Episode 2-27: Double Trouble ft Patrick Orgel

Alright, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Battlefront 2. Thank you for your patience, I know our schedule's been a little bit erratic lately, but I have a very special guest tonight, or whatever time you're listening to this. It's pretty late on Tuesday for us. But this is my brother, Patrick Gorgel. Yeah, you're not seeing double, in fact, we're just identical twins! So Patrick is the person that got me into Pokemon. He came home sophomore summer of college, and pestered me, and pestered me, and pestered me until I caved and played Pokemon with him. I've been playing since then pretty much non-stop, so it's been a long journey but a lot of fun over the years. Yeah, I think I started around Arceus, I remember that was the big set that we opened up a lot. So I caught the end of 2009-10, which is a lot of people's favorite format from, especially me. I caught the tail end of it, so I had to like, you know, I got to like, read all the cards with all the abilities in. They didn't rotate right away. It was in abilities back then, it was Pokepowers and bodies. So yeah, nothing rotated, it was DP on when I started, and then it was MD on after that year, the first year. So it was, yeah, you had hold item abilities, you had a lot of, I remember I was a judge that era too. Oh really? I didn't know that. Yeah, I judged, I was a judge before you, I kind of got you started on that. I forgot about that, yeah. I judged pre-releases with Dave Griggs back in the day, and back then you got better product as a judge than you did as a player even in a pre-release, especially in a pre-release, you get a whole box, or a box and a half depending on the size of the pre-release. You still get a lot compensated as a judge today. Yeah, but even on pre-release level? Yeah, if you get enough players, they give you a certain number of packs as judge support per players in the pre-release kits. Back then though, it was like, we didn't care about them. So we were talking about this when I was up here yesterday, my mom was here, our parents were in town over the weekend, and my mom was in here looking at our stuff, and John's pulling out boxes of his product sealed, and he's like, yeah, this is $500, and I've got about six of them, and my mom's like, you have enough to buy a nice car with. It's crazy, back when we started, Pokemon has, we've hashed this out, it still blows our mind every time we get it. It's still, every time I listen to you guys with it, it's just like the Leo DiCaprio moment in One Spine Time at Heart, it's like, ugh, super, because I was like, I was there. It's relatable. But yep, so Pat's been a big part of my journey, so it's good to have him on. So like, Aaron's out this week, he might pop in, but probably won't. He's dealing with some cool stuff that came in from the Artemis mission, for a lot of the stuff that went on the mission, so some of the stuff that they sent up into space came back, and he's been busy working on that. We touched some moon rocks at the Air and Space Museum, me and my daughter. Oh yeah, so Pat's been in town with his daughter, Norlin, and yeah, they went up to DC for yesterday and the day before. So we've had a nice little weekend of it, but enough about us recapping that, we can, we'll probably talk a little bit more about stuff as the year goes on. Oh yeah, I'm terribly lucking off topics. Yeah, I gotta keep them in line tonight. But we've had a pretty eventful, well, yes and no, eventful in some regards, but somewhat, no major events, no massive rule changes like we had the last time we recorded. So it's been a little bit quieter, but still some stuff to talk about this week. I think tonight we're going to start with Pokemon just put out a press release, I'll pull it up here. Pat hasn't read this yet, so I'm going to read it out for those that aren't watching, and Pat can react and I'll give my opinion on it. Wow, this is pretty in depth. So yep, this came out, this was on the forum, the community forum for Organized Play, put out by TCPI, Ollie Whoop, which is just, I think, one of the people that responds to service tickets. I'm not sure about that exactly. So the statement goes, at the recent Pokemon Orlando Regionals, two instances of penalties being issued during streamed matches have created questions within the community about celebrations. Play Pokemon has reviewed each instance, and we would like to provide more information. In the first instance, during the Pokemon TCG's Swiss Round 13 match, the tournament headphones were removed and were thrown onto the table on top of cards and damage counters, putting the TCG game state in disarray before additional game actions could be taken to complete the game. A match loss was issued for the disruption to the game state and not playing out this final sequence to finish the game. In the second instance, during the Pokemon Go Grand Finals, we would like to share some more information which may not be known to the broader community. Prior to the final game incident, during Game 1 of the Bracket Reset series, a player was issued a warning for the action of hitting and shaking the table during gameplay. Actions such as these can have a negative impact on the experience of participants and disturb the match in progress. Even during Game 5, this same player's behavior continued to be disruptive, including shaking the table to the point that there was a disruption to the broadcast experience. These repeated infractions resulted in a penalty that was escalated to a game loss. We will uphold the decisions made by the judges at this event. Pokemon judges are committed to bringing the best possible experience to players by preserving the competitive integrity of our events. Without them and their commitment to PlayPokemon, we would not be able to hold events and it is our expectation that they are treated with the same respect as all people in the community. In the moment of a win, emotions are high and we recognize that these emotions can lead to energetic celebrations celebrating a win. We want to support this enthusiastic, authentic, positive reaction and not discourage this excitement. Celebrations are not an issue, but actions that disrupt or can negatively impact competitive integrity can be. We will continue to listen to the community of players and our judges on how best to evolve our tournament system rules and how penalties are enforced. The PlayPokemon