0:00

With the exception of a few people, I think basically

0:02

every senior will ID.

0:05

so it is definitely five

0:08

rounds, day two, that's the minimum. As

0:10

soon as you hit 220, as soon

0:12

as you hit 227 players, it becomes

0:15

nine plus five.

0:16

This feels a little off. I can't put my

0:18

finger on what feels off, but something

0:20

feels off when you have 200 players

0:23

with like the same, pretty much the same

0:25

round structure as like 2000,

0:29

you know?

0:30

One extra round, one extra round

0:32

for ten times more players.

0:34

yeah. I'm, all I'm

0:36

saying, something's a little off. Something's a little off

0:38

there.

0:39

Yeah.

0:40

Do you think they would say the problem is we're giving

0:42

those seniors too many rounds? We should give them three.

0:45

Give them two. Give them one. They get one

0:47

round on Sunday.

0:49

Master's tournament structure is out of whack. That's

0:51

my, that's my

0:52

You think Master Chairman's structure is bad? I think it's fine.

0:55

I don't know man, playing 9 rounds day 1, 9

0:57

rounds day 2, it's gonna be fine to

0:59

I think it should be cut to top 16, but that's

1:01

all. I think we should start

1:03

Dude, I hate, I hate it, I hate

1:05

it when people are asking for the prizes to go lower.

1:07

Like, they should just make everything as top

1:09

heavy as possible. Patch

1:13

to top 64 is like the worst idea

1:15

I've heard in a minute, bro. Like,

1:17

you understand the game that we're playing, though?

1:19

Like, it's not chess. It's

1:21

not melee.

1:22

that's what all the bad players tell themselves, like, oh

1:24

All the bad players, whew!

1:26

went 4 4 1. I guess it's the

1:28

game we're playing, and Azul is like literally

1:30

top cutting three times in a row,

1:31

No, we're not talking about Liam, but here's the thing, we're not

1:33

talking about the players who go 4 4 1, we're talking about the

1:35

players who went like, whatever,

1:38

10 3 10 4

1:40

2.

1:42

you would be surprised how many terrible players there are in day two,

1:44

man. It's pretty

1:45

Of course, but I'm saying if you, if you

1:47

have a

1:47

topped that three times in a row. Give him more money.

1:50

Give him more money. Like,

1:52

we

1:53

Let me, let me put it this way, like, it's

1:55

to send it all the way down to like top 64

1:57

just because, you know, some kid who made like three misplays

1:59

in like his last three rounds or whatever to sell

2:01

needs bread. Like, give it to the people

2:03

at the top, bro. I, like,

2:06

Yeah, yeah, so, so, 10 4

2:08

1, 10 4 1 was out

2:10

of, out of cash range, and

2:13

I feel like if you are going 10 4 1,

2:16

Dude, 10 4 1 is pretty terrible, man. That's a 66

2:19

that is,

2:19

man. That's pretty terrible.

2:21

It's not

2:22

in a game like this, in a game

2:23

1 and then you went 4

2:26

2.

2:27

pretty terrible. That's pretty terrible.

2:31

I mean, that is how you come in 64th place,

2:33

right?

2:34

Also, this is the second tournament in a row

2:36

now where two 11

2:38

2 2s have missed. Cut. Like, that's

2:41

That's insane to me. That is actually bonkers.

2:44

I think it's alright, bro. You got two bans for your trouble. And

2:48

like also, you know, the

2:50

reason that I like, you know, you miscut when

2:52

you're 11 2 2 is basically

2:54

the same thing that happened to me. You lost your

2:56

first round in Day 2, like, I already know you're out,

2:58

bro. It's alright. You

3:01

lost your first round in Day 2. Kind of a, like, you

3:04

know. Not rewarding the people who,

3:06

like, basically take the easiest path,

3:08

which is that they send themselves to the lowest bracket

3:10

you can be to get up to 11 2 2.

3:13

You know, if those people end up not getting as much money,

3:15

it's a'ight. It's a'ight. I'll

3:19

take it.

3:20

Well, So

3:23

Dan, so Dan Hugar went

3:25

10 0 5. He did not lose

3:27

a game. So that argument's a little

3:30

Also,

3:31

say a similar thing about ties,

3:33

I, I count that. I count that.

3:35

10 0 5. It's playing Lost 17a.

3:37

We already know what happened in the 0 5. Like,

3:40

playing Lost 17a, man. He

3:43

actually said he was gonna win some of those ties, but like, guess what,

3:45

man? You tied him once, you played Lost

3:47

17a. You know, you, you

3:49

get what you you get what you deserve. Right?

3:53

I just feel like, I don't know, I feel

3:55

like if you have, especially in a

3:57

game like Pokemon, if the

4:01

cut to go to single limb, in my opinion,

4:03

should not be at X2 2.

4:07

That feels a little, a little

4:09

extreme in terms of the, frankly,

4:12

like, the luck that you need to have to

4:15

hit top cut.

4:17

Azu must be on the hottest luck streak ever.

4:19

Then.

4:20

I mean, if you look at

4:21

Did you see his did

4:22

He's probably doing pretty good. He's dropped pretty good. I'm not

4:24

saying he

4:25

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you got to

4:27

be drawing good He's obviously playing very

4:29

good

4:29

I, I think, I think he's optimizing way better

4:31

than make basically anyone else playing right now.

4:34

his his

4:35

is, if you look at Azul's track record over the past,

4:37

like, two years, he's had a lot

4:39

of whiffs. A lot of whiffs. And,

4:43

and I think that in

4:45

a game like Pokemon, the cut

4:47

to single limb should not be at

4:49

x2, 2. Where you have

4:52

to get like, substantially

4:54

above average luck in order to make

4:56

it. I think it should be down

4:59

to top 16, which would be 11

5:01

4.

5:01

we've already talked about this before and we all agreed

5:04

if you played like optimally,

5:07

you, you should basically win every single tournament. Like,

5:09

that's, that's what the stats would say. You, you win like

5:11

everything. Like, 99 percent on

5:13

I mean, I think in

5:16

an appropriate, I think, contextual defense, Liam, I'd

5:18

say Liam and I both watched both

5:21

Grant and Azul play the

5:23

Charizard vs. Lastina matchup. And I think Grant

5:25

Shen basically played identical

5:28

to Azul, just had much, much

5:30

worse luck. Ha ha

5:32

ha ha

5:34

yeah. Like,

5:37

it's It doesn't matter, though. It

5:39

doesn't matter. Like,

5:41

But it does matter.

5:43

no. No, no, like, it

5:45

actually just does not. Just

5:48

play that array. Like, and

5:50

His Azul's, I just,

5:53

I just want to say Azul's winnin

5:55

game on stream, I don't know if you guys watched it, round

5:58

nine of day one, was a perfect example

6:00

of both Azul playing extremely

6:03

well, and Azul getting quite

6:06

lucky. Like, for example, in

6:08

his game two, he kinda, he had like

6:10

a slow start, and then had to

6:13

Forest Sealstone for a Desperation Iono,

6:15

and off that Iono hit Candy Pidgeot Candy

6:17

Zard. Yeah,

6:21

and but to be fair he also played

6:24

that hand once he got it extremely

6:26

well He played the game very slowly

6:28

when other people would have just like slammed stuff down

6:30

played aggressively and whatnot So like he's

6:32

capitalizing on his luck for sure.

