All right. Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. Attendance is 133%. Mike Fouchet, Brett Pybas, me Brent Halliburton, and my son Liam's here. Talk a little about his, his top eight run at Arlington. Uh, uh, all good stuff. Um, you can find us all on Twitter. Uh, no one left. Any new five star reviews. If you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. We encourage you to leave a review because as everyone who's ever listened to the pod knows, leaving review is a thing to do. And, and our sponsor is Dragon Shield, as we know it's changing Mike, Fouchet life, one sleeve at a
Liam:time. Um,
Brent:alright, before we jump into Liam's top eight Run, I, I, I mean, I think we're gonna hear a little bit about this. Uh, um, and, and I think we're gonna talk about capturing aroma as a card a bit too, but I just thought I'd, I'd kick things off by saying San Diego is in just a few days. I, I successfully predicted Arlington would be won by the most vanilla builds in the universe of Lugia. And, and what I wanted to ask the three of you guys is this time around, well, does like the Jank come back, have, have people all like all the janky Lugia, the teched out that was designed to beat the Mewtwo s and beat the aldons and then lost to consistent Lugia builds. Um, did all those people drop all their stuff and go to consistent Lugia builds with for capturing aromas? I'll just say it now. And, and then they all end up losing to like, Aldon Mewtwo s and like, that's, that's what the finals end up looking like, or, or does, does just super consistent Lugia
Liam:run through everything. Yeah,
Brit:I would guess yes. That it, it will be. The, a story of consistency at the end of the day. Again, I think that Connor's performance, um, was just in that deck list was kind of just building on, you know, the previous week's iteration on the list. And it just like, um, just kind of has it all without over teching or feeling like there are like wasteful cards and you know, if you don't hit the right matchups, like all of the cards are good, while also also occupying a like a tech slot at the same time. You know, like Bird Keep, for instance, is like a switch is never a bad effect necessarily, but it is a tech for arto, things like that. Um, yeah, I just, I just, I feel like because, you know, regardless of how you build your Lugia deck, the sort of, I think the, the bottom line is that you're going to play, have to play the mirror probably more than anything else. And if that's the case, you want to, you want to win the matchup, you're gonna play more than anything else. And vanilla is probably, you know, the path that takes you there. Um, uh, you know, that seems like the, the most reasonable sort of assessment I. Struggle, you know, as a player, this is, I feel I can't, I can't think of very many opportunities where like the Meta game was like this and I, I could still commit to that deck. I would always, you know, over, over tech it for mirrors and things like that. And, you know, sometimes it would pay off. And I, I don't, I don't think it's necessarily a bad play, um, trying to do something like that, trying to, you know, make your deck less consistent at the, you know, with the potential reward of it winning, you know, a few percentage more of these like close matchups. Um, yeah, I don't know. My like, is not really the question being asked, but the hot take I'm willing to offer is that, uh, maybe it will box time to finally win that the, maybe that the Grant Danny group will have pushed like, kayo, like one more card, you know, to the one more percentage point better. Uh, I'm not sure. I feel like, you know, I have a friend. One of my coworkers from Blizzard Plays, he is out in California and he's been testing a lot. And like, I think that's like where, what he's set on. He's just between, um, either Kyo or Rayquaza, like one of the two, uh, lost boxes and like, um, just sort of, I mean, I, I think his main motivation is just foregoing the mere match. Just like doesn't wanna play that game either way. Um, and I, and I think similar, I think other players might similarly think that way. I'm not sure. I don't have a good sense. I, I mean, a lost box is probably the hardest act to play and it's, it's also one that's prone to some clunkiness, some games where you just, you don't open or see v i p pass and you lose, you disrupt pass, um, and things like that. So I don't think like a lot of players would switch to it, but I feel like more than the Azul group potentially could
Brent:pivot.
Brit:Um, but it's, it's hard to say. I don't think I would personally be considering anything but the two decks myself. Um, I guess three, depending on which lost box you land on, but. Um,
Mike:that's my 2 cents for now. Yeah. Um, in terms, going back to Lugia, I mean, I do think that, like Connor said, that the only matchup he really respected was the mirror. And so his list was relatively vanilla. I mean, he had Raku but he didn't have like Dunsparce or Manaphy, like he didn't really have anything too crazy in there. Like, like Brent said, you know, it is, it kind of was vanilla. So, I mean, I kind of like that idea, you know, that's the matchup as Brit said, you're gonna play the most of. So, uh, whether that means other decks will come and beat Lugia again, I think is. A big question. I kind of like Palkia Aruna right now. I think that's kind of an okay deck. Um, just cuz it doesn't sacrifice. It's not, it's not a gi it's not a hundred percent gimmick deck. Um, you know, it has some powerful stuff. Uh, and it can beat Lugia if they don't, you know, play, you know, one Bird Keep is like definitely Beatable Bird Keep Plus Alga is probably not beatable Um, but, and then the other, the other thing, the lost box. I also agree with Brit a little bit. I think the Ray Raza Lost Box could be more popular than it was before. You know, it got top eight. Um, Pablo played it, you know, there are some better players playing it. It saw some results and it just kind of deals with a lot of the random stuff in the format. Like Ray, Quik and just one shot. Anything. Rakus just, I think in a pretty good place overall right now. Um, so I. Yeah. And that, that, that's kind of my thoughts on it too. How about
Liam:you Liam? Um, yeah, I think Lu's in a really good spot. Playing a lot of, capturing our room is really good. ha having a lot of consistency I think just makes a lot of bad matchups win Boltund, especially with re rac who's like, Crobat probably like the best card on Lugia if your opponent's not benching Manaphy turn water. Yeah. Um, like you, you just get so much value out of it if it's not being expected, you can like win lost box if they're not benching Manaphy, I, it's like basically a free matchup. Um, the other thing too is I think that just like being super consistent, and this is like traditionally a thing, you can just like beat like bad decks that are trying to like, you know, gimmick you just by being really consistent. Like e turn if, like E turn and, or Ludon. I think if you go first and you just hit boss turn two while also hitting Lugia, that's like, it's a really big ask. But if you hit Boss turn two while also hitting Lugia, you're in a really, really good spot against both those decks. Um, especially if you play like a horn. If you hit boss turn two. And you're playing horn and they're not playing Rod, you just beat Duraludon. So I, I think it's pretty easy to be Duraludon if you just, like, if you're super consistent. It's not, it's not a good matchup, but being super consistent will let you scrape games off of decks that are trying to like cheese you while also making you really good into mirror. So I think overall, like you'll probably see good results with it. Um, Raku as well, kind of like what Mike was saying, or no, Brit, uh, about like tech cards that are like, uh, that don't interfere with the next like strategy while being like really good into a lot of matchups. That's Raku. Um, it also makes it really easy to play with no Belt in Lugia. I guess I'm going really deep on Lugia right now, but yeah, I, I think, I think consistency we is in a really good spot. Um, the, the lists are pretty good right now, especially with capturing aroma Um, I think Lost Box will probably see more play. Um, it's also like, there's just like more time for people to figure it out, I guess. Like, I think as the, like. As tournaments go on and people see Kyo doing better and better. I mean, I didn't do super great at Arlington, but like, as people see Lost Box Deck doing better, they also have like more time to figure it out and like play, test the deck. I think more people shift to it. I, I played my first games with Kyo, like this week deck is
Mike:really good. I like it. Deck is really good and it is so, so hard to play It's really hard to play it. Like, I, I don't know, this might be too much. It like might be like in the top like three hardest x ever to play in like, the history of the game. Like it's really hard. I might be giving it too much credit, I don't know, but it's definitely really hard. Um, one thing, Liam, you said that, uh, I want to touch on. So Raku, my only fear about playing Raku in Lugia again this week is that people will be more prepared since it just won and so. I'm sure you and Connor and anyone that played Raccoon Lugia in Arlington, you won so many games because they lost in Manife or they discarded manife, like on turn one, turn two. And I think people will be a little more cautious of doing that this time. You might still just win game one like almost all the time, uh, because of it. But it just seems the surprise factor isn't as big as it was before. Doesn't mean it's bad. It just is like a little
Brent:less. Are people gonna assume that every Lugia deck they play is running Raku? Like I feel like
Liam:I would default a yes. I, I think they, they will with like some grace. Like if they, if they're sitting on a really good hand, if like boss box opens double v i p, they'll just grab Manife. Cause like their hand's really good or something. Mm-hmm. um, like PE people will grab it if they can without like sacrificing their setup. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. But like, like nobody, nobody would throws Manaphy away. Game one if like, that's the first thing they bump into with a comfy. Right. Unless they, they just feel like they have no choice. Right, right.
