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Brent:Oh yeah, man. We gotta put those ads in, we'll work on that and we'll work on that soon. all right, let me do the intro. welcome to the trash launch. Podcasts. Me Brett Halliburton here as always with Mike Boucher and Repub says, yay. Another amazing intro. I didn't ask you guys. Is it, does the agenda look good? Any questions is all that fine.
Brit:I think we have a good chunk. Talk about
Brent:Awesome. All right, let me give a quick five star review update. We got no more five star reviews this week. People you gotta leave five star reviews for us to talk about your five star reviews. And if you don't review that, we can't talk about your review. I don't think there's any more to say there. so let's jump right in guys. Atlas pod championship, amazing tournament, particularly for Mike. Mike, do you want to talk about how your tournament went?
Mike:So I, intended to play in the first pod, which for East coast, people would start at about 5:00 AM. I couldn't play later that day. So I set my alarm for four 30 and I didn't wake up. So I did not play.
Brent:All right. You want to jump in Britt? You want to tell us how it went?
Brit:Yeah. So I don't think I could speak on the event itself and a lot of different ways, but I guess to start with my own sort of personal experience, I'm glad I think it was towards the end of last week's episode. I just described what I think. I figured my experience would be like, so I'm calling, it's exactly what happened and I'm glad, I recorded it first and predicted it, but I just like the way their rounds of work are, I just never felt like I had enough time to do anything. And it was just this awkward sort of just like stuck, in front of your computer, waiting for the next round. And, even though rounds were only 25 minutes, so it was about an hour or more. At a time. but none of that to say that I thought it was poorly run. I think they actually did a very good job running it. all of this is really a testimony to how popular it was, how many people playing in the event. and even, the IGN, wrote an article on it that we have one of their writers, enjoying the card game right now, which is nice to get coverage in that sort of way. but I guess the main sort of point, even though it was a slow crawl of a process, I want to make it clear that's not to say, it was a bad event or anything like that, but it's makes for a long day. but then I'm talking personally, I miscalculated, I just wasn't thinking. And so my, trying to coordinate and make sure I checked in on time. made sure I'd submit my deck list. I had just only been talking to people on the West coast and I just hadn't really paid attention. So I had asked Colin mall and Kenny wisdom, just Hey, what time should I do X and Y? And, they're like nine o'clock and I'm like, okay, they're two hours ahead of me. They're Pacific, I'm central time. And for whatever reason, I went backwards. And so I went, that's 11 o'clock for me, but for whatever reason, I, I. Decided it meant seven o'clock. So I was like in my seat, ready the play almost four hours early. and then it's delayed by an hour as well. and so that, all that to add to the long day newness of it all in my personal experience. And I ended up dropping at one and two, just for similar reasons, hedging my bets again, I might not lose the next one or the one after that, but. I don't feel comfortable enough investing my entire day and perhaps playing until 10 or 11 o'clock only till then it was the women in or something like that. and then additionally too, I thought day to day, next week or another time, for some reason, I just thought it was functioning similarly, too. Limitless or the player's cup. I didn't actually know that day. Two was the next day. And, in the world that I did perform very well. I don't think I really could have realistically lost both of my weekend days and playing the event. I had plenty of homework. I got done on Sunday. but that's my experience. I played a tinnitus. I'd be visible the first round, close games. But when, about how I thought it would go, as long as I don't get super bricked by the item lock, it's a good match up for me. around two, I opened dead. I don't quite recall the seven or eight cards I saw. I posted a screenshot in our discord for this podcast. It was like three eater, not as these two or three energies, A switch and a net and a boss's order or something like that. I think that's the eight, because I remember I drew for a turn. I drew another basic, the third basic. Yeah. and I just lost two baby. Palauans pretty quickly there. And then the next round I lost to like old Blaume's be stirring Negan, Adele only GX. which actually went about how I thought it would when he flipped over the cards and started in like bench the basics. So I was just like, Oh, if he hits his piece strings, I probably can't beat this. And he did. it was frustrating. I, so I went first and I think just attached and past. And he did something. And I remember he ended his turn or he did the GX attack and he discarded like a quick ball, but he ended his turn with seven cards in his hand. I think he played a research and didn't play any of his cards in his hand. So I get a, I like, I get a knockout on my term, I evolve into the BMX and get all my Pokemon and play and stuff. And I Marnie him because, I didn't really need any, it's only one 80 to knock out the active. and he had seven cards in his hand. So cutting him down to F to five after do fraternities seemed like a pretty good idea. And like off his Marnie to his mug five card Marnie was like welder, like a double fire. And then it just ended up in, he just got it, everything. And, him max in response to that, and I was just way too far behind. And, I didn't get that. It didn't get the response chaos. So he got another turn of beast strings, but. like I said, Pete flipped over again, cars and it was not like, yes, this person's bad. They're playing a bad deck. And I was like, no, and you see their lists too. And it was like, no, this person knows what they're doing. I don't know what tier or what have you, that this deck is, but they put the, they put time into it. Like this tech was yeah. Ready to win a few games and then beat me pretty easily.
Brent:it's one of the rare decks that like, has all these, a fire dykes, like I have a strategy to hit for 350 damage turn after turn
Brit:It was playing a couple of those. I played the, the Island formula. maybe it's pretty good. It's it's funny to think that one 80 is just not enough. I'm not very much HP currently. So What's it matter one, one, one 30 or however much it reduces your HP by probably about the same in most scenarios. Anyways.
Mike:Yeah, that's
Brent:are there things that they could have done to make the tournament run more efficiently? why does it take 35 minutes? Like theoretically between rounds.
Brit:I think a lot of it is on the players. At least this is, I think what I heard was happening. but it's, somewhat understandable discord is not, entirely straight forward. Like I can understand someone, I'm not particularly tech savvy. The con I like I could follow the commands and there were well-written FAQ and procedures and stuff to follow, but it's a lot, it's a lot more, harder than I think a little bit it's more streamlined, but harder than using like smash, GG or things like that. where it's you just click buttons and it's all on your browser. Whereas with discord, that tournament itself is built into the way you report, but it's all just through the. like coding functions, which maybe is just hard. I don't know. I don't know what people are getting wrong. but I, from what I understand, that was just where some of the lag was from people just not reporting in time. I don't have any sense of if there were like troublemakers people who lost st saying they won and causing disputes that had to be resolved through screenshots and things like that. I don't know how common of an occurrence that was.
Mike:I don't know. I don't know how a big of a difference this would make, but I did hear that. The standard was the loser reports, the match, which, I wonder if making the standard, the winner reporting the match would speed things up a little bit because yeah. in some world the winners incentivize to report and the losers, not, especially if you know the loser, it's their third or fourth loss and they want to drop. Maybe they're just like, I'm outta here and they walk away from their computer. so I don't know if that would be a
Brent:It's an interesting idea. Like I get the logic, right? if the loser reports like there's no disputing, like you can't say you were the winner, right? Yeah.
Brit:But in terms of just what to speed it up, like other than just like people getting better, more familiar with discard and doing things on discord. my just just con hot take opinion is you just have to do elimination. I think at a certain point you reach a certain number of players. Yeah. Swiss is just not realistic. And I understand that. Pokemon card game, the card game is not fighting games. Like everything doesn't have to be DNO, this double elimination bracket. but at the same time too, I think that, the more people there are, the more, your match records, it doesn't matter. Like at a certain point, You'll lose two and you're done anyways. Like you're not, you can't make top eight from that point, no matter what. so from a certain point, like it's against spirit of the game, like Pokemon is found it on Dino, this community where it's important to play every round. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, those are the community values. I understand that, once you've lost twice, you're done. Isn't it. quite exactly the same environment, particularly for a newer player, but I just think double elimination is often the same thing as large Swiss tournaments and just as faster and only gets faster. The later you get just after the first, after the second round, like you've lost half the crowd and so on and so forth,
Mike:Yeah,
Brit:but, maybe that's, we don't, we're not getting that high of numbers yet for these online tournaments.
Brent:I didn't prep this at all, but like hearing you say that made me, I suddenly wondered if you could do something those Japanese style format tournaments, or you just get in line and they're just pairing people up as fast as they can play.
Brit:Those are always just a little too goofy seeming to me, just like wild West, are, I feel like I've heard stories about those tournaments where it just Oh, I was in the middle of a game and they just arbitrarily like call, time was called, this massive timer that was, that had been running the entire event. The neon had I won this game, I would have gotten enough points to move on to the next stage, which itself wasn't even the double or the bracket stage yet. but yeah, again, there's, it's probably makes a little more sense than I'm making it seem here, but that
Brent:I like it. My initial reaction to hearing you say that was like, is there a way you can chop out the tournament where, you know, if somebody is like, two, four, but they're just having a fun time playing the deck that they'd been working on. And this is their chance to play some games We can peel them off and not have it slow down, trying to pair, the top 32 tables or something. but that's probably a, that's probably virtually impossible. It's I dunno. Yeah. I don't understand how you actually functionally do that, but that made me think of the Japanese system where we'll just let them play and we'll pair people up as fast as they finish. And.
Brit:Yeah. So that would, I would think part of the reason they do that is for time, they're trying to speed up the process for some reason I'm blanking on this. I wish I could remember, but I'm trying to think of what, the giant, Super trainer showdowns and stuff like that during in the, in the late nineties, when the game was mega fad popular. I'm trying to remember how those, if those were Swiss, I just don't. I just don't remember. It certainly didn't compete then, but it'd be a good, I know players like Jimmy O'Brien. do you go back that far? So players with that sort of knowledge too, would be. interesting to talk about, cause I know, historically the game there that stage in the game is wizards of the coast, which I think has always just done Swiss for magic. but, I'm not positive.
Mike:Yeah. It'd be interesting to talk to someone I actually played in the last super trainer show down. I was like maybe eight or something. Eight, nine, 10 years old, but I was so to give you an idea of how bad I was, I showed up with 40 English cards and 20 Japanese cards, and didn't see the problem with no sleeves or having translations or anything like that. I was like, I know what the cards do. And there's 20 Japanese cards. So I don't know which one I'm going to draw. if I see the Japanese back, so like someone had to pull me aside after the first round and put my cards in sleeves and it was very nice, but, I don't really remember how it was done, but I do remember that experience,
Brent:and what deck were you playing?
Mike:60 single cards, Highlander.
Brent:Greatest binder drop in history.
Mike:Yeah. But I do think Brent, that idea of the Japanese system, is really interesting. And it's, there's probably some way if we, if people can code, a Swiss tournament in discord like they did, I'm sure there's some technological, a way to set up a tournament in that structure that wouldn't be that bad, discord has, different channels that you can do. So you could maybe have some cue where you send people. Off the cue into the different channels. And then they pull, they talk, they play and then someone loses their wins and it reports, and then it sends the next person in from the queue into a table.
Brent:it seems like if, your goal is to minimize time between rounds, you can just be pairing people on the fly and keeping track of their record as they go and like doing some crazy thing.
Mike:Yeah, I think that's a really cool idea. If someone should look into that.
Brent:so do we want to talk about how the tournament went overall? did we, do we draw any big conclusions about the metagame and life, the universe and everything?
Mike:I think for me, it was interesting to see that some of the decks, the old decks that are really not super relevant now going into this new format, do so well, like peaker and MuTu. but at the same time we still saw, ADP Z and it turned, it is do quite well. I think the top eight had. Eight unique decks or seven unique decks. I forget. so the
Brent:I think it was seven. will Jenkins was basically playing like same 60 as Isaiah.
Mike:So it is, this is really interesting to see the variety and, basically you did there wasn't really a bad play for the event then if that's the case, which is kinda nice.
Brent:were the things about the metagame that you didn't expect? I think that's the question that I'm wondering.
Brit:No, I would say from the top eight is we would have thought going in, there was a lot of good decks, a lot of really close match-ups right now. the main thing that really stuck out to me was not, I guess the one deck to mention, Welder of me, me immune, to quietly made it, made an appearance. I don't feel like that was on many people's radars. I feel like I, Mikey had mentioned liking the perfection MuTu, which is. The more tech diversion, not the welder. the one I saw, I recall seeing a Zelle posting a welder MuTu list on Friday saying Hey, if I were playing tomorrow, I'd probably be playing something like this. And I looked at it, then it was just like, Oh, this is really good. I think a lot of people will gravitate towards this. And yeah, I was one of those things where I wasn't surprised no one could switch to it fast enough for day one, but like basically as soon. So I saw that I knew Rambo was gonna play. I was like, if it's good, like the MuTu players will play it. it's just seems like a deck that like, it's a comfort pick. when, you play it well, you're more comfortable opting into it compared to, a deck like a Toronado maybe a little more just like roulette, just draw really fast and hope you get what you need and do the damage that you need to. but the main thing, the other thing that really stood out was just. The flex spots and a lot of lists. it really seemed like almost every archetype. other than baby Balaam's I guess that list always, I think was the same almost no matter what. and often didn't even play the cards from darkness of blaze, but the last few flex spots, seemed to be big. I had a lot of things I've noticed where. Big charm. I saw that and a lot of lists, I don't think, I don't think many lists were at playing tool scrapper, so it really makes sense why, that card seemed to play a big role in ADP Z lists. So I saw that did well, as well as the MuTu welder list. and what I don't know is, so I know that, the top of yeah, Granada's list is, peers that it plays peers and. The stadium card that gives you free retreat? I don't know. I don't know statistically what, like the other, it turned out as lists and top, 16 or 32 will look like, I don't know if they were or varied or more in that vein. Cause I know Mahoen also posted his list. For, I turned not as saying just like a Zillow, like, Hey, I'm not playing, but if I wore, this is what it would look like. and his was more streamlined with Veridian, forest and dark city, but I don't know which version was the most popular.
Brent:I thought the same thing you guys did, there's a really real diversity of decks in the top eight top 16. Does that, do you think that means that all decks are good in this format? Or does it mean that there's like high RNG and the format.
Mike:I think, I do think a lot of decks are good, but I think it's more of a,
Brent:Like it could be an indicator that we have a well balanced format that like you can play any debt can be successful, or it could be a sign that the format is terrible because you play any that can be successful. Like I was trying to figure out what that means.
Mike:So I think sometimes when I think sometimes when a result happens like this, it means that it was just the first format or the first tournament of the format, and people, and there wasn't a clear, best deck. So since there was not a clear, best deck, people just played what they wanted to play. And, And that was it. I think there are some times where you have a new format and there is a clear Beth stack. And then the opposite happens. The prominent, my go to example is always the, that regional that happened when the AAA set first came out, guardians rising and, drank a guard was like so far and away the best deck that it made up, like half of day two. and so that's the opposite thing. but that was also because it was the first. Event in a format you saw that format start to diversify after that. so when there's not a clear, best deck, I do think the first event in a format is often like this, where, things are all over the place. And I feel like if we had more time in this format, that might not be the case, you might see some of these decks, not do as well, going forward. Okay.
Brit:I think all of that and, ultimately it is, there's very hard to tell, but one of my biggest hangups, I think with Pokemon as a game compared to other games, sometimes almost regardless of what deck you're. Playing and you know what match up, you're playing, who you're playing against. Sometimes it just feels like, you know, you're just sequencing against each other, you're just in this game of sequencing properly playing against yourself. And then you hope to get the right luck after that. And then Oh, I got it. And you did it. And that's just the whole exchange of the game. And some games like that, it just almost. Doesn't really feel like it matters, what deck it is and what matters. And that's, more a Testament to the format and the cards as a whole than particular cards themselves. But when we get results, like that was particularly when they're new, that's always, a suspicion that I have it's, it's not that things are so diverse. it's more that they're not, it's like the, like the, it's almost a paradox in the way that. I'll say it's something like the super bowl. you don't want to close game because close games are often decided by just like a singular play and say one play where one player, messes up this one time. and that's just, statistically, perhaps not indicative of all that much. So you want to blow out, you want to blow out in the super bowl. So it's abundantly clear who the best team was. that sort of thing, it feels like that way sometimes with, when our results are just too close to call, it seems like there are underlying factors that are the reason why it's difficult to know, rather than, a Testament of great diversity or something like that.
Mike:I think a large. Contributor to that effect. And I agree with you, Brit is the existence of supporter gusts. So like bosses order Guzman bystander, when you have a format with those, with that card in particular, in combination with something like reset stamp and Marnie in the format where, there is disruption. It's like towards the end of the game, you get disrupted and it's do I have to play my supporter to draw more cards or do I get lucky and hit the supporter to win the game immediately? and I think that. Greatly contributes to that feeling of, a close game coming down to luck. I don't think that happened quite as much bef like we had this in between time where it Guzman was gone and boss's order wasn't out yet. And, you saw things with great catcher and custom catcher and, that still happens. But I think the. The feels bad moments, or it feels good moments. Aren't quite as strong because, cause their items and in custom catchers, you need to have them. So I don't know that feels like one of the biggest culprits of that feeling.
Brit:I don't want us to get hung up too, hung up on this. But I think the gust of wind is such a sort of curious example, something worth talking about in the sense that. It's often what people attribute with, when there's something wrong with the format, the formats are bad when gust of wind is super relevant, but the question there is it's a question of intent for me. Like gust of wind has almost always an effect. That's one of the, one of the original effects and it seems like it's supposed to be a part of the game. And I feel like when we sort of armchair theorize about the game, the healthiest game is the version without gust of wind. But I think mechanically, then it's not Pokemon anymore. Like we've taken. like a Rook out of chess or something, I think it's just a fundamental part. I'm not which isn't to say that, there isn't a solution somewhere in the middle. I would say something like custom catcher or something, but I just, I feel
Brent:the ability to do it to a target down Pokemon that have supportability is like rain dance, If you don't have that, then, it seems like those programs become almost too powerful.
Brit:it's tough too, because you have to balance it around that. And I think that's part of why the card is there in the first place. Exactly. For. Rain dance or chars RV and the soar compared to your you're hitting on chains and stuff. And I knew, I first started playing the game around SP and everyone, Lux Ray was really the sort of start of evolution, suddenly not being the way you could build your deck. Like some evolutions. They're really good ones that could just rare candy and attacks for one energy. We're fine. But I know, and people just complain and complain about how unfair Lex Ray was with justice. Like one time gust of wind effect.
Brent:Yeah. I hate all the big basic formats. And as I'm an advocate of Relevance for a evolution Pokemon. So I feel like the, when people have to evolve Pokemon and there's this idea of gusting and catching them before they've evolved and all that stuff like that. It's interesting. But when you get to combine gust with, I have these big basics that just stop you. That seems a horrible, but, yeah, obviously it's like much more complex than that. Alright, let's talk about, let's talk about the two decks that got to the finals, peek around. There's a with two Vika volts, apparently. there's a world where I guess if will Jenkins had not had to leave for work like that could have closed out finals. there were two of them in the top eight and one had to drop from the tournament and topic. is that the best deck and why, what is it about two variables that is just super amazing and magical.
Mike:Without having played the deck, but playing, I figured most peak rounds would run one beacon boat. That makes a lot of sense, but perhaps the, inclusion of the second vehicle truly allows it to tailor its game plan more significantly based on the deck that is playing against. Having to decoupled against baby Blount, for example, maybe they can deal with the first one. they get 600 or five energy in their hand after through a couple of turns. or maybe they just set it up before you get the item lock and they killed the first week of volt. and so then if your pig around you, if you're only playing one Vika boat and you're Back in a bad matchup, but if you had the second week of volt, maybe you go, stamp item lock, and then the second week of old seals, the deal. So I can imagine in that matchup in particular spirit tomb is another one that, not as popular, but I think second big of what will be really big. So I guess it just lets it yeah. tailor its game plan towards whatever matchup it needs to.
Brit:I think too with the way that the list of self is constructed as a little geared to being slower. Like it's not the older lists where you have. Lots of cherish ball and, for radar and stadium nav and things like that, where you're going heavy in the draw for us. It's like the more tagged lots of tag call Guzman holla, just to slowly, fetch the supporter and then move from there. But rather than the, just the HTPC goes all in for the GX attack the first time kind of the way that Picloram. Was built in the past with similarly, let's just really try to get it right. A good Coco turn and do full blitz on our first turn if we can. Yeah. And this one is, not necessarily able to do that as consistently, but perhaps able to do other things more reliably, but I'm not sure matchup wise.
Brent:let's move on to talking about, uh, the control list. Cause you know, when I saw controlling into the finals, I was like control. How do people build decks with 31 of us?
Mike:So when I look at a list like that, I think he thought about every different type of situation that a control deck will come across in, all of these different match-ups. and what is a very simple way that I can, do each one and then, So you come up with a solution to all the different problems you look at, which problems, require multiple card slots versus, one or two slots you look at where there's overlap. Maybe you like say, okay, I don't need to worry about these fringe cases because they take five spots. and that kind of thing. And then, collect it all into one. and it was really cool to see. I only. I don't know if any other games were streamed of him, but I watched the finals and I didn't really understand how it was going to beat Vika bolt until like I saw it come together and, the loop of scoop up nets and Del catty and channeler, and I was like, Oh, that's really sweet, actually.
Brent:Yeah, I thought it seemed like I been watching him do it. It seems like an absolute genius.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:but I still looked at it and I thought if I were trying to build that deck, I would say, we're definitely not going to have the one, one bell catty line. Cause like they'll get is important.
Mike:Right.
Brent:it's absolutely confounds me that he could be comfortable playing a deck that just has so many, one of us.
Mike:Yeah, it is interesting. so my other thought is. did he have contingency plans if certain things were prized. And so if a part of the Dell catty line was prized, did he have another strategy that maybe isn't as effective against VW, but could still win him the match? And did he have a plan B for all of those different scenarios? So that would be interesting to think about as well. I'm sure there's some combination of things that you could prize that you can never win, hopefully there's lots of those where if you prize one thing, you still have an hour.
Brit:Yeah, it's a really fine balance. So there's one I certainly don't have, and I would see how hard again, to stay interviews or what have you, but this would be a rare occasion where. I would, it would be an injury, an interview worth listening to, or hearing, I dealt with love to hear his own sort of personal process. But yeah, it's not only do you have to troubleshoot these very fun nine tiny yeah. Moving particular problems, but you, you you would just have to do it in a way that. So conservative, like it's not, every card, every matchup can't be four slots, some match ups, like how Mikey was describing it have to be maybe just one or two. And I was just, I'm thinking too. I saw, I don't know if this wasn't in relation to his, just doing well again, I don't know why it was floating around, but I saw another, an older version of. Just one of his like wall stall decks. And I was just thinking, similarly, I just, I don't know how, like it, it was just meticulous, like one, one Pokemon for this one matchup and I just. You have to, I just wonder how intimately he has to know the sets too. Like I wonder if he just knows every card, and then it's easy to build the deck or if he, I need something that does this sort of effect and then reads fine reads every card until he find something similar. Yeah, I'm really, I'm surprised he, the deck is able to apply in time. I'm just super anxious about time in general, but. I feel like me playing, a deck that just draws, attaches and attacks. I, my games almost went to time. I would submit, the three rounds I played and I would sit there for about five minutes and it would be like, okay, time in the round, even though we had a really fast game.
Mike:Yeah. so day two was best two out of three Swiss. So I don't know. I don't know if Sandra played day one or
Brent:I assume you had the past, the date too. he's a good player.
Mike:that's true. and I think adding onto that, it's crazy to play. Like these online, I mean like a regional is a really long time, but these online tournaments are also quite long and keys, in the Europe time zone. So thinking of how long he was playing, going into four or 5:00 AM, his time is a, also a very impressive result and adds to the accomplishment.
Brent:Is that decade super good deck or was that deck? what's funny is I, it feels almost, silly after saying all this to be like, is that a medical? I don't know. I assume he solved every deck and the whole bag going to be about.
Mike:I assume it's a very good deck, but. But not for most people, right? Like it's one of those, it's one of those decks where if you're not sander or someone that will dedicate as very significant amount of time to learn how to play it, you're never going to do better with that deck then some other deck.
Brit:Yeah, this is probably the most extreme case of that too. Like all of his lists are fine detail. Do you have to know, the contingency plan for your one-ups and stuff like that, but yeah, there's definitely a certain type of
Brent:You can just pick up and figure out each matchup as you go. Like the, as you were saying, the internet is stuck here. Like I prefer it to be more streamlined, like this other list. This is the opposite of that. Like a streamlined deck. your goal is to just do the same thing every game and execute your strategy and impose your will on the other guy. But one of the things I wanted to talk about before we talk about the players cup is just I feel like it's an interesting trend to see all of these, like people just doing tournaments online. is this the new future of Pokemon? Like it's actually, I think if you would ask me, a year ago, I would have said it's hard for other people to do this. Cause Pokemon makes all this money so they can write checks to players to win tournaments. and that's a thing. But here we see, Atlas, pod championship was able to raise$4,000 on Indiegogo. you have this hyper Lux thing. I have no idea how many people are signing up, but, they're charging 1350 and that's a fraction of what we used to pay to go to regionals. And they're going to, they're going to have a thousand dollar prize for the winner. is this do we have a new future where yeah, most of the tournaments we attend are unaffiliated with Pokemon.
Mike:If Pokemon doesn't get their stuff together. And, I think, I just think there's a huge void right now that could potentially be filled fairly easily, I think, from the Pokemon company. But, they are either choosing not to, or internally trying to figure out what to do. I don't know. But as long as they're not doing anything, people love Pokemon enough that they want to play. And I do think this is the wave until something else major happens.
