Having said that interest super poorly. I mean, if you're looking for like a great reason for things to go totally off the rails, it's like draw incredibly bad. Uh, um, yeah, I mean that, that opening hand, uh, uh, absolute, excruciating.
Mike:I do remember. I do remember thinking to myself like, cause toward went first and I was looking at that hand, I was like, Oh, okay. What's the best card I can draw right now. Communication is the best card I could draw. And then I also said to myself, okay, what's the worst card I could draw? And it was like a second VMX and then I drew the second beam max. I was like, God damn. I try to do that. Like quite often I try to think about like, what's the best thing I could draw. What's the worst thing I can draw off the top.
Brent:Welcome to the trash blanche. It's me, Brett Halliburton here as always with tenants is 100%. That's why we're doing it on Monday because we, we got, we got goals to accomplish and having a regular schedule is not one of them. Um, Five star review update, guys. I know you guys have been fascinated by this, but apparently we reached 104 in USA games. Was that last week. Let me say that you remember, we did that
Brit:that was last week. Yeah.
Brent:that was like last week. This week, the highlight was we reached 22 in Belgium, Apple podcast game, the Belgians.
Mike:Wow.
Brent:We, uh, um, we also got a new review from Matt w 66 last week. We criticized him for the poor quality of his reviews and he responded with resubmitted. Didn't want you guys to get love. I heard your criticism from my air pods. Great cast the guys on trash lanch. Pardon spelling, give very informative info about the Pokemon TCG Metta. They give a very unique perspective, more about numbers in the math side of the game that a newer player would find very easy to pick up on, but also remember listening to lots of different content creators to up your own game and find out what you need. Hope this is a better view. Okay. We appreciate you reaching out to try to bump up your review. Uh, I remember you do not have to listen to any other content creators. It's the only content creator you need.
Brit:See, I wonder, I wonder if that's just sort of. Speak. So I wonder how Brent would be as like a teacher, because for me, I just like, it sort of like I'm too nice of a grater and I don't know what to do about it. So I just, I would never tell anyone that review is bad. Similarly, I'm just like, I'm going to do my best to give you as many points as I possibly can.
Brent:So the, I, you know, my, my goal is to help, uh, help them self-actualize and become the best, their best selves. I don't, I, I can't tell them that they did a good job when they did a bad job. I have to tell them how to become a better person. Um, Mike, do you have a teaching, uh, approach?
Mike:Um, I'd say probably closer to Brits, but, um, I always think of, I don't know if you guys have ever watched Rick and Morty, but there's a scene in the first season of Rick and Morty that I think about all the time. And, uh, Marty is in his math class. And the teacher asks a question, said what's nine times five, Marty. And Marty goes, uh, well it's at least 40. And the teacher goes, that's exactly right. And I feel like that's, um, even though it's like a joke and whatnot, it's actually pretty accurate to how a lot of, a lot, like best practice of, of being a math teacher is like, you, you really want to. Even if they don't have the completely right answer, you want to be like, okay, well let's pull from that. Let's like take what was correct about that and try to get you to expand until you can to the, exactly, you know, the right answer. Um, so like, I think about that quote all the time. Cause it's hilarious, but also very, very accurate.
Brit:Yeah, I
Brent:you guys familiar with the, uh, um, uh, legendary management, uh, approach of the shit sandwich? This is, this is how they tell you that you're supposed to deliver feedback
Mike:Yeah. More or
Brent:something good, something bad, something good. And you give them the bad news and on a good note.
Mike:Whenever I have to write comments pretty frequently. Like once a semester or twice a semester to two students. And if I ever some students, I don't have anything really negative to say, but if I do have, you know, something that they really need to work on or change, I try to do that approach.
Brent:Yeah, that that is, that is, uh, uh, a management best practice apparently in, uh, uh, trying to coach people up. But, but for me, I guess I, one of the interesting things is for you guys, like you're kind of the end customer for me, like. When people are worried, like, uh, in my profession, like when people are doing work for me, like I'm never really the end client. So I'm like, this is good, but someone else is going to look at it and I want, I want it to be really good. Right. The, the, like, I, I like how you're getting better at math, but also you have to get the right answer. Very challenging.
Brit:Yeah, I thought about messaging my key this before, but like math, you know, I guess just lends itself more to like partial credit. I just sometimes don't have ways to give partial credit other than just being nice. And like, sometimes like if I could talk to them, we could maybe pull like, do a little, like. Socratic back and forth. And I like, okay. I, I believe that you know what you're talking about. I need one more sentence from you. Please just give me and that's, that's all it is for editing papers too. It's just like, it's clear you understand the material, but you just didn't read the prompt or something like that. Like it asked you to answer two things and you only answered one. They can't do anything. And when that happens, there's no
Brent:See, it's interesting. You would say that. I, I mean, I think on the one hand, uh, um, I think. I hear what you're saying. Like that's why they always tell you to show your work when you're doing math problems. It's so like, when you get to the final answer, like the final answer is very deterministic. Like it's either right or wrong. There's, there's no like compromise at some level, but you know, you can show your work and then you'd be like, that's where you went off the rails. But like, I see how conceptually you understand how to solve the problem. And you were going down the right path until you messed it up. I feel like most people would say like an English paper. There's a hundred ways to get there. You know, there's, there's, there's definitely a wrong answers, but there's like many, many, many right answers. And in that way, maybe, uh, uh, I'm sure some people who like, think of themselves as bad at math, feel like there's more freedom in writing an English paper to like figure out their own path to success.
Brit:Yeah. I mean at the same time too, maybe that's like the daunting, like my mom is a math. Teacher. And she thinks she's been in some like college crap classes recently just to like keep her certification or something about, about the process. And she just like, talks about how, just, just like, you really can just sit down and write whatever you think, whatever you feel like, like, I just don't know how to do that. And then, you know, of course it varies. Very different skills, but yeah, it's, you know, pick your poison. I guess everyone's a little bit different, like similarly to like people always, or at least seem to be like, you're better at geometry or you're better at algebra for the most part. Like at least at the, at the lower levels, kids seem to gravitate towards one over the other. And so similarly, you've just got to find what you're good at and then just do it. And you know, that's life advice from trash lunch today, I guess.
Brent:speaking of different approaches to different problems, I want to share. You guys. I was talking with my son, Liam, about our question on the last pot about what's your favorite Pokemon? And Liam had an interesting approach. He said, well, it depends. Do they like know about the TCG or not? He said if they're, if they're just like trying to make small talk with me because I'm a kid and they heard, I like Pokemon. If they ask, I always just say Char's art because it ends the conversation. And I don't want to have this conversation. Like, there's nothing else to say, if they're a TCG or then I'll be like a ringer and they'll know like what that means too. Like, it ends the conversation too, but he's like, I don't want to say a ringer to somebody that doesn't know, because then they'll have all these up questions. I don't want to do that.
Mike:I liked that approach. I liked that a lot. You're he's all about minimizing conversation with another human.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, this is a question that they think is of interest to me, but it couldn't be of less interest to me. Right.
Brit:I mean, I sort of have that experience at least like, um, you know, I do like Pokemon quite a bit, but I guess, and understandably so, but for the most part, people just always tend to assume. No, no, no. This will be great for you guys or anyone listening, but they just tend to assume that like, because, um, you know, I've been involved in the game so long. I've competed for however many years that I, that I love Pokemon that I just like live and breathe Pokemon. And I'm just, it's just, they just like, almost don't really believe me that I'm just like, ah, I mean, I, I do like Pokemon. I just, this is just kind of that thing that I do. And the fact that it's Pokemon is just sort of just completely tangential to, you know, just an accident. Like I just didn't, you know, some people do have that story where they've, they've never stopped playing since base set. They've played every game and so on. And I haven't even played every game anymore. They used to be true of me, but it's no longer true anymore. And so similarly, it's just like, I do like Pokemon, but is it like a course or sort of like a. Like, like of mine, of course, sort of features like, of course being a part of the community is, but like as a medium, you know, probably a tier BT or something like that for me. Um, which I
Mike:somewhat incidental that it's Pokemon, right. It could be, it could be any other strategy game that you happen to get into or find the similar type of community. Yeah, I think about that quite a lot as well. What's the while we're kind of talking about this, what is like the most? I know my answer is what is like the most frustrating. Or like stupid question that you get when you are talking to people for that are like genuinely interested in whatever you're learning about Pokemon, but I get, yeah. I don't know if you guys have one that comes to mind
Brit:It's not a, it's not a question, but it's the, Oh yeah. I used to have a lot of cards. You know, I used to have all the cards when I was young, things like that or towards art and everything, you know, it's just that, it's just like, man. Yeah. I don't know if you guys remember ever would have seen the little video that my undergrad did on me and like 2015 or so I have, I have a quote in there that I've always been very good, particularly now through the sort of collection phase. I say, what do I say this? Like, I'm not embarrassed that I've played Pokemon. I'm just tired of telling people that their old cards aren't worth money. I th I th I think that's the expression or something to that effect. And that's, you know, that's of course true and sort of just captures that experience, but that's definitely my answer for Mikey's question.
Mike:Okay. Mine is whenever they ask what's your best card. And I'm like, that is if you knew anything about it, that's such a dumb question that like,
Brit:man.
Brent:Yeah. Definitely people that people ask, like what's the most powerful
Mike:yeah. Yeah. Anything like that.
Brent:like, Hmm.
