205. Dragons Rule the World

Pickaxe Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we feast. An offer you can feast on. On Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Propel Fitness water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. All right, now go. This episode is brought to you by our Patreon shout out to the community that keeps the Pokemon Professor Network rolling. For a dollar a month, you can support the network and join our discord@patreon.com Pokemon Professor. What's up, Pokemon trading card game fans? Welcome to episode 205 of Special Conditions. Or it's 206, I think. Oh, gosh, I already got it wrong. Where competing and collecting collide. And it's never felt more like that than today or this weekend. I will say it is Sunday, August 30, 2026. I'm Adam. I'm here with Justin. What's going on? Oh, you know, it's another day in the neighborhood. It's another day. It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Yes. So, Adam, it's a wonderful day in Lumiose City. Let's just say that. All right. Are you sure it's not San Francisco City? It could be. It could be. Have you ever been to San Francisco or the state of California? I have only been to California once, and that was for the Ultra Beast arrival for the Pokemon Go Live event, which was fantastic, by the way. I think it's what's. What launched my son's obsession with Ultra Beasts. So, you know, it is what it is. Yu-Gi-Oh Well, we got Trainer mystic in the house. Hello. Hello. Trainer mystic is in the house. What is going on? He showed My House Pandora pages recently. Holy cow. He's got so much heat in his binders. If you're not in the Discord, get in the Discord and look at the show off channel. And check out his binders. He's got something. He's got the bling. Bling. Yu-Gi-Oh What really shocked me was his. The. It's the promos from the Espeon Deoxys and the Umbreon and Darkrai tag teams. Those are so good. I'd love those cards. They are so sick, and I'm sad that I do not have either of them. That was, like, when I was first really getting into, like, collecting cards. I remember being in Barnes and Noble and seeing those boxes on the shelf. Yu-Gi-Oh no, those were some of the most epic boxes on the shelves ever, in my opinion. On today's episode, we're gonna just. It's gonna be a chill vibe. I mean, we. Worlds just happened this weekend. It is currently happening as we speak right now. We're just gonna talk. Have a good chat. We'll talk about Worlds because the TCG is technically done, but we're waiting to find out what the news is, because that's honestly my favorite part. Yes. And then the beginning of Worlds. Like, watching the first few matches and, like, seeing all, like, the crazy things that people are playing. Love it. I went to a world celebration event today, and I. I one-of-one Yes. So it's crazy. I haven't played. I haven't played in a long time. I mean, I have been, you know, at least once a week, I'm picking up live and at least playing one patch auto not the goals that I set a few months ago, but it's where I'm at. And then we'll talk about my vent. We'll go Adam's vending corner and talk about this weekend show and what I'm doing next weekend, all that stuff. And then I have a whole bunch of Prizm packs that I one-of-one So we're gonna open those, and hopefully we can pull something out. I think you should open one right now. Okay, I'll open this purple one. It is the Prizm Pack Series 9. So this is Mega Charizard Mega Gengar. So anything ghastly. Gengar Haunter Mega, all the cool stuff. And y' all can have my first code card. It is 67J67CNH4Q9K MP2. Good luck crumbling it up if it never gets used. It never gets used. All right, what do we have here? What is that? Grimsley's move. Dratini. Oh, a Dratini. Dratini is good. Crustle. Crustle. Zara Aura. Zera Aura. Oh, that's a Hollow. I love it. Hilda. Hey, playable card. I run this. I run this in my garchomp. And a grass energy. Nice. Yu-Gi-Oh So good. So fresh. At least you can play that. Hilda. Yes, I honestly, I love. I love the play stamp cards so much. It's. It's awful. If I see them at a card show, I Just see somebody like, have one or it's just like in their dollar bin or whatever. I'm just like, oh, I gotta have it. I gotta have it. It is. It is truly my favorite thing to find in a. And they also have like, you know, the special borders. Right? At least on the sum. Yes. They're like cosmos around the whole backside. It's so good. So good. Oh, man. All right, Justin, what have you been up to? Let's just say the month. It's been a month since we've recorded, I'm not gonna lie. So we apologize for the delay, we apologize for the lackluster, but we will. We are back on track. Adam has had his mental rejuvenation of one day of playing tcg, one day playing poker card. And like now I'm like, I'm feeling it. I'm just like, oh, I gotta compete again. I'm so excited. So it's. I'm just over the moon right now. Very thankful. But, Justin, tell me about your day, your month, My month, my year. So I've actually been. It's been so hot. You would think I would be more into playing cards, but somehow I've been less into playing cards recently. So I've been like, you know, dabbling and go here and there and been doing a lot of Star wars stuff recently with my costuming group and we had a convention. I was going to say you did talk about playing the card game, like, what was it called? Battlefront or something. Union. I mean, not union. Oh, my goodness. It's something. Oh, man, I'm having a blanking moment. Star Wars Unlimited. Have you dabbled it all in that at all? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh and I have. And I. Another thing I need to get back into as well. Really, I was just. Well, Pokemon first. Pokemon first. Yes, yes. Baby steps. Baby badoo steps. Baby badoo steps. But no, I. It's a tough job market out there and I'm trying not to bring the, you know, the mojo down. But, you know, I'm spending all my time working on myself so that way I can get a higher paying job to afford more cards. That's really what it's all about. It's all about buying more cards. Are you sure it's not Lego? See, the problem is we got to go brick by brick. Did you see all the Lego Pokemon? Oh, it's. It's bad. Since I don't have the extra cash right now. It's like how the Rayquaza is just staring at you. It's not like Pokemon cards. It's gonna like, be gone in like a few months. Those Lego sets will be out and available for the next two years. So I don't have to rush. I like to wait for a sale. There's typically a 20% off sale. It happens at Walmart or Target or wait for Black Friday sales. So I can be patient. Now, I may not be patient for the arcanine, which I still haven't bought. I need to buy it. But listen, at card shows, everybody asked me for arcanine. I literally made a page of just small arcanine cards. Yu-Gi-Oh And I literally had one person buy all of them but one. Yu-Gi-Oh It's hard to come by. Even. Even me trying to like, source them is very hard. Oh, interesting. So enough about me and my non Pokemon. Well, okay, so you talked about your Star wars, your 501st. Yu-Gi-Oh What have you done? I saw some viral vid footage. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh So we had this thing in Texas here called the Rebel Scum Con. And it's a Star wars only convention. And it. And so we have a lot of like the TV celebrities and other like people from the movies from back in the day, and they come and they. And they do panels and stuff. You know, there's probably 5, 000 people that Whatnot this con, but it's like, it's a nice couple, intimate con and stuff. And as everyone knows, Halloween is right around the corner. So spirit Halloween has opened up here. And one of my friends got a. The bright idea. Let's do Rod of the Hut as a run. So one of these things at conventions is you do a run, you. You get a bunch of someone. Like it could be a bunch of Mandalorians, could be a bunch of Jedi, it could be a bunch of whatever. And you do like a run through the con. Well, we were doing these giant inflatable Rod of the Huts. Think the inflatable T. Rexes. But we're just running the hut and we're just running through the con. And it floored people so much. People were just. Everyone was recording it on their phone and like we were getting hundred thousand views, like, just like left and right. Just. It was crazy. People really loved it, especially because in the movie, you know, he talks about being his own man because Right of the Hutt is son of Jabba the Hutt. I one-of-one bore you with the details there, but we were just like, I am my own man. Can you hear me? I'm not like my father. That's epic. Just look up Rod of the Hutt run and and you'll. And you'll see it. It's the ones with like 100, 000 views or whatever and a bunch of people doing the. The worm. And I posted on my personal Instagram when like a party. And it's hard to take yourself seriously because you just look like this big inflatable blob and you really can't walk at all. It's just like you shuffle your feet. I love it. All right. And so for me, I have been very heavy card show. It's just been card show every single weekend work. I've been just pumping out ice cream left and right, trying to make sure that, like, we don't run out, because I have three days to make it happen or the system falls apart. And I've gotten two pretty close calls, but haven't only run out of one thing, and that was because I made a judgment call, and it was peanut butter. I made a judgment call to make a specialty peanut butter flavor, which was peanut butter with cookie dough and a graham cracker swirl, which is one of my coworker Jordan's like, bright ideas. And it's called the Jordan. And it's delicious. It is literally by far, way better than peanut butter chocolate chip. We ran out of peanut butter chocolate chip and had plenty of that one. So that's the only call that we, we had. But other than that, haven't run out of anything. Been Zebra stoked. Been going to my friend's card shop a lot. Just sitting down, pricing cards, kind of, you know, clocking in, if you will. Just being around somebody that is in the space and can just bounce ideas off. Sometimes people come in and they have stuff for trade and they don't want to trade. And I'm like, hey, I'll trade. So works out. But just like non stop cards. It's been insane. I have been dabbling in one piece. Chanel and I really enjoy the card game. It is, it's just, it's like the hobby away from the hobby. I know I already said that with Digimon, but Digimon's fallen so far off, like the bandwagon, it's hard to get back into it. There's just, it's just like there's a pre release today of like a new set, and it's like I'm like seven sets behind at this point. I totally understand. Sometimes we get far enough out of something, you just. It's hard to get back in. Yu-Gi-Oh it's like, I still have my deck bill. It's no good But I still have my deck, though. I have multiple deck builds. I actually have probably have like seven on my desk here. Oh, my goodness. But one piece is like, I'm watching it with her. She's re watching it with me as I'm finding out and learning about these characters. It's a good anime. I will say it is good. It's a lot of. It's a lot of laughs. I'm just. I'm like, gassed up by how funny it is. But then I just want to compete. I just want to compete into something. And like, Monday nights work. There's no Pokemon on Monday nights. Not around here. It's like Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night. All three days I'm working. So I'm like, I can't do it. I have paralysis by analysis where I'm like, I could play it literally every day of the week. And because of that, I play it zero days a week. Week. Yu-Gi-Oh I wish I had more opportunity to play. Today was like an official first day off. No child, no card stuff, no shows, no nothing. Just me. So I got the whole lawn mode. I like, I started my day just lawn work, getting everything situated. I then after mowing the lawn, I was like, what the heck is that? There's something moving. Literally the size of a half dollar. Okay, this, you know, a tiny baby turtle. Must have been. We've had turtles in the past. I've seen them. Yu-Gi-Oh Literally burying their eggs in the front yard. I'm like, that's wild. Where I know we're in the woods, but, like, there's no water. Like, I don't know where the. So we've. And I've seen it. I've seen them go to our neighbor's yard. Like, I've seen turtles in the yard. I've seen them crossing my driveway. Coolest thing, you know, I. Watching it all happen is too. Is pretty cool too. Ashton's seen it. They usually get dug up and eaten immediately. I saw a little baby turtle. Was like, oh, my gosh, it's the cutest thing. I just wanted to finish mowing the lawn, but I didn't want to interrupt it or anything. So I just, like, set it aside for a second, finished, and then put him back. I was like, there you go, bud. Take off. And he just went. He went in the same direction he was already heading. We learned a lot about turtle. Baby turtles, they're like, born with instincts. During the winter, their body literally produces antifreeze. So they can basically, like, freeze themselves. Like, not die. Just like what? They thaw themselves out and winter, I don't know. There's a whole, whole suit there. But that. We're not here for that. We're here for Pokemon. So after that, I found a tournament and I was like, man, I'm going to be like a minute. A minute before it starts. And they're like, if you can get here, you can fill out a decklist. I'm literally, like, shaking. I Show up at 12:59, literally shaking, getting the decklist written, shout out to Chanel. She was able to fill it out and text it to me. So I was able to run in, pull up my phone and just write it in. I. That was the probably the sketchiest minute of handwriting that I've ever done. But got the list in. Got the list in. Nice. And now we're going to. We're going to jump into the next part, which is the world celebration event. one-of-one Okay, so start off celebration. No, I wish. I wish I did. So I roll in. I'm literally wearing my Washington D.C. world 2019, like, Jersey. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm wearing my. My awesome hat that you got me. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh In New York, the Pokemon Go Pikachu wearing hat. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I think that was New York with the cards. Yu-Gi-Oh And I've got so many compliments today on the hat. I'm like, I've worn this hat all over the place and this. And like, kids were like, where'd you get that? That's the coolest thing ever. I. All right, there was. There was like, there's three juniors, one senior, seven Masters. Yu-Gi-Oh So we all kind of, like, played along, but I chose to go with Garchomp. I said, I just want to have fun. And every time I've opted not to play Garchomp. I have not had fun, so I opted to play Garchomp. Very consistent, very straightforward. I like the fact that I can just play a poker pad. Go get Gabite and then use Dragon or Champions Call. Get another Goodbye Champions Call. Another Goodbye Champions Call. Another Goodbye Champions Call. And they get rosary. And then I'm like, all right, I'll dragon slice for 40 plus 30. So I'll do 70 for one. Like, turn two. Let's like, even if you knock that out, I've got three more to come. Why do you think people don't play Garchomp? I think it's very straightforward. It has a lot of downfall with that because it's very straightforward. Like, it's. It does what it does, but it. Your hand is pretty clogged with A lot of not supporters and you don't have a lot of tech options. The options aren't really there. So a lot of players play maximum belt to get over large exs. A lot more play Neo Upper energy and that's so they can, you know, tech in a rare candy to evolve to be able to use its second attack to do 260 which you just discard those cards. So it's. It's a lot to commit, but if you're spreading the energies around, you can make it. And that's what I chose to do. I chose to not run Neo Upper. I chose to go with Unfair Stamp because its main problem is drawing. Like you sometimes just get stuck with a dead hand and I would rather hurt my opponent and keep the edge like the pressure going as much as possible. So I have two judge in there and I have an unfair stamp just so I can crush and keep getting their hand minimized as much as possible. Meanwhile, even if I judge and I get four cards and I don't use any, I still draw two with it's with its first attack. The more roserade I have, the more damage I do. So Premium Power Pro actually felt underwhelming. But I did need it in one of the games to start, like the pressure. But normally I wouldn't. I know it is used for going after like higher hit point Pokemon or to get that edge over Dragapult. I did not play any Dragapult. I played well. I'll start by saying I had. I was up till 2am building the deck. I chose to throw in a switch. Was it because you were like really considering the cards or you're like, surely I have this card somewhere and you're like digging. No, I. I honestly, I was trying really hard to figure out what is like the 60th card. And it was between throwing a poke, a second poke gear or having a switch. And I was like, I'm okay with one poker gear. It just. That is gonna. It could be anything. But at least it's one more chance to go after a supporter that I might need like a boss. And I figure I'm already running four boss. One poke pad could just yield me the boss no matter what. So I just went with the one switch and let me tell you, it is the card that one-of-one the whole tournament. I mean that in the nicest way. I also mean Unfair Stamp was the most effective in all three games. Every game I played Unfair Stamp in every game I one-of-one Nice. Did anyone play Genesect? Hear me. Okay, so. So first matchup was Alakazam. And then he also had toucannon, which does 60 damage times the amount of bench Pokemon, both on both sides. It's actually powerful. It's definitely scary. He was playing the Turbo Fan as well. So if I attacked into it, he could move my energy backwards to a Roserade that's unable to use it. So that was a little frustrating. But we were able to get over it. He played down a Shaman towards the end and that his whole bench was full after the game and I was able to one-of-one I basically, you know, and I opted because I've seen all of the Dragapult plays and I've seen all of the Alakazams. So I'm like, rocky Energy sounds like probably one of the best cards to be playing four copies of. And let me tell you, it worked because they Goldin use Alakazam's hand damage because it's an effect of an attack. And Rocky Energy stops that Nice. So they were reliant heavily on just the two cannon, which they weren't able to one shot. So they. They hit me for, I don't know, 300 damage, something like that. 300 plus whatever multiples of six is, plus. So I was able to like get out Spiritomb. One energy knockout. Like it was just so fluid. And then after the game, he literally pulls out. He's like, I had the Genesect because he. After he played down the Shaman, I was like, there's no way he's being able. He's like, he's gonna get this stuff back out once I knock this out. I have the Garchomp with the Rocky Energy and there's nothing he can do because I knocked out the Trumbeak. So I had. But I also unfair stamped at the same time. So I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh come at me, bro. With two cards. Yu-Gi-Oh I was like, two cards in hand. Come at me, bro. But he literally showed me after the game. He's like, I had the. I had the Genesect. I just didn't Tribute. I didn't. I was like, I don't know. I was like, Neo Upper doesn't matter in this match. And I was like, I know. See? So like, that's the whole point. Playing something outside the box is actually works. Second match, I end up playing Team Rockets, Honchkrow and Porygon. That was brutal. I like turn one. I basically had one Roserade. I got the, like the whole Dragon slice. The Dragon claws. I got them. Or Champions call. I got like the four Gabites or whatever. Gibles and Gabites. And I had one Roserade. So I was doing 70. No, I had two or. Right. I don't know. It has 80 hit points. So I was 10. I was 10 off where. Whatever, wherever I was. So I had to play the premium power Pro in order to take the first knockout. But I was like, I just need to keep the pressure