Like, like in math, we talk about, um, often when you are given like a hard problem, you break it down to smaller, easier profits, but there's also the reverse approach that is less, um, less often use where you take a problem that you don't know how to do it. You make it much harder. And then sometimes it like folds back around to become easier.
Brent:Welcome to the trash lanch zing. It's Brent Halliburton. I'm here with Mike Michelle and Rick privates. Attendance is always a hundred percent. It's another fantastic pod. We're doing an early one this week because as always we flex the schedule of our pod to meet our attendance criteria. Um, guys, many, many reviews this week way to rise up listeners and drop the reviews. This is the week we've been waiting for. And we owe it all to you. It is absolutely amazing. I want to start by saying that I noticed as I was going through and reading all the reviews that met w 66, who had previously left us in one line review left a like multi paragraph for you for flow to K. And while I feel bad about all the other pods, we do want to note that, that we expect, um, more voluminous reviews for our pods than for the other pods. Your betrayal has been noted. I know people leave reviews so that we can talk about them on the pod. I thought we should let you know that your betrayal has been noted. And we've not talked about you on the pod, in that context as well, more meaningful reviews. Okay. Is there any way let's talk about the great reviews guys. 14 mud KIPP 14 left a fascinating interview. He says, awesome. New listener, love the newest one, which I listened to charismatic coasts, and they cover my favorite topics. That being said, the podcast logo really needs to be changed. If you put in a commission to someone for a little bit of money, you could probably get a really sweet Garbutt or logo in a ton, more listeners. Great pod though. Keep it up.
Brit:I think that's a very salient point. I don't know. I don't know necessarily what it will do to our metrics, but I have just been fiending for some March. I mean, what what's some good merchant needs is some good, some good logos and some good designs. So
Brent:I, I really, I feel like the actionable step there is we, you got to talk to Dustin.
Brit:I mean, I don't, I don't disagree. I do. I do. I do. I do find it funny and I'm sure he will and enjoy the, um, I don't know the status that we just Pokemon who Pokemon community. We need a designer again. Who do we go out? Who do we?
Mike:Like always destined.
Brit:it, Dustin on the line.
Brent:Oh, Dustin knows. I appreciate a good set of brand guidelines. So, you know, I like to keep that stuff on point, so it's really good. So I will say, so here's some commentary 14 road Kip 14. I encourage you to go to our Twitter at Brits at Mike Boucher is Mike's and mine is Abby Halliburton. I posted a garbage or logo that I had Piper lupine, who was a um, prominent young senior master. Now in the Pokemon community drew for us early on in the podcast. I paid her to draw a funny picture of garbage art cause she was looking for commissions and I thought, um, you know teenage girls in the Pokemon community should have people commission them to do our art. So I gave her some money and had her draw an awesome garden or a forest and it looks pretty cool, but the reason I stuck with the one that I've stuck with is like um, I mean, logos are a very personal thing, but like, I feel like the symmetrical illness in some way, behooves future super merge opportunities. Like I imagine a circular, trash lunch, Pokemon podcasts kind of type font around that logo and like slapped on the front of t-shirts and sweatshirts or something. And that it kind of looks like a thing. Whereas like I looked at Pipers and I was like, on the one hand, it's a fantastic looking garbage door and he has headphones and like, that's pretty good, but, but he didn't look like logo, like to me. So, so that the symmetrical cartooniness of wherever I lifted that from, it's like it's art from a Pokemon video game. Um, appealed to me from a logo perspective. Having said that you know, logos, like as I'm sure Dustin will tell you. Clients think all kinds of things are great, but clients are stupid. That's exactly what I am. I'm a professional client. Um, I don't know. How do you guys feel about typers versus the current logo?
Mike:Yeah, I have, I guess I kind of have similar opinions. I think the, the Pipers would probably be great. Like, I was like a centerpiece on a shirt maybe, but like the logo would be good as like, you know, a little like chest thing, something like that. I know that that's kinda how I see the difference. If I'm thinking about it, at least in terms of clothing.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I think that would be it. I don't know. I don't know any real, any of the real like rules for logo design and all that sort of thing, but. Yeah. I just think that when you want, when you want on your, your icon, you want it to be like sleek and minimal and memorable, and then yeah, you blow up a full shirt. You can do whatever you want, but in terms of just the icon, your logo has to be small, compact, symmetrical, you know, probably just the sound of a bunch of geometrical shapes, things like that. Um,
Brent:Yeah. A 14 month 14 we gave you the Twitter handles, replied to my, a picture of Pipers or tweet at us with your ideas. I'm open to ideas. I recognize logos is hard, man. I mean, everybody's, everybody's got an opinion and like, except for the Apple logo, I think everybody, you can always find somebody who thinks somebody's logo is stupid. It's it's very challenging. So here here's here's professional story sidebar for you guys. Um, so my first, like 10 years out in the universe, I was like technology consulting. And and then I got my first job where I like worked at the company and I told people, I hadn't realized just how happy that would make me, but, but the way I was explained, it was like, as a consultant, people who hire me to like make them this beautiful thing. And then I would craft this like beautiful thing and I would give it to them and then they would be like, I'm not going to screw it up and I'm gonna screw it up. And this is exactly I would just for logo design to. Right. Um, and, and I told people, I realized when I went to work client side, like when I'm the person that was like, screwing it up, it just made me so happy. It was so much happier being the person who screwed it up. And that's how I've always described. Getting out of the consulting business and going client side, as, as it turns out a very good choice for me. I think logos are a lot like that too. Like the great thing about working at a marketing agency is you get to design lots of different logos for lots of different people. So you become very, very good at understanding, like what makes a logo and what people's brands stand for. And like going client side kind of sucks because essentially like you get these brand guidelines and then basically you're just like, you have to live within these brand guidelines, the rest of your life. Whereas when you're working at the agency, you're like, I'm going to write the brand guidelines. And I get to write different brand guidelines every week, like go from company to company, making their awesome brands. Um, that's like a way more fun gig, except right at the end of your project, the client always comes in and screws it up. And, and part of my quest for like the last 10 or 15 years is every time I hire a consulting company, I'm like, I want to help you have a good experience here. Like, I'm going to screw it up because that's like the job of every customers to come in at the end of the completed, screw it up. But like, I want to screw it up in a way that you're okay with. So we'll have open communication about that and that that's the story of Brent in the workplace. Um, all right. We got a second review. Skinny pepper says blasted. Yo, love the cast. I throw you guys on while driving to work in the car, you guys bring really bring the light, all the different angles of the meta and why certain texts are currently being played more clear should be listening to you guys. If you're reading this review and you haven't listened to them, just do it. You won't be disappointed. Three questions, topics. What are you guys' favorite Pokemon?
Mike:My favorite Pokemon is getting Gar always has been.
Brit:nine tails always has been.
Brent:You know, mine, mine was early early on. I think it was Snorlax. I felt like Snorlax was the official Pokemon of dads. Um, but, but then I changed it to Mimikyu when they introduced Mimikyu because, um, the idea that there's a Pokemon that so badly feels like they're so ugly inside, but wants to be loved so badly. That turns to my heartstrings. What can I say?
Brit:let me, let me
Brent:appreciate how hard he's working.
Brit:my favorite too. I think, I don't know. What's more interesting to me about this sort of question is not actually your favorite, but more interested in like, what's your fifth favorite, you know, something kind of something kind of arbitrary, because I know like, you know, for instance, I don't know how, if. If Mike is, you know, top six, six is always a good number too, just cause that's however many you can, you could have in real life or something where you to have them for your team. But I always think to like, cause like I like nine tails for aesthetic reasons. I just always love foxes and that's kind of all there is to the story. But then when I'm making the, the other parts of my list, like it gets a little more personal and that's what I mean by is like, it's more interesting. So like I met like my third favorite Pokemon might be, you know, say the first book of mine, I qualified to worlds, but there's something like that. I'm just, I'm just always interested in the whole sort of the meticulousness of the process of making your list. Just as much as your choice itself. I think who you are as a person is very much, you know, in that story itself, just as much as it is, it is the just arbitrary choice, you know, I have to make. Maybe today. It's my favorite, you know, today's PKG is my favorite tomorrow. It might be Mimikyu, but at the end of the day, there's just like, there's something wrapped in the that, you know, just makes it a little more interesting. Tell us tells us about who you are as a person. And it's like, well, I guess also this flip side too, like, what's your least favorite Pokemon. That's similarly, always a good story too.
Mike:Yeah, maybe we should do. Maybe when, when we know we have a podcast coming up where we don't have as much to talk about, we should prepare a list of top five or top six for various reasons. Um, yeah, I think that'd
Brent:why is why is yours Vanguard by cause there a reason.
Mike:I was just young and really liked gang Gar, but like probably my second favorite is guard of war first kind of like a similar reason to what Britt said. Guard of horror was the Pokemon that got me my first, like really national or world stage finished when I got top four at a U S nationals with guard of war. And so. And then I really like cardboard GX and like, et cetera. So like guard, guard, war has always been like a Pokemon that I've really liked because of the cards. Um,
Brent:Yeah, I thought, I think Brit is red is not wrong when he says like at a certain point, it kind of devolves to, I had really good outcomes with this deck.
