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Daniel Rosa messages, me and my brother day of and is like, Hey, are you going to the cup this afternoon? And I'm like, there's a cup this afternoon because I had, I had work until like two 30 that day, so I assumed I wasn't gonna be able to go to any cup or whatever on that day. But then it turns out the cup started at three 30. So I'm like, okay, we, Concord isn't too far, it's like 30, 20, 30 minutes away from us. So I'll, we'll go out and yeah, it it, I mean it is definitely one of the more infamous cups at the moment. It's, it, there were a few, a few hiccups along the way. Most notably, the cup was scheduled to start at three 30, substantially later than any other cup. It was probably a hundred degrees out. They had double booked the venue, so there was also a yugi pre-release going on, which caused there to not be enough tables and some people had to play outside On a car. I think there was one, there were one table short. So they had to play on the car. There were a few people vomiting, nearly passing out due to heat. And I didn't, I got to talk four and I didn't get out until probably 1130 because one, I mean, cup started late at three 30. But also, even though the cup was scheduled to start at three 30, it didn't actually start until like five. And I do not know exactly why. So, all right, I'm back. All in all, it was pre delayed, slow, but I think the largest problem was frankly just that it started late, which didn't give them much buffer room to,

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Right. It sounds like all you're missing is best of three.

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it was best of one, and they did make the call. And I, a lot of people are complaining about this on Twitter to cut round six due to it starting so late.

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I mean, is that a thing you're allowed to do? Just drop around.

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Dude, ca was four. Oh. When they decided to cut round six and he was like, this works out. I love it. I mean, I was not, I would would've, I'm confident I would've won the last round anyways. And, but I mean, I would've, it, I would've just been like, ID round five and then when it doesn't really matter, you're yeah, you're four. You're chilling.

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So Brit Brit, I got to get your quick opinion and I'm. I feel terrible for anyone that got terribly sick. My heart goes out to them, but in the interest of doing it for the meme, I have to say, does that sound like soft California to you? When they're like a hundred degree weather, we were puking. It was so hot.

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Mind you,

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as a Midwesterner that lives in the heat. Dom, do you hear that? And you say soft.

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It was more like, it was more like 90 to 95, which was hot. It was hot. It's not that hot.

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Yeah, that sounds as, as somebody who grew up in Texas, that sounds soft.

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Yeah, it was. It

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In California. And so used to your perfect weather. They're like the second, the second he gets outside of like, it's not 70 degrees a year round in San Francisco. They're like, we're dying. We're. We're dying. We

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I have, I have friends from Florida that are like that, from Pokegear and otherwise that they're consistently just like, bro, it's so cold and it's like 60 degrees and I'm just like, in, in, in this basically like a tank top and gym shorts and like, I feel great. What are you talking about? I was like, I need a hoodie. Like it's 60. Yeah. Yeah. it. was my first experience of hot weather so far during this sort of like heat wave because because of where I live in the bay, like we, I, every time the heat wave comes around, we get these gorgeous maps of like California with like all of California baking in like 80 to 100 degree weather. And then there's like the little bay area that's just chilling at like 73 and because of just where it's positioned. But, so this is my first time getting on the wrong side of the tunnel and experiencing the heat cuz we didn't ha, we didn't have the fog anymore to cool things off. So.

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Welcome to the trash lanch. Attendance is 166%. Mike Kayden, Liam, Brit me everybody's here. We're all on Twitter too. Dragon shield is our sponsor. Dragon shield is our sponsor. No five-star review updates. If you leave a review for our podcast and we will read it on the podcast and discuss it. You could ask fascinating questions and we would discuss those questions. You know, Britt is waiting for you to leave fascinating questions. Bring the people. All right. Kayden. So. Terrible league cup. Having said that you are now. Closer to getting your invite. Because of an unspecified amount of points that are not a specified target. But so, so congratulations. Tell us, tell us how you did it.

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Yeah, so Like mentioned prior to the intro, I played in league Cup this Saturday and I decided to play back Scalibor largely because this was my first tournament of the season. And back scour was the deck. I really desperately wanted to play for NAIC, but because I needed day two for my invite, I decided, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play it. a little safer. But now that there's less on the line, I was like, hell Yeah. we're gonna play back.

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And now it's now it's back's Calibre until next, then AIC. And you'd be like, no, no, no.

