The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 50! Pokemon go to space, Japanese Nationals, Pokemon Book Release!, Brands Pokemon could acquire, PC4, Mewtwo Welder, Stadiums, Shadow Rider, Chill, Horror House Strategies, Spiritomb, Brent rants!, Caturday, Raichu/Inteleon,

July 20, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 50
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 50! Pokemon go to space, Japanese Nationals, Pokemon Book Release!, Brands Pokemon could acquire, PC4, Mewtwo Welder, Stadiums, Shadow Rider, Chill, Horror House Strategies, Spiritomb, Brent rants!, Caturday, Raichu/Inteleon,
Transcript
Brit:

I did pay a fair amount of attention to the Japanese tournament, which frankly. Is pretty close to what we're playing. Like it's obviously different, but especially at the results themselves you know, it's, you know, the deck that won, even for instance, it's like what we're playing now, what we've talked about recently with Shadow Rider and Alcremie and so on. So we can maybe talk about that a little bit. It seems like you know, the new set there's a Rayquaza, but it didn't do well at all. Like kind of the only, I think one of the only relevant there's the Sylveon and I just blanked on it. What was it? Oh, so he could or like kind of the only, at least from the top 32 off the top of my head are kind of the only cards that we don't currently have access to. I don't know if we would want to mention it or discuss it, or I guess if you guys didn't pay attention to it at all,

Mike:

I watched a little bit, I watched a little bit, so yeah, I think we can talk about that.

Brit:

It was like, I don't know. It's like what we've talked about with, you know, meme decks or, you know, a rare rogue deck. It's just, if it's with the content creators, all grabbed onto every single one of them was restraining it, you know, I just thought that was kind of funny. None of them speaking Japanese.

Brent:

I know Franco was a streaming accommodating it, but I know, I know nothing else, which is perfect. That's what people want.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. That'll be good to talk about it. He totally forgot about that.

Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche. It is episode 50. Lots of stuff to be covered. Our introduction is Webster's Ledford back for sweaty. Every, a couple of pounds acknowledge that attendance is 100% sprint Howard here with Mike Fouchet and Rick Pybas where at Hayes wise on Twitter at the Halliburton and at Mike Fouchet and you get to figure out which Twitter belongs to which person it's very difficult. We're sponsored by channel firewall. I'm gonna remember to try to say that, like every pod, we appreciate them helping to pay some of the bills here. Running a podcast is an expensive business. The five star review update, no five star reviews, even though we told people it was episode 50, a special chance to do five star reviews, but August 5th will be the anniversary of our first episode. So we just have a big event after big event coming up on the pod. It's a very exciting. This, I told you guys last pod, that this was a pot. It was going to happen. So I'll say it, the book is now live on Amazon. If you are one of the many, many readers who we sent copies to you should go leave a review on Amazon because apparently that is super helpful and helps people find the book and makes people think buying the book would help them play Pokemon. And I would like to think that that's true, if you are someone who does not live in the United States. So I couldn't get you a copy. If you want to go on Amazon and get a copy, I would really super appreciate that. All the proceeds are going to go to a NAMI because we want to help mental health anywhere we can. And that's a delightful thing. But I'm equally excited about episode 50, which is going on here. Guys, eh, since it's episode 50 and I thought a great episode for covering the bad topics. So the first question I wanted to ask you guys is now that everybody's traveling into space, And going into space as a regular thing, will there soon be a Pokemon space themed set? Do you anticipate that happening in the next five years? Like we had like a French theme set and we've had like German theme and English theme. Like, I feel like they've kind of gone around the globe doing things will there maybe, I don't know, 10, 20 years in the future, will there be like outer space theme? Will Ash ever go to the outer space region? Because that's a totally normal thing that everyone does.

Brit:

I think they kind of have that already. I think that this ends up being sort of, again, I'm not sure where, how in gen three is you know, I don't know what region that's inspired out of, but I know just off the top of my head, both in the video game. And the TCG, those sets and obviously to DOCSIS and requests are always very space themed. The Oxys like comes in from space and like the defender of the ozone or something like that. And I didn't in the card game, you know, there's what was the car I'm blanking on the cards? It wasn't space station, but it was like a 2005 card. Mikey, what am I thinking of?

Mike:

Yeah, I know what you mean.

Brit:

it looks like, you know, rockets taking off,

Mike:

I know what it does. It shuts off poker bodies for basic

Brit:

Yeah. I can't, I don't know why I'm blanking on that. It's in like a, some important it's like it's in the, it was in Sebastian stack, right? The TTR deck, I think Battlefront tier, no, it's not battle frontier because

Mike:

about offering tier it's not space tower, but it's something like that

Brit:

Yeah, but anyways, but yeah,

Mike:

but space

Brit:

then I, I play, or I haven't played the omega. I never played the remix and mega Sapphire or alpha Ruby, or I think I actually did that backwards, but I know in there, I think you go maybe even actually like go up into space. There's, there's some like the extra, extra plot line to that, which is about the Rayquaza Rayquaza DOCSIS conflict. You may have even, I don't, I just don't know someone has played the games and we'll, we'll be able to tell the side with some sort of loosely aware that it exists,

Brent:

Man, I played those games. So it was a long time.

Brit:

maybe yeah. Maybe we'll get a scifi theme. I think that would be cool. That would be an interesting place to go. I guess it would be probably challenging from a design perspective, because all of your Pokemon have to be like space themed or if they're animals, they have to, you know, naturally fit into it. I don't know. But that's a cool idea. I don't know. I haven't, I haven't thought too much about space travel or anything.

Brent:

Is there. So, I mean, I don't even know, but like, like, so I know like magic, the gathering is doing this DNB theme thing going on right now where they, they acquired the DMV brand. And now it's like printing waves with DIA de cards. Do they have, like, I know there's this like planes, walkers and fighting across mystical realms or something, but like, is there some overarching I dunno if it's like, I want to say brand or something like, like there is with Pokemon and magic.

Brit:

Yeah, there's a, there's a plot that I think is, I don't know enough. And I imagine there's like other media, like comic books and stuff too at this point. But to my knowledge, especially when I used to play, I played standard kind of around the same time I was starting Pokemon around when I qualified for worlds the first time. And at least to my knowledge, then when the, the, like the Plains walk. Mechanic was introduced like you as a player are a Planeswalker and then you, you see, you have access to these, these characters that are at the same level as you. And then I understand from what I understood, I've never read the books and I know that magic books have, I mean, I remember seeing them as a kid when I went, like I had magic cards, but I didn't play or something. Yeah. But to my knowledge, there's, it's a continuing store. That's always going on sort of always involving the core Plains walkers that are generally early reprinted in the core sets. But that I have sure little that has changed. I'm sure too, just with like the Marvel movies, we live in a sort of continuous content culture. And so I would think, you know, even if it was. So canonical or, you know, connected before that it's they probably do something similar with it now. Like, I don't know, someone, someone, someone out there has read a lot of the books and knows more. I've sort of never been interested in magic because the overall aesthetic has never grabbed me in ways that, you know, I like the animate stuff more. But that's my vague understanding.

