Brent: 0:00

Let's start. Oh, welcome to the Transitional Edge podcast. It's the only podcast about the Pokemon trading card game. It's amazing that there are no others. We are the only one. Tennis is a hundred percent. Cam's here. Liam's here. I'm here. You can find us all on Twitter. If you're the kind of person likes to tweet at people, or you could leave a review. Apparently, every other podcast in the world says when you leave a review, it somehow helps people find the podcast. Finding the only podcast about the Pokemon trading card game is probably hard already. Gotta help people by leaving a review. If you leave a review, we'll read it on the pod. Someone left a review, and I know they're saying, why haven't you read it on the pod yet? Mike is not here. He will be back next week. And last the last podcast was busy, so I figured we would spare people, even though we had, we had a whole crew. Speaking of, I wanted to just, I thought we should kick off the pod, and I think we want to talk about Cam's Orlando run and Sao Paulo. A little bit this week, but the first thing I wanted to start talking about is people who listen to the podcast I've, I've been trying to transition editing and dealing with all the craziness of the podcast to Liam, and Liam, I wanted to just ask you what was going through your head, because I felt like you let the, the podcast universe down a little bit by not slapping yourself on the back with the incredibly passive title. Charizard in Orlando? That's the title for last week's podcast? I

Liam: 1:25

Yeah man, maybe I'm not a marketing genius or something, because I guess that's not how you do it, but it's corny. It's corny to to prop yourself up too much in the title.

Brent: 1:37

feel like they're listening to a podcast, they're already expecting the corn.

Liam: 1:41

maybe. I'm not gonna prop myself up. Charizard

Brent: 1:45

just Here's, here's, here's the next lesson for you. Trashalinch wins Orlando Regionals. That's the title of that podcast.

Liam: 1:55

Romando.

Brent: 1:56

Like, like, people, people are scrolling through the list of podcasts and they're wondering which one they should listen to, right? Like, new listeners that have never listened to the Trashlynch before, and, and they see Charizard and Orlando, like, they probably don't click on that, even though that is the pod.

Liam: 2:16

Maybe, maybe, mm,

Brent: 2:18

Alright, alright, let that, let that be a lesson. I feel like I have to go back and see what the title of Trashlynch Wins the World Championship of Pokemon was.

Liam: 2:30

I know the title, the title was something a little bit better when I, when I top sixteened at San Antonio but it, it's okay. It's okay. I don't have to glaze myself too hard on the title. It's okay.

Brent: 2:41

No, I think, I think you're, you're saying you're saying crazy stuff here.

Liam: 2:45

Okay

Brent: 2:47

Let's see. Oh, we have, we have the, hmm, oh, you know what? I think I kind of undersold it a little too. I have the, on the precipice of the first World Championship of the Transatlantic Era was the, like, pre London. And then we have World's Recap, Liam the Champ in Japan, and then we have the Liam episode, World's Recap in Baltimore Preview. Yeah, apparently I was doing it wrong too.

Liam: 3:13

a lot. Mm hmm. But like when you're the one writing it, it feels a little bit different

Brent: 3:18

No, you gotta, you gotta

Liam: 3:19

else wants to glaze you, it's fine, but, you know,

Cam: 3:23

You're riding the third person.

Liam: 3:25

it's hard for me to type out, Liam is the greatest player of all time because he just won Orlando. That's a lot. It takes a lot to self glaze that hard. Yeah. Uhhh

Brent: 3:49

thing to do, like, joke here, but it's just a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do, but like, people listening, I want you to know, just think about that joke for yourself, insert it yourself, I can't do it, but it's there, it's just waiting to be served up, I can't do it, but like, but like, yeah, you know, you have to self place, that's how it is, that's, I mean, you know, with marketing, marketing, I mean, you already saw me, I was tweeting at Asilios about how like, I was wondering how Top8ing affected his, like, YouTube video views and all that stuff, and he was, he was saying he's hoping it pops up, but he hasn't cranked out YouTube videos since then. Like, the whole point of winning, the only reason you won Orlando is so you could have a podcast about winning Orlando. You gotta title that podcast properly, so people know what

Liam: 4:42

Yeah, man, people, I, I saw a tweet earlier today that said the exact same thing, and it was like, the only reason I want to do well at events is so that I can make a Twitter post afterwards. like, jeez, man. People have no passion, no drive, they're just cloud chasers.

Brent: 4:59

mean, let's, let's be clear, I feel like that's driven Liam's deck selection for regionals since time immemorial. Though like, when I do well with this deck, I'm gonna get to tweet this list.