Mike:Yeah, absolutely.
Brit:No, like really? I like my, the deck, I qualified for worlds, but it's the first time was a dial get down to Trump tower, SPN. And I'm just like, I like sometimes think, or like, I wish I liked style the more for like, because it's a good sentimental story, but I'm just like, I'm sorry, he's an ugly Pokemon. That's a great memory for me to have those are some, I remember those tournaments and just sort of how, how nailbiting it was for me to qualify for that first time. But. Tile diving it for me, unfortunately. And like, and similarly, like I do like size Matone and I don't think I like size Matone as a Pokemon. I think it's kind of a silly or just kind of awkward eat the weird gen five has just kind of weird designs, But yeah. And so seismic toad is like, I do have fond memories of that Pokemon because of the card. Another thing too, when it comes to the making your favorite, I always do the, um, there's so many of them now, but the, you know, the ones where you just, you select and you select and select, and then eventually we'll just give you your favorite. Do you know what I'm talking about? I think it's on like get hub
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brit:and those similarly, like I wonder. Like what, which one is closer to the, to the real you, is it the ones that you do you tell or is it, would it be, cause like when, at anytime I do that, it's always a little different and there's always some weirdos that tend to make it pretty far. And so, yeah. Like, and I don't know, so much of preferences are just actually arbitrary, ultimately arbitrary. So I don't think there's really a whole lot of explanation to them, but I wonder about that. Like, is that me or is that me? Which one's closer when I say nine tails there, when Mimikyu is my favorite Pokemon on the get hub select there. Good question.
Brent:Skinny. Pepper's got two more questions. These are all really good. Um, what is your, your favorite regionals you've been to? It's a harder question.
Brit:That's a good question though. I know that I can talk on the tios. I like, and I guess I won't talk about the tos. I don't like. Um, but there are definitely some tios I love that almost always offer a good tournament experience and that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to run well, sometimes there's just, um, you know, a wrench in the system that's gonna make you go till midnight. But from what I can tell, I, I have all these terrible or just like lay experiences of regionals, but I just really haven't played in much of them in the modern area. So really maybe there are a lot better than I give them credit for then than they were when I was playing. Um, my favorite regionals, maybe come up with something better. I'm going to go with Dallas for the well.
Mike:That's what I was going to say too. I think like there's a lot of aspects of the Dallas regional that are really nice to think I've been twice. Just the fact that. It's right there at the airport is really sweet. Like you don't have to worry about an Uber or renting a car or anything like that. Once you get off, it's just there. You can just stay in the hotel. It also makes it feel, um, it's just easier to like, hang out with people because you're kind of all staying in the same hotel, almost for sure. I mean, obviously some people don't, but,
Brent:Very few people don't stay in that hotel.
Mike:yeah. And so like, if you want to, you know, get drinks or go to dinner with people, it's really easy to just meet up with them and hang out either in the room or down in the restaurant area. Um, yeah, that, that is of the last, like three or four years that have those have been the the, probably the two funniest regionals that I've been to.
Brit:see, I really liked that lists. Sorry, go ahead.
Brent:the there's no question. Um, Dallas is a really well-run tournament too. Like
Mike:Yeah. That's true.
Brent:it's, it is like run really crisply. They do a great job of like saying, Hey, we're also gonna do, like, they had cosplay events in the last couple of years. I remember when they had the Wasi com. Yeah. I tell the story all the time. Was it two years ago where they had, they were running a game show where they got like juniors up on stage and they like lined up like six juniors and the Wasi was asking them questions about Pokemon. And the juniors had to like try to, you know, answer the question. And like my reaction to that was like the wa the Watson was born to do that. Like he was, I've never seen someone more excited to host a game show. Then I've made up 20 questions about Pokemon characteristics. You have to guess you spoke about undescribed, like that's. So in his wheelhouse, there may be nothing in anyone else's wheelhouse ever. That's more in their wheelhouse, then that was his, and the fact that they, it would just do that. It's nice. It was really nice. They cut away from the street to show that on there, like Twitch channel. And that was a terrible idea, But like but it was really good. It was a really good idea. And I appreciate that. You know, obviously it's somebody who goes to lots of tournaments and is almost never involved in judging or organizing, except when I'm commentating and stuff. I will say, I don't know if you guys have been to Madison, Madison's delightful. I would never have gone to Madison if it weren't for Pokemon and Madison is a great place to visit.
Brit:That's the one I was blanking on. I think Madison Madison rules. And that's it. That's my exact same story too. I would, would never have gone there have only been there for Pokemon. Sorry, Carl, I guess I'm sure it's a good state otherwise, but yeah, it's such a, it's a really good location. You're just kind of in the square, in
Brent:The convention centers right on the water. The city hall is beautiful. The restaurant scene around the city hall is beautiful. Super, super nice.
Brit:that's actually my favorite one. I forget too. I've just, haven't been in a couple of years, but Well, the, it always just ended up being like a big one for the hover cats, for whatever reason, I think just a Midwest kind of collection of players, a Midwest regionals. And so that would just always be a one where like you would see a lot of people. It would always be, it always kind of landed in the summer too, for whatever reason has attended, tends to be towards the very end of the season, like right before nationals. Um, so there's always like, I don't know. I just have, I've only went twice I think. And I just have a good memory of driving there one of those times and just ended up being one of those. Like school's over just about to be over at summer. Good weather Madison tournament. Boom.
Brent:Yeah. I feel like it was like mid June two years ago. And like, it was just. The weather was perfect for sitting outside and eating and like everybody was dining Alfresco, absolutely fantastic situation. I also like Toronto. Um, the last time I went, it was just me and Liam and he had never been to Toronto before. And they had stopped. I mean, I wish I had gone to the tournament when they were hosting it in downtown Toronto. They were hosting it out in the suburbs, but we stayed in a hotel downtown. Cause I'd been to Toronto before. I know downtown Toronto is totally awesome, but a really nice time you had poutine it be that.
Brit:I never, I never went to, I guess most of these were back when there was only one regionals a year, but there the California regionals always used to be on the queen. Mary there's that big, the big ship. California. I always thought that sounded like a fun time. And then I don't know if you went to this one, Mikey. Um, but I think it was 2013. The new England regionals was just that Kraft stadium, right? The Gillette, the
Mike:I didn't go to that. I didn't go to that one. I wasn't really playing that year.
Brit:Yeah. I didn't, I didn't either, but I was just trying to think of some, like other
Brent:That's a good call though. Cause every time you go to like a tournament in the Northeast, you, you talk to like these old timers, whatever Frank Diaz or whatever, and they tell you about how, you know, back in the day we went to awesome tournaments and places like football stadiums. It's like, Oh man, we missed out.
Mike:Yeah. I really did. Like when they did Philly regionals at the convention center in downtown Philly, that was really fun. Watch. As soon as they moved it outside of the convention center is not quite as good, I guess they they've had it two times. Not like in downtown Philly, they did at Oaks once they did it. And then they did it in like Lancaster
Brent:Oh, yeah. Yeah. They, they, the one out in Bluebell, right?
Mike:Yeah. But when it was at the affiliate convention center is so great because you could go to a Redding terminal market. And that was like, that's amazing.
Brent:true. True story. For, for people unfamiliar with Philadelphia history when they built the Philadelphia convention center, they built it where they built it because they wanted conventioneers to go to Redding, terminal market for lunch because they thought that would make them love Philadelphia. And they're not wrong.
Mike:Yeah. They're not wrong. I have.
Brent:terminal market is like the best thing about Philly.
Mike:Okay. One more thing on this before we move on. So the funniest thing, um, if you guys know brand-new Spencer now, um, but I don't know if you know Spencer. Um, but I remember going with him, I had already been already in terminal at some point and he had never been, so we went there for Philly regionals one time and he walks in and we're walking around for a few minutes and he goes, you know, Mike, you, this would be a great place to take someone for a first date. And I was like, that's a weird thing to say why? And he's like, well, If the girl can't find anything to eat here, not worth dating her. That is so funny, but a good, good call, I guess like there's just so many options. It was funny.
Brent:Yeah. And if she can't appreciate like, like it's a self-contained date because there's like millions of places to shop like foods to try and stuff like it's, it's the whole package. It's the whole package. The problem is if.
Brit:I'm missing out. Should I go to Philly one of these days?
Brent:my God, you totally should totally should write a terminal market is all the sales pitch you need. It's amazing.
Mike:Yeah. All right. What's the last question.
