I just like thought of some cool math stuff to maybe talk about, it's something interesting and Mike is much better at it than I am. So it's nice to have like a real sort of person to talk to it about.
Brent:I think the people love math. I think people always want to hear people talk about math, right? Like all of this all is like Metta stuff is just like, like random noodling is like, let's get, let's play better. Right?
Brit:I think it's a similar point to, you know, just what we talk about. the articles, you know, wanting more than just that. And so like as a podcast offering something more to is, you know, perhaps adventageous or something,
Mike:let's do it.
Brent:Alright, welcome to the trash blanche. I'm Brett Halliburton here as always with Britt fibrous and Mike Boucher. Attendance is 100%. Five star reviews are 100%. We're up to our fifth five star review, but people haven't left us reviews. You've got to leave us reviews. I did want to take two seconds cause I keep meaning to do this. And I never do to acknowledge Chris Webby. The song Webster's laboratory is where we get our introduction and, Well, I've never told you guys this, I want to give you the ten second story of why I play that song. I started by thinking we should have a Pokemon song. So I Googled like every song that had Pokemon in the lyrics. Chris Webby has a variety of songs that mentioned Pokemon. He talks about how he, when he was a kid, he had a whole chart, his art, and that was basically the center of his life and one of his songs. So, so I looked at his songs and I was like, these seem like good samples. We could use these. And then when you go to his Twitter at Chris Webby, like a, at some point in July, somebody said, Hey, is it okay if I stream your music on Twitch? I'm worried about MBMA take-downs. And he was like, do people can stream my music anytime they like, I love it all. And I was like, that seems like a good enough authorization for us to use and kind of poke them on podcast. Chris Webby is a homie and, and we love him for it. I'm good. Let's talk about math. What's on your mind, right?
Brit:Oh, well, I, so I'm in a seminar this semester on, Descartes and Descartes sort of Amos. He's kind of the fall guy and philosophies kind of typically the first thing you learn and all you really learn is how wrong he is, but he's very famous in the history of mathematics. you know, The Cartesian plane and things like that. He has sort of this whole system and a lot of the readings we have to read. he's like, I forget what I would, what it was look like. But algebra in the, in his time though, 17th century, I believe 17th or 18th century, be quiet what we have now, but sort of confusing him and things like that. And he's coming up with his own system. And just an interesting point that I sort of thought about is that. Or no in his, his own thing, he sort of thinks that math requires imagination. And that's, I don't think how it's typically construed. I think we typically kind of think of numbers as almost their own distinct thing. and I mean, it makes sense with his view. So he's talking about shapes and geometry, and so he thinks that it does require some sort of. Other like cognitive process. And I just kind of wanted to bounce that off you guys to start today. I give you, give me your, sort of your sort of take on that. And maybe I can walk through some potential rebuttals or some other kind of cool, philosophy of math disputes, things like that,
Mike:First thing that comes to my mind is what word did you use? Embed Genatian imagination.
Brit:in, in this, in early philosophy in this time, it kind of means, It means a lot. Like we don't have neuroscience or anything like that yet. So it's kind of like a general term
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, sure.
Brit:thinking or something like that. Like the, the process that people seem to have that, other animals don't have, you know, cause we have some kind of a biology thing at the time dissecting various animals and we know they have brains. So why, why is it that quiet that, you know, we can do this and they don't seem to be able to, or something like that. And so the imagination, the mind, things like that are. At this point in time, kind of a defining feature of people compared to the rest of the world.
Mike:So I'm gonna views, I'm gonna take the word imagination and, use two words that I, one of them might be more obvious than the other ones. So when you said imagination, I immediately thought of creative and I thought of abstract and I think. Let's start with abstract. I think abstract thinking is more easily, maybe digested in terms of math. because I do think math requires 10 require that does require a significant amount of abstract thinking, at high levels, but also at lower levels to be like successful beyond just wrote. Procedures and like spitting back procedures. I mean, geometry, you can, if you, if you have, if you're able to, you know, abstract in geometry, I guess that would be like seeing how shapes it, like without actually moving around physical shapes, but actually like doing it kind of in your mind, how does this shape. You know, if I translate it, if I rotate it this way, how do they fit together? Kind of like, you know, most in Tetris that would kind of be like, a good way to think about that. in, you know, more symbolic math, like algebra, the abstract thinking might come from, you know, doing some examples of solving. I don't know, quadratic or polynomial equation, and then, you know, stepping back and being like, Oh, we've done a couple of these examples. Well now what is the general solution? Like, can we, you know, you know, pull back. And so that's the first thing that comes to my mind. And then the second word, creative. I do think there, I do think. The way that we teach mathematics in school is off and not creative. But I do think mathematics does have a lot of creativity in it because the real often I tell my kids in high school that like most of the stuff that you learned is not real math and like math. It really is the art of problem solving and being able to ask questions and figure out a way. To go about solving them. the actual act of solving them is whatever, but like figuring out what the question to ask and how to go about solving it. That's really, I think the essence of what mathematics, is. and so, and I, so I think that part of it requires quite a bit of creativity and imagination. So those, those are my first thoughts.
Brit:Yeah, I think, sorry.
