The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
The Trashalanche Pokemon Podcast
Vancouver Recap, EUIC Meta, baby Moon, and more!
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Welcome to the Trash O Lanche podcast. Today is April 2nd. We are a few days out of EUIC, the third biggest tournament of the season. I'm Mike Fouchet. I am here today with just Liam. Brent is out. Caden is out. Cam is flying to EUIC right now. So it's just us two. We're going to yap a little bit about some of our thoughts. on the metagame, but before we get to that, Liam is coming off a very solid top 32 finish at the last regional in the previous format. Liam,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635indeed. Yeah, start with that super quick recap. I went 10 4 1 total. I guess I'll go round by round. First round, I hit Goldengo. I was feeling,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1you played Marad on,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I did, I did. I played Maridon. I played the same 59 as Charlie Lockyer. I played it. A Raihan instead of the fourth Ultra Ball, and probably like half my losses across the entire tournament was opening Raihan and a completely dead hand. So, you know, really goes to show you how much damage cutting consistency does to a tournament run. I, yeah, that
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Oh, well,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635brutal. but yeah, getting into the rounds I guess. I, the first round I hit Goldengo. I lost the first one after throwing game on board. I I thought I had to power up a Maraiodon to take a knockout, but I forgot I could just power up the Raichu and it only needed two energy, so I didn't have to hit off generator the next turn, and then I whiffed off generator, and I lost. But I won, I won the next two, so that was fine. Round 2, I lost to Moon. I bricked twice. Round 3 and Round 4, I hit Mew, and I went 4 0 against them. Which I was feeling pretty good about because, you know, a big decision was whether or not we played Spiritomb, and we decided not to. And I went 4 0 against Mew in like the first four rounds. Pretty happy with that. Round 5, I hit Guardi. I announced Amp like 5 times in 15 minutes. That was a really, really nice round. Round 6 I hit Urshe, and Urshe's not a great matchup but you can win it if things go your way. Things did not go my way. I missed on some generators. Rough stuff. Round 7 I hit Moon. Things went my way. I hit generators. Round 8 I hit Moon. Things went my way. I hit generators. Round 9 was an Interesting decision I hit Rowan Stabenow, who's playing Garde,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So you're six, you're six two at this
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yes, yes, I'm 6 2. I hit Rowan Stabenow playing Garde. This is one of my better matchups, but I look at my opening hand Game 1, and I'm going to lose Game 1. But this puts, this puts me in a weird spot. However, I, I look back and I think that was the right decision. Rowan's a very good player. I don't think I had great chances in Game 2 and Game 3, even though the matchup was super good. You know, I, I put it at 6 2. Maybe 70 30? Which means I'm unfavored.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Mm-Hmm.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I don't even know if it's 70 30 into a player like Rowan. I haven't tested against a player like Rowan extensively. Rowan just got finished beating up on Cam, who was playing you know, Maridon as well. He had a list error, or like, submitted the wrong decklist, so it wasn't, it wasn't exactly the same list. But, you know, he just beat the guy who was on Moraylon with me, and so I was not super, super stoked about my chances. I also want to see Rowan do well, so, you know, IDing gets us both into day two. Rowan's super chill. So I think it was a solid ID.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So, so was it
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635tournament, though.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So before we go on, so the id, was it, you looked at your opening hand and then you offered the id or like how? How, yeah. Okay. Did he offer it first before you guys set up? No. Okay.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I think he made a joke about offering it. He was like, I'm not even going to offer you the ID. Cut.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Hmm. Because you guys both knew what each
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, so we had talked about we had talked about his ID strat with Murad and he was like dude, even if I think, even if I get game one you know, there's a chance I ID, blah blah blah, we'd been talking about IDing potentially. I guess and yeah, I was, I of course, as always, made clear to him I'm not IDing at 6 2.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635but then I ended up 2.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah, I mean, it seems reasonable. I've been in the seat of Rowan before, like having a very unfavorable matchup, and then, like, actually playing out Game 1 and winning Game 1 in a very unfavorable, and then, offering the ID, or, or, I forget exactly how it worked in my instance of, like, me offering the ID again, or maybe they offered it to me, and You know, even being up a game, I took it, because, like, from my perspective, it was like, I think it was like a 20 80 matchup, like, the odds of me winning,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1both, or even one of the next two games was less than 50 50, so and I think the Maraudon Guardian matchup, like, in your case, is actually closer than the matchup I was, like, I was playing Excelgor, like, that was really bad so, so, I, I understand from both from both perspectives there.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, and I, I had offered it, Rowan actually showed me his hand after, his hand was pretty bad as well. I didn't feel too bad about it though, because my hand was even worse. Like, my, my hand was literally, it was like Zapdos boss 5 energy. That was like my opening 7. He had like, Ralts level wall.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. Hey, that's going to win him the game in that spot.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, yeah, it was, it was, yeah, it was like, Ralts level wall went nothing. But he also had like, started the Jirachi, so he was like, guaranteed not getting Mirage Step. yeah. So he wasn't getting like a good Ralts level ball, he was getting like, I'm gonna get Refinement next turn and draw two cards Ralts level ball. But that was better than my hand. My hand was terrible. So, yeah, I think it was definitely, I think, a good idea on his end. I don't know if it was a great ID on my end but it wasn't a bad ID, it definitely wasn't the same level of, you know, criminal activities that many 6. 2 IDers engage in at every regional.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1and another component of it is Vancouver was much smaller. So like, maybe if you're at, in your spot in Orlando, when there's, you know, 2500 people? Maybe you don't take the idea at that point. Maybe you're just like, well, let's just go for winning games two and three. That plays into it for sure.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, there's a lot of factors that make the idea a little bit better in my
