Alright, uh, let's do the, let's do the intro since uh, we, we reached an, an awkward, uh, stopping moment before we, during our conversation. Uh, uh, welcome to the Trashalanche Podcast. It's the only podcast about the Pokegear trading card game. People wish they could listen to other podcasts, but there is only one Attendance is a hundred percent. It's Mike, it's Brit, it's me. It's the, uh, it's the gang. Um, Ooh, I, I did not checked if we had any new five star reviews. Uh, I think the answer is, at least in the US the answer is no. If you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. You could be leaving a review and we could be reading it, just saying, uh, dragon Shield is a sponsor. Uh, and that is, uh, the top of the news guys. Um, so I had two big questions before we talk, talked about Milwaukee, that I want to ask you guys first. Any change in NAIC status, and are there any rumors of. Uh, any hope that there will ever be any change in any IC status?
Mike:I have not heard anything and I'm personally not banking on anything, so unfortunately, no. I wish I had better news. Uh,
Brent:so do you think that the cap, I mean, they had to know. That pretty much whatever number they did would sell out. It, it occurred to me, do you think they capped it? Where they capped it just because they were like, this is the most, like we can't do three flights of masters and have an outcome that's not, uh, complete chaos in day two or something like that. Yeah, I'm, I'm sure. Yeah.
Brit:I'm sure It wasn't just like, we'll take literally as many as we can get and we'll work it out. Yeah. I'm sure they had a pretty big. In mind, at least to the best of their ability.
Brent:Yeah. Like, like, I mean, that convention center is really quite large. I'm sure. I mean, they could have taken more people, they could have gotten more space. I mean, I assume they could have gotten more space, like, I don't know. But yeah, I, I wonder, I wonder what the fu, I guess I, I guess my question for you guys is, do you think the next NAIC they'll be able to take another thousand masters.
Mike:Yeah, I mean it, I know people initially speculated that in addition to the space issues, perhaps one of the issues is the amount of staff and logistics, uh, in that regard. But it sounds like there was plenty of staff that were denied. Yeah. So at least in terms of judging staff, And volunteers. I think there would be plenty of people. Um, maybe there's like too much more, like even people above them that that number is limited, if that makes sense. Like, you know, the, the real logistics people, um, maybe there's not enough of them to, to do more, uh, that, that's the only thing I can think of at least in terms of that. But other than that, it, it would just be space, I
Brent:think. I mean, bizarrely, like even that, even that problem, like you'd think that that's not a real, like N NA's fee was incredibly reasonable compared to your average re regional. So like, I mean, if you wanted to fix that, you could just fix it, right?
Mike:Sure. Charge everybody 20 more dollars and,
Brent:yeah. Yeah. Like, like, you know, I mean, when you talk about like cost or something, like you can just, you can just decide to fix that, right? Um, All right. Second, second big question that, that, that I wanted to talk about before we talk about Milwaukee is how was the league challenge? Oh, yeah.
Mike:Yeah. Um, so we had, it was pretty small. We had 12, 12 or 13 people. It was only masters that showed up. Um, there was a little boy that was maybe like seven years old that showed up and didn't know how to play, and he wanted to learn how to play, and I was like, You gotta come back in to, to the next session, man. Like I, I'm, cuz I'm judging, like, I showed him a little bit and I let him watch he was with his dad. Um, but I was like, I can't, I don't really have the time to, to judge right now. Oh my God, I
Brent:should've come. That's soul crushing to hear. I, I ended up having a, a late night work call that I could not get out of, but very, very
Mike:soul crushing to hear, to hear. Um, but the actual tournament itself was good, you know, four rounds. Um, a couple. It was mostly all. Local Philly people that have been to the league, but we did get a couple invite chasers, so Ryan Antonucci showed up, um, to try and get one of his challenge wins. And, uh, Casey Bennett. Uh, came as well. I don't know if you know Casey. Um, but he's, they're both Ryan and Casey both live pretty close to each other, maybe like 45 minutes or an hour outside of Philadelphia. So it was a little bit of a trek for them for a challenge, but, um, they came, Casey ended up winning. Ryan did not even make top four. Um, so, uh, Yeah, it was, it was good. Not nothing too crazy in terms of rulings. Um, I had to confirm that Han could activate through, like Sableye damage and not just damage from an attack. Um, so it was pretty chill and it, it went pretty well, um, gave me good enough experience with Tom so that when I run the League Cup at the end of June, um, I have more experience there. I, I imagine. There will be more people at that tournament because it'll be one of the few League cups that weekend in the Northeast. Um, one of my Philly friends, Patrick mentioned to me that Henry brand might show up to my cup, um, because he'll be in the, in the US already. So that would be pretty funny if he ends up coming. Um, so yeah. So it was a good time. Uh,
Brent:that's fantastic. So what ended up winning? What, what ended up winning?
