a thing before this to.

Brit:

I heard people talking about, like, I saw people mentioning it and sort of as a joke, not, I don't know if it was all that seriously, so I was like aware of it as an option or as like, it was probably, if I had to guess it was probably one of Jake Gearhart's, like, guys, I broke the format. Just play this card. And you went every time sort of cards just like with the Zekrom and Meta. Um, but yeah, I had seen people talk about it, um, but I didn't take it very seriously. I thought it was just like, yeah, this combination exists. Uh, go for it.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, when, when they were streaming the uls game, uh, uh, chip kept saying, uh, you know, the amount of waters he's playing, even though he hasn't benched the flash, shown the coio yet, I, you think the opponent would've figured it out by now. And I was like, I don't know. if the opponent's thinking, oh man, he is got five water injuries, he's probably playing coio like. I'm just not as on top of the Meta as I should be.

Mike:

That's funny. Um, I think it did do well in some online events, maybe like a couple weeks ago. I don't think it was like super recent or anything like that. Yeah. But the idea was, was out there, but it, it wasn't super popular by

Brit:

any means.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I thought, like, I know that that's a card, but I don't think anybody's thinking, oh, yeah, that's, they're running that version of Lost Box. Like, uh, you know, I don't know that that's a, like, I think people do. Um, uh, any other things we should say about Grant's List? Um, I mean, I think the inclusion of Cuore is, uh, like really the, the brave thing about the inclusion of Cuore is including two energy recyclers,

Mike:

I feel like

Brit:

you, that's like, that's part of the combo. Like you have, you have to like, it's not. That you need them. That just makes your math better. You just, you try to time them together. The attack with,

Brent:

yeah, that mean obviously that's how it works, but like the fact that you're like, we're, we're gonna cut all these other cards to make the Coio more consistent. Wow. You're really like, you're all in on the coer. Okay.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. It is pretty on. Like the number of switching cards is quite low compared to other lost box decks. Right. Uh, it's got the four net obviously, but then only two rope, two switch cart. Even other Mirage gate lists will often have five or six other switching cards instead of four. So that's, uh, that's interesting. There's not a whole lot of Mirage Gate targets in this deck. You know, there's Kio and there's Snorlax, and I guess there's the Raku. So my guess is most games you're only Mirage twice max. I guess Greninja is as well, but. I haven't played this version of Lost Box very much. Even like, regardless of Cuore, I haven't played much of like the Greninja focused Mirage Gate lost boxes.

Brent:

I I, I'm sure they're gonna start breaking it out. So we might as well throw out some bets. I mean, are is, are people just gonna show up in Toronto with Cuore or is it still gonna be like a wide diversity of Lost Boxiness? It'll

Brit:

be wide. I don't, I don't think it will coalesce on all the lost boxes being carer. I think there will be copycats to be sure. Um, I would be surprised if they play it again, that same group. I would guess they'll, they'll get a read and adapt to the Meta game with something different. Maybe not that, like, maybe the, they just adapt the list. Um, but no, I would think that we'll see that, um, as well as the, the version that one seniors, which is kind of, uh, kind a mix. It's like a little bit like the old. The kinda like the old stable Charizard deck, but also just kind of like, has Mirage Gate has, um Right.

Brent:

Just like drap on Charizard. Yeah.

Brit:

Like it's more just not a gimmicky, but kind of other attackers with Snorlax and things like that. It just seems, it seems very strong to me. Like, again, like I think it just, it's like your 50 50 deck, but I feel like it's like fine against everything, which feels like a good play, um, as a result. Like just not having to worry about, I mean, on one hand, like, I mean this is maybe a question worth asking, but like, is the, the mirror being bad, is that like really a detriment to like playing the deck? Like you do say the Lugia mirror is bad, I don't wanna play it seven times. Or you just, do you understand that it's a coin flip more or less and that it's still good enough to do that? Like what do you think? Like that. Cause I feel like I as a fault, I would always be the player to not play Lugia, but like, thinking about it now, like, I dunno how bad that really is. Like it's unenjoyable, um, as a tournament play experience. But like, in terms of like a deck choice, I feel like it shouldn't deter you that the mirror is hard to win going second.

