Welcome to the trash launch. It's the only podcast about the Pokemon trading card game. It's just Mike and me today. Liam is out sick. Caden has midterms even though it's January. It feels like a weird time for midterms. I obviously don't understand how school works on, like, a quarter system or a trimester system or something. It's,
Mike:That surprised me too.
Brent:But but Mike and I are on Twitter, And we thought we'd we'd flip through the temporal forces set list a little bit and talk about that. But Mike, why don't you kick us off? We were gonna talk about the 1 Piece of Nationals.
Mike:Yes. 1 of the big stories on social media this weekend was the disaster that seems to have taken place in California this weekend with Bandai's Card game national championships. Most of the people that we know were playing in 1 piece. I know there were some other games going on, like battles, Spirit saga maybe Digimon had something. I don't really know how those events went. But it sounds 1 Sounds like 1 piece went really, really poorly. They were supposed to run 11 rounds. They only ended up running 10. They had multiple repairs, a ton of time in between rounds. They didn't yeah. The
Brent:They, like, didn't have round 1 before noon. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Right. It was like a 16 or 17 hour tournament from from when it was supposed to start until when it actually ended and didn't even really end. And and, like, a consequence of that, right, is they probably picked 11 rounds because There was some cutoff where they were hoping x record made it into top cut, and That screwed over some people. Like, I saw there was some I think they ended up having 10 rounds, and some 8 and twos missed their top cut. And someone that started 8 and o Missed their top cut. That's so brutal. So I guess I just just wanted to mention it because We shouldn't take for granted what what we have, I guess, over here in Pokemon. There's always things to improve on, but Our organizers have been improving and iterating for for many, many years, and we have a fairly polished product now compared to some of these newer games that are just trying to start
Brent:And and I think and I think there's so many people that get credit for that. You you almost, Like, don't see the forest for the trees. Right? Like, Pokemon has weeded out a lot of bad TOs. The good TOs are, like, by definition, good TOs. Obviously, Carlos and Arkanine have played a big, big role in making the magic happen. But, yeah, I feel like it's been a while since we've had a real chaos adventure regionals. So,
Mike:Yeah. And and, like, we we've always we haven't shied away from criticizing, so I think it's good to also shine some light on when we recognize that we have it pretty good overall
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I I I I recognize there are people who complain about, like, no lunch break, but we're done by 7. Like
Mike:Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:And and I feel like the food offerings at the convention centers, people have been excited about them of late. I I I myself did not see the, like, churro thing, but apparently, a churro thing is like a thing that happens.
Mike:Yeah. I heard about that too. I didn't see it. I was too busy buying 7 dollar pizza slices upstairs.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Liverpool just happened.
Mike:It did just happen. I don't really think there's too much to talk about. It's kinda what we'd expect. Tina did well. Charizard did okay. Garde did pretty well, but didn't make top 8. Mew 1, it's in Europe. Big surprise. Toward play Gardevoir. He he switched back to Gardevoir from lost box. I think that's all I got.
Brent:So so I I guess the the only question I had is, hey. Congratulations, Brent Thonissen, for doing super well.
Mike:That's true.
Brent:I recognize, like, I think we already said, hey, that those Australian guys are amongst the best Come on, players in the world. Like Brent, I feel like he's had a lot of, like, really good outcomes of late. So
Mike:he's going to everything.
Brent:yeah. Yeah.
Mike:He's he's a great player, and he has had good outcomes. But when you go to everything it compounds on itself. Right? Because you give yourself more opportunities to do well, but you're also getting way more practice in tournament settings than the average player. And so You're just you're gonna do better than average just because of that regardless of your skill. And Brent is extremely skilled. I don't wanna take that away from him. But But it's certainly a factor.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. But but I recognize it's easy to say he's going to everything, but, like, he's an Australian guy going to everything. That's like, What what is he doing? Did he did he move to the States? Is he, like do you have any idea what the deal is? I have no idea.
Mike:I think he's just just doing Pokemon this year. Like, that's his he's just traveling around, staying with different people. Like After Charlotte, I think he went and stayed maybe with Gabe Smart because Gabe also went to Liverpool regionals, so they probably traveled there together. Presumably, he is staying with him or some other US player this week before Knoxville. So he's kinda just making these Trips, big trips throughout the year and returning to Australia every every now and then, which is cool. And kinda speaking of that, we saw at Charlotte 2 players not from the United Dates make top 8. Vinnie won. So Vinnie won and Gustavo got top 4. And here in Liverpool, 3 people not from Europe made top 8 with first and second, both being not from Europe. Fabrizio is from Peru, Brent from Australia, and then there was Kato from Japan. Kato or Kito, he is Also kind of been traveling around for a lot of the the the tournaments this year. He was the Japanese player that got top 8 at LAIC. So yes. So there's a couple of these people that are are really traveling around and are seeing a lot of success, which is which is cool.
Brent:for me, the highlight was a Snorlax top forward Liverpool. I have no idea what the heck that means.
Mike:It's a crazy Snorlax list too.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. He's he's playing a little bit of everything except for the Pidgeot, which I thought we'd already concluded was the best card in the deck.
Mike:But he was, like, turbo, poke stop build, running Pokemon catchers and cross severs. I did ask your son about it, and he didn't really get it. I feel like it sacrifices its team to match up even more. Like, it doesn't play Temple Asano or anything like that for, like, better matchups versus everything else, but I don't know how much better its matchups get. Like, your turns are matchups already 80 20. So what are you now? Like, 82 18?
