The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Cups are back! Mew, LZB Charizard, Goodra, VIP Pass, Rare Candy & More!

May 02, 2023 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 131
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Cups are back! Mew, LZB Charizard, Goodra, VIP Pass, Rare Candy & More!
Transcript
Brent:

welcome to the Trashalanche. Brent Halliburton. Mike Fouchet. Brit Pybas, Caden High. We're all here. Attendance is 133%. It's incredible. We're all on Twitter. We're not hard to find. You can go find us. You can leave reviews. No one has left a review, even though I've like insulted my audience for several weeks running. I feel like reviews. Guys, when you leave reviews, we read them on in the pod. It's amazing. And, and they, they make a, you know, a little heart shaped glow in my chest every time I read a review. You guys could be doing that for me. Um, dragon Shields a sponsor. Uh, they're super cool. Uh, and people like Dragon Shield sleeves. Um, before we jump into all the cups and challenges, and it is crazy how fast we transitioned from a world of, let's talk about online results to like cups and challenges. Cups and challenges. Yeah. To, to, uh, uh, uh, do we wanna talk about Steve, uh, Lewis and the Sun John for a second. Yeah.

Brit:

I, I can try to talk about it, I guess, like, I guess, um, last week or a week before, uh, Steve Lewis, he's a prominent judge in Polka dad in the Houston area. I've, uh, had the pleasure of interacting with him several times over the years. None particularly recently, of course, more when I was an active player and one of his sons. Unfortunately, I was killed in a car accident after the, a Taylor Swift concert in, I don't know if it was in Houston or just like in Texas, somewhere else. Um, but yeah, it's just really sad. Um, I, I think I, I don't actually know, I think he played at one point in time. I don't think he was like an active player or anything like that, but Steve still is kind of like, will pose kind of like one of those, you know, to kind of fairly typical judge or. Parent involvement where they'd start involved with their child and kind of just stick around and are a good community member, a useful sort of a judge. I would, you know, rely on and things like that. Someone I, I think I could go to for, uh, you know, keeping up on the meta game and being sound in their rulings and things like that. And it's just, it's really unfortunate. I know there's been like GoFundMe and charity tournaments and things like that from others and from the Taylor Swift community as well. I think they sort of rallied behind, uh, it as well, you know, just him being not just at the concert. I think he was like a swifty and pretty, pretty, uh, involved in hi the fandom, you know, as a person. Um, and so just in general, it's really sad and just wanted to make sure we sort of, uh, brought attention to that as we always try to do here and there with these, when these things happen in our community.

Brent:

Uh, Steve, Steve is, uh, absolutely fantastic and, and obviously, uh, I think everybody's heard the cliche. Uh, it's, it's obviously true. Uh, no, no parents should outlive their child. That's, uh, that's rough stuff. Very, uh, very unfortunate to hear. Yeah. Alright, guys. Speaking very unfortunate. Should we talk about cups and challenges?

Brit:

Wow,

Brent:

guys, there's professional podcasting and then there's professional podcasting.

Mike:

So before we talk about, uh, decks and results and whatnot, one thing that I wanted to mention that I think is kind of funny is we've seen s you know, I haven't been paying attention to every single cup, so it's a bit anecdotally, but like seen like, uh, the cups down near Brit, for example. Like, you guys are getting 50, 60 people, uh, at a cup and. Presumably have to drive quite a distance. And it seems like, you know, amongst like the Midwest and the South, the cup sizes are actually pretty large and people are traveling pretty far for them. And I feel like in the Northeast it's like the cups are not super small, but people will not drive more than like an hour and a half, two hours max, often from, for the vast majority of people, um, to go to a cup. And I think that drives the attendance down a little bit. And I just think that dynamic is quite funny and it's, you know, just a reflection of culture in these different areas of the country.

Brit:

Yeah, I joke about it and me and my habits, it's just like a Midwest thing. I think just in general, not just for cartoon travel or anything like that, but I've talked about it before with like concerts and things like that. People have occasionally been like, You, you know, you traveled, you know, three hours for a concert. You know, basically the same, the exact same story as describing, um, tournaments in Springfield. Of course, Springfield doesn't get concerts either, and so you'd always have to go to Kansas City or St. Louis for, you know, your big, your big stadium shows and things like that. And similarly, it's just like, yeah, four or five hours for a concert. Yeah. It's just what you do because we don't, you know, you don't get the shows here, you know, you don't live in Philadelphia. Philadelphia or, you know, big metro area where that's, that's the case. But yeah, it's just, I think it's in the blood, it's in the water or something. We just, we like to travel. But yeah, that's really strange to see. Like in my tournament again this weekend was like 50 plus in Lawrence, Kansas. I just trying to think, other than I, I'm sure they, there might have been some in the times that I wasn't like in the area, but we never had tournaments. You know, I competed in Kansas City for a lot. We've never had tournaments in Lawrence before, not when I was like an active player. Um, and so it's crazy. And, and see even seeing like, uh, like Tampa, like a cup in Tampa only had like 15, or not 15, but you know, only five rounds still. And that like, We're we in the Midwest and you know, nowhere where Kansas have getting bigger numbers in places like Florida occasionally. It's very strange. I mean, it, I guess it's just people wanna play, but I really, I really feel like, as I think I've sort of expressed before, people have talked about, you know, like, something's got change in the structure. These record numbers are gonna go down. And I just don't think that's true. These players aren't playing just because of co like post covid. I think there's just the, the game has just grown incredibly. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's, I think these, the growth is gonna stick around. I don't think it's gonna pattern out like pitter out just next year or anything like that, which some people have said it was, and I've disagreed with them each and every time.

Kaden:

Yeah, I, I definitely agree and I think, I think for a bit of perspective on, I don't know if I could say the whole, the West Coast or even the whole of California, but at least Northern California, it feels, I. A little bit different from both the Northeast and the Midwest. Um, it's, it's very much the sort of sense that like, you know, people don't wanna drive too far, they won't travel that far for cups or challenges. Um, but there are just so many people in the area that these cups and challenges still hit really, really large numbers. Um, even though people aren't traveling insanely far. Um, I know there was a back to back set of cups this past weekend in, in Clovis that some people went to, but, uh, that is Clovis is about the furthest that I've heard people traveling for cups of challenges in, at least in sort of the Bay, the Bay area. And how far a drive is that for you? It's like a three or four hour. Um, but it's a big one. But then what most people do, cuz Clovis has a few cups, uh, usually they set them up for these back-to-back weekends, is you actually just travel there and stay overnight. Um, and you just have two cups Saturday, Sunday, um, as as your weekend, you, you don't do the drive back and forth. Bring

Brent:

it back the marathons. I

Kaden:

love it. Yeah. I miss city's marathons. Those were

Brit:

great. Yeah. I feel like everyone does, and it's definitely something that, like an old part of the game that I feel like a lot of people would like to see replicated and I don't know if we ever will, like, it's just, it's hard in the way that cups work now that you'd have to like that. They can, they just always happen. It's difficult, but like you could, you could make it work if you really wanted to, I'm sure. But

Kaden:

yeah, I mean, it would require a lot of organizing on the part of the game stores and that feels a little hard. But yeah. My favorite thing about the old cities marathons was you would end up getting these like almost mini meta games. Within, within the, the week and weekend where like you would, you would know who's going there. So it's, you end up getting this like mini meta of like, you know, maybe like less than a hundred people and just what are these people gonna play for the next tournament? And trying to figure that out, which is very different than like, fig trying to guess at the larger meta game of, of, of regionals are in internets. So I, I I

Brent:

mean it's, it's fascinating because yeah, you say these are the 50 people that are gonna be at the tournament and this is the deck list that these 50 people played yesterday. Yeah. A lot of opportunity for gamesmanship there. Right. Um, you know, I, one thing that I, I recognize is, is interesting, is like, just. To your point, Mike, about how people are not willing to travel that far. I'm interested in your take. Like, I think two things that are like kind of externalities is, is there's just like the perception of how far to travel is reasonable. And I recognize that's different from place to place. Uh, the, the example I always heard people talk about in life is like, Albany and Syracuse are like an hour drive apart, and nobody in Syracuse would ever think like they would commute to Albany for work. Like, they're like, that's in, that's an insane thing to do. But yeah, people commute from King of Prussia to downtown Philadelphia an hour every day. Like every day. Like you just, you're just like a, yeah, that's a thing you do. Mm-hmm. And, and they just accept that and it's totally fine. Like, I wonder if on the East Coast, I dunno if people are spoiled or if there's more tournaments, like, there's just so many tournaments that are coming that like they feel more chill about it.

