With the exception of a few people, I think basically every senior will ID.
Mike:so it is definitely five rounds, day two, that's the minimum. As soon as you hit 220, as soon as you hit 227 players, it becomes nine plus five.
Liam:This feels a little off. I can't put my finger on what feels off, but something feels off when you have 200 players with like the same, pretty much the same round structure as like 2000, you know?
Mike:One extra round, one extra round for ten times more players.
Liam:yeah. I'm, all I'm saying, something's a little off. Something's a little off there.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Do you think they would say the problem is we're giving those seniors too many rounds? We should give them three. Give them two. Give them one. They get one round on Sunday.
Liam:Master's tournament structure is out of whack. That's my, that's my
Kaden:You think Master Chairman's structure is bad? I think it's fine. I don't know man, playing 9 rounds day 1, 9 rounds day 2, it's gonna be fine to
Liam:I think it should be cut to top 16, but that's all. I think we should start
Kaden:Dude, I hate, I hate it, I hate it when people are asking for the prizes to go lower. Like, they should just make everything as top heavy as possible. Patch to top 64 is like the worst idea I've heard in a minute, bro. Like,
Mike:you understand the game that we're playing, though? Like, it's not chess. It's not melee.
Kaden:that's what all the bad players tell themselves, like, oh
Liam:All the bad players, whew!
Kaden:went 4 4 1. I guess it's the game we're playing, and Azul is like literally top cutting three times in a row,
Liam:No, we're not talking about Liam, but here's the thing, we're not talking about the players who go 4 4 1, we're talking about the players who went like, whatever, 10 3 10 4 2.
Kaden:you would be surprised how many terrible players there are in day two, man. It's pretty
Liam:Of course, but I'm saying if you, if you have a
Kaden:topped that three times in a row. Give him more money. Give him more money. Like, we
Liam:Let me, let me put it this way, like, it's
Kaden:to send it all the way down to like top 64 just because, you know, some kid who made like three misplays in like his last three rounds or whatever to sell needs bread. Like, give it to the people at the top, bro. I, like,
Liam:Yeah, yeah, so, so, 10 4 1, 10 4 1 was out of, out of cash range, and I feel like if you are going 10 4 1,
Kaden:Dude, 10 4 1 is pretty terrible, man. That's a 66
Liam:that is,
Kaden:man. That's pretty terrible.
Mike:It's not
Liam:in a game like this, in a game
Brent:1 and then you went 4 2.
Kaden:pretty terrible. That's pretty terrible.
Brent:I mean, that is how you come in 64th place, right?
Mike:Also, this is the second tournament in a row now where two 11 2 2s have missed. Cut. Like, that's
Liam:That's insane to me. That is actually bonkers.
Kaden:I think it's alright, bro. You got two bans for your trouble. And like also, you know, the reason that I like, you know, you miscut when you're 11 2 2 is basically the same thing that happened to me. You lost your first round in Day 2, like, I already know you're out, bro. It's alright. You lost your first round in Day 2. Kind of a, like, you know. Not rewarding the people who, like, basically take the easiest path, which is that they send themselves to the lowest bracket you can be to get up to 11 2 2. You know, if those people end up not getting as much money, it's a'ight. It's a'ight. I'll take it.
Mike:Well, So Dan, so Dan Hugar went 10 0 5. He did not lose a game. So that argument's a little
Liam:Also,
Mike:say a similar thing about ties,
Kaden:I, I count that. I count that. 10 0 5. It's playing Lost 17a. We already know what happened in the 0 5. Like, playing Lost 17a, man. He actually said he was gonna win some of those ties, but like, guess what, man? You tied him once, you played Lost 17a. You know, you, you get what you you get what you deserve. Right?
Liam:I just feel like, I don't know, I feel like if you have, especially in a game like Pokemon, if the cut to go to single limb, in my opinion, should not be at X2 2. That feels a little, a little extreme in terms of the, frankly, like, the luck that you need to have to hit top cut.
Kaden:Azu must be on the hottest luck streak ever. Then.
Liam:I mean, if you look at
Mike:Did you see his did
Kaden:He's probably doing pretty good. He's dropped pretty good. I'm not saying he
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you got to be drawing good He's obviously playing very good
Kaden:I, I think, I think he's optimizing way better than make basically anyone else playing right now.
Mike:his his
Liam:is, if you look at Azul's track record over the past, like, two years, he's had a lot of whiffs. A lot of whiffs. And, and I think that in a game like Pokemon, the cut to single limb should not be at x2, 2. Where you have to get like, substantially above average luck in order to make it. I think it should be down to top 16, which would be 11 4.
Kaden:we've already talked about this before and we all agreed if you played like optimally, you, you should basically win every single tournament. Like, that's, that's what the stats would say. You, you win like everything. Like, 99 percent on
Brent:I mean, I think in an appropriate, I think, contextual defense, Liam, I'd say Liam and I both watched both Grant and Azul play the Charizard vs. Lastina matchup. And I think Grant Shen basically played identical to Azul, just had much, much worse luck. Ha ha ha ha
Kaden:yeah. Like, it's It doesn't matter, though. It doesn't matter. Like,
Liam:But it does matter.
