Hey, welcome to the Trashalanche Hollander here as always with and Brett Pybas attendance is 100%. We are on Twitter at Hayes wise at my crochet and at B Halliburton. if you like the pod, you could like our tweets and we tweet about stuff that we talked about on the pod. generally speaking also, I want to start saying. Channel fireball sponsors that's because I know sometimes we don't and we super appreciate their support. And it's probably the best website out there for Pokemon strategy. If you haven't subscribed, then you're not reading articles written by people like Mike to tell you about stuff. It's it's the written version of a podcast, so it's not quite as good, but it's right up there. Guys, we got a new five star review in a, this is episode 49. So next week is episode 50. So hopefully we'll get a lot of five star reviews rolling in for the 50th episode. If you've been thinking I haven't left the review, you can leave one for episode 50, and then we would read it. But but we've got a great one. It's title was another five star review, which is a fantastic title. And we respect the titling here the best type of review for the best Pokemon TCG podcast. Again, another five star review from New Zealand. I was wondering what your thoughts are on tornadoes. BEMAX both now and post rotation. I found it to be very consistent, easily sticking with most tier one decks bar. Mike's favorite peak around the peak rom is less popular post CRE. So tornadoes still seems very good to me. Also post rotation, I only see a losing Dedenne of GX and Pokemon communication. So it seems to me it will still be good then. And maybe even tier one. Anyway, keep up the great work in podcasts, swimming 1 7 1 3 8 3 from New Zealand. That's a solid review. That's a great review because review and a question, which is exactly how we like our views to be on the pod guys. Thoughts internally to C-Max.
Mike:Pokemon. other V maxes. Right. um, powerful pretty quickly ramp up to like 320 damage, 340 damage. So that's what it has going for it Um, what's his name? Swimmy is definitely right. That without format, there's really not any lightning decks that when, uh, Like fluffy comes out the new electric, but pre-alpha right now weakness. Isn't really an issue. My guess is It's just consistency. Uh, it it's a little hard to get up for energy, relatively hound dooms. Uh, but it is something pretty interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had like some secret list That maybe we'll see it in the global finals. I don't know. That would be cool. Yeah.
Brit:Yeah, I've meant to test it actually. Um, this question reminded me, um, that, because I know I I've seen, um, I don't actually notice is his real name or not, but Josh had her on Twitter is an old player he's been, been around forever. I'm always sort of very good at playing Audax. He posted a list for it, that I seem strong and I have played in at least thought a lot about like single strike, you know, played a lot of singles, the start-up last format. And you know, I always thought that it was decent. But really could tell that the heavy Urshifu focus was just so clunky there is. And so I've always been very convinced that like the toolbox approach with like terrain tars and now maybe tornadoes too. And. Stonehenge, the single Prizer like, I've always felt that, like, that was definitely the best way to play it. And I think it's in a pretty good spot right now. You know, just as an example, I lost a really close game too. I was on Shadow Rider, just the normal list I've been playing and I played against it was really less of a toolbox, more so focused on Urshifu, but it still played like Tyranitar. And again, or she was still can one-shot you? So like, it's a powerful card, but I just like, don't think I would ever play more than two, two or something like that. Three, two because the V is actually pretty good too. So you don't mind playing like more of it, even if the B max isn't the focus, but I think tornadoes like definitely would have a place in there. And maybe it's just playing better because a lot of what made it feel good was it being fighting type against things like Pikarom, it turned into us and so forth. But I'm not sure. It just may lack the sort of simplicity and consistency that makes both the Calyrex shadow. And I it's just so good, even though they're different, they don't, they function on so little. And you know, at the end of the day, it's attaching energies from your hand, your discard is a lot easier than getting two or three hound, doom and play and, you know, lots of special energies that you have to keep track of. There's there's difficulties, you can run out if you don't have your earns at the right time, things like that. But I think it's good. It's I think it's viable to be sure tier two, I would probably even be charitable enough and saying,
Brent:So here, let me ask you this historical question. I mean, when I think about it I think the reason that hound doom hasn't found its place in the format is like, it hasn't, maybe it hasn't found the right partner, like, like cards, like count doom have been successful in the past, but have there, have there been decks where you've had to set up like multiple of one stage one and multiple of another stage one to like be successful? I mean, I think, I guess I think of like, Vileplume best book win or like flaring. I'm not really a good example. Like Vileplume festival queen that's cheating because forest giant the 4th of July plans, but like, there. Other examples of like, well, I'm going to set up to have this stage one and one or two of this stage one, and then like, they'll do this thing together and they magically win. Yeah.
Mike:those plus two grand balls. And I mean, like really back in the day, it was very common to see multiple stage ones. Like if you've heard the name four corners, like those decks were three or four different stage ones within a single deck, and you would set up different one, you know what? You wouldn't set up every single one. And every matchup you'd often set up two or three different ones and in any given game. So I mean, there's definitely precedent. It's just a matter of the formats are a little bit
Brent:That's what I was gonna say is obviously it's so much faster now. You can't really compare an error like that, I guess, to a an air like this. Also, I told you my grand bull is like that second stage one. About creating consistency. And obviously when you're using the hound doom still, like then out your deck, like you're making it a little more consistent, but I think the problem, a deck like this has versus something like ice rider, like you said, Brit is like it's so you, you have so much room for consistency, even though you're running a stage one line, just ice riders and consistency. Right.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like, I, I mean, I guess you could say like ice rider Inteleon or ice rider and Chino is like examples of setting up multiple stage ones. But like the point is that second stage one is just consistency, consistency, consistency, consistency, right? Yeah. I mean, it's about, it's about creating a draw into the town. Doom is not quite that. So it doesn't kind of get you to the same.
Mike:Yeah, you have to use like your supporter for consistency, every turn, which means you can't really play boss very easily that often like the the, the converse is something like ice rider, which uses its extra evolution line for consistency, but, and uses it supporter for the energy acceleration. And it's kind of just, you know, in, in reality, it's kind of doing the opposite, but the difference is like your supporter has also a consistency card too. So you're kind of like double dipping there. Which is like yet another reason why it's more than that.
