The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 25 - ADP list dissection, Gamestop, Worlds Format, Designing formats, Azul's Patreon, Players Cup 3, Pikarom, ADP, The pod where I accidentally pause it and then we restart the pod.

January 27, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 25
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 25 - ADP list dissection, Gamestop, Worlds Format, Designing formats, Azul's Patreon, Players Cup 3, Pikarom, ADP, The pod where I accidentally pause it and then we restart the pod.
Transcript
Brent:

So, so I, you know, I feel like I have do it with the same, the big unroll players cut three results, but I assume everybody's played some keys.

Mike:

Yeah, I played

Brit:

I played a little bit more today.

Mike:

Yeah. I played five Britt. You said nine. You played. Yeah.

Brent:

All right.

Brit:

Well, we'll get up play more tomorrow. I don't have to go to campus for my TA class. The class I. I TA for, so it's all online. So I, and I TA for it last semester, same class, same book, same everything. So I just played the entire time yesterday and we'll do the same and tell him, I think this is how I found the time.

Brent:

it's magic. It's magic.

Mike:

before we have, before we really start, have you guys, have you guys followed at all this game? Stop stock thing.

Brit:

I D I have I've I've bought into AMC. I don't know. I'm trying to the next week.

Brent:

I am trying not to pay attention to it, but, but it's so big, apparently that is not possible.

Mike:

Yeah, it's just,

Brit:

really funny. I don't know. I don't know.

Mike:

it's really

Brit:

things I would say I know less about than the stock market. So to me, it's just, I don't know. I think I understand it enough to maybe make a quick book, but I don't really expect anything beyond that.

Mike:

Well, yeah, I'm certainly not investing. I was just, I didn't really realize the effects. Like I had heard murmurings of it and like the last week or so, but until this morning, I didn't realize how big the losses were for some of these hedge funds.

Brit:

I thought about putting it in the podcast agenda, people seem to, or at least people are never critical when we occasionally jump off into current events for a second or two.

Brent:

think, I think people, people love this. If people have a hot take, I mean, you know, what's funny is obviously betting against GameStop seems like a safe thing.

Mike:

Right, right, right.

Brent:

Like, I don't like the idea that, that, you know, that hedge funds can make money on something that's like, so obvious me, I don't trade at all. I'm a big believer in like random, all through wall street and like, you know, I don't have any information advantage on anything. Why, how could I possibly like, be betting on stocks? That seems like a horrible idea.

Brit:

I think it's just hits the hot, it's just the quarantine hot spot thing right now. Like people, people have the app now, like people, you know, so people were getting into Robin hood sort of initially. I think I was taking on as their quarantine project or what have you, that was some people decided like, Oh, I'll just, I'll just learn how to trade on the apps and stuff. And you know, it's cool last for about a year or something now. And boom, it was the perfect storm of just nonsense.

Brent:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike:

Okay. Yeah, I haven't edited, I haven't put anything on this week, but it looks like we got good stuff to talk about.

Brit:

Yeah, I thought so

Brent:

I'm pretty sure we can just talk about clear step three, basically the whole time, even though I have like a couple of other things

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

to talk about and that'll make people super happy, you know? A game stop. Be crazy though. And it is, it is funny to me when people short stocks and then get wiped out because like the funny thing about shorting stocks is it's like capped upside unlimited downside.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

And w when they start to get like chewed up, It's absolutely hilarious. You know, and yet, and yet like what's upsetting is every time you say, I mean, I'm sure all those guys, the whole way through are like, but yo GameStop is going out of business. Have you ever been to a game stop?

Brit:

No. I mean, I think that has to be a lot of it. I think part of it was like, Well, let's just take this clearly does junk store. Now this that's just been relegated to like nerd culture, cringe store or whatever. Like I think that's part of why it's so good is that it's just some awful store that no one ever wants to go to. And it's just.

Mike:

Yeah. When I'm writing, it's just like, fuck it. Let's do it.

Brent:

Yeah, well, and like, like the weird thing, like I am, I recognize all these hedge funds. They're like, okay, you know, we're, we're theoretically out of billion dollars, but like, it has the turnaround cause game stuff sucks. And then they're like, we're up$2 billion. But like, it has to turn around because GameStop sucks and the guys are like, you know, you're out like$2 billion. You gotta, you gotta find some cash. And they're like, but if we just wait it out fine.

Mike:

Yeah. I don't know if this is mathematically true, but the funniest comment I saw, it was like for every$12, the game stock stock goes up, these headphones lose a billion dollars and that can't be mathematically true, but like the concept is true,

Brent:

No, you know, it it's, it's probably not far off.

Mike:

right.

Brent:

I mean, you know, w when you're shorting a stock, it's only like$20. Like you gotta, you gotta go heavy. To like generate enough risk. And I'm sure, like, what I do hate about these hedge funds is, I mean, their PR they probably went and leveraged to the gills. Right? Cause like that's how, that's how they get outsized for terms for themselves is, you know, they put up a, you know, a a hundred million for their money and they buy a billion dollars worth of the stock. And then, you know, when it changes 10%, they're like we doubled our money, you know? Well, when we doubled our money, So, so like, yeah, in that way, I feel like people that get that leveraged in an effort to make money. I mean, on the one hand, I can say you should become an investment banker. Like it's just easier to make millions and millions of dollars as an investment banker than I think almost anything else. But I also recognize that the whole argument of like these people never really make anything.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. They're not contributing like any service or good.

Brit:

the kind of reminds me, I meant to mention it to you guys over break. But one of the books I read recently was called like it's called bullshit jobs. There are no more bullshit jobs. Have you heard of that? It's fairly recent. Mean, I'll link it in the chat, but it's on just that it's on this sort of just culture that we've created, just like ever like have so many in so many people's jobs as do nothing, generate nothing and they know it too. And it's just, it's just kind of funny nonfiction about this whole sort of sector. I'm trying to remember it all. They're really, they're really good examples. Corporate lawyers. I remember one of them

Brent:

Oh, speed. Speaking of which, how did, how did snow crash in for you, Mike?

Mike:

I'm almost done. I got like 80 pages left. It's very good. It just I, it took a little bit to get over. The sense of any given chapter could be from any random characters perspective. And then. And then you never like really, I mean, it does play into like the whole story, but it's like, then you really never hear from them again kind of thing.

Brent:

So, so after you were like, Oh, I don't know if this is going really well. I went and said, okay, let, lemme, I'm gonna throw, throw a some love your way. And I went and read Seveneves. I I'm at about the same place you are. I'm like, I'm like 10% into the year, 5,000 or something,

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. So you're in like the second half of the book.

Brent:

yeah, I'm, I'm in the, I'm in the last third of the book and I'm like maybe 15, 20% through that. But the, I had to go look at when it was published and it was published in 2015, because my, my reaction to the first half of the book, I had two thoughts when you read this book, right? Brit

Brit:

What's wrong.

Mike:

No, I don't think

Brent:

Oh, okay. Okay. I thought, I thought you had said something nice about it previously. Two thoughts about it first. I definitely, definitely thought this was Neil. Stephenson's attempt to write the Martian.

Mike:

Okay. I saw the movie, but I didn't read it.

Brit:

I know what it is. I never, I haven't seen it either.

