I'm excited. I've seen some seen some good takes on just mew in general. I'm curious as to where we'll land with it. There's clearly, clearly very good. Perhaps better than most people expected, but some claims I still find a little outlandish.
Brent:Welcome to the Trashalanche podcast. We appreciate it. Pybas. Same intro every week, same attendance every week. Uh, we have no reviews. People should leave us reviews. People should follow us on Twitter at Hayes wise at M Fouchet at B how long is it? Shea? I did that, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. I even know our Twitter handles it's a better than cell phone numbers. The only podcast that tells Pokemon who should be the official podcast, is that a good tagline? It might be,
Brit:I don't know if the Spotify wraps and stuff coming out today, I've seen a good enough amount of screenshots of people sharing, like Kevin Clemente, like a rage, like, yeah. I haven't seen a whole lot of those for us, unfortunately. So I don't know. It might be a little bold to claim the
Brent:but, but we are the only podcast that tells Pokemon. We should be the official.
Brit:That's true. Yeah.
Brent:that's. Our differentiation is, is the difference.
Mike:I wouldn't be surprised. Well, so two things with the Spotify rap that I was thinking about today, cause I also saw the one, I wouldn't be surprised if our listeners were the type of people that were a little more apathetic and weren't going to post them anyway. Kind of like us were a little more apathetic on our marketing. So maybe that, uh, rolls over to our listeners. Um, and second, I do know one person that, uh, message me privately that we were their top listening podcast.
Brent:Yeah go you, whoever you were mystery person. We appreciate it. We, oh, you know what? We did get a, another review. Like somebody left us a FitStar leave a review. Obviously it's weird as always, it's weird to get a five star review and not a review because it means that I'm paying attention when they go through the review process, we appreciate it, but like, you know, it's your chance get to it. Uh, we're sponsored by channel fireball. Kayla told me the more and more local game stores are joining and that means more and more inventory which is a good thing right there. They're going head to head. I think with TCG player, it's always interesting to see people build marketplace businesses. You know, I, I neglected to say two weeks ago that that was episode 66. I think that's probably a milestone worth noting episode 69, right around the corner. Hopefully I will not forget to note that episode 69 as always will be nice. I, so we, we missed, we missed, we took a week off for Turkey day. There were a couple of notes that I'd written down in the show notes that I wanted to just get you guys hot, take reactions to very quickly before we dive into the real things. And we have real things this week, Mike planted some tournaments and played against a bunch of you. I'm sure. So that's a big thing. The first thing is I just realized if we've never discussed it before, it's worth taking a moment. There are so many people that say Rouge decks instead of rogue decks. They're totally are.
Mike:Like say it out loud or type it.
Brent:I I've, I've seen some people say it out loud. I've seen a lot of people type it.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, that was something. Yeah. W when I w I feel like when I was younger, I really made that mistake quite often, or at least like, always, like really had to think about which way to spell it and like, look it up like many, many times, but since I've used it enough, so I understand where they're coming from, but I can't imagine saying it in real life.
Brit:mean, not saying it wouldn't surprise me if you, if you played in my neck of the woods, like at all, I just can't, I can't tell you the pronunciations people will take sometimes with Pokemon, that's just like purposefully dyslexic or something. Like, there's just like a lack as there's just random letters shifted around and things like that, but it just happens so frequently. Good examples off the top of my head, but playing in Arkansas and parts of Missouri, Oklahoma, and so forth. You get
Brent:mean, we, we called it Eternatus for like weeks and weeks and weeks. Right.
Brit:yeah.
Brent:So
Brit:Yeah. I mean, fair
Brent:But it sounds, it sounds like both of you could see a path to people as saying Rouge when they mean rogue and being very forgiving about it. That's a, that's very congenial. If you guys truly, we are filled with the Christmas spirit, me, I it absolutely gets. Um, do the other, the other hot thing I wanted to get is I feel like the Metta seems like it's super mew dominated right now. Just broadly speaking. Is there like an opinion that we should have as a pod on whether or not it's better to have a Metta that's dominated by like the same tag team three prize, basic Pokemon for set after set after set after set or have, have a game where like the Meadows dominated by whichever card was like released most recently because the power creep is real.
Brit:Yeah, I've seen some good takes kind of on this point or at least adjacent to it. And, and, and as far as just like, you know, as Pokemon, just becoming that next game, like Yu-Gi-Oh and things like that, which I know we've talked about on the podcast before, but, or at least the, sort of the insinuation that the like the power creep itself is like nothing but like a money grab seems wrong to me. But it's a good question though. I don't know. I mean, for me, it just doesn't matter. Like, I, you know, I've said this sort of thing before, but I'm just like, I'm here to play Pokemon, you know, we're going to play the cards we're dealt. But like, ideally what would be better? I'm not sure. Like, I both seem to have good arguments for and against, I think.
Mike:Yeah, and I think it depends on. The cards themselves. Like I don't mind that Zoroark GX, for example, was very dominant for a long time. It was a pretty Guild testing card, lots of different ways to play it. It wasn't like one Zoroark archetype was the dominant bag. It was just Zoroark in general. And it kind of adapted and changed. I would argue peek around to some extent with similar, like pick her I'm adapted. It changed even though a little bit less so than Zoroark obviously. Um, but I didn't really mind that that much. Um, and I think some of the cards that have come out from set to set are somewhat skilled testing, like bag of halt. I think when it first came out, it was pretty skilled testing deck, uh, turn. It is not quite as much. Um, but then Shadow Rider, you could kind of make an argument both ways. Uh, so I think it, I think it depends on the cards as well. Um, I'm not sure from you
Brent:think, I think that's a good, I, I, that seems like a very reasonable heartache. I, I feel like, I mean, my gut is the muse going to evolve like right now, like you just leaned super heavily on Genesek, but I assume as they print other cards, you'd be like, well, we can do this other thing.
Mike:Maybe, but like Jenna sect is like really part of the reason that the deck is so broken. Right. Cause you just draw so many cards. So I mean, maybe you can maybe you'll slot in like another attacker too, if they come out, but
Brent:I mean, maybe,
Mike:still playing for
Brent:is Genesek is going to get other friends as they
Mike:Okay. There you go. Yeah.
Brent:Like, like, you know, like, like this, this combo is not probate attorney this, Right. Like, it's not that it's not like, so parasitic that you're just an idiot. If you didn't pair these two cards together, like it's just two really, really good cards. And they're like, let's merge them together and you got a deck.
Mike:Yeah. That's a good point. I am hopeful that. Jenna sect is able to be played with other things. I feel like you might play like a small new line maybe in whatever, but maybe not, but Janice act is kind of the glue that is holding the fusion strike together. Cause it's draw power is really quite insane.
