We Finally Got Him: The Alex Wilson/PTCG Legends Episode

Hello and welcome back to the Battle Frontier podcast, where we aim to help you level up in your journey as a competitive Pokemon TCG player. Except today, once again, we are not really doing that unless you're interested in retro formats. So this is the long promised retro episode and heavy retro focus episode from myself, John and our special guest, the creator and proprietor of PTCG legends, Alex Wilson. And so, first and foremost, we'll say thank you to Alex. Your lack of a webcam notwithstanding, you'll see a nice jpeg here for Alex to be determined what it's going to be. It. He's left it up to our mercies. At one point he suggested having another picture of John, but we thought better than subjecting all of you to that. So we will, we'll figure it out and you'll see it here. So we obviously had worlds happen this past week. John and I also promised to be more consistent with content and totally failed at doing that. Just been busy in the interim between the last upload and this one. But we did promise that we would have this episode out and we are here, here to fulfill that for you. So we're going to look at just a more or less interview with Alex, talk about his website, what got him into the website, what got him into Pokemon and what he aims to do, what his website's all about. Maybe you aren't fully familiar with it, but John and I fully recommend it as a resource, especially if you are interested in Pokemon retro formats. So all that being said, I guess before I get into things, I would like to know, John, how are you doing? How have you been? Good, good. Yu-Gi-Oh I've been a little busy last couple weeks. Did the professor seminar in Chicago, which was a great time. It was a fun format. I did get top cut at that event, although top cut was like asymmetrical. So it ended up just not being a whole lot of like, I didn't get an extra promo to show for it just because I got ninth. So it's fine. It just kind of definitely feels bad, but, you know, it is like not that serious at the end of the day. It was a fun format. Fun, fun to play Pokemon anytime I can play it. And then, Yu-Gi-Oh Chicago is a cool city. My cousin lives there, so I gotta hang with him and his, his wife, so. And then more recently, we went up to Maine for a little bit for Cindy's birthday. So, Yu-Gi-Oh that was a nice trip to get out of the heat of Virginia in the summer. It's like it was 100 degrees today so I'm not not a fan. You know I don't like heat, I don't like it but otherwise Yu-Gi-Oh it's been kind of same old same old. Haven't been playing too much. I played store championship with grim snarl of all decks. I thought of you and I had a fun time with it. I lost to like a Zenith guard shop. I just Goldin get over had a lot of HP and I Goldin I don't run any tool removal so I was never able to knock it out and you know it went to time and I lost in turns or something but other than that had like a decent run. It was fun and then Yu-Gi-Oh I have been kind of getting ready for the upcoming season. I plan on being just today I found out that I will be going to Baltimore. Kind of last minute changes to my plans so I will be there in some capacity and then I will be at Louisville as well. So I'm looking forward to that and getting right back into the season man. But that's about it on my end. What's going on with you Aaron? Not much. Just a lot of baseball was a nice spectator of worlds. I kind of felt I know I don't want to get too much into this today but from the outside looking in the post that I saw on social media I almost felt like I was happy I wasn't there especially because I wasn't going to be competing. It seemed like it was not the best spectator and just general non competitor experience ever. Sounded like there were a ton of people there because they had XP going on at the same time and just wall to wall people. I think I saw somebody attract attendance numbers from year to year and we they had over a 20000 person increase in attendance from last year to this year and that seems like too many people in one place for my liking. But the I'm sure seeing everything in the Chase center would have been absolutely amazing. You know it was awesome. The arena experience last year and last season in a much smaller arena in Anaheim. So I can only imagine how great that was being in a full blown arena this year. And Yu-Gi-Oh like we'll get into that a bit more when we talk about things from like the closing ceremonies and Whatnot on a future episode but not to our not to ignore our guest any longer. Alex, we've got a list of questions here for you and the first of them is going to be just introduction for yourself and maybe what got you into Pokemon to begin with. Hello again, my name is Alex Wilson, thanks for having me. Not to sound elitist, because I'm not, but a couple of different podcasts have asked me in the past if I would do it this. And I said no every time because I hate Spotlight. But after John talked my ear off. For how long has this podcast been alive? For two years now. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Been talking to me this long, I think maybe even five years before it even was created, but here I am. Thanks for having me. How did I get into Pokemon in kindergarten? Pokemon came out or when I was in kindergarten. Sorry, that sounded weird. Yu-Gi-Oh I've been collecting ever since. Been playing the video games ever since. But it wasn't until around 2010 that my mom finally got Yu-Gi-Oh Fi in her house and I learned about tournaments. And so after a few months of trying to talk her into going to stuff, which I think it was 2011 by then, I went to my very first pre release, which was Emerging Powers from Black and Whatnot, Yu-Gi-Oh it's taking me all over the world. Pretty cool. I think Emerging Powers was my first pre release too. That's crazy. That's a really weird coincidence, I thought. John, I don't know why I thought you had started playing before that. I did, but I had never played in a pre release. Oh, no, My brother got into. My brother was in at Platinum. I think we're having a sync issue right now. So I'm catching, like, the last bit of what you're saying, Aaron. Oh, that's really weird because for me, like, your. Your camera's a little pixelated and you're, like, lagging a little bit, but your audio seems like it's coming in fine. Huh. Okay. Sorry. Yu-Gi-Oh weirdly enough, Emerging Powers was my first pre release too. Aaron. Or Aaron. Alex. So that's kind of cool. It wasn't. It wasn't a store in South Carolina by chance, was it? Yu-Gi-Oh it was in Somerville, South Carolina, but it was. It wasn't at a store, it was at a hotel because that was where the organizer had to set up back in the days of tournament organizers. So do you think, like, just from there you were hooked and you just wanted to continue playing and you kind of took that pre release and springboarded it into other events as well? Yu-Gi-Oh from what I could. When I was living with my mom growing up, I didn't have the largest access to funds, so I didn't travel for a very long time. I would just play local tournaments for around three or four years. Biggest tournaments of which I would go to were like, South Carolina and North Carolina states. Sure. My first states, I went 44 with random big basic Pandora drop. And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Which is really funny to look back on because, you know, I'd hate myself for weeks if I traveled to tournament just to go 4 4. Yu-Gi-Oh I definitely feel you on that. I mean, that's something where part of it is like, it depends on how competitive you are as a person, but you definitely have people who are just excited to play Pokemon and they go to their. You know, especially people that are on their first or second tournament and they don't really have the goals or aspirations to one-of-one an event or day two an event or top cut or what have you. And they're just happy to be there. And they say, oh, I one-of-one as many games as I lost. I did great because I thought I was going to go.08 at this tournament. And then, you know, eventually it catches up with you, especially if you just have the drive for that. Right. If that fits your personality, fits the type of person that you are, you're going to strive to do better as you continue. And I feel like that's what a lot of people do when they really get into the game, seriously. So four, four with big basics. What did the rest of your history in the game look like as you continued on through it? That's a neat question, I guess. Ask, actually. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I kept going to locals and a lot of battle roads at the time, and I even went up to Virginia states once. But around the release of Boundaries Cross, I stopped playing because I just Goldin afford it anymore. And shortly after, I moved to Texas for a couple of years. Okay. Started working in the oil field, which, if you know me, I'm not like the biggest muscular guy. So that was honestly kind of funny seeing this scrawny little kid, 19 years old, walking around the oil field with the giant hard hat that made him look like a runt. But I was making good money. And one day I was just scrolling through Facebook and I saw that there was a regionals in Houston, Texas, which was three hours away. But still, that was exciting because I had never gone to a regionals prior because there weren't regionals in North Carolina when I was growing up. So I Tribute my things and I went. And if I remember correctly, I actually went like 4, 41 at that tournament, too. But I was so excited to play again, and I met Jason Kleczynski and people like Raul Ready, who wasn't at all that big at the Time, but just, you know, names that I had always heard of. Was this an expanded tournament? Yu-Gi-Oh about like what. What format was this or what time period? It was Seismitoad, Slurpuff era. Okay. Seismitoad Bats and stuff like that. It was. It was standard. Standard? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Just like a. A Phantom Forces event. Trump card loops and all that nonsense. Was this one. They had standard day one and then expanded day two, I think for that. For that year. Yu-Gi-Oh it was. I think it was one of the. I think it was the last year they ever did that. Yu-Gi-Oh I was at that tournament weirdly enough too. So that's so great because I. This is my first tournament I ever traveled off east coast for, so. That's wild, man. I don't think I knew you were there. Yu-Gi-Oh But no, Yu-Gi-Oh I've found a league in San Antonio, Texas and met a lot of really cool and nice people there. And that was honestly like my only true experience of like finding a home within a league. Cool memories. But Yu-Gi-Oh And a year later, I went back to the Houston regionals after that and it was my second ever regionals and I actually got top 16. I played Vespa, Quinn Flareon. It was the first event that it was legal at. And a cool memory from that is actually going into the winning in round for top eight. I was paired up against Jason Kleczynski and he walks up and he sees who he's playing against and he knows what deck I'm playing because everyone was talking about my deck because everyone was scared of it and no one was expecting it to be an actual meta deck at the time. And he just looked at me and goes, oh no, not you. And I just thought that was the coolest thing at the time. Jason Kozinski was scared of me, but he played a. A water deck with the Articuno with the delta trait, or ancient trait that bodies the ever living poop out of com Bees and Flareon. So. But still top 16 of my second regional. That was pretty cool. Yu-Gi-Oh From there I eventually moved back to North Carolina. What's really funny, I guess about that is as I was driving to North Carolina during that move, there was a regionals in Orlando, Florida, and I decided to make a pit stop, which is not at all on the way, but I did a little three point, you know, trip, slept in my car. I think I went 03 drop and I drove right back home to my mommy in North Carolina. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But from there I went to Athens regionals in 2016. Shortly after moving back to North Carolina, I met a lot of cool people who are my good friends now today, like Grant Manley and Russ Lepar. And. But I got, I was the one person, I don't remember what place it was, but I was essentially the equivalent of 33rd place. Like, I just missed day two, and I wasn't planning on playing any more events that year because it was the end of the season and I was not going to get an invite nor was I going to go to nationals because that's not something I'd ever done before that, I don't think. But after getting 33rd place, or whichever it was at that event with Mega Rayquaza, I decided to drive 12 hours up to near Boston, Massachusetts, and I slept in my car again. Played in that expanded tournament and I one-of-one that regionals. I got a stipend to nationals. So I went to nationals and I actually bubbled that as well. Whatever the equivalent of 33rd place essentially was, I was top of the bracket, I believe. And Yu-Gi-Oh from there, I don't know, I got good. Nice, nice. So you continued playing kind of off and on. I know from talking to you before we started recording, sounds like you haven't really been in the game competitively for a little bit now. What did you just. When did that happen? Because I know I wanted, the reason I asked that I'm going to. I want to talk about the kind of other transition that you seem to have taken and what brought that about. But first I'd like to know, like, what's the most recent format that you maybe played competitively? Sure. I've kind of always played off and on. Unfortunately for from like 2016 to 2019, I was at every event, every tournament. I eventually one-of-one a second regionals. I day two at Worlds. Like, I was, you know, everyone was scared of me at every cup, which was always so funny because I'm not a threatening person at all. But I ended up meeting my wife, and in 2018, I spent more time with her than I did playing Pokemon. So much so that I didn't go to a single cup until the week before that year's internationals, or NAIC. And I realized, oh, I need 10 more points to get my invite. The world's crap. I better go to a cup. And I lost in top or no, I, I, I didn't make top eight or whatever. And so I didn't get my invite because I went to NAIC and I scrubbed. And then in 2019 also, again, spent way too much time with my wife. Before our kid was born and I was like 20 points short of a world's invite that year as well because I didn't go to local tournaments and then Covid hit and Yu-Gi-Oh it's just, you know, life, job, kid. Yu-Gi-Oh In 2022 when events came back, I was very excited to travel again. I went over to Germany for EUIC. Okay, nice. I got top 64 which was pretty neat because what's really weird about that short season was essentially any American that top 64 at EUIC got an automatic $1,000 stipend to NAIC that year. So I got that. Yu-Gi-Oh after 2022 I kind of just stopped doing stuff because I again, life. Yu-Gi-Oh I am going to Baltimore just like John. I'm excited for that. So. Nice. Are you looking forward to it because it's Pokemon or because you really like the current format or like what's driving you to be excited about that? The format. This is the best format the game has ever seen. He's crushing hammers, you know. 43% meta share for a single deck. Are you kidding me? That's so cool. Love it. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean I wake up every day excited to play more standard. No, I'm one of those weirdos that's never complained about formats. There have been some bad formats and I think in so many ways we should just be grateful that we are not stuck in formats of the past. But I've never considered any format bad in the moment. I play Pokemon because I enjoy it and, and I enjoy the community and it's just exciting to compete when you get the chance for sure. That's a very healthy outlook and probably much better than what I feel like my most recent outlook on the game has been and also like Yu-Gi-Oh just much better than what I've. I've definitely felt not bitter but I just have. I mean I've said it on this podcast. I haven't enjoyed the game kind of post rotation this past season mostly because I do just think the format before rotation was a better or more fun format and I feel like the options are like the biggest thing that I don't like about the format and I've said this multiple times as well is just only having one real good draw supporter I feel like limits most decks severely compared to Dragapult and I know like you'd mentioned the 43 meta percentage and gets a little bit diluted because you break it up among multiple different archetypes within the same same deck. So it's not quite as overbearing as it Looks. But then you think about the fact there have been other formats that have been very similar, and if you were playing in those, you probably were more miserable at the time. Like the one I can think of off the top of my head is probably broken. Lugia format. Yu-Gi-Oh that. That actually is the only other comparable. Yu-Gi-Oh I believe. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess was pretty miserable. We didn't really have a competitive metagame, like a competitive series of tournaments to go and play in, but that was pretty oppressive. That's an interesting era. It's always been kind of really unfortunate and depressing to look back on and wonder what could have been. Even though ADP is easily one of the most controversial, toxic cards ever, it would have been really cool to experience, you know, a full season and especially worlds with that, because that probably would have one-of-one Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Almost undoubtedly. Unless you had, you know, everybody's playing ADP and there's this one deck that only beats ADP, but you hit all the ADPs on the way up and, you know, you come out on top that way. But I think that now hearing that you're just a general Pokemon fan, you enjoy playing the game whenever you get the opportunity. Sounds like regardless of what the format is. And do you think that that has led you into kind of the path that you've chosen with the website that you developed? Like we mentioned at the top, it is PTCG Legends. Like, what made you come up with the idea to do this to begin with? And I guess maybe before you get into that, do you just want to give a brief description of what the website itself is? Yu-Gi-Oh So PTCD Legends, jokingly is like a mini limitless now. But I'll get on that in a bit with the. With the history of it. But it's just a. A database with historical events, but also modern events. Everything that's happening now, everything's documented and there's a reason behind it. And I'll get into it later, I guess, if the topic comes up. But Yu-Gi-Oh you can. You can look back on events all the way back to the