They played, but I remember thinking this format was bad. So I'm interested in talking about it because I think we, we disagree
Mike:I got, I need to like, I don't, I only remember two cities. I remember playing Meghan MuTu and I remember playing Glade.
Brit:cause this was the supporter pool was really weak. And that's why I think that the, the format isn't very good. You have
Mike:is no N.
Brit:There's the Giovanni that can plus power or draw five and like, like P decks were playing Birch.
Mike:Yup. Yeah. Yeah. I
Brit:end. I believe there was no any, any form of disruption.
Mike:right, exactly. Yeah. I just found my mega MuTu list and around one Burch's observation and I'm like, all right.
Brit:Yeah. I remember thinking that deck was there, but I was poor and like didn't buy cards, so I never played it, but I remember thinking it was quite good in this format. I think it was maybe the best deck, mega MuTu, just the damage swap and played. Couldn't it, there are a couple of different colors you could play with it. Didn't couldn't you play some options in it? I think, I don't remember.
Mike:Yeah. I, I like have a list that is the damage swap one, but the one I'm actually going to play is not damaged swap.
Brit:I seem to remember it. Maybe Eva to all was involved. Maybe just cause I could trade with night marchers
Mike:Yeah, exactly. So the list that I have is like a 43 MuTu, a. Three baby tutus or Klein.
Brit:Okay.
Mike:But that's part
Brent:know, I wish I could remember what the CA like how the card pool changed from there to like, In AIC and world or, you know, gnats and world,
Mike:Well, so the, the set right between cities and States was huge. That was the
Brit:that was the puzzle that wasn't it. The state set
Mike:It was what?
Brit:the puzzle of time set.
Mike:Pause the time Greninja break Trevena
Brent:like what was weird was the regionals after it were all expanded. So like, all people were doing was like working on expanded export. Can I expand it X? So, so there was like this kind of gap.
Mike:Yep.
Brent:Where, like nothing kind of happened and then it was Nat. Right.
Mike:Yeah, exactly.
Brent:And I can't re I, I don't know. You know, I just don't know the sets well enough to be able to like, look back at like the, the, the lists that were good at NATS and be like, you know, when did something actually change here or did did we just realize what was good.
Brit:It doesn't change all that much because the YZ G deck was really, it was, it got worse and worse over time, but it was like, It's still a very good deck kind of from, cause it popped up at cities I suppose. But then like I remember Kevin Baxter, top 32 naps are like, it was still a decade by nationals, almost like almost card for card. What was played at cities. And it was one of those decks that just sort of like 50 50 and everything. But obviously when you had one trick tip for a whole season, you kind of knew some ins and outs. But I'm trying to think of what I remember. I know. Cause water water box shows up by nationals. I believe it comes onto the scene after winning. I want to say Germany or doing, maybe it doesn't win Germany, but it top eights or something. It pops up at a year at European nationals back when those were still a thing. But I don't remember if it had new cards. Or if it was just a concept that could have existed and then popped out of thin air at a tournament. Did max, when, when did Matt, what set his max elixir from? Cause that credit was very relevant for the darker IDEXX that were played at nationals that year too.
Mike:Let's see, max elixir was break point break point. It was the Greninja break sets. I think that was the state set.
Brit:Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. So, so that came right after, right?
Brit:So then yeah. What, what comes out at NATS then? I don't remember. It was a lot of the same stuff was good. Like traveling. It was good.
Mike:Yeah, I might choose. I mean, I'm not
Brit:night, March.
Brent:Yeah, I think, I think Tremont break may have come out in that, in that in one of those two sets.
Brit:Yeah. I remember I didn't do well at stay. That was like the worst the first year. I think maybe almost, yeah, entire time I've been playing, but I like didn't get a state's trophy. I like made top 16 twice with, I think I played YZ G.
Mike:Let's see Greek feats collide was the net set. That's that was not very good. I don't think
Brit:Yeah, that sounds, that sounds right to me. Didn't it. Doesn't that just have like Glacey on, I think.
Mike:Glossy on Josie on mew. Oh no. Not, not even jot down. Right. Because Georgetown was like one of those.
Brit:Jyoti on was a generation's promo as in a special box.
Mike:Mew fades, collide. Zeigarnik CX. Yep. I remember that one.
Brit:Yeah. This that's where all the break sets were pretty weak because of the breaks were so terrible, other than Greninja kind of Zuora arc.
Brent:The Zeigarnik edX was like ruined me because there, there was that. There was that Zeigarnik vile plume deck that did well in Japan. And we spent tons of time working on that.
Brit:tech was so bad. I remember
Brent:Liam played in at worlds and we got whooped.
Brit:I remember Alex Hill in the poly swag guys. I think that was their next deck. I don't know. I don't remember. They had something kind of spicy about it,
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:on what it was, but yeah, the deck, obviously not all that great.
Brent:So why was vile plume best book? When, like, I feel like the build the did well at U S nets was like different in some fundamental way than Andrews cities built, but like, I assume that it requires knowledge of the sets. And I don't know is it is the answer puzzle of time.
Brit:It was revitalized. There wasn't that revitalizer comes out and the generations set to, and that ends up being a big card for that deck. I think, I think, I think that was one of the bigger shifts in the way that best McQuinn bioplan was built. I think it became I think both versions, Andrew rambles kind of initial on that. I think he builds at the Chicago marathon. That year was very solitary. You know, solitaire does draw heavy focus, but I think the ones with revitalizer is really when people figure it out battle compressors and things like that. And I'm, I, I naturally you'd be playing battle compressors. Great with a vest, pick one deck already, but in terms of like how it would go on to be built with things like ranches file plume index like that, I think that's sort of when the engine gets figured out with, cause I think he played the draw unknowns too and all these other, just kind of little pieces, but I think revitalizer is the biggest card,
Brent:did I have super fond memories of learning at this file club? Because that was like, you gave us like kind of a halfway done list. And then I think we were like, we were some of the people that like max battle compressors and max revitalizes, and then pass it back to you. And then Ross Kauffman ended up. Like going really far with it. And then did the, Zul also like win the tournament
Brit:As the other to regionals with it, I believe.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So there, there, there was like a whole bunch of us that were on the right to smile plume really early with this like battle compressor revitalizer engine.
Brit:Worked a really long time. I'm on just and standard. And it was almost good enough. I played it for a couple of weeks challenges. I think.
Brent:almost.
Mike:Yeah. Laurinaitis was like so quickly power crapped out though. Like, it was good for like that one or two expanded regionals and then the next set comes out and it's terrible.
Brit:It never struck me as being good to me any time. I never played any tournaments where I did well either, but anytime I saw it, it was just like, I have a hand vial from it's just that good and expanded because attacks or
Mike:right, right,
Brent:Exactly. Yeah. Lorraine, Jace was just the best attacker. That was also grass type. Like, I mean, there was just a like three or four month window where it was like, what can I use for the giant plants with, to like win this tournament? This is, Oh, this is, you know, bile plume plus something that attacks, and then you turn one vile plume and you're like, wow. I won already. I mean, I, you know, I think every expanded deck, I mean, the motto of expanded is like, does your deck feel broken enough? If it doesn't like, you should go back to the drawing board and like, turn one, vile pluming was always broken enough. Right. But you never felt like. Oh, yeah. We're not going to win this. If you turn one valve, when the guy, because it's just like the most horrible thing you can do to someone. All right. All right. Let's Is there more stuff that we should say about that? We should, we should go to the gym, all this conversation. Is there more stuff we want to say about that cities? So here's my question about the cities to a comment than a question. First, I seem to recollect, like, the thing I loved about a YZ G was I always wanted Zuora work break to have more, or dev like a, a better place in the meta. Like I was like, that should be a good card. So I was happy to see it have a brief moment where it seemed like it was a good card. But it seemed like was that, that really only good because it'd be by March.