Brent:in my, in my day to day life, my job is like building software and building software, is always interesting because, it's an imaginative exercise, right? I mean, the software never physically exists. It all exists essentially in your brain. And. you know, one of the things that I remember talking with people, as they're getting into the industry, one of the things that people can struggle with all the time is we have this process we put in place and. You know, and we've had processes for software engineers. We've had processes for graphic designers and people who are doing creative stuff, right. Like, you know, we have to make a webpage and a creative person would be when we say, we say, okay, we have this process, we'd go through to like, think about how we're going to make the page. They're like, you know, I'm a creative person. I'm not a process person. Don't be messing with me. And I was telling them, I think the right process helps you kind of. Focus where you should be imaginative or, you know, we don't have to be imaginative everywhere, you know, you know, we have to be imaginative at these like kind of key points and having a process helps kind of focus that. I think one of the great examples of like how math and imagination intersect is, is music. And that's why I think you see so many mathematicians and software engineers that also like play musical instruments for fun, because. No. I mean at its core music is mathematical exercise, but it's so this great act of creation and, you know, I mean, if you talk to any musician, like you can't just, you know, play anything, the thing, I mean, there's a, you know, there's these mathematical principles that underlie keys and chord structures and all that. So I've been knowing how to create, you know, chords allows you to make music that. you know, by following this mathematical principle, it doesn't sound like it sucks. you know, I mean, in the same way, like, maybe if you, you kind of jump that over to, Pokemon or maybe like chess, I mean, in chess and a lot, like the initial computers that they said, let's make these computers go to chess, just tried to brute force every problem. And. You know, the, the like first kind of big leap in software for building chess, playing robots was, building a robot where being able to look at a couple of moves and saying, these moves are bad. You know, you never need to spend more time wondering how the game evolves if you do this. Cause it's just a bad move, right? Figuring out how to teach the computer that capturing the center is like a theoretically good concept. Right. And, and we use these like, Kind of shorthand concepts for, like it's kind of a way to just weed out, you know, things that would crop up our brand as we tried to like be imaginative, right? You don't have to be imaginative about how to get off. What is it that like, the, the Tyriana Tara GX tag team attack, that's like 15 energies, you know, don't spend a lot of time thinking about how to make that viable. Yeah, it's not viable. Just go on. Right? So, so we develop all these short hands so we can focus our creativity on the valuable creative things in some way. And that's, you know, that's how process helps you. Right? You don't have to look at your hand and say, I have absolutely no idea how to play the SANDAG to invent playing each hand. I draw completely a new from my deck. You know, you should play your supporter before you sell your wish right there. I already solved, you know, two thirds of decision. You gotta make this turn. Let's go.
Brit:Do you think that like all creative processes are ultimately just kind of math or something? I feel like, not to offer, you know, an accounter or my own opinion or anything like that, but I think certain creative types would probably resist a lot of, a lot of what we're saying. You know, I think there, for some people there is kind of like, You know, there's a spontaneity to being creative. That is perhaps not capturable in description and words. You, you know, you're just inspired to do something. And, it just happens to be really good or something like that. And I, you know, there's no, it's not this sort of mechanical process, like math, where in math, you know, you can't be wrong unless you're doing it, you know, unless you've made, an error in your processes or something. If you have the rules properly, you don't, you can't make a mistake or something like that. Whereas. I think a lot of times creativity kind of comes off the other way. There's a lot of times where sort of something is really creative or new and inventive because it's against the grain because it's, you know, not systematic or something like that. And, you know, no, I don't don't have an opinion, but
Brent:it's a spectrum, but what I would say, I would say two things first. I would say I, I think, I think when it comes to math, I mean, there's obviously rules like there's mathematical principles, but, I mean, I know like, I mean, I feel like there's lots of mathematical exercises that are creative and fun. I mean, Mike, you can check me on this, but like, I feel like, solving the proof in geometry is something everybody did when they were young. And like, the kind of what's interesting about it is, like at some level it's a logic exercise as much as it's a math exercise and that you're given these rules, but when you look at a proof, like it's not obvious what the next step is. theoretically you can brute force it and just apply every single tool in your disposal. But, there's an element of creativity in solving the math problems. The nice thing about math, I think is like, you go through this creative exercise to try to solve the problem, but then at the end, you kind of know if you got it right or wrong, like it's a little bit binary the outcome. you know, like I feel like programming in software engineering. It's a very like. Mano a mano thing. And for a really old guy like me, it's a great relief sometimes to like sit down and program because like dealing with people, the outcomes are this like huge spectrum of possible outcomes, right? I mean, sometimes you win and you lose. Sometimes you lose and you win. Like it's crazy stuff, dealing with people. when you sit down to. program, a software engine at the end, it works or it doesn't work and it's a, it's a binary outcome. And in that way, it's, it can be very satisfying because you're like, I mean, it's done. Whereas dealing with people, it seems like it's never done. other thing I would say is like, I mean, obviously there's some acts of creation where you say it's like super crew, you know, it's creation, but even those there's elements of process. And if I was going to like point at that, I would say, I'm a terrible drawer. I have a drawer. That's that's technical term. I'm sure. but like when I sit down to draw my drawings, look, I mean, they're predominantly stick figures and. Like at some level you could say, that's just me expressing my artistic capability. And yet like, trust me, I don't want them to look like stick figures. And there's all these people out there like Dustin, I mean, he sits down to draw and his doodles look amazing and that's because he has practice. And I think if you asked him about his drawing, he would say like, it's not this just like I'm being creative. It's like he understands the process to draw. Like he's like, this is the thing that I do. Like first you shaved this part in the middle. I try to render this part. Like, I mean, there's, there's things you do to execute a vision and it's a combination of process and creativity. That is a, that makes it beautiful.