Mike:

Yeah, I think that's, that has to be a big part of the

Brent:

thought. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the other thing I wondered is like, how much people are deterred. Like, but I, I would assume it's the same in the Midwest in California. Like, are there a lot of people that you think don't go to California tournaments, Caden. Cuz they're like, I'm gonna go and Finn's gonna be there and Ken's gonna be there. And like, like it isn't like I'm gonna get the points at that tournament.

Kaden:

Um, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think for, I don't know what the sort of mentality is around other folks, but like, we don't have that many cups are challenge. We don't, we really, a lot of our game stores, um, especially in the Bay, in the like immediate Bay area, went out of business during Covid, um, because, you know, the Covid Covid Co because Covid and because, um, the like price of renting out a store space in the bay is so, so expensive. Like a lot of those places went outta business. Um, Which means we really don't have that many cups or challenges, so you can't afford to like, wait around for, for, to try and hope some of the top players, like max out cups certain challenges and stop going. Um, so I, I don't think, I don't think many players can afford to have that mentality of like, oh, they're going to be top players there, so I might as well just not go. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

I think here it's like people just, uh, they're not gonna travel more than like an, like an hour or so if they don't think that they have like a really good shot at, you know, getting their invite or winning or, or whatnot. But they're not. But if, but if it's like less than an hour, I don't think they give, they think about that at all. Yeah. Um, top player thing.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That's like, like the, the question is how, how far do you have tore like, You know, uh, before, uh, how far do you travel? And then say like, man, that wasn't worth it at all. Why'd I do that? Like, people kind do that math in their head and say, what are the odds that I'm gonna look back and say, why did I do that? I was

Mike:

insane. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I guess that, that, that variable of distance is just different for different parts of the country. Yeah.

Kaden:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Brent:

Alright, shall, shall we talk about how this, this past weekend was for us? Or do we wanna talk about the meta a little first before we talk about how our tournaments went? I feel like Brit was saying before the pot he's got, he's got a couple of, uh, barn burners ready for us. Yeah. Brit

Mike:

start us off.

Brit:

Uh, I don't anything too particular on meta game developments or anything like that. I will say just, you know, Uh, basic fact, I guess just like, sort of as we already said, you're Mew talking about the city marathons, like your local meta game is, you know, kind of depends a lot more than us talking about the general meta game. So like what, what is it, what is or isn't good plays, like really can depend on things like that. Just like, you know, for example, am at my one on Sunday, I, there was a lot of like, probably Guardi to me seemed like the most played deck, which definitely wasn't the case the week before. I, like, I, there was more lost zone the week before and a lot of players, like several players have switched to Guardi from the decks that they were on in week one. And you know, one of these guys like made day two at E U I C, like played Lugia there, played Lugia in Springfield and has switched off Lugia and NAIC Guardi. Um, so yeah, I mean, I just talking about that and like that those things happen. You kind of, as a player you need to be paying attention to those things, like not to. Necessarily it's like wrong still to try to counter like a single singular player or anything like that, but you just like have to know like, oh, you know, maybe this deck is, you know, this one percentage, 2%, you know, worse, you know, because of X, Y and Z depending on how others develop. Um, but yeah, I guess just as a general sort of thought, it's like, I really think that it seems very open to me in, in so far as like what, um, can succeed at locals. I actually haven't looked at Pokestats or anything like that to see like what the, the stats are saying in terms of like what top performers are and if we're, how we're, if, if a lot of people are like reporting results. I remember like back in the day, like the ARD lounge was always a pretty, like the best place. I really sort of tried to keep track of local events. But yeah, I haven't looked at Pokestats, so I don't, I don't have any idea of how things have been trending, but I, I would think that. Just in general since E U I C that like sentiment is, you know, Gardevoir is good. Not only is Gardevoir good, but I think we just all sort of like overrated the, the lost box matchup. Like, and of course the Mirage make match the mirage gay matchup is, is tough, but like, I think it's, it's fine. I think, and I, I think even, and this is something I guess I can talk about in my own personal experience, um, I, the Charizard matchup, I played Charizard both weeks and it, the Guardian matchup stinks. I think it's so hard. Like you, you can win it, but it's like your back is, is against the wall, like the entire game. It feels like, like unless they stutter or something like that. If, if they've, if they bench stuff and stuff, like, it's very, very hard. Um, and yeah, so I guess to, to say more on that, I played Charizard and like just kind of decided this week, um, well I did almost play Palkia. I mentioned that last week. I like chewed on a lot of different Palkia ideas and like I. I wish I had played it all things considered. There wasn't that much Mirage Gate yesterday. Um, Andrew Hendrick showed up to my cup and I saw him playing it. And so that was like, okay, I just won't play Palkia then. Um, but probably wouldn't have mattered all that much at the end of the day. I think there was one other in top eight, but I really didn't see all that many. Um, just throughout the room it was really a lot of, a lot of Lugia. Um, yeah, so I wanted to try a couple other different things. I like, I just kind of played like two cards off of Pedro's List and I stuck without switchers again. And like, one thing we sort of talked a lot about in our group chat is that, and this plays very particularly into the Gardevoir matchup, is I don't, compared to Mirage Gate, the Charr deck just like doesn't have like a mid-game option. Um, you know, for, for lack of a better way to express it. In that you have Kramer early, obviously, and then you, you, you raised to, but you don't have anything sort of in that, that third to fourth turn. Like, unless you just get really, really lucky, which I don't, I didn't, and I, I think I'm, there's, there's speed to which I, I'm missing, I'm missing lines on how to play faster. I'm sure. So I def I definitely, some of this is in my own play. Um, but yeah, so anyways, like you, you get a really good start with Kramer and then like the Mirage gate then gets to seven. So they have this middle option once they hit seven, where they don't need sli, but they have Riku or, you know, manually attacking, uh, attacking with DRAP on. It's obviously huge in the Guardi matchup as well as Dragonite. And so lacking that option, I found that just like you just can't do anything, you know, like Krekeler, Cramorant is really diminishing returns when you only have like the two boss effects. So like, again, maybe just more particularly in the Gardevoir matchup where you have to be, uh, cognizant of like rots evolving and then also dealing with like Zacian and things like that. Cuz they'll, they'll just take six prizes on you if you don't, if you try to go around it too o too often. So I wanted to play something and just like Nta, EX is like the only thing I could really find that kind of, I think, think like fills the, the space in a way that like, uh, you don't really have to do anything to change the deck to put it in. So I played like, I'm trying to think of all the differences. I kind of combined, uh, Pedro's list, my list from the week before. And like Tate, he'd made top four to cup with basically Pedro's list with just like a couple other differences. And I sort of just like mashed those all together and ended up playing like, Um, I played thee, I played a penny, and I think that was it. I just didn't play the Mawi or Miltank basically. And I think I, I cut a Pokegear and that was it. And I played, I did play a bass this week. I played three Beach the week before and I played one bass since it had, uh, you know, obviously had better synergy with the nta. And, but actually, interestingly enough, another part that I think makes NTA really good is the two 30 hp. That's just like a pretty good number. So in a lot, a lot of, uh, scenarios, a lot of use cases you just wanna manually attach to it. So the basin isn't even all that much of a concern for it. I also went with three, three on energy and it felt fine. I never felt punished for it, just wanting to have the extra fire energy, uh, fore of course. Um, and yeah, pretty another kind of lackluster performance. Unfortunately, I don't feel like, again, I, I do think I'm missing some lines. Um, but, and they're not Inteleon, Inteleon, Inteleon, Inteleon intelligible to me still. So I don't have any like, specific examples where I, like, I did X and should have done Y and it changed the game, but I'm, I'm sure just like, based on how well Pedro always does with the deck, that there, there's, there's nuances that I'm still missing. Um, but yeah, so for my report then I played a new player round one. She was playing, uh, Giratina Lost Box. She actually played really, really, really well. It was her first tournament. Um, and I, I was very impressed with how well she played. Um, we, we played two, I won both games, but they were both like, Pretty close, pretty even the first game, like they didn't quite get started and I, I eventually just kind of overrun them. But the second game was like neck and neck the entire time. It was very good. Um, and then, so I won, I won Twoo there, and then I played a, oh gosh, I put it, I, I played Guardian neck, so I played two Guardian in a row. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I only played four rounds. Um, sorry, I lost my train of thought. What, what else did I play against? I played against a Guardian where, um, I won a really, really long game one, and I just like drew past game two and they, they benched me pretty quickly and then we tied game three and I like NAIC six, six, like, uh, six, six prizes. But it was my best start of the series to their best start of the series. Um, and like this, I started doing it after the first. Paying attention of just like did the winner of the game play, v i p like compared to the loser of the game. And almost all, almost every game I played was just like the person who played more VIPs on the first turn ended up winning the game by like pretty, pretty easy margins. Um, and then the next round I played, I, I also played against Guardi and I had another really, really, really long game one, um, where I, I got blown up by a penny that I just didn't see coming. I thought I, I thought I had him checkmated for a really long time and then he, he was digging, he was digging for something and I thought, I thought his only option was to, cuz he p patted a he pal pads a Roxanne in and was like, you know, has no cards in deck and is digging that is only wink him to hit the Roxanne and then to me not have boss on the next turn to chase down ion with Ard. And he just, he played a penny and I just, there wasn't anything I really could have done about it, but I just like, I just immediately. Won the game and was like a 40 minute game. And so I did, I just gave him the series. So I didn't even even like set up after, after that. Um, and then, and then I get to play against, uh, quad clef, uh, reg Magna,