Brent:Do you guys know anything about like star, city gaming and their relationship with magic or how that works? Like when I was trying to think of what's that, that was the closest thing I could think of.
Brit:I own vaguely or at least I think I know enough where I'm not gonna super put my foot in my mouth, but it's, I know enough where I can contrast it with Pokemon or at least, the difficulties of trying to do something similar, have always been impeded in the history of our community. I've always been impeded from the Pokemon side and not for lack of trying on our side, cause I think Like ARG, like really wanted, was really trying to, when they were pushing hard for their 5k events and stuff like that, like we're really trying to do, star city starts at eight games and stuff like that. but before I really even talk about it. Any of that, your question was just about their, what is their relationship to like wizards of the coast in like the magic organized player, that
Brent:is it, are they just doing their own thing or are they somehow.
Brit:Yeah, it's entirely their own thing, their own circuit. I believe the, their own circuit has its own invitational. you earn points that aren't good for the pro tour for any wizards events, but they're good enough for those. and they're yeah, they're separate, they're not officially sanctioned or anything like that.
Mike:I don't know how good the price structure is. from star city compared to the regular circuit, I assume it's less, but I do. I think that it's, fairly substantial,
Brit:I think it can be more actually, but I think that's because their events cost a lot of money. Sometimes I think you would really have to buy in to some of the bigger cash events.
Mike:Gotcha.
Brit:but yeah, like similarly, I think when you play in their events, because you buy in more, like it's easier to land in the money, whereas Pokemon, you don't really make any money until top 16 or so, but at the same time, you're not really putting anything in.
Mike:So I think that's the only other thing to keep in mind with these grassroots tournament's is you're never really going to see the money that, Pokemon would give, unless there's, significant entry fees, Atlas was free. the limitless stuff was free. There's. I'm playing. I've been playing in some of the weekly event put on by Hexter, who, the only entry fee is packs and the prizes are packed. So if you're playing for fun, yeah, these events are pretty good. fun and prestige and maybe a little bit of pricing, but without significant entry fees, we're not going to see any significant pricing back.
Brent:it occurred to me. Like it would be easy for the limitless to say, Hey, we're going to start charging$10 per event. and then, we're rolling at this point structure and now there's a, you can qualify for this other event then, all of a sudden, like you can start to create some kind of lock-in where people are wanting to participate in your events because you get points towards qualifying. For some thing, like basically recreating the star city gaming structure and you could have. Tiered pricing based on the number of people like you can do a whole bunch of things. But the fact that, somehow the punk championship was able to raise$4,000 at Indiegogo. I think that speaks to,
Mike:awesome. Yeah.
Brent:there's the opportunity. People are willing to write checks to have like decent prize pools. I guess we'll see how this hyper Lux thing goes this weekend.
Mike:Yeah, the only thing I'm and I don't know, I'm very unsure, but the legality of, having entry fees and pricing, I don't know what it is depending where you are, if Pokemon is considered random enough that it's gambling. And I don't know, it'd just be a lot of. Questions that may all have positive answers, but they're questions that would have to be asked, I think, by anyone organizing something like that.
Brent:Alright are what tournaments are you guys have doing? Coming up? Anything exciting on the horizon?
Mike:Right.
Brit:I want to get into a routine of playing in like one of these weekly things that's happening. I don't know exactly when and where they all are, but I'd imagine I just want to get into a habit, part of the habit of just trying to play more in. was learning the game again. I need to be, I want like a league equivalent or something. I just want to be able to, Tuesday nights, I play Pokemon for a little while before going to bed. I want to try to find one of those tournament experience for post rotation, but there aren't any big post rotation events coming up that I'm like trying to prep for learning specifically for, but I'm hoping that. Limitless put, maybe do another circuit, maybe early next year or something, or Pokemon has something to announce in the next month or two. We'll see. But I'm excited to learn post rotation.
Mike:Yeah, I'm optimistic that another player's cup type of thing is coming soon with that update, but we'll see. but if you're interested Britt, so something that I just started playing in, I played my second event, from Hexter, on Monday and I'm going to play another one tonight. And so he runs events every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And I'm going to try to do the Monday, Wednesday, once they start around six 30, Eastern time and they run like a leek cup would where you have six or seven rounds of Swiss and then cut to top eight. I didn't, I just played Swiss on Monday and it went from six 30, till 10, 10 30, which seems pretty reasonable. The rounds, it, there isn't like a ton of people's. I think the last tournament was the biggest one with 60 people and it, still ran very smoothly. So I was pretty impressed. so I can get you hooked up with that. So I'm playing in those, to. do what you're talking about. Get familiar with the format and get some testing in. And then, polka stats has their old format. Tournament's starting today. Actually I have a 2005 game I have to play right after this.
Brent:And what are you playing?
Mike:I'm going to play blast ICX with magnetron and Del caddy, which was not really a big. Deck that year. But, so that year I worked with my friend Paris, and we were both in the 11 to 14 division. We worked a lot together that summer, making this blast wave stack and making new CRE, which is Aptos requires a electricity ex DEC. And I ended up playing Dre. He ended up playing Blastoise and we both went seven and O and Swiss and then played each other in the last round. and he ended up, I think, losing in top 16, I lost in top 32. The, going into the event, I played Zari, but I could've played either one. So I figured I would play Blastoise for this one. Cause I didn't back then.
Brent:Yeah, that was the other thing I wanted to say about the idea of other people hosting tournaments is they could just have random band lists. They could play weird formats, like whereas Pokemon they're always wanting to play their format and advance, like push new cards, You can just do random stuff,
Mike:Yeah. I saw Russell was talking about perhaps making a. Tournament or a tournament series. I don't know. And he was like, should I ban 80 in it? And you could just do that. You can ban ADP, you could ban foster daughters, you could ban random cards and just see what happens. polka ads did do that a couple times with expanded. they created like a much bigger expanded band list just to see what, what would happen. And I think that is an Avenue worth exploring more for these people organizing events.
Brent:starts on, August 28th, has a pre show that it goes for an hour on the 28th. And then on the 29th and 30th, they have day one and day two, any predictions or any strong feelings, or is this going to be like Metta defining stuff, like is whatever toward play's going to be some crazy spicy new thing, and then everyone's going to be all over that.
Mike:I don't know if it will be spicy, but I do think whatever comes out of this will be fairly format defining. Yes, for sure.
Brent:it's interesting because there's there's not that many players in the tournament. So you, I don't know if you see this diversity of decks that you might see it, like the way you would think about a regional or something like that. really this is it's 16 players. So I, yeah, I wonder if like you could somehow make like a hard medical and win the whole thing, even though it's not the best deck or I got, I just wonder if people will think about it differently. Having said that I'm sure toured has played thousands of games with whatever deck is gonna be in play.
Mike:I helped Ross a little bit prep for the, the invitation or whatever, back when the one that toured ended up winning and. They knew who they were playing against the first round before Dex emission. So there was a lot of those mind games going on. I don't know if that's the case for this one. I hope not. Ross really didn't like that and they gave the feedback that was a bad idea because, I forget, let's say Ross was playing Henry brand first round. I'm not sure if that's correct, but let's say he was. so you know, Ross then has the history of, Henry's a big MuTu player. Let's if let's assume that there is a 50% chance that he's playing me too. Even if he doesn't play MuTu, Ross is like choosing a deck to make sure that it's good against me too. And he might take a week or match up against other things, you know, it's trying to pick like a deck in general, but Exactly. So it's, it, that's like kind of a bad thing in general, but I do think that probably, is playing into some of these players minds is, they decide their deck.
Brit:Do you remember when we had those regionals where you could do this?
Mike:Yeah. yeah. They used, when we cut to like
Brit:When, yeah, when we do had to switch to expanded, but you're, but when you're regionals, wasn't big enough for day two Swiss. So only the top eight would switch. So you would get, that was one of the ones you did well with Accella or in one of those sort of wild West top aides. Didn't
Mike:that was after I, yeah, I didn't
Brit:okay now? Yeah, but I remember thinking that and I like. I remember being right. Like I wasn't playing in top eight, but I was helping a friend and I was just like, They're going to play around. Like I just knew, like I just had a hard read and I was right and we hard countered them so hard. Like we had, we played Ray, like I just, we had the hard read that they were playing grout on and we played rails with the spark dynamo. And I was, the freest top eight for my buddy, but I don't know. Sometimes it was a, that was an interesting sort of year
Mike:So I never played in one of those where it was, and I had made top eight, but I did play a couple of those regionals where I made date too. And it was a day too. but even that effect was still somewhat in that sense too. Cause you would look at the metagame from the first day and there wasn't a huge difference from standard to expand it. And so I remember one of the day Tuesday made a evil Tal was huge on the first day. And so day two, me and Ray we both made it. and we're like, let's just play evil at all, but with righteous and you play a ride true line, and then you just beat all the mirrors and that's what happened. And I made, I ended up making top eight. And yeah. So I do think there is that effect. there was that effect then, and I do think we can, there will be some similarities to that. in this top 16 they'll look at what did that person play in the players cup before? Can I find more results from them? Because with such a small field, you would have to at least give some credence to do you know, those past results.
Brent:What else should we talk about? Is there other stuff to say about the players cup
Mike:Uh,
Brent:Jenkins the best player in Pokemon today?
Mike:maybe
Brit:It's certainly one of them.
Mike:let's talk a little bit about maybe just touch a little bit on the actual metagame. I don't know. I've played a little bit, have either of, you played a little bit of post rotation.
Brent:have not had. So how do you test post rotation? when like PTC geo ladder is not post rotation yet?
Mike:You can see it. If they play a card, that's a pre rotation. I was playing against a that's was playing against what a Mewtwo deck. And, there's a Mewtwo welder deck that actually did well in the post rotation tournament the other day. And then they discarded cell Galileo GX, and I hit the see button as Illegal card. cause I do think about half and half of the people right now are playing post rotation and half are not. sometimes it's not a big deal. Somebody who claims you're playing as an attorney at this deck and they haven't even thought GX and you're like, all right, whatever. That's not a big deal. but I, yeah, I don't know.
Brent:And so when you want to test alternate formats for these other games, is it just a matter of finding a buddy that's also in that tournament and testing with them?