team. Next reaction is, this is a lot more transparency than I think we've ever been received from Pokemon in a sense of... In a long time. Yeah, like... The last time? Was it that three years ago where it's like, we will be more transparent? Yeah, that was... Duh. Who was the player? It was Worlds, right? No. I'm trying to remember. But there was a player that... Fernandes. A video... No, it was a video leaked of him and his friends doing something really stupid. Oh, that was Rowan Stabenow. Yeah, Rowan. Yeah, that's what that was, yeah. They put out a press release saying, you know, giving context as to why they gave the penalty they gave and all that stuff. And I think, yeah, I'm with you. The first one, this is when I first was watching, because I watched this live when it was happening and as soon as the board state, as a judge, like the one thing that I used... This is forever ago, but even then it doesn't change. When you're teaching juniors or anybody, just keep a clean board state. That is so important. Your dice, especially with juniors and seniors, because they're like, I just don't have that much HP left on the Pokemon. And it's like, nah, because if I walk around and you have 30 damage counters on the Pokemon and you're like, that's all I have left to knock out. It's not the same as... Yeah. Yeah. But either way, messing with the dice on a field, if there's no video to rewind, you're just hosed. And that's not okay, especially in a deck where it's like, there was a lot of damage out on the field, if I remember correctly. Yeah. It was Gardevoir versus Grimmsnarl versus Gardevoir, so both players are manipulating a lot of damage counters on both sides, so there's a lot going on. So I mean, it wasn't like it was a cut and dry, obvious play. It was obvious that he was going to win with certain cards and contacts, but if you're just, let's say this wasn't at a table where there was video to be rewound and a judge saw this and a player popped off and essentially, I mean, yes, it was not as violent as some people make it out to be, but you know, he threw the headset on, but it did disrupt the game state and it did create a situation that if this was any other scenario, that we would be penalized. And even a two-prize penalty in that scenario would have cost him the game. So like, you know, I don't know the whole rule set, and Jon can speak to that better. Yeah, I'm pulling it up right now as we're talking. But either way, you know, you disrupt the damage counters on the field before the actions are resolved. That was my take. And you know, kudos to the player that he got, that he got, you know, Makani got through it and still made top cut. It didn't rattle him. That's one thing I think that we should be pretty respectful and impressed with is that he still got to top cut after all that and he got a rematch, which is pretty wild. But the go thing, that's a lot more just insight from TPCI that I think we've ever had. I don't think we've ever gotten that behind the curtain. No, and I kind of like that a lot because I mean, and it speaks to kind of what we were talking about a little bit beforehand and the importance of not jumping into conclusions. I mean, if you take the clip out of context and just look at it from 30 seconds of what you've been seeing on Twitter or wherever, you know, it looks bad. There's no way to get around that. But like these judges' decisions are usually made with a lot more than just that one snapshot. There's a lot of context that's missing from something like that. And that's always a challenge as, you know, if people ask me my opinion, a lot of times and it's kind of a canned response. I'm not going to pretend like, but it's the truth. You know, I'll say, well, I wasn't there. I don't really know what happened to the full extent, especially with Go. I don't know how their game operates. I don't know if, you know, the guy had penalties from earlier in the tournament or something like that, you know, and you're only hearing one side of it. You're not hearing the judge's side of it. So it is good to finally get the other side of it from Pokemon. And this is somewhat helpful for, you know, supporting judges, but it does leave some. I don't think I necessarily agree with the decision entirely, but the fact that there was pretense. Yeah, I mean, that's OK. Like, I don't think that like it helps just encourage tournament integrity. If we know where the judges are coming from, whenever they're making rulings, it gives that context. And that's all that we really can hope for. And like a statement from Pokemon, the section at the end kind of saying we're going to support our judges and stand by them feels kind of can't. Yeah, I don't know if that's totally necessary. I just want to put it out. And I don't mind that sentiment, obviously. Like, yeah, we want our judges. And I mean, it's nice that Pokemon supports us. But, you know, it's also like, I mean, I also know what I'm signing up for when I go to judge regionals. And I'm not I'm not going to be beholden to the court of public opinion entirely. But I mean, it is part of the job. And unfortunately, like I mean, social media is going to social media. It's going to react to stuff. I mean, that's probably why they made such a big statement was because of how much this got traction on social media. Yeah, I think it's a bad look if you have no response versus and, you know, even if this response kind of feels a little trite, maybe or a little bit safe. Well, that's fairly, you know, big text. And so, yeah, definitely very PR drafted response, which I think that's probably what we should expect from Pokemon and would expect something like that moving forward. But it is good to see something like this come out of it. Yeah, I can I mean, I guess I can talk about the penalty situation here. So it being a in the TCG game, I can't really speak to go for TCG match loss was issued for the disruption to the game state and not playing out the final sequence to finish the game. So there's a couple of different areas you can look at with that disruption to the game state would be procedural. And then that's kind of compounded with failure to play out the remainder of the game, which would be game player, potentially major, depending on how severe. And it's also it might be escalated because it's on stream. So there's deviations from the recommended starting penalties. You can like the escalation being on stream like that's not like that. I have a beef with no offense. No, it's fine. It's tough. Like these are these are the reasons why there are guidelines that they're not hard and fast rules. It always feels like you're under a bigger microscope on. Oh, yeah, you are. Which I get. I just it doesn't feel entirely voluntary to be on stream as a player. So it's like they don't ask to be, you know, under a bigger microscope from that. But Big Peaks like kind of protect himself. And I respect that. I mean, I think if a player were to stand up before the game was over and walk away. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that was out on the tables as well. There might be grounds for something like a penalty. Like, I'm not going to speculate too much. I think Pokemon's made it clear, like, hey, if you're going to, you know, disrupt your game state, walk away while the game's still going on. And then even if you come back, like, now we have to, like, rewind it. And like you said, now you have to figure out, okay, the damage counter is interrupted. You're taken away from the tournament. Like you're disrupting the broadcast, all that stuff. It's not like. No, I'm not saying I think in this scenario is definitely called for. So, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, the GO one is more controversial. Yes, no doubt. But I don't know. Like, I don't really want to give my opinion on it entirely, but. Yeah, sure. I mean, I do appreciate that. Food for thought, for sure, which is something that we haven't really had from Pokemon. And I kind of appreciate it. You know, it's not like I didn't think it was anything I didn't expect, but it's cool to see, you know, behind the curtain for the wizard and see. Yeah, no, I really do appreciate them giving, like, the penalty history. before that round for that players, like, now, you know, okay, there was a warning earlier in the same game for similar behavior. So it's just, you know, the rule book is very clear about how you can escalate like a warning into a game loss. The behavior continues and doesn't like you have to discourage it as a as a term as a judge, that's part of your role is to discourage repeated behavior, discourage players from kind of repeating the same thing over and over again. And if it is disrupting the other player, like go, you have to have, like, you can't like if you're shaking the table or doing something like that, that can be Yeah, that's like tilting the pinball. Yeah, like if you're mistiming something, or, you know, if it's, I don't know, disrupting the ability to play the game. Yeah. And it's disrupting the broadcast. I like I said, I don't really know a thing about go there are much better at talking heads than I could ever be. Yeah, and I'm sure the Go community will weigh in and probably already has. So we'll leave them. We'll leave them to that. Yeah. But very interesting with all the mechanics situation. Yeah. So what are you hoping for? I mean, obviously, we all want more transparency with release. Do you want like, like, like magic does like where they after after every major tournament, they go over, like the more public penalties, or all DQ. This is, I think, very proportional response. And in terms of the social media backlash. I don't hope I hope that it doesn't take this much backlash in order for this to level of transparency, and then I can continue forward with this. Yeah, I think that would be a good this is a great start. And if they keep this level of transparency through the remainder of the season, and maybe even going further, then, you know, give them their flowers, honestly. And kudos to the admins and everything involved that this is getting a big, just a big address and a big response like it is. It's not every you know, like, I don't think this was this was like, I don't know if there's ever been a release about ruling this in depth, maybe not this in depth. No, but yeah, it's good. And there's lots of, you know, already public opinion weighing in on Sam, we won't really comment on that. I don't think that really deserves our breath. I've been on a case. Yeah, I found out about it kind of through the grapevine. Like just seeing other professors reacting to it on group Simon. Yeah, I think that's enough. If you guys have any questions or want to talk more about stuff in particular, please just post it in the comments. We'll definitely be talking about it in the weeks to come. And I don't I want to hear everybody else's opinion about you know, what's going on? What are your thoughts on it? What are your what are your feelings about you know, what Pokemon's reaction to this was and also like, if if you're, you know, a judge or something like that, like, let me know what your thoughts are. As far as going into, you know, in the next tournament, are you worried about, you know, how you're going to be perceived as you're judging on the floor? Or if you're playing? Are you worried about like, judges making an impact on your tournament run, something like that. So I definitely want to hear some of that. But that's enough of that. I think we're gonna move into Blaine's quiz show. Pat prepared a special edition just for tonight. So yeah, so I had this thought probably a few weeks ago. And I was I think I even throw it to you were with the rotation happening. I was just kind of doing a deep dive on all of the Pokemon cards that they've made tons of versions of because with new blocks, you're like, you know, you're always thinking about back at like, what could have been with the format? Where did we you know, with especially for something like, oh, 9010. And oh, 910. We've really years beyond with perspective have created like an understanding of how much better that format could have been if we really put energy into it. And I'm kind of curious with this past format, thinking about what we can what decks that were I was just looking at what we are, we kind of missed out on but in lieu of that, I was like, Oh, what Pokemon? Did they make way too many of them that we never really used? So this week's Blaine's quiz show, I don't have it's not multiple choice. It's it's because this isn't going to be points for john. Sure. He doesn't he gets brownie points, pity points or whatever. Sudowoodo point. Yeah. Favorite Pokemon Sudowoodo for those who are kind enough to watch us at home. I have a Sudowoodo Katamari Damacy tattoo. I have another one on my leg, but you're not showing that right now. Yeah, that's fine. I am