The Lorcana Crew Podcast
The Lorcana Crew talks all things Lorcana!
The Lorcana Crew Podcast
Set Champs!? Already!?- The Lorcana Crew Podcast
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Disney Lorcana's Wilds Unknown Set Championship Season is already here! Core Questers Nick and Josh D. prep you for Wilds Unknown's Set Champ Season as well as talk about some recent Infinity Format Tournaments! Let us know what deck you are taking to your store's championship. We hope you enjoy! Find us on Instagram @Lorcana.Crew and on TikTok @LorcanaCrew
What's up, Larcana crew? Nick G and Josh D back in the house recording.
SPEAKER_00The booth, baby. How are we doing, Josh? Doing good, doing good, hanging out, ready to ready a little podcast on. I love, I love getting in the booth with your brother. It's always good talking.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a lovely Sunday morning here. Uh, and we are talking about Larcana today because that's what we normally talk about. But uh today we are talking about just a kind of smattering of all things as we approach the uh what is it into the Inklands, not into the Inklands, Wilds Unknown uh set champs season because that's next week, believe it or not. Um we got two months.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully, they uh hopefully I I like the three months. I like the three months of pacing's good for my wallet and my bank account. Three months is great. Yep, yep. I understand, I understand the world is coming up, they need time, they had to push it forward a little bit, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and you know, we got some infinity events going on around the world too. Uh Dortmund is next weekend, we got Indianapolis later in the month, so it's it's gonna be great. Um, but for now, we'll be there. Yes, we will be there together.
SPEAKER_00And we got stickers, we got stickers made, brother. We got stickers to hand out to all the fans, super excited.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm I'm ready. I got my shirt ready to go, rep in the crew. It's gonna be great. I'm practicing, it's yeah, dude. For better or worse. I have not played a core game this set.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've I've played some core games, um, but I'm I'm I'm more the I'm gonna you're the workhorse, brother. We're gonna put it all on you to win some games. I'm there to be fun, awesome. I got three legs. What are you talking about? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, we're gonna start off with a quick question today. Uh, and something that has been kind of circulating online. Uh, seen other people kind of talk about it. Um, and it's a very simple question is which card is worse for the game or deserves to be banned more? That is you're either tramp or hyram. Everybody knows the tramp. Uh, it's a green-yellow card, and when you play it, it costs one less for each character you have. If you draw cards equal number of characters, other characters you have, then discard that many cards. Really good for filtering, quests for two, two, six, and then hyram. My boy Hiram, rest in peace. Uh, pop an item, draw two cards. Man, I love drawing cards. So Josh, which one is worse for the game?
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Um so I'm a you know, Red Boot players as fans know. I'm I'm always pushing red blue. So I ideally want to say tramp is worse. Yep, but but but history has shown that Hiram enables more oppressive consistency in Blue Steel and Red Blue. Um so I think Hiram is probably a little worse for the game because when he was around at the few tournaments that I went to and I have watched while he was legal in Infinity for all of 0.03 seconds, um, it was just him, right? It was every deck with just him as as the baseline, even though he's just the same thing as friends. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he does take a lot of setup. You do have to play an item, which I think the argument is, right? Like, you know, there's too many good one cost items that draw you cards, right? Like popsicle, it just replaces itself, it's free, right? Fortisphere replaces itself, it's free. Um, but I I'd like to take the other side here. I think tramp is is is a lot worse for for everybody. I mean, it what it does is it enables the filtering of your deck so far that the level of consistency that you get over Hiram is crazy, right? Because yeah, this this is a card that you're drawing six cards. Yes, you do have to discard six cards or whatever it is, right?
SPEAKER_00But yeah, or for a lot of times three or zero if you're in a if you're not doing well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but the fact that you get to look basically at, you know, for all intents and purposes, a quarter of what's left in your deck to find that one perfect card that you actually need to seal things down, right? Like that is kind of crazy. That's a little much. Um, especially in a deck that already is aggressive and it's board wiper bust, and so you could just be looking for your one bare necessities to say, hey, actually, you don't get to board wipe me, right? That's yeah, very real and doable.
SPEAKER_00I didn't, and that's I didn't find bare necessities or Mowgli out of the 17 cards I looked at, so yeah, I found it exactly.
SPEAKER_02So, yeah, I I don't know, man. I a lot of people have been like, Is it is it bandworthy? And I'm kind of at the point where like dogs is winning everything in core, it's winning a lot in infinity. It's like there is a problem somewhere, right? Yeah, I don't know if it's tramp, it's willow. I think it's willow. That's fair. I mean, the problem might be enables very wide boards, and I think the like you said, I because it enables such wide boards, that enables tramp, but also when our board wipes are seven and eight cost that it's relatively hard to get to, and you have to sacrifice so much to actually play them in the deck, there's not a like and the other the other thing is like under the sea, which is a great counter to that deck, incredible counter, huge is goes in the same deck, in the same deck, yeah. So it doesn't it doesn't enable a lot of versatility or variety there.
