lemme do the quick intro and, and then, and then we'll dive right back into this because I think that this is a meaningful subject that, that the people need to know about. Uh, welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. Attendance is 166% because we, we specialize in the math. We have, uh, Mike and Brit and me, Brent Halliburton, uh, Caden Hyatt is here. Liam Halliburton is here. It's as crowded as the podcast is ever going to be. But, but we know that you guys need the, the hot stuff for E U I C. So, so we're doing it. Uh, dragon Shield is, uh, everyone's favorite sponsor. Uh, five star reviews. We've not gotten any five star reviews, but if you leave a review, we will read it on the podcast. That is apparently a thing that people do that you could be doing that right now. Um, we were just talking about as we, we filtered in how, uh, Mike is making a racket selling champions festivals, uh, on his way to Europe, and apparently Japanese people are offering outlandish sums. Um, How do you decide who to actually sell it to Mike? Or do you just, like, do you, do you put that up on eBay? Like does eBay maximize your gains or does it minimize your gains?
Mike:Well, I feel like it's probably better to put on, on eBay. I don't, I haven't done too much selling on eBay, but I'd rather just do it in person if I can, even if I lose like a little bit of value. Uh, that's kinda why I posted on Twitter. It's just so much easier to just meet up with someone, um, in terms of how to decide of those people who to sell to. I did get a handful of messages from Japanese players and I just messaged them back saying, Hey, you know, I've had multiple people can reach out to me, can you make an offer? And then a couple of them made an offer and then I sent back to, it is almost like an auction, I guess, like in not real time. Um, but yeah, that's kind of how I'm handling it.
Brent:All right. I, I want, I'm gonna trademark Fouchet Bay, the Newba.
Kaden:Yeah. And if I remember correctly, UICs in the same pl in the same venue, right? It's in the Excel center. Yeah. Yeah. So if I remember correctly, at least if it's anything like previous years, you have those little, little like round the, the little squares of tables that vendors and people hang out, um, right outside the room that, uh, you can probably find folks who wanna buy your champions festivals. Mm-hmm. At least that's how it's worked in
Mike:years past. Yeah, and it's such a, I feel like Champions Festival in particular, the only reason that I posted about them is because it's a somewhat relevant card actually for one of the first times ever. Um, and we can get into it a little bit more if we talk about Gardevoir, but Gardevoir like kind of likes playing Champions festival. Um, and I think in particular in Japan, there's just so many players and the quantity of Japanese champions festivals is relatively low compared to, you know, the number of players. And in Europe you, you can play a lot of different languages and there's so many different languages of champions festivals, so presumably just the quantity is much higher there. Um, English ones I think are probably the second most expensive after the Japanese ones. Yeah,
Liam:I think there's like many more Western players getting their invite and attending worlds as well.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. Makes sense.
Brent:Um, Alright guys. Should we talk about Fort Wayne a lot or a little? Very little, I assume
Kaden:is the answer. I feel very little. I, I don't think there remember
Brit:it. My, I would have to think about what, which one that was.
Mike:Well, we can at least get Liam's account like that.
Brit:Was, is that an Andrew Hendrick one? Which
Brent:one?
Mike:Udra
Kaden:won right? Didn't, Gure didn't Guru
Mike:take it?
Brent:Oh yeah, no. Alright, Liam? Yeah. Give us your Fort Wayne because your, your Fort Wayne is, uh, a super thrilling.
Liam:Um, I, yeah, that's really, I played, I played torment lock, which I think is actually like, it's just, it's it's pretty good. Um, in Ugia, right? Which I think is just gonna make it like solid, uh, in the format going forward. Um, you play routes, you play psychic energy and you can beat Lugia. Just with like a few bosses. And then it also gives you an excuse to play Kirlia and gives you like a whole engine. So it's like an engine that beats Lugia, which is like very interesting. Um, but yeah, it was really bad against the lost box. I, I hit lost Box for the first time all day round eight when I was five and two. They flipped over the comfy and they quick balled array and I asked them to ID and they said no. So
Brent:I like the strategy.
Liam:Yeah.
Brent:Um, we, we had, we had talked even before round one about, about like how if you don't know what they're playing, you have to sit down and act tired. That way if they're playing lockbox, you can gonna sell it better. You can sell it. Exactly, exactly. It's all about the strats, all about the
Brit:sound, and I'm just so tired of playing.
Mike:Yeah, I
Kaden:remember, I remember we drove down, we drove down together from Chicago to Fort Wayne and, uh, uh, not insignificant portion of that car ride was talking about best techniques to get your opponent to id. With you,
Mike:did you come up with anything good worth sharing? I mean,
Kaden:I mean, you know, just general, like you, there's a, there's a fine balance between tired slash hungry and exhausted, but not like too tired or hungry. And you really have to flex. You have to ask and say like how experienced you are and you have to get them a little intimidated. Um, so they think they're going to lose.
Liam:The one I liked the most was. What is it? Oh yeah, yeah. Like they, they like flip over a comfy and you're like, oh man, I've been playing this match all day time, bro. Like, that's just Id.
Kaden:Yeah. And then I also came up with you offer, especially if it's a tournament with no lunch break and you're like around lunch, when lunchtime would be, you offer to like go get lunch with them. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Hey, I'm really hungry, man. You wanna go grab a bite to eat? Let's, ID,
Brent:but that is, uh, uh, all, all that is super compelling. So any other things you should say about, about, uh, playing control at Fort Wayne and how that carries through to the
Liam:next format? Um, Snorlax will be missed. That card is really good, especially Againsts lost box. Um, there's like no engine right now that survives lost box if you want to build something like slow. Um, so I mean, like, dude, there's no engine in general, even like the best X like Lugia, like. It's like no engine Mariah on has no engine. And then Gardevoir, which has an engine gets destroyed by lost box. There's, yeah, it's really hard to be lost.
Brent:Uh, um, I really, I think the highlight of Liam playing control for me was like at, at one o'clock in the morning. He comes back from like at night of testing with Caden and he's like, this is not a good deck, but also all decks are bad. And, and I was like, I know that's a phase that every player has to pass through on his way to starting the tournament, but I was hoping we could get there before one in the morning. Like it's like the third stage of death and you need to be at like the sixth stage of death by one in the morning. So, so he, he locked it in even though he felt like it was extremely problematic and, and we got like problematic outcomes. So he got to five two and was doing pretty good and, and then he dropped dead two in a row.
Kaden:And, and that's the tournament right there. Yeah. And I, I, after that late night testing chickened out of playing control and ended up going with Lugia and, you know, I threw in a cologne and a Reggie for, in order to try to beat Dura consistently, I ended up pitting three Duras and still losing to two of them. Um, so it's, I guess I, I guess I should have put in two cologne.
Brent:The, yeah. And you know what's funny is obviously Liam ran the double cologne in Arlington, and I felt like he thought that that did not fix the dura
Liam:matchup. I, I was playing the Reggie. Um, that's true. I, I had no way to one hit the D so I had to hit both cologne back to bag, and then I had to horn this s another D. So yeah, I, I had a lot to hit,
Brent:but yeah. Yeah, fortunately D was much less prevalent in a than, than, than it was, uh, at Fort Wayne. Yucky Y yy. Yeah. Uh, any, anything else we should say about Fort Wayne?
Kaden:I don't know. I feel like we should just put it behind us. Um, I have already been enjoying this format substantially more, I would say. Um, I, I, although I see a lot of complaining on Twitter that, you know, like many of the top decks are still the same, but I feel like the sort of pace of the game and the way these decks are built have, has shifted in a way that I enjoy substantially more. Um, so I, I, everything goes, I love Zekrom.
Brent:Oh, a actually, here's, there's one more thing. And Brit, I think, I think this is, uh, uh, this is probably important for you and Mike. Um, I thought the tournament was excellent. The venue was good. Uh, as somebody who I think was the hater of Fort Wayne, going into Fort Wayne, and I feel like I had a bad experience the last time I was in Fort Wayne. Um, it was really nice. I feel more, uh, inclined towards Fort
Mike:Wayne. I've only been there the one time, and I don't really remember too much, but I'm glad that you felt better about it.
Brent:They, they literally had like the entire convention center. There was, uh, there were a couple of vendors with food. There were a lot of people selling sleeves, which was a marked difference from Charlotte. There were a lot of vendors there, which was good. Um, it was, uh, it was like a decent space. Yeah. Crobat props to the, uh, Fort Wayne Te um, Mike, you you wanna talk about, uh, watching the Japan Stream as we start to turn our eyes towards E U I C?
Mike:Yes. This was a couple weeks ago. I think it would've made a little more sense if we had our, uh, thing, our, our episode last week, but the most recent. In real life event in this format. And it is slightly different. They have a, like a, a mini set. Japan had the, the new mini set. Basically the only relevant card though is Jet Energy, which is kind of like a reverse warp energy. So that did skew the results a little bit because Jet Energy is, is extremely good in all of the lost index, and it makes a colorless Lugia deck a viable option, which is not really an option for us right now, but it's still relatively close. Um, and the results of the tournament had a lot of Lugia doing well. I think seven of the top 16. I don't know what the split was between single strike and the colorless Lugia, but Lugia did well. Uh, and then other things did well as well, like Lawson did well. But the, the big story was that Merak actually won the event. Uh, and it was kind of a unique Meridan list. I believe it did not run Reggie Lele at all. Um, and it ran Magnas own VStar instead. Uh, and I, I think it's probably a pretty fine deck, but. I just wanted to mention that the, the player that won the event was basically gifted every single round. Um, they were on stream in top eight, top four and top two, and all of his opponents made egregious misplays in every single round. And so, uh, I just, I guess just take that result with a little bit of a grain of salt, um, because I think it easily could have been, you know, a another deck winning the event if there was a little bit tighter play. Um, and, you know, I don't, I'm not saying that any of the players were like, bad or anything. It's a long, it's, you know, it's. It's tough playing on stream and it's, uh, long events, so people are gonna make mistakes. But like, there was some pretty, uh, obvious mistakes. Uh, I was watching Ethan Hege, uh, restream the event, and he was going nuts. Like, Mike,
Brent:why don't you just say Japanese players are bad? Oh, okay. That's what the po that's what the people want. Just say it. I've, I know they've done well at Worlds, but Japanese players are consistently bad. They're bad. They're all bad. I think that's
Brit:no different than the, we've, we've had some, I'm trying to think of what tournament it was. Uh, we've had some cartoonish games on stream of Americans. You know, you still even, you know, round four, round five, round six, like you're, you're still getting some, uh, not so great players there. I don't think that's really, you know, I, I, I know what you're saying of course, but like, I'll just gonna defend them a little bit, I suppose. Like your avid player is bad and they make it on stream sometimes. It's not like they're purposely streaming like daichi or something every round, like a best player the, the entire
Brent:time.
Mike:But, well, that's actually the kind of the last thing that I was gonna say is that it's somewhat of a function of Japanese players not always being able to play in their events. Um, because the registration system is complete lottery. So it is very possible that at any given event, the top, you know, half of the top players or three quarters of the top players just are not even plate. So, uh, I think that is like an interesting thing as well. When you just look at results in general in Japan, it might not be actually representative of what. The best decks are because the best players might not, might not actually be playing.
