The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Mike wins a SSH-on Tournament w/ Ice Rider, PC 4 results, Pokemon Invitational, Inteleon, Ice Rider, Shadow Rider, Spiritomb, RS Urshifu, RS Malamar

July 07, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 48
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Mike wins a SSH-on Tournament w/ Ice Rider, PC 4 results, Pokemon Invitational, Inteleon, Ice Rider, Shadow Rider, Spiritomb, RS Urshifu, RS Malamar
Transcript
Brent:

When I went to the focus that's home page, I don't know if I want to go look there now. There was, I thought, oh, this there's like some deck that has won several games. And I was like, oh, that's likely interesting and relevant.

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

What do you, what do you mean?

Brent:

I, yeah, that was, that was super eloquently sprays.

Mike:

You're like, there's a deck is done in some tournament

Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche. It's Brent Halliburton here as always with my Fouchet and Brooklyn. And this is a hundred percent. We have two new reviews to talk about guys, but before I read the reviews, I thought I should mention as always, if you're looking for Twitter accounts Brett has a private account at Hayes wise and Mike's kind of at Mike Fouchet and I'm at be Halbert. We're easy to find on Twitter and we tweet more about this stuff. Getting followers on Twitter is it's not something that's super important to us, but apparently it's something people do at the beginning of pods. Also I thought you guys should know we are our sub, we somehow made the charts and we're in the top 200 for apple podcasts games in Japan.

Mike:

That's surprising.

Brent:

Yeah. Japan is like a real country. I would like to think that that is because the you know, the Pokemon corporation is finally gotten on the tip and is, you know, filled with Trashalanche listeners over at corporate age.

Mike:

They're really looking for our professional opinions.

Brent:

Yeah, I, I assume that like Kenny and Foca and Jesse Hill are, are driving the Trashalanche into the organization as thought leadership for, for Pokemon development. There you go.

Mike:

That's cool.

Brent:

All right guys, two, two reviews. Count the money writes fantastic podcast. I started to listen to podcasts four or five weeks ago, and now it's something I look forward to every week. Great analysis on current events and PTCGO meta analysis. Match-ups I feel like every minute of the podcast has relevant content. Brett and Brett Brett are awesome. Mike has an incredible knack for simplifying the approach to ups and texts. I tried the podcast maybe six months ago, and I couldn't get into it. Maybe you knowledge and understand the game has improved to where now I fully appreciate it. And maybe these guys have also improved. You have a fantastic work, Dan. Oh Sunday. Got the money. Yeah. Thanks for that. Yeah.

Mike:

Yeah. tha that's a good review. Thanks. You know, as, as a teacher, I like to think that I'm good at simplifying stuff, but it's always good to get feedback that it's actually working. Cause it's, you know, it's hard to know sometimes.

Brent:

Yeah. Well, it's exciting to think that I, I would like to think that we have improved in the last six months,

Mike:

Yeah, that's true.

Brent:

although I feel like when I listened to the pods that we did back then, like they weren't that different. I feel like, yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe I should go back and relisten slightly interesting question. Maybe not the best a minute of your podcast listening, but Dan, we super duper appreciate the interview. Apple tells everyone that that really makes a difference. So gamer Roxas also left a review for us. Fantastic Pokemon TCG podcasts. There've been very few and none currently ongoing that are as good as this one for competitive Pokemon TCG.

Mike:

Straight to the point, really

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

really fluffing us up.

Brent:

Absolutely. We appreciate it. Gamer access. Those are the kind of good reviews that we like to see. I should also mention last week we talked about the book many, many of listeners tweeted any guys, like I think more than 20 people sent me a DMS.

Mike:

Oh, nice.

Brent:

So in that respect, it was very, very exciting for me to interact with so many listeners of the pod. Everybody was like super cool and super excited and super delightful. And I sent them all copies of the book. So and you know, it was exciting because I'm using like the Amazon fulfillment for author proofs, where I think they kind of printed on demand. So I wasn't sure, like, I feel like the first time I printed a proof for myself. It took like two weeks to get here. And I was really concerned that it was going to take like a really, really long time. But no doubt. As many listeners know they've already gotten their books. Books were like flying into people's mailboxes over the last, like two or three days. I've never gotten so many Amazon alerts over the course of a day on my iPhone. It was, it was totally bonkers, but, but really, really exciting for me. If you're listening and you got a book, read it think about it. I guess I, you know, I had been told holding off on saying when we're going to launch it, because I wasn't sure how long it was going to take to get the books in new guy's hands. But if we got the books in your hands, I figure I'll give you like two weeks to read it. And then we say, okay, we're going to go live and have you guys put your reviews in. So, you know, let's start the timer. You have like two weeks a podcast after this one, we'll be like, okay, we're doing that then. And there'll be go-time people, but I really, really appreciate so many people said like really, really nice things about the pod and about how excited they are to have a, you know, a book a book that is like pod in book form or something that they could drive around with them. So, very cool.

Mike:

That's sweet. I'm looking forward to hearing what people say.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be going to be super rough. Let's talk about the players cup guys.

Mike:

Yeah. So unfortunately we didn't get to watch any of it. I assume that it's coming in two weeks or something like that.

Brit:

mean, yeah, without that, just stop again. I was just sort of astounding that without Pokestats, without community efforts, just like what a, what a mystery it would still be like. But in terms of like official avenues of communication, I was just looking at like the play Pokemon page and.

Brent:

Okay.

Brit:

That's a mystery again, but yeah, tune in, in two weeks after focused at says already sort of done all this like work.

Mike:

It's so funny. Like with the last one, I didn't couldn't say anything cause I had to sign an NDA, but this time, since I didn't make it to top 16, I didn't have to sign an NDA, but I can still see all the results in anybody that was in the tournament can see all the results, at least for your region. So like I feel safe sharing it and yeah, focused that says it all out there anyways. It's

Brent:

Oh yeah. Obviously the list that we're working off of, I based it straight out of focus dance.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, and this, this time feels like the last few times, you know, the, the format has shifted right, right around the players cup time. But this one's even more egregious, like we're in we're weeks into the chilling rain format and they're still playing battle styles and we're not even going to watch. For two more weeks. So it's like even, even way worse than normal. So from, from north America to, to, to get into the actual players. So from north America we had Aaron Friedman, Dan Hogar, Alex Szymanski and Isaac Trojan. I think that's how you say his last name. And they were playing rapid strike peak around mad party and the psychic MuTu, G two, all respectively. So kind of like we talked about a few weeks ago, north America was all over the place with what made top 16. So it's not really surprising to me that four different decks made it

Brent:

What happened with Danny? I did not.

