The inaugural episode of the Trashalanche is a ramble of Brent, Brit, and Mike discussing the good (Old formats, old format tournament, Delta Pokemon, Spiritomb, recent and upcoming tournaments), the bad (Interviews on podcasts, 0-3 drop, getting your stuff stolen the week before Worlds) and the Players Cup.
The inaugural episode of the Trashalanche is a ramble of Brent, Brit, and Mike discussing the good (Old formats, old format tournament, Delta Pokemon, Spiritomb, recent and upcoming tournaments), the bad (Interviews on podcasts, 0-3 drop, getting your stuff stolen the week before Worlds) and the Players Cup.
let's jump right in guys. Brit Mike, didn't get this here. I think the whole kind of your thoughts for the big ideas, as far as like areas you could contribute to the podcast. So I definitely wanted to make sure we, we talked about that. We talked about what's the point of this podcast, and as I told you, I know. so little about old formats. it's hard to know, but I recognize that's your wheelhouse. what are you guys imagining us trying to contribute to the universe in doing a podcast?
Brit:I don't know exactly what I had in mind, but I think senior initial tweet about it. I was just trying to think of. what would be an interesting space that there isn't a podcast for in the Pokemon card game community already. And that was, to me, sounded like the best idea. I don't know. I feel like especially now that. Real events, active events are still a big question, Mark, as for the next season and possibly further I'm looking down, there's been, I think a general, it seems to have died down, but a resurgence and interest in older forms, mass, I notice like streamers like that, Chimp and people like that occasionally, talk about all that or older formats and stuff. And I just, I think really the case before, and if I were more active on Facebook, I would probably, I see Mikey, I think plays in these tournaments too. It seems like there's some pretty consistent from a couple groups, like the polka stats. And then I think, someone else runs like a snow point temple thing that runs all the format stuff too, but they seem to be, I at least I see, a new one every weekend or something like that, but I just think it's a fine, I think it's a really fun topic, particularly. I just think the bigger the game gets, it's just interesting to relook at these formats. And I think this would be an interesting sort of episode, maybe like with, someone with a lot of old Knology, like which formats did we actually solve and which formats, are, so unknowns where, you know, which that's the sort of thing I like to think about a lot. that's where my mind is with the game. A lot of time now I want to think of it. Think about. just older formats, older, bad decks. I, that were close to being good, but not quite that sort of thing.
Mike:it's funny. You said, say that in so I've played in most of these. poker stat, old format tournaments, and those formats aren't super old. the oldest that we've played, I think is world's 2013, but most of them have happened in the last three to four years.
Brit:maybe this will be a question so weird. You get Mike is older than me and then Brent, obviously a little bit older, but something I've been. noticing. And I don't know if it's just a me getting older thing, but I feel the kids just a couple of years younger than me, I like their nostalgia is like higher. I feel like we're getting the static more or less static faster. And it's related to the Pokemon events, a couple players, I consider my friends, but I've only known since 2018 or something like that. They're just, they're reliving the glory days of 2014. And I don't know if that's. If that's just bizarre to me. Cause that's not where my nostalgia is rooted. Or if I'm like tapped into something, I don't know. It might just be kids these days moment. But I feel like that's something I've noticed, not just in Pokemon, but in
Mike:In general.
Brit:tastes and stuff too, again, probably just getting older.
Mike:yeah, I don't know. That's an interesting point. We could probably dive into that. what I was going to say about these tournament's though, what you said before about like looking did we solve a certain format or not a lot? One of the fun things about it is trying to guess what people will bring. Retroactively looking up the format.
Brit:there's a couple of different medic
Mike:So like for example, like the worlds that Jacob Bond with blasto it's like blast Joyce was not a big debt going into that world. And now when people played it, like that was the biggest deck in the tournament, or at least in everyone's mind, it was like, that's the deck to beat and that in towed bats and neither of those decks were really. Like toad bats more so than Blastoise, but I'm neither a deck was like super hyped up going into that world. So it's all like toad, garb and whale, Lord and stuff like that. and so it's really interesting to replay these formats retroactively because people have very different perceptions and then the metagame shakes out quite different.
Brit:And that there was something that I had noticed thinking in the results too. I saw, whatever format that would have been, but it was when Sina wins origins and they get a stick here to six and now he won that tournament. I just just shaking my head. Like I knew that format for sure. that sort of thing, say what you will about him otherwise, but he clearly knew what was going on, but just funny things like that.
Brent:so have you been enticed at all by the old format sprint?
Brit:Yeah, I just I like having old formats to play. I just having accessible, I liked the world stacks for that reason where you and other people that just have the giant collections.
Brent:like the book is stats stuff. Have you thought about that? Have you thought about entering any of those tournaments?
Brit:did. Yeah, I don't have the PTCGO cards for it. So I think some of them are ran on that. So that has been the main reason why I haven't investigated, but I know a lot of the, the programs that just stimulate whatever card game do you want, or what have you do? You can do them on then down, but I just haven't explored it too much.
Brent:I feel like people have been talking about this, like tabletop simulator thing, Mike, you just put a PPCO or.
Brit:Maybe he's in a cube or something. I don't
Mike:I haven't used it at all, but I've seen people play it a little bit. the big one, it does the TCG one, which is nice. Cause it's more automatic. PTCGO is. and so they've used that for the older formats, I think they have cards. They have based through 2007 format, but they don't actually have, then they have the new cards, but they don't have a lot of the middle from like 2008 to 2014 or something like that. They don't have those cards. So it's interesting.
Brent:That's great. any feelings on how long a podcast should be? Like I used to be, I used to think about podcasts as being like, there's something I consumed during the commute, but I'm the community these days.
Mike:Yeah. I always tried to do about an hour. but I think a little less than that, it's actually ideal maybe like 45 minutes. That's my thought.