beginning of the game, including a lot of old foreign nationals and really old Japanese tournaments. A lot of stuff I'm working on and documenting. But essentially I just wanted to document history because it's cool as heck. Going back to how the site came to be. During COVID I was shopping on Pokemon center online and I needed a few more dollars to get free shipping, I believe. And I remember just scrolling through random TCG product and I found the 2017 Worlds decks and they had all four. And at the time they were only like 12.99. And I was just like, you know what? Why not? I've never had a Worlds deck I've played all these years. I've never intentionally bought fake cards. Why not? This, this. That would be kind of be cool just to go back on a cool era. Because 2017 was a pretty, pretty neat area in my opinion. Yu-Gi-Oh I had those four Worlds decks and after putting them in sleeves and putting them in their own little boxes, I got the itch to go find more. So I got the 2018 and then the 2019 decks. And that has now evolved into a collection of over 200 retro decks, I believe. Yu-Gi-Oh During COVID I also decided to do something with my life. And I went into school to learn how to code. Okay. And like web development, coding. And during my first class we all had to made a website at some point. And I decided that after looking into all of the retro stuff that I was really into at the time. There's a website called PTCG Archive which is really cool, but it only go covers 2004 to 2013. And then as we ever all know, Limitless has only ever covered stuff since 2017. They have a couple of one off events like occasional worlds from like 2015, 2016. But there wasn't a website that had all of it combined. And even still if there was one that was combined, neither of which had everything like there were. There are so many decks that have existed that so many people have forgotten about and they've never were considered top tier decks, but you found them everywhere when you went to a locals tournament or if you were at the bottom tables of regionals. And I just thought it would be really cool to make a website that did all of that together. And so while I was in that class, I decided to make a little silly website. I took a lot of shortcuts because it was pretty pressed for time. But that was. The original iteration of the site was just documenting a bunch of random decks from at least one format per year from 99 to 2019 at the time. Nice. Sure. Yu-Gi-Oh That's awesome, dude. And I think we do think it's cool too. We, we, we're big history buffs. I think I was trying to say this earlier when my audio was messing up, but it's really just an awesome thing to see somebody take the initiative and say, you know, we're all interested in this, let's just document it for all of us to have and to cherish and go back to and like, Yu-Gi-Oh I think your story is very common to a lot of players. I know a lot of people that don't really know much about retro and then just buy up a worlds deck or like play it at league one time and kind of get that bug, that itch to like play alternate formats and like it's the same game you've been playing, but just a different iteration of it. And it's always fascinating to see like the, the logic that's behind it. The, the same cards but different. You know, HPs are different. The, the formatting is a little different of the cards, but it's also just the same game at the end of the day. You know the same mechanics you're using in the newer one and is in standard. It applies some, some of the rules are a little different. I think that's probably what I use PDCG Legends for the most is looking up the rule sets for different eras. Because I always remember that whenever I go back and play 2011 or you know, 2008, I don't play that format all that often. So it's good to go back and kind of remember how the first term rule works and you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's an infinitely valuable resource for myself and for so many others. And Yu-Gi-Oh I think it, it's gotten a lot of love over the years. And it's, it's, it's, it's. I know it's a passion project for you, but it definitely has a lot of value on its own too. Yu-Gi-Oh no, that's, that's the big thing. It's, it's the same game, always has been. And not that I preach anywhere, but anytime people have asked, I've always said like, if you're wanting to learn how to play Pokemon, in my opinion, it's not a good idea to pick up modern. It's best to pick up a retro deck because it's, it's more enclosed and it's easier to learn rules that way rather than learning how to integrate. Great. And patch auto for this and just little things. But it's also easier to like help a player learn how to play Pokemon with a retro deck because you know everything about that format. It's. You used to play it. I mean, more or less. I guess that doesn't put everybody, but Yu-Gi-Oh I think that that's great. That kind of, that kind of highlights why the world stacks are just, are such a great product because if you can get them when they are currently released, they're cheaper than Buying an actual version of that deck. And it just lets you keep everything in that enclosed ecosystem. And you have four decks that should have some level of parity with each other, or at least you can explain the interactions with them. And why, like how. Why does this work this way? Why is this better? Like what? Why is this good into this? Why is this bad into this? Why is Dragapult the best deck in this format? Why does it beat all three of the other decks? And you don't have to worry about, oh, well, this person teched in enhanced hammer in their deck and that changes this matchup because it does XYZ or God forbid they print crystal as one of the world stacks. You don't have to worry if. If they don't. You don't have to worry about crustal coming out and ruining your day because you just don't know what exists. And then if somebody enjoys the game and they're able to just kind of progress from there and say, oh, I do want to see what a tournament looks like. And then they go through the whole process of you then have to learn the card pool and you have to have a better understanding of card interactions as the card pool and your knowledge base expands. That's a great take. It's also kind of cool because on the flip side, in the opposite direction, I've always believed that playing retro as a modern player can make you a better player. Yu-Gi-Oh you got to learn new cards because you're reading and there's a lot of new mechanics, but like, little things like that add up 100%. I thought this was it kind of related. I thought this was Zebra cool. But I hosted a retro tournament at NAIC two or three years ago, and this young guy named Henry Chow showed up and I think he one-of-one my retro tournament. And I'm talking to him and he was telling me how he looked into 2010 only a few months prior and he just thought this was pretty cool. And he's reading the cards and he was learning it and then he goes off and I think he got top four or top eight at that Internationals. And then now we know the rest of the story with him. Like, you just can't help but wonder, you know, how much can learning and thinking in different ways based off different formats can actually help you improve as a player today. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, that's a good lesson, I think for a lot of us, you know, you. I think that's a valuable thing, like being able to intuit different strategies on the fly, being able to analyze and decipher what your opponent's playing and how to beat it on the fly and like learning all that stuff. It's all skills that I think are invaluable for anybody going into a metagame. And when you get kind of stuck in playing standard only and only in that kind of cycle, you get myopic, you get nearsighted as far as you don't really have an idea of like new stuff or innovative stuff. Like, I struggle with that sometimes where I've played a deck so many times to where I no longer like, think, think outside of the box with it. I don't think of any other alternate one-of-one conditions or like strategies of stalling or anything like that. You lose kind of sight of what your deck can even do. You're just focused on like the wind condition that got you there 90 of the time. You forget about the 10. And playing retro really allows you to kind of expand your mindset a little bit and find some alternate strategies and all that kind of stuff. I'm not saying that every retro format really helps with that. There are some that are probably a little more, you know, I'm thinking like 2012, where you're just slamming two decks into each other as fast and hard as possible. But there are some formats. 2013, no draw engine play. What's in your hand? Anyone that's learning, it's like, wait, what do I do now? Oh, you just lose. Sorry. Yu-Gi-Oh there's some formats like that where it's less than ideal, but like 2010, 20 2008, you know, and then RSPK and some lot like, I think there's a reason why people keep keep going back to those is because they are a wealth of depth and strategy that is really refreshing sometimes, especially when standard feels kind of stale. It's nice to go back and play some retro for sure. And then so John just highlighted a few formats, especially some of the more popular ones, but. And I'm interested to know what your answer to this question is now that I've heard you kind of speak on your take on Pokemon and Pokemon formats in general. Alex, but what in your opinion makes a format a good retro format? I mean, it sounds silly, but like, it's just the same answer you get if you ask anybody that knows the history of the game. What makes a good format is diversity and, you know, the, the ability to be able to pick up, you know, not every deck, but put a good chunk of decks and be able to play against any other deck from that format and just have a Good, fun game and both have good chances of winning. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't, I don't know how to answer that because all the other bad formats are always controlled by one or two things. Kind of like. Sure. A certain format that we just watched at Worlds a few days ago. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, so I, I half expected you to just say a format's a good retro format because it has Pokemon decks in it. Because it sounds like you're able to generally find the good in just about any format. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I'll. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I make a lot of people confused because sometimes when people ask me what retro deck I want to play, when I bring my collection or if I go over to a friend's house who has, you know, another retro deck collection, I'll pick silly formats like 2013, where it's just. You literally play what's in your hand and nothing. There was no draw engine in that entire year. And I love, I love going back to Lysander's trump card format because it's so toxic that it's fun. And even going back to like base set and jungle where you just. There weren't supporters back then. All trainers were trainers. So you could play for Professor Oak and every bill to draw more cards. Like you can go through your entire deck in a few turns. And, you know, the, the silly gusting cards and energy removal. It's so toxic that it's beautiful. It's just fun to go back on occasionally. I'm not gonna play that for like, you know, five games straight, but I enjoy every format. So toxic is beautiful. That's quite a take. I like it. That's going to be the quote, right? That's. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Maybe that's the episode title. Honestly. So toxic Retro. So, Alex, beautiful. Put a picture up. Yu-Gi-Oh A bunch of crustal players today. Jump in. What's this about exactly? Exactly. Okay, well, so you mentioned a couple of formats, a couple of decks even. Do you have a favorite deck of all time in the Pokemon tcg? So John told me this would be one of the questions almost a month ago. I've been thinking about it anytime I randomly remember it occasionally the last few weeks, like, what is my favorite deck? And I really don't know. Like, most people just assume it's Mega Equaza because I had so much success with it. But Yu-Gi-Oh I have a blinged out deck of it that's sitting in my closet that's worth like $3,000 now. Maybe 4,000. I don't even want to look it up because I don't want to know. Right. But like, I don't know. There are so many decks. Like I could probably name five if that's okay. Sure, Yu-Gi-Oh go for it. Like Mega Requisite's up there. Obviously I freaking got a tattoo of Mega Rayquaza because of that silly deck. Yu-Gi-Oh Then 2010 always stands out to me. That's a really fun format. But I always go with Gyarados or Jumpluff. And a lot of people kind of chuckle because Jumpluff was. It had a nickname back in the day. It was called the Girlfriend deck because it was the second deck that you never played yourself, but if you had a girlfriend or just a friend, you would give it to them. I'm not saying I called it that because I didn't play in 2010, but that's. That was what it was called because it was not a deck that was ever taken seriously. But what's really cool today is anytime there's a 2010 format, jump fluff is everywhere. And two. Two reasons it's the cheapest worlds deck still in existence. Like you can. Well, things might have changed in the last year, but two years ago it was only a $40 deck. And that's from 2010 where all these other decks from like 2014 are being sold for like 200 bucks still. So. But it's an easy deck to, to purchase and it's one of the most powerful decks. I guess one of the few occasions where after a format is long gone and retired that people realized like the game could have been so much differently if enough people Beckett up and tried playing something that's jumbled off. But it's, it's a really fun deck. It does damage based off the total amount of Pokemon you have in play. And it also played plus power to add on to that as well as the. A tool that added extra damage and extra hp. It's a, it's a fun deck. But then I also really love Mega Mewtwo from the. Oh, I can't remember the set. Breakthrough I think. Right. No, I know. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that was one of my favorite decks too actually. That's crazy. It was a very, very short lived format and I don't remember why, but I think Guardians Rising, if I remember correctly, just killed it for some. But Yu-Gi-Oh I Goldin tell you it was a format that existed for like two regionals. I think Ryan Stable House had the most success with it getting like top 16 or something. Igor Costa one-of-one a regional with it. So. Oh my gosh, you're Actually. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh With Garbo. Yu-Gi-Oh Because I just ripped his list and ran it at an ARG tournament argument. Yu-Gi-Oh I have a. Actually, funnily enough. Sorry to go on a tangent, but it's too, Too much of a coincidence. I have the top eight playmat from the ARG tournament. So randomly, I was using it as a dual playmat for me and Sydney to play on. So that's cool. But, Yu-Gi-Oh sorry. Sorry to derail that. I don't know how many decks I named, but another one that stands out is 2009, which is like a format that is really slept on because 2010 just overshadows it. Stallgon was a very innovative, very intuitive stall deck. It. It. Once you get it set up, there is no way out of beating that deck. It is one of the coolest, neatest decks ever. It sucks to play against it, especially when you're learning retro and you're like, hey, Alex, what I want to play. What do you pick? And I'm just laughing maniacally. But, Yu-Gi-Oh it. It really is hard to name a favorite deck. There's been. There's so many decks I can look back on. Like, even Gudra with the lost box. That was such a fun deck. Yu-Gi-Oh Bunch of little things. No, I. I don't think that there's a wrong answer, to be fair. I just wasn't sure. Like, some people may have a favorite deck by format, and I think that that's probably a lot easier to narrow down. But I wasn't going to sit here and ask you to give me 22 favorite decks. You want 22? I'll get started. Here we go. Just have the PowerPoint slide with the full list of all of them. Okay, well, this might be a little bit easier of a question to answer then, and maybe you kind of already touched on it with some of the decks that you gave there. But what do you think are the top. Let's three to five formats in terms of deck diversity or just overall viability of the most number of cards in the card pool? 2006, or in other words, more so RSPK, which was the Japanese version. 2010 and 2018's some lockdown. There's really no competition, I don't think, for the top three formats. Yu-Gi-Oh and that really kind of highlights why. Those are the three most popular retro formats, right? Yep. They just. People go in, they can find some deck that they click with, and it lets them kind of enjoy the format their way and be, you know, somewhat competitively viable. 2010 gets a little Bit contentious, I think, especially as people have explored it more and people have really honed in. I've seen some of the discussion at least where there's like, why didn't everybody just play Gardevoir? You should have just played Gardevoir. It's clearly the best deck and. Or some of the love that's come in for the like Flygon Torterra deck afterwards. The kind of posthumously, when there was really only one representative of that deck at the time. 2010. Can I go back to a favorite deck right quick? Yu-Gi-Oh absolutely. One of John and I's local friends from the Carolinas got. Was it top 16? Eric Nance? Yu-Gi-Oh I think it was top. Top 16. Or I can look it up. Yu-Gi-Oh He unfortunately lost in top 16 with the only bad matchup he had in that bracket. Yep. But he played Helix, which was a deck with Steelix and Blissey. Very, very simple deck. And it was kind of a wall deck that attacks. And I know a lot of people are turned off by that who hate Snorlax from a couple years ago and Crustal from today. But that is one of my favorite decks when I pick up 2010 because it's so powerful and not a lot of people knew about it back then. They didn't take it seriously. But I kid you not. Of all the retro tournaments I've hosted over the last few years, of all the ones I've competed in, anytime someone asks, hey, can I borrow one of your decks? I will give them Steelix. They'll say why? They'll ask questions. I'll say, there's no need to read the cards, or there's no need to ask questions. Read the cards and you're going to one-of-one the tournament. And they always do. It's one of the most powerful decks in 2010 of all time, anyways. No, that's a good point. Coincidentally, Eric got seven person that's still playing infernape. Yu-Gi-Oh 17. Okay. I don't know why I thought he made top 16, but I guess, you know, at the time we still had top 32 cuts, so. A little different. A little