The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast

Ep 28 - Standard control breakdown, Channel Fireball, Orbeetle, Expanded strategy, Players Cup 3, Power Plant

February 17, 2021 Brent Halliburton Season 1 Episode 28
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Ep 28 - Standard control breakdown, Channel Fireball, Orbeetle, Expanded strategy, Players Cup 3, Power Plant
Transcript
Mike:

I got my, got my second shot today. Feel okay. Just a little, a little tired, but other than that, no real

Brent:

Uh, I got to tell you a Connie got her second shot yesterday and she felt like crap all day today.

Mike:

Oh, really?

Brit:

Yeah, that's what I've heard

Mike:

Well, hopefully. Well,

Brit:

shot of just, yeah. Having a bad one day

Brent:

Yeah. Been really

Mike:

hopefully, hopefully I don't go down mid pod.

Brit:

can be a good story. I don't know. It wouldn't be that bad.

Mike:

What do we got on the docket today? Snowpocalypse.

Brit:

I played, I played control just so we could. Talk it about and talk about how your list differs from

Brent:

Oh yeah. Oh, good. I want to hear this. And you guys saw Sandra had published a slightly different list.

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Here all. Um, let me pull up my list for you guys to see, because unlike other decks, I feel like this is like really useful to just see it all. You can't like talk through every single card and like keep track of it in your head. You actually have to see it.

Brent:

Holy cow. I'm not seeing Sander's latest tweet. I don't know if you guys saw this played, played only munch lacks for every player's cup key, and then with 154 points.

Mike:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, and like his list is a lot different.

Brent:

Holy cannoli. That's really, uh, and I recognize these, uh, is it a European thing to just have like incredibly fast pace of play, but cause like, like when I think of people who play really fast, I think of toward, but I can only assume that Sandra is playing at the absolute speed of light.

Mike:

yeah, he must be to do this staring. I mean, you have, what do you have? 12 minutes. 12 and a half minutes you can finish. I feel like when I've been playing the deck and I've been playing these Atlas events, most games, all good down to like 10 minutes on the clock. And I think you start with 25. So it's been like 15 minutes on my end. So yeah, if you played fast, you could definitely shave off those last two minutes. It's not like, it's not like the games are going 30 minutes on one side. But you'd definitely would still have to play fast and like, not check your prizes. Just go right.

Brent:

All right. You guys ready to jump in?

Brit:

Let's do it.

Brent:

All right. Uh, welcome to the trash blanche to meet Brett Halliburton here as always with my crochet and for privates attendance is 100%. Our intro song is Chris. Webbies a Webster's laboratory. We appreciate songs that mentioned Pokemon, and we appreciate a guy who seems super open to letting people use the songs. Uh, in terms of reviews. I think we got more five-star reviews this week. Although we did not get reviews worth the 19 five star reviews. It's always five stars. Everyone thinks it's the best podcast in the world. If you haven't listened to it, you should be listening to us. It's the best podcast. I thought we should just mentioned, because I I'm meant, I've meant to mention it for, like, I felt like we should have said, wow, we'd done a lot of episodes at the end of our 25th episode. And then I felt like I should've said, wow, we've done a lot of episodes when we did our 26th, because theoretically every week, I mean, it's like, you know, that's half a year or something. Um, it's 28 episodes. Pretty impressive. Good job guys.

Mike:

Yeah, that's

Brit:

almost there.

Brent:

It is, it is an incredible tribute probably to the pandemic that we have at a hundred percent of the time. It's for 20th straight episodes. Yeah,

Brit:

I'm reliable. I think I could have managed this at any time, especially on a weekday I'm not doing,

Brent:

man, I don't know, like if I had to go into the office and stuff, instead of like just being home every day, I think it would be, uh, surely something would have happened. Where it would have been structurally difficult for me to do this one day. I don't know. Uh, but, but very impressive guys. I mean, yeah. Like if you would told me when we started the pod that we were gonna like crank out, you know, like eight months of material basically nonstop. I would've said, wow, that's pretty impressive.

Mike:

Got to get a, got to get notch under about now. Let's keep it, keep it going at least until the pandemic's over.

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mike:

And then we'll see.

Brent:

So, uh, the next thing on my agenda guys was to talk about channel fireballs for a second. Ah, uh, the, the thing that I noticed on channel fireball this week was Azule put out his standard power rankings and wanted to peek around and scan, send a scorch. And he said, those are the two decks that he's been playing for. Uh, players go. Uh, and then, and then three and four is internists in ADP and then fifth. Yes. Tempos are, although my impression is that's Chris Cephalon and he just doesn't want to say it.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brit:

Yeah, it is. I don't really know the kind of dis the really dispute there. Some people seem. A little more vocal about, I guess, typically it's angry or something like they just don't don't call it. Temples are like, just like I kinda like share, but yeah, it's just the same deck. I think

Brent:

Right. And then he puts, he put, I think it is. And his reference list. He had a second rescues art. And maybe when you put in a second, that makes it tempos art.

