Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. Uh, we are currently missing our normal announcer Brent Halliburton. He should be here. Hopefully he's just running a little late. I am Mike Fouchet. I have a little bit of a cold, um, so you can hear that in my voice probably. Uh, and I am here with Brit Pybas, the other regular here on the Trashalanche. Um, shout out to Dragon Shield for sponsoring. Whatever else Brent normally says, no idea if we have more five star reviews, but if you do, if we do, we'll read'em later. If not, please leave us a review. It is very helpful. So today we don't have a ton on our agenda. Um, but the first thing we wanted to talk about a little bit is Vancouver regionals, which just happened this past weekend. Ian Rob took the w I think earning his fifth regional win in the masters division, which is super impressive. He is clearly one of the best players in the, in the, you know, in the last. Four or five years. Uh, and he continues to show us that, uh, he played Lugia at this event. I think he played Lugia at the previous event, but before that he was kind of known for playing the Palkia, Articuno Inteleon. But just like a lot of other players at this event, They decided why not just play Lugia? And I guess that's kinda where we'll start. So Brit, you were just looking at Ian's matchups a little bit. You wanna talk about that?
Brit:Yeah, I was just curious. With the new Pokestats function, it's very easy to see just like how many, how well people have to do or like, not just that, but they're. I'm just sort of curious. Cursory scan of the top eight and the top 16 players like that, Ian played against 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. He played against 11 lu's total, including that's including the three top cut rounds. It's a little inflated of course, compared to somebody who doesn't make it that far. There's more rounds, but so he goes nine, one and one in Malu mirror to. Make it that far and then like comparatively, let's see, we'll just pick another, let's see. Daniel, Joe Zo, our other Lugia performer, top four. He played against 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Nine, 10. Oh, he also played against 11, but like was, seven of them are in a row. He played seven mirrors in a row. and won
Mike:all of them.
Brit:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then Stefan, tobacco and old, old player, those not heard the name before. Always a star performer from Northern California. Let's see. He played against only 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. He only played against five, so he had a di. Much more diverse spread, but it's just even more and more and more like Kieran just played just as many. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Nine, 10, like all of these people played over half their tournament of Lugia, Amirs. And we've got two more left. We've got, uh, Fort Wayne and Charlotte, I think in the reverse order, but still to go in this format. Mm-hmm. will we, can we break? Can we break like 40%? Meta of the total attendees in the LucMetal. Like we need to just keep pushing that number even more and more and more if we can. Maybe then they'll, I mean, I guess it's just like not a concern, I guess, that that would be like, if we knew we weren't rotating and like knowing that, you know, LucMetal loses all this stuff. I wonder if like, you know, this is a conversation because like we have it consistently about like, band Malta, band adp, and like there's no real discussion here about like banning anything, which I, I think is right. Like there's no particular. Offender, like I, I guess like it would be Archeops, I guess, and it, it just doesn't feel like right to ban it, I guess, again, because it's just kind of only useful here, but strange again too, that, you know, our Meta spreads are, you know, even more dominant with Lugia, but we're, we don't seem to be as, we're like complacent about it, like we're all depressed and down, down and out, that this format just keeps on going. But there's not a lot of like, Angry Balance talk, I guess, which is a little surprising again, to say that it's seems it happened a lot like over the Covid period and things like that. Mm-hmm. Particularly with adp and like I said, there was like brief discussion, ofta ban, like banning that, but I always found that one to be pretty silly.
Mike:Yeah. There's lots of ways I feel like that they could have designed. Lugia to be a little bit more balanced. Like they could have said with his, someone in Star ability, you can only take one Pokegear. Like, uh, they have to be two unique Pokegear, right? You can't choose two Pokegear of the same name. And I feel like that would be like a really cool balance because the deck probably still be good. Like we see Lugia players going for one Archeops relatively frequently and doing fine and. You could, it would open. To, to do other cool things. Like I know there was the, the ing evolution that was like toyed around to beat control. Like that would be played much more. You would see the summoning star, uh, to reuse dun sparse. Sometimes we saw that on stream actually in Vancouver this past weekend. I forget who it was. Um, but they were playing, it was Lugia against Reggie's and they started Dun Sparse and then the Dunsparce got knocked down on turn one and then they sub and starred back Dun sparse. Uh, and it was a very good play for them for sure. They had the option to get to Arceus, but they chose to get NUS sparse and Archeops, which was cool. Um, yeah, I don't think they've released the. Meta shares for this event yet. But I do think Brit that you were, I, I think this was the most lug. Concentrated Lugia of, of any tournament so far. And like you said, uh, I think the last two events will also be ridiculously high, like four, like 40 to 45% maybe. I
Brit:mean, maybe we could explain that. I think there's, there's like a, an easy, an easier explanation to why there's a lot of Lugia and you know, it's just simply the fact that this is a smaller regionals, but because it's a smaller regional, You know, the percentage, you know, the overall percentage of traveling is, you know, people who aren't locals, people who aren't from the Pacific Northwest and things like that. Like overall, just because there's lower attendees in general, like that number would be way higher. Like the, the stipend chasers, the grinders and things like that. And they're these ones that just like, oh, you know, you know, they don't, they don't see it as a conversation or something like that. It's just like you, you play lu gear or you go home. Whereas like your average player might just be like, well, Lu Gear is the best. I'm, you know, still gonna play this deck that I like and things like that. And naturally you would get more of those, the larger the regionals is as well. Um, but yeah, definitely, definitely. I think that it's just, it's just, I don't know. It's interesting cause like the, the top eight, you know, obviously Zacian d Arceus, Aldon and the, the guru player, like we had to beat some Lugia as, you know, to get that far. But just to sort of still get the same end result is always like just a testament to the power of the deck. And like, I mean, we've talked about that a lot. There's a lot. Just cards, you know, for instance, that Lugia can play, that can make the Arceus or out on matchup, like just very winnable. Like probably 60 40 or something like that. Like if you play cologne, like and echo things bad.