going as fast as possible. And that was my main goal and I succeeded. But he was able to just like drop. He has 20 Team Rocket supporters in the deck. Basically got to the end of the game. I unfair stamped judged a few times. He wasn't getting the energies at the start, but then I. Then he got them and just was able to dump his entire hand basically and just destroy two Garchomps in a row. I was like, no, not Garchomp. It was. So then he has Honchkrow 17 supporters in the discard. And then he had the Porygon 2 and I had the Zenith power weight. So that's 400. If he's able to get the other three in the discard, he can hit for 20 times the amount of supporters, which is 400. So that's the knockout. That's the one hit KO. I was like, this can't happen. I'm like, boss's order. Take that out. I was like, there's no way that you can get. I think it's seven supporter. Whatever it was, it was. And he wasn't able to get that. That many supporters. He was like, I literally have three. There's nothing I can do with the Honchkrow. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm so I'm looking at your list right now and Yu-Gi-Oh it seems like pretty straightforward. What does a Spiritomb do? It does 10 times the amount of damage counters on all of your benched Zenith Pokemon. Oh, interesting. So if you put 300 damage, I'm doing 300 damage. But so what's the. In addition to that, the best card in the deck is Garchomp. Okay. Arguably Scarjo. And then with that being said, one-of-one that. I one-of-one that one. Next up is Marnie's grim snarl. So I'm going against somebody that had a buy. And then they one-of-one their second round. I'm like, man, I hope I do this. And it was the tightest match. I started out so strong again. I'm like, I got the dragon slice with one. Roserade was able to knock out their snow run. First turn, they were. They night stretchered, grabbed it back and then just kept their Turn up. But they got. They got only one Marnie's Grimmsnarl. Cause I was knocking out all the impedance. Just I was able to keep so much pressure. But they eventually got four monkey dories on the bench. Four monkey dories with the frost last. Yu-Gi-Oh Because I was just targeting every like their. Their heavy hitters. They did. They were able to get 1180 to the garchomp and then hit 30 plus moving 90 damage in one turn. Because they had three monkey doors already. They moved the 90 damage and was able to one shot the Roserade and take out a Rosalia as well. So I was like, oh, man. This was like so much damage. So I was like, I wasn't able to like one shot. I eventually get set up. Basically. They had no grim snarl, no nothing. The only thing they could do was play down the clutch evil tall. And they brought it up. Bosses ordered my Roserade and then hit for 2010. In between turns. My. My Garchomps on the back with 180. They like move 60. The next turn clutched me. I have switch in deck. I'm able to play like multiple buddy buddy poffins, poke pads, fighting gun. I'm literally playing everything I can possibly just dump from my hands. And I Lily's determination. Draw six, fail the switch. I'm like, they're like eight to 10 cards in the deck. I'm like, oh, come on. I've got to get this. Yu-Gi-Oh The next turn, they're only able to move so much damage because they only had like the six from the monkey Doris. In between turns, they hit for clutch again. They move damage. I'm like dumping energy attach a Zenith power weight fighting. And then I'm like, Zenith or no. I said lilies. I did another lilies. I literally. I'm just like, I'm gonna draw it. I'm literally gonna draw it. There's no way I can't draw it. There's 10 cards left in the deck or whatever I looked at and I'm like, here's the deck. Split it. They split it. And then we just flip them over. I'm like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And the sixth card was the switch. Literally the last minute decision inclusion into the deck. I will say clutch is real. You need switch or some way out of a bad spot. People were suggesting Relicanth. Even if I had Relicanth, they would boss those orders. The Relicanth. And I wouldn't be able to attack with the Relicanth, which the Relicanth would be in the deck, so Roserade could attack, but it's not. I don't think that that's the play. Yu-Gi-Oh that's my two cents, because, like, I'm looking at some of the top 32 lists on Twitter, and, like, no one's really playing a switch. Yes. So that's kind of scary now, the end of the matter between, you know, the random things people bring to your locals versus a highly competitive, you know, Worlds match. But it's just crazy to me that it's not relevant to be played. Yu-Gi-Oh And then the last thing, basically, they made it, like, kind of fair. They basically cut out open all the winner promos, so, like, you Goldin try to sell it or anything, which is cool. I commend them for that. And then to divvy it up and make it fair, there was this deck box, which is just like a Worlds deck box. Nice. So I opted to go for this as my first pick. Am I crazy? I thought you. The picture you sent me shows the world's Pikachu sealed. There is a sealed copy of the normal one. Just a normal promo. The winner one was sleeved and top loaded. Got it. Understood. Which is okay. Like, I'm like, that's. That's what they should do. Honestly, that's what they should do with all the promos. I mean, back in the day, it was a. It was a sealed pack of, like, 50. They'd cut it open and be like, all right, here you go. These All State Championship. So, like, none of those cards were in, like, great shape because we were just. We were playing, and then we'd take the card and put it in our deck and. Or our deck box, and then we would just take those cards out. In and out, in and out, in and out. So there's a lot of whitening on a lot of the. The regionals. Espeon Umbreon cards like that. But just. Yu-Gi-Oh they. They divvied it up. So, like. Like, the second place got to choose either the sleeves or the. I don't know, the microfiber cloth. So whoever got second chose the sleeves. Whoever got third chose the Microsoft fiber cloth or whatever. And now that I'm talking about it, I think I was supposed to get more Prizm packs. I think that they said there's, like, more for winning, and I didn't get any. Let's play. We need to talk. So I'm gonna open another one. This one, I'm gonna show the camera the QR code. Good luck. It may or May not. I can see it show. Okay, again, crumbling it up, throwing it away. Charmeleon. Acerola's Mischief. Meganium. Oh, is that a Reverse Hollow? Tynamo. Let's go. Or not. A Reverse Hollow and a Charmander Hollow. Let's go. Nice. Oh, and an energy. I love the energy. I think the Tynamo is, like, so much better. I need to get four of those. Oh, also, I think it was hilarious. Like, I showed up with this hat