The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 3 - Fall Guys, going second, Atlas POG Championships

August 20, 2020 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 3
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 3 - Fall Guys, going second, Atlas POG Championships
Show Notes Transcript

The episode where I experiment with putting the description in the title. Let me know if you notice the difference!

Brit:

we could try to do that sort of my general idea. there's more, make it a little more like personal focus and rather than just try to be this. news session of, here's all the decks in the format here. So this is what I've been testing. This is what Mike has been testing here, our results. And we can, we integrate the tearless into this discussion, but it's, just a little less systematic than just Yeah, the H the S chairs the same here. And this may be the beach here should go to the, just not all that interesting or just,

Mike:

Yeah, That's what I was

Brit:

I think it's fine to do that for sound like you. Of course. Can't talk about every deck and there are some that aren't worth talking about. don't know, at Salomon stuff still.

Brent:

Welcome back to the trash lunch podcast. It's Brent Halliburton. I'm here as always with bred privates and Mike crochet. Our attendance continues to be 100%. We're here every week, bringing people the latest stuff, talking about Pokemon. The first thing that I wanted to talk about is we got our first five star review on Apple iTunes. Soon will be the most popular podcast on the internet. I want to let all of our listeners know, if you leave a five star review, we will read that review on air and discuss the various qualitative attributes of that review. people should leave us reviews because reviews are funny. That's the thing the next I wanted to ask you guys is I recognize fall. Guys is sweeping the internet. Have you guys played fall guys?

Mike:

I have not. I have seen some people play it.

Brit:

It's one of those things I want to play as soon as DNI. I talk a lot or I've talked a lot so far about just experiencing getting old. And this is just like another, it's a trend. That's just passing me by. Like I see it, but I just don't quite have time to interact with it. I've downloaded it. I have it on, I bought it on my computer. I downloaded it on my PlayStation and I haven't played a single game yet. I've texted people about playing it, all of that, but maybe this weekend or something.

Brent:

So hopefully our listeners recognize these are the last three people on earth, two who have never played fall. Guys. That is our commitment to the Pokemon trading card game and preparing for a Atlas pod championships. It's

Mike:

I don't even know. So it's on computer and PlayStation. Is it on other systems too? I don't even know that, to be

Brit:

so the main thing I don't actually know which platform is more popular. but the main thing is that it's every month on the PlayStation, if you pay for the premium, which is required to play multiplayer, you get a free game or a couple of free games are available each month and fall guys was one of the free ones this month on PlayStation, but then that's a big reason why you're hearing about it, like now, as opposed to it probably existed before this month.

Mike:

Gotcha.

Brit:

but yeah, it's on steam too. And. But I don't know if it's on the switch or anything like that. Probably not.

Brent:

even my wife has found a, all the guys to be amusing. It's a perfect, a party game. very low skullcap. that's my hot take. Having never played a game. Let's go. Okay.

Brit:

I like it like a more martyr.

Mike:

Yeah. I'll have to see if Kelly wants to give it a try.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. That is, it is right up like a thing that Mike and Kelly can do together. alley that's exactly what the people want. All right. Let's jump into Pokemon. the first thing I wanted to ask you guys, is I felt like in testing this week, there was. A lot more reason to choose to go second than I had ever felt in my life. And I wanted to get is there an overarching hot take now about going first versus going second? when people play Pokemon.

Mike:

I think it distilled depends a lot on the deck that you're playing and the deck that you're playing against. I know Andrew Mahoney and Brett had a discourse yesterday and today talking about that. but I still find myself, deciding differently the deck. so for example, I've been playing a good amount of ultimate MuTu and depending on the matchup, I want to go first or second. but then there's some other decks like baby blue, Stefan, I think always wants to get a second. I think, I think Vika bolt always wants to go second. I think ADP is cool with either one. so I think there's some decks that always want to go second and decks that are cool with either one, but I don't necessarily think there's a deck that always wants to go first. So I guess that would make me lean towards case.

Brent:

Yeah. it's, I it's like a sea change, right? Like when you say, Hey, there are times when. I would want to go second. certainly in the short, like five, six years that my kids have been playing, that's never happened before.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

there were like bad night March players that were like, I'll do a second, but you're like, you're bad.

Mike:

right, exactly. I, yeah, it's, it is like a changing of the guard here, which is cool to I just think. Being able to play a supporter is really good. And there's just so many opening you can't do anything if you go first. but so yeah, I've thought that was interesting that Andrew Mahoen was saying that he second is even correct with the, it turn it, this deck. and I. It, I could see it going both ways. that seemed like the deck where you would want to go first, very similar to how drag appointments you go first. and maybe it's just a deck. That's cool with it going first or second and doesn't that much. but I haven't the deck enough to know for sure what I would if I won the coin flip. Brett, I know you were having that and you have a little more experience on that particular deck.

Brit:

Yeah, and I think he is right, for but it is still a close call, which I think is usually a good sign. if your deck is really, comfortable with both, you feel a lot more better about your rounds and like you're not dice you're not flipping the coin with your match-ups. So in a way, if you need to go first, most of the time to win. but the main logic and I always, I'm just such a conservative player that I, I just, don't what I want to do each turn is typically less than what other players want to do. So I'm just like, I just want to attach. And but I'm, I just need to attach and you have access to bats and stuff. So it's still pretty easy to carve out for five or six going first, if you. Open with the right hand. But then yeah, the idea, I think it's still isn't, that's just too slow and that when you choose to go second, you're almost all, but So you get two turns of supporter, notably, of them before you get marinade, potentially for the first time. And that the first morning is often the scariest one. just given that you haven't had the time, you haven't had a turn yet to thin your deck at all. So it's a lot filled with a lot more clutter. the idea of a second, you get the second supporter and that you're just all but guaranteed do two 70. and then you throw in those exact goons and your nets and, that's, you're taking three prizes almost guaranteed on that second turn. For the most time and in some scenarios you are going to get punished. I initially thought going first was still better is because I it's harder for them to Kao first attachment on it to notice, or, however we choose to say, I just started for them to take that energy away. If you go first, since it's their first turn, it's a for them to call often. They certainly can still. And that's a huge reason why the Istation decks are just so good. It's cause the terms that they get the attack off and maybe take two prizes you're often just too far behind. but yeah, that's the general idea. And. And what isn't good, however, is when you choose to go second and then you miss. So the big part of it predicated on the assumption that you get the energy acceleration off with your first year colorless energy attack. So that way you have two energies on the board, presumably one on in the event, the active one gets knocked out. and this happened to me this morning when I was a handful of games, 10 or so games. Again, when I opted to go choose to go second, anytime I could. And, you just lose that game almost immediately. Like I, I missed the acceleration and then lost it. And then it got code by, you just pick up your cards, then there's no way.

Mike:

before you hop back on, we were just in general about going first or second and how it feels like there's some decks that in don't care too much, whether to go first or second, they can execute their game plan either way. And I think the turn it, this is a good example of that. ADP is a good example of that. but then there's some decks that. Pretty much always want to go second, like baby bombs. and there's not really any deck always wants to go first, which, is interesting. So it makes it does seem on average. Going second is better the case for all

Brit:

Yeah, I think so. And that's, I think too, that if you think about it, then I this is another point in favor of. Andrew's position is that I think when you examine all the decks that are content with either, then you just look a little bit closer. It's clear that yeah. Either is fine, really want to you go second still, yeah. if on these more like fringe cases, if it's really not quite as fringe as it may seem, or if you really think about it, it's clearly it's, so one is still favored over the other. I don't know. I don't know if you mentioned it, but I know his one exception was ADP specifically in standard, as the deck that wants to go makes a lot of sense too, but similarly, if you don't and again, you have some wiggle room with all the metal It doesn't have to be your water color, your water, energy, or the, sometimes they play this special energy. On the first turn, but ideally it should. And I, a lot of decks seem a little more one. Like they just they play to DNA and CRO They're really, they're really on digging whether whether they're going first or second. I obviously, I'm not even sure how strongly the, this standard ADP wants to go first, even still cause. Going second, you win awkward games sometimes where you go second and you get JCN somehow. And then later game, you go into altered, creation, and then just out a win on a DNA or chromosome or something.

Mike:

Yeah. The other thing to consider too is, even if you're a deck that you think. You want to go first on if your opponent is a deck that really wants to go, and then there's, there's a lot of merit of just choosing to go second then because you're forcing them to not go. And so I think that's also where thinking about, if you don't really care either way, but you're playing against baby, but several hundred Vika bolt. That wants to go second while you just choose to go second, to, take away that advantage from them.

Brit:

I wonder especially some of this format we may never know does because it's so short and with no events, I wonder if the. I just wonder what statistically will end up being the case like these, the match-ups ended up being, cause we historically we occasionally have those formats where you just have to go for it. or second I'm like as the 2011, it's the worst one that comes to mind. I'm not sure if historically there was like a worse format where you just always wanted to go second.

Mike:

I don't remember

Brit:

You want to go first? I'm just blanking, but I know it was Tyrone.

Mike:

whichever one. It

Brit:

Yeah. I just couldn't remember. And that's the thing that the rules always change, but regardless of what the rule is, whether going first or second is preferable tends to change with the formats too. So it's a little, it's a little tricky to keep track of it there was occasionally some like fringe arguments for it, and I was never quite sure if they were good arguments or not. But I remember it was fan format, so it would have been around the same format we talked about last, episode. I think it was like the next cycle of regionals, but it had stayed good with robo substitutes and stuff. That had in the set. And I remember these players from like the great lakes area, like a bunch of Michigan players really hot on their Dawn fan list. And they're there hallelujah Don fan. And they were just like, always go, you always go first or you always go second because you just probably want to pressure then was first. And in a format where you always wanted to go first, but they were just so convinced. That going second ones. So you could pressure faster with Hulu or

Mike:

That's funny.

Brit:

and so occasionally there are these fringe arguments, but yeah, I think what you're saying historically is right. It's just usually very polarizing you just having a bad day when you're at round nine and how you haven't gone first yet all day, or, something like

Brent:

And it's weird because I think I always liked conceptually the, this, like almost non-intuitive idea that going first and passing up on the opportunity to be the first person to attack in the game correct you favor board, state over aggression. And conceptually, I think I just liked the idea of that as being a thing that's part of the game,

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

It's interesting though. Just thinking about it. In a broader context compared to what other card games do to have that, how they try to compensate for the first turn thing I'm trying to just gauge them all in terms of like raw power or something like that, and try to figure out like how good or how, like compared to, Hearthstone coin, or I don't know if you're familiar with T they're typically all pretty interesting. I. a sucker for card games. I usually play them all if only for the free to play trial or something getting too far ahead or controlling the board too much or something like that. And I don't know, but it's a good question to think about,

Brent:

Know, like I hate the idea of new players being told you should always choose to go second, because you're, you can launch this like incredibly aggressive attack and that's what you should be trying to do. man, that's not how I wanted to teach new kids to play Pokemon.

Mike:

That's true. That's a good point. So polka stats, I'm just wrapped up two of their old format tournaments. One of them was, world's 2017. I played Nori Vern which was pretty fun to play. It didn't do that. And the 2007 worlds finished up. I made top eight there and then lost but so they're going to run, world's 2005 event on TCG one, and they're going to run a city championship 2013, 2014 event. the next two old format events. For those of you that are interested in playing them, you can join the poker stats, discord and play either one of those.

Brent:

What were the big decks in 2005?

Mike:

2005. So that was the year Nitto queen one. Pablo got third and Jeremy Marin got first and there was kinda, it was a secret deck. Nobody played Nitto queen before that tournament. Um, Ross got second at 2005 worlds with a dark Tyron ATAR electricity like in typical Ross fashion, it was. I dunno, maybe 15, one OBS in his deck so like some decks ran Pzegeo in that format, which is quick search and you'd run like a two, one, two line, some Dexter and McCargo, which is the same McCargo that we have right now. but Ross ran a one, one, one pitch yet and a one, one McCargo. so that was funny. And then. There was other big decks, like Medicare Mex and Luda, colo McCargo and some other things.

Brent:

And what about the city championships? 2013,

Mike:

I don't know. I didn't really play that year, so I don't really know too much about the format. I think it was like dark cry. and Varese, and Genesek, I think those were the two big decks, but I'm not too familiar with that format.

Brent:

we started playing after those city championships. yeah, I assume it was just me, my impression of the Metta, even though like now you see so much more talk about a cell and talk about Blastoise and all those kinds of architects was, it was like raising Genesek available, a darker eye and TDK.

Mike:

Plasma was a thing. Blastoise I think was still good, I think catcher got nerfed right before those city championships. So went from being on a flip or not from being a flip, to being on a flip. And I think that hurt blasts pretty significantly more than any other deck. yeah.

Brent:

Interesting. Why would that be?

Mike:

Ah, and I started heading to run tool scrapper, which is a worst card, before it could just run Pokemon catcher and kill a garbage door. your catcher is just so good that you're just losing a really good card. You can't run scrapper and catcher in most Blastoise techs cause you need a lot. Cause it's so they scrappers, which means they weren't running gust and yeah.

Brent:

all you would get as a Turner, two off of a tools, as opposed to you killed their garbage, or, and they're probably not gonna be able to get another one out in time. And the alternative was like flipping for whether or not you're going to kill the garbage or that seems, horrible. Alright. let's talk about, the Atlas pod championship coming up this weekend and what you've been up to Mike.

Mike:

I mentioned it last week, going into testing for this, my intention was to only test spirit and Vika bolt. Andy, quickly became. Apparent to me that spirit tomb was not that great in this format for a couple of reasons. the first one being that ADP is Asian got more popular and it got better with the addition of bat. it's really hard to beat ADP with spirit. The mattress beforehand was already like 50, 50 ish and came down to if you are able to hit the ADP, The turn before they altered creation and then Kao the ADP the turn after they altered creation, that was pretty much the entire match up there. so now the fact that they fairly consistently can GX on the first turn going second, or, on the second turn and they can, if they do he's on the bench, it's harder for the spirit team player as well to interact with, the ADP. So. The matchup is a little bit harder and it's just gonna be the most popular deck. you're taking a slightly unprovable metric for the deck. So that's the first thing. thing Vika out and is a powerful deck, which we'll get into I'm sure. And spiritual is a real tough time against that because Vika belts Kao into spirit tomb for two energy and item locking you. it's impossible for you to one shot. A Vika back if you're not able to play a tool down. is not unwinnable, but very hard. Uh, third thing is that the other big deck, alternatives is. Also winnable, but running for zinc to goon for scoop of nets, it can be hard because they can jump ahead in the prize trade by killing spirit tombs. A lot of the lists now are also playing, things like their spirit tomb or playing, the new Hoopa or they're playing in. I've even seen Attacks for no energy. if they go second. So they have a lot of, they have most lists have some type of single price attacker that will interact with you. You add onto it that turn it to says 340 HP, impossible to one shot. Sometimes it's even hard to shot. if so, basically the three, what I expect to be the three of the, maybe there's four or five most popular next year taking. Bad. Match-ups to three of them. That's telling me that spiritual is not a super great play.

Brent:

So where'd you go from

Mike:

did I go from there? So I did test Vika bolt a bit. mostly I tried out some of the different variants. I the Marina one didn't really like that. I tried a, I mentioned last week, I was going to try like a heavy damage version with like electric chargers and Ziggins and I tried that was fine, but electric charger was pretty bad card over also. I've mostly just been playing the list that Azula popularized with dry cheese and turbo patch and it's aggressive, but. Still like relatively straightforward and it's pretty good. I think it's a really strong deck and I think it will be played a lot. but I don't think I particularly want to play it anymore. it feels a little too linear for me. So with that was me going into the week. And after a couple of days, I didn't want to play either the text that I intended

Brent:

this is in some ways, this is like classic regionals action. you, had a plan to start testing the week before the tournament, and now we're like two days before the tournament and you're like, all decks are bad.

Mike:

Yep. Yep.

Brent:

where have you gone from

Mike:

so I played a little bit of ADP Zeeshan felt like that was pretty strong. Can fall back on that. If I like same thing with baby blondes, I think that's pretty strong played some games to make sure that I could still play that fine. I started trying some crazy stuff like stone. Jorner not terrible, but it's not good.

Brent:

assume it's best attribute is it's a fighting type Pokemon.

Mike:

type Pokemon that is not easily one shot it and can kill two of the three decks that I just talked about, but it's still very hard to be ADP is. And I think with any list, So probably not going to play that. Maybe if there was more time, I'd put more time I'm into it. and so I've with some of the metadata, but only other deck that I have found interesting in the last hours that I may end up playing is ultimate MuTu. M Taylor posted a really phenomenal article, um, six prizes, talking about a lot of stuff, but in particular, he taught ultimate MuTu, which he won some online tournament with, towards the end of last format. and he updated the list. And so I've been messing around with that. I changed a couple of cards cause it's a very. Fluid deck, which I really like. I also played around with ultimate MuTu last and I thought it was really good and it was my second favorite deck next to spirit team. But I thought spirit tune was so good that I never really ended up playing it outside of a ladder in the PTCB. But, so I think ultimate YouTube is pretty strong. It is a little inconsistent, but it has a game plan for pretty much every matchup, which. Which I like, and I think it's unexpected, I don't think people are going to be, it's not like people are paying, playing power plants or mimic you. so people aren't really going to tech for it and it's just fun a fun back to play.

Brent:

so how did, can you talk about sentence scores for a second? Cause I'm interested in your hot takes on that.

Mike:

sent a scorch. that's the fire VMX guy, That came out. I haven't played it partially because I didn't want to trade for them on PTC geo, but it does seem pretty strong. Yeah. I don't know. I've seen a lot of different realists. I think if someone the, like the best list for it, I think it could be a really good play from what I've seen the best list seem to be like they run a volcanic run and they run. Like a three or four, four it's under fly and then maybe another attacker too. it seems good against the, at least the top three decks, right? you can get enough energy to pretty reliably one shot Vika volts, and you can. You have weakness against Asian, which is obvious. Very good. Um, I think one shotting and ADP early in the game is probably not going to happen very often, but it's not impossible. If you go second and, turn one welder, turn to welder. You're doing, I'm pretty sure math checks out, right? That's a five, six times four. Oh no. Are you off if you do that? no. Six energy is 600 years. 300. Yeah. Yeah. So if you attach and they're both turns, Yeah.

Brent:

That's so I know in my games, yeah. I actually walked into exactly what you talked about. I played against it playing combo station and I played against it playing Vika volt. And obviously I was like, these are terrible. Match-ups I'm going to get smoked and low. I got smoked, but I was also impressed with just yeah, I think, my kids tend to favor like nonlinear decks, whereas I'm like let's test speakable. Cause it seems super linear. And the idea of the set of scores should BS like attack for one energy and discard one of their energies and poke them.

Mike:

Yeah, that's

Brent:

That's an interesting, and then the BEMAX attack is obviously huge. so you have this choice of there's huge damage output. There's like ways to stall out the game. One guy went into a heat Tran GX and loaded it up for a monstrous GX on like the final attack of the game against me. I was like, and yeah, he had the fight. He went second and got the Firestarter off. So I, it seemed to have a lot of moving parts that gave them a lot of options in the game, but I feel like, it hasn't gotten hyped Philip Britt, any hot takes in some storage.

Brit:

I've been, I have not, I don't have it built, but I've been impressed playing against it pretty consistently. I lose to it. more, a lot more than I expected to. It's usually it usually not too bad, but I feel like any of the games where I. And consistently stumbling and they're not, I just get stumped. Like I, the usual bad beats here and there just missing my energy attachments early, maybe missing a key evolution or, being 10 shy on the knockout. Like I've had games like that when I was playing it to NATA center. I just had no chance. I forget exactly. usually all of this experience too. Was behind me going first incorrectly winning the coin flip, but choosing to go first and then them, they opened, it was all Canyon going second at both games there at least these two games that are

Brent:

Must be nice, right?

Brit:

But yeah, I think this just talking what we talked about earlier, I think these games are ones that I would win a lot more easily if I had chosen to go second. Cause. It's a lot harder for them to get the knockout, say Zane or something. I would think

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

just

Brent:

Brit, we walked through, Mike's what he tested. What do you see and how is like his thought process going up to this. before we walked through yours, the one question I want to ask Mike was, does this, I feel like the way that you ended, even though I would imagine since everybody is quarantining at home, it would be less like this, but it almost feels like this is going to be one of those things where like at 3:00 AM, before the tournament, you pick a deck. is this like a regionals or a big tournament where you make your deck decision an hour before the tournament and turn in your list based on this last minute crazy round of testing and messaging, that's going around tournament players.

Mike:

I think that, that, I hope that it's not. But I think it's very possible that it could be, I'm definitely talking to a couple of different people and I've said if you come up with something, let me know. so the feelers are out there and if I get something that looks pretty sweet and spicy, I have no problem making a quick switch because I don't love any deck. Uh, the, the MuTu deck is the only one that. I kind of like, and every other deck I kind of hate, as you said,

Brit:

Our necklace Stu, I feel like that all

Mike:

I think it's,

Brit:

That'll affect things a lot.

Mike:

I think it's midnight Eastern. So Friday going into Saturday, midnight Eastern.

Brit:

so, yeah, it wouldn't be that late and scrambling for stuff

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

at the very least.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. And I'm playing, I'm playing the early pot on day one. So like, Uh, I think I start playing at 5:00 AM Eastern, so

Brent:

Exactly it makes it makes doing the 5:00 AM shifts. So he's like, he's going to be up until midnight and he's going to go to sleep. I mean, that's not quite, that's a quintessential regionals experience.

Mike:

Right.

Brent:

you're ready. So, Brett, why don't you talk about your testing process and how you've gotten to now?

Brit:

I don't talk to nearly as many people as I used to, but I've talked to a handful of people just take it. You know, I was going through, you know, a couple stages of testing. Like first you have your initial impressions. Mostly I mostly started with. Pablo six, most recent six prizes that are article those almost all the led and Mikey. I don't know if that was just a personal ADP list, but he posted one in the discard we have here. And that's where I started as things. But, you know, once I started to get a feel for matchups, I started to try my own lists, my own ideas. I've mostly played at Granada, so I've keep coming up. That's kookier and kookier builds for us. And just not, I don't like any of them as much as just Pablos list, just all consistency, four, four, four, four. exactly. And, and that's kind of it at the Plaza, AB Sol and Hoopa. I don't think I've ever used the Hoopa and I. I just don't know when I would supposed to be. It just it's seems to be there. What, just like games that you're already losing, you're already winning or the scenarios when you have time to get the Hoopa. I feel like, I don't know if that makes any sense. I understand my, the lists I play do have some very crippling weaknesses, again, standing of the safeguard type Pokemon. I just lose I've I've

Brent:

Yeah, I think, I think the Hoopa is for the decidual. I match up like nominally, but.

Brit:

mean, that's the thing though. Like one hoop is not like it's not going to win me. That match up if, if it's a good player or, you know, if they're playing some obstacles and stuff too, like I'll just is really, what's more troubling to me, but that's usually pretty easy to handle. but yeah, I'm just fine. If I played, I turn Odyssey this weekend, I I'll lose to decidual. I said it's totally fine with me. I think I have to lose to control too. And that's kind of like my, and maybe I haven't tested all that much against pickable, but my general sense was that it turned out. This is one of the few decks. Well, I had a good match up. Usually you just had kind of usually have good draw. through the item walk, especially if you have a good, a really good first turn before they get it off. And then you just have, you just have so much HP. And if you're not just crippled, you can usually just, even to shotting them, sometimes they just don't do enough damage. If they themselves are failing to hit some beats and even, even games too, it seems like doing everything they want to, you know, it's the build that, or I was playing against these builds that are really turbo patch heavy, and half the time they're doing one, one 90 or. They played some vitality bands and the POS powers and whatnot too. But then I just feel like every time they did that, I would just be like, okay, eight Pokemon, a new three 40 Pokemon in the active, like kill this one, I guess. You know? And then their game plan is entirely on, just, using a catcher effect on, something I can't retreat and, finding their footing back into the game from there. That's your luck reliance strategies. Hope I don't draw into energy or, in good players, which perhaps I'm not good yet are, doing things to make those strategies less effective than against players who aren't quite as conscientious as they should be.

Brent:

Are you playing a bird keeper? Bird keeper is like the bane of my existence. When I try to do that stuff that people.

Brit:

I want to actually, that's one of this, one of the, I have a few builds that I've been playing with, but if I think if I went with, just something based on the Pablo lists that I keep mentioning, I think one of the main cards that I want to fit, I want another switching card, but I'm not sure if the Mellon lawn, I would just be better. I had. that initial thought in my head, but I haven't sort of gone through it in much detail yet, but I would like more switching cards in the deck for sure. And the draw versus discard for heel. I'm not quite sure which is better.

Brent:

do you think the med is going to be like, like what are there, do you think it is a Mike was saying he thought ADP is Asian would be the big. Big deck. Do you think that that's true or is your take on the meetup more diverse or.

Brit:

Yeah, that's definitely the duck club. Everyone is hyping I'm seems to be mostly unanimous consensus that it's the best stack. I think everyone's realistic. And that, no one is saying like, Oh, it beats everything every time. Like a lot of my trips are pretty close right now, but the logic behind everyone saying it is the best deck is good. And as a result, I do think lots of people will gravitate towards it. But I think the hottest stack out of the set in terms of just what I, I think I've seen people trying the most and what it's cheaper in terms of just packs and codes themselves as Vical. And that's something I. I'm expecting a lot of, and I, I think Vickerville does pretty well against ADP or can, and it's just pretty good in general against the Zetia index. maybe you're a good player and you're anticipating a lot of ADP, a lot of compensation or something. And then it's like quietly, the good play. Like both of those scenarios seem pretty realistic in my head, but there's a lot of decks and a lot of close match ups. And again, it's so fresh and. I fully expect to see some cool decks and maybe talk to the top 16 or so just, just, I don't know what half the cards do or something like that.

Brent:

so how much do you think you're dialing into internet versus. that 2:00 AM decks, which a play.

Brit:

I don't have these connections, no, one's sending me a deck list or anything and that's fine with me, playing as much as I can. And these next couple of days, so I'd like to have a, you know, a more informed opinion by Friday, but. I don't expect to really be shaken off this. If I don't think people are playing a lot of I might try something else. But if I think that Google is going to be fairly prominent, I like it to not us, I think, but there's a lot of decks. Like I need to practice against still

Mike:

Let me wait, let me ask you a couple of questions about I turned out just cause I haven't played it yet. So you mentioned that you don't really like Hoopa. Have you tried spirit tomb in there?

Brit:

I haven't really dabbled in alternate attackers at all. The main thing I was messing with was. Turbo patches to alleviate, the, the city of the turn one attachment and giving you a little staying power in the event that you go from two energy to zero energy unexpectedly and they're good, you know, like, look you at think. Um, I don't know. I feel like I really cut consistency. Or too much to fit them in and you don't need them. Of course, either kind of similar to Vic of all. They're just, it's just a good car and people are messing with it. It's probably not worth it at the end, but my testing has not been indicative that I should just drop the idea entirely

Mike:

I think they're similar too max elixir, New Mexico, or might've had a slightly higher percentage based on the deck, but. But, there's similar, like, you know, elixir is, you know, a 60% to hit. they were never played in a deck that like absolutely needed the energy to execute a strategy and just be if I hit two out of my four elixirs, that's great. So it's a good card.

Brit:

The main part I see in other people's lists is the other Hoopa there's one that sort of has glycolysis a pods attack, something to that effect. It doesn't, it doesn't, I don't quite understand why people are playing it. And if I'm being totally honest, there must be something I'm missing. It just doesn't seem very good. if it's there to hit the safeguard Pokemon.

Mike:

Yeah, I agree that one doesn't seem great to me. They only, the spirit tomb seemed like the best, a one price attacker to me because it has the potential to do, you know, a significant amount of damage. whereas the other one is just like, you're not one shot in anything

Brit:

That seems problematic though, because what you're using spirit tomb to knock out above pretty good against spirit tomb. Decidual I can hit it while it's on the bench and like I said, I've, I've been, I've won a game against decision. Why, where I attack with abs Saul and Hoopa. Like you can do it sometimes when they're not drawing well, but you're going to lose when they open, Geraci and hit Rosa immediately and things like that.

Mike:

Well, I think the other thing that it could be used for as against baby bounds, right? Is to like give you another attacker

Brit:

sure.

Mike:

to like help the prize

Brit:

Yeah. I haven't played too much against that matcha, but in what I have played against, it's just kind of, did they get it or they're going to pop off or they're not, or like a lot of that. a lot of times they don't because you are fast, you are taking prizes immediately. So. And you don't need very many Pokemon to knock out anything in their deck. And so usually if they're forced to, if they go station on their first turn and maybe also have to play or a choreo or something like those games are the ones that I win. And then the ones I lose are they hit seven energies on turn two. So there wasn't a whole lot of interactions going on, but it's not, I would say it's. Probably somewhere in the 45, 55 range, probably with Blount being favored still, but it's not something I'm, I would feel better at playing against it than I would being the ADP player. But

Mike:

Makes sense.

