The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 34: Players Cup 3 REVEAL???, Team Challenge: The Tweet, How resistance works, theme decks, stream sniping, Kirk Dube, Rapid Strike Urshifu, Victini, ADP: Bronzong/Escape Rope/Exp Share, PikaRom, Spiritomb

March 31, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 34
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 34: Players Cup 3 REVEAL???, Team Challenge: The Tweet, How resistance works, theme decks, stream sniping, Kirk Dube, Rapid Strike Urshifu, Victini, ADP: Bronzong/Escape Rope/Exp Share, PikaRom, Spiritomb
Transcript
Mike:

Yeah, I know. I can at least talk a lot about, I've been playing a lot.

Brent:

I bet. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Let's, let's jump right in. Right. What's what's going on with table numbers and resistance.

Brit:

Oh, I just, I responded to this like Kiernan kid tweeting about it, and it just reminded me that there is often this common misconception that what table number you're at is reflective of your resistance. I just can't tell you how many times I've had to explain that. They're like, well, I was at table eight last round and a table one and round two. So I think my resistance must be pretty good. And it's just like, it's, you're telling me, you think Tom is, is trying to match you based on your resistance as well as your record. Like people just don't. Am I wrong? Like.

Mike:

No, you're not wrong.

Brit:

Okay. Yeah. So he's part of me, part of me almost didn't respond and I think he understood and it was, it was more of a joke. Part of me didn't want to respond cause I just feel like I'm crazy. I feel like I have to explain this to people at every tournament. And I, you know, as you know, I, I don't, I don't go to all that many tournaments as much anymore. And I just, I swear, like the last league cup I had to do it and I just like, I'm just a random person in Oklahoma. Like nobody knows who I am. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? You can't determine whether you can ID based on what table number you were at. Like last round nonsense.

Brent:

I mean, you could definitely like ask the focus that's guys. So I put up your like one webpage explaining how Tom works, that you can just direct people to over and over again. Right? Like you could definitely get some traffic to a page. So it was just like, here's all the dumb questions you ask and what is true and what is not true.

Brit:

I think similarly, maybe I'm wrong on this one too, so correct me. If so, but I think similarly people like, so it's better if your opponent like drops, like it's, it's better for an opponent to go, Oh, and two and drop. And instead of going like, Oh, and nine or like one and eight, right. Like that's better. Right,

Mike:

I think so. Cause like resistance is your total number of wins over your total number

Brit:

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's how I thought the maps were. And so, so people, I just, I noticed that two people reflecting on their resistance or rather reflecting on, you know, how their opponents did. I mean like, Oh, they went, Oh, and too. And I was like, well, you know, that might've really, really turned out well for you, stuff like that. I mean, I guess you're lamenting about your resistance. You already didn't make it or something like that, but that's something, you know, people just like misconstrue similarly to how like, people like, Oh, I bubbled and you know, and they. Got nine and couldn't have made it in no matter what. It's just like, you got to know how it works and there'll be less. You'll be less upset.

Brent:

You know, I don't know that I'd ever really thought about that, but hearing that makes me a little sad because it makes me feel like if you're a good player that gets paired against a bad player, you're like wanting them to drop, you know?

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, sometimes I think, I, I mean, I'm sure at least a smaller tournament that's happened. You play like absolute binder drop round one and you pee, you missed cut. Barely. Like for sure that's happened a lot and you would've rather them not finished the tournament.

Brent:

Right, right. Like, I, I would hate for a good player to be like rooting for a, you know, a new player to drop.

Mike:

right.

Brent:

Welcome to the trash blanche. It's me Brett Halliburton here as always with Mike crochet and Brooke privates. We do the intro as quick. Although from time to time, I try to acknowledge that Chris Webby is the guy who sings Webster's laboratory, which is the intro song we use from time to time, a five star review update. We're still at 22, which in the big scheme of things is good because we have so much stuff to cover this week. The one thing that we had kind of rolled over from last week, we kind of missed it by half an hour. Was it Reddit question that was submitted to us? The good news is well, actually the question is like kind of long, but I'm just going to cherry pick out the parts. I like forgive me for being nosy on this first question. But if memory serves me, right, Mike was at Peconic base Sevi Island league many years ago. Is that true or false?

Mike:

well, I don't remember what Sevi Island was, but Connick Bay is definitely around where I grew up. So that makes sense. I did run a league. For a very short period of time when I was in like middle school. So I don't know if that's what he's this person is referring to, but that would be me for sure. And maybe I did go to, I didn't really go to that many leagues, so, but probably, I mean, if this person is thinking it, it's probably true.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so there you go. He was wondering if he had a bet, you and lo and behold, it seems somewhat likely his second question, he says a whole bunch of stuff, but since we have so many things to cover, I'm going to cut it all into a very short at TLDR, which is with the introduction of things like a battle arena decks and all of that stuff. Should theme decks, should the theme deck format on PTC geo go the way of the Dodo or will there be a place in the future for the theme deck format and pizza you?

Mike:

I have no idea. I have never played a theme deck. I've never even like, actually I was, I was talking about this the other day. You know how, like when you open PTC geo, it has like a, like a quest for you that if you do it, you get some experience or anything. I've never done any of those. Like, I have zero on everything. I've had the same like challenge. It's like, w it's like when a game with a water theme deck or something like that, I've had that for, you know, seven years up on my screen. So I, I just have no knowledge of, of this world.

Brent:

Yeah, I mean, I don't know anyone that like thought they should play the theme deck format and like that, that would somehow be good. Right. I mean, it's not like theme decks where some magically balanced version of the game that people could play and have fun or something previously like themed X, it was just bad decks, not balanced, just random. And I think there was always, people knew like, Oh, this was the theme deck. If you want to just go rec theme, deck ladder.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

like, that's always been like that.

Brit:

And usually it's just like the broken Dame decks are the ones that just like have actual Pokemon lines in the supporter too, or something like, it's usually pretty funny, but they, they, I'm pretty sure they it's been a really long time since I've bought, purchased to start a deck. But I think they're getting a lot better at the very least. So maybe the games are better because I used to buy a lot of the started X for some reason, just there's a way to get the cards. I like the, they would always come like a non hollow version of like blast toys. That was the only way to get it. But those are usually bad, but I think, I feel like I occasionally see, like this wasn't hasn't been recently. It would have been. Couple of years ago, see people on Twitter talking about the format, but I think it was more in line with what you're saying. Just like just to wreck people with the Gar chump one or something like that.

Mike:

The battle. The I'll just say like the battle decks are, I think those are, those are like the ones that have been good. Right? Like the Kel Diego Rayquaza battle decks. So, I mean,

Brent:

And like th th the new one that the peek around ballerina deck and the ADP Valerie ballerina deck, like those are just like super next level, right?

Mike:

Yeah. I just hope they keep coming out with those. Cause those that's like, that's the best thing that the best type of product that they could create for people that are getting into the game and like maybe have like a somewhat of idea of how to play and because it gives them like a real window into what a competitive deck looks like.

Brent:

Yeah. I, I don't think if you buy two theme decks and you say let's want to play Pokemon, you're having like a experience reflective of what I've been. People want it to be like now. I mean, conversely, I, and maybe it's because they all contain like evolutions that are really hard to get out, whereas. The ballerina decks. It's like, here's the big basics, so it's mixed, but there you go. Before we jump into players, come three Brett, you want to talk about stream sniping for a second?

Brit:

Oh, I don't actually really know. I just kind of anecdotally know that it happened. I don't, and I've talked to Danny and I guess commented on some Twitter threads, but I

Brent:

Yeah. What was that about? I heard there was some sort of stream of everything, but I apparently didn't follow Twitter enough.

