The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Drink tier list, Pokemon Unite Patch: Venasaur is good, worst regionals ever, 1k tournament: Zacian, Inteleon VMax

August 10, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 2 Episode 1
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Drink tier list, Pokemon Unite Patch: Venasaur is good, worst regionals ever, 1k tournament: Zacian, Inteleon VMax
Transcript
Brent:

Welcome to the Trashalanche it's me Brynne Halbert here as always with my chamber. Pybas 100% attendance is the trademark like random people. Just DME love that attendance is 100% all the time and I love it.

Mike:

Okay.

Brent:

We appreciate it. We are on Twitter Hayes wise, Mike, Fouchet be Halliburton. You can follow us on Twitter. We tweet more about stuff that we do on the pod. And every time we get a follower, we run a little bell. They say that that sort of stuff is important. We are sponsored by channel fireball. The, the thing I'd noted on channel fireball this week is they're selling booster boxes for evolving stats at$135. And I saw someone on Twitter complaining about how they were paying$150 for a booster box. And I thought they could've just gone to channel fireball. And if you use the, the code name trash, when you check out I think you get a 5% discount and maybe we get like a dollar, something like that. I don't know something like that. Anyway while I haven't looked at other places,$135, apparently is a fair price to play for booster boxes and channel fireball sponsors, pod. So we appreciate it. They appreciate it. Everybody appreciates it. You know, I rarely advertise for them, but they have been a consistent supporter from us since virtually day one. And we appreciate it. Five star review update guys. We always say, if you leave a review for us, we will read it on the pod. We did not get a new five star reviews. We are holding steady at 32. When we get to 100, we will do some sort of a funny contest where we pick the greatest of all reviews and award them a fantastic prize. However, Jake roll-off wrote me a Twitter DM does absolutely fantastic. It is so fantastic, Jake, that we want you to know. We deliberately decided to push it to the next pod so we can have a more thorough discussion of it. There was really so much stuff happening at this week. We felt like we would not be able to really do it justice in the slightly over an hour that we tried to constrain the pod too. So we'll be coming back with extensive discussion of Jake us tweets next week. We appreciate all the Twitter DMS. Guys, one thing I wanted to do last week and it somehow slipped my mind because I didn't write it down, which is why I always should write things down is I wanted to just take a minute to note some of my favorite things from the first 52 episodes, that, that for me define my experience and demonstrate the thankfulness in some way for the amazing patinas that we have. Two things I think are really stand out to me when I think back on the pot and it's one from each of you. So I thought in that way, it was appropriate for me to take a moment to share a Brit. I tell people all the time that one of the defining traits of our pod was your comment in the first episode where you were like, interviews are like, what we contact do to time

Mike:

lazy

Brent:

lazy content creators. Exactly. Mike Rivers into two that's, like that is like defined so much of the pod it's.

Brit:

I thought you were maybe going to say, and this will be some, just some rare pod trivia. The one time, the one time you censored me. I think there was the, my one comment about Pokemon players that didn't, didn't make it into an episode about their reading levels and so forth. No, that's a, that's a good one too. It's nice to see, not to have to fall back on it.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I haven't, haven't had to fall back to interviews yet, but yeah. So, so a friend of mine listened to a couple of episodes that he has, like, you knows nothing about Pokemon, but let's do a couple of episodes anyway the other day. And he was like, why do people know who all these players you guys talk about? Are could you like get them on the pot? And I was like, we could, but we don't. The other, the other kind of Seminole moment that, that, that I was thinking about the other day was, and I really tried to track down this episode, so somebody could find the episode and find the clip. All of you like an Intrepid, Trashalanche you, you can send it to me for recognition on future pods. There, there was a specific podcast where Mike, you like, you played like one minor tournament or you played like five practice games, and then you were like, oh guys, I guess I'm a peek around Maine now. And that, that moment was like the turning of the Titanic on this podcast. Because after that you've gone on like a legendary run. You won the chill tournament or the GG tour tournament. But is that, were those the same thing?

Mike:

Same thing, but Yeah. I remember cause we had a pretty lengthy discussion on philosophy of do you main one deck and get really, really good with it? Or do you play a bunch of different decks and. Kind of like the pros and cons of both of those things we spend almost like probably like half an episode on that. And yeah, like a week or two later, I kind of just started playing Pikarom all the time. Pretty funny. Which I think is like a really good example of something that doing the podcast has helped me as a competitive player. I don't really, honestly, I don't really like test and talk with too many people, at least in comparison to what I used to do with like when I was in high school or college and whatnot. And so this just gives me an, you know, an opportunity to speak out loud and reflect out loud. And that's been super valuable this year.

Brent:

Yeah, but, but yeah, like, like three weeks after that you or, or four weeks after that, shortly after you win the Gigi tour tournament. And then like you essentially, it's like six months of peak around fueled outcomes. Wrapping up with the, a players cup three

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

wild.

Mike:

I was telling people this weekend which we'll get into, but I was talking to, oh, I was talking to Justin Bokhari. Cause Bokhari is, was kind of like a, he's always been like a stick with one deck type of person. You know, he played Greninja for a long time and he, he played peaker on for a long time too. And I don't think like I haven't done that too much in my Pokemon career. I'm usually a mix it up type of person, but there is something like there's a really, really satisfying and good feeling to know a Dex so well that. You know, you have your 60 card deck and you know that if you change this one card, how every single one of your match-ups is going to change, like almost to a, like a T. And I felt like that would pique her arm and it is, it is really cool to to have that feeling.

Brent:

In terms of like the other nonsense, I thought we should cover, I thought that there were a number of tweets about us soda tiers. The ones that, the ones that ended up on my timeline were tape white cells and Xander Pero. And I thought we should just dissect these for a moment because they're both obviously really wrong.