Brent:

it is an excellent book, much better than the movie. If you're, if you're looking for another scifi book and that's, that is a really, really good book. But Neal Stephenson definitely has these like, regressions into like how the nuclear reactor works that are really only there. So he can show you that he somehow knows how a nuclear reactor works. Like, like it's, it's just like tangential to the story. It doesn't apply. It's just like engineering detail after engineering utopia. And in that way, it's kind of like the Martian, but not nearly as good. But I think read the Martian and he was like, I should write a book like this. This would be really. And then my second thought was that the, like the middle chunk of the book, there's an element of kind of in say a foresightful Trump, Trump is populism there. Then I thought it was interesting where like of the 1200 people who were living in outer space, the, the experts of the United States is like, We should shoot into space. We should, we should abandon all these people because they're not valuing the idiots that we send into space and you any attempt value.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Brent:

And they're all like, yeah, we're not scientists, but we do have value. We're going to do our own thing. And then like, you know, a hundred pages later. It's like, well, they're all dead.

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't, yeah, I didn't, I didn't make that connection to the populism, but yeah, that's true.

Brent:

Yeah, like I read it. And I was like, if you wrote this in 2018, then this is an allegory for the United States political system. But instead he wrote it in 2015, which I guess means it's merely a preface in some way. Right.

Brit:

I think there's a lot of that out there. It's something I've encountered like odd sort of. Precursors to what would become Trumpism, like really kind of floating around in until the intellectual waters and stuff around 2014, 2015 and stuff. I mean, it's like, we're almost jarring going back sometimes. Like for instance, since even just have you, either of you guys seen arrested development? Well, the first one Netflix season is which isn't any good. I don't, I don't like any of the Netflix stuff, but it's about, it's about they're running, Lindsey is running for office on the platform of building a wall, like between the U S and Mexico, you know, and there's all sorts of stuff, but there's just like lots of that stuff just in pop culture and stuff. And it's just so strange to see it now later. Like, it seems like that it seems like we, we encounter these narratives where it seems like it had to have been. An allegory or something like, like even the, the most recent mad max movie is a good example too. Like, it's just so like this was before, like stuff like that. I would just keep running into it. And there's there's other stuff and Asian cultures too, not in Trumpism, but similar sort of calls to the past are very relevant in like Japanese politics currently, too. It's it's interesting, but sorry,

Brent:

Yeah, well, and, and now, now I think the problem, all the writers have is like, you know the, the truth is stranger than fiction. Like what are they going to do? That's like more outlandish than what already happened. There's nowhere

Brit:

Oh, I mean, that's what happened to South park. Cause they have, they had a season where Trump was supposed to lose and they just didn't know what to do. The, it was all clearly built on him, him not winning. And then there's like, The season's bad now because we had serialized the whole season on him losing.

Brent:

Right? We had, we had to keep writing and we thought it was going one way and went the other, and now we're at now we're doomed.

Brit:

All right.

Brent:

All right. You guys ready?

Mike:

Let's do it.

Brent:

Trash lanch. I it's me, Brett Halliburton. I here as always with Mike crochet and breath. Pybus it's amazing how I think the thing that has like come out, if there's anything approaching a meme for the podcast, it's the attendance. It's 100%.

Brit:

it, I think that speaks very largely, very loudly about me. There's not a whole lot, I can guarantee, but I'm reliable. I'm I'm on time. I'll be there. You know, I don't know. I'm I'm I'm the worker, the worker bee or something, right?

Brent:

Yeah. If there's, if there's one thing people can count on it is that we will do the bud,

Brit:

I will be where I'm supposed to be. If I can.

Brent:

but, but we did, we did pick up our 17th five star review this week. Woo. All right. Here. Here's here's the review guys. Awesome podcasts with probably the best minds in the game. Hey transplants podcast is coming from becoming ether real on Twitter. This is definitely my favorite Pokemon TCG podcast. It's the most reliable in terms of attendance and game information. It's definitely an important part of my weekly routine. I really enjoyed the knowledge of the game. These people have. So definitely give it a listen for a suggestion. I'd love to see more of what y'all did with magnets. You taking a deck and looking at it, match up by matchup specifically in the harder match-ups like talking through a peek around mirror match going first, what your goal should be. Thanks for all your hard work. That is a nice one.

Mike:

I think we

Brent:

is we need a deck that is not a peek around, become the second format. So we have a reason to talk about it.

Brit:

we could do ADP next week. Maybe Mike and I both seemed to be pretty high on it currently. I think in our initial 4:00 AM the players cup three. So maybe, maybe that's something we could do next week. I don't know. It doesn't seem like either of us are really. Talking about any other decks for the players cup, which we'll get into other than ADP and Pikachu. And since we've done peaker rom, already maybe an idea.

Brent:

We, you know what? We might have to talk about that a little bit this week, because I played 3d three keys at ADP last night and I definitely had the Brit private sands.

Brit:

I mean, I've had them, I draw out of them, but I've had a lot of really terrible openings.

Brent:

It was, it was tough. All right. So before we jump into players' cup, I had a couple of things that I think at some level, I just wanted to say, when I reflected on last week's podcast, as I was editing and I was like, Oh man, that was a point that I wanted to make. We talked a little about how, like the, the challenges with top cuts and I realized one of the things that I should have said is like, I talked a little about how juniors and seniors are frequently, like right near that number for an extra round, but they don't get over. And that causes problems. I didn't one of the real challenges with worlds is, I mean, they always lock it at one 28 to essentially guarantee that's the case, right? Like it's like the most players you can have without having that one extra round. So you there's always this like huge kind of bubbly thing where people are like, if it had been slightly different, I would have been in top 32 or top 16. Like there's a lot of, if I win this I'm in top eight and if I lose I'm at a top 32, like. Horrible kind of outcomes for people. And I thought that Baird dev engineering.

Mike:

Yeah. Least in masters. It's been weird because some years, yeah, you're like right below, like some years have been like, like literally 127 people. And then some other years it's like 129 or 130 people. And so you're always right around the threshold and the fact that. Different worlds had different numbers around just like plus or minus two people is kind of disappointing because the like the years that you go over have felt much fairer, I would say,

Brent:

Right. I mean that one extra round gives you so much more clarity.

Mike:

yeah, like there was like, I remember specifically world 2015, like three.

Brent:

recording, dude, a head recording. Pause, man. I'm the worst. Oh my God.

Mike:

okay. Let's run it back, run it back,

Brent:

Let's run it back. Welcome to the podcast. It's trash Linux podcast. I'm Brett Halliburton here with Mike crochet and Brett Pybus. We did the central already, but we'll do it again because I forgot to hit the start button. I remember that. I think that happened once with Mike on the one of the six prizes pods, like he had

Mike:

multiple times, multiple times.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. So the good news is we were only like five minutes in before I realized that. That big stop recording or start recording thing in the top corner, it was like a leading indicator that I've messed something up. Amazing. Amazing. We attendance is always 100%. We are all here and let's talk about it. We got our 17th five star review this week. Let me tell it to you guys. Awesome podcast. We're probably the best minds in the game. Hey, trash and his podcast is coming from becoming either real on Twitter. This is definitely my favorite Pokemon TCG podcast. It's the most reliable in terms of attendance and game information. It's definitely important part of my weekly routine. I really enjoy the knowledge of the game. These people have. So definitely give it a listen for a suggestion. I'd love to see more of what y'all did with magnitude taking a deck and looking at it, match up by matchup specifically in the harder match-ups like talking through a peek around mirror match going first, what your goal should be. Thanks for all your hard work. Becoming the real was the person who tweeted at us that he needed the pod last week. And I was like, slow to get it out. So he was like, let's go, let's go. Let's go. So he is actively engaged with the pod and we appreciate him. He's awesome. Thanks for the review. It makes the pod better.