different. I'm definitely a big fan of 2010. I coincidentally had a good bit of success in that year, like all things considered, but it. It did allow you to kind of flex things with some of the more broken cards. Obviously we had Claydol at the time. We had broken time space. And that really just made Evolutions a lot more viable than they've really ever been in any other era of the game. And it allowed you to play such a wide variety of cards that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. If you were just like. I mean, if we didn't have BTS or even the old rare candy rules at the time, it would have just been SP decks everywhere, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Like, I don't know if, I don't know if you really get to come back. Maybe Steelix kind of stands a chance because it's a stage one and it's a bulkier target. But then you probably would see SP decks adapt and you'd see a lot more blaziken and or infernape in the mix as well. Okay, let's shift gears a little bit here. Go ahead, John. I'm just gonna kind of go through 2010 again. Like there's a lot of like looking at it right now. It's crazy. Just the world's is. It's one of the most diverse world meta. I mean, there's a couple decks that are the same, like, you know, Luxray, Garchomp, the SP decks. Like those are pretty popular. Carnivore is pretty popular. But beyond those kind of two, it's, it just opens up and you really have like so many fun things you can do. And I, I actually, funnily enough, Eric's a good friend of mine and we played in a 2010 tournament at NAIC like two years ago and he brought his, his Steelix deck, I think. I don't know if it was the same 60. He might have borrowed it from somebody. But he. The same list that he ran, he played at that tournament and he got second to me. We played in the finals. That was fun and he should have one-of-one by all accounts. But he flipped tails a lot on the moomoo milks and didn't hit the healing cards he needed to. And I was able to clutch out with like the gardevoir and use the galley to take a knockout on one of the Steelixes before you get like two set up. But it was a really fun match. Really like took all my mental power to kind of overcome that Steelix. But it was a lot of fun just, you know, be able to play that format and play him at like one of his, I think, best creations he made from, from a deck building standpoint. He's always cooking something, so it's always fun trying to talk to him about like, formats. Not all of it's successful, but he's always got like an idea of like, what would be a cool deck in a format. So Yu-Gi-Oh I got his, his Legends page pulled up. He got top 16 in 2006 worlds. Okay. Followed by a successful second place finish at nationals in 2010. Nice. Okay. Very nice. I'll have to see if he's playing in Baltimore or not. I, I, I kid you not, John. I have the screenshots to prove it. I randomly hit him on PTCG Live today. He was playing some kind of Finnegan concoction and I don't want a second term, but I hit Eric Dance and I messaged him on Facebook, but I don't think he's got messenger anymore. No, I, he does, but he never doesn't check it. I think he's off of like everything but Instagram. But like he's on. I'll ask his, I'll ask Kirsten, see if they're going or not. Oh, while John's digging into that, one of the big kind of hurdles that people can encounter with these retro formats can be the price tag. If you don't have a Worlds deck readily available. And even then, like you mentioned, some of those are definitely getting up there in price now as people have learned that you can basically turn anything Pokemon card related into money. So what would you say is the most affordable retro format to get into? Whichever format or year is the year it was a year ago. Okay. Because 2025 is retro now. Right. And so many technically. Yu-Gi-Oh Sorry, that's not bad advice. Yu-Gi-Oh no, no, that, that's the advice that I don't live by. But I stopped selling cards like I used to, you know, dump everything at the end of pre rotation just to be able to afford all the next stuff. But I stopped selling so many years ago because of all the stuff I build now and how expensive cards got that we never saw coming. Holy moly. Yu-Gi-Oh the, the correct answer is whichever year was the year that just rotated. But the, the answer you're looking for, I feel like is probably 2016. Okay. Of course that, that delves into like 2017 and 2018 as well. And that's huge given that some lot is still fairly cheap. But I, I think 2016 might be probably one of the cheapest formats. 2016 worlds because that was like Night March and Mega Audi. No. Which I remember buying Mega Audios while sitting there in the, in the, the ballroom during finals of 2016 Worlds thinking I was going to make so much money. But then those cards end up being a dollar because they, it was a bad deck after that. But that's, that's probably very cheap format. Yu-Gi-Oh I actually have the build it's not too expensive. There's. I think the. Some of the Ex's are now a little creeping up there from that era. Like, I think if you have to play a Mu Ex in one of your decks, good luck. But everything else outside of, like, the Muix and Shaman. Yu-Gi-Oh Shame is not too bad. It's like, still under 20. It's like. Okay. It's like. It's like five or six, because I buy at least. Okay, sure. Oh, really? But, like, I know there was a Uex getting. It was like, still up there. Yu-Gi-Oh it's come down a good bit. You know, Mu Ex has always been. That's a hard one because I. I need a lot of Mu Exes. And. Yu-Gi-Oh that's the one that originally was printed in X Destinies, but then it got reprinted a couple different times throughout the years. There's a Dragon's Exalted, I think. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh you're right. You're right. But Yu-Gi-Oh that card is like 35 damaged. It really sucks that that's all the iterations of it. Yep. Yep. There's not a cheap version of it. Even, like, the Generations one is stupid, so. And that's. It's actually probably way more than the. The Dragons Exalted one. I wish they would do, like, for the 30th anniversary. I wish they'd print it for that. That was a. I. I don't know. I want. I want to hear your opinion on that. I know this isn't one of the questions we brought up in beforehand, but what do you think about, like, do you. Do you enjoy having the retro component of the anniversary sets from 2025 or 20. The 25th anniversary and the 30th anniversary? Alex, like, have you. Have you really, like, love seeing what cards they pick and all that kind of stuff? Yu-Gi-Oh no, it's. It's really cool. I. I feel like the 25th anniversary was cooler just because that was the first time they did it. And a lot of cool people like Puka had a say in some of the cards that were put in. Like, and even the cards that a lot of people were like, why the heck is this in there? Like, Xerneas Ex. Like, that was the first ever fairy. I. I can't remember if it was the very first. It was the first fairy Pokemon ever revealed because Xerneas was revealed in a trailer before Sylveon ever was, I think. Yu-Gi-Oh little things like that. Like, the. The set was cool. Yu-Gi-Oh This new 30th anniversary set, pretty cool because they're reprinting Mitsuhiro Arita's original base set, Charizard. Again, we're getting, I think the Crystal Lugia, which is a big money card. I don't think it's gonna affect the price of the original, but a lot of cool cards I think we're getting, I think one for me, 2010 format. Yep. Uxie. And then the other big one for me just because it's gotten absurdly expensive for. No, justifiable, I guess, just because it is worth Gengar. Are you about to say Gengar? I was gonna just say Gengar Prime. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that's right. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Pico Rom's another example though, because I know that like people saw that revealed in its price on the original just shot up overnight, basically. But Gengar prime is one of those cards that has slowly and steadily increased in price year over year, month over month. And now, I mean, I expect this one to be absurdly expensive when it initially comes out, but I think we'll see something happen to it that's similar to kind of what the Umbreon star did with the 25th anniversary set. And it'll level out a little bit. And if you wanted to build a 2010 or no, that would be 2010. That would be 2011. What year was going to go from 2011? Okay, Yu-Gi-Oh If you wanted to build, you know, Lost World deck or just a Gengar deck with a tech Gengar prime in it, you would have much better access to it and wouldn't have to spend a good chunk of money to get it, I hope. Yu-Gi-Oh Another question that may or may not seem kind of trivial to you because we have gotten a little bit of your history with the game already, but do you have a favorite memory from a regional or international that you attended? Yu-Gi-Oh I can name a few. Yu-Gi-Oh go for it. I mean I, it's, it's always funny and cool. Looking back at the first time I one-of-one a regionals because I, like I told you, I made a last minute decision to drive up 12 hours. I slept in my car, I didn't shower for those two, two nights. I brought deodorant though, so I wasn't the problem. And Yu-Gi-Oh I one-of-one that whole tournament and they gave me two ancient Origins booster boxes like that. That's how pathetic the prizing was right before 2017. And I remember walking to the vendors and I said, hey, how much will you buy these for? They looked at me and they said 70 bucks. And I go, oh, I'll just hold on to Them. And they said, how'd you come by these? And I go, oh, I just one-of-one the whole thing. And all these people started flocking around me. They're like, you just one-of-one the tournament? I said, Yu-Gi-Oh And then the vendor goes, I'll give. I'll give you 75 each for them. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Then, dude, I think. Think of all the boxes you sold for under a hundred dollars. It's just SATs. Oh, don't start. Don't start. No, I know, I know. That's everyone, right? Yu-Gi-Oh sure, sure. Something like Evolutions has to be the biggest sticking point. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. Although Ancient Origins is probably up there too. Ancient Origins was one of the worst sets at the time. I don't know what it's worth now. It probably is like, a thousand dollars just given the. Yu-Gi-Oh Life. But one of my Finest matches ever is what's funny about me as a player is I've always. I'm not a serious person at all. But once the game starts, I don't talk. People are always so confused because I'm moving fast and I'm just playing cards. If you don't know what I'm doing, that's your fault kind of attitude sometimes. Like. But when I'm not playing like, or, like, before the game or after the game, you know, I'm just having fun. And even more so when you're playing against a friend. And at the Collinsville regionals in 2017, in day two, I was already locked in for top eight at that event. I hit one of my close friends, Anthony Nimmons. Okay. I think he got top eight at, like, two different regionals. Back then, he was playing Accelgor, Boba Fett. And for anyone that knows what those cards do, it was toxic. It was beautifully toxic. Decking cover. It would attack, paralyze, and poison you and then retreat back into the deck. And then Wobbuffet would come up, and you had no abilities, so, Yu-Gi-Oh you Goldin do a whole lot of anything. My deck had no counter for that. After he one-of-one a very quick Game one, I stood up and I said, I have to pee. And I walked to the bathroom. There are judges standing there because, again, it's day two. You know, there was a lot. There's a lot of judges standing around tables at that at day two, and they're just like, Yu-Gi-Oh what are you doing? Are you forfeiting? And I was like, I gotta pee. And they're like, you didn't even ask, where are you going? And I just Kept walking. I, I, I was, I really had to go. And I knew I was gonna lose that round. And Nimmons is. I can hear him in the background just going, it's okay. I know him. I think he just gave me the one-of-one And I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh you one-of-one We talk about it. Sometimes it's funny to look back on. I come back and, you know, he's got the matchup sign. He's just sitting there like, sign the matchup, buddy. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. There's a lot of really funny memories. Like, all right, one time I went to the zoo. Azul and Raul, I think we were in Madison or something for regionals. Okay. We get back from the zoo, and we walk into day zero of the tournament. It was one of Jimmy Ballard's big tournaments, which, those are kind of like mini conventions back then. And this guy walks up and goes, Yu-Gi-Oh can I have your autograph, guys? And so he gives the pin to me, and I sign his playmat. And then he gives the pin to Raul, and Raul signs his playmat. And then the guy looks at Azul and takes the pen and walks away. And I were laughing. We were so dead. Because the guy didn't know who Azul was. And Azul was bigger than us back then, too. It was so funny. You tell. I, I've told that I brought. I've reminded Azul of it a couple of times throughout the years. And he's always like, I don't know why you find that so funny. And I'm like, I do. I know why you, you know, it's funny. Salty. Yu-Gi-Oh that's great. Just, Just in case you guys are curious about the price of ancient origins, you can't buy a booster back box. There's none currently in stock. Oh, sorry. There's four listings for booster boxes. Any guess at this is a game I play with Aaron sometimes. Any guess at what the the lowest listed price for an unopened box of ancient origins is? I'm always really bad at this. 2500. I'm gonna go with, like, 10 grand. Aaron's a lot closer. It's $8234. That's crazy. I'm out freaking. But I can give you, I can give you $75 for this. Yu-Gi-Oh I'll give you 75 bucks for it. I remember the back before 2017, regionals were hosted in clusters so there would be multiple regionals throughout the country on a single weekend. I one-of-one Boston, or whatever it was called, and Connor Fenton one-of-one the one In Kansas on the same weekend. That was the very last weekend of regionals of 2016. Just a few days after those tournaments, while we're riding our highs and we got big egos, Pokemon announced, by the way, starting in 2017, we're bringing cash back since. For the first time since, like, 2012 or whatever. So if you one-of-one a regionals, you get $5,000. We were so salty. We were making silly tweets saying, hey, Pokemon, you one-of-one us $5,000 because we just one-of-one regionals. Where are you? It's funny looking back, that I sold those two awful boxes for $140, thinking that I didn't get anything and I could have just held on to them. Yu-Gi-Oh but it's the same thing, like you said, like, selling cards at the end of a format or end of a year. I mean, like, we were younger back then, and at the time, theoretically, like, you needed the money, so what are you gonna do? Right? And it really was one of the worst sets, like, ever printed of that era. Oh, for sure. For sure. Hoopa. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Hoopa. That's all we got. Vespa, Quinn. I. I can't think of anything else. Yu-Gi-Oh there's not really any Chase cards I could think of for me. No. But, Yu-Gi-Oh I Goldin name another card from that set besides those two cards. Now, granted, admittedly, I was not playing competitively at the time, so it hits a little bit different for me, but I. I do remember, like, tc, PTCGO being like, oh, cool. I don't need to spend a ton of time on the trade forum looking for cards from the set. Get your hoopas and move on. Get my hoopas and move on. Exactly. Exactly. Okay, well, we've got a couple more questions here for Alex before we close things out on the episode. We've gone over favorite decks, like, top formats. Do you have a favorite player from the history of the game either? Oh, gosh. Like, don't get me started. This person. This person's great because they're just a great person and they're. I'm really good friends with them. Or I love this person because they're a great deck builder. Or this person because I think they're a great player. Like, what is. What does that type of list or hierarchy look like for you? Well, right, quick. Sorry to go back, but I. I pulled up the set just out of curiosity, and Ancient Origins had Vileplume, a beautifully toxic card. It had the ancient trait Gyarados, which, if you look at the prices of those suckers now, Those are ridiculously expensive for no reason. And I just had to build. I unfortunately chose to build that deck. And we also got Guerritina Ex, which was a huge card. And Hex Maniac. How could we forget about Heck Maniac unless that was really sick. Okay, so it was a much better set than we just gave it credit for. There are also other random one off cards like unknown, like farewell letter unknown now that I have it pulled up too. Resistance Blizzard, Regice. The didn't the three eevees that had like. Yu-Gi-Oh those are in there. And the Mega Sceptile which got top 32. No, top 64 out of one Worlds by Fabian Pujol if I remember correct. Yu-Gi-Oh the Lugia saw play. There's a level ball repl. Yu-Gi-Oh Reprint fourth to Giant Plants. Okay, we were wrong for it. Our ancient origins is goaded. We're all short sighted and foolish. But my favorite player. There have been so many that I have looked up to throughout the years. The first one that comes to mind is just nostalgia. Before I was able to like travel and compete and I was watching the live streams. The, the. The little tiny live streams of worlds. Way back in the day I watched Igor Costa one-of-one I think it was 2012. Harrison Levin and Igor Costa. Yu-Gi-Oh Then the very next year he got second. Hold on, let me pull it up so I don't mess this up. No, you're. You're correct. He got second and then just two years later he got top four again. Like it was watching someone do that at the time. Other than Jason Kleczinski of course. Like that was wild. We're so used to it today, which is so weird. Like you would think it'd be the opposite given just how large these events are. But at the time, seeing someone get top four, four worlds, that was really cool. He was one of my favorite players ever. And what's really cool is I eventually became really close friends with him. He's always one of the biggest names that's always existed in my head just because of how much I looked up to him back then. But if I had to pick a favorite player ever, which feels wrong to talk about because there's so many great people in the game. Sam Chen has always been such a freaking. In the game, that dude is one of the nicest guys on the planet. But when it comes to playing, he. He destroys people with kindness. And it's so cool to see. And I've never seen someone so successful and competitive and gifted that is