You guys ready?
Brit:Yeah, I think so.
Mike:I have lots of stuff to talk
Brent:Yeah. We have so much stuff to talk about. Welcome to the trash lanch. It's me, Brian Halliburton here as always with my crochet. attendance is 100%. You know, my kids have spring break coming up in like. Three weeks. It'll be interesting to see if a tenant's remains 100%. It's interesting how I think like 30 episodes go. I, I think I started doing this now because I thought it would be some kind of meme, but I think because it was genuinely surprising. Yeah.
Mike:Well, if we got, we took one week break, if we need to take a, you know, a week off here and there, and it's all good.
Brent:That's right. That's right. In terms of five star reviews a couple of updates it is worth mentioning that a champ of fun has come out of the closet and identified himself as Jonathan and the paranoia. He successfully put in his review before we talked about him extensively on the pod and in that respect, We approved the bad news was obviously, as he indicated on the Twitter net that his his review consisted of chill. And he says he wrote a bunch of other stuff, but I don't know if I believe it. He, he attempted to overcompensate by leaving an incredibly long tweetstorm of commentary. Let's see.
Mike:I should have known it was, I should have known that with JP. It just crossed my mind because in our, in our group, he is titled the champion of fun. But so like champ, I, yeah, just didn't put two and two together.
Brit:Knew that too. I, I can, I can hear in my head, Tyler, someone you like yelling about the champion of fun or something like that, like, you know, some like elaborate gimmick format that they've cooked up, that JP ended up winning, you know, some, some story like that. It seems to sound familiar to me.
Brent:Yeah, please. We also picked up our, our 21st five star review. Jake Gearhart says, mentions me occasionally. Therefore it must be fantastic. In all seriousness. I think you guys do a great job, covering everything going on in the tournament scene every week while making sure to break things up, RSP SPK for the win.
Brit:thanks. It's
Brent:Yeah. Jake, Jake recognizes our strategy with just to slowly mentioned every single person in America and beyond limitless people. You are also included and an effort to drive up a readership viewership, listenership, all part of our incredible strategy. Guys let's jump right in. We got a ton of stuff to talk about. Mike, you want to give us the, the team challenge update. I saw you tweeting it. And I was like, you're supposed to hold that stuff for the pod, man.
Mike:I felt bad. I feel bad. Like none of this information seems to be out there and I would get, I've been getting some messages from our organizer, drew Gretzky, and he's kind of been slowly feeding us some information as he gets it. So I don't even remember all this stuff that I, that I posted. Let's let's see the one new thing that I found out just today. So this will be a podcast
Brent:Breaking those
Mike:okay. Okay. I'll go over the stuff that I already said. So it's a single elimination attorney. One of the things that I didn't mention in my tweets was that it's somewhat geographic based and early around. It's a little vague, but they're going to try to pair. Stores that are in the same time zone, I guess, with each other in the early rounds. And then the later rounds, it'll be more random. Just to help coordinate scheduling, I guess that's, that's one thing. The parents will come out each Wednesday and then decks aren't due until Thursday, I believe. And then the results are due Monday, so you can edit your decks. In between each round from Tuesday to Thursday. So each round we'll have a default time that the teams can't coordinate between them. So like if, if you're trying to figure it out and you can't, then there's this time that you gotta play and if one store can play and the other camp, then they just went,
Brent:So does that mean you have to, you have to organize a time before that time because that's like the drop dead time.
Mike:Right.
Brent:I assume, I assume that's the kind of the unstated.
Mike:Yeah. So my guess is those times will be on Saturday either Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure yet. But there is a lot of work on the Tio side because they're going to be the ones that have to coordinate all of that. During the games at like all the players can technically be talking again all at once. I'm not sure logistically if that'll make sense, because you actually have to play at most nine best of threes. So that's a lot of games to play, so just might be more realistic to, you know, have. It's three people playing at once and then whoever's the coach maybe can like jump around and talk. I don't know what to see, but yeah, so it's, so it's like best of five of best of threes. So, you know, player, ABC players, the two A's play the two BS play, the two CS play and then a plays B B plays the C you know, et cetera. So you have to win five best of threes in order to win.
Brit:Win five
Mike:five out of nine best of threes. Yeah. Right. That makes sense. Right? Is that meth checkout?
Brit:there's four people they
Mike:replay, only three play though.
Brit:ragged, right?
Mike:Yeah. Or only three play in a given week. So the new information that I found out today is that all four people submit a deck list each week. So you don't choose. Who's playing at that stage. What you do is all four people submitted deck list, and then once you see your opponent's deck lists, you get to choose which three players play. So that adds, that adds kind of like a, it's like a pseudo band stage. It's like a reverse band almost. So like in Hearthstone, the format is it, it changes the number, the number of decks you bring. But for example, if you're playing a best of seven, you would bring four decks and then your opponent would band one of them and then you play all of them. So this is almost like a reverse of that. So it's pretty cool. I think I actually liked that a lot. Cause originally I was thinking, well, maybe we'll just all bring the same deck. But I think this actually discourages that quite a
Brent:That's what I was about to say this, this ruins Brits, like let's just all play all. Tario.
Brit:Was I'm about to mention that again. I just thought that that was, you know, the, the banning makes it a little bit different, but when you, when you said. You know, there's no restriction on, you know, type of deck. You could all play at Pekichu if you wanted to. I immediately went there and probably came to work with, with the, the structure. So it's probably a good thing too, that they anticipated that a little. Cause I think I would've, I would've gone wild. I would've gone. Deep diving into the lab to create four different alternaria decks or something. And just try, try to convince my other group of players. Like, no, it's a, we're going to lose round one or we're going to win the tournament. That's the strategy.
Brent:Right, right. Well, that's the alternate, the Hearthstone model would be like, you look at your boat as deck, plus your band, the one that has a counter in a hard counter to Altera. And then you're like, okay, we're going to go that guy's, that'd be great. So three people play and they each play. Yeah. So I guess it's a round Robin thing first to five,
Mike:Yep. Exactly.
Brent:best two out of three.
Mike:Yep, yep, yep. Yep. Exactly. So the first round is the same weekend as the player's cup. So I assume we'll get, hopefully all of the sports have this information now and are starting to disseminate it to their players, hopefully. And then the first round of pairing should come out next like March 17th or 18th that Wednesday or Thursday. So we will we'll see. It's it feels super close to that time to like, they'll have some of this information, be a question marking.
Brit:Yeah, the, the whole structure is like the most complicated thing Pokemon has ever done. And you only know this because you, you know, you can talk to your organizer like this isn't published anywhere. I don't, I don't know what I would be doing otherwise, like it's, what's going on.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:That's re that's a lot of complication. And if it all just goes to your local game store to coordinate, then they just kind of got the short end of the stick. This was supposed to, you know, be for them. This, this was an event to be, you know, at least in some parts to be like, Hey, sorry, there aren't any events for the next year or two, because of COVID we're going to try to do something and this is it. But then if that all the responsibility just gets relegated to the Oregon either. That seems like a terrible deal for a playmat. It's also not, you know, it's not like we're even fighting for a trip to an international championship. We're going to get some, some playmates
Mike:Yep.
Brent:So does, is the Tio kind of the ultimate theoretical decider of who the three that play each week are
Mike:Good
Brent:like, what if all four people are like, well, I do want to play.
Mike:Yeah, I guess so I mean, I'm lucky. I think like my, my team we're all familiar with each other, so I think we'll just be able to reason it out, but yeah. Yeah. I'm sure not all teams are like that, so,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. That's I recognize your team. Everybody knows each other really well Brit's team. He's like, I'd still not entirely clear to me who was on my team.
Brit:Okay. Like I mentioned a week or two ago, I like tried to find them on discord and I think they've deleted their account or something. I'll probably Facebook message that. Tio for my store. Like as soon as this is over just feeling, give me their names. I'll start a group. Chat myself.
Brent:Right. So besides Mike's team are you guys aware of any other teams that you think of as like that's, I'm just gonna, this is going to say absent more information. Mike's team is like the front running team. Do we know like. The state of the like, is there like an Azule pram team out there that people don't know about? Is there something else?
Brit:I haven't heard of any other, but surely there's like at least one, I would think, you know, like somewhere like California, maybe where you it's such a large area and you could have coordinated, like, I
Brent:Right, right. Like there could be some like San Francisco team that's like Keon and like,
Brit:Like, yeah, I'm just thinking like the groups of players that like already tend to stick together, like Keon and like Kenny Britton or sort of the, the group that
Brent:Right, right. Yeah.
Brit:maybe that's wrong, but that's where my head goes. But I would think people like there's gotta be at
Brent:tab guys, like something like that, right.
Brit:right. But none that I've heard of, but I don't, I don't really have a sense of how how participated in they were like, I just, I don't feel like I've saw like a zoo being like a team challenge today. Anything like that. Like it's obviously people, if they wanted to play in them, they did. And I don't think, you know, not every competitive player was interested. So it's, it's unclear to me how many, like good players, you know, how many of the two 56 who qualified for players? Cup three are also. Involved here, but definitely not as many, but
Brent:Right, right. Yeah. Like, like I, you might've imagined that there's some world where it's like Zach massage and Jay and Michelle are like three of a four person team. And you're like, okay, that's Tim is probably gonna to do okay.