Brit:

I think you usually play too. I saw car Kyle, uh, I can never say it. I thought I could say it, Kyle Hill, he put, he played all his keys. Mostly. He said, I think the first five or at least five were with Senna scorch. And then, but he had a really good showing with the cassette full on deck, which makes me wish I had revisited it a little bit more. I played it a little bit and thought my assessment of it was fairly apt, but I don't know. Maybe it's just worth dealing with welder troubles a little more sometimes.

Brent:

Yeah. You know, I, I had meant to put, uh, Kyle in the show notes because yeah, once again, he put up a really strong show and played a lot of Chris Cephalon and I felt like last player's cup, we spent all this time talking about whether or not his approach. Just like playing all those keys in two days was a good one. And notable this time around, it was like, yeah,

Mike:

That's funny.

Brent:

you've got to just tweet in advance and tell us what his plan is. So we can talk about it on that pot. There you go. The other thing that jumped out to me was, uh, like seven, eight, nine, 10 on his list as like colossal med party, really boom, or beetle. And it made me think, apparently this metal only has six X because

Mike:

Yeah, that was my thought

Brit:

get it getting that way? It seems

Brent:

Maybe when, when Tim is orbital BMX mean, is anyone tech.

Brit:

It's funny because it's circulating a little more now. There's I know Italia wrote the channel fireball article on it, and it's just being a little more prevalent in tournaments. I wonder if part of that is just like, people have kind of given up in some sense and they're just like playing the fun Dak, you know, they've, they're, they're still playing the weekly. They're signing up every night still, but maybe ADP doesn't sound so good tonight. So they just throw the fun deck. But. Anyways. I actually, I don't know if you guys remember, but I that's what I started with. And these lists that I keep seeing are really not that far off what I had. Um, which, I mean, I don't really know where else, where else to go with that. I guess some of it is fairly obvious, like what you would want to pair with it. But I th I remember saying back then, like, I thought it was better than I thought, not competitive, but better than I thought. Um, and that seems to be, I think, where it's landing at the kind of tail end of this format.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, my, my impression is when it's, when it's 10th on his power rankings, it's like Brit solved it. Not good enough. Any questions? We'll take all the credit. Uh, but, uh, but yeah, but that was kind of funny. Any other, any other end newsworthy Isha stuff before we dumped into, uh, players cup three and expanded stuff. I didn't read any other final fireball articles.

Brit:

no, I wouldn't do the power rankings in the orbital one.

Brent:

Yeah. Uh, the fact that, you know, um, Uh, the fact that azoles play mostly peek around the, of scorch. That makes sense to me, I guess.

Mike:

They're really good.

Brent:

Uh, so I put down that we should talk about expanded for a second. Do you guys have any like hotcakes unexpended these days?

Mike:

Hot takes. Um, okay. Here's my

Brent:

like, I feel like the limitless expanded tournaments are the biggest kind of standalone tournament's going on right now. Which is why I thought if we had something to say, we should say something I know, uh, uh, LIMU one with, uh, drivable garb, the last, uh, limitless tournament. And I think the underlying message there is like, garb is a good card. You should play garb and like walls. I think top Ford. And, you know, my reaction to that was, uh, control decks are probably go to the carpool, gets really big. Therefore in our current expanded, there's probably some really good, uh, control deck, but like, yeah, like if Sandra was playing, he probably would win because the cards are there for him to win the tournament. Right.

Brit:

I mean, he did he's one, the one he played, I think he won at least. Yeah.

Mike:

my only, my only hot take about expanded is that I don't think it's actually like, some people are saying that it's like a really good format. I don't think it's really good right now. I think going second is for like any. Fair deck is so much better than going first. Cause you like, you just win some games when you go. Um, when you go second and it just, I dunno, it just feels kind of bad if you go, if you have to go first in a lot of matters.

Brit:

what decks are those creating these sorts of scenarios? The only one, or at least always darker. I always has such a long first turn nine or that Bev can feel like one,

Mike:

so, so dark rye, peaker, um, Tina chump, um, there was like a, there's like a welder or like firebox that started seeing some play that.

Brit:

that pop up.

Mike:

So, yeah, so we got like dark decks, Pika decks, Tina champ, that fire deck are the ones that come to mind immediately.

Brent:

it's defense, but in the fire day, right?

Mike:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, the MuTu and mew deck is not quite as bad as those other ones, but like also that's kinda up there. So those are the kinds of decks I'm thinking about the, really the decks that are like trying to interact and knock things out. Any other deck like, like drag a pole is a little bit different because it's, um, it's a little bit slower. Um, and so it doesn't really care as much, but.

Brent:

And, and do, do any of these decks, not basically just get bodied by shot block or whatever Sanders play,

Mike:

I don't know. I feel like control is good. It gives us a lot of these decks except like ADP. ADP is good, obviously against a lot of the control decks.

Brent:

right? Yeah. Like my, uh, my reaction to all of these is like, I'd rather be playing clock. This seems like a good idea. All right. Let's talk about players. Come through you guys, because everybody's got to be grinding up their keys. Mike, I assume you finished it out.

