Okay, pretty good. Had a root canal this morning. So a little, a little tired, a little, little sore.
Brent:Well, that sounds horrible.
Brit:yeah, my least favorite prep place. Maybe
Brent:I have never had a root canal, but my impression is it's really bad.
Mike:It's actually not that bad while it's getting done. I think it gets a bad rap. Just cause they have such good numbing techniques now, but the stuff that they have to do just makes it so your gum and that area's pretty bruised up when they're done. So it's more the aftermath.
Brit:I remember when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, I was just like impatient. Like I just forced, I like hurt through solid food essentially, like before I should have, because I was as dumb as teenage boy. Like, like I was just like, no, I don't have to hard food. I'm tired of milkshakes or whatever. And I would just like bleed through a piece of bread or something.
Mike:I remember like getting my wisdom teeth out. I didn't eat solid food for like a week. And when I had chicken fingers for the first time, it was a very magical experience. So,
Brent:Speaking of probably going to McDonald's tomorrow, I guess.
Mike:yeah, that's sounds like
Brit:and I've seen some of the stuff on that. Are there, is there money to be made on these happy meals? I guess is my question. I had friends not in the Pokemon community texting me like, Hey, should I buy a happy meal? And I was just like, I don't really know if there's a Char's art probably, but I don't think there is. It's just
Brent:No. So I will tell you, and maybe we're jumping right into the Pokemon, printing more stuff, prices be crazy thing, but like I saw.
Brit:I did.
Brent:I saw Russell APAR angry tweet today about like how, you know these, these people who are just like professional hoarders are like authentic for lack of a better word. And and then, and then somebody was asking him like what he was referring to when he said he was referring to something in Burbank pokey Mart. And historically I avoid Burbank Pokemon. Like it's the plague. But I was like, okay, well, let me go in for a second and just see if I can see what he's referring to because of Pokemon chewing out some terrible you know, hoarder sounds like something I would read, I guess I couldn't find that thing, but in like scrolling through 20 posts, that reminded me why I should never go to Burbank polka Mart, they were selling the packs for six bucks a pack.
Mike:Wow.
Brent:Like I have an unopened McDonald's.
Brit:And they're moving. This is not,
Brent:yeah. Oh yeah, no, there was one guy who was like, I have 30 packs and then this comment was like sold.
Brit:Right. Like, I've seen these eBay postings and stuff, and I just don't know, like, is it people really want this stuff or people just trying to make a quick buck and they think it's worth money or something like that.
Mike:Yeah. That's what I assumed.
Brit:I don't know all this petty profit stuff really sort of frustrates me. It just, I mean, I know there, there are certain people out there where I think, know what they're doing, say Penn Darvis or someone like clearly not just kind of parasitic about it, but so many people. And the same thing back in the, you know, six, seven years ago in the hot topic was do we pack while you're not, you know, and it's the same thing there. People are just like, Oh, money, easy money. Like, you know, people just like. They just don't, you know, without I don't, I don't know how to put it, but you know, the expressions, like time is money and things like that. Just like don't, you have to kind of live in the real world or something for those to have some sort of truth to them. And, you know, people who don't experience that sort of thing, they don't realize that. And they're just like, Oh yeah, 200 bucks let's do it. And they don't think about like, you know, making it harder for people who casually just want to buy cards or, you know, think of the children and blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. It's just, yeah. Th th th the mere notion just the profit sum is, is enough motivation for certain types of people in those certain type of people. Just almost always irk me
Brent:Yeah, I mean, w when I was looking at Burbank Pokemon, they were selling, there was a guy selling vivid voltage booster boxes for 200 bucks.
Brit:I will say that I
Mike:And they were going, I guess
Brit:I haven't been in the Facebook groups, any Pokemon Facebook groups for years. And it's, it's just one of the best decisions I've ever made in my entire life. And so for anyone listening, anyone considering it, I would recommend it it'll make the game better. And I don't know, like your capacity to enjoy it better too. And you'll get all the time. Drama anyways, because people will tell you about it. People will post it, not on in the Facebook group. People will put it in your group chats and stuff. So you're not missing anything. You're not gonna, you're not going have a, you know, a real serious FOMO experience. I get all the beat, all the beef, all the drama and stuff. But I don't, I don't have to wait through just the, you know, the people telling you that, you know, wearing a mask is stupid and stuff like that. Like mental health, just take a break, mute them, leave them.
Brent:Oh, that's, you know, I think before I, you know, I, before Pokemon, I was not a big Facebook guy, like up until five years ago, I was like, not on Facebook at all. And I really, I felt like I got into Facebook because my kids got into Pokemon and I was like, well, you gotta like go to Burbank and like stuff. Cause that's that's where like the, you know, the information was, it was like you subscribed to six prizes and you go to Facebook and you read like this Burbank thing. To get like the list of like, I want to cities with blah, blah, blah, like random
Brit:Yeah, there was just a, kind of this weird transition period in the game where. And I guess that's kind of where we are now, but the exit is from the, the, the forums or something all kind of happened at once. And so kind of just out of nowhere, people stopped using like polka gym. Hey trainer. No one ever really used polka beach, as far as I know, I think polka beach was sort of, kind of the rent that, of the old online boards. It was kind of the one you went to, like, if you weren't competitive and you'd kind of get more people who weren't competitive. Whereas obviously polka gym is probably the big one, but then kind of just out of nowhere, one night, Jason Kaczynski was like, I'm just making Facebook groups now. And that's just, that's just like, that was, Hey Fanta. And then that became Burbank and that's just kind of what the online community is now, but it's. It's so far removed from, you know, Jason's project. I think Jason's project with it initially was to try and bring the community together, which of course a large group is supposed to do that. But I feel like just like we're talking about now, there's very rarely good things coming out of Burbank. It seems, and it's always sort of negative things, but anyways It's just, there's just always the bad actor or however you want to put it. It's just seems hard. And it's those sorts of people that you want to weed out. Like I think the community as a whole, for as bad as Burbank tends to seem a lot of the time, like is good. And it's just these just crazy, crazy, ridiculous people that you have to sort of learn how to avoid. And I think just limiting your, your social media to like people you care about people, you know, and things like that really go a long way in sort of establishing that. You know, I'm just all for mental clarity and trying to focus and work on ourselves a little bit more and just don't need to be a part of the knowing Facebook group. If all it does is subset. You
Brent:I feel like there was also like, there was, there was this like moment. I don't know if it was like two and a half years ago when someone, I can't remember who I apologize was like, we should move all this stuff to Twitter. That's what, like the hearts don't people do it because it helps grow the game when the, when the discussions happen out in public. Cause like people can just find it. And like all of a sudden, everybody kind of moved in mass to Twitter because they were like, Oh, that does make sense. We should do that.
Brit:Yeah, I don't, I don't, yeah, I missed, I think that was, this was probably in the year or two when I was just kind of mostly absent. So yeah, I've missed if there was kind of an official, like mandate to do this or for, it was just kind of like. In general, like e-sports move. But I mentioned that in the group chat, I think a long time ago to something I was noticing just like so much of the like Pokemon card game, Twitter scene, or like newer players, I would say I would say a good, a good percentage of the people on Pokemon. Card game Twitter are from kind of 2018 or so. And I was, I found that interesting just in terms of like, why then, like, why was that the big gear people will all kind of seem to coalesce in a general timeframe and I don't have a good answer for that yet, but
Brent:There was a moment when somebody was like, Hey guys, we have to move everything to Twitter now.
Mike:Yeah, I think it was Ray, I think. I mean, and that kind of makes sense, because you said it was like the Hearthstone thing. So I think it was Ray that posted that if we want to grow the Pokemon card game into a pseudo e-sports, that's kind of the next step.