Mike:Yeah. Um. One. Another funny note is that Azul Grant, Caleb, that whole group, they decided to play Lugia for the first event of this, the, their first time playing Lugia the first time, not playing lost box in this format. And I feel like that's also a pretty good sign of where everyone heads at right now. In terms of Lugia. Yeah, I mean
it's,
Brit:it's either that. You, you have fun with the Mew list somehow. You know, whether that's Dr or Andrew Maho again, still playing, playing Pikachu in Mew I believe. And that's just, um, you know, you know, I see what it's for. Like the Reggie matchup I think is, can be fairly shaker and like for a while now has been reliant on Lost City plays too. Try to beat it to try to stop it from just losing the prize exchange. Um, and I, you know, Pikachu is obviously an answer to that. Is it? Really worth playing or think guys just kinda like having fun with it. Like I would think it's a mix of both, but I would be surprised if, you know, you're presenting me with like this, no, objectively speaking, this is the best milless possible. Like, I would be surprised if that were the case. Not to say that it couldn't be still, but uh, my sense is that it's, it's writing that line between the two. It's like, Hey, I might as well have fun. I mean, I remember. Cities and bow roads I would play when I like, didn't need the points or, and I would, I would play a random bad part or like a, a stupid one 11 tech and things like that, so. Mm-hmm. maybe some of, yeah.
Mike:Yeah. It's, uh, Both, both players that didn't play Lugia in top eight. Zacian and Kobe, they played against the least amount of Lugia, Mm-hmm. which is pretty funny. They on each, only played like five or six Lugia. Now in theory, Zacian wanted to play against Lugia. Arceus. Aldon is pretty good. Against that, but the Guru deck is not as strong against Lugia. Now they both beat a bunch of Lugia, but it is funny that those two people played against the least amount of Lugia and they St and they made it. And so like you wonder if they had played against nine Lugia in Swiss. Maybe they don't make top cut cuz even though our guest Adon is good against it, like when you play against NAIC, Lugia, you're gonna lose to some of them because Lugia is just so good. So, uh, it's a interesting thing to think about. I also don't know Kobe played against Zacian in top four and that was not the street match. I don't really know how he won Archist or Aldon seems really good against Gu Gure cuz you just hit through the damage reduction and you have your own healing. Or I think, uh, actually don't know if Zacian played healing. We don't have his list right now, but. That's interesting. Yeah, sort of
Brit:my, my expectation was sort of more so that gja would be fine in that matchup, but like, just talking about it out loud, like are Right, the, the damage aggregate, like, you, you just, you'll die eventually, but like maybe you just efficient with, you know, two prize lose ridges, three, you've got Cramorant and things like that. I, I'm not. Yeah, it would equal in my, in my head. I always thought it would be fine for but I'm not, I'm not sure how it really plays out either.
Mike:Yeah, I mean, I guess it must be fine, right? Considering that he won. Um, but yeah, uh, I do think there were, I didn't watch the whole stream this weekend, but I did catch some games. Um, so. If you're going to Fort Wayne or Charlotte and you're planning on playing Lugia, I would recommend going to watch Kirin Farrah's game, um, sometime during day two, but he played against a, he played a Lugia mirror and he won goin second in like a really awesome game one. Uh, So he, he played super well to win that game. There were some other instances of Lugia mirrors that were also played quite well. Um, I feel like so many Lugia mirrors just end, uh, before they get started or, you know, the person going first just always keeps initiative and it's not super interesting. But there were some this weekend that were, were much more interesting, so that was kind of cool. Oh yeah, it was, it was, it was, uh, Kiran versus Corey Godfrey, who was also ended up making top eight with greed VMax in his Lugia Beck Uh, which is funny, this doesn't seem like the event to have played greed, though, considering law zone stuff was not nearly as popular, but he still did well.
Brit:What else do you wanna talk about? Any, the specifically what happens in that game one with Kieran? Kieran?