6:35

But to say that he's not getting lucky

6:37

is a little crazy

6:39

and

6:39

I literally clarified that as soon as I said it.

6:42

I didn't say he was, like, getting, like

6:44

he was not getting lucky. I said he probably wasn't on, like,

6:46

the hottest luck streak of all time.

6:48

Sure sure sure.

6:51

He's probably getting a little bit lucky, having like above average

6:53

results of course, like even the streak for Azul is pretty

6:55

crazy, but like,

6:56

Yeah

6:58

you know, if you play that well, like,

7:00

stuff like that's bound to happen. You're bound to have

7:02

success.

7:03

agreed.

7:09

Welcome to the Trashalanche. Attendance

7:11

is 133%. It's

7:13

the only podcast about the Pokémon

7:16

trading card game. Caden's here,

7:18

Mike's here, Liam's here, I'm here. We're

7:20

all on Twitter, too, if you wanted to do that thing. If

7:23

you leave a five star review, we will

7:25

read it on the pod. If you leave a different

7:27

review, we will still read it on the pod. If

7:29

you tweet us, we're somewhat likely to read it on the pod.

7:31

There are so many different ways to get in touch with you. Guys,

7:34

I've been holding the two reviews we got for

7:37

a couple of weeks. Let's do some reviews real quick,

7:39

so you guys can say you heard them. Because I think they're,

7:41

they're awesome. GorillaTerrence gives

7:43

us a five star review on December 12th.

7:46

And says, excellent podcast for

7:48

competitive TCG players. I really

7:50

like the style of this podcast. It has a unique

7:52

couch podcast style that doesn't really follow a tight

7:54

structure. Last week's episode was probably

7:57

one of my favorites. I really liked how the mic

7:59

time was allocated. I assume that means I didn't

8:01

talk and Liam talked the whole time about Snorlax.

8:03

I can't remember which episode he's referring

8:05

to. I'm usually a fan of the tournament reviews.

8:07

They're quick and simple yet very informative. I

8:09

always appreciate Liam always gassing

8:11

me up on X. He's a real one for that.

8:14

Great podcast overall. Keep it up. Don't ever

8:16

stop.

8:19

Nice great name Gorilla Terrence

8:22

that's that's Terrence Miller, like I got top 16

8:24

with

8:24

Oh, heck yeah. Okay,

8:25

Oh, fantastic.

8:27

Yeah, yeah. I don't know Terrence

8:29

very well, but I know people

8:31

that know Terrence,

8:32

Yeah, I know he's Drew's friend.

8:34

He, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like some

8:36

of the other Arizona dudes, and they've spoken

8:39

highly of him. So, thanks for listening, man.

8:42

The Arizona Pokemon scene is super cool.

8:44

I know I was down in Arizona

8:47

for work at some point and got together

8:49

with Drew for lunch and he was talking

8:51

to me about his like testing strategies

8:53

and what he does there to prep for tournaments and it just seemed

8:55

super nice down there. And the weather's awesome,

8:57

obviously. Alright,

8:59

second review. Rakula, December

9:02

18th, said, Great insight for PokéDads.

9:04

Listen each week and have learned a lot that helps my

9:07

son who is a junior and soon to be senior

9:09

player. Would you be willing to discuss your

9:11

advice for parents of younger players,

9:13

do's and don'ts at tournaments, and a little

9:15

about how the younger metagame may vary from

9:17

Masters for this format.

9:20

Thanks, and keep up the great work. You've

9:23

come to the right podcast. Caden, brother

9:26

of Finalists?

9:29

Top

9:30

Top four, top four, top

9:31

And seniors this past weekend in Portland

9:35

and obviously Liam, who knows all about

9:38

making the senior meta calls by

9:40

just playing whatever deck Kayden tells him to, and when he doesn't,

9:42

he does bad. Kayden,

9:45

thoughts? Ha ha

9:47

first of all, I want to clarify that

9:49

is not true whatsoever, case in point, Snorlax.

9:53

Liam, Liam absolutely

9:56

picks fantastic calls and performs

9:58

well, so that

9:59

All the

10:00

I had one, I had one good pick. I had one

10:02

good pick at Worlds, and that's the

10:04

only thing. I will, I will push

10:06

that I, I, I pushed him towards

10:08

everything else was his doing. But

10:10

as for, as for Seniors, I honestly

10:13

think Seniors is

10:15

a little tough. We don't have the sorts

10:17

of structures that we have for Masters

10:20

in terms of reading the metagame. And frankly

10:22

you know, I, I've been shocked

10:24

at times talking to my brother about how

10:26

little any Senior has any idea

10:29

what other Seniors are up to and

10:31

what other Seniors played at past events. With

10:33

that being said, though, it sounds like

10:35

there is an egregious amount of Lost

10:38

Tina. As expected, they tend

10:40

to, and this is something I've generally

10:42

seen with seniors they tend to loosely

10:44

follow what masters

10:46

do, but with a little bit

10:49

of an inclination towards some decks and an inclination

10:51

away from others. So this format,

10:53

for instance, there's a lot of Fusion

10:55

Mew a good amount of Lost Tina

10:57

as well. And it seems also

11:00

Intel Ursh is still decently

11:02

popular. You know, seniors enjoy decks

11:04

that they feel like they can have

11:07

a good time and kind of just, like, bully

11:09

their opponents out of the game. So, that

11:12

makes sense for Fusion Mew and Intel Ursh being

11:14

popular. Those are two those are two decks

11:16

that can absolutely just, like, shove

11:18

your opponent out of the game in what feels

11:20

like very unfair ways. And

11:23

Lost Tiena is has also just been Very

11:25

popular in seniors. With that being said, my brother

11:27

got top four this past weekend

11:29

in Portland with Snorlax. Snorlax

11:32

is a tremendous deck. Because

11:35

one other thing about seniors is, you know, of course,

11:38

seniors across the board aren't as

11:40

good at the game as many

11:42

of the top masters, and so,

11:45

and oftentimes they're Their

11:47

ability, and this is most frequently shown in their ability

11:49

to adapt versus decks or archetypes

11:52

that they don't, haven't seen before,

11:54

haven't thought about. Typically seniors

11:56

can you know, practice

11:58

out and, and implement a strategy that

12:00

they have thought about and heard about. Pretty

12:02

well, but when it comes to trying

12:04

to on the fly against something they

12:06

haven't necessarily tested quite as much of it against,

12:09

create a viable strat, they often have some

12:11

trouble. This is why Snorlax and other

12:13

kind of rogue decks can actually be a very

12:15

powerful pick in seniors, because seniors

12:17

will often have a

12:19

lot of difficulty. Figuring out what they're

12:22

supposed to do in the matchup so

12:24

my, my brother talked about, you know, a lot

12:26

of seniors making some fairly

12:29

egregious misplays against Snorlax just for,

12:31

because they hadn't thought about the matchup, they hadn't practiced

12:34

it and Of

12:37

his losses two of his losses,

12:39

his two losses in day

12:41

one as well as his loss in top

12:43

four, all three were to Lost Tina.

