The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 29 - RS-PK, State Championships, Point chasers in juniors/seniors, Eternatus, Crobat VMax, Rillaboom, Shining Fates Players Cup, Turbo Zacian, Ditto V, Blowns

February 24, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 29
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 29 - RS-PK, State Championships, Point chasers in juniors/seniors, Eternatus, Crobat VMax, Rillaboom, Shining Fates Players Cup, Turbo Zacian, Ditto V, Blowns
Transcript
Brent:

So, uh, uh, me ask you guys the same question that I asked, uh, Jonathan, after he was so kind to print all the post these up. I mean, I can't print all these decks,

Mike:

yeah, it's too many.

Brent:

but if I was going to print like five, so me and Liam could have, you know, more than two, but less than 35. Uh, uh, are there decks that in, in your mind or like, Oh, yeah, those are the decks that you and Liam would have mad fun with.

Mike:

Let's see.

Brit:

there are, I don't know any of it. Well enough and again, like I said, I, like, I know. I know more or less with these texts do, and I know what they did, you know, in their own minds games. I just don't know how it all ends up going down when we're, when they're all thrown together like this. Um, so yeah, I really, anything I can speak on would be, I think more correlated to just like my knowledge of the world's decks and things like that, but I guess I would definitely learn. And that's why I said like, Could figure it out to have a good episode about it. But right now I don't have a whole lot to offer, unfortunately,

Brent:

Yeah, well, that's, I feel the same way. I'm like I should print some of these decks and play some games and then come back

Brit:

but if it's officially

Brent:

guys tell me, explain it all to me. Cause like I just have no context right now, you know?

Brit:

Yeah, it seems like where there's enough interest between the three of us. And I imagine listeners would enjoy it as well. So I can Def I'll definitely spend the next week or so. Um, I'll talk to Joseph and I'll do those people who are into it and just like use that at least as the springboard to learning it and to having something to stay. And then maybe in a week or two, trying to find, like, it seems like we're almost in a good time to do it. Like.

Mike:

Right before the new

Brit:

impactful. We want to do it before. We're really talking about the next stage of the players cup and, uh, to the actually impactful set, hopefully, um, something like that. I definitely should be able to.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so Mike, so the quit, the decks DEXA, Jonathan identified were lbs in prison. Bonnette palatar Metta night, drag Strode and Ryan gigs. Are there, are there any that you would say, Oh my God, if you don't add blah, blah, blah, then you're not doing it right. Or are there any, you'd take off that list.

Mike:

um, I don't think you really need Rajesh eggs. Um, I mean, I didn't wait. Okay. What'd you say it was Mehta night, RIAA eggs. So I feel like Mehta night and rags to like you both, both of those, you kind of get the flavor of Delta. So like you could probably pick one of those, um,

Brent:

road.

Mike:

drag treads. Amazing. You should, you should do that. Um, I feel like an electricity exec. It's probably good to have in there. So Powell, Tara's fine. And that's also really good, but it's not, it's not super interesting. Like that's like one of the, of the ones that you've said, that's the least interesting deck.

Brent:

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because Jason also has his like kind of ranking system on his page. And that was not one that got like iconic deck. And I was like, eh, another one that did not was in prison.

Mike:

Yeah, well in prison is one of the very unique ones in that that was not a deck ever because this, that deck is solely possible because of the extended sets. So that's probably why it

Brit:

in prison is a very sort of like, um, sort of a once in the history of the game. Like there isn't really, and it's, so it's so obscure to like, it's not like we're talking about it, like, uh, a mechanic for a whole set or something. It's

Mike:

Yeah, it was like one guard.

Brent:

Right. So then, then the other one he had was LVS.

Mike:

yeah, you should probably have a BS there. Um, the only other deck looking at this list. That jumped out to me is like the abs Sali XEV solutions deck. Um,

Brent:

you know, what's funny is I, I thought that what was interesting was like Mulan got left off his list. And to cargo got left off his list. And I feel like I've heard people talk about both of those decks, a lot and music.

Brit:

I'm surprised there isn't AMU. I would think there's a really degenerate new deck somewhere in here that wasn't quite possible. And, and, and its own format, but with the larger card pool,

Mike:

Well, my guess is the, Muehlebach probably has some extent, like some extra cards. Um,

Brit:

yeah. Yeah, ludic cargo doesn't I always kind of took that deck to be one that. Okay. I'm trying to find the words for it. It strikes me. I'm not, I wouldn't be surprised for it not to be as, as good here. And I'm, I'm my words. Aren't catching up to me. It's just like, it's always just like really sort of conveniently good against things. Like it's just, you're kind of defect a one Prizer one price deck and these two prize formats.

Mike:

Right,

Brit:

Um, and so it matches up like, Kind of well with, okay. Here. Here's what I think I was trying to say. It matches well with, um, the archetypes from its era, but I'm not sure how well it will match up against this collective body of cards where it seems like, I mean, what it does is fairly simple. It just, it does a decent amount of damage and it's a one Prizer and you have the built-in consistency. Um, but I was just never super, always sort of underwhelmed with the deck.

Mike:

Yeah, it's another one of those kind of it's a little on the boring side. The combo is very obvious. It's yeah, whatever. Um, in terms of new lock, like I guess I just probably wouldn't put it in like the five or six decks that I recommend first because it's. It's like, I mean, it's like a, it's a control deck and it's hard to play and it's, um, kind of boring. It's very boring for the person playing against you. So I don't know, like, like if, if you're okay giving them, you log back to, uh, one of your sons and then you you're sitting there and taking it then, uh, sure.

Brent:

I, you know, I I'm just, I just, uh, I suspect that probably have to build that too, because I think that kind of is the case and God, God forbid, we ever had the chance to play RSP. And Liam was like unfamiliar with AMU lock. You'd be like, why didn't I know about this,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

the most important thing I could have known there was a troll deck in this format and we didn't look at it.

Mike:

Yeah. That tech is very, I mean, that tech is very good. I'm sure there's. That's the interesting thing though. Like, even though there's probably more options from you, there's probably more counter play with it's more cards in the format too. So I don't really know.

Brit:

I think too, at a certain point, I think it just depends on what you like, like I'm just going through, you know, naturally you want the decks to stack up fairly well and that's where you kind of pick some, but all the ones I see myself as I scroll through here wanting to recommend, or all this kind of like. Speaking of me, like I liked this kind of deck there's there, the spread decks, like I like rock lock. I like a rye eggs. Like, those are my go-to texts, but that's, you know, just a preference thing more than anything. But man,

Mike:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brit:

I don't make them like this anymore.

Brent:

Right, right, right. But yeah, my inclination is maybe to think about building rags, just because yeah. Like spread that spread decks are fun.

Brit:

it's red decks are my favorite clearly. Yeah.

Mike:

If you want another, like Controlee spreading deck, like Metta jam is one of the best ever met a jam is a good mixture of control and spread.

Brent:

Oh really? This Mehta Jamie X list. Okay. That's very good information.

Brit:

it's not as fun though. Like it's you just stuff off and then you're done. It's, you

Mike:

It's I mean

Brit:

what I like the, you know, it's a little more nuanced because your ability is just so good. It almost doesn't matter what your attack is, but yeah, I, like I said, I've never played this tournament, but I've always just, my plan was just to play Metta CHAM if I ever entered, because it's, it's so simple.

Brent:

So, so if, if I was going to eliminate one deck from lbs, Uh, palatar Metta night, drag Strode, but did we say drag trucks bad.

Brit:

I say, I'll be asked because I don't think it's different enough from the blast choice that, you know, um, and while it's, it's an important deck to talk about in the history of the game is steel licks, Lugia, black bolus sta.

Brent:

It's just a bunch of people in the face with this

Brit:

Whereas, whereas, you know, drag TRO to some pretty interesting mechanics, uh and, uh, Metta NAI and your Delta stuff like that. Whereas a dragon or LDS is piggy piggy out in glass, voice deck with a couple attackers where you just, you just search

Mike:

Yeah, I'm cool with dropping LVS. I, I agree with that. And drag road and LPs are similar ish like that in the fact that they like they're getting out multiples stage twos and stage ones, and they have like energy manipulation, um, and drag trout is more, plays more interestingly for sure.