Brent:Before, before we move on to talking about Pokemon, I have it in the notes that I got to say, guys, the book is coming. I, it has been once again, another super fun week of having random people, a tweet at me and sending people copies of books. Our goal is we are going to release it next week. So next week on the pod, I will say it is live. Go leave your review. And if you tweeted me previously, I will tweet you back. The proceeds are going to go to a NAMI so we can do something for mental health. We're really, really excited about the reception. I think. I mean it's nice when people are so nice. I appreciate that. All the kind of words that people have said on the internet, which is super cool. And, and I think I've gotten like three or four notes from people your everyone you're right. Page 16. I say, gala mind lowers your retreat. It raises your treat. The only fixing the final copy. This is why we send it out. So far, that's the only horrible type of people I've found, which is really good. That means Mike caught all the other mistakes.
Brit:Yep.
Brent:Before we move into talking about tournaments and cards and stuff, I thought we should just take a second to see if you guys had any reaction to the whole pokey beach ransomware thing. I mean, I think that actually happened last week and we didn't talk about it. And I meant to, it sucks. Is this not on your radar, Brit
Brit:Yeah. Now, what are you talking about?
Brent:do this true, true story. You could click over there. So pokey beach was hacked. They got ransomwared and I, you know, I mean, apparently that these guys somehow thought that because Pokemon is like a big thing. Suddenly the pokey beach guys must be rolling in money and they deleted all the pokey, beaches, files, and pokey, beaches lost everything. They deleted all their backups. They did.
Mike:Wow. I knew that they got hacked. I didn't
Brent:Yeah. So then essentially like 17 years of articles of like old set lists, all that stuff, all that's gone. Now, the only things on pokey beach are things from like the last three weeks now.
Mike:that's insane. that's what a loss for
Brent:that's exactly my reaction is like polka beach is my go-to place for like, okay. Tell, you know, tell me what all these cards do in this set. Like polka beach is always how I've scrolled through. And on the one hand, it's fun for them to have a new user interface because all of their WordPress themes and templates and everything got totally deleted.
Mike:Okay.
Brent:And you know, a fresh look is a little bit fresh on my eyes at least, but losing all of that historical information. So.
Mike:Yeah, Geez. Yeah. John, John, I forget his last name, but John, the polka beach guy. He's I'm sure he does fine, but he's not, not like some Uber rich person.
Brent:like Logan, Paul Pokemon, whatever the Pokemon king thing. And it was not us people that played competitively.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:Yeah. Th this is like this is the crazy news, but yeah, totally. It totally sucks. So that for a book, the beach guys The players cup is that this weekend, it looks like the Pokemon Twitter account is decided to start letting people know that they should watch this weekend, which I appreciate. And, and they have Andrew Mohan stepping into the Castro, booze to do some casting, which is really good.
Mike:that is cool. Yeah. I think it's think it's Jeremy, Andrew chip and, and, Hexter. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it should be good. I mean, I don't know how much I'll watch. It's the old format still. So I'll probably try and watch a little bit, but this is something that I wanted to like share generally, but this is chilling. Rain has been the biggest shakeup in the meta since the rotation last year. So it feels like almost two completely different games. Looking back at, you know, the, the battle styles format and now the Chilean rain format. So it feels. Even less relevant now than ever with the players
Brent:Yeah. I feel like the only thing that can come out of this is it's like the last chance for peek around to get a dub.
Mike:right?
Brent:Bigger Rob currently unplayable, but still playable for these guys. I don't think there's too much more to say we talked a ton about it last week. Right,
Mike:yeah. Yep. We, and we even know like the outcome right. Which we shared a little bit, but hopefully we'll see at least some interesting games.
Brent:Yeah. And it'll be fun to see how the, you know, the new casters continue to cast and all that stuff. It is funny how, I guess we've been playing Pokemon so long. I would not have thought like Kyle would become like an Ameritas cast or where he's like, he's been right. Like, like they're, they're, they're like aging out taskers now. Like, wow. That's really, I guess, I guess we've been doing it a while. It'll be interesting to see how that plays into the aggressive, like casting, the regionals that they were doing, like right before the pandemic started and whether or not guys like Andrew say, Hey, I'm going to go do a casting. Or if they'll say I got to go win this tournament, what the heck mean? I think we know chip wants to like focus on casting and he's really interested in doing that. But when they, you know, I mean, Andrew's right up there with Azula is as far as like you know, casters that are, I think thought of primarily as incredibly good players. And it'd be interesting for him to see,
Brit:Hmm.
Brent:Why don't we talk about Shadow Rider a little Mike has now played games with Shadow Rider,
Mike:Yeah. So shout out to Brent for letting me borrow shadow writers for the last few days, still waiting on my players. cup for deck boxes to trade. Yeah. So I've Mo almost entirely have played versions with one, one Alcremie and just straight psychic. I played a couple games with Aurora versions, but really didn't like them at all. So I, then I just kept tweaking the, the psychic versions. I think the biggest reason that I don't like the Aurora is you're so reliant on finding psychic energies for your draw and gin that whenever you like have an Aurora instead of a psychic, and you can still use an ability, it feels. Really really bad. The other thing is that I'm not sure, like, I think you have to play twos Aptos to probably even have a chance in the Eternatus. Well, I shouldn't say that you can be Eternatus even without zap dose, but I don't think one zap does really swings the matchup all that much. So my guess is you'd have to play to, to like really make it like a big difference and that doesn't really seem worth it further. I think Moltres is the bigger dark Pokemon that you have a good chance of countering, and it's also just much more popular. So I feel like if you want to focus on countering dark Pokemon to help match ups, you should focus on Moltres. And, and I don't think like Zappos doesn't really do that much. You'd have to play the the Necros movie. I think that would be like the. I guess you would play Zappos anyway, then if you're playing Aurora's, but like, you would definitely want Necros movie if you're playing Aurora energies. But I dunno, I think I would just
Brent:I mean, I feel like what, you're, what, you're saying.