Brent:Yeah, that, that, that sounds like it might be right. I remember thinking it was someone that I didn't really like, know, no that said this, but their argument was like a good argument. And I was like, okay, I'll get on this train. Welcome to the trash land podcast. It's me, Brett Halliburton here as always with the bread Pybus and Mike Boucher. Attendance is 100% reviews are static. You have to leave a review if you want us to leave the review on the air. Oh, you know, one thing I can cut this out of the pod or I can just leave it in because I love this neglect, so we. I, we tried to have our first ever guest on the show. And I have to tell you, I, I felt like this is bad. This is worst news for you guys than it is for me. I felt like I got an instant news flash that we were super old because when I told him when we were recording, he was like, Oh man, I'm not available. I think, I think they definitely think. But like pods, pods and things like this are meant to be recorded at like one in the morning. And I was like, no,
Mike:Not this pod. Maybe
Brent:we're adults, we're a court finds that a reasonable hour. Cause we got to go to bed.
Mike:that's funny.
Brent:I definitely, definitely got the like boomer vibe when I told him when we were recording the pod. And he was like, yeah, that's like, Well, I, I, but, but I was also debating telling them that they have to go leave a review before they come on the pod. That way it's unbiased, but it's just straight out bribery, which seemed like it would really work.
Brit:that'd be funny. I've met. I imagine I would think Xander would be fairly like tongue in cheek about it and hit it with his review, or just be like, I'm coming on the show. Here's five stars or something like that.
Brent:All right, guys, let's, let's jump right in. Let's talk about postponing Pokemon for this year for a second, because obviously that's like the big break in Pokemon news is a world is not happening.
Brit:Yeah. I don't think anyone was really too surprised. I'm always, I keep seeing, not related to Pokemon, I guess there are. Occasionally, I guess in line with the verbiage talk initially, occasionally just people across the country are trying to run in-person events so that occasionally happens, but I don't think anyone was too surprised to see official play. Take another year off. Like I think part of the consideration is not just that you want to keep people safe, but you just also can't risk being the brand that has the super spreader event or that risks it like, you know, even, even if enough time has passed that such that like most everyone should have been vaccinated or something like that. It's just still doesn't seem like it would be worth any amount of risks. Like, I don't know how people are confident in their ability to run conventions this year, but they seem to be happening either way. But yeah, it's hard. I. I don't know. I have, I'd be curious to hear what you guys think about it. I have a kind of general concern. I haven't looked at the numbers just cause I don't know how many people were qualified. Last year, like before, before we, before the season ended and stuff, I would like to know kind of how many people were at 500 and kind of how many people like when we're on page. To because I imagine a lot of players were, and I'm probably being a little too chair charitable about myself to group me in this category, but I intended to try to finish my invite in the spring. And it was a couple of hundred 200 points off, I think. And maybe would've done it, but certainly players better players than me were in a similar boat and without like championship points being given online I just like the, the, this kind of. I have a demographic is just out of luck and I've just sort of been trying to brainstorm ways, you know, Pokemon can look like account for that and if they need to or something, I'm not, I'm not sure I ended up going with it, but I think my sort of purported solution is that. That worlds just has to be an open, right? It has just to be like a three or four day open and you just give buys and a day buys round buys, you know, based on CP and some stuff like that. I feel like that as a way that guarantees it's a huge success people, you know, it puts a lot of. Players and seats, it's an open. Anyone can participate and you don't, we're in such bizarre uncharted waters that I just feel like, you know, doing something totally new, doesn't seem wrong to me. Like, no, one's going to complain like, Oh, this isn't, this isn't really the world championships anymore. I was like, well, the world has changed since then. We have to, we have to, we need new solutions. We need to do things a little bit differently. So that's sort of what I was thinking about, I guess. The more important point being that if with another, with another year of online only we need, I think what we need better things than players, cop, like maybe keys and stuff is what works, but we need championship points, I think are just their needs. There has to be an overhaul to the invite system for, I think the 20, 20, 20, 22 worlds to mean anything to the players who players, who aren't qualified. Otherwise it's just like, what's going on. It's just like a trip I'm taking in two years or something.
Mike:Perhaps the So I, I guess I didn't read the actual article. So I remember when they first said it, they would carry over the championship points from, you know, last season to this season. Did they say that they're not doing that this time?
Brit:no, there's, there's nothing like that, but I I'm just with that, like, okay. So the points carry over. That doesn't matter. If there aren't new ways for me to earn points.
Mike:Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah,
Brit:Right. And so what, what if there's this you know, another year passes and I'm at 499 championship points or something, and just two whole years have gone by, and there've been exactly zero opportunities, you know, obviously like I, they're not going to do nothing. Of course.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Brit:but I, I guess what I'm saying is I'm hoping for something a little more drastic. But that's just me, I guess.
Brent:I like your idea of like, I mean, when they, when they do recognize that they can now pick up the tournament, like, like they can start doing events again. I mean, I think we've always talked about how that first regional is going to be very crowded. I mean, I like your, you know, Hey, like we can just do something new. Like we could have a, you know personal in-person players cup or something and just like, they should just have it in AIC, you know, get a gigantic convention center, like why just start up regionals again and act like, you know, nothing happened for the last year and a half and they should do a special event. Like they
Brit:what I mean. Yeah. Like instead of, instead of the world championships, it could just, it's an open that is for the best player, you know, the winner is recognized as the best player in the world and it's just the like COVID London, mega battle, something like that. Like. And to, like, you're saying about like, I think no matter what, the, whatever, the first like large event back is is going to be crazy and huge. And what better way than to put it in like a flagship event or something like that. Like, not just like, it's not just that like, The Hartford regionals was really, really big this year or something. It was like, no, there's this event in London that's been planned for years, that only hasn't happened yet because of a global pandemic. Like it's going to be the biggest event. We've got the, the 25th anniversary sort of on the horizon as well. Obviously that will kind of be expired by 2022, but still just kind of like a big welcome back to the game or something. I
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like they could just do a big event and, and what's interesting is you probably don't have to book a gigantic convention center. Years in advance, like historically you've had you had for worlds because I assume everyone's canceled every event basically forever, right? Yeah.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Especially at these really big ones. Like the one, like you book a small town venue over no big deal, but yeah, the huge, huge, legit ones that world would be occupying, like yeah. Surely there's no events planned for these sorts of places.
Brent:I mean, I know when people were talking, talking about whether or not worlds was going to happen this year one of the things people were saying was the Excel center has been turned into a vaccination site. Through like October or something. So, you know, it's hard to imagine that we're going to do worlds cause it's vaccination site.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:So, so that's interesting. I assume you guys don't have any strong opinions, but I know the last time we talked about events getting postponed and, and this time too, Immediately, there were a bunch of posts to the pokey parents, Facebook group, where people were like, dude, my kid is day jumping another year, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I recognize it's it's all super bad for me.
Brit:Yeah, I think that that's something too that I think maybe can get accounted for somehow in the kind of idea I'm trying to propose. I'm not sure what it would be. Cause I. You know, on one hand, I don't know if you want them against the masters right away, but on the other, like, would it be fair to give, give these sorts of these aged up players like buys and then just keep them in the senior division? Like something like that. Would that be okay, fair, unfair or not? And it's hard to say. I really wonder kind of what the States of either the junior and the senior division will look like, just in terms of like competency, because I imagine. The, the, the players, the younger, younger children who are competing in online, they're, they're not going to lose their, their chops, their fundamentals, or what have you. But I would think if like a vast majority of player of these younger players just don't play for a year or two, like, how would they be able to compete at worlds? Say like, it's just, it seems different to me. And then obviously not that many younger divisions are few and far between or younger kids or. On in the online events,
Brent:A whole generation
Brit:sure, but yeah.