Brent:I had not, I did not know this. This is fascinating to me. Yeah,
Kaden:yeah, yeah. There's like,
Mike:for especially the, these really large events, the Champions League, it's a lottery to get into the events. There are some guaranteed spots for like the very, very, very top, um, players and content creators. Think like maybe like 10 tops or so. I don't know the exact number, but it's very small. And then the rest are complete lottery. So like imagine if like Azul toward, uh, Andrew Maho and maybe a couple other people had guaranteed spots and then everybody else in like the top two, 300 is just kind of looped in with everyone else. And, and maybe they get in, maybe they
Brent:don't. I mean, if, if like, you know, uh, uh, top like nine through 32 told, were told that like one third of them were gonna be allowed to attend the next tournament, people would be absolutely beside themselves. Yeah, exactly. And like, like if the race for top 16 depended on lottery odds, you'd be like, people would just be enraged.
Mike:Um, and like Ethan Hege, he didn't even get into any of the champions leagues throughout the whole season. So maybe they just don't like him cuz he is white, but Right,
Brent:right. But, but Japanese players are terrible also.
Mike:So I think that's a good, uh, kind of starting point for us talking about the new format. So we do have some. Data from, in real life events from Japan, from, I think there was some either in Thailand or Korea, something like that. Um, and I think those are valuable, but their format is also different as well. They play just best of one pretty much throughout the whole event. Uh, one of the other countries they did best of on Swiss and then Best of Three Top Cut. But Japan is just best of one completely throughout. Uh, and we have the online events, which are also, I think, relevant to look at, but again, they're mostly best of one Swiss and best of three in Top Cut. So the results might be a little different. Not all the best players are playing online. Uh, so I think we can use those results but can't rely on them a hundred percent as we go into U I C. So how do you guys wanna cover it? Do you wanna go deck by deck? What, what do you guys wanna do? I feel like
Kaden:deck by deck feels like the best way to do it. Kind of just running through top decks, key choices, matchups, stuff like that. I don't know. Sounds like a
Brent:plan. Let's
Mike:do it. All right, let's go. I'm gonna open up limitless and we'll just kind of go in order of popularity. So the first one, as we all know, is a lost box. Now, lost box is a very broad category. Um, I do think the Limitless did break down the difference between the Charar lost box and the Gringer lost box. So let's just talk about Gringer Lost box to start. Um, I know I've seen coming out of the Asia tournaments, the sky Seal Stone variant was kind of the dominant one, but now we're, we've been seeing a lot of the forest seal, stone variant do quite well in the online events, which is a little bit more Turbo. Um, so I dunno, I haven't really played, uh, too much of that version. Have any of you guys played that version? Um, I've played
Kaden:a little bit, uh, not, not an insane amount. What I will say, I mean, four seal, stone feels very, very good. Um, basically whenever you draw it, as it turns out, as with any deck, um, getting to pick any, any card from your deck is usually pretty good. So it, it definitely helps out early starts if you can draw it.
Mike:Lele. Liam, were you gonna say something?
Liam:Uh, on the Forest Seal or Sky Seal variant, either one. Um, don't play Pidgey. A v in the Forest Seal variant. Very bad.
Brent:Very bad. And why, why is that? What, what's your, what's your big issue? I mean, people do it. It's really bad. Don't
Kaden:play it. I, I wholly disagree with. But which is, which is Inteleon. I feel like I have had games where having the Palkia V and the Forest Seal is kind of almost just wins me the game. Because obviously the main problem with Forest Seal, stone in these variants is like you have to bench a V in order to, in order to use it. And, and with Palkia you can just shuffle it right back in. So, I don't know, I feel, I feel like it's felt quite good, but I'm curious to hear more about why, why you don't think it's worth it. Benching a
Liam:v is fine on a lot of matchups and don't play Palkia bad.
Mike:Um, do you guys think the Firestone Steel variant is better than the Sky Steel variants, or are they just kind of like two sides of the same coin? I mean, it seems,
Brit:I, I kind of like the mix and I understand that's sort of like, uh, I guess an opt out to the question really, but, Um, I think on paper, like, I think it makes sense why the forest seal stone is much better. Like it's just a consistency thing. And so it's just like, you know, it's like computer search or something. Like, computer search is always such a powerful card, um, because it can solve any problem for you, right? Like, it, it's not, it doesn't have to do the one thing, it can do anything. So like, it's just, you know, of course here you, you have to have the VM play, which for lost box, you're, you know, it's just drap on Raku for the most part. Or Pidgey up of course. So like, you're, you're limited there at least a little bit. But like, I think that's why, and I think it makes sense too, just also too, because what cards are you looking for? Like why, why is force so good here? Like presumably it it fetches you colors or like, it's just, it's, it's that much more conducive to Mirage Gate, turn two Mirage gate as soon as possible. Um, and like there's, there's use cases of course for the Sky seal stone. You know, just compare, you know, the sort of ubiquitous, ubiquitous two of the forest one, like again, like I said, it can solve any problem, whereas Skye stone is just like, it's gotta line up, it's gotta line up with your drap on play with Mew, you know, so on and so forth. Just like easy more, the use cases are obvious. Your stretches and comparison to just how simple forest always is.
Liam:I actually, I go the other way. We were talking about this a little, I think the, the sky seal, stone variant is like, It's, it's better into stuff likem, right? Like you're, you're better when you can trade for four prizes. That's really, really good. Um, it's better into like, all the VStar, VMax X exit just makes your trading much, much better. Um, like any loss to consistency that you give to like the four seal stone variant, you get back with like an extra turn. I think with the Sky Seal variant. The biggest issue though is that the Skys seal variant, like just, it's, it's punting the mirror. Um, and that's like the biggest, uh, probably the biggest consideration you're taking when you're playing Lost Box to E U I C is how you're gonna beat the mirror and the forest seal stone variants just better at that. I,
Brent:I think it's
Brit:still ends up being a bit of a consistency issue because again, here like, um, you know, forest, seal, stone, you know, other than like, like we said, the condition of needing a v, you know, it's. Help your deck function. Right? And so like how, how many games does the Skys still version win without Skys Seal Stone? And so it's just this question of just like, how consistent do you set up with one versus the other? And of course, forest is always gonna help you set up more, which I think just statistically is going to mean you, you play more games and so you win more games. And so obviously when it works out, I think Skye Stone is obviously stronger, but I'm saying that it's gonna do that less than Seal Stone is gonna be good like that. That's my
Kaden:argument. I think, I think it really comes down to which matchup you're trying to tech for and which matchup you're really concerned about. Cuz obviously Skye Stone helps primarily against Lugia and Mew amongst the top decks. Whereas for, for Seal, stone is, um, for Guardi and um, mirror. So I think it really, which one you run or whether you run a mix just comes down to how concerned you are about those different matchups and which one you wanna prioritize.
Mike:Yeah, I think that's a good point. Like I haven't played too much, uh, lost box really in the last couple weeks, but I do know that if I'm playing something like Lugia, I am much less worried about the lost box matchup. If they are not playing sky seal stone, like I think the matchup is significantly better for Lugia. I don't, I don't think it's like overwhelmingly favored for Lucia, but like I think you're un favored into the sky seal stone and like slightly favored maybe into forest seal stone. Um, so I think that's a good way to think about it. Just like Forest Seals better against the pseudo, the mirrors and the pseudo mirrors and then Sky Seals better against the rest of the format. Pretty good way to sum it up. Yeah. Yeah. And and
Brent:I, I hear you Brit like you might be favored like without the sky seal, stone in a bunch of those match anyway, cuz Lost one box might be the best deck, but, but it definitely, it definitely swings it a little bit.
Mike:Yeah. Um, are there any other, like gringa loss variants or do you, do you expect kind of just those two? I
Kaden:think, I think those two are gonna be the big ones or some hybrid between them. Um, yeah, I, I think those are the big ones.
Mike:Yeah. I guess you can play and I have seen lists that do play both. Right. One of each for Seal and Sky Seal. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, well while we're talking about Lost Zone, we might as well just talk about the other lost zone stuff. So what about the Lost Box charar? So this is a deck that I've played, I put a pretty decent amount of time into. Uh, I think there's like different ways you could play this version as well. It's a little bit less open than Greninja versions, but you can play, uh, you can play cross switchers or not play cross switchers. You can play heavy Sableye. Like three Sableye. Um, or you could play heavy Cramorant, three Cramorant. Um, you can run like the Far Seal Piat package as well in the deck if you want to. Um, so there are like things you can do. You can run Snorlax with, uh, double Turbo or not. Uh, you can run like a gate or two and some Hans or not. Um, so there is like, I think even though the gringa versions, um, have more options, I feel like they've kind of centered around these two concepts and lists a little bit more than the Lawson Charr decks actually have. I don't think it's really accepted which, uh, version of this deck is, is really the best, even though, you know, most, most of the, the core is the same. Um, I really like the deck. I think it's, uh, a little bit more consistent in the early. Then the greening X, because you're not running like four Mirage gate, which are basically four dead cards until turn two at the earliest turn three or turn four more realistically. Um, but you struggle a little bit in the mid to late game to do exactly what you wanna do. You're a little bit more susceptible to Roxanne. You're a little bit more susceptible to judge. Um, so you sacrifice, uh, your, your mid and late game consistency for stronger early game. Um, but I think the deck has like pretty good matchups across the board. I think the mirror is like you're, I think they're all like about even, but, um, you're like slightly favored into the sky seal, stone version of blast box and slightly unfavored against the far seal stone as we just kind of talked about. Um, and then other than that, you, like, you have, you have pretty good matchups like, uh, around, around the board because Charar can just. Hit for a lot of damage later in the game. Um, this deck is also a little bit easier to play than the Grin Ninja version, which is, uh, definitely a plus for me. Um, have you guys put any into, uh, the
Kaden:Czar version? Yeah, I've put a, I've put a good amount of games. Um, it is definitely one of, one of my top choices going into U I C. Um, and I think, I think for me, the biggest benefit is, I mean, as you mentioned, um, kind of, kind of two things. One, uh, it is a little easier to play. Um, the grin version is much more punishing if you, if you mess something up. Um, and I, with such a long day, like that's a very, and, and jet lag. That's a pretty big, a pretty big plus, um, that I'm taking into consideration. The other one also, as you mentioned, is, um, I think it's a little stronger versus the mirror, and I think it has. Has a lot, like you said, a lot of flexibility. That and, and kind of unexplored opportunities that, that people haven't really, haven't really tested because most of the focus has been on the greening of variant.
Mike:Yeah. And so two, two things, uh, I wanna piggyback off of Caden. Both you and I don't get in until Thursday. Um, yeah. So we ha so I feel like that seriously has to be, um, weighing in on our decisions about what deck we wanna play. We have less time to sleep and acclimate to the time zone. And so playing a slightly easier deck might just be a better choice for us, uh, to increase our win rate. Um, and yeah, the, the fact that there isn't really an accepted, you know, even 55 cards really for this deck, does give you the opportunity to surprise people a little bit more. Like if I, you know, if I bust out a third Cramorant. At some point, like, that's not, like, in theory, it's not like that big of a deal, but it's something that like really could surprise someone and, uh, you know, change the way that, uh, the, uh, the flow of a game goes. And I think that is a nice intangible going into an event like this in, in, in the early stages of a format. Liam Brit, anything else for ard? I, I haven't played
Liam:a single game with it. Um, no. Yeah,
Brent:I've played
Brit:more, mostly Gra Ninja and the Little Giratina, but I haven't messed too much with these other versions.