SPEAKER_00Here's but but if I may take a point that is illogical, um at low lorcana players, uh yes, tramp statistically, right? I get to look at a tenth of my deck when I already drew seven minus seven if I'm mulligan all seven. I get to statistically find whatever I'm looking for based off that math, right? That's tramp's math. But we're not gonna talk about math for my point here. We're talking about what happens to the players when high and lorcana, when high room is allowed. The whole a lot of people just go, I'm just gonna play that, right? Yeah, no, that's because it's yeah, it's more fun to play a highrim deck than it is for as as a as an individual. It's more fun for me to draw two cards, play an item, banish item, draw them back with Tomatoa in red or blue, or blue or green, or blurple, than it is to play dogs. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I don't and I don't think it's necessarily that the effect is is is the problem, right? Yes, you're gonna be able to buy cards. That's fine.
SPEAKER_00It's really the fact that he's got a six like six willpower that yeah, he just doesn't die via challenges, like yeah, and the only thing to have it is Ruby, and then it's the same problem where hey, guess what? If I run into high room, I'm in also and probably also in Ruby. Uh I'm playing blue red, so I can answer it. And it's like who has the brawl against uh high room, and then they win after that. Like it's it's not an inviting game to watch uh for for growing the community and growing the competitive market. Um and then Steel doesn't have any way to really get rid of them. No, if it was a five and you could be save or something like that, it'd be it'd be kind of I I really think it'd be fine. Um five, right? Yeah, Amber Steel gets and Amber Steel's Amber Steel deals with it, everyone deals with it on their turn, and they still get their effect to draw two cards.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you get it once, and that's great.
SPEAKER_00And if you don't deal with it, that's that's a plus, right? Because I think the card should exactly it's just friends, okay. But I think that one extra willpower really makes that difference because it's very difficult to deal with him outside of Ruby removal. Agreed, agreed.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think it sounds like uh both of us are like, Yeah, maybe they should both be banned. Who knows? For now, uh, we are heading into Dortmund with a very, very not ban.
SPEAKER_00I say if you ban both, you ban you ban Prince John too. Get the get that stuck around of there. That card is annoying, yeah. I say that because if you get rid of Hiram and you get rid of dogs, then you have to you have to hit the like if you ban Hiram, there's your control. If you ban dogs, there's your aggro low and mid-range. Yep. So you have to get rid of a piece for the discard. And we've learned this from Bucky. And yeah, because John was the answer after Bucky, discard will it ruins the watchability of any tournament when the room is a discard. It's awful to watch, it's no fun. So I think if if in a perfect world, right? If I'm the devs, I go, okay, Hiram's gone, tramp's gone, infinity, but also Prince John loses ward. Yep, gone. Like we're safe. We're safe here. People can still use John if they really want to press it. Now we have Brawl and Ruby to banish him because he lost his ward. And then we have the steel players have Zeus, and then Amber Steel. We watch extr extremely hard to see if it takes over the room, and then if it does, we like change Ariel down to look at three cards instead of four, and that math is a lot worse. I know it's like one looking at one card less, but that really hurts the Amber Steel builds if she looks at one less card.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, that's fair. And I'm in general not a fan of Arata's. Um, I think there's another there's a number of things that you can hit in that deck um to make it a little little worse. I mean, you could always just hit the Cindy, uh the little Cindy, right? And that's that increases your consistency on singing on turn one. I mean, you have an angel, right? But that's conditional. Um Loki, I think a cude is is becoming a problem. Um just drawing a card for free and then being able to just cheat something out a little bit. Um, it's it's it's not it's it's on the border, right?
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's it's very good.
SPEAKER_01Very good.
SPEAKER_00Here's here's the I will say this if if we may end on this, because we're going down the rabbit hole getting rid of stuff and change stuff. The problem is once you change a thing, there will always be a problem. There will always be the worst thing. It the nature of reality is no matter what, there's always the worst possible thing that's the least fun to play against. Yep. So, you know, it is what it is. I think we hit the doll, we we hit the we got the high room. Maybe we hit tramp, maybe, maybe once I mad. We take the magic approach where it's like if it takes over the room, then buy. And it keeps the game healthy and keeps the pro players giving something to to to build or or rearrange and gives us a new field of view. So I think yeah, just there always will be a problem. We can't cry ban every time there's a problem because no matter what you ban, there will be the next problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think they've done a very good job of giving us answers to things as well, right? And that's going to move into kind of our next point and the general question of like, is infinity in a healthy state, right? And a couple weeks ago, uh, after I want to say it was like a C the CCQ, not in San Diego, but like the one before that, when it was just there was one in Paris and there was one somewhere else. Maybe it was San Diego, and everything on the top was like Yeah, maybe, but like everything on the top was just dogs. It was like you had dogs went over here, and the dogs went over there, and like top eight, like six out of the eight were dogs. Like, oh my gosh, I'm so not excited to go to Indy. And now, you know, I think the past couple weeks it's been like, oh well, Amber Steel went over here, and then there's a red blue that's topped over here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Amber Steel with an Amber Steel, I forget who it was, like it's beefy. Lore Lore Gaines, yeah. Lore gains, yeah. Beefy. Yeah. They they they took it down with Amber Steel, Lorgains, whatever it is. Uh Lore Gaines is what it is. Um, they took it down with Amber Steel.