12:46

You know, which is of course a historically

12:48

awful matchup for Snorlax. But

12:52

for what it's worth, talking to my brother,

12:54

it sounds like, you know, each of

12:56

them had one very lucky

12:58

Iono hit, that had they whiffed

13:00

or been one turn slower, he would have

13:02

stabilized to the point where the Lost Gena

13:04

players had no way to come back from.

13:06

So, frankly, I would I think

13:09

I would honestly recommend Snorlax for seniors

13:11

pretty heavily. I think if you can pilot it well,

13:13

you have the time. Go back, listen to

13:15

previous podcasts where Liam talked about Snorlax,

13:18

and in general, just reach out to people who

13:20

have potentially played Snorlax. Try

13:22

to figure out how the deck works. I think it

13:24

is a very strong play that most seniors

13:26

will have no idea how to play against. So,

13:29

Snorlax is my recommendation for seniors.

13:33

You know, the, the advice I, I

13:35

think I always try to give to people about trying

13:37

to pick a deck in Seniors. So I think the, the big

13:40

difference between Seniors

13:42

and Masters is, in Seniors,

13:44

if you lose two games, your tournament's over.

13:48

Like, you just, you cannot take L's

13:50

at all. And, as a result,

13:52

I think a lot of the, like, top

13:54

Seniors, quote unquote, like, the way, there's

13:57

like, essentially two classes of,

13:59

of people in Seniors. There's People

14:02

that are not, like, top 16 players,

14:04

and then there's top 16 players. And, like,

14:06

you could say people who are not top 16 players, like,

14:08

there's probably a couple people in the bubble, or

14:10

but, but, like, it's like that.

14:12

And if you're not a top 16

14:15

player, probably the strategy is just

14:18

play the best deck that you're, the deck you're most

14:20

comfortable with that is a, like,

14:22

top tier meta deck, and,

14:24

like, try to get dubs and crush people.

14:27

But what the top 16 players are doing

14:29

is whereas, like, we spend a lot

14:32

of time talking about, like, oh, you think there's

14:34

gonna be 10%, 20%,

14:36

15%, cause, like, the question is, you're gonna get paired against

14:38

9 decks day 1, and you have to go

14:40

6 2 1, eh, or, or better,

14:42

and you have to figure out a way to navigate all that stuff. In

14:45

seniors, you can lose

14:47

one round. And Like,

14:50

I think the, the top 16 seniors,

14:52

the way they think about the problem is they're like, Okay,

14:54

I'm gonna beat all the bad kids, but

14:56

at the end, I'm gonna get paired against

14:58

two or three good players, and I

15:01

have to beat those players. And

15:03

the metagame is not about, like, like,

15:05

what is this deck, how, you know, what do we think

15:08

this meta share is? It's, what

15:10

do we think those guys are gonna play? Like,

15:12

what's Polaris gonna play? What's Owen Dahlgaard gonna

15:14

play? Like, that's how top 16 players are thinking

15:16

about it. So I think, you

15:18

see seniors end up on rogue decks because

15:21

they think that that's the right way to counter

15:24

like, some combination of things that they think

15:26

other players are going to play. And, if

15:28

you're a top 16 player, you just trust

15:30

that if you get paired against a non top 16 player,

15:33

you'll be able to figure it out because you're better at Pokemon than

15:35

they are. And,

15:37

like, that's a harder thing to do in

15:39

Masters. But like, yeah, I, I,

15:41

I think seniors there, there's a lot of like picking

15:44

up decks that you get from super top players

15:46

and saying, I'll teach this I'll teach myself how to play this

15:48

in the first two rounds of the tournament. In masters,

15:51

people do that, but like, it's much harder.

15:55

Yeah, and it's changed so much

15:57

in Masters. Like, that used to kinda be

15:59

the case. Like, even Five, six

16:01

years ago, there was so much

16:03

speculation about like, oh, what's what's the

16:05

DDG group gonna play? Because,

16:08

you know, in a field of 300

16:10

and five or six of them are playing the

16:12

same deck and they're the best players, that is

16:15

kind of the similar reality

16:17

as to what Seniors is now.

16:20

But now you just, you can't do that in Masters.

16:22

And we've kind of seen the the change in

16:24

how even the top players pick their decks. Because

16:27

of that, like, the Azul group's just been

16:29

playing Charizard for the last couple events, because

16:32

it's just a good deck. It's consistent, it has solid

16:34

matchups and whatnot, they're not worried about

16:37

metagaming, really. And,

16:39

and, but yeah, that totally makes sense

16:41

I, I, yeah. And, and we went from like 800

16:44

masters to 2000 masters and

16:46

like, it, it is a little bit more about just that,

16:48

that like what's the meta share? Right.

16:50

Yeah.

16:51

You have almost no way to control what you're going to bump into.

16:54

think this is also kind of mirrored

16:56

in, I, you know, I remember, as,

16:59

as you said, Mike, not that long ago, like a very

17:01

different age where, and similarly, everyone

17:03

was very, very secretive about

17:06

what they were testing, what their thoughts were on the meta,

17:08

what they were planning on bringing,

17:11

and I feel like

17:13

we are in, like, everyone is much

17:15

more open now with Thanks. Bye. Bye.

17:18

The sole exception being Worlds for

17:20

obvious reasons, because that is a much smaller tournament

17:22

where it's, it's much closer to it, and

17:24

it's also the largest tournament of the year. With

17:27

the exception of Worlds, it feels like, you

17:29

know, kind of across the board, most people are much

17:31

more open about lists,

17:34

what they're thinking about running how their testing's

17:36

been going, and just generally about, like, talking

17:39

about what's, what they're up to. And

17:42

I

17:42

doesn't matter.

17:43

because it just literally doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

17:46

Yeah,

17:47

Because, yeah, you used to be able to write up like a list of

17:49

16 players who you

17:51

would probably, you have like a 60

17:54

70 percent chance of hitting one of them in your winnin

17:56

end. And,

17:58

and, that is just not

18:00

the case. Now,

18:03

now, you really, you

18:05

have no idea what you're gonna hit. It can be anything. Literally

18:08

anything. And this is why, you know, over time

18:10

I've started to You know, I, I've

18:13

had this growing feeling that yes,

18:17

thinking about the meta matters, also,

18:21

it feels like it just matters less

18:23

and less. Because there's so

18:26

much diversity,

18:28

and I, you know, what

18:30

you hit just feels so

18:33

sporadic and random, I,

18:36

I've increasingly been kind of feeling

18:38

like it might just be better

18:40

to pick

18:42

the All around stronger deck,

18:45

or pick the deck

18:47

that you feel the most comfortable with and think you can pilot

18:49

the best because it's,

18:53

tournaments are so big in Masters.

18:56

Mike, Liam, do you have any advice for Pokedads

18:59

and Juniors?

19:00

Liam, you're muted.

19:01

mute, so he's going to just talk to himself

19:03

for a minute.

19:04

Hmm. Hmm.

19:10

What are all the things I've done wrong?

19:13

don't really know but I do know bringing your kid

19:15

food is like a, I mean,

19:18

I'd say it's probably pretty constant in like juniors

19:20

and seniors, or not like super constant, but a lot

19:22

of juniors and seniors do have like parents

19:24

to bring them food but yeah, I mean, if

19:27

your kid doesn't, that's like a pretty big disadvantage,

19:29

I think.