Brit:

The beverages,

Mike:

Beverages and more generally. Yeah.

Brent:

So what's, what's the Stu beverage for you guys.

Brit:

I mean, this is, so me, I mean, this, I can make it that's really, really philosophical because I think more or less is all of our problems. But we're talking, we're just everyone talking is talking about different things. There's no, there's no consistency or no way, no way to know that our, our metrics are consistent. And so I just, I just don't know, like, why is it flavored? Like, like thinking about it, I think most simply like, right. It's I think sort of the, the whole play on these tearless is just like, do you like water or not? And so then this question is we're, we're interlinked, we're intermingling, like content and categories. So like on one hand, like, yeah, water is the best. But that's that that's for these other reasons, whereas every other drink on these tier list are being evaluated. Like clearly not strictly on a health sort of basis or something like that. Right. So like, obviously water's great. I drink, I drink a lot of water. I'd even wager I drink the most water of, of any of us on the podcast.

Brent:

I would agree with

Brit:

and so again, like in, in my, in, in my, is water S tier, I don't know, it depends on what we're evaluating it by. And so that's why I just, I just, to me, to me, this is just like, are we healthy or not? Like, let's look at the nerds who only drink soda or something like that. Like, I don't, I don't really know what to say, but I'd be happy to give you my preferences, but in terms of ranking out the window,

Brent:

So I w I would say, I would say the people that drink soda they're clearly in the wrong, right? As it turns out, even though I probably twenty-five years ago, that defines me, I would say, as it turns out incorrect, I will tell you my, so my, you know, contextually 13, 13, and 14 year old boys, my kids looked at this and said, Zander's is wrong because you have to pick water or milk. You cannot mean both.

Mike:

I like that.

Brent:

have a go-to healthy drink. It has to be one of those that cannot be both of those. It's insane. And I, but I, you know, I thought, okay, that's a, that's a rational way to look at the price. I think, I don't know. We're low standard. So, so Michael, where do you, where do you end up drink tiers?

Mike:

I mean, I'm definitely a big water drinker as well. I almost exclusively drink water. I like juice a lot, but usually actually what I usually do is I'll do like. You know, a glass, maybe put a quarter, maybe 20% juice and then do the rest water. And that is if I'm drinking juice, that's what, that's how I'm usually drinking it.

Brent:

Yeah, diluting, the stuff you buy at the store is a that is an S your strategy for drinks. It's like way too sweet. If you buy like lemonade at the store or something like that, you've got to dilute it.

Mike:

yeah. Right, exactly. So and grow. But I love Gatorade. Gatorade would be up there for me. Gatorade would be like eight tier. I do drink soda occasionally, but maybe like once, once every couple of weeks I'll have a, you know, a glass of soda. And then I have a, I have heartburn, so I can't do any of the citrusy drinks. So like no orange juice. No, Lemonade's good. But I can't do it too much. So those have to be lower for me.

Brent:

Ouch man. That's unfortunate.

Mike:

Yeah. Gatorade is the one thing on here though, that they both have pretty low that I like Gatorade a lot.

Brit:

Gatorade is definitely better than power, right? This is absurd.

Mike:

Right, right. I

Brent:

Power eight is like F tier for me.

Mike:

FTA. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. Like you couldn't pay me to drink power. It that's just not going to happen. Power. It might be the worst ranked thing on here for me. Yup. Yup. Power. It's the worst.

Mike:

I think male milk drinking straight milk is probably the worst. thing on this list for me.

Brit:

Yeah. See, I, I grew up doing that. I feel like that that's sort of like a regional thing. Maybe, maybe based on the tier list. I see. I might be wrong because Brent, your kids seem to think of no Kylie. And I associate that as like a Midwest thing, and you're obviously not

Brent:

I'm a Texan. So maybe I just raised my kids more Midwestern

Brit:

But yeah, I, I mean, I, I grew up drinking milk every single night as, as many people do. And sort of just like, not only is the science on that been proven like really wrong sort of thing. I reflect back on a lot of, kind of the dietary habits. Like I received from my parents and just sort of like, oh, that's why, that's why I have these issues or, you know, whatnot. But yeah, ever since then, I mean, I don't mind drinking it. Like I can drink a glass of milk, but I don't crave it. I can't fathom craving it. And I, I just don't consume very much dairy at all anymore.

Brent:

that was my next question. I was going to say, are you just off the dairy train completely.

Brit:

Yeah. Mostly, but I don't think I even, even if I were still, you know, mixing up my protein powders with milk or something, I don't think I would ever, like, I would never just sort of like soda or a glass of milk, like every, every way in the dairy direction.

Brent:

Yeah,

Brit:

Some people love it. I don't know. I do like chocolate milk, but that's just like a dessert really more, at least the, I don't know how chocolate milk can be for you guys, but even in my neck of the woods at all actually is made in this milk called Highland dairy. And it's made for where I'm from in Missouri, but we have it in like Kansas city in Oklahoma and stuff. And that chocolate milk is very, very, very good. But it's like, it's like mega thick. You would, you wouldn't drink it as like with a meal or something like that. It would be too much.

Brent:

I think, I think every time I have chocolate milk these days, I think, Hmm. You know, I can just have a chocolate protein shake and it wouldn't be quite as tasty, but it'd be like 10 times healthier. Wow. That's, that's usually where I end up the, you know, the, the notable emission from this for me is my kids have recently gotten on the cran-grape train because polo G did an interview. And he said that that's the only thing he ever did. And I was like, okay, I guess we should pick up some cran-grape and see it. My kids were tried it and they were like, you know what? It's actually pretty good.

