apparently while we were recording this pod, Kevin Clemente posted his favorite Pokemon TCG podcast, and we were not on the list. So then Pablo mez, replied to him and said, let's trash lunch podcast is the greatest.
Mike:Nice.
Brit:well look, Pablo,
Brent:Yeah. We love him even more now.
Mike:That's great.
Brent:right, right. Alright. Alright. Are you guys, are you guys ready? All right. Yeah. As always it's time for another intro. Welcome to the treasure lamp. I'm Brett Halliburton here as always with Fred privates and my crochet attendance continues to be 100% a five star review update. no new five star is if you leave a five star review, we will read that five star review and discuss. Gotcha. This is your chance to have input into the pod. Be featured right at the front of the pod, and, hear all about things going on in the community from your mouth to our mouth, to everyone's mouth. we will be your voice. let's talk about, channel fireball, I asked my kids how we should be marketing this. My idea was hashtag dumpster fire cause that it was like trash and a channel fireball, a Walker, my son's idea, a hashtag hot garbage, which is also very, very strong channel. Fireball is taking over the world effective October 1st. they have many, many, many fantastic writers that are going to be providing channel fireball content at the incredibly low, low price of four 99 a month. And they have an official podcast and that official podcast is us. Yay.
Brit:I like all of those options we've got, we've got some good choices. It seems like I like trash channel, channel trash. Both of those are good. I liked all the ones you mentioned too, but I think that's pretty cool thing. I just know, just being out outside of program and I've dabbled in magic here and there, as I always thought that the channel fireball thing was like a big thing that's missing. And I think that like the top cut way back when sort of was like, kind of in that line, at least I felt a lot. A lot of, sort of romantic ties between the two. it'll be interesting to see again. I don't think it's going to be, team-based like DDG or something like that. It's just a very, very good roster basically to everyone. Who's a good writer in the game right now is part of them now. and that'll hopefully just breed good content. I think we've talked about this. Well, other people, I think before. Or at least I have in the sense that Pokemon articles just kind of get stale at a certain point. It feels like now more than ever, there's, it's rare for the, there to be kind of like an interesting piece. That's just 3000 words for why you play two dark drove this weekend or something like it's just not, not all that interesting. And I'm hoping that. Their interest in a writing site will be kind of more than just the interview tournament report. We've dragged on a time or two in here. I'm hoping to see. Good, interesting writing about the game and know just kind of the recycled content. I think we're pretty used to it, this, but happy to have them in Pokemon, you know, more attention, more people. If the game who knows what sorts of crowds that might attract, I'm sure plenty of people. Plenty of. You know, a certain type of magic player may not even know the Pokemon game is still around, but that was an experience I had fairly often being at card shops all the time, as they're just like, Oh yeah, you know, I'll play bass that, things like that. But they were just like, just didn't think that it would still exist or something like that. And so maybe it'll just get a whole slew of new talent and things like that. So I'm looking forward to it.
Brent:At w with this staff of writers, is every player going to feel pressured to like fork out the four 99 and subscribe.
Mike:Absolutely.
Brit:It's a really good deal to be sure like six prizes has never been that cheap or at least unless it's changed. I'm not sure what if it's still the same?
Brent:Yeah, the price seems very reasonable and, like I, so I've, I've access to the calendar. I should show you guys. I mean, they have articles coming out like every single day. I mean, they put together such a like big pool of writers compared to. I think any other writing site that we've ever seen on Pokemon, the articles are just going to come into nonstop.
Mike:So you're a wonder then, like the natural question is like, how are they. Paying for that. And I guess the answer is, I assume they're also going to be selling cards too. Right? And so they're probably supplementing the subscription money with that in order to pay the staff fairly. Cause that was always the person and I don't want to call it a problem necessarily, but that was. Why sites like Google beach and six prizes and whatnot had to charge whatever it was 10,$15 a month because they wanted to compensate the writers fairly for the articles and without other revenue streams, except really ads. That was the only way to do it.
Brent:Yeah, and they're, they're going to do some videos too, but we know nobody watches videos. They only listen to podcasts. they are, they, they have the best podcast in the game. do you guys think, will this open up like, well, will we get like a more diverse universe because. People like six prizes have lost so many writers. Are they going to pull in new writers to kind of that, that maybe haven't had a chance to have a voice before, but are going to bring interesting ideas.
Brit:AB, I, I don't know. I don't have too much to add to that. I do know six prizes. Such a household name or at least it is. If you've been a competitive player player over a long stretch of time, I would be sad to see, you know, it banish or something like that. So I hope Adam is trying new things with it, but I'm not sure what's going on, but yeah, maybe there's plenty of plenty of talent out there. I think, I guess one of the frustrating things about being on the other side of that, occasionally helping with editing and scheduling or something like that is that, A good Pokemon player does not make for a good writer. And that's not a distinction that, that everyone agrees on or seems to be aware of. So I, again, kind of stressing the importance of good writing over the just tournament report kind of content. So. I know some of those, I think I have a, no one person that's going to start writing on six prizes, then I think he'll do quite well. He's a Tate. Who's been part of the polka stats, which has been just a very welcome to the Pokemon community. I don't quite remember when it started. I seem to think that it kind of also happened around when I stopped playing, but I've always followed the Twitter and things like that, just because it's been such, such useful information. And it's how I've at least, I stayed part of the game and, you know, like places like the Charles R lounge used to be kind of the real stat focused writing content and, Andrew doesn't ride anymore, or it does it very often. I know he plays, but I don't think the site is really around anymore. but it'll be nice again that that's that sort of side, especially now that we're stuck online. Kind of what sets other card games and online ones from Pokemon is they just have, you have to learn the data. That's like a third element. You have to learn the game like the meta game and then the data. And we just don't quite have that data for Pokemon. And I think that sort of thing just it's the game harder and makes the better player win a higher percentage of the time, which is, you know, net positives at the end of the day.