Mike:I mean Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you could get into like one of those impossible choices, right. Where it's like Zara Ora or Manife and like yeah, you have to pick Zara Ora
Brent:Right, right. But like, like, I mean, if, if you told the guy I am running Raku at the start of the game, he would still be like, we're just gonna have to Yolo. Here we go. Right. Right. Exactly. He's, he's playing like you told him before the round started. I'm running Raku, get ready for it. But like, he's just like, I gotta do what I gotta do. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta try and win, not try to not lose. Right? Mm-hmm. um, that, that makes sense. Uh, bad news guys, you're all wrong. The answer is Piper will win her third regional wisdom Chang Yeah. So she can get her invite. That's the only reason.
Mike:That is possible. Very possible. Um, anything, any other, i, I know we don't wanna spend too long talking about San Diego Meta game. Are there any other interesting decks that we've seen, um, recently I saw, I, I sent this in our group chat and I actually saw someone tweet it as well a couple days ago that the ladder is full of ditto control and I don't know why. Liam, you, you laughed at that. Like, do you know much about this deck?
Liam:Uh, no. I, I saw the list that you posted. It looks really cool. I don't actually think it's good. There's, I also like nice Snorlax and lu like that card's really good into evil tall. It makes it like mostly evil free. Um,
Mike:my coach really good. Yeah. So, so for the listener, it's this ditto. It plays the ditto that can copy basic Pokegear from your discard pile. It plays evil tall, it plays a jinx, which has some like Dragapult attack. Yeah, it's drag plus confuse confusion. Okay. Um, it plays Radiant Veo to draw cards. It plays the more Pika to use torment. Um, it plays ice cube and then it plays a bunch of disruption cards like Sydney and Gala Mine and plays some other Pokegear. But those are the main things. So it's really just like apic your attack control deck. Uh, I beat it every time that I played against it, but it was still cool.
Liam:I, I think it's Crobat. It's probably a real, like, it's neat. At least I think, and like, it sounds good. Like you, you have options. So you're never, like, you never run into like issues where like Lugia puts you in weird spots cuz you always just like do exactly what they don't want. You either gus or you discard active or something. Right. I mean, usually have to discard active anyway, but like, I don't know. It, it makes options really easy.
Brent:Right? It puts pressure on them to find all their energy and, and like have a plan, right? Yeah. Once again, if they, if they play Bird keep, they're, makes it harder for the uh, like, yeah, it's hard to imagine losing, but like it does seem like a fun
Liam:deck. Every time you have the more Pika, uh, attack is an option. You're like, we're having fun now
Mike:Um, I guess I'd be remiss not to mention Zekrom Box a little bit. What I think of that going into San Diego. I think like it's actually just totally fine to throw the Lost Box match up at this point. Um, even though, you know, we said that Lost Box is in a pretty good position. We also said that we don't think that many people will switch to it and Lost Box has not been a huge percentage. Um, You know, the gringa lost boxes are five to 6%, and the Sableye Charar lost boxes are five to 6%. The Sableye Charar version, you can totally beat you, play a cleaver even without the scoop up nets. Just cleaver gives you at least like a, I don't know, 35, 40% matchup there. Um, and you can just kind of throw the grino at, so you could like, kind of just play cleaver, don't play scoop of nets and just play other good cards. That's good for the Lugia matchup. And, uh, it's not a bad play in my opinion.
Brent:Uh, you know, I, I, I was sad that my tweet, I didn't, I didn't get any like reactions to my, uh,
Liam:uh, bad tweet
Brent:response to a cash vendor man tweeting. Did you see that? Obviously not. No. So cash vendor man tweets about how in Japan you can
Liam:just buy like competitive 60 card decks, like the stores just sell straight up 60
Brent:card lists and, and then he ends it with, Now prices aren't that bad too with many options. Fund deck, like Zoroark, Zoroark Box
Liam:or Top Decks, like Lasso Box And I was like, what?
Mike:That's funny.
Brent:But, but, uh, uh, yes.
Liam:Uh,
Brent:apparently, uh, in, in one of our favorite listeners minds, there's
Liam:fund deck, like Zekrom and then there's Top Deck
Mike:Zoroark is fun. And top and top. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Um,
Liam:enthusiastic.