Brent:played supporters on the first turn.
Mike:Yeah. Well, and I'll take you a step further. My guess is that there are plenty of new masters that have started playing during the past year, like through the online program. But I doubt there's a whole lot of new juniors and seniors, like the primary way for younger kids to get into the game is through the physical leagues and whatnot. It's much harder for them to get into it just through the online events. So not only will maybe juniors and seniors not be as good, but there might just not be juniors and
Brit:Yeah. Yeah. Now that you're putting it like that, maybe this is actually what finally kills the divisions. Maybe. I don't know, like, you know, obviously I don't think they would just say no more, no more, a little divisions anymore, but like, if attendance is really bad for the first year back or something, like, I don't know, I don't know what they're doing. There's always rumors floating around that. They're going to like, get rid of the DGC or something. I know I've heard that rumor, like at least three separate times over a couple of years that, you know, they were for sure killing BGC this year.
Brent:Although BBC kind of got new life when they switched it over to the switch, like
Brit:Oh, yeah. If you got a really big
Brent:kind of, I think fixed a lot of the problems they had.
Brit:right, right. Right now, not that there is probably any amount of truth to people saying that sort of thing, but I mean, if you look at every other card game as a precedent, like they've never really had divisions. As far as I know, like magic, I don't think I've ever has Yu-Gi-Oh has briefly, but it doesn't anymore to my knowledge. And I think maybe that would be, I think what, and this is, this is maybe just wrong. So maybe someone like Russell or something could correct me. But if I remember right, the. The younger, younger division in Yu-Gi-Oh is just kind of like if you showed up and you happen to be that age, they would just throw you into a side tournament while the big regionals was going on. And like, maybe that would just work for Pokemon for the time being, you know, I guess that's just what happens at Lee cup. So there's something already sometimes, you know, the, not enough juniors and seniors as massive from together. Maybe that would be okay. I mean, again, you would get 14 year olds playing seven year olds or something, which wouldn't be great, but
Brent:Yeah, no, I'm, I'm a big, big believer in age divisions because I just don't think we would've gotten. And there, if, if we'd been thrown in with masters from day one, you know, and I think Pokemon, like they liked the kids.
Brit:I think so too, but yeah,
Mike:I liked the idea of age divisions as well. Cause it eases it not only eases the kids in, but it gives them, like you said, it get, if they're good, when they're younger, it like gives them this confidence that then they can continue and use that momentum to keep going. Once they do hit 15 or 16 years old.
Brent:Yeah, but it's a, it's definitely weird for me. I mean, I know that they had kind of previously announced, Oh, they're going to extend senior eligibility for a year and junior eligibility for a year. Like, I don't know if they do that now. I'm assuming that they go back and they say, we're just going to unwind all that because like, you're just destroying age divisions. If you say, well, we're going to extend it all two years. But, but like, what that means is obviously like my son and, and then these other kids that you would think of as like top tier competitors, like Reagan, red slaw or something, like, they basically never got to be seniors, right? Like there were a first year senior, and then they missed the next two years of senior and they went right into masters. It's weird because I am, I'm sure that, that all those guys thought. We're going to have this kind of like John and grant man leaves and her parents, whatever kind of opportunity to like compete at the highest level as a senior, and then step into masters and, and demonstrate are like mojo. And instead, because Pokemon hasn't been able to have tournaments for young kids. Like they essentially haven't been allowed to play competitively for two years. And then they're just gonna get like thrown in with masters who have been playing in players cop and like doing all this stuff right. It's a weird thing. I, but I suspect there's kind of nothing to be done about it. Cause like, I don't think you can keep, I don't think you want to start a third age division or fourth age division just to protect the, those poor people who had incredible bad luck, but socks.
Brit:It's hard. I think that the, like the John, John and grant and Zander people like that, I like are like exceptions at the very least in terms of like, not every senior is expected to be better than masters, sort of the minute they age up. So it's not like there aren't a ton of these kids out there at the very least. I guess I came out, they probably came out a little worse than I meant it to, but I was, I was trying, I was trying to compliment their graduating class on being sort of particularly noteworthy, like perhaps the best one sort of in terms of just like people who have aged up for a group of kids who aged ups relatively collectively, and just kind of continue to dominate the game.
Brent:Yeah, I think there's two or three every year in my mind. I obviously I'm super close friends with them, but I look at like Kayden Hyatt, somebody who would have been like a first year master this year. He's very good. He'll probably be good.
Brit:It's just sort of as a tangent. Didn't hear one of the, one of the nice benefits of the game being stuck online as I I'm, I'm developing a better knowledge, a better appreciation of younger kids and international. Like, I just know some kids from Brazil now, and they're really good being there, always in the United seniors, from Brazil, they're always doing well on the online tournaments and I've like talked to them occasionally and stuff too. Just kind of a cool little experience in our, in our COVID times
Brent:kids interested in the game, do we want to talk about how apparently Pokemon's like completely run out of product?
Brit:Yeah, that's a good segue, too much interest in the game.
Brent:I mean hard, hard for kids to develop an interest in Pokemon. If you go to the target and there's no focus on product.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Do you remember, do you know, I assume you would ha Deloitte Mikey.
Mike:Oh yeah, of course.
Brit:Yeah, he works. So he works for, he works for like target corporate in like Tacoma now. And he's, he's, he's in the, our group chat and he's always popping in with just like people were fighting over and he's in charge of asset protection too. So he's like tackling shoplifters and stuff sometimes. Or he did back when he was in a store or
Mike:Yeah, I remember that
Brit:Yeah, but anyways, but he was, he was telling us not too long ago, that car target, like corporate are trying to like catch resellers and stuff. Like they're monitoring it. And like, I somehow like monitoring in a way. That's more nuanced than just like, I'm paying attention to you physically in the store. I'm in the, I'm not letting you buy. It's like, like digital sort of tracking is involved trying to catch this. And I think, I don't remember off the top of my head, but I would imagine if Target's doing it like. Everywhere is probably doing it like Walmarts and places like that, I would think. But it's, you know, it's a problem that's manifesting, not just for Pokemon, it's manifesting for these retail companies and stuff too. That's kind of how ridiculous it's become. The out, like I've sat at a time or two now. I've. I've never seen vivid voltage physically yet. I've seen champions pass physically once and you know, that's just my experience. I just don't, I'll just never see straight packs again, but it might be good for my wallet. I I'm, I'm that type of person. I always just like, I like opening packs, I guess, not to sidetrack S again, but I just like. I'll buy the tins rather than buy the 10 promo because it's like, Oh, well, you know, I'll get the packs too. And like the card is worth$5. So it's like, Oh, you know, you know, th th those sorts of calculations. So I just, you know, I blew too much money buying like SPN GX, promos. Cause I just bought all the, I bought the boxes instead of the promos and know for no reason other than just why not?