with the Washington D.C. i think I basically had, like, pulled the status card without actually having the status. I mean, I guess, like, in my youth, yes, I had the status. People knew me as, you know, pretty competitive, so. But I had the Garchomp Playmat. Nice. This is champion. So I roll up with the play. So funny. It's so funny. Now, Adam, did you actually one-of-one that play, Matt, or did Ray or someone? I did. I did. That was. When was that one? That was a double Midnight Comics. I don't know. It was like a league challenge or a league cup or something. I think it was a. Basically, I think I got third. And they gave out the playmats to whoever got not first because they were like, oh, first. But like, I know that that is a champion playmat, but I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh I got third. That's fine. That's cool. Well, you know, I still had to. I still had to place to get it. I know your friend Ray does a lot of those events and he's like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I just farm all these play beds. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh All right, Justin, do we want to talk about worlds now or do we want to take a short break? I think take a short break, but those of you that are watching live will be. Will still be here. So. Yu-Gi-Oh So, Justin, get some water. Let's get. Let's take a break real quick. All right, Be back right after this. And we are back. Thank you so much for that break. I got some water. Justin told us about his computer. Yes. Oh, I should show you a picture of my computer. It's all purple now. It's all purple. Show me that picture, sir. But while you're showing me that picture, I am going to go through and thank. So chat can see it. It's all purple Patreons so Adam can see it. Yu-Gi-Oh it's so purple. It's like poisoned. Yu-Gi-Oh And I got like a. Now just get some green in there. It's got a little LCD screen in there. And because it's purple, I put Haunter laughing in there going, oh, that's Hilarious. All right, shout out to our gym leaders. Maddie G. Boris. Yu-Gi-Oh James Espeon, Willow. KJ to man. Herbert, Brandy and Fisher J. And our executive producers, JZE Executive producers for Good morning Jodo, we've got monkey bread for L up, we got Xander. For special conditions, we got Tish Smith. And for way spotters, we got Kate. The cons. And then a special thank. Thank you. And shout out to our elite four, Ozark, Renee and Monica Exe. Thank you all for supporting the show and making everything we do here at the Pokemon professor network so much fun and easier because of your help. Can I. Everything we go ahead. Yu-Gi-Oh I was just gonna. I was gonna say. Can I share something real quick? The turns out Monica is a local to me. I. You know, we found this out in the zoom chat, like, or the discord chat on Monday nights, like, what, a week ago? A week and a half ago. And that's awesome. And they were like, talking like, Yu-Gi-Oh I hadn't joined yet. And then I heard Jamal and Ken talking like, Yu-Gi-Oh Justin's from Texas, around that area. Where. Where did you say you're from? Like, oh, Fort Worth. And like, oh, you're kidding. And like, so in like a small world moment, they live like within a couple miles of me. Her. Her kids go to a high school really near me. And so I'm just like, Yu-Gi-Oh very small moment. So we. We met up to play Pokemon Go the other day for some starmie raids. Some mega Starmie raids. Oh, that's cool. Yu-Gi-Oh So. Because, you know, I don't anyone from the community. No one's local, so. But now there's one. All right. All right. Continuing on Worlds is complete. It was one-of-one by Andrew Hedrick with Dragapult. The Dunsparce. The Duns boss. The Dunsparce. Yu-Gi-Oh So, Adam, are you like everyone else? Are you tired of Dragapult? I'm so tired. It's. It's about the same as Gardevoir, but I understand this. I understand why it's so powerful. Whereas, like, Gardevoir was still powerful, but it was. It was just so much. And it was just so much during your turn. It was just over and over and over of all these different things. It was just. It felt horrible to play against. Yes. It was so time consuming. Every match went to time. Whereas Drag Blue Ice like, hey, I rare candy. I'm gonna do this because I, Crispin, attach an energy one shot and then I'm gonna play six there and the next turn, I'm gonna kill that. I'm Gonna knock that out. You can't do anything. It. And it felt that oppressive every time. And then it got slower about Dragapult over gardevoir. I, I. You're right, it. I Goldin put my finger on it before, but you're right, it. Because it plays faster and I don't know, it's just more 110% percent. Like, yes. You look at the top two and put. There's not a lot of decision that needs to be made there. It's just draw two or look at the two, put one down. Also, I just love Dragapult as a Pokemon. So it's the dragon. It's a ghost dragon. What's not to like about ghost dragons? I mean, it's laughing. It literally is laughing at you while you're. Yu-Gi-Oh He's the father of the year. He sends his children out to. To hit you every time to play. Yu-Gi-Oh They play by doing 60 damage to your bench. And in second place, Diego Cassaraga. Did I say that right or. Okay, Yu-Gi-Oh So he was playing Alakazam to Dunspas. Yu-Gi-Oh How much? Obviously we were busy and I didn't get to catch the finals patch auto I'm gonna go back and patch auto probably tomorrow, but how much of the worlds did you get to watch? Did you get to watch? I watched a solid, like, I don't know. I feel like I showed up on round five and six, and so I watched Festival Lead and I watched. Yu-Gi-Oh I started. Yu-Gi-Oh I started early. And then I, I think I got one match in. Well, okay. I saw Dragapult and I was like, Yu-Gi-Oh I'm okay. I literally didn't watch any Dragon Ball. I just didn't want to anything that was Dragon Ball. I kind of just passed Alakazam. I did watch. So I understood what their goal was. But as soon as I. I watched one with Lopani Megalopony with a bunch of missed energy. So I was like, oh, gosh. And they played no bench Pokemon to work around the Toucanon. It was really. It was really cool to see stuff like that. I was really cool to see, even at the best, the best moves you could possibly have for Festival Lead, which is having the Robosca or Relor Roboska to stop effects of attacks to all your bench Pokemon. And Dragapult still overcoming and just be able to work around that. That's impressive. But I did like that, you know, Festival eve was like 5, 0. Like, just. It was so cool to see all these single prizers and rogue decks just not rogue, I guess they're pretty meta. But just to see these cool decks evolving and Team Rocket stuff going on, like, it was just so cool to see all of this. I. I would say from what I watched, you know, I mean, I