Brent 0:04

Welcome to the trash lunch. It's the only podcast about the Pokemon trading card game. Attendance is a hundred percent. It's Liam. It's Mike. It's me. We're all on Twitter too. If you wanna track us down, you could track us down and tweet at us. Nobody's left a 5 star review in a while. We could use a new review. If you leave a review, we will read it on the pod. So that's the thing that that happens. Dragon Shield is a sponsor. They send us sleeves. Liam got a bunch of sleeves in the mail the other day, and he appreciated it a lot because sleeves are sweet. When people complain about Dragon Shield sleeves, it's because everybody uses Dragon Shield sleeves. It's that easy. Guys, why don't we kick it off with the breaking, breaking, breaking news? Because I think that's, like, a little bit of stuff to talk about. The San Francisco Business Journal broke the news that the Pokemon World Championship has booked the Moscow and Center for 20 26.

Mike 1:00

20 26. Is that the same place that world was

Brent 1:04

It is not. It is the big convention center. They were they were, like, trying to do it in, like, the basement of the Hyatt or something.

Mike 1:11

Okay. Right.

Brent 1:13

And so the good news is, yeah, they've booked a space that is theoretically I mean, the Moscow Center is gigantic. It could it could be, like, 10 times as many people easily.

Mike 1:23

Okay. Well, that's good.

Brent 1:25

Yeah.

Liam 1:27

Mhmm.

Mike 1:27

Yeah. It's, like, pretty crazy that This was leaked. Like, I I don't know from who, from, like, a convention center employee. Maybe someone just got excited that Downtown San Francisco has something big now with all the negative press that it's gotten over the last couple of years. But I think for me, like I had always known and we have talked about it, that Pokemon books these things and knows these things with a lot of time in advance, like 2, 2 years, at least in advance. And for some reason, they don't give us the information 4 months before. Like, I I understand the location reveal at, you know, the previous worlds. That totally makes sense. But they could just release the dates and the exact location at the same time because they know it. And it's kinda like, We've always known that, but now it's very, very public that they've known this. That's kind of for me the big the big funny thing with with this.

Brent 2:31

Yeah. It it's insane that they're gonna do a big reveal for, like like, we now know 20 26. We don't know 20 25. And yeah. It's, like, to your point, I now have exact dates for the 20 26 worlds, and I still don't have exact dates for Hawaii.

Mike 2:46

Yeah. Yep.

Liam 2:48

Yeah. The the dates should definitely come out faster, but I, Something that Jeremy Gibson brought up in our chat, which I I think is definitely true, is that 1 1 of the, like, coolest parts of worlds is like that, like, Well, it used to be opening ceremony, but now I guess it's closing ceremony, like announcement. And, like, you know, it it it doesn't really mean, like, a ton, but I think it's pretty cool. And if they wanna save that or, like, you know, keep that intact that's something that I I think is totally fine. Like, it's an hour or a a year out still. It's It's whatever. The date should just come, like, very quickly after that.

Mike 3:20

Yeah. Agreed. I agree with all that.

Brent 3:22

Yeah. I can't remember when there was a reveal of of the specific dates that I cared about 1 Iota. I think they've done some online stuff before, and then they've also just updated the website. And, like, Every time, I'm like, you know?

Mike 3:37

Yeah. Okay. Here's, here's a question. So we know now that, So we had Japan last year. We have Hawaii this year. We have San Francisco in 2 years. What's the prediction now for 20 25? We have a future data point, which we we never had before. So we can maybe calibrate our prediction more accurately.

Brent 3:57

So I I came up with some some theories on how to answer this. Right? I I felt I I saw some Twitter speculations. They were wondering if there has to be, like, a European location in between. But but my feeling is they're moving east. So it's like Japan, Hawaii, blank, San Francisco. So blank is like Easter Island. That's that's where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's like Juneau, Alaska or Easter Island, and you'll never convince me otherwise. That is the correct answer.

Mike 4:31

Where is, like, Vancouver Where is Vancouver in relation? Is Vancouver technically west of San Francisco?

Brent 4:38

think it is. And I was I was thinking about Vancouver, but Vancouver was too much of an actual possible answer. So I I I shied away from it. Oh, man. Vancouver is close, but it it is definitely I think, a Little bit west of San Francisco.

Liam 4:56

Yeah. But, I mean, I feel like if they were doing that, wouldn't they just pick something like East Coast for 20 26 and then make it really easy? I do, like, you know, San Francisco or Vancouver 20 25, I think. Yeah.

Brent 5:09

Yeah. No. Obviously, they could go Europe. They could go East Coast. I mean, I would like to think that,

Liam 5:16

Latin America.

Brent 5:17

Like, the thing Pokemon should do is they should have taken away from Yokohama that having an awesome worlds is awesome, and then Rent it out the Javits Center and go like New York City. Let's go. I do not think they will do that.

Mike 5:34

I don't think so either, but

Brent 5:37

But they they tested people's tolerance for ridiculous hotel prices, and it was like, okay. Like, might as well go all in.

Mike 5:44

Alright. I'm gonna make a prediction of gonna say Germany for for 20 25. I'm gonna hop on I'm gonna hop on the the European train.

Brent 5:55

Alright. I like it. I like it. Although I mean, I don't know. We've they we had EUIC in Berlin. Like, I don't I haven't yeah. It obviously, the the Berlin thing was at a very large hotel. They never had a convention center, did they? I don't think I have a sense of what the convention center situation in Germany is like. Although, I'm sure there's a gigantic convention center.

