The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Mike is best player in PC4, Ultimate tier list of GX Pokemon, Metagaming, confidence and strategy, Worst Pokemon, SWSH-on meta, Dunning-Kruger and logs in rating your skills, PC4, Snorlax V, Expanded bans.

May 19, 2021 Brent Halliburton
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Mike is best player in PC4, Ultimate tier list of GX Pokemon, Metagaming, confidence and strategy, Worst Pokemon, SWSH-on meta, Dunning-Kruger and logs in rating your skills, PC4, Snorlax V, Expanded bans.
Transcript
Brent:

Almost did it guys. I know it's going to happen one day, but today was not that day. I remember to hit the record button.

Mike:

that like, when I did that a few times on the six president one, I think it was it's partially because, you know, it was like, even though I had guests on, it was just me as the, you know, the constant. Um, but this, I think even if you didn't hit it, I probably would have noticed within a few minutes, like, cause I see in the top left that it says recording. So I think I w we have some safeguards in place here

Brit:

I wouldn't usually notice, but this time I would have diff only because I had noticed that just a minute or two ago that I w we hadn't

Mike:

that it wasn't there, right? Yeah,

Brit:

I was going to say, yeah, I'll be honest. Usually I don't think I would catch it, but today I definitely

Brent:

Welcome to the trash lanch. It's me, Brent Halliburton, as always here with, uh, attendance continues to be 100% we're over 40 episodes. And, uh, guys, we got an awesome, uh, five star review update, Shayla Tillman left an absolutely fantastic review with a lot to talk about and maybe some stuff we should ignore. Let me give it to you guys. Here we go. The right balance of casually approachable and competitively serious as someone new to the game, other than pulling her into booster packs. As a nineties kid, this podcast has been an excellent boost to my entry into the game. I'm a seventh grade social studies teacher and got into the game because my students who played during the lunch hour in my classroom, you guys make the competitive side of the stand approachable for new players like myself, keep up the work. That's very nice. You know, we're pro teachers there on the spot. That that's exactly what we're looking for. Ah, question. What are your least favorite Pokemon? Explain your answer. At least three sentences using evidence. I was interested in your answers after the previous discussion. My least favorite Pokemon has anything based on inanimate objects like clink, where did design go? I, you know, I think we discussed this a little bit in the last go round. Like obviously the, the Pokemon we like, there's like, there's just, you know, I know for me, there's probably like 400 Pokemon. I just don't even know

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

for you guys. I'm sure there's a, you know, 50 to a hundred, even going as deep as you guys go.

Mike:

Yeah, for sure. There's lots of Pokemon when I see their card and I'm Like I've never seen that Pokemon before. Um, so probably one of those has to be the worst one, but I'm trying to think of the ones that I know and think about what would be the least favorite.

Brit:

I, yeah, I've always sort of curious. I know, like, you know, when you're always debating, you know, what, what's the best generation or something like that, there's always like, You know, people will criticize, you know, clinks, maybe a good example. Like it's just an object, but then, you know, people at the same time, it would be like the full tour is great. Electrode is great. So sometimes people are, um, you know, it's always different. Like some objects are good and some optics are bad. And like, I think that's for me, like, I like some, like I get what you mean. I do think that the whole like, clean client is a little boring for sure. But I like, like vanilla X is cute and that's kind of just an object, but I don't know. I have my like least favorite Pokemon. I don't ever really have good reasons for it, but I don't, like, I don't even know if I'm going to get this guy, this one's name. Right. But I'm like finical and like Barbaresco, I think it's gen gen six gen seven is just kind of like. A rock with tentacles and then it eventually is like a rock with legs, with tentacles. And it's just like, it's just weird. And maybe it's someone's favorite Pokemon, but it'd be surprised if this one was it. And I don't like, um, have a lug either. It's just kind of like a big flat piece of ice. It's a big table, um, that I'm sure there's lots of goofy ones. I will say maybe, um, before I end my turn here, one of the, and maybe instead of just like, Not your least favorite Pokemon, but I always like to find like Pokemon that are hard to guess. So sometimes we've played, it's like 20 questions game when we're like waiting in between rounds or waiting for our food at a restaurant or something. And you're really trying to stump, um, your group or your with. And so these ones are the ones I like to think of more. And it's maybe, and these are often maybe someone's really, um, like something they really disliked, but they're just hard to think of. And I usually go for like Corpus Garbus is just kind of a, uh, it's an older one. It's from an older generation. Um, it's, I mean, it's not maybe a bad one in the card game context, because it was good in 2004. So it's had a deck and the history of the game. So that might be what you want to look for to something that's not competitively viable, but that's the good an option to

Brent:

Now, you know, that that's a great, like, that I think is way more what this pod is about then than like the original question. The 20 questions game is a great game.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

I don't remember who first told us about that, but like, we've definitely played that too. Like that's your stuff, fun, like stupid thing to do while you're waiting in line at the McDonald's at some tournament

Mike:

another, another fund. Similar game is you pick some type of. Category of Pokemon. So like stage two water Pokemon, and then you each go around and you got to keep saying like a different one until someone can't get one and then they lose. It's another good one too.

Brent:

I liked, I liked that you made it stage two water Pokemon. That definitely like ups the difficulty level,

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be so general, right? If you just say water Pokemon, you probably go for like an hour.

Brent:

Right, right. Yeah. There's, there's, there's a hundred of those. So you can go for awhile, right?

Mike:

Um, so I, I want to give this question more thought, but one of the first ones that comes to mind and kind of in a trading card game context, I don't like the Pokemon seismic code. Um, I, you know, I played a lot of size Mattoon, especially towed bats. So, you know, Britt did a 12, so like. I, you know, I enjoy playing that card. Why not? But I hate playing against it. Like getting quaking punched was still horrible, horrible, horrible. Especially when you're playing a deck like night, March or something like that. So for that reason, and I don't actually, particularly, I really like the Pokemon itself either. I think it's, um, the whole line feels like a total rip off of the, uh, um, like poly towed and whatnot. So it just seemed too similar to that and it kind of ugly. And so the fact that it was also such a ridiculous thing, the good and toxic card, that's kind of like where my mind went.

Brent:

Uh, you know, you know, what's funny is for me, um, I mean, it just goes to show how, like, as a, as a like person who participates in this like competitive gaming community, I know we've talked before about how, like it could be Pokemon. It could be something else that doesn't really matter. Like, for me, when I tried to think of a Pokemon, I hated the first one that I could really come up with was a beware. Because the first time I saw it, I was like, this is just a plushy money grab. Like when they design something that I'm like, they're just, they just designed it to make it likable. It was too cute.

Brit:

Yeah. It's almost like, kind of like intentionally playing to like, there's not a whole lot of features to it. It's just kind of like some shapes and then the face I, I, I like, I agree with you, but I have, it's actually one of the Ray, I don't ever watch the anime anymore, but I have seen a few clips of it and the BW, where does as sort of a regular, um, of the X. Yeah. It would be X and X and Y series. And it like, it's really good when it wants to be like, it beats up for Mosa in a fight, which is, which was really cool. That's the clip I've seen, but it's like, you wouldn't think it would be able to, and it's kind of like an anime moment and may sort of fight scene. And I just thought it was funny. Yeah.

Brent:

Potentially annoying question after ADP and Luke metal rotate. Is there a future for turbos or some other variant around station V? Explain your answer in at least sentences and use evidence. academia. Yeah.

Mike:

very and very like social studies as well. Like get like a DBQ, like you got to support your, your point of view, you know, document based evidence. Um,

Brent:

Uh, my feeling is as long as the metal saucers, the cards, they shouldn't be able to be a card

Mike:

yeah. Is true. Uh, if you've been paying attention to any of the sword and shield on events, uh, before battle styles, Zakian was by far the best deck. Um, now it's not quite as good cause victimy is the max is such a good deck, but I believe I saw the Pablo's table Mon challenge that happened this past weekend. Um, turbos lashing kind of made a comeback. There's also. Being like Azhar Sheehan, Urrutia food knack, rapid strike or Shifu. And I think it's just, uh, a case of jamming two very strong Pokemon together into a deck. I don't think there's any natural synergy, I guess like brave blade plus a GMX rapid flow is a clean tune to hit Kao on any V max. But, um, so Yeah. I mean, is already, it's already showing that it's still good in this certain Sheldon format right now. So I don't see any reason why it will go away. It's just, it's the best V probably that there will ever be like standalone V Pope mine.