Mike:

I mean, I think like if you were planning on playing movie in Toronto, there's no reason not to play it Like you're, you've practiced with the deck. It's clearly the best deck for a reason. It's very strong. Uh, so if you were already planning on play, it just continue to practice and play it. Maybe you make your list somewhat closer to towards, uh, and, but if you weren't planning on playing it, like I don't think there, I also don't, I also think there's plenty of reason not to switch, if that makes sense. Like I have no, I was never planning on playing Lugia and I have no intention to switch based on these results.

Brent:

Right. You, I wonder what do you think Brad's list? So which one is more optimized for the Mirror Brad's list? Where he plays the Raku or, or towards list?

Mike:

Uh, I don't think Raku matters at all In the mirror. Yeah. No, no. Cause it doesn't, I mean like Choice Belt, I mean they play Dunsparce, right? They done, they play Dunsparce than Manaphy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I think pretty much it's just like consistency. The Clap stadium seems kind of good though. Uh, like timing Clap Stadium. So maybe having access to more Clap stadium is good in the mirror. I don't know. But you can also like, not bump their clap stadium unless you have your one on vacuum. So I'm not, not too sure how it works there.

Brent:

Yeah. Oh, and, and obviously like playing Oranguru instead of Crobat. That's a good idea. Uh, so like, yeah, that'll come back to bite you. Um, okay. Fair, fair. Uh, any things we should say about Grant's? Uh,

Mike:

list? No, I don't think so. I guess just, um, mentioning just lockbox in general. I, I agree with Brit. I think Lockbox variance will still be quite all over the place. We saw Pedro Torres got, uh, or top 64. He played, you know, pretty similar list to what he won. Warsaw with just s Charizard, you know, different card, some different cards in the last few spots. But same concept. Um, there was another. At least one, maybe a couple other lost box decks that ran the rayquaza. Uh, Adam Hawkins from Great Britain did fairly well with that. He got, uh, he didn't do super well day two, but he got day two. So I think any of these lost box variants seems reasonable. Uh, the, the, as Brit said, the list that one seniors is kind of like a halfway between Pedro's, Sableye, char, and the Mirage Gate builds. So that could be, uh, a way, you know, a variant as well, that, that variant in particular is interesting because it has more Snorlax and choice build. So it has a little bit easier way to answer Stalin against Lugia. Um, so I think that's the biggest thing for Lost Box is you just need to take into account Stoutland and how you're gonna deal with it. Because if you don't deal with it immediately, you're gonna lose the game against pretty much all Lugia. So as long as you have like a solid answer to that, whatever it may be, uh, then I think Lost Box is fine in any of its forms. Um,

Brent:

alright, so we, we, we fawned over it for a second. We didn't talk about the list. Let's talk about Sanders deck for a second. I mean, I assume a bunch of people are gonna show up in Toronto with this deck. Now,

Mike:

I don't know about a bunch, but there will be a group of people that is for sure that we're just waiting. They, they were like creating their own control decks, but they, in the back of their mind, we were really waiting for L A I C to see what Sander played. And they're like, okay, we're ready. Let's do it.

Brent:

Yeah. So I mean, it turns out cry of destruction is super good in a special energy Meta, um, stunning, stunning turn of events. Uh, I mean, is this, like I recognize toward Meet Sander after Sander had mowed down like 30 Lugia decks? Uh uh, is this deck really good? Is there a tech that people are gonna put into Lugia decks that will like obsolete this deck?

Mike:

Um, I haven't thought too much about it, but it does seem like a deck that could be in its current form, like maybe countered with one or two cards.