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1All right. Cool. All right. So you go 6 2 1 and we know what happens to Rowan. Rowan goes whatever 6 0 and, or 5 0 1 and makes cut. Yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635to Rowan's podcast earlier this week, and he actually had a really interesting strategy that I I mean it makes a lot of sense, of course, but he was basically like, I was planning on taking, like, an ID round 1, because, like, 6 2 1 was filled with Moridons, like, the whole bracket, and, I mean, you know, bracket dodging is not, like, something that's usually very high on your radar or, like, high on your priorities list, but what's really interesting about that ID is, like, You have to go 5 0 1 anyway, and like, so the tie coming at the end is like, or like the tie doesn't really come at like a lot of points in between, like you usually think of it as like 5 0 and then I D but you know, going I D and then 5 0 is like kind of the same thing, if not a little easier, so I, I thought that was a really, really interesting idea,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1did he do that? Or he,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, yeah, he
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1oh, he did.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Well, he ended up not wanting to ID, but he got into a situation where he could play for a tie, because he's playing Gardevoir, and it was a Guarding Mirror, and he was like, I'm just gonna play for the tie here.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, okay, makes sense.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635But yeah, back to my tournament run really quick. I I went 4 2 day 2 but I was out of the event really fast. I lost a round to Tina that I somewhat missed about. It was some pretty bad draws. There was maybe something I could do game 2, but game 3 I actually like lost completely by force. I opened without a single playable card and got turn 2 lost impacted. So, yeah, that round did not go my way and that basically like cooked my entire tournament because I came in at x2 1. Then, the second loss that I took was to a Snorlax, and that was solely due to a misplay. I'd actually been drawing, like, red hot the entire set. I somehow had avoided drawing into my Mareep, my Squawk the Sisters were not hitting, like, everything was going right, and on, like, the, on one of the later turns, I got Averied, and I decided to preserve some energy and I dropped off the Mew EX. And that ended up being like a really bad mistake. I got iono'd. And if I found a switch that turn, I would have won. I did not find a switch that turn because I didn't have the Mew, so I basically just drew past, and then give him enough time to set up like a much stronger board involving Mimikyu. So yeah, that was like a pivotal mistake in my Day 2 run. Other than that, everything went pretty well, drew pretty hot, hit the generators, Mariahadon. Woohoo!
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1And turns out it was a very good play for the event. It won, it got top eight you played basically the same list as Charlie. Was there any other people playing? Or you and Cam and Charlie? Anybody else playing your
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635And Jake Santiago as well, who went 5 3 1. It was two 5 3 1s.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Cam started like 4 or
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635he started off like 5 1 and then lost two in a row to 5 3 1. The rough stuff. Oh, I guess one other interesting situation that I guess I'd like Jiren to put on as well that I was put in, in my round 15 match against Travis, I I had an advantage. I was gonna hit the first two prize KO. I I was grabbing I had a peony, and I was grabbing switch to get into this Maridon that I already fully powered up, and I was deciding on the next card. And, yeah, so this was on turn two, and as you can tell, my start's going really, really well. I already have a fully powered up Maridon before the peony and I'm grabbing switch to get into it. There's a, there's an Ironhands in the active, and it has a DTE, but his last turn, he went Nespol Maridon, Maridon for like Zapdos Mareep to get two, two one prizers, right? And, but, but he, he, he made a mistake because he thought he prized the second Marat on EX. So he didn't grab a second Marat on EX, which left him open for me grabbing Ketcher. And that, that's the play that I went for. I was like, I'm gonna go for the Catcher and chase down the Maraidon EX because he also generated 2 energy to it the turn before, on turn 1. So I was like, there's a lot of investment in this Maraidon. If I hit the Maraidon here, something like Peony suddenly gets into a really awkward spot where he has to choose between the Mew EX and like, he can't grab like, Mew EX Generator to power up this Maraidon. Like, I basically just You know, cook any chance of hitting a counterattack and, like, basically win the game on the spot. However, that's obviously only a 50 percent chance, and, like, the way the Mirana mirror works is, like, if you take the first KO, as long as you stream two more attacks in a row, you just always win, right? So, like, The other choices I could have grabbed were like XP share to try and try and bump my chances of hitting an attack the next turn. Which presents like this like really, really weird calculation that I was trying to do, which is like, what are the chances that, how much does like grabbing XP share bump my chances of hitting three attacks in a row? Because that's completely winning compared to this like 50 percent chance to basically win on the spot. And then the other upside of grabbing the catcher is it thins the catcher from the deck. Like the catcher's a bad card to draw, whereas the XP share. It's like a wonderful card to draw basically at every point in the game. So, yeah, those were like the thoughts that were running through my mind and I couldn't really, you know, it's hard to quickly calculate calculate those. I
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So what'd you do,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635ended up grabbing the catcher and then I lost because I whiffed like two generators in a row the next
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Did you, oh you didn't hit the catcher? But
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635and then I, yeah, I like double whiffed on generators. It was like, it was like the 1 percent doomsday scenario that I ended up losing that game.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Still won the set, right?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I did. Travis actually made a mistake in game three. He would have taken the first two prize KO, Peonied, and then Townsword to thin the deck, like with the idea of just being thinning before Mew, but one of his Peony grabs was an Ultra Ball, and he was basically committing to Flaaffy, but he also needed to hit an attachment, so he was basically just short a card, and he had to hold off on the Townsword so he could add a card to his hand afterwards, and he ended up missing attack, and then I hit, like, I hit the first two price KO, which closed out the game. that game was actually, like, really, really funky. In game three, he He went, he got one energy off his first three generators, and he prized the fourth one. So, so yeah, he had to end up doing this like crazy flaffy shenanigans to try to get his first attack off on turn two. And I, I would have absolutely smoked him on, on my turn my turn two. If, but I prized double Mu EX Flaffy Sealstone, so, yeah, I like yeah, I basically Peonied and my whole deck, like, fell apart into that, like, I didn't really have, like, great continuation off of Peonied to hit attacks. Which was like a really, really weird spot. That was a funky game. Funky game. Yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-132 is great. You got a top 16 and a top 32 now, out of what, like four tournaments?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah. Yeah. And then I had like two top five twelves.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. But I mean, I'm just saying, like, top 16, top 32 in four tournaments is really good. So.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I, I think I, I've been to a few, maybe like one more of it. I think it's like
