Everything That Happened at The 2026 Pokemon TCG World Championships | Uncommon Energy Episode 217

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On this week's episode we're going to be breaking down some of the drama around the Pokemon XP event alongside the World Championships. We will talk about the San Francis Open, a surprise side event that happened at the World Championships with some pretty insane prizing. We will talk about Guess that. We'll talk about. We will have Guess that flavor text. The start of a brand new season means the start of a brand new guess that flavor text series. So we'll have a blank slate 0 to 0 and see who can come out on top at the end of this coming season. And then we will of course talk about the World Championships, the results, the best decks, the winning deck, interesting decks that made day two the metagame. We'll also look at our predictions, how we did. We'll also talk about the announcements that they made after the show was over, after the tournament was over, new cards coming, new gameplay mechanic, question mark. All that and more on this week's episode. And then of course we will have our weekly bonus episode exclusive to YouTube channel members and Spotify subscribers. My name is Chipper Chi, joined here as always by my friend and co host Azul G G Cameraless Azul GG Today as Azul, you had a trip planned for after the World Championships. Already ready to go. You are not at home. Nope, nope. Chip, I'm not at home. I'm over in Japan. I'm gonna be here for a couple weeks actually. I get back on the 13th. Then hopefully I'm gonna get back to like streaming that Monday the the 14th. Oh I guess with that we should mention not going to be an episode next week because of my trip in Japan we made this one work, but then there one-of-one be another episode. Honestly, it's. We got like kind of like a down week anyways, right? Because the week after that week is when we get going into the first regional the season with Baltimore and stuff. But we had to make sure to talk about Worlds, right? We had to get a World episode out. A lot to talk about in this week's episode. But I was at Worlds this year, was not competing, did not get my world's invite, otherwise I probably would have competed. I was invited out as a partnered content creator. So shout out to Pokemon for that opportunity. It's a ton of fun. Was still pretty busy over the weekend doing some stuff as far as like the. The partner content creator stuff goes. I also dipped my toes into doing some IRL content. Not IRL streaming, but like interview type content at the event. Learned a lot with that, a lot to improve on and it was really last minute as well. So next time around we'll definitely be more prepared to get more content out and more different kinds of content. But it was a ton of fun. It seemed like people liked it a lot as well. And definitely something I'm gonna do more of, quite a bit more of in the future. I did some like stuff more prepared that is gonna get cut up into short videos and I did some kind of like more like live from the Fleer type interview stuff which I think is actually like really cool and something that I think would be something that I wanted to like see would I think would be really cool to see more of in the game. So like, you know, this is an opportunity for me to kind of do it myself, to do it myself at the AT Worlds because it wasn't competing and I was going to go to the event anyways. The card from ted. Thank you Azul from ted. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Shout out Ted for the research. One of his research is from his Gardevoir build at the end of right before rotation. Yu-Gi-Oh shout out Ted. Yu-Gi-Oh that was all pretty cool. It was pretty cool to do the partner content creator stuff once again. Shout out to Pokemon for bringing me out. And then also really cool to do the have the opportunity to like it kind of like wind up to be able to like do that content as well. Like I said, it was last minute so I could. I definitely do more in the future and it definitely has inspired me to want to do like maybe try and go to like a regional or two this season and just kind of do this style of content at the event and maybe even like live Stream get, like, a backpack and stuff, so gonna think about that stuff. It probably one-of-one be any of the ones until, like, next season, but I think I might try and make a turn, like, a regional or two into just doing content at the event. Possibly just kind of give that a trial run, something cool. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that was the. I was gonna say. How was the casting? Casting was great. Yu-Gi-Oh I had a blast. Thanks to Pokemon for, you know, trusting me to come out as a creator or as a creator as a caster and take care of some of those games. Definitely a blast. Always fun to cast with Puka, One of the goats as well. I also did a little bit of, like, kind of impromptu content on the side through the weekend. I was recording, like, updates from some of the matches on the Fleer You know, I have a little easier access to the aisles and stuff since I'm a caster. I can, like, kind of get in there and, like, get some cool perspectives of the happenings of some of these games and give some updates about, you know, people, you know, Brent remaining undefeated. Interesting. Like, Sudden Prizm or Sudden Death game that should have happened but didn't quite happen in this one. Players locking up top cut. Diego going into top cut. And this was a lot of fun. I had a blast doing this. I kind of, like, similarly to you, like, was thinking about, like, man, it would be fun to go out and just, like, kind of reporter and, like, record what's happening in some of these games and share it with people. But Zebra cool weekend. Of course, commentating. I saw Puka post this, but I have technically performed at an Ed Sheeran concert. Thoughts? I mean, sure, if you want to call it that. No, the casting in the arena was really, really cool. I was a little bummed whenever I saw the senior finals matchup, because that was the matchup. Puka and I were commentating because it was Alakazam versus, you know, big basics. And, Yu-Gi-Oh I was like, oh, my gosh, we just got, like, a terrible finals. It'll be over in 20 minutes. Like, we're gonna, like, get no experience out of it. But, dude, Kobe played so, so good and gave himself a real shot to, like, actually one-of-one Like, he one-of-one game one legitimately, and then, like, if his opponent just, like, misses or sets up slowly in, like, one of the other games, like, he is the world champion, so that's really cool that he, like, played so well and gave himself a shot to actually one-of-one Yu-Gi-Oh We'll talk more about, like, the actual results and stuff like that. Do you have any Kind of thoughts on like the whole arena experience. You were like there basically all day as well, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I was gonna mention that as well. It's like part of my. Part of my partner opportunity. They had me do a couple meet and greets, which was definitely down to. I was a little nervous to do the meet and greets, of course, like knowing, you know, it's the first time I've ever done a meet and greet, so I wasn't sure if anyone would show up or anything like that. But Yu-Gi-Oh I mean a lot of people showed up. So just very, Yu-Gi-Oh Just want to say I'm very appreciative of all the support from the. The meet and greets was a very humbling experience as well. I was basically busy there. There. I did two of them. They're each like an hour and a half long. So like the one on Saturday, I was literally. There's someone in line literally the whole time. The whole hour and a half. And then the one on Saturday or the one on Sunday I imagine I assumed was gonna be a little bit slower. But even then it was like busy for the first hour. And then the last 20, 30 minutes, people are still like trickling in through line and stuff like that. So how many, I gotta ask, how many copies of this card did you sign? It would have been quite a few. I was not allowed to sign cards. Really? Sign cards? Yu-Gi-Oh Goldin sign cards or sleeves at it. Which I understand from the Pokemon perspective, that's something that they've been like become Zebra protective over or just something they're not trying to encourage or like want to be associated with. So definitely understand it from Pokemons. But people brought this card up and asked you. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Lots of Simiseers, lots of Sears, lots of feas and divides. Oh, that makes sense too. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh If you ever catch me at a future. A future opportunity, would definitely be happy to sign a Simiseer or a Pheasantipity. For sure. Yu-Gi-Oh Fortunately, the official meet and greets wasn't able to do that. But I. I get it from Pokemon side, so it's not like a. A big deal. Yu-Gi-Oh Zebra humbling experience. The mean greets for sure. Really appreciate the support. Appreciate everyone who. Who came out to say what's up? Yu-Gi-Oh What'd you ask me about? You said the. On the arena. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, the arena was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. It wasn't that. I feel like it people. I feel like a lot of people thought it was like. Or Said it was like a huge step up from last year. I don't think it was that big of a step up, but it was like, it was cooler, it was bigger, there was more lights, but it wasn't like. I feel like last year was like, that was the big step up. Like, Yu-Gi-Oh they, you know, they matched it and outdid themselves. This year it was still better. And obviously some of this stuff, like Ed Sheeran being there and stuff like that was pretty cool as well. They have that. But, like, the overall, like, experience of watching the games and what the. The things they had for the stage and all that kind of stuff, I feel like they set the tone for that last year and they kind of just built upon it this year. So it wasn't like a huge improvement, but it was still really cool. Everything they did that. Yu-Gi-Oh the finals, I. I stuck around and watched the finals of everything. I only missed go, which was apparently one of the more interesting finals, because there was like, if there was one to miss, it probably was that one because it just took four. It was like excruciating how long the Pokemon Go finals took. And then the entire rest of the show, the rest of the day was behind. Oh, I guess I have to shout out Go then, so I didn't miss because, Yu-Gi-Oh my. My second. My meet and greet on Sunday was during the GO finals, so I missed that. But I guess, like the. The Masters finals or. I guess there's no Masters the finals where, like, there was a disconnect, but the player had basically effectively game on board. Yes. Was interesting to hear about. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, it's a cool story too, because it's like a bracket reset, right? Losers, like, and they went to game five in the bracket reset and then the disconnect in game five. Yu-Gi-Oh they didn't replay the series. Right. They just replayed the game. They just replayed the game. Yu-Gi-Oh Propel Fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you propel with Gatorade electrolytes. You know those tiny back to school emergencies that somehow become your problem. That's why I love Uber Eats. You can order school supplies, snacks and lunchbox essentials for $5 or less. So when your kid casually drops, I don't like peanut butter anymore or I need five green highlighters for a project due tomorrow. Uber Eats has you covered. Get everything you need for back to school today. From your favorite brands like Aldi and Staples on Uber Eats. Order now ends 97. $5 or less before taxes and fees. Select items only. Availability varies. See app for details. Props to Will and Amanda. They are the commentators for battling through that. As someone who's had to stall for very long. Judge calls in the tcg. I can't even imagine what it's like in the grand finals. Game 5 of a tournament's like, you feel like you've got a winner, and then all of a sudden, boom. You gotta sit there and talk for 15 to 20 minutes about something. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh same thing. Same thing happening. Unite. They had some technical, difficult difficulties delaying them, but I think. I mean, Zeta seemed like by far the better team. I'm not gonna lie. They seem like they had everything on lock. Every time I watch Pokemon Unite, it's like, it's such a fun, cool experience. It does make me sad that, like, the game is, like, leaving our competitive circuit because it was, like, unique and genuinely enjoyable to watch, but I don't know, man. It just doesn't support it anymore. The demand for the game, I guess. I don't know what the reason is. I have to imagine that's a big part of it. Yu-Gi-Oh I do wonder that, like. Like, not to, like, call out other games, but it's not like Pokemon Go's numbers. I don't know. I don't know what they base it on. Like, numbers of people trying to play in the events. Number of people's watching the events because, like, not to call out Pokemon Go. I'm not saying Pokemon Go should go as well, but, like, the attendance isn't Zebra high, the viewership isn't Zebra high. What are the metrics required to keep games around in the competitive circuit? And obviously, Pokemon Go, they don't need the competitive circuit to, like, thrive and be successful. Right? Same thing with Beckett Right. Beckett never had a chance at the competitive circuit, but it's not like it's. It's like, man, this game's gonna die if people don't play competitively. It's like, nah, the game's doing okay. Right. So I am curious what the metrics are, because I agree, it is pretty fun to watch. Unite. Like, the big games, the big moments are definitely entertaining. Like, I just had a fun watching the finals, and it's kind of. It's unfortunate it's gonna go for that reason. But I am curious to know what the numbers are behind that. But didn't it. They. I feel like it's still gonna exist as an esport, isn't it? Or am I? There is going to be a tournament in Japan. I don't know how many tournaments, but, like, there is at least going to be some sort of like a JCS for Unite every year. No, I think it's some sort of global tournament. They said. Right. They made an announcement about it. But there is something happening. Okay, so there will still be some kind of circuit that leads up to some kind of quote unquote, world championships. Yu-Gi-Oh Just not part of the main Pokemon competitive circuit anymore. Yu-Gi-Oh Bears saw people discussing that as well. And even the. I mean, the, the. I was gonna say the TCG finals. Tcg, it's just hard to be as high. But it was a good. It was a good final to say the VGC finals was Zebra hype for the Master. I mean, all of them were pretty exciting to watch. With Masters specifically. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh VG is always exciting. It got me thinking, like, sitting there watching it, like, if we should do something for tcg. Because it just feels so, like it's such a different tone because it's not a game, like a video game. There's no, like, music pumping and like, you know, something to keep the energy up in the crowd. You're just kind of sitting in. It's almost like more similar to watching, like a movie than it is to being at, like, you know what I. Does that make sense? Like, you're not like, sitting there bumping, driving. You're just kind of like being. You're just sitting by. As an observer, I don't know what a good way would be to help make the crowd feel more connected and, like, alive. I think it was the, the. The game. I think there just isn't and there doesn't really need to be as well. I think the. The card game can be the card game. And I think maybe it's even better to just be like, this is what it is, and then portray that to people so people know what to get comfortable and familiar with. Right. Because when they turn to, like, a regional stream or something like that, you can't have all that production on, like, a Zebra high level anyways. Right. So maybe save the expectation. It's like, fine. Oh, I will say that about the center. So I was saying, like, the, the visually, I think last year was like, a massive step up from what we had seen previously. But, like, this year they improved it, but it wasn't as big, but the crowd was actually like, Zebra loud in the arena. Like, and I was gonna say as well, it was like I mean, that's where they play basketball, right? So it's like they have the two long sides and two short sides of the arena. So like one short side was cut, was. Was not seated. But the two. The rest of the arena, it wasn't Beckett it wasn't full. But I think towards the VGC finals, 80% maybe was filled up like maybe 75. It was pretty full. It was pretty cool. Like, the rafters area wasn't Beckett out, but also the two lower levels were pretty. Pretty full out. And Yu-Gi-Oh the. The noise from the crowd and everyone getting involved in it was like Zebra cool as well. Yu-Gi-Oh the cheering and stuff like that. I think that's one. One area where the production upped from last year is like the stuff in the crowd, like the, like the get fired up or like make some noise. Like that stuff wasn't happening last year. And those were like, cool little added moments there. I noticed. I noticed whatever and stuff too. When anyone top decks something, I assume to mitigate or to confuse the players on the crowd's reaction, they would go with like a get loud. They would. They would put that out there in the arena. When anyone top decked an important card, I don't know if that was int. It happened multiple times, so I assume it was intentional because, like, the crowd was hard to react to the top deck and it wouldn't be something that was like, played immediately. It wasn't like Henry Chow's boss top deck. It was like, well, this is important for like this turn. And then they would throw the animations up there to get loud or get psyched or whatever with the alakazam. And then people would react to that, plus the obvious top deck. So I don't know if that was on purpose or not, so the players wouldn't be able to as easily tell someone top deck something. I did notice they were running that animation in a timely fashion. It seemed like. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm not sure, to be honest, but that wouldn't surprise me. All right, well, let's get rolling in through the rest of the episode here. We got a lot to talk about, especially, like when it comes to the results of the tournament. So let's talk about some of this other stuff first. The first thing is just kind of general thoughts and then some drama around Pokemon xp. So this is like the first year they've run Pokemon XP as a event, a fan experience alongside the World Championship. So very much like tried to distinguish between the two as opposed to everything just being lumped under the world Championships and A lot of the stuff that was just part of Pokemon XP is stuff that they've been doing the last couple of years at Worlds, but they've just, like, there's enough new of it now for them to, like, make it its own thing, basically. Yu-Gi-Oh And there was a lot of cool stuff. The Rayquaza Road area was really cool. They had a skate park set up and, like, unveiled some of the new Santa Cruz skateboards. They had members of the Santa Cruz Professional Skate Team out there all weekend, basically, like, just skating for, like, people to watch, which is pretty cool. I saw someone call it the Boy Aquarium or something like that, which is pretty fitting, to be honest. Just all the guys standing by watching the skateboarders and. Yu-Gi-Oh they did all sorts of cool stuff. There was, like, themed food and sandwiches and, like, all that type of stuff. They had, like, a Pokemon mascot parade, which was cool. A ton of mascots characters that they don't normally bring out for. Stuff they brought out for this. Yu-Gi-Oh I was gonna say on the kind of, like, the full XP side of things, like, I had said, like, an episode or episode or two ago that, like, it didn't feel like it was gonna be any different than Worlds, but, like, actually being there, it felt considerably bigger than any previous, like, considerably bigger than any previous Worlds, for sure. Like, my thought process of. Or my expectation for something like the Pokemon XP thing was, was gonna be something like there should be the competitions, but then it should kind of feel like PAX east or something like that, outside of just the competitions. And it did kind of have that vibe. The big booths, I mean, obviously a lot of lines and waiting to get to the booth, do the things and the activations and then, like, the panels and stuff like that. Like I said, I was part of the. The meet and greets. So it did kind of feel that way, for sure. I think the only thing missing was, like, where's the new video game demo? Or where's the ability to play with, like, the next Pokemon TCG set coming out? Like, some kind of. Obviously there's, like, side event stuff for the tcg, although I heard those as usual, in these big events, they can be a little bit rough to, like, get through. But, like, I think that was the only thing was missing. Like, where was like. I don't know what is. It was the next video game called Wind and Waves. Where's the Wind and Waves demo or something like that. Obviously, we're a little bit far out from that, but maybe they'll try and time the next Pokemon XP to be around more of those things, to have those, like, bigger demos potentially at the event. I think that's probably part of it, is the timing, because they did, like, Legends Za demos at. I think it was Naic one year, like, which was a couple months before that game came out. So I think it is like a timing thing. Like, what makes sense with, like, what their release schedule is effectively, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But I think. And I think, Yu-Gi-Oh so for this one, maybe they just were like, we just need to get the Pokemon XP rolling and get it happening. But I feel like maybe for the next one, because it doesn't seem like it's going to be something that's happening every year. So it's not gonna be at Worlds every year. Then I'm gonna maybe try and time it up with some of those bigger, bigger releases happening because I think it does make the most sense for an event like that to have those kind of things be able to be demoed at the. At the event. Yu-Gi-Oh And for those of you wondering about our thoughts on, like, the Next world's location and, like, some of the announcements and stuff, we will talk about that more later this episode. So that is coming. I wanted to say one other cool thing we got to do. I'm trying to find it on the live stream, but I cannot find it. Is Azul and I actually got to be a part of unveiling an official release of or an official reveal of, like, a new card coming in. The 30th anniversary set, the base set, Pikachu, which was a very cool experience, a very interesting experience, but cool that they were, like, doing something like that. Here you go. I found it. Yu-Gi-Oh Very, very cool. Honestly, this is probably the coolest thing that I did all weekend to be able to be part of this unveiling of the cards. Talking about the cards touching the cards like, before they've even released or anything like that. It's pretty crazy. Huge shout out to, I guess, Pokemon for inviting me to be part of it. But also just, like, the idea of something like this happening. I've been talking about, like, stuff like this for a while where it's just, like, getting more stuff like this. This is like, not on the level where I would want to see it happen eventually, but, like, you know, more stuff like this. Even getting to the point where, like, content creators are, like, revealing cards and stuff could be, like, a Zebra Zebra cool thing in the future. I don't know if that'll ever happen, but this itself was pretty sick. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't think people understand, like, how serious this is to, like. Yu-Gi-Oh have them allow us to be able to do something like this, like touching these cards early. Like, these things were locked up, had to be signed out. I'm not gonna, like, give too many details, but it's like, it's very serious. Lots of levels and, like, things happening to make this happen. So thank you to Pokemon for asking the two of us to be a part of it alongside Puka, who of course, is part of the game design team at tpci. So he's seen these cards. A bunch of like, this was nothing, you know, new to him, but Yu-Gi-Oh he was still. He still seemed very excited to be part of, like, this project as well or this. This video segment. Absolutely, Yu-Gi-Oh So very fun. Thanks to Pokemon for letting us do that. But Yu-Gi-Oh one of the things around Pokemon XP that I think was a big deal and it's an event that they started last year is the PIN Rally. So basically, when you come to the event with your badge, there's a handful of, like, freebies that you get, like, just for signing in. You get the Rayquaza Pokemon XP promo, you get a couple booster box and then there's a bunch of, like, free stuff that you can get for, like, going and doing some of the experience things. There's always, like, the Play Lab and you get a pin. I don't think there actually was a PIN this year. There was like a button or something like that you could get. But they usually give you, like, these free demo decks if you go through the Play Lab. They had a special exhibit for the new 30th anniversary set and like the futuristic rares, and they gave away basic energy cards from the new set early. That was pretty cool, right? There's like, of things like that you get to do just with your badge. And one of the things they added last year, which I think was a lot of fun and very well received, was the PIN Rally. So there's a bunch of different stops around the venue where you go through. You