The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Pokemon Draft the World dissected and PTCG Live: It's really that simple.

September 22, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 59
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Pokemon Draft the World dissected and PTCG Live: It's really that simple.
Transcript
Brent:

Am I recording? Yeah. Welcome to the Trashalanche Brent Halliburton here as always with my crochet and Brett privates at Hayes wise on Twitter at Mike Fouchet at B Halliburton attendance is 100%. Chris Webbies Webster's laboratory is our introductory song. I like to say that every now and then Chris Webby has a strong Twitter game and it seems super cool about letting people use this music and he wrapped up Pokemon and we got to use him as the intro song. We're sponsored by channel fireball channel fireball helps pay the bills here at the Trashalanche. So we appreciate them doing that thing. And it's really good. Guys, lots of talk about this week. When we start with the five star review update, no new reviews this week, leave a review and we will read it on the pod. The easiest way to ensure that we talk about the things you want to hear us talk about on the pod is to leave a review and say, talk about this, and then we'll talk about it. It's super easy. And it's a time honored practice for effective content generation here at the Trashalanche project. Yeah, the two big agenda items are a draft, the world and a PTCGO live. Let's talk about PTCGO lot. I want to start by saying, I feel like this is escape, the heartache meter on Twitter, but I think calling a PTCGO lives seems like the most ironic name in the universe because it's kind of the opposite of playing the card game. Live. Want to put that out there? I think it would be said that

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, that's why I, I sort of cash my prediction and something like you know, I think the obvious answer was that it would just be some sort of add on replacement for PTCGO, which is why I said like, no, no, it's going to be just a new way for official events since the name lives. But yeah, I sort of agree. It's perhaps not the best name.

Brent:

online 2.0, I mean, you can just call it 2.0 guys, you don't need to put in a name on it. Those crazy kids.

Brit:

it's interesting. I guess they're just trying to go for a full, full rebrand. But yeah, I'm not, I mean, I don't have, I don't have a good idea. So I'm being a little sort of overly critical and saying it's a bad name, having nothing better to offer.

Brent:

Exactly. It's obviously not a super Mimi take because I saved it for the pod instead of just tweeting it out into the Twitter sphere. But but there you go.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, like my, and we'll get a little more detailed, but like my general thoughts are like, Cool question mark. Like I'm not super pumped about it. I'm not, I mean, the biggest thing that I'm excited about is that it's being developed in house and not by a third-party. So fingers crossed, there will be more attention to feedback and how to improve it and whatnot. That's like my biggest thing, but otherwise it doesn't really, I don't think it's going to affect my playing all that much from, from, from first look.

Brent:

I mean, I, Yeah, I'm pretty sure if they had made a, a hot take teaser video of PTCGO after PTCGO had been out for two years, people would be like, oh my God, PTCGO supports our current gold sold silver. It's amazing. This is gonna be the greatest time ever.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, I guess my sort of. I like hot take or I guess sort of assessment of how it might change my habits is I, I guess I'm curious, like, as I've said before, I, I play Hearthstone a lot. I play Hearthstone every day and I'm mostly just to do my daily quests and stuff. And I understand there's some sort of equivalent for that, but will I, will I transition while I start doing those? And I didn't and I used to apply when I was still trying to juggle Hearthstone and ruin Tara. I would do both. I would log in and do one. Sometimes I would even be doing them at the same time. You know, it was just a daily quest. I could run multiple games at once. And I, I might do that. I started. Should be in I'm often LLL sort of embarrassed at how little I play on PTCGO from week to week. And so much of that is just because it's just unsightly from just like a aesthetics perspective. And my, my take then on live is that it's still just ugly. It's still just doesn't look great. Like I know that's, you know, nitpicky or what have you, but I just like, it's Pokemon, it's the biggest brand in the world. Why do we look worse than, you know, Shadowverse, which is just like a C tier B tier card game made by like Japanese mobile game developers. I just like, I just don't understand why I can't, like, I think it could look as good as arena could look as good as Hearthstone. I know, you know, I know I'm not, I'm not trying to say like the Pokemon has to be live and on the board and doing stuff. Like I just, I just could look better and that's my, my biggest complaint. But like, as a player, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't play like. Old school room scape and things like that anymore. I like want sort of, sort of my experience to match, like what I, what I want, like aesthetically from it. And like I use cool new player customizations, but like, it looks like a PS two game or something. It looks worse than Fortnite characters. Again, I'm very, very happy overall. I think what was just said was maybe a little too negative sounding. I, I do think that it's just all, all in all sort of, regardless of what it brings. I think it's just a welcome change of much needed update. Like I guess kind of too, is that I wear, you know, the main thing about it is that we're being caught up to things like Hearthstone things like magic, magic arena, but like we're being caught up to the industry standard, which is itself like old at this point, I would say like, and so that's, that's part of it too, for me. So like if this update had happened in 2014, 2015, I think there's like a very realistic possibility. Like just wouldn't have gotten into Hearthstone. I would never have had a reason to play a different card game, but now I just, like, there's just so many competitors and I just, I think they're better. I think they can be better both in terms of what they offer, you know, in terms of like the cosmetics, what you can purchase and things like that. And then again, just the overall sort of visual experience. But again, all pluses at the end of the day, I don't think any, anyone should be disappointed. And I haven't seen some of the threads, the arguments over, like why it's bad. And I don't, I think they're reaching most of those arguments are but I'm sympathetic to some of the points students share.

Mike:

The the funniest thing that you said in that was the quest stuff. So I also do my Hearthstone quest most of the time. And I have literally never done a PTCGO quest in 10 years or whatever. I still have the very first one, which is like, I see it every time I log in. I couldn't even tell you what it is. It's something with water Pokemon. I dunno, you have to do something with the, like a water Pokemon. I think it's like a water theme deck or something like If the, you know, the, the system is set up similar to Hearthstone, which is like a dust craft system, then there's a lot more incentive to do quests because then you can potentially better free to play PTCGO

Brent:

Yeah. I can't figure out why do the question PTCGO so I'm really, really excited about them creating something of value. Vaguely.

Mike:

Right. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. There's not like you don't get enough from doing question PTCGO from my understanding to like, be able to free to play and you definitely don't get it from the ladder. So you can't really free to play PE. I mean, you can, but like, not really, not, not, if you want to be like super.

Brent:

Right,

Mike:

where you see, you really can in Hearthstone, you feel like you work pretty hard.