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Okay, sure. Cool. Well, that format is over. Miraidon is, I think, unplayable now. We do have kind of its spiritual successor that we'll get to in a few minutes. Liam and I are not going to EUIC, unfortunately. I have my baby shower this weekend, and Liam is slow on the draw and was not able
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I got cooked.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1But we have a bunch of friends that are going, so we've been playing games, we've been talking and whatnot. I've actually played quite a lot on live. Since the set dropped, so I have thoughts. We figure we will just kind of go through maybe the top, definitely top five, and then whatever other decks we want to talk about a little bit. Give some thoughts where we think where we think the good decks are. So, start off, the obvious one. Gabe Smart's tier list had it as S tier. A lot of tier lists have it as the only S tier deck is Charizard Pidgeot. I've only played a couple games with Charizard. Have you played more with it,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I, I've played a few. Yeah, it's, it's a really good deck.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635That's really good.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I think Poffin was So Poffin is like an interesting card just to talk about in general. I think some cards got weaker from VIP to Poffin, but I think some decks got stronger actually. And I think Charizard's like right on the cusp like you can't find the Rotom, but like you get the, you get the chance of finding extra Charmanders and extra Pidgey if you need it throughout the game,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I, you know, I think one of the biggest things that it opens up is it also lets you, like, go blind first. Without getting that, like, massive downside of whiffing.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1right, right,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Cough and turn
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I think, yeah, yeah, that's a really good point yeah, yeah, I was thinking about that. I was, I played more Charizard games today than I have, previously and as I was setting up for like my second game I was like I think I just go first
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah which is interesting so that's cool yeah the deck just has so many options obviously Pidgeot being able to find any card is very strong the lists are obviously not super different there's probably like you know 50, 000 Three to fifty five core cards, and then people are kind of figuring out, like, those last five or six, and, just like last format there probably isn't a definitive, you know, last couple cards. There's lots of different things that you could play based on what you expect, like Myst Energy and Eerie, you could just play more consistency, you could play Turo, you could play Palpad. Do you have any, like, preferences
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I like the the Aerie TM Devo. I think it's pretty cool. It's good for Mirror, good for Chimp Pal. The Aerie is also, it's also good into, like, Snorlax and Pidgeot. I, I don't know if it's, it's enough to save you, but it's certainly, when I'm playing Snorlax and Pidgeot, the threat of basically losing all the Pal Pads in my hand and then, like, Losing the ability to go infinite is like, a little bit scary, because Charizard doesn't burn a lot of their deck. So like, the infinite loop is much lighter in Pidgeot right now. It's like Sylene and Palpad's completely skipping over Yelch here. Because a lot of matchups you can they basically, like, they go through their deck on their own. So just playing Iono is like, enough to win the deck out, even if you can't go infinite. But Charizard is not one of them, so, like, if you lose your ability to go infinite, I think there's some real threat of, like, actually losing on deck out.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Charizard's basically like minus two from their deck every turn, where other decks will
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, they have to dump and draw, right?
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Eerie seems pretty good. It's probably like, The only deck besides Stahl that I feel like Eerie is good in because you can search for it, you can use it it, so I think it's two things, right? You can search for it, so you can use it you know, in turns where you don't have another supporter to, to play meaningfully much more effectively than other decks. Something like an Arceus Giratina, I've seen it popping up in lists, but it doesn't make nearly as much sense in there to me because Like, that's a deck that really needs to play Judge, or Iona, or Boss, like, every single turn. And like, the turn where you don't want to do those, are you really going to have the one of Eerie? I don't know. So, I feel like Zard Pidgeot, it makes a lot of sense, and the second thing is, it helps probably two of your hardest matchups. In Chi and Pau,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635a worthwhile option in Arceus, though, like, it gives you some interesting options, I guess, to To Aerie instead of Judge, and like, it's, it's an interesting way to basically wall out, like, certain combinations of cards, I guess? Like, if you're trying to deny, like, Countercatcher or Lost Vacuum and, like, Candy Pidge, Candy's Aard, like, Aerie's a, like, A way to somewhat guarantee those, I think, from what I've seen. I can't remember, like, the exact exactly how it works, but it's it's a way to, like, guarantee misses, as opposed to just, like, judging and praying. Although, you know, judge is very good. So,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Well, so okay, here's an interesting question for you then, just like as a hypothetical to kind of give a baseline of how good it might be. Let's say you're playing against Charizard, you go first, you know, you get your Arceus attachment, it's in the active, and then Charizard goes, they get, you know, whatever, they get a couple Charmanders, they get a Pidgey, they get a Rotom, they draw three cards, their hands, whatever, like eight ish cards or so, and then you play Arceus V Star. You have the option, like you have to grab
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635there I think you're always going for judge. But, yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1you're not trying to like rip a candy off that initial
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635No, yeah, I I think I think the, the s much better when, like they miss the roadum. Like if they're sitting on like four or five cards in s like the best supporter you can play there.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fair. Makes Just gives you like an op another option.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, char Chars are definitely, I think it's slots in slots in the best, it has the least value out of other supporters. It's also the heaviest on counter catcher or one of the heaviest ExOne counter catcher in this format. So it gives you the, gives you the gust option along with area on the same turn. Which is really good into something like Bax. Right? Snipe candies, kill the Bax.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yep. It's, yeah, I was gonna say, like, I think matchup wise it also makes the most sense. Because, like, GMPal's not, it's not a terrible matchup, but, like, it's not one you want to play against all the time. And if you have Eerie it makes a pretty big difference, or it can make a pretty big difference. And, I think Lost Zone stuff is also, like, a little on the harder side for Charizard. So, you know, you snipe a Mirage Gate at some point, really big. Even, like, a Super Rod can
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, yeah. Charizard. Charizard does like a really good job because of the high HP stretching resources and hitting them a little bit more. Matchups like Lost can be really big.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So I think like the thing with Charizard is it's not like, it's not like overwhelmingly favored into any deck, it's just like good against pretty much everything and it's just like a good like inherent deck,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yes. For sure. It basically keeps like all of its tools from rotation, and other decks struggle to do that. I think. Except for like, Chen Pao, which is the other like, really good deck right now, I think.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. I'm sure we can talk more about Charizard but that was a good segue, let's talk about Chi and Pal. Chienpao is actually not the second most played deck on Limitless, but it's very close third. But Chienpao is I, I posted like a, a quick Twitter thread the other day on Chienpao on some of like, the really like, basic reasons that Chienpao is close third. Significantly better than it was before just at like a fundamental level, so go check that out. We'll kinda get a little bit more into the details, I guess, right now. It's probably the deck that I've played the most. I know some of our friends are definitely considering it. I love Cypher. I'm in love with the Cypher, Bibarel, Pokestop, Greninja engine. I think it's really strong. It's really fun to play with, too. An aside is that I've been trying to think of, like, other decks to play that engine in. I haven't figured out anything better than Chien Pao. But, Yeah, I mean, I really like the deck. I think it has pretty okay matchups, and just like, fundamentally is a pretty strong deck as well.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635You know I like the, the Cypher and Meridon and Turbo Hands good for your deck that's playing a lot of energy. And, you want to search generators from your deck. It's like a stinky peony if you get the stop down,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Hehehe.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635like a Greninja down. And then a, you know, it's also pretty cool for like, locking up games, where like, you can set your top card to like, Energy Generator, and then draw one with Mew, and guaranteed hit Generators off that. Yeah, I, but yeah, no, Codebreakers is like one of the funnest cards to play with, I think, from this new set, for
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1like, there's just so many cool things you can do. I particularly, the, think the, the stop. In Chien Pow, I think the Pokestop interaction is, like, the strongest part of it, because you can go Like, so many times, one of the issues with Bibarel is that you End up getting in this awkward spot where you have like fourish cards in your hand and you can either bi for one card or you can play the ultra ball first, but you're always gonna like discard another key card. Maybe you have like one card, you don't care about discarding in one card where you're like, what would I discard? But you kind of like have to ultra ball to draw more cards type of thing. But if you have like a cipher in a hand like that, you can cipher you can poke a stop or sorry, cipher and then poke a stop. Grab like one card that you do need, one card that you don't need, then you, you stop them, you get them, you Ultra Ball away, you end up drawing more cards and seeing more cards. So like sometimes Cypher gets you exactly what you need, but even in the situations where it's not getting exactly what you need, it's just letting you get through your deck in a more efficient manner, which I think is really cool.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635drawing cards in the right order has always been such like an important, important thing for Chen Pao. Like, obviously one of the big weaknesses people love to meme on is like, You know, when the stops aren't hitting, and like, you just get the wrong rips off stop this is like a really nice way to smooth that out, and then, like you said if you draw cards in the wrong order, it can really clog up your biberals, and like, You're trying to pull off these really large combos, but sometimes they can only be pulled off when you draw things in the right order. Like, you have to find the Pokemon first, and then find the S. E. R., and stuff like that. And just, you know, ensuring that the whole deck runs smooth is really nice. And it's also, like, probably the better consistency, the next best consistency supporter as well. Like, Iona was never that fun to play on turn one with Tempow. If you have like the Stop or the Ninja, Codebreakers is the best thing you can ask for.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, yeah, Iono kind of sucks in the deck. Like people still play one, but yeah, I don't, I'd rather just play one. I'd rather just play three Codebreakers than,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635play Iona over a Codebreaker on that deck right now. Like,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1so, the deck's pretty good, like, the Charizard matchup is it's close, closer than it was before, for sure. Despite Chi and Pau getting better, it's just like, Charizard's just a little more prepared, I think. And, and it can go first.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635The
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1What'd you say? The max spell, it's huge, yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635It's
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1And, and the fact that they want to go first, right is, is like a pretty big deal. They, they're just more, more consistent going first. So their matchups are also, like, fine. I don't know, I feel like it doesn't have a, a ton. It's similar to Charizard in that it doesn't have a ton of, like, super favorable matchups, but it actually doesn't have, like, a ton. A ton of really bad ones. I think both decks also, like, their stall matchup is not favored, but they both have decent game against stall, actually. And especially if if Chienpa plays the Iron Bundle, it's, like, particularly good against Pidgeot control. Sure.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635playing Snorlax right now. It should just be Omawile. Yeah, if they do play Snorlax the bundle I guess is good.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah, yeah. And that's just, I guess the only other thing I wanted to mention. Obviously you play Primecatcher, that card is very good. Though we have had discussions of playing a different ace spec in Chi Pao. But you need to play at least one other Gus card. Most people have opted for Countercatcher. Some people have been playing Boss. I Personally prefer the Iron Bundle right now. It is searchable throughout the game with with Nest Balls and Irida, and it's reusable and I've been playing 3 Super Rod. A lot of the lists I've been seeing recently have been playing 3 Super Rods, so you get to use it one, two, three times a game if it's actually important and like most of the time, like, pushing the active is equivalent to to choosing your gust target