Mike 6:19

Yeah. I'm sure there is.

Brent 6:22

You know, what what I will say I'm excited about is I mean, Japan was a, like, big travel commitment. Like, both of the last couple of worlds, it's been, We're gonna plan our entire summer vacation around worlds. London, Japan, Hawaii, like, you're in it to win it. Like, that's just a thing you're gonna do. San Francisco. Yeah. We can fly out for the weekend, get worlds done. It's been great.

Mike 6:53

Yeah. That's

Brent 6:54

slaughtering it. Like, it's it's not gonna be the, like, massive all in commitment for North Americans that I suspect the last several world's championships have become. And in that respect, I'm I'm grateful that I'll get to pick where we go on vacation for a year instead of Pokemon.

Mike 7:11

Pokemon.

Brent 7:13

And that's I mean, if they say Germany, I'll be like, man, Pokemon, Stop picking my vacations. I already been to Germany. So there you go. Although, maybe I will not be going to the next world championship after Hawaii. Liam might just go. Is that a thing that could happen? I don't know. I don't know how I don't know how his mother would feel. She she might see, that's Germany. She would probably be like, yeah, Liam. That's fine.

Mike 7:41

Tampa and Cisco, not so much.

Brent 7:43

Well, I mean, if they you know what? If they were like Sydney, mommy would be like, We're all going to Sydney. Let's go, Liam. Get your invite. Quick. If if they were, like, Beijing, Connie would be like, okay. We're all going to China for Pokemon. Let's go. But if they said Barcelona, although I assume they would not say Spain because that's got the whole SPE problem.

Mike 8:07

Yeah. Exactly.

Brent 8:08

it's not gonna be Spain. It's gonna be, like, Germany or England if it's in Europe. But but Connie wants Italy or Spain, and that's just not gonna happen.

Mike 8:19

Yep. Those are not gonna happen.

Brent 8:22

Alright. Guys. Let's quickly talk about the Azul money match thing. Azul Azul had the most viewers ever on the Bradner Gearhart throwdown. So he had to bring it back with now it's like Australia versus Team Bradner?

Liam 8:38

Yeah.

Mike 8:38

It's Bradner, Reagan, and John versus Natalie, Brent, and

Liam 8:46

James?

Mike 8:47

James. Right. Right. Right. Right. James. I forgot about James because, like, yeah, he is Australian, but he's been in EU for the last couple years. So yeah. That's why I forgot. Should be cool. Best of 9 conquest. For those of you that don't know what conquest is, that means you bring so each team will bring 5 decks And they have to win with all 5. Once they win with the deck, they can't bring it again. So that's a it's a pretty fun format. It's a super popular it's it's like the the standard format for Hearthstone. Hearthstone does 4 decks. Yeah. 4 decks, and your opponent banned 1, and then you have to win with all 3. So this is a little bit different, but same same

Liam 9:33

work in, like, a 3 v 3? Like,

Mike 9:37

So my presumably, they're just gonna play, like, Even though it's 3 v 3, it's like all 3 of them are playing 1 game.

Liam 9:44

Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought.

Mike 9:46

Yeah. But it should be, I don't know, should be cool. I I hope and I imagine that both

Liam 9:56

Brandon's clear, man. What? Oh my god.

Mike 9:59

I hope that, like, both groups also stream it. And so, like, we could hear their discussion or at least they have, like, their their chats open so Azul can, like, you know, swap between them. And we can, like, hear from them every now and then too. Because it's gonna be a long like, last 1 was really long, and Azul does a good job commentating, but, like, It's a long time for him to just fill the the,

Liam 10:27

Yeah. No. If we if we could get in their chats, that'd be really sick. Azul's probably not gonna let them stream.

Mike 10:33

Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. I I I think the conquest format is cool, but it's like I don't know how well it works in Pokemon when Pokemon is so matchup dependent. Like, if you just like, if you bring Snorlax and let's say 1 team brings Snorlax and, like, game 1, you just randomly queue Snorlax into Charizard. Right? Like, Snowballax gets the dub, even if Snowballax loses to all of their other decks.

Liam 11:04

Yeah.

Mike 11:06

So

Liam 11:07

How does how does it work if you, Like wait.

Brent 11:16

What what is Liam confused about?

Liam 11:18

Sorry. I'm I'm trying to think about this. I'm not familiar with the conquest format. I've I've never played it. But, like Yeah. Because Pokemon's so match up dependent, like, how does it work if, like, say the Australians bring, like, 5 decks that all are, like, a hundred 0 into. You know? Like, Bradner has to play lost scene at some point. He has to win with it. Right? And he has to play it into each of the 5 decks even if they lose with those 5 into, like, everything else. Like

Mike 11:46

So this is this is like a a a strategy that you can take. It's like target a deck where you just bring, you know, 4 in in Hearthstone, it was like, bring 4 decks that are favored against this 1 popular deck. And if they have it, You're just super favored to win the whole set. And if they don't have it, you're yeah. Exactly. So my guess is they're not gonna, like, go super crazy with any high level strategies like that. They'll probably just bring, like, 5 meta decks.

Liam 12:16

It's a little hard to find 5 decks that beat beat something. Like,

Mike 12:19

Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

Liam 12:21

about meta decks, like and they're they're hard to beat.

