Brent: 0:05

Welcome to the Trashlanch podcast. It's the only podcast about the Pokemon trading card game. Our intro is from Chris Webby's Webster's Laboratory. We like to just give him some credit from time to time because it's awesome. We're all on Twitter. Attendance is 100%. Cam's here. Liam's here. I'm here. That's enough to get us to 100. It only takes three. Dragonshield, it's the official sleeves of the Trash Lounge. When you are using Dragonshield's sleeves, then every time your opponent plays an item card, he loses a little bit of willpower, leading to his eventual destruction. That's just a fact, I don't, I don't make the science. Science makes the science. Cam and Liam are back from, I won't say a disastrous Indianapolis, but, but it was not

Liam: 0:54

Disastrous!

Brent: 0:55

Yeah, it was not, it was not the double finals that we were expecting.

Liam: 0:57

Yeah, man, we got cooked, bro. Jesus Christ, it was terrible.

Brent: 1:01

Cam, you, you, you want to go first? You dropped a little faster.

Cam: 1:06

Yeah, I just played intro box, I 1 0'd the first three people, and then I just kind of, Didn't couldn't close it out in the next three rounds. One was a double brick, one was due to prizing some ancient cards in the last two cards of my prizes, and then the third one was due to seeing I mean, I'm not sure I could have played around it, but I saw Someone playing a Zard list that looked very similar to Liam's list with double Charmeleon. And so I was just playing with using my items, and I ended up getting Eerie'd in the late game, which I was not expecting. And so, that, I just, at that point, I was like, I'm not gonna try to tie you and put us both out of Day 2, and I already have my Invite, so. Just ending a subpar run.

Liam: 1:57

I played a Pidgeot box build. It had a 102 Charizard line. It was pretty similar to the Wigglytuff list, but a little bit more focused on consistency. So it ended up looking like a Zard list, kind of, with, like, Pidgeot techs included. But you know, it was just somewhere kind of in the middle. I thought the list was pretty good, I was pretty happy with it, I think maybe some room for improvement, but I generally thought it was pretty good, and I just hit some abysmal matchups like, that's always, that's always the downside when you play something that's so heavily Tech to beat, like, specific meta decks. I was, I was not preparing at all for decks like Dialga, Guardi, Arceus, and I hit a lot of those. So, so my tournament didn't go so well. Yeah, it was not a great run. However, Liam Hyatt who played the deck in Seniors managed to make it all the way to Top 4, where he ultimately lost to Dialga. Same as me, and it ended his run.

Brent: 2:56

And he was undefeated, I, I, just as you started I had the realization that we should have had him on to talk about how to play your list because apparently he knows.

Liam: 3:07

Yeah, I, I was really proud of him. He he picked up the list, I think, at, like, it was the night before, and, I mean, it's the list has a lot of options, and so it's, it's really boxy, and in some ways can be hard to play, but, I mean, he, he obviously did a great job piling it. Made it all the way to top four, and I think even got himself into a pretty good spot in top four. The Dialga matchup is really, really hard, and he was able to create at least some winning chances, although they didn't pan out. So, yeah, he did a really great job with the deck.

Cam: 3:37

I think that also is, that finish was also paired with a win by control in the juniors division, and then Grant Manley also got top four, so, not, I think all three lists were not Not exactly the same, but 3 controls back in the top 8 for all 3 divisions. I think it was bound to happen at some point with Zard becoming more and more popular. And then the other deck, obviously the one Dialga also took Grant Manley out if I'm not mistaken, Hedrick took took down Grant Manley. So that was the other deck of the tournament, which there was three Dialgas in the top eight of Seniors, and then Hedrick winning in Masters. So, it was kind of, and then obviously Chen Pao, the same group that kind of has been running around with it. So those really were the three decks of all three divisions.

Brent: 4:37

So, correct me if I'm wrong guys, I felt like the meta was different than you guys expected. Like it seemed like, coming out of day one. And then coming out of Day 2, it's a level like, so much Chen Pow, a lot of Dialga? Like, or maybe just good players play Dialga? Like,

Liam: 4:57

was super prepped for Chimpow. Er, I didn't bring a super teched out list, but I had, I think, a solid strategy to beat it. And I knew Chimpow was going to be popular. I think it was going to be Zard and answers to Zard. I did not expect Dialga to be such a popular answer to Zard. But yeah, I think for the most part it was Zard and answers to Zard. I think Gardi was a little bit more popular than I expected. But yeah, other than that I was pretty close, pretty on point I think.

Cam: 5:27

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't expecting Galaga to hop up, that's really just the surprise one. Everything else is kind of feels Relatively the same, but I feel like Dialga's here to stay for the rest of the format.

Liam: 5:40

For sure, deck's good. Dude, I have no clue how, man, but somehow that deck always opens Poffin, bro. I, like, I don't know how, and I think you just instantly lose if you don't get, like, multiple Beldums down turn one. But, they just, they somehow do it every single game. It's insane. Yeah, that deck doesn't make no sense to me, but, I mean, like, like, it obviously is good, once you've set up. I just, man, like a deck like effectively playing like 20 energy cards with the super odds and the energy somehow setting up and needing like multiple pieces to set up. You have to find multiple basics turn one into multiple stage ones turn two and somehow stay consistent is just a miracle. I, I cannot believe it.