19:30

Yeah, yeah, you have, you have to do this, because

19:32

especially at a, your kid will not get themselves

19:34

food. They will not. They will be talking

19:36

to, talking to someone or doing

19:38

something else they won't think to get themselves food. And,

19:42

and, it matters so much. Yeah.

19:44

yes. Eating throughout a tournament

19:47

is a pretty good practice so yeah,

19:49

make sure your kid does that. That's like the biggest

19:51

thing I think at least from what

19:54

I remember, I don't know. That's something

19:56

my dad still does for me, at least like when it comes to tournaments

19:58

and it's, it's super great. I

20:00

don't have to like stand in that really long lunch line

20:02

or whatever to try and get food.

20:06

Yeah, take, as a parent, you have

20:08

a job to, like, make sure you get food during

20:10

the round, that way you don't have to be stuck in the

20:12

line. That is like the

20:14

key parent breast practice,

20:16

Yes,

20:16

The round right before lunch? Go get lunch.

20:20

yeah another one that I want

20:22

to throw out there, and this just depends on how,

20:25

you know, something that my dad always did, I remember,

20:28

or, well, used to do, that was really

20:30

great and useful, was just, you

20:32

know, before the tournament, when thinking about picking a deck, Just

20:36

having me talk through each of the matchups

20:38

in general strategies and thought processes,

20:40

especially at that age, was really, really

20:42

helpful. I mean, this is now, now we're getting

20:44

into just like general good study

20:47

practices that frankly you can also use

20:49

in like school. Sitting

20:51

down with my dad and just talking through the matchups

20:54

and having someone I can talk to

20:57

and throw questions at me and answer and,

20:59

and Just like, work through,

21:02

oh, I'm playing Guard

21:04

of War against Lost Tina, what's the general

21:06

game plans I want to go through, what are some of the key weaknesses

21:08

I can try to capitalize on, what do I have to be mindful

21:11

of, fearful of, specific resources that I have

21:13

to try to conserve, all these sorts of things, it was

21:15

really, really helpful to talk to my dad

21:17

through and help, that really helped cement them in my memory

21:20

for During the actual tournament, where,

21:22

you know, tensions are high, feelings are high, like

21:24

if it's, stuff is just kind of sitting

21:26

in your short term memory, it's

21:28

probably not gonna stick there. That

21:31

was really great. Also, one other thing

21:34

if you can, if you, if you have a

21:36

kid who's going into CUT if, if you have

21:38

a kid who's going into CUT, you will, obviously,

21:41

you will know what the matchup is beforehand.

21:44

If possible, and I know this isn't possible

21:46

for everyone, Find

21:48

a good, solid

21:50

master who's also playing the deck, and

21:53

have them talk to

21:55

your kid before the match about the matchup

21:58

and how to pilot it, because

22:00

they will give fantastic advice

22:03

generally.

22:04

Camp Chenoi. Mm hmm.

22:07

It depends on the deck, it depends on the deck.

22:09

mean,

22:10

That's Camp, I think.

22:11

Mike was giving Walker

22:13

Halliburton round by round coaching as he navigated

22:16

Nashville Worlds. I remember

22:18

just the voluminous dump

22:20

of information as he faced Japanese player

22:23

after Japanese player playing weird random

22:25

deck after weird random deck.

22:28

Good times.

22:30

But, but the, like, oh, you know, evolving

22:32

to Garbodor hurts you more than it hurts them because it doesn't

22:35

affect the math at all, like, I don't

22:37

know, there was all kinds of weird stuff that, like,

22:39

Walker would never have guessed and talking

22:42

to Mike and Ross was, was critical to success

22:44

there. Alright, if we want to head back to, to,

22:46

to our, our usual podcast adventure

22:49

guys Your monologue, though, Caden, reminded

22:51

me that I had a question I've had a burning

22:53

desire to ask you guys for like two weeks now,

22:56

and I've been holding it just

22:58

for this special moment. Here's my question

23:01

for Mike and Caden. When

23:03

we reflect on Liam's success

23:06

in San Antonio, I

23:09

realize that we never really clarified,

23:11

was that success Liam

23:13

played, A control deck?

23:16

Or was that success Liam played

23:18

a meta deck?

23:20

I mean, I think, I

23:23

think it's wrong to separate those two out. I

23:25

think You know, Snorlax

23:27

was, well, first of all, Liam

23:30

did not play the standard variant

23:32

of Snorlax that most people played, it was actually a fairly

23:34

substantially

23:37

different list that, you know, he

23:39

has proven, certainly

23:42

proven to me to be way stronger

23:44

and just objectively the better variant, at

23:47

least in my opinion. But it

23:49

is true, Snorlax was kind of

23:52

already a founded control

23:54

deck, largely just because it was really

23:56

strong and good, and I think that, as

24:00

we all know, Liam is a very good

24:03

control player, and, and, well,

24:05

Snorlax It's debatably a control

24:07

deck, it has some control elements in it it

24:10

certainly, you know, Liam

24:13

had the experience with other

24:15

decks similar to it to allow

24:17

him to pick the deck up faster and

24:19

understand how to pilot its matchups

24:21

easier at least I would assume so,

24:24

and, and The

24:27

added bonus of it being a meta deck, so

24:29

it was probably pretty good

24:31

already I think, I think, you know, he

24:34

picked a good deck that also he

24:37

knows and learned how to pilot quite

24:39

well. That's, I think I would leave it at that.

24:42

Yeah, I don't have too much to add. I would say,

24:46

yeah, if I had to choose binarily,

24:48

I would say not a meta deck. What was the

24:51

other option? Control or Rogue?

24:53

Control, yeah.

24:54

Control. Yeah, I would, I would say if I, but

24:57

I agree with all the nuance Caden said.

24:59

I disagree with those options.

25:02

What?

25:02

with those options. Like, control player is not a real thing,

25:04

bro. Like, you know, you play, you play a deck, how

25:06

good you play a deck, bro, and like, some decks you

25:08

kind of vibe with, and some decks you kind of don't, but like, you

25:11

know, it's like, just different

25:13

engines and stuff like that, like, say you're

25:15

good at Guard of War, but like worse at Lost Box

25:18

or something, but like, say you're like, Guardian player

25:20

or something like that, like, You know, you're

25:22

just a player and like, some decks you play good, some decks

25:24

you play bad. And that deck I think I play okay.

25:26

I don't even play that deck. I'm

25:28

pretty bad at that deck, honestly. But I think the deck's really,

25:30

really strong, and I hit 5 Zard. So,

25:35

it just kind of

25:35

I mean, I recognize

25:38

like, obviously you could say, hey, good

25:40

players play good decks, but maybe the

25:42

cadence point, experience plays a role. Like,

25:44

you played a lot of Pidgey Control back in the day.

25:47

You played a lot of Sableye back in the day. Like, you've

25:50

played a lot of control decks. You've probably played more than your average

25:52

bear.

25:54

I mean,

25:55

And,

25:55

And I don't, I don't actually

25:57

you liked it.

25:58

aggro decks.