Mike 12:23

Yeah. Right. Right. Right. They're the meta decks for a reason. Like, Tina's, like, not a great example, but, like, maybe you could, like, bring 5 decks that, like, are super favored into Charizard. Like, that's a deck you could probably, Build for.

Liam 12:36

probably 1 of, like, least likely in NetedX, I think, for, you know, like, them to

Mike 12:40

To bring? Yeah. Yeah. What so if you're just bringing 5 meta decks without thinking too hard about it, what 5 Would you bring? I think definitely Guarditina. Yeah. Guarditina. You think Mew as well?

Brent 12:57

You would not bring Chen Pao, so that's a thing.

Mike 13:01

We know Bradner and we know Reagan's bringing Chim Pao.

Liam 13:04

Yeah.

Mike 13:06

So yeah. Guarditina, you, I can

Liam 13:09

Isaiah Isaiah gonna get him over the head. No. No. Uh-huh.

Mike 13:13

Charizard? Question mark?

Liam 13:16

Yeah.

Mike 13:17

Probably. Then you could then there's, like, a lot of options for kinda that 1, you could bring Roy Moon, you could bring Miraidon, you could bring Snorlax.

Brent 13:25

It's gotta be a Roaring Moon. Right? Roaring Moon's a beta now.

Liam 13:30

Yeah. Mine's pretty good. I don't know. I think I think you know both groups are gonna bring Guardio, which is,

Mike 13:37

Yeah. Both groups are definitely gonna bring Guardian Tina, like for sure. You got Bradner and John. You got I mean, the whole, all the, the whole Australian crew is in love with Gardie

Liam 13:48

Yeah.

Mike 13:49

And Brent clearly likes

Liam 13:51

I'd definitely bring Snorlax. That's what I'd bring.

Mike 13:55

Should be cool. I almost wish it was just, like, the same matchup over and over again again. But I wonder if they're just gonna be, like, single games as well, or I guess it probably is just, like, single

Liam 14:05

Yeah. That would take forever, right, if they're

Brent 14:07

Yeah. Yeah. It's already a multi hour adventure. Right?

Mike 14:10

Yeah. That's true.

Brent 14:13

It's impressive that Braden was able to raise a is it, like, a 1600 dollar prize pool?

Mike 14:19

You mean as

Brent 14:20

Azul, sorry.

Mike 14:22

Mhmm.

Brent 14:23

Yeah. Like, go sponsors. It's nice to see a sponsor pony up that kind of money for a Pokemon thing online. But I feel like there's not there's not the same amount of beef. And in that respect I I wonder how popular or not popular So end up being like, obviously, you're gonna see absolutely top tier play. Will you see better play than Bradner

Liam 14:49

Yes.

Brent 14:50

versus Gearhart. Yeah. I mean, there's no question. Obviously, both these teams have people who are extremely, extremely good at the game.

Liam 14:59

doodle. Yeah. Like, 1 v 1 between any of them is obviously the highest level of play, Like, that you'll probably see in a 1 v 1 or, like, you know, maybe, like, Barntord or Azul. And then, like, now they have, like, 2 of the other best players in the world checking all their moves.

Mike 15:17

Yeah.

Liam 15:17

the the the level of play is gonna be, like, very, very high.

Brent 15:22

Yeah. I mean, is that enough to get people to watch it?

Liam 15:26

Yeah. I'm I'm probably gonna watch for sure. But yeah. No. I I think that the Jake 1 was also, like, pretty funny, which is, like, you know Twitter trash talker gets pounded live by, Like, you know, best part, like, best part that I I just wanna feel like, you know, was

Mike 15:47

So we should also say so this is happening on Saturday, February 20 fourth. So About a week and a half after this airs at 2 pm Pacific time, which is 5 pm Eastern. Hopefully that's a relatively okay time for the Australians. That doesn't sound like it'd be great for them. It's probably,

Liam 16:11

I I think that's, like, midday for them. Let's see.

Mike 16:14

Well, see. 5 PM EST to Melbourne time. It's like okay. It's like 9 AM. That's not that bad. I thought it was gonna be, like, 6 AM.

Liam 16:26

Do they have to accommodate James as well? So, like, That's, like, crazy time

Mike 16:32

yeah. If you if James is still in Europe, that's like

Brent 16:35

It's, like,

Mike 16:36

it's like 11 PM. Yeah.

Brent 16:38

mean, Obviously, it's not a great thing, but it's, like, it's acceptable. It's for the kids. It's for the kids.

Liam 16:45

A lot of accommodation. Right? Mhmm. Yeah.

Brent 16:49

Yeah. So block It out on your calendar, people. I guess that's the thing people do. Speaking of thing people do let's talk about cups and challenges for the past week or so. Because I know Mike, you were saying you went to 2, and I'm sure many people saw Liam tweet that it was time for him to get on his local's grind. And he he went out and grinded. Mike, what were you up to?