Mike:

Yeah, I played the last couple of keys that I had. Um, I tried some blinds a little bit. I dunno. And then I think I just ended on Pika just to finish it. I, um, I think I looked earlier today. I think I'm seventh in North America, which is, which is pretty good. I think

Brent:

we're the top six. Do we know?

Mike:

I'd have to, I have to pull it up. I know Alex. Szymanski is still first Ross finished his he's in second. And then, um, I don't remember if I recognized anybody else.

Brent:

and did Ross just play that same blends list the whole time?

Mike:

Yeah, he played that the whole time. Um, I tried that list. I played in an Atlas event this week just to get some experience with the list. And I went for three, so I lost my wind into top cut, but it feels pretty good, but it's still, it's still bounds to me. I think Ross probably plays it a little bit better. Um, I mean, he must play it a little bit better, but I don't think he played it significantly better. I think there's still, there's just some games where, you know, you prize a welder and the other three welders are in the bottom 20 cards, the whole game, and you never see what just happens.

Brent:

I mean, how did, like, did rosters have like, like, I mean, I guess this is always the funny thing about both of mine. It's like, uh, everybody, I think would regard Ross as, as, uh, you know, one of the all-time greats probably, uh, uh, I mean, yeah, he's playing a deck that like, I view all these Wilder decks. It's like, man, I don't know. It seems like, it seems just to like to yellow to me, but, but he got consistently very good outcomes. I mean, Number two. That's pretty good.

Mike:

Number two is pretty

Brent:

Is that like, uh, I mean, is that just like planning the RNG game, right? Like, is there something we're supposed to attribute that to and like skill players are doing differently than Mike Boucher?

Mike:

I mean, Ross is Ross is a much better play it. And I am, um, he also has the effect that it's the only deck that he's been playing. So he also knows him much better than I do. So I think that's a big thing too. Like I, if he played my peaker on, I bet he wouldn't have. The same result to be right now. Um, just cause, so he definitely sees a little lines that I probably missed or like that all think all like realize after a situation. Um, cause he's gotten through those things before.

Brent:

Right.

Mike:

I mean, it's the same way I feel about sentence grades too. I'm like, I'm like, I'm missing something I'm missing some little, like, I dunno if they're not like fundamental things, but they're just like little scenarios that I think. Crop up a lot that I don't know how to play the deck optimally and I, the people that are seeing the craziest success with it clearly are like they're seeing different things. Um, which I think is cool. I mean, like, I don't think they're the standard format is the best one ever, but there's still plenty of that going on. There's still like little differences to, um, to make your results more successful.

Brent:

Yeah, I guess just reps, reps, reps, reps. you want to talk about controlled next guys?

Mike:

Yeah. Brett, did you get to play any games?

Brit:

Yeah. I played quite a few. Um, and I've played, it's been a while not to say that I was playing the deck well, um, but I, I played, I played a handful of Sander's list in the past. Um, I guess it probably hasn't been this year, but like last year throughout the podcast. So it wasn't like a total new experience and I've played against them a few times too. So. And I've lost. So, um, you know, I, I see this stuff and I know your, your list. Isn't playing like the Opal package, which is cute. Um, so, but, so I don't have any kind of, I don't have any experience playing those lists. I basically just played exactly, um, what you had posted. Um, but it was good. Like it's really good. And it's, it's hard playing control on ladder typically is difficult in the sense that especially usually Sanders lists, not just control and Dem in general are just like so refined, but they're in there. Fine. Of course for only metadata X. And then. You're just going to get cooked by, I don't know, just random, garbage on the ladder. And that happened, of course. Um, but you know, that's yeah. I don't even like, there's nothing even to take from that. Like it's not a win or a loss, you just ignore it, you know, your deck isn't even in the conversation. Um, and of course, some of these decks are bad. You can still just deck them with the usual, just annoying gallery, mind, boss, boss, sorts of strategies. Um, but it does seem pretty strong to me. I mean, I thought that Mark was really strong for a long time. I've met not, it wasn't controlled X, but I sort of had this idea. I think it was towards the beginning of the podcast, but I was just like frustrated with, um, playing against bad players and who had mismanaged their resources. And so I just wanted to deck people out with like, there's like a Wu bag that has a lockup attack. And that, that was the deck that I had made. Um, And it was similar and I played for, for muck and that, and I was just all part of the strategy. So it's not too surprising to see it here. It's a really powerful ability. It's hard though. I guess this is part of why I wanted to play it because I just kind of wanted to hear, um, maybe walk through some of that. I really struggled to know, because since you have like the munch slacks and like Zetia, and sometimes I had a lot of games where I didn't know which one I should be doing. Um,

Mike:

I mean, Oh yeah. Yeah. Like when do you draw on, when do you

Brit:

Yeah. Yeah. And of course, sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes the trainers you want to recycle with menstrual acts are a little straightforward, but yeah. Cause sometimes I just like and like naturally three cards might be better than that flipping for the one trainer, but sometimes it's like, I don't even know what I need right now. Like it's just a little bit. You're kind of in just that survival mode for a long, uh, a good portion of the game. Um, and then kind of it's, it's later on that you figure out your, your wind condition or you start to see how you're going to pull it off. And so, yeah, there's just definitely some uncertainties in the earlier terms, particularly too, when you start to factor in the morning and things like that, you get such big hands. Sometimes that's always hard to deal with.