Mike:So hold that thought on data. We can come back to that a little bit. We were talking about the players cup, but yeah, on this, on the topic of six prizes and really. The only other active subscription website, I think right now is Boca beach. Like I think cutter tap is not really a thing. 60 cards. I'm not aware of new content, but maybe they still have stuff. I'm not sure. yeah, I think, I think it's either going to these other sites, expresses it in beach are going to stop, which I don't think will happen immediately. And I hope it doesn't happen longterm. But the only way they can stay around is doing exactly what you said, friend, which is finding new people that want to write that, you know, again, like you said, haven't gotten the chance and if they can provide interesting perspectives and like Fred said, right, well, and have at least some credentials tobacco, they don't need to be the best player ever, but they do need to have, you know, Some interesting points that can be validated somehow. what would be really interesting in my opinion is a lot of players have done quite well in the online tournament's like fairly consistently that you've never heard of before. Right. So, there's for example, there's, there's one guy named Andrew Hendrick. Who's done incredibly well. There's some, I think he's a, he. Is a senior or maybe adjust agent master from Brazil. I want to say, I don't remember. I've just seen him on Twitter and he's one like, like I always see him winning or top foreign and he posted his lists and Vittorio might be, what would you say it sound right? But maybe that's another person. So there's, there's a lot of people that have done quite well in these online events that maybe this is an opportunity for them to reach out, but I hope. I hope those types of people did reach out to Adam, because I think especially in this online environment, that is a unique perspective that a lot of even the best players don't have right now, Azule is really the only top player that has had consistent success in online events that comes to mind immediately.
Brit:Well Jenkins too. He's done well. He did well on the players cup. And while also top aiding the POG.
Mike:Right. so, so I hope, I hope that perspective comes out in some way, shape or form.
Brent:Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. We, so channel fireball, it's a big deal. Everybody's excited about it. Let's show it. Talk about the players cup guys.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:I have to say, I was super happy to see that Brett did not have to use all of his keys to get the first win. Good job. Right. You make us proud.
Brit:No, I didn't, you know, realistically, I don't think I'm sure few people will qualify with that designation, but I think you can get there without ever winning. If you're top
Brent:I, you know, I feel like, I feel like when I watch Twitter, All I see are people that are just like burning through keys and complaining about bad RNG and absolutely getting wrecked. And then I talked with you guys and it seems like you guys are just tearing off dogs.
Brit:All, I mean, I'm getting Rex half the time too, but I I'm just treating it. Like I would her a Hearthstone letter or something, and I just don't think certain players are conditioned the ladder. And that's just kind of been how I think about it. Like you just keep going. It doesn't matter. Like. The, the, the key I played before we started recording, I whiffed, I whipped all four crushing hammers, but the third one was, or all three of them were on the first turn to not try to knock off an energy in the mirror. And I missed all of them before my first CRO bat. And it's just, you know, that's only one of many experiences like between 50 Ks or something as you're going to see it all. And you just can't let it shake, like, you know, get you down and things like that.
Mike:And if you have like an experience like that, just like take a break don't queue again, immediately, even if it's five minutes, 10 minutes, just like get over your tilt and then come back.
Brit:sort of the experience. I don't know if either of you are familiar, but it reminds me of this bet. I don't even, I don't remember. The episode, the SpongeBob bit where they have to run through the perfume section. And they're just sort of getting like blasted by perfume the whole time and eat for me. Each of those blasts is like arc crushing hammer heads, tails capture heads. And just, it's like, Oh, I prized both my Lou Carrio Mel metal in the finals today. Like, it's just that. And you just keep running. You've got to get to the exit. And I just think that's the only mentality to sort of the only way to get through this because sadly, I think the format is not so great. It's not a great one. it was definitely the most I've played in a long time, like years, years. So if I've played, I've been through how many I'm going through now, 30 something I'm through 31 keys currently. that's a lot of Pokemon
Brent:It's because I write, so I feel like we could go before that people had their keys, you know, Mike was saying, you know, if you, if you go through two keys a day, that's actually like a fair, a fair bit of Pokemon. Like, but yeah. I feel like what I've seen, like the people who are streaming stuff, talking with you guys, I feel like good place kind of jumped in and they're burning. He's like much faster than I think I expected.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, for me, I just kind of high road then to having time this week. And so I'm trying to capitalize on that. I'm just like, I just turned in a big paper and I'm like waiting on feedback from multiple professors on like the one I'm working on for my app, like the application process. So I just kind of don't have anything currently. And that's that hasn't happened this semester yet. So I'm, I'm going to try to finish this week for sure. And I imagine I'll finish
Brent:before we go, before we talk about Mike stuff, do you want to talk about the, you know, the deck should play in how it's gone? I know the last time I checked the leaderboard earlier today, you were, you were in like 52nd place with 40 points or something like that.