Mike:I don't think it was, that's not, definitely not the only reason I think probably a good part of it is kind of what Britt said about the supporters, right? Like you were able to play. And maxi, which is like a pretty strong supporter into Gallad in these comparatively to the options that we had. So you played junior players, you played Maxis, you got to play Lysander and not a lot of other, actually, if you look like I was looking through a lot of lists and a lot of, a lot of decks played a maxi Kool-Aid engine, probably just because what else were they going to do?
Brent:right. You're like, why not? Why not do this thing?
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Yeah, that was always kind of common. I don't remember at what point in time, but at least it's something I've done in my own deck building before. It's like I'm playing battle compressor already. I've got double colorless. I mean, maybe even sometimes you don't have the double color list, but it was like, you already had it. Why not just play one of each? I definitely, I definitely played actual tournaments with just one Glade. Oh. I played editor expanded regionals once and it was good, but
Brent:Dude, dude, dude, let me tell you, cause I went back and looked at this. If you go back to six prizes articles written in 2016, Britt wrote an article about how he was playing YZ G, but he was copying eh, he played it at Kansas States and he was playing a list, ripped off of azoles list that he used to win Connecticut, where he cut all the Maxis and gala and stuff. And it was just four sycamores, two Lysander's and like, and one judge. And that was on a Giovanni's. And that was his drawing done. And then he played like four trainers mails for versus seekers for ultra balls, like good times.
Brit:I did bad at that tournament. I remember I lost a winning into Trevena and J I'm from St. Louis, if you happen to be listening, I just, it wasn't a particularly memorable series. I like won the game where I didn't get. Trevena Revenant judged and then like games one and three. I just got Jeff. I was just really disheartening. I'd had kind of a bad year. Like I had just said, States were always kind of my tournament. I always showed up at States and I just like, I, you get, you get the good match in the winter and then, and then you just,
Brent:So the crazy thing is your, your tournament report from that. Yeah. I mean, that, that's exactly what, what then you lost it like a Trevon and hammers red card list. I don't think people have quite realized how
Brit:and stuff.
Brent:yeah, like red card, horrible
Brit:glad you sort of have the, the fact, the live fact checker going right now because I talk a lot of the time. I've at least tweeted about it once or twice about how I have my memory is really, really, really good when it comes to Pokemon. I can remember games specific rounds from tournament, you know, just random regionals would be like, Oh yeah, around six, I played seven. So they're from New Jersey. They went first things like, you know, things like that. And, but then at the same time, I just like I'm, I don't think I've brushed my teeth today. I forgot to take my medicine this morning. Like I forget. I'm holding my phone while I'm looking for it. I do all sorts of kind of Spacey, stuff like that. But when it comes to Pokemon, I've got the memory for it. I've wondered
Brent:like, that's like a chess kind of skill, right? Like you, they, them game memory is a thing.
Brit:I wondered, I don't know if either of you saw, I guess, going on this tangent now, but I think it came out at last fall, but there is this. I think it was in a Stanford study, but people who know Pokemon there's a particular part of the brain that's dedicated to remembering just a silhouette. So I've wondered if they're related at all. But I think that's kind of a cool fact too, just about us Pokemon weaves. Like it doesn't seem like we really pay that much attention because so many, so many Pokemon are. Never good. Like there's lots of Pokemon. That might be a cool Pokemon, but they've never had a good card. So as those of us who are kind of experienced the game, almost primarily through the card games and not the video games, it's always strange to me how I know the names of poker that I've never seen before, but just because I know they had a bad card, even it's curious or how easy it is to remember just once you have the kind of foundations of Pokemon, I guess, built in.
Brent:I it's funny. I obviously I've been watching all the tweets are all in this morning about the Pokemon. 25th anniversary celebration stuff. And I think it was Raul was like tweeting about how basically his entire salary is going to go into like buying chotchkies or whatever this year. And yeah, like for us, it's mostly competitive ish stuff. You know, we,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:we certainly we've got some like stuff around the room. We got a bunch of stuff. There's a way Lord right behind me. But Oh, you know, it's like three feet long and plushy, but but yeah, less, I think we, yeah, my kids are pretty good at the silhouette thing, but I'm terrible at it. I have absolutely no idea. What was the other, ah, Oh, so yeah, it's still just something about the States Metta. So when I went back and looked at your tournament report, Brit, you went to one against nine March and you went three, one against Trevor in it. And that was the whole tournament. Seven rounds top 16.
Brit:sounds about, right. I don't, I didn't play at all. I didn't have any of these cards, so I'm sure my clay was pretty lackluster. Like I was just, that was just a bad year for me. I just like. I was at the tournament. I like had to get like picked up from, because I had a panic attack the night before and just like, didn't play. Like, I just kind of, I like showed up to nationals and like dropped at one in three years, something like that. And then I did okay. At worlds, which is a good story, but yeah, I was just like, kind of out of it that
Brent:You played water box at worlds, right?
Brit:I played it at nationals too, but yeah, that was, I had a good, a good, good tear with water box somehow.
Brent:The water box was a good deck. That was, that was the like a Russel APAR pushing a deck
Brit:I mean, I, in our truck really was a toss up. And anytime I mentioned that, that world's format people are probably right to suggest that like my nightmarish matchup, like wasn't favorable, but. You know, if there was ever, I think, you know, that I thought, I thought I was going to win that tournament being completely honest. I think I could have beaten the, the mega Dino a deck. Like it was one of, I think I would've just like tangentially been really, really good against it. Like I was playing like lots of energy removal and naturally quaking punch would have really slowed down the spirit links. But like I just, I, I lost round one day, one to a Japanese night, March player. That had shine. The, what was the, the stadium that let in. So he had Garve Angela and he had like a Garvey Angela that resisted me that could night March. And so I lost to him round one, and then I won six in a row. And then I start out four O day two. And like, all of my ties were. I tied Keon and in game three where I would have one, like I had just locked it up, not enough time to do anything about it. Like, not even like an extra turn, but like the game I had just won against nine March, which was really hard to do. Like I had, he stayed asleep on art Akuno as a roast and energy, like time was called. And then the kind of random from Wisconsin who got second with Greninja. I lost to him on stream again, going into game three, he just like got a vs seeker off my, into two or into one. Anyway, as long tangent, I liked water box a lot.
Brent:Yeah, that was Mike was, was, that was the year that Ross played, like the weird little deck. Right.
Mike:Yeah, we played. Yeah, we played
Brent:You were in on that too. Right? How, how how'd you do.
Mike:I went five Oh three day one. So I made it through day one and then day two, I played a Zelle round one and I beat him and then it kind of went mediocre from there. I ended up like I played against the ball Canyon deck with a Japanese Volcani deck, which wasn't even a real deck and just got destroyed.
