Welcome to the Trash Latch podcast. It's the only podcast about the Pokemon Trading Card Game. It's Caden. It's Mike. It's me. The 3 of us here making it happen. When there's 3 of us here, we say attendance remains 100 percent. That's all it takes to win. Dragon Shield sponsors us. They sent us a bunch of sleeves. That's really good. We always appreciate sleeves because people always need new sleeves. Uh, you know, you're gonna get dinged for marked cards far more from having old sleeves than from putting new dragon shield sleeves on your cards. New dragon shield sleeves feel the best when you're shuffling them. Guys, let's jump right in, because there's, uh, there's a bunch of kind of, like, breaking news ish stuff as we gear up. But before that, we have a review.
Mike:Oh, baby.
Brent:Uh, the moment you've all been waiting for. 5 stars from he jobbed 2 3 4 6 5 3. He writes selfish review, and this is a great 1. Thank you all for a fun pod each and every week. I look forward to it since I drive hours a day for my job each day. Great and diverse group of degenerate funny TCG players. Obviously, when he says degenerate, he's talking about Liam. Selfish part, gentlemen, I went to Portland, first regional ever, played Sawyer in round 1, Lowell, with Charizard, and played very well, but only hit 1 good matchup, Mew, the entire day. I am really struggling to decide what to take and start practicing for Vancouver. I used to play Gardevoir, but never felt like I was a great pilot of it. What would your recommendations be to play at Vancouver? I'm down to grind out the right deck. PS, I kinda wanna take moon, but I think there will be a lot of spirit to him. And it's the same amount of spirit to him is what he wrote. But I hear
Kaden:I I mean, I don't I don't think he's wrong about that. Um, I think I mean, you've you've come to the right place. This is the this is this is what we're here to discuss. So
Brent:Yeah. I I think I think we should jump right into topic number 1, which is that Mike went to an extraordinary amount of trouble to break down every matchup in the galaxy from this format, and and the answer must be hiding in there.
Mike:Yeah. So if you haven't seen that, go go go take a look at that. It's, uh, the matches from all day 2 and a little bit more. So anytime a player 2 players that both made day 2 played, that is part of the the dataset. So all of day 2 plus if 2 d day 2 players may also played, uh, on
Brent:day 2 Caliber Games.
Mike:Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, it's still not perfect. Uh, there's still a pretty big divide, I think, between, like, the top 1 percent of players and, uh, the general day 2 player. But it's probably the best, like, middle ground that we can get by having like, you know, if we only include, like, the top 1 percent of players, the sample size is gonna be incredibly low. Um, but, uh, uh, even if we we don't have the the decks for every single person in the tournament, so we can't even do the whole tournament. But even if we did, this is probably better than that. And it's pretty interesting to to see it all out. Some, like, interesting little tidbits from it. Uh, I think lost box Charizard has a very bad matchup spread overall. Um, and I think when you see players that do really well with it, like, uh, Alex Shmansky, uh, cameraman, they're very, very good. Um, and so they're kinda carrying, uh, despite a despite a bad matchup spread overall. It also ties, uh, maybe the most of any deck in the format. Arceus has an insane matchup spread. Uh, now this is a little bit dicey to parse because Arceus decks are very varied. Um, the most populous Arceus deck, uh, in my in in my set and that made day 2 is the Regigigas deck, but, uh, in order to include Arceus at all and have enough data, like, I kind of looped everything together. So that's everything from Arceus Rayquaza to Arceus Serperior, uh, and and everything in
Brent:And that was still the smallest, uh, group of games played of any deck that you posted. Right?
Mike:Right. Exactly. So smaller sample size, but but, like, the matchups are really good. I was surprised to see those numbers. So that might be something to look into. It's not like a super hard deck to play. And so
Kaden:mean, I think the Arceus is, I think, just universally 1 of the best decks to play if you're just shooting to get day 2. But I I think so I I think Arceus is basic, kind of always at least pretty good.
Mike:Yeah. Gardevoir has
Kaden:will say
Mike:yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go for it.
Kaden:thing that I got from this, which, you know, this is this might just be a kind of naive old school belief that I've held for a while that this matchup spread disproves. But I have kind of always thought of most matchups in Pokemon as being actually pretty, like, pretty close. Like, I thought of very few matchups as being properly, like, 60 40 or there even 70 30. I always thought when people claim that matchups were that weighted, typically, it's just like, it doesn't actually end up playing out that way, um, just because of variance in the game. But the amount of, like, very, very heavily favored matchups on this matchup spread was quite shocking to me and has has made me reevaluate whether or not, um, you know, matchups in Pokemon really are as kind of even like, generally even as I thought they were.
Mike:That's interesting. I mean, maybe maybe a function of that is the wide variety of decks. And when you have a wide variety of decks, there's gonna be some subset of those that have the more polarizing matchups. So something like things like Snorlax, Inteleon, Urshifu, um, do have those extremely polarizing matchups. But then you have, uh, uh, stuff like Gardevoir, Giratina. Most of the most of their matchups are, you know, relatively close to 50 percent. Um, so I think maybe it's just a function of the number of decks that we have.
Kaden:This might be the case. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah. Um,
Brent:you know, the the, uh, I I recognize you're gonna give some, like, meaningful comments. The the 2 things that jumped out to me that were, like, the apropos of nothing, uh, I found them hilarious, uh, comments was Snorlax, incredibly polarizing deck because it had both the absolute best win rate on the entire board. It has a hundred percent matchup against Atelier and Urshifu. It never loses. does not matter what you do. You will beat Atelier and Urshifu. You could be the worst player on earth. You will not lose to Atelier Nershifu. There's just no way on earth you could possibly lose that matchup, which is crazy. And then the flip side, excluding, uh, a couple of instances, I think, of small sample size, your Giratina matchup is horrendous.
Mike:Yep.
Brent:Like, it's like the worst matchup you could possibly play, except being the Italian Energifu player playing into Snorlax. Like
Mike:And the the funny thing about that 1 in particular is how many games there
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. That's their Like there was 1 other that was, like, 2 0. But it yeah. It was, like, 2 0. Who cares? Here, it's, like, a hundred games played, and you're just losing all of them.