Mike:w I want to be like ultra ball, like nothing that you would think is strong, is strong.
Brent:Right, right. So, so do you have, do you have a canned answer to that? Cause I, I definitely have a canned answer to that.
Mike:Um, no, not really. I usually just try and tell them that it's a dumb question in, in different ways.
Brent:Yeah. I, I think I always tell them. Uh, uh, the game is a lot like rock paper scissors. So it's about, it's about scissors. When everybody else's things, paper is the best. And I, like, I think they can kind of understand that, right? They're like, I'm like, it's a well-designed game. So there's no one thing. That's the best. It's like rock paper scissors. So the strategy is guessing what everybody else is going to do.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. That's good. I like that.
Brit:Like now, I just like, I guess I, um, you know, I've successfully become a recluse and I only engage with the community, the Pokemon community, you know, I'm not a college freshmen trying to. You know, have the college experience and do all the socializing and stuff. I just I'm at home now all the time. I don't have to. I avoid all these people. And when I do go out, it just happens to be that I'm doing something Pokemon related or at least next year when events start happening again, it'll more or less be like I'm at home at work or at a Pokemon event. There's there's no, there's no, no longer any opportunities for like random people to ask me questions anymore in my life.
Brent:Um, so, uh, uh, in terms of other exciting news, I thought I should, uh, uh, say, I feel like we've, we've had a big emphasis on reviews. We're over, I think 25. Now, when we get to a hundred, we will have a contest for which review is the best. So that is definitely a contest we should do. I do not know what the prices are, but the price will be amazing. Get your review in, make it amazing. There'll be an amazing contest as always reviews on the pod. Leave reviews. They're great. You can tell how much we're fixated on them. Um, let's skip, let's talk about, can we talk about podcasts for just a second guys? I thought this was really interesting. The yellow horn announced that they're gone now. Um, and
Brit:that.
Mike:I was their penultimate episode, I guess.
Brit:I
Brent:And, and what was funny was right before they announced they were gone. I was thinking about how in the last players cup, they had the bed that like the official Pokemon podcast.
Mike:right, right, right.
Brent:It just goes to show, we are slowly consolidating the monopoly, a TPC. Anytime you want to reach out to us, we are available. I recognize you guys shut it down because we were serving the entire market need. We can, we can do that for you.
Brit:I mean, just some instability on that note, I guess I'll just brag on all of those brag on the two of you. Um, and just one of my other group chats today, Tate was talking about, I think, cause he used to be a part of the faded town podcast and people, he said, people are, you know, reaching out to him about like starting new podcasts and things like that. And his response was just like, there's too many podcasts, just listening to trash ranch. It's the best one. There doesn't need to be any new ones. Thank you for that. I guess if he feels so inclined, you can leave that as a review as well.
Brent:There you go. Uh, you know, I thought, I thought it was interesting, like Michael Slutsky had the tweet today where he was like the Trinity of Pokemon TCG, Twitter. And like the first tweet is you. And then the secretary does Russell. And then the third tweet is Zol. And, and I was like, eh, you know, Britt's Twitter game is so strong. Uh, Michael Slutsky has now put him up with a Zol and Russell in terms of,
Brit:uh, I just, I just played to his heart today. I have the, the star Wars tweet and he's a big star Wars fan, like,
Brent:Wars too. It was fantastic.
Brit:like, uh, we're both. Star Wars fans. And that there are more, more, more, more of that than anything particular to me, I would say, especially too, like with the, I enjoyed the joke I made last week sort of just like pretending, but the success is anything, but just having Mikey do well time and time again at like the thing I contribute a little bit, but I'm very, very thankful for Mikey's success throughout these times as well.
Brent:I definitely, I definitely want to do a, uh, um, like maybe next week. I feel like one of the subjects should be like whether or not Mikey feels like the pod has. Uh, I had some effect on his incredible success.
Mike:Oh, maybe. Yeah. Good. It's like a two-way street.
Brit:no, no. We'll, you're going to talk him up and he'll realize he's outgrown us.
Brent:Well, like, you know, like what's, what's interesting is I feel like, uh, in other industries, like I think about software engineering a lot because that's my profession. People talk all the time about how, like, there are these software engineers that are like, Frankly, not differentiated from other software engineers. And they decided to like, start a blog talking about like, you know, programming problems or something like that. And like, they got a little bit of traction and all of a sudden, like they kind of built a community around them and they turned themselves into like better developers because of it. Right? Like, like they went from average person to like sign on to the community because they were doing this thing and the act of. Like putting themselves out there and like writing blog posts about programming problems or whatever, like, uh, uh, somehow like took them to that next level of whatever thoughtfulness. Now I recognize it's not like we're bringing a whole lot of thoughtfulness, but.
Mike:Oh, I w before you even said that, I think there probably is at least some truth to it, of being like, actively reflective about choices that, you know, that I make or whatnot. And this medium forces me and us to do that more frequently. And I, and I might. There's got, there's gotta be something to that at the very least, whether, whether it's a substantial effect, I don't know, but, um, it's not nothing.
Brent:Yeah, I think, I think there's probably something there. Um, Do we want let's. Should we let's talk about players cup three and then not players cup four guys.
Mike:Yeah, sure.
Brent:so how do I want to talk about players country? Do we want to first say yay as old, or do we want to talk about your games, Mike?
Mike:Yeah, let's talk a little more broadly first, I guess. Um, I had the, uh, I don't know if I have, Oh yeah, I actually do. I still have my, so when the tournament happened two weeks ago, I wrote down all of the decks. Um, so, uh, see, uh, I'll give a brief overview there. So there's 16 players. Um, two would turn to tests, three peaker arms for rapid strikes, which includes myself in Israel. And then one, and then the third one was also a Geraci build. And then there was toured with the gin Gino belt. Um, there's one tempos ARD that did not run bless Epsilon they'd brand ball canyons. Instead, there were two Vic teeny decks. Both of them ran at least one MuTu, two ADP's, one straight MuTu welder, and one spirit too. So pretty diverse field Rapids drag was the most popular, but only. With four, um, out of the 16, um, fire, I guess if you, if you consider all the welder decks as one, that was the most popular with five, but really a diverse field, um, going into it, I assumed to turn it to this and peek around would be a little bit more popular than they were. Um, that's part of the reason that I chose to play rapid stray, but overall I think, uh, Yeah. I mean, it's cool that the meadow is so diverse. Cause I feel like players cup too. It was pretty much just like peaker on ADP and fire. Um, and that was, that was it. So, um, and then the, the four decks that ended up making the top four were two peaker albums and two rapid strikes, which were the two decks that I was down to at the very last minute. So even though I didn't make top four. There is comfort in knowing that the two decks that I wanted to play were clearly the two best decks to bring. And so, you know, I'm not a complete idiot.
Brent:To me was, I mean, both the peak rounds were the two in the winners bracket. Right. I mean, like up until they bumped into rapid strike, like they didn't lose any games until like mirror and then,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:uh, uh, and with that much rapid strike and that much return to this, I would have thought it would be like a little more difficult to path for them, but, uh, pick her up. It's really, really good.
Mike:Really good. Exactly. Yeah.
Brent:Uh, any other big conclusions or, or we can go right into all the notes that I took on watching your game against store.
Mike:I mean, nothing too big. I am really interested. I haven't really gotten a chance to play Kevin Kruger's Vic Teenie deck, but. I think people should really be looking at that as a way to play Vic Tini, um, is super tapped out. So it might need to like cut a couple of the texts, but it has so many options. It's such a cool list. He sent it to me a couple of days. I, so leading up to the event, I was talking to him a little bit and I was talking to Israel and the zoo and I we're both, um, Both kind of like minded that we've we wanted to play rapid strike, by the way, this is all really wanted to switch to tempos art the night before. And I talked him out of it. So he can, he, he, yeah.
Brent:Oh, that's I mean, you and us all play at the same 68. Let's be clear to listen to the pod, Mike and his we'll play the same 60. And, uh, uh, Mike lost a toward and his old beat toward, and you just sorta zoom was ready to go off the list. So really Mike was the winner,
Mike:It's unfortunate too, because like basically whoever won between myself and toward God's plan to turn at this, the next round. So basically like
Brent:right?
Mike:BTS between me and toured, we are basically guaranteed a, well, I guess you have to play a turn. It says next round. And then toward plate Kevin again. Um, and then the winner of Kevin and toured was top four. So I would've had to beat Kevin, which would have been a close match up as well, but I felt like the next match of being attuned to this. Once I found that out, that was a huge bummer because I was like, ah, man, I didn't get to play any free match-ups um, throughout the day. Um, but yeah, I think Kevin, I think Kevin's list is super cool. So I'm interested in. Trying that out a little bit. Other than that, we kind of talked about it last week, that there is a little bit with a two week delay and all of these online tournament's throughout these two weeks, like the lists have gotten better even, um, even the rapid strike list that I played, not a whole lot has changed, but I think there is some, there's been some improvement there. Um, and like the peak grounds have adapted by playing stealthy hoods. So Mimikyu is not even quite as good. Um, for example, uh, so. Are there other than Kevin's list. I don't think any of the lists are anything special or different than, than what we've seen over the last few. Yeah.
Brent:So, uh, what do you tell people about, about like how things went? Right.
