All right. Our introductory song is by Chris Webb, it's Webster's Laboratory. Attendance is a hundred percent. We got to three. Liam Halliburton. Mike Fouchet, me Brent Halliburton. It's the only podcast about the Pokegear trading card game. It's the Trashalanche. Yay. We're on Twitter, which you definitely know if you follow me today, because apparently I've unleashed the spicy tweets on the people that cannot stand to be spicy. Tweeted. Uh, um, but you can find us all out there if you, uh, uh, look hard enough. Um, Dragon Shield sponsors us. We're gonna have to get some new sleeves soon because Palkia is coming up and we need more sleeves. Uh, if you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. People say that when you leave a review on things like the iTunes, uh, podcast app and stuff, it helps people find the podcast. We're the only podcast about the Pokegear trading card game. It is important. People find us. You should leave a review and then we'll read it on the pod. Um, guys, that's all of our introductory notes. Uh, anything we should talk about before we jump into the agenda?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Well, I did not hear about, uh, I don't think I saw your
Track 1:You're the only person in Pokegear that does not, did not see my tweet today.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I was very much not on Twitter today. Okay. I'm looking at it now. Oh, okay. This seems, I, I mean, I'm not gonna read all the comments right now. It seems like it could be taken as wholesome or sarcastic
Track 1:And, and you know what? I thought that was the best thing about the tweet. Both, uh, as as, as Liam knows, I'm always trying to encourage people to be a force for good on the internet, but also there's a lot of fourth of the League Cup, uh, lists. I felt like I, for some reason I opened my Twitter that morning and I was like, here's 15 people that got fourth of their League Cup and, you know, played Lost Box, generally speaking. Uh, um, but yes, people were like, can't you just be happy for people who, uh, are, were happy for themselves? And I'm like, of course I'm happy for them.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Right. Yeah. We're definitely happy for him. But you, you, you are right that there is a lot of opening Twitter and seeing lots of lists and it's cool when you know there's something unique about them. Um, and then you get an idea and you kind of can go from there. But if it's the same 60 cards that we've seen 10 times, like. That can get also a little annoying. And again, very happy for the person that did well, especially if it was one of their first times. so don't wanna say not to do it, but uh, it is It can be annoying to be inundated with the same 60 over and over and over again.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Dude,
Track 1:I, I.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:the spice though, man. They cut one of the like most essential box cards for acha.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:Uh, well, you know, I think the thing that, the thing that really drew my eye is I was trying to figure out, like every time I saw a list, I had to take a moment and really read the tweet to figure out if it was a, like Barcelona top finish or something, you know? And
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Hmm.
Track 1:there were all these kind of league cups competing with the Barcelona special event. So I was like, I like really had to focus a little more than I wanted to in like casual Twitter doom scrolling. And, and in that respect it was disorienting. But at Katie PTCG says she came in seventh at her first ever one this weekend, and she was really happy about it, but she didn't post a list. But I'm assuming the list is totally sick because she came seventh at her first ever. Lead Cup or as PTCG memes tweeted, uh, fourth out of seven plus 32 So like the problem with lead cups is you, you, uh, people rarely seem to contextualize it with like, was it a seven person lead cup? Was it a 32 person lead cup? Was it 104 person League Cup? Because that happens too. I recognize like some League Cups. It's uh, absolutely bonkers.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I dunno. I think there's a lot of context usually, but the context of like 20 people versus 30 people versus 40 people doesn't make like top eight like much more significant. Like especially because it's the lead cup, like nobody's traveling for it. It's like everybody's within five minutes. It's not like,
Track 1:Yeah. Well, I mean, and I recognize, uh, like, uh, assuming it's not a best of three League Cup, like a lot of it is like high rolled, high rolled, high rolled, didn't high roll, you know, I mean,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:tap.
Track 1:like, like you get, you get one loss and all of a sudden you're like riding a razor's edge. You know, Caden came in like 16th at a League Cup this weekend or something, and like he went four two and 4 1, 1 bubbled top eight. So like, just like you draw dead, you don't draw dead, you hit a bad matchup. Like it's high rolling all the way. Although, hey, I mean there's an element of you gotta do that to uh, do well at a regional too. So I, I don't begrudge people high rolling. It's a card game. Gotta get lucky.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:It is true. Um, speaking of, well, and this will be a good segue, speaking of people that did well at their first lead cup, I ran my lead cup this past weekend. Um,
Track 1:Oh yeah.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:on Sunday. We had a good turnout. It was 44 players in total, um, 41 masters. And then two junior seniors, or two, three junior seniors. One in seniors. Two in juniors,
Track 1:Oh boy. It's great to be a senior man. I remember the good old days, Liam.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:And, uh, the, the guy that got second, it was his first tournament ever. So first league, like he had came to our league just like our regular league one time, um, and played one round, like one game with the Mewtwo deck, like, got smashed, had a great time, I guess. Went home, like, did some research, bought some more cards. Ended up playing in Inteleon, Urshifu, uh, and just crushed it at the cup. Uh, made it all the way to second, uh, to the finals, only losing to Ryan Antonucci in the finals. So like not a bad person to, uh, to lose against
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:That person is going places. That's, that's the way you start your, that's the way you like, enter the Pokegear T c g I think most effectively, rather than like going to league with the same deck every single week. Like, or like, like take serious time in between like, When you like compete, compete when you're like just starting out to like, you know, research the game and like really try, really try to get like a good grasp of the competitive scene instead of just like going to league every week.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. So it was pretty hype. We're very happy for him.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Leaps and bounds, leaps and bounds.
Track 1:Well, and, and that, well that, that positive reinforcement, he is like, I mean, you know, he's coming back to the next cup, you know, he is like, man, I'm great at Pokegear. I should come. Right.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So,
Track 1:super awesome.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yep.
Track 1:And, and how was running the tournament? Was it hard? Was it easy things
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:it, it was the, it was the biggest one we've had so far, but it was still pretty straightforward. I didn't have any, Super difficult judge calls. I had to give probably like six or seven warnings, but everything was extremely reversible. So since everything was reversible, I didn't feel like anything warranted, anything more than a, than a warning. Um, so that was really good. Um, and the Philly, the Philly scene is just really like half of the people. There are people that show up to like every local, so everybody's like very friendly with each other, very chummy. So it makes the experience very, um, very smooth and easy for me. Um, we did have a couple of interesting decks make top eight, but they both lost in top eight. Uh, one of them was a Zuora box. Uh, this, this guy David that, uh, play Zekrom box on and off, uh, quite a lot. Uh, and so he, he did, he did pretty good. He lost to the, in selling Afu in top eight. Uh,
Track 1:Yeah, that's gotta be rough
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, it's a rough matchup. And then this dude Bryson, who always plays wacky decks, he was playing in Italian Urshifu, um, the last couple months, but he's been playing, he's known for playing wacky decks. If anybody knows the, uh, the John Ang story from Baltimore last year, losing to Butterfly Salle in the last round, uh, of day one to, to Ms. Day two. This is Bryson. Um, he played a scissor cleaver deck and made top eight losing to lost box charger. So I think the dude that played the lost box charger, he made top four. I think it was the same list from Barcelona, uh, that made top four. Um, so, and that would be a good thing to talk about.'cause that's a cool, that's one of the coolest lists that came out of Barcelona.
Track 1:Yeah, I think, I think we wanna spend a bunch of time talking about that.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Uh, real quick, I did not know that was a scissor cle deck. Um, that gave me a funny idea, which is that if. Maybe that was a slightly bigger tournament and the deck did well, uh, we would've gotten a Jake Gerhardt Twitter screenshot from six months ago of his cleaver idea kind.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:scissor iss, like not bad, like Scissor does 50 for each, uh, ability on your opponent side of the field. And then cleaver is, you know, uh, 10, 10 plus 20 for each of their bench Pokegear. So like Cleaver's pretty solid against Lost Box in particular. Sizer is good against, uh, a lot of other stuff. Um, and it kind of ran like a bi engine,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Okay. So, so what does the deck do if they like, don't bench Pokegear like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:uh, I mean, probably loses, but so he is banking on, you know, people not really knowing how to play against it. Um, He had beaten a guardian in Swiss and then Antonucci was like, what if I just get out one guard, EX
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:And he is like, yeah, you'll, you're gonna, you're gonna win Yeah. So, so yeah. I think if people know what to do, it's not very good. But it was still cool, uh, for, for him to make top eight.
Track 1:Is there any now there? I mean, there's no, there's no way to fix that. Uh, there's, there's, uh,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:There's probably convoluted ways to do it, but nothing really worth, worth doing.
Track 1:Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I guess you, you need something to like try to punish them when they run, when they, when they
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:exactly
Track 1:right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:Yeah. But you know who needs that? Alright, I dig it. Um, Liam, I had two notes for you. Do you wanna talk about your AI thing? I
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:what AI think.
Track 1:don't know. You, you would, uh, you would, would've an idea for building an AI engine to play Pokegear or
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:know we were, this, this, this stems from our discussion in, in our chat about if AI could.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Oh no. Yeah, that's super long term, bro. I have nowhere. Oh, what? I, I'm not building no AI in my basement, bro. I, yeah, that'd be something that's super sick. And I mean, yeah, like have, having something to consult that you like know is like Absolutely correct. Um, as opposed to just like, oh man, like guard EX seems like a really good card.'cause like text's really good, but like something that, you know, like can, like compute like literally, or like, I think Pokemon's a little bit too deep to do like, whatever, like the tree search or something where they like compute every possibility, but something that can really calculate like every card in format to like a substantial degree where you like know that this card is like, really, really good. Or like some combination of 60 cards is like truly good. Having like a really verifiable way to do that would be sick. But anyway, uh, oh, why am I talking about this? This is never happening. Uh, I think AI Pokegear is like way in the future.
Track 1:Uh, you know what? I think it's actually not that far away because like, it seems like,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I think it's probably doable, but like, I don't think there's any like initiatives or projects or like funding going anywhere to make this happen. So like,
Track 1:like building, building, like kind of like large language model kind of things seems like it's like, uh, uh, like a can opener these days. Like you can just pretty much say, oh, I wanna build a large language model, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wanna train this on a thing on the million data sets, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I think you need like serious, like funding to do that. Like, it's like a big project, right? Like you need like serious computing power you need and like, I think, I think you do need like breakthrough AI technology.'cause Pokemon's got like so many like unknown variables and moving pieces. Um, like
Track 1:no, probably not.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:really
Track 1:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:like what other AI games that like has AI cracked. I guess that's like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I mean, go is probably the closest.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:But, but go, go. All the information's known, like, like Pokegear is just like, like incredibly like complex. Like the number of initial starting positions. Is it like Blowns everything else out of the water?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:that's true. I mean, I, I agree. Like I, so we were talking a bit about this in one of our chats, and that's kind of how I think this came up initially for, for Liam as well. Um, one of the questions was, if you had an ai, what are the odds that it would win a tournament? Even, like even if we, and, and I think that's an, that's a different question, but it's still an interesting question of, let's say you had an AI that played, I. Perfectly or near perfectly and built decks very close to perfectly and metagame, almost perfectly, would the percentage of them winning a tournament actually even be that big because there's so much variance in Pokegear? Personally, I don't think so. I think you could even have an AI that did everything perfectly, um, and still probably as like a sub 10% chance to actually win like a regional.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:That's insane.
Track 1:I mean, can't we just look at what towards wind percentage is
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, I, I would easily put it like above 90% winning a regional, like to, like, imagine, imagine bringing a me two level deck to every event. Except it's like, even better. It's, it's like the optimize Mew list that came out after NAIC
Track 1:I mean, but that's your assumption is that there's things you could do that break the format.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, I, I think every format's breakable like you, like, oh, like there's, it's, it is not breakable, but like, who's like, people aren't really trying, like the amount of ideas people tried are really, really vo You just like look at cards and you're like, that doesn't work. But that's exactly what the entire community did to like YouTube, two V-Union. We all knew it was a card, but we were like, oh, it just never works. And we just like immediately disregard it. And that's what happens with every, like, basically every card and format right now. Just immediately disregard it and then like, oh, it format's unbreakable, but like, somebody decided to just like try it and it turned out the idea was actually really, really good. And then boom, win a for, uh, win a tournament if you like. Bring, you do that for every single card, every single format. Like I'm sure you could come up with like an amazing list and like a amazing play as well. Like, I, yeah, I think, yeah, play has like an insane impact on like how well you draw even like, I, I think if you, if you optimize your, starts every game, like you dead draw very, very little and like your deck functioning every round like you, you bring the perfect deck and it functions every round, like you're losing a very low percentage of your games. I, I, I think you have amazing chances of winning the tournament.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So one thing that, uh, also complicates this. Taking toward is a good example, um, is the time management of Pokegear in a tournament setting and how that, I don't, I don't know if an AI can
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. What's like a fair, fair baseline for how fast the I AI plays or whatever.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Be Yeah. Right, right, right. Because like, you know, in theory they, AI does everything instantly, right? So it could like, take the allotted time, but it, like, it's so subjective. Judging, judging and Pokegear and like what is acceptable is subjective and changes from game to game and situation to situation like, you know, whatever. And, and how do you code that in, into an AI system? Like you tell the AI system that you have 15 seconds or whatever to, to take any action, except if it's on your first turn, then you can have two minutes. But, um, uh, but
Track 1:you know what? It doesn't need the two minutes. It's gonna check its prizes in 15 seconds.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Right. Right, right, right. No, I know, I know. But like, that's part of how someone like tort is able to have such a high wind percentage and in, in Yeah. I mean, whether, whether you, whether you agree with it or not, like that is, um, that's the facts.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, it's, it is not magic that like every stream game they reach time and the other guy's three prizes and tort has not evolved The Kirlia of the entire game,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:I, you know, but like, like the example you just gave, Mike, I mean, in the big scheme of things, if you had a, if you had an AI that could play well, saying, Hey, you can also take advantage of time easy. That's cakewalk. You know,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:like once, once you've got it, knowing how to like sequence cards, well the, you know,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:actually so insane. How good, like an AI would be like there, there are, there are like so many moments during games. Everybody has these moments where you just like, you know, you, you, you're at a crossroads. You have two decisions in front of you and you like, it's, it is impossible to do the math within your deck with like how it affects the outcome and if you, if you make the right decision every single time.'cause like those decisions are like, often like catastrophic too. If you make the wrong one. Like you realize like two turns later you're like, oh man, like I grabbed the wrong piece. If I get I here, I just lose. But like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:And they compound on each other too,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. Yeah.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So like, you pick like, you know, you're, you have two decisions, one to 45 percenter, one to 55 percenter. You pick the 45% and then like if you make another 45 percenter, like the next turn, like now your, now your odds are just, yeah,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, yeah. I also think like one, at least for me, like one really big aspect of improvement is like paying really close attention to the, like, the weaknesses in my, like opponent's sport. And I, I wonder if like, top players don't experience this, but like, I, at least I really struggle, I think to like pay attention to the, like, the weaknesses that my opponent's facing, like internally. Um, and like, you know, I, I try my best, but like, you have a lot to manage on your side of the field as well. And like, if, if you're like, basically just like reading their hand every single time, like, you know, like exactly what's in their hand like that, that'd be like an insane skill to have. And I think. I think if like, you know, you were able to pay like perfect attention to every single decision your opponent made and like, make reads off of that. Like, you'd be able to get like really, really valuable insight into like what your opponent's prizes are, what their hand is, what their deck is, and like, I mean, you basically just make every move. Your opponent doesn't want you to make. Um, and you like you. That would be like optimal play. You're smoking everyone, dude. It's
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:That's a good that I, I, I agree with that point. I hadn't thought about that. The, uh, the reading your opponent just based on you, I guess you would.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Like they're ordering their decisions, like
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah. What's in their discard? Uh, you know, what, what they did on their turns, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You lose, I like, I, I guess you gotta have an AI with a camera that could also like see their face Um.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:No, I, I don't believe in that part. We, we play objective Pokegear here. That's, that's such a weak sauce. Dude. I, I can't, that is like the Nick Moffitt story of like, dude, I can't believe I lost the game because my opponent pretended that they didn't have two. Roxanne. And then I based my entire game plan around this. No, like what? Dude, that is like such weak sauce. Dude, I lose a game because I like fell for my opponents. Acting like, no, no, you don't need no camera. But like, yeah, bro. Like imagine every time they like, don't promote Gardy EX, you like, are able to like read the percent that they've like prized their second guard EX and just like win, like it's so insane, dude. AI would be too good, bro. AI would be too good. Or like just opt, optimal play would smoke everything, bro.
Track 1:Yeah, I mean, uh, obviously, hey, I mean, I work at, uh, a company that spends a lot of money on ai. My impression is, uh, it might be somewhat expensive, but like in the big scheme of things, um, it's not that much data.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Really?
Track 1:just computation. Like
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah.
Track 1:carpool is small.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Processing power, right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, but it's not just the Cardpool, right? Because like you have to take into account the Cardpool and all of the, like, you would basically need to feed in all of play limitless. Um, and because like,'cause like Pokegear also has a metagame, so it's not just
Track 1:Right, right. But I don't need all of the play limitless. I need like the last week,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Sure, sure. Sure.
Track 1:you know, like, like what's fun and, and even last, like, I mean, it isn't like we have turn by turn for millions of games stored, although I've told PTCG l they should release that data to us so we can do this. I call on them to release the data because I, you know, like, yeah. We just don't have that much data available to us
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. We'd probably have to make the AI watch like a and towards streams, like the, all the whole, the whole catalog of a and towards streams. That's probably, that's probably good enough.
Track 1:Uh, I mean, I, I mean, I feel like I could just tell it, okay, here's the card pool, here's the rules. Play yourself a million times
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, dude, I, I love that idea of learning, like, of machine learning
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Mm-hmm.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:by itself, like 10 million times. And then it comes up with like these, like really. Bizarre, at least like within chess, like it has these like bizarre openings that it comes up with. And like, I'd be interested to see how like the, the meta game that the AI develops on its own, like, you know, how, how different it is from Mars.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah, that would be cool to, yeah, kind of have two to two separate ai, like one that like takes into account our metagame and one that doesn't. That would be
Track 1:I see. I was gonna, I was gonna, like, I, I was thinking you do something like, you set, you set up four of them and you give like one a Mew deck and one a guardi deck and one a, um, Uh, uh, lost box deck and won a lost Giratina deck. And you tell it like you can change two cards in your list after every game. Okay, guys, like, play a round robin for a million games and, and report back with where you end up at, you know,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:would be cool too. Yeah. Lots of different ways you could approach this. This is cool.