SPEAKER_02So it's like Yeah, and it's but it's been nice to see the the variety pop up, and a lot of the times, you know, I I was talking with some with some other people out here, and it was I've always had the philosophy of like whatever won the the last event, people are gonna play that more. Yeah, and actually, like some people were like, well, actually, it's kind of it's kind of different than that. It's it's partly that, right? But it's also people are now going to build their decks to beat that, and it's like, ah, that actually makes a ton of sense. So you kind of have this 50-50 split of people like, yeah, that's really good. I want to play that because it wins, and then you've got the other people be like, that's really good, I need to beat that, right?
SPEAKER_00And so you kind of you kind of like yeah, I think it's like so most CGG TCGs and not like Dragon Ball, um Dragon Ball and Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! are responding when I like watch their stuff. It predominantly feels like that. Like that one, I'm taking that. Matt uh Lorcana is very much like half the room goes, Yes, I'm taking that, and the other half goes, I'm gonna think a little bit smarter. I'm not gonna build my own thing, but I will copy paste whatever does beat that and bring that to that room. Um which makes which makes uh space for stuff like DKPs, like OTK, um that he had with Monstro, that you can kind of if you're a good deck builder or are brave, if you're a good deck builder and brave enough to find the right slot, and patient enough to find the right slot to go, oh, this half of the room is gonna copy, this root half of the room is gonna beat the copy, and I'm gonna build a deck that beats both, and there's a position in the meta with the right cards that beats both. I'll take that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because it might lose to something else, but if that's not gonna show up or be be there in droves, and you're fine, right? And it's yeah, it's been a very interesting mind game to think of going into indie, practicing a couple of different decks, and you know, um, I I generally think Infinity is in a healthy state right now where yeah, you've got you've got a top three or four decks, but again, it's a top three or four decks, which is not a top tier zero format, like almost trying to call it we have we have rock, paper, scissors, but if you can bring lizard Spock for those who know exactly, yes, if you can find out if Spock are uh is gonna be the deal, then you can bring it.
SPEAKER_00Uh it's it's definitely healthy. Some because in my mind, in unhealthy format, now fan uh people what listening can go, oh, that's still unhealthy. I've seen games that are super unhealthy, and it's one deck and another deck that is superior. Uh in the the first deck we talked about is superior even anyway, most of the time, and that is unhealthy. The the the 45% of the room being one deck is super unhealthy. Lorcana, I don't think, has ever reached a point at all from set one to now, where it it said 50% of the room is deck, you know, red purple. Even even when red purple, no offense, yeah, but even when red purple was like 37 37% of the room because it was but that's only because it was cheap, achievable, learnable. You could buy a pre-con and get 90% of what you needed. Yep, it was still like dominating the scene, but it was still losing because people that were playing it weren't the best. There still hasn't been there, and what from what I've seen, there has not been a tournament like or a CCQ or a tournament above ten thousand dollars. It's like, oh look, it's 50% of the room. So super healthy. The game is super healthy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there's definitely a difference, like you said, of you know, there being there are it, there can be a triangle format, right? Like rock, paper, scissors. You you you know, Larple loses to red, but dogs, dogs beats whatever, right? And so, like that that is very okay and fine, right?
SPEAKER_00Because it allows you to at least get people still play rock, paper, scissors to this day. It's a healthy game, exactly. Yes, it's a very valid way to decide who goes first.
SPEAKER_02And I mean, you have things like I would I would kind of call Green Steel a little bit of a rogue deck now, right? Where um that was able to top, right? There's a bunch of things that are able to top, and it's been it's been kind of nice to see and a refreshing change of pace, then dogs wins, dogs wins, dogs topics again. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness, I guess I don't play dogs, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the thing I like about dogs for the the story of Lorcana, right? Like you wrote a book about all the meta, the meta. The thing about dogs is it's not fun, it's not fun at all.
SPEAKER_02Uh to play. No, um it definitely feels like you either you either see it 75% of the time and you're you win, or you don't see it 25% of the time. It feels like you're losing to yourself more than your opponent beats you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and and as a community, there was a spike. There's always spikes of I haven't played it, no one's playing it in my area, I guess I'll pick it up. But even when you do pick it up and you spend you know a couple weeks learning how to master it, if I know maybe three weeks, one week, depending on your skill level, it's still not fun. Like it's still like I'm gonna practice, I'm I'm gonna go to locals with the people I've been going to locals with for a year now, and uh I'm gonna play dogs. I'm gonna have to apologize and inform them that I'm playing dogs.