Mike:

He lost to this Isaac guy. I believe. I think he lost to psychic mute to two times actually,

Brit:

didn't. He lose to Tempozard first. That's all. I can't remember if he won, if he, if he went around her too or not, but yeah, I know he lost to the psychic B2, cause I know he played against Tempozard in the first round, but maybe he wasn't that one still.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. He had lost at least to the second me one time, might've been two times. I'm not a hundred percent sure. And then Ross like won a round and then I think he lost his Szymanski with mad party who ended up making it And then Ross lost to someone else. I don't remember who else. Perhaps those were kind of like the two biggest names, but I mean Szymanski and Aaron Friedman both very good players. I'm sure. Dan who and Isaac kroner also great players. I just don't know them as well.

Brent:

And apparently not on Twitter. I super appreciate how focused that's, what's the trouble of finding people's a Twitter, a text

Mike:

yeah. Looking at some of the other regions Peegrum looks like it did the best question, mark. Just looking over the 16 people that made it. I think peek around was the most.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's like Pika rom

Mike:

yeah. Four peaker arms made it through three

Brent:

really booms and two med parties.

Mike:

two mad parties. That's pretty surprising. Right.

Brent:

Oh, three, three rapid strikes, but one of them was the CIN Chino bill Petros.

Mike:

And that was Pedro. Yep. And then good old control made it. Hampus

Brent:

Yeah, very, very impressive. So he put out a tweet there that I thought was worth reading on the pod, really fixed it by beating blast by party. And LucMetal I qualified for the final score only last today was to a Pedro on Urshifu with Phoebe shout out to, for data for testing we'll bounce match up a lot. This week really helped. Yeah. Control let's go.

Mike:

that's cool. It'll be interesting to see if, you know, maybe he works with Sander in prep, preparing for the global finals. They create some new control deck, but I know Sandra has been playing not control recently. He's been playing that like Mallomar we vile deck, which has like a control element, but it's not control.

Brit:

He's ex is expressing some sort of difficulties of where control is currently though. The regular Shadow Rider is just first attack. I think ends up being really impactful against it or against particular versions of it. A lot of them, you know, if you only run for capture energy or something is I guess, never get to use them. And you can't use stadium cards or anything either. So I think interestingly enough, I don't know if I would have necessarily made that connection of how good. This the, you know, usually we just don't really think of the V cards because you know, all the action, all the action revolves around the V max is. But you know, I think maybe, maybe just another, another, another notch and shatter rider's belt and just terms of sheer power is that the basic is just so good and it drives it. You know, it drives a mad party out of the format about how about just as well too. It's a little crazy to think about, especially looking to, we're talking about players, cup, tier results, Alex, Szymanski making it in with Matt party, a very viable deck from the last format currently that just like may just be gone, I guess. I'm not really sure how they're, how they could possibly adjust. I haven't thought about it too much, but I'm struggling to come up with anything.

Mike:

Welder mad parties.

Brit:

Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Cause you play hard. You play hearts to discard your mad partiers, right? There we go.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Some other names here I know for Latin America at on hell are in a bar. I'm not sure if that's how you'd say it, but I've seen his name a lot the on, in the online tournament. So not too surprising to see him do really well. He was playing peek around from Latin America and then Zhao again, I'm not a hundred percent sure if I'm saying it right, but Zhao also playing peek around. I feel like I've seen his name a lot over the years.

Brent:

Absolutely.

Mike:

And then the only other one from, from Oceania, Christian, HASA, Bonnie also making it with peek around, see all the people that I recognize. They all played poker. I think that's got to say something.

Brent:

There's no question though. I think the overarching theme is all the people in Japan who are listening to this. So work at Pokemon corporation. You know, you, you should call us to help you figure out how to livestream, but if you can't figure out how to live stream, because the people definitely want live streams. I mean like two weeks from now, you're going to show us games played in an irrelevant format. It's just going to be hard to get stoked about it. Like more irrelevant and less in touch with it every day. That's how I feel.

Mike:

Yeah. So I, Yeah. I guess like our viewing experience will be these matches in two weeks And, then probably in four weeks, we'll get to see Clavell finals. That's still so far away.

Brent:

and and it's, and it's weird because like, I w I think we definitely felt this in the micro, like, so last time around, like, one of the things that was interesting was you guys were playing like the first tournament with chilling rain, but then we didn't get to see the decks that you guys won the tournament with until like weeks later.

Mike:

Yeah. Or that we played with Battlestar styles, you mean? Yeah,

Brent:

Right, right, right. I am sorry. Battle styles, but like, like they were, they were dropping a new set and like, we're going to make a thing happen. And it was theoretically interesting in that way. I mean, now they're going to be like, I guess my working assumption is they're likely to just kind of pick a meta deck. That's doing well, that we're talking about on the pod right now. And like,

Mike:

Right. It's not going to be, it's never going to be the same as like the, like the first players cup when the Oceania guy. Brought LMZ right. And it was like a completely new format and they totally surprised everyone. Like, we're just not going to have that

Brent:

Right. Or, or even just like, like the other, the last worlds where like way, you know, you saw people create dominant archetypes and then like, those were those decks where like the next big play the next day, the next week, the next month, like I mean, you know, I super-duper hope that like hydro or Alex or Christian invent some crazy new, like meta thing, some, some way to play, maybe Mallomar, that's actually a viable, something like that. That'd be amazing, but it just feels unlikely.

Mike:

Yeah. Agreed.

Brent:

You know, I, I guess part of the weirdness of like our new modern you know, constant wave of online tournaments is like, I guess my working assumption is every idea is getting kind of worked out and the odds that people like somehow completely break the meta secretly, and nobody sees a whiff of it before, like a tournament in two weeks. And it's like, well, like, why wouldn't you play it?

Mike:

Yeah. I, one of my favorite things to do is I don't look through every single tournament, but I'll look through a decent amount and look for, look at all the decks that are only played as like a one-off or to see if I see if there's any cool stuff. And especially like the other category on limitless. Like I'll always look through those because, you know, 95 out of a hundred times, they're all a bunch of dut decks, but sometimes you see something really interesting and you're like, oh, I could work with this. Like, even if it's not a great list, it? could kind of give you some inspiration.

Brent:

So, so do you have a criteria, like when you say you, you flip through a lot of the tournament's like I, usually my policy is I look at the standings, it's like over a hundred people, something like that.

Mike:

Yeah. I'll even go lower than that. I usually PR probably like 40, if it's over 40 I'll and I and I'm flipping through, I'll look at it. I won't like go out of my way. But if, you know, if I'm just on the site already bored. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. I feel like recently there haven't been as many, like gigantic tournament's as I feel like there were a couple of months ago. I don't completely understand why, but, but there you go.

Mike:

I guess like the world's opening up maybe a little bit, at least in the U S so maybe people are just not playing as much.

Brent:

You don't have a life and suddenly a smaller,

Mike:

Yeah. I know. That's at least part of the case for me, like I'm off for summer break. And so I've been playing some of the tournament's there. Presumably or like Europe time, but I play them during the day. But I'm much less likely to play them in the evenings or on the weekends now, because I can see people.

Brent:

all right. Let's should we talk about some decks guys?

Mike:

Yeah, let's do it.

Brent:

Right? What have you been buying man?