Brit:

I think it needs switching cards. Like I feel like, like that, like especially too, even watching like a lot of the games on the stream, so many games are just like, oh, I'm outta energy. Whoops. And it's like, its because you've struggled to navigate. I mean, it's difficult to map your energy with your prizes because you don't have any switching options. So like a lot of the times you might energy's go to ways having to retreat. I think having like a switch or two, I think, uh, ki uh, top eight, I wanna say his list has some balloons in it. Something like that though, I think would be my, like if I had like a 61st, 62nd card, um, it would wanna be something like that. Um, again, just to like, I can't, I definitely saw like at least three or four games that just like kind of finished anti climatically cuz one player, the one player just accidentally was out of energy. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Mike:

Um, yeah, so I agree like switching cards in particular against the control deck. I'm probably just good in general, but uh, yeah. Against the control deck probably make a big difference. Um, maybe I think if I read Pablo's Twitter thread correctly, like toward having two boss in his list made a difference. Yeah. In the match up. So that hurts. It just, it's just like a small thing that hurts it. Um, if lost box decks play. Like echoing horn, then they'll beat the ice cube. Uh, they could also play a fan of waves, you know, something like that. And then beat the ice cube Lugia. What else could Lugia do besides switching cards? Um, I don't know. I'm sure there's something though. You just play more energy Yeah,

Brent:

I mean, obviously as always, Sander makes a, uh, um, brilliant and brave medical by predicting he will not play against any Giratina Dexon. He will only play against Lugia, and it totally goes that way, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike:

also, the other thing about this that we were trying to figure out in one of our group chats is I, we actually don't really understand how this beats Mew. Um, like Mew, seemingly a Mew player that manages their resources very well can take enough prizes without getting all their energy deleted. Uh, you know, the DTE version plays for dte. They're on a sa, so that's at least. Four prizes with h dt and then you si back two of them and, and you'll win the game. Uh, and they only have four evil to Right. So they have ways to get the evil to back, but that's not, um, trivial. So after they've used the fourth evil to your energy might be safe. So as long as you have the fifth dte, you might actually be safe as long as you're taking a prize every turn, putting pressure on them to not be able to uses to get bag evil towels. Um, so I'm not super sure how the Mew matchup goes. I'd be interested to hear how he would approach it.

Brent:

You know, I think, I think my working assumption was that like, yeah, there's, I mean, as always there's an element of like, he practiced it and they didn't. Good luck. Right, right, right. But, but like, uh, I recognize him if he's like, I'm gonna gust up this gensec and see what you do. Like, like there's things that he can do that like, make it really difficult cuz you don't have that many switch effects. Right, right. Yeah, that's true. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play this yellow horn and, you know, uh, uh, try to do stuff with you. Like, I think, I'm sure he has a strategy and the probably pretty good, you know. Mm-hmm. like, you're, you're obviously just racing to like take six prizes and Yeah. Like Hope Side Lean works out and like look for an opportunity to Psychic Leap or something like that. But like, you need a lot of stuff to come together and he's like, I'm just gonna keep doing my thing, doing my thing, do my thing. Right. And, and then he is gonna like look at your face every time you draw a card and see if this is the time you should try to like, search through your hand So, uh, um, yeah, like it's. Certainly not as much of a mortal luck as Lugia feels like. But you know, it's also not, uh, I think you, you don't, you don't look at that list and think, oh my God, there's no way to beat me, like the me player has to play Well, yeah. Um, alright guys, let's talk about, uh, Toronto.

Mike:

All right, well, we've covered a lot of it and we've been going for a while, so let's try and just cover the, anything new. Um, yeah, we've already kind of talked about how we think loss box and Lugia will, I don't know, co uh, come together or not come together into standard lists. Personally, I think those will be the two most popular decks. And then, but I don't know, we've said lost box will be like one of the most popular decks multiple times, and then it never ends up being like the top two most popular decks. So mute could still be number two, maybe lost box experience number three. Um, personally I still think Reggie is not a great play, but it's probably a little bit better of a play than it was in aic. Um, we talked about Dunsparce maybe seeing less play. That's

Brent:

a big maybe. Yeah. Well, Reggie was another deck that I, I meant to put on that list of like, wow, there was no Reggie's.

