I'm going to go, uh, uh, edit this down. I think I'm going to try to not use the unfilter and see what happens time to see if I like how it sounds more there. So you can, you can compare and contrast and tell me if you like having more ums and like repeated words, but, but more like smoothness in the editing. all right, here we go away. We go welcome to the next episode of the trash launch podcast. I'm Brett Halliburton here as always with Mike crochet and Britt. Pybus bringing you opinions about Pokemon stuff. Uh, as always, I kick off every, uh, episode with a quick talk about five star reviews. I don't know if the Britain mic monitor this every day like I do, but we got our second five star review made it not leave or review, but they know who they are. They will always be the person who left our second five star review. And we appreciate it very much.
Mike:Absolutely.
Brent:Uh, uh, I keep thinking one of these days, I'm going to update that, uh, do Google doc with the information about a five star review. It hasn't happened yet. It will soon, very soon. Um,
Mike:forward to it.
Brent:before we, before we get into, uh, the, the players cup, uh, I did, I did want to like capture the meta opinion on the Twitter news going around. Everybody's making tear lists about the fast food debate. I think that's highly relevant to Pokemon because I feel like. Um, uh, Mike, I don't know, do you have this feeling, but one of the things that we pointed out to people at one point during my likely cup experiences, for some reason, like every single league cup that we went to for like years and years, there was a Wendy's in the same strip mall. I couldn't explain it, but I recognize a, a deep understanding of fast food is required to play Pokemon.
Brit:Have you had to play a tournament at a fast food restaurant ever. Cause I have multiple times.
Brent:There. So it, our, one of our local leagues, Mike, have you, have you been to the Foster's grill tournament you have, right?
Mike:I have not, actually, I know what you're talking about though.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, so there's, there's one guy that runs, uh, um, league challenges at the, this burger place called Foster's grill. And like the amazing thing about it is. Uh, not only does he have all these league championships on Friday nights, but Friday night is free Friday night and you get unlimited fries. And they recently discontinued that has been, it was a very sad time, but for a while, uh, it was not healthy.
Mike:I bet.
Brit:played some battle roads at a burger King. Once I'm trying to think. Have I ever had to strictly play a tournament? We would, our venues would close a lot. And so I
Mike:I've had that happen.
Brit:I finished tournaments more, more tournaments than I played. Adam McDonald's or something, but I really, I think it was just the one burger came and I played the lead challenge at.
Brent:Yeah, no, the Foster's grill. People have always been super good to us. They, he caps the tournament at like 12 people per division. And usually what that means is like, Yeah, three or four juniors, four or five seniors and 12 masters at, um, but generally speaking Foster's bill is nice. They have boneless wings. Everybody likes that. Um, and you know, burgers and unlimited fries for, uh, the first several years we were going there, which was completely out of control.
Brit:Played at a Chuck E cheese a couple of times and, uh, another pizza buffet place too, but I think that's
Mike:funny.
Brent:Yeah. So, so I mean, the thing that jumped out to me about the tier list that I wanted to do is clearly I feel like, uh, um, I'm not going to put this on us to do during this podcast, but there were quickly approaching the time when you make tier lists of people's tier lists. Right. B B like how wrong was, will Jenkins compared to, uh, you know, a Michael K Tron, right. That, that information is coming. Cause like it's easy to express, like that is wrong. That is right. But you know, the, the gradations are what the people probably want.
Brit:I don't really know how much, you know, since there is like it's fun and you know, there's, we're in this time right now, um, through the pandemic and everything, there's just not a lot to do. And. You know, maybe you've tested enough for the day and it's time to do something else, especially if you're a content creator, but I don't know how much sense there is and like talking about it because I don't think people's sort of criteria is they're the same. So there it's, it's not like you're comparing my number one to your number one. Cause people logic and arguments are different. So, you know, I read it. Some will be like, you know, why do you have this at sea? You know, it's clearly better. And then the argument is not. You know, purely an aesthetic judgment. Well, you know, I, I get the comment, Oh, it saves money. And then, you know, the value sorts of analysis get thrown in sometimes too. And so that's why it's hard to really parse through them, I think, because not everyone, not everyone is sort of adhering to the same criteria and standards.
Brent:I think, I think the not adhering to the same criteria is almost like. Part of the nature of the tier list, right? Like, uh, man, I'm sure you guys saw, I was trying to get we'll post to post the tier list because I would vegetarian like a year ago and, uh, know, thanks to the pandemic. I basically eaten it. Maybe like two of the places on all these tier lists in the last like eight months, but it would be like, it'd be hard for me to sort it out now. So I was like, Will's been, I mean, Will's gone to all these tournaments. I know they're that he feels like as a vegan, like some of these tournaments he goes to, and it's like a struggle to eat.
Mike:I'm sure. Yeah.
Brent:But, but I'm sure when he looks at that list of like 40 fast food places, he must have like, just like, I know these five places I cannot eat that. I know these like five places. I actually have a wide range of choices. I would love for him to like illustrate it. But, but he abstained on the opportunity, but that's a perfect example of when he looks at it as a, there's a lens, right? It's not about who has the best burgers. Cause there's no burgers.
Mike:Yep. And trashed year for him.
Brent:But I'm sure there's gradations too, right? Like, I mean, there's no question. Chipotle has been a standby for me, and yet I recognize many people maligned it on the ad tier list. Chipola
Brit:You know, Chipola I think is a good example. Cause I like Chipotle a lot. Um, but it gets me yelled at, or like sort of talked down to cause people, you know, that's not really Mexican, but like I don't like choke Polag because I think it's the. Paradigmatic case of Mexican food. I like to potently because it's cheap and because, you know, the macros are good and stuff like that. Um, Ryan, so I would rank it really high and, you know, people, people, again, just sort of always talking over each other and rather sort of having a discourse. And so, I don't know, that's just like a good example of where people are going to, to
Brent:Yeah. I mean, I know you're, you're hitting right on the money and I know I've always told Brit in one day, we're going to do like the bodybuilding episode of the podcast. And that is not today either, but yeah, like I know Krista Puerco and Russell APAR like double meet Chipotle. It's like the best thing you could possibly have for dinner.
Brit:Yeah. I
Brent:And, and to your point, it's not about Mexican at all. It's just about like, this is on diet.