Brit:

I think, uh, I'll jot this down in the notes, so we'll probably be best to save for this episode, but I just sort of, sort of had the, uh, the thought that like, when we're, when we're talking about these old formats, when we're recommending decks, like, what is, what's the right approach? Is it that. You know, cause I, I, and I seen, I think I'm always kind of in the middle with all things, I have kind of a synthesis approach, whereas I'm, I'm talking about the history of the game and like kind of the mechanics and the decks. Whereas I think some people would recommend strictly on just like here's the first best deck. Here's the second best stack. Here's the third best deck. And I just think that's interesting. That might be like kind of a fun jumping off point. Cause like. You know when I'm trying to talk about the old format. So I don't want you just to play at the best stack. I want you to like, it's like, yeah, well, this deck was really relevant at regionals. So like, we need to talk about it too. Like it's just like a history history, Oracle kind of perspective. Just sort

Brent:

Yeah, well, I mean, you make a good point. Like my impression is, uh, adjacent plays new lock at all these tournaments. And, uh, even though, um, but yeah, like if you wanted to have fun playing these old formats coming to Mike's point, like you probably don't want to put that deck at the pool because it's a, like, ruin all the fun of playing these a old formats, uh, deck.

Brit:

Yeah, it's interesting. Definitely. I'm not, not sure what would be right, but everyone just has a different approach. Whereas, you know, some people, when they would talk about it would just like only point to worlds. Rather than just having, you know, obviously no, excuse me. And not have the whole story where it's like, well, you know, it started at regionals and it was an okay decade of regionals, but really it was just kind of a medical for worlds. And that's why it won, you know, those sorts of details. They're always just so interesting to me. And sometimes, I don't know, it takes a critical eye to get all the details, I guess. Yes.

Brent:

Right, right. Mega Ladino is bad unless everyone's playing night merchandiser Ninja.

Brit:

I think it's important. It makes it

Brent:

Okay. That's a fact. That's just a

Brit:

it's a good story. Is it's. I mean, I, that's always what I mean, maybe part of where I come at this from is that I want the game to be storied, you know, in a way that's not there in a way that I think like magic sort of has that Pokemon, the card game has never had, um, which is different to be sure. It's hard being, it's hard being like a pro card game for a product, as opposed to just like the card game and then everything else sort of naturally builds around it. Whereas Pokemon we're always juggling like fandoms and balance and the video getting, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's just more going on.

Brent:

Right. Well, you know, it's, I mean, it's interesting because, I mean, and you see this in like the Reddit forums and like the casual Facebook groups and stuff like that. Uh, uh, I don't think you ever see this in magic where people are just like, I want to build a deck with. Not two because not two as my favorite Pokemon. And you're like, dude, not to, it's just bad. I, you know, there's no fixing those problems, buddy.

Brit:

That's a really good point. Yeah. The cause even like where I do that all the time, or I'm always just like, I want to play nine tails today, things like that. And I just like build my deck because it has nine tails in it, but yeah, like surely there are equivalents and magic, like, and when you get really, really casual with it, but yeah, it just couldn't have the same sort of like emotional connection. Like I

Brent:

people don't come in with a prior experience for like magic characters. I don't think. Right.

Mike:

Yeah, I don't think so

Brit:

I mean, there's infinite number of novels

Brent:

Right. Same for Hearthstone. Like you, you don't come in with this, like predisposition, you have to do something bad just because you like it.

Brit:

Right. First time, sometimes people, you know, you're a class, a loyalist, or what have class specialist and you just play one, one class, regardless of if it's good or bad or not. There's always, there's always a handful of those per class.

Brent:

I guess. Uh, it just seems like that's, that's less bad than like, man I'm playing right shoe. And I don't care what the right shoe card says. Cause I just like write you

Brit:

Right.

Brent:

like Hearthstone is trying to balance the character glasses. Whereas like Pokemon is like, you know that right. She was just bad.

Brit:

I mean, Pokemon, not even that to Pokemon, it's not just that like, right. Shoe as bad as that, like, I don't even know how many Pokemon are there

Brent:

Yeah. 95% of all Pokemon are bad.

Brit:

it's that 30 of them are always going to be good card wise

Mike:

great.

Brit:

Yeah, it was a garbage Gardner is one of those newer ones, but just like in the history, it's just always like garner Wars, good gang GARS uh, you know, Charles R Pekichu, blah, blah, blah.

Brent:

Why is there, is there a reason that that's true or is it like you think that that's like some designer's favorite broke mine?

Brit:

I don't know. I always understand the, uh, so much like popularity polls, and these are always so prevalent in. I don't know why it's kind of a Japanese phenomenon. We don't really have them in the U S but the Japanese and their prints and stuff like that are just always engaged in these polls on, you know, their favorite male animated character, their favorite female animated character. And they're these Pokemon ones going around all in all the time too. And they're, they're official. And I know that's, that's why like Evie is so high up there cause people really, really like Evie and people really, really like. Like Pikachu and Charles are too, but it's harder to know on some of the other ones, I think kind of the random ones are just like the developer. Is there a favorite Pokemon and I'm forgetting what it was, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Ishihara, his favorite Pokemon is something kind of random I'm blanking on what it is. But I remember finding it funny when they made him like a special card on his birthday with that in it. Um, but yeah, I'm not sure.

Brent:

All right. You guys ready? All right. Welcome to the trash lanch. It's everybody's favorite podcast. Attendance is always a hundred percent. I'm Brett Halliburton. I'm here with Mike and we are bringing you all the latest in crazy Pokemon stuff. Uh, you know, I haven't checked the a five star reviews. I checked it yesterday and we were still at 19. But there's some chance things have improved. No, there's no chance. Things are the same. Having said that, I decided to try to mix it up a little bit and put out to the Twitter verse the opportunity to submit some questions. And we did get a couple of questions that, that I thought I should run by you guys. So, um, Michael Hopkins zero, uh, sent in two questions and I said, if you're not going to leave a review, what you gotta do is ask one Pokemon question and one non Pokemon question. Um, So, so there's this first question was what is one thing that you miss about Pokemon format? So the past interactions, mechanics, gimmicks, general play style, et cetera. I feel like for me, I started playing. I mean, even though I've been playing for like six years, it doesn't feel like that past. I mean, it's like playing a supporter for stern.

Mike:

The, uh, the first thing that comes to mind is good. What good and a variety of good. Bench sitting support Pokemon, um, that are like stage ones or whatnot. Like, you know, we were just talking before we started recording the RSP K format, um, a little bit, and there are so many different examples of this. In like some of these old cards. So there's stuff like dark electrode, there's all of the different evolutionary exes there's, uh, clay doll, obviously. Um, there's, there's, uh, I don't know, Del caddy the energy draw. There's the magnetron like that. It was just so prevalent for such a long time. And now. We get them very sparingly and the most powerful ones are always stage twos, which are not really playable. Um, and I do see that in the next set, there are some stage ones that are coming out that, that fit this criteria. So I'm excited for that.

Brit:

yeah. To like the ones we get an hour, the good ones are destruct tailoring again and again, to like different forms of

Brent:

I was about to say, Zuora GX takes offense at this.

Mike:

I mean, and, and the, the, those are good formats. I think the ones that do arc was in, and now that we don't have really anything like that, so.

Brit:

yeah, it was sort of a weird, like, I don't know the way I played the game. What like about 11 years now. And it's strange to me, just the way, you know, maybe this was just getting older and how you ended up processing time as that happens, but I just, can I. When I first started the game like that year or two, just in my memory is so much longer, um, then than almost the entire stretch of the rest of the game for me. And I, I, I don't know why that's curious to me, but I just think of like when I was starting and it just. For years, I, it felt like, you know, I had never played a deck with clay doll. I remember going to the 2011 nationals, which had the mid season rotation and, you know, just chatting with my opponents being like, I've never played a tournament without SP cards before. Like, this is, this was my first tournament with. Uh, were SP was not legal. And I was, you know, just blowing people's minds, you know, cause even, even back then S P cards were kind of part of what was ruining the game. You know, the Lux Ray was too fast. You couldn't evolve anymore. And that's the people, people talked about it in the same way then too. Um, And just now it just seems like there's. Yeah, like clay doll was just so good to me. Like clay doll was just so you could make anything work with clay at all. Almost like the cards were just closer to balanced, I guess, in the way that like you could, you could put two, two clay doll, um, in your deck with like a confident attacker and it would probably be tier three, like at the, at the very, very worst. I think I just I've just have such fond memories of starting the game when I just. Went to league with kind of random junk and it had, it always had Roseanne's and oxies and clay dolls. And it would, I would win games somehow. And you just couldn't do that, um, any more. And I definitely miss the bench setters, like Mikey says that aren't just artillery over and over again. Um, but not to, not to. Sorry, go ahead.