very he's he's like guiding. Yeah, I love as much as I love Ducklet Palos. Oh, yeah. And I love all derpy Pokemon. So Ducklet I'd vibe with as well. And ditto with Pocopia has been like, Oh, oh, like, I'm so mad. They had a Sudowoodo wacky whaling inflatable flailing tube man and Pocopia for April Fool's Day. My dog ate my cartridge. Terrible. I know I was dumb enough to get the frickin game key version and not the downloaded but because of that I didn't get the stupid thing but I could rewind my clock back in the game. I'm just too lazy right now. But yeah, I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna kind of do this will be a little fun. Like he's really just challenging himself. But there are five Pokemon that we kind of all four of them that we all think about but there's one that this is what really started it all for me and I was just shocked when I kind of did the big big dive for how many there were last format that were play playable cards that you could play with in any capacity that were unique that you know just because they're different set numbers doesn't mean that they're necessarily unique because you have like shining versions like from different stuff and then like SIR is obviously but they all have the same text but how many unique char cadets we've had this I know but I don't think I ever told you it was a long time ago and I can't remember if you remember I you did tell me the number but I don't remember exactly. And they did this. Oh my god. It's not double digit, but it's really close. I think it's eight or nine. No, it's more. Oh my god. I kind of want you to pull it up after we're done with this first one. React to it because it's crazy. All right, like 1312 char cadets. Unique char cadets in last format. I mean, I guess he was kind of like a poster child with armorers and central edge. Yeah, you think about the box art? Yeah. And like the I mean, I see from one year had those two. But it's it's insane. There were so now I want you to guess in that same format how many Pikachu's there were, you know, Pikachu, they made like a gazillion. But unique art Pikachu and Pikachu EX and Pikachu. The VMAX the the three price. What's the mega mega being a Pikachu? I don't think we have a mega Pikachu. Do we? Oh, no, we don't. You're right. That's the only Pikachu has a mega. It's just right. That was VMAX back then. Yeah. It was probably like, just eight or nine, right? No, it was 11. Okay, well, I'm just loving this one. Pretty. That's okay. That makes sense. Pikachu is pretty like, yeah, I think they do a lot of promos and stuff like all the world championship. Yeah, there's a few. Why don't why don't we pull up the if you can, I can just you can pull it up on like PKMN cards. Yeah. But char cadet, what's crazy with char cadet was it's a scarlet and violet on so there wasn't a char cadet beforehand. So they kind of made up for lost time. But you also had the char cadet you had Sarah ledge EX and you had the other Sarah ledges. And there was a bunch of different Sarah ledges and armor Rouge. And so with that you had kind of unique char cadets for each one sometimes. But yeah, it's nuts. There's like literally 14 char cadets that and 12 of them are unique. Only one's an SIR and one's a shiny collection. Well, this one got reprinted heat blast. No, it's different energy costs. No, no. Yeah, that one is the first one. Oh, you're right. So sorry, that's 11. All right, still way more than yeah. Okay, yeah, I guess I missed it on that page. But no, it's nuts. Yeah. He's got some cool artwork. I'll say that. Like, yeah, cool guy. Yeah, he's got the stringy comments the Shinji comment. No. So Tomokazu Komiya. So Komiya is a pretty popular artist. So it's cool that they got one. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Oh, so for me, favorite artists are Tokyo, who is like if you did HGSS. Yeah, that's a cool little segue. Yeah, I guess we're looking at this if we're doing this will be the next thing of playing squish. So what? So yeah, we'll do so. Yeah, this is we're gonna go down this rabbit hole. I guess that's fine. Go a little time with it. Tokyo. It's a t o k i a was my favorite artist. Favorite artist that he ever did was roast reveal nine tails from HGSS base. That's pretty cool. He's done something he hasn't really done anything recently. Yeah. Okay. He's a lot more a lot a lot of like anime style. The flow. Yeah. But his style worked really well for HGSS. Hark old soul silver era. And I don't know if he did a lot before that. Yeah, the Zangoose is also cool. But that ripario is really neat. Jolted. And that Charizard is really cool, too. Even though it's not on bronze. Cool. Yeah, that's all right. I like that. Oh, that's right. That is sick. Yeah. And that Blaziken is awesome. But the HGSS era. Chef's kiss, baby. It's cool. That porygon is really neat. This one right here. Pull that up. This this bad boy, just from a just from a composition and like the flow and it looks like it looks so HGSS has the best artwork. I will fight someone. Yeah, do you have all this guy's artwork? I do not I don't really collect at all. That's one thing that if you know you ever run into me really cool. I did a whole lot of gross line. The only thing I collect is Sudowoodo's and the only I have like some SIRs that they've I think I've done every SIR that he's been in. And then I have one illustrated signed Sudowoodo from my e-reader era that I really liked. We're using like a tree. Usminjin. So mad I didn't get Bubble Moon. Not for anything but the fact that yeah, but I follow him on Twitter. Yeah, he's a good follow. Oh, he's such a good follow. Like literally makes you smile every day. Yeah, because he's just does a little cute artwork with Pokemon. Yeah. And then one more thing. This is probably easy, but of Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur who had the most unique cards of the last format. It's gotta be Charmander. Yeah, it's only by two. Okay, so there's five unique Charmanders, three unique Bulbasaurs and two unique Squirtles. It's only two Squirtles, but they really did also did the Bulbasaur for the that might have been a reprint though. Yeah. For what 30th? The Pokemon Day. I think I had one. It was a reprint. Yeah. Just a stamp on it. Yeah, just a stamp. I thought you were going to say for 30th, but that's a J block card. Not J block, the newest block. Is that J? A card. Okay. For yeah, there's tons of different versions of Professor's