The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 32 - First place Team Challenge! Pkmn Reddit, Eternatus, Battle Styles: Escape Rope, Level Ball, Corviknight, Yamper, Orbeetle, Players Cup 3 Strategies: Centiskorch, Pikarom, ADP (Skyla), Cramorant

March 17, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 32
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 32 - First place Team Challenge! Pkmn Reddit, Eternatus, Battle Styles: Escape Rope, Level Ball, Corviknight, Yamper, Orbeetle, Players Cup 3 Strategies: Centiskorch, Pikarom, ADP (Skyla), Cramorant
Transcript
Mike:

Do we want to talk about any of the the people going to the convention or no?

Brit:

I don't, I don't have a particular interest. I don't really care if we do, but I don't know. How are we that kind of podcast news, Pokemon news.

Brent:

Do you have a hot take on that mic?

Mike:

really. I mean, I feel like I agree with everyone else that it was stupid.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean,

Mike:

So if we don't ever had take, probably not worth talking about.

Brent:

yeah. I mean, I feel like, I feel like what would make it interesting is if we had a contrarian take, but like the contrarian take is like, what all they did. So like isn't that country, all of them did what all they did.

Brit:

real staunch defender of the first amendment or something. Listen about a freedom to ascend the right to assembly my friend in stride, in the bill of rights. Okay.

Mike:

Players, players cup is this

Brent:

is this, this weekend. And the team challenges this weekend one and a pattern with team challenge is that already started.

Brit:

It starts,

Mike:

went up, parents went up today. About half of the teams that looked like got to buy this round. Cause they they're trying to make it a nice even number.

Brent:

Brett is in first place in the Pokemon team challenge.

Brit:

still on it, baby.

Brent:

All right. All right. Let let's, let's get started. Let's jump right into team challenge because I feel like we can, we can talk about that.

Mike:

All right.

Brent:

All right. Welcome to the trash ranch. It's me, Brett Halliburton here as always with Mike and Brooke fibers. attendance continues to be 100%. We are up to 22 five-star reviews. However, the 22nd did not leave a review. You wonder how he could like leave a five star review without leaving a review? I mean, does he really know the pot?

Mike:

If you really listened to, you would know

Brent:

Exactly. You can't just go leaving a review. Oh, wow. Mike, I just realized that you're wearing the Busta t-shirt for

Mike:

Oh yeah,

Brent:

zoom call.

Brit:

I was about to mention that too

Brent:

Yeah, my, my kind of reset his seat as we got started here and it was suddenly like six prizes t-shirt hello, fifth prize. The joy division t-shirt is definitely one of the best program on t-shirts out there.

Brit:

back.

Brent:

You know, we had, we had like two shirts that Adam gave us and Liam is a grown three and a half inches in the last year for all you Pokemon seniors that wonder what has happened. I'm sure like Regan red slop is probably like six foot two now. And people will see them and be like, Whoa, what? But he now those six brands of shirts are like his go-to shirts now because he actually fits them. It's a weird thing. let's so we were talking right before we kicked things off about team challenge. Let's talk about team challenge for a second Brit's team is in first place and the focus of my team challenge.

Brit:

You got the precious spot. Oh, it's nice.

Mike:

wait type for first.

Brent:

So, so who are, who is your team paired against Mike

Mike:

I also have. Yeah, no, I also got to buy it too.

Brent:

tied for first place, Mike and Brett.

Mike:

Yep. So,

Brent:

The three of us,

Mike:

so it looks like they, so th this is technically the round of 1024 and they did not have 1,024 teams. I don't know exactly how many they have, but eyeball on it, approximately maybe 600 teams, 650 teams somewhere around there. So a large majority of the teams got to buy and, you know, they're pairing the parents

Brent:

like 200 teams and they're going down to five, 12 now or something.

Mike:

Yeah, exactly.

Brent:

Can you see who the other teams are?

Mike:

You can see the names of the stores,

Brent:

Nah, that's

Mike:

Not not members that are playing

Brent:

Gotcha. And is it, is it a single elimination format?

Mike:

it is.

Brent:

Yeah. So then there's going to go to an a five 12, two 56 and they, one is left. And how long does around take? Is it like, it'd be like, what know every week, like half get eliminated.

Mike:

Yep. Yep. So let's see. So at five 12, so that's five, 12 to six, one 28, 64 32 app. Once you get to 16, I'm not sure if it speeds up. So it's at least five weeks to get to 16. So that'll put us in like to the end of April, I guess. And maybe once they get to 16, they might do a more real-time thing. I'm not, I'm not too sure.

Brent:

I was going to say, like, I assume they won't announce anything until after player step three, but like, once you get down to the last couple of teams, You wonder if Pokemon's going to say where we're throwing the streaming commentary mojo at this problem?

Mike:

Brand. Have you been able to connect with any of your teammates?

Brent:

yeah. This is the good stuff.

Brit:

Yeah, not for lack of trying. I promise though.

Brent:

The greatest is that's not even anticlimactic. That's the climax,

Brit:

Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully it will they'll play their matches, but that's kind of what I'm worried about now. I'll play mine and that'll be the only one.

Brent:

they got the mat and they're like, I'm out. That is so Mike, is your team sad that you guys got the buy or would you, would you rather have played?

Mike:

No, I'm never going to be sad to have buy.

Brent:

Okay. That's I assume Brit's habit of a bike, cause he doesn't even seem going to show up, but, but your team I'm sure. The, the other guys on your team are like ready to give some people, some beat downs.