25:59

know you disagree with the idea of there being a control

26:02

player. When I, I don't think there's anyone,

26:04

I don't think that the skills that you acquire

26:07

playing a control deck are entirely separate

26:09

from the skills of playing other decks. I do think

26:11

though that control decks play fundamentally differently

26:14

than most other decks in Pokemon. And

26:16

I also think that control decks you

26:18

know, require, maybe not require,

26:20

but like, emphasize A different

26:23

set of skills, and I know I think my dad talked

26:25

to you about this, Liam, I want to say, or maybe

26:27

he talked to Cam when we

26:29

think about sort of some of the, like, core skills

26:31

in Pokemon, stuff like resource management,

26:34

or like, pathing out win conditions,

26:36

or like reading your

26:39

opponent different

26:41

decks kind of emphasize, emphasize

26:44

different, of different General

26:47

skills that are more critical to,

26:49

like, being able to pilot the deck well.

26:51

And I think that the skills

26:54

that a control deck like Snorlax emphasizes

26:56

is really different than, like, the

26:58

skills that Mew

27:00

emphasizes. And I think That's

27:03

not to say even necessarily that one

27:05

deck is harder to pilot than another, but

27:08

just they genuinely require different skills, and so

27:10

I think there are similarities between control

27:12

decks that allow someone who is

27:14

proficient with control archetypes and

27:16

has developed the skills that control decks

27:19

generally promote to pilot a control

27:21

deck easier than they would another deck. Ha ha

27:23

ha ha!

27:24

I agree with that.

27:25

Alright, guys

27:27

no, no. I wouldn't agree with that. I

27:29

wouldn't agree with that. No. At

27:31

least Pidgeot, like, the

27:34

Pidgeot, you know box

27:36

deck is like, that one's more

27:39

like, basically any other

27:41

deck has like the same exact skills

27:43

for that one. You just like Because,

27:46

because it's, it's so linear, like, you just

27:48

like Get

27:50

your Lux right out and just like do it and it's like more of

27:52

like a sequencing test and like Yeah,

27:56

I don't know. It's all the same skills. It's just like sequencing and

27:58

then like, you know, prize mapping, game

28:00

plan, like, you just do

28:03

all the same stuff, bro. Like, it's

28:06

the same

28:06

Right, but some stuff is more important than others.

28:09

Like, I would argue that often

28:12

with Controlled X, frankly, resource

28:14

management is a little less important.

28:16

Agree.

28:17

and, and, but, but, if you look at a deck

28:19

like Mew, like, or even,

28:22

or Lostbox, like, resource management is,

28:24

like, so critical arguably

28:27

less for me, but especially Lostbox. Lostbox,

28:29

like, resource management is arguably the

28:31

skill that you need to have in order to

28:33

pilot the deck well, and so, like, you know,

28:35

if you're a control player, Who's been,

28:37

who's been playing, or rather, sorry Liam,

28:40

someone who has played historically lots

28:42

of control decks and that's been the primary

28:44

thing they've played. They'll probably be a

28:46

little worse at resource management just

28:48

because they don't have the practice in it, and so Lost

28:51

Box will be a little bit of a harder deck to pick up for them.

28:54

That's my point.

28:55

That's fair.

28:56

And I reckon there's a span of things there too,

28:58

like, like, nobody would say Primal Ground,

29:01

it's like a control deck, but there's that element

29:03

of like like

29:04

Yeah, it's a Spectrum. I want the next follow

29:07

somewhere on the Spectrum.

29:08

All right. Anyway, Mike went to a lot of trouble to pull together

29:10

a ton of awesome agenda items. Let's, let's talk about

29:13

Well, we don't have to do all

29:16

of them, especially the first couple, because I

29:18

wasn't sure how much we were going to have to

29:20

talk about today, but clearly we had a

29:23

good amount of random stuff. So we

29:25

can come back to those first couple

29:27

things if we need something at

29:30

some point. Let's just get into the Portland stuff.

29:32

So the

29:36

first thing that I had under the Portland recap,

29:39

John Ng gets his first big win. I

29:43

know

29:44

Long time coming.

29:45

yeah,

29:45

weird,

29:46

Shout out to

29:46

to not get ninth. It's weird to not get ninth.

29:50

And John is a

29:52

local player for

29:55

Brent and Liam in particular, was for

29:57

me for a couple years as well,

30:00

so really,

30:02

really excited for him.

30:03

Yeah, and I've had, I've had a few conversations

30:06

with John. That's, that's, I'm, he's not

30:08

a local, but like

30:11

John

30:11

did you, Brent, Liam, did you guys have any

30:13

reactions to John winning other than two

30:16

thumbs up?

30:18

Yeah, good for him, man.

30:21

Did you guys watch the final against

30:24

I kind of just watched like the starts, man. I don't

30:26

even remember anything else like beyond that. I'm

30:29

just like, dude, watching the Lost

30:31

Tina starts was like so boring. I think about it now and I'm like,

30:33

Jesus, man. It's just like watching two guys Abysseek

30:35

get each other. Oh,

30:37

but John, John made the decision not to Abysseek

30:40

in one of the games. He just like left the team on

30:42

the bench or whatever. Yeah.

30:43

he evolved to a V Star instead.

30:46

The games were like, really cool

30:48

though to watch because they

30:50

They're perfect examples of

30:53

Giratina as a deck.

30:55

Both games One of them

30:57

went up like two, at least

30:59

two prizes, maybe one of the games, someone

31:02

went up three prizes, and both

31:04

games, that was the person that lost.

31:08

Because then the other person just kind of went like, Roxanne!

31:12

Stuff, and then made a huge comeback.

31:14

So it was cool to see,

31:16

like, Lost Tina kind of have

31:19

these weak starts and then show its

31:21

comeback potential two times

31:23

in a row and then game three

31:25

Sam had a weak start and just got turntued

31:30

by John but

31:32

they were really exciting games and especially

31:34

John he had Like,

31:37

both players, Sam and John, had

31:39

tough Lost Zone decisions,

31:41

but John in particular, almost

31:44

every single one, was the typical,

31:47

like, hand

31:49

to forehead, like,

31:51

look through the discard pile, look through the Lost

31:54

Zone, look through the hand, be like, oh my

31:56

god, I can't believe I have to make this decision.

31:58

Like, every single one was

32:01

really, really difficult and

32:03

he made Like, really good choices

32:05

the whole time throughout the whole set to keep

32:07

himself in it which was, which was really

32:09

cool, so I do feel like he he

32:12

really earned it at least in the finals there.

32:14

You know, I had a similar reaction when I was watching

32:17

Azul play his top 8 winnin in.

32:19

And like, I mean, both players are

32:21

just passing. Because they're like, well, I don't want

32:23

to just take one prize and then get Roxanne and

32:25

then, like, lose. That'd be

32:27

Right, right, right, right, right, yeah,

32:29

that was a good, wait, who was that? That was Azul

32:31

versus

32:33

Hector.

32:34

the, the Law17o, right, right, right, right, right,

32:36

that was a good yep, that was a good match as well,

32:39

That was a super fun round to watch.

32:42

hate Lost Tina, dude. Those games are awful.

32:46

After we

32:46

I think they're actually pretty

32:47

hyping up Tina the whole time.

32:49

a good time

32:50

Yeah, I was gonna say, so I mean when,

32:52

Carol, last week were you saying

32:55

Lost Tina's the play, or was Lost Tina a good play

32:57

for San Antonio? I think you were saying Lost Tina

32:59

was the play, do we take credit for this win? I think

33:01

we do.