Mike:Yeah, sure. So I played, uh, so I played three games and all of them were on stream. So you can go back and watch the Bob's for sure. Um, ran won. I played against Jack Underwood from Australia. He was playing that tempos art with no bliss, Epsilon. He didn't run a me-too. Hi there. So in theory, the matchup is really good. Um, even against like tempos ARD with plus Cephalon NMU, I think it's like at worst, it's slightly on favorite. It might even be like 50 50. So the fact that you didn't play plus Stephon didn't play mew. I saw that list and I was like, okay, this, this should be good. Um, game one. I went first and only benched in Hersha foo. And then he got, he only ran two escape ropes and got escape rope into doubles, execute and ping with the double blaze. And one shot. My Porsche food turned one. I had the option of benching a draggy GX, um, to play around the escape rope. And I thought about it, but. Like, first of all, the odds of having one of the two escape robes, plus goon, double paying, plus the welder, like all of that on turn one is pretty unlikely. So I was like, I don't really want to play. Or if I had a, if I had, um, a non to Prizer like a Mimikyu or a gear Tina or something like that, I would bench that. To play around bit, but playing drag DGX and a metric where you don't want to play drought, you GX down is kind of a big liability, especially when they run Kraemer. And so if anybody, we saw that and was wondering why I didn't do that. Like, I dunno. I feel like my reasoning is good there. I think I made the right
Brent:It's always tough benching the director GX because you're like, eh, like if you've mentioned Mimikyu, not only are you fine with just giving up one prize, but you can also take it off the board with scoop ups and you need the bench space,
Mike:right, right, right.
Brent:bettering the GL Geraci GX and knowing that like, that's just bench space. You're given up for the entire game. You're just like, it hurts so much.
Mike:Exactly. So I think I made the right play of not playing around it with, with, with that. Uh, I think either in game two or game three, I forget which one you see me do. I do play around it, um, with the moon. Cute. And so like that, that's kinda, that was my thought process. Um, so I ended up losing that game, but it was still actually really, really close. Um, I made it, I think a really nice play in that game where I gusted up is MuTu and. Hit two bench guys and set up a game for me. The following term. If he didn't, um, I mean, he didn't need all that much to win the game. He just needed a welder, essentially. Um, but it was a good play. Like it, it, it gave me a chance to come back into a game that I a hundred percent should lose. Um, and then game two and game three were pretty straightforward with him not playing you. It's really easy to take exactly six prizes and the damage. Just works out really well. So you take one prize on like a volcano or a Geraci. Um, then you do one 52, a ARD, and then you use the G max rapid flow attack on a rushes art and the DNA. And so you can win in three attacks really easily. And that's what happened both game two and game three.
Brent:So onto round two, ADP.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. So from my side of playing that match, I was very frustrated at, um, my opponent straws. And then I got to watch the stream and they played it from my opponent's perspective and it only made me even more frustrated. So, um, game, game to game to my opponent, drew really poorly and I won really easily game one game one. I went first with the gear, a Tina attached and passed. So that was a great start. Um, And then after that turn, I drew fine and it set up really well. Um, my opponent, my opponent's list was really tucked out. They only ran three boss. They ran only three energy switch and they put a bunch of random cards in. So they had a crag and all, they had a Zinta, they had a reset stamp. I think they had a tool scrapper. So just, it was a pretty greedy list overall. And I don't necessarily mind losing to some of those greedier cards if they also get punished for their lower counts of the normal cards. So I feel like game three, I lost because of the greedier cards, which I can go into more detail. I lost to like reset stamp and I lost the Zanta, but in game one, my opponent had a cup two, two or three primary, big opportunities where they should whiff on one of the car, like an energy switch or a boss that they cut. Their accounts for, and they just got, they just did not get punished at all for this. So, um, the first example was on, I forget it was turned two or turned three, my opponent, quick balls away and energy switch when they definitely need energy, switch the following turn in order to get an altered creation up. Cause they didn't attach to their ADP. They attached to a Zelle Sheehan. Um, so they're, they end the turn with an Intrepid sword, but no energy on their ADP. They'd quick, bald away, one energy switch. They only have two energy switch left. They have like eight or nine cards in their hand. So on my turn I have the option to either Manju them or Juniper. And I'm like, okay, well they quick ball the way and energy switch. So therefore it's and they need it to use altar to extern. So it's pretty likely that they have an energy switch in their hand. I think that's a pretty reasonable conclusion. Um, Watching the stream turns out they did not have another energy switch in their hand. Um, so they would have had to really dig for it. Um, so I Marnie them, but of course I Marnie them into an energy switch. So, uh,
Brent:I felt like that that first turn, they were just pushing in the same hard for the turn one altered creation. And they were just like tossing resources left and right. And I was like, Oh my God.
Mike:yeah. And so like, I remember being like frustrated on my end that they had it, but like, because I made that play and like now, I mean, like, I guess, like from watching my opponent's perspective, it was more likely that they would get the energy switch. Then I thought it was because I thought like one of them was now on the bottom of their deck, but it was just like a bad play by my opponent. Quick ball, the way the energy switch. It's not like they didn't date or Juniper heard. I dunno. So that, that was like, uh, I was pretty frustrated watching the stream on that end. And then, um, during that kind of like massive dig that you were talking about, they had discarded two of their three bosses. They only had LD GOs and a boss left. Um, I think they had, I don't remember if they had great catcher, but this that doesn't really play into, um, to this. So then they altered creation. I have a DNA on my bench and then watching the stream, he topped X LD GOs. Okay. The top tactile to gossip. That's fine. He bought some of my DNA kills it. He has a couple of cards in his hand. He. I set up, I I'm attacking him such that I'm going to win the next turn and then watching the stream and he top next, his last boss, like so unfortunate, like I was like, what, dude? I remember like playing the game. I was like, Oh, that's his last out to, to the boss. So just like really frustrating if he had drawn it off as prizes, like I would have been more okay with that, but he just raw top exit, super, super, super frustrating because he didn't get punished on either one of those.
Brent:Yeah. I mean, when, when he, when he was tossing all those bosses and like going day-to-day Crow, bat research, like he was digging for the turnaround older creation and when he never found the water and just like hit, it hits the Intrepid sword, I was like, well, that's pretty good. But, but then he never lost tempo after that, like every turn he was like, everything you needed. Boom, boom, boom.
Mike:Yeah, I will say though, I could've played a little bit. I could've made one play that might've played around this, so I I'd have to go back and watch the sequencing of how one of my turns played out. But I, like, I set up my first Arisha food V max and then I benched another Arisha food V. Um, and the reason he ended up was able to win was because he bought the DNA and then Bosch this boss's other issue, food V that I wasn't able to evolve to be max. I think I might have been able to delay benching the Aurora food V for a turn. And so kind of the, the sequence, the logical sequence then would be if he boss kills my DNA, Then I don't have to play the extra food V down because then Myers would, would be max is still healthy and not being threatened for it to hit Kao. If he does just ultimate right into the V max, then I can play the urge to feed V down the following turn and still have enough time to evolve it to a VMX again, I'm not sure if I played it down, like before a Juniper that I didn't, maybe it didn't have that information. I'd have to like watch to be a hundred percent sure. But that is at least a possible place where I could have, uh, could have played a little bit better, still super frustrated now. And then game three was really cool. Really interesting game. He actually played it to give, to give credit where credit's due. He played game three really well, I think. Um, so that was the game where he just got ADP up for 90% of the game. Yeah. And I had, like, I had a fine start, but I had to discard a bunch of energy early on. I think I had to discard a rapid strike energy, turn one. I had to play another one, turn one. And so that only left me with two and just the whole game devolved into, eventually I killed his ADP. I killed his Asha and he had a loans Amazon to left and I was out a lot of energies. I don't play, I didn't play Phoebe. So I had my only out to hitting this Amazon through is with the, uh, the basic or Shifu. Um, but I was out of rapid strike energies. So I had to just, I had to stamp him to two cards and he didn't draw out of it. Um, for a while and then watching the stream, like it made sense. He did draw out of it kind of, but the only way to do that would be to play the DNA. And he didn't want to do that because obvious reasons. So the, the game devolved into me using strafe a bunch of times, while I tried to find my last couple of fighting energies to power up, uh, the one-fifty attack on the basic. So I think I strafed four times to put it at one 20 and then that would, that was enough to threaten the one or to threaten the knockout with the one 50 attack. Right. That math adds up right. One 50 plus one 22 seven.
Brent:Uh, you know, there are definitely been moments, uh, um, in playing your list where I thought, and maybe this shows that I played definitely too much ADP over the last year, but like, I was like, wouldn't it be great if there was an interview spinner so I can get a freaking energy out with this. Geraci like, I think we can discuss a rabbit striking this later, I think, in the pod, but like, yeah, I totally appreciate that because I definitely feel like there are moments where you're like, I need energy.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:You gotta help me out here.
Mike:yeah. Um, so yeah, that game was super, uh, so I guess I just needed a straight three times 90 plus one 50 is two 40. Yeah. So strafed a bunch dug for energies and it got like the, the next turn that I would have had three energies to do one 50. I could have guaranteed drying my energy, um, by, cause I had a Juniper in my hand and I only had like seven or eight cards in my deck, so I could've guaranteed it. But so the, on that turn that I was about to, to win the game. That's when he started playing other cards. Cause he knew that I, you know, I could win the next turn. So he did that aid and he did eight into his one reset stamp. Stamp me to one and then I didn't draw out of it. Um, so he played that game really well, super strange game. Um, but still unfortunate that I lost to his one of resets stamp when he still had lots of cards in his deck. Cause he didn't really play that many cards since he was kind of going for this strategy. So I think he had like 35 cards in his deck and he did then into the one of reset stamp. So I don't know, I felt really disheartened after that match because I felt like I got pretty unlucky. Um, and then, uh, so that
Brent:then you get to play tour direct.