Brent:

Yeah. Like when they printed that card, it was the most powerful card they'd ever printed.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

I mean, absolutely disgusting. Right?

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

three, three metals. It hit like a truck. And, uh, you get some drawings. You go first. You're like, Oh, this car is insane now.

Mike:

Yeah, it'll be, it'll be tier one or tier two throughout the entire legality. For sure.

Brit:

Yeah, I don't think I have too much more to add to that. That was all everything I had intended to say. Um, I guess maybe one thing worth mentioning is that even though, um, you know, the future might be a little uncertain, just how competitive that can be you and we don't know. What the cards are looking like too far in advance, but just, um, just given the natural synergy, um, also having access to like, there's just no way he'll ever be completely forced out of the Metta. And until we're no longer printing VMX cards until we've, we've moved on to the next mechanic, like you just always have such a free wall, uh, you know, just a free, a free annoyance with your, with your deck. So I would think that we'll also be able to keep, um, straight station turbos, Aisha, and however you want to think about it, um, being relevant. I, I do, I will say big teeny being a big one. Um, and the weakness, I will say that, like, I'm not sure. Um, how well this turbo station would stack up against just like the regular rapid strike. And so I'm a little cautious to think that it'll continue to be able to keep up. That'll always be a deck, um, that I'm not sure how it'll deal with, um, I mean, even these, these two, one of the I'll have to learn the name. I don't know it off the top of my head, Cali Rex, something like that. One of the horses, um, is so weak to metal. So I, I think at least I believe it's weak to metal. Um, but then the other one seems like it would be a lot harder to deal with that one seems like, um, a big threat, but it'll be good for sure. Um, and at the very, at least always an option for control decks and things like that. So obviously that, wasn't the question

Brent:

Gotcha. All right. And then he says, P S my vote for the name of followers of the podcast is trash Mons. As in like Pokemon without the poker. That's an interesting idea. I can hear that. Uh, I don't think any definitive decision has been made. I, I suspect we will not get a definitive decision until there's an in-person event.

Mike:

Yeah, well, we'll just have to see maybe, maybe we should like, let people name themselves. Like,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, we we're, we're waiting for the community to like weigh in harder, but like, so community that you heard trash months, you'd leave your own review or your tweet at tweet at us be Halliburton. Mike Bouschet be fibrous like Leo. Uh, let us know what you think about that. And then PPS any plans for discord channel for trashcans?

Mike:

Hmm. Haven't really thought about it. Could do it and it's not hard. It's like very, very easy to set up a discord server.

Brent:

Yeah, we will, we will take it under advisement. Uh, uh, Shaler Tillman and we appreciate the review. Uh, we will continue to monitor for demand for core channel, uh, or you can tweet at us, you can leave reviews. You can tell us if you want this stuff. Uh, um, you know, uh, as anything, anything that starts to sound like we're real content creators, I kind of shy away from, but, uh, Oh, well, we might be willing to go there. Um, uh, we should talk about the, the, the two big Twitter trends this week. Uh, the first one is players rating themselves

Mike:

I threw that on there. I don't think any of us posted things. Um,

Brent:

because we have dignity.

Brit:

Yeah, cause we're, we're above 18 years old, I guess. Yeah. So some of these trends, like I was like, so like the we'll talk about the tearless one, that's a little more like I'm a little more prone to buy, but some of these things I just see in is like, I mean, I'd be curious. Maybe Brad can speak on, uh, what the trends are like these days for your children. I don't know what they are, but just like those all, I mean, I don't think I ever really did them in high school or middle school, but just these, just share 10 things about yourself. Like great.

Brent:

Right, right, right. For every, for every, like, I'll answer one of these 40 questions,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

never done any of those. Uh, don't think I'll ever do any of those. Uh,

Mike:

The reason that I wrote it down on our agenda is it did get me thinking, you know, as a math person. Um, I also saw, I don't know if you guys saw John Ang tweeted basically like. You people that think you're seven or eight at 10 you're being ridiculous or whatever. And I commented that. I don't think most people realize how far in a way it's like the top, top players, like I said, woolen toward, and you know, probably five to maybe five players in this category. Like how much better they actually are then even, um, You know, kind of the next tier down. Like, I think I'm really, really good, but I think as well and toward, or like way better than me, like, it's, I don't even like, I think they're way better. And so I, it got me thinking as a math person that maybe, maybe you, if you're ready yourself out of 10, maybe you can rank yourself like a seven or eight out of 10, but it's actually like a logarithmic scale, right?

Brent:

You know, what's funny is halfway through your first sentence. I was like, I wonder if one attends a logarithmic

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. So like,

Brent:

10 is, is a thousand.

Mike:

Right, right. right. And I think that, like, if you look at it from that perspective, it's probably pretty accurate. It makes it more accurate in my mind, what other people are posting.

Brent:

Right, right. 10 is like super next level compared to nine and nine is like super next level compared to AIDS and so on. It's on its own. Right.

Mike:

And it might not be quite that extreme, but I think that's closer to the truth than a linear scale, for sure. Um, Yeah, So I just think that's like, uh, an interesting way to look at them. Look at it.

Brit:

I dunno for me anything just like everything is just the Dunning-Kruger effect. Like anytime I see something like that, it's just like, yup. Yup. Yup. Just like the lawyer, if you knew as much as he thought you knew, you would know how little you knew, you know, something, something like that. And just like. The average player, you know, sometimes it's, you know, maybe a hard to learn something you have to figure out on your own. But like, I don't know. I can just think of times, or I would lose like a random round of Swiss at a league cup or something like that. And they get a huge reaction from the kid and, you know, I'm just as good as him now and things like that. And you know, obviously that isn't true. Like it could be, he could have been better than me, but, you know, just cause he'd be toward once. Just of course, like obviously accomplishments aside, there's like so much can go, right. So much can go wrong regardless of how good you are. Not as, I don't know, it's difficult to gauge, especially for like newer players. Like how do you even compare without, you know, time? Like, I don't know. I feel like time sometimes doesn't quite get. You know, it was fair share. It's always about, you know, the kid, the kid that just got second, uh, you know, insert regional at that week or something. He's got a sponsorship, but Jason, you know, that old school player who's made top 16, you know, 40 times in a row. Nobody knows who he is anymore. It's still like, things like that tend to happen too. so I think, I guess when trying to figure out how good you are, it's not always about your spikes. It's about your consistency and rates over time and stuff too. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, the other thing I thought about those tweets was like, uh, uh, kind of to your point and, uh, besides Dunning-Kruger I think there's also this element of like, blocking it out, how you humans naturally block out the bad memories there. I felt like, I know, like, as I read through my tweets and you know, I, I probably follow some best practice and just mute all the tweets that start with like rank yourself. Uh, but like everybody thinks there are 10 of 10 reading, the other player. Yeah. Like everybody, everybody has like maybe some sense of whether or not they've like built Becks or, uh, um, you know, or like calling that as kind of well, because like, like I think they get feedback on that. That's like very visceral, but like. Reading your opponent's hand. There's probably like, it would be possible to gather data on how accurate that is. And I suspect that we looked at it. We'd be like, we're terrible at that.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People have to be really bad at that, but I think probably the best person in the world, like a six out of 10.

Brent:

Uh, like, although I did, did you guys see Michael K Tron street, a tweet about Russell APAR?

Mike:

Yeah. That was funny.

Brent:

Absolutely hilarious. Eh, he, he, he had a tweet where he, uh, um, talked about how, like there were some regionals playing and Russell apart told him every card in his hand and how he figured out he had every card in his hand. So like

Mike:

Sounds like a Russel thing to do.

Brent:

that, that, that is a wrestle thing to do. Right. I'm not just going to beat you. I'm going to let you know how bad I'm beating you.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brent:

Uh, but, but, uh, um, Yeah. I mean, I think when, when you're like, Oh, he has the boss, he just wins. Oh, he has the boss. You're not good at reading your phones that I felt like there was like, wait, how, how could everybody's best skill be reading a poem makes no sense at all to me. All right. So the other big thing going around is tier list. And Mike sent a note and said we should all make tier lists. And then, uh, um, I was like, okay, fine. Even though I was intimidated by the sheer number of GX as their work, uh, I think Brit saw how many Jacksons there were and ran away. Mike did, did you, did you grind it out? Where are we with this guys?