33:02

Yeah, no, I mean, like, I think everybody know,

33:05

like, Lostino was the move, that's why it was, like, 20

33:07

percent of the Day 2 meta share, like, everybody

33:09

knew Lostino was, like, super well positioned. It's still super

33:11

well positioned, doesn't have, like, any, like, real bad matchups.

33:14

I think aside from Roaring Moon, Roaring Moon is

33:16

pretty bad. And Roaring Moon, like, had its,

33:18

I think, first metashare, or

33:20

like, I'm on the metashare graphic in a while,

33:23

so, I mean, I'll, I'll check

33:25

this out.

33:26

Yeah. Yeah, we did talk pretty exclusively

33:29

about Tina last week, so. Yeah,

33:32

that was good for us. Sam Huff coming in second

33:34

is really cool. I don't know if you guys know Sam

33:36

at all, but he top

33:38

foured Worlds in 2016.

33:41

That was like his, maybe his second year in Masters.

33:44

I think he was still in high school then. With

33:47

a crazy deck, but he's someone that,

33:50

he was like, he was a top player and

33:52

hasn't played in quite a long time. He's

33:54

a A literal model

33:57

in Japan. He lives in Japan and is

33:59

a model in Japan. And I

34:02

saw him at Worlds, I talked to him briefly.

34:04

He hadn't played at all. I think he was just

34:06

home for the holidays. And,

34:08

cause he lives in Portland or right outside

34:10

Portland, so that was like, he was like, oh,

34:13

you know, I'll just stay home for

34:15

an extra week cause the regionals is here.

34:17

And played and got second. It

34:19

would have been, I'm happy John got the win, but

34:21

it would have been like, especially crazy if

34:24

Sam had won and just got his invite, like,

34:26

just spiked it. Cause I'm pretty sure this is

34:28

the only tournament he's going to play the whole year.

34:30

Yeah.

34:32

So, but he's, yes, quite, very good

34:34

player. I don't know why he played D. Vo.

34:36

T. M. in his Lost Tina list, that is a

34:38

bit of a, a question mark,

34:41

but other than that, he's, congrats

34:43

to him.

34:44

In my deck.

34:46

I did, I reached out to,

34:48

speaking of DevoTM, I reached out

34:50

to Stephan Tabacco, who is

34:52

another like kind of old school, really strong

34:55

West Coast player. He got 17th with

34:57

Gardevoir and I reached out to him

35:00

because he had D. Va TM in

35:02

his Gardevoir deck. And I

35:04

was like, what is this about, buddy? Like,

35:07

that seems so random. And

35:09

he said it was for Charizard. He said he was

35:11

losing to Charizard in testing, so he threw it in

35:13

there. But he said that it was useless

35:16

the whole tournament, so he played 59 cards,

35:18

basically. And I feel like

35:20

Gardevoir's a deck where you really, really, really

35:22

don't want to play 59 cards. Some

35:25

other storylines from Portland Azul.

35:29

We've already talked about a little bit, but he has

35:31

his fourth consecutive top 8

35:33

now at North American Regionals for the year.

35:38

Pretty

35:38

He's insane, bro. He's so good.

35:40

Yeah, Azul is very good. Yeah,

35:43

and, and, his stream

35:45

matches, his two stream matches were both very

35:50

Informative to watch. What'd you say, Liam,

35:52

in the chat when I said, like we don't need to see Azul

35:54

on every winnin in?

35:56

Dude, the Azul hating is

35:59

absolutely crazy, like, it's not even

36:01

hate, like, people are like, oh, man, we want, like, diversity

36:03

on stream or something, but, like, I

36:06

at least find that having, like, A lot

36:08

of different games from like Tord

36:11

and Azul being super

36:13

valuable to go back through because like

36:16

that's just like, you know, peak Pokemon on display

36:18

and like having more and more of those games like logged

36:21

and being able to watch them is I find

36:23

something like really valuable and fun to

36:25

do. Whereas like, you know There's

36:28

like, you could just put some like random guy on

36:30

stream, but like the games are not as good. Who wants

36:32

to watch a bad game? I don't. I don't

36:34

want to watch the mid.

36:35

that's a very valid point. And yeah,

36:38

the Azul games were really

36:40

great. So if you're a Charizard player and

36:42

you didn't watch the stream, definitely go watch those games.

36:44

Those were really sick. Hail!

36:49

Who got top eight with PTO

36:51

or not? PTO P Control

36:54

a couple weeks ago in San Antonio. Got top 32

36:57

with an updated list. Liam,

37:00

you wanna talk about any of these? Updates.

37:02

Oh I saw it.

37:04

QUEX.

37:04

Yeah, he's playing

37:07

QUEX. Mm-Hmm?

37:13

It's like pretty solid. He said he added it Friday,

37:16

and that it stunk, and all that kind of checks out. Yeah.

37:21

What? What is the CHI U for? I get the C. ZD

37:23

is for like Tina, I guess,

37:26

Chiyu's also for Tina. It helps you with, like

37:28

it lets you go, I guess he's playing

37:31

Roxanne, I usually play Iono, but Roxanne's

37:33

a little bit better because the issue I was having

37:35

when I was playing Iono is that I've been playing with Crabbe

37:37

because I haven't been playing Radiance hard. You

37:40

go Roxanne, er, you go Iono into Crabbe,

37:42

but then once you do that, like, all their good cards are on

37:44

the bottom, so you never hit it.

37:46

hmm.

37:47

Yeah, it basically lets you, like, at the end of the game, you can go

37:49

Roxanne, Countercatch or something, and just try to, like,

37:51

crab out all their switch effects. And, like It's

37:54

really, really, like, a last ditch attempt,

37:56

but, know, it's,

37:58

it's hard to get an advantage against Tina, and

38:00

that's, like, a one card thing I guess you can

38:02

do if you're already playing the Fire energy. I

38:05

don't know if you can go harder on the, like, the, the Radiant

38:08

Zard strat, because, like, from

38:10

the Magma Basin, Raihan, DT and

38:12

Fires, you can go into Zard pretty early, so, like,

38:15

he's maybe trying to, like, just completely outtrade,

38:17

and, like, you don't have to fully outtrade, you just hit with the

38:19

Zard twice, and then you go, like, Pidgey

38:22

at Iono, and just try to take two prizes that way. You

38:25

know, I, I don't know

38:27

if it's, like, actually viable to use the Chiyu and

38:29

that. That sense so there might be like

38:31

applications that I'm missing like, and it's

38:33

of course just like solid as a an

38:35

attacker, I guess, in like other matchups.

38:38

It's a disruptive card.

38:40

You would play Crab.

38:42

I, I will say one thing that's like a little bit worse is that

38:44

the Chiyu I think only has 190 hitpoints,

38:46

and one of the like big upsides for Crab is that

38:48

it makes it's like a Zard

38:51

strat on its own. Where you can just, like, penny

38:53

loop it with the Pidgeot. Whereas

38:56

Chi Yu just does Vitality Ban.

38:58

Right, right.

39:01

Can't go lighter on those, like, Zard cards.

39:03

And I think he also said that the

39:06

regular Snorlax he thinks is probably just better

39:08

against Lastina.

39:09

Yeah,

39:11

Which I guess makes sense because you'd play Templar SNO.

39:14

Is that really the big reason? And you're just a little more consistent.

