I mean, I, I do think that I've had, I have had, I think that thought that would play into this, like looking at the kind of conventional Sable. I Inteleon amazing necklace. I have thought that like, they usually play two to wheezing. I feel like, and that to me, just doesn't like, doesn't strike me as enough. But, and so maybe this would solve that issue. Cause that's, that's an issue I have with that deck and just, it seems like it wants to be a wheezing deck, but you're not quite a wheezing deck with only two to, I don't know if I've like squeezing for a really long time. And also I'm a little surprised it hasn't been. More around, but I think it's definitely,
Brent:I I've seen, I've seen people play two dressing, people play three to three, two, cause you can recycle the, like the, the evolution with the car. Right?
Mike:Right? exactly. I think three, two is like the popular number right now.
Brit:Yeah.
Brent:The other, the other thing that I see people split on is like some people are playing stadiums and some people are not
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like you know, how, how much do you want to like cut your ball cards for like putting them into training courts like to train courts is great.
Mike:Court's really good. I don't think you can not play training, calm in the decks that play tumultuous. I think you have to play training court. It's so good.
Brent:Or your holidays besides awesome sweater. Mic.
Mike:Pretty good. Yeah. All I got to see Kelly's family for a few days and they saw my family for a few days. Other than that, nothing too crazy.
Brent:A lot of Alma crime,
Mike:Say that again.
Brent:a lot of Omicron,
Mike:Yeah. avoiding it as much as possible. My brother just tested positive the other day and I was hanging out with him like the day after he T or the day before he tested. So I got rapid tested like yesterday and it was negative, but I'm going to get tested again in a few days hopefully to see. But school is open.
Brent:A school school has been closed the last two, two days down at DC due to be a heavy snowfall like yesterday.
Mike:Oh yeah. I was just,
Brent:Hence my kids running around like lunatics.
Mike:I was just looking at the like the crazy traffic stop,
Brent:Yeah. The I 95 CNN headline.
Mike:People were like, I've been in the car for 20 hours or something like that.
Brent:I can't imagine what that must be like,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:like if it's like 18 degrees outside and you're like, I can either keep the car running and possibly run out of gas or turn the car off. And it's 18 degrees outside and I'm like stuck on a highway in the middle of nowhere.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:That, that seems horrible. I don't like that.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:I spent almost no time on the agenda except to say we should talk about wheezing, Sable. I Inteleon, because it seems like it's suddenly the best I can.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I have thoughts on that, that close to other than thinking thicker wheezing seemed good. I feel like peers, this were still with playing in that deck. Like it's such a good card. It's like, when you're there, you definitely feel like it could be playing one of them drizzle. And it seems like it would have benefits. I've had similar thoughts about peers and like Ross's deck too. Like it's a really good card. I mean, I guess if you're not playing special energy, it's not, but.
Mike:Right.
Brit:Yeah. If you're not playing the hiding energy, it's less good, but I don't know. I'm just a fan of the card and any, anything that two for ones you like that, especially when you're able to just like, be conservative on top of it, like it's that support or you play when you don't need to play research that turns and it just like gets you ahead in a variety of ways in the
Mike:Probably like I'm going to talk about, I want to talk about like the, cause I feel like the Hoopa, the straight Hoopa matrass wheezing, gag. And then the list that I played the other day are kind of like, they're all intertwined,
Brent:I totally agree. Totally agree. This there's this like single prize, dark boxes kind of thing.
Mike:right.
Brent:That is, is definitely like making the rounds, the like step one is that like at least five dark energies, that two is two multiverses. Step three is like you know, one to X training courts and, and some Clara's. And then you're like, now you can add whatever you want.
Mike:Yep.
Brent:And suddenly you have like a decent dish mew match up and you're off to the races. Welcome to the Trashalanche 20, 2200% attendance Brits back from holidays. Mike's back from holidays. I'm back from. We're on episode 70, we're sponsored by channel fireball. It's a great, great time to buy some cards because events have not yet been canceled. So hope Springs eternal. It guys, the big news is we got a review the review is fantastic. The review is fantastic. It says five stars, trashy delicious perfection. This podcast is perfect. Amazing, delicious trashy. Delicious. I can't get enough of it when riding my bike Trashalanche while coding at work, Trashalanche coming my armpits in the shower. Trashalanche this podcast is the perfect amount of perfect perfection. The cast is to die for. Oh, there's some more to it. Darn it. I didn't cut the whole thing. This is terrible. This is terrible. How do I, let me get the whole thing? Oh my God. The disaster, the cash has died for some could say that Brent's voice is orgasmic Mike's knowledge that he brings to the table, although historic and sometimes too mathematically complex for a small mind, like myself is great for both new players. It seasoned veterans and holy cow, have you seen Brits tattoos? Okay. I haven't either, but I've heard. They're awesome. And I can sense that presence via my headphones through every episode, got to meet that guy in person one day. Anyways. Thank you for this podcast without it. I don't know what I'd be doing or where maybe winning regionals instead of being a washed up polka dad. And then again, maybe not, I've lost track of where I am. Oh yeah. Listen to the switch channel. They're brilliant. This was, this was Alex Wilson that even though this guys, this Karen Lopez, Alex, you know how to do it. That is a, that is the kind of quality review we're looking for.
Mike:Yeah, that's awesome.
Brit:Yeah, thank you very much.
Brent:There you go. People regional champions, leaving crazy reviews in the pods. That's that's what the pod needs more of, shout out to Ash. He is, he is the greatest of pokey children. All right, guys, let, let's get into it. First. Let's talk about events. Will, will there be events? What's the over-under on Utah regionals.