Mike:So Casey won with Mew, basically just like Pablo's Mew list. And then the other top. So there was, uh, there was a chance going into the last round that there was gonna be six, three and ones. Um, but it worked out that there was one, four and oh and three. Three and one. So there was a clean top floor. The other three were Gardevoir, um, UDRA, and. Something else. I forget. Lost
Brent:Box. Maybe. I wonder how, uh, how many other league leaders have like strong opinions on how top cut goes? What do you mean? Uh, you know, I, I, the local, uh, people that run league challenges here, uh, are, are like the local tos, I think are only vaguely aware of like, what is the meta like, hmm. All that stuff. I don't, I don't know if that's, uh, if, if it's more common for a, uh, Lele, like a tournament organizer, a league leader too, like know about, uh, uh, good decks and like follow, follow Pokegear closely, or if they're just, uh, collecting all this swag and like running events.
Mike:Hmm. Yeah. It was, it was fun to be able to just, you know, sit and watch games. Um, and I, I, I did, I think like, As a player, especially at a small tournament like that, it's easy to be like an active judge. Um, and like watch the games and make sure things are going right. Like, for example, there was one game, uh, where a player knocked out. I think they knocked out a VStar, but they only took one prize and like, I was, I had like looked away in the moment where they took their prizes, but I had saw the game state, you know, a minute before and then I looked back at it and I saw what had happened and I was like, wait, let's pause. Like why is there, uh, you know, I think you should have taken an extra prize. And he is like, oh yeah. And then like, I caught it before, before anything bad happened, you know? Um, and so there, there didn't need to be a penalty. No, no. Nothing like that. Um, but uh, I think that's something that, you know, as a player, um, it's much easier to spot things like that.
Brent:Also also power a small tournament. But that's super nice. I mean, as, as you said, like, you know, all of a sudden like one of them plays judge and all of a sudden, uh, yeah, everyone's completely erected.
Mike:Yep, exactly.
Brent:Uh, uh, yeah, I, I don't think I've ever had a judge be at that active. So in, in the, in the great tradition of, of Russell Laparre, I think the most important question is did you yell at people for slow play?
Mike:No, that's, uh, that's one of the good things, right about, um, Best of one 30 minutes. There doesn't really need to be. Um, I did actually have to tell Ryan one time to, uh, cuz like he was the only game, uh, left and they were in plus three. So like, time isn't a huge issue, but I was kind of like, Ryan, come on dude. You gotta make a move.
Brent:That's, that's what we want to hear. That's what we wanna hear. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it is interesting. I rec and like it probably helps for you like, Uh, I think some judges struggle in plus three when it, like, when a guy is very slow to make a move. Mm-hmm. Like, you're like, he has no incentive to stall at this point. We're already in plus three. Right. So he must be really, really thinking.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can appreciate that, but also know that like, okay, there's. Once you're thinking about this, I, I think he was thinking about, uh, who to promote after a knockout. And, you know, he looked through his discard, he looked through his lawsuit, he looked through his discard. He looked through his lawsuit. So after like two times of that, you're like, okay, all right. You've seen all the information twice now. Uh, like, I understand it's a hard decision, but let's go. We got the tournament to keep rolling. Like, come on. So like, um, that's something that I am, uh, also looking forward to is just being able to really. Empathize with, you know, wherever the whatever's going on. And I understand at a deep level what's going through player's heads at any given moment. And so, Being lenient sometimes when, when I can be. Um, cuz I was reading the, uh, the handbook in general before I, before I ran this tournament. And so many things that I thought were kind of set in stone are much more gray, uh, than I initially thought. And there does seem to be a lot of, um, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Discretion. A lot of discretion in, in a lot of the things. Um, and so I'm looking forward to kind of seeing how that, uh, plays out with myself.