Brent:

uh, Liam was telling me that you were complaining about this.

Brit:

Oh man. It's, gosh. It's like, it does not, it's like a deck that like only beats lost box sometimes. It's like, it's exactly like in Polyon, I feel like, where it's just like, not even good because the lost box decks are, you know, so constructed with escape rope and things like that. And

Brent:

he had me a quad ducky. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brit:

Both games. He like got Doubley on his first turn too. And so in the first game, I, I, I lost very quickly. And in the second game I actually like, was doing really, really well. And part of it was because of thee. There was actually, there was actually a game or in the Gardevoir that I lost to the round before. Um, I don't, I don't know if it was a Misplay cause I lost owned it pretty early, but there was like, there was a scenario where after the penny, if I could've made an ente, I, I might've been okay, because he can't, he doesn't have anything at that point that can one shot the intake. Cause like the Gardevoir EX only does one 90. So I could, I could've taken a hit with it and then like potentially cleaned up a Sableye or something like that. But I had lost sum it. So it was like, it was kind of my only, my only out after the penny and wasn't an option. Um, but it could have potentially been good. So like I feel pretty okay about the card in general in the deck. I feel like the deck does have this like, mid-game problem and like specifically in the Gardevoir matchup where your damage just gets really bad, really fast. Um, if they evolve, like your char doesn't do enough and like if they're really careful on. How they put damage on like three 10 is so much. Hp, like three 10 is so much hp when they, when they have like CRI and stuff like that to deal with your damage. And so like between CRI and Penny and not having the mid-game options, I'm just like pretty confident that it's a, just a lousy matchup. And like, as, as I've expressed my meta game developing, I don't think I could play char art at any other ones. I, I just don't think this matchup is good. I'm, I'm, I'm ready to pack in the deck now. I think, um, depending on where the format goes, I suppose I is like, the good thing about the law stone decks is like they're probably always going to be good. Um, You know, until they cycle, I would think like they're, there's, they're just so strong. The package is just so strong. And the way that the single prizes interact with what you pair it with, whether that's two prizes or whether it's other single prizes is just like the game plan is, the prize game plan is always so strong. Um, but yeah. Yeah, just, I, maybe I'm missing something I'd be curious to hear and like, maybe I just need to play my while again or something like that and try to deck them out. But, um, as it is, I just, if they set up it just feels abysmal. Like, you, you just, damage isn't good. Dirty damage isn't good enough. And they have healing and realization, like they're taking prizes on you early too. So, so

Brent:

what are you thinking about for this coming weekend? Uh, I mean,

Brit:

I, I think I said this last week and I, I said it to like my friends during the weekend. Like I would play guard if I had the cards for it. I think it feels. I feel think it's the best deck. If it, like the Mirage game matchup is obviously like very close. And um, like my friend, my friend Colton, he's the best player from Springfield. He made day two at E U I C. He beat Andrew Hendrick and Swiss with uh, Guardi. And, and Andrew was playing, uh, Mirage Gate. Andrew won the Saturday tournament that I wasn't at, and then I think he also lost in top eight there, I think. Um, but other than that, I'm not sure. I've been talking with Ross is probably the person I chat with the most at these cups that I've been at, and he's, uh, On Gure and I, I talked to him a little bit just like, so why Gure? Tell me, you know, what's your lo what's your logic there? And a lot of it was just, it was, I think classic Rock Ross deck choice is that is just the deck that he's been playing the most. And that, you know, he just in, in his busyness and his col college professor now, he, he doesn't have as much time to test everything. It seems like he always kind of locks down one deck kind of for the whole year. Uh, like, like with Mal Malamar and Cephalon and things like that. But he, he's, he did okay with Gud. He made top four, I think, the day bef at the Saturday one. Uh, he did about the same in Springfield. I think Audra is a deck that similar to Charar, I guess in like in theory where you're, okay, you're like solid into almost every matchup. I mean, I think here that the Guardian matchup is as bad if, maybe worse potentially. I'm not sure Ross says it's, I was asking him about that specifically cuz my impression was. You know, or at least looking at the E U I C results, like Guru does really well to a certain point. And my, my thought was just that Gardevoir started beating it in day two and things like that. Um, and he says it, you know, I don't think it's a great matchup, but if you get a quick enough start, I think it can be fine in the way you can deal with it. Um, depending on the seal, stone, I, I suppose. Um, but yeah, I don't know what else would really be, I don't have a, I don't have any good reason not to play Mirage Gate. I guess other than the kind of difficulties I've expressed with just dealing with Mirage Gate as a card, it just, I feel like that's why I wanted to play the char art version and just kind of opting out of dealing with that really gravitated me towards the Charizard build. But now that I've sort of hit this wall and match up, so I'm kind of just back to the drawing board or just think, you gotta bite the Bulu and hope to, hope to sequence correctly, sequence in the right order and so on.

Mike:

I feel like that's a good transition because you kind of left off talking about Gure and Gure is what I played to my cup this weekend. Um, and I decided to play Gure for a couple of reasons. One, as you said, Ross has been playing it and I talked with Ross a bunch. He likes the deck. I played it a bunch this past week. Uh, we ended up playing a bit different of lists, but um, you know, same concept. I personally think the Guardian matchup is close. Probably slightly unfavor, but it's not that bad. Um, if you just like, just like with uh, like the Mirage Gate Turbo version, you can get a quick gr ninja and if they're not really expecting it, cuz they're like, oh, you're gure, you're slow. They don't prioritize Manaphy or something like that. You can just kind of win the game on the spot basically there. Um, having choice Belt is quite good in the matchup cuz sometimes you can chase down Zacian if they're, you know, trying to. Get that early, get that out early in order to, you know, just have that play later. Um, so I think the, and, and like you can do some weird stuff if they go for two, like, uh, uh, if they go for Zahi and Sky Seal Stone to not win the game, sometimes you can just boss up a Greninja and win, um, because they've been too careless with their energy. So they have to be like really careful about a lot of different things. Um, I think if Gardy gets, if, if Boltund decks have an equal start, garde is favored for sure, but I think Udra has a lot of play in the matchup. Um, but I'll come back to that in a little bit. So I, so I ended up playing Udra, uh, I was deciding between Udra Mirage Galo Box, which I, I played in the challenge last week and I had Guardi as well. But when I got to the cup, um, uh, I don't know, I was just like looking around at what people were playing and. There was a bunch of, it seemed like there was gonna be a bunch of lost box, uh, Mirage Gate lost box, and I think guru's pretty strong into the Mirage Gate lost box. It's not as good into the Charizard lost box, but um, yeah, it's really good into GR Mirage Gate. It's pretty good into Mew cuz uh, I played double drap on, uh, and I saw some, you uh, so seemed like a solid play. Uh, my main competition there was, I mean there was a lot of good players, but like the main competition of this cup was Justin Boca and I just kind of figured he would play Lost Box, um, cuz that's what he played at U I C and he ended up playing Lugia. But I talked to him, he was like literally deciding at the last minute between Lugia and Lost Box. So I was like kind of, kind of close. Lugia is not a great matchup for Gure unless Gure texts specifically for it. Um, I didn't end up playing Justin, but so, uh, our cup was kinda like medium size. We had 32 masters, which is one short of six rounds top eight. So we had five rounds, top eight. Um, and I beat, I beat a lost box. Round one. I lost to, I dunno if you guys saw the list of, it's like a crazy Gardevoir water fire deck. Have you guys seen this? I have not seen this. So it like, uses Kirlia and Shinx, iconic Gardevoir. It runs like one or two Articuno, one Kre, one Kbo V one, Delph v. And that's like the whole deck. Okay. Like Gardevoir pile. Um, and in theory, like guru's super favored into that because like, what are they thinking? Abominable, but okay. Um, but I just didn't play supporter, so I lost that game. Uh, so I'm one one and then I drove up to this cup with one other guy and I play him round three. Um, he's playing Mew and I got him with Double Dion, so I'm two one. Then I play against, uh, Kyo lost box, basically Nick MZ list. Uh, and I beat that. So I'm three one. And so three one, uh, going into the last round, we could, we could id, um, and a couple, three elevens will miss if everybody IDs and I'm playing against Gardevoir. Um, I know I'm playing against Gardevoir in the last round. So, and like I said, I think the matchup is close, slightly unfavor, so I just took the id. Um, Because I think that seemed a little bit safer. Uh, and I squeak into top eight as the eighth seed, so I was pretty happy about that. Um, and then I end up playing against Ryan Antonucci in top eight with the Lason Charizard. And that matchup is definitely unfavor for gre. Uh, it's close, but Unfavor for sure, cuz the game kind of comes down to towards the end, they'll like stabilize for a bunch of prizes. They have horn to like, pretty much ensure that they don't have to go through two gurus and then they can like rope boss at the end of the game to uh, to just do two 50. So, Ended up losing the top eight. Ryan ended up winning the cup. He beat Justin in the finals of our cup. So, uh, it was a pretty stack cup to be honest. Like out of 32 there was, uh, Justin and Ryan are like, it's actually kinda funny. Justin and Ryan are like 16, 17, 18, so they're like really like the finals of that cup was them too. And they're like fighting like that 10 points really matters I think between them. Um, and so like they were there, uh, van O'Brien was there. Uh, I was there. There's a couple other like people that already had their invite. So even though it was only 32 players, it was like, uh, pretty high percent of of good players. Um, so yeah, that was my cup experience. Glad to get some points. Um, and I don't have any local tournaments for, I'm not doing anything more until Hartford, cuz I got some real life stuff to do the next couple weekends. You know, Aton just down the road, man. Yeah, I've got a wedding next week. Hi. Yeah.

Kaden:

Yeah. So, um, I guess for you to mind, I don't have any anywhere near as nice of a transition. Um, I was, well, I was at a wedding, um, this past weekend, so I wasn't able to go to any tournaments this last weekend, but the weekend prior I was able to go to one challenge, um, out, out in sf. And, um, it was a little weird. It was a best of three challenge. We had five rounds. It was five rounds, best of three. So it was a pretty, it was a pretty long day, I'm gonna be honest. Um, I ended up playing mute, um, because I, I thought there was gonna be a lot of Guardi and I felt pretty confident about the Guardi matchup as Mew. Um, it felt like probably the best deck to try to beat Guardi, um, besides playing Guardi itself, but that's kind of iffy. Um, So I ended up going with Mute, uh, very close to Pablo's list. Um, I ran the four path. Uh, the only change I made was one that Pablo actually mentioned. He w he wanted to make after the tournament, which was cutting the fan of waves for an Oricorio. So that was the one change I made. Um, Oricorio didn't end up being very useful. I mean, we'll, you'll see why when I get into my actual matchups. Uh, well, okay. It mattered a little bit, but in for the first round. But, so I went in expecting to hit a lot of Guardi and there were actually quite a few Guardi. Um, I think there were, it was, I, I think we had like one, we probably had like 22 players, something like that. And, um, we had like 22 players and there were probably like seven Guardi, seven, eight Guardi. So a good amount of Guardi. Um, I managed to hit none of them, um, which was really unfortunate. I hit. The biggest matchup I didn't want to hit going into the tournament was, of course, lost box of pretty much any variant. I wasn't looking forward to that. I hit three, three of my five rounds were against lost box. Um, I managed to go four, one, um, I got second at the cup. I was the only four one in the whole cup. Um, and as I'll go through, I'll briefly mention some of the good players that were there, and then we can, and then I'll talk about my actual grounds. But, um, we had, I, I feel like two notable ones. Um, Nathaniel Kaplan, who, um, I don't know if any of you, you know, but, um, he was, he was gunning for his invite for, at this challenge. He needed top, or at this challenge, he needed top four or better for his invite, which he managed to get. He idd his last round for top four. Um, he was, he was running Lugia and then also Alex McNeil who got top a at San Diego regionals, um, was also there. And, uh, he was, he was running Guardi. So I. In part, in part shows Mew, um, with mentality that, you know, I wanna make sure I have favorable matchups against, against those folks to see if I, to give myself the best odds of wearing. Um, as for what I hit, uh, LA Round one, I hit Giratina Lost Lawsuit Zone, which I think is probably the best matchup from m out of the, out of the variance of Lost Box. Um, which just because when they can't, they have to play Tina and they have to play Tina down. And when they, they're not consistent enough without Tina and when they're playing Tina down, you're able to kind of win the game too fast for them. Um, so I, it went all three games. Uh, I won the first round largely because he started Giratina and wasn't able to get it out of the active spot. So I got a very quick, easy two prizes, um, and then was able to just clean up. Uh, game two went exactly how he. How he wanted to go. Um, I prized my Oricorio, which sucked. Um, and so he was able to get a KO with Tina and then use, uh, Tina's VStar to get a second KO on a VMax in. So I, I lost and then game three went sort of how I feel like the matchup is gonna go most of the time, um, where we're kind of dead even. And then I may, I get an August KO Giratina, maybe Gus KO, another Tina. I did, I do of course have the echoing Horn. Um, And am able to kind of just outpace him. Um, so I won game three. Um, round two. I hit Lost Inbox Greninja, um, which is a close matchup. That is, I do not enjoy playing that match. It's not fun, especially, I do not run any lost city, um, which makes drap on very, a very scary threat. Uh, I kind of just have to throw down a path, judge them, cross my fingers, hope they don't hit the pieces they need, um, to bounce the path and get drap on out. Um, and that managed to work against this law soon. Um, I won both games pretty handedly. Um, even through both games, he managed to get, of course, one KO with DRAP on, um, but was never able to get the second. So I was, I won both of those games. Uh, then I hit a Mirage Zamazenta box. I don't think he was playing a single v. In his whole deck, and this matchup sucks. This might be, I think it might be M's. Worst matchup. He wasn't running any drap on, but just the ability for Zamazenta and to, to trade so well against Mew and Gus Kaing, like a gen or something, makes this matchup unbelievably oppressive as the Mew player. Um, so I lost, I lost twice versus that. Um, I lost both games, wasn't able to pull it out, and that matchup feels quite bad. Um, then I hit, uh, Alex Schlansky's deck, the Aldon, but the Bulu picks, um, he ran, and of course the two drap on, um, which I was very scared of, um, naturally has two drap on. I don't, I, I just have to play path and hope they don't hit attack with the two drap on. And as it turns out, um, the deck's pretty inconsistent, uh, especially in terms of trying to find stadium outs. So I was. On multiple ca or the game two, he actually benched the drap on early and I was able to gust kill it. Um, and yeah, but neither game he was able to attack with both DRAP on, so I was able to win cuz I m was able to take prizes very quickly against a deck like that. Um, four path means that Dal don isn't really a threat. Um, you can kill it pretty quickly and, but most of the game was honestly just gusting around, um, around, around the, the dura. And the other thing in mind of course is throwing down path early, um, is so, so useful to try to prevent like a star berth or something. Um, I, I've found that. I play path very, very proactively with Mew. Um, I kind of just throw it down almost every turn. Um, even sometimes when I don't have an out to bounce at the next turn, because with most of these decks in this format, they kind of have to bounce path in order to continue playing the game. Um, so, and if they don't bounce path, like, uh, okay, I'll just, maybe I'll, maybe I'll wait a turn or I'll just retreat into another Mew if I've already had it set up and just swing. Um, so I play, I play path very, very proactively and it's worked out pretty well. Um, my final round, I went, I went against Mew mirror, um, which I hate. This mirror. This mirror is just kind of miserable. Um, he, well, so the big, the big turning point I would say I ran the Avery. Um, he also had Avery, but my Avery was much more useful than his Avery in game two. Um, Game one, I went first and was just able to kind of blow him out. But game two I was able to, um, Avery him and then Gus kill Gensec and kind of just knock out his engine and he wasn't really able to get going past that. Um, so finished four, one, um, got second, got myself 12 points. Um, and yeah, I think m is a very good pick. I mean, we'll go, I'll talk a bit more about this when we talk about Portland this weekend and what I'm thinking there. But, um, I think Mew is a very strong pick. Probably the best deck if you wanna just try to beat Guardy and focus on beating Guardy. But, um, I think it definitely has some iffy matchups again, especially against some of the, um, lawsuit variants. Yeah,