Mike:

I did I have, um, yeah, I blew my turn. That's I didn't put it in the doc, but I have it up. I can share my screen

Brent:

All right. Britt. Do you have yours?

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah. I have where, where I, where I am, I did not finish, but I didn't, I didn't give up, like right away. I got pretty far and it was just like, really? I've got this many left. I don't recognize most of it.

Brent:

There were so many that, I mean, I ended up being like, there's a Z tier of like, there were Pokemon so bad that I was like, I'm not even gonna bother to put them in the thing because I hate them so much.

Brit:

Right.

Brent:

And some of them, like, they saw some play, but like, that's still like, I don't like you enough to show love art. So, uh, Britton, I were talking right before we started recording about how, uh, uh, maybe the more important thing is how you construct your ontology.

Mike:

that's what I, that's what I was going to say as well. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Talk, talk about, talk about how, what your approach was.

Mike:

All right. So I had, my, my top, top tier was defined and here I'll, um, share. So you guys can see while I'm talking. So my top, top tier, I just called it Metta defining throughout its entire legality. Um, so that was kind of like my criteria because there a lot of really great cards that were tier one for a time during, while it was legal, but maybe not the entire time. So the Metta defining throughout all of legalities was pretty short list. Yeah. Denny and taboo, Layla and

Brent:

Yeah, Brett and I were talking about how those are, those are kind of cheating. Like they weren't like, like, like, you know, if, if it's a support Pokemon, that's like so good at the fore of it, every deck, is it really about a defining? Like there's some weirdness there, like if ball cards weren't a thing, it would not be a very good part, you know?

Brit:

My only other really quiet was just to really contrast that against tapping Laylay. And there's just no question that. Typical LA was it better and more impactful card, just because of how, um, you know, it really could just be your main attacker in a Garber toward deck. Like it was really just that good on its own. Um, it was good enough that some decks, you just would play one psychic energy because sometimes you would want to tap your cure. Um, and so I guess really my only point then is just that, like, I don't know how good the DNA is comparatively, like the DNA of course, like meta defining, but like, in a way that's almost like regrettable, I think like, just like the it's the, um, you know, it's, we build our decks in such a way because of the deadening and it just doesn't, I don't, I don't know if these points are salient ones at all, but I just feel like they're kind of different in that sense. Um, probably not to say that they weren't being on separate tiers, but I don't know, maybe, maybe reflecting on just how sort of ridiculous tapping Laylay is as a card.

Brent:

Yeah.

Brit:

like, I don't, I don't think there's a better Pokemon that's ever been printed. I mean, maybe that's too, too far. I'd maybe be going, go be willing to say that though.

Mike:

I mean, and the cool thing about tabulate is that it Fe felt so balanced, right? Like it didn't ever feel like it was a degenerate card. The dentist sometimes does feel like that for the exact reason that you said we built our deck differently, knowing that we have one or two DNA in our deck, um, or three or four sometimes, um, ADP would not really be the same deck without the DNA peek around. Wouldn't really be the same deck without the Dennis. So, um, yeah. It is

Brent:

doesn't accelerate decks. It increases the consistency of decks.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So.

Brent:

And I agree, I think, and I think we even mean props to a Pokemon. I think everyone recognized at the time that Pokemon did a really good thing when they print the taboo Layla, like. It wasn't a super liability on your bench. So they were incentivizing you to increase the consistency of your decks by having a super high hip Geraci. It has a like, uh, a colorless attack. So it's super splashy, double index in that way, but it's not weak to itself. So you, they kind of skipped the problem you had with Mewtwo. It's just a well-designed card, delightful.

Mike:

Yup. Yup, yup, yup. So besides those two, the other cards I had in here were Zuora work, obviously new to mew, obviously peek around ADP rushes, ARD, and then the other one that I had on here, I'm not sure if this belongs in this tier and the next one is like in rock GX, I felt like lichen rock was, um, Maybe not quite met a defining throughout its entire legality, but it was in multiple different decks between Zuora rock and buzz rack. So feels like it could be, but anyways, so that was kind of

Brent:

I, I had, so I had that one in the next one. So how about you, Brett? Is your, how different is your list on this list?

Brit:

I mean, I would think it's generally about the same I should have. My problem is I think that I tried to just do it strictly using the criteria. Just very vague tier one tier two that everyone else was using. And it got like too confusing and that's where my frustration went. So clearly the solution would be like to do it like Mikey did and just be very, very explicit with what is going on in each tier. And so that

Brent:

that, that was so my, my top tier was, I think similar definition of yours is like, this card was always good from the second it was printed until it went out a format, good card, tier one, like the main card tier one deck, you know, uh, you would never, if anyone said I'm playing this deck, you'd be like, that sounds fine.

Mike:

Yeah. So the other thing to like, think about when you're doing something like this is you have to evaluate the card in its format. And sometimes that's hard for us looking back at things now. So, like you can't be looking at these cards and say like, Oh, you know, they're not played in expanded now, so, they're not good. Right. You want to look at them through the lens of the formats that they were legal and you can look at them through the current expanded as well. Um, and that could be useful and give merit to the card too. um, like I was trying to think of some card that I didn't think was that good, but Oh yeah. Yeah. So like later, later on I put this like fairy Mimikyu GX, which never saw play. Really in standard, but it did see play a little bit and expanded last year. So it was like, I kinda like took that out of the trash tier and put that in a fringe use. Um, but so I won't go through all the different cards obviously, but so, so I had this top tier and Mehta defining threat, all of legality. Then the next tier was kind of like a very strong card. It was tier one during at least some part of the, of its legality, but maybe not throughout the whole entire time. So a couple of examples would be guard, job, been GX guard, award GX, things like that.

Brent:

So, so, um, I defined it to the next tier after, after the Metta defining tier for me was, was like definitely B best deck and format at some point like slash one, you know, uh, um, multiple huge tournaments.

Mike:

Hmm. So it's pretty similar then I

Brent:

So very similar. No, the thing that I had, like kind of just speaking to breadth problem, I think one of the weird things I had and the result is we have slightly different lists is, uh, it wasn't clear to me what I was supposed to do with cards that were good and expanded, but not standard like Trevena war. There was no question. There was an expanded moment where Trev nor was for like three months, the best card you could possibly play. It was like V card in the best deck. You would wreck kids if you were playing that. And other kids would say, no, don't play that. It's too good.

Mike:

that's true. I didn't think about that for Trevor nor he might be. Maybe he should be up there. I dunno.

Brent:

Yeah. But, well, it's, there's, there's just that weirdness of like,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

you know, are you including expanded or not? Like, what does that mean? Uh, I noticed you did not have, you did not have SB on GX in tier one. And I, I thought SPN garb was like really good for like several months. It was, uh, uh, and, and maybe like, I think I had dropped it in the next one. Although I think I was, I was confused about dropping. I'm thinking it should probably be in this one.

Mike:

yeah, you can

Brent:

drop a guard was the best person.

Mike:

yeah, you can make an argument. I think, I don't know. I did it pretty quickly, but I think the, my thought process was Jambo is used in other decks as well. Like it was used in the deck. Um, and, uh, I feel like something else too, but I don't remember. Um, And SPN was pretty, I mean, like both of those decks were mainly good cause of garbage door, so it's a little hard to say for sure.

Brent:

And then, uh, uh, the, the, the other quibble I had, and it looks like you put it several tiers down, maybe. Um, or maybe I just can't find it in your list. Uh, I put Arctic Cuno in tier one because I put it, I thought of it as part of Pidgeotto control. And like, maybe you couldn't have done Pidgeotto control without it.

Mike:

maybe, maybe not. So like my next year it. was, I, I defended as a solid card as a main focus or a very strong tech card. So in my mind, like Arctic, who knows a very strong tech card, um, similar to like a model while I was in there, druggie GX is in there all very strong tech cards. Um, so that was kind of my

Brent:

Right. So, so I had, I think I had a, your tier one is a little bigger than my tier one. I had a tier in between, so I had tier two, which is like a card that want to regionals. So like you put egg row in your, like right under goat status. And I put agro in like tier two, because I was like, It was good for like one tournament and then it was bad.