Brit:got Samuel of them and day
Mike:Yeah. Like I think I played against the metal deck, like a bronze sounding deck, which was just a really bad match up. I, I only think, I think the deck was designed almost solely to beat night March, and I think I only ended up playing against two night March. So it didn't go as well for me. But obviously bras did really well. That deck was very. Bad. Like, it's not a good deck. It just happened to be good against the best deck. And it could like, you know, it's okay against other stuff. It's not terrible, but like it's investment conduct that I think played like 21 Pokemon. So you're never like one chatting stuff.
Brent:Right. That's why I was still like, like YZ G all these available decks, like such a big part of their attraction during that six month period was oblivious links. Just really, really good against nine March.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like, you're like, Oh, I'm going to knock out his attacker and I'm going to be like setting up something else that will hopefully be better.
Mike:Yeah. My my favorite play of. Like with that deck and just in general against night, March is like they, they would attack with the mew from pates glide and you'd have your unknown and they'd have dimension Valley out and you'd go muscle band on your unknown and just knock them out for no energy. That was okay. It's really fun.
Brit:Didn't know a know a known, had an attack.
Mike:Yep. Colorless and damage.
Brit:That's pretty good. That's pretty good attack.
Brent:It's like, it was like hidden power for 10 or something.
Mike:Yep. That's it.
Brit:Yeah. I'm surprised. I didn't know that that's like pretty, pretty high up there in terms of like, can a, can a random basic in my deck have a useful. Attack like that's good. You know, that's sometimes in standard these days, you can win a game by sort of intelligently recognizing that your, your mew with the bench barrier is going to set up some proper math, just little things like that are always super relevant to be at least aware of.
Brent:Yeah, this is exactly what we're talking about a week ago, where I like that idea of like, you, you just have this, you know, diverse knowledge of situations and utility of different Pokemon in your deck, and you're able to kind of piece together. You know plays that the opponent doesn't see coming, right? I mean, they never saw the unknown attacking, coming. They never thought I got a gust up this unknown and kill us.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:We did, we did super bad. We had, we had the same strategy, but a much worse deck. Cause we played this like zygote bioplan thing. And we were like, we're just going to beat night March. We're just going to be nine March. And we'd beat all the night, March decks, but we only played two. And Liam got absolutely wrecked, but the best story I have from that world was they they started like looking for Liam due to a Declan error. They said he had submitted multiple deck lists and it turned out that had one nets that year. And some other kid had turned in a list that said, Liam Halliburton's deck across the top. And it was like the 60, he played at nets. Yeah. I have no idea who that kid was, but, but we salute him everything.
Mike:that's hilarious.
Brent:It's hilarious. It is absolutely hilarious. Yeah. It, whoever that kid is, he's a boss. He's a boss. All right. Welcome to the trash lanch as always I'm Brynne Halliburton here with Mike Boucher and Barry privates. Attendance is 100%. We held off for 24 hours and people have been asking on Twitter where their pot is. That's a, but, but I think they know the second, I say a hundred percent of the tenants is important. They know what I'm talking about. So, so excited to give us a little extra time to pull together the best pod for people. Five star review update. We got our 16th five star review, but there was no review associated with it. You know, the gig, you got to leave a review because people say leaving reviews is good. And also we read the reviews, but we appreciate the 16th review of this review. It's a good one. Let's talk about, let's talk about what happened over the last week before we dive into talking about some decks Mike, congratulations on a second place. So what happened in the Pico rom finals at the Sunday open? I
Mike:Our first two games were split in both like really bad games where each of us just drew very poorly and then game three was pretty close. I went. He won the first game I won the second game. So in games three, he got to go second, which is always a big advantage, but it was a really close game. I ended up coming down to him, tandem shocking. My Mewtwo I had about 20 cards left in my deck with three switch left, used research, and the DNA did not hit a switch. So therefore I lost the game. I don't think I would have won immediately on that turn, but I w. You know, I would have obviously lived another turn and had a good shot at winning. So just how it goes sometimes. But yeah, I played against a lot of center scorch during that tournament. And I beat it a lot. But I will say playing against Tom Brophy, I played him in Swiss and then also in top four and against him, the matchup was very, very close list. Has a little bit to do with it. I think playing a great catcher and tend to scorch makes the match up a lot closer, but also he just played the match up much better than the average person. So the matchup still feels good for Pika in general, but against people that really know how to play center scorch, it's much, much, much closer. So I do want to get some more experience with that match begins, people that kind of know what they're doing.
Brent:Was there, was there an approach you was taking those different or was he just having better turns.
Mike:So at the game in Swiss, I think he just, he ran really hot. He got a like he got to go second and he got a turn to 280 with Augusta effect on my tag team. So yeah, so that was just, that was really bad. But then in top cuts, I don't really, I don't know. It's so weird. Like I have to go, I wish I could watch the games because like, as I was playing the games, I was trying to think about what he was doing differently than other people. And I don't, you know, it's, I still can't really pinpoint it. He plays his cards much more, if that makes sense. So like I feel like a lot of people hold their scoop ups and either dry cheese and whatnot quite a lot in the matchup and maybe just in general. And I feel like he was just playing all of them almost immediately. And maybe that would, maybe that's a little part of it. I think he recognizes how I'm going to try to take six prizes. Cause like the cool thing about Pico is that there are so many ways to draw six prizes, whether you set up tag bolt where you're trying to kill two V maxes. And so I think. And a lot of match-ups, but in that matchup in particular, it's a lot of trying to guess how your opponent is going to try and take their six prizes in the most efficient way possible and try to prevent that in the best way possible. So like one game, I remember trying to set up a tag bolt play, and if he did something to prevent me from doing that and it threw me off and yeah, so. I think that's, I think that's a lot of it is really trying to think ahead of how is Peter I'm going to try and take their map out their prizes and do everything you can to prevent that. Yeah.
Brent:Was was Stefanos list any different than your list.
Mike:Whose list, Oh, the guy in the finals, he played an in-center or GX over something else, and that might've been the only change. Maybe over the big term, I forget. But yeah, he played in cinema GX, which didn't come up in our matches at all.
Brent:Yeah. You know, it's weird. I, I definitely feel like when I see these like lightening MuTu lists, I feel like they're getting closer and closer where like, Pretty soon, the only difference will be, do you run a speed, energy or energy like that? That is the difference in these two lists.
Mike:I, I play, I played against a MuTu lightening deck. In one of the recent tournament's that ran for crushing hammer. And I was like, all right. So this is like,
Brent:That's I thought, I thought you cut the for crushing hammer for, for Pokemon and like that's what the Delta is right now.
Mike:right, right. I was like, how did you fit all of this?
Brent:that's crazy. That's crazy. So set of scores, silver Valley was like I think as, as Britt appropriately identified kind of the prevailing new meme of decks of choice, they did either of you guys play some games against that this past week.
Mike:some of the sentence squares games that I played against were against the silver Valley version. It seems far or it, so I can't really speak to say how it is in general. I can tell you the peaker on matchup is pretty much the same. I mean, I can't stamp them to one, but. But again, so kind of going back to the, the matchup one other thing that Brophy did really well is he made it so that I pretty much could never stamp him to what he made it to it like a minimum stamp to, to usually though he would just kill a tag team and then look to kill another tag team. So it's usually just stamped at three. So maybe it's maybe you just play it. Well, that's not really a big deal. Otherwise I didn't really feel a difference in the matchup.