Kaden:no. No, no, like, it actually just does not. Just play that array. Like, and
Mike:His Azul's, I just, I just want to say Azul's winnin game on stream, I don't know if you guys watched it, round nine of day one, was a perfect example of both Azul playing extremely well, and Azul getting quite lucky. Like, for example, in his game two, he kinda, he had like a slow start, and then had to Forest Sealstone for a Desperation Iono, and off that Iono hit Candy Pidgeot Candy Zard. Yeah, and but to be fair he also played that hand once he got it extremely well He played the game very slowly when other people would have just like slammed stuff down played aggressively and whatnot So like he's capitalizing on his luck for sure. But to say that he's not getting lucky is a little crazy
Brent:and
Kaden:I literally clarified that as soon as I said it. I didn't say he was, like, getting, like he was not getting lucky. I said he probably wasn't on, like, the hottest luck streak of all time.
Mike:Sure sure sure.
Kaden:He's probably getting a little bit lucky, having like above average results of course, like even the streak for Azul is pretty crazy, but like,
Mike:Yeah
Kaden:you know, if you play that well, like, stuff like that's bound to happen. You're bound to have success.
Mike:agreed.
Brent:Welcome to the Trashalanche. Attendance is 133%. It's the only podcast about the Pokémon trading card game. Caden's here, Mike's here, Liam's here, I'm here. We're all on Twitter, too, if you wanted to do that thing. If you leave a five star review, we will read it on the pod. If you leave a different review, we will still read it on the pod. If you tweet us, we're somewhat likely to read it on the pod. There are so many different ways to get in touch with you. Guys, I've been holding the two reviews we got for a couple of weeks. Let's do some reviews real quick, so you guys can say you heard them. Because I think they're, they're awesome. GorillaTerrence gives us a five star review on December 12th. And says, excellent podcast for competitive TCG players. I really like the style of this podcast. It has a unique couch podcast style that doesn't really follow a tight structure. Last week's episode was probably one of my favorites. I really liked how the mic time was allocated. I assume that means I didn't talk and Liam talked the whole time about Snorlax. I can't remember which episode he's referring to. I'm usually a fan of the tournament reviews. They're quick and simple yet very informative. I always appreciate Liam always gassing me up on X. He's a real one for that. Great podcast overall. Keep it up. Don't ever stop.
Mike:Nice great name Gorilla Terrence
Kaden:that's that's Terrence Miller, like I got top 16 with
Mike:Oh, heck yeah. Okay,
Liam:Oh, fantastic.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. I don't know Terrence very well, but I know people that know Terrence,
Kaden:Yeah, I know he's Drew's friend.
Mike:He, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like some of the other Arizona dudes, and they've spoken highly of him. So, thanks for listening, man.
Brent:The Arizona Pokemon scene is super cool. I know I was down in Arizona for work at some point and got together with Drew for lunch and he was talking to me about his like testing strategies and what he does there to prep for tournaments and it just seemed super nice down there. And the weather's awesome, obviously. Alright, second review. Rakula, December 18th, said, Great insight for PokéDads. Listen each week and have learned a lot that helps my son who is a junior and soon to be senior player. Would you be willing to discuss your advice for parents of younger players, do's and don'ts at tournaments, and a little about how the younger metagame may vary from Masters for this format. Thanks, and keep up the great work. You've come to the right podcast. Caden, brother of Finalists? Top
Liam:Top four, top four, top
Brent:And seniors this past weekend in Portland and obviously Liam, who knows all about making the senior meta calls by just playing whatever deck Kayden tells him to, and when he doesn't, he does bad. Kayden, thoughts? Ha ha
Liam:first of all, I want to clarify that is not true whatsoever, case in point, Snorlax. Liam, Liam absolutely picks fantastic calls and performs well, so that
Brent:All the
Liam:I had one, I had one good pick. I had one good pick at Worlds, and that's the only thing. I will, I will push that I, I, I pushed him towards everything else was his doing. But as for, as for Seniors, I honestly think Seniors is a little tough. We don't have the sorts of structures that we have for Masters in terms of reading the metagame. And frankly you know, I, I've been shocked at times talking to my brother about how little any Senior has any idea what other Seniors are up to and what other Seniors played at past events. With that being said, though, it sounds like there is an egregious amount of Lost Tina. As expected, they tend to, and this is something I've generally seen with seniors they tend to loosely follow what masters do, but with a little bit of an inclination towards some decks and an inclination away from others. So this format, for instance, there's a lot of Fusion Mew a good amount of Lost Tina as well. And it seems also Intel Ursh is still decently popular. You know, seniors enjoy decks that they feel like they can have a good time and kind of just, like, bully their opponents out of the game. So, that makes sense for Fusion Mew and Intel Ursh being popular. Those are two those are two decks that can absolutely just, like, shove your opponent out of the game in what feels like very unfair ways. And Lost Tiena is has also just been Very popular in seniors. With that being said, my brother got top four this past weekend in Portland with Snorlax. Snorlax is a tremendous deck. Because one other thing about seniors is, you know, of course, seniors across the board aren't as good at the game as many of the top masters, and so, and oftentimes they're Their ability, and this is most frequently shown in their ability to adapt versus decks or archetypes that they don't, haven't seen before, haven't thought about. Typically seniors can you know, practice out and, and implement a strategy that they have thought about and heard about. Pretty well, but when it comes to trying to on the fly against something they haven't necessarily tested quite as much of it against, create a viable strat, they often have some trouble. This is why Snorlax and other kind of rogue decks can actually be a very powerful pick in seniors, because seniors will often have a lot of difficulty. Figuring out what they're supposed to do in the matchup so my, my brother talked about, you know, a lot of seniors making some fairly egregious misplays against Snorlax just for, because they hadn't thought about the matchup, they hadn't practiced it and Of his losses two of his losses, his two losses in day one as well as his loss in top four, all three were to Lost Tina. You know, which is of course a historically awful matchup for Snorlax. But for what it's worth, talking to my brother, it sounds like, you know, each of them had one very lucky Iono hit, that had they whiffed or been one turn slower, he would have stabilized to the point where the Lost Gena players had no way to come back from. So, frankly, I would I think I would honestly recommend Snorlax for seniors pretty heavily. I think if you can pilot it well, you have the time. Go back, listen to previous podcasts where Liam talked about Snorlax, and in general, just reach out to people who have potentially played Snorlax. Try to figure out how the deck works. I think it is a very strong play that most seniors will have no idea how to play against. So, Snorlax is my recommendation for seniors.