Research. Black Belt. Yeah, I'm surprised by the amount of. Yeah, that was crazy that there's like. They did one for like every generation. Yeah, and then also Judge has a lot of different artworks sitting here. Just like three, I think for this block. Oh yeah, it came out in a CSS base. Oh, okay. If you go back to that point. Yeah. But yeah, I just kind of find that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's a nice little brain tickler if you will. So before we get wrapped up, it's kind of a shorter episode tonight, which I think is fun. Yeah. We just wanted to look at some of the results from some online tournaments and kind of talk about our experiences with post rotation format. Neither one of us has like dived super deep into it. So I think we're both kind of just giving first impressions. I'm that old unk yelling at clouds. I play at like locals and maybe like one regional a year if I make it. I work a big boy job. I'm a cardiovascular perfusionist, which is a bunch of words salad for I keep people alive on heart open heart surgery. So but that being said that job takes a lot of my time up and sure. It's great. I get to you know play mad scientist day in day out, but the same token like yeah, big boy job means not as much time off. It's like the whole you know you have college you have no money, but all the free time and then once you get out of college, no free time, but more money, so that's fine. Yeah. So let's pull up some page two if you're doing a screen real quick. Yeah. I don't know that was shared. Yeah. This will be though. Okay. But with none of the artwork was shared. Yeah, that was okay. I just exited out. I'm just like we're talking about cards and then we can see what we're talking about. They were up there. That one's we're going to do this. So I was on the train 112 players. Yep. I was on the train looking at this. you know I was like oh it's all made top cut so it's probably legit, but you know either that way it's like yeah, but 410 players a lot of big names even on this in terms of some people I recognize from just like Cal Connors on there. You know if you go down there's some more, but. There's like. I'm sure there's some, I don't know, I'm not super into the online scene as much, but some of these names I recognize just from other tournament results. Yeah, Kyle's been playing a lot of online stuff, but yeah, definitely KingHairCross I guess. Yeah, that's fun too. Definitely a lot of interesting results. Very diverse. Everyone's like, oh this format's awful, all it is is reset stamp, or unfair stamp rather, and Dragapult variants, and there's like 8 or 9 different decks in the top 16, and some of them are like, really? That's up there? Like Korygon, Rocket's Haunch Pro, which is, you know, it's a very linear deck. I'm kind of surprised by Slowking. This list is interesting. I mean, there's like a lot of normal things in the sense that, but the thin Jellicent line's kind of cool. Definitely using Wonderpatch a lot, using Cypher Maniac a lot, obviously to set up Slowking, but also like, you know, you've got Dedan's Bar, so if you need a piece for your Lily's Clefairy to hit into the Dragapult, or you need a piece to get Jellicent up and active so you can train her like a really trainer-heavy deck or something, something like Alakazam. Well, Alakazam's not necessarily trainer-heavy, they just like, don to get going, but pretty interesting for sure, and then of course you get to utilize Kirram, which is a busted card. I was also surprised with, Haxorus is a good card, Meowth's a good card, well, but like, the, what was it that surprised me, you get to use Telepathic Psychic Energy, which is a busted card in this format, just hands down, but, I'm kind of surprised about the lack of attackers, which I'm not mad about. No, it's more of a streamlined thought process, you only run three and you can really search out and use. You only run three Stadium, which is kind of different, Countergain's kind of a different card. I don't mind that. I don't mind that either, because you usually are playing from behind. Yeah, and it makes Soloking's attack one sidekick, so, that makes sense. Polka Pad feels good in the deck, doesn't run too thick of a line of the Dunsparce, oh, the Enriching Energy in here versus like a Legacy, or even Wonderbox. Makes sense with the Dunsparce line, when you're running through a Wonder Patch, you can get away with that kind of thing. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, it's a, it's definitely a deck I want to play laterally. Yeah, definitely like one you would want to pick up and play online. And then, also, so the deck that won it was actually a really pretty solid list, I feel like. This is kind of like, I think what we're going to see a lot of at higher levels. Very thin, look at this, 4, 4, 4, 4. Yeah, you're going to see a lot of, like, this is what, when you first start a format, what do we always stress is consistency. So, you know, 2 Meowth versus the 1, things like, you know, 4 Energy Switch, 4 Terror Orb, 4 Bug Catching Set, you know, 14 Grass Energy, like that's thick. And it makes sense when we're just trying to get the main, we're trying to get, you know, if you get enough energy on the field and get enough of it to do things, you're going to win the game, like, but, you know, nothing screams this is an amazing deck to me. It just kind of speaks to the strength of Ogre Pawn and Clefairy as attackers in this format. I mean, Ogre Pawn takes out most everything that, like, the things that are really beefy right now are usually Weak to Grass. Then Zora Arc, a lot of... Cynthia's Garchomp is Weak to Grass. Axol stuff. Because people are using, there's a Toxicity Tree Axol in here, and Azul's running that, and he kind of was working with, he's not playing that in this one, but he's been working that online. I think Entsplan's an interesting card, we haven't really seen too much of that before this tournament. But I think with the Teal Mask on the bench, it makes sense, yeah. Yeah, you can kind of use Water Pawn, oh, true. Because it's not restricted to basic. So that's nice, you can put it on something, and then if you go Iron Leaves, you can retreat it back, and then, I don't know, I think Iron Leaves will allow you to move non-grass. Or non-basic grass. Any amount of energy. Any amount of energy. Okay, yeah, so you can definitely utilize Entsplan, and Entsplan lets you move up to two energy from your bench