8-34. Dragapult's Demise

Foreign. Welcome back to Tag Team Pokemon Trading Card Games, premier podcasting duo. My name is J.W. crewall and I'm joined by my good, good friend Andrew Mahone. In today's episode, we are going to be covering the newly released cards from Abyss Eye. We are going to be dipping into the mailbag and then heading out to Utrecht in Campinas, looking at the results from the two regionals from the past weekend. But before we do, Andrew, how you doing today? Big chilling, man. Big chilling. I got a YouTube video out yesterday, so pretty stoked about that. That was the Arkansas trip. Yeah, it was the Arkansas trip, yeah. Which was. Which is awesome. And I think the video turned out really good. I was excited about it, so that was cool. And, you know, getting YouTube videos out now that I'm not like, doing those Pokemon Trading Card Game live or Pokemon Trading Card Game onlines, just like, here's a deck, here's three games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, now that I'm not, like, doing that, it is harder, right? Because like, sometimes you're just like, I don't. Yeah. What's the next video like? I don't know. Like, you know, at this point, like, there are. It was like a thousand five hundred videos on my channel. Thousand six hundred videos on my channel. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I feel like. And this is something that other card games do pretty well, and you've, like, kind of tried to cultivate this with. With like, the second channel, but they're. They do a lot more, you know, vlogging and like, tournament breakdowns, you know, more like. Or, you know, kind of friend group or, like, testing group videos, you know, these kinds of things. Kind of day in the life almost. Yeah. So, I mean, lately I've just been trying to make videos that I, like, enjoy making. Right. Because I'm at that point in my career where I'm just, like, not trying to just. I just, like, I've done just like, churning out silly deck is. Is hard to. Hard to maintain silly deck or just. Or just. Or like, content for content sake, right? Like, oh, that's content. Oh, I need more content. Let's do more content. Like, like, yeah, but at this point, I want to make videos that are like, I'm happy making. I want to make videos that I'm. I'm proud of. Videos that, like, I. I wish I could sit back and watch, you know, as just a viewer. So, like, those videos, there's, you know, at this point, maybe less of them or, you know, and maybe sometimes I'll go through rapid fire Where I crank out, like, I don't know, like, five videos, four videos a month. But, like, you know, I think this last month I got out one video and it was like, yep, I'm streaming more, you know, and I'm doing lots of streams, just long form, like, stream content, or like, Jesse and I are doing our weekly series and. And like, that kind of stuff. And I'm, like, really happy with those productions. But, like, it's at this weird point now where it's like, okay, if. If the live production already exists, like, I, like, I'm less motivated to cut it up and rehash it into a YouTube release. Sure. Because it's just. It's just like, work. It's a lot of work, you know, like editing. And then it's like, okay, well, what's the payoff? Like, I don't know. Could I could just be live more? Right. Like, the more and the more, like, any day I'm at the office and I'm not live, it's like, you know, I'm probably better off just being live. Yeah, right. Like, whatever the heck I'm doing, I'm better off being live. So, like, I've kind of come to that realization in the last year, too. So it's just, you know, we're still working on it, figuring out that balance, but I was really happy with how the Arkansas video turned out. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, bro. Can't wait to watch it. How about you, dude? Your wife is, like, ready to go. She's popping, dude. She's popping. Yeah. Today is our due date, so we'll see. With the last baby, we were, like, three days late. We're actually hoping that she's late. Like, we're hoping she delivers Thursday or later because that's when we get the backup, the parental assistance, the reinforcements are coming, so. Oh, nice. Yep, yep. But we gotta wait. They still show up for the third kid. That's arguably. That's when they're needed the most. I would say, like, one kid is easy because, like. Well, I say easy, but one kid is the easiest because, you know, one parent has the kid and then the other parent just, like, sleeps or does whatever they want. And babies, like, our sleep schedule is, like, very rigid. Right. So they wake up, they eat for, like, 30 minutes, and then they're awake for, like, 30 to 45 minutes, and then they sleep for two hours. And so, like, that's our