Brit:I just checked a second ago and I really, I guess that's part of why I'm playing early as I get the ego inflation of being high up on the list. I'm sure I won't stay that way because I'm losing in top eight pretty often, but I imagine, I think I'm on a good pace to qualify. I'm sure. but yeah, I'd be happy to talk about it. I have, and this is kind of how I play Hearthstone. And again, this is not habits of a successful player. These are my habits as an incredibly casual player who does like does okay. Every now and then. And so in Hearthstone, like I just don't, you know, I don't compete for high legend for them, like some months I do, but for the most part, I'm just kind of playing and trying to get, like I have all the. Every class, but demon Hunter at a thousand wins. So that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to just like do my daily quests and max out all the cosmetic stuff. And so what I do there is that I just play a certain deck until I lose two in a row and then I'll switch and that's just kind of how I stay off tilt and keeps it interesting and things like that. So that's kind of what I've been doing here. for the most part I have kind of played all one deck. For most of like for today, for instance, I've played mostly Lou Carrio, Mel metal and yesterday I played mostly IntelliJ on, but if I ever, if I ever kind of like dropped two in a row, I'll switch decks and I've played a little wheezing, a little bit of clay DP, a little bit of, I played the situ I lost like four in a row and lost in top eight of four. And so I don't think I'm touching the citywide again. and the Metta definitely like yesterday, I didn't play any son of scorch today and, but I played against a lot yesterday, which was great. It has been great for me cause I've played in tele on yesterday and today I'm playing with Carrio. But just stuff like that, it's hard. The ADP is just the best deck by far. Like it's one of those things where, you know, you hear people talk about it, but if you don't play as much, I think the arguments for banning it or not banning, it are not quite as cogent as they should be. And I remember Tate, the polka stats person again, had this funny tweet, not too long ago. It's just like, You know, ADP, ADP players are just bad most of the time. And that's, that's how the, some of these decks are squeaking, squeaking up their wind percentage or what have you. And that's just kinda my, like, you can beat the bad 80 few players with whatever you play, but like when you play a competent player, like you better draw well and hope they don't because you won't beat them the most part. And if you're not as can, can win. If you there's a, there's a, there's a reasonable exchange or internet as can be. DDTP pretty reasonably, but it's definitely the best deck. I don't like the clay build, even though I have one with it. I don't, I ran it. There's some bad games with it and preferring playing a non flippy build with real supporters and stuff instead. But when cloudy few draws, well, you also can't beat it. So.
Brent:Did you guys see Michael K trons tweet a was it last night? This morning? He, he was, he was like complaining about KDP and then he posted a screenshot, like he's playing clay DP. He turn one plays, clay discards, the DNA ADP my while, metal clay, double water.
Mike:Nice. Yeah, that happens. Sometimes. The last one that I played, I turned one clade and discarded both ATPs in the mirror. And so just to lose.
Brit:That's the thing that, again, treating it like a ladder. I'm not playing out games. Like I would at a regional or something. You just snap can see it and go onto the next one. Like stuff like that. Can't get tilted. You just got to finish.
Brent:So, so is there a deck that you've had the most success with?
Brit:no, I'm playing to make a cute little infographic when I'm, when I'm through with everything. Cause I've kept good notes on my games and stuff like that, but no off the top of my head, I don't know what I've won the most with. I honestly haven't won very many. I've probably won close to 10, but under 10, still at this point, I think probably about five or six. so I have one of one, one with IntelliJ on one with clay DP. one with regular ADP. I don't remember if I wanted any today with Lucara. I think I want one, but I'm blanking. It all gets blended together when you play them so fast. But I scroll through here part of it too, is you just, you know, you might get the bad luck. You might get captured out, crushing hammered out of games sometimes, but you play it you'll play enough of them. You'll be on the other side. Plenty. For instance, the one I won just a bit ago with regular ADP. was I finals was against the mirror and I had no way to win other than an arbitrary or ringer for one. And if it was boss, I won and it was so, which was great. I just lost the game on the next term, no matter what otherwise. So.
Brent:No. Wait, we call that skillfully thinning your deck to prepare for the ringer.
Brit:I mean, I did it, I did it all properly, especially that turn, but there was a 2020 card deck or something. And I think, I think I only had two, I think two bosses were in the discard already. but yeah, and you'll, you know, cause it's just bearing it and at 50 tournaments, you'll see it all.
Brent:Mike, you want to talk about your run?
Mike:Quick while we're talking about variance. I. I've been talking to Zander Perro about, just some statistics and, probability, but not statistics, probability of different things. And I, I made a funny tweet or I thought it was funny that, I said, I know, I sometimes wish I knew more about profitability, but most of the time I wish I knew less. For these situations, right? Is that just like some it's so tilting sometimes when you know that like, Oh man, I had about an 85% dance of hitting X thing to win the game and I whiffed. and it's extremely frustrating. so I haven't played that many, I play let's see, I think nine. Yeah, I played nine. I played. Eight of them with KDP and one of them with peek around. Cause I got frustrated after I hit the double ADP clay. so I played one with peek around. I have only lost in top topic one time, which was pretty cool. That was the game where this credit book ADP, But I've also, and so like, there's been a couple of games like that, but then I've also had a game. I won finals game, I think, against alternatives where, he went sick. I got like turned to GX. Then he killed my ADP and I know energy on the board and tobacco turns. I drew double saucer attach boss, a Crow back, like both turn. And then, so like I did at first he killed my station. I did it again. Right. And so that was insane. And aura Korea was the main reason for that. so
Brent:So, so are you just playing John's list
Mike:it's a couple cards different, but it's pretty much the same. I've been in a big charm. That was kind of like the big difference. but more or less it's the same.
Brent:or no?