Mike:

Yeah. And so like you gotta, if you know, your opponents play Marnie, for example, you want to. Try and make sure that you have like a Snorlax or something on the bench, or, um, you're also, if you already have a big hand, you know, they play Marnie, then I'm almost always munch relaxing. Like that's just one example, right. To try. And if I, if I think that they might play Marnie that next turn, like I'll put a draw card on top, um, just to like try and protect against that. Um, But yeah, I, in general, like I'll draw cards for a long time, I think. Um, did you, you played the little piers package that I have in there.

Brit:

yeah.

Mike:

What'd you think of that? That's uh, that's one thing that is different from my list than any other list that I've seen.

Brit:

I like that one a lot. I think that, um, I remember when I forget quite what iteration of the decade was, but I remember Sandra tweeting about. Like appears in his lesson and he's sort of th I can't remember how he phrases it, but it was just sort of like a, your Eureka moment or something like that. I think it's just like, ah, this was the perfect card. Like, it goes so perfectly with the deck and that's just kind of my sentiment too. It's just a, it's a good card.

Mike:

Yeah. It, it felt really good to me. Like it, it feels between that and the capture energy. It feels much more consistent. Like, and I don't know if that's necessarily better yet, but it feels more consistent in at least like setting up initial things. Um, we're getting plenty of basics out and also like help finding the muck later on is, is really good. Um, I definitely think Sanders list has more options and maybe other wind conditions than jet. Like it has more options of wind conditions. Clearly it has like the Altera line and the bronze online. Um, I feel like the bronze on is particularly interesting because I mean, the only matchup that that would be good in is send a scorch that doesn't run a crammer. It. I feel like, so you could just beat set of scored. I like, I, I feel like I'm, I've done really well against set of scores anyway, even against good to get what I presume are good sentence, which players, um, the other thing that you were talking about, like playing this on ladder, sometimes you get like the, the bad bit, the, you know, the different decks, but you also, even when you play against like metadata, sometimes it's not the greatest practice because. If they like make one egregious mistake, the deck is so punishing against that, right? Um,

Brit:

I mean, one thing too, to worth mentioning in there is it's not just. That he could play like a weird deck. It's also that you could play like weird versions of the metadata. So

Mike:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brit:

I've lost you. Um, uh, like the, the Rose card and a turn, a test. And of course, you know, there's always just turbo patches and things like that floating around that can sort of rain on your parade and that's, you know, always part of it too, but at a certain point, tournaments are no different. You never know. What sorts of cards people are gonna decide to play. So it's always good experience kind of to some degree,

Mike:

yeah.

Brent:

that's the kind of thing you see more on ladder. Cause I just assumed like ladder people, like they want to go bigger, go home, kind of

Brit:

I think

Brent:

they're, they're happy to play these like really aggressive turbo,

Brit:

There are, there are times when the ladder feels just pointless to apply. Um, and there's, and there's no incentive. Like it never seems to be really correlated with anything, but sometimes I feel like I have a good day and I really only play against like seemingly competent players and good metadata X, and then other players that are just, are just sort of, uh, other days rather just sort of just ask this, or you just play against like chandelier four times and like a bunch of other, just random things. Um, and of course, I suppose all that to say easily solvable with a rank ladder.

Brent:

So, so can we spend, can we spend a few minutes and really like go through Sander's list and go through your list and talk about the differences, Mike?

Mike:

Yeah, let's do it.

Brent:

I feel like that's, that's what the people want. Right?

Mike:

Sure. All right. So we both got to, to muck too much lacks. Um,

Brit:

have you ever

Brent:

killed one of the Snorlax. As in you have a, you have a, I think the big, from a Pokemon perspective, the differences he's got the Alterian and the bronze zone. And you've got a, and when a Geraci you've got the mew and the Pandya.

Mike:

Yeah, so I feel like Geraci is the direct substitute for the second Snorlax, which seems good. I thought about that. There are lots of times where you. Get to a hand of seven or eight and Snorlax is just useless, but Snorlax is way better against Marnie. So I don't know. I could go either way. Um, the draggy is interesting. He also has the second desire Sheehan. Um, which doesn't seem, I mean, I don't know. I guess if you're only running one Snorlax, it also gives you, so he actually has an extra draw guy, I guess, in total. Um, But so yeah, the PON yard is something that I was trying out since I have this Pierre's capture package. Um, period's obviously finds the pawn yard if you want it to like a really nice play, even if you're not going to do it immediately is to go piers for pawn yard capture. Then you get to play the capture on the pawn yard, and then it's kind of set up for whenever you might want to use it later on. Um, so that's really nice. Especially with like the Panera. Do you generally, like the best time to use it is like when you go stamped to like three maybe or something like that, um, you don't need to wait until like one or two, you can go like stamped at three boss and then pawn yard and like try and hit, you know, if they drew a switching card, then you just get to discard it immediately. Um, and that can be pretty strong.