Brit:

that could be wrong. I'm not a good ADP player or anything. I don't know what those guys think of the match up, but in my head, that's what I currently think.

Brent:

I know I sent you guys, but look more so than chemical meant. They put together these, these kind of tier lists And the other two top tier decks that they identified were baby Blount and, control decks. And I thought it's interesting that they would say peekaboo gonna be big deck. And also these two decks are going to be big decks. I feel like, Vika bolt is an incredibly hard matchup for those guys. And vegetable has a lot more hype and kind of popularity going in a R. Those are our baby glands that control top tier decks.

Mike:

I think maybe one that is really good. in a format that there are so many possible decks. It's totally fine to take a heart auto loss to one of the decks and. We can talk about it a little bit later, but that's why I think dragon puts actually not that bad. I think it's fine to take one really bad matchup. I'm so blind to is really taking a, bad matchup against speakable, which could be, 15% of the field maybe, but you're taking a. slightly favorable matchup to ADP. You're taking a slightly favorable matchup to enter. NADDIS. Uh, you're taking a very favorable matchup against the other metal decks. Um, you're taking a favorable matchup first pick around weed, taking a good match against Senator scorch. So you have lots and lots of good match-ups and you're kind of sacrificing one, the like one popular bad one, uh, country. And let me say by playing baby bond, Vic is very hard. it's really bad. The only thing that I think may be worth taking in is a double, I think double could help the match up a little bit, but I'm probably not going to test that enough. in terms of control. I actually don't think control is that bad against to be controlled? I think a lot of listserv. Adapting for it. some lists are playing channeler. Some are playing the Dell caddy that gets supporters back, and sometimes they can just agro mail you out, because you're not doing that much damage. I haven't played the match, I've only played it from the pickup outside, but I don't think is that bad bridge.

Brit:

Yeah, I was gonna say, I agree with track of poll. If we have to offer any sort of how I take, I agree that drag hold is fine. That's really good against basically everything that isn't dark still. I almost, lost to it. I had a really close game to one online that was playing weakness, guard energy, and they just caught me off guard. And I think I did my math wrong and that's actually why it was close, I was thinking too, you said, do you think that dragon pole, it would beat, sent a score, which I'm not confident? That would be

Mike:

I don't know.

Brit:

Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. so much of it is this is better have one, so it's not like the player's cup, which was best of three. So you have a little less wiggle room too, is that correct? It has best of on.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah. So that affects things too. with two of three, you can play it. Exactly. You know, it's a little inconsistent. If you know, you're gonna win every game that it's not inconsistent but you just can't do that invest of one. Or if you, if you do, you're very brave, um, braver than I am. so I feel like that'll be a big factor too. I'm not sure what that really says with most of the top decks are very consistent. Most of them have multiple DNA and Crow bat, and almost as much draw or search items that you can have. I think control is a little clunky. Sometimes at least in my own experience, I haven't played much or at all with any like variants, but I tested a couple of versions of. They'll like Mary versions and I didn't find them any good. but I liked the other versions. Just find still too.

Mike:

Yeah, control's not really my cup of tea and mil. Not really either. sometimes I respect them events sometimes I don't. but I won't play them. I think right now, they're kind of well positioned. I think Vika boat can go either way, depending on how much you take for it. But I don't think there's really any way to make the ADP matchup, anything better than. On paper,

Brit:

do you do either of you have any thoughts on mat party? I see people talking about it. And usually in these, Twitter threads, I'm scrolling through the consensus seems to be that it's, it's better than, it might seem, and I've not experienced that in my games against it, but like not, no one took night March, seriously, initially. And it's a similar mechanic it's similar to, to last March, which is kind of, which is in that period when I played zero events. So I, I'm not quite sure how much of a threat LAR last March ever was, but it seems okay.

Mike:

Yeah, I've played around with it a little bit, because I've always liked that mechanic a lot. I played a lot of night March. I played a decent amount of lights, like last March, even when I did play games last year. I think it has potential. I think it could be good if someone finds the right list, but I haven't seen any lists that wows me. I go back to with this deck, I think it's pretty much impossible to beat ADP you might have good match-ups against other things, but unless it's the same problem that spirit team has, unless you're able to Kao the ADP, the turn after they altered creation, you can not win the matchup. It's like actually impossible if they get an ultimate Ray off because the prize trade, makes it impossible for you to catch up. if someone figures out a way to circumvent that. then it could be good. I saw Danny Alta via postal list with stinger and again, Adele. And when I first saw that I was like, that's really cool. You stinger. But then I was like, after you stinger, they just kill him the gun Adele. And then they win cause that's three prizes. Um, and so I asked him about it and he said, well, so you have to do 260 to the ADP and play shrine and plays execution. Like the turn that you stick, but you have to do two 60 day ADP and then on the turn you stinger, you need to play shrine and I was like, that seems very, very specific.

Brent:

Like if you lose to ADP and you lose to Vika volt that's seems bad.

Mike:

Yeah, I think taking a loss to one of those three decks, ADP vault tinnitus is fine, but if you're taking a loss to two of them, that's not good. Yeah, it is fun though. It was a fun deck.

Brent:

What other deck should we talk about? should we talk about Pika rom

Brit:

think it's terrible in my own experience. It's so bad against VICA fault. you're only prayer is some sort of comeback off our ride to paralysis and stamp or something. A fit doesn't train as efficiently with these other Pokemon, particularly with an intern artist and stuff can like one shot at it.

Mike:

Yeah. I think the mat, the peak of ADP matchup is pretty close. I think it's slightly favored for Pika, but, I think it seems really bad against enter notice.

Brit:

that's the main deck I've played. So maybe I'm, over gauging how bad it is, but we all think blondes is fine. Bounds is really good still. And that was not a great matchup historically. I would think control is probably can be okay against you. If it's the art Akuno versions, I would think those are pretty easy for control, rather, that seems, but I don't know how you would do again against visible, visible. It seems like it would struggle because all I have to do is manually attach. And then, I have a couple attackers on the board and maybe they gave me the stadium for me to.

Mike:

Yeah. And the math works out really nice. Right. You do 50 and then one 90 that's two 40. So yeah. the only other deck that I haven't really played, but I've played against a lot that I think is quite. Good. And really annoying to play against is Zetia and Lou Carrio metal, metal, um, super annoying. All them, basically every deck that I've played against, but that I've played and considered playing fields on favorite against it. it's really bad verse baby biomes. I assume it's not great versus alternatives, not us, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. what do you think Brett?

Brit:

The same as MTA is, there's a lot harder with that. I actually played against Juan that didn't play and he's Asian and they played lots of salmon center. Doesn't melt metal. I agree. I actually think I'm always really surprised by this deck. And I think if I were more active in going to events, this strikes me as a deck that historically I would have really gravitated towards it, reminds me of. There was a time when I played it was Israel's deck, but we played like Eva tall with like hard charms for some reason. Whereas in the main, the main Eva tall deck was way more aggressive, but, but I just really liked the defense kind of style more. And this, this is that sort of thing, way more defensive than the other I really haven't tested against it enough. To have a sense of how bad it is, but I think you could probably play Tuesday, Amazon doesn't beat digitization or the turnout is techs that into, I don't think I could ever be the second one. Probably if you some, if you, you know, prepared for it a little more, like, like that strikes me as being pretty good.

Mike:

Since. Yeah. Cause I mean, I think it has a slightly favorable EDPC matchup. Because if you're able to, you know, use your GX attack, turn after the GX attack, then they're forced to just attach metal saucers instead of ultimate Ray, which is, you know, usually it gives you enough tempo. I think it's pretty good against the bankable, just because, if you get your tools down and you full metal wall, you're reducing so much damage from them

Brit:

this is exactly what I was going through in my head. clearly it would be better than the other issue index, but I could still see it being frustrating. you just have so many items, especially with that deck has more tool cards and stuff on top of the usual balls and saucers and switches.

Mike:

Yeah, that's true.

Brit:

I don't. I imagine I will try it, but that's something that interests me for sure. But basically anything I haven't tried, I just don't have cards for. And I just don't feel like spending any more money on codes at the moment.

Mike:

Yeah, that makes sense. That is a deck that I think stays pretty much intact after the rotation. So you'll have your chance to try it.

Brent:

Any other stuff that we should cover before people go out and compete for the championship?

Mike:

I think always in a, like in an unknown format play something that you like playing and that you think is pretty good. You don't have to beat every deck. You can take losses in this open format. just don't take too many losses to too many popular decks.

Brent:

So I know people have always talked about like at regionals, it's important to hydrate. It's important to have snacks, stuff like that. Do you think about, do you think about all the like preparing for a big tournament stuff differently when you're at home?

Mike:

I mean a little bit, just cause you get to do everything on your own terms and times, which is really nice. If I finish around in five minutes, I can take a shower and just kind of relax. I went for a run during one of the lunch breaks, one time doing dirty, one of the littlest things. So I think, just think about how to use your downtime in between rounds, in a way that refreshes you.

Brent:

That sounds way more refreshing than the usual lab between around mojo.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brit:

Yeah, that's good. That's good advice. I can't really relax if I have something to do. So in the past, when I've played an all day Hearthstone tournament where I'm at my computer all day and just anxiously sitting there waiting to play my next round, I struggle to take my mind off it with something else. So I'll give that a whirl this weekend, for sure. I definitely don't want to just wait at my computer all day.

Brent:

I like how confident Mike is that he will not accidentally miss the start of the next round. I would be a horribly paranoid.

Brit:

I want that tear. Yeah. I'm just really anxious, paranoid person, just in general. I'm always all of them. I still have recurring nightmares about, being late to tournaments or, endlessly rummaging through my cards, trying to finish my deck lists, during registration and stuff. Been more constant for me than going to actual tournaments. And then in the past couple of years,

Brent:

All right guys. let's declare victory for another amazing podcast. Next week. We'll have results from, uh, all you guys run

Brit:

do our best.