Mike:yeah, but I don't know. I've won, let's say I've won three, top forward the rest, except for one. So I'm at 24 minutes with the nine things. So I've been keeping track. That's what I want to talk about data. I've been keeping track of, my matchups. Which I think is pretty easy to do in this format, because as you have a little bit of time in between the round, so, it's pretty easy to just kind of keep a spreadsheet of, you know, I played this deck, they played this deck. I'm also keeping track of who went first or second. I can credit this actually to Ross, Ross wanted, me and him and a couple of our other friends that are planning to like, I'll have one spreadsheet where we all have the data together. And I think it's a, I think it's good. It's an easy way to kind of aggregate match data and kind of look at it. and. The other thing I was going to say is kind of similar to bread. I had a little bit of time these last couple of days probably won't play again for another week or so. so I'm not burning through my stuff and, yeah, well we'll revisit it probably in four or five days. And I can't really imagine not playing ADP a lot more. Like it's just so good. I might not play clay version, but
Brit:Just don't like the mirror. That's the only reason I haven't played it every, every time it's, it's just not fun. Like I had fun playing in tele on, even if it's really clunky sometimes. And so I guess that's part of how I'm staying afloat is just, I don't, I not really worried. Like if I don't qualify, maybe I should have played more ADP and that's fine. but I feel pretty good about my chances. Just trying to. When the first round, every time I wonder too, I guess, as it probably. Good place to talk about it, but not just, you know, people are speculating, what the cutoffs going to be, you know, like what is, who is two 56, but I'm wondering like other questions too. I wonder, like how many, any times can you lose? And top eight before you're immediately out of the running, things like that, or I'm kind of more interested in, I don't think the cutoff will be nearly as high as I've seen some people speculate, but the questions like that I do wonder about, and I guess it's all right. Contextual or circumstantial because there's a, well, you know, I did lose in top eight, 25 times what I want and the other 25, like Brian. So you can skew it with better performances, but I, I have 11 or 12 loses in top eight. So far. One of them is a disconnect, What's frustrating too. I guess even most of the losses. So many of the losses are nail biters and that's just the format, I guess. Yes. almost all of my losses, not the top eight ones necessarily, but so many of the top fours and finals that I've lost were just like the bad variants that I
Brent:I mean, a lot of these, a lot of these ADP things kind of to Mike's point is like, if you had one more turn, you'd win, but they're like, by definition, you were never going to get that term. Right.
Brit:So, yeah, I wonder I'm getting, I guessed just off the top of my head. I think before starting I had my estimate was like 15 ish, but that's probably pretty low. You would probably lose a, quite a bit more than that, but will be interesting to see, and I'm sure it will just be all over the place. Cause again, If you're doing, if you win most of them, it doesn't matter. But if you're struggling for points, then the light up don't matter. So.
Brent:Interesting. It'd be so easy for them. Like literally, yeah. I have just enough of a sense of how code gets written to like, understand that this is just a couple of lines of code. Like they could add two more columns that kind of tells you the average points per key for a person and like the standard deviation for that. Cause like, like, you know, I mean, I feel like with the standard deviation that kind of gets at your question of, are they, are they getting their points by essentially high rolling? Or are they getting consistent outcomes? Right. And those are, those are like two very different strategies, right?
Brit:Yeah, and I'm
Brent:to go to just top four, every time you play ADP, if you want to like high role, you play Starlee control. And like every fourth game, you win the tournament. Cause like you just lucked into it, but you get, you know, run out of top eight every other time. Right?
Brit:guess is that one point per key is, will probably be the average. That seems pretty
Mike:That's what I, that's what I was trying to think about yesterday a little bit. Cause I saw someone posts. They're average. And I was reminded of the fact that there's only 10 points given out. Right. So like divided by eight that's one in a quarter. Right? So maybe one and a quarter is the a is what you should be striving for. I don't know.
Brent:I like that, that, that seems that it seems grounded in some essence of mathematical approach.
Brit:Yeah, I guess too. And my deck choice by foregoing playing ADP for the most part or just my strategy is I want to win the first round. So my lists are always hyper consistent. They have outs against the decidua like things like that. That, that is what I've been doing. we're with most of my decks, just. Trying not to play something that has an auto loss. If only to try to get one point per key.
Brent:I just think that's unreasonable. I know I was messaged you guys earlier this week. I watched pram on stream below through like six keys playing all these like super tech out lists, like tons of like hammers, like, like really, really high role cards. I felt like where he was not favoring consistency. And he went like, Oh, for five, before he got his first like win. And he was just so tilted the whole time. Like just dead hand after dead hand, after dead hand. And I'm like, dude, your hands full of crushing hammer. It's like, it kind of rolls like, okay.
Brit:ADP strangely gets not necessarily the clay bill, but some games you're just the Denny's are bad. And a few of my poor performances with ADP are just like, I did everything I was supposed to on the right turn. And I drew drew through I've, you know, I play a cravat and a dinner and a professor's research, and then I'm just stuck with them. Garbage like I it's a boss and just six, four or five trainers and an energy. And you just, I just can't get blown out by anything at that point in LA, you know, unless the top deck is good, which it wasn't often isn't.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:So, so, I mean, you, you talked about how you don't want to play the mirror. Mike, do you have a strategy for playing the mirror? Like what are you supposed to do there? We need to be mirrors. Is it like, is it all about just who goes first and that's it.