Brit:

I mean, I guess to so much of, I guess, where these games have gone, sort of, I think to come back to the point that they're being caught up to the industry standard, but the standard is, has moved on. And so like, so, so much of what is the case for, oh, I don't know. I would, I be surprised if like shadow verses and things like that didn't have this, but for like Hearthstone and rune, Tara, there's just like so much like solo content to it too. And like, there's just all of these, like there's puzzles, there's like puzzle games built in. There's like, you can, there's a mode where you play against the AI with all sorts of different like wacky rotational rules and things like that. Or like in Hearthstone, there's the Tavern ball. So I think there's, there's, there's a lot of appeal to just being able to do other things within the same. Card game space. And I just don't, I just don't imagine, I don't foresee this game, at least not in the immediate future, doing things like that. I think that it's it's appeal, at least from launch. It's just going to be as, as the advertisement said you know, the, with to match, I forget what the quote was. But it has the real rules or whatever features in, in game rules or something like that. And so, yeah, that's just what I mean, like there's there's, there's other stuff now to these, to the digital card games, whereas Pokemon is just, we're getting our wrinkle ladder now and things like that. Finally

Mike:

something

Brit:

there's just so much of, you know, that's just a lot of what these games that have just become games are so, so, so rarely these days a game, you know, you're buying a subscription service or something like that. And so now, now it's just like, you know, I'm a league player, I've got my, I've got my FPS on league. Now I've got my auto battler on league. Now I've got my mobile on league now. And so it just seems like these games, I've just sort of, you know, all the big names have just kind of crowded that space. And I would love for Pokemon to be able to do similar things, but I just don't think they will. And just based on, you know, Nintendo in general, they're so rarely on, you know, they're great, but they they're so rarely, they so rarely go with the trends. And so I think I just sort of expect at the end of the day, we're just getting the game. We're not, we're not, you know, maybe eventually maybe we'll get these other modes and I'm not sure how much of a deal breaker it is, but I just think that. From the perspective of like, oh, I'm a content creator. Maybe I should get into a card game. Should I play this new Pokemon game? Or should I play one of the other ones? And I think from where, from how I'm currently understanding things, I just don't think there would be any, any reason to pick this one over the other ones. I think there are, there's just, there's more to be had from these other experiences. If that makes sense.

Brent:

You know, what I was going to add to that is I think what's interesting about Pokemon is it's a brand. I mean, the answer to your question is that Pokemon, right? Pokemon and, what's funny is I feel like, at a hundred thousand feet, they're like, wow, we have a solo game mode. It's a video game, knock yourself out. Like, you can go on an adventure, you can interact with Kokomo and you can catch them. You can evolve them. What's funny about Pokemon is there's so much, we're a gigantic brand perspective. I feel like. There's no integration between all these products. They're just products that are leveraging the brand. And there's a bunch of standalone silos. And I feel like if I were in charge of product that Pokemon, one of the things I would be doing is saying, Hey, you know, why can't we make it? So when you do blah-blah-blah in the video game, you unlock that card in the card game. And then that would drive people to play the video game into the card game. And why don't we you know, tie a Pokemon unite. So obviously like the low hanging fruit there is your friends and unite or your friends in the TCG, and you can battle with them and battle with them. And there's so much like theoretical stuff they should be doing to leverage people across the brands. And instead it's just so siloed. It's a little bit crazy. And I, I can only assume, I mean, obviously, you know, me theoretically, part of the benefit of bringing the engineering team in houses, that's how you overcome it. Although I recognize the BGC, that stuff is all third-party out, right? Like game freaks. How do you drive that integration? It's about you probably say, oh, we bring that stuff in house. Or you just have incredibly strong product leadership. That's pushing that stuff through the organization, you know? I mean, I think it's also when you make a really good point that they were already so far behind the eight ball and the thing that sucks about being super behind the eight ball is I felt like one of the things that really jumped out at me in that demo is there's so much kind of emphasis on avatar customization. And they call me jaded. I don't give a shit,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

know, It's so much more important to work on honing the core product. And you have to recognize this is the core product. And then these are all the bells and whistles, bells and whistles, bells and whistles. And I mean, now we, you know, it's such a competitive market. You have to hit on all the bells and whistles too, but it's so much more important to hit it out of the park and the core product. And I like your idea, you know, at one point when I, yeah, this was probably five years ago. No, two or three years ago when I was thinking about how hard it is to commentate the card game, because the card game is so slowly evolving compared to people playing BGC in terms of how plays play out. I almost imagine you could do a thing. I guess the closest metaphor that comes to mind is like that star wars chess game that they were. Where, I mean, we play cards as a metaphor for creatures. You could just have the creatures and you could be like, you have to, you know, power them up to give them, use their more powerful attacks. You have to evolve them to make them more powerful. You could abandon the card construct at some level, or evolve the card card construct into some more interesting visual metaphor in the context of online stuff that'd be super cool.

Mike:

Yeah, it will be cool.

Brent:

you know, if you were, if you were playing with Snorlax instead of with a Snorlax card, you'd be like, now we're playing a game, let's play this game. And then, and then the cards are tools that you have that affect the board where you're, where Pokemon or battling. I mean, you could, you could have that metaphor be somewhat more vibrant online. Sounds too cool Pokemon. I am a professional product manager. You can just pick up the phone to call me. We got game designers. We got data scientists. We have a whole crew here. Ready to fix your problems.

Brit:

Yeah. I mean, that is the sort of like interesting part of it, at least like, that's just always like the fantasy, right. Of like playing these games. We've always like everyone who knows Yu-Gi-Oh of course, like, as I think it was watched, the enemy has always thought like, oh, of course, the best way to play this game. Would it be like that with the dual disks and the, you know, the monster is being sort of up in your face, you know? And then obviously the same, more or less the exact same thing can be applied to Pokemon. And I think that it is always a little strange that, I mean, I, you know, it's a card game, you can animate the car. It's probably easier than you can animate a bunch of Pokemon. But I mean, that would be nice to see. And I think. I mean, maybe just like a comparison to like the other digital card games. I don't know. Don't really know enough about magic to say anything on how it really feels compared to like paper magic or what playing magic online was like, but for my car. So when I ruined Tara, it doesn't maybe Hearthstone to a lesser degree, but like at times was rude. Tara. It's almost difficult to know, like if you didn't know better or like didn't play the start of the game, you would maybe like, not know you were playing a card game because of the way they sort of like assimilate onto the board and things like that. It ends up just like looking like a board game or at least like in like with the auto battlers. I think, you know, functionally speaking at the end of the day, they're just, they're just deck building games, but it's just so much more interesting to play something like TFT than a card game. I think so as there's just like there's ways to navigate the landscape in such a way that isn't just like printing a little Dino tiny little index card again.

Brent:

right? The, the, the, I think the one other thing that I wanted to make sure gets said just about PCG live in general is mean people got buckle up for super delays.

Mike:

Yeah. What'd they say? They said this year, right?

Brent:

I think they said there's going to be private beta, mobile devices only in Canada to start.

Mike:

Well I know that they said that the mobile beta was going to be in Canada, but I think there's going to be an open beta for everyone. They might not be at the same time. I don't know.