Mike:

Well, so that's a card that I thought about expanded a lot because it's because it's still super relevant and expanded right now. So that, that, yeah, again, there's no right or wrong answers for any of these. Right. It's just kind of different.

Brent:

Oh no, there's right. There's right.

Mike:

So the other thing that I think I saw you do that I probably should have done is you kind of had like a mute, like a category of like mew three cards, right?

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the, the last couple of categories I had after the, at one a regionals, uh, so, so like, it was, it was the best I could format for like a week after that I had that one cities where it was like, you know, people heard that blah-blah-blah Beck was good and everybody built it, but then like, It turned out to be like more of a meme deck or something like that. Like pulverizing pancakes. Snorlax was probably a great example of that. It was good for like seven hours. People were like, Sanchez, what does it start out with pancakes? I was like, like flaring on GX. Like there was an elaborate VX. Like, those are both examples of like, for a second, there was a deck that people were like, this tech might be good, but it turns out it was like, not that good. And then I had, yeah. And then I had, so you decided to play mew or dark patch or blast toys or Boogaloo. Like if you were playing those cards, then like there's other Pokemon that were really, really good.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Like this, like this saga Layo Right, The, uh, like that, that card is like the, one of the reasons that the MuTu deck was as good as it was like probably the defining card. And so like, I have it in, in my tears, like a solid card or a very strong tech card, but probably better be to have just like a mute. This card is good because of these three.

Brent:

right. right. If they'd never printed that card, then he just started to have no place no matter. Right?

Mike:

Yeah. exactly. And, and I guess kind of the same

Brent:

King DRA the kindred GX, like it's only good if you're doing this other thing that makes it good.

Mike:

Same thing with like the Whaler and magic carp. Um, the Greninja Zuora arch is like another example of that. And, and another reason to think about expanded, like that card, that card was never very good. in standard, but an expanded it's amazing. Um, because of dark patch. So you, Yeah. very strange. Um, so I had that, and then my, my next here, it was like fringe use as a tech slash was okay. At one point were just kind of your tier on that.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have a lot of cards in here that are the, like, there was that one cities,

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Not, not necessarily winning like a big tournament, but you know, it was a decent card in a somewhat decent deck at some point

Brent:

right, right there, there was, there was definitely a, like, we could have period where like people were talking about whether or not iron rule was a game changing GX attack.

Mike:

Yeah, exactly. And then the majority got into the tier. Um, I've never seen this card in my life. That's what I titled my last year.

Brent:

Dude. I, I can't believe you are sleeping on the, what is the mongoose thing? They let you look at their hand.

Mike:

Gum shoes,

Brent:

Gumshoes GX, man. Gumshoes yaks

Mike:

I do have a place out of gum shoes, GX. That is, that

Brit:

that in something for some reason.

Brent:

uh, I feel like there, there was a time when that was like a tech in a Plaza.

Brit:

Yeah, I don't remember. I just were kind of, I'm trying to think for whatever reasons, right? When X and Y I guess that was just kind of the power creep of the GX cards at the time. Like, as it's what you would eventually just become Sylvia on. But like what Brent was mentioning, like laparoscope was one of these decks that people just like, kind of worked as a control deck, glamorous having a draw attack, so it could kind of fuel itself and then just kind of ended up being the Sylvian deck, but much, much, much worse. Um, but yeah. Yeah. Like some of these are, um, I'm just trying to think, like, I've definitely seen a few of these before, but there's just so many.

Mike:

actually a bunch that I've never seen before. I don't think I've ever seen this

Brent:

most of GX was a tech in, was it? Uh,

Mike:

Well, I think there was actually those two fair motives.

Brent:

one was whichever one was also the beast game GX, like it was, it was, you can play that or you can play this, like,

Mike:

Yeah. There's actually some of these cars though, that I'd never seen before. Like pincer, GX, never seen that.

Brit:

Was like a wishy-washy that's just like the little one. Does it GX of like what? Because not when there's I know the version when they're, they're all together as a one fish, but just kind of diagonal from that one. There's a wishy-washy that's just the other, just the little one. I think, I didn't know that credit existed.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's definitely a lot of GXS that are just bad and are only suitable for kids playing on the playground with no energy. We'll have to get it.

Brit:

Yeah. Some of them too, it would be interesting to like break them, break them down even a little further, like which ones are just like, were intended to at least be like remotely playable and just weren't even up to that standard. And which ones clearly could have just been like, this is just a, this is worse than a started at cards somehow. Like, like I'm looking at that really tough right there. And I know it doesn't do anything. I know it's a two prize attacker that looks like it does something for three energies and that's it. They're just completely vanilla. Otherwise.

Brent:

Yeah. And then there's, there's a couple of cards that like, if the Metta had somehow swung a different way, they would have been more playable, like, like crunch, like in rock. I mean, discard the energy. That's always a good attack. And yet, like it never quite found its place in the matter. And maybe that's what the moral story, it's just not good enough, but like, uh, you know, there's lots of times where I imagine there's some alternate world where like, that's, that's a vaguely playable card. All right, guys, let's talk about players cup for Brit. Uh, uh, do you want to bring us up to speed on, let me, let me, let's talk about general numbers for like a hot, hot segment. Uh, before we talk about how you guys are doing, um, North America continues to kind of trend down like the curve is definitely flattening. And now it seems like it's like 90 to 95 points is like the current trajectory, I think. Um, so more importantly, Julian, who is doing an amazing job and like is just the nicest person. Because when I say to him, Hey, I have a question. Can you help me figure out like, whether or not this, this data works, he just goes and like pulls the data, which is a stupid, fine. Um, he went and pulled a bunch of this, like, uh, attendance data for me to try to help us figure out what is really going on. And there's no question. When you look at the data, the number of keys getting played is decreasing. we approach like the end of players now, like it started out really, really high and it's getting to be less over time. And then he, and then we eat, he, and then I said, well, could you pull out the people who were the top 256 for North America? So we could, um, contrast that to see if those people are, um, playing more or playing less, like how what's the shape of that curve. And to be Frank, I feel like the players got for data. And the fact that it's so much higher for North America than Europe, like it's indicative of how, um, uh, like what I wanted to do was not look at everybody, but really look at. Uh, uh, North America and maybe like even the top 100 European players, like, I feel like what we've seen in all these keys playing out is, uh, uh, what people have hypothesized all along, which is North America has more good players. And, but the top players are just as good. Even the top, uh, Latin America in oceanic players are just as good. There's just like the next level is just not nearly as deep in any of those places. But so when we looked at the North America data, it seems like what's interesting is that the top 256 from players cup three, their points generated day over day is like more like a flat line, which implies that it's getting tougher because there's fewer keys getting off, but you have the same amount of people who were top two 56 players cup three, like the keys. Tend to be more populated by top two 56 players. Does that make sense, guys?

Brit:

Hmm.

Brent:

And so this is a comment that you made over this weekend. Mike, you were like, Oh dude, I should play keys on Sunday because all the good players are playing in the limitless tournament.

Mike:

Right,

Brent:

Let's go and low. Like the North America on five nine is like nothing.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Right? It's like, it's like the fewest points generated by. Claire's cup three players of any day during the entire PC four qualifying period. Uh, um,

Mike:

Yeah. That's super interesting.

Brent:

uh, so, so in that way, it kind of implies, I think to your point when there's, when there's big tournaments, that's a great time to go grandkids

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I messaged a, a message. You guys during it wasn't this past weekend, but the weekend before. Yeah.

Brent:

yeah. So it was five, nine,

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. So I played four or

Brent:

you were like, I've gotten free wins. I'm getting free

Mike:

Yeah. I was like, you guys should play now. Um, and yeah. Okay. The data backs data backs it up. That's always good.

Brent:

yeah. Yeah, indeed. If they're wondering who were, who, whether there was a players cup, three players that were getting all those points off keys that day, that was Mike.

Mike:

So that's funny. That's so funny. Okay. So now the spike is on a five seven, which is a Friday, which makes sense. Then the next one is on a Monday, which doesn't make as much sense, but whatever.

Brent:

Yeah. Well like, so what's interesting is, I mean, there's definitely some days like May 12th is a day where 6,000 total points are generated, but 1200 of them are from in a top two 56 players. So like, Every game, somebody played, you had any playing against a, like top two 56 player

Mike:

Yeah. Right.