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exactly. And things went pretty well. I, I, I, round one, I hit Lawson box which was actually a really funky game. I don't think I got a back scalibor out until turn three. However, he also had a bit of a slow start. Only start getting one comfy outturn, one whiffing, any v i p pass. And the game just went really long. But I was able to, you know, Greninja Gus cao or Raku on one turn and take enough prizes. And he wasn't really able to kill my backs and shut me down. So I won round one, round two, and, and. Mind you, one thing I immediately noticed beginning this was my brain was operating at like probably a good 30% due to heat. Like, like it was. It was, my brain was slow. My brain was like a very slow, and I made some very questionable plays throughout this tournament. One of which I in top eight, which I will, or no, top four, which I will distinctly mention because it was, I still won the game, but it was one of the worst plays. I've ever made in Pokegear. So round two I played against my good friend Connor Peterson, who is running it with Gardy at, for this event. And I think this is the first time I've played against Connor since Mexico City regionals in top eight of Mexico City regionals back in 2018, where he beat me to n knock me outta my invite. So this time I beat him. He was playing guard. He was playing a very Turbo version of guard with, you know, he had two Zacian, two seal, stone, which is much scarier for Bax because if they get the turn to KO with Zacian on a p it can actually be pretty, pretty spooky for you. However, I was going first and I turned to hit Gus CAO on his bench, Zacian. Which sort of just sealed out the game even though I couldn't hit Greninja, the turn after to kill his Kirlia to kill any remaining Kirlia. At that point he was kind of too far behind to come back. Round three, I played against Fusion Mew, and as soon as he flipped over the mute, I realized I have not played this matchup once. I don't know how, I've never played this matchup before. I never got around to testing the me matchup. But I had never played the matchup before. Turns out the matchup is as, I mean, I could theory it out. It's pretty much fine. I, it went, I think how most matches will go, to be honest. Where I, I, he got first KO and then I just swing kill VMax and then I just k out twice. It's, I don't know, two prizes to three prizes. One I can, one shot pretty. Pretty easily. It's, it's not too much of a contest. So I'm three, oh, now I need, I'm, I'm, and I look at the standings and because they cut one round and went down to five rounds, I can, I can just, ID twice in order to in order to make it into cut. And there are currently nine threes. And I ended up being the one three oh who got down paired. So I'm down paired. I have to play one more match and it's the mirror match. I'm going second which is immediately very, very scary. However turns out he prized two Fri backs, so he was only able to get one Fri backs down and I, so I gust killed it and on turn two and then he didn't have enough energy acceleration to win the game. So that was, that was round four. I'm four. Oh. And then I, I, ID round five in order to go into cut. It's like top, we go into top eight. It is like probably 9 30, 10, or it's like nine 30 at this point. So it's already getting pretty, pretty late due the late start time. But luckily things are starting, temperatures starting to come down. Of course. So in top eight, I play against and I play against Andy Huen. Who's playing Arceus Dura Umbrian. And at this point of course, we're in best of three and game one. Game one, I kind of just blow him out. I hit turn two KO on his rcs with energy on it and he just very quickly scoops up the game. Game two, I have a horrid start. I wh turn two back and I, it just becomes very clear that there's nothing I can do to get back into this game. So I, I scoop it up and like he hit, he hits Gus Kill on two back in a row. So I, I it's, there's nothing I can do. And then game three, game three kind of goes. It's a little closer. It's a little closer. However, I sort of managed to come out ahead largely due to going first. The, the first, going first against Arceus really, really matters as it turns out. So yeah, I, going into the event as in terms of my list, I ran one, one Birol, no, ba no Palkia and no Arceus. I think this is, Palkia is not good in this deck. It's really, it's really not good in this deck. Star portal is not a good enough estar power to make up for it. Like I would much rather run rcs over Palkia the attack as an attacker. Palkia is also like, fine. It's okay. It's not, not better than Starr though. I'm currently considering whether or not one, one bib or one one rcs is better. I think, I think it's close. The problem with rcs is it's such a bad starter because it has two retreat costs that you have to find your, your switch cart in order to get into a Chen P on turn one. And also I mean obviously it's a two prizer and they're oftentimes in a lot of matchups. You have to limit yourself to having no two prizes on the board on the turn U Greninja. So that you can get a head in the prize trade and rcs makes that way harder. So I, I think BIB's probably better for late game iOS. But and just for, frankly, refill your hand. Cause this deck tosses cards constantly, but I think that RCS is something to be considered and it's definitely not bad. So, yeah, then that was top eight, top four. I play against Lost Giratina which I think is a good matchup do. He ran Path to the Peak, which was a little annoying in game three. He, it delayed me one turn, but I really don't think the matchup is too much, too much of a problem. Game one, I just, full brick game two, I make. One of the worst plays I've ever made where I V I P pass. I searched through I I V I P pass. I searched through my deck and I think I prize a FRIGE packs. I count, I cuz I have HU Sue and heavy ball in hand. I count twice, double check twice somehow. Count two FRI packs two times in a row. So I grab a Chen p and a Greninja, then I play hail and heavy ball. Look at my prize cards and there is no frige backs there. Nice. On the next deck search, I looked through again thinking did I drop a frige? Like where's my Fri? And there are three Fri backs in my deck. So, so somehow I miscounted twice. Which meant I didn't get a Fri of X downturn one which it didn't end up mattering because he. Was pretty hard bricked. He ended up, he had to bench three Giratina V on turn two. And so I was just able to very quickly clean up the game. And then game three, he ha he delays me one turn with path and then turn two he has he hits Raw Boss KO Mirage Gate with Giratina in order to kill my bench backs. Which I, I, yeah. There's not much I can do into Rob Boss on turn two, but it, it's just a little unlucky. It is what it's, but top four, not too bad for my first event, and I'm glad I got to give backs a good run. So, yeah, the nice, so was this the same list that we were messing around with before any i c and the one that Cameron played? Yeah, this is, it's the same list that Cameron played for NAIC except minus one pokey stop plus one vacuum. Because I was a, I was a little worried about path and the, the vacuum actually ended up being really important, both against the lost Giratina in order to bounce the path and also against Andy's Arceus Dura in order to get rid of a panic mask. Cuz if the RCS chips your out for 180 you gotta. Loss vacuum and the panic mask in order to hit it back. Yeah. So yeah, the loss vacuum ended up being quite good. Although I do still, I wish you could have four pokey stuff, but Yeah. And the one other thing that my list, that Cam's list hasn't, but a lot of people have been cutting is the second lumion. I, the second lumen is so good. Like, I, I don't know, I can't get behind cutting it. It's so critical. Turns one and two if that, so if you prize it, you're in a lot of trouble. Also, frankly, like there were multiple games, I think two games in the Cup Saturday where I played both Lumon and it, and winning me the game just to find another iita or a boss. My most, the most useless card in that deck for me was Iona. I did not play an Iona once the whole, the whole event. I just used IIDA for the most part. So that's my most cuttable card right now. Yeah. I agree with that. You didn't play a boss, right? I played one boss. The boss was good. Okay. Okay. I agree. I like boss. I think IO can be gone. Yeah.