Mike:

Actually. Wait, before we go into decks and while we're still talking about like player's cup stuff, I did see, I don't know if you guys saw this. There, there was some announcement yesterday. I think about some players cup invitational

Brent:

yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

where, so we don't really know anything about it, but I just thought it'd be worth mentioning, looks to be pretty cool. I assume players may presumably like toward bras, maybe, maybe they'll go for older people like Yamato or Jason. I don't know. But that's something to keep an eye out for.

Brent:

So you can tell me if I have to edit this out of the pod, but like, did you secretly just slip? The Ross was actually invited, like, do we actually know across was

Mike:

I have no idea for us got

Brent:

All right. All right. Like I was like, Hmm. That's an oddly specific choice you made,

Mike:

I mean, Ross was, Ross was like, you know, top five, top 10 player ever. So I wouldn't be surprised if he was just just, he's also one of the few players that has done well for a long period of time and is still playing. So probably more likely to get invited than someone who like your motto, for example, who hasn't played in 10 years.

Brent:

right. What's the over-under on whether or not they'll get a Japanese player.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brit:

I mean, if someone is so often, I'm just thinking, not just hope, hoping they go fairly international with that. You know, we've, we've talked about good Japanese players, I think relatively recently on the podcast, but so often at least, I mean, for obvious reasons to all these recent ones are so stocked full of recent players. And for good reason, but since we're, we're celebrating the card game sort of holistically, I hope they, I hope they dig, dig back for most of the people they invite again, not to knock any of the people that were recently featured and don't get invited, invited back. But I think that would be really interesting to see, like, you know, maybe people like fall off pray. I'm don't quite make the list, but it would be a real shame, not this the Jason and I mean, again, to speak internationally, hopefully like Yamato would be a great pick, but so UDA or Shintaro. ITTO lots of good ones there, but I mean, even like in the UK too, like samey second, like that's a, that's a name that I think would deserve to be included too. He's just was basically until the, the minute he stopped playing he was one of the most, you know, one of the most consistent players of all time in terms of doing well in his home country and worlds each and every year. So hopefully they reach pretty far, but I guess we'll see.

Brent:

So, so let, let's split quick Espeon towards definitely in, right.

Brit:

Yes.

Brent:

I mean, if they're like he's an active player and if they're going to do something like you got a mentor, right. G they're gonna invite Jason.

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, I guess depends on how much they value current, plain or not. I like, I didn't really read all the details and it probably, there probably wasn't anything on there, but like Jason hasn't played standard as far as I'm aware in four years or something like that. So.

Brent:

Right. I mean, it definitely, they, it sounded like they were bringing like the old time grades, quote unquote or something like

Mike:

Okay. Well, if they're doing the all-time time grades, then yeah. Jason's a hundred percent.

Brent:

Right, right. Like my gut is like Crimson,

Mike:

Yeah. There's again, there's kind of like a D if they're waiting based on like, still Like, somewhat current, then yeah. Prime would be a hundred percent. And if they're not waiting that very heavily, then he's kind of like more on the fence. And also

Brent:

if it's easier to win a regional now than it was back in the day. I would imagine.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

harder.

Mike:

harder. now for sure. Did they, do you guys, do you guys know if they said eight people or 16 people.

Brent:

Oh, you're you're you know what you're right. It says the 25th anniversary of intentional features, eight top Pokemon TCG players from around the world and exciting head to head matches. You'll you'll want to miss some of the biggest names in Pokemon. So maybe that means, oh, no, but it says a spotlight in some of the best competitive Pokemon players ever.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brent:

I mean, if you just said like modern players, those would be some of the best competitive players ever. Right? Like you can pick people who are active now.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, they might ask all their people. It's just a matter if the guests, if th if those older people, if they can a reach those older people and be, if those older people want to learn the game again to play in

Brent:

I I'm sure if Pokemon said, Hey, we want you to do this thing. Like you do the thing, right. I mean, you might be like mailing it in, but you do the thing I assume. I don't know. So, so if we think there's a chance that it's not historical players, it's more modern players. We should probably start the micro shakes campaign.

Mike:

yeah. And I'm definitely not getting paid. Toward pram, Ross would be like the first three people that come to mind that are like still playing

Brent:

is all

Mike:

as dwell. Yeah. Yeah.

Brent:

And then I'd be like, like Pedro and or like Robin Schulz, maybe since he won worlds, like, and Shintaro Edo, and then like, I dunno, another European player. Oh. And then you got to invite Barbara.

Mike:

I was going to say if we're trying to get like a Latin American in there, Diego probably.

Brent:

you invite you invite Diego and you invite the who's the world champion from Australia. Hi

Mike:

Oh, Henry brand.

Brent:

Henry brand. Thank you. All I could think of was how a tag has been read and I'm like, I know, I know it starts with B and I know that that's not right. The whole point is that that's not right.

Mike:

Yeah. Henry and Diego would be really good. Probably Robin, if I did choose like a second European neck after, toward, it would be Robin, for sure. Since he had, since he won world.

Brent:

Yeah. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you can't invite another European. If you say you're getting the, all the grades together and not invite Robin, right.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Many, many worthy people, but Hey, Robin's got the gigantic picture.

Mike:

All right, let's talk. decks.

Brent:

All right, let's talk. Let's talk next. So one of the highlights of our discord this week was you said you played a bunch of games with ice, right?

Mike:

I did. Yeah. Like I said, it was, I've kind of been slowly building up collection. I didn't want to buy a ton of packs, but I bought, I think I had to buy like 50 ish packs to buy the ice rider stuff. So I spend like 20 bucks or something like that on 50 packs got ice riders. And yeah, I played a good amount of Chino version and Inteleon version. I think my big takeaway is that I like that Chine Chino version better. But as we can talk about it a little bit, it seems the Inteleon version is gotten much more popular in the past week. The Chino version just feels slightly more consistent, more stable at doing what it wants. Early on Inteleon is a little slow Inteleon does give you a little, they both give you more options in different ways, I guess, like Inteleon gives you more attacking options, which is nice and it lets you find specific cards. Do you play Path to the Peak Marnie a little bit better than Chino does, but Chino is you can just like a massive big hand and there's lots of games where you can kind of just keep your hand a good chunk of the game. And conversely, if you get marinade, if you have two or three to Chino out, that's better than. Just having like one drill drill is old guy. So I liked pinch, you know, a little bit more. I did play ice rider. Inteleon in a certain shot on tournament yesterday and I, and I won it was just Swiss, but I went five and O and it felt really good and sword and shield on. I will say that felt really good.

Brent:

Okay.

Mike:

It might be the best deck and sword and shield on Donna. I'm not sure. But back to standard, the only two things. So, we can talk a little bit more about the bucket water count, but I'm, I'm pretty sold on seven waters with three buckets. And the one card that I really like that I don't see anybody playing is pheon. so I think Fiona is helps you get around. Needing to play boss and Melanie in the same turn quite often. And obviously it's not always great, but there's been a lot of situations that I've really liked Fiona. So yeah, that's kind of my summary. So w what do you think, Brent?