Mike:

Yeah. And we had discussed. The perhaps we'll do a little bit of a deep dive on ADP Z either today or next week. It is a little hard for us to just pick a random deck to go deep dive in because you know, we're only experts on the decks that we play a lot of. And it's hard to be an expert at every deck. So if we wanted to do something else like a, you know, sent to scorch or something else, we'd, we'd have to bring somebody in. That's more in tune with it than us.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, we are definitely not the I mean, I reckon. There's there's like five YouTube channels where they're like, they give you that for every deck. We are not that we, not that they're like we played every deck this week. And we'll tell you the ins and outs of how play every day only we do that. Having said that, I think we're, we're all playing a bunch of ADP right now. So we'll, we're going to talk about ADP a little, I think let's see, how far did we get into this topic of discussion?

Mike:

Not very far.

Brent:

Th th that was when did I? Yeah, we missed that whole thing, right?

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Let let's go back. Cause you know, w we were talking a little bit about GameStop before the pod, and it made me think of Sam Chan and how he would probably have a really interesting perspective on the game. Stop a minute. That that's the kind of, that's the kind of interviews I imagine is doing on the pod. Like we have some chat on is talking about finance for a second, and then we kick them off.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. We don't want to hear you talking about Bhagavan. Did.

Brit:

He's really the only come on person. I would, I would need to hear that talk about this. Cause like once you've heard him talk about it, like, and no one else is going to come close to it, like you're just going to get someone flipping cards, trying to explain the economy two years, like, Oh, I could listen to that. Or you can talk the same chin I'll I'll let the same chin explain it all to, for me.

Brent:

Exactly. As, as I've always said, the interview I want to do is have a JW on here and we ask them about like being a professional bassoon player, and then we kick them off. That just seems like the kind of interviews we should do. So, so the, the, the point that I wanted to make is we had this conversation about top cut last week. And I realized, like, I kind of talked about how for a lot of juniors and seniors, they're like right near the bubble of having another round or having a day two at the really, really big tournaments. And then you know, I kind of wish we had one more round to drive the clarity around it. And, and I realized after the POTUS, I was editing that, like, I think some of the situations we were talking about worlds is a situation where that's always the case because Pokemon's target is to have 128 people in day two. And that, that 128, like they specifically cut it off there because that's where they would have to add another round and they don't want to do that. So they're trying to like squeeze it. But the problem is when you have 128 people, like you just have all that variance out at the edges.

Mike:

Yeah. And, and it's unfortunate, different worlds have looked differently because sometimes you go a little bit over the 128 to 120 930, and you get like, you start to question like the legitimacy sometimes of one world result to the next, like world's 2015, I think four. Five one one's missed cut like nine, 10, 11, 12 are all five, one, one, they all missed cut. And if you had one extra round all the six, one ones would make top eight. W so it's just so unfortunate that plus, or minus one or two people make such a huge difference.

Brent:

Yeah, well, and what if people like Ross and Andrew Mahal and you're like, yeah, they should get that. I mean, and obviously one magical cure for that is asymmetric cuts. Which everybody agrees is, is something that everybody should just do starting tomorrow. Like asymmetric cuts are good, but, but yeah, that, that, like, but, but the thing I don't love about the asymmetric cuts is, I mean that same problem where they kind of bump out to top 12. I'm sure. I mean, they're between top 16 and top 32 at worlds is big, but it, between top 32 and top 64 is gigantic because you get the swag. So, so I I'm sure if that's the case for top aid, like the, there must have been, you know 10 or 15 guys with the same record that are, you know, all through you know, they're essentially like 12 through 22. I know like some of you are top 16 and some of you are not, I mean, you know, there there's all these like you know, four to one people that are like 24 to 45. And salty, salty, salty, salty, salty, because they're like, man, like I get the bag.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

The bags are nice. All right. So the other thing I want to talk about was I think virtually everyone that's not us has had some comments on that quote that Luke Morrison was circulating on Twitter, about how Pokemon is aggressively trying to. Dumbed down the game. So new players can beat the best players in the world because all the outcomes are random.

Mike:

Yeah. And I don't know. I do remember seeing that article whenever it came out a year or two ago. I don't know. It's not like super surprising to me, like the. The design is clearly starting with starting with that restroom. And Zachary rom that came out in black and white. Like that was, that was it. That was the beginning of all of this. And, but I don't think it's like, like, yes, sure. The game is simpler, but I don't think it's like, there there's still ups and downs. There's still ups and downs of good and bad. So I don't. I don't see it as necessarily a inherent flaw in the game that is driving the, gonna eventually drive the game to non competitive status.

Brent:

Brett did. Yeah, you must've been some reaction to all this activity on the Twitter.

Brit:

Excuse me. I think it's funny when you cop that, just like all everyone, but us common, dead. We're just not, we're just passive observers. And then we'll mull it over

Brent:

to save our

Brit:

You know, we don't feel the need to get in engaged in sort of a, the charged, the charged arguments that these sort of disputes can lead to now. I mean, it's disheartening in a way, for sure. Like to see a confirmed in this sort of way, like. I mean, I think we've all more or less been talking this way for a long time, whether it was sort of officially in an interviewer on paper somewhere really didn't make too much of a difference. But I think I've really given my. Sort of take on this a number of times then that is that like, yeah, like I would, like, I would prefer to be playing the older version of the game too. But I'm here for other reasons too, that aren't necessarily grounded in like, whether the game is good or not good. Quote unquote, like if I didn't want to play, I wouldn't as I've, as I've said before. And so I, I think like I understand people's frustrations and concerns, but. I'm optimistic. This interview is from a while ago, this isn't, this isn't an interview from like yesterday or something. That's just like putting the nail in the coffin, you know, things change, plans, change. And so clearly we've coalesced on certain of certain ideas being kind of the norm compared to the past, but they could keep getting better. There's always new mechanics and things like that. But I don't think I really have too much to say beyond that other than like, I just think people that, like, if you just really, really are frustrated, you just need to take a break and not play, and then maybe you can come back like me to these formats that are just clearly You know, no one would pick these formats out of a hat and say, let's play this one. Everyone would throw up, throw it back in and try to choose another one. But you know, it's still fresh new. I, I took considerable time off from the game and I think maybe that's a large reason why I'm continuing to be able to like, enjoy it in these sort of different terms at the very least. So I would maybe consider that as well, but it is what it is. If you don't want to play you, don't got to.

Brent:

Yeah, I agree with you. I feel like there's no question. I assume whoever's like Pokemon PR sees that quote in print and said. As, Oh my God, don't say stuff like that, man. Like what the heck is wrong with you? You can't be saying that like you know, I mean, even if that's a, it's a political, like don't say the quiet part out loud, you know, but I mean hopefully, maybe like they see some of this like public quote backlash or something and they, they take it to heart a little bit. Like I mean, I don't think you want that for the game. I mean, if. If that's their goal, what they should do is like make rares more common, like give people good decks. Like I don't, you know, I mean, chess is really hard. Right. And chess is entirely deterministic. We talked about a lot of the pod, like good players, never lose the bad players. Does that mean like bad players? Like, like little kids don't take up chess. Cause they're like, if I play somebody better than me, he's going to drum me. Like, I mean, but.