to your active. So that gets you able to use Wellspring Ogre Pawn more efficiently, too, I think. And Clefairy, if you need it. You're essentially running six to eight energy switch, if you think about it that way. You can Entsplan, the main thing I think is if you don't want Clefairy on your bench because it's only got 190 HP, you retreat your active Mon, promote Clefairy, Entsplan something with a Prism and a Grass, and then you immediately, sorry, that'll probably peak your mic. And then you can smack a Dragapult or anything weak with the Clefairy ability and kind of just go for it. And then having the two Clefairy in there, I mean, you don't have any recovery in the deck, but it's still pretty good for that. The Briar's kind of interesting, I mean, I get it a little bit. It's pretty easy to find with two Meowth. Yeah, that's true. I guess, I forgot, I haven't really played, like I said, I haven't played that much of this format. Meowth makes it a lot easier to find your one-off supporters, for sure, and like, you can go down to two boss with this, because you only need like one boss per game or so. So this is, yeah, it's very, we're getting more streamlined, we're getting more refined as the format goes on. We're starting to see lists that are able to like really figure out how to best play this format, and like what you can get away with, what you need to play in your deck to like make it function, make it work, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Rockets, Porygon, and Haunt's Crow, I mean, the Porygon line's thin, but it's a pretty fun deck. And then, um, nothing, it's so thick lines, like, 4-4-4, but that's what you do with Rockets deck. It's a pretty thin Porygon line. Yeah. One Mimikyu, one Articuno, I think that's Lightning. And the Miracle Headset, and the Rotostix, and yeah, this is pretty similar to most lists. Whatever, if you need like a random Articuno for something. Pretty thick energy line, 4 Rockets, 4 Ignition, but yeah, all your supporters are maxed out, all your Rocket Strand receivers are maxed out, and you're running like Rotostix on top of that, so this is very hard leaning onto the Haunt's Crow, which I think might be the way to go. It allows you to just get through the attackers faster and more consistently, so I don't mind that, but it's an interesting one. I think it's, it's just like, I'm not sold on it, to be honest with you, but. Miracle Headset's kind of cool, and I think that's a good card for that deck. Yeah, you can like Petrel for 5 supporters, essentially, so that's kind of nice. Yeah, it definitely gets you. So you have Cynthia's Garchomp in third. Yeah, you can look at it if you want. Yeah. I was going to look at Azul's deck, just because I think it's a good deck to playtest against if you've got, like, a good list to playtest against, because you'll probably end up seeing it at some of the earlier tournaments now. Yeah, nothing I would say stands out to me here. It adds things. Very thick Roserade line with 4-4. It's really not too different from pre-rotation, which, Cynthia's didn't lose a lot, I think is what's part of that. No, you have a pretty nice engine with the Gobbites, and you can get everything out of it. The grass weakness is a bummer. It's weak to grass, right? Yeah, it's weak to grass. The grass weakness is a bummer. It's got so much HP, especially with the power weight, but there's so many grass attackers that it's fine. Yeah, it's... You don't have anything that can... 2 Omastar Gryphon hurts pretty bad. Runs through it pretty bad. Yeah. Because you need 2 energy, and then they have usually 3, at least, and they can get more. So they're already hitting, what, 180 there, so 360, and then they can just put 1 or 2 more energy, and then they knock you out, which isn't that hard for the deck to do. This is a little interesting, yeah? So this is a Zul's list. Yeah, this is a solid, just... I think if you want a good... It is just, we're gonna get big old Teal Mask and go. And I think that's a really safe bet for a strong deck in this current format. I like that he only has 1 force of vitality. It's there if you need it, but you don't really have... You can combo it out with the knockdowns. Exactly. So if you need to get a Meganium out for whatever reason, you can, but it's not... You know, you've got Bug Catching Set just for the setup, but you're not kind of... You've also got the Terra Orbs for the Teal Mask, so if you can't find a Teal Mask, that's a problem, because you need them, you can go ahead and knockdown for the Ogre Pawns. You're not just living and dying while you're Bug Catching Set. And then, of course, Poke Pad also helps you get the pieces you need specific for the Meganiums. Also, yeah, it just lets you get... And the knockdown, obviously. If you get a hand disrupted, just drawing Poke Pad lets you get out of it pretty much easily. This is so linear, though. It's very linear. That's what I don't like. That's the thing, when I was playing this format, the little I have played, is a lot of the decks feel very linear currently. I've tested with Alakazam, and I tested with Mega Absol, and both decks, I mean, Mega Absol felt less linear, but it also felt less consistent. You don't have any energy acceleration, because now with TM Turbo Energize gone, it's kind of not it, man. You were just getting outclassed, and especially with how many grass attacking decks that are out there now, or at least decks that use Teal Mask Ogre Pawn as their engine, you're just getting lopped by them if you hit them on ladder, and it does not feel good. Kangaskhan can put up a little bit of a fight, but even then, yeah, if you get your main attack or KO'd, the deck feels bad. The Mega Starmie is, I mean, it's nice, because it's not Frost Lass, right? It's Dragapult's Mega Starmie. Oh, interesting. So this deck, I have no, I have no, I want your opinions, because I don't even know. You're running the Draclug mainly as a way to just get through your deck, because Starmie itself, it's a low energy attacker, but yeah, you don't need much, but you do need the ability to just get through your deck. It uses Neo Upper, so you're using it for the, I assume for the Dragapult. Well, yeah, in case you get the Dragapult out, you can use it. It's still a good attacker, Dragapult is. It's still a good attacker, yeah. And you get the little ping spread of Starmie, so you can set up stuff early game for late game to get KO'd with Dragapult, or vice