Mike:and then I got to play toward, um, so Brent, Brent wrote down a bunch of stuff to discuss. I actually didn't rewatch that game. I, I, um, I ended up going away this weekend. So the, by the time that that played, I was kind of already on the road. Um, so I remember some things. I remember that I walked away from that game, that, that whole match thinking that I definitely didn't draw very well, but I also don't think I played it that well either. So I think both of those things were true. So maybe we can talk about a few of the things you wrote down Brent, but I don't know if I'll remember all of them.
Brent:Yeah. So, so yeah, so I took it, I took a bunch of notes and so my approach was I, I watched the official stream and I'm sure the official stream really appreciated the fact that you would like hopped onto the stream to add some comments during a couple of games. Uh, um, you know, the, the Pokemon people should, uh, they should tell the people that they have to like jump in the chat for all their games. That's probably good. That's like good marketing. Um, and then I went back and watched. Azule who was commentating over the stream on his stream and, uh, props to a zoo. Like on Saturday it was like 800 people watching the official stream and then like 300 people watching his stream, commentating over the commentators, uh, zoo. Uh, it's a real, a business. So, uh, obviously you, you lost in two straight games. First game you, uh, you're you start rapid striker, Shifu, and no energy and no supporters and day-to-day, and to be Max's and you can see you like pick up the data and search Greg into the bench, and then you're like, and then you drag it back and then just to get over it, and then you drag it back. How do you remember how much you were thinking, Oh, I'm just going to lose this game. This is gonna be horrible. Like you have two choices. You can either just pass. Or, and this is what Azula thought you should do. Bencher Mimikyu, you had and switch and just pass, or like day-to-day and try to find an energy and try to actually like get going and you end up dating and looking for the energy and looking for support or trying to get going. But, but like when you throw away the two V max, as it was like, Oh,
Mike:super painful. Um, I think probably looking back at it, I agree with zoo as well as play, like just take it a little bit slower guarantee. The one VMX, um, I don't really remember everything that went through my mind in the moment, but I, I think in general, I thought the way to approach the matchup was to that I had to be the aggressor, um, because he ran Cheryl and Cheryl, I think is like if he ever gets set up and with a bunch of chinos and is able to Cheryl, even once, it's probably enough for me to just lose the game. Um, because he doesn't like, he, he doesn't have to play the DNA down most games. Uh, and so there's not a whole lot of cheap prizes. So I think that was probably the thing that tipped me over the edge was like, I just need to be the aggressor in this game, so let's just go for it. Um, but the Zulus play is probably correct,
Brent:Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Cause I know you had told us before the pod, that, that Azula told you that you got to like be aggressive in this matchup because with all the chinos, he kind of as a theoretical, like better mid game end game, he's got Cheryl, like he's got the ability to kind of do a bunch of stuff. And in this game, like you kind of played like you were being aggressive. And then in the next game, I felt like you felt like you'd been kind of punished for that. So you played it a little differently and that also didn't work out.
Mike:Right, right. Yeah.
Brent:So, so I want to talk about, uh, so you play the day-to-day down and you kind of get going, like you find energy and you find another rapid strike, uh, or shift movie and you benched that and, and then you, you CRO bat, Oh no, you miss the energy. So you end up CRO batting for like five and you draw a bunch of cards. And then you have the choice to play a supporter. And your hand is, uh, like Marnie and to professor researches and toward us three cards. But he went first. So you like, you don't know if he has a supporter in hand, you don't know like what his hand is and you end up deciding to Marnie. And it's interesting. Cause I think it's like a very common situation that every player encounters where you're like, if I researched this, I'm throwing a lot of draw and I've already played my data and I've already played my Crow bat. Like I've already played a lot of the draw in my deck. Like if, if I throw away all these cards, like there's no shot gonna be in a drawer left in my deck. Um, but if you Marnie him, like he's going to have more cards than he would have had before. And there's no evidence that the sand is like any good at all. if you remember thinking about that problem at all, but I thought it was an interesting moment in the game where like you like research and gets you more cards and like more cards is good, but. Marnie preserves draw for later in the game, but potentially it gives him a better hand.
Mike:Yeah. I don't remember what was going in my head in the moment, but like looking at the, the image that you have here. So I think part of what you said, I think the first part of what you said is true. Like I already, I already had used to have my draw Pokemon. And so I think I was thinking about preserving. Draw, but also like he got out and then Chino and inertia Fu when he could have got in like a Snorlax or something else, um, potentially on his first journey. So there's a pretty good shot that he has a, like a draw supporter in his hand, whether it's a Marnie or bird keeper, or maybe Jew maybe has chin Chino as well. So like from my perspective, his hand is good. Like I know his hand is good. Um, so like putting it in from three to four cards is not like a huge difference if I know those three cards or at least like, I gotta assume at least two of those three cards are really good cards. So I think it's fine to Marnie there
Brent:Fair enough. Fair enough. So, uh, um, so let's skip down. Uh, so game two, of course you start data cause like, you know,
Mike:me, let me just say the one thing that I do remember of game one beyond the start was, and actually you made a mention of it here, the gear Tina play, what was the best play? Um,
Brent:that was a great point.
Mike:yeah, yeah, yeah. So I do remember that, like being like, how the hell am I going to win this game? And like, I note that I think he was down to rapid strikes and both of his fighting energies, I think, um, I'd have to go back and look, but that sounds right. And so like I just boss up his guy with a rapid strike and just gear a teenager and pass, um, because I was like, well, maybe his last rapid strike energy is price. Cause if it was priced like again, I'd have to look, but I'm pretty sure that was the case. So like if his last rapid strike energy is in his last couple of prizes, Then I just win the game immediately. Um, so, well, I guess that's not true. He could shouldn't Chino me potentially, but like, I'm gonna really, I'm actually in a pretty good spot. If it's last energy is pressed and that felt like kind of a hail Mary, but like, you gotta play to your out sometimes. And I felt like that was the, uh, the place.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah, you were, you were definitely playing there outset. That was the best plan. That was the best play. So, so the game to game two, you start a data and it totally sucks. And he starts Snorlax. So he's like living the dream and you're like living the suck. And, uh, so, so here's, here's the other like, Oh, this is a good instructive moment for any, uh, Pokemon player, like Pokemon problem. Um, you, uh, uh, you have the option to, um, or, Oh, so you're going to play the quick ball and you have a quick ball in hand and you have a scoop up and you have a research and a Marnie and a karate belt and a boss's order and a rapid strike energy. And. You're obviously about to quick ball for a, uh, rapid strike or Shifu. So you can attach the rapid strike energy and then play a supporter. And you're definitely going to play a Marnie. So you decided to quick ball the scoop up net to preserve the bosses, order research and karate belt. I mean, did you think about like, was there any particular rhyme or reason for like why you decided to ditch the scoop up there?
Mike:Well, so let's go through the other options boss. I don't want to discard because one of the ways that I win the match up in theory again. Okay. So, and I've never played this match before, right? But in theory, boss is extremely important to be able to knock out the chin chinos. I want to keep the intern Cheetos off the board. So boss felt like a no-go. Um, I'm always going to Marty Juniper. I ran into, I ran into like lack of drug game one. So I think probably coming off that I'm like, uh, I want to keep my draw around and karate belt. I'm not sure if I immediately played it, but I assume that I did like, I quick bald for their food and immediately played it on that guy. Um, Granny bell
Brent:I think you did not play the karate belt because the prior game you had put the karate belt on the earth Shifu because otherwise you would have had the data it away. And you were like, you had moments where you needed an air balloon on it and you were upset about it.
Mike:So probably looking back on it, I'd probably should have discarded karate belt. So again, like if I'm the aggressor, I'm not really going to be the one that is, has karate belt active all that often, so probably should have discarded that. But I guess I was probably just thinking let's keep it around just in case, I don't know, scoop up net feels yeah. Scoping. That felt like the most expendable, at least it definitely over boss. I think boss is too important in that matchup.
Brent:that seems the reason why I thought, I thought karate belt or scoop up seemed like the logical choice, but I think I would have gone for the karate belt,
Mike:Probably looking back at it now. I agree.
Brent:Um, and, uh, and yeah, so the two other comments I had written down about the game was first, uh, I mean, given that they have like two weeks of post production, they should somehow like show the lists or have like some fancy thing or have like a teleprompter magic thing where they could be like, kind of showing what the cards are there left in your deck, or like what's your outs are like, there's some next level commentating opportunity when you have two weeks of post production that it seems like they could do, because they spend a lot of time talking about the differences between your list and towards list. But they like never showed anyone the lists it's weird.
Mike:Yeah, that is strange. Yeah. And I was surprised like they didn't, I know, I think they, they might've done it for the finals, but like, How hard is it to everyone's recording their games. How hard is it to switch the perspectives each term? Like, again, you have two weeks to do this. I don't know. It shouldn't be that hard. Like it's literally just like switching video, right?
Brent:makes sense to me.