Brent:

I just, I, I just think, I guess if they're willing to experiment there, there's, there's like some world where, where the Pokemon corporation says, you know, we're buying DC comics and now it's like a, you know, wonder woman. We're printing a wonder woman supporter. Like, here we go. We're going to fix those DC movies by crossing them over with both of my movies.

Brit:

That's full on collab culture in the card game.

Mike:

It'd be cool. If they, something maybe more realistic is if they've bought like Digimon and like.

Brent:

So, yeah, I think they wouldn't buy digital modern because it would be like, what does that add to our brand? Nothing.

Mike:

Yeah, I guess that's fair.

Brent:

Right? Like, like, like, I mean, if they just thought we should own all the trading card games, cause trading cards are good business. That would be like the scenario where they say we're buying Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon. But like, I don't know if they cross it over there because it doesn't add value to the brand, but, but, you know, adding yeah, I have no idea how Coke one hits the brand they're they got a strong brand already. That's why like the magic thing. It's not, I think it's not obvious what, like, besides the fact that you're a Plains blocker and that's like the plot of the thing, and you're like fighting across the multi-verse, who knows? I may know, tier point, maybe I'm just not close enough to the problem, but I could see how acquiring the and D gives them access to. Like brand content that people have some sort of warm fuzzy association with Pokemon it's already built in. People love it.

Brit:

There was also too with magic. They did. I think this was really more so just indicative of Matt. I mean, you know, I know, I guess that's your point too, with Pokemon to magic, it's more, more than just this other stuff. Cause I know there was it was like last year they, there is this like mini set. I don't even know exactly what it was, but it was Godzilla cards, Godzilla magic cards. And there was sort of a funny controversy because the space got Zillow on, I think it was in its name or it's one of its abilities or something was like called death Corona. So they like a rat at it to not be named Corona when, when the virus was sort of first picking off. But then if I remember right, I think there might actually be some walking dead magic cards too. So I think really, you know, they're clearly just embracing this. Like I said, the collaboration culture that sort of permeates. Clothing and you know, so at mobile gaming in general, it's just like all, that's sort of what it all seems to be about these days.

Brent:

Oh, I have a better crossover Looney tunes. Like yeah, you get the, you get the like, you know, space, GM marketing, mojo, but you're just like, like bugs bunny and the evolution of bugs bunny to bugs bunny wearing a skirt. And like that's the card people want. There's no question in my mind.

Mike:

That would be pretty good. There's there's some, there's some obvious tie ins there.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's stuff to do Pokemon in, you know how to reach me. The, these ideas are we are ready to help you. PC four. Is there anything to say.

Mike:

So the broadcast happened this weekend for the, you know, the, the top 16 of each regions qualifying. I watched a little bit, not a whole lot. I don't know if you guys watched any, but it was fine. And presumably the global top 16 played this past weekend and they will be preparing the stream for. Presumably a week and a half from now. So stay tuned for the results. That one will be exciting to watch because it will be in this format. We won't know the results. So I am looking forward to watching that.

Brent:

Yeah, I, I did not, I did not watch it. I had friends in town. I didn't watch any Pokemon. I recognize there's that. And the the Japanese championship, let's talk about the deputies championship for a minute. Cause I think that's, that's more interesting. And, and I know you guys were following that.

Mike:

Yeah. So Britt watched a little bit more than I did I think, but just to kind of set the stage they played a, I believe it was nine Swiss rounds, best of one. And then they cut to a top 64 single elimination. That was best of three. So it's actually a very similar structure to what we play. 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago. Like our nationals used to be about that. Like best of one Swiss you'd play like eight or nine rounds, then a massive top cut. I think the biggest top cut it ever got, might've been 1 28. I don't know if it ever got to 2 56. And yeah. And so that happened they have the Japanese players have one more set than us. So it's both, I mean, it's relevant in the sense that our format is still quite similar, but also cool to look forward into the future. So, Brett, what did you what'd you see.

Brit:

Yeah. So just sort of, I mean, maybe to try to talk really briefly on the most relevant cards that I, that are different, because I think that one of the main reasons, I, I at least, I don't think we would venture into this sort of content if we didn't think it had direct import and to talking about standard and current events and what the rest of the world plays. So for the main, the main part, like, you know, looking at a lot of decks or at least looking at the results it's, you would almost be surprised to learn perhaps that they do have, you know, these, is it just one set or it's, it's hard to know because the Japanese, they have like many sets and the sets themselves are usually, there's usually two per release and, you know, anyways, it's hard to sort of track when you're trying to match, like when they're released outside of Japan and so on. But results You know, a lot of Shadow Rider Alcremie for the most part, kind of did the best, but I guess to finish what I started, I think the biggest relevant cards that we don't have, there's a yoga or not yoga, but that's the attack. The meta CHAM V which I think is a kind of just another. You know, another piece to the puzzle that makes Urshifu, Inteleon a very strong deck. It kind of just has a little spread attack that lets you take an extra turn if you take a knockout. And then so if your, your damage is precise, which again, here's the added synergy of Inteleon and so on. You get an extra turn, which is pretty crazy. And again, I just think I also just a clear Testament to the power of these cards that, you know, they have Geraci and stuff still. But just the fact that that it's psychically able to so consistently compete in the Shadow Rider meta game too. And so we don't really see, like I know like the gang Garvey max was relevant for a little while, but it, it doesn't seem to be here anymore. And one of the big ones too, obviously the fluffy requires a deck that sort of seems to be the obvious combo coming out of this set. There were none in top 32, which I think is pretty

Brent:

there were none in top 64. I think like the number, what the best finish they'd had was I think I saw somebody say it was like 65th, 69

Brit:

Okay. Yeah, that's weird. And so the other, I know that I saw the other deck that didn't do particularly well, which is a little interesting to me is Eternatus just given how strong the Shadow Rider deck did. And they're not, they're not the peak focus ones in general, like the ice rider, which I think is kind of the heaviest peak or one of the heavier peak decks out there. It has some placings here and there and the top 32, maybe just one or two. And it has the Sui Coon VMX and that kind of can just be played as its own deck as well. It would seem just kind of almost another like wall kind of awkward stall option. But then, so where I'm trying to think of what other super relevant cards. They have that we don't, I guess. Okay. Yeah. The Umbrian I think was the main one I was trying to catch Umbrian, which is interesting. You would think, I think when printing everyone's initial you know, impression was just like, oh, hi, here it is for Eternatus another great card for Eternatus, but like, weirdly enough, it just seems to go. And just about everything, like I'm not even, I'm a little skeptical myself, but I guess the gust of wind effects that its ability has when it, when it evolves, it's just that good. So the second place tech for instance, is just a Mewtwo welder deck with like a two to Humphrey on which I just find really interesting. I know, sort of, we talk about this deck often, as you know, just like how, why is this deck still around? How does deck still seem to be doing well? That sort of notion is, seems at least from what I can tell, noticing Japanese results in general, not just this tournament in particular, but this deck just always seems to stick around there. I know some of the players who did well in this tournament have done well in more recent tournaments with MuTu. So that's one thing I'm curious about you know, maybe, maybe it's missing the Umbrian or maybe we just don't explore the welder on deck as much as we should currently. I'm not sure cause you know, too I know Kevin Clemente had a tweet this last week sort of like, why are, why are so many people playing Eternatus? Is it really better than dark MuTu? And so obviously dark MuTu, a meta game relevant deck right now, but not so much fire at all. But just looking at this results, maybe it could be a little better than we give it credit for like the list itself. Other than the Umbrian is kind of just how MuTu welder has always, always looked okay. But yeah, this sort of a kind of big overview, and then I don't want to just talk and talk and talk, but there's sort of one other thing, or at least the main deck, just looking at what did, well, the third place, a Shadow Rider lists. So Shadow Rider, Alcremie one with this MuTu welder Umbrian deck getting second, but then just right behind, that was, I think a lot of, a whole lot of the top eight was more shattered riders without creamy with like an ice rider smuggled in there or something like that. But this third place tech just plays like a lot of, a lot of stuff. There's a 1, 1, 1 dust Nore. And just,

Mike:

What does that

Brit:

I don't know. I don't even really know what to make of the third place list, recycle energy.

