The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Mike destroying PC4! Designing ranked ladders, PC4 analytics, Eternatus, Pikarom, Mewshifu, LMZ, Tool Scrapper, Tag Call, Excadrill, future tournament awards

May 13, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 40
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Mike destroying PC4! Designing ranked ladders, PC4 analytics, Eternatus, Pikarom, Mewshifu, LMZ, Tool Scrapper, Tag Call, Excadrill, future tournament awards
Transcript
Brent:

I'm going to build a PTC geo ranked the ladder, lack of a interest, a website. So here's my question. If, if I am teeing you up with, if I'm putting you, if I'm matchmaking you with similar yellowish kind of players, Do you want to play best of one or best of three?

Mike:

Probably the best you could, you could have the option of both, but like that's possible, I guess, but probably best of three, just cause it's different. It's like it would offer something different, I guess.

Brit:

I would think that, you know, maybe even for Pokemon, when two of three is clearly preferable, you have to buy some bullets on just time efficiency and things like that. Like, I don't know if everything's two out of three then, and this is true for the normal ladder anyways, but at a, at a certain point, um, you know, the Medicaid, the meta can become dictated by, you know, you know, a metric of efficiency. It's not just about the best deck, but it's just like, okay, this deck wins fast so I can play it. Things like that become become factors in your deck choice. It's not, it's not just necessarily about, um, you know, the medic game or the cards themselves. So that would be an interesting factor. And I would think that I'm trying to think, I just haven't been playing enough, two out of three events to. Have a good gauge of how long two out of three is in standard tend to take these days. But

Mike:

Yeah, it's probably like 40 minutes, 45 minutes.

Brit:

and I think that would just be too long for the latter experience. And maybe that's just not true. Cause you know, like with league of legends, you don't have an option. You have, your rank system is always going to be the five on five, which can go hour and a half even longer sometimes depending. I mean, I think that's really the, the main reason. Like a lot of guys, my age, I was really hooked at league on first, but I switched to Hearthstone just for time reasons, essentially. Like I can, you know, I can play 20 games or something or I can play three games of league of legends, like, and it's just not worth it. And similarly the team aspect, some stuff too, end up being a factor. But I would think that I'm trying to think of StarCraft too. Like, cause the StarCraft would just be best of one and sometimes those games could go long, but generally they're pretty short. Um, I

Brent:

I just recognize, I feel like, like versus league of legends or, or, uh, uh, StarCraft or something like the challenge with PTC geo is, uh, I feel like it's more prone to random. Uh self-destruction

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

right, right. Like

Mike:

it's more, very

Brent:

it works great for chess because like Magnus, Carlson's just never going to lose.

Brit:

he lost pretty recently, I think, to like a kid, a younger guy.

Mike:

Point point is good though. Um, I just looked it up MTG arena. You can actually choose between best of one or best of three ranked

Brit:

There's our answer. Yeah, choice.

Brent:

well, so, so the problem with choices, uh, it means more cues. And given how wildly unpopular, I assume my website will be. like,

Brit:

I don't think

Brent:

like, I, I feel like you have to offer a standard and an expanded. And so, so I've already like bifurcated the market. I don't know, probably 70, 30.

Brit:

I think you could actually be fairly successful. It'll have to be timed before real events kind of get going again. But I think if you like drove, drove the website through like limitless or through the, you know, the players of the online scene already, I think people would take it.

Brent:

I, you know, I, I, it's simple. I think all I was going to do is it's going to be a website where you can be like, I want to play someone. And it says, okay, this person is ready to play you right now. You know, friend them play a game, put in the results here. And you know, and here's like top 10 by, uh, like Isla wish. Apparently I'm going to be using gluco because is better than Nilo. I don't know if you guys have said, have come complete nerds in these ranking systems, but I've never done that. That's why I do

Brit:

the main difference silo. I mean, I know that sort of, I used to know the math for ELO off the top of my head. I don't think I do anymore, but I understand it at a general level. I would hope what's the main difference.

Brent:

go. Gluco has a built-in degradation over time and it has a standard deviation and you can tune the sensitivity to the randomness of the game.

Brit:

Oh, wow.

Brent:

uh, um, uh, yeah, it, it it's, it's what people like magic use internally for like their matchmaking cues and stuff like that.

Brit:

That's

Brent:

Apparently as it turns out it's much, much better. Uh, most of the chest people, I like all the chest websites that have now shifted over to using the system.

Brit:

I mean, yeah, that was just my joke. It's just like, wow. How old is the chip is the chess system has gotta be, I don't know, it's a hundred years. Is that, is that, is that too far? I would think it's pretty old. Um, but yeah, just, wow. I can't, I can't imagine there being better algorithms and formulas for it now. Um,

Brent:

this is mathematicians doing real work. We love it.

Brit:

No. I mean, I think this would be successful. There's there's such a market. I mean, it will depend on people's interests. I can see it being popular for a week and then fading. But I really think all that this takes is just saying like, Hey, Danny stream doing stream yourself, doing this for a night. And like, you'll do all right. I think a similar presence with other streamers and other people who are, you know, mainstays of the online tournaments. I mean, there's just that dumb Twitter account that read that tweets, like make a rank ladder every day or whatever. Just however many days have passed since PTC Joe hasn't had one or

Brent:

Right. Since then, since he started tweeting about it.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

I would say it shows, I don't even know the Twitter specifically enough, but I've seen it to know that this is the general thing that it's for.

Brent:

Exactly. Exactly. It's been a, it's been a fun, uh, computing problem to figure out how to build queues and stuff like that. How so? How long would you be willing to wait an IQ or a good game?

Brit:

I mean, I think I would be willing to wait a couple minutes potentially. Cause like, as we've talked, talked about on here before, so much of the frustration of just the average ladders, you just can't get games or at least I personally can never get games against real archetypes. And when I do often, these archetypes are bad lists, so it just, it's hard to get playtesting that isn't coordinated or isn't just throwing yourself into one of the online tournaments. Um, so hopefully with the ladder, I would think it would, you know, sort of attract more competitive player, more decks and so on and so forth. So I think that I would be willing to. Wait more, if it meant my testing could be, you know, a little more valid or however you want to think about it.

Mike:

yeah, I agree. Def like five minutes would probably be like the hard maximum, probably not more than that long. Um, but.

Brit:

you? Like I know, I don't know how, and I'm sure it varies on the day. I'm sure it varies when there are events or not, but like, I know just speaking of TCG one again, um, like I just don't think you can queue up for the IEX formats. Um, the Exxon format. I understand that like, like Jason just hangs out in his play in those games every now and then. Um, but I'd be curious to know like what the average wait time is for that. And it probably probably can't get good numbers. Cause like I said, it's probably pretty, context-driven just depends on the weekend, you know? Cause Danny, I always see Danny playing that event on Sundays. I think so obviously Ben Sundays probably have more people playing, but I'm not sure that's just speculative.