Brit:

I guess, yeah. I was going to say I don't, I guess we should've maybe researched it.

Mike:

I know a little bit, if you, I can give like an overview.

Brit:

I assume

Mike:

So in top eight of the Hexter event on Monday, Danny was playing against someone. It was, it was like a 99% chance, Danny, when lose, lose, he was playing Luke metal against decidua and But it turned out that the guy that was playing decidual I was in Danny's stream the entire time. And Danny kind of like went back and like made sure. Cause I guess you can see like who is in your chat at various times. And so he reported that to, Hexter and after a lot of deliberation, they ended up disqualifying the person. So that's kind of the backstory. But what has kind of erupted, I guess, is like discussion on should it, and this discussion has come up before, but it's kind of resurfacing. Should streamers put a delay on, should they have like a black box covering their hands if they're not doing that, those types of things. And it seems like the big kind of the bigger content creators, streamers like Azule and Mela, Magikarp, Kevin Clemente those people pretty much. Don't think that they should be doing these things because it takes away from the experience of streaming and it's a risk that they kind of, you know, knowingly accept. But it just sucks that that people would do that, I guess.

Brent:

Yeah, it's interesting. I guess my reaction hearing that whole story for the first time, it was like on the one hand it kind of sucks, but on the other hand, like Dan knows what he's getting into. Like

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

he could, he could easily, he could easily choose not to fix that. And when he doesn't like, there you go, shrug emojis for everybody, man. I mean, it's interesting because I feel like the like nuance there is when, when you say like it decreases the. Like streaming experience or something. I mean I feel like there's so many people who are like, quote content creators who are trying to quote, like make a living office. And when they say it decreases the experience, like what they're saying is you know, sharing the tournament in real time with their fan base makes them more money than sharing the tournament with their fan base on a delay, because they can interact with the chat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, they're like, well, so, so if so it cost me money.

Mike:

I mean, I think it's definitely that. Also I CA Kevin had some really good points on Twitter and I don't want to butcher them. I know that one of his points was. That it kind of, at least after around is over a stream chat kind of gives the same experience as at a regional, when people finish their rounds, they get, you know, they get together, they talk about their games, they complain and whatnot, and it kind of gives that same experience being in the same Twitch chat which is, which is good. And by putting a delay on, then it kind of ruins that a little bit. And then the other part obviously is yeah. Kind of what you said, plus streaming being entertainment and putting a hand blocker kind of ruins that aspect of, I don't think

Brent:

I know stream sniping becomes a problem and and other games, and my impression is you see, you see people do it both ways in other games, too, right? Like some people just bow to the fact that they're going to get stream sniped and they put a delay on, and then some people say I'm going to risk it for the biscuit.

Mike:

All right, let's move on.

Brent:

I want to talk about how your accommodating experience was.

Brit:

I don't know it was fun. Well, it was it didn't when Mike and I commentate it. That was just the last focus stats invitation. It wasn't it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've done it before, but not a whole lot of commentary on my resume, but it was fun. I got to commentate the finals with Kirk who like knows what he's doing. And then like, you know, it took a while to get going. Like I'm in a, you know, maybe the first game or two, but we really gotten into a groove and I don't really know how to describe it, but it just felt good. Like, it was just like a natural back and forth we had going. But then, so I got to do that. The one around it, I guess, to speak more of Kurt, he's just like, he's not like just a commentator. Like he takes it seriously and like does research and like has lots to say on like, you know, the like sports commentators and like their styles and this and that. Like, it takes it very seriously. And I thought I found that very interesting. No, and obviously very helpful for me who I don't really know what I'm doing. So that was really good. And then I forget how many other rounds I commentate it. I think I commentate it to others and I commentated with two, two separate people. And it's just hard sometimes. Like Kirk just knew how to do it. And often, especially one of the kids just like would just, he just kind of didn't know how to cut himself off. And it was kind of funny. But yeah, it was a really good

Brent:

Curt brick is really, really good. I mean, he's, he's one of the few commentators I think that has done like. Practice commentating

Brit:

that's what I mean, like, I don't know how many really do

Brent:

yeah, like I get the impression he doesn't do it nearly as much as he used to, but there was like a year or so where he was going really, really hard. And, and like, you know, trying to figure out how to be really good at commentating.

Brit:

I mean, I think, I, I think my impression is that you know, maybe the plan is to pick that back up. Once events are going he's in grad school too. He's about to finish a master's program as well. I think so, you know, maybe that's divided his time some as well,

Brent:

Yeah. Well, and it's weird because obviously I mean, this impacted me too, as Pokemon started to insert itself into more regionals, it, it got weird for the, you know, like amateur semi-professional commentators, like Kirk and I

Brit:

Yeah. Like the critical hit and all the events, they were a part of

Brent:

exactly, exactly. Rip Very sad for me. Very sad. All right. Let's, let's talk about players cup three for a second. So I want to be clear to everybody who's listening to the pod and thinking it's time for the big update. Mike has told us he cannot tell us what happened because he's not allowed to. Now I put my like research skills to work because I remember last time it was kind of the same way. So I went back and tried to look at tweets from all the people that we talked about last week and see what they said on the Twitter net. So the Zul so John Morrison didn't tweet. My gut is she probably did not make cop for no disrespect, best hokey parent in the galaxy or really, I guess, Luke best pokey son. Christian has Bonnie did not tweet he's somebody that could have made the top four. I can see it. Pokey Hawk. I did not tweet, but then what I thought was really meaningful was Azule tweeted. He was seven. Oh. And about to play as winning in and did not tweet again.

Mike:

seven. Oh, is, is making it through.

Brent:

Oh seven. I'm making it through.

Brit:

it,

Brent:

So he tweeted, he made it through.

Mike:

Yeah. He was streaming. He was streaming it. So he there's kinda like, there's a couple of different categories of people. So some people shared, like recorded their matches and they signed an NDA. And so they wouldn't say anything regardless. And then there was some people that just streamed their matches and that was okay. That was allowed. So that was like Azule. And then there was. Basically everyone else. They S we didn't. So, like, I didn't record my matches, so I didn't technically sign an NDA, but they just asked us respectfully to not share results to, you know, build up hype a little bit for the stream this weekend.

Brent:

Jeez. I mean, nobody's hyping it more than us. Come on. People, you know, I look forward to Pokemon reaching out to us. So, and then Jack malar tweeted that he lost his women. So, so I, I feel like the, the like, yeah, so, so Azule, I guess we don't know he made it through Mike Brita, you guys aware of any other people that I should mention here, or like tweets or results or something that, that people made aware that I did not cover just now.

Brit:

Hi, miss Brophy.

Mike:

Yeah. I think that's the only one that came to mind. I think Brophy said he lost

Brent:

yeah, yeah. Broke. We lost broke. He said he lost. So, so my working assumption is in North America. We're going to say that Mike made it through and Azula made it through and I don't know who the other two people are.

Brit:

Well, I guess with Mike, it's really just a mystery of the situa game. I would think that the ADP went or not. Well, I guess, I guess also there's the loser's bracket potentially as well, but that being a big factor in it too, I would

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I think it take it, take the loss there and then he just has to win one more. So,

Brit:

No, it's, it's two more after that, I think.

Brent:

is it two more?

Brit:

It doubles, like the amount you need to win doubles when to go to losers. So if Mikey only needed to win two from where he started and won one, then I think he would still need to win two or would it be three then?

Mike:

well, it's a weird, it's weird. Like some round, it depends like where it drops you up. So the situation that I was in, I was five and Oh, if I had one, if I won my first round and then lost. Then I only had to win one round in the loser's bracket, but if I lost first, then I would have had to win three in the loser's bracket. It's just kind of like, I think that's more of a product of where they cut off this bracket. Since they took two people from the winners brag and two people from the loser's bracket. So like if, if it played to like one, you know, one

Brent:

All right. You can get into that to play out the finals. Right.