Mike:

yeah, we, we still haven't really talked all that much. We, we did kind of agree that we'll bring different decks which I think we talked a little bit last time seems to be the right strategy. I watched. A little bit of Zach massages video, he talked about some tips for the team challenge format and he suggested either bringing all different decks or have two people bring the same deck, which I thought was interesting. He didn't didn't recommend bring all three, but he's like, you know, if two people bring a Turnitin, that that would be okay. I

Brent:

Well, I mean, well, you could eliminate one. So if that's a strong deck, you're like, that's great. If it's not, then you're just going to play the one. And that's like, okay, too. Right.

Mike:

right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I turned to this as a pretty good example of a deck. You would want to maybe do that with, because it's, match-ups just are pretty good overall. Like it doesn't have the, against the, like the other five big decks. It's good against all of them except Luke metal. So.

Brent:

Apropos of nothing. I looked at the Reddit Pokemon TCG channel for a hot second today. And I think next week I'm going to ask them if they have questions they want to submit to the most amazing podcast. And, and there was a, there was a guy who was like, I have to put hydro gun in because I like lose to hammer decks. Every single time I play a turn, this helped me figure out how to put hydrate, gunning. It was like, it was like, you're, you're like I, you know, I mean, there were a lot of people that were like, this is a bad idea. That's a bad idea. It was a bad idea. This a bad idea, because like, it's a bad idea. I mean, I was finally like, here's the problem? Yo you're you, you complain that your deck never sets up properly when you put in the hydration line, but that's because probate V you're supposed to burn your entire hand, man. You can't run a stage two deck and have a plan to burn your entire hand. Every turn. just not how it works. I don't know.

Brit:

And you just probably the best answer, just to point them towards the MuTu hydrate bone, which really just works a whole lot better because like there's just natural synergy. Like it turned into us all only needs to energy. So that's just so many cards because of crushing hammer and, you know, the crushing hammer is going to be an annoying card, but, you know, in, you know, just simple math, the far crushing hammer is if you're going to have to commit more than four cards to deal with them, you're probably getting the short end of the stick. They're just know a good way to think about it. Whereas the mute to do deck, I think works a lot better and also has just like a more natural synergy with the card.

Brent:

Right, right. Like, like, but play it back where you get the benefit of being able to do the thing, as opposed to just trying to hard counter crushing hammer. I mean c'mon.

Mike:

like turbo patches better at, at that. If that's

Brent:

because there's burnable items. Like you're like, you can get your hand size down and you can fix problems, right? Yeah, absolutely insane. All right, guys, let's talk about battle styles because I, I, I get the impression from like the first 30 seconds of me logging out of the zoom call that you guys have, like your thinking has evolved a lot about like, what is good and what is bad here?

Mike:

a lot, might be a strong word, but I, I was from the conversation last week. I'm actually much more excited about this set than I was initially. And also in the past week, I didn't look at every single card that got revealed for like the next set, but I saw enough of them that it seems like they're continuing the single strike, rapid strike mechanic. Pretty pretty solidly. And so that gives me a little bit more excitement just in general for, for everything. But I did write down a few cards that I wanted to talk a little bit more about. All right. What did what did I have first? Well, we didn't touch at all on the, the reprint cards that are coming out. So maybe we could start with that lovable ball, escape, rope, and experience share are all getting reprinted which is pretty cool. I think they're all pretty solid cars. None of them are, you know, groundbreaking or gonna break the format or anything, but escape rope has always been played. In some decks you know, it hasn't been around for so long that, you know, some people might not remember that, but switch has become such an integral part of pretty much every deck. I feel like this is the most, the last like two years or so has been the most that switch has ever been played in the history of Pokemon. And escape rope or work point has kind of always been more popular if they're both in the format. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of decks switch, switch to escape, rope, a little pun there, I guess.

Brent:

I think so. So if I had to just like react to what you just said, two things, I would say first I think there's some underlying element of like stellar wishes, a very, very good card. Like. Absolutely a mind-boggling card. And I feel like this is the longest time. Although air balloon is down the format. I mean, I feel like we'd float stone in the format for a long, long, long time with, with like only, you know, one or two brief moments where it was out of the format and it's been weird not having it in the format for awhile. And I recognize like it doesn't fix all the stellar wish problems, but yeah, you know, I mean, for me, I guess like our entry to Pokemon there was like Garbo, toxin and Flintstone. That was just like, there was a, there gonna be, there was going to be an archetype or two where that was the thing he did.

Mike:

Yeah. So I'm pretty excited for escape room. Like Fiona has been like has seen play here and there and like scared probes better than Fiona. And I think, I mean, Fiona is searchable, which is nice, but I think if you're going to play bolts, Twitch, and Fiona in your deck, you're probably. Just going to play a bunch, maybe like maybe instead of running for switching to Fiona, you might run three escape rope and to switch or something like that. And that's a pretty easy change and could be pretty effective just overall. So I'm excited for that. Brett, you got any other thoughts on escape rep?

Brit:

no, I will. I will say that. I've actually just thought about what you said about now being a, just incredibly switched reliant format. I've just been in my head before for whatever reason. And I think the only, the only format that comes to mind. And the time that I've been playing where switch was more relevant was like the electric CMT format, but also fill up junk arm then. So it would make sense and not UN in two ways, you know, in one, like it's not comparable, like of course I wouldn't would, there'd be even more switching options because of course you could play up to eight or something like that. And like I, yeah, cause I remember that being weird playing, like I remember building my deck, my electric lists and kind of being bothered that I had to play like four switches, you know, that was just sort of a foreign concept, you know? Cause SPD obviously never played switch and for the most part, yeah. Like everything just kind of played to war point. That was just your bread and butter for whatever reason. The standard for clay doll and things like that. But yeah, I definitely like. There's sometimes you, sometimes you can win games off it. Like it's just a good card in the way you forces your opponent to have to make a decision. Then that's just one more decision they could mess up potentially. So I like just, I've always liked the card for that reason. You know, obviously a little more engaging than switch, but I've thought about exp share just to, I'm not sure where if anywhere it would fit at the moment, like I know you could build a deck around it. The, I'm not sure, like there's no like standard texts that jump out, like definitely putting it in now or something like that.

Brent:

I mean, maybe it's a function of power creep, but I feel like, like ever since I started playing six or seven years ago, like yeah, every once in a while there'd be a deck that played it. But like, you never re you never got quite enough value out of that compared to other energy acceleration concepts that were in the format and thinking point in time.

Brit:

And maybe, maybe these like gimmicky, like Porygon decks can re, could make use of it. Like a, how creamy or something like that. Like that would be pretty good in there. Something like that. I would think, especially like well, I mean, maybe it a turn it tests. I mean, that, that really doesn't have space. Everyone kind of builds, builds out with the same 50 ish cards. Maybe less, depending on if you're playing poison, but like in theory it would work it'd, it would be good in there. And could make you like a little more resilient to hammers if you could stick them at a certain point. Maybe,

Mike:

Experience share has been best in decks. Like break deck. That's the first one that comes to mind, like decks like that, that are like, want a lot of energy. On board. It was always good in like the, the dark ride. The turbines are not always good in turbo dark, but it was good in turbo, dark for awhile for same reason. And there's not really a deck like that, that feeds off getting a bunch of energy in play. And well, there's lots of decks that feed off getting a bunch of energy in play, but not like doing more damage based on the total amount of energy you have.

Brent:

Right. Preserving energy as like a value prop, right.

Brit:

Yeah, I think historically like those learning at 6:00 AM, I think it's only been good competitively and Noni X decks for whatever reason. Cause cause I was, when I think of it, I think of the quad tracky on and Lander is teriyaki on versions. And I think the, the electrode like Kiram decks from the city's format would play it too occasionally. But yeah, it's funny. It just never, I guess. Yeah, let's just, that's the, that's the power creep, right? The, the big basics are too fast, too good to need to have to hold on to energy. They've already gotten wasted, cheated out. Whereas the poor 90 X's have to, you know, use their NES to attach energy to the board as an attack. And then it keeps them with these poor little tools. They just trying their best.

Mike:

Yeah. All right. And the last one we got is level ball. So kind of similar, like lava ball is great for evolution decks, but like there's not any evolution decks. Like the only immediate inclusions that I can think of are mad party would play it. Probably they would definitely play it over great ball. At like the, the, any deck that plays great ball would play it, but there's not a bunch of decks that play great ball, like mad party,

Brent:

It turn it as play as it, but like,

Mike:

Oh yeah. But it

Brent:

but you would rather great ball. Amazing.

Mike:

Like whimsical caught, maybe gets better with level ball or like spirit too. But those decks just aren't very good. So like maybe, maybe,

Brent:

out? Like, can we talk about how power creep affected level ball it must've you used to be able to love a wall for Geraci X that's a good card.

Mike:

yeah, right.

Brit:

it came out for the first time in, in the it wasn't a set with the electric. I think it was the. Was a dark, dark explorers. Now it wasn't at the national set

Mike:

Oh, it was like next destinies, I think. Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, you're right. It came out. It came out at the start. So yeah, it was the state set next destiny. So that was like January. It was like spring 2012.

Brent:

Like, like if they had like a super level ball where you could get out any Pokemon with like under 170 hit points, you'd be like, Oh, there's a lot of things I can do with that. Right. Like, you know, get L the goddesses, get the dentists, get Crow bats, like, frankly, it's still not your attacking. It's still just like support and set up Pokemon. But, you know, it would like. all of a sudden, like all these stage one to stage two decks would be like, this is incredibly helpful. I get a lot of value out of this. I, I worry that with with there not being like a lot of stage two, any stage two decks that are really viable right now, the lovable is just not going to see that much play. Like you'd like it to be good, but

Brit:

I mean, it's like probably okay. Pretty good. And then like Dessie guns. It's probably pretty good in. Either at attacking X credential or I would say particularly that one, cause I would think that's the better version of the two right now. But it would also, of course we could go to the control, extra drill too. But yeah, like just like all the other decks we've mentioned, same story.

Brent:

yeah, like you can't even get out like sword and shield or ringer, which is like a great, great example of modern support. Both of mine.

Mike:

Yeah. Like chin chin. You can get chinchy now. I think, I think now is 90. So maybe, maybe there's some like chin Chino decks that like will crop up now. I don't even know, like what about the new guys? Like artillery? Artillery is one 10 and hound doom.

Brent:

there's that? I mean, their, their power creeping all the hip points, but then not power feeding the level ball. So the level of all is just like less and less utilitarian, right? Like it used to be, there was an edX you could get with it. That was good. And now that you're like, you can't even get half of the non, the Xs. It's just gotta be that way.