Mike:Um, I don't remember all of the details. Uh, I remember just that Kirin, Kieran made a play at the very end of the game that was, Really impressive to play around as much as he could. Like he, he was going into a situation on the second and last turn of the game where he was at two prizes and his opponent was at two prizes as well, and Kirin took a prize to go down to one prize and the opponent. Had options to take two prizes in a turn, either via Raku or via Stoutland. And Kiran made a, a, a pretty nice play of like Lumin into Charar, but also playing Collapsed stadium to play around like the maximum amount of, uh, outs from his opponent. And so, and everything that led to that end of turn or end of game situation was also quite good. But that is one of the standout moments. Of the tournament and Kiran right after that also gives like a very nice post-game interview that talks a lot of about the intricacies of Lugia and a bit about the Lugia mirror. And Kiran has done very well in the Lugia mirror all year. Um, so it's a, it's a very informative interview, I think. So, I think that's pretty much it for. The current Meta game, we still got almost a month. Uh, but nothing, I don't expect anything to really change. Lugia stocks going up.
Brit:I think it's the top eights are just gonna be this like, it's again, like mute, dal on lost box. They can all sneak in, they can all, you know, do well enough to where they, you know, like we said, say they just really don't hit all that many Lugia and they do fine. And that the handful that they do hit and like that can keep happening. That can, you know, obviously keep happening in, in the bra top a bracket as well. Don't expect necessarily that Lugia wins every event, but it's, it's very clearly the, the safe bet and will almost surely continue the statistical dominance. It's just, it's just so long. I don't know what, there's just not a whole lot more to say.
Mike:The, uh, also worth noting, the Brazilian regionals that happened this weekend was also six out of the top eight were Lugia
Brit:mirror and finals as well too. Yeah, I guess obviously Vancouver wasn't a, but
Mike:yeah, there is a, there is, um, not a regional in Europe, but a special event this coming weekend play Lugia. Have fun. Lugia Simulator I have continued to on an, on some other notes, I've continued to be messing around with post rotation. I don't really have anything more to report on. Uh, I think s pretty good. I think the lost box box list that won the Japanese event is actually super insanely good. Um, it just kind of has a little bit of everything. Has big hitting potential with Snorlax and, uh, Zamazenta. It has the spread option. It's, it's consistent and, um, gets to the loss of numbers relatively quickly. The loss of scoop up net, I'm, I'm like, learn. I feel like, you know, when you ever, you're playing a new format, you really start to become aware of how the game plays differently when you. Don't have certain cards that you're used to. So like how the game plays differently without quick ball and without scoop up net, for example, like you really have to play games to fully. Understand what the difference is. Like you can theory what the difference is, but like those cards have been so fundamental to just how we play the game for, for a while now, that it takes some like unlearning and relearning to understand like how the mechanics, uh, work. Um, I think the same. Thing happens, it, it happens all the time, right? Like when a card like Tapu Bulu is in format and then all of a sudden you don't have Tapu Bulu in format. That's a really big difference of how you play the game. Um, so for those of you getting ready for post rotation, I would really recommend trying to just play some games to get the feeling of what those changes are. Um, so. For example, with Lost Box, uh, you don't really notice Quick Ball missing that much, but scoop up net is obviously a really big difference. I think it impacts the way Lost Box plays in a, in, in some, in a, in a lot of different ways. I think first of all, that the deck is much easier to play without scoop up net. Um, you don't have to worry about like, am I using the scoop up net to. Use another comfy this turn, or do I need to save it, uh, for later? Like it, uh, it, it just becomes much more straightforward. On the other side, you have to worry about not over benching, scoop of net could bail you out in situations like that. Um, but, but yeah, I do think the deck be becomes a little bit easier to play without scoop up net for sure. Um, the loss of scoop up net wallet is overall, I think, a negative. It's not, I think, Other decks. Losing scoop up net is also a big deal and something to really consider because now your damage that was on the board can't go away. Um, so I think that is kind of a difference as well. So, for example, I haven't played the lost box mirror yet in post rotation, but I think, uh, that Radiant Halluc card Brit, do you know what the Radiant Halluc does? More damage
Brit:to VMAXs?
Mike:No, no, no. That, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Not Radiant Ucja, the, there's a Huia coming out in Scarlet Violet. Mm-hmm. I don't. It's like, it's kind of like Zigzagoon. Um, so when you play it, you can put two damage counters on two of your opponent's bench Pokegear. So it's like a double Zigzagoon but only to the bench. So in theory, that card would be pretty good in lost box, especially lost box mirror cuz you do 10, 10 to like two com fees and then you take two prizes. Um, but the more that I think about it, I don't know if that card is even that good. Even in the mirror, because obviously you can't scoop up net so you can't reuse it. But if you use a Sableye, your damage is gonna stay on the field. So you just need us Sableye to take two prizes at some point. It doesn't need to be like immediately. And so what you can do is like, you can put seven on a comfy to kill it, and then you can put those five damage counters elsewhere to set up on the following. Turn another save line to take two prizes. So where is, I think Zigzagoon was a huge swing in the lost box mirror in this format. I don't think the hu Lucha is gonna, um, be quite as good in the mirror. So, um, so yeah, those are just some like initial. Lost box, post rotation thoughts. It's been fun learning how to play, even though they're, even though the decks are largely the same except for Gardevoir, um, the game play is definitely different. So, like I said, recommend people to start messing around with lists.