Brent:Right, right. But that's, I feel like, I mean, obviously, as you know, like Zoroark shows, I mean all throughout Pokemon history. Yeah. Cards, electric drug cards are super good. Uh, but, but like the fact that MYU partners, well with that, like, I feel like the nature of mew doesn't necessarily mean that you couldn't pair it with energy acceleration or another attack, or like, like, it seems like there's potentially a lot of ways you could play it. This is just the best way to play it. Right now.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:They could print some other power Creek cards that you would say, oh, I'll play this with you. But that one.
Mike:It is also one thing I found funny about this new deck. It might be the first. New deck ever that has some type of variety attack. And, you know, like all the other Mews have like versatile, they can use things, but you're not actually using any attack re uh, you're not really using any attacks except the Genesek attack and the attacks unmute themselves. So there's not, you're not really making use of the versatile effect.
Brent:Yeah. There's there's no, the attack is not toolbox, you know? And that's why I, I just feel like, yeah, in future sets, there might be a card that you would say, well, you know what? Like this makes it worth it. be that'll be interesting. We talk about shuffling cards for a second? I feel like that was a meme that swept the Thanksgiving holiday.
Brit:Yeah.
Mike:really weird.
Brent:So you know, it's, it's interesting because on the one hand I can understand how people like the, bring out their decks. You know, as, as a parent of children, I would say, this is why we can't have nice things. Like first we're not going to play a high rarity. Like it is, it's weird to me, like your opponent has a right to shuffle your deck. And just because you spent a lot of money on your deck, doesn't like, take away that commitment. Now your opponent has like an obligation to be kind to your deck because like, not as things you should be nice, you know, like when you're using other people's stuff, you should like be respectful. But, but like I definitely felt like there were tweets where people were like, I judge you by how you're shuffle. I was like, that's pretty rough.
Mike:Yeah. I don't know. I've never ripped fold my opponent's deck, but I wouldn't really care if my opponent did, but again, like I'm not playing the super high rare cards.
Brit:Yeah,
Mike:I don't know. It's just, it's such a weird discussion to me. Like be respectful, but like also do what you think randomizes your opponent's deck the best. I don't know. There's a little bit of both.
Brit:it was a strange sort of at least, I mean, I guess that's just social media for you. Right. But it was just a bizarre topic for people seemingly to be heated about it. Like I like, I like, for me, I'm very I'm just sort of challenged when. Anything related to like fine motor skills. Like I've been told I shuffled like a junior, cause that's just like what I can do. And so I like just physically can't bridge. Like I've tried to learn and things like that, but I just came my mind just really struggles with anything, you know, that requires hand coordination for whatever reason. Um, yeah. It's I, I never feel like it's this weird question because like you want to shuffle your deck. Cause you know, if we want to talk about things like, like double nickeling, let's say cutting your opponent's deck in theory, isn't going to do a whole lot, um, good. You might get lucky and sort of get it to the pattern. That's not so good, but like that's why you need to shuffle and not just cut your deck at least in theory. But I always feel a little weird about that. I just, I don't know. I'm not good. I'm not, I let people cheat against me, I guess is what I'm saying. I just like, I'll just always just cut your deck even like, sometimes it's a little off. Like when people like double sleeve and things like that, especially like in the Japanese leaves. And they have, like, it looks like they're playing with a hundred cards or something, but it's a 60 card deck. It's just ends up being stacked so high because of the sleeves. Like there are scenarios where I'm like, we'll be sketched out and we'll do a little more work as you know, especially if it's just like a, you know, your deck sideways and things like that. It's just like, it all adds up to a certain point. But I think that, yeah, like I wouldn't be offended. Um, you know, if I was playing a blinged out deck and someone bridged me, like they're not being purposefully malicious, like. So be it like, and especially too, you're playing with blinged out cards, but like, you know, it's already the fact that you're playing them, you've already sort of like removed yourself from the maximum value conversation. So like, that's just on you, you know, you're playing bling cards cause you want to show them off. But like, if you really wanted to show them off, you would just take better care of them, I guess, which would mean you wouldn't play with them? I don't know. The max rarity stuff. Just never, I don't know. I saw like similarly I just saw, I mean, like not too long ago, that was just like, like, you know, you, you know, you buy used Nintendo games. I just emulate them. Like, that's just like my philosophy for everything. It's just like, why would you go out? You know, when it's functionally the same, why just do the cheaper option or whatever floats your boat. But.
Brent:Yeah. I, I thought, I think you make a really good point. Like if you wanna play gold volts roles, that's like, just, just to like flex on your opponent, I guess, like, and, and enjoy the experience. That's fine. But like, you also can't expect them to not be like, just doing their standard thing and like playing their game.
Brit:There was a good, I mean, this all sort of relates to randomization and so forth, but there was like a good side conversation. And one of the threads I read through it was like Zander Celio maybe, maybe a few others, but it was sort of just talking about like pile shuffling. I particularly like in between rounds or in between games and like a best of three set, like definitely a waste of time. Just don't don't do it. Like it just, just referral, referral, referral, referral, referral, and DNR pile shuffling. As we know, creates not just creates different sequences. It's not really sort of in tune with quote randomization, but what is, I guess two, has it been. I am a proponent of just going fully digital with everything. It's the only way we'll properly get to randomization. Um, and until that just, I don't know, it is what it is.
Mike:The pile shepherding thing is something I did for a long time, like as a kid and then maybe like six or seven years ago. When I think that's kind of like when the discussions more or less first started about it. And I was like, oh yeah, everything people are saying makes sense. I'm going to stop doing that. Um, I feel, I feel like it's fine if like, you'd never thought about it before, but if you hear the argument, then you should probably be making a change to your habits. Um, and it's fine to like do it after a set, after a game. Uh, I mean the argument that like your, you count your cards is not a terrible argument. Um, you're like doing that you're you are like D clumping cards, but as long you still got to shuffle afterward. Right. So like, if it's more of a psychological thing than a, than an actual effective way
Brent:I mean, Just the key question is, do you need the capture cards? Like, because that's what, that's the thing you do If you need to catch cards, catch cards, I know there's lots of ways to do it.
Mike:the best of three, not in between,
Brent:right. right. Yeah. Like if you want to do it before, before the first game seems like a great idea.
Mike:Yeah,
Brent:If you don't even between game one and game two, really ain't got time for that.
Mike:exactly.