flow. And if we just do that flow over and over and over again during the daytime, like, you're really not, you know, taking care of the baby for all that long if they're sleeping for two hours out of a three hour window. So for sure the third kid is like, that's actually, you know, third, fourth, fifth, etc. It's probably when you need the most. Well, I don't know, maybe not even like the fifth kid. Maybe there is a, there is kind of like a, like a number of kids and how hard it is kind of graph, right? Because at a certain point, and I don't think our oldest is at this point, but at a certain point, like you have a number of kids where your oldest could start to take care of the youngest. I don't know if any listeners out there are at that stage. We are not going to get there because we're going to stop at least having natural births with three kids. But like you could have you know, like a 10 year old taking care of a newborn. I know, like, you know, you can't really have a four year old taking care of newborn. I have, you know, obviously a lot of big families that I have. I've like met and been around. Yeah. Throughout the years. I have, I have cousins who are like one of eight, you know, kids. It's, I don't know, at a certain point it's like also, you know, like if a 10 year old is like, is like being a parrot, you know, or like really take it out. It's like how much they lose a little bit of their childhood there, aren't they, you know, having to be so responsible. Well, but it's not, I mean in it. But we are a two parent household, right, where we're both very involved. It's not like, you know, one of us is not working or something. I don't know. I think it's a different dynamic in different families, right where they have bigger kids, where they have a lot of kids. Because I agree with you, right? It's like if you plop that oldest and give them too much responsibility, then yeah, sure, they lose a little bit of that freedom. But I know our oldest is just like really excited about the baby, like super stoked to have a baby around, be able to, you know, enjoy. Well, toddlers get obsessed with babies. It's funny because like, you know, my son's at the age now where he's like pointing at other kids. He'd be like baby, baby, you know, and it's funny because like dude, you are baby, like you are 21 months old, bro. You are baby, you know. But like apparently earlier Today, like he pointed at a pair of like 3 year olds. It was like baby like brother, you have no right. Those are big boys. Yes. But our son's been doing a lot of yapping. Just like. I'm just really. The vocabulary is like exploding at this point. It's just like crazy to see every day. It's like. Yep. He just saying all sorts of stuff down, you know, which is just crazy. Gotta be careful. Crazy, crazy. You do. Gotta be careful what they pick up on for sure. Anyway. All right, well, let's get into it because, you know, this might be my last episode for. For a while. Might be. We might be taking a little bit of a hiatus. I got to talk to Riley and kind of see what it. What it do. But without jw. Jw, it's like kind of the lifeblood of tag team podcast. He is the producer, the editor, all of that. And some would say the main character and some would say the protag. Yeah, no, I would never say that. Of course. Right. No, but I'm too humble for that. But, but many say of the. The alleged sock accounts would. Would say that. So with that in mind, let's get into it. Let's get into it. So we have Abyssi. We covered a lot of. As they've kind of been revealing these cards over the last few weeks, we've been covering the cards and. And in one case, new Archetype from the Abyss Eye Japanese expansion set. But there are new cards that are released and I think it. It behooves us to give our takes on how good or. Or bad some of these cards might be one of the first new ones that we haven't seen yet. Lurantis EX 260 HP Stage 1 Grass Type Pokemon Lively Cutter is the attack 60 plus damage. If this Pokemon healed during this turn, this attack does 200 more damage. And then Leafguard 140 damage for a grass and a colorless during your opponent's next turn. This Pokemon takes 50 less damage from attacks. So. Hey JW. Yeah. I'm looking at your screen. It's like. It's looking like emails to me, bro. It's looking like emails. Wait, hold on. That's what it looks like. Anything bad? No, just like your spectrum stuff and emails are bad. Hold on, hold on, hold on. There we go. How about this? How about this? That should work. Yeah, that looks great. So as I was saying, Lorance cx. I. I feel like these two attacks are like swapped. Right? Like the Leaf guard should be the one grass cost and then the lively cutter should be the 2 energy cost. Like you're reducing