Mike:but the deck
Brent:I like, like, in my mind, you have to use the, like the only way to win the match up and Brit you've played this a hundred more times than I am. I'm sure. So I'm interested in your perspective, but like I assume the only way to win the match up is like zap those body up and Eternatus Zappos body up an attorney. Like, if your plan is to kill three Pokemon, they're going to kill two Shadow Rider. It's like long, long, long before that is kind of a working assumption. So I, I, it's hard for me to imagine how like, targeting the Moltres is going to get you to a place where you like have your wind condition. Cause they're just like, all they got do is find bosses.
Mike:yeah, well, I don't really mean Moltres and it turned it to us. I mean, more just Moltres than other decks. Like the ADP Moltres, the we've seen like Urshifu mattress and like McGannon Dell, Gus Lord Moltres, I guess. I just mean like, Moltres is much more of a threat in the meta-game overall. Then it turned into, this is so like, I don't mind taking a loss to one deck and if that one deck Eternatus, that's fine. But I'm interested in exploring ways to counter Moltres risks. Cause that overall much, much more
Brent:I just find all the decks that all the other decks that play Moltres don't seem very good. Like ADP Moltres. I'm like, I'm not, yeah, that's fine. Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out.
Mike:Yeah. I really like the one Alcremie feels pretty. It feels pretty nice. I think I'm probably overusing it a little bit because there are, there are, there have been games where all attacked with it fairly early and then I'll run out of energy. So I think I probably need to just use it more often as taking my last two or three prizes. I think the Trevnoir is really good. I probably would not play a dedicated Trevnoir version, but I like really like having one of in the deck. It's super powerful being able to go. Marnie Nightwatch is really good. Pale moon. GX can be good in some spots over all the deck. I think it's favorite against basically everything. That's not a dark deck. That's what it seems like to me. So the one question that I had for you guys is what do you think is the optimal amount of V maxes to get into play? is it two or is it three
Brit:I mean, I think it can be math trip dependent, but. I can't really think of a game. That's a scenario where I'm not really rushing to get three of the basic fees down, basically as soon as possible. Like, and maybe we go about it differently, but I very, very rarely I mean, and again, this can be matchup dependent, but I very rarely get Alcremie out until the very, very end of the game. Like I just, I just try to stabilize on the board with as many Calyrex as possible. And then I'll, I'll try to find Alcremie on like the second to last turn of the game. And then, and the game on the following turn with it is, is a lot of, is how a lot of my games go. And I think that's how I described it last week too. But I think three is definitely the right answer. And there's just a lot of match-ups too, at least the way the meta game goes currently with the other ones were. Outside of the dark. Match-ups nothing is really like super threatening to you. So you're just also free to air balloon out. There's just a damage one on your bench. Like everything is two shots you in pretty awkward ways. For the most part. So you just have so much time to also to force them, to have the boss, to even take their first knockout and things like that. So I think that's why you can prioritize them even for maybe if
Brent:So Mike, I'm interested in your reaction. I feel like my answers. Is probably if I was a better player, I could like walk through it, match it by matchup. But I think, I think the nuance I would add is it's, it's like a little bit matchup and it's a little bit like, well, what do they start? And what do I start? And cause like, like if you start Calyrex, you're going to want to get two more out. You're definitely going to want to get two more out. Whereas like, if you start, if you start gang Gar, you might be like, you know what it's going to be. Okay. Like, and I think it depends on what you think the odds are that they're going to like boss Kayo at Calyrex right away. Or if you're going to be like, kind of chilling, because I think, I think the, cause I've thought about this too. I think everybody thinks about this as you're trying to figure out like how you're going to set up your board. Like three, if you get three energies on the board, every turn, that's a lot of energy. Like I don't think you need three V. Max is set up because. At least like, I know we talked about this a little bit last week, but like, I feel like it's a little bit I'm bad player, but like, if I use the ability three times, I'm going to run out of energy in a hot second. They sent me and then I drive into like no energy and I'm like, I got all my energy lasts for a man, let me build my hand size. So, so I feel like if I attach more than two energies using the ability, I feel like I'm going too fast and pushing too hard in most situations. So, so I think like, you're, I think I'm trying to set up usually like two of the V maxes. So then it also depends on like, if I start the V and I, or I think I'm going to end up attacking with the V, like maybe, you know, I look at my prizes and I say, okay, I'm not going to attack the Bandar all this a game. Or, or like, you know, something else is janky about it. Like if you think you're going in early kind of to Britt's point, like maybe I'm air ballooning more aggressively and like swapping pieces around. But so I think it's, I think there's a lot of things that play into that decision because they do so much, like, you know, you, you get drawn out of it, you get energy acceleration out of it. You're there. They, you know, they're I don't think of them maybe as a primary attacker, but they're like a really important attacker in some games. So, so it's, it's a little tricky.
Mike:yeah. yeah. I mean, these are, yeah, these are all the things that I'm thinking about too. And I think in general and my, like my instinct tells me to go for three, kind of like how Brett was talking about, but I've had lots of games where I run into bench space issues. Like all, maybe I'll fill up my fill of my board and then I'll get Marnie Path to the Peak. And I'm like, oh, well now I can't marsh shadow out of it. And that sucks. And so, yeah, I think, I agree. Like if I start the Shadow Rider, then I almost always get two more, but. If I start Ganga Ganga or Trevnoir or a DNA or something. Yeah. Basically those three, then I'll often only go for two because you want to, you want to try to keep a bench space open for either
Brent:Yeah. And like, and it depends what they're playing. Right. They're playing ADP. You're like, oh yeah, I'll just set up to, it'll be fine. If they're playing something where like, you feel like they're really aggressive it, turn it, this you're like, okay, we're going to set up three. We gotta let's get, we need the whole gang here, but I, yeah, I recognize you. And I both play the Trevnoir where it's not playing the truck off. So maybe he doesn't have quite the bench space from,
Brit:I play one.