Mike:Yeah. Um, even the Intellian like, the Intellian Urshifu is, uh, you know, 20 games against Norlax. So decent size, but not crazy. Yeah. But the Giratina 1 being, like, a hundred games is is really funny. The Charizard 1 as well is about a hundred games, and it's 90 percent win rate for Snorlax. Like, that's so
Brent:There's there's a couple of matchups that are, like, polarized that I recognize. Like, I mean, in Pokemon, we describe like, there's so much randomness. We think of 70 30 as being, like, a mortal lock. And there's a ton of Snorlax matchups that it's like, there's nothing you can do to lose this even if you want to lose. It is it is literally impossible to throw.
Mike:Yeah. So, uh, like, Gardevoir is probably, like, the most even deck in the format with its matchup spread. Um, it's only, like, pretty negative matchups are Snorlax and Inteleon Urshifu. And I'm a little surprised that the Inteleon Urshifu is as bad as it says on the chart, But because I think that matchup is quite winnable.
Brent:That obviously, Mike's like, well, you know, they don't set up against me.
Mike:But I think, like, Rory Moon is, like, a pretty solid deck if that's kinda where your head is is at. Like, its matchups are fine. Uh, you have some pretty good ones, some not very good ones, and and a lot in between. Uh, it's a very powerful deck. I mean, Ross likes it. I I I trust Ross a lot. Uh, you could just play his list. His his his 60 now. Um, I saw Rahul Rahul posted the other day that it is now the second most used list on limitless. I think it's something like, 19 entries, uh, only only behind Reagan's single strike Lugia from, uh, the end of last year. So that's pretty cool. So you can just take
Brent:it will always work.
Mike:You could just play that. Uh, if you wanna update that a little bit, something you could do perhaps is play a little bit more disruption. Uh, 1 of my other friends, Ray, won a cup recently with more disruption in the deck, so, uh, more judges to kinda slow down some of your bad matchups like Gardevoir. Um, so I think Roar Moon is is still in a solid spot. I don't think Spiritomb will be crazy, crazy popular. I think it'll be probably about as much as it has been, uh, just because Mew has done really poorly recently. And, yes, Spiritomb is very good against Mew, but playing Spiritomb only for 1 matchup feels not that great. Um, so we'll see.
Brent:So couple more questions about this. 1, I I mean, I see I saw you calculated the share percentage. Did you try to build a model of, like, going into this meta going into, like, these the share distribution, what the best deck is?
Mike:That's a really easy calculation. I've done it. Yeah. It's just the matrix multiplication. Um, I've done it. Like, I I could do it, um, but I didn't because
Brent:It's kinda
Mike:I feel like this the this, like, MetaShare, it changes throughout every tournament. Right? So so what what's probably more useful is if someone has a theoretical prediction of what the meta will be for the next tournament, and then I would just do it for for that.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, doing this calculation is kinda dumb. So, yeah, so my next question was gonna be, did you did you at all spend any time trying to think about, like, whether or not some of these degraded or got better over time? Like, as people text for Roaring Moon, did it go down, or has Roaring Moon just taken over the format? It's just gone its matchups have gotten better and better as people play the Ross list. Like,
Mike:Yeah. That's a good question. Um, and that's kinda what Henry Brand asked. And so I responded with, like, just a couple little charts that showed, uh, like, Giratina and Roaring Moon's win percentage and and Meta Share over time. Um, and, honestly, there wasn't as much correlation as, uh, as you might expect. And the the issue I I only did that with overall win rate. The issue with doing it with a broken down matchup win rate is that the data there's just any individual tournament just doesn't have enough data to really work off of. Um, like, you're gonna see so many matchups that are like, 0, 1 0 1. Great.
Brent:Right. Right. Yeah. yeah. That's the problem is that, obviously, the the more you parse it, the sparser your data gets.
Mike:Right. Exactly. So I don't know how useful that would be on a, uh, like, that granular of a level, but, uh, uh, I think the overall win rate is is I could look into that more for sure. The other thing that I wanted to mention is the way that I'm calculating win rate, and I'm not sure if this is correct, is just wins over wins plus losses, not wins over total games. So ties are not really counted in the calculation for win rate. So probably the best in my in my head, like, actually, the best number to show on these charts might be expected match points or expected
Kaden:Yeah. that's what I was gonna say.
Mike:Yes.
Kaden:Although the the problem with that is that most people like, I think at a glance, like, it takes it's a little harder to interpret what that means,
Mike:Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Kaden:which is why I think if I were including average match points, I would do that in addition to win rate as you keep it for now as you have it now. Um, I agree with the decision not to incorporate ties into the total
Mike:Yeah. Because that's also very unintuitive. Right? Like, if, uh, if you have, like, a matchup that goes 1 1 and 1, and you say the matchup win percentage is 1 out of 3, like, that doesn't work. Right? You could do,
Kaden:not right. Yeah.
Mike:right, you could do, I guess, like, wins and half the ties. So, like, 1 1 1 would be a 50 50, which does make sense
Brent:You you just go to expected match points at that point. And and, like and and you could fix the, um, difficulty interpreting the data by just color coding expected match points just like you do here. Right?
Mike:Right. Right. Right.
Brent:from from 3 to negative 3. And, you know, then you'd be like, bam. Now you got something.
Mike:Oh, would you do it Would you you Would you incorporate negatives with losses or just
Brent:don't oh 0, yeah. I guess it'd just be 0.
Kaden:you'd leave it at
Brent:so from 0 to
Kaden:yeah. It would just be 0?
Mike:a 0 to 3. Yeah. That would be
Kaden:Yeah. You just that's a very that's an easy calculation.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:So so, uh, alright. Last last question I have. When when I look at the, uh, data that you gave Henry Brand, uh, I think the 1 thing that jumped out to me when I looked at it was I mean, it seemed like guaranteed a win percentage just going up and up.
Kaden:Apologies.