Mike:Okay, cool. Um,
Brent:when you say, when you say it's, uh, um, better in the early game and rougher in the mid game, like, is that, is that really just like you have more Cramorant and you can kind of stream Cramorant at them? Like, I, I've played, I haven't played a lot of games with, I haven't played any games with Charar, but I've played a lot of games with the Greninja build and like, you know, I, I don't know, I feel like. All, all that matters is like, do you start with some VIPs? Do you find choruses super quick? And, and like I, when I think about the two variants, I'm like, it doesn't feel that different because I think those things are both true in, in either situation. Uh, you know, it's great to get a Greninja out and as long as you manage your injury en energy, like you can draw some cards with Greninja and Grge is great.
Liam:I, I think that one, one key difference between'em, maybe I'm wrong, but um, charar doesn't have as many like pieces you have to hold for late game, like Mike said, the Mirage gates and stuff like that, where, which means that your comfy can usually go towards like, setup cards, like, and you're not punished for it as much as with like gr ninja where you're constantly forced to balance like, um, late game cards off of Flower Select thing versus early game cards, which, you know, uh, can't end up hurting your early game setup, I guess is what I'll say.
Kaden:Yeah. The other, the other thing is, you know, the, the Gringa Mirage gate, all the different types of energy, all the different attackers you wanna run like that takes a lot of deck slots and you can take those by cutting those. Um, the ARD doesn't take, doesn't take as many deck slots. So those car, those slots can go towards more consistency, running more beach car, running more Beach Corp, more search cards, more Pokegear. Um, I, if that's the sort of thing you wanna add. So I think, I think that's one of the big ways that it's more consistent. Um, I think in terms of how it sort of, tar starts to sometimes struggle in the mid to late game compared to the Sky Seal Ver or the, the Greninja variant is just because you have less attackers, like you're pretty, you're pretty telegraphed in terms of what you're gonna be doing for the next few turns. And you can't really, you know, whip out a, whip out a Riku sky, seal, stone, mirage gate, and swing for three prizes out of nowhere. That's not what the deck's built to do. Um, so yeah, I think, I think the ARD variant is my preferred variant, but, um, largely due to its consistency. But I think, I think the gringo variant definitely can pack a punch.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. The only, the only thing I'll say is yeah, the, when I think of the extra consistency, um, I just think of the, the deck spots, like most Greninja versions will play three to four Nest Ball. Um, but list will play five to six basic searches in addition to the VIPs between nest balls and fog crystals and sometimes LOV balls. And then every ARD list plays at least two, two Pokegear, sometimes three. Uh, and that's like the biggest thing is finding a chorus early game. So I think the ARD version does that better than the Grin Ninja version does. Yeah.
Brent:Sounds fair. Alright, what's the next, uh, what's the next deck on our list?
Mike:Um, well, let's just talk about Tina. Let's round out the, uh, the law zone trifecta. Um, Tina was a deck that I was pretty interested in, uh, in the early stages of the format as I think everybody was. Uh, and the more that I played, the less interested I got. Um, I think it's the best, like it's the most well-rounded deck in the format for sure. Um, but it also doesn't have any like stellar matchups, like it's mirror lost on mirrors are, you know, just, it's basically even, but you're just like a couple of percentage points lower because you have the Giratina stuff, but it's pretty much the same thing. Um, I'm a little scared with the Turbo Lawson that, uh, that that is like even worse than before. You are already like slightly un favored and now you're probably even more unfavor against those versions. Um, You're not like super great into Lugia, but you're fine. You can win the matchup. You're not super great. You're probably like slightly favored into Gardevoir, but it's still really close. Like everything I feel like with Tina is like, you're like slightly unfavor. It's like a 45, 55 deck. Um, so I think it's still a great play. It's still a pretty safe play, but I will not be playing it. Um, you guys saw Tour ranked it as like number one. I dunno, what do you guys think? So here's my
Brent:question for you guys. I, I, I'm interested in, I recognize I, I had a small sample size theater experience, but I'm sure, but I feel like this might resonate with you. So, uh, you know, like many, many, many people, and I think we're gonna talk about a lot more later in the pod, uh, I made the jump to PTCG L Yeah. And no surprise, when I logged into PTCG L and they gave me a whole bunch of decks, as I jumped in, I was like, I'll play this Giratina deck because Giratina is probably better than playing Maron or what are the other terrible decks they give you? Do Aine, EX, Aine, EX. Yeah. Like, I was like, there's a whole bunch of bad decks in Giratina. I'm definitely gonna play this Giratina deck. And um, like, you know, I won a bunch of games because like, the games are terrible, but every time getting the Giratina out, I was like, oh my God, I gotta cut the Giratina from this list and just build, build a real lost the zone box deck because the Giratina is horrendous. I don't know if you guys had that feeling, but like I took away from it. I was like, People going into the u i c must be almost traumatized by the Giratina deck that they got out of the, uh, out of the shell of PTCG L because it traumatized me.
Liam:I, yeah, I think, um, in general, like playing washbox with stage one attackers is like pretty rough. Like when you think about the deck, you'd be like, oh wow. Like, it's really nice to have access to an attacker like that, but you really struggle to find like your stage ones, like when you're looking through your deck because you only have three. I think the applies both Gure and Giratina, where like if on turn two you don't find one of your four Mirage gates and like one of your three stage ones, like your deck is no longer doing like what you think it would do in theory. Um, which I, I think just like makes the deck hard. Um, and, and it's
Brent:only two, two in PTCG l so, so you're just like, the whole time you're like, well, I'm just never gonna set up this Giratina VStar, but like these Giratina bees are gonna clock my bench. That is a thing and I'm gonna give surprises when they gust and
Kaden:kill it. Yeah, I think that's the other big one is with both, both Gure and Tina, they both have this problem that like, you know, with normal Lost Fox, you can afford to get kind of a turn behind, go a turn slow, and you'll probably be able to make it back up because Sableye is broken. Um, but with, with Tina and, and Gure, like if you throw down a V and then you don't find the VStar where they gusted up and you, they, you get a turn behind like they're killing vs. They're winning way faster. The odds of you managing to make a comeback are substantially lower. So I think, I think like in an ideal world, if I could play, if I could play loss zone Tina, where I was always hitting the VStar turn two and the Mirage gate turn two and, and was able to swing with Tina, like, I think it would absolutely be better. But I think you're punished way, way harder if you brick, um, and, and. So while, while the Tina version is, is compelling to me, and I think in some ways it might be better than the Greninja version, I would rather play it than the Greninja version because they both similarly like pack a big punch and, and uh, still have that reliance on ga. I don't think, I don't think I would wanna play it. Uh, you
Brent:know, I think you might might've, you might've hit on some of the bad experience I had was like, I knew you gotta get the Giratina v downturn one. And I was like, man, this is not what I want to be spending my, like, resources on turn one, especially going first, like, I was like, it's just, it's just a drag, you know. Every second I spent thinking, spent thinking about the Giratina was, I was like, this is a waste of
Liam:time. I could be doing something
Brent:helpful to try to win the game.
Mike:I haven't played any. Gure really, but do like, do a lot of it. It sounds like a lot of our, our thoughts are probably very similar with Gure and Tina, like just the same fundamental issues.
Kaden:Um, yeah. I I think it has very similar fundamental issues, as you said. Um, I think maybe it's a little better. I haven't, I haven't put many games into Gure. I think it has a better, like guardian matchup and stuff, but, um, I ha I haven't tested it that much.
Mike:Yeah. Guru is also guru. The one thing guru does have going for is probably the best against other law decks, right? Yeah.
Liam:Yeah. I think it's pretty strong in Del Lugia as well. It's not like, great, great inia. Um, it's, it's stronger than it was last format with Lugia losing evil
Mike:saw. Right, right, right, right. I guess the big thing of IUD is like, the best against Lost box and like, it's Tina matchup is probably terrible. Awful,
Liam:awful.
Mike:Yeah. Um, but who knows? Like, it, I don't expect Tina to be like ridiculously popular. I think it'll be fairly popular. Uh, I don't know, maybe somewhere in the five to 10%. Maybe closer to 10.
Liam:Yeah. I, I know we've been talking about this, um, when Meta gaming, but yeah, it's like probably low enough that you can afford to take a loss to it as long as like all your other matchups are really good. Right. But I mean, you, you can't take more than I think, like
Kaden:Giratina.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. Right, right. If you're taking the Giratina, you really gotta be solid against everything else.
Kaden:I don't know. I was, I was looking at your, your predictions Mike, as like, what, what the percentages for the different, um, effects from me. And we could talk about this further later, but, uh, I, I feel like you're, you're under indexing on how many people are gonna come to E I C with some random deck and I think you're, you're under indexing on the percentage of other that's gonna show up on that. Um, on the Meta display, on the like Meta spreadsheet. I think that's a fair anticipate. It's gonna be like probably cuz last format it was like what, 10, 12% other, I think, I think U I C it's gonna be more in the like 20 to 25% range. Hmm.
Liam:I, I know it like dip below 10%, um, at one regional, like near the end of the format.
Kaden:Yeah,
Mike:that's a good point. And I guess, um, you're probably right. Um, and like we should be thinking about how that affects every other deck as well because, um, A deck, like one of the ones we'll talk about in the future is like Inteleon, Urshifu, like that is probably just not fundamentally a great deck, um, and might struggle against random crap. Um, but something like Lost Box is very good. It's a very, very, very strong deck. Um, and will be good fundamentally against most things. So yeah, I mean this
Kaden:is one of my personal philosophies is Liz, I guess you could call it that is like at the beginning of any format, uh, especially right after rotation, um, arod decks and, and decks that just put on a bunch of pressure, um, and can attack really, really fast, um, are generally stronger. Um, Dex that don't, don't sit back and rely on your opponent to do something, but instead just like really aggressively start to pressure them down. Um, I, I feel like are historically, um, stronger at the beginning of a format. Um, Before the Meta stabilizes, you'll just be better against like random, random junk. Right? So, yeah. Um, do we want to talk about Lugia? Yeah. So I assume that's the next one on the
Mike:list. Um, well, funnily enough, Mariah beats it by just a little bit, but we can Okay. We can talk about Lugia. Um, yeah, so I feel like I do think Lugia outside of the law index will probably be the next most popular. Variant. Um, it's not gonna be the 25 to 30% that it was before, but you know, it could be 15. Liam thinks it could be close to 20%, perhaps.
Liam:I think it'll be above 15, less than 20.
Brent:I, I feel like, I feel like, whereas, uh, uh, like maybe a month ago when we, all we had was Japanese results, there was all this momentum around Giratina. Now I feel like all that's totally gone and like Lugia seems to have momentum for reasons almost unclear.