Brent:

that's just, uh, that's, that's tough.

Mike:

Yeah. And that's a Wednesday.

Brent:

Yeah. And then there's another thousand 1200 points from the top two 56 from other regions. So literally like half the points generated are for people who had qualified for player step three. Uh, and maybe the moral of the story is that they're more on the grind or Memorial story as those are the good players.

Mike:

yeah, it looks like from NAS perspective, probably Wednesday nights are the hardest times to play. Seems like that's the, that's the trend

Brent:

right. And is the moral of the story that, that limitless doesn't have a tournament that somebody is hosting on Wednesday nights?

Mike:

um, no. Cause the chill event, the chill event is always on Wednesday. So I

Brent:

I was going to say, you always play right after the pot.

Mike:

Yeah. So I actually wonder if it's like lots of people they'll start playing and chill and maybe they'll lose their first two rounds and then be like, Oh, I still want to play Pokemon drop from shell and then go play keys. they like, they like mentally dedicated that night to play in any way.

Brent:

Right? Right. They, they been blocked off some time and they're going to like grind some games. Um, so, uh, cash has always put together a like huge chart of other tournaments and did like a little bit of analysis around it. Uh, you know, ADP it turn at this peak around, uh, and seemed like the four best decks, far and away with like Blount and, uh, psychic mew, uh, somewhere after that.

Mike:

nothing too surprising. Um, I'm surprised the LMC isn't in that top category. I felt

Brent:

what I was going to say. I feel like I get the impression talking with you and Brit, and we're going to dive into you. Guys' keys on a hot second, but like, I get the impression LMC seems like it's going really well when you guys play it for keys. Uh, I continue to be terrified to play it because it just seems like if you use your brain, is terrible, but, but like, uh, it doesn't seem to be like quite getting there in these tournaments.

Mike:

yeah. And it could be like, I think part of it is still like there's, there's these two ways to play LMC and one way is with the, you know, the Marni tag call engine, and that's much better against ADP. It's much better against fire. And then there's the, the polka gear version, which is much better against peaker on much better against the new two decks. Just because you're able to keep up more. Um, so you have these two different builds to play to, to, to build LMC, but you can't build it both ways. And so you can't, you're, you're taking slightly unfavored match-ups whichever way you go. And so maybe that's part of it. The other thing is I'm not sure how much it turned into is playing Phoebe's anymore. Some, some sort of Phoebe package, but if they are like, again, you're, you're kind of like losing your best matchup then, and it's not unwinnable, but it, you know, went from 80, 20 to 50 50. And so if your best matchup is now 50 50, that sucks.

Brent:

Uh, yeah, it'd be nice. And, you know, we'll put up a call to whoever figures out these things, if they would segment the deck by that. So we can look at how results vary for the different bills, because I think you've, you've been crystal clear with the community that these are two very different things. We, we kind of treat them the same and look at their results in the aggregate. I think we understand what's going on. Um, so the one other thing I wanted to ask you guys about before we talk about how you guys are doing that, that I think about when I look at these results is, um, Are you guys seeing more of this, like alterior toolbox and center sports control decks. Like, I feel like Sanders turned those into like me mish things that suddenly I felt like people were playing to see if it was good, but I don't know if it's really gotten traction.

Brit:

Yeah, maybe we're throwing in. I. I threw it into the agenda because I ran into it and had a pretty interesting game against it, but it would maybe be worth grouping in here, but the Snorlax Vtech as well, kind of, kind of the same, just the same deck as the center scorch, um, for the most part. But yeah, I, I mean, I actually kinda think that Sanders deck, and maybe the, I forget why the Snorlax deck popped up. I think it was last week. It must have done. Okay. I think in one of the onlines, I don't think it top aided, but maybe a top 16, but then the S sander played the center scorch control, which actually seems pretty good to me. Um, I'm intrigued by both that and the story stack. I don't really have anything to say about, I know cause the, it wasn't quite the control deck. It was more just like all Terria attacking all Alterian like with Kangaskhan and stuff like that deck can't be good. I don't like if decidua isn't doing great currently, then there's no way that decks. Is is better. Um, I think it just got some good match-ups and was in a tournament where peaker rom did very, very well. And that I imagine is a lot of the story. Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. I also don't think the Altera deck is very good for a bunch of reasons. Uh, even as peek around matchup, I don't think is so th th coming from the ground perspective, all of these decks are very weak to Marnie. So the Altera deck played like to communication or to evolution. Insensitively played two ways to find Ataria besides naturally drying it. Um, so. You can very realistically as the peak round player, just Marnie them on turn one or tier two, and then they never get to play an Altera yet. Or maybe they play one and you're able to boss around and kill some other stuff. And they don't really threaten the Kao type of cocoa, even with Kangaskhan. Um, they can't one, a type of cocoa, so cocoa can always take out two Alterian in theory. Um, but uh, beyond even the beaker on matchup, I'm like, it has matches that it'll just win and how some matches that it it's impossible to win. So I don't think that deck's very good. Um, I don't really know too much about the Snorlax deck, but I do know it has the similar shell to the scent discourage Pidgeotto deck, that sander posted. Um, I only, I tried the center scorch deck just for one game just to kind like, get a feel for it. And it seemed pretty cool. I did lose the game. I don't think I played it super well or anything. So I'm interested in trying it more. It's very interesting, but again, it's very. It felt very susceptible to Marnie. Um, could Yoda just doesn't draw you that many cards, right? You're only seeing one, one extra car to turn. So, you know, you set up two piggy autos and you get marinade. And so now you have a six or seven card hand, um, maybe at the Sheryl, maybe you don't. Um, so it feels a little, it also feels kind of hard to like close out a game. Like he said, like Sandra posted that his strategy is to energy deny and then two shot things later in the game, but you only play five energy. You only play two fire crystal. So you're going to have to, like, you're going to have to pivot to a munch, lax, most games. It feels like at some point to require some resources. Um, So, I don't know. I probably just have to play the deck more to get a feel for it. Um, I did play one key today and I played against the center squarish deck with peak rom. And kind of the Marni strategy just totally worked. It's like I just martyred them basically every single turn and they lost because of that. Um, I mean, bigger arms, also pretty resilient to like a heavy energy denial strategy like that. You just kind of get up to peak her arms in a Bolton full blitz, full blitz, full blitz. You have 11 energy on the board and you're one shouting and everything with the Bolton. Um, so maybe that's just a bad matchup. Uh, I don't know, but it's a cool deck for sure.

Brent:

So, uh, uh, any other thoughts on the Snorlax? A Vtech Brit? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Brit:

Yeah, no, I mean, I was a little, at least, I mean, very anecdotal, just this one game against it, but I thought that the pity outs seemed really good. Like they basically saw their whole deck. I mean, I was playing Helen Z, so it was a really long. Game of, um, you know, just trying to figure out how to hat. And I ended up winning. Um, they only played one Phoebe, I think if they played another one, I don't, I think it's the, the player was better. They definitely would have beaten me. And I think that's where my entry comes from. They just, um, they weren't good enough about their munch lacks when I just killed the Montreal X twice. And then they ran out, they ran out of energy, um, because they have no way to get them back or anything like that, other than much Lex. And there was another card to that ma the Phoebe that could've gotten it back or would it matter too? And they played a palpate for the Phoebe already. Um, but yeah, it just seems good. This is the same strategy. I would have to think that the sentence court's version is probably better, but if, if the peaker on matchup and Marnie, just as an issue, um, Probably can't end up being that good. I was a little intrigued from my one game today. I just like, um, for those who are already qualified, I think you've definitely, shouldn't be spending your time on these sorts of ideas. I don't know how much more testing you need to do peek around versus various things. I mean, I guess if you're not a, if you're a recent initiate into the, you know, the cult of Piqua or whatever, you might need some games, but if you're listening listeners of the podcast, we haven't even been talking about the deck for a really long time. So there's not a whole lot, really to figure out not a whole lot of new things to learn. So I think definitely like, I mean, that's just where I would be. I think I had the points already. I would want to learn control or something like that. It just seems like another, another trick to have in your pocket. That's a potential option when, um, that perhaps not as matchup. I mean, it is because he wanted a Dodge ADP still, but not as, you know, as matchup heavy as like or something, maybe. That's cool. Probably not very good, but I am just nice to see these just different decks pop up, even in our game. That's relatively established already.