Mike:

No, no, I was, uh, I was going to say the other thing that kind of goes hand in hand with this is if you make bench sitting support, Pokemon more powerful, you should make the supporters less powerful, um, to encourage you to use these support Pokemon. So I would love if we had. If we just like changed some of the accounts of some of the cards. So for example, if like professors research was discard and draw five, or maybe even six, like that would be pretty sweet and then make something like Cynthia, where instead of shuffled draw six, make that shot shuffle draw seven, like just small changes like that. Um, even if they don't want to go back to, you know, much weaker supporters, like, um, I'm thinking. Cards like sages training were very interesting supporters where, you know, you got to look at the top five cards of your deck, choose two and discard three. Like that was a pretty, it was a good supporter, but it wasn't like super overpowered. It wasn't played in every single deck, like Juniper and researches. Um, and so having weaker supporters that are a little bit better or worse in different decks would be really nice. Or if they just kind of like tweaked a little bit of these more straightforward supporters to be. Slightly less powerful would be nice as well. And would encourage you to use these support Burma.

Brit:

trying to think of. I didn't want to just borrow your, your point. I was trying to think of a separate 1.1, but one that wasn't sort of abundantly obvious. No, nothing good is really jumping to mind. Um, I guess, I guess I've always sort of said that I thought that cities, I think were my favorite event. I don't know why there was just kind of a different feeling to cities and the city of marathons. Um, and I think that's, that's what I miss, I guess, I guess actually, I'll, I'll go, go a little further. It's not cities. I miss. I miss a tournament, um, that. With bigger than cities, but not a regionals. So the state championships, I just, I think that's what I miss the most is that I like our structure now that that has more events, but I just think that overall it could be tweaked in a much better way with kind of like, like one more event that you have to qualify for. And then like, I've heard it like say you have to qualify for internets and then worlds. And then something else in between like that's, I think really, really close to what my ideal structure is. Regionals. Just feel a little big, maybe, maybe, um, maybe I wouldn't think that way if I did better at them, but. Um, I like state championships a lot too. Um, kind of for the same reason as States, um, the stakes are just a little higher, but it's still kind of a local and kind of some sense of the word like you did for the most part you're playing against your area still. Um, but it's bigger. The prizes mattered. Um, you know, it's just States are kind of just a more important city championship or elite cup. Um, and I think that would be really good for the game, especially as we sort of are trying to brainstorm new ways to. Keep people involved and, and get people involved in. And I think, you know, maybe a regional is it's too daunting to start out at as your first event, but something a little smaller might be sort of the kind of kindling to start someone's competitive fire or something. It was my first competitive event to my very first sanctioned tournament was a state championship as well. Um, so maybe that's part of my fondness for them too.

Brent:

State championship was Liam's first a competitive tournament. I, you know, you know, it's interesting. Uh, I haven't thought about this too far, but I, I like where your head is at in that, like, maybe what's interesting about States was there was this one month where you knew, like the only things that were going on were state championships and like every weekend there was. I, I recognize living in the Northeast, like Mikey and I had the greatest of all deals. Like it was amazing States. States was a magical month where you went to four tournaments and like, it was great. You just piled up, uh, championship points. But, uh, like that, what's kind of really interesting about it was definitely that. And our current regional structure is there were, there were like, 10 tournament's going on concurrently around the country. And you knew you wanted to go to one of those 10, if there was like any way on earth, you could. But, but the result is every went to a different one, right? Like you were 10 and like maybe what you're kind of describing when you describe that community is like, I recognize regionals that there's definitely a little bit of like Dunbar's number in effect or something like that, where like, I look around and I'm like, okay, I don't know any of these people, you know, like I know. And then, you know, if I walk a block to I'm like, okay, I know three of these people that I see, I know 10 of these people that I see, but I'm not going to, like, I might build a new relationship with one or two people, you know, whoever sitting across from you or maybe somebody sitting next to you, but like, uh, at a States, You can kind of get to know kind of everybody, like you built relationships with people that were like live near you and the, you know, the common attribute they shared was they lived near you. Uh, you know, regionals man, they're big. They're just really, really big.

Brit:

yeah. And States too, or like often, I guess, depending, but for the most part, it's still like at a local game store or something too. So it's kind of maybe that sort of environment compared to the regionals. It's like when you're at a regionals, it's, that's, that's the big dance. So you're at the real thing. People here are serious. People are here to win and make money and you know, you there's the judge hive and all that stuff. Is it all just kind of a lot going on a state championship? Um, quite a bit simpler to be sure.

Brent:

Yeah, nah. And I recognize, and I know why States had to go away. Like, as I said, like in the Northeast, we were absolutely cheating and like, it's not like we're, we're kind of overly characterizing those. Like I assume the States you're describing are like Oklahoma, Arkansas. Like I know Texas was, Hey, we're having a small regionals. Let's go, California was, you know, we're having a small regionals. You know, Delaware. I remember, they mean they rented out like hotel conference centers because like everybody from Pennsylvania and everybody from New York and everybody from Maryland and everybody from Connecticut, like they were all going and it was going to be like a little bit of a show, but it was, it was a very tiny, like, it wasn't a regional in Delaware. It was like 150 people. Like it was a lot.

Brit:

Texas has even, I think they're the last couple of state championships just had to do two days. Um,

Brent:

Yeah. It was like, it was like 300 people at Texas re Texas States. Right.

Brit:

yeah, I taught beta. One of, I think it was the first or second year that it was just kind of. Inexplicably huge. And it was the biggest States by quite a bit. I don't remember. I think it was, we just had an extra round of Swiss or something, but it wasn't to the point where we had an extra day, but I remember that and it was several hundred people. And then trying to remember how big the few States I won were like, none of them were like, when I first started, like the Arkansas state championship was like, definitely like 20 people, but the one I won wasn't quite that small, um, But yeah, I mean, that was the same thing,

Brent:

Texas is like, you know, Texas is the worst case scenario because they would do it in Dallas. And like everybody more or less was like six hours away. And you could be like, we're just going. Whereas like California, the problem was half the state couldn't attend no matter where you had it. Right.

Brit:

right?

Brent:

you know, they're like, Oh, it's like a 12 hour drive to get to my state championship. You know, no one hates themselves that much.

Brit:

right. I mean, at a certain point though, that's, that's the case for local events too. Like I, more or less, I've always had to drive outside of like one to two that were an hour or less away. Like I've always driven about three hours for like all of my tournaments and things like that. And, um, you know, people out in Hawaii, they get. To fleet challenges, you know, and that's it, things like that. So, so much of it is always about your area. So I do think that's right, that there an obvious reason why they couldn't do States anymore. But I think there, I think there's a solution somewhere in there that isn't so geocentric, maybe.

Brent:

Whereas me. I remember like our, our like second, third year, uh, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, we're all on different weekends. And it was like state, state States. It States it's like, well, that was the glory a years. And then the next year we were all salty because like Virginia and Delaware were on the same weekend. We were like, come on people.

Brit:

Would you guys like with your groups and things like that, would you ever have to coordinate, um, like, Hey, this weekend, I'm going to Oklahoma, so you can't go to Oklahoma. Did you get, did you ever have to do stuff like that? Especially being, being a parent, did you ever have to try to coordinate with like the point, uh, points, chasers that were in the same division as your sons?

Brent:

Uh, you know, uh, uh, there were definitely people that like last year year before that like walkers. Like, I guess, I mean, I guess there were, there were definitely people who, uh, would determine what league challenges they were going to based on like what league challenges Liam and Walker were

Brit:

Oh, yeah. I mean, I, I know so much with this, just in my handful of conversations with like local parents, that's all, that's all, they're all their decisions is that, you know, out

Brent:

Yeah, there are, there are a lot. Yeah. I mean, and I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure the same thing was true for lots of other, like parents of juniors and seniors. Like if you were the parent of a, like pretty good junior who lived near the Beckwith's, like you could either go to the league challenge with Travis back with, and like, you have to be Travis back with, to win the tournament or you like go to a different like challenge.

Brit:

She

Brent:

And it's like 20 minutes further, but like, you're going to win that one. Cause Travis Beckwith will not be there. Like I'm sure. I'm sure Steve Bratslav gets the same notes where like, you know, they're like my kid wants to win for a change. Can you tell me which tournament you're not sending Regan to? So my kid can win. Heck I'm sure that happens in Germany with like Kaia Licklider. Like, you know, you can go to this tournament and you can like play against the best and get bodied. Or you could not go to that tournament. You go to a different tournament, pick up points.