Mike 17:14

We had 2 challenges. 1 last Wednesday evening and then 1 just last night. I played Tina to Bolt. The first 1 didn't do so well, went 3 2. Last night, I was 4 0 going into the last round and then lost. So I got second both with Tina, which was good. I hadn't played Tina in a tournament in a while, so wanted to get some games in before it rotates. Tina's great. It's really good. I don't wanna get too into the details of this, but we had this dude show up last night that was just Crazy. Like, for a league challenge on a Monday night, he was wilded in. He was like a ex Yu Gi Oh player, and he took a KO 1 turn against a Charizard deck. He was playing chi impao, so he was used to using iron hands. But he took a KO with a chi impao against like, a charmander, took 2 prizes, Shuffled his hand. They realized it almost immediately. And, you know, the fix is to take a random card from his hand, put it as his prizes, and then give him a DPL. Like, that's that's, like, the best you can do, to maintain the the board state when you have no idea what the card is. And he just, like, flipped out. Like, he It's like I can't play anymore. Like, I'm conceding. He'd, like, dropped from the tournament. He was started passive aggressive and then got to really aggressive. Wasn't really a fun thing. We just like, everyone was so confused. Like so not a not a great experience with ex Yu Gi Oh player

Brent 18:48

about to say I was about to say the fact that you led with Yu Gi Oh player.

Mike 18:53

Yeah. Well, and act the only reason I know that is because as he was setting up he was sitting right next to me. As he was setting up, he was kinda like making chitchat with the people at the table. And He's like, yeah. I used to play Yu Gi Oh. I was the best player in the world at some point, so I had nothing left to prove in that game. So I came over to Pokemon.

Brent 19:12

Yeah.

Mike 19:13

so, like like, I wouldn't have even have mentioned that he was a Hugo player, except he was, like, really, you know, trying to sell

Brent 19:20

important to his internal narrative that people know he's a Yu Gi Oh player. So so we might as well.

Mike 19:26

Yeah. Yeah. Not great. What about you, Liam? How was your challenge slash cup experiences?

Liam 19:33

I I managed to go to 2 on both weekends, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, I went 4 1 and got third. Both both events on Saturday, I played Garde, And then I went o 2 drop real quick out of league the league cup. That was at started at, like, 6 PM. So at least I got out of there fast.

Mike 19:54

A leak up started at 6 PM?

Liam 19:57

It was it was really late.

Brent 19:59

Do do do. So here here yeah. here you go, Mike. Here's your choice. You have a choice between, There's 2 league cups. 1 league cup starts at 4 PM. The second league cup Starts at noon, and their advertisement is, this is our first league cup ever. We were like, we're gonna skip that first league cup and go to a challenge at the same time, and then we're gonna hit the 4 PM cup and see how it goes.

Mike 20:23

Okay. Alright. Seems reasonable. What store, like, what store or where was it, the 4 PM 1? Do I know it?

Liam 20:30

I have no

Brent 20:31

No. It was it was some some place in Northern Virginia. But the the the noon it's our first league cup ever 1 was in Ellicott City.

Mike 20:40

Oh, okay.

Brent 20:41

So so we we had a choice. We could really afford to attend 1 of those because they're they're, like equidistant from our house, but in opposite directions.

Mike 20:50

Right. Right. Right.

Brent 20:51

said we could double dip on the challenge and then the late cup. But yeah. How many rounds were they gonna go, Liam? Do you know?

Liam 20:59

Yeah. I think I do. I think it was, like, 5 and then top cut.

Brent 21:02

Man, oh, man. Yeah. So he it it was a it was a 4 PM start, and and Liam was done by 6. And we were like, yay. we've been binge watching mister and missus Smith at home. So

Mike 21:15

Oh, nice. Yeah. We started watching that too, actually.

Brent 21:18

hype hype. It is it is 1 of the better things that streamers streaming content people have produced of late.

Mike 21:26

I agree. And did you play something in Sunday as well?

Liam 21:29

Yes. I played 2 challenges on Sunday. The first 1, I played Velasina, and I won that 1. The second 1, I played Intel, and I got, like, third no. I didn't even or, yeah, I think I got, like, third at that 1

Mike 21:46

Okay. So you got so you got a First in 2 top fours in challenges. Alright. Are you done with are you filled up with challenges yet?

Liam 21:57

We'll see. I mean, dude, the the I I think if you count the top fours, I am.

Mike 22:03

Mhmm.

Liam 22:04

But counting top fours is, like, pretty weird because, like, if you think this the, like, the 8 points that you get off the top 4 is good, you just try to change it to a first because you get 7 points. So,

Mike 22:14

Well, what? Top 4 is 10 and

Liam 22:15

it's tough for 10? Okay. That's a little bit of that.

Mike 22:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Top 8 is 8. That's like, That's that's what you gotta replace for sure if you have those. I feel like I feel like the the 5 difference from top 4 to first is, like, not really worth chasing like, if you have 6 top fours or better, it's probably fine.

Liam 22:34

Yeah. I yeah. Because I I really don't wanna go to another challenge, man. You don't get the The best of 3. Yeah. Fun fact, the 1 I won, that was a best of 3 challenge, which was obviously kinda brutal, but, you know, It's best of 3, man. It's it's, like, easier to win.

Brent 22:50

That I mean and and let me say, that was not in the advertisement for the challenge. They gotta, like, tell people that stuff.

Mike 22:57

Yeah.

Brent 22:58

we know not to go.

Mike 23:01

So why did you switch decks so many times?

Liam 23:05

To Guardian scene are, like, pretty boring to play, man. Like

Mike 23:10

See, I feel the exact opposite. Those are, like, the I have the most fun playing those

Liam 23:14

Or, like of course, they're fun, but, like, you know, doing the same thing over and over is just, like, not. So, you know, wanted to switch it up a little bit. And, like yeah. I mean, Tina Tina Tina is, like, a pretty lame deck, bro. She's, like, comfy, comfy, comfy, comfy. Roxanne Path, attack. And you just attack, attack, attack, attack. Like, that doesn't do anything cool, bro. Guard is kinda cool, but, like, it's it's just so much work, man. And you just,

Mike 23:44

a lot of work.