Brent:I like cracking facts. That's all there is to it. So, so Pokemon has said, they're going to print more stuff. Does that, like, it made me realize like one of the weird things about this, like collecting businesses, like people are collecting contemporary things where they can just print more to change the supply demand, right? Yeah. Amex, I mean, I rec, like, I don't know if, kind of what we were talking about earlier. There's like this element of GameStop and vacation to the like Pokemon mania. But you know, I mean, I guess I'm hoping I'm torn between, like, it'd be great if Pokemon cards were really valuable because I have a lot, but I also recognize, I mean, with any luck in a year, I'm gonna need like a lot of or like, I mean, we're, we're all, all of us are in a, like a better place where if we said, you know, you have to pay a hundred dollars, we want it for COVID BS and be like, okay, like we could probably get enough value to justify sinking$400 into a place that had crowbar viz. But I don't want the prices to get like magic, crazy.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:think that's a good question. We'll kind of just like general the average person's kind of interest in Pokemon. The cards, well, this kind of surging popularity, will that ever affect a competitive cards? I mean, I guess obviously if it's a set like champions path and it's, you know, say a crowbar was only in champions path or something like naturally that the credit that would be a more expensive there elsewhere, but like, yeah. Did I just actually something, I don't know. I don't really know. I had a similar question. I'm just pretty ignorant when it comes to. Kind of the ebb and flow of the economy. But yeah, I mean, I guess obviously I would, I would think it has to a little bit, but like to the where at what point is the game so popular that like Krawetz$200 or something
Brent:Yeah. I mean, I assume a rising tide lifts all ships, like, like I was saying, if you don't want Burbank polka Mart, if they're selling a vivid voltage boosters for 200 bucks, I mean, on the one hand, I'm like really, really excited to go to a tournament and try to win three booster boxes. Like that's what my kids do, but man, I can't be buying vivid voltage cards. That kind of prices.
Brit:Mm. What about to, in terms of like does like Pokemon, okay. They're just like we're okay. We're reprinting more. That can't really cost them like any money. It's like how much, like, realistically do you think that they're going to do, like, do you think it'll be, where are we going to have surpluses of product out of nowhere? Or is it just going to be like enough or, I mean, maybe to the scalper is just double down, like.
Brent:Yeah, that's what I wanted to is like, like, does it go from two. A hundred to 60 or does it go from 200 to like one 25? And it's like accessible, but it's not like flooded.
Brit:Because, I mean, part of the value is not necessarily how much there is. It's it's me telling you that's how much I'm going to pay for it. So as long as people are sort of satisfying the scalpers, there's no reason to stop scalping and, you know, unless you suddenly have a moral obligation to it or something like that. I mean, obviously I couldn't. I don't think it could get worse, but I could see it remaining hard, even still difficult to find cards, even if they're being printed more. It seems to, I guess it depends on. Where are these cards fall like as is, is it Walmart's that they're going to be having more? Is it everyone? Is it just the Pokemon center? Because too, sometimes the scalpers are the distributors. Like I've seen posts, posts here and there on Twitter, on, you know, clearly you notice a local game store or something just like clearly trying to flip their they're guaranteed elite trainer boxes and stuff like that. So sometimes, you know, you're, you don't even have a say in it. It's just whoever you can buy from.
Mike:So just a, I'm just looking on troll Intuit at some competitive vivid voltage, single too, which is not a lot of them. And this might not be
Brent:story right here.
Mike:Yeah, this might not be totally accurate because maybe people just aren't buying the cards. So the singles are lower than they would have been. But like colossal V max is five bucks and colossal V is three bucks, which is about what I would expect from our, you know, cards of those competitive stature. So, so far it doesn't seem to be effecting but who knows when people actually want to start buying the singles for
Brent:Right, right. If it, if they said, Hey, we're starting up tournaments next week, we'd all rush out to buy Claussell VMX and they'd be sold out tomorrow. Right?
Mike:Yeah, right. So I don't know, but even like CRA and Crow, bats were fairly what you would expect, like 15 bucks for the regular art, which, you know, it's, it's a great card and it goes in every deck. So I remember paying. I don't know, like 25 or so from, for, for DNAs and shamans. And that always felt reasonable for your card of that stature. So we'll see. It is worrisome. I do think like the, the, the worry of all of this is not unfounded. I just hope that, you know, I'm, I'm optimistic that it won't affect us too much.
Brent:Yeah, it's weird because there's, there's like this kind of. Supply demand driven economy, but like nobody knows what will happen. You know, like where we're going to test the new economic environment and like, see how supply and demand resolves itself in an incredibly short period of time can be pretty pretty, pretty brutal. Why don't we talk about players cup three for a minute, and then we can circle back around and talk about the, the unbanned how's players come through going, man.
Mike:I got two keys left, so I'm almost done. I have 130 points, something like that. One 29. Yeah. Played mostly Pika again, since we talked, I played a little bit more. Since last week I was on the LMC train. I played a couple more at the LMC, send us Gorge just for a couple. Those went okay. And then I switched back to Piqua and I won five in a row, which was, which is good. And then, then I finally lost one. And then I played one with the blind list that Ross is destroying with and I won that one. And so I only have two more left, but almost, I would say, like, I've played a little bit of everything in these, in these cups, in these tournaments. But about, I dunno, maybe about 60% of my points I've gotten with Pika about 30% with Luke metal and then the last 10% with. The random one or two of tournaments that I played with the other decks,
Brent:You go off LMC because you felt like you should try Szymanski center scorch, or was there some other reason you went off LMS
Mike:I went off LMC pretty soon after Szymanski posted his Senator scorch list, because I was worried about playing against more center
Brent:ear, fear of army SNS Gorge.
Mike:Yeah, which was fairly accurate, not like, not like a ton of center scorch, but certainly a large uptick comparatively to what I was playing before.
Brent:And, and as soon as I assume, 70 scores didn't go well for you and you played some mirrors and you said, I should just play, pick her up.
Mike:aye.
Brent:send a score to all the time.
Mike:See PR also definitely peak is favored, but it is funny you say that. So I played exactly two keys with center scorch. The first one, I beat two mirrors and then I beat a Zambian. And then in the second one I lost in the first round of center scorch. And my note on it was I didn't play good. So yeah, so I don't think I understood the center scorch mirror as well as I would have liked. And then the ad.
Brit:Mir in my experience, I play a lot of it's kind of score. It's probably the bit that I've played the most more recently, I guess I did learn Pika for the keys. Some score Tamir is like it's nuanced, but only in these games where both players are hitting their welders and stuff. There's a lot, there's a lot of scenarios where like player one wins the game. You know, kind of on their first turn there's there's those scenarios. But like when both players are like the debt, both players have the deck like running, well, it's a pretty fun match up. It's it's methodical, but some games are just like, I hit welder and you did it. Or some games are just like it depends on if they play heat Tran a lot. Cause I know that's kind of what characterizes the Szymanski list Alex's list versus the. The general Twitter list or something as he still plays, he Tran whereas most of the, the Twitter list is kind of on Russia's ARD. And that meant that card is really, can be really big and mirror. It can one shot send a scorch out of like reasonably out of nowhere or at least you know, in ways that the VMX can't you know, you need eight, eight,
Mike:Yeah. Cause I could imagine like, It seems like the two ways to play the up is either go big on one set of scorch and just like. All right, I'm gonna, one-shot your guy before you get to hit mine and then you get to like take four or five prizes, maybe even all six with the big guy, and then just try and find your last couple prizes with something else later on. Or you set up two set of scorches with kind of like three energy each and you go for like this two shot game. And so I imagine if you're playing that second strategy, the heat Tran can really come in. To take that big one, not one shot. If you need to, because you can pull the energy from both guys that you've been pairing up.
Brit:I think that, I think that's right, but I think part of it too, again, is just kind of like, what are you given? What cards did you draw? Because like, I think which route you choose is largely dependent on that. And it's largely dependent on like, The Volcani one or not. Did I, did I get four energies? Did I get six energies on the board, on my first turn or something like that? And that's sort of what I mean, and I talked about this last week, but the games that sent a scorch welders to energy and has Volcani on, on the first term, basically never leaves this. And just those, those, and that's true in the mirror match, or if you're playing ADP or at you or something Pikachu being the exception because you have. A realistic out that isn't too, that isn't too hard to do. Like could just be one pair of paralysis could do the trick. Whereas other decks, just like half to two shot it or something, which is often when they pop off like that, you just don't have enough time. And then they have the next one, like, you'll kill this big one. And then they'll, they'll do one 62 identity with the second one or something like that.