Liam: 5:10

Everybody always says my decks were trolled, but like, I was trying to play for winrate, bro. Like, everybody else isn't even playing for winrate, they're just trolling. Like.

Brent: 5:22

You know, I feel like, I feel like you've I don't want to say like you've come full circle, but maybe you've come like 270 degrees ish or something, like 271 degrees, in that I feel like now you're really trying to think about what decks will not tax your brain while letting you pile up dubs. Like, versus the, the, like, expectation that you have to play perfectly with a deck to, like, get there. Like, I feel like you played a couple of decks early on in your time in Masters, where after the tournament you were like, I made some misplays, or like, the deck was a little too hard to pilot, and, and, you know, I know Gardevoir is a perfect example of a deck where you're like, if, if everyone played it perfectly all the time, You'd be so good at Pokemon, right?

Liam: 6:12

that's what I used to say, bro. I've said this before. I'm out of the trap now. That deck is just trash. It's an unrealistic expectation for basically anyone but Tord and Gustavo that, and I guess Road Save now, that you're gonna play the deck well. You're not gonna play the deck well. There's nothing you can do to fix that. You're gonna get cooked. Don't play that deck.

Brent: 6:35

Yeah, yeah, well that's, I, yeah, I feel like, I feel like you're, you're, instead you're, like, given that I might make some mistakes, what is the deck that's gonna allow me to do amazing versus,

Liam: 6:44

don't know, that's not really the calculation, but

Cam: 6:47

think

Liam: 6:47

I mean,

Cam: 6:48

I think it's good player plays good deck and good things happen.

Liam: 6:53

yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to play the best decks, and like, the last few events, I've played good decks, I think I played Pidgey to San Antonio, played Pidgey to Charlotte, I don't think it was good then Maridon to Vancouver, which was a good play then, and That is our Toro endo. And, yeah, Dex has done really well, I think. I mean

Brent: 7:12

16 player because you, you do well at every regional you go to.

Liam: 7:16

that guy was a freak,

Brent: 7:17

I love that guy. Love that guy. All right, Cam we, we, we disrespected your, like Day 2 run to Orlando last week, but I thought it was worth the takes to, to take some time to walk through it, because you played a different deck, and like, it was an equally valid choice.

Liam: 7:38

No. No. I, dude, this is Playing Tornzard and winning the event was the greatest I told you so moment I've had in a while. I literally told everyone. I tweeted it out on Twitter, the deck I was going to play, and I told you you should play it. And then I won the event with it. Like, people should listen to me more. I, like,

Brent: 7:57

I mean, it was one of the all time great yap moments in Twitter history.

Liam: 8:02

look back at Maridon. I told Locke to play Maridon, and he top 8's with it. And it's like, you know, it's like one card off of the, the 60 that I'd recommend. And, I, like, People should just play the decks I tell them to. It's, it's actually insane. I, and like, I'm not, I'm not even a gatekeeper. If you ask me what to play, eh, actually, I am a gatekeeper. Don't ask me what to play if I don't know you. But, for the people I do know, I tell you what I would, what I would play and what I think you should play. And like, If you listen to me more, you'll probably have better results.

Brent: 8:38

It's that, it's that easy, Cam.

Cam: 8:40

I mean, I thought I was the one who convinced him to play Maraadon, but I guess, I guess he's the one convincing everyone to play Maraadon.

Liam: 8:46

Well, you did convince me, but I told everyone, you know, I told Lockheed to play it. I was saying Mariadon was a good player for like a week leading up to the event, after you told me to play Mariadon two weeks before the event. When I tell people it's a good player for the event, even if somebody else gave me the idea, I'm right. I'm usually right, you know what I'm saying?

Cam: 9:07

very nice,

Liam: 9:08

I told you, I told you to play Snorlax for Pidgeot for San Antonio, that Nektop baited as well.

Cam: 9:13

it did indeed. It did indeed.

Liam: 9:17

People should listen to me more, man.

Cam: 9:19

It's just that easy. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to your son this time. And I played Ancient Box, and I ran it back from EUIC with Trekking Shoes, because I felt like my only losses were to Bricking. The Trekking Shoes were pretty nice. It went 9 2 4. I lost two in the first four, and then kind of just came back, and I think this deck is very strong, it's just a lot of sequencing, a lot of the matchups are mostly the same. You can set up game pretty easily, I know Liam probably doesn't agree with Prime Catcher. It just really catches a lot of people off guard, allows you to be a little more aggressive with the deck and I think it's just super resilient against a lot of things that aren't Charizard, and it is very much like Guard of War in that you're all one prizers, so if you win Game 1 and it takes like 30 to 35 minutes to finish Game 1 It's going to be very hard for your opponent to take 6 prizes in like the next 15 minutes. So, it's, I mean, it's a decent run, not as good as Liam's, but an improvement on EUIC. I might continue to play it I've been practicing a lot of Charizard. Just due to Obann and Liam, but, I mean, I don't know, it's, I understand passing it my run last week because Liam's is so much better and still it is. I don't it was just a decent run with the deck. I think the fact that I got second shows that the deck is pretty good. I've come around on the idea of Drum of Awakening being Potentially, a better A Spec, or a good A Spec for the deck, but I still like the Prime Catcher.