Brit:And yeah. And maybe more of that would have, would have been the case, like with, with more like a better incentive, because I think that like, realistically, they could have done that. Anyone could have done that. Like, I think we maybe mentioned it for two seconds. In the undaunted group chat, like, Hey, we should all qualify together or something. And that ended up going anywhere. But realistically, I think anyone could have done that if they wanted to. But again, just the, for the, for the price of the playmat or to win the Uplay amount of just with a lot of coordination
Brent:Are there a lot of other undaunted people that are on these teen challenge teams.
Brit:I am not aware of a single other person who put, who did them, but I could be wrong. But to my knowledge, I don't think anyone else did.
Brent:I do notice that there is some optimal strategy. If you're on a team challenge team, in terms of like deck list, met a manipulation.
Brit:I was thinking about that and, you know, just, you know, more seriously, not, not the, for alternaria option, but yeah. Like what would, is there a good lineup because Hearthstone, you know, that's again, because so much of the tournament kind of comes down to the. Your decks and the banning phase and stuff like that. So your lineup quote, unquote, plays such a huge role in you know, players who do well in Hearthstone and things like that. Like sometimes like the Alteri idea players show up with like the hardest of hardest of counters of lineups and, you know, and with the bands, they can just guarantee that they play against their, their auto and over and over and over again. So stuff like that happens all the time, but. No. I don't know. I don't know if there's a good strategy if in my head, I don't think there's a better idea than just like making sure everyone has a good list. Like don't let anyone go in with like, you know, some questionable choices, but then after that, just let them play with they're most comfortable with like, I, I can't imagine there's a better strategy. Well, I mean, that's not a real strategy, but just for, you know,
Brent:I mean, it's, it's the default strategy, right?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Just everybody, everybody build an awesome list and let's turn it in and see how we go.
Mike:Well, and even in Hearthstone, like there are lots of, you know, times where, or what Brit said happens, but I would say most often the best lineups are just like the four best decks. So like, if you just bring the four best decks, because the best X like are the best decks, right. For a reason. And Typically the best decks tend to have a pretty even ish matchup spread. Like it might have like one really bad matchup, but like everything else is like 50, 50 ish. And so like, That's kind of, I've talked a little bit with my team and I'm like, I think we should just bring Pika, ADP sent a scorch and maybe some tea and something else. Cause I feel like those three are just like the most well-rounded decks. Maybe you
Brent:I'm stunned. I thought it was, I thought it was going to be Pika, LMC, Blount, and something else.
Mike:I think ADP and send us Gorge just are like very well-rounded as well. Just like Pika is they don't have very many. Auto wins or auto losses. Maybe like you could, you could make a case for like bringing three solid decks, like those. And then the fourth person brings like a Dessie dunes where maybe you try and just steal like two, two rounds with Dessie goons or something like that. And then, and then maybe if you're you see your opponent has to fire decks, you just don't bring the Dessie goons in there or something like that. So, I don't know, but there could be like an in-between strategy like that too,
Brit:yeah, like maybe bringing like three of, you know, all the ones you mentioned and then like your fourth choice can like, maybe be different that year. Like something odd. Like that's, that's your LMC, that's your, your Dessie goon. Something like that would probably be the best fourth deck. It couldn't be. I think it would have to be like a gimmick, maybe, maybe even control if you've got someone competent enough to play control, like something that can just like take some auto winds and then the rest of your, your lineups are just good decks. Well-rounded decks with lots of 50 fifties and that's a two and a three, which is nice. And like your results should be closer to reality at the very least. You're not going to have best of ones where you're losing to. In Italian at Pekichu hopefully
Mike:Right. Right. And I think like the other thing is. You know, you don't want to, we probably don't want to bring the same deck, but you also don't want to bring decks that have similar matchup spreads, probably. So like, I probably wouldn't want to bring LMC and Dessie goons because those have a lot of similar match-ups
Brit:Yeah, absolutely. I, I th I think I was trying to convey that in like your fourth deck as your wall option, or however you want to put it.
Mike:Yeah. So like that's something else to think about as well. You can have two pretty different decks, but you know, if they have the same magical spread, you probably don't want to have both of them in your lineup.
Brit:I mean, maybe, I mean, it's so hard to have a good like medic game read, probably really. Isn't going to be one people, like we said, the default option is just going to play the deck that you, you like,
Brent:Right. And, and, and you, and it's likely that it's gonna be four different decks. So you're like, well, there's no centralized. Meta-game right. Like, there's definitely going to be like a set of scorch and a Pico rom and then like a turn of the us and something else.
Brit:And I'm just trying to think if there's like a fringier deck that like would maybe be really good. Like the only, I don't think it would work, but like greens, chars art or something, maybe like. It's got some good match-ups if you can, you know, try to hire all in Dodge, like the sentence scorch, the green stack, like again on paper, shouldn't be beating. Well, I guess it depends on if ADP is going to be bringing the tools or not at this point. Well, so yeah, I'm talking myself out of that now. I forgot. I forgot about the impact of the rest of the sword. But. There some maybe like, I'm just trying to think of every deck. And if there, there is like another thing in the mint, another one in the meta-game that would fill a comparable position to Dessie goons or LMC, and it's truly nothing is coming to mind. But it, Blount is yeah, like bonds would be on, would be on the other side, it would be in a deck that just like, or their co Cephalon, whichever one you prefer.
Mike:Yeah. Like I probably wouldn't bring blends and send a scorch for similar reasons. Match-ups are pretty similar. I mean, they're not, they're not as close, but they're like more, they have two welder decks. They're both fire. They've similar ish matchups. Like they're both weak against Pika. Good against, so I don't know.
Brit:Do you think he had the best for like pick a to-do list? For instance, would just be the current one, like the three bolt-on one tag switch, or like, what would you be able to, would you be afforded a little more space to maybe like reconsider some of the older things or is it, would you just have to come correct for rusted sword and things like that?
Mike:You could just drop, like there could be a strategy where you drop hammers and say, No. If my opponent has both ADP and attorney tests, I'm not playing. Like we won't bring Pika, then we'll bring other stuff. Like that could be, that could be something you could do or go the other way and be like, we're bringing this like really load up on the hammers and make sure you got the, to yell ground. Maybe you just completely like drop swells for example, to free up some space and say, so I think there's like room for that where it's like, you, you think about which deck you don't want to bring in, tweak your list. Accordingly and like, and, and what's the word I'm looking for and up the other counts in like your other lists
Brent:Right, right. Like you, if you bring ADP, you don't put an age of slash did you say if they're, if they bring decedents, we're just not going to play,
Brit:Yeah, that makes it hard. There's no reverse band just kills all your strategy. Every idea I can think of just only works when you're kind of in control. Cause yeah, and I was just in my head like. It Turnitin is maybe is probably the most abusable deck of the best one. So like, you could, you could have hard counted it, turn it as like with the Hearthstone type line ups and it's probably for hammer yoga index. And that would have been really cool. That would have been, you know, something we don't see in Pokemon. And now I'm just sort of disappointed that it's this weird, like. Reverse band. I guess you can always hope that your opponents choose to bring the wrong deck that still has a likely chance of happening, I would think, but I'm frustrated. I just thought of a strategy and it's just irrelevant because of the structure
Mike:right? No. All right, let's move. Let's move on. We got lots of
Brent:Speaking of Turnitin. Let's talk, let's talk about spirits for a second. Cause that's the other, that's certainly like today's breaking news that I hate the new spirit to him card. I can't fully put my finger on why, other than I just don't like them printing like for a single colorless hard counter archetypes cards.
Mike:Yeah, there's that? And it's just like, what? Like, what's the point? What's the point of this like mad party is not a tier one deck. It's not. Even a tier two deck, and now you've just destroyed all the battle, compressor, decks and expanded forever. Like they're just totally screwed.
Brent:Yeah. I mean,
Brit:the standard format, you know, thinking about it. And then again, I'm not, I'm not too sure where, what Japan does now, but like just looking at it, like, you know, the community has been crying out for months, band ADP, band ADP. And what are they said, we heard you, we heard you, we got the, we got the night, not night, March, the mad party counter. And, you know, and then don't mind us printing more support for ADP, but we're we got, we got the battle compressor decks under control.
Brent:Yeah, it's mean battle compressor decks are like an aspect of high skill, higher skill cap decks. You know, you want to encourage those in the Metta man.
Brit:I saw that Danny had a funny comment that it was just TPC response to Raul, a horny horny posting on Maine. was a good response.
Brent:speaking of let's have the channel fireball on fire tweet of the week. It was not bad, although that's a really good choice. B the on fire tweet of the week is Kenny wisdom. Joining TCI. read. It sounds like you've talked to him about this a bunch.