Liam 23:46

for no reason for no reason too. Intelers was, like, the easily the most fun deck I played all weekend. Probably gonna be playing it more in the future. Just testing and stuff because yeah. I think it was like dude, it's so fun to play an engine where all you have to do is play supporter every turn. Like,

Mike 24:06

That's fair.

Liam 24:07

Not having to use, like, 15 abilities. And, like, of course, you're using abilities with Intellersh, but, like, not using, like, all these draw abilities, especially ones where you have to discard stuff too, It's like it's so freeing. You just play every card in your hand without thinking. And then and, like, cool thing about intelligence is you do that, and it actually still does cool stuff. You don't just hit face. Like, you know, you're, like, still doing cool stuff while just, like, mindlessly dumping every card in your hand. It's, like, so cool. It was a really fun deck to play.

Mike 24:37

So do you guys have I feel like in this area, all of the Quarter 3 cups are basically in this half of the quarter. So, like, from mid February until the end of March. There was no cup there's been no cup since the New Year? Is it kinda the same with you guys? Is there a bunch of cups over the next 6 weeks?

Brent 24:55

Yeah. I think I think the I think the cup grind is kinda starting up. That that is that is definitely true.

Mike 25:04

so He gotta he gotta he gotta play until then to all these cups to him. Gotta win some win some cups with intelian on. I'm running my cup on Saturday, so that'll be good. Should be fun.

Brent 25:19

Best

Mike 25:19

the aforementioned Yu Gi Oh player does not show up.

Brent 25:23

mean, he he's got nothing less to prove than any other sport. Why not,

Mike 25:27

Yeah.

Brent 25:28

You know? That's how that's how it be.

Liam 25:32

You

Brent 25:34

Uh, so so So you're running a cup. What what deck would you play if you were playing in a cup?

Mike 25:40

I mean, I'd either play Garde or Cena. I don't know. I'd probably, like, coin flip it. I might go to a I'll probably go to 1 or 2 cups in March because there's 2 that are very close to me in March. And I'll probably if I go to 2, I'll probably just play Guardian 1 and TeeNet 1. Split the difference.

Brent 26:01

Well,

Liam 26:04

Oh, dude. I'm looking at Twitter, man. Liam Liam Williams dropped his his take on the worlds thing. It's basically the same as mine. Who cares where worlds is you degens are going to book Thursday to Sunday and aren't going to do anything except walk back and forth from hotel to convention center?

Mike 26:21

That is a pro that's an accurate take for 98 percent of the people that attend worlds.

Brent 26:28

Oh, I hey. I I mean, I think I just said he he could say it's degenerate, but, like, that's my goal, man. Like, the last

Mike 26:34

That's the

Brent 26:34

had to book a whole vacation. didn't wanna be doing that. But now I can just Book Thursday to Sunday and, like, declare victory and feel like it was totally fine. It's gonna be amazing. It's not gonna be the center of my entire summer. It's just gonna be 1 of the things I did this summer. And it's gonna be such a welcome change from all the prior world championships. Absolutely goated. Absolutely goated. Those

Mike 27:06

Let's talk a little bit about, the the general meta game and some results and tournaments coming up as well. So we had The Dortmund Regional Championship this past weekend second biggest in Europe, I believe, just just under Liverpool, Had over 1300 masters. Owen cameraman, the other cameraman got first place With Chi and Pao Chi and Pao taking its first big dub of the Paradox format and maybe just ever. I don't think it won an event before Paradox came out. And Goldango coming in second place. So the final was Pretty cool. I don't know if you guys watched the tournament at all. I watched a decent amount. The final was decent final. I think Owen made a a mistake at some point, but was not punished. There's probably more mistakes than that, but there was 1 obvious 1. And then other than that, I think Garde had a really good tournament overall. 3 made top 8. Yeah.

Liam 28:10

how how often do you think regional champions get described as the other something?

Mike 28:17

That's it's also unfair to call Owen the other Cameron. They've both had pretty similar levels of success. Brendan just much more recent has had a lot more.

Liam 28:29

Yeah.

Brent 28:29

mean, I you know, Liam, I could tell you the answer to that question, and and it's related to another question. Will there ever be a time that people will say, Alex Szymanski is not the worst Szymanski? What what

Liam 28:42

Dude, it's like the I assume that happened at some point with, like, the Shemanskys and the stable houses or something, But maybe not. I don't know. Before my time, I guess.

Brent 28:54

There there's there's no question that that is a that is a thing. Right? I mean, Alex, for all his success, is will will be the least well known Shevansky almost no matter what he does.

Mike 29:08

I bet I, you know, I bet When Ryan Sablehouse won his first regional, he was probably described as the other Sablehouse. Kyle was a bigger name at first

Brent 29:20

Really? Yeah. I mean, I guess

Mike 29:21

Yeah.

Brent 29:23

he's the elder. he's He's

Mike 29:24

He's the elder. Mhmm.

Brent 29:27

Did they start as juniors? They strike me as people that started when they were, like, 6 years old.