Track 1:Like, I, I suspect that, that you
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, like the information game would be so insane. I like, I really look forward, I think to, I mean, may maybe it will, will never happen because like nobody's interested enough in it. But I mean, yeah, if, if something like that was ever developed, I, it'd be really sick and it knew, I think for the Pokegear community,
Track 1:yeah, yeah. Uh, yeah, I, I agree. I think it would be, uh, very
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I'd be kind of, I think disappointed, like the same way, um, the online era has brought about like optimization of lists. Like this would take it to like a whole new level of like, you know, it's like these lists are just unbeatable, but I, the information gain at least would be really, really interesting.
Track 1:Alright, um, let's, uh, uh, Liam, do you wanna talk about your League Cup this weekend? I feel like there's a lot to talk about with your League Cup this weekend.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:It was actually not very much, I.
Track 1:feel like given my, given my tweet, people wanna hear about your League Cup in depth,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:No, I played Bennet, I won one. Um, I won a game against Palkia Chen, pal that match ups really good. Um, yeah, you just crushing hammer and attack and they don't have enough energies. They, they don't create like one hit threats as long as you keep your bench to four. Um, and then you just keep boss spamming, crushing hammer, spamming. That match was really good. I was gonna win a game against Charizard. I run them completely out of energy. Um, and there was a LF Fox active, there was no energy left in deck, no switches left, and I was doing the cycline loop until they decked out. But I was doing it most efficient where I, I played two pal Padd and two saline. So like the most efficient loop is you saline back the second saline, and if you flip tails, then you play the pal pads. You sit on two pal pad in hand and you si lean back to saline every single turn. Um,'cause then you have to hit 10 tails in a row for the loop to break. So that's the, like the, the safest loop. I flipped double tails and then forgot to play the pal pad. And I decked out because I was trying to go really fast because I was trying to deck out with 30 cards iOS in a 30 minute best of one. So I flipped double tails and then I, I forgot to play the pow pad. I lost Um, and then, the third one was against lost Giratina. I, I still say that match ups good, but my track record in tournaments is not very good against it. But yeah, I opened, like, I opened pretty bad. I, I opened like, I literally, I got like she route Clefa turn one and like my hand was like two Bennet guard EX. At the end of the turn I clefa for four and I draw like, Penny, Sydney, Cheryl, and like energy. And I just like, I just sit there and I, I've been that a few times. I've like topped like a, she it, and I just like, do not draw a supporter for like five turns. I eventually hit io, but yeah, it was, it was like a little bit late and then I hit like a, a really bad hammer tails. So then I lost again and then I proceeded to drop, I scooped one more time. Um, I was going to drop, but I gave my round four opponent the win. I already told my dad to come pick me up. I was just waiting for him, come pick me up. So gave my round four opponent the win and uh, that was the end of my cup. I ended up getting 35th out of, there were 39 players at the start, I think, but like four people dropped earlier than me. Um, and they got like completely removed from the standings or something. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just coping. Um, I ended up getting last place on the standings though, Oh no. Actually there were actually no, Yes, there were 39. John took, it was on two pages though,
Track 1:I was gonna say that the page break was at 35, so he showed the page and you're at the
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I was not actually last place. That's good to know
Track 1:Alright. Alright.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:was this cup at?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Uh, dream Wizards.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Oh, the one, oh, that one's really close to you guys.
Track 1:That, yeah, it's super local, so, so it was very convenient for me to drop him off and pick him up. Uh um, so Liam, will you play Bennet at the next League Cup?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Ah, probably not
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:30 minutes. Seems tough to finish. To finish a game. 30 minute seems hard.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Eh, like the more aggressive matchups, like the ones where you actually do attack with Bennet, you, you can definitely win in 30 minutes. Stuff like m stuff like stuff like Las Giratina, the stuff where you have to torment lock them and then wait for them to deck out, like czar, that's, that's pretty hard to finish in 30 minutes. I definitely e even if I had not accidentally passed instead of paddle padding, um, I probably was going to tie that game. So
Track 1:Yeah, so like, like you're executing your optimal strategy and you cannot win the game.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, I, I had started it off by trying to get kazam damage and I was just like, it's gonna take way too long. So way too long. Yeah. I, I'd just gone to passing at that point, like,'cause am damage was somebody who does not want to help you move the damage really quickly is much harder to do. Like, I, I basically had to do it all myself, um, because this, this guy was not gonna do it very quickly if I, if I was having him do it. And the, and the dude's dice were like, hard to see. The, the really weird thing about this dude's dice was that the three and the four were adjacent to each other. They weren't like on the opposite sides. I, I don't know why that is, but the three and the four.
Track 1:don't even know if that's legal. When you say that, it sounds like that's a, those are illegal dice.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:the, the three and the four were adjacent, so like, yeah, I was not able to like, move them quickly because like I wasn't, I wasn't used to Yeah. Like the, the damage
Track 1:The odd numbers are all right next to each other, so I can do this thing
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I
Track 1:that. Sounds super
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:but yeah. Um, so yeah, I eventually just went to trying to play silene every turn. Double tailed,
Track 1:assuming, assuming Bennet's off the table, uh, and, and assuming you're not gonna play Sanders deck, which I, we should probably talk about when we talk about Barcelona in a hot second. What, what would you play at the next League Cup, Liam? If the Lele, if the next League Cup was in half an hour?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:probably like a lost box or Gardy, just.
