The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Arlington Prep: Lugia, Mewtwo, Zorobox, Duraludon

December 13, 2022 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 113
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Arlington Prep: Lugia, Mewtwo, Zorobox, Duraludon
Transcript
Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. Attendance remains 100%. Chris Webby. Webster's Laboratory is the intro song. We try to say that from time to time to acknowledge that, that, uh, we use it. And he's super cool for being cool about such things. Um, in terms of five star review updates, no new reviews, uh, uh, if you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. That makes leaving reviews a super fun thing to do. And all the other podcasts say that apparently that helps the algorithm do the thing. So we appreciate it. Uh, dragon Shield is our. Mike, I'm, I'm packing up the Dragon Shield sleeves for you. Uh, it, it should be very

Mike:

exciting. Sweet. I, uh, I will probably not see you Friday night, but I'm gonna bank on senior Saturday morning and re leaving into them. There

Brent:

you go. There you go. When, when do you get in on Friday late.

Mike:

My flight arrives at midnight Boy,

Brent:

boy. Do, do you feel like you know what you're gonna play yet?

Mike:

Um, I am. Down to three decks, but I feel comfortable, like if the tournament is tomorrow, I would be comfortable with any of those three. So I'm not like worried about not having time to test.

Brent:

Gotcha. Gotcha. Alright. Alright, so let's do, let's do the news first. Brit, is there a place you wanted to start at? No,

Brit:

I mean, I guess just probably the biggest thing first is our change, change coming with Scarlet and Violet to trainers and tool carts, which is, it's a pretty sizable shakeup, like impact wise, uh, you know, perhaps not that dramatic, but just in terms of, you know, history of the game, things, it's a, it's something new, which is interesting. I guess we always. Complain about them not trying new things, I guess. And so here's, here's a new thing, like, uh, maybe it will make things a little more interesting. Um, so yeah, it's in it, it doesn't change. Uh, someone will have to correct me here, but so like a tool. Is an item card, but it's not a trainer card. And so is that, is that the right semantic Where

Mike:

now, or in the,

Brent:

I think it's not, I think it's not an item card anymore. It's something else.

Mike:

Yeah. Right. It's a trainer card, but it's not an item card. That's what it'll be. Yeah. That's that. That's, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Which I am, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I feel like this is how it was at some. In the, in the past, I believe that tools were separate from items at some point. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that. Um,

Brit:

I think that's right. I think like early, early into the release, like, so I don't know cuz tools, tools get introduced in the neo block, I believe. Um, yeah.

Mike:

So, let's see if I look up gold. So gold berry is called a Pokegear tool. It is a trainer and then a Pokegear tool. There's no item anywhere because item wasn't like a, a distinguished thing yet. They were just trainers at this point. And then when, so you're right about that. Brit and then supporters came out in expedition, like the E set. So what was a, A trainer in the E set? Crystal chard. Was that Cobalion or something? What'd you say? Like Oracle? Oh yeah, yeah. Or so Oracle was a supporter. Okay. Crystal Chard was a, a tool in the expedition or in the e sets. And there is no mention of item there either. So just Pokegear tool. So I think so like what was like a regular trainer called, um, a tool. Dual ball didn't have anything yet. It was just called trainer So at that point there was like supporters, stadiums, tools, and just trainers that were none of those. And I think then at some point during the Ruby Sapphire block or whenever they introduced the, the name items, they just lumped tools with items. So now they're like reating them.

Brent:

So what are, what are the implications? Like I, I guess I hear that, and I think when that happens, tools will, at at least for like the next year or something, become wildly less popular.

Brit:

Yeah, there are a ton of like, assuming let's say the, the real change happens right now, um, I don't think there are all that many use cases in like the current Meta game. Um, it'll be interesting, I think, you know, more interesting looking towards the future. Like, what is I gonna do with tool like, cause I don't, I don't think there's like a tool that exists that suddenly like, you know, it gets way better or something like that, but I'm sure you could make one. I'm sure you could. There, there could be a certain tool and perhaps interacting with another new card that's sort of like, Is that is like way better because of this sort of distinction. But right now it's like not all that many, it just means like Irrita doesn't, can't get choice belt or uh, I mean I guess, you know, they've played big charm and things like that some more recently. Um, and I think there's one with.

Brent:

So it means item lock doesn't stop people from attaching tools. That probably means something. I can't think of

Brit:

that. And that's, that's I think, the biggest shakeup for, for expanded or you know, also for item lock moving forward or yeah, maybe they're like setting the stage for some particular kind of lock. But yeah, looking at expanded suddenly you can attach float stone against vile plume and things like that, which is weird. Like, I don't, I don't, I would have to think about it. A little more closely in terms of like, if it's like an in, like a correct or incorrect, weird, but just like thinking about dinner interaction or just like, oh, Garbodor time. Like I attached my float stone and now I can play even all my trainers again. Mm-hmm. like, that's strange. And like, I, I, I, they certainly aren't making decisions with expanded in mind. So like, I, none of this is meant to balance expanded or like, You know, cause I don't even think, uh, like executor Vileplume presumably is the best. I, uh, just firing off the cuff, the best Vileplume deck can expand it just from the like, little bit. I see Stefan writing and talking about it here and there and like, I don't think it's a top deck. I think it's a solid tier two deck or so, but like, so yeah, it's not like, it's not, there isn't like an unbeatable deck in expanded and this is solving that problem or anything like that either. Um, but we'll see. It's different. I guess, I guess back to the initial point, like if this is how you, you know, change things, block the block format to format, I, I wish it could be a little more extreme. Like if, if this is the really only, if this is the only like kind of substantial rule change like. Okay, moving on. But like, you know, you could, you know, compare that with like a, a change to the first turn or something like that. Or could get a lot crazier.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I assume this is, so do you think that they, they make these decisions as like a block to block things to spice it up? Or is this like, quote, they're improving the game in some way or like they've real, like I, I guess I would assume things like this and things like the first turn supporter rule. Trying to make the game better and if they could do it, they would go back in time and say, it should always be like that. Hmm.