Brent:Right. Right.
Mike:So it seems a little weird to just throw the, you know, your your 1 matchup that is really bad, but it's a extremely popular match up just for a couple of percentage points against everything else. But, hey, he made top 4, so good for him. Actually, I'm kinda curious. I'm gonna see if I can See how many teamas he played, if any.
Brent:Yeah. And then Magnus Peterson played a absolutely crazy last box list.
Mike:Oh, I didn't see that. So, yeah, Nicholas played against just Brent Thonassen for Tina. And he lost to him in Swiss, and he lost to him in top 4. He did also lose to Brendan Cameron, who also made top 8 with the lost box charizard. But, yeah, I mean, if you get if you dodge Tina, this list seems Great. Magnus Peterson played oh, he had, like, the the moon
Brent:Yeah. He he Roaring Moons, Iron Hands, Tropius, Minear, Moltres v, MewEX. Like, just like,
Mike:energies. No water energy, so can't Greninja.
Brent:Yeah. He's like, we're already invested in powering up Pokemon with Mirage Gate. Can't be bothered with that.
Mike:Oh, 0, and he's got the super effective glasses, town store as well. That's cool.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. They ran double super effective glasses. It's a crazy list.
Mike:Nice. Cool.
Brent:So any effect on Knoxville? Or you think people are just gonna be playing whatever they're planning on playing already?
Mike:Yeah. I don't think it'll be that big of a change. Probably be pretty similar meta games to the last 2 tournaments. Garde seemed like a real downtick. Didn't even make the graphic for day 1 at Liverpool and it was pretty low. It was, like, 5 or 6 for For Charlotte, so maybe you see a little bit more of that. Like, Guardian's, like, got good matchups against all the top decks. It's just, you know, people are a little scared of playing it. Rory Moon probably continued to slightly increase as well. It got didn't make top 8 at Liverpool, but I but I got ninth. List super similar. Actually, it was exactly Ross's list. There was oh, wow. I just clicked on The list. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 people made day 2 at Liverpool with Ross's exact 60 from Charlotte. Got ninth, fifteenth, nineteenth, then a couple top 60 fours. So, I mean, that list is great. I don't know if Ross would change anything from it. But, Yeah. That seems really good and definitely the way to play Roaring Moon if you're if you're interested in messing around with it. And I saw some people, like, cut the trekking shoes for other cards. Ross is not a fan of that but you could do it, I guess. So my moon team's
Brent:I mean, that when when you when you put it like that, it sounds like it's a really good play. Like, people just pick up Ross's list and instantly day 2 the next tournament? That seems Like, that's the
Mike:Yeah. That's true. So seems pretty good. Chi and Pao had its highest finish in a long time coming in at fourteenth. I don't know. It doesn't still doesn't seem great to me, but maybe you could play that. So I don't know. Otherwise, I think there's not there's not too much that's gonna change. I I think Tino will probably still be the the best deck, and Charizard will still be the most popular deck.
Brent:I mean, like, I know I know you we can't be all, like, oh, Europe's bad, blah blah blah. Like, we do with Japanese decks, but, I mean, 26 was an Arceus, Rayquaza, Armor Rouge deck.
Mike:Yeah. I saw
Brent:I I like, I don't get it.
Mike:There's always gonna be some random Arceus deck that does well no matter
Brent:Yeah. But but he seems like he took an Arceus deck and then took out the good cards. That's that's a bold, bold direction to go in. Yeah. I don't think people should read too much into the Chen Pao doing well.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Or or Arceus or Quaza doing well.
Mike:1, like, kinda interesting thing for Knoxville is that it is and and then Vancouver coming up in a couple weeks as well is these tournaments are significantly smaller than Charlotte and smaller even than than Liverpool that just happened. So I don't know how that affects The meta game exactly higher concentration of good players For sure. So you might see we might see Tina be the most popular deck just because of that. It's possible. Less less of your average Joe just showing up with Miraidon or or or Charizard. But I don't know how much that really affects How you should plan for the events, I just think that is something to watch out for.
Brent:I saw just on the edge of top 64 and 50 eighth was Cloth.
Mike:Oh,
Brent:is this is this optimal cloth?
Mike:Wait. What place was it? 50 eighth. Oh, Darren Jacques. He was on stream. Yeah. I mean, this is the list that has more or less been Doing well.
Brent:Mean, he he
Mike:glasses though,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I think he day two'd Stuttgart with this like, a month ago.
Mike:Yeah. I'm still not a fan of VIP pass in cloth. I think it clogged your hand too much With the Biberil, I'd rather max out Nesbol and Ultra Ball, but I don't know. Seem seems fine.
Brent:Alrighty. Let's talk about the next set. A good a good Mike walk through the deck is a is a classic trash flange move. We should do this.
Mike:We so these cards have been being slow released at a slow trickle over the last, I don't know, month, 6 weeks or so. And we haven't really mentioned them at all. So I feel like I've kind of been saving up for for an episode like this. 1 thing I'm not a hundred percent sure of is if our set temporal forces will be all of these cards that have been revealed plus another, like, mini set that Japan would get around the same time we get our temporal forces. That's what happened kind of with with Paradox is like, we knew a bunch of the cards in advance, but then they got, like, another mini set pretty much the same week that we got Paradox. And so That's why we had some cards that were basically new to to everyone in the whole world. So I don't know if that's gonna happen With with us here, this already seems like quite a lot of cards so it might not. But,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. We're just working off the Justin Basil temporal forces card list. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. So we can kinda just, like, go through the different types if we need to jump around to, like, check some stuff. Nothing in grass is, like, super interesting. There's, like, tour the Torterra line could be okay because we have good Torterra stuff already. Like the Grotle that searches extra grass Pokemon and the Torterra that The the the non EX Torterra is a pretty good attacker, and then this EX Torterra has a lot of HP, 340 HP. And then for just 1 grass, 30 for each grass Pokemon you have in place. So, like, it's a pretty good hitter just for 1 energy with good support.