Brent:

Right. I feel like when I see when I watch sander place sander, like Target's people's hands and like mils less aggressively than I think I would, or like Liam would, if we were playing the deck, he tends to just be like, I'm interested, accumulate resources, accumulate resources, accumulate resources. And, and slowly roll over you. So seeing him not played upon you and you say, you know, I want the option to kind of target down their resources a little bit. Uh, um, uh, I understand that makes sense.

Mike:

it could, yeah, it could be, could be cut though, for sure. And I have the mew, I guess the meat is not a hundred percent necessarily necessary, but it does seem good against the decks that play crammer ant. That's like the big thing. Um, That has been useful for,

Brent:

right, right. He, he he's got the bronze on package and I assume he figures, we're just gonna figure out a way to get there with the Bronzeville. Right.

Mike:

yeah. Yeah. Um, the alternaria is like really interesting to me, cause I do think the peak around matchup is a little sketchy, um, because they can. And so I'll tell you, I think of the metadata is best against speaker. Um, cause they only have the cocoa. So the big reason in my mind to run on target would be the peak of matchup we can match up is tough because they can kind of just go one guy, even if it's a Bolton and just attach, attach, attach to it. Um, you can confuse it, but they'll just like flip through the confusion and eventually probably get there. Um, And they play for Marnie's. It's one of the only decks that plays for Marnie's and Marnie is just so good against yours. So, um, that's why the Pika matchup can be kind of sketchy. So they, all, Terry is really interesting for that. My like hesitancy to play the Altera is that you don't have all that many ways of finding it when you need it. And so there's a little bit of a risk of playing swab, blue down. Even if SWAT, even if it's like later in the game, maybe you stamp them to three, you play swab blue down. If they have the boss that turn, then you might lose, or if they just have a Marnie, you also might lose because you can't find the Alterian next turn. And it gives them an extra, extra time to find their boss. Um, so I I'm going to try it, but that's my, that's kind of my reasoning for maybe not wanting to play it. Um, okay. So I think that's the Pokemon.

Brit:

have you ever thought, do you, are you confident in the Tutu mud? Have you ever thought about like three, two or something? That's kind of, I've thought about that. I mean, I think some of that is speaking to my anecdotal experience of pressing two grinders in games. Um, but I just always it's, it's got a good attack. I always feel star it's, you know, it's a usable attack in dire straits, and it's, you know, it's just like your support Pokemon and those games are be like, you get it. And like your utilization or your Snorlax on the first turn, you just kind of feeling really, really good. And obviously the more you play, the higher, those are odds are.

Mike:

Yeah, it could be. Yeah. Third grammar could definitely be good. You'd probably, I've been thinking about dropping the fourth quick bomb. With the capture energies. So like you could just make the fourth Quip, quick ball into a grime or maybe even, um, but yeah, you're right. I've, I've used collect a lot collects quite good. Um, yeah, that'd be good. I do think the more I play the deck, the less I get muck out. I dunno. I feel like I was going very aggressive with the MK early on, and I've kind of been loosening up on that a little bit. Um, but, but gummy grammar, grammar is good. Grammar is definitely good. Okay.

Brent:

Um, so before we, before we go into the trainer line, do you want to talk about like the capture energy and like, so if you, if you cut the pond or do you just drop all the capture energy and go back to like quick balls and poke coms, or like, did you, do you feel like having energy is really good?

Mike:

Well, I still, I have quick balls still, but, um, the polka comes, I guess, are the main, like the most direct substitute polka com would be nice to like thin cards from your hand. It would actually makes more likes better. So I think I'd definitely keep to Snorlax. With polka coms, but, uh, the capture is just, I don't know, like energy can be useful to put on abs all to retreat. Um, and like starting. Is there anything else that has one retreat, all the Panera does Mahwah does Gary. Tina does. Muda so there's been lots of times where I'm starting with one of these things that has one retreat. And then I have peers in my hand to find captured to then retreat into Snorlax, um, that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise, which is like, that's like a really good play to be able to do. And, um, But maybe if you're playing, ah, I dunno, it just makes it, it just gives you a lot more mobility of getting into the initial Snorlax. So I wouldn't be I'm down. I'm I'm going to try these different things, but I'm a little that, that worries me a little bit because, but I guess you can just get dashi in, in those situations. And I guess that makes sense talking through this is like, Helping to like rationalize why our lists are different, because I guess they're coming conceptually from a different place in that regard, playing energy and not playing energy. Um, so that's why seconds out she, and I guess makes sense. Yeah.

Brent:

Right. Well, and obviously the program helps them grab the Altair area, helps him grab the bronze zone. Right,

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, that's true. Yeah. If you're playing the stage one, do you have to run the poker coms for sure.

Brent:

right, right. Whereas, because you're already kind of going big, basic style run and capture interviews is just like more quick balls plus energy.

Mike:

Yeah. And, and like the polka comes, help find the muck too, but I have peers that can also find the buck

Brent:

Right. So, so, uh, are you, are you at the end of the day, like pro be airs or would you do something different?