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635it's hard to create multiple targets that aren't good for Chen Pao.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Right, because you either have, you either have Chi and Pao, which can take a one shot, or you have Ironhands, which can take two prizes against the little guys. So, it's, yeah, exactly, it's really hard to Like, a good example of something that would be annoying is like, attacking or having two of the attacking Snorlax out. Like, that would be annoying, but like, no deck is playing that, but So, I think the bundle is quite good. I would be I wouldn't be surprised if that's like, the The best other Gus card in, in a lot of the CHI paths that do well at A USC.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, Countercatcher and Boss are bad. Boss more so.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1All right, Liam, without looking at play limit list, do you know what the actual second most played deck is?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635It's Future Hands.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Future hands
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, it's super inflated. I think it's bad.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, it's, it's like 10% on play limit list. I would expect probably more closer to like six, 7% at UIC. Like that's the only one that I look at and I'm, and I'm immediately like, that's gonna be lower
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, yeah, I really like future hands because it's a lot of, I think a lot of good players are counting on the future hands players being bad and in that sense I, you know, I like to punish that but yeah, the deck is trash. The deck's trash. There's a reason the good players aren't going to play it. It is absolutely miserable to play.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I haven't played it much myself, but like, playing against it, I either feel like I get rolled pretty hard, or I roll them pretty hard. And there's usually not a whole lot of in between.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah. No, it's And the Unlike Unlike Maridon, like, the deck is The deck is more limited than Maridon, which like, you know I kind of disagree, but people are like, Oh, that's like the beatdown deck last format. This deck is like It is, it is absolutely brutal because you have to lead the baby Miride on every game, and you're trying to 2 2 2 race. Like, you're just praying to God that they do not take two prizes on turn two, and that feeling is terrible. It's also hard to keep all of your energy in play, like, Once again, you spend the entire mid game praying to God that they do not run Vacuum. Because you just lose if you get all your energy removed like that, unless you rip, like, the most insane generators in the world. Like, back to back, and, like, the Dex engine is no good, there's no good way to search out generators, you have to literally just draw the nuts. If You don't get baton value.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, and I think that's, like, it's matchup against Charizard is pretty abysmal from what I've seen, so yeah. So if Charizard's the best deck, like, it doesn't really matter how good
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635The deck doesn't have a way to get through Izzard. It's just
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. Enzard is like the one deck that is a hundred percent going to play a vacuum
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yes. That, and
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1they basically play five vacuums and the Pidgeot, right? So like
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635They also play a bunch of countercatchers on A bunch of countercatchers. That's actually one interesting idea for Izzard that I was thinking about. Which, I mean like, I don't know why you'd ever care about this Chen Pao matchup, but it also improves your stall matchup, which is basically just play 4 key tackle. With the idea being that if they drop like an Ironcrown or something, they shouldn't. They shouldn't. They don't need it. But, like, you make it easier for the baby Maraudon to kill a Charmander. Like, if they attach a future boost or something, so that they can prepare retreat. Because if they take that first prize, you get counter catch for the next turn, and you basically just instantly win. You remove the hands, and you win.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1But yeah, you're right. It's also good against Stahl because you can just kill
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635you also get value on stall. And, I'm, like, Sableye is not, like, a huge threat, from what I gather right now, so. I don't know, maybe something worth looking into.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, I've seen some lists playing four of that, and most of them playing 2 2 still, but like, the other Charmander part, I mean, besides the 70 HP, part of the reason it was good is because of the the attack, as well, that discards a stadium, and now that doesn't matter at all. So, even a little bit less reason. Okay,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635meta, which is that, like, all the PokéStop decks were, like, for Stop, because you, you know, you wanted Stop in play every turn. But I think, even though Stop is so valuable, and, like, nice to find on turn one, I think, And I think we see this in a lot of lists. You're like, cutting back on stops because they just never get bumped. Like, nobody's playing anything. Except stops. Which I think is like, pretty interesting. Yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, the only stadiums I see in decks are Artisan, Stop, and the random one of Collapsed in Zards and other things. Okay, so future hands, thumbs down. Number four, Lugia. Lugia is a deck I played a decent amount of games at the very beginning and haven't really touched it in, More recently. It's still, like, it hasn't changed. I feel like the list is more or less solved already. It's just kind of like, do you want to play Lugia or not? Yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635And if you get enough, you always win, because the Chen Chino uptrades everything, right?
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's the thing. Like, Lugia feels almost impossible to beat with almost any deck if it, if it gets going. And if it has, like, It has like three ish tiers of starts. Like, Impossible to Beat starts, it's mid starts where it's like, it could win, but it had to read the wind once or twice, and then you have it's completely
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635many Vs or something, right?
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1What'd you say?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Or like, bench too many Vs, miss a turn 2 KO, whatever, right?