watched many matches. I don't know. I don't know how many I watched start to finish, but I watched several at least portions of them. And every match I watched was so, like, competitively balanced. It felt like even if. Yes. Like, you know, someone has a bad first game and they like have to concede early, you know, they're. They're right back their game two, enforcing a game three. And it was very entertaining to patch auto wasn't like days of old watching and we're gonna be up on Gardevoir, but days of old watching Gardevoir. It was so bad to patch auto was so bad to patch auto was just. It wasn't entertaining. It's like, yes, they're gonna. They're gonna move the energies. Yes, they're gonna do the damage. It's very time. Like, just like all the actions and make sure you do again every match. Like, almost went to time to a T. It was. Man, I. Do you. Do you ever watch Henry Chow play? He's the guy who came in third bars, I believe it was fourth. Yu-Gi-Oh With Dragapult. Dusknoir. Yu-Gi-Oh Anyways, man, he does some aggressive lines. He's just like, you know what? Yolo, we're gonna do this right now. Like one of the games I was watching, he. He used his dusclops to blow up an Abra Un. Like the second turn. I'm like, bro, you got one Pokemon in the active now. What are you doing? He ended up. It's one of those, you know, you're risking. You're risking it. Yu-Gi-Oh But he just like, well, sometimes you gotta be aggressive like that. And. And look, it got him to fourth, you know what I mean? It was crazy. And people aren't ready for that kind of stuff. Like, yes, Dragon Pulse behind, but oh, no, now we're tied and you've got a Prizm race. You have to be able to knock me out. But I'm over overreaching you now. So let me ask. Did you see how bad the meta percentage was for Dragapult versus everything else? Wasn't it like 40% or is it much higher? Yu-Gi-Oh I do remember seeing the number four. I was like, oh, that's really high. That's really high. I don't know. I still enjoy watching it. I don't. I don't know if it's because I'm biased because I like Dragon Ball or what, but it was just really cool to watch. So we'll keep talking about like the worlds itself, but did you watch? Yu-Gi-Oh because, like, we're gonna find. We're probably gonna end this and then just watch the. The ending or whatever. The. I know I keep pulling up the web page or the YouTube page to see if. If they finish the ending ceremony. Well, they haven't done it yet because they're running behind on. What's it called? The vgc. The VGC Masters Finals. It looks like now they're doing a recap, so maybe they're giving out trophies, I don't know. But Yu-Gi-Oh should be interesting. But did you see any of the XP stream? I didn't. I did not. But I did see like the Instagram showing it off. I know that it was also live streamed on Instagram. I didn't realize that the whole thing was going to be streamed. Well, you know, they would have like panels and stuff and then, you know, downtime and then pull stuff up again. But I didn't realize the XP was going to have its own stream. Did you? No, I thought it was just like a. A store. I thought it was literally just the store experience. Yu-Gi-Oh that's what I thought. I thought it was really just a store experience. I also saw somebody get like banned for letting someone cut. Like. What? Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh that was crazy. I. That was unfortunate. I don't. I'm not going to pretend to know enough about what happened there. So what I. The part that I saw this morning that I thought was really cool is they invited some vendors to come onto the stage to talk about products that they work on with licensing with a Pokemon company. And so it was. The ones that I listened to were Ravensburger, the puzzles and. Oh, no, they make skateboards. It's not. Okay. Surf sparks or something. I should look this up because it's pretty cool. They're making skateboards based off of trading cards. Like. Oh, that's like. Like a base set Charizard skateboard. Yu-Gi-Oh it's pretty cool. It's. Honestly, I think that is more to come there. And we'll talk about that again because it's not released yet. And then. Okay, interesting. They had two people from that because that's a pretty big endeavor. And then they had sideshow collectibles. Are you familiar with sideshow? No. So have you ever seen those Zebra detailed, like statues or action figures that are manipulatable, that it costs like roughly 200 bucks each. Anywhere from 200 to 400. Okay, maybe not. Maybe not. Okay. Anyways, I have a couple for Star wars and they are gonna start making Pokemon statues. So like these Zebra realistic looking like Pikachu Eevee statues. And they're like, they were talking about how the Eevee has like a bunch of fl. It's standing around a bunch of flowers and each Fleer is a different color based off like the Eevee evolution. And so they're talking about how it's like, it's based off of people who really enjoy Pokemon. It's not just like, all right, today Bob, you're working on this project Go. They like, you know, do the research and there's a lot of thought behind it besides just. That's so cool. Spitting something out. So it was all really cool. Oh, in the, the puzzle, The Ravensburger puzzle, a 40, 320 piece puzzle. Okay, 40, 000. I would say say less, but like say less. So it's basically like it was like eight or 10 scenes. And in each of these scenes there's like so many Pokemon. Because they're talking about, they wanted it to be a good experience, right? They didn't want just like all water or all, you know, sky or. And then just like a Pokemon here and there. They wanted like the Pokemon to beat a scale. So like a star use what it should be in relation to like a Whalemer. And they also wanted it to be loaded with Pokemon so you can match those pieces easier. Because if there's like hundreds of Pokemon, it's like, oh, here's that Magikarp piece that goes with that other Magikarpiece that's way over there. Instead of like, oh, here's another sky piece that I'm never gonna finish. Oh, that's, that's pretty cool. So they, they wanted to make it doable, not just a 40,000piece puzzle of heck. So that was a good, I don't know, hour, hour and a half this morning. I'll have to go back and look at other stuff that they did for the xp. But it was, it was pretty cool because I mostly watched the Master Stream that, I mean the TCG stream. And then I watched some of the championship rounds for the other games today. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh I didn't watch anything else. Yu-Gi-Oh I know as a Pokemon Go content creator, I should definitely be watching the Pokemon Go. Man. That was, that was something else you and Ken will have to talk about because in the Pokemon Go Masters finals, they had to redo it because there was a glitch in the game. It was, like, challenged. And so they're like, okay, there was enough there. We're just redoing it. I'm just like, what? I don't even understand. I don't watch enough. Go competitive. Like, I understand to understand what happened. I understand, like, the premise of the game, but I don't understand what to look for. Like, okay, desynced here. He should have been able to get a charge move off there. Like, how do you know? Like, is it. I mean, I know how. You know, you chart. You count based off of time. And, you know, it should have been okay after X seconds, but, man, I don't know. Is that just. Yu-Gi-Oh that's strange. I'll have to look into it. Okay. So. All right, Justin, go ahead. We're gonna move on to the Adam's vending corner. I don't know. Music, entertainment, sound. Maybe I'll insert a sound effect. So last show I did was Saturday. It was Shiny Con on the road in Nashua. Let me ask you, I need to say the last show was Shiny Con on the road, but how many have you done since we last podcasted? Every weekend? So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? Is it just at least five? Is it multiple? Sometimes it's two. Okay. Like this month it's two. Back to back, it's Shiny Con and then New England Card House, which is always a party. So I'm proud of you. You're starting to get. You're really starting to get out there. Really starting to be consistent with that. We may not be consistent with the pod, but you're consistent with your card selling. Yes. It's been a journey. It really has. Because, like, I'm, like, I'm trying to balance, like, the ebb and flow. Like, right now we're in, like, the market's in a weird place. It's in a dip. But, like, the 30th is literally right around the corner. Everybody's excited for it. That's literally the premise of New England Card House for Sunday the 20th, I believe. So it's. It's very difficult, and everybody's gonna want it, and I'm not gonna have. I mean, I. I pre ordered a couple. Whatever I could get off Pokemon Center. Let me think. You went to a show yesterday, right? Yes. It was just a large show or a smaller show. So the goal of this show was it wasn't about the amount of tables. It was about the quality of the vendors. Okay. Which is why I. I Love vending at shinycon. Like this. This one was called on the Road. So it's a smaller, more intimate feel. And it definitely felt like that this was. I don't know, it felt so much different than any show that I've done been at in a very long time. So why. Why would. So if I see a smaller show down the street from me, why should I go to that over a larger show that has more vendors to choose from? So it's again, it's not about the amount of tables. It really is the quality of the vendors. Okay. So if you find a show that's like, coat for collectors, by collectors, some. Something along those lines. And it's not like Collecticon, like Collecticon is. What if I finally want a big giant scalpers. Buy Scalpers is that I would. I would probably just don't go because then they're going to be like, oh, I see you brought me this. This Prizm Tower. It's. It's just a common. The best I could do is I could throw it in the trash behind me and tell you to get out of my. My face and stop wasting my time. And I've seen a lot more, like, comedic vendors stuff, and it's so fun to, like, see all that content being made. It's like, what makes a good vendor versus a bad vendor? I know it could be me, but I'm just not that, like, I'm very personable. So, like, I just want to, like, help people find the cards they're looking for. So I actively listen. And I'm actually, like, disappointed at myself because a father and son were trying to complete Pitch Black. This is a big deal. People are trying to complete the latest set. And I will tell you, everyone has been looking for the Brave Bengal, the Giant Bomb, or the Big Explosion, but whatever it's called. And then there's another one Dark Bell. I can tell you personally, I collect the full art trainers. I want a playset of all of them because I think they look fantastic. So I personally own one Dark Bell. I personally own two Brave Bengals. I personally own two of the giant bombs. I can't even find them. So, like, if I have excess, I'll put them in the Pandora But I know for a fact that Pitch Black is the big thing. Just like completing the sets. I. I did bring a. My shoebox full of reverse hollows, and I haven't brought it for the past two shows. And I felt bad because this father and son that I was telling you about, they were looking for a reverse holo. Deoxys like a 13 cent card. I'm like, I know I've had that. I literally was like, I'm like, I've touched this. I'm like, I think I should bring this, but I'm not sure. Like, I should just bring the cards. Bring all your cards. Because the amount of times that I pull stuff out and I'm like, oh man, I definitely have that reversal. And I'm just like going through the amount of appreciation that people show for like me going through stuff to like, like, I. I had it at one of the midweeks for Gen X in Portsmouth. I. I was looking, they asked for Psyduck. I'm like, I don't know what I have for sighting. Let me just go through. I think I have the Detective Pikachu one. I did not. Spoiler alert. I did not have the Detective Pikachu one. I had like a reverse hollow, Misty Psyduck and another side. It was just a base. I don't know what it was. Maybe, maybe $2 worth of cards. And he's like, look, just take this feel. It's a ten dollar card. I appreciate you taking the time to look through there. And I was like, what? Like, you know, and even people, like, I've had somebody. Like the last two cards, like, I bought bulk from somebody. And in that ETB was the last two Reverse Hollows from Chaos Rising that somebody was looking for. And they gave me $5 for it. I was like, like, I was. No, I was like, that's a lot. That's too much. Like. And then I get so Hyper up when I'm able to find the one card. Like a whole family came and they were like, mom is missing this. This executor. The Alolan executor. V. Like, that is like, that was a. It's like a $2 card. Maybe. Maybe it might be a dollar. These, these kids and this dad were so excited because they had walked away. They were like, oh, do you have this exactor. I'm like, no, I don't. I'm sorry. Somebody came to my table. They were, they're looking to sell cards and I'm like, I need that. I don't have that. I was like, somebody was just looking for this. I kid you not. 30 minutes later they come back and they're like, hey, do you have. Did anybody like, anybody bring any of the other cards or can we just look again? And I was like, I know. I literally. I got that. Like, hang on one second. I pull it Out. Whip it on the table. The kids are like, no way. Like mind blown. They're like, mom's gonna be so happy. It