Brent:

so, so, uh, so Liam went to, uh, two challenges. Uh, you guys may have already heard the story. He played his homegrown control list and he went one, three and two, two. And I was like, well, you know, hopefully you got everything you learned. But like he could sign up to be an NFL cornerback cuz he woke up the next day and said, I forgot why I lost, you know, I think the Next's probably okay. And, and like an hour and a half ago I saw him tweeting. He's like, who wants to test be prepared for some long games? I'm like, oh, okay. Apparently it'd be like that. But So, so you, you talk about the 12 points Caden made, made me, uh, feel like I should ask, do you guys feel like, do we know more about where the meta is, um, watching these like challenge and cup results come in versus these like, large online tournaments that historically we've kind of looked at and now it's been a little bit weird because, uh, uh, not only are there suddenly these like tournaments that award points and are meaningful, you get 12 points for coming in second and like that's meaningful for, you know, Nathaniel Kaplan. He needs the points to get his invite. Um, And also like the PTCG Live thing has kind of made some of the online tournaments a little weird lately. Like, is this a better indicator of where the Met is going? Because people need points and they're bringing like the real deck. I know Liam always used to say, you don't, you don't play the spice at an online tournament because who cares? Like you gotta save the spice for a meaningful tournament and play cookie cutter lists at online tournaments because, uh, why would you give, why would you give away the good stuff in some random online tournament worth

Kaden:

nothing? Yeah, I mean, my, my feelings on this are, um, I mean, I think online tournaments are gonna definitely de decrease in popularity. Um, probably a good amount with the, with the return of cups and challenges. Um, and of course PTCG, Live being bad. But I think that, um, I think that cups are no better really in representation of the meta than online terms. Were. Arguably a worse representation than meta because they're kind of just a snapshot of one area, um, of, of like a local scene. Um, I think that the one thing they're better for is getting a sense, is trying to get a sense of what some of the top players are testing and thinking about. Because a lot of those players either didn't play, um, in online tournaments or as you mentioned, like wouldn't bring the stuff they're actually testing to online tournaments. Um, and I think that's a little different with cups with CP on the line. Uh, I think it's useful to see and I think you will get some valuable insight into what some of, some of these top players are actually testing considering, um, by looking at Cup and challenge results. Uh, but I don't think that they're any worse or much better than like about getting like a sense of the larger meta game.

Brit:

Do you disagree? A little bit. I think they are useful. I think at least you know, that. They can be useful in assessing the larger meta game, just in the sense of popularity. Like, you know, as you say, like I think if you were, were to look at the results at Pokestats, like I think we would, we would be trends would be reflective trend trends that I, I hundreds about. And that would be to say like, think more people are playing Gardevoir. Um, Alex Shaman's got deck is basically nonexistent things. Things like that I think are very useful. I, I, and I, I think the data would, would back those up and sort of establish them as trends going into Portland. Not a whole lot beyond that. Um, you know, obviously the like particular player choice is like, good to know, but not terribly helpful at the end of the day. Um, unfortunately. But I, I think you can assess just at least the general popularity contest, like in just how things are shaking out. Like not even necessarily in uh, Like winning, but like just top eights in general. Like, I just don't think people are playing Alex's deck. And that's, that's a useful point of data to, to know going in and going into Portland. Um, obviously you, you can make two kinds of predictions with it. You know, people are, people are going to capitalize on that fact and play it again or, you know, maybe it doesn't need to be on your radar. Um, but yeah, I, I think they can be a little, a little more useful now because I guess we've talked about this before, just in the way that the game has changed as well. Um, and that local events are, you know, reflective of local meta games. That's true. But then at the same time, regionals aren't local anymore. You know, in the past it was your Midwest regional and that's the one that everyone in the Midwest to, so, you know, you pay attention to that data for a reason. But here, you know, again, because everyone just goes to everything that, that's why I think the local data is useful for. Just the general, you know, the general popularity and things like that because the, you know, the game has just grown so much to the point where people tra people are traveling all over, you know, are gonna be at Hartford from much more than just the east coast. Whereas, you know, 5, 6, 7 years ago, only East Coast would've been at Hartford. Yeah. Well,

Mike:

and I think at least right now, the online meta game shifts are pretty similar from what I feel like I've been seeing, uh, from challenge and cup results just on Twitter and whatnot. Some of the big things like, uh, Brit as you mentioned, like the Arceus deck deck Archist or Aldon stuff is not super popular and you would think that in best of one it, it would be even better than invest of three cuz it's like a pretty consistent deck and whatnot. Um, So people are choosing not to play that. And kind of the other big one is Lugia has fallen off quite a bit. Um, yeah, from, from U I C and we talked a little bit about that last week. It's just kind of in a weird spot. You were kind of like forced to play like Aldon or whatnot. Um, but I'm not sure how much that change is going into a regional because Lugia is a much better best of three deck than it is a best of one deck. So I don't know how much that'll impact people's choices. I am, I am confident Lugia will be less popular, but I don't know if it'll be as non-existent as it seems to be right now, uh, at Portland.