Brit:yeah, I was fairly close with Kenny and a couple of group chats, I guess he's an undaunted. And then we have yeah. Just kind of a handful of us are into professional wrestling ever another texting group chat, but yeah, he had sort of just been like, Hey, I got an interview, like, Hey, got the next interview. And you know, just kind of the whole process. And then, you know, just the handful of us being like, you gotta, you gotta be confident, that sort of thing too. No. I was really happy to see that. I know that he's been fairly close with a lot of the just TPC guys already. So I, I wasn't very surprised, like I thought he was a shoe in for it even before he had his first interview. I just really wasn't sure how many, like real quote unquote game designers they were interviewing, but I don't really have any idea how many game designers there are out there in the world. It's such a. Unique handler, you know, job, quite know how one acquires that. But yeah, it should be really exciting. I'm glad that, you know, for all we talk about T PCI to the S you know, they're bizarre decisions, and there's just almost always some kind of just like disconnect from their decisions and, you know, the, the overall consensus of the community. And I think Kenny will hopefully be a great solution to that problem, actually having someone who knows the community and like knows what they want to, and not just, you know, I, I get, I get the sense that, you know, obviously there are. This isn't a pain, everyone, but for some, for some employees, like at CPCI, like they're not invested in Pokemon, this is just their job. And I think that shows sometimes. So all that, all that, to say that more, more people from the community in higher up positions. And I think we're, you know, moving closer and closer to the game, we're all sort of trying to find, trying to, to make, make the community and things like that. So, I'm really happy to have, you know, I don't want to put too much pressure on him cause I'm sure. You know, it's not like he has the capacity to band spirit tune, band ADP, or anything like that, but I'm sure it'll be a really exciting adventure for him.
Brent:Yeah, well, I mean, there's no question that No. I don't know. I don't know how much credit I can give them, but I'm assuming I can give them a lot of credit, like adding Kyle and Nia and all of these people over the last couple of years, like the battle decks are better than ever like the products that you can buy in America to kind of start your Pokemon journey from a competitive perspective. Like you've never been better. And hopefully adding Kennedy helps them continue to improve. And I'm sure like Kenny was able to build those relationships, like. He did the commentating for them for a long time. I'd like to think that all that tees you up, right? Cause you can use your relationship with Kenny to like segue into a leadership role in the commentary space. You're like official voice of the Pokemon community on the biggest pokey podcast in the universe. You've got to recognize, he knows, he knows what's up.
Brit:I did. Did you see that the Hexter guys commentating players cup three? I thought that was similarly seemed to be you know, effort rewarded appropriately, really nice to see kind of you know, appropriately, this is kind of the person who really just spearheaded the curve where the community is currently, or at least where it was a couple of months ago with the advent of the online tournament. So it was really cool to see
Brent:Yeah, I think it's really, really neat that they, they there's like a little bit of recognition for somebody who essentially like simple handedly started organizing like. Tournaments with hundreds of players.
Brit:Either you're young too. I think. So it's also nice to see them, you know, maybe taking a chance on someone and you know, maybe that's wrong.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. He's like, he's like, what nine Mike, do you know?
Mike:he is. Yeah, he's a junior or senior in high school. Yeah.
Brit:Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah, that's crazy. I can't imagine having, you know, doing something like that when I was still in high school, just about when I would have been even starting to play, let alone being a community figure. That's crazy.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really exciting. I, I I feel like it's really, really good stuff
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:and they, and they have the Wasi, another person who got to start in podcasting. Podcasting. It's what, it's what it's all about. Should we talk about expanded for a second?
Mike:I just wanted to mention that it's a limitless as having their second, like. Major really big tournament, regional style tournament. As part of their limitless series this weekend expanded still to me is not super fun. It's not like people, a lot of people seem to think it's much more fun than standard. And I don't really think it's that much more fun right now. I played I played the Sunday open recently that had expanded and I played mad party. It was fine. I like made them, I made a misplay and like lost a game. And then the other games, just some of their losses just didn't go well. Yeah, I dunno, Pika, her arm seems like the best deck. Or I dunno like, like all of the attacking decks all feel very similar to me. So there's peek around there's Oh, I think we talked about this maybe a week or two ago, like peak around Tina chum, the turbo darks, like they're all kind of the same thing. Just, you know, slight, they all kind of have the same engine and. Just slightly different, like attacking options. And then on the other side, there's the control decks. And the only new thing really is the Toga kissed deck. Which seems like it's just kind of capitalizing on. Specific cards that maybe lists don't play. And if lists start playing those, then it seems like a really bad deck, like peek around wasn't playing field blower. And so it could just win the match up with one weakness policy. And if a peek around is a field blower, the match of his own winnable. So I don't like I'll be interested to kind of watch the results. I'm not going to play this weekend. I have stuff to do, but Yeah, just to spell it was worth mentioning.
Brent:It it's always a big tournament. And as you said, I feel like, I feel like you might be the only person that's like really down on expanded. I feel like I hear in the community, people like expand it.
Brit:I mean, I think he's right. Which is going to be somewhat of a hot takes. I haven't played a single game of expanded.
Brent:I'm like, I don't know.
Brit:Well, I think the, I think the it's like you know, counterculture or however you want to put it. It's not that expanded is good, but it's, it's not standard. And, you know, people, people just like to be, to be different. And with all the ragging on the standard gets on like Twitter every day. Like people just don't know as much about expanded. So it's, it's just going to seem better, no matter, no matter what, but like Mikey says. I think so many of the decks are functionally equivalent. So functionally very, very close to each other. So much too. It's just a lot of just recent cards too. It's not the decks are obviously there's some examples in Tajikistan doesn't exist in standard, but it's just you know, more ADP peek at you again with older cars and dark gray, I guess it doesn't, it doesn't count because the dark deck and standard isn't anywhere close to that. But. The turbo dark deck has been in expanded since, since the GX came out, I guess. And it's, it's looked the exact same more or less the entire time. So it's not, it's not really new. You just got ADP eventually.
Brent:You just have to decide if you're putting the weed bile VX in or not like.
Mike:And, and I guess, I guess I should say, like, I don't think expanded is bad or anything. I just don't. I just don't think it's like significantly better than standard. And I also don't think standard is that bad. So if I don't think standards that bad, I also don't think expand is that bad, but I just kind of like, as Brett was saying, like, I just don't, I don't understand why people think it's so much better than standard. Did that, that just, it doesn't make sense to me because just because, and again, Brett said that all, all of the best decks are just like the juice step standard decks for the most part. So like you're still playing it a bunch of three prizes. So if you don't like standards, I don't understand hate you really like expanded that much more.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, it, it, it seems like and once again, as Fred said, does a hot take having played like no games mean if you have to do 300 damage to kill something, there's only a couple of decks you can play. And they're basically all standard decks. So you're either, you're either like, well, controls much more viable and expanded, or you're like, I'm going to play the same decks.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:guys, should we talk about battle styles?
Mike:Yeah, battle
Brent:This is, this is I think Britain, Mike, both thought this was a great week for us to deep dive on battle styles. I do want to round out the pod with like, let's have some real talk about testing for players cup three, how that's going for you, Mike, but, but like, let's talk about battle styles, a bunch of new cards.
Brit:I will say I just, we keep using, we've keep using the language deep dive and it's occurred to me that the more appropriate language would be a dumpster dive. We're going to talk to you. You're going to dumpster
Brent:Whoa. I like it. I like it.
Mike:Yeah, none of these take almost everything we're about to say is probably going to be wrong,
Brent:Well, and it's on brand.
Brit:Well, that's exactly where I wanted to start too. I wanted to see as maybe just an initial thing, if we wanted to just throw out kind of something very, very sort of. Like a big proclamation about this, that like what card is going to be, what cards are going to define this at? Or what's the one card everyone's no, one's talking about that, but everyone needs to be something like that. I just remember in vivid voltage, my after my first day or so of play-testing I was really, really high on the Leon. I would have said things like this card in the set, for sure. I just don't, I guess I'm just wise it wise enough not to post things like that. You know, I know that they'll probably be wrong, but that was my initial impression. I was really into the car and obviously not really relevant in the standard format. So I was kind of, kind of looking for something like that.
Brent:So quick question. I mean, you guys are history buffs. I feel like they've printed this supportive that does 30 more damaged card. A couple of times has, has supporter that does more damage ever, like. Had a meaningful impact on the format.
Brit:cook, we was good. It was
Mike:Could we, we could, but also drew cards. Yeah. That also drew cards there. So it's a little different
Brent:Yeah. It was like, it was like a one of that, like you might sometimes play. Yeah. Like I played during that format and that was not impactful enough.
Mike:There was a Bucs training was kind of like the same thing, right. That was kinda like draw to. Draw it to, and it does 10 more. That was played pretty much similar numbers to kukui I would say what's the other one? There's like
Brit:there is the Giovanni's card that you could it was a bad Lily, or you could do 20 more damage and it was played, but only because that was the 2015 cities format in
Brent:Yeah, that was a, that was a bad card.
Brit:Yeah, it was a bad crime. They were in it. That was the format where they were just no good supporters. And so you played that you could play that or you could play professor Birch.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, you have a good memory for these kinds of things. There was a, there was a deck that K Tron was playing an expanded or something where he was playing whatever the support or the last support or that did 30 more damage or something.
Mike:No, no, no, no. So, so it does I know what card you're talking about. I don't remember its name, but it does 10 more for each prize. Your opponent has taken
Brit:Oh, Iris, Iris, right?
Mike:Iris. Yeah,
Brent:Iris. That is correct.
Mike:So I think that card is only ever viable and Serge was legal too.
Brent:Yeah. There w there was like, it was like one deck at one tournament where it was like, it's kind of working.
Brit:We played Iris and in Polian dusk similar.
Mike:Yeah. That makes sense. Cause you have the dry on me.
Brit:and I don't think it was, it wasn't any in any, it didn't end up being any good, but like the theory was there and you played Geraci, we played Geraci X, which at that point in time, hadn't been, hadn't become a one-off in every single deck. It had synergy within poli and you wanted to fill your bench. And so like, that was the logic you could edit if you needed to. And then maybe in the game, but. I think people have messed with IRS here and there and another deck. And it's similarly just often seems good, especially with like versus Sacre you just discard it and you know, when the game with it when you need it,
Mike:Right. So I think the short answer to your question of Brent is no, none of these cards have ever been very good. They've
Brent:I that's. I remember when you were, when you were like, I like Leon, I was like, I dunno, man. It doesn't seem like those cards are ever good.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. So I haven't, I haven't looked at three quarters of the set, so I don't have like a super high, I don't, I don't have all the knowledge, but the card that strikes me. As potentially very, very good is the supporter card. Cheryl. That's what it was called, where you heal all damage from your evolution Pokemon, and then discard their energy. And if you know, it's not good on normal evolution Pokemon, but V max is our evolution Pokemon. So that seems kind of stupid. And I don't know, like the most obvious synergy is the one with the the Arisha
Brent:Rapid strike or HSA brew.
Mike:The one that attacks for one energy, but I'm sure there's going to be other applications to that. Like that card seems really stupid to print.
Brit:Yeah, I think most, almost every Japanese list I see that's post the set, whatever was called there. Like always has a shareholder too. It's going to be good. I think definitely.
Mike:I guess
Brit:all of the supporters are good. I think I've failed to mention that when asked last week or the week before, about like what I'm excited about. And I think that's my actual answer is just like, there's a lot of good supporters and. Maybe it will be enough to make some, some decks. We haven't come up with yet, like competitive. I doubt it, but usually it's just a good sign. It's healthy for the game. The more options you have and things like that. Like, so, and so often the formats we talk about across history as being the good ones. Almost always have, have a good supporter pool to them and the bad ones, almost always don't so that's, that's, I think where my optimism comes about this, that I'm excited about it and hoping it will be different. And there's, there's a lot to it. It's, it's a good set. I think, I guess while we're talking about supporters, I really like the, maybe I'll just be wrong. It'll be like Leon, because I thought Leon would, would have been good and alternatives. And I'm looking at Phoebe and I have similar feelings like. It's just somebody cars. So many decks, just even send us scores, struggles with Sam, his dentist, sometime having, having just the free option to get through it. Like, I don't think it will be impactful. I don't quite know how to fit out. We don't have like taboo layaway or like the old Geraci stellar, which there's no, we don't have a good way. Or like Zuora or even kind of just was good because you could draw your deck. So you would all of course just have the supporters when you need them, but there's no, there's no good search for you. Like one of supporters. So it. I don't know if it will end up being any good, but as the, one of the main cards that caught my attention this morning when I was going through a lot of them, even, I mean more realistically like a Bruno, which is kind of just a worse Cynthia's feelings. I think like seven draw seven is good. It's a lot of cards.
Mike:Real quick, real quick. So one of one of my pet peeves, when I listened to like Hearthstone card reviews is that they don't say what the card does and I don't know what the cards do. So like, let's just make sure that we're doing that as we're talking. So Phoebe Phoebe is during this turn.
Brit:a safe guard for you get through like anything as your VMX Pokemon during this term damage from your VMX aren't effected by any effects on your opponent's active.
Mike:Okay, so that's that one. And then what was the other one? You said
Brit:Bruno is something as feelings, drugged, shuffle your hand into your deck, then draw for if any of your Pokemon were knocked out. A note knocked out, not knocked out by damage or anything like that. Like sometimes there's that qualification, but just in general you get seven instead of four.
Mike:Yeah, that could be good. I'm not sure if it'll replace Marnie in anything, but
Brit:Maybe in like night, I keep saying nine March when, I mean mad party, maybe again, wouldn't be super relevant for a tier three deck, but like your Pokemon get knocked out of return. Dry your deck. You have like a lot of those in addition to your, for research, but.
Mike:All right. What other supporters we got while we're on supporters? Let's just go through all of them. So we've got creepiness focus, which is Bianca draw cries until you have six. Probably not playable, but could be good.
Brent:I mean, nobody played it when professors research was Bible and other formats. And the fact that we have Marnie and this, like, why would you play that?
Mike:Yup. There's the maxi Archie card for rapid strike Pokemon. So you
Brit:one of them is sorry. One of them is from the deck there. Right? Of them is the bench, but they're both, they're both. If you have no other cards in your hand.
Mike:yeah. So I was looking at
Brent:Yeah, the, the mustard is weird.
Mike:the mustard is the one from the discard pile and then you put it to the bench, drop five and then,
Brent:There's a single strike mustard. That's searched her deck. If they're under your bench.
Mike:okay.
Brit:Well, they're both mustard. They're qualified by single Stryker, rapid struck. I didn't know that. I
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah, I think so. Yeah. On channel fireball, Alex, Szymanski his article in one rapid strikes, stands mustard in it, because it was a, you could use artillery to search for a rapid strike card. Right. Is that how that,
Mike:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and if you get reset stamps, then you can play
Brent:Yeah. So it was like, it was like, this card is bad, but I put it in there because you could draw a card. You know, if you need to, if you need a supporter to get stamped at one, you can do this thing.
Mike:Yep. The one from the deck is probably much more powerful at least, you know, in the early stages of the game. I don't know how easy it is to get your hand down to zero without ultra ball in the format. But if, if a list can do that relatively effectively I mean right now, right now, the weird thing is like the only, the only rapid striking single strike Pokemon that you can really revolve a deck around. Are there a resurface? Right. Everything else is kind of just support for those cards. So. All right. What other supporters? We got sword, war and shield Barrett. This does not seem very good. Yeah. It's choose a trading card from your,
Brit:of the older supporter that had something similar. Was it like Roxanne's request or something or?
Mike:Something like
Brit:Yeah, it was, Oh yeah. Interacted with the TMS, your
Brent:Just think of a card you would never play. And that's it, that's it like this? Cause it's unplayable.
Mike:What does it say? What it says is choose a trading card from your discard pile and ask your opponent. If you can put it in your hand, if they say yes, you get it. They say, no, it goes back to the, and you draw three. So it's like, yeah. Yeah, that's
Brent:Yeah. So it's like, it's like a frustrating, how
Mike:Yep.
Brit:The high with extra steps.
Mike:I think that's all the supporters.
Brent:Interestingly, if I just had to take that to its logical conclusion, the scenario where you would play it and they would say, yes is like, turn one, you discarded like a bad tool or something. And it's the only card in your discard. And you're like, this is the only other burnable card I have. So I'm going to play it. And they're like, yeah, you can have that bed. So like, it actually turns out it turns into optionality for the other guy, because he's like, is your discard full of bad cards? If so, then you get no value out of the supporter. If it's full of good cards, then draw three cards. Never give you your opponent choices in games. That's always bad.
Mike:All right. So I'm looking at these are earth, earth, Shifu or shuffle. I think that's how you say the single strike.
Brit:and tell him correct.
Mike:The rapid strike or Shifu is good. We'll talk more about that.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, let's talk about single strike. If you want to talk about single strike really quickly. Cause rapid strike, I think is the, is there a really good one?
Mike:Yeah, single strike extra food seems pretty bad. A hundred for three colorless, two 70 for three fighting on a call list and you have to discard all energy from it. So like two 70 for four is not even that good. And then you also have to discard all four energies.
Brent:So, so the way I think the scenario in which you imagine it works is you set up this new hound doom.
Mike:Yeah, but, but, and so like, and the energies, right? The, the double energy is the rapid strike one. And the single strike one is the one is the one that does like 20 more. Right. So, Oh, you don't even get the extra energy acceleration on this one.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So you have to set up multiple hounds. So what does the hound him do? It lets you get the energies out of your deck and attach to the Pokemon,
Brit:I just feel like that's wrong. Shouldn't it just, shouldn't it be the other way? Like I, so I understand like single strike makes sense that. It's he has one big attack, but then wouldn't, but with rapid strike, you're doing a little small ones. Wouldn't you do more damage then, and then you would want extra energy for the big attack. Like the just seems in there in the inverse to me, but,
Brent:So, so just for Mike, the ability of how new is single strike roars is one string. Your turn, you can search your deck for a single strike energy card attached to one of your single strike Pokemon and shuffle your deck. If you attach energy to Pokemon in this way, but to damage counters on the Pokemon. So, so like, theoretically, what you do is you set up a bunch of hound, dooms. You put all this energy on there, you hit for a good Julian. Because it's all plus 20 damage. Right.
Mike:Oh, that's true. You do get plus 20. Okay. So two 70 seems more reasonable
Brent:And then, then you discard it all you Cheryl of all the damage and then you somehow shuffle all that energy back into your deck and do the hundred thing again.
Mike:Yeah, there is a trainer that lets you shuffle some energies back. What's it called?
Brent:Yeah, I know. That's a thing.
Mike:Vitality. Choose up to two single strike energy cards from your discard pile and shuffled them into your deck. So, but like that's yeah. I mean, like.
Brent:like you see how they gave us an archetype, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's good enough.