Brent:Yeah. Uh, my, my favorite tweet, I don't know if you guys saw this, but Julian who I believe like friend of the pod frequent listener and reviewer had posted a gift that was Like, somebody just absolutely smashing these playing cards together. And it made my kids laugh because it like it literally made no sense. It was a,
Mike:taking two things and just like
Brent:You know, I, I should, I should think it up,
Brit:I guess to maybe one we're just, I guess talking about is there's always the kind of hot topic on the way the Japanese players tend to shuffle. It's always, I don't like, it's hard to describe, you you'd know. You'd know it. If you, if, if you'd ever been to worlds, I think it's just like, this is, this almost looks like the, like the middle part just goes from the middle to the top. Like there's moving piles around more than pile shuffling or something like that. And it's just like that doll that itself tends people will, I've seen even probably within the last six months or so. I was conversation on Twitter on like, is it cheating? It is cheating and so forth. And it's just like, I dunno, it's just the same as anything else. Like it's is it random? No, like, is it cause I random ish like kind of, um, and that's kind of, most things are kind of within that ballpark anyways, but I think, I dunno for me, it's just like about, you're just like authenticity and intention and so forth. And I just like, am willing to trust most people. I think like, again, I'm not just blindly naive about this. There's certainly certain players. I would never trust regardless of how nice they seem, but like, I don't know, Pokemon, at least as far as I know, Pokemon is a special card game, at least for me is in the spirit of the game. And that's part of why we compete it's in the rules and so forth. And I just don't, you know, I'm just, I'm don't understand the whole, like. Again, especially too, because it's like the, the cheaters, the most egregious cheaters are just, nobody's like, they're bad at the game and things like that too. So it's like rare, I think for them to sort of be intruding, like, and maybe that's wrong, maybe that's an incorrect assessment of the state of the game these days. That's just what I operate behind. And so I'm always like forgiving. If there's a mistake that seems like cheating and so forth, it just seems like the right thing to do. I don't know, just kind of rambling at this point.
Mike:So something you said that I think about a lot in Pokemon and I don't really have a strong opinion either way, but random versus quasi random in the sense of does random mean that the thing is actually for Pokemon, at least is, does random mean the thing is actually randomized or does it just mean that the player doesn't know the order of the cards because those are different things, but they could both be like a definition of random, right? Like if I don't know what order my cards are in. Is that good enough? Maybe like, and, and like an example that I think of sometimes is if you play a search card and it's you pick up your deck and it's the bottom card in your deck, and like your opponent sees that you looked at that one card, you took it and then maybe you saw like one or two other cards. You probably honestly don't need to shuffle like six or seven times. You could probably do one shuffle. And then you don't know anything about the contents of your deck.
Brit:Yeah. I mean, I think that's right. I think when we're, when we're thinking about this, when we're ruminating on it and in the moment, there's a lot of just like folk belief and folk psychology. I think like, I just, like, it's not random. I, I couldn't, I don't have a good argument for why, but I've only shuffled once it's just in my head, it's telling me, you know, my head, my muscle memory and so forth is saying, keep going, it's not random, you know? Right. Like none of that is really rooted in anything substantial. Um, no, I mean, that's a good point. I don't know, like. At least like off the cuff, like is, is random quasi random. Good enough. But in virtue of dislike, not knowing the order. And I think that it itself would probably be too weak. Um, just sort of, as you say, like, I might not know the order, but, but I did put the bottom card on my deck to the top or something like that. You know, like obviously that's probably a pretty extreme example, but it's, it's a good point. And like, I don't know these, these are, these are the topics that interests me a lot, like randomization and so forth. It's just like, yeah, like if we're operating in this parameters of sort of the real world where we're not talking purely in numbers or something purely we're, you know, quote randomization is, you know, at its most pure refined or what have you, like, what are we, what are we left with? Um, and I'm not sure, but it seems like it's all about the same, even, even in the, at least to me. Um, even though. Plain pile shuffling versus riffle shuffling like outside of, you know, one saves time or something like, like I kind of said initially it's all kind of the same ballpark. So.
Brent:Uh, the resume I had, I'd seen a thread that I think I posted a Twitter where uh, Zulu was having a conversation with one of his. or something about how the guy drew like six energies and his opening hand. Did you see this?
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. Loved it. The guy's like, you know, how could it be? How could there be 12 energy and the deck and six of them having to be right next to each other, you know, it's possible. And he says, well, your deck's random. And it could happen. He says, well, the odds of that are extremely rare. So I was like, so you're saying possible.
Mike:I was that, that whole, I read that conversation and like the day or two, before I graded this math test where the, I often ask questions that are the answers, the answers are, is this statement always sometimes or never true. And this girl like wrote, uh, that this statement was never true, but then her explanation proceeded to give an example or where it's true. And in an example where it was false. And so I was like, this is a great explanation of why it is sometimes true. It's just really funny. Um,
Brent:Exactly. Excellent.
Brit:I mean, you know, I just remember one of our, I think it was one of her first podcasts. I think they had a similar conversation. It's just, you know, people complaining about randomization algorithms, just being like, how could it repeat it's random play a different song. And it's like, well, what do you know.
Brent:That, that is how random works people, uh, you know. dumb and dumber. So you're saying there's a chance.
Brit:Well, I mean, we can get an a, I mean, not when we're here, we can, we can, we can, we can dive down even further. We can get into, you know, logical possibility versus like metaphysical possibility and things like that. It goes, it goes deeper. My friends, I promise. It's interesting. We'll talk about it sometime.
Brent:Awesome. All right. So let let's, let's talk about, let's talk, actually talk about decks. I thought, I thought we could do two things. This week I thought we could hear about Mike's run with this. We can lose a colo. And when he actually saw out there testing new and sweet code, and then I copied a whole bunch of people's power rankings, and I thought we could rank the powering.
Mike:The powering didn't okay.
Brent:you know, where they were all about that.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Where do you guys want to start?
Mike:Um, let me talk about my stuff first. So I started this kind of like getting back into the game. I played a bunch of in the. Uh, eight man tournament events on PTCGO to get packs. And then I got a bunch of Inteleon rapid strike stuff. Cause I was really interested in that deck. As I talked about, I try to a couple of different variants of it played a cup bull, tried a couple different tournament's and I don't think the deck is in any form right now. There's probably some form where it's good, but none of the forms that I tried were honestly that good. You actually have a okay. You match up. But, um, other match-ups are just like really tough. Um, also before also kind of relevant to all of this, I didn't read fully all of the cards in this set. So like the fusion strike energy didn't know that it, uh, stopped abilities from hitting it from hitting whoever's attached to it. So like Inteleon things can hit something with the fusion strike. So that makes the Inteleon deck significantly. Worse against you. Um, I also thought krama MADEC was a totally different thing from our discussion. I sent that message in our discord. Um, I thought it was discard an item card, flip a coin of heads, take a card from your discard and put it into your hand where in fact, if you get heads, you get to search your deck for a card. I'm actually not sure if it's better or worse than I thought it was, but certainly different.
Brent:It's different. Yeah. Like it certainly it's different. situations. Yeah. It's like a high role. Computer search is an interesting thing. Right,
Mike:But also like high roll junk art is pretty good too.
Brent:right. Yeah. Like both those cards would be maybe good if you're high role.
Brit:Yeah.
Brent:I think as it turns out in a deck Where you are just trying to burn your hand every single time. That's totally fine. Right? Like people seem
Mike:to say Brit?