Mike:Makes sense.
Brent:Do you have a feeling? Is there, is there like any. Consistent like Metta right now. Is it still like more center scorch or is it like.
Mike:Personally, the two decks that I play against the most are ADP and attorney tests.
Brit:It, it felt like there was a meadow when I was playing, but since it's been a few weeks, I don't know what it changed, but yeah, I didn't play against too much attorney tests, really, just a handful of times. I played against so much ADP ADP, and then just a little bit of just kind of a little bit almost equal amounts of everything else.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. ADP is definitely by far the most popular.
Brit:I think if you like qualified the ADP decks, like differently. I think like my, the deck I played against the most would be ADP hammers. And then the second demo stack would be like, ADP.
Brent:Okay.
Mike:Yeah, that sounds accurate. but I don't know. So it is, it is interesting to think about how things may or may not change in these last two weeks because. It seems like a lot of people have played a lot of their keys, but maybe not, maybe it's just like what, we've, what we've seen. People post, like there's like, you know, there's a bias of just seeing people post about their results. I'm sure there is.
Brent:to be, I think it's going to be like last year. I mean, Azula just tweeted today. Okay, I'm going to start using my keys now.
Mike:Right, right, right, right, right.
Brent:Right? So, so he, I think we wondered if there were going to be people who kind of were until the end, because they thought everybody else was burning their keys. I so clearly fell into the, everybody else is burning their keys. I'm going to wait and then I'll come in and get easy lobbies.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:I don't know if it's gonna work out like that.
Brit:I hadn't thought about that. Or at least since it's looking like, I probably won't qualify again this time I thought about like, maybe that's what I should have done. And I don't, I don't think so. Like I don't, I don't regret that approach. Like if I want to be a good player, why w why would I purposefully choose. An easier environment. And I guess with someone like Azule, you could easily respond that it doesn't matter. And that's true. Like he would qualify regardless of who he plays, but for someone like me, who's like trying to grow like, you know, certain players, like, you know, maybe I could have asked someone to play keys for me. And I'm sure people do that in the same way that people are talking about, you know, how. You can't all be in a discard car all together, you know, at a certain point it's cheating. Right. But yeah, like if I want to improve, I don't think I should purposefully seek out the easier log like it. Okay. Cause, cause, cause I want to improve. Right. Well it's not, my ultimate goal is not to qualify for the players cup. They're not. And so if those were, those were in verus, then I think there would be a stronger argument for like, yeah, just do what's ever easy, but I'm not sure what I'll end up doing for the next one. But I thought about that, like what that has maybe made a difference. And I said,
Brent:We discussed it and it, it wasn't obvious that that was actually a thing. Like, I, I felt like it turned out, there were a bunch of guys right at the end that were like, really. Grinded out keys and piling up like crazy stats. But like there were these good players. I mean, you're like, okay, I was going to wait until the end. And like now I'm in the lobbies with the Zul every time I burn a key, so Mike do want to talk to us about blowouts.
Mike:So I mean, the list that Ross has been playing is pretty similar to a lot of the other, like Chris Epsilon lists. The only. Big differences that he plays a couple of spinners over some other cards. And I think the biggest thing, well, the two, the two big things that spinners allow you to do is one you're. If you go second on your, and your first turn can be much more explosive, you can often get a big one-shot with the Blount or just helped you find energies on the first turn to welder, to cram Moran or whatever, whatever. You're doing. But the other thing is throughout the game, I do find that often you're trying to sell her wish for a way to get energies often. So whether that's fire crystal, whether it's giant hearth and this just kind of gives you one more option to stellar wish for an energy. So it's been pretty good. Like I said, I only played the one key with it, but I am playing it in a Atlas event. So I'm going to get some more experience with it. I mean, Ross is 33 keys in and has 118 points. So I think if he keeps his pace, he'll pass Szymanski for number one. So I don't know if that'll happen. I feel like this happened last time as well. Like Ross had the first, like 30, 40 keys. He had like an insane record in the last 10. You just got eighth, like every single time. So hopefully that doesn't happen. I mean, It doesn't matter, he's already qualified, but like, it'd be cool for him to, to do so well.
Brent:To really run up the score a little.
Mike:Yeah. So we'll see. Bland is pretty good though. The only other thing I wanted to mention from my decks is I have been playing the Pika version that kind of has gotten popular with over the last two weeks or so with the two yellow grunts. Basically, they cut the energy switch spots for the two yall grants and they cut the big charm for a tag switch and they cut one of the chaotic swells for a third Bolton. So I've been playing that, but the, the one card that I'm not still not convinced about is tag switch. I've I've been playing without the tag switch and just running to swell still from that kind of standard list Just because in the players cup, in particular, the, it turned into his variants are very often powerplant alternatice. I don't know why I just played against so much power plant attorney tests. So the second 12 is really good there. So I don't know what's better overall, but, but I do think the two yell grunts are pretty strong in this Metta. They're really good against the Turnitin is obviously that's the main reason that you play them, but they're pretty good. They're pretty good against ADP. For obvious reasons, not as good, but still pretty good, but they're actually also really good against Luke metal, because that matchup is all just about kind of going slow. Each of you kind of taking your time, doing little things, conserving your resources and yell. Grunt just gives you a way to slow them down a little bit. And maybe you get an extra free attack of damage in there. So, so it's actually really good in that matchup. Can be okay in the mirror as well. Anything else? Not super useful, but they're, they're surprisingly versatile for match-ups other than really the intended purpose, which his attorney says
Brent:So, so the one other players got three questions that I want to talk. Did either of you get the chance to read the Caleb or his article and channel fireball?
Mike:skimmed it. Earlier today. Yeah. I didn't read everything, but I got the gist of it.
Brent:Yeah, I mean, so he, he, I guess he's, he piled up like 117 ish points playing primarily ADP. I have no idea what the question I was going to ask you guys about it was, but there was some interesting thing that I thought. Was a noteworthy about what the heck he did there.
Mike:So while you're thinking about that, that I do remember when I was skimming it, he talked about his matchups and his conclusions of the match-ups, which regardless if I agree or disagree with them, which mostly some of them, I agreed. Some of them, I disagreed. For example, he thought Pico was very favored. Any thoughts on escorts was favored? Which is fine, but I do think like these are not, these are not the events to make those conclusions from. I don't think you know, they're closed necklace, you're planning against random people that may, may have good Declan, but may have good deck lists may not, but even if they do have good deck lists, then you know, they might not be playing them optimally. So I don't think you can really draw too many conclusions overall. You can draw conclusions about your own play and indeed individual things that you could have done or. Done better or differently, but I don't think we really should be making broad assumptions on match-ups based on these events.
Brent:Oh, so, so here's the question I wanted to ask you guys. The one thing that I thought was really innovative and interesting about his list is he plays three big charms and then he plays one zigs again. So I felt like last week we spent a lot of time kinda grinding on the value of the big charms versus vitality bands. And I wondered if you guys had a reaction like, Oh, that was, I was like, Oh, that's an interesting kind of resolution to the problem, conceptually. Cause like you can squeak out that extra 10 damage in the two or three match-ups where you need it. And then you got big terms, big terms are great. And I assume that he's thinking his three big charms is what really moves the needle for him in a meaningful way, in like the peak around matchup. Right.
Mike:I don't think there's really much math that the, it helps in the peaker on match, but I could see that the sender scorch match that gets a lot better with the three big tracks.