Brent:Alright, let's wait. We've got, we've got Liam here. Liam Bra. I, I think obviously a key data point listeners need as a plan, uh, San Diego is hearing how people top aided in Arlington. Break it down for
Liam:us, man. I don't really know that. Um, I, I played Lugia. It was, it's a really good deck. I, I built the list, like, I don't know, I, I spent a lot of time building like. Weird, bad decks. So I built the list. We're very aware of that to try to try those decks, right? Playing stuff like canceling coone so you can like be all the cheers, like wheezing and wheezing is the big one. Um, it's also good against like Duraludon, uh, Mewtwo and Snorlax is good, right? It stops all the effects. It stops. AOL Bird Keep is good. I think that's one of the weaknesses that like, obviously as, as we can see a lot of decks we're trying to exploit, which is that Lugia really struggles switching. It's got like a two retreat attacker, um, and it has like no switch effects. It just has that para tree costs every time they wanna switch. So like a lot of decks we're trying to exploit that. And just playing a switch in your deck, especially one that you can access twice using uh, El Dialga is really, really good. Um, searching it out with Dominion. It's also a draw card. Bookkeeper's awesome. Play Bird. Keep in your s mm-hmm. Uh, I guess the, the other decision that I don't see a lot of people making that I really like is playing El Dialga with it because it lets you go down to three, uh, like three gust supporters. Uh, it gives you access to Third Boss, so like, into like single price stuff. It's really good. Um, it lets you, and, and it basically functions the same as like second Lumion, except when you start, or, uh, or prize Lugia, that's like, it's like a small majority minority of your games Um, yeah, it's like, it basically has like the same utility except it makes beating all the bad stuff really, really easy. And it also lets you play like an extra draw supporter over a fourth gust, which I think is all good. Um, echoing Horn is nice, like play two. Um,
Mike:you didn't remind me. What did you play for? Like, sta did you play stadiums at all? I played one collapse and no vacuum. Right? No vacuum. That's one thing I wanna mention real quick. Vacuum manu like, kind of sucks. That's like, that was the biggest regret that I played in the deck. Playing vacuum. Like, I wish it was a second collapse or like literally any other card. So I would recommend not playing vacuum, uh, for sure
Brent:Right. Well, and, and, but how many situations did you bump into where you needed to discard a parasol?
Liam:None. Zero. None, right? Like thoroughly none. It's just like beating you anyway. You're never gonna hit with evil. Tell, um, it's like, it's like hopeless for you. It, it's better, yeah, just play a horn and then try to gust the dwe on and go first. Kill the rcs and then play horn and then win. Um, that's like a much, much better game plan or just throw like paths or Pokegear, uh, evil tells not gonna work.
Mike:I agree.
Brent:So, uh, um, talk to us about, about, uh, day one and how that went and, and your thoughts on, uh, your day one experience.
Liam:Um, I, obviously, I'm a new master, so I, I was surprised by the amount of j I saw, like even as I was doing well in the tournament, right. I started, I, I finished eight one, day one, so I had like, I had a really good day one, and even at, as I was at like 4, 1, 5, 1, like, I was just like hitting a lot of weird decks. I, I think on round six when I was like five one, I hit, uh, like a Palkia, a one win nine tails, and it was like straight Palkia and they're like, their game plan was like Temple Roxanne kind of, right? And I, I saved the pumpkin bill and I, two of them. And then after the match, they're like, yeah, I got a bad mash up in. Somehow they're five one and they're, they got a bad match up in Ugia, um, there, there's just like a lot of Jenkins masters. There's like, it's not like they're playing like bad decks. It's, it's just like a lot of like tier two, tier three, tier four decks. Like, there's like Vika, EKK running around, all that stuff. I don't know, I, I saw a lot of that, um, even as like, I guess it's, cuz there's so many players, even as I was doing like better in the tournament. Um, and then from round seven, uh, all the way till top eight, I only hit Lugia Mew except for one Fusion. Yeah. That was
Mike:basically my tournament Round seven on You played all Lugia except for, um, Mew all of day two. Yeah. Oh, I did not realize that I don't, I didn't know that.
Liam:that's a lot of lu. Yeah, I, I had a ton of
Brit:lu that was Connor too. Connor's matchup spread was, I forget how many Lugia, but it, I wanna say it was more than six or seven across every round. Including, not including top cut. Yeah,
Liam:I,
Brent:so this is why, so you play, I mean, obviously you did pretty well against many, many Lugia. I think so. He lost round, you were lost round three. In day one. I lost run two, round two. In day one, he got paired against Rican w Ratzlaff and lost, uh uh, and that was a Lugia mirror. Mm-hmm. and day two, round 10, it, his first game in day two ever gets paired against Connor. Mm-hmm. good times. And then, and then round 11, so his second round day two, uh, gets paired against Riley Good times. I was like, uh, mean what, what, when those parents were coming out, I was like, now he's having like the real master's experience. Let's go. Right. like, uh, so, but, but I guess, I mean, you obviously had a very good record against Lu Gia in the mirror. Uh uh, so if somebody said, how do you play the mirror? What would you tell them?
Liam:Is there some magic? Um, I mean, I, I didn't even do no first, well, I, I, obviously, my only four watches throughout the tournament were two Lugia mirrors, so I would make maybe like six or seven and four right in the Lugia mirror. That's like not great. I, I'd beat one Lugia mirror because I, I flipped heads on a Snorlax actually beat two lu mirrors that way. They, like, one of them went for this like weird line where they ed it and then got all their energy on it and then I flipped heads and I just like put four powerful on and cod it. And then I was up like three prizes at that point and they hadn't taken one yet. Um, and same thing happened to another, another player and game one, that player also prized both their VStar So, yeah, I, I, I drew pretty well, I think more capturing room. I was playing 13 search cards. So obviously find like Archie hops a little bit more consistently. Um,
Mike:Roma. I was gonna say before we like, um, transition this into the cap aroma discussion, I can see why you're so biased for this card. If you have played so many Link Lugia is in the tournament and you think the best way to beat the Lugia mirror is just be more consistent. Am I right?
Liam:Yeah. I mean like the, there's no text really for Lou Gair. I, Chris Franco made a tweet earlier. He was like, oh, there's no text. The only text for Lou Gair is a way to die. I, I wanted to say, oh, it's capturing aroma Um, but, but yeah, I didn't have the chance to. Um, but yeah, he, he meant that tweet and it's like, I mean, it's pretty spot on. Like, especially if you, if you hit with Snorlax one, I think that's a good, like good lu tech, it makes going first like basically completely sealed if you hit with Snorlax one because you're taking like one or two prizes and like, it's just really, really awkward for them to hit back into it. Because it's like, it's such an efficient attacker. You don't really lose anything when the Snorlax the, and then you hit with like evil to, or something like that. And you, you just set yourself up really well. I don't really know how to describe it. Um, you're like taking a prize and you're giving up basically nothing and it just puts them in a weird spot. You're gonna go down to three. You give yourself like an extra turn to set up without sacrificing anything. Cause it's like a prize in like two energy, right? Use like DT capture. Mm-hmm. And then they can't really do anything usually cause they're not hitting gust. Like, um, especially if you hit a two prizer going first, you, you're just
Mike:completely right. And you don't even mind that Mew, like you have the bird keeper to get out of it, like if you stay asleep, but you don't even really care that much if you stay asleep. Right. Because that means that they didn't take a knockout and you're just kinda like in the same spot. The following turn. So like that in the mirror of Snorlax, like doesn't matter other matchups it does if it stays asleep. But yeah,
Liam:that tour will tell you different. I, I hit tour on the win and end and this is more proof that Snorlax hitting with Snorlax versus is really good. He hit with Snorlax first when he went first. Okay. His first attacker every game. game three, that drew pretty well and I hit Lumon Bird Keep and I one 20 it, he foot tails both times and then I stout winded it took two he's on the bench. So then I immediately hit two back to back Gus Koos I drew that game. Nice. Take six.