Brent:Brett, have you fooled around with center square? So Valley at all?
Brit:I did I have, it's actually what I won. So I, I mentioned it last time. I had some team challenges over the weekend and I was going to play into, but I won the one I played in on Saturday. And I played some sports to Valley for it. And I wouldn't, I don't pretend to know. I don't consider, I consider myself a son of scorch player, so I'm probably lacking. A handful of facts that the little Twitter inner circle of center scorch player seems to have access to. So I don't pretend to know all the nuances of the Manchez, but I really liked it. I've talked. I've mentioned it before on the podcast that I've felt sent a scorch is clunky at times, and that I thought, or at least preferred the Mewtwo welder deck, because I thought it could dig more aggressively for welder. And I just generally thought that's why. I thought it might be better. And certainly why I liked it more. And then the sun Valley version kind of a swaging, is that concern. You do get to dig a little harder, not just for welders. You're resilient against reset stamps, as we said, but also for things like switches and all the little ways that peaker rom and things like that can be you, you just have a little more. Draw power to Thor, those strategies, or what have you. I like it a lot. I haven't really played this week. Just kind of been getting ready for school, working on my stuff. So I haven't played it all this week, but I plan to. Maybe own in on it a little bit as we're getting closer to the players, cup three starting. I'm not sure when we'll talk about it, that, that again, so I'll probably try to keep some of my preparation for that for when we're on topic about it. But I think it has a lot of power going forward. I would like to know what the head-to-head between the cache Brophy Brophy iteration of center score. I would like to see how they. Do against each other, if, I guess it's maybe just 50, 50 still. I actually played against a lot of like three seven scorch decks and the team challenge. So I guess I have some experience playing the mirror, but Not at the level of these, these players who have been winning headmasters and placing very well with sentence courts over the past week, or just in general too. But yeah, I think it's probably just 50, 50, whoever goes first. And if you get the Volcani Canyon, probably just decides to the match up more often than not. But I thank you. If you stabilize, I don't know. It just felt really, really good. And I loved having. All the extra Pokemon draw. It just felt smooth to me. And I've just never liked. Geraci in these fire decks. I can't speak on like, when it was a soft play on like ADP and picker on that was a little kind of formats ago, a little bit before I started getting back into it, but I just have never really liked the way Geraci feels in low Cephalon or incentive scorch. It's just, it's a lot of, it's a huge package. You play the nets and stuff too, and it feels like you just burn all your switch, trying to dig for welders or trying to dig for your fire crystals and yeah. It's just easier to do that without committing as much with the savali I think. But naturally it's an evolution. Your hand sizes do get big sometimes with lots and lots of welders, lots and lots of giant harvest. So sometimes the Valley isn't drawing any cards. So I've wanted to, I want to toy around with a lower line for sure. And see how that feels to one. Or even one, one, and then on the same token, I'm kind of curious now about just some valleys place and other decks. Are there any other standard archetypes that maybe have a good reason to play the card? It's obviously like artillery, these cards are super duper good and has enough HP that as long as ADP isn't around, like it's not really being threatened or at least in the same way that. Things that could knock out. I guess not work Cory or Denny, but Crow bat are probably like going to knock it out anyways. So it seems pretty safe to me. I can't imagine you would ever attack with it, but it's not the worst attacker if you've ever had to. But it'll be curious to see if it sticks around at all, or if it was just kind of a little one hit wonder from some of the limitless guys, but I like it a lot, at least for the moment.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, it feels like when you compare the lists, it's a little bit of like a cup of Geraci is for silver valleys. I mean to, to your point, like, it's nice to have a drag in the active, but if you're just like straight drawing cards, pretty good. Like, it's hard to imagine putting in another deck though.
Brit:Yeah, that's what I mean. I, I'm not sure. Certainly. I suppose if you ever. Wanted to take crushing hammers out of your standard archetype. Like maybe it would have a place in a dragon deck or something like that. Like you could have you know, I think the dragon boat liken rod to X suffers consistency issues and might be a way to solve that. I mean, you'd have, you'd have to. Cut down on a lot of the combo package for lichen rock, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I see a lot of those lists then they'll like devolution spray or whatever it's called it. Just always, it doesn't, it just looks bad. And the debt class, to me, it just never seems like it's worth that sort of commitment. And maybe you could just meet in the middle and play like in rock and crushing hammers and then maybe devote some space elsewhere. But it's a lot of work to maybe salvage at tier two or tier three deck.
Brent:Feel like there was a lot of tweeting by the, as you described it, the it'll like send a scorch. Twitter inner circle about how like sinister Jewish players are like, you know, maligned and scorch is treated like a an unloved deck. That's true.
Brit:No. I just think they're vocal about whatever their opinion might be in the given week. So all five
Brent:wants to be the underdog.
Brit:All five of them, the American feeling downtrodden than the percentage or the perception rather is that Senate scorch players as a whole are sort of down and trotted or looked down upon and you know, no. Now sentence court is really, really good. We told you the whole time, you know, this is where I, I sort of have had a joke. In relation to this. I remember when Mikey posted his little, little spreadsheet with all the, all the match-ups and things like that. He mentioned send a score scorch specifically that he didn't have enough personal experience piloting the deck to really speak on it. And my joke is just like, why bother the, the, the five players on Twitter have all the data for you? You know, they're, they're grinding the list. They're refining it. They're doing. They're doing well and then poorly, you know, here and there. So it's just like I did, I've just always felt like I've been privy to a lot of, at least statistical information about sentence courts where I, that I don't have access to compared to some of the other type are great time strictly. They're just a vocal, dedicated player base and we don't, we don't have you know, a group of loyalists that are as loud as the sentence coach players, you know, there's not, there's not a group of people talking about LMC. In refining it down to like a science, like they have. I mean, I know I saw it today. Cash just posted a screenshot of his deck and he had played 666 games with Senna score. So it's like when you have that sorts of data, like trust him, like, you know, I, I believe the words he says when he says like, maybe the peaker on matchup isn't as bad as people say, like, Hey, trust, trust the data, trust the science, that sort of thing. But yeah, maybe, maybe there was some sort of just community perception that just didn't take it seriously because it wasn't winning. And it was only a kind of a select few players. So much of the game is kind of predicated on that. Just whatever the top players say. And, you know, obviously Zillow is a great player, but if he wasn't grinding the deck like, like cash and like Thomas has been then maybe his opinion isn't quite as valid, just at least on the deck. I mean no, just the value
Brent:I feel like, I feel like the alternatives players are, are the, are the like overlooked minority man, like that. I feel like that's a deck that like seems to do okay. It gets no love ever.
Brit:I don't know. See for me, like, I, I feel like there's some truth to the way we've been characterizing the set of scorch players. Like they're laboring over something difficult, but they are making progress. Like the center scotch lists really do look a lot different over time. But I wonder if that same sort of progress is possible for it, turn it to, so it just never looks, you know, it just has a lot more, that seems to be necessary before you you've got the poison package and whether or not you play that, but just doesn't seem like there's as much like wiggle room for creativity,
Brent:Well in step one, you know, only dark types, right?