Brit:No. I like junk food and fast food. Probably a whole lot more than you might think. So I have really solid opinions, I think, but I'm not sure I'm trying to think of the who's lifts. I thought I've seen that had like, you know, at least I had wasn't in the right place or something like that.
Brent:Right that, as I said, when we get into your list of tier lists, that's, that's the next wave of via the internet matter.
Brit:I'd say my only hot take I have is I don't think Keynes was particularly good. And that's one that seems to be ranked pretty highly. It's too plain for me.
Mike:so yeah, I was about to say I haven't been to so many of these places, so I Kane's never been there. I don't
Brit:And see, that's the thing. I like fast food and junk food. So this is like, what I do. I like, like to try and like regional fast foods and like when I'm abroad, my, my favorite sorts of food are chips, like specifically like spicy ones. And so when I'm abroad, I just like to try. Chinese Dorito flavors. Like that's what I enjoy doing. Like, I guess part of my experience. And so similarly with fast food, you get kind of different, different arrays when you go abroad. But you know, at a certain point it's not all that different.
Brent:I I'm sympathetic to Mike though. I recognize like, I mean, a lot of these fast food joints are like regional flavors and like, I just have limited access to a bunch of stuff. I mean, if you you've never been to Texas, like you never go into water burger. Like, that's just not a thing, right?
Brit:Water burgers are in the South. We haven't, we have them kind of all over because they're mostly in Texas, though.
Brent:Yeah. As, as a text and I just can't imagine them anywhere else, but like that's as a text and I never went to like Oklahoma, uh, limited time in Arkansas. So who knows? Yeah. I don't know about that stuff. All right, let's talk about the players cup guys. I recognize we had super secret insight information, and that's why people need to listen to this podcast that had us put off this podcast for 24 hours. So we can cover the players cup,
Mike:Great. Great plan everyone.
Brent:woo players cup to coming to, uh, the internet near you. Um, I haven't read that much about it. Did it? Did any of you guys already read all this stuff and want to bring the listeners up to speed?
Mike:yeah, I've read some of it. So I'll start. And then you, if I forget stuff, let me know. So, uh, it run decentrally from the end of September to the end of October, I think maybe the 28th to the 24th, something around there. Um, Each account that is properly set up and linked will get. 50 of these special tournament tickets. I forget what they're called, but the special ones keys, the keys. Yeah. So, uh, and each of them will let you play one tournament. So you essentially get 50 tournaments that you can play. Uh, I believe I I'm pretty sure I read that it was one for one. Uh, and then point structure is a little different, but same idea. If you get first place, you get five points. Second, third, third, and fourth is one point. And if you lose the first round, uh, you don't get any points. And then at the end of the. Time period, they'll take the two 56 from North America and different numbers for different regions. And I assume from there it'll be double elimination in the same way that the last players cup was
Brent:So, let me, let me get your guys' gut reaction. Um, as professional gamers, is there like a gamesman strip strategy here? Like you only get to play 50 times and then your, your outcomes kind of count. Do you try to like front weight it, do you try to back weight it and you try to evenly distribute it, like will a meta evolve and it behooves you to, to. Wait or do all the good players. Wait, and it behooves you to jump in, like, is there some sort, sort of way you could crack the code or is it all just random outcomes?
Brit:That's a good question.
Mike:My first thought my initial thought is that 50 tournament's is actually kind of a lie. So, uh, like a tournament, if you make, like, if you play two games, let's say on average, you're playing two games in a tournament. That's actually like, it could be for like 45 minutes. Right. Um, so 50, not everyone has time to play two tournament's every single day. Uh, cause that's almost what the math comes down to. Right. Um, and so. Like, and let alone. So that's already like on average, that's two 20 minutes a day. So if you're going to front load, it does that mean you're playing five tournament's a day, six, 20 minutes a day, if you backload it. So I think most people will end up just doing a fairly average spread. Um, now people that have the luxury of doing one of the other strategies, I'm not sure what's better, but I do think that most people won't really think about that. And they'll just kind of spread it out just from a time perspective.
Brent:So does that mean? So, so if you're, if you're, uh, air quotes, you're like, if you're good, does that mean that like what's going to happen is cause I, I hear you about like the time commitment the people are going to kind of get to near the end and then realize they haven't gone through their 50 tickets and kind of feel like they have a rush to grind and you can take advantage of bad players by waiting until the end. Am I outsmarted myself there? I don't know.
Brit:It's a lot of work for questionably, the same results I would think. Um, I don't know what will be the ideal strategy. I imagine it will be all over the place that plenty of players will, you know, one a day pretty easily, and some players will play PE play 50 Friday night. Um, but as for what the best strategy is, I'm, I'm just not sure. Because as we've been seeing in sort of our online only metagame, um, it's evolving pretty fast, faster than it does between regional sometimes. And so it seems to me like you could maybe break the Neta in a way, like, I don't know, like, say we'll talk about this later in the episode, but say that the bird trio deck, like, say that it was better than it is say that this group had cracked the Metta
Brent:It was a really good.
Brit:I think the deck is good and I can talk about it plenty as I helped build it. Um, but it's, it's not a tier one deck for sure. Um, but let's just, but it's, it's weird enough. It's a weird enough sort of allotment of cards that if it would have been better, like it would have been totally a surprise. And so I think, say you create the secret deck. That's really good. Then you should probably probably play as many as you can before people start playing it, but you can see what the bird deck to just. You know, this is a deck that collectively, you know, I don't think anyone really thinks there's anything, but, you know, mid tier, but then we have, we have towards streaming it, we have as well streaming yet we have my home streaming and all with just in a couple of days. Um, and so just, you know, information is going a little faster than the medic games are changing faster. And so I think something I like that, well, I think a good dedicated group of players will we'll see like all of their players qualify with something like that. Like that seems fairly realistic. Um, but yeah, the main point I think is that it's going to be hard to play 50 and lots and lots of people won't play all 50. So as long as you don't lose your first round every time and you can play them all, I would think you would be in a pretty good position, um, with the players couple last time, just kind of, from what I could tell, if you tried to qualify, you did. Um, and I don't think that will be the case now. I think it will be harder to qualify this time around. From, I
Mike:I agree.