Brit:

I mean, as a parent, in other words, we've just kind of segregated this. How would like, what, what do you think the right way to think about it is because you don't want, you don't want to cultivate, you know, a child whose skills are such that they can only win when there's no one good. Then naturally they probably don't perform super hot. Um, when there's no option, no other location. So like, what do you think what's the right approach? Do you let them do, do you let them play against Travis back with here and there and then occasionally go out or like, I dunno, I don't, I don't know if I'll ever have kids. I haven't thought of this, but it's a, it's an interesting question. Now that we're here.

Brent:

Uh, you know, uh, uh, um, I mean, I never worried about it, but, but like, but let's be clear. I think part of the challenge is, uh, you know, one of the funny things about Pokemon is like, Pokemon's a little bit of a, like, there's a little bit of an element of like, first of all, problems gaming to it. And that like, particularly in the TCG, cause like you gotta buy the cards and like there's no question and element of how hard you go determines how well you do. like, my kids were always good enough that I felt kind of reasonable saying like, we'll go pretty hard. So I never worried about, will my kids get their invite except for that first day or they were playing like, right. I mean, uh, you know, my, my story is always like, you know, I guess four or five months after my kid started playing and he was like terrible all up until that point. We, you know, worlds was in DC. And it was the last year they had the grinder and Liam, we were down and we're like, let's do the grinder because why not? And Liam won the grinder and got his world's invite. And after that I was like, well, I mean, we can't just count on winning the grinder next year. Like yeah. But we're not going to be like the kids who got the world's one year and then didn't get the next, like, we just got to go on the grind here. And so, so like we've always gone, you know? So, so that year we kinda did it. And then the next year he was like top 16 and then the next year he wins the national championship. So like, like we always felt like, uh, it wasn't really a problem. And like, there were better kids than us, those first two years. But, um, you know, uh, uh, we, it was never like, we're worried about whether or not we're going to get our invite. And I think the people that did that, like, they always felt like. They never were like, they weren't quite seeing results of regionals. So they were like, if we're going to get our points and part of this, I think is Pokemon changed. How like, like all the CP goals over that period of time. So maybe now they have problems that we didn't have. Right. Where it's like, you do have to go and win. Like, I mean, this is kind of true for you guys too, right? It's like, you got to have a plan to either like get points at regionals or get a couple of league cups, like win all your league cups. And there's a way to like grind in. If you just win all your league cups, I think at the master level, you just can't imagine maxing out all your league cups. So you're like, okay, I got a top X at a regional, because I'm not going to get 50 points at eight big cups. Like that's an insane thing to do. And you know, if I was that good, then I wouldn't have problems getting points at regionals. Right. But, but like that, that is, I think path how most juniors and seniors kind of map it out. Right. They're like, I can win a league challenges. Cause it's just a matter of showing up night after night after night. Cause like eventually there'll be night window, other junior show up and I win and I can probably win six lead cups. And like that kind of gets you there. All you gotta do is just like keep showing up at Lee cups and that, that, you know, uh, a top 10 top 16 player doesn't show up at and you'll like eventually grind out some league cup wins. So, so in that respect, I think when, um, when parents today think about like how they get to 400 for a kid that's in their first or second year playing it, there is a little bit of like, okay, who are the top 16 players in my region? And where are they going? Uh, you know, we, we were like never quite in that situation. So, so it was like never a consideration for me, but I can, I totally understand how parents think about that today. You know?

Brit:

Yeah, it's interesting. I always know there's I guess the most cartoonish story I can think of is certain family going to South America so their daughter could win a VDC tournament. Um, that always struck me as probably wrong, but some of these other cases seem so hard to judge so hard to know. Um, I mean, I guess too, there's, uh, around, around this time last year when we hadn't, we hadn't committed to quarantine, but we, it was looking like we needed to that sort of thing. And yeah. Although while the handful of players made their way to some South American special events, um, Yeah. It's always strange, especially too. I think about that a lot. Just like, what would the, what would the best player do you know, what would, what, what choice, which tournament would Jason Kaczynski go to? And I guess that's not the best example because it's, you're the best player. So you're not, you're not worried about the other best players, but

Brent:

Right. Right. And, and you're, you're happy to get the competition. Right. A great example actually is so, uh, Nabeel, Hyatt, son, Kayden, um, uh, he had a real struggle getting his world's invite is like his second to last year and seniors. Because they, they like lived down the street from Conner Peterson and Conner Peterson just like literally won almost every tournament. He went through that year because kinder Peterson's very good at Pokemon. And like, he was just like, there's, there are no big challenges that we can go to. The counter Peterson will not be yet. There are no lead cups. We can go to that. You know, we will not have to play counter Peterson. Like, you know, sometimes they beat him, sometimes they didn't, but like, you know, whereas I think. We more or less had confidence that we were going to get the eight first place lead cups in terms of like our top 16 grind, uh, here at the Halliburton house, like for the highest, he was like, we just have a much better player in our region. And, you know, I think, um, I mean Liam's first year, uh, I guess Liam is the perfect age for our region where he wasn't super freaked out, but if Liam had been one year older, Like who's first year and seniors, he would have been in the same age division with like Johnny and Michael K Tron. And like, I think our working assumption would be, we're going to come in last at every cup we go to like, we're just going to get pounded. Cause that's just how it's going to be. Like, those guys are just better than us. Right. So, so, uh, uh, yeah, I think, I think. We just, we have like a little bit of like geography and like luck kind of working for us in that respect that it was never that big of a problem, but I can see how be super easy to be a problem. Right. I mean, I know, I mean, I know you guys know and you kind of give an example of it, like they're masters in North Carolina that are like, where are grant and chip going? We're going to go to this other thing. Like, that's the thing.

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was kind of in my, I had to sort of calculate this because like I said, I always kind of traveled the same distance for tournaments, but it was never the same place. I just kind of lived almost exactly equal distance from like St. Louis, Kansas city, Arkansas. Um, And Oklahoma. Um, so I always had a handful of options if I was, I was willing to make the car drive and I typically always thought, um, I always thought St. Louis was the hardest of these areas by quite a bit. And so I definitely, it was rare for me to go to St. Louis when I had options, but I would go there a lot that's to see friends and do stuff like Collin, probably my best friend from the game lived up there. So that would bring me there, but I always hated going to St. Louis. They were always, I always thought they were, they were a lot harder for sure.

Brent:

I'm going to drive. I don't want to drive to get pounded right.

Brit:

Yeah. I don't remember what exactly it was. Cause I haven't never looked, do super bad, but I would struggle, especially when I was starting off there, there was a couple players that were probably about, about my skill level or better that just kind of dropped off as, as the years went on. But, but yeah, it's so hard to know like, am I, am I taking the easy way out or am I. Is this the right thing to do. And now I'm at the point where I just definitely don't care and I'm just always going to go to whatever's closest and what will be the shortest regardless. So that's why I was never, never the worst day if I Oh, to drop a league cup. Cause I get home really early.

Brent:

Right.

Brit:

Um, yeah.

Brent:

All right. Let's do we, we got, we got really far from grinding through, uh, these Twitter questions. Let me, let me bring you guys back on here. My Michael Hopkins Xero's non Pokemon question is what is one other game besides Pokemon cards that you play in your free time? Guys, don't say Hearthstone. Give me, give me a better answer than that. We already knew Hearthstone. I know he says one other game.

Mike:

Game. Well, so I try, I've been trying for a long time. I didn't really play anything except Pokemon and Hearthstone, but I have been trying recently to like have one game that. I'll go back to and play. Um, so right right now, currently that's fire emblem for the switch fair. I'm on three houses. So I've been playing through that. Um, still slowly, like, I'll play it like maybe like one or two hours a week, but I'm playing it.

Brit:

uh, I don't know how to a ton of time for games. I've barely played Pokemon. Um, and like I say, I play Hearthstone just about every day, um, game. Oh, I know. I've gotten really into my friend, bought it for me for my birthday. Um, Uh, it was my favorite game last year, but I didn't really play too many, but it's called, um, Crusader Kings three. It's like, it's a, it's like a medieval. Um, like for real time strategy, um, it's kind of like civilization, if you've ever played civilization, but for me, it's everything I like about civilization with none of the stuff I don't like. And so in civilization you have to like fight and like make armies and stuff. And there's none of that. It's all just like politics and intrigue and like game of Thrones type stuff. Like you're, you're plotting to assassinate the Pope you're having, you know, you're having extra marital lists. Fares you all, all the while, while you're, you know, you're the God King, or you can lift it, your like actual historical, um, accounts and things like that. But it's sort of the joke. The joke about is that it's just a menu simulator. Like there's not a whole lot of gameplay. It's just clicking, like clicking menus and that's about it. Um, but for whatever reason, that really sort of like. Satisfies my neuroses. I just like, I need sort of simple tasks to, to complete over and over again, just for the tiny rush of the reward, but it's fun. It's silly. And I would highly recommend it if you like strategy games, but it's, it's super fun.