Mike:Well it's, whoever goes first, unless the person goes in second, gets the turn one. So, I think the clay version gets the turn one much more consistently than like going second. The clay version gets the term one much more consistently than the regular version. so I think that's one of the benefits. Is it kind of equalizes the, the mirror a little bit. You still choose to go first. Right. But, but it gives you, I think a better shot go in seconds. but I've lost mirrors even when I've like gotten the first GX off, like, you know, they can. If they play Marnie, they can Marnie you, and then you just don't draw an energy into ultimate Ray or, you do draw the energy, but you're, don't have a gust. And then you're forced to hit the 80 they're ADP or ASEAN or something like that. And you it's essentially a wasted pack. so that's really, the thing is I think you have to go like really, really hard for you. Just have to go really, really hard to kill. The GX and then so much so that I had one game game where I like had to Crow bat for one or two cards to like dig for a gust effect because it was like, if I just hit his Dacian for one 80. Yeah. I'm going to lose the game. Cause there's no, there's like zero point in doing that. and I didn't hit it, but I still think it was the correct play to curb that for one or two cards to do that because. Yeah. So I don't so much know if that's a strategy is I guess it's a strategy. you, but you just gotta go fast. you can blink crushing hammers, I guess. It's fine. I lost two of my losses and top tours were to mirrors with hammers, which is annoying, but like I would never play hammers and ADP,
Brit:I played a mirror with all of the flips once I've no idea how they fit those cards. And that's the frustration of ADP is that. This person had hammers and turbo patch and catchers. And we're, outdrawing me still like I've barely won. and it's just like, why is my deck with octoPal? The consistency card is just not good enough. Sometimes
Brent:Richard and you'd be high. Rolling. I heard you only flip heads.
Brit:that was done well on that. The screenshots that I cared, I. That was, I had flipped nothing but tails for really long time. but I, I played more, I played against a lot of decidual I today when I was on, metal metal, and I, I never one shot at another decidua, but I got three or four heads a few times. Again,
Brent:Yeah, my kids were very impressed. Liam went off to try to calculate, like, what is the probability of flipping nine
Brit:was, do you remember this? Like, I just don't, I can't be real, but this was a city. Is there something that Jason Kaczynski was that supposedly. so the rules back then you could attack going first and Garrett dos as a popular deck, the magic carpet playing Garrett. I was having a zero energy attack. That's flip a coin until you get head or until you get tails. And for each heads draw the card and supposedly like a kid decked themselves out with it. which seems impossible. And considering it was kids, I'm guessing some other stuff probably happened, but it's still sort of, it could happen. What are the odds kind of scenario?
Brent:Insane seems insane.
Mike:That's funny.
Brent:So, so speaking of crushing hammer, I know I had written down in our, a Google doc that, cache Venderson man had reported at, one of the extra tournaments. With 149 players. 23% of the lists played the crushing hammer and just crushing hammer just everywhere now.
Mike:I mean, it makes some sense, right? Like the two best extra ADP and alternatives. And if you had a crush and hammer on either of those decks, turn one, it can be quite devastating. And if you don't then the game, the game is just over. And so, so many turns so quickly versus both of those decks that, I don't want to say it necessitates crushing hammer, but it gives other decks some chance if they hit it. So it like sucks that it like makes sense, but I think it does make some sense.
Brit:Hurts the, your ability to be creative? I think, I definitely think I could win some, if I get into a cup or a tournament that doesn't ride, don't have to play. It turned honest. I think I could easily, easily being winning with dragon ball drag a pole, I think is, I mean, I don't think we know enough, so I guess I don't want to say it's good necessarily because there just isn't data, but in paper, I really think you're fine. Your matchup before against ADP was fine. and I don't know how you would build it now. I think you would have to be apprehensive and play tons of consistency and try not play one to dinner or something like that. And not the two Crow bat two to Denny that's in things like IntelliJ on. but yeah, it's, it's just sort of like rock paper scissors of, you know, one. Factor impeding another. And so crushing hammers are good for the reasons that Mikey described, but then that also sort of limits some other options like drag a pole, maybe that, some other options that maybe could compete with these decks, but just can't against crushing hammering. Imagine the, the magnetometer, greens, beta decks are not good against crushing hammer. I imagine they can't deal with. More than one or two heads, I would think. and so, yeah, it's just kind of this ebb and flow of annoying things and knowing that other things. and I'm not sure I it's interesting too. And that sounds like maybe you get a really hard read on the players cup and something like dragon ball can do well. Like that would be really cool to stay, but it doesn't seem solvable. It seems like. Creativity is limited by lots of things in this format, but there's probably, there's gotta be something, at least one deck. That's another bird trio deck. That's like, wow. It, you know, it's interesting can be ADP and other things matter. And there's probably that level of decks floating around still. Yeah. Like with the right period. Volcani Indeck I don't, I've seen it in a few results that, cash man has posted a, I beat it with wheezing pretty easily. So I don't think it beats a turn on us every time. It's just like one of those things where, they capture the right period or after your turn to Volcani and you just lose, stuff like that. So even these fighting backs that are counters to things. Just aren't good enough to compete the top cards. They're just too good.
Brent:Do you have, you has your feelings about the wheezing bill? Evolved like, so I recognized, yeah, cash vendor had put out this really, really nice kind of spreadsheet of decks and their performances over like a dozen different tournaments he looked at or something like that. And, and it turned out this was, you know, right there with ADP. Like, it didn't have any wins, but it had so many, like top fours and top eights, comparatively, like it looked like it performed really, really well. obviously it's a very small percentage of these players that are playing the wheezing bill. as has playing all these games kind of changed how you think about that or is wheezing still the best?