Mike:

I'm not, I think in the sense of the first two first turn rules, I generally agree with you. Um, cuz like, I mean, think of how like going first is still basically strictly better. So when they change first to go in, wor being worse than it was before. The game I do think got better. Um, but this, I don't know if they're really thinking about it in terms of it being better, but just maybe more consistent in that tools have a very different function than every other item card. Just like how stadiums and supporters have a very different function, so they're just. Trying to be more structured and organized, I guess. Right,

Brent:

right. Yeah. That's, that's like, I assume that the, it's, it's less a like design decision to spice things up and I'll change it back in a year or two. They're like trying to kind of refine how they think about the problem. Uh, interesting. Um, we'll also get silver card.

Mike:

Yeah. A lot of people seem to be very excited about this. I am like, uh, I don't even notice

Brit:

Yeah. What, what's to be excited about

Brent:

I, I was trying to figure out if it makes my yellow cards more valuable. Is that, is that what I get excited about? Like, I'll be like, dude, I'm playing yellow ultra balls. And they'll be like, whoa, that's like$5 card.

Mike:

In 10 year in$200 for that yellow ultra ball, in 10 years, we're gonna like, have all these yellow bordered cards. And that'll be the indicator that you're an old player.

Brent:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh, um, yeah, like I, I hope the silver's not too cool and I feel like I gotta phase out all my like old yellow stuff. Uh, I guess the, so it seems like the question, I feel like the interesting question people are asking is, uh, on, on the internet, I feel like, is, is this some sort of attempt to bring our cards more into alignment with Japan, or is it just like, uh, you know, we decided to stop buying yellow ink and buy silver ink and like we're getting Vileplume discounts on the silver ink now let's.

Mike:

To me it seems like an alignment to Japan. I think I saw Mia tweet that she was really excited about it and it sounded like she had like some say in this and pull, I'm sure it was a huge team effort, but like, it seemed like she was, you know, part of whatever, uh, design. I saw people

Brit:

interpret it that way, and I just don't think that can possibly be true. I don't think can see, has any hand in this decision. This is just a Japan decision. I would all but guarantee it. Yeah, that could be too, probably. That's my,

Mike:

that's my take. It's a really big decision, right? Like why would they be? Yeah, that's probably true.

Brent:

Yeah, that's, uh, it's, I mean this is, it's gonna have design ramifications for uh uh, I don't know, the next 15, 20 years, I guess, right? Like they're, they're, they're getting rid of all the yellow ink and doubling down on silver ink. I suppose that is a thing, uh, at PTCG l lot of controversy, I feel like, uh, in the last couple of days. Uh, once again, I wanna let the PTCG people know. My services are available. I don't have a lot of consumer products experience, but it seems like these problems are actually relatively easily solved, and I'm stunned at how people are. Um, I understand that the product is not like, particularly good. I, I feel like these things can be fixed and God forbid people at Pokegear, if you're listening to this and you're thinking, no, actually, they totally cannot be. I, I mean, I guess give me a call because like it's easy to fix that

Brit:

shit. with live or with online? Yeah. Yeah. Just more the live sentiments. Yeah. Like, I mean, I don't know. I like, I would like look on the Dire Wolf website, or I used to, when I was job hunting farm, be like, why aren't you hiring people for this? Like, get me in there. Like, I learned your scripting program in 10 minutes. Like, I, I bet I could be helpful. Like, why, why don't you, why aren't you hiring people who understand Pokegear? Yeah. Um, but yeah. Yeah, I just, yeah, like, I guess especially too, like, I don't know, like talking more, more about. You know, especially as I get more experienced in the industry, but like, yeah, like some of these updates, it's like, it's hurting old cards. Like it's, you know, like the, the Mew, the Mew problem is kind of the, maybe one of the worst bugs there's ever been like, and there's no solution. The bug, I don't know what this is, it's just like, uh, lemme see if I can find it. The trust, your pilot is always the best for, at least for me. Source of info for live for bugs, for bug of the day.