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Mike Britt. You guys play. And then he tournaments over the weekend.

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No, I meant to go to one on Sunday, but like someone was supposed to message me back and they just didn't, and they messaged me at the end of the day. I was like, oh, Yeah. sorry. I didn't end up going to that. Like I needed to borrow cards. So I was sort of thinking about it at the very least, just still just chewing on a lot of char art ideas, but now that I'm seeing like chin pal lists start to play, Lost City too. I might pack it up. Cause a lot of the, the deck to me that it's viable is that it has a strong Chin P matchup. And if you have to start dealing with lost city there too, it probably goes out the window. But I'd have to play it a bit more. But I'm still on charts or for the moment, I haven't looked at when I have. Other stuff coming up, but there's like from when I looked last weekend, it's just like there's a challenge basically once a week at the very least. I just make my way out. I don't think we, it doesn't seem like we're getting very many of the weekday ones though at the moment, which is a little, which is a bummer. But at the same time I don't tech, I'm not technically able to make those cause I work late Pacific hours, but I'm sure I could still sneak off to one here and there, but jealous of, of those who are fitting them in into their, their weekday, I would love to do that. So I don't have to lose my weekend to a. Challenge. I guess also too, final thing is I also saw it was best of three. I got, I got a be I got a better Sunday planned than a best of three league challenge with 30, 30 people. It should be illegal man. I no, I didn't go to anything this past week cuz I went to Sam Chen's wedding this, this weekend.

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Oh,

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we made a quick trip. We made a quick trip to California for for Sam's wedding. There was, it was Southern California though, like near San Diego. There's a lot of Pokegear people there. Bunch of the old X-Files people. It's like Simon ero, Paul Johnston, Tyler Naura, Matt and Michael Chin. That's mostly who I hung out with. And then there was the whole Bradner Jon, Eng Rahul group that was there as well. So it was good to hang out with everybody. We did talk a little bit of Pokegear, but not that much. So it was it was a good time. Yeah. You had more, you had more important things than Pokegear. Yeah. Yeah.

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Going to see Pokemon people.

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still. Yeah. still Pokegear. Tangent. Tangential though. I did I wanna give a shout out to Steve Retzlaff. He was at the wedding and he said he just started listening to the pod.

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Yeah. Yeah, he had, he had sent me a note where he was like, I, I went back and listened to one or two of you guys episodes and it seems like it's okay. I think he was like, it's like, wow. It's true. True story. True story. I think every time I tell people I do a podcast, they're like, Hm. Which is about right. That's. I'm like, yeah, I feel the same way, frankly. That's a, that, that, that, that lines up. Liam. You went to a big challenge.

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Yeah. I did. I actually played two, but I played the same deck. I played a Gardy water box with Dialga. Deck was fine. It has issues against Lost Box and Chen Powell cause you kind of just passed for like three turns while you set up and that means save lie and canceling colon and Greninja just like do terrible things to you. It's kind of nice against rcs though, like dialogue is just a really good attacker against rcs just by nature. I don't know. I'll maybe play around with the deck cause it's really fun to play, but, It definitely takes bad matchups into Lost and Chen Pal. When you send a list, I was like five round leak challenge over under two times that you attack at all. And how many times did you attack? Was it two? You went two and three, so, so it's gotta be at least two, but 3, 3, 8 times. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I did, I I was done on like the first, like two turns again tempo and lost box. Like they get like, You know, four in the lost zone, turn one or something. And like, I was just like, oh, I'm gonna get one routes this turn. I'm, I'm just gonna scoop like, I, there, there's no reason for me to keep playing. Like, like there's, there's literally no way to win if you don't get like, like insanely explosive starting against the lost box cuz like, yeah, you're, you're Kirlia is all just dial or like, I think. I got like two routes, but like, it's gonna get stabilized and then 40 is gonna go on the route and I'm gonna evolve. Venture another rows and they're gonna take three prizes and I'm gonna lose my Kirlia and my hand's completely dead. So like, Yeah. there's no point in really playing that. I also played against Dedenne. Deza, I got pretty close cuz he was playing 10 Pal And 10 Pal. Like, you're kind of in it. But yeah, like they, they do win pretty quick and like it hits your board pretty hard when they hit the cologne play. But like you, you can win in like effectively one turn by going star Kronos. Which is pretty cool. So like, I was kind of in it the whole time, but I could definitely tell that I wasn't like shredding my deck hard enough with but because of the canceling colon play. Mm-hmm. I think I actually saw your brother went too, despite saying last week that he would never go to another tournament again. Yes, he did. What did he play? Oh yeah, he was planning on playing Guard of war. But he walked in and saw United Wings and he said, I'm not gonna lose to that. And he switched to Lost Box. And then, yeah, I,

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And then he played like four mirror matches because apparently everyone said that.