SPEAKER_02I'm so sorry for what's about to happen to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And then then you do all that, and it's like, oh, I didn't see Big Tramp, so I lose, or I play Big Tramp.
SPEAKER_02The best part is when you like sit down and you're like, I'm so sorry that I have to play this deck, and then you lose, and they just laugh at you. It's complete. It was real real community.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, such a good job at building community, and then like, yeah, because you like I played an infinity, I played against Infinity deck the other day, and it was like they picked up two turnobogs out of the two turn bugs they had in their deck, and I just smoked them with like a fun, like I was just killing time and I was playing like a red blue, like janky thing, and they're like, Oh my gosh, I lost to red blue. What the heck? And I'm like, you picked up two turnobogs, brother. Like the distance of that is absolutely zero, but yeah, it's in your hands and I got two free turns, and then two free turns in Larcana means you lose.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it does. Well, good. I'm glad that we are in agreement there that you know it despite the early signs, uh Infinity does seem to be um crawling back into the place where it is actually fun. I will say I won't say it's better than core because there's a lot of dumb things you can do in Infinity. Oh, yeah, lots of dumb things. Um Hercules Bivity. Yeah, I mean, we are at the point where uh Diablo is actually not like the best card in the game, which is wild to me. Um and the popsicle friends cut bell combo is like not really a thing, which is it's literally just also wild. It's literally just cool. Oh, yeah, it's just cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's uh it's a minor ingredient, and you have a little bit of which is great for the MPV format. I think it doesn't get a lot of love because we have new players that don't have access to set one through basically set one through three, right? Let's be honest. Yeah, it's set one through three cards, and um it's still healthy, I think it's strong. I think there's nothing like oh, if you don't have this set one card, you're busted. It's like yours, yeah. Purple yellow. I I'm bringing purple and and if you're listening to this and you're gonna snipe me, good for you. But I'm bringing purple yellow infinity to indie, dude. I think it's so much fun. Chip and Dale with like uh a five-five for a puzzle that draw you three cards. Hello, who cares about a friend? Who cares about a crab, crab, fox, whatever? You're still out, you're still out of board presence, and I just threw three cards. Okay, cool. Yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And then we'll get it back. I'm looking forward to the board wipe. Yeah, yeah. Uh we hope to see you guys at Indy. If you see us, please come say hi.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we got a stick, we got stickers for you. We will throw you in the wave video that we always do. Yeah, we love we love to uh see at the Lurcana community out there for sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_02All right, switching gears here. We are uh rolling right into Set Champ season for core. Um, and despite me not having played a game of core, I still kind of sort of know what's going on in the scene. Um, so let's talk about that. Um, you know, Wild's unknown. I think the consensus is kind of out that the set is cool and a lot of fun. Poll rates are great. Wilds all day. Yep. And with that, a lot of people are like, oh well, it didn't really change much. But we wanted to kind of talk about what it did change, right? Because there are new cards that are good in decks that do. Do things right, and uh if you are not prepared for them and you roll up with your set 11 deck, you're like ah, that was I'll just bring the boost boys. Yeah, I mean and you can still do that, right? Like I said in the last episode, yellow blue is still good. There are still things that are happening, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but um yellow blue just slops in a dale and calls it. I can buy more time till I can call Drandon and Board Wipe and all that stuff. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, but you know, there are new cards being played, right? And so we'll talk about a little a couple of them here. Uh, and I just want to kind of get your thoughts on a few of them. Um, the first one being the Milo Fatch in green blue. Um so Milo Thatch, if you don't know, is a seven cost inkable green character. It's a five-five with ward. Yay. Yeah. Um, and then it says, when you play this character, you may choose and discard a card to return chosen character to their player's hands. Then at the end of your turn, if two or more cards were put into your discard this turn, draw a card. Um, this is the enchanted I pulled from the set, by the way, which is wonderful.
SPEAKER_00I got I have one as well. I was chasing the uh chasing the whole Atlantis set, and we do have all of them. Nice, dude. Yeah, give me one second. Oh my gosh, it looks great. Okay, here we go. Oh my gosh. The Leviathan. So I got a Leviathan in the middle, right? I got Leviathan in the middle, Milo on the right in my little collection shelf here in a in a three ceramic clear see-through thing. Yeah, my uh Leviathan in the middle, right? And then Milo on the right looking towards Leviathan, yeah. She's looking to the left, and then Keto who's looking to the right while she's looking elevated. Oh, dude, it looks so nice, dude. Yeah, it looks so nice.
SPEAKER_02It's uh that is one thing they did do very right. This said is the enchanted.