Brent:Yeah, I feel like, I, I sent you guys that link where they were looking at, like how long podcasts were and. It seemed like video gaming and gaming podcasts tended to be longer than your average podcasts, but your average podcast is like news. So those podcasts were like 20 minutes and I was like, I assume that they're much longer because people just like the subject matter.
Mike:Yeah, this one, I listened to a Hearthstone podcast that, Ray Cipollini does. And I like listening to it in general, but they're always like in the hour to hour 15 Mark, but about 20 to 30 of those minutes are like useless banter.
Brent:much like this, welcome to the podcast. Yay. do people like doing interviews? I assume people like doing interviews.
Mike:I think so. Yeah.
Brit:I think it depends. I just think interviews is a lazy content. That to me, I think you've lived, there's like a time to do a good interview and stuff. And I decided on the, I see. And this has been the case for years of content creators, just really snuffing but interviews. And it's just it's all you got. It's just Oh yeah. And talent. Tell me about, you're in your state's top fate list, and just that over and over again.
Mike:Yeah, I think, yeah, I agree. I think the way that most interviews are done are not super interesting, like going through round by round, Oh, I played against this and I'm putting into this. Not very interesting. It'd be more interesting if you bring someone on and be like, tell me how to play your deck.
Brit:too with the LA, not maybe, perhaps not the entire sort of gimmick or what have you, but at least an occasional focus just with history, you get, good interviews. you get to talk to people like Kyle, more often, who are going to have like more intricate, recollections of thing and not just round by round. So was like, set by set detail, that sort of thing too. I just think people would think that's interesting, I'm not great at knowing what other people want and just tend to think they are interested in what I'm interested in, or just rarely the case.
Brent:Hey, we, you have to write what you know, I think we should try to make a podcast that we think would be interested in us. And if it's interesting to us, then, that'd be great. I think, I think you hit the nail on the head, like it's the lazy way out. And it's that's why a lot of people do it. And I'm sure we'll probably, do a couple too, but I think it's a good point that it is lazy. We should try not to be lazy. I also think you make a good point, Mike, like if it's about how to play a deck, as opposed to just like this round by round what you did at a regional grind, it's so much more interesting.
Brit:there's no other good interviews for sure, just, there's a particular kind that it's not, but
Brent:And I remember like one of the first six prizes articles that I like really remember reading was the one that Dylan Brian wrote about Don fan. After Philadelphia regionals. And I told everybody it was the greatest thing I'd ever read about like the Pokemon TCG, because it was not like here's what happened in my rounds. He was like, here's how to play the deck. But if you're playing against this is what they're going to try and do. And when you reply with this is what they're going to try and do. And when you reply with this is what you're going to try and do. And it was so thoughtful and analytical. And I feel like so much of the round by round analysis is Just fuck this,
Mike:I remember that article too, because then everyone copied down fans.
Brent:perfect example of Britt talking about how, like the med is different when you look back, like no one was playing Don fan, except for Russ and Dylan at that. And I think after that everybody played Don fin for six months.
Brit:It hadn't caught on. I played it the next weekend and only four people were playing it. Then still too. I played a bunch of rideshare for some reason and did really well day, one of Texas that year. And I think I like cannabis was the first scene. And I think he was just basically playing the card for card list as Dylan, but there just really weren't that many, for some reason
Brent:and then you wrote an article on six prizes about your list. I think it was six prizes. I know, like me and my kids ended up playing your list where like we would, I played a card that was like, I listened to two cards off your list at a city championship. Like a month later. And it was like the second tournament I ever play that. And I got all the way to, I think top four, before I got paired against a pen Darvis who was playing defensive available. And he absolutely destroyed me this horrible, but most of the scoring experience of my life and it was only. When defensive available, I feel came out that like Donovan started getting driven out of the format, like
Mike:hard chatter.
Brit:really remember what happened. I remember the, that my list I had played was not very good, but I don't quite remember what exactly made Eva told us clearly fine in the matchup after all I'm trying to blank because the Don was really popular at cities. Cause they've got the substitutes, the next
Brent:Yeah. That's what we leaned in on this stuff. Super hard
Brit:I don't remember that far. That's where I didn't like that flora. That was the year that was just VG Fiji VG for a really long time.
Brent:for us. That was the only like our second format. we started playing like TDK was our first deck that like Liam ever built. we were unable to appreciate, is this a good format? Is this a bad format? Now for us, the definition of bad format is not viable.
Brit:It's an interesting question. just in general, not just in Pokemon, say Hearthstone or just games in general, like design philosophy, balanced philosophy. I find it as an interesting topic to talk about just like clearly too, when you can look at it across a couple of different games, you get to see what, where developers differ in their intentions and what they think is, what the game is supposed to be about. Thinking about that in terms of Pokemon, I think is interesting. If it ever were to be shifted to something digital where they are able to do these sort of patch, Nerf above updates, rather than, just to handle it. And then next Saturday or something like that.
Mike:I'll
Brent:Alright, let's talk about the name of this podcast. So I sent you guys my list of names, my original idea for a podcast like six months ago was calling it the trash lunch podcast because I thought, that just seemed like a great idea.
Brit:I think that's good. obviously it should be procline related. And I think the, just like. Yeah. a location, gym, sell it on steady jam or whatever it has played out. So I wouldn't want to do that. And it's still fairly common, but it wasn't, but I don't have good ideas on the other
Brent:So my other idea was, was to try to relate it to Corona virus in some way, which like would, somehow create some topicality around the fact that we have created. The podcast at this point in time and give us an easy out, if we decide we're bored with this, when the pandemic ends,
Mike:That is true. I didn't think about that.
Brent:I was like that tells you that we have to keep going for approximately, four to seven months. And then we have a, like an easy app,
Mike:hand, on the other hand, it's like a, if it shoehorns us into it potentially at times,
Brent:if you said, then you could imply that the pandemic was somehow related to Pokemon taking over the universe and broaden it. If you felt like you needed to there's probably something there. strong opinion. Which ones do you guys like better? if Brits says he has no suggestions might give any suggestions or we, are we going to pick one of those two or those who bet
Mike:I thought about it a little bit today and didn't come up with anything that I liked better than either of those. I, if I was choosing between the two, I'd probably go with trash Lynch.
Brit:Yeah, it's fine with me.
Brent:it is.
Mike:Yeah. I like it. It's a little self deprecating, which is always good.
Brent:That's basically where all my marketing, it goes just the worst kind of a self-flagellation. all right. Brit, the next thing on my like amazing agenda was to talk about Brit. Ah, I have to be honest. Mike, you probably don't know this, but my relationship with Brad started because Britt was like the first Pokemon coach I ever hired for my kids.
Mike:Oh, nice. Okay. It did none of that.
Brent:true story. True story. but what's funny is I think both Britt and I have a, like a naturally antisocial nature and, Brits like ability to go to tournaments, waxed and waned a little bit more, whereas you've been like either local or very local to me for several years. So I feel like I have, I like know a lot more about, Mike than I do about Britt. So I was like, definitely I should hear the whole Britt life story. Cause I don't think I ever heard the Brit life story. Most of my previous conversations with Britt were either like, Awkwardly casual, because we're both like awkwardly social or, we were like trying to get something done and in a big hurry. So Britt, you ready?
Brit:yeah, that's, depending on where I can start, I guess I can start just where Pokemon started. I started playing Pokemon and towards the end of high school, as a joke, just for fun. My friends got some starter decks at a Christmas gift exchange my junior year, I think. Yeah. Cause I qualified the next year. No, we just played for fun. I went to league, let Michael Kendall rip me off on a bunch of cards, traded them book season as ELLs and that sort of stuff, or like a grass electric deck, that sort of thing. but I don't really actually quite cause it was pretty fast, but I don't, I never really played a game competitively before, so I don't. I think someone just pushed me in the right direction. And I don't know how I figured it. Like I just started going to poker gym somehow. And so I liked, remember, putting a lot of stock into the front page book a bit polka jam articles like that being the best content at the time, which is pretty strange to think about it. that would be some interesting stuff to talk about for the people that are, that don't know how it was. Way back in the day. but yeah, so I started then, in high school, I didn't really start playing events until the next year. And I just had a pretty lucky run at States. I just did. This was back when there was only one region still and there is two States I think. And I just had a really good run the first two weeks of States. and then may have talked 32 at nationals that year and got my first invite. And then from there I qualified, all the way to 2018. I missed in 20, 19 by a little bit. And that was the last year ever, played really hard. that's the Pokemon store. I never want anything super big. I did well at worlds. A couple of like a. Okay. it's a couple of times, I always thought I had a better brain. Like I was a good, better deck builder than I other player I thought. but yeah, I'm in grad school now, which is what I always wanted to do has bounced around after finishing college. I worked in it for a little while. I was at yoga instructor, but yeah, I always knew I wanted to go to grad school, just had some sort of the same mental health roadblocks that it would end up coming in the way of my Pokemon stuff. ended up just being prohibitive. I'm wanting to do this, but back on track now and in school. And we'll hopefully be in school for quite a while, but I'm getting my master's currently, but I'm going to be applying to PhD programs after this. I grew up all over. I was born in Oklahoma, which is actually where I am now for school, but I grew up in Georgia. I lived in. Indiana and Ohio, and then, but I'm from Missouri. That's where I competed. I'm from Springfield, Missouri, which is like the third biggest city in Missouri, but it's an equal distance from, it was all about three hours from st. Louis, Arkansas, Tulsa, and Kansas city. So I competed all over the area over there as my like local. I was like, didn't have a huge, I'm not from a big city or anything, so it's not like. in Seattle or something, you just go to 12 cities or whatever in the general area, that might've been a terrible example. I don't think the Northwest has good events anymore, but there are some like Ohio, the Ohio area I think has kind of events,
Brent:No. I thought that was like very like quintessentially Midwestern, where you're like, Oh, it's three hours away. That's.
Brit:Yeah. that's how I am too. And just, even now I'm not, I can't do what I did as a kid when I did, when I was 18 playing I've some crazy driving stories. I can't even imagine doing that now, but yeah, just talking to friends are just like, they just get annoyed at the notion of having to drive. five hours or something and I'm like 10 hours. That's easy. Let's do it right now. that's an easy thing. But I guess that's the Midwest in me, And we, my family's always lived all over. And so when we, I grew up moving all over, we would visit them. So all these big, long car rides from, when we lived in Indiana and Ohio back down to Georgia all the time, that sort of thing.
Brent:so did you have a, like favorite deck you ever played in all the quintessentially? ask a Pokemon player kind of questions.
Brit:yeah, I have a lot of favorites that it's, there's never been one deck that I like. I'm always excited to play an old deck. if I had to pick one, it would probably be. just, that's the first deck I qualified for worlds. And I think that the two years or so of the SP formats are both very good. I think there is one of those rare instances where I think like the nostalgia, does live up to the height. For the most part, I find that the games are really engaging still in really difficult. Yeah. Sometimes I find that out mis-routed or kind of what I was saying earlier, maybe I just, wasn't young enough at the time I just. I can't imagine having the style difference or architects or something, but people do so good for them.
Brent:worst the worst Pokemon moment I spoke in my Them.
Brit:I have a three drops, the regional or two. I definitely it's definitely the one, but I'm blanking on it. It was more, but I just, truthfully never did great at regionals for me, where I did really bad or, there was no one between, I, I would always complain to my friends. Like I never had the six 21 and two, a top eight. I would always just crush day one ID all day two, and then lose in top. It like that. That was my good regional, and then my bad ones are, I'm just, I've dropped at two and four or something, but I never played for the top 64 points, which would be a big increase in why I failed to qualify one year. I would always, as soon as I couldn't win the tournament, I wouldn't drop. That's been my Mo for a really long time, which is not great if you're a points chaser. I've been trying to break that habit, or I was trying to break that habit when I was playing in this season.
Brent:my kids always look at masters who go Oh, three drop. And they're like, if they tilt at a tournament and start at Oh three, they're like I should drop. And I'm like, yeah. But when they drop, like 10 of their friends are. Strapping and they're going to go do something. What are you going to do? You're not plan. Go play.
Brit:I don't think anything is particularly worse. And then an Oh three drop. I did really bad, particularly bad at worlds. One year I went two and five and 2012. it was the poorest I did at worlds, I think. Oh, worse before. my good friend, Colin, who has been playing a game and we've been testing and it was the summer before 2014 worlds. I had moved out to the West coast. to help him move in the night before my flight to DC, for worlds that year, the apartment got broken into and all of my cards, my wallet, my computer, my phone, basically, everything got stolen. And I just managed to, I got onto, I was able to fly with the police report essentially as my identification. I don't even remember how I was communicating. I remember at one point I connected to wifi, like airport wifi on my DS and was messaging like, Hey, I made it on my flight. the people who are waiting for me in DC, I had to borrow my deck, and all that, but it worked out in the end, but it was not that's a pretty poor memory for sure. parents like overnighted my passport, to the hotel I was staying at. So I would be able to, get home five home again, that sort of thing too. And they, with insurance and all that, it was fine at the end of the day. but yeah, that's a funny little story and all that. Not a whole lot of people know that
Brent:are you playing a lot? You play, it sounds like you're playing more.
Brit:Yeah, I've been playing a lot. I thought I would maybe try to qualify for the players cup and I would have, if I had just, I just didn't, I gave up in the middle, cause I wasn't tracking like points. And I usually would have qualified. It ended up just saving all my tickets for the next one. If there is a next one, two, instead of. Spending them all and hoping to qualify. I was like, I'll just have a big pile for the next one. If the system stays the same and just test it with Colin, who ended up doing pretty well,
Brent:Fair enough. And, when was the last time you bought physical cards? This is a question for you too, Mike.
Brit:I thought stuff fairly recently, just odds and ends I don't have. but I don't have anything from.
Brent:W was it just was it just impulse buy a pack at a store or was it, were you like buying cards for a deck or
Brit:No, I probably, I guess the last cards I would have bought, I bought the, the trainer toolbox things. I bought both of those just to have error. I got to two of them. And then the battle decks, basically, I just don't have a lot of cards tell. So I've been buying staples
Brent:How about you, Mike?
Mike:I played too. Like lead capture, lead challenges in between when sort. And she had came out in quarantine. So I have sword and shield cards, but I have known nothing from rebel clash and I don't plan on buying anything from darkness ablaze.
Brent:Yeah. I'm in like, I've been wondering, like I didn't buy any cards from Marvel clash. I've been wondering if I like. Bought like a booster box. If my kids would host their own, pre-releases like they used to do when they were little and entertain themselves. I think that there are past that at this point, they would not, it used to be that distracted them from technology, but I don't think it's a powerful enough product.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:But that would be the only reason I would do it. Like a, yeah, like even I thought about the trainer box and obviously the new battle arena boxes are amazing and have amazing cards in them and are like actually legitimate decks people could play, but I'm like, wait, why would I buy those? I'm not going to turn them into anytime soon, hold them. I've already gotten so much money out of me.
Brit:I think too. I'm curious. I don't know if we'll get to that in this episode, speculating about what happens now, but I just truly think that. How poorly the stats are selling will affect, how they're able to run events and stuff like that. And that's what I'd be curious to learn, like actual numbers, if there's any, even if it's, you can just get data from card stories or something and just, and I'm sure this is the case in every game too. Just like I know all the, magic, some of the six prizes sites or equivalent sites are in. similar, dangerous water. It's just it's shaky if they're going to be able to add some, stay afloat through all of this.
Brent:I never really had a sense of how much, like local game stores were important to the Pokemon economy or not like how much of it's just like target and Walmart are 90% of their business.
Brit:I'm sure there are good stores here and there, but my own. Experienced. And I would say this is more or less the case for all the stores I've played in kind of in the little area I described earlier, the Pokemon, we were just always there. Cause the organizers put us there. We were at the store, never made money on Pokemon or at least like in some stores, I was almost salted at times. Cause you know, I wasn't the man, I wasn't there to play magic. I was talked down on often, that was an experience. My friends and I have somewhat consistently, Yeah. And then just similar to the two things you might not like how many cards, stories have pretty good magic, single supplies. Most of them, how many of them have pretty good Pokemon single supplies, unless it's a Pokemon store, unless that's the store that the city plays poker on that probably don't exist to.
Mike:Yeah, and Brent, to your point, I think a lot, even if the most of majority of Pokemon sales are in target and Walmart and loose packs and whatnot, there's just a lot less foot traffic in the stores, I think right now. and so even those sales are probably down, fairly significantly.
Brit:I think similarly too, in terms of just, what sort of processes like thought processes like motivate the purchase of, of a magic, like casual and magic pack versus capital Pokemon pack. And so like in Pokemon, the casual pack is for a kid and something like that at Walmart and that's where most of the TCG sales are from. It was not from the competitive player base. It's from people who buy it because it's a Pokemon product. Whereas in magic, the casual players, the tabletop players, I, there's a couple of different, varying terminologies for them, but they drive a pretty large percentage. And, there are these people who buy the products casually and they play casually. you just don't see that in Pokemon people, don't buy packs of Pokemon. Because I want to just mash them together and play poker. That's far more common than something like magic. And I think that's, that's something that probably is reflected in the sales. Wow. Cause I would think that, both of them I would think would be going to, but perhaps the casual magic style would be reflected differently than Pokemon. If that makes sense.
Brent:Yeah, I think I imagined that Pokemon would be like a little more resilient just because yeah, like second graders still want a pack and they know this is what it is. Whereas I feel like the other car, the other card games you have to be planted to play the card game. and that community they're like, I'm not planning on plan.
Brit:I'm not sure that. I would think I know 10 and foil had three, but I feel like they'll want to. I don't think, I don't think expanded will survive. that's my conspiracy. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let it. Yeah, I don't think it's, I think they're going to get rid of expanded because they'll need to ensure that these new sets are doing better number wise, so they'll need, don't need to give it a better, a higher priority at events and stuff like that. And so what better way to some more of. rebel clash or, these, whatever I, whatever sword and shield sets is just to make them relevant for a little while longer.
Brent:This is a super hot take. Mike, do you have any opinion on this?
Brit:And I think similarly to there. this, when they banned, Bella and Bryson man, and miss Maggie is so sweet. Part of the statement was like, we know expanded is not in a good place. We'll deal with it when we have to, and that's, again, I, expanded could very easily just. Come back, more popular for all I know, but to me it just, why would they've just never made it a priority. It's just from its inception seemed like such a back burner idea that was, tossed out to make us more, a little like magic, but at the end of the day, I don't think it worked as well as it was supposed to or should have. And at this point I just, I don't know. No, I've just never been a fan of that,
Mike:Yeah, I think there's so many, there's so many sets and expanded now that if they really ever wanted it to be a really healthy, competitive fund format, they should ban like 50 cards.
Brit:Much of it now, too, doesn't interact with itself. And so that's the alarm. That's a part of the problem too. You just get. Great catcher being your card for really two sets or whatever. And then immediately there's, it's just irrelevant, stuff like that just keeps happening. And then you just keep creating these bizarre loopholes where, you know, trying to punishment is really good with the Pokemon. And, I even I'm blanking on the card, but you could get G E GX Pokemon with it when you lay late for it on your first turn. Every time that
Mike:Yeah. Yeah.
Brit:Bridget. Yeah. Yeah. It's just little loopholes like that. Those that are clearly not intentional. That clearly ended up being a driving part of the way the decks are built. I just, to me, just,
Mike:melodic onto the Mo the whole premise of the Trevon and Dustin or deck. yeah. that shouldn't be allowed and yeah.
Brent:Good. Do you think they could, is it worth saying Hey, let's just errata all the or is that not, not nearly enough to fix the problem.
Mike:I think that would help, but I think that's way too confusing for most players
Brit:it couldn't be that's just too many cards to have a little rule for that. You're supposed to know where I would think.
Mike:And I think what they would actually do, if they were to do something like that, they would make it They would call it some term. That means like multiple prize Pokemon. and then that also like cuts off their design space going forward. Cause they're going to come out with some future gimmick that, is, this spiritual successor of these things and they wouldn't want to do that either.
Brent:I assume you're using exactly the same logic. Like all the cards that just affected the Xs should have also affected GX is if they just are rotted it like right away, you wouldn't have had any of those problems. you could always Honorata it later and be like, Hey, we changed our mind.
Mike:Yeah. It's true.
Brit:I think part of, in this, it's sound topic. I'm sure too, but I think so much of the problem is just that the people that make the cards are not the people making the tournaments. And it's just, I just, I don't know. I forget what the acronym is off the top of my head, but like Pokemon research labs or something like that, or these are the people in Japan that make the cards. And I just don't know. I just don't quite get the sense of what they're doing. Design philosophy is I just don't know, something with Hearthstone, these online games are very, are much more transparent about what their focus is. So with something like Hearthstone, would they have there's class identity and stuff like this. And, we want the drew it's to always do X and Y and we never want them to do Z and stuff like that too. And similarly, there's a sense you get, psychic Pokemon tend to do this similar things and, popular Pokemon tend to always be. do similar things like amaurosis and of Wars, gang bars, all are very similar. That's it kind of thing, but I just don't know what we, as players are supposed to like what, what are we supposed to get out of the game too? And then similarly too, I think like at what point, because us sitting here and saying Trev Norris is broken and stuff like that, maybe that's part of the, maybe that's within their philosophy. Like this, the space of the game is such that, it's supposed to have something zany combos like that, maybe that's the case, but I just don't know. And I think that's also part of expanded is just messy. See it's because it's not focused like that. And then the same way too, like magic is designed intentionally for, this was, this card is going to help and limit it. This card is for modern, and this card is for standard. Whereas in Pokemon it's you just get cards, every set. And that's why pre-releases, they've gotten better with the kits and stuff, but for the longest time just limited, it wasn't real format. Cause he couldn't be. A hundred, you couldn't be an opposing, the expo Pokemon, with 39 energy, if you didn't have one of your own, essentially, a lot of the time. And I think too, just the way that expanded happens is that so often in the history of expanded, it's just the standard decks are made better. the standard decks are, they look a little bit deeper and they find a little bit better of a combination. And I think that is speaks to the. The lack of design and expanded too, because yeah know, it's not every set, doesn't have a traveler, but every set does have, let's just, let's make Zuora good with some new cards and expanded again. And I think that's always been pretty telling to me. Yeah. Then, but then it's hard to know if that is us as players. No being good at expanded. Cause maybe there are, maybe there's 15. A shock box out there that we haven't found yet or something
Mike:Yeah, but I, yeah, I think part of it is there's so much, there's so much. Yeah, there's so much power creep, in Pokemon that, it makes sense that, when Pikachu and Zack comes out, it's immediately the best card in both formats or one of the best cards in both.
Brit:what I think the biggest thing that I just haven't sad yet too. yeah. how do you even what's why do you even need to consider a wild card when the creep is just ridiculous? And it seems to be getting better. I asked her too. maybe that's just a me thing, but it just like the space between, so seismic, towed and not visible, and then turn on us and Mega-Ray is only a couple of years, whereas I dunno, like fire started the fire starter. That's legal now versus the last fire starter seems like farther space, but I don't know. I think that's a.
Brent:so we've talked for 50 minutes. I feel like we have to wrap up soon, even though I had so many ideas for our like opening agenda. Let's talk about the players come for five minutes, just so we can say, we talked about the players cup because I recognize like that's. If thing that's happening in Pokemon today.
Mike:Yeah. I played in the player SCUP I did pretty good. I lost my very first round, but then I won a lot in the losers bracket. So I was one went away from making it to, So right now they're down to four from each region. I was one went away from making it to like the one round before that. So I think that was the top 16 in each region. we don't really know too much about the decks that have made it into the top four. It's really, I believe only if people posted their stuff I know from our area will Jenkins is one of the four that did make it from the Americas. Or the North America region and he was playing peek around, which is pretty cool. it seems like the BR they did release a breakdown of decks from like the first two weeks. Not success. Not that they didn't talk about what was successful, but the breakdown was pretty much drag a pole and Pika rum. Total made up like 50% of the metagame, or pretty close to that. And then the Cephalon and Zetia and variants for another quarter. And then the last quarter was, everything else. So that's the broad strokes of what was happening.
Brent:Saying that, we don't know who the other three players from the Americas are.
Mike:Yeah. I think they released the names, but not their decks and, but I D I didn't recognize the
Brent:their names and why don't I know them, like, why don't any of us know who the four North American players play? Like I assume the only reason, bill Jenkins qualified is because you and I both follow will on Twitter and he tweeted, he was in it and we're like, that's how we know.
Brit:Yeah, it's annoying. I was scrolling through like last week cause of the play poker. I can't remember the play pop on Twitter. They have pretty good coverage of the pocket and the. The VTC that the lawyers, the VDC teams, I'm just like, Oh, Hey Kenny, why aren't the necklace on here? Why do I have to message you? And he's Oh, I don't have the deck class either. I can tell you their names if you want. And I was like, all Yeah. And I knew, Jenkins was the only name that I recognized, but I wasn't sure if any of the other 30 were known players there or anything like that, or if they had spoken up.
Brent:I literally, they could be speaking up and I just don't know who they are. So I like don't follow them on Twitter or something.
Brit:I actually know that I think I saw, I didn't recognize the name, but it was, one of those clearly a book, a Pokemon person, but I didn't follow them. I think saw, I think it was the Americas, but it might've been North America, but it could have been Europe, but they were just planning a pretty vanilla baby blondes list. But I'm pretty sure it was an American.
Mike:So I just pulled up the Ben Benji fan from Europe. I don't know how he got this graphic, but he somehow has the graphic. And so from North America, there's Tyson, bladder, Austin Lanham, Dan huger, and then we'll. but I don't know those other three.
Brit:And their decks are still unknown,
Mike:Yeah. And so the way that, so just for those that don't know, the way that it works, do you have to play the same deck, up until this top four? So all these four players played the same list, and it was open necklace, but, they weren't shared publicly. they were shared with each opponent. but so now going into the global finals, they're allowed to change decks and I think it's actually. The post rotation format. So there's actually zero reason not to release the deck lists.
Brent:I think there's zero reason to relate to not really any of this information, it's weird to me. Like I kind, kinda, I almost got the impression maybe that Pokemon was trying to do something for the competitive community, but they like, didn't talk to the marketing people at all about it. Cause it seems like there's no strategy. To share information about things.
Mike:Yeah,
Brit:That's
Brent:even like at a regionals, obviously, and it's strange, I would have thought like pokey stats or limitless would be covering this, but they're not covering this either.
Mike:because they can't, there's no information to go off
Brit:I was gonna say, I bet. I bet. Maybe if you had watched all of the. Stream, like maybe we would know one of the other decks, like surely at least one of those people was featured in the winners or losers rounds.
Mike:Right.
Brit:but maybe not because it's hard to know. Cause they just, the videos just bounce back and forth from the regions the whole time.
Mike:Yeah. And the way, so the way that they recorded games, cause I was. One of the games, one of the weeks, they asked before the day of, and started a handful of people to record all of their games and send them in. So they only, they're just picking players. They have no way to predict who's going to end up doing well.
Brent:so how are you? could you not see how other places we're doing? Like how did pairings work and like necklace and all that stuff? I obviously. It was only for master. So I had no visibility process.
Mike:There was, there were, there was an open bracket than anybody could look at, at, just have like your PTCGO name. So you didn't, you couldn't relate those to a real person. And then, so you could see who was playing each other, but you couldn't view the deck lists unless it was your own match. so actually it was funny. I was talking to Bob Zang who played in it as well, and he was. He was just like wondering if he knew anyone that he played against. And, I went through and I looked at his, his matches cause I knew his PTCGO name. And I was like, Oh, you played against prem a lot this round. just cause I happened to know that, but if I didn't happen to know who these, the corresponding usernames, I wouldn't know.
Brent:And did it show their records? were you able to tell which PTCGO names were doing well?
Mike:so say it was like a visible bracket. Cause it was a double
Brent:All right. Yeah. Yeah. So you knew at any given point in time how people were doing, because they were either eliminated or they were still in that means they had one in losses. There are
Mike:Exactly.
Brit:was the most fun to me is Colin from Colin, played against chip and sealing those network. And it's
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Would be a flip and telly
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:yeah, I've never heard of either of them before he was like, Oh, I think I beat someone this round.
Mike:And yeah, but they both were streaming to their games. yeah. Colin can go back and watch his victories.
Brent:Yeah. so I had sent you guys a little bit of information and I wanted to talk for two seconds about it. it seemed guys that were streaming their tournament probably had like more viewers than Pokemon. Is that bad? I said, that's horrible.
Mike:I don't know, I go back and forth. So if you, I think the game that, both Brett and I actually are both the most familiar with besides Pokemon is Hearthstone. and there. main broadcast sometimes for their tournament might have the less than someone like dog who has, very popular streamer or a taste and what not. So it's not, I don't think that's unique necessarily to Pokemon. It's probably not great, but I think it's just the reality of, individual streamers being able to build a brand and like having a more regular schedule too, because, people will tune in. To watch this person every day during certain times. And they're like, Oh, there's this random tournament or broadcast going on for three hours on a Thursday. So I think that, I think it's more of a product of that.
Brent:Does Hearthstone corporate stream regularly or is it like both? It's very sporadic.
Mike:I think it's more sporadic.
Brit:There's a lot of events and sports right now, the easiest thing to do
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:for. but yeah, that is like official events, but the grandmasters and stuff, like almost about once a week,
Mike:Oh, that's true. Yeah. When grand masters is going, it's very regular, but when grand masters is not going, then it's, Bendis a little bit more all over the place. I believe it's the last weekend of August, because since it's post rotation, they have to wait until it's officially post rotation.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. so they can play at PTCGO. so we don't have to like, get hot takes on decks and stuff like that. Today. We can do that at the next exciting podcast.
Brit:the, that is worlds thing.
Mike:Yeah, I think that's, yeah, we can talk briefly about that. I don't know if
Brit:I signed up yesterday to play for it and then looking forward to testing for it once I get codes and all that stuff going. So that'll be,
Brent:Wait. So what is this? I don't know. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Brit:I forget. Let me see if I can find it. I don't remember what it's called, but it's just
Mike:Like Atlas collectibles, POG champion. So it's essentially, they're doing it the same weekend that world was going to happen. and so they're doing a similar structure where there's a day, one and day two. They tried to give day two invites out to players that would have had day two invites. and it's cool how they're doing and actually that the day one actually has two pods. one is at least for the East coast. time would be like 5:00 AM to 1:00 PM. And then the second one I think starts at 3:00 PM or something like that. And until whenever, so it gives most of the world, at least a somewhat decent time zone to pick from which I think is pretty cool.
Brent:And then, and when does that tournament? I guess it's been like two weeks.
Mike:Yeah. The weekend of August 22nd.
Brit:yeah.
Mike:Yeah. So I also signed up for that to Brit. and I think
Brit:up for it. The second pod.
Mike:I signed up for the first one because I have stuff to do that afternoon. So I'm gonna have to wake up at 4:00 AM, but it'll be worth it.
Brent:So is there like a spicy play that you guys are considering for this tournament?
Brit:I don't know the format. Yeah. I think Vic involvement's really good. That's what I want to. That's what I know Mike is actually really one of the only players I've talked to recently too, about the game is fair. Tomb was the first deck I started playing with when I was, getting there, building my collection and stuff, and I just saw he tweeted it today, then things spirited, and we'll be fine. Still. Nothing. So that seems so accurate to me. Seems I don't know. I'm just not sure how good pick up old is going to be someone. All of those searches does items though. I just.
Mike:Yeah. so the format is a pre rotation, but with darkness ablaze. so yeah, I also the only new card, new architect that I would like to do. Best is we can about various. Otherwise I'm just going to work on spirit team spirit. Tim gets some cool new tools. there's this there's a stadium that when any Pokemon moves from the active to the bench, it takes to damage. So you can use that proactively against the opponent, but also, damaging your own spirit to him. there's the special dark energy that gives your dark guy for your treats. So that has synergy with it. And then there's, there's supporter. I forget its name, but it's draw three and switch. so you have a lot of synergy with this stadium, and there's also a new tool. That's like a. big charm. I think it's like plus 50 on your guy. so all of these are like really interesting tools I think for spirit to him. So I'll probably really just limit my testing to spirit tomb and Vika vote. Cause yeah, I agree. Vika volt is really cool. Being able to click in punch with electro Paris and it's really nice.
Brent:Yeah, I think to me, this demonstrates that I'm on a call with a bunch of super big brand players, because I know you love spirits for me. I know you guys both know my limitations, pretty well. Like I could never imagine me personally playing spirits zone because it's one of those decks where. And when you decide to place the damage counter on your own Pokemon, you're like, Oh, you just lost them and gave for yourself. If you can easy for me to walk into Oh, I did that wrong. And now I lose.
Brit:harder on PTC or at least when I was first playing with it, I would do the jinx order wrong. And I would just get my, I can't get it to where I need to. And I'm just wasting that on it.
Mike:Yeah. It's very easy to mess up. Jinx on
Brit:seems promising. I know. And so I keep mentioning Collin, so he's, he back in the day was who I built all my index and play tested with. And he's really high on almost star stuff. that's all he really wants to mess with. And so he did, he made like top 32 losers, I think, of the, with Italian Alma star, which we think will still be good if, if. It's like lightening Pokemon. Aren't too big, which I'm sure they will be.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:otherwise plenaries cop, which was just to peek around. It's pretty good against everything else. And, but for spear to, I didn't, I, I thought the dragon called match up with real even. I thought it felt like it could go either way most of the time. And it almost certainly being less popular will be a little, make spirit tune better
Mike:Yes.
Brit:does post-fall well, does it even knock out? It turned out us VMX
Mike:Who cares? two shot is fine.
Brit:now, I
Mike:How much HB does that thing have? Three
Brit:three 40.
Mike:Three 40. Okay. No zero chance.
Brit:It doesn't say it only does one 20, right?
Mike:I was thinking with the new tool, spirit tomb can do three 10. I think. I think that's what it caps out at now. Spirit team itself can do three 10.
Brit:I was trying to think, I think there was one other thing I wanted to try. Let's just trying to think of fighting. This seems like a good tight to me and, not Avalon. Is that what it's called now? Apple like is an ice Pokemon. I think I, it looks like right. Perrier colossal. Is that what it's called
Mike:That's the one that like gets energies, right?
Brit:it has it can, you're going to catch it or do from the discard. I think, it just seems promising, but. I just don't, we can't play right. Candy cause of the couple. And I just don't know how you fit a really thick evolution line with the right attackers. I don't know, evolutions, just keep almost being fine again. and then they print another quaking punch or something and it's what do you do?
Brent:It's amazing how, in my mind, evolutions are the thing that like, Define like how the Pokemon TCG is different than other trading card games. I've seen like this concept of evolving Pokemon, and yet they love printing big basics and just like teaching you that you should never play evolution book.
Mike:it's funny. I was actually teaching one of my, like younger cousins had a play this past weekend and he had a. He had a bunch of fighting Pogo. We made him a fighting deck. We put like a champ line, but he also had a MMA champion ADOT GX. And so he put that in his deck and he it's understandably very confusing that you can play Marsh. Adam, a champ has a basic, but you have to evolve my champ from him. Which app you use. It took him a little while to wrap his head around that.
Brit:Yeah, it is strange. cause I think absolutely Brent's right. What is Pokemon ham, but other games, evolution is probably one of the first things you should think of and it's just bizarre. then instead of tailoring the game to these very unique concept, that's, central to the whole brand site entity, then they just just keep inventing the ways to not instead, like that's clearly preferable to them. Like now it's just no more evolving, make my champion basic now. Oh, that's not even good anymore. sticking with someone else now, too, Yeah. I don't know. That's what I mean, that's I think really one of the main things that just does separate the early, 2004 through 2009 years, just really distinct for par and then the game changes when IEX has get printed the second time, it was more or less where we are announced, but yeah, the early days are about involving our outreach. maybe a lot of that is eating are going to simplify this down their glasses, but that's part of what makes those formats fun to Megan's and how you're involving multiple EVs know, and your evolutions are gone. it's just so many different evolution at Delta Pokemon are just so unique and interesting to me. I don't know, that's at least the Delta Pokemon for our life. I wish something we would see more of in the card game and that's just it's a mechanic. That's interesting, but it's unique to the card game. Cause it's not, maybe, I don't know the animator, do you know the whole continuity? enough, but to my knowledge, it's a unique thing. Like I don't think there's never been in the video games. It was just like, Oh, you're for alligators, a fire type now. Or, if it is, it was an item or a move or something, it was not just part
Brent:so this proceeded me. Can you give me, give us like a 30 seconds? When I should have what the Delta Pokemon thing was. Cause I have absolutely
Brit:Yeah. might be my favorite, so perhaps turn it over to him, but the big fan.
Mike:The Delta Pokemon, where. Like alternate typings and not officially, like the alone Pokemon are now. they were just very random. there was fire, a guard of ours and a lightning for alligators and there's some, yeah, I think there was dual types. I'm not a hundred percent sure. yeah. There's like metal,
Brit:Or at least do all week. Some Pokemon had to do a
Mike:yeah. Do a weakness. yeah, so they were just like alternate types. and yeah, it had nothing to do with the video game, which I think is kinda cool. it was the, I think it's the, it might be the only gimmick that has been in the card game.
Brit:That's what I was trying to say. I guess you could say that about. depending on how you want it to frame the or GX or something, but yeah, like it's just a kind of nominal gimmick it doesn't, it's just a name as opposed to something a little more identifiable.
Mike:but we haven't had anything quite there's dumped a species and then there was the SP and then there really hasn't been anything like that. I
Brit:And the SP stuff, at least I always took it to be as reminisce or an homage to the early gym leader sets of, Brock's nine tails and Lieutenant surges, this and that. That's part of what I thought a SP was supposed to be back there. All. All the like gym leaders or whoever have them are in the Carter. Usually I think so. Like our Trump C is champions, whereas doubt and G is galactic and yeah. But yeah, I think, I just think those are far more interesting than the big beefy
Brent:So you're not waiting for them to announce for press Pokemon.
Brit:I mean at a certain point, I even have price cards anymore.
Brent:And who will be prize cards when we have a Pokemon that gives six prizes.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:I was a little disappointed in the sort of like raid deck thing they released recently. But I don't know if either of you saw that there's just like a little multiplayer thing you can do now. You play your decks against a gigantic max Pikachu or something.
Brent:So I saw that and I sent it to my kids and tried to get them interested. And they were like, no, man, we gotta play
Brit:It's just the pointing because it's a good idea. Back before Hearthstone, when there was a wow card game, still the wild card game had these rate decks that were, designed more. You could play like real cards, metal cards, metal decks against them, but they were designed. As, like a board game night kind of thing was a bunch of pre constructed things. And I think that would be, or that would be really fun. I think, I at least always had a lot of fun with these raid decks because they were hard to like in the actual video games like you were not favored to win unless you knew what you were doing. And so similarly, I think that's, just an area of Pokemon has tried to do similar things before. And it's similarly not been very good ever, but
Brent:what did you do? Like my impression with this thing is you just pick out your most organic Pokemon and then it like somehow battles
Brit:Yeah. and that's really all it is for this Pokemon one, which is why it's lame and disappointing. But in the rape decks though, Avalon that I'm talking about, it would be it would be like three on one. I would play the boss and then, my three friends when I'll try to be me and I, in Pokemon terms or something as I would. all my Pokemon with, just have a hundred extra HP, you would have to take like 12 prizes to beat me, stuff like that. It would just be intentionally stacked against you. booting away that's, fair and challenging and all that too. And I just, I don't know. I think that's a lot of what the gigantic max Dynamex gimmick is.
Brent:All right guys, we've been going for an hour I feel like we should declare victory for this week and pick it up next week.
Mike:sweet.
Brent:is there anything we're supposed to do to sign off or something? I was probably supposed to be like, introducing you guys at the beginning. We'll do that next week.
Brit:Thanks for the next time. Yeah, I've trying to remember what outros are like.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah.
Brit:podcasts would do.
Brent:Awesome. All right. We will pick it up next week and people can hear even more from the amazing trash lanch podcast. Thanks guys.
Mike:Yeah.