Mike:

While, while Brit's looking that one up, I saw another one today that's, it's something like if you use the historians Zoroark that knocks your opponent's Pokegear out and then it triggers, then you echo and horn it back, it just dies again. And that, and this may or may not be true, but I think Jake Gearhart commented on it saying that there's some, like there's potential for there to be some real fundamental. Things wrong with the code, if something like that would happen because they're potentially storing effects of attacks on the card itself instead of just kind of like in a temporary space, I guess. Uh, you know, right. Agnostic from the card. Uh, and so if they're doing that, then there's potential for a lot of things to happen in the future, you know? Right. Like if, uh, you can imagine some attack. Like Alan v's. Attack, the VStar attack where it's protected the next turn by certain Pokegear. And then maybe if that, you know, dies and then comes back and then it doesn't even use the attack and it can't be hit. You know, there's thing, there's lots of effects on Pokegear that could

Brit:

be, it still belongs to it and it goes to the bench and Right. You know? Yeah. Right. That sounds, that seems right to me. And again, So a thought I just had very early on into the, the beta, quote unquote, when we could tell things weren't great, was I just like, I don't think anyone knows this game. Like, I think, yeah, I think all these, all the devs like are reading the rules, you know, and they can play the game, you know, to say they don't understand the game isn't to say that they, they can't follow a rule book, but you know, there's just these finer points that. You know, you can't teach per se. It's, it's something that, you know, especially in the more experienced you are, the more sort of intelligible the these things are. And that's, yeah. Right. Like it's just these sort of fundamental problems. Yeah. Something, you know, within the, the code, the source code. Even just like attributing things and storing things in the wrong way. Like Yeah. Like where, where is this stuff hidden? You know? Cause like a lot of effects of attack. Don't even necessarily need to go on the Pokegear. It sort of more belongs just to the active position and like the damage counters belong to the Pokegear. But you know, more, depending on sort of everything, it, it would be better to sort of like situate it in that kind of location. But yeah, there's like, there's, I just think there has to be, I mean the more we see these sorts of problems, the more it just, just seems likely. But yeah, I think there's just. Some sort of fundamental disconnect, and that's just where the problem is. It just like from the ground, should have just been started clean more, more likely. But just like, you know, they're launching with mountains of tech debt, which is just really bad. Like if, if, if it's, you know, fundamental, if these problems are, you know, this incipient, like, just start over. But we'll see.

Brent:

You know, I, I continue to say, I feel like, I feel like. The the closest thing I have to a defense of those guys. And, and I'd be interested in your take on this break cuz you're, you're close to the problem is like, I recognize the difference between this and like Hearthstone is you have to every quarter ship all these new cards and, and the effects are not necessarily designed with this video game thing in mind. And you have to like, figure out how to do. and I, I mean, I recognize, I mean, you say magic and Yugi have the same problems, and, and I accept that, like it's fair. I, I, I don't follow either of those products. I don't know if they regularly have these kinds of bugs and defects and stuff as, as they ship new sets. But I assume Hearthstone, like if somebody comes up with an idea and they say, oh, well, like, That would be really hard for us to put in the code. They can either like say, okay, well let's come up with something else. Or they could say, let's ship it with the next set and give you guys a little more time to figure out how to make it work. But like Pokegear, you can't really do that. You know, like I just, I always assumed that like when they, when they were like, okay, there's a new card called Sky Field, and now you can have eight cards on the bench. Like, whoa, you literally just broke the entire video game. Yeah. Like the video game's, not, we don't know how to do that, you know, and, and I'm very sympathetic to how it must suck to just be told it's gotta happen. Like there's just no alternative, you

Brit:

know? Yeah, your, your assessment is 100% right? That is, that is exactly how it goes. It is just like, Nope, that's not possible within the context of this game. Sorry. Come back. Or just like, yeah, yeah, we think we could do that. We don't have time right now. Let's, let's, let's circle back to this mechanic in a set or two and we'll talk about, you know, that, that kind of thing. It's right, and you're exactly right. Pokegear that doesn't have that right, because it's, it doesn't have that sort. infrastructure, or at least the, the way the current, the current card game has been working. It's, it's not like that. Yeah. So I'd, I guess magic would probably be the closest thing because it does have, well, I, I guess I'm, I'm not actually certain if Arena is everything in standard, like currently. Cause I know the, the Yugi client is limited. It's not like, it doesn't have every card. So it, it would get to, ah, it would get to dodge this problem with, um, Uh, modern releases and set releases going live and things like that. I don't, actu I think arena is limited too, but I wanna say it's still just like standard, like in, you know, your limited formats within the context of the cardpool and things like that. But I don't, I don't actually know one way or the other, but Yeah.

Brent:

And, and, and I recognize like the PTCG Live team, I mean, half the team must be. Like coding up the next set right now, like, you know, you wanna be like, okay, we gotta fix like this tech debt, we gotta improve the client. Like all that stuff. But like half the team's gotta be implementing the next set, you know, sucks.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I'm just curious but even naturally, like even, even say both sort of have the right workflow down, like. Like, this is way again, the, so much of the problem is that as dire wolf developing this, not, not Nintendo, not tp c i, not, you know, someone that the Pokegear company could have contracted out or rather, I mean the, the Japanese one. And since they've been sort of outsourcing these other projects more recently, But it's just this Western American indie dev that does that Wheels in like strategy games and card games. And it's just like, does this little tiny company have the kind of QA that Blizzard does? Like, of course not. And so like it, it's just sort of like, The problem just sort of repeats itself over and over and over again because it, it probably should have been a much, much larger project, and it just wasn't, it was decided that this, the size and this scope was what they wanted to do. And that's just kind of the end of the story. And like, I mean, even we've said this so many times too and they just like, they just don't understand like, why, why wasn't this like a, a, a billion dollar project or what have you? Like, I think too, just how popular, you know, thinking about mobile gaming trends and like the popularity of Mar Marvel Snap and things like that. I, I think if they, like, why wouldn't the product like that, like be, you know, just crazy good. Like, you have the card game, but you, you gate it behind something else. And I feel like if the, if casual people are interested, then it's gonna, you know, gonna drive your bottom line more than anything else. And like, this is just like a failure on both fronts. It's not good enough of a product to. Teach to bring new people in and it's not good, a good enough of a product for existing players to practice, to test, to content create and so on with, and so it's just, What is it then? Yeah, you said it before. It's worse. It's worse in almost every sense than the tutorial app for the one piece game like Did it have more money than the, than the one piece tutorial app? Maybe. Maybe it even didn't though, but like again, that's just the point though, and kind of more issues that if you, not that we're gonna get into it, but it's just if. Paying attention to, you know, kind of the, the hoop offers, Scarlet and Violet. Like, why is Scarlet and Violet such a lackluster product too? And again, it's the, the biggest media franchise of all time, like billions and billions of dollars and, you know, they can't fail. So that's part of it too. So like Scarlet and Violet is, you know, at least for me, like the biggest mixed bag of all time. But like, no, no amount of bad reviews could have, could have stopped this game from selling, you know, as much as it did. Like it could have had worse reviews and it probably would've sold the exact same amount. Um, but yeah, I just, I just, I don't know where to go and would like, would like to rant about Scarlet and Violet discourse at some point. Cause people are, Just using lots of bad arguments as always. But

Brent:

it's, uh, it, it is, it is, uh, uh, yeah, that, like, I definitely feel like the reviews that I've seen having, uh, I haven't played it, but, but Liam's played it some, uh, it, it's very like shades of cyberpunk 2077, like just, uh, grandiose vision and, uh, horrific perform. Yeah,

Brit:

like even, yeah, it's, it's sort in the sense that since its release has made, made some, some marks and more like mainstream, like gaming media, like Kotaku Polygon, I don't, some of these might not actually have articles, but these sorts of sites, a lot of them have articles on. That that live is bad. And that's just like, I even have friends, like some of my fighting game friends from, from the area, like DMing me like, Hey, I, what's, see there's a new Pokegear client, what do you think about it? And I just like, hold on. Um, but yeah, it's just truly disappointing and. I don't know so much of this, we said ad nauseum at this point could be really good, should be, it should be a competitor. Or at least I think the demand for there to be a competitor is something to dual links or arena like exists, and that just wasn't. Capitalized on, or maybe it doesn't exist. You know, maybe I'm just wrong in this, this speculation on, um, how much money a better, you know, the, my fictional perfect product would've made. Like maybe there just isn't the demand and audience for that either. I'm not sure, but it is yeah. Bad and doesn't seem to be getting better. It kind of is just like there's a bug of the day at this point. It seems like a, a bug of the day that blocks. Competitive testing. What? Something, if it's a new card, it's an old card. It just doesn't matter. Something, something will be, will get in the way of tournament

Brent:

prep. Yeah. And, and I feel like, like this, this rumor that we're headed towards a march where they force migration and shut down PTCGO mean, I don't wanna say like, it's too fast cuz I recognize it's been, it's been a beta for a while. but like the betas are going. Okay.

Brit:

Yeah. Very, very. Yep. Yeah, I'd be curious. I hope that doesn't happen. Like the, the people speculating that because the official announcement doesn't mention PTCGO, that it will cease to exist. Like, especially again, like, I don't know if you saw or watched any, I tried live for the first time a week or two ago, sort of on the, after watching Mew, one of, uh, Andrew Mahone's, like more recent videos on it. And it's just sort of like disheartening for. Or you compare the two P C G O is just better, incomparably better and you're just gonna kill that one to push the old one. I don't know how these things work, but just seems like you couldn't even do that if you wanted to. Like there's just too much left in the lurch with how it is now. Like, you know they're bugs last week where like you just, the only solution, the official press release solution is just restart your client after every single game.

Brent:

All right guys, let's, let's shift gears and, and talk about, uh, Arlington. Uh, uh, the, the, uh, traditional Texas regionals is finally upon us, uh, post pandemic. And, uh, uh, everyone in the universe is coming. It's gonna be the biggest, uh, Pokegear tournament, uh, I think of all time-ish, uh, excluding Japan, I suppose. Um, Guys, how about we kick things off with, uh, I'll give you my hot take. My hot take is vanilla Lugia will win the whole thing because people will show up with these teched out Lugia that drive out all the other decks, and vanilla Lugia will beat the teched out Lugia. And that's all she wrote.

Mike:

So when you say vanilla Lugia, do you just mean basically like to Lugia? Yeah. Okay.