Kaden:

Speaking of Portland, should we talk about Portland? Yeah, let's talk about Portland. I mean, so I'm the only person on the pod here who's going to Portland. Um, But I, I think that, um, I am curious about your guys' thoughts on the, on the tournament and what, what might be a good play. Right now I am between Gardy and Mew. Um, I think largely this is, I think Gardis the best deck in the format, and I think Mew is the deck that beats Gardy the most consistently. So, um, that's sort of why I'm between, I'm between those two. Um, I, I think towards List is definitely the right direction to take Guardi. Um, I've been testing at some, and there are only a few changes I would make to the list, I think. Um, but I think largely, uh, towards List is really capitalizing on what makes Gardy so strong and oppressive in so many matchups. Um, and Al similarly with, um, with Mew, I think that there's a little bit more wiggle room in terms of what list you're running, um, because of course Pablo's list, there were several, several like. Interesting decisions. Most notably not running any lost city, that I think there's an argument to be made for sh changing. Um, but I also think Pablo's List is just very, very strong, um, and very consistent. So, uh, I'm sort of between, I'm between those two. Um, I'm, I'm not sure which way I'll end up going, but mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

Uh, Guardi, so like I generally agree, I think towards regardless is extremely good. And one of the things that I find really interesting about it is that you can't really change that much because there's so many, like little synergies in the deck that if you change one of them, then you're kind of, you kind of wanna change another one. So for example, um, the fact that he runs Zacian and Lumon compliments the inclusion of Collapse Stadium and Penny by a lot. So like, if you drop Penny. Then the second Zacian gets a lot worse, I think. Uh, and Lumion gets a bit worse. I think collapse is like probably just staying, uh, no matter what. Um, so that, you know, it doesn't matter. Uh, but like there's a lot of like little synergies in there that make it hard to change too much in the list. Uh, I, the only like really easy change that I can suggest is like minus research, plus Serena. Like, I feel like that's, uh, fine. Um, but other than that I'm really not too sure. Like my list that I'm running is more similar to what I was running at U I C, but it's like several cards different because I feel like it has to be to, uh, flow together as a deck, um, comparatively to towards, but yeah, uh, I, I kind of agree just generally, generally with your analysis, like I think Guardi is. The best deck. Uh, I think Mew is, has a decent guardian matchup. I think Greninja Lost Box is probably better against Guardian than Mew is. But I don't know if I would want play that in a regional

Kaden:

no. Yeah, I feel, I feel similarly.

Brit:

M is really strong just in, as I've said, Guardi is like my top choice. Like I, I don't have any real salient arguments not to play Mew. It's always in a good spot. Um, you just, you just play judge, you know, you play this judge game and most of your, and so many of your matchups and you just kind of cross your fingers and pray. But I think more generally that, you know, maybe as our segue into the v I p Crobat, uh, problem, I find that not, you know, outside of that, a lot of the matchups I feel like are just this. And I, you know, I guess this is true consistently across the history of the game that. You know, we can complain about, um, this kind of variance all we want. But again, like just n n for better or worse is just a, you know, evergreen card. And so these, you know, these checks where it's just like, well, you know, I just have to beat the one hand hand, you know, reset the hand disruption supporter once. And like that, that's what I feel like happened. And like all of my, basically every game I played on Sunday, like on top of, you know, v i p compounding, just inconsistencies, um, that just almost every, like the guardian that I beat, I got judged and I saw RIS off the judge and I beat him, um, the guardian that I didn't beat. Um, judged me into like two energy, you know, in a, in a turn where I, like, if, if I had had the boss, I could've like, also just won on, like, on the spot in this game where the, the penny beat me. So like, there's lots of like little things going on and like that played a role. And even in, I didn't, I don't think I finished, uh, whining about my, uh, my clef d games. I like would've won game two. Like I was doing really, really well in game two and just like a mid-game judge just clunked me and I, I, I passed for the rest of the game and I just like was in a really good spot. Like, I, I was up like three prizes and I had to hite into a VMax and like, I was in a really good spot. Like all I needed was like one more colors and like, I think I would've been, but just, yeah, it just feels so generally that so many matchups are just judge checking you over and over again. Like that's what, that's what the RCS Giratina does, like, and just like, Feels bad. I don't know, just, there's just so little you can do against it. Like even, even playing tear outs, even, you know, optimizing your deck to the best of your ability. It's just like, just gonna be variance at the end of the day. And when you, when you factor that into the, the battle VIP issue, which I'll let Mikey say more on, it's just for me, I'm, I'm giving this format a big thumbs down. I don't think it's very good.

Mike:

My, my issue with battle v i p pass is that y you're kind of forced to play them in, in almost every deck. And because like if your opponent starts with one and you just start with like, even a nest ball, like that's 50% worse on turn one. And so you're immediately behind by a lot. Uh, and so you're like, all of these decks are just forced to play it and it kind of sucks. And like you see all the best decks, like the, the best decks are like lost box from you. Gardevoir basically, and they all play Battle v i p pass, but they all have a way to leverage the dead card as the game goes on. And not every deck has the ability to do that. So those other decks don't, can't really play v i p pass as successfully because they either can't find it as consistently as Mew or Guardi or Lost Box, and they just can't leverage, like, getting rid of the dead card as the game goes on. And so therefore they're just strictly worse, like, almost certainly worse than all of these other decks, um, almost inherently. And that just kind of feels bad. Like I think for example, that like Inteleon, Urshifu is actually a really interesting deck if Lugia is kind of down a little bit. Because Luo is kind of, its worst matchup in theory. It's, you know, it's got good matchups against lost box. It can beat Gardevoir potentially by kinda, uh, killing their stuff. But like, you can't run for a v I p pass on that deck. I mean, I guess you could, but like, you're just gonna like, kind of clunk your deck in an already somewhat clunky deck. And therefore it's like if you run for a v I P pass, like you're making your, you're using so many spots where you need other stuff and you're kind of clunking yourself up, especially if you don't hit one, turn one. But then if you don't run it, you're behind. And so like, you kind of like split the difference and you're on utas and one v i p pass. So it just kind of like, I don't know. It just feels so bad when you, when your opponent plays a v p pass turn one and you don't like, you're just immediately at a huge disadvantage. You just

Brit:

can't win

Mike:

so often. Yeah. Yeah. You literally can't win games often because of that. That's,

Brit:

and I, I think sort of, it's so bad to lose on turn one and like, I, I think just sort of naturally we've reached, uh, a good point, and this is, I think just why I think Mew and Gardy are the best decks. It's because, just to add on how Mikey, you know, talks about how they, they deal with VIPs. They're better at dealing with the v i p than the lost box decks. It's, you know, you, you kind of have to get lucky with v i p passes and lost box to get rid of them. It's, they just have to be in your choruses and you know that that's basically it. You don't, you don't have, um, there's no quick ball or anything. There's no ultra ball or anything. There aren't other real ways to, to get rid of them, whereas, Uh, you know, I think Gardevoir is the best deck and, you know, Kirlia just being the answer to getting rid of them is obviously so strong and m has at least, you know, Krekeler, chromatic and ultra Ball and things like that. But yeah, I think that's just why another, another just compounding reason why I think they're ever so slightly better decks or, you know, maybe just safer at the end of the day. Cause like Mirage Gate, when you, when you hit the nuts, like is probably, I think is the best deck on paper. I think it like, should win every matchup, you know, in a nut draw. I think, um, for the most part, obviously, like, as it has some bad matchups, but like, yeah, for the most part, I at least, maybe it doesn't win every matchup, but just like the, the, the power level, if we were to quantify that in, in some way, I, I think it would have, you know, the, the strongest sort of, you know, oomph, um, in perfect draws. But you don't, you don't always get the perfect draws. Sometimes you like. Triple comy chole and like, I mean, I guess you have triple comb feet. You're probably all right, but sometimes you like play at chole, you do a flower selecting and it's just duh duh. And like all, all you needed was like the one v i p and you, you watch your opponent do two. Or like, that was the part of the frustration of playing against Gardevoir is like, um, I would, I like kept going second cause I wanted them not to be able to like play a supporter to see more v i p passes and stuff like that. And I would just like watch them like raw play too. And I would play zero and I would like next game. And like things like, like, like that it's just, it feels bad that um, the matchups can just feel over. Matchups can feel just like checkmated just based on that opening. And I just like, I think as like a design issue to me, this is just like a problem that could be very easily solved if Pokegear. Did like course sets and you know, like they're close to doing that with, you know, more and more cards becoming, you know, evergreen cards. But like that we don't have like a quick ball sort of option, like always at our disposal. We'll, Al we're always just be, we'll always just end up in these awkward scenarios where, you know, I've talked, we've talked about the do ball formats before, which was terrible. Where like you everyone played dual ball and sometimes you would get quad tails on them and, and just lose and things like that. But it was, it was just faster. It was the temple you needed to play. It was faster than Pokegear collector and Roseanne's research and so on. And that. I just feel like if they, I mean, if they wanted their game not to feel like this, they could, it's a very solvable problem and like, uh, I just, I don't know why we couldn't just have better options. I know,

Brent:

I know why we've talked before about like, yeah, my problem obviously has always been, I mean, they give you a high roll card. Uh, everybody, the, I mean, the format instantly centralizes on it because you can't lose to the other guy that happens to high roll, right? Like, like there's no choosing consistency as an option. If, if the other guy's got a card that 50 50 wins in the game and you're like, like you just feel pressure to play that too.