Brent:Um, and last question, and this is an easy one guys. And why do you always edit out Mike saying peak around fully? Like it always comes out as just peak her and cuts to the rest of the sentence a little. I will tell you why that's on me. This is great feedback for the pod. I had noticed that happening, like, I don't know, two, three months ago, and I thought that it was happening less. And hearing you say that it's happening, it means I'm going to change how I do my thing, but here's a true story. So I use this software called the script to edit the pod and the way this script thing works is, um, this is like super fantastic new technology and. Shout out to spark capital spark capital is an investor in the script. And one of the partner that invested in these scripts is in the bill Hyatt friend of the pod and the parents of Pokemon players. And so, so the way this, the script software. So he's the guy who kind of got me on this, but the way this D script software works is you upload your audio file. And then they have this like AI transcription software that transcribes the whole pod. And it is very good except at Pokemon names. And it has a number of things that make it really, really easy to edit a pot. Like, so when you listen to it, you, it, it like essentially follows along with the transcription because it generated the transmission description from the audio file. Right? So it shows you like, essentially like a word document where it's highlighting words as you're listening to the pod when you're editing the pot. So I had to play the pod at like, One and a half speed and watch the transcript roll by. And then anytime I'm talking pretty much, I deleted because I figured anything I'm saying has been interesting. So um, then they have a button that you can press that deletes all of the excess space. So it says if there's more than a one second pause and we have lots of awkward pauses in the pod, it'll automatically edit those awkward pauses down to one second. And so, so our transitions that seem super seamless when you guys listen the awkward pause that facilitates the transition since I'm an awkward person, like we fix that all gets cleaned up and post-processing, and then the other button has, is it will automatically find all of the ums and delete them.
Mike:so it's mistaken. Um, as, um,
Brent:Mike is Mike has demonstrated his data science skills. So the thing that did the script software does incredibly badly is understand the names of Pokemon. So every time we say peek around about like, and so what's interesting is when you say it happens when Mike says it, I hear that cause like I felt like things were a little bit better and I kind of went back to using the unbelief because what's funny is when you, the system will tell you, because it wants you to like use the product, but we have like 600 OMS per broadcast. Cause I say all the time and the thing goes through and cleans it all up. So theoretically that's really nice, except when it thinks that we said Pika room and then it proceeds to kind of chop it up into a choppy thing. I've noticed that doing that. And I thought that we had kind of made improve the software a little bit. We'd gotten past that I will stop deleting ums. And unfortunately that makes the podcast about two minutes longer because. I personally, I am really the problem when you listen to the pod, it's it it's stunning, especially because they're transcribing all the ums. So it just slaps me in the face and it makes me want to press the button so bad, but, but I will not press the button in recognition of this comment because that's very constructive.
Mike:Well, the other, the other option is I can just start saying like really enunciate on the peak of Brahm. Like
Brent:you know what, it'll be interesting and I can report back next pod when we listened to this portion and see if that got transcribed better than other ones and you know,
Mike:I'll give it, I'll give you some test cases during this podcast
Brent:exactly, exactly more excited Mike was resulted in different transcription outcomes. So skinny pepper, super appreciate the feedback and super appreciate the questions. You know, how to do reviews correctly. That was a fantastic review. That's exactly the kind of review we're looking for. Alright. Last review, three reviews this week.
Mike:jeez.
Brent:Kevin rise via Apple podcast, Canada, as you guys know, the Canadians are a big fan of the pod. We appreciate the Canadians, leave it a podcast review. Hey, fellas love the pod. Congrats to Mike and his players. Cup three run, shout out from one of those Canadians helping push you guys up the charts here in the North as a relatively new but dedicated pokey dad, you guys have felt me and my LMC dogs, not only up our game to hang in with my 11 year old and a sport and 32 spirit capes, but also take the next step to play more competitively and our local card shop. Shout out to the awesome deck box in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Looking forward to catching up with you guys in my AirPods every Thursday after dark, when I'm out for my evening stroll, actually I haven't looked forward to anything this much since running home for school to check the mail for the latest issue of quest busters in the eighties, keep up the perfect attendance and the best Pokemon content around. And we Canadians will be there with you guys. Cheers from the Atlantic bubble, Kevin rights, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Mike:Wow. That was such a nice review.
Brent:I wanted to give the shout out Griffin place for tool scrappers. That just goes to show that like, when you're playing LMC, you end up in like this circular meadow where you're just like hard countering LMC
Brit:Yeah,
Brent:for scrappers is ambitious
Brit:that's a, yeah, that's a senior meta game for sure. Or junior. Meta-game
Mike:Gotta beat the mirror.
Brit:no goggles for you.
Brent:Griffin. We respect hard countering your dad always great to hear polka dads listening, where we're pro poker dads here, um, Let's talk about channel fireballs on fire tweet of the week sander with bringing some fierce tweeting.
Mike:yeah, he he, he posted and he was like, well, let me, let me, let me just pull it up. Cause it was, it was so innocuous. Um, yeah. It's okay. control read. And then it's obviously a tweet longer, which is fine. But I figured like when I clicked on him, it'd be like, you know, two paragraphs or so, but Nope. It's like, it's like a full article
Brent:Yeah. It's like, it's like six prizes in a tweet.
Mike:Yeah. Um, and it's cool. Um, any goes very much into detail on a lot of the benefits of one versus the other, I would say. Some of it's a little obvious to me. Like it's a lot of, um, it's a lot of, how do I say putting kind of like a quantitative measure on intuition, which I guess is what math is in general. It's just kind of like quantifying intuition. Um, but like the idea that an extra Pidgeotto would maintain, like basically his main, his, one of his main points for example, is, um, a second or third gen Chino is not worth as much as the first gen Chino. Like your, your spike is much higher when you go from zero to one, then from one to two, and especially from two to three, the utility drops off quite a lot. Um, where he's a pudgy photo, um, all three are equally as valuable.
Brent:Right. Well, you know, what's interesting to me is like, I felt like in my fooling around with like um, or Shifu and just a little bit of like ex guttural control, I felt like the problem with Pzegeo though is if I didn't have three setup, I just don't know if I could be happy. It's sad. But the thing that like really jumped out to me that, that deserves some recognition. And I recognize Sanders had the on fire tweet of the week, many weeks Sanders Twitter is absolutely on fire. Like, so he started tweeting. His first tweet was like October, October 7th, 2020 was when he first started tweeting like, his Twitter. Like if, if people in Pokemon are not following him on Twitter, I don't know what they're doing. Cause like there's probably. There's there's many, many good Twitter accounts to follow for Pokemon, but I don't think any of them are better.
Brit:yeah. How do we get, how do we sort of angle? We need to get Zander to teach that that a drive guy, how to play control. We need to. Sort of co collaborate them together and get the community, working the TCG community, working with the at-large Pokemon community this way will,
Brent:Yeah. I feel like it's interesting. I feel like the tweets about ad drive in the last, like two or three days have kind of come full circle where people are like, why aren't we nicer to people who are just coming into the Pokemon community? Did you have that reaction at all? Elaborate.
Brit:Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's always, so like, I don't know, like it, it just doesn't matter what actually happens. Like people are going to believe what they want to believe, I guess. And so like, You know, I, I like on one hand, I, I do understand and do feel like the community was like, right. To sort of like, no control is fine. Like, it's just part of the game. You don't need to think about it this way. But then if you, if you like went through the comments of any of that stuff, you get his fans or however, however you want to put it being like, man, just no, just ignore that. The TCG communities, the toxic one, you know, and it's just like, that's just going to happen no matter what. Right. Um, but yeah, I think there's a healthy way to play decks that are frustrating. And like, if you don't, I don't know if that's just like the end of the game for you. If you can't enjoy a game where these alternative strategies are possible in chess, like, as I'm always saying, just like there, there are other games, there is like Mikey says too, like last week when we were talking about like, if you're already tired of the format, it, it might be a little too late. Like there's other games, right?
Brent:Yeah, it's interesting. I, I know how like people say but they're not wrong when they say, Hey, lots of, um, you know, important quote, important air quotes, people in the communities talk about how they hate control all the time. Mike was saying he doesn't like to play control decks on the Lord just the other day. Like, I hear all that. And I also recognize like part of the weirdnesses new people in the community don't typically have such a big platform to just like throw out uninformed opinions. But, but but like that's part of content creation and content creating is weird. I look forward to us running out of takes, and it's just like throwing out random hot takes on stuff. We know nothing about people love that. Let's see let's talk about, um, yeah, so, so two more things I wanted to talk about before we jump into decks and games and outcomes and all these things, and we got, Oh man, we got so much good stuff here. Um, I realized as I reflected on our last pod, what really, really, really gets my goat about there's cup three and the decision they've made to not release results. And that's it, like there was no like strategizing or opinions or guessing like what's going to happen or how things are gonna work out or anything like that. Like, you know, like a medic gaming for a tournament, people should like, you want the community to be chiming in with their headaches. That's kinda lame.