Brent:

Nice. Nice. All right. Uh,

Mike:

way. I'll just real quick. The other game, I just remembered that I had been playing on and off over the last year since quarantine started is Katon. Like I'd never really played it that much before, but I started playing the online one colonist.io with one of my friends from college and we play like every other week or so. Mm.

Brent:

That's that obviously Catan is a really great game.

Brit:

I didn't know. There was a, is that an official like online client for it or is it like a tabletop simulator or

Brent:

sounds like a rip off.

Mike:

Yeah, it's a rip off one, but we tried playing the official one and it was really buggy and bad. And this one is like less, pretty, but much better gameplay.

Brit:

It go.

Brent:

All right. Uh, special conditions, podcast road in two more questions to, uh, uh, their first question is what do you think the optimal build of eternity is? That's all looking for it.

Brit:

Well, I was thinking right now, I, I, one of the questions I wanted to post for the podcast is whether or not it's Chromat D max maybe could have a space in, in alternatives list. Um, probably not, but it was a card that's on my mind. It's a very, Ellie's, ah, it's really hard to know at the tinnitus because the two, the two approaches are so different from each other. Um, and they both do well. Um, I would, I think that I've just never been, and this is very anecdotal. I haven't tested it at all. I don't know. I don't own toxic croaks that like that online. I've just never really been sold at least in theory on the poison built a, the more normal versions always just struck me as being way better. So I think. I think I would have to say that I, the best it turned into is built or the one that, um, Zach Lasage and his testing group have been posting on Twitter. They play at this last weekend at the GD tour event. And I believe they played almost the exact same thing. Um, at the week before, if that's wrong, then they, they just played a similar list for another online event and I'm misremembering, but it's just kind of got it all. It's got. Um, max it's maxed out on supporters. It plays for of all of them. Um, it plays crushing hammers. Um, it plays basic energies and this last list played some spinners, I think, which are good. I think if you're, if you're solely sort of dedicated this, this kind of space to fighting, not just crushing cameras, but you're specifically, you're trying to be the. Double the Elgar on no energy switch, peaker, rum, then the spinners are really, really good in that regard. You just really, really want to have to try to power acceleration and spinners obviously set that up very naturally. Um, and at the same time too, I think what the, the list doesn't have is power plants. And I also just don't think power plants are worth the commitment it's its variance when they work or not. And so I like, I I've always appreciated that Zach flipped. Um, here just sort of doesn't bother with them. I believe

Brent:

I feel like a tape white cell would be offended by this.

Brit:

on PowerPoint.

Brent:

Yeah. It's super pro power plant. Right?

Mike:

Well, I think he was pro powerplant, mostly for the players cup qualifiers, where he knew people who had misplay around them. Um, hi also,

Brent:

say I have one more question about, so why, why didn't you like the spinners versus just more energy? Like, I don't understand. This is my dumb dumbness, but like, why don't you play more energy?

Brit:

I bet you can fail them and draw more cards. Whereas energies are going to impede your ability to draw. I don't, I don't think there's

Brent:

All right.

Brit:

Um, I think it's just that, and I don't think what you're saying is wrong. Like I've, I've played more games with out energy spinners than I have with them. Um, and, um, but I, I think that's just, it, it's just, it's just options in the same way that, um, in ADP that's the main deck that's always played under do spinners. Like it's just, it's just a nice card to have. It's it's an out here energy. That's just a little bit better,

Brent:

Right. Well, I think the benefit in ADP is. As you have the optionality to grab a metal or a water, like a turn. It is, I guess all you get is the optionality to fail. It brought another card off probate. That's

Brit:

ADB too, you can, you can discard, you can discard your metals. You can, you can do stuff with the other waters in certain scenarios. Like you, you search it out specifically and attach it to Maul while for turn like little things like that. Um, uh, they're just more, you have a little more freedom and

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, if you're running, if you're running two different, you know, if you're running multiple kinds of energy, I mean, spinner sounds great if, uh, especially if you need them both to power up and attack, like the optionality is super valuable. Uh, it turned into this. I had not thought of the discarding, so, uh,

Mike:

the only additional thing is that if you do go second, you're more likely to get the turn one power Excel because you can, uh, you know, grab, grab the extra energies

Brit:

Yeah, it's, it's both obviously on your first turn.

Brent:

That's fair. Yeah. You want to have more energy in hand in that one situation? I dig it. All right. I like that. What were you going to add, Mike? Was that at the

Mike:

um, I also liked the straightforward version more. It's just, I think we actually touched on it a week or two ago where like a deck like this, that needs so many Pokemon on the bench to really do what you want to do. Like for example, I was playing, I played against a very, very straightforward version in, uh, an event last night and it. They went from just four Pokemon on the field, four or five Pokemon on the field to, uh, and I had my bolt inactive to boss Chromat for six, fill up the whole bench and kill him, YouTube, like out of nowhere. And I was so surprised and the only reason that they could do that was because, yeah, because of that, because their list was very straightforward.

Brent:

All right. His last question is what are your thoughts on the new digit Mon game? Don't know anything about it here.

Brit:

I've heard, I've heard good things. I haven't played it. I don't really have any intention to play it. I. Um, I liked Digi Mon, at least I don't really, I haven't experienced it really outside of being a kid. I watched it growing up, but have really never been much for it. Um, as an adult, I hear good things. I don't know anything about it beyond that. Um, I like card games, so I'm sure I would dabble, but for me to play other card games, like the digital ones have such an advantage. Like I. I have to really like the property or the IP to like try something, but not, not for digital. It's when it's like so convenient, it's just like, sure, whatever, I'll play the cap come online fighting or the card game and you know, it's terrible. And I just move on. Whereas with Digi, Monas like, yeah, I mean, it's a good game, but like how much do I want to Digi won? That's all it all. I really, half

Brent:

Mike, any of the Dumont opinions?

Mike:

I have, I haven't looked at any card. I really don't know anything about it.

Brent:

Yeah, literally. All I know about the mom is that, uh, its name is like four characters off of Pokemon. Like literally that's that's it. That's my knowledge

Brit:

Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day, maybe just in relation to the, the card game, but I don't actually know the, the story, the air. Is it, was it a blatant rip-off that sort of just came, came to be to combat Pokemon? Was it, you know, I just don't know

Brent:

assume so I

Brit:

mean, that's, that's the obvious answer,

Brent:

that's the working theory.

Brit:

maybe, maybe, um, like I just don't know the chronology, it could have, could have existed before could have existed around the same time. It's two they're so similar if they don't, they're really only different in some very slight ways. I would say.

Brent:

All the digital on TCP pro players are like those guys.

Brit:

I actually remember I had, I had Digi Mon cards back in the day. Now that I'm remembering it, I guess there used to be there's an old card game. Um, cause I remember I definitely had DigiMe on carbs. I think the band dynamic co will just kind of make a game for anything. They have the property for. That's just kind of some of my hesitation for getting into something like the Digi Mon card game. It's like, sure, it's a good game or whatever, but like, is it going to last. And so on and so forth. There's just so many, particularly just like the anime based ones. I don't, they don't ever really seem to have like much of a following

Mike:

Yeah, like dragon ball Z the card game was like initial, like super hype, like maybe like a year and a half ago, two years ago. And then I haven't heard anything in a long time.

Brit:

Yeah. It's still around from what I can tell that. Yeah. When it first came out, people were into it in a way they aren't now.

Brent:

is that the same as keyboard

Brit:

Uh,

Mike:

I don't know.

Brent:

strong, strong buzz out of the gate. We bought a bunch of decks. Uh,

Brit:

it seems so easy though, for these games to have good buzz out of the gate, they all have good buzz out of the game. I went to the, you know, it just doesn't mean anything. Um, I don't know.

Brent:

yeah. It's true story.