Brent:Are people gonna try to pair that with the Whimsicott? I think the Whimsicott's like a card that somebody's gonna say, oh, there's like a thing you can do with this stupid thing.
Mike:So Whimsicott is when you play it to evolve 1 of your Pokemon, you can heal all damage from your active grass Pokemon and then discard the energy. So since Torterra just attacks for a single grass, yeah, that seems pretty solid. And 340 HP is super tanky.
Brent:Yeah. Like, you're you're just you just, like, throw it down and you say, okay. If you have the 2 hit me, I'm gonna take a lot of prizes.
Mike:Yeah. It's probably not like It could just be a 1 1. Right? And maybe 2 2 at the very most, but even just 1 1 seems pretty solid because you can search it out with the grotto.
Brent:Right.
Mike:so it's pretty easy to just even if you just do it once in a game, that's probably enough to swing it.
Brent:And hey, you could throw a hero's cape on there and get it to 440 hit points.
Mike:Hey. That's true. I wanna mention the Grubbin. I haven't looked at the VicaVault yet, but the Grubbin is good for a basic. It's just colorless search deck for 2 Grubbin and put them on your bench. I think the evolutions are lightning, so I might just jump to them real quick. Charger bug. So whatever. That's the stage 1. Vikavolt is a lightning stage 2. Lightning lightning 1 20 plus 80 for each of your bench charger bug. So if you have 2 charger bugs on the bench, you're doing 2 80 for 2. Seems pretty good.
Brent:I mean, but you're getting out of stage 2. Like, I don't know.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like like, All That's true. but I just wonder how many Charjabugs have been slaughtered before you actually do it. You know?
Mike:That's true. And I just saw that we lose Raihan. So The only way you're really powering this up is probably with the reversal energy.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:yeah, probably not great.
Brent:Yeah. It does doesn't seem good enough.
Mike:Yeah. Unfortunate. It's always nice when you see a basic that has, like, a good attack like that, though.
Brent:You know, the Halliburton family always looks at decks through or or only always looks through new new sets with only 1 lens. What do you think of the Scoville and EX?
Mike:Scoville n e x. Let's see. So it's a stage 2. Right? Or scope no. Scoville n's a stage 1.
Brent:It's stage 1, 260 hit points for 1 colorless, Burn your pa burn your opponent's active and retreat lock them. For 2 grass, hundred and 40 damage, discard a random card from your Bonus hand, discard the top card of your opponent's deck.
Mike:Could be okay. Definitely annoying if you get, like, IO node
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, you're like, well, so how many ways can we Iona them to 1 and then do the thing? Right? Like, it's almost a little transparent. And and, like, I mean, there is the the Fortress EX if you're looking for ways to get them down to 1 prize so you could do the whole thing and then power up things. Like, I wondered if this made, You know, the whole, like, fortress, toadscrewl garbage from, like last set relevant in some way. I don't think so. But there you
Mike:Yeah. Worth worth keeping in mind,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Somebody will do something with that. Like, it is a it is a super good stage 1 to suddenly magically get out when they're at 1 prize. Right? Like, if you just start hitting them for 1 40 damage and, you know, keep them in no cards in hand, that's probably good.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:not amazing, but not bad. Is there a way to pick up Pokemon now?
Mike:Professor Turo?
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:Why? What what are you thinking about?
Brent:wonder about like like, whimsicott spam nonsense. You
Mike:Oh. 0. Sure.
Brent:It's not quite the right thing, though.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, like, at
Brent:totally fine. It's totally
Mike:that point, you can also just, like, turo up whatever you wanna heal. Like, you if you just, like, evolve it back.
Brent:Right.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. Next, there's the rabska, which is a manifee bench barrier effect, but Also, effects of attacks, which is cool, but it's on a stage 1, so not so cool. But this could see play at some point. There was a Machoke that was printed a number of years ago. That was basically the same effect, a little bit different, but basically the same. And it was played
Brent:It saw very very little play.
Mike:Yeah. But it was played a little bit.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:The big grass Pokemon of the set though is the Iron Leaves e x, which has, an ability that has been printed many, many times. When you play it to your bench, you can switch the iron leaves into the active and then move as many energy as you want from your benched to that Pokemon. Then it does 1 80 for Grass grass colorless. So this is pretty much just printed to kill some charizards.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:But it is a future Pokemon, though. So I think that's worth noting too. Easily splashable into the future decks. We'll definitely see some play. I don't think it's that good, but it'll see play. Alright. So that's grass.
Brent:That's grass.
Mike:Nothing too crazy.
Brent:Yeah. Is it worth yeah. Will people say, oh, I'm gonna do that and have like, could you it takes 3 it takes 2 grass and a colorless to do that. And then they, like like, they're like, well, hey. We gave you Fortress EX last set. You should do the that thing. That that doesn't seem that great though. You know?