Mike:Yeah. And you can't do that at all. I think there's so I, um,
Brent:Like you essentially had to lock in your deck and then play all your games before anybody else even could be like, Oh, Mike, that was really good. Here's what I think you should do next round. Like,
Mike:right, right, right. Yeah. I had like a couple of people that I was working with, but yeah, it's not really the same. I, um, so on the discord that we. We're all part of, um, for the top 16, I was kind of able to connect with Jesse Hill. I think that's his last name? He's like the player
Brent:Oh, c'mon coordinator.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Um, really nice guy. And we kind of chatted a little bit and I told him at the end of the whole experience, I said, there is a number of things that we could discuss about what can be different, what could be better, you know, online tournament, giving championship points, blah, blah, blah. But just this specific tournament, the hundred percent biggest thing is doing the broadcast scheduling different. Um, for the, for the region finals is it's especially egregious because 256 people played in the event and those 256 people know if they want to, they can look on the battlefield bracket and to see the four people that made it through and it's not hard. Um, so you're keeping this quote unquote secret. For essentially no reason cause anybody, most people that want to know could find out, um, and then it's not quite as bad for only 16 people, but it also kills so much hype for the event. Like if you, like, we saw this rapid strike gen Chino deck, right. Come out, um, from a lot of the European players, you can, if you know, that tore displaying event and you know that toward works with these people, you can probably like, you could probably ascertain that there's a high probability that toward played this deck in players cup three. And, but how cool would it have been if you know that wasn't, that was the very first time that you saw that deck. And this is just like, like now if tore did play that deck, you're going to be like, Oh, that deck came out two weeks ago. Who cares?
Brent:Right, right. It's like, it's a little bit anticlimactic because I mean, I think part of what made like worlds and the Intercontinental so interesting was it was you saw the best players playing a new format and the result was like the decks that did well were like Metta defining. And now. I mean, because there's 10 tournaments a week. It's like, no matter what happens, there's going to be an element of old news to it. Right?
Mike:Yeah. Like the, the, all the lists that did well, or although this, that everybody played and, and, or did well, are all obsolete by the time that the tournament airs. Like you see if people played peaker rom, um, in, in top 16, they probably didn't play the same list that Sosa used yesterday to win the event. Um, so yeah, it's just, it's really unfortunate in that way.
Brent:Yeah. Um, another thing I saw a tweet earlier today about it and thought it was worth mentioning for 30 seconds. The player's cup trophies look amazing.
Mike:Yeah, it didn't take long.
Brent:Hopefully what Pokemon takes away from this is like, I assume that the cost of like a trophy like that is frankly, not dramatically more than. The cost of like you know, the nice pieces of crystal that they're given out at regionals there, this shit about Trump he's like that I'd be like a trophy like that. Market's the business, man. When I, when I see that on like Zack shelf behind him, when he's streaming online, I'm like that people want to get that look at that thing. Whereas when I see Sosa's absolute stack of like crystal tablets, I'm like, Hmm. I mean, it's a big stack, but like, I don't think any, I don't think any kid sees that and says, I gotta get me one of those.
Brit:a whole lot of coasters.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, frankly, I, yeah. I feel like I'm sure. I mean, you guys must have an absolute boatload of these. I know I have an absolute boatload from like cities, blah, blah, blah. Like there's a, there's just a big pile of those somewhere in my house. I don't think they're even on display anymore.
Brit:We talked about this. So a couple of weeks ago, I think I sold, I, I, I have a handful. Like I kept like one win from each year. And then those are the few trophies I have that matter. I kept those, but basically couldn't give away the city's one. I think I, I don't remember how much I was selling them for like, even maybe at like$20 a piece. I feel like I was, that was a steal made a couple hundred dollars. I don't know how much I got ripped off or not. Or if they were like, could the, the person who buy them from me or are they really able to resell them again? I'm just, I'm skeptical, but I I've never, I have not once regretted my decision to clear up some space.
Brent:All right. Let's let's talk about the team challenge. Stunning turn of events,
Mike:You know? Yeah.
Brent:Nanning turn of events.
Mike:So yeah,
Brent:After I spent all last week, hyping the inevitable victory of how like Maplewood couldn't possibly lose. Cause they got to play nine games and only had to win five of them.
Mike:So I think I'll give you the recap. And then I, I think ultimately it's the reason there's a bit of complacency, but, so, so here's the recap. So we brought ADP Z and peaker rom again, Andy. Actually you brought the exact same lineup, so ADP's a peaker. Um, but then Kettler and I talked a bunch about if we wanted to switch decks, but ultimately Kettler stuck with med party I stuck with or Shifu. We changed all the lists, a couple of cards, but more, all the same decks. Our opponents brought tempos, ARD sent a scorch drag, a pole ERSII Fu and decidua. So they ended up sitting there, sent the scorch. We sat, I actually sat out with Hersha Fu um, we didn't really have any, none of our decks had any texts for decidua. So that beat our peak around that beat our ADP Z and then the mad party beat the citywide, which makes sense.
Brent:Wait, where are you guys playing the double model while in ADP?
Mike:No, just one mile while no ages.
Brent:you're really, really not, not okay.
Mike:Yup. So distinctive, I got two winds on us then the tempos ARD. Lost a peaker on Boston mad party. And then essentially the deciding game was tempos our adverse ADP, which we ended up losing we'll come back to that. And then there was drag appalled or Shifu, which had lost ADP, which kind of makes sense, but then has very good matchup against peaker on very good matchup against mad party. And one, both of those Justin almost won the peek around set, but Keller didn't really have a chance with mad party versus so like, so essentially decidua and drag Paul Hershfield both had like two very
Brent:was where you played them? You and med party.
Mike:Yeah. But drag a pole is really more the issue cause yeah, cause it just
Brent:Right, right. Just, just tells you how you play it. It doesn't change the outcome.
Mike:Yeah. Right. Um, and so, so really the only like. A lot of the match-ups were pretty polarized. Like we had pretty strong, positive matchups or strong negative matchups. And then the ADP versus tempos ARD was really the the one matchup that was really close and both games, both games 80. We went first with ADP and they got a turn one Rashid's Dard either knockout or hit our ADP and just didn't miss a beat. We, you know, this was just really, that was really unfortunate. So we ended up losing five, four. I do think we could have probably been when I said so when I said maybe we got a little bit complacent, we kinda just decided week in, week out that we're just going to bring like the best decks ADP peak around or Shifu. And in this case we brought mad party. Um, and maybe we should have been a little bit more creative. I think we, we kind of relied on our. I don't know for a lying on our like inherent skill with the good decks was necessarily the right move. Could have maybe been a little bit, a little bit more creative. So like, I, I saw that Lydia, I think her name is Lee limitless. Lydia, her team lost this week because her opponents brought three deciduous guys. And I think there's just probably interesting strategy, jeez, that we should have considered maybe a little bit more, even our opponents this week, like drag a pole or show Fu is not really a great deck in my opinion, but it's in a format like this. It can grab some really positive match-ups. So it's a little bit riskier, but like if you hit the mat, like if you play against the Turnitin or pick her arm or, or whatnot, you're going to have a good time. Um, decidual I obviously kind of the same boat, so maybe, maybe we should have been a little bit riskier. I don't know.
Brent:You know, it's interesting, I guess I hadn't really thought about it, but it occurred to me as you were telling your story that like, from a strategy perspective, it almost seems like insane to not bring the as a fourth deck because you get to look at their deck lists and decide if you want to play it.
Mike:Right, right, right, right.
Brent:So, so like, if you don't assume the other team is going to bring a decision then you're just going to, like, you take massive ELLs. I mean, you guys took three losses to that deck. Like that was, that was really what broke you. Right,
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, we didn't bring her HSA food because of the decision or partially because of the disadvantaged match. And then yeah, two of our other decks, just two gals to it. And the first couple of weeks we did bring counters like our ADP play nature slash and um, I think I played Phoebe and my Hersha food the week before. And for some reason this week, we're like, ah, they're not going to make decisions. Nobody's brought the situation against us. And then,
Brent:right, right. Well, and the funny thing is, is because when you play the counters, they don't play it.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:if you don't play the counters, they play it. Right. Like that's, I mean, they had brought decidua CGI and they just didn't bring it the prior week. Right.
Mike:yeah, yeah. Right, right.
Brent:I mean, it's interesting. It seems like. Yeah, I feel like that's the only thing that I've really, really, really feel like I might've picked up is like, you should play decidua as one of your four next cause like, if they don't counter it, they just take mad ELLs.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:And if they do counter it, you're like, well, that's fine. We weren't gonna play it anyway. But like you, like, I think to your point, it's a super, it's probably the most polarized deck and that like, the outcome is like totally binary. If they counted it, they're going to beat you. And if they didn't counter it, they're going to lose and you can just look at their deck and know, will I go, you know, two, one with this or three with this three out with this, like you already know.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, which is kind of nice in some way in a lot of waves. Yeah.
Brent:Interesting.
Mike:So, yeah, so we're out unfortunate, but good luck to the rest of the teams are still playing. I think now it's tough. 32. I think we lost in 64.
Brent:So, so do we have a favorite at this point? I feel like, I feel like Zach massages team is the only team that I know that is still in it.
Mike:Yeah. Should we ask you team also lost? Yeah,
Brent:I feel like, I feel like Chris should have joined the Szymanski team, just
Mike:think it's the Tio.
Brent:Oh, is he,
Mike:Yeah, I think so.
Brent:they run their league in their house,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:look much like the correct layers. We have enough players to just be able to go to. So do we know any other teams besides Zach's.