Brit:I would, I would, I would really play high, super high. Charm. If I had to beat ADP mirrors all day. Like if you can, if you can be just careful about the dropout on new bench and you can put a, a charm on the first one, let's say like, you just usually can't win. Like if the scenarios that ADP has. That is going to take the first prize and that's, what's going to tempo you out of the game. If you stop that play, like it's just buys an extra turn. It's almost like they miss alter sometimes. Like it's just it's, you know, the, the game is almost always going to be five turns max or something like that. And so having 20 X, 20% more time of course means a whole lot. But yeah, I'm not sure. I picked term is a card. I find myself like wanting to play high car, high camps of, but. I'm never, never impressed with like the third one. I always, I always find myself comfortable at two because I know like Kevin Clemente, I think the, the peaker on lists that he made, I think top 16 in the last players cup with he was playing, he was rocking triple charm and no hammer. And when I was testing, no hammers. For the players cup. I started there just because I like tools. I like having more health. And just like I just said, it just, it feels like overkill. But again, I think if you're really, really hedging against certain match-ups in the same charms being good on your identities and Crow, bats is true, of course, and peek around it. Doesn't just have to be as an ADP player or something, but I feel like they have more mileage in ADP maybe than in peak her. But I'm not sure.
Mike:Yeah, well,
Brit:Like a hair more.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we did talk about last week that if you're going to play these tools, you should commit. So running three big charm, I think is certainly better than running one. The difference between two and three, I don't know, but you certainly find it much earlier. I think that's probably the biggest against like center scorch and it turned it to us because you really, really need it on the first ADP or the ADP.
Brent:and to, to Brit's point, like, I like the idea. I mean, interestingly, he only with 13 and eight versus the mirror and I. I assume he was like the more skillful player in virtually every one of those games, but yeah, I mean, finding a big charm early to slap on the day-to-day or something like that, that like, keep him from getting that ultimate rate of one shot, putting pressure on him to find a scrapper quickly, like seems good.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:It seems like it'd be good against LMC, like big terms. There's a reason why we liked it last week. But I mean, that, that Zig the, the idea of and then a bunch of big charms seemed like an interesting resolution to the problem, because there's like a couple of match-ups where the extra 10 really moves the needle. And he's like, I got a plan for that.
Brit:Yeah, I like, I always liked the compromise approach. I used to feel that like, as a deck builder, that typically tends to be what I. Like the most, it's never, never committing. I hate, I don't know if I've ever like played in a tournament with a deck that just couldn't beat something. Like, I've never just like, I just can't do that. And to the, to the point where it's a fault, I think at times too, but I just, I'm always going to have the decidua. I answer I'm always. I just hate, I can't, I just hate having an auto loss, even if it's like super popular when there's just something sort of like psychological about it, that I just I'm taking out my deck. I'm just never going to be the kind of consistent one
Brent:I mean, if you're you know, it's interesting, I remember this, this kind of relates to a conversation. I think I had with Azula about the DDG, like team strategy, like when you're a good player. Like I think you're willing to reduce your, like, You know, you're, you're willing to take a lot more 50 fifties to have a 50, 50 against like other stuff. Right. Because you're like, well, I'm a good player. So it it'll be fine. What I don't want is to like flip over cards against a player who's just objectively so much worse than me and be like, yeah, my list.
Brit:Right. I mean, I think to, to exactly that point, like that's what happens. That's exactly what happens to me is that I play like someone ran round one round two with a binder drop or something a little better than that. And it's just so unintentionally. Good against me. And I know, I think I've told stories like this before, and it's just like this isn't a meta deck. This was not a deck made or chosen to beat my Mehta deck, but boy, golly does it
Brent:So I remember I had a conversation with Azula about you know kind of halfway through the DDG life cycle about how it's kind of process of building decks and working with the DVB team. And what he said was he said, he felt like the decks that he played before DDG. It was like, he was just trying to make everything 50, 50 everything, 50, 50 everything, 50 50. And in, in like building decks with pen Darvis and Igor, he was a little more open to like where we're gonna like really refine what we think the Metta is and polarized games a little bit more. So like, make sure we do not lose to like the decks that people are gonna be playing at this tournament. And, and we're gonna be more open to taking losses at the very, very edge. And and he was like, you know, historically that has not been my approach.
Brit:I mean, it's such a good example, too, just to kind of knock myself a little further, is that so many of the times at like a zoo, all their Ryan Sable house that they do well it's with. These decks that are just like volcanic Rian or trying to think of another good example where I just like, it's that like, I could never play Volcani in because I just, I didn't want to lose to Greninja it's things like that. And obviously like, you can just beat Greninja when you're good enough sometimes, but yeah, I just, I just never play these decks because I worry about. You know, things that I shouldn't be worried about. And I just clearly need to have, you know, a more maybe statistical or mathematical mind when I'm thinking about these things, rather than just like, well, they, these scenarios of will they won't they do they play this? What if they don't blah, blah, blah. Like, no, just play a good deck and be good.
Brent:I assume you guys read Xander's article and channel fireball.
Mike:I haven't read it. Actually. I did see it, but it's like the old data one, right?
Brent:Yeah. And have you, have you messed around with Datadog?
Mike:I clicked on the site, but I've been busy and haven't gotten a chance to I've also, I feel like I've gone through like spurts of motivation for the data analysis, computer science stuff. And right now I'm on a, a not so interested.
Brent:It's you know, I, I love anytime somebody goes to the trouble of really like doing this interesting kind of analysis and, and in that respect, I like it. No, it seems like it would be pretty like, you know, I guess what's funny is, you know, they have all these wind rates and they'll tell you like decks that had this card and how many copies his card, what their win rate was against this, like against these metadata X, which conceptually is really, really good.
Mike:Talked about that.
Brent:yeah. And it seems like, like the sample sizes seem big enough that. Like most of the results are statistically significant, but it doesn't seem like it would be really easy for them to add, you know, here's, here's what statistical significance would be at. Like these number of games played or something like that to help you kind of suss out what the answers are. I think the other thing that's weird is when he says like people that run one, one copy of this wind, 5% more against blah-blah-blah, like, I wish he had had a little more insight into what the trade-offs were.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brent:Like, it's not, you know, like that's like Zander, Susanna puts together this kind of data optimized list at the end. And it's like a little bit of an exercise and kind of going through and saying like, here's what I think the shell is. And then here are the cards that had the highest win rates against like some perceived Metta. And I suspect there's some way to be slightly nerdier about that, but I don't, I don't know what it is right off the top of my head.
Mike:Okay. Yeah. Well, some I'm skimming it right now. One thing that I am a little, there's a couple of things I'm cautious of with Looking at something like this. So what, one of the things that comes to mind is he's talks about one great catcher and peek around significantly improves its overall win rate. Looking at overall from the past month, the wind rate increases from 51.4% to 55.2%. With sample sizes, 3,391 for without great catcher and 268 with the great catcher. So two things going on here, one such a lower sample size with the great catcher. So. I am a little hesitant to make a conclusion that like great catcher is strictly better for when the sample sizes are so drastically different, because that means that probably the people that were playing great catch or at least. There's a world where most of the people playing great catcher are much better than the people that are not playing great catcher.
Brent:Or Mike Fusha.
Mike:right, right. Well, yeah. Yeah. Now if the sample sizes are really similar to it, each other that probably balances out. But if the sample sizes are very different, that's probably telling you something that there's some subset of the, of the population. That is either much better or much worse than than the average. And that's why they're playing such a card. Maybe they're playing it because they know it's really improving the Dex win rate, or maybe they're just winning because they're better. Or maybe they're losing more. Cause they're worse. So I don't know that that's like the only, I know with like large enough numbers, this stuff should not matter too much. But our numbers aren't that big. We're not talking about like hundreds of thousands of games here.