Brit:

It's easy. Like, I dunno, there's this distinction where, um, And in like in Zen where you have, you have a beginner's mind or if you're an expert mine, and it's just so much easier to like, appreciate something with the beginner's mind. And I just think that's what happens when, when, when, when, when we do this sort of thing, like it's not that the game is good necessarily. It's just that we're approaching it. In a way that's free from, you know, the need to perform the need, you know, find the next tech and thing like that. It's just like, Oh, it's a game. I'm bad, let's have fun. And that's why it's good. More than

Brent:

to try new things.

Brit:

mechanistic reasons.

Brent:

Yeah. And I think all of us, uh, are the kind of people that like, we like to play a new game so we can understand how games work. And like, you, you kind of evaluate this game versus the other game and you say, are there like good attributes to this game? Like, how does it, how does it do certain things like facilitate comebacks and like, You know, all, all that stuff. Like how did they think through the different game mechanics that we understand are a part of Pokemon? Uh, um, and like, what does that, what does that mean? Right. All right. So, so I I've, I've been threatening for weeks to introduce a new segment of the pod B channel fireball on fire tweet of the week. And, and I started to try to assemble a bunch of. Tweets for, uh, the guys to try to vote on. But, but I, the winner was, it came out today. I have to give the winner to, uh, Jonathan paranoia who had a fantastic Facebook post in the snow point temple group. It's no point devil is the Facebook group for old school decks. If you're not a member, you can go join and you can see this, uh, uh, social media comment. I recognize I'd said tweet of the week. And I thought there was going to be tweets, but, but here we are, uh, Jonathan. Nope. My wildest fantasies by going through, uh, Jason Kaczynski, his website, and assembling like, uh, links to proxy decks of old school decks in RSP K format. So you can essentially click a link and have an entire proxy deck to just print out and then play with in an old school format. Um, that is super awesome and something I've always dreamed up and complained about as being difficult to do. So the fact that he must've. Literally put in hours of work to make that happen, uh, are, is worthy of recognition in the pod. Uh, we are going to try to pronounce them RSP K decks and play some and report back on interesting things to learn in that format, which is, uh, my impression, a very fun and popular format.

Mike:

Yeah. Um, uh, I'll definitely play a couple of games. It's like, it's pretty easy to find games too, which is nice. So you can just like build a deck, go on TCG one. And usually people are playing. So.

Brent:

Nice. All right, guys, let's actually talk about Pokemon. Um, do we want to talk about, uh, uh, Hexter for a second, Mike?

Mike:

Um, I haven't played in texters, but what do you wanna talk about with,

Brent:

Uh, my impression is really boom. Recently, one, it, someone wrote that

Mike:

Oh yeah, I did. I did see that, um,

Brit:

It be that if sent a scorched in the finals too, I was going through the list and nothing really interesting, unfortunately, but I've lost that matchup as the sentence. Great. In fact, I lost that show as a center scorch player in the keys. So it

Mike:

how do you lose? Like what do you, what, what is, what is the relevant deck do.

Brit:

Yeah. Oh, and I did not share what happened in my, uh, What are they supposed to do? Well, I don't remember the list of that one. Isn't playing YouTube. Is it? I'm trying to remember. Cause in my game they just got him U2. Um, and I drew bad. And so the weakness didn't matter. Like they, like, I dead drew and I, they got the, the Raul it executor off and then I just kind of drew I've like had it, I had a welder opening to somehow and I think I still lost, but I just didn't do anything after the welder.

Brent:

It plays, it plays one. You too.

Mike:

two, two double. So it looks like those are the attackers

Brit:

some games, some games, your opponents, miss a beat and you get six energy on executor. And then you shuffle four energies of your opponents back into the deck. Like sometimes I think it just does the end. So again, send us Karcher would make sense. Like if that ever happens, I'm sure it's in us. Courts would probably lose, I guess.

Mike:

I mean, that's certainly how I've lost to really boom with Pika. Like, cause it's very unforgiving against Pika, but I could imagine like set of scratch, at least as welder, they can just pair themselves right back up. So no.

Brit:

It's not a bad deck, I guess. I mean the list. Oh, it's just so similar. I, in my games to you typically when I lose to them, I'm just always so shocked when they beat me. Cause they just don't have draw. Like they'll, they'll just double the win the whole game, just off tag calls sometimes. And that often includes having the boss, like after a Marnie or something and it's uh,

Brent:

When does the new set legal,

Mike:

Shining paints are the battle styles.

Brent:

shiny fades.

Mike:

Shiny fades is legal right now.

Brent:

Oh, okay, man,

Brit:

it just came out last week and it was just sort of as exceptionally illegal for these online tournaments because who cares? We make the rules.

Mike:

I played against some ADP that had the sword on ladder. So

Brit:

sure. Then maybe they change, change the rules or something.

Brent:

So, so if you were playing in player's cup now, are there things that you should be doing differently?

Mike:

good question.

Brit:

Oh, good question. But yeah, just not, we have not had the think about thankfully. Yeah. That that would be miserable having to finish your keys.

Brent:

Yeah. I, I think I was hoping you guys were going to say, I have like another week or something, but like now I'm like, Oh my God, I guess I have to go get that fricking station tool or some nonsense like that.

Brit:

that's what I was trying to say. I was trying to come up with like, what would I. By default play something with the sword. And like, like we've said before, it doesn't seem like ADP like needs it now versus like, it'll be better when ADP cycles, but I guess like, does it have any, is there any legitimate reason to play it in LMC that doesn't fix anything for it? Does. Does it.

Mike:

you can one shot of peaker. Um, I guess, and like you can one-shot, uh, there's a, Sheehan's like through the GX, but not through goggles, but then if you don't have goggles, then they can. Well, I guess they can't one shot at you, but if they play sword, I dunno, it seems awkward. I don't know. The sword seems good to me, but like not, it's not pushing any dashi and deck, like over the edge. We did see. Oh, I did see, I think it was texters on Monday. Maybe it was Sunday open. I don't know. One of the more recent events, there was some people that play like a whole group of people played a straight, straight Dashun deck with the. The, the Clarion

Brit:

Press record.

Mike:

preserver, um, and like turbo patch and whatnot. And I guess the idea is just like straight Sasha and attack for a lot of damage and all of

Brent:

in for two 60, turn one and see how it goes.

Mike:

Yeah. But like, there was like 10 or 12 of them playing it and all of them did bad. Like not one person did good. So

Brit:

It's funny that they did that. I was, I was just thinking that like, well, yeah, maybe cause that's just the gauntlet meme deck that they're, that group of players were hyping up a week ago and it's like, yeah, maybe that wouldn't be okay in there, but I'm sure the results are pretty telling, but I would think at the very least it does improve that deck, whatever that means.

Mike:

Yeah. Just not a very good deck and I guess.

Brent:

I mean, should I be trading for and like doing something with that? I mean, apparently that's the thing, right?

Brit:

uh, I was trying to dig into that too. I was trying to see if there, if any, did Obox have results or if there are any kind of competent looking lists through Twitter and I wasn't able to find anything, um, today I think did, Oh, we'll be good. Eventually it's a pretty just call, but I mean, so I guess my answer is don't trade for them now until you need to, but I wouldn't be surprised if ditto doesn't find a home at some point in time while it's legal. Maybe, maybe I guess I wasn't going to say expanded, but it's just a fee max thing. So it wouldn't be too relevant there. I'm not sure. It just doesn't seem like, I think maybe if we ever get like a BMX energy or something like that, I would think that, Oh, it's probably ridiculous in those circumstances, like a double rainbow for VMX or there's something silly. Um, but yeah, it just doesn't seem like there's. A good combo. Like you would, you would want it to, you know, make your double VMX deck like more consistent, but there just, isn't a pairing of the maxes that seems to work, to solve each other's problems. And so like in the history of the game, a lot of, a lot of the best acts are just that, like, there's no inherent synergy between them, but they just are both good cards and can sort of deal with what the other one can't. And none of that's really true for the V max is for a lot of reasons. I would think the main one is just that. The VMX, those are pretty expensive. Like for the most part, they're not printing, like a lot of them have two, three energy attacks. It's rare for them to have one, you know? So at the very least, a lot of their attacks are costly or have some sort of like built-in drawback or extra mechanic.

