#293 We Answered Your Questions (Still Waiting for Worlds)

Hello and welcome to the Metapod podcast book. My TCG podcast revolves around the evolving meta. My name is Jake. I got my co host here with me as always, Sean. Sean. It's another week waiting for the world Championships coming up. But how are you doing? I'm good, I'm good. I'm just diving into a lot of riff bound lately. Good stuff. Wearing my Naruto shirt. Although I did not myself experience the Naruto game directly. But you know, it does seem cool. But. Yu-Gi-Oh Huh. Yu-Gi-Oh. No, Yu-Gi-Oh I didn't experience the Bandai Naruto game. Let me. There you go. Yes. So. But Yu-Gi-Oh How about you? How are you doing? I got my Street Fighter shirt on that. I got. I got it from Evo. They like had this Street Fighter stand, I think it was a Capcom stand. And if you like did stuff in it, you got a free shirt. And one of my buddies was working it. I didn't get the chance to do whatever it was over at the stand that they had. But he gave me a shirt anyways and I was like, oh, nice. And I like it. And I got my ralla hat on though. So I am wearing something Pokemon. Sean, you got. You've got a hat too. Got any IC sometime. Sometime. Let me see. It's 2024. It says. Yes, 2024. And that's paradox Rift. It has to be because that's roaring. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh That is roaring moon. Indeed. So this was. That fits. Yu-Gi-Oh But it's gonna be. It's gonna be interesting heading into the world Championships. I think it's not necessarily a talking point because we don't have the entire breakdown, but there was recently a creator showdown that happened. I posted this in the Discord. Sean. I don't know if you saw there was a creator showdown where a lot of creators like got invited for this like tournament in the world's format and Zamas or not Zamasenta. Every time. Okay. I have beef with the Pokemon community because every time somebody calls the Alakazam Deck Zam, for some reason I'm like, Zama Zenta. It's been. It's been 84 years, Jake, since Zama Zenta Deck. Although there was a window, there was a very small window. And Lucario and Melmetal plus Zama Zenta V was actually. Well, not totally. I mean, Zama Zenta was like a tech card with the. I think it was a revenge attack. Yu-Gi-Oh well, Yu-Gi-Oh there was. There was a tech card Zam. And at one point. And I think the Dialga Vstar deck, probably. Yu-Gi-Oh Because it did like less damage based on the amount of damage on it. I. I think I'm just. I'm really going out on it. Had an ability, I remember. But anyways, so Alakazam ended up winning that tournament over by King Dre, if you know who King Dre is. It was a really interesting list because it played Alakazam, Toucannon, and Dudunsparce, which I thought was really interesting because a lot of Alakazam lists that I had seen in this pitch black format were either Alakazam 2 cannon or Alakazam to Dunsporce. I didn't really see like a mix of them, so that was really cool, in my opinion. I don't know how a they fit it all into the list because. Yu-Gi-Oh exactly. Like you're probably running what, a 433 or a 443 something line of Alakazam. And then I think they were saying it's like a two, two line of each of the Dunsparce and two cannon and probably rare candies to get into the two cannons, I'm guessing. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh you're running three rare candies in there. Yu-Gi-Oh I just. I see a deck like that, though. And having played so much Alakazam, this person, I guess Dragapult has just evolved in such a way that it's not turned to board wiping you anymore. Because when I played Zam in a Dragapult heavy meta, I was just getting spanked. Just like you just. You do your little setup and then your opponent rare candies and just wipes all your abras and you're like, I guess I. I guess I'll die. Bye. Well, you've got everyone. It's crazy. You've got options in this deck like the Dedenne and Elgium. Remember those two in the. In the decklist? Those are in this as well, alongside Shaman, Genesect, Pheasantipity. So your Pokemon lineup is huge. Right. But you've also got stuff like the Battle Cage handheld fans that we've seen previously. So it's really like, it's really interesting. And I think that Toucanon, the more I think about it, is such a good card in the list. Because before I was like, oh, this is a little bit underwhelming. Right. But I think the main appeal of Toucan and obviously the ability is very, very good, right? To draw a card generically every turn, but to have an attacker like Toucanon with Feather Rondo, to be able to hit damage when you don't have that many cards in hand. Right. To hit with Alakazam is actually just really nice, especially because it's another one Energy attacker. Yu-Gi-Oh I think it's a. It's a Crustle killer just by itself. Yu-Gi-Oh So, like, you don't really got to worry too much about Crustle. I'm guessing in the matchup, which was kind of awkward if they got the grass energy on, like the special energy on it would sometimes make it awkward. But Yu-Gi-Oh it's. It's interesting. I think it's cool that somebody is. Is rocking this pretty crazy list. Yu-Gi-Oh might have. And I think it also. I think it also got top four as well. The. Pretty much the same list because Zach Lesage, I believe, got top four with Alakazam. So that was pretty crazy. I don't know exactly. King Dre's matchups. I haven't watched the tournament. I was a little busy this weekend. Didn't get to watch the stream of the. The Creator Showdown. But Yu-Gi-Oh pretty. Pretty cool. Zama Zenta heading into. Heading into Worlds. I'm assuming they're also running a few copies of that new supporter that you can discard up to two Pokemon and draw three for. No, no, no. They are not playing any Gwen's. They're just playing Hilda and Dawn as their. I'm not saying you need the card draw, but if you're running that many Pokemon, you're. You're definitely going to end up with hands where you have like an extra Elium or the Dene or you know, Basic that goes into Toucan or whatever. Like some random thing in your hand and then a just straight draw. Six if you discard two just feels good like it's three cards. Six. There is probably some mathematical formula that I don't know about where, like, where like the difference between Gwen and something like Dawn. Right. Because Don not only gets you three cards for the two, but a lot of your cards give you a draw. So that's in theory even more cards. Right. So it. It may just be that the. On average that you use the Gwen is not as high a value as something like a. A Dawn. Yu-Gi-Oh If I had to take a guess, if Gwen is in your early hands, it probably feels pretty bad. Yu-Gi-Oh Because either you one-of-one be able because you don't want to or you. Yu-Gi-Oh you don't want to. Yu-Gi-Oh exactly. So I think it's just. I think it's just there's so much more value. I think it's a cool idea. Yu-Gi-Oh But I think there's just too much value in stuff like Hilda and Dawn that you're more than likely using them every single turn. Well Jake, we have a lot on this episode. It's very exciting. I'm excited to see what people bring to worlds because it has been a long time since we've seen like, like on stream high scale competitive Pokemon. But we have two little articles here, very short little product and news things and then we are going to get into a whole episode where we go through listener questions. People were so kind to leave us a whole range of questions in our discord and also lots of really lovely kind words and thoughts and it's much appreciated. So. But before we jump into the questions I just want to jump straight into two of these news articles. The first is a product that seems familiar but different. It's same same but different. It is the TCG Deck Crafters collection that is releasing in October. So this is a new product. It's only 10 bucks which is we like very cheap. It will come with the Meowth Ex releasing at the end of October and it also comes with 39 trainer cards and a booster pack which you know, mixed feelings about that one honestly. Card dividers, a Crafters deck, crafters guide and a code card. But Jake, does this remind you of any product in particular? I mean this is essentially a small version of the trainer's toolkit which, which I think is really interesting. Right. So obviously I like this product. I we are huge, huge fans of the trainers toolkit. But I think kind of what the Pokemon company has figured out with the trainers toolkit is it's a little too big. Right. Especially when you're talking about someone that wants to get into the game or maybe wants a small introduction on, you know, getting into the game. I think the trainer's toolkit is a little too much in size. So kind of condensing it and making it a much more digestible product, almost like a starter deck is is really good in my opinion. I like that. And you don't have a lot of the fluff that the other trainer's toolkit did of like the damage counters, the die, the condition markers, things like that. This is pretty much just like you need the cards, get the cards and we actually have the full list of stuff that's going to be coming in here in terms of the trainer cards. And I mean it looks pretty good. You've got the bosses lilies at a full playset. You got Ultra ball Pokey pad in there and there are so many good trainers. You Know, the list goes on and on. Pretty much all of them in a sense that you'll think of that are pretty rev. Precious or prevalent in the game as of right now. Because you've even got like Hilda, Hilda, Dawn Judge in here. Like we were just talking about them. And then Pokey Gears, rare candies, red cards, you know, it such a good list in my opinion. Yu-Gi-Oh And I mean like, I don't know if you actually have done the math on like the TCG player or whatever value. There's a lot of trainer cards and trainer cards and Pokemon aren't usually worth all that much. But there was a time when a poke pad cost you several dollars or more. I don't know if the Poke pads are still at like a dollar. No. Okay. No, I'm pretty sure they're not. But Meowth is like a couple bucks, right? No, no, I'm pretty sure Meowth is like under a dollar now. You think? Okay. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh because it's. It's being reprinted. Yu-Gi-Oh I just. It's one. Or actually perfect order is like. Perfect order is $3. My bad, my bad, my bad. I was about to say like, you know, so you get a Meowth, which is three bucks, you get a bunch of other trainers which are maybe like the poke pads are probably going to run you. If you bought them at a local store, I would see them charging you a quarter to a 50. 50 cents for each. Right. It's not that insane, I would say, all told, you probably got about five or six dollars worth of value in cards that are all playable. There's nothing in here that you probably don't want. And you get a pack and for 10 bucks I'm like, Yu-Gi-Oh the math. The math is mathing. And to your point, one thing I noticed about the trainers toolkits is if you walked into a lot of LGS's or walked by Walmart or Target or whatever for years you would see nothing on shelf except trainers toolkits because they were completely unscalpable as a product, which is like a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because people who want to play can theoretically find a product. It's a little awkward though, if you're like these stores and you're just getting saddled with, as you said, kind of big bulky products that like it's, you know, it's pretty hard to sell that many of them. So I do think that you're right in that they wanted a smaller thing, probably a lower price point. Of entry. Less commitment from the LGS's as well. So like this doesn't take up as much space. It's easier to get somebody to agree to buy it. Yu-Gi-Oh I think this, this will probably be a nice evolution of the trainer's toolkit. I'm also the only things that are kind of missing in here I feel like is an A spec. There's no A spec in this where the trainer's toolkit used to have aspecs in them even if none of them ever had secret box. And then it's once again like the Meowth ex is just the Meowthy X which is a blessing and a curse. Right. Because like you're saying it's not scalpable really because why you're, you're doing it for one booster pack. Like that's worthless of your time if you're in the scalpers mentality. If they put ascended heroes booster pack in there, we would have been having a very different conversation. But it's just pitch black. So we're good. Yu-Gi-Oh it says pitch black in there. So I like this. I mean I have mixed feelings about a booster pack being in here, but the trainer's toolkit used to have four booster box in them. So I guess it just kind of follows that theme a little bit of. At least you get a pack to like add into this. So it's not the craziest thing in the world, but this is good. Yu-Gi-Oh I agree with what you were saying of how this is much better for probably most stores. The one thing I do want to just briefly mention is the interesting card sorting that they put in there. Did you see these dividers? They've like labeled them as like attacking Pokemon assist, Pokemon card draw, Pokemon search and setup, energy search disruption, blah blah blah. And I'm like, it's interesting to see from the company themselves them spelling out these categories cuz it's. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this is also how from a design perspective they sometimes think about their Pokemon. I mean this is one of those things too that like the average person that you want to buy this does not necessarily really know how to play the game. And they want to get into the game. Right. So this is like a neat little thing of like hey, well, I don't know how these dividers go, right? Is it like in between all the trainers or are they just stacked together in the back or something? I mean, I don't know. I, I don't know how they're arranged in the actual products when you Buy it. But I think they're meant to be stacked between the ones that it references. That's what I would hope. So. So then, if. If that is the case, then this is nice because it gives you a little bit of definition of. Because these have, like, energy. Search and attach. And then it has a definition. Power up your Pokemon with the energy they need to attack. So, like, those little definitions are probably really, really nice for either someone who is really, really young or. Or is just joining into the game. Yu-Gi-Oh But one-of-one it's cool. Product coming at the end of October. Yu-Gi-Oh 10 bucks. If you have a friend that you want to get into the game, buy them a League Battle deck and the deck Crafters collection. And I think you're. You're Goldin Next little piece of News is the 2027 Pokemon Regionals merch was previewed. Jake, give us a rundown of what people next season can look to buy. So I believe it was this 2026 season that Pokemon introduced merch at regionals, and it had been very popular. So obviously in 2027, they wanted to spin it in again. And this is merchandise that players will be able to grab in North America and Europe. So sorry if you're not in those regions, but it is called the Regional Championships Collection Series 27, featuring T shirts, hats, jerseys, pullover hoodies, coin and marker sets, premium playmats, premium deck boxes, and card sleeves. And so you've got just a lineup of shirts. Right. It's interesting to me with these regional things because none of them really say, like, regionals on them. They all say, at least in this. In this lineup that they have, they have Pokemon Championship Series. Right. And some of them have, like, Pokemon Championship Series 2027. The big kicker of the Pokemon Regional Championship 2027 series is especially your playmat dice, kid sleeves, stuff like that. Pin is highlighted by, you guessed it, Charizard. Because Charizard has to be on everything. I. I do like the jersey. I don't know if you're seeing in the, like, the middle picture. I have it pulled up here, but there is a pretty neat little blue, like dark blue, light blue sort of jersey with a pokeball on it. That's like the regional, like, logo that they use. Yu-Gi-Oh And like anime during streams. And I. None of the jerseys last season had that same sort of look. They were a little more specific. I'll be interested to see if, like, the Pokemon company used to have a policy ish. Where they would give players certain shirts if they were on stream. Yu-Gi-Oh they still do. I Think. Yu-Gi-Oh like it's, it's, it's generic enough. It's not specific to any one regional or any one Pokemon or anything. So I'll be interested to see if you go on stream, they start giving people the jersey if they don't already have a. A jersey or a team sponsorship. Because that is something that is allowed now as a reminder. Yu-Gi-Oh But if you don't have something, they might, you know, in order to avoid any copyright things, it would be a cool thing to see on stream. So. And I'm going to be honest, I like last year's a lot better just maybe because of the like rainbow. You got the little cute Pikachu in there. I don't need Charizard plastered on things. But they have a variety of Pokemon similar to last year. Right. That are put onto these like T shirts that they have. Like they have a Mimikyu shirt which I know is probably going to be really, really popular. Zorark, Altaria compared to last year where like Landorus, Incineroar, Pachirisu, Gardevoir, Zumarol. Very VGC coded. Yu-Gi-Oh it was. Yu-Gi-Oh it's. I don't know, it's just a different vibe. It's a lot more of. It is like high school letterman jacket vibe a little bit this year, which. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, you'll either, you know, it'll either speak to you or it one-of-one I guess so. Sean, I have a question. Yes. Did you get a high school letterman jacket when you were in high school? I did. I. I did, Yu-Gi-Oh Do you still have it? I. If I do, it's at my parents house. Same here. Well, I know mine's at my parents house, but I have not seen mine in years. Yu-Gi-Oh Since I left for college it was. But some of the other. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But good winter coat though. If you lived on in the. The east or the Midwest. Good winter. Good winter coat. I will say a letterman's jacket. But anyways, in some of these other things they. I did say VGC coded, but there are some TCG coded things. There are dragapult sleeves and a deck box. And the other deck box is Budu. Oh God. So that was. There's your little TCG sprinkle in there. I mean you have to do Dragon Ball, right. Dragon Ball has literally dominated. Yu-Gi-Oh The entire year and is going to dominate until it gets rotated. So of course you're gonna slap it on stuff. The badoo though, the. Can you imagine somebody rocking up with the do? Is really funny. This deck box and you're like, oh God, no, not this. Oh God. Itchy pollen before the game even starts. Oh well, Yu-Gi-Oh so that's all the news. We got the list of regionals. I think there was two more regionals added actually between when we announced them the last stream or in the last pod. And today I think there was a. Was it Atlanta? I feel like there was a Canadian regional and maybe Toronto, I think as well got announced. So Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh so two new regionals. But Jake, going now to the main topic, to the listener questions. We have a whole wide range here. Is there anywhere on this vast list that you would like to start? What category? I've categorized them for the listeners. I think we could just start off from the top of what we've got on this document. Just keep it simple, keep it simple. So we're going to start with what I've categorized as game design very broadly. So first question that I have in the game design section was, do you guys feel like Pokemon is lowering the power level of the future cards to curb power creep? I think this is a hard question to answer, but I do think a lot of stuff that has come out is at a lower power level to not try to recreate a drag a pole. Right. For three years. So I, I think yes, a little bit, but probably not to the extent that a lot of people would say because I think as soon as Dragapole leaves, things change drastically within the format. And I think you can start seeing like some of these other things, like a Mega Greninja, like a Mega Darkrai, you know, like you can start seeing some of these other decks that were poster childs that have not really got limelight at all because they just died a Dragapult. And Dragapult is just too prevalent. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, we'll get into a bunch of Dragapult stuff too. But power creep is an interesting word because I think that they made a mistake with Dragapult. Yes, by making it too strong. And they have spent a lot of their design energy on cards that directly counter Dragapult. So I think in that way, like, Yu-Gi-Oh it warps a format and thus and, and in that way it's a power crept card by itself. But I think that Dragapult has actually caused more power creep in some ways. Think about the existence of 70 HP basics that like for many, many years, like Pokemon have always gone up in HP a little bit. But because of Dragapult, you have to now factor in the damage that a Pokemon needs to be able to survive in order to actually evolve. We've entered an era where aside from the Mega, the Basics, like the Mega Kangaskhans of the world, Pokemon is encouraging people to evolve their Pokemon. And so there has been actually quite a lot of power creep in that. The new baseline for Basics has to be roughly 70 hp, which was unheard of when we started the game. You know. Yu-Gi-Oh Because it's, it's all in response to Dragon Ball. And once you. There are some barriers that kind of. Once you cross a barrier of 70hp basics, it's hard to go back. You're just kind of stuck with 70hp basics as the new sort of thing to compare it to. And if you want to go lower than 70, you got to have a good reason. And if you want to go higher, the reason is you don't want it to be buddy buddy puffin searchable. Right. Like, you know, ends, ends. Darumaka is a great example of. They want it to be slightly more powerful, but they lower it without the searchability anyways. But also Pokepad exists that like in terms of power creep, that is the most broken Pokemon search card that I have ever seen. It's pretty good. And that's, that's crazy power creep. So I. But it's also like the context within a format too because like, I mean Cherish Ball used to be giga broken. But that's because a lot of decks just ran a lot of GX's which were the, you know, EX's at the time. If you haven't been playing as long as we have, you know, it. It's just also the context of the format like Pokepad is really good because there's a lot of support or maybe attacking Pokemon that are non rule box within the format that you can play and do play. But like in the Pokepad may not have, may not have been as relevant in the tag team format. Absolutely 100%. I, I fully agree. Yu-Gi-Oh I think it's a weird thing. I think that they actually have lowered the power creep on the top end. So the Draga Pults. But even think about like the Megas, right when you and I started Jake, everyone was playing tag team decks. That was like the thing. And the idea of giving up three prizes didn't matter in the sense that everyone was playing three prizers and so it really was two knockouts and you one-of-one And if you can sneak in a two Prizm attacker, that's how you're really going to mess things up. But I think they've made the three Prizm attackers much less powerful. And thus less desirable to run as like the main thing in your deck now. But the way that they've done that is by making single prizers even better. Yu-Gi-Oh And so there has been, I think, a lot of power creep. Like if you told anybody in 2019, 2020 when we started, oh, a deck like Alakazam is going to exist. A deck like Toucanon, like even Toucanon, like Delmise. Right. Smoking. Right. Slow King. Like these single Prizm decks are actually kind of insane. The fact that they can go toe to toe with three prizers. So I think that they've sort of raised the power of the single Prizm archetype while lowering the power of the three prizers to try to, you know, maybe to balance the game a little bit. That's how I would. And I think it's just in preparation because the two prizes are so good, right? Like Dragapult is just Gardevoir was so good for, for a while, you know, honestly is kind of a crazy card Enzor pretty good too. Like the two prizes are pretty good. And like when Dragapult has 320 hp, you know, and your Excadrill for example, Mega extra drill is 340. Yu-Gi-Oh I think that's like pretty much the same on the high end. So it's, it's, it's a constant balance. But Yu-Gi-Oh anyways, Yu-Gi-Oh it was a good question though. So next question to somebody who's new to the tcg, listening for a few episodes. Welcome. Talking about how we discuss certain game mechanics that sort of come in and out of rotation every few years. And then just asking us, does the game now remind us of a certain period in recent years in terms of maybe meta share or mechanics or card Topps And then also what are some experiences from then and what can players maybe take from that time period and bring into their gameplay today? Very deep question. It's a really interesting question. So like Pokemon constantly like replays different things. So like the. The it hide and sneak deck is basically a reprint of Lost March, right? If you remember from like the kind of Black and white X and Y era Lost March. Very, very good deck. Mew constantly copies attacks, whether it's Mew from Triumphant, Mew EX from the Lost Zone, Mewtwo and Mew GX from the tag team era copying from the discard pile. And we've even seen like Reggie Drago VSAR copy Dragon type Pokemon attacks from the discard pile. So things, things constantly come back. So Yu-Gi-Oh that's just something that's kind of always existed and so it's things that you can really learn like from those eras in terms of sequencing, in terms of what kind of attacks work really, really well in certain situations. And some of them are a little bit different than others based on like the energy and stuff. But. But you, you kind of get a feel of how the deck already should run. And it helps with like starting deck building and even like starting playing when you first pick up the new version in a sense. But you can't take everything. Obviously. I think I didn't play back in the like XY early Sun and Moon era, but from my understanding there was a lot of evolution in that era. Right. Like most of the decks revolved around getting into your exs or your some ebbs and flows. Yu-Gi-Oh Of like evolutions. Like I think Zorark was a pretty good evolution and then going into stuff like Decidueye. Yu-Gi-Oh But I think right now we are in an era where it's largely an evolution based era. And it's not like the. Cause the V and the Vmax era was really weird. So if you think about it, the V and V Max was an era where you had a two prizer that evolved into a three prizer. So yes, there was like a lot of evolution. But like that's, that's never happened in any time in history. And a lot of times it's not, it's not real. I mean it is an evolution like I think by definition of the game. But it's like it's a weird saying of what evolution actually is. It's an evolution only in mechanical name, but in like local lore. It's just Gigantamax. Yu-Gi-Oh Right. Dynamax. Yu-Gi-Oh But Yu-Gi-Oh but I think the closest era that this, the era this is closest to is probably the late XY early Sun and Moon era. The three prizers are a big reminiscent. I think they're. They're trying to fix the. The window of tag teams and. But it doesn't feel like the tag team era. It just doesn't right now. I also think, I also think that there's a little bit of. It's. It's so weird because we. Okay, so I'm gonna compare this to the ADP Zacian deck. Right. Okay. Dragapult is just as dominant. Yu-Gi-Oh As ADP Zacian where you have a deck that really does not have a many at all like losing matchups. It is just. You get as close as you can to a 50, 50 against it and at best you break even right in the matchup spread. But the difference is with ADP Zacian, is that games are way longer in this era. Yu-Gi-Oh So it allows other decks, like a Zamazenta. Right. To be able to get online and thrive where ADP ended the game in three turns, whether you liked it or or not. So it. It's like a weird thing where, like, the meta share is very much the same, but the difference in it, because you truly can't compare, you can't say they're a one and one. The difference between the two is there's a lot more decks that exist that you can play. It's. It's. It's really. It's really interesting. Do you want to know the weirdest comparison I'm gonna make? I think that Dragapult is closer to the original Zoroark Ex than end Zoroark is. And yes, because the original or the. The new end Zork does not have a, like a righteous beating. Well, no, no, I'm not even talking about it. I'm talking about, like, how people use it with deck building. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The old era of Zoroark. Zoroark was your draw engine, and it was also one of your attackers. And I think in a lot of ways people have turned into this dragapult world where, like, Dragapult Blaziken, Dragapult blank. Right. Like, you pair Dragapult with like, a couple of other. Other attackers, and that's what makes the dragapult deck, whatever version of it it is. And because it has the draw engine stapled to the drag cloak, you just. I do. I'm just realizing that it feels very similar to the Zoroark era, where you have an engine in a. In like one evolution line, and then the rest of the deck is just a response to the meta in some ways, which is weird. I would say that's pretty fair. So, Yu-Gi-Oh In terms of experiences, what players can take forward with their gameplay, I do think that this era of Pokemon is very healthy in that I think there's a lot of skill expression. A lot. I think some good skill expression. Yu-Gi-Oh Because, like, there's skill expression in deck building and deck choice, but also in gameplay, like you were saying, the games are slower. Like, you're not winning in two turns or three turns. Right. Like, because of all the single Prizm options and everything, you have time to set up, and I think that allows for interesting gameplay generally. So I would say use that time to your advantage and don't. Maybe don't lean too heavily into linear decks, because often those will not perform as well. If you're a new player, a linear deck is fine, but like at a high level. Yu-Gi-Oh You can also learn something from every format. I think you can take something away from every format to then put into the next format and improve. Jake, last question on the game design, which I threw this one in here because I didn't know where to put it, which is, have you ever played a Pokemon Draft Cube? And if so, how was your experience? You have it? It was awesome. I played. I think it was Naic. Oh, my God. I have cubed a handful of times and by a handful of times, I think, like maybe twice. I don't know if you remember, Sean, but I played in a Zorark Draft cube. Do you remember me doing that? I like NAISP or like posting about it. Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna try to find this Zorark cube. It was like at Naic. I played. It was a cube designed with the Zorarchy or GX that you were talking about. Zorark gx to where the cube was Zorark. Everybody got like a. A4.4 line of ZOR GX and you drafted different pieces that Zora had paired with within its legacy in the. In the standard format. It was really, really fun. I had an incredible time. I can't find the picture and I'm kind of mad about is it is somewhere. But I. Drafting is not easy. No. For instance, because to build an actual cube and to build like an actual draft is very difficult. Right. Because you can't. It has a lot of balancing. Right. Just as you're balancing just like a card game in general. Right. This has a lot of balancing. Right. You don't want very easy combos to be exposed and like Zebra broken that somebody can get with like off of one or two cards. You have to seed the packs as well as you're going through a draft queue, you have to seed the packs in a way that, like, makes a lot of sense. It's very. Oh, my gosh. It's truly an enjoyable experience. I have not done a Pokemon Draft Cube, but Yu-Gi-Oh I have done Pokemon Draft at like, pre release and other things. And I. The biggest challenge, I think with Pokemon Draft is always going to be the evolution lines. Because if you want to stick to a rule, the main rule of Pokemon, which is you have to have the correct evolution lines, I do think that would make drafting more complicated for Pokemon than for probably any other game. So to your point about seeding your packs and like, maybe you have to like, tweak a rule here or there to say like, oh, you can draft entire evolution lines if you want and then pass or whatever. I, I, I don't know what the rules are but, but it's cool that they gave you a 4, 4 line of the engine to start. So that way everybody can start with a baseline level of consistency, which is also the problem. Right. Like if everybody takes all the consistency pieces and you just draft poorly or whatever, you might just be dead on arrival, so to speak. So especially like as someone who had cubed basically for the first time and maybe anybody who doesn't have experience in cubing, right, you have that sort of baseline as you're saying of like where to start building, like, okay, I'm going to start building outside of this synergy. And it's, it's actually really interesting because draft Cubing is also kind of similar to like pre releases in a sense for other card games, not Pokemon. So like a one piece pre release you have to open packs and then build a deck out of it. It's not like Pokemon where you get like a staple set of trainers and evolution line, things like that. But if you're curious about getting into a cube, what I personally recommend is going to cubecoga.net it's a website that has, it's basically like a forum of cubes that people post. They post their own cubes. You've got people like Omnipoke that posts their own cubes. I know Joe from Omnipoke is huge into Cubing. He loves cubing and he spends a lot of time in there. There are so many. Like Puka has his cube, the Chaos Cube, which I know is a very famous Pokemon cube. Like if you ever want to do that and so you could build it yourself. Andrew Mahone has a cube I see on the website right now that he has posted there like so many multiple cubes actually by Andrew Mahone. And so you can, you can start off with something that somebody else has done. Yu-Gi-Oh And then just play with your friends that has spent like way more time. So I highly recommend it. I think everybody should cube at least one point in their Pokemon TCG career. We should make a Metapod cube where it's just like all metapods. Just kidding. And probably suck. But the Metapod cube, it's like everybody gets, everybody gets bug catching set, bug catchers, metapods go. one-of-one that's funny. But Yu-Gi-Oh I'll link if you're curious about cubing. I'll link cobe or I'll link cube koga.net in the show notes or the description below. All right, new category. Moving on to rules. Why are people who play IRL so against flipping coins and instead rolling dice? It's much more simpler than you think. It's because I don't, if you flip a coin, there are some people that are really bad at flipping coins. Yu-Gi-Oh And it takes time, especially for coins. It's much easier to control. And in terms of control, I mean like rolling off the table or like, you know, because you flip a coin, you hope that it goes straight up and straight down, but with a die, you know, it's much easier to control. You can use your arm as like a barrier for it to bounce off of or something like that. You have die one-of-one to track damage counters a lot of times or certain things or at least I, I mean, I guess. Now, do people on average in Pokemon have like regular dice? Well, we have a question. Do they have like the, the high number dice? We have a question about that later. I, I, we'll get to it. I think people are mixed on using the number dice versus like the normal dice. Yu-Gi-Oh I was like, wait a minute, hold on. Pokemon are like 340 HP. I just said earlier. Do people just use the, the high number, like 100 to 180 or whatever? Yu-Gi-Oh I, I mean, look, for me, rolling dice is like, it's just simpler. Like dice. It's, it's so much easier. Yu-Gi-Oh And technically, Pokemon, at a high level event, you're supposed to use see through dice so that there's not like any weight issues like rolling weighted dice, but at your locals, people just use dice because like everyone always has dice. Right. Dice are easy coins. If, if I'm at a locals and somebody wants to flip a coin, I'm not going to say no. But generally speaking. Now the one thing that is weird with Pokemon that no other game does is you roll a dice, but you still say heads or tails, which every other card game does. High roll or low roll. And whenever I'm playing. Well, no, isn't it Digimon? It's like if it's what, what is the thing in Digimon? Because you're forced to go first on a coin flip? I don't think so. Or something. If you, there's a game that I've played recently where you do a coin flip and depending on the outcome, you're forced, you don't get to choose to go first. Second, you're forced to go first. But it's not a coin flip. Right. It's still a die roll. I mean, a lot of times people just do a die roll. My point is, like, in Pokemon, Pokemon is the only one I've ever seen that says heads or tails and rolls a dice. Yu-Gi-Oh because every other card game, I do heads or tails and I roll the dice, people look at me like, what do you mean heads are. There's no heads or tails in this dice. I'm like, oh, sorry, sorry. Evens is head, tails is odd. It's okay. Yu-Gi-Oh it's a Pokemon thing. Pokemon thing. Yu-Gi-Oh from a meta standpoint. Now, moving on to this meta section. This is a big one. We'll get into this. Probably have a whole episode about this one. But I guess right off the cuff, short answer. What do you think is going to one-of-one Worlds and what do we hope wins? What do we think will one-of-one and what do we hope wins? I mean, I'll just go first. What do I think will one-of-one I think Dragapole. No, I actually. I think Dragonfold's gonna one-of-one You think Dragonflault's gonna one-of-one I don't know. I mean, if it's gonna be 50 of the meta, I've got a pretty good shot at being right. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if something like Alakazam one-of-one frankly. Or that's what I want to one-of-one See, I think it could one-of-one and that I want it to one-of-one It really depends on the kind of Dragapult people take. If everyone decides Alakazam is a real threat, again, it's not going to one-of-one That's just the truth. That's how Alakazam rolls is like, if everybody expects it, you can easily tech against it. If you don't expect it, you're fine. I think Festival Lead will also do well. I think that single Prizm decks are going to have a really good showing. I'd be interested to see if Festival Lead did well. I'm curious about Grim Snarl, because remember Grim Snarl? Azul one-of-one that big Tournament of Doom. Yu-Gi-Oh Tournament with it. And then just like every other time with Grimstar, it just like falls off the face of the earth, as well as an online tournament. And then like, you look at the results from an actual regional and you're like, wait. And it's like, well, I mean, we haven't had a regional, but like, no, obviously, because we're in the summer break time waiting for the World Championships, which is why we're doing listener questions for this episode, because there's no news until the world Championships, really. But Yu-Gi-Oh I think Dragapult's gonna one-of-one and I hope Alakazam does. The next one is sort of like a hot take. And a question one of our listeners was saying that Dragapult is not the problem. It's a fair tier one deck. The real problem is that you can play cards like Unfair Stamp or Crushing Hammer and it has a built in draw engine. And the related question is about like do we believe that Dragapult is keeping single Prizm decks from having a much stronger meta share? I. This is my high. I think it's a lot different decks. Which one? It's not just single price decks, it's a lot of different decks. I think Dragon Ball does keep a lot of decks down. Some of them to the point where they're unplayable. I think that single Prizm decks, though we were just talking about this earlier are in a crazy power crep spot. And I will be interested to see once Dragapult rotates if we skew so heavily into a single press format. Well, the thing is is like think of the single Prizm decks that do exist. It's decks that one shot Dragapult. Yu-Gi-Oh You know it's Alakazam that can hit an infinite damage cap number. It's Slow King that with that Metagross can do an absurd amount of damage. I think it's like 300 or whatever. Yu-Gi-Oh It can do off of the Metagross and stuff like that. So I think Dragonbolt has become more fair of a tier one deck because the. The single Prizm decks are getting better. But I still think it's a problem because it's very oppressive to a lot of the other stuff in the game. Right. That's why we talk about Grim Snarl has like that one thing and then it falls off the face of the earth. You know. That's why none of the. None of the megas are really like that good. No, because why would you play a deck that gives up three prizes when Dragapult is just better still? Like, because I can just. I just pop Dust nor monkey dory. 3 damage. 3 damage counters and then Dragapult and I can knock out right a mega with my Dragapult and it's more than likely they can one shot me back. Yu-Gi-Oh I, I would agree that. I think Dragapult, it's a tier one deck. It's only made fair by how strong some of the one Prizm decks have become. But I do, I would actually do worry post rotation once Dragapult rotates and you don't have a way to easily sort of keep decks Like Festival Lead. I guess Festival. It'll maybe rotate as well. I can't remember what the timing on that one is, but I can't remember. But there will be other single Prizm decks that I think may be a legitimate problem post rotation. The next one in eight months. So. But I think a card. A card like Crushing Hammer. Right. It's the fact that Dragapult can suddenly put in the four crushing hammers that I think is the problem. Where it's so good that it has the four slots to be able to throw in. Crushing Hammer to be able to. I mean I think Unfair Stamp is a really interesting card. But like I think. I just think Dragapult's just a little bit over tuned. Yu-Gi-Oh I would agree in what it does. And it's very reminiscent going back to the question earlier of like mechanics that are from previous is very reminiscent of Dragon Ball vmax. It's like basically the same thing except now it has a draw engine. Yu-Gi-Oh it's just got a draw engine. Now it's even better. They made it better. Did Dragon Ball vmax have a draw engine? I don't think so. I think it was just. What was it? I think it was just do six damage to it. I think it was six damage too. I think maybe a bench or something. Yu-Gi-Oh It was not. Well, I know that the attack is very much the same. Yu-Gi-Oh Drago pulls VMAX deck. What was the draw engine in that deck? Did it have one? I don't know. Robots and to Denny GX and Jirachi. Right. Like I don't need a draw engine when I have actually. Yu-Gi-Oh Draw six. That's it. Yu-Gi-Oh So this next one I don't really have a good answer for but I wanted to ask it what deck combination like Pult Mega Greninja do you think is slept on? I think there's been a lot of exploration of the different combinations. I would say that some form of Dragapults not Dragon Ball to Dragon Knight Ex. I think it has the ability to dish out a lot of damage. I think it was what, 330? I think it's mostly being slept on. The Dragonite Ex. The Mega Dragonite. It's being slept on because Lily's clefairy exists to counter Dragapult which also in turn, you know, unfortunately counters the Mega Dragonite. So I don't know if it will ever be in a format where Lily's clefairy doesn't exist. So it may be that you'll never get to see a really Good combo of Mega Dragonite plus a hit and run attacker or a wall or something, right? So I think Mega Excadrill is a really cool one that I think is kind of being slept on. I've been watching a lot of games of it of Mega Extra Drill. But like being able with Mega Extra drill to hit 330 damage and have access to stuff like Gravity Mountain to be able to get even stage twos even lower in health for that 330hp or 330 attack to be able to hit. And you've got like a really interesting consistency and engine, right? Like Genesect Ex can help you find your metal Evolutions, which is all the different evolutions that you have in your deck. Using the metang line to be able to accelerate energies in different places. To be able to attack with Mega Excadrill, right Is just such an interesting mechanic and a deck to function in general. I think that is one. I think that is one like you were talking about. Like you think Festival League could have like a. A really interesting performance at Worlds. I think Mega Excadrill is like just on the cusp of being like a pretty meta relevant deck because I. I think it hits a lot of the right numbers and things like that. It's just like. I don't know, it's. It's so interesting to me because it feels like your consistency is really good. Having the call for family. Yes. What is the Drillbird? Quick. One favorite card to come out of Mega Evolutions. I'm just gonna go Pokepad Crazy card. I should have looked at these questions before we started the podcast. What is my favorite? I really like Downtown is actually been a big. Yu-Gi-Oh I've been a big fan of Dawn. I really like what dawn has done for these Evolutions decks that we're talking about like Alakazam and stuff like that to where like it is so nice to be able to find your evolutions in such an easier way, right? Even stuff outside of like Alakazam, right? Like dawn is just really cool to be able to find like such a variety of cards. And it's really cool too that I can find like different evolution lines. So like in Alakazam for example, right? Like I can find in the Alakazam deck, Picky Peck, the Dun, Sparse and Alakazam. I could find three evolution lines. Like that's. That's so sick. I think dawn will be one of those cards that in 10 years in GLC people are going to be like this card is absolutely broken. I Goldin imagine a format where this card was legal. The same way we think about Versus Seeker. I. I do think dawn will be, like, one of those supporters