Mike:So kind of steering away a little bit from. The processors creativity thing. And both of you guys said that I want to challenge at least a little bit, is the fact that, you know, math problems. Always have a binary answer that like yes or no. and the rules are always binary or like true or not true. And I do understand like most of the time in math. Yeah. That is the case. But I think it's worth noting that there's lots of things in math that were chosen to be the way that they are. So, one example that we were doing in class the other day, when you take the square root of a number. The squared of nine, for example, we say that that is three. We don't say that it's negative three. but it, we very much could have decided someone could have decided it's okay, but the square root of nine is going to be considered negative three because it still satisfies the rule that negative three squared is nine, but we may, we, we chose at some point, to make it positive three because of it. Because it, then, then it satisfies the property maybe in a function where one input, one output. another one that I. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's true. another one that I talked about with my students a little bit is we know that in the ex exponent rules, that anything to the zero power is one, so five to the zero power is one. We know that zero to anything. Power is zero, zero to the fifth is zero. So what is zero to the zero? And, it turns out it's generally it's considered an undefined problem, but, in some cases in mathematics, It's useful for a mathematician to say zero to the zero equals one. And sometimes it's useful for them to say zero to zero equals zero. And so you'll see both in different, things sometimes. and so I tried to at least get people to think about that. A lot of the things that we see in math and might take for granted or. They are constructions, like a language trying to represent, you know, the truth or the world or whatever. However you want to think about it. But many of those decisions were that they were decisions they would, they're not simply just blanket rules.
Brit:I think that's sort of, kind of a great next question, kind of exactly. On both the creativity point. And that is that it's kind of, I believe the discourse really, really only leans one way, but it's still a question either way and that's are we, is math something that we're inventing or discovering? I dunno in relating it back to just the stuff I've been learning this semester about Descartes. And so he's sort of famous for, the things, the only things you can know to be true are the things that are, And debatable that you just couldn't possibly wrong, be wrong about them. And so math tends to sort of that in terms of truth methods, typically the only examples people use, you know, like a triangle is by necessity has to be a three-sided figure. And, you know, interior angles whose sums are one 80 degrees and things like that, but for him, and he wants to ground. Truth philosophy in, and, and something similar to math, but it's not because of the content of what they're dealing with, which is really bizarre to me, you'd think it would be because like, it's necessarily the case that one plus one equals two or something. And for him, it happens to be kind of what I was trying to express earlier is it's that. The rules are so clear if you do them right, you can't be wrong. And it's just kind of an interesting distinction between, levels of truth. But yeah, just to, to ask one more question is, is mass something being discovered and vented both, you know, there's the, the Fibonacci's story and things like that are. Interesting. The, just the way people just kind of accidentally seem to stumble in what seemed like universal truths and things like, is that like, I don't know. There's I think there's decent arguments either way and no one really disputes the necessity of math. Like I think a few people do, like in the sense that two plus two could equal five, But for the most, for the most part it's, it's, it's much more grounded, but I think it's just a really fun question. It's usually when I like to ask just random people intuitions.
Mike:like there's so many people have been asking this, I think for a long time, then, you know, we're not going to answer it on the podcast, but in my personal viewpoint, I think,
Brent:Wrong. We aren't going to answer this on the podcast. the answers to all your problems right here, people.
Mike:I think that, the symbolic representations that we have are certainly created, they have to like the, you know, the algebraic or Arabic numerals that we use. that's necess and yeah. So have to have been created by us. but I think the concepts that they represent. Are things that we discovered, like the notion of two, is something discovered that we discovered, but like the, you know, when I hold two fingers up to represent two, I think that is something that we created and that's kind of how I make the distinction.
Brit:Yeah, that's really good. I know it's sort of in, in terms of, evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, there's kind of a pretty simple story. and that, you know, noticing that, say I'm an early human or something like that and noticing, yeah. two Wolf's going in, you know, a cave or something and only one of them comes out. Think to myself, like, Hey, there might be, you know, object permanent, something like that, that other is still, probably in there. It might not be safe, things like that. And that, you know, that that's advantageous to me in the reproductive story, because I'm going to survive longer, maybe as a result than maybe, you know, a person who doesn't realize that distinction and walks into a den of wolves or something like that. And, you know, you base these sort of initial. Distinctions a mathematical distinction sort of in that kind of narrative. And so it ends up being advantageous from a evolutionary perspective to, to learn these things. And that's kind of the story of at least like, well, at least it doesn't matter, you know, it's, it's, it could be synthetic or something like that, but obviously it's helpful and relevant. What have you. But yeah, all this stuff is super fun to talk about, but perhaps not on the nose with the Pokemon.
Brent:All right, dude. Let's, let's talk about some Pokemon. let's talk about, should we talk about, should we do like our quick sponsored update and talk about channel fireball for a second. Brett, you said you read some articles in channel firewall, pro you want to tell people what you saw.