Mike:Yeah. If, if E I C was like a week and a half ago, I would've slammed Lugia, like, no question. It's really funny. I like, kind of realized Lugia was really good. Um, and then the Japanese event happened and then online event started and Lugia did really well. And I was like, man, I thought I had figured something out that nobody else would figure out, but nope. Um, yeah, Lugia is really, really good. It's way more consistent than I, uh, than I thought it was gonna be. And it just has, it just does a lot of the same stuff that I did last format, albeit less powerfully. Um, it has pretty good match ups, like it could beat anything. Uh, it's just, you know, there are awkward deeps for sure.
Liam:Yeah. I, I will warn anyone thinking about bringing Lugia to E Y C, that like at least half of your games at U I C are gonna look at your opening hand and the only out you have to like anything is gonna be meza.
Kaden:I think that, I don't know if I fully agree with that. Um, my, my feel like, like, sure you have games like that and the deck is fluffier than ever, but, um, I agree with Mike. The deck has felt remarkably consistent. Um, I. I mean, maybe this is just random variants, but it has felt more consistent than last format's. Lugia. Um,
Liam:that, uh, no, like, I mean, last formats Lugia had like all the same tools except for Mego. Megos is not like a huge consistency bump. It's only because we don't have, uh, quick Bow and Evo Ince. You have all the same tools. Um,
Kaden:4, 4, 4 Lugia with Burnett makes a big difference. Yeah. I mean like,
Liam:but like everybody wanted to play a consistent LucMetal last format and like, nobody ended up on that because like, it doesn't really bump your consistency that much. It was already like super duper consistent last format. Not super duper consistent, but it was pretty consistent last format and you, you had the option to play that on top of all the other stuff you're already doing. But like, all the stuff Lugia was, uh, was already doing was like enough I guess like,
Mike:well, I think, I think it too is that like Lugia was so. It was the, it was the centralizing force in the Meta game that it couldn't really afford to bump its consistency up anymore cuz it had to play all these other tech cards and it was like still fine, right? You could fit all those other cards. Now, um, if you want to hard counter Lugia, it's not that hard. Um, you can play a bunch of evil tall discards. You could play, uh, a Dedenne VMax, but you have to attack with it. Um, you can't just play Dedenne and stall them out cuz they'll beat you at Tyranitar. Um, there are like hard counters to Lugia and Lu. I think the difference is like, Lugia can't really afford to fit counters to all of its counters. Um, but I don't think it really has to because it's not the Meta defining deck really.
Kaden:Yeah. And this, this might shift, um, this might shift post u i c. Like if Lugia ends up being, you know, three, four of the top eight and just dominates a U I C, you know, maybe come around to Portland. Um, Maybe then the, maybe then the deck will have to start to cut down on some of its consistency to add, you know, a pumpkin kaaboo and a dun sparse and every, every other tech card imaginable. Um, but I think at least going into U I c, um, I think it can get away without some of those.
Mike:Yeah. Um, I do think there are more games. In this format where I've had to go single Archeops. Yeah. And in last format. But usually that's fine still, like you lose some games because you had to do that. But like overall it's still pretty fine cuz you, you get a lot of attachments, um, as well. So I, that hasn't really been a big deal for me. But I do think that's a good point. Like if you're playing Lugia, don't be afraid to go single Archeops. Like it's fine. Yeah.
Kaden:I actually, I think that's a really important bit. Um, last format's Lugia list felt like it relied way, way more on double Archeops in order to get, um, to get those Aurora down to set up something like a Raku or Uveal. Like if you're going uveal, you need a double Arceus opps. That's what I was gonna
Brent:say is last, last format. You always knew you were gonna attack with the veto and it was necessary to win the game and you were gonna have to power it up and uh, and the other guy knew you were gonna have to attack with it too. So like that, that changes the math a
Kaden:little. Yeah. But this format, uh, single Archeops has felt like usually plenty. Um, you get into some, sometimes you can get into bad situations when they gust kill it, but, um, besides that, it, it's honestly been, been fine. Um, the deck feels like it's way less aligned, especially since now it's running three d t e for the most part. Um, and I, I haven't really, one Arceus has felt great for most games. Um, yeah,
Liam:yeah. Luga is really easy to beat now, so I, I disregard the deck, like it's lost all of its pressure. Like Raku and Stoutland meant that it was like beating any deck and like four turns, unless you have like a really good plan for it, which made it really hard to beat Lugia now. Like you have like so much time. The deck's so bad. It's, it's so good. Beat.
Brent:Yeah. All right. This is, this is the, I mean, guys podcasts are powered by hot takes. This is, this is what you guys needed to know. Yeah. Players are bad. Lugia
Kaden:is bad. I think, I think Lugia is definitely nowhere near as strong as it was last format. I don't know if I would call it bad, um, but it is definitely easier to counter if you want to try to counter it. Um, yeah, I just don't know if it's like worth right. Like Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's worth it. That's why like, if, if Lugia does well at a U I c I almost certainly wouldn't be bringing it for Portland, um, because of how easy it is to counter right now. But going into U I c I don't know if people are going to make make the call to counter it. Yeah, we, we just
Liam:said it was gonna be like a fifth of the Meta. It's like really easy to be, you know, you're gonna hit two day one, maybe two more in day two. Like,
Kaden:but there's a difference of like,
Mike:there's a difference of like needing to counter it versus like if your deck is already fine into it. Like if you're playing Yeah. Yeah. Like you don't need to hard counter Lugia cuz you're already taking like a 50 50 ish matchup. So
Brent:as, as Mike and Caden, as you guys prepare for E U I C, how much are you guys focused on just trying to like, find the best deck and build like really consistent versions of that deck versus like really executing on countering the Meta?
Kaden:Um, I mean, as I, I, I feel like I sort of in some ways answered this earlier by saying, um, you know, I think that we're gonna have probably like 20% other in of the Meta share. Um, I think it's a new format. Um, sure we have online tournament, it's a new format and post rotation. Sure. We have online tournaments, we have the Japanese tournaments and whatnot. But, um, I think the med, uh, you, you're, you can't just purely tech for the top decks and expect to get through the day. Um, I, I think you're gonna hit a lot of random stuff, um, especially in your early rounds. And I, so I'm personally trying to figure out, you know, what, what deck. What deck feels the best, um, and then try to really optimize for consistency in order to make it through the day and, and try to be able to be any random thing that gets thrown my way. And, you know, maybe I'll throw in a few specific texts for some of those top decks to try to improve my lost box matchup a little bit, or my Lugia matchup. But, um, I'm definitely not going all in on trying to find a deck that, you know, 100% auto wins the top three decks, but then takes, takes a hard loss to the rest of the Meta. Like, that's what you can do later in the format. Um, it, it's, it's hard for me to make that call, um, this early for the first tournament.
Liam:I, I agree with the conclusion. I, I, I disagree with the like, oh man, you have to beat all the other decks, which is why you play a consistent deck. I think you play a consistent deck because right now I think having a streamlined engine and something that's very quick is, is really hard to find and it's gonna capitalize on a weakness that a audit share right now, which is the lack of evolution based search in the format. Like it's really hard to build something evolution based that's consistent because there's no reliable evolution search except for like the new supporter or something. Um, whi, which makes like a lot of decks, like really high roll, makes it difficult for them to function, um, super well. Like something like we, you just have to flip heads a bunch if you want to like actually find your evolutions. Um, I also think that's why like Lost Box is so strong right now. It's engine is just like undeniably, I think, the best in the format. And it also has the, the added benefit of like, destroying every other engine. So, um, I, yeah, I, I look at it as like engine based and like, if you can find a good engine, I think that's gonna be like the key to success at E I C. Um, and capitalizing on everyone else's weaker engines. I don't think it's because like, you know, the guy at the bottom table's playing some deck that's not listed because they have no clue what, what's the, what the Meta is or something is like the reason you have to build a consistent deck. I think, um, a consistent deck is good because, uh, it capitalized on weaker engines right now.
Brent:I know, I know. This is how Mike felt when he was like on Gardevoir a month ago, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, because like, we're gonna set up a bunch of Kirlia is and destroy them.
Mike:Um, yeah. Uh, just to answer your question, Brent, like I, I'm kind of in sync closer, like pretty much what Caden said. I've just really been trying to like play all the best X and like make the lists as good as possible and then choose from those, um, And I haven't really been focused too much on spice. I'm leaving. I'm letting Liam do that, and then if it works out, I'll, I'll, I'll play it.
Brent:Alright. Let's talk about Mariah for a second. I, I recognize this, this is gonna be one of the longer pods. Cause like e i
Mike:c, um, I've played zero games with any MIH on deck.
Kaden:I have not, I've played quite a lot against it. Um, I have not played any games with it. Um, the deck feels pretty underpowered, especially compared to a lot of the other, um, decks in the, in the meadow right now. Um, it feels like it's pretty inconsistent. Has a pretty clunky engine, um, and needs to hit quite a lot every turn to continue running. Um, so. On top of that, it's not even hitting that hard. Um, you really have to set up a lot of Reggie Lucky in order to hit hard or, and if you're running the magazine version, like now you're running, now you're trying to hit with a stage two and it's kind of awkward. Um, and, and I think that, um, I think Maron's pretty, pretty okay. Um, I, I just think it's outshined by a lot of the Meta, and I don't even think, I don't even think Lugia has to run a Dunsparce to beat them unless they're running flying Palkia. Um, and I, I, I think if you're trying to run flying Palkia on top of everything else in Mariah on your deck's, just getting way more inconsistent. So yeah. Brit, you
Liam:put any games with
Brent:it? Yeah.
Brit:I can tell, tell you all about Myone testing if you really like to hear about it.
Brent:Oh my God, we didn't wanna hear about that. I, I've, so, I mean, my impression of like the few games I've played, like with and against Miranda is it feels like the kind of thing that Pokegear is gonna turn into with Beam Deck. Cuz like, I, you know, like it's incredibly obvious how the engine works. They're like slapping you in the face with the engine, but like, it's just,
Liam:it's okay. Yeah. There's
Brit:not enough to it, it's just very, very lackluster when
Liam:you set up, I, I know I said earlier I am intrigued by, I'm a ride on. Um, however, I think driving a bunch of regs is not the best way to play it. Um, I like anything that like, it, it, it turns a nest ball into a full board. Um, yeah. From term one to turn two, which I like. I think that's just incredibly powerful. Um, especially right now without quick ball. So like, set up basics are like hard to use. Um, lost Box is a great job of this. Um, But yeah, I think like Mira, you can nest ball for it and then you got like a full board. And also because of road time v format, like turn one, you go mira on, you get another basic and Odem V and then you're drawing three cards, which is really good for setting up something like flying Peak because it lets you, it, it gives you raw draw that I think is like needed for finding, um, state or like evolutions in Unformer that can't be grabbed with LOV ball. Right. Because of like the weak evolution search, um, that I mentioned earlier. So yeah, I, I think Mariah is like an interesting option. We don't really have good lightning Pokegear right now and grabbing a bunch of Reggie. Not like the most intriguing option to me. Yeah. Like I feel like people are
Brent:trying to explore things you could get out by having a Right on. Because like, like yeah, they're slapping you in his face with this engine. They're like, get out a bunch of stuff, but. Like, uh, yeah. Mean, I feel like the theme deck that Pokegear is gonna give you is like, here's a fluffy, and you'll be like, oh, this is what we're doing.