Mike:

right now. I'm preppy airs for sure. Um, I'm going to try out Sanders less, but right. Like, I feel comfortable with the list because it feels, it feels like I get to set up pretty much most games, like almost every game I get to set up. And as long as you give yourself time, you feel like you have a shot in every matchup. Um, Yeah. And I just feel like decks like this. They can very easily, they're not built correctly, just lose before they have a chance to win. Um, and so I just want to be as cognizant of that as possible,

Brent:

Yeah. Oh, so, so another thing he does differently see rent the second bird keeper. So he's got like a little more switch effects,

Mike:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent:

is, is like, so you've got kind of a soft way to compensate for some of that, but it's not as good as just like attaching a tree. Right. And you really dig.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

So he wants a second will and I'm sure that's a card that he plays a lot when he plays the deck.

Mike:

I had two will. Um, that's probably this, like, that's not a direct substitute for another card. That's probably like the card I would want back the most. Um, Yeah, well, it was pretty good. Uh, both, I mean, you're using it both for crushing hammer and munch lacks his ability, but mostly with Montreal accessibility, it's just like, uh, a fail safe. If you really, really, really, really, really need something back. Um, but it's more used with crushing hammer, at least in my experience.

Brent:

right, right. I assume your weight when you use it for munch lacks, like having, having played zero games that I just assume you're like, uh, kind of emotionally trading off. You're like trading. This will for this card,

Mike:

Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. Like trading upon. But the thing to think about with that likes to is sometimes much likes does have this downside of it's your draw next to her. And then sometimes like you need something that is not in your discard pile. And so you have to like put a draw card then. And I don't know that that, that has been an awkward experience. Um, As well. So like sometimes I'll have will in my hand and I'll have like decent resources in the discard and I don't have any other supporter to play. And I'm like, well, I could, will and put a card on top, but I also really need a boss and I haven't seen one yet. So I'm just gonna like draw from my turn. And sometimes you don't even have like, as Accion or Snorlax in those situations. And that can be really awkward. So that's why I like the second wheel to me, I think became a draw card somewhere.

Brent:

Right. So, so he cut the second Bill's analysis and what were the air cause hospitality. I see. That's good because it's just like straight bro. Right?

Mike:

Yeah, I might. I'm going to try that. That seems good. That also helps more against Marty cause like drawing, like you can Cynthia Caitlin after a Marnie and that's pretty good, but like Erica is for four or five. The only thing though, now that I'm thinking about it, Eric is like, Most acts want to play a small bench against

Brent:

Right, right. If you, if you bump into peek around and they just don't Bolton, you're like this, Eric is not going to be great.

Mike:

right? Yeah. So some, I don't know if I have to give that a second thought it seems okay. Um, like against the Turnitin is obviously very good. They're going to, most of them are just going to like bench a bunch of stuff anyway, because they have to

Brent:

right, right. They don't, they don't know any other way to do it.

Mike:

right.

Brent:

uh, those are the other, the other card he plays. And I, I think I love it. Uh, is the Kogas trap.

Mike:

Yeah, so I have to yell horns and he has one ha yell horn, one Cogress trap. I did, I did play one one for a while and I could, I can see going back. The, the, the reason that I changed it to the second yellow horn was there's lots of times where, especially in CDP, where you don't have a lot of time to do your thing, you need to play a supporter. And disrupt them. And so this gives you a way to, you know, I can bird keeper, and then I draw the L horn and I confuse your ADP. And if you flip tails, I have a shot at winning in this game. Um, so that's kind of been that thought process, but I could see Kogas being good. It's a little more easily recyclable. Um, can actually, if Dex, try to do like, just like a one-up Pokemon, like, or, you know, a single Bolton or a single peaker, um, uh, cokers can actually. When you, they, right. They're going to die eventually. So they have to do something else. Then

Brent:

Um, what else is interesting about these lists? So you, he plays, he's playing the surprise box.

Mike:

I'm playing the

Brent:

Oh, you're playing the surprise box and you play one more Galler mind.

Mike:

Yeah. And then everything else is the same. So. The surprise box. He had the surprise box in his original list that did well. Um, and it made sense to me to keep, like, there's just sometimes they like against decks that are able to go solo with their thing. You don't, I don't think like conf, I mean, I guess the Kogas gives you this alternate wind condition, but like, against like, like, think about of scores, for example, they can just go single center scorch and another set of scores on their bench. They don't require very many energy to attack and they recycle their energy. So really they could just retreat back and forth even through the confusion. Um, and so you can't really beat them unless you, uh, Unless you trap something it's just impossible. Um, so I mean, I guess that, that's why he has the bronze hung in his list, but, um, I guess I'm just thinking surprise box boxes a little bit more versatile, uh, against other other decks. Um, I think just like core. Really talking through this, I think the core is I'm a little bit more all in, on trapping something and running them out of the switching resources then Sanders list is, and his list has a couple, it was like a wider variety of wind conditions. Um, but maybe so, I dunno, that's like, um, you could argue which one is better, but I don't think one's better than the other. It's just slightly different approaches.