Brit:no, but if you're still playing tweet at us and tweet us all about how good your team is, and we'll talk to you up on the next episode, I'd like, I'd like to get a better rundown of. The top eight or top 16 whenever. Cause I think it looked like TPC. I was going to cover the end of it wherever, whenever they start. But yeah, I would love to know a little more. And as Mikey was saying, I'm not sure if this is like the best format for it, but the key, the team format was very capable and I don't, I don't think any of the teams really thought about it enough and maybe that will happen for the next one. Like again, I think the problem is just that we can't select our teams. So that makes it just harder to do this other work already. But yeah, I definitely think there was like some good strategies that no one came up with. And maybe if it gets adjusted, like we can ban a deck as opposed to just like getting the choose one out. Like we'll have a little more freedom with how that works, but
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:You know, Brett, you were, I think you were at the bleeding edge of like, we should bring for Alterian.
Brit:Yeah, that's a good strategy. I just think too, like in my Mikey and week two, I think it was, had to play against like all ADP, like all of these strategies are good to me. I think, especially now, too, I think, I don't know how we'll really dive into it all that much today, but this battle styles format, I think is the best one that I've played since starting back. I'm not too sure about that one. That was pre rotation. Cause it kind of just had that one big tournament and then we immediately rotated, but like in this year, so since I've being started, I like, there's a lot of decks right now and I, I think they're all like I would, I think about four or five of them are the best tech, depending on, depending on the day, depending on the metagame and below that, I think there's more like mid, mid tier decks. Then before two you've got like orbital seams. Okay. Enough drag, a pole or HSA food drag, a pole decks. Like there's a lot of variety right now, even though like single strike deck is like. Good enough to be in a mid tier deck, I think for sure. It's good enough to compete. Um, you know, which I think says a lot. And so with that being the case, I think like that lends itself to these, these harder formats to figure out, especially in the team, the team format, just a lot of, a lot of weaknesses. And I don't think, like I worry that it's just gonna, it'll eventually just be solved to the point where it's just kind of rock paper scissors. Like that's where, that's where I worry we're headed. But for the moment I'm re I'm, I'm optimistic about the game. Like share like your complaints about how the games themselves go. Aren't going to be solved at all. That'll be maybe what we can handle that after rotation, but in terms of what I just think is viable or not, it, I think it's relatively a good place to be right now. Like I choose we've got players cup four on the horizon. There's a notice like. Clear deck. You want to just grind with the whole time and that will make qualifying harder. I would think a lot of players like to just try to grind through one deck, but it doesn't seem like anything it's like that well positioned other than I guess, ADP and Chris Cephalon are pretty even against everything.
Brent:So can we talk about the, the best I can format forever peek around for a second?
Mike:Yeah. I mean, while we were talking about the metagame might as well,
Brent:Yeah. So, so I mean, Pico rom just won a big tournament. can someone explain to me what this means?
Mike:so, well,
Brent:Israel? Good job.
Mike:yeah, Israel Sosa when, when the big event tells me that the format's pretty skillful. You look at that top eight as well. There's a lot of the players are some of the players that have been very successful in the, either the online format or previously. Um, so I think like Eddie got top four, Josh Sutherland got top four. The second place was auntie who I think is Logan from Canada. So there's like people that are people that have been very consistently successful. So I feel like the formats kind of like Brett said, it's in a pretty good place. Peaker I'm winning. So, so only played against one or Shifu, I think the whole tournament. So that's part of it. I don't think our ship had a very good showing in general role during the event. So, so, you know, the better that you were doing in the van, the last, like you were to play inertia food, that's part of it as well, but he beat the one or shoe that he played because he did play one stealthy hood. And so I did, I watched a little bit of his stream. I think I saw some of, I think I saw one of the games that he played against their Shifu and it, you don't necessarily need to kill the Mimikyu if you play the hood, which is pretty nice. So I think going forward, I haven't played any games with with stealthy hood, but it's seems solid play one of you just
Brent:I was going to say I, but I assume you're about to sit down and play it. Doesn't because
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:he runs Bibles for that.
Mike:Yeah. So the, I think, I think the general strategy is to take one prize on either like a Traci. Maybe you do kill the Mimikyu. You're able to like boss it up. That's like, that's like the ideal scenario to boss up the Mimikyu and kill it early on. Then they'll have to play down the draggy GX, which you can kill either what the Bolton or maybe a tandem shock and write you or with the MuTu, if you're able to attack what the MuTu you get, find hood early. I mean, if you find hood early, you're like you're in a great spot. Or maybe you tag switch on to a MuTu that doesn't have counters, something like that. So you kill one price, you killed Geraci and then you have the hood as like a backup to go on a Mewtwo. For sure. It's safe. Then you tag bolt a BMX to to knock it out. So I think that that's like your path to six prizes. I theorized before last weekend and I played in. Well, so I played in the chill event last Wednesday and I tried zap dose, which was not very good. Um, but I theorized the list after that and I didn't really get to play with it of just running for Bolton for bosses order, um, to kind of go this route of like use a Bolton to kill them, to make you use a Bolton, to kill the draft DGX. And then your MuTu is free to tag both of Emacs. So similar, um, similar strategy, I guess, of taking six prizes, but maybe the hood is just a little bit better in the matchup than their fourth Bossar or four fourth Bolton. The benefit of bolted fourth Bolton fourth bosses. Those are just good cards that are really good in every other matchup as well. The other, the other card that is a pretty good in the matchup is big charm because it prevents like the Arisha food from going one 50, one 20. Um, But so in six of one, half dozen of the other, if you're dealing with RFQ matchup in some way, that brings the percentage even to like 50, 50, that's good enough. Cause her around is just very good against everything else except to turn it tests. And you still have your crushing armor package to make that match up pretty close as well. But peak rounds, really the only deck, one of the only decks that still has a very solid ADP matchup, um, has great fire matchups. And so it's pretty well positioned outside of there's food. So if you're making her feel close, match up, it's great.
Brent:I saw, I saw Zach Lasage win a tournament today playing ADP hammers. And I watched like one or two of his games. I think that really jumped out to me was, I guess I was not really. As aware as maybe I should have been okay. How much better escape rope made ADP? Like every time you played escape robe. I mean, because ADP is so fast and so aggressive, it was coming down at early and the guy was like, so I have a choice. I can either send them this day, their CRO bat, or I can send up this thing that I'm trying to power up right now.
Mike:Right, right, right.
Brent:And like I felt like 50% of the time the guy chose wrong, but like, there were no good answers.
Brit:yeah, I played, so I play, it might be a good point to talk about this. Now I played LMC and the GG tour over the weekend. I lost my win and then I played against a ton of ADP and the ADP that finally beat me, was this a forest skateboard one? And I just like. And LMC, you don't have any Pokemon to begin with. So it's really hard to play around. And I just got, there was nothing I could do. I just got like in games, I made like a very small mistake that I, I might've been able to win the game still. If I had, I just kind of had an arbitrary tag call that I played to thin my deck. And if I had just like taken. Taken Alanna. And I, instead of like what I took, I like it would've maybe mattered like two turns later. And I, my opponent just like got a three energy station out of nowhere with the sword game three on turn two and swept me. But most of it was because of the ropes. I just, it was too hard to play against. It makes me worry about playing LMC. If Al if the ADP Ellis settle on four ropes, but I don't think they have, like I said, I beat every ADP that I played, but this one and the one I lost two played for and no switch and all the ones that I was beating was playing the hybrid.
Brent:Yeah. Like me, I just felt like watching him. I was like, you, okay. So you want to bench something that you can sacrifice if he escapes ropes, like there's not a lot of decks that feel like they have the bench space and the chillness to be able to do that, except for something like, it turns this where you're like, Oh, but she's developed the Lindsey escape ropes. I'll punish him for it. Like who does that? You know? And maybe if it would be okay, cause you'll be like, well, I bet this Mimikyu, but like, then if you don't need the Mimikyu, you're just filling bench lots. Right.
Mike:Exactly.
Brent:And you're like, I needed that bench lab to set up like other stuff, man. It's a it was a, it was interesting to me to watch and I felt like I learned a little something there.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So, so what, what deck what's the next deck to play? Assuming you're not just playing Pokemon or peek around to find out if the ground is good with a stealthy hood guys, like what's the best daggone format.
Brit:Um, I, I would play, I want to spend some more time on, um, Chris Cephalon templates. Art, I think is the deck I would play next. I've I've got enough. I play with a lot this last week of rapid strike or HSA Fu um, I'm not sure why I didn't really have an intention. I just want him to be practicing with it, I guess. So I feel good about that. Feel good about my ability to play Pika.
Brent:Were you playing the Geraci or the gen Chino or both?