Brit:

Piece too. There's these, like, they have, they're all have all sorts of sort of combo assortments, but you can get them in like, there's just like juice or like diet juice and the diet juice. It's basically like just the concoction that might be described already. Like it's clearly just watered down, but they have lots of good like cran, apple cran-grape stuff. I would do that or like a diet soda sometimes just to like, get, get some.

Brent:

Yeah. You know, I think, I think this is a Midwest thing, cause I really, really picked it up in Texas and I never seen anyone do this, but like combining cranberry juice with like sparkling water or lemon lime sodas is, is like a super a strategy for me as well. These are the, is the, education's not quite covered here.

Mike:

The That I usually get by the way, is the V8 juice, not the V8 splash, but the like the actual

Brent:

Straight V8.

Mike:

Yeah. But that's the stuff.

Brent:

Did I, you know what I got to say straight VA is definitely not juice VA to something else.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

V8 is V8 is the drink that I look at. And I say, if I wanted to be my best self, I would give you it. But there's no way on earth. I'm getting that. Even though I would sound like a big Despacito guy, like V8 is probably not even a distant cousin to a good cold dispatcher, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Well, are you you're thinking like the tomato one, right? Yeah. they do. Like they have like a strawberry banana. They have a more

Brent:

Oh, you're you're. Those are, those are like the Gatorade VAs right there. Like,

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

yeah. That's, you're really out there now.

Mike:

Yeah, not the V8 splash though. That's different.

Brit:

like on that topic, how to, I guess my dad will just like drink the, the VA spicy VA, like as a beverage of choice, but I had like an interesting realization. He was like, oh, it turns out I like bloody Mary's trying them for the first time and was like, wait, no, I like spicy tomato cheese. That's what I like. It's not has nothing to do with, you know, the alcohol of course. But yeah, I'm a weirdo. I don't, I don't think I would ever sort of like, oh, I'm parched going in straight for the spicy tomato juice, but I like that. It's good.

Brent:

Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. It's, it's a, it's a strange choice because I don't think of it as a drink. It's like an appetizer. All right. Do, do we have any Pokemon unite updates, Mike, have you played any more

Mike:

I have not.

Brent:

Brit talk, talk to me. Do we have a perspective on the the nerfing and buffing? What do they call it? The update it's taking place.

Brit:

Yeah. I can't really tell. And again, I'm not at a very competitive level, so I think it's sort of even where I am in my own playing and

Brent:

we are the best Pokemon United players. This is a Pokemon United podcast. This is Pokemon United information.

Brit:

I don't think it matters at my level, like,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

you know, for most of these games fighting games, for instance, like. Like whether a character characters good or bad or not like sort of only tends to matter at the highest level, of course, as you go progressively up. So I haven't really been able to tell like worse or the pro cinder is players. Can they no longer play this character at all? Not sure there, but vena sword definitely as much better as one of the, the buffs. I talked to just message rolls what I do now. And I was like, Hey, I need a bill to, what do I do? He gave me this fun, like tanky, vena store built that I really had fun with that. I've again, I just don't like playing ranked that just will frustrate me. And I can just spam, normal games or quick games without getting that. But I did, I did just finish climbing myself out of a great, no, the one above that veteran

Brent:

Veteran.

Brit:

I played almost exclusively this tanky Vienna score, and it's a lot of fun. Another just sort of role in these games that are in RPGs in general that I like to play the tank. Yeah.

Brent:

Was it hard to get out of veteran?

Brit:

Like the games that I don't feel like I very rarely lose unless there's just someone just clearly terrible. Or it's a four of you five, I feel. And that's why I feel like good about it. My plan, I don't necessarily care too much about getting to Iran. Cause like I'm clear you almost always the best person in my game. And so it's, I, I like hard carried almost all of these games with Dina score. And when I didn't play Venus where I played elder GOs, so I like played two or three ranked games today and I was MVP. Two of the three, I think. So I, I'm still at a point where I feel mostly pretty good about the hard carrying or carrying myself out. I'm sure I'll run into a wall. And even then, like I said, it's easy to, it takes about one game of these, these bad stuff happening for me to get frustrated and just not want to play ranked. And so for instance, on this is probably the funniest thing that's happened to me, not funny at the time, but on Sunday, I think it was, I was one win away from getting into better. And and I had a crustal on my team that purposefully used the law to impede my team, our team, the entire game. So we lost,

Brent:

All right. Last thing before we get into sort of shield on, we should talk about the 25th anniversary invitation. And, and where it's at. So the, the people that were in our Zack Henry brand, Natalie malar, Diego Kaziranga Azule and Robin. So they've two more slots. I think the conventional wisdom is toward an Alec Szymanski are probably the last two that, that filled the slots.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, they already have three, three of the players cup winners, Right. So it makes sense to have Alex And, I can't imagine not invite him toward he's one of the best players. Andy had two top fours at two of the players cups. So he has a recent results as well. and pretty much all of these people have had recent results. Diego being maybe the one exception. And like, but he's still one world within the last five years.