Brit:Yeah, well, first and foremost, the, the real thing that caught my attention today is their channel. Fireball is putting on a tournament first tournament towards the end of the month, that is free for the pro members, which should be really good. it's best of three. single elimination, I think, which is an interesting structure to be sure, especially in this format, but I think it'll be cool. I hopefully, I hope to participate in it. There's bounties for all the, their content people, their writers, and their video makers and stuff. So if you beat them, You're, you know, maybe net netted some extra cash prizes that you, you know, you don't necessarily have to finish really well to collect on new sort of you'll just get it, but nice bonus. If you happen to beat people, I also just saw that as well. Yeah. And chip will be commentating it, which should be good. There they're both have great. voices chip is a good commentator and as well, I'm always impressed with, his stream and things like that, the way he was able to place their well, and also is just really the main player who's had success, not switching because I imagine he still wants to compete in that kind of a story with a lot of things. It's just an eSports. There's something people. Realize, Oh, I make less money or I make more money streaming and it's way less pressure I'm quitting and I'm just going to do this instead. but he's just really, I think the best player who's figured out how to content create as well. and so I think that'll just lend to a tournament experience. I don't, I don't think there are any special rules or anything beyond that. I'm glad to see it. I'm glad to have more cash prizes and things like that. It's got a nice prize pool. but yeah. In terms of articles, I did, I think the, my favorite one that I've read so far, it has to be Zander Perot's for sure. And, I think this may have been related to a conversation he had with Mike. Okay. Over Twitter, somewhere in there related at the very least. but just about probabilities and percentages. And, you know, we just went on a bizarre are esoteric tangent about, and here's some like real applicable maths or you're being a good player and things like that. and it's just it's relevant. But I also sort of think too, which was Mikey's point in this Twitter thread, is that. you know, knowing the percentages is may just make you angry or something like that is once you're, once you're better at the math, once you sort of recognize, what ought to happen or what is, you know, expected to happen a certain percentage of the time, you'll just become more frustrated, but maybe, maybe that's just an argument for. my bizarre bid on randomness a few weeks ago, where I just think we have to display all digitally. Otherwise these human elements are just going to weigh us down and we'll never get true randomness otherwise. but yeah, it was really good. And so I also really liked, Well Jenkins's piece. He's not a player I'm not particularly familiar with. I know the name, he's obviously a very good player has been doing well kind of this whole time that I've kind of been outside the game. but it was reading a story. I'm always, I'm always curious about that. That sort of thing. I didn't know he was from the East coast. I thought he was. I don't know where I thought he was from, but, you know, he has this whole story in there. And again, we talk about how articles they're at their best when they're something more than 3000 words on why I'm playing to darkness trail. And it turned out as this week rather than one things like that. so it's really, really happy to see that sort of content. and hopefully it will continue that way.
Mike:Okay, so real quick on the, the profitability thing in battlegrounds, which is an auto battler game, they have this tool, you can use that, simulates eat for like each fight that you go into. it simulates, like, I don't know, a hundred thousand, and then it gives you a probability of winning each time. And like, I used it for a week or two, and then I was like, I can't use this anymore. I have to like. Get rid of it. Like I was losing like 90% fights and I was like, come on. So that's partially where that came from. I also proved a little bit of the channel fireball stuff. I didn't read Will's thing, Brett and I are both friends with well, cause he is from our area. Yeah. So what was great? I read, I also proved there's Andrew's stuff. but I didn't read it too closely. Cause like you said, we had. Him. And I had talked a lot about it. but I read, towards newest one and Sanders newest one on Sanders on, extra drill control stuff. Still, not a deck that I think I would play, but it is. He is obviously the we've talked about him being like the best control player. So it was good to see some of his thoughts. Andy Ford wrote about, Senator scorch, magnetron greens. And we've talked a lot about that a couple weeks ago, or just the greens next in general from, so it was good to see his take on it and he is playing for Kaaboo, which I said, I think it was last week or maybe the week before that taboo is playable card. So I'm happy to see toward agreeing with me.
Brent:I should everyone. All right. Let's let's talk about the players comp guys.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So, where I'd like to start off is I feel like the thing that's been interesting for me as I watched the like social media of the players cut, blow up is I feel like, maybe we were low in terms of what our goals were. Like. I feel like, For a really well known player student, you're putting up lots of points, but I think what's, what's funny is on the one hand, I feel like the way I see the reports come out, I feel like all everybody's doing it with different decks and they all kind of post a tweet where they say, I hated this deck. And then I switched to this deck and I won like 10 tournaments in a row. And now I have a good Julian points. and you know, when I played this other deck, I got no points, but like what's funny is I feel like what I see is. the, the deck that this guy had success with is the deck that this guy had zero points with and vice versa.
Mike:Yeah. Right.
Brent:And like, I can't figure out, I mean, does this mean that like, like on the one hand, my initial reaction was good players play good and figure out how to get a bunch of points. And then as it went on and I kept seeing more and more like, Oh, this deck was terrible. And then I switched to this tech and everything was fine. I mean, I was wondering like, is the meadow wide open? Like, what does it mean when like nine players? I got no points with this one. And this 10th player says I got 50 points with this one and vice versa all over the place. Like, I, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with all this information being dumped on me.