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yeah. Yeah, he had a bunch of mirrors. Mm-hmm.

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Hilarious. And, and yes. And then did he come home and spend like all day yesterday testing? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. He, I, you. I think. I don't want to say he's on the grind, but like I think, and does he like complain about the Metta nonstop now? Yes, but like, he's kind of enjoying playing Pokemon. I think, I think.

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I mean to be, to be fair, Walker constantly complaining about the meta is a sign that he is engaged and

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Exactly. Exactly. That's like, yeah. It's you know, like strong feelings are better than a no feelings at all. Right. Like the worst possible is, is to not care.

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He is getting ready to win the open.

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That's Yeah, well, you know, I told him, I told him the last time he played in a open, his, his brother won the world championship. So like, that's a good trend. We want to try and like, figure out how to register for that and keep that momentum going.

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Mm-hmm. So I am running, I'm running a league challenge this week that is coming up on Wednesday, so that'll be fun.

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Whew. That's what we like to hear.

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scope out the meta at least

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Very nice. When does the sleep challenge start?

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Wednesday at 6:00 PM Well registration six to six 30,

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Everybody that's listening. The thousands of listeners. Converging on Philadelphia, six 30. Wednesday. Make it

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so I'm curious.

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person league challenges to shame.

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I'm curious, how has your guys' testing been known for Worlds? For me, I'm in a very, I'm in a surprisingly similar place as I was going into NAIC right now. My top two decks are back Scalibor and Arceus, and Im curious how you all have been feeling. So we talked about it a little bit on the podcast last week about like, Just like, what do, what do I think the day one meta is gonna be? And I think it's gonna be different than NAIC. I don't know how different, it has potential to be quite different. Like Arceus I think is a really good play for day one, and I think that affects what, what you might wanna play and what to expect to play against and whatnot. I dunno. I guess if world was tomorrow, I'd probably play Gian pa beca, but I don't feel like super strong about it. I know for sure I'm not playing Arceus Giratina. If I was gonna play an Arceus deck, I would probably start with Trons Deck. I like Arceus Gumon a lot. I don't really like Doral on but I like Arceus Ryon, so I'd probably start with something like that. But yeah, Chino's kind of like my backup. I think if I can't find anything. I've really been trying lots and lots of random stuff. So nothing, nothing that's been good and not worth mentioning at all cuz none of it has worked out. But I've really been just trying random, janky stuff to see if anything has potential. Like, I messaged Liam the other day and I was like, what are all the luminous energy attackers in the format? Like that can attack for one luminous energy? Just cuz I was trying to think about random stuff. Yeah. I, I've probably built like 10 lists in the last like 72 hours for different archetypes. My testing's kind of all over the place. I do think if I, if I was gonna play rcs, it'd be rt and I think. You, you cannot go into day one of worlds losing to rcs. Day one is literally just filled with RCS players who like top 2 56 regionals every single time playing rcs and just sending it. So yeah, don't lose to rcs. It's also like really hype right now. And I think for good reason too, like Judge Path is just something that like. It, it just beats people. It's really well positioned as well. Like I think across the general meta, it has really, really high win rates. It's also pretty hard to beat just playing like weird stuff. Like you have to commit a lot of space to it. And I think that's more okay now cause of how dominant RCS is. But you have to commit a lot of space. If you're gonna be at rcs, there's no like one car techs. Especially because Spiritomb deals with galler zap doses now. So like that, that option being removed means that, like fighting attackers are pretty hard to come by. A lot of decks have energy acceleration right now. Oh, well, when I say that, I just mean lost box. But Yeah. it's difficult to splash fighting attackers.

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I don't know if you guys, I can't remember who was on, who was on the call last week? I've like totally lost track now.

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It was just me. It was just us

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Yeah. I was the OGs was the LGS. Yeah. So like Kayden and Liam. The thing you guys missed in, in the I think really good insight that Mike and Brett gave in terms of day one, thinking this. Don't play loss box because ties are losses.

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Yes. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I 100% agree. I think that's

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people are not going to play loss box.

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and gardy.

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Yeah.