Brit:obvious reasons. Yeah. Some not so obvious reasons too.
Brent:Well, so, so I mean, I it's interesting cause I feel like you just said, it's going to be hard. A lot of people to complete 50 games. I wonder if that has kind of elements of what we saw over the last players cup, like is 50 tickets, too many. I mean, should they have said, Hey, you get to play like 20 games. Like, cause that'd be something everyone can complete. And then you're really getting like, quote, like the best outcomes.
Brit:don't know if we'll we'll have a good way to know until we see what the thresholds were. Um, I heard like perhaps, you know, it doesn't have to be the last day. It could be, you know, closer, close to the deadline and we have a sense of, you know, where people are if they do, if they do an updated leaderboard, like they were doing for the first players cup. But yeah, it just seems really hard to tell
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:how close it'll be. I really have no idea. Maybe it'll be similar in that. Just like if you, if you had time and wanted to make time, that's really all that you had to do it, then as long as you know, you're competent, you're maybe gonna win one or a couple of your top or pretty consistently, like you have to be competent. You can't be a bad player, but I really
Mike:Yeah, it would be,
Brit:the other way.
Mike:I'd be surprised. Like if anybody qualified that didn't use all of their tickets, for example, like I, that would be, that'd be super
Brit:But by one or two, I also mean, and like has to sort of be fully dedicated to qualifying,
Mike:right, right, right.
Brit:if it happened.
Mike:Yeah, but I do think kind of, so Brent, like what you said is like people maybe, uh, at the last minute, trying to actually use their time, it gets, I don't for, for like casual players casual. Yeah. I don't even know if they would do that. They might be like, ah, you know, I play, I played 30 of my things. Uh, it's all, it's all good. I don't need to do, I don't need to dump these last 20 tickets. Um, they're not going to worry about it as much, obviously anybody somewhat competitive will, but, um, Yeah. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see like how many people are like really trying, and it'll be impossible to tell, but like, what is the percentage rate? Is it really going to be 500 people going for these two 56 spots? Is it 300 people going for these spots? Um, yeah, I don't know.
Brit:Just thinking, thinking in terms of the numbers for like the Hexter tournaments and the pokey X stuff, like they just seem to be steadily increasing every week. but that was a big part of the first players cup is there are lots of players who are like PR like probably like me and hadn't touched their personal account and. You know, close to a decade almost. So I had to update it sort of, and have had plenty of time to keep updating it now. And so like for the first players cop, I just kind of. Was being a little more like economical and selective about, you know, like, Oh, maybe you shouldn't buy drag a pole. I'll just buy this deck, you know, codes for this deck instead. Whereas now it's just like, Oh, there's a torque, whole deck nap. Give me the code, I'm building it. You know, it's my approach to my sort of online account now is closer to Hearthstone or something where it just seems like logical just to have everything like it's digital, it's easier. It's cheaper. Why not?
Mike:That is a good point though, that I think a lot of players, since quarantine has happened, they've had time to develop their online account. And so it might even be more popular than the first player Scott, just for that reason as well.
Brent:Yeah. And I'm sure I'm sure we have, I haven't seen these tweets yet, but I'm sure they're coming of, of people who am. I'm going to say like me, but obviously it's not like me work, saving their tickets for the next thing.
Brit:I was doing that too.
Brent:Yeah, I guess that wasn't a good play,
Brit:gave up half through about halfway through the first players kind of being like, no, I just don't know if this is the best way to save my life. To spend my time as busy doing all my schoolwork and stuff over the summer is like, but I'll still play a little bit. And then by the next one, you know, in the event that the system doesn't change, I'll have lots of tickets and I do
Brent:right? Useless, worthless tickets. Yeah.
Brit:packs or something. At least now you can just go back to doing what everyone did before and just blow them on boosters.
Brent:I feel like what I took away from what you guys have said is, uh, people who are dedicated are gonna feel like they do have to make sure they play all 50 games and they're not going to want to wait until the last, like two or three days. And were they all, were they all of a sudden feel like they have to grind? So I think there probably is some opportunity for some, like, there's going to be, there's no question. It's going to be some set of players that wait until like the last week. And then they're like playing all 50 games. Let's go.
Mike:I mean, there's lots of, there's lots of procrastinate. In, in Pokemon, it's like, it's all the same people that, you know, stay up all night, going into a regional and figure out their deck. That those are the same type of people
Brent:all right. Should we talk about team on daunted?
Mike:Brett. That's all you, man.
Brent:Brent has like such a mixed reaction. So, I mean, this is a, this was like Frank's big announcement. We get the bird trio deck. Um, all that stuff. I mean, the one thing that I wanted to kind of like, there was very little information in Frank's big announcement, but I felt like the thing that stood out to me is he kinda noted how like the, the like, teams that we've seen, the people who started like DVG, I feel like the, the, we haven't seen that, like e-sports magic happen yet for a Pokemon team where somebody figures out how to like, make the economics work in some way. Um, Uh, and yet, so Frank kind of acknowledges that, but, uh, but then doesn't really say what he's doing differently other than like the people in it are uniquely cool and awesome. Such as yourself, Brit, any, any light you want to shed on like team on daunted and what it means and all that stuff.
Brit:Yeah. And so a lot of that, I think some of it is still a work in progress. Like I think sort of the general ideas that like, yeah, like, you know, trying to make Pokemon into eSports is just, it doesn't work or, you know, best case scenario. It just sort of fails worst case scenario. You're just kind of lying to yourself about whether it works or not. Um, and our, our pro player, you know, making poverty wages or something. Um, but yeah, so the general idea is not to try it. Yeah. Make it easy for it. So it's not, we're not trying to be a TSM or a cloud nine or anything like that. That's just silly and not the, not the ecosystem for Pokemon. The main idea is, you know, it's just supposed to be, um, At least how I understand it currently. Like more than that signs of just like a group of content creators or something. Yeah. Like that, like we're not, you know, obviously we want to be competitive, but I don't think we have any expectations of winning three regionals in a row or something like that. Like DDG has been able to do. Um, but yeah, it's really just sort of, uh, just like-minded group of creative people trying to do something different in sort of a similar space that groups operate on normally. And so, um, I don't know what that will end up being, but, um, more sort of like content creation and working on sort of being like personalities for the game, sort of. You know, the branding, the competitive side and the game in a way, you know, kind of something closer to like, um, like channel five or ball or something, maybe like it's, we want to be good and we're good players, but it's not about being the best. It's about sort of information, um, and trying to do unique and different things. Um, just having fun, I guess.