Brent:oh, dude.
Brit:I played, I played chaotic swells though, which I, which I think is fairly relevant because of my shadow. I have a little more freedom in my bench space. A lot of time times I can think of this where I do. I just wait. I have to wait for something to get knocked out and then I can marshmallow, but usually because of how aggressive I'm playing, because I seem, I, it sounds like I, I prioritize the Calyrex a little more than either of you. Because of that, I just feel like I'm usually far enough ahead. If I can usually get, like, to turn, you know, a Turner to, with drawing six cards using the ability three times, I can like you know, what's, what's the word I'm looking for? Sort of crawl my way through a Turner two without abilities, and then eventually get the Mar shadow. But, but the chaotic swells, which I play too. Help in that regard, that forces, it can impede their ability to peak me and then equally as a peak response that does that doesn't demand five an open bench space.
Brent:Are you playing the a, is that Bilson.
Brit:Nope.
Brent:just played in streets like it. And then, and then you you, have you're you're just like so how do you feel about your Eternatus matchup? Is it, I mean, you're not playing the path of the teak or the is that those who just throw? Yeah.
Brit:I just listened to it. I don't think it turned into this isn't any good. I don't mind.
Mike:Like for you, you are playing Alcremie right. One, one Alcremie. Yeah, you can beat. So like, I feel like the way that you can beat attorney, the only way you can really beat Eternatus is you use like, you use your, your use your Alcremie to one shot and Eternatus, which requires a lot of energy, but you do that
Brit:Okay.
Mike:and then they, maybe they, or I don't know, they, they eat kill the Alcremie somehow and they have their second Eternatus up and then you have to go like stamp pale moon. Maybe that is like a way to win the game. You go Stan pale moon, something like that. Or like stamp boss, Nightwatch them to zero and then bring the Eternatus back up. So you have to do like really weird plays. I think it's like you can win. It's just
Brent:I mean, when I think about the games that I've won, that's exactly how it goes. It's like, The other, the other way I'll play is if I talk with Alcremie at the end, it'll be like Marnie Nightwatch and he says, oh, I break because of playing Eternatus.
Mike:yeah. One other so a couple of other things that I'm curious on your thoughts about. So one thing that I saw, I think I saw play it, do this the first time, but a lot of people are running like four switch to air balloons. But Vittorio flipped that and he runs for air balloons to switch. And that's where I've been since then. Matt seems way better to me.
Brit:Yeah, I caught that from I think I mentioned it last week, but it was from Gabe smart. He, he had a really, really, it was, his list was still doing as Aptos and Aurora energy, but he had a very heavy air balloon. Sort of the very next time I built Shadow Rider and it's so good. It's so very good.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, that definitely seems to be the way to go. And the other thing that I just started trying today was Danny sent us a list with a little bit less supporters. I think it just goes through Juniper, 3d Marnie, but then way more item search. So I think it had four quick ball. So the standard is kind of like four quick ball, four or five crystal and like three or four incense. But this is for quick ball, four or five. Three great ball and three or four communication. So like w significantly more. And the idea is just, you know, set up, set up your shadow writers ASAP, and that's your draw engine. And that seems kind of cool.
Brent:And how many more shadows are you buying and how many and what's your stadium.
Mike:I haven't played any stadiums pretty much at all the whole
Brent:So have you thought about, I know Isaiah Bradner was selling three more shadows, In, in like one of his earliest, that channel.
Mike:I think I would just play chaotics well, if I was going to play a third more shadow
Brent:Yeah. You know what? I think he was playing, I think he was playing for
Mike:a girl,
Brent:and three marsh and he was just like every third
Mike:Yeah, that
Brent:Peak Marsha, Marsha
Mike:Yeah. I mean, that would, that would make sense, but I just think we have, if you're not playing Path to the Peak swell for the bench space, reasons That I just talked about swell just seems really good. I am unsure if you're so like the Alcremie is really good against ice rider, but without swells, I'm not sure. I think the matchup is definitely worse without swells. I think if you played two swells and the Alcremie are like a pretty big favorite against ice rider, but without swells, I think it's probably a lot closer. Cause they have the four Path to the Peak
Brent:Yeah. maybe moral stories is just bad ladder, but like, I feel like, I feel like I've won all those games, bad ladder. I get, I can't figure out like, who's the who's who's favorite. Who's not favorite there,
Mike:You are right though that I remember we talked about it maybe two weeks ago, do not play the gang guard Mimikyu down against ice rider, unless you're going to like, unless you just basically win the game. Right. Like maybe, maybe they only have one Pokemon out and you're going second, and then you whorehouse and then you essentially win after
Brent:Yeah. You're just, you're just handing over three prizes in a turn
Mike:it.
Brent:and then, and then they two-shot something and win the game and you're like, oh, that's bad. and two shouting things is easy for us. Right. Cause you you, do the hiking and then you hit for two 50 and one like you haven't, you haven't turned a boss there just the way it plays out.
Mike:The only other card that I'm pretty unsure about is ordinary rod. Pardon me? Really just wants to play like an extra psychic energy over it. So I was playing just 14 psychics, no ordinary ride. And then I'm trying out. 13 psychics plus the one rod. I think the only benefit is being able to get back your one-ups if you have to discard them early, like the, like the Alcremie maybe you want a second Trevnoir or something like that. I don't know. Do you guys have thoughts on ordinary
Brit:play 14 psychic and still the rod. It's very good. I recycle basically, as you said just, and as I described my game strategy is usually such that Alcremie hits the board pretty late. So it lets me freely sort of get rid of them here and there. I'm pretty consistently discarding. And then one of my deck is much more thin. It gets routed back in, but also in more shatter too. I think in, in considering, you know, how many, two, three Mar shadow two-three swell, blah, blah, blah, than broad, very soft as a very soft copy of both the, either of those cards potentially. For recycling it. And I think that's, you know, maybe in conjunction just with getting your energy back, I, I think ordinary rod has an auto and cleared. I think if you want to just be aggressive and drought, drought, drought always have energy, not have to worry about running out or being stamped and whipping them and what forth, what I think that rods just run so good. I really, really love rod. Actually. I did my Inteleon index a lot too. Which most people don't, but I similarly kind of stand by it in there. One other thing too, I think worth talking about maybe where my list deviates from a lot, I do notice that people tend to play to gain ganger Mimikyu. Is that. Is that a must. I only play one. So that's why I'm wondering what you guys think about that. I only play one and I mean, admittedly, I don't think I've had a game where I've relevantly prized it, but I rarely have, I've never wanted a second one.