Brent:

I mean, I, you know. maybe, maybe, yeah, not, not entirely clear to me, But we're only having cards from these sets available in one point I've always said one of the hard parts about building, I think one of the real challenges that the dire Wolf guys always had was unlike Hearthstone or rune Tara, they started out with let's make interesting cards with interesting card effects and modeling all these card effects is almost like kind of, kind of, there's no logical. Ontology of how effects are. It's all just kind of random stuff, all piled together. Right. And, and, you know, the card games been around so long, there's millions and millions and millions of effects and weird interactions and stuff that has to be accounted for. That's pretty easy to account for when you're just playing with the physical cards. But when you say, oh, Hey, we want to build this into the video game. If you didn't start out realizing that was a thing it's really hard. And if you tried to say, well, Hey, we're just going to put all these requirements in right out of the gate. It'd be virtually unbuildable. I think my favorite example was sky field. I mean, I'm sure when they called the dire Wolf guys and they were like, oh, and also now you can have a Pokemon in your bench. They're like whole buddy. We have to re-read the whole client for that.

Mike:

Yep. Yeah. So I do wonder if like, I believe this has been in the works for. Like these four years would be my guests. So I wonder if they kind of knowingly built like a very much more open base. I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. I'm not like a professional programmer, but I just wonder if there's like a more flexible system that they were able to build to account for like things that unknowable things that might happen in the future design of the game.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, but that that's, I don't know. I it's obvious, obviously it's not entirely clear how you do that. Except hire super smart people and have them be super smart.

Mike:

Right,

Brent:

So, so super, super challenging. My, I think the other question that I feel like everybody's running around, like chickens with their heads cut off about is this optimal trade strategy to migrate into PTCGO life. Have you read anything about this stuff?

Mike:

I mean, I know what you're talking about. I mean, so you have to, you can only transfer up to four of a unique card and you can only try to transfer however many unopened things at 1 25. I think so. I don't, I'm sure there is like an optimal way, but I think every for every individual person it's going to be a little bit different. My brother started like started an account last summer and he doesn't have a lot of steps. So I'm going to like train a bunch of my extra stuff just to him.

Brent:

That seems smart.

Mike:

Yeah, so that's my plan. And then I'm not going to spend too much time on the trading aspect. I don't know. Maybe I'll like every now and then just look at the public trade thing and see if there's stuff that I want to do, but I'm not, I probably won't actively post trades. It's not really worth it to me. The thing that I do have to look at though is like, I have a lot, a lot of things like event tickets and chests that I think I probably have like 800 chests that I've never opened. So I think those count as like unopened things. So like I probably got to go and open all those. I don't know what I'm going to do with my 800 event tickets.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I recognize there's some people who spend a lot of time agonizing over this for better, for worse. I just feel like I never have. And I'm like, I probably don't have more than four, have a lot of stuff that's super valuable. But so I, I think you just have 125 on open things and then you don't worry about it, I think.

Mike:

Yeah. Like it, I guess the question is for yourself is just like what, how much effort and time do you want to spend in optimizing it,

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I recognize there were, there are people I don't think you, or any of us are those people who spend a lot of time, offering weird trades. Like, I mean, there's people who have built the whole lifestyle out of their crazy weird trading business. I'm totally not one of those people.

Mike:

Yeah. Definitely not.

Brent:

Are you sad to see trading go? I mean, the fact that I'm not. one of those people, I think makes me be more or less, totally fine with trading going away.

Mike:

Yeah, I'm cool with it because there is like, if there was no system to get cards besides opening packs, then I would probably never play again. But there is clearly, there is like a way to create create cards. So I'm fine with it. And probably probably will be more happy with that system than the trading, because the way that I trade is, like you said, there's lots of people that will do weird trades to try to do quote unquote better than the market. And I do the opposite. I want the thing immediately. So I offer a little bit over market price. If like there's no trade out there or I'll just like search and take the first trade that I see usually because I just want to play like immediately

Brent:

Right, right, right. We, we are, we are the opposite of the Dwight Schrute. I'm going to trade this paperclip until I get to telescope

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

telescope for magic beans. Right. Like Yeah. I'm like, okay, I need a hundred codes so I can get the Sylveon line. You know, if I got to go buy some codes, I'll buy some codes. You know, if I can win some codes, I'll win some codes. But the important thing is we got to get to the Sylveon and we've got to get them fairly quickly. and there's no timing the market. Cause it's time to test Sylveon let's go.

Mike:

Yep. Exactly. So I'll be more happy with, with the system for sure.

Brent:

Do I just have to wait for the Twitter net? Explain to me what I should do with my tropical beaches. Like when my tropical beaches transfer over, I don't really understand what's going to happen to them.

Mike:

they, they will. How many do you have?

Brent:

I have.

Mike:

Okay. Yeah,

Brent:

dummy. And why would I have more than four good cards

Mike:

Yeah. Well, so I was confused maybe, is that where this comment came from? Because you saw me at.

Brent:

I saw you asked, but I had been wondering about it too.

Mike:

Okay. Yeah, so I was confused, but I guess it's, I guess people do have more than four, like, so, And maybe they were saving them too. Cause they're very valuable and you can trade them for like a bunch of stuff at stuff. At some point, actually I do believe I have five, but like I have four of one art and one of another art, so all five of mine would transfer that. But yeah, I was also confused, but I'm pretty sure it's just that.

Brent:

Shout out to Joe grub. I actually have joke rubs tropical beaches. So I guess I have to fix that real quick. He he's either going to unretire and want the back or, or want the back, just to be on the safe side or they're going to become my tropical beaches. That, that is the, I mean, the one thing that really does concern me is I worry that I mean, because we're the family that plays, do we have to grind multiple accounts now because it used to be like, we just trade decks, you know?

Mike:

Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. You will definitely not be able to do that now.

Brent:

I feel like they have to lower the bar on the couch to accommodate my problems.

Mike:

Yeah. That's That's true. Yeah. And that's, and like I said, that's why I'm setting up my brother's account. To some extent, even if my brother doesn't end up using it, then they'll will be some other accounts in the ethos that someone can use, even if it's not for official stuff.

Brent:

But, but yeah. It's if you said, Hey, I want to accounts that are able to build top tier decks, man. That can be a real grind. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people that are like, oh Yeah. we got to do that thing. That's horrible. Horrible.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

I, I mean, I suspect that's in my mind, that's the real issue with them getting rid of trades is like, if you want to lend cards to somebody like, oh, lending cards, not a thing anymore. In that respect, it's going to become like more challenging, you know,

Mike:

Yeah, I agree.

Brent:

ma ma all right. Should we talk about draft the world,

Mike:

Sure. Let's do it.

Brent:

Draft the world was super fun at a very high level. I'll say it. was super fun. I assume you were watching as a very interested party as Ross, like stormed through the tournament.

Mike:

Yeah, it was it was really cool. I didn't get to watch off a hundred percent of the event, but I watched a good amount, maybe about half to two thirds of it. And. Yeah, it was really cool to see Ross do so well. The event just overall, like you said, was, was really fun. Really cool. I know a lot of people complained about the first two enrolls. Yeah. Kind of sucks. But it looked like, you know, the players adapted the, they

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, you're just taking you just factor that in. I felt like it was fine.

Mike:

Yeah. Like they chose to go second, a lot of the time, where in, where you send that form that you would choose to go first. I don't think it really like changed the viability too much of decks. Like I was watching when Ross was playing Archie stories. People were saying that Archie stories is really bad now. And I'm like, it's pretty much the same thing. You're just going second. That's not a big deal.

