play.limitlesstcg.com - we promised we would put it in the show notes!
play.limitlesstcg.com - we promised we would put it in the show notes!
It's, it just seems like a disaster. Like, no one's talking about it. Like it might as well not exist, which I think was kind of everyone's initial impression on it, but I feel almost similarly about, you know, obviously it exists still, but even talking about the players cup, just with like, with how fast the online Mehta moves, it's just like this metagame was three or four weeks ago. Like it's just like, Oh, look. ADP, you know, I was looking through all the decks that did well, and it's just really hard, like this was before Pikachu really sort of surge to the front. So it just, it just feels too late to really have, take anything too insightful from it. I don't know if you guys feel similarly, but that's just kind of my impression of both in that. There's just, there's not enough publicity on either of them that they just kind of slipped away. I don't like, I don't know anyone. If, if not for Mike, you talking about it last week, I don't know anyone talking, let alone doing the players, talking about let alone doing the players challenge.
Mike:Oh, wow. I didn't see any of these results.
Brent:Do you know, what, what do you, what do we want to talk about with this recency bias thing? How do I, like, I feel like I'm really bad at tracking.
Brit:So me, let me, let me try to introduce that a little, because I can kind of blend it together and we'll see where it goes. this is a thought I've had a thought I've kind of shared with other people and really sort of starts with the modern era or at least at a certain point in time when I wasn't playing in something, I just really seem to notice is like you, you get made, you're made player quote unquote with, with one finish. Like I, and I don't want to give too many names. I'm happy to name them, but like, you know, Some like some people just like, get one second place, one regional Spanish, one nationals, first place, and then vanish. But now in the modern era, when, when you get that spike, it seems like it was just like, no one seems to really question it. It's just like, Oh, they're sponsored now, whatever cool. And it's just not something we saw back in the day. You know, it was so much harder to become a name. And I think that so much of that is sort of ingrained in the information and how, how it all. I don't want to say it was cliquey or then, cause I think it's still just as cliquey now. but you know, it still, it took time. Like I don't, I don't know if. You know, back in the day, the good players were like Jason and his friends. And it really took a lot of like real energy for them to notice you and things like that. Like, Jay, what's got top eight at worlds and Jason, just, just like, I think he's an above average player, you know, things like that. Whereas now it's just like, Oh, you know, you got second place at the end. All the sponsorships don't ever worry about doing well ever again. You've got it now. That's just something I noticed and sort of wanted to talk about it. And especially in relation to other games. Cause I just don't think that would be the case for like magic or something. People like, well, magic magic is a different case because it's so hard to do well. So it's, it's rare that like truly a freak occurrence happens in like a total unknown, like tops, the pro tour or something like that, but it does happen and you don't see those players like immediately on channel fireball. They often just kind of. Fade back into obscurity too. And again, you don't really see that in Pokemon. but also more, more relatedly. There's just this recency thing with online tournaments. And I think also my question was just like, obviously no one is being made through the online tournament. No one has gone from being an unknown to doing really well on the online players. And then we talked about them being a good player. We talk about them as being a grinder as being good at the online tournaments. And, and on that note, we consistently see. People downplay. I, you know, it's been weeks or so, but I know I've seen a tweet or two, just like essentially saying like online tournaments don't count, you know, see you at the next regionals and things like that. And on that note, my question was just like, are these is online events really that much easier? Are they really distinct and different from regular regionals to sort of discredit them in that way? and I'm not sure. And it's, it's just been odd. So I guess, I guess really what I'm trying to say is that, People get made in one tournament, IRL, but they don't in online. Why is it because the tournament's really are that different? Is it a little, both? You know, we'll talk about it. If that, if that makes sense.
Brent:Let's let's, let's talk about it right now. I'll I'll I'll just go edit all this back in or something like that, or kick it off with this, because I feel like you've segwayed into this really well. Mike, do you have a, like a, an opinion on this stuff is interesting.
Mike:I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of jumping off points from what
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. I lied. There's like, there's like five things. I want to talk about that.
Mike:So I do, I personally, I think the let's start with like the online tournament versus, like in real life, in some ways, I guess they're easier, but in some ways they're harder to like, I think whenever I go to a leak cup, for example, I still. Find myself playing against a significant amount of people and maybe not more than one per event, but usually one per event against like a deck that is just straight up bad, like a bad list or a bad archetype or something like that. Or the player is just like quite poor, even with a good deck. And it's really just a free win almost every single time. That doesn't really seem to be as common in these online events. So in that sense, like, I don't think they're easier in that sense. I do think the average player is probably a lot better. So maybe the average player is better, but the ceiling isn't quite as high. Maybe you don't have quite as many, like very, very strong players playing in these events. I mean, there are a lots of the, You know, previous top 16 players that really haven't played at all. Like I, I know my closest friends in the game. Or some of my closest friends in the game like Ross and Sam Chen really haven't gotten involved in knees. there's a number of other players that haven't gotten involved in these online events at all, you know, but, but there's a bunch that have, you know, is, will plays in them, Pablo plays in them, et cetera. So, maybe, maybe, maybe that's it. Maybe the average is higher, but the ceiling is lower. that might be one way to look at it. but I definitely, yeah, I dunno. So that's that, that's just one perspective.
Brit:I think that's definitely something that is often under-discussed when we kind of compare areas of the game to just how you describe your league cup experience, how you probably get like one free wind is someone really new playing, not a real deck, someone playing a real deck, but a bad list or something like that. And that happens still. But yeah, maybe, maybe once per event or something like that, but you know, back in the day, at least around when I was starting and I'm sure some of this depended on your area, of course, some areas are harder than others, but even at the national championship, I remember my first two, maybe three years, you can play five rounds and not play a real deck the year I, The post, the post rotation year. I, and so I guess that was that one was a different case too, because it was such a fresh meta game that didn't have results for people to net deck, but like still there was surprises, content and things like that, things like that. You had a general idea of what people would show up with, but I remember, you know, I just started out four Oh five and my first three NATS being a pretty green player. But just for those reasons, just like. Hundreds of players, we're just not competitive and in the sort of sense, and you just don't get that at all anymore. I would say, you know, even, even for a regional or something, it's, it's rare if you get one. and it's probably the first round or two, if you play someone who's just not playing a real deck at all. And, so, and often, if it's not a real deck, it just beats you because they're a good player playing something you didn't expect. Not because it's kind of like a. Sort of an off-color deck or something like that, but it's really hard to gauge. I think, I think the online tournaments are hard, but I guess it depends on what we, what we really mean by difficult because for the online tournaments are hard really, for various reasons, more than anything like, I can't really speak too much on when you get to the two out of three stage, Best of wine is just so brutal. and I think, I think some of the way, so many of our cards are now just only makes that worse as we've talked about quite a bit, the match, all that most of the top match-ups are really close, but there really aren't too many nuances to them. It's just kind of, a lot of I'm hoping my disruption works and yours doesn't and, you know, finding my key cards at the right point in the game. And my general opinion, is, has always been that, I think the length of a tournament matters more than the quality of players. I think I would rather play a smaller tournament with only good players than a regional I think.