Brent:Yeah, well that's so I don't know if you guys saw it, like, as I was pulling together, show notes for this. I, I sent a tweet out into the universe at the limitless guys where I was saying, when people submit match results, they should submit whether or not they went first or second,
Mike:Hmm.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, that would be such an easy function to implement into the whole, just like reporting tab that you always have to do. Yeah, just be a really seamless way. Seamless way to collect more data.
Brent:Like everybody. So yeah, in my mind, you know, I like, I kind of harassed the ender about this a little bit. It seems to me like if I was going to do a logistic regression of what makes a deck when it's like the cards in the deck who went first. And player skill seemed like the three, like big drivers, and then you have to have it just like sample size to drive out the RNG, you know, like everything else has kind of RNG a little bit. And I was trying to think about how you would kind of do player skill and here's, here's my like new idea that I was all set to spring on Zander at the pod. You know, historically, I, I was like, well, I'll use CP because like CP was the thing that was always changing. And people had CP and kind of the Brits point at the start of the pod. That's not a thing anymore, but my new idea, and I think that this is probably easy to implement in the context of Datadog in some way is like you could, you could mess around with a logistic regression where you looked at that player's last, like the same player who played that deck. Like. Their last 50 games or a hundred games or 10 games. And you can even like run a logistic regression on all three to figure out which one is actually like, like how many games you have to include before you, you know, at all like kind of the curve melts away to lacking value. But I feel like there's some way you could measure player skill by looking at their last X tournaments and just like roll up those tournaments and then say, No. I mean, if a guy who's gone, you know, 40 and 10 in his last 50 rounds is plenty of guy who's gone 20 and 30 in his last 50 rounds. That means something, I don't know
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes sense. And B presumably I don't know. I don't know how Robin has set up the website because we don't have access to our own individual data on the site, but. My guess is that somewhere?
Brent:Yeah. I mean, we've talked before I think about how, like, you know, you should be able to go to like the magnet shoe page and see all of magnitude's results. Like now you can go into a tournament and find magnitude in every tournament, but there's no like rolled up page, which is a weird,
Brit:Coming soon. I'm sure. It seems pretty
Brent:yeah, I think, I think when I, when I tweeted at them about that, I think their response was like, you know, they're working on more like core things right now than that. And I was like, I dunno, what's more core than that. But clearly they they're supposed to have a Trello where they show us their product. Right. This is how it works. People do these things, but I really, I mean, it just made me realize how close we are to in this like new world, having so much more interesting opportunity to do analytics. And I wonder, I wonder, you know, I mean, if, if tournament's resumed tomorrow, it would be a little sad because like the limitless platform has added the ability to kind of. Look at this stuff in a new and interesting way that was really hard to before. And, you know I don't know if that means that I'm like advocating that Pokemon acquire limitless or something like that, but it's something like that. I, I would hate for all this to go away. The second league challenges resume like that suck. Right?
Mike:Yeah. I, I remember seeing someone post on Twitter that Pokemon should just use limitless for real events now.
Brit:them. You guys do it. You're better us.
Mike:There, and maybe like limitless and arc and I could do some collab thing cause I'm sure like, you know, the, well, I mean, they run so many tournament's already, but. I guess I'd be worried just like on the server side of like, can host all that traffic. But that's somewhat easily fixed if they were getting paid.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Like big scheme of things, you can just slap all that on Amazon web services and like press a button. And it starts auto scaling, like crazy, probably like, like I mean, this is not like super, this is not processor intensive kind of stuff. Like they're not doing computation really. So funny in that way.
Brit:Yeah, I wonder, I would think if I had to sort of wager a prediction, I would think that once like physical events are back official ones sanctioned on, of course the online community I think will mostly die, but I would think there might still be space for like the limitless weekly. Like I think. Maybe not heck sisters even, but I think one, one tournament probably hangs on like one. So one sort of weekly experience just especially when there's cash involved. But it'll be, it'll be interesting to save. If people try to hang on, if it's just immediately dropped, if it's kind of a sad process you know, watching it slowly die. I don't have a clue. I could agree. I think it really could go in a couple of different directions, but hopefully the, we can just, we can further our data somehow, even if we're just in person,
Brent:I mean maybe, maybe the moral story I know right before I, I didn't. Started recording the pod, Brett, you and I were talking about like how they need ranked ladder and stuff like that. Like, what if Pokemon rolled out, you know, where we're just doing a, like player's Kopisch thing. Every like Sunday, anybody can log on and compete. And it's like double elimination.
Brit:I think that would be good. I think that would be a great
Brent:I, I assume if Pokemon was doing it and they like had some serious pricing jillions of people would compete. why would you do headmasters when you can do like the Pokemon official tournament? And obviously like, that's, that's the, like we create, you know, some sort of CP ish kind of path to other tournaments and circuits and blah, blah, blah. Right. Maybe I wonder if they're working on that, et cetera, rank ladder, like I'm sure they're working on stuff.
Brit:Yeah.
Mike:give us something good.
Brit:Yeah, I don't, I don't surely they're working on something that
Mike:sharing
Brit:know. I'm not holding my breath people, you know, there's, there's no reason to speculate certain things like.
Brent:Oh my God. We have a podcast. Of course. There's, there's great reasons to speculate.
Brit:Well, I mean, of course, but like I just mean in terms of like, getting your hopes up, like what, when whenever we wanted something and ever gotten it, like, and, and in this sort of field, these are the topics related to something like this. It's always been like, I don't know. I feel like there was a rumor forever ago that like, it was maybe coming to this bitch, not PTC geo, but. And actually, no, I think that's what I mean, like maybe it was coming to the switch or some sort of Pokemon online client. I think that's what people, I think that would be really, really well right now, maybe more than improving PTC geo is for them to re, to make. Like the game boy color game again on the switch. I think that would sell like hotcakes actually, like right now, like it was the, kind of the, the general populous being in the Pokemon, kind of on a similar level to where they were at with like Pokemon go. I think people, especially to that the. It's not just Pokemon, that's popular, it's specifically the cards. Like I feel like that would really, really, that would get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of players. And and again, in a game like that, you don't really have to worry about balance and things like that. I think it's fun. I think, I think even. Maybe even Russell would enjoy the game that like an actual game where you're, you're forced to play ADP or something. Like, I think that just kind of RPG single-player experience that the game would color game has is if you like video games, I think would do really well. And then of course would be a conduit to bringing people into the game, but I'm not, I would play that regardless of format.
Mike:Yeah, that'd be so sweet. I don't know if I ever told you guys, but that is how I learned how to play the game boy color game. So
Brit:I think I did too, because I had it. And I remember I went to league and stuff, but I, my sister and I, but I don't think we knew how to play, but I did have that and I was able to beat it when I was a kid.
Mike:Love
Brit:I don't know, sort of a last thought too, just in talking about improving PTC, geo, I don't know if you saw Mikey, the changes that are coming to Hearthstone, but I thought like some of those, I mean, I'm really excited about those. I think those are all kind of cool. It'll be new at the very least. But I was thinking
Mike:Is that what you're talking about? Like the core, the core
Brit:Yeah. Like then, then they're, they're kind of, it's a new rotation, essentially. They're just kind of fixing, what's been the standard since they started rotating. And more so just what I think, what intrigues me is the just there's the classic format where, you know, Hearthstone is different because instead of like, they changed the cards themselves rather than just trying to balancing them out with nuance. And so in this classic format, you get to play with cards that, you know, as if they were always as they, it came out, no nerves, no updates. And But all that to say that like, it's just a format, you know, you can just have an entire, you know, format. I think again, people, people want more formats to PTC geo too. It's not like it's so bizarre. I mean, I guess there aren't really too many formats to Pokemon as it is, but like legacy just doesn't exist, but it has, it has somewhat of a presence on PTC geo. And I think, I think people would love of, you know, more of that more just like. Nostalgia sort of content. I always love how Hearthstone the around the world championships. The Tavern brawl is, is the world stacks. I wish poco not like, come on, being able to do something like that in an online format, I think also would be really beneficial, just like different ways to learn the game.