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I would, honestly, honestly, I would feel time-wise, I would feel more confident going in with Turbo loss box than I would gardy. Yes, I agree. I like, I think Turbo loss box, like it's, you're, you're, you're, You're able to scoop like way faster. Because you, I mean, you don't have really any comeback options. Like you're just trying to go really quick and you don't have like great ways to upgrade. Yeah. I do, I do. Like I, I mentioned on the podcast last week that I was gonna test a little bit of Giratina Lost box. I haven't played as many games as I wanted to yet, but that is kind of the deck that when I have a little bit of time to play some games, I wanted to play it. And I have, I've played a bit of, probably played like 10 or So games with Henry Brands list with the cross switchers. And then I played maybe like five or six of a more standard list with without cross switchers. I'm not sure which one I prefer. There was lots of times where I had one cross switcher in my hand and I'm like, man, I just wish this was a switch or an escape rope. But then there's other games where you play two cross switchers and a call wrist and the same turn or something like that, and it, and it feels really good. So I'm not really too sure. I do really, really like the high jet count. Like four Jet is really, really good. You could probably get away with three, but like, I like four. Four has been really nice. So I think I'd probably keep four. Jet Energy. That deck feels pretty good and for similar reasons that like Turbo loss is a little bit like I think you could get away with playing Turbo loss in day one just cuz it's quick. Like Giratina is also just the ga you have the comeback mechanics with Roxanne Path. An iono path, but inherently you play two prizes in your deck so the games go a little bit faster. And so you can, you can close a close out games faster and lose faster, and so I'd be a little bit more comfortable taking Giratina than some of the other things into day one, but it's a deck I still need to play more with for sure. Yeah. I'd also say Lost Giratina is also really good at just like beating opponents out of the gates. Like if you hit turn to Giratina or turn twos at, like, you can just end the game really, really quick. So it's able to, it's able to speak of games kind of similarly with Turbo loss my opinion on Lost Giratina in general though is that like, don't play it if you're not Henry Brand. He's, he's the goat, he's the only one who can play it. Like you should be playing Henry Brand 60 cuz he's the goat. But. If you're gonna play it, but I mean, like nobody can play it by him. He's, he's the only one who can play it. I'm, I'm, I'm not even kidding. I Giratina I mean, it is appealing in that it should have a pretty good Arceus matchup, right? That match ups amazing. Yeah. So that's like a big reason why I'm giving it some time is because I think ITAR case matchup is pretty good. It's, you know, it's lost box. quote unquote. Mirror match is a little unfavor. It's never gonna be like ridiculously unfavor. Because it's still kind of a mirror match. So. it's slightly unfavorable, but whatever. The big matchup that I really need to play more of is the Gardevoir matchup, cuz I really don't. Know really how that goes. Yeah. Like I, I just want you all to think about this for a second, right? Like, this is the level that Henry brand plays at. He beats lost box mirror without Manife. He's playing lost without man. If he wins the mirror, like that's his level, bro. He's on another level. So Maria is very good for sure. I think for me, the biggest thing that I've been thinking about, sort of what we've been talking about is like, how can I consistently be CEUs? Preferably not while playing rcs, I think, and, and I've got a few ideas bouncing around, but none that are really fully fleshed out and tested. Oh medical right here. Like it doesn't really matter, but. There's going to be somebody who shows up and does well with Zoroark Box like that, that deck is just like so well positioned. Like I, I, I don't think I know like a single person who hasn't messaged me in the last week. Like, I'm okay losing to Lost Box. I can just Zoroark box everything else. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there, there's gonna be somebody who shows up with that deck. Is there any world where Champa, like doesn't play colognes at Worlds? Is that like you assume everyone plays too? I mean that's like the, oh yeah. I think you have to assume hold deck. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I understand. I'm just trying to think of any lines where that like doesn't become true. Cause like in a world where that shifts, I think Tingle is very well positioned, but there's just no world where that happens unfortunately, I think. But just like in a, in a strange scenario where like everyone anticipates. Chin P and just like brings a lot of hate. I don't know what that hate would be, so there might not be a lot of like real options out there, but that was just where my head is thinking like that deck is so solid. I think other than lose it, dying to cancel in cologne. Mm-hmm. But quietly solid too. Like I don't think it would be on anyone's radar. It has such a good RCS matchup, but like, It's just so bad against like just go watch. The Jose's went in and on stream like there's like 30 seconds here. Just like there's no way he loses this and then, and then it's like, oh, cologne. Okay. There's no way he wins this, but it looks so dominant, but the, he just does nothing while the player has the entire game to find the cologne turn. Yeah. That mean the only world where a chimp, how would cut cologne is if they're like, Really, really confident that pretty much nobody is running guardian lost box because of time constraints, but I don't think anyone would do that. Yeah. So yeah, crazy propaganda is not real. Like that just does not work, bro. Like Caron is the worst engine I've ever seen, bro. Like that. It does not power stuff up One. Two turn investment on an attacker, you have to pass before the attacker's powered up. One 50, it does one 50. Lim talking about Zoroark box. I've, I've thought about Zoroark box like a pretty good

External Microphone: 31:41

Mike you're the originals are all box.

Computer Audio: 31:44

but like, like even if lost is not that played, Let's say lost is not played at all and you're, you're fine with that. And like, you don't have to worry about that matchup. I still don't think Zuora's matchups are even that great. Like, yeah, you beat Gardy. Okay, sure. You struggle against Aldon. Like you have ways to play around it, but they're not great. So you're, you're, you're always gonna be like, man, we just got the Clare print. It had such a good me matchup in a format where like not very many other things had a good me matchup and like that's a part, that's part of it too. Not only, not only decks, having. Good me matchups in general, but also mute, just kind of, at least as far as I can tell, I just don't think it's gonna have much of a presence in day one. Yeah. I think everything is just so well teched to beat it now. Yeah. And like, and your g and p match ups not gonna be great either cuz you're really susceptible to the cologne play as well. And even like even guard can beat you. It's possible for guard to beat you in the same way that Gardy would approach the United Wings matchup, which is just like Celia, your draw power. Early on and then hit you with io. Like I still think the Guardian matchup is probably pretty favored, but like it can, you can lose for sure. And I think Doral Don and Chi and Power are like not great matchups. And this is, you know, in addition to loss being unwinable. Wait, can you, can you explain how the Durham matchup bad? Like, do you not only like turn two, turn three, just like Arceus nine them, boom, two prizes, eradicate cards are, boom, two three prizes. I don't, I don't know what any of those cards do. Well, I know, I, I know Arkin nine. Wait, but Pete, you're talking about like a a a zero hands or Arceus? No, no. There's a Arkin nine right now that two fighting colorless, it does 80 plus. 80 if it has a fire attached so you can reversal and then it does one 60. That two. Okay. Okay. So you use Arceus. So you go down like a prize or two, use Arcanine to kill an archus, and then you go eradicate clai, which is like, Eradicates, the the one that puts'em to 10 hb. Yeah. Well, you don't even need the cause out eradicate them. Boom, 10 damage left, you're gonna meina then next turn or whatever. Okay. And then, and then you're slow, bro. Like, what do they do against that? Yeah, I mean, that seems reasonable. Mm-hmm. You're, you're, I mean, you're still gonna have to deal with like Iona and judge and stuff, I guess,

External Microphone: 34:01

Yeah, I was going to say he just

Computer Audio: 34:03

No, yeah. I, I

External Microphone: 34:03

card he needed for like five straight turns.

Computer Audio: 34:06

I think the engine's kind of, the engine's hard to, hard to work with, like, yeah, well no, I, I mean, I think, I, I think liberal is actually kind of nice in that like, cause the BIB's more resilient to Kirlia. You have to play Art Kuna of course, cuz you lose the discard power, which is like a li liability. But I like it. It's fun to play with. Yeah, I mean, I think Zoroark Box. Zoroark box, I mean obviously besides the lost Box, its biggest weakness is just, its Is its consistency. Like I think it will absent loss box. I think it, if you can hit the pieces you need to hit, it'll be pretty much anything, but it's if you can hit those pieces.

External Microphone: 34:48

Kayden Liam, you guys might have a perspective just if you were like a junior, junior or senior duet. Do you outsmart the Metta by playing last box because kids play fast or is it still just a losing proposition?

Computer Audio: 34:58

no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I am never playing Lost Box as a junior or senior. Not in a million worlds. I'm also not playing guard. You sent me back to Juniors right now with Lost Box xo. A hundred percent I think. I think I would. I think that is insane. There's no way I would do that. I think I would be running probably Marcius or Chan Pal. I don't actually think it changes except I

External Microphone: 35:27

so you're, you're you're you would just play the best deck, right? There's there's no.

Computer Audio: 35:31

Yeah, I think I would, I think it would be similar except I would lean even heavier to, I'm not running glass box

External Microphone: 35:37

Yeah. Like, I assume that all the juniors and seniors are talking to their coaches and masters in their. They're coaches that are saying, oh, you don't want to play last box at the time. It's a loss. But like, Gina seems to play fast. Yeah. Like I've seen juniors play, man. Like they could throw a whole game and like three minutes.

Computer Audio: 35:56

Like this is true, but I feel like then in that world, if you're a junior or senior, it's more important to run a deck that's much more streamlined. Like,

External Microphone: 36:04

I just wonder if you're the good

Computer Audio: 36:05

what deck I would play if I was in juniors or,

External Microphone: 36:08

that's, that's like the next level you. I know.

Computer Audio: 36:12

yeah. But I feel like what deck I would play if I was in juniors or seniors is very different than what deck I would recommend to juniors or seniors.

External Microphone: 36:19

Yeah, well, I'm saying like, if you assume, assume you're, I assume you're already top coat top junior. Or senior. And you're like, like they're all playing Dex that lose the last box because they assume no one's playing last box. So like, you're just like engineering, the

Computer Audio: 36:33

Dude, I don't think That's true. I think like juniors and seniors are gonna get like force fed Archeops because it's like an easy deck to play and it's like really well positioned, I think. Doesn't really

External Microphone: 36:43

that's fair. That's fair.

Computer Audio: 36:46

Yeah. Oh, another note about this cup. I mean, it was, I didn't mention it cause it's seniors not masters, but Remy was there. He came out was in town. So he came to the cup. For those of you who might not know, Remy was number one. He was number one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was number one in juniors last year and is now a senior. I think he won EU and O C I C this year. Yeah, he did. And he was running back Scalibor he was running back Scalibor. He went, he went three. Oh. And won the cup. So yeah, he was running it with no Birol won one rcs. Mm-hmm.

External Microphone: 37:23

the thing that puts me off about like locals coming back now is in, Liam's not driving yet. And may, I remember like taking juniors and seniors to cups and they'd go three O and the cup would be over and I'd be like, bye you, masters Seca has. I know you guys are going to be here for like another five hours. I'll see you later.

Computer Audio: 37:45

Yeah. I mean, my dad just left. He left with my brother when, as soon as my brother finished his three rounds, he is like, I'm not sitting here. For you to play out for the next like five hours.

External Microphone: 37:56

110%. Yeah. That is blazing hot and like, yeah, everything's going wrong at this cop that like, The smart move is to the beef right away. And there were definitely cups where I saw that happening. Like you were like, oh yeah, this cup is going off the rails. But you know, we've only finished three rounds. It's not quite off the rails yet. We're going to leave. We're going to take this mat and get the heck out of Dodge. Let's go.

Computer Audio: 38:20

Mm-hmm.

External Microphone: 38:21

Oh, it's going to be a rough year. Rough year.

Computer Audio: 38:26

Mm-hmm. Deck I think. I think if I was a junior senior, I would bring back sca and I think that's the deck I would recommend. Seems reasonable. One deck none of us have mentioned at all. It's Lugia. I guess it's just worth mentioning it. It's still a deck. I don't know how popular it's gonna be. I feel like it kind of has unfavorables into a lot of the top decks. Like Glass Box is probably like Turbo Loss is like your best matchup and we're predicting it not to be that big. And then like you're not great into Guardian. You're not great into Arceus Dura. You're okay into Arceus Giratina, but you can just get cheesed and. I guess like you're fine into, like, I think you're probably good into backs, but the match is close. Yeah. I, I think you're straight unfavor into Arceus Giratina, like believing that you're gonna make it out of the gates, like over 60% of the time against like, turn one spear to path is like just lying to yourself. Like you, you're gonna brick so much. And like, even if it's not that much like. Dude, you, you're gonna hit like three rcs and, and you're gonna get Path Spirit to turn one every game. And you want, like, you're gonna put your whole tournament on the fact that you're just gonna draw the nuts game after game after game. Like, that's just crazy. Yeah, no, I, I generally agree. So like, it Lugia seems much worse positioned going into worlds than it does than it did going into NAIC. Like the more I think about it, yeah, I absolutely agree. I played, I was playing Arceus team. Of course at NAIC. I played against three Lugia. I think all in all the Lugia went one, one for what would be, yeah, one for seven and using Summoning Star. Yeah.

External Microphone: 40:19

That is anything else we should talk about.

Computer Audio: 40:22

So I wanna, I, I've been doing some, so for those of you that don't know, I like quit teaching after this year and I'm going to be pursuing a career in like data stuff, data analytics, data science. And so I've been doing some personal projects to get my skills. Working and learning stuff. And so one of the things I've been doing is I've been trying to aggregate and analyze championship point data from this past year. So I'm still doing a lot of the analysis, but here are I, let's talk about two, two interesting statistics right now. Let's see if you guys can maybe you guys can guess make guesses on these things. So the first one is, The number of events that people have gone to. So I'll ask you two questions. What do you think is the biggest number of regionals slash special events that any player has gone to and who do you think they are? 30. Gabe Smart. Okay. 30 special events and there's not 30 special events and regionals combined, not ics. Yeah. There wasn't 30 regionals, not ics, not cross. Oh really? I'll, I'll like even counting, like literally every single regional that happened anywhere on the globe this year there wasn't 30. I don't believe so, but I was probably close to 30. But actually I could tell you how many there were. Lemme see. I think it's, my guess is there's somebody who went to all of them, bro, like. My guess is it's like seven six, like 15 to 17, and I don't know who it is. It might be Gabe, it might be Aiden. It might be just someone, someone else who I don't know the name of actually. Actually, Liam, you're right, there's 35 if you count all the regions, but there was a lot that were on the same weekend, so it's impossible to have gotten to all of them. Yeah. All right. I'll say 30 Pokey dues, or Gabe Smart and Caden, what'd you, you said like, I think it's more in the like, like 15 to 20 range. Okay. Brent, Brit, you

External Microphone: 42:30

I'm going to. Are we playing prices? Ride style? Can I go 21 and capture it like everything? 21 to 29.

Computer Audio: 42:38

Sure.

External Microphone: 42:38

Or is it, or do I go 29? How does prices right work?

Computer Audio: 42:42

No, it would be 21 to like 25 or whatever. Yeah. I like lower, I like in the twenties somewhere. I think I like, like 20, 25 or so. Okay. Well, Caden wins the numbers. Who is 18? 18 is the maximum that any players have gone to and there are two players.

External Microphone: 43:01

I just want to say. When, when Mike says Caden wins the numbers, he's about to say Liam wins the day.

Computer Audio: 43:07

So Lee, and you said, Gabe, right? Yeah. So Gabe is one of the players that went to 18 regional slash SPEs. And there's one other player, I'll give you a hint. He is not from North America,

External Microphone: 43:21

Toward.

Computer Audio: 43:23

not toward, toward is up there though, Toward. I believe actually toward is not in the top 20 of attendees. Hmm. Everything. I don't actually know who this would. Great. You might know. Was it Naish? Yeah. Yes. Nish from England also went to 18. And then there after those two, there was a bunch that went to 16. People like Grant Zacian, Caleb Azul, et cetera. And then it kind of goes down from there. So that was an interesting one. And then the other interesting one is I calculated, I still gotta like, mess around with this metric a little bit to get it exactly where I want. But right now it's just pretty much straight like a, a ratio of points to number of regionals attended. So basically like, you know, in some way that is like you're, you're looking at the best player. In a, in a different way, right. Are You not including ics? Not, this is not ics, this is just regionals. And so we can, we can like filter it as well by like setting a minimum threshold of, of events like regionals attended. Cuz if you just do

External Microphone: 44:44

the one that like, like Piper went to two regionals and one that both, and now she's the greatest thing ever. Right. Yeah.

Computer Audio: 44:49

Oh yeah, actually she's not. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I assume Mike's kinda fuel throughout the people who went to like one regional and top 64 and got like hundred. Right. So like for example, like hail alpi, he went to one regional and one, yeah. So he's obviously number

External Microphone: 45:06

Well, those are the little bit living proof of my Pepperdine example. Very impressive though. Hell very

Computer Audio: 45:09

Right, exactly. But if you filter it, let's say, I dunno what, what minimum number you wanna set. Five. Three. Three. Three. Okay. If I make it three, it doesn't change. Basically the top person does not change. If I make it bigger than three or bigger than five or bigger than eight, it's the same person. Ready again? Is this toward. This is not Reagan, nor is it toward Sandy, huh? No. No. Right. What is the No, but Henry brand? No, Henry went to, Henry is up there, but He only went to three I think. Oh, actually, okay. He is, Henry is the actually number one if you make it. If you, for three regionals. played. Yes. He is actually the biggest. So but bigger than, bigger than three. Yeah.