Brent: 11:05

Yeah, so I wanted to ask you, so what was the difference between your list and second place list? After

Cam: 11:11

I think they play more ancient cards, and I cut Ancient cards for researches and trekking shoes just to make the deck go faster. I don't have the one shot potential of that deck by any means but I do have quite a bit of gust, and so that does help in different ways. Target down, you know, consistency Pokemon on the bench which is better leading into the deck. Into the late game, but, you know having the, not being able to, one cha Charizard allows them to play certain lines that if they know that you can't get to three 30, which is a bit of an issue now that we're. Into versions of that have so much healing.

Liam: 11:58

Yeah, I'm going to take the moment to have another I told you so moment. The list that I would have recommended to Cam. Given that he was playing Ancient Box, was much closer to the list that closed out Finals with me. And I know it's not the craziest thing to be like, I predict the meta deck will do well, and then it does well. You know, basically the list that I would've given Cam is A, the list that won the event, and B, the list that got second. Those are the two lists that I'd give Cam. Nah, I'm gonna do my own thing. I

Cam: 12:27

You didn't give me those lists. You, you didn't give me those lists

Liam: 12:31

I would've told you to play Vinny's List.

Cam: 12:34

But you didn't gimme Vinny. But you didn't give me Vinny's list that I didn't ask for.'cause I knew you couldn't share

Liam: 12:38

No, you knew what Vinny's List was going into Orlando.

Brent: 12:41

EUIC.

Cam: 12:42

Ah, I see. See, I mean, I just felt comfortable with Prime catcher. I still think it's solid.

Liam: 12:50

I know why Cam chose to play his list but the list that I would have given Cam closed out the event.

Cam: 12:57

Yes.

Brent: 12:57

So, so is that I mean, I guess two questions. One, is there like, is there like a perfect Ancient Box list? Like, are you sold on the list that got second at Orlando as like The definitive intro box. And I guess the second question is, I mean, the intro box did super bad at Sao Paola. Is that because bad players played it? I'm like, I don't recognize that's a common, ain't no point talking about it.

Liam: 13:23

No, I've come around to Cam's list a little bit. I don't know which one I'd play. I wouldn't play either, though. I don't think it's in a good spot right now. There's too much healing in Zard. Yeah.

Cam: 13:32

And I think the biggest thing for me is the deck even though I think it was probably one of the better decks to come out of the new set, it was kind of slept on, it wasn't really played definitely people had only, like, I was the only Ancient Box they hit, or they didn't know the matchup super well, I think as it's now second in Masters, it's harder to ignore, and people will practice the matchup more. And the deck depending on the matchup, specifically Zahrd, gets much worse, and people know Zahrd. Exactly what to do against you, which is an issue as Zard continues to just dominate.

Brent: 14:04

Should we talk about Sao Paola some then?

Liam: 14:06

Yeah, I think that's a, a great segue Zard continues to dominate

Cam: 14:11

three of the top four.

Liam: 14:13

All, yeah, all four major events this format have been won by Zard. EUIC, Perth, Orlandos, Apollo. Zard's insane. It's too good. Like, it's really Tord, though. It's a testament to Tord. He basically gave everybody the blueprint coming out of EUIC, and they just take his list and they just went with it. Change one or two cards, maybe. Don't change too much. Don't do that. And don't, don't change the good cards, too. Like, I cut the Jirachi, man, and the Jirachi's maybe even a bad cut. Probably a bad cut. Tord doesn't agree with it, so probably a bad cut. But like, I just dodged the Tinas, and like, it's not like I'm cutting a good card. That's good in every other matchup, it's just a tech. So like, just dodge and it's fine. Whereas like, you know, there's people who are just cutting like, the good cards from the deck, like the Barrels, the Turo, and you know, and whatnot. Swapping the A specs, there's just, there's a bunch of garbage you can do, and they're cutting too much stuff. But yeah, so it's amazing.

Brent: 15:09

So, we should talk about the first place list, because It's pretty different, right?

Liam: 15:15

Mm hmm.