Brit:Yeah, I wasn't gonna say it's interesting. How I think are just like perceptions of a card, you know, regardless of what it does, I think I've just immediately affects our judgment of it. Like in the, like, you know, let's say in your head, you know, whether whether one is better than the other, let's set that to the side for the second. But like, at least in my head thinking about this, like. I would be, I think I would be more inclined to just assume that the, that the discard version would be better. Like, I don't know, like, it just sounds like, like different, like reliable in a way. And again, I think this plays back into those like folk beliefs we were talking about earlier, this isn't rooted in anything, but just like I'm used to like cards and my discard and cards that get cards from my discard, like being good more often than just like flip a card, like, like order pad or something like that. I've always been like, that was common in ADP, like for a little while I remember Pablo applying it, but I, and I think there was, uh, Andrew Mahoney did well with it. Pikarom um, I believe as well. And anytime I saw those lists, I was just like, really?
Mike:Yup.
Brit:But if those were, if it was like a discard, like obviously I do think that searching your deck is clearly better, but like, I dunno, it was just a thought I had here just like, it's strange when we're wrong. Um, you know, it's still just like our, our perceptions are often in a different place. It's just curious how judgment and things like that work
Mike:And it impacts, and it impacts the way you think about other cards in a deck too. Like I, now I think the cross switcher card though, it is good. Um, I think it's a little bit less good than I thought before, because being able to discard it somewhat early with like a puny and then get it back with Cremo seemed very appealing to me. Um, but now you can't really do that. Uh, so anyway, that, that back to what I was doing, so, uh, I tried a bunch of Inteleon. on ladder a bunch. Didn't really find anything that worked out. So, and I still didn't have new cards. So I was like, okay, let's play some sweet food in this format. The lists are pretty much the same. I only swapped out a card or two, nothing from the new set, but just kinda met a dependent. Um, I think it should probably play a fan of waves now. Um, how a little bit on the matchup and yeah, I played, uh, two events. The first one, I just went on drop cause I played a GLT on round one and then didn't feel like keep going. Uh, and then I played in sunniest tournament last weekend I got, or not last week and last week and got second. Um, my only loss was to the Obstagoon day. Which I'll talk about a little bit in a little bit. Um, I didn't actually play against any muse. Uh, I played against, uh, meta jolting on actually the B a rapid straight Inteleon beat, a rapid strike Mallomar would be desertion and beat the mirror. Um, but I did have played against me a little bit with it on ladder, and I feel like sweet goon is one of the few decks that while it's still unfavored versus mew, it's pretty close. I think without, without like being an all-out anti-matter deck, like the dark decks are, I think sweet Coon is like pretty good. Pretty okay. Against me, at least maybe like 40, 60, um, just because you're a two Prizer that has the potential to one shot there, three Prizer. Um, and you have capes to at least force them to have double tablet. The math kind of works out where they need double tablet to kill it, a Cape Sweden tune. So with two capes, you forced them to have all the tablets at kind of the right time. They can't discard any, uh, they can't prize any et cetera. Um, so, and, and maybe, maybe you play three capes. Um, maybe that's a way to help improve the up as well. Um, so I think Sweden's in a pretty good spot. The only, actually the thing that pushed me away a little bit from sweet is the fact that Jilt Deon is also in a pretty good place in this format. And Joel, Deon's a pretty bad matchup. Um, but I think we could instill in a pretty good place. would argue it's probably the second best deck, maybe the third best. And we can get into a little, we'll get into that a little bit more later. Um, and then I got an, a, I got a donation from an anonymous donor of a lot of packs. And so I was able to trade for the new stuff, which is super exciting. And
Brent:just about to ask you how you've got the new stuff, because I had a friend messaged me, uh, over the weekend and he was like, you know, I bought a hundred dollars with a code card. That's time to get back in. And I said, dude, you can't even buy a place that amused with that. What are you going to do? And then he came back like three days later, he was like, I had to spend more money to get
Mike:Yeah. So it's funny. I got one, I used a bunch of coins to get packs and I think I pulled one mew V and one Genesek so not a whole lot. And then this person gave me 200 packs and that was still not enough.
Brent:That's not enough. Yeah.
Mike:It was, really close. I think I got like two movie maxes, the rest of the muse and the rest of the Genesis. I think I was just short, like one movie max, but that's still like 40 to 50 packs. And so I had to like play some more tournament trade. A couple of cards. Got the last movie, max.
Brent:Yeah. I feel like on Twitter when people talk about how, like they can't, they can't acquire these things, even though they're looking forward to PTCG Live. Like, I don't know if PTCG Live going to fix that. Cause it's going to be just this like ridiculous mega grind.
Mike:yeah.
Brit:Yeah. And I'm sure that like dust conversion rate on. Hi, rarity stuff is probably going to be pretty miserable, like even in Hearthstone, which has never changed to my knowledge. It's all of it. All of the rarities I've always had the same value. It's like, you know, I've played Hearthstone basically every day for five or six years now. And it's, it's still just doesn't feel good. Like the conversion rates are never any good. And like they've remedied that somewhat with the, your pull rates and PACS are better. There's like duplicate protection. So like all of that stuff is wonderful, but that the dust does the sort of dust economy alone as well. I mean, nevermind. I was going to say maybe they could do something else, like what rune Tara does, but I forgot they've, they've confirmed that it's a dusty sort of thing. So yeah, I would, I would not count on it being sort of favorable for a player. I would count on it being hard to sort of really take advantage of.
Mike:I saw a really interesting discussion or argument on Twitter somewhere and this, well, this is probably true in my opinion. So let's say that even if it becomes cheaper to build a deck like movie max, I think I would argue it it'll probably be cheaper, but still be somewhat grindy, but all of the V's and B Max's in theory will like cost the same amount. So like even the kind of bad ones will, it would cost the same amount to craft or make as the good ones. So if you want to play this like kind of Mimi rogue deck, you're gonna, but it requires a four, four VMX line. It's going to require the same amount of grinding as the really good deck where now, like you might spend 40 packs on a four, four DVMAX, but like I have packed or 10 packs and a four, four ingredient line. Right. Um, so. Even if it makes things better for that the expensive cards right now, it's to kind of even out with the less expensive cards to
Brent:And, you know, I've never had this idea before, so this is just a complete hot take, but maybe like, Yeah. I think I was kind of always a little bit okay. With the like market economy concept. Maybe what they need to do though is just introduce more, uh, regulatory controls. Like when they see things that are trading for like 60 packs, they start. Like, you know, Pokemon can just be like, where we're now selling new cards for 20 bucks. We just start either people and like you're taking code cards out of the economy, but you're like defraying mega inflation.
Brit:I mean, I don't, I mean, clearly I think it probably would have been implemented if it was a good practice, but I just obviously don't know any, really anything of the, the business side of where these decisions come from. But like in my head, I just lay in. This goes for basically all of these games. I don't know why they, they don't just sell you the cards. Like, I feel like it would make money for the company. Uh, I mean, maybe it doesn't, maybe it's better for players to hold the value because they're incentivized to buy the packs to have the codes. I don't know, like I'm saying very
Brent:I don't think, I don't think is like those code cards. That's the value created in those packs.