Brent:

Alright. That's, that's my like super hot take. Uh, uh, I reco. So, I mean, and it is a response to, uh, two weeks ago we had all kinds of crazy stuff do well, and, and I assume the answer to that is people tech out their lists extensively and then teched out lists of like, Lugia lose to like consistent Lugia

Mike:

seems reasonable. So, Let's talk about Lugia a little bit. So cuz it is actually one of my choices. I didn't think I would be saying this, uh, a couple weeks ago, but I think Lugia is, I, first of all, I think anything is actually an okay play for this event. Um, there's just, the format got pretty opened up, I think the weekend of Toronto and, and Australia and Stuga. Um, so I think anything is pretty reasonable. You can make a case for a lot of decks. Uh, so Lugia. Like you said is kind of in an interesting spot because Lugia can beat any of these decks that came out. Um, but it can't beat all of them at the same time, so it has to choose what tech cards it wants to play in. Its last like. Four or five slots. Uh, like they, you could run the Espeon Espeon VMax that helps against control and paralyzed stuff. Uh, you could run Snorlax and Bird Keeper, which also helps against control, uh, and paralyzed stuff. But is also like, just kind of like a good single prize attacker. You can run, uh, you can run. Lost vacuums. If you wanna beat Archist or Adon, you can run Collapsed Stadium, more collapsed stadium if you want. Be good in the mirror Match, uh, you can run Drape Beyond, which is good against control And Mew. You can run Dun Sparse and Manife, which is good against Reggie's, but not great other places. Um, so like all of these cards, You can run, but you can't run all of them. So it'll be really interesting what people decide. And that is like, it's also a bit scary trying to play any of these decks as well, um, that I, that I just mentioned. Because, you know, if you run up into a Lugia that doesn't have the tech for your match up, you can beat them. But if you do run into a Lugia that has the tech for your match, you're probably un favored even if you thought you were favored going into Lugia. Um, so it puts every deck in a little bit of a weird spot where, uh, you just don't know until you sit down and play your opponent. Um, and so I don't like, if I play Lugia, I honestly have no idea what text I wanna play, but I know I'm gonna have to take a hard loss to at least one or two decks. Um, If I do play Lugia, like, like up until yesterday I was like, okay, I'm not gonna play any loss vacuum. I'll take the hard loss to Archist or Aldon and I'll play other cards like drap on and whatnot, and I'll be control, I'll be stronger against you. Uh, I'll be good in mirror and I'll just take the hard loss. Archist or Aldon. And I, I'd lost our, and I wasn't gonna play Dunsparce, so not great against Reggie. But now, I don't know. Now I'm like second guessing myself. Do I wanna do that? Uh, so it, I think everybody's gonna be going through this process, but, and honestly, I don't think it'll end up being a huge difference because all of these decks that I'm talking about, Reggie control, blah, blah, blah, they're all gonna be like very low percentage, 5%, give or take. And it's just kind of matchup, roulette to some extent

Brent:

of Yeah. Yeah. That, I mean, when, when I say vanilla Lugia wins it, like, you know, if you play towards list, you, you kind of have to high. to like dodge these terrible things that could happen to you. And like, but like if some guy kind of high rolls into playing like nine mirror matches and he's just got more consistent, uh, he is like, oh, that went great. It was all good.

Mike:

Yep. Um, but do you guys think Lugia will be more popular, less popular? About the same? I don't think we actually got the Meta shares from Archine about day one at Toronto. Um, Let's say that it was like 30, 35%. You think? I I think

Brent:

it's the same. Yeah. That's, if, if you, if you say, Hey, you could roll in all of the like, teched out lists, it's probably the same. How could it not be the same? Yeah. I mean, what are they gonna play this better?

Mike:

Yeah. I think, I think, I don't think it'll be. I think that's like really? Yeah, I'm very confident it won't be more, I agree. It'll be like similar, the same, maybe slightly less, but like slightly as like maybe like one to three percentage points. Like not a lot less. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Like, like, I mean, some players are gonna go say like, I'm gonna play Mewtwo, and some players are gonna say, well, I'm gonna play Lugia and put a draper on in, you know, Yeah, yeah. Yeah. like, like on the one hand, obviously the results two weeks ago, you say it like it opened up the Meta, but man, it, like, if Piper was thinking, I'm just gonna play same 60 this, uh, this weekend, it's like Brave Yeah. Yeah. It's a braver choice than it was two weeks ago.

Mike:

Right? Because like Drap DRAP is such an interesting card because, it covers two matchups. And not just in Lugia, but just in general. Right, right. Like you're, you make your me matchup way better. You make your control matchup way better. So, and a lot of these texts, especially in Lugia, but also just in general more generally, a lot of texts in this format cover multiple matchups, which, um, which is interesting. Uh, it makes building decks really weird. And cuz there's just so many matchups to consider, right?

Brent:

Brit, any, uh, any big thought?

Brit:

No, I haven't sort of kept my, like, I've paid attention in the usual ways, but as far as like in our, the little group chat that's spun up more recently, I haven't paid attention to all the, I try to, I try to keep up, but it's usually stays pretty active, so I just don't read it some days. But I know, you know, various controlled X from, from Liam and things like that. But yeah, I mean, I don't have a, I don't have a good sense of where I would be at in the format, I guess like for. Toronto. I, I was, I've got, I backed off Glass Box quite a bit. I just like, I don't feel as great about it as I did. I think kind of for similar reasons. Mikey talked about like last week before, like really isn't, wasn't as great into Lugia as I expected it to be. Even sort of like with some tailor made like text for it. It just ends up being pretty even no matter what you do. Um, Which isn't bad. Definitely. Um, I, I, I think I would maybe have circled back around to the Kyo version. I just, I think for other reasons, rather than trying to make, like Charar drap on Mirage Gate, twin Energy, Snorlax stuff work. No, I mean, it's, it's a really tough call. I, I do agree that I don't think there's any reason why Lugia will see less play. We'll probably continue to see just about the same percentage across the board, I would say. And I, I think between. Toronto and whatever it was before that. L A I C Mew, like, has picked up a little play and like, I think Mew, I don't think it will see more play, but I think it will situate right under Lugia as the second mouse deck. Um, and then kind of like a little, even after that, I, I don't know, I would, it would be like a glutton for punishment and just like take Zoroark out again. It's really good. Really Even like even, you know, Mikey's matchup, Benji's matchups, like you lose ugia, but like just happens, you know? It's a across 15 rounds, your sample size is like, it's just bound to happen at least the one time. It certainly isn't something to discourage you, but it just feels like. Clean. Like not a lot of, I mean, I guess the, you know, the lost box matchup is bad, but like, I just feel like where we are now with the metagame necklace and deck choice, it's just, you gotta pick your poison. Mm-hmm. almost no matter what. Um, and I think that to a certain point, like. Just not poison proofing your list is like, is a good idea. Like not, don't just like splash one card for an already like bad ish matchup, like just lose and win everything else. Like I think having that kind of mentality is, is definitely where I would be in necklace. Just basically to reiterate things, Mikey has just, just finished saying himself with, you know, just deciding how to win and how to lose with things like your, your last vacuum, not trying to. Fit it all and you know, I have a solution. I just never hit it. They're just like, don't worry about that. Just have better solutions for the other matchups and lose the, and you know, hope to only