Mike:

Or, yeah. If, if we were playing out to one winner, then it would've been more like what you said.

Brent:

Right, right. So, so our, our working assumption as we work, as we talk about decks and the next format is that, that we're, we're hopeful that the reps that Mike's putting in are not just, you know I'll be playing in headstart next week and I'm picking decks. It's anticipation of molding the future of the Pokemon community around the treasure ranch metal. All right. So guys, let's talk about decks.

Mike:

Yeah, new

Brit:

I actually, I've been playing to prep, maybe not as much as my Mikey, but the Mo the most, I haven't played since I finished my keys, I think over the weekend. And once it's Wednesday through the week, halfway through,

Brent:

So what have you learned Brit, talk to us.

Brit:

I've learned that I don't like the rapid strike or shift your deck. I haven't, I haven't played the single strike hounding one yet. But it looks promising to me. I think we can make, well, maybe talk about how they fit into the meta game talking if we talk about the team challenge at all. Cause I I've sort of thought about them in relation to like the other decks and where the logic would be to like bring one of them or not. But anyways, yeah, so the, I think I think there's kind of just one variant of the rapid strike version going around right now. And it just ends up being with Geraci and it's kind of nothing else. It's just consistency and a few other options. And I, I know, I know I don't have enough data to conclude at least personally, but in the games it's the deck I've played the most of and just like my hands often. Aren't great. And then sometimes you're, I mean, so you just don't have any other options other than. Your two attacks and I guess that's kind of a petty complaint. Cause you could say that of a lot of decks, like a Turnitin or something, or send a scorch. I mean, not send scores cause some sports have so many options and that's why it works. But anyways, like they just feel underwhelming at times. Like obviously the fighting weakness is really good against the Turnitin it's against peaker. But against other things like random things like neg or not mega, but blastomas V max and things like that. And then similarly like the, the snipe when also when you're getting crushing hammered and stuff just doesn't feel very good. It's a lot to lose when you're getting crushing hammered too, at the same time, a lot of energies off your board. And then again, that just gets you into the position or like, all you can do is one 50. And I mean I think maybe sometimes your strategy just really has to be like three boss Kaos if you can You know what I mean? I guess some bosses and some Snipes accomplish the same thing, but I just, haven't been very impressed with it and think it will. I don't think I haven't really tested it against Pika, but would think I need to is obviously very good. Still

Mike:

Yeah. So my experience, I think the deck is pretty fun to play, but yeah, I kind of agree that it's a little underwhelming. I just think like the, the damage output is not quite there. Like if, if you were able to two-shot things with the first attack and then the second attack it'd be much better, but you can't really do that. The only way you two-shot like a VMX, you don't even straight up two shot of Emacs, just using the first attack twice. You need some damage modifiers, whether that's dojo or the Ziggens. So like already you need a little bit more than other VMX decks to get it to hit Kao. And the sniper attack is it's just, it's only good in some match-ups and like really, really not good in other match-ups. So. I know it's fun to play. Cause like, you know, it's interesting you move, you're constantly moving. You're active and you're bench, but yeah, I agree. It's like, it's not, it's not the deck that I would want to be playing in a high stakes tournament.

Brit:

I think just to talk about pairing it with like drag a pole, that's just like my impression is that it needs something else. And I don't, I don't know if it's drag uphold, it might be artillery, but I think it just like, yeah, just, it just doesn't cover enough ground that I think in it's in the math, it's just, the numbers just aren't quite good enough. And so actually I think drag maybe, or Beatles even might be actually just end up being the better ways to play it, because I do think. They kind of do exactly. They fix what we're talking about, as well as having like type coverage, maybe something to help you against psychic types as well. But yeah, I mean, it's a lot to fit too. So maybe those versions aren't quite as consistent as they need to be, to keep competing with peaker rom and ADP. But I mean, and even pairing with dragon ball, doesn't solve this crushing hammer problem, unfortunately, which I think Danny tweeted like the day the set dropped that everything in it lost a crushing camera still might be right. Unfortunately.

Mike:

I played against an orbital or Shifu on ladder for the first time today. And that actually seemed pretty good. The list that I played against wasn't that great. But the concept was pretty cool. I played a bunch of games with drag appalled or a few yesterday and like, The deck's good when you go first attach and don't get crushed and hammered, but that doesn't happen very often. You like very often either don't get an attachment first turn, or you have a drag, a pole with the single strike energy in your hand, or, or inertia Fu with only psychic energies in your hand. And you're like, Oh, this is super awkward. It's like, you're a two, you have to evolution lines with different energy. And like that works in slower formats, but not in these fast formats that we're doing with right now. I don't think.

Brit:

Huh.

Brent:

Is there a reason why? I mean, it certainly seems like from the list people are playing. I don't know if you guys have experimented with it, but like, it seems like artillery is just not good enough. I think it's a little bit of a surprise. Like I think when people read the set and you're like, they obviously want us to play these two cards together.

Brit:

I think I saw, I didn't see a specific list, but I think I saw on Twitter that toward plays it in his list, like maybe just from a stream. And so it's, I guess hard to know if, how much of like it's his list or how much he was just trying it on the stream, you know? But yeah, just, I think it could still be good. I, I basically, I've only tested this version without it, because I was told to, because those are the lists that were going around and have been making top six teams. And I think some of them have top aided. I was going to say that the orbital or HSA food is kind of the first deck I wanted to try. I've talked to talk to, to Dustin about it since he being an orbital player for the moment. And I just couldn't get it a list that I liked at all. Every list I had was 66 cards or something. Like, I just couldn't get it all to work and it just kind of went to test something else. And in the meantime, and hoped someone else would get a better sort of scale for me. But I, I, it sounds really good to me and kind of well, to drag a pole without like needing the energy and things like that. Cause I think you'll, you definitely have it. I have to cut corners when you're trying to fit these two together and like, or beetle doesn't really need to attack. I don't think like, I, I think. I think the switching effects just the damage will, might be enough to fix kind of all, all of this that we're complaining about for Shifu and still you can have, you know, like one energy or two, just in case, like it has a pretty good attack. I mean, it's just depends on how you want to focus. The deck

Mike:

Yeah, I think that's what intrigued me most about or beetle is that is the energy. Just didn't have to be a doc word as the dragon Boulder's food. You probably just play like four single strikes, like five fighting's and maybe like two Aurora, something like that. Where it just gives you the option.

Brit:

and energy. And my oldest two with it

Mike:

Sure you can do that too. But just like the, you can, yeah. Kind of what you said, you gave yourself the option to attack with nor beetle, but like with dragon ball, the whole reason you're playing with dragon pole is you want to attack with it. And it actually becomes like your main attacker because it needs double psychic energy. Not like if it was psychic colorless, maybe you could, maybe it would be a little bit easier, but it's just a little too much dedication while it beetle gives you a little more flexibility.

Brent:

Let's talk, let's talk about a couple of other decks and then let's talk about how they've done in tournaments and stuff. We want to talk about ADP Brown song.

Brit:

I don't have any, it looks really good to me. That's about all I have to say. I didn't, I haven't had time to get any games with it, but it did win the full grip tournament, which kind of I think might get like underrated. It doesn't seem like it has a super great turnout every week, but there's really good players in it every week. I think it might have a cash entry or something, so maybe that's it. But Yeah, they won last night and I just saw it. I thought that was like, well, actually what happened was I was just, I usually try to check that the tournament's when I'm on my computer in the morning just to see what happened and to look at some lists and on limitless, it just was, it's just bronze zone. It doesn't have any other icons with it. And I was like, Oh, what is it? And you know, also I think Corbin Knight made top eight too. And so I was just like bronze zone, but it isn't the night I was really intrigued and it's Oh, it's ADP, but it's a lot of space. This winning list plays for four bronze on it's just,

Mike:

so much.

