Brent: 0:04

Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. It's everyone's favorite Pokegear podcast. It's the best Pokegear podcast because it's the only podcast about the Pokegear trading card game. Tense is a hundred percent. Mike Brit me. We're on Twitter. No five star review updates. You should leave a review. We would read it on the pod. I feel especially in the awake of, of Mike's podcast with his mother. There's great opportunities for reviews and much discussion to be had. Dragon Shield is our sponsor. Guys, let's let's jump right in. I thought this was pretty interesting weekend actually.

Mike: 0:35

I watched a lot. I watched a lot of the tournament. I don't know about you guys. Just the

Brit: 0:41

first day I, I went, I went out of town almost specifically to play Pokegear, but I only sort of was around, I was busy in the evening with doing friends, doing things with friends. So I, I cut a lot of the first day, but kind of didn't see anything after that. Was what was reading group chats, but mm-hmm. didn't personally observe very much.

Brent: 0:58

Same, same. That was, that was Mewtwo. So what'd you take away, Mike?

Mike: 1:05

Uh, I mean, from a Meta game perspective, nothing very interesting at all. uh, Lugia is still extremely good. Playing Lugia is still difficult at times. I think we saw one of the, one of the more interesting things is I think we saw the level of play that needs to happen from the Lugia side in. Like difficult matchups, especially now that the format is a bit older, everyone knows how to play against Lugia. Everybody knows like kind of the matchups and so you can't really like at the beginning of the format, like just the power of Lugia was enough I think a lot of the time to just straight up win a game. Um, but now I think it really require. A bit more precise play. Uh, and I mean, we saw that even in the finals. I think, uh, with Reagan versus all, which was an awesome set. I think Reagan made like possibly one mistake in the first game, and I think it cost him that first game. Um, Which, you know, is partially how you want games to be decided at that high level. You don't want it to come down to draws. You kind of want it to come down to, uh, who played a little bit better. Um, Azul in his tweet said that he feel like he almost threw the game a couple times. But that's interesting because I thought as Israel. Phenomenal. Um, uh, so yeah, I don't know. Those are some of just the initial thoughts. I'm gonna pull up the, uh, result page in case I'm forgetting anything.

Brent: 2:48

I, I know I had said it was time for, for Jake to win and, and indeed Lugia did not win, but I, I don't know if we would've called this a victory for Jan.

Mike: 2:58

Yeah, it was funny the first time that Azul was on stream because you know, he is playing lockbox, everybody. Nobody was surprised to see him playing Lost Box. But like after like the second or third deck search in our group chat were like, is he even playing Kyo And that was kind of a cool realization. We're like, we, I don't think he's playing Kyo. Uh, and then lo and behold, he was not.

Brent: 3:23

Yeah, I thought, I thought that was probably the most interesting uh, place to kind of start our discussion was. So is there, like, are people just gonna be all over the board in terms of lost box variance in Knoxville? Or like, are people gonna say I should play it without Requa or Kyo because Azul just won a tournament like this? Or are people still gonna be like, is Raza still gonna be the dominant list? Like,

Brit: 3:48

yeah, I guess this is just, I didn't know this. What, what does AZ Deck play then? I, I'm, I know it plays Dragonite, um,

Brent: 3:55

but it's like a little more just like counter

Mike: 3:57

boxy. It's EX. It's basically the exact kyo list without kyo. Like it plays Zoroark, it plays Zoroark, it plays Snorlax, it plays Dragon iv. Um, and you put a drap on and a sky seal stone in. So in instead of like the Kyo wind condition against Mew, you have that as your wind condition against Mew. But Gotcha. Yeah. Otherwise, otherwise the list is almost identical.