Brent:

comment about Zoroark everything. Like if he had to do it all over again, he'd be in day two, you know?

Mike:

Yeah. Zekrom box is the second deck that I am still considering. I mean, there's not really too much I would change about my list. I think the heavy ball would probably be cut for something. Uh, I'm a little bit less sure about. I think a lot of Lugia are cutting Dunsparce, just the way that people play Lugia now.

Brent:

Well, you have to make those hard choices. Right, right, right. So yeah, like, like we talked about, who cares about the Reggies matchup? Man, you gotta beat

Mike:

YouTube. Yeah, right. Um, so people are cutting Dunsparce and just the way people play, you don't really attack with Lugia all that much. Um, so like Behem has less value. Um, So there's not too much else I would cut. I just don't know exactly what I would do with those spaces. Probably just more consistency We've been talking about maybe playing the MR Rhyme, not actually for the lost box matchup, but for the control matchup. So Mr. Reim protects you from all the effects of attacks. So it helps against evil to, and it helps against if they do get the Mewtwo out, then you know they can't spread the damage around on you. So, uh, Mr. Rhyme seems not bad, maybe would play that. Um, other than that though, that that good against Arto as well? I guess so. But I think art you probably just beat anyway. Yeah. So there's not much else I would change about the list. So definitely considering that as well, I think it's fine. You just kind of accept the lost box matchup. My, my biggest that, that's only my biggest worry. I do think Lost Box will see a bit of an increase. Not a lot, just a couple percentage points maybe. Um, but I also do think that more people will play the GR Ninja version. Then the Saar version, I mean the Grin Ninja version did so good. Like there was, a's uh, and Grant's group, they had five out of the top 17 players played the exact same list. Like that is insane Um, and obviously they're great players, but clearly the deck was a very good play for that event and I don't really see a compelling reason that it wouldn't also be a good play for this event. Um, So, uh, I, I think that will be the more popular version of Lost Box, which is, which is unwinnable, like the charge or save version is at least somewhat winnable, but Greninja version is just completely insanely bad, right?

Brent:

Right. They're, they're just gonna take two prizes a couple of times and you're gonna be like, oh, that's that. Right? Yeah. Um, yeah. So, so, uh, yeah. So my two big questions for Arlington that, that I was looking for Hot takes from you guys on. Might as well get into'em right now. Uh, is Grant's team gonna just run it back? Will they, will they lost box again?

Mike:

Um, I think it's pretty possible. Wait, what are you gonna say? I

Brit:

just said probably like, I don't know why you, I don't know why you wouldn't, like, there's just no. There's no Meta game shift where that's like a bad deck, I don't think. Mm-hmm. and I think they're just, you know, they're such good players, such good deck builders. They'll just, they'll push it that next percentage over with the, the final two cards for this weekend. Like, yeah, something like that. Like may, you know, maybe not, maybe they show up with something else. But it's, it's, it's hard. Uh, the results are incredible, like, you know, even though they didn't win, but like across the two weekends everyone did quite well and we're close to topping and. Yeah. Um, and then I think the lost box deck more than anything is when you have to learn to play, it's like mm-hmm. It's hard, it's hard to comfy. Right. Consistently. And so the more experience, the better. Yeah. Um,

Brent:

so, so similarly, does, uh, does Team Bradner show up with, uh, uh, Lugia again?

Mike:

That one I'm less sure of. I still think, I think the answer to both of these is probably, but this one I'm less sure of than Azul and Grant's group. Um, because there's, cause like I said, they're so, they're so good at like choosing the right couple cards to fill out their list for the best deck, but I don't think it's clear. At least to me, maybe it's clear to them what the, what the last best couple cards are for Lugia is this week.