Brent:

I I'll be honest. I watched virtually every second of day one. And then by day two, I was not disinterested selfishly the I was the thing I didn't like about track the world was toward picked my son's deck. What. And, and he played a game with it and he whooped pram and then he never played another game with it. And I was like, man, I don't want to see him keep going with that deck. That's a good deck.

Mike:

Wait, he put, oh, he played his Zororoc.

Brent:

Yeah,

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I did watch that game. Yeah. The Zuora guard versus prams or a pod. Yeah. I watched that set. That was a really, that was a really great set.

Brent:

That wasn't, it was a fantastic game. And maybe want to watch more Pokemon and listeners to the pod. That list is Mike Fouchet list. Listen up people Walker, Halliburton, and Mike Fouchet spent literally days and days and days working on that list. That that is a Fouchet product. You saw inaction there leading toward the victory.

Mike:

That was, yeah, that is cool. I didn't think about that. That's cool.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, no, that, that, so, so what's funny is, yeah, after that I was like, oh man, they're not plan the Halliburton family listed anymore. Who cares about the rest of this tournament?

Mike:

That's funny.

Brent:

So so you were telling me you missed the actual draft part, right?

Mike:

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about how that would.

Brent:

So what they did was they put up this collection of lists from 20 15, 20 18 and 2019. And then they let, and then essentially they had a snake draft where each person had to pick a deck. And over the course of three rounds, you had to pick a deck from each year. And that was the deck.

Mike:

Okay. So how did did they, did, did they say how they picked, like who was going to be first? That to

Brent:

No, they did not tell you the order, but the order is, so if you look on the second screenshot I sent you there, you see the list of decks.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

And then you see the list of people at the bottom. So they had all the people were on like live cam and then they had this 32nd countdown timer in the lower left-hand side. And they had to pick a deck 30 seconds.

Mike:

Oh, cool. Okay. That's cool.

Brent:

And I think, so I think this was a little bit like, there were a lot of people that afterwards, I think Luke Morrison was one of them that was this thing was super cool. Can we get this technology so we can use it for our own crazy draft thing? I think this was a little bit post-hoc constructed. At one point, Ross was complaining because even though we were seeing a timer that it totally started, he was like, did the timer start that the timer start? Oh, wait, I have 10 seconds left. So, so I think they kind of assembled this thing after the fact, may you, maybe you could ask ROS if they were looking at a Google doc or something like that when they were actually doing the draft, but, but certainly for us, they had this very pretty thing.

Mike:

Yeah. so I'm looking here there's 14 decks from each year. Well, like that number doesn't make any sense to me. Cause if they picked four from each thing, it'd be 12 or

Brent:

Yeah, no. So, so what they did was, and so this was what was a good, bad stranger. Interesting. Okay. About it was it was a random smattering of decks that Dedenne.

Mike:

Okay. So presumably all from the top eight of the various divisions

Brent:

Yeah, I think so. I think all of them top aided in some ways. So you can see in the very lower left hand corner, that screen there's gold means first gray means second, which I guess silver. And then brown means third, fourth, and then there's some that don't have any color at all. So they finished outside of the top four.

Mike:

Oh, I see. I see. I see.

Brent:

So you can see. in 2019, they have all three of the winning decks in the list. Whereas 2018, they have only one

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

been all three again. So it was kind of a random mishmash of these are the decks we decided to make available to the players.

Mike:

Yeah. That's weird. That's I mean, it's fine, but it's weird, especially because it's not like they selected the deck so that every deck was unique either like in 2018, there's two Zoro garbs there's, there's some multiple copies of decks,

Brent:

right? right, right. They have towards fire box and the Kaya's fire box and those are off by like six cards. Right.

Mike:

Right. I like the, I like how into an 18 one, like you have Walker Zoro guard, but then there's Zuora garb with taboo. Veles.

Brent:

I know, you know, I didn't go back and look at what the difference was there, but I have wanted to, at one point I was definitely, I definitely thought the same thing

Mike:

Like, yeah. Walker definitely didn't play devil LA. Is that right?

Brent:

and Robin would definitely not play type layaway either. Hence there was the three wildly different decks. Yeah. not, not, so, so yeah, there was a little bit of ontology weirdness. You saw the there were dark Tina decks in like 2016 they're all over the board from a naming scheme, everyone was named differently and you're like, why the, these cards are off by like three, you know? these lists are off by four cards, you know?

Mike:

okay. So now my other question is, did you watch the drafting components? The other couple of, times they did it like w with not all eight people.

Brent:

Yeah. I put, I put extensive notes here with, with so-so. So they, then the next day they had the, they had the top four people draft 2014 and 2016, and then they had a finals draft. And so, so on day two, they had each person got to pick two decks for each year and they didn't have to tell the other person what deck they were going to play. When you get paired up with.

Mike:

okay. Okay. So like Ross. Oh, I see. So toward for like 2014 pick the Trevenant soundbar and the, and the, plasma aromatase.

Brent:

That's right.

Mike:

Oh,

Brent:

so you D you don't know what deck he's going to play when you get paired up against him. So you have to kind of pick a deck, but, you know, it's, he's going to play one of these two decks.

Mike:

okay. I see. And Zander was super cheeky for

Brent:

That's right.

Mike:

double Greninja.

Brent:

Zander strategy, he picked a a he picked a, so I have this document that here. So he picked Greninja. and then at the end, I think he thought someone else might pick her ninja and he picked her and into to make sure they could not,

Mike:

Yeah, sure. Interesting. I like how

Brent:

avoiding Greninja mirror is probably a, a very viable, straight.

Mike:

I love Kyle's grade D that's hilarious,

Brent:

And Jeremy's grade is Virgin is clearly the best deck. I have no comment than everything else.

Mike:

right?

Brent:

So Yeah. So then they went through after the draft. And so this was like nice commentating situation. right? They went through each one and they had them, they kind of graded each one. So I tried to kind of screenshot it up and throw it in here for you to see. But so I thought we could talk about how spot on or not spot on, they, it, with respect to their grades

Mike:

And so just, just to finish off and then the finals was just same thing, Ross and Sander. Both drafted two

Brent:

2017 decks.

Mike:

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Cool.

Brent:

So, so that each pick two decks and they don't know which deck they're going to pull up. But what's funny is Ross gets the first pick and he picks Diego's deck and then Zander picks Alola nine tails and then it's a snake draft. So then he gets the next pick. So he picks the situ I Vileplume. And then Ross picks. Ross is like out of care, like it

Mike:

yeah. That's so it's so interesting. I like, okay, so let's talk about this one, cause it's the easiest one to analyze. So I think Ross is like correct to pick Gardevoir first and then Zander. Like after I, if I see Xander pig, decidual I Vileplume, I'm picking one of these two Garbodor decks. Right? Like there's Drampa garb and there's glyceride grab, I

Brent:

was, I think I was surprised that Ross did not pick a Drampa garb just cause like, that's what I would've picked,

Mike:

Yeah. Hi, I'm also

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, so the problem is then you assume he's going to play. So how do you feel about the Gardevoir versus matchup? Is that unfavored for Gardevoir

Mike:

very unfavored. Yeah,

Brent:

Yeah, So, so then do you just assume he's going to bring the Sidra Vileplume and play a Garbodor Dyke, Adam?