Brit:

I think I saw this last week. So I'm an 18 year old. I think he was published, beat the world, the grant and the world champion, Magnus, Carlsen, and some tournament. And I'm sure that's probably a big deal. He was probably this kid, presumably was not as, not the better player. Like presumably Magnus is still being the best player in the world or one of them that even in a game like chess, the best player, doesn't always doesn't win every single time. I mean maybe I, I, I don't know enough chest to feel super confident about that assessment, but I thought that it was just a cool little factoid to share.

Mike:

Yeah. And I, so my other thought about this is that. I kind of agree to at least some extent of making the game a little simpler. I don't, I think we've probably you swung the pendulum a little bit too much. But honestly, like, I don't want to see a card with a wall of texts, like dust nor level X. Again, to be honest with you, I understand why they don't want those types of cards that are like little tiny print, and you gotta understand like a lot of different, like. To play that card and understand all the different interactions was a lot. And, and it was like played on top of the dust nor from storefront that also had a million words on it. So like, Like, if you played against the dust nor deck, and you had never seen those cards before, you would have no idea what was actually allowed or not allowed. You were kind of just like at the mercy of your opponent explaining and like trusting them that they were doing the right thing. So I understand trying to make it a little bit simpler than that. Again, like I said, I think like things like ADP and the V maxes that are like really straightforward and just really big or a little bit, perhaps too much the other way, but I think there's a good middle ground. And I think we saw that with a lot of the, a lot of like the evolution GX Pokemon. I just think that that was like a really nice middle ground of, of complexity.

Brent:

Right. As, as you know, I'm on the record saying I was a big, big fan of GXS because it was about time. They made a false Pokemon bigger than he exits. Right? Like there should be a, you know, like an incentive to evolve. Pokemon evolution is awesome. So yeah, the, the other thing that I had made as a note, and then forgot to say last week is. And in that, in that same kind of vein, we talked about expanded a lot last week and I realized I never got to say how much I realized when I looked at all the expanded decks that did well. So how much I hate quick ball and how much I felt like quick ball is further proof of like an attempt to ruin the game because quick balls, just an incentive to play big basics, you know, as long as you don't play that solution deck, we're gonna give you a card better than ultra ball.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

But if you want to play an evolution that, well, then we're going to punish you because you either play evolution, incense and quick ball, like, like, you know, you play this card that doesn't work as well. Whereas quick ball is like the super you know, utility, a, a knife for all situations. If you're playing a big basic day,

Brit:

that's what I mean, when I've said before, like expanded us all, it doesn't feel like. It's actively part of the design philosophy. It just feels like it's something, there is something that TPC I brought about to make the game more like magic or something. And then in that, but then in the, the cards themselves in the design, it's just exactly this. And this is why I've said I've talked before about how like great catcher comes out and then it doesn't work anymore. And then, you know, we have these tags. Tag calls and tag team supporters. And then they're only there for a set and you get, just get all these weird interactions. And then the new cards are always just the best and in sort of terms of the utility and things like that. And then it just feels like It just feels lost in the design and maybe I'm being too charitable for magic. I don't, I don't pretend to know every time, like when a new set comes out, how it affects standard versus how it affects legacy and how it affects modern and things like that. But I just, I'm confident that there there's more put into it for that there's cards that come out. And a retail set and a brand new set that are meant for different formats. And I just don't think that's something we get with Pokemon. And that leads us to these scenarios. Like Brent's talking about exactly here. Like, just like, there's just why play other cards you've got, you know, and so on and so forth. And that just seems to only continue to happen. So as I've said at a time or two before, I think maybe backing off a little bit. I don't think maybe now my tinfoil theory is. Not that they'll get rid of expanded, but I just think they have to do something different. I think they have to change the sets. They have to release the modern masters that was tropical beach. Just they have to do something new. I just don't think we can just keep releasing sets and occasionally banning cards and have two separate healthy formats. So it just doesn't seem realistic.

Brent:

Yeah. You know, probably another good example of that is I know like I thought I was, I was really down when they released U2 and mew tagged in GX. Cause I was like, well, disability is completely disgusting. Like how could this not be a top of your deck? And that was rotates out. And then essentially they fixed that problem, fixed with air quotes by like just not having any more GX spoken one after that. But, but like that essentially sucks all the innovation out of like deck building, right? Like the whole point was you print more GX Pokemon and like, you got to continue to evolve. How you think about how you want to use this card, because it's, it's like an interesting thing, you know that's lamb slain. So yeah, I, I'm a fan of you know, trying to figure out how to make it more skill-based. I mean, I, you know, it, I mean, if a design philosophy was, I want a new player to be able to be the Zul I don't want, I don't want that at all. Like, I want a new player to be like, man, beat me like a drum that that's what should happen. But but yeah, I, I appreciate it. I think that's a really good insight, Mike, that like the answer is not wallet a cause there are definitely cards out there and games out there that are like, here's how we, here's how we make our game complex. It seems like there's.

Mike:

There's lots of ways to make interesting cards that aren't like so complicated. No one can understand. And, and the one, the other thing that I feel like I heard Luke say that I also very much agree with is. I just wish they would make more or they should make less filler cards. So maybe just make some more, just slightly interesting things that may or may not end up being playable, but at least make them interesting and not, you know, this does 70 for two energies.

Brent:

So, so before we jump to the players, Guthrie stuff, I thought we should do a quick add for channel fireball. They, they pay for our editing software and our hosting and stuff. So we appreciate them very much for that. I didn't see anything on there that I thought was really important to talk about, but I did see a Zulu who is a prominent channel fireball top 10 list maker is now doing VODs for his Patrion. Which is an interesting thing. And I don't know if channel fireball benefits, right. But you know, hopefully the pumping up a visual somehow helps them. I don't know if you guys saw this, but now he's letting people who subscribed to his Patrion, post their games, and then he will bod their games. I think that's super good.

Mike:

Yeah, that is really cool.

Brent:

And I always thought, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like azoles bods are like the best video content about Pokemon. Like. On the internet, every time I was going to do a bottom, I was like, it's just very thoughtful and underscores that he's gonna poke around.

Mike:

Yeah, he does really good videos. Terrible articles, good videos.

Brent:

Yeah. And most of his videos, I have like very mixed feelings about, but, but when he does the, when he does like the VODs of like copy of regionals and stuff like that, I always feel like, like, I mean, that's how he kind of ended up like kind of segwaying into the commentary business. I think what people saw as bonds and were like, That's the kind of analysis people want. Right. I mean, he's able to identify misplays you know, then people are making in the final rounds of games when like the misplays are just like very edge cases.

Brit:

I need to watch them. I'm entirely unfamiliar, but it sounds useful for me as I'm trying to improve.

Mike:

Yeah

Brent:

he, yeah, he was, he's heard of

Brit:

Yeah, I don't, I don't consume like any. Phocomelia content I read, I always read, but I've just never, I used to always watch every video PUCO would post I've watched all the urgent, the old top cuts, but I just, I just don't consume YouTube or anything like that in terms of Pokemon anymore. I should, I should do a better job because I like these people and I like supporting them and stuff. But I guess I watch Pablo, I take that back. I do watch his, I have watched his videos a couple of times recently.