that's just like, this is nuts. It's really cool moving into a collecting block now. We've talked about this before, actually. If Pokemon ever did reprint sets, what would. I would. What would we like to see? Expanded Masters, GLC icons, or block highlights? I'm not going to get too much into, like, the specific cards, but, like, if they were to do a reprint set that isn't. The reprints that they're already doing, which is 30th anniversary. Say they're. They're doing the 30th anniversary. Right? That's the. That's the reprints. Yu-Gi-Oh but I mean, if they did one for players the same way that, like, Magic for many years has done, like, do that. Huh? They do. Doesn't Digimon do a reprint set? They. I don't know what they do anymore. They've done, like, EX sets. One Piece does them because Omnimon, like, the. The first set of. Yu-Gi-Oh one Piece does it with Kirby, but one Piece does them for, like, playable cards within the last year, usually year and a half. Yu-Gi-Oh And then it's got, like, a smudge of new alternate arts. Like, that makes the set, like, Zebra collectible. I mean, personally, I think a look, a GLC and expanded reprint set, they're going to be a lot of the same cards. So you can pull double duty. Right. Like, everybody would love cool new art for Versus Seeker. A full art versus Seeker. They did. They did for Versus Seeker. It was in the Champ. Well, not a full art versus you, but, like, in the Champions collection, I think it was. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Where it was like, the $5,000 thing that, like, had the little tokens and, like, the whole metal thing that actually had a hollow version of Versus Seeker. Fun fact. I have that in my collection. Like a pack that you can open that's not a 400. You know, any. Yu-Gi-Oh I'll stop being a jerk. No, well, actually, but, like, you could probably kill two birds with one stone of, like, an expanded and GLC sort of combined reprint set. I would love to see that. I am uncertain as to why Pokemon has never really explored that in earnest. I know in Japan, they have done expanded reprints as part of local league prizes. Like, if you go to a local league, they had packs that you could get that would have sometimes expanded cards in. In them. But that's. We know that. Yu-Gi-Oh that's because expanded is a much more supported format outside of the west in Japan specifically. But I think until Pokemon takes expanded or GLC seriously from a competitive standpoint, we're never going to see something like that. I think it's a hard thing to say, right, because when you reprint things tank. And I think as a card game, it's really hard to balance the collecting aspect with the playing aspect. Right? But it's like Pokemon is so focused on the standard format. Like, I would really only want an expanded slash like GLC kind of reprint segment if they supported those formats. Like officially, like GLC is a very common side event at regionals. But until it becomes like an official format, I don't know. But there are like, there are cheap alternatives to a lot of these. Like GLC is a really good example, right? You can play with like championship cards. You can play with the Japanese versions or foreign language versions, not English cards, which make a lot of these kind of like more expensive staples a lot cheaper. But I, I wonder also, this is something that I don't know, but like licensing rights on certain cards of like, so they would have to. So let's, let's just say whoever made the, the versus Seeker card. Yu-Gi-Oh let's just say whoever made. I don't know who did and, and just humor me. Whoever made the versus seeker art, do they have the rights? I mean, obviously, yes, because they reprinted it in the collection. But like, for some cards, do they have the rights to only print that card, like in that set with that art, or would they have to like, reprint an art? I don't know. I can tell you what the answer is, almost certainly is, oh, okay. Almost every card game in the world, with the exception of magic and sorcery. And there may be other niche card games that I'm not mentioning, but sorcery and magic are the two big ones. All of those card games do a work for higher contract, meaning all of the work that you create as part of the company is owned entirely by the company. Now, part of the negotiation is that you get your name credited and you're paid a certain amount, but the company in, in its entirety owns the use of that artwork in perpetuity. Gotcha. That is how most card games work. Magic has had weird relationships with artists over the years. So artists, early on in their history, it was a we'll pay you 50 bucks and the people would have the right to renegotiate the licenses should the card be printed in future set. So that's why if you ever hear about like these Topps of negotiations, it's often old magic cards that they're talking about where those artists retain the rights to those cards. And magic has like this history with artists that like is a little different and then sorcery is trying to recreate that artist led history. But for Pokemon, I would be, I would be very surprised if they don't just outright own the arts. Yu-Gi-Oh I have no idea. But Yu-Gi-Oh I, I just think it's hard to do and they would only want to do it with like official formats and they already kind of do expanded with, with the anniversary set. But Yu-Gi-Oh Next question here on collecting is do we think the Pokemon TCG is going to enter a junk wax era when the new Factory opens in 2028 and what are the potential implications of that factory opening? I think that it'll be good. It will like because we're kind of already seeing it with a lot of Pokemon singles and we've talked about this where like they don't even have the printing facility up and going. But single cards. In terms of the, the, the sets, you can get the gold Mega Darkrai ex for under 200 USD right now if you wanted to, which is awesome. The sir is under $250, which is awesome. The top hit of the set. So we're already seeing like stuff go down. It's just that the products themselves are still really high because people want to have like these insane sealed collections. But I don't know if Pokemon really cares about that because it's all public perception anyways. So if like I don't know if Mega Darkrai Exsir would be too much different of a price if we were in the new printing facility. Right. And they print, they released Pitch Black from there because it's like the public has decided that this card is $250. Right. It's not like the Pokemon company. Sure there are more of them out there, but people are still going to go for it. It's still going to be the top hit. Well, I don't know. I mean we've talked about how many cards the Pokemon companies printed every year and I think we went from like 27. We've never printed it. As many cards as we ever have. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh we went from like 2 billion, 3 billion a year and shot up to like 10 billion a year like four or five years ago. And more than half the cards ever printed in Pokemon history were printed in the last like four years, which I think it's even less than that. I think it's like two years Two or three, it might be. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, it's just. We don't need a new printing facility to open for people to decide that there are too many, that they're printing too much. Right. Because that's really what the junk wax era was about in baseball cards was. It was like the 90s, the late 80s and 90s, where there's just so much product out there and people were buying into the hype and then all of a sudden it collapses because they realize there's a. There's a billion versions of xyz. So I think if we were gonna hit that inflection point, we would have already. We are seeing prices start to top out in many instances. And because of that, the, the scalper and the sneaker heads and all that, they're moving on to all the other card games. Right. They're in one piece. They're in Riftbound now. They're like, they're everywhere. They're in Lorcana, they're in Dragon Ball Fusion World. Right. Like, they're just expanding their portfolios. But I agree with you, Jake, that when the Millennium Factory opens, I think that what we will see is a return to normal for sealed prices of modern product. Well, I think, I think sealed. Sealed products will be easier to Uptown and I think the price point of sealed products will be a little bit lower. You think we're still going to have 300 booster boxes? No, no, I think it'll get lower. Yu-Gi-Oh So like a pitch black. Like, I think it'll be much more common to get boxes. Sealed boxes at 150. Yu-Gi-Oh Yes. Right. Like, we're never going to hit the 90. No, no, we one-of-one going back. You and I got in. Gosh, I. I got so many unbroken bonds boxes for like $85 way back when. Oh, if only we knew. But, but I think if boxes come back down to like 140, 1, 50 that you can just pick up at a store, I think that that might be the future. But to me, that's not really a junk wax era. That's just a. Hey, we figured out how to saturate the market again, you know, appropriately. And it's no longer viable to do buyouts on all your local Walmarts to just rip on Whatnot. Like the whole idea that somebody can open your packs for you on a live stream and upcharge you for the privilege. Like, ex. Try explaining that to anyone in 20, 19, 2020, before the pandemic that, like, would you be willing to pay a dollar more to have Somebody else open your packs and then ship them to you. I mean everyone would have been like, no, like I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it, I'm gonna be honest. But Yu-Gi-Oh we're boomers. We are boomers. But I think also I think the, a junk wax era would come about because of an overall TCG crash rather than a Pokemon specific junk wax era. Yu-Gi-Oh I think so long as Pokemon is still one of the like top ips in the world, they just opened up a Pokemon amusement park. You know where this background came from that I have? Yu-Gi-Oh If anything like Pokemon is still gonna be hot. I could see a lot of the other games going through a big junk wax era, but Pokemon, it's got 30 years. I think if anything's gonna survive, it's gonna be Pokemon. Quick little sets of advice. Now we're in the advice column. First time regional goer. What is the practical thing and the not so obvious thing to remember? So practical. Bring extra sleeves for sure. What I try to do, even though they're gonna slip and slide, you know, and they're gonna move around, bring a brand new set of sleeves, like open the box and sleeve up your deck. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, the day one of the regional, they're brand new. Keep the spares on you. I try to check when I play in a regional, I try to check my sleeves after every round to see which ones, you know, may have dings or something or you know, something that could be considered a marked card. And I just change it right away. Right. If I get a pack 100 of Dragon Shield, that will last me the day. Right. Pretty typical. Also make sure to bring snacks and water or Gatorade because you would be very surprised of how much energy you consume while playing card games, especially at a very high level at something like a regional. And specifically Pokemon where you're playing best of three. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, not so obvious stuff. The more people that are in the main event, the less people are going to be in the side events and at the vendor booths and stuff generally. So if you're not going to participate primarily in the main event, still get up early for all the side event stuff. And that's when you're going to have the most Phoenix you're also going to avoid all of the regional players who are trying to one-of-one back some self respect and playing inside events. So just another. Also, don't be afraid, don't be afraid of walking farther to go to the bathroom. Right. Like if you, if you finish your round and you have maybe 15 to 20 minutes until the next round pairs. If the, if you see the line at the bathroom that's maybe like the nearest to you, don't be afraid to have a secondary bathroom to go. Maybe like a five minute walk or something like that, you know, but take, take your go to the bathroom whenever you can in a Pokemon regional, right? Next question here. Parent getting their son into the hobby, really diving in. They want to help their son understand the game on a deeper level. Any advice from a teaching perspective and whether or not becoming a judge or professor is a suitable route? I'm going to go out on a limb and say a judge and professorship is. It's nice. I'm sure your locals would be happy to have another judge or professor, but you don't have to go that far. It is a lot of work to fill out paperwork and take the tests and like. But I would say from a teaching perspective, start with simpler decks and pick mechanics and strategies that you can build a baseline from. Don't, don't have them jump into Dragapult just because that's what Azul was playing and what they one-of-one with or whatever Rogue deck, like little Dark Fury was playing. Awesome decks. But sometimes those strategies can be very complicated. And so I would say start with fundamentals and simpler decks, even if it one-of-one be the thing they're going to eventually land on or one-of-one the most with. I would also start with the different decks, pre built decks that Pokemon produces. So they have the level one decks, they have the level two decks, and then they have the level three decks, you know, that we've talked about in the podcast, things like that. So I would start maybe with those and just play with that. Don't try to rewrite the book, you know, build everything. Just buy the decks and then learn how to play the decks. And then once you start getting a little bit more into that, try to get them on live, whether it's you playing against them on live because it's mobile, right? You can have like your kid on the PC and have you on the phone playing against each other and enjoying kind of in that way. And then maybe they play a little bit more just like by themselves on the ranked ladder or something like that. And then depending on the age, obviously like try to find like a friendly, like a family friendly creator. Now if your kid's like 5 to 7, might not want to go with Azul. As much as I love and I'm friends with Azul, like you might not want to go to him if you know your kids very, very young, but if you have like a teenager or whatever, you know, try to get, try to get to the, some of those other creators that they can watch and enjoy that are, that are good at the game, you know, that they can maybe learn a lot of things from. I guess also. Yu-Gi-Oh Watch regionals with your kid too. Yu-Gi-Oh that's another good one too. Listen to the casters. A lot of the casters are very knowledgeable and then when people make plays, like just talk about it, you know, it's so fun to like watch a regional or watch a game with friends and watch worlds. Yu-Gi-Oh So it's a pretty chill way to, to also teach. A couple of questions here. What, what changes would could help make it more accessible for younger players? I mean, I don't know really what there is because I think Pokemon is so accessible. Yu-Gi-Oh To younger players right now, I think. Well, actually, okay. I think foster finding a community of people similar. Right. Because I think something that I see a lot of times in like Pokemon leagues is like the, the little like 9 year olds fighting the 35 year old player that's been playing for like 10 years and the, the 35 year old player might be a very nice individual and very kind individual or whatever, but I think kids sometimes enjoy it a lot more when they have people their age around. So. And I mean I don't know what Pokemon can do to really enforce this because they have a juniors league. They have, you know, like I think if they. But I, I think the thing Pokemon maybe could do is if they were to try to create ways for people that are specifically in juniors. I think that's the hardest part. Like either parents or the children to like match with each other in local areas and coordinate a little better. But that would be like. It's a lot of work on the Pokemon company to do that. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh but you know, you could easily see like a parents, you know, even if it's like a local area parents discord or Facebook group or whatever. I think that'd be a nice thing because that way, especially for juniors, the parents are really the ones facilitating a lot of the stuff. Also look at your local community. So I was like, I, I was trying to like Google real quick to see if Pokemon has any sort of like, like young programs or something and suddenly came up the Vegas Pokemon Club. So I have no idea what this is, but it's Vegas and I live in Las Vegas. So I'm like intrigued by it. And it's got a copyright of 2026. So it is new. It's an independent after school club teaching the Pokemon trading card game to kindergarten through fifth grade students across Las Vegas. So that boom that if you're Vegas, like that's, that's right there. Yu-Gi-Oh So that's like really interesting. That's exactly what I was saying of like playing, playing with kids like your age in there. That's a. Yu-Gi-Oh So just look through your areas. Obviously not everywhere is going to have a Vegas Pokemon club kind of deal. But it may just be something as simple as your local area has a to or judge that has a night at a local card shop that is just dedicated towards teaching like the juniors or seniors or first time people, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. Why do so many seasoned players seem to favor normal dice for damage counting when there are so many cool dedicated ones? Jake, this is a topic you mentioned earlier. It's just because that's what we know, you know, especially the long time players have just been using it for so long is that is what's comfortable to them. I also think there's another reason having used both many times, which I'm sure you have too. But like the dedicated dice, there's only six sides to a dice. So if you have dice that are like 1 to 60 damage and then 70 to 120 and then whatever, they're all the same size. So you're just rooting around in a bag picking up dice, you're looking for dice that have the specific number set that you need. Whereas if you're like, well it's 240 damage, I just need six. I just need four dice that have sixes on them. That's 240. Yu-Gi-Oh So there's a lot less mental burden of like finding the exact dice you need for the number. Because also you get into weird things where it's like oh, with Monkey Dory and with Dragapult you put like one here and two there and like how many dice do I have that go 1 to 60 and how many dice do I have that go 180 to 240 or whatever? Like especially with like Monkey Dory you have 80 damage on your Pokemon and you have an 80 right die and then you move 30. So now you have to take that one off and try to find a 5i in like a D1 through 6. Like it's, it's just comfortability. The boomers like myself just prefer it because that's what we've been using. I, I, I'm gonna go on a limb and say, I think it's more than comfortability. I do think that fancy cool dice, they're nice when it's like easy and it works, but they're not always the simplest solution, despite what they look like. Like, Yu-Gi-Oh players wanting to get started in the competitive scene but have played casual for a few years. I mean, honestly, just, I think it's watching content creators and watching the regionals and stuff that we're talking about. Yu-Gi-Oh watch the regionals. Find the people in your locals that you know are a little more competitive and just strike up relationships with them. Right. Like it doesn't have to be an official testing group, but, but just having a group of friends that you have at locals that you know are a little bit more engaged, a little bit more competitive about the decks they build and the choices they make. And then it's fine to go to locals and not care, but also, you know, it's also fine to go to locals and be like, hey, I actually want to one-of-one I want to, I want to go 3, 0 this time. And then that, that's sort of, it's a mindset shift a little. Also play in online tournaments on Play limitless website. So like talking about the person, first time regional goer, I think one thing that you should do is going back to that question and combining it a little bit with this question. Play in a big tournament like the Tournament of Doom. Right. Although you cannot simulate with an online tournament, you can't simulate what it's exactly going to feel like as an IRL regional or something like that. It's still a long time to complete the Tournament of Doom. Right. So like it can kind of simulate the amount of time that you're gonna have within a. Within like a regional. Yu-Gi-Oh like the time commitment that you have to do. Even though you have the comfortability of like, you know, grabbing a snack whenever you want to drink, bathroom, you can get up from the table, stretch in the middle of your opponent's turn, which you can't do at an IRL regional, but like you can, you could do something like that. So I would recommend to anybody before they play in a regional, playing a big tournament like the Tournament of Doom or I mean just any that fit in your schedule. And if you want to get more competitive, I think if you don't have like a local area that's Zebra serious or anything like that, I think playing in online tournaments is really good. Also, don't be afraid to net deck. Seriously. Like, Yu-Gi-Oh not everyone is a great deck builder. And that's fine. Like becoming a, a more competitive player. You usually have to understand what your own strengths and weaknesses are. And oftentimes deck building is not somebody's natural strength. So just net deck. Yu-Gi-Oh Last two questions. Any tips and trips for keeping up with the game while on a tight budget? I mean it's, it's play Limitless at the onlines and Limitless, I mean Limitless is like the best. Limitless is the best resource that the Pokemon TCG has for trying to be more competitive and keeping up with what's going on in the game right now. Yu-Gi-Oh In my opinion, Limitless is amazing. It's totally free to, to use Limitless in terms of budget related things. I mean, if you're talking about keeping up with your deck, if you're really on a budget, pick a strong deck and just stick to it. Like. Yu-Gi-Oh There is so much to be said for somebody who is a master of maybe not the best deck in a format, but like a top five deck versus somebody who's just picking up the best deck but is not a master of it. If you are Zebra skilled at that deck and it's not an auto loss matchup, you will probably one-of-one more often than they will. So Yu-Gi-Oh pick a deck that fits your play style and stick to it. And then when you do want to get another deck, it really. Pokemon is not expensive. Most of the staples you're going to reuse and so you're spending 15 bucks, 20 bucks and just buy singles. Always buy singles. And then also like look at the different versions of each card. So like Dragapult Ex is a really good example. Dragon Ball DX has been reprinted like 30 times. So there. If, if the version that you see is the one that it was first print. I can't even remember what set it was printed in originally. Doesn't matter. Yu-Gi-Oh some. Sometime in that era if you don't have to buy that version because that might be the most expensive base rarity version you could do the one from Prismatic Evolutions. That's literally like 50 cents. Or the one from the League Battle Deck. Or the one from the League Battle Deck. Yu-Gi-Oh that's Zebra cheap. So also just look at options as well in terms of like what, what cards are reprinted because again like Sean said, Pokemon one of the most affordable games that you could actually play. Yu-Gi-Oh At a high level in base rarity. Last one, Jake. What are your favorite mechanics in the game and some of your favorite Pokemon? I'll let you take this one. Some of My favorite mechanics in the game are decks that draw a lot of cards and then ones that copy attacks. Oh, that's cool. I, I love decks that draw cards because I, I like having lots of cards in my hand or I, I like having the feeling that I can see every single resource that I have available to me. But I really like the idea of copying because it provides a lot of in ingenuity. Ingenuity Is that flexibility? Ingenuity, Flexibility? Yu-Gi-Oh because like, I, I think of like Henry Brand 2019 Worlds playing Mewtwo MU GX. He played Magcargo GX in the deck. Do you even remember what Magcargo GX does, Sean? The GX attack was mill five cars from the top of your opponent's deck. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, it was, it was such an obscure card. It was that nobody had thought about at that point. But because Mewtwo and Mew GX copied Pokemon from the discard pile, he put that in the discard pile and he was able to get the lava flow attack off. Right. Or, you know, again, like burning magma GX milling your opponent's top five cards, you know, just able to use that. And it was that really interesting, like, niche situation that helped him one-of-one the world championships that year. So like, I think when you have a. A deck that copies. And Reggie Drago V Star is very much similar as well. Like, it, it brought in some of these, like, obscure cards that were not relevant alone. But when a Pokemon is copying those attacks, that has a better stat line, it can utilize it a lot better. So it just like, it just enables so many cards that are otherwise worthless. I think for me, I've always liked extra Prizm mechanics. So that's. It's a generic mechanic. I always like that. And then mechanics where it's like all about sequencing. So the team up Jirachi of the world, like, where you have to like, decide, oh, do I draw or do I do this thing first? And like, it's like a nice little puzzle that you give yourself every turn. Yu-Gi-Oh Favorite Pokemon. I mean, Jirachi is probably one of my favorite Pokemon personally. There's also a Gardevoir down here. I, you know, complicated sequencing. That's Gardevoir. It's basically Card of war. Yu-Gi-Oh My favorite Pokemon is Rowlet. Yu-Gi-Oh For anyone who does not know, for those of you who somehow didn't know that Jake's favorite Pokemon was Rowlet. Now, now I have, I have about 250 copies of the Darkness Ablaze Rowlet common card. And even more when you talk about I think it was reprinted in Champions Path, just like another set where it got reprinted. But I have, I have like 300 copies of a single rally card that is worth nothing. But to me it's worth everything. And that's all the questions. Jake, is there anything else on your mind? I'm excited for Worlds. I'm anxiously waiting for the World Championships. I also, for the World Championships, I will be live co streaming the World Championship. So if you want to watch, hang out with me, other members of the community. I'm going to be doing that because I'm going to be trying. My goal in 2027 is to commentate a Pokemon event by the end of 2027. I know that's a big task and there's a lot of really good commentators that are in the trading card game right now. But I think I can get myself in there. So I'm gonna be starting out with the World Championships, gonna be watching that, gonna be commentating that, co streaming it. So I'll tell you guys how or where it'll be. It'll be on the Metapod. I don't know if it's live, but maybe the individual rounds will be cut up and put on the Metapod, something like that. I'm not 100 sure, but I'll have the drops on Twitch. You know, we'll post links to the live stream on G. Jake's channel as well and. And maybe you'll see some familiar faces in a round or two. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh But Jake, sign us off. Thank you so much for listening to the Metapot podcast, Pokemon TCG podcast that revolves around the evolving meta. Hopefully you're having a great day, evening or night, wherever you are in the world. And we'll see you next week. Rapid.