Brit:Well, it's been interesting or at least this has just been a conversation. I've been having with the variety of people, sort of from different, different professions, different areas of the country, things like that. And like more or less, I mean, ever everyone for the last week or two now it seems to have been making its rounds across all the Twitters and stuff now, too. That's just like, you know, events are definitely canceled or we're not there. Definitely. We're not playing in March, you know, things like that or what have you. And I have like, at the very least, like, obviously, like my position has been like, yeah, I would probably can't have events anymore or back, back to square one or something really, or even squared negative one. I'm not in a good place with where we are in the pandemic and so on. But I've just been saying like the precedent is clearly elsewhere. Like even regardless of what we should do, like. Like, I just keep seeing more events for the next year. You know, whether this is a like animate convention, tattoo convention, fighting game tournaments, other card games, like they just seem to keep on tracking and hoping that that just like negative tasks plus facts for, you know, show us your, your requirements, your papers, or what have you is going to be enough. And I was just like, well, like, I don't know if Pokemon is really going to be like the first party. That'd be like, actually, where we're, we're not going to do events after all again. And so there just wasn't like a precedent for them until today, until I saw like, Yu-Gi-Oh is officially pulling back on some of their stuff too. And I was like more or less like what I was waiting for. Like, I just, just like maybe Pokemon still would've done it. But like, it just seemed like the whole like culture, the whole, like, you know, this is like guy stuff, just events for this year was just like, we've, we've planned them. We lost two years in a row. Like. not run this event at this point in time or else we will go bankrupt. Like I imagine that's where a lot of these organizations are currently. Like, I don't know, for an example, like the local like animate convention here in Kansas city is like probably going under because they like had to cancel twice and through, through like a small, small mini one in the fall. And they're just like basically on their knees asking for money or they're going to be out of luck. And I would assume like, obviously I think TPC and Pokemon as a brand is above that, but like anything smaller than that, and especially to like local stuff that is just often the blood and sweat of the tos, like. There's just definitely no reason for them to come back, but like, yeah. So I guess really the question and this appears to be where the discourse is too, is not like, like we're, we're past the obvious now. Like the assumption is we're not having events, it's just sort of a game of when are we going to find out for sure. And then people, I think expectedly, like Chris Mansky had a good Twitter thread on this recently and was just like, what would you prefer? You know, you know, to contrast things like yes, this would have been 2019 or early, early 20, 20, like that Toronto regionals was like canceled, like while people were on route to it. So like, I mean, for me personally, I, I would like them to announce it as, you know, tomorrow as soon as possible and not, not play a game of chicken with it, but there's so many logistical issues. I don't know what's where their game is, what, what they'll have in mind, but probably looking at another player's cup, I would guess.
Mike:I'd like them to, I hope. I hope that if in real life event is don't get canceled, that they do something, something like players cup online. And I mean, like the real hope would be something more robust. But who knows? I don't, I don't really have much to add about the in real life. Tournament's I also don't completely understand why they haven't tried to do stuff at a more local level and then build up to the bigger tournaments. But that seems like it would be a safer way to like, go about the process, but maybe it's just logistically harder to manage like a lot of little organizers versus whatever it is. Six really big organizers.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I think that's it too. And also just the nightmare of, you know, the United States being 50 ish, 50 ish, separate countries, almost in a lot of ways. Like when you, when you set a guideline out for, you know, you know, take it's insert European country where like, you know, Kaia and players like that are off playing their local events. No problem. Like you just, you tell them that government, like one thing and you're good to go. Whereas here it's just like up to the governors or something like that. And then two, you never know, like, assuming, like you said, like it's just an issue of like, how many can they trust? How many they delegate to? Cause if, if it just as a sort of wild west. Cross your fingers and tell us you're doing your ride. And if you're, but all you have to be as like a Tio. Like there's no way, like every single Tio would be enforcing that, things like that. But yeah. I mean, that's a good question. Why we wouldn't try to start with smaller things. I wonder. I mean, we've talked about, I think we talked about that a little bit. When we were looking at all the regional schedule, like some places like say Florida, like how can we be having events there? You know, compared to other states, say like Washington or Portland, I don't know
Brent:So I I'll, I'll take a stab at this. Like on the one hand you could say, Hey, let's bring it back. Local leagues. I feel like, I don't know what it's like where you guys are. There's definitely like local legal leaders here that are doing like kind of local league stuff.
Mike:Okay.
Brent:So, so you know, after that, but the next question is like, are we ready to start up lead challenges and lead cups? I think the challenge with that is if they said, yeah, you can start doing that stuff. Like some geographies would find that problematic. Like we also have Zach's tournament got canceled because Canada said you can't have more than five people in a room. And, and like you know, I'm sure the, the cacophony of bitching would be insane if we found out there were lead cups in Florida, like. Right. Like everybody would just lose their minds if it was like Lee cups in Florida people. And I'm sure it would there, you know, and you'd have two kinds. So you'd have like, people like us that would just be like, that seems horribly unfair and like as bad. And then also there would be like 200 people at Lee cups and Raul would be like, I'm flying to Florida this weekend for league cup guys. Let's go.
Brit:mean, that was just basically my exact, the punchline of my joke is like, it's not this game of just like watching random north Americans go to Ecuador and things like that. It's just like, which ones are marching straight and was like, COVID numbers, things like that. And it's like 50 points. Let's go.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, totally, totally.
Brit:Only that, but it's just like you're gonna have to, I just, I hate traveling to begin with, but like, all of this is just like, I just, I need to get a home gym set up again. Let's all I.
Brent:Yeah, like, so that would be, so that that's a challenge, but I, I hear you, like you would like, I mean, I know I had said back in like November, you know, I had talked to guys, he actually like works at the NIH and he was predicting the cups in January. And obviously I assume with Alma crime, you asked him today, he would feel differently. I would say, I feel like, like, what I hear is that, I mean, there's this implication that it's like a wave and maybe like six weeks from now, the numbers are going to be really different than they are today.
Mike:Right.
Brent:And the way people feel about it are going to be really different. But I hear you. But like, so it's a weird tension where I feel like on the one hand by mid-March, you know, we could be back in like, you know, July people feeling good of 20, 21, but you know, if, if we weren't, we'd like to know now that you're kind of rolling.
Brit:You know, all that sort of like conjecture seems like right to me, but it doesn't seem to sort of be a little realistic with it in so far as just like, I just don't know when they're going to stop coming, there's going to be more variants and they're probably all going to be roughly this magnitude, I would think. And I don't know a lot of that too. I don't know. The, the real science behind it too, but anytime I've before, like Omicron had been identified, I had like a parent and like a friend just be like, I tested positive for COVID, but I like definitely I'm dying. And like, it seemed to have most of the symptoms, things like that. So I don't know. I don't know, like the arms race of just like, how, how are the tests able to detect the new variants? Do you need new tests for each new variant and so forth? I don't quite have a handle of those semantics, but like at any rate. There again, not to make us the COVID episode or, but there's just, there's going to be more variants. They might be worse. They might be better. I don't think we really know, but like just the end of the line is not a crime and I'm afraid.
Brent:Man make it, you make it the some pretty rough I'm depressed now.
Brit:I mean, I, hopefully I'm wrong. Like, that's, that's mostly just firing from the hip. I don't know much, much science or anything like that, but it's just some, I think fairly basic questions to ask when parsing these sorts of things, but yeah, hopefully, hopefully, you know, someone more, more well-read on this, like take Chris Szymanski again. Could just be like, actually, no, like, you know, no problem. The tests can capture a future variant or things like that. Like, I don't have a clue I could see, I could see argument for either way. But yeah, it's just like my own sort of parsing of it
Brent:In-person tournament's as far away as PTCG Live.
Mike:Yeah. Just if anybody booked travel like make, and if you're planning on booking travel and haven't done it yet and make sure it's refundable, I think that's like the best advice that we can give at this point. I haven't booked anything personally. But I know if I did, I would only book for fundable stuff.
Brent:Same, but I did, I did kick off my Southwest churning strategy, like in the last three weeks like I was ready to start churning for the companion.
Mike:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brent:So, so I, I definitely was working with this implicit assumption that come like April or may. I'm gonna, I'm gonna need free Southwest tickets for one person,
Mike:Right.
Brent:man.
Mike:You reminded me. I think I have some, I have to look. I think I have Southwest credit from like two years ago. Now I'm like from that first regional was that was getting canceled the North Carolina one. And it might, I might have to use it soon or lose it. I don't know.
Brent:Yeah. Ouch. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. That that's, that's a excellent point. All right. Let's you want to talk to you? What do you want to talk about design first Brit?
Brit:Yeah, I'll lead into this cause it sort of starts with a story. So for Christmas my sister got me. I don't know. I've, I've seen these in my own. Just like gotten targeted ads for them, but it's just like, we'll make we'll make your pets and do a Pokemon card. And so my sister got me one of the Sheba. I'm sure you've seen him here and there. But it's like this.
Brent:Looking at that.
Mike:Oh, that's sweet.
Brit:it's cute. Yeah. It's really cute. Really more like like I think just like pretty easy cash grab from the company, like some, so one of the things that they're just like, obviously it's an older looking card, which I like a lot, but just like the like has like a colored energy as their retreat cost. And at first I was like, at first I was like, man, how could they, I mean, like, you really don't do enough research to just like, get the basic design points. Right. Like, but then I was actually like, wait a second. That's not that bad of an idea. And so I, I, I was just in this head space. I am always reading, you know, threads of just like band mew or the gym leader format is great. You know, varying takes of either ones of those. And I've just. Just really, I mean, and this is a lot of, this is new for me too. Just like thinking, thinking as a designer is just much different than thinking as a player. But so anyways, I, it just led me down this rabbit hole of trying to think of like what, what exists, like within the established, like Pokemon logic and mechanics already. And that just like, hasn't been explored as like an offensive mechanic, a defensive, disruptive, whatever it may be. And retreat cost is one I don't think has been. And so I started thinking of like, like stadium cards or like ways that would like force your opponent. Like, so start printing cards. It conditional retreat costs, not just colorless, but like, I don't know what could be like on one hand, like you force them to pay a lightening energy and your deck doesn't play lightening energy. Like, what do you do? Like, I suspect that like might be too good, but that's just sort of these thoughts that I had. And I'm just really trying to think of just like knew how to, how to explore the pre-existing space, which is essentially my job. Like a lot of, a lot of the design work and what's sort of par for the course and design is like tests. Like if you apply for a job and they think you're good enough, you'll get the design test. And a lot of that is just like, you know, at least one of the ones I've taken. Well, that's just like, here's a list of popular things, designed Hearthstone cards for star wars, for Marvel, for Harry Potter, something like that. So you have to just like, you demonstrate an understanding of the preexisting mechanics and find a way for them to like, meld into this other medium or this other thing. So that's just like really what I've, again, it's just a new, new way of thinking one that I just like never done, because I never thought my like studies and stuff are so different than a lot of this, but I'm just like trying to get better at it. I'm sure there's books out there. Like some Nintendo developer surely has written a book on his. Game design philosophy and things like that. But anyways, yeah. So all, all I've really got now is it's like working sort of concept of just like making retreat costs, like more dynamic and more interactive, just as a way to just like it could, I think it could do a lot, like it could, it could soft balance. I think like you could things with free retreats suddenly are like unplayable. You say, like, I think in my head, the most logical place to go with this as a stadium card that I think plays with the rules, which again, I think it's something that like is a little under explored, like stadium cards historically are always such a wonderful part of like a lot of the most famous formats, like being able to play the stadium wars with like desert ruins and space center and things like that are just like so iconic. And I feel like a lot of the time our stadiums now. They're just sent a compensatory a lot of the time, like you've got one, like stadium, it's usually something like Path to the Peak, usually something that like most X just sort of only pivot to play counter gyms for. So they don't lose to it. Not necessarily because they're being super benefited from that. But anyways, like you take a, like, forget what you say with this is in, but chaos, gym, sort of one of the zany air cards out there. That was a stadium card, but yeah, in any ways I think,
Brent:Can I ask him, do I have no idea?
Brit:I forget you said the flip lots of coins, I
Mike:So whenever, whenever any player played a trainer card, they had to flip a coin. And if tails, then the trainer card didn't happen. And I think. it, it like
Brent:trainer card. This is a great thing.
Mike:I think I went to the top of your deck.
Brit:Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm getting it confused with the slow king that was banned. That's why I'm not like confident, which one is which off the top of my head. Cause they similar.
Mike:Let me I'll look it up, but I'm pretty sure that was it. And it was like really, really annoying. Let's
Brent:You know, I always liked, I always thought parallel city was a great example of a skill cap card. Like, like, hi, like good skill players would recognize situations to parallel themselves, parallel other people, like the timing for playing it. Like you didn't just throw it down the side because you drew it. You like had to throw it down at the right time,
Brit:Yeah. That's
Brent:written down the wrong time. Like they discard all their damage Pokemon. Like there were all these things you could do. Like you could pair with a boss, like you had to do stuff with the Pinella city. You didn't just throw it down.
Brit:Yeah. There's some really cool
Brent:Right. Nobody played for parallel cities. Cause like there's no point planning for parallel cities. Like you play a parallel city because you're trying to do.
Mike:Yeah, I really, I really liked that. I, the double-sided stadiums were really unexplored. I think there was only like three that came out and the one, one of them was totally unplayable. Like the confusion one and then reverse valley was pretty good, but in some decks, but It didn't really have the dime, the dynamicism. Is that a word? You know what I mean?
Brent:It was, it was only relevant in certain types of now.
Mike:yeah, right. Exactly. In parallel was so cool because it was Boltund aggressive and a defensive card at different times. Which was really cool. So I would love to see double-sided stadiums come back. Cause even like the, and the applications of it were really cool because even the other side of that. Was sweet because you could, you could like make your size with towed, do zero damage sometimes. And like, that was super great. Right. Which, which is cool. Just to go back to cash Jim, to correct my mistake. I believe what I explained was low King's power. But chaos GM is very similar. Whenever a player plays a trainer card, they flip a coin of heads. They play it, normally tales. The opponent gets to use that trainer card. So, even crazier than what I said. Yeah.
Brent:so what kinds of decks did people play that in? Like, is that like a control card?
Mike:I don't know exactly. I didn't really play very
Brit:Is it does, does the scan you have pulled up? Is it like a Neo card? I
Mike:a gym challenge card, so right before Neo. So I think it was part of, yeah, like Controlee, Lockie disruption type of decks.
Brit:Jimmy O'Brien with no
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Brit:would be, I don't know, off the top of my head. I'm foggy on some of those older form, the very earlier formats.
Mike:Yeah, I do want to say it is all trainer cards except stadium cards. So if you have a stadium, you can immediately replace the cash June.
Brent:right, right. Otherwise it would be completely fine.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, but Brit that's really cool about the restrict cut stuff. I also had never thought about that, but that is like a super interesting space to explore. And I'd be interested as you, as you go through your thought process of other areas that you can identify that are severely under explored.
Brit:Yeah, obviously, this is, I don't have, if I didn't come with a bunch of cards to show you, but I, I might. I might throw up some Microsoft word documents full of potential cards. I don't know if, sort of we'll, we'll get into this. I think with the, the later the other part of this discussion. But yeah, I mean, it's just like practice for me almost. And I've just like, sort of just like, Hey, I could just like design my own game while I'm at it. So I have some kind of been in some early prototyping of something, something like that, but I definitely, definitely want to explore this space more. And especially too, just like thinking about. You know, not trying to be like reductive or something, but just like, why do people, like, what makes people like the gym leader format? Like what about, and I don't, I don't mean that kind of sending the either, like, for me, it's not like, no, I just like, why, why is this so popular right now? How, how do these games differ in ways that are different from, you know, standard games, like trying to answer those questions and using those answers to try to like, build towards like other things. And I did have a thought, like actually more on like the cynical side of things. And I like, at least this is my current take. I haven't played yet, but have been paying more attention to it the last week or so, but like the gym leader challenge, the gym leader format and. Cubed you're at like the gym leader format is just cube drafting. That's taken out the middle name, which to me is the best part of it. Like, I don't really like cube drafting, but I do like the drafting part of it. And now that I'm just thinking about it, I'm looking at all their lists and I'm like, these are just like really good cube decks. Like a lot of the times, like really good cube decks with thin lines. And so anyways, maybe if I can, as I'm trying to answer these questions, I'll bring the cubing process into it too. But that was just sort of a funny thought I had when I was thinking about it earlier today. I don't know. These are just like that. You just don't have like evolution lines. You just have like the one, one single Singleton cube draft or something.
Mike:That's funny. That's true.
Brent:Yeah. You know, I I've been thinking about GLC more because you know, we played a lot of Pokemon on this, that the last two weeks. And as my, you know, my, my son was always like, we must invent new decks. We must invent new decks. And I was like, I don't know that there's like a new archetypes to a break that much in, in this format. But like GLC I recognize is really unexplored. There's probably lots and lots of stuff to do there. If you want it to go like in.
Brit:I'm suspicious. I'm very suspicious about it being balanced. Like. I'm just like, eh, about that. There's gotta be some, I mean, they've already like band or anger groups, presumably. Cause color lists was problematic. But I just assume there's, I mean, maybe there's not, maybe it's relatively healthy. I'm not sure. I saw Andrew won that tournament in squeaky plate in it too. Andrew one with like lightning. I don't know what I would want to play. Like I, these fun formats, I just, him I'm sure I would prefer just like playing with, trying to figure out what type has the most of my favorite Pokemon and just like trying to make it competitive from there. But I just really haven't poured too much thought into it. It's seems like just kind of like what you would expect, just like a real efficient, cheap stuff is going to be in. If your color has something that cheats, cheats, that energy cheats out supporters, things like that. They're probably pretty good too.
Brent:But that's a, I mean, the idea that I think Pokemon is always dreamed of having a format where like, step one, think of your favorite Pokemon. So like, that's pretty good. It's certainly nothing like that in standard. Right. Unless your favorite Pokemon is mute, which case now, yourself out, it's gonna be great. All right. Shall we, should we talk about Pokemon a little? It seems like it seems like a dark boxy, single prize decks are all the rage. I know last, last pod, we wrapped up the year talking about how the Ross deck turns out to be pretty good. And I feel like since then there's been a whole lot of ROS deck and like weird wheezing, Sable. I Inteleon. That had been running around and, and pin peoples, you know, I don't know if I should say people started trying to push them together or people that are really just like putting Moltres and Hoopa in every deck. It seems like a good thing. When in a new Metta Mike toxin, I know you actually mess around with this stuff a bunch and played a tournament.
Mike:Yeah, I played a couple of tournament. The, I won, I won like a decent size, not super big, but it was like 60 people, but it wasn't a lot around very soon after our last podcast. And I just played Ross exact 60. And then I played in a couple of other tournaments here and there. I didn't have as much success like top 16 one, and then didn't do too well. And then most recently the other day, I changed a couple cards. Cause I saw I didn't play for like a week and a half, but then I saw that the wheezing deck was starting to do well and I didn't really want to play wheezing, but I liked the idea of the Stabili and Reihan in there. So I swapped for cards for Tuesday blight to Reihan and then again I did okay. I started, I started four O and then tied the mirror match because the mirror's really, really, really slow. Even in 25 minutes we still needed probably another five minutes to finish the game. And then I lost to him, you, which was unfortunate. And then I lost to a Sylveon rapid Strake. So the, the core deck, the Corps hoop of Moltres deck is very good against you. It's pretty solid against single strike. And then it does really poorly against rap it's drag really poorly against jolty on, and then it's other match-ups are like kind of close, but it has, but it still has problems against some of the random decks that started popping up. Like Daralyn Don was almost unwinnable. If, if they got set up because they have some healing, they're really big.
Brent:stadium is really hard to do.
Mike:Yeah. exactly. So my thinking was that stabilize helps a lot in that matchup in particular, because all you need to do is stick what like 50, 50 damage. If you stick 50 damage on a drought on then stabilize one shot in it. So that's not too hard. And so that, that matchup is now really good with Stabili. I beat some other deck that I would have lost to what was it? O Corvin night, the, of night stall. I would've lost to that for sure. Without same lie. But, and actually the reason that I was like, say I, you say by his first attack and that matchup to repeatedly get resources back and was able to beat that actually decked him out in that game, which was funny. And then the third round I played against an ice rider, which I also would've lost to that matchup is not unwinnable for the regular group of Moltres, but with Stabili you're able to more easily take the first knockout on the ice rider and then Moltres can get the second Kao. So that matchup is much better than say as well. I'm not sure actually how much better at the Jilt Deon and rapid strike. Match-ups get, I mean, in theory, they're a little bit better because you can, two-shot the first V max, similar to what I was saying with ice rider, it's easier to, to shop the first week max. But really that's kind of the goal is how do you make those two match-ups much better? And it sounds like after talking a little bit with Vinny on Twitter, that wheezing might actually help those match-ups significantly because it stops the Inteleon. I think probably of the two GLT on will be a better matchup with wheezing and then rapid strike because Joel Deon relies on abilities to be able to take two knockouts in a turn. And so If you can shut that off, that does seem very strong to
Brent:If you get the wheezing out before they get a ping down there, just they, they got a.
Mike:yeah, exactly. On the flip side though, I'm wheezing. Very good against rapid straight, because they don't play that many draw supporters in comparison to some other decks. So shutting off their ability is, is from a drop perspective, much more impactful, but they can still take the double knockouts with with Urshifu. So I'm really interested in trying the wheezing version some more and seeing how, like, if it changes, I would say like the jolt, Dion and rapid strike match-ups for the regular list. It's like 20, 80, 30, 70. If it brings, if it can actually bring the match-ups close to 50 50, then it's almost certainly worth playing. If it's still like pretty unfavorable, I would say, just take the LS and continue to take really good match-ups in other places, because I do think you sacrifice some percentages in your good match-ups like wheezing is good against you, but. The way you beat mew is just like being consistent and having, making sure you don't fall too far behind the price of trade and being able to consistently Kao, mellow widows with Hoopa and making sure that you have the, the mattress and the energies that you need later in the game. And I feel like the spots that you use for wheezing take you, you just naturally have to take away energy cards or supporter cards and whatnot that would ensure that you have those cars when you need them. Same thing in like the single Stripe matchup. I don't think we've seen as super great there. So that would be my only like, worry. Is that, how much are you losing on your good match-ups to gain some percentage points in your bad match-ups and. Yeah, if that makes that make sense. Cause like, so the mule that I lost too, even when I was just playing to stabilize to Reihan no wheezing line, I lost that game almost entirely because my opening hand, I opened double Reihan and no other supporters where I would have had a market instead of a Reihan. And so I was slowed down one turn of setting up and I lost by one turn at the very end of the game. So if I have a. Marnie turn one, maybe I'm able to get the ball rolling and turn faster and and win that game. So that, that's kinda what I'm thinking of. I think both decks are really good. It's just kind of, do you want to improve your bad match-ups and weaken your good match-ups or just kind of take some hard ELLs and take some really hard wins?
Brent:So as we were discussing before the pot, I think I'm a little more on the wheezing train right now. Let me talk about Vinny's list versus your list.
Mike:yeah, yeah.
Brent:I don't know. I don't know if you've like really gone through and like ground out the card by card comparison. So he, so he cuts at Coco and Hoopa and then he cuts the three training cohorts and one of the energy searches and he goes, oh, and then he cuts a research and he goes extra energy air balloon, three coffins, two evenings. How bad is it? The cut, the cocoa and the Hoopa. If you, if you add.
Mike:Not, I'm not a hundred percent sure because I mean, wheezing does is like another attacker. So in theory, it's probably okay. Hooper's really good. Koe and mellow sweaters against you. So it could be, that's like the first thing that comes to mind is KOL, Meltwater. It gets much more awkward. You don't really want to use a wheezing. What it like poisons. It's like a two shot, I guess, But if they like switch and come back to the metadata, then it's like, I dunno. So that, that, that part becomes a little awkward.
Brent:But do you think, I mean, I feel like the match-ups really favorable either way, but like, I assume if you're getting the wheezing out, you're like they got so many problems.
Mike:yeah, I guess that's true. They do have, they like, they play for boss though. So like, it's not that hard for them to get, and it's not like they want to play any other supporter. Right. So like it's not that hard for them to get out of the lock. I don't know. I, I, I would need to play that matchup more. like, and the mellow, it is like a pretty big deal. And you have to do it twice. So only having one Hoopa. I mean, do you probably, at some point, want to Clara the Hoopa, which isn't that bad, but w what else?
Brent:So then he cuts the stadiums and puts in an air balloon
Mike:Which I think if you're playing wheezing well, we sent it through a tree. Yeah. I don't really understand the air balloon very much, I guess.
Brent:and he goes, you went eight energy versus your seven. I'm not, I mean, my immediate reaction is I'm like, I might go seven in the stadium just to, even if only I have a counter.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I think the, the real difference here is just eight energy and two energy search versus seven energy and three energy search. Which I think is fine either way, but I, I prefer three energy search. You very often need like a, a designer Inteleon for an under research.
Brent:Yeah. The, the Ricardo Tati played a list, very similar to Vinny's except he went fourth Marnie to training courts, seven energy, one energy search, three incense,
Mike:yeah, I didn't realize that like they were of cutting training carts, which is, I don't know, like some match-ups that doesn't matter in some match-ups it's like really, really important.
Brent:right? I mean, obviously when you have a Clara and a training court in hand, you're like, okay, we're definitely gonna Moltres and prize or to right.
Mike:is like not a very good supporter either in my, in this deck. So like, you have to play it for save lives, but there's like lots of times where you need a lot more than an energy plus one card. And then there's other times where you don't, but like, I don't know, I haven't loved dry Honda in the deck, so that's just something else to kind of point out. And maybe I need to play. Maybe I'd need to like, learn how to play this deck a little bit differently than I was without Reihan and save way. The air balloon is really weird, but if you're only playing one Hoopa, then you don't need to Cocos. like, why are we playing Coco at all then? Like, just, I feel like you should just play two air balloon or two Coco. I'm not, maybe, I don't know. It just feels weird. One, one feels weird.
Brent:Right, right. I mean, I recognize obviously the Coco's really nice if you're like, okay, we're going to clear it out of Moltres, but yeah. I mean, maybe it just put the air balloon on something and you're like, this is fine.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:On, Italiana move on with your life.
Mike:yeah. One other thing that I do really like about Vinny's list, I've seen a lot of lists, not a lot of wheezing lists, not playing for scoop up net and like scoop of nuts, insane. Like I think in the regular list, if I could play five scoop up net, I would. It's that good?
Brent:It's a really good. And I think that's a perfect example of like, when people say you should put more good cards in your deck, like scuba, and that's a really good card, like, you know, in so many expanded, like when people are gonna like break expanded scuba, and that's a perfect example of a card where they're going to be like, I broke the game cause scoop up ahead. Right. And like, so yeah, that's probably a leading indicator that you should play scoop of net. It's a good card
Mike:Yeah. That, I guess there is a difference in that the regular list kind of wants to play somebody scoop of net because you need to attack with Coupa so many times. So you're often scoop up netting, your Hoopa to reset it. And I guess the reason this doesn't do that as often, but still that's still really good.
Brent:right now. W what? So my, my son played jolty on and played against the Ricardo Tati. I think the round before you tied him. And, and he had a really nice play where to keep Liam from winning the game, He used the scoop of nuts to take everything off the board except for Sable and the active
Mike:no.
Brent:and, and Liam was like, ah, I didn't see that coming. I lose, I lose. I was like, yeah. Yeah. So, so props for a promise for smart gameplay you know, you've got to learn to put that Metro better. What can we say?
Mike:Yeah, that's cool. I I've, I've done that. I've done that before as well. That's a cool play. One other thing, just while we're talking about the deck, a play that I make a lot, way more than you would think is I use Clara for Inteleon pieces very, very often. I people target them down very frequently. And sometimes you just end up with one in your active. Maybe you keep calling early on in the game and you like, I Clara for like a Sabal and drizzle. Every other game, it feels like. So I think if you're playing this deck, just kind of keep that idea open that you need to save one Clara usually for later in the game, but ensuring that you have access to drizzles and Inteleon is so, so, so important in a deck like this, that sometimes you just got to Clara for clarity for your samples back. Also one other thing the list that I played with the Stabili stuff, I played it, they, you know that other night and then the guy that won the chill there, the GG Chella man, like he, he copied the exact list that I played. It was the same 60.
Brent:was it the exact same 60? I, you know what I was about to be like, let's compare those lists and
Mike:It's the same one. I think David Hendrickson he was one of the guys that played Spiritomb religiously as well. So I'm sure that he's kind of been into this deck and he must've seen the list that I played and he was like, yup, that looks good. I like that. So props to him for winning the event.
Brent:exactly, exactly. That that is a. Is there where does the Metta go after this? Like, like if everybody's on, this is the answer like rapid striker Urshifu or is there like, is there some other thing that people start to do to counter these kinds of decks?
Mike:Good question. So again, I haven't played the wheezing version enough, but I will say there are two cards that new decks can play that significantly improve their odds against at least the regular version. The first one is Oricorio
Brent:It makes the math so bad.
Mike:Yup. Prevents prevents you from Keio and the mellow widow with the Hoopa. Very, very annoying. So that's one inclusion. And the other thing, part of the reason that the new metric is so good is because they don't play any hand disruptions. so you very easily just a mass, a giant hand as the game goes on and are able to basically ensure that you always have the exactly when you need it. So if you played like one or two Marnie's, I think they're odd two, it improves significantly. So that's something that I might try is just playing mew, but with a couple of tech cards that are not bad. like there, I feel like these cards and the reason that I mentioned these cards as well is that they're not like specifically to counter your counters, right. They're just kind of pretty good cards. Are useful in a lot of random situations. And those are always like the best tech cards to play cards that are not only really good against your counters, but also just decent cards overall. So I don't really know where the metal will go besides that, but I do think mew can adapt to be better against these decks than it currently is.
Brent:Yeah. You know, we were playing a I think another strategy is like stranding cards in the active a lot with this deck. And it seems like more switch effects might that make their way into the minute to,
Mike:Yeah. That is true. Like wheezing in particular makes it yeah, really annoying. And then if it gives the, the wheezing player time to like get Inteleon tag gets some pings going, blah, blah, blah.
Brent:You know, the other, the other deck that kind of came and went while, while we were on vacation. And it's very similar to this. So we should probably talk about it for a second. Is the Alex Beedrill mold truss or what was, what was this crazy thing that he was running?
Mike:I know what you're talking about, but I don't know exactly.
Brit:Yeah, I saw it too. It was beat drill. And that has Aptos too. Was it like, cause it was birds and the bees or something like, I want to say there was two birds and like Meow to discard, you know, that those kind of staple stuff, but.
Mike:Oh yeah. Like the glare zap dose as well. Right. For as a fighting thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Brent:yeah, yeah, yeah. He was, he was running the glaring zap though, so, yeah, so it was like weird counter box with be drill.
Mike:Yeah. it seems kind of cool. Like I said, when the Leafeon stuff, I was really surprised how easy it is to get Beedrill out. So I'm sure the deck's okay. I'm still not convinced glary and Moltres V though is a very good card against me. I don't think it's that good. So,
Brent:there's a reason why it was only in the Metta for literally like 15 seconds. I think it turns out it's not good enough and it was a little bit me mission that way, but props to Alex, if you guys have I haven't watched a good YouTube video in a while. The video that he tweeted out on the his Spokane Pokemon account. So shout out to Alex really good video. I, I feel like I've always said there's like every once in a while somebody makes a video that is so like, or writes an article or something that is just like, make such a compelling case for the deck. You're like why we should play this. I think, you know, 15 minutes into his 20 minute video, he's like, look, this deck is terrible, but, and, and, and proceeds to kind of like walk you off the ledge about it, but like,
Brit:I mean, that's, I think sort of typical of a lot of, I mean, I don't know why I just used to watch every top cut Pooka video and all so often I was just these in his bad decks and bad deck Monday and all that stuff. And he would, I think very sort of just like that would be half of the fun was him just being like, oh, this is, this deck is just so bad, but we'll get our one win here. You know, things like that, that very, very fond memories of, so it's, I don't know, it takes a good dig. It takes a good player to both recognize when your deck is good and when your deck is bad, you know, there's
Brent:But, but the first 12 minutes of the video. Is really good. Like w when I think about like great Pokemon content that I've read the, the, I know I'm always talking about the Dylan Brian Don fan article at six prizes as like revolution and content creation. And then Russell APAR had a YouTube video where he like, talked about the Friday developed old deck. And it was really, really strong. The video the first 12 minutes of Alex's video are like, when, when you're playing against this deck, you're going to go, you're going to want to do these four things in your first couple of turns. And then they're going to counter with blah, blah, blah. And then you counter with this. And you're like, absolutely convinced that like, you cannot lose these match-ups, it's, it's really, really good. Right? He's like, it's like, this is, this is where we started with building this deck. And we took these cards out and here's why we took them out. And like, here's what you'll do in these situations. And here's the situations where those cards would have been good, but it turns out. You know, they have the option to do blah, blah, blah. And that's why the card is actually bad. Like he walks through every possible tech and like why it's not as good as the cards that are in the list. Like just a you know, as my son said, when, what you can tell when a guy's played a hundred rounds with a deck oh, the other thing, the thing that we were talking about that actually my son mentioned was the, like, there was like a four week stretch of the Trashalanche podcast where you got like nonstop peek around feedback about how to play peak around well, and like golden era of content creation. And like, so many of the videos are just like throw away videos of like, I played five games with this deck and here you go. Alex's video is better than that meme. Good stuff. That's my Alex Frank.
Mike:That's cool. I have to have to check it out. W w while you're, while you just mentioned that, Brent, I wanted to ask what, what got you and Liam playing a lot over the break. Was there like a catalyst or was it just like, we have time now?
Brent:Yeah. Oh no, no question. A little, a little bit of both. So our big, our big holiday vacation was we went to California and we hung out with the Hyatt's shout out to the west coast Pokemon players out there the Beale hot and the sun, that kid Hyatt and, and his other son, Liam Hyatt Kayden is, I guess now a first year master theoretically, and a five time world qualifier in like juniors and seniors. And one of our like close testing partners, they, they stayed at our house when a worlds was in DC. The last. So, so going into that, I sat down and I built like eight decks, so they could test and like Liam and Kaden basically played Pokemon for like three days. So all of a sudden I have all these opinions on the format, guys, crazy. We don't have time for, we, we're gonna, we're gonna need a couple of pods for me to get it all out,
Mike:Nice.
Brent:but you know, I think, I think the big thing that I think I realized coming back as, as Liam is like been messing around with, you know, trying to come up with new decks is the thing that we liked best about the Ross deck is I feel like the decks and format for better, for worse are super linear. Like there's, there's just very few opportunities for nonlinear play, but. If you're playing mew, if you're playing jolty on, if you're playing rapid strike, Urshifu now, like there's only one attack you're gonna use. You're gonna use it the whole game. You're just going to like jam it down. People's face and hope that it's enough. And like, if it turns out it's not good, you're going to lose horribly. Right? Like he likes to jolty on better than you, because he likes going a hundred, a hundred better than just going to 10'cause like, I think it was just because it gave him opportunities for nonlinear play.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like he was like, I could do something here. Whereas if you're just smacking the act of turn after turn, like everybody knows what's coming and, and there's, and, and like, I think so he tried playing jolty on the other day and he became frustrated with him. Cause he was like, everybody knows what I'm doing this term. Everybody knows that we're doing the next turn. Like, you know, on the one hand, the ability to snipe is a little non-linear, but like not that bad.
Mike:Yeah, exactly.
Brent:Like we know that I'm doing this thing. There's definitely no, not doing this thing. And in that way I think he found it very frustrating that the archetypes are just so like spoonfed to you in that way. We, we spent a bunch of time testing, like the last go around the Sanders list and I I'm sad to report control is not in a good place.
Mike:Yeah, I did on that note. I know a lot of people are optimistic with the next set though. That control could be cool. I don't know if you guys saw a standard tweeted out a way to like Cheryl infinite loop with Alta Gus. So like with the new double energy that's coming out, you can go into Umbrian let that take a hit bird keeper at back to the bench to another V max, let that take a hit. And then the next turn you Cheryl the damage off both of them. And then you can like to, I guess the third two or three turn loop that way.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I love that. He's always thinking about these things and, you know, I, I told him we just got to pack it up until next format. The good news is March 22nd. All that stuff will be re legal. So, so more crazy stuff coming from.
Mike:Is that when the next that comes out and until March.
Brent:I have no idea, but I know, I mean, March 22nd is when in person tournaments are,
Mike:Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.