damage with the first attack and then you're attaching more and trying to get a heal and doing more damage. But this card overall like reads. Reads okay. It's not the worst card I've ever seen. And, and considering the power level of the you know what eye block on, I think this card might have some potential in like a post rotation environment. Yeah, it's funny and interesting that that's kind of like how the context of how we view a lot of these cards right now. But I feel like at this point since Pokemon has been like consistency consistently releasing cards of like this power level, right. It almost feels like you like no, it's not going to be as good as Dragon Ball dx. Like no, it's not going to be like you know, making waves right now. But I think it's, I think that's okay. And I think that a lot of people kind of understand that maybe Dragonfall is like more powerful than, than one card needs to be in the Pokemon tcg. And so like I, I actually think the game is like way more fun when you have cards that are maybe of this power level, right. Like you imagine like a whole pool of cards that are kind of like of this power level with some kind of like interesting effects. Like this card certainly has an interesting flow to it. Doing like 140 and kind of giving yourself that, that protection. Not unlike Hisuian Goodra V Star, right? That was like the rolling iron and that was like a pretty good Pokemon did 200. You took like 80 less, didn't you? It was crazy. But then like, you know, you have cards that can heal this because there's what, there's like the shuckle or something that. Yes, there is the shuckle, right. So you have that. And so like if you just play a shuckle with this, right, and you take a hit and not and don't get knocked out, then you're doing 260 for one. Which is pretty crazy. Yeah. And you can in theory chain that, right? Because yes, you know, you, you can continuously do that damage over and over. You could do also something like, you know, play down a Fomantis under risky ruins and then evolve up into the stage one and then heal and then do your 260 for one. Right. Like that's another. You could, you could self inflict damage. Risky Ruins comes to mind, you know, as kind of an obvious enabler there. But, but yeah, I mean it, it is, it is like an interesting Card, it reads pretty well, again, under the context of a post rotation format. Yeah. And so, yeah, this is. This is a card to keep an eye on. I think for me. Moving ahead to the. Let's see. I mean, there's. There's a lot of filler, obviously. Obviously. It is a Pokemon TCG expansion. True, True. Armor Rouge is another stage one that's worth looking at. Flame Legion 40 plus. This attack does 40 more damage for each Bench Pokemon that has a Fire Energy attached. You know, we got. We got Crispin. We got. Let's see. I'm trying to think of other ways to attach fires from the Discard or Choreo. That's right. You need a Mega in play. Does it have to be a Fire Mega Pokemon for Oricore Ex, Man, I should know this. I'm just looking it up right now. I think it's just any. But Oricorio is certainly the strongest Fire Energy acceleration. See as often as you like during your turn. If you have any Fire Mega Evolution yet to play. Yep. Attach a basic Fire Energy from your hand to your Bench Fire Pokemon. Are there any basic Mega Fire Pokemon that, like, could be released? Surely there's Mega Heatran. Dude. Is there a Mega Heatran? Yeah, dude. He's got a big mouth. Is it in the set? It's not in this set. No, it's not in this set. But I'm just saying, I'm like. I'm like, thinking of potential, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm notorious. Oex could all of a sudden become insane if like a mega. Of like a basic Mega Firebo. Come on. I mean, surely they must have thought about that. That's what I'm saying. Like, and they've kind of been doing this where they, like, will, you know, release pieces for a deck, like, across multiple sets, and then, like, you finally get the deck, you know, when it all comes together. Yeah. And then. And then it's only around for a year, and then it rotates. I mean, that's maybe. That's maybe an intentional strategy. Right. Like, I feel like for sure, the, The. The. The older I get, you know, the more I talk about Pokemon cards, the more I kind of like, feel like I'm seeing the inner workings of the development team. And so, you know, so. So that might be a strat, right? Like, Oricorio is just this in. In a vacuum kind of like crazy card, but there's no real, like, you're talking about enabler. Right. Basic Fire Mega. And so it's. It's kind of mid right now. But all it takes is a basic Fire Mega to exist and all of a sudden Oricorio is a very real card. But right now you're like your best Mega Fire Pokemon is like Mega Charizard. Right? Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean we have Mega Camerupt. Put some respect on Mega. That's a stage one. That's a stage one. I'm selling you. It needs to be a basic. Dude, just put some respect on Mega Camerupt. That's all I'm asking. Speaking of Pokemon that maybe should be Megas, we have our wailord. It might as well be a Mega Whaler, except it only gives up two prizes. 380 HP. The attacks on Wailord historically are among some of the least interesting in Pokemon history, particularly on the multi prize Wailords Surf does 120 damage for three and then falling down 270 damage. And this Pokemon is now asleep. But massive Pokemon, I mean, you know, does it, does it give you Whiplash to what, 2016? No, dude, I'm numb. Dude, I'm numb. Oh, I thought you were going to ask if like the HP total gave me whiplash. No, well, that too. I'm numb. I'm Numb for sure. 380. I mean, Wailord is the Pokemon that sets new standards, right? So this is your biggest two prize Pokemon ever, right? Yeah, like we're talking. These are like mega HP numbers for the biggest mega Pokemon ever. Like Mega venusaur, right? Like 380. Now you've got like a two prize Pokemon. So like, yeah, Waylord is once again setting a new standard. As far as HP totals go. I think Pokemon is kind of like, you know, that's just what they do, right? They give the new biggest HP Pokemon. They give the title to Waylord every single time. It's just like, so here he is. He's huge. And I certainly think if there is some sort of wall strategy that a 380 hit point Pokemon could certainly help you go about doing that. But I mean, really talking about this card, you got to talk about the Misty. I was going to say let's talk about the enabler. Right? Finally giving us two pieces of an archetype together. Right? So the Misty's energy. Search your deck for up to four basic water and attach them to your Pokemon. Then shuffle your deck, your turn ends. So this is a spiritual reprint, if you're familiar with Kiaweh. Kiaweh did that same effect, but with fire energy. So now we have a Misty's equivalent for water Pokemon Yeah, dude. Tell you what though. Kiaweh was a lot better because you could play supporters turn one going first. That is very true. Yeah. That. That was a big deal with those style decks. Right. Because you're giving up the turn. I think that's like. Like this card is like maybe not even particularly good if you get to continue your turn. And then the fact that you lose your turn is as. It's just. Yeah, it's. It's tough to. To me the disqualifying factor is you can't do a turn one going first. It's like that to me is so bad. Right. Do you think that this would go first? Yeah. The fastest you could use it is turn two, which is so bad. Right. So do you think that this card would be. I mean it'd be much better if it had a clause that you could use this on your first turn going first. Do you think it'd be playable in that case? Like, do you feel that this is just not a playable card? It'd be better again for almost all of these strategies. I feel like you gotta. You almost have to start thinking like, well, in a. In a potential future where the game is slower and maybe there aren't Pokemon, like Raging Bolts, like one hit Koing things, you know, Teal Mask Ogre Pawn is gone. Maybe. Maybe like this kind of thing's not so bad. I mean.380 hit point wailord. It's pretty crazy. The idea is you would only misty like once a game and then like your whale should like never die somehow guess. Right. So I don't really see this as being a tournament competitive strategy. But also like, I wouldn't be totally surprised either because these kinds of like, these kinds of silly water decks do sometimes exist. Do you remember the Lapras GX deck that was just like so bad. It's like Aqua Patch and it just. Yeah. Oh, it was like so bad. Right? Yeah. But it was a deck that people were playing and it was just this kind of like slightly big water guy was like the theme of the deck. Like my Lapras is a slightly big water guy. Now this could be like a really big water guy. I mean, its attack does 270 damage. That's not nothing. I mean. Right. It's a pretty hefty amount of damage to deal. You've got the AZ card that like switches and heals. Right. That's in the. The. This current set that's coming out. Chaos Rising. Yeah, I think. But yeah, you know, overall, not like blown away by it, but it. I'M not going to say never. It's got 380 hit points. I mean seeking could be something. Right? You get do 30 damage for each Water G attached to this Pokemon. To one of your opponent's Pokemon. You know. No. Maybe. Maybe that could be something. No. Stage one. No. Single prize Pokemon 110 hit points. No. Okay. All right. Well let's