Mike:Yeah, I also only play one. I mean, if you go first, you don't really use it a lot of the time. Like sometimes you do, but if you go first, there's lots of, most of the games you don't use it. So like half of the games it's useless
Brent:Right, If, if you prize at 10% of the time and you go in second 50%, you horror house people, you know, and you, you miss out on a chance to whorehouse people like one out of every 20 games you play.
Mike:Yeah, it seems fine. And with the four air balloon plus like four quick ball, four or five, like it's not, there's not really a finding it issue. Like if you want it and it's in the deck, you almost always
Brent:Yeah. I, I think I mean, obviously we're, we're already rebels because we continue to play the Trevnoir. I feel like everyone else is cutting it left and right. But, but yeah, I like the I've played the game where I prized the Gangstar and I wanted a whorehouse set turned to this fine. Like, it would have been nice if I could have her house, but like still, I mean, it's, it's a really strong back. It was fine. I assume if I was like playing around a tenant or regionals, it'd probably be more upsetting, but like random ladder was fine.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So here's my question about ordinary rod. Would you ever, like what's funny is I feel like the only things that you could be sad about this carding is like Alcremie VMX and Shadow Rider V. Max is from like a Pokemon perspective, like maybe at the DNA or like a mark shadow, you might want to. But would you ever consider doing something like a, an energy retrieval instead of an ordinary rock? Like why put it in the deck? Why not like do that thing? Cause I, I, I know what you want to do when you're putting the energy into your day. What I'd like to do is put that into my hand. I I'm like Mike, I haven't played the ordinary rod because I just can't I'm like why I can just play another psychic energy. It's great. But, but when I thought about it, I wondered if there were, if I would just like, want to focus on retrieving more energy.
Mike:I would try it. Yeah. I would try that first.
Brent:Like if you, I feel like if somebody stamped you to too, and you like drew an energy retrieval, you'd be like, it's gonna be a great time. It could be a fantastic time. We're gonna, we're going to go guys. Whereas if you do an energy rod, you'd be like, or ordinary, I'd be like, it's okay. Like ordinary Rod's always playable, but energy or triple you'd be like. We're going to do this thing. I don't know. Let's talk about
Mike:so I saw, I don't know if anybody else has played this deck. I assume it came from somewhere, but I saw chip playing it on stream. The other night. It's basically play three matrass, two Negan, Adele, Gus Lord, and then like four energy switch for turbo patch for peony for boss. So it's kind of like, the ADP Moltres. But there's no ADP. And it's like, you have Moltres for the Shadow Rider. Again, it all goes, Lord is a really interesting card right now because obviously it's dark energy. So it's easily paired up with It has higher HP than all the other tech teams, two 80 and it has it's healing ability. So it's pretty, it's really hard one-shot and sometimes you can get around to can't really get around two shots, but you can get around the efficient two shots, if that makes sense. So Like you might force ice rider, for example, they might not always be able to go like ride to the hiking into Lance. They might have to discard energy first or something like. that. But as attack is. You know, 180 and it's, so it's two shot in anything and it can one shot Crobat and Dennis, which is efficient and it's GX attack. You know, you just draw two prizes straight up. So you can, in many, many games, you can pretty efficiently draw six prizes rather than having to draw a seven or eight prizes. So it's, it's just kind of a, it's a pretty cool deck. And it's something that I hadn't seen before the other day. And I want to, I played a couple of games with it and I want to keep trying it. You also play, it also plays a one yellow horn. So I think the original idea of the deck was you would knock out the DNA or Crobat yellow horn knockout to Danny or Crobat and then a GX attack for six prizes. Not every deck plays the diner Crobat anymore, or at least doesn't play it down. So you don't really get that Path to the Path, to victory every single game. But that, that option is, is there. So I don't know. Have you guys seen it at all or
Brent:It's still a mystery.
Brit:Yeah, I was aware of its existence. I think it popped up in the group chat maybe last week and I caught it just prying through the results as I always do, but yeah, then pretty cynical. I never thought that card is really all that good. I know, sort of in the really early iterations of like Ms. Maggie is like Tina Trump's stuff would, would play it all the time and I never really thought it was any good in there. The Roxy chopping, expanded, played it. I remember it was in the list we play in, in Dallas too. Similarly was underwhelmed like Moltres rice is a really good card experiment around it sort of can't imagine that it's better than ADP. I think that deck is fine. Maybe. Yeah, it doesn't quite have the raw power level that ADP D have in the last format, but I think ed and even sort of earlier versions of it are competent. And I think, I think you have to play a more shadow almost for sure, but Marsha had her own swells. I guess again, and that's one thing too, that I like him, you know, maybe more on the corner of the older version is that with, with Moltres raise you just like it. So many energies and you just can't really play spinners anymore. So you have to play Verdeans. I mean, I guess it does on its own just is helpful against peak. But I just think swell is a better card and it's always a better card when you can't play it in very high quantities. So that's why I just think, I know some people played it. I noticed I saw someone do well with it in an IRL tournament, and I did didn't have really anything interesting about it, but just again, a Mar shadow and some escape ropes. But I think they're fine decks, but I, I can't imagine that they're, they don't think Gus Lord is better than either of them. If you're playing a dragon tag team, for whatever reason with your dark Pokemon, instead of just like the wave I'll options or what happened.