Brit:and say where we're awfully critical for the several times we just like, Hey, Pokemon podcasts were available, were awfully critical of these
Brent:Uh, you know, they, they, they have to pay us to only say nice things when we're working for the man, it'll all be pump it up. But we mean this in the heart of construct a constructiveness. Uh, my, my, my second comment was, uh, and I think I've found this a little bit in my own testing with Greg quick ball just makes me angry, man. Like the fact that you can't quick ball for the VMX I'm like, man, they obviously don't want me to play evolution decks because they gave us this great car that only works with big basics.
Mike:Yeah, ultra ball was a much healthier card, which is crazy to think about. Like, I feel like people said for a long time, the ultra ball was not healthy and
Brit:Yeah. I remember when it first came out, people, people were worried that it was too good and it like came out at the time where like, so yeah. Ultra comes out in dark explorers. Right. And so before that, all the engines are like, you're even still just playing because it States yeah. You're still playing kickball and stuff like that. And which
Mike:quick, not quick, but Oh, like old, quick ball. Oh, doable. Yeah. Yeah.
Brit:yeah. Now that was awful. Sometimes you would just lose cause you got, you would, you would get devil tails and you'd get benched or something like that. And the,
Brent:No ultra ball is awesome. Consistency. Quick ball is awesome. Consistency. If you don't play any evolutions.
Mike:Right. Yeah. I feel like ultra ball would be really great in this format too, because like, part of the reason that make that ultra ball like had felt degenerate at different times is because of the access to the discard. Right. Um, but there's not nearly as much access now. So like discarding tube cards is pretty, it was actually kind of steep for some decks.
Brent:I dig it. All right. Uh, um, as the question, so that covers all the notes that I had. Um, anything else that we should say about your run, Mike?
Mike:I don't think so. I'm just, uh, I am, I'm obviously very happy that Azula one, uh, with, with the list that we made, uh, and. Like dominating, dominating his last couple of rounds, uh, against peaker around. Um,
Brent:It looked like it was a really bad matchup.
Mike:yeah. Well, and it's like, I think part of it is probably lack of testing from the program side. I think part of it is like people, uh, Mimikyu wasn't really popular when that tournament first started. So, or when, when the tournament happened, so playing optimally around it wasn't they probably didn't really think about that. And obviously there was no stealthy hood. Um,
Brent:I mean, I think all the people were on players. It was just a matter of like play the best list, whatever Mike had previously played at a tournament and like, and like bring it cause like there, you know, people just haven't played that many games in that format. Right.
Mike:Right, right.
Brent:So the idea of texts to play around rapid strike or like that wasn't on people's radar. I don't think.
Mike:Yeah, it was funny, uh, as well. I was talking to him too a little bit after the tournament. He's like, man, that Metro felt so free. I was like, I was like trying stuff out in the middle of the tournament. Like he was like experimenting different ways to, to win the game. Cause it felt so free for him.
Brent:Right. Right. He was like, he was like, winning is inevitable so I can do anything. I want.
Mike:right. Um, I forget exactly what he said, but it was something to that extent. Um, and it's funny, like now I think the matchup is definitely unfavored for beaker on, but, um, I don't think it's as bad as those games showcased. Cause I think people have thought about the matchup more. They understand a little bit how to play it. They can tech for it if they, if they feel like it. But even if they don't necessarily tech with a stealthy hood, they can just design their list with other cards. And we kind of talked about it last week. I think they can just design their list. With some, in some intentional ways that they're, that they're at least thinking about the matchup.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I definitely want to talk about that a little more. So there were a couple of other comments that I took down from watching. Azule EVOD your games that, that I wanted to check in with you guys about? Um, I don't understand quite why, but people kept asking the Zul on a stream. Uh, um, if he plays all max rarity or not, And he was like, I played all men rarity. I don't know why I don't value parts at all. Guys. Do you guys have any particular perspective on that?
Brit:yeah, we've
Brent:even a question?
Brit:we had this conversation this morning for whatever reason. And I guess there was the group chat that was Mikey's testing group. Um, that I just got added to eventually four, I guess. Player cup for now. We were just talking about that. Yeah. And it's interesting too. I think like now I'm just a handful of guys in that, in that group chat. And like, for the most part, we all seem to hold the opinion that like, like max rarity, like playing max, max rarity is just ugly. Like, it just doesn't look very good. Like, um, just too much, too much blame, I guess. I just don't think the rainbow rares really looked good for one, like, I understand them from like a collector's point, but I don't know why you would want to play those over the full arts. Um, but my own personal, um, just, um, I guess take philosophy however you want to put it is I just really like full art supporters. And so I, I liked to play with full arts supporters and, um, especially to, um, which maybe this will steal from Mikey's point, but like back in the day when you're playing size Matone mirrors and stuff like that, so many, one of tech supporters. And so when the one of their full art, you see them faster, um, And then poverty rarity tens. Give me the 10 versions of the Pokemon themselves. For whatever reason. I don't actually care about those. Like I liked the full arts a lot. In fact, I, I think most of them are gorgeous. Um, but I just never interested in playing with like a full set of them. But I do like to play with supporters and I guess too, there just aren't nearly as many supporters. So from a budgeting perspective, it's not hard. I have my research and my Marty and my boss done, whereas Pokemon, it's just, you gotta, you need them all for every deck.
Mike:Yeah, so all of my choices are always pragmatic. Um, so the number one, pragmatic is financial cost. So that's a big reason why I prefer men rarity. Um, but yeah, as Britt said, when possible I will do full art one-ups um, whether it's Pokemon energy now that, that now there's items. So actually, if you, if you notice during players cup, even I did that, I made all of my one-ups full art and everything else was men rarity. So things like karate belt, air balloon, escape, rope. Um,
Brent:you, PTC geo guy,
Mike:yeah. Well, well, so we had master accounts so I could have done anything I wanted to. Um, but yeah, but I was like, well, let's just kind of continue this.
Brent:did you get to keep those, do you still have like every car now? Oh,
Mike:no, unfortunately not. Um, but so generally that's what I try to do. Like one of the big ones back in the day was like, you'd play. I'm thinking of like the executive or a deck, you know, or, or like you would slot like Archie or maxi line into some random deck. You'd do like, I would always, I, I always had a maxi and Archie reverse or full art, um, for that reason. Um, so I think that's really useful. We we've taken it like really far. Um, the, I forget what nationals it was, but when chandelier vile plume was a deck, was that maybe 2012 Brit, does that sound right? Somewhere around there. Um, Ross and myself, and some of the other X-Files people all played Shandell or vile poom, and not all of us were able to do this, but there wasn't a whole lot of looking through your deck with, with that deck, um, at least in the early game, but you played some, you played a bunch of shuffle draw, like copycat and Ponte. And so there was, we, we, we tried to play different rarities. Of anything we could. So I remember like dark cry, edX. We played one of each, we played like a full art and a regular. So that if you saw it in one hand, you shuffled your hand into your deck and then you drew the other one. Then you would know that both copies were in the deck, um, stuff like that
Brit:I'm confused. What deck are you talking about? You said dark, right? But I thought you're talking about darker. It's chandelier of
Mike:Shandell or it was like, um, it was like Shanda lore, bio plume, cell Gore with like the mew we use
Brit:I just, I thought you just meant Shandy beach or whatever. And I was very, I was very confused. I was also like that deck had a ton of search. What are you talking
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so it was like you would use muda Lawson, Excel, Gore, and then, um, yeah. And you use dark ride to it, to like for your treat, your guy, um,
Brent:See, I was
Mike:I don't know. So there's like, things like that, that you could do.
Brent:So first let me say, I mean, a Brit at 100%, right. Answer. Feel like. One of the first things that like, uh, we really took to heart from bill and Brian is like blinging after one of us. That is like the correct answer. Right. If you're gonna, if you're gonna max rarity something, you're a control deck with one, I was like, we definitely have like, like the only full art, like Blinky thing we have is like a flare ground.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Um, but so Mike, I feel like what's something about what you said is we always felt like we wanted to play same art that way. If we discarded something, they wouldn't, they like, they wouldn't know how many more copies we had.
Mike:Yeah. I think that's generally true. I think this was a pretty unique case of, of that, but yeah, I agree.
Brit:I was actually just going to say, I like, I know the logic to that, and I'm not, I'm not trying to dispute it, but I'm, I'm incredibly, I guess, skeptical and cynical that it has ever mattered across the course of the game. Like sure. We can invent this scenario where like, Oh no, they saw my mismatching darker eye arts. Now they know they played too, but like, Hey, in this modern era, they probably know, they probably know all 56, 56, 57, 58 of your deck to begin with, you know, there's, there's not a whole lot of mystery anymore. Um, it'll be curious to see how that changes once we, I wonder how much like withdrawal we'll have as a community have not having our opponents necklace every single round, because it, it does, it does let you be a little lazy sometimes for sure. It's like, I don't need to pay attention. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna tap right out to the limitless page. Yep. Okay. We're good.
Mike:There was so something else this reminds me of before, like back in the day, you were allowed to play with cards that had writing on them and it was totally fine. So, and my littlest brother played a Toga kiss, mag more card deck, maybe in like 2007, 2008. So token kiss was kind of like more recent incarnations of it as well. You wouldn't, when you played it, you got to look at top 10 cards of your deck or something like that. And attach energies that you saw there to your Pokemon, and you played a bunch of different types of energy for some Pokemons attack. But my brother was pretty young. I don't know, maybe like eight years old at the time. And so. If he played three fire energy is in the deck. Let's say we would put a, like three tick marks at the top of the fire energy to remind him that that's how many copies of fire in his deck versus, you know, the dark energy maybe only had two, um, because, so he could prioritize curriculum correctly, which energies to go on which Pokemon?