Mike 29:34

Yeah. They started right around the same time I did. Maybe a year later or something like that. Maybe not even. And Kyle is just under me. Like, I think he's 1 year younger than me, something like that. So, yeah, they they they started as, If not juniors, then definitely seniors.

Brent 29:52

Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't think I've seen pictures of them as, like, adorable children playing Pokemon, but those must exist somewhere.

Mike 29:59

Did you guy did you did you watch? Oh, no. You guys were probably busy at these challenges and cups that you didn't really watch.

Liam 30:07

I I was watching it a little bit at the challenges and cups.

Mike 30:10

Okay. Yeah. There's there's definitely some good games.

Liam 30:14

Dude, I also was able to catch what was it? The the first, like, round or 2 of day 1, Friday night. Or I guess it would be Saturday morning, but it felt like

Mike 30:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Liam 30:27

My father's here.

Mike 30:29

The 1 of the highlights of the stream for me was Top 8 was Benji Pham, who's a friend, versus James Cox. And it was the Tina verse guardian mashup, so always always interesting. But Benji tweeted out before Liverpool, he played Giratina as well there, that his main preparation was watching James Cox videos about Giratina. So the fact that they played in top 8 was really funny. And then Benji Benji did win. James James had some rough draws on stream. He was on stream twice and like, I think like 3 out of 5 games just completely bricked. So Liam, we had some Snorlax Pidgeotts do well. There is 1 that made top 16, and then Crimasoli was seventeenth, so just out of top 16. Did you get to look at those lists at all?

Liam 31:21

I did. It's it's absolutely shocking how much that list is evolving. And I think it's, like, I think it's actually 1 of the, like, much stronger decks in format in the format right now. When I think when people look back at the format, they'll say, like, oh, man. That was, like, If not the deck, like, that was a really good deck that, like, I regret not playing at some point. But, like, At the same time, there's not there's not a lot of consensus on list. It, like, changes a lot with every event which is pretty interesting. But, yeah, nothing too crazy about either of the list.

Brent 31:53

it because people are trying to adapt it to the meta? Like, I didn't look at what the changes are. Or or is it just, like, People feel differently about what the best plays are what the best cards are.

Liam 32:03

I think everybody's just trying different junk for Tina and, like, ending up on, like, different different kind of attempts. Yeah.

Mike 32:14

Yeah. So, like, Max, who got fourteenth, he played Bouffalant As presumably, that's kinda like

Liam 32:21

Yeah. As for Tina.

Mike 32:23

yeah. For Tina to help get rid of some energy. There's nothing really in the list besides that that kind of packages well

Liam 32:32

Yeah. No. I

Mike 32:33

at least nothing, like, jumps out. And then Krimasoli had the fire package. She had the radiant sard.

Liam 32:40

Yeah.

Mike 32:42

And choice spell

Brent 32:44

And how do you feel about those choices, Liam?

Liam 32:47

The radiant sword?

Brent 32:49

Yeah.

Liam 32:50

That that's that's what I put. I like the buffoon, personally, but, yeah, Alessandro really likes the The Charizard, and that's what I played too. The Charizard's better, I think, in a Roaring Moon meta. Like, I think the Buffa one's better as tech, Christina, and as, like, a general general card because it just it helps you deal with slow roll strats, like, a little bit more proactively. But, yeah, the the radiant side's really good against Roaring Man. So I go with the RadianceR package, like, in a heartbeat right now.

Brent 33:22

is why people just said pod right there. Somewhat related note I saw Sander tweet he's back for EUIC.

Mike 33:31

Oh, yeah. He was tweeting out some some combos. I didn't really look too deep into them, but I'm sure I'm sure you did, Liam.

Liam 33:40

No. I don't I don't look into stuff Too far because I have another event in Peltan. Fates. Well, I mean, like, of course, I looked at them. I didn't really think about them. And I always think, like, they're obviously interesting Tools to keep in mind. And that means I'm gonna forget about them because I Sandra literally tweeted out the before, I think, EIC last year. It was, like, a few months before. Obviously, never considered it before EIC, and then he showed up and did, like, pretty well at UIC with it. That only happened, like, once, but it happened. And that means I'll it'll probably happen again. We'll probably forget about this. Sandra will do all of that at some point maybe. But, yeah, I mean, it's like, Nobody's actually played any games in the meta except for people in Japan, I think. So, like, There's it it's impossible to make any conclusions about what's good or bad right now, especially for something, like, as, like, anti met as that.

Mike 34:39

Sure. Speaking of which, real quick shout out. There is the first big event in the temporal forces Says format in Japan happening this weekend, 1 of the champions leagues. I believe Azul will probably be streaming it. So I'll probably try to watch a little bit of that. Should be good. What else from Dortmund interested me? There was a dude that went 9 0 in day 1. He was playing Ante Valiant, and then day 2, he went o 5 and 1.

Liam 35:17

Jesus.

Brent 35:17

did not see that, but I love it.

Liam 35:21

Would you rather that or Pedro's 5 0 4 0 0 6?

Mike 35:26

5 0 4 to 5 0 10.

Liam 35:28

Yeah.

Brent 35:29

that is an amazing accomplishment.

Mike 35:33

Let's see. Who finished? Who finished higher? The other guy finished higher. I guess that makes sense. 9 wins is better than 5 wins. Yeah. That's funny. Charizard had a better weekend than it did last weekend, but still not great. 2 in top 16. None in top 8. Well, there was oh, no. No. No. The the top 4 was a a.