Mike:

Yeah, I've had like very wildly different experiences. Sometimes I'll post a game and I'll start playing under a minute. And then sometimes I have a game up there for 10 minutes and then I'll just delete the game then, because clearly after 10 minutes, nobody is joining.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's I think the way I'm the way I'm, uh, I think the way it's going to work out of the gate is like, we, we hang around three minutes, like trying really hard to find someone to match you with. And then once you like cross the three minute Mark, it's just like, imagine this person please.

Mike:

Right. Right. And I think that's generally how the rank ladder is, are programmed. Like it, it, like over time, it like increases the band that, um, you know, tries to match you with someone as close to your ranking as possible. And then over time increases the, like the, the interval of, of possible opponents.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Essentially. I think my, my like initial algorithm, uh, uh, uh, is going to be something like, like subtract one person's ELO from the other person's ELO. And then like, look at how many seconds have elapsed in each person's queue and like, subtract that. And if you're close to zero, then you have a good match. So like each back in the past is get you closer to zero. And if the Delta between their ILOs is really small, you're close to zero. So, so it's just like, it's about like, kind of getting the smallest number possible. And then, you know, so each second in the past is essentially, it gets easier and easier and easier for it to just match you with somebody. Right. Eventually it can be like, this person is terrible, but like they're willing to play you, but I'm also sensitive to how like, If, if, uh, you're getting paired against someone that is like, just starting out, you're going to get that like, Oh, they're not playing Metta decks. Like they're playing bad lists. And yet it's PTC geo like all could lose to that person. And then their ILOs, like ma why did we do that?

Brit:

Do you think? I think this is an interesting question when it comes to not really relevant to just the rating, the ELO, but it is talking about it ranked a ladder. I go back and forth on what I think is, I mean, I do obviously have a preference, but I'm not sure which is better. So to give an example from Hearthstone again, so at Hearthstone does, is, um, I'm forgetting play that the original ladder works on I'm blanking on. Um, I actually don't think there were, but so back in the day, I think Hearthstone was like ranked 25 through one. Um, and there was no sort of benchmarks. You could, you could be a rank one, and if you lost a billion in a row, you'd be all the way back to rank 25. But with the more recent system, um, there are just thresholds. So like once you reach a certain point, you can't fall under that and so on and so forth. And so naturally, like I said, the one to thresholds is the one I prefer because it's easier, but, and that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily make it the better one. So that's just kind of a question to ask and Mikey obviously plays Hearthstone too. So I'd be curious to know your thoughts, but yeah, for you, Brent, as, as the one building this yourself, what do you think would sort of yield a more competitive environment? Which one? Um, Which one is more indicative of not just skill, but like, which would, you know, I get you the best results, the best data, that sort of thing to cause, you know, to use Hearthstone again, that it's never been easier to get to the high rate, higher range. So like, it's just, so it's basically free to get to legend if you want to now based on the new system. Um, and in the past, I mean, I am, I think an above average Hearthstone player and I would still struggle sometimes to get legend even when I would try. But now it's just like, if you try, you'll get there. It's really, really easy. Um, but yet at the same time, it's easy, but you know, it doesn't, maybe I'm not improving as a player result.

Mike:

so the one thing to note about how Hearthstone shifted their system. So they do have these like floors now and whatnot, but they actually have like a two tiered, um, ranking systems. So there is, so there is like a hidden MMR system going on. So even me, like if I haven't, um, if, you know, at the beginning of the month that resets the ranks, but it doesn't reset the internal MMR. And so at the beginning of a month, I might be, you know, whatever the lowest visible ranking. And maybe I don't play for the first two weeks of the month, but then when I play, I'm getting matched up. I'm not getting matched up against people that are at the lowest visible ranking. I'm getting matched up against people that have the same internal MMR as me. So I might be playing players in legend actually. Um, and so because it wants you to have good games, I think that that's like the point of their system. Uh, so they're, they're trying to kind of do best of both worlds, right? Having a visible progression that seems very attainable while also trying to match you with people that, uh, you're going to have good games against. Um, so I think that is, uh, it's kind of sophisticated in that sense, but it is cool to have those two layers

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, so, so the way Fortnite works is, um, that they have this arena and in arena you get like a certain number of points. Every time you kill someone and a certain number of points for like where you finish. Right. Uh, and, and then you pay a bus fair every time you pig play a game where you lose points and you have to get to like a certain threshold to be able to participate in like the cash money tournaments. So, uh, um, so they work on the threshold system. Once you've, once you've gotten to the points where you qualify for the cash money system, you can slip below, like you just keep dying and paying the bus fare and die and paying the bus fare, but you're still in that division. And, and in every game, you'll get paired against people in that division, even if you've lost the points. Uh, um, because like the point is you showed at some point you were capable of playing at that level. And they're like, you know, this is the, the important thing is you, uh, you're capable of playing against people in that level. And, and all the way up to that. You're getting placed in tears where you're competing with people with a similar number of points. So. Like a person like me, the first couple of tiers, I can go around killing people and, and grinding my way up. And then at a certain point, if I want to get to, uh, a division where I qualify for cash, I have to just start hiding in bushes and like hoping other people die. And then the problem is like, that reflects how it's going to go with the cash part of it. Right. I'm like, okay, now I qualified for this thing, but I'm not capable of killing anyone at this level.

Brit:

Yeah, I imagine some of it too. It's just at a psychological level. Like. And I dunno, I kinda think I have the like ladder anxiety or something like that, or I've always, always sort of struggled with that. Like, so you want your system to sort of be fair to be competitive, but also like Mikey sells with Hearthstone, not just to have good games, but maybe also to have, is to have as many people playing as often as possible. Um, as well. And so like, I don't know, I'm trying to think of good examples, but I just, like, I don't know. It's just like every game I've played. Um, and maybe because Pokemon has never had this option, it just hasn't really come up here. But I just like. I just always was so afraid of losing my points and things like that, that I just, Oh, I want one going to kind of quit now, stop while I'm ahead. Things like that are just like, you know, you'll lose one and then your day is ruined or something like that. There's some psychological aspects to it too. I would think of it. I would be a lot better at that now than I was a couple of years ago, but that's always been a struggle for me, for sure. Like, especially in Hearthstone, I would just like, I just don't want to fall for further. I don't want to have to climb back. I'll just stop. And then I would never get to legend, you know, things like that. Just like I made it to to good enough, whatever.

Brent:

Yeah. That's why I wonder about this. Like best of one versus best two out of three. Like if you get to like top 10 on the rank system, are you like, man, I should just camp and like, so I can be like showing people how I'm a top 10 player, as long as I can.

Brit:

I

Brent:

And the private is that it's best of one year. Just like every game you sit down and you're like, we're going to risk it all for this welder.

Brit:

Yeah, there'll be funny. And kind of the, I'm not as privy to it as I was a couple of years ago and I was a little more into the competitive Hearthstone, but there was always, always seemed pretty terrible to be a real pro player having to play the ladder like these guys are, you know, and in these scenarios of, should I play, maybe I have to play one more game. I do, however, have to stay up all night to just to watch, to see what happens. And then I will decide if I play a game or not. And then similarly, just like, like with any, any of these rating systems, one bad loss, one loss to the wrong person, and you're just done.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That's I, I know it if it's best two out of three, but the downside is it can take an hour. The upside is, you know, Azule would never be like, Oh, you know, I might lose. Cause I'm probably in tow.