Brent: 6:27

LA coming up. Cam, I'm assuming you're going to LA. So, so how does this shape your thinking for, for LA? Liam, not going to LA. Me, not going to LA.

Cam: 6:36

I would say, one, if I had any hopes of running a control deck you know, maybe after getting some reps and seeing both Liam's play it at this last, cause I wasn't, I saw Liam's list, I thought, I thought it was good, I just wasn't gonna switch last second to a deck like that. Now I probably don't even put in reps to that deck because you take a pretty hard loss to the Tang. I don't know if I want to keep running back Ancient Box. We've been trying some things, we've been trying to see what can beat Dialga. I'm sure we're gonna see a ton of it. I saw on Hedrix Tournament report, that he went 11 1 3, and I think his loss in two of his ties were to Chen Pao, and but he won a total of 4 1 2 against Chen Pao, and the third tie was an I. D. in round 15 to a Chen Pao, but that doesn't matter. And then the other one was round 7 against Jose Marrero, he went loss win win, But he won Game 3 due to a game loss, and then Jose was playing Goldango. So we tried that last night, and Goldango's alright, it went like 50 50 into Diago. Whoever went first felt favored. Diago did Cooldango doesn't feel great into many other decks. We

Brent: 7:52

was gonna say, I feel like the downside of that strategy is playing Goldengo. I

Cam: 7:56

I'm, like I, given that I have my Invite and I am not like actively chasing Stipend, I might throw a tournament at something like that. I might be willing to, but it is is like very run hot it's very dependent on like do you get your basics I'm I'm certain the same way Dialga is with the way Liam's talking about like you'd need to get multiple basics multiple stage ones to turn to and if you get it all it feels really great and then sometimes you're just like oh I just I don't have it this game.

Brent: 8:27

feel like what Liam would say, so Liam, you can tell me if you already said this, is, If you've already got your invite, then you can really focus on just winning this tournament instead of just trying to get points.

Liam: 8:37

I hope that's Cam's focus at this point. I'm more confident that it is.

Brent: 8:41

Yeah, don't, don't, don't be like, oh, you know, I, I'm, I'm gonna just sell this tournament because I already have my invite.

Cam: 8:47

Nah, I'm not gonna sell it,

Brent: 8:48

not the, that's not the kind of thing we, we

Cam: 8:50

if I believed Goldango was real I would play it but I have a feeling that it's not quite.

Liam: 8:57

No, yeah, Kim's talking about taking risks, and that's a, that's a real thing, like, there's always a, you can always just play the BDF, play Zard, probably lock up 5 2 2 or something, or better, right? But if you wanna, if you wanna win the event, you have to take risks. Just having us.

Brent: 9:11

dig it. I dig it. Is there other stuff we should talk about from Indie?

Liam: 9:17

I, I'm fully on to NAIC. I don't know if y'all saw my post, yes sir, I'm tough, I'm tough. Ha ha ha.

Brent: 9:25

I did not see your

Cam: 9:26

my,

Liam: 9:27

Yeah, you probably

Cam: 9:28

you didn't miss much.

Brent: 9:30

Oh my

Cam: 9:31

Apparently, apparently this guy's radio's silent until NAIC he will

Liam: 9:36

I deleted Twitter off my phone. I'm,

Brent: 9:38

Oh, oh,

Liam: 9:39

now. Yeah

Brent: 9:41

I believe Liam did tell me he has decided to fully embody LeBron.

Cam: 9:46

Oh my goodness,

Liam: 9:48

yeah, dude, I, I talked with Nabil, Liam Hyatt's dad, a little bit over the weekend. I'm on the performance optimization train now, bro. I'm on the train. I woke up at 6 a. m. for like, maybe the First time in, yeah, maybe, maybe like the first time in my 18 years of life so far and went for a run. Maybe the

Cam: 10:07

Oh, you worked out too, oh! Okay, Liam

Liam: 10:09

no, I didn't work out, but did a little cardio,

Cam: 10:12

run, that's okay.

Liam: 10:13

yeah, exactly. Yeah, dude, and I went to bed at 10 p. m. for like maybe the first time in like the last like six years. Dude, I'm really like that, bro. I'm really

Cam: 10:21

you really have, did you still have nerds for dinner? Or, That's Alright.

Brent: 10:37

That's crazy. Yeah,

Liam: 10:40

you know, a man can only do

Brent: 10:41

like, eating food I don't like is a bridge too far.

Liam: 10:44

Yeah. Well,

Cam: 10:48

we're gonna see an optimized Liam at NAIC

Liam: 10:51

yeah, dude, I'm actually getting teed, bro. I'm getting teed. I'm like that, bro. I'm like that.

Cam: 10:58

Oh my goodness.