Mike:

What else do we get?

Brent:

Talking about Corbyn night.

Mike:

Right. So we did talk about Carbonite last week, but I guess I just thought about it. I was talking to some people and it just seems, I think last week I said that I thought it would be pretty bad, but now I think it might be kind of good actually. The fact that you can move around the coding energies and use Sheryl. So like you're never, you're never weak to fire. It's never going to be one shot through like a full metal wall GX. If you get that off

Brent:

So, so you're talking about playing it with bronze on, and then using that to just like give you energy mobility and then do the Sheryl thing. We knew Cheryl's completely broken. So no, no news flash there.

Mike:

Yeah, exactly. So I don't know. It seems like it it seems like it could be pretty strong. You're not one shot in anything, but you have this, you have the built-in stealthy hood. So gear Tina can't get, you can't even get like goon pinged. You could play goggles, you can play obviously Luke metal, you play bronze on. I think Brett, you said Szymanski Alex Romanski had an article. So that's probably a good place to start. If you're looking for a list.

Brit:

Yeah, it's a pretty standard. But he has obviously goggles look, credible sensations seem like a natural inclusions, really good attack, really good ability. But he doesn't have as same as I mean, I don't know if it would be, it'll be worth it, but it's certainly seems worth considering a slash even just Metta depending I guess is all I'm saying, but yeah, I actually, you know, I think I just, these abilities are just rarely bad. And so I, I didn't really think about it being good or bad in terms of the cards. I just like, ah, this, this has gotta be good in something, so I'm happy to see it here, but I obviously, I just had not properly considered Cheryl until our podcast last week. And now I see its potential and the natural inclusion here. And I mean, even potentially like These sorts of decks. I've always worked kind of like this before. Like I can think of aromatase, like played mega Megaman electric because it was just kind of useful to have. But then was still able to play a lot not as many because you still had to commit to the evolution. And so maybe something comparable here, like your main guys or the metal stuff that you have, you have like a rainbow energy here or there and can play like in pulling on something like that. Maybe probably getting worse and worse as I describe it, this straight metal version is probably going to be best, but I don't know. There's just there's options here. There's things that try with bronze on, I guess, where it's noting that not the heel options, unless you're the giving the evolution. So obviously that will be a big factor.

Brent:

You know, notable to our earlier discussion, you can't get bronze zones with levels, so it doesn't bother unlovable.

Mike:

yeah, you probably just want comms. Right?

Brit:

I think the older one was still the, the last one, there was stuff thrown up the Mallomar ability. I think it was still up a bowl, a bowl.

Brent:

Yeah. I bet. I think so, too. So you were like, you're like, Oh, run Loveables. Cause like I got to get like two of these out on my bench you know, turn one and then you got to find some more like after that. So but, but yeah, like here, he doesn't even bother to run the level. He runs three switches when you put it in an escape room.

Mike:

I would probably run at least one escape room. Yeah,

Brent:

Like I know Carbonite, like you're, you've got to find the switch effect every turn, if you wanna keep attacking with it. Right.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was for your treat, which is nice. But you still need, so like in theory, you could go between two Carbonite's cause I was free to

Brent:

that's nice. That's fancy

Mike:

yeah, I mean, I, I think this list will probably like evolve a lot, but I just think it's a good, you know, good thing to start with. Probably want to run like a bird keeper would be my guess. You might still run a Maulana just for the switch and heal, even if you're running Cheryl. I don't know. So there's lots of things to look at.

Brent:

Free retreats is fancy on something that can attack twice in the same turn. That's like, I don't know how many times you get that combination of effect. That's pretty powerful actually.

Mike:

Yeah. I wish the basic ed retreat too. That would be really nice.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

My guess is that a lot of the online events like keg, stares and whatnot will have it legal starting next week That would be my guess. But yeah, I do think like I think some type of metal deck. We'll be very strong with Corbin night or with bronze on maybe with both, but like you could do, like, it could be that core of night's not good enough. And you just play like bronze on with the or maybe the other way around. Maybe you don't play maybe just play bronze on or, you know what I'm saying? You could play Carbonite or bronze on you don't have to play both, but it seems like there's a lot of natural synergy there.

Brent:

Yeah. Well you need, you need the corporate because you need an evolve, poke them on you Cheryl. Right.

Mike:

right.

Brent:

So, so yeah, I, I mean, on the one hand, the attack is not really better than zations and like, They should pretty survivable, especially if you slap doggles on it, but, but you need the evolution. So you can do the show dance. The more you say, Hey, I'm interested in playing now Atlanta skits, which affects the less you value the corporate.

Mike:

Yeah. That's true.

Brent:

But, but but Cheryl, and it seems like a card that's going to drive people crazy.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Let's talk about Yampa.

Mike:

So I saw someone post about this on Facebook. I think it was Christian Franco from our area he had posted. And I hadn't seen this card before. And it's probably not good, but it could be good. So Amper says when you play this Pokemon from your hand or your bench, you may put one polka ball and one great ball from your discard into your hand, which is a pretty cool effect. So we've talked a little bit about this. Like it's probably not good, but I'm glad that they're printing cards like this that are at least interesting. There's also a a gold Larian, Mr. Rhyme in the set that for a double collar lists does 10 plus 40 for each. Card with a ball that you described from your hand. So it's probably not a good stage one deck, but that would, that's kind of the synergy. And now we have, we have, we have quick ball, we have lovable, we have great ball and we have polka balls. So we have 16 ball cards in the format. So could be okay. And just Yampa itself may be, be okay in the deck that plays like scoop up net, I guess. Probably bad, but it's an interesting, yeah,

Brit:

It's like the makings of a good deck are all there. It just needs like, A supporter that puts them all and the discarded from your hand, you know, put them from the discard to your hand or, you know, something crazy like that would set it over the top, but right. Yeah. It's just missing that clearly.