Brit:

I've I favored the, your play style. Like that's just kind of how my neck natural inclination to play the deck. I get wood, which I guess is, you know, an aggressive line of play. Like I want to sort of accelerate the rate at which you run out of switching cards and that sort of thing. Um, but then of course, you know, that strategy doesn't work. You know, you have to have to have a little more options and, you know, maybe Sanders is just a little more. Sort of versatile in that way. I really liked, I think I tried to say it and I've accidentally muted myself from the dogs, but I really liked the two yellow horn and your list. I always felt really, always feels really strong to me. I didn't know that COGA, um, was sort of the toss-up card there, but between that and playing one, one or two, and to me, the trainer seems a lot better. I don't know. I feel like your, your strategy, your, your, your end game wind condition can be accomplished. Um, Without the Cola. And so you, I think you'd rather be playing like more supporters that are productive to that end. And then you can just, um, you know, have the yellow horns here and there and you can get them back. Of course, too. Um, and again, I don't, I don't think I've had enough experience to really sort of offer a definitive conclusion, but that's just kind of where my logic is after playing it this afternoon.

Brent:

So, so one of the cards that he mentioned as, as an alternate is that APAC.

Mike:

Mm.

Brent:

And did you, did you think about a Palm or did you not mess around with the list? Uh, that far, like I recognize that it was in a Palm and pondered is stark. So you can do the, you can do the thing.

Mike:

Yeah. I feel like I haven't really thought about it too much. Um, so I don't really know for sure, but my initial thoughts are. There are games where your opponent is playing very slow and they're just kind of like drawing, draw, pass, draw, pass, drop, pass, weeding to do stuff. But like what is in our hand that I would want to discard, I'd want to discard the switching cards and I'd want to discard bosses. Depending on what they're playing. They could like some alternatives play the hiding energy. That's really annoying. So like maybe you hit that, but it's all random. Right? So maybe you're hitting these cards. Maybe you're not. Um, I don't think it alters, I did see a comment on, um, on that Twitter thread, like have been having, just having a bomb in your list makes the other person play different. Which is okay, which is true, but I don't think it really matters too much with this deck. Like, yeah. It, again, I'm coming from the perspective, the way that I want to win is by trapping something active. Um, and so discard and bunch of cards from their hand in my view, like random crap in their hand, running them out of those random resources. Isn't really my goal. I'm trying to run them at a very specific resources. Um, so, but. I guess that it's different. Like all old mill decks just want to discard any old card. Right. But it's not exactly the same here.

Brent:

Right, right. Yeah. The opportunity to, uh, use the ponder to pick out a specific things, probably, uh, uh, particularly valuable in that situation.

Mike:

Yeah. It could be good. That could be good.

Brent:

good times there. Any other observations or things that we missed in, uh, uh, talking about this.

Brit:

no, not really. I did, for whatever reason. I don't really know why this happened, but just kind of two seconds ago, this thought just popped into my head. Just like, I think if there is ever a control deck or not a control, that if there was ever a Pokemon deck that would want to play like more than 60 cards, like, like you can do and other card games, your, your deck limit is. Or her recommendation, like I think it would be here. Certainly. I think the decks that sander makes, I, I feel like he could win tournaments with some, with some goofy, goofy, um, card counts. I think like, I I'm trying to think. I don't know if there's any like famous stories and magic, or maybe you view someone winning like a legitimate tournament with. Crazy ridiculous number, but I feel like it could be done here. Maybe there's so many, one of us already, you just give yourself more little weird niche cards, I guess you just, you just continue to solve your match-ups. So maybe that would be too good for a control deck,

Brent:

Uh, I may have a combination of both Vermont's ability to just draw and search through so much of your deck compared to like magic. Uh, it makes it hard to compare, right?

Mike:

Yeah, that's

Brent:

I mean, if magic players were able to just search their deck all the time, like they'd do crazy stuff, they'd do horrible things to people. Um, so, so I saw a white cell tweeted, played a deck with power plant for a player, step three qualifiers. I farmed an unreal amount of wins. People trying to data change under power plant. Uh, uh, I wanted to just check in and see if you guys had any reaction to that. Um, I thank God. I have not booked in anybody yet, but it made me wonder if I, if I was just going to see power plants, every time I'm playing.

Mike:

The, uh, the only back that I played against consistently that had bar blimps was a Turnitin. This the news definitely really annoying. I'm glad to say that I did not ever did any under powerplant nor. But I think I did forget about it once tried to attack with the MuTu.

Brit:

power plants. And so I guess I haven't had that happen, but I would, I, I would echo the experience of just your opponents often. Just give you the game. Um, as a, as I'm sure we've said before, but yeah, just, just laughable, misplace the entire time, which, uh, you know, um, can be frustrating when sometimes they still beat you under these, under these plays I've lost. And I had stairs, I think I was playing a turn into his power PowerPoints and I lost to someone who did it charged under it. And they just still like ADP being. I'm pretty sure those are the games that feel good to lose for sure.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

are there any decks besides the Trinidad, like really like really, really, really that can play power plant, like.