Brent:

Right. And, and if, if like Robin and toward where they're all. Oh, I guess, I guess Henry and Natalie are like Australia, but this didn't work out the way. I think we were hoping it would work out.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

I don't know why either. I like, so I, we, when we speculated before, I think we had a lot more. You know, older players and I don't really thinking about it now, seeing, saving how it's gone. I don't know why I had the, had the expectation that like, oh yeah, they'll definitely be a Jason. They'll definitely get pregnant pram. Like, I don't know why it makes, it's not surprising, like not in a good or a bad way. Like, especially too, like when they first started announcing them, I was like, yeah. You know, I bet Jason, like maybe what? Just say no, or he's hard to find it's not really on anything too. So like maybe they couldn't get ahold of them. Then it was more coming out. I was like, oh, okay. Okay. Players, cop. Got it. But yeah, maybe, maybe the last one will be, will be something that we're not expecting. But I mean, not to say that all the, every player from the players cup oh, well established in terms of, you know, wins their ability and so forth. But I was just, I'm just old, we're old. And so I, I was expecting, hoping to be rewarded.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, when they say greatest players of all time, I think we didn't imagine that means cherry picking out all the players cup winners. Right,

Mike:

Yeah. And nothing against 20 players. Cops, obviously

Brent:

exactly. Yeah. I mean, obviously Zach is a great player. Natalie is great player like, but, but I it's weird. And you know, I think particularly it was driven home to me that where Ms. Shintaro Edo won the Zack massage late night series tournament, like two days ago, like it would be super easy to get Shintaro to come play. And he's, you know, he's obviously one of the greatest players of all time and he's, he's playing right now and he's winning. I mean, maybe they'll still announce him, but if they don't include towards that would be weird. And, you know, I guess they could not include Alex, but include all the other players cup guys. I assumed that they were holding a slot for him.

Mike:

Yeah. We'll see. I mean, regardless, it'll be pretty interesting to watch this weekend. If I'm not doing anything, I'll definitely tune in.

Brent:

Yeah. Do we think I mean, so this is another example of the kind of tournaments we've seen recently where it's like, like a very defined meta any thoughts on like what might happen in this tournament? And should we, should we speculate for a second? I mean, I, I assume that like Robin and toured and Alex, if they were playing a tournament this weekend would all play rapid striker. Urshifu.

Mike:

right. Probably. Yeah.

Brent:

But then maybe they don't because I think anybody that looks at this would say, well, they'll obviously take our shift. Boom. So then like you just play, I don't know. Maybe, maybe this is, do we have like a triangular meta and I hadn't really recognized it until now where it's like, Spiritomb Shadow Rider. Remonstrate Urshifu

Mike:

I mean, I think there's an aspect of that aspect of that, but I don't know if that's, I think there's other components to it too. The other thing to think about though, is. If these players, so I assume that the tournament already happened, right. Like that's, I feel like that's a safe assumption based on how they've done the other players cups. So it would be interesting to know if they knew who the other players were going into it, because if not, then it's very different, Right, Because if they do know, then there's some mind games going on with what you said, but if they had to choose decks before they knew who else was in the event, they probably just did play the deck that they were most comfortable with.

Brent:

right.

Mike:

Okay.

Brit:

Yeah, I know at least I think the Henry brand sort of insinuated that you would have an interesting doctor bring and he certainly would be one of the players to do so, and has played, you know, these, these kind of off, off kilter MuTu lists the last year or two. So hopefully there's some interesting stuff there. But yeah, I mean also, I guess, to, to, to play off the triangle, you earlier, the rock paper, scissors, meta, like there are some elements to that, but I don't think like, usually I think when we talk in those sorts of terms, like it's very, very dominant, you know, like, like more like 70, 30 or better in terms of the rock versus the scissors or whatever. And like, even, even though like, yeah, Shadow Rider, his favorite, like I see looking at tournament results and things all the time, like Urshifu wins. Enough that it's at least not like super dominant and so on. And that there's like a little space. It doesn't seem too much more now. Like, like I said, in an episode or two ago, it seems like this meta game got solved, like really pretty quickly. And I guess the only thing sort of brought into the tension now, thanks to the end of the players cup is just Urshifu, Inteleon being probably maybe a little bit stronger than people gave it credit for a couple of weeks ago, but yeah, otherwise I just kind of would think, yeah, it's maybe just a, an arms race over, who's going to bring Shadow Rider or not, or who's going to bring dark, like, you know, that was a big, a big thing in the players cup that was maybe a handful of players are just going to bring Spiritomb again, hoping to hoping to get the match they want.

Brent:

All right. Let's talk about sorta shield on Mike. How was it?

Mike:

It was really fun. I had a really good time. So let me just start off with that. I know the event has gotten some criticism and deserved criticism for the pride gene in particular, well pricing versus like the cost of the event. So it costs us$60 to get in the total payout that they gave was. Hmm. maybe$1,200. And there is a, I think 120 ish people that were there between 120, 130. So whatever that math is obviously they needed to pay a little bit for the venue they needed to compensate the, the staff and the judges. But there's still probably some good chunk leftover that could have made the prize pool a little bit bigger. So admittedly, that was certainly an issue, but almost everything else was really awesome. Jason ran the event and he did a fantastic job. The judges were great, you know, poker, pop Nancy, John Conti. They did a really good job. Turnaround times were smooth. I mean, it said it was going to start at nine. We probably started at like nine 30. 9 48 and each round, less than five minutes in between each round. I was one like one round. I was the very last game to finish and I couldn't even get out of my seat before the next round was paired. So, so it was, it was really well run. And you know, it scratched the itch. I think for a lot of players that wanted to just play in a competitive, somewhat large tournament in real life for the first time in a long time. And I think it did that. I'm really lucky. It was only 30 minutes from me. I think if it was, you know, more than a few hours, I probably wouldn't have gone. But I think people have traveled. They, again, they just kind of, they wanted to hang out with people. They want to hang out with people.

Brent:

Right. So, so I felt like the other controversy that I didn't completely understand. I assume I would have understood it if I had been paying attention beforehand or maybe it had to be there. So it's, you know, explained to me is it seems like a lot of people and I'll say specifically Peter Kika didn't have to play a lot of arounds. Like how did, how did all that work? Like what, what the heck's going on there?