Mike:I just wanted to quickly comment on, like what you were saying before about the, like old events. Yeah. It's like. From like 2004 until like 2010, at least. Like, if you didn't, if you were like one of the top players and you didn't start like three, you know, four, no. At every single event that was very unlucky, but that like extremely unlucky to not start because that means you got paired against someone. Good. Quote unquote good. In the first couple of rounds, like there was like a streak. I just remember like a streak of, I don't know, maybe 10 events in a row where I started like three or four now. And it's just, that's just how it was.
Brit:You know, I haven't done well really in any of these online tournaments, but I I've, I've never really playing against players. I tend to just lose to, people I haven't heard of always playing, metadata, but then in, in testing, I can win games off some of the best players in the world. I can win, sets off some of the best players in the world. And that's sort of what I mean by. length. So, you know, even if I'm going to be the worst player for three, four, five rounds, there's just less variance. And I guess if the game is uncomplicated enough, you, you can kind of, you know, navigate it successfully. And that's, that's just part of the variance too, I guess, but I always, that's why I've always agreed that, I'm sure it's a little different now, but back in the day, when it was just nationals and worlds, there is this big, kind of dispute over whether worlds or us nationals was the hardest tournament. And I, I would always land, on us nationals just because of a length thing. It's just very, very hard, especially now to that. I think the F now, I don't know if I like it better or not. I do think it's objectively better day to Swiss versus going straight into a single elimination bracket. but that's also a huge factor in your success. Back in the day you go nine O and a tournament and hit your auto loss and top 32 tough luck. Whereas now you start nine. Now you really have kind of quite a lot of wiggle room in day two. You can. You need to ID like three times. And I think you're fine. Usually you can take a couple of losses. once you get to 33 34 match points. You're good. and that just wasn't the case back in the day, I think these sorts of stories, that big tournaments where they're there, they're the main one that comes to the top of my head off the top of my head as a Druker at ski at 2000. And. Eight nationals. He's he plays, he makes top 32 with like a weird Amparo stack, I believe, and just plays against, ESSA playing like, Glacey on level X, which just says he can't do anything about it, but it just seems like he had a really good off Metta deck that he makes top 32. Yeah. Any hits an auto loss right away. And you know, what would, what would the day have looked like? Have you gotten four more around and then cut to top eight? Plenty of lots of stories like that. I'm sure it would be interesting. you know, an alternative revisionist history type thing, that kind of project, what should have won, given these new rules or something like that. But, yeah.
Brent:So, so two other things that I wanted to kind of suss out from, from, at the litany of topics that you kind of unearth here, are there people that you guys see at all these tournaments that like, quote. You know, weren't, weren't like well-known players before, but like coming out of, you know, if the pandemic ended tomorrow, people would be like, Oh yeah, that's a big player.
Mike:I think there's a number of players that if they, you know, I think most of them are younger players, you know, somewhere in the 13 to 17 year old range that maybe haven't had too many opportunities to travel and go to events. And now they're getting the opportunity to play, you know, every day or every other day. So part of it is just that they're playing lots of events and if you're playing lots of events and you're pretty good, your event, like you're going to on average, like have a bunch of good results. Right? So, I mean, I'm thinking of people, like just some names that immediately come to mind are like Andrew Hendrick, who is polka Hawkeye. the, the kid from Brazil, Vinny, Jake Jake Gearhart. so there's a, there's a, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of people that are kind of in this category, I think. And if they come back and there's live events and you know, they top 16 or top eight or regional or something like that, I think people will be like, yeah, that makes sense. we kind of saw that they were good. And now that they're now they're proving themselves, in the real thing.
Brent:Yeah, I think I've cashed vendor. And I think like it was good. Good before, but like, because he's on the other side of the planet, I never had interacted with him or like seen anything other than, you know, some like, you know, once every six months random result from a Singapore special event or something like that. And, and now you're showing up every day, with like happy finishes.
Mike:Yeah, so I do, I do think, I do think a lot of these players are. Very good because they are playing a lot and they're seeing success. it's just, I guess the question then becomes like, who is, who is, defining who is good and not. And I think typically it's been other top players that have been like, like that. That's always the goal, I think for everyone, right. It's like to earn the respect of the people that are in the positions that you want to be in. And so when, till. You know, some of these other top players that aren't really involved in the game right now until they recognize it. then, then I don't know, maybe, maybe people won't take it seriously until they say something
Brit:do you think that is that the ideal sort of metric or the ideal sort of world? The way we analyze it is that it kind of is. Seated in some sort of communal opinion where you're, you're good. If, and only if someone thinks you're good or there's, they're not maybe, you know, some sort of object like objectivity we can use to measure good or not. And I think that's a hard question because I think a lot of times too, I'm not sure, you know, where we ended up going, but psychologically, I think we're predisposed to, you know, we want to discredit a certain player is say, you know, they're just a nightmarish player or something like that. there was, you know, diminished their accomplishments there, things like that. There's just a lot of lays none. No, one's going to agree, at the end of the day and I just sort of wonder what the, the right way to go about it would be. So I think the community communal opinion is a interesting example, especially with, how I was talking about, back in the day, that's kind of seemed to be all that mattered, whether you were in the right and group and things like that, to be,
Brent:think, I think the nuance there as, as a pokey dad, like. I think there's like a trick to it in that like unlike, chess, like, being in the in-group is, is also something that can predispose you to success because you get the secret deck mojo.
Mike:Yep.
Brent:I remember God, it must've been, I mean, this was when like grant and Michael were having their big run, like right before the pandemic. Some tournament. We reached out to, Kate Tron, cause he's a local Doris about, about some like thing we were thinking about for the upcoming thing. And he said, dude, I can't talk about that decks at all. Cause like I've been invited to join the squad. And I was like, Oh my God. But like the squad is a thing, right? Like what's interesting is the squad is like, there's an element of like self fulfilling prophecy to it. And that like. Yeah. they're not complete idiots. Like grant is an incredible deck builder and AOK Tron is an incredible deck builder. And when you like invite those deck builders to like build decks with you, you're like you're, you know, you're theoretically getting the best mojo to like build decks.
Brit:I think it's interesting too, how it, how it can really snowball, you know, just like that and my own personal experience. I just feel like I. You know, the very first year I qualified for world. So it was really, really close. Yeah. I was, that was the last year of ELO and I was like 39, but I, I was bouncing around the ratings. I forget something had happened, but I was 40, 41st at one point and then they fixed it and I was 39, but something got reported wrong. Like a singular game is singular, like K 32 value game. Was wrong. but anyways, I just, I just barely qualified and this was sort of, when I first started in the game, it was, I wanted to qualify for worlds, but I kind of was just like, I'll probably never do that. That'll never, ever happen. And so I I'm in San Diego in 2011 with, a big old case of imposter syndrome. And I just met the right people and affable, I guess, and became friends with the right people. And I just really felt it snowballed from there. I made friends with. Dustin Zimmerman and Aaron Kareat 2011 worlds. And. I forget where, why I became friends with Thailand, Nina, Maura, but he was a really big part of my success early on too. But yeah, I just like, and then, you know, and then Dustin's a good example cause Dustin, and I guess both of them were Justin and Aaron are both part of look Fanta, which was kind of like the click, for the, the. 2004 kind of IEX era of the game. And that just like, I just kind of immediately had access to that. And then, then it just snowballed, like, you know, you met more people, you got had access to more meta games, more insight, more decks. And it just it's really, I always felt so lucky about that. Like, I have always felt that so much of my success, would have been much different had I, you know, hung out with a different group of people at my first world or something like that. So it's always interesting. How it builds, just kind of based on that. And I think, I mean, for me, I think that's such a good example of why the game matters or why the game matters for me. And it's so much of that community experience. It's not about, being the best. I mean, I would, I would certainly enjoy being the best I think, but I don't think that's why I play Pokemon anymore. Whereas I think maybe five, six, seven, eight years ago, if you asked me, No. I mean, I think I still actually would have said the community stuff is still more important, but I think my desire to be, you know, the best player in the world or to win worlds would have been much better. Whereas now I'm kind of like finding a harmony with the game and my personal life or what have you.