Mike:

I saw some people trying some ditto decks. Uh, I don't think any of them did particularly well. Um, but like one of the, one of them was like the welder box and just plays like one of every V. So you can just. Kind of get whichever one back is good and whatever matchup you're talking about. So you can play like melodic, you can play right. Period, your, um, et cetera, which seemed okay. I didn't see any do well, but, um, the idea is an interesting idea to maybe explore. And then the other one was a drag, a pole colossal VMX, um, that played some DDoS and I know Brit. And I had talked with Danny a little bit, a couple like a month or two ago about that idea. And I guess that idea still gets a little, it gets better with this, but th th that doesn't mean it's good. Um, the other thing I thought, ditto, when I. So ditto is much worse than I thought. So I thought that it was, you could just evolve any V max right onto ditto, but that's not the case. You need the actual V and not only do you need the V you need the V in your discard and then it swaps with ditto and then you can evolve it. So, like, there's the added step of getting the V in the discard. Um, Which is, you know, not if you're just recycling it and you were using it then. Great. But if you're trying to do this, like two different V maxes in your deck, um, like the issue is not necessarily, I don't know the issue is finding, finding the original basic, not, uh, I don't know. So ditto is not as good as I had initially thought, but it's still seems cool and I'm sure there's going to be something that's. Good with that at some point.

Brit:

Yeah. Like maybe, maybe with the way that the quick strike and things are getting supported, there'll be like a, you know, you have your data and then also this extra search mechanic and it just like brings them all together. I just don't know. Yeah. Like, right. Like the combination that you just mentioned, like, it's just like, it's there, but it just, obviously it wasn't enough to like what would make it enough? It's not in the card pool currently.

Brent:

No, the only idea that I've had, and obviously I've, uh, you know, how much my test that I haven't tested. But like, uh, uh, yeah, my, my first reaction was like, Oh, well, there's probably like a thing. Cause if you want to use the Adobe max, you, you got to get three energies on it. You're like, Oh, well, well there's a thing. So, but the other, the other thing I wonder about is I wonder if there's a world where you could like somehow combo with IntelliJ on, like, it was like, the problem with Italian is like, if, if the Italian snipe is not good enough, then you're probably just going to lose. Like, maybe you could be like, well, I have this other way to get three interviews on with frost moth. And like, then I could use VMX to attack if it turns out in Italian, it's not the right thing, but like probably the moral story is it's just not good enough.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, that's it. That is also interesting. Cause like in telling on and water have three pretty good V maxes. Like they have the Italian, they have the, um, the laparoscope and they have the, the Dar Manhattan. Is that how you say it?

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

Um, so. Like, like that would be, if I, if I didn't have to play the BS of all, all of them and I could just play Ford ghettos and then the V maxes, that would be really sick. But the fact that you'd have to probably play like one or two of each of those VPs, as well as the VMX probably means it's too much space, but the, uh, I don't know that that idea is, is pretty interesting. Um, the other thing to consider with ditto is the, uh, implications and expanded, which may be more, uh, more, maybe more relevant. I don't know. I haven't thought about it too much, but like just taking that example of the water viz, um, Well, first of all, you get battled compressor. So like obviously much better immediately. Um, and then like just the water via example, you have ACA patch or so you can, so you don't even have to, you wouldn't even have to play frost there, but you could have a plethora of VMX options.

Brent:

Combos. Well, yeah.

Mike:

yeah, I

Brit:

it's not like it's this deck that we're hashing out now. Is that really any better than just a Ninja boy deck though? Like would be, would be my next question is like, is it this whole conscious that really. Would it be, would it just be better as identical, but instead of, instead of all the ditto package we display to Ninja boy or something, would that be, would that just be the same deck?

Brent:

Right where we're just, we're just doing like bad ho decks, right?

Mike:

Yeah, probably.

Brit:

Yeah, no, not to knock the idea. I do. I do think there is something worth exploring there, but that was just kind of my. Um, immediate thought and I've, I've never liked Ninja boy, really? To be honest, I've never been, I don't know the hood next to well, but anytime it's been in a deck and like in a, in a tournament winning listen standard, it's, I've always thought it was rare that it was necessary. Like it was, especially when it first came out, it seemed like a car that was definitely going to be good. And just kind of never was.

Brent:

So, so any, any, uh, advice or any things that we should talk about for people who are trying to play out their players cup three keys here.

Brit:

hi, I'm somewhat intrigued. I mentioned Crow bad initially. Um, in

Brent:

Yeah. Tom can talk to us about Chromat.

Brit:

I am intrigued by this deck. I don't know if you guys, um, took a look at

Mike:

hit and run all target crowbar V max deck that one.

Brit:

yeah. That text seems pretty good to me. Um, and of course it has somewhat of the, um, I guess, I don't know why. I just always think. Corvette's still weak to lightning for some reason. And I was a Baptist just explained where owl is so weak to lightening. So that's wrong at the very least you've got a good weakness. So that's definitely better than I was initially going to think that this strikes me as being good. Like. I just I've felt, especially with Alterra, decidual it kind of makes itself work. But my biggest caveat with Altera has always been, it just clearly need something to go with it. And this there's never, we haven't quite found that, like, I guess the best thing that we found was a extra drill that would, that would smash, splash, rather a small line of Altera in it. And this seems, this is like a natural inclusion, like it's part of your strategy and it goes naturally. Well, Crow bats attack. And then you just get all these other, the switch and run packages has really good cards in the format currently. And so you just get access to all of those as well. Um, I don't know. I mean, I like peers in here. I would think this list doesn't play any, but I would think you're, you're, you're slower. You don't need to do anything, but set up your walls and hitting her on every turn. So I think I would love to see peers in here, especially with. The capture energy, but it's already playing,

Mike:

Yeah, that would make sense. Since then if you're playing that maybe you could just, this isn't running, uh, the DNA or Crow bats, maybe like throw a Snorlax in here. Just like the one of, um, if you're playing Pierre's as well, that would make some sense.

Brit:

I think to what I initially meant. And I came out a little wrong, so stupid to say then, but when I, when I asked about. Crowbar VMX and alternatice um, what about the other way around? What if you, I mean, it wouldn't work, I suppose if you're playing old Terria but like, what if your focus was poisoned switch and run and you had like a two, two line that you would sweep with or something like that. Like, again, that's probably a strategy for an older format. Um, stuff like that used to work. You used to be able to splash like. You're one-on-one guard of war into Sylvian and things like that, just for the sweeping potential later on Turnitin does so much damage, um, that I guess, I guess it just takes too much for it to be worth it. Like it's, it's only good when you're, when you can fill your bench. It's wouldn't just be good to do like one 80 with or something.

Mike:

I just had a stupid realization. Like, yeah. It's not like still might be good, but yeah, this deck does play Chromat too. It plays for Crow bets. I wasn't even thinking about that, honestly. Like I

Brit:

I thought, I thought it still worked in that scenario because you can only play one Chromat per

Mike:

well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but, but my, I guess when I was

Brent:

He was like, there's no draw. There's only attackers in this

Mike:

right, exactly. I was like, there's no draw on this deck, like, but that's, that's a, that's one of the huge benefits of this deck, I guess, is that your draw? Like you evolve from Chromat and Grabads car. Do you want to play anyway?

Brent:

Right. You're you're benching a crowbar at every turn and you're like, that's consistent with the plan.

Mike:

Yeah. Uh, that's funny. Um, yeah, this seems cool. I would imagine. So like, just thinking of it's match-ups I would imagine it stomps Pika probably cause you have all these Alterian. So as long as you can deal with the one of cocoa, um, you probably lose to send us Gorge would be my guess, but it could be okay. Um, uh, Turnitin, this would be pretty close. They can't one shot of the max, which is good. I, I think, I think Sam's course would be bad because they can actually one-shot the VMX at some point, um, ADP, I don't know. It's probably dependent on if they play an Altria counter,

Brit:

I think ADP would be you either way.

Mike:

you think.

Brit:

because you're just hitting well, I mean, You just have too many Pokemon that I feel like it would be too hard for, for you to set up your board where Alterra is going to sweep them perfectly. The, you just open Crow so often

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah,

Brit:

of them that then you just lose. If, um, they get one more while, or you have to play one other Crow bag. Cause presumably they'll, they'll double boss, the DMX, if they have to. So then there's just one of their prices that they have to take.

Brent:

And I feel like everybody, but us is playing these age of slashes now.

Brit:

everyone in keys plays them. And I want in online tournaments plays them.

Mike:

so fun. I've just, I just clicked on his matches. Uh, his matches kind of went exactly the opposite of what I just said. He beat three ATPs and lost to a Pika. Interesting.