Mike:Yeah. Like for four energy is just a lot like foods, three foods, three energies. You could probably do it before as there's probably too much. And like the three energy attack being a hundred, maybe you can like two-shot things, but like, if I'm going to two-shot things, I would just rather play a different deck.
Brent:Yeah. L and that's, I mean, if you mean setting up like three hound, dooms, that seems impossible.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah.
Brent:there's just a lot of moving parts. You need to cycle your attacker. Like you're. Yeah. You're looking for two of these things that put back cards and you're looking for a Sheryl and you're looking and all that's come after you've like turned through your deck and set up a zillion hound, domes
Mike:yeah.
Brent:a lot, a lot of pieces.
Mike:Yeah. And like the basic one is like, I don't know, it does 180 for three, which is pretty good. And so you can theoretically hit, like kill V's with it, but you're also only having 220, so you're just going to get one shot yourself. So,
Brit:Yeah, like the there's natural synergy with the first attack, the format of unfortunately is such that. You probably just die if you use that first attack as sad and depressing is that sounds 220 HP ain't enough to survive one turn in the active position these days.
Mike:Yeah, it's Ashley and I'll just eat you for lunch.
Brent:And and you end up like, and if they know they can't knock you out, like just and then like these probably not gonna be all the tech next door and it'll be fine.
Mike:All right. So that's single strike anything. Much more interesting is rapid Strake Hersha food. So rapid who has a glisten pod GX type of attack. So it does 30, but if it moved from the bench to the act of that turn, it does 150, 120 more. And then for three energy, it's discard all energy from the Pokemon and then you get to do one 20 to two opponents Pokemon. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was only bench, but now it's to, to to any thing which. When I was reading skimming over schmancy, his article, he made it sound like you can only hit the bench. So that's why I was curious.
Brent:Yeah. So he put, he put one telescopic site on his list because he was like, if you want to kill an ADP, you'll, you'll pop it for one 50 and then you'll want to and then if you, if you just hit him on the bench for one 20, it won't kill him. So you slap the side on to kind of get the numbers to get there.
Mike:Yeah, you get that. That's, that's what I was referring to. So this one seems pretty good, mostly because it can attack for one energy. That's really nice.
Brent:Yeah, well, I, and, and it's got that great synergy with Cheryl, which is going to be an incredibly stupid and frustrating card in the format where you put the 300 something HitPoint Pokemon in the active with one energy on it, you know and if it's a rapid strike energy, it's two energies. So you could retreat using those energies, Sheryl all the damage off attached to a new one and hit into it. Right. So, so Cheryl gives you an easy scenario for cycling into the gloss about attack and peeling, all the damage off.
Brit:you just have retreated to, I think the, the, the rapid start stadium.
Brent:the tower of water, right.
Brit:Yeah. It's the water on?
Mike:This strategy is proven to be good with Melissa pod. Like, I feel like this deck will function very similarly Douglas about door arc. You know, it played the to, to bounce, to go spot back list about had, you know, pretty solid second and third attack in a similar way that this does artillery is kind of your Zurich in this sense. So you lose like the versatility of attackers that, you know, Zuora pothead, but Still seems. Yeah, it seems like we know that strategy is a pretty good strategy. Just kind of like going for two shots using Kaylene to leverage yourself. So yeah, th this seems pretty solid.
Brent:Yeah. So at what Brett and I were just talking about is the tower of water stadium. The retreat cost of each rapid strike Pokemon in play is two less. So, so yeah, like essentially that's free cycling and. Yeah, you have the option to essentially like you Sheryl and heal off all the damage or attach another rapid strike energy and use the sniper attack. Right? I mean, it seems really good.
Brit:Do you, I was thinking, sorry, in the article, as you say, the telescopic site is really for ADP, but I was trying to think of, there would be any kind of way to bump up your numbers and nothing really comes to mind, you know, to knock out the two DNA or
Brent:So, so here's, here's a question for you guys. It is very related. So one of the new things in here is the rapid strike. Scroll of squirrel, a scroll of swirls. Squirrels swirls. It's a Pokemon tool when you attach it, the rapid right Pokemon, this card is attached. You can use the attack on this card for fighting and to colorless this attack, this 30 damaged each of your opponents Pokemon. I mean, is that, is it better to just use the telescopic sight and the w you know, one 20 discard all the energies, or would you ever say, Hey, a 30 spread, 30 spread. We love spread decks here at the
Brit:would have to build the deck differently. You would, you would play more sites. But I I'm into that idea. As I say, week after week, I'm a sucker for spread. So that was probably, it was probably more of that inclination than it being great. But I think that would be good. And you just, your first attack is so self-sufficient already, like, you ha you don't, you know, you don't have to build your deck or on the first attack. It does it itself essentially. And so you have some freedom to maybe. Cultivate or not cultivate, but coordinate to like a different, different strategy or something like I'm into that idea. That may, might be one of the first things. I've try all at all at the good place, figure out like the standard Virgin of Irish Fu and while I'll work on a spread version, but I, it doesn't seem bad. And I'm sort of like we were saying, and I guess not relevant. To expand it, but tool scrapper doesn't seem super popular at the moment. So it might be a good time for a tool like this to be relevant. Just doesn't seem to be in debt class. Whereas a few months ago, ADP piggy was never really played it, but it was, it was far more common and most of the other standard decks.
Mike:Yeah, it seems, it seems like it could be good. In either version you could also run some type of package as well. So you can so you can kill the DNA. If you go telescopic site, plus a plus a goon bass a little bit harder to get to, but you could do this spread attack onto a bat. And then telescopic site later on, you could play like scrapper to to scrapper your own tool as opposed.
Brent:And anytime you scrap her your own tool, the, your opponent says, Oh my God, they're an absolute master of Pokemon.
Mike:Right. Okay, cool. And artillery is much better than how noon too, as a support Pokemon. I mean, I, that's a little unfair, like
Brent:Let's tell people what I feel. He does.
Mike:yeah, they're serving different roles. So artillery is once you're in your turn, search your deck for a
Brent:Rapid strike card.
Mike:any Rapids drag cards. So that. All of the rapid strike trainer cards are rapid strike cards. All of the Pokemon or abstract cards. The energy is a rapid straight card. I believe the train of cards actually. Am I misspeaking?
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So, so th th that's, that was the trick in Szymanski is this is the mustard is the only rapid strike supporter card,
Mike:Okay. Okay.
Brent:but like, like the tool that I just gave you that as a rapid straight card as, yeah. And so rapid strike energy just for all our listeners that haven't been reading obsessive is a wild card is attached to a rapid strike Pokemon and prides water and fighting energy, but provides only 200 at a time and it can only be attached to rabbits. Right. So, so like, yeah, I mean, this is you, you have to love these. This is somewhat similar-ish to the whole on engine we talked about last week and it's lovability like. You can get drawn. If you need it, you can get Pokemon. If you need them, you can get energy. If you need them. It, you know, it helps you assemble thesis, right?
Mike:So artillery is much more versatile and it helps you like set up where he's hound doom is just accelerating energy, which is, you know, they're serving very different purposes, but probably on average, Hillary more played and just more useful. Cause it is just more versatile in its in its role.
Brent:I mean, this deck is just going to be more played because it's better.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:I think one thing that will at least hopefully lend itself to, you know, the better player winning more often than not like artillery is kind of a hard card. I've always sort of thought that, you know, cards like Skyla are difficult because you have so much freedom. You can take whatever you want. And I guess, you know, we're limited here. You can't take. Any card, but just more, decision-making more sequencing to do that. Hopefully we'll introduce a little more skill in the game, but I suppose at the end of the day, if these cards aren't competitive, then it doesn't matter. But I think they'll get there. Or at least just, I know maybe people made these comparisons when we first saw the scans, but like that it was kind of our newest iteration of like Jim leader, Pokemon SP things like that. And now that I'm thinking about it, I am getting kind of. in the sense that the support is all there already, but the Pokemon are good. We'll make them work for now. Like now in Palka were good, but they weren't good at on the same level as luxury and Gar chump that would come a few sets later. So I think something like that is maybe realistic to happen here. Like I'm just scanning through. I didn't see so many of these trainers before, but just so many good, just a little item cards for both. Both strikes for factions or however you want to group them. But yeah, hopefully we'll keep seeing them build on it and that it's not just a make a mechanic for two sets or something.
Brent:think the other important thing we should talk about when it comes to this, this new or should Fu rapid strike architects that they've given us is I mean, real talk is pick around dead.
Mike:Okay. It might be, I mean, as possible. I think a lot of the earth view decks will play at Geraci. So MuTu will like you either have to kill the druggie or you have to. Go through like two shot earth foods, right. Because MuTu you can't like plant and play MuTu. So I don't, I don't know. I mean, get like all of your lightening tag teams getting one shot for an energy and even like a Mewtwo getting like Sheryl might just be the, the real breaker in it. Like if they didn't have Sheryl, it might be fine. But like the fact that they can go like one 50 on a Mewtwo, you hit it. And then they go Cheryl, and now you lose.
Brent:Right, right. Yeah. If you're, if you're, if you can't one shot, then back instantly with Mewtwo, you're pretty much dead, right?
Mike:Yeah, probably.