also so willing to let players take Back mistakes that they made at top level events. And he's not even salty about it. He one-of-one go to his friend group and talk about, you know, how unlucky he got or this wouldn't have happened if I didn't let my opponent do this. But I. I'm just a wimp. Oh, well, I guess I Goldin say no and call a judge. Like, he's just such a graceful individual. Like, he's. He's always been one of my favorites to watch. Over the years I also got to become really close friends with him too. So it was really, really cool guy. I aspire to be. Like, Sam's an awesome. No, that's great. Yu-Gi-Oh Any other players? Before we move on to our final question, I want to ask that question to you, Aaron. Do you have a player that you looked up to when you were getting into the game? Because I don't think I knew. I don't think I know the answer to that question. Looked up to no big prime. And that's primarily because I think that it's like I've always played, not always, but basically always Pokemon. Like I played back when wizard still had the game and we were going to shopping malls to get an invite to go play in a Zebra Trainer showdown. And I was also, because of the like, unavailability of the Internet at the time, like, I didn't see results from other age divisions. So I was just kind of doing whatever the heck I wanted to and then kind of got back into things in 2004 and just playing in the senior division. Well, at the time it was just 11 to 14. Wasn't even called senior division yet. And from there, I don't know if I'd say that like people that I look up to, but I'd say some of my favorite people from my time in the game, One of them would have been, I was like, Kyle. I think Kyle Sablehouse specifically is up there. I wasn't. I never really got to be like Zebra Zebra great friends with Ryan, but I spent a lot of time with Kyle. I think another one would be Curran Hill. Got to know the Hill family a lot when they first kind of got into the game. Curran was the juniors 2005 world champion. And I know I worked a lot with him on decks back in kind of the era between 2010 and 2012. Who else? I think one of my other favorite people or favorite families actually is the Sukum family. All three brothers like Fairs, Yasin and Sammy, all hilarious individuals in their own right. And also all very strong, fierce competitors and just fun to hang out with, even outside of Pokemon. And it was. It was great to get to know them, you know, back when I had the opportunity to. And learn kind of interests and things about them outside of Pokemon, too. So I think that that was kind of one of the hallmarks for me is just when you find people that, like, Pokemon isn't their whole life. Right. And you. It's not just if. If I don't talk to you about Pokemon, can we talk about something else? And when you do get to find those people and you are able to form, like, an actual, like, lasting friendship with those people, it's. It can be a really special thing, especially like when you think back on it now and how disconnected people in general are from other people in the modern world, because you're just able to do that. And that's kind of how society's kind of progressed and structured itself. And not to make things sound Zebra dystopian and say, like, nobody is friends with anybody anymore and everything sucks, but you're not able to build the relationships the same way you were able to back then just because things are a little bit different. Yu-Gi-Oh different worlds, for sure. But with Sammy Sukum, his name popped up in my head this weekend during Worlds because one of the casters made a comment saying that Diego Kashiraga is now the second most successful player in Worlds, you know, just. Just within the world's tournaments. And I Goldin help but be like, wait, hold up. Wait. What? Because Sammy Sukum has gotten top eight at five worlds. The. He's the player with the most world's top cut placements, followed by also getting 9th and 10th. Two other worlds. Yu-Gi-Oh Diego Casiraga is the second player to reach four top eight placements, but Sammy Sukum is definitely the most up there. Unless you. Unless you have to consider, like, you know, having to have one-of-one one of them. Sammy got second place at one. He's never one-of-one one. Yu-Gi-Oh And that was in a format. I mean, like, I. I worked with Steve on that Beedrill deck, and a lot of people say that it's one of the most fraudulent World Championship wins ever, unfortunately. It's such a cool deck to go back and play, though. Like, it's. It's. It's really fun. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, it's in a severely similar vein to that Jump Love deck that you mentioned earlier and kind of just to go full circle. John, we'll. We'll ask you the question as well. Who are some of the people that you either looked up to or have formed really strong friendships and bond in your time in the game? Yu-Gi-Oh I've had a lot. So I grew up in South Carolina, and I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Brian and Kyle Sablehouse. When I was getting into the game and starting to play it at a higher level, I Beckett their brain a lot and they kind of. I remember just going to their house and like, just playing Pokemon, but then also like just, I don't know, being like young, early 20 something and just having no responsibilities and. And Yu-Gi-Oh like you said, kind of touching on that, Aaron. I'm just like you. We didn't do. We just kind of hung out and like, didn't do anything but just played Pokemon and then like went out and shot basketball or something like that. So that was a lot of fun. And then Eric Nance, I. I know I brought him up earlier, but he's another one that I formed a good relationship with as the years have gone on and like, been able to consider him a really good friend at this point. And then locally in Charleston, I think there's two names. Obviously my brother, I didn't really look up to him, as sad as that is to say, but he's the one that taught me how to play and we, we would play against each other. And you know, in his own way, I think he was very helpful. But also in my local area, Dave Griggs was like an event organizer and a player that ran the league that I went to a lot in Somerville. And then Will Beers is probably the other one that got me kind of into judging, kind of showed me that that was a path that, that was available for me at some point and pushed me to apply to Secaucus. And like, right after Covid vouched for me and my capabilities as a judge, as a player. And so it kind of helped me with my journey when I was starting out as a judge. So all those and so many more, I mean, I could go down the list and, you know, since moving to Richmond, you know, Christian Ortiz was a really good friend when I first moved to Richmond, and then, you know, me moved down to Orlando, I think more recently, but there's so many other players. Um, you meet so many people playing this game, and Yu-Gi-Oh you love the game itself, but you also just love the community that forms around it. And I think it's so beautiful to have friends like that that you can call up and kind of pick up where you Left off. Or you have a common interest in, like, hey, do you watch the regionals over the weekend? Or even just like, how's life going? And it's an open and honest conversation with each other. You don't have any pretense of, you know, trying to impress somebody else. It's like a. This is where I'm at in life. And it's like, Yu-Gi-Oh that's fair. You know, I recognize that and I still respect you as a person no matter where you are. So, like, that's always really cool. Let's see. Hearing you talk about. Hearing you talk like that just like, is one of the few reasons that make me not play today, if that makes sense. Like, looking back, like, you can get too overly nostalgic and miss so many people that no longer or that no longer live in your area. And it just. It ruins, like, a little bit of your soul inside where it's just like, that's why I played back then. And I didn't realize it. Like, what's funny? Everyone knows Kyle Stable House as a caster today who's all serious and Whatnot. But back then, when we were growing up, the Sable House brothers, like, they lit up every tournament they went to. Like, if you saw them walk into, you're done. Whatever tournament they're playing at, not only were you like, crap, I'm not winning this event, but you also knew it was going to be a fun day because of how chaotic and funny they are. Yu-Gi-Oh true. Yu-Gi-Oh I know. A kind of core memory for me in Pokemon is I came in second place to Kyle at three separate state champion. Or maybe it was only two because there were only two weekends, but two different state championships. Playing the mirror in the finals, like, exact 60 card mirror at both events. And just being like, like, what am I even doing here? Like, and it's fun because I know it's like, we've played other times. And I think we actually ended up playing at nationals the same year. And I was able to take it away from him and ended up going deeper because of it. But just definitely a fierce competitor. And you still see the events where Kyle shows up. I don't know the last time Ryan actually played an event. But the tournaments where Kyle shows up, he still is a competitor. And people who are more modern players or more modern faces may not be as aware of it, but, you know, he'll still throw cards with the best of them. You know, even. Even Ryan's at. Ryan's at almost