Brit:Geraci I, before the podcast last week I worked on chin Chino, just to be able to talk about it without I guess, lying about, about testing. Um, but I really haven't touched it since then. I've mostly just been playing around with. Um, Mikey, Mikey tweeted about two weeks ago and just been messing with counts here and there. And like what I said several weeks ago, I've never quite gotten over. I just, I don't like the deck. It feels a little underwhelming to me most of the time, but there are games when you just hit one 50 really, really fast every game and then snipe. And it's really easy, but I just don't feel like it has a ton of options and awkward draws here and there, but I tempos aren't seems really good to me. And just like, it has great matchups. You don't have to worry about decidual why you've got a good, I mean, you don't have a good Pika mantra, but like you can win it. Your ADP matchup is pretty good. And like with bliss, Cephalon you just kind of can beat most of the any of the tag team decks. And then hopefully your, your Rush's arts can carry you the rest of the way. There's something I missed. I remember when I was playing Chris, Cephalon like initially, and I like. I don't know if this is just like being bad or not enough experience with the tag, but I just like, sort of miss how often you don't. Like, I don't know. I just, I think have it in my head that I just like had to get a six energy charge card, um, or else I wasn't doing what I supposed to. And that's just not true. You get a lot of work done only using flare strike. You use two of them sometimes just like the, you know, about a year or two ago. I think that's how the format kind of went is you would power up one chart is art. And then the second one would do the rest of the work rather than just trying to sweep with one. So I I've had mixed feelings about Chris Cephalon, but I've just realized I was wrong. And I think just in my fairly limited playing with that, I just had the wrong game plan in mind. So I'd like to revisit it now that I'm thinking straight and hopefully just improving
Brent:So I feel like there's been a lot of, I feel like people have been, I've seen like, kind of like focus sample on builds, running around the last week where people are playing. Like they actually cut the blow Cephalon and they're playing like the thin big teeny BMX line, you know, Mike's nodding, right.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:strong opinions on how Vic teeny fits into this list. These days.
Mike:I think cutting bus Cephalon is like pretty, I don't know. I don't, I don't really like that. Like, let's Teflon just get off so often gets you your last two or three prizes. It's not like it's not the main focus of the deck and it CA it, you can build your deck in this way. That is more tempo for lack of a better word, more toolbox scene, but you've, but you sacrifice playing so many energy and getting so many energy in the discard. Um, but that's where blue Stefan comes in later in the game where you play two or three fire crystals in a turn and just blow something up big teeny doesn't add it. Doesn't add anything different than what rushes aren't in Cremorne. Can't do, those are both more or less. You can either Kao smaller things or to hit K are the big things. And Vic teeny does the exact same thing. So it doesn't. That doesn't really make too much sense to me if you're going to do like Vic Teenie with blue Cephalon I could see that, but, but like doing Vic with the crammer ant and Charles are that doesn't make sense.
Brit:yeah, wasn't the list that made top eight in the GC tour. It wasn't, it wasn't like that. It was just a more focused with teeny list, right?
Mike:I think it was like Vic teeny MuTu.
Brit:Yeah,
Mike:Yeah. Um,
Brit:Right. Like we saw just the very, the very few first days that the set came out, Stefan May 2nd got second place. I don't remember if it was an Atlas event or something else, but with like Chris Cephalon, but with 15 instead. And I think all of us just like, I don't know if that would work.
Mike:yeah. Yeah. I also really like, um, 10 pulls out a lot too. The only, the only thing about it is that there's really no room to like innovate within the deck. It's pretty much. There's like 58 cards that you have to play. And then the last two cards are like, do you play Pokemon communication or cherish ball? And like, that's the only choice or like polka gears, I guess. I don't know. There's very few decisions in the, in the list making you could run the deck, like Ross has run it with only one Kramer at one rushes, ARD and like energy spinners. But after playing a little bit of both versions, I dunno. So there's not a whole lot there, but I do think the deck is very strong. It's something that I will probably play a solid amount of keys with. Cause I think like you said, it's pretty 50, 50 against the most of the format.
Brent:So Mike, do you have an opinion on the like Geraci build versus Chino build story?
Mike:I still haven't played like a ton with the country. No version. When I say, I haven't played a ton, I've played probably 20, 25 games at Chino, but I feel like I've played over 50 with the draggy version. Probably more than that.
Brent:Yeah. I feel like the Geraci version has all the momentum. Now. I just haven't played enough games for the throughout cheetah to know why.
Mike:Yeah. I do think more and more as we see more events and I see, and as I do some games here in the Eric and myself, I don't think that Janina version is as good. I think it, the real big difference is the lack of ability to use martial arts dojo. Like that is so, so, so big in helping your math in so many different match-ups that I don't really, I don't really understand how it, the Chino build gets over not having it. And the other really big thing is I do think the Chinchilla version is significantly weaker against ADP and that's. I mean, I've not, I don't want to save their ship. Food drop sheet version is super favorite against ADP or anything. I think that's still a very close matchup, but the lack of aggression that the Chino version has just makes you fall behind, against ADP almost all the time. And you rely, you rely on finding your Sheryl extremely early in the game, like as early as turn to return three. And if you don't hit it, you immediately lose and have no chance of coming back. So I'd rather just go with the more aggressive route in that matchup. Most of the time.
Brent:you guys, you want to talk about so we have a bunch of, kind of like non-standard format stuff on the list. Let's let's say I hit it. Lightning style. You wanna talk about expanded for a second guys?
Mike:I just think it sucks. I played in, um, the limitless this past Friday. Maybe it's just that I really liked the MuTu immu deck and I keep going back to it. And maybe it's just not very well positioned in the meta. And that's why I think this, but I played against two of the stall decks, like bumblebee, Snorlax and whatnot. And you just, the matchup is impossible to win. I tried, I tried one approach. The first game, I tried a different approach to the second game and it's just impossible with lucid me the format. Cause they play power pants, they play favelas. So they're gonna, they're gonna either run you out of energy or run out of stadiums or they have the Snorlax and can trap something. So you just have it it's way too hard. So I feel like anything with special energy can never, ever, ever beat those decks. So, um, that's a large part of why I was frustrated if the only way to keep up with stall is to play like a big, basic, big, basic energy deck. I feel like it's still too strong and there's cars that you can ban. Um, And we just kind of just talking to our group chat a little bit about expanded would be really cool if they banned like 40 or 50 cards.
Brent:I know, you're the tweet where you offered up like a starting point. That was like 15 cards.
Mike:yeah, I don't remember all of them, but, you know, execute, I think has obvious, um, loosen mean should be banned again, some of the less obvious ones. I think max potion and EISA Rola are probably too strong with the BEMAX decks. Now Cheryl is probably a K because it's a, it's a supporter in discard, but like max potion being an item and Isabella conserving your energy is probably just too much. Um, things like consequent, GX, things like ACE trainer are just too. So, so, so disruptive and, and a little bit too much. I think sky field should probably just go. I mean, I know we have pseudo Ludo as a counter, but. Like, if you ban sky field, then a deck like turbo, dark gets significantly weaker. And you know, I think like I'm trying to hit all of these like huge archetypes without trying, without leaving any of them untouched. So like, even like Tina chomp, you could ban like the double dragon energy. Maybe if you ban that, then ADP doesn't need to be banned itself. You probably should ban either rallied executor or the item log via plume band bumblebee band faba because we have zero stick, which does the same thing, but allows counter play because of like things like special charge, like putting stuff into the Lawson is, should be, I think a much more niche tool. So I don't mind something like there's that Tyron and tar that when it Kaos something, it sends things to the Lawson or like Lugia GX is, um, GX attack, sending something to the lost zone. Like you have to play a Lugia GX and the energy, and you only get to use that once, but faba is like pretty egregious because you get to use it with losing me to the form. You could use an infinite amount of times, and it puts a like, runs your opponent out of resources in a way that they cannot play any cards to get them back, which is really like, I just don't like that. There's no counter play at all. Like if I want to play my mute to mute deck, I should be able to play two or three special charger and get those things back.
Brent:I mean, I remember there were tournaments last year where Liam was playing um, like Pidgeotto and he was like, I drafted like 40 cards in the guy's day. What was he going to do? But he, there was nothing to do.
Mike:Yeah. Driver against pro I don't even think I listed that one. That one should probably be gone too. Um, especially in a format that has as via seeker and. That's like the, one of the huge draws of expanded is like being able to play a lot of interesting supporters with VSC career and draft for it kind of like completely nullifies that as a, a viable strategy. So, yeah, I dunno. There's just so many cards that were never intended to interact with other cards that I feel like they could, they could hit a huge reset and might actually be a cool format. I know, I know a lot of people disagree with me and they think abandoned is fun, but whatever.
Brent:I don't know why someone wouldn't play a control in expanded.
Mike:Yeah. That's kind of
Brit:can be fun and bad at the same time.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. It could be fun.
Brent:That's exactly how it is. I mean, you know, any deck where your starting list is like two bumblebees, you're like, okay, well this is going to be horrible and fun.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:I miss it's unfortunate. How the, I guess just arms race against control has evolved and expanded. I reminiscing on yes. The yesteryears where it was just enough. It's like, I'll just play my own button be in and that'll be enough. Like, I can't remember how, you know, frankly, I probably didn't work, but I don't know if that ever really came up, but I remember. Like I know you'd play it in the car. You could play grout, you could play, but it'll be in your ground on deck and you would win the mirror. Um,
Brent:A bumblebee was such a fun card. Bobby is the best card Bartleby is talking about. Favorite Pokemon bond will be, is like my favorite card because the optionality is insane.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:Like when you get to, when you get to choose to put a card into your deck or discarded a bonus, like that's insane.
Mike:Yeah. Now like play, if you just play a bumblebee in a random deck that will literally do nothing against a control deck, like theirs,
Brent:It does not fix your problems because, because there, because there are a lot of zoning, every, all the cards, so like bottle get us to fix it.