Mike:Yeah. The thing that, like, the funniest thing about I, I've also played against Meh on a lot. I'm, I'm very glad I didn't do any testing against it myself because I'm PTCG live. You just play against it all the time, right? Um, uh, the thing that I'm always constantly surprised about with against Ride on, I'm like, okay, you know, if they, if I KO KO them here and then they do this, I'm kind of in a bad spot and then like eight outta 10 times, they just can't KO you that next turn. They cannot string attackers together to save their life, but like, oh, they missed on the electro generator game's over. That's the thing I'm like always shocked about
Kaden:the deck feels wildly inconsistent. And if it's not swing for weakness, it really struggles to hit numbers. Um, that's, that's sort of my, my, I
Liam:know I gave my thoughts on it earlier. It's two prizes and is only powered up with a five card max elixir. Um, which seems real. I like, I would not be surprised if any player who is in like top 16, top 22 or whatever, like auto day two right now for their respective region doesn't play ride on. I don't think a single one of'em will. Um, like Dick is just, it's so
Brent:awful to play. Uh, and, and to your point, Mike, like anybody that, anybody that's played PTCG life has probably bumped into someone playing it and they've probably never had a game where they're like, oh, this is an interesting idea. I, you know, I should like, explore that because like, it's always bad.
Mike:It is worth noting though. I do expect it, like in somewhat decent numbers, like I would probably give it in the five to 10% range.
Liam:I agree. I I don't think it will be played by a single player who has auto day two right now. Sure, sure, sure, sure. No, no.
Brent:Alright, let's talk about Gardevoir.
Mike:Yeah. Gardevoir is next. Gardevoir is a deck that I really liked and then I really didn't like and now I kind of like it again. Um, I think the lists that have been doing well online recently are significantly better actually than the lists that came outta Japan. And the one similar to the ones that I was testing and part of it is the Mewtwo. Uh, the Mewtwo is obviously quite good against lost box, but I really think the bigger thing is running heavy research and no candies. Um, I think that engine is just significantly stronger, um, than trying to like fit in candies and like occasionally getting a candy Gardevoir off. Um, you just set up a bunch of Kirlia play research and you'll eventually get set up. There are some games where you can like end turn three. With like five or six cards left in your deck, like it's actually nuts how fast you can move through your deck if you get a decent start. Um, and if you do that, like you pretty much beat everything. Like you'll get the Sky Seal, stone Zacian, playoff against Mew or Marra on or, or Lugia. Um, and you have the mute too now for, for Lost Box. Um, I think it's still like a little sketchy, like you can prize two rots and then your games suck. But, um, but the deck is, is significantly better than, than than what it was before. So it's something that I am actually considering for E U I C and I don't think I would've said that a week ago.
Kaden:I mean, you definitely
Liam:weren't saying it two weeks ago. So, uh,
Brent:that's, uh, that's a lot of movement.
Kaden:Yeah. Uh, I, I feel somewhat similarly about Guardi. Um, it feels. It's certainly up there for me in terms of, I think it's a Mew, it's right next to Mew and Lawson Box in terms of like the most consistent dexon format right now. Um, it feels quite consistent, especially many of these new builds. And um, I agree Rare candy kind of sucks. Um, Kirlia is just too good. Um, and I, I think that the deck, I, I mean, I, I agree with everyone, everything you said, really. I think the deck struggles some with Lost Box. Um, V-Union helps with that. Um, not, I don't know. It's tough. It doesn't feel like it helps quite enough. Yeah. Um, it still feels pretty rough against lost Box and the deck if you don't hit the sky seal stone, um, turn two, like, it, it can struggle against, uh, Luie as well, especially if, if you're not running cno, if your CNOs don't stick and they get going, like it can be pretty tough. Um, but I think Gardevoir is one of the best position decks, especially in terms of just beating. Like random junk, um, and, and beating everything besides Lost Box and Lugia. Yeah. Yeah. The
Mike:Lost Box matchup is still like my biggest hangup. I need to play that more before Friday. Um, cuz I, in theory the Mewtwo is very good, but you know, they have plays with drap on, you have plays against the drap, but like how do those situations come up? Do you even get there that often, like their best plays are like just kind of say blind pick off Kirlia and maybe the Turbo build just does that so quick that it doesn't, you know, you don't really dig through the deck quick enough to really make the Mewtwo plays consistent.
Kaden:Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I imagine Guardi even with, even with V-Union, um, struggles quite a lot against the Ninja, the Turbo Ninja version of OS Box. Um, I think they'll pretty consistently just, just. Slaughter you turn two three.
Mike:Mm-hmm. The list online have been playing, uh, Alef Key, which I think, I think playing one clef key is like, kind of interesting cuz you're not devoting two bench spaces to it, so you're not like giving up two easy prizes towards the later parts of the game. But you obviously lose the protection against escape rope. But like, maybe that's just fine.
Kaden:Yeah. You'll brick them a good amount of the time and then you'll see, you'll buy yourself some turns to set up. Get some V-Union pieces in the discard and, and ideally start, start winning. Yeah.
Mike:Liam Brit, anything for garden? No,
Brit:I've just sort of defaulted to you as my Bible for it. I haven't really put any, I haven't played it, I haven't put any thought into it. It's kind of just like, if Liam figures out control, I'll learn control. It's like the same thing.
Liam:Gardevoir is tricky to beat with control. Um, I, I, I was shocked. I, um, I mean, I, I've never played with something that has the, the acceleration from discard like Gardevoir does, like the, um, the, the like, just like absolute recklessness with retreating that they have is, is something I've never seen because it just comes at no cost. Like even stuff like blast away or like anything that accelerates from hand, they can't retreat like Garda BDEs, like Gardevoir just, they're just swapping between everything, every turn. Um, and like there's definitely ways to beat it with control, but they require like much more deck space than I I'd like. So still looking for some other stuff. Yeah. It's not such
Brent:a big part of the Meta that you can go all in to beat it, right?
Kaden:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's Urshifu. Oh yeah. We can talk about. I was just gonna say, I think, I think Gardy is gonna be more popular than Marra on, but, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And I think it's probably gonna be in the around 10% range. Mm-hmm. Um, I feel like that feels like a pretty safe call for Gardy.
Mike:Yeah, I agree with that.
Brent:Uh, I think like Mike, the, there's, there's gonna be some people that are like, I just wanna play Gardevoir.
Kaden:I don't even care. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:That's like a, a a, a good thing to mention like guardian andon are both going to be for better or worse, probably worse from ride's case and better for Gorebyss case. Um, the new set effect. Right. People wanna play the new
Kaden:Yeah. Garde even more so because it's Gardevoir and people like Gardevoir. Yeah. Um, yeah. Intel Urshifu, um, I, we talked about it a little bit previously. Um, it feels like a deck that's very much, you know, you know, angling to hard beat loss box and, and really hard counter a few select top decks, which, um, I don't feel comfortable playing it at, you know, the first tournament of a new format. It, it would more be the type of thing I pick up. Um, you know, in the last few tournaments of a format when we have a pretty good sense of what's gonna be going in, um, or what I'm gonna hit. But I, I, I don't think, I think it's strong, um, but it feels a bit too gimmicky. Yeah. I,
Liam:I have no clue what Caden was just referring to, but I, I always, I always will disagree with Caden's sentiment about, um, what is it? Oh yeah. Like, it's like a, an unknown field or something. There's gonna be like a few people, like, we don't know what Sanders playing, but like everybody else who's not playing something in the top like 15 decks and you're like, oh my God, it's unknown. Like that thing is gonna suck. Like you can just, you could beat with like anything like we were talking about. No,
Brent:but I thought, I thought Caden's point though is like, there, there's gonna be, there's gonna be the 20% that's. Like 15% people that suck and are just bringing Dr and 5% that are bringing the spice. The Liam Halliburton, I'm
Liam:the spice. Like if you're planning on bringing a Melmetal deck, like they're gonna beat you anyway. Like, it doesn't matter what you're bringing, but that, but Italian
Brent:inertia food is like, is like just not Meta enough, right? Like it's, it's not one of the top four or five decks. It's the sixth deck,
Liam:but it's really easy to beat. So,
Kaden:no, no, we're talking about, about playing intel or, yeah. Yeah. So we
Mike:don't wanna play it because it doesn't beat, it doesn't beat all of the other top decks and it loses to random stuff,
Liam:right? I mean, I, I think like, you can always beat random stuff and if you're like, like you can beat like the random, random stuff, right? Like the really bad players bring something you've never seen and you're gonna lose to the good players bringing something you've never seen. Cuz like it's gonna be really good, it's gonna beat everything. Yeah,
Brent:I mean, kid's Point is like, it's, it, it feels to me like it's super hard counter to, uh, lost box decks and you're like, oh, okay, we're, we got a great plan for lost box decks and we have a terrible plan for everything else and we probably have a good, we have a great Gardevoir matchup cause we're just gonna slaughter all their alts and Kirlia us. Yeah.
Mike:Uh, it's not that good. Like if, if you don't, if you don't get, like, you need to go really fast as the Urshifu Inteleon deck and that deck does not go fast very well because like they'll just evolve. Like once they evolve to Kirlia, actually even the rot says 70 hp um, like getting 80 damage down is not trivial. Like that takes two to three turns. Like you need, you need a lot to kind of do that quick enough before they just evolve into s and then the Zacian just starts taking 3, 2, 3,
Kaden:4 prizes and
Brent:Yeah, I dunno, I think that just underscores that this is a bad deck, right? Like, like, like their plan is. Okay. That sounds like a plan, but like in practice, the plan is not very good.
Liam:Right. It doesn't have an engine. It's,
Kaden:yeah, it's, it doesn't have
Mike:an engine. That's like the biggest thing, right? Octillery is your engine.
Brent:Yeah. Every time you're like, we gotta set up this Octillery, you're like, I have a bad deck.
Liam:I, I think is the only deck that can get away with not having an engine because it's like play off the board is just so
Kaden:strong. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:Octillery is like such a, like a, it's a slow engine, right? Because you have to spend resources getting it out, but then you only get one resource, a turn. So like you need two turns for it to make up just for itself and then you start gaining cart advantage from it. Does that make sense? The cart
Liam:source is also really bad. It finds the double energy, which is important, but especially in something like in Inteleon, like you have like no great way, I think to search out water energy. Um,
Mike:right, right, right. You just have to do you draw your
Liam:water energy? Yeah. Especially with training court rotating like. Like, it's bad now. What
Brent:did, what did people play with Rapid Strike like two formats ago? That, that let you draw some cards after you
Liam:Artillery, like you play Italian? Yeah. You played
Mike:Italian. No. Yeah, yeah,
Kaden:yeah. It's the, the deck
Brent:feels bad. You were gonna multiple pieces at return. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Kaden:Terrible. Um, I figure we should talk about next, we should talk about Deck that I personally feel is substantially better than, uh, Tel Urshifu. That being Mew, I think Mew is arguably the best deck in the format besides drap on drap. You know, drap kind of kills it oftentimes. Um, but I think, I think Bar, bar drap on, um, I think it's, I think it's probably the best deck. It's so consistent.