Brit:

Right? Yeah. I could see that. I could see Espeon Espeon making its way out. I feel like I'd be pretty surprised if people will play art at Kuno. Sure. But like, I don't think group, I, I would be shocked if like, you know, good groups of players, player at a Kuno, like they did the previous weekend and like, I think it can day two, but like, I don't think, I don't think I would be bringing Espeon Espeon again. Like maybe its use cases are good enough that it's fine to just like be good against started cudo and other things. But I feel like that was mostly like a preempt, preemptive call against the, the jelly buzz that was picking up going into that week. Yeah. Um, yeah, I would say to think probably too, like Bradner just like always plays the best deck and refines. So, yeah, just like more Lugia from that group probably. And like, I think there'll be control, like there's probably another iteration of control that can show up. Um, If anyone are there good enough control players, I'm counting on it to Arlington, maybe like, I don't know how hard they're to play, but just like Sander and even even Vinny in Brazil, like you know, did, did very well at the L A I C, but he's been a con. He's always like, at least since I've followed him, During, early into Covid, like is, is often coming up with controlled X and, and working with what's, I don't know if he ever works like directly with Sander, but is often iterating on what Sander himself is doing. Um, which is cool to just be able to talk about a senior in kind of the same breath as a good control player. He definitely think he's up there, but no one else really comes to mind. Uh, I guess Liam maybe will have struck gold this

Brent:

time. Uh, I mean, I guess the real question is, will, will Piper bring back Mewtwo? Or, or does she go off mute too? Because people see it.

Brit:

I don't really see a world where Mewtwo is bad is a bad play still. It's seems fine to me. I guess, I guess if people bring Draper on, if that's the adaptation into Lugia, um, which could be likely. So maybe not. I I could see it going either way.

Brent:

Yeah, like people definitely see it coming now, right? Like if you bump into Mewtwo and you didn't put Drap on in your list, like that's on you. You already knew

Mike:

Yeah. If it was just Piper that won the event or it was just Sander top eight in Europe, I don't think people would be as prepared or thinking about it as much, but both of them happened the same weekend. Right. So yeah. There, there

Brent:

there's like, there's like four different mutualists running around. Yeah. And people feel like, I don't know. I look at it and I think, well, I mean, you gotta have a plan. You gotta have a way to kill a Mewtwo. Mm-hmm. this is

Mike:

like four different lists. Yep. Yeah, I played around with, uh, Sanders deck, by the way. It's pretty cool. Um, I still am not a hundred percent sure how it beats like a really good Lugia player. Uh, the best thing that I could come up with, so the issue that I was thinking about is that, you know, they set up the Mewtwo. They set up the Gengar, and then Lugia go is Boss kill Gengar. Mewtwo goes, okay, kill your Lugia, or Kill whatever. Killed my Gengar. But then, Lugia can then set up a four powerful energy Lugia hit for two 80 and then Mew two's forced into this place where either they respond K or Lugia and then die the following turn. Or they, I don't know what that's, that's their only move cuz they can't heal two 80 at that point. Um, so the only. Way that I was able to try and think about it is if you just don't candy into Gengar and you just keep two gha, Leafeon your bench and set up the mute too, and then wait for the Lugia player to try and commit. Uh, I don't know, it's like weird. But then you're also like weak to Marni cuz Marni and then you, so I don't know. It, it feels like the Lugia matchup. Oh, like shaky. Sandra probably beat a lot of them cuz they didn't know what the hell he was playing. Um Right, right. But now that they've had time to think about it, it still seems like pretty close. But Lugia certainly has ways to win without even teching their deck. Um, which I don't think is true for the, you know, four evil, tall version. Right. I wonder. One other thing, kind of a good segue that I am interested in seeing how much it pops up this weekend. So part of that deck regard like separate from all the Gengar Mewtwo stuff was the Shadow Rider Plus fan of Waves Flannery combo to deal with Mew and then also other matchups like, um, Reggie GIAs in combination with Clap Stadium or Zekrom Box or you know, any other deck that plays just special. And so we saw that in Sanders deck, but we also saw it in Michael Trons deck. He played this Arceus deck that just had like tech cards for every single matchup. Um, and so I am interested to see if people adapt that into other decks because it's certainly, it's not a lot of deck. To pretty much auto win certain matchups as long as you at some point get this combo out. Um, so I'm interested to see if people work that into their decks.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I agree. Yeah, that was always a cute thing that was hanging around and as people have moved to the double Turbo, Mew builds it, it just gets better.

Mike:

Yeah. Um, briefly, I do wanna talk about Trons Archist deck a little bit. So you like here, Uh, I don't remember everything that's in the deck, but he runs the Shadow Rider. He run, ran like a one one Espeon Espeon, uh, for control, I suppose, as well as, uh, lost box, scoot against lost box. Um, he ran. Uh oh. Uh, the way that he beat Lugia is he ran the one one Aerodactyl VStar and he hoped that he went first. And if you go first and you VStar with Aerodactyl before they are able to VStar with their Lugia, they can not get Archeops out. And so you can kind of just win that way. If you go second and they get double Archeops out, you lose. Um, but if they go second or yeah, if you go second and they only get one Archie Ops out with the Lu G VStar, you can still win. I think. So that's kind of. What's going on? So it's basically a 50 50 that comes down more or less to the coin flip. I think there's a little bit of interplay, but most games are probably decided by that. And I think Kate's thought is just like, you know, other Lugia decks are taking a 50 50 to the other Lugia decks, so I'll just take the 50 50 and be very good against everything else cuz Arceus. Is pretty good against Lost Box just in general by itself. Uh, you add Espeon Espeon and it's quite good. Uh, you have the Auto in versus Mew condition with the Shadow Rider fan of Waves. Um, I'm not sure how it deals with Judge Path, but um, could be good. So I just think that's kind of like an interesting deck. It's not one that I had put enough time into to consider it, but I think. I had played more this last week or two. It's something that seems interesting to me, so it'll be, I wouldn't be surprised if that showed up. Not, not in huge numbers or anything like that, but a deck like that, um, could get adapted. Maybe a couple cards changed by some good players, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that do well,

Brent:

I'd dig it. It's, it's nice to see, uh, uh, Michael playing the TCG again. He is, uh, an always innovative deck builder.