every tournament. He's not playing well. He's he's at the turrets. Yes. No, Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. Yu-Gi-Oh sure. People don't know, but he's there. He. Listen, if you watch a stream, you'll see him pop up on the credits. And if you've never actually sat through the credits of a stream now you know, you can find his name if you sit there and watch them. It's cool how many names are in the credit today. Like the. It's really neat how they integrated that finally a couple years ago. Yu-Gi-Oh So Alex, not to take up too much more of your time, but we have one more question for you. Do you have or what would your long term goals be with PTCG Legends? Like you mentioned, some of these other websites have come up. They exist. They don't necessarily encompass all of the information that your website does, but they also have other functionalities or serve other purposes. Do you have any other goals or any other things that you would like to accomplish with PTCG Legends, like moving forward or in the future? We got like an hour left, right. If that's how long it's going to take you to answer then I guess so. Essentially what I want is for people to just look back and just be able to look up anything they want and find it. And that's kind of why I eventually turned it into like a full fledged database. Not just because everyone that was using my website originally were making little comments like I wish it was like limitless and I can look up these cards and stuff like. But you know, there's a lot of plans I have. Some may not be realistic, some are that I. I'm not going to talk about. But Yu-Gi-Oh I don't. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. I really don't know how to answer that. I just. It's a passion project. Like sure. John said earlier, like just yesterday I was looking at the statistics of my website and this is just because of Worlds, but there was an average of 250 visitors every 5 to 10, 15 minutes for the last few days straight. That's a lot of people in my opinion. And I could have ads and I could be making money from it, but I don't need money and I hate ads. So Yu-Gi-Oh I don't have that. So it's just a passion project. There's a lot of things I want to integrate. Like it'd be cool to have like community forum style decklist submissions from Retro format so people can see how people are thinking of decks from Retro formats today without like just randomly trying to find random retro results. Sure, Yu-Gi-Oh Like one thing I did recently, which I never announced it, but you know, there's limitless pages, but now I have Legends pages. So you can look up any player and you can see, you know, broader history of their accomplishments. So. Which of course goes all the way back to 2004. Yu-Gi-Oh but I'm always, I'm always finding and receiving from really cool people in the community. Long lost decklists from really old worlds. Like, I have an archive page where, where we list out every little, you know, new thing we discovered and added to the site. Like this month we found. Not we, someone else. They sent it to me. A 2 7th place Worlds list. It's seniors, but like that's still cool from 2014. Like you're not gonna find that if you go online. Like, you gotta dig and you gotta ask around and, and you know, you have to know where to look to begin with. And sometimes you just got to be lucky. Like. Yu-Gi-Oh Using the. There's a. There's a site called the Wayback Machine and it is a. It's a site that essentially has screen grabbed every single website nearly in existence, like at least once a day ever since the Internet existed, more or less. So like there's. There's times where you can rely on that to go back and see what the Pokemon website used to look like back in 2006 and when they first started posting top four results and PokeGym and just all sorts of websites. It's hard to find stuff. But it is cool when you actually dig and it's really, really exciting when you're successful and you find stuff because like there's a. There's a lot of decklists from worlds and internationals and old nationals that we have found that still isn't on Limitless for whatever reason. Yu-Gi-Oh it's interesting. I know I've seen like every once in a while Robin seems to go back and do kind of a swath of updates to older tournaments. But it's not, there's not always a rhyme or reason to it. Right. And you're just kind of like, here, there, everywhere, like, what. What is the thing that's going on here? No, I've always kind of felt bad even. There's really no reason to. Like, the goal was to never copy Limitless. Okay. But essentially the goal turned into a lot of people are bringing up that they're not able to use my original website intuitively, so I might as well make it a database. After I had become, you know, a more knowledgeable web developer and I knew how to do stuff like that because of my work. And so essentially the goal is one day, every single deck, including the cards that John was shuffling at the beginning of this podcast, will become a retro deck one day. And if it's not documented on my website, which is known for retro, or at least it used to be before. Before I deviated away from it a bit. Like, I need all of the modern data in order to do what I'm planning to in the future for what will be retro stuff. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I guess that's. That's the big end goal. It's just, again, just cool. Yu-Gi-Oh Not just tournament results. There's a lot coming. I'm excited. Nice, man. Awesome. We're excited for you. I'm definitely looking forward to it. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, I cannot understate how amazing it is that you do not have ads on your website because we have used Limitless for a lot of results. And Robin has some wonderful functionality on that website. But if you do not pay for his Patreon, I think it's Patreon that he utilizes to get rid of the ads. But if most ad blockers can't keep up with it and the website is so egregiously slow, if the ads are in place and you know, your website is extremely snappy, extremely easy to navigate to whatever page you want to get to. And Yu-Gi-Oh highly encourage. If you have never checked out PTCG Legends, you are doing yourself a disservice. Please get over there and educate yourself on the history of the game in some way, shape or form. And maybe you could find the retro deck that speaks to you, the format that speaks to you, and just hope that it's not RSPK because that's going to cost you a lot of money. Yu-Gi-Oh Now I want to put that like quote on my website now is like, find the retro deck that speaks to you. Like, you don't pick the deck. The deck picks you, buddy. Yu-Gi-Oh right. Steelix reaches across time and touches you on the shoulder. Now there's a lot of other cool resources, like the rules of every single era that's ever existed. If you're playing retro decks, just open that link and you've got it all in your hands. As well as I got all the scans of all the world's booklets that's been released ever since 2004. Those are really cool to go back on. My original website had a bunch of catalog of random pictures I had found over the years of each event. I don't have that on the current new version. Of the website. I should bring that back sometime soon, but Yu-Gi-Oh Awesome. Well, all that being said, I think that that exhausts the list of questions that we had prepared ahead of time. Did you have any other information that you wanted to impart or any shout outs that you wanted to make before we close things out, Alex? No. I had a conversation with my mom this morning and more or less she asked why I was going to Baltimore regionals and not playing in a local event. And I said, I just want to play. And she goes, but aren't you, like, no longer relevant? So it's cool to be ever so what relevant to be on a podcast. So thanks for having me and thanks, mom, for dissing me like always at the age of 32. Well, thanks for coming on. We really do appreciate it once again. Yu-Gi-Oh All right. Humble you, but it's awesome hearing from you, man. And I'm like, we've been saying it over again. We, we value your website. We value you as a player, you as a resource for the community. But I'm really looking forward to seeing you in Baltimore. I'll bring some retro decks, any format you want to play or you just. You're down to play anything, I think, right? Heck Yu-Gi-Oh All right. Looking forward to it, man. Okay, well, that being said, we're going to close things out here. Thank you again, obviously, to Alex for coming on and once again, highly encourage everybody. Check out his website. He absolutely deserves the support because I'm sure it has been a lot of work to keep things inserted, maintained, and you know, I, I know that you also went through and did a major overhaul sometime fairly recently and once again, Zebra easy to utilize. Has a lot of information that you will not find anywhere else. And we hope that he maintains it for the foreseeable future because it allows a lot of people to view the history of the game in a way that they otherwise would not be able to. So from John and myself, thank you for listening to us to this point on the Battle Frontier podcast. We hopefully will be back on a more regular schedule soon and we will be back to talk about some of the other happenings in Pokemon, like the closing ceremony, announcements from Worlds as well as well as those Worlds results on our next episode of the Battle Frontier. Have a good week.