Liam: 10:59

Yeah, I guess that, I think if we're all done with indie, we can talk about, more generally, something that Cam's been wanting to talk about, which is This is how we prepare for events,

Brent: 11:12

I love this topic.

Liam: 11:14

I think actually for

Cam: 11:15

topic. Going into the end, I saw like pokey Emmy's tweet, how she has one event left. And I think there are quite a few people there that are like, I have one or two events to close out. My invite what is best strategy, especially depending on how far away you are, I know quite a few people, 50, 100 points out and, so you are the greater player than I, you are a former world champion, and a big regional champion, so, Liam, how do you personally prepare for events and how do you come to Your deck decision, because you've chosen some interesting decks, you've chosen a very standard deck, like in Towards Zard.

Liam: 12:03

it up a little. I think, you know, I was thinking about this a little bit since Indie, which is like any, any person out there, I would absolutely trade NAIC to WinWorlds in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even think about it. And so, I think looking at NAIC as a chance to, to improve my my preparation process for Worlds is is a logical thing to do. So I'll, I'll be, in some sense, like, trying some stuff out. I'm, I'm looking into the performance optimization stuff. I, the the, the newest thing is I, I've looked at, like, You know, when you think about improving cognitive performance I'm looking at the like the, what the chess players do, apparently. So, one thing I'm gonna try to do over the next coming, next few weeks, or at least make sure I do, is this thing called interleaving. Interleaving is a process where, like, like, in the, in the process of learning, you basically try to Mix up the ways you learn and, so like, the example that Magnus Carlsen gives is, he, he'll play, like, chess 960 alongside his preparation for a typical chess, which is basically just starting with, like, a random board, so, like, the pieces are kind of randomized to basically, like, mix up the way your brain thinks while, while kind of keeping it the same, so, like, in that sense, I think, I think that's one of the benefits of doing something like cubing, which is thinking about the game, but thinking about it in like a different way. And so I don't know exactly the best way to access like custom formats as easily as chess does, but trying to replicate that same process is going to be something I'm going to try to do. Over the next few weeks. So there's that. And then there's also like, you know, some dietary stuff or whatever. Apparently I gotta chew gum during events. I also have to apparently like sit in a certain way. So yeah, I'm gonna be trying all that stuff out. And, and see how far it gets me. Whether or not I like it, you know.

Brent: 13:55

I've not heard about the sitting.

Liam: 13:57

the sitting is, this is something that I've actually seen a lot of Pokemon players do, cause I mean, this is the go to, it's very natural, is and like what chess players did for many years, is basically leaning as far forward as you can during games. And, what it does, apparently, is it like, puts pressure on your lungs, so you take in like 30 percent less oxygen, and it, you know, it makes your brain function a little worse, so I gotta, you have to like, sit up straight, but not too straight, where you're like, too far back, and you like, lose alertness or something, you gotta sit like, right in the, right in the perfect balance which is around like, 75 degrees from like, your legs, apparently, or something like that. So, yeah, we're gonna be going for that. Going forward,

Brent: 14:38

How do you practice that? Like, how do you, like, like, obviously what you want to do is train yourself so that's a natural thing to do, but I wonder how you do that.

Liam: 14:47

I don't know, I was sitting like that during all of school today. I guess

Brent: 14:49

All right, all right. I like it. I like it. Liam, Liam has a situation where he has to sit for six hours, and he's like, I'm gonna practice sitting like that during my six hour sitting practices. I dig it. I,

Liam: 15:02

Mm hmm.

Cam: 15:03

I do as well, that's awesome. I see that you're, you have already, you know, achieved a championship and you're like, how can I improve myself in other ways to get back to the top?

Liam: 15:15

Ah,

Cam: 15:15

great Liam Halliburton trying, always finding ways to be on the cutting edge.

Liam: 15:20

I, I, I mean, I, I do my best to improve. That's, that's the ultimate goal. I, one time regional champion is, is hopefully not going to be my legacy. I will, I want to leave a greater impact on the game, and that requires improving.