Brent:

No. It's interesting. Yeah. I, I was wondering with, with like the collapse of six prizes, I was wondering how much that's tied to like this whole YouTube Twitch streaming content creator, like thing. I, I recognize, I mean, we're all relatively speaking old guys and like, we kind of grew up on like, let's read, Hey train, or let's read six prizes like that kind of stuff. And I assume people coming into the game now, once again, air quotes. They're they like consume video content. Like that's what the kids do. Right. And watch Tik. And then they consume video content.

Brit:

no, I'm sure that's a good question. I don't know. Yeah. Would be a good thing to ask, like ask a couple of the newer, newer people who are newer, but obviously very good. Like Kevin Clemente and people like that come to mind, like, what did. What kind of content that they start consuming, because especially now I wonder if there's anyone who's good. And also like only has been involved in the online scene. Like, cause a lot of people I think would probably still have this story. I was like, Oh, I just went to league and met someone who was competitive and it snowballed from there. But I, you know, with league not being an option, it'd be curious to learn how people are getting into the game. Otherwise. I mean, I know how, but more specifically.

Brent:

Yeah. Well, I mean, what's funny is I guess when I think about top players, they all ended up writing articles for these websites. So. Ask do read articles or you just watch videos. Like I wonder if you kind of skew your sample in some way.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

I mean, maybe you're gonna ask these guys that, that are like doing well online, but didn't have like a presence before, like Brophy or pokey, Hawkeye or something like that. If they watch videos or if they read articles or how that works. That's a weird thing though.

Mike:

That's a good point. The I want to shout out just one channel firearm, bah channel and fireball article. I read Grant's yesterday. He talked about a Zuora or a zero checkmate list and expanded, and it was it's pretty crazy list. Scott, like obviously it has Negan, Adele stinger. But it has the Radic Cate that for a triple acceleration puts them to 10 HP doesn't run laser though. It runs N NY Alego GX that like poisons them. They weren't trying. It runs the Geraci prism, Mr. Mime combo. So you can do stinger into radicating into dry, like on a GX on just a two Prizer. If they don't run a three Prizer, you can still take three prizes in one turn with the draggy prism combo. So it looks like a really cool deck that I will probably try at some point.

Brent:

So how would it be your shot block then?

Mike:

I don't think I can just had to look at the list real quick. Think about that, but yeah, I don't, I don't think it could be that deck, but, and I'll, I don't think I could beat any stall deck, but.

Brent:

Yeah. Like that's the challenges, like if, if you never take prizes, like they can set you to three, but can they set up a board state where they can win up for that? Right.

Mike:

Yeah. And this list, this list definitely not only runs three triples that's its only energies. So like it can stinger and then it has two energies to take three prizes. So that's right. That's impossible against, unless you somehow, well. So in theory, right? You could kill two things and get the tragedy prison combo off against the stall deck. But that seems really hard.

Brent:

Right, right. Alright. Questionable, questionable. I, I, it's hard for me to imagine not playing control that get expanded. Cause like it's expanded.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

All right, let's talk about Claire's cup three.

Mike:

let's do it.

Brent:

Do you guys want to hear about my three keys?

Mike:

Yeah, let's hear it.

Brent:

Because that's going to be the shortest part of the conversation. So, so I, I played, I played ADP and so first key round one, I played center scorch against FINI eight zero zero eight five props, and he won the tournament. And. Turn to, I want him to send a scorch with three energies with my ization, and he had no energy left on the board. He like only had like a Geraci and a CRO bat and like three cards in hand and no surprise. He, he Tran welder, giant heart one hits my ization back, rolls through my whole board and I lose. So game two are key to that. I played against Whoa, Austin. Do we know who will Austin is? I don't know who will Austin is, but he had a great name of props to him. And he was playing Chris Cephalon and I started Crow bat, cherished ball East, switch four metal, one water. And I was like, Oh, that's great. I guess we're going to data away for metals in a water, turn one. So I did that and missed the spinner and missed the water and like, she just completely obliterated me.

Mike:

Hmm. Sounds like ADP.

Brit:

ADP. We'll just do candidates do that to you. Unfortunately.

Brent:

or these kinds of stories. Then, then my third key one one of the first game against any Frazier playing a peak around one, the second game against gory six, six, six, playing ADP. Although once again, a minor miracle that we were able to pull that out. And really it's probably only because I guess he was playing ADP. I miss the energy turn one. And my opening hand was like CRO bat start quick ball, two energy switches, three metal saucers. And it was like, we're just going to throw away all these metal saucers and see how that goes. And essentially drew into drew into the fourth saucer and still had no metal in the discard at Sycamore, the next turn, I mean, absolutely fitness, but, but he was playing ADP. So he had the same problems. Eventually I'm mourning him into a dead hand and he lost and then, and then in the finals I played against L and Z and he backed me and it was horrible. Mostly because we, once again had a pretty slow start, but I, I thought if you guys can explain to me how I'm supposed to play the LMC matchup after this that would be great. All right. All right. Who wants to talk next about their keys?

Mike:

Okay. I was, I was the next shortest, but you have the most to talk about, so you can go last. I have played five. I played Pika rom and all five, one of them. I played no hammers. The other four. I played hammers. I have one, two of them. I got second in one and I got top four in the other two. So I haven't whiffed points yet, which is nice.

Brent:

Good.

Mike:

The most, the, the deck that I've played against the most by far as ADP, I think approximately half of my games have been against ADP. The highlight of all of them was I beat Dessie goons that God up to deciduous wise, but they, they didn't actually attack with that. They're deciduous. So between hammers and just knocking them out with Coco. So that, that was a really nice win. Other than that, nothing too crazy. I've only played against two. What I would consider not real decks. I played against the licky licky and I played against the, like a Porygon box deck. So those were the only two, like not real decks, which feels like a smaller pro I mean, it's still only five keys, but that feels like a smaller percentage than the last players cup, where I felt like I played against, you know not real not competitive deck. Almost every other, maybe every third tournament. So we'll see how that continues.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, it just, the law of averages, that means I'm due to play against only, not real decks for my next couple of keys. Right.

Mike:

Yeah, pretty

Brent:

I played five real decks. crazy. That's awesome though. So, so Are you going to continue to just main peak around through this?

Mike:

I think so unless I see a reason not to like if I see ADP start to get played a lot less than maybe I'll switch to ADP. But I really don't want to play a lot of ADP mirrors. So I'll try to avoid that until until then Yeah. So I'll stick with Pika. It's just Anne. And I played the no Pika hammers, but no hammers peak during my first event. And I played it against two ATPs in that event and I beat one and I lost one. So after that, that's kind of why I've gone back to the hammers list. My, so I, you know, since I've won two events, I've lost to three decks. I lost a two ATPs and I lost to a Luke metal. The The Luke metal mat. That game was very frustrating because he just, I just felt like he kept hitting the nuts. Like every single time, like I would Marty him to, you know, four or five cards and it'd be like, Oh God, Maulana switch energy research like that. Those were his five guards, like two times. And I was like, God damn it. But yeah, I mean, that happens. So yeah, I'll probably, I'll probably keep playing peak until I have a good reason to not,

Brent:

I mean, obviously chip Richie was posting about his like early success with keys. It looked like he was playing Pika rom and had like five wins. That was first nine keys or something.