Mike:Yeah. And like you ban Save-A-Lot you ban or angry, but you leave. Bartleby like, I dunno, it doesn't make like either, either keep them all or get rid of them all. Like, I don't know. There's very, there's very little difference between having Bartleby versus a rain group.
Brent:Expanded the carpool keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. People can find ways to make terrible decks.
Brit:I mean, I think that's the thing too. Leaving bundle B out is particularly egregious. But as I seemed to say, almost every time we talk about expanded, it's just like, The cards are not designed for expanded that, that this control deck is good and expanded as an accident. It is completely tangential to any, anything, you know, anything in their design philosophy or what they are, what they are trying to do when they're printing cards, the medic games they're trying to cultivate and whatnot. And that's just like, why expand? It is a failure, I think is because there's no, this a bundle B with just this and the mechanic from the, the Omega Ruby alpha Sapphire block is just like too good. Like it's just, just like, they just can't do that.
Brent:W when they printed that card, they weren't thinking, Oh my God, this car is the most broken in the game.
Brit:And like in, in magic, I don't, I don't really think I know enough to quite speak as positively as I might, but I just, I just have to assume, have to hope that when there, when there is a control deck, there's these alternative wind condition decks get printed. Like there's just some real thought and put into it. And there's just like, this mic is saying, there's just, it's not that there's no thought, but the, that, that there's no answers either is because they're not, you know, they're not new cards. Don't come out to to sooth problems and expanded new cards, just make the same problems, worse and worse and worse. And I just like, that's been the that's been true since day. One of expanded, I think. And why? I just like, I'm, I'll be happy to see it go. I'll be happy to see it stay with some massive changes. Like I'm not trying to, you know, get us to a point where we only have standard. That's probably a little too boring, but I just. There's just always something and it's, it's always so much in the format. The way the format itself is structured. It has nothing to do with the cards and it just keeps happening again. And again, and again, I just don't think we'll ever get to a good enough expanded until there's like a more consistency in the cards themselves and more consistency towards designing for an expanded space.
Brent:You know, I was thinking, I was thinking about this this week. I recognize like there's company politics and stuff that goes on and there's like company cultures and challenges there. But I really, really hope that CPCI is able to figure out some way to involve the fact that they're bringing on like incredibly good Pokemon players onto the U S team to, to somehow kind of like maybe get some more insight into how to solve this problem of like, creating a nice, like skill-based format. That is like, well-balanced like, they've got Kyle, they got Kenny, they got Mia. Like they're, you know, I feel like increasingly you look at U S team and you're like, I would want to play them in team challenge. But I mean, you'd like to think that some of that somehow filters back the Japanese card design at some point, I don't know. Maybe it's a decade from now. And like you, you start to get like really, really thoughtful input there. But I feel like that opportunity exists.
Brit:I mean, that's the biggest one. Isn't it. As that expanded, doesn't play or Japan doesn't play expanded in Japan or the only one designing cards. So like, of course it doesn't make any sense. Their design, their designs are never even asked to try to make them make sense. We just get, we get to deal with the mess ourselves. And CPCI has as the unfortunate task of like, You know, trying to dig through the rubble and figure out how it's salvageable. So it's not entirely their fault either, but again, what a disconnect, the, the people that designed the cards, I'd never have to think about this format. It's a, it's a Western invention or what have you. And like, I just don't know.
Brent:That's a really good point,
Brit:a disaster.
Brent:So the last thing I want to talk about was there was a sword and shield on tournament and Mike won it playing until Leon. I didn't see that coming man.
Mike:Well, I. Kind of, I think like Brit messaged our group. He's like I was going to play in the Sunday open, but it's not happening. So let's play in this. I'm going to play in this orange shirt on event now. And I kind of had the same feeling waking up on Sunday. I was going to play in Sunday, open, try a peek around, but then it wasn't going on. So I saw a it's like the Israel Mella magic card group, carp, carp, and rats, carpenter, rats, whatever they have been doing monthly tournament's in different formats. And so this month they did a sword and shield on tournament. So, um, yeah, I kind of just looked at, I know, I know Pablo has been running his table mountain series in this format. And so I just looked at the last two events. I think the last two events both had battle styles legal. So I looked at all of those and I saw that all the decks that were doing well, all required, two attachments. And, um, so I was like, well, if I can prevent my opponent from having two energy on the field at any given time, I should just win the game. Right. Um, so that was kind of my strategy going in. At first I built like a Vic teeny hammers deck, cause I was like, okay, big teeny hit really hard. Let's flip some hats on crushing hammer. And then I was like, well, I can tell Leon does this. Um, it doesn't quite hit as hard, but you know, this strategy it's really good. Um, with, with Intellia Anne's first attack. So there have been successful in Italian decks and certain shield down format, but they all played, they all played frost moth as well. So it was like Italian BMX and tele on the stage too. And then frost off. So your focus was mostly on getting up, um, Italian BMX, the second attack, the one 60 attack. But I was like, well, that's stupid. Let's just not play frost moth, let's play crush and hammers and fan of waves and use the first attack, make them not be able to attack while we power up the one 60 attack. Um, we still played the stage to IntelliJ on because it's really good, a really good setup card, as well as you get attack with it in this deck, there was some decks that even ran the IntelliJ on stage two line when they didn't even run water energies. So that gives you an idea of just how strong it is for setup purposes, but the fact that we get to attack what it is super important. So generally the way that, um, I would approach a game is I would use, I would attach like an energy to my first IntelliJ on V max and just kind of use that to do 60 and bounce energy is, and then sometimes I would attach to that one to power of one 60, or I might just start attaching to event bench Remax. Okay. And then I would like attach, usually try to get in one attachment sometime too, a two, a baby. I don't remember Sabal and I don't remember the middle version, what it's called. Um, I would attach one energy to them. So at any point in the game, then I could go big in the, you know, stage two Italian and then attack for one 20. It was, it was a nice little attacker, but yeah. So, um, the strategy he worked out pretty well. Um, I played played a lot of, yeah, good. Match-ups played against a bunch of, couple of Vic teenies yup. Played a couple of Victoria's and Swiss. I played against an eternity in Swiss. Both of those match-ups really straightforward. Just kind of deny their energy attachment. And eventually you get there where I took an idea against a rapid strength Hersha Fu and. I played against two match-ups. I feel like I should have lost. One of them was the single strike or Shifu. They have the energy acceleration with hound doom, but he was only able to get one hound doom set up. And I don't know, I just kinda like hit some hammers, damaged things enough and kind of like eat it out in a really close game. And then I played against the mirror, but they had frost moth and I didn't have hammers big thing there. I went first, very huge, very huge in this format is going, you're going first. And again, it was kinda kind of awkward. Um, I was able to bounce an energy here and there. They, they like attacked me at not worth going into the details, but they attacked me at a weird time. Didn't force me to have boss. Um, then I made top cut of my top eight match was really hard against Hersha Fu. They're one, they're like the only deck in the format that can attack for one energy. So that matchups hard, but very winnable as well. And one that in three games and then top four and the finals are really easy. Drag appalled in Vic teeny again, um, dragon ball it's especially easy because the teeny at least can use it to tack, to accelerate energies. Um, but dragon ball has no, like once you put them to zero energy, there is like they should never, ever, ever get to energy attachments down. So, um, they were both games. We kinda got into a loop where he would do 60, I would do 60 and bounces energy. Then he would do 60. I would do 60 and eventually like, I would just,
Brent:Right, right. Eventually you could go one 60 and it wasn't it wasn't ready. Um, did you ever think. Like, are there things you would change about your list? Like I wondered whether or not you would ever run a yellow graph.
Mike:Yeah, that's something that should probably be in the list. I don't really know immediately what I would drop, but yeah, y'all grant would make sense maybe over I'm a fan of waves or something. I will say, say definitely a big shout out to Britt for right before, like five minutes before the event, he was like, we should play that a water energy search card, the bucket.
Brit:I just asked, is that bucket legal?
Mike:And so like last minute we dropped the 11th water for that, and that came up multiple times. Cause you can search for it with with, with the Italian guys
Brent:Right, right,
Mike:um, but yeah, the yogurts, the only immediate thing that I probably would add a cricket tune is I do want to say cricket tunes, pretty sweet in this format. Um, the draw power's just a lot weaker and there's no ADP. So.
Brent:would play or a choreo if you could. Right.
Mike:I don't know. That's a good question because like you're things are getting knocked out all that often. So
Brent:was trying to look and trying to figure out how frequently I thought you could run your hand down enough to get value out of crickets. I mean, when you're playing stuff like the capacious bucket, I was like, ah, you know, I don't know if they're like running their hand down and you you've got, you gotta like the stage two line. Did you get a lot of value out of it?
Mike:I would say, yeah, I would say that I did, I would say the biggest thing is that it's really easy in this format to be susceptible, to getting marinade into a dead hand. And it's not that hard to play cards. Like you play a lot of items. So if you're marketing into a dead hand, you don't have a supporter and maybe you, so you either have energies, you have items or you have Pokemon. And most of the posts are immediately play of all. And so I don't know, creak creak could do is good. I was, um, he over-performed, Hey, he, he wasn't great. I don't want to say like, he was the best thing ever, but like I thought he was going to be really bad and he was pretty, he was pretty. Okay. He's better than pro he's probably better than a second crop bat.