Brent:You know, the, the advice I, I think I always try to give to people about trying to pick a deck in Seniors. So I think the, the big difference between Seniors and Masters is, in Seniors, if you lose two games, your tournament's over. Like, you just, you cannot take L's at all. And, as a result, I think a lot of the, like, top Seniors, quote unquote, like, the way, there's like, essentially two classes of, of people in Seniors. There's People that are not, like, top 16 players, and then there's top 16 players. And, like, you could say people who are not top 16 players, like, there's probably a couple people in the bubble, or but, but, like, it's like that. And if you're not a top 16 player, probably the strategy is just play the best deck that you're, the deck you're most comfortable with that is a, like, top tier meta deck, and, like, try to get dubs and crush people. But what the top 16 players are doing is whereas, like, we spend a lot of time talking about, like, oh, you think there's gonna be 10%, 20%, 15%, cause, like, the question is, you're gonna get paired against 9 decks day 1, and you have to go 6 2 1, eh, or, or better, and you have to figure out a way to navigate all that stuff. In seniors, you can lose one round. And Like, I think the, the top 16 seniors, the way they think about the problem is they're like, Okay, I'm gonna beat all the bad kids, but at the end, I'm gonna get paired against two or three good players, and I have to beat those players. And the metagame is not about, like, like, what is this deck, how, you know, what do we think this meta share is? It's, what do we think those guys are gonna play? Like, what's Polaris gonna play? What's Owen Dahlgaard gonna play? Like, that's how top 16 players are thinking about it. So I think, you see seniors end up on rogue decks because they think that that's the right way to counter like, some combination of things that they think other players are going to play. And, if you're a top 16 player, you just trust that if you get paired against a non top 16 player, you'll be able to figure it out because you're better at Pokemon than they are. And, like, that's a harder thing to do in Masters. But like, yeah, I, I, I think seniors there, there's a lot of like picking up decks that you get from super top players and saying, I'll teach this I'll teach myself how to play this in the first two rounds of the tournament. In masters, people do that, but like, it's much harder.
Mike:Yeah, and it's changed so much in Masters. Like, that used to kinda be the case. Like, even Five, six years ago, there was so much speculation about like, oh, what's what's the DDG group gonna play? Because, you know, in a field of 300 and five or six of them are playing the same deck and they're the best players, that is kind of the similar reality as to what Seniors is now. But now you just, you can't do that in Masters. And we've kind of seen the the change in how even the top players pick their decks. Because of that, like, the Azul group's just been playing Charizard for the last couple events, because it's just a good deck. It's consistent, it has solid matchups and whatnot, they're not worried about metagaming, really. And, and, but yeah, that totally makes sense
Brent:I, I, yeah. And, and we went from like 800 masters to 2000 masters and like, it, it is a little bit more about just that, that like what's the meta share? Right.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:You have almost no way to control what you're going to bump into.
Liam:think this is also kind of mirrored in, I, you know, I remember, as, as you said, Mike, not that long ago, like a very different age where, and similarly, everyone was very, very secretive about what they were testing, what their thoughts were on the meta, what they were planning on bringing, and I feel like we are in, like, everyone is much more open now with Thanks. Bye. Bye. The sole exception being Worlds for obvious reasons, because that is a much smaller tournament where it's, it's much closer to it, and it's also the largest tournament of the year. With the exception of Worlds, it feels like, you know, kind of across the board, most people are much more open about lists, what they're thinking about running how their testing's been going, and just generally about, like, talking about what's, what they're up to. And I
Mike:doesn't matter.
Liam:because it just literally doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Brent:Yeah,
Liam:Because, yeah, you used to be able to write up like a list of 16 players who you would probably, you have like a 60 70 percent chance of hitting one of them in your winnin end. And, and, that is just not the case. Now, now, you really, you have no idea what you're gonna hit. It can be anything. Literally anything. And this is why, you know, over time I've started to You know, I, I've had this growing feeling that yes, thinking about the meta matters, also, it feels like it just matters less and less. Because there's so much diversity, and I, you know, what you hit just feels so sporadic and random, I, I've increasingly been kind of feeling like it might just be better to pick the All around stronger deck, or pick the deck that you feel the most comfortable with and think you can pilot the best because it's, tournaments are so big in Masters.
Brent:Mike, Liam, do you have any advice for Pokedads and Juniors?
Mike:Liam, you're muted.
Brent:mute, so he's going to just talk to himself for a minute.
Mike:Hmm. Hmm.
Brent:What are all the things I've done wrong?
Kaden:don't really know but I do know bringing your kid food is like a, I mean, I'd say it's probably pretty constant in like juniors and seniors, or not like super constant, but a lot of juniors and seniors do have like parents to bring them food but yeah, I mean, if your kid doesn't, that's like a pretty big disadvantage, I think.
Liam:Yeah, yeah, you have, you have to do this, because especially at a, your kid will not get themselves food. They will not. They will be talking to, talking to someone or doing something else they won't think to get themselves food. And, and, it matters so much. Yeah.