Track 1:Is, is is Lost Box Kyo secretly the best Egg.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:No,
Track 1:I mean, it, it won a big tournament. Like they tell me that this, that this tournament was very large
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I am pretty sure somebody like went through the matchups and it was like, you know, like Estrada, like Kit,
Track 1:Oh, that's
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:like really favorite matchups in day too. Like maybe it was like Maria ride-on four times in a row or something. But like,
Track 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I had really favorite matchups. Um, and, and like the deck's certainly not bad. Like, and like a shred is an amazing player. I'm sure he was beating up on my guards and lost Fox mirrors and Lu Gaz all weekend. But I mean, I, my inclination is that other decks are like a little bit stronger. Uh, it's definitely all on like the margins though. There's no, like, it's not like the lost box CAO's a bad play or anything that's like, certainly very good.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. It's also a deck that like for 98% of the player base, it's gonna be worse than almost any other of the good decks. Right. Because it's, it's o like even if, even if we assume that with perfect play, it's the very best deck, like it's not that much the best deck. So playing it even slightly suboptimally just means it's worse than a lot of other decks.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:Very fair. Very fair. Alright, should we talk about Barcelona for a minute before we review the trainers?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Um, so I know you wanna talk about Sanders deck in the top eight. I mean toward made top eight with the same 60 uh, Pittsburgh
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Do I that have to learn how to, to guard and get three Kirlia? They're like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Um, the, uh, everything else in top eight seemed pretty standard. There's a Lugia three lost Box, two Gardis Italian fu, and then the Lost ard, which is a deck that I definitely did not have any respect for. Um, I'm not sure if I do now, but this list is
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I still do not. I still do not.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Is better than the other lists that we have seen for sure. Um, it's got a couple Jet Energy. Jet energy is broken, so that's cool. It's got some waters to like kind of bluff, uh, Greninja, I guess it is,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:It is right.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:runs Mirage Gate under Han so it can get there. Um, I don't know. This list looks pretty good for what it is. Um, it seems like a cool deck. I, I guess the way you play it is you only ever put five little dudes out and then you just force them to go through aard.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Dude, Z is not that good of an attacker. like, so 180, dude, it's like r c s with 50 more hp. It's not very good, bro. Hmm. It's not very like crazy. No good. It's got some good typing, that's for sure. But
Track 1:I, I, I mean, my Mike's idea is like, you wait until they took a couple of prizes and then you start slapping'em for 300 every turn and see what they do. Right? If you're like, if you're
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, it
Track 1:Roxanne 300, go. That's pretty good.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I just like, I do not see how this like ever beats sauce box mirror. I do not see how it ever beats. Um, I, it ever beats like guardy. I don't like Guardy. Seems awful.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, I will say I watched this deck play Antonucci in top four, and Antonucci was playing Guardi, uh, and like the, the czar deck went up like 3 6 1 game and still lost
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:didn't seem very good against Dy
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:dude, rare, rare Candy does not not belong in comfy Ducks, bro. Like I see that, I'm just like, dude, I like, I really like Zarza card. It's comfy. It's like not a great engine for it. Lemme see more cards. So like,
Track 1:I mean, I, I get the idea. I feel like at some level there, there, there's an element of like the wisdom of Mike Fouchet here in that he was like, chars R to EX is a good card. Stabilize a good card.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, right.
Track 1:gonna build a deck. I'm gonna put the good cards in that every card I draw is a good card.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:It is true. Like you look at this, you look at this list, it's got a lot of, it's got a lot of good cards. Like I said, jet Energy, very good card.
Track 1:Yeah. Yeah. Like I looked at this and I was like, oh, he, he just, he put all the good cards in and he is like, you know, if they, if they do this thing, then I'm gonna hit'em with a multiple stabilized and it's gonna be fine. And I got super odd and I'll just keep stabilizing until they die. And if they do this other thing, I'm gonna get outta chars R D X and smash'em in the face and see what they do.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Well, like that's the issue when, when you play like too much stuff, dude, you, you can't do either. Well,
Track 1:exactly, exactly. Like the, the, the downside obviously is you're like, so I have to draw these things, so I'm doing this and I have to draw these other things. So I'm doing this other thing. Hope it works out.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I dunno. Like that's probably okay.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I, it's also worth mentioning the other Charar deck that it didn't show up here, but it showed up last week in the Japanese tournament. I know people were talking about it this past week. The Charar deck. Um, one of my buddies played it at, um, Lead this past week and then at the cup, and it did not seem that good to me.
Track 1:Yeah. Well, and I recognize even this, this charge list, like he plays two mirage gates. Like there's an element of like, man, you, you gotta like draw what you need when you need it,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah,
Track 1:in for like a bad time. You know,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:that's true.
Track 1:like he's like, I'm trading off all consistency. I mean, two nest balls, one ultra ball. Like we're just gonna need things to go the way we need'em to go. And if they don't, then we lose.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Um, all right, Liam,
Track 1:is, so we talked, we talked last week about whether or not er, fu and Inteleon was a real deck. And, uh, hey fu Inteleon,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:definitely a real deck.
Track 1:uh, seems like a good deck.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yep, definitely.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I do not understand Octillery in that deck. Like, everybody's like, oh, like gardy, just like they win if they cry, sell you the ery. But like, Octillery sucks, dude. It grabs you an energy every turn. It's not even the energy you want. You want the water energies, bro.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Have you played this deck before? Liam
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yes. Yeah, I, I've gone on like the complete other Direct I, October is so bad dude. Gets you a switch. It gets you an item, gets you more, no, no.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I mean, it gets you on a path, which is great. It gets you a draw card. It finds all of your Pokegear, it finds your hard to find special energy. Like
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Hard to find special energy. I, dude,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:what are you play instead? Al
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:My list only plays two. I use the four Seal Stones
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:To what?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:or Rapid Strike Energy and I play No artillery
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So you're just in Inteleon. You're an Inteleon deck then you're not.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Exactly. I'm, I'm at one, one Urshifu too. I don't know, like two. Two. Urshifu is so mad. That card is no good. Like no good. No good. I, it's literally the only purpose Urshifu has is that it is something you can put active against lost box, and it doesn't die like that is all it does and one hits the riku back. You, you don't need more Curtis's No good.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:All right. Talk about, talk to us about Sanders's Deck. I, I didn't even bother looking at the list, was like, there's no way I'm gonna play this ever so, or play against it ever.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Uh uh. I Crobat I probably don't understand it. Um, I will say one thing that is like really obvious when you look at it is Sander is like very, very, I, I, I think it's pretty admirable, but like, He's very willing to just take losses to Medex, dude. Like, he's just like, I'm, I'm gonna beat everything else and I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose to this stuff. And that's where my like 60 whatever percent win rate comes in. Um, the deck just auto loses to Chin Pow and it auto loses to guard of war. Um, um, there is the ma Wild, uh, I don't see any other realistic way to deal with Guard Devore. I think Buffon's a kind of interesting way to deal with Guard Devore. Obviously it's a little bit too slow if it has no other support. Um, and yeah, this, it, it has no other support in this build. Um, I, I do not see how this ever beats guard or maybe I'm missing something, but yeah, it, it looks like a, an Arceus guard award just runs through the deck. Um, everything else, I, I guess you have a solid chancellors, um, Turbo loss, like, seems kind of scary. Um, Dragonite. Maybe it runs through your board. I don't know. I haven't really played a game with this. Um, but yeah, in my experience with Dex like this, uh, Dragonite might run through your board as long as there's like some mimic you and Miltank out like stable high, um, and may maybe you're able to slow them down enough though. Uh, bravery charms obviously really, really good in that matchup. Um, so it depends on their, like Glo back count and stuff like that. You're probably good against Los Giratina. You're probably good against Lugia and Guard of War or, and me because of the evil talls. I One thing that I'm like kind, kind of surprised by is that like, I do think that UAW is actually like a sufficient answer against Fusion Mew now. Um, but like solely because of like the shift in attitude by players like, I think like two years ago or B before NAIC 22, um, where I. Evil Tall was not a really strong answer. Like I was like, oh, they just do like, uh, three dts. They were playing saline back then. There were like three DTS saline and then two Fusion energy, uh, two sets of fusions. And they just take six prize and you can't stop them. But like, I just like, I cannot imagine a Mew player trying to play the game without immediately attaching all their fusion energy on turn one. So like I, yeah, I, I feel pretty confident in Evil Tell, and that's probably because we do have, I think, like some stronger pressure cards right now and, um, like rodent comes down, turn one and like, you know, does, it does encourage stuff like Malta. Um, and I think the, the threat of Shadow Rider is also like a little bit bigger, um, it's more well known. Uh, but yeah. So I think you're probably getting against me. You're probably getting against Lugia, both lost boxes. Um, and, and you're obviously really getting against me. Ride on this is like really meh on heavy build. I. I assume this is like why the, the Miltank miq line is so heavy. Um, I didn't really want I haven't really tested Miq Miltank for Mariah on much, and I, I didn't want it to have to be this heavy, but I assume it's that heavy because the matchup, you know, you, you just need it for the matchup. Uh, but yeah, other than that, I mean, I, I think you're beating like five outta the top six decks pretty good.