Brent:Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to explore in your comment, there was like, like you talking about like people joining teams, and I think we've seen a number of like, kind of like fo e-sports or maybe really sports teams, like. what was it like spice gaming or something and channel fireball and, I mean there, yeah, right. There've been like a couple of these ultimate spice. That's a deodorant, but I don't know. but, but like, so there've been a couple of these like quote sponsored things, Yeti, uh, for,
Brit:coming the biggest one.
Brent:uh, uh, for, uh, the, the, the brief window, like what's interesting is. I feel like that's a little more about like, people really want to do it, therefore, like it kind of push it to happen. And I guess what I was going to ask is like, Mike, when I think of like you and, and Ross, and I think of Sam as something else, because he's always been the self-funded Sam Chen but like you guys get those calls or is it like. You have to seek those out. and, and, you know, the big scheme of things, probably these opportunities have basically no value today, but
Mike:I mean, what, what calls are you talking
Brent:like, like these, like the, the, like join our team. Like, I mean, I think X-Files is something else,
Mike:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, X-Files is like,
Brent:X-Files is just old school gamers being old school, cranky old.
Mike:Never entered. I mean, like we've, we've had brief discussions of like, you know, if we could get sponsored as a team, would we want to, and we always come to the conclusion of, no, we wouldn't want to. it's not really the, it's not really the intended goal
Brit:X-Files as a, is a lifestyle. It's
Mike:Yeah. X-Files is a lifestyle. That's a good way to put it. Ross would, Ross might even get angry with me just mentioning X-Files on a podcast. that, that that's the lifestyle of X-Files you, you don't
Brent:So deep, underground, even, even, even the people on the team don't know they're on the team.
Mike:one of the, yeah. One of the coolest things. I mean, I w maybe we should just do like an episode of me talking about like, random stuff about X-Files. Cause there's like lots of very interesting things. One of my favorite things is that like we, when, when people are talking about all these old formats and like different decks and whatnot, I have lists for every single deck. Ever like the most are like random DEC from like 2008, 2009. Doesn't matter. Like you tell me what you're looking for. I have a deck list somewhere on a, on a message board and I can find.
Brent:All right. I like, I like that Mike and 30 seconds went from, I'm going to get in trouble for mentioning X-Files episode of X-Files stories.
Mike:Ross doesn't listen to the podcast. He's the only one that
Brit:what I was going to say. It's a higher all around school. Nobody better
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:That's the spirit cross the believer. That's the air. That's the problem. All right. All right. Are you guys ready to start?
Mike:Do the intro and then take all of this and copy paste it somewhere.
Brent:welcome to the trash lanch. as always I'm Brynne Halliburton here with, Mike crocheted, rip privates attendance is 100% going on month, five month. I mean, we've been doing this for a long time, a hundred percent of tenants every time. It is amazing. And I'm excited to let everybody know that we got in some more five-star reviews, including two fantastic reviews from people. the fifth horseman, 86 says awesome podcast, great podcast for anyone in the competitive Pokemon community, keen insight from some great players on how to get better as a player in all aspects of the game, the horseman 86, I am also on the podcast.
Mike:Yeah, a couple of great players and Brent,
Brent:Corey Henry writes great in-depth analysis. And I thought this was a good review worth. We're talking about. This part is absolutely fantastic. That's great. We should talk about that. The host drop a ton of knowledge of the current and past Meadows. So I did have two questions. I'm a newer player and barely missed qualifying for the players cup. I think if I had better sequencing and a game plan for certain match-ups, I could have done it. So what are some tips for better sequencing and planning out a game plan versus certain match-ups? The second is about online events like limitless and Hexter et cetera. Can you kind of walk me through the registration process, matches reporting and general process of the online events. Thanks a lot. And keep up the great work. Corey Henry, thanks a lot. Or Henry Cory, Henry, but like a fantastic reviews. We're up to 14, five star reviews guys. We are probably one of the most popular podcasts on the internet at this point.
Brit:well, I would say that the second question will be very, very easy to answer because it's also so very seamless on, the limitless website. All you have to do is, you just registered there. You'll occasionally have to, add, add someone on PTC geo in order to trade the, these accounts, the packs that are required to entry fee, but in terms of dropping, entering your deck list, reporting results, it's just all on play dot limitless. Dot com, right? Yeah. Limitless, tcg.com.
Brent:Yeah.
Brit:and really, really it solved my kind of, I didn't like, I think that that's a big reason why I seem to be a tournament grinder. whereas I wasn't initially, as I just did, I don't, I just don't like discord. It's just not something I've gotten into. It's kind of another, yet another facet of like nerd and gaming culture as something that just like. Flew me by while I was doing other things. So I've just never, ever used it. So I'll, I'll definitely say I'm kind of like, I don't get it. I don't, I don't get what it's for, like, at least to a certain degree. And so I didn't really enjoy tournaments where I just had to sit, hang out on the discord all day and like wait for pairings and stuff to be posted, but it's all just so instant and easy on the limitless website. I really think that's a huge reason why I play multiple a week. It's because it's, it's, Click or two away on my browser, to sign up. So you just have to empty your name, your PTC, geo name. and then all the instructions are always well detailed on the website itself for, the usernames you need to add and things like that. but even then it has a. A button on the website for you to call a judge and they show up in your chat. it's just so much easier than the discord, I think. but sequencing and stuff will be a little harder. I'm sure we'll have a lot to say, but I'll let Mikey take it from here.
Mike:Yeah. Well, the only thing I'll add, for the online stuff is, Oh, maybe we can put the limitless link and like our description or whatever. so in case you're not sure. Yeah. In the show notes, but yeah, I mean, really everything is before. If you asked this question a couple of months ago, before this came out, would have been a much more complicated answer, but I agree it's a very straightforward process. the dashboard is kind of like which houses all of your registrations and how you, edit all that stuff. The main tournament's web state. Has a nice, clear couple sections of like current tournament in progress or current tournament's future tournament past tournament's. yeah. So just kind of like click around, explore. most of the tournament's do ask you to join their discord server, but it's kinda just like a, Just in case type of thing. and especially like, if you end up getting prizes, sometimes don't need to reach out to you on there. So I still join all of the servers, but I just meet them all. So I don't get all the notifications. then yeah, like Brett said, just kinda got to add some on, on PTC geo and send a trade. Usually the way the trades work is, you send one or two packs or whatever the entry fee is. And then they have a bunch of basic energy cards that are marked for trade. Cause you gotta send something back. So then. You know, they give you an energy card and you send them the two packs. yeah, I think that pretty much covers that,
Brent:think screenshots of your victory every time?