Cam: 15:36

Alright something that I wanted to talk about in terms of preparing for events, something that I haven't actually done in a while, I last did this, I know that you've kind of done it, we haven't, you and I haven't together done it pretty indepthly since we've been working together this year, I did a lot with Finn last year, and it was using spreadsheets and doing Metashare And I think doing it with people that you trust and kind of getting information from, you know, you're not going to know all the matchups. So last year there was a point in the season, I think at NAIC, where we didn't know the Arceus matchups because I never play Arceus. I hate Arceus. But I had someone I could trust in both Kayden and Liam, who were both playing Arceus at NAIC, and so they could fill out the spreadsheet for us in those in those matchups, and I think using that information I think specifically the meta, the meta, expected metashare because I think something that we can tend to do is when we're testing, especially in a group, you can kind of get sucked into having this little, very narrow meta and so I like to reach out. So, this is people like Kianamini who I've, I've worked with. You know, used to live next to near you know, I can text him, ask him what he thinks of certain decks, what he thinks is going to show up, and that kind of removes any bias that when you're trying to make a spreadsheet and kind of what you expect to come up, you can do like an average of like, say, ten people, five to ten people, what the expected meta share is going to be, take the average to kind of Remove any biases, or as much as you can and then you fill out the information on what you think the matchups are. And so, the last time I did this was at Worlds. And when Finn and I were filling out the spreadsheet, the, I think the rankings of the decks were Tina, Turbo, and Fusion Mew at the top three. And, so you can always pick up the best deck if you want to. The top two were Lostbox in that case. And, I kind of played Lostbox during the year, but not Finn. That great, and not to a high level, so I didn't feel comfortable switching to the top two decks in that case, but I had played Mew a lot, and I think using the spreadsheet information to the best of your ability it wasn't safe for me to switch to A deck that I wasn't comfortable with, but I'm going to switch to a deck that is still in the top three, top five, and then just hope to go on a run. And so that's, I think, what I usually try to do for events. I'm not someone who just picks the number one deck because I'm not usually comfortable with all decks, and I usually have a particular playstyle. But I think I try to trust the data a lot when it comes to You know, what I choose, and then a lot of it has to do with playing the best deck. I think when preparing for an event, I know people will say like, Abon and Liam have said that Ancient Box is a bad, potentially a bad pick for events because it loses to Charizard, but I have practiced a lot against Charizard. So I think even if you want to play a deck that loses to the best deck, you still need to practice the matchup a lot. I still feel like I know the outs from Ancient Box into Charizard decently well. And I think that's hopefully something we can start doing more, Liam, as we prepare for NAIC. Because I think Abon is also locked in on preparing for NAIC and it's gonna be kind of exciting seeing the, some of the results out of Japan.

Liam: 19:40

Are Bonds doing NAIC?

Cam: 19:42

Is he? Or maybe

Liam: 19:43

read all the group chat messages. Go look at that, bro.

Cam: 19:45

Oh yeah, I'm,

Liam: 19:47

Yeah,

Brent: 19:50

I, I heard he's betrayed you.

Liam: 19:53

yeah.

Cam: 19:55

Oh, how has he betrayed you? What happened? I don't know.

Brent: 19:59

Not going to NAIC?

Liam: 20:01

Yeah, yeah,

Brent: 20:02

People unable to register for tournaments are traitors,

Liam: 20:06

Yeah, but around like

Brent: 20:08

even

Liam: 20:08

three days ago, Cam gave me the like, yo, Liam bro, let's lock in friendly. I see you, me, a bong. Let's let's do it. Let's really grind this out. We got this, man. Come to find out the big guy, Abad, and he's goaded. He's literally goaded. He's not gonna be there. Like, what?

Cam: 20:27

That's okay, he'll still help. I'm sure he'll still

Liam: 20:29

No, no, no. The reason he said he's not going to NAIC is because he does not have time to help. Abad's a busy man. He's got finals apparently, and he's doing LA. It does seem like a lot. And so, I'll respect that a little bit, I guess.

Brent: 20:44

I guess.

Liam: 20:45

Yeah, I mean,

Brent: 20:47

let me ask you a couple questions that, that a dummy like me has gotta ask. First question is, like, I recognize the days of spreadsheet ery like, like things have changed a little bit. How Valuable or not valuable is online tournament input.

Liam: 21:06

Very valuable, I think, especially for NAIC. Yeah,

Brent: 21:09

Like, like, Trainer Hill is just dumping out matchup spreads, and I recognize, like, I recognize, we all

Liam: 21:14

go for it, I don't go for it,

Brent: 21:16

when you look at the Trainer Hill matchup spreads, the problem is janky lists, janky players, and, and the nice thing about, like, maintaining your own spreadsheet is circle of trust in terms of, like, quality list, quality player.

Liam: 21:28

Yeah, no, use your own spreadsheet for matchup data. But, online data is still important for developing lists. Like, these are the lists you're going to hit. Like, the online list or the list you're going to hit, maybe you have some like, inside information that some random group is playing X, and it's this list, and you have to account for that a little bit. But like, all of the rounds, everybody you're going to hit day one, you basically have access to their lists online if you just care to check. You should go check. I think it's good data. I, yeah, I base a lot of my decisions on the online trends, at least in lists. Like, if they're playing 1 or 2 Vacuum, I base that on online, it's not like you know, whatever my testing group was playing.

Brent: 22:09

But, but the, but the matchup spreads that come out of of those? Disregard it.

Liam: 22:14

Solidly, I think, I think there's a, there's a bit of a danger in that, I've seen a lot of people, like, they're like, oh man, you know, they basically disregard all of the data without putting it into context, which is like, oh man, like, anytime they see data that they disagree with, It's like, oh, you know, it must be because the players are trash. But I like, I, I think it's still, it's still a piece of information you should take into consideration, but yeah, the, the quality of play is a little lower, it should be taken with caution, but it should still be taken in and should still be factored, factored in.