Mike:That's really funny. Um, I guess that's the one that's like the one way they can punish you in the mirror.
Liam:Yeah, it's it's, it was weird though. It was only because tort had two Vs on the bench. I was able to be like so efficient because yeah he had two Vs on the bench cause he ultra Boltund that one turn one I hit him with the echoing horn. And he wasn't playing collapse. So he had the Lugia and the, that one on the bench and it just got like two guest kits in the row.
Mike:So out of all of the tech cards that you played, obviously you like cap NaRoma, would you play echoing horn canceling cologne, Raku, Hala, Dialga, bird keeper, the other rainbow energies? Like which of these would you consider playing again and which of these would you definitely not. Yeah,
Liam:I, I think I basically keep the same list except maybe cut the collapsed, uh, cut the collapse. I cut the cos and keep the horn and then play three more Roma. So I gotta go to four.
Brent:Okay. So one card you didn't play that. I know after the tournament you, you told me that's a good card. Is V guard energy not that good? You're, you're
Liam:off the V guard energy train? Um, I, I would play the V guard if I was cutting the colored energy. Yeah. I play like more captors in a V guard. Gotcha. But. You're playing Raku. Yeah. You don't have space for it. Did
Mike:you play, I don't have your list in front of me. Did you play the fire, the dark and the lightning? Yeah, I did color. So you can, so you can reasonably attack with evil, tall, Raku and Charizard all on the same game if you need to. Did you ever do that?
Liam:I don't think so. I mean, like most games it's Con Connor actually like, talked about this. I think on Twitter it, it's one by either Raku or Evil Tell, like if you go two for one with any of those cards, you're just, you're just winning, right? Like you gotta a positive trend and you can just like swing the stuff from there. Um, so you usually don't eat both.
Mike:So you could cut one of the colored energies if you wanted then, or
Liam:capture, I suppose you could, yeah. Okay. For capture and, and like five colored whatever, six color maybe. And
Mike:cut. Did you play three capture? Sorry? You played two or three captures? I played
Liam:two. Okay. Capture's like honestly not that good. It's, it's only good term, one for finding Lugia and like, that's why I like the aromas more because for like basic search, being able to get lu mini, it's like, it's such a big deal.
Mike:Yeah, that's true. I don't, I don't think captures are like dead though, throughout the ga throughout the game. I did find, it surprised me how often throughout the tournament I like was debating whether I actually wanted to Archeops outta capture energy. I was like, oh, I kind of want to save the capture so I can find, you know, my next attacker at some point. Just from, you know, hand. So it's not, you know, it's not, it's not terrible throughout the game.
Liam:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're playing a lot of like tech basics that you have to find at very moment and usually you don't wanna bench too early. So like, it's good exact size, but you know, you can also just aroma for them. Flip right. You
Brent:know? Yeah. Alright. Alright. So let's, let's dig into the, uh, uh, capturing aroma. Uh, I mean is people in a playing zero? You played one and did better than most of them and, and now apparently the the hot new thing to run for is that online
Liam:Yeah. Um, so, so
Mike:give it break down your, break down your argument. Um,
Liam:all dude, do you want make the argument that's why was good? Or like the reasoning? It's why I played, I, I guess those are kind of the same thing. Yeah. Um, but Alright. Yeah. The, the reason I played aroma was cause I initially played in Arkansas cause I was like looking for a search card. I didn't wanna play old football because I didn't wanna discard the cards. Um, it's like, usually it's pretty costly to like, discard cards, especially in like intel decks. And I was like, oh, this thing grabs basics and evolutions. Just like so good. Um, I actually don't think it's great an intel deck. It was pretty bad that that deck, um, cause you have to, you have to draw cards for it to be good because, um, yeah, it's flippy. Like you can't like intel for it and be like, I need to find an evolution. Here's capturing aroma. But when you draw into cards, it's basically like the same thing. Or like, the, the way I imagined it in Lugia is when you research for seven, you draw six cars and you draw one more. And now you can choose for it to be like a quick ball, an evolution, incense, or an aroma if you choose for it to be a quick ball. Like, it depends on the situation. Like sometimes it'll be good when you're looking for a basic, but sometimes it'll be bad if you choose an incense, the exact same reasoning when you're looking for a basics. Sometimes it'll be good when you're looking for an evolution and sometimes it'll be bad when you're looking for a basic. And that's literally exactly capturing aroma. Half the time it's good, half the time it's bad. Uh, like depending on the situation on which you flip. Um, so like they have like the same effectiveness in that sense. Um, they're definitely like, Capturing AR is definitely a worse search card because I think finding evolutions is really important, right? That's why evolution incentive is more important than, I don't think, I'd say quick ball, maybe, maybe not. Um, but it's, it's better than capturing aroma because finding guaranteed evolutions is really important because you wanna find three evolutions, start two. You only wanna find one basic. And so having a 50 50 chance of a basic or an evolution isn't as strong. It's like, uh, a guaranteed evolution. Quick balls better and ultra ball are better. Ultra ball because it's guaranteed whatever you want. Quick ball because you're discarding cards, um, which is all important to the, uh, strategy. But the next best search card is capturing aroma because in terms of like digging potential, when you're looking for an evolution or a basic, um, depending on the situation, it's the exact same. Um, so it's like the next best search. Uh, and like the 12 number of people arrived at, I think is completely arbitrary cuz they're filling their deck with bad cards like choice belts and loss vacuums. Um, when they could be playing just more consistency and people realize they should take out the bad cards, play more consistency. That's what they've done now they're playing for aromas at least. So,
Brent:so here's, I mean, no surprise guys. I've been, I've been getting all this in my ear for like two weeks every day now. And the, the thing that I haven't really discussed with Liam that I, I guess is interesting is, so, I mean we all, we all acknowledge that like, probably the nicest thing about evolution incidents versus capturing ar Roma is when you have, before you play the instance, you know what card you can get. And like that knowledge is a blessing in some way, right? Like you can actually plan your turn as opposed to you have to play the card and then you get to find out what your plan for the turn is, right? And, and quick ball and ultra ball are great cuz you can discard cards and, and you know what card you're going to get when you play them. So like, there's, there's, uh, advantage in having knowledge and there's advantage in having discards, particularly in a deck like this that requires discards. The, I guess though the weird trick that I can't figure out how you would model the value of is like Liam's point is in the first two turns you have to find one basic and three evolutions, or your deck just doesn't work like you wanted to. Right? Like, that's just straight up fact, right? And, but then after that it's like a stream of basics that you want to get. Like, to your point, Mike, you want, you want these tech attackers that like, when you need'em, you need'em and you really need'em. And so, so there's, there's a moment, very early game where you urgently need evolutions and then the rest of the game you need basics. But like, I don't know how you weigh like those two
Liam:things. I, I, I think the search lay came for basics. I, I never struggled finding like the right attackers I needed unless it was off like Marnie and I prick or something. Yeah, because one of the really neat things about Lugia, um, is that as you're digging through, like after you get both your Archeops out, you thin your deck really, really fast. So it's really easy to find late game techs because like all the energy in your deck are gone. Right? So like all of your researchers are literally into like, the only other cards, the deck plays, which are Pokegear and ball cards. All your Archeops are gone. Yours are gone. Hopefully if you're like thinning your deck and stuff. So like all your drawing into is your attackers, ball cards and other supporters. Yeah, I suppose that's, so I,
Brent:I know I, I kind of tweeted that like the, the TLDR of Liam's thing was, you know, 50% of the time you want basics and 50% of the time you want evolutions.