Mike:

the other thing to encourage people to play as you could, um, have some type of rank decay in there where if you don't play for a certain time, then

Brent:

Yeah, so that, so that's, that is, that is built into this algorithm, which is really good.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

There's, there's

Brit:

But that was also my enemy. Cause I'm, I'm trying to play as little as possible. He can't decay me either. That's what I had to do for, uh, the legends of her in Tara. I made top 50 in the beta in the first season and there was, I just like, I stumbled into it, like in the beta season, there was just no one really playing it. So I, the instant you got to the legend equivalent, you were just immediately really, really high. And I just like. I mean, I didn't think I was any good. I was still learning the game at the time and I just kind of accidentally kept winning and I won one like eight or nine or, you know, a lot in a row. Um, when I first hit there and I was just suddenly like at the very, very, very top and I just didn't play for so, so, so, so long. And then I played one more game and I ended at like 23rd or something like that.

Brent:

Yeah, well, that's, I mean, I recognize, I mean, during that beta, uh, there probably weren't that many like professional card game players that like, were like, Oh, I'll play this beta. So you log in and like the way you think about the problem, you're like just naturally, you're going to do very well. Right.

Brit:

well, I don't know. I don't know if that's that's true. I mean, some of that certainly is true, but I would think, I mean, I know personally era rune, Tara, the early latter birds are just Hearthstone players for the most part, um, a lot and some like some like just Dota people for whatever reason. Um, I guess they were, they were, um, burnt, burnt on a artifact.

Brent:

All right. Uh, welcome to the trash blanche. Uh, our intro is, uh, Chris Webb. He's Webster's laboratory and eh, he's on Twitter. So you should go follow him. Uh, he seems very cool because he sings songs that include Pokemon words. We continue to try to find Pokemon players that will record new theme songs for us. If you are one of those, you should reach out to us. Uh, uh, Mike Boucher and Brett privates are here. Attendance is 100%. It's going to be another Friday pod. We are coming back to Wednesdays. There's no question that when you look at the listens, the listens to clients lately, when released on Fridays, as opposed to Thursdays and, and we value our listeners.

Mike:

I wonder if that's because it's like one less day people, the people are starting to like go back to work and like one desk, one less day to listen on the commute.

Brent:

Yeah, yeah. That's,

Mike:

But then they're like,

Brent:

a good theory.

Mike:

and then like Monday they're like, ah, that came out four days ago. It's not relevant anymore.

Brent:

Right? Right. That, that didn't help me figure out what to play on a Sunday at Sunday, open, like. That that time has passed, uh, um, eh, similarly, no five star reviews. If you leave us a review on that at Apple iTunes, we will read that review and discuss it on the pod. It's a great thing to do because, uh, I know every other podcast has helped people find the podcast, which we appreciate very much. Um, guys, why don't we kick things off by talking about players stuff for, um, I think as, uh, Mike predicted the, uh, the curve is falling into shape for a players cup four, and the latest thing from, uh, that website that, uh, Julian hosts says that the point total you'll need to be in the top two 56 is now more like 90 to 115 ish for North America, is, uh, uh, way, way, way better than what was it a week ago? Like 168.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And more, much more realistic.

Brent:

was like Alex, Szymanski maybe the number one right there in North America, but not good enough.

Mike:

and so, so, uh, okay. So when I'm looking at this, it's like the band right of green

Brent:

Uh, you know, he, he did not tweet how he came up with this. This is apparently just like an updated, uh, uh, like exercise. But I, I assume it's like basic math driven and he was just doing some sort of, uh, uh, plotting library that has this thing, unless you do it right.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this makes more sense. I don't remember exactly what it was again for players cup three, but I don't think it will be significantly higher. So my guess would be in the mid nineties.

Brent:

And, and how's, uh, how's players kept going for you, Mike, you continuing your amazing run.

Mike:

Yup. The, the cards have been kind to me. Uh, I think last week when we talked, I had done about half my keys and I played a bunch of different decks. Um, so, but the last 10 keys, I played all peaker. Um, um, before that I played for five keys with Blount, but yeah, the last 10 had been peaker. Um, and I won seven out of those 10.

Brent:

Holy. That is ridiculous.

Mike:

Yeah, one seven out of 10 got second twice, and then got tapped for once. So, um, I still have 13 keys left and I have 133 points. So yeah. So should, should get number one. I would be surprised if I don't get number one at this point, but we'll see. I think number one is one 50 right now. So that's like 12, 13 keys to get a 17 points is pretty. It seems pretty easy for me. My, I, I really would love to beat Szymanski his record from last player's cup, but that's ridiculous. I don't know if I could do

Brent:

What was his record?

Mike:

like one 75 or something like that. That's what, like I would have, if I continue to do the same, I would beat that, but I'm not sure if that's realistic, so we'll see, I'm going to try

Brent:

You got to imagine that at some point, that variance takes hold and you get a couple of top aides in there.

Mike:

Yeah, so, I mean, I've had good variants, but there's, there's definitely been a number of games where I feel like a lot of people would have lost them. Um, so I mean, like, yeah, I I've, I've been lucky, but I think I've been playing quite well as well.

Brit:

played, I played one, one more key since this week or since last, last episode, uh, it went very, I'll be happy to talk about it. And when we, when we, um, segue into talking about this new HSA, phew, or Shifu MuTu, amalgamation, um, yeah, I meant to, so last weekend was mother's day. I went home, um, for that and saw friends from hometown. Um, and then I've really been surprisingly busy this week. And then I been playing battlegrounds, I guess instead, but I've meant to play by and just stuff has come up almost every other day this weekend. Um, but yeah, so I played one more and I'm sure I'll sneak them out next week or so I think just kind of, like we said, last week, I just, I'm just going to have to get lucky and play immaculately. I think I'm just used all my freebies, all my free losses already. Um, but I suppose there's a non-zero chance that I can qualify. Like there's this, you know, at least a 1.01% chance or something like that. Um, I just don't like, I just like kind of what maybe it was expressed last time is it, I just like, see the writing on the wall and I just don't want to play 36 Piqua keys in a row or something like that. I'm having, I'm enjoying myself for the most part, playing a variety of decks. And I know I am just having reflect, I reflected on it a little more. I do think I tilted my way into a handful of losses. Like, you know, like why would I play single strike if I wanted to win things like that, just like I'm going to do bad anyways, better play a bad deck. Um, so again as always a good, a good amount of it is my fault, I think. Um, but you know, on the bright side, I keep saying this to other people. I have, uh, a fighting game friend who's been getting into the game and I just, I do genuinely think that this is the best format I've been a part of since getting back into the game. This is a lot of variety. There's no clear top deck and there's even new deck still popping up. Um, so I'm really happy from that, from that perspective, I think I just. You know, like I said too, I was just a baby, like got mad about one bad opening with LMC and just didn't play at LMC again. Like it's just anger more than anything. Um, but we'll see, I planned to finish them and maybe we'll have some interesting, interesting data to share next time, but I'm only studying, I have 36 keys left

Brent:

So, uh, is it, is it the collective wisdom of the pod? And I, I agree. I think we got to talk about Moshe Fu or, or mew or whatever the heck, uh, um, naming decks now. Apparently that's a polarizing thing.

Brit:

yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was trying to think of like a funny tweet. I have one, one hasn't come to me yet, but I'm working on it. A good old back in my day.

Brent:

uh, um, but, but, uh, uh, is, is Pico around the deck or is LMC the best deck or is it something else?

Mike:

I don't think I kind of the Brits point. I don't think there's really a best deck. I think both of those for me personally, Pika, LMC and tempos are, I think are the three safest plays for keys. Um, they're just all pretty consistent. They all give you options in a lot of different match-ups. They don't take a whole lot of. Auto losses. And if you play them well, you can be even your rough. Match-ups like with Pika, I, in my last 10 keys, I went five and won against rapid strike. So

Brent:

That's a lot of rapid strike.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

think that's a higher representation of the meta than I would have expected.

Mike:

Yeah. Mom, remember I'm playing a lot of games.

Brent:

Uh, still, I mean, I recognize, but, but like, Yeah. I was taking that into account. Cause I'd already been thinking through, as, as Brent was talking about the grind that you you've literally played, like a to Britt's point, like 30, 28 games, a peak around.

Mike:

Right,

Brent:

Uh, but, but it, you know, out of 28, uh, uh, 20, 29 games with peak rom six of them being rapid strike. That's like, that's a lot. It feels like a lot.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brent:

If you told me 20% of the Metta is like a deck that hasn't won anything since player stuff for I'd be like, Hm, that's strange.

Brit:

It is strange. And I noticed last night, um, I think it made top eight, which was just, I think one of the best place things in a really long time, but yeah, it's just been one of my main thoughts recently. And we even, I think talked about it a little last week, but yeah. Where did this stat go? Especially too. I mean, we've, maybe the Metta has adapted in our list, so gotten better. And of course that's a good part of it, but is it really, is it really just gone? Is it not worth considering as a top deck? I, um, I

Brent:

Yeah, it was it as simple as everyone put me on their list and moved on. And like the result is a harder time to play as for it, because I feel like if you had to, if I had to say what caused it to like, be so much worse, I would say, well, mew.

Mike:

I mean, that's definitely a component.

Brit:

Herds.

Mike:

But, um, I think LMC coming back as popular as it is, like people stopped playing in LMC at the very beginning of this format when Battlestar was first came out and then it's slowly gotten more and more popular again. And now it's like one of the top three most popular decks, almost every tournament. So I think LMC has a big part. And then

Brent:

Lot more MuTu in the, format too.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. And that was the next thing I was going to say, like the grass MuTu and the psychic need to, um, are both way more popular than they were, um, at the beginning of the format and even last format

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I think last format, it was basically, it went to zero basically like,

Mike:

me too decks. Yeah, because this was so much more popular

Brent:

right.

Mike:

and it turned, it is kinda ha hasn't made its come back and maybe it will. And maybe if a Turnitin starts making it come back, Rapids can make a comeback. But, uh, I don't know.

Brit:

I keep seeing people try to turn into this. Um, I enjoy, I mean, for the most part, the lists that don't really change. There's not a whole lot you can do when you have to play a dark Pokemon on your board, but I've seen, I think Stephon played at an event and I've seen maybe one of the games play it too. And they're playing the tool jammer, which seems really good to me. Um, no more, no more big Trump, big term worries. Um, that definitely seems like a wise addition to the lists. Um, but yeah, I mean, I guess that's an interesting piece of the puzzle too. Cause I would think if rapid strike is so down, like wouldn't it turn into be winning more and I guess I don't, I don't think a lot of people are playing it. Um, but I would think it would be, it would be doing very well. I don't know. I don't have any experience testing. Um, the Phoebe's didn't know how much they really affect the LMC matcha, but in the past, I always thought that matchup was really close. So one, Phoebe may be enough, you know, initially people were playing pal pads, but these lists that I've seen recently just playing, just play two without a palpate. Um, and so I, I guess he probably never lose to LMC with too. Um, but I'm not sure, but I think, I don't know. Another interesting piece is that it's just a no fire and of course the fire decks are. Um, it's almost it doesn't, doesn't quite seem to matter that they're fire. Cause he, you know, if like send a scorch only having two energies and one in the discard, you could one shot at ACN and things like that. But for the most part, like the Charles R. Charles art already does two 30, it does two 30 or it does 600 blood Cephalon does infinite damage. So there's, there are a welder deck, but I don't know how relevant the fire type thing really is. Um, and so I think that's part of LMC success as well currently just because there isn't a big, like send a scorch or heat ran thing coming in. I know these other decks play that too, but again, quiet fire decks, at least to me, but maybe that's wrong. Like, and I'm sure there are some games where the weakness really, really, really matters. Um, but for the most part, I don't quite see them as sort of interacting as sort of opposite of each other.

Mike:

Yeah, I think that's

Brent:

definitely feel like there's less sentence scorch in bikini. VMX like in the last week or two. And like everybody's either you played tempo's ARD or you don't play fire. And the result is like, there's a little less Spire.

Brit:

there's been a decent uptick of just regular blood Cephalon too. Um, I noticed people here and they're still playing it, but I think at least my, in my head, the tempos art is just strictly better. So like, why wouldn't you, like, it just gives you kind of more options to do the same thing, essentially. Um, so yeah, I would think it's always pleased. The other one, I'm trying to think if there would be a specific meta-game where, but like old-school three or four blouses with like one chart would be the better option. And then not that nothing really comes to mind. Like you need the charges are when some games. So in a lot of games,

Mike:

Yeah, maybe the mute to decks. It's better against, cause you just try to blow up to mute dues, but.

Brit:

Yeah, that that would be

Mike:

But like Russia. Yeah. Russia, his art is just so, so, so good again, like peek around like that, like the straight Blount is infinitely worse against peak around, for example. Um, I feel, yeah, I think probably overall you're right.

Brent:

Uh, let's see. So, so let's, uh, let's dig into Musha food guys or sham you, so apparently, so Simon won a big, uh, turn when the Sunday open.

Mike:

Yeah. He won the chill event

Brent:

Oh, the chill event. Uh, um, one of the chill event with, uh, uh, Moshan Fu uh, I thought it was worth pointing out that Shintaro Edo, top eight and with clowns, uh, I mean, one of the great, great, great things about, uh, online tournament is the fact that Shintaro don't can just show up at your tournament and play some games like that's super cool.

Mike:

Yeah, it is cool.

Brent:

Uh, I always thought it was cool when Japanese guys showed up at like the Dallas regionals and stuff like that. Like anytime they showed up at a regional, so I was like, that's really, really cool. Hopefully they're

Brit:

Yeah.

Brent:

really fun time.

Brit:

Hopefully you get more of that.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Like the more that your tournament gets internationalized, the cooler, I think it is. Although obviously you don't get that same kind of like in-person interaction that. you get at a, uh, uh, physical tournament. It's it's super cool. But yeah. So talk, talk about, uh, Porsche Fu with the two guys.