Mike:I'm hopeful that fortress will be played in some tier 2 or better deck by the time it rotates. I don't don't think it's gonna happen, but I'm hopeful that it will happen.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:In fire, we have the Incineroar EX, which I think is really good. Its Ability says that attacks used by this Pokemon cost 1 colorless less for each of your opponent's bench Pokemon, and then its attack does take a lot of energy. 1 fire and 4 colorless for 2 40 and burn, so effectively 2 60 guaranteed. If your opponent has 3 bench Pokemon, though, you're doing it for a fire colorless fire colorless. If they have 4, just a fire, which is pretty Strong, actually, I think. And it's got 320 HP. Yeah. I don't know. I think this is I think this is pretty good.
Brent:It's probably okay. I mean, I reckon as always, the problem is it's stage 2.
Mike:Yeah. That's true. But it's stage 2 that attacks for, like, 1 or 2 energy for a lot of damage.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:So I could see this
Brent:Another great reason to play the evolution.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. I think it also depends a little bit on how water is. Like, if if water is a really good type, then you know, it's not quite as good,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:we'll see. We'll see. And then the other the big fire basic is the Entei guy, gouging fire e x, which also does a lot of damage. 260 for 3 energy which is pretty strong. We have some pretty good fire support still. Magma basin, I believe, stays in format. Let's see. Agua Basin stays in format. So just that is, like, enough, and there there's some other good fire cards too.
Brent:Do you know why they have this new naming scheme of, like, gouging fire, iron leaves, like, I don't quite get it.
Mike:So are you familiar with the lore of the paradox Pokemon?
Brent:not.
Mike:So the paradox Pokemon are split into future and ancient, And they are literally like descendants or ancestors of the Pokemon that they look like. And I don't know why they are named what they are and not actual, like, Pokemon names. But in Scarlet and Violet, you they basically, like, get transported from the future or the past. And I, you know, I haven't actually gotten to that point in the Scarlet Violet game, so this is what other people have told me. But, yeah, something like that where they are, They're not of the present. They are from the future and the past, and they have the weird names based on that. So I think gouging fire is a ancient Pokemon. I think all of the future ones all start with iron, right? Like iron valon, iron hands, etcetera. And the ancient ones are a little little more varied. That that's all I got for you, though.
Brent:You know when shortly before we got our dog. Wait. So what's your dog's name before I insult your dog?
Mike:My dog's name is Cody.
Brent:Cody. So before we got our dog, I read this article about how, like, starting in, like, the seventies, people stop naming their pets with pet names, like Spot or Fido, and sort of giving them person names. And I was like, we should rebel against that. Hence hence, gadget is gadget.
Mike:Okay.
Brent:You know, I I don't but the yeah. I don't know I don't know if I'm ready for Pokemon to start saying, like, you know, putting a an like an adjective and a noun together as a name. It's like an acceptable naming ontology. That's I have concerns. I have concerns.
Mike:Yeah. I agree. It doesn't really make much sense to me. I even, like, call the Pokemon often by, like, whatever they are. Like, when I was at Charlotte, I was calling Screamtail Jigglypuff, like, all the time.
Brent:Yeah. Exactly.
Mike:gonna level ball for Jigglypuff. And I'm like, oh, screen tell.
Brent:Yeah. Whatever that is. Right? Yeah. I I find this naming scheme a little little suspect.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Alright. Let's talk about water Pokemon.
Mike:Yeah. There's nothing really good in water except The walking wake e x, aka Suicune. That 1 sounds pretty cool. I like I kinda like that. Walking wake. And it has a shred like ability. Damage is not affected by any effects on your opponent's Pokemon when it attacks. It does 1 20 plus 1 20 if your opponent is affected by a special condition. Just for watercolorless, colorless, it is an ancient Pokemon as well, so combos well with brute bonnet. And we still have melanin format If we want but I guess you would just play SADA if you were doing this. But does double turbo stay in the format as well? Let's see. Double turbo does stay. So you can, like, SATA plus double turbo, power this up at 1 turn, plus the brute bonnet, Doing a lot of damage. Could be okay.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:okay.
Brent:I was gonna ask you if there was if there was some obvious thing that they were trying to partner this with. I the answer is Groupon. Right? It's a basic. Like, you gotta do it.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And they gave they gave you a nice poison stadium so you can hit for, like, a little more damage.
Mike:Yeah. Oh, yeah. We
Brent:all the way to, like, 2 70.
Mike:wait. So Wait. What's the stadium do? That's,
Brent:It's like, Burbank City.
Mike:So it does 30, like, 2 extra.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. It does 2 extra. Right?
Mike:Yeah. 2 extra. And then I think we still keep the Sneasler as well. Yep. And that would be 2 more extra if you wanted. So what's that? That's 2 40 plus 7. No. Plus 5. So you could do 2 90. Does that math check out?
Brent:That sounds right. I I wonder if Sneasler's worth worth getting out.
Mike:You probably just wanna play Greninja. So But, I don't know, this seems okay. It's probably not good. There's just, like, a lot of other more powerful things you can do, but There's some combos there for sure.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. For all for all that hitting for 2 90. It doesn't seem like, it's probably quite worth it.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:2 2 220 hit 0.2 pricer.
Mike:You know what? You did just this is reminding me, though Paldea and Fates just came out. That's like the mini set. There's really not many good cards in it, but there is a Porter in that set. I forget what it's called, but it's if your if Your opponent's Pokemon is poisoned, I believe. Then shuffle your hand into your deck and draw 7. So that's a really, really strong supporter card for Cloth. So I don't think it, like, turns Cloth from, like, a fringy deck into, like, tier 1 or anything. But you when when that set becomes legal in, like, a week and a half all cloth decks should be playing that, and it might make you a little bit better.