Brit:I mean, I think that it could definitely start with just general game trends. I don't have, I was never able to successfully pin them down or capitalize on them anything, but since I played all of them mine over the course of last week, so it really just about five days, I think. and I noticed, noticed various things like I, the day I, the day I played I played a ton of fire in the day. I. Played mostly Lucara. I don't think I had an, I ever had a fire. but there's, I think there's definitely a lot of randomness or scene. I don't know. Maybe that's an argument in favor of why we don't ban ADP that it seems like maybe if you're just good enough, you can succeed with a handful of decks. And I think that's definitely true. I think because for the most part, I would think, Each tournament is fairly skewed in terms of player level. Like it's not like a real tournament where after the first couple of rounds, you're really in danger of playing a good player, every single round until you, until you're out of, out of it. And so I think that's definitely a lot of it, especially after we see, a lot of top players just re it's the top players that are doing well with multiple decks and things like that. And so I would think that's, that's a big explanation for it is that. players like Ian and Danny are probably just gonna outplay who they play against. so that's, you know, that's their, their Avenue to victory with, Lucado Mel metal or a psychic MuTu, things like that. but I, I think, I imagine there are definitely, definitely metagame trends that I it's just hard to pin down because you don't. There aren't stats there aren't, you don't necessarily play against the same people the whole time. People switch decks all the time. I also played against decidua a lot early on, and then I stopped playing them at all the, the, towards the end. and then kind of to, I guess, in my own personal experience, as I had. That exact thing that Brent was talking about when I, so Ian was one of the first players to finish all of his keys in Rob and did very well. And he posted that he did it mostly with beaker. and, that's the deck we've talked about here quite a bit. And I've, I've talked with Mikey about, and I was like, okay, like, I think I know how to play the ADP matchup. I'm going to play, try to play some peek around today. And it was, it was a nightmare for me. I played against multiple fighting decks. I played against two, two, greens. I'm a champ decks. I played against a Volcani in right. Period deck. and then also it turns out which I should've thought about. Cause I think it's pretty clear, but the LA Carrio nomad metal matchup is awful. don't think it's winnable at all, unless they drop dead. but yeah, and like, I, we, we have just kind of a weird medic game in that it does some things can have a good ADP matchup when you play them perfectly and know what you're doing, like peaker rom, you know, does have a pretty good matchup, but then. You just get at against so many other things. And like, I didn't even play against any ADP the entire time for whatever reason. And then when I'm playing ADP, I get nothing but mirrors. there's just variance in the format variance and what you're going to face. They're just so enclosed tournaments. yeah, I mean, It's hard to know. I'm sure it will. I bet it just like any medic game continues to refine itself. Maybe by the final stretch, it'll be like nothing, but send a scorch in ADP. You know, I'm really not sure. I would be curious to know what's doing well. Like I would love to have stats on, you know, what if we just had like what Hearthstone has and had, you know, something collecting. Points by deck points, earned per deck and things like that. And then you would also have it, over days and things like that. So you'd have, you know, little spreads for just the various day and things like that. And.
Brent:I don't know when I hear you say that, it makes me wonder if like all these people that are like, Oh, I played this back and it was bad. And then I played this deck and I won a million points. Like, was that more a function of just like RNG and matchups, as opposed to like, this deck is good and this deck is bad, man.
Mike:That's that's really that's. My first thought was just variance as a whole, mostly. And in those two categories. Right. I think there are a lot of decks that people are playing a lot of different defects. So there's a lot of variance in what you play against. And there's a lot of variants just in game. I mean, like I can speak to just a quick example. I saw a couple people post the date. Well with the CardioMEMS metal, I think Danny posted a list or who pushed the list. someone else posts a list. They won the Hexter tournament with, and they all have one McCarthy with no metal in it. I was like, that's so weird. I've been playing too, but I'll play once. And I played three tournaments. Five games in three minutes, I prize the one loose metal, three out of five times. Right? So like that variance is just bad for me. And like, on average, if I play 20 tournament's with it, I'd might only have that happen five times, but it just happened that those five games, I hit three of those times.
Brit:That happened to me too. I prize tap your cocoa pretty consistently against hanger decks and stuff. And it was just.
Mike:Right. So, so I think variants too is coming out a lot of ways. When you have, when you have such small sample sizes on any given tournament, you're going to have a lot of variants. I think.
Brent:when I, when I saw those lists, I had the exact same reaction. I was like one Ricardo, Mel metal. I mean, maybe the moral of the story is like this kind of best of one, three game series. You're kind of. I mean, maybe this is what we were talking about earlier. There's a little bit of like, you're kind of painting, right? Like why would you not high roll? The odds that you prize? This one are pretty low and you know, you're obviously you're under the next key. If you prize it, like no big deal, but you get to put in one other card that gives you like a big advantage, right?
Mike:Yeah, exactly.
Brent:why run a two of when you, when you know, you only need one and like, you know, the odds are bad high.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, and that's why even after, like it happened the first two tours, I played three tournaments with it and I, and it happened the first game and it happened the second game of the second tournament. And I thought about adding the second one for the third quarter, but I was like, Oh, I'm not going to do that because, because of exactly what you just said, like there's, I understand probability enough for better or worse that like, I shouldn't do that,
Brent:This will make me angry when I press it again, but I shouldn't prize it again.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Brent:So, so if you were, if you were playing in the keys tomorrow, what's the play guys.
Mike:So bread's done. I've been playing a little more slow and steady. I played, I think last week I talked about, I played like nine or 10 with KDP and then since then I've only played. I played seven more. I played three with the car and my mental, like I said, I'd played four with a baby blondes. so I told, I told you guys in our discourse, but I've been talking with Ross a lot as I usually do. And we've been keeping stats together, like in the, in our same spreadsheet. And he's played almost half of his keys, a little less than half. somewhere in the low twenties and he has 62 points with only playing baby little step one. So if he, like, if he kept the same rate, he would easily be number one. I think, cause that's over 120 points and I think number one is about 120 points. so I saw him doing so well, so, okay. I'll try some baby per Cephalon. Pandora. It's pretty good. I got two seconds first in a top four, so pretty good. So far. I'll probably just keep playing that. but I don't, there's nothing really too spicy in the list. I played two crammer ants, but a lot of people were playing too or three grammar rates. we play some energy spinners instead of a couple extra energy, like, and I think I even saw Danny post a list with that. He had, I think, 15 fires and three spinners instead of like 17 fires and. Zero to one spinners. so nothing too crazy, but the deck is pretty good. with
Brent:is there a thing that you think you're losing too?