Mike:Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:like, well, let's take three quarters of all possible c'mon we can put in this deck and just be like, well, we're never going to play those.
Mike:Yeah. And there's just.
Brit:guess it turned out and, and to start it out with like nets, which we don't play at all anymore. So like, there has been some refinement to it, but outside of the poison package, not a whole lot. It's just, do you want to play power plants? Do you want to play crushing hammers? Yes or no. Okay. Consistency, if not, is kind of just the way it seems to be build and. You know, sometimes people seem to still hedge against Lou Carrio, but I see stabilize less and less and less and less. Now I think they'll just take that, take that loss. Sometimes you can win it anyways, often Sable I not necessary, but yeah, maybe there just aren't as many dark Pokemon or I guess people too at the start we're toying around with we've aisle and other dark guys in there too. And it's just not fast enough, not reliable enough. Yeah. I mean, I maybe I'll just commit to the, the SAU Valley side and I'll just grind it out and maybe refine the list a bit more.
Mike:Brand's it's going to turn into one of these sentence scores players.
Brent:Yeah, you definitely, you got to join the gang.
Brit:See, I'm still kind of flaking wishy-washy I don't think I'll ever be. I mean, I also, I get, just get like really, really busy in the game and like just really only have time to learn one deck and it's match-ups I just. It's so hard for me to make a decision. I'm, I'm changing. I changed my deck list so many times for any given event and I'll change it minutes before, and I'm just always been that way. And in that way with most things, not just Pokemon, but just kind of life decisions in general and kind of spontaneous, always looking for, you know, other options and things like that.
Brent:I mean, so you had said going into the team challenge, probably going to play peek around. I is your real concern that center's scores will suddenly seem like it's too good. And you'd be like, well,
Brit:No. Well, I actually, I mean, maybe that's part of it. I think I do have some sort of like psychological sort of things going on that underlie a lot of my decisions, but I actually practice quite a bit a lot last week leading up to this, like, I don't know, you know, I know they're not a big deal, but. I wanted to win one, you know, and it felt good just to do it, to do the, have the one and done. So I tested a lot. I played a lot of peaker um, and I played a lot of Madden party. Those are my, those were my that's what I worked on throughout the week, mostly mad party. And I just never could get it. Even when I, I do think the deck is a lot better than when I spoke on it maybe a month or more
Brent:A week ago.
Brit:And so I've gotten better with it and it definitely gets better as you improve your sequencing, but it still just kind of has some issues that I it's definitely good. But I just didn't want to risk it in such a small tournament. Some games, some games you just draw the and I just, I wanted to go something else and then I play with playing picker on and I just. I the, my first game Saturday morning, playtesting peaker rom. I played an extra drill deck and that just kind of scared me. And so that's why I chose something else. Like small tournament. What if I get colossal round one or something like that, it's just going to be a waste of time. So like, what's something that doesn't have like auto losses and the deck just had two really good showings at one on Wednesday. And then. Vinnie from the Brazil one on Thursday, I
Brent:Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely, it was definitely the deck making the rounds.
Brit:Right. And it just seemed it, so I scrambled, I had to trade for the soul valleys, like at the last minute. And I actually, I actually played Vinny's list and not Pedro's list. I'm not sure what's best. But I liked Vinnie plays a second fire crystal. And something else. He doesn't have four, four sentence scorch or four, three sentence court. So it's it's instead of just an, a V and something else. And I thought that felt right. Definitely. The second fire crystal felt like a necessity for sure. I saw a list. I can't remember who it was, but floating around Twitter that was playing the wondrous labyrinth. So I wanted to try that as well.
Brent:And that was the deck that did well last night, I can't remember who was playing it. The, yeah, it was, it was the best of these center. Scorch lists at the Hexter
Brit:Yeah, there's, there's some, there's some wiggle room with it. I'm always kind of a little apprehensive about, I see this a lot with, or no, you see it in mad party. Cause in the mad party list at least Daniel vias is it plays a little one. Radar for, and the only target is to Denny. And I always sort of, I'm always a little sort of apprehensive about that. Like playing lots and lots of search cards for minimal targets. And so in this Valley deck, like the, I felt this in looking at the list as well as playing it, but the cherish balls are often excessive. There's not a lot you can do with the cherish balls. So I think you can play around with them. I want to try great balls. I think great balls might just be better at least some of the time. But I definitely think you can cut a cherish ball. And I think that's where I was going to try to find like another energy a Mark shadow or, or the wondrous labyrinth prism star. I'm not sure what else would be necessary. I'm trying to think of kind of whatever, the main cards between the. The center, scorch Illuminati list. And that one, and the only other really thing that comes to mind is great catcher, which seems, seems very good in the games I've played with their list. I always really liked that card. So that's definitely a consideration for me as well. And again, like, like Mikey says, it's just how you play the match up, which is something I just picked up through their, their Twitter threads is that, you know, you want the great catcher, so you could ignore the bolt-ons and only go after your year three prizes. That seems correct to me. So that might be the right card to put in.
Mike:It seems like it would have synergy with some alley too. Right?
Brit:right, right. You couldn't have
Brent:Right. Or you burn your deck down to draw more cards, right? Or
Brit:play your hand down, draw five hearth, welder game, you know, so on and so forth.
Brent:Yeah, well, that's I always thought the electromagnetic radar in the med party list was super cutesy because I was like, well, I assume half the time you just fail, searching for the data. You're only playing it so you can discard cards, right?
Brit:Games with it where you grabbed the second one, where you grabbed her to deny and just discarded and then your deck a little when it's super late game and you, you're not going to want to. You know, your, your ten-ish cards left or something like you, you see your route to win the game and know that you're not gonna need another one. I've done things like that, but otherwise it always feels a little wasteful, but I suppose you need always need your, your outs.
Brent:So the other guy, the next thing I put down was talking about the 2017 tournament that had happened recently. Zander won it with a SB on garb. Do you guys have any hot takes on the 2017 format?
Mike:So there was one other more recent 2017 event as well. That happened on Sunday. It was smaller than the other one, but Luke Marsa actually won it with. Kind of a new deck. It's a, which was really cool. I watched his stream on an officer at the day. It was Zora rock, but like not George DX, obviously. So it was like in rock GX, the gust up one, which didn't really see any play in that format. But he played that with, you know, zaur stand in and the break and he played a couple of grandpas and two MuTu Ebos. And yeah, and he won that event. I watched him beat a bunch of, you know, draft garbs. I mean, like in rocks, just super, super strong, honestly like your one one-shot and grandpa's your one, wait, does it do one 10 or one 30? I forget. I think it does one 10. Right? So I guess you're not one charting garbs unless they play a rainbow, but you have dangerous rogue available. Honey. So that was really cool to watch. But yeah, I dunno. But otherwise from the first tournament, it just seemed like a garbage door Fest. Like nothing else really did well, except the two Garbutt or decks.
Brit:I I'm happy to see. It's not one that I've ever really thought of since rotation since moving on, but I'm happy to see that it's. It's kind of one of these more recent formats that people are talking about and really high regard, because at least for the ones that I'm experienced I do think that it is actually a pretty good format. A lot of diversity, a lot of close match-ups. Inconsistency more than anything though. There's lots of good drawings, but just like have sort of my main interest in old decks is exactly what Luke Morris approved. I'm just so confident that there's lots of things we missed. And I saw him, I think, before, even around one start and I was just like, yeah, that's going to be good. That's definitely going to, going to be good. I think it would maybe struggle against decidual Y
Mike:Yeah, probably.
Brit:but other than that definitely. I'm going to cherry pick a lot of those other decks. I was really, I was also happy to see Zander when the first one cause he's just, he's sort of maybe my sort of paradigmatic player of SPN garb. He was, he was, he would always, and. I don't remember well enough, but I, I recall never liking the deck as much as a lot of other people, which at this point in time, I think I must just be wrong. It felt flippy to me. I felt at least going into the world's format. I didn't like SB on garbage at all because I thought the guard over a matchup just came down to your confusion flips, but maybe that's just good enough sometimes too, but I always thought it had, I always thought the Zora Ark trampa DEC had a really good SVN guard matchup, but Zander always, really, I remember being in the six prizes group chat with him back then still on, he was always a really strong disagreement. I would, I don't know how it's supposed to play out, but in my experience, which I really haven't touched the format. Since playing it, I just always slept. The Zuora deck was wait favorite. So I'd be curious to see how Xander navigates it, but seeing him win with it, sort of just prove to me that, you know, when you know the deck, you know, the deck and it pulls off all that sorts of thing. I guess I was a little disappointed not to see Sienna win. Cause he sees a lot of success in this format. That's probably what I would have played. If I had the cards, I need to figure out how to get it. Older sets. I don't know if they're like worth more or less. I'm just so I sort of assume it's just expensive to get older cards. It's more expensive than it is to get standard cards, but I actually haven't done too much research
Mike:Yeah. I don't know either. Yeah, I don't even know. I'm not sure I've seen it played in the in them at all. Did I? I'm trying to think that I played in the first one. I think I did, maybe I did. I don't even remember if I played or not. What was this like a week ago? I can't even remember. I think I did play and I didn't do well, and I don't even remember what I played. Cause I didn't. I know, I remember that in AIC. I played decidual at nine tails. Did. Okay. Oh, I played Vesta Quinn. Yeah, that's right. I played best in last week and it didn't go that well. I think I got Garbo toxin and, but it was like a garbage toxin end to like five and just Andrew.
Brent:I just went back and looked at at what my kids did at NIC. I mean, they both played a SB on garb and. They like tell us the rainbow road, they lost a, to a mega guard of war and they took four losses to Greninja
Mike:Geez.
Brit:Oh yeah, that matchup is really bad too. That's also why I
Brent:Yeah. Well, both of them lost in top eight to Greninja like junior sucks, man, where these kids went here, Ninja.
Mike:W bread. What did you play that in AIC? What did you
Brit:I did. Yeah, I actually, I qualified for worlds that year and I had to do it with an AIC performance. I went six and three. I lost my winning in two Stefan actually, but I played decidual I nine tails and I played it for worlds. Two. I don't actually remember if we played nine tails at worlds, but I remember I played decidua without vial plume at worlds too. But yeah, it was good. I'm. And I remember the series with Stefan very well because I got too old, really, really fast. We were, it was a, it was a mirror that he had, he had texts from here and I did not, and he'd beat me very, very badly, very, very quickly. But I don't remember how the rest of my games went, but I just really liked that deck. I like nine tails and my favorite Pokemon. So I think I always, I always try to play it when I can. I always have at the very least Yeah, I'm really blanking. Micah. You were on now. You wouldn't have been on guardian. That was the next year when, because the guardian comes out at worlds and then you were playing it sort of the, the following year against all this Ark.
Mike:but it came, but it but it came out for world. So I played it at worlds.
Brit:Right, right.
Mike:Yeah, I made, I made it through the one
Brit:I guess that's a good question. Worth asking. So we've, we've seems to have centralized around it's the naps format. That's the good one. And is it, do you, do you guys think that it's better than the worlds? One is the world's format? The one where we should be having more old formats for, is it they're both good? What do you guys think? I definitely think I have, I have some thoughts, but it's not something I would really considered, considered until just now, because I'm trying to think other than guard of war
Mike:So, so I think the big culprit. Yeah. So garden Warren glass spot for Pokemon, but I think the big culprit for why people like an AIC better is Guzman. Yeah. Because yeah, I mean for lots of reasons, right. But like, Lysander's just way more balanced.
Brit:I'm trying to think. Just balance wise, what guard of war really does to the creativity. And I think it does stifle it. Some, there are decks. I think that it scares off the Zurich deck. I don't think you can play that one really at all against guard of war. I'm trying to remember if it changed the Metta, I guess volcanic Ryan, because Ryan say, well, how's that top aided to NIC with Volcani in, but I don't think it could really compete with Garda for either.
Mike:Correct, but the ho the holo deck was still on favorite verse guard of war, but at least it was slightly closer, but yeah, straight ball Canyon was very, very bad against Gardy.
Brit:I don't even know what holodeck you're talking about.
Mike:The there was like a Japanese fire homo deck. It was pretty much just,
Brit:Was at the key outweigh the key alley one. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Brent:I have no recollection of this at all.
Mike:I just, well, so I have a very vivid memory of it because I was watching Sam Chen play. It's fine around a Swiss. And it was winning into top eight, who was planning. It's one of the Japanese players with and they split game one and game two. And then in game three on the first turn, Sam goes, Bridget, and Sam's playing trampa guard. Sam goes, Bridget, for trouble troubleshoot. Laylay like plays Laylay for Bridget and then bridge it's for another Laylay. And then you see the look on the Japanese player, like, Oh, he figured out how to play the match up. So that was really funny.
Brit:I always remember. It's always, I guess, part of my little fragmented Pokemon memories, you always remember what the Japanese bring to worlds. Cause it's always a little different. And even like I said, like, even if it's not part of what you remember, you, you get like what I experienced, where they played Garvey Angela and shrine of memories,
Mike:Right.
Brit:that. They're always a little on the. The unique side, but it's been, it's really been a while since I, I mean, I guess we have mega Adino, but for a long time, I think, especially in the games earlier days, kind of the, the Japanese at least had a reputation for just like showing up with something broken. Like obviously the first world they have team magma, which kind of couldn't really be touched. Or at least in terms of the, how the event turned out, it had the best results by like a mile, but it's really been. A long time where I feel like the Japanese, like a collective body of them all brought the same deck and like did well with it. The only thing that really comes to mind for me beyond maybe the Magna stuff is that I remember, no, this was kind of all when I was starting the game. So maybe my perception is wrong, but I remember that when. What's that? What's that called Supreme Victor's when dragon IFB came out, no one in America really thought it was any good. But then the Japanese all have it at worlds. And then the next year, your Lux trompe hall, all your SPDX all play dragon. I, and so I'm, I'm always really interested in moments like that. But nothing else really comes to mind, but it doesn't, they there's just so many more players in general now. So I think it's just harder to track the trends and things like that.
Brent:What else is going on, guys? What are the next steps in the Pokemon team challenge stuff. Do you guys know? Have you guys gotten like special emails?
Mike:Yeah, I think they're still doing the qualifiers. I know my team right now, so we we've had three out of four of my team's challenges. My team is me, Justin Bakari, and will Jenkins. So we're feeling pretty.
Brent:Seems like a good team.
Brit:going to be a hard one to be. I sort of I'm looking forward to it, but I'm sort of envisioning my experience as coaching, like a like a tee-ball team or something as sort of like. Like I just committed. You got it. You play what you want. We're going to have fun. We're going to do your best.
Brent:There's participation, medals all around people.
Brit:to, I speak too disparagingly on the games tore that are qualified from, but I don't, I don't foresee very my team being particularly competitive, but most, most of the people in the team challenge had had a real deck. So that was maybe a little bit more than I was expecting.
Mike:this the first one of their cycle.
Brit:No, it was the second one. So I'm waiting on, I'm waiting on tumor winners, but the person who won the first one has been messaging me, just like, Hey, what'd you play? If you ever want to get games and like hit me up. And I was like, Oh yeah, definitely. I want to take practicing pretty seriously once we get closer to it. And I don't know, I plan to, I guess we don't technically know the format. I can't imagine it will be anything interesting, but sometimes like in magic, when you have these team. Events do you have to juggle multiple formats and things like that. So I think there'll be a meta-game and a strategy to preparing your teams correctly. Like when we did that, went on daunted, did the team challenge against the like rats and carps as well as little subgroup? We didn't end up doing anything, but I was early on, I was talking strategizing. I was like, we bring seven Alterian decks. So I'll be trying to cook up strategies like that.
Mike:Yeah. I think that'd be really
Brit:nuanced than just like, all right, everyone played Pika to your best ability and we will hope to win four games or something like, cause it's four people, right. So it's not like, I don't know how it'll go. I guess you'll all just play at once or something like that. I don't know what the rules will be, but I look forward to learning more.
Mike:And something I, I was talking to will a little bit about was like, are they going to. Ask us to bring different decks, like, and if so, like how do they enforce that? Because maybe yeah. Could, could F all of us bring peek around. I don't, I don't know the answer to that. That'll be interesting to to see.
Brent:Mike would be concerned. Cause it'd be like, well only one person can play the best deck. Now whether that, whether the rest of them got to do.
Mike:Yeah. Right. Well, and it's funny, cause like both me and Bokhari in particular, like Bakari is like known for playing a ton of beaker on too.
Brent:I, in Brita, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think next week at the pod is basically going to be all players cup three all the time. Right? Like people get their keys on the 21st.
Brit:20 seconds.
Mike:So it's like two weeks. Okay. So two weeks from now is player's custody.
Brit:No, it starts on a Monday. So no, maybe that's right. Maybe the 26th is right.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So today's the 13th. So, so next, next pod. We'll talk about prepping for giving the people what they want. Should we talk about this new VG players, coaching TCG players in the video game and TCG players, coaching VG players.
Mike:Yeah, I posted that. Like, I want him to talk about it just, cause I don't know what's going on with this. I feel like there's some bigger movement happening that maybe we are not privy to just quite yet. But yeah, there's some, it seems like a lot of streamers are getting paired up with big VGC people are the TCG people also getting coached and BGC.
Brent:I think so. I think there was something happening there. But I, I just assumed that there was like among us where it was like trying to you know do like a shared sub kind of thing.
Brit:just yeah, to me, it's just your, you know, your. It's just for content creators. It's just like, right. We're gonna make a video today. What to do, what to do. We'll do this this month. You know, it just like, I don't think there's, you know, not to, you know, it's a great idea. I would love for our communities to be a little, a little close. We do always see them just kind of seem super separated, but I don't think there's any sort of like, Build towards anything. And it just seems like kind of something for them to do, but I haven't noticed this on the other thing. And like actually had events I'm like built to a tournament. I think it's, I I'm blanking on her last name, but Jen, she is a VGC organizer in New York. They, she and I saw Raul is involved with that sort of like a Pokemon VVC, TCG, like league of legends, like tournament. So it'd be cool to see more stuff like that. Like, you know, a little subgroups of merit, the marriage of our other interests and things like that. You just need to be proactive about it. I guess.
Brent:Right. Right. What's interesting is I think. Like with content creators because they have to create content. Like if you say, Hey, I want to organize this thing. A surprising amount of them are like, sure, I'll do that crazy. Okay.
Mike:Right. Yeah, we gotta do stuff.
Brent:Otherwise I'm just going to be plant BTCG more or ladder people let's go. But I did watch, I did watch Azule coaching a URI for a few minutes. And I thought it was like, I don't know how they picked it, but he was trying to teach him how to play LMC. And I was like, man, that's that would not have been my first choice
Mike:Well on the.
Brent:over the flare starter.
Mike:On the on the flip side before, right before this, I saw it toward was coaching Wolf Glick, but on ex Codral control. And I was like, I also don't know if that would be
Brent:Yeah. That sounds that's even worse. That's even worse.
Mike:yeah,
Brit:So who do you think, which, who do you think would be better with, again, kind of from a natural perspective or the, would a VDC player be more naturally inclined to adapt? To the card game or would it be the other way around? It'd be interesting to think. I know you have the the Zang brothers, both of them at one point in time are doing well at both games. And obviously both of them are not just average, not just above average, but exceptional players at the video games. So I'd be interested to hear sort of an Aaron has to say about what it was like learning both going back and forth. What sorts of intersections there were and where you had to. You know, learn to do something. I wouldn't have this bad habit. Obviously I play them very casually, but I, I get weaknesses wrong a lot for in the video game because of the card games and like vice versa sometimes too. I remember back in the day too, back when dragon, I guess they're all colorless now. They don't always have colorless weakness. And so I would always get that wrong. It'd be like, Oh no, it's a blister. They're going to kill my right. Cuase I bet their normal attack. Like I did. I always do stuff like that. And I still,
Brent:now, now that that used to be like a big thing back in the day. I think they realized that's hard. So they fixed all that. Now they'd tell you like which ones are super effective. Like they've essentially taken, memorizing all the typing out of the thing. You don't have to do that anymore. Just jump in and I'll tell ya the question the Mike, do you have a perspective? I'm trying to think what the answer is there.
Mike:Yeah, I dunno. So I would guess that it's probably easier for giddy for a video game person to come to the trading card game. I don't really have a good reason why, but that's just kind of my first inclination.
Brit:see, I would think it would maybe be kind of, kind of analogous to the reasons that. The video game always does better on Twitch, but isn't as big of a games. Like, well, people know that video games it's easier to watch. And so I would think that because what's hard about the video game is not, I mean, obviously the battling is very, very hard, but I guess what's hard in terms of a barrier of entry is the breeding and things like that. So I think there's a lot of players who have no idea and are never going to learn that, but could hop in. Could hop into a VGC ranked game and just look at the team composition and be like, okay, like these two Pokemon aren't weak to anything, you know, at least have like a basic sort of guess at what's going on. Whereas say you're a really good video game player, but I've just never, ever dabbled in any card games. Like I think it would be maybe be a little, a little slower to pick up those mechanics, but I don't think either anything of what I've said leads us to a firm answer, but.