Brit: 4:22

I think that just solves like, I don't wanna say the problem, cause obviously. It's more just the, the way the deck was constructed for Kyo, but taking kyo out, like it just feels like you, your play becomes so much more open in terms of like what, what is sort of available to you throughout the game. Cause like as kyo in so many of the matchups, you have to hit the kyo play. And so like, being very, very sort of intuit in tune with that and in your deck and what you're lost zoning and things like that. But yeah, like throwing that out the window just seems like, just becomes so much easier to play. Yeah. Like almost

Brent: 4:54

immediately. Yeah, that was the comment that I saw that I liked was when you, when you cut the requa in the kyo, like there's a lot of mid-game decisions about what you're gonna lost zone that, like previously you were like, well, my only wind condition is to not lost on this thing. So I have to make what feels like a super suboptimal play right now. Because like, we have to preserve this energy recycler under all, you know, there's, there's just no world in which we do not preserve this and. You just have to like, take those Ls a little bit. So in that way, maybe the deck is, I don't know if it's easier to play or if it's just gives you like chances to win in

Mike: 5:34

that way. The, okay, so here's, here's interesting stuff about Lost Box. The first lost box deck that ran Rayquaza came in 51st. There was a bunch of lost box above that, but everyone above that did not run Rayquaza. It was some form of, uh, Kio or Zamazenta or just like other random attackers. So Rayquaza Raku lost box did not do very well at this event. I'm not sure if it will just like was played a lot less. Oh, and I think that's the only one. So 51st place and it was the only one that made day two. Um, everyone else was, uh, these other versions and like Pedro's version was pretty different as well. It was, uh, a more V focused with the sky seal stone. Uh, it ran his. So that's like another route you could go. One thing that struck me about both UL's Deck as well as Pedro's Deck, more so Pedro's deck, is that they don't seem very good into other lost box decks like Rayquaza. Raku seemed very favored against both of these versions. Pedro's, because it runs the v Pokegear and AZ the. Like the, I, I, I think Ray Qua Raku is already slightly favored against Kyo because it ran Zigzagoon. Um, but now without the threat of Kyo at the end of the game, uh, it's just like another thing that they don't have to play around, I guess. Um, so I think that's kind of an interesting dynamic. Is none of these loss index team particularly good against each other, or at least not, you know, more than 50 50.

Brent: 7:16

Long silence. Yeah. I find the I find if Pedro's List was like, kind of similar to UL's List in that like obviously doesn't have the requa, it doesn't have the Kyo, but it was totally um, like there's moments where you're just like, kid really has to pick an attacker,

Mike: 7:32

you know? Right. Yeah. Yeah. He had a bunch more vs. He had he cut, he

Brent: 7:37

cut one of the S two. Yeah, but I mean like one of the Vs that he put in his lumion like

Mike: 7:43

man, Yeah. Has minion. He has Raku and he has this Zamazenta, I feel like, and, and like

Brent: 7:49

I bet the lumion was fantastic, right? Like, I mean, and I really need a chole this experiment right now. Yeah, you gotta think you can do a thing,

Mike: 7:57

right? Yeah. And you can always mirage gate to it and attack with it. It's not that bad. Right. All right. Some other things. I know we had talked about Brit. I think you had predicted that Veco Vault would do a little bit better this time and it did do better. It didn't do like super amazing. It did win in seniors, which is cool. Mm-hmm. The, I think it was the son of the dude that owns the Seattle Pokegear card store, like the only, only Pokegear store. So that's cool. Um, but it did do okay, uh, in Masters as well. There's, I don't know, three or four in day two. And Hammer Chino got 16 16th, so top 16 with Beca Boltund. Um, no Aerodactyl. It's, it's, I think Cameron and the guy, the kid and seniors basically played the same list. Um, no aact all but they did run some Path to the Peak and they ran the double Raku and Skye stone as well. So, you know, similar-ish to what I ran in Orlando. Um, I was, they, they, they showed Veco, Boltund, stream and Masters twice. Once in round one on day one, Christian Hassani or Hassani, uh, played. And then Cameron. On day two, I guess, against the Zu. And one thing that I find really interesting is that they chose the Veco Vault players chose to go second, which, uh, I don't particularly agree with. The matchups were against law zone gure and law Zone and a's law zone box. I feel like that's the only matchup where it's even considerable to go second. I feel like Ve Boltund always chooses to go first against every other matchup, but even against Lost Index, personally, I still think it's. Correct. To go first. I dunno if you guys have any opinions on that,