Brent:So, uh, you, you want to talk about the bird trio deck? I mean, this is the, and this is quote unquote, like the first creation of the team, right?
Brit:Yeah. And so it was just really just Frank's idea. Um, I know initially it started out as not a green stack. Initially the list had taboo, Coco prism star, and I never tested this list. I'm so I'm not. I'm blanking on what all else was in it, off the top of my head. Um, but the concept was in the same mean, the idea is just that nothing does 300 damage really, um, without extra work. And the idea is that you just, you take a hit and can go back in the deck and then just try to trade prizes. And, um, you don't win the game ever with the GX attack, which is probably. Not the impression you might get. You might just see a deck where that's your only attacker and assume that the GX attack is your wind condition or something. And that's just not what it's for. It's only there to heal. And you just, you just go back on the deck and, uh, you Trump walk with a polka doll ideally, and just hopefully can offset the prize race, and you have. You have like damage modifiers to one shot and say Sheehan's, um, which helps. Um, and I mean, to be honest, I tested, I think I was actually the first person to build the greens version of it. Um, at least in the chat, my list was weird and had crushing hammers and stuff like that. Just cause I that's the format right now. I guess when you find space in your deck and you're not missing anything crucial, you just throw crushing cameras in there.
Mike:Yep.
Brit:Which I don't like, I, that's probably my least favorite part of the format right now, which maybe we can talk about, but yeah, it's surprisingly fine. Like I, it draws well, like it has kind of the inherent clunkiness that green stacks will always have. So you just lose to Marnie really at any point in the game, a lot of the time and later game later stamps are hard to. But the strategy surprisingly is fine. You have some pretty, some match-ups are pretty easy. Obviously have some real auto losses, like there's, there's no attempts to solve, um, obstacles or something like that. Um, Brown's is bad. Um, actually blinds is okay. Sometimes believe it or not, what ends up. This is a matter for the GX attack does matter. Yeah, unfortunately, you don't ever kill the blouse though, but you just, you kill them with big teeny afterwards. Cause it does 20.
Brent:So you guys have any, have any reaction to all of the like band EDP tournament stuff. We saw Nick Robinson defeat, turn it to us when it's sand Conda in the finals. And I felt like a lot of the kind of band ADP people were saying, uh, you know, this is a deck that isn't viable with ADP. So it's proof that banning ADP makes for a richer metagame. But like my reaction was he hard counter to turn to this and like, uh, otherwise it turned it, this would have run over the tournament and you know, all it proves is, you know, if you hard counter the Metta, like that's always a pretty good play.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, that was pop. That was at least part of my takeaway too. Um, I think the only way that a metal like. This devolves, because I think it could be significantly different, but you never know in one tournament, you gotta, you gotta have a couple of, um, to see. Yeah.
Brit:Yeah. I mean that, that exactly. But then also, I just don't know the results. I didn't look at it or anything. I know, I know he won. I know what his necklace looks like. Um, but I don't know what the rest of the top eight or anything like that looks like from what it sounds like. It was probably all it turned to us and, you know, maybe you just have the ma or the right meter you'd,
Brent:does daily tournaments kind of discourage players from innovating because. Like, I mean, you know, you know what, the, tomorrow there's a Hexter tournament and you gotta have a deck and like, are you really going to invent a new archetype now and test it against the Metta?
Brit:See, I don't remember if this made it into the episode or if it was just what we
Brent:it did. You were like mr. Creative outlet,
Brit:Yeah, that's just my point again. Like, why wouldn't you use this time to be ridiculous? Like one of Lei in our group made top 16 in heck stairs yesterday with drag a pole cliff, like we're testing all sorts of weird things and I just truly don't understand why you wouldn't be like, you don't get anything from the Hexter tournament. Why, why would you just want to play the most vanilla tier one ADP list or something like. Like there's no, there's no stakes or anything. So like, and like big tournaments, I feel like you have, you sort of have this tension between like, do I want to, do I want to win or do I want, um, you know, maybe do top eight, something I personally created or something like that. And then when you have like prizes on the line with money and, you know, say this is the only way you make money, like you have to, you don't sort of get this freedom and flexibility. To be creative with your deck choice like that. And so again, in this space, like not for the players cup, cause here's, here's a tournament that does have some stuff down at the end of the rainbow for the players that make it that far. But I just, I just don't, I just couldn't, can't put myself in the mind space of like a competitive player who plays the Hexter tournament twice a week and just only thinks that I only want to win. And therefore I can only play the metadata. Like, it just seems wrong because there's nothing, you don't get anything out of it. Like maybe you just become the best ADP player or something because you play it so often. But again, what, what does that serve really? I mean, the players cup again, I suppose, but.
Mike:Yeah, I do think it's a, it's a good mindset to have, and there's plenty. I think there's some people that do. And I think that there's a lot that don't I think one interesting thing besides. So there hasn't been too much pushing of like, you know, different archetypes, I would say, like Brit kind of highlighted a lay using one. And I think you see that every now and again, but what I do think is happening more is that people are experimenting a lot with. Maybe the last five to 10 spots in a deck. Um, and so like the last two extra tournaments, there's a guy in the top eight, same guy playing Pika rum, but it ran like a small energy denial package. So it ran some hammers. I think it ran some yellow parents and, uh, you saw someone else play mad party with dugong. And so I think people are trying to get. Even if they're not being creative with a whole new decks, I do think there is more of, you know, personalization going on within the archetypes then, uh, then maybe you just, then maybe you recognize just by seeing like the results of a, of a deck doing well.
Brent:Right. Hey, I'm probably want that for five minute. I'm all for that. Like, let's figure out what the right 60 are. It turns out it's rarely a put for crushing hammers in those last four slots, but I agree that's everybody's reaction, right? I mean, I, you know, Uh, Michael with dragon bolts, like let's put hammers in. And I know there was an intern at this tech that just did well where they were like, I'm going to put hammers in cameras. It's the eternal answer to
Brit:Honestly, nothing feels better than beating, beating your mirror when you're not playing hammers. And they are, it feels really good.