Brit:Is it like, is this like my biggest worry? I think going into the format, just asking a sense of like, your impressions on it is just, The reliance potentially on, this doesn't apply to every deck, but just like battle, not battle compressor, but uh, battle v i p just like, just feels better or at least like playing that deck now. Playing Lost Box now, which like consistently like plays like one, two quick ball. So like not a lot of search on top of that. And the games that I just, the games you just miss, that just feels like you just. There's so much more just playing off the top, playing what you have every turn. And just like some games that's like enough com fees to stay alive. And then some games you're just like, uh, I got Cramorant and yeah, That's it. Yeah. And I just like, I have that worry and like playing Gardevoir and things like that. Like you, I mean that has fog crystal, so that's probably like just in and of itself, like just like how the old guard of work could play, uh, mysterious treasure was just like getting that on top of the other search was just like crazy. For that deck. And so it's probably just like the same case there, but like it's just like a tool that only that color has compared to other things. So like just worried overall about everything, you know, more things needing nest ball and things like
Mike:that. Yeah, so I would say there's like the, the five big decks in my mind are lost box Giratina Mew. Mira and Gardevoir of those. Mira is the only one that doesn't play v i p pass because it has the Mira on ability, Boltund the Law Index play for For V I P Pass Mew plays for V I P Pass and Gardevoir plays for V I P Pass. So yeah, the reliance on V I P pass is pretty high in the post rotation format for sure, which like you said is not great Um, Brent. Hello. Hello. Hey, we, we talked about Vancouver and we were just talking a little bit about post rotation again. So,
Brent:uh, uh, any conclusions besides Ian. Robs super good at Pokegear.
Brit:Yeah, we just did, did a little looking at through the new Pokestats live, just like how many lus they all played and it's like, oh, basically 10 plus for everyone in, in top eight.
Brent:Um, so, you know, the one question I had for you guys was like, I looked at the Azul Caleb, uh, um, grant list versus Ian's list. And Ian's list was. Plus one rope, plus one Marni, uh, minus bird keeper, uh, minus second vacuum. Like, that's a very small difference. As like, has the Meta like largely centralized on like, this is the blend of like consistency in nonja that the or, or like, like the appropriate blend of consistency in jank. I mean, the difference between those two is really, really quite small. And like when you look at like Caleb Grant, Azul, like what'd they lose? They lost a bunch of mirror matches, right?
Brit:Yeah, this was sort of what we were saying too, just like if you're losing lots of mirror matches, just like is how much of that is just truly that? You're going second, like a lot going second in game one consistently and things like that. Like again, obviously, and part of what we were talking about too is that there are some good lu mirrors on the stream for Vancouver, so obviously scale, obviously sometimes you can win going second, but just like in the pure data of it all, the pure, you know, just statistics like just. More and more like pessimistic again, like to, you know, throw a thousand games into the vacuum and Thousand Lu and just like how many times do, do you actually win going second? And it's like, I don't know if a thousand games, like certainly, like I'd wager at least 800 or more, like you'll just lose going second. Something maybe, maybe not that bad. Maybe that's overly zealous in this view. It's, uh, I mean, we also too, just like what, why would you play anything else at this point? These counter decks just keep even loose to it, like in top cut and things like that. And just like a lot of it is just even now, like you don't even need the bird keeper anymore because just like the Rita Escape rope is just stronger of a play. And it similarly too, we at one point in time kind of had toward plate Skyla. Other people were on Arita. It seems like Arita has won out. The South American winner was playing two in his deck. Um, I believe. Yeah, I
Brent:love the double lumion, uh, uh, ARITA, like choice belt, vacuum escape rope combo. Like you just, you, you have access to whatever you do whenever you need it. You know? I mean, you run so many Bulu carts.
Mike:Mm-hmm. Yeah. The lists are just so much more. Efficient, I think, than they were at the beginning of the format. You're able to fit enough texts as just like one ofs to counter almost all of the counters while still having the high consistency with the, the Rita doubled and minion. So, so,
Brent:uh, so you guys were talking post rotation, like, do you feel like the Meta, uh, changes dramatically? Uh, at E U I C?
Mike:I mean, it has to Luie is not a thing. I mean, luie is a thing.
Brent:Yeah. Like it is a thing, but you're, yeah. Obviously it loses a bunch of keepings.
Mike:Yeah. Um, I think, I think Lost Box will be the deck to beat. I was talking about kind of the difference of how Lost Box plays losing scoop up net and how it's certainly a loss, but uh, the deck becomes slightly easier to play and other decks. Losing Scoop up net is also pretty impactful because the damage just sticks around much easier. So, Uh, yeah, I think Lost Box will be the, the deck to beat, but it'll be a little bit more open than our 40% Lugia format. Yeah.
Brent:So for, for Charlotte, it's just Lugia, right? I mean, what do people, yeah. There, there's, there is no, uh, other thing to do, but yeah. Uh, so. The only, the only round I really, really got to sit and watch because I was cheering for him, was, uh, watching Cam play Avica. Hmm. I know you're a guy who has like, strong feelings about, uh, um, not, maybe not that exact list, but like the concept does that, is that just gonna never work it out? Not good enough.