39:17

I, I would never play that, like, regular

39:19

Snorlax deck, dude. Like,

39:22

I, I think Kalzlus

39:24

was really good. Being able to play three Iona was, like, really

39:26

huge against Tina. Other

39:29

than that, there's, like, not much going for it. You

39:32

do like the same thing except worse.

39:35

Alright, let's talk about general Meta

39:37

stuff. So, I know we've

39:40

mentioned Liam and I are going to Charlotte in a couple weeks. Caden,

39:42

are you going to Charlotte, or no?

39:45

I'm not going to Charlotte, no.

39:46

Okay so, Xard and Tina

39:49

clearly were the dominant decks

39:51

here, the most played day 1

39:53

and day 2. Tina had a crazy

39:56

conversion rate from about 12 percent

39:58

to 21, almost 22 percent

40:01

on day 2. Charizard went down

40:03

a little bit from like 17 to

40:05

16 and a half, but call that

40:07

a wash. Garde, Garde

40:10

had exactly the same percentage, 9.

40:12

93. Both days.

40:15

Meridon was on the Day 1 graphic,

40:17

not on the Day 2 graphic. Mew

40:21

was the reverse, was not on the

40:23

Day 1, but was on the Day 2. Lost

40:26

Zone Box was

40:28

on roughly the same, it went up a little bit

40:30

into Day 2. Rapid Strike

40:32

Urshifu made the graphic, I think maybe

40:34

for the first time, for

40:36

Day 1. I know it's shown up on Day 2 graphics,

40:39

but I don't know if it's ever shown up on Day 1 graphics.

40:41

But then it did not show up on the Day 2 graphics, so,

40:45

didn't do super great. And

40:47

then Roaring Moon coming Or

40:49

I should, maybe I should say roaring in to

40:52

the Day 2 graphic practicing

40:55

the dad jokes, Brent. Coming in

40:58

for just under 7 percent Day

41:01

2. And one of my good buddies, Ross

41:03

Cawthon, played it to

41:05

a 33rd place, but I think there was one other

41:08

that finished higher than him.

41:10

So, Roaring Moon had an okay show

41:12

in. Yeah, I don't know.

41:15

And how did Ross feel about playing Roaring Moon?

41:17

That's a rebel play.

41:20

I mean, I haven't

41:22

talked to him too much about the

41:27

deck since the tournament honestly I didn't

41:29

talk to him too much about the deck leading up to it as well because

41:31

I just didn't believe in it and I

41:34

just kind of let him do his thing. His

41:36

list is It's out there, if you guys want to go

41:38

look at it, it's a little bit weird, definitely

41:40

different from, I mean it has the same

41:42

like core stuff that you would see in a Roaring Moondeck,

41:45

but like it only plays two sadas,

41:48

it runs like a heavier research

41:51

engine, more focused on glaring

41:53

Moltres V with energy switch instead

41:57

of relying on sadas, he thinks that's

41:59

a bit more reliable in setting up

42:02

the turn one But Hit

42:04

and whatnot. I can't

42:06

tell you if that's true or not. I haven't really played enough

42:09

versions, but I trust Ross He

42:12

and he likes

42:14

the the tool as well the

42:16

ancient tool so

42:20

but yeah, so I mean coming out of this

42:22

Like, I don't know how much is

42:24

gonna change going into Charlotte.

42:27

Like, Tina and Zard, I feel like,

42:29

will clearly be the top two decks. Moridon,

42:32

I don't think can drop much further

42:35

from what it is right now. Like,

42:37

I don't, I wouldn't expect it to go much

42:39

lower than 10%, and

42:42

then everything else doesn't seem like super

42:44

great to me. So I feel like it would just stay about the same.

42:48

So, what's the prediction, guys? How

42:51

are we thinking about Charlotte? A

42:55

Just beat Lost Tina. Don't

42:58

lose to everything else and beat Lost Tina.

43:01

but like, what beats Lost Tina? That's the question,

43:03

Yeah, it's really hard. No, Lost Tina's good.

43:07

Yeah, I think Mew,

43:09

like Mew seems great to me, like Mew

43:11

is like a pretty close matchup

43:13

for Tina. If Tina doesn't play Tomb,

43:15

it's like probably slightly

43:18

favored for Mew but still

43:20

very close. I don't

43:22

Yeah, I mean, the fear with Mew, though, is

43:24

now you're taking a pretty

43:26

hard loss to the, what is, will likely

43:28

be the second most popular deck,

43:30

yeah, the popular or second most popular, yeah,

43:32

the Charizard for sure. It's

43:35

Watching Dan Hugar beat up

43:37

on Vance Kelly on stream though was like,

43:39

you

43:40

that's true.

43:41

kind of scary.

43:42

one was crazy, yeah. That game one was really

43:44

crazy. Yeah, Caden,

43:47

I don't know if you watched that game, but

43:48

I did not.

43:50

Dan Hugar went down 2

43:52

6 in Tina vs. Mew and then made

43:54

the comeback.

43:55

Yep. Yep. Wow.

43:58

Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was

44:00

a, yeah, masterclass of, another

44:03

masterclass of Tina though, watching Tina play.

44:06

masterclass of

44:08

Path, Roxanne?

44:10

Yeah. Two

44:14

Pathrox ants. Yeah.

44:15

Yeah.

44:17

Yeah, you're right, Mew is like,

44:19

case the first one doesn't work.

44:20

yeah, Mew is not great into

44:23

Charizard for sure. Like

44:25

nothing seems great to me except

44:28

Tina. But

44:31

I don't want to play Ti but I don't, I don't particularly

44:34

want to play Tina now with 20

44:37

percent of the meta being Tina. Like, Tina

44:39

mirrors are also terrible.

44:42

Genpow.

44:43

Chinpow did

44:45

make day two for the first time in a while.

44:48

Beats Gardi. Beats Tina. Beats Zard.

44:51

It does not beat Tina, bro.

44:54

I, I found that matchup to be

44:56

50 50, but.

44:59

50? What?

45:02

You

45:02

You have to run the VAC. You have to run the VAC.

45:05

You just said it beats it and you said 50 50.

45:08

Well, okay. I haven't tested the matchup in a

45:10

while. And like, I

45:12

can't make strong claims about what the matchup's actually

45:14

like, because I haven't tested Chen Pao in a

45:16

No dude, Mike, apparently you

45:17

No one's tested Chen Pao in months. It's

45:19

improved things. Yeah. It's

45:22

gotten

45:22

All I'm saying is if, if, it, in

45:24

my experience, it was not an awful matchup.

45:27

It was like actually a pretty decent matchup, and

45:29

a lot of Tinas piloted it

45:31

poorly. So, so it was,

45:34

it was like 50 50

45:36

if the Tina was piloting it optimally.

45:38

But usually they would play it poorly

45:41

enough that you kind of just sweep

45:43

them. But, I don't know. That might not still

45:45

be true. I haven't, I haven't tested Chenpao. All

45:47

I'm saying, when I see the top three decks as

45:50

being three evolution, evolution

45:52

or small basic decks, like, you

45:55

know, Mew and Moridon are the two biggest

45:57

banes on Chenpao's existence.

46:00

Hmm.