Mike:that, yeah, I mean, I did for a while, but no, I haven't had anybody dispute the results, so
Brit:I haven't had anyone dispute a single result yet. which is nice. I don't,
Brent:Did you do screenshots during the, the chill TCG tournament mic? I mean, that's a bigger, bigger prize. Like, I mean, the funny thing is I feel like any of the disputes, most of these tournaments, like why.
Mike:Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. No, I didn't even do it for that. I got in the habit of doing it at least at first, because whenever I played online Hearthstone tournament, they require it. and
Brit:You didn't even in Hearthstone, too. In my experience, I found it was very rare to have, you know, a bad faith actor or what have you, and the ones that were were did it so consistently that they didn't have any legitimacy to their claims, the Neymar, because they were known for doing this sort of thing. I remember, you know, some story at a, at a gram three or, what were those called? not an MLG, but they, they had those,
Brent:I mean, once you do it, once you do it twice, you're like already over the limit, right?
Brit:you know, you can do at once. You can do it once and, you know, get out of jail free or what have you, you're fed at a certain point. Yeah, I just, I think the moderators and stuff we'll keep, definitely keep note of it and things like that. The most difficult thing I've ever had happened was I just, this last Hexter is my like round one or two was they like checked in right away and said like, Hey, sorry, I'm in a game. Let me finish. And then I was just like in five minutes passed. And I just said, Hey, I'm happy to wait, but I'm not, I'm not taking a loss here. If we time, I got kinda mad about it, but I thought it was strange.
Mike:That seems reasonable.
Brit:Yeah, especially I was not confrontational or aggressive about it. I was just like, these
Brent:Yeah. Like when he says he's in a game, like, what's he doing?
Brit:you could have saved your game. What are you playing the ladder for? You don't get any right.
Brent:Like, you're just screwing around on a ladder, man. Come on, get with the program.
Mike:All right. Let's try that. Let's try to answer this guys other questions. So what are some tips for better sequencing and planning out a game plan for certain match-ups? So, I mean, we could like. We could go. We could probably talk about this for a long time, but it's hard. It's a little hard to know what, without knowing a little more details. cause both of those things are different, right? Like sequencing, I don't know. Brent is, you've kind of, like looking over your book. The, a quintessential practice for sequencing is. Take Archie's black Archie's blast twice. And just solitaire with that and make, try and get a blast twice as often as you can turn one. so just pure sequencing. That's probably my number one suggestion.
Brent:You know it like it's, it's interesting. that's, that's a really good, I mean, finding a deck that kind of pops off, turn one and just practicing. No popping off, turn one over and over again is, is a really good ironically, I think because of like the meadow we're in a little bit, like there's no decks that are really like that, you know, like it used to be, you could, you could, practice like turn more full blitz with people wrong because you know, you had to find thunder mountain, like yeah. You know, you, you do all these things, aren't you blessed. It's the classic. That's what good vile plume is a classic,
Mike:So, yeah, so I don't know if he, you know, this person means sequencing really in that sense, or if they more mean it, like, you know, at various points throughout the game of like, you know, do, am I promoting the right thing after getting knocked out and my, playing. You know, my plane in my supporter at the correct time, should I be de Denning first versus Marnin first versus, you know, using this quick ball that takes something from my deck. So that then when I Marnie it goes to the bottom of my deck, like there's, there's lots of little things like that. That it's hard to give general. Nice.
Brent:Here's here's here's actually, I actually have some good advice. I think about this when I was pacing this review in and. Yeah. One thing that I'll say I'm interested in you guys' reaction is I think if you're trying really to get better at, sequencing PTC, geo sucks and like busting out real cards is probably a thing. And here's, here's why I feel like when. I'm working on trying to get better at sequencing or when I'm playing with my kids. And they're trying to get better at sequencing. Kickbacks matters. Like the problem with practicing sequencing is when you're playing on PTC geo and you mess up once, you're like, well, should I lost this game onto the next game?
Mike:And you don't really see like the cause and effect right. As,
Brent:Right. Or, or, or like you saw the one brutal thing you did, but you never really got a chance to like work it all out. Right. You're just like, Oh man, I grabbed the type of cocoa instead of the but like, so, so there's something to be said for like, you got to play. And I think that this is true for thinking about specific match-ups too, like. Just going on ladder on PTC, geo and thinking, you're going to figure out how sentence versus, it turns, this works like, Nope, that's probably not going to happen. Like you gotta actually like find a buddy and practice. And if you want to work on sequencing, I think playing with physical cards and saying like, we're just going to have some takebacks is probably important because like take backs really helps.
Brit:Isn't that it couldn't you code like a sequencing practice or helper pretty easily. Like you, you just have. you know, the, the names for the cards or what have you. And then you can just kind of solitary yourself in a way that's essentially PTC geo, but it's, you know, just nominal in an, in an Excel sheet or something. Wouldn't that be something really pretty easy to, to program.
Brent:Y you know, like, I know, I think we talked about this in the last, but I know everybody's done at some point. Why not just sleep? We love to decks and run back and forth throughout, you know, around the table. Right.
Mike:Hoo.
Brit:are stories of Ross traveling back in the day where he would be riding in cars and he would, he would, he managed to kind of invent a way to play against himself while in a car he would involve. Maybe Mikey can tell the rest of the story, but I recall hearing it, I think Adam granola, it's something I never NOLA would tell me because they used to travel. two events together, but he would, the, the cards would be in plastic bags or something like that. It was designed in a way where he could kind of successfully do it, but I don't, I don't know how it kept things organized in a moving car that wouldn't have just been
Mike:I don't,
Brit:But yeah, I mean, I do think Brent is right that the best way to practice sequencing, is definitely, you know, physical, but in terms of just. improving more generally, I think. And hopefully the being better at sequencing would come naturally. with all of this, I had a couple of things I think I would say, the first is, and I think sort of in line with what Brent was saying is you just need to find other people, not necessarily to play it against, but just to almost play the same game together and really, really talk, about the decisions. You know, I could be, you can win a game in any number of ways too. So there's never, there's very rarely a one right answer. There's a lot of, kind of different routes to get there, to get to taking your six prizes. And that's why I think having one to a couple people early makes that sort of process interesting. Really, really talking about, you know, I'm going to discard this with ultra balls. No, no, no, no, no, you can't discard that. We'll need that for later. Like, those are really some of the best learning garments you think. And I know, I'm talking about, you know, the Atlas POG and things like that. That's one of these big things that the online events just don't have is that the night before experience where you're doing that with a hotel room full of people,
Brent:Yeah. Like you you're sitting there and like talking about how to play out the matchup. Right.