Mike:Wait, what do you mean?
Brent:I just wonder if there's any opportunities left to play janky decks. Come, uh, Charlotte and Fort Wayne before rotation. I mean, there's this
Brit:red, uh, Reggie Gigas VStar deck floating around. I don't actually know what, what it does. I saw tape, played it at, like, made top four tok, I think. One of the, David Rudolph, one of the people I stayed with at NAIC was part of the, the Mewtwo deck. I think he played it at the last European regionals and like did, went 5 31 or something like that. But I don't dunno what, I don't know what the card does or what the deck could do. I, I would guess I'd wager it's control in some shape or form, but I, I don't have any clue that could be, that's your rogue option maybe. I like
Brent:your implication that people are still trying to,
Brit:uh, innovate. I think people are, but like, I mean, again, I think we talked a little bit about this before, but just like. What's to Innovative, you know, team Lost Box is finally off the ship now. Like what are they gonna, what are they gonna, what are you gonna find Fling Lost Box that they didn't you know, that, that sort of thing. Yeah. With the people still, you know, ironing, uh, I mean, I would be curious to hear, you know, Pablo or someone like that, Nick Moffitt, like someone who has had a lot of success with Lost Box, if there's. You know, a card, you know, a 59 60th card that you know, makes all the difference. If it's just like, fine and not enough good people are playing it. So that's part of why the results are bad, but, Yeah. I mean, I would be pessimistic, but just that I would, would equally love to hear from some insight from a, a good lost box player, just kind of on that point if they, you know, are they the last ha holdouts, the final ba of it all, or like they just would, is Pablo gonna play Lugia next? Or What do you have played if you didn't end up casting this weekend? Right, right, right, right. What else you got? It's same chin time, I guess. Yeah,
Mike:let's talk about it. I still didn't listen. I didn't I, well, I, I started listening a little bit and then I got distracted. Um, which is funny to me. You know, Sam's. Maybe my best friend in the game aggregates and I just can't get myself to listen to him on the podcast. So I'll be interested to hear your thoughts. But everything, my guess is like everything you say, I'm gonna be like, yep, that sounds like Sam
Brent:Yeah. Break. Give us the monologue. Uh, yeah, I don't,
Brit:not sure exactly where to start. There's a lot of. Anything just like understandable pessimism. But I think just sort of the, the overarching point and one one that we've, I think tangentially hit a time or two before, but that I think he just does a really good job spelling out is just sort of the function in the dynamic of. Organized play and you know, within the context of the Pokegear organized company and just for better or for worse, you know, it's just marketing. It's a marketing tool. It's, it's an arm of the marketing department of TP c I, which is just, you know, with the brand management, brand control for Pokegear outside of Japan. And again, they don't make any of the cards, you know, game designers at T P C I, they're deciding like the pre-release kits and things like that, the league battle. So on and so forth. But all the card design actually happens in Japan, so disconnect there, but just like at the end of the day, like Pokegear is that it's a brand and like something we've said before and something that Sam notes too is just sort of the comment, the, you know, who. Who is the biggest spender, the biggest consumer of the Pokegear card game. And it's, it's not competitive players. It's not even collectors, it's just sort of casual, you know, kids buying, you know, kids at the, with their parents at Walmart and just walking out with a pack. Like, it's what I think the, the example that Sam uses. And it's just that. And so Pokegear again is, you know, it's video games, it's, it's merchandise, it's plushies and so on and so forth. There's just like a million, million different things. And of course that stuff. What's driving their bottom, you know, their bottom line At the end of the day, it's still not cards. It's, uh, still not even video games, even with like Scarlet, Scarlet and Violet as the, I think just on track to be the best selling games. I think potentially on track to app sell the original ones, which nothing has done that yet since Red and blue. Um, but anyways, tons and tons of sales even. You know, it's probably the worst product they've released too, like quality control wise and things like that. But then you compare it to magic, and this was kind, this was a point from Sam that I had sort of just never, you know, poked two and two together, but like magic exists. For tournaments or, you know, at least at one point in time, like that was the function of magic. The gathering was to, was to have tournaments. Like there was nothing really past that. And of course now he's like evolved into these like other sort of ecosystems with like commander and commander conventions, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's, you know, still organized play at the end of the day. But, you know, that was obviously never the case for Pokegear, the Pokegear card game, you know, in its inception, you know, you know, presumably Pokegear, Nintendo. Like contracted wizards of the coast to do that. They, they say, Hey, we like this thing you're doing. If Magic the Gathering, do it, do it for us. Like, it's just, it's how we're gonna spread our brand and things like that. And it's just, you know, part of the story. I don't think anyone really anticipated Pokegear success and things like that. And how, how it blew really blew up. Um, you know, particularly with card games in the nineties, but just at the end of the day, We're just, you know, splashing the pond for what's going on at TP c i that it's, you know, just marketing and that, you know, a lot of the sort of like badness so to speak, is just like, this is what they're given, you know, this is the hand that they're dealt and this is how they, the best they can use it in a lot of, a lot of scenarios and like similar points in terms of just like, will it get better? Probably not like, you know, just for one. Doesn't have reason to right now. Cause like, you know, numbers are gonna have to get worse for, there need to be like an overhaul and things like that. Um, but he, he said a lot more too, particularly on this, like the structure of, um, you know, championship points and so on. And like I, I had some, I think he had good thoughts on that as well in terms. How he would change that. I, you could maybe jog, jog my memory, but I'm a little sort of Boer on on that stuff. I was more, you know, caring about this side of the conversation than just like his solution to fixed championship points. And I, but like, it was on that note too, like one of the things he does say, and I, I think this is a good point, people have discussed, you know, as a possible option, you know, to make ICS less. Pay to win, less broken, however you wanna say it. It was to like region lockdown or something like that. And he pushes back against that. I think very expectedly being like, no, I think it's Pokegear wants, you know, they're high profile players to like travel the country. Like that's part of the image is part of the brand and things like that. So like that's definitely not a solution. But, um, again, lots, lots of points on just like how silly it is to go, you know, 513 and get a hundred points and things like that compared to. You know, regionals for less with more people and things like that.