Mike:

Dusknoir changes the special energies, right. To not do anything. Yeah. The recycle energy, I guess, is for the Necros MOAs, I mean, I guess if you don't, if you're not running any Aurora Pokemon, like Pokemon that can use Aurora energy than recycle energy makes sense. Can also just run horror energy though, too. So, Yeah. that's interesting. And that doesn't look as good as the first place. That's the first place. This looks pretty nice. The MuTu deck is really interesting. I mean, the zap, so Mewtwo welders like worst matchup in like battle styles format was Eternatus. So we got zapped dose. So there's Aptos has made that better, but I think the reason that too welder hasn't seen any play really in our format right now is because it's Shadow Rider. Matchup is pretty abysmal, but I'm Brianne BMX gives it a chance to Kao the shadow writers as well as allowing you to welder and boss or welder in gust in the same turn. So. I mean, it makes a lot of sense when, when you see it all put together like that, the weirdest inclusion to me actually in this list is the model while, like, why is it playing a Mala? It's weird. But other than that, that's just really cool. The only thing, other card that you didn't mention, that I feel like I saw a lot of. And I'm interested to hear your thoughts on why you think it was played as the sweet Coon V which if I remember correctly, it's water colorless 20 for all the bench Pokemon on the field. I think that's what it does. And I saw it played multiple rounds when I would just like turn it on. I felt like every time I turned on the stream, there was this weekend deck being played and it was like, this card doesn't seem very good to me. I don't really know it.

Brit:

Yeah. I couldn't figure this out. I they're like I'm trying to pull up the deck list of the deck that made top 16. That was just like a straight burden. Cause I could understand flying it. And so for each bench, prop one, yours and your opponent. Yeah. It just doesn't strike me as being strong enough. You know, that's not too much different from like, like bolt-ons damage or something like that. Let's, you know, in perfect circumstances and like Boltund really, isn't good enough to carry himself as a deck right now. So yeah, I, I couldn't really make sense of this car and I, there, there must, I feel like something, I mean, it's maybe, you know, it's like slur puff or something almost. I don't think anyone really expected that card to be any good. Do you know how often are these? Just draw pure, just draw one. You know, worth, including, and maybe that's just good enough. I have no idea. It's it's it? Wasn't one. I was, you're able to really figure out hi there.

Mike:

Yeah. And like water is not a particularly good type right now. So Yeah. I don't understand, but we, I must be missing something because it was played a good amount. The the thing that most intrigued me was kind of like the, the rapid strike decks in general that were played. So to create your NEDA played a rapid strike deck, primarily, it was like Urshifu Inteleon. But it had the, the meta jam in it. And so that was fun to watch. I saw him play one of the rounds and then I caught like part of one round that was more of a rapid strike box deck. And it ran both the stage two Inteleon online, as well as the Inteleon V max, the new one. And so for those of you that don't know what the new Inteleon BMX does, its ability that you discard a water from your hand and then put two damage counters on two of your opponent's bench Pokemon, which just pretty. And then it's attack for a watercolor list is 70. And if you put an energy back to your hand, then it does one 40. So for rapid strike energy, it does one 40 and you put the energy back in your hand, which is really pretty good. And so I think it played like primarily the Inteleon BEMAX and the Inteleon stage two line, but it played a meta CHAM. It played a one, one rapid strike Urshifu line as well. So that, like, that whole concept is super interesting to me. Cause it feels like you have a ton of options. Meta CHAM is like really cool. And especially right. New rotates, even, even, actually, even with me yeah. In the format right now that deck deals with new, better than almost any other deck, because you have so many ways to ping and mew is also a really easy target for you to loop with the meta jam. So, so yeah, in general, I've always kind of been a sucker for like spread damaged X. So I think that is the deck that I'm most excited about and to see your data playing some version of that is always encouraging because he he's one of the best players to ever play the game. And, you know, if he's playing it, then it must be pretty good. Even in a meta game full of shadow writers, he felt like he could get there. I think he ended up losing in top 64. Yeah.

Brit:

I don't know. I think meta tram just does damage counters. So I don't know how relevant meta is. Of course is good against their Urshifu. So that's a factor still. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are in general, I'd love four corners, six corners techs, and that's just kind of what the rapid start toolboxes look like to me. You know, even, even, even maybe to a lesser extent with single strike, cause they just, they continue to get some cool cards too as cards that are released, but it just doesn't, it feels at least when you have to use hound doom, it's just kind of like a different deck. You have, you know, your, your support Pokemon is built in, whereas, you know, the Urshifu sometimes with like Moltres and Sylveon and things like that, like there's just a lot of ways to play it. And I think that's sort of what we talked about in our initial excitement for the battle style sets. Just being able to, you know, just see like kind of mechanical consistency over time. Like whether it's good or bad, at least it's something different. And at least it's kind of a new place to go. And so I'm really enjoying that with both single strike and rapid strike for the moment and hopefully whatever is on the horizon will be just as cool. And I'm not sure.

Brent:

So a couple of questions since, since I didn't watch any at all it seems like the top decks would be like super susceptible to Path to the Peak. Is this one of those situations where. You know, the, the rest of the meadow was like Path to the Peak hostile. And as a result, like as long as they could beat the decks that beat those decks, it was, they were totally fine. Or like, like it was the rest of the top 64 Path to the Peak decks, or it was like, it was like Path to the Peak, not as impactful in their meta for reasons. I don't fully understand because like they're running like one Mar shadow and like two stadiums and, you know, like mew is super dependent on us and they're like, it's fine.