Brent:Atticus. Atticus is the card. There we
Mike:That sounds right.
Brent:Alright. So there's, like, there's, like, a thing you could do.
Mike:Yeah. They're trying to they're trying to make poison a thing.
Brent:Yeah. Hey. I I recognize it's been a while since special conditions mattered in the game.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And and lord knows that you gotta print Verbank City if you're gonna, like, power creep all the hit points. So poison can matter at all.
Mike:Yeah. I really just hope they don't reprint hypnotoxic hypnotoxic laser. I'd be fine if it was just poison. I don't but but Don't make the slip the sleep thing. That's so that's what made it so bad.
Brent:Right. Oh, yeah. They have this they have this McCargo that they printed that where it's like a stage 1. Whenever your opponent's active Pokemon moves to the bench, The new active is now burned.
Mike:Yeah. I like that type of effect. They had a,
Brent:worth getting a stage 1 out to, like, give Do the special condition, but, like, it's a bench sitter that you know, applies special conditions.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. They had this a long time ago, 2007 ish, there was a Skarmory e x. So it was a basic, which was easier to get out. And it was whenever your opponent, move their active, put 2 damage counters just on that Pokemon. I forget if it was, like, the new active or the 1 that moved to the bench, but, it wasn't like that played, but I played it in a in, like, a deck or 2. And so and I feel like that's the 1 of the only ways they've ever made a card like that. And so I would like them to I'd I'd like to see them experiment more with that type of effect where it's like, when a Pokemon moves, do something.
Brent:You know, I was thinking the same thing. Like, What's interesting about it is it's a thing you do during your opponent's turn. Very rare in Pokemon. Right?
Mike:Yeah. And it's and it is passive. Right? So it's not like you have to do that much. You're not making a choice. It just happens. But it's still It's still nice to for them to, like, have to play around something on your board during their
Brent:Right. Right. I mean, typically, it's like you interact with the stadium, and that's pretty much all you interact with.
Mike:Right.
Brent:So so interesting. I like it. Good Good like, thoughtful, affecting. You know, making the card game more interactive is always better. Alright. Let's talk about lightning.
Mike:Lightning.
Brent:Or let's not.
Mike:I don't think this Raichu will ever see play, but I like its attack. Lightning colorless Do 50 damage to every Pokemon in play that has damage counters on it, both yours and your opponent. As long as there's bench barrier stuff in the format I don't think this will ever see play. But, you know, if we've In a couple years, man if he rotates, they don't have anything like that. This could come up
Brent:Or not.
Mike:Or not. Yeah. Probably not.
Brent:I looked at it and I was like, I mean, if it was if it was if there was a way to powered up in 1 turn. Maybe you could get value out of a 1 prizer that has an attack like this. Like, I mean, there there was there was a that Tapu Koko deck that had what was the other thing? was the stage 1 that spread damage based on damage counters. I can't remember.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. I
Brent:the but the point was you, like, walled with Coco for a little while, spread some damage, spread some damage, spread some damage and then came in and did the thing. Right?
Mike:Right. Right.
Brent:nothing like Coco today.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And and you need something that's, like, really easy to power up. I feel like it was a 1 energy attacker last time around.
Mike:Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Lightning's not very exciting. Nothing really worth playing here. Maybe Wug Trio EX gets played as a 1 1 in a Goldengo deck because you're kind of doing the same thing, discarding energy from hand, but probably not.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:Even these future Pokemon don't seem very Good to me. Iron hands and iron
Brent:So here here's my question about Wugatrio. Does maybe I I'm just not literate enough. Can I hurt 3 different Pokemon, or do I have to do 1 80 to 1?
Mike:I think it's just 1, unfortunately.
Brent:The attack does 60 damage to 1 of your opponent's Pokemon for each energy card you discarded in this way. I yeah. I guess that means, like
Mike:Yeah. We'll have to see what the wording is in English.
Brent:yeah. Yeah. Like, it's a it's a little bit weirdly worded, so we gotta get the probably official translation to to make sure we understand that. Alright. Psychic.
Mike:Psychic. Bronzong is cool. For 1 psychic, 30 damage, your opponent can't evolve any of their Pokemon. Well, your opponent can't play any Pokemon from their hand to evolve during their next turn. So the only way to get around that would be stuff like TM evolution. I don't know. This could be good. Like, if just it's not gonna be good initially, but it could be good if the meta game develops in a certain way, and then you can play this to kinda counter, So the common lists and and the common decks it's pretty easy to tech 4 with the TM evolution and probably other decks could play other things as well. But if if they're not playing TM evolution, This could surprise people for sure.
Brent:Is there any world where people play skipping ahead the the Salvatore supporter with this? Or do they save Salvatore for Gardevord decks?
Mike:So Salvatore is basically Wally.
Brent:Yeah. It's basically Wally.
Mike:Search deck for a Pokemon except with an ability and evolve 1 of your Pokemon in play. You can play it on the first turn or the turn that Pokemon was put into play. Yeah. I mean, it seems Franczong seems like a pretty good candidate for that
Brent:Like, if you're turn 1 going second and then you evolution jammer, a Gardevoir player, that that the game's pretty much over. Right?
Mike:Mhmm.
Brent:I assume that the best use of Salvatore, the most obvious use today is Mirage Stepping. Right?
Mike:Well, salvage Mirage step rotates.