Mike:

he won four out of seven yesterday. Yeah. I wa I watched him stream a bit. Me and grant were yelling at him in the chat a couple of times.

Brent:

See how do I, how do I get you and grant in my chat, yelling at me what to do. I said, I have Liam yelling at me and Liam, Liam yells at me. And then he's like, Oh man, it's been so as long as I play it, that was really bad advice.

Mike:

That's terrible. Nice. Sorry, dad.

Brent:

Okay. The LMC game. He's like, Oh yeah, I screwed that up pretty bad.

Mike:

That's funny.

Brent:

All right. Brit, tell us what's up, man.

Brit:

I have played mostly ADP. I've played a little peek up. So far I have. I have to, I I've lost twice in top eight, three top fours, two seconds and two firsts. So not the best, but that's a pretty good rate. I think. What was the, what's the average again? It's about one and a half point it's per

Brent:

1.8 is like,

Brit:

1.8. Yeah. So at nine, my 1.8 would be nine. So I'm, I'm, I'm doing I'm above doing good on that pace

Brent:

How many, so how many points do you at?

Brit:

19 at nine.

Brent:

19 and nine. All right. All right. That's really good. That's good.

Brit:

Yeah. And so I actually, so like I said, I've, I've played ADP and Pika. I haven't played any Pico without hammers. I've kind of just played the standard Mikey list for the most part. I have a great catcher. I'm only, I can't, I haven't traded for a third bolt-on yet, so I'm still just playing too. But the ADP list I've been using is the one that John did well with over the weekend. And the regional event is from Isaiah Bradner. Who's been, I don't actually know how much he likes ADP, but he's very vocal about its construction and his sort of his. Sort of own unique take is that and it was kind of a, a must you have to play for and according to Isaiah and I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I haven't really been questioning it too much. I just took the list. John May talk 32, I believe. I don't know if he, if Isaiah played in the tournament, but I don't remember if he had results worth speaking of but this is really standard. No tricks, no techs, anything like that, just kind of a for energy switch for tools. And it's been really good for the most part. I, unlike Mikey, who's been playing a lot against a lot of ADP. I have played mostly I've played against an odd sort of shackling of everything I've only played against. One. Yeah, just one unreal deck. It was a. It's funny is that, like, I only knew it was a bad deck through his mulligans in the game itself. Like, I, it would've just been a completely normal deck to me. It was just a lightening deck, but he just happened to only play good cards. Despite the fact that in his mulligans, I saw like Electra when I saw I saw an electrode. And so I just thought, like, I guess he's playing the big, the VMX Pika Chu. I remember people were trying to lecture it in there, I think. But anyways, yeah, I was just And it just looked like peek around when he was playing it. So I don't, I don't know what was going on there, but that was the only thing I've noted as like a weird deck. I lost control in the finals of one tournament and I didn't really know how to play it, but it didn't feel very winnable to me. It just like I got hammered and didn't have enough switches or didn't have the bosses. We needed them. What seemed like pretty standard.

Mike:

Which which control was that was that like this new Elon muck version or the

Brit:

Yeah, it was the muck version.

Brent:

To get through a game fast enough.

Brit:

I mean, I maybe could have played it better. I could have gained him a little bit more and just tried to win on the clock, I think. But by the time I had lost, like, I was just playing pretty quickly as it is. It had only been a couple of minutes, like, and it was just like, Oh, I looked through my discard. I thought I had like more mining's left and I didn't. And then just conceded

Mike:

That was kind of my thought Brit Brent as well, like 12, what is it? 12 and a half minutes you get, yeah, it's not. A lot of time.

Brent:

It's, it's definitely no time to talk with your son who has absolutely no idea what's going on about it. Turns out.

Brit:

a little bit of a turn into us, but only not a lot of Piqua, not, not a whole lot of ADP either just to, yeah. I've only played the mirror twice now. It looks like so a lot of fire

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the biggest difference, Brett and I were talking a little bit before the Brits played against a lot of fire. I played against one. Brown. And like I said, half of my metrics have been against ADP.

Brent:

Yeah. Obviously I played know two out of four. Or a, a fire day and it made me want to put a swell in the list. I don't know about you, Brett.

Brit:

I'm not sure, like I said, I really haven't thought too much about the counts. I'm. I've played a lot of ADP. So I of like messing with the counts. I I've more or less, like, I know I've played that version already. Like there's not a whole lot that it changes. I, I think no stadiums is fine. I think the logic is that, well, I guess it's different for center scorch because that match up is I don't think you're supposed to win, but like in paper, like you don't need Swell against bus Cephalon cause you should just be fast anyways and just hopefully race them. But now I don't really, I don't feel a huge need for them. Power plants are annoying though, to be sure. I guess we would just lose the power plant.

Mike:

Okay. The reason that's more, the reason that I've been thinking of putting a swell in his power plant.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I, I really, really liked, so the main thing I changed was the, the initial list plays to my while and I've been playing an aura choreo over the second mile and it's been incredible. Just kind of the combination of. I think this is what the, this is what the list does. Right? I think this is kind of the newer parts of the list that I don't want to change. And it's for boss one great catcher Elta Goss like that, that feels with, or a choreo that feels really, really good. It's like, I, I've just all, always all the time, the gospel effect when I need it, they're just kind of the maximum, maximum ways to get it. But the forest forestation, the fourth energy switch. I mean, I, I think I'll stick, stick with the forestation for a little while longer, but I haven't felt a great sort of noticeable effect from playing for introduce switch rather than the more normal three. And that, that would be some room for the swell. Typically what I've done in the past is I've played more basic energy and less spinner and. I'm not sure what I think about that. I wouldn't mind. I did lose one of my top four as was I went first playing against Pikachu attach water, pass hammer, like next turn. I think I like had the other water in my hand and I had to attach it and research. So I was like, I could have maybe gotten it on a later turn, but I had to attach the water and then I whipped the energy switch. That turned two, and then it got hammered. So like another water. Maybe, but yeah. Now that, now that I'm thinking about power plant and that there's the non poison version of eternity seems to have settled on power plants and heavy drills for the moment. Yeah, I've I feel like I'll lose a game to just an opening powerplant. So maybe you do want a gym. I've never liked Veridian city in the deck at all. So if I did play a stadium, I would definitely display swell.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I just felt like in my set of scores, And Chris Evelyn match-ups both of them, there was a turn once from where I did and once from where I wanted to, and couldn't like, I wanted to play Marnie, but I want to take the hearth off the board when I'm Arnie, you know, like if the hearth is just sitting out there and you're mourning them, you're like, it's just going to be okay.

Mike:

right,

Brent:

Like, they're definitely going to have two energies in their hand. So like all their, all they've got to do is find the welder and I didn't set them back as far as I was hoping that set them back.

Mike:

Yeah, the the spinner versus the energy is I think is something that is always interested me. Like my previous list that I played played, I think just one spinner and the extra metal and extra water. And I think. For the past couple of months, kind of the standard has been run to spend it. Well, some people still run three spinners, but a lot of people I've run three water. But not the extra metal. So maybe that's like the way to go.

Brent:

I know it's interesting. Cause I felt like the spinners initially, like the first time we saw spinners in the ADP list was in clay DP and they're like, the spinners are completely busted. Because, like, they're the thing that you keep in your hand after you clay. And like, they give you access to the water and it's harder to find the water. Cause when you're claiming you, like you'll lose any water that you clay into. So you gotta be able to like search forward into your deck to find the water. But, but like having the spinners in like Sycamore decks, it's I gotta say professors research. I'm just old school and not not even that old school, but I don't say Jennifer.