Liam:So like a quick ball is like
Brent:50% of the time. Good. An evolution I sense is 50% of the time good. And a capturing aroma is like,
Liam:50% of the time. Good. Uh, um,
Brent:like, so I, I think my thinking kind of lines up with Liam's in that like the late game basics are not as important as that. Like turn one, turn two, one basic three evolutions. So like, like even though you need five basics over the course of the game, the aggregation of the value of those basics is maybe it's like kind of 50 50 split. And in that way I'm like, okay, like I kind of get on the train, I guess like the math kind of work. Like I recognize that the, the saying capturing aroma is like 50% of the time good is like, not quite right in that you're, the composition of your deck is slightly different and the pace at which you need them is slightly different. But when I, when I weigh it all up, I think it works out to about 50 50 ish. Did that make sense? Did that sound a little
Mike:mathy? It seemed reasonable to me. I mean, this is, it's, this is one of the hard things about Pokegear is that it's. Pretty close to, impossible to quantify the value of a card, right? Like Yeah. Cause they're, so, as you've talked about, like these cards are useful, more or less useful at different parts of the game. Um, and yeah, it like some cards are not use, like take a card like Roxanne, like it's literally unplayable for X amount of turns, but it's very good on the last turn or two. And like, so how do you quantify that? I, I don't know, Right,
Brit:right. That's like where my objection came from. Like, is is nothing really about the, in fact, if anything, I think the, the math that Liam presents is right. I think it's sort of accurate within the, the presentation, but sort of more, more so landing on that point was this, that I think there's sort of elements to it that. Would maybe make the math as it's presented currently, like a little shakier. But I think, I think to Mike's point, like,
Liam:yeah, like math is like the weakest part of capturing it. like, at least because like yeah, Mew, most people look at it and they're like, Ew, 50 50. It's just flip a coin on it. It must be awful. But like, when you actually play with the card, like there's a lot of situations where like basics and evolutions are good. And like, even if you miss, it's not like choice Belt was gonna get you that, that evolution or like loss vacuum was gonna get you an evolution. Like when you're like, oh, I need an evolution. Capturing aroma's not gonna get it for me. Like the alternative cards that you would play aren't going to get it for you either. So it's, it's like, it's a much better card when you actually like, play with it. And, and like imagine as a choice belt, like, wow, thank God it's an aroma. Um, play a game with it, you know? But like the, the math I guess wouldn't like indicate that, but it's like, it's really, really good. Um, it, it feels much better than like, It's like 50%. Cuz I think when a lot of people look at cards, I'm like this is the right way to look at them. If you only look at cards in like their best case scenario, obviously every card's gonna seem amazing. So, so like when we evaluate these cards, we instantly look at them and they're like, what's the worst case scenario? Let's just assume that always happens, right? Like, or like not always, but like they're like, let's assume that happens and try to like figure things out from there. But that's not like actually how the card works when you play. Like I think
Brit:there are other elements too again, that I think just compound the quantification problem because you know, depending on at what stage in the game you're playing, I would think there's like, A value what that number is. I'm not sure to, you know, the fact that these things can't, these other cards don't fail and like, you know, like whether that's like losing one game here or there, like on the, on the double whiff and things like that versus the, like, the successful flippings and the setup part of the stage. I think there's just like, again, I, I think I'm on, I'm, I'm on the aroma train, so I'm not trying to like push back against this. It's more just like understanding the problem correctly more than anything. And I think that like, and you know, another thing too and you know, is, is just like hard and, uh, people are like, people like Mikey are very good at math and people not as good as Mikey will use the same math just like every so slightly incorrectly. And then when you do it that way, it just, you know, could be a slippery slope. Um, but yeah, I, I lost my train of thought on the math point I was gonna make there as I often do. But I had something, maybe it'll come back to me.
Brent:So, so the other thing that I think is different, uh, uh, was different about
Liam:your LucMetal list that I think
Brent:is, is a, a less addressed hot take in the community is the no choice
Mike:belt. Yeah, I was actually gonna bring that up too, because I also do not quite Choice Belt. And me and Liam, I think, agree that it's not really needed. Yeah.
Brent:Is is it, is it like a, a like a, a hot take to be, like Choice Belt's a crutch for a bad plane?
Mike:I don't know if that's the reason why people play that is a, that is a hot take in why, and it's also a hot take that I think Choice Belt is not very good in the deck, but I'm pretty sure we're correct
Liam:I, I, I haven't played without Choice Belt and without Rag. I found that Raku makes up for a lot of the weaknesses that like no Choice Bell creates because you can just finish stuff off that like you need Choice Belt to KO while setting up something else that you need. Choice Belt to KO. Uh, Raku makes the Mew matchup really, really strong. Um, as long as you don't get like turn one cheese.