SPEAKER_00There has to be someone, and I don't know who it is, some nameless hero that uh was like, we need to have this look this direction, we need to have this look that direction. For example, like um another example that I don't own, um, Mr. Incredible is looking to the left, right? The enchanted Mr. Incredible is hammering down to the left, and then the Mrs. Incredible is looking to the right. So you have bookends. So you have bookends for your enchanted incredible set with with um Syndrome Syndrome looking dead center. Yeah, so and then Sind and then um um the purple, the purple. He's look he's he's skating in. Um frozen, yeah. Frozone's looking slightly to the right if you're looking at the card. And Jack Jack is he is centered, but his eyeballs are looking slightly to the left.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so dude, someone went the whole scene, and somebody is doing good work over there.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm beautiful, beautiful, yeah. A plus, and that's that detail, and I think that's that details that really engage in the collectors and engage the players, and it just like jackback jack's not playable, but boy, with the hot hand fire foils on the jack. So good.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, continue so Milo in green blue. Uh, we have seen this over um the someone will lose their heads, right? Uh, where we kind of thought that card would be crazy, you can sing it and minus two to everything in combination with under the sea. They've kind of elected, eh? No, thank you. I'll just put in Milo and keep my deck the same and call it a day, right? Um, what are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00Outside of artwork, which being amazing. Yep, yep. The the foreground, background, middle ground, secondary background, beautiful. I'm not, I'm not a big fan. It's expensive, it is inkable, so we'll give it that. Like looking at the card, well, I always break down cards as such. Inkability, yes, check mark, expensive. It is uh bad point. Five five. Five five is not one of those numbers, attack and defense, does not equal cost. So that's a bad point for me personally, right? Fair um ward, one of the best abilities in the game. You can't discredit that ability, and then you got the discard, you hit two two two things in the discard. Two hitting two things in the discard is better than other things in this set, it's like two things plus this one, like escape play and firefly swarm, which are like if two other things, I know they don't say that, but like what in reality is if two other things, yeah. This one is warded if two things, so it's like okay, I can have I mean it's kind of the same, right?
SPEAKER_02Because if he's if he goes the discard, you're not getting that effect, too, right? But yeah, chances are he's warded, so he's not gonna, you know, yeah. He's the I think I would just like to kind of point out that you know it is in green blue, right? And so it it really took the place of the Basel, right? That already bounced stuff. So you're you're discarding to bounce, but then you get some extra ability. It does quest for three, so you close out the game a little faster, which is nice because that is one of the problems that that it did kind of have is um it green blue could kind of stall until you just set up a really wide board. Now you can just kind of set up Milo and a Clarabelle and keep rolling. Um but it is remarkably easy to get two things in the discard, and that's something that I very much underestimated. Um it's so easy just to be like, uh I mean your combo does develop. It does, yeah. You develop. I mean, even if you like malicious being scary, that's already one in the discard, then you just gotta play something else, like a visions, right? And so if you have visions for the combo, yeah, that's already two cards and you're drawing cards. Um, yeah, yeah. I've seen people take out the Donald in the deck, and I think that's incorrect because I think they they take out the Donald because I think that is a replacement draw, and your opponent does draw, but I think that's incorrect because you want your opponent to be drawing because you have a Claribel that says, I will draw when you draw, sort of. Yeah, and so I don't mind this as a replacement for the Basel. Um warded is disgusting at quests three. Um I am still baffled that people aren't playing the someone will lose their heads, um, especially that's how no play at all. Yeah, and it's kind of wild because it's the same number of pieces that you need to combo something. Yeah, but I was talking to a green blue player at our locals, and he's like, I'd rather just play the six drop. Uh the head's held high. I'm like, why? This does the same thing. One last strength, right? But like, I mean, the fact that you can it'll still hit just about anything you want it to hit, right? And so I don't think the three versus the two really makes a difference, but maybe it does. Um, so that that was kind of interesting to me. But um, nevertheless, you will be seeing Milo Thatch in green blue decks, and he does just sit there and look pretty until he quests for three. Um and by that point you don't have anything on the field, or likely in your hand with Bendel Bendle your will. Um good luck, I guess.
SPEAKER_00It's just the ward. I I think it's mostly the ward. I think it's that's fair. The ward hasn't have ward, it like like Cricky for for blue-green players didn't have ward, and it saw like a play play for a season just to have that yeah, questability, which is three, same as Milo. Like it's all play, but with him having ward, it it's it's it avoids the amber removal. You're gonna have to ward wipe. You're gonna if you're an amber, it it this is that ward, dude. It's that ward quest for three. And even if you don't want the effects at all, the quest for three, I still don't like it. I think I think there's I still I um hate me if I'm wrong, please let me know. But like I just I think it's pretty. I think you just when you include it, if you are a copy paster and you're like, oh, what do I fill in outside of this guy? Because he quests for three, it's like it very limits your your flexibility in other colors, like great for blue green. Great for blue green, but as a card as a whole, it's like am I like green red? No. Uh green purple, yeah, green purple, no. Uh green steel, no. It it is very hard, hard. Yeah, it's it's hard coded to green blue, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And again, I think you're right. I think it's only sample because you can ramp to it so fast, and you're already ramping to it so fast, right? Um so yeah.
SPEAKER_00But we will move for them, not great for everybody.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's what I that's a bad card. It's like, yeah, it's not the best card because you can't use it in every whatever one.