Cam: 15:16

there's a couple

Brent: 15:17

I mean, he left, he kept the Bibarel in, but they, they got rid of the Elchir, they cut Tauros, like, that ability to just play a million Tauros is,

Liam: 15:26

Yeah, no, but there's, there's like Consistency within the list. They, they really commit, I think, to the the Devo strategy. They keep the Barrel. They, like, they keep all the core pieces. They, they kind of just go a different route. But, I mean, I would still buy Torrent's List. I still think that's better. But, you know, if you're going to swap it, it's, it's, it's a good thing to commit at least, like, the longer game with the Heroescape, the Aerie, the Devos. Yeah,

Brent: 16:03

Double Devolution and then the, I mean the other list that I looked at was Gustavo's, because I was like, well, Gustavo. And he played the One Turo as well, and then played Choice Belt, Defiance Band, One Devo. I mean, do you have any reaction to all that? How

Liam: 16:21

I think if you're playing Devo, you should be playing two, like, going for one Devo seems really bad. Two Uraleki. The, playing for one Devo is like, You basically get rid of two candies in the middle of the game, but they have four, and they go candy candy, and now like, you don't have a way to take advantage of it. And of course the dream is that you rip them on the airy, but that's just gambling. I wouldn't do that. Play 2devo if you're gonna go for it, I think.

Brent: 16:46

much, so you guys tell me, because obviously, I mean, it sounds like Kami's been testing it a lot, and I've been testing it zero, so I, I don't know. I mean, how much do you have to just assume that people play the Devo now, and like, you really have to manage how you evolve

Liam: 17:01

us.

Brent: 17:02

your, your Pokemon? Like, like, what do you do differently, given that you just Like, everybody's running the D. Vas now.

Liam: 17:09

You don't have to do anything. That's why the 1 devo is not worth it. You don't do anything. You just, you go candy, candy, the same as you always would, and then they hit the devo, and you're like, oh, I guess you just gave me a free turn. Arvin, candy, candy. And like, you don't have to set up any differently. That's why I think the 1 devo's not good. And like, you know, you can sometimes catch people with their pants down, but it's not It's not good, and it's not concrete, in my opinion.

Cam: 17:37

I think that the, what makes Charizard so good as well is that there is a very strong base list that people are going off of, but depending on their techs, it really, you know, Changes a lot of how you're going to play against it. I mean, playing against Tord Zard, where there's no Eerie, no Devo, and then playing against something like Kaiwen Kobabe's list, who a bunch of them played it at Perth and did very well with it and it has the Regilucky it just changes things a lot. And it makes this deck very flexible. I think playing against Devo, Double Devo is maybe stopped by Liam's version of just playing double Charmeleon. And maybe that's, you know, where consistency just continues to be very good. But, I don't know, this deck is very strong and this is why I've come around on it. It's just very complex, you can add a lot of different things. And it doesn't really, like you can have a preference, but even the A specs, like Heroescape, Prime Catcher, Max Belt, I mean, most people will say Max Belt is bad, but it still has its spots and each version has a slightly different matchup into the mirror, just depending on how they want to approach it and it makes it pretty complex, and that's kind of why I like Control Zard, because I feel like I have the most options in the Zard mirror, but it's definitely at the cost of consistency. And that can hurt at times too.

Liam: 19:00

Yeah, I think that's a really big sign for a, like, a really strong BDIF which is Like, the number of cards you have to play around, like, when a deck is only 60, 62 cards, like, it's much easier to craft something that beats it. And it's hard for something to have a really large metashare when it's easy to beat in that regard. But when a deck has, like, access to 70, 80 cards that you have to play around, crafting 60 cards to beat all of that is, like, it gets much more difficult, if not, like, impossible. And in that sense, it's, it's hard to find a hard counter to it, and so it can basically, it can run a really high percentages of the metashare, just basically unopposed. Yeah.

Cam: 19:44

I mean, it's looking that way, right? It's, like we said, it's one of the first four events. A lot of the good players are saying just play it because it's very hard to find something that straight up beats it. Maybe Tina, but I think there's, there's ways around that.

Liam: 20:01

Yeah, I don't think Tino beats it. I think it's favored for Zard.

Cam: 20:08

And I think you see that with Azul's group swapping from Tina to Zard, right? From EYC to Orlando. Like, even, I mean, they're prone to playing Zard, but, it's just, at this point it's so strong. It's so good. In the hands of a good player, too. If they know the lines, it's so hard to stop them, no matter what deck you're playing, unless it's like, you're running hot with Chen Pao. Even then maybe you run hot with the drum version of Ancient Box. That's another way. Potentially. Did you ever feel like you were in danger to the Ancient Box in the finals?