Mike:Um, wait, why is Raku getting
Liam:against you? Um, there's like, all right, the Raq basically makes it that you're like threatening game in like two turns after your first attack because if you Lugia for like 200, you throw like DT double capture on there, you, you hit'em for 200. You're threatening to like Raq K on EX turn and like if there's Oricorio Oricorio, if they play Oricorio, you throw Powerfuls on there. I suppose you should just do that like by default. Um, if they Oricorio, you're threatening to go like 3, 2, 1 really fast, right? Yeah. Like you take, take the KO with the Raku, take the KO and the Oricorio, and then you gu KO, which Unec and you win. Uh, if they don't Oricorio, you can knock out the meal with Raku and Chip. Um, Uh, Chipa Stoutland or no Chip, chip Gensec. And then when you KO it, you can KO it with Stoutland if you just stack all your powerfuls on there. Okay. Um, cool. That's like a really good line. So like, basically from that first Luki attack and like they've taken one or two prizes at that point, right? If everything's going well for them from that first Luki attack, you're winning in like two turns and you're hitting with a one Prizer in between. Um, and there's like, they don't have a lot of, a lot of play Stop it. Psychic Leap is really awkward for them, um, and really difficult for them to play Psychic Leap as well. Cause if they like leap into a meal, then you go chip it and you like set the play up again. They're, they're like a weird, they're like the same spot and they haven't made any progress, I guess. And you're also threatening to like kill the gente, the nexter using the ryku while hitting the same chip unless they hit like tablets or something like that. Um, the math is just like generally set up well for you once you go Raku Makes sense.
Mike:And so like Belt is probably best against Mute, right? That's like the best matchup to play Belt. The second best I guess is Mirror, I guess
Liam:Like Mirror is already decided by who goes first. Like it's only good if you're hitting back at the first Lugia with your own Lugia instead of Evil Tall. And like the game has to be going perfect for you except you can't find Evil Tall for some reason, right? Like that's the only situation where it's good.
Mike:So the only, the only situation that I have furied since not playing Choice Belt is that if the other Lugia player knows you don't play Joyce Belt, they can actually play two Lugia down, like two VStar down and you know, they use the first one to attack you. Evil ol it. And then you don't actually have. A good way to one shot the second one, especially if they play V Guard energy. Um, that's the only thing
Liam:I, I, I think I hit that at one point. I can't, I can't remember exactly. Um, but I think they did go to Lugia, um, and, and just some random round, um, because I, I know what, and this comes up a lot in the mirror. I just went like Gu Archeops and then chip the Lugia and now it dies to Snorlax. Like the one 20 plus Snorlax numbers are like amazing. Um, and especially since Rakus such like an energy, um, heavy attacker, having something like as efficient as the Snorlax, that's also colorless. Um, to finish off the Lugia is really, really strong. Um, like you can just two hit it and it's fine, especially if you're taking a prize with the Raku anyway. Um, I think it was fine. Makes sense. Yeah. Uh, all, all that's with Raku, so.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I, I like that. So no choice belt better with racq. I remember what I
Brit:was gonna say and it's just about on the sort of like arbitrary and like, um, like percents, like, is 50%, is it 50 50? Is that good or bad? It's like, oh, well it depends. Like, you know, things like that. When we are, when we're sort of quantifying these things, like sometimes like 20% or, you know, like a one in seven that could be really good. Like, and, and so like I think we, we generally like, ah, 50 50, it's a coin flip. Like something like that, like, eh, might not be like so good. It, it just all, it's circumstantial. And so like a lot of these times when we just sort of think about numbers, like purely, I think we, we sort of like miss not to say that it was done here, but just like, um, statistics never lie. Liars use statistics. It's just that point again. Mm-hmm. making sure you understand the, the numbers, what's sort of actually being conveyed. Um, but yeah, I mean I, again, I think, I think you're right. And I think too, you know, I thinking of like there was a big shift in 2012. It was actually Kern Hill at 2011 Worlds. But before, like when we went into um, next destinies, when Mewtwo came out, we went from, there was Pokegear collector, was sort of the main basic supporter at the time. It was just, uh, heart, gold, silver search deck for three, three basics to hand, um, was all, all that it did. Um, but there was this huge shift just because the format changed and it just like got a lot faster and people started playing doable, uh, which is just, uh, flip two coins, uh, for each head search your deck for a basic Pokegear. Um, and there's, you know, there's always sorts of, lots of back and forth there. Like do you still play some collector? Do you just, do you still play, do ball, like. How do you, how do you manage this? And at the end of the day, it was just all do balls. Um, you know, there wasn't really any turning back once, like everyone started shifting, but there was, there was similarly like a back and forth. It was like, oh, well this one whiffs and this one doesn't. And you know, the one is a supporter and one is a trainer. So not quite, quite the same analogy. That's a pretty important distinction. Um, but still the same, you know, at, at certain points of it are in common at the very least. And I think that like we, you know, as, as a community, I think just as people is just like a human psychology thing. We, we get so like attached to, you know, what we know. And it's, it's hard for us to shake ourselves out of like paradigms. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of, uh, things where like we look at it, you know, take the truth or something like that is always the perfect example where it's just like you post that list on Palkia Gym month before, you know, a nobody account posts that on Palkia gym a month before Worlds. And people are just like, this is garbage. This is a binder drop. Like, what's going on here? Um, and as similarly as we, you know, we're so attached to our supporter lines and things like that, we were in more so in previous formats than now, and often we're wrong. And it just, you know, not just in games or anything like that, but academia, sciences, just human behavior generally speaking, I think. Um, so yeah. Will, will we see a lot more aroma this weekend? I, I don't know. I I wouldn't be surprised. I will there be a lot of copy caps. I'm not sure. Like I don't, I doubt Tor is going, but like, I would bet money that tort would never play the card. Uh, but I could, I could see, well I guess Bradner told you that you, it wasn't like your reasoning wasn't sound or something like that, so maybe that group would be resistant too, but I could see others being inspired. Definitely the choice belt I feel like will probably stick, um, that, that feels like a kind of the, the next just micro change to the way the deck works going into the weekend.
Liam:Um, yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't think any like, like top, top players, like, toward Isaiah and like, yeah, I, I guess those are like the two best players right now. Isaiah's group, um, uh, would put, would play a card like that. But I think, I think there's definitely a lot of players who are like very involved, but aren't like at that level yet, though. Don't pick it up. I, I know some people who are like that um, that are, I've, I've at least told'em to pick it up and, you know, they've done so, so far. Um, and like, I, I, I think anybody who's trying to like, you know, like the kind of players who are just trying to like, get an edge through like, playing like slightly off Melmetal decks or, or like, just like texts and stuff like that, uh, they'll play it as opposed to like, you know, consistency, demons like tour or something. Um, even though Aroma is like a consistency card, I, I still view it as kind of like a tech for Lu game mirror. Interesting. Like it's a tech for beating stuff by being consistent. Right, right. It's just the most like version Yeah. Like,
Mike:alright, we've been going for a while. You wanna talk about a couple of these other
Brent:things? Yeah, yeah. Let's, let's talk, shall shall we skip to, shall we skip to talk about some new cards?