Mike:

I think so. I mean, maybe Ross was scared, so like Alola nine tails is not very good against Garvin Gardevoir, but it is pretty good against the Garbodor index. So maybe Ross. Thinking that like, if he picks the, like, if Ross takes Drampa garb and Zander will play nine tails, but I dunno, then you just play Gardevoir though, and it's fine. Then it's more of a mental game. Like you pick rainbow road, you're never playing rainbow road. Right. Like,

Brent:

yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think Ross was dialed in on Diego.

Mike:

yeah. So,

Brent:

just how it was going to be. And Zander picks the Vileplume deck plays the Vileplume deck to Rosen.

Mike:

Okay. So toward played the plasma around with Ts versus Virgin. Yeah, I guess toward couldn't play the Trevenant to sell gore because Zander brought frizzy and Genesek interesting, but plasma, aromatase is so bad.

Brent:

I mean, w so when toward pick that. So if you look at that there's only 8 20 14. And everybody had to pick two of each deck. So, and he was, he was the last person picking. So it was the last deck. He was like, okay. plasma T's.

Mike:

Interesting. Yeah. I mean, like, I love that deck from that year. That's what I played at the grinder that year. Cause I didn't really play that season and it was a fun deck, but it is not very good.

Brent:

Yeah. I, I don't think that deck is very good. You know, what are the things I was thinking about as I was watching it, and I did not play any games with that. And that was our first year playing. So I mean the only deck Liam played that entire season was plasma, but I looked at that plasma piece and I thought, how do you get enough? The Oxys down while getting a Roma Mattise down to be able to do plasma you things. You're just, I feel I was not plasma. You wanted the bench space, you need every bench spot, like do your thing. And then when you're like, oh, let me also set up this aromatase, man. It seems hard.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Maybe we were just greedy or with the access and reaching for a big one had chaos than other people. But I mean, we played a Lugia, So we were all about the greed. All right, so let's, let's take a step back And can we take it all the way back to day one guys and talking about the draft that took place there?

Mike:

sure.

Brent:

So Natalia, that was the first pick. The first pick she takes is 2018 requires but not Petros list. Shoot. Mike, the way you talk about this, it makes me, I get the impression that you got absolutely no insight information from Ross on like all the format or how this stuff worked or all that. But like, one of the things I wondered as I watched this draft was, did they know that the first two rounds were 2018 and 2015? And then like 2019 was losers brackets only because it felt like in the draft, they were kind of more focused on 2018 and 2015. I didn't know if that was just a by-product of how they thought about the three Meadows or if they like, knew a little bit of information there.

Mike:

I believe that they knew the order of the first three rounds.

Brent:

Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. So that, that, I mean, that. definitely would color how you make decisions. Cause you're like, if I, if I win 2018 and 2015, I'll never need this 2019.

Mike:

Yeah, but I spoke to us a little bit after the event. And I don't know if I asked him that specifically, but again, the way that he was like talking about prioritizing stuff, it made it seem like that he knew beforehand, but I could, I could ask him later.

Brent:

Right, right. Yeah, So then, then, Pablo comes back and he goes right for 2015 toad bats Mrs. List. And I was like, that's doing it. Right. Right.

Mike:

Yeah. that makes sense. So bets is very strong.

Brent:

And then toward pigs metric bats. And He w he expressed sorrow that Musa his list was off the like metric bats was his fallback. He was Like okay, fine.

Mike:

So as we, so just already something that I'm thinking about is even though 2018 was the first round. There's so many repeat decks in 2018. Like the three-star garbs the multiple Buzzroc that I guess like de prioritizing that year is not a terrible idea because it's just likely that you'll get one of those good decks, because there's just so many of them.

Brent:

Well, so did you guys, did you guys see my, my the, the world's worst at Twitter interaction with, toward after the event? So, So I mean, I think you, you hit the nail on the head right toward, toward pics of 2015 deck instead of a 2018 deck. and then as it snakes through Robin's list goes off the market. And then when it gets back, the toward, toward is like, wow. I mean, I have to pick a Zoroark I'll play walkers.

Mike:

There

Brent:

then when I treated him, I was like, you know, were there things you'd liked about Walker's list? It was like, Zoroark broken.

Mike:

Nice.

Brent:

So, so yeah, he was like, I'm going to get a Zoroark deck. It's going to be fine. I just, you know,

Mike:

Yeah. If I got, I don't care what drawer deck I wouldn't anyway, but I could any that go through our call with

Brent:

exactly, exactly. I think that was towards mentality. It was like, I have to get his artwork deck. It doesn't really matter, which is our work deck. Cause I'm better Zoroark than everyone else. That's fine.

Mike:

that's funny. Okay. So toward Pittsburgh

Brent:

takes Pedro's List,

Mike:

Okay.

Brent:

And pram takes Zorro pod, which I apparently, I think he helped build that list.

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy that got Tubby, what's his name? Brian

Brent:

Yeah. Brian Miller.

Mike:

Yeah, I cause pram was living in the Midwest. I think they played in similar areas. So I wouldn't be surprised that that's true. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah. I think Jeremy kind of hinted that that was like prims list going into the event, then Zander picks a buzz garb. I think like is art. So how was the buzz garb Ray match up? Do you have a sense of that Mike for it do

Mike:

Very good. Very good for bus guard.

Brent:

Yeah. All right. So, so

Mike:

bus garb is not very good again, Zuora. I mean, it's like okay. Against the regard, but it's not favorite. So that's like the big downfall,

Brent:

right, right? But at that point to raise our off the board and the Zuora pod end, he takes buzz garb. And I assume it's like super unfavorite against sauropod.

Mike:

Yeah. Again, like not, not super on paper, but a little unfavored.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. But, but that's fine. And then Lydia takes clean clang.

Mike:

Paul Joyce.

Brent:

Yeah. That like that's a medical.

Brit:

Yeah, that was one of the, one of the series I watched, I got to see was toward playing against this. And it wasn't just, this was the game I played in our chat that was just toward, is just so good. Like, it's just like, it's, it's a hard, it was sort of hard to watch because it's not a very interesting matchup, but just like there's no way, like, I mean, I just, I don't think that the bronze talking back as bronze on clink clink as any good. And so I think that's part of, part of the story as to why toward wins, but like, it's such a terrible matchup on April. You're not doing any damage whatsoever. And then you, I would recommend watching it though. Cause tore and it's just like a masterclass and in resource management and things like that, being so meticulous with your Crobat damage and things like that. But yeah, how he, how he wins the series is, is a mystery, especially one of the games he just saw. Draws terribly and just ends up kind of clutching it out, doing seismic toad things.