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. Or, but it also has like, I don't know, one out of five, one out of six times, it's just like, oh, I drew six energy and a Minccino as my start.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, you just like, don't hit the, the V Star for like, the first like, three turns. You should always lose.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So, but like, it's matchups are like, pretty, well, if you take away that like, you know, 15 ish percent, like it's, it's matchups are good.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635If you get the good starts, it's good.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah. I wouldn't fault anyone for playing Lugia. Like, I mean, it's a
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635No, yeah, I think it's a, it's a good call if you, if you want to go for the jackpot. Just, yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Number five is Lost Box. We saw it in Japan. This is like, The last couple weeks of the, they're like, city tournaments, the League Cup esque events Lost Zone, like, was the most winning deck. And I feel like here it's been like, eh, it's been okay. It's done well, but not like crazy well. It's not a deck that I've played very much. The couple games that I have played, I had this realization that Iron Hands takes a lot of energy to power up in a Lost Zone deck. Like, it's not, it's not like playing it in other decks.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I really like Lost Box. I'm a little bit biased. I, last Sunday, I played my last Paradox Rift League Cup. And In that League Cup, I played against Dean Nezum twice. One in Swiss, and one in Top Cut, which was best of three, so I ended up playing a lot against him. And Dean has been a guy who's been playing Lost Box this entire, entire format. His list was absolutely sick. It was super sick. He was playing, he was playing nine switch cards, and I, I've carried that over. Heavy switch, heavy switch card, prime catcher 4 4 1, and it feels really good. You like, you basically get like four comfies down on like turn one, turn two, and, and then you just shred your entire deck with that many switch cards. And yeah, I was super, I was feeling inspired because Dean was Absolutely showing me the sauce.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Dean's
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Good. Dean's a really good
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635super good, man. Yeah, he was really good. And, so yeah, I like the deck. I don't, I don't make it do the same thing. He, the way he addresses that issue with the Iron Hands is, he, he, he makes it a priority. He did it in like three of the four games. He gets the Iron Hands turn one and he gets energy on it.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Oh, interesting. Okay. So he is really preemptively going for it. Mm-Hmm.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So, and like, what other attackers are we playing? We're playing Roaring Moon, obviously. That
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635it's playing Two Moon, Cram, Sableye, but like, that and the hands, I was playing Gardevoir, so those are some lethal attackers, and I skimped on the Jirachi so like, you know, he was like, Cram turn one, Hands you know, Hands for 2, Boss, Roaring Moon for 2, and like, dude, he always hit the boss because he's, he's, he's like thinning his deck, and then he, he like Pow Pads, and there's like 2 Kholrus, and he has like Countercatcher, Moon, 2 Rod, 2 Gate, like, he has everything in his deck, he's, he prepared it super well. I only got him, I lost to him in Swiss, I got him on a brick in game 1, and then we hit time, because it was best of 3, 50 minutes top cut. And, he, he missed like a turn one hands, and then I beat him on turn three on prizes. I, I absolutely cheesed him dude, he, he's gonna roll me. But yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I'm looking at probably the list that he played, because he got he got
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, yeah, he's been running like the same thing all season.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah, yeah. Okay, he played Dragonite, so now you play Raikou. You have to play Raikou instead of Dragonite in the new format, but otherwise, it's like basically the same.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I, I just skipped it. I, the, that was one thing I was really impressed by Dean on, is like, Myself included, I think a lot of Lost Box players, when you're building, you're like, Oh, I have to add, like, something for, like, consistency, I guess, Beyond just, like, playing an unholy amount of switch cards, like, You're like, oh, I have to cut some switch cards for, like, Pokégears, or something like that, To try and, like, increase your chances of finding Chorus Turn 1. He's just playing a ton of stops. And then, like, I think, like, Max VIP, Max Nests, Max Switch Cards, and it's like, I'm gonna find Comfy Turn 1, then I'm gonna switch into it every time, and I'll just see what I get from there. And, like, I think that's a really, really nice idea, which is basically just to play for Comfy more than Khorus. Whereas, you know, kind of counter to, I think, like, conventional wisdom. I
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1makes sense. Did you end up winning the cup?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635did. Yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I also, I didn't mention, I also won a cup the weekend of Vancouver.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Nice. Nice.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I played Tina. It's a good, good, good Path to the Peak send off.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, dude, I was, I was thinking about making one of those, one of those, you know, Twitter posts like, oh, one last ride with Garty. I was able to hold off on that.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Speaking of Giratina, Giratina is the sixth most played deck for the new format on PlayLimitless. I also have only played a couple games with Giratina in the new format. The lists is, the lists are pretty much the same, it's like minus the four path plus four other cards from last format. Iron Leaves, obviously. And then other things that you can play if you want. I haven't really played the Forest Sealstone. It seems stu it seems stupid to me, but
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635that is, that is the craziest thing. I, my only experience with that is, is I hit one on ladder the other day, and as soon as the dude attached the sealstone, I was like, thank god. I
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1well, we'll talk about the Roaring Moondeck in a little bit, but I was playing the Roaring Moondeck, and he, like, he was setting up his Tinas, and then he played the Forest Sealstone, and then he didn't use it for a turn but then, like, then he did use it, and then I just, like, went Ancient Capsule on my Roaring Moony Axe, and I was like, what do you do now? I win the game now. Like, come on, bro. Yeah, it doesn't seem great to me. And the deck in general just seems, like, kind of okay to me in this format. Like, without Path, I think your Charizard matchup is probably unfavored. Maybe the leaves can make you, like, 50 50, but, like, I don't
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635think if you get, if you get the leaves, you should be, you should be fine.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1That's not like, I don't know, I guess you delete two
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635though, that's trash. I was, yeah, I was just talking about this with Edwin Arroyo which is like, last format, the whole idea was like, you cut all of the turbo stuff, and you put your consistency into the Tina, and this lets you, this lets you save space so that you can add paths and Roxanne and stuff, and now like, you don't have any compensation for going slower. Like,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1right, right, right, right. Like Roxanne, Roxanne by itself is like often not enough.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, I mean like, the Lost Zone decks can shove one Roxanne in and have like, pretty much like the same level of disruption that you have. At this point and you, I, I just don't see what the compensation is for, for making your deck slower.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, I think like the Qi and Pab matchup is like, it was already like not great and now it's like a lot worse.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah. It's, it's just terrible.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, it's really bad now. Like I said, Charizards, like whatever yeah, I don't know, it's matchups. not great. Number seven, we got Arceus, Giratina. This deck seems terrible on me. I don't really have much else to say. Yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I like it. I You're like super favored into, into zd. Maybe tempo, maybe I don't, is RCSI, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's that good. But you, you don't think it
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1that favorite. I mean, if Zard goes first and just like gets the max belt and KOs you, you're like, hmm,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635the, the max doesn't work on the.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Oh, oh, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635the Zard matchup is like, super favorite in my experience. Like, you have, yeah, even in that scenario, you get, your Arceus gets hit 180, and you hit for 200, and then you get another KO with the next Arceus, and they still can't take a knockout because you're only up two prizes, right? And then, now you've flooded your board with grass energy, and the next turn you go Tina V. Star. KO, and then you go Iron Leaves to finish, and it's
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, yep, seems reasonable.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635and that's like your worst case scenario, like, they go turn to 180 before you get an attack.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, okay, okay, I agree. Then eight and nine we got the, well, well, it's kind of, I know they're different desk decks, but let's just talk about them all at the same time. Great Tusk Mill, Snorlax, Pidgeot.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yes.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1This is your wheelhouse. I
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635They're trash!