Brent:

So, so talk to me about the seven waters, three buckets, like I don't know. You know, what's funny is I can't figure out how to figure out what is correct. Like, like if there's some math problem there, I don't know how to express the math problem, but like 80, it seems good to me.

Mike:

well, okay. So a couple of things. So one in the Intel, I feel like it's a little bit closer in the Chinchilla version. I think you can go either way, but in the Inteleon version, I think it's a hundred percent, three buckets, seven waters, just cause it gives you, you know, those extra outs

Brent:

right, right.

Mike:

throughout the game

Brent:

can see that.

Mike:

your guys. And I think maybe it is a little bit of what you were saying last week, too, that. you feel like you have to be a little bit, if you're playing seven waters, you feel like you have less leeway and maybe, you know tighter players with tighter play, you can get away with the seven waters. It's just really, it's really good. Like now you're thinning out your deck. It's good. Finding like two water in the early game is, is really big because you want to get Right. The one in the discard relatively quickly in a lot of games, but you also want to attach. So there's, there's been lots of games where I'll have maybe I don't know, bucket in my hand, but I have a water and I have a quick ball and I want a quick ball of water because the only car draw card in my hand is a Melanie, but I also want to attach it, turn one.

Brent:

Right. So you're kinda, you're gonna have one, we're going to draw three cards in Yolo for a water, right?

Mike:

Right. Right, right, right? Exactly. And so it's kind of, you get kind of in these awkward situations sometimes where if that water was a bucket, then I would be really happy.

Brent:

Yeah, but like, so I guess what's interesting is, I mean, as we discussed last week, I mean, I feel like the only situation anyone ever articulated and the Inteleon is an exception to this. And it's a, it's an interesting one. Like the only situation you can articulate is like, turn one, you have one water because once you we've attacked once with ice rider, you're like, well, I'd never needed this Garbodor again.

Mike:

Right, right, Yeah. And I have had, I've had one game, I think, I think only one game where I ran out of energy and I was, I was sad, but it was only one game out of like maybe 40 that I played there.

Brent:

I could see how, like, I guess I haven't thought that hard about the benefits of just like straight trying to thin out your deck than out your deck, send out your deck, send out your deck and like, you know, get all the waters into your hands instead. Cause maybe because I feel like I just get Marnie repeatedly, every game I clean, no matter what I do. How about your Brit? Any any further experimentation with the Inteleon.

Brit:

I played a little bit of everything this week. Last week I was saying that I was a little behind that time, so I played a lot of Shadow Rider too. I would still say I played more ice rider than anything else. I think I started with Shadow Rider playing, playing around with a couple options. There's a couple of ways to play it. How creamy? Yes or no. Auroras yes or no. You know, just a handful of boxes. You gotta check when you're Building the lesson for the most part, I really just seem to like, seem to have gravitated mostly towards just kind of the most vanilla lists possible and just play, play a lot of energy. I'm not playing Path to the Peak at all. I just play like I have swells and like double stamp, three air balloon. Like I just, I have everything else because I'm not trying to play like for peak or something. I play one, one Alcremie which I find really good. I don't know. I'm pretty skeptical about the two too. I don't think it's good enough to, to, to devote more space to I'm like I could see two, one, I think, cause I've messed with super rod before I've experimented with super rod and also energy retrieval which I see here and there and lists. I, I like super odd. I, I don't think energy retrieval is good. But super odd is probably like the 61st card. I don't, I think I still have it, but I don't think it needs to stay in the list. But yeah, really, really strong. I just try to have good first turn. So I want to, if I go second I want to have gang car. If I go first, I want to have as many of the V's down as possible. But yeah, I just, I also am just pretty. I can see why you would play it. Like, I don't think I'll ever really beat a Turnitin or these dark decks, but I just don't really, I don't feel like bothering with zap dose and Aurora for the moment. If I were playing a tournament I would probably more seriously consider the auroras if only as a decidual I counter, I guess I would need to look at the data a little bit closer to see if that's an irrelevant concern or not. But yeah, I'm happy with what I settled on the one, one old creamy it's useful, but I don't think to, to really solve anything with the one, one probably doesn't like, unless it's price. Of course. Yeah. And then for ice rider, I definitely really agree with Mikey. I'm really happy to see him or hear him voice those thoughts, because I felt a little in the minority, like not being how's it going ho on ice rider Inteleon as Mikey said, as the data indicates really sort of picking up and picked up a lot of popularity in the last week. And I don't have too much more to add. I'll have to try sort of exactly how Brent said I don't, I can't express why, but I can't parse like this bucket. Search question. So I'll have to give my keys a try and see if it's just like noticeably better or anything like that. But for the most part, my list is just the standard one that it might be a or two off, but I'll try the phone too, but that Isaiah Bradner and ley have been playing And so I think really the difference, I don't have too much more to say on it, but I think a difference to pull apart between the CIN Chino version and the Inteleon version is kind of the large hand factor. So with Inteleon when you're running well already, it's better for sure. But when you're not, you just kind of get these awkward games where you're your dreads aisles, maybe even in the Inteleon ones too, or just, they they're having to get you a supporter of return. And when they're having to get you a supporter often And you're sort of in these awkward positions where you have to say like, can I, do I need more cards than the three that Melanie gives me or do I have to get another supporter? And a lot of the times, and then, you know, maybe these are the, just the bad games you don't, you need a little more than just three cards. They're like, it would have to be the perfect three cards if you really, to be able to justify taking the Melanie. And so I think there just ended up being some, like inconsistencies in the tempo deck. Whereas with gen Chino, like, yeah, you might with the Melanie, you might wish this or that here or there, the trainer card that you would have access to with the evolutions, but you're just, you have other cards. So like you're not, you're not searching for as many pieces of the puzzle. Whereas with Inteleon restorative, just like I'm hoping to have drawn some of those pieces already. And then you finish the puzzle really, really conveniently with your evolution. And those games. And like I said, I think when it, when it works well Inteleon is by far is probably is better. It's faster. But I think there's a little more just reliability to Chino, if that makes sense. And similarly, the Marnie point is a big one as well. And I think more or less also captured by like the big hand. So like, yeah. When your marinade early with Inteleon like, especially because of the Inteleon version don't R so Path to the Peak heavy, they don't have any draw. They don't have the drop shows. Whereas the chin Chino at least has like a two card option. So when you're marinade early in those four cards better be good. That was something I really noticed. I tested a lot of games again, over the weekend. And like there, I had some early Marnie issues with ice riding or going second, a lot of the time. And, and again, sometimes the exact same thing can be said of the CIN Chino version. But I think that basically captures why I think it might be a little bit better at least in standard currently, but there might be a meet a middle ground between the two. Maybe you can play it both. That's probably not possible, but I'm an old try it. I'm sure.

Mike:

What do you have? You have you guys, either of you played the mirror very much.