Brent:know, it's weird. I always thought like, obviously the breeding's a huge hassle and I always mean, and when we were first picking up the game, we would I would tell people my impression of like the characterization of the difference between. The video game and the card game. It's like the card game was a little bit of like first world problems. Cause it's like you just straight up, you had to buy those cards, man, like bust out your checkbook and buy those cards. There's no alternative. Whereas like the video game, you know, getting good was just like, you're going to just need a lot of time prepared to relax and, you know, spend time on your bicycle. But I haven't said that I recognize like, People, you know, a little that I know about like hacking your DS and all that stuff. And like, why spend all that time on your bicycle? You can just go program all the stats you need. And like, there were issues there, but like, obviously like the players who were inside there, but the thing that always made the video game seem hard, but two things first, they didn't publish the information right. Initially. And they're correcting that now, but initially like, You didn't know what the EVs of any of the Pokemon work. Cause you didn't have to have that on your statute when you submitted your Pokemon in BG. So you would see that like winning, you know DEC what do they call it? Battle box. But like, but you couldn't just sit down and recreate that because if you didn't know what the Eva is, were like, you were just kind of screwing around, you know,
Brit:so much of that too. It just doesn't exist. I am sure. Depending on your level of soft shooting and things like that, it would be easier to track, but I remember you know, I actually played, I never played the VDC, but I played the competitive singles on the smoke on like online ladders. I actually did that before I ever played the card game. And it was pretty okay at it too. But you had to, I had notebooks, like that's how I kept track of things. You had to write it all down and just count and.
Brent:Yeah, that's it. The second thing that always stood out to me about BG. Was you just the sheer amount of stuff you have to memorize.
Brit:much of it too. I heard, I would like to read more if there is anything on it, but I've heard kind of like horror stories of what. Like competitive, I guess. I don't know, video VVC wouldn't be right, but what the playing official competitive tournament stuff like red version and blue version and the yellow version, I've heard like horror stories of what that was like. But I don't, I don't actually know it went into like raising Pokemon, but it just like took hours. It was really slow. Like you would just cause you can just switch and switch and switch and I forget really what goes on. In the early gains, but like there's only a handful of Pokemon that are good. And like I said, psychic Pokemon are all a little too good, but there's lots of goofy ones, but I would be, I would be, I would be curious to learn more about like, what is it the state of like red, blue, yellow, or gold, silver, like competitive in 2020? I wouldn't think it has a pretty good scene. There's diehards for kind of anything nostalgic out there, anything competitive. So I would. I would guess you could probably find it, find a way to find tournaments,
Brent:And if they're doing throw back formats and BG as well.
Brit:right? Yeah. I've got, I mean, people, the VDC player definitely talk about formats, the exact same way card game players do, but I'm not sure how many of them go back with the card game. There's a handful of people that have really been playing since the start, but it doesn't seem to be anyone in the VDC. They'd have to be pretty old. I'm sure. That's been playing that competitively the whole time. It'd be curious to kind of look at their life story.
Brent:You have to craft a format as they kind of rotate through, because there's not like new video games dropping every quarter, like there's with the card game. So, so they're like, we're going to let you play with this one. Now. Now we're going to take out these, like, there's, there's actually a little more like active operation you know, video games like Hearthstone or something like that. Where, where they're like really involved in like designing how they want the format to look from, turn it from, from season to season.
Mike:Yeah, one of my favorite like I played a decent amount of con like casual, competitive, like I played smog on as well. And,
Brent:Yeah, that was our experience. So.
Mike:One one of my favorite things to do was play like Pokemon stadium, rental, Pokemon, that format I think was always super fun to play. And like, if you played against someone that didn't know what, you know, like just kind of like didn't really know what the good Pokemon were. They would get smoked every time.
Brent:I have, I have absolutely no idea what that is.
Brit:Oh yeah, no, that was the best. I really enjoy doing that too. So like in Pokemon stadium, you could like import your Pokemon from your cartridges and things like that, but they were just, they were also like, Three cons of not teams, but just poke them on. And so you could, you could pick an electrode, but it's stats and it's moves and stuff like that, where we're predetermined and you couldn't do anything about it. And so you could build your teams and play the play multiplayer, or do the, like still the single player content through it as well.
Mike:Yeah, Pokemon stadium was fair in 64.
Brent:you just have to like memorize tons and tons and tons of like, know all the different things and how they work. And I'm sure for those, you had to, you had to know the weaknesses and all that stuff. Like.
Brit:they, they have their sort of do, do something similar now with like the codes and stuff like that, that you can, you can just post the QR. It. QR of your code and share it somehow, but I don't think you can do it competitively, but I've always sort of thought that that was at least a potential solution to the barrier of entry for the video game was to just do like rental teams, things like that. Like You know, not pre-con, but just like give players the ability just to like make the Pokemon they want. Like, I just, I don't understand what that would do. And I even offered the alternative. There used to be in Yu-Gi-Oh you used to be able to compete at the card game or the video game, and they were kind of annual versions of the video game that you compete with. Like the same way we get sports games. I always sort of wondered if maybe that wasn't a potential solution. Like you could just like. The VGC card or the VDC expansion pack or something like that. But it was just like, you wouldn't have to worry about you wouldn't have to spend money on if you're just a casual player like me, who wants to enjoy the story or something like that. But then something that makes competing easier. Like, I don't know if they have, at the end of the day, all you want is more chairs, more seats people at your tournament.
Brent:My
Brit:why you would hate it as
Brent:I fear our bodies is veering into like worst spot ever. Cause I think we're talking about stuff that we let know like so a little bit, but I think you're right. I think they actually did solve all that. Like I think it's like rental codes now and you can just like download any team and try it out. And it's like super easy and maybe you can't use them in tournaments, but I think the idea is you can. Essentially like click and build any Pokemon you want now and just try like competitive teams. And then when you lock it, the team, you have to breed it, but they made breeding much, much easier too. So, so my impression is all that stuff has been made super easy, which is like a little sad because for me as a poker dad, like I felt like the one thing I contributed to my kids when they played the video game was like, I was happy to sit there at night and like push that bicycle, man. I could go online and find somebody who would trade me a five you know like a six IVF ditto with like all that stuff and sit on that bike. And my kids be like, Oh my God, dad, you just fully changed the game for us. You're the best ever. We got good. We got good poker about now. It's crazy. All right guys, next week, let's talk players, cup strategy, tell people what they got to do. I know we are like super dialed in for this player's cup. More so than any player's cup ever.
Mike:Yeah, we're winning me and Brett are both winning.
Brit:I hope to qualify.
Brent:winning, winning. There's no alternative.
Brit:I mean, I'd like to win, but I'll, I'll save my winning luck for a real tournament. I think
Brent:Lou players cups is really the gets right now. Mean, I, I have to agree with the people who say like you know, the online tournaments are kind of a thing, man. Like, I appreciate it. Mike's hot streak right now, man. We, we gotta win what what we can we'll win any
Brit:say that Mikey is the best like old school player. That's by far that's seeing success online, which is as an old school person, myself, not quite as old as Mikey, but that's what we root for.
Brent:Although I saw, I saw rasa hopped in with blinds again the other day.
Mike:Yeah, we were, we were talking during the tournament. Yeah. Got he got top 16.
Brent:There you go. All right, guys, I'll see you next week.
Mike:All right. Have a good one, guys.
Brent:Another part in the books.
Mike:I gotta go cause I'm playing in this 2018 event that just,
Brent:All right, take it easy guys.
Brit:later.