Brent:so it will definitely be out before then.
Brit:Yeah. Pretty sure it comes out like for Utah, like theirs will be illegal by then.
Mike:Yeah. My guess is that it will be out in February, sometime
Brit:Yeah, maybe pre-release reading in February, something
Brent:as somebody who'd neither knows what the cards in the next set do, nor knows when the next that comes up. Sounds about right.
Mike:Did you did you guys see my, my tweet about the tier list the other day?
Brent:Oh yeah. That was that solid, solid tweet. We should have a tier list.
Mike:So I saw all these people like putting the tier list. out. But I I'm, I was curious, Brent, if your guys' playing was somewhat accurate to that.
Brent:Brit, I don't know if you have some, a deep, thoughtful comment on how tier list work. I was always confused that there's like, when we decided eight tier is not enough. So we make another tier above that. I mean, why isn't that the age here?
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I've thought about that a lot. And I don't know. I mean, I remember first encountering this and like NMA, but yeah. I don't know why the naming practices, that ass is
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:a best one. It's it's
Mike:Super. It's the super thing.
Brent:many, how many tiers do we need to put above a, before a is not a good.
Brit:it makes more sense when there's like other letters involved. I don't know. Just what, like a singular S like, it's not a grade. What does it mean? But like, cause like in, in like gotcha. Games and things like that, usually the standard for your, like your highest rarity is like an SSR. Who've got a super secret rare or whatever. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just off the cuff, I think tearless in general are just like part of the everyday workflow of a content creator. So I think besides like generating interaction and so forth, I don't think there's a whole lot to them, especially to like, everyone's a little different everyone, you know, as again, everyone's not quite talking about the same thing too, so that's why like some lists will be more concise than some lists will list every deck in the format. And it just like, at that, I mean, I know obviously to a lot of this, like grading ranking, whatever it may be, it's all just so very arbitrary. Like just like, what exactly is your mat? You know, like, and especially too, if you, if you dive into the weeds of like the bottom tiers, just like these, like how much better is this pile versus this pile, things like that. Like, even then, like, it doesn't seem maybe fair to even put them in the same tiers, things like that. I think the smaller, the better is the right approach.
Brent:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think your, your point that there were too many un-viable decks that were, that somehow got graded and scattered across the, like a list of decks was.
Brit:Just start listening cards at that point. Just like this, not Bible, this
Mike:Yeah. It's like, just don't even worry about those. Like I've seen Brit. So when people often people where we'll make tier list for the battlegrounds heroes to like help. And I think those are actually quite useful because it's helpful for people. Like to pick which heroes you want to play. So like that's a type of tier list that I think is quite useful, but you know, there's this huge tier, there's this huge group of battlegrounds heroes that are completely, you don't want to pick them at all. And so there's no, like when people make the tier list, they'd just dump them into this bottom tier. And they're like, this is unordered. Like just don't pick these heroes if you don't have to. And I think like, that's, that's how I view the bottom tier of a lot of things. Now it's just these things like they exist, but they don't really matter. Like they're all equally bad for the most part.
Brent:Yeah, I, I think, I think so when I look at the tier list that you tweaked. That's pretty much spot on with the decks that we tested. The only decks that I hadn't built were a gang Gar Doral add-on and wheezing. And, and like, obviously today you're like, well, if you're not testing drought on weeds and you're not really testing it, right. It just goes to show how fast the Metta changes. Cause those were like fringe decks to not existing decks three weeks ago.
Mike:Right, right. And Darale it on is like, well, I mean like wheezing is obviously quite good. Throw it on. It's still like borderline good or bad. Like it has some good matchup. I don't think it's a very good deck. It just happens to like, have some good match-ups in the top tier, I guess you can make a case that like the wheezing and dark decks are the same, but I don't know.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, you know, there, there's, there's a little bit of a rock paper scissors that are metal right now where you're
Mike:right, right,
Brent:many given. So, so there, there's definitely an element of like, when you sit down to play with a friend, you're like, okay, well, I won't pick this deck. So it doesn't wreck everything we're trying to do here.
Mike:Right.
Brent:I, I don't know if it's if I would say that it's better than you give it credit for, but we played a lot more frequent Luda colo. I think that's because it's a little less linear. Cause like you have to, you have to make some choices
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:and you're like making choices.
Mike:Yeah. I think we can Lucario is the, like one of the best, like inherently it's one of the best decks in the format. It just happens to have a lot of not very good. Match-ups of the other good decks, I guess not good. It's not very good against you. It's not good against jolt Deon. It's going against single strike. It's. Not that good against rapid Strake it's it's okay. Against the wheezing and dark stuff, but it's like even to slightly favored. So like you're, you're losing to like, arguably the two best deck, like losing pretty bad, I think to you and Joel Deon. And then the other top decks are like, okay. At best. So it's like the best deck that has pretty bad match up against the other best
Brent:Yeah. Well, and, and I mean, I know why it like still gets decent tournament results for all that. If your opening hand has a Path to the Peak. Yeah. And you're going first. You're like, you know what might not be unfavored let's see if he has a stadium. And then you're like, oh look, I win. So, so in that respect, like, it was fine. We were able to, like, we could play at vs mew and like, you know, it wasn't a hundred percent loss. It was like 45%. Well, you know, it was like, how, how does finding stadiums go for you? And how does finding stadiums go for the other guy? In that respect, it was like this it's fun to play clinicals. So we can, Louisville's fun to play. Like,
Mike:I agree. It's very fun to we play to stage two lines.
Brent:yeah. And like, and like, you know, the other guy knows what you're trying to do. So he's trying to stop you from doing that thing. Like in that respect, all that was fun. All right guys, I feel like we got.
Mike:Yeah, it's pretty good.
Brit:Yeah,
Brent:70 in the books,
Mike:First one to 20, 22.
Brent:2022 somebody went and looked and they were like, oh, I guess this was the highest cause I was hanging out with them and they were like, oh my God, I can't believe you actually cranked out a full, like a year and a half of episodes nonstop. The pot we're making it happen. All right guys,
Mike:sweet.
Brent:it easy.
Brit:Brent.
Mike:You guys.