Mike:Yes ish. Right? Like, uh, you had the 1 anomalous spike in Brisbane, but that's you can see that those numbers of its win loss ties are incredibly small compared to every other tournament. Right? So that's kinda just like super small sample size. You're either gonna have a it's likely to have, like, a spike 1 way or the other. So if you kind of ignore that 1, uh, then yeah. Generally, um, from from Gdansk up through, uh, Melbourne, it's almost all
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:the the trend is up. Uh, it doesn't always go up, but the trend is
Brent:you'd be like it it kinda it gets better over time. And I guess what I wondered was, like, a, when I look at the matchup chart, I'm like, I mean, guillotine is underwhelming on the matchup chart. And it made me wonder, uh, how'd guillotine get so good? And, I mean, maybe the moral of the story is, like, I mean, it it's not like the I mean, the win rate I don't know. The win rate's, like, 55, 60 percent ish in the last 2 tournaments. But, you know, like, you that that data doesn't really I feel like you look at this chart and that data doesn't come out, which I guess I mean, maybe the moral story is, like, it's a meta share distribution problem or
Mike:Well, I mean
Brent:change something about the list and fix their issues.
Mike:Well, so I think it's a I think it's a couple of things. Right? Like, um, this Giratina's matchups are fairly close to 50 50 across the board. It has a lot that are, like, just under 50, and then it has a handful that are, like, in the high thirties. But then you have that 1 Snorlax matchup that's 90 percent that is actually, like, just as many games as, uh, like, probably 2 of the 35 percenters. Right? So that those almost, like, cancel each other out in in in some sense when you're thinking about the overall win rate.
Brent:I mean, crazily, it appears that Snorlax played Tina box, like, so much more than every other deck. Uh, what how'd that happen to those poor bastards?
Mike:Right.
Kaden:I mean, you also you can't you can't forget with Tina about just the massive, like, the massive matchup against Charizard, um,
Brent:Yeah.
Kaden:with, like, 2 with what? what Like, close to 3? Like, 250 over 250 matches with a 60 percent win rate? Like, that's that's that's a big
Mike:Yeah. So That's like Yeah. That that's true. That's really pulling it up. That's that's double or triple the amount of games in a lot of these other cells.
Brent:Yeah. There's
Kaden:So I think I think it has to do with the MetaShare. I think it has to do with the MetaShare thing, primarily.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So I I think the thing that jumped out to me is, like, uh, I mean, that that data, it seems like Tina's on the rise. And Liam played Tina at a couple of challenges this past weekend. He got got pretty good results. My suggestion to, uh, hijab 2 3 4 6 5 3 is lost Tina. Unless you unless you really like playing Gardevoir, but I recognize Gardevoir, hard to pilot. We talk about how hard it is to pilot all the time.
Mike:Giratina is a little bit easier, I think, than Gardevoir. Not like not like a lot easier, but, uh, uh, it's harder than a lot of the other decks, but probably easier than carnivore. That's kinda how I'd sum it up.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. But you could you could also yeah. As you said, if you're in the mood to grind, you could take the Isaiah Bradner class. Like, there's always things you could do to get super good at
Mike:true.
Kaden:And all I'm saying, if you really feel like doing something out there,
Brent:Pao.
Kaden:pao Chen pao, I can guarantee you, you will have a good. time.
Brent:We we really, really missed you on the last pod because last pod, we were like I was like, this is gonna be the Chen Pao pod. Where is Caden? Let's go.
Kaden:Hey. I'm I'm glad it I'm glad it did well. I'm glad it did well. The deck's good. I the deck is really, really good. It's it's very matcha it's very meta dependent in its current state, but it is a strong deck without a doubt.
Mike:Did you watch the the finals?
Kaden:I did not get the chance to, unfortunately. But I heard I heard it was a little it was a little crazy.
Mike:Yeah. You should go back and watch it at some point. Because it's a fun matchup like Goldengo versus Chi Impau. And both players played pretty well, but, uh, both made, like, a couple small mistakes that, like, you're like, no. No. No. No. Don't do that. And I'm sure I'm sure you would have definitely catch the moments, uh, especially from the Chiempo side.
Brent:Yeah. So so, Mike, what would what would your suggested deck be? He's got a 1 regional. He played Charizard. He played Gardevoir prior to that, but thought it was hard.
Mike:My suggestion would probably be Roaring Moon. I mean, he seems or they seem that, like, they've been playing a bit of roaring moon, uh, and I think roaring moon's a really good deck. It's not super punishing if you make a couple small mistakes, and it's, uh, it's pretty good. And you're gonna finish games, which is a big, uh, which is a big thing, especially if you're newer. Um, you're. It can be really hard to play some of these slower decks when you're newer to the just the structure of best of 3 50 minutes.
Brent:Knowing when to scoop is not necessarily, uh, you know, unless you feel like you've really practiced that, uh, particularly with Gardevoir, you you might have a bad time.
Mike:Yeah. Charizard is not even like a super fast deck either. Uh, you can see that it has quite a lot of ties. Like, the Charizard Mirror is it ties almost as much as the game's actually finished, um, based on the data.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Um, guys, let's talk about PTCG Live for a second, and then we can talk about these, uh, Japanese tournaments. Uh, Mike, tell us what happened with PTCG live because you actually saw the announcements, and I just saw people complaining about the announcements.
Mike:Yeah. So the main update that is now it's already out on PTCGL right now is they've introduced a battle log, which is something that PTCGO had. And it was very annoying to play on live without it because if you, you know, you do your turn and then you go microwave your dinner and then you come back, you wanna kinda see what your opponent did on their turn. Uh, and you were not able to do that. But now you can. Now you can scroll up. Um, this 1 looks honestly even better than the I haven't played a game yet, but it looks better than t c g o. Uh, it has pictures, which is which is nice. Um, I'm not sure. I did see 1 comment that says it doesn't differentiate between, uh, the same Pokemon out doing, you know, different things. Um, so that might be something to improve on. It does say in their in their little update that this is just like version 1 or phase 1 of the battle log. So they are presumably going to make improvements and updates to it, but I think this is, uh, very much a step in the right direction.