Brit:

I mean, it's, I think I, I think maybe what, what I was trying to say with like n being, you know, the hand disruption being just a core part of the game, especially compared to other ones, it's, it's just compounded when like, that's fine, let's bite the Bulu on that. N's gonna beat you. Even n even getting n to six is gonna beat you sometimes. Like that's just the way, the way the card works, the way the game works. But it's, it's when you have to sort of deal with that sort of inherently as part of the game and then you have these other just high roll moments that you lose to high roll moment after high roll moment and that just sort, you should balance that, you know, there should be as few of those as possible. Um, you know, whether it's, whether it's the judge, whether it's the v i p, whether it's the opener and so on and so forth, it just feels like so many of Pokemon's just core issues are just systemic. I think, you know, just to complain about not having a mulligan rule and things like that, that it's just so strange that, you know, as a game, when we deck build, our main sort of concern is consistency. You know, what all these top decks, Jason, and to what are they known for? Well, just playing fors, things like that. And then you have to build your decks and so purposefully just to play games in that. There's still just so much variance on top of that. It's just like, it, it's just such a strange space compared to other card games for me.

Kaden:

Yeah, I, I, I agree in some, in some ways. I think that the other thing for me, particularly about cards like v i p pass, that feel substantially different than like, N or even re, or even dare I say reset stamp, um, is both of those cards were sort of like lit more late game high, really cards where, you know, you had some level of ability to like, try to play their outs and maximize your odds of drawing them by like thin doing stuff like thinning your deck, getting rid of stuff you don't need so that you have the highest chance of drawing well off those. And that felt, that feels a little bit better to me than just the raw, oh, did I happen to draw? Yeah. That, that's idea, that's

Brit:

a really, really good point. One, one that we haven't brought out here because yeah, that, that, that's absolutely right in like, um, yeah, because with n or something like, sure that's gonna beat you, but you have, you have the entire game to sort of play that game, you know, do that dance. Whereas with v i p pass, you've got the, you've got the first turn and that's it, and you know, and then they're just immediately dead cards and that's, there's nothing you can do beyond that other than just being, you know, uh, fruitful, economical in how you get rid of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good

Mike:

point. And I think we, we kind of like danced around this, but to be explicit, like one of the other issues with the v i p is like, you're, you're getting like doubly rewarded for drawing it on the first turn because you get to play it and you get the basics, but it's also out of your deck. And like, if you don't play any VIPs, turn one your odds of just judging into like double v i p pass, they're so much higher. Yeah, that's,

Brit:

that's what I wanted to say when you said, you know, it's, it's twice as good as like, versus No, it's, it's more than that because you're thinning your deck also at the same time. That's always, you know, a concern and, and Pokegear and probability and things like that. But yeah, it's just, I just, it's just so good. It just feels like, it just stinks that we have to, we have to play this game. Why can't every deck just. Have the thing that, you know, lets them play. You know, you make

Brent:

a good point though, and one, I hadn't really thought about that. Like, like the, the decks that get the, that seem like they're doing the best are decks that also get value out of v i p later, like mm-hmm. I was ju I was thinking earlier today about the magic of night march back in the day, and like every time you played a battle compressor, not only were you like powering your offense, you were thinning your deck, like the synergy of, of, uh, decks that like get value from the discard and from thinning their deck. Like those are historically like the best decks in the

Mike:

game, you know? Yeah. I think battle compressor's probably the closest. Feeling that I've ever had to v i p pass before. Yeah. Mewtwo. I agree.

Kaden:

I absolutely agree. Especially with versus seeker. Yeah.

Brent:

And everyone knew if you opened Battle compressor, you were like winning that game. Here

Brit:

we go. Yeah,

Mike:

yeah, yeah. The difference is, difference is battle compressor was also just very good every other turn of the game too. Mm-hmm. And there, that's a big difference. So I think battle compressor was. Much you could, we could debate whether we think it was like too good or not, but just, just because of that, it's healthier for the game than the v i p pass. I I

Brent:

will, I will get ahead of the comment. Brit was the guy who was saying they should ero a compressor at two cards before anybody else was saying that he was on the

Brit:

train. The article was just like, it is very similar points in that like, at least here, it's like not bidirectional or what have you. It's at least it's just a one player. But just like having those games against night March where it's just like, did they see four v i p on the or four battle compressor on the first turn, like, pick up your cards. I can't win anymore. Yeah, like some, some of their start, you know, your, your entire game plan is just dependent on how fast they drew those cards. And like, that's again, doesn't feel good. Like there's, there's no agency, there's no play. Um, just,

Brent:

you know. Yeah. Well, and then the logical, like, you know, Ultimate response to a night march was like Vileplume Vespa win, where like at the end of the first turn, everyone who was gonna win, you know,

Kaden:

Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think one other part that's a little bit interesting, and then it's, I agree with a lot of the problems are kind of systemic to the core of the game. And the fact that this is also like a physical card game versus a digital one is they can't, they, it's really hard to, and it takes a lot for them to choose to rat a card. And it takes a lot for them to choose to ban a card, which means their only real solution for like dealing with oppressive decks, at least that they've ever really exercised, is releasing some sort of hard counter. You know, tonight, March 1st, that was Li Sanders Trump card, which ended up being completely stupid. So then it was the, or then it was Oricorio. Um, and for, for me, they're releasing a, a whole slew of different cards to try to try and reduce its

Mike:

power level.

Brit:

Well, there's Karen too. Karen, Karen failed to stop normal night. Yeah. Yeah.

Kaden:

Um, I felt like, or, or Corey was actually a pretty, a pretty good one. But

Brit:

that, that's off topic topic. Like that's some of their, they don't know how to make counter, they don't know how to design counters very well. Like, and this is something I, I, I had a good sort of conversation with her at least. Hopefully it was like a nice little, like, learning opportunity with my, my mirror on opponent who beat me real bad with his, uh, his cleansing gloves who just punch and running on my poor little comfy over and over again. But anyways, he was very like, he was like very apologetic about it. He's like, you know, I hope next time when we play, you know, it'll be a better matchup. And I'm just, I told him like multiple times, like, you don't have to ha, there's nothing for you to apologize for, but let's think about it for a second. Why does Pokegear design the game in this way? Like, why, why, why are the counters, you know, such that we don't get to play? Why can't it be like, I don't know, like thinking of something like, Uh, control warrior versus priest in like early Hearthstone or something. Like, you really couldn't win as the priest player, but like, you've still got to play. There were still lines that could happen and, and, you know, you, you still got to have like a full game. It's just like all, all of the counters are so, like, they're always too strong because they try the, they don't, they can't find the middle option. You know, that Marianna didn't work, so here's Drap and DRAP is too good, you know, so on and so forth. That it's, you know, it creates these other problems where, you know, Gardevoir is threatened because drap is too good and things like that. And, you know, I don't, you know, Dion should just, like, it should take a dark energy and it should reduce the dark color, you know, or something like that. There, there's no reason why it should also be triple or quadruple colorless and, and things like that. But I, I think that's their problem is that they consistently miss on the soft counters and they just have to do these like cartoonish hard counters that just like, are, are so bad for the game. I think I, I, because like, I think, trying to think of other things like. Spirit Arceus. Spiritomb is like a decent, like a comparison to clunky and like it was, there were games where, you know, you would open Spiritomb and just not be able to do anything, but like, not to the degree that like clunky can just stop a, a law zone deck. But I just feel like there, there could be better ways than how they do it. I'm, I'm not sure, but you know, there's so many spaces within, uh, you know, in the design space that I, I just feel like they don't explore and like, there's just so much you could do with more with the law zone and things like that, or all these custom cards here and there will occasionally play on concepts. I, I think that they should, you know, look into, but instead it's just like, Terrely is just bench barrier, which, you know, is just ver very, uh, underwhelming and just stuff like that over and over again. And just more and more they, they know what they're doing and it's, it's the collectors that are making the money, so they just. More collect, more collecting goes on in the sets now than, you know, archetype design. Yeah.