Brit:my law, the list has good. The list keeps getting better. I think, I think the most current. Iteration. you know, I know that undone to tweet it and I know Dustin has been playing it again today. and he won the first one. He played today with it, but I'm not sure how much more he's played after that, but yeah, I think it is good and I'm happy to have some results with it. I had a sort of frustrating experience. I played. Again, I have this time to play and I'd wanted to play the Sunday, open this weekend and I played wheezing and I went, Oh, Oh three drop. and it was just like, Hmm. Maybe the deck is bad, but it was just a bad opening. And then two just terrible Martin turn one mornings. And it just nothing. And I played it for the first key Jessica and I was like, alright, maybe I'll do really bad again. And can just. Put put the stack to the side for now, but I won and I've keep toying with the list. And I got another first, when I taught for, and I've, I'm, haven't played with it in all the day, but I probably won't play anymore keys today, usually done, by the evening. But yeah, I do think it's good. I have been, I don't, I don't think I've played the mirror. I think I've beat the mirror once. but I was the only time I've played it, but I did beat it. and I think it is actually maybe a little bit better than we've given it credit for, because it's not just that you're a worse version of them. So, you know, you can win, but they'll probably beat you and hammers are hard. I imagine you just probably take 30, 70 match up to the hammer mirror or something like that. but wheezing is just really useful. You just keep pushing and active, even if you don't attack with it and you can get, get their bench down to a point where they aren't able to, pressure you fast enough. Like, you know, if you're trading blows with the V maxes and I'm able to go around you or something, and I can just keep pushing, wheezing up every turn, you have to discard a lot of Pokemon and that sort of stuff can really matter. And. Sometimes too, like the player I, people just don't know what it does still. And so they're ready for, they need Crow bat. They need to curve out on their second turn or something like that. And then they just lose if you get wheezing active. So, I don't think it's good and I'm not trying to ever sell it as favorable in any sense, but, I think it's better than, I, I gave it credit for initially. And again, just think your fringe match-ups are just so good. with it for the most part, like decidual, I like, mad party Carrio Mel metal, all kind of the off Metta II things are all really good and ADP is fine. They'll if they do their thing, you'll lose, but I've been plenty of ADP is with it too. just depends on how they draw and if they draw the hands that really need the ability Pokemon, you know, beat them.
Brent:Mike, what else? So what other stuff do you have to say about the Metta and like what you see happening in, players cup tournaments.
Mike:I think my only I've played almost. Well, I played against a bunch of different things, but by far I'd have to count it, but I would, I would venture a guess that 60% of my games have been against the ADP and alternatives combined. so I just want to play something that is decent against both those decks. And there's really not a whole lot of options that are like strong against both of those decks at the same time. Like I think peek around is quite good against ADP, but pretty bad verse. Turn it to us and I can play some fighting deck can be getting it's a Turnitin and bad against ADP. So there's not a whole lot of decks that are good against like quite good against polls.
Brit:think on paper, the cardio Mel metal is, but it's just kind of clunky. I played it for most of the day and it doesn't. I was playing Andrew Mahone's last. He. On the, his full grip tournament with it yesterday, I've, I've changed a few cards, but I, I just think it needs a one to DNA or something. You just, I have too much clunk and no support or sometimes, but, or at least on paper, I think it's even, but after playing it all day, I'd given up on it and the ADP matchup is not great. It's just all, but if they, if they get their tool scrapper, when they need you, can't beat them. and that's what the ADP list I was playing today. I put in a second tool scrapper to make sure I would beat them every time. And you do, it's very easy with two tool scrapper.
Mike:That makes sense. So, so yeah, so I don't know that that's, my goal is to just like, be good against both of those decks and I haven't figured out anything and that's why I was playing the ADP because I feel like personally, I feel like ADP is, a bit. I don't, I don't know. I feel like both it's ADP, Mira and ADP of your scripts, whereas Turnitin is for essentially 50 50, but I think ADP is just a little bit better against other decks. That maternity's is. so that's why I've been playing ADP. I'll probably give it more thought and okay. I'm in the middle of like a big heart stone binge right now. Cause I parsed in tournament, so I haven't thought too much, but, that I'll probably give it some more thought next week and maybe I'll have more different opinions next week.
Brit:I think the question that everyone is wondering is how many, if any keys will you bring the spirit to them to maybe one, you have to do it. You have to at least do one. I don't want to pressure you into, you have to wait at least win one, but you have to play one. I think.
Mike:I can, I can commit to one, but, definitely not more than one.
Brent:where the ATP pessimism is real.
Mike:Yeah. It's just like spirit. Tim is so awkward. It's like really bad against ADP. And it's like also people are still playing scoop up nets and the Turnitin, which is not correct, but they do it. And that makes the spirit team really hard. And.
Brent:I was, I was super sad when I looked at a cash vendors list to see a Tina Trump do so badly and very hyped. It's so hard last week. Apparently, despite the fact that it seems like a super fun deck that I like to play that doesn't make it good.
Brit:The crushing hemorrhages, I imagine
Brent:Yeah.
Brit:probably fine otherwise, or at least doing a little better. And I don't think we'll ever compete with the top decks, but I imagine that's really what it has to be keeping it down.
Brent:So I know Jake Gearhart did really well at a couple of tournaments over this weekend, playing Ricardo, Mel metal with dolls. Is that the list you've been using?
Brit:Yeah, I don't know. Andrew could have just copied and pasted his for all. I know. I know the name. I know that that's the Lou Carrio Mt. Metal player. and yeah, I, Andrew had three that cut. I cut one of them. That's kind of one of the only changes I've made. but they're, they're cute for sure. I, you do a lot of. Okay. Cause the next was kind of clunky, but that's fine sometimes because they just can't kill you. And you can get to the point where you, when you just Intrepid sword a lot, because you're not as consistent as the decks with the Pokemon sword. And it helps to just force them to waste their bosses early and things like that, which might make your Marnie's better later on. does a general stall more time to set up? I think they're good, but necessary to the list. Probably not. Cause I've noticed that this list doesn't try to do any of the, the weakness, energy and stuff. And maybe you just lose to send a score to anyways, but I know there's kind of a mix, a split on how to play it. You play it this way, or there's like the more tag call, special energy Guzman Halla version or
Mike:Yeah, I'm interested in trying, I'm interested in trying it. The doll seemed fine to me, but yeah, they didn't strike me as anything crazy.