Mike:

so there, there were a number of like small events in New Jersey leading up to this one where if you, I don't know exactly what it was like, let's say you made top four, then you got a buy something. It was something like that, Andy,

Brit:

Okay.

Mike:

but you could get up to two buys. So I think Kiki got two buys. There's a couple of people that had to buy. The real controversy though, I think with the buys, buys inherently are not an issue, but for some reason, the pairing software ended up pairing up everyone that got buys to one another, like they took priority. So, you know, the third round of the people that got two buys all played against each other and then the next round, all the people that were three and O or two and one with those buys all played against each other. And I think then it was, it kinda like went from there, but Yeah. so that's not good. And I think for one person in particular, he was a lot of the people that played buys kind of worked together and they all ended up playing the Zacian Inteleon deck that Kiko posted. And one of the other people that got to buy was playing ice rider. So he had a bad day. There's no way you can know that right. Going into the event that the software is going to do that.

Brent:

right, right.

Mike:

Name

Brent:

yeah. Well, and, and that's, I mean, the fact that those people could play like a couple of rounds and then I'd be in cut. It must be nice, right?

Mike:

well, yeah, that, so that, that, that, that was really fun. Like, yeah, that was really funny with Kiko. Yeah. So he went, he had two buys, then he won four rounds. So then he was six now, and then he got to ID twice. And then in top 16, actually his opponent was Charlie Laparre. But Charlie put the wrong drizzles Isles on his list. So he was going to have to play with the not search drizzle. So he just conceded cause he was like, I don't want to do this. So Kiko essentially got a free one in top 16 and then the top eight split. So yeah, Kika played four rounds and made tapping, but that's like super extreme case,

Brent:

How, how late at night was the top. It split. I, that that was more about let's let's manage the cash and de-risk it. Then it was about like, it's three in the morning. We're still playing,

Mike:

oh yeah, yeah, Yeah. That toppy top 16 started at like 5 36. So top eight would've started at around 7, 7 30. So it wasn't that late.

Brent:

I know. As, as somebody who wasn't there, I your comments about how well scheduled and well managed it was seen consistently, like I kinda, I woke up, I was on the west coast of vacation. I woke up and I rolled over and I like flipped up in the standings and there were already like four or five rounds that had gotten off. And I was like, wow, that's pretty good.

Mike:

Yeah. People are talking about, they were like comparing it on Twitter to like the fire festival and whatnot. I'm like, do you guys like, I'm thinking of like Arizona regionals, like five years ago, whatever. It was like, that sounds way, way, way worse than this. Or like the North Carolina regionals that had the like the one bathroom for like 2000 people. Like there's been way worse tournament's than this one.

Brent:

Yeah, obviously that Britt where you at the Philadelphia regional, where they were like posting the standings out in the hall, it was like absolute chaos. I know Mike, you must've been there.

Mike:

Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Where were you at that Arizona one though.

Brit:

No, I wasn't. I was, I wasn't at that. I was the worst regionals. I went to her, at least the most storied one for being worst was Kenya 2013.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brit:

people just got sick and it was poorly ran. A lot of people got sick from the Denny's or something that was attached to the main hotel. And then it was just like poorly ran. And like, they like accidentally dropped Ryan's unstable house for like no reason at some point. And like around just had to stop. I don't even, I don't remember. It was, it was a really goofy tournament. Yeah. I think the, like at the Fyre Fest com there comparisons, maybe just that, like, it was sort of just like X was promised, not X was delivered instead of just like the prize, the prize money. It was

Brent:

Right. Or organizer took money and ran?

Mike:

Yeah, sure, sure.

Brent:

No, I mean, it's interesting. I I'm sympathetic to how people say like yeah. I mean, people knew what the pricing was going to be like there, you know, there was no it wasn't some big secret about how it was going to work out. Although obviously, I mean, maybe people thought more people were going to show up and I mean, it seemed to me like when I looked at it, it seemed like there were 127 people.

Mike:

Yeah, that sounds right.

Brent:

And, and like wasn't 128 a kicker.

Mike:

I think so. Yeah.

Brent:

I mean, kind of to your point would have been nice if, if if they just like kicked in the kicker or something like that. But I wonder, I suspect that if they said, Hey, we're throwing an extra X, a hundred dollars in the prize pool. I don't know if that fixes the optics of the situation, you know?

Mike:

Yeah, And like, and like you said, though, everyone could see the prize structure before the tournament. And so nobody that went to the event. Was really under any delusion that the prices were good. That wasn't the, like, it's nice. And, you know, we wanted everyone wanted to do well, but no one was there really for the prizes.

Brent:

yeah. That I think is the real truth is like all this complaining about the the prices. It's I think it's primarily comes from people who weren't there. And I mean, the people that went there, they were, they played a$60 tax to play some in person Pokemon with like a bunch of people and see their friends. Right.

Mike:

Yeah, Yeah. You, you got to compare it to sometimes I think about Pokemon tournament to this way that I think about concerts or sporting events. Like I'm paying money to go entertain myself for a day.

Brent:

Yeah,

Mike:

you know, just the fact that there's prizes sometimes that's just, that's like a bonus for me.

Brent:

exactly. Nobody, nobody thought they were going to get rich doing this.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Alright, so the next, the next big question Mike is I felt like we were down on it. The last time we talked about it. Do you feel differently about Zacian a Inteleon now

Mike:

I mean,

Brent:

or or I guess it was, was it straight station last time we looked at it and now there's, Inteleon

Mike:

no I think it was Inteleon before I still feel more or less the same way. Like it's good against the decks that it's good against. So like it's good against both of the Calyrex decks. We're pretty good against both those. It's not that good against rapid strike. I know he can beat one, but that's matchup is not very good. Everyone in that played the Zacian deck was telling me all day that they wanted to avoid rapid strike.