Brent:That's how I know what I know. There's I think there's a lot of nostalgia for like a old format decks right now, too. Like, you know, instead of just people love it. That was my other big ask for limitless was to create some sort of like way to have a short URL to print proxies for like entire decks. So I could just be like, I want to print the haymaker deck for my children, put click here. And, you know, people could just point post in the snow point temple. Like here's the deck you could play in like your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'll just be like printed, printed, printed since I don't have any of the cards. Anything else, guys?
Mike:Oh, just wanted to briefly talk about the unbanned and expanded. Just real quick, just real quick, not too much to talk about. Like Wally has almost nothing to talk about. It's fine. And then lucid me is really interesting. The coolest decks that I've seen so far are like the Magna zone, dual brains decks that can now work with lissamine. So I'm going to be trying those I don't know if you saw sander. Posted one that is so you save a lie. The one that is what I think the tag is the limitation. So you're pointing campus borders next turn. So you shut off Guzman and you have black market and you, you nine tails. So nine tails says you're, nobody could play stadium cards. So you gotta play your stadium card first, then. Play nine tails. And now nobody can ever get rid of black market because fuel blowers and zero six don't work on it and they can't play their own stadium cause nine tails. And so support you stop Guzman. So they can't kill your nine tails. And then you have magnet to play to supporters. So you can loop So one, one infinite loop is with Brock's grit. So as things get knocked out, you know, you just Brock skirt them back and then get stabilized again. But the other one is really cool. He runs dark ride GX and Nannu so Stabili dies. He dark ride GX get the energy back non-EU into the Stabili and then dark ride goes back to the discard and then that's like an infinite loop that way. So pretty cool. Pretty cool list. I'm going to definitely mess around with that.
Brent:Is an innovator
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:is always a joy to see, and I've always been a, a dual brains fan. So, so the more viable dual brains is the happier I'll be.
Brit:yeah, I saw that less than I thought the nine towns and I was immediately entry. So yeah, it's a really, it's so complicated. All these decks. Just have all of his sex rather just have so much going on. It's just, it was almost, it was this exact experience. It was just like, I don't really want to figure it out. Actually. I'll just wait for something to explain the deck to me. And
Brent:Yeah, I really appreciated that, Mike, I, I, this is the value of the pod because yeah. I saw the list and I'm newly sending to Liam and I was like, this is a good deck. But. I, I couldn't figure out the, the core loop completely having you explain how the dark red GX work with the nanny
Brit:Yeah, that's what I'm always doing with these control decks is like, okay, I see part of it, but I don't see it with his list specifically to like, like the XQ drill control expert trill chin Chino is pretty straightforward in terms of just like, okay, I just use Ticino to draw cards and shuffle them back easy enough. But yeah.
Brent:Watching him get streamed and players cup, I think was like life-changing for people like watching him do like the scoop up nets and all that. Like everybody was like, okay, okay. That's this that cannot be beat. I hadn't realized how unbeatable this deck was until I saw this thing.
Mike:I have on that note, I have also been playing in one of the Atlas events this past week with the standard control deck, you know, the MK munch lax thing. And I, I won my first four and then I just lost to an alternative. Today. So doing pretty good. I'm learning how to play it. It's a, it's pretty fun. I think it's pretty good. It's something that I really am going to consider for the double elimination brag of her players cup, because we essentially are untimed matches there. I think you have to like the player timers on, but that's like 50 minute games, so it's really no timer. So you get to really kind of think about
Brent:Right. Once you get cycling, you can play really, really fast.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's pretty good. It's pretty good deck. I'm excited to keep playing it.
Brent:We should, we should talk more about that in a future week.
Mike:Yeah, for sure. Once I have, once I have this tournament under my belt, they'll have more experience.
Brent:Wait, when you won this tournament, well, going to want us with you to talk about it. So we'll get there.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:think that's maybe, maybe I'll have to wait next time. I just feel like I don't, I'm not particularly motivated to play standard, but I still like want to play Pokemon. I want to improve. Maybe this will be like, I should spend this little hiatus until the next snap trying to accrue. Old formats like this, this idea just popped into my head. And I think I'm going to try to do that. I've just really, really wanting to play in various old world formats and just don't have cards. Cause I didn't have that. You know, my PTC geo account hasn't been updated until now. The thing that that's what I'll do now that I have a little bit of time since I won't be playing in the sort of next phase of things, I'm going to get slept. I'm going to get the couple of years of worlds. I want to play. See if I can figure out how to trade for these guys. I just assume there'll be too expensive, but I've never actually looked.
Brent:Yeah. That's it. Do you already have beaches in your account?
Brit:no beaches. No. So it was kind of an embarrassing thing. I've just always like soul. I just always have always sold myself off. But now recently I've been kind of trying to buy back some old world stuff. Like I've really been trying to find one of the top 32 worlds bags that I won and that I sold and it's just kind of embarrassing. I was just like, I don't want it back.
Brent:And be, yeah, that's a it's, it's like a, you know, selling. Buying high. Never. It never works out, right?
Brit:man,
Brent:Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to figure out like, yeah. Is, is like this Pokemon stuff. Are we at some weird, like GameStop moment where I'm supposed to be just like selling the like, yeah, we have all these bags. We have all this like swag from like, like stuff like that,
Brit:I think
Brent:gonna, I'm just I'm always scared to sell. Cause I feel like I'll find out I sold low,
Brit:I sold all. I sold almost all of my like plexiglass trophies, like forever ago. And I don't regret that for a second. I would, I, I think now would definitely be the time to try to move that stuff. Like naturally, I'm sure you don't want it. You're not trying to get rid of your, your, your big, important ones, but like, if you can move the cities ones where you guys playing back then when you would win the city championship, I know you were obviously like, yeah, I wasn't sure if
Brent:I'm sure. Do you still have yours, Mike?
Mike:Yeah, we got, we got like a big, big container in my mom's garage.
Brent:Yeah, that's we, we caught just like the tail end of that. So we have like, if like 15 or 20 plexiglass things, so no, no big container, but Liam actually has it on a shelf in his room. He likes it.
Mike:Nice.
Brit:I mean, I, I kept a few of them, but I sold off like the extras. I kept like one from each year. So I have like city championship, like 2014, 2015, and then the more important ones. But I just got rid of like a ton of state's top four as cities, all these just like, and they're all the same too.
Mike:Yeah, they all
Brit:they're the same, same, they don't look any different. They
Mike:There was so like, like when I first started playing like the first, maybe two or three years, maybe even up to four years like 2004 to like 2007, eight, somewhere around there, they had a couple of different versions and they were glass trophies. So those were nice.
Brit:yeah, right, right. When I first started playing, they were really nice. And it was kind of the very next year. No. Okay. So the next year it was metals only. I forgot about that. those two. Yeah, there was a year, there was a year where we only got like metals. That was 2011. Yeah. Before that, before that the glass was like huge. Like I have a top Forrest. I have a top forest States one. Yeah. That's beautiful. Massive. Yeah. They used to be really nice
Mike:like a, yeah, a nice curve class.
Brit:sure the plastic.
Brent:Yeah. Now, now it's all maths, maths, maths, maths, All right guys, strong stuff. Let's pick it up next week.
Mike:right.
Brit:Take care, stay warm, stay safe. Thank you, Brent.