Brit:Uh, yeah, but like, I don't know, just off the cuff as my very, very meager amount of business sense. Like, it just seems like a steal. I mean, you could, I think people would pay 20,$25, like straight to, you know, the company there's, I think such a degree of like reliability when it, you know, it's like coming from the game itself, something like that. And you just would never, it's just like a, uh, uh, a lack of stress that you would maybe have, like, I buy, I buy cards on eBay or I have in the past just, uh, people, there are various vendors on eBay that just sell PTCGO cards, which I believe is not, is against the rules. And like, I've run into trouble with them or just like, Hey, you need to train me these cards. So like, what was forgot, you know? And it's just so much easier when it's in, in the in game store or something and like Pokemon, you know, mew. So how many new
Brent:And once again, that would easily control inflation because they could think of like, I mean, they get essentially. You know, cap the value of how much people would pay for code cards. Right? Like however much you're buying them on eBay. It's going to be less than this. Cause we're, we'll just sell it to you for this, right?
Brit:I mean, I guess clearly, I mean, this is, I guess the, the model that card games have used since the beginning of them all is like, I guess that's just always going to be more money for you to force the gotcha element of things. Like, I that's really the only thing that can be, but I don't know, like ruined Tara just sells the wild cards. Like you can just straight up by the wild cards and the wild cards that are redeemable for, you know, the, any card of that value or of that rarity. Um,
Brent:Yeah. Mike, I totally derailed you with the compensation of how one goes about acquiring muse. So you've got you actually got me a card. That's the important thing to take away is Mike actually has a tier one deck in his possession besides weekend.
Mike:Yep. So I played, uh, I played a bunch of the PR really close to the list that toward shared, um, like, I don't know, a week and a half, two weeks ago.
Brent:Right. This is the Isaiah Bradner, like three supporters.
Mike:No, no, not that list.
Brent:Oh, okay.
Mike:was playing for puny for capture energy is, um, and that was kind of like the standard new list for that week or whatever. So that's what I played. Um, I probably went like 20 and two or something like that on the ladder, like really insane win rate. Um, played the Sunday open MIS like what, what happened? It was, uh, I won the first round in a really nice match. Um, against Rosses, like the Ross single prize or dark deck, I played really good to win that because that's a tough matchup. Uh, and then I played against a jolting on round two and did the exact opposite, like misplayed so many times to lose the game. Uh, then I beat Azov Sheehan. Then I lost to, I think the guy that ended up winning the whole thing or no, he got top four, um, in the mirror. And then I played against an Eternatus, which seems really, really bad. Um, and then I dropped at two, three, uh, so didn't do great in that tournament, but still enjoyed playing the deck. And I haven't played any tournaments since then, but since even, just since then, which was a few days ago, the new way to play the decks seemingly is to play this idea of Bradner, very Turbo. He type of deck, uh, type
Brent:turn your whole hand. 10 times, right?
Mike:So these lists are like not playing pony at all. They're playing a max boss, two to three Elisa sparkle, and that those are the only supporters and they're playing the for battle pass for great balls for criminal pneumatics, for Rodin phones, et cetera, et cetera. Um, talk about like, kind of the very, when, when Natalie was on, I believe we had kind of theorized that that would actually be the best way to play the deck. And, um, it turned out, I don't know, it's just kind of taken a little while to get there. Um, but it. It does seem like that is really, really good. Um, and a lot of these lists are now not playing Latinos at all, but they're playing the Mello Melita, um, which I think is cool as well. And that kind of makes sense to me. It's a pretty strong single price attacker. Um, my guess is it's quite good in the mirror. Um, but I'm not a hundred percent sure the mirror seems to be that you just want to kill three genocides and ignore the muse. Um, that seems to be the way to play the mirror. So, uh, yeah. Um, oh, the other, the other thing that the turbo list does not play that's a big difference is the cross sweatshirt. Um, so towards those played four cross switchers, um, because you played the peonies, you played last bosses and the crest switcher is also good because it's a Guzma, right? So you get to switch your guy, um, as well, um, to reset your. Janice X tech. Um, but so this place does this list. Doesn't play it cause they just want to kind of turbo not worry about having dead cards in their hand and they have to
Brent:they just play, they just play boss every turn because there's no other supporters. right? Besides the latest Oracle.
Mike:Yeah. You play boss and then, so it has a couple more switching cards to compensate for that as well. Um, but I've only played a couple games with this turbo list on ladder just to kind of try it out and it is, it's pretty sweet. It's a very fast, um, it feels really good when you play a battle VIP pass and turn on. Uh, yeah.
Brent:And I, I I'm, I'm absolutely terrified because every time I'd get excited about I'm like the plane is next, sounds like fun. I'm like, man, I have to get those cards. I feel like I went and got the cards for like the last two weeks. And I'm like, man, it's a big investment every single time. Get that, just wait for the next set to come out. And then all the immune parts appreciate massively.
Mike:Um, so we can talk a little bit more about you, but I'm also really interested in where the Metta goes from here because now muse seems so dominant that I feel like the Metta can adapt to it like people. And I know Brett, you kind of like had mentioned you want to talk about this. Um, you've seen some people tweet about how like, new is such a super powerful deck. And I agree it is like super powerful and single strike is like barely going above 50 50 with it. But I think there's decks that probably do beat it pretty solidly. They just are not quite as good against other decks. And so it'll be interesting in my opinion, to kind of see how it balances out.
Brit:Yeah, my sort of suspicion is that I think. The meta game is just it's. I think it's, I think diverse is a good word. We can use it. Um, diverse enough that, like, I just don't think, I, I think you're right. I think there are decks that will rise, um, to beat it. I do think that like, there's a lot of path options out there that I don't think have been properly explored yet. Um, at least as an option to like, just play the stadium more with them. Like, I think there's definitely a world where you can win. Like just are a little more purposeful. Beating their counter stadiums and stuff and sticking one with the Marni. Um, but yeah, it just seems like the meta-game is just the like tier there's like the there's new. And then there's like at least probably like four decks and the tier under that. And then the ways that they interact with each other or like kind of all over the place. Like, I think like jolty on is one of my favorite decks right now. And it's just like, it's a real headache for certain decks, but as adult Dion player, like you just really struggle against fighting whether that's, um, you know, even, even like a small smash ups, uh, splashing of rapids, Can can be enough sometimes then like one of the blaze akin decks or something like that, let's say. Um, and so that would be like, I think that like, yeah, there's definitely another deck. I think that will pop up. But I think mew will just kind of write it out, like in the same way that a lot of these top decks, like always do like this take, like Gardy Glade and things like that. Even the, you know, the counter decks there or were good and had good guardian match-ups, but Gardy was still the best deck, you know, that's kind of the scenario that seems the most likely to play out to me. And, um, you know, we're on the, on the, the, the brink of the next big V star, the new mechanics. So it'll be just like really curious to see what the first. For some of those cards will be in how that will potentially shake things up. But that's probably talking a little too far in advance. Like, I don't know. What do you think? Is there anything that comes to your mind, Mikey, that you think could like be promising? So I like a little, well, no, I take that back. I was about to bring up your Dragapult again, but just dark and there's the gang gang guard is still a deck, whether it's good or not. It's competent, I think regardless. Um, and so yeah, taking Dragapult back, but I'm not sure maybe Shadow Rider stuff.
Mike:Yeah. I mean, like in terms of decks, that will definitely, I think that can solidly beat you. If people start playing them more. I think like a somewhat straight gang guard deck, whether that's gang Gar hound do just straight or Inteleon, you know, as duel played that earlier in the format, um, that takes some losses elsewhere, but I mean, if it like is beating you 80% of the time, maybe it's just good enough to play it. Um, I was also really surprisingly impressed. By the Obstagoon deck when I played against it in, uh, with this weekend deck, um, we had a really, really close, nice match and it felt like going into it, I felt like I should obviously win the game and he beat me and it was close and I might've misplayed like once or twice, but like, even if I had won that game, it was still way, way, way closer than I thought it was. And it, it impressed me how good the Obstagoon Obstagoon deck was. And I feel like that should also be very solid against me because your one shot in a three presser with your one presser. Right. Um, so I'm not sure how good Obstagoon is against the rest of the format. Like it's, it's at least pretty good against sweet goon definitely is going to struggle against something like rapid strike. Um, so I feel like that's kind of, what could happen is that there's these dark decks that could really soundly beat me. But then those decks are going to lose to something like a jolty on or a rapid strike that does like takes multiple prizes in a turn. Um, and then you beats those decks. So we might get into this rock paper, scissors, the Metta. Uh, so I'm not sure exactly. It's just kinda, can we actually get into a, is there actually like a rock to muse scissor that is good enough to create this triangle or is, or are they just not good enough in you is just always the best. And therefore you can sometimes, uh, play these counters and sometimes get lucky against other decks. I don't know. It'll be, I don't know exactly how the next week or two will pan out, but my guess is that my guess is that we'll get into this triangley type of Metta.
Brent:That sounds reasonable to argue with that. I recognized, like I kind of the nature of the way these, these kinds of triangles work is like the triangle starts with everybody hard countering you, and then countering the counters. Like there's always going to be just such a healthy chunk of mew because like easy, right? Like, you know, you know that you're just going to pick up a bunch of doves just by playing you, unless you bump into these hard counters. And like, you're, you're just praying that the counter, the counter is driving out the counters.
Mike:right.
Brit:like another thing too, is that like part of what makes muse so good is it's just so simple, like, you know, take Isaiah's list again. It's just. It's going to be like so much more like, you know, degrees of like complexity, less than a counter deck I would wager. And so even then, it's just like, it has a counter deck. Like, what are you, what do you do? And they just draw cards. So like, they're just drawing so many cars it's can still just be impossible or still just like, as the counter deck, you have to sort of be on your game the whole time too. And they might not have to sort of be drawing as optimally. And that's just like, Part of these stories, right. Is like, I've got the perfect counter deck. It just needs like two Italians in a stadium and a supporter. And then I've got it. Whereas mule is just like, I just draw 12 cards every turn. Sorry. Like that's, it's just like, that's just part of why it's hard. Even for these counter decks to like, get to a point where they're like above 50, 50, a lot of the times when there's something just like raw powerful. I'm not, I'm not sure if you is like that level, like to guardian guardians level or something, let's say, but like, it, it seems like it could be close. I know, like, yeah, it's an interest. It's an interesting case. Yeah. Sort of, as we said, like, will it get more partners or not? Maybe least one.
Mike:Yeah. And that's a good, um, kind of what you said is kind of the reason that single strike is barely going above 50 above 500 against it is because it's not really a dedicated counter to it. You just kind of, one of your stage one lines happens to be a solid dark Pokemon, but if you go second and it costs three energy to attack, right? So if you go second and only have one Umbrian with one energy on it, it's getting knocked out on turn two, they're going to play boss and kill you, and then you lose the game. So like, you kind of have to go first or if you go second, you need to get to Umbrians and to hound or down, uh, like that's kind of hard in and of itself. Um, and the trade-off is that you're okay. You're pretty good against other decks because you also have the Urshifu line, um, where he's something like a straight gang, Gar you attack for two energy. So you really only need, like, if you go second, you need to gang. And one now. Something like that is a little bit more reasonable, um, again, and like Obstagoon, as long as you have much more time, cause you're a single price deck. So even if they have boss it's okay. Like you'll eventually be able to get an Obstagoon up. So that's uh, but yes, I agree. And the other thing that you said, uh, is you is very powerful going first or second going first, they get to attach, they get to drop some cards and then they get the turn to boss on and kill whatever they want. If they go set second and you're playing like a, an Inteleon deck or a single strike deck, and you just happen to start a Sabal or a hound, or they can go Alisal, Elisa sparkle. attach now they have three energy on the board. They use the new V as attack to do 70 K or your Sabal or hound door while also having a backup new with an energy on the bench. And so even if you have the nuts and kill their active new, you're still getting hit next to her. And by the new V max and they've, they're already like up a prize. So like go in first or going second, if you happen to start one of your week guys, like it's mew has a lot of options in either case.
Brent:Um, Yeah. I mean this, the, the like best case scenario described as like, you, you have to hit the nuts, turn one, and you have to hit the nuts turn to, like, you have to get like multiple hound dooms out, multiple Umbrians out. Like there's just this like, implication that you're absolutely getting the stones, the entire game. That's a tough way to guarantee the victory.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Like it doesn't sound that likely to win.
Mike:Um, one thing that I have been thinking about that you can probably use to your advantage against the new deck is they played no hand disruption at all. So there is a world where some type of deck with this, with the Gloria and matrass the baby one once they take, so it does 20 plus 50. So what do they need to take? They need to take three prizes and then your one shotting AMU. Um, so there is this world where you can like build your deck. That's just like a single prize deck. And then you can just go like glary and matrass one shot. They kill something glaring, Moltres one-shot um, they can like mess that up though by like not playing a second movie max down until you take five prizes. So there is like counter play to that too, I guess. I don't know. That's really good.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. And, and like, generally speaking the counter plate for them. Like, like, they're just making like natural plays, whereas you're having to like do stuff.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:It's tough. Brent looks like he is like dying here.
Brit:Sorry, dark video.
Brent:Any thought, so, so would you place, we can a Cola going forward or would you, are you all in on mute?