see. So this is Primarina. Just be. I'll just cover this briefly and then immediately move on the ability Max Melody. You may use this ability. Once during your turn. We play this card from your hand to evolve one of your Pokemon. Heal all damage from one of your Pokemon. So this reads as a perfect pre release card. Perfect when paired with wailord Dummy. Well. But I guess. And the eventual reprint of Scoop up Net. Dude. Imagine they banned it from expanding. There's no way they would ever do that again. I don't know. I could see Scoop up Net. I could see Scoop up Net. Maybe with like a few more caveats. Like you can only play one a turn or something. Can't use it on rule box Pokemon certainly needs to be a inclusion. Yes. Before it was like it could be used on like Radiance. It like was just couldn't be used on V's. Yes. I think yes. You certainly needs or like GXs and V's or something. But like certainly needs to be all rule box Pokemon. That was the problem with expanded format too. Is that like you could. You could scoop up that like any old thing. Yep. Shaman Jirachi etc. Yes. Huh. Huh. We do get an interesting Lightning Pokemon. The Manectric. I've seen some hype around this card online. The Flash Barrier attack is the one that is you know, potentially the most interesting 50 damage. But says during your opponent's next turn prevent all damage done to this Pokemon by attacks and from your opponent's evolution Pokemon. So you know, we already have Pokemon that block basics. Manectric stops Evolutions. So there's maybe something here. And then the 50 damage like obviously sucks. But we get a special lightning energy that is released in the set that allows your Lightning Pokemon to do 20 more damage. So at least makes up for that somewhat. And then the second attack. 3 Lightning Sonic Edge. 110 damage. This attacks damage isn't affected by effects on your opponent's active Pokemon. So Manectric. If you find yourself in the hell that may be a Manectric mirror match. You can swing through your opponent's Flash Barrier Attack. Dude. We can't just glaze over the lightning energy like that. That's the best dang card in this set. I don't know if it's the best card in the set. It's the best card in the set. Well, I mean, I already said what it did. Yeah, dude. Well, let's. What, what, what, what would you think of right now? Strong energy? Well, yeah. Powerful colorless energy. Yeah, you're joining the ranks of strong energy and powerful colorless energy, bro. Those were both era defining energies. So maybe you're saying because we have electric right in format. So like now we get a. A buff, an attack buffer, Lightning Pokemon. But like, what are you pairing that with? Like, what's the deck? Yet to be determined, dude. Yet to be determined. That's what I'm saying. Like, they just are slow leaking decks these days, which is cool. It's cooler when they do that. It is. It's cooler when they do that. Rather than like giving you the, like, here's the canned deck. Like, like in freaking Fusion Strike and all that, where it's just like, here's the whole deck. Have fun. Like, that's way more fun. When they kind of slowly get over the course of a year. It's. It's really neat. Right? And it makes the game feel more organic. Like, okay, well, you know, during this time period, we're playing like this group of cards around the lightning type, but like in this time, we're playing this group of cards around the lightning type, but it's never really the same deck for two years. Right. So I think it's really good game design for them to be doing that. Just kind of slow leaking the pieces throughout different sets, sprinkling them throughout. So this. Yeah, this lightning energy is very good. Powerful colorless energy and strong energy are two of the strongest special energies, you know, around. And to have Lightning get inducted into that type, that gets a plus 20. I'm really stoked about it because lightning type Pokemon are some of my favorites. So I think it's awesome. Yeah, there is. There is a few more Lightning Pokemon. The Beagavolt, not particularly interesting. The Mega Zorora. I mean, it's a basic Lightning Pokemon. Thunder Fist for 60 damage. This attack does 60 damage times. The number of lightning energy attached to this Pokemon obviously gets boosted to 80 or more depending on how many of the special lightning energy you have attached. And then the second Attack Zepto turn 150. Switch this Pokemon with one of your bench Pokemon. I mean. Yep, that's not so bad. Like, like this. This. This is kind of interesting. I think it's a Three prize Pokemon, man. Listen. Okay, okay, I'll stop you right there. Like, think about this, Think about it, think about this. Right? Well, like the most interesting thing about