Mike:Yeah, I think so. Unfortunately. so just to give a kind yeah, just a little bit of overview from the tournament. And, that happened on Monday and telly on VMX, actually one the event, it was played with frost moth, the rain dance guy. So that was cool and tell you how to be. Max was actually pretty well represented and a couple of different forms, mostly with frost moth, but some people played with Alma star. so that seems to be something people are figuring out. I think there were nowhere near an optimal Italian list, but it does seem to be. At least viable in this format, a center scorch was pretty popular as well. Those lists didn't change significantly from pre rotation. It didn't really lose a whole lot. it turned into a same thing. Didn't really there's was a whole lot. lists are fairly similar. The most successful alternatice lists were run ones that ran peers, not Marty's, and they ran Dangerous drills, like too dangerous drills. which I don't know if that's a good card. I'm sure that'll depend on the meta game. but yeah, it was peers. They ran a Umbrian dark rye, which doesn't seem great to me, but I guess the idea is you can use it, like on ADP. The, if you go second to prevent their GX attack or in the late game, you can prevent a boss for game and then set up your boss for game the following turn. It seems. Okay. so those were the two, those are like the three big decks. I don't know, remember. Oh, and I mentioned MuTu. Welder is actually still. A thing in this format, yeah, I don't think it can be a turn, a test, but it seems to do well against other things. I played spear tune again. I am trying out some different lists, but, so now, spirit team lost rainbow energy and it lost hustle. those were the two big things that I lost. I'm running like four of the new Cape for spike. Methe For bird keeper for switch for scoop of net. so the whole strategy now is switch a button. Shouldn't build up damage using the stadium card. so I'm trying some different tech attackers. I still don't own many of the new VMX cards, so I'm gonna kinda just keep playing around with spirit tomb for right now. Yeah, so that's a little bit of an overview, but I do think the player's cup this weekend, will I give everyone a much better launching point on what is good and what good lists look like?
Brent:so if you guys had to have some hot take on, what's going to win the players cup, any hot takes.
Brit:I don't know, I might just general it seems clear at least from, week, one day one is that in Italian is the biggest winner of the rotation. No more electro power is really good for it. nearly as good anymore. And it's pickup volts, probably not a huge deal. And then unless they're cycling the big attack instead. So until Leon seems probably well positioned in the format, Something vanilla. I'm going to say wins. I just don't have a good enough sense to know if any of them are better than any of the other ones. Cause I feel like Torah will display something with a ton of four hours, like ADP, Z, something like that.
Mike:Yeah. If I
Brit:my guess,
Mike:a TPM, I think if I had to choose it would be a turn it to such a need is, or something that like is very, it has a very good matchup against. Alternatives that is also like solid otherwise. But, I don't know any deck that is like really good against it. So that would be my pick. I do think ADBC is pretty good in this for it, but it's certainly weaker because the ability to get the turn when GX going second is much harder. Cause we lost ACRA bikes and order pads, which I think contributed a lot to its ability to do that.
Brent:Item based draw. There's just less of it in the format now.
Mike:Yeah. the one card that is probably not good, but I saw some people trying in place of acrobatics bikes is judge whistles. That is the only item based draw card that I know of in this format. And judge isn't even in the format. That's the funny
Brent:Yeah. That's not a good part. That's not.
Brit:Yeah, something vanilla and consistent. when, so maybe that's 80, so maybe that's not an EDPC anymore. Maybe it's a. Send a scarred, like a welder, a deck that has a welder. Andrew ACCI seems like it would be well poised to be incredibly consistent and usually early on in a format that's, as the formats get more solved you're slowly afforded more wiggle room to be less consistent, to devoted on texts. And so when we're in the dark like this, it just seemed like something that is, has no focus on texts. And this just. I'm going to do one thing. that'd be that. yeah, but I just, it seems like maybe there's a lot of candidates for whatever that deck is right now. It could be peers or not, as it could be send a scorch, I'm not sure. And hopefully it all stay pretty close, like close match ups with, a handful of decks. And I think a lot of the pest gear stuff rotated or at least, a ringer was. Often, really what made any of these control, decks work? And so with that gone, maybe the alternative wind condition decks won't be around. I don't know. I'm looking forward to trying some newer stuff. I feel like I start every new year like that. Like I'm always geared up to try to something that I just know is bad and, waste a couple of hours confirming that it's bad, but I want to try colossal. I was the first thing I want to try to mess with. the main reason why I didn't want to mess with it for the pre rotation. It was lickable it just seemed like it would be too good. So maybe if it's not any good as its own deck, the stage two decks, colossal, decidua still going maybe a little better positioned, but I'm not sure.
Brent:I definitely did. Colossal has a great name.
Brit:if it turned out as this huge, it just seems like maybe the best way you're going to get finding Pokemon to work. Cause they're just aren't good enough, like fighting Pokemon to deal with. It turned out as even in spirit tomb look throw is a little awkward sometimes or a lot of the time. I'm not, I think that's just a big reason why it as a deck is so good. Is that there just aren't the right. Checks for it. Like it's getting checked by ADP Z going around it three times. It's not getting checked by a counter Pokemon or something like that. like fire versus metal or something.
Brent:Alright. I feel like we need some kind of fancy outro soon. I haven't figured out what, like how people end a podcast, but it's like
Brit:Sorry using like Seinfeld transitions, just base our
Mike:Thanks for listening to this episode of the trash allege podcast. We'll be back next week.