Liam: 20:43

Yeah, I mean, dude, if you didn't prize the last Ancient, I, I was knocked out. But, I mean, like, I, I, I said this last week, I, I could feel it, like, the, the vibe from the game was that I was gonna win. So, like, Whatever concrete things were happening on the board, it didn't really matter because I could just feel it. Like, the game was going to give itself to me as long as I, as long as I took it. I had to just grab it with both hands and just, oh, give me that! And, and I, and I did.

Brent: 21:15

So much willpower. So much willpower. It's

Liam: 21:18

mean, it really is. It's, I, I knew I wanted it. The game wanted to give itself to me. And so, you know, we came to an agreement and we got it.

Brent: 21:29

beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. So, so what's gonna be the meta share for Charizard in in Indie? Like, 75%? 73%?

Cam: 21:40

I'd probably be 25. I'd probably stick around

Liam: 21:43

I think 25 is a good guess. In between 20 and 25, for sure.

Brent: 21:46

Like, I'm trying to think of what the highest meta share in the history of Pokemon for a deck at a, like, large tournament has been.

Liam: 21:54

People have looked at that, it's like 40, 50, I think. I think it was like 60 for like MewTube stuff, in general, at like Nationals 2012 or something.

Brent: 22:04

I was gonna say, I recognize, like, like, when it was, like, Virgin, Plasma, Yveltal, there were only, like, three decks, so, you know.

Liam: 22:13

I, I think Good. That, that era had a lot of, because they were printing like broken EXs, I think, like every set. And so that era had a lot of, a lot of high meta shared decks. Lugia was really high, I think it was like 40. NAIC. I

Cam: 22:40

stuff, which is, it's all kind of solid and I do think a lot of the matchups is, are, are you know, knowledge based at this point, especially like having, playing a lot of games with a certain deck does give you an advantage, because the matchups don't feel heavily skewed one way or the other. If you mess up with Zard, like, You won't do well, and it's sometimes just one or two mistakes so I think people will still play the other stuff, and there's a lot of cool stuff, it's not quite as good as Charizard, but there is like eight, it feels like eight or nine like pretty solid things, but

Brent: 23:15

It is interesting, because I feel like, I feel like a format ago, we were like, oh, you know, you can play, like, six or seven decks, doesn't matter which deck you play, like, the best player wins. And now, all of a sudden, we're like, well, there's this deck. It's crazy, man.

Cam: 23:30

and it's, I mean it's crazy to think that people would have originally thought that like Control would have been the easy counter to Zard and it just doesn't feel like that's the case. Which used to be Charizard's kind of big downfall before. I'm pretty sure, go to Liam. I mean, with the Regilecky version, it's not like super favored, but like, it's passable enough, and I don't know, Liam probably feels pretty comfortable into control with the Tord version, right, with the Prime Catcher and targeting down the Pidgeot.

Liam: 23:58

don't know, it depends on the list. Like, people can tech really hard for Zard. But it's, I mean, Control has a lot of other pitfalls, and like, I don't feel bad into it the Pidgeot and Snorlax builds, like, basically no matter what, like, I mean, Candies are a prime catcher turn 2, and like, there's a solid chance that your deck just stops working when I take out your engine on turn 2. So like, it can't be that bad, but they

Brent: 24:28

Um, like, so will people, people that are like trying to test for Indie play Charizard badly and then come to the conclusion that Deck X is much better and that's how people end up on it? Or, or will, will their mistakes be like evenly distributed?

Liam: 24:43

don't, I don't think people play the deck that badly, usually. Like, it's not a Hard deck to play. I think the mistakes always come in. They change the list. They change the list and then it seems worse than it is. If you just start with towards 60, you'll find that you beat a lot of stuff. Like, it's a good 60. Just start with that. You'll beat, like, all the stuff test against and you end up on the 60. It's a pretty easy process.

Cam: 25:10

and I think as it becomes more and more dominant, like, people, as meta share will continue to rise, like how much, I'm not entirely sure. And then you'll just see, like, it's Charizard and then a bunch of these. RA or iia, I guess iia that runs hot can kind of beat Charr depending on how it, how hot, hot it runs, honestly, in the earthy game. But if it gets going, it can beat Charr. But that's kind of what you've, we've seen so far. And then Ancient Box I think does. Like, well, when there's a lot of decks and to say it was the definitive answer for Ancient Box in Sao Paolo, that it, it only got like a top 32 compared to the last two tournaments, or the last few tournaments, I feel like that deck falls off as it becomes more popular. A more narrow meta and maybe more Charizard. You preyed on, like, a lot of the other things in the meta going in. And, and right now it's just becoming Charizard and Charizard counters, which is a bit of an issue for decks like Ancient Box.