Kaden:yes. Eating throughout a tournament is a pretty good practice so yeah, make sure your kid does that. That's like the biggest thing I think at least from what I remember, I don't know. That's something my dad still does for me, at least like when it comes to tournaments and it's, it's super great. I don't have to like stand in that really long lunch line or whatever to try and get food.
Brent:Yeah, take, as a parent, you have a job to, like, make sure you get food during the round, that way you don't have to be stuck in the line. That is like the key parent breast practice,
Kaden:Yes,
Brent:The round right before lunch? Go get lunch.
Liam:yeah another one that I want to throw out there, and this just depends on how, you know, something that my dad always did, I remember, or, well, used to do, that was really great and useful, was just, you know, before the tournament, when thinking about picking a deck, Just having me talk through each of the matchups in general strategies and thought processes, especially at that age, was really, really helpful. I mean, this is now, now we're getting into just like general good study practices that frankly you can also use in like school. Sitting down with my dad and just talking through the matchups and having someone I can talk to and throw questions at me and answer and, and Just like, work through, oh, I'm playing Guard of War against Lost Tina, what's the general game plans I want to go through, what are some of the key weaknesses I can try to capitalize on, what do I have to be mindful of, fearful of, specific resources that I have to try to conserve, all these sorts of things, it was really, really helpful to talk to my dad through and help, that really helped cement them in my memory for During the actual tournament, where, you know, tensions are high, feelings are high, like if it's, stuff is just kind of sitting in your short term memory, it's probably not gonna stick there. That was really great. Also, one other thing if you can, if you, if you have a kid who's going into CUT if, if you have a kid who's going into CUT, you will, obviously, you will know what the matchup is beforehand. If possible, and I know this isn't possible for everyone, Find a good, solid master who's also playing the deck, and have them talk to your kid before the match about the matchup and how to pilot it, because they will give fantastic advice generally.
Kaden:Camp Chenoi. Mm hmm.
Liam:It depends on the deck, it depends on the deck.
Brent:mean,
Kaden:That's Camp, I think.
Brent:Mike was giving Walker Halliburton round by round coaching as he navigated Nashville Worlds. I remember just the voluminous dump of information as he faced Japanese player after Japanese player playing weird random deck after weird random deck.
Mike:Good times.
Brent:But, but the, like, oh, you know, evolving to Garbodor hurts you more than it hurts them because it doesn't affect the math at all, like, I don't know, there was all kinds of weird stuff that, like, Walker would never have guessed and talking to Mike and Ross was, was critical to success there. Alright, if we want to head back to, to, to our, our usual podcast adventure guys Your monologue, though, Caden, reminded me that I had a question I've had a burning desire to ask you guys for like two weeks now, and I've been holding it just for this special moment. Here's my question for Mike and Caden. When we reflect on Liam's success in San Antonio, I realize that we never really clarified, was that success Liam played, A control deck? Or was that success Liam played a meta deck?
Liam:I mean, I think, I think it's wrong to separate those two out. I think You know, Snorlax was, well, first of all, Liam did not play the standard variant of Snorlax that most people played, it was actually a fairly substantially different list that, you know, he has proven, certainly proven to me to be way stronger and just objectively the better variant, at least in my opinion. But it is true, Snorlax was kind of already a founded control deck, largely just because it was really strong and good, and I think that, as we all know, Liam is a very good control player, and, and, well, Snorlax It's debatably a control deck, it has some control elements in it it certainly, you know, Liam had the experience with other decks similar to it to allow him to pick the deck up faster and understand how to pilot its matchups easier at least I would assume so, and, and The added bonus of it being a meta deck, so it was probably pretty good already I think, I think, you know, he picked a good deck that also he knows and learned how to pilot quite well. That's, I think I would leave it at that.
Mike:Yeah, I don't have too much to add. I would say, yeah, if I had to choose binarily, I would say not a meta deck. What was the other option? Control or Rogue?
Brent:Control, yeah.
Mike:Control. Yeah, I would, I would say if I, but I agree with all the nuance Caden said.
Kaden:I disagree with those options.
Brent:What?
Kaden:with those options. Like, control player is not a real thing, bro. Like, you know, you play, you play a deck, how good you play a deck, bro, and like, some decks you kind of vibe with, and some decks you kind of don't, but like, you know, it's like, just different engines and stuff like that, like, say you're good at Guard of War, but like worse at Lost Box or something, but like, say you're like, Guardian player or something like that, like, You know, you're just a player and like, some decks you play good, some decks you play bad. And that deck I think I play okay. I don't even play that deck. I'm pretty bad at that deck, honestly. But I think the deck's really, really strong, and I hit 5 Zard. So, it just kind of
Brent:I mean, I recognize like, obviously you could say, hey, good players play good decks, but maybe the cadence point, experience plays a role. Like, you played a lot of Pidgey Control back in the day. You played a lot of Sableye back in the day. Like, you've played a lot of control decks. You've probably played more than your average bear.
Kaden:I mean,
Brent:And,
Liam:And I don't, I don't actually
Brent:you liked it.
Kaden:aggro decks.
Liam:know you disagree with the idea of there being a control player. When I, I don't think there's anyone, I don't think that the skills that you acquire playing a control deck are entirely separate from the skills of playing other decks. I do think though that control decks play fundamentally differently than most other decks in Pokemon. And I also think that control decks you know, require, maybe not require, but like, emphasize A different set of skills, and I know I think my dad talked to you about this, Liam, I want to say, or maybe he talked to Cam when we think about sort of some of the, like, core skills in Pokemon, stuff like resource management, or like, pathing out win conditions, or like reading your opponent different decks kind of emphasize, emphasize different, of different General skills that are more critical to, like, being able to pilot the deck well. And I think that the skills that a control deck like Snorlax emphasizes is really different than, like, the skills that Mew emphasizes. And I think That's not to say even necessarily that one deck is harder to pilot than another, but just they genuinely require different skills, and so I think there are similarities between control decks that allow someone who is proficient with control archetypes and has developed the skills that control decks generally promote to pilot a control deck easier than they would another deck. Ha ha ha ha!