Brent:Yeah. Well that's, I mean, I recognize I'm sure. I'm sure the approach is unscientific, but like every time they hit like three out of four hammers, they're like this deck isn't really good.
Brit:I beat. I beat a mirror yesterday where I think they hit three out of four hammers and I what's your deck. Then if you can't beat me,
Brent:Yeah. If they're hitting heads on all their hammers and it's still not working, you're just like, that's madness. How could it be?
Mike:it's like the best is even like maybe they'll hit the hammer and then they don't attach energy themselves. And you're like, ah, your hammer doesn't matter at all.
Brit:I think a part of their even why they're not all that good is because all these texts that are trying to splash them, it's when they, when you can't, when you don't build your deck, sort of what the control folk is really all that really, all that you're aiming for is usually that first attachment. And then, so when you. Don't have it on your first turn. You just, you don't draw a hammer early, then you just start to see them when they're useless. And so that's how I feel. A lot of them, like it's not necessarily that energy removal is sort of good in and of itself. It's that many decks are just really, really relying on that first turn. And there's nothing you can do on your first turn, like, but attach. And so if you go first and lose that, that attachment, you're just behind, especially with, I know this is. Probably I've format too late. But with dragon pole, when I was testing drag a pole to Tom, last format, I just, I just start snap conceding games when I'd get hammered. Like I couldn't win limb sometimes, but it was just usually not worth the struggle. Like I'll deal with this and, you know, a real tournament setting. Like I just don't, not worth my time, especially cause I was like grinding tickets and stuff. It's like, I just need to win fast. It doesn't matter.
Mike:Yeah, I feel you. Um, I didn't write this on the, on the agenda, but kind of related to this whole discussion of the tournament and the metagame and whatnot. So the last two. And a half weeks, three weeks or so I've played like two or three tournaments every week. I played a Monday, Wednesday, and then some of, and then I played like one or two weekend tournament and I've played, um, maybe like one tournament each week that has around every day. So I've been playing quite a lot of tournaments and I haven't done particularly well in most of the individual day tournaments. Uh, but I kind of realized today after playing last night, um, I'm getting like tournament fatigue from, from this. And I'm like playing probably like of the people that are playing in these tournaments. I'm maybe around middle. Like, there's lots of people that are playing more than me that are playing, you know, three, four or five tournament's every week. Um, and I, I just don't think I can do it anymore. So I'll probably stick to like one synchronous tournament a week and one like a round bar day-by-day round. Uh, it's just a lot like. You're used to, you know, in a normal season, you're playing max two tournaments every week. And most of the time you're not doing that. Right. You know, it's one tournament every other week is probably the average for most people. Um, so I don't know that it's just kind of something that dawned on me yesterday. Uh, and I wonder if other people are starting to feel that as well.
Brent:You know, it's funny when you were, when you were talking about just the time commitment of using the 50 tickets in that like kind of 30 day window, one of the things I wondered as you were saying, it was whether or not that's going to draw down attendance for things like Hexter events. Like, I mean, there's, if somebody's going to say, Hey, I, you know, I've carved out two hours for tonight, but like that two hours has got to go to burning tickets here. I can't be just like competing in these. As Britt said, like for fun events, like you're not getting paid, you know? Uh, but the players got like, I am getting paid. I got to like focus. So, you know, I wonder if all of a sudden you'll see, you know, starting in like three or four weeks, attendance fall off a cliff. And all of a sudden they only have 50 people cause those other a hundred are like, you know, I'll be back after I spent 50 tickets.
Mike:right.
Brit:Yeah. I feel like there's probably definitely is a bubble on these online tournaments. Like, I don't know. Maybe they just keep getting popular, but yeah, it seems like there, there has to be a definite ceiling somewhere, especially with fatigue, especially with, you know, when you're not getting anything out of it, which isn't to say that. You know, shame on them for not having prizes, like nothing to that, but like, that's, you know, I would maybe make time for them if I felt like they were worth more than so like, if they were, I think it would be good to have them around to like test, you know, for regionals or something. Say once we have, um, real tournament's back again, but I just don't, I just, I need an incentive to play, I guess that's just where I am in life. Um,
Brent:I think, I can't remember who it was, but I think I saw somebody saying that they were gonna start introducing these like kind of$5 tournaments so they could have like consistent cash prizing. When you do, when you do something like that, or would you still feel like. Just to frequent the tournament. Like once a week would be like, where do you draw the line on something like
Brit:Yeah, I don't think I would never, never be personally interested in. Playing multiple throughout a week could, like I said before, I, if I had more time, I think I would like to like regularly participate in something like that. Um, but yeah, where I am now having to make time for, especially too, I go to bed so early and they go late. Personally a big factor for me. Like if they started or the weekend ones I would be able to hang with, but not the weekday ones. Currently I go to bed really early and wake up really early
Mike:What time do you go to bed
Brit:nine,
Mike:early?
Brit:eight 30 to nine, and usually depends on what I'm doing.
Brent:I mean, I know he had, he had said that he was awake to wake you up for, uh, uh, the pod one. If he had realized you were oversleeping,
Brit:I was,
Brent:he, he catches that like four 30, wake up call.
Mike:It's
Brent:All
Brit:probably offer that for the next one. If I have any friends disappearing in the early morning, just let me know. Okay. Because it will be awake. Can I
Brent:if you are doing pod one at the next, uh, big tournament, we will offer a service. You can notify us. Britt will personally call you and get you out of bed. It's a thing that the pod will do for you. It'll be great. Um, Mike, I, you you've told us you've been playing a lot of tournaments. Is there a spirit tomb update this week?
Mike:Hmm. So I played, what about the band ADP? Tournament's a little bit poker stats had a band boss tournament. So that was the only card band. And I played spirit tomb with a bunch of lilies polka dolls so that I could chill with the polka doll and build my spite up. Um, it also provides, I think I mentioned it last week
Brent:It gives you that switch effect.