Brent: 26:16

But how much, like, I feel like I see people talk about like Aspathra and Lugia as being like, The, the cool counters or something. How do you guys feel about that? I feel like we haven't really talked about weird random new Pokemon that I don't fully understand.

Cam: 26:32

Lugia's good, I mean, it's a strong deck, it's just, it's yeah. It's a good deck when it gets going, I don't like its setup. I personally wouldn't play it, I don't like it set up and relying, sometimes just straight up relying on the coin flips to play the game, but It is what I lost to in Top Cut they just set up, I think, faster than me both games and kind of just blew me out even though I had the cape they were playing Vacuum so they removed the cape eventually, which was kind of annoying. I mean, it's, it's good ish, but Liam would probably say he hates it because the early setup is so bad. It is exploitable in certain ways. Is Pathways okay? I don't know, it's kind of funny, I feel like it loses to good players, or just being inconsistent, and I think that's where Tordzard's version is really good, right? The prime catcher to target down the liabilities,

Brent: 27:31

Liam, anything?

Liam: 27:32

I'll give my thoughts on Lugia first as well. The deck's terrible. In the last two weeks, I don't think I've seen a Lugia get turn 2 beast star and Chinchino going first. And Chinchino for turn 2 going first like ever. And I've played this game a lot. The deck is not very good, and that's like a, that's a solid bar. If you're going first, you have to hit turn 2 Visar, or you lose to a lot of stuff. And, the deck doesn't do that, basically ever, so it loses to a lot of stuff. I wouldn't, I wouldn't touch that deck. Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. You have to high roll so insanely hard to get anywhere near even a good tournament run. I don't, Going all the way is basically impossible. Don't play that deck if you're trying to win. Honest Bathra? I haven't played that deck. It also looks inconsistent. Looks like a bricky pile. I don't, I don't like it. I, I, I think it's probably solid because some good players are playing it and they say it's good. But, I, maybe I'll put some games in with it. I don't like it though.

Brent: 28:33

So, I mean, I recognize like your first, the first tournament you had big success with in Masters, you played Lugia and quote unquote, like, Chinchino made it better. Is there, is there something that, like, has made Lugia much worse now? Although I, I feel like you came out of that tournament saying, I will not play Lugia again. I did not love it to death.

Liam: 28:53

I played it when it was in Silver Tempest. It was good back then. It had the rainbow energies, which let

Cam: 28:59

and capture energy, and capture energy, which is huge.

Liam: 29:03

exactly. The deck did whatever it wanted. It doesn't do that anymore. The

Brent: 29:10

been a long time, but yeah, it's just objectively the energies are just not as good now. Sad story.

Cam: 29:15

Energy's not as good, I think it actually suffers from Countercatcher and Gardevoir being in the format Gardevoir, it played in the finals, it beat me in top 4, and then I played against Lugia played against Gardevoir in finals, and I think I didn't watch super closely, but the game I did watch, like, he just sniped both Archeops off the field by, like, turn, turn 3 or turn 4 with the Screamtail. And then he just had, like, two attackers the rest of the game.

Liam: 29:46

way it protected it in the past was you won before you lost the Archeops with the Statwin and the Raikou. You don't do that anymore. You take one prize a turn. It's bad. It's bad.

Brent: 29:56

Yeah.

Cam: 29:59

And I feel like it it actually struggles against Ancient Box to get through the game with enough attackers.

Liam: 30:05

Yeah, dude, the energy problems are huge. You lose, it's like five energy per genchina to knock stuff out because the EXs are all huge and that's, that's so much, like, you just, you end up losing too much energy.

Cam: 30:19

In terms of other decks, I'm not really sure. I mean, Gardevoir, I think,

Liam: 30:25

Gardevoir 1 and Seniors, again, shoutout to Gabriel Another regionals win. He's on like back to back to back right now. Like, it's insane. It's insane. The dude's insane. He gets it from testing all day with Vinny. Yeah, those guys are weird.

Cam: 30:40

But that,

Liam: 30:40

elite combination, bro. They literally just, they just test all day with each other and they're both like world class players. Like, that's, the, the improvement's exponential. It's insane. Yeah. Plays like better than every other kid his age. Insane work.

Brent: 30:59

So that, so that just underscores like, it's important to have a good testing group. Is that, that was code for?

Liam: 31:06

Yeah, I mean, this is well known.

Brent: 31:08

Yeah.

Liam: 31:09

it's hard. The testing has to be in person. If you're not testing in person, you're cooked. And testing in person with like world class players like on a daily basis is hard.

Cam: 31:25

Yeah, and you have to be doing that, especially if you're going to play against, when you just go to these tournaments and you're going to play against some of these other top players, like, that's what they have. Right? They're testing with their group. They've all come to the same 60 a lot of the times when you're talking about the best groups. They're talking about their mistakes in between rounds, so they're getting better round by round. You know, these are all important factors, so having a group is definitely really important to have success. In tournaments these, in this large.

Liam: 31:57

For people who don't have elite tier testing groups, the next best thing you can do is test with yourself. This is what I do a lot. I live in a good pretty competitive area, but I don't live in the same house as people who play this game seriously. So, I I test with

Brent: 32:11

about me. No, I, I, I accepted long ago that there was a point like three years ago where Liam became too good a Pokemon for me. I can no longer give him meaningful games.

Liam: 32:24

Yeah, test with yourself. It's the best advice.

Brent: 32:27

So, so, do you have any Do you have any tips? I mean, I think everybody at some point has tested with themselves and I feel like some people say it's hard to test with myself because like, I can't compartmentalize because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Like, do you have any advice to people who are like, I struggle to get good value out of testing with myself? I

Liam: 32:48

Play against yourself. It's,

Cam: 32:50

I guess it's essentially is get, you know, Liam's Waves, it's just saying get good, like on it, and it's like, You just, if you can understand, yes it's not useful if you're not playing the matchups correctly, or you're playing against yourself correctly. And maybe you need a group for that, or you need to get coaching for that, to understand the matchups and how to approach them. That's what coaching is for, and so maybe you start with that first, before you move to, playing against yourself because that's the only way it matters. It makes it easy. It's a lot easier now. There's like a limitless simulator that you can play against yourself once you get it down. But I think that's the most important thing is knowing the matchups how to play into it. And that's why having a second person there helps. Sorry, go ahead, Liam.

Liam: 33:38

was gonna say, it's really easy to play too fast when you're playing with yourself. You have to do everything on your own. But, you know, it's important to take a second before each of your moves and really, really try to think about it. And make sure. You know, you're making the right play, and like, really try to understand the board, because you don't get the same like, you know, two minutes or however much time during your opponent's turn to think about the board and what's going on. So you have to make sure you take that on your own even while you're like, playing for your opponent, basically.

Cam: 34:11

And that just helps you understand the positions quicker when you're in the in tournament. It helps you Kind of pick up the patterns quicker when you only have 15 20 seconds to make a play.

Brent: 34:24

always find when I am playing with myself I am like I try to play impartially. I'm sorry?

Liam: 34:33

If I find one I'm playing

Brent: 34:35

Ehh, I, I, I, yeah I'm gonna, I knew it, and I, but I was like, I was like, now's not the time to acknowledge it, but it's already turned into that pod, so like, here we are, people. Jesus Christ. Alright. But what I'm testing with myself, guys, here all week, that like, while, while I Am playing unbiased? Like, I, you know, I'm doing my best. I, I'm like, a little, I'm more invested in testing a, like, on one side of the matchup. Does that make sense? Do you guys,

Liam: 35:09

So.

Brent: 35:10

are you guys like, do you feel like you're more, you're testing a matchup because you're planning on one side, or how much time do you test where you're like, are just interested in seeing what happens, versus like, trying to win it? Figure out if a particular deck, if like, one side of the matchup is better or something. Are you rooting for someone?

Liam: 35:33

yes. Make sure you don't do that. Take a second. Make sure, make sure you're playing, playing well. You like, you know, you have to be aware of your biases These biases are natural. If you have a deck that's beaten everything else and it's an amazing play, you want it to be an amazing play. You want it to be the next thing you throw it against. Sometimes it's not. Make sure you catch that.

Cam: 35:57

Yeah, you, I mean, obviously you want certain things to do well, like, you fall in love with your own ideas, and I think that's the biggest weakness of speech. Players as they fall in love with their own ideas and forget to be objective. And so, yeah, I can hold, like Liam when we were sitting in the hotel room. He's like Charizard beats Ancient Box. So it's like, oh, I went 2 1 against you. Like, obviously it's better, but like, objectively speaking, it is a worse matchup. And I just got lucky in the games that I beat him in. It's like if you really want to know the matchup well, and if you really want to know the, like, how to play the decks well, like, you should be. Try to stay as impartial as and it helps you decide, like, sometimes you're just testing the most interesting matchups or between the strongest decks in the format and you leave your options open because you're like, you're testing both sides, right? Like, you have the ability to learn multiple decks at once and that's also this the the benefit of playing Play against yourself, because you can be like, oh, well, I've actually played Giratina a lot into Charizard, like, I know how to play it, maybe I feel more comfortable playing that, or whatever.