SPEAKER_02Fair. Uh okay, we are moving on to Merriweather and Blurble. Um, this is something uh has yeah, it started to come up last set where everybody was chucking scuttles in the deck and saying ward is really good. And turns out Ward is really good. Yeah. So now we're playing Merryweather because it says ward. Yep. Um I don't know if there's really much to say. The card says ward, its strength is equal to its cost, its willpower is even more.
SPEAKER_00And you could play it on turn three. And and the money chasers can put if I if you want to have your bling dao deck, you can have that alt art, extended art if you want to play four of them.
SPEAKER_02You can chase that. Um this is just a good card. Um and playing it in infinity as well, it's risen to that level of power. Um, it's just so hard to deal with, uh, especially when you can play it on turn three. And it it does everything you want it to do. It kills a lot of the early things because it's got four strength and it survives a lot of things. Just a good card.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's solid. Yeah. There's nothing there. So the criteria I talked about earlier. Um ink ability. Yep. Do the what cost is it? Not a lot. Does it match its defense and willpower? Yeah, it's above it, so good. It has ward, one of the best effects generically for every color pairing in the deck.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't say draw a card though.
SPEAKER_00So point it does not say draw a card or evasive.
SPEAKER_02So but really just a bad card, then just terrible cards. Terrible, whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's not evasive. Get it out of here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't think we have too much to say about that one. It's just a good card. I think everybody kind of knew that going into it. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So moving on. Can I can I add one point? Yeah, one point for the community for Merryweather. She's an uncommon, so she will be inexpensive. Yeah. And if you're new to the game and you open a couple packs of wilds and you get yourself three to four copies of Merryweather, you can use her as a building block to have your, you know, uh an early game that you know that can either buy you time to her or have some fancy stuff that you're trying to do, or late game that you're not really having any of until like late gate. So I think she's good for the community. Uh, she's not gonna break the competitive market because she's no snow hat does not have any strong effects. So I think she's just a great competitive scene card, great for new players. So I I I'm a very supportive of this card.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Uh so moving on, we have Dale in Dogs. Um, Kurt Spice, you you stinker, you I mean personally, Kurt Spice aside I'm not sure it belongs in there. Um it to me, it seems like you're shifting dogs to an aggro deck to more of a control deck. I understand the point, right? You slap down a dale, and then everything that they trade into you dies, so you can keep going wider and wider, and they can't double trade with things. Yes, sure. But it it seems like you're often taking a turn off to do that, just to play the dale. And that is not really what you want to be doing in that deck. You kind of want to just continue to go wider and wider and force a board wipe, or they lose, right?
SPEAKER_00I I can see that point. Um, especially if we're looking at uh Snowfort. Um Snowfort applies the same type of pressure, not the exact same pressure, but the same type of pressure, but you're taking that turn off on three. Um with Dale, you're taking that turn off on three if you have Willow, which you took another turn off on two to play willow, uh uh lore pressure-wise, and then you you play Dale on three, which is Snowfort, or you play him on four if you didn't play Willow, because you're still applying that lore pressure with whatever two drop you want, a quest for two. I think it is a two of. Um I don't think I don't think it's uh I think Dale belongs in a control deck um as a surprise tool. Um I've been I've been messing around with purple yellow, and there are many times where uh uh in the later games where you're exchanging combat and exchanging removal, and then you feel like you removed a threat, and then you can quest out and apply the pressure. Then your opponent drops the dale and then goes into that exchanging two for one. Oh, this this one four magically turns into a four-four on my specific turn that I decided to play Dale. I think he's great, but for dogs, it's I don't know. I don't know if it's the best choice. I think you you want to keep that consistency, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and you like you said, I think if you're playing both Dale and Snowfort, now you're taking multiple turns off. I don't think that is at all correct. Um, even if you're playing Dale, like if you can play it in a in a way where you can play Dale and something else to still grow your board, that's that's fine. Um but yeah, I think I think you and I are both in agreement that it it's better in a purple yellow deck, right? And there's been a lot of purple yellow decks popping up, topping things that I'm keeping track of.
SPEAKER_00They're tough to deal with, they're tough to deal with. I'm I'm gonna play it at my set champs because they're tough to deal with and they're difficult for people that are not experienced players to like if like for uh a football reference, if I'm a wide receiver and I know my playbook, I'm a rookie, and I know the the Tampa Bay Buccaneers run these plays. Yeah, I can run these plays. But if I'm a rookie and I go, oh my gosh, they have coverage for all of our plays, and the coach is like, Look, we need to switch to backup, we need to run these plays, it's like, oh no, I don't I I I I don't know how that works. Yes, yeah. I I it's it's hard. Yeah, it's very loose. But if if you're sitting down and you're not experienced and someone slaps down a purple yellow and your friends don't play purple yellow and your buddies don't play purple yellow, and you haven't seen it yet, you're not gonna you're not gonna know what to do. And then congratulations next round. Oh, now you're a one and two, and you're gonna fight your way to top eight.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, no, I think I think purple yellow. I mean, it's it's very strong this set. I mean, I've seen a lot of a lot of them top uh in some of the relatively medium-sized tournaments that that have been going on around the the world here. Uh been keeping track on ink decks. Um and it's there, they're always there, just looming. And they're yeah, I don't think I've seen one wit win yet, but they're always you know top four, top two, right? And it's just very hard to beat consistently.
SPEAKER_00So we'll see. I'm not a professional player, but I think it's very hard for professional players to bring in a color pair that has always been not on radar, like purple yellow has been an aggro deck since set one, said set three. It's always fast, fast, fast. And then you introduce one card that allows you to take advantage of that high defense. Yeah, I don't have four if I have three months of cooking something in another color pair that I haven't even touched, I'm not bringing it if I was a pro. So so the people don't have the courage or or inclination to bring it. Uh, I'm bringing it, so we'll see what happens. But no, yeah, fair.
SPEAKER_02Uh so I just have a couple more I want to talk about here before we wrap things up. Uh this next one here.
SPEAKER_00Uh I think blue green, uh, I do think blue green toys takes advantage of Dale post-rotation without without seeing attack, without seeing attack.
SPEAKER_02Yellow green toys or blue green.
SPEAKER_00Yellow, yeah, yellow, green, yellow, green toys. Yellow green toys takes because then we can get yellow green toys control and then dump uh as opposed to red yellow toys dumping immediately. So yeah, that's that's the last point. Last point, that's it.
SPEAKER_02You're good. Uh well, we can move right into toys because um I've been playing much toys online uh nice casually, and that deck is so much fun, and it can win out of nowhere. I was uh you know, I was playing online and I was playing against a green blue, and he had me dead to rights. Like he has board or core infinity, uh core, core one of the very few online games of core I've been playing. Um it's only been Toys, I've only played Toy's. Um, and you know, he's got a Clarabelle, he did the combo, I've got no board, and so I was able to go, okay. Um Janny, uh pterodactyl Janny, Sid. All right, you lose you lose a lore, I gain three lore. Okay, okay, cool, and it's 17. I just need this one more time. You know, you just and you have that you have the combo in hand a lot of the times where if you have a double Sid, um, you know, toy plus Sid, and you're just gonna win, right? You win out of nowhere, even even from like for yeah, and if you if you have two SIDs and they somehow don't remove it, that stacks even more. Um toys are just awesome, they're so much fun. Um, so please look out for them in Satchamps because I'm sure people will be playing them, and they they kind of can adapt, right? They can go really aggro, right? If they go red yellow specifically, yeah. Yeah, if they go woody, uh Woody Bullseye, shift woody, drop a rex, sing uh you've got a friend. I mean, they're boards a billion things. You're like, oh my god, what is happening, right? Yeah, uh yeah. They're not gonna get it. They're not gonna get it every time. Not every time, but that's the beauty of it, is they can also go, all right. Well, turn one woody, turn two bullseye, sing, um, and then okay, well, now I'm I'm I have enough ink, so I'm gonna drop uh a hand in the box for free, then play a Sid. Yep, and then oh look, I have a baby hut on board, so I draw a card, and then like you they can be more mid-range. My only complaint about the deck is that deck cannot search Sid, right? Sid is not a toy, but contrary to popular belief, he is a human.
SPEAKER_00Um he has blood in his veins, yes.
SPEAKER_02So that is what makes the consistency of the deck a little less, right? You can kind of fix those with BR guest and some things like that.
SPEAKER_00Um, also toying with it as well. Yeah, toying. Oh my goodness, crazy. I think I think BR guest, I think the search cards are kind of BR guest. I don't know, I jumped in, but I think toys are the toys don't need the search. Me personally, I don't think they need the BR the BR guest or part of not part of your world, but uh the other actions and songs that go, oh look at the top blank, whatever, and find toys invited to the ball and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. They they kind of function on their own as long as you can mulligan for a Woody or a Jesse. Um there's been games where where I've got I've gone turn one Woody, turn two ham, jump ahead and kind of play this mid game aggro fast mid range, right? Like there's mid range can be like all the way up. I kind of define it as like, is are we winning by turn four? It's aggro. Yeah. We're winning by turn five. Technically, it's mid-range. And then are we winning by turn eight? Technically, it's kind of mid-range, but it's not, it's kind of control. So you have that like three, four turn flexibility. I think red yellow can sit on both ends of that spectrum based off of your draw and practice.
SPEAKER_02And I want to push back a little bit. I think the other stuff like that. How dare you, how dare you? I know crazy. That isn't necessarily needed, but I think having an extra way to dig your deck for specifically Sid is important in red yellow, right? Because every card in your deck says, Oh, get a toy. Get a toy, right? And it's it's not only get a toy, it's look at the top X, get a toy, or look at the top X, get two toys, right? In that, I've found that a lot of the times you are actually putting SIDs and things that you do want that are not toys on the bottom of your deck. And you don't quite have enough replacement power to get through your entire deck. Uh you'll get through most of it, but then there's always those cards that you kind of shove to the side that are on the bottom. If those just happen to be SIDs, you're gonna have a real hard time closing the game out, right? Um, and so BRGS just allows you to and it's singable, right? By like almost every character in your deck. It's it's it just allows you to be like, okay, I need a Sid, let's let's dig for a Sid, right? Um, because you're right, the Jesse draws cards. Um, Woody draws cards.