Brit:I just put in more supporters and then put in some bird keepers,
Brent:so one of the, I want to talk about in the context of the Metta is the hyper Lux tournament only at 36 players. that because everyone's off burning keys, but like the price is a thousand dollars. I did, they have bad marketing. Is this a sign of like tournament fatigue?
Brit:I think, I mean, I think it's a number of things. Do you do either of, you know, are the people winning this big cash monies? Are they getting their money? Like I'm, I'm just not participating for a number of reasons, but part of that, it was just like, I don't believe, like, not that I think I would get scammed or anything like that, but I just, how do you have this sort of money to run these 10 person tournaments? I know a lot of it too, I think is stems from poor marketing. Like, it was just this weird thing that I'd say I was doing. And then like Russell yelled at him and they looked real bad and that exchange, and I was definitely like, Oh yeah, this seems sketchy. Or you could like. You know, not that I agree with Russell's methods sometimes, but he got the reaction that I expected from these people. I was like, Oh yeah, they're a bunch of kids or something. yeah, I don't, I don't know where the money is from, but I've had similar experiences, in e-sports playing Hearthstone stuff. And sometimes you get these e-sports groups that are just like kids with money and hiding behind sort of the veneer of being a professional organization or something.
Brent:Yeah. I'm assuming that they'll get, they get paid or I'm assuming John Ang is gonna send out like just a flurry of tweets. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like there was no set of angry tweets or like, I feel like discrediting around the first one, but I think the first one, they had a lot more players. I obviously here you can't charge whatever, like$5 for an entry or something and have 36 players and think you've got a viable business model. Right.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I think definitely the marketing wasn't great. I think that they don't really give that much time between, I mean, so the only person that's promoting it is Isaiah right then on his Twitter. Maybe twice, I think you posted about it maybe two or three times. and they kind of announced it maybe a week and a half before that actually happened. I think if you're going to do something like that and you really want to like a thousand dollar price book, that's pretty good and spoke about online Pokemon cards right now. So I think you've got to give it like a month and like kind of hype it up and give, give time, have different people, like talk it up. I just think that's like anything else. The time thing is, is a huge thing in my, in my mind, like limitless has a huge buildup before it actually started, the pod championships had months, months of preparation going into it. and that's, that's part of what draws cause a lot, so much of this is word of mouth, right? Mark. So much of the marketing is word of mouth that,
Brit:Yeah. And I think that just sort of. Perception of bad marketing affects, you know, your other perception. So I see bad marketing and I think also they're not going to have good moms. It's not going to be as well organized as these, like the POG that, you know, had a staff like to the brim with people only to help and stuff like that. When you just know that you're not going to get that kind of. and same with the Sunday open, like people are there to make it run well. And I just sort of imagine that there's one person doing it or something like that. And that's not a great tournament experience, but
Brent:I think the podcast Virginia says to try to wind in we'll post and like get, you know, professional judges that are highly visible in the community involved.
Brit:Right? Yeah. I don't know. I don't follow Isaiah. The only person I've seen retweeted as Brad. And that's again, probably not doing favors for getting people interested in it.
Brent:Yeah, Isaiah, if you're listening a good marketing strategy would be to find a podcasting organization to help you market your tournament. Channel. Fireball knows what's up. That's all I'm saying.
Brit:That would be interesting to see. I don't know if they have any intentions for online things, but they should, I would think, especially since we're probably not playing events next year.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Continuing to think about how you want to evolve that. Like, if they really want to go down that path, you want to, they got to build out like a project plan of like, here's our marketing strategy. And like, I, didn't kind of your point marketing that you have good judges is a thing. I mean, when we did physical events, I know I had a strong bias towards tournaments that I knew, Arcanine was going to be at, like before they were everywhere. If you had to choose, like, you were definitely going to go to a tournament that you thought Carlos was Manning Tom, because you were like, this is the only hope we have for turning and running on schedule. Right.
Brit:Oh, yeah. Tournament organizers affect my decisions all the time, especially with now. And sometimes you have conflicting regionals and stuff like that. And I go to where the good tournament organizers are every time, even if it's a longer flight, like. I know like the Virginia North Carolina tournaments are historically not great, but Vince correct colors are always great, you know, or at least relatively, I think Christine Noah's tournaments are always pretty good. I can't think of any not great ones off the top of my head, especially since I haven't really been to too many regionals
Brent:was an Arizona tournament, like two, three years ago that I did not go to, but it was like legendary for
Brit:Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't there, but I do remember the stories.
Brent:guys that covers my list. Anything else? That's all on. You guys' mind that we should talk about.
Brit:I think we're good. Just be tuned in next week to. See an anxious, me being like, did I qualify or not? I
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:We'll touch base at the end of October, but
Mike:Yeah, we still got a lot of time. We still got a lot of time left. I think in a week's time, we'll have kind of a better sense of maybe being able to answer the question of, we're not gonna be able to answer the question, but we might have a better sense of number wise. Like what is your average need to be? Can we predict what
Brit:wish on the leader boards, it showed you keys used. Cause I just, I would like to know the people sitting on top are pretty far ahead. I was looking at it before we started and it's Ian, Rob is number one currently. I believe he's dark, right, Ian, I believe. And I just like these people have 60 something points and like, I feel like I've played nonstop and, I guess I'm not too far behind that, but I'm quite a bit behind the top three.
Brent:Right, right. And it's very good. He could have just won every tournament he entered. Right?
Brit:I'm sure he's doing better than me to be sure, but I would, I would like to know. yeah, it would just be interesting to see, and again, would really just inform our ability to answer the cutoff questions and knowing that sort of thing. If it were readily available.