Kaden:

I mean, I don't know, I don't know how other card games do it, but I play a good and have played a good amount of digital card games. And I mean the, they of course are, it's very easy for them to, rather than releasing a hard counter for a day, just actually Nerf the archetype itself. Um, and adjust, adjust solely its power level and not kind of increase the power level of everything else against it. Um, which I think is much healthier. And, and of course is n n near impossible to do in a physical card game, um, which is unfortunate, but that's part of, part of the game.

Brit:

So yeah, obviously just like the philosophy differences, I, I think, I mean obviously a very separate conversation, but I, I think the sort of like, um, you know, the nuance of how you do both in a, in a digital card game is, is, is very interesting and. You know, at least philosophically speaking, I'm sure that, you know, Hearthstone versus Ribera, I'm sure they have very different sort of philosophies and suppositions how they go about both. And at the end of the day, it's just sort of about answering, like you gotta answer like, well what is fun? You know, what are we after? What, what experience are we doing? And things like that. Are we, are we chess or are we something else? And, you know, you, you go from there. But yeah, I mean, I think digital card games just sort of are always going to be in that unique space cuz they can solve on the fly. Alright

Brent:

guys, I I, I gotta wrap us up because we're headed towards the end. I have two things that I wanted to talk about before we, we, uh, put a lid on it. One is, uh, I feel like when I watch the Twitter. People are talking about playing more rare candies as a way to speed up Gardevoir Dex. And, and I wanted to get a quick round the horn on, like, will we see Gardevoir with Mewtwo, uh, uh, predominantly in Portland? Will we see rare candy counts creep up in Portland? Like what kind of Gardevoir Dex are gonna be the Gardevoir X that do,

Mike:

well, not Mewtwo, I don't think. Mew too is very good. Um, I think if, I think the biggest benefit of playing extra air candy is for the lost box match actually, because you can just kinda rush a Guardian X and they kind of have trouble dealing with that. So I could see running three Crobat four seems like a lot to me, but I, I could see running three candies for that reason. For sure.

Brit:

I, I agree. And I, I would also, I wouldn't go for, I, I don't know, I'm, you know, not as verse as probably either Mikey or, uh, Caden on Gardevoir. So, but I feel just, I feel strongly about the, the heavier candy. I, I do think it seems very good and like, you, you balance, it's, it's nuanced I guess, because obviously you lose consistency, you lose thinning, like, uh, opting going around Kirlia and so like, you don't wanna do it a lot. But I, I think playing more of them just for the one, you know, like Mikey says, the one Gardevoir EX, and as someone who's played against a handful of guardians on Lost Box, it's really hard to deal with if they get it fast. I, I feel like you, you know, and they just pressure you with Kirlia and things like that. Um, it's really tough. And I, I think, I think yes, yes, for sure. I think that maybe three candies will. See more, play more than the toward list and the two people keep playing Mewtwo, I guess. But yeah, I don't, I don't think there's any reason to play it.

Kaden:

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how much I can say that hasn't been said already. Um, I really agree with it. I think Mewtwo, the union version is suboptimal. Um, I, I don't think, I mean it's going to see some play. I don't think it's as good. Um, I mean I think the majority of players will run something close to towards version and that, and we'll have the two rare candies. Um, however, I do think that as this meta progresses, there's a good chance we start to see a as, um, Brit and Mike said we'll start to see, um, gardis start to add three, maybe even four rare candy just to try to help out with the lost box matchup. So,

Brent:

yeah. All right guys, last question. I thought we should do a quick, would you rather, cuz I feel like we, we've been depriving the people. And the people, uh, the people definitely want it. Uh, uh, here's, here's your choices for today, guys, for the next year, you either have to watch two hours of Big Bang Theory every day, or record two podcasts

Brit:

every week. Oh, that's, that's just too easy. I I'm, I'm very, I'm happy that you, you, you, you listened to me and we, we have a non crude one here, but like, I'm a, you know, egotistical, narcissistic person with a lot of interests. You know, I, I'll talk, I'll, I'll give my, give me an opportunity just to, to talk and. Glorious. And I'm on board, you know, DM me, if you wanna start up another podcast and I'll just make this a reality.

Mike:

I, uh, I would, I would say the same thing, but maybe not exactly for the same reason. I just don't think I can, I, I don't think I could survive watching two hours of Big Bang Theory every day. Uh, maybe if you picked a, if you picked a different show, I might say that one. Definitely not. Big Bang Theory though.

Brit:

Big Bang Theory is like, I don't know, it's like, what, what analogy do I want to use here? It's like, you know how, you know, in, in math you have, um, you know, dif differing degrees of infinity. You know, we can't, you know, cons, I, I can cons, I can, I understand the concept of infinity, but it's not something I can really sort of like conceptualize or something like that. And the, here it's like, You know, I, I don't know anyone on the planet who watches this show, but I know that data says that, you know, like millions and millions of people watch it each and every day. And it's just, it's like a, it's like that, it's a fact that I just, like, I understand it in concept, but I cannot fathom it beyond that. That's really funny.

Kaden:

Yeah, I think for me, um, I think I would, I would agree, absolutely go with two podcasts a week. Um, especially if they're Pokegear related. Um, I, I, you know, I gotta say, I enjoy doing these podcasts with you all and I, I would love to do, love to do a second podcast, to be honest. Um,

Brit:

I guess I should clarify. I don't know if I could do a second Pokegear one mostly just, I mean, I could, um, but I don't think, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be bringing anything to the table at that point. I don't, I wouldn't have anything new to offer, but I lots of other interests and things like that. That,

Brent:

that's what I'm talking about. For me, the, the, uh, uh, I'm like, do I, am I really the only person that experiences stress? When I think about like, what, what content are we gonna have every week? Like, man, just passively watching a show.

Brit:

I might be that Most, most podcasts aren't prepared or anything. They're just dudes talking. They, they, they don't have agendas. They just show up and cover events.

Brent:

See, Brit, I recognize one of the differences between you and me is I've got the home gym working, so I already know, like I'm pretty much dialed in for 45 minutes to an hour of like super bad television every day. So I, I get, I kinda, it's a little more than I've scheduled, but I'm already scheduled up for bed television pretty much every day. So I, I think, oh, I don't, I don't know, like Big Bang Theory is the worst. And I think that was part of the. It's part of the, the challenge here, but like the stress of producing a second podcast every week and trying to coordinate schedules for two days. So you do

Brit:

days a week, you do so well, though I don't, I don't think most people are sort of as intentional in it and they just, there wouldn't be that stress. They show up.

Mike:

If you picked like Parks and Rec or like Ted Lasso, I'd probably pick those. Absolutely. A hundred

Brent:

percent agree. You know what, if I, if I thought they were gonna have two hours of new content for me every day for a year, like, that'd be easy sell. That'd be an easy sell. I'd be like, oh my God. But, but what if I told you that those, that it was gonna like, take a Game of Thrones ish turn and by like six months in, you'd be like, these are the worst episodes ever. Oh my God. Parks and records a disaster.

Brit:

It'd

Brent:

be, it'd be tough. All right guys, good stuff. Good stuff. Good luck to the, the six ERs tonight. Any, any comments on Golden State Warriors chances that Caden.

Kaden:

Uh, I mean we're gonna stomp the Lakers. I look forward to that. Um, and yeah, go Warriors.

Mike:

I'm looking forward to the six ERs making the finals and losing to complete the second place Philly Sweep of the whole

Brent:

year. I, you know, I obvious obviously we're going into game one with Adam b I I feel like right now I would take that. It's tough to hear though. It's tough to hear. Alright, thanks a lot guys. See.