Mike:Um, I'll probably bounce back and forth between them. I really like, like, I think I enjoy playing sweet gun a little bit more. Um, there's more gameplay decisions on it during the game. You have a little bit more options. You have, you actually can attack pretty opp. You actually attack pretty often. I think with either Inteleon or even Lou to colo. So like there's some really cool turns with sweet Gouda Cola, especially like you can like candy to the Inteleon to get two items and then stoop it up and then do do other things. Uh, so it's, that deck is more fun for sure. Um, and like I said, I think it's pretty good.
Brent:More, more nonlinear.
Mike:yeah, I also agree with Britta, I think guilty on super fun. I'm interested to try Isaiah Bradner, just posted a channel fireball article on a different, I mean, it's, it's like the same idea as the other guilty on index, but the main difference is that it doesn't play Path to the Peak and it plays cross switchers instead. So I might give that a try as well. Um,
Brit:Yeah, that's interesting. I saw, I saw Stefan's tweet sort of highlighting that I wasn't a unique take on the deck, but I forgot to look at it. That's really cool. That, that intrigues me a lot, actually.
Mike:Yeah. And he plays a couple of stormy mountains as stadiums. Um, and I think the reason being just to like, have more outs to the Jody on turn on,
Brit:That makes sense. Yeah. That's, I'll have to try that. That sounds really good to me, at least like while I don't have them, you cards, I think guilty on is definitely my favorite deck. They are the only thing I've really played as guilty on him, so he can.
Mike:yeah. So yeah, so, I mean, I'll still be messing around with you. And I do feel like perhaps in the next week, mew is going to be a worse play than it has been the last few days as people really try to hard counter it. Um, but so if I play a tournament, I might place weaken in the next week, but we'll see.
Brent:Right, right. Then after that, bringing you back as the medical.
Mike:exactly.
Brent:All right. Uh, in the interest of talking about the metal a little more, I thought we could I got Luke's top 10 for the week. I got towards weekly power rankings for channel fireball, and I got Zack massages, YouTube top 10, and I thought we could look at these top tens and figure out if there's, if there's like one top 10 to rule them all or something like that. So a couple, a couple of Metta comments for you guys. And since I just like threw this on for you to look at one of the things I like advertisement for channel fireball, people, if you're like looking at a subscribe, I thought this was good. One of things I really liked about towards top 10 is he includes the list that he thinks you should play for all those decks. So, so you can look at his top 10 list and then you can get the lists for his top 10 list, which is like probably what people are looking for when they're looking for top 10 lists. Um, Luke's list is like, kind of data-driven he essentially gets data from Traynor hill and says, this is like, what are you thought was the most successful deck each week? So it's like, it's like kind of data-driven, eh, not entirely clear to me how it works out. Cause it's not like there's, it's like a point system. As opposed to just, just ordering on win rate, but he tells you what the win rates for all the decks were in all the tournaments from the prior week and how many tournament wins it had and how many top Bates and I make top sixteens. And like that wasn't really good. liked the data-driven, but I recognize that there's a little bit of opinion in every top 10 list. And in that respect you know, you don't want to be entirely driven by the data because you gotta be driven by the meta. So, so anyway, all three of them say the best deck right now is a mew. Eh,
Mike:No contest there.
Brent:so then here's, here's where the fighting starts. Zach says jolty on is the second best deck. Sweet Coon is the third best deck. And single strike is the fourth best deck. Luke says rapids or single strike is the second best deck. Sweden is the third best deck. And Joel Theone is the fourth best deck. So he has it in like opposite or.
Mike:So same top four, but just slightly different order.
Brent:Yep. And then toward bullets, rapid strike at number two, single strike at number three, sweet unit number four, jolty on a number five. So he bumps rapid strike all the way up to the second position. Both of these guys, where is rapid strike on Luke's list? Is it not?
Brit:I don't know. That's the, is that the old one?
Mike:Uh, it's not even there.
Brit:The Melanie
Brent:have six, six, the Zamazenta I
Mike:Oh, it's 11 it's number 11.
Brent:number
Brit:Oh yeah. I see it on the new side. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:Um, and yeah, and then, oh, you know, he is the Inteleon deck at 10.
Mike:Oh
Brent:so rapid Stryker's food's like totally off the list for Zack towards says number two. I think he's making a medical or something.
Mike:Yeah. That's really interesting. Um, I assume that he is looking at some type of Melanie lists still. Um,
Brit:I would assume that that as well. I mean, it could mean blazer can stuff, I guess, like in theory, but I doubt that.
Mike:Interesting. Um, I don't really have mud. I think probably the answer is somewhere in between towards probably overvaluing the deck a little bit. Cause it was his baby last format. Um, and the other guys are probably undervaluing. It, it's probably not like off the list. Like, it feels better than something like Sylveon, which is at the bottom of Luke's 10 and it feels better than it is probably better than rapid strike Inteleon and like Leafeon, Leafeon still seems so bad to me.
Brit:I mean, that was my just immediate, immediate thought is I was like, there's no way. It's like, not at least on par with Leafeon like in my immediate thought, like, it's gotta be somewhere in there, like worst case scenario.
Mike:Like Leafeon got so much worse too in this format. Cause it, I don't think it can ever be immune deck. New has pre-retreat.
Brent:Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny. Um, so Leafeon comes in at number five on Luke's and it says it is a 52% win rate. It's like, you know, like both fourth or fourth, best deck in front, a win rate percentage in the trainer hill dataset.
Mike:It's really interesting.
Brent:Yeah. One of things I always wonder about when they have these, these things where you get points for top 16 and top aides and wins and stuff like that is like, I feel like you need to share the meta, you know, and I recognize, like you don't want to just go straight share the Metta because as we've always talked about, like, you don't, you don't really care that much about like the entire universe. You care about the universe of decks being played by good players. What if they, you know, maybe they could look at the like percentage of decks that had a winning record versus top sixteens and top aides or something, or like, I don't know. I feel like there's some more nuanced take. You can look out there because Yeah. I look at Leafeon I think really Leafeon is best deck.
Mike:Um, so I think we're, everyone's in somewhat agreement that besides the rapid strike that like single strikes we could in guilty on are kind of like the three next best decks, but I. I'm going to say that I think sweet, good and guilty on, or like the next two best decks. But I think we'll see in the next week or two, that single strikes really, at least single strike Urshifu Umbrian that combination is going to start falling off a little bit. I think people have been playing it because they think it's quite good against you. And it's a carry over from the last format where it was pretty solid, but, um, I think it's gonna start falling off because I don't think it has a great sweet can match up. I don't think it has a great new matchup and even jolty on matchup is like, ah, it's still too much. It's probably pretty good. Um, but I don't, I don't know. I just, I feel like it's going to fall down. I think it's going to be the solid fourth. Um, maybe even slide down to fifth of these, like top this like two through four. I'd probably go with Zach. Um, cause he has Joel Deon sweetcorn and then single straight.