Brent:Yeah. That was the part. So, uh, um, I, I had a couple of, uh, uh, thoughts first. Like the, the, um, how much competitive is like a flagship for the product? It's weird because I guess what, when I think about it, I'm not even sure if, if any, if there is a product out there where people would say, um, you know, if it weren't for competitive, it like, like people wouldn't even, like, it wouldn't be on people's radar. Like magic is, is an example. The other one that I guess I try to think about is like, league of Legends or something like, like it's got a really big competitive scene. Um, like it's a place where the company has invested like very large prize pools to try to incent, like creating a competitive. But like I assume most of their money still comes from people who have absolutely no idea who won the last whatever,
Mike:right?
Brit:Yeah. But I mean, I mean, I guess part of this conversation too, can, you know, just be a, in the disparity we have now without local play, and that's that again, like even if you're not connected to the Pro tour or the Grand Prix, even the Meta game. Friday Night Magic. That's just, it's, it's what you do. It's a tournament. It's, you know, just, it's a social thing. And like I, you know, from my experience in Friday night Magic, like probably more people, at least in my experience were, were that like, they, they didn't care. They didn't necessarily have good decks, you know, met a good decks and things like that. This was just like the thing that they liked to do, and this was the time that they did it, that, that there was, there's just no. Auxiliary option for magic. Uh, you know, it just, it's, it's a game and it's a game that you play. You know, of course you can collect it and things like that, but that, you know, the intentions behind it, you know, at least for most of its existence, were just, Different than Pokegear. And I mean, you could even get into some like Pokegear history here too with the, the, like the, like last world championships or whatever that Wizards of the Coast did that just like the older age division didn't even get to do it. And um, do you know what I'm talking about, Mikey?
Mike:Yeah, 2002 Worlds, worlds quote unquote
Brit:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the unofficial one where it was kind of more just like, well, you're too old to play Pokegear now. Why don't you just play magic? Um, but yeah, just like even again, I think just to reiterate the, the, you know, Pokegear since. Like,
Brent:I guess, I guess the funny thing about that Friday night Mag, like when you say Friday magic, like that's a marketing device versus like prize pools, incentive to play competitive, like all of that stuff and like, I guess I think of that as a different thing. You know what I mean? Like Pokegear, what are, you have the better energy, what are you talking about? Our last world was by far the biggest ever. We invested zillions in a Pokegear center that was the size of a like convention center. Like we quadruple down on like the quality of our world championship to have, by far the biggest, most mega world championship we've ever had. Our regionals are better attended than ever. We have cast, we're casting them on, starting around 5, 9, 7 35, uh, uh, uh, with like real casters instead of fly by night production crews, like we've upped the quality across the board, and attendance is bigger than ever. We did. It worked. We're done.
Brit:I mean, I think that's like the larger point that we said before that is like, why would anything need to change with these record numbers that like they're being successful and that like exactly like they're doing what they need to. And people just like the only people who are, you know, bitter are, you know, this point, you know, 1% of the. Competitive, Pokegear, Pokegear, Twitter, like again, we're just such a small, small fraction of the overall things like sure. Should things like maybe be better, but like, you know, should we be optimistic that they ever will change? Like no, like, this is working, this model works.
Brent:Yeah. I, I, I thought, I mean, Sam hit the nail in the head and I recognize, I think everybody that's really tried to dive into it recognizes the like unresolvable tension of. Like, the reason why ICS give out outsize points is because they want them to be flagship events and they want people to travel to them. And the fact that like some ics, even though they want you to travel, it's just prohibitively expensive, right? And, uh, um, uh, you know, makes it weird. And like, I guess the, the part of it that's, I guess what's really interesting is if you said, and this is where Sam didn't go, that I would've liked to see him go, is like if we said we were taking away the, the stipends to travel to ics, would the same people still travel? I think the answer is no. Like I think none of the Australians would go anywhere after that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, because, because it's prohibitively expensive. um, would. Like, would there be like a handful of Europeans that show up at NAIC? Like a, A handful.
Mike:Yeah. Um, and I think similarly for like Americans to EU and L A I C, but I can't imagine anyone really traveling to O C I C.