Mike:Yeah. I mean, so Scarlet and Violet got a couple of the new cards revealed. Um, I don't think any of them are super interesting. EX to me, at least. If you guys wanna talk about any of them, we can, but the only one that's was interesting to me is the Gardevoir EX. Um, it was kind of the first, it is the first example of a powerful stage two Pokegear in a, in a really long time since basically the GX, uh, the GX stage two s. So, Um, I don't have the card in front of me. I know its ability is you can attach psychic energy from your discard pile as much as you want. I think. What do they take two damage when you do it? Yeah. Mm-hmm. and then it's attack is three energy two 10. Does that sound right? One 90. One 90. Okay. Um, what'd
Liam:you say heals special
Mike:conditions as well heals special conditions. Ah, yes. The only, those attacks are always really funny, right? Because like the most relevant special conditions are the ones that you're not actually able to attack with poison and burn. And if you decide to go for the 50 50 on confusion. Um, but, uh, it is just exciting to me to see a powerful stage two Pokegear, um, because it signifies that maybe the format will slow down a little bit and go back to. You know, something like the sun and moon era. I don't think we're ever going back to, uh, diamond Pearl, Ruby Sapphire era, but at least back to Sun and Moon I think would be a step in the right direction.
Brent:Yeah, I assume any, anytime you can accelerate as much energy from your discard as you want, that seems really
Liam:good. Right? Yeah.
Mike:it might not be good. It might not be good initially. I don't know, like the format still might be a little bit too fast with stuff like Arceus and Mew and whatnot. Um, but I'm okay if like the new cards aren't great immediately. Like, that'll be good for the game if the new cards are not great immediately. I've
Brit:seen some like SV on lists and I just, like, my brain just spiraled. I just like can't imagine like, Playing like a, just like a invented format where there's just like, you decide, you figured out what rotation was yourself, and there's only one set and it says, look, look at how good this, this my, uh, my Arceus deck is man, like It's like, it's, they, they did that too for, uh, conceived rotation last year. I remember that was the first time I saw like Inteleon start being enlists. And I just like, why are we playing fictional formats? But this is not a necessary tangent.
Brent:Alright. Yeah. Um, Mike, did you wanna talk about Riley's retro online tournaments as well?
Mike:Yeah, I just kinda wanted to give a, a quick shout out to them for running these events. So Riley's been running for, I don't know, maybe a month or so. Um, just old format events. They've mostly been world's formats. Uh, but the last one that I played in was like, The 20, it was like the evil to Garb format. Um, what was that like 2016? 27? 16?
Brent:Dude, that, you know what I, I remember seeing that announced and I think I told Liam, you should go play this. Cause I like, yeah. All these formats are super fun, man.
Mike:Yeah. And it, it's funny that like, I can just say, oh, it's the evil to Garb format and you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Brent:Well, I mean, the nice thing about like PTCGO and these formats is like, they're recent enough that they're like reasonable touchstones for me and Liam. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Whereas I recognize like, when you guys think retro, you think you're thinking like you're predating that era. Like that that was, that was like right when we started playing. That was like the first Dex Liam played was like plasma. So totally down with that.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Um, well actually when, when I say evil to Garb, I'm actually talking about like, um, like when Premo won, it was like the first ic. Yeah. Yeah. It was the, the very first one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, But, uh, so I've played two. I played two over, like the winter break. I played the world's 2015. I played Primal Grout on, uh, I ended up losing in top four to someone that I knew, but I'm blanking right now, who also played Primal Grout on. So we played a mirror and I lost Game one, and I was like, I do not wanna play this Um, and then this past one was the, the 2016 Evil to Garb format, and I played Vespa Quinn, but Vespa Quinn was weird at that point because battle compressor I'd rotated. So it was just like Vespa, Quinn's Ryka, and then other stuff. Um, and I also lost in top four. I played against the Vol Canyon where I won the first game and then lost games two and three. Um, but they're just, they're fun tournaments. Um, and I wanted to mention them for two reasons. Um, the first one is that, especially as I was playing Vespa Quinn. It really felt so similar to this format in the, in the sense of like how the speed and the tempo of the game played. Uh, and part of it was that I was playing a single prize deck inves Bitcoin. And I've played a lot of single prize decks like in the last year, uh, and recently with Zoroark Box that like you just, you kind of approach the game, like basically exactly the same. You can go down two prizes as long as you're then able to take enough gust koos, so like against the Volcan deck, um, I won the games where cuz they had, they played the baby All Canyon, which can trade with my guys. Um, so as long as I'm able to only go down two prizes, then Co two baby all canyons and now. Um, they have two prizes and I have four prizes, and then Lisander KO, two exes, I'll win the prize trade. So like the game that I won, I won that game. The games that I lost, he was able to stick his third baby Ball Canyon in the active, and I was not able to gust around it. So it just struck me how, um, similar the game feels actually to playing some of these old formats, which I think is good and bad. I don't know. I'm sure there's good and bad there, Uh, and, and,
Brent:and do, do the, do you just have to accept that you can't play a supporter?
Mike:Turn one. So you, what we do is we go pass, pass, pass, pass. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, that does benefit some decks, right? So like, whenever I play a format where Gardevoir GX is legal, I'll pretty much always play Gardevoir GX, partially just because I like playing it, but also plus one card in a deck like that is actually a pretty big deal. Um, so. So those tournaments are fun. So that was kind of the one reason I wanted to mention just I had this like, uh, realization that I, the, the game is pretty similar still, even though like Inteleon, the Inteleon engine I think is probably the biggest shakeup that we've had in a really long time, um, to how games are played. Um, so that's kind of cool. Uh, but the second reason in, and this kind of transitions into the last thing on our list here is, and I don't think we talked about it two weeks ago, Jason Klazinski is running a retro tournament in Florida in February. It is the weekend after Orlando regionals. Um, I've seen some people advertised on Twitter, so I assume it's a somewhat public thing. Uh, I will not be going because it is like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the week after, uh, regionals. I think he planned it with the intention that if people wanted to go to Orlando and then make. Take a, like a vacation over that following week and then come and play more retro Pokegear. They could, uh, I think it's mostly focused on the R S P K format, the EX format. Um, so if that's something you're interested in and you don't know who to talk to about that, feel free to reach out to me and I can get you in touch with Jason. I can get you in the details. And, um, yeah, it's some, it's in Orlando somewhere. Um, but I know a lot of, uh, very good players are planning on going. I believe tort is going, um, I think promo that's going and then like a bunch of other old school, uh, players. So it, uh, it should be a good time. Uh, but I won't be able to go,
Brent:so. So do you have a, uh, big, uh, deck recommendation, uh, what you would be playing if you were going?
Mike:I haven't played a lot of R S P K recently. I played a bit over the, like the first covid year. Um, I think staler decks just seem to be very, very dominant. Um, staler Rayquaza and Jason more recently has been playing Staler camera up. Uh, and so those seem to be like the two best decks. Um, so I, I would just kind of have default to those. Like the last big r s PK 21 was toward verse Jason in the finals toward was playing Stanler Rayquaza, Jason Stanler camera up. So I'd have to like really think about it and test it to, to, to decide that one of those isn't the best deck. Brit.