Brent:every time, every time people talk about money, people in a dead hands. I wonder if like, Mark Marty. And my mind is example of like one of the weird problems in this format. Like it's a skill list card to just play money, money, money, money, money, until they're their hand sucks. Like it's a really good strategy, but like
Mike:That's definitely how I won. At least one of the games. I shouldn't have one.
Brent:yeah, I mean, I had Mike, I know that's your go-to strategy. I mean, you're like, you know what I like about this tech that is for Marnie, but that's like, if people are gonna, if they're gonna give us cards that allow you to just like, you know, Hey, it doesn't matter if I'm going against the greatest Pokemon player on earth, I can do this thing and he might lose, lose. That's freaking great. Right? Like, you know, you'd be a brain dead to not play it, but what, what can you do.
Brit:I don't actually know. Like, I mean, like, is it actually worse? Cause it's like, it wouldn't statistically like, cause I know like it just like it just talking about it like, Oh sucks. When I'm already, they go straight to the bottom of the deck. And of course I have no chance of drawing them again, which is different than N or something like that. But I wonder how statistically different they are. Like, I would think for sure mine Marty's the worst card, but like. What did the odd, and I guess it's two different cards too. So with an intersex, you know, turned one versus a marinade for about a, you know, a third of a difference. So that's a big deal too, but I wonder just like how much of the like bad Marnie hands are from not shuffling or, um, if that makes sense, like, cause I think that's, that's so much, so the problem is, is that, is that as you know, it doesn't, especially when your hand is huge. Right. And I guess when against huge hands, like Marnie seems like a more strategy strategic card as a result, but yeah, I just, it just seems like Marnie shouldn't be ruined as many games as it does is I guess what I'm saying. Like, cause judge didn't like, judge, wasn't this bad in judge
Brent:I dunno. I mean, Pika judge was a thing like, like I think judge was maybe underplayed relative to how good it turned out to be.
Mike:Yeah, maybe I think on average you're probably right. So the only, but the only thing that I can think of that would make Marnie worse is so let's say I, um, let's say I research, right? And I get, I draw seven cards. I can't play any of those supporters. So I might play some cards from my hand, but I can't play any of the supporters. So like if I, if I'm playing against people in an end format, I might, you know, quick ball away something or ultra ball away cards, but make sure that I keep all the supporters that I can such that if I get end now, I have a pretty good shot of drawing the supporters back. But with the Marty format, thinning cards doesn't matter at all because any of the supporters that I drew immediately go to the bottom, um, And so it's not that thinning is like worse necessarily, but there's some there's there, there might be some, and this might be a stretch, but there might be some function of, of the supporters in my hand are unplayable and therefore are going to the bottom and unable to be drawn more frequently. I don't know if that makes
Brent:Yeah. You know, the other thing I would say is, I mean, I know one of the things we always talked about when we were testing, judge is, you know, the problem with judge is 50% of the time you're judging yourself
Mike:yeah.
Brent:that, that fifth card is like a, it makes a difference. Right? Um, and, and kind of to your point, like, you got to thin your hand, like you got to do whatever it is you were trying to do before you played it. Like you kind of controlled when it got played, but you know, twenty-five percent more cards is like, must make some statistical difference. I think to your point, there's probably some way to measure it. And maybe it's not super significant, but I, the problem judge judges, you set yourself to afford in them cards. And you were always like, man, I like the odds that it worked out better for you than for them. We're like 50 50, whereas with Marnie, like a hundred percent of the time, it worked out better for you,
Mike:right, right. Yeah.
Brent:Like you got five cards, like the odds that you might need yourself into an unplayable hand. And they Martin, you know, and they got Marnie into the nuts. It's like, wow, like that shouldn't happen.
Brit:Yeah. And I think, I think that too is probably why I can't, I don't know enough about the Peka judge format since that was the little stretch when I wasn't around at all. Um, but I would think too, a lot of just why judge has never been so problematic as it's just so risky for yourself. You don't want to like, even with like Yan mega magnetism and these young mega decks or the decks I associate the most with judge and even them, it was like, you really didn't want to be playing the judge. And unless you already had a magnet zone out, like, cause you, you could just get screwed yourself or you could just immediately have to have to eat yourself right after. And so like, yeah, it was just there's there was a risk, a real risk to judge and there's, as you've just said, there's absolutely none to
Brent:Yeah, well, that's that's and the essence of Pika judge was like, turn one, you go off, you, you tap a Coco you're you're gonna you're you're bored. State is like two tag teams, one fully powered up, and it's about to accelerate. And you're like, okay, if my hands are playable and they're hands on playable, that's fine. Like, I'm about to have six energies on the board. And I control like, am I about to, you know, GX next turn, or just have to GX is like powered up. Like you were driving the bus and you were like, if my hands are unplayable, that's fine. You know, it was just going to attack the rest of the game, guys, So Brett, what happened to you? So it sounded like you played in Italian as well.
Brit:yeah, well, like walk you through it. It was one of those, like, I have maybe five, 10 seconds of just like, man, my bad. What's the problem. Cause because we talked a little bit about it before then, but I like add a few rounds and I was just looking at the metagame and I'm just like, I'm pretty sure one of us will win. Like, unless we just drop out like this deck clearly is. Is well positioned. Um, I went three and two, I lost round one to evict teeny deck on just like some real, best of one bad beats. Like I just, I had a bad opener. I had to research a way to the drizzle. I think it's the middle one. And I prized the third one and I researched into nothing, but like I had Savills and incenses, but I, I had none of the evolutions to draw myself out of it. And then, so I played against four, 15, eight, and one single strike. And so I, I beat three 15 and then I lost to the single strike and like my Nike status, I don't think it was a good up. And they got three hound dunes out and beat me very easily.
Brent:Oh, wow. Must be nice.
Brit:Yeah. But I don't think I have enough. I just playing as Vic Teenie. Um, but the deck, the deck definitely like was there to catch people off guard and, um, yeah. Did well in the game I lost against Nick Teenie too. I guess I'll tell the whole story. Um, so not only did I have a bad opening of bad prizes, I missed the energy on the first turn and it's still like, I still barely lost. Like if, if the DECA played a zig-zag you and I would've won in fact, um, but alas, Oh, well,
Brent:So when you run this exact gun or when you just said draw a better next time.
Brit:no. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't matter if I was drawing better. I just had to do the 60 or one 20th. So
Brent:Right?
Brit:he has three 10, so it was one 2120. And then, and then I hit a fresh one for, um, the knockout and then that one then had 300 damage on it after I had, after I had finally gotten the max bullet attack. And it was just, it was too little too late.
Brent:Right, right. That's close. All right, guys, it sounds like, it sounds like there's a Dysport server that I'm not on. It has old secret decks. I think this pod was one of our longer ones, but I thought this was really good stuff. Mike, you were not lying. We, we had lots of content.
Mike:Yeah, for sure. And then I guess next week we can, I think players cup forest starts in like a week and a half or something like that. So we can talk.
Brit:Gosh, I didn't know. It was that soon,
Mike:Yeah. If it was a
Brit:I'm ready to play some keys. I've got a lot to do.
Brent:Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, I was like, okay, if I'm going to try and like, you know, imagine rising up again is the answer is the answer Geraci or Shifu.
Brit:I don't know. I just feel worried about losing coin flips to ADP and never hitting the psychic deck, hitting them a dumb YouTube deck. I
Brent:am I going to play ADP again, man? I played it. I played, I played a lot of keys. Me.
Brit:I'm going to play Pika on fire. I
Mike:Becoming tempos. I'd seem probably what I'm going to spend most time with. It's actually literally a week from today. So
Brent:I feel like, I feel like tempos. ARD is, is the only deck. That's more nonlinear than Pika and I'm like, Ugh.
Mike:yeah.
Brent:So, so, so hard for somebody like me to apply.
Brit:I'm good. I guess I was part of my frustrations and testing or Shifu is just every deck plays mew. You know, like I was complaining in the chat, like sometimes decks that don't, shouldn't be playing them, play them and it just makes. Testing Wars. How, how, how much worse this Cramer rant with all this mew floating around? It seems like it would have to be a lot worse
Mike:Yeah, it's a good question. I agree. It probably has to be worse.
Brit:assuming people play them. But yeah, I feel like, I don't know if you can only win games by, I'm trying to think of the match-ups that the Chris Cephalon deck would have, that you have the, you need Chris Epsilon to win. Cause sometimes it's just like your Pekichu or your your Russia's ARDS are so trade so favorably that you just, it doesn't quite matter. You don't have to use Kramer ranch, but some match-ups I feel like you do, but I'm just not sure.
Mike:The biggest matchup I think is the attorneys just match up and they can't play muse. So that's good.
Brit:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
Mike:All right. Um, yeah. So players cup four, I think, should be the main topic next week. Cause it's like literally starts next Monday.