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

Well, one quick, let me just note, before brick goes into it, it also gets second at the chill

Brent:

Yeah, It closed that finals, close that

Mike:

yeah, yeah. Which is really cool. And I didn't look at the list too much in detail. I think they're a little bit different, but not, not too far off. I do think the deck saw some success like two or three weeks ago. Um, maybe it might've been the same Japanese player that got second that got, um, that he liked top aided some event a few weeks ago. Um, But then we hadn't seen it until last night, so I haven't played any games with it, but I know Britt did.

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah, that was the only thing I was about to say was just, it also got second and comparing the list. They are generally speaking the exact same. They kind of just differ in trainer counts. So I would just maybe talk through some of the choices the, the Japanese list has, has a lot more trainers. I think um, let's see. It has like Pokemon, well, no, sorry. I was looking at the wrong list. It's the, the Canadian list. That's more trainer heavy. It has like a karate belt and a reset stamp. Um, whereas the other version just kind of has, um, I think some other Pokemon instead they're really, really, really very similar. Just these kinds of very slight trainer differences are the only thing that really jumped out at me. Um, but yeah, I had, I had some time this morning. I, I, this is typically what I do. Um, you know, I wake up in the morning, I'm getting ready to go to the gym and drinking, you know, drinking my drinks, getting ready. And usually the first thing I do is I like to look at limitlessness and just peer through peer through results. And so this morning was quite the surprise. I see this and I, my immediate reaction is just like, what, what is this? This can't be good. Is this really better than the other sort of Arisha Fu psychic decks? Cause I know there's been, um, obviously the drag of pole combo is a relatively popular right away. And then there's kind of been, um, just straight Hersha food, but you play like a gang Gar too. That's made a top eight here and there. Um, whereas this is just kind of more fully committed to the MuTu. And so, um, yeah, I've been really surprised in playing with it. I just had some time this morning, and again, I'm just, I want to play different decks. So this certainly looks like a good one to try and I don't, I don't get it yet or at least I don't quite, it doesn't quite make sense to me, but in my relatively limited sample size, I think I played around 10 games when you're 12. Um, I was really impressed. I, I, I didn't do well in the key that I played it in. Um, but I did do well in almost every other game I played. Um, and so maybe to talk about the key first is that I played, I lost some top eight of this one and I played the mirror now. They didn't have but it was just the psychic and YouTube, but they played crushing cameras somehow and they hit them and they beat me. It was great. Um, But anyways, I don't know how much, I don't know if it'll last. I don't know really how much synergy there are between the two cards. And so it might just be yet another instance of just mashing two really, really powerful cards together and hoping it works out. Okay. Um, but I will say just some things I noticed from my testing games, what felt really good is sometimes like I would have one and I would go first, um, and I would get an energy on a Mewtwo and then I would, it would not, it would maybe not be quite the right board scenario for the whorehouse play. You could try to save it for a later turn and it just feels really good to have this kind of one energy pivot option that might hit for weakness against some relative matches against some relevant match-ups. And I know we've talked a lot about how, um, I think maybe one of the biggest downsides of psychic mute, I'm just going to call it psychic MuTu. Um, Um, one of its downside is, is it's Piqua to match up. And really, uh, the, the main thing is just the crushing hammer hits. And so at the very least this, Hm. I don't know how strong of like a counter. I don't think it's the implementation of Airship to is specifically for the peaker on matchup, but I would, I would think it would have to help you at least a little bit. And since you're a Mewtwo deck, you're already playing Geraci so you don't necessarily have to be that. That concerned with their MUTOs already. Um, I didn't play against any peaker. Um, so I can't really say I did play against a lot of ADP, um, and sort of just, just speckling of everything else. And yeah, it just feels really nice sometimes to have the, the pivot option. Like sometimes I, it would just like MuTu has so many attacks, but occasionally none of them are great for whatever reason and just kind of having the, the just raw power. Like I forget what happened one game, but I just, like, I could have attacked with the MuTu again, but like his hand wasn't small enough for me to need to want to use, um, Tremont and thus, nor, and I was a little worried about leaving the MuTu active in case, um, in case he was able to find a sword for Cause I, I didn't have the, Oh, he had scrapper the charm. I think I was just like, Oh, I'll just go into Arisha fear. You can't kill it. What are you going to do? Like, and then the neck, and then I just went on the next turn of like a boss play and it, it just seemed like another nice option to have, and. I'm not sure if like, is it, is it, are all these cards better than playing a surf touched again? I'm not sure because you know, it feels a little similar to that. It's just your, your fighting option in a, in a rainbow energy deck.

Brent:

Right, right. You're like, this is a really, really good fighting tech if I need fighting texts, but you got to run a big package because it's an evolution. It's insane.

Brit:

Yeah. So I'm, I'm on the fence, but it was expecting, I mean, I don't, I don't know, maybe that was wrong with me. It got first and second last night, it can't be that bad, but I expected to kind of have a pretty, pretty bad, bad morning practicing it. And I enjoyed it. It was, it was a fun deck and I'm sure, um, Sure. It would be a little different compete, like playing against real players, but I've got my eye on it, for sure. We'll see how it, um, if people play it in keys, if it makes continues to have a presence and the online Metta game, I imagine we'll, we'll figure out pretty quickly, um, how legitimate is or not. But I think just having a nice pivot, a good option against crushing hammer texts for one relatively efficiently. And if that energy stays, um, it's just maybe another end game, sort of another route to victory for you. You do your usual thing with horror house. You might punch for one 50 once, and then you just try to clean out the game with like two snipe attacks or something maybe. Um, and that might be a little too unrealistic. That's a lot of attachments, but it's worth exploring to be sure. Um, I'm certain with that. I think.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, it looks really cool to me. The, the only like additional thing I would say the Airship is obviously very good at this too. And you know, the worst matchup bread, this psychic MuTu deck, the worst matchup for probably it turned this and peek around. So in theory, it makes a lot of sense to play a fighting guy that is good against those decks.

Brit:

Yeah, I don't, I don't know why I wasn't thinking that wasn't immediately where I went. Um, but yeah, that's definitely right. Of course. I know that the alternative lists sometimes still play weakness, guard energy, but I would say if I, if I had to just sort of make a gas, I would say that they're not, they don't play them nearly as much. Those lists that I was talking about just a little bit ago. Um, they, they weren't playing them for instance. So again, I, I imagine it's a meta game, probably you look at the meta game, not a lot of rapid strike recently. No need to play it. Um, that, that would obviously be a great usage for it. I would think too, that maybe it's pretty good in the Cephalon matchup. I mean, it's just, it's something that the chars are can't one hit. Um, it can, you know, takes freebies on the Cephalon themselves. Um, I don't know if it would be all that relevant, but just having something that doesn't get one shot as easily seems good to lead maybe with leading the early game and try to transition into a MuTu. I'm not sure exactly what the best strategy would be, but it's, it's an attacker that isn't mean to then that's tends to be something that a lot of these muted MuTu decks need to have. And without welder, you don't have access to your fire Pokemon, um, like the welder deck, do the welder new two options. Do.

Brent:

So, so I have two questions first. Where were you playing? Uh, uh, a list that was more derived from Simon's or lists that was more derived from Koichi.

Brit:

I copy and pasted Koichi cheese. I believe I haven't changed the card yet. Um, but I'm, I'm considering a lot of changes, but yeah, I don't know.

Brent:

what kind of changes are you thinking about? When I look at the list, like one of the big differences that really jumps out at me is the Mellon lab.

Brit:

Yeah, that's a really big one. I think the kind of, one of the big differences, maybe trying to make them closer to the psychic versions is maybe trying to make the tag call engine a little more impactful if possible. It's cause it's the, this version it's like two tag calls and one Guzman, how and that's about it. Um, which. mean Guzman house, so, so good. Um, for these decks. Um, but you know, obviously these other versions do a lot more with them and especially with, uh, once you factor in real boom and things like that. Um, but yeah, change wise, I would think I'm only talking consistency. Um, I'm trying to like cut a little corners. I, I wanna, I want to cut a gang car for sure. Um, maybe that will be sacrilegious to the, the, the more knowledgeable, um, psychic MuTu players out there, but for one in my own practice, I think that inexperienced MuTu players don't, they don't think about the horror house. They just kind of do it every year. They do it and cross their fingers and hope, hope to get the knock, the next turn. And I there's, there's better ways to play it. Um, and so, and on that note, I just want to try it. I don't think that deck. Needs to like you have, so you have so many options on top of OSHA food, just being like generally useful, um, outside of like a text scenario. So that's, that's just the main thing. And I think it's definitely a corner cutting, but I just want more consistency. I want, I want more supporters more than anything, I think.

Brent:

I know, I always feel like when I'm playing you

Brit:

and like, it's, it's just, it's just Pokemon. I want to, I want to get rid of Pokemon for other cards. I don't think that so maybe a gang or Mimikyu is credible. Um, I don't think gladiolus is any or it's Latinos. Um, I don't think Latinos is really any good. I don't think, uh, the loon Allen, so Galileo is any good. Um, those there should be

Brent:

Well, so you said you played some ADP decks. Did you, did you go for the Latinos play against any of them? Like, I assume that the point of those is like, if you get it off, you just win.

Brit:

Yeah. I just think you could beat them conventionally anyways. And it's, it's just like, I don't, I don't really know what it's what it's for exactly.

Mike:

the other, use is I saw Danny playing against not, not the ERCP version, but you know, the regular one and see Danny was my beaker arm

Brent:

Yeah. So this is the game that Danny lost, right?

Mike:

No, no, no. He ended up winning, but it was really close and he was just, he got tagged Prairie and just over and over again. And so I'd like force the peek around to set up a, um, Bolton to be able to, you know, hit the MuTu at all. So I don't know. I think, I think tag bridge is actually kind of good.

Brit:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, my logic is, is that, but in my head I was just like, they just attack, they, they do what you've said. They'll just attach to bolt-on and like, that's why I don't think it's good, but I understand the strategies there. Maybe the scenario that you're talking about is, um, Common enough, you know, that you have to force them to both to bench the bolt-on like maybe that's enough in and of itself. Um, that's something that more testing, um, would be useful for, but yeah, and again, I'm, I'm often just very, very wrong about these sorts of cards. So I could see it being a key ingredient to the deck, but, um, in my head just decks, almost have the answer to them already and the right, the wrong board States. Um, it's just not going to be viable from the, almost the beginning of certain games already. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's not a pressing card. I do think, I mean, maybe Mikey can correct me here too, but don't know what the, so Gallia, I mean, I know, I know it does a lot of damage. I've never had a game where I've had that much energy on my YouTube to do two 30 for four. So it's frizzy patients, I suppose. Um, but yeah, that doesn't happen. You don't get, you don't manually attach for energy to a YouTube, like. Especially, you just set up an OSHA Fu instead.

Mike:

right. Yeah. And I feel like if you get for energy and immune to the attack, you probably want to use it for accurate as duo. Like that's usually what you want to do. I think. Um, so yeah, that, that, that inclusion surprised me as well. I would say that was kind of like the big difference. Now looking at the list is, um, quite G his list just has a lot more Pokemon attacking options for better or worse.

Brent:

Yeah, it puts the violence. Man, like he's ki kinda, he puts in like, basically it's, it felt like an entire MuTu package versus a Simon's list was more of like that, that, you know, the, the modern, conventional, psychic MuTu only, uh, um, you're definitely your comments that speak to me. Cause I feel like when I play those Mewtwo decks, like, uh, as you guys know, I'm obsessed with the Tremont, Dustin or attack, like I'm like, Oh, discard, incarcerated hand. That's always like that. So I, I love the idea of playing the stack, but I always feel like, um, uh, I probably use horror house at the wrong time. And the whole point is if you do it at the wrong time, you lose the game. And if you do it at the right time, you win.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Like, it's just like a horror house is such a like unconventional attack. I feel like I, uh, uh, don't understand how, uh, When I'm supposed to use it, unless I'm like just trying to stop them from using ADP turn to or something.

Brit:

Yeah,

Brent:

Um,

Brit:

sorry.

Brent:

so, uh, Mike, the other question I wanted to ask you guys about was like, I, I think the other difference in my mind between these lists and the rabbit strike your food list that you want, Azule kind of popularized coming out of player's cup four is, is the tag call engine and the opportunity to play Guzman holla and mallow and Lana. Um, did you guys mess around with the tech call engine at all in the kind of more traditional, rapid strike deck or like, like any, any hot takes on that?

Mike:

um, we did not try it at all. So no real hot takes. Um, I mean, it is cool in the sense that you get to search out the rapid strike energy, right. And karate belt potentially. Um, so we did, we did talk about it like the night before we had lists do we were like, Oh, that would be kind of a cool engine, but we're like, we're not testing this out in the next three hours. So

Brent:

And that's, I mean, I recognize melon. Lada is a different thing than Cheryl, but like not necessarily a worse thing than Cheryl. Like, you know, you, you get like a pretty big heel effect and you get a switch effect and you don't lose energy. Like all that sounds pretty good.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. That's true. It could be, we could like explore just like a rapid strike list that see the awkward thing though, is like, if you're running tag call, you want to run tag teams, right. So without that, it feels a little strange to not,

Brit:

Yeah. You just get to supporters every time, you know, I wonder. Yeah. At first year I was like, this doesn't sound too bad, but yeah, I sort of overlooked that part. Um, maybe one would just be good enough and these Geraci belts, cause like you said, it's a lot of, kind of, a lot of mileage. You get your belt, you get your dojo and your energy. Like that's really, really good that, I mean, again, like we say, how, how useful is playing like a one of when there's no ways to tough find it when you need it.

Brent:

right. Right. The beauty of these is like, eh, I mean, he's running, uh, you know, uh, um, only one of the Guzman Halas, but he has lots and lots of outs to it. Right.

Mike:

right. Right. Exactly. So, Brett, I know you mentioned like the gang guard Mimikyu plus or Fu, like maybe there's some middle ground like that. That is good. Where you do play like.

Brit:

Yeah, maybe that would be it. That would make sense. Yeah. And I think, sorry, just to sort of, to talk on that deck, I was just gonna in, in favor of the earth, I think that the MuTu, while it's certainly a lot more costly in terms of how it occupies your list, it's just like that again, Gar is a gambler card, no matter how you cut it, like you're going to pull your guys for 50 some games and there's going to be nothing you can do about it. Um, and so in, I guess, like in theory, this is I think better. Um, you just, you, you just have less room. Um, yeah, that, that deck never seemed great to me. And certainly to just the straight gang, our decks with Alma star that float around here and their twos never strike me as being any good, mostly just because of poltergeists variants. Um, and just like I was saying too, I, I feel like so many of the games I went against bad MuTu players are the ones that. Just do it and hope. And I just, I, I like had a heart out or something and I just discard one trainer and then they just lose the game because of it, because they don't get the one shot anymore. Things like that.

Brent:

Right, right. Good players know how to play around, uh, like gimmicky attacks like that. Right.

Brit:

No, no. You mentioned that. I should probably be a little more noticing. I should think about that when I'm playing it to mute, to be like, Oh, better, get rid of some trainers. This term.

Brent:

Um, so, so I think the other, the other deck that people talked about, uh, um, And no surprise was, uh, Danielle to be as Ronald pick her up, pick her. Um,

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

uh, how do you feel about tool scrapper, Mike

Mike:

terrible, terrible cars. I, he like, and we have this chat with like me, Brit, Danny, a couple other people and yeah. Aye. Aye. Aye. I made the, I made a later joke on Twitter, but I made the joke earlier in our chat. I was like, man, he was like, Five-O at the time. And I was like, man, you'd be seven. Oh already, if you didn't play tool scrapper, it just doesn't. It makes no sense. I also said, I think it was like the 70th card I'd play in the deck. Like I wrote, I just have no idea what it's for. It doesn't make any sense to me,

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, it's for the only relevant tool is, I mean, I guess charms can be occasionally, but yeah, it's just fair. Um, LMC, I guess, would

Brent:

goggles, right? Yeah.

Brit:

would meet

Mike:

guess. Yeah,

Brit:

which you're already being? I don't know. I guess like, if you're, if it's a close match up and you want to lock it up, it's not a bad card to have, but yeah. Similarly don't know what it's for. In the, in the big term scenarios. Cause there's like, there's a few scenarios where like the big charm matters, but only also if you have a 10 as executive or something too. Um, so yeah, it doesn't do anything in

Mike:

Right, right.

Brit:

without it either.

Brent:

Yeah. And Mike has definitively demonstrated that LSD is a bad matchup, uh, uh, like peek around always wins. So.

Mike:

Yeah. So I had a, it doesn't make any sense to me. You could use it, you could use it for any bunch of other spots. I will say while we're talking about peak around the list that I have been playing and for, um, for keys and everything is really just super straightforward. It's for bolt-on for boss for speed lightning. I have one big charm is Israeli, like my only tech card quote unquote tech card. Um, which I think it's just, this is just like the way to play the deck right now. Even outside of keys. It's how I was able to, like, I don't play Sylvia hood, but I beat all those Rapids strikes. Cause you play for boss. So you just boss up there, Mimikyu and kill it and then it's fine.

Brent:

so I was about to say that I think it's still at the hood was what we talked about last week. And obviously he had essentially cut the hood for a scrapper. You've cut it for a fourth boss. That's equally good. If not a far better.

Mike:

Yeah. So also while we're mentioning peaker, um, uh, I am actually writing an article for channel fireball right now, um, on peaker. Um, so Caleb reached out to me and asked if I wanted to write something. So I said, sure. The only thing I can really talk about in depth is picogram. So let's do that.

Brent:

Hey, Mike, we're writing an article about is I assume what the channel fireball readership want to read, uh, uh, best the best deck, best results, and, and it's worth pointing out for, uh, listeners that while, while Simon won the cool tournament, um, I think, uh, uh, Danny had fewer losses than anyone else at the tournament he lost in like top eight, but, but he beat Simon in Swiss. Uh, it just goes to show a peek around. Apparently still finds a way to beat the, these are food eggs. Although he did lose too many Pango, uh, who was just playing a straight or the deck. And that was his only loss in Swiss, but that. um, a couple of other things I thought we started with, so limitless tournament was won by Fabian. Robledo playing ADP, uh, ADP, anything we should talk about there, guys. I assume you guys still see lots and lots of ADP every time you put in a cake.

Brit:

Yeah, and I can't speak too much on keys, but in, in my games today and the few games I've played, um, outside of that, it's just by far the deck I play the most. Um, I think on the handful of keys, I play it also by far, but like I said, I haven't played enough to have as much data as other players.

Brent:

I feel like every meta analysis I've seen of, of tournaments, uh, has been like ADP as the most played deck. Uh, it, it continues to be the most played deck. Like if you don't have a plan for ADP, uh, you're gonna have a bad time.

Mike:

Yeah, I agree. Um, a quick search in my spreadsheet, I played against ADP 15 times, which is less than I thought because I played almost a hundred games and all of my keys, but I guess 15% of a meta-game is still significant.

Brent:

Yeah. That, I mean, that's a lot.

Mike:

it's probably the most, so rapid strike and ADP are equal in how many I've played against. And those are definitely like the top two that I've played against.

Brent:

Um, I, I also thought, uh, uh, it was worth taking a moment to note that, uh, Caleb Roger's son is having a really good a week or two. You won the chill series, last chance qualifier. He won the Sunday open. He played ADP at chill and he played the Blount at, uh, the open, um, uh, w I, I suspect that I, I guess he would be a master this year just ended up from seniors. So I assume he would be one of those wonder can players where people are say he's really good at Pokemon. Uh, Caleb, we salute you. Uh, I think it's very hard to win a two tournaments with two different decks in a week. Uh, that that's pretty good.

Mike:

Yeah, that's cool.

Brent:

Do you guys have any idea what's going on with team challenge? I have the impression that they're going to stream some games sometime soon, but that's all kind of all I know.

Brit:

Yeah. That was my impression. The whole time that it looked like they were planning to. Do the end of it. Like they have been doing with the players cup, they added, I haven't heard a word yet and we don't have, I mean, I guess they're maybe being quiet about it. I would think maybe, I mean, just through word of mouth, like if, if there's, uh, you know, even if there's somebody, nobody knows, like the Pokemon Twitter community is insulated enough that surely somebody knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who's still in it. Um, but yeah, I haven't heard a thing since we stopped doing sort of the weekly updates from what Andrew would collect. But yeah, I mean, I would, I would guess that's, it's both that the people left, maybe I've played and can't talk about it or something like that now. Um, but yeah, I would have to even do do some math. What do you know, like off the top of the head, what round, like assuming they play one round per week where they would be by now, should it be done if they were,

Brent:

I didn't write it down, but I saw somebody tweeting that they're in like the top eight or something.

Brit:

must be pretty close.