Mike:

I hadn't actually seen the snakes, that guy there. So I just looked it up, um, as well as the video on it. Um, Yeah it does have the same shell, but there's no energy denial. I guess the strategy is you just hit with Snorlax V max, you Cheryl, like you're hitting with a triple acceleration energy. So it gets discarded anyway, and you share all and use munch slacks to recur stuff as needed. So if you need like another triple back or something like that, um, yeah, that seems pretty sweet. I actually seen that actually to me, that seems better than the center scorch version, but, um,

Brit:

Yeah for me, I just think like, um, you know, cause the seven scorch, eventually at least in theory wins the energy denial and then just slowly sleeps kind of naturally just by attaching from the discard over and over. Whereas the Snorlax, like, it's not like, like if you had sky field or something, like you wouldn't expand it. It's not like your math just isn't there. So if it were the case that like you'd need only needed three to attack three times, like I think it would be really good. Um, but yeah, sometimes it's just so awkward that you have to two-shot things sometimes and your energies is so limited and that's just my, my reasoning

Mike:

yeah, you probably,

Brit:

is maybe better.

Mike:

yeah, you probably do need like six triples in a game a lot of the time, right? Yeah. That's true. That's fair. Okay.

Brit:

Like the one I played against, I don't know. I, I don't know the initial list or Israel's list, well enough off the top of my head, but they played, they were playing like zigzag goon as well, which did fix some math. It didn't matter cause the LMC, but it would have been enough to fix, um, like a regular irregular reduction, I think. Um, but they, and it was just so difficult. I don't know to even if this would be necessary, but someone I played against played the buff padding too. So just as so much HP, like don't even like three shot at, with, as Amazon into like, it just takes so much work and I just, maybe later maybe rotation, there would be a better, a better way to build this sort of deck. But I just like the tag teams, I think are too much, the, the ADP would just run you down eventually. I think like you can't heal. They're putting you at, um, You know, putting you at a disadvantage so fast with altar creature, not altercation, but ultimate Ray, um, that I just, you can't keep up and like eventually to Marnie paralysis, you know, like you'll eventually just not have it and are aren't doing enough. Um, in the meantime, if your main strategy just can't work on its own

Brent:

So, so breath how it keeps going, man.

Brit:

really good. I forget how many I played last week. Um, I guess I started, one on one or two on Saturday and then, um, so I gotta go, I've got them all pulled up. I could just read for them. Where did I start? So, yeah, I won, I won four in a row with, so this is where I started. I had 14 or 15 points and 15 keys after Saturday. I initially sat down on Saturday to play more than one, but it was just a horrible, horrible loss. And top eight, I, um, I played against an LMC that just like I won the coin flip. I chose to go second. I was like, showed it. And they just raw had PowerPoint and my hand needed to do that. And it had nothing else. And so that was just like super frustrating right from the get-go. But I, thankfully, since then, it's been going much better. I won, I won four in a row with Pika. Um, then I lost two top eights in a row with Piqua or one of them was, um, Um, was against Turnitin hammers plant. Um, probably your worst matchup can't win them all. Was it ended up being a pretty close game either way. I'm happy with that. I'm happy when that happens. Like, I take something so unfavorable and like I was in it the entire time. Um, and then I lost to a victim that just like not drew on an indoor one or not an indoor one, a stamped one, you know what I mean? Um, but yeah. And then, so after that, um, I've played switch to LA Carrio where I've gotten. Um, second, second, first. So it's a good rate. If I can keep it up, I imagine I'll be fine. Um, I'm up to like 33 with 22 played. So, um, I think they could do that. That's a good rate. If I can keep that up. Um, you know, maybe this was part of the strategy. So many of the good players are done at this point. Um, Which is, I mean, again, I don't know. I don't know often you don't ever really play against too many of them, but I've starting to recognize more names or paying a little more attention into it. I didn't didn't know this name, but Danny messaged me to tell me I played against Igor. I lost to him in the finals of one of my keys. He's playing his keys and doing very well. It would seem, um,

Brent:

was he playing? Do you know?

Brit:

LMC. Yeah. We played him near in the finals and it wasn't really a good game, but that, that mirror, as I was talking, telling Brett before the podcast, like might be the worst mirror. Like I was trying to think, I might, I might enjoy it less than like ADP even. Cause it's just like first full metal wall. And then, and then just this really, really awkward war of attrition. Um, and it's just like eager. And I basically did the same thing, every single turn. And it was the exact same board state, except I lost because he was just one attack ahead of me the entire time. Um, and like, I, I suppose that's exactly how UDP goes for the most part too, but you know, you always, that you can kind of like, occasionally let's say like, even as an ADP player, you don't get author creation first. You can like maybe win a small percentage of games just going to prize or to prize or to preser, like, you know, magically you out, trade them somehow. Um, that's just not, there are no, there are no good strategies for winning the LMC mirror. None of your attacks are good. Um, they all don't do any damage. They all require you to switch a lot. And it's just this really, really slow resource battle, which sometimes these match-ups are fun. Like I do. It's not all, all match-ups of this kind that I disliked, but particularly in this LMC and Z, I'm not having much fun with,

Brent:

Yeah, it seems to me like, like the difference between that and ADP is at least the ADP mirrors over in three turns,

Brit:

right. Yeah. Let's take.

Brent:

whereas LMC, like you see it coming, but you got to play it out on the off chance, the other guy whiffs. So you're like, okay, we're just going to be here for half an hour. Like there's no way around it. So, so what's the strategy for the rest of your case?

Brit:

Um, I don't think, I, I don't think I really have any reason to not play one of these two decks. Um, probably just stick with LMC until I get bored or frustrated, because I do think if like, the reason I switched was metagame dependent was because of, um, I've been hitting a lot more rapid strike recently and a lot more alternatives. Um, and so that's when I switched and thankfully I like LMC. Like it's probably it's easily. My second favorite deck, I would say. Um, but yeah, it, it can't fail like I want, and that's some of the frustration too, is I want to. Dabble a little bit more. I want to, like, I've talked a little bit, Zander made a tweet sander pero about how Rapids strikes the best deck in the format. So I just like, all right, I'll buy it. Let's talk about it. And then I was just into STM through a little while and like, I want

Brent:

like five hours later, he tweeted it.

Brit:

yeah. Right, right, right. I think he ran it because in our conversation, I was just like, say I, you know, I was hoping to, you know, for him to have like a list that was just so different, that it was like, aha, this is what we missed. This is why the deck is the best deck and the format. And it's not, um, you know, it was really just a couple, a couple, a few cards different than Mikey and Missoula's lists from players cup four. And in our conversation, I'm just like, so you can't be, you don't beat psychic mutiny. Right. It's like, so, um, Yeah, in his, he did, he did open my eyes to a couple of different game plans, um, that I don't think I was necessarily aware of before, but I, I, I don't think I could commit to it. And our current metagame from last week, I wish I could sing more time into the kids, to their I mean, it's remained intrigued by that, but it just doesn't seem wise for someone in my circumstances to be gambling and the keys I need to be playing something sort of tried and true and safe the whole time.

Brent:

Yeah. You know, I, I think I had a similar reaction when, when Zander was like rabbits right here, she was really, really good. I was like, well, it'd be great if it was really good because, uh, I mean, as we discussed on prior pods, I feel like that's a deck. Like I just played so much as a robot back in the day. I feel like I really, really, really understand how to play rapid striker should food. Well, but, uh, it didn't seem good enough. Okay. Very disappointed. I am in an obviously, uh, uh, mean Zander's one of the best players out there. Uh, if he can't get mileage, I don't know. Who can do you want to talk about what it's like having more points than anybody.