Brit:

it's so much like you would think, I guess the natural swap switcheroo is just minus four energy switch plus two to bronze on, but it seems really good to me. I'm really intrigued to try it, but unfortunately I have nothing to speak otherwise.

Mike:

Conversely to me, it seems terrible. I have no reason. I don't see any reason why you would play this over energy switch ADP. But I could be completely wrong, but I will, I do want to talk about another thing with ADP. As I have Brad news article on China, fireball, shout out introduced experience, share in ADP, and that is very intriguing to me. I really liked like part, part of the reason ADP started to lose ground is because more decks were able to just one shot the ADP immediately after a GX is and experience share mitigates that. A lot to a large degree. Even if you only like, even if you only get one experience, you're down, you save one energy that is one less metal saucer that you need. And it just makes it much smoother to go like boss Kao, boss Kao. So that's super intriguing to me. I've played a couple of games and I mean, it's still, you still get ADP hands. But but that idea is really cool. So I want to, I do want to explore that a little bit.

Brent:

Yeah, I could see how I mean, yeah, you have so many turns where you're like, okay, I gotta find two saucers in a metal energy. And, and if you had just had an experience share your, like, you got a little bit of mojo out of it, but I mean, I guess you got to find it early for it to be good. And so you're like, you're like, Oh, I should run a couple of these. It seems hard to fit in.

Mike:

Yeah. He, he had four, he had four expansions in his list. I cut it down to three, but yeah, he had for the other, the other kind of new thing in ADP, that's going around is dropping all the switch for four escape ropes. And I'm not sure if that is correct. Escape. Rope is really good sometimes. And also kind of bad sometimes too. Like

Brit:

What scenarios as a bad, because I've, I've, I've also just, you know, naively anecdotally thought that that seemed good, but I haven't put any time into it yet.

Mike:

yeah, that was my initial thought too. Like just obviously good. But then I saw chip was playing ADP on stream the other day and he played against a Luke medal and it. He had to rope and his opponent just had a doll and he was like, well, if I had switched here, I could, Kao is active but I have to rope. And I was like, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So the rope is probably much better on average, but maybe it's like maybe situations like that come up enough where you're on like two, two or something like that.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, theoretically giving people the opportunity to screw up their own game. It's always a great thing.

Mike:

is true. All right, what else we got?

Brent:

Fire decks.

Mike:

I haven't, I haven't really played too much with buyer decks, honestly.

Brit:

I have, I have after the rapid striker shit too.

Brent:

I was about to say, when we say fire decks, we mean Vic teeny V. Max, right?

Brit:

Well, I mean, I think if my interest is like, I think fire is in a questionable state right now, not to say that it's not good, but it's seems to be an unknown in the format. Like people aren't really putting all that much time into it. People are trying to figure out Vic Teenie, but like Alex schmancy wrote that article for channel fireball about Centre scorch dictating, like combining them at the same time. And I mean, he's a really good player and it, it speaks highly of it in the article, but I sort of am confused by the deck. Or yeah, like, and then also at the same time, like how good is old send a squirt still? It's probably pretty good. I think, I don't know if they need to, or they have to, but I see a lists like playing music here and there just for their shoe deck. And I'm sure that would help, but I'm not, I don't know if they just lose without it. I. I kind of doubt it, but I just really don't know. But yeah, so I can talk about the Vic teeny decks. I've I can't get a list. I super love, but like we sort of ended briefly with last week. There's there's a lot of ways to try it. Like, it's a, it's a cool card. It feels good. Definitely learned, learned a bunch of playing it, but I think it's good, but I just, I'm not confident in any, any of the lists I have personally made and the ones that I have of other peoples that I've played, like the, a food rapid strike, just kind of feel like it's missing something or it's just not quite good enough.

Brent:

So, so the Sunday open for the top 10 decks were Vic teeny BMX. I mean, that seems to imply that it's really good. True or false,

Brit:

I didn't know yet. So that definitely sort of.

Brent:

I guess what's weird is I felt like when I was looking at results and like full disclosure, I was on vacation for like, I guess the last four days. So I like not been paying even the remote attention to Twitter. God forbid. But like, I, I felt like when I went back and looked at results, there were some tournaments where none of the new decks did well at all. And then I looked at like this tournament and I was like 15, DVMAX just completely destroyed the entire tournament. And I was trying to figure out if there was something I was supposed to take away from all that.

Mike:

I mean, I think the teeny is quite good. And we also saw the Japanese event. There was a, quite a lot of big teeny decks there. I mean, they have a new set, but it's still relevant. Yeah, I don't know. What's making the difference from event to event, but I'm not surprised that Victoria is doing well. Like you go first, you attach. On, do you attach again, boss kill something like that. It's an extremely aggressive, it gives fire decks stuff to do going first or second, which is something they didn't have before. So yeah, I'm not surprised with Tina is doing well, but I don't know what the difference is.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so why is, not the best deck in the format?

Brit:

I mean, again, not every deck has like, it's so good against the VMX decks. Cause part of the, you know, your turn to boss Kao also involves knocking their energy off the board. And so against decks that don't do that against the tech team decks that are still around. You're kind of, you're, you're kind of only way to win is the cheap, the cheap. Knockouts then you you don't have like model while you don't, you need three, not two, like ADP. And so it just ends up being like a little easier to play around as an opponent like that. That's my experience. Like sometimes you get really fast and aggressive starts and just cannot finish a game. And then because like you know, like I lost her and it turned into a stack that just like, could pressure me too much. And I, it, I couldn't fall back on the restaurant's art because it's just not very good in that matchup. And you know, that, that's what they're, you have rush with art. And he tram typically to like fall back on or to do other stuff with. But sometimes it's just that they obviously need welders more than Vic, teeny does as well and crutching hammer and so on.

Mike:

Yeah. And I think like in victim, you might be the best deck. I don't know for sure. But yeah, the tag team stuff, we've seen a resurgence in Mewtwo welder, which I think is like a really, really hard match-up. They don't play any VPs. You're not getting any cheap knockouts. So that's really tough. I think peaker, I'm tough for a lot of similar reasons. You get the K on the Bolton, but everything else is really hard to knock out. And. The Keeney is an evolution. You got to attach to it twice. I mean, you have welders to back you up, but you can't Boston welder in the same turn. And ultimately all of these VMX decks are evolution decks. So they're just a little more awkward. Then then the others

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah. That's a really big thing I just failed, failed to think about, but yeah, it's just another piece of the puzzle. You also need to evolve and boss and then sit in the second turn. So it was just sometimes a lot. Especially if you like go first and don't have an energy. And they're not, they don't play like as many to DNA. I think the list I've, I've seen plays like two and one, two crowbar at one to dinner or something.

Brent:

That's. That was the next thing I wanted to talk about. You know, when you look at the list, the top forward, the Sunday open, I mean, they're all over the board.

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brit:

right. I mean, that's what, I mean, it was trying to sort of say, like, I

Brent:

Yeah. Like the guy that came in second played for Geraci and no volcano, which I feel like volcano is a good card. Sure.

Brit:

I mean, I don't think you need it

Brent:

And then the guy that wins third and played no Geraci is in one volcano and AMU. And then the guy that came in ninth like a mega Lapine and a one volcano Rian and a cricket tune and a Mimikyu, like there's all kinds of crazy stuff. And then the guy that came in 10th played three Geraci he's only a two to 15 line And he played as execute to help him fix his damage up for problems and for scoop of meds.

Brit:

so it sounds like the list that this is why I'm not competent in my list. It sounds like I, I want to do all of this at once and camp. Yeah, fed it because that's what it feels like. You want kind of, you need all of this, like sometimes your damage isn't quite right. Sometimes you need an extra attack or sometimes you want to go into Russia's at first and having Volcani in is useful, so on and so forth. But yeah, that's what it feels like to me. And so the version I tried was like I guess more closer to the just firebox stacks. It was just like zoo and Cramer rant or in like a few Geraci is not like four, but like three Geraci and one Volcani. And I think, I think my problem with this bill was that I was really committed to Vic teeny, like I was playing for 30 and I've seen, I guess in the last few days compared to. The first few days of the set people are playing like less lines of it. So like maybe I could get away with three, two or something. I think I already have four Pokemon communication in there. But that might free up some space, but yeah. So for Victor, you need to be the focus. Sometimes players are only playing two to which, I mean, it works, I suppose.

Mike:

yeah, the, the variant that I'm most interested in trying is the one that Stefan played, like one of the first events that Battlestar was legal and it was basically like the Chris Epsilon deck with the Tutu Vic Dini. I think that sounds pretty cool. Cause Vic teeny can get some cheap knockouts and then blow. Stefan can obviously get like a big knockout later in the game. So I have to go back and look at his list and think about it more, but that seemed very interesting to me.

Brit:

I mean, I, I remember his list and I do think the concept is good, but like, I don't maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to remember his list. Like wasn't playing for boss. It was only playing like two

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

and that just doesn't seem as good to me. I think I, I mean maybe two or three is fine, but it just, I think it just seems like you have to play for like the logic that sort

Mike:

The whole point of teeny, right. Is to like, get that quick, aggressive knockout again

Brit:

right. Yeah. Like have you, how useful is Vic teeny when you don't have boss that that's one of the things about the welder index is they don't ever really tend to play boss until just the absolute end of the game because they can't, they're too busy digging for welder.

Brent:

Yeah, I think it's interesting. I feel like the the lists tend to have like kind of a mix of professors research and welder, because it's a two energy attacker. They're like, well, you know, I don't want to have to like, go really, really hard for welder. I don't necessarily need to go really hard for you. Well, they're in like some chunk of games. It's a, it's a brave new world for fire decks. If they like don't need to play a welder every term.

Mike:

Yeah, this is the, this is the new fire push rotation. This is what they're all going to look like.

Brent:

Oh yeah. I was just looking at the winning list. He also played or no, this is the guy who came in third. He also played two fan of waves.

Mike:

I think that's mostly for the coding energies in the metal decks,

Brent:

dig it. I get a lot.

Mike:

Ben of waves. I don't think we've, I don't think we even talked about that when we were doing like our initial set review. Cause I don't even remember it being, I actually don't remember it being on the set list and being a card because I feel like I would have noticed that.

Brit:

I, I re I remember thinking we had missed it. I thought it was worth mentioning.

Brent:

Oh really that I will say Mike, that I somehow missed it, but like, obviously with enhanced Samer not

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

having an enhanced Amorish card is good.

Mike:

And it's been like it. I think people are still trying to figure out how and where to play it most effectively. So I think it got like overplayed a little bit. And then the first couple of days, and now it's kind of like underplayed right now. So it's kind like it's figuring out where, where it sits best, but for sure it's going to be played in, in certain decks and it's going to be really good in certain decks. And it makes me think about when I build a deck like drag a pole, the har energy is really good, but is it worth. The risk of running into a fan of waves in a deck that's already very weak against crushing hammer effects. Maybe not, maybe you just play like 10 basic psychics just to avoid that. Just the existence of that card, I think affects deck building pretty significantly.

Brent:

Let's talk about the resurgence of MuTu decks for a little bit, because I think Britta was saying, it's kinda noticed this is the thing that right.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Is that, is that just because Urrutia food decks are more popular? So people are like, I should play me two decks.

Brit:

Yeah, I think it's that. I also think people, it did vary the MuTu decks in Japan did well in the Japanese tournament. And I think maybe like people just like wanting to, you know, we're excited to mess with it again because of that. And having. Kind of some pretty key cards. I do think it will be good again, once we get those as if they will be before rotation at all. But yeah, otherwise just psychic.

Mike:

Yeah. And I think, I think it's the extra food, but I also think it's and, and the other new deck would, Vic teeny is pretty good against fifty-nine because Tina doesn't hit it super hard. So it's got good. Match-ups against like the two new decks. And the other thing is, for some reason, whenever there's a new format, people have to play new to welder. Like I remember right after where, or what would have been worlds, like people were playing MuTu welder for everyone, thought it was dead and people started playing it again. Wasn't that good? But people were like, let's do it. I love this deck. And I feel like we might have that effect again right now. Where people are playing it for these first couple of weeks. And then in a month from now, it's not going to be played at all. I don't know. I don't particularly w Brett and I we've talked about a lot. Neither of us really liked the deck very much. I think so.

Brent:

I feel like it's more of a meme.

Mike:

I, I don't want to play it, so I'm not mad about people playing it, but I'm definitely not.

Brent:

Yeah. I feel like if you're playing it for typing, you could just play peek around.

Mike:

Yeah. Or like lightening me too, if you really wanted to play like a Mewtwo deck plate light, and you need to, I think that's,

Brent:

Yeah. But I feel like we've proven, definitively over the course of 34 episodes of this podcast that that's not as good as just my pig around we'll play lighting you two kids, they pick around.

Brit:

I think so it's kind of just talking about it now is just thinking about it. Knowing play flaking lightening me too at all anymore. It's gone.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. You know, you can play, but you can like pick her up. Well, you know, that's, that's the play people. We have hypothesized that Mikey has advanced to a top four of the players come three big around people. Get on the train.

Mike:

Around, let's talk about big

Brent:

yeah, let's talk about pink around because that's the most important deck to talk about.

Brit:

Yeah, I'm curious as to how you might adapt the list for the new format. If what changes might be made.

Mike:

so the first thing also, like I didn't, I was kind of just like keeping track of what people were playing in peak around over the first week and a half of the format. The first weird thing was that people were playing as Emma's into in it just so the thought process was against the earth few deck. They play bunches of escape ropes. So when they play an escape rope, you want something to send up that doesn't give them a free prize. Essentially. So he plays Amazon into that seemed really bad to me. And. I was right, because now in the last four or five days, nobody's playing, I've been playing to Amazon debt. You just played two meters down. Like if they escape her up, just send out another Mewtwo. It seems pretty straightforward to me. So that was strange peaker arms, first big win of this format was the Sunday open actually. And the list that one ran no chaotic 12. So that was kind of like the biggest change. I would say. There's some sense in that fire decks have the typical fire decks of bliss, Stefan and center scorch have, you know, decreased in popularity and fire is now Vic teeny, essentially Vic teeny focused, at least in Victoria is not super dependent on giant hearts. So swell is much weaker against them. Doesn't disrupt them as much. So I could see dropping, I probably wouldn't drop below one chaotic swell, just because I do think power plant is still relevant enough in the format. Some of the drag apart list had been playing at some of the Luke metal lists have been playing power plant. And obviously it turned into tests can still play power plant. So I wouldn't drop below one swell, but I think it's much more reasonable to play one swell than it ever was before. There's lots of people that played one swell last format, and I disagreed with them all the time. But now, now I can see that. Other than that, there's really not too many changes. You still need to play crash and hammer still need to play a yell grunt.

Brent:

So he played a Vika volt. I obviously like, I know you played a beacon volt and Kim inclusion that you can, people put vehicle on their list, but that doesn't mean they need Vika volts is valuable, more relevant is as like we get more cards in the card pool because there's more items. Therefore people play more items.

Mike:

No. So the, the, the reason he played Vika vault is for spirit to cause spirit to one, the limitless event, like the couple of days before that. But like you talking about spirit to him after this, but I don't think it's worth taking for spirit to him. First of all. And I've discussed this before. If people think Veeva vault is a tech firm ad party, but it's actually really not very good against mad party. So if you want a tech firm ad party play a big germ, like big charm is way, way better in that matchup. It's not even close. And big charm is obviously much, much better in every other matchup than is. Pretty pretty terrible. I would never play it. In this format, unless spear tomb somehow becomes like a tier one deck. It makes sense again, spiritual, but I don't think spirit tune is going to become a tier one deck and worth taking for. Yeah. So I think you got a little bit more flexibility in the, in the second stadium spot, you could run a tag switch if you want. They've been running, they've been running 14 energy and I like the extra energy is always good, but it's just weird that they're using that as like, they're like they have this spot and they're like, let's play a 14th energy. I don't know. There's lots of other things that I would at least consider over that

Brit:

Yeah, the energy switch was the card I was thinking about the most, but in my head it seems like maybe there's a better reason to play, play them again, or at least play the tag switch. So you can like maybe pull a response with MuTu out of nowhere. Like just say like, you have to electrify and properly, you don't have a Mewtwo out or something, but you can, you can just pull them U2 with attached Coco switch and like that's, you know, a lot of course, but I think about that a lot. And I talked about that a little bit in the commentary that like. Well, I do think it's right, that the lists have gravitated away towards playing the energy switching cards. Like I just kind of still play them. So I have that option or at least I can try to have that option in mirrors scenarios. And I didn't end up playing them. I played picker on for my team challenge this weekend and I didn't even play any energy switches. And I wish I, I wish I did, but I think they're probably just like the 61st and the 62nd card. It's, it's a lot to fit and probably not worth it still for food. Like the odds, the odds of that happening compared to the odds of you just like starting getting new to in play. They're probably better. I just worry about starting starting with rideshare, peaker rom and just kind of losing.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, there's for sure scenarios where like, if you're playing the card, the scenarios come up where they're useful. For sure. Like, I was, I've been playing it in practice and like, I got a really sweet tag bolt win in a game because of tags switch and the situations do present themselves. It's just the question of like, do those situations come up enough? That it's worth the spot?

Brent:

Hearing you describe, it sounds like when more.

Mike:

Maybe. Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's not strictly Winmore. There are games that you would lose without it, but yeah. But, but yes, that is a good general way to think about it.

Brent:

Right, right. But, but yeah, as is the, is the alternative cards, you know are, are, if they're, they're not also game-winning cards and you should put with the card, but I assume you win more games with those cards than you do. I mean, well, it's a good card. You should play that. Correct?

Mike:

Also while we're talking about peak rum. And Brett, you just remind me of the poker stats invitational. It was a 60 card mirror of the list that I played in player's cup. I think that's pretty sweet.

Brent:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I feel like despite the fact that we're seeing all these new decks peak around continues to be good.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, and it's because as I, as I've alluded to a couple of times, it is not an evolution deck, so

Brent:

Big basics.

Mike:

yeah,

Brent:

What makes them good?

Mike:

I've, I've been testing a lot of these evolution decks, and man, you go first and don't play your basic down with an energy and you just kind of lose the game if you're playing against the big basic deck immediately. And it just feels so bad.

Brent:

So, so Mike we're, we're under the working assumption that you're going to be competing in the next round. What is the argument against just playing peek around?

Mike:

So three things, three main things, one I think there's a pretty decent chance that

Brent:

Well, we haven't been told the results of the decision I gave hearing. You say that makes us sound like, Hey, that might poorly be the situ I may have also advanced.

Mike:

perhaps but I think in general, regardless of that one person there's a pretty good chance that, you know if there's a bunch of good people playing in a small 16 player event, they might look and be like, Hmm, this is why beats a lot of decks. Maybe I should just play it. It's also been doing pretty well in the online events. So decision Y is a big, big thing. Number two, the fact that I've been playing in peaker, I'm so much that if I'm in this 16 person event It's just very predictable. Right. And maybe that's okay. Maybe peak ground is just so good that it doesn't matter, but it is something to at least think about. And the third thing, similarly, peaker is really good, like really, really good at punishing mistakes. And if I'm playing against 15 of the, you know, perhaps best players in the world, you have to assume that they are not going to make as many mistakes. And so you lose a little bit of effectiveness there when your deck is a 50 50 deck because you're less likely to be able to outplay your opponents all the time. So I still think like if I don't find anything else that I really think is a really great play, I feel very comfortable playing peek around me. It might even be the same 60 as what I played in the players cup. But but yeah, so those are some of the reasons why I would consider not playing.

Brent:

So, so I have two questions about, about the opening statement about the decision, why situation first? Is it like the four North American players all play each other and then one person from each continent advances? Or is it a whole new bracket?

Mike:

Yeah, it's completely random.

Brent:

All right. All right. All right. I mean, If you were the decidua player, would you be wildly paranoid that everybody knows you were the decidua player? Like, I mean, this is a situation where countering the Metta. I mean, I think we saw in was a players cup of one, like the LMC guys, essentially just hard countered the Metta and they might not have had the best deck, but they won the tournament because like, if everybody knows that decision, there's a deciduous guy running around. All you have to do is essentially put in like one or two cards.

Mike:

Yeah, that's true. I, that is, yeah. I actually have thought about that too. Like any ADP player could just be like, all right. Yeah. We're going to play just slash and never lose that match up. Yeah, that's very true. And the other, like another similar example is I know toward was in the loser's bracket of a youth and he was playing X drill control. So like, if he makes it that's another like similar type of example, like it's not incredibly hard to pick a deck that ensures you pick a deck or tech for something like this to dryer control. And that makes them infinitely less effective.

Brent:

Right. So, so if, if you said I want to play, this is my second kind of, I guess this is like the seventh question. My two-part question. So if, if you said I want to play Pika rom, but I'm going to hard counter decidua. I. What's the what's the strategy there? Like, I mean, I recognize like electros was a card that people talked about, but never actually saw play. Would you be like electros is going into the deck or is that just it's so bad and we can never do that.

Mike:

That's a good question. It's I'd probably, I probably need to, would, I probably would need to go and look through the card pool. Maybe there's nothing better than electronics electronics. Isn't very good though. Cause it doesn't one shot decidua if it did one 40, instead of one 30, I think it'd be like an auto include. But I, I would want to go look through their card pool, but if, if, if I decided on peak rom it is something I would very much, very, very much think about if I could fit one, maybe two, I would really have to think about it. If I needed to fit like two cards, I'd really have to think about it. But if I found like one card that I felt like. Would at least bring the match up to like 50, 50. I'd probably include it

Brent:

Yeah. Like, like it's just a matter of finding. I feel like there was one other card that was like the other card people talked about playing. I just can't think of it right now.

Mike:

like zap dose and

Brit:

jolty on layer or no. Nevermind. Cause you'd have to play the Evie then, because I was like, Oh, you have mute too, but now

Mike:

wait, what do you mean? W why, why

Brit:

GLT on GX.

Mike:

What does that do? Let's see.

Brit:

I mean, it just, it would be something that you could play. I think.

Mike:

Georgeann GX. It doesn't have like a Swift attack though. Yeah, if it did, that would be great. Yeah, I think the only like Swift attack that MuTu could copy is green ninjas and that takes a water. So I'd have to like add up to find something there's like a basic Xero aura. I think, I don't know. I will be looking through cards though. Yeah. If I'm in this situation,

Brent:

Yeah. Maybe, maybe zap, those is the other card. Cause like you could just splashes that those down and you're like, okay, now I have a second attacker in this matchup and it's like one energy and.