Brit:Yeah. And then kind of on that note too, this is something I think I've said before, but. is ask, I know it's so hard and scary sometimes, but, especially when you're newer or something, but you need to do. And I know it's, you know, so much of this is not doable online or something like that, but it's really, really common. It's how we improve in fighting games and stuff. Is you just, you play along set with your opponent and say, you get your butt kicked. You just. Well, ask them. Why was that easy for you? What, you know, what specifically was I doing that made it that easy for you? And again, with Pokemon, it's going to be a little bit different and harder to gauge, but I think just asking, you know, this position of humility, I think, so many people just obfuscate or they. You know, it's, it's hard for them to get into that position, but I really think you just learn so much better when you recognize, like, I need help. I'm the one who doesn't understand rather than just like, no, I just got unlucky. Maybe if I had done something differently, I'm like, no, it's this position of, sort of just needing someone else. And, with a lot of the match-ups, we've talked about a lot of the big decks, like we say are really pretty close, but there's always like, Tiny tiny point. That is hard to notice. It's hard to, to, to reach on your own. And that again is just where talking to these good players really helps. And I think that's something that Pokemon really has in a way that many other card games don't because I think that. Our top players, almost every single one of them that are approachable. They'll talk to you. I don't think like I, I tested with Danny yesterday and practice games with Danny. I think Danny would talk to anybody. I, you know, I don't think this was sort of an interaction that I. You know, had a special privilege, special access to, I think Danny and Azule people like that, especially anyone big and streaming, like chip, just like, Hey, I keep losing DeSena scorches peaker ramen. I hear, I see that that really should be going my way. You know, what's, what's the key play to this matchup and. You know, for instance, this, I figured this out playing with Danny yesterday is that, we've talked about at a time or two at the show, how the LMC, versus peaker, matchup went and I had this kind of personal experience of, you know, I thought it was really favorite for LMC then with heavy bolt-on I really started losing to the point where I thought it was really unfavorable. but that entire impression was. You know, predicated on an error. I was just doing something wrong. A very, I was benching Lou Carrio, Mel metal, like a turn or two too early. If something as simple as that, you know, it was really what makes the difference. And it just, you know, I had to ask, I have to say, Hey, you're telling me this matchup is better than I think it is. You're a better player than me. I'm going to assume. You're right. You know, what's the difference between our two perspectives and then we played it out and now I understand like, yeah, I was, I was just doing something wrong. This matchup has been fine the whole time. and I just think experiences like that are just really the most, economical way to improve and especially to. Because these match-ups really do. I like the, I like the phrasing, like, you know, key turn or key play because a lot of them are just that. And, Lucara melt metal is maybe a good deck to reference because, You know, you might think you need to dilute Carrio full metal wall every single game, but you don't, you only need it, in a couple match-ups. and then, you know, some of your, your strategy sometimes is just really aggressive stations. And if you think that you have to go, if you're just under the impression that you format a wall, GX every game, no matter what, then know, you sort of lose the tempo to play aggressively when you need to. And that's why you might be losing that magic when you should be winning it. and just things like that over and over, I'm trying to think of. other examples, but I know, you know, let's say the, the peaker, versus you turn on as match. If they're really the key play is not just paralysis. You have to save your disruption, for the paralysis. And I think maybe that's part of maybe sequencing that can go over the head of a newer player. Is that. You just have, the disruption is so important right now. You just have to have it when you need it. And sometimes that means like sitting on it. If you have to things like that, like you, can't just, you have to be cognizant of your money. It's how many mornings have I played this game? How many Marnie's are in my deck? Well, I have the Marni for the turn. I need it. And things like that. And if the answer is no, then you, you have to sit on the morning, even if it's not an ideal turn. Even if it's a turn where you wish you were playing cards, drawing more cards. You just have to, you slowly become more and more aware of these sorts of things. and I just don't think there's a better way to learn than to ask, to talk to the player who do know these things. We might even naturally learn them compared to someone who has to be taught. But, you know, it's just a waste of time. If you just kind of sit there and run your head end to the wall and just hope that it'll click, maybe I'll get it next time. Whereas, you know, I don't know. It's really, there's something really hard for me to do. I'm really kind of, I'm not all that talkative. I'm kind of quiet and things like that. Or at least, at least in my fighting game experience, I really had to work up courage to talk to my opponents to be like, you know, Hey, you know, why did I lose? Whereas. If I didn't say anything, I just wasted an hour getting my butt kicked and I didn't learn anything from it. And it was just really that moment where you just have to work up the courage and talk to someone you'd have no, which is something that's always been pretty hard for me. but hopefully that will, sort of put you in the right direction. I think sequencing, like Mikey says is pretty context driven. I think. So it's hard to give. General advice because what you're supposed to discard, what's your quick ball is going to depend on your prizes, on your deck, on the board state, things like that. But I think all of that, all of it is very much related that once you get one piece of it, you might have two or three and then it just builds and builds and builds from a small foundation up to, you know, where it's just natural. Like, I don't, I, I don't think I sequence, you know, as well as the Zulu or someone obviously, but yeah. Even in my long hiatus, it was from the game. I don't really, I feel like I've still retained. Most of my sequencing knowledge. It's not something you lose. It's something kind of, self-evident once you, once it's clicked for you the first time, but until it does, there are plenty of resources, I think out there for you to sort of accelerate the process.
Mike:Yeah. So a couple other, a couple of other ideas, in this like virtual, especially in the virtual environment, Like Britt said that the best thing is to like, be able to talk to people. but if you know, you don't always have someone available, whatnot. So I would recommend watching someone like those are all there, Pablo or whoever else streaming. And you know, at the beginning of before they do their action, pause, whatever video or stream, right. Think about what you would do and then hit play. Right. And then see if you did the same thing. Sometimes they'll explain their players. They're going sometimes not. And if you know your, your thought diverged with what they did think about why, I mean, you could be correct, like don't, don't dismiss yourself outright. Like. Top players make mistakes all the time. Right. And, so, but just think about what was the difference there? Why did they do this versus versus that? So that's one thing you could do. one resource that I think was really cool. I don't know if you guys got to watch it at all this weekend. I didn't watch the whole thing cause it was quite long, but the, like the us versus Europe, seven on seven thing, that was really cool. It had a, you know, seven of the best. North America players versus seven of the best you're at players and,
Brent:I like to think seven of the eight best us
Mike:yeah. Okay. Okay. but it was cool because at any given point they had maybe like three or four people on the call. And so they. Each turn took like an excruciating long time, but, it was cool because you got to hear like all these different perspectives and lines of play and whatnot. and like I said, I didn't watch the whole thing cause it was like eight hours long, but that's like a super cool resource to go and watch and you get to really hear, the perspectives from different, People. So I don't know if those videos are up. I know the Europe side was on Pedro stream, so maybe the VODs are up on that. and I think the MNA side was on Franco Takahashi stream. So you could try and find that as well.
Brit:I think the, the only, the one thing I forgot to mention is just be scientific, be meticulous about it. Play a game where you say, I'm not sure if this is the right decision, but let's find out, you know, a game where you. Tasked with having to decide how aggressively you have to discard with the Denny or something. And that's what testing is for play, play games, play games, use it going, following a route that you're, you know, entirely unsure of. And even if it seems obvious or something like, okay, that didn't work now. I know now I'll never do that again. Things like that I think are always very important. And I, you know, I don't think I was Eaton too, too good at this back in the day, but I guess that's the convenience of this all being on the computer is that our, I have Google, Google docs open or something too. I'm making notes to myself when I'm trying to, to learn things in my testing and just, you know, do that under like, I don't have a good example of, you know, choosing a path that, you know, might not be wrong for the sake of science or something like that. But I think it'll happen. I, especially, you know, awkward boss plays and things like that. You're really not sure which one. you just got to pick something and whereas if you had. Chosen the other one. Then sometimes you have to realize that too, especially if you lose or not, you have to say like, well, had I done this differently than I would've won? And of course he can't. Counted as a win. I think players sort of have a tendency to do that. Sometimes they count some losses as wins for various reasons between God, that would never happen. Oh, I didn't mean to do that or something like that, but so be, I mean, being, being honest in your results and stuff too, matters just as much, just as much.