Mike:We were, we were talking a little bit before, and I, we just feel like almost every deck just has like a kind of sketchy matchup against me. Like every deck has like, their plan and they're like, yeah, but
Kaden:it's still a little sketchy.
Liam:Hey, I, um, I, uh, I, I echo what kittens saying about how it's like the best act except DRAP Pizza. I, I think it is. Um, it's really, really strong right now. But because of that, like the logic plan, drap, I think last format was like the only things that you would actually see draping in would be something like Palkia, which has no real Mew answer besides the drap. So it's like, okay, it's like something you can deal with. But because all the other decks are like a little bit weaker now, and Muse still retain like its strength now. It's in stuff like Washbox, it's like even in stuff like Lugia. Um, and like when you see stuff like that, I think you just, like, it's really hard to play Mew into a field like that because everything recognizes like muse strength. So they're just like, they're playing draping, even if they already have like some identifiable wing con against me. Um, like li has like te and stuff, but like, I mean, some of them are still throwing then or whatever, like, or the evil tall,
Mike:like they're sometimes playing like an extra
Liam:card. Yeah, yeah.
Mike:Like for most texts that's Jian. But it could be something else too.
Liam:Yeah, I, I think people are respecting it and like, so they're playing, they're playing drap that I don't think you would see last format. It's like, uh, it's like super common in lost box now and like in last format they were like, you know, they just relied on their, like other options like reque Oricorio or something like that. But yeah, you know, people respect it. So another playing drap, even in index that should have like some other win con against it.
Mike:And I wouldn't expect, like, even though Mew hasn't done super well in the online events, like people are not gonna drop their drap for this tournament. Like there's no
Liam:way. No. Yeah. I, I would come in beating you. Um, I think that's important
Mike:and I think like base, like looking at this usage percentage, I'm shocked that Mew is so low. I think Mew will still be like third, maybe fourth most popular deck. Like it'll probably be right around where Gardevoir is, right?
Kaden:Yeah. I agree with it's be about
Liam:gardy level. There's something to be said. Um, because like, I think we're working at online results right now. Like people aren't finding much value in bringing Mew as opposed to bringing like a new deck entirely, um, online, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's
Brent:true. Yeah. And, and when it comes to physical cards, like everybody's got basically new deck. Like you, you can buy it tomorrow easily. It's super cheap versus. Mean, I recognize somehow people always show up with all the hype new cards for whatever crazy deck they wanna build, but like, it's gonna be hard to get Gardevoir cards.
Mike:That's true. Do we? Oh, so I, I just realized part of the reason that Mew looks so low on this usage chart is the D T e Mew and the Fusion Mew are separated. Um, if you add those together, it's just under Gardevoir. Um, so what do you guys think, do you think, what do you think the split will be like two-thirds dte, one third fusion, something
Kaden:like that? I think it's gonna be something around that. Um, in terms of actually talking about like the deck itself, um, I think Fusion Mew is. Better position this format than it was last format. Um, I think that, as I mentioned before, there's a lot of benefit to just being a very fast deck that puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and being able to take a turn, a turn two knockout is, um, kind of in kind of, or a turn one knock, sorry, A turn one knockout going second is kind of insane. Um, and uh, so I think there's a lot to be said about the fusion variant. Um, I have not done much testing with it at all, but, uh, I think in theory at least it seems, it seems pretty good.
Liam:Um, I'm once again very engine focused. When I look at this Meta. Um, giving up the chance to play judge, uh, seems absurd to me. Um, I, yeah. I also like, like I, I don't, I don't see Fusion Mew players, like they're, they're not like part of the community, you know, like, I mean, they're not like actually running on into deck. They're just trying to like, see if they can turn one cheesy, which is like,
Kaden:that's the
Mike:quote. That's the quote, yeah. That is, players are not part of the community. That is the take
Kaden:from someone who's gotten, um, turn one Alyssa sparkled into Ueta too many times.
Liam:I mean, like, I, yeah, I, I hit it at Arlington and I'll like, never forget that game. Like, I was just like, I was, I mean, I was, I was watching and I was like, Jesus dude, like I might just lose here. This guy flips heads on catcher, but like the deck like doesn't function. And then they flip tails and I was like, oh, wow. I just, I just attack and they lose. Like I, I, I remember I was like going into the, going into the last turn and I like left the energy in my deck. Cause I was like, I already know. Like this guy has no real win con at this point. I'm just gonna try to like bust, stall something. Lo and behold they did. And then I was like, I have the energy. But you know, like, I mean like, it has no way to like actually come back or like take breaths or have like any legit winning, uh, condition after they miss turn one KO on your only Lugia. Like dextro sucks,
Brent:fu fusion. Mew feels very much like a Walker ectomy. And then he's like, let just burn everything to try for this like, turn one win and
Liam:Yeah. Ulti, Ultimate cheese. Yeah, they're, they're just like, they're not even trying to play the game. They're just like, you know, they're running a game of solitaire really quick and just leaving.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. The great thing about Fusion Mew is, you know, like three minutes in if you're gonna win or lose,
Mike:Um, all right, last couple fringe decks. We don't have to spend as long on them. Uh, I have not played games with any of these decks, but if you guys have, and you have thoughts we can give them. So, uh, any Arceus variant in particular? Archeops, Giratina, um, a Dialga Magni zone deck. And Shadow. Rider, Calyrex. Um, and then Brit, you can talk about win colon after we mentioned these three. So, Archeops, Archeops, Shadow, Rider, Dialga. Any
Kaden:thoughts on these? Yeah, I've played a good amount of games with Giratina. Um, the deck feels pretty good, um, to be, to be honest. It's very straightforward, very consistent. It is probably the deck I would recommend most if you wanna just, uh, play a deck to Brain Dead win ladder games on PTCG Live, and climb quickly. Um, I think, I think it's probably the best deck for that. It's, it's. Pretty, it's quite easy. Um, quite fast games and so I think it's perfect for that.
Brent:Oh, this is great information for me. Yeah,
Liam:yeah,
Kaden:yeah. And I, I, I think it's really good for laddering, but in terms of actually bringing it to a tournament, um, I think it has a pretty rough time against a lot of the Meta right now. Um, I think it has a tough time against Lugia. Um, I think it has a tough time against Lost Box. Um, I think it, I think it loses to most of the top decks, but, but it is, it is great for laddering on PTCG. Oh my God, this is
Brent:great information. I've been grinding out games with last box. I could just be teasing people with Arceus,
Kaden:Tina. Yeah, I can send, I can send you a list if you want. It's, it's very, it's very fast and easy. I. If I wanted to grind ladder, I would just, you know, throw in, throw on some music, maybe throw a video on in the background, and then just play Argentina games.
Mike:I feel like probably I, I haven't really played games, but I've watched, I've watched some people play games with it. I feel like the Archist EX just kind of have the fundamental issues that they've always had of like, going second sucks. Yeah. And going first and not attaching energy also sucks.
Kaden:Yep. Going first and not attaching energy. And also if you don't get, if you don't get both your rcs and your Tina down, um, like you're in a quite a lot of trouble if they managed to gust up your bench the next turn. Sure.
Liam:Yeah. Um, I think for, for both Tina. Dialga, you just like, think about the necklace really quick. Females playing like research, judge Nest Ball, ultra Ball, like, there's like no room for like any cool plays or anything. It's just you're attaching energy to rcs and seeing what happens. Um, and then Dialga of course is playing like 20 Energy. So you obviously aren't trying to play the game either. Like,
Brent:yeah. Is is Dialga real deck? I feel like it's gotten a little more hype like recently for reasons I don't understand at all.
Liam:I mean, like, it's a, I think it's like, I, I don't know, but just from looking at'em I guess would be is like, it's a real deck. If your bottom 20 cards are energy and then you set up a bunch of Magna zones, um, like, you know, as long as the energy are out of your hand and in your deck, the deck is fine. But you know, if you open with a bunch of energy, like deck sucks. Honestly. That's why you don't play it like decks with 20 energy.
Mike:Uh, what about Shadow Rider? You guys try Shadow Rider at all? I was, this was like the deck that I was the most surprised about, like much more so than Dialga Magone. Um, cuz it doesn't look that bad to me, but it just looks so weird that it's doing well.
Liam:It's, I honestly don't know what, it's funny, dude. Is it doing well? When I,
Brent:when I look at Limitless, it says it's a hundred thirty eight, a hundred fifty eight. Like, all right. All right. Alright. It's a bad deck does bad. When people play it, they do bad.
Kaden:Yeah. I, I think it is just vastly inferior to Guardi. Um, I think that they have, it has somewhat similar matchup spreads to Guardi, but I think it's way worse. Yeah.
Mike:In theory, when I think about its matchups, like it should be pretty good against Lugia and Mew because it can do like the stupid lock stuff. Um, but it's, the data says it's like super un favored int Lugia and
Liam:yeah, because like, I mean, you look at the cards in the deck, it's playing two path to Seal Stone and two Arvin. Like they're never hitting anything. Um, and then like, even if that happens, they lose tugs with Punka Bill, they play one fan of waves. So like you're losing 10% of your games to me, just like off the spot. And I don't even, I don't even think that's like a reliable strategy anyway. I like, oh yeah, it's like it's fake Shadow Rider lock. I think anyone, people have obviously tried to build these like turn one path locks with Shadow Rider and it just doesn't work. Like it's
Brent:not reliable. And when you say, when and when Leave says that, let's be clear. What he means is I was totally doing that to people like a week and a half ago.
Mike:Um, all right, great. Talk to us about Michael alone. Yeah.
Brent:The best second format. Let's go. Well, I don't
Brit:have anything too conclusive to offer. I feel like it's close. Like, and, and maybe this is just probably where the investigation ends. Um, it's like, feels pretty Okay. I have it. I've been trying a lot of different kind of lists, but really nothing outside of just with bial and various, various texts trying different things and things like that. Trying like OLS and, uh, flying Pikachu, just kind of random things like that. And like, it's okay. And like, I don't think your lost box matchup is actually that bad. Fair. Pretty well, not Giratina, obviously, but, um, all the other ones, just like, you take prizes fast and they can't really kill you, and you play a lot of Cheren's, you play a lot of Cheren's and like, obviously all your Pokegear are colorless. So like, uh, s it's, it's difficult to spread damage. They just kind of have to. Take knockouts with the spread. And that's just inefficient at the end of the day. And so you trade well and like Char can't, like doesn't one shot you or anything And um, but of course at the same time you're damage like never hitting for too much like the promised Land full bench and like a belt is like one 90 or something like that. Um, but like it, I feel like it needs a partner and so that, that's what I'm trying to figure out, like what to pair it with. And I don't, I don't have anything to offer. I think it's like bad as is. I don't think it's a real deck, but like it's close. Like there, there's some things to it that I like think could make it pretty good. Um, but I mean, I just play like four path. Poor Judge bi, lots of lots of support. I started, I've started playing crushing Hammer in it as well. It's one thing I'm trying just like there's space to try things like that. The thing with Crushing Hammer is like, doesn't really beat any decks in the format right now. Like in the past when, uh, like when it's been good in, you know, these various decks, obviously we can debate flip good, flip bad, you know, all day long. But like the power, you know, the power for when that card is good is, is Meta relevant. And there's just like, there's just nothing in the Meta game where it feels great again. It's like, it's annoying for Lugia, but it's about it. Like, it'd be good against Arceus for, you know, reasons we just discussed, but don't see a lot of that. Um, yeah, it's, it's okay about what I expected, but I'm still working on it. Was hoping to maybe crack something to play some League Cups in a couple weeks, but that's the goal still, but don't have anything too conclusive and, you know, no one's playing it. So I don't have any other like results or lists to like work with. Maybe, maybe there's a deck out there. Like, it, it, it's close, it's efficient. The damage reduction is good. Like Arvin is good in it. Getting you your setup stuff and like the helmet, the full face guard and stuff, it always feels really good. Um, but yeah, close, not close enough. Mm-hmm. Cool.