SPEAKER_00There's technically Sid though, it does miss Sid, which can can be rough.
SPEAKER_02It's weird because you almost want to operate this deck at seven or eight ink because you want to be allowed to like uh play a Jesse, then play it two cut then play two cost things to lower your opponent's attack and then do some things, right? But at the same time, you want to do aggro stuff and go woody bullseye, woody rex.
SPEAKER_00It's like oh so it's kind of you're kind of taller, but nonetheless, I think the deck is really fun. I think it will be harmful. Uh we we're set one, set two players, um, and we're very familiar with the B preps. And when people when we see yellow, we're like, oh, they have Storm, like or not Storm, but um Raging Storm. Yeah, they have Raging Storm, so we know how to okay. I have four lore a turn on board currently, I'm at 10 lore, I'm on a two to three turn o'clock. I do not need to invest anything. I'm gonna sit here and draw cards for one to two turns if they don't board wipe. Yeah, newer players, when they do play that toy deck that lets you drop everything at a whenever you want, they struggle with the the the patience of don't because they've only been punished uh if they started with Festival of the Arts, they've only been punished for one to two sets of board wipe. So I think it's it's gonna be very fun for old players. It's gonna be cool for new players, and for new players, it will hurt them because they're gonna go, oh cool, I'm gonna tap ham and play one less, and then play Rex and get bodyguard, and then drop a Woody, then shift that Woody, and then I have a Jesse on board, I'm out of cards, and I'm gonna draw two cards next heart and play one for free, and then they're gonna go, Oh cool, uh Raging Storm or Infinity, they're gonna they're gonna board wipe and they're gonna feel feel it hard. So I think you know, as someone who's new to the game, just yes, it is very powerful. Yes, you can draw cards, yes, you can do kind of whatever you want, just be very cognizant of the fact that at any given point after seven ink it's gonna get reset and they're gonna have it's gonna get reset. So for you new players, be cognizant, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and and you know, we we bring all this up to say that you will see this at Set Champs. Um it is beatable, um, but it is a ton of fun, and it's a ton of fun to play against too when people are screaming, I play baby head, right? It's like you know that's that's fantastic, right? Yeah, like I mean uh yeah, I've had some very um anime moments playing that deck where it's like I'll play baby head, then crash in my pterodactyl channy and draw a card. Oh, and now you lose a lore, and then I'll play a single it's it's very like over the top, a bunch of fun. Um, for sure. I think that's gonna do it for everything on my list here today. I think we are running up on time. Uh, did you have anything else you wanted to talk about today?
SPEAKER_00Uh um not not really. Uh just a shout out to the TikTok Lacona Crew, the Facebook Lacona Crew, the Instagram Larcona.crew. We're we're starting a partnership with Toinado Alley. So that that's about that's about it.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, and you know, like like we said, we hope to see you guys in Indy. Uh we'll have we'll have at least another episode or two out before then. But if you uh if you are coming up to indie, make sure you stop partying.
SPEAKER_00Say hi, me, Sam, or Nick. We'll be loaded up with stickers in the back pocket to hand out. Uh I know it's not like uh I know it's not the coolest thing, but we love to hand out stickers.
SPEAKER_02I actually got uh my favorite sticker that I have is a Maui Shark do to do to do uh sticker that I got round one in Richmond after my opponent beat me. She's like, I beat you, so you get a sticker. I'm like, oh yeah, thanks, Al. But I'm like, I really want that sticker, so okay, thank you for beating me, right? So um, yeah, I put stickers on all my deck boxes, big big sticker fan.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm not a big sticker fan, but I recognize it, and I just want to get back to the community and we can be a part of your you know, your deck boxes or your sleeves or your you know little stand or corkboard full of stickers. We're just expecting it.
SPEAKER_02Please don't put stickers on your sleeve, folks. Don't put stickers on your sleeve, put them on your binder, put them on your deck box. If you said everything he just said, just don't put them on your sleeve.
SPEAKER_00I don't know what you want. Oh, whatever you want to do. No, we we I will say that it I'm very excited because when we went to Richmond, we had approximately 400 followers on TikTok, yeah, TikTok. And we're about a thousand now, right? Yeah, we're at in by the time if we follow the trajectory of one to two followers per day on TikTok, we're looking at like what uh 1300 by indie. So I'm very excited to meet all of you and shake your hands and hang out. And I got a thousand, I got picked up a thousand sergeant tips for to sign. So I I'm I'm very excited to see all of you and um yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, with that, just always remember to ink smart and quest fast folks. See you next time.