Brent:Uh, you know, it, uh, I, I like how you express that. Cause like, I, I feel like the thing that judges agonize about is if you, if you lean on him to make a decision and then he like, quote makes the wrong one, eh. Like, I, I think the, the like tournament organizers is sensitive too. Like I don't want them to feel like they had a bad tournament experience because I like, you know, because they felt like I leaned on them. Whereas if I had just waited 10 more seconds, like the situation would've resolved itself. Right. You know? Uh, uh, but, but probably like, I mean, when you lose, you look for, uh, reasons to attribute blame, like, You just have to have the self-confidence to like, not, not care about their feelings so much, you know? Yeah.
Mike:There was, there was a moment at, at, uh, regionals a couple weeks ago where I was playing against the Fusion Mew and the guy attempted to Elisa Sparkle when they had all four fusion energy on the board. And I immediately, like, he played it and then he like started to pick up his deck and I was like, oh wait, you know, stop. I don't think you can play that card. Um, And then he was like, okay, blah, blah, blah. And we called the judge just to make sure, and then the judge ended up giving him a warning for playing the card when he wasn't able to. And I was like, what? Like that doesn't make any sense. Like nothing happened. Like we were basically just asking for a ruling here. Like, that seems too much. I Brit
Brit:sounds like the, that just sounds like just sort of like what a. Sort of emblematic case of like, the problem with judges that, you know, we, we talk about and they're just like, oh,
Brent:penalty. Like there's gotta do something. Uh, you know what, uh, here, here's what, here's what I'll say in that judge's defense, like at some level it's a warning. And I think the, the nice thing about a warning is, Like that. They record the warning. And I think one of the things we always complain about is like the other side of this. Yeah, I guess that's true. If again, if he's playing the, if he's playing the next guy and the next guy is not as smart as you are and he's like thinning his deck by playing the less sparkle. Mm-hmm. Uh, um, if a judge catches him and is like, dude, you knew Yeah. Then you could be like, like I should penalize this guy cuz he is clearly doing this thing. Cause he is trying to do a thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's, and you want there to be some written record that like this guy
Mike:was told? Yeah, I guess that's fair. Um, I just don't think, like, warnings are not recorded, uh, in terms of the infraction. Right. So like, it would show up that the guy had a warning, but not for. What?
Brent:Right, right. Well, that's, so hopefully, hopefully, if he got a future warning, they would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. Like, you're already, like doing crazy stuff,
Mike:right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that's a good point. Yeah, that's a really good point actually.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like you, you want there to be, uh, I mean like he wasn't just asking for a judge ruling. He had made a play that was illegal and then you guys were checking the ruling. Right. Right, right, right, right. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, that's
Brent:fair. I, I mean, if he had called the judge before he played it and or, and I don't, you know, I don't know if you, I dunno if judges allow you to do that.
That's
Mike:a tricky thing, but Yeah. Yeah. I actually don't know if that's, yeah, I don't know about that either. That's something I should figure out. Right,
Brent:right. Uh, um, so yeah. All, all, that's all. That's wild. But I recognize you want, like, I think we always complain about how there's not enough. Keeping track of these like small, small things that indicate somebody's playing on the edges. So then when you have to, when a judge is called upon to judge player intent at like a key moment there, there's like no data, right? Mm-hmm. Alright. Um, so I think the other big thing that that happened, uh, in between the last pod and this pod is uh, uh, Mike had a change of hearts, went out and bought a plane
Mike:ticket, people. Going to Milwaukee. I, uh, it was like, it was funny cuz you know, we had our podcast and then, uh, you had messaged me, given me some encouraging words. And then also, I dunno if you guys know Mike nato, um, but he's kind of a bit of an older player, but it started coming back again and he texted me and he's like, yo, do you wanna go to Fresno? Um, and he's like, I'll look all the details up, blah, blah, blah. Like, we, we, you can get your invite still, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And I was like, dude, there's no way I'm going to Fresno, like zero, 0% chance I go to Fresno. But I was like, Maybe I'll go to Milwaukee though. And then, yeah, so I bought a, bought a plane ticket. Basically there's like a bunch of different scenarios that can happen for me to still get my invite without NAIC. I need to get at least top 64 to have a chance to finish that with cups. Um, so that's what I'm gunning for. Top 64 or better.
Brent:But you got a top 64 just the other day, so that's no problem, right? Yeah,
Mike:exactly.
Brent:Four's easy. It's only
Mike:up from here. Yeah, if I get top 16, then it's really easy. I just need to win one cup. Uh, if I get top 64, I have to win two cups.
Brit:Milwaukee. Milwaukee will probably be decent size, bigger than Hartford. I would guess similar.
Mike:I think it's, I think it'll be about similar. Yeah. Um, I think Hartford had, actually, I have it up right now.
Brent:Um, Hartford had 1300 masters I thought.
Mike:No less than that had, um, 1060. Okay. Um, maybe, maybe 1300 total because Yeah. Yeah. It must be 1300. It was a, there was actually a lot of, uh, juniors there. There was like a hundred juniors. Over a hundred juniors. There were more
Brent:juniors than seniors. That's very rare. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, exactly.
Mike:That's good to hear. Yeah, so there was about 1300 people in total at Hartford, and I think when I looked earlier in Milwaukee, it was like just under 1300 total. So it'll probably be pretty close to the same. Alright. Um,
Brent:what, uh, I, I, I would love for you to get top 64 cuz that means that, that you're gonna go on this like totally insane cup grand, right?
Mike:You have no idea.
Brit:Just do well this weekend and save your money on Fresno and find some, find some cups that are out there. Like, I, like I was saying in our, our group chat, we had one. I wasn't there, but like it. Some of the people I've been traveling with or been at events with were there, they had like a seven person cup in like the middle of nowhere a few weeks ago. Like it'll have a second one, it'll probably have eight or nine, like go in.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, driving up to like Altoona will be the Mike Fouchet equivalent of s p e like banking, right? Yes,
Mike:there is. So one thing that's unfortunate, the, the weekend after. Milwaukee. So June 10th, June 11th, June 10th, there's like almost no cups in the Northeast area at all. But June 11th, there's like five, there's, there's one down I in Baltimore, there's one in Wilmington, Delaware, there's one in Philadelphia. There's one in New York City, like June 11th just has all of the close cups. Um, you love, you love it when tournament organizers communicate with each other. Yeah. Uh, and then there's. So, and then all the other ones are, uh, much further away. But yeah, I mean, if I need to win two cups, I will be driving as much as I need to on all the days. You just need to
Brit:coordinate with the other people who are in your shoes and be like, you go to this one,
Mike:I'll go to
Brent:this one. That, that's what I was about to say. So, so if there's one in Philadelphia and one in Wilmington and one in in Baltimore. So, so for people who aren't necessarily, uh, all over Northeast or, or kind of mid-Atlantic, uh, geography, Uh, uh, Baltimore and Philadelphia are like two hours apart and Wilmington is essentially in the middle. Um, uh, like I recognize, yeah. There will be a bunch of people who would be like, well, I would go to Baltimore, but man, everybody's gonna be at Baltimore. I should drive up to Wilmington. It's only another hour. Mm-hmm. And then like, same for Philly, right?
Mike:Yep, exactly. The main person I gotta talk to actually is Casey, the guy that won my league challenge, cuz he's in a pretty similar situation, uh, to myself. Right. He already has one cup. Yeah. He might actually be okay on cups though. I think he got a second and a top four. So he, he might not even really be trying cups. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
Brent:is it, is it worth risking like lots of Northeastern people show up at the Philadelphia Cup? Just cuz it's l it's like local. It's not worth going anywhere.
Mike:Well, I'll definitely go to the Philadelphia one. The Philadelphia one. I think a lot of, a lot of people will want me to win there.
Brent:Oh, a actually, so here's, here's the real thing. Uh, does one start in the morning and one start later in the day?
Mike:No, I don't think so. That'd be funny.
Brent:That, that's like the real calculation is you like show up at 9:00 AM and you like play two round, like uh, you know, whatever, 10:00 AM you play like two rounds and if you're undefeated then you keep going and if you like launch one, then you drop and you drive to the other one. Mm-hmm. That'd be funny. Yeah. Uh, guys, uh, I've had, I've had a lot of juniors, man. I could, like, I could do all, I can do all the calculations. Fred, I'll maximize your, uh, best finish limits. It's absolutely insane. Alright, so Mike, talk to us about what the play is for Milwaukee and Wyatt's. Just play the same 60 luie again.
Mike:Um, Lugia. I, I, I feel like the best way that I can describe Lugia is it, to me it feels like the best bang for your buck. Um, in terms of its ease of playability. Like there are definitely, it's not the hardest that to play. There's lots of like little things that increase your. Percentages and odds for sure. I think the biggest thing for Lugia of players is knowing when to not play cards and when you should play the cards. Um, so, but overall, it's not the hardest deck to play. Um, you finished games relatively quickly. Um, I only tied twice in Hartford. One of them was an ID and one of them, if I really wanted it to finish, it would've finished. Um, but I was not in a good spot. Uh, And so like you finish your games, you, you get to play three games if you want to. Um, so that's really great. Its matchups are just pretty good overall. It doesn't have any super, uh, Un favored matchups, nor does it have any super favored matchups. So you always have a chance in, in every single game. Um, obviously it's not the, it doesn't feel the best to play overall because there's so many flipping cards. Um, a lot of the times you're just kind of, it's kind of up to your starting hand or two, um, whether you're gonna be able to truly play the game. Um, but. I don't know. It just feels like it has a lot of good intangibles and. And it has a really high power level as well. Like if you go first and turn two, get the double Archeops, like you're, you're super favored into basically everything.
Brent:Um, yeah, you're gonna win that game. That's a good game.
Mike:Right? So like, so like you have the high power level, it's not hard to play. You finish games, you have pretty good matchups overall. Um, like to me there doesn't seem to be a super strong reason not to play it. Other than that it just can feel kind of bad and it doesn't always have the most agency. Um, But like what are the alternatives? Right? Uh, you learn how to play Lost Box really well. I think if you know how to play Lost Box really well, it's a great choice. Um, for me, I know how to play Lost Box well, but not well enough in the time with the time constraints. Um, so for me it's not like, uh, the pick. Um, I think the Archist decks are fine, especially Archist or Aldon. Brianna, I think is a really powerful deck. Um, And it has a lot of the similar strengths that I just mentioned, UGIA. Um, but its fusion, Mew matchup is, is pretty like really bad. Um, and then Mew also, uh, pretty high power level, not the hardest to play, um, but its lost box matchup is pretty bad. Uh, And then Gardevoir Love Gardevoir. Um, it's my favorite deck in the format for sure, but its Lost box matchup is really bad. So like, basically all the other decks have a, have one really bad matchup. Um, and then, uh, Lugia just doesn't have a really bad matchup. Um, but I think any of those decks that I just said are also really reasonable to play. I think Fusion Mew is actually, uh, really good. Um, And I think people like figured that out and that's why it's been winning so much. Uh, but I think it's actually just really good in this format because, uh, it's just, it's so good against the Archist EX. It's better than D t e Mew against Lost Box. It's still, you know, unfavor, but, um, but it's better. Uh, you can even run like a manife in it and, uh, maybe be okay against Kyo. Um, so. Yeah, so that, I mean, that's kind of like my overview of the top choices, the top decks. But I think overall for me, Luie is probably where I'm, where I'm sticking with, I'll probably change a couple cards from what I played. Maybe I'll just play Reagan's exact SIS sixties, since that seems to be doing quite well. Um, but I think, like I, I, I do like the impact energy, so I think I'll probably keep that. And then the second Nest Ball spot is still a bit of a flex spot for me that I could. Put in a bunch of things. I've thought, I've been thinking about a lot of different things to go in that spot. Um,
Brent:I thought I should give you guys a quick, uh, lost box report. I know I've been saying week in, week out that all I do is play lost box on the ladder and all I do is just get dubs. Um, I have apparently ascended to the level of, uh, the ladder where that no longer happens because I've run into all of the Argentina players.
Mike:Sucks. Yeah. Yeah, especially, I assume you have not been playing Kyo, right?
Brent:Uh, you know what, I, I've put the Kyo in, but, uh, that, that is definitely the part of Lost Box I struggle with the most.