Liam 35:56

right. Yeah.

Mike 35:58

Yeah. So 2 charizards in top 16. Otherwise, didn't do super great. Couple in top 32. But you had Robin Schultz playing it. Oh, no. No. Robin played something else actually this time. Robin played La Sablezard. I assume Stephane still played Charizard. I don't even see him on here, actually. Oh, no. There he is. No. He played guardian. Okay. Never mind. None of the good players none of the very, very top players played Charizard.

Brent 36:22

So any conclusions about how you would think about Vancouver from this?

Mike 36:29

Right. I think, like, Guardian's back on the radar as tier 1.

Liam 36:36

Dude, anybody who had it who dropped it off of, like, tier 1 like, any dropped it off of The tier under LaSantina ever,

Mike 36:45

Yeah.

Liam 36:46

massive mistake. Never do that. Garde's, like, always been tier 1 or tier s tier major contender every single event.

Mike 36:53

Mhmm.

Brent 36:54

Yes. Just because Isaiah Bradner will beat you does not send you justify the deck.

Mike 37:01

Like, I wonder how cyclical it's gonna get. I mean, we only have the 1 Or maybe there's there's 1 there's Vancouver, and I think there's 1 more European event. Like, Miraidon is great against most of this topic. Like, it's very good against Jian Pao. It's great against Gaarde. It's fine against Tina. It's not great against Tina, but it's fine. So I don't know. Baradon could see a resurgence if Charizard is Gonna go down. But Charizard was still the most popular deck day 1, so

Liam 37:30

Ryan. It's such a terrible deck to play, though, bro.

Brent 37:33

Yeah. Yeah. The problem is you would have to play Miraidon.

Mike 37:36

Yeah.

Brent 37:37

And I know I know we've officially, like, I think Concluded we have to stop the Marietta and slander because Marietta is not too well at tournaments.

Liam 37:44

No. Yeah. Like, absolutely, man. People just scared around the deck, but

Brent 37:51

But

Liam 37:51

the same time, you also have to, like, factor in a debuff, of course, for all these kinds of decks. Every every deck actually has a debuff except for, like, the decks I pick because I always pick the good decks, bro. But, like yeah, man. Every other deck just has has something going on that is, like, It just doesn't work the way that you think it will.

Mike 38:12

Something else I was thinking about is I think 1 of the top 8 Gardevoirs played Moonlit Hill. I think Gabe did, And then James and Rowan did not play it. I haven't played too many games with it just a couple on live. It seems okay to me. You you would drop it you drop the vacuum for it. That would kinda be the spot. And you can more realistically play without Cresselia If you play Moonlit Hill so I guess that's kind of a question. Like, how big does Moonlit Hill get in Garde? I don't know if it really affects any of anything really besides the Garde player's choice. I don't think it, like, affects other peep other players' choices when they're playing against Garde, but that'll kind of be interesting to see. And then I don't know if anybody played that the the new TM. Did the top 4 people person play it play it? No. Nope. The guy that got the guy that got top 4 with the Sablezard just play Brendan Cameron's same 60 from

Liam 39:11

Jeez.

Mike 39:13

So

Liam 39:14

Yeah.

Mike 39:15

So I assumed, like, that that new TM got played somewhere, but

Liam 39:20

Yeah. I know I know somebody made a post with, like, all the new cards that have, like, limitless pages or whatever, and and t m was on there.

Mike 39:27

Okay. Let's see. I'm gonna look it up real quick.

Brent 39:30

What does that team do? Again, remind me give give us the name and the ability because or the attack. Because I remember thinking I

Mike 39:36

crisis punch. So TM TM crisis punch for 3 colorless Does 280 damage, but you can only use it when your opponent has 1 prize card. So every single deck that played it That made day 2 at Dortmund was a boss box deck. So they can use Cramorant to just attack for free with it. So at the end of the game, you can do 2 80 for free. It feels a little weird. Like, half of them were Charizard lost box, Sabalsard, and the other half were not. It feels kinda weird in the Charizard version, though. Right? Because Charizard is already basically doing that. So it feels like kinda just like a wasted spot. But I but in the notar as our deck, it seems good because you can you can have that big 2 80 finisher at the very end of the game. You just gotta make sure you're that you force your opponent to 1 prize.

Liam 40:30

Yeah.

Brent 40:32

I like it.

Mike 40:34

Yeah. Seems cool. Might need to play town store to, like, really consistently get it off at the end of the game because, like, pretty easy to just get IO node out of it, But seems cool.

Liam 40:48

don't know, dude. You could probably just rip it. It's all the Kyogre players do anyway. So,

Brent 40:56

Once you start with the assumption that that it's just gonna happen, then you can just actualize success.

Liam 41:03

I guess the Kyrieger players are playing for for, like, 3 turns.

Mike 41:07

I wanna shout out the Secooms, Ferris and Sami Sekoum, they both made day 2. Ferris made top 32. Sami, like, 80 something. But if you guys don't know, Sammy Seguem is 1 of the the greats of the game. I think he has the most worlds top eights of maybe any player In the history of the game, not a hundred percent sure on that, but he's at least, like, top 3, if not number 1. And he's been playing a little bit again. He Qualified for worlds last year. Didn't do very well, but he's kinda back in Ferris. This is his little brother who has also Been playing again since COVID, so good stuff to them. And then your your boy, Mateus, played Bennett, Liam.