Mike:

Yeah, for sure. Um, the only other deck that I kind of wanna mention is the wheezing deck. That's kind of gotten a little bit of hype. Just four four wheezing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so Rowan Vena, he made day two in Toronto. I think he ended up top 32. I know Andrew Estrada played it as well. Um, and then Azul played it and an online tournament, and I think that, Is what made it a little bit more popular. Uh, and I've been playing, I played it a handful of times on the ladder, and that deck is really bad, in my opinion. like really, really, really bad. I don't even think it beats Lugia that consistently. I've beaten it Mew multiple times, playing Lugia. Um, like it's so weird. Like you just don't do like, You're not doing enough damage, you can't play the sneezer because you always wanna maintain the lock, but then you're only doing like 40 or 80 damage a turn. So like one game I just kept retreating my Vs. And I just let damage build up and I decked them out. And then the other time I, you know, just gave them things over and over again and slowly attached energy to Augie on the bench and eventually they ran out of energy removal. And then my Lugia just took four prizes cuz they don't do enough damage at any point. So like, And like, that's supposed to be like, your best matchup is Lugia. And so like, I just don't think it's, it's a gimmicky deck. I'm sure you'll win a lot of games teasing people, but I don't know, it just does not seem like a good idea to me.

Brent:

Uh, it there, there's just a lot of like, I'm gonna get the lockup and pray. Yeah. And, and, uh, uh, it, yeah, the lock just doesn't seem strong enough to like be that convincing, you know? Mm-hmm.

Mike:

I'm sure people will play it, and I do not think it will do well at all. Like you hit, you hit two, or you're like, you're gonna hit two or three matchups that you're super un favored. And when you're super unfavor with a deck like that, it's basically an auto loss. Like you actually can't beat me with that deck either. Like me, you can't, you can't beat it. especially Fusion Mew. Fusion, Mew is impossible. D T e Mew is possible to beat, but like they have. A lot of ways to beat you as well. So Yeah.

Brent:

You, you need them to not pop off. Turn one and it's like, oh, so you're count on the Mew guy and not pop off. Turn one. I mean, if he wasn't gonna pop off turn one, you'd probably beat him with some other deck, man. Right, right.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

You, you found the only Mew, uh, Mew guy with bad luck in the world. There you go.

Mike:

Um, oh, there is one other deck that I wanted to mention. So I mentioned at the beginning I was counted between three decks, so Lugia, Zekrom, and the third deck, which is probably a distant third, but I wanna mention it at least, and I've given it a lot of crap. But I think it's actually a decent play for this event. Is Archist or Aldon. Uh, it's. Matchups into this format are just pretty good, right? You beat Lugia, you're pretty good against lost Box. You're not good against Mew. That's kind of like your one week point. You're also not great against control. Um, but you're good against like other random stuff. You're like teasing against Reggie. You're very good into like wheezing and paralyzed stuff. Um, so I think it's like matchups are solid. It's just the fact that it's still archist or radon, like you're still gonna just brick and. Not play the game sometimes, so there's not a whole lot of agency in the deck as well. So I'm like very hesitant, but I borrowed the cards from my friend just in case I want to go for it. But it's a distant third for me behind Lugia and and Zekrom. But it's worth mentioning that I'm even considering it. I think that says a lot. considering how much I dislike the tech.

Brent:

Yeah, I mean it's obviously in a good place, like we're back in a special energy. uh, you know, go, go crazy kids. Like I can see how, how, uh, it's had success recently. Yeah. Um, I mean that, that's another one similar to Mewtwo where like, you know, the, the, the thing that I think is probably the biggest concern you have is you're like, man, do people have a plan for me? Because as you said, like, I don't have agencies, so like I don't have a plan. I'm just gonna, and I'm gonna hope that they got nothing and see how it. Dicey But like, yeah, I mean, the good news is historically lots of people got nothing.

Brit:

I think we hit it all.

Brent:

Exactly. Exactly. Uh, uh, as, as always, if you see, uh, a mike eye, uh, this weekend, stop, stop by and say hi. Uh, we'll, uh, you know, if you say hi to me, I'll give you grief about how you need to leave a review.

Mike:

I just found out, by the way, that you can't leave reviews on Spotify. You can only leave them on Apple Podcasts. So someone reached out to me and asked if they could, how they leave a review on Spotify, and then I was like, oh, I don't know. And then I looked it up and like, Spotify does not offer that, just ratings.

Brent:

Yeah, yeah. But, but yeah, if, if you're, if you're thinking, man, I wanna leave a review on Spotify, then you can like tweet at us and we'll count that. Yeah. There we go. That, that, that's something we, we, uh, we are always more than ready to accept some tweets, people. All right guys. We'll see everybody in, uh, Texas. We'll be back next week with, uh, extensive recap of, uh, um, how Mike did and the bad decisions that my son made.

Mike:

All right. Good luck everyone.