Brent:Right, right. And then after that is got Zack has ice rider. Obstagoon Leafeon ice rider, sweet Khun Eternatus and rapid. strike Telia.
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:So it's interesting. How, how rapidly the Metta kind of diversifies and all these different lists, like,
Mike:Yeah.
Brent:He doesn't have Dragapult or gang guard toward has Dragapult and gang are both kind of hanging around the top 10. Right. But, but the other guys don't have ops to do it. And we were just talking about how Obstagoon seems like a playable.
Mike:Yeah. I feel like I'm not surprised that it didn't show up in Luke's list if he is looking at more numbers of, cause it's just not a highly played deck. And my guess is that. People at a lot of people that are playing it or kind of just copying the list, not really practicing with it. And it seems kind of like a harder deck to play. So I'm not surprised there. And maybe, and I know towards never been a fan of decks like this. Um, and so I'm also not super surprised that it ended up there, but uh, cool to see Zach put it on and somewhat highly as well.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. absolutely not. As under the radar as people might have thought.
Mike:Yeah. I don't really understand the ice rider kind of coming back into the format as much as it has been. Um, I saw Zul like play it in some tournament last week. Like it seems okay. But it just seems like mew does literally the same thing, but better like way better. Like you're doing 200, like you're killing a V Pokemon for two energy, but you get to keep your energy. You don't have to discard it. Like I just read it as. get to draw a ton of cards. You don't have to play a supporter to attach your, I mean, I guess you do play a support order to attach under. Yeah, it just seems like new is just a strictly better version. The only difference being you don't have to deal with your weakness.
Brent:Right, right. I think an exact got a YouTube video about light splashing eyes, right. Or in this week who index and like, I was like, didn't we already solved that problem. Like weeks ago I felt like yeah, the, the like rebirth of ice rider, I was like, didn't that get power food out of the Metta? I said ago. Darn it. And I paid a lot of packs for those cards. Terrible. Um, and The other stuff we should say about.
Mike:The one back that is pretty high on Luke's list that doesn't appear in the other two is the Zacian Zamazenta deck. Um, which I don't think is a great deck, but I think it does okay. In this game because, uh, biggest thing is that it's pretty solid against mew. Not necessarily because of well, because of Zamazenta, but not for the reason that you think, um, like it does wall, the movie max, but maybe max has the attack that gets through it. But the real thing is. You discard their special energy and they don't play that many energy, especially these new lists that are only playing the four fusion strike, the two psychics, like towards lists that ran the four captures. It can beat the Zamazenta deck because you can just keep attaching energy, but, and like shuffling them, you back into your deck and whatnot, blah, blah, blah. Um, but this new turbo version, I don't think we'll be able to beat, uh, two doubles Amazon to that often.
Brent:Yeah. I definitely, I definitely look at a bunch of these lists and I think there's probably a place for control on the matter right now because people play so little energy.
Mike:Yeah. That's a good point. is the, I saw someone post that there's some like evil, tall in the format, right? That,
Brent:yeah. Th that that's there's for two colorless discard, three special energies from your opponent's Pokemon. I was talking about that with my son. Just like yesterday. I was like, I mean, if you hit them, you guy with that, he just holds up his cards that goes home.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool.
Brent:Any plans for a tournament's this week?
Mike:I haven't looked at the schedule. Um, like I was able to play the sunny one last week. Cause it. That was like my last day working. Doesn't look like there's anything too crazy coming up. I might play the Sunday open again this week and I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'll play if there's one, some weeknight, maybe I'll play. It was tomorrow. December 2nd. Yeah. There's some tournament's tomorrow night. Maybe I'll play tomorrow night. We'll see.
Brent:Things that I should, I can tell Trashalanche fans and you guys well, you know, I haven't pulled it together for all the other stuff. I booked the Hampton Inn in Columbus for NIC in
Mike:Nice.
Brent:July 23rd of the 27th. I am there.
Brit:Is there other dates for that already? I couldn't remember.
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. And I, and the, I see is the 24th to the 26th,
Mike:June, June, right? Not July.
Brent:June, June. Thank you.
Mike:Yeah.
Brit:Cool. Yeah, I'll definitely be there. I'm sure Columbus is cool. Found some
Brent:Columbus is, Columbus is great.
Brit:good food.
Brent:Yeah. absolutely. They have good food. A nice convention center
Brit:We'll say though.
Brent:huge tournament.
Brit:For international players, if you really, if you want the, sort of the old school NATS flavor, there's always the indie regionals. There'll be a sort of a soft version of what the us nationals was like from 2011 to however long it was there. It'll be a fun time. I think the good old embassy
Brent:go to, if you go to the end of your regionals and you go to the steak and shake, then you basically recreated everyone's a us national championship experience for many, many.
Mike:Is that, is that, is that the regional that's like a week before NIC or no?
Brent:No Milwaukee is the regional
Brit:Yeah. India is in may I believe
Brent:So, so yeah, if you're a listener and you're thinking we're going to go to Milwaukee and then we're somehow going to go to Columbus and just test for like three days, my kids get off school, like the day before Milwaukee regionals. So, so we may be trying to figure something like that up. That seems like it would be a thing. I don't know. Yeah, certainly lots of, lots of opportunity there for a serious Pokemon on a related note, we're getting together to do some actual card playing after Christmas with friends in California. So when I asked my son, should I just build like the four decks that we talked about last week, he was like, no, we're going to need a lot more decks than that. If you were me, can I feel it? Can I feel confident just like building the decks that are doing well right now, or do I have to try to kind of like, wait two weeks and build the decks, like the day before Christmas, because you know, the, the med is changing so fast, right? You, it goes to no items, as you said. Like, I feel like I worry that, you know, the, the counter to mule will be discovered over the next two weeks and I'll be like, I got to change all these cards. Like if I want to accurately represent the meta at a snapshot in time, sometime shortly around new years. Ish. When do you think I start building.
Mike:I think new is safe, no matter what, you just gotta kind of have the cards to do it one way or the other, but I don't think the lists are going to change that dramatically. I think sweet Coon is not going to change very much either. And I think we'll continue to be a top three or four day. Jolty on is a little more suspect. I'm not sure if it'll stay as top three, top four. And then after that I don't have much good advice for you. The only I'm sure that'll continue to be good in you,
Brent:Yeah. Yeah. And then I feel like, I mean, I feel like single strike is still going to be an archetype, but I'm gonna have to build that, but I feel like it's going to adapt over the next couple of weeks as people try to figure out how to improve the win rate against me a little bit. Cause like, I mean, if you're going to play that deck and you don't feel good about your new matchup, oh, what are you doing, man?
Mike:right? Exactly.
Brent:All right. So we've got a couple more podcasts. That'll be right around podcast 69 that we have to really sit down and start grinding out deck building here at the Halliburton household. Another part of the books, the John Paul's is our outro. We have outro music. It's amazing.