do some sort of little activation thing. You like one of them. Last year you had to go sign in and download the Play. The Pokemon. The Play Pokemon access app. It was like a. A thing for that. And then you got one of the PIN Rally pins, and they did that again this year. But it was, like, Zebra chaotic this year. That's what I was gonna ask. I didn't think I heard any complaints last year. Did it work pretty smoothly last year? Because. Did you do some of them or. I did A couple of them, my wife and kids and my in laws came to Worlds last year. Nobody came with me. This year was just me. And they were able to do a couple of them no problem. It was like, not a big deal. Now, I think some of the more popular characters last year maybe did sell out, quote, unquote. Like they. They gave them like they ran through their allotment for the day or whatever. Right. So I don't think they were able to get like all of them, but they got a handful of them and were able to go do the things with relative ease. Maybe waited in a small line, but it wasn't a big deal. Yu-Gi-Oh But this year and this year actually I had thought about going and doing something because I, you know, I free time throughout the day between some of my obligations and the content I want to shoot. Like, I had some opportunities to kind of be. Have some free time. So I was gonna. I had planned initially to do that, but then I saw like the first line at the first one that I saw at the eventual. I was like, nope, I'm not doing any. I'm not doing any pin rallying at the event this year because it was. And it got really. It got really bad. The lines were pretty crazy. Even though there was quite a few different pins to like pick up, there's like. It was like eight or nine different pins. I feel like there was a lot of different pins to like be able to pick up. Yu-Gi-Oh So kind of the experience for a lot of people. Part of the issue, I think, was that the two most desirable ones or Umbreon and Charizard. Charizard were in the main hall. Yu-Gi-Oh Where some of the other ones were out, like in the gardens area. There was like someone. Rayquaza Road, I think it definitely seemed like the crowd was a very big thing. I don't have much to speak to about it because I spent most of my time like backstage and not having to like. I didn't see a lot of it, you know, but the lines looked like this. I don't know exactly what happened, but they ran out of like most of the. I think they ran out of like the Charizard in the Umbreon ones by like noon on Friday. And then at 9:30 ish on Saturday, they had shut it down for the day. They said, the pen rally is done. We're taking it down for the day. And then someone tweeted this showing that they were taking down the Charizard pin rally station. This was on Saturday evening. And then people got this notification that evening that said the pin rally is canceled for Sunday, August 30th. Propel Fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you Propel with Gatorade electrolytes? You know those tiny back to school emergencies that somehow become your problem. That's why I love Uber Eats. You can order school supplies, snacks and lunchbox essentials for $5 or less. So when your kid casually drops I don't like peanut butter anymore or I need five green highlighters for a project due tomorrow. Uber Eats has you covered. Get everything you need for back to school today from your favorite brands like Aldi and staples on UberEats. Order now ends. 97. $5 or less before taxes and fees. Select items only. Availability varies. See app for details. Yu-Gi-Oh there's just too much, too much going on. Too much to keep up with too many people. Yu-Gi-Oh Hopefully it doesn't go away because it seems like something that a lot of people like doing. Like I said, I was even planning to try and do some get some myself, but it's too hectic, too much going on. So hopefully they figure it out for the future. I don't know, maybe like pre assigning people pins with their badge. Kind of like how they did the lottery system for like some of the Pokemon center items. Maybe that is a fix. It'd be, it's kind of, it's kind of unfortunate to have to like limit it to that degree, but you got this many people. Look at these line like, I mean there's like no real queue set up for these lines. Right. People are just like waiting in line in a field, you know, like it's very. Yu-Gi-Oh this is not organized. Right. Like let's call it, call it what we see. This is a mess. And maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if everyone didn't go try to do it right away. Maybe they had enough and prepared for people to sprinkle in. But I guess that's maybe not even the case because they did run out on Friday. Right. I think maybe them running out on Friday probably didn't help them with this situation. No. Yu-Gi-Oh I think I. Hopefully it doesn't go away and hopefully they can just kind of figure out how to make it work better in the future. Especially with like maybe like you mentioned like two of the most popular ones in the main hall. Maybe spread them out to like an area and be more prepared for that many people to show up for those. It is a very cool thing. And I think, like, in theory, it's very fun. One of the other things I saw is, like, last year I mentioned that they were kind of tied behind, like, things you had to do. Right. You had to download the play Pokemon access app or. I don't remember what all of them were, but there was, like, you. You had to do something to earn the pin. I think this year you just waited in a line and they handed you the thing. I think there was also a rumor. I don't know how true this is, but it would not surprise me that, like, there was a fire marshal situation involved where the fire marsh marshall threatened to, like, shut the whole thing down if they didn't figure something out. And so if that's the case, I think it makes perfect sense to shut down the pin rally if at the risk of having to shut down the whole thing. Yu-Gi-Oh I think that. I mean, I also happened. I think there was a. The fire marshals got involved in Hawaii for the Pokemon Center. I think it's probably pretty common. I mean, they just need to, like, put their foot down and be like, Yu-Gi-Oh we're like, I. I think the. It's not as big of a deal as people might think, unless, like, Pokemon doesn't respond to them being like, you need to do something about the situation. So I'm. I feel like the fire marshal threats have, like, pretty fire pretty often in general. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I feel like the fire marshal is involved in every large gathering of people. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh That's what I'm saying. They're always there. I feel like them threatening to, like, shut things down happens pretty often, is what I'm saying, though, wouldn't it? Surprise. Sure. Like, them threatening to do something isn't actually as extreme as people might think it is. Probably only when they see hazardous, Potentially hazardous situations. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, if there was some sort of emergency in this big hall of people. Dude, it would not end well. No, definitely not. So, Yu-Gi-Oh things for. For TBCI to figure out for future pin rallies, but hopefully it sticks around. Yu-Gi-Oh If only they could have a way to know how many people would be coming and potentially want a pin. If only there was a way maybe count the number of tickets they sold. I don't know. That's just a thought. Yu-Gi-Oh Maybe account for, like, 90 of the tickets they sold. Would be the amount of people. Yu-Gi-Oh All right, well, let's keep it rolling here. Let's talk about something else that happened this was a bit of a surprise at the event. So obviously at any event there's going to be some form of side events, some other ways to play Pokemon, earn prizes. And I do think pretty traditionally at the World Championships compared to regionals, the Prizm wall is much more generous, I'll say than it has been at like regionals. I didn't realize this. I don't know if this has always been a thing, but people could get like Paradise Resorts from the Prizm wall this year. I don't know. I don't think that's always been a thing. Has. Wouldn't surprise me if it has, but I haven't heard about that specific specifically. But there's also like sometimes exclusives, right? Like playmats and stuff. There is always a Prizm wall exclusive playmat every year. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh So Yu-Gi-Oh I wouldn't surprise me but I can't say that for sure. I'd heard being able to get Paradise's arch on the Prizm wall. I've heard before about them giving away like old promos at the Prizm wall. Like I feel like I remember in like 2014 or 2015, like I wasn't playing back then, but I've heard this before that like one of those U.S. nationals or Worlds, like at the Prizm wall you could get tropical beaches or something like that that were like old stock or whatever you could say. Yu-Gi-Oh which seems like is maybe what they did with the Open here as well. Right? With the, the price support for the, the. I have no idea how they came to this conclusion. So at the Open, so in way before, like in pre Covid times and then I guess at 2022 Worlds every year at Worlds there was an open tournament that took place on Sunday. A one day event that was open to anyone who is attending the event to participate in. And in the past it's awarded championship points. It was a big thing where like hundreds of players were playing it and a lot of really good players would play with it. Like basically anyone who didn't make it into day two at Worlds or anyone who didn't make it into top cut at Worlds would play in the Open. Yu-Gi-Oh because you were in championship points, it gave you a jump start on the next season and it would also give you a jump start towards like the stipends and stuff like that towards future international championships. This was not an announced tournament. It was called the TCG Open. But there was no championship points involved. Just really, really, really good prizing. This picture posted on Twitter By Mellow Magikarp TCG Open Pricing all competitors receive 20 Prizm wall tickets, plus an additional 20 for each match point earned. I have no way to quantify what that equates to, but I think, Yu-Gi-Oh 10 Prizm wall tickets usually is a booster pack, at least at regionals and stuff. So I don't know if it's better than that at Worlds. Match points. Not for each one-of-one For each match point. So for each one-of-one you would get 60 tickets, right? Yu-Gi-Oh And then the top 32, 72 booster box which is three booster boxes or two booster boxes, sorry, top 16, a full set of Scarlet and Violet Surging Sparks. And then 108 booster box And then top eight, a full set of Scarlet and Violet Prismatic Evolutions and 144 booster box which is four booster boxes, I believe. Yu-Gi-Oh And the. For a full set, what that means is just like a playset, right? Of everything. One of everything. A single card in this. Not a playset, but like. Or not playset. Yu-Gi-Oh like a one of every single card in this set. Yes. Prismatic Evolutions. That is a massive set, right? It is a massive set. And there's some very expensive cards in the set as well. Let me see if I can. I'd be curious. I mean, that had to be like, old. This old stock they had of stuff, right? And they're just like, hey, let's just do something with this, right? Or do you think they went to the. The printing companies? Like, let's get these printed preemptively? I have no idea. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh here's an example. So these sets come in like a. See a box like this? This is it right here. This is the set. It comes in this white box, and then when you open it up, it has inside it one of every single card in the set. The regular cards, the reverse hollows, and also the exs, the Illustration Rare the full arts, and then the secret Illustration Rare and the secret rare the gold cards. It has one of every single card. So, yes, a complete set of Prismatic Evolutions can includes one of every single one of the Eevee Evolution cards. I heard players estimating that this top eight was worth around $8,000, if not more. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool. Pretty cool event for them to run. Pretty cool payout. It'd be cool to see them do stuff like this in the future. And I don't even know. They didn't announce it preemptively. Is that really that bad of a thing? I mean, the expectation is there now there that it could happen. Right. Because all the previous Open tournaments that did offer championship points, the last time it happened was in London and they haven't done one since. I don't think they should do them. I think the focus for competitive TCG should be on the World Championships. At the World Championships, I don't think we should be thinking or be concerned about other championship point level events at. So I'm kind of. I kind of think the Open is kind of takes away from Worlds a little bit if it exists. So I think it probably shouldn't exist anymore in the future. Previously I didn't really have a strong opinion, but now that we've kind of moved past it, better away from it for. And then this has been an option. Yu-Gi-Oh But now something like this, I think it's pretty cool. No championship points, nothing tied to the competitive circuit. It's just a big tournament that you can play in the Pokemon tcg. I think. Sure, it maybe there's a little bit of overlap there of what the Open used to be to this, but I think it's such like a different precedent for what that event's supposed to be. And I kind of like this. If they do this in the future. I did see some people saying that like this was the first time they had done something like this with like a master set. And that's not true because you actually used to get a master set of the four most recent expansions, a box just like this. When you made top four better at Worlds, it was like a Prizm given as well. Like I grant, when he got top four in seniors, got sealed sets of the four most recent expansions at the time, which he got pretty good ones. I think at the time he didn't think they were very good. But looking back, he got a sealed master set of legendary treasures. XY Base Set, XY Flashfire and XY Furious Fist. That's. Yu-Gi-Oh it's pretty good. That's not bad. They also. Another thing they used to do when you bring with you bringing that up. I think they used to send you a case of every new set after you like one-of-one Worlds. If you one-of-one Worlds, you get a case of every set in between then and the next worlds. That might be like way older than that even. Yes, I think that is way old. Well, there was also. Yu-Gi-Oh Have you ever heard of the sportsmanship award? Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The person with the most play points or whatever. No, no, no. What was this one? There's someone who was a good sport at the World Championships. They got a box of Ever or Box or a case of every new set for the next year? Oh, no, I don't think so. Maybe I have, but I don't remember this. This happened. I don't know. I've heard this story before at the 2004 World Championships, where the person who was the best sports the. The sportsmanship one-of-one the sportsmanship award, and they got given a boxer case for the next year, something like that. Very valuable award to get. And so there became this kind of belief amongst the players that, like, they were going to give it to whoever finished dead last in the tournament for, like, being a good sport. And so one good player who I one-of-one name here. It's not my story to fully tell, but someone you know, we can talk about it later. Started off not well in the tournament. 02.03, and then decided, just started scooping. I'm gonna one-of-one the sportsmanship award. That didn't exist, I assume. No, it did exist. And he one-of-one the. He was the. Oh, wait, it happened. Oh, my gosh. Oh, I thought it was gonna. You're about to be memeing here, and it's like, no, it happened. It was a real thing. That's funny. Someone you may have lived with in the past. Oh, what the heck? Who competed at the 2004 World Championships? I feel like I know. I know the story then. I think I've been told the story before. Yu-Gi-Oh it's. It's pretty likely. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But, Yu-Gi-Oh it would be cool to see them do the Open again in the future. I feel like, at this point, preemptively announce it. Maybe this is a little bit of a test run thing. I think it's, like, terrible to have things, like, not fully announced and then just, like, you know, you made your way out to the event. Boom. Here's a cool thing you could do. Or a cool thing you could see, like, the Ed Sheeran thing, right? Like, that wasn't preemptively announced or anything. They cut them. It wasn't even streamed. Yu-Gi-Oh they didn't even stream it. They cut the stream off because it was funny in the event. You saw people starting to get up and, like, leave as the president of Pokemon, his name's eluding me. Was, like, closing out. Ishihara was like, we'll see y' all next year or something. And then he, like, goes to, like, move to, like, walk off the stage. And that's when they cut the stream. And then he's like, wait, wait, don't leave just yet. We got one more surprise for you all. I Think a lot of people thought it was actually about to be a video game announced because they didn't mention anything about the video game, the main series video game. No announcement. Yu-Gi-Oh they did not. Next year. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But Yu-Gi-Oh hopefully they do it again in the future and they just have like having cool prizing like this I think is also really cool. Just like whatever. I mean, they have so probably so much stuff in their warehouses. Right. Or in their warehouse. Just like old stuff like this they can do for and turn it into a really cool pricing at like an open like this. Yu-Gi-Oh So pretty dope. All right, we are gonna move on to a brand new season of guess that flavor text. Azul, do you want to intro for the people while I scramble and look for a card? Because I'm underprepared for this very first iteration of the new season. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess that flavor text, of course, is the game where me or Chip will pick a card, read the flavor text on the card, and then the other host has to try and guess which player Pokemon belongs to that flavor text and card. If you get it right without using a single lifeline, you get four points. And then for each lifeline you use, you get one less point. The lifelines are what set the card is from which stage the card is, and then read an attack name on the card. This is our second season. Our first season lasted four years, but now we decided to do it based on the competitive season, the Pokemon tcg. So this is our first flavor text of the new season. New competitive season. Although I guess has the competitive season even begun? It's like, I guess it's coming up this week, right? You can have cups and challenges, so I think so. I can't. I tried to look at the event locator today, and apparently that's a whole other thing. You can't even see anything on the event locator right now, which is concerning. Yu-Gi-Oh I know they are aware of that issue, but apparently it hasn't been fixed. Yu-Gi-Oh apparently it hasn't been fixed, but that is a. Well, I mean that. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean that thing is still a work in progress. That app is definitely big time work in progress. Unfortunately, just. Just a couple years in. A couple years in. But Yu-Gi-Oh new season's coming up. Second season. I've guessed that flavor text chip. I'm ready for this first flavor text of season two. All right, here we go. When it decides to fight all out, it stands on its previously folded legs to enter showdown mode. It neutralizes its enemies in short order. Propel fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you propel with Gatorade electrolytes? You know, those tiny back to school emergencies that somehow become your problem. That's why I love Uber Eats. You can order school supplies, snacks, and lunchbox essentials for $5 or less. So when your kid casually drops, I don't like peanut butter anymore. Or I need five green highlighters for a project due tomorrow. Uber Eats has you covered. Get everything you need for back to School today from your favorite brands like Aldi and Staples on Ubereats. Order now ends. 97. $5 or less before taxes and fees. Select items only. Availability varies. See app for details. Chip, I got some bad news for you. I know exactly what card this is or what Pokemon it is. It is Low Kicks is Basic, which is Nimble, right? Is it Nimble? Is that. It's gonna lock it in. Is that Locix's basic name Nimble? Low Kicks's basics name is Nimble. Yes. Are you locking it in? I'm locking in Nimble. Oh, thank goodness. Okay, well, let's go through the other. The other lifelines real quick for all the people playing along at home. Oh, my God, it's not Nimble Attack. Name Speed Attack. What set the Carters from Paldea Evolved stage. Stage one. Because it's low. Oh, no. Dude, I didn't realize Low Kicks also had the folded legs. No, because one of Nimble's flavor texts is something about the legs being folded. Holy. Not exactly. This one, though. Oh, my gosh, Bullet. I should have been like, oh, it could be Low Kicks, though. Maybe. What stage is it? Oh, no. Also, it doesn't sound like a Basic Pokemon. An evolving Basic Pokemon flavor text as well. It sounds like it. More like a stage one. Stage two. It does. Yu-Gi-Oh So it's a pretty terrible, more aggressive. Ask me not. Pretty good guess. Pretty good guess. Not. Did not. I should have. I should have slowed down and been like, wait, could it be Low Kicks? I just didn't slow down. I almost got punished for not having a card prepared. Oh, no. Oh, my gosh. All right, well, zero points to start off the season, but an exciting first Guess that flavor text. Holy cow, Man, I gotta lock in. All right, let's keep rolling here to the World Championships and the results of said tournament. I don't know. Where should we start? You want to just look at the winner. You want to talk about the metagame? Let's just start with the meta game. It's always best to start with the meta, I think. All right, we'll kick it off with the meta game. And we, of course, as many others, believed Dragapult to be the most popular deck. And it was the most popular deck. It was slightly less popular than, I think where we ended up on our tier list. I'm gonna pull up our. I think we were. I got like 45 or something like that. Well, this does have it at 45. Oh, no, that's one rate. 40. 43. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So we're slightly lower. Let's see. Yu-Gi-Oh here we go. Yes, we did have it at a combined 40, 50, or 46. 46. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Combined 46. Yu-Gi-Oh So we weren't like, Zebra far off. I think a lot of people had it in that range. Eggs a little bit low. I would have predicted it to be higher than lower, I guess around the 45 mark. But I think our splits were pretty good here, though. We. It was 22. Straight pulse. We said 25. Yu-Gi-Oh 10.5 polt. Nor. We said 12 and then 9% or it was 9.8. Blazing. And we said 9. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So pretty close on the breakdowns pass it just being the overall poll number. And then slot box was the second most popular. I think here on Limitless. Robin might have slot box broken down a little bit more than. But on the official graphic, it was like. Oh, no. Was it 10 on the. It was right around 10 on the official. Yu-Gi-Oh okay. Okay, never mind. So it is broken down about the same amount. And I think it did. Something else is like Mega Absol. Box is probably grouped in there. Terror box is probably grouped in there. I don't know if it was. Raging Bolt was grouped in for the official. Oh, Raging Bolt may have been grouped in. I know Lily's Clefairy was not. Oh, really? So things were. I thought they. They definitely started to group stuff more together because it definitely seemed like. Well, when we showed the best of the rest, it had the Lily's Clefairy deck on it. Oh, okay. Like the quad. Lily's Clefairy. Yu-Gi-Oh But it didn't have Raging Bolt. I want to say. Are they on here? I don't think Robin even shows them on here anymore, which is understandable. For a while. He showed the. At the bottom of, like. Yu-Gi-Oh he had the screenshots. Yu-Gi-Oh he doesn't do that anymore, which is understandable because all the data is right here. But, Yu-Gi-Oh but, Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, we did not think. I mean, even, like, what. However they combined it, this was more popular than we thought it was going to be by, like, a decent margin, to be honest. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh by quite a bit. Definitely didn't have that read on the. The basic box overall. And then I don't know what percentages we gave to a lot of the other stuff, but nothing else is, like, a huge shock. There was a lot of Zoro hype. I felt like going into the event the last two weeks before it, Alakazam ended up being more popular than I thought it would be. But we put it in a tier, right? I think. I think we did. And we both talked about how we thought it seemed like a really good play for the tournament. And, Yu-Gi-Oh honestly, other people thought that too. Honestly, reflecting on our tier list a little bit, maybe everything should have been pushed down a bit, where it's like. Like, just like. Yu-Gi-Oh In retrospect, it feels like Alakazam maybe should have been alone in A tier, and then everything else should have been bumped down a tier. And then Zorark, Big, basic, Slow King should have been in B tier, like, and everything else bumps down a tier. Sure. It feels like maybe it's how it should have. Like, looking back on it, obviously, hindsight, like, more information. Yu-Gi-Oh this is definitely one of the few things in Pokemon. It's one of the few things in Pokemon where you can apply some hindsight to like, it and be like, okay, like, what. What new data do we have? What were the player? What did the players actually end up playing? Whatever. Just so it's clear, everyone, I'm aware that the saying is hindsight's 20 20, but that's like the joke because Cam Newton once said, like, I always heard hindsight, 50. 