Liam 41:55

Yeah.

Brent 41:56

Is there anything to say about that? Like like, are I I mean, I guess people are gonna say, oh, I guess I should maybe play Banette at the next tournament. Is that is that a thing people will say? And what do you have to say to those

Liam 42:08

No. No. Like, no nobody Nobody's actually gonna respect the deck and never do.

Mike 42:17

Is it something you would consider playing for Vancouver?

Brent 42:19

Obviously, the question is, are people gonna say I should play it because nobody respects it?

Liam 42:24

Yeah. I'm considering that for sure.

Mike 42:27

Was there anything, like, crazy new in this? I mean, he got Turo. We already knew Turo was

Liam 42:32

Yeah. Counter

Mike 42:33

Counter catcher. Okay. Did he have the shoes before? The shoes look new.

Liam 42:37

No.

Mike 42:40

Yeah. He's got 4 shoes. This, like, this list is very, it's, like, not checked out really at all, I would

Liam 42:48

Yeah. That's good.

Mike 42:49

straightforward.

Liam 42:50

you get the you have counter catcher and Turo now, so you can make the deck like way more lean. Like, my Pittsburgh list played Cheryl and Penny, And Turo is just, like, both of

Mike 42:59

of them.

Liam 43:00

So, like, yeah. Yeah. Turo is just, like, an amazing card. The other card that Matias isn't playing that I I kinda like from I don't know if it was Paradox. I think it was. But it definitely wasn't out for, like yeah. So it definitely had to be Paradox. But the other card that we got from Paradox was Defines Fest, which I think is, like, kind of cool. It lets you survive Athena which is really good. And then yeah. So Turo, counter catcher, defiance best, all make the deck, like, much better, I think.

Mike 43:30

Yeah. Makes sense. We still had the Dreepy.

Liam 43:34

Yeah.

Mike 43:35

Seems good.

Liam 43:36

yeah. And the deck deck seems, like, much Well, like, I wouldn't say it's much better because, you know, you have to be careful not to over index on these because they they definitely aren't going to see, like, that much play, I think which is Chenpal and Goldengo. But at the same time, there's it's pretty easy to pick up a deck that gets absolutely bodied by both of those. And losing to the decks that got 1 and 2 at the last regional is not, like, something I wanna do. So, you know, playing the net seems kinda good in the to those.

Mike 44:05

Yeah. He lost just for reference, he lost to 1 Tina, but he beat a couple others. He lost to a Miraidon and beat a Miraidon, Beat 2 other Maradans, and then he lost to both Gardevoirs that he played, which I feel like that makes sense.

Liam 44:23

Yeah, dude. But that always seems so much better than it actually is because, like or no. I mean,

Mike 44:34

I mean, you get a pretty big

Liam 44:35

somewhere in the middle of being

Mike 44:36

you. Right?

Liam 44:37

sorry? Yeah.

Mike 44:38

get a pretty big buff with people misplaying against you.

Liam 44:41

Yeah. It's I always I I like Bennett as more of, like, a lock deck. Matheus is obviously more aggressive. But I always yeah, man. I always think the deck is, like, way better if it's in, like you know, If it's if you cut all the consistency for tech cards, I think it's really good. And then if you if you play all the consistency, I always think it's, like, really bad because none of your match It's, like, like, work anymore. And Mathias' list is, like, super consistent. He's obviously playing 4 shoes, and he's not playing, like, any of the techs that you could play. Like, 1 of the more, like, well known ones is, like, SpideOps, which just, like, makes a lot of your matchups a lot better if you can get it out and still hit everything else you need. But what is that? Yeah. It's, like, somewhere in the middle because your opponents also do play a lot against you. So, like, if you're playing the, like, super consistent version, it's, like, better than the really bad that it should be. If you're playing the really teched out version, it's worse than the, like, really good that it, like, should be if you assume your deck functions because it doesn't really. But I like it anyway because, you know, I have a good plan. Absolute like, I don't even wanna say that because, you know, I'm the biggest advocate for playing more consistency cards. That's, like, the number 1 mistake every new player makes is they fill their deck with decks. But, Yeah. I mean, when it comes to playing really slow decks, not having the text to win games if your opponent knows what they're doing, so you end up losing, like, a hundred percent of your games is, like, Pretty brutal, man.

Mike 46:17

Yeah.

Liam 46:18

Let's see. Mhmm.

Mike 46:21

Alright. I think that's all the interesting stuff I had from Dortmund.

Brent 46:26

Yeah. Is there anything to say about EUIC registration? Do you think E Y C is gonna be scaled for a million people, or or do you think people are gonna be sad? What's the over under on that?

Mike 46:36

I say it fills up in 2 minutes. That's my

Brent 46:39

Really?

Liam 46:40

I I I think they're gonna actually give us, like, a lot of space, like, 2000 spots or something, And it's still gonna fill up in, like, 2 seconds.

Brent 46:47

I mean, Liam, I I I'm sure you saw registrations opens at, like, 2 PM on a school day. Let me know how that works out for you.

Liam 46:57

Don't worry. It's English class for you. My my English class is late.

Mike 47:02

And then the second 1 is in the middle of the night for eastern.

Brent 47:08

It's it's crazy times, people.

Liam 47:10

Yeah.

Brent 47:11

Alright, guys. Hey. the John Pauls are our outro. We'll be back next week with How Mike's league cup went.