Brent:Right. And, and would, but like, I guess, I mean, it'd be easy to look back and say, were there people who went to O C I C who didn't have stip? There were
Mike:a couple. Yeah, but
Brit:goes everything. For example, like he would still probably be going to everything, but you know what? Who. Andy
Brent:Gray. Yeah, right, right. I mean, Andy will just, he's like, you can get on a plane together,
Mike:But so, so for some of the people that are going without stipends, part of the reason they're going is to get points for the next stipend as well. So it would still be. A bit lower. Even. Even so,
Brent:yeah. Yeah. I mean that, I, I would say probably more, even, even though I say there are still people that, that, that went like fully, I would expect more than half of the people who got stipends would not go. Right. Yeah. Okay. And I recognize there were some people who got stipends and still didn't go right. Like Piper. Mm-hmm. I mean, best part didn't show up at O C I. But but, but, uh, um, it's a hard, it's a hard problem to solve because I, I like the, I like what Pokemon's idea is the, you know, we want to have these flagship events and we want people to come. So like, they don't want to increase cash prizes. So what do they do? They offer these like outsized points. Um, the stipend thing. It feels like there should be some sort of way to use the stipends to like create some of that tension. But the stipends are part of what they're doing. They're like, how do we get Azul to go to O C I C stipend? Yeah. Like they don't want Azul to not go because it's good for the event. It's good for the sport to have Azul show up everywhere. Mm-hmm. he's a celebr. and, and interestingly like the stipends are, I mean, may, maybe what we should be doing is saying like, you gotta use stipends as a like faux prize money that's actually spread out across like, like the marginal rent of all these events or something. Because I think that's part of why they do it, right? They're getting prizes every time they go. You, you, you've been apprised of a couple thousand dollars for showing up repeatedly.
Brit:Yeah, I guess. I guess, yeah, that's like not a, a factor. I've sort of, it is like a perspective I haven't considered. Like how, you know, obviously the stipends are part of the prizes, you know, so to speak. And like if you look at it from that, I mean, it still ends up being just like a, you know, it's not fair top-down kind of thing. Even you probably. To an even larger extent, but like that's, you know, it's charitable of course, that they, they're able to do this with the whole world, you know, that, you know, a lot of other games d don't necessarily do that, or at least like the, the bandaid games and things like that. I can't imagine they have any, they just like, you win events or you win invites, but I, I don't think there's like trips and stuff like that as consistently and certainly not stipends, you know, year round.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, that, that must be like all in, including worlds in all the ics. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in just checks they write, right? Mm-hmm. and, and like, they don't talk about that as part of the price pool, but it's a, it's the like, distributed price pool for repeatedly doing Okay. uh, yeah. I mean, as, as always, Sam is, is one of the most thoughtful, uh, people, uh, uh, the, the IC. I cannot figure out how they fix that, but you know, I think it has to do with the stipends. The problem is stipends are part of, like the good news for Pokegear is it doubles down, right? Like that's prize money they give out, but it also turns into marketing for them because top players show up.
Mike:Yeah. This is the big reason that I have decided to go to E U I C Okay. More points
Brent:for, for, uh, uh, uh, for our listeners. Uh, right after, uh, Mike told us that, that he was going, I said, ah, Mike, Mike decides to bank, uh, uh, get, get the easy, uh, Points by going to the hardest IC in history.
Mike:it'll be the hardest IC in history for a few months at least. Exactly, exactly. Up
Brent:until NAIC. Yeah, Brit was me. Like NAIC will be harder. Yes. NAIC will be harder. I assume NAIC will be gigantic. So how was getting your ticket for E U I C?
Mike:So I did not get up for the first wave at 4:00 AM uh, the second one. Opened at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. I probably refreshed the page at like 10 o'clock and like 20 seconds. I was probably 20 seconds into it and I did not get a spot Um, but then two o'clock I was on it, like as soon as the clock changed. So within five seconds of it going of it opening and I registered, so so is it is, did the
Brent:third wave sellout as
Mike:well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Within two minutes. Yeah. Every single wave sold out within a minute or two. Um, one thing that's interesting is they have just as many spectator passes as all of the games combined. So I don't, I, I mean, I assume that they have like limited amount of table space and that's why they're doing that. Um, but it is unfortu. It is like annoying, like on paper to see that there's just as many spectators as players. I mean, it
Brit:puts it all in per to perspective. It's like this is a whole conversation like this, this is, this is how they need, they want to run it. This is their intent. They know that the Palkia center is gonna be like nutso again, and so on. The, but like again, like what? This is it, this is our sort of our example of how they think about it or just like where the priorities are for them. Like, again, not just doesn't feel like there's a whole lot more to say, like,
Brent:yeah. Well, I, I mean, I wonder, I wonder how that tracks against historical events because I bet, uh, kind to Mike's point, uh, that actually lines up with historical events. It was just not information that was widely available previously. Sure. Like, uh, yeah, I, I mean, I, I assume. They allocated all the tables they possibly could. And, uh, but they're like, we also know that from a, like, building logistics perspective, you know, uh, when a person shows up, he tends to bring, uh, a, a significant other and a small child with them, and we have to have X passes for those people and like something like that, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. uh, you know, with every junior and senior that registers you have. Like they get a free spectator badge, but you also probably have to allocate like another spectator badge. Like there's probably just stuff, but you know, I, I assume those numbers are super well understood by the Pokegear people and they like, they just did it and it was just previously not well understood. Yeah. I mean, when I, when I think about, when I, you know, when I think about crowd control problems, I think back to San Francisco worlds.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:And I'm like, were there like one spectator for every competitor? It seemed like it because as, as a spectator, it was a mob scene.