Kaden:I've got, I've got one thing. Mm-hmm. Um, I figured we should, we could go around in the circle and set briefly say our thoughts. Um, lost box mirror. You going first or second?
Mike:I, if I'm playing Ard I'm going second. If I'm playing gr Ninja, I think I'm going first. I think that's where I've kind of landed Espeon, especially the Turbo version. Um, with Greninja, I think if you go first, you pretty much always just get turned to Mirage gate. Not always, but like, it's fairly consistent and I think that's, Like going first, getting turned two Mirage Gate is really powerful. And like getting turn one Mirage gate with that is like possible but a little sketchy.
Kaden:Yeah. I, I'm a strong believer in going second in lost box mirror. Okay. I think, I think the ability to be able to play chorus, turn one and basically guarantee turn two Sableye is too strong to pass up. Um, yeah. What do you think, Liam? What do you have thoughts? Um,
Liam:yeah. Jeremy beat me like 10 times in a row in the hotbox mirror, so I've like, it's like permanently shattered my confidence. Like I don't even know what was happening. I was just like, oh wow. Sended two prizes now.
Mike:That's funny. Liam's never playing Lost Box ever again.
Brent:Yeah. And so having said that, Caden, uh, when you sit down across from somebody, if you're playing Lost Box this weekend and you have no idea what deck they're playing, you'll never choose to go second,
Liam:right?
Kaden:No. Yeah. Not unless I know they're playing Lost
Brent:Box. Yeah. You have to know you're going into the mirror, right? Like it's is like a day two, uh, uh, information check.
Liam:Right? I, I will say what I do like about that is, um, I don't know if it really applies to Lost Box as much, but, um, I really like Dex in the past, like comes all with control where you can, you're really happy claiming like the setup advantage. Um, and you're not necessarily just like losing a really important turn when you're going second. Mm-hmm. Um, mm-hmm. Right. Like playing Lugia, like you have to go first, like all your matchups get so much better when you go first, but like, your consistency obviously takes a dip. Um, and I, I never liked that I, um, being able to play supporters term one, especially in like V I P X where you can dig for the v i p a little bit more. Um, a really bunch of consistency that way. I, I really like being able to go second. Yeah. Um, and not take like the massive hit to your
Kaden:matchups.
Mike:I do think, um, interestingly, you, you mentioned Lugia, obviously if I'm playing Lugia I'm always choosing to go first, but going second with Lugia in this format feels way, way, way better than going second last format because, um, read The Wind is like actually really relevant with limited ways to discard Archeops. Um, and you play more Lugia, so it's not that hard to get to Lugia down. Um, so I don't hate going second with Lugia, especially like against Lost Box, like against Lost Box. It's actually, I don't think I would ever choose it, but like I'm always like kind of happy. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Alright. Uh, um, just a couple of other things that I, like, I recognize next weekend we're gonna be talking about E U I C outcomes, so I feel like we gotta go a little long today. Yeah. Just to cover a couple of other things really quickly. Um, league Cups. Are you guys going on
Kaden:the grind? Um, I, up until I get my finishes. Yeah,
Mike:we'll see how UIC goes again. Yeah, no,
Kaden:that's that I'm in a similar boat. If U IIC goes, well, maybe I'll skip out on a few of the cups, but honestly, cups have always been a pretty positive thing for me. I've always enjoyed going to cups, um, seeing locals, and this is coming from someone who, as I'm in Northern California, uh, our cups are pretty, pretty brutal. Um, we've got a, a lot of folks up here, so, uh, but yeah, so they're hard. Um, but I'm gonna go and have fun and it's, it's honestly great seeing folks and any opportunity to play Pokegear in person, um, is great. Yeah,
Mike:I, uh, I'm kind of like, if I. Any points at U I C then it puts me in striking range of finishing the invite up with cups and challenges. So, you know, if I get points at the U I C I'm definitely gonna go on the grind. If I get a lot of points, then I don't have to go on the grind. And if I get no points from a U I C, which would be pretty unfortunate, uh, I'll probably go to some, but not go like super grindy.
Brent:I, I assume what that means is you'll go to like one league cup, but if you win you'll be like, Kelly, we're going on the grind. Yep.
Mike:At least I would try to put myself in a position where like, uh, top 2 56 at N E I C would get me my invite. Something like that, you know?
Brent:How about you Brit? You gonna take up the sword now? Cup are back.
Brit:Go. I'll probably go, I shouldn't make plans because what will happen is I'll go till I get burnt out, which could be very quickly. Um, but I am planning on going to a couple, so we'll just, we'll see from there. No real ambitions for points or anything. Like I went to, like, maybe I'll go to some league challenges. I gotta know, I'd have to just like, cause I, I expect, I do plan to go to, uh, Milwaukee at the very least. So like I could get some points there potentially in top 32 NAIC, NAIC or something like that. Uh, but no, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to going, going to a few. But
Brent:How, how hard are your locals? Like I, I know, I know how many League Cups there's gonna be, I know there's gonna be a million League Cups for Mike and Caden and like Liam, if he wants to go, he can go and like Caden and Mike, like the cups will be absolutely stacked. Um, and with people on the top 16 grind, like all horrible stuff, how is it for you? Are there a lot of cups and are they hard? Uh,
Brit:I think we'll be doing pretty well. We really have had this scene pop up in Springfield, this really strong scene there. I'm really struggling. I've been messaging a Kansas City player here and there, just more or less, all I'm messaging is just like, dude, where do people play? Like, I want to test, like, you know, I can't find the scene here, but when I visit my parents in Springfield, there's a relatively new card shop, um, that's like opened up pretty close to them that has a lot of travelers, a pretty good scene. Um, we'll have a decent amount. I, you know, I think there's a handful scheduled now, and, but not a lot of the Kansas City area has been scheduled yet. Um, but I guess I don't necessarily know. Some of leagues might have shut down since Covid. I don't know exactly what stores to expect. Um, so a lot more players I would, I would think than historically. We've gotten, historically, you know, when I would do well at League Cups, um, probably not hard. No. Like I, we don't really have good players or anything like that. Like again, we have grinders and like. Some of them are, you know, they've got a hundred points or something like that, but like they've gone to every regional, like, no, no, there's no one really worth noting. Like, Kieran and people like that probably are gonna come in from Iowa, which isn't too far. Um, they're fine players. Um, um, yeah. But yeah, like it's, I think it'll be hard. Like I, I do not expect to do well. Like if I can like top eight, like the two that I go to or something like that, I think I'll be pretty happy. At least in contrast to the results I've gotten more recently. Um, but I don't, even though I'm saying they're bad, like I, I don't expect to win. But, you know, realistically, like if I practice, if I get good luck, I, I should be able to cut like the, they're that level of like expectations, I would think. Um, but more definitely the biggest, like we'll ever get, like that cash tournament I went to of a couple months ago, like was, I think bigger than like any city I ever played in, at least in the local area.
Liam:Nice. Alright,
Brent:let's talk about PTCG Live for a second. I recognize if you hadn't transitioned previously, like everybody's transitioning now. Um, my experience has been okay-Ish.
Brit:Yeah. I've been playing it, obviously playing my, my pig deck. Um, and yeah, like really, other than just kind of the like UI complaints and that, it's just like a very unintuitive system. Like even recently, like I've been on the client a few times and I'm still sometimes just like, where is the collection? Like, it's strange to me that I just, like, I don't, I can't view it outside of building a deck. Is that right? Or am I just That's correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that, that really throws me off. And like, but I think other than that I have not personally encountered like a bug or anything wrong, but I'm also like, part of the issue here is also outside of. The games I've solicited. I'm like in the, I'm in the dumpster. I'm like in really low ladder, so I don't play very many real decks. I play theme decks and things like that the whole time.
Liam:Yeah. That,
Brent:that was my next question. When does it get hard
Brit:late? Seemingly, I don't know. I have to go all the way up to Arceus League, I guess.
Kaden:Yeah. I, my experience has been, um, a little mixed. I was expecting it to be like a horribly buggy mess. Like I was running into game breaking bugs every, you know, two or three games. Um, that was, that was what at least, you know, Pokegear Twitter, that's Pokegear Twitter does kind of made it out to be. Um, and that has not been the case at all. Um, I've had hit like maybe one or two, but it's really not like bug wise in game. It's really not that bad. Um, I think that my largest problems with it are, uh, the deck or the deck manager. I think the deck manager is pretty. Or, um, especially on desktop, on mobile, I think it's about as good as it could possibly get, but I think on desktop it is horribly unoptimized and, and doesn't really function particularly well. Um, so that's my, one of my larger complaints. And then the other one is just, you know, uh, I mean you could feel it, uh, you can feel it when playing the game, but once you actually get in game, like the program is just horribly unoptimized. It's trying to do way, way, way too much. And besides the fact that it's pretty ugly, um, it's also, I don't know why my phone is getting so hot playing PTCG Live. It shouldn't be. I,
Brent:I wanted to comment on that. I, I recognized. Yeah. I like, I feel like that's the, that's the thing people say on Twitter, and there's no question. When I saw on my phone, my phone was like, ready to fry an egg on my iPad. No problems. I don't know why that is. Ooh.
Kaden:Yeah, I mean, probably just more processing power, whatnot. And I, I mean, this is coming. I'm a bit, I'm a bit spoiled. I've played quite a lot of legends of Runter riots card game, um, which has maybe the most gorgeous, wonderful, beautifully optimized mobile, um, app for, for any card game ever. Uh, it is frankly just a joy to play on. Um, and, and so trying to measure PTCG Live up to that is, is tough, but that is my primary comparison. So,
Mike:yeah. And Brent and I have, OB obviously played like a ton of Hearthstone, uh, and it's not anywhere close to that. But
Brit:yeah, I've never played on mobile. I don't, I don't do a lot of mobile gaming or myself, or at least not if it's on pc. Like, uh, even if it's a mobile only game, like Marvel Snap, I don't play very much on my phone. I only play on my computer similarly. But yeah. I
Mike:will say like the, um, I love playing Harson on my phone. I play Battlegrounds pretty much exclusively on my phone, which gives me a disadvantage in that game cuz there's some 8:00 PM stuff. But, um, being able to play PTCG live on my phone has been pretty sweet. You know, you are right that it definitely burns, it burns it up a bit and, uh, the battery also goes away. But I do find it gets better if you like, play a game and then you take a five minute break and then you end up playing another game and then it's like, not that bad. It's also good to just take
Kaden:a break. Yeah. Having, having Pokegear on my phone, um, for better or for worse means I'm gonna play a lot more Pokegear. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty great. Yeah.