Mike:

Yeah, right.

Brent:

But yeah, I mean, the spinner thing is a weird thing to figure out like what the mathematically right thing to do with.

Mike:

Well, and then there's kind of like the on the extreme other side, we saw that list do really well in. I think it was the chill event that I won back in like beginning of December, end of November. That ran. Oh no, no, maybe it was the Christmas one.

Brit:

It wasn't the one you won,

Mike:

yeah, yeah. It was like the one right around Christmas.

Brit:

It was the one that Chris Stefan showed up bad there. I like

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brit:

decks and top aid.

Mike:

But yeah, it ran 12 metals, right? So like super high count of metal, zero spinners. And the thought being that you go first, you attach to your ADP, you Intrepid, you get, you're always, almost always going to hit an energy or two. And then you can either eat, switch it to your ADP, or like you're essentially set up even without an ultimate rate. So that's something that I would, I still think is a really interesting concept. And. Probably worth exploring more.

Brent:

And if I'd been running, I was running eight metals last night, and if I had run another metal or two, it really would've made a difference in that LMC matchup.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. Extra energy is huge in that metric.

Brent:

Yeah. Like, like the, the spinners to me, like obviously the optionality to get water to really, really good. But I mean the fact that, I mean, like I guess halfway through the game, you wish they were just energy. I just have really mixed feelings about it.

Mike:

I want to say Pablo posted at A-list actually, you know, channel fireball. Article with the, with the heavy metal list that he was thinking about, looking for it now.

Brit:

I think there there's a lot of merit to that. That's I don't. I seem to remember that this list that played the 12th metal, I seem to remember that it only played theorization. And I would think that if you, if you do one of them, you should do the other one. Like they, they pair very well together. If you play for and you should play extra metal, energy and vice versa. So maybe that's something I'll mess with. If I, I just feel. I mean, I, I don't really care too much. The stakes are relatively low if I, if I fail to qualify again. So I would like to experiment when I'm maybe on a little firmer foundation in terms of my, my chasing the points, but that's, I think that it's definitely worth considering. I, I never, I toyed around with that heavy metal ADP For a little while actually. And I played a Hexter and like one, two dropped it as always. And you know, that was sort of the end of it. So it's not, not to say that there wasn't more to learn there, but I always like having more energy in my decks. I think that's, I've said it before, but I think that's an old school tendency. We always, we're always very. We don't always have the luxury of metal saucers and things like that. So I think we prioritize the turn one energy attachment, or attaching an energy, every single turn, a little more than the newer players, who are they? You know, they've just played Zuora arc and double colorless and are angry, was like, what do they know about attaching energy?

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

So, so how many points did you have to have for players come to let's talk about how many points people gotta be getting per key for per second. It was, it was it like 90, where where'd we wrap

Mike:

think it was the high eighties. Yeah. I think it was high eighties, like 88, 89

Brit:

yeah. I was gonna say like a flat 90 was a close but safe.

Mike:

Yeah. So I would expect it to be slightly higher. Probably not a lot higher, but yeah, I would expect it to be a little

Brit:

I mean, I don't think it will be too much different, but. My, my general sense is the enthusiasm for this one is not nearly as high as the last one. And maybe that's just in my anecdotal experience, but I just know, I don't see as many people posting about playing them. I can speak personally of friends who played the first one and the same. The second one and just aren't playing this one in may, you know, maybe that's this wrong then I don't think it'll really change the math too much, but it doesn't seem like the hype's there for this one in the way that it was for the second one. And maybe that's personal, you know, maybe that's me, you know, and I'm not as hyped this time around. And I was for the first one or for the second one. And so much of my hype for the second one was because I didn't play the first one, I think So maybe it's just all in my head, but that's something I think I've noticed at the very least. It will be interesting to see, you know, maybe, maybe people, people are just more disheartened upset with the format that they'll stop. There'll be less inclined to finish. Maybe that's my guess.

Mike:

Yeah, that's true. Like the meta-game is essentially the same as the last players cut. So that could be, that could be a contributing factor.

Brent:

So, so if it's, if it's 90 points or maybe ma maybe a little less that's that's 1.8 points per key, right? Yeah.

Mike:

that sounds about right. Which is what'd you always say the average, right?

Brent:

yeah. Right. 1.8 times 50 is the 90, so, so yeah, so we're right. So that, that like that Zach massage spreadsheet, he posts that of how he's doing. Like 1.8 is the right way to think about it. If you're you're above 1.8, you're doing awesome. If you're below 1.8 you're not on the pace, right?

Mike:

Yeah. That sounds, that sounds probably like it'll be accurate.

Brent:

Yeah. So Brett, the other question I should have asked you is it sounds like you played peek around for some and ADP for some others. Why switch? What happened?

Brit:

keep it fresh. I don't remember. At first, I think I was just kind of planning to bounce between like, Oh, I'll just play Pico one, ADP the other. But then I found my groove, a little hot streak with ADP and I just kept running it back until I just kind of something bad happened. And then the two kind of more frustrating losses. I think that's when I switched just to, you know, give something else that we're all like, so the Pico Chu, the peaker rom game I lost and talk for. I just got hammered. I think I switched after that. And then I don't remember what my other one was, but no real logic to it, but just kind of, I don't think I'll play anything, but these two decks, I might jump to LMC if the meta-game seems all right. Cause I really do like that deck. But it just doesn't feel like in a good place, but I'm just not thinking about my deck choice very much, not nearly as much as I did for players cup to who just want to play well and hope to get the good match-ups and I think it'll work out rather than being a little more eclectic in my deck choice. Like I was last time, I think just kind of dug my own hole a little bit.

Brent:

So, so do you guys, you guys feel like you're getting so many reps these days that you don't have to, or do you do like something to warm up or like mentally prepare yourself before you start playing keys?

Brit:

I don't maybe I should I don't know. I always always kind of playing. Card games. Like I play Hearthstone, as I've said before, kind of always in the morning. It's like what I do when I'm drinking my coffee or some things kind of waking up critical thinking a little bit. And so maybe that counts warming up the, the card game, brain juices or something like that. But now I cue straight into it at ki I don't play a ladder game or two before choosing anything.

Mike:

yeah, I'm the same. I, I, I just kind of go into it. I will say though, that on the other end, I'm pretty. I try to be pretty strict with myself of when to stop. So like if I lose a very frustrating game, I will not queue up immediately. Like I will close the close the client. I will go do something else for at least 30 minutes. Often, much more than that. Like, all right, well, we'll play more later tomorrow. Like, I, I feel very strongly about that fact that if I feel like I'm tilted, I'm not going to play again.

Brent:

Oh, so it is a frustrating game. You start with a dead hand and just get rolled over or is it like. Something else, like, like, is it, is it you making a mistake or is it bad RNG or Isabel?

Mike:

It's both. So. In general. I would say if I lose most of the time when I lose, I'm not going to play again immediately. There are some exceptions where like, if I just think it was a good game and we both played really well. I think so of my three losses so far yeah, two out of the three. I did not play immediately after one of them I did because one of them, yeah, the one I played after was. Fine. It was fine. It was against ADP. Like I missed turn one bolt in, which was frustrating, but then the rest of the game was like pretty close and he didn't need it. Wasn't ridiculous for him to have a ridiculous combination of cards to win at the end. So I was like, all right, I feel okay about that loss, but the other two were frustrating. So I stopped and one of them was a dead draw and one of them was, I just felt like my opponent hit ridiculous combination of cards multiple times.