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Mill. They're, they're trash.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Why is, why is, why is Pidgeot trash?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Consistency issue, dude. I think Pidgeot's matchup into future hands is absolutely horrid. Which is like, I mean, it's hard to play the deck at that point. And like, all your matchups are just like so hard. Because if you whiff the turn to Pidgeot, You basically instantly lose. But even if you get the turn 2 Pidgeot, like, the Primecatcher helps decks be so aggressive, like, and all the decks are one hitting you, except for Zard. That's like your, like, one always good matchup. Like, they just go Primecatcher KO your Pidgeot turn 2 every single time. And like, that's hard to deal with. And like, you know, the Iron Hands decks not decks, but the future one, it takes three prizes when it does it. Like, it's hard to deal with that in my experience. So yeah, I've struggled to make Pidgeot work. I think the straight Snorlax version is much better. You get all the retreat lock and you get it without having to bench a Pidgeot that always gets turned to KO'd.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1The Rotom is definitely more susceptible as well than it was before, but maybe it's fine. I know some decks are playing Spear too, just kind of for the control matchup,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635just get cooked by spirit. Toum,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, like most of the Lost Zone decks are playing it.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I think that's a little fiendish. I would not buy Spirit Toum. You can just beat them with the Prime catcher.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Hehe.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635catcher.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Great Tusk Mill is the only one I've played a little bit with. It's, it's okay. It's not terrible, but it's just like not, it's not very consistent. And like, it's like pretty, pretty often you're waiting until like turn two or turn three to even get your first mill attack off, which at that point is just too slow.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I think your list must be trolled at that point, bro. I, I get it pretty consistently, but I mean, it, it may, maybe that's why they, I encounter a different issue, which is that my deck literally does nothing else. And I, you know, I mill 24 cards and then I lose. Like,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, and there's probably not a happy medium there, where you can go fast and have a high power level.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Like, adding options to the deck, all of them are supporter based. You want, because you have to disrupt the hand somehow to make anything on board work. And once you, once you go for the supporter base, like, you basically, like, throw your turn away because you're no longer hitting the floor off the mill. So, like, you're playing for this win condition the entire time, and then you throw a turn away to, like, pray for some disruption to work. It doesn't feel good at all.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Alright, just a couple more decks. Gardevoir is actually not terrible. It's better than I thought. The issue that I Thought was gonna be like a, the biggest issue is just the lack of level ball and finding Kirlia's. Like, I think your attacking options are, they're not great, but they're like good enough to be, they're good enough to be competitive in the format. But, like, the strength of Gardevoir is his engine and the Kirlia engine, and without Consistent and easy access to that. It's not worth playing at all. And the TM Evo engine is like, better at doing it than I thought. So I think the deck is not terrible. I could see it doing decent. I could see some good players deciding to play it. The other issue is just, like, loss vacuum, how much loss vacuum is gonna be played. It's, it's really tough to beat Charizard if you, it's impossible to beat Charizard if you don't KO their Pidgeot. And even if you do KO their Pidgeot, the matchup is still, like, can, you can lose it still. But it's, and it's like, it's like a 0 100 if you, if you don't kill their Pidgeot. Heh.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Dude, I would never even play Drifloon. I think those guardiolists have it in the wrong direction. Drifloon is like the worst attacker by far. I don't know how you ever get like Sleep at Night, throwing that Bravery charm on there and just being like, Please don't play Lostvac. Like, I play
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1what would you
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635decks. Lostvac's amazing right now. Everything has tools. I
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1of Drifloon? Like, you need something, Okay,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I like Screamtail.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1would you play the there's like the Mimikyu, right? That's like a warrior's cessation. Do you play that?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Oh, that one? I haven't
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1maybe it's an EX, it's Mimikyu
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yes, I remember now.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1You haven't tried that?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, I have not thought about that at all.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1You need, if you're playing Deoxys, you'd probably play more Energy than the other
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635No, yeah, no, because I wouldn't want to play all those energy. The Zacian didn't even feel that good anyway, like, at the end of the format. I mean, I should think about it more, of course, but Oh, I'm playing one Fluttermane. I'm playing a Kress. Yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1most decks aren't playing Crest. How many Energy do you have?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I I have like nine.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Okay, I think most of this play, well it's either 8, 2 split with the Vessel or 9, 1 usually. I feel like with Deoxys you would want at least another 1 or 2, but maybe it's fine. What does Deoxys need to hit a big damage? Like 5, 6?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Nah, dude. It needs like two, bro, because it, it does damage for both actives, like
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1How much does it do? 60 for each?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah. 60 on both. Active for each energy on both.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1So like, it's Charizard, right? That's the one that you really have to worry about. So you're getting So you need six energy between the two of you? Okay, so it's only four. That's not that bad. Okay, yeah, I take it back. You're probably fine.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah. The deis is like super efficient,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Makes sense. Yeah, that seems good. Alright, and the last deck that I want to talk about was The Roaring Moon deck. That's another deck that I've played quite a bit with. It's a Roaring Moon EX, Roaring Moon Baby, and the Dunsparce. It's been pretty fun. It won an online tournament last week, and I've been tweaking the list a little bit. I think Baby Moon's just like a pretty good card. Kind of reminds me of Baby Buzzwole, the sledgehammer swing around one. It's not as good, but it reminds me of it.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635so I think it might be better
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1You think it might be better? Ooh!