Mike:I let's see, I've lost two decidua because they got the obstacle enough and I just couldn't deal with it. I have, and I've lost two a Turnitin this a couple of times they turned us matchups. Pretty interesting. Most times you like try to kill a Mon Prizer, then you cram rant and things. You go in a CRO bat and then you blow up a big alternatives, but some games are just awkward. Maybe you go second and you don't welder. Cause you usually choose to go second with this deck because the heavy energy spinner account. so maybe you miss welder and then they get a turn to knockout and then you can't. I dunno, you can just. Draw awkwardly. And they're fast enough and have enough gusts that if you play some GXS, they'll just out speed you, cause you do need a lot to kill an attorney to test. And so if they play Martinez as well, if you get Marnie a couple of times in a row, it's awkward. so that's been a deck that I've lost to the most. I haven't really played against too many 80 PS only one. I think, Ross was beaten. It pretty consistently, but on ladder I played against a couple of times and. That it's like one of those match-ups ADP has where like, if ADP takes a knockout before your opponent does, it's impossible to win, right? Like you can't win if they go down to four before you take a prize. but if you're able to either K or the ADP or even K or something else. before they ultimate re then you have a chance. so it's, it's like a, that's like a weird matchup, I think generally it's slightly favored. But, so other than that, I don't know. It seems like overall it's pretty well positioned. You beat a lot of the other decks. Like you have a good metric in center, scorch decks. You have a good metric against the new two decks. yeah. I usually have a very good metric against the current metal, from. I think it's pretty good. It's just, it's just typical baseline. So it's just a little clunky. The sequencing, I think is a little bit harder now without fiery Flint. and I actually had a kind of an interesting math question come up at the end of my last game. I lost two, it turned into this, and I talked to Zander about it. I think we got an answer. you know, would they be wanting to do off Anita, a handful of cards on your hand at one time and you can't necessarily. Play a card, then the DNA, and then try and hit the rest of them. Cause it's often fire crystals or interviews that you need. So I had a situation where I had like 10 cards left in my deck. I could do DNA, but I needed to fire crystal and energy retrieval and to scoop up net. So I need four out of those 10 cards, but I could like CRO bat first for like two cards. And if I hit. You know, if I hit one of those cards, that's bad because then it has to get discarded. Like, do I Crow bat or do why not? Does it actually change the odds? and I actually think in that case, it doesn't change the odds because you can think about, you know, let's say it's 10 cards in your deck and you're drawing two extra with the group. Either those two cards, like if you hit the two cards could either be on the top or the bottom. That you get with Chromat so, right. So you're either like not hitting them cause they're at the bottom or you are hitting them and that's bad cause you do them with the bat. So I don't think it actually affects the probability, which after thinking about it more, it made sense, but it wasn't intuitive like in the moment to, while I was playing the game. So.
Brent:it would almost seem like, I mean the odds that one of the two cards you draw, if you're looking to draw four cards is like a card that you need. And then you're hosed.
Mike:Great.
Brent:I guess that's how I would think about the problem. It's like, What are the odds that the next card I draw or you, one of the two cards that I draw, or one of the four cards I need, like, I think the odds are pretty high. Right,
Mike:Yeah, that's true. But that also means like, conversely, that the odds are pretty high, that one of those cards is in the bottom two. Right. So I think in either case those probabilities are equal. So. I don't know, I can go into it a little more maybe, I guess it would change if you had something like, let's say you had a quick ball in your deck and you had a Pokemon in your deck. So if, you know, maybe if you hit a quick ball, then you get to thin one more card out. So maybe then it's worth it. But I don't know, but, but, but you're right that like, if it's such that if you draw one of those cards, then you immediately lose right then. Maybe it's not worth it. I don't know. Psychologically not worth it. but yeah, so I've been playing baby bounce. I'll probably keep playing it until it does poorly. my strategy is still probably just going to be play like one or two tournament's at the day. And I think that'll get me towards the end.
Brent:How about you, Brett, if you were going to burn a key tomorrow, what's the play?
Brit:just ADP. I think I'm in some danger. I'm feeling a little better about it. Now that players are. Good players are kind of all hitting about nineties. Like not all of them are doing like a hundred class, which I finished at 76. So I think it'll be close if I bubble or not. but I, a lot of things I should have done better and could have done better. so despite, you know, complaining about luck here and there, a lot of it's on me to be sure. and so the very last day was kind of, I just. Hyper-focused zone Dan and just like stared at the screen and just played the best Pokemon I've played in in years and was just like a pretty good, pretty consistent ADP list. It's when I, when I hashed out I based it in, you know, it's only a few cards different than, Luke Morsa Celia's network, ADP LS. And I kind of just played around with the last, the 59th 56 60th card. The whole time, and just no, no flips, no gimmicks. except it that, you know, if, if clay runs hot, they're going to beat me and that's fine. but I was really, really happy with my performance on this last day. and that's just what I should have been doing the whole time. Like, I, I don't really regret playing other ducks here and there, but I should have just played more ADP, I think, Cause, you know, it's, even if you can, it poorly, plenty of decks have ways to beat it currently. but stale is just so good. There's the raw power is there. and I just love the consistency of it. I had, Kind of everything I thought I needed and was able to flex a card here and there, depending on a matchup or two. and so I played derailed on and was just happy about that. I was ready to beat some deciduous guys for sure. Never hit any, but I don't regret playing them or anything like that. I just wanted to be able to win round one as often as I could. and then this last day was the only day I've like one back to back. first switch was cool. And again, I think a Testament that like, if I had just focused a little better, had played some higher tier metadata medics for a lot of it. it would have been fine, but in my, I guess I think there's an argument somewhere in my data that says I should have just played wheezing the whole time. I played four keys with wheezing and I got two firsts and two seconds with it, I believe. So anecdotally
Brent:whole time.
Brit:good. I know Colin, Colin and Dustin have played it pretty exclusively, I believe. And, I forget where Colin is that he's doing okay. I believe. And Dustin is doing well. but I, and I don't believe he's played another deck still. but yeah, I, I just think if you want to be safe, ADP can beat anything. so go for it. I was really happy with my
Brent:decks instead of, instead of reading. Channel fireball. I, I watched the undaunted torical video. Wait, wait to be out on social media, Brett,
Brit:trying
Brent:for our loyal listeners. That's what it looks like. every Wednesday when we record. It's amazing. so, so do you guys have any like hotcakes on this Terkel deck? I'll so I played a couple of games with it, including losing to alternatice and I felt like the thing that was missing was like, I just needed more gusta facts to be able to like stop them from powering up stuff on the bench and then smacking me.
Brit:I've spent the most time with it out of any of the undaunted people. And I gave up on it relatively recently. it's good. When it works, you just have greens inconsistency issues, and there's just nothing you can do about that. And it's, I just think it's worse than typical variants. The variance that these other decks. Face is not quite the same. And you're just like a turn one. Marnie can just beat you. Like your, your deck has just so many trainers and things like that needs the green, the welders to do what it needs to. And so the games you open greens are great. The games you open greens, you'd probably get Volcani on off. You have four energy on the bird board on the first turn. And that, but it's, I don't think there's anything wrong with it beyond that. I wish I did more damage. It's really frustrating to have to double gusta Dennett or win, but sometimes you have to do it like that's, that's how you win.
Mike:Yeah, I, I haven't played any games with circles, but I played against it a couple of times and I beat it every time I played it with ADP and that. It just seems like, Oh, I'll just Intrepid. Seward. Oh, you don't have a gust. A ha. You're not that mixed too.
Brent:cash vendor, sing, man, posted the list of like all the results for the past week and no surprise. It seems like ADP was the best deck by a mile. And then it turn, it just kind of comes in second, but never wins. I feel like this is the second week in a row, whereas like attorneys comes in second and never wins. And I guess the moral stories they should put in wheezing.
Mike:Oh, yeah, that is true. I'm just looking at this chart for the first time. I do. I think one of the slow trends that's and happening and is captured here is sent a score, which is like, I think very slowly but surely been creeping up to probably be the, if it's you could say it might even be the second best deck next to ADP might be better than the Turnitin is. I feel like it's one more event than fraternities. It just might not be as consistent in general.
Brit:Yeah, that's definitely a trend. I wasn't sure if we'd hit on it, but I've. I've really thought I've thought that exact thing, like maybe it is the second deck, but it just continually creepingly creepingly seems to be doing better and better through the weeks. And I think that's just a Testament to the list it's getting better really seems to be. Refined, they all the there's kind of a, it's a goofy looking engine really, but it works, you know, just to Geraci and things like that. But that seems to be the same, the standard. I know Frank se played it pretty exclusively and finished in the nineties. so yeah, I think it's really good. And I think it does have some good match-ups. I'm I would like to learn it a little bit better. Cause I'm just typically not impressed by it. I just, I personally think it has kind of the same issues, a lot of decks do. And that just that, if you did it, if you open incorrectly, there's just nothing you can do. Like, so, so much of your game plan is for any deck. A lot of decks are, is just trying to do your utmost to make sure you don't give. To prizes, to zation just to eat up quickly and things like that. And so it's just so awkward when you, you just lose, when you start CRO bat to Dennis, elder Gossen, then you also need at least one of them, like. I just think you're on so much of a shorter clock or timeline, then ADP is to beat you in those scenarios. And that's, that's the same, my same experience with like peaker is you have a really good way to beat it, but it just doesn't matter. Like if, if you, if they mall while an easy pro an easy. To Prizer and then take the one to DNA that you have to use. It's just frustrating. Sometimes if you can play perfectly and you just, there's no counter play because of how mile gets you or how your starter gets you. but yeah, I think that they do in theory, suffer and struggle against fire. We saw a couple kind of different greens decks do well. I believe it was in the Friday's Hexter tournament, but maybe it was the Saturday. Pokey X? No, it was the Friday tournament. I think one was, greens, Praxis ARD with Brexit, Brexit, Brexit can Charles ARD with like one Russia's ARD, I think. And then lots of hammers and stuff like that. And I think that would make sense, but there was also a fire ADP list that I believe made top eight. I think.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:there was so yeah, this AVP chars aren't breaks and yeah, my next question was charged our breaks and like, is that just a meme or is this like a real thing?
Brit:I think Russia's art is an, a really good spot right now. That's what I was. That's really what I've been trying to mess with. I'm using this time now that I've finished early to maybe work on some ideas, if in the event that I do end up qualifying and I don't know what to do with it, But I think you do have, like, sometimes you can have a good ADP matchup, but then you don't have a good intern artist matchup or something. And that doesn't matter. It's just the case for these decks. And I guess the, the hammer version, that's, that's how they're going to be. It turned on as hopefully as there they'll just hammer your first energy and maybe the second one too, and keep you out, keep the tempo away from you and, just run away with it. But. I was not, I don't, I tried to, when I did a little test stream for fun on Saturday, and I mostly played both of those decks along with like a stupid little deck I was working on. And just the exact stuff I said about a tour call is true. Like, if you don't, if you don't open properly, you'll lose. And sometimes, you're just dead to Marnie on the first turn. I think it's metagame game calls and things like that. It was like, you have some on paper, a lot of your match-ups are good, but I I'd be surprised. I really see them continue to make a presence in the metagame, but I suppose we'll see.