Track 1:So would you ever play this or would you say, I can't. I can't take a massive Elda Guardi because five out the top six stacks is not like actually meta share. Meta share is like, you lose 20% of games right
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Uh, yeah, like losing to Guardian is a little bit scary. That's obviously like the hardest deck to beat right now. Lost Vacuum is like incredibly versatile for stopping. Um, like literally anything that isn't just like run you off the board with Greninja while threatening mal while, or something like, it's, it's very hard, I think to, to create some other checkmate. Um, Yeah, like there's maybe some ideas of like forcing the vacuum with like, some strategy early at like four, and then going into like, uh, Shadow, Rider, VMax and miq or something like that. Like, you, you have to force the vacuum at some point. That's like, the only way I can see you winning. You have to force out the vacuum and then have like a strategy to like, you know, just be guardian. Like the classic strategy twice. IO also makes it really hard to make mal wild traps forced because they like, as opposed to like, judge or, or, you know, so something else, like all with the Pokegear, like literally hide right at the bottom. Like there's no way to get them back out. So like, you can't, you can't force anything down anymore. Um, and I, I actually do expect like penny counts to go up as well. I don't know why everybody's cut them. Um, and I, I think they'll go back up. So yeah, being in guard divorce is really hard. Maybe this is still just best but.
Track 1:All right. Should we talk about, uh, the rest of the trainers in the next set?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Let's do it.
Track 1:All right.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So for the listeners, we were, if you remember last episode, we went through all of the Pokegear in the next set, 1 51. Um, it is, A set that actually comes out this Friday, September 22nd, and the first weekend it is legal is the weekend of Peoria Regionals, uh, which is October 7th and eighth. So we're giving you a good preview. We left off on the trainer cards.
Track 1:Nobody caress about the fossils, right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Hmm.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I think the fossils are actually pretty co cool. These are like the first fossils I think that I've had abilities attached to'em at least since I've been started playing, which was like 20 13, 20 14. Um, one of them is stadium denial, which is kind of cool. Um, other than that, I
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Has to be active though, man. It would be really cool if it was benched.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, for sure. I, that car would be huge if it was benched.
Track 1:Oh yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Mm-hmm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Hmm. Yeah, they're whatever. They're very, whatever
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah,
Track 1:Yeah, maybe step that there's no situation despite the effect that there's, you know, an ability where it's, if it in your activity, you can deny stadiums where you would play this if you weren't gonna play the evolution. Right.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I mean, maybe like, it's definitely, you can definitely conceive of like, because it is a, obviously a pivot, right? You can discard at any time. Um, there's maybe some world where you stra into it. Uh, but yeah, it probably doesn't see play.
Track 1:Right, right. And yeah, I guess it's an item. So you, there's like a world
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:And yeah, we actually did just get like a, the first straight card that you don't have to pivot out. So, um, you know, a card that's like entire upside is the pivot. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
Track 1:yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, uh, that's deep. Big air balloon is a good card. People are gonna play that.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Stage two Pokegear has no retreat cost, so.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Do,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:It probably will get played at some point, but like there's nothing right now that would play it. Like guard e X basically has for retreat already, right? Um,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:That's stage twos.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah.
Track 1:Charles, R D X? No.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I mean, like the, the only stage twos are like acceleration stage twos right now, like,
Track 1:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, it's, it's not really worth it to get out like some like big stats thing on a stage too at this point. Um, uh, one thing that it does kind of do is, yeah, like, it, it does open up like some strategies that involve a lot of pivots, like whether it's, uh, yeah, like generally healing. Um, but p pivoting in general is because we, we also did get the deci ui, um, last set that lets you bring in active at any time. So this is like Kel Dio float stone, um, on stage two of course, which is much worse. But yeah. Um, we have Russian retreat now
Track 1:Ooh. That's neat. Liam
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:that is cool.
Track 1:thought about that.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:All right. We got bills transfer,
Track 1:yeah. Bill's trainers no good. Cycling road is bad too, right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:uh, this section road. Yeah, this seems okay. I don't know if like, it's like a very neutral stadium that could be played
Track 1:I guess would, would, would guard of war players say, oh, this is really good.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Probably not good enough in Guardi just'cause it has so many other stadiums that it would rather play. Um,
Track 1:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, I mean, obviously
Track 1:good ways to discard things to do better than just drawing one card. Right.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. But I think this is like not a bad card at all. Like me ride-on, well ride-on probably
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I like if Greninja was not in format. There's many decks that would consider this,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Sure, sure. Um, will probably get played at some point. Like it's not, it's definitely not bad. I, I just feel like, I guess decks that would rat, that want kind of like some neutral stadium that adds consistency. Most of them would probably just play artisan and maybe beach court. Right. And those are probably just a little bit stronger than this right now.
Track 1:Yeah. Yeah. I think the right now is kinda the operating word, right? Like it just doesn't seem like it's quite good enough in this meta
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I agree.