Brit:

so the do any damage and you have to switch.

Mike:

Yeah. Like the magic is like, I've played the matchup a bunch of times and like I've lost a bunch of times, but like usually you get down to like one or two prizes. Like you kill a bunch of stuff and then they're left with usually like, maybe one so often too, but maybe one decidua and like Coco can trade with one decidua and then you just lose to the last decision. So it's usually like, not. Like, it's not that much more that you have to get there on. So it could be something as simple as like, maybe just like the, the dark Hoopa is like enough. I don't know. I would probably have to run a bunch of games,

Brent:

Right, right. So how about, how about attacking extra? Like, so, so I feel like my takeaway from here and all that is like, I feel like if I was at the situ I player, I would not want to bring the situation this tournament. Cause it just seems too nerve wracking. The prospect that you just get like relentlessly hard countered, but I could see towards saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it. I'm gonna bring extra internal control to the tournament. Is there a, is there like a, an easy tech that hard counters X Goodrow

Mike:

I think, I think it might depend on the deck, but I think more so if you're just thinking about the deck that you bring, if you're worried about control. So like ADP's Ashton and Luke metal, I think are both pretty solid against control just because of Sasha and So I think it would be more like that. And like, I don't know, pick her on can beat, they execute drug control deck too. Like, cause they, you just play so many Marnie's.

Brent:

right, right. I dig it. You want to talk about spirit to him for a second? We'd be remiss if we didn't.

Mike:

Yeah. So spiritual won the limitless event, which is pretty sweet. The list that one was a little bit different than the list that I had built and that, that I stole initially from Kevin Clemente, Mela Magikarp. The big difference is it ran for switch for scoop up net for escape groups. So it ran all the switching cards. It kind of cut down on some of the other things I can only ran one jinx didn't run the Hoopa as an attacker ran bird keepers over Marnie's. That type of stuff, but pretty solid list. And I it's cool that I won the event, but I still don't think spirit to him is in a very good spot overall. I think it's similar to the Mewtwo welder at the beginning of a format, not as good decks, ended up winning events and doing quite well because lists aren't refined. People don't know how to play the match-ups, that type of stuff. Spirit tomb is still really clunky. I tried it. I tried to list that one, probably about five or six games. There's still lots of games where you're opening hand is you start jinx with three scoop up nets, two switches, and a spike Muth, then you're like, Hmm. All right. Guess I guess I'll move on to the next game. So I think the guy that won it's a good deck when it, when it, when it draws. Pretty well. And so he probably just had a good run of variance. I just don't think it's going to be good enough going forward. It, it, it's probably the best single prize attacking deck now because of level ball and and escape rope. So I don't want to knock it too hard, but I just don't think it really can compete regularly with ADP Z it's Luke metal. Match-ups not very good. If the Turnitin is runs a bunch of like spiritual, evil, tall type of things and the goons, not that great he gets hurt by Marnie's and stamps like peek around can even just beat it because of that stuff. So yeah, I mean, like, it's cool. It's fun to play, but I'm not gonna waste time trying to perfect it because I think the list is about as good as it's going to get.

Brent:

Props. This is the final basis for, for winning, because Eby, you went 300 against ADP. I don't understand how he does that.

Mike:

Yeah, I will say escape rope is really good against ADP because we kind of in the early game, it lets you, maybe you don't have quite enough damage built up to one shot the ADP, but you have enough to like kill a Zakian or a den or something. So without having to play a supporter, escape, rope gets you there. And so you're at least able to kind of keep up the prize trade. Like if you, if they GX and then you'd take a Kao each turn, then you win the game. So it gives you a little more flexibility in that realm. So I, I,

Brent:

right. The interrupt, the hidden to the ADP.

Mike:

Yeah. You have a better ADP's matchup than you ever had before, but it's just like, if you don't, there's still so many games where they just GX and you don't take a knockout and then you can't win the game. You mentioned possible

Brent:

any other stuff we should talk about? Or should we talk about team challenge?

Mike:

any other decks.

Brit:

we got it all. I don't have, I guess there's the single strick one. People seem to be playing it. But like I said, I haven't had any games with it. I don't know if Mikey does.

Mike:

No, it doesn't really seem worth my time.

Brent:

What's interesting is I feel like I look at some tournament results in the single strike does better than the rapid strike at some tournaments, but it never does. Well, like I feel like that says more about the rapid strike shortcomings than it does about how single strike has some great deck.

Mike:

Yeah. That's true.

Brit:

I traded for it. So probably regrettably that I should, I'll try it a little bit. I have, I have it all. It seems, it looks fun and at least attaching energy from the deck, like the good old days.

Mike:

I think there's a bunch of fringe decks that look cool and maybe worth talking about a different time, but maybe like, like the bronze on decks, the Carbonite decks, those things are cool, but let, let's push them to a different time.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Mike:

we get to play them a little bit.

Brent:

Exactly. Exactly. I feel like we're we have, we just have so much stuff. So let's talk about team challenge for a second. I feel like the channel fireball on fire tweet of the week goes to Andrew ramble too successfully tweets out the a bunch of teams from the teen challenge and identifies them, and then proceeds to start a thread where people talk about how Maplewood is absolutely stacked. He obviously should have recognized that we've been talking about this for weeks. How'd your team challenge. Go.

Brit:

We won. We won. It was a lot of fun I'm excited for this week. So I eventually. Let's see. So after, after the podcast on Wednesday, I said I was going to try to get in contact people and I forgot. I like, I like go do something on campus Wednesday night, so I just slipped my mind. So I like woke up the next morning and like, they, someone, they had found me on discord apparently like on Thursday essentially. And so we're all we're, we're linked up now. Unfortunately weren't able to coordinate deck choices or anything like that. So but we, we got lucky in the matcha or the lineups, I think. So we brought, I submitted peaker just Mikey 60 and then someone else brought a peaker on and someone else brought in LMC. And so I think someone just couldn't play some, someone was going to be late, so we didn't have to really figure that out. And this week, someone can't make it. And I think the week after that, like I might not be able to. But anyway, so I played peaker on and the other three decks are send a scorch Cramer rant and mad party. And so we just, we had who brought double Pika into a crammer ramp. So that was great. But it was really close. It came down to the, the, the last game of the, of the last set we had to play all three that's. The three is, and every game mattered. I went, I went to, and one, I beat center, scorch lost a close series. All my series were like three game series. They were all pretty close, but I beat some, a scorch. I lost to mad party and I beat. And then we got swept by the mad party. And I think that LMC, I guess, and I think we swept the Kramer and I actually think the LMC beat the crammer ant as well. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was fun coordinating, just, you know, talking the whole time, trying to walk through it, finishing my game so I could go, go watch the other Pekichu player stuff like that. And so we've been, we've been in more communication this past week. Didn't really seem to I guess we've submitted our decks, but I was trying to walk through like a rationale. And so sort of what I came up with was that like, you want to bring to like good decks and then one of these kind of fringe year gimmicky options. And so of the good decks, I, at least at the time said peek around ADP like maybe an OSHA food deck. I think they're actually, I think. I think someone was going to bring rapid stark, but they've decided against it after testing as well. So maybe neither of the OSHA fintechs are good enough for that category, but like, so maybe the big three are fire of a teeny version of some kind peaker almond, ADP, bring two of those. And then, I mean, maybe LMC is just actually good enough to be in that category, but I, I think I listed it in the second category too. Cause there's, you know, some sort of robbery with Zanta happening, but, and then bring one of like LMC decidua I actually think mad party's pretty good. You know, it just gets the free typing and people bring Arisha Fu and like our lineup, like that picker on match, it's hard. Like I don't Matt, party's not a good deck because I think all of its mashups kind of just come down to like, do you time the exile at the right time? And it, it picked her on just sort of doesn't interact well with the, it has a little more H little less HP, you can't use MuTu. But I think it's like maybe worth considering or, or spirit even something like that. And I guess I turn it, this is probably fine too. It just would scare me. Currently. People are into the earth, a few decks, whether they're good or not, I guess we'll find out. And so I haven't decided what I want to play this week. I'm going to play Vick Teenie or pick around. But I was, I'm still kind of thinking through the cards and I think someone's bringing spirit tomb and I think someone's bringing ADP.