Brit:

No, that's something we should probably talk about too. I know that in mentioning it last week, or maybe the episode before just having these games with more or less decided by the coin flip. And that's something that feels really bad as playing the, the, the ice rider mirror going second. Similar to the Victini mirror going second, you just evolve second and probably you just get blown up all the time. Like you can draw out of it, but those go, like, especially too, I would imagine as the ice ice rider player going first, the instant, I like take the tempo like that. I don't ever have to knock out a V max. I'm just going to double guest. If I can, which probably pretty realistic, I just have to catch one more ice rider and then surely there's a draw Pokemon or something like that.

Mike:

So that, that's like one of the interesting things, neither we don't really play,

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

so I don't have a ton of experience, but I played in a tournament today. In standard with, with ice rider, chin Chino, and I lost the mirror twice and they went first both of those times. And I think if you go first and you attach and you have boss to kill their guy on turn two, I think you'll win those. That didn't happen either game. but I also don't think it's all that likely to happen either after playing those games and thinking about it.

Brent:

Yeah, these techs don't have the super draw power. You're not like Crobat, day-to-day like when you're like lose ADP. Yeah. You'll find the bus you're on the bus. You'll get it

Mike:

Yeah, exactly. And so like, even if you're playing the Inteleon version, you could search a boss out often, like you'll need that desire to either find a bucket for an energy or the incense to get the V max or something like that. So it actually doesn't seem all that likely to me that you're getting you know, it, turned to boss Kao in the mirror. So if let's assume that you don't really get that that often. So here's my experience going first you know, I played my Calyrex turn one, I'd touched an energy, evolved to the BMX, turn two, and I knocked out a Sabal. So now I'm up five to six, but, but they get the first hit then on my BMX. So, so they hit my VMX. I hit via their V max. And then I kind of lose from there because they set up a second VMX and I'm behind like that first prize that I took doesn't really matter, but they hit my V max would there be a max for it? So the only way that I could see getting around that is, well, two ways. One is, is to just not Kao the Sabo, turn one just try and set up more leave something else active, like a Snorlax or something like that. And try to set up the boss for the following term to hit their BMX max. So that's one way that I will try approaching it going forward. The second way though, Because you do still take the Keio on, you know, they're Sabol or Minccinno or something like that. And then they hit you with the VMX, but if they on the turn that they hit you at the BMX, if they benched their second Calyrex V which they probably should, then you can boss up that one, kill it. And then you're at three prizes and then you can just to hit their other V max, does that make sense? But that requires you to have the boss that's very specific turn as well.

Brent:

Yeah. Like, I mean, obviously I think ideally they'd been. These Right, out of the gate. And then they're like, okay, those are the two pieces of it arrived at the end of the game, right?

Mike:

Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you don't even get that option, but

Brent:

yeah. Oh, that's it. They have to choose. They're probably setting a more Savills. So in that respect, like you probably do have that extra turn.

Mike:

So I think that's. But I think probably the better strategy is to, it. does not take that one prize knockout since like it, you know, if we were playing against, you know, mirrors that did play Dedenne Crobat down, then you could pretty reasonably go, you know, 1, 2, 3, but you can't really do that, that reliably here. So I think just like chilling and waiting is, is actually the move. So first is nice. You have the high roll potential for sure, but I don't think it's the end all be all in that mirror, which is interesting. I wouldn't have thought that a few days ago or a week ago.

Brent:

How, you know, I guess, I guess part of the challenge there is, I assume if they're going second, it's more likely if you essentially like pat. they got to play a support of the prior term that they're able to find a boss the next turn and just do it to you anyway. Right?

Mike:

Right. At least. Yeah. In theory they could. Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah. I know difficult. I will say. I think that, well, I don't know if I'm necessarily disputing any of the logic in my testing games. I feel like I very, very, very consistent. Have the boss play going second with either version and I'll have to look at the list with Inteleon obviously it's really pretty easy. You just need like a bucket and an incense and the right end, you know, assuming you started it with a wider, assuming you started with the quick ball, it's really pretty easy. with chinchy notes a bit more, but I think I actually played for your boss in my chin Chino version currently. Basically for these, for that reason to try to have it on the second turn always, or at least a little more consistently. So I, I do feel like I get that a little more often. I know too, like. I don't really think this would be, I mean, it's worth exploring. Everything is that I don't can't imagine it would be good. Danny has mentioned that Articuno, that sort of has like a similar to like the Brava and things like that. It just only happens to work when it's active. So this Articuno, as long as it's active, prevent Hall's effects of the supporters on your water Pokemon. So like you protect your you know, your ice rider with the attachment or what have you going first, but this seems bad for two reasons. For one. Like if you get two ice riders, it doesn't really matter because of Melanie, you don't necessarily, you're not necessarily blown out of the water for losing your attachments since you can cheat out one. And then two is just like, well, you just have to get an active force and then you have to get it not active again. Which is a lot of work for this, this turn, this turn to that's. Maybe not all that realistic. I'm not sure. Do you have any, any more thoughts on this, this Articuno option to offset the mirror?

Mike:

Didn't seem too bad to me.

Brent:

And so, so Mike one maybe one question that's related is I saw it in the sword and shield tournament. You won, you played one. Cheryl,

Mike:

Yeah, they did

Brent:

I assume that you realized that Cheryl is bad, but was it

Mike:

it one me and won me a game who won me one game. I was playing against the I, I'm not a hundred percent sure it might not have strictly one meta game, but, okay. So I'll give you like the more basic scenario in the last round I played against Shadow Rider Alcremie and the game got to a point where he was super, like he used. All his energy on his board to one shot my Alcremie. And then I went Path to the Peak Marnie and it kinda like stuck him for multiple turns. And so he was stuck just kind of like attaching one energy, a turn. He did end up doing 200 to my second V max. But, and, and in the process, like discarding all of the energy that he had built up again. So he was like, then left with no energy again on his board, 200 damage. It might be max, but he's had three bosses left or something like that. And so, in theory, he had enough time to maybe attach three times to a Shadow Rider and then boss up my guy to, to win the game. But. By using Cheryl, And it took me like a couple of turns to set it up. But I had the time because he was, he was stuck and didn't have energy. So I, like, I had to manually retreat my VMX to like an Inteleon. I had to palpate back the Sheryl and then find the Sheryl the next turn to heal it off. But it like, it's a hundred percent sealed the game. I might've been able to win anyway, but it would have given him an out, so I'm not a hundred percent sure. Either

Brent:

But then you still had to essentially like pass that, turn, but then go like get the second energy attachment the turn after. Right,

Mike:

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was it was a long, it was a long process. It was a very weird game. It was a cool game and it was nice that that was like the last game to decide. So, yeah, I don't, I don't know. It seems, it seemed reasonable. It needs more testing. It's definitely not good in standard. There's definitely, definitely not enough time in standard to ever get use out of it. But in certain shield on games are, can be a little bit slower. So I'm down to keep trying it at least.