Cam: 22:50

No, I agree, and that's kind of, there's so many online tournaments, it's all we have to go off of now, I think, for a while now, like, has been going online into the ICs, into the new formats, has kind of been the same. So, Kind of agreeing with your point. So I think you kind of, but the matchups very similarly I think you kind of use them to get a gauge and then you have to feel them out for yourself with your group and then you have to see and then that could be swayed a bit if you have attack or A couple of texts for the matchup. So, I mean, I think you use those matchup points those data points, like, to start with, but then you have to use your own information, your own testing, to kind of take you from there and see which direction you're going.

Brent: 23:43

Can you count, like, just PTCGL ladder at all towards input into your, into your process? Or do you, do you, like, can you only test with people you trust because PTCGL ladder's bad players?

Liam: 23:58

PTCGO ladder is terrible. It is terrible. It, I mean, it's not a bad software, er, it actually is a pretty bad software, but it's not bad for Solitaire. That's what I use it for. You get to, to basically just see how your deck works. You get to look at a few, like, opening hands. Limitless Tabletop is probably just better. But the, the PTCG Live client is, like, Somewhat easy to use. I, it's something I'm more familiar with like the drag and drop as opposed to the import. So I, I end up like anytime I build a new deck, I usually build it on TCG Live and play a few games with it there. But yeah, any, any testing and like serious decisions should be done or like serious consideration on matchups or anything like that should be done in person. Or if, if you have to play online, play it with like somebody you trust. Like, like a dedicated testing partner because, I mean, dude, the people on TCG Live are, I mean, they're genuinely insane. It's you, you drastically overrate your chances if you go off of what TCG Live does because, like, the Chen Pao players you hit will not go for the Greninja if they have it on turn two and it will wreck your setup. And so you, like, you basically go into the tournament, you're like, bro, Chen Pao only hits the turn two Ninja, like, 10 percent of times. But in reality, It's only 10 percent of TCG Live players that go for the Turn 2 Ninja. So, I mean, you overestimate your chances if you take anything on TCG Live seriously.

Cam: 25:28

I kind of, I mean, I think I agree with Liam to a point, but I do think that, I do think there's actually merit to passing, your deck passing the TCG live check

Brent: 25:42

Yeah, I mean, that's, I, I, it sounds like you're agreeing. Like, Liam's like, you play some Solitaire, and if it doesn't work, you're like, well that's terrible. I can't beat drones with this.

Cam: 25:54

but I think like, the differing point is, so, I think this is what I was telling Liam going into Indianapolis, is that he was like, Oh, I'm expecting to play certain decks, and I was like, I think you guys are over annexing on, or over indexing on Zard and you, you are gonna hit other stuff. I know I have a bad matchup into Zard, but you're gonna hit other stuff. And I hit a lot of Arc, and I hit a lot of weird stuff, and like, I hit a lot of weird stuff in Orlando, so I think you're just going to. And I think, when I was playing Liam's deck, this like the past few days the Zard Control with like a 1 2 Zard line. Like, I play it online, on live, and I play against these random garbage decks, but for some reason, it's just very, very annoying to deal with and try to beat them with Liam's

Liam: 26:49

bro.

Cam: 26:51

Like, I'm playing against some of the most god awful decks. But, they seem to be, like, kind of tailored to beating me and it's crazy how you know, streamlined this deck is to beat certain decks, Liam's deck, but if you do not hit those matchups, you are struggling a lot

Liam: 27:10

dude, this is exactly what I'm talking about though, bro, because I played the deck. I told you when I, when I make a new deck, I play a few games with it on TCG Live. And I, I played a few games, and like, I'm like, oh man, you know, I like, queue into some random guy playing Deaga, and it goes like 50 50, because the guy never uses the Zam, or whatever, like, it's like a close game, and I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm in this, I guess like, you know, my matchups against these god awful fringe decks aren't even that bad. And then, you know, I go to Indie, and like, players aren't even amazing. But,

Cam: 27:43

Yeah, no,

Liam: 27:44

the TCG Live players are so much worse! And like,

Cam: 27:49

I agree, it's,

Liam: 27:50

and then I, and then I get cooked against these god awful decks, man. Yeah, don't, don't trust TCG Live for anything, bruh. I, I think Cameron's right, like, it should pass

Cam: 28:01

make sure your deck works,

Liam: 28:03

but, it, yeah man, like, the players there are not credible, you, you can't trust that anything going on on the other end is, like, actually legit. It is.

Brent: 28:14

Fair enough. Fair enough. You know, there's no response to that.

Cam: 28:19

So are you, do you have any thoughts on what you would, I know you're not going to LA, I know that you are now locked into NAIC and you're optimizing that, but just as a brief Exercise, like, taking the information that you have from the results of all three divisions and the new deck on the scene, like, what would be, where would you start for testing? Would you continue with this Zard deck? Would you, you know, try something else?