Brent:Cause he has like, no idea what's in his list. He's like,
Mike:yeah, so, I mean, that's not, not, not legal anymore. Um, but, uh, it still reminds me of that.
Brent:no, it's, it's funny. Cause I was going to ask you, so, uh, um, so you just told us, so how does top 16 work? They give you a master account and you have to go in and create a deck in this account and you play all your games in that account.
Mike:Yes, correct.
Brent:Why did they do that? It's
Mike:Um, good. So it does save us time, I guess, of adding each other, like everyone was added for you already, but like that's pretty negligible. Um, It, they standardize the usernames. So like, as you know, Mike F P C3 or something like that,
Brent:right.
Mike:but I don't even remember those showing up on the, yeah. They don't even show up on the stream because they just cover that part anyway with my image. So.
Brent:I liked everyone's image. It made me think for a second that people should be allowed to upload photos. And then I was like, no, that'd be a terrible thing.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I guess, I guess probably like the thought is like equity level, the playing field, but honestly, like anybody that gets to this stage probably has access to whatever they want. And it's not like we had a whole lot of time to test using these accounts. Like they gave the counts to us like a week before the event. So you had to test before that. I dunno. It was cool, but like, yeah, it's kind of strange.
Brent:Right. Interesting. So, so, uh, The, the thing that you were saying, though, that reminded me though. I wanted to ask you, like, how did you play the, do you have like a print out of your list or do you just have your list memorize? Like I assume you took checking prices really seriously on your first search, because like, these are really important games.
Mike:Yeah, I always check my prizes. So the way that I actually have so I can see it. But so like I had my list kind of like broken down by sections that I would kind of check at the same time.
Brent:Gotcha. So, so you, you essentially had a paper deck list written out in the order that the cards would show up in your list.
Mike:not even the paper necklace. Yes. I don't know if it's necessarily the order that they would show up, but just kind of like my mental grouping of them. So like first thing I'm checking. Okay. The earth view line, then three Geraci to DNA and Acrobat. Then all of my tech, I mean, on my five, one of Pokemon, then my supporters, then my fourth switch for net for quick ball. Um, then other trainers and then my five one-up trainers and then my energy. So it's kind of like just a group of eight or nine different groups of cards.
Brent:When, uh, did, did you keep like a printout of your opponent's list next to you for those games or?
Mike:nah, I just, um, I just had it up on a, on a browser
Brent:Okay. Do you have your like dual monitor action going? Like, were you able, were you looking at it the whole time or did you have to flip over to it?
Mike:yeah, I just flipped back and forth. I didn't have two monitors,
Brent:Gotcha.
Mike:but it was like, it's pretty, it's pretty like it's the same as playing in the, the events, you know, the, the regular online events, you know, as Britt said, you know, 55 of their cards. Immediately when you look at their list and you just kind of be like, okay, I got to watch out for these couple cards.
Brent:Right. I just assume that you're, you're trying to take, uh, your, your, I assume that when you sat down for this, you were like, okay, I gotta take this more seriously, but I take my dog.
Mike:Yeah. A little bit. I mean, I, I play, I took it more seriously, but like, I, I don't think there's too much more you can do in that regard.
Brent:Right, right. So, Mike, do you, is that something that you normally do for tournaments or is that a spec? Was that a special players come through the piece of paper with like the way you want to think about prizes?
Mike:Um, that's I would say like, I, I don't have a physical thing written out, but I, I think the general mental compartmentalizing, different parts of the list is something that I do.
Brent:Right, right. Uh, um, Brit, how closely do you check prizes in online tournaments? Like, it's interesting because I recognize like, that's the thing you just did where you say, I have this piece of paper where I kinda mentally sort how I think about Pokemon. Like, obviously that was a thing we never did with paper. Like when you, when you got the cardboard, you're like, dude, if you don't know your list, you're just screwed because like, that's how it's going to be. But now like you could have, you could have your deck laid out next to you. Like there's a million things you could do. And the beauty of PTC geo is like, when you pull it up, besides sorting the cards that you can pick to the front, it all looks like it's always ordered the same. So checking your prizes is like really fast. And theoretically you could have like a real system about this.
Brit:Yeah, I've never done anything as methodical as, you know, taking notes of it all. But I do, I do check my presence online better than I do in person, because it's so much easier. Um, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's just so easy and it's sometimes too, like, You don't, you also aren't really required to do the really like super duper thorough search on your, your first sort of foray into the deck. You can just like, you know, just like, Oh shoot. I don't remember how many bosses I have left done, you know? And just as the gays go, games goes on. The more you search, the more opportunities, the more opportunities you have to just like keep noticing again and again, cause it'll always just sorta for you. Um, but I mean, I think that's smart. I think definitely as we, I guess start talking about the, the horizon that is IRL events slowly approaching that maybe there are some like, um, practices we've developed online that are worth carrying with us to in-person. Cause I know like you can take notes as part of the tournament rules. Um, there's some, a handful of just kind of. Rules that go along with them. I forget how they've changed, but like no one really ever has, like back in the day, you would, because you could as ask and you were allowed to, when you played, as often as I'll flex, you let you look at your price cards and swap a card from your hand, with the Pokemon you found in your prize cards and you were allowed to just one Cyrus to, you know, I that's what I did. I just, you know, had, uh, you know, labeled all of my prizes as one through six and then would just write one, two, three, four, five, six, like that. Um, but no one I've ever really takes notes otherwise. And like, sometimes you do. I remember, like I used to try to take more notes, I think, and it just wasn't super helpful, but maybe this, like, just giving myself like reminders is like, so I don't have to keep thinking about like what's in the deck or not like maybe something like that would be useful. Cause I remember the notes I would take were just like opponent, opponent plate supporter again, opponent usability, again, like it wasn't super duper helpful.
Brent:I remember when, when Igor won that regional is full Canyon, he was taking, he was writing down his prizes every game. Like he would do that initial deck search and then he would write a bunch of notes and then he would start playing. Um, uh, but, but yeah, certainly taking notes is, is definitely not the practice. When can you start writing on the piece of paper? Do you have to wait until the game starts? Or if like you sit down with a blank piece of paper, you can start writing down a bunch of stuff.
Mike:I think you have to wait until that game officially starts.
Brit:And I know you have to have like, uh, you can't write in code or anything like that. The judges can ask to see your notes at any time. Um, I don't remember if your opponent can look at them or not.
Mike:No, I don't think they can, but like,
Brit:and you have to have it. You can't like, um, you don't have just one,
Brent:Like if you wrote down your prices, they would be like, let me see your prices, right?
Brit:have to, uh, you have to have a new sheet of
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. I know you have to sit down with a blank piece of paper that does the game start when you flip the coin or when you draw your first card,
Brit:probably when you draw everything.
Brent:I would assume too.
Mike:I can't imagine it'd being very useful to write anything anyway that
Brent:Well, like, like, like what you just showed us was like, you're a little mental model of the prizes. If, if like, if I, if I sent, you know, a junior over and told him, okay, like when you sit down, you're going to write out like these things, and then you're gonna check and look in your deck first deck search, and like, see how it matches up. Like you can do that.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Uh, uh, that probably seems insane. Like somebody sits down at a good place. All right, guys, we've talked about tons and tons of other stuff. Uh, the one other thing I definitely wanted to say is, uh, when, when they were talking about how great you are, they did not mention the pod chip. You know, you could've said it. You could've said it, buddy. You just want to let you know you could've said it. We're here.
Mike:other, the other thing that was funny, they like asked us to fill out. You know what we thought our biggest accomplishments were and whatnot, so they could display them. And I filled my now and mine was completely different from, uh, what, like, I don't think they want to display anything before like 2015 or 2016 or something like that. Cause I put, like, I put the Philadelphia regional that I got second, they had that on there, but then they, other than that, they just put, Oh, a top eight at a different regional, but then they put like two random top sixteens that I had gotten, which is cool. But like I put, you know, 2008 top for us national championships, much cooler than a top 16 at a regional. Um, and I put something else from, uh, back in the day. I don't remember exactly what it was. Um, but I was like, there it's like age bias.
Brent:And there was, there was one guy that was like, it was like league cup champion. He had like two LICO champions. And I was like, yo, you know, all he needs is like 2019 pre-release champion. And like, you'll be ready. You'll be ready for prime time.
Mike:Yeah,
Brit:and I don't even have anything anymore. If they're there, they're not letting us put down stuff from like 2015 even. Uh, I'll be, I'll be there one week, one week cup champion.
Brent:But the, but chip went off script and was like, Oh, Mike's been winning since back in the day. But, but no mention of the pot. All right, guys, let's talk about players cup four. Um, let me get this straight because I have to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to read cause I only listen to podcasts now. Uh, people get a hundred keys this time around.
Mike:no, I think that, yeah, I think some people did, but it's not, that's not the intention.
Brent:Thank God. Like when I, when I first heard the a hundred keys, I was like, this is, this is the, uh, shades of like people who play the most when that's not what we want. Right. Like the 50 keys already seemed like you're just playing a ton of Pokemon, a hundred keys w would just be like a brutal battle to the finish line, like who can grind out a hundred keys. Um, all right. That makes me super happy. Uh, uh, I haven't yet gone in to check my account to see how many keys I have. Mike, did you get your problems resolved?