Brent:

right, right. And it's interesting. I mean, I do think mean, I think we kind of talked last week about how apparently you have to be a pretty good player to be able to play Shadow Rider. Well, like if you'd already done a lot of attacks. And you Marnie him, like all of a sudden he's got no, like no way to draw cards. And like, you know, once you use this, Alcremie like limited ability to attack. And he's just like sitting around chilling until he finds energy and stuff. And that if the path at the big sticks, he's just like, like there's no acceleration, there's no card draw. Like there's nothing.

Mike:

Yeah. I will say also the whole Inteleon engine is so much better in sword and shield on because the games are slower and you can attack with it. Inteleon much more reliably. Cause you'll have random turns where you actually can attach to an Italian, like that never happens in standard and you never have time to attach to it. So yeah, I'm really excited about the deck and inserting Sheldon.

Brent:

Right. So speaker Shadow Rider. I, I just want to hear a little about where you ended up in terms of a list, Brit it sounds like you've got the one gang Gar obviously you have the bees. Are, did you test yourself at all?

Brit:

it did like initially Mo like probably like most, most people

Brent:

Right. Everybody was like, that's the thing to do against the situation.

Brit:

yeah. Or an era, or at the very least just to mirror, you know, the volcanic fire decks we've had for. Two years now, two whole seasons or so you know, just looking at the initial list, maybe I think getting some base ideas from Japanese list and it just usually was in there. I guess, I guess it doesn't, it doesn't do enough to discourage you. I just don't think you could, it could it's anywhere close to being reliable as a counter. Your damage is awkward, right? Yeah. You know, you don't have the weakness, like the volcano one does. But now after testing it in the initial weeks, I like it. It just doesn't function like the fire decks. I just so, so rarely, and I guess too, you want to go first with a fire decks, of course are not evolving or at least when they do, they were, it was like Centiskorch and you, you didn't, you couldn't evolve fast. It was obviously a much slower deck. But yeah, I just don't have those terms anymore, you know, and basically you want to go first every game, I think. So Chris Elliott, just as isn't any good as a result

Brent:

are you playing the Trevnoir?

Brit:

I play one still. I think that it's I was actually, someone was asking me about my list earlier today. And yeah, and just sort of, as I've voiced over the recent weeks, I've been pretty cynical about the, the initial build of the deck that was really pretty heavy, heavily focused on Trevnoir. But I do think one is definitely too good. To not, not play it's like some games you still get turned to and it might just be your best option. Like you have, you somehow you just stumbled the energies in the right way and you don't necessarily have to put them on Shadow Rider is to draw cards. You just have the, the fog crystal ready to go. Like I've had plenty of those games where I still get it turn to like Anna sometimes. So like sometimes you just run really well. And do it anyways. And that's like, like what I said, most of my lists is staged around consistency. So even though my focus is less on Path to the Peak and Trevnoir there's just still reset of stamps and Marnie's, that will always make Trevnoir a powerful option to have

Brent:

Mike, if you were tournament tonight, tomorrow, whatever.

Mike:

I probably played some type of. Right. Or maybe since I played the ice hydrogen Chino play, I tried to Inteleon I did play a little bit of LMZ this past week. Cause I remember that's what I said last week. And it does just doesn't beat Shadow Rider, like that at least shatter out of their runs Path to the Peak. It's Like pretty bad actually. I think I was, I was surprised. I mean, like, it can be like, I don't want to knock it that much, but it doesn't seem like a very good matchup, like 40, 60 ish maybe. So yeah, that sucks. And I think LMZ can also lose to ice rider too. like I'd be in LMZ I'm not favorable against it, but I've beaten it like enough times that I don't think it's the worst matchup ever. Especially if you, if, if I try to run to a tool jammer, if they don't fill them out a wall, you can one-shot a Zamazenta or a Or a flashy, well, you can always punch out Zacian through metal goggles, but not full metal wall. Zamazenta you need Zigzagoon ping as well. so, but yeah. So I, I really like ice rider. I know we talked about it a lot last week and a lot this week, but I do think it's, it's pretty sweet. There hasn't been any other deck, this format that has jumped out at me probably should play peek around a little bit more, but

Brent:

Yeah. I, I just was going to ask if, if you felt like this was the pod where what you took away from, it was you have to like go get the packs to play Shadow Rider. Now.

Mike:

Well, so I'm waiting, I'm waiting for my player's cup for deck box and sleeve, so I can trade those for like 150 packs. And then, and then I'll get shattered writers. I am looking forward to try and Shadow Rider. It seems pretty good. I think the first Shadow Rider variant, that I'll try as like a one-on-one Alcremie just like really straightforward. I'm looking at a list from the tour Legon. Who's playing in chill right now and it's just like 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 of everything. And then like one, one Alcremie as this seems good.

Brent:

So, so here, here's my question about Alcremie Brit cause like, so this might have been my experience playing the deck like on the one hand, I agree with you completely. Like it's never worth having the Tutu, but I always feel like, you know, once I have like two Calyrex is down and like the gang guard down, if I have the one, one line I'm going to start building the Alcremie, BEMAX like, there's just like, I just, I can't think of any scenarios where I haven't thought, you know what, we're going to get this outcome to be max out just to like, let him know, Hey, I have this opportunity now.

Brit:

That I would say that's kind of basically my strategy with it too. It doesn't always work out that way. I believe I played to Dennis still and occasionally get to play both of them. So bench space can occasionally be an issue. Like, especially if you open with Trevnoir or have to gain guards or sometime, but I would say that again, game dependent, you never know how things are going to go. You always want to make the right play. But I would say generally speaking that, like, I Alcremie, I like it finishes the game for me and maybe this is where you go with it too. So usually like my first three prizes or so are like you trade, you trade into an ice rider or something like that. Like maybe gang our hits at once. And then and then Shadow Rider comes in and finishes. And then you just have a little damage on your board. And then by the end then hopefully by the end, the, you just eventually have like eight energies on the board by the time you have Alcremie and then it's just the easiest way to take your next three prizes instead of, cause it's awkward to, to have to two-shot and other one and you probably don't have the time for it.

Brent:

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. It's like, I'm, I'm always like if I have it, like, you know, if I, if I set it up, then I'll be able to hit for 360 on the final turn of the game

Mike:

okay.

Brent:

every time. Why would I not do that?