Brit:

My answer is your third option. I don't know why it's, it's, it's a mystery to me, but just it's, it's clear that they don't value the card or at least compared to where we started with the set and things like that. But yeah, I was wondering about that. You know, I mean, there's, that's always, I guess, you know, one of the most fascinating parts of the game is like that doesn't make them wrong. Like, you know, our meta games adapt by, you know, the needs of, you know, the, the various events and things like that. And there's just these, you know, particular worlds, particular like entire, you know, like a country-wide meta game or you know, Midwest versus east coast, things like that. They just, you know, evolve so naturally that, you know, even if it looks wrong to us, like maybe, you know, maybe the card just isn't that good, or maybe they've just, haven't played ice rider, like we're currently playing ice. Right. Or things like that. Like, it's really hard to say just clearly, or at least with certainty, like why certain areas or why, you know, Japanese lists always looked like this compared to ours and blah, blah, blah. But yeah. For the particular question about Path to the Peak or, you know, where it was on this meta game cycle, you know, maybe weeks previous. It did well, but just from what I know, like I just can't see like these Japanese tournaments, because I think you had to maybe, no, I don't, I don't remember if you had to qualify it for this one, but a lot of times you do have to qualify at smaller in the Japanese tournament. You have to play these, I guess, quote smaller. Cause I think they ended up being pretty big still. But yeah, I'm not sure. Just, they clearly just really like Urshifu are few, I think, in to a, to a greater degree than we do. That's just, I think what has been one of my biggest takeaways from the differences in our meta games kind

Brent:

was my next question is I've recognized the first and third place Shadow Rider list. Neither one of them played in you. And I was like, they must feel really great about their Urshifu match up. Right. I mean,

Mike:

I mean they're psychic, right?

Brent:

yeah, that's probably fine.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about the Path to the Peak though. It's like, I dunno. I think it's probably what Brit said is. Path to the Peak feels like a very cyclical card where if people are not really playing it, then you lose a lot of value by trying to tech for it. And maybe they're just in that spot of their, of their cycle.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean like the third place list, he plays one more shadow one rod and like no stadiums,

Mike:

Oh, the third place list. Oh yeah. Because well, he, he uses so much room for the other crap, right?

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. But that's obviously, he's feeling really confident that he's not going to run into Path to the Peak

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

because like it's, it's going to stick. Right.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Both these guys played the two, two Alcremie.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brent:

do you think that that foreshadows, the two, two is we'll we'll find that like Alcremie is just that good, which we planted. So, man, I think we've all had really good experiences with Alcremie even though we continue to kind of cheat our way through with a 1, 1, 1.

Mike:

Yeah, I think it must be yeah. Consequent or at least partially a consequence of Zacian being like a non-factor in their metagame. I don't, I don't, I saw some LMZ in there, but like you pretty, you beat LMZ kinda anyway, you just don't go for the Alcremie. You just play like your tag teams and the Shadow Rider lines. But like an ADP Z can be pretty tough. I think if you're focusing on Alcremie, but you know, Z isn't really played there, then then Alcremie gets a lot better and Alcremie is quite good in the Miramax. So if they were expecting, you know, a lot of Shadow Rider mirror, which it seems like that was the case, then the two, two Alcremie probably gives you a pretty big edge there.

Brent:

I like that, that sounds like a very reasonable amount.

Mike:

Yeah. Not a, not a metagame or strategic thing at all. But one thing I noticed is that so many of these Japanese players are fully blinged out, like every single card, max rarity golden. And I Was like, what is this a consequence of quarantine? And they were just collecting cards obsessively over the past year and a half. Or is this a, you know, just a, a thing, but like so many decks were just all golden and it made me, it? made it really hard to know what was going on.

Brent:

Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Obviously I didn't want you to skim. So it was a weird watching people play physical cards versus like the PTCGO streams we've become accustomed.

Mike:

A little bit, I will say the production quality was pretty high. They have Like a turn counter, so like they, they keep track of how many turns each player has had. They have the prize cam, they have like a prize. You don't see the prizes of the whole time. They have like a prize counter that at the time were there, they were playing with a, it seemed kinda what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. I don't, I don't know, but they were playing with like a shield up in between them and like, so they would shuffle their deck and then instead of the opponent cutting or shuffling their deck, then they had, you know, do things where the opponent could choose, like which pile goes on top and stuff like that. But it, it, it seemed Not necessary or what's the word I'm looking for? It's like, they were just like doing it to like, show that they were being mindful of. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Like, I don't think it had any like actual, you know, consequence of, of helping stop the spread.

Brent:

Performative, performative, social distancing.

Mike:

Okay. There you go. Yeah.

Brent:

a that's that sounds kind of right.

Mike:

Yeah. But I mean, I guess like, I feel like a lot of you know, sports that are back, like, I feel like there's, there's a lot of that too in, in like the NBA and things like that. Yeah. And like, you'll see like the head coaches for like the NBA. They'll, they'll be like wearing a mask and then they'll just take it off if they want to yell.

Brent:

So yeah. I mean, you, you and I both watched doc rivers, so the Sixers, he was like, like the, you know, he would, he would always take off the mask anytime you need the debris or talk. And you're like, you know,

Mike:

Yeah. right. So like, I mean, I guess it's like okay. To like try and send the message that you care, but like it's not really doing very much, I don't think.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Super, super performance art COVID management practices.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Let's talk about, let's talk about the tournaments incrementally closer to home. I did want to take a moment to just to say that the Sunday opened with Atlas collectibles, Kaia looked like her one with ice rider Calyrex and that's super exciting to me because Kaia is like you know, I assume when she's a master, we're going to realize that she is one of the best Pokemon players in the world. And I mean, we saw her winning tournaments when she was like a 12 year old, super great to see women have the success of the top tier in more than,

Mike:

Yeah. The German girl, right?

Brent:

Yeah. She won like three ICS or like last year in June. And then, and then she won like her first, the first IC she went to as a senior to,

Mike:

Nice.

Brent:

yeah. Like, Kind of Tanner her early level, Outcomes. But his like final year as a senior or something where you just want everything.

Mike:

I just pulled up her list. She's only playing seven water energy, so she really knows how to manage your energy. Well,

Brent:

I mean, it's, it's news to know one that Kaia is better than me at that book.

Brit:

think I, I, I didn't know she had one that, but I had seen her name. I think it might've been chill last week. So I think I was trying to find your results after you played it last week. And I think I'd noticed, I noticed, Just on the results. I think it was like a top 16 or top 30 to finish, but I was just like, ah,

Brent:

Oh, and then she won the world championship her first year as a senior.

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

Oh, okay. Okay. Nice. Pretty

Brent:

very, very good at it. And she looked like she was like eight, but I I'm sure when I see her post pandemic, she'll be like two feet taller and unrecognizable. But yeah, props, love LA. I always love to see the people who are aging up do well. I think obviously as a parent, it's really interesting to me to kind of see who the people are that were like really good to seniors. And then they age up and are like really good. And I recognize like, some people are really good at seniors and they go and become really good as masters. And some people are like more low-profile seniors. And you know, like, I don't know if it's that the senior med is different or in, I think a popular conventional wisdom is like, there's so much cheating and seniors, you don't really know. See the really good people Excel in some situations or something, but like, like Michael K Tron is the guy who I was like, like, you never had those like super, super top outcomes as a senior, but then the second year account master, he was like just cutting day two, whatever you can say went to for basically like an entire year. Great. Manly is another one that I think I think of is like really good as a senior. And then like when you get a master who was like really, really good people, he's very good at Pokemon,

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

All right. One of those tournaments happened. So I played the last one that I really played was I played the chills event last Wednesday.

Brent:

right? 38.