Track 1:is Daisy's help. Good enough. I think obviously the most interesting thing about this, and I guess I have to see the translation'cause the Justin basil thing that we're looking at is as the Japanese, I mean, it looks like you don't have to shuffle your price cards. Would people say, oh,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yes. Yes.
Track 1:like control play this right Liam? No or no?'cause you're not gonna actually go get your price cards. I guess what, what deck do you think it's worth?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Well, I mean, like the, the idea would be like, yeah, like if you have a plan to take like at least one prize card, obviously this lets you target stuff. Um, like if you went like, Daisy's help Palkia, like this lets you target your Palkia, but like, you'd rather just play a second Palkia because then you can hit in any order and like you hit six and Palkia is kind of like a draw, draw three essentially. So
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:long as you have three like dead codes in your hands. So it's probably pretty hard to play the format's like so fast right now too. Like it could be draw three and I'm, it would probably see play and that would probably be like a way better car design. But yeah, it, it just seems like, it seems too slow.
Track 1:Like I recognize, I, I mean, I assume that they're once again trying to feed you this card along with the Chancey that we reviewed last week.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Oh yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Palkia already, already gives you enough price control with like Chan. That's the only way you put it in anyways.
Track 1:Yeah.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Uh, energy sticker
Track 1:it's not good enough. Right.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, energy sticker does not seem that good to me. Uh, flip a coin. If had statue basic energy from your discover route to one of your bench Pokegear. So like, what was, what was the card that is not informant anymore that did this for V Pokegear?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, it's, I forget the name too, but
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Turbo Patch, maybe.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:like Turbo something. Turbo.
Track 1:Yeah. And, and, and not popular as
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. That's not basically no play. It's all a little bit of play in like the Turbo index, but basically nothing. And this is like, this is better, right?'cause it can go to anything, but, uh, I don't know. There's lots of, there's so much energy acceleration in the format.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I can't think. I mean, yeah, I can't think of any deck that would pull.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:absolutely hilarious, dude. You can like get like draw seven cards and then search for two from deck. It's pretty funny. Uh, I don't see why you would ever Yeah. Play this card. It's fine.
Track 1:Liam, will you play Erica's invitation on a deck this year?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Ah, so cool. Yeah, it's good.
Track 1:Alright. Your point reveals her hand. Put a basic Pokegear you find onto their bench, then switch that Pokegear to the active spot.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:This card's good. Yeah, it just like, imagine if you play it and your opponent doesn't have a basic in their hand, like then you did nothing with your supporter at that point.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, we do have a lot of ways to Peak now though, with, um, there's obviously ace rolls, premonition, there's an item, uh, that we'll go over.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Obviously premonition. Let's just pause there for a second. I don't even know what that card is, obviously is not a uh, word I would use for that. Okay. But this is the term before, it's a supporter,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, yeah. No, you have to,
Track 1:Exactly. The idea that you're gonna spend two turns like trying to set up this play,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I mean, it's fine, but if you wanna do it, same turn, there's an item two cart down. We also went over the Zoom bat last week, which lets you Peak like there's, there's ways to Peak if you wanna Peak. I've also been looking into like, Greninja, V-Union, bro, that thing's ability, lets you look at the hand, but its other ability, which is more interesting, is that it stops items from having any effect on it, which makes it like an infinite rope target. It's really cool.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Okay.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:irrelevant, but that's so cool.
Track 1:Infinite rope target because you're thinking, I'm gonna play infinite ropes.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:No. Yeah. The, the idea is that like, it lets you infinite. Um, of all, like chimp pal can't CrossFit it, it also lets you mimic, you loop stuff that plays rope like Mariah on, um, right. I can boss it, but I was thinking about it as like Azad answer. Zad can boss it too. It doesn't work but yeah. Like
Track 1:Yeah. Yeah. If you're trying to protect yourself from getting roped, I don't think putting one of those in your tech fixes your problems.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. You, you can play four and then you have a rope answer.
Track 1:Sounds amazing. Sounds absolutely astounding.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Mm-hmm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:So like this Erica card, I feel like it's not ever gonna be played in. Well, maybe not ever, but I feel like it's not really gonna be played in normal decks. Because the risk of literally doing nothing is far too high, I think, in just the way the game plays right now. Um, but I think it could obviously be good in a control type of deck, but I would love like this in theory, it could be good in a normal deck, but I just don't think it will be the way is right now.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I saw somebody on Twitter like as soon as this call was released. They're like, what if you just ghetto Dominion? Like
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Sure.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:obviously sounds amazing. Right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. I mean, like you can, you can punish people that ultra ball preemptively for Lumion and just hold it, but like,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:That'd be crazy, dude.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:That means you have to play this in your deck and that doesn't seem that good. Um, okay, moving on. This card is kind of similar in, in concept Giovanni's charisma. Put an energy attached to your opponent's active Pokegear into their hand. If you do attach an energy card to one of your, or to your active Pokegear, ugh, again, seems really good at when you first read it. And then I think if you start to think about it for more than a minute, it's like pretty mediocre.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, this card has synergy with like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I wanna say like two cards that come to mind, like immediately, which is just like maybe Inteleon VMax and maybe bof'em up. Like the requirement is that it has to, you have to not KO, they're active after you do this and you have to want to accelerate to your active. both of those is like kind of tricky. like, Maybe if you wanna like smack on the mirror, you can play this in Arceus or something. Like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. I feel like that's like, the only way that this card is good is if we have like an Arceus like format, like we did whatever almost two years ago. Um, but yeah, like we have a ton of energy acceleration. People can just attach their energy to the benched and then this card does nothing.'cause it's not,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I didn't,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:it's not attached first to your guy and then removed from them. It's removed first, and then if you do, you attach to your guy.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. One thing that's kind of interesting about the car that I didn't really realize the first time I read is that you can attach special energy to your active, which is kind of
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah. That is cool. Um,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, this card is like, hmm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:It's good at some point, but not, not right now.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:No. Yeah, like it obviously has like very real synergy with like a few cards, and if those cards are like ever good enough, it makes you play. But yeah,
Track 1:Uh, would, would like, uh, would an inertia food deck play this where they're like, now I'm doing a thing.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, yeah, exactly. Something like Urshifu maybe where you don't care, they're active. You also want acceleration like that, that's a card that like could like maybe stand to benefit from this. Uh, it still seems very hard, like you're not really at like a, an excess of energy. I think with Urshifu many times, like Melony is just a much better supporter quite often. But
Track 1:Yeah. But, but with I, but I got the rapid strike energy with my artillery, so it's like I got this rapid strike energy in hand. It's awesome. I.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah, maybe, maybe one day.