Kaden:I agree with that.
Brent:Alright, guys
Kaden:no, no. I wouldn't agree with that. I wouldn't agree with that. No. At least Pidgeot, like, the Pidgeot, you know box deck is like, that one's more like, basically any other deck has like the same exact skills for that one. You just like Because, because it's, it's so linear, like, you just like Get your Lux right out and just like do it and it's like more of like a sequencing test and like Yeah, I don't know. It's all the same skills. It's just like sequencing and then like, you know, prize mapping, game plan, like, you just do all the same stuff, bro. Like, it's the same
Liam:Right, but some stuff is more important than others. Like, I would argue that often with Controlled X, frankly, resource management is a little less important.
Kaden:Agree.
Liam:and, and, but, but, if you look at a deck like Mew, like, or even, or Lostbox, like, resource management is, like, so critical arguably less for me, but especially Lostbox. Lostbox, like, resource management is arguably the skill that you need to have in order to pilot the deck well, and so, like, you know, if you're a control player, Who's been, who's been playing, or rather, sorry Liam, someone who has played historically lots of control decks and that's been the primary thing they've played. They'll probably be a little worse at resource management just because they don't have the practice in it, and so Lost Box will be a little bit of a harder deck to pick up for them. That's my point.
Kaden:That's fair.
Brent:And I reckon there's a span of things there too, like, like, nobody would say Primal Ground, it's like a control deck, but there's that element of like like
Kaden:Yeah, it's a Spectrum. I want the next follow somewhere on the Spectrum.
Brent:All right. Anyway, Mike went to a lot of trouble to pull together a ton of awesome agenda items. Let's, let's talk about
Mike:Well, we don't have to do all of them, especially the first couple, because I wasn't sure how much we were going to have to talk about today, but clearly we had a good amount of random stuff. So we can come back to those first couple things if we need something at some point. Let's just get into the Portland stuff. So the first thing that I had under the Portland recap, John Ng gets his first big win. I know
Liam:Long time coming.
Mike:yeah,
Brent:weird,
Liam:Shout out to
Brent:to not get ninth. It's weird to not get ninth.
Mike:And John is a local player for Brent and Liam in particular, was for me for a couple years as well, so really, really excited for him.
Liam:Yeah, and I've had, I've had a few conversations with John. That's, that's, I'm, he's not a local, but like John
Mike:did you, Brent, Liam, did you guys have any reactions to John winning other than two thumbs up?
Kaden:Yeah, good for him, man.
Mike:Did you guys watch the final against
Kaden:I kind of just watched like the starts, man. I don't even remember anything else like beyond that. I'm just like, dude, watching the Lost Tina starts was like so boring. I think about it now and I'm like, Jesus, man. It's just like watching two guys Abysseek get each other. Oh, but John, John made the decision not to Abysseek in one of the games. He just like left the team on the bench or whatever. Yeah.
Mike:he evolved to a V Star instead. The games were like, really cool though to watch because they They're perfect examples of Giratina as a deck. Both games One of them went up like two, at least two prizes, maybe one of the games, someone went up three prizes, and both games, that was the person that lost. Because then the other person just kind of went like, Roxanne! Stuff, and then made a huge comeback. So it was cool to see, like, Lost Tina kind of have these weak starts and then show its comeback potential two times in a row and then game three Sam had a weak start and just got turntued by John but they were really exciting games and especially John he had Like, both players, Sam and John, had tough Lost Zone decisions, but John in particular, almost every single one, was the typical, like, hand to forehead, like, look through the discard pile, look through the Lost Zone, look through the hand, be like, oh my god, I can't believe I have to make this decision. Like, every single one was really, really difficult and he made Like, really good choices the whole time throughout the whole set to keep himself in it which was, which was really cool, so I do feel like he he really earned it at least in the finals there.
Brent:You know, I had a similar reaction when I was watching Azul play his top 8 winnin in. And like, I mean, both players are just passing. Because they're like, well, I don't want to just take one prize and then get Roxanne and then, like, lose. That'd be
Mike:Right, right, right, right, right, yeah, that was a good, wait, who was that? That was Azul versus
Brent:Hector.
Mike:the, the Law17o, right, right, right, right, right, that was a good yep, that was a good match as well,
Brent:That was a super fun round to watch.
Kaden:hate Lost Tina, dude. Those games are awful.
Mike:After we
Kaden:I think they're actually pretty
Mike:hyping up Tina the whole time.
Kaden:a good time
Brent:Yeah, I was gonna say, so I mean when, Carol, last week were you saying Lost Tina's the play, or was Lost Tina a good play for San Antonio? I think you were saying Lost Tina was the play, do we take credit for this win? I think we do.