versa, you have a ping from the Starmie, and then the Dragapult can finish it off by spreading damage around. Yeah, I think you're basically saying, alright, you're really not getting through my Mega Starmie in one hit, so if you do hit into it, I have monkeys to move off the damage, and then go from there. You can damage your own self with Risky Ruins, so this is kind of the thought is, alright, I'm going to turn to go 120 the active, monkey door damage over to something on the bench, and hit essentially 80 damage to something on the bench. That knocks out every setup deck, basic Pokemon, that there is in the format right now. So that's an efficient way to get through most of the setup decks, and then you have the ability to kind of close out with Mega Starmie's second attack, Nebula Beam, which is a shred for 210, you know, it's not that bad. This shred's good against, definitely. It's okay to have, and then you have Dragapult if you need to move into that, but mostly you're just kind of picking apart with the Starmie. I think this is great, a good deck against the Tealmasks of the world. You're, you know, Starmie's weak to lightning, and it's got 330 HP, and it only attacks for one energy, so it's an uphill battle right there. You two-shot them back. Yeah, they hit you for a little damage, you move damage over with Monkey Dory, you're setting up your attacks. It's kind of almost a response to the amount of Tealmasks out there, and you know, it might be a reactionary deck, but it's something to kind of consider. He beat a lot of, yeah. He lost to Zul, but yeah, he beat every other Tealmask-based deck. There's one, two, three he faced, and then cute Dragapult, a lot of Dragapult, and then a Straightbolt, and then, yeah, the Garchomp, but the Garchomp, you can disrupt their setup before they get going pretty easily. This is cool, I think this was a good one to try out, I haven't played the Frost Assault Monkey Dory, this is a little less, lost to Zul in the last round, so it's, yeah, I think it hits for special energy, if it has special energy, it gets knocked out, and yeah, not enough to really worry about it, but, I'm trying to think what, I don't know, that would have been a fun game to see. Yeah, maybe he just got his setup done beforehand. Crosscut in the arm. Well, maybe this is a different one, I'm thinking of, oh, okay. It's a basic Pokemon, they're knocked out, so that's not going to affect it, that's really good against Mega Box, that's why that's in there. We're looking at Hexorus with Axe Blast, and, you know, it just basically says if your opponent's active on one of the base Pokemon, it's knocked out, so not running the one that knocks out special energy ones, running a newer one, I think. Maybe he got an early Cure-Em-Off, or, Frillish, Jellicent, Trainer Luck probably hurts you pretty bad, I don't know, you don't need much to get going, so, but yeah, definitely, it's kind of reverse-engineered when you're looking at standings, and sometimes it's just the player who's dead twice, or something like that, in single eliminations, so. There's a couple more that are interesting, there's a Barbacle in there, Barbacle kind of, I've seen some players play that on the ladder, in Grindr. I think Azul played this in a tournament. Yeah, he did, and I watched that. It's pretty good. It's fun, it's very linear. I don't have a problem with linear if it's single prizes. Yeah It's just harder for your opponent to really like disrupt that kind of strategy It's really only one stage one which is a much better thing for the most single prizes aka alakazam right now Oh, I'll kazam you need like two to three turns initially to start going If you have the tarragon, which is a nice card for this deck Oh, yeah, I forget about get back in five and income or four in any combination of fighting Pokemon and basic fighting energy So you're about to just keep It's it's such a nice resource to resourceful supporter in this deck I'm confiding you can get your okie-dokie, but you also get the fighting energy you can discard with Lunatone and then yeah, I get back up Yeah prisms for a monkey Dory, oh For the okie-dokie, duh. Yeah, and then obviously yeah, that's the main thing is it provides cuz your mean it give me an attack only uses Fighting but you need the dark on there. So the prism It's for basic types only. So yeah, so that works out. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah, it's a cool thing Definitely one. I want to try at some point or build. Yeah, it's not like it's a the nice thing about this format It's very budget-friendly. Yes Yeah, I don't think this if you look at this format, I think the most expensive card might probably Be Mega frost last or there's a mega. There's no mega frost. No, not really. That's the thing The most expensive card might be like to water pond. I mean Yeah Or I mean be me out the axes are like seven bucks a piece they're gone. No, yeah, they're about that. Yeah, they're like I just bought a couple so the Oh, yeah It's cool-looking but yeah, that's like the I love that perfect order so cheap If you if you guys the one thing you should know about me is I cannot I mean I don't hate the collecting market I just really hate Like scalpers and what they've done for a product availability for a lot of this stuff super cheap Yeah We're in a good spot if you're trying to get into the game if you're a new player trying to build the new deck It's really not that expensive. No, and the most expensive card will probably be like Yeah the harder part nowadays is going to a store and asking do you have any stuff for like playable things because they all just have Stuff for collectors. Yeah, you gotta know a store and you're like get lucky. I guess just gone to see you player There's a couple of Richmond that are nice that the cater to the players and so that's that's good The one deck and it didn't do well in this tournament so Al Kazem's that were kind of right outside, what's the other? What's the other which one Jeremy K? Duns first I'll attack like a controlled. Oh, no, it's this is With the grand wing from pavilion. She so this allows you to like control hand size and then yeah, you can huh? Copy attacks with you can copy lower attacks to see you can get access to This is a throwback a bit. Yeah, I remember this being like a league deck for a hot second. Yeah, it's cool Yeah, did you I is not like the best but it's not the worst. That's uh Three I guess it's