Mike:

There is the supporter. There is a ball guy supporter, and you get three different ball cards from your deck and put them in your hand. But yeah, like recovering them would be like the main point if you're going to play Mr. Rhyme as an attacker.

Brit:

There's a, I think there's a, I forgot how it works, but there's like an apricot maker. I think an expanded that just like can search for three balls as well. I think something like that.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The last card that I had on there is also probably bad, but it's the orbital to stage two that it's a reprint of the old creatively card. And so for a color of this energy, it says for each energy attached to this Pokemon researcher, deck three stage two Pokemon except or beetle and put it on your bench. So you get free stage twos for getting out of stage two. So probably bad, but you know, there are some interesting stage twos in the format, like like almost are. For example is the first one that comes to mind. I think Kayla actually wrote an article on it. So let me open that up, but it was, he have, Oh, you've had a shift tree in his list. You know, the one that turns all their supporters into Sharon's then you can obviously play deciduous. It makes a lot of sense to play. That's kind of probably your main guy that you get out to like decision by and almost R so again, probably not very good, but this is a card to look out for if the format slows down a little bit, like, especially with post rotation, if tag teams kinda go away and, you know, even at VMX is, are in the format, they're a little bit slower. So you might have enough time in the future with orbital to to get some cool combos off. It's never historically been good, but it is super interesting and something that is worth keeping in the back of your mind.

Brent:

all right. I have to ask. So when I, when I went to Google or beetle, just now the, the first orbital that came up was the shining fates or beetle. Whose ability as bugs radar, once during your turn, you can look at the top three cards for your opponent's deck and put them back on top of their deck in any order. That seems like a, a card that sander could find place

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe there's some future or beetle control. Well actually, or beetle get out or beetle though, but I guess you'll, you'll be playing the it will be playing wherever the basic is anyway.

Brent:

right, right. I, yeah, I'm probably speculating. That's like just a completely different orbital deck, but like what the heck? Yeah, I, I feel like I've never had a thing that allows you to reorder your opponent's deck. That hasn't been an attack.

Mike:

Or, or, or a trainer, I mean like chip

Brent:

there a trainer that lets you reorder your phone and stack

Mike:

well, chip to your face acts pretty much does. Right. the what's, there's a supporter that did it stronger and it's wild, but I forget what it was

Brent:

Right. Is chipped your band now? I can't remember.

Mike:

Chip chip was banned and expanded,

Brent:

Yeah, yeah. See that that's I suddenly want to play like or beetle bumblebee you know, like, right. Your next three. Are any of you the next three cards? Good. Okay. We're gonna get rid of those. Like that seems, that actually seems really good and expanded. For me really bad player reordering the top three cards of their deck always seems like a great idea to me because I like that. All right. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Any other cards that that we've learned about in the last couple of days that are important and interesting?

Mike:

I don't think so. The only other conversation that I had with someone that was interesting was playing the Hersha Fu not with Dr. Hillary and just running it with like chin Chino or something like that, and like really making Zoro pod again. And I saw the, one of the lists. So Brit the the link that you sent out with the Taiwan results, got one of the, the, the guy that you send the tweet, he bubbled 17th, but he played or Shifu with like really no other. Stage one support. It was just a bunch of basic supports around like, you know, chromatid to DNA ran two of the amazing red Geraci use and some other one of Pokemon, but yeah, no, no ocular, you know, chinchy, you know, it's just kind of straightforward, which I thought was interesting. So,

Brit:

I was thinking about. What about like, could you play, maybe it gets just too cumbersome and not enough, but I was thinking like more in line with kind of what we talked about a little bit about like, maybe your focus is the cyber attack. Could you like play it with like colossal or something like that? Like seems like it would be better than saying a Conda. I would think that's like at stage one and stage two.

Mike:

That you'd see, you're talking about the actual stage two class though.

Brit:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, you know, try to snipe, like every turn

Mike:

Hmm. Yeah, that's kind of cool. That could be good.

Brit:

and like maybe cause you wouldn't have, it, wouldn't be that bad to fall back on. And you can like, you know, maybe just choose some games by using that attack twice and you know, you would keep your type advantage against it, turn it tests. And at a certain point, like we've said, like you pressure ADP after hitting it once. Like, does it seem bad? And do you know again, can combo with Cheryl.

Mike:

That sounds like, well, I think if that deck was ever good in this format, people would play mew. But as long as people aren't really playing mute then or, or even push rotation, once mew is gone, then that seems quite good. But nobody's really playing music right now. So, you know, if that continues then yeah, you could definitely do that. Cool.

Brit:

maybe still just worse than these other options at the end of the day.

Mike:

Yeah, maybe.

Brent:

Should we talk about player. Step three, guys.

Mike:

Three is this weekend. I just looked on the nine thing. It looks like 238 people are currently registered for North America, which means. If that holds that's 18 people that would get buys, which would mean I might get a buy. That would be really sweet. At least in the first round.

Brent:

We appreciate it. Buys. We take all the buts.

Mike:

So I talked, I've been talking to a bunch of people and anybody that's kinda mess messaged me about like where to start. I kind of tell them the same thing. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. At least the Metta. I feel like there's six, very good decks. It turned into a speaker sentence Gorge, Luke metal, ADP and Blount, or the Chris Epsilon. There's like there's other okay. Decks, like mad party and deciduous, but those are really the six main decks. And I think any of those six are all pretty solid place. I think from a matchup perspective Turnitin has the best matchups cause it's, I dunno, it's like even, or favored against. Four out of the other five decks takes a really bad matchup to Luke metal, but its mirrors are also like pretty crappy to play, especially if you're playing the crushing hammer version, crushing hammer, power plant, like the really straightforward version, which seems to be the most successful over the last few weeks. So like the mirror scene miserable. And so I think, yeah, but I think any of those six decks are pretty good to play. I think if I was more comfortable playing center scorch, I would probably play center scorch. It seems like that has pretty maybe mathematically the best play. I'm just not, I, I tried, I played like maybe 10 games for that over the past week and I just feel like I would need like 200 games to get to the level I would want. It's actually pretty complicated deck to play, I think at least at like a really high level. So for me personally, I'm kind of down to

Brent:

This is the problem that it's complicated or is the problem that it's welder decks, man.

Mike:

I mean, it's, it's a bit of both. Like I played I played at an event last night just to get some games in with ADP and I played against Brophy round one, and he just had one of those games where he didn't do anything the entire game and I, and I won. And so, you know, I think, I, I think, I think there's a little bit of both. It is a welder deck. It's a welder stage one deck. Right. So you have a little bit of the inconsistencies of both of those, but the games where you do draw, you know, the, the 80, 80 to 85% of games that you draw decent. I think there's a lot of decisions to be made. So, but yeah, so for me in particular I'm down to either pick around or ADP. I would love to play peaker. But I'm just. The alternatives matchup is so much worse than it was a couple months ago for a couple of reasons. One, the attorney to the lists are just much more straightforward. They were kind of a little all over the place before, you know, some people would play three switch. Some people would play these poisoned variants and whatnot. And now it's like pretty consistently, you're running four crushing to power plants, the spirit tombs and evil talls and everything else is consistency. So that the lists are much more straightforward and they're straightforward and not not in a favorable way for peak around like power plants and crushing hammers are not great to play against. So that's one thing. Second thing is way more people know how to play the matchup better. So like attorneys just wants to go second in that matchup, we use power acceleration. And they want to make sure that they don't use all of their switch early on. So like you know, the common, the most common strategy for peek around beating the, turn it to this is, you know, you do a bunch of stuff. And then later on in the game, you go paralyzed, stamp and hope that they with, and that worked a lot better if people burn two or three switches in the first few turns of the game. So I think people are just like much better at playing alternatice in the matchup. And so the strategies that worked well before don't really work well now, now the matchup is an unwinnable or anything. That's maybe like if you're playing to yell grants, it's probably like 40, 60, but it just feels right. It feels not great. And then the other thing is the ADP matchup, even if they run only one sword is way worse, like way, way, way, way worse. Cause they can just, they can check mate, you much easier later in the game. It's really hard for you to one-shot as, and so if they just put a rested sword on his Accion and. PO power it up, like, know it's gonna, it's gonna kill your MuTu later in the game. So the matchup is, is still like pretty close to even, but it's like before peak around was like a huge favorite and now it's like even, or maybe even slightly unfavored. So for those reasons I've been playing around a lot with ADP because I just feel like 80 Brett, I think you've said it a few times. Like if you have to be consistently outplaying your opponents, you're playing the wrong thing. Right. And ADP feels like I don't have to consistently outplay opponents to engage, which peek around my field. Like I do now know, I really don't want to take losses to fire. The new lists, the new list that, you know, Stefan and other people have done well with is a little bit better against fire. Cause they're on the Guzman holla and tag calls so they can find the Cody and energies. Okay. But it's just LMC is, I don't know, like I like playing it, but it's also a grind to play. It requires a lot of patients and I dunno, I just don't want to play like that. And also I played it for the last player SCUP and hit to center scorch immediately and lost pretty bad. So I still have that in the back of my mind.

Brent:

Scarred by a prior experience. And I assume, I assume similar feelings for Blount. You're like, if I'm going to like lose playing welder decks, I just run the place in a scorch.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm more comfortable playing blind than tennis Gorge, but it's still, it's still a welder deck and it's still a hard, there's still like little situations where I don't feel that comfortable and it just like, it doesn't have a great attorney to just match up either. So if I was going to play something that didn't have a great attorney, just match it by just played peek around.

Brent:

Right. So so Brett, Mike, I don't know if you guys have heard this. I mean, I essentially read like one tweet before I hopped on the pod that said that apparently cram had snapshot is broken at PTC geo right now.

Mike:

Yeah

Brent:

if they don't fix that, does that, like how big of an impact does that have.

Mike:

that's a good question. I probably won't play peek around if, if, if they don't fix that, cause like the best match ups are peeking around by these fire deck. So, so people aren't playing, if it's even like a couple people won't play the fire decks then and yeah. Peak around becomes just worse. I think in general, Luke metal becomes way better.

Brit:

What exactly is the bug

Mike:

Sometimes when you use spit shot, it just does zero damage. Pretty

Brent:

bad. Like that seems like the kind of thing that would make even Ross reconsider his life.