Brent: 9:47

man. I obviously you're, you're the one who's actually played games with Veco, Boltund, I can imagine. If I would, if there's like any circumstance where I, I would feel strongly about the other outcome. Sounds fine to me. Yeah, I mean,

Brit: 9:58

I, I think that's always like what you want in a deck is that when it's, it's like actually, you know, which is better, you know, whereas where you're comfortable doing either. Um, but I thought about this and I, I think I do mostly agree with Mikey. I do think it's sort of like, Deceptive or you know, a common misconception that, well, it's f Boltund, I want to go second so I get the attack. But I, I think it's just always, almost, always, still better just to like, bite the Bulu, give them a turn of trainers and just like guarantee your setup on the second turn. It's cuz like when you dig for it on the first turn and you whiff, you're just kind of done if you miss it. And even, even sometimes too, like depending on your draws, depending on what you sort of have to sacrifice potentially to get there. Again, like maybe all you also have is still the fable and like I've sort of, as I've expressed before about the deck, like there, if that fir, if you go, really go really in on the first item lock and it's just immediately countered, like they just can draw out of it and like knock you out or hit you for enough damage to where you're in a bad spot and they're not like you, the deck just falls apart. So I feel like it's again, just better to just like set. Do what you need to on the first turn and then just like, push for it on the second turn and just like go from there. Um, that, that felt like, I feel like that was a similar dynamic to the way Seism mirrors work. Like, you know, it wasn't terrible for you to go second because you could item lock. Them first, but you would, you know, you would have to dig for the double colors and things like that. Whereas I, you know, you go first as the seism hood player, you can attach a basic energy, you know, and things like that. And, you know, it ended up being pretty similar at the end of the day. But I, I recall a similar sort of just like, you always go second and you're just like, no. I think sometimes it's match up dependent and things like that. Yeah,

Mike: 11:38

yeah, yeah. I, yeah, that sounds right. I guess like my main argument is that like against lawsuit index, the biggest. Difference is like can you item lock before they Mirage gate? Like that's like, you know, there's other things that they can do that matter for sure. But like that is the single biggest thing. If you can item lock before they Mirage gate, you're probably gonna be in a good spot. And I just feel like if you go first, you like almost always get the item lock on turn two. Like it's very unlikely that you whiff it if you get to go first. If you go second. I don't know, maybe I, I don't know exactly what the percentage is. Maybe it's 70% of the time you get the item lock. Turn one going second between 60, somewhere in like the, the 60 to 80 range. Probably not as high as 80 though. Um, but if they get to go, like if you're going second, that means they went first. The odds of them getting turned to Mirage Gate are very high. So if you whiff the item lock and then they get turned to Mirage. You basically immediately lose the game. But like you going first, you're basically guaranteed item lock turn two, the odds of them getting turn one mirage gate are not that high. It happens and it feels really bad when it does happen, but I don't think that's a very high percentage of the, of games, and so I feel like you're, you just do the more consistent route. That's kind of my main argument.

Brent: 13:03

You know, I was gonna say, I, I feel like, like my gut and I, I, you know, I'm sure Cam has a very nuanced opinion on this, but I mean, he obviously played a ton of games over the weekend and, and prior to it to get ready. But like so much of the draw is like you ju you need a lot of pieces to get there if you want to get the turn two lockup, because like, you need the. You need the Melony, like to find your way to the Melony. You need, you, like, you might need multiple muse, like you're gonna, you're gonna need some ball cards, you might need lumion, but like, if, if you start with like one ball card, like you have to make a tough decision. Right? Right. Like, like it just seems like if you had like, you know if you have two turns the odds. and it isn't like your supporters are these like super draw cards that help you get the pieces you need to hit

Mike: 13:57

tit stuff, right? You, you need to get the water in the discard first anyway. Like, and that's, that's not trivial

Brent: 14:04

Yeah. Like the, and, and, yeah. I mean you're so like the value you get out of the sup getting the play, the supporter on turn two was like marginal to non-existent really, in terms of assembling the pieces you need to do the. Because like it's the Melony That's the card you're playing. Yeah. Just like is that really gonna magically happen for people? I don't know. I mean, I hear that and I think, yeah, turn two, the odds must be dramatically higher, right? Yeah. You're really, really hoping to YOLO there.

Mike: 14:38

So if you're listening to this and you have a very strong opinion the other way, Message me on Twitter. I'm down here. Another argument. I I I could be convinced, but I wanna hear a strong argument. And Cameron, if you're listening, message me.

Brent: 14:52

Cam's kinda going hard this year. It's exciting for me to see because Cam is definitely a friend. So it's it's been nice to, uh, watch him travel a little bit to, uh, get his grind on. Very good.

Mike: 15:03

Cool. Um, what else? Interesting. Uh, Raul and Sam just kind of stuck with their favorite deck, the Reggies, and they both did very well, which is cool to see. Nothing too interesting in their list. But, uh, is,

Brent: 15:16

is Reggies an under the radar? Good play?

Mike: 15:18

I mean, it's like, okay, so another thing with these lost box lists that don't have kyo and are not Ray qua Raku, they are really bad into Reggie's. Like, I don't think Azul List can beat Reggie's almost ever. for example. Yeah. Like I

Brent: 15:35

looked at that and I was like, oh, so, so this Reggie's has a good matchup into like people playing the Suicune las buck list and like it has a pretty good matchup into lug. Oh said pretty

Mike: 15:45

good. Yeah, and I think like Reggie's, uh, viability, I think will, regardless of Lele, Lugia player plays Dunsparce, Reggie has a chance to win. Like, I think if they play Dunsparce and Manatee, it's unfavor, but it's not that unfavor. But I think, uh, like they hit this tournament where the Dunsparce usage went back down. Uh, I'm looking at all of the lists in day. Dunsparce was in about half of the Lugia, um, which I think is a bit lower than it was in Orlando, for example. Um, so I mean, Reggie's always becomes better when there's no Dunsparce. Do you

Brent: 16:22

think Dunbars comes back? Like, my working assumption is it probably doesn't. Yeah,

Brit: 16:29

this seems right to Mewtwo.

Brent: 16:32

Besides Reggie's, it doesn't seem like Dunsparce helps with anything in kind of the current Meta. Yeah. You read,

Brit: 16:38

um, Natalie, her talking about her list and, you know, didn't, not playing Dunsparce and sort of the dynamic of that and how like most of her opponents just assumed that she would, she didn't play the rku or. It was actually didn't play Raku and that people just sort of like bench the manife anyways. And so like, obviously it's different than the Dunsparce, but it feels sort of like the same scenario where if you can stay just like, you know, this one sort of slot in your, your list, you've, you've opted out of it, but the Meta game is just there to expect it every time you, you catch these players making mistakes like that where they, you know, they assume they need it down and you know it. You know, perhaps costing them them the game or something like that. But that seems like definitely right to me. Or like if we're in a world where, cuz people still play Raku of course, but like, if we're in a world where like, it's like, you know, the Raku is more for I think, like lost box anyways a lot of the time. Like it's not necessarily a mirror card in the way it works. Like it can, like it's good with the belt and so on, but I, I think that these, like the Reagan's list and things like that just seem. Kind of a good place to end. Like, not that the format's over, but just like, again, keeps getting harder and harder to theist.

Mike: 17:49

Yeah, I agree. And like having the, probably like the best card Lugia can add that it doesn't already have for, again, it's like lost box is probably not, Dunsparce is probably the third Marni that Reagan played. Like Marni seems a lot better than, uh, running Dunsparce. So for, for even like ra Raku lost box decks. So yeah. It's really just for Reggie's. Did you,

Brent: 18:15

Owen and cameraman played two lost cities, right? He's a monster.

Mike: 18:20

He was the, the, the token Mew deck in top. There's always one Um, You guys. So you guys didn't see Sam's winning in or winning almost in? I did not. Oh man. That was a really fun match to watch. He played against, I forget who he played against, but he lost game one. I think it was, it might have been a Japanese player with Lugia, that, that sounds right, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Um, he lost game one, a pretty long game. One like 30 minutes, almost 30 minutes, and then. Game two, he won in like two or three turns really quickly. And then game three uh, it wasn't quite that quick, but he was playing so fast, um, to make sure that he finished. Like there was so many things he could do on any given turn. And he was just like, you could see his hands like kind like moving around. He is like, do I wanna do anything? And he is like, no, no, just Reggie Geus boom attack. Um, oh, oh, you know what happened in game three? The dude mulligan like five times. And so that was like taking up time. Which was bad, but it gave Sam the turn one attack with Reggie's Cause he got so many cars. And so, like, I think Sam, like you could see, uh, in Sam's face, like the, like after like the second time that the dude Mulligan, he's like, God damn it, like, we need to play this game But it worked out because he was, you know, he was able to just win so fast. That was a cool, that was a cool win. It was unfortunate he won. And then, you know, bubbled at ninth, that was like, there, there, there was like five or six games going on where only one of the winners were going to make it, or one or two of the winners were gonna make it. Um, so yeah, so I think he knew going into it that it wasn't, uh,

Brent: 20:09

guaranteed. The, yeah, the, yeah, the tables like 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, were all like, play it out. But they all knew like, bad things are gonna happen. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Mike: 20:17

Other than that, nothing too interesting. There was the Lugia control deck that started eight and one on day one, and then did pretty poorly on day two. Uh, I, as, as expected, I think from our comments in our, in our group chat,

Brent: 20:33

I, yeah, I think, I think Liam watched that game and was like, I don't understand what he's even trying to do. Yeah.

Brit: 20:38

The, the first game on stream that was like, that's gonna in go down in history, that's like an infamous, infamous stream game. It was just like, you know, again, I'm, I'm willing to believe that, you know, the, the new player was a, is much better at than they, they played onstream, but it was just like a farce. One of the worst games that I've definitely ever seen on stream, especially at five. Oh, at a IC

Mike: 20:59

Um, I guess so my only thoughts like kind of going forward, like looking at the day two, there's basically two decks, or maybe there's, it's really just three decks. It's like Lugia and then lost box, and then pretty distant third is Mew, and then the sprinkling of the other things. The sprinkling of veggies. Control

Brent: 21:21

guru aldon.

Mike: 21:23

Yeah. But it's still, I mean, we're still really in that same format. One of my friends from Philly that is going to Charlotte, not Knoxville, but Charlotte, he's like, I feel like it's just a waste of my time to play anything except luge or lockbox. And I'm like, yeah, that might be true. I,

Brit: 21:41

I definitely feel, feel that way for sure. After playing Mew over the

Mike: 21:46

weekend. Oh yeah. So Brit, what did you do? You met up with some? No, I

Brit: 21:50

had, it was like a Winne case tournament in Springfield local. And I needed an excuse to visit, so I figured I would play, uh, I borrowed a Mew deck and like did real bad. Um, but I mean, I, I'll give you the report. It's quick. I beat RS down in a good set in the fir in round one, round two. I lost two Vical, but it was really Juston seal stone. Should have gone to game three like. He draped me on Seal Stone me for four prizes, and there's just absolutely no way I won in the first game, in game three. I like, I had to hit a Raku for one 90, like at, so two 10 dte. I dug for like a Gillian cards and did not hit a tablet or the belt, and like, I, I should've would've and barely lost that game. So like we should have gone to a third game where I probably would've lost there too. And then, and then, I lost to like Fusion Strike Mew, but like not just Fusion Strike Mew. It was just like the worst person in the room. Fusion Strike Mew where just like, like Wonder one, double Turbo, lots of psychic energies, just like a kid playing the carts that he had. And I, like, I, I smoked him in the first game and I, I drew kind of poorly in the second game, and he like got lucky and top decked a path out, like when I had him locked with it. And game three, he gets the two 10 ueta going second, and I just, the game is immediately over. Like I'm, I'm checkmated there because I have to answer the Mewtwo Etta, but then he hits my mute first. It's just over. Yeah. And it just like, it was funny, like, and you know, even the, the people there were just like, you lost to that person. Like, it was just, you know, it's just, I dunno, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, talk this person down. He's a nice kid. But, you know, for competitive players, if you've ever experienced that like a local scene where you just like, something goes wrong, you, you know, against this kind of player that just should have a 0% chance at beating you. Like, that was it. And so like, Definitely had some, some flips, but like, you know, I can't be too upset about the way the flips goes. It's what I get for playing m Um, but it was a really good time. I'm happy I went and things like that. Um, but yeah, I just kind of got grammatic in a lot of ways and it wasn't fun. So yeah, definitely just like glad I played Muse, my first game's ever with m. Zero chance I ever play the deck ever again. I get it's power, but I just go to the casino, you know, like it's, it's all, it's sort of only good and, you know, playing through the odds. It's like on paper it shouldn't, doesn't really beat everything unless it's just like running hot, getting lucky, flip, flip, flip. Um, but yeah, I'm not even sure what like did well. It was like a, just kind of a speckling of everything. And so like, there really, there wasn't a. There wasn't a lot of lost box. It was just kind of a lot of Lugia, I think. Lugia some Reggies.

Mike: 24:38

Cool. Cool. Um, I'm glad you had a good time and got to play. Yeah.

Brent: 24:43

So, so if you had to run it back, what deck would you play? Probably

Brit: 24:45

lost box. I just prefer that to Lugia for sure. I, I would rather be, I'd rather get those matchups than Lugia and just like always. Pretty good agency against everything, even in matchups that aren't necessarily good. There's just like decision making and plays and you know, in general, Pokegear struggles to have that in a lot of ways, in a lot of decks like Mute, it's just like, let's draw a lot of cards and hope we hit things in the right order. Whereas there's a little more, you know, it's a little more methodical I guess. That seems strong. And knowing that you don't have to play Kyo is, uh, is good to.

Brent: 25:22

Let's talk about Knoxville for two seconds. Unless unless you got more stuff on your notes, Mike.

Mike: 25:28

No, I mean, pretty much everything I said applies to Knoxville as well. Um, you guys are going right.

Brent: 25:34

We are going I think the most important thing that people ahead at Knoxville need to know is it's supposed to be raining all day, Saturday and Sunday. So prepare yourself. It's gonna be like 55, 60 degrees raining. Not good. Not good. Despite the fact that like, it seems like a bunch of people were obviously in Australia mere seconds ago, maybe still are. There's gonna be 2200 people in Knoxville. It seems like VG Masters has kind of grown a lot with the Scarlet and Violet.

Mike: 26:07

Yeah. Which is, which is cool. I, I had always felt weird that Vgc was so small, but so well watched. Um, yeah. And now think more people are into playing, which is, which is pretty sweet. Uh, I feel like also

Brent: 26:23

also moving into the Switch helps you think For sure. For sure. A switch. A switch is just a device, people. Hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. Like when the switch was out and it was not, mvg was not played on the switch, that was like a weird moment because like people didn't have the device unless you had the device for vg.

Mike: 26:42

Hmm. Um, yeah, I feel like Pokegear go is kind of like the new Vgc in that sense of like, there's almost nobody playing the competitive side because it's actually quite difficult. I, from what I understand to. Ha have good enough Pokegear, like there's a, you know, big barrier of entry. Uh, but it is super well watched on Twitch Is

Brent: 27:06

it? Yeah, I have, like, I, I'm aware of all that stuff, except I don't have a sense of how much people like watching Pokegear go. Yeah. I buy it all at memes. It just seems like it's tap, tap, tap. Like, and I know you're obviously right, like when I say tap, tap, tap, also you have to have the perfect Pokegear.

Mike: 27:27

Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like it's, it's a similar thing with the video game in that there's a lot more people that play the video game in Pokegear go casually than the card game. Right. Uh, and so there's just gonna be more people that are like, oh, this, this is on Twitch today. Cool. I'll check this out.

Brent: 27:43

I, you know what, maybe it was because, so I played Pokegear go, like pre pandemic and then I kind of stopped when the pandemic started. And like there was competitive Pokegear go prior to. But like, that was not really a thing that I did. I just, I don't have a sense of how popular the like PVP part of Pokegear Go is relative to the like, oh, hey look, there's a Pokegear.

Brit: 28:07

Not very, like, I, I think the, it's like the casual stuff, the poke of events and like the raids and things like that, that like, that people, you know, will travel to the, the, the events for, cuz I remember, I remember a long time ago, maybe it was like when they first had like a leaderboard or something for Go, I remember Travis Nuk was into it and like placed top 200 or something like that. And like, I don't think it was, it was pretty niche then I think within, within Go users. Um, and so I would think similarly here, Like,

Brent: 28:38

you know, it's like Pablo was really good at the competitive. John Kettler was like really good at competitive. Like, I mean, there were a bunch of TCG guys that like, obviously once you're into Pokegear you're like, well, we might as well just

28:49

pick

Brit: 28:49

this. Yeah, Kettler and Harrison Levin were both at, uh, NAIC and I think, I think, I think one of them were both, also went to World, so I wasn't there, so I don't remember, but.

Mike: 28:59

You know, who's been going to regionals this year to play Pokegear? Go Is Bob Zang? Mm-hmm. Nice, nice. I've seen him, I've seen him at a couple regionals and uh, the first one he is like, yeah, I'm playing Pokegear Go this year. I'm like, okay, cool. Have fun,

Brent: 29:15

I mean, that's interesting cuz obviously like he's, he's a world's caliber TCG player too. The fact that he would be like, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the Pokegear Go thing. I wonder what makes him say I like Pokegear go better.

Brit: 29:31

He's like a stats guy. It's a lot of number crunching to figure out, but like to figure out the optimal stuff.

Brent: 29:38

Right. Right. Yeah, that's, that's that's a fair statement. I recognize for me, I look at all that and I'm like, I would just text Pablo if I had any questions. Mm-hmm. Anything else to say about Knoxville? I think we've covered the highlights.

Mike: 29:50

Yeah, I mean like whatever you've been testing, just play that like there's not any significant change in the format. Uh, if you've been playing a bunch of Mew, play Mew. If you've been playing a bunch of Reggie's, play Reggie's. Uh, I think if I was going. I would've put more time into it, obviously, but like, I think Palkia and Italian art KU knows in a pretty decent spot as like one of the more fringier decks. I feel like that's, um, pretty solid.

Brent: 30:21

You know what I, I recognize there were not a lot of people playing it day two. There were not a lot of people playing it day one, but I agree, like that's a, that's a deck that seems like it has like, I don't wanna say buzz because. Yeah. Lost box has Buzz Lugia has Buzz Yeah. Right. It's, it is a, you're right, it's another deck people could play that is not completely unviable.

Mike: 30:43

Yeah, right, exactly. Like if you don't, if you don't wanna play Lugia Lost Box from you, I feel like Palkia Inteleon is, it's pretty solid.

Brent: 30:51

Yeah. And you didn't wanna play Guru, and you didn't wanna play Aldon, and you didn't wanna play Vico Boltund. You could play Pokegear

Mike: 30:59

Yep.

Brent: 31:01

How, how's your PTCG Live experience been since we last checked in Mike?

Mike: 31:04

More of the same. I just like have a mute deck built and I've played, I think about an average of one game a day. Uh, most of my Pokegear. Stuff. The past few days though has been thinking about really for the first time post rotation and like what that looks like. Uh, so I don't have anything like super interesting to share. I've just kind of been thinking about the, the top decks and looking at some of the Japanese results and the Hong Kong results. Just trying to get a sense of. It's going to look like, uh, because I don't think I'm gonna be going to any more regionals in this format. There is a small chance that I might try and swing E U I C. Uh, and so trying to, just trying to think about that a little bit right now. So maybe, maybe next episode when you guys are done with Knoxville, we can start talking more about that.

Brent: 31:59

I, I'm disappointed to hear you say that. I saw you guys saw in the rundown I put the April 14th rotation, but for me, we got Knoxville two weeks after that. Vancouver, we're not doing Vancouver. Mm-hmm. But two weeks after that is Charlotte. Mm-hmm. We're gonna do Charlotte and the week after that we're gonna do Fort Wayne. And then two weeks after that is rotation in E U I.

Mike: 32:22

Right. Right, right, right. So you guys still got a couple more tournament?

Brent: 32:25

Yeah. Yeah. We, we apparently cannot get enough of this exact same format again and again and again. Uh,

Brit: 32:36

Palkia. Palkia seems strong to me. That was like probably what I should have played on Saturday. It was like the al. I wanted to play mute, um, and I kind of had to dig around to find all the cards from you, but like the first person I asked was like, I have this, or Reggie's built and I, part of me just like almost played that and I think I would've had a good day had I played the Palkia, but no. That's a good deck. I think there was definitely a lot of bird keep in the LucMetal list and like, I think you can still beat, you know, the one but gets, it gets tricky. Of course you need the, you need the Articuno to kind of do a little bit of lifting and if it just doesn't, I think it can be difficult depending on. your starts and you know, sometimes Palkia we forget, you know, I guess it's, it sort of just hasn't been as relevant for so long. It does a lot of damage very easily, very fast. So like it can keep up with Lugia even, you know, against some of their stronger starts sometimes just depending on board, board, state, bench, bench spaces,

Brent: 33:34

things like that. And the Italian engine is great. Yep. People will always appreciate playing the Italian engine for, for even after it's rotated. Like when you pick up those decks, you'll be like, the Italian engine's.

Mike: 33:47

Great. I did just look, uh, bird Keeper was in about three quarters of the Lugia decks in day two, so it's still a pretty prevalent card in the Lugia text. I, I would. That percentage to be about accurate. Um, and like you said, you can beat one bird, keep for sure, but it does make it a little sketchier.

Brent: 34:11

Anything else guys? No. Kind

Brit: 34:14

of feels, feels a little punished for the overly long format. Like we just don't have stuff to talk about cause we're just stuck in C R Z. Hell.

Brent: 34:24

Uh, yeah. And, and I even wonder, like with rotation there, is there a new set with rotation? Yeah. Yeah. Scarlet, Val. Oh, okay. Okay. Good times. Alright, we'll have tons and tons of good stuff to talk about. Okay. I dig it. Alright guys, let me give you the, the, would you rather question cuz I know you've been wondering what the question is gonna be. We have a great one, great one today, Alright, here's your two choices. The first is, would you rather. Eat two raw chicken breasts, or Donald Trump buys the Pokegear Corporation and executes his

Brit: 35:05

plan. Can I just choose both?

Mike: 35:10

skip next week's? Choose both of these. Both.

Brit: 35:15

I mean, I, I, I, I could eat some raw chicken, I think if I had to. And I'm, I'm intrigued by this other idea, to the point where I, I don't feel like either of these are, it's like, you know, it's not a dilemma. I'm, I'm happy with either of these outcomes. I think

Mike: 35:30

I, that's pretty funny. I think. I don't personally think Donald Trump could do that much worse than, than what we have right now.

Brit: 35:44

So, sort of too, wouldn't we rather him there than say the presidency? Like, you know, let's, let's give him something, some, some sort of responsibility where he can't endanger the world on accident something.

Mike: 35:58

All right.

Brit: 35:59

When. Wow. But yeah, I said not bird here endorsement of how we think of T pci.

Mike: 36:06

Boy,

Brent: 36:08

that, that was an unexpected outcome for me.

Mike: 36:13

were you thinking chicken breasts? Yeah.

Brent: 36:15

The, the enthusiasm for anarchy was was, was not something I saw coming at all. All right guys. Great. Great pod. We'll be back next week with Knoxville results. The John Paul are our outro.