harder to find the stage one in stage two No candies either because you're just completely relying for force the vitality. Well, you're on Yeah John's really good. The only issue with dawn is like well TMT Eva's gone now, so it's kind of cool It's interesting that yeah, I'm seeing more and more that a lot of decks are discovering. Oh, I need to have like draw support that isn't Supporter based like supplemental like the the lilies isn't isn't enough And so you were seeing more and more decks incorporate the duns farce You saw the dragapult, you know Try drag cloak with a thin dragapult And then other decks like the the megastar me I think had what did it have it had? Yeah, that's the dragapult one So that had the dragapult and then yeah, it's he'll mask has your draw and your attack built into it So everything has draw maybe the Rockets doesn't but like it's it's Cynthia's kind of has an engine that builds into it So there's a lot of stuff like we're learning I think the importance of ensuring you're having like a draw engine and your deck for sure in this format The duns farce, correct. Well, you've got You don't have good. I mean, yeah, you only have his lilies, but you also don't have decks that Can I mean there's no disruption? so when once you're able to establish a hand and build off of it, the only disruption is like Unfair stamp for the most part and then that Isn't you know, like none of the none of the top decks. I saw it really really had it They're using like miracle heads out with the rock. I mean that that makes sense with the Rockets, but even the even the teal mask decks preferred something like prime catcher over unfair stamp and I think that really caters to and that's another thing with the teal mask is it's a great attacker and it draws you a card Maybe not the best engine, but inherently it doesn't just sit on there as a liability It can do something while you're trying to get out of the hole if you're in a bit of a pickle so Yeah, I think yeah, John wants to talk about Stevens metagross. Yeah, I mean it probably is So this is I mean not to you know, go off on a tangent. I know that this decks not competitive But this is the one I've been working on the most and this list looks very similar to what I just switched up my build to The six psychic I think I did five and five split because I run to energy recycler and then I don't run car mine Cuz that cards not good and Then former candies overkill I feel like but you do want to see it early. So I guess it's not that bad of an idea but um, yeah, this is kind of This is what I've been messing around with that league. I like this build with the To Scarbury is great. I Miss card got released. I'm like this card is just good. Yeah in the sense that well It's really good against teal mask upon because you recycle all the energy back You don't have the grass resistance that other metal Pokemon have but like they can't really do a lot of free retreat free retreat So it's a nice pivot Yeah, definitely weak to lightning which is not existent. Yeah. Yeah, definitely a good weakness right now so If you guys aren't familiar with mega skirmish, that's that's fine. I'll really it's a 260 basic mega With just one attack. It's a sonic ripper for a metal metal colorless shuffle I'll energy attach this Pokemon into your deck and this attack does 210 damage to one of your opponents Pokemon so yeah, just definitely like a not a very like Yeah, it's a cheap this is a cheap deck Like that's it's a fun deck for me. I like it because I don't let me out They're probably only expensive like yexes and then yeah, I don't know what lilies are now. They'd like a dollar or they last now Lilies are like a four of an area. They got reprinted in Ascendant heroes for since they're pretty cheap about 50 cents, maybe a dollar depending on where you go Yeah petrol feels weird, but like the more I played with it the more I'm like all I need is a rare can like once you're set up you have your boards threat set up You can kind of just work off your board for this deck. I'm not saying it's that good But you got genocide too. So petrol Candies, and if you've got you know, you've got did you do you play the? the What's the card with the wheels Precious trolley precious trolley. Do you play that? Yeah, so you essentially I'm assuming it's turn one You turn one precious trolley turn to Brooke candy into metagross and then you go from there Flowing yeah, so this yeah, it looks about right like the Cynthia's guard chomp probably is a bad matchup Because they don't really care about like Making him Yeah, I don't know I think if they reach critical mass Yeah It's true before you set up they can kind of run you off the board a lot of this format is just kind of who can run off and run their pun off and Raging bulls not that surprising. No It's hard, but I do see that they're not running the Empoleon which I think that's probably the way to go There's like an Empoleon that like if you evolve it up its ability prevents you from being It prevents all effects of attacks, and so it just counters alakazam that way well like the jealous in line here Yeah, that's gonna do a lot better. Yeah, I think that's fair So this is a good place if you're trying to work on this archetype. It's a good way to go. I think Definitely not the very like top of the metagame But it's the one I've been having a lot of fun with and I just wanted to kind of talk about it here But definitely let me know what you guys have been playing on your own free time What decks you really like what what are you what are you excited to try and bring to your locals? I'm gonna we're Pat and I are Hopefully going into the tournament tomorrow Let me try one of these decks from the doom tournament. Yeah, I'm not loving any of the things I was playing so just have something fun to play maybe yeah I mean, it's still early days, and we don't really I don't I don't have any major tournaments on my horizon I don't think Pat does either, but I still like to be competitive I'll build I built like eight or nine decks for this format. It's fun playing Pokemon. I mean, yeah But thank you guys for listening so much, I know it's a little bit awkward Not having Aaron here, but Pat. Thank you for coming on Making a little cameo very nice to have my best friend and longtime brother on the podcast finally But once again, thank you for listening to the podcast and hope you have a good week And we will catch you all when we record again