Mike:

Yeah. So I

Brent:

but it's inconsistent. It's not, it's not like every time it does zero. It's just like, sometimes it does zero.

Mike:

Yeah. So I don't know if it's like one of those like the, if you guys remember that the energy switch or tag switch bug, whereas like, if you waited for the animation, then it would always work. But if you went to, if you're playing too fast, that's when it would bug. So I don't know if it's something like that. If you just play slower,

Brent:

Right, right. Where over the next 72 hours, people might figure out how to like be okay.

Mike:

right?

Brent:

But yeah, so, so if it's still buggy com players cup I assume all these centers scored shin or at least all the blinds players have to move off that and move on to something else.

Mike:

I think blends really can't function about cranberry. I tend to scorches. Okay. Without playing crammer rant Yeah, I don't know. I would, it, I would actually consider switching to LMC last minute. If, if this doesn't get fixed or something like decided, nah, I don't want to play decidua screw that.

Brent:

No knowing the bladder is going away. You're like, this is why it's so dry. Suddenly a really good bag. No, I'd never get enough. So, Brett, have you, have you been talking to people about players cup three plays? I know like Dustin and Tate are gearing up.

Brit:

Yeah, a little bit. I do have some questions for Mikey though. Just You know, between these two decks I guess I have one question about each of them. So for a peaker home, do you think like I guess it's not even the one question, do you, do you think the Virginia will apply not necessarily the best version of peaker around? Is it just gonna be, or does it have to be the double yall grunt, like triple bolt-on version or do you think the, the older list that you were messing with have even are worth considering, and I guess now too, like you've mentioned because of Like sword and things like that. Like your big term count might need to be a little different or, you know, may just not even bother or something like that.

Mike:

Yeah. So it's kind of the list that I have right now is a little bit of an in-between. I have one yell grunt. I still have three Boltons. I have one big charm and two chaotic swell. And so there's a, there's a list that one that I lost to in the Carrillo event last night and top four. And at one the event, it. I like that list a lot and it's pretty much one card off what I had built right now. So he had two big charms, one cat Maxwell. I had two swell, one big trunk. And so I'm not sure about that change, but yeah. So one yell grant is kind of where I'm at as kind of like an in-between said to y'all grounds does there's so many cards you want and having the second yell, grunt takes away a lot of other options. And I do think big term is quite good. So yeah, I think at least one big chunk, but I'm not sure about the second one.

Brit:

and then ADP I still see lists like I guess taped for instance, I think the one he just posted doesn't have the sort at all just plays the standard to air balloon into big terms still. The knee he's high on Skyla for whatever reason. But really my only question was whether or not you would commit to the rest of the sword or not were you to play ADP. And I guess if you have a take on Skyla, let's hear that too.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So actually Tate has been the person I've talked to the most about ADP. So we have been pretty much messing around with the same 62 cards and like figuring out what should you know, which of those are going in. So I'm going to start with Skyla. Skylar is really good. I'm actually like super surprised at how good it is. It's essentially a computer search cause it gets you. Any trainer and you play, you know, the six ball cards, you can play two energy spinners. So it gets you any Pokemon gets you any energy, get any trainer? Yeah, it's really good. You I've, I've held, I've used Skyla and then like elder Goss for it later in the game, like some games I played two Skyler's I've been super, super surprised at how good it is because one of the problems with ADP is that in the early game, in order to do whatever you want to do altered or go into ultimate Ray or whatever, you need to draw a lot of cards. So you often like discard a ton of resources and sometimes you just really need one card and you're just digging for it so much. And so Skyla, a lot of times allows you to just conserve resources which is, which is quite good. I had a game in my top eight match yesterday against Polka Hawkeye Andrew Hendrick with, with Chris Epsilon game three had a really interesting situation where I was going to knock out his crammer ant. Well, so like I he, he went, I went first. I attached my ADP, turned to on his first turn. He crammer and hit my ADP, my turn to I GX. Then he kills my ADP with his crammer. So I have no energy on the board, but I GX. So I'm able to get scissors, Sheehan, double saucer, attach knockout as cram rant. But on that turn, I also, and he had already played Acrobat down. So if I'm able to, if he knocks my Xhosa now, and I'm able to power up a whole nother Huizar, Sheehan that next turn and boss I'm able to win the game. But that's asking for a lot, cause I've already used to SaaStr. So I only have two saucers left and I need to attach. So what I was able to do is on that turn, I was actually able to Skyla preemptively for a metal saucer. And then as long as I drew one of my two metal energies that were prized, I always guaranteed the wind, the next turn. Cause I had a saucer in hand, so it was like able to preemptively set up game. So Scott, I think is over-performing a lot I would say, I don't think it's worth playing too, but, but it's, but it is really good. So yeah. Thumbs up to Skyla. Now your other question the tools,

Brent:

And, you know, if I can just edit that, the one thing I would say, I, I find the, the people playing scholar really interesting because I never fully I think believed in the logic that when people transition from clay to professors' research, like I understood the argument for clay in that like yeah, if you, if you like zation turn one and you have this giant hand, you're like, am I really gonna throw all this away? Or do I want to just like add to my hand to kind of pull off the combo so I can see how the Skyler was like, really, really good for you?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Similar,

Brent:

it thread the needle between like the discarding of water energies inevitably caused me to lose, which happened every time I played play. And the, you know, I'm, I'm forced to discard all these other resources that I have to have the wind later in the game. The three bosses orders that I started can head

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

Skyla seems like a very reasonable little guy. And your point about like you know, with a deck that naturally runs energy spinner, it seems like it would have like a lot of synergy to allow you to like really get stuff out of your day. I dig it. I dig it.