Brent:Like you gotta have a plan, probably the power of two mutants. To get through the game,
Mike:Yep.
Brent:Is the turn of this dead.
Mike:So OSHA who doesn't want shot at Turnitin so needs either. It needs to be like behind and use dojo. Right? Cause even like, if you, you could you play like vitality band in theory, but that's still only three 20. So you could play like maybe this is where like a goon package is multi-faceted in its use. Like it helps with the spread and could help you reach the numbers versus Turnitin. So. But then you'd really do have to play vitality band and maybe, maybe just dojo is fine. So I don't know. I don't think it turned into this is dead. Not, this is not as quite a hard counter as a, as it is for peek around.
Brit:do you think, do you think that any of the either version will end up playing the dojo just seems like. I mean, maybe that damage is worth it at the end of the day, but the free trade is so good at all times. I just can't imagine. I mean, maybe you can play both that occasionally has worked across the history of the game, getting away with two stadiums to different kinds of stadiums in a deck, but it's rare.
Mike:Yeah, it might not be necessary. Right. You might just be able to, even to shout at Turnitin and they can't one chat you. So with Cheryl, it might just be fine. And you don't even need like, like if you do a 300 and you don't even need. The extra, like you don't need to switch in effect to, to, to finish the two shot. So it's not even you needed, you don't, you don't really need a lot at all. You just need the Sheryl, the following term, plus another energy and you've stopped them from killing your guy. And you're two shouting them. So like you might, it just might not even be necessary for the matchup to be favorable.
Brit:I mean, at the same time, too, like you're already, even though you don't want shot them, you're obviously setting them up for the sniping attack and you yourself. I've kind of difficult numbers to hit. So you're not super pressured to be one shot in return. So I can't imagine. It just seems you do 300 and then just snipe, and then you set up the next with the snipe, with the second one 20 that you do. Yeah. Probably pretty bad for them, but yeah, this tech has got a one energy attack. Sorry. Crushing hammers.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah, that. So I was about to ask if we have any, like, Hot take on, on how the ADP metric works for deck like this. Yeah, I guess if you're ADP, you're like, well, I hope they set up a lot of activities.
Brit:Yeah, I don't think it's just like ADP does ADP things, depending on, you know, do they model while you do they, do they get a free, you know, some freebies on the Geraci or something like that, but. And similarly, just the way that ADP has kind of always interacted with the matchup for any of the DMX stacks is if you hit, if you get ultimate Ray off, you probably win the game. And I would think that's probably still going to be true that you'd get ultimate Ray off. You die for prizes with and then knock out, knock Tillery and the game's over.
Brent:Right. Well, that's see. I was thinking they if they share, all right after you ultimate Ray, then you're like, Oh, darn
Brit:Yeah, there, this Sheryl is going to be a pesky card.
Brent:Cheryl could really, really, really be the most obnoxious card in the set. I think
Mike:Yeah. Yeah,
Brent:so. So let's talk about a couple of other things. As long as we're talking about Cheryl, do you guys want to hear all of my dumb control ideas?
Mike:absolutely.
Brent:right. So here's my dumb control ideas. I want you guys to tell me which one of these, we will see sander build a deck with first. There's obviously something where you're just doing Cheryl, like every turn and that you put up something, I don't know. And then you just Cheryl every turn and he's built this whole thing where he's like looping Sherylls and like doing something, I don't know. My next idea for a sander kind of deck was using goal bet and CRO bet and scoop up nets as the drawing engine.
Mike:Very, let me see what these are. I don't know what they do. So goal that when you evolve it, you draw two cards. And when you adopt a crowbar, you draw three cards. Ooh, that's pretty cool. I like
Brent:So that's a very standard kind of mechanic, right? He's like I'm going to play oppressive supporters, every turn, and I'm going to like draw five cards and play a scoop up at every turn.
Mike:Ooh.
Brit:That could work the Crow. Bet. I couldn't think of any good stage twos, but this one sounds good, but does it have enough HP to really last though? Like
Mike:No, it has 130.
Brit:that's what I
Brent:Yeah, no, he's going to play it down and then he's going to scoop it up right away. Let's scoop up that.
Mike:That's just a draw. That's just the dry engine. Like I think, I think for the Sheryl thing, you're thinking what's the biggest V max that exists.
Brent:Yeah. Oh yeah. No, these are independent ideas. I don't know which one he's gonna build the deck with. But, but these are all I, I went through and identified a series of cards where I was like, these are the mechanics that I think sander likes to use if I was going to speculate. So then there was a mimic UV, what's its what's its ability, its ability. Oh its ability is if you played it down this turn it can't take damage.
Brit:Yeah, we were talking, we were talking about that a little bit before, and I was like, I don't think there's anything to do with it in standard, but I was trying to come up with like an expanded deck that just did that. And like a Serola every turn. I'm not sure what you would want to pivot with, but it seems like at
Brent:You want to pin them with a pokey doll?
Brit:All right.
Mike:Well, there's that? Oh, wait, wait. Okay. Okay. Is there any card that like you do damage and then it goes back to your hand because like that that's kind of, that would be sick. I know an expanded, there's a tentacle that does that. It's like for colorless, you do 10 and put 10 cool. Back into your hand. So like, if you have that, that's like, well, but how do you get the Mimikyu back here? Yeah. Okay. That's the problem.
Brent:Disability once during your term, will you play this card from your hand on your bench until the end of your phone is next turn, prevent all damage to this Pokemon by a tax rate, opponents Pokemon. And then it's a tech is a great one for one psychic, with three damaged counters on your opponent's active Pokemon for each prize card your opponent has taken. So I, you know, as the game goes on, it's putting a ton of damage down and its ability is really strong, but you need a way to bounce it back of your hand constantly.
Brit:Yeah. So maybe, maybe Mike's idea of sounds good. There has to be something else, like tend to call it like something like a cliff score from legends, awakened. I think something like that, that, yeah, maybe that maybe that would be the best way to do it. So your BA you have a natural way to bounce. Like into Mimikyu and then you'll use your supporter every turn on, you know, you know, acerola max potion, whatever. Obviously I keep forgetting to, you can you'll have four, you know, multiples, presumably it's not like you have to recycle this the wanna every time.
Brent:Yeah, but, but it, but it only works for the turn that you play it from your hand to the bench.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So, so like you have to use like super scoop ups or something to like. Get it off the board. So they can't just gust it back up and kill it.
Mike:Right. Well, and the other thing is like, you want, you really want it to be the only thing on your board, right. Because you don't want them to just gust around it. So yeah, maybe an expanded there's some like tend to cool maybe Q deck where you just put like for a Z for a Serola for scoop ups. And tend to cool plus choice band or something like that, something stupid.
Brent:Oh, and then licky licky was the other card that I said, Oh, Sandra could probably build a deck with this better than I could.
Mike:So what's that do three colorless energy is your opponent discards? The top three cards. They're decked. Alternatively, they choose three cards from their hand and discard them instead. Hmm.
Brent:So it's a stage one. So theoretically you could triple accelerate energy. So you have kind of a way to power it up. But I don't like giving my phone at the choice.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Cause like, cause like this would be effective often as like they have, they have three cars left in their deck. They're waiting to Marnie and you just discard three, but if they can just choose to discard three from their hand, it's a little less effective probably.
Brent:Yeah, that is, that is probably not as good as yeah, the other stuff. So it sounds like, it sounds like my last two ideas are the worst, which I agree, which one will standard first aid, Sheryl focused deck or a deck that uses bet bet. Scoop of meds as is a drawing engine.
Mike:he did. I was going to say Chromat.
Brent:It is, it just seems like that's such a standard thing to do, right. He's like I put this three, three, two line in and it's like the center of my draw engine while I play oppressive supporters, every turn. And then I have this other complicated thing I do to get supporters back to like, get rid of their energy, every turn and or gusts, every turn, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I do this thing and it draws my part that return. Right. It's like, so, but yeah, Cheryl, Cheryl's going to insight. There's no question. Cheryl's a really good part.
Mike:Clara. What else? What
Brent:the other question I had was have you looked at the Coco V and the cocoa BMX bike? And do we have a read on whether or not that's something that helps peek around or not?
Mike:So I did, I actually did see the cocoa VMX max. I don't know if peek around is necessarily the best place for this, but, you know, auto paralyzes always very interesting. So it's part of the reason I choose good. Now my, my hunches that even though this is interesting, Potentially good. I think the inclusion of escape rope in this set is probably going to make paralyze much worse than it was before. So I don't think it'll be a very good card, but you should never like overlook auto paralyzed attacks.
Brent:All right. Let's talk about some other like edgy kind of decks. Have you guys seen the new primate card?
Brit:Yeah, that was one of the main ones I was trying to think about too. And like, like the Mimikyu idea. Maybe just for expanded. I'm not sure how, how good it would be, but obviously you have a lot of ways to, to damage your bench. Their most obvious one, probably being the team magnet secret base that was prevalent for a little while. Kind of just the initial versions of DRAM garbage door from 2017. But yeah, I don't, I couldn't couldn't come up with any, in any interesting ways. Interesting things to do with it in standard, but that idea seems okay. You know, so you do two 50. If everything on your dammit, if everything on your bench is damaged,
Brent:And you can do single strike energy so you can bump it up to two
Brit:I mean, an expanded in single strike and a strong energy or something at the same time,
Brent:Right. That card struck me as the kind of card where like back in the day there would be this like, Momentary thing because somebody won a city championship with it and everybody's like, Oh, we got to build it.