Mike:yeah. last, the last comment that I'll say in the movie, we can move on, planning out a game plan. Very certain match-ups. I mean, I think we touched on a lot of stuff, but a lot, I like try to think about at least the first couple of turns. If I'm thinking about a certain matchup, I'm like, what is the ideal thing that I want to do? And what is the ideal thing that my opponent wants to do? So I'll give you a concrete example. I'm going back actually to the peak around verse LMC matchup. Cause I was playing LMC, at the players cup. So I thought about this very theoretically. I was like, okay, so the peak round player wants to go second and start Bolton. Right? That is the ideal peaker. I'm starting pretty much every matchup. So what is my ideal start against that? So I want to go, if I'm going first, I want to get as Asian down attached to it and Intrepid sorority into an energy. Because if I do that, then I can threaten to knock out the bulletin on turn two. And so I think that's just like a good example of at least thinking about the first couple of turns in the game. What is the idea? You know, it's not going to play out that way every single game, but if you think of the idea, what is the best thing that my opponent can do on any given intern and what is my best response in any given turn? then I think that helps the planning process a little bit in terms of specific match-ups. and you can really do that. In any, in any mattress let's, let's move on. Let's talk about other stuff. Thanks for it. Thanks for that review. That was a good review and good. got us some good discussion going
Brent:Yeah. So, so here, Corey, Henry, I'm gonna show my segue skills by telling you, if you send an email to Brent and trash and there's dot com, I will, I will hop on and do some specific matchup testing with you, which leads us to the next topic. I want to talk about the new trash lunch website, trash life.com. Yay.
Mike:Nice.
Brent:why we should think channel fireball is, is helping sponsor that website. They, they agreed to pick up the tab for the domain. I really, really appreciate it because now we have the cool domain. You gotta have the cool domain because people do that. Okay.
Mike:Yeah, it looks great. Did you put it together? I assume you did.
Brent:I did. I did. It's amazing technology. Well, it really, it's just a matter of like, we, we use Buzzsprout to host the pod and Buzzsprout has this thing that lets you like redirect like domains to their thing. It took me a while to figure it out, but I'm like just the right kind of nerd that I was able to figure out how to do that, that kind of thing. And then I figured I, I set up email forwarding so people can email us attraction, lands.com and we're available all the time for all of your podcasting needs. Let's talk about, let's talk about the union. That's breaking news. Ad people seem to be tweeting about the union a lot. I feel like it's a lot of tweets about nothing. And
Mike:We don't know anything.
Brent:mean, well, you know, as, as we'll post tweets that with any luck, it'll be a, you know, six prize Pokemon and you just knock it out.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I think too, I think why my quote unquote, why do we play Pokemon is kind of in reference to that in reference to these very reactionary takes up just like, ah, it's more tag team I'm quitting. And you know, the question is like, and I'll give another example to go with it too. That, that that's on my mind as well, but. You know, I, I see that. And I think to myself, like that's probably going to be a multi Prizer. It's probably going to be not my ideal card, but I, I just sort of, you know, like I've said before, like I, I played Pokemon and I'm here to play whatever cards they throw at me or something like that. And I just, I just can't sort of imagine, Like I understand at a certain point, you have to decide, if you truly, truly are not having fun or something like that, you don't have to play, but I just seem to be able to enjoy the game regardless, even though I don't agree with or enjoy the DevOps design philosophy behind a lot of the cards and things like that. And I was just thinking last night, you know, before playing the heck streets tournament, I had a friend who they were talking about playing it. And they decided not to, and their, their reasoning for not playing. They said something to the effect of like, well, I wasn't going to play first because I just sort of thought that I had to, but now I realize it's optional and you know, I don't have to play, therefore I don't want to. And I'm, I sort of just thought was like, isn't that always the case, you know? and, and I think so, and I, I again think that, you know, it is always the case for the most part. And so. If you're sort of only interested in winning, I think, you know, you're just, you're just never going to be satisfied. I don't, I don't think people who, people who don't enjoy, to like they're losing as much as they're winning are kind of never going to stick around for too long, because ultimately what they're after is something tangential to the game itself, thereafter success, fame, the thrill of doing well, things like that. And you know, not necessarily anything rooted in the game itself, then. Yeah. I mean, just kind of relation to both those points. I just had an eminent depth, clearly a different place sort of mentally than these sorts of people. But I just think it seems to be the healthier approach. I think like, I'll play it. You know, I, if I don't, if I don't want to play Pokemon, I won't play Pokemon, but until then, the union can be whatever it wants to be in. We'll we'll find out when we do or similarly, like I'm going to keep signing up to play hucksters, you know, for them every week, even though I go into every week and because I'm after something more than winning I'm after improvement and I
Brent:Podcast content. Let's go. All right. Let's let's talk about Pokemon now, guys. first let's give, let's go channel fireball or favorite sponsor, a moment of props because grant has broken this primal fly gun deck that I think was definitely the new spice for like 48 hours. You guys tried it. Is there anything we should talk about with respect to primal flagon? It's powerful. I got good. And I have to say I wanted to try it, but I could not get the Bravos. I don't understand how you guys got it. I know when you guys were like, we're testing it. I complained, but like the bravas they're hard to get.
Brit:just trade for them. They're not worth
Mike:Yeah, I just put up a
Brent:There were literally when we tried to train for them, this was, and this was like 12 hours after grants. They were like, Nova Brava is available.
Mike:I just, I put up like my own trade for
Brit:Yeah, I never, I never find anything in public trades. Everything I get is through my own trades.
Mike:But, yeah. So I don't know. I played like five games with a couple of different lists of this. it's okay. It's fine. I think, I think like it's, match-ups. That it can win are pretty good. Like they're not, they're not like super blowout wins, but they're certainly favorable, like again, speak her arm and ADP, I think you're solidly favored, but on the other end of the spectrum, you know, I have match-ups that are completely, completely unwinnable. Like you can never, ever beat bla Cephalon it's impossible. so. So, I don't know, like if, if you like decks that have very polarizing match-ups and I feel like primal Groudon, was similar, you know, different, you know, there were so many iterations of it that it's hard to say, but, I feel like it was similar in the sense that it had some polarizing match-ups and it was condo is like, if it hit the right, like if you played it in the right, meta-game where it's bad, match-ups, weren't very prominent. Then you would do well with it. and I feel like this could be similar, but I just don't feel like the metagame is. Really going to be in the spot for it to be like the best deck, but maybe it will be at some point. Okay.