Mike:Yeah, I don't really have too many opinions. And the only thing I'll say is I think decks like this. If a Turnitin is continues to like. Because I think just as, just as Senator, scorches slowly going up, I feel like I turn it in. It says slowly, very slowly been decreasing in success and in popularity. and so if that trend continues, then maybe some of these tag team based decks, like this could be better medicals and better players than they are currently.
Brent:Just wall subjects out because it, you know, they,
Brit:I think drag a pole could be okay if it turned out, I stop seeing play, you know, and there's not a whole lot of testing to back that up, so it could be entirely wrong, but like, it was okay against ADP before. it was good against bounds before for the most part. That was good against peaker, before, soundcheck scorch is probably bad. you just probably can't pressure them as fast enough to matter, and they'll eventually just one shot you. but maybe like, I, I hope to see interesting things in the player's cup, even if it doesn't go well, make a risky decision and, you know, play a deck that maybe does have some auto losses, but you'll win. If you get the match ups you need, and it's always. Oh, it's fun to see and interesting to see when it does succeed. But
Brent:The one other deck that I feel like I've seen people tweeting that they got lots of players cup up points with is a, a MuTu.
Brit:I tried it for two keys and lost in top eight of both of them. one of them was against ADP and they got three Pokemon with mile and their first term. Didn't matter what I did game over. and I think the other one, I just like had a great opening, did DNA for six and to just useless cards and didn't do anything for the rest of the game. So I don't have, I did poorly with it. and perhaps made some sequencing errors along the way, but I don't have any really, I don't have any insight on it as a result, both both of them were one and done real quick.
Mike:Yeah, I dunno. It's not a deck. I've played a bunch. I just feel like every single deck I've played has been good against it. And like, whenever I play whatever, like they flip over a MuTu or like I see the muck muck. That they started or something like that. I'm like, yes. Good matchup.
Brent:That you know, it's interesting. I mean, when you talk about sequencing errors, I feel like one of the things that I've seen in my games is like the nice thing about ADP is your goals for the first, like two turns are so blindingly obvious. And the deck is like 80% geared around executing those goals. the odds that things go completely off the rails and the first two turns or that you miss sequencing or you screw up horribly. Like it's very forgiving in some ways, like, I mean, every once in a while you're like you play clay and you're like website just discarded both. My ADP is they're both my waters. And like, as you were saying, a couple of weeks ago, like skipping my next game, like, can't get too tilted about that. But like, Generally speaking, it's so focused on executing those strategies. Like it's very forgiving to even mediocre players like me and, and the result is I have a reasonable match up against good players that have challenging sequencing decisions they have to make, because I don't have to make challenging sequencing decisions to play this tier one deck.
Brit:I think that, and this is perhaps just wrong because I'm not a Mewtwo player. And I would be interested to see how these players like Danny who have done well with it and think it's a good deck, would responder counter, but it just seems like you're so reliant on the horror house, GX like working. And so the, and I've played it a little bit. In my, just trying to practice in the event, I qualify, just random ladder games and things like that. And I have lost because my whorehouse doesn't take three prize air. My Poulter guys on the follow in turn, doesn't take three prizes. And I don't, I don't know what to do about that. I don't know if I'm making mistakes. It just that's. That's how I understand how to play it. And like, You know, I'm sure there's match-ups when you, you want your other GX attacks, you know, if you get hit first and center road is really good. maybe there's some, match-ups where the, the Trev ner one is pretty good. I would think, against Senate scorch maybe, but it just, your. Against ADP. Like, I think that's what you try to do is that they, you go, you do it on your second turn with two psychics. So they draw cards and they have, you know, their ADP with one energy active or something, and then you kill it and then you win or something. And that's just like, not a guarantee. There's lots of, kind of awkward things that can happen. You. If there's a gym on the board, you can still discard right. Yeah. And so like, things like that, there's very, very slight counter play for it. that it's just realize that it's a lot of luck, I think. And I'm sure the odds are in your favor to, for them to have six trainers or something to that effect, especially with these clay decks. but maybe it's matchup dependent, maybe. certain match-ups are easy. I don't quite know how they be turned on us,
Mike:You're talking about the psychic MuTu deck, right? So the room. Okay. Cause I was going to say the welder MuTu wants to use the, the big chars are
Brit:Yeah, right, right, right, right. So yeah, the psychic deck just has, incentive rawr and then psychic Pokemon, I believe just like two treadmill or a gang guard, mimic cue. And again, Adele, I forget what else was in it, but they're all there aren't any interesting colleagues. I think sometimes people splash the Greninja maybe with a way so they can kill a keldi perhaps, in D just lots of psychic Pokemon.
Brent:Guys. I think that's a, I think that's the pot.
Mike:I think so. Well, we already, we already did our promos. We already did our channel fireball promo, but a shout out channel fireball for putting us on
Brent:Yeah. If you sign up for CFP pro use the code trash and we got a couple of shackles. It's going to be delightful. will spend them on something silly.
Mike:well, thanks for listening to everyone. We will see you next week on the trash Lynch.