Kaden:Yeah, no, I mean, like, I think everybody know, like, Lostino was the move, that's why it was, like, 20 percent of the Day 2 meta share, like, everybody knew Lostino was, like, super well positioned. It's still super well positioned, doesn't have, like, any, like, real bad matchups. I think aside from Roaring Moon, Roaring Moon is pretty bad. And Roaring Moon, like, had its, I think, first metashare, or like, I'm on the metashare graphic in a while, so, I mean, I'll, I'll check this out.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, we did talk pretty exclusively about Tina last week, so. Yeah, that was good for us. Sam Huff coming in second is really cool. I don't know if you guys know Sam at all, but he top foured Worlds in 2016. That was like his, maybe his second year in Masters. I think he was still in high school then. With a crazy deck, but he's someone that, he was like, he was a top player and hasn't played in quite a long time. He's a A literal model in Japan. He lives in Japan and is a model in Japan. And I saw him at Worlds, I talked to him briefly. He hadn't played at all. I think he was just home for the holidays. And, cause he lives in Portland or right outside Portland, so that was like, he was like, oh, you know, I'll just stay home for an extra week cause the regionals is here. And played and got second. It would have been, I'm happy John got the win, but it would have been like, especially crazy if Sam had won and just got his invite, like, just spiked it. Cause I'm pretty sure this is the only tournament he's going to play the whole year.
Kaden:Yeah.
Mike:So, but he's, yes, quite, very good player. I don't know why he played D. Vo. T. M. in his Lost Tina list, that is a bit of a, a question mark, but other than that, he's, congrats to him.
Brent:In my deck.
Mike:I did, I reached out to, speaking of DevoTM, I reached out to Stephan Tabacco, who is another like kind of old school, really strong West Coast player. He got 17th with Gardevoir and I reached out to him because he had D. Va TM in his Gardevoir deck. And I was like, what is this about, buddy? Like, that seems so random. And he said it was for Charizard. He said he was losing to Charizard in testing, so he threw it in there. But he said that it was useless the whole tournament, so he played 59 cards, basically. And I feel like Gardevoir's a deck where you really, really, really don't want to play 59 cards. Some other storylines from Portland Azul. We've already talked about a little bit, but he has his fourth consecutive top 8 now at North American Regionals for the year. Pretty
Kaden:He's insane, bro. He's so good.
Mike:Yeah, Azul is very good. Yeah, and, and, his stream matches, his two stream matches were both very Informative to watch. What'd you say, Liam, in the chat when I said, like we don't need to see Azul on every winnin in?
Kaden:Dude, the Azul hating is absolutely crazy, like, it's not even hate, like, people are like, oh, man, we want, like, diversity on stream or something, but, like, I at least find that having, like, A lot of different games from like Tord and Azul being super valuable to go back through because like that's just like, you know, peak Pokemon on display and like having more and more of those games like logged and being able to watch them is I find something like really valuable and fun to do. Whereas like, you know There's like, you could just put some like random guy on stream, but like the games are not as good. Who wants to watch a bad game? I don't. I don't want to watch the mid.
Mike:that's a very valid point. And yeah, the Azul games were really great. So if you're a Charizard player and you didn't watch the stream, definitely go watch those games. Those were really sick. Hail! Who got top eight with PTO or not? PTO P Control a couple weeks ago in San Antonio. Got top 32 with an updated list. Liam, you wanna talk about any of these? Updates.
Kaden:Oh I saw it.
Mike:QUEX.
Kaden:Yeah, he's playing
Mike:QUEX. Mm-Hmm?
Kaden:It's like pretty solid. He said he added it Friday, and that it stunk, and all that kind of checks out. Yeah.
Mike:What? What is the CHI U for? I get the C. ZD is for like Tina, I guess,
Kaden:Chiyu's also for Tina. It helps you with, like it lets you go, I guess he's playing Roxanne, I usually play Iono, but Roxanne's a little bit better because the issue I was having when I was playing Iono is that I've been playing with Crabbe because I haven't been playing Radiance hard. You go Roxanne, er, you go Iono into Crabbe, but then once you do that, like, all their good cards are on the bottom, so you never hit it.
Mike:hmm.
Kaden:Yeah, it basically lets you, like, at the end of the game, you can go Roxanne, Countercatch or something, and just try to, like, crab out all their switch effects. And, like It's really, really, like, a last ditch attempt, but, know, it's, it's hard to get an advantage against Tina, and that's, like, a one card thing I guess you can do if you're already playing the Fire energy. I don't know if you can go harder on the, like, the, the Radiant Zard strat, because, like, from the Magma Basin, Raihan, DT and Fires, you can go into Zard pretty early, so, like, he's maybe trying to, like, just completely outtrade, and, like, you don't have to fully outtrade, you just hit with the Zard twice, and then you go, like, Pidgey at Iono, and just try to take two prizes that way. You know, I, I don't know if it's, like, actually viable to use the Chiyu and that. That sense so there might be like applications that I'm missing like, and it's of course just like solid as a an attacker, I guess, in like other matchups. It's a disruptive card.
Mike:You would play Crab.
Kaden:I, I will say one thing that's like a little bit worse is that the Chiyu I think only has 190 hitpoints, and one of the like big upsides for Crab is that it makes it's like a Zard strat on its own. Where you can just, like, penny loop it with the Pidgeot. Whereas Chi Yu just does Vitality Ban.
Mike:Right, right.
Kaden:Can't go lighter on those, like, Zard cards.
Mike:And I think he also said that the regular Snorlax he thinks is probably just better against Lastina.
Kaden:Yeah,
Mike:Which I guess makes sense because you'd play Templar SNO. Is that really the big reason? And you're just a little more consistent.
Kaden:I, I would never play that, like, regular Snorlax deck, dude. Like, I, I think Kalzlus was really good. Being able to play three Iona was, like, really huge against Tina. Other than that, there's, like, not much going for it. You do like the same thing except worse.