50. Yu-Gi-Oh And everything else from there drops off pretty hard. What do we put for extra Drill? Actually, because it is only four. We had it at five. Okay. Yes. Four percent. Yu-Gi-Oh So we were pretty close, honestly, with the Drill, where we thought it would be. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't remember. We did have Raging Bolt broken out here, and it was 3% and it was actually 3%. Yu-Gi-Oh Festival 2.8. We put it at 3. So we all. We. A lot of people were surprised the festival lead was not more popular. Yu-Gi-Oh I think it makes sense, though. Like, Drill and Festival Lead, if they were more popular, wouldn't have been a surprise. But the fact that they're not also kind of makes sense. Like, the festival lead still, like, the Poll matchup is just so much to confidently want to confidently be able to overcome. And for extra drill it's just. It's like a way more narrow matchup spread deck. Right. Like you don't your matchup spread with extra drills just not that wide. Although it is a good deck. You're gonna peep the other category. We got one mega Greninja in the room. 4, 4, 4, 4. There was three mega Venusaur in the room and somehow toward played against one in like round two. But he ended up beating it with his work. Oh. Which I don't know how he managed that, but he did is the Sanders deck. Yu-Gi-Oh Sanders the Dunsparce control. This got up on stream. Oh man. There's a lot Tutu, Rabska, Sylveon. He did lose to Vinnie on stream, but I think I didn't watch that game fully. But from what I understand, Vinnie playing Zarosic was a big issue for Sander. Yu-Gi-Oh Because he doesn't have like an infinite. He has no way to. He's not like to dene or anything in here for like infinite resources. So it's like you will build up a big hand eventually and then you could run out of stuff. But then the event. Well, I guess let's talk about the day two met a share because I will say I think this was a bit of a surprise to most people, myself included. Dragapult's meta share went down significantly from day one to day two. 43. Day one. 29. Day two. Yu-Gi-Oh We've seen a drop off I think from day one to the two before. But this is obviously like huge 10 or more than that. It's like 14% the most recent regionals dude, it's been 30 into like 45 to 50%. Okay. So just always been up. I feel like there was one where it went from like 29 to 28 or something. Possible. Possible. Let's see. So day one 32 in Indy. Day two. 43. Yu-Gi-Oh 43. Yu-Gi-Oh A lot of them have been big, big jumps up. Let's see what it was. I think for the one thing about this though is like it's hard to go up from 43. Like well to the same degree. Like having a 10 increase would have been kind of crazy. It almost feels like. And it does. It is because of like the. The players that are showing up to the tournaments. It almost feels like war. The world's metagame is like kind of like technically what the other major tournament metagame should be. But people just don't take the game as seriously as the players who are at Worlds. Right. So the world's players are going to play decks are going to more so are going to lean more towards playing decks that get us closer to whatever like a solved meta game would be. Right. So when we get. When we just go to regionals, it's going to be such a wider metagame, a little bit more all over the place. Worlds can be a little bit more narrow, a little bit more closer to whatever the solved metagame is. So we'll see like things expand out a little bit again, probably going into multimore. But like this is like we probably should see like higher Dragon Ball percentages that regionals that take a little bit of a hit going today too. But instead we see lower Dragon Ball percentages that actually increase going today too. Not that there's like a wrong or right or wrong way to play it, but like in terms of like what does a more solid meta look like? Worlds is probably closer to it. There was a lot of pretty interesting decks that made day two, to be honest, and some of them even doing really well like this toxtricity box ended up in the top 32. And we'll talk about some of those interesting decks here shortly. But let's first go look at the final standings, the top eight and man, what a star. Studded top cut. Specifically the top four. I mean it doesn't really get much better in the game right now than these four players. No. Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. I think like the name that maybe stands out is a little bit less familiar. People people is familiar with is actually Diego, but he is the world champ going into cut. He one-of-one in 2017. He's been around for a long time. Did he one-of-one he. Did he one-of-one a major this season or last season? He got like third this year. Yu-Gi-Oh he's got. Had multiple top cuts basically every single year in the events that he attends. Still competes at a high level in his region. Yu-Gi-Oh always a very competitive player. Makes his way out to some of the other ics usually. I don't know if he makes his way to a ton of regionals outside of. Oh no, he did though. He went to. Was this Diego's page we're looking at? Yu-Gi-Oh he went to Lil in Gadansk actually this season. Yu-Gi-Oh there you go. Definitely the. Historically the more successful player out of that top four. Yu-Gi-Oh Diego is now the player with the second most ever top cuts at the world championships. He had four. He got top eight in 20 2005. Sorry. He got top eight in 2000, 2007, seven, 2009 and then of course one in 2017 and then got second place this year. So that's four. You know the other player who has the most top eights, who has five top eights? Yu-Gi-Oh Sammy Sukum. Sammy Sukum, that's another name that most people probably do not know. No. Yu-Gi-Oh And he played, he's been playing a little bit or at least I don't know if he played at all this season. But the couple seasons before this season he was playing. I actually hit him in my run in Stockholm. I played against him. I think he plays at EUIC every single year. Yu-Gi-Oh he got day two. It's Lai at euic. Yu-Gi-Oh there he is. But Yu-Gi-Oh Diego, of course former world champ. So that's really cool. Henry we had on the podcast in the past. But you know, most people know for his, you know, three regionals wins last season, Brent was ranked number one in the world. I think the season previous to that, multi time regional champion as well. And then Andrew Hedrick, NAIC champion, five time regional champion. And then now Azul world champion Andrew Hedrick. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Pretty. Pretty good finish for him here in terms of like the accolades and this is like one of the not to like, I think it's like worth talking about in terms of like the landscape of where the game is headed. Like this top four is some like the most dedicated players to the game, successful players. Some of the people who rarely does Pokemon. Yu-Gi-Oh I was gonna say rarely does the best player in the game one-of-one the world Championships. Right at the time. No, no shade towards any previous world champions. Of course, we've all had great world champions throughout. But there's an argument that Hedrick is like top two players in the world right now. Right. Prior to Worlds. Right. So coming here, getting the dub, I don't think. And then you look at the rest of the top four and some of the rest of the top cut as well. These are some of the biggest grinders, dedicated players to the game. It's just, it's cool to see and I hope the landscape shifts more and more towards that where it's like the people who put the most time in are the only players we're starting to see have success. I don't think it's like a bad thing and like seeing that more of in the future is like, I don't know, it's kind of exciting for me as someone who's like just a fan of the competition and all that. Look at his events, post rotation first six. 17th first. It's not bad. One. One card different every time or something then that was something I wanted to talk about here. Like, people worry so much about, like perfecting their list and like finalizing the perfect 60 cards. This guy changed one card from his NAIC list. He cut an ultra ball for a second. Badoo. Yu-Gi-Oh I wonder how many games he played with it to like come to that determination as well. Yu-Gi-Oh But one thing I will say is, like, how much work did he put in initially to get to the hammer polish he used to one-of-one la? Sorry. He did also change. He also cut a psychic for a third dark. That is one other change. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh So like, how much time did he put in prior to that though? And then once you like to. Once you discover a deck is just good enough, there's no reason to change it if you don't want to. Right. Like, how much time did he put in pre LA to come to the termination that this was a really strong way to play Poll. And then after that, I'm sure if he thought the deck was ever not good, he would have Tribute it and found something else. But if the deck is always good, you know, you're content with playing it, there's no reason to change. Right. So just keep running it and Yu-Gi-Oh pretty insane success. Like he's mentioned as post rotation. And then from the LA one-of-one now to the world's one-of-one And also, I mean one in a pretty incredible, hilarious way as well by decking his opponent out. Diego, why did you put the lucky helmet in play? He actually would have been fine. It's all been talked about. We don't have to go Zebra in depth on that. But basically Hedrick decked him out by using Dragon Headbutt into an alakazam that had the lucky helmet attached to it, forcing Diego to draw two cards. Diego did not replenish his deck fully. And then Andrew one-of-one on the next turn by using Ram with Dunsparce to make Diego draw his last two cards in deck. And Andrew became the world champion. I mean, that is. Dude, it's just so sick to see it play out that way. Yu-Gi-Oh I caught the Blue Ice it was developing when he like attached a lucky helmet, I was like, I don't know if he should do that there. And I think. How many Prizm cards did Diego have left going into that turn? Because I think because Diego could have gone, he cycled it to Dunspars and he could have attached an energy and the third tool card and cycled it. Right. Like he could have Done that. He had two. He had two Prizm cards on Hendrick's turn when Hendrick attacked. Yes. Let me. I can pull up the stream. Because I think there might have been. So maybe Hedrick did. I was thinking. I actually wasn't. I didn't remember correctly. If Hedrick had like one more turn where he could have attacked into the Alakazam and then if the bottom card of the deck was the tool card, then cycle three. Yu-Gi-Oh He would have still only cycled three cards, but he would have to have three Prizm cards left, I'm pretty sure for that to have worked. So I don't know how many Prizm cards he had left. It was also an interesting choice for Hendrick. He did have three Prizm cards. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So I remember like when I was watching it, I was like, well, even if Diego does do the Dedon Spar cycle play, Hedrick could punch the Lucky helmet again. And then if Diego bottom decks the tool card, Diego can't put four back in the deck. And then he would lose to another attack into the lucky helmet on the. On the next turn. It is interesting though. Like what? Like, it would be interesting to ask Hedrick what, what he was thinking when he made this play in terms of like, does he think Diego just one-of-one see the Denon Spark cycle play? Obviously the third tool could be prized and Diego would need. Well, the Diego, like guarantees has energy here. I guess so that's never like a thought from Hedrick. It's like, well, does he have energy? He always has energy here. So it could be like the tool could be priced. He could not see the play or you could bottom deck the tool on the follow up attack. Right. And then deck him out that way. And this all happened because Hedrick missed his attack on this turn and retreated into Meowth. And I think Diego read this as Andrew has special red card in his hand. He wants me to take these two prizes, so I'll go down to three. He can play special red card. And then this forced Diego to dig Zebra hard way more than he needed to to get this knockout on this Meowth to try to find his eerie. Did you even look for. Did Dio have bosses turn because Boss killed Dracula was probably the better play here. Yu-Gi-Oh maybe so. Right? Maybe. I don't know. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh If he had boss here, you should always just boss there. Yu-Gi-Oh Then he. He plays the eerie. There's no red card. But then Hedrick top decks the red card. But if Hedge is aware that Diego could loop back up off of Dun Source plus Energy plus tool. Should Hedrick have just gone for attack plus red card? Here would have been the question. Especially with the Alakazams burned. If the Alcozams weren't burned. That's what the interesting thing about this place was. Diego did burn zams which is like your recovery draw power from getting hand disrupted is cadaver intel Kazam. But when you burn both zams and then if you got red carded next turn then you could be in trouble of like actually recovering for future kos. So it's definitely a very interesting end game. And on Besides Diego's obvious throw, there's still some interesting choices there from Hedrick as well as like what was the correct play on that side of the field? Especially like what was he thinking in the moment? Would be interesting to know Propel Fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you propel with Gatorade electrolytes? You know those tiny back to school emergencies that somehow become your problem. That's why I love Uber Eats. You can order school supplies, snacks and lunchbox essentials for for $5 or less. So when your kid casually drops I don't like peanut butter anymore or I need five green highlighters for a project due tomorrow, Uber Eats has you covered. Get everything you need for back to school today from your favorite brands like Aldi and Staples on Uber Eats. Order now ends. 97. $5 or less before taxes and fees. Select items only. Availability varies. See App for. All the same and incredibly fun to watch. Finals match Congratulations to Andrew. Congratulations to Diego as well. I think him getting here gives all the polka dads and all the old folks a little bit of hope. Right? Like we can do it too. And the Finest stat I heard going around through the weekend was like if Diego wins the World Championships, he'll be the oldest world champion since Diego. Yu-Gi-Oh I also thought it was funny because you guys did like the cashier prediction images. It was like on Diego's side it was Diego and all of the oldest casters besides Amy. And then on the everyone who voted for Hedrick was like the younger. It's like one generation younger voted for for Hedrick. Uncs sticking together on the Yu-Gi-Oh I kind of wish that we wouldn't do that to be honest, because I feel like people can like try to claim like bias in casting or whatever. Maybe it's not that big of a deal but like sports that like on like college game day, they don't let the person who's calling the game make their prediction. Yu-Gi-Oh that makes sense. That makes sense for sure. And honestly I was also kind of rooting for Diego. I think it was just like a, it was a cooler storyline for the Diego dub. Hedrick getting second here. He'll come back to get his dub later. He's got plenty of time to play the game still. I mean I don't, I don't know if Diego's going anywhere anytime soon. I guess you say that but dude, like getting back is not a guarantee at all. Hedrick will be, Hedrick would be back. I'm sure Hedrick will be back from this moment too. But like Diego, like another multi time world champion would have been cool. Diego specifically, you know, being how, how old he is, how long he's been in the game, which be like a really cool storyline. So I'm not gonna lie. My, I was kind of rooting for Diego a little bit. Hendricks have plenty of time to get his, his worlds up later but he got one early. Maybe now Hendricks now Hedrick's gonna become the, the next multi time world champion. We'll see. Andrew Hedrick Top 10 all time. Azul, you think? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. Top five. Probably top five. There's an argument for him to be third I think behind Jason and Tord. So you, I mean I think a lot of people, a lot of people give you that third spot right now which I think is deserved. Eight time regional champion, top four at worlds, two time international champion, Players cup champion. Can't forget that one. Can't forget the players and flavor Tech season one champion as well. We put that accolade but like people, people were giving me props on. I was like I still gotta dub this season in the flavors. Yu-Gi-Oh ridiculous. But so, but hearing but like I think most people would agree you are number three all time. Sure. Would you feel like Andrew's res or. Yu-Gi-Oh Hendrick's resume stands up to your resume like his, his world's one-of-one is greater than your extra three regionals plus extra IC one-of-one I mean it's probably close. I mean if he starts winning anything else, it'll surpass me for sure. But I'm play a little bit more the season so maybe I can get a dub in there and, and put up a little bit of a fight. We'll see. I mean he'll pass me for sure at some point if he hasn't already passed me Now I haven't really thought about it that hard. Top five, I think now I think Hendrick's top five. Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. And then you can. Yu-Gi-Oh people put me in third in the past. I haven't really thought about it that hard. You could definitely make an argument for him to be ahead of me or not, but, I mean, I think I'll definitely pass me at some point. I'm just not going to ever go to as that many events anymore to be able to compete with just like the potential there. So, Yu-Gi-Oh he'll pass me at some point for sure. And who knows, maybe he will pass. It'd be cool to see someone compete because obviously I'm not. I haven't been ever in that conversation of competing against Tort or Jason, but it'd be cool to see someone in that realm. I think you have to start questioning if Diego would have been there if he had one-of-one Right. I think Diego becomes default third and Diego's. I don't know, is Diego fifth now or is he a top five as well? It's like, it might have to be in there as well. So it's tough to think about stuff to talk about that in those realms. Those always fun conversations to have. I think some people take them a little bit too seriously, but, Yu-Gi-Oh it's just for fun. At the end of the day, I think Jason and Tortoise still top two. I think that's the more interesting. I think that's the more interesting question, like, am I third? Is Hector third? Who cares? Who knows? I mean, I think Diego's in that conversation that was on top of that. But I think the more interesting question is, like, what does someone need to do to actually compete against Torton? Jason? I don't think we're there yet. I don't think anyone's there. Diego would have been the closest with this dub, but even second, a first and a second, that's. That's still pretty good. So he's up there, right? Yu-Gi-Oh I think Diego's lack of success, like no dubs, the IC level hurts him in the conversation. I don't know how many regional wins he has. He has at least one. Yu-Gi-Oh His is really just carried by his world's finishes, which is like, very respectable, obviously, for sure. I mean, I mean, that's the most important tournament of the year. Right. It makes sense. It carries the most weight. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess we could go from there and talk about Diego's build of Alakazam. We talked about Hendrick's deck, but Diego played Like the most normie zam build like everyone looks like control Zam Rabska Zam. And Diego was like two genesects and battle cages. Like I am still like, Yu-Gi-Oh like the most normies am list. I feel like in terms of like this is what people are playing post rotation, basically, besides the double Genesect. Like people eventually found the dene e hammer technology, but he just kept it Zebra simple, which is very interesting to see because everyone was trying to like find like the hidden or it felt like everyone else was trying to find like the. The. The hidden. Best way to play Alakazam. But Diego was like, nah, Battle cage is pretty good. Just run four of them. Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. I do think you are still like. Like, I think this deck is unfavored into Andrew's deck. Right. But I think it gets closer when it's like something like Henry in top four had one stadium card. Right. So Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh He really gets to phantom dive for full effect one time in the game. Yep, yep. And so after that, like, I mean if people are going to the one stadium ever like this I think is 50, 50 against Dragapult, if not slightly favored. Honestly. I mean, Henry even had Nor as well. Like Yu-Gi-Oh well, this. Yu-Gi-Oh With the Nor. I don't know, maybe it is still favored for the Nor build because. Right. Dio did not have the duck but once. But your decks is less consistent than something like Hendricks. Right. Like the consistency of Hedrick's build compared to Henry's having the dun sparse. There's extra stuff to work with. But I guess Henry's Blue Ice a little bit different because it didn't have any of the darks of the monkey doors. You had extra space to be a little bit more or. Or crushing hammers as well. There's no crushing, but hey, I'm brand Penrith so fast. There's like nothing in here. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's literally just Dragon Ball and Dust Storm. Also only one Crispin. Interesting. I guess the argument is like you're more energy efficient towards your dragon pulse necessary energy because you don't play dark energy that your manual attachments will more likely be on. Draclo can be a fire or psychic, so you don't need it as also Fortnite stretcher. So your access to the energy is just higher throughout a game to like not with attachments. But it's interesting to the only one Crispin. Also look at this run for Diego. Like has a little resistance early. Right. With a few pulse takes down a raging bolt. Basic box. Basic box. Basic box ties a mirror, Slow King, which is a very good matchup. Ties as a arc and then beats Slow king on the winning end, which is a very good matchup. But then has to go through the pulsing cut and he's able to do it. It does hit Rune in top four, which is a. Sorry, this is top eight. Actually a very, very, very favored matchup for Diego. Yu-Gi-Oh that's another thing with, like, Diego's build, like you said, he just kind of kept it simple and he stuck with the E Hammers, which is something that we saw a lot of Zan players cutting, which I think was like a. A reasonable risk to take. I was cutting from all my ZAM builds prior to Worlds, but, Yu-Gi-Oh he stuck it out with the. The Hammers and the Dene and was just like, nope, just play the. The cards to beat the. The wider master spread. And then, Yu-Gi-Oh hits the. Crustle at some point is able to take it down, which is something that I, from looking at Twitter and stuff, seemed like a lot of other Zam players fell victim to the Crustal at the event. But maybe it was correct to tech for Crossle the whole time because Crustle did seem like a pretty good play going into the tournament. Like on game day. Like on game day, I was like, wait, this actually just seems like it's. It's good. Yu-Gi-Oh I know. Rahul told me that he really felt like the basic box was going to be, like, Zebra Zebra popular when I talked to him at the tournament. And that's why he stayed with Crustle and made a good medical there because, I mean, there's a lot of them and they do not deal with Crustle at all. And then the Pulse can have a hard time against Crustle and we say that, but if we look at Hedrick's run, which we haven't done yet, he did have to go through Satoshi on in Top Cuts. And Hedrick has no real answers for Crustle. But enough Hammerheads, sometimes you just get there. Yu-Gi-Oh punch them with the design. Sparse. Cycle it back to the deck. When we saw the bracket, we were like, Satoshi has like a free path to. To the finals. To the finals. Because he goes through Brent. He goes through him. Andrew. He goes through Brent. Then would have lost to Diego in the finals. Yep. Yu-Gi-Oh he had it lined up there. And what was. Brett, let's go. We just hop between lists here. So I guess we go. There was Brent's. We don't have to really look at the Crustal list. I don't know if you want to look at Crustal. So Brent was just playing hammers. No to Dunspars. Okay. Okay. Yep. Went with the Moltres instead. Another thing that Hedrick has never played. Right? He's never played the Moltres. Yu-Gi-Oh And the judge in here as well, which Hedrick has not played since special red card came out. Yep, yep. A little bit more hand disruption in this build. Yu-Gi-Oh very heavy into it. And Yu-Gi-Oh that's the top four lists. We've looked at them all now. There's a couple crystals here. Rune and Satoshi actually on the same 60. It's a crustle deck. Hey, look at that red card in there. That's not too often in there. And then easily the most unique deck in top cut. The proof Azul perhaps that it is a deck builders format. Mateus with Alakazam Dusknor Strange timepiece Gwyn. There's a lot going on here. Yu-Gi-Oh very cool build of