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah. I'm probably forgetting how good the baby was. Bowl was. It was
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Buzzard was
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah. Alright. It was, it was really good. It wasn't as, as dominant as Baby Babymoon feels, like, in taking over a game, in the sense that, like, You know, obviously the Sledgehammer is only good on one turn. I, like, when I play against these Babymoons decks, they have like four Babymoons on like turn three. And I'm like, dude, this thing, like, these are just going to run through my board. Like, they're just, you know,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1HP is like, it's like a really awkward number for a lot
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635it gets out of the hands, which is huge.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah, it gets out of hand.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Chen Pao. Yes,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1against like the Lost Box decks. It's huge. They can get around it, obviously, by setting it up with Sableye and Ninja, but it It makes it much more annoying. Putting the capsule on the baby moon makes it pretty chonky and it's just like, it just kind of hits the right numbers. Like, it hits enough that it can KO pretty much any one prize Pokémon without much difficulty and then it can two shot most two prizers. You know, the V Stars, it starts to get a little bit tougher if it's really early in the game. And then obviously Charizard, you can't really two shot it until later in the game. But, like, yeah, they're pretty, they're pretty chonky and annoying to deal with for sure. There's like a lot of matchups you just win by going five Roaring Moons, five Baby Moons.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Babymoon's insane. It's insane.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Not that hard to to stream them with SADA and Dark Patch. So that deck's pretty fun. Crydon is definitely bait. I played a very little bit with the, that Ancient Box and Crydon sucks, for sure. Cool. Any other decks you want to talk about?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635The, the only reason that I, the reason you play Karaiton is because it's an ancient card, and after you play four of all the ancient trainers, you have to move on to Pokemon. And this is a Pokemon that if you start it, it can attack on turn one. Without playing a switch card.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yep.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635It sucks.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1It sucks, yeah.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635It's the
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1But it's an ancient card. Yeah, that's it. That's its best treat.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Huh.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Alright, any other decks you want to talk about?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Don't think so. Oh, you want to talk about Binette really quick?
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Oh, yeah, yeah, we saw, we saw the Binette guy Mateus, Matius he posted his list and said, like, don't, said, this deck is broken, don't play it at EUIC
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635the deck looks pretty good. I think it's really good. Yeah, I mean, you should know what you're doing when you play the deck. Don't play the deck if you don't know what you're doing.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah. Do you think it, do you think it beats Zard?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Dude, I'd add more Zard techs. I haven't really tested Benet at all in this format.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1mm
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635I'd add more Zard techs. I'd talk with Mateus a little bit about it. He thinks it beats like everything.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I mean like it just obviously it's like not super easy to find the Charmeleon but if I feel like if they find Charmeleon relatively early
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635You can't count on that. You just always have to assume that hit candy's hard because like you get, you get some win rate Sure. From you know, hitting the, hitting the agro Burnett, which is great. But yeah, they, they do find the charmian and you go second a lot too
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1yeah I guess that's true yeah and you don't hit heads on the it
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635and you getting into the shop's really hard as well because you have to, I mean you have to raw start it. You have to find the energy, it's, there's like a lot that has to happen for you to hit the, the binette before, before they get an evolve, and they're like, there's the Charmeleon threat of course yeah,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1so you gotta do other stuff
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635mm hmm but you play a bunch of Memory Skip, that's the idea. That's the idea.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1There's a, there's a lot of other decks I feel like that actually could do decently well. I think like the Gouging Fire deck looked cool Lostbox Charizard always has a shot maybe someone cracked Raging Bolt like there's a lot of potential I think in this format.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635would it take to crack a Raging Bolt, like,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I don't know, so,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, okay,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I don't know,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635yeah, let's look at this Gabe Smart graphic, alright, dude,
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1so,
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Venusaur EX there, oh dude, I love Venusaur. That card is lit. It
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1very much have to look up what that does.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635has 340 HP and its ability is it heals 60 from one of your Pokemon. So you get two, you get two of the balloons on those guys, the, that give you free retreat, and then you go between them and you heal 120 a turn, 340 HP, and you also have like the heal from the Whimsicott. You know, pretty cool.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Potion, Whimsicott. Yeah, the card. I played a couple games with Torterra. That deck is pretty bad.
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Proterra, yeah. Yeah, no, dude, the, the walls though are really bad this format because Chen, Pal, and Lugia are like one and two, so. Not one and two, but they're, they're like serious meta contenders and dealing with them is way too hard if it's not a primary strategy.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yep. All right. Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens. We will be back next week to talk about the results and where the metagame heads from there. Like this weekend will be a very good indicator of of where we're going. And then
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635a lot of shifts.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Yeah. And then Orlando is right around the corner. So I think like there's some subset of players that are Kind of like locked in on something and they're just going to play a Toro Lander no matter
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Dude, if you're locked in for Orlando, you're actually trolling. You're actually
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1a, another like big subset of players that are like, maybe they have like an idea, maybe they have like two or three decks they consider playing and they're very much waiting to see what happens at UIC. I mean, I, I, Liam, I agree with you, but there's some people that, you know, they need to, you know, Get, they need to like have one or two decks that they're like, alright, I'm gonna
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635Yeah, you gotta, you gotta one trick it, right? Ah, you gotta one trick the entire season. Oh my god.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1I know, I'm not going, if I was going, I'd either be playing Chien Pao or the Roaring Moon deck. I don't really, probably leaning towards Chien Pao, but I think the Roaring Moon deck's pretty fun too. If you were glowing, Liam, do you have a thought of what you'd be playing?
liam_1_04-02-2024_172635For you, I see. Yeah, I'd definitely be playing Babymoon.
m_1_04-02-2024_172635-1Moon. Alright, that's our episode. Catch us next week.