Brent:

Had exactly the same reaction. I was telling Mike, I didn't watch a lot of day two, but day one early in the day, we'll post tweets at me. How do you feel about toward picking Walter Walker? Halliburton's deck? And I was like, oh man, I guess I got to go find out what the heck's happening and draft the world. Cause that was not one of our predictions last week.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

And I flip it on and toward and yeah, I was able to like toward toward was playing, I think toward was playing clink Lang and I started watching it. I was like towards so good.

Mike:

The the turn that really made me question, I don't know, the, the, the craziest turn for me was toward head. Like he chorus for like nine or something like that. And then has three Zubats got on the board, gets three goal bats in his hand, and then just ops to not play any. Because he knew what he wanted to do with the damage. And it was just such a bizarre move and it ended up working out, but I was like, sweet.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I, there's no question in my mind, I would have mean, I know you have to target down the clean claim, but I would have played it probably greedier right.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Super, super good. So then chase picks Robin's a deck and he picks 2015 mega man. And then Lydia picks up Buzzroc deck and then Zander picks. I thought this was the this is a real medical, he picks 2019 neg. I mean, I was amazed at Nat quad. Was there, it was a topic junior deck or something.

Mike:

Did you guys see. That game, that list is so, so terrible.

Brit:

No, I'll have to watch it though. I remember it. Xander's tweeting is it's nap time.

Mike:

It's like, it has to be like one of the worst now, no offense to this junior, if you're somehow listen to this podcast, but like that has got to be one of the worst world's top aiding lists ever. Like it was playing random cards, like crushing hammers and poker, navs and blues tactics. Very, Very, funny.

Brent:

Super. Yeah. Eh, but Like the, the flip side is I have to say, He ends up Or I guess Chasen's a picking Pidgeotto control and he gets O'Toole so fast. He never gets to play a 2019 deck, but we talked about how you know, Negan, Adele is a hard counter to a PTO to control. If you thought, fire decks in PG control where the Metta mag quack is really good,

Mike:

Yeah, there you go.

Brit:

Yeah.

Brent:

you are going to body people. So then, then pram picks towards list and toward was beside himself.

Mike:

Oh, really?

Brent:

And then and then Ross picks Kaya's list and toward is like really? beside himself.

Mike:

He was probably so confident at that point. He was like, there's two fireboxes left. It's coming back.

Brent:

Exactly, exactly. So that. Well, my sons don't regardless go toward best decision made in the entire tournament. And then they pick a whole bunch of stuff and Italia picks the time makes an interesting call. She picks this MuTu Geraci list that top Ford I don't know if it was juniors or seniors instead of picking Henry brand's list. And then toward picks Henry brands list and Pablo picks peak around. And then Ross is able to pick Archie stories and prams able the big night, March and Zander picks Don fan kind of right at the end.

Mike:

I can't believe chase picked Megaman metric as his first. I mean like his first and second interests are basically the same cause he was the eighth pick, but I can't imagine picking mega metric. Like I think looking back at that format of 2015, like mega metric was pretty popular at nationals that year and going into that world. But now looking back at that format, I think mega metric is like one of the worst. Good decks.

Brent:

I mean, Megaman electric was what we played and we have deep, deep regret about that. And, and, and Archie stories was still on the board. And nine March was still on the board. You could pick those deck. Landy bath was stolen. The board Don fin was still on the. I don't know, the Donovan is a better call except maybe as a medical, but dude Archie stories and 15 picks later Ross' picks it. And Archie stories works out great for him because you know, in a best of three Archie stories, it does stuff.

Mike:

Hmm.

Brent:

So then there's a whole bunch, they go through this grading process. Are there any comments on that? I don't know that I have super strong feelings about it, you know, essentially Pablo goes, oh, to I know Pablo would say Pablo had unfortunately a couple of misplays I felt like, and, and a little bit of horrible luck, but when you look at it as decks, you know, vaccine, good.

Mike:

wait? I don't think you went oh, to right. I think he won. He won at least one set.

Brent:

Did he win one? And then did he go one time?

Mike:

Yeah, because he lost he ended up losing the 2019. Magic again, Zander with the, with the nag quack neck. So I think he, yeah, he won with this toad bats because I watched that set. He played pram

Brent:

Yeah, so he beat pram

Mike:

yeah. That meant that that match was really good too. I did watch that one pram verse Pablo, because like, they're like the night March, like historically

Brent:

so he's playing Pika rom in 2018 or no, I'm sorry. It wasn't playing that 20th date. He was playing in 2019.

Mike:

Yeah. Pick her up in 2019.

Brent:

So, so it's a Buzzroc mirror in the first round and he loses

Mike:

Yeah, that's correct.

Brent:

and then he plays pram And pram is playing a night March and he's pale playing. Towed bats. That's a rough one.

Mike:

I mean for pram, right?

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Well that the, the fact that he was oh yeah. So he he, he ends up beating pram. That's correct. No, yeah, that's good. and that was a game. It was like right on the edge. I watched that. I mean, once again, I mean, maybe this just speaks to, it was a fun event to watch kind of in line with Britt's comments on, towards play, pram plays that match up incredibly.

Mike:

Yeah. Well, I was going to say historically, the towed bats first night, my matchup is lopsided for towed bats, but 2015 is actually an interesting year because that was before night. March got a lot of its broken cards. So it had to play a bunch of Muey X and. You is very good in the matchup. So it actually makes the match of a little bit closer than it would be in the future with the multiple muse. But yeah, and like that third game was super cool cause Pablo with DC forever, but never ended up quaking punching and winning the game he attacked with Crobat a bunch of times, which was really cool.

Brent:

Yeah, that was, that was a super entertaining And and toad beds versus bent March is like a quintessential snapshot of of that Metta, you know?

Mike:

Yeah. and future and future Meadows to,

Brent:

Yeah. And then, And then Pablo plays against nag, quagga and loses in, in like I was in what was the age? I don't understand how you're supposed to play that matchup, but I don't think I liked how Pablo was playing it, it was a weird,

Mike:

I did not watch that matchup. So I don't, I don't know. Zander did tell me that he thought Pablo didn't play It the way that he should as well.

Brent:

Yeah. he got, he got basically all of his energy out virtually right away and, you know, props disaster for hitting Some heads on pressure hammers. If you're going to have crushing errors in that list helps them that's on them. But just very quickly, Pablo found himself in a, situation where it was virtually impossible for him to attack.

Mike:

yeah, because the Kelda, right? Yeah.

Brent:

And he didn't, he just, and, and there were Some turns. Yeah. I mean, there was one turn where he had the one on. the board and didn't see it. Like, there was just a lot of Crazy weird things where He could have played it better. It's a misplaced. it didn't draw quite as well as he would've liked, but he could have gotten there very very unfortunate. What other, crazy match-ups were there on day one, anything really notable.