Brent:Oh my god. That shows how much I know.
Mike:Mirage step rotates. But you're right. If Salvatore was in the form of that would be good. Yeah. The the other, like, obvious thing is probably bonnet e x. Right. Turn 1 item lock.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Liam's always looking for a reason to tell people that Banette EX is good now. Alright.
Mike:brown brown tongue seems okay.
Brent:What other psychic stuff?
Mike:reuniclus is interesting, but definitely Bad, I feel like.
Brent:Yeah. It seems seems bad.
Mike:Colorless. Look at the top 8 cards of your deck. Put any number of Pokemon you find there onto your bench. Like, we already have the what's the grad the orbital that we already have, basically, a better version of that.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you when you evolve it oh, no. No. No. No. Not that 1. 0, this rotates though. So I guess it's kind of their replacement. But, yeah, the orbital we have is for each energy on this, search your deck for a stage 2 and put it onto your bench, which is probably better than the reuniclus.
Brent:way better than the Reuniclus. The Reuniclus is chaos. I mean, I I guess you could you could play the support that lets you, like, put 2 cards on the top of your deck.
Mike:Right. Right. Right. Right.
Brent:Like, but, but, like, then you're saying, I'm gonna somehow set up the stage 2. I'm gonna play that card. And then, like, There's, like, so many things going right. Why don't you just play a good deck and beat them?
Mike:Yeah. Right. Exactly.
Brent:gonna draw absolute fire, like, why start why start doing this?
Mike:We got another ancient Pokemon in Fluttermane. When it's active, your opponent's active has no abilities. It's not that great. And
Brent:bad.
Mike:Yeah. 3 colorless 90 and 20 damage or put 2 damage counters on your opponent's bench. It doesn't seem very strong to me.
Brent:Yeah. I
Mike:Iron valiant.
Brent:mean, it's a basic, so, like, it'll probably see, like, some edge play. Right?
Mike:Yeah. The iron valine or the flutter main?
Brent:Flutterman.
Mike:Yeah. Probably a
Brent:And and it works for 3 colorless, so it's, like, really splashable.
Mike:That's
Brent:And as a 1 retreat, so you can you can find a whatever the new skateboard thing is. Slap the skateboard on there.
Mike:Mhmm.
Brent:So, like, like, it's splashable. That's the best thing you can say about Flutterman. A splashable card.
Mike:There are 2 Iron Valiance. They're both future Pokemon. They're both okay. They could be okay in some type of future box deck. A hundred psychics are good colorless. A hundred plus a hundred if you played a future Porter that turn. Does a lot of damage for a basic non e x. Then the other 1 is a little bit less powerful with its attack, but it has a decent first attack. 20 20 for 1 energy and then hundred and 20 for 3 is is okay. So if like a future deck ends up being a thing, both of these are solid 1 prize attackers. Okay.
Brent:not a that's not a deck I'll play. I don't know. May may maybe the first 1. Like, I could see the, I'm gonna play a future supporter card every turn and and hit for 200. But the, like, for for 3 energy 1 20 during your next turn, you can't use it. I'm Like, I went to a lot of trouble. And, like, 20 20. I don't know. It's no Tapu Koko. Tapu Koko is the gold standard of 1 price cards.
Mike:Everything like, it is funny looking at this compared to Tapu Koko. Tabu Goku had 20 less HP, but I have free retreat. This says 2 retreat, and then it did 20 everywhere. And this does 2, I needed 2 things.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at
Mike:that card's, like, 6 years old.
Brent:yeah. The Tapacoke is the goat.
Mike:Yeah. And then the the big psychic card future, I think this is a Cobalion, Iron Crown EX. So this is the big future card 1 of the big future cards for sure. Very reminiscent of Deoxys e x plasma. Your future Pokemon do 20 more damage to your opponent's active. So you can stack these up. And then then that iron value is doing, like, 60 to the active and 20 to the
Brent:Right. Right.
Mike:For an energy.
Brent:Like, I'm praying you play switch cards so you could somehow get out of the active eventually. But, like, that attacks for 3 and this attacks for 3 too. And, like, I don't know. Is there a good way to power up psychic attackers?
Mike:The Zatu, but I thought it's not great. But I think there's, like, some I think there's a supporter. No. No. No. The SADA is the supporter, but the the ancient or the future ace spec. Right? That's the really good 1. Let's see. Future yeah. So the future a spec, Attach a basic energy card from your discard pile to each of your future Pokemon in play. But it's your ace spec, so you can't really rely on
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like, you're gonna do that once, and, like, you better pray your setup when you use it. Right? I don't
Mike:Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Does not seem like a tier 1 deck that they're handing us here.
Mike:Yeah. I
Brent:I know I know Pokemon likes to just, like, club you over the head with their, like, Yeah, the deck they've built for you. That does not seem like the tier 1 deck. Alright, let's talk fighting.
Mike:So probably the most interesting 1 is the Relicanth, which has the ability that each of your evolved Pokemon in play can use attacks from its previous evolutions. So love these love these effects. Always Leads to something interesting, whether it's immediately or something in the future. Definitely something cool will happen with this at some point.
Brent:Yeah. And and it's a basic, and it's got 1 retreat so you can, like, slap the escape board thing. What What is it? I got a cup to stop calling it a skateboard because I know that's a cheap that's a cheap thing to say. What's it called?
Mike:what emergency board.
Brent:board.