Brit:

I think too, and maybe this is just, again more just things to say about how powerful this deck is, is that that's just, it is, you just have so many options, like, Hmm. Maybe I take three prizes of Ganga this game. I don't know. We'll see what happens. Oh no, I didn't like I still got out creamy. I've still got Trevnoir like, it's just so non-linear like even, even like we might get. Both really like ice riding her a lot. But it doesn't really have these sorts of options. You have two attacks thankfully, but I, you know, I don't think there's as much you know, utility or expression and choosing which one you use. It's generally pretty obvious. One is really wrong and one is right for the most part. It's not a, like, I'm gonna try this line of play this game. Which is the case for the Shadow Rider decks. And to like, again, I'm not playing Aurora, but when you do have Aurora, you have, you know, all these other options available to you to And so, yeah, I think that's just so strong. And like we said, last week, the gang car is so useful for buying you that turn, it solves the first turn going second issue that we're racking our brains, trying to figure out with ice rider. It's just, oh, gang Gar. And, but two, you don't even have to do it like early sometimes because of just the manual attachment. You put, you pulling that out of nowhere with the draw fact is just so powerful. Sometimes, especially if you have a boss with it too, like, and so that's just like another, another, you know, completely different route to victory that the deck have. So you know, maybe to, like we mentioned earlier that to, you know, a good play, you have to be a good player to play Shadow Rider. Well, and I think just talking about it now, maybe that's a little more clear with lots of options. For the moment, at least we might coalesce on one version, one lists. But for the moment it seems pretty open, which. Version is and it doesn't at least again for now. It's not winning everything by a mile and it has some poor mashups really just because from the typing. And I guess LMZ can do okay against it. It would seem for the most part, it seems to lose, but occasionally if you're looking through the matchups and results LMZ does win every now and then

Brent:

But I, I feel the same way too. I feel like it's funny how both LMZ and ADP, I feel like they're in kind of the worst place they've been in, in a, an incredibly long time. And that just like these gigantic mean, you know, when I I've seen this whole ADP Moltres things kind of emerging because Zacian no longer reliably one shots, whatever they're activists. And, and then your, your yeah, like they just have so many hip points. I mean, if, if LMZ, you're like, oh man, I'm going to have to three hit this thing to kill it. You know, all that, all that trouble you went to with full metal wall and goggles, like isn't going to fix all your problems if you're, you're like, oh, I'm going to three, hit this thing

Mike:

Yeah. Something, something else Bray, as you were talking about different attacks and the lack of different attacks, a nice writer. It just reminded me. There are some games, most of the games with ice rider, like you always need to be Melanie. Melanie king like, you know, oh, you know, multiple turns sometimes often multiple

Brent:

back to back to back. Melanie,

Mike:

Yeah. But, but there's some games. Yeah. You just never have to Melanie. because you can just use ride to the hiking. Like basically every single turn to like hit the two shot. You can just use that attack, which is really funny. So there's some games where like, I'll end the game with three out of my formality, just in my hand.

Brent:

It's, it's always really nice. I think we talked about this on the last pod Brit, where you were saying like, when you're like, if you're like going second and you, you know, get like turn one, Melanie, and you get, you know, you spread out like two energies on two different Calyrex is, and then you're you right at the high king and attach, like you've got multiple attack or set up for kind of the bulk of the game now. And you're basically fine.

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

It's, it's nice when it happens. Those are the terms that you actually get to play boss, which is a hard thing, but yeah, like some games you're like, we're going to have to Melanie every turn and deleted. Because that's our only hope for victory.

Mike:

Yep.

Brent:

So the other thing I wanted to ask you guys about is I don't know if you guys have followed it too closely, but I feel like all the rapid strike Urshifu lists it seems like earth was super popular and I feel like I've seen a lot more, a lot of Inteleon being played with Urshifu and, and then I'm seeing like, no chin Chino, and then I'm seeing like a couple of lists that just have like four Gerard cheese and they do that thing. Do you guys have any particular perspective on like what, what the right Urshifu strategy is?

Brit:

I played around with at least just the Inteleon version this weekend I wanted to try. And I'm not quite sure which tournament this is, but it did. It won the weekly, the JL gel. I'm not sure which one it is. But it wasn't last week. It was a Japanese list. Inteleon your shift to that was also playing. Tapu Koko and lightening energies. So I, I was, it just sounded very strange to me. So I wanted to try and it was just awful. I don't think I want to gain but I lose to Urshifu decks pretty consistently. So I think it's fine. I don't know, like is Shadow Rider, Justin auto loss, like, and if so, I don't know if it's all that viable, but I do think it has. Good. Match-ups like otherwise still for the most part, I really want to try. And so I guess to finish the story after trying the Tapu Koko version, I tried to, I streamlined it more, which was much better, but still kind of similar, similar to the tempo issues I tried to express with the ice Raider version just really, really felt like I was struggling in ways. I never have with just the old-school Geraci and nets version. But I did have the slop to myself. You know, if I like ice rider, chin chinos so much like where, you know, why is ice rider Urshifu or ice rider? Urshifu Urshifu shouldn't she know, like maybe it's still worth exploring. So that's probably the next version I will try. But again, I think the big question is just like, what does it matter? How does it do I get shattered right here? I think

Brent:

You know, so, so I, I actually played a bunch of Urshifu Inteleon this weekend. And like, the thing I liked about it was like obviously the things combo super well with like, whatever it is you're doing, right? Like if you want to slap down 20 damage on stuff, like all that super matters, if you're gonna hit the bench for 1 21 20, and it gave me a, a super hard counter to decidua and I really liked it because it combo really well with the rapid strike energy. Like I get power, but Inteleon in one turn. If I decided I wanted to attack with Inteleon for some reason, And like, there were definitely times where, you know, I had, I had two, three pressers on the bench and I stamped them and I wanted to hit into them with the Inteleon and I can kill the Inteleon. So I could like do a thing. And I needed extra paint, an extra turn of pings to kinda like get my math where I needed it to be or something like that. Seemed, seemed really good to me. I, I think I liked the Inteleon version more than I liked Urshifu Chino, which is saying a lot, because I think I've been saying I really liked their Tina. maybe that was just because of the matchup play. I didn't play that many games, but I really, really dug it. I also noticed, and I wondered if you guys had any understanding of this. Like, I feel like all the lists I see now, people are cutting the telescopic site and I felt like going into this format, people were really stoked about telescopic site, because like, you could do that and you can do Pacem in and then you'd been hit for like 180, 180 on the bench. And like, that sounds like a thing. I mean, it certainly sounds like.

Mike:

I just think like, Crobat and Dedenne usage is down like significantly. And so doing 180 180 is just not what it could be.

Brent:

Right, right. People just aren't able to get that much value out of it. And yeah, like I was playing without it. It was fine. Like I, you know, I I'd get there with a couple of paintings and it was okay. But yeah, there was, was, there was one game. I was playing a Eternatus, which the big scheme of things, easy enough. But like he put down a Moltres and I was like, oh, I'll get the two 20 would just be a little bit easier if I had this thing. Oh, well, let's talk about spirits for a second. We said we were talking about spirits and we should talk about spring.

Mike:

all right. Before we talk about spirit too you just mentioned Eternatus so I just have a really brief comment on Eternatus. I didn't realize until yesterday when I was playing in that sort of, she had on tournament and I played against Eternatus a couple of times that task to the piece. Shuts off and turn it to the VMX so they can only have five bench Pokemon. Then if you have Path to the Peak out, I just didn't even realize this. And now I don't understand how it turned test is still a viable deck at all.