Brent:Yeah, you must have a hot take on the
Brit:format. Oh, I was gonna say, yeah, I haven't really caught up, kept up with the adaptations. I like, I'm aware there's staler stuff when I was playing, but I don't think it has sort of reached the critical mass that it is now in the format. Um, I would have to do some thinking. Uh, there's lots of d lots of decks that are very fun to play, um, that I think are viable. Like I, I, you know, there might be a best deck, but I think there's a lot of decks that are fine. Um, you know, just play, play what you want. I know like the, the Arcanine hound deck is like, was sort of one of the early, um, like newer things to come out of the format. Um, and it's strong, but I like, I like Mecham a lot. Um, but I'd, I'd really have to think and like look at lists to see how I would stack up against these ne and deck build around the Stanler strategy.
Brent:So like Rs p K is like a, a semi imaginary format, right?
Mike:Correct. I think semi is a good word because I do think it was played for some amount of time in Japan. Right.
Brent:But it was never played in America, right? Correct. I I mean, do you think, do you think by the end of this tournament quote, like the format will have been solved? Like, I think one of the interesting things about R S P K is it does seem like the Meta is constantly shifting a little bit, and maybe that's just me not paying enough attention. No, I think
Brit:that's right. I think I, I, I don't know too much about it. I played someone
Brent:in,
Brit:oh gosh, Milwaukee, maybe, I don't remember one of the, the, the couple regionals that I've been to in the last year or so, um, who was very, he was, he was from St. Louis, but he was very involved with it. Um, but yeah, I assume Jason is just breaking it like once a week or something like that. Like I just, like pet project or something. Um, but yeah, I, I do think there are adaptations and iterations, just like any other format. But yeah, it's, you know, probably still played less than expanded at the end of the day. Um,
Mike:that's the thing, like, Like, there's not a lot of people playing it, but the people playing it, a lot of them are really good. So like, maybe it'll be solved just because those players are so good, but when you just have less people playing it, there's always a chance, you know, more eyes means more innovation generally. Right, right.
Brent:Yes. That's like, I, I, I guess I wonder if like, the reason it's not, uh, it's considered a, a more like interesting format and it's not like completely solved is really because it was never played in the States and if like Sure. If it had to go through what the current format is having to go through, like people would be like, you should just play this deck. It's the best decade.
Mike:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brent:Alright. Um, yeah guys, we've been going for a while. I feel like we're at a good point, but I have, I've been thinking about new things that we could do on the pod and uh, uh, I thought. One of my favorite things that, that I've seen people do is, uh, uh, a like, would you rather question, so I, here's, here's my current thinking podcast listeners. I got two kind of, would you rather questions? One that is Pokegear related and one that is not Pokegear related. And listeners, if you have ideas, just tweet'em right at us and I'll get it into the next pod. But here's, here's my idea, and you guys can, I'm gonna give you guys both examples. We'll do two today, and then you, we can decide which one we like more after the fact and, and how that went. And try to come up with some, uh, uh, better ones. So, for the rest of your life, rest of your life, Liam Brit, Mike, would you rather, every deck you build, you have to play four research or four n.
Mike:Yeah. And, and for sure Really? Yeah, a hundred percent. Not even close. Okay. There's like, there,
Brit:there's times where n was legal, where if you could play eight of it, like you would like, it was, it was just, it's just that good of a card and like always, always a
Mike:strong play. Yeah, it's a good question cuz they're both very powerful supporters, but n is both, both things. It's, it's a draw card in the early game and it's a good card in the late game and it kind of fits into a lot,
Brit:like, at any, any point too, like, uh, you know, not quite as effective since you shuffle versus just bottom decking. But like, is there games where you got end of six and just lost, like, that happened plenty too. So, yeah.
Mike:And it shuffle so it's more versatile, right? Like research is really good in allotted decks, but it's also like real bad in some decks too. Because of the discard effect. I'm trying to
Brit:think. Alright. I guess like the, over the history of the game, like thinking about, you know, let's pretend we can analyze every deck from base set to now and like get a stack gas as to like how many decks n would be better for and how many research would be better for, and I would maybe, I would maybe think it's pretty close if I would even, maybe even say research might be overall better just because of, you know, the way the game was played to the first, you know, all the wizards of the coast years and that, like, I, I think research is a pretty necessary audition, but it, it would be a cool stat project or
Liam:something. I, I will say though, I think all the fun decks, you don't want to just like frame dead, discard your hand every turn. Oh, I
Brent:thought the frontex you do discard
Mike:your hand.
Liam:No, the, the, the frontex are, Slower decks. Oh, see,
Brent:may, maybe, I was thinking like, Flareon is like my idea of a fun deck and I'm like, well, of course I, if I play basketball, I definitely wanna discard everything all the time. I'm gonna mill my hand down to zero, like at the end of turn one. Is that not the fun deck? Mm-hmm. No. Uh, yeah. So you guys, you guys can hopefully tell, I put very little thought into, uh, what that question was. Uh, um, but, but I feel like there's some, like, uh, there's some opportunity to mine some gold there. Um, alright, so here's, here's the non Pokegear question
Liam:for you guys. Um, for the
Brent:rest of your life, your 10 inches shorter or you have constant upper inner thigh shaving that noticeably alters your gate. Alters my what? Like, it, it noticeably alters your gate. You have to walk. Yeah. Funny.
Mike:Yeah. Oh,
Brit:okay. I would walk funny, I think. I mean, like might Mike, I have more to lose height than, yeah,
Brent:I reckon When you say 10 inches shorter, Mike's like, oh, I don't know how much shorter we can get.
Mike:Yeah. I don't know, like four Four. Like, I'm five three, so like four, three is really short. like four, three is really short, man, I dunno. 4, 5, 10 inches. 10 inches. Not a four. Five. Oh, four five, sure, sure. Um, like, oh, well
Brent:now, now you're fully That's why I draw
Mike:the line Yeah. I don't know. That'd be, that's a pretty close one to me. I'd probably go with the chaffing, but, uh, that's really close. That's really close. I think if I was like, I think, I dunno, if I was taller, I think I'd be more likely to do the, the. Interesting.
Liam:how
Brent:about you, Liam? You still have, you still have height?
Liam:Hope, the comfort. I, I also have to live longer with it.
Mike:That's a good point. We got like 15 years on,
Brent:but you'd have to live longer with being short.
Liam:That's true. And no, like I'm just so annoying, dude,
Brent:that that's, that's the question, right? That's the question. Alright. Very good stuff guys. The John Pauls are our outro. We'll be back next week with, uh, San Diego results and,
Liam:uh, uh, so much other stuff. Cool. Easy.