Mike:So for and and and that is a tool that when you attach it, your retreat The retreat cost of the Pokemon is 1 less, and then it has the weird clause that if it has 30 HP Or less remaining, then it has no retreat cost. I feel like that will come up very seldomly.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. But that's it. But emergency board is a really good card that's gonna find its way into a lot of decks.
Mike:Mhmm.
Brent:and so a a basic single retriever with a weird ability like this is, like, pretty easily played. Like, you just throw this in and not worry about it. Right? Assuming you had something you were doing.
Mike:Alright. What else we got in the fighting? We got the great tusk For a double colorless, discard the top card of your opponent's deck. And if you played an ancient supporter card from your hand during this turn, discard 3 more cards. Discard 4, you played an ancient supporter. The ancient supporters are Sada and probably another 1 in this set. So probably not good, but
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:cool. It's got a hundred and 40 HP. It's a lot more than like a Durant. So that's good at least. But it's still probably just Like your opponent sets up 1 Pokemon that can deal a hundred and 40 damage and stops playing cards
Brent:here. The Explorer's Guidance. Look at the top 6 cards of your deck and put 2 of them into your hand. Discard the rest. That's that's an Okay. card.
Mike:an okay card.
Brent:Like, we've played cards like that before and they've been fine.
Mike:Yeah. So at least you have 2, like, decent supporters that you can be playing every turn. But But still, like, discarding 4 cards a turn is not enough. Right? Like, The math just doesn't work out. Like, even if your opponent doesn't take a prize before you start doing this, At most, you're gonna get 7 attacks off. So 7 times 4 is 28. And so that means they're really gonna have to do some work for you to to get there.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:not not the best.
Brent:Yeah. And and Man. Yeah. It's okay. It's not great.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:will definitely do something with it.
Mike:Alright. I think that's it for fighting. What do we got for dark? They did my boy Gengar dirty. I feel like this Gengar is not great. It has that stupid ability that They've reprinted a million times and it's never been good. Where if your opponent touches energy, they take a couple damage. And then its attack is like very okay. Too dark 1 60. And you can move an energy from your opponent's active to 1 of their benched. For stage 2, it's just not worth it, I don't
Brent:I just can't imagine a world where this card sees play.
Mike:Yeah. It's also this is so stupid. It's weak to fighting. In the games, Gengar can literally not be hit by fighting because it's a ghost. So stupid. Just make it weak to grass like other some other dark Pokemon.
Brent:I like this complaint. Absolutely.
Mike:Anything else
Brent:A Faragraf e x is like is a card that will trick you into thinking it's good.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can't be hit by opponent's basic e x. If it said all the x, then it could be good. But limited to just basically e x is probably not good
Brent:Yeah. And it's a stage 1. Like, Like, it's okay. Not good enough.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And if you if you're looking for a bad deck to build for you, like, bad deck You know, that like, that's that's 1 of those things that you see on Reddit where they're like, I just can't beat my friend. He plays this deck. And you're like, you should if you just played a good deck, he was not a problem seeing it.
Mike:It is interesting that it has like that ability and it's terror. So it also can't be hit while it's on the bench. So it's got Kinda 2 2 of those types of
Brent:Right.
Mike:Alright. The roaring moon is pretty cool. It's an ancient Pokemon, Hundred and 40 HP, single prize attacker, dark dark, 70 plus 10 more for each ancient card in your discard pile. So I'm gonna let Rahul cook with this 1 and
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:this could be
Brent:Yeah. There's no question a deck list will hit your Twitter soon.
Mike:Yeah. But you just said, like, the ancient supporter, which is it's an ancient it's a ancient card already, and it really accelerates that. Discarding a bunch of cards.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Discarding 4 taking 2, like, sets you up for the absolute dubs. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Taking too dark is a little annoying but we have SADA. We have Dark
Brent:I was gonna say dark patch is what makes it work.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So
Brent:And you could be and you could be discarding dark energy and then dark patching. Like, You'd be like, oh, this is a deck that totally all the synergy in the world. Let's go.
Mike:Yeah. You do need a lot of a lot of ancient cards to get the big 1 shots, But, like, you don't need a big 1 shot until, you know, the towards the end of the game. You can pretty comfortably 2 hit KO the first, e x or whatever and then 1 shot the the other like, the next 2.
Brent:Right. Right.
Mike:So I don't know. This seem this seems, Like, I don't know if it'll be really good, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's very strong.
Brent:Yeah. Alright. Metal.
Mike:Alright. Metal.
Brent:in the home stretch.
Mike:Yeah. Sizer seems Kind of bad. Matang is the is the star. Right? So, Metang's ability is you can look at the top 4 cards of your deck, attach any basic metal there to your pokemon, And then put them at the bottom of your deck. And you can use multiple metangs. So the fact that it puts them at the bottom makes it way better than I thought when I first read the card. Because you can have 2 or 3 Matangs out and basically look at the top 8 12 cards of your deck, and attach metals there. So this is very dependent on how good metal attackers are. And I don't know if there's anything really great right now. We have Diago VSTAR. That's kind of the obvious 1, as well as the zamasenta. But if we get, like, another really strong metal attacker, I think this is Could be really good.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, I think they want you to think that Skizor EX is a reasonable thing. I mean, it's for 2 40.
Mike:Yeah. But nah.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably that's probably setting up a stage 1 To hit for 2 40 is probably not not the way.
Mike:Yeah. Could play with this big melt metal. Takes 5 energy. Do 2 30.
Brent:Now, once again, I feel like if you're setting up I mean, you get you're like, we're gonna set up multiple stage We're probably gonna run, like, a Metagross for I don't know quite why.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:know. You got a you got a lot going on there.