Brent: 37:05

Guys, anything else that we want to cover?

Cam: 37:10

Just practice Charizard, I guess. That's it, that was, that was the the highlight of this, of this podcast. Hopefully something changes, but I have nothing else to add.

Brent: 37:20

Alright, alright. Cam, I don't think we've done one of these since you joined. But given that we're 42 minutes in, so I feel like we got, we got 2 or 3 minutes to spare. Let's do a quick Would You Rather. So,

Cam: 37:32

Okay.

Brent: 37:33

longstanding POD tradition You have to pick one of these. I'm gonna pick a non disgusting one, in the interest of we've already gone, we've already had too much of that this pod. So here's, here's your choices. Would you rather have the ability to fly, but only for ten minutes? per day, or have the ability to become invisible, but only for one minute a day.

Cam: 37:58

I think I'd rather fly. I mean, my workplace is like, less than 10 minutes away, so, that would cut down. That would be pretty easy. That's pretty

Brent: 38:09

I mean, you commute to work and then you're like, okay, how am I getting back? He's, he's like, we, we got to work the overnight shift. Liam, how about you?

Liam: 38:19

gotta think about this one for a second.

Brent: 38:22

I thought this was a tough one. It's not obvious to me what the right answer is.

Liam: 38:27

yeah, man, I think that's a real issue, like getting back after you fly somewhere.

Cam: 38:32

Hey, you got Ubers for a reason, man. You can walk. Like I said, it's 5 minutes. This is like a 15 minute

Liam: 38:39

Yeah.

Cam: 38:40

Just fast one way. When I'm running late.

Liam: 38:43

Hmm. Dude, one minute is not a lot of time, man.

Cam: 38:47

No, it's not.

Liam: 38:48

able to cook something crazy up. Right? But I like, can't you, you don't, you don't have a lot of time.

Cam: 38:53

You got 23 hours and 59 minutes to think about it every day.

Liam: 38:57

yeah.

Cam: 38:58

You could cook something up. Liam, you would cook something up.

Liam: 39:03

Yeah, man, I, I think, I think invisible. I don't, I don't, I don't quite. But being low key, that's like, that's a pretty good superpower, you know?

Brent: 39:14

feel like every time we, we have these kinds of conversations, Liam is always like, what kind of criminal enterprise could I start up with, with option A or option B,

Liam: 39:21

I mean like,

Cam: 39:22

Flying is definitely, can't start anything. Just practicality. Practicality,

Brent: 39:31

easy commute.

Liam: 39:32

Yeah, like, I like, I'm gonna go to work. I'm gonna do something crazy.

Cam: 39:42

See, I'm just old and washed,

Brent: 39:43

So, so Li Liam feels like invisibility gives him more optionality, so that's why he's going for invisibility. But I

Liam: 39:49

The other consideration though that I take into all these superpower things is how Would my superpower allow me to evade detection from the CIA? Because as soon as the CIA sees you flying, you're a guinea pig for the rest of your life. Like, you're literally cooked. So, like, you have to make sure, you have to make sure that, like, yeah, the federal government isn't too privy to everything you're doing. Or, if they You have a way to evade them. Like, you know,

Cam: 40:16

So being invisible for 60 seconds will help me evade them more than flying for 10 minutes.

Liam: 40:22

right? They won't know that I'm flying to work every day. Like, they won't know that I turn invisible for one minute, like, you know, when I'm doing something devious, right? But, like, if you wake up in the morning and you fly to work, you know, there's gonna be 500 cameras on you within, like, the first 30 seconds of day one, of day one. You're, like, you're finished. And so, like, you know, the CIA is at your door within, like, 10 hours, right? Like, You're done for, and,

Brent: 40:50

do, do both of these allow you to become a TikTok celebrity pretty easily? Like, I, I was just trying to, I was trying, I, I went to the UI went to the YouTube video thing in my brain as well. It made me wonder like does flying make you a TikTok celebrity? Then I was like, wait, but like turning invisible is like TikTok celebrity thing, right? Although maybe people would be like, that's just a jump cut. It's nothing special.

Liam: 41:10

yeah,

Cam: 41:12

might be more creeped out by that one.

Liam: 41:14

yeah, man, like, I'm happy with the Invisible answer. Yes.

Brent: 41:21

Pauls are our outro. That's another pod in the books. We'll be back next week. Are we like really getting ready for Indie? I think we are.

Cam: 41:29

Yes.

Brent: 41:30

All right. All right. Seven days from now, we'll talk about playing towards 60 at another tournament.

Liam: 41:37

I'm gonna change one card, though, for sure.