Brit:I played it quite a bit. I streamed it for a while and then it was kind of seems to be two different builds on it. Because Phillip Schultz post posted it list that doesn't play mallow in Atlanta. Whereas I think the initial strategy is predicated on being able to chain Mello and Lana's. and I tried them both and I don't really have an impression of which is better. I will say that as just kind of a general frustration. It's very hard to do any amount of testing on PTC geo cause people just don't play. Like people are playing the off Mehta decks on the rank ladder, more so than anywhere else. And so I just played against chars R like four times, which was unwinnable. cause they can, they can, they can do enough damage and are, one Prizer. They can eventually just beat you pretty easily. But yeah, it's, it feels like a deck. I think if you had the right meta-game call, I think you would do very well, but it's similar to blow Cephalon I think in the sense that it's very more susceptible to disruption than other decks, you then the kind of big, big boy decks and that. you just really have big hands and you really there's a lot of pieces you need to, to win the game. You're always going to be behind. and so at any point, when a key disruption hits you, you have to draw out of it immediately, or you might just lose on the spot. and so that's never good. And then of course you have other things with, like, a good model. I'll just ends your game. Things like that. There's a lot of kind of variants that can go wrong, but. it's fun. I don't know. I guess, I guess it's funny. All these bad decks I enjoyed playing, I will say are fun. but I don't know what that necessarily means. Is it fun because I know I'm not going to win. And so I don't have as much pressure, or is it actually kind of a mechanic thing? I'm not sure. but at any rate, I think the list could maybe still be cracked. Interesting. It's an interesting deck to be sure. And, you know, I think a lot of it it's the fighting type. Like we keep saying fighting is a really good type, but colossal may or may not be good enough to really have a fighting we present in the meta game now. but we'll see, I think the list we can definitely improve and get better if people continue to work on it. And yeah, I think the concept is good enough in theory. but we'll see if anyone is able to really crack it up. And I think it's a solid tier three deck, probably. I think my orbital deck is better, but it's fun to play.
Brent:That's that's how bad it is. you know, your comment about, about how, it's fun. I mean, I think I told you guys last week that, that my son is kind of picking it up a little more and I mean, I don't want to break the Metta or anything, but he's basically spent all of his time working on this treadmill deck that he calls Dustin or 100, because one of the a hundred times works really well.
Mike:I love that.
Brent:Yeah, 1% of all games, he like turned to sets the guy's hand with zero cards and just proceeds to Reckler. And he's like, this is the greatest deck of all time, if it weren't for the 99 losses. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:but at least he has the self-awareness to, you know, not, not have the, you know, a cognitive bias to say. And worked at once. Therefore it's good.
Mike:right.
Brent:He still recognizes it only works one a hundred times. All right. Should we talk about, should we talk about the players cup too?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Let's let's start with the players cup for two seconds. Since Pokemon never seems to mean, I, you know, I love the dispose of monster marketing, but like, I think it's really, really weird how Pokemon's never like. Tweeting out what's going on in the players cup and like who the players are and like trying to build up their own celebrities in the meta game. I swear,
Mike:strange. Yes.
Brent:props to, Zach massage for advancing to the top four in North America, along with Owen Johnson, Hugo LA Prairie, LA Curt
Mike:That sounds right. Yeah.
Brent:Gibbons. Latin American qualifiers. Renzo's Zambrano, Alex Silva, Pablo Leiva and Diego, Casa raga. And who else? I got there? EU Tim Cox Lorenza fly Francisco Catarina. Marco I would've said Francesco, but I heard them say Onstream that it was Francisco. So we're going to go with, and then Oceania, Brent Thomason. Christian has Bonnie Sam. Clayfield James Cox. I mean, I think a bunch of these people are people that, the internet knows.
Mike:So I can't believe Brent Thomas and he has made it. That's so crazy to me. I mean, like Brent's a great player, so it's not crazy that he made it, but he has been like really on top of Hearthstone as well. Like, like. Rank one on multiple servers, on and off kind of the last six months or so. So the fact that he just kinda like came back to Pokemon and casually made top four, here is extremely impressive. that's really cool. Okay.
Brent:So, so the thing I wanted to get you guys' reactions to were, the deck choices, because I found the deck choices, super uninteresting and kind of to, to Britt's point earlier in the pod, like no pig arrives.
Mike:Well, okay, so let's see. So Latin America is three ATPs and the center scorch and a was one sentence score, 20 ADP one, Luke metal, one plus Epsilon. And then I don't see. Oh, okay. And then EDU, to ATPs, to Makarios, Oceania to ADP is one the cardio one to turn it to us. Hmm.
Brent:Nope, not just the turn it and turn it to spirit.
Mike:too. Sorry. Sorry.
Brent:Play field. We salute you for your excellent, excellent deck choice. and the, the closest thing I think there was to an iota of originality and interest in a way of, of, I think pretty uninteresting deck choices.
Mike:Yeah. So lots of ADP looks like blue car and my model was the second biggest one. Only the one that Turnitin. Just a couple sentence. Scorge one Brown. Yeah. So I mean, like we knew that going into this, the ADP was the best deck. Right. And so it was probably the most played deck. Oh, actually we don't have the counts. I think
Brent:No we do. If you scroll down, we have the most common decks overall.
Mike:Oh, interesting. Yeah. So you can't even see ADP on this chart. It just keeps going.
Brent:I'm fixing, I'm fixing it right now.
Mike:but yeah, that is really surprising about peak around. Cause it was the second most played back.
Brent:Yeah. I would've thought peek around would have found a way to get there somehow.
Brit:You know, the players, this, this is so long ago, didn't they submit their deck lists for this, like the first week of November. Cause the players initial qualification closed, October 28th. So it just feels like so much of this was really before peaker, before Mikey's big win. And even before that, because now we have. Like to Pinker on decks, we have the Mikey's 60 and then the EU version with quad bolt-ons. And I just, I just think that's missing, like the, the data we have here is not necessarily indicative of not cause it's just it's meta games again. It's from the game or sent a scorch was still really good. I think so it's hard to gauge, I think, at least for me that's I don't have a whole lot to say for those reasons. I think that. Cause I remember Mikey saying from his experience that he thought the play was, might've been, each Addis based. I can't remember why you say that, but I remember that being near your kind of conclusion from the day, which would have been good and a heavy peak around Metta to be sure. So maybe I'm wrong then.
Brent:So do we, do we have any, are there any people that we think of as, as favorites here, when you look at any of this stuff, are there any like tips.
Brit:I mean, Diego certainly has the player with the biggest accomplishment.
Brent:Yeah. Great. Good.
Brit:well, as Mike was saying, Brent, outside of his Hearthstone prowess has kind of been. The best player. I mean, I guess we have Henry brand, the world champion. but in terms of just general reputation, I know Brent has basically been considered the best player from Australia for years now. So I would think that his, his ability to Excel at multiple games, should be a Testament to his ability to succeed at card games. But, I mean, obviously exactly the slog is a good player and I'm sure many of the other players are, I mean, obviously they're very good to have made it this far. I'm sorry. I don't know a little more about most of them. but I would say it's probably anyone's game and then no need for, favorites or anything like that here. I would imagine all 16 players have a pretty good shot though. when they all get, they, you get to pick a new deck, right?
Mike:Yeah, because we're in a new format now.
Brit:Right, right.
Mike:Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. I kind of agree with Brit. I don't really have a strong pick if I had to pick one person to win the whole thing, I guess I'd pick Diego. not only do I know Diego is a good player, but he's also out of all these people, probably the person I'm closest friends with. So.
Brent:That Hey, that, I mean, I think a good way to pick someone is to pick the person you'd like to win. Right.
Mike:right.
Brent:yeah, I, I was sad to see James Goring lose in the OSI regional finals because he was like the first person from Australia I ever met in my life Pokemon a journey. So I had to see him make top 16 and said to see him lose. I know we were all sad to see, Benji families with attacking next girl. Although, I think we saw it coming
Mike:Yep.