Mike:yeah, they did. So I had zero this morning and then I looked just before the pod and they, I have 50 now, so I sent a support ticket, but the support ticket was like, we'll look into this later. Um, which I guess they did. Um, I also messaged my new relationship with Jesse Hill is a flourishing cause I messaged him about it and he said they would look into it.
Brent:Jesse Hill liker of the pod tweet last week, we salute you Brett, how about you? A 50 keys, a hundred keys, zero keys.
Brit:I, I thankfully was all as well. I checked this morning for the first time. Um, probably should have checked a little beforehand. I was a wonder like how late into the process can they fix that? Presumably they can fix it for anyone in the entire time, but I got a little paranoid, like, Oh no, what if I'm missing my shot, but no, nothing wrong with me. Thankfully I don't, I don't know when I'm going to be able to play. I know I sort of said that about the last two keys and ended up finishing pretty early, but I actually have too much right now. I, it will be a week or two before I play my first key, for sure.
Brent:So that that was going to be my first question. Are you guys going to jump in and start trying to grind keys right away? Or is there a new timing strategy for a players cup for.
Brit:I mean, for me personally, too, because I. Finish really early try. I think I almost finished in like the first week, both times and it didn't turn out so well, so I'm going to of course try something new this time. So we'll see how, um, CF, um, waiting a couple of weeks into it makes any difference in terms of the metagame or the opponents I'm facing. But yeah, I mean, I might be able to play one here and there. Like I, I played the Sunday open this week. Um, I think I would, I'll have time to play it again this Sunday, because I'll just need to be I'll study for a final holiday. So I can, I can squeeze in a little tournament if all I have to do is study, but for the most part, I just kind of really, really busy writing right now. Um, but I hope I imagine I will play all 50. I doubt I will just not, but you never know. We'll see.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I think I'll probably just keep my same strategy, which is play when I feel like it. Um, I haven't, I haven't been super motivated since the end of. The players got two weeks ago to play. Like I've mostly, I've played a couple of different online events, but I think I've played three online events and two of them have been certain shield on. Um,
Brent:Yeah, I feel like I keep, I keep looking for you in the limitless results and you're not there. And I'm like, Oh, okay.
Mike:Yeah. So I haven't really, I haven't played that much. So we'll see like how I start feeling. I'm going to play in a, in the, let's not hipsters tonight, but, uh, whatever the other one going on tonight. So we'll see how tonight goes and see how I feel going forward. Um, it was supposed to start today, but I think they're going to post, like when I saw that I had my keys, there wasn't even an option to play and events and they're going to have to push it back at least a little bit.
Brit:Yeah. Yeah. I saw exactly massage tweet sort of questioning. Just like, so when can we play? Cause yeah, clearly I forgot it was supposed to start today, but if there's so many errors now, I guess give, wait until everyone is good to go.
Brent:All right. So let's talk about strategy for players. Do we want to talk about single strike for a second for it?
Brit:uh, yeah, I mean, we can, I'll try and keep it brief since we've we've we've said a lot and there's more pertinent stuff. I've played it a lot over the weekend. I just like woke up, felt like playing the Sunday morning and didn't wanted to play something different. Didn't want to just like, bring, bring Pico. Like we know Pico's fine. We know what the Pico lists look like now kind of only played Pika for a while now. So, you know, I wanted to try something different and I wanted to try single static. And I know I had seen, um, Oh, it was Thomas Brophy, I think mentioned like, I think, cause he played ADP in the hipsters invitational and he like mentioned there was a, I just very briefly saw them sort of allude to the fact that they had been working on like a friend. It was cashing a name. I didn't recognize I'd been working on a single strike, blessed and then Israel, uh, won a team challenge with it as well. So two kind of very different lists. Uh, Israel is pretty normal. Um, the other one, the Brophy and cashless was playing nets. I didn't play, I haven't played any games with that version. I tweaked Israel's list a few cards and gave it a go and I liked the deck a lot. It's it's very, very fun. Um, But it really, my whole experience really reminded me of Greninja in the sense that like Greninja is inconsistent, but what makes it inconsistent as a little bit different than what we, what we mean when we like, typically use the word, like typically inconsistent just means like, uh, sometimes you draw the welder, sometimes they don't, what are you going to do about it? Variance. But like, with Greninja the, the fact of the matter was that it just needed. So, so, so, so much to function, you need, you know, you need all your frog ideas. You need to, you need multiple stage threes out at once. And so of course the more cards you need to set up, the easier it is to price things that are important. And let's just kind of the vibe. I got both pricing, things that are important and discarding things that are important at the wrong time. Um, and so that was just kind of the story of my tournament. Like I, I beat LMC up a bunch and then be one big teeny and like lost to one and like, And I lost to a psychic MuTu too, but like all of the games are really close. I actually even should have beaten the psychic MuTu, but it was just like, I discarded two earns on my second turn. I, I prize to hound or, and they killed a hound or going second and things like that. And then it's just like, you just need so much, you need all of your energy, you probably need three or four of the urns and you need, you need three, three hounding or something like that. Like it just, you, each of those lines, the basic, or the stage one that you prize, like really hurts. And so the fact that you can prize them and discard them there, the energies obviously have the earn, but that was definitely the main thing I would change about the list is it needs. I want to, I want an ordinary rod or something in there, like even for the fighting energy sometimes too, like you use, um, the regular V's first attack and it gets knocked out or something. And that's like, your only Israel's list only played for fighting. So when you're attaching to, from the deck, you're basically out of them already, and then you only have the special energy. And if you're, like I said, if you're in these scenarios where you're discarding them at the wrong time, discarding the urns, that's the wrong time games are just really, really hard. Um, but when it runs well, it's really, really good. And it's very fun. I had a lot of fun playing with it, so I haven't given up on it yet. Um, but I, I don't know if these issues I'm describing are particularly solvable and if they are, I'm not sure if the deck ends up being any better than, um, the real good decks, which perhaps we knew already, but I'm happy to have sung sometime in it. It was a, it was a fun experience.
Brent:I definitely hear that, like the shades of green Ninja, like, do you get 300 interest set up? You're like, it's the best I can format? Like, I'm sure the same too, right? You're like if I get three. I'm set up. I just roll everybody. That's
Brit:You can't lose. And like you're you have, you do have some really good match-ups. I think when you, when you do set up super duper, well, just because your damage output is the highest in the game, essentially, at least of the metadata, you can one-shot anything and you don't have to worry about full metal wall. You get through same as Denta you, um, you know, you're knocking out V's and things like that. Or the V max is rather with the, you know, enough energy and so on, but, and like, yeah, like the mute Stu deck too, I like barely, barely, barely lost a psychic MuTu. And if like that's supposed to counter me, like, that's feels like a pretty good sign to me. Um, but I'm, I'm truthfully, I don't think that deck is very good. So I would, I would say the fact that I'm. It was a close match up is more telling of the MuTu deck. Then the Hersha Fu deck, perhaps
Brent:So, so what, what, uh, what's the play for players cup for guys? You know what? So I thought that was like, I took all these notes, talking about rabbit, striker, extra food. I like have played a bunch of rabbits right here, but like, I feel like when I look at tournament results, the answers speaker
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:mean they're there. There's a reason the two of them were in the winners bracket and players cup like Pega. That's really good.
Mike:It just, again, it's just always, it can beat anything. It has good match ups against most decks. And it has, if it has like unfavor, match-ups against alternatice and, uh, and rapid strike, but that's pretty much it, you beat your you're solid against everything else and you can beat your two bad match-ups it's the most consistent deck you're only playing, you know, best of one, a couple of games in these tournament. So you want to play something consistent? Yeah. I don't know. Peak peak seems to the best. ADP is always fine to play. I'll probably play some keys with LMC. Um, cause I enjoy playing that deck. Um, I might play some tempos hard because again, that's, I feel like that's pretty consistent despite being a welder deck. Um,
Brent:So I don't hear you saying I'm going to play some cue for the rapid striker shift though.
Mike:rapid strike or Fu feels much stronger in a best of three format to me. It, um, it's not super consistent and it's not, it's like pretty, it's pretty powerful I guess, but it's also, I don't know, like I felt much better about playing for players cup than I did than I do for any of these online events. I don't know.
Brit:I mean, maybe to like player's cup being so long ago, the MuTu acts just didn't exist yet. And so that's, that's another just kind of difficulty for you to overcome when you already have some, like the ADP matchup is very close to begin with them.
Mike:Yeah, I think that's the other, that's the other big thing. So like you're obviously not great against L and Z, even if you play Phoebe, it's not that good, but I think the we've kind of realized over the last few weeks that ADP against rapid strike is really close. If not like slightly favored for ADP. So ADP is always like one of the most common decks in these events. So taking a slightly unfavorable matchup, even if it's only slightly doesn't sound great, like Pika on the other hand is like very slightly favorable against ADP. So
Brent:So are there changes that we, uh, uh, we talked a little about stealthy hood earlier in the pod. Like what, what changes are you guys thinking about for Pika lists for players cup four?
Mike:I think I'm definitely running for Bolton. Um, I like, I like that a lot. Cause it, it increases your consistency overall, but it's also very good against the rapid strikers for food, because you want to use Bolton to kill the Mimikyu, uh, in just being able to do that easier. That's like the that's like the big deal. The only other like big change that I was kind of like against pre battle styles, but now I'm a, now I'm cool with it.