Liam: 28:50

one of my big regrets that I was feeling at Indie was not having played Lost Box all season. I, dude. Dean Nezum is one of my locals. He's been playing basically that same Lost Box deck for like forever. And it's of course updated for Temporal Forces, but the, the Heavy Switch, Heavy Poffins, or Heavy VIP Last Format, like basically just like maximum consistency, Poké Stops, and just like tons of item cards. He's, he's been playing that for a while. He makes it look really, really good. And, I, I put in a few games with it at the end of last format, a few games at the start of this format, and it felt really good. And I, I, I just like stopped for a little bit because I, I think I doubted myself playing Lost Box playing Lost Box 2, like a major event. I, I think I had some like bad experiences testing it, like last year. With like the Kyogre builds or something like that and I found myself making a lot of mistakes So it's just like Lost Box Engine not for me But I I wish I'd given it another shot and I think I'd I'd start trying to play it again if I was going to LA I Yeah, I really like the deck and I think pushing for the Turn 2 Ninja and trying to play the like hyper aggressive, hyper consistent build that Dean was playing is like a good direction to go for in the current meta. It's like one way to beat Dialga. And so that's that's where I'd start.

Cam: 30:19

cool? And that it, I think there were obviously Dean was the one who did the best, but I think there was like four or five kind of similar ish. Lost Box lists in the top 32, so obviously, like, it's a good deck in the meta right now. I think it does have its issues of sometimes being a bit fragile compared to the other top decks, but it does have an answer for quite a bit right now with Hoopa, Roaring Moon, and Ironhands.

Brent: 30:48

So Liam just jogged my memory on the other team related questions. Cam, you were talking about how you didn't feel comfortable switching to, like, Lostbox the last time you were on the spreadsheet grind. How much time do you need? Before you'd feel comfortable switching. I recognize, like, it kind of varies from deck to deck, but, like, let's say you, you haven't put in a lot of reps with a deck, and you suddenly realize, like, that's the play, like, it sounds like nobody wants to s I mean, I'm sure everybody has done the, like, day before the tournament you switch. Everybody's done the, like, two days before the tournament you switch. But, like what's the minimum amount of time for it to be the right answer? Ha I

Cam: 31:31

I think I've gotten better at, like, last second switching. I don't think I've done it a lot.

Brent: 31:36

Don't think Liam's done a I can't remember the last time Liam did a last minute switch. Like, I just feel like I mean, maybe it's that we just haven't gotten, like, quote unquote, like, put on a deck at the last minute? Or, maybe I just haven't paid attention to how anxious you guys may have been. But I feel like, I feel like there's been less last minute anxiety.

Cam: 31:51

I would say it, I mean, if I'm, if it's something that someone I really, really trust, like someone in the group, like if it was Liam, or Bon, or Derek Hu, and they, And there's someone showing me how to play the deck, as well as I have the list. Maybe a week, maybe a little less. I mean obviously I had that with Liam this past weekend. I think a day is just not enough, especially given I am, I feel pretty comfortable with Ancient Box. So I don't think that was, like gonna one day was gonna get me there, but maybe if I had started on Wednesday, or Tuesday? And that's why I told Liam, like, he had kind of posted this list in our Discord, and we do a lot of posting lists, and he kind of said it was okay, but not great, but then he ends up playing it, and I was like, well, you gotta tell me it's, like, Super legit, because there's no way I'm gonna try some super fringe control deck that you threw in the chat unless you let me know, and I'm not gonna switch to it last second, but I would've been willing to play it with them if I had a little bit of time, regardless if I think I would've done well or not. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.

Brent: 32:55

Okay. Okay.

Liam: 32:58

I mean, I didn't know if it was super legit, bro. I didn't know. And of course didn't work out for me. Like, the most the most evidence I have is that of it being, like, super legit, is a tournament run that I didn't even watch. Like, like, I have no clue what happened in Liam's games but He obviously had a good run, I had a terrible run, and like, but the thing is, my run was like, dude, I hit 1 Zard, and 0 CPAL, 0 Athena, 0 Ancient, I'd, I'd be cool to run it back and just try to hit better matchups next time. I think I made a few mistakes as well, but it, it was, it was some small stuff. But, so like, I don't have a lot to go on on whether or not it was super legit, I I just like the deck. I didn't want to play Zard, so I went with it.

Cam: 33:42

Why didn't you want to play Zard? After winning the event, after truly being at the pinnacle of the thing, playing Charizard, going to the next tournament, like, why didn't you want to be worried that you'd

Liam: 33:54

too,

Cam: 33:55

be too countered? Like, it kind of was,

Liam: 33:58

thought, yeah, I thought Chenpao was going to spike, and Chenpao was not great. I thought and all the mirrors were going to get so much more competitive because there was going to be so much more Devo, so much more, like, Alekiary stuff, so much more, like, Bibarel. All of the lists were going to be a lot better, and even when you have experience in the matchup, it's If the lists are a lot better, like, if you have experience in the matchup and your opponent's not playing Bibarel, the matchup is like 90 10, and that was how I beat my, like, first, like, five Zards and I hit, I hit a ton of Zard in Rolando, so, so it was all really nice but, when they're playing Bibarel, even if you have experience in the matchup, I found it's a lot closer, it's like 60 40, maybe, if your opponent is, like, making some mistakes, but, like, The matchup is just like super duper close because they have like an actual wincon to play for which is the same wincon you have which is like going to this one prize board as opposed to the other deck which is just like there's, there's literally nothing they can do when they just have like the straight Pidgeot version and then you also have to worry about double D. Va like, The hardest part about beating Zard going into this weekend is you're basically playing around, like, 70 cards, and that's, like, no more pronounced than in the mirror, where, again, you're, like, a 70 card deck and you have to play 60, so you have to make a lot of decisions about what you want to beat and what you don't want to beat, so it really stretches your resources to try to beat all the mirrors, and it's, it's really hard. I didn't want to go through that. I figure I'd rather be the guy beating Zard than the guy playing Zard, and Went for some anti-me yank this weekend.