Mike:

Yeah. Cool. And Skylar is also to kind of like segue into the tool discussion. Skyla is the reason that I think. You can play one stored and it's pretty effective still because you can Skyler for the sword at some point. So yeah, I do have one sword in addition to the two big charm and the two air balloon, which feels like a lot sometimes, but I think, I think you need one story and you don't use sword and a whole lot of match-ups, but the match-ups that it's good in like Picloram rom and against anything that'll throw a Rashis art at you. Like if you don't, if you don't have it, you're you're, you can just lose games that you would have won. I played peaker twice in Swiss and three games and top cut yesterday and I went three and two and two out of three of those wins. I wouldn't win without the sword. So yeah, I do think one sword is, is good. Well, I played against an ADP guy yesterday that ran no sword and four big charms, which I thought was an interesting take on it. And so he's kind of gone like all the other way. Like he needs to ensure that he gets big charm out on his stuff. The big terms are pretty good, but I, they could be cut. Like, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent sold on them. Like their main usage is against Turnitin. They're pretty good against Sena scorched as well. But I could see myself cutting big charms, but one sword is definitely good. And I think that's all you need to, I don't think you need more than one.

Brit:

yeah, I thought it was, I was going to comment you play the sword. I thought I saw the bullets that tape posted didn't have sword, which I thought was odd because he was playing Skyla.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. He didn't have it. He didn't have it he like top aided Hexter this week, I think. And yeah, he didn't have it in that list. I think he had a stamp over the sword. Which

Brit:

That makes sense. But yeah, I just thought it was particularly odd to play Skyla and then like, it's still not worth playing at that point really,

Mike:

yeah, right.

Brit:

it even, even at five tools. I didn't, I was a little surprised by that, but. They're all really good. So like, I understand the difficulties of not wanting to cut any of them.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

I feel like I've started to see stamp and more ADP lists. Yeah. Do you have an opinion on that?

Mike:

it seems okay. But like it's somewhat antithetical to the point of the deck. Like I just want to win my games before stamp. Is that useful? So I don't know. It, it never really seemed like worth the spot to me. Like there's obviously games that it comes up where it would be good. Like if you're playing against blondes and you just like, you're like a term behind where you want to be and you can stamp them and maybe catch up. But like, I don't know. And I'd rather just have a different card. That would be a little more proactive because ADP is trying to be a proactive deck for the most part.

Brent:

Right. What else have you learned if you were playing this weekend? What's the play.

Brit:

I'm not sure. I like kind of the last, the last deck I was really playing was bliss Cephalon so I think that's probably where I would have landed. And I guess Mikey is spoken for Tate, I think. And that's what I would have guessed too. I think he's probably definitely gonna play ADP. And I think Dustin is considering like Chris F Alon or bill Cephalon in some shape or form, but I don't know how strong of a consideration that is.

Mike:

Yeah. I talked to him just a little bit and he said like he seemed kind of the same thing. He was like considering a crisp lawn deck. And then he was like, well, should I just play orbital? So, cause that's where he got most of his points, right?

Brit:

It sounds like we'll probably just play more video then.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

that's a very destined thing to do.

Mike:

Yeah. Which I think is fine. I was like in this format who cares, like play play to have fun.

Brit:

Getting top 16 or Beatles, probably like, you know, probably about the same as getting top eight with the alternatives or something.

Mike:

Yeah. Right.

Brent:

That it's all about. It's all about being the legend, right?

Brit:

The cloud.

Brent:

We'll just go through if it's not for the cloud, why are you doing it right?

Mike:

Yeah. So yeah. So that's, that's player's cup three. I I'm excited to play this weekend and hopefully get some good games in and be interested to kind of see what ends up doing really well. I don't know if I was trying to think this week about, does the different format of being two out of three double elimination, like change any decks, like viability? I don't, I don't think it does, but I did think about that for quite a while. It makes me like, it, it makes me more comfortable playing ADP by a little bit, I think because, you know, ADP just has those games where, you know, craps itself. But so that that's the only like solid conclusion I came to.

Brent:

I feel like we've covered all the bases next week. Gotta be a really exciting pod. The pod that people will want to tune into when Mike wins players cup three and best top 16.

Mike:

Yeah. Wyndham players cup three. We get to talk about the first couple of days of the battle styles. Metagame there'll be a good, it will be a good episode next week.

Brit:

Well, don't they like, but if they do, are they not doing any recording? I was just going to say, cause like at a certain point they like swear you to secrecy and you know, and then it's all prerecorded. So we may get to that point hopefully, but maybe the first week.

Brent:

Well, we'll have to have like a code sign, right? Like if we, if we talk about I don't know you know, peanut allergies on the pod next week, that's like code

Brit:

You're still in it. You haven't lost it.

Mike:

here you go.

Brent:

All right, guys,

Mike:

All right.

Brent:

Mike, good luck. If we don't talk the talk before, then make sure you give us a steady stream of like crazy updates in the in the chat. All right.

Mike:

I we'll do that.

Brent:

When, when does round one start?

Mike:

Good question. I need to look at some emails.

Brent:

All right. Good times guys.

Mike:

All right. See you guys.

Brent:

Take it easy.

Brit:

later. Thank you.