Mike:

Yeah. And I, so I played the Shadow Rider, courtesy of Brent Halliburton over there and started off really hot. I went eight and one in the first phase, my only loss was to an ADP. Zacian not ADP Moltres, but ADP Z. Where I think like he Altered Creation and then the following turn, I had an opportunity to one-shot the ADP either by, you know, getting all of my V maxes out and attaching enough energy. I would have hit two 80. And I ended up getting all the V maxes, but I wit was like one energy short. I whipped one energy, which felt a little unlucky, but, and then I could Poltergeist Poltergeist. I had already done a hundred to him, so I didn't need that many energy or that many trainers. But So once I whiffed the energy, I had to pull her guy. So I stamped him to six. He only had like two or three cards in his hand. So I stamped into six and if he had four trainers, then I would do but he only drew three. So then I lost after that, cause just couldn't keep up with the price trade. And then in the second phase, I ended up doing really bad. So there was five rounds I lost to decidua the first round were bad matchup, but I feel like I played it pretty well. And he ended up, I took a couple of prizes and then he got up one decision decidua with the big parasol on it. Oh no, no, no. Without big parasol. And I Pale moon GX did. So I discarded his energy and if he only played one moule on it and his whole deck, that was his only switching cards. And he had three cards in his hand and he had the Maulana to get out of it. So then I lost that. So that was unfortunate. And then I played against and Eternatus, that was, you know, I beat to Eternatus in the first stage, but which was surprising, but couldn't beat it in the second stage. And then I lost to a mute to Rillaboom deck, which feels like such a ridiculously good matchup. But I had a slow start and then it got to a point where he had zero cards in hand and he needs to boss' boss in consecutive turns he top decks, Dedenne on the first turn to get into the first boss. And then I stamped them to three. And you just Trevenant second attack. So I stamped them to three Nightwatch him. So he essentially has one card plus his top deck and he has a second boss to win the game. Yeah. That one was really bad. And then, and then in the very last round, I played a mirror where I started, Crobat nothing else going first. And he went our house, Paul to guest. So

Brent:

awesome.

Mike:

the the deck feels really good. Like almost all my losses, except the Eternatus felt kinda BS. So

Brent:

So

Mike:

feels very, very good.

Brent:

a couple of questions first, In retrospect,

Mike:

Cracephalon doesn't really feel worth it Like you never really like, if you're going second, you want a whorehouse. So like, you don't really want the attachment attack very often. I would guess. I mean, I'm sure there's some situations where you would want to use it, but. It's really just a deciduous counter. And, I dunno if, if, if we were in a, If I was playing in like a really important big tournament, I'd probably play it just as a deciduous counter, but probably not in an online event,

Brent:

Yeah. And w and do you think we wanted enough to spend them match up

Mike:

probably because I can't get one shot. I do one shot them. I don't think you actually one shot

Brent:

now you hit for one 20.

Mike:

Yeah. But you do have the basic Calyrex, which can put fifties on to decision-wise if you get that up early enough. So it's probably fine. One is probably fine. Especially if you play an ordinary route, if you played on an ordinary route, then yeah. One tell is definitely.

Brent:

That's interesting.

Brit:

I mean, we talked about it last week, right? No, I don't think so. I don't, it's just, I mean, I know, obviously we just sort of went over on what you would do. Should that be your decidua account?

Mike:

Wow.

Brit:

think I would play, I would just play the necrotic. I think I haven't tried that at all. I've, I'm cynical, I'm skeptical as I've expressed, but you know, Stefan has played them and he's obviously much, much better than me. So you know, I think that there was warrants, you know, trying, and again, maybe really at the end of the day, it's seems possible probable that your ice rider or no ice rider, but your Shadow Rider deck, your list should just reflect the meta game. So there's, there's a time there might be a time for auroras and beating Dysinger I real bad. And there might be times to just scoop to turn into some do other things. I'm not sure, like I know we've also sort of hit that here and there throughout the weeks. Like whether we're going to coalesce to one, I, again, not ice rider, Shadow Rider, deck being clearly the best. And we're, we might be getting close maybe as we look at the Japanese bliss, because for the most part, the Japanese Shadow Rider lists that did the best were out creamy. So maybe that just ends up being the safest way to play it. I'm not sure as I've expressed before, that's been my preference through, through the weeks almost since the staff has early. So I'm always, I'm happy to at least see, see myself vindicated a little bit in that way, seeing just the overall consistency when the day over a peak MX or Aurora energies and so on. But I'm not sure. I think time will tell and maybe we will, we'll get some cool decks out of the global finals.

Brent:

All right. So my, my other questions about your loss to ADP. Is is playing down gang car, gang guard against ADP, like, correct. Is it situation like, is there, like, I reckon it that's like the one thing that is going to one hit. Right. Did you, did you feel deep regret about the gang guard going down or did you feel like, like that's the correct way to play it or would you do it differently if you, it.

Mike:

I did think about it at the time. I think I started it that game or, or at a choice to start at versus the, you know, the Shadow Rider and I was going second. So like when you're going second, I feel like it's still pretty good. But it was a good question. Like I ended up having to play down the DNA anyway that game. So I don't know. It it's tough. Cause like there's lots of games where you just end up having a handful of Pokemon anyway, that they can knock out. So in, the case that, you know, you played two to deny down or you play a DNA and I don't know if you had ever played Alcremie down, but maybe you would You know, so in in those games then it doesn't matter right. At all. But yeah, it is something to consider. I think if you go first, you probably avoid playing it. And if you go second it's a little more variable. Just giving yourself a whole extra turn. Like when you go second is still really, really good against them. Like delaying their Altered Creation by a whole turn is, is pretty nice.

Brent:

in, in games where you have the choice, how do you guys think? Is there, is there like thoughtfulness that you put into a, for housing with one energy versus two energies?

Mike:

So you would only ever do that if you went first, right. Car house for two. Yeah. I feel like you'd never hire a house. I mean, like, cause if you go second, you're always far housing pretty much on the first turn. I don't really like the heart house for two energy all that much, unless I need the draw. Just because like, it pretty much necessitates that you Marnie the following term because you don't want to give them that big of a hand size

Brent:

Right. Well, I think the reason you would like, obviously the idea is you put more cards in their hand and that they can't control. And then that feeds your Poltergeist in some way. Like, I wonder if, if players have ever thought, oh, you know, he has two cards at hand and I'm going to have to pull guys next turn, like this is going to be stinky. So I should do this other thing,

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, I guess that's

Brent:

like they have two cards, so you're like, that's good.

Mike:

yeah, right, right. Exactly. If my phone has two cars in their head and I don't want them to draw five cars.

Brent:

Hm.

Mike:

So like it, Yeah. like if they have like five cards, isn't, it doesn't feel that bad. But if they have two cards, I never ever want to do energy powerhouse.

Brent:

Yeah. Like the, the, the benefit of having, having more cards in hand for both you guys is like never outweighed by giving them more cards. Right.

Mike:

Right. Exactly. And you have like such better, I don't wanna say better attacks, but less variable attacks that you can use. Like sometimes you, you, your guys, them, when they have seven cards in their hand and they have two trainers still and you're like, well, guess I lose now. Like it's such a high risk, high reward play to do something like that. I could do I, would do it against, LucMetal. That might be the one matchup where I would highly consider doing that. Cause they play so many trainers. And it can be quite hard for them to like, Cause they have to they're in a really awkward spot. They don't want to, all their trainers are very valuable resources for them. Cause they're a slow deck. They want to. Utilize their resources in the most efficient way. So they just don't want to dump Maulana and metal saucers and whatnot. Willy nilly and Ganga is obviously also your, one of your best ways to deal with Zamazenta. So if I was facing down as against LucMetal, that would be like the primary time that I would think about like double energy whorehouse and a Poltergeist.

Brent:

Brett, have you ever done for the double energy or house?

Brit:

Yeah, I'm actually just sort of sitting here listening and just questioning myself. Cause I do it. I mean, it's matchup dependent of course, but I find,

Brent:

Wow.

Brit:

I find it usually pretty good. Against ADP. I think that there, you know, maybe not, I'd have to think but they do play a pretty high account of trainers. So I don't really question the efficacy of it nor do I really worry about them drawing cards. Again, it's going to depend on the board So you can't let them draw cards. And again, yeah, no, perhaps they get the metal saucers anyways, and it doesn't matter, but like, I I've, I feel usually pretty safe into this, into the horror house play. If I can get it you know, if they, I go first, I get this attachment or sometimes it's more, more realistically. It's like, I go first and I have to shadow writers down. And then on the next paternal gang guard, double attach that happens more consistently. But if they, with the if they, with the alter on their them going second, their first turn, Or if you can combine it with a boss, like I've had that happen plenty of times. And so I just, you just have to understand how it's going to affect your game. So you can't, you can't do the whorehouse play where they can Ultimate Ray sort of after. And then of course also it is a risk. Like I know just thinking about it. I lost a game recently where they had eight cards. It was the, the, the full horror house effect and they drew for a turn and I did 50 damage. And I'm just like, how is this POS against ADP? I was so upset. No, it was against ice rider actually. Cause I think I posted it against, in the chat. I was like, they had eight cards in their hand and it was just like four of them or it was like energy evolution, melon. Like it was a perfect card. Then I would have won the game on the run. But yeah, I, I don't, I, I find it as it can be useful in the right circumstances and. I don't, I, I guess I am probably losing myself a decent number of games. I mean, I don't, I think my win rate is really pretty high. And so it just depends if they, if they do find the gang Gar knockout, then you probably are going to lose. So I just kind of, I think it just has to work in these scenarios where they don't get to alter sort of as a result of the, the, the just general effect of the card. And hopefully that is, can buy you time. So like, the scenario I'm talking about is like, again, if you don't have the boss, you're probably playing against a bad player. Cause ADP shouldn't be active, but like they only have the water, they have one energy and they, with the energy switch and they just pass with ADP active or something. And then I like always double whore. I like will always try to double or harass that because the ADP is already active. And then it's the fastest way to knock it out. Generally speaking again, you're gambling to be

Brent:

for six items and you just hit perfect math. That's one of the drain.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I don't, I really don't think it's that bad if you can get them to draw, like, especially too, like sometimes I know I've had games where I haven't even gotten the double effect and you know, it's just an ADP typical first turn where they Crobat Danae and then a Intrepid sorta in their turn. And sometimes that'll be a 10, 11, 8 cards, something like that. I've done that in games and one before too. And I don't even get the full effect from whorehouse, but I just see like your hands big, I'm getting a knockout on Poltergeist. And hopefully this is enough to like impede your tempo and to keep me in the game. And I think when it, when you. When you can knock out the ADP before they, the GX and it is good enough, I've found, but I don't think I'm playing against top players. And you know, when, if Moltres race isn't involved, it gets a lot different too. I'm more or less only talking about, or at least my experience is only talking about kind of older, older iterations, no mold, tracers Zacian model while ADP and so on.

Brent:

I think it's a good point about the Intrepid sword. Like if they Intrepid sort of, they don't attach energies, you're like, Hmm. You definitely just picked up like a couple of trainers.

Mike:

Right,

Brit:

right. Right. So like with Intrepid server too, you get good reads. You can, you can get pretty good reads. Like if they're, if they're not energy, like ADP plays, why like 14, 15 Pokemon, like probably pretty good.

Mike:

Everything you said makes sense. I think I was talking a little bit in a more broader

Brit:

Yeah.

Mike:

than just the ADP matchup where, but I think you're right. That the ADP also plays a ton of trainers. So it's probably a little bit safer. They're similar to the LMZ,

Brent:

Yeah, well, and, and hitting for 300, like turn two is so good in the ADP match up. Like yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it's great. And other match ups too, but like, that's one where you, you know, you already have like a little bit of math problems cause they haven't psychic resistance and you know, if you just like, you hit 300 on their ADP before they Altered Creation, I'm just going to skip. Right.

Mike:

Yeah. Yep.

Brent:

And if it's 300 before they Ultimate Ray, they're going to be like, I'm probably going to lose this.

Mike:

Yeah. That's the thing you have to, as long as you can at ADP, before Ultimate Ray, like they can get the GX off that's okay. But if you came up before Ultimate Ray, you still almost always win. If you came before the GX, you always win. But

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Like there's just, no, there's no way.

Mike:

like always yeah. There was another chill tournament though. There was the GG tour chill regional style event that happened this weekend. And that's, you know, they played best of three Swiss into into a day two into a top eight. And those results were pretty interesting. I will say it was all there. The top bait was six dark decks and two shadow riders.

Brit:

Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

So Barry pretty centralized meta game. I was quite surprised that no ice rider made it into topic because I tried, it was still quite popular. I think it was the second or third most played day. Second most played deck. Yeah. It turned out. This seems to have done quite well. For, I mean, it was the third, most played deck, but still did had three out of the top eight. So I feel like It overperformed a little bit two of the lists were basically this they're all kind of the same. I think, I think they all played revile. Yeah. I mean, they're all like a couple of cards off, but they basically all, and they all play. We vile they'll play three chaotics well, so the opposite of the Japanese lists that are not respecting fats to the beak at all, or the germ, the German person's list is a little bit different, but still we vial stoke ex-post. So that's really interesting to see. And then the other dark decks were ADP Moltres, which ended up winning. We had a Mewtwo, we vile deck the me-too dark deck And a spirit to spirit tonight. Back having a good showing.

Brent:

Does that mean? I don't know. It hurts me to say, are we sleeping on spirits?

Mike:

I just saw, I walked while we were, while we started recording mellow. He, he posted on Twitter that he, some funny tweet, but basically saying that he thinks spear to is underplayed. Maybe it's underplayed. Maybe that's true, but I don't know. It's still not that great in my

Brit:

was kind of high and as little as power list, wasn't it. And like it, it was in there. I mean, I haven't tested with her even played against it, but in thinking about it. And I know we went over this last week, like, I, I think it seems like it would stack up, well, like both of them out the writer decks in that, in the right Mehta game, I think is enough. Like what do you struggle against? Like, you're Not good against ADP

Mike:

Not going to get into ADP. You're not that good against Eternatus to be honest with you, especially if they play like two or three evil talls, Which pretty much everyone plays too. And you have to really watch out for'em Zigzagoon and two shot. I'm going to turn it. This is not easy, like due

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

to hitting a Eternatus is not easy. It's also not that easy to, to get a, a, an ice rider. Obviously it's easy to Kao the shadow writers, but, Yeah, I'm sure the ice, right. Our matchup is favored, but it's probably quite close. I am. and then like, LucMetal is also another big deck that the person that made top eight did really well against, but I've always found that kind of a close up as well.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, in theory, you're not bad against any of the female stacks, but yeah, on paper it's really awkward and released several formats ago when I, was trying spirit to my know, like, I mean, it ends up being kind of the same story from man party. And I remember similarly struggling. It's like, well, yeah, you just killed two weeks of you. Max is it's real. It's really hard or really easy. But then it's just like, well, your damage isn't good for till really late in the game, And then you have to double boss and that's hard. There's remembered struggling with Dennis' score. So even on paper, like, yeah, I mean, maybe it's just Like, it does well and it gets nothing but Shadow Rider.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the guy's matchups, he beat a bunch of other stuff, but he beat, you know, in, in 14 rounds he played 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Shadow Rider. So that's like just immediately five free wins. And then, and then as long as you do okay. In the other rounds then yeah, the

Brent:

right. So what you're saying is he really, he went 5, 3, 2 against the unfavorable meta. Okay.

Mike:

Yeah. yeah, right. It's just so like I CA I I've played it, you know, I played it a decent amount of games in this format, a decent amount of games, in the last four minutes, essentially the same deck. There's really nothing new. I just can't get over. like, it's inherent consistency issues is just, it's just so awkward. You draw it, you can draw so awkwardly, like maybe you miss a tool, maybe you miss a stadium and you end up discarding three or four of your switch cards. That like when we had rainbow energy and hustle belt, it just made the deck so much more consistent in doing powerful things early, that now it feels way more combo oriented. And if you. And there's just some games where you, like, you you're missing like one or two combo pieces, and then you just, you try to play conservatively and like pass and then your opponent bosses something up and knocks it out. And now you're, can't do the combo, the next turn either. And so there's just like lots of awkward things. When you, when you draw like average to above average. Yeah. The deck is super powerful, but if you're on like the 40% of the, you know, the wrong side of the bell curve, you're losing lots and lots of games. Maybe I'll give it another, try to see if any, if I'm really missing something. But I feel like I play the deck well. So I don't know.

Brent:

You know going back and looking at his match-ups I feel like your, your comments seem like they're spot on. I mean, he loses to the one that Eternatus, he plays in day one, and then he IDs into cut against two Eternatus. It's like, if either one of them had said, Hey, let's just play it out. You never even cuts. Right? Like he ends up, he ends up at 10 and five and five, five against non Shadow Rider decks

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

instead of like he IBS around 13, the idea is around 14 and then around food in top 80 immediately gets matched against the guy who plays. Yeah, he, I bead with and the guy bought his mouth. I certainly, I feel like your comments about like maybe, maybe combos, just to find how a single prize decks work now to like, make the magic happen is it's very reminiscent of the conversation we had about rabbit strike Mallomar last week. Right? I mean, they, they, they look like they're having fun, but they lose, they lose, a lot. Should we talk about Sandra for a second?

Brit:

We can no, no, no. We usually don't venture into drama stuff, but I suppose,

Brent:

Sucks. So super sucks. Sorry, sorry to hear it. The thing that I, the thing that lit my fire and made me say, I, want to talk about on the 5%. As a dad, I guess I just want to take this moment to say, I would like to stamp the casual use of the word cock out of like all discussion. I feel like it. has a underpinning of like, like passive sexism that I absolutely abor in Pokemon and in life. And I feel like the problem is there's like teenagers out there that are casually picking up language like this. And as a parent, I do not approve. There you go. People that's as a whatever.

Brit:

yeah, for me, like, I think this word really starts getting used and like for Chan, like sort of our writer on 2016 election or probably a year or two before, but I've always just my sort of take on just the word is used. So that in, itself is that it's just close enough to other expletives and like, that's why it's caught on, I don't really think there's anything to the content of the word that people are meaning to express when they use it. like obviously you can, but I I'm, I, you know, all right, I'll be a little meta here. Like I wouldn't, I wouldn't surprise me if this kid who used the word, like, like isn't aware of what it's like.

Brent:

I think they're totally not aware of it. Like but that's like a, I dunno, I'm trying to think of other like casual, racist or sexist words, but like there's not, I couldn't feel comfortable using those examples cause like it is, you know, and yeah. That's, that's why. Yeah. I feel like every time I hear it, I'm like, that's like a vulgarity just being casually thrown around. W the more people casually throw it around. the more, I think people feel like they're somehow conditioned to make it then tickets. Okay. Let draw that kind of thing out of

Brit:

just, this is the story of all the, all the all the words it's just it's, you know, you know, we just use that normatively and when it's used normatively, it doesn't sort of have these connotations where it, you know, can be upsetting the classes of people and so on and so forth. But yeah, I mean, it's always, it's always really perplexed me. I've never understood its popularity other than it just being, you know, an intentionally hateful, like four Chan thing.

Brent:

yeah, so totally agree.

Mike:

Okay.

Brent:

Like pushing my own buttons on the, pot. I think the two other decks that we wanted to talk about, or the people texted me that we should talk about is turbo Boltund and Cassidy. I mean, even if we were to talk about single price decks, that need amazing combos how's candidates.

Brit:

I mean, I'll be honest. I, I, I love Benji. I've been friends with Benji for a while. I saw him posting about this very recently, and I've looked at this deck list a number of times, and I know Vinny, I think played it to a top eight finish in another weekly tournament shortly after the fact. But I I haven't figured out how it's supposed to win. So if either of you are privy to that information I, I haven't, I haven't quite pieced together the game plan. Like I I see, see it. I see some of the pieces. And the deck plan, but I just don't do, do you just knock out two female axes? Do you eventually, do you eventually just have, do enough free damage with Inteleon that do that? I don't, I don't know what your plan to victory is like, is your main attacker, the Persian, like, do you do 90? Like I just, it's confusing to me. Which candidate to hacks you want to be using,

Mike:

Well, you use Esper, right? I think aspart is the main

Brit:

right? Yeah, yeah,

Brent:

like, it's like, you're tagged for like 60 twice. And then you tag for like 5,000, twice and you win, I think is the plan.

Mike:

think that's the plan.

Brent:

It seems so hard.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, I, I posted some, I saw it do well in some tournament and I sent it in a chat and then I think Tate said, oh Yeah. I played against this a few days ago and I can have the Persian and then they lost. So that seems probably pretty accurate.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Like, like not getting their Persian boss Kao is critical path. Right?

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

I mean, just the whole back immediately implodes the second. That's not a thing. and it seems like it'd be easy to do because you have several terms to like, figure out how you want to kill all their burdens and they don't have that many right.

Mike:

right? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like a fun deck, but probably not very good. Wait for, wait for a rapid strike box for a spread deck.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. And definitely the thing I took away, you guys talking about the Japanese national championship is like a rapid strike is kind of like, there's more good cards coming in rapid strike and having like a fun box deck is a fun thing. I'm excited that they've at least figured that one out, even if I haven't figured out single strike yet turbo Bolton might give it a some sort of impression of how people can play. Boltund just for Bolton's in Winston.