Mike:Yeah, it gives you a pivot, which is cool. So I ended up going undefeated in the Swiss of that tournament. I beat an ADP that was playing catchers. I played two blondes beat both of those and I beat, um, something else. I forget. Uh, and then in top four I played against, do you guys know what baby Dragonball does? There's a Yeah, so it's a, it's a stage two. Uh, For two psychics and does one 20 and spread three counters. But its ability is what it's like, kind of like whimsical. It's like when a, when they attack into it, if it takes damage, if heads, then they don't take damage. So, uh, without Boston the format, that's actually very, very good, annoying, um, cause. I even played Fiona and, but he played dolls himself. So, you know, you, you Fiona and then he just sends up the doll and you can't kill that. And then he flips heads on the dragon pole and, uh, it's not super fun. I think I lost both games. He went, uh, sick. Well, so it was four for five in one game and two for four in the other game. So, uh, yeah, not, not super fun, but I th I think he's playing the finals today. I assume he's gonna win, because that seems really good without BAS in the format.
Brent:It's a, it's a tribute to him that he really went to the trouble to figure out a deck where he could really, really exploit lack of gust effects in the format.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:That sounds absolutely horrible.
Mike:Yeah, I'm very frustrated in plugins for sure. But so spirit too. So kind of Britt was talking about plenty of fun decks and these tournaments and whatnot. And so the last four tournaments I've played different decks just to kind of like. Try my hand at them in the competitive environment. So I played ADP once I played Luke metal, once I played peek around the last two. Uh, and I think now that if I play any of these things, I'm just going back to spirit to him. It's the thing that I like playing the most. It's fun. I'm good at it. And, uh, why not? I don't have anything to lose.
Brent:Are there, are there changes you'll make to your deck? Are there things that you think are like the spicy spirit tune texts these days?
Mike:Uh, I think I'm going to definitely keep trying the lilies polka dots. They seemed pretty good without like in the no boss format. And I think they're probably good enough to play in, even with boss.
Brent:Right, right. That makes sense.
Brit:What do you, what are your thoughts on, you said you were playing, did you say you were playing pick around?
Mike:Yeah. I've been playing big around.
Brit:What are your thoughts on the deck? That's something, uh, you know, seems to be trending upwards. I, I was play testing before we started recording. Um, you know, I was, I don't know what the list is supposed to look like, but like they're gonna list together and played a handful of games with it. And, uh Torcal um, before we started recording and I was, do not like the Torah, the whole deck, but I was pretty impressed with peaker I'm actually, I don't, I had, I had some typical games against ADP, whereas just like going well going well in Gustin, Gustin, I lost like. Complete control up until the last two turns. And then I just, they had it and I actually think they, they want off a Marnie. Like they, they, they had, they got the boss for game off Marty. Um, but yeah, it was just like, it felt really, really good. I was like, okay, okay. I see how this tech is supposed to, when I've got this under control and could beat it fast enough.
Mike:So it's like, it's pretty. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's um, so. Well, I'll give you a quick rundown on the matches. I think ADP is generally favored as long as you don't have to play down more than one DNA or Bolton or something that can get like a, like a two prizes that can get one shot. Um, because generally the way the game goes, um, They, they altered creation. Then you full blitz. Then they ultimate Ray and then you tag bolt for five prizes and then they kill your peaker arm. And then the game comes down to. Can you, did you set up a ride shoe or a Bolton or something gust up like their other CRO battery or whatever? Um, that's like the most average case of how it goes. And then you usually come out on top. Obviously there's some games you have to bench two of your guys, and then they have boss boss and they win. And there's some games where you full blitz before they altered creation. And then you always win that game. Um, so it can kind of skew to both ends, but I would say. On average, that's the situation that it comes up and it can be tough. The hardest part is actually getting the Kao after the tag bolt. Right. Because, um, If they don't play the DNA down and they had, maybe they played like a one today and you tag both of that, but they have a Crow bat. So now you have to get to 180 with no GX and no electric powers. So that's yeah, usually like ride two riots. You're doing one 16 Tuesdays or goons. Um, cause you played two goons, four nets, uh, Sounds generally like gameplay versus ADP alternatice is generally unfavored, but it depends on how many switch they have. Most of the lists tend to be trending towards running for switch, which makes the matchup pretty. But if they run zero to two switch, then it's pretty good actually. Cause you can ride through twice and then use goons to, um, get to the three 40, um, And then every other matchup is somewhere in like the 40, 60 to 60 40 range. Bland is probably a little unfavored, uh, my, me to this and most me too let's play the new NICU for any of the me too. Match-ups um, yeah, so that's a bit of a overview, but I do like it, it's pretty consistent, I think, um, which I, which I like.
Brit:Yeah. So you go into your full blitz, into the sacrum, usually against ADP.
Mike:yeah, yeah. Always go for tag book. I can't CDP.
Brit:Hmm. See, I was trying, I mean, I didn't, I didn't. I don't think I had like the board state to get the turn one by, I have some stickers, just pick a bolting them. Like I just got Vic, a volt boss kill it. You know, it's hard, it's hard to work around a Intrepid sword cause your hands get so big, but
Mike:Right.
Brit:that's how I went about it and it seemed okay. Um, it was probably what I would think I would want to do against it or notice, you know, if I got to a position where. I'm really behind just to try to crawl back in was killing a Crow bat under item lock or something.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:I'm not sure.
Mike:you, did you play, did you play apps? Is apps all illegal still or no, I don't even know.
Brit:it is still illegal. No, I didn't. I didn't play apps all you'll have to show me your last site. I don't think mine is very good, but I knew that double goon four nets and made it work from there. But I have a lot of space that I kept messing with.
Mike:Yeah, I feel like I probably don't use Vika bold enough. So that would be an intro. It'd be interesting to like, think about where to speak about more.
Brit:Yeah. And see, that's where I went with my lesson. I don't know if that's right. So after that I like put in a fourth boss and like a second lickable thinking I would maybe tailor myself towards that strategy, but I don't know if it's any good. I like that the net option, I feel spamming paralysis is pretty strong right now. Like it's similar to where you just kind of force them to try to dig for switches, but. Um, it's just more convenient with the nuts. I guess I'm, I'm blanking on kind of what the, what picker I'm used to play in terms of counts on switching cards. But I feel like I have more of them now. Like I have a lot of switch and four nets, so I'm doing a lot more and a lot of current paralysis. So I'd be at a new to Decker layers. They just, they burn too many switches earlier and I noticed, and I paralysis paralyze them twice.