Brit:and, and completely
Mike:insane. Yeah. So I do think, and I, I don't know if I assume you guys saw this, I really do think that the biggest reason that the eu, like the internationals and the regionals are getting so, so, so big is the lack of local events. Like, I mean, I think the events would have been bigger than previous years because more people got into it over covid and everything. But I think like, I think a very large part is the lack of locals. Cuz like there's an, like for me, I'm, I'm a good example and I'm sure I'm not the only example of people that are going to E U I C that would not have even considered going if League Cups were around. Um, and that's just the reality of trying to get points this year.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, yeah. They, they tell you they're gonna have the, the best ever world that's in Japan. They're fulfilling tons of Pokegear player Fantas. and also like qualifying is gonna be the most awkward it's ever been,
Mike:right? Yeah. And, and honestly, even beyond qualifying, there's a number of people in the local Philly area that they want to pull. They're relatively new to the game and they want to start going to tournaments and understanding what the competitive scene looks like. And their only opportunity to do that is regionals. You know, there's this dude that, he's a, he's a great guy and he went to Orlando cuz he wanted to try. Competitive out, but I'm sure he would've been able to scratch his itch from a couple leak cups as well, and then more slowly transition into getting into these bigger tournaments. But now he's kind of forced to just dive in head first. And I think he had a good time and you know, he did decently well. But I, I could imagine being intimidated if I was getting into the game and having to go to regionals to really have that experience.
Brent:I know a lot of places are doing like kind of informal locals, but it's not nearly as widespread as it should be. Because, because like, I feel like there's no incentive for the, the cart stores have no incentive because Pokegear is not really offering them anything, you know? Yeah. Like, uh, uh, we went, we went to a one K over the. And I can give you guys two seconds of color there. Liam played Lugia and lost to, uh, Steven Vasco playing, uh, Ladon and somebody else. But, but yeah, Vasco was like, the strategy is pretty much go to NAIC and Yola, you know? Yep. like, he is, like, I, I have a, you know, he just started a new job and like it's a job job and he is like, we gotta try and make that. I can't just be like saying that I need Friday off to go play the Pokegear. Yeah. So, uh, it's, uh, uh, I recognize, I think there's just gonna be N a C's gonna be so big. It's gonna be a circus.
Mike:Yeah. All right. I gotta wrap it up. Yep. I'll it up guys. You have a, you rather or not this week. Alright.
Brent:Alright, you guys, you guys want one? I was gonna, I was gonna wait, but let's do it really quickly. As long as you're ready. Yeah. Alright. This is, this is the uh, uh, one time event. The first time you are, all you, you like are in top cut editing ic, and you're invited up on stage for your big interview with Chip and you sit down and. You shit yourself, and realize what's happened. You jump up to run off stage and you slip in the mud of it and you fall ass first and it splats out your pants.
Mike:That's the first choice. Okay. All right, great.
Brent:The second choice is, Everyone at NAIC gets a complete history of every internet search you've ever made.
Mike:Now
Brit:here's finally a hard one. I don't, I don't think I've, I don't, I don't think I've had, I think I've had an easy answer
Mike:so far,
Brit:but now I feel like even. Saying that like, I'm not, I'm not anything too suspicious on my internet,
Mike:I don't think. Yeah, I would, I, I think I would go with the internet thing as well. There's nothing like too ridiculously bad and the ones that may be bad are so few and far between. They'd really have to dig into that document to find, to find the good ones.
Brent:Your, your assumption that they would not dig in as a reach I'm, my
Brit:mine would only reveal. Facets of my personality that I would reveal, only reveal to the closest people to me. I don't nothing. I would've be like, I can't get out or anything like that. I'd be like, ah, you know, if everyone knows it's, you know, I don't think it really changes anything, but it's such personal stuff. But I, I think still preferable to this other thing. It's like I, I would, you know, never lived that down, but I mean, at the same time too, maybe, I don't know. That's my, that's my shot to the top. I just like, I do that and I, I'm a, I'm a TikTok personality. Now. People follow me. Cause I'm the shit guy. Like it could happen.
Mike:I think if that first one was like you went up, you're interviewing with Chip and you shit yourself and only Chip noticed and he had to like keep a straight face during the interview. I think I would choose that cuz that would be really funny. Like like chip's just smelling this and he is like trying to not lose it on stage. That would be worth it.
Brent:The where, where, where you draw the line is the slipping.
Mike:Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right, I gotta go, guys. All right,
Brent:big and easy guys. The drop outro. Bye.