Mike:Yeah, like the Garrett is deck.
Brent:Yeah. Like it's, it's not good enough, but for a second it seems like it might be good enough.
Mike:Some, the first two thoughts I had when I, the first, this is the first time I've read this card. First two thoughts I had was I really wish it was rapid strikes, so I could attach the double fighting energy to it. That would make it like definitely playable for sure. Right. As is with the, with the single strike. I don't know. But I mean, the second thought is obviously. Spirit too.
Brent:Right, right. You use spirit to them. And I honestly just set up one house. Fix the energy and celery problems.
Mike:Right. So yeah, this could be good enough. Cause like, this is definitely better than Don fan as a, a state, one fighting Pokemon to play with spirit doom. Don fan just doesn't do enough damage.
Brit:I guess you could play it with Don fan. Like that's a standard card that would damage your bench for you.
Mike:That's true. You could do that as well. Yeah, it's just the two fighting energy costs. So like playing hound, doom is a little awkward, but it's possible. Wait, is karate belt still in the format?
Brit:Yeah, because it was in the chomp magnetron decks that came out, it kind of at the start of.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere karate belt, plus this in a spirit tuned bag actually seems pretty solid to me because, because like, part of the reason that part of the reason that spirit team is struggled, it's obviously ADP and this doesn't really address the ADP problem, but even against like peaker, almond and Turnitin, you just didn't have good ways really to to respond to their big guys. So. This this is pretty cool. And you're going against something like Stennis Gorge. You can pretty reliably to shadows tennis courts. If you're doing two 50 on one of your attacks because then you only have to, do you only need a couple counters on a spirit team then?
Brent:Man, the problem is they're going to play Cheryl every time you say to shout, I'm like, Oh man, I don't think it was a two-shot format. You know?
Mike:yeah, yeah.
Brent:The next week is going to be one shot at bus.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. Primary. That's interesting. I liked that. I didn't, I haven't seen this card.
Brent:All right. All right. I dig it. Have you seen the new chair and car?
Mike:That's the black soy for grass energies, right.
Brit:yeah, you can't go to a rule box.
Brent:Yeah. So they limit it by saying you can't attach it to a rule box, but at the stage, once I throw you a bone.
Mike:That's probably bad then.
Brit:Yeah, let's just look at this. Just no, maybe, maybe something in expanded, but there's just, no, there's no combination. Even in a perfect world where you're slapping eight energies onto something turn to like, it's not just,
Brent:The shaman prison star is obviously a really good card to combo with this.
Mike:Sure. If you could play four of them, then yeah,
Brent:Right. Right. The problem is, yeah, you, what you need is a second attacker. I assume this is going to be a really good card in a future set.
Brit:maybe like one of these amazing, rare decks would maybe work like. Give there's the one that takes grass and then has a color list like that would work, I would think. But yeah, if it had to be something that would, I would guess the amazing rares is there.
Brent:Yeah. I really feel like they'll print the card in June. So you'll be like, Oh yeah, this is a good card.
Mike:Yup. This is the first time I think that we've had this effect on anything, but a stage two though. So that's worth noting. I can't think of any that's like unlimited energy on a stage one.
Brent:Oh, there's the frost myth, right?
Mike:Oh,
Brit:has to go to the bench
Brent:The prospect had to go to the bench. This, when you put it in the active.
Mike:right. So my first month is better. And first month hasn't even been that good.
Brent:Yeah, it's Def and frost, but they gave you an attacker. They were like, you should combo this with Italia, the Pokemon people just thinking we can't figure stuff out here. There's no attacker. And you're like, wow.
Mike:All right. Can, can we get your guys' opinions on the cricket tune? Hi people. I've seen people posting that they think it's really good and I just don't get it. I don't get why it's good. Like I asked it like, it's a Wrangler. Ooh. Right. You draw to three if it's on the bench, but it's a V. So you're giving up to par, I guess. I guess it's probably good enough. I just can't the active part of it. Maybe threw me off that. I just don't see it. I don't see the extra card coming up. As being relevant that often, because how often are you gonna get into the active.
Brit:Yeah, my, my rationale at the very least. So it's just that like, occasionally. It's rare, but some decks do still play the, the amazing Geraci occasionally, if the, if they already, if they come equipped with like balloons and stuff like that, people dabbled with that at least. So when, especially when the card first came out and I was thinking that like, it seemed to me, I think it would have to be better than that. And if, you know, if that's the case, then whatever decks did that, like I said, I can't even think of any off the top of my head that are still doing that. So not, not the best example, but I think it would be better there, but you would want it in mad party. I'm sure that's the most, you know, our ringer historically tends to go and those kind of battle compressor really super duper aggressive deck. So you can find your gust of wind for the last turn and mad party is really the only one of those currently. But
Brent:See, I tried to imagine, are there decks that I play or choreo in that I'd replaced with a cricket team?
Brit:that's that was my, exactly my next point too. Or Correale also just seems better that, that the decks that. Didn't play that don't play a ringer, but play or a choreo. Like they think he would still just want or a choreo. Like he wouldn't,
Mike:Like blondes is not going to blend is not going to play cricket tune over or Korea, for example.
Brit:Right. And that's, that was what I was thinking you said would certainly wouldn't swap them, but. Could you play both. And I don't think so now if you're not also, because bonds are the places in oil acts and we kind of speculated initially that like maybe Snorlax would find a home in blondes and there seemed to be some logic there, but obviously if things have happened, no Snorlax and blam. So I can't imagine it, it would be that, you know, you're, you only have the eight switching cards and most of the time you burned them all trying to try to do the digging that you have to do. So. Putting more things in the active, probably just as a negative for what your deck is trying to do. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's just another card that will be good later down the road. Maybe like it's such a good ability. I would shocked if it was not good. Because it's attacking the gut. Actually, I haven't read that. Maybe if it's attack because good is all these grass Pokemon are just like, well, you could maybe play it in real boom, I guess.
Mike:No, it's a text sex. It's three, three, three energy, 80 for the coin of heads, 80 more.
Brent:Yeah, thanks. It's actually useless.
Mike:The only other thing that I guess is jading me a little bit on, this is ADP. So like, would, do you really want this like an ADP, but you don't want it on your bench? Because you're not, they're not stamping you or anything like that. And it's just an easy three prizes. So like the ADP matchup, you really just never want to play it down probably. So I think that's part of what's jading me to it a little bit.
Brent:Yeah. I mean the situation where I was like, I was like, maybe I see a scenario is like, for me as the ADP player, I'll bump into these games where I'm playing against peek around and they, they stamped me to one, but they're going to shot me. And, and I just have to find the boss and, and like, I can't use Ora choreo and they did, they did what they did. Cause they knew I couldn't use it,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:but, but like, Those cases are just so much fewer than like for the chorea. There all three. Awesome. I think it's, that's an area was way less likely than B. They just came out with something in the active and I need to find a boss to win and what they should do is draw as many cards as possible. So I can do that right.
Mike:Agreed.
Brent:Bronze on.
Mike:bronze on is as often as ability as often as you like during your turn, you may move a metal energy from one Pokemon to another. So energy transfer, metal energies.
Brit:I was, we were talking about this too. Before you came on. I know I've seen a Japanese deck lifts that I played bronze on and I don't remember what else it played. I think it played and in Poland, but I, I tried to find it in my, and like I knew I replied to the tweet too, and I just couldn't find it and digging earlier, but maybe I'll have some luck later. And it's, I believe it won a tournament and Yeah, I just can't remember what else was in it, but the ability historically is very, very good, especially now with you know, you could play just as a Sheehan and like metal patches and then other things too, like, you know, cause it, you just have.
Brent:Right. It gets
Brit:the energy on the board. And we, we, we have a card for that naturally already. So in that, that, that would be really good. One, one thing the crushing hammers are always really good against these techs usually. Cause it was great as the energy transfer is they still have to manually attach them. And so you would, you would you'd get around that with the metal patch and obviously station is incredibly powerful. But yeah, but you know, maybe that's just the deck that I'm trying to find that we've described. And then you have in polio on too, which just, you know, is better than melodic. If you need something to try to splash for some fire coverage. There's some better fighting Pokemon now, too. So you could play, I'm not sure what you would want to play like. I don't think the Arisha Fu even for the Calissa pot attack is worth splashing, but maybe still, certainly I don't think you would want right period, but maybe that's still just your best option.
Mike:Here's some thoughts that I had. Well, first of all, I don't know if Brian's on can move coding energy as well. I assume it can. But I'm not sure I'd have to like check on the wording if it can. That's really great. The other thing is maybe there's some, I think the only V metal V max Pokemon, we have our cup of Raja and Asia slash
Brit:there's a corporate night in the South that I actually think is good. That seems okay. Like its attacks are terrible, but
Brent:I was going to say it. The texts are terrible.
Mike:But so probably of those ages slash is probably the best one, but so there could be some like Brown song Asia slash Sheryl synergy going on. Cause you get to move the energy seral and yeah. That, that,
Brit:From how I'm reading, coding energy. I think it would have to work bronze moves metal, and it,
Mike:it says it counts as a metal, right?
Brent:Right. It's a metal when it's on the Pokemon. Right. I mean, you can move rainbow energies with aromatase. Like that's the same thing, right?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. That's the same thing.
Mike:You could still play like a Luke metal. You probably would play a Luke metal in these decks to like. Make your tanking better.
Brent:Right. It's to the GX two a too good. Not to what I use. Right.
Mike:so I don't know if I don't know that that could be like a cool, slow deck where if you're able to like, change Sherylls and attack, like, and ages slash what is, what is it attack too? It's like one 60 plus 30 for each part of, for each price grade you have taken. Okay. Okay.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're you just move all the energy to a basic player. Cheryl, wipe off all the damage on the board.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:it and then move it all back to a book them on their unkillable next turn.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And then do it again.
Mike:It could be good if like,
Brent:I actually like that.
Mike:it could be good. The only other card that I know that I had on my radar was victimy VMX at first I was pretty underwhelmed by this, but. I skimmed Stefan's article. And so the teeny VMX for one colorless has the same attack as the old Vic teeny V, which is attach up to three fire from your discard to your Pokemon. But its second attack is just to energy, fire colorless. It does a hundred. And if your opponent's active as activism, Pokemon V you do 120 more. So two 20. So you're killing. Every single V Pokemon for two energy. So if you go first attach an energy to evict Teenie, turn to attach boss, you, you kill like every Pokemon V. So you know, if you're playing center scorch, they've all canned into a center squares, you just kill it. Obviously the metal ones are dead anyway. A Turnitin, they attach you kill it. So I don't know. This seems actually kind of good to me as a like. Going first deck just being able to kill any Pokemon V on the, on the second turn,
Brent:So is, is a V max considered a V. Or is it a max?
Brit:I
Mike:the Macs are considered viz as well. Yeah. So you, so your two shot every V max which may, as we said, might not be good enough, but The fact that you can one shot every Pokemon be on turn two for just two energy. Like you don't need any energy acceleration like Sasha and Sasha. And can do that obviously, but it requires either a metal saucer or are you hitting an energy from Intrepid stored? So the fact that you can do this with no energy, acceleration's pretty appealing to me.
Brit:yeah, I liked, I liked Stefan's take, so you kind of like, it's not like the V max was your only strategy. It was, it's a thinner line. You have four of the V's and two of the V maxes. And then, so then you just kind of transition into being a welder deck afterwards. Like if The VMX isn't, you know, it's going to carry some of it and then like finish the game with chars art or something like that. Like, it seems pretty good to me. It's a lot better. I didn't think this card was good, but after reading, reading the article and you know, he's got a good list, at least at the very least, so a good starting list.
Mike:Yeah, I agree.
Brent:Nice. All right guys. We're we're about at time. Let's talk about players cup three for two seconds, Mike. How's it going? Are you ready?
Mike:I mean, I've been talking to some people about it and kind of just doing like theory monster. I honestly, I haven't really played very much. I'm getting some cold feet on peaker. I'm getting convinced that turn into this is going to be very popular and the ADP matchup is a worst with rusted stored. So we'll see how the next week goes. Some the other two decks that I'm going to be messing around with are blondes and send a scorch. I played a good amount of bland, so I feel like I could do that. And obviously Ross has had a lot of success with it, so I can always chat with him about it and then send us Gorge. It feels like it. The reason that I've always liked peek around is that it gives you a lot of options and it has relatively, he even match-ups, every metric kind of feels winnable most of the time. And it sent us Gorge in some ways has that as well. I think you have a little bit less consistency, but you do have you know, you have different attacking options. You can use the VMX or, or the basic you have either Heatron or rushes ARD. You have Krammer and have you decided to play that? You're obviously, but Kenyon too. And there seems to be like a good amount of options. I just gotta, like, if I'm going to do that, I really got to learn how to play it well before that, before next weekend. Yeah, so I dunno, I'm feeling a little shaky. If I, if I, if I really don't feel comfortable playing blinds or center scorch or something else though. I feel like that. Just the fact that I can play picker I'm really well, even if it's maybe not the best choice is a, still a great fallback. And I don't, it's not like I need
Brent:there's a strong argument for Mike should play big around.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:so, so are you going to play, are you, are you giving an ambitious tournament schedule over the next week and a half?
Mike:Not really. I'm pretty busy this weekend. I have, but, but I have I have spring break next week, so I'm busy through Monday, but then like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I'll probably do a good amount of testing and probably play like all the standard tournament's that I can.
Brent:Sounds good, Brett. I'm sure you've been talking to tons of people about the plan for players cup three in any, any hot takes on the Metta.
Brit:I actually haven't, I don't, I don't have really anything to add. I know most of the Undoctored guys qualified. It's about all I know. I imagined I dunno, like, I dunno, like I it's just Been nice not to play. I guess I've then sort of pretty down about not qualifying again, but feeling good and good and fine about things now. But I,
Brent:Any plans for our prepping for teen challenge.
Brit:like I said, I think the first thing I'll do after this episode is message that Tio for my store and just see if she can. Put me in contact with the, my team. I'm like, I've tried to find them and have failed. But yeah, hopefully, maybe some, some good things will happen there.
Brent:Is there, is there a deck that you think of as like your go-to deck right now?
Brit:I'm not sure if like that's hard. I just don't. I like, I play mostly pick a shoe. In the players' tournament. And like, I just don't have anything to say. I played the deck that played a lot of supporters and I did really bad still. I lost him. I lost to IntelliJ on, like, I just had that experience playing a good shoe. And I like, I feel like I played it well, like I like was on, on pace to break a hundred points the first you know, the first third or so No, I, I just haven't played long enough to have an opinion. I was messing with Ross's Blount. The last I had played. And I liked that. I I like sent Gorge too. I don't know when I would have gone in with, I just, I don't, I like pick and choose on most of like the good decks. I like it quite a bit more than ADP and alternatives. And of course have Mikey as a resource, so probably would have, I'm not sure. I imagine if I had to guess, like, The tape, we'll just play ADP. Dustin, we'll play it, turn it tests. And that may it be just everyone who qualified. So not all that many people, but I haven't seen anything. I don't, I don't know where like Danny's at. It was kind of the other person I've been talking to a lot recently, but since I haven't been playing our conversations, haven't been about Pokemon at all. I guess we talk about old formats pretty consistently, but nothing, nothing, a RESA.
Brent:Good times. All right. So next week we'll be mere seconds away from the team challenge, kicking off and player step three. We'll have and Michael had been playing nonstop for like 36 hours.
Mike:Something like that.
Brent:All right. Awesome. Then
Mike:Right. I just saw that on a play Pokemon, Twitter, they tweeted something about the team challenge. And so I clicked it. And it's not any information about this team challenge, but it's about qualifying for the summer team challenge.
Brent:Challenge this team shell is not even over and no one has any idea what's going on, but the next one is.
Mike:Right.
Brent:Man. I, you know, what, if you guys are looking for where we are in the modern era, I saw a friend posted on Facebook. I, they have a son that's the same age as Liam and then a daughter that's the same age as Walker. And then they have a younger son who is in like third grade or fourth grade. And there's a picture of him opening a whole bunch of the new Packo set of Pokemon cards. And, and they're like, Oh, you know, it was so hard for us to get these. And he's so excited. And you know, obviously I haven't seen these guys for like a year. And so I immediately, I like comment on their Facebook thing and I was like, Oh my God, I had no idea. This was like a big thing for him. Obviously we should talk. And, and they replied back and they're like, Oh, he doesn't care about playing. He just sells them, man. You're you're eight years old. What. That's how it would be these days
Brit:what does he need money for? Like, what do you need a business for that age? Like in deep and Fortnite skins. And you're something like. like, as a kid, all I needed money for was like more video games. And so like, I don't know
Brent:Yeah. I'm like, what, what are you like watched the Logan Paul video and now he's like, you know, buying GameStop stock, like what.
Brit:aye kids these days, you know, they just have, I would only think they're influenced by that sort of thing. Like in those sorts of ways, like. Yeah, you're just, you're done. You get down into the, some business, YouTube videos or something after watching Pokemon and it's just, Oh, money.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like apparently I'm more of a gamer and he's more of a capitalist and he's like, nah, that ain't right. All right guys. Really, really, really great stuff.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:forward to seeing how things evolve over the next week. It seems like a thing first. It was like a real back.
Mike:Yeah, I think so.
Brent:They they've given us such a compliment of cards, but yeah, I feel like three months from now. It's just going to be Brett. You should start working on the band Sheryl names because that's going to be a thing, right. Like, I just feel like we're transitioning from a, like two hit format to a one hit format and I'm pretty sure one had formats are the worst.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Typically, I can't think of any other than the MuTu Wars, some off the top of my head, but those were not good.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like every time, every time you're in a MetAware. Yeah. Like, I, I, there were moments like that with a Serola, but. This could be horrible.
Mike:Hmm.
Brit:Lots of ties. That's
Brent:Yeah. I mean the, the incentive to play like a 400 hip point of max that can never be one shot and heels off all the damage, every turn, like they're telling you to do it, both of my people and the, yeah. Okay. All right. Good times guys.
Mike:all right, we'll talk to you soon.