Mike:Yeah, we lost Sarah aura. That's the only, that's like the big one. Yeah. Um, but I, I don't know if you played bird keepers, but complained some bird keepers as well. So that helps too.
Brit:I don't, but I couldn't, I had Geraci in there at one point just cause I, I had space and I decided not to play crushing gamers,
Mike:Yeah. It's usually a good
Brit:but it was bad and I immediately cut it.
Brent:All right. Uh, so, so the next thing I wanted to talk about, cause I feel like. We have a fiduciary responsibility is then you guys see the card coming, the new garbage or coming in the next set.
Mike:That's like X amount for the amount of tools and your discard, and then shuffle them in your deck.
Brent:Yes. It's for DC garb NATO. Let's attack those 30 damage for each Pokemon tool in your discard pile. After showing these tools to your opponent, shuffled them all back into your deck. Will that be. Um, is that going to be a good card? Let's just start, let's start there. Guard NATO. Well, people want to garden NATO people all the time.
Mike:It has potential. It's not good in a, you know, by itself, but it could be very good with its support. I think. It's like night, March, right? It's like night, March or tool drop. They're good in certain meta games and with certain, uh, combinations of cards,
Brent:I feel like the problem. The problem is the shuffling them all back into your deck after you attack.
Mike:right? So if we have like a battle compressor for tools, that's a Pokemon or something like that, maybe something like that will come out. That'd be sweet.
Brent:I mean one interesting thing, obviously people can do is they, you can attach a tool to something that you're planning on, scoop up netting in a second. And that just lets you like stream. Like there's like, there's like stupid tricks you can do to stream tools into your discard. The problem is like, you have to keep doing it again and again and again, because you keep running out of tools.
Mike:Yeah. Didn't they release another card that also had something to do with tools.
Brent:I have no idea.
Mike:I think they did, but I don't remember what it is quickly, but. I don't think I'll be able to find it.
Brent:There's no question. Uh, garbage door gets like the best attack names in the game. Tornado. It's a great
Mike:that's what it's. I hope that's what it's actually called.
Brit:It is, I think it's, let me see if I can pull it up.
Brent:I mean, obviously I see you. I might supply you can never really know what they're, if they're going to like really finalize the translation. I think all we have are Japanese cards at this point, but.
Mike:Yeah, there have been some, like some of the other cards that have been released so far, also like very interesting effects. I think the, the shift tree that makes all of your opponents supporters become, uh, drawn three, right. Sharon or how I
Brent:I think it's absolutely fantastic. I mean, Kim boss's order around that. Right?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Let's go.
Mike:I think it's very interesting. It's probably like, it's probably not good, but it's very, I think it's cool that they're thinking about effects like that. Oh, here we go. I found, I found the, uh, the garbage or stuff. Um, Go ahead. And there's this, she didn't GIA. Oh, there's whims a cut. Okay. So for whims, a cop for a second energy says you may discard as many tools from your Pokemon as you like, and you do 40 more for each.
Brent:Ah, okay. So, so your whims, the cop Garvin door is a deck and the idea is you just draw tons and tons of tools. You attach them all, you discard them all, and then you cycling to your garbage order. Repeat right.
Mike:Right. Yeah. You only need to play about 10 professors research in your deck for the strategy to work, but
Brent:You, you, you could, I can see this. I mean, this is a lot of stage ones, but like when you pair it with like chin Chino and be like, we're just going to draw it. We're going to discard cards, draw cards, discard cards, draw cards. And like, that's a thing that we do.
Brit:I was, yeah, I'm not having any luck loading anything for some reason. I'm on the. That Pokemon person who has been posting the cards translated. Right. They live in Japan, I think, but there, that was posted in English. Um, but yeah, I can't, I can't get any of that images to load for whatever reason. So I was trying to, um, but no luck, but just some other cool cards coming out. Um, Snorlax seems very, very good strikes me as being one of the best cards ever printed. I think it'll be really good for the game. Hopefully this, the talent flame seems pretty good too. Um,
Brent:The shifter is the dusk dinner,
Brit:yeah, yeah.
Mike:Uh, yeah,
Brent:where all the special energies that provide one color was energy.
Brit:Does it have to be active? Like the shifter does.
Mike:No, I don't think so. Yeah. So that could, that could definitely be good as well though. We don't have any like multiple, like there's no double rainbow energy or scramble energy or things like that in the format right now. But if. Anything like that comes out, then dust ner could be very good right now. It's like, could be good, but if something like that in the appointment, that's where it's probably very good.
Brent:Right, right. I mean, uh, I imagine, I mean, I recognize there's going to be, uh, uh, I think a huge band list before the next expanded event we see, but I can see it big and expanded.
Mike:Yeah. Right.
Brit:I still don't think expanded use exists. I'm still holding out that they're getting rid of it.
Mike:That's
Brent:That's yeah, crazy. Crazy. So, so the last thing that I had on my list, and I wanted to really try to spend the time on this is Mike. You had gone to a lot of trouble to publish kind of some meta analytics. You want to talk to us about what you did there and any conclusions you reached from building all these models.
Mike:So most of this is just me. Tricking myself into learning how to use some data analysis stuff. So I'm using Python and pandas. I'm trying to learn from my own sake, but you know, the best way to learn something like that is to pick a project that's interesting to you and go for it. So, uh, I've been, I got a dataset earlier this year from. Uh, Daveed, I think that's how you say his name from limitless. Uh, that helped run one of the limitless tournaments. And I took all of their games and I was like messing around with different ways to combine the data and figure stuff out. So, uh, and I wanted to kind of revisit that with this boon of online tournament. So I, I did it for the one Hexter tournament, but, uh, My stretch goal, which may take me two weeks. It might take me three months. I don't really know. I want to write something that will go and scrape the data automatically from the different battlefield tournaments that are out there. And, uh, then also kind of create an updated metric chart. So right now, you know, getting data from 180 people. Seven rounds, you know, whatever that is maybe, and people drop out. So it's probably like five, 600 games, maybe a little bit more than that. Maybe a thousand games. But anyway, um, you still can't draw to too many conclusions from that, but if I'm able to create something that, you know, updates with 500 games every other day, uh, maybe we could get like a fairly. Cool picture of how everything from a data perspective looks like between decks. Pokemon's a little weird in that, you know, a two or three card difference in a list can totally swing a percentage, but we've never had S w like people always talk about, you know, this matchup is 60, 40, uh, Andy. They're just using their intuition right there. You know, I played five games. It feels like I should win 60% of them, but like,
Brent:right. Uh, your 5:00 PM sample size has led you
Mike:right.