Brent:

And once they wrap in flow, you you're just teeing up for disaster, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Right, right. And especially the rapid strikes that have a way to back to back rapid flows, like either the Moltres variant or the Melanie variant, which I will talk about later. Yeah. so that metric is not very good. Yeah. And I mean, the deck, the deck is it's, it's just like the most consistent deck, probably in the format. Like you're playing both Zacian, which has an Intrepid sword and Inteleon engine, which gives you a lot of consistency. So you're super consistent. You do what you want to do every game, but your power level is just not that high. So I don't really love the deck, but I guess it doesn't have any auto losses, which is nice.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I certainly my, my reaction seeing a win was we don't really know because I mean, really what he did was he went three real versus the mirror because he's a very good player and then he'd beat a rapid striker. So, and he's like, now I won the tournament.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, and, and he like, nobody won the tournament. Right,

Brent:

right.

Mike:

We don't know what has happened.

Brent:

Yeah, exactly. That's I mean, they didn't, they didn't play out the good players playing good decks against each other part of the tournament. Although I assume, I mean, I don't know, obviously he was ideating around seven round eight. Like they never even got to that part where a good players are playing good players.

Mike:

Right, Exactly. And the, the list that keep it played and at least one or two other people played, they had the texts for the mere match as well. So like, yeah, kick is good, but so playing the search, Esther bath makes it so that, you know, those osteons can't one trout, each other, but then nobody was really playing the, the ping Inteleon in the Italians Austrian. It was just all the certain shield one and they played one thing Inteleon. So now, you know, I can not get out. Oh, code and I can OCO you. So that swings the match up quite a lot.

Brent:

right, right. Let's talk about how your your weekend went. What happened, man?

Mike:

Yeah. So I played Inteleon V max. I played the same list that I played in the online event last week. So it had like one scoop up net one X experience share as like kind of interesting tech cards. And both of them were phenomenal. Experience share is super incredible. Definitely needs to be played maybe even too. So I ended up going five, two, and one, I finished 17th and it was a top 16 cut though. It was a clean cut. So like I was the, just the highest rated five to one. There's a couple of five, one twos that made it in and then everyone X, two and above made it. So I played, I played against a lot of good players. That was also the theme for the event. I would say, like, it was very saturated with good players. So that, that, that made the event fun though. Like, I mean, again, since I wasn't really playing for the prizes, it was just fun to have a lot of good games. So in the first couple of rounds, I played against two ice riders round one, and round three, one was against Chris Wilkinson from the new England area. And one was, I forget his name, but we talked a lot because he was a podcast listener. So I'm sure he's listening right now. And so shout out to him. So the ice rider match, it was pretty good. I ended up winning both those matchups. I went four and one in games, the games against the the podcast listener was not that good, both games. I kind of Marnie them into nothing. This, this signature Mike Fouchet move. So that, that set wasn't super exciting, but the set against Chris Wilkinson was, was awesome. Both of us ended up. Throwing game one and game two in the exact same way. We both benched a Sabal when we didn't think the other person could. Well, so Chris benched us apple against me, and then I was just kind of like used Inteleon to attack and killed his active and killed his bench. And he just kind of had a brain fart. I think for me, it was a little bit more complicated. I used scoop up net to pick up an Inteleon to play the Saba back down to essentially try to guarantee that I have Boston the next turn to win the game, but he didn't actually have a way to knock out my active or a benched Inteleon. But what he did have is he had the pink Inteleon and he had a basic ice rider and the boss. So, he was able to go 40 for one, plus the ping on the Sabal. so I ended up throwing that game. I should have just like hoped that I didn't need to play the drizzle. But, and then game three was like super interesting. He was really far ahead in the game, but he had used both of his air balloons and he had used three Melanie's. And so I had hit his active ice rider that was attacking me. And he had started powering up a second ice rider on the bench, which had one energy. So I gusted it up and then used Inteleon first attack to put the energy back to his hand. And then he didn't have a Melanie if he did I lose the game immediately, but he didn't have a Melanie. So he just had to attach and pass. And so I did it again and I did it again until I was able to use enough. Inteleon pings to. Take all six prizes in one turn. And I just kind of like had to hope that he just didn't dry his last Melanie, which was which worked out and he didn't play any of the shady dealings. Inteleon you only played the pink one, so he didn't have any problems on his bench. So I felt like it was pretty good odds and it worked out. So that was a really cool alternate wind strategy.

Brent:

So, so this was a closed necklace tournament.

Mike:

it was, Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so I assume he was incorrectly playing seven waters.

Mike:

I mean, it would, it, it didn't matter, Right, Because I was like put popping and energy back to his hand. So it wasn't like running out of energy. It's just, he couldn't accelerate. But that's a good point though, because you know, so that was game three and you don't know the opponent's deck list, but by game three, you should have a pretty good idea. So like I had only seen two air balloons during the first two games. And I have to assume he plays for Melanie, right. Like but I only saw two air balloon, so I was like, okay. I don't think he has any more air balloons, not sure, but let's take the, let's take the risk. The second round I played against TJ no's from Maryland. He was also playing Inteleon max, Andy, we dead drew one game and then game three I attacked first, so I won nothing too crazy. A fourth round. I tied against a rapid strike. And I want to talk about this deck a little bit. So it was rapid striker Shifu with Inteleon and Octillery and Melanie. So you use Melanie to chain the G max rapid flows. And I think That's like a, just a better version of the rapid strike Moltres. Like the mattress obviously helps against Shadow Rider quite a lot. But in terms of chaining your spread attack, Melanie is much better at it because it's also drawing you cards. So I really, really liked that deck. It's something I want to explore a little bit more and Octillery finds you the rabbits shrink energy. I don't know if you need the Octillery, but I mean, it makes a little bit of sense, right?