Brent:

Uh, you know, it's, it's funny. I Brit I don't know if this is like your inclination, but like me with, with these like kind of poison, uh, benches, spinning packages. I, I, I was like trying to spend too much time trying to calculate, like, would I be able to like, get these numbers where I can use side power to take like five prizes at a turn or six presidents are like, I'm like, we're definitely attacking with mule to take our last prizes. That's for sure.

Brit:

Oh, if only it were that easy, that'd be. Yeah. But yeah, I think it would be an attorney test just for the double, the double boss' reason. I always, I have did pretty well turn a test when I was playing lots of Ord beetle and it was basically just that it was harder for them to completely one shot. So if you can just like, keep the zigzag goon damage from making, making the difference, which unfortunately, I, I suppose they still can hear because you. You just have 300, so you're not like super duper out of reach just three executives away. Um, there's some poison if it's that Virgin too. Okay. I think this tech has promise, I believe, uh, Andrew Mahoney street with streaming it a little bit too. So I'll, I'll. I'll see where it goes. I haven't played the Sunday open in a while and when I was first getting back into it, I guess when we were first starting recording the podcast, I tended to only play goofy decks for the Sunday open. So maybe, maybe I'll see if I can make it work. So I do want to try that now that there's new cards. Again, I I'm interested in Pokemon. I just kind of really haven't played and have been too busy to play more than anything since my key is, but seeing these new cards and stuff, I've got, there's a fire building up in me again.

Brent:

It definitely seems like there's a couple of new options. Types are like, we're going to see some people try things, right.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, that's always, my favorite Hearthstone is I think at its best the first day or a couple of days of release of a new set. And I'm glad we kind of get that similar experience to a lesser degree with Pokemon. Like it's cool to see people trying these ideas. It's cool. Just to see people experiment and try new things. Even if it doesn't go anywhere. There's just kind of a, I think the fun that goes with it and. Um, you know, testing or beetle. Now, now it's time to test curb at the max, so I'll have to scope around and see if there's any other sort of bad ones worth my time. Or if it's maybe just best to wait for the next set.

Brent:

right guys, we're in the home stretch. I think before we, before we wrap up, we should talk about Claire's cup three cutoff numbers.

Mike:

Yeah. So I think I looked right before and I think it was 90 or 91, which is, do you guys remember what it was for players cup two or was it like 95 or was it more on the low nineties?

Brit:

I think I was, well, I think people bubbled in, in like 88 or 89.

Mike:

okay. So we're already like at, or above the threshold from the last one.

Brit:

I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent on that, but I want to S I want to say that that's right. Yeah.

Mike:

I think there's, I think it's Friday at like noon is when the cutoff is so. So it's only a couple more days, so it's probably not going to bump up much, but maybe like one point or something like that.

Brit:

Yeah, and that's probably probably going to set in there.

Brent:

Do you think, do you think people playing this week are going to see a lot of these new decks? Or do you think they're just gonna see a lot of old decks that people don't have the cards.

Mike:

I think will be mostly the old stuff. I don't think there'll be too much new things, unless, unless there's people that. Like for sure. No, that they're not qualifying and still have keys left and, or no, that they're not going to finish their keys. And they're just like, all right, let's meet

Brent:

Right, right. So, yeah, I forgot if the guy's already been grinding ADP, he's gonna, like, you should just keep grinding ADP. Cause I got finish your keys, right? Like

Mike:

right.

Brent:

not the time to

Brit:

would

Brent:

a new

Brit:

be a fun approach to the keys. Just grieving people, just like I'm not qualifying, but I'm going to play with the rest of my keys this weekend with four for Altera, you know, something like that would probably be, I mean, it ended up being pretty boring, unfortunately, but at least as a part of a story, it's

Brent:

Uh, you know, I think by definition though, if you're like, I feel like I'm not qualifying, I don't want to play up these keys. Like your plan is to do bad. Like, you know, you're not greasing anybody. but, but, uh, uh, I think as Alex Szymanski, uh, uh, was, uh, had tweeted, uh, like a week or two ago, it takes a lot longer to play your keys when you're winning.

Mike:

That is true.

Brent:

that's, that's like the real problem is like, when you go on a wind street gifts or you're just like, we're going to be here forever kids. Uh, anything else we should talk about this week, guys?

Mike:

I played a couple of events in the last week or so I played, uh, the limitless one. I did. I think I went like five, three with Pika, and then I played in a, played my first weekday event in like a month, last night when I made top eight, which was good. Um, uh, only lost to the peak mirror.

Brent:

Uh, which, uh, uh, only loss was speaking mirror. That's that's, uh, that's really good.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

I intended to play the GG tour over the weekend, but made a little snafu again with the time zones. So I just didn't play, I was going to play the Ross's blood Cephalon list, and I actually tested it quite a bit, a handful, um, which is annoying that I missed it because if I had just checked, I would have checked in, I was sitting there playing Pokemon. And it was like, Oh, it starts at noon. I'll, you know, I'll check in after I walked the dog and I come back and it was like, Oh, I'm Oh, and one great darn time zone again. I wasn't thinking, but I liked, I was impressed with the deck and the maybe 10, 15 games or so I played with it. I at least thought I was running better than I typically do with blinds and was able to, you know, think about the, all the spinners and sequence them in a way it's funny Ross's list is like, it's almost not even Palauan. So like it's closer. It's closer to being the Chris Cephalon deck, I think, um, which is funny, but all his, he has a couple, a handful of unique card choices that I liked him. He plays heat, ran and chars ARD. There's a rod. And there as well as all of the spinner. So, um,

Brent:

I I'm just baffled that these plans lists are able to survive with just two. Well, maybe plans, maybe let's see. So good.

Brit:

and so your other guys are just as good too. Like you just want to lead with charges aren't in so many of your match-ups now, especially with like the zigzag, goons and things, but yeah, it's weird that he only plays the one there. Whereas of course the other one they're all playing to now. Um, I plan to stick with it. I think there's definitely some sort of like, Comfort as solace, like we've said, and being the one trick player. And so that's where my mind is now. Maybe I'll one trick blow Cephalon through the next format. If, uh, if it, if it can compete with the new cards, which I imagine it will.

Mike:

Yeah. It's just inherently strong. I mean, and like we've seen it adapt a bunch of times since it really

Brit:

a lot. Yeah. Even just from the last year people played, it was green. Two people played it with Pidgeotto.

Mike:

right. So, you know, maybe it'll change a little bit, but I think the concept will still be good.

Brent:

We, we should, uh, we should maybe spend some time really granting through that list. The next spot.

Mike:

Yeah, we could deep dive just the Chris Stefan blind variants

Brent:

Yeah. Cause I, I know you played a bunch of games with it, Mike. I know it sounds like Brisbane testing that extensively, we should dig in a little

Brit:

Yeah, we should do that. If we can pull up a all with Kyle can, can never say it live there. See, I can hear it. Like I know it's no less knowing that. So I'm going to remember that I've just clearly never paid attention when someone says it. Cause it's not hard to say, but I just, I've never, never been listening closely enough. Last notes. Here we go. But yeah, it was just, he just has data in a, in a deck close to, so it'll be, it'll be good to compare against that.

Brent:

uh, I, I have to tell you, uh, I'm still like scarred by our like eater nadis, uh, adventure. That was a, that was a tough, uh, series of pods where we just could not say it, turn it, this,

Brit:

we get the, you know, that's just, we adapt. It takes time. habits are hard to break. You can't, you can't just replace them with new habits or rather you can't just start a new habit. You have to replace your old habits.

Brent:

it takes, it takes time. It takes time. Awesome. All right guys, great. That great pod, tons of information for the people they are sure to love it.

Mike:

Absolutely.

Brent:

I can tell my dogs ready to go back outside. day to, uh, to not go outside all the time.

Mike:

My dog wants food. He's looking at me like what the heck, man.

Brent:

Well, w when is dinner time for your dog

Mike:

Okay. Usually six, but, but he starts getting like very like sad face around five 25 30, like, come on, let's go in.

Brent:

Our dog, our dog actively bullies us starting like half an hour to 40 minutes before dinner time, just like wandering around the house barking, like letting people know she's dissatisfied.

Brit:

Yeah. One of my dogs he's so like, Hawaii. He doesn't do anything really rude. He'll like, come in and just look at you. You know, he won't make any noise, but he'll just, he'll just come in and like, look at you and walk away. The other dog. Well, he's asleep right now, but I basically will feed them as soon as I sign off. I'm surprised he hasn't been a little more like on top of me during this, but he's, he's awful. He'll he'll, he'll yell at you until you feed him.