Brent:you want three. So you're like, it went 60% of the time. Let's
Mike:Yeah. Right, exactly. So I think even though there's certainly inherent flaws in whatever comes out of this, it will be probably more accurate than most anything we've ever had before. Um, So this is, this is a project I'll be working on. Hopefully, uh, I can get it together. Um, but from, from like that initial data, yeah, there was some cool takeaways. I think Senator scorch and peek around both overperformed but again, their sample sizes, comparatively were very small. I think like three people played peak around that tournament. So if one person does super well peak around is gonna look like it. Overperformed
Brent:Right. Right. And if that, that one person's a Zulu, you're like, wow. Peek around is really, really good. Right? Like there's, there's bias for a player skill that if you don't have enough games that kind of mutes everything.
Mike:Yeah. But I I'm, I'm hopeful that I can, uh, get something working. Cause I think that would be really cool. It's something that Hearthstone is, uh, that I've loved about Hearthstone is the data out there is. Really incredible. And we're not going to be able to get anywhere near that level because, you know, right soon is a digital game and it was built on like, they take so many more data analytics into account as they create cards as they balance cards. Um, they see like which card in a specific list, like which cards have the highest win rate when they're played and, and whatnot. We're never going to be able to dig that deep. Um, but it's a step.
Brent:That's very pessimistic of you. So in the battlefield stuff, are you able to, uh, I mean, how are you able to get the deck name? Are you able to get the list? Like what stuff do you imagine you'll be able to scrape.
Mike:So, see, that is the biggest question Mark right now. So right now it's easy to go in, get the, you know, the player names and who won each round, and then I can clean up the data. That's easy. Um, if as long as you, you say, submit a deck list, what I've had to do for the last two, uh, one of the guys out there, his name's cash cash, man, uh, cash vendor. I, uh, I don't know how to say his last
Brent:Oh, yeah, he's been a
Mike:of the infographics. Yeah. Yeah. He's been doing a lot of the infographics and whatnot for these results. So he's, he's actually manually, manually gone through and. Just taking a quick peek at the necklace and then assigned it an archetype for each player. And so he's sent me those. So what I think I would have to do is talk to whoever's running the battlefield events, tell them when you register, if they could submit just an archetype name, right. Just say ADP or bliss Cephalon or whatever. And if they do that, then it'd be again, very easy for me to just the data right off it.
Brent:So, so
Mike:But I think I
Brent:to, are you able to access their deck lists?
Mike:If I get to, like, if the organizer gives me an administrator access, I can. Yes.
Brent:I mean, it would seem like you could kind of define rules to let you, like, if you could scrape the deck list, then you could probably bucket them into archetypes and like, just teach the thing to have to figure that stuff out. Right. And then that would allow you to do the Hearthstone thing where you could start being like, you know, it's 50 50 here, but when they add this one card, it's like 80, 20.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:everybody would want to know what that one card is. Right,
Mike:Yeah, that's true. That, that, that that's, uh, I'm not quite there yet in my learning process, but that is a, but it is worth to think about other things that I could do once I've accomplished this goal, then what's the next step. And
Brent:right, right. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a mega nerd for this stuff, but, but this is probably not what the people in the pod wine, any, any con, any things that shaped you, how you think about decks, you should play a tournament with this dataset, man. I know you said the sentence Gorge can overperformed peak around overperformed sample sizes were small, uh, um,
Mike:Well that it's, it's part of the reason why I played beak around this week, because I saw that it did well last week. And if it's over-performing on a small sample size, maybe. Maybe there's a, you know, an opening and it turned out this week, peak around was much more popular and about, uh, I mean, I'd have to do the numbers to see how successful it was, but it certainly, it was more popular as this week. Um, which leads me to believe that, uh, you know, there was at least some truth to that. So.
Brent:Right, right. I guess the other thing that you get when you do like the card. Cardia analytics is mean kind of by definition, every time you have a, uh, uh, you have the mirror match, it's, you know, the results of 50 50, right? Uh, uh, and just mathematical certainty. But like, there's probably things that swing the mirror match. Where when you look at, you say like this one card caused you to win 10% more of mirror matches, uh, you know, playing this card caused you to win 5% less. Like there's probably stuff there.
Mike:Yeah. It'd be nice to definitively mathematically show that crushing hammer is wrong.
Brent:no, we should crush Christian. Camera's correct. Cause that's where you go the right direction here. You, you always want to go into Vika bolt and start playing crushing hammers. Uh, any other stuff that was on you guys' list? I feel like we covered all my basis for the day.
Brit:No that's about it. I think I know, sort of seeing people buzzing about, um, the champions path. Stuff is, you know, an area I don't really know all that much about, because it's some money set. I guess if you're a collector and trying to flip this product, you should have pre-ordered all the elite trainer boxes hours ago because they are all sold out and already selling for like 80 to a hundred dollars each. So I'll, I'll just take it, that chart aren't I guess. Um,
Mike:Is this the new hidden fates,
Brit:yeah. Yeah. Something, something like that.
Brent:It's makes me feel like I have to go to target.
Brit:I come out next week, I guess. But yeah, I don't, I don't ever pay attention to this sort of thing, but some people who do are making a big deal out of it. So there's
Brent:You guys have tournament's coming up between now and the next pod,
Mike:I may do some of the, like one of these small tournament, but nothing major. I think I'm going to play poker poker X has their like, grinder for their. Like last chance qualifier for their like invitational, I think the following Saturday next Saturday. So I think that's the next quote, unquote, big one that I'll play.
Brent:Do you know what to apply
Mike:probably spirit too. We'll see.
Brent:spirits? Spirit's home. All right guys. And any parting words
Brit:see you next week. Leave her of you.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:you need like a bugs bunny outro.