Mike:

Yeah. And I think for good reason deck, like I said, like I said last week, I like, I just think it loses to a lot of, like, it doesn't have, it doesn't have a good luie match. They play Dunsparce doesn't have a good me match, but if they play law cities, uh, doesn't have a good lost box matchup. And especially if they played drap on, which a lot of them did. Um, so, and like definitely loses the Cuore version. Cuore just takes four prizes at the end of the game, so yeah, it still does. Um, wait, sorry, not four prizes, but two prizes at the. What am I talking about? I lost my train of thought.

Brent:

I'm talking about like, yeah, the lost matchup is, uh, uh, dicey. The, uh, uh, uh, the Mew matchup is dicey. The Lugia match is dicey. Reggie, we

Mike:

have i in like coming back now like so Reggie. Reggie doesn't seem like that great of a play to me. Um, but so one deck that I've been testing quite a lot, um, and I've seen it mentioned a bit over on Twitter is Zoroark Box. I think the deck is pretty strong. Uh, it has a, definitely has a good Lugia matchup. It definitely has a good new matchup. It has an abysmal lost box matchup, so I'm not sure about it. Uh, like there are ways you can play the matchup to give you slightly better odds against the lost box and whatnot. Like you only get one chin chino out versus getting two out, but it's still really, really, really hard no matter what you do. So, um, and I think. I think there's quite a few decks that fall into this category of like, okay, I can beat Lugia, I can beat Mew, and I have virtually no shot against lost own decks. Um, last night in the, one of the online tournaments, an Inteleon Charar deck with BRE won the event. It only played against Luge and Muse. Uh, so like, if you're feeling good that you're only gonna play a couple lost box decks, maybe you're okay with just getting some points day two, you know, take the L to lost box, but you don't really care about really winning. Then I think playing one of those types of decks is totally fine. But if you wanna win the event, I do think you'll probably have to beat Lost Box multiple times.

Brent:

Yeah, I think, I think you're, uh, um, uh, I, I think there'll be more people playing Lost Box, but I don't think it'll be as popular overall. Like, okay, here, here's, here's a hot take. More popular in day two. But Mew will still be more popular in day one because Mew is just getting easier to buy those cards every single day. And the, and playing Mew is like, it's not completely brain dead, but playing lockbox is hard.

Mike:

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good take. I like that. Yeah. Playing lost box is definitely draining. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. So, uh, Brit, if you were going to Toronto, what's, uh, what's the play? Uh, well, I spend

Brit:

the most time at Zekrom Box, but by a significant margin, and there's just no solution to the Save My Problem. Um, and I just don't, I, and I think that's enough just to like, you know, bump it down to, from like B tier to C tier. Like it really does have pretty good matchups with Mew and Archeops, but like, You're not the most consistent deck in the world. Like you kind of, you have to hit some good tempo beats to keep up all the time. Like if you, your discards are going the wrong way, getting the wrong Pokegear and the lost zone. Like you, you just don't have the power, like, not just draw power, but power in general of these, these bigger and faster cards. So like if you stumble, you'll just get out. Outraged and Stoutland is difficult as well. Um, even in the matchup, like you have, you have answers in like cleaver and things of course. But again, just sort of on that same point, if you're, if you're having a slow start, you're just dead to Stoutland. Like you have to be able to, the whole point of the deck is that you're gonna make a comeback and like win with slow bro a lot of the times and Stalin can just be too fast. And even still, like going second can hurt again because these other decks are just taking prizes immediately and you're not. Um, but it's, it's good. Like don't let that, if you wanna play it, play it. I think you can easily make day two with it. Um, I would, I think I'm on the senior a i c winner train. I think that, as I sort of said earlier, just seems like it's fine against everything. Like there's no matchups. Um, I feel weakened, like maybe control beats you, but I'm, I'm never really put control on my radar. Um, but I feel like you're super even into almost everything and like that's a good place to be, I think even in like, not having to worry about going first in mirrors and things like that.

Brent:

All right guys. A anything else?

Mike:

No. Uh, I'm excited to be at Toronto. If you're listening to this and you see me around, feel free to come say hi. And I'll talk to you about anything you want.

Brent:

There you go. So, uh, next week we'll be back with, uh, uh, Mike telling us how Toronto went, what it feels like to win Toronto regionals. Yeah,