was. And like those moments like literally just fill my heart. Like that's, you know, that's like what I enjoy as a vendor. Like I enjoy those moments. Those moments bring me more joy than somebody that's like, I'll buy that card for 100 bucks. You know what I mean? Like that doesn't like embracing the hobby with other like minded folk is, is awesome. I just shout out to the community. Just love people, let me tell you. But Yu-Gi-Oh what I've learned. Just a quick tip before we end the show and all the stuff is I've been, as a vendor, I've been just buying like every, like I just take whatever. I'm just like, oh Yu-Gi-Oh I'll take all those. I'll take all those. And it's just, I. I'm like, I have a stack of just the same art rares. And I'm like, I gotta stop doing that because now I have a stack of the same art rare that's not selling when people are looking for this art rare. So now when I'm buying or trading, I'm actively like cherry picking. I'm like, I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. I don't have that. So all those things, I'll. I'll consider everything else. No way. And it's worked out. It's worked out. Like that's, that's my one tip. Nice. And then last thing, I've got four Prizm packs. I've got three Series 7 and one Series 8. So that one, There's a garchomp on this one. So we're gonna open that one last. Justin, just talk. Say anything you want to say. Get off your chest. I'm not going to share these code cards just because in the the hope of time. Jamming Tower. Night stretcher. Night stretcher. Rush Hollow or whatever the hollow is. Ribombe. Oh, and a noctowl. Let's go. Nice. And an energy. Okay, well. Yu-Gi-Oh Can I just say, it's so hot in My House right now. I'm like so sweaty. Are we getting to the time of year where you stop using air conditioning? It's. It's cold at night, but it's not in the morning or it's not. Oh, badoo. Oh, playable card. Ridiculous. Also a playable card. Kilowatt. What is that? Kilowatt Roll. And another ruby. Oh gosh. Oh, Mr. Rulage. Oh, let's go. That's a good one. Yu-Gi-Oh no, that is actually like that. I love. I love hitting. Have you played the Sarah Lud? I have played against it as a dragon ball player, but, Yu-Gi-Oh I just love pulling the big cards. Just. It feels so, like, good. Like, I don't know, because, like, base exs and stuff. Not good. Another knockdown. Oh, my gosh. Bianca's devotion. I don't even know that one. Oh, let's go, Vaporeon. Oh, actually. Oh, let's go. That's a good one. That is a good one. That is. That is a great one. Not a good one. A great one. A great one. Sleeve it, Adam. I literally don't even have sleeves right in front of me. This is diabolical right now. This one. This would make it all worth it if this just has a garchompy X in it. Like, it'll literally just make my day. Oh, my. The day's been awesome. I got to podcast, mow my lawn, hang out with friends. Yu-Gi-Oh we'll have to do this more often. Yu-Gi-Oh it's almost like we should do this once a week. Yu-Gi-Oh Don't be ridiculous. Oh, that's an emboar. No way. Snorlax Hollow. I know. Everyone is hot for Snorlax. Is that another hot one? Yu-Gi-Oh that's another really hot one. Nice. Okay, that's literally just an energy Vaporeon card. Looks like it goes for $20 currently. I mean, I know it'll go in your personal collection, but, you know, and then. Yu-Gi-Oh that's my favorite part about all this. Snorlax. I'm just curious. Yu-Gi-Oh Find. Find the market price, sir. Find the market price. Yu-Gi-Oh Hop. Snorlax is $6. Okay. That's not bad. All right, Justin, before we exit completely, what's next? Competitive wise, what do we think's coming? Oh, like, for the next set or for. Yu-Gi-Oh because there's. Because there's the Rayquaza set. So. Yu-Gi-Oh What do we think? Well, I mean, when is that, though? I don't know. It's after celebrations the 30th. I wonder if any of these cards actually, like, it'll be another kind of. I'm not gonna say dud set, but I don't think anything's breaking through Dragapult right now. Unless they, like, come up with a specific card to counter Dragapult. Or just print the next version of Dragapult. I just. Or. Or if they put Shaman and Psyduck in one card and it's a Basic. Okay. They're like. It literally is just called Psyduck. It's. It's. It's a tag team. It's Psyduck and Shaman. They're both, like, doing their. Whatever. The other one's doing their card. Oh, wait, you reminded me. I wonder if we stalled long enough if they're talking about the new thing. Probably not. Let's see. No, it looks like it's a concert. A Taylor Swift concert. Honestly, that ending of the match, that's what's going on right now. It's a Taylor Swift concert. No shade at anybody dancing right now. It just. It's. Yu-Gi-Oh So we're almost there, I think. I don't know. I'm very excited, though. Like, this is always my favorite end. It's always at the very end. Okay, well, I guess we'll just have to keep. patch auto Yes. And then my next show is Ranger City in Haverhill, Mass. I signed up for it last minute. It's a funny way to say Fort Worth, Texas. I mean, I. I know, I know, I know. Listen, Ken wants me to do. Ken wants me to do Bell Works. And I'm like, that's the 20th. That's literally like the 20th of September. My. My main. My main show. Yu-Gi-Oh I was like, that's my main show. And I'm scheduled, like, I have basically everything scheduled this month because the 26th. The weekend of the 26th is Boston Safari Zone. So, like, that's all. Everything scheduled out this month, next month. I don't. I. I have to figure out, like, because, you know, it's Ashton's birthday, my birthday. Got to figure out a party for him, you know, stuff to do. Like, it's just. There's a lot more things to consider. My grandfather's birthday, so there's just. There's a lot. Also, shout out to my dad, happy birthday. Nice. It's his birthday today. The last, like, you know, 19 minutes of the day. I did call him, leave him. Very long message. Over an hour here. Okay, we've stalled long enough. Sign it off. All right. Next episode, we'll. We'll come back, have a lot of fun, recap everything. Leave you with one question. What would you have played if you went to Worlds? That's for you, the listeners, Adam, what would you comment. Comment on the episode. Honestly, I would have said festival Lead, but I probably would have just walked in with Garchomp, to be fair. I would have been lame and pulled it. Pulled up with Dragapult, but that's just what I'm and he probably would have been in top cut, honestly. You know, with that being said, you can send us a voicemail text, a picture, 732-835-8639. You can email us special conditions pokemonprofessor.com and Justin, is that it? Is that all? That's it. All right. All right. Remember, trainers, if you're affected by a special condition, don't forget to use a full heel night. Sa.