Cam: 35:21

you just didn't play any

Brent: 35:23

So so one question I have for you, Liam, is, you, you go into round one, and you immediately tie. And I know, like, Liam Hyatt's dad's reaction was Well that's terrible because now you're not going to bump into Charizards left and right and body those Charizards up. Were you thinking, as that round came to a close and you realized you were going to tie, did you think, hmm, I'm playing a control deck, it might be like 5 0 4 challenge? Or did you think, should I scoop this so I can, like, get paired against Charizards? Or were you like, a point's a point, a point, we just gotta bank it, like, there's nothing to think about, we're just moving on.

Liam: 36:01

No, I, I I didn't think the tie bracket was particularly bad. I thought it was the bottom tables that was particularly bad. Um, yeah, like it, it was the fact that I was I was going against the bottom tables

Brent: 36:11

Right, so, so, so, losses just make it even jankier, like, your next matchup, and that would be worse. So,

Liam: 36:18

kind. Yeah. I kind, I mean, yeah, like you, you have to hit the players who want to pick the medex and that's, that's that generally tends to be the the best players. That's like actually a really, really big thing, is if you want to do really well, you should usually play metadex. Those usually do well.

Cam: 36:36

Think it's just the same thing that I told Polaris when we played Vikavolt to Australia. I said, look, Polaris, like, we're either going to be out or Buy round 4, because we're going to be playing against, we're going to lose, like we're going to run into some random stuff, and then you're going to you know, lose to some bad things and be out of the tournament, or we're going to hit the meta decks, and then continue to hit the meta decks, because if we're winning,

Liam: 36:59

yeah, exactly, and go on a

Cam: 37:01

same thing for your deck, so.

Liam: 37:03

Yep. I I was so disappointed losing that first one. Yeah, I was so disappointed. I was heartbroken. I chewed. It just, it's insane. I I basically lost. I lost in a really weird spot. I think actually, maybe because I should have expected that going to the bottom tables was like so horrific and I think I don't even know. It's just, it's just terrible. I, I hit an Arceus deck round one, and that matchup is like, bleh. It was Arceus Vulpix. I don't stream the Zard very well, so dealing with like, multiple Arceus is like, pretty hard to do. Yeah, I just like, I did not have a lot of answers for that deck. That was like actually probably the worst matchup, cause they like, they might get you on the judge and they have like the late game threats that you can't deal with, or like the long term threats that you can't deal with, like the other decks kind of, that are bad, like stuff like the Alga and stuff like that, but like, they might get you on the judge and they get you later it is just a terrible matchup, and I try so hard, but it's, the matchup, the matchup is hard and like, Oh my god, I made an assumption about their list, I assumed they played 2 VAC, so I was very hesitant to go into the Alekki the Alekki with the Lux Cape. I of course did, like a little bit, but, you know, I wanted to make some progress instead of just like basically sitting there and full looping. And dude, I could only do a full loop because I double prized the Pal Pads, and I didn't get it off the first two when I went into the Zard. I couldn't make progress by pal padding and essentially buying sonar turns for the double penny. And, like, I had to basically call whether or not they played two VAC. And I ended up just scooping because they had, like, they got to a point where if they played the VAC I was going to lose. Just based on the resources I had left and then the Eleki going down. So I, I just like scooped and called it quits there. I wasn't gonna wait until they, you know, basically decked out and then played the VAC. But, I mean, to this day I don't know if they had the second VAC or not. I, Jesus Christ, oh my God.

Cam: 39:22

Oh, I thought they for sure had the second back. I thought you lost because they had a second back. You played into a situation where you thought they had a second back.

Liam: 39:31

yes, I, I mean, dude, they usually have the second VAC, the list that got 40th, I think, this weekend, played the second VAC, it was Arceus Vulpix Licks, like, the second VAC is common in the Vulpix lists it's not 100%, but it's common, I've seen it going around, and, jeez, man, but if they didn't have it, and I, That literally derailed my entire tournament. That hurt so bad, bro. So bad. And of course I steal the Game 2 by going into the Aggro Zard early, and still just pulling off insane wizardry to pick up the W. But it doesn't even matter, man, because it was like, it was a long, drawn out Game 1, and we don't have time for Game 3. Uhhhhhhh.

Cam: 40:18

Do you wish you would change anything of your list? Or let's

Liam: 40:21

My list going forward?