Brent:I am super excited about this, but it's such a tiny step. I can't believe, uh, you like, you know, uh, um, as as a software guy, I'm a big fan of, like, trying to do stuff incrementally. And the crazy thing to me about the battle log is, like, there's 2 steps in producing a battle log. 1 is actually manufacturing the battle log, and the second step is displaying the battle log. And, like, I understand how displaying the battle log is hard. And, you know, when you look at, like, their kind of marketing of the battle log, 1 of the big perks is, like, they show you the picture of the card. Like, they do all these, like, cutesy little things. But I always complained that what the problem with the battle log in PTC Geo and the problem with this battle log is, like, what Hearthstone does is it's writing the battle log to a file in real time that you can read and interact with. And when you do that, that's that's how you get, like, the plugins and, like, the overlays and all this other stuff that is, like, game aware of things that are going on. And, you know, they're feeding you, like, suggested lists and, like, all this, like, metadata about, like, what cards that they've played, things like that. It is crazy. Like, that should be an easy thing for them to do, because all you gotta do is write the log to a file, write the log to a file, write the log to a file. And you don't have to worry about displaying the log. And it gives you if they had just published that, they could have worked out some of the issues of like, know, you don't say which card energy gets attached to. Like, you don't indicate which Pokemon on the bench. Like, you're referring to if they have, you know, 5 rolls set up Like, that's so easy to fix. You know? And I assume, frankly, that underlying all this thing, it's it is super easy for them to fix. Like, they could just fix it. But, like, the writing to a file thing is the thing that unlocks the developer community to engage around the product. Why not do that? It's so easy.
Kaden:Yeah. I mean, I I there are definitely, you know, design considerations. like, I know. there's not universal support for the kind of amount of API support that Hearthstone has and the kind of gross amount of data that exists for Hearthstone decks and matches that? causes you know? And this is Hearthstone's very different. It's an online only game, But you know, it causes metas in Hearthstone to, like, develop and flesh out very rapidly in a way that a lot of people complain, like, chokes out the ability for people to just creatively deck build or, mess around because everyone's just kinda playing a meta deck. Um, similar thing happened with Legends of Runeterra. and in general, there are ramifications to allowing kind of very robust API support that I don't know. whether it's not something that they really whether it's something that, you know, the PTCG Labs developers don't really care don't care about or whether they're actively against. I I think I think it's not it's not quite as clear as just a universally, it would be great if there was absolute API support.
Brent:I mean, the the, like, the, like, we're gonna have secret information, and that's gonna make the game better is, like, not a
Kaden:It's not about secret information. It's it's not about it's not about secret information, It's it's similar, and it's just it has impacts on the game And, you know, it's up to the developers whether or not those impacts are positive to them or not
Mike:That's a interesting perspective. I think you're giving them a lot of credit, uh, for them to think about think about their impact on the meta game. Uh, but that is a interesting point of view.
Kaden:For the record, I'm thinking about the I'm thinking about I'm not talking about the competitive meta I'm talking about the PDCG live meta.
Mike:Yeah. I don't think it would have the same impact as something like Hearthstone or Winter, primarily because, as you said, those are, like, digital only games. Um, and they have, uh, a pretty big emphasis on the just the ladder itself, um, as opposed to tournaments. Um, and so you even saw in Hearthstone, uh, like, the best decks for a ladder were often not the best. They might be the best same best decks, but the list would change pretty significantly, uh, in tournament play versus ladder play.
Kaden:Uh, this is also true for Runeterra.
Mike:Um, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kaden:ter I mean, uh, their turn their tournament format was quite different. That kinda mandated it. But, also, tournament decks were just quite different.
Mike:Yeah. Um, the other thing that was in this post, it's a much smaller, but worth mentioning, is the team I'm just gonna I'm just kinda gonna read this straight from the the blog post. Last year, the team closely monitored the analytics of the ranked game mode and noticed that most players hit a challenging hurdle in their progression. Higher tiers required excessive time commitment to reach, and the percentage of players able to progress past the great league indicated a significant imbalance in the progression system. We understand this imbalance hinders your ability to advance and diminishes the rewards and satisfaction that should accompany your efforts. And then they go on to say that, uh, they're going to update some stuff, no specific things, um, but it's something that they are working on. I think this is good that they're, uh, working on updating it, but, like, they're were I feel like they're, like, updating and working on, like, a pretty bad, uh, base.
Brent:What do you
Kaden:Yeah.
Mike:Like, this isn't a ranked ladder that this isn't the ranked ladder that we wanted. Like, we wanted to be Like, oh, you know, I'm a hundred and twentieth in, uh, North America. And then I play against Caden, who's a thousandth in North America, and he beats me. So he gains 200 ranks, and I lose 50 ranks. But if Caden was rank a hundred and 31 and we played, like, I would go up, you know, whatever, 5 ranks, and he would go down 5 ranks. So where it's, like, very clear where you are, I guess, in in the ladder. And, uh, uh, and you gain and lose rating or ranks based on who you're playing against. And that's obvious. Like, right now, it's just plus 20, minus 20, plus 20, minus 10, depending on where you are. Uh, it's
Kaden:Yeah. I mean, I I think that it has kind of 2 problems that most other online card games have kind of solved at this point. Um, and so it's kind of unfortunate that PDCG Live hasn't. And the 2 problems are, 1, I think it takes too long. It takes just too many raw games. Even if you're winning every single game, it takes too long to climb to the top rank.
Mike:Yeah.
Kaden:because, you know, in something something like Legends of Runeterra, it takes probably around 50 no. More like like 20, games to get from the bottom rank to the top rank. Mhmm. It's maybe more like 40 games if you to go from the bottom rank to the top masters if you win every game.
Mike:Mhmm.
Kaden:I don't know exactly what it is for live, but at least in my experience, it I'm pretty sure it ends up being quite a bit longer than that.
Mike:Oh, yeah. Like, way, way. To get to, like, Arceus tier, that's, like, 2000 ranking. So, like, if you start at 0, that means you have to win what? 2
Kaden:200?