Brent:

Yeah, I assume the problem he had last week was if somebody had brought ADP, then you'd have bodied up the med party deck. And like the med party is just that Dodge ADP play. Right.

Brit:

Yeah. And so at least like the spirit team deck will is our, like decidua answer at the very least. So like we won't get swept by another, another decision. Y so that will be good. I hope.

Brent:

so Mike, you, I assume you're the one, you're the player who sat out of the team challenge last week for your team.

Mike:

I did. Yeah, but I was able to be in the call with them which I don't know how much I helped, but there, there was at least one moment where Bokhari would have. Potentially thrown his game and I stopped him from doing that. So That was good. So, and it actually worked out, I did submit a deck and I could have played cause we played on Sunday. But I was playing the poker stats invitational, but it worked out that I had submitted a Turnitin and it turned out this was probably the worst deck against their lineup. So it actually worked out. Yeah, so I submitted a turning test. Bokhari did peaker Jenkins did ADP and Kettler brought decidua. We played against two alternatice, Picloram and a mad party. They didn't bring their peek around. We didn't bring our alternatives. Their lists were a little bit strange. They're mad party ran two diggers B and memory capsule. Diggers B is just like a fighting Pokemon, but that evolved from bumblebee. So hits you know, the, it turned into some peak ground for weakness. Somehow Justin was able to win that match up to one. I think it was a mix of by playing those extra four cards, their overall list was a little bit worse, so like they just kind of dead drew one game and then another game was really close. And Justin lost to an alternative routes. So we, we only had to play six of our games. We ended up winning five won. So Justin lost against an attorney test with Pete Graham and then Kettler with D the decidua. He beat both alternatives that he played against, but the, they were both really close cause one, it turned into this played one Stabili, one spirit, two, one Hoopa. So three counters. But the other one played two Stabili two-spirit tomb and Rocky helmets or something like that. So a little bit tough for him, very long games, very grilling games. He ended up, this is actually pretty funny and one of the games against the Turnitin, he ended up going to sudden death because he had to Kao and alternatives, be matched with a Rocky helmet on it. Which brought them to sudden death. And he ended up winning the sudden death game using bird keeper and rabbits attack. Cause the attorney displayer started as executed. So that was pretty

Brent:

I mean, you already lost me. Rocky helmet. What, what

Mike:

Makes some sense, like the same reason you play, like Xigen in the deck to like, you know, help your math a little bit. I mean, it's a little unorthodox, but I can see the logic.

Brent:

Is like a Pokemon and you need to put down Pokemon.

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then will destroyed, w will won both of his matches in like less than 10 minutes. He beat the mad party and he beaten the Turnitin. That's one of the attorney's offices and both of the matches were over so quickly, like against the attorney to see like my wild them turn one, both games and they just had dead hands. So, so, yeah, so it was fun. I think going into next week, we're definitely gonna bring ADP's, we're definitely gonna bring peaker on for the, kind of the same reasons Britt was talking about those are like two well-rounded solid decks, and then we'll kind of think about what else we want to bring. Maybe we'll bring decidua again. I liked the idea of bringing something like that. That can just farm some Freewinds. Maybe that spot goes to LMC this week. Not sure. And then in my spot, it's kind of open, could bring the rapid striker shift who could bring a drag a Poult not, not too sure yet. Gotta, gotta talk about it. I think deck lists are due like tomorrow, but it's like Friday morning, but it's really like Thursday night, essentially.

Brent:

Right, right. Yeah. I mean 6:00 AM or whatever. It's like not a practical time. Is there, is there a bracket, do you guys know who you're playing next week?

Brit:

No, just the last cuts in half, I imagine. Well, maybe you get one, it kind of, I get the vibe that they're going to try to stream it and stuff towards the end. It sounds like.

Mike:

Yeah. I actually kinda liked that there's not a visible, visible back bracket because then you'd be able to, like, by the time we get pairings each week, the list from last week are gone and you can't view them anymore. So if there is a bracket, we'd be able to like, okay, look at the next match, take a right down the eight potential list that we're going to play against the next round, but we can't do that now. So it is a little bit more blind going into each round, which I think is good.

Brent:

right. Yeah, you could, you could kind of game it a little bit.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

I liked that the Nerdvana games, the comics, the they've looked more set Andrew and more so as the super threat. I assume you guys looked at this list. Did any other teams jump out at you as being super exciting? Obviously, I mean, there's a bunch of teams that are suicides. The Szymanski is also showed up for evolution games, Diane and Alex Goshen skis.

Brit:

Quite a few Caleb Gitomer and Franco yamas are both very good. Ross is on a team that was good at heart. I didn't know Kettler was on your team for some reason, my case. It's kind of funny.

Mike:

Yeah, it is kind of funny.

Brent:

Yeah. It, it just, it just drives home what a rig that a team like, I'm sure everybody looked at that as like, okay.

Brit:

I mean, I guess I just speaks to drew, I guess like, well, advertise your events and people in Texas will play your East coast league team challenge.

Mike:

that's true.

Brit:

I mean, I, I thought about it. I looked out and just, this was kind of my favorite store in the Kansas city area. And it was the first one I did. I think it was more, more or less planning to play like a Portland one, I think just cause I'm friends with the Tio and it was just like right on my Twitter. I was like, Oh, I can play that. It's five 30, a sure thing.

Brent:

Yeah, Andre them gaming. Definitely also had the same thing. I mean, they're, they're a big thing, as I say, at Bradner and Kenny Britain, I was like, yeah. Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah. That's a really good one as well.

Mike:

that was the, that was the store that I was going to highlight. And Aaron Friedman is also a very good player. I don't know Chichi Wong, but I know Aaron is quite good. And obviously Bradner and Britain are very, very strong

Brent:

The other thing I noticed was you told me a games, the collectibles, I don't know, Rose Little Nicky, violet, but if is that to women because that'd be great. You know, we're, we're advocates of the matriarchy here with the Halliburton Huntsville.

Mike:

And Zul, and Ryan are obviously great players. So.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very strong theme. Good stuff. Torchlight games obviously has Michelle Babin and Zach massage, like

Brit:

oh, and I'm seeing this the paradox comics and card. These guys are all quite good. All real Midwesterners riff Carl KU Jack. They're from like I never read this, like from Michael Slutzker's area, like Minnesota. I think he got second at a regionals. I think he got second at to regionals that my home one. And I know I recognize Kyle and Cody. I'm not sure if I have their eyes, the right faces in mind, but I know the names. That's a, that's a really good team.

Brent:

I was a little sad to see a John crew all in but not have like the full tag team, a squad up there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I assume Riley's on some other team. I haven't listened to their podcasts because there's only one podcast about Pokemon, but Oh, any other stuff we should talk about guys?

Mike:

I don't think so. We covered a lot of ground today.

Brent:

All right. So I, you know, there's the big secret deck for player step three that I should tell you guys about.