46:00

And so,

46:01

sure. Yeah. S speaking

46:03

of Chi Pao, like it did make, I, I

46:05

think some made day two in San Antonio, but

46:08

a couple did make day two here,

46:10

and in particular the,

46:12

the Chio guy.

46:15

who's been carrying the torch, Jared Grimes,

46:18

made Day 2 with

46:20

just the old 60 from

46:23

like the last format with no

46:25

Iron Hands.

46:26

Good one, bro.

46:27

Yeah, the good list with two Cancelling

46:29

Cologne. So maybe that's just the wave,

46:31

Katie. Maybe you just play Cancelling

46:34

Cologne, Chi Pao.

46:35

yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, you

46:38

know, I, I never tested Chimpo enough

46:40

to really, like, confirm, but,

46:43

you know, I think I've, I've said on this pod multiple

46:45

times, like it's really a toss

46:47

up, in my mind, which one is better,

46:49

and I think it's now been proven that Iron

46:52

Hands is bait.

46:53

I really hope that by the

46:56

end of this format, like, Chi and Pau

46:58

is doing a little bit better, and all of

47:00

them are just, like, not Ironhands, because

47:04

slowly but surely, my initial tweet

47:07

for the Paradox format is becoming

47:09

true. Like, I

47:11

don't remember the third thing that I said, but the first

47:14

two things were Ironhands and

47:16

Chienpao is going to be inferior

47:18

to regular Chienpao, and Gardevoir

47:21

and Lost Zone will still be Tier 1. And

47:24

we're pretty good so far.

47:25

And Jake is so cooked.

47:27

Yeah.

47:28

Where he's like, I was right! Ironhands is

47:30

everything! The meta's warping around

47:32

it to where Lost Zone Tina is now the best deck

47:34

because of the Ironhands. It's

47:37

like, dude,

47:38

That's the reason.

47:39

crazy, man.

47:41

I'm not opposed to giving Chienpao

47:44

a little bit of a shake. But, I'm

47:47

still a little

47:47

Dude, I'm never playing Shempo. I

47:50

know it's probably gonna be like solid at Charlotte.

47:52

It's probably going to have some Day 2's. I'm

47:54

never playing that deck bro. It

47:57

just sucks.

48:01

Some

48:01

How about Cloth?

48:02

yeah, oh, okay. Yeah, I was about to say, some

48:04

other decks that got day two, one of which

48:06

is Cloth and was featured on

48:09

stream by, I

48:11

don't even really know his real name. Is it James?

48:13

Is it Bart? Like

48:17

I don't know either, yeah,

48:20

I mean that dude

48:20

Nancy Pelosi lover. He got

48:22

smashed day 2,

48:25

is that what you said? Yeah.

48:29

Yeah, Cloth is like, I think you

48:31

can probably day 2 with it. Cause

48:33

if you play against people that are just like, okay,

48:35

your matchups are good. But

48:38

then even like the Charizards on day 2 are gonna

48:40

beat you because they know how to play the

48:42

matchup. Some

48:46

other decks that made day 2 include

48:48

3 Goldangos. I assume

48:50

they're all Palkias, I refuse to look

48:52

at the lists, but a

48:55

couple Goldangos, and

48:57

then there was some other like weird decks, wasn't there like a

48:59

Greedent VMAX deck? I

49:02

haven't, is

49:04

kind of cool bro. I don't know if

49:06

it's good, but I'm definitely going to play a few

49:08

games with it just to see.

49:12

Oh that's, oh that's literally the deck that

49:14

got posted in our chat like an hour ago.

49:16

Yeah,

49:17

Two, two Greedent VMAX, three Iron

49:19

Valiant, and a lot of one ofs

49:22

after that.

49:23

yeah, it's like a Palkia mox,

49:27

Sounds like a Liam deck.

49:29

and dude, like, the only thing that Palkia does at

49:31

this point is Power of Ninja, which is, like, not even a bad

49:33

thing, but it's kind of funny, man. Went

49:36

from, like, easily out trading every other

49:38

like, attacker in format to, like, you

49:41

know, just a Greninja, Greninja

49:43

enabler,

49:44

Yeah, nothing too I mean,

49:47

there's like a bunch of weird stuff, but nothing

49:49

that like jumps out to me as like, oh yeah, this

49:51

is like, really worth exploring.

49:53

I mean, the Greedent, like, maybe a little bit. But

49:56

then there's like, the Arceus Venusaur,

49:58

the Arceus Superior, Arceus Regigigas,

50:02

none of those seem super interesting to me.

50:05

I will say. One thing that gave me

50:07

a couple laughs was that there's a bunch of

50:09

Snorlax Pidgeot And there was that tweet that

50:11

Chris Franco made of Giddy who played Snorlax

50:13

Pidgeot

50:14

Yeah.

50:14

had like four Tina's or whatever There's all these

50:16

Tina's that got like, you know, like

50:19

200th place or something at the bottom of

50:21

the day two chart and like I

50:24

see it, and I'm like, dude, like, I

50:27

literally warned us about this, we knew Tina was

50:29

going to be 20 percent of the meta, and then you came in,

50:32

you decided to play Snorlax Pigea, and then you got farmed by Tina, like,

50:34

why are we making these decisions? You

50:37

know, like, like, like, Hail, at least,

50:39

was like, cognizant of this, and he was like, I'm

50:41

going to add a bunch of junk into my deck to at least try

50:43

to play the matchup. There's so many people

50:45

who are just like, I'm sending the 60, man,

50:48

and then try to dodge Tina, and then they hit a bunch of Tina,

50:50

because we all knew Tina was going to be like, Giant Shuck of

50:52

the Metashare.

50:54

Liam, as long as we're talking about random cards, mere

50:56

hours ago you were tweeting that Deoxys

50:59

is it. Ha ha ha

51:01

Yeah, I thought I had something there, but nah, I

51:03

didn't. It was troll.

51:06

Alrighty, alright. So, we're not taking it back

51:08

on Twitter, but you guys can know. That tweet's

51:10

been

51:11

Yeah, I mean, like, I was thinking about deleting the tweet, but I was like,

51:13

eh, no point. Who cares?

51:16

ha! No, I think that's

51:18

how you manipulate the meta. Ha ha

51:21

ha ha

51:23

made that tweet so that, you know, Jake would DM me

51:25

saying I told you so, and I'd be like, I wasn't even talking

51:28

about Deoxys V Star, man. I don't care.

51:32

I was talking about Deoxys VMAX, buddy.

51:34

Yeah, I was, dude. I was that. I

51:36

thought I was cooking with that, but, you

51:39

know, maybe not. Definitely

51:42

not. actually, maybe

51:44

not. I kind of want to go explore that again.

51:48

I'm not looking up what that card does. Alright,

51:50

it, it can't be that good.

51:52

yeah, if I don't know what it is, it can't be

51:54

that good.

51:55

Yeah,

51:55

Cough, Cough, Drapion.

51:58

Alright, guys, we'll be back next week

52:00

and we'll be so close to Charlotte,

52:03

Caden will have had time to change his mind

52:05

and decide to come, change his mind and decide not to

52:07

come, change his mind and decide to come, change his mind and decide

52:09

not to come, maybe

52:12

even a couple more times than that, and

52:14

we will definitely talk about, like, how

52:16

testing's going.

52:17

Yeah, for sure,

52:19

No

52:19

John Pauls are our outro.