Mike:

Sure. Yeah. So I actually only have one key left right now. Um, and I will say the last 10 keys or so, so when we spoke last week, I was on like an insane run where I won like eight out of 10 of my last tournament. Um, since then I have a bunch of zeros, a bunch of losing in top eights. Um, so my last 10 or so keys were not quite as kind to me as my first 35 or 40. Um, but I'm still, I was still able to get number one in North America. I think I have 160 points, 160 with one key left. Um, the number one global, I think is the year up. Not sure if it's Europe or another region, but they have one 63. So if I win my last key, then I, then I get number one global, which would be cool if I don't, it's not really. Yeah. It doesn't really matter that much. Um, Okay. Um, but yeah, so I played, I kept playing Pico for the most part. I played, uh, a couple more keys of mad party because it's fun and I won, won and lost in top eight and won. Um, I dunno, I still can, like I, so I kind of hit the variance of most. A lot of my losses were either a dead draw or. I stent the new one and they, All my comments on my losses are like dead drew. They had the stones, every turn or stamp stamp is a lie. Um, those are my, those are my three comments on my losses. Um, but it, I mean, you, you would expect us to happen. They just kind of all happened towards the end of my run. Uh, but I also made a note. I think there's still quite a few games that I won that I think most people would not have won. And I think that just kind of speaks to my experience with peak around.

Brent:

right, right. Nobody's played more games with being around than Microsoft,

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. So, so it feels good. It feels good. Uh, unfortunately like, uh, I think Szymanski talked about how this time there's really no benefit of being in the top, cause There's no bys.

Brent:

There's no bias

Mike:

yeah, but. I don't know, who knows. Maybe, maybe there will be an odd number of people and they'll give me the buy, like the round one

Brent:

one by

Mike:

yeah. The round one Swiss bank. That'd be cool. Doubtful, but, um, but yeah, it still feels cool. It feels validating, um, especially coming off the, uh, players cup, you know, making global finals and then not doing so well, um, to being able to come back and do this shows that, you know, it wasn't, I don't think it was a flute that I, made global finals.

Brent:

I I definitely feel like, like when you say your last 10 teeth went bad, I feel like, uh, I mean, regression to the mean, I mean, you average more than three points of key. That's insane. Like when you average more than three, that's like,

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

I win everything. I lose in the finals and that's the only time I ever lose. And, uh, um, uh, you know, how much do you guys think. It's so, so there's definitely, I think there's a lot of truth to what you just said where it's like, when you know your deck really, really well, you win some games than other people lose. How much of it, like, so Brett Brett talked about how he kind of changed X cause he felt like the Metta had more alternatives and rabbits striker, Shifu. How much do you guys think? That's really like, I see all these people who were like, I played, I played my first 10 keys with exec and it was bad. So then I switched to wide deck and I got better results. Like, is that just randomness or is like switching to switching decks, like a really good strategy. Like I just wonder, I assume when I see these good players say I played blah, blah, blah. And it was bad. And then I switched to blah-blah-blah and it was good. Like our med has been, so like there are six, like. Are so top tier decks and they're all pretty good and people play them all. I just feel like when, when they say I played LMC and it was bad, and then I switched the people around and it was good. I feel like that's just like regression to the mean, and like, you know, but Danielle's a BIA was due to win som or whatever it was.

Brit:

Yeah. It's, it's hard to say. I know at least I would guess there's a psychological side to it too. And like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna do well with the deck that, you know, like you don't think you're going to do well with, like, if, you know, if you just sort of resigned yourself to needing, to get lucky the whole time, I would think your play like has to suffer. And so I think like, You know, whether it's a placebo effect or not, if you're, you know, if you're confident in your choice, um, I would think your plays probably a little bit better. And so if your confidence is coming from switching saying, like, okay, I see, you know, why I can't play peaker on anymore, so I should switch to LMC. And, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a logic, whether it's right or not, again, it's just gonna depend, but there's a logic to it. And maybe that's enough to motivate your play. I would think there's some truth to that, um, to be sure, but yeah, it's really hard to gauge even like, even as we talk about players cup, as in terms of a meta-game that's developing and shifting and so forth, it's just so hard to gauge like, Because you don't know how many, how many of the players playing these keys are like, just truly at a disconnect from the competitive scene. And you're just like, they know the good cards are and you know, and you know, I'm just playing against all these big teeny decks and things like that. And I just, like, I wonder, like, where are these people coming from? And so like, it's some of the meta-game is never going to be effected. Like you're just going to have to deal with some bad decks and some bad match-ups here and there. But, uh, so I would think that success from switching decks is probably variants, um, as long as you're playing well. Um, but again, maybe to speak to speak well of this current format again is there's a lot of decks and if you're the better player, um, you'll be fine probably.

Brent:

Right, except for like reversion of the meat, right. Just like you lose the top and sometimes you're dead draw bad stamps, whatever. How so? Here's a question that, that I, um, as I was hearing, as I listened to Mike talk over the course of the last hour, uh, made me think about how much do you think confidence has to do with. Like creating outcomes. And here's what I'll say, like, as opposed to like, I just play peek around better. Like we'd like to think, I feel like we've always taken the approach in this pod that like, there are correct plays and you should make correct plays. I know Xander para we're hearing it would be like, you should just, you're like a robot when you play, you just make the correct play. But like I thought it was funny hearing Mike earlier talking about he's like, Oh, pick her up as a really good match up against Santeria. Cause you just need them until they lose like Brett, I don't know if you feel this way, but when he was saying that, I was like, I'm Marnie them into double Ontario. Yeah. This blind confidence that when he Marnie's them, they're just there. Hand is going to be absolute garbage flies in the face of all the evidence I've gathered.

Mike:

That's funny.

Brit:

I mean, what successful or not, I will say that. I think that's just a really good instance of when you're a better player and not only just a better player, but a player who knows their deck very, very well. Like you just see the game differently like that. And so it's no longer this sort of. You know, we can, we could meet modify it. And though just like average player Chad player, but like, you know, your average player is just like, Oh no, I don't, I don't have a counter. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I hope to have for Coco can go the distance. But you know, Mike is sort of just already on the next level. He's thinking just like, no, my deck plays for Marnie. These texts are inconsistent. Like that's my strategy. so if anything, I think that just goes to show that, I mean, for one, I think these match-ups are always perhaps way more complicated than we can give them credit for even when we were talking about something like ADP and things like that. Um, but for two, yeah, I do think there is a confidence. It's not that I'm playing a deck with, you know, what was me, I'm playing a deck without a decidual counter I'm I'm just down to lose it's no, I am confident. Here's my strategy. Let's hope it works. Like, and again, I think, um, you know, there's still some numbers and variants that are going to control how this turns out at the end of the day. But I do think your play just has to be better, um, with the positivity, with that kind of thought behind it more than anything. Um, and so Y Y that, that might not help us, you know, get a better answer on, should you be switching, you know, how that's a success or not. Um, but I, yeah, I think confidence is always, always a factor in playing well.

Mike:

Yeah, I agree. And I can, I think, I think it also depends. So, so what you were saying about like matchup planning, I think is a little bit dependent on your deck. I think some decks have more flexibility in their planning than others. I think peak Rob's a good example of a deck that has a lot of flexibility in its planning where he, something like a decidua is a little more black and white. Um, but I think people still like under undervalued the, the reflection and thought processes that you can go into in different match-ups. Um, and I do think confidence is like a huge, I think it's a huge thing. I go into every key, every tournament thinking that I should be winning and. When that doesn't happen. I asked myself why, why did that not happen? And sometimes the answer is I got unlucky, but most of the time there's something that you can find. There's often something that you can find that you could have done better. Um, so I think the con I think confidence kind of like goes along with reflection as well. It's like, you're confident that you're going to play the best of your ability and learn from the experience and then do better next time.

Brent:

Uh, you know, I, I, I like what you said. I think maybe that reflects the, the real underlying mechanism here is like, there's. There's like irrational confidence. And then there's like rational confidence. Like when Mike says that he's like, I've beaten military decks, uh, you know, a dozen times already, and this is, I have a plan for it and I'm just going to execute the plan and the plan has worked like, and, and, you know, the fact that he has a strategy gives him confidence. So like it's not so much confidence. That is, it is like, there is a strategy and the strategy has worked before, uh, um, a lot, lot better to like go into a tournament, knowing like when the guy flips up the card and you're like, I know my plan is against this deck. Uh, uh, you feel confident, but it's also because like there's a plan and the plan has historically led to like good outcomes, as opposed to like, when you're playing a deck for them, when you're, when you're like learning on the fly. And you're like, I don't know exactly what my strategy is, but like, we'll solve this adventure as we go. Um, Do we want to talk about the shuffle squad attorney for a second?