Brent:

That's interesting. I mean, there's no, like, I mean I mean, rapid striker who has like a pretty generic supporter line putting in, when was he, was he running like four Melanie's or just like two or three?

Mike:

Yeah. I think it was three when I asked him.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Man saying, Hey, I'm going to cut like two researches to put into Melanie's like you can get there.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, So I got to like mess around with the list, but that sounds really cool. It might not be necessary anymore going into the next week. With that new teammates, like card coming out. But but yeah, really cool. Really cool deck unfortunate our game three. It was really, it was in such an interesting state where either of us could have won the game. But we probably needed like another two or three turns to, to figure it out, but it would have been really interesting to see who won. But well

Brent:

I guess the problem is too early in the tournament to recognize that somebody needs to scoop there. Right.

Mike:

yeah, yeah, right, right. Found five had played against Alex to Susi does south sea. I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but he's kind of, I feel like he's done pretty well in online events. He was playing rapid streak and I like misplayed really bad in the first game. And then the other two games, I feel like he didn't draw very well and I won both of them and then things went downhill. So I

Brent:

I was about to say, I think this was the part where I texted you. And I was like, we're going to need a lot more Dysport updates, man. You're doing it. You're doing it

Mike:

Yeah, so it's 4 0 1. So feeling really good. And then I played against Mr. Ethan Hedgie with Shadow Rider and it just you know, I won one of the games, but lost two. And then I'll talk about Shadow Rider in general in a second. And then the round after I played against Vaughn, who also has been doing well online, playing the same Shadow Rider list and lost just oh two. So the Shadow Rider matchup really seems to come down to if they are able to get off Alcremie BMX, his first attack adornment on their second turn for like, you know, 3, 4, 5 energy. Cause if they're able to do that, then they have really set themselves up to take two, one shots without too much difficulty. And you can't really keep up with that. If they don't get the turn to endorsement, it takes them usually an extra Turner to, to get enough energy or to one shot you're Inteleon and, or you have enough time to spread damage and keep up in the game. But so all four games that I lost to Shadow Rider, they got turned to adornment and I, you know, I had some shots to, to stay in the game, but just needed to drop perfectly. And didn't so the match doesn't seem that bad, but like, I don't know. I, I guess I'd have to see more like how often they get the turn to adornment. It seemed like unfortunate that they got it four out of five games, but I don't know.

Brent:

You know, it's, it's interesting to me. I I've played a couple of those games. It's an interesting it's the new thing you do when you can't hold her house? Somebody, but like, I felt like they found it pretty consistently in my games. Every time they found it, I think like you, I was like, well, this is awful.

Mike:

Yeah. The thing is like in order to get it, you have to prioritize getting Alcremie V turned one over like the Shadow Rider V and you have to prioritize getting the VMX over is Shadow Rider, Remax I'm turned to. So like both of those turns often, you know, you're only able to get, you know, one or two basics on the first turn, or you need to drop kind of, you know, above average order to get three or four basics. And the second turn, like, are you really getting an Alcremie V max before you get your first Shadow Rider V max or is the Alcremie V max second. And so. Like if you're drawing pretty well, like yeah. You're always going to get it, but I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe it isn't drawing that. Well, maybe that's just average. I'm not too sure. I haven't played Shadow Rider, push or station all that much, but yeah,

Brent:

Alcremie line helps.

Mike:

yeah, Yeah. for sure. And then last round, it didn't really matter. There was a, there was a chance if like a couple of the other matches went different ways. I could have squeaked in as the 16 seed, but anyway, I ended up playing against Danny chalet. Who's a local that I'm friends with in New Jersey and he was playing rapid strike Mallomar, which is like the freest matchup for Inteleon V max, because I just took advises every turn.

Brent:

Yeah.

Mike:

So yeah. So that was my tournament. I feel like Inteleon is pretty good. I still think it's pretty good. I don't know what I would change to the list. If I could figure out one or two cards that would really help the Shadow Rider matchup then I would play those for sure. The all the extra damaged cards feels okay. Like sometimes they're helpful, like the pink Inteleon and the telescopic sight. They're okay. They have their like times, but I feel like those spots might just be able to be used for better things. And so if I could figure out what those better things are, all try those.

Brent:

I felt like I, yeah, I don't know. I think coming into the pod, I thought that the takeaway was and telling him to be mixed, just been good enough.

Mike:

It's it. So like I talked about last week and it still is super good against other decks that run Inteleon. So like my games against rapid strike and the games against ice rider and the mirror, like being able to. Pressure there Sabal and Inteleon lines is so good because even if, even if they don't give you free prizes and they opt to not play those, they're destroying their own consistency in the process. So you're kind of at an advantage either way. I really, really, really liked that aspect of it. And I also really liked the fact that it's not weak to anything. So it's outside of the, the auto loss triangles that are going on. So I still think it has a place in the format. Maybe it's just not as good as like Shadow Rider. I don't know.

Brent:

So if you had to do it all over again tweak the list and run it back or run fire heart tenderization dies.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, if I read it back and I had like another week, I'd probably try this, like rapid strike Melanie deck. Like that seems really, really quite good.

Brent:

Yeah. So, so roll went roll also went undefeated with rapid strike Moltres. I recognize we're coming off a what feels like just a slew of victories with a rapid striker. Is that the best tech in the format? I know Alex Szymanski wrote an article for channel fireball where he was like, it's obviously the best day.

Mike:

I mean, so I think he was talking about the standard, Right?

Brent:

Right. Right. Yeah. He's not running the Moltres. He says, he says by running off karate belts, its just like running the Moltres without all the hassle of running Moltres.

Mike:

And yeah, you don't have that option sort of shield on. I do think rapid strike is probably the best deck in sword and shield on, but the format, the format still feels like kinda open actually. I, when I came back, I actually like made a quad Zamazenta list that I think would just destroy everything in the format. And so if there's non-line sword and shield tournament, I'm going to play that and try it out. So I think there's still room to explore a little bit. So it's hard to say definitively if, if rapid strikes the best deck, but that's probably what I would give the title right now.

Brent:

How about you, Brett? Any, any thoughts?

Brit:

No. I mean, I'm curious to hear Mike's Xamarin about the same as it that could just seem, I would think just off the top of my head, very, very cursory remarks that. I mean, I guess maybe the Shadow Rider is just like, don't do enough damage and you've got weakness on ice rider, but I'm a little skeptical of that being good enough. That's why I'm curious. But no, I don't have too many more thoughts. It seems. Yeah. I'd be curious to, it's hard really. I don't know how fruitful it is weighing in on this format since we we've got one set and then we'll rotate. So like it's all still sort of just tentative or at least exploring how things are now. Even though things will change here again in a few weeks, but I, it seems interesting to me. I was surprised I think, or at least there is just this kind of joke. Like the Urshifu is so much stronger clearly, or at least based on these results, it looks a lot better in poster rotation than it does in standard now. And I'm curious about that. I don't quite follow, like, I would just think it, it doesn't strike me as being great in either format, but obviously it had plenty of plenty of success. Karen, I mean, for me too, a lot of it, like one of its best cards seems like it would be Verdean city and you'll lose that. So yeah, not saying I'm skeptical or anything like that, but that was just something I noticed something I observed and was thinking about. And again, we know those of you have like. The Japanese list is like more or less stays the deck and can kind of get some new attackers with these upcoming new cards and some EVs here and there. So I really think too, that this next upcoming site, it just has a ton of good cards, I guess. Probably not as many as chilling rains. I don't know. That's maybe a different call that I'm Brianna, I think maybe being one of the biggest ones, but yeah, a lot of new decks sort of on the horizon. So I'm at least kind of holding my thoughts or at least the thoughts of like, oh, it's terrible. Like, eh, just wait, we'll figure it out still. And even then, like Mikey says, like, I think it's probably open, relatively open. It seems. But yeah, I don't know. In the line of thought, a little apprehensive about just like getting tired or feeling like I will get tired of two years of Inteleon backs or two years of an Inteleon consistency driven meta game. I don't think that would be a bad thing. Like we say, I think these sorts of cards always will lend themselves to the better players winning more often than not or more consistently. But yeah, no, no other real thoughts beyond that, but I just, I haven't put much time into any thought into post rotation since our little, this is a root experiment a month or two ago.

Mike:

Yeah. I will say like talking to a couple of people. The Inteleon engine is super fun, but the fact that it's in like, you know, two thirds of decks, 75% of Dex is probably not great. Like you probably want a little bit more diversity of engines in the format. So hopefully within the next couple of sets, it'll be more diversified.

Brent:

Yeah. Although, generally speaking, I think you know, well we'll save all this juice for next week, our discussion about formats, but I think like search is really good,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

like search as opposed to just blindly drawing cards, to your point, Brit like that probably plays to skillful player. It's like you get one card, choose it. Well, that's like, ah, good players will do better

Mike:

Last thing I saw you posted Shintaro is winning ice rider. This tier, it has two Melanie in it. Did you guys notice that.

Brent:

No, I totally didn't.

Mike:

how your playing ice rider. I don't know how your playing ice rider with two melodies.

Brent:

It's playing it with a three-three ice rider line.

Mike:

Yeah. That's so bizarre. How, I mean, like the three, three, the three, three ice riders, whatever names, but like two melodies.

Brit:

He's playing the Articuno too, that we've talked about before

Brent:

yeah. He's he's coming out, you know, that's why, that's why I put the list in. There was, I was like, oh, he's running two of the articles. That's that that's like leading strong. So I haven't tested with the Articuno at all. Does the strategy just like get the Articuno out and you attack first with that, and then you move all the energy to your Shadow Rider.

Mike:

I guess

Brit:

How do you, not only does he play a lower Melanie count, but he just played, he doesn't, he only plays six water, six water in two buckets. How does he have energy ever? I guess he's he just goes a little harder on the Inteleon online. Some, some, some of the ice rider lists too. I'm not sure that is, that is a mystery.

Brent:

It amazes me that he can go I guess six waters and then one wash energy and then two buckets. That's I mean as we've always said, you have to be greater resource management to start playing with less. He's like I've even better with resource management.

Mike:

I don't even know what splash energy, like, like what's the use case of that?

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I wonder if I have to like go back and. That all effects of attacks are in front of book, one, done to the Pokemon. His card is attached to

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

what is that? Yeah, you got me. What does that do? I am sure. All right. I'm glad we asked this question because I'm sure a hundred people will tweet at me how stupid I am, the Nazi, the incredibly obvious use case. And, and then that'll be, that'll be a great way to kick off the five next week.

Mike:

Sweet. Yeah. So just kind of like a preview for next week's discussion. We'll talk about formats and what makes the format good, but also. I talked a lot about with a bunch of different people about what would make the post rotation format better. None of the things that we talked about have any remote chance of happening, but at least we can you know, kind of have that discussion, which I think would be good.

Brent:

All right. Without further ado, the John Paul's are amazing ultra music. My kids told me it was like way too mellow. Last week I played it and I was like, I'm, I'm delighted with this. And they were like, dad, you're a child of the nineties.