Brit:Yeah, we've talked a little bit about it. I know from, or at least the one I was referencing from the heck streets invitational Vinny. I got second. Um, just with, and that was just, he kind of, I think. As I think Mike will agree. It was like a little over committed to the consistency aspect of it. And so he has, his list has like some flex spots, I think, like he has the, like an extra hood and he's playing 14 energy and instead of 13, and, and I know that Isaiah Bradner was playing three triple stamp. Um, so they're, you know, dropped from that list. That might be something else too, but yeah, definitely for both times, I, I I'm, I'm a little, at least I'm open to trying to hood. I'm just always of the belief that, like, why wouldn't you just play one, if it's an important card, if that, if you need it to win matches, like without Guzman and all, it just seems like kind of playing the odds a little bit too much, whereas with the second one, you get it. But I know, I forget exactly because I know Mikey from the Minneapolis once big charm back into it, and the vending lists did not have big charm. So I'd have to at least think on personally, like. Where were the, match-ups where the, the cards really differ. And like if the medic game really just doesn't seem rapid strike heavy than the inner, maybe you don't even need her. It's similar to the, how we've talked before about like the last time around, maybe you just played Pika without hammers and cross your fingers. You can just do something like that here too. And hope to get lucky you hope to outplay the Bolton, Kao the Mimikyu and call it a day.
Brent:Is that the Strat or do you run hoods or do you do both.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't think you can not play hammers. I think you still have to play hammers because ADP is so good. Farmers are great against that. And then you have, you have no shot at beating to turn into us without hammers, really. Um, but so like my current list right now that I have built is, um, Vinny's list that you referenced Britt and minus one hood plus one big charm. Um, I kept, so one, one different, like Brett said, he has the 14th energy. So he has the fourth speed over like the second radar spot, which I'm going to experiment with. I think that, like in theory, it's fine. Like those are both consistency cards in some regard. Right. Um, so I'm gonna, I'm going to try that and see what, see if I like it. I think one swell has become pretty standard. Now it's like two 12 was really good before because fire was so much more prominent. Now fire is not only less popular, but also the fire variants. Are skewed, monitored, Vic teeny, which doesn't rely nearly as much on giant hearth. So swells just a little bit weaker power plants are a little bit more popular than before, but it's still not very popular. It's relatively fringe. Um, power plant is more of a concern I would say than the hearth is now, but I think one swell is solid. I would never play zero, but I think one is fine.
Brit:I I've, uh, I've really just been cutting corners for awhile now. I've kind of only played one swell and like, like in the team challenge, I'm pretty sure I was still just playing one swell and I dunno, I beat this. I beat satin scorch both weeks. Pretty easily still. Yeah. Um, but yeah, not to disagree with you or anything like that, but it was exactly, like I said, I was, I was cutting corners.
Brent:And do it. Do we have any takes on the team challenge? Do we know anyone left?
Mike:I think sander is still in it.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I was going to say that to Sanders take T Sanders seems to seem to almost just, uh, I think regurgitate some of the things we've already said and it's, and it's that team format rules, um, that the, the random, I mean, he didn't, I don't think he insinuated that having to qualify at random, you know, impinged on the process or anything like that. But I we've said that for a week or two now. And you know, that's just my opinion is that I would love, love to play more of teamwork. It's fun. And at least snap too. It's a way to be social with people and hear some voices you don't always hear. But, um, I don't like, I think too, I'm not going to end up playing in any qualifiers for the second one. I there and don't feel, don't feel a FOMO or anything from it.
Brent:All right. All right. Before we wrap up, but let's just talk about rapid striker Shifu for like two seconds. Uh, so obviously two of them are in the top four of a players cup three. It's going to be a big deck. Um, as you guys thinking evolved at all around, like what, uh, what people should do differently versus azoles list or list that he got second and chill the other day with. It's the fans of the current like quote unquote, best thinking
Brit:I actually don't know it. What's uh, could you tell me anything? I know I saw that he won,
Brent:he's playing, he's playing for Geraci. He plays the Geraci GX in the Mimikyu and he plays a Sheryl and a yell grant.
Mike:yeah, the yogurt. It's interesting. He doesn't have gear. Tina. That's kind of like his one tech Pokemon that he does not include. Um,
Brit:It's odd that you would play the yell grant and not the Garrett. Tina, I would think the Garrett team would be better if you had to choose one of them, but. But I guess at the same time to the yell grant, I would think is for mere. And you want, you need to get the basic fighting sometime.
Mike:um, yeah, I don't know. I also think geared Tina's is probably better. You have, it's like easier to reuse. It's easier to find. It's easy. It's easier to use and to reuse, um, than the grant. Cause you have to like use your scoop up either way, right. To reuse it because you have to scoop up the MuTu to reuse it. Um, yeah, that's interesting. I think probably carotene is better. Um, I haven't played all that much with Sheryl and dry tree builds, so I don't really want to comment on that. Um, but otherwise it's pretty straightforward. The only other, the only card that I've been considering a lot is just dropping the Mimikyu and either running a second draggy GX, or an ordinary rod, because if, because start running one or two hoods, then maybe cute loses a lot of value and you might just be better off having access to a second Gerace after they kill your first strategy. Um, So I think that might have some merit.
Brent:Yeah, this just goes to show that I am a crazy person. Cause like my first reaction was like, Oh, well I'm going to put a tool scrapper in.
Mike:Um, I think that's fine. Like Rahul did that. Um, but, but the thing about hood is they can not all the time, but often they will just hold the hood
Brent:No, they hold the hood until they need it. Right. Yeah.
Mike:So like, Traci is solid. Like they have to kill Geraci if they ever want to tag bolt lunch out of Emacs. So if they like Gus killed Geraci and then you have another Geraci, that's pretty good. I mean, it does open the line where they can go like kill Geraci killed, Geraci killed the DNA to in the game, but that's three bosses that they're going to need to have while like not dying.
Brit:I guess to close out on rapid track, I know it's, well, I didn't quite catch how he finished, but as it will play at a Chino version again for the Sunday open and it was a little bit different than, um, the, I guess like initial EDU, uh, players cup three version. Um, I should probably check to see how he did, but I was, I was curious, like, it just seemed like the community has already moved on from Chino. And while that may be right, I, I could see it still being good still like the, I don't know, like the decks are like sometimes they're sure Fujis is going to lose the stamp and you don't lose to stamp with chinchy now. So.
Brent:I, you know, it's, it's interesting. I I've, I've played both a fair bit now and I'm not completely, I think there's, I think there's still a lot of room for evolution of stack. Like. I, I, I could see a world where you dumped the fourth Geraci and put in a Snorlax. And in that way, you're like kind of mixing a little bit just because I felt like I just always had a handful of Geraci and I was like, I'm not getting great value out of this army of Geraci that I'm drawing into. Uh, uh, so, so like trying to have more like one of us in Texas, an interesting thing. And I mean, as I was just saying, I felt like every turn almost ADP, like I felt like I was feeling pressure to bench a day-to-day or a CRO bet to like, get more juice than what I'd just gotten off the morning to like, keep going, keep going, keep going. And, and it made me wonder if I would just be happier going back to playing the Chino build and, and knowing I could draw a couple extra cards and then I'm throwing these druggies away and I'll never see them again. And like, it seems like there's a lot of opportunities to make myself happier there, but it's so much lower.
Mike:Yeah, I do kind of want to experiment maybe with chin Chino, but I'll still running research. Like I think that's the big thing that towards list doesn't have is like you just not being able to ever research feels. Kind of bad sometimes, like you get Marnie and you're like, well, okay. I can get, you know, twice, but it's still like, you get Mark, like Marnie plus teaching chinos is the equivalent of like a research worth of cards. Right. So like, if you get marinade, if you could play research, then Cheeto twice. Like now you're seeing a lot of cards. Um, so I don't know, even if it's not a full four up, maybe like two research
Brent:Yeah. Uh, I mean, there's, uh, like that and the energy line is an interesting thing. Like I know you'd talked previously about how the martial arts dojo seems so important. Like dojo is really good. Uh, I know Zol played three capture interviews instead of the fourth, but you didn't put in a third fighting energy. I feel like. You know, uh, what are there some middle ground there where like the capture energies are like, good, but they're not like bonkers. I wonder if you've been somehow balanced that a little more.
Mike:yeah, for sure.
Brent:Right. If you, if you put the researchers in, maybe you don't feel the pressure to play capture energies because all of a sudden you feel like you're, you're drawing into the machine knows to get going. Right.
Mike:right, right, right. Yeah. Okay.
Brent:All right, guys. Uh, so it sounds like you're playing an extra tonight, Mike.
Mike:Yeah. Or whatever, it it's like the float to cast now he moved
Brent:Oh yeah. Oh, we didn't talk about the whole OTC thing. Is there anything to say? Yeah. That's we have said it that's the pod.
Brit:put it on the agenda as a joke.
Brent:Uh, Brett, I think, I think you were the big winner there. If anybody came out of that looking good. It was you
Brit:I'm not good at Pokemon, but I am good at looking good.
Brent:farmers references. We got those guys. Big success.
Mike:All right.
Brent:Uh, Mike, congratulations. That, that, that was a great run. Great run.
Mike:Yeah. All right. My dog's going to kill me if I don't feed him.