Cam: 40:23

Yeah, because that's quite an interesting, like, take on control.

Liam: 40:27

Going

Cam: 40:28

know that, like, Cleffa, like, I don't even know if you found Cleffa to be useful. If you'd

Liam: 40:32

yeah, no, I was really happy with the list for the event. I told my father, I felt like Sitting down every round, I was like, as long as they flip over something normal, I have an advantage. And that's a, that's a really good feeling to have confidence in your list like that. They didn't flip over a lot of normal stuff, man. Yeah, rough event, rough event.

Brent: 40:52

So, so, would you recommend Cam strongly consider playing your list?

Liam: 40:58

I mean, you need to add something for Dialga, and a lot of the attempts that I've seen people trying to deal with the Dialga, there's, you know, it's like the mawile or like retreat lock, something like that. It requires cutting back on consistency. Like, you have to make some concessions in the list if you want to add a package that that's, that's that large. I think that's one of the best things about my list compared to the standard, like, control lists in Pidgeot, is I basically cut back on the entire recursion package, which is, like, Third Pal Pat, Syleen, Yelch here, Mawile, like, all that junk that's required just to gain access to Pidgeot. to Retreat Lock, which is like, not even that good against Zard anymore. And, and not great in like a lot of matchups. I mean, it helps, but it's not, it's not really needed. And, and, and I put in a bunch of consistency. I get four ultra, four candy, three, three nest, three poffin. If you want to add that package back in, you have to, you have to cut back on it. And like all the lists I see are like, oh, what if we go down to like one poffin and we just play into Arvin for it?

Brent: 42:04

Yeah, I mean, do you want to talk about the difference between your list and Grant Manley's list? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people that are gonna say like, Oh, I should play the Azul Grant Manley list because Azul's good at Pokemon, and Grant did well.

Liam: 42:16

I mean, the list is like, fine, it has everything you need, of course, it's like, they basically take a

Brent: 42:23

you like your list better than Grant's, right? Just to be clear.

Liam: 42:26

yeah,

Brent: 42:27

Yeah, yeah

Liam: 42:28

I mean, I think,

Brent: 42:29

list is better than Grant's, and Grant got top four, so just imagine

Liam: 42:32

that was that's

Brent: 42:32

to LA.

Liam: 42:33

list, by the way, that's

Brent: 42:35

Right.

Liam: 42:37

that's where they got the list but, I think that list is good, and I like the fact that it's at least trying to like, soft commit to the, The optimal engine, which is like the Arvin Lumidian. Heavy Ultra Ball but, I think, I mean the harder you commit into it, the better the deck works. You, you open stronger more often, and, so like, I mean you can imagine what, if the deck functions better, if you get to play 4 Ultra instead of 3, and like, 3 Poffin instead of 1, 4 Candy instead of 2. Like, you just open with those cards more often, so you get to turn to Pidgeot more often. And once you get to Pidgeot up, I don't, I don't win quite as often. Because, you know, they cut all the consistency cards for more stuff to make sure they win, they cut them for power cards. But, I, I get to, I get to play the game more and I think that's like, that's generally a best practice you look at all the top decks today, right, like decks like Charizard, decks like Chen Pao, they're not going out of their way to basically cut down to three Ultra, or like, one Poffin, and just being like, oh man, I'm, I'm just gonna try to Irita for it. And see what happens so I can add all these power cards, like, you know, whatever it would be, like a Kyogre to attack with, second Cologne, just random junk that you don't really need, or like a boss, whatever like, that's generally not a best practice for, for solid decks, I think, and I don't think I think people, like, tend to, like, give control the exemption, in that regard, they're like, oh, man, I, you just have to have a plan for everything, which is kind of true, because you slow the game down, you have to be able to win at the end, But you also shouldn't completely abandon these principles of like your decks should generally have more consistency cards than power cards. Your deck should like generally function and like, it's, it's very easy. Especially when the decks have similar engines to compare yourself to top decks and see if you're making similar decisions. And if you're not, at least have like very, very strong rationale as to why.

Brent: 44:34

Dude, that was pretty spicy, Cam.

Cam: 44:36

Well is there anything else you guys wanted us to talk about this week? I feel like we kind of covered what we needed to cover but if anyone else has any ideas,

Brent: 44:45

I think we're in a great place. Next week, I definitely want to talk about how I wanted to have a tweet that, you know, if somebody wants me to host a class about how to host classes and market

Liam: 44:55

Oh my god.

Brent: 44:56

But let's save that for next week because I feel like that's just an easy, like, 30 minutes of laughing at people.

Liam: 45:04

All right, you already know what we're talking about next

Brent: 45:07

Dude, it's, yeah, yeah. There's no regional this weekend, right? We finally have a weekend off, I know we should talk about the cards coming out for NAIC because I know Liam's thinking about them, but like, we should definitely talk about the crazy classes and the current of coaching, dare I say?

Liam: 45:30

Aaaaaaah!

Brent: 45:30

a thing. Alright, John Paul's our outro guys, we'll be back next week with an awesome pod.