Brit:

I watch. So the mains ones I saw were torn versus toward an electric towed bats with rock merit against the bronze on clink clink. And then I saw Zander vs Ross, which was not very interesting Archie stories versus Don fan. and then I saw someone of Chase's games. I'm trying to think of

Brent:

you know what, you know, what's nice about watching the RQ stories versus, Don fan is when I, when I was watching, Toward play pram I mean there were cards and Walker's list that were texts for match-ups. And because this wasn't that matchup, you, like, they just seem bad

Mike:

Yeah, it looks silly.

Brent:

Right, right. Like they're not in Robin's list. And you look, and you say it's super suboptimal, like the Latinos. Right. Which if you'd been playing Buzzroc, you'd have been like, oh, we're getting a lot of bang for our buck out of this card. But because he wasn't playing Buzzroc, you know, it just looked like this list is worse than Robbins because it's not Robin's list. And in, in the Archie stories versus Don fin lists, all of a sudden you're like Articuno is incredible.

Mike:

Right, right, right, right.

Brent:

Whereas. Yeah. I feel like, you know, 85% of 90% of games with Blastoise you know, Archie Articuno, it's just a card view, a battle compressor away, mid game. Here, he was just getting value and it was incredible.

Brit:

Yeah, I thought Ross, like I do think this mantra is probably in the Archie's choices favor, but I thought, I thought Ross made. You know, a blood bath. I do think that the Don fan player, of course, with a better list too, but I think even Jeffrey's list, they're like pretty capable of beating that deck. He just not only had the, sorry, Cuno sort of ready to go every time. And he just had the boss every turn to like the deck usually doesn't play very many boss. Like you play one or two, usually. And like there's, there's there's scenarios where the hidden run robo sub like does buy you enough time. And then you just start trading up on the two prizes with your won prizes. And like, you know, maybe some of that just depends on if the Archie's gets it. If they pop off on turn one versus turn two, and like maybe like one hallelujah header, which will give you a second hole to hit later on through to pres knockout. But I was pretty surprised too. Like, I wasn't necessarily surprised to see Ross win, but it was, it was a blow out. I know like. I never really played. I played Don fan for regionals once, and I think I played Archie story. So at one regional, and I remember this match at being fairly prevalent and I just, I never liked playing against switch and run decks, like even as a seismic toad player, like they can just be difficult even when you have the, the water weakness on a Don fan. Like, it's just, you just. have to hit your bosses at the right time. And that's a little RNG dependent, I suppose, but.

Brent:

Yeah, well, and, and, you know, Ross always flipped just enough heads on a coin flips to like pick Kaos when he needed it. Like, you know, all that stuff. It's one of those things where if he misses a Kao, flips three tails accidentally, it doesn't knock out a Don and also the dolphins knocking him out. And it's a different kind of game. But, but you know, you got, you got where he needed to go. And it was, you know, super fun to watch. Like I recognize this is the pod where we have with the right group of old people where all these decks are super nostalgia. Every one of these games, I was like, oh yeah, I love that manager. This is good. This is great. Thanks. These are great decks. These are great things. I love it all. So so let's talk about day two. We get into day two. They're going to snake draft it up. There's there's four people left and they're drafting 2014 and 2016 decks toward us. The first pick he takes Meghan.

Mike:

I can't believe that, but go on.

Brent:

Why? Why can you not believe that what's, what's the commentary there

Mike:

Well, okay. So I personally don't think mega adeno is like that. Great. So I assume there, they played 2016, first or 2014, first

Brent:

2016.

Mike:

Okay. So 2016 does matter more. So like, I don't know, I guess if you picked night, March, I guess going first, like if you pick night March, it's a little weird because a lot of these decks are somewhat counters tonight, March,

Brent:

Right, right. I mean the whole point of mega, I didn't know, was we hard to counter night, March, right.

Mike:

right. But even like other, some other deck trade, like toad bat, there's a toad bad here. There's a Trevenant here. The

Brent:

Even Greninja if you get, if you get credenza breaks up, like all of a sudden you're killing everything,

Mike:

Ross is best but Quinn deck. So the thing is though they knew who they were playing already. Right. Like they knew the

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah, because the bracket is public. Right,

Mike:

Yeah. not at the first draft probably, but this one, for sure. They knew who they were playing. So we know that, Towards playing Ross and Zander and Natalia planes. So that also goes into this, I guess at least for the second

Brent:

right. Right. Well, so, so then Ross has picking next and he immediately takes dark Tina.

Mike:

So he must have had a plan, but I like knowing Ross, I dunno what it was, but I'm sure he like, had a lot of like, if then statements in his head, like if toward picks this, then I'm going to pick this et cetera.

Brent:

Right. Right. And, and so each person gets to pick two decks here. So so, so toward gets to get information from Ross, his two picks and then make a final. Based on that. So, so yeah, there's definitely an opportunity for gamesmanship, but I think we can all say dark. Tina is a good counter to a mega adeno, right?

Mike:

Pretty good. Yeah, sure.

Brent:

My, my, my personal, I didn't watch these games, but I want to go back and watch them because I recognize dark. Tina is the list that my son played to win the us national championship that year. And then we decided to play a basket Quinn deck worlds. And it was the stupidest thing we ever did. And at the absolute worst call, we ever made it a world and we've made so many bad calls, so many bad calls, and that was the worst absolute disaster, but so, so watching People pick dark, Tina decks brought warm fuzzies to my heart. I love that to death. So then Zander picks Andrew stratas, Virginia. And I think what was interesting about that was counter to our, like, we didn't even talk about 2014 last week because the version was three of the top four decks and here there was only one Virgin deck.

Mike:

Yeah. So I really liked this from Zander for two reasons. One he's picking the best deck. Definitely like VI Virgin is the best deck that format and his opponent is Natalia and Natalia is forced to pick both of her decks. Oh, well, I guess you get to pick twice, but the Talia is forced to pick twice now. And so that gives Andrea at least a little bit of information coming back to the next deck. So if Natalia picks a, a 2016 deck, then Sandra could like pick, maybe pick some counter deck.

Brent:

Right, right. So, so then the tie picks a dark Tina deck as well. So. everybody's responding to this mega Dino choice, And then she picks a available garb. So guys, as I said, this was our first year playing and, and so Liam just main plasma the entire year. Even though, obviously we tested a lot with Virgin and available, our opinions were super stupid. How good a choice is available? Garb? Is that A decent counter? Is that is there any way to be Virgin in this format?

Mike:

I think evil, tall, garbage, probably the best deck in one of these, in that matchup. Would you agree, Brit.

Brit:

Yeah, it definitely, it definitely has a matchup. Like off the cuff, I would probably say 45, 55. Like it was, it was a close match up. I was never really, I never played much Fiji myself. I think I'm, I like hipster, you know, I played it before. It was big kind of thing, but I did play the battle garb at nationals that year. And that was a matchup. I was usually pretty comfortable going into

Brent:

Yeah. Like if we were to run it back, we would probably play as elbow guard because we're the belt guard. They're the, they're a two super cards. How bad could things go with lasers? That'd be great. But, but obviously when you look at world championship results, the answer is a Virgin.