Brent:Yeah. I feel like it underscores that Moltres is a really good card and people are going to do a, there's going to be a million different kind of things people do to try to figure out how to like, take advantage of a card that has like that kind of awesome energy acceleration and, you know yeah, but like the weevil thing is like such an obvious combination. It's kind of slapped in the face, but I think we'll see all kinds of crazy stuff. Like, like the same thing. Was that the Tina chomp list that Frank and hunter were dragging around for awhile. Like that, the way that you used cocoa prism, just to get like an energy on the board. So you could do that thing. Moltres is like a better version of that, right? I, I know I, I had comment that down in the show notes a little later that I was at, I wanted to ask you guys about Mallomar V max, because I I'd been looking at some Mallomar V max lists. I think it's a really interesting, like it's as close, I think, as there is to control post rotation probably as it gets. And like a lot of that stuff is like, how do I discard darks really quickly with Moltres to get Mallomar BMX is up. How do I find the introduce, which has really quickly, and like the list that I looked at, he was running a bunch of Aurora energies. The only reason he was running them was the discard dark.
Mike:Yeah, Without yeah. Cause what do you have? You have quick ball, at least post rotation. You're not, you don't have radiant forest anymore, which is probably the best way to do it.
Brent:Yeah. It was like Aurora energy, quick ball Veridian, and professor's research. Like those are the tools you have to discard the darks. And Like it was a little strange.
Mike:Yeah, I think I mean, we can talk more about Mallomar specifically, but also someone tweeted at me a couple of days ago. Cause remember I said that, I thought Inteleon would be like the quote unquote best card in the format. And it has proved to be very, very good in the way that I thought it would. It, it brought kind of the Inteleon engine really into light and it's the Inteleon engine. It's quite powerful and popular now, but Moltres has done the same exact thing if maybe even more so it's kind of given an engine to it, to a lot of decks, which is, which is really cool. Yeah, Mallomar is
Brent:No, it's weak the grass
Mike:I don't even know where's the weak to grass.
Brent:end. That's actually pretty nice.
Mike:that's good.
Brit:I don't think it would be remotely viable.
Brent:Yeah, Yeah. But yeah, the fact that it, the fact that it has a weakness, that this is not really in the meta right now just makes it that much better. And the chance to like, look at someone's hand and pick a card to remove from their hand. That's a really good,
Mike:yeah. we've only seen weevil versions at least in standards. So, but I do wonder if maybe you could run an energy
Brent:I mean, obviously we vial is like, you know in our current format, why would you mess with, you know, trying to look into energy switches when you could just set up a, we vile and declare victory?
Mike:I got to set up another state on
Brent:As we said, setting up multiple Yeah. The, the idea that Marnie and Malabar V max are both in the format simultaneously, like surely while it doesn't seem like it's had great tournament results yet. I don't know how it couldn't eventually get a good tournament results. Yeah. I just feel like if you repeatedly Marnie, a guy and then look at his hand and a shuffle, one of the cards back in, like, how could he, how could he possibly not draw dead? Seems good. I've come full circle on the Mallomar deck, despite the fact that I've never lost it because they've never successfully powered up a Mallomar in any game that I've played. It seems like it should be okay. I don't know. I mean, maybe that's because all the good, all those games, I was playing ice rider and it was just like half of the peak. And then he was like, like, okay,
Mike:Yeah. there's, there's gotta be some engine out there. It's Moltres is so good. Maybe maybe, maybe it's Inteleon Mallomar maybe that's
Brent:Yeah. Well, and then, you know I mean, it could be that we're waiting for them to print another card or two in the next, you know, two or three sets that's gonna like, make us say, oh my God, it's too good. It's too good. You know, like, like if they printed like a dark type P Tran people will be like, oh, well that's really good. You could do a thing.
Mike:that's
Brent:Yeah. Th there's there's lots of cards I want to talk about sword and shield on a little bit, because for reasons I've known, that's what I've been messing around with.
Mike:yeah. So we had some different tournament's happened in the last few days. There was a in real life event in New Jersey. I don't really know all the details of what was played, but I do know that two of the decks that made, so I know the top four all split the money. So there wasn't like a winner or a second place, but two of the top four decks were Inteleon ice rider, but it ran three or four of the new Inteleon. So it was all the ping. Inteleon not, not the search one. And I think that, and it ran like a vitality bander too. And the thought was to actually try in one shot. V max is essentially so that was played by angel Miranda and a interest in basic. And then the other kind of interesting deck was Peter Kiko playing the Zacian Inteleon deck. So again, both both playing Inteleon versions of, of these architects. So that was, those were pretty interesting lists to see. I played the Zacian Inteleon deck yesterday in the, in the mitis tournament and it didn't really feel that great to me, to be honest I think it obviously will beat ice rider, which is probably the best deck in the format. But other than that, it didn't, I mean, like I did. Okay. I went four and two, but it just didn't feel very good. So I'm not sure if I'd play that again. I'd probably just stick with. ice rider or Shadow Rider or something. But there was that tournament. And so there was the mightest tournament as well, which I just mentioned. But you are Brent, you, you made a comment about,
Brent:Yeah. One of the things I thought was interesting. That I love about the sort of shield on format was he, so he won playing a Shadow Rider deck and he had a tech fighting energy, which I love. So instead of the Aurora, he ran one fighting energy. I just dug that because I recognize that you know, you, you the value of the Aurora is a gift to attack with Jane Gar or Trevnoir like, you might need psychic energy specifically to do this thing. If, if you were going to run Aurora energy, you can run one fighting energy. That's nice.
Mike:yeah. And I think he ran training court and I saw, I think it becomes a lot more like the fighting becomes much more
Brent:yeah. That, that is a true And I like, you know, it's funny. I thought that there were two kind of sword and shield on Shadow Rider list that did research did well recently there was a tournament in Brazil that ran the, the guy went nine oh, with the Shadow Rider Dragapult lists. Did you guys see that?
Mike:woo.