Mike:Alright. We got some dragon cards, not too many, but karidons, marydons. The karidon e x does a lot of damage. 280 for fire fighting fighting which is obviously an Extremely awkward cost, and I don't think this will be played in anything except maybe a lost box deck. This, like, screams Mirage Gate to me. And 208 280 is a lot. So I could see if the if the typing works out for Koraidon to be played in something.
Brent:I mean, it's a free retreater. No. No. It's a 2 or it's 2 retreater? 2 retreater. Sorry. My
Mike:2 or 3.
Brent:Yeah. It's a basic, like, it's okay.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. I hear
Mike:don't think I don't think the the non EX karidon is very good. Like, Maybe if there's, like, an ancient box, but I feel like the way to play ancient's gotta be just Roaring Moon. Like, that just seems significantly better than trying to play this koraidon. And
Brent:I discard to power up my roaring moon.
Mike:right. Right. Right. Exactly. And, like, then you have to play fighting energy, which
Brent:No way.
Mike:Just play dark energy and
Brent:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah. The basic Miraidon though is is very good. I think this this is the energy acceleration that I didn't realize existed. 1 colorless 40 and searcher deck for 2 basic energy and attach them to your future Pokemon. So yeah. It's still like None of the future Pokemon are like that good. So this still might not be that great, but, it's pretty good. I wish this 1 had fruit or treat.
Brent:Yeah. I was about to say the fact that that's a 2 or 3 d Absolutely hamstrings it. Right?
Mike:Yeah. I feel like Miraidon canonically should probably have fruit tree. Like, it's just this, like, fast cycler Pokemon.
Brent:Right.
Mike:Oh, well.
Brent:I mean, the Marietta in EX has 1 retreat. No love. No love.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:like, they they give you a Mariah and they tell you this is the card you wanna start with, and then they're like, but also, we're gonna have to nerf it a little bit. Here we go.
Mike:The Miraidon e x is very bad. Raging bolt e x, the raikou is interesting. 70 damage in or 70 damage for each basic energy you discard from any of your Pokemon.
Brent:Yeah. I thought this was the thing that they
Mike:be okay.
Brent:like, the Miraidon raging bolt DX thing is the thing that they were, like, you.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Right? They're like, you're gonna attach an energy to this guy, and then you're gonna get 2 more energies on the And then you just have to get a couple more energies, and all of a sudden you're hitting for a million.
Mike:There's already some combo pieces like you said. There's SADA, the the the Sandy Shox from the last set gets energy when you're losing. So I don't know. It's probably not great, but maybe 1 maybe at some point, there'll be enough support for it.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah.
Mike:Lickitung is could find its way into a control deck. Look at your opponent's hand. Put 2 basic Pokemon you find there onto your opponent's bench. That sounds pretty annoying. Could be good.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I guess situationally slightly better than the discard a random card from their hand.
Mike:And I like there was a manaphy, right, that is in format that it had the same exact effect, but it it takes a water. So this is much more splashable. And that man if he has seen a little bit of play in control decks. So the fact that it's colorless makes it significantly more appealing.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. You can you can you will definitely put this in your control deck, whatever your
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:might be. Right?
Mike:The Dedunspars is pretty cool. Stage 1, Once during your turn, you can draw 3 cards. If you do, shuffle the the Dunsparce back into your deck. I don't know if this will ever be its own little draw engine, but it could be. It's not bad. Maybe maybe like at some weird control draw engine, to be honest.
Brent:that's exactly what I was thinking is, like you know, you you you like Palpat blah blah blah blah, and then you draw all the cards and then you put some cards back in your deck. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Like, it's that sounds like the kind of thing where you you have some loop. Right? You know, Sanders sees this and says, oh, so it's a loop.
Mike:Mhmm. Right. Because, like, if you only have like, let's say you you have a 0 card
Brent:Yeah. Definitely definitely something
Mike:the cards. Yeah. Oops. You draw the cards, and then you still have these in your deck now. So, yeah, could be a decent infinite loop.
Brent:Yeah. You could you could put you could have you know, 1 card and the Dunsparce and the Dunsparce. And then if you had 2 done sparses, like, you draw the 1 card and all your done sparses, and then you put that in back in your deck. Like, I don't
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Not clear to me. But I'm sure smarter people than me will figure it out. It definitely as you said, it definitely feels like a control loop. Right?
Mike:Yeah. This Cinchino that does 70 Damage for each special energy attached to this. I saw some people talking about this with Lugia.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:really doesn't really seem that great to me. Right? Like, it's a stage 1. You're gonna set up a stage 1 attackers after you After you've already done all the work to set up summoning star and you're having to use, you know, all of your primal turbos to do any reasonable amount of damage. And then they all die right when this Cinchino dies and only has a hundred 10 HP. So you're gonna run out of energy really quick if this is your main attacker.
Brent:Yeah. It seems seems a little too easy for them to figure out how to, like, stop you from taking a prize at some point.
Mike:Yeah. Alright. We've talked a little bit about the trainers, but do you want to hold off and maybe do a deeper dive into the trainers next
Brent:Yeah. We've been going 59 minutes, guys. We'll be back next week with the trainers. The trainers. The trainers. I'm sure I'm sure Liam and Kate will be ready to wait on the ace specs. It's nice to have a specs back. Everybody likes consistency cards. And there's a bunch of good consistency cards here.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Alright. The John Pauls are our outro..