External Microphone: 46:13

How

Computer Audio: 46:13

they were all the US No, no. He went to one in Australia and then the two in the US

External Microphone: 46:19

That's, that's what throws me is. I mean, how many, how many Australian regionals were there?

Computer Audio: 46:25

four. Yeah, I think it just went, I think there was just like one, right. It was like, Perth or something? No, I, I think there were at least two. Yeah, there? were two or three, but they were like all crammed together. Yeah. And Henry casted the ones that, that he didn't play. Oh, I see, I see. Yeah. Makes sense. Huh? I don't actually know who number one would be. So you can alert a piper similar to Piper. Oh, is it? And Drew, yes. Mr. Hedrick is number one and. Actually very close though. Following him is a couple Latin American players. William Azevedo and Pedro Peri are both very, very close. Mm-hmm.

External Microphone: 47:06

so, so how many regionals did those guys go to? Like I assume they didn't travel that hard.

Computer Audio: 47:12

Correct. They went, they each went to five and I think there was exactly five Latin American. Well, I assume they went to some sps, So, there was, I think there's only like two regionals in Latin America, but yeah, I don't think they traveled outside of Latin America for, for their events. Some of the other, like, some of the other highly placed, I don't know who this is, MiOS, DECA Brent Toon is pretty far up there. Owen cameraman, cow's pretty far up there. Gibby. Gibby didn't go to that many regionals, but he, you know, he, he won one and did well at some other ones, so he was pretty high up. So yeah. So if you guys.

External Microphone: 47:53

did anybody and you probably just have to eyeball this to tell me, but did anybody. Like, did you have to win a regionals to be like getting a lot of quote points per regional or her? Are there any people that like, Had. Like that an element of consistency.

Computer Audio: 48:10

Mm. I don't think Cal Con won a regional, right?

External Microphone: 48:15

No, I don't

Computer Audio: 48:15

he didn't. Lot of, so he's pretty, he's pretty far up there. Yeah. The, I mean, most of these people did. win one. I don't know all of the names, so I, I, I think some of them are from Europe and some May, they may or may not have won one. But Yeah. I don't think all of them did.

External Microphone: 48:33

Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. All right. That's interesting.

Computer Audio: 48:37

Yeah. So if you guys have interesting. questions to ask about CP data, I can I can filter it out. I can do it. I can sort it, figure it

External Microphone: 48:46

And what, and what, and what are the tools that you have taught yourself to use in building this crazy machine?

Computer Audio: 48:52

I mean, it's all pretty much done in Python using the Pandas library. I am gonna

External Microphone: 48:58

have questions about Python, you can also direct those to the podcast reviews. We will answer those.

Computer Audio: 49:05

I'm gonna build out some visuals as well. I think using Tableau at some point.

External Microphone: 49:11

There we go. All right guys, it's been like, it's been like an hour. So I think we won. We won the podcast game for this week.

Computer Audio: 49:19

Yeah.

External Microphone: 49:20

Was there. Oh, The other thing I want to put out there is if people want to tweet, if you are in Shinjuku, like August 2nd to August 6th we will be there as well. And, and my impression is there

Computer Audio: 49:33

Yeah, yeah. How about the DM?

External Microphone: 49:36

Leah Liam wants to not test and cube the entire time. So it was like, yeah. I think he needs a couple more people to cube with them. So they'll put yourself out on the Twitter net and let us know. Because apparently. He's got a holiday cube with him to Japan and that's going to be great.

Computer Audio: 49:54

This does remind me I was thinking, so we'll probably do, we'll do a podcast next week and then maybe that's it until

External Microphone: 50:02

You make a good point guys. Yeah. Prepare yourself for, for like, like very very little information pre-World because we are going to be, and frankly, post worlds because we will be in Japan. The first two yeah. Like we leave on. Tuesday, the first is Tuesday, the first, or is Monday the first.

Computer Audio: 50:21

it is. Yeah. Tuesday's the first.

External Microphone: 50:23

Yeah. So, I mean, So theoretically we don't leave until Tuesday morning. Like there's a possibility that we could record a pod Monday night, but like I assume Monday night is gonna be crazy times. I have some, mommy will

Computer Audio: 50:34

you guys got, you guys got back?

External Microphone: 50:36

it. Right. And then, and then we fly back on Monday. Because I've learned my lesson about trying to fly out on a Sunday of worlds. And I guess I can never do that again. And so, so we probably aren't even recording a pod like the day after. So. And, and Mike will be in Japan doing Japan things for, for that, that a week after. So we will try to, I guess, we're going to be off like probably the first three weeks of August. Man.

Computer Audio: 51:04

Yeah, that

External Microphone: 51:05

That's an adventure. That's a Metro, but it's going to be the best kind of adventure. Cause we'll all be in Japan. Trashalanche together, guys. Brit. What's your schedule? Are you like vacationing before or after or both?

Computer Audio: 51:17

Me.

External Microphone: 51:18

Yeah.

Computer Audio: 51:20

Oh, Yeah, we, we've talked about it last week. I thought I'm there, but like before mostly, but yeah. And a little after, but mostly before.

External Microphone: 51:28

Good times. All right. All right guys, we'll be back next week with, I guess. We'll be the last pod though. The last pod before world's probably.