Brent:And I was trying to figure out, like, I was like, oh, that went nine. Oh, is that is like Shadow Rider. Dragapult the good thing. And then like three days later, second wins with a list that to me looked a much more normal. So I was like, oh, okay, good. I prefer playing the one, one Alcremie line to cutting it, cutting everything and putting it into, to drive a whole line.
Mike:Yeah. The the stadiums in these Shadow Rider decks are so funny to me. So you don't have marsh shadow on chaotic swell anymore, but you still need counters to Path to the Peak. Cause ice rider generated plays for Path to, the Peak. So you have some play training court and but a lot of them play. Old cemetery, which is not really a very good card. It's whenever you attach an energy to a non psychic, put two damage counters on it. Like, it's just not very good, but I guess there's just not any other options out there. I might just play, like, I would probably just play three or four training
Brent:You know, it's that'd be the thing that jumped out to me was you've actually played a lot of sort of shield on games. I I'm mostly theory Mohnish at this point, I thought. It's obviously Path to the people comes a lot better when chaotic swell and mark Shadow Rider form. I mean, it is sort of shield on a format where like, you just have to run for stadiums because otherwise you're gonna get past the fee. Like you run caught the peak or you counter it.
Mike:I think it depends on your deck, but yeah, for the decks that really rely on their abilities. Like I was playing the Zacian Inteleon deck and yes, you want to Intrepid soar. Sometimes, but I didn't play any stadiums at all because generally past, Like the second turn, you don't need to Intrepid sword that often. And if you're a pun in place at the beak, you're just like, alright, whatever. It's just not an option. But but yeah, I think Shadow Rider probably does need to play for stadiums. Cause it's still reliant on
Brent:And if that makes me field blower, like there's no item based a stadium or mobile, you just have to run more stuff.
Mike:yeah. The deck that really gets hurt by too, as a Turnitin, it's like, there's a turn. It is, I feel like can afford to play for stadiums, but it has to run for Crobat. Right. And so I feel like if it turns, some is already not that great and sword and shield on, and I feel like ice rider being potentially the best deck
Brent:yeah. well, I, and obviously they need the BMX ability to get the damage and they need the Moltres to get damage on forward. But yeah, that's the classic micro shame on moment, right?
Mike:Yep. Still can't remember that.
Brent:they are definitely. And the second you play the Path to the Peak, they have to like shrink their bench down. So like they have to be constantly finding both stadiums and Pokemon to maintain damage output throughout the game. It seems true.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. The one deck that I really did want to, well, before we talking about this, just shout out there there's someone that I played in the tournament yesterday, that before we started, he was like big fan of the podcasts. Like big fan of you, which was cool. He played a, played a Rillaboom Rillaboom Dax or Rillaboom Rillaboom BMX. And we had a really nice game. I ended up coming out on top, but it was really close. So shout out to him juicy what's his name? But one of the decks that I lost to was Sandra condom VMX paired with Inteleon primarily the chilling rain Inteleon. And when I was getting ready to play this, my assump, I saw that it ran for Cheryl. So my assumption was that they were going to use sand kind V max is 180 attack to move energy to you know, another Sandra Conda then played Cheryl then whatever, but that's not really their primary strategy. And I didn't realize this until halfway through our game. they actually use Sandra condoms. First attack much more often, which does 60 to the active and 20 to each of your opponent's bench. and then coupled with the Inteleon pings, it's actually a pretty nasty spread deck. Sheryl obviously, you know, is much more effective when you only need to attack for one energy. And yeah, they beat me or it was a fairly close game, but I didn't feel in control of the entire game. I had a chance to win at the end, but yeah, he kind of just checkmated me, so really cool deck and I really love seeing spread decks do well. He went five, one, he lost two a, she lost a second in the last but I don't know if you guys looked at that list. It's really cool.
Brent:I I did look at it because I had a couple of good tournaments. Gimme Archer had a tournament where he played it like four or five days ago and did pretty well. I think, I feel like that was like the first time that I think I saw this kind of iteration of that same account, but seeing it, when they a couple of the games, it definitely seems like it's a thing and it still has like the ditto on limitless. So you're always like, well, what does that deck that did well? Oh, it's Cindy kinda like, I, I feel like every time I click on the data now it's say the comment. I don't know if you guys have had that experience, but like they definitely had to get this into kind of logo.
Mike:Yeah. I'm interested in trying it or really cool deck.
Brent:should we talk about blast toys and Inteleon Brett, I think you had some, some thoughtful
Brit:Nothing too impactful in the I haven't played it either, so I don't want to reach too far with my thoughts. But I have seen it. I know Kevin Clemente has been messing around with it. I re I've just recalling, countering it here and there on a ladder in previous formats. And they're really struggling against it. Occasionally being impressed by it. And it just, it's one of those decks, like. Toga kiss, things like that. It's just, we're not even a percent viable in the last format of Pikarom, but now that Pikarom is just gone, at least for the moment, it may be will rear its head one more time. I think lightening week decks do have a place then I just think Melanie, you know, we're, we are using it very effectively and shatter riders, but there are older cards, of course, older ice views that you could try it with whether the blast toys, slap Russ. And I think most realistically just Inteleon I think like Inteleon Inteleon with Melanie and a small frost mop is like really good. I just think Inteleon as a deck has always really shined in those games where you get. I think it's called max bullet, I'm blinking, but the one, the three energy attack, like always been a really good deck. When you do get that that on your second turn and with Melanie, that's a super duper consistent you know, almost completely ignoring for asthma. But I still think you would play it. Just as something you probably want to set up at some point in the game. But yeah, I think these decks are worth exploring a little and again just Inteleon, it's so good. And natural pairing really, really great for, with supporters like Melanie, and you're just not hurt by Path to the Peak. You can even play it yourself. So I think that's just, you know, a way to something to explore. I know you have to do. You know, slightly different things in your strategy, because if you don't, you know, I think you're just playing a worse ice rider sort of at the end of the day. So you have to like, you know, Inteleon, for instance, I think you have to play tele telescopic sight and things like that. It, it can't just be a straight up, you know, copy and paste the list, but swap out the BMX is I think, I think people mentioned laparoscope before, like some of these texts could even play greens potentially. Like, of course then you don't play Inteleon anymore, but there's just things to experiment with. And I think Melanie is just a good card, but I don't think we've explored very much in, you know, in the game currently, since it's been released.