Brent:you know,
Brit:know, what, that, that, that just sort of vanished in that. Maybe, maybe it could creep back in and now that the extra playing for bolt-on
Mike:I did see there was some like, Like small invitational tournament last week with only like, I don't know, maybe 20 or 30 people and like four or five people brought extra drill because it was like the day after, like I had one on Sunday and then V tour one, like the next two days with the same 60 and then on Wednesday was that tournament. So like people just brought extra drill and I saw one of them lost round one to peek around. I was like, what the heck?
Brent:you know, I think that's the problem. Right?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:All right. Let's, let's talk about, are the things that we want to talk about from the tournament's last week? I know I pasted a ton of results for focus stats. We appreciate focused ads for always pulling this data together. here's the thing I want to talk about. The first thing I wanted to talk about is why are you guys not playing peek around? Like I felt like a week ago, it was obvious to me the peak rom is the best deck in the universe. And I feel like since I had that realization, neither one of you has played poker. I'm going to tournament.
Brit:Did you see that? I had a tweet about it. I had a, I quote, tweet at, It was fighting game Twitter that just kind of quotes, scrubs saying things that it was someone saying, I don't like playing the mirror or it did us as they're called sometimes because the person with the better decision-making wins that's why I don't play PC. That's why I don't play picker.
Brent:Okay.
Brit:But now I think why more specifically is that I just never played the top deck to a fault. I'm always trying to look for something in the middle. Something like, you know, as coming from low, smaller meta games where I would have to make, you know, a deck choice that. It doesn't have auto losses. I just like the mere fact that I could lose to colossal scares me sometimes. I don't know. I don't have a good reason for not playing. And I imagine I'll try it here before long. but I don't know what I was going to play for hamsters on Monday. If Danny hadn't tried to talk to me and talked me into LMC.
Brent:you get an even better excuse than that.
Mike:well, so I did play in one. I only played one event during the weekdays last week. But I did run peek around for that. And I think I went like X two and miss cut, or I don't remember exactly, but I did play it for one. And then I played a Turnitin for the Sunday open because I kinda thought I was like, well, let's try and stay one step ahead. Right? Like it turned out. This is really good against Pika, in general. And it's pretty good against ADP. So, and it went pretty well. I mean, I made top eight, the Sunday open with it, so that was it. And then yesterday, I, I was like, I didn't really know what I wanted to play. And so I built an ADP list. Not doing that again. ADP is just too unpredictable. So that was my reasoning.
Brit:think the biggest tournament I wanted to talk about is, well, colossal finally won something, right. That scene where it talking about.
Brent:Yeah. The Hexter hyperlinks the qualifier on Saturday.
Brit:and there wasn't anything, like there was no spice or anything in it really. It's kind of what the lists look like for the most part. Just got some rodent foams and some crushing hammers. Cause why not? But yeah, I thought that was really interesting and I've really been surprised that people aren't talking more about it, that I'm, I've been particularly confused. I don't know how. How it beats sent a scorch in the finals that just match up. Doesn't it good at all? but yeah. Yeah, I would, I'm really curious. I, again, don't know why more people aren't trying causal now that maybe it was just a freak thing. I don't know. It seems hard to get a frequent and along tournament. Like it would be one thing if it were. A 30 person event or something like that with half the field playing peek around or something. But Colin Hexter is, is no easy task. And so I'm, I haven't tested it at all. Like I've meant to, I have all the cards for it, but I, I guess I just played flagon instead for my odd testing.
Brent:Right. So, so I had two, two more questions that I specifically had. First. You guys have any take on this, this for Bolton to build like, yeah, like you now see. A lot of people are playing peek around instead of playing Mike's list or playing the like no hammers for Bolton package, no energy switches. how do we feel about that?
Mike:undecided. I'm actually gonna play in, one of the tournament's tonight, just to kind of like try it for the first time I was reluctant to play it at first because Bolton's costs 16 packs online and I only had two Boltons. So, but I bit the bullet today and
Brent:I have two, I have two bulletins and there be like both in the deck. I'm like, okay, we're never going to do stuff.
Mike:Yep. But, yeah, we're going to try it tonight. I don't know. Like it it's, you're just playing more Bolton. So you start with it more and like get the turn one or turn two, or really turn one electrify. I mean, that's really the only reason I think. it's just, I think they call it, I think, toward called it. No brick Pika.
Brent:so the second question I had is, the big tournament, yesterday, the, the Hexter, number 12, the second and third place, lists. I don't know if you guys saw this. So it was won by the four Bolton peek around, and then second place was this, Persian munch lacks deck. And then third place was a mad tea party.
Mike:Yes, I did see all of that.
Brent:And that's a mad tea party lists, and it seemed just as like straightforward as you would ever expect. I don't understand how it could do well, but I, I thought I should check in with you guys because it is very rare for us to see decks that we rarely see do well. I mean, that's weirder than colossal, right?
Brit:Yeah, I'll, I'll have to look at the Persian munch, like stack and control seems to just really be struggling right now. but I imagine it kind of will look fairly similar to the list that, Sandra has been posting, but yeah, I mean, it's not all that surprising, mad party is going to have some good games. Eventually it's going to have games where it has. Billy and Pokemon in the discard on the first or second turn. Like sometimes that just happens. And when it does you beat the three prize decks pretty easily. you know, Matt, party's always been fine. It just typically isn't fast enough. And so the games where you just happen to have five Pokemon and the DNA, like you win, and that's always going to be the case. I think so. I'd wager if that just happens, but maybe they're a med party player and they really just grind it and grind it and grind it and are applying it, at a higher percentage than an average person or you having a good player picking up man party and playing it for the first time. So, that would be my sort of assessment of it, but I doubt, well, continue to see it. How does is it, uh, does peaker, um, is usually pretty good against men party?
Mike:I dunno. I think it depends. I think it depends on the vehicle. Like if they get a quick vehicle, it's probably pretty good. but if they don't, then it's bad. Cause you like you, you want to item lock and if they get enough guys to just like care your Vika bolt pretty quickly, then you're probably in a bad spot. But if you can pick a volt quickly and then set up tag bolt, you're probably in a good spot.
Brit:Yeah, that was more or less what I thought. And so if picker I'm replacing ADP, I guess I'm not sure if it did. I'm seeing lots and lots of ADP's in this top eight, that your picker on matchup is probably better than your. And so if more people are playing that, a mad party has a better chance of doing well
Brent:Yeah, I, I assume ADP is still the most popular deck and I just can't. Imagine a world where they're able to somehow navigate that matchup, you know?
Brit:you mean some games that are gonna, they might have the Kao when you alter and then you got it. And then they have three turns and you have two turns.
Mike:I mean they did. I did look at it to match up. Cause I was curious the first, I didn't really look at it afterward, but they beat four ATPs in the first five rounds. So that's pretty impressive to me.
Brent:It's a mad, mad tea party. Apparently that is the, no matter where you go.
Mike:Yep.
Brit:it's like we were saying, they have the key play, the key and that we don't, we don't know. some secret information we just might not have that really changes the way you approach the match up or something.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Pretty neat. All right guys, anything else we should talk about?
Mike:I don't think so.
Brent:We've been going for an hour and 15 minutes. That's another pod in the books. tried to get that JWP wall to record it, but as soon as
Mike:Yeah, I saw you talking to him on Twitter.