Mike:

I don't really know where referring to. I did see a turbo Bolton do okay. In the recent sword and Sheldon tournament,

Brent:

Yeah, I think that's, I think that, Yeah. I think it was like doing the foci. God played it In the sort of chilled on tournament, and had it good.

Mike:

Right, right, right. So I, I haven't tried it at all in that format. I don't know. I was thinking today though. Paralysis could be quite good in our standard format. Right now seemed like switch counts have gone significantly down. Like I try to play none. Most, most of the time Shadow Rider plays two maybe.

Brit:

Eternatus is playing now. And that was one of my big takeaways from the weekend events over the weekend, there is a good sort of co collective of good players. They all played Eternatus and with weevil, of course, but I was, they just play air balloon, I guess. I guess we vial is good enough. I'm I'm skeptical here. I turn it to, this has always been a clunker.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

but yeah, but just like you say, paralysis seems to be in a good spot. Maybe, maybe this is peaker. I'm just wins PC for sneaks, right?

Mike:

Yeah. And like, it made me think about that. There could be like a, some lightning deck where you'd play for Boltund. So this is kind of on topic. But maybe you don't even run peek around. Maybe you run like one peak run, just run like two or three ride shoes and just go like heavy paralysis route. You could even run, you can even run, like the Geraci engine. you can run like Bolton with Geraci scoop of nets and Zigzagoon to maybe like help you get to the awkward, like 3 30, 3 40 numbers That you need to against Urshifu and whatnot. I don't know. That could be okay.

Brit:

All right. So, you know, here's, here's how you you build a deck and the current format, you just take an idea. Inteleon so we have this idea and now we're playing 4, 4, 4, 3 Inteleon too.

Mike:

Yeah. Right. You Inteleon

Brit:

but I, I think, I think that could be fine. Like paralysis is obviously good and Pikarom, doesn't really do like electric. Every, every aspect of its attacks are only electric energy. Whereas Pika Chu, you could like tag engine, weak discard energy. Cause none of the Urshifu decks play Garret Tina anymore. So like maybe you could find a way as well to deal with that, that being an issue. I mean, I guess you could just play MuTu at

Brent:

I was going to say, Yeah. you're obviously gonna play mew and like, eh, yeah. Like

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Mimi is a super good answer to all those problems and it helps, you know, dealing with.

Brit:

Yeah. I doubt. I mean, probably can't if we want you to probably doesn't want Inteleon, but I will say that right. She was a card. I was just playing peek around so much last format and the format before there's a lot of scenarios or where, right. Chewed needs an extra 10 or 20 damage. I don't know if there's the space, but I don't necessarily think I'm seriously suggesting it, but I think Inteleon would have some merits there. Like you do

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

a, what was it? Oh yeah. I guess some of that math ended up being particular. Cause you had Full Blitz and then tandem shock. it would be three 10. So you'd be a little shy here in there. So maybe it's not quite as relevant with only right. You, but I think that could be good. I mean, tag teams themselves, they're just so strong. I don't think it really there's anything as a Max's can do that will ever change that. So I would think this deck. would probably be worth exploring, at least until people start playing switches and more bird keepers or something again.

Mike:

Yep. There we go. There you go. There. There's there's your triple button deck.

Brent:

Oh so the last, the last two notes that I had for us to cover is the breaking news, as we sat down for the pod is Jesse Hill announced that he is leaving a Pokemon to become the community, coordinator for magic. Jesse I think it's worth taking a moment cause we've talked about Jesse on the pod before he did a good job. Like I think before that people thought the Pokemon community coordinator was a virtually impossible person to find and was completely unresponsive to questions we had. So props to him for parlaying it into what is hopefully a better paying, bigger pain.

Mike:

Oh,

Brent:

Hopefully both the mom can find someone equally exciting. I know every time there's like Pokemon. opening people in our community rise up to try to get that position. Hopefully Pokemon can find someone else and to do that stuff.

Mike:

Yeah. In this role in particular, I mean, like, I feel like a lot of the roles that have been filled by previous players, I don't know how much impact they have back on the community, if that makes sense. Cause I feel like a lot of them have been more design and product driven roles, but, this has like a very direct role. So it makes a lot of sense to me to hire someone that has been part of the community and has lots of connections already. I don't know. We'll see though.

Brent:

But we, we hope for the best, last question for you guys, Pokemon unite. Do you buy it? there a Trashalanche a team. I don't know.

Mike:

Is this the league of legends Pokemon.

Brit:

It's free. So I don't think you have to buy it

Brent:

Well, you, you can tell how into it, Mike is.

Brit:

I've I've I've preloaded it though. You can download it now play starting tomorrow. I don't know. I like those or at least I played league of legends for pretty seriously when I was in high school, like, like many people my age. I'm excited to try it. I'm excited. It's nice to be on a handheld. And I haven't even, I always played my switch in handheld. I don't have, I have the switch that can do both, but I very, very rarely have it to make DMI. I like playing in bad or something like that. I'm excited for it, Hopefully. It's good. Play it. Spawn. I'm trying to get some games.

Brent:

So if it's free to download, what's the, what's the monetization model. I mean, this shows how much I know about it. I don't even know what that.

Brit:

Yeah, that's a good question. Especially because Nintendo just isn't isn't about that. Like, I don't know, sort of. What there, because I just can't think of any equivalents where they'd be blue boxes, I guess they do mobile games and those all sort of

Brent:

Oh, I I assumed, I assumed you were going to say like, you have to buy Gritten and then people would be like, yeah, dammit, you got me. Or, or it could be like the borderline model. It'd be like, you want a different colored star for good engine. You've got to pay.

Brit:

I think I've seen costumes. So at the very least, I think your Pokemon will be dressing up and things like that. But I would think you'd probably have to pay for characters too. Cause I know like if you play before a certain date, you get I forgot how to say that one. The electric guy.

Brent:

Is there a world or something like that? I feel like you ruined me for that.

Mike:

I'll I'll probably download it to try it out. See if I like it.

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

high hopes that I'll like it, but.

Brent:

You know I mean, I recognize virtually anyone who has ever done anything in gaming is like, you know what? I can just like make a legal legends knock. Cause like league of legends, everyone loves it. And like you make it a little simpler and you Pokemon brand it. And like, that sounds like a thing. I assume we'll see Pokemon unite tournaments at our local regionals in a hot second.

Brit:

I

Brent:

And that'll be a thing.

Brit:

it seems that they want to push it like that. From what I can tell, I do think, I don't know if that necessarily means, will be at our tournament, but from what I can tell, they really, they want to push it. So it'll be interesting to see

Brent:

That's the show episode 50 in the books.

Mike:

50. We did it. 50 is pretty crazy.

Brent:

It is pretty crazy. Very impressive.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

And in 100% attendance for every episode, that's a, you know, showing up repeatedly is half the battle or something. There's the some business advice book there.

Mike:

It's true. Oh man,

Brent:

Yeah. Time for Mike to go take a nap.