Brent:Yeah, I feel like that's the underlying messages. Melanie is a really good card and like, interestingly and tell him to be my ex like all the problems you have with ice rider Ray, to say it's really hard to play boss because you're playing Melanie every turn, like S writer kind of. A little bit. So you're like, well, I'll just snipe everything to death and it will be fine.
Mike:Yeah. I think if water had a an attacker that was like Boltund or Shadow rider where I did more damage based on the amount of. energy on your field than blast ways, feedbacks, max would be much better because you could essentially Full Blitz and then have some like big attack, like right now you use the Full Blitz attack and then you can do his second attack, which is two 20. You don't really need, I feel like you wouldn't need frost mods in these decks because Melanie is just good enough.
Brent:Mike, I it's also worth commenting in this wave of the Inteleon this, I think I've come full circle and I'm, I'm digging your hot take now. So here's the question. Are people wrong if they ever don't play at least one chilling rains? Inteleon.
Mike:I think it really depends on the deck. Like the Zacian deck doesn't really get any mileage out of pings. So I don't think it needs to play that, but I think like I used to write, or at least in current standard, a ping is so useful because tag teams are still in the format, post rotation. It's a little unclear, but most deck, I would say most X probably want at least one of the thing, but not all of them.
Brent:I, you know, I, I I have enjoyed having that. Inteleon so much, I feel like I I'd be hard pressed. And maybe if I was really testing hard on some list, I would find excuses, but like, so, I mean, Peter's a, Zacian lists a, he plays the age of slash, but like I found the chilling rains Inteleon to be more than enough counter for the situ I list that I've run into. And other decks that I've played, like the fact that it, it had perfect numbers to, to shot a situ I it's virtually impossible for decision why that two shot at back. And you can be like pinging rallies as they set them up. Like I found if I have two chilling reins, Inteleon like, oh, there's just no way on earth. The situation's going to win this. Like, it's a, it's a hard counter.
Mike:yeah, that's fair.
Brent:why would I run this age slash where I could run chili Inteleon and get like ping effects. Although, you know, if you need to set up, I guess the other Inteleon just to, to keep your trainer running and that that's, It's a hard sell, but then if you hit the situation, you have choices. If you need math, you have choices. I love the idea that there's multiple playable Inteleon and you have like optionality to figure out how to get to where you're trying to go.
Mike:yeah, I agree. One card and that kind of plays into that is I feel like scoop up net is pretty underplayed in Inteleon decks. I feel like most of most lists that running the Inteleon engine should play with like one of scoop up net. Because it obviously you're we're using like the drizzles ability and potentially the Italian's ability, but also what you said, it gives you flexibility of which Inteleon you want. Out at certain times which is super good. And it's obviously searchable yeah, one off script. I mean, it just feels really good, especially in the post rotation, meta game. It's also like an extra switch card essentially in the early game. If you just need to get a Sabal
Brent:In real life events.
Mike:I am officially signed up for the two events in August. And I bought, like we talked about, I bought cards. I built my first in real life deck in over a year. My advice rider Inteleon. Very exciting. I shuffled it up and drew a couple of hands to play
Brent:and they're playing post rotation.
Mike:Currently. The w the 10 K is the app push rotation, sword, and shield on, And then the Hexter event is planned to be current standard. So team up through sailing rain, but I saw Ethan post on Twitter today, like a poll asking which format people would be more interested
Brent:Yeah. I, I think I saw, I saw somebody responding to the poll where they were saying. I'd rather play our current standard format, but if I'm going to buy cards, I want it to be post rotation B I don't want to have to play two different decks, these two different tournaments, please, please, please make it post rotation. And I thought that sounds about right. Like if you're going to start playing a bunch of in real life events, kind of back to back to back, like you'd like a meta to evolve. Like that's like plan standard and that expanded, like back-to-back weekends, everyone hates it and they're all miserable. Right? Like you just started to figure something out that first weekend. And then they're like, okay, also we're changing the format completely now.
Mike:Yeah, it would be cool too, since the events, are close to each other geographically and pretty much the same. Like, there'll be some people I think that only play in one or the other, but largely it'll be a lot of the same people. If it's the same format you get that like, city championship, marathon effect or the meta game might shift dramatically day to maybe not because people won't have that many cards and they can't switch decks at will,
Brent:Yeah. that'd be the end of the city championships where people were playing these like crazy Jake decks that are like just highly responsive to the meta as opposed to actual best second
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah, probably won't see as much of that because people are not driving around with like boxes of cards in their back of their car tournaments coming up, guys, any plans?
Mike:there is like a chill regional event this Saturday, but I'm not playing in that. And I know carp DS rats is also doing a sword and shield on event. I think also Saturday, if it was Sunday, I might be playing in it, but I'm busy all day, Saturday, so I can't play neither of those, but those, are for the listeners. Those are the
Brent:Yeah, for listeners in the Northern Virginia area, you can send me a text message. We'll we have the Hyatt's over. So we have apparently a collection of RSP, K decks, a collection of standard format decks, and a collection of sword and shield on decks. So we're going to be I'm going to be back next week with more bad hot takes on a variety of formats. Anything else, Brett, you got any plans?
Brit:Yeah. And maybe the Sunday open will work out this weekend. But I'll be busy on Saturdays. So that, that sounds fun. I would have stuff on the weekends. Generally, it would seem but if I wasn't, I would play that chill. That event sounds a lot of fun. I would probably play ice rider. I like, I just enjoy it more than Shadow Rider. Yeah. Yeah,
Brent:seems like a plan. All right guys. Victory.