Mike:Alright, let's talk about general Meta stuff. So, I know we've mentioned Liam and I are going to Charlotte in a couple weeks. Caden, are you going to Charlotte, or no?
Liam:I'm not going to Charlotte, no.
Mike:Okay so, Xard and Tina clearly were the dominant decks here, the most played day 1 and day 2. Tina had a crazy conversion rate from about 12 percent to 21, almost 22 percent on day 2. Charizard went down a little bit from like 17 to 16 and a half, but call that a wash. Garde, Garde had exactly the same percentage, 9. 93. Both days. Meridon was on the Day 1 graphic, not on the Day 2 graphic. Mew was the reverse, was not on the Day 1, but was on the Day 2. Lost Zone Box was on roughly the same, it went up a little bit into Day 2. Rapid Strike Urshifu made the graphic, I think maybe for the first time, for Day 1. I know it's shown up on Day 2 graphics, but I don't know if it's ever shown up on Day 1 graphics. But then it did not show up on the Day 2 graphics, so, didn't do super great. And then Roaring Moon coming Or I should, maybe I should say roaring in to the Day 2 graphic practicing the dad jokes, Brent. Coming in for just under 7 percent Day 2. And one of my good buddies, Ross Cawthon, played it to a 33rd place, but I think there was one other that finished higher than him. So, Roaring Moon had an okay show in. Yeah, I don't know.
Brent:And how did Ross feel about playing Roaring Moon? That's a rebel play.
Mike:I mean, I haven't talked to him too much about the deck since the tournament honestly I didn't talk to him too much about the deck leading up to it as well because I just didn't believe in it and I just kind of let him do his thing. His list is It's out there, if you guys want to go look at it, it's a little bit weird, definitely different from, I mean it has the same like core stuff that you would see in a Roaring Moondeck, but like it only plays two sadas, it runs like a heavier research engine, more focused on glaring Moltres V with energy switch instead of relying on sadas, he thinks that's a bit more reliable in setting up the turn one But Hit and whatnot. I can't tell you if that's true or not. I haven't really played enough versions, but I trust Ross He and he likes the the tool as well the ancient tool so but yeah, so I mean coming out of this Like, I don't know how much is gonna change going into Charlotte. Like, Tina and Zard, I feel like, will clearly be the top two decks. Moridon, I don't think can drop much further from what it is right now. Like, I don't, I wouldn't expect it to go much lower than 10%, and then everything else doesn't seem like super great to me. So I feel like it would just stay about the same.
Brent:So, what's the prediction, guys? How are we thinking about Charlotte? A
Kaden:Just beat Lost Tina. Don't lose to everything else and beat Lost Tina.
Mike:but like, what beats Lost Tina? That's the question,
Kaden:Yeah, it's really hard. No, Lost Tina's good.
Mike:Yeah, I think Mew, like Mew seems great to me, like Mew is like a pretty close matchup for Tina. If Tina doesn't play Tomb, it's like probably slightly favored for Mew but still very close. I don't
Liam:Yeah, I mean, the fear with Mew, though, is now you're taking a pretty hard loss to the, what is, will likely be the second most popular deck,
Mike:yeah, the popular or second most popular, yeah, the Charizard for sure. It's
Kaden:Watching Dan Hugar beat up on Vance Kelly on stream though was like, you
Mike:that's true.
Kaden:kind of scary.
Mike:one was crazy, yeah. That game one was really crazy. Yeah, Caden, I don't know if you watched that game, but
Liam:I did not.
Mike:Dan Hugar went down 2 6 in Tina vs. Mew and then made the comeback.
Liam:Yep. Yep. Wow.
Mike:Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was a, yeah, masterclass of, another masterclass of Tina though, watching Tina play.
Brent:masterclass of Path, Roxanne?
Mike:Yeah. Two Pathrox ants. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, you're right, Mew is like,
Brent:case the first one doesn't work.
Mike:yeah, Mew is not great into Charizard for sure. Like nothing seems great to me except Tina. But I don't want to play Ti but I don't, I don't particularly want to play Tina now with 20 percent of the meta being Tina. Like, Tina mirrors are also terrible.
Liam:Genpow.
Mike:Chinpow did make day two for the first time in a while.
Liam:Beats Gardi. Beats Tina. Beats Zard.
Mike:It does not beat Tina, bro.
Liam:I, I found that matchup to be 50 50, but.
Kaden:50? What? You
Liam:You have to run the VAC. You have to run the VAC.
Kaden:You just said it beats it and you said 50 50.
Liam:Well, okay. I haven't tested the matchup in a while. And like, I can't make strong claims about what the matchup's actually like, because I haven't tested Chen Pao in a
Kaden:No dude, Mike, apparently you
Brent:No one's tested Chen Pao in months. It's improved things. Yeah. It's gotten
Liam:All I'm saying is if, if, it, in my experience, it was not an awful matchup. It was like actually a pretty decent matchup, and a lot of Tinas piloted it poorly. So, so it was, it was like 50 50 if the Tina was piloting it optimally. But usually they would play it poorly enough that you kind of just sweep them. But, I don't know. That might not still be true. I haven't, I haven't tested Chenpao. All I'm saying, when I see the top three decks as being three evolution, evolution or small basic decks, like, you know, Mew and Moridon are the two biggest banes on Chenpao's existence.
Mike:Hmm.
Liam:And so,
Mike:sure. Yeah. S speaking of Chi Pao, like it did make, I, I think some made day two in San Antonio, but a couple did make day two here, and in particular the, the Chio guy. who's been carrying the torch, Jared Grimes, made Day 2 with just the old 60 from like the last format with no Iron Hands.