Brent:

Right. I think the answer to that question is just like run swells and bump into shadow writers.

Mike:

Yeah, I guess so it just like, I was so and no wonder, like I was thinking like the new peak around list that run for Path to the Peak. I was like, well, okay. You can like stamp Path to the Peak. And that seems really good against it. Turn it to us, but it just didn't even cross my mind that we would also force them to five bench Pokemon. And now it makes way more sense why Path to the Peak oaro like is very good against Eternatus. So this is just a really funny realization that I had spirit tube though. So spirit tomb is the. Itself remains very unchanged from the last format. We still have escape ropes and level balls and stuff like that that were added with battle styles, but it's pretty much the same deck. The only reason that it's kind of back in the meta game, I guess, is because of the dark weakness on Shadow Rider. I played a couple games with it. I still don't really like It all that much. To be honest with you, it's hasn't really gained anything. It's still like inconsistent. It's still like, it'd be pride to spirit too. It's pretty bad. Just cause like you have to replace your spirit tombs so often and people are starting to play tool scrapper and told jammer again in decks, partially because of spirit tomb partially because of things like LMZ. So if they play those cards, that's really, really, really bad for you. Inteleon is also really bad for you. Like the new Inteleon really bad. So like even something like ice rider where in theory or B Mack stack, you can trade with them. You know, the Cina version plays six lagoons. The Inteleon version should play one of the new Inteleon and it's just probably not even that great of a matchup. So I dunno, I still don't really like it. And there's just so many games where. You don't find your spike Muth in the first like Turner too, and you have to burn to escape rope in to switch to a Juniper. And then you're like, well, I can't build up damage now for the rest of the game because of that, that so it's fun, fun. It's a fun deck to play. Like it's always a nice exercise to, to play around with it and, you know, think about the sequencing and whatnot, but I don't really think it's a, a serious deck in the meta game.

Brent:

Speaking of that serious rapid strike Malin March was bad.

Mike:

it's really bad.

Brent:

Like, I, I feel like I, bumped into it so much on the ladder and I get how, like, it looks like those guys are having fun, but they always lose.

Mike:

Yeah. I played a pretty good amount of Mallomar Inteleon during the first week Ross was super into it. He played it in the limitless invitational and. Like, I, I played it a bunch when it first came out and I told him before limitless invitation, I was like, don't play this deck. It's not good. But he was just like, so he can get very, stubborn with his decks. And so he played it and then he did bad. And I just, I don't think it's very good.

Brent:

Yeah. Brett, I assume you've bumped into a bunch of Mallomar in the ladder and insulted.

Brit:

Yeah. I don't think I've lost to it and had plenty of games where if it were good, I'm sure I would have, but like, it's just like, you know, it's like playing against Blacephalon or something they've got, they've got a big enough hand and you're just like, all right, whatever. They've got it. Take your three prizes. But every time I half and I suppose I'm probably playing a ice rider every time it happened, it was just like two 50 or something. And I was just like, oh, all right. So another term retreat knock you out. Like this doesn't seem very good. Feel bad against like so much of it. It was like a lot of summer support Pokemon to get it work. So obviously I just kept, you know, kill the Oricorio kill the Octillery. What are they going to do?

Brent:

Yeah. I just feel like every game I played against them, like, no matter what they did, no matter how amazing they were, there was going to come a turn where I was able to kill like the Mallomar. The a and K and like, they were not going to be able to attack NextEra and then they just immediately lose.

Mike:

Yep.

Brit:

Like th that's what I mean about a lot of the support Pokemon. So like, they, I think too, that one of the lists, I don't, I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but I'm recalling one of these games I played against it played Octillery each and Chino and Oricorio so maybe that's too much, like, maybe you should just like, I don't know which of Chino Octillery would probably be better, but maybe you just play like four, four of one of them instead of sort of dipping your feet and the both. But I just remember this game because of all these support Pokemon, just almost exactly like you just described. It was like often there is only one Mallomar. And like that. So it just didn't matter, like initial, they spent so much time trying to get their engine going, that they just couldn't keep up with the Pokemon themselves. So I just, eventually they, they, lost a

Brent:

maybe they had to get an energy off the Octillery and the result was like, they couldn't get an NK instead to like set up the Mallomar for the next year. And so they kind of Yolo this turn because otherwise, if they don't take a knockout, they just lose.

Brit:

Yeah. And similarly to, in, in the late game, when I marinade you, or when I've stamped here, you get these, like, I recall, I'm sure they had tough decisions to make with their Octillery and just like, because they, they have the inky and it's like, do I get the Mallomar? Do I get the Korrina here? And then that was something else I noticed too. Like the accelerator was really good because they, it got them, the Lily Korrina every turn. But that was really the only thing I noticed without that was like, I kept thinking I had them done and then they just had, they would have another Korrina.

Brent:

yeah, I, that deck is terrible. I, and, and I assume that the reason they, cause I've definitely seen this, I'm sure Mike you've seen it through this like weird chin Chino lock Tillery. Oricorio like we have one of the, you know, six of everything in the deck. I think they're trying to fix the problems they had from their loss. The prior game. Like there's a real, that's like a fix the problem.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean like the Chino version is what is always playing on his stream. But yeah, I don't think there's much of a difference. I think the Inteleon version is probably the best way to play it, but it still doesn't seem very good.

Brent:

Yeah. Rough stuff in real life events, guys. Are you going to go to.

Mike:

Yeah. So I just wanted to mention, I, I signed up for both of the events the other day signed up for the Hexter on battlefield and they, and I signed up for the. It's short and shale. So Hexter, it will be standard. It will be, you know, team up through chilling rain. And then the other one, I don't know, it's called like the 10 K event. I don't know if there's another name besides that. But that one is sword and shield on. So two different events, the Hexter one will allow proxies to some extent. I'm not sure about the sword and shield on one, but I, bought some cards yesterday for the, like I, bought some like a few weeks ago for the first time, but it was a very small loader. And then I bought some more yesterday. So I got the, I got the ice rider line and like the cards that I would need for ice rider. It was, it wasn't that bad. Like it was maybe like 90 bucks for a full, Like for three ice rider line plus like 20 other commons and uncommons. So

Brent:

Dude, I the exact same thing,

Mike:

Yeah. Nice.

Brent:

same thing.

Mike:

Yeah. So I was inspired this week, this week, so much by ice rider that I, I just bit the bullet and that, I mean, that's probably what I play.

Brent:

Exactly. so we have, we have friends of the pod that the Hyatt's coming to town and like a week and a half. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to try and build some standard backs. And I was like, you know what, let's order some cards. So I know you guys saw me tweeting it, look more so about how we should build a buy lists for me. And low sealers, never published a buy list the other day. And I couldn't man up and buy all the Shadow Rider line, but it's been the same, you know, but but yeah, I bought a bunch of other parts that basically the exact same thing yesterday,

Mike:

all right, we'll see you next

Brent:

right.