Mike:

too. So let's see if I do a little bit of math. I think we lost in 64, the round of 64. And that was April night. That was like April 17th, 18th, that weekend. So it's been 32 16. Yeah. So that makes sense that they would be in top eight right now.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, my impression is they're planning on televising the top eight or something like that. Uh, um, and, and there are some people that I, for some reason I'm unfamiliar with who are in that top eight,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

um,

Mike:

So I don't know. That'll be exciting to watch. I'm curious to see how they do broadcast it, because it would be awesome to be able to like listen to the players, talk throughout their matches. I probably not going to happen. Probably not going to happen, but like that would be so cool.

Brent:

Yeah, I can't imagine they would do that. Although it would be absolutely delightful to, I, I hear hear the players, uh, it kind of worked through the game.

Brit:

It's just so frustrating that, I mean, I agree that they should, like, It just takes like one extra person in a zoom call or something like Hearthstone does it. I was just watching the battlegrounds event yesterday and they're able to just like, Oh, pop in here and see what the, you know, what they're talking about with this team up to where I'm just like, it's click of a button if you set up the lobby in the call correctly. And I know, imagine the kind of the problem with here is that like with Mikey and the players cut theirs, they just give you an option. So it's not, it's not consistent all the way around. And so you just don't know who's prerecording, who they're going to stream, things like that. Um, consistency,

Brent:

Uh, uh, so speaking of fun things to watch, it appears that, uh, Sandra has figured out how to make Twitch do its thing, uh, as anybody tuned into standard stream yet.

Mike:

I haven't been able to watch, but I did see that he was starting, which sounds pretty, hopefully educational.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I, I think he's somebody who thinks about deck building different than everyone else. Uh, um, and obviously gets outcomes that apply that is different is better. So I I'm, uh, while I also have not watched the stream, I'm eager to watch the stream a little, to see how he thinks about problems. Hopefully we'll get a little bit of insight into that as opposed to, uh, him just like. Interminably laddering on PTC geo and being like scoop up net. It's got a 50, 50 likely.

Mike:

our, uh, well, we're talking about sander control really had a nice week as well. Um, Vinny the senior from Brazil won two advantageous invitationals. One was the chill invitational, I believe. And I don't remember the other one. Um, but yeah, he won bolt with the XQ drill Pidgeotto control, hand lock deck. Um, and so that's, I guess there is a best of three limit list event coming up, not this weekend, but the following weekend. So that's something to watch out for.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, um, is, is control in a good place right now?

Brit:

and if it hasn't, isn't controlled, the worst matchup is always ADP. Right. Um, and I guess, I mean, that would make sense then for him to be winning invitationals. Cause I would think at least statistically, and I'm sure the data will challenge this or agree with that, but like it's your average player? You know, I think that is more likely to play ADP. You're like how often, how often does this all playing ADP for instance. Um, and so like, maybe that would sort of, that would be sort of the explanatory device for that. Like it's and I don't know how, how well this list does against ADP. I know you can always beat them depending on how things go. Um, but at least that was always my impression of kind of what was often holding the deck back. And so there's not a lot of it, I would make sense, um, doing well. Um, yeah, because I was testing, um, quite a bit of much older iterations of Sandow stacks and I like would only lose to ADP and just like the latter frustrations, like I would lose so arose in a Turnitin it's like, things like that would get me, but, um, otherwise it was usually just ADP, I think, but I don't know. I've never tried these Pidgeotto at all. Um, And I know Sandra there's, Sandra has the tweet sort of discussing the chin Chino over the pitchy odor or not, and sort of the merits to both, but, um, I can see why the geode might be better.

Brent:

Yeah, I thought it was interesting that he was playing the physio to build, uh, after all that discussion. Right.

Brit:

Right, right, right.

Brent:

Um, uh, so also, do you guys know this guy? Uh, the, the guy that does the hero's journey podcast, he's like Pablo seven on, uh, uh, Twitter.

Brit:

I think I recognize that name, but yeah, not the podcast.

Brent:

yeah, he had played, um, he had played his 50 keys and he's like up there, you had 113 points in players, cup four, and he was playing excavator of control Perjeta.

Mike:

Yes.

Brent:

And it made me wonder how practical or impractical is it to play extra drill

Mike:

yeah. You just got to play super, super fast. I think. Um, Yeah. I, it's not something that I would ever want to do because I, you gotta like, like, as soon as you, like, you gotta, you gotta be paying attention. As soon as that round queues up, you gotta be like, click, click, click, click. Like you have no time to think. I imagine

Brent:

uh, you know, I recognize this as a symptom of the larger Pokemon economy. I mean, it shouldn't, you guys' reaction to all the crazy Pokemon things going on and like the world around us. But, uh, um, I saw his list and I was like, Oh man, I apparently only have two chip chip bisects is in my PTC geo account. Let me go get a third. And there were none being offered for trade for like two days. Like not even a single chip device. I don't understand how that could be. Um, but, but, uh, yeah. Do you guys have any reaction to a target saying they're going to stop selling Pokemon cards because people are crazy. I think Walmart is also stopped, so I like

Mike:

It's

Brent:

man, the kids.

Mike:

yeah. It's sad for any, any young person that just wants to, you know, get their parent to pick them up Pokemon cards. Like that's super sad.

Brent:

Yeah, it's crazy. I have a, um, know, I go out, I go out in the little were real world, so, uh, so rarely in the face of pandemic, I don't understand how the real world that came to this.

Mike:

on the potential bright side. Maybe game stores will get a boon, uh, uh, uh, business. I don't know.

Brent:

there you go. That, yeah. Uh, your local game store, the only place left sound quick on my cards.

Mike:

Yeah, I did see, I've seen some people talk about how, when in-person events come back, if they still give the same prizes, potentially those prizes will be worth significantly more.

Brent:

That's a real thing. Uh, uh, like, Yeah. I mean, I, you know, uh, back in the day when, you know, my kids were juniors and seniors, that we just piled a booster boxes. Like if we won like three or five booster boxes now, like it used to be like, we're going to sell these for like, you know, we're gonna sell five booster boxes for$300 and we're going to call it a great tournament. But like someone gave us five booster boxes. Now my God.

Mike:

So we'll, we'll see, we'll see kind of what happened. So I could also foresee us going back to normal and, you know, getting these prizes and then. Maybe there's that means there's so much more supply and then the prizes are, you know, it's not worth as much, but I dunno, there it we'll see

Brent:

Yeah. Or I was going to go the other way. It'd be like, Pokemon's going to like recognize inflation and be like the price we're winning. The tournament is now one booster box.

Mike:

you in a league cup, two packs.

Brit:

Yeah, I was just going to make the joke. There's this, you might've seen this image floating around, but some StarCraft tournament, years and years and years ago, like first, like top eight or something got cash, but then some of them like sort of pity places got some Bitcoin.

Mike:

yeah.

Brit:

So they,

Mike:

saw that.

Brit:

they, they, I mean, who knows, who knows if they cashed out at the right time, but it's funny. Just sort of, you never know.

Mike:

Yeah. It was like first place for like$1,500 and nine through 16 was 10 Bitcoins.

Brent:

I haven't seen that, but I love it. I love it. So somewhere 16 places on an Island and they're like, yeah, let's go guys. Perfect. All right, everybody we'll be back next week with even more exciting episodes.