Mike:to a hundred games
Kaden:a hundred games. Yeah. And I think that's I think that's too much to reach a top rank, um, if you're winning every game. I think that, honestly, the plus and minus of flat amount of rank is okay at the bottom ranks. However, I love what, honestly, most online card games have adapted to, which is as soon as you reach that top rank, you pivot into kind of more of an Elo system, where from That point on, You're gaining losing rank based on the opponents you're playing against. And you have an online you have an online leaderboard where you can see based on that Elo ranking. Um, but I think that, yeah, I think that the way they have it right now is just too grindy and bad And doesn't actually test skill or, like, measure you up against people. so
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:I don't like how the announcement's so wishy washy. Like, I mean, I I don't think this stuff's like, this stuff is a rocket science. You know? Like, changing the ranking system? I mean, what once again, there's I I think of all these engineering things as, like, there's, like, behind the scenes code, and then there's display code. And I know, like, display code is so hard. But, like, changing people's ranks, like, you could just change it. You know? Like,
Mike:Yep. I agree.
Brent:that does not seem like rocket science to me. Uh, like, the this, like, we're gonna think about it. We're investigating the problem, but, like, we're not actually doing anything or trying anything. Like yeah. I mean, you could you could say, hey. Between EUIC and NAIC. Like, that's a whole season. We're gonna, like, test something. Sure. Like, I don't know. It doesn't seem it doesn't seem, uh, man, on the 1 hand, I yeah. I I hear you. Like, I don't know if that's the big problem PTCGL has. Like, you know, I I I'm Sure. they're extremely engineering constrained, because otherwise, the application would be better. You know, is that the thing to work on? I don't know. I don't know.
Mike:I mean, the other thing to, like, consistently remind ourselves is that in addition to all of these features and and what not, they do have to be coding the new cards as, like, you know, as they come out 4
Brent:and and as I've always said, the problem with coding the cards is the cards are designed for these, like, cardboardy effects. Like, they don't take into account digital considerations. Like Hearthstone, if they're like, this card's hard to code, they're like, okay. Screw it. Push that to the next set or, like, we won't even do it. You know? Like, the Hearthstone people don't care because they have a digital only thing and, like, they built the whole thing for this. But Pokemon I mean, I remember when, like, when they first introduced Skyfield or something, and they were like, okay. Now the board has to have 8 Pokemon on it. Like, I'm sure the the developers of PTCGO were like, hold up. It just doesn't do that. Like, we built the whole thing to not do that.
Mike:Yep.
Kaden:you know, you know, they also Pokemon loves they don't do it too often. Thank god. But Pokemon does print out their, like, kind of for fun jokey cards that, you know, all some of them, p t c g live has already just said, no. We're not
Mike:Yeah.
Kaden:Like like,
Mike:The Blaine's
Brent:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I I there's a Pokebot in my hand. You have to guess how tall it is. Nope. Nope. There's none of that. Just don't do that. Ain't gonna have it. Yeah. Go to you know, play rock, paper, scissors. Nope. We're not playing rock, paper, scissors. It's impossible.
Kaden:Didn't they did actually add rock, paper, scissors to PPC Geo.
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:Oh, they did?
Kaden:They did. I they did. I remember I remember when I was, You know, when I was a kid back and playing the Zatu. I played the Zatu just to see how it worked. And it just it pops up a little a little input box for both players that's like rock, paper, scissors. and you click 1. And that's like someone wins.
Brent:Insane. But, yeah, like, I I I appreciate Mike's comment a lot. My working assumption is 80 percent of those developers are spending, like, all their time just coding new cards because that's the grind. Right?
Mike:Mhmm.
Brent:Like, you got you you you have a day. You've gotta have those cards working. And, like, I think we all know, it's, uh, uh, it can be problematic. But, uh, that is the most visible thing people complain about is they're like, I said, just dropped in. This card doesn't work. How can this be? Sucks. Absolutely sucks. And then and then, like, when people find that bug, like, the engineering team has to drop everything to fix that 1 stupid card with, like, that 1 stupid game interaction. You know? Ugh. It's absolutely brutal. Alright. Let's talk about, uh, let's talk about Japan because EUIC is around the corner.
Mike:Yeah. So there was the first and maybe the only question mark big event in in Japan in the new format that will happen before we get the cards in at the end of March before EIC. Before I keep going, Kaiden, Brent, are you guys planning on going to EIC?
Brent:Liam and I are
Kaden:I am unable to go.
Mike:Okay. Okay.
Kaden:I cannot go. Uh, I have school. So
Mike:Yep. I feel that Okay. So you guys are planning on going. So registration is coming up. Alright. Is, uh, Walker planning on going too or just you and
Brent:Just just, uh, me And Liam.
Mike:Okay. Cool. So anyway, so this tournament happened this past weekend. Uh, 2600 players. And we have the top 16 results right now. Presumably, I think I might have seen a meta share pie chart somewhere, but I couldn't find it before we started. Um, but so the top 16 had 3 Arceus decks, 3 Charizards, 3 Snorlax stall decks,
Brent:know, I love it.
Mike:2 Lossone decks, 1 Lugia, 1 Giratina Lossone, 1 Great Tusk Mill, 1 Ancient Box, and 1 Future Box. So pretty interesting results overall going into the event. Charizard was expected to be by far the most popular deck. Chi and Pao and Goldengo were also, like, pretty up there, and neither of those made, uh, the top 16. I think that might be at least partially a function of their best of 1 Swiss and Chiempo in particular, I think really benefits from best of 3, uh, with its kind of clunkiness and rocky starts. Um, uh, but I think for me, we could kind of start off the biggest surprise for me is seeing basically 4 stall slash mill decks in Japan's format. So, like, like, 3 Snorlax dolls and a and a Great Tusk Mill. Now the Great Tusk Mill is a little bit more active in its in its wind condition, so that makes a little bit more sense. But Snorlax is, uh, still a slow deck. Um, and then I also should say just real quick, uh, players were actually able to switch decks from day 1 to day 2. So there was 9 rounds day 1, and then I believe 5 rounds day 2, and then cut to top 16, but they were able to switch after the first 9 rounds. So, uh, we
Kaden:Knowing Japan's format then I'd I would guess very few of those stalled decks were in day 1.