the deck. Henry Brand also played this deck chip with the deck builder format comment there giving a shout to Henry Brand and Yu-Gi-Oh Henry did play his second. Very cool deck though. Very cool deck for sure. Not sure how it stands up like in terms of like power level. Like how playing something like this, like let's say this is just like as good as other Alakazam decks or as good as any other good deck. Playing something, playing something like this, you have a massive edge though being the first person to play it. So you always want to try and find these builds when you can. I don't think it's like some like broken new deck or any means like that, but very cool deck nonetheless. Someone actually messaged me on Thursday before Worlds looking for strange timepieces. I did not have them. I didn't ask them what deck they were playing so I didn't know what they needed them for, but I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh unfortunately I do not have any strange, strange timepieces on me, but I think it was this deck for sure. I don't know who it was for though. That's funny. Didn't ask. But it's cool to see the timepieces getting there. Very cool. It was really cool like that. If anyone wants to like get a better understanding of how this deck can function as like a checkmate deck, go watch Mateus vs Piper and their Stream match because it's a pretty good example of how powerful the deck can be. Did you watch Mateus versus Henry in top eight? No, dude. One of my favorite matches I think I've ever commentated. Oh, was it the. Was that the boss, top deck. No, that was in Swiss. That Henry, top decked boss. But Yu-Gi-Oh they went to sudden death in game two. They had to play a tiebreaker game in the middle of the set. Oh no. In top eight. That's pretty hype. It was so sick, man. And it was like so back and forth too. It was like Mateus like just. He missed like the rare candy to like one-of-one But then Henry whiffed on his turn and just scooped right away and was like, we're going to game three, just pack it up. Yu-Gi-Oh I think I'm remembering that correctly. Sounds right. one-of-one they played game three and then Henry. Yu-Gi-Oh I think, Yu-Gi-Oh I did see someone else shout this out and we could go take a look at Oyvind's list here next. But Oyvind and Mateus back to back cuts at Worlds. Yep. It's pretty hard to do. Yu-Gi-Oh Pretty tough to do. It's cool to see. I would also say two of the more innovative players I think from Europe that we've seen. I mean, obviously this build here from Oyvind is nothing crazy. This is like kind of naic Zorark Tomes. That's where we talk it. Popular. So cool deck nonetheless, but nothing crazy in terms of innovation. Unlike the Matthias build. But got to give a shout out to Oyvind nonetheless with the back to back cuts here. And it's been a pretty consistent player from Europe these last two seasons. Right. This kind of been his breakout has been these last two seasons and he's been keeping up with it. So it's really cool to see some more just like more names enter the space in terms like that Top player Echelon. Oyvind is definitely a name to keep a look out for moving forward. Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. And then Nathan Spry got cut with basic box. The lone basic box player rate. I think it is a raging Bolt deck, actually. I think he had a raging bolt in his deck as this thing is spazzing out. Here we go. Yu-Gi-Oh just the one Raging Bolt. Enamorus. Of course, the Enamorous and the Iron Crown are the other standouts. What does this get through? What are we caring with this? We're getting through Crustal, actually. Does this even be Crustal? Because it gets KO'd by Crystal. What is this for? It must be intended to be a crustle answer because you're nice faster than them. Perhaps. Maybe. Maybe it's good enough to be crustal. I have to imagine it's there for something else as well. Because if you really just wanted to be crustal. Oh, no. But the energy typing doesn't like, allow you to play Tauros. Yu-Gi-Oh I was like, just play Tauros. But Yu-Gi-Oh you can. Yu-Gi-Oh well, you could, but it would be another energy. You have to. No, this probably makes sense as a crystal. It probably is pretty efficient as a crystal counter, to be honest. Yu-Gi-Oh You have two night shifters, so you should be able to get there, I feel like. And then the Iron Crown might look a little funny, but it is really good against Alakazam. Gives you like a real, I think, solid shot against Alakazam. And festival lead. Yu-Gi-Oh festival lead as well. Yu-Gi-Oh guys. Yu-Gi-Oh give her the little guys. The applins, the abras. Also, Shaman does not. For anyone who's unfamiliar with this card, the way the the card is worded for the effect of ignores Shaman's ability protection to benched Pokemon. So even though Alakazam plays Shaman, you can still snipe hours off the bench. Yu-Gi-Oh Which makes it a really powerful card in that matchup to kind of set tempo for the Prizm trade. And then rounding out top cut, we've got Keon Amini. Keon, another, like kind of old school player at this point. Yu-Gi-Oh he was for a long time, whenever there was like day one, day two of Worlds, he was forever like day two US player. Right. One of those top 16 US players. Yu-Gi-Oh Hasn't had any, like massive finishes the last couple of years, but he's got some solid Worlds finishes. He got top 32 at the San Francisco Worlds in 2016, and he got top 16 at Worlds the next year in 2017 in his career. Or he tied his winning in last season for cut at Worlds with Kieran. I believe. I don't remember that, but I believe you. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I think I saw a post from on Twitter, you know, like, finally getting the top cat the world's cut. Yu-Gi-Oh there it is. Right 18th place with the jelly. Yep. Goodness. I believe these jelly enjoyers. What the heck? If high interest credit card debt is keeping you up at night, you're not alone. Interest rates as high as 21% APR can do that to you. Rocket Mortgage can help. A home equity loan from Rocket Mortgage could cut your interest rate by more than half. So you could wipe out your high interest credit card debt without touching your current mortgage rate. See how much you could save@rocketmortgage.com Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states and mlsconsumeraccess.org 3030 call 804 Rocket for full program details. This episode is Brought to you by Orgain Orgain Creatine monohydrate helps improve Mosaic size, strength and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. It supports brain health and it's Certified with informed Choice so you can compete with confidence. Studies show that creatine may support brain health in vegetarians and aging individuals. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Also, Kean, a fellow retro deck enjoyer. So got to give some recognition there. Yu-Gi-Oh compared to the Hedricks listed, literally just minus Moltres plus Badoo and then minus Fire for Dark Magic somehow has. Oh, Ultra Ball. So I was gonna say hedrick somehow has 3 nitro and then minus Ultra Ball for night stretcher. Yu-Gi-Oh the Badoo. But Yu-Gi-Oh there's the top cut. A lot of dragapults, but it wasn't like swarmed with dragapult. A couple crustles, a couple Al Kazams. And then as we go down into the top 32, there's a lot of Alakazam in the top 30. A lot of good players brought to him. A lot of basic box as well here in the top 32. Yep, yep. Go ahead. Kind of just looks like another deck in the mix. It doesn't even like stand out that much between cut and then like the follow up. Well, I think that's what happens whenever it's 20% of day two or whatever. 29. Yu-Gi-Oh 30. I guess it's like nowhere near as top heavy. Yu-Gi-Oh definitely cut though. But I think some standouts here. Grant Walworth with the top 16 high Dr. Apple. This is a deck not many people were really talking about very much. And to be honest, a lot of people who are playing ogre, pond, McGinnium were like back over to our Believa before this tournament. But this is actually Grant played the same 60 that he got top 32 at NAIC with. Played it at Worlds. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Gave it the run Pokemon. There's so. I think there's so little Pokemon search here. I guess this is the two dawn and then two Pokey back to Ultra Ball. Yu-Gi-Oh but Yu-Gi-Oh you got outside of the sets. The best search card is right here, buddy. There it is. The Celebi. That's the best card in the day. This time's pretty Good. Yu-Gi-Oh The 11 Noctel is definitely, like unique here, but he played it like I said. This is his same 60 from NAIC. Yu-Gi-Oh And then other unique decks. I think the Standout is the Toxtricity box deck here. Yu-Gi-Oh I think this is. It's pretty standard for Texas. Box. Interesting supporter lineup. The one judge. The one Morty scene talks box. Yu-Gi-Oh SoxBox is like one of those decks where like every time I play with it, I'm like, maybe there is something here. But it's just like such an underplayed deck. It's really hard to get a full grasp on how good is this deck. But. But we've seen some decent finishes with it, especially for, like, how low the play rate is. Right. And here's another one here. Top three. Two worlds. There might be more. I was going to get a little bit of a boost when playing a deck like this. Just because people do not know what you're doing. They've not practiced or played against it, most likely. Exactly. So some further investigation might need to be done into that one still. There might be. And then only one slow king in top 32. Yu-Gi-Oh I feel like Slow King was the deck with like a D. I mean, we had it in our tier 2 on our tier list. Felt pretty Hyper going to the event. People seem to be pretty confident in it. But it did not really perform and it didn't feel overly teched for. It was just like. Well, I guess maybe the Zam. Maybe Zam success is what kind of held it down. Right. I think that's a huge part of it for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh Sam wasn't like that. Overwhelmingly played. Right. 7%. But if you look at like the top 16, how many zams are in, like the top 16? 16. There's a ton of zams in top six. They all have Shaman. Yu-Gi-Oh Right. Yu-Gi-Oh Or maybe like top 30. Like this top. Yu-Gi-Oh It's not like still King Auto wins the pulp matchup either. So it's like you had a good. You got a close Pulp matchup and then you have a terrible Alakazam matchup. Alkazam wasn't that heavily played, but it was very successful. Have you seen this list? This is the control build list. Yu-Gi-Oh With the rest Syndicate grunt. Yu-Gi-Oh That had become kind of a little. Henry Thompson played two of them. Yu-Gi-Oh It's really interesting to see people cut down to two Candy. That's not something I'd ever thought about of making that adjustment, but it makes sense. I think you could probably get away with that. You don't need to attack that aggressively into many matchups. As long as you have two Cadabra in play, you're feeling pretty comfortable going to that turn three Attack and then this build was the other unique one. Keras Jones, Alex Szymanski and company. Wondrous patch. Lily's clefairy. Lily's pearl. Double eerie. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know about this build. I don't know. The clefairy has always just felt so underwhelming in the deck. This build, to me, feels like the lee. Like, this is the one. I'm like, least I don't even know the quarterback word. What was Calvin playing? Was Calvin playing a pretty standard Bill? He had the one rest. He was playing the Eldrim control. Oh, that was the one. This was the first build I showed you. Oh, okay. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh That's the one I'm least in. Like, the. The clefairy. I'm so. I'm not convinced. Like, maybe that's what I'm. Maybe that's the word I'm looking for. I'm just not convinced that that's the way to go with the Al Kazam builds. A little anecdotal for sure, but Keris did play on one of the feature match stations against a lopunny deck with four missed energy. And because they put all four missed energy on one lopunny, she was able to get through it with the surprise. Lily's clefairy. Yu-Gi-Oh I feel. I feel like there's no way that game should have ended how it did. I did watch that match, but, like, even though you don't know the clefairy exists, they were like. They were play. They were just, like, not attacking with the lopani. And it's like, are they. Because if you think your opponent plays e hammers into dene, you shouldn't wait. You should go fast. It felt like they were, like, waiting for something, but I was like, I don't understand what they're waiting for, because they could have been attacking, I'm pretty sure, but just were choosing not to. It's like building up more mists on the benched lopity instead of just swinging. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh They also played. I mean, I think a big. A big part of that was also they played red card in the alkazam, Right. So I think that was part of it. Right. Like, didn't care. So, like, red card attack with clefairy, and then that's where. Yu-Gi-Oh Fell apart. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The red car was a huge part Deal with that. Because otherwise they could just be like, oh, well. Even though I didn't have, like, a bunch of stuff set up, I can just wally now and then reset. Well, before we look at our predictions and recap them, I guess one thing I would ask is if you're looking at these results and you were to be going to cups and challenges in the next few months or preparing for Baltimore in a few weeks, what are your, like, biggest takeaways here? Zam's a good deck, and I think should be respected as just a good deck moving forward. Like, it's hard to. Like, it's really hard to counter Zam. Sam's got a lot of flexibility. Sam's a good deck. Big basic box is okay. Pulse still, like, the number one deck to worry about, I think. I think my. I think my biggest thing would be, like, zam's a really good deck. If you have a bad time against Zam, you need to figure that out or maybe just not play the deck that has a bad time against Sam, like, specifically for Baltimore for, like, little cups and challenges, you know, it's kind of whatever, but I think that would be my biggest takeaway. Sam's really good, and it'll be hard for it to not be, like, a really good play for Baltimore. So I wouldn't like stuff like zork and stuff becomes, like, less attractive of a play kind of with that in mind. All right, well, let's recap the predictions that we made for the world championships. Our first prediction, Azul, was how many dragapults in cuts? I said five or. Sorry, you said five. I said six. The correct answer was four. Less popular than we both thought. And I think we both were thinking it was going to be. I will say I was thinking cut would be like 11 or 12. It ends up being 10. I think that's more around where you thought it was going to be like, 10, 11, something like that. Yu-Gi-Oh that's about what I had as well, but we're pretty close. Weren't that far off, right? Yep. Highest placing former champion. You Beckett Henry. I Beckett Liam. And the answer was Diego with his second place. So Liam did finish higher than Henry. I don't think Henry made day two. Right. But Liam wasn't. No, he did not. After. Yu-Gi-Oh that's fair. That's fair. After Diego, who's the next highest finishing former champ? Oh, Naic champ. I know most of them I like, at least feel like I would recognize them. That would stand out. Yu-Gi-Oh it is Liam. 60th November. There it is. All right, then pick a champion. Zool, you went with Vinnie Fernandez. I went with toward. And neither of them were the champion, obviously, but Vinnie did finish higher than Tor, so he was. He was closer. He was seven and five. Yu-Gi-Oh Toward Denmark. I didn't realize he had played fire energy. And I didn't realize he played fire engine Moltres. Yep. That's the sauce, buddy. Nah, Listen, if you're going this route, you got to get Darmanitan in there, because then you can end PP up and attack with the Darmanitan. There we go. That's Evolution series tech right there, bro. Remember my Zork Darmanitan deck with fire energy? Yu-Gi-Oh I do. I do. There's the missing sauce. Video is so close to greatness. And then that's it for the tournament. We did do some predictions about the reveals. First one was, where will Worlds be next year? Azul predicted Paris. I said Philly. And the answer is Singapore, which is pretty crazy. Pretty insane. It was so out of left field to me. I thought this should be proof to anyone who thinks, like, I know everything and, like, am like, dude, I thought there was no way that we were going outside of the US to somewhere that there wasn't a TPC or TPCI office, and we're going to Singapore. What the heck? Yu-Gi-Oh Apparently the. The Singapore rumors are true the whole time. Singapore the whole time. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm very surprised that ended up being Singapore. I thought it was all just, you know, people, some rumor started somewhere, and it just kind of, like, spread really fast. But apparently Singapore the whole time. I'm excited to go there. I'm definitely gonna be going in some capacity no matter what, next season. Singapore seems like a pretty cool place to visit, check out. But I'm with you, though. Yu-Gi-Oh I would not have predicted for it to actually have been there at all. I thought. I thought our guesses were a little bit more where I had a higher odds than Singapore for sure. But it's definitely going to be cool. And then finally, what will the TCG reveal be? Azul said Badge Pokemon. I said Ancient traits, Primal Ground on Primal Cargo. And then when I was actually talking to some of the other casters before, they were like, how is it not just, like Mega Pokemon Z? And I was like, you know what? That makes a lot of sense. And it was. That's step one. Z is literally just Mega Pokemon, though. It's not like a new thing, right? Yes, it is not a new thing. No additional mechanic. It is just the existence of Mega Pokemon Zone. And I think the copyright information has existed for, like, Aura Seeker or whatever. I don't. We don't know what the name is going to be in English, but Aura Seeker is what it's going to be in Japan. But Yu-Gi-Oh here are the cards. And I got. Dude, whenever they revealed these, I was like, dude, again, they're just revealing. Yu-Gi-Oh more Mega Attack Rares. Cool, man. The Rayquaza doesn't even look that cool if you ask me. I mean, it's fine. But like the coolest part I mentioned, like I mentioned last episode, I think. I thought. I thought these are gonna be pretty underwhelming, like the reveals for the tcg and they were pretty underwhelming. I think next year will be big, but. Well, I don't know. You say that, but they did tease a new gameplay mechanic in some way. Pokemon Ex Star teased. See, but dude, I don't understand why they don't reveal it at Worlds. Because now we're just going to get it revealed at the Champions League in two weeks, right? Champions League in two weeks. No, I said the Champions League in two weeks. They might reveal the January set stuff. So then it would be the Champions League after that. There's. I don't know. It feels like. Why not? I mean, I'm sure. Maybe they just don't have like prototypes of the car. No, they have to have prototypes of the cards already. Like. Like they have to have the cards already made. Like, why would they just not just show the cards at Worlds? I feel like the time to show the cards. Cards. I don't know. It just kind of felt weird to not show because these things are going to come out with the rotation set, I assume. Right. Like these will be. This will be our April set or the January set for Japan. I don't know. It just kind of felt weird for them to not show cards of it. But I mean, my prediction is it's gonna be. It's like ex Silver Star. They're going to be gold stars in ex Gold Star Pokemon, which would be like. Like a one of mechanics. See, makes sense because like aspects are rotating. I did think that too at first. And that kind of makes sense when you see these teasers. Because Suicune Entei Raiko all had gold stars. But the Suicune in Tei Raiko they revealed they are not shiny. And Pokemon Star and Radiant Pokemon, the one of Pokemon mechanics were all shiny Pokemon. So I wonder if there's something there. Like if they. They. These were all like shinies. I think, like, that would be obvious. It's some sort of like one of in a deck special thing. Now I'm a little. The fact that they Weren't shiny does make me question a little bit. I do think ultimately it probably will be that. But like I would expect them to be shiny, like one of Pokemon in a deck. I would just expect it to be like seen as a little bit more special, you know, which is what it has been in the past. I actually didn't think about that. I didn't. I didn't make that. That. I didn't have that thought there at all, to be honest. But I feel like I don't understand why they didn't show us that world. Okay. Because this is going to be. This is going to be our January set. Right. Or April. They do usually do it this way though. Yu-Gi-Oh But I. But now it's just kind of. Because now it's just going to be revealed at a Champions League. It's gonna be like way less hype, way less cool. It'll just be like they'll just show the cards like they do at every Champions League, which makes sense for like the normal season stuff. But when you have a moment like the World Championships, like why not. Yu-Gi-Oh Give it. Show it to this. Because I guess at the second Champions League is maybe when they'll reveal them, I guess 100. Sure. But it'll be like somewhere in that time frame. And that means at this point they have. The cards have to already be like in print, I would assume because then those cars will be coming out in January in Japan, which means we'll probably see leaks of them very soon. True, true. I don't know. Pretty cool. Definitely. Excited to see what it does end up being. I'm. I will say like this is more exciting to me than what I think the things where we predicted. This feels more like some new gameplay mechanic, right? Sure, sure. Yu-Gi-Oh So doing something bringing us something new like that's like changes the way you can build decks and play the game. I think is exciting. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, like I mentioned on last week as well, like I wouldn't be surprised. It feels like we're in a moment where it should be. It would be like Badge Pokemon or Radiance or. Or Gold Stars or something like that. Because we are losing aspex. We don't always have a forced one of in format as well for anyone who's like newer to the game. Like we've had ASPECs for a while now, but there's not. And then before that we had Radiance. It feels like maybe they're. Maybe they're on track to want to keep it like that though. They want a Forced one up in the game at all times. Well, even when there wasn't forced one ofs, there was forced one ofs. Like in a way with GX attacks. Right. An attack you can use once per game. V Star powers, which is a thing you can do once a game, right? Yep. So could it. And that was another thing I saw where maybe it could function similarly to like breaks or level X where. Well, I guess that's probably not the case. Actually, I'm saying it's not the case based on the fact that it was Suicune Inte Riku revealed. They probably will just be basic Pokemon. But like, there could be a thought process of like, V went to V Star could Ex go to Ex Star, right? Oh, okay, okay, true. But I think more likely it will be like some sort of gold star Ex form Gold Star type thing. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I guess that's fair though. Maybe the Ex Star we get like the abilities and attacks and stuff like that. But if it is an Ex Star, that's the first time that the singular Prizm Pokemon or the singular copy of a Pokemon you can Blue Ice like a Multi prizer, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Gold Stars were one Prizm Pokemon in a Ex format. And then similarly Radiance were a single Prizm Pokemon in a two or three Prizm format. Yu-Gi-Oh very true. This is the first time we'll have the Multi and we go back to Pokemon as well for the one of things which makes it more accessible with like Ultra Ball and stuff like when we had Radiance. True, true. All right. Yu-Gi-Oh I think it's interesting. I'm excited to see kind of more of the reveals and I would be excited if it was at the Champions League. You know what? That's fine with me. Yu-Gi-Oh that's also fine with me. All right, well, Zul, I think that is it for our topics this week. We do have a decent amount of things to discuss over on the bonus episode. But before we get over there, do you have anything you want to say to the people? Nope. Send us out. We appreciate the support as always. Thank you so much for watching. If you did enjoy, please be sure to leave us a like review rating comment. Subscribe. Those things help us out a bunch. Let us know you're enjoying the content, enjoying the podcast, and want to see more of what we do. Speaking of the content, we did put out a new video in the past week over on the Uncommon Energy Channel. Be sure to go check that out. We battled using Only the original 151 Pokemon through 151 collection boxes. Was a lot of fun, that video, actually, as well. I don't know if you've even checked. It's a 1 out of 10. It's like doing really, really well. So that's cool. So thanks to everyone who's watched that. And go check it out if you haven't. And if you want to stay up to date with me and as well, the best place to do it is over on X. You can follow us. You can follow me at Chipper Chi Azul at Azul gg and you can follow the podcast at Uncommon Underscore Energy. Catch y' all in. All right. Thanks for the support, as always. And we'll catch y' all in two weeks. No episode next week. So week after that, we should be back to our regularly scheduled time of Wednesday morning, same name, 7am Eastern.