Mike:

Yeah, but so the other thing to think about though is like, Natalia has never played this. Format again, Zander. And I don't know how much of this went through their minds in the, in the 30 seconds or whatever that they had. But so like, Natalia doesn't need to counter VG necessarily. She just needs to pick another good deck. and 2014 does not have that many good decks.

Brent:

right, right, right, Yeah. I guess, I guess all she's focused on is you got to pick the right 2019 deck And then a 20, 20 14 deck, the counters, the other guys,

Mike:

Yeah. Right. Exactly. Garbodor is pretty good at that against a lot of these things. So

Brent:

Yeah. And volatile guard. That's great. That's fantastic. So then Zander chooses Greninja as we were talking about, what's interesting is he picks both of your index, so he doesn't have to play the grid engine mirror, which is a mitzvah for the world. Holy cow. If they'd had to come and hit a grid engine mirror, it would have been pretty upsetting. I saw. and then Ross picks a night March toward digs, Trev gore and vile box. Ross picks Alex crux sends Blastoise Zander picked Kanga scan blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Ross picks plasma and toward gets stuck with plasma TVs. At the end.

Mike:

Yeah. So then going into these match-ups, Xander's playing the Taulia and this is 2016. So Natalia could choose from dark rye, Cortina, or mega metric Gar versus the two gray ninjas. She plays the metric guard, which definitely seems like the better deck, but gets to ode. I didn't watch those games. Did you watch them?

Brent:

I did the first game. She did she get back? The rough seas was just too good and she's sick and more wants too often. And I think she'd realize when she had like seven cards left in her deck, I'm going to get back. And at that point, Zander was literally retreating and passing retreat, rough seas, fast retreat, rough seas pass. And that, that was how game one went down and then game two and he was not drawing particularly well. She just burned through a deck so fast. And then, and then game two, he was able to get there. He just got a lot of Greninja breaks out drew much, much better at the.

Mike:

okay. Okay. And then toward plays Ross. So Ross has nightmares or dark Tina and toward has mega Dino or Vileplume. So I guess Ross never plays nine March into either.

Brent:

Right.

Mike:

so then toward has to choose, which of these decks is better against dark ride gear. Tina, I don't really know. But I guess he thought they got Dino would be better.

Brent:

I actually like Sam Hoff stack here, I mean, the problem is it's super high Rowley and I recognize the toward way is consistency could say city consistency. So maybe, maybe you just don't get there. But you know, you're like, I'm going to get this jolty on out and then attack with it and then win or something.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

I had no, I was just, I know last week I said, I just didn't think that the stack was very good. And after unrelated to the podcast today, someone Alex Wilson, he has a big old that collection and he commented on it today. I was just looking at the list, cause I remember saying last week too, I was like, I know, I don't think it was good because we, we tested it in our list of us better. and upon looking at the list today, I like jogged my memory quite a bit with what our lists look like. And I just like. Just further committed to that opinion then just like, I just don't think this tech is very good. Like our list was so much faster and it, and I just, it just didn't beat nightmare. I remember, I remember sitting next to him. He'd be Pablo, like around two or three of Swiss. I think I remember sitting next to him and it just like Pablo had a Pablo hand. It was funny. It was just like, he had some pretty, pretty horrendous luck just from the get-go and he just like sat back and watched GLT on dude, seven data for folkies or something. like that I just.

Brent:

You know, we, we messed around with a riff on this list that but the way we ended up building, it was it was like Vileplume Bunnelby. So it was this mill control thing. And then we had the jolting on it, but the jolt John was really only in there for if we ran into a deck like this, where they only have basics and they can power up those basics and attack. If you so fast, you can't get your hammers and your recursion doing fast enough. But you know, if it's, if it's that fast, once you add lock them, you can probably lock them out of the game of Joel on and it'll be fine. But Yeah. the, I The whole oh, I'm going to type with Glacey on and I'm not the type of jolty on, and I'm gonna Manipulate all that stuff that never worked in any of

Brit:

Yeah, like ninja boy was never a great card. It always had so much promise, I think in theory and this, this was a set or in a tournament where it's legal for the first time. So this was just kind of like a logical place to try it. And again, that's sort of where our list was too. And yeah, I just similarly, like it's just too awkward to pull off. Well, and so I guess just to highlight the main differences between like our lists, my like mace Curtis D. I'm blanking on names, but there's two people from Germany stayed with us and a couple of other people from the Netherlands. I don't know. I don't really think any of them play anymore. Benji, Benji still plays. But anyway, so like we had, we had compressors, revitalizer and like unknown the unknowns that your cards, like it was a turbo engine sort of in the only thing, the only thing different than if we just had less attackers, but we still had ages slash we still had jolty on him. I'm pretty sure I know we tried the Trevenant and just also thought that it wasn't worth it and just decided to go with like a, to slash for seismic toad. But yeah, I'm just, I just really jogging my memory here cause I just remember being so sort of shaking. What have you at the tournament itself being like this was the, this was the main deck we worked on. Like, we sort of went in we had a shift read redact too. That was almost good enough, but the bulk of our. time was spent on and we just gave it up like two, two or three days before and just like had a good, simple grout on list day one and towed bats for day two. But I just.

Brent:

If only we had had the intelligence to recognize when it was time to come off a list in 2016, we were just so stupid. We play the worst Vileplume list. Oh, that's dismay. But yeah, cause I mean, I think everybody, everybody looked at us nationals and they said that, that, that best we couldn't Vileplume deck was the best deck there. And then everybody spent a million hours riffing on things they could do with Vileplume and it turned out, they were all over. And none of it was winners. Yeah, so I, I mean, I think the rest of the tournament kind of plays out as you might expect. Right? So, Yeah. So Ross plays dark TNN against mega D and, and beats toward two one, and then toward has to play his plasma to stack versus Virgin, because it would be insane to play a Celador against a Virgin. And it's still insane. Like Zander just bodys him up. He wins, he wins two one, and then it's Ross versus Zander. And as we talked about, so Ross picks Gardevoir Zander picks, Dessie plume and a Lola nine tails. And it Ross, instead of picking the Garbodor deck, picks rain before it's cause he's like, it doesn't matter. We're playing Gardevoir and he takes a quick

Mike:

Yeah, we're really going to have to ask them about that choice in why he did that. It seems obvious to pick a Garbodor deck, but he must've had some reason. Ross is very smart.

Brent:

Right, right. I mean, that's, the plume is really good that even if you pick Drampa garb, I don't know. I mean, does, does Drampa guard beat? Dessie plum.

Mike:

I don't know if it like beats it, but it's gotta be better than Gardevoir. To be right. gotta be favorite. I think it's favorite for Drampa garbage. Probably the only slightly favorite though would be my guess.

Brent:

Yeah, so certainly for, for somebody who started playing the first year of draft the world This was a super fun walk down memory lane for me. And so many of these decks touched my heart. And in that respect, it was super fun to watch so much more fun than I think I expected and, and a pleasure to watch as, as Brett was saying, watching Tordon pram, play each other. These guys play these days as well.

Mike:

is why they're the best players in the world.