Mike:Right. That would that would also be my, uh, assumption as well, but impossible to know for sure.
Brent:I I was unaware of that. That is crazy. Uh, yeah. I feel like they tried that in
Kaden:okay. I I gotta ask a question.
Brent:it.
Kaden:I have to ask a question. So this great, um, this great task mail deck, I'm I'm looking through the list Right. now. I have no idea how this deck wins. How how are you milling in time?
Mike:So great test mills 4, right, for its attack?
Brent:Yeah.
Mike:When you play a supporter. When you play the correct supporter. Yeah. So that was kind of my thought too when I first saw Great Tux. Like, if you just kinda do the math. Right? Uh, they they draw 7. They have 6 prizes. They drop returns. That's 14 to start the game. So they're down to, uh, what, 46 cards. If you mill 7 times, let's say, that's 28. So there's still, like, a pretty big differential there that you have to make up by them, like, drawing cards and going through their deck or attacking more than 7 times. And feel like attacking more than 7 times, I guess it happens more often than we think because, uh, I mean, they have a lot of disruption cards or they don't have that many disruption cards, but they have the counter catchers. But I think maybe the big thing is the, uh, is the tools. It's the bravery charms and the booster capsules and the hero's cape making Great Tusk a pretty chunky boy and, uh, making it hard to just, like, 1 shot consistently without using your resources, I guess.
Kaden:I guess. I mean, I I presume also a lot of this is you know, the mill is putting a lot of pressure on your opponents. And so I would guess that, you know, oftentimes, you know, you countercatcher something up and then either start milling or, like, throw a Mimikyu active. And then you're forcing them to dig to try to find resources in order to answer to it but that forces them to nil car like, dig through their deck more. I don't know. It just, feels but there's,
Mike:And and there's also gonna be turns where you, like, with the ancient supporter. Right? And then you're like, oh, dang.
Kaden:But then, like, they play Iono or, like, they play Super Rod, and then they, like, I I don't know. I do not think we will see I do not think we will see great Tusk Mill come EUIC.
Mike:We'll see. Could be that could be the case. Um, so talking about
Brent:know, I I wonder how much I wonder how much Great Tusk Mill, like, how how many times the Mimikyu was really, really good. Like
Mike:I mean, it's very good against Charizard. That's for sure.
Brent:I just wonder how like, if you feel like you understand the other guy's deck, at a certain point, if you've discarded a couple of switch effects or something, you could be, like, counter catcher, and then the game's just over. You know? Like
Mike:Mhmm.
Kaden:I I think the is probably pretty good. the 1 comfy, I'm a little more iffy of, but
Brent:But I but I guess my working assumption is the miracle of Counter Catcher is being in format is all you're doing at some level. Like, he's so chunky, and the Mimikyu is so good. It's it's just running them out of switch effects, and then they lose. Right? Like, you don't actually have to completely mail them out. You just have to get their ability to leave the active.
Kaden:Yeah.
Mike:Right.
Kaden:I will say another big 1 that stood out to me was, you know, you mentioned it, the Arceus the dominance of Arceus decks. And I didn't quite realize, but, like, Arceus actually gets a lot from the set. It's a surprising amount. Um, you know, I I was looking at the some of the lost, you know, lists, and I was you know, maximum belt is actually, like, quite good. for RCS. Max especially Arcatina. Like, having having your RCS able to swing for, um, 2 30 instead of 1 80 on turn 2 is massive. Um, being able to take the take that first KO with or rather not being able to take that first k KO with your RC stack was 1 of the biggest things that, like, set Arceus back, um, and made you really feel Like, you were playing behind a lot with Arcadia. And now You just have an answer. On top of that, you know, both of the Arcinalists ran the Iron Leads, which gives such a strong answer to Zard.
Mike:Yep.
Kaden:I like, man, it looks good. It looks good.
Mike:The lists are extreme like, I don't know. The lists are, like, kinda different. Like, they have obviously, they have the same core, but there's some, like, weird inclusions in both. And it'll be interesting to see what translates here. Like, 1 of the lists has 2 grabbers. Okay. And the other list, the weird thing is 2 technical, uh, machine devolution. Like, presumably, those are for the charizard matchup.
Kaden:Why are
Mike:no like, you have iron leaves and Giratina with maximum belt to, like, be able to take 2 1 shots at some point throughout the game? I feel like you probably don't need 2 technical
Kaden:I don't I don't know. I don't
Mike:And the grab the grabbers make even lessons. Like, what are you grabbing? I don't know what that's for. And then both list played some amount of eerie. 1 played 1. The other played 2. Uh, not really sure what those are for, but Erie seems like it's in a lot of lists overall,
Kaden:I think the card seems fine. I feel like if I'm playing lost Tina, though, I wanna maximize my consistency. Like, I don't know I I don't know why I would ever run an Erie over another count of Judge or Aiono.
Mike:Yeah.
Kaden:But, I mean, I will say, you know, the biggest thing that This deck loses for sure is path.
Mike:Sure.
Kaden:Like, this sec not having path is is a big difference. Um, I have you know, we'll see how the meta stabilizes and whether it ends up really mattering, but the judge path potential of Arcitina was 1 of the things that made it so strong. But I will say, I think maximum belt maximum belt gives This decks a a huge power boost.
Mike:Yeah. That makes total sense.
Brent:But some decks are so good, they could just play Master Ball a series back.
Mike:We'll get we'll we'll get there. We'll get there. The other Arceus deck is Arceus Alolan Vulpix. And this is funny because, uh, just like the day or 2 before this event, 1 of my friends messaged me saying, like, oh, Vulpix seems really good. Like, you you wall Charizard. You wall Chi and Pao. And then we, like, talked about a little bit more, and I was like, I don't know, man. Like like, we do lose escape rope in the format, um, which makes getting around vulpix more annoying, but we gained prime catcher. So you can pretty easily go, like, prime catcher boss on it. Uh, Chi and Pao can just, like, hit you with iron hands. Not that big of a deal. Um, but despite all that, it did get second. Um, the list is, again, it's an Arceus deck, but some interesting inclusions. Uh, it has couple copies of medical energy. I think I have this card, but I don't know what it does. Uh, what do you do? Heal
Kaden:Heel 31 attached.