Brent:Yeah. It's a great point. I mean, if they would just publish the average, like. You would, you would give you so much information to work with, right?
Brit:like with the first one they released updated standings that you have to download a PDF to access. but maybe, maybe they'll do something like that, which will have key data or something. I don't know. But
Mike:So if you had to make a prediction on the number of points to qualify that. So this is like 250th or so we won't say two 56, we'll say like two 50. If you had to make a guess. Right now, I have my number in my head.
Brit:I'm going to say. So if we, if we accept that about one point per key is average. So I'm trying to gauge how, how much above that. Like, cause I don't like average doesn't
Brent:one of the quarter is the average, right.
Mike:The average.
Brit:Okay.
Brent:to the average. So, so it's like a sense, like 62 points.
Brit:Yeah. I was in my head. I was going to say 70 is safe and that that's, I'm going to lock that in for today. 70 is a safe number
Mike:Okay. My number was 80. My number was like 82. I was, I don't know. I was thinking either 80 or 85. So I'm going to say 82.
Brent:I, you know, 75 was the first number that came to mind, but that was before I had done the one and a quarter math, 75 still feels pretty good to me. Like.
Brit:I mean, I guess I have about 20 tournaments left to get 20 ish points. I wrote I'm apprehensive about hitting 81st year, but I've bombed quite a few, so hopefully I will bomb less and less as I finish up.
Brent:Moral story from bread is going to be like, should have played more ADP, right?
Brit:don't think that will be the moral of the story. I regret nothing.
Brent:The one other thing I wanted to ask you guys is do you get the impression that people are going through keys faster than you expected?
Mike:Yes. Short answer. Yes. For me. Okay.
Brent:Yeah. And like, I wonder if it's just like, maybe that it's a little bit of like a siloed window in that, like the people you see kind of talking about it are streamers and the, like, what are the streamers going to do? Like they're gonna burn some keys, right.
Brit:I think that's part of my strategy is I usually I'm playing pretty early for the most part and streamers don't play until the evening or wake up until the afternoon. I
Brent:Do you feel like that's working out well for you? Are you getting paired against like a lot of people, you know, or is it, is
Brit:No, I've, I've played against a handful and I'm sure there's plenty of these usernames. I don't know, but I did be toward, which is probably gonna be my claim to fame, especially if I don't end up qualifying. So that was cool.
Mike:Yo you're probably playing it's more European
Brit:I would think so. Yeah, but I haven't recognized anyone else's
Mike:Sure, sure, sure. So the question then becomes, do you think the average European player is better than the average American player?
Brit:I don't have a sense of which who plays more. Like, I think it would be rooted in that I don't know who has better players, but I think for the most part, Europeans are better. At least currently they've sort of been on, you know, I don't think it was the case really when I was playing, I think America was pretty undisputed the best, or at least we just won the most worlds. But part of that was because we had the most players qualified every year. But recently, you know, since kind of the advent of the international championships, you can't, Europe is clearly the best you've got toward. You've got all of limitless. You've got the French. Oh, incredible. All, very, very good players like, but I don't know how popular it is online there compared to here. You know, I don't know. They sort of all shared accounts. Like at least I did for years and years and years. yeah, I'm going to say no. Well, the cutoffs are always lower though for point for worlds point. So I think that's. Indicative of actual, you know, attendance number. So I'm going to say that the it'll be lower. Their cutoff will be easier still.
Mike:I think their cutoff will be lower just because of attendance, but it's still, it's not exactly the same question is. Do you think the average European is better than the average American cause that would dictate when you would want to play
Brent:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the, the question is, are the rounds easier or harder if you're playing against Europeans? Not, you know, how many Europeans play right.
Mike:Or is it easier to qualify for Europe or America? Because I definitely agree. It would be easier to qualify for Europeans. but yeah, so I don't know. Oh, yeah.
Brit:when I can.
Mike:Right. But most of us don't have the luxury of really choosing what time of the day we play. but it is interesting to kind of think about, cause I probably would say, I think it's probably, I would say probably the average European player is better if only because there's less. Right. And if there's less than the quality distribution is probably. Slightly higher. because they're the players that do play are more dedicated.
Brent:I don't know, like I, you know, like obviously, I mean, I think the string cause a European players we know are like, you know, the players, everybody knows they are Robin fill up towards Stefan, but, but like it, theoretically it should still be a normal distribution. Right. I mean,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:And the average player is still like average, right?
Mike:Yeah. That's true.
Brent:There's just the, the shape of the curve. Like there's less players, but like, just because, you know, like the, the like four or five players that are the first ones that come to mind are absolutely world-class. I mean, I don't know what that means about the rest of the, the shape of the curve. It's weird. you know, obviously a Brit, but also doesn't have that flexibility cause he has to go to bed by like eight o'clock.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Yeah, look, I look out in that sense. I still like, not that I'm purposely avoiding the nighttime streamers or what have you, it's just now it's lucky that it happens to be the case and what had happened. Really beat them too. If I could.
Brent:I have to tell you guys, I've been very impressed with, how you guys are doing on the, key grind. It seems like it's going really well.
Brit:Yeah,
Mike:Hope we can
Brit:I feel good again, not too certain about these cutoffs and well, we'll see what happens, but I I'm never quite, fair to myself or I'm just a pessimist, I guess. So. But I'm sure I'll, you know, I only need, if I went in to more than I'm, I'll break 60. And after that, that it's just a F a crawl to seven days. So it should be fine. 18 to go.
Mike:Alright, so thanks for listening this week to the trash lanch, we will be back next week with more accurate predictions or inaccurate predictions.