Kaden:Good one, bro.
Mike:Yeah, the good list with two Cancelling Cologne. So maybe that's just the wave, Katie. Maybe you just play Cancelling Cologne, Chi Pao.
Liam:yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I, I never tested Chimpo enough to really, like, confirm, but, you know, I think I've, I've said on this pod multiple times, like it's really a toss up, in my mind, which one is better, and I think it's now been proven that Iron Hands is bait.
Mike:I really hope that by the end of this format, like, Chi and Pau is doing a little bit better, and all of them are just, like, not Ironhands, because slowly but surely, my initial tweet for the Paradox format is becoming true. Like, I don't remember the third thing that I said, but the first two things were Ironhands and Chienpao is going to be inferior to regular Chienpao, and Gardevoir and Lost Zone will still be Tier 1. And we're pretty good so far.
Kaden:And Jake is so cooked.
Mike:Yeah.
Kaden:Where he's like, I was right! Ironhands is everything! The meta's warping around it to where Lost Zone Tina is now the best deck because of the Ironhands. It's like, dude,
Mike:That's the reason.
Kaden:crazy, man.
Mike:I'm not opposed to giving Chienpao a little bit of a shake. But, I'm still a little
Kaden:Dude, I'm never playing Shempo. I know it's probably gonna be like solid at Charlotte. It's probably going to have some Day 2's. I'm never playing that deck bro. It just sucks.
Mike:Some
Brent:How about Cloth?
Mike:yeah, oh, okay. Yeah, I was about to say, some other decks that got day two, one of which is Cloth and was featured on stream by, I don't even really know his real name. Is it James? Is it Bart? Like
Kaden:I don't know either, yeah, I mean that dude
Mike:Nancy Pelosi lover. He got smashed day 2, is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah, Cloth is like, I think you can probably day 2 with it. Cause if you play against people that are just like, okay, your matchups are good. But then even like the Charizards on day 2 are gonna beat you because they know how to play the matchup. Some other decks that made day 2 include 3 Goldangos. I assume they're all Palkias, I refuse to look at the lists, but a couple Goldangos, and then there was some other like weird decks, wasn't there like a Greedent VMAX deck? I haven't, is
Kaden:kind of cool bro. I don't know if it's good, but I'm definitely going to play a few games with it just to see.
Mike:Oh that's, oh that's literally the deck that got posted in our chat like an hour ago.
Kaden:Yeah,
Mike:Two, two Greedent VMAX, three Iron Valiant, and a lot of one ofs after that.
Kaden:yeah, it's like a Palkia mox,
Brent:Sounds like a Liam deck.
Kaden:and dude, like, the only thing that Palkia does at this point is Power of Ninja, which is, like, not even a bad thing, but it's kind of funny, man. Went from, like, easily out trading every other like, attacker in format to, like, you know, just a Greninja, Greninja enabler,
Mike:Yeah, nothing too I mean, there's like a bunch of weird stuff, but nothing that like jumps out to me as like, oh yeah, this is like, really worth exploring. I mean, the Greedent, like, maybe a little bit. But then there's like, the Arceus Venusaur, the Arceus Superior, Arceus Regigigas, none of those seem super interesting to me.
Kaden:I will say. One thing that gave me a couple laughs was that there's a bunch of Snorlax Pidgeot And there was that tweet that Chris Franco made of Giddy who played Snorlax Pidgeot
Mike:Yeah.
Kaden:had like four Tina's or whatever There's all these Tina's that got like, you know, like 200th place or something at the bottom of the day two chart and like I see it, and I'm like, dude, like, I literally warned us about this, we knew Tina was going to be 20 percent of the meta, and then you came in, you decided to play Snorlax Pigea, and then you got farmed by Tina, like, why are we making these decisions? You know, like, like, like, Hail, at least, was like, cognizant of this, and he was like, I'm going to add a bunch of junk into my deck to at least try to play the matchup. There's so many people who are just like, I'm sending the 60, man, and then try to dodge Tina, and then they hit a bunch of Tina, because we all knew Tina was going to be like, Giant Shuck of the Metashare.
Brent:Liam, as long as we're talking about random cards, mere hours ago you were tweeting that Deoxys is it. Ha ha ha
Kaden:Yeah, I thought I had something there, but nah, I didn't. It was troll.
Brent:Alrighty, alright. So, we're not taking it back on Twitter, but you guys can know. That tweet's been
Kaden:Yeah, I mean, like, I was thinking about deleting the tweet, but I was like, eh, no point. Who cares?
Brent:ha! No, I think that's how you manipulate the meta. Ha ha ha ha
Kaden:made that tweet so that, you know, Jake would DM me saying I told you so, and I'd be like, I wasn't even talking about Deoxys V Star, man. I don't care.
Mike:I was talking about Deoxys VMAX, buddy.
Kaden:Yeah, I was, dude. I was that. I thought I was cooking with that, but, you know, maybe not. Definitely not. actually, maybe not. I kind of want to go explore that again.
Mike:I'm not looking up what that card does. Alright,
Liam:it, it can't be that good.
Mike:yeah, if I don't know what it is, it can't be that good.
Brent:Yeah,
Liam:Cough, Cough, Drapion.
Brent:Alright, guys, we'll be back next week and we'll be so close to Charlotte, Caden will have had time to change his mind and decide to come, change his mind and decide not to come, change his mind and decide to come, change his mind and decide not to come, maybe even a couple more times than that, and we will definitely talk about, like, how testing's going.
Mike:Yeah, for sure,
Kaden:No
Brent:John Pauls are our outro.