Mike:Oh, Heal 30.
Kaden:I don't know I don't know why I don't get it.
Mike:um, maybe, like, if your opponent has, like, a really bad counter to vulpix, you can just heal the damage away. But,
Kaden:You're healing sick. I I it feels feels if new. I would just you have the 2 turo. That's definitely more than enough. I love the mist energy, though. Mist energy is is an amazing ad for this deck. Um, being able to prevent being able to prevent like, that was 1 of the easy ways that a lot of decks got around Alolan Vulpix, um,
Mike:Mhmm.
Kaden:was by using effects rather than just rather than just damage. And so having an energy card that just gets to negate all that is
Mike:Yeah. That totally makes sense.
Kaden:phenomenal.
Mike:Uh, and, like, the the double turo plus Sharon, like, if your opponent actually has no answer to Vulpix, you can just scoop other all your other stuff off the board, And then just have the lone Vulpix, which is pretty sick. Plays a lot of energy.
Kaden:Yep. I would just cut the 2 medical immediately if I was
Mike:That's 16 energy. Like, why do you need 16 energy? The arctina list played, like, 13 or something like
Kaden:Yeah.
Mike:Yeah. 13 and 14.
Brent:Yeah. Def uh, definitely see, like, multiple examples of wonky deck building.
Mike:yeah. Going back to the Snorlax decks real quick, 2 of them were, like, pretty similar to what we've been seeing here just with updated stuff. Like, uh, they play multiple copies of Eerie. That makes sense. Plays the hero's cape as its a spec also makes sense. Uh, but then 1 of the lists was pretty, again, pretty wild. It played a 1 1 Noivern EX, uh, which, uh, like, the only way you're powering that up is with your 4 colorless energy to to to go with it, and you get to use the first attack, which does 70 damage for 2 colorless and, uh, walls damage from basic Pokemon the next turn. So there must be a specific match up that this is for, but I have no idea what it is.
Kaden:could, like I mean, I assume it makes you if you can get it if you can get it set up, if you can start swinging with it which is. a big if, um, I mean, I assume it auto it auto wins you future and ancient box
Mike:Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kaden:know, looking at the top 16 list, those are the only 2 that it matters against. But, also, like, Roaring
Brent:box counter also because he's running the
Kaden:you're just Tina.
Brent:popped Yeah. Yeah. Well, just just, like, straight lost box. Like, lost box Charizard. Like like, that those are examples of decks that have a lot of switch effects that historically, Snorlax is a bad matchup into.
Kaden:No. That that's true. it also it also wins you. I mean, the the top loss loss zone deck, um, ran an iron bundle.
Brent:Yeah.
Kaden:So they have an out, but
Mike:Mhmm.
Brent:that up there. They pop up missed energy on, and then they say, okay. We're high up. We're gonna see if this goes the distance.
Kaden:Yeah. Yeah. I
Mike:of that lost box
Kaden:I assume it's a lost box stack primarily.
Mike:Yeah. Speaking of the lost box deck, uh, I like this list. This lost box list looks this was this list looks pretty clean comparatively to some of the, uh, the other Japanese lists. Like, there's nothing in here that's super crazy. It's a lot of consistency, a lot of good attacking options between Raikou, Iron Hands, uh, the moon. The bundle is pretty cool.
Brent:you're talking about the list?
Mike:yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:place list.
Mike:Um, yep. You get you got the buddy poffins in there. You got 4 nest balls. Uh, you only have the oh, no. No. Okay. So 4 switch cart and 3 switch. So we've replaced rope with just regular switch, uh, but you also got the the new board, which is good for comfy. Uh, I don't know. This list looks pretty good. If I was gonna if I was gonna mess around with the lost box, I would totally start here. This list makes a lot of sense.
Kaden:I fully agree.
Mike:Yeah. Let's talk about the winner, Lugia. I mentioned on the podcast a couple weeks ago when we talked about the the new cards that I thought Cincinno seemed fake. And, uh, here we are. Cincinno Lugia taking it down.
Kaden:Yeah. I mean, of course, I think I mean, missed energy, huge addition for for Lugia. Um, I mean, missed energy is just any anytime Lugia gets to see a new a special energy that has a large positive benefit that you can throw on anything, it's it's a glorious day for them.
Mike:Yeah. I think
Kaden:Yeah. Cincino seems good. You know, that's the 1 of the biggest things that Lou that at least single strike Lugia was really missing was, you know, a solid single prize attacker. That was 1 of the things that made, like, the old rainbow, um, old rainbow Lugia so oppressive was the fact that it had such strong single prize attackers. And I do not think Chinchino is anywhere near as strong as as that that version of Lugia. But I do think it is it's a single pricer that can 1 that can genuinely 1 shot stuff.
Mike:Yeah. I think 1 thing that I underestimated was the combination of 4 JET energy and Mincino being like you basically like, you have 4 Lugia v, and this only plays 3 Mincino, but I might even advocate for 4 Mincino, uh, where, like, even if you start 1 of your Snorlax or Lumineon well, so you have you have a lot of good starters. And then even if you don't start 1 of your good starters, you have jet energy. And so you can read the wind, or you can use call for family, like going, uh, turn 1 or turn 2, which is like a really solid setup attack. And it seems like this format is a bit slower, uh, than what we have right now. And so just having, like, a really solid setup attack for a deck like Lugia that is a bit inconsistent just by its nature, just gives it a lot more stability going into the, uh, you know, turn 2, turn 3. And then you're able to more consistently set up your stuff from there. Um, so I think that is probably actually pretty pretty good because of that.
Brent:I mean, I I I'm not sure it's completely the right thing to do. But the thing that you really gotta admire about the winning list versus, I think, I feel like kind of all of the other lists is, it's just pure consistency. Like, he literally is running nothing but draw supporters and ball cards.