Mike:

Yeah, I just wanted to mention, I am going to be involved in the, this is a weekly sword and shield on event. And so I'm going to, to be in this, I think it's tomorrow night. And so basically they, you know, they play the tournament and then they have a final boss and I'm the final boss this time. So whoever wins the tournament will get to play me in a best of three. And then if they win, they get some extra prize. So wanted to shout that out. I think it's cool. I haven't, I don't know what I'm going to play at. I might try Peter Kiko is big teeny deck that he, uh, did well with in, in an era in real life event. Um, but it was called, they reached out to me the other day, um, and asked That I wanted to do it and I said, sure, sounds cool.

Brent:

That sounds awesome. Very excited. And I assume people can sign up by going to limitless and like finding their way

Mike:

yup. Yup. It's on limitless. Tomorrow's Thursday. So Thursday, May 20th and it starts at like six.

Brent:

good times. Um, and do we want to talk about expanded for a second guys?

Mike:

Uh, so what was the expanded event that just happened? It wasn't a limitless one

Brit:

It wasn't Limitless? one and the finals were control.

Mike:

control.

Brent:

the, the, the, the finals were a Snorlax mirror.

Mike:

That sounds, yeah, that sounds terrible. Uh,

Brent:

Okay.

Mike:

I know limitless is doing their last regional style event this weekend and I was super pumped to play in it, but it's now too. Now I found out it's expanded and I saw those results last weekend and I was like, well, maybe I just won't play in that now.

Brit:

Yeah, I guess we'll have to, maybe, maybe we can, uh, we'll see how it pans out and we can revisit this conversation after the fact and have a little more, a little more data to draw from

Brent:

I definitely get the impression that like, if, if there were tournaments going on right now, Pokemon with abilities, like Snorlax, his block ability would be ruining the expanded format

Mike:

It's not X. It's definitely not the problem. It's a lot of other things it's like loosening is a problem. I think they played Bartleby boundary is probably a problem Draft rigs and problems.

Brent:

they played your effort. They, the winning list did not play well. B which, I mean, obviously I've always said, Oh, they did. I'm sorry. I lied. They played one bumblebee. I I've always been on the record saying I think Glen will be as the problem.

Mike:

Yeah. If not, it'll be pretty, pretty annoying. Let's see. So of these cards yet, but unburied, giraffe, frig, um, faba I think could go loose, could go. They played seven of the doll thing. So for doll three, robo sub like one of those definitely.

Brent:

so, so you sound like you're on the side of the people who think they expanded band list needs to be like 20 more cards

Mike:

yeah, definitely. Okay.

Brent:

and, and like, and like the problem is control is completely insane and you just have to target it out of the Metta.

Mike:

Uh,

Brent:

Is that accurate?

Mike:

I don't like hate that control a deck, but it just feels like, I feel like it should be a deck that when people aren't expecting it, it can be good. And if people are expecting it, it's not good. That's kind of my thought on it.

Brent:

Right. The fact that everyone knows this, the smart, like thanks are coming and there's nothing people can do to stop. It is the problem,

Mike:

Yeah. right? Like there's like any special energy deck can never, ever, ever, ever beat that mad party, unwinnable matchup, um, the MuTu immu deck, unwinnable matchup, like, and there's nothing you can do about it because of the, at least the MuTu deck, because they play power plants. They played giraffe rig like those two Justin combination by themselves. Um, mad party. Can't do it like, so the only thing that can compete with these banks are like the, kind of the, the basic energy decks that just spit a bunch of energy on the board, like the peaker arms and a turbine arcs. And even those, And even those could lose to these decks. It's not like they're auto and I mean, this guy, the guy that one beads, a peaker I'm in top eight, he beat a turbo dark earlier in the tournament. Um, but then you look at the rest of his match-ups and they're all like special energy or, or multitask decks. Um, so yeah, I don't know. It's such they're so they're so good that it's frustrating.

Brent:

How about you, Brett?

Brit:

Uh, I mean, I just, I don't foresee myself playing it or touching it. I will say that that like Marsh shadow, like Ninja desk deck looks pretty good. I think it comes in third or fourth. Like, that's a pretty cool combo that we hadn't seen yet. Just shit into that will put both your, your, your health to one. And then you just play laser it's three energy, but with like more shadow in some like taboo cocoa, you can do it pretty easily. And just one shot some stuff that seems pretty good to me. Um, and then Marsh shatter, you're fighting for the peaker on matchup. And I wonder, like, I would worry about your health just being a little too loud, or really, I got an idea of what 150 HP, like I remember when Marsha first came out, um, there was a lot of sort of speculation, um, if this sort of deck would work and it just didn't, I don't think because of it just didn't have enough HP, um, to deal with, um, kind of whatever it had to in that format, mostly lasers, I would think, um, Yeah, I don't have anything to add. I don't know enough about expanded, but I think it clearly needs some work, but hopefully we'll see if maybe something different will happen over the weekend and control will get stopped.

Brent:

Control is one of those decks that it just gets better as the carpool increases. And obviously an expanded, the carpool is, uh, an absolute show. Like how could there not be unintended consequences and Brett, you and I were talking before the pot about how, uh, obviously the Japanese people are playing a totally different format than us, and like they're designing cards for their format and there's just like unintended consequences.

Mike:

Yep. That's true. So I will not be playing in limitless this weekend because of that. Yeah,

Brent:

Okay. So, so besides, besides that being the final boss, uh, any tournament's this week, or, uh, just play your last key and celebrate, I assume you're just going to keep grinding, keep grinding case.

Brit:

Yeah, I got to finish. Right. Cause I might not, if I'm not a little more proactive about it.

Mike:

you got about a week? Um, I think there is another regional style tournament this weekend, actually in the standard format. Um, it's um, it's, you know, the flow flow cast guy, he's doing a$5 entry fee tournament. It doesn't have a whole lot of registrations right now, but, uh, hopefully he gets to at least a reasonable amount. Um, he's doing it actually as a fundraiser for. Someone, I don't know the full story, but someone that he know, uh, that he's very close with, lost a child and said they're doing like a fundraiser for, for that. So, um, it. feels like a good cause as well. Um, and selfishly I'd much rather play standard.

Brent:

Yeah, we're pro uh, supporting good causes. Uh, you're on the clock. Sounds good. Got it. Anything else we should talk about?

Mike:

no, I don't think so. Just good luck to Brit is last, uh, still got half his keys to go, but good luck.

Brit:

Yeah. And I'm not even quite half yet, but if the, if, if it's 90, like we were saying what the projection is. I, I think I can do that. I'll do that for sure. It was when it was looking like I would have to for sure break into the hundreds that I was like, no way, but this was a good start. I off to a really good rate. I'm hoping to keep that up. And I dunno, LMC, LMC and Pico. We've got enough supporters. That's all I need.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Like you're, you're playing decks that are just like super consistent. I think that's, that's in line with objectives, right? Like.

Brit:

you up my losses are like the losses. I like, I mean, even just looking at these 15 or so keys, the almost all like in I'm trying to count. So like almost all of the losses are, um, a stamped scenario that didn't go my way. Um, uh, Stanford one, I should say two of these are not just like a vague stamp, but the precise one. And then just like not playing cards. I have two or three losses that I have that were like, maybe my fault, probably my fault. But when I see cards, I win, I win keys. Like that's just, that's what the data tells me. I'm looking at it right now. Like when I don't just get unplayable starts or my opponent just checkmating me on their opening, it goes well, so.

Brent:

that that's like, I, I definitely, uh, part of what I love about peak rom and playing keys is like the fourth, uh, uh, quick energy. Like you just have like a little more out to draw, probably moves the needle at time, you know? And, and yeah, I know we were talking about like confidence and strategies earlier. I feel like, uh, for like six months it's been a repetitive buzz of, of Mike saying like, so I stamped them and then I paralyzed them and then I won the game. And like, no matter how far off the rails his games are, I, I, you know, I, I'm sure he's carrying this confidence of like, wow. You know, later in the game, I'll just stamp them to one and then paralyzed them it'll work itself out, like,

Mike:

Yeah. And you lose some of those games, but I mean, even if like, like if you win, like, even a third of those games that the situation gets to that point. Like, that's a, that's a pretty good chunk of games that you were a hundred percent going to lose and now you've won because of this stupid combo.

Brent:

All right guys, another part of the books.

Mike:

The books.

Brent:

Anything else we should talk about? I think, uh, I think that's good.

Brit:

All right. I need to feed my dogs and walk them.