Track 1:leftovers is bad.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Bad. Crabs, un flyable.
Track 1:yeah,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Are, dude, this was at like a four of like in Japan. Mulli. Like,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:What?
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:dude, like I, I, I've believe even think about trying to build like some turn one deck with this where like turn one you like. Um, yeah. Like at least it can guardi war. I can imagine like cooking them with this,
Track 1:they, they reveal their hand and you're like, so you have two VIPs and a Kirlia. And a Gardevoir. EX got there,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:card is also like really insane with Bennet because Bennet turns off all search cards. So like you trap stuff at the bottom because they can't shuffle and like they can't search the stuff you just put down, like you get really targeted, um, removal
Track 1:All right. All right, Liam, bring a grabber to the next tournament.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:like that. Yeah. I actually meant like single-handedly like fix the Guardi war matchup for banana. Like you just. Wow. Yeah, you just like trap all their stuff at the bottom and they just like do not have attackers. They can't grab Wow.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:You heard it here First grabber op.
Track 1:Incredible,
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:we got two tools to run this out. We have protective goggles, uh, basic Pokegear that it's attached to has no weakness. We have rigid band, the stage one Pokegear. This attached to takes 30 less damage. So we got a basic tool, a stage one tool and a stage two tool. Um, no weakness is something that we have not had for a while. This only goes to basics. Is there any basic that really benefits from this? Um, most basics are just cod anyway, right? even, even like stuff like Mariah on, it's just one shot. Anyway, Blissey, maybe. There's no real good fighting Pokegear though. Anyway.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:If you're like, if you have something like a little like take a tanky basic and you're like, oh, I don't wanna lose auto lose this like meta matchup, so I need protective goggles. Like I'm pretty sure you wanna attach a bravery charm and like basically every matchup and you like probably can't give in space for both. Like town store makes it like a little bit. Okay. But
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:like I don't think I've seen like some like hanky basic deck not play like for bravery charm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, it's probably true. All right. Stage one, taking 30 less damage. Now, does this count? VStar are not technically stage ones, right? So they can't use this, but stage one EX, Pokegear could use it. Bennet could use this
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah. Yeah.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:seems okay. Does that fix Cramorant problem at all? Um, Cramorant does 80. 80. 80. It's a.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:We already have full face guard, which works for, um, it's, it's a little bit better than full face guard because you do get above two 70, which is an
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, yeah. This, this turns a, this turns cram into a four hit instead of a three hit.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:it goes from Yeah, yeah. Instead of 90, right?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Eh, cramps. Like, not really the problem. Like I keep losing to it. But that's'cause the deck's not working. It's not like supposed to be the issue. like you are supposed to be able to just like, rotate through the bonnets, share all do stuff. It could make space to like stuff like this is pretty hard.
Track 1:uh, um, Mike's. Mike's just like, yeah, Liam Bennet's fixed. You should play it at the next tournament. It is totally, this is totally working out. I'm like, I'm like, don't, don't, don't tell him it's getting better. I mean, it's a new set. Every, everything gets a little better, but like, like, I don't think the set fix burnette, but I, I agree. A rigid band is, I, I, I think both these cards will see play and that, like, somebody will be like, oh yeah, this, this does a thing, right? I should put one of these in. I should put one protective goggles in deck. I don't know, whatever. And then Somebody will be like, yeah, this is, this
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, they're both definitely unique effects that
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:could
Track 1:Yeah. They're, they are fine cards. They're fine.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:the, I guess you're right about, yeah,
Track 1:Ready? Ready for some would, hmm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:yeah. No, no, no. Go for it. Uh, I was gonna just say Oone EX. And I think that's all I need to say for it to end the conversation.
Track 1:Alright, you guys ready for, for the wood year rather?
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah.
Track 1:You have, you have, uh, uh, two choices, uh, during the summer to drink a drink that is just a little too hot to be comfortable,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Jesus
Track 1:or during the winter you have to drink cold drinks that are just like a little too cold to be comfortable.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Well, this one is, I think, pretty easy for me. Well, I do both already. Um, like I'll drink hot coffee in the summer, uh, and I drink Slurpees in the winter, so, but I like the Slurpees in the winter more so I'd go with that one.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I I was
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:cold in the winter.
Track 1:You know what's crazy is I, I thought, I thought when you give the Slurpee example, I was like, okay. He's, he is, he's insane. The Slurpee's are crazy
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:I love, I love s Slurpees and Icees, like, it's one of my goals in life. One of my goals in life is to, is, well, when I've made it, I'm gonna have an icy machine in my house. That's how I know I've made it.
Track 1:guys. I feel like, I feel like spending an hour and two minutes on this podcast just paid off for me. Oh my God. That was, that was the knowledge bomb we've been waiting for. Absolutely fantastic.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I, I have something similar, but it's the, the teenage version. Um, I want to closet filled with candy. Yeah.
Track 1:I see that's, I feel like, yeah, that's just like, that's just like ask an
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:That, that's like something you can do pretty, I think, but yeah, I did not get candy like that.
Track 1:Oh my God. They're monsters. Why don't you have a closet filled with K? Uh, okay guys, the John Paul's are our outro. We, we got to the finish line with the amazing content in the closing seconds. Hopefully everybody stuck around. We'll see you next week where I have no idea what we're gonna do. It. It feels like it's a long time before Peoria. Like I recognize we were on holiday coming back from Japan, but like, I felt like we were like bang, bang, bang for
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:Three weeks.
Track 1:now it's like we're chilling
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Might have to have a
Track 1:the storm.
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:random
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:will give us something to
mike_1_09-18-2023_200847:Yeah, I'm sure. Or.
Track 1:right, that's right. Keep, keep the tweets coming guys. Uh, I mean,
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:year cycle of like some random, uh, like Pokegear needs to be restructured with the prize cards or something. Like,
Track 1:I got, I got like seven more comments on my tweet just while we were recording the, the pod. Uh, crazy.
liam_1_09-18-2023_200847:I think I saw someone.
Track 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, like I, I'm getting canceled while we're recording the, it's insane. Alright, I'll talk to you guys later. Take it easy.