Mike:Right.
Kaden:This is very this is very true.
Brent:And and in that way, it's like, I rec like, you know, there there was the was it the future, uh, uh, list that I looked at? And I was like, how does this guy ever draw? Like, not draw dead. He's running, like, 16 energy and, like, 11 draw supporters, and that's his whole, like, engine. He must just be dying all the time. Whereas this thing, like, he he must look at his hand and it's, like, know, uh, it's Serena's or jacks or research and a bunch of ball cards, and, like, he must hit double arc. He ups turn 1 all the time.
Mike:Yep. Uh, another thing that I didn't really realize you reminded me, is that you don't have to run path counters. You don't have to run the crappy Mesagosa stadium anymore. So you just like, he he ran a couple collapse, which seems fine. I don't even know if you need the collapse, to be honest. Um, but, uh, it seems fine.
Kaden:Yeah. No
Mike:that just frees up a lot of
Kaden:biggest buff. Biggest buff to this deck
Brent:I mean, he's probably using collapse. He like, he probably collapses the and the off the game, uh, off the board halfway through. And he's like, now it's just archaeops and chinchinos and Snorlaxes. Good luck.
Mike:Yep.
Brent:Like, that's wild.
Mike:Yeah. This list is very nice, uh, and I think it'll be interesting now to see how the discourse, uh, develops from here because I think everybody is kinda looking at this list, and they're like, oh, yeah. This is really good.
Brent:Although, I feel like you'd cut the master ball without a second thought. I I appreciate the purestness of it, but, like, you know, you don't gotta do that.
Mike:Sure. Where does the format go from here? Um, let's talk about that future deck real quick, uh, and then we should probably start wrapping up soon. But, uh, yeah, the future the future box deck, I don't know. This is also, like, kinda just straight. Very straightforward. Lot of 4 ups. The 4 counter catcher is really funny to me in a in a iron hands deck. Like, the goal is just to take 2 prizes every turn, but I guess the thought is you go into Maraidon. They take 1 prize, then Iron Hands takes 2 prizes, and they kill Iron Hands. You have counter catcher. You just keep counter capturing things to stay ahead in the price trade.
Kaden:Yep.
Brent:Yeah. Well, and and he's not running, um, uh, bosses. So yeah.
Mike:because he wants to play Arvin turn 1, get the, uh, the techno radar, get the future tool, get your get your guys going, and then from there on, just wants to research every turn or I don't know every turn. Seems okay. I wish we had the, uh, the list for the ancient box deck. Uh, I heard that it's, like, kind of similar to what we've been seeing, the karidon, the roaring moon, but it played 1 great tusk as well. So that if you're kinda like going back and forth and your opponent's using a lot of resources to trade with your single prizes, then you can come in with the great tusk at the end of the game and just mill them. Gives yourself a a secondary win condition. And, I mean, it's an ancient card that just fuels your roaring moon anyway, so I feel like it makes sense.
Kaden:Yeah.
Mike:Might as well.
Brent:Yeah. I don't know. The thing that thing that bothered me about this this future list is, like, he runs the 4 Arvins. He runs the 4 Research. He runs 3 Iono, and then he runs the Morty's conviction. Like, that's the draw engine.
Mike:That's the whole drawing engine. Yep.
Brent:I mean, I you know, I'm sure I used to know the math off the top of my head, but, like, you could just draw dead with this deck a lot.
Mike:This is how, uh, decks were built at different points in the game, though. Like, uh, like, a lot of people have compared future to plasma. You look at plasma lists from, like, 20 13, 20 14. This is exactly what they looked like. No onboard draw, just 12 ish, 12, 13, 14
Brent:that's yeah. Like, I I always felt like we were committed to, like, I don't know. I felt like we were always committed to, like, 13 to 15 supporters because 12 is, like,
Mike:supporters. Just a little on the low
Brent:on the low side?
Mike:That seems reasonable.
Brent:know if I I'm sure if I research hypergeometric distribution in Pokemon, I'll I'll find the 6 prizes article that I wrote back in the day where I printed the stupid chart. Let's see. 12 is, like, 80 percent of the time you're gonna get a supporter in your first aid cards.
Mike:Okay. Yeah. I just looked up, uh, Simon Rhodes' plasma list that he got second with in 20 13. He played 4 Juniper, 4 n, 4 Chloris, 3 Skyla. So 12 real supporter cards and then 15, like, kinda supporter cards.
Brent:Yeah. But the I mean, the trick is Arvin doesn't actually help you. Like, Arvin's gonna
Mike:Arvin is basically
Brent:fast as you. Like, yeah. Well, it it it's not even Skyler, though, because, like, you could you could always Skyler for research, like, depending on how how upset you were.
Mike:But Arvin gets you more stuff though than Skyla does. So I feel like it kinda, like, evens out
Brent:Yeah. It's it's it's okay. It's okay. But, like, like, if you start Arvin and, like, 6 energies, you're like,
Mike:Yeah. This might be like I don't know if there's a third straw supporter that you could play even. Like, what do we even have? Judge? For research, for Iona, for Judge?
Brent:Yeah. It's a it's a fair it's a fair point.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:But, uh, I thought I thought the lists did not seem like the kind of list I would wanna play because I feel like there'd just be I mean, you know, it's best to 1. I mean, maybe you're like, hey. If we if we weren't playing on a high rolling, it was never gonna happen anyway.
Mike:Caden, it's good to have you back.
Kaden:Happy to be back.
Mike:Who knows when we'll when we'll have you again? Good.
Brent:But
Kaden:Next week will be a little tough. We'll
Brent:Exam exam's right around the corner. But, uh, as Liam always says, you have to make time for what's important, Caden. Here we are, guys.
Kaden:this is true. This is true. Alright.
Brent:Alright. The John Pauls are outro. We'll be back next week with what? What are we back next week with? Is there a tournament?
Mike:don't know. We'll figure it out. Oh,
Brent:time as we barrel towards Vancouver in a UIC.
Mike:The money match results. The the money match results.
Brent:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is good stuff. Alright. We'll be back next week. The John Pauls are outro.