Brit:

that I know of people have messed with it in LMC would probably be the next most deck if I had to guess, but it doesn't seem to be kind of the core elements that the list I just kind of pops up every now and then I remember Danny played in Piqua for a minute. I believe,

Mike:

Yeah, he did that. I mean, now you can't

Brit:

that was pretty new too though. Of course I would think.

Mike:

Right, right. Um, yeah. Looking at the top 10. There's no other decks that, I mean, or beetle could play it if you wanted to

Brit:

I don't remember if I had them. I might've actually been playing power plants in my orbital list. So cause the other stadiums good, but it's not like

Mike:

Yeah. It's not back then.

Brent:

Yeah. I mean, this is what, this is what it's come to where like, wait, you know, you can put it in your orbital list, but like, if your strategy was to foreign players comes wins, but I'm playing more like, Oh, buddy.

Mike:

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think it makes the most sense in that dentist, cause it turned into this also can still draw a lot of cards in a turn, you know, they can draw 11, 12 cards and determine what the Chromat and a supporter. Um, And like Luke metal, doesn't see that many cards in a turn, so you're not going to find the plants super early. And that's when they're, you know, the earlier you, you play it the more useful they are generally. So I think

Brent:

but it's like, what next? What next are you unlikely to want to date a change in.

Mike:

Right? Exactly.

Brent:

your strategy and like attorney, this will obviously, you're not going to. And obviously you're like, well, you'd like to not venture data.

Mike:

Yeah. I mean, just to kind of the classic example of like every other deck that. Like could play power plant just wants to play DNA because you want to do your thing better more than you want to try and make your opponent not do that. Everything it's like, it's the same reason why, um, defensive tools are defensive of tools that go on your Pokemon, like are much worse on average than the offensive ones, like muscle band and choice band have always been amazing. And, you know, the metal goggles and buffer pieces of the world aren't quite as good. So it was kind of the same, uh, I think the same idea. Yeah.

Brent:

Yeah, that was my reaction to, it was like the risk that you powerplant and they have a way around it, or they don't need the data change that turn or something versus like the fact that you don't have the option to like push hard anymore, uh, same stuff and stuff. Any other stuff, guys?

Mike:

No, I don't think so. I was going to say I played, uh, my, my, most of my losses with the control deck and these Atlas events have been to a Turnitin with bore switch for hiding energy and three dark cities. That's a hard matchup because you can't get rid of the stupid hiding energies.

Brent:

What's wrong with these people.

Brit:

You, you can carry a Tina then can't you, I guess not when they go to the bench, I suppose.

Mike:

Yeah, but I mean, like the point is they just like, you can't discard them preemptively, like you can with switch. Yeah. So they just always have, and they play for boss obviously, too. So, um, yeah, they just have so many outs to prizes, too many apps.

Brit:

like, obviously you wouldn't really want to tack specifically for that sort of extremity, but like the Algrant or something like that, have any merit in the list, do you think.

Mike:

I don't think so because the lists that are playing, like these are the poisoning attorneys, this lists that are running like the hiding energies and whatnot. So they can actually just set up a bunch of Crow, Gunks, and Slo-Bro you as well. And then, yeah, that's not good either.

Brent:

Uh, I mean, shouldn't those people just be playing for crushing hammers. What the heck is wrong with their list? Why, why have a

Mike:

Play better cards like crushing hammer?

Brent:

Play hammers people better. Everybody loves hammers. All right. Anything else, guys? I feel like that was a, uh, a good review of control. It makes me want to go, uh, pick up that list and give it a spin.

Brit:

it's fun. So it's different enough at the very least.

Mike:

Yeah. Right. I think, I think that that's part of the allure to it is, uh, it plays differently than the other six decks in the format. And

Brent:

Do you still feel like that's probably the play for a players cup three?

Mike:

Uh, I mean, I don't know, I got to play it more. Like Pika is just, I mean, like peak is really good

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you

Mike:

and I play that much better.

Brent:

Yeah. That's obviously a, you could take peak all the way we know, because you've taken people all the way at lots of tournaments.

Mike:

Yeah.

Brent:

Like there's, there's, it's almost hard to imagine a situation where like, you couldn't take people all the way. Obviously you could like, yeah. It's just a matter of like, if you looked at and you said, man, this cannot be beat.

Mike:

Yeah, I think I'll probably, I don't know if I'm going to get to a point where I'm comfortable enough in the ADP and Pika match-ups um, I feel like everything else is pretty solid, but ADP and Pika just seemed like at a fundamental level, too hard to make the match-ups like

Brent:

Uh, you know, I mean, maybe that's the moral story of, of, uh, if you try playing the Altera because we've been standard posted his matchups and like, He lost the set of scorch left and right. But he destroyed Bekah.

Mike:

right? Yeah. So yeah, maybe, maybe the Altera

Brent:

Yeah. Yeah. I assume it's like he puts the Altera up and the guy goes off and spends the rest of the, uh, uh, game, like trying to kill that Altera over and over and over again.

Mike:

right.

Brent:

All right guys. Good times. Good times. Good times.

Mike:

Yeah,

Brent:

Uh, uh,

Mike:

Fred, stay warm over there, man.