Mike:Yeah. It, it makes the deck like, it, it makes playing kyo turns lost box into like a reasonably difficult deck to play. Like very hard to play.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Uh, um, you, when, when I, when I asked Liam about how, uh, Arceus Tina just pounds me like a drum pretty much every time I play it, he was like, that is just a very un favored matchup. And you know, the good news for Azul and Grant and that that whole crew is, uh, when they play it, they'll probably get there. But, uh, yeah, everyone else, uh, you could be, uh, a poke. Dad could pick up Giratina and roll you over. You have no hope. He's just gonna obliterate
Mike:you. Um, let's, can we talk a little bit about the Peru Special Event? I don't know if you guys saw the results at all. I did not. Talk to us. So there's a special event in Peru this past weekend. Um, Fusion Mew one again. So that's also part of why I was saying Fusion Mew is quite strong. The list is more similar to the one that won in Malmo. Um, it ran like two Path to the Peak and so it's kinda like a hybrid fusion and disruption. Mew. Um, Lugia got second. Jonathan Fabrisio. Really strong player, very similar list. He did run the Stone Jer over the evil, uh, Diego got third with Giratina. Nothing too crazy there. Um, another fusion Mew also got top four, then some other things. But the big thing that I wanna say, Brit AJ got top eight at this event. I don't, I don't understand. I have to message him now. Um, so the listeners, uh, Brent, do you know, you probably don't know who AJ is. No, totally not. AJ is a super, like, old player. He started playing, you know, back in like 2005 ish, um, was from Ohio. Uh, pretty, pretty active from like 2005 ish to maybe like. I don't know, 2012 ish. And then, uh, didn't play for a long time. And then just, I know he's been playing a little bit over the last couple years, but to see him show up in the top eight of a, uh, special event in Peru is very, very surprising. He lives in New York City now, like, so he, it's not like he's living in South America. Um, so I'm pretty good friends with him. I actually saw him, uh, Once or twice when I lived in New York City, we met up for drinks a couple times. Um, so I'll have to message him and be like, yo, what the heck happened here? Dude, I,
Brent:I don't know if you, uh, um, uh, have already done this. I assume you haven't, or you would've said it already, but why? I just pulled up his deck on Limit List and it said, it says Not only did he get eighth at the Lima Special Event on the 27th of May, but on the 20th of May, he got seventh Buenos Areas special event. Wow. He's a Latin American tour.
Mike:Oh, interesting. Okay. That's, yeah.
Brent:Okay. Maybe I, I assumed that he had moved to South America. When you say he lives in New York City, he must have been, uh, doing a weeklong vacation of, he's like a doctor.
Mike:He's not a doctor, but he, uh, he does like, he actually was like a data data scientist for a bit now. He like has his own AI data company, something like that. Maybe it's, maybe he, maybe he did move to South America. I don't know. I'm gonna have to message him. Um, but yeah. O okay, good, good. Fine. Scene that he top eight, two of them both with Archist or Aldon. I wonder if he's like trying to speed run a, a world's invite.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like he, he is, you know, if, or either a, he's, he is demonstrated people how they should do special events, which is like a week long vacation in South America. Bookended by special events, or he like incorporated hitting some special events into his like South American vacation plan. Both of those are fantastic. I just looked him up on link LinkedIn and it says that he still lives in New York, so, uh,
Mike:whatever that is. All right, I just message him. If I get it, if I get, uh, an update before the pod ends, we'll do some real-time updating. So, uh, but yeah, so that special event happened. Um, again, pretty, pretty accurate. There's no lost box at all on the top eight, which is kind of interesting. Just me, Lugia Arceus, and then the one Inteleon Urshifu. Um, so I don't know, I don't think that matters too, too much going into Milwaukee, the results. But it is good to, uh, good to note, I think Fusion
Brent:we're putting drap on back into their decks with this much Mew.
Mike:Um, yes, but like DRAP is also like significantly worse against Fusion Mew than it is the DT Mew. Um, so like, it helps, but it's, it's far, it's, it's, it's much different than before. Like, like GDR for example, against DT Mew, it, they could just run two DRAP on and then the matchup was super free. But you can't do that against Fusion Mew. So, I think Fusion Mew is, I like really good, which is not something I expected to say going into, uh, the post rotation format.
Brent:It is absolutely bizarre. It's absolutely bizarre. Cards are good. Yeah.
Mike:It plays itself true. Yeah.
Brent:Um, any other stuff we should talk about before Milwaukee? I mean, the good news is we're gonna have an amazing, uh, uh, pod next week, guys bringing you incredible news from Milwaukee.
Mike:Hmm. I do wanna, so I don't know if you guys saw the, like the next set after all day evolved got announced and I don't really know anything about it, but I just saw that it got announced and I just think it's. It's so funny that we had the, uh, the silver Tempest format for like five, six months. We're having the scarlet Violet format for like a month and a half. Then we have the palade evolved format for like a month and a half, and then
Brent:yeah, it's this, well, and and it's gonna be a month and a half with like no events.
Mike:Right, right, right, right. Just NAIC.
Brent:That's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we're gonna do NAIC and then we're gonna say that was fine. Great. Great stuff, guys.
Mike:Yeah, I do think Worlds will still be before the next set, but I'm not, I'm actually not a hundred percent sure. Yeah. Cause I think it, I think it, like the set comes out like the Day of Worlds or something like that,
Brent:but ah, so, so it's not, it's that released like three weeks before, so it'll be legal for worlds. They, there's gonna drop it right on worlds. Interesting. Yeah. And, you know, yeah. I don't know. Is that, is that consistent with what they want to do? I, I mean, I recognize like, Rotation was weird this year. Do they, do they kind of push rotation out just to, I don't know what they would be doing.
Mike:Hmm. Yeah, I don't think we'll get another rotation in after Worlds. Right.
Brent:I see. I don't, it's strange that they would do that. Like I really thought right before Pandemic they had, they had kind of hit on a pretty nice formula of like, Do rotation before worlds, uh, um, drop the new set. And then when they print the world's decks, the world's decks are basically like legal. Legal, right. Until the next world. Yeah. Which is like, like that's pretty good, I think, for, you know, new players or whatever, like if you're trying to get on the train a little bit, you know? Yeah. The fact that they stray from that formula due to what I assume is some sort of like, Structural difficulty or concern about, I don't even know what that's, uh, that's strange to me.
Mike:Yeah, I guess like part of it is that the competitive scene is probably pretty removed from the release schedule of product. Right. You know, like,
Brent:But then why not rotate? Like Yeah, like, like what's funny is if, if you say they're not rotating because like outta concern for how frequently they're rotating on the competitive scene. I mean, they've never cared about the competitive team before. Now. Like why, why start now? Why is
Mike:this still to die on? That's true. Yeah. I don't know. Um, also the other thing with rotating. Like four worlds. Like in one sense it's really exciting, right? Because it's a whole new format. Players have to like, it's the Ultimate Deck building challenge going into a totally new format for the world championships. But historically, like the first format after a rotation is always like the worst because there's just a lack of cards. And I think we see that a little bit right now. Like this format's not terrible. Um, it's like pretty fun. But it's not the best format ever for sure. And I think it's only gonna get significantly better with, with more cards. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Brent:Uh, but, but like, but that didn't bother them before. Yeah,
Mike:yeah, yeah.
Brent:Like I, yeah, I recognize that the downside is you, card card pools the smallest it'll ever be. The, the good news for Pokegear is like, They handled the rotation and the world's decks are gonna be like rotation, legal. There's something to be said for that and I like, you gotta rotate sometime and every time you rotate, like yeah, the carpool's small and it sucks. You could, I mean you could give it a few more sets to kind of bulk it up and then rotate, I guess. But I mean, I don't know, like they printed all these like legal letters on all the Pokegear cards. Like they have a plan. I dunno. Strange. Alright guys. We ready to call it a a, a whatever until Milwaukee? Yeah. I do not have it. Would you rather I gotta get on, I gotta get on the ball and give you guys some, some good ones going into, uh, post Milwaukee. Alright, we'll be back, uh, uh, next week with Milwaukee results. Hopefully top 64. So Mike can go on the cup grind. Yeah. Easy. So any, any reaction from your wife on a like. Spontaneous decision to go to Milwaukee B. Is she aware that the cup grind is gonna happen? Oh yeah. I
Mike:told her, I told her yesterday she is aware, she felt really bad when I didn't get into NAIC, so she's uh Oh, nice. Yeah, so she's pretty, she's pretty open to, uh, this, and I've been pretty clear with her too, that like I really like, obviously I'd like to get my invite, but if I don't get it, I'm not gonna be devastated. But at the same time, I wanna do what I can to try and do
Brent:it. Yeah. I mean, you're planning a trip to Japan. Let's get an invite, yo. Yeah,
Mike:exactly. Fair enough. And, and with the Milwaukee thing in particular, I thought about it and I was like, I don't particularly wanna go, but I know in like a month and a half, if I didn't go, I would, I
Brent:would regret it. Eh, the, the first cup that you win, you'd be like, oh, right. Yeah, exactly. Fair enough.