Brent:And, and like them just ripping off everyone's basic moves of like daily challenges, I'm like, yeah, you know, I should get on and play like one game a day to like get a daily challenge outta the way and like, There was one that was like, you have to evolve for Pokegear, uh, on like my second day playing. And I was like, oh, that's an aggravating daily challenge. Cause I play more than one game.
Brit:You play more than one Pokegear. That evolves
Mike:too. Yeah. Have to
Brent:play. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I was like, oh, okay, well let me just change this Mariah and deck around to put like a flay line in. We're going all in. Reggie. Lucky is flay, let's go. But like, I hated playing that, so it was really aggravating. But, um, uh, you know, I I, I like hearing your comment, Caden, about how like, if the complaint is about the deck manager, Brit, I don't know what your reaction is, but like, I'm like the deck manager thing that's easy to fix, like playing games, that's a pain in the butt to fix. Mm-hmm. Like if they feel like they, if they've like, like can they kind of nail the gameplay? You can just iterate on the deck building UI or start giving people options, like, that's so easy to fix. Compared to like the nightmare of changing actual gameplay,
Kaden:you know? Yeah. I think my, my other large complaint with PTCG Live, and maybe this is a hot take. I don't know, I don't know how other people feel about it, but, um, I almost wish the game was monetized to some degree. Yeah, absolutely.
Brit:I feel that way about so many things and it's just like, I understand like a lot of it is that like, well with other things like Marvel snappers, something, they gate you and how much you spend, so you keep coming back and spending a little bit, rather than spending it all upfront. So I get that, but you know, every time I'm just like, can't, why can't I just spend a little money to buy this? I feel the same way about that too. Like, I build more debts on PTCGO July, but I just, like, I keep running outta the crafting currency and I just don't feel like dealing with code cards anymore. Like, so I'll just, I'll just build it when I, when I earn the currency. But I would love to just spend$10 to buy another deck, like, you know, buy a handful of the resource.
Kaden:Yeah. And especially if you're going in without having, um, without having a PTCGO account that you're migrating, like getting cards to build top X like just takes a lot of time. And, and I, I feel like, I feel like I wish there was at least an option available to spend some money to expediate that process, but
Mike:yeah, I
Brit:don't think it's a very good model, you know, compared to Hearthstone, compared to like Marvel Snap in terms of like what you're earning, the free stuff that you're earning in terms of how it affects the cards that you can get. It's, it's really bad. Yeah. It's, it's very difficult if you aren't, if you, if you don't play a ton, if you aren't just like enjoying everything the mode has to offer, you know, doing all sorts of things, completing the battle pass. But if you're just like a competitive player looking for like games, it's just, it's just hard and difficult. Yeah. I would just wish I could spend money.
Liam:Yeah.
Kaden:I absolutely.
Brent:Interesting Zacian Sage's comments on Twitter, apparently they cap you at like 400 codes per set. Hmm. Yeah. So over time like. That means like old sets, like you're gonna need code cards from old sets if you like, really have a problem. Yeah.
Brit:That's awful. Like,
Brent:that's all. Yeah, like getting code cards from old sets. That
Brit:sucks. That's so bad.
Mike:You can like use the in-game currency to buy like other, to buy more packs. Yeah. Yeah. That's really like the, the trick with celebrations is like, you get kind of like your, your set of celebrations. If you can get 400 coats of celebrations, great, but then you use the in-game currency to just continually buy celebrations over and over
Kaden:and over and over again. But getting the purple crystal, whatever, I don't know what the official name of the currency is. Purple crystals. It takes a long, it's not a fast process.
Brent:Yeah. I, I, I, I wanted to ask if, if you guys have any, like, tips for how you've been managing your PTCG Live account? Like, as somebody who's, who's on like, day three now, or day five or something like, I'm, I spent a little bit of currency because I was like, we can't play Giratina in this last box list anymore. I have to fix it. But Leah, like, I haven't, I haven't gone down the path of like, let's build a different deck because I'm terrified that once I burn all the currency from the PTCGO account, I migrated. I'll be like, now I'm poor. I have a sense of how bad it is
Kaden:or not, you know? Yeah. I mean, I, I can't, I don't think, we'll, I think a lot of it depends on whether PTCG Live continues to be this generous in terms of giving you free, free decks. Mm-hmm. Um, I think if they do, um, my, I. What I, my strategy has been, um, works out great and I'll, I'll mention that, but if, if they don't, you're definitely gonna have to be a bit more stingy with spending credits. Um, what I did in terms of preparing a PVC g o account prior to migrating, you know, I made sure I had the packs and then I moved everything over, made sure I got the 12,000 of the purple, purple crystal. Um, and that was sort of it. I didn't even do the celebration stuff. Um, and then make sure to get the battle pass, it's definitely worth getting the battle pass, um, and spending the purple crystals for the battle pass. Uh, and besides that, just doing your daily quests every day. Um, and I have not been in danger of running out and be very, you know, save those purple crystals cause they take a while to get, and I have a feeling we're all gonna wanna buy the battle pass every, every single set. So and so, those will run out eventually, so
Liam:be careful with them. They give you 60 cards on like a bunch of other random stuff, like when you immediately buy it. Pretty good.
Brent:Any other stuff?
Kaden:Mm,
Mike:I guess maybe just briefly, Caden and I can say like the top three or four or however many decks that we're considering, if you're comfortable with that. I'm pretty comfortable saying that I would be surprised if I don't play Lugia Gardevoir or Lasso Charar. Like I think those are the three decks that I'm really considering at this point. I could be convinced to play something else last minute. Uh, but those are the three kind of like standard decks that I I like right now for kind of like where I'm at with the format. I think any of the decks that we talked about highly of are fantastic plays in particular. Grin Ninja, lost Box. Just I know for me, I don't think that's the
Kaden:best play. Yeah, I think, I think something that's factoring in for both Mike and I, um, is the fact that, you know, we're getting in Thursday, we're gonna be playing the tournament with a pretty low amount of sleep and probably be pretty tired. Um, so I, I actually, I think I have the same set of three. Um, my three are also, you know, Gardevoir feels very strong. Beats most of the me beats, most of the meta. Um, has a little bit of a rough timing. Its lost box. Um, lost ARD is probably just the strong, one of the stronger decks in the format right now. Um, of course. And Luie also just feels very, very strong. So I think those are my top three. And then, you know, like you said, you know, if something, if something random, if Liam, Liam cooks up something spicy, maybe I'll play that. Um, but those are my, those are my top.
Brent:That's always true. That's always true. The crazy, the crazy Liam Spice. Yeah. A Alright guys, you guys ready for a quick wood? You rather, since we got everybody on the call, let's Oh yeah,
Kaden:let's do it. All right, let's go. Alright,
Brent:so for, for here you go. Would you rather, for the next 10 years, take a vow of silence or you can only poop on the bathroom floor?
Kaden:Oh, this is easy. Absolutely. Only poop on the bathroom floor. A vow of silence for 10 years would be miserable, especially for someone like me who enjoys talking. Um, I think I, I would have a miserable time and I would rather just hoop on the bathroom floor and I would just bring, you know, like, you know, dog poop bags to, to clean up, you know, and then that'll, that would be. My hesitation
Mike:with that is like, I wouldn't mind if I was doing pooping at my house all the time, but like imagine you go on vacation, you gotta poop on the floor. Like in the hotel, in the convention center,
Brent:you're at a U I C. You walk in the men's room,
Mike:poop on the floor. You just have to like camp poop for like three days. Otherwise you have to poop on the bathroom floor. I don't know, man. That's tough.
Liam:Yeah. I think I take the vow of silence. I, yeah, I, I think like, you know, I, I've always wanted to be like one of those monks in movies who like doesn't talk about like, main character walks in to like the monastery or something, and like, this would just like force me to become that. I think that'd be pretty.
Kaden:But Liam, if you take a vow of silence, then you can't tell anyone about your, your Secret Spice Twitter Play
Liam:Your Secret Spice. Right on Twitter. Right. Writing on Twitter's not up guard. No, no. I mean, Lele Lele basically lives on Twitter anyway at this point. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, any like real communicating I need to do, I can just like write down or something like that. And then obviously I can just like, you know, be like mad crazy tough by not talking like, ever, you know, just like only nods and like head shakes and stuff like that. Like
Brent:Yeah. Lele Liam would definitely feel awesome when, when he just does the, the hand waving for playing Pokegear.
Liam:Yeah, exactly, dude.
Brent:Yeah. He would be like, there's no
Liam:talking necessary. Mm-hmm. We're talking about playing the Japanese players at Worlds and there's like no talking. It's like a million times tougher, you know,
Brent:Brit. Mike, where do you guys end up on? I mean,
Brit:I'd rather still talk. I don't know. It's pretty obvious. I wish we could do they have to be also crude? I don't know. I just feel like it's, uh, you're, you're looking
Brent:for these slightly less crude. I can work on that for next pod.
Brit:I mean, I don't really care. I don't know. I just feel like they're, they're always obvious like this where it's just like there's a de crude thing and the clearly worst option that just doesn't happen to be like revolting
Liam:or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
Brent:Caden was so fast with the out poop on the floor, it's totally fine. So like, I mean, I was basically that
Brit:fast in my head, but like, yeah, no, like I think again, to say that it's obvious. So it's not as interesting. I dunno, I need, I need. A dilemma. I need about two, two choices where both have just dire consequences on everything that I, I do or believe. I mean,
Brent:you spent, you spent, like, you spent like a decade studying the trolley problem. So I, I, we can't bring you like real deep thought problems. You've already worked through those. We're just bringing you the like, you know,
Liam:least mature choices in the universe. I, I, I like the ones the most that are like, like mildly infuriating. Two, like mildly infuriating options. The, you like the chap lips one? Yeah. Like, yeah, just like, um, yeah, I don't know. Just some option, like your nails like grow like 10 times
Brit:as fast. Yeah. It's like always ha Yeah. You always have like armpit sweater or, you know. Yeah, exactly. Equal parody, you know, minor, minor
Brent:difficulties rather than less, less scatological, more aggravating. Oh yeah. It's not necessarily the content
Brit:that I have issue with. That's that, that I think there's a, there's no, there's no dispute, there's no issue that there's always an obvious one. It's like, well, yeah, I'll, I'd rather be, you know, I'd rather fart every 10 minutes than die. You know, you know, something like that.
Mike:Yeah. But
Kaden:Liam over here just wants to be a, a cool silent monk. Yeah. Yeah. I,
Liam:I,
Brent:I was amazed at how, how, uh, our, our youngest, uh, podcasters immediately diverged. Mike, how about you?
Mike:I'd probably go with the vow silence. I think I'm with Liam on that one. After, after being a teacher for, for almost 10 years. Like, I. I'm good not talking for a while
Brent:and and respect hygiene, then the value of hygiene. There you go. Alright guys. The, the John Pauls are our outro. We'll be back post E U I C with some E U I C updates. Very nice.
Brit:Yeah.
Brent:Good luck.