Brent:

Right, right. The, the LMC game.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Good times.

Mike:

So, but yeah, I do feel like trying to avoid tilt in these since we have so long to do them. It's just, it's important to, to do that. I've I have a, a student that graduated from the school that I teach at last year and he was getting into the game towards the end of last year. And so actually going back to one of our previous conversations, he might be an interesting person to ask about how they. How he's kind of like, you know, taking it into information and learned part of it has been me directly. But not majority of it. But anyway I saw, or I was talking to him the day before player's cup thing started and he was asking me for some advice or general advice. And that was like the number one thing I told him. I was like, if you go, like, if you lose a game or if you go on tilt, just like. Take a break. Don't play again like that. I think that's like one of the most important things.

Brent:

Right. Right. All, all these games, the more robotic you are during the Probably the better off you are, right. That does not help to be a passionate in the moment. And any any other advice or things that we should tell people for this coming week for players cup three.

Mike:

One other thing. So like, I, I don't know how much the value there is and keeping a spreadsheet of matches, but I'm doing it. But the one thing that I actually do think might be useful and again, it might not be, but I've been writing down usernames and what deck they've been playing. And sounds like Brent, you have done that at least in your, a couple of them. I'm not sure, but. You know, it's not useful most of the time, but if you end up getting paired against that person and you have an idea of what they're playing, maybe it informs what Pokemon you start with. Maybe it informs if you want to go first or second. So yeah, I feel like that could be useful.

Brent:

So I, I should ask if I'm playing ADP or are there any situations where I would want to go second? Wow.

Mike:

I think again, He also, if you're playing for energy switch, I think against Pika, it's probably correct to go second

Brent:

Right. Yeah. You, you, you, you push hard and try it for the Yolo creation.

Mike:

and cause they ha then they, like, if you go second and get turned one altered, they have to go really hard to get the cocoa turn one attack. And if they miss it, they pretty much immediately lose the game. And even if they do hit it, the only way that they're going to do that is by playing down to DNAs and Crow bats. Which is great. Like one of the ways that Pika can win that match up is just, you know, turn they go second, they get a bolt in onto a MuTu and just like, hold their DNAs. And Chromat maybe even discard them, like research them away. And if they don't have to, like, if you're forced to ultimate Ray into a bolt-in, you've probably lost the game. So if you can force them to play those things down, it's like really huge.

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

That's the only matchup I can think of. Oh, I guess again, sender skirts. You would probably want to go second as well, but I feel like that's more obvious

Brent:

right. I'm just always choosing to go first since I have absolutely no idea what other debts people are playing.

Mike:

right, right, right. No, and that's correct. But you know, again, maybe with this list, maybe you run into the same person again and you can make that decision.

Brent:

Brett, I think I've actually gone first every round cause I've played against so many fire decks and peek around decks. Have you, have you hit turn one altar creation going second in any of these games you've played with ADP.

Brit:

but I don't, I don't ever go for it. I it's a flaw. I've talked about this with Danny more recently. I just, I'm not good at being an aggressive player, talking about mad party and things like that. I'm very good. Serve it up. So when I say like, I could discard four trainers and go for it, or I could just Intrepid sore, like I just always Intrepid sword, but just thinking about what Mike has said just now, I think I might've lost. You know, I think I could've won that game if, you know, had I just been more aggressive. So that's something I think I sh I'll need to think about moving forward. You know, just depending on how the coin flip shake out, but it is sort of a bad feeling to like when the coin flipped choose to go first and then they flip over, like if all canyons sent us courage is just like, Oh, this game's going to be hard.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

You know, whereas it would just be so easy had you known, but yeah, I need to pay attention. I need to write names down to more than just for, of scorch players, but. It's hard to know. I don't know. I just actually had a weird flashback. I think I had blocked this from my memory already, but one of the, one of the finals I lost, I lost two at Turnitin that just managed to do everything they needed to do the entire game with only one Crow bat. And so I lost because I just couldn't kill a second Crow ban. And it just like, I also whiffed when I tried to Moll while for one and they just, they did it all with one CRO that man. So that that will relate. That'll segue into my advice for the players cup. And on top of Mike is sort of cautioning about tilt and you just gotta, you just gotta keep going. You gotta stay strong. Don't keep playing when you're in a bad mood, but just know that. Like last time, these things are gonna happen. 50, 50 keys, potentially 150 games as a lot of games and a format with a lot of variants and a lot of already really close match-ups. Don't get too frustrated. You've got a decent enough. I talked about with the rate 1.8, you've got a decent enough padding that it'll, it'll take quite a few whiffs before they start to really eat at ya. Yeah, stay positive, play the game, do your best, all that sort of thing.

Brent:

I like how I like both of you seem like you're tracking really well so far for, or getting where we need to get to for a player. Step three.

Mike:

It's still early. Don't drink this.

Brent:

Okay, so true, et cetera, et cetera. Guys, anything else?

Mike:

Nope, I think we're good.

Brit:

we go over that LMC matchup. When we talk about ADP more next week.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like we've gone for like more than an hour. We should declare victory while we're ahead.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

All right. We'll see everybody next week with more players cup three. And we'll try to talk about ADP a little more.

Brit:

That sounds good. Maybe we could coordinate like less, like I'll, I'll maybe try the energy heavy list and, or, you know, something like that. So we'll have two bodies of data to draw from, in terms of just like talking about the deck.

Brent:

like any excuse to play different decks during the player. SCUP I'll do that.

Brit:

No. Yeah, it's always good time to time to saddle up with 12, 12 metal ADP.

Brent:

I mean, I, you know, you, you, and I know like you don't get to bump into these like bad deck, Tuesday decks that Mike plays like every other round man, I had to play real decks every round. It was a grind. It was horrible.

Mike:

you gotta play more. You'll you'll get them. You'll get.

Brent:

Yeah, I think it's variance and not if I sit down at seven o'clock every night, I'm always going to bump into just a wave of real decks.

Brit:

Yeah, I think timing is key too. Don't play later in the evening when all the, all the nerds have woken up play early.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so Mike, when are you, when are you playing your keys?

Mike:

I played mine yes, do day and the afternoon and evening, but I played two today, one in the morning and one during my lunch break. Let's see, I played one of the bad decks during my lunch break and I played one of the bad decks yesterday afternoon.

Brent:

So, so early afternoon as opposed to evening.

Mike:

yeah, I think so

Brent:

Hmm. That's hard. That's a hard thing to do.

Mike:

you just got to wake up really early, like instead of like waking up at 5:00 AM to go for a run or go to the gym, you wake up and you grind some keys out.

Brent:

You know, what's interesting is I don't, I don't know if that's, when you bump into the European players, all sitting down, like ready to do their thing, you know,

Mike:

Yeah, that's true.

Brent:

Lunchtime, although I guess if it's like a six, seven hour window, lunchtime is theoretically like European late night grind, right? Ah, interesting. Interesting. All right. I like it guys. Very good as always.

Mike:

yep. All right. Have a good

Brit:

Good luck talk soon.