this card is that it does have some one hit Ko potential if you're able to like really load it up with lightning energy, I guess. Right. But the compare a card like this to Pikachu and Zekrom Tag Team gx or to like, you know, Raichu and Alolan Raichu. Tag Team gx, like Raichu and Alolan Raichu. I was actually thinking about this, you know, because those were also basic three prize Pokemon that were released at this point, like seven years ago. So maybe six years ago. But you know, having an attack like, like tandem shock, which you're instantly paralyzed. We move to the bench, the active. Like imagine if this thing had tandem shock, you know, then we're like talking, right? Because like decks aren't playing switch outs. You could go unfair stamp. Tandem shock. And all of a sudden like you get that turn. Yeah, like, that's a. That's a one hit ko, right? That's like an interesting powerful card. This. This is not an interesting powerful card. It's not very good. We get a new Miron ability. Photon code. If this Pokemon is in the active spot and is knocked out by damage from one of your opponent's Pokemon's attacks, move two basic Lightning from this Pokemon to one of your bench Pokemon and then Thunder 90 damage. This Pokemon does 30 damage to itself. I don't really see the vision here, but I bring it up. I suppose it's just a one prize option for Lightning dude. Having the ability be basic lightning energy. When you release the special energy. I know, it feels horrible. It's insulting. It's really insulting. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Could have done so much more with that. I think just if they. If they remove that basic clause. But Jinx is notable. Wicked Kiss. At the end of your opponent's next turn, discard the defending Pokemon and all cards attached. So, you know, some kind of control archetype potentially utilizing Jinx. You know, remove a bunch of energy. Jinx, discard a Pokemon that your opponent can't move. There's. There's certainly something there. I know control heads are interested in this. Keep that in the back pocket. We talked a bit about the Shepherd Bandit. That Ghostfell Spiritomb. Yeah. All this. All this kind of. Kind of cheeks. For sure. Let's see. Annihilape has a durable body attack. If this Pokemon would be knocked out by damage. Flip a coin if Heads it is not knocked out and remaining HP becomes 10 instead. So this is, you know, stackable. I like these kind of abilities. Doesn't say it has to be, you know, full health or anything like that. So you could just continue to flip heads over and over. Live forever forever. And then, you know, Ghost Blow. I mean this is What Dragapult Light 100 damage. Place five damage counters on one of your opponent's bench Pokemon. So a little bit more limited but. But still that kind of like snipe effect. So some somewhat interesting. Again a. A stage two. So. So the viability there is. It remains to be seen. Rampart OCX talked about that one. Horrible card. Horrible card. Anyone who even thinks that it might be good just. They don't know what they're doing, man. They don't know what they're doing. Talked about Mega Darkrai in one of the prior episodes. Also not a particularly strong card. We do have the Morpeko Ex that was released Wheel. Draw for a Darkness Energy. Shuffle your hand into your deck. Then draw six cards and then Hunger Bomber 40 plus damage. This detects us 40 more damage for each damage counter on this Pokemon. Seems like a filler Ex to me. No? Yeah. Not good. Okay, let's carry on. There is the Bastiodon had discussed that. Just for a quick re overview. The ancient Bulwark ability. While this Pokemon is on your bench. Prevent all damage done to your Pokemon by attacks from your opponents. Pokemon that have two or fewer energy attached. The Mega Excadrill. Dig and break 90 damage. Discard the top two cards of your opponent's deck. And then Maximum drill is the second attack for three metal 200 plus damage. If this Pokemon has at least two extra energy, this attack does 130 more damage. So clearing that. You know, the magic number that I keep seeing, I feel like is is 330. A lot of megas have 330. Dusknoir plus Dragapult is hitting for 330. It just. I just keep. I feel like a lot of attacks are like getting to that 330 number. In any case, Mega Excadrill. I guess he's like not bad. I kind of like this. I kind of like this card. It reads. It reads like again in the context of post rotation, like doesn't read it back. The thing is post like in a Even like in a post rotation format without like Raging Bull, right? And you're like looking for new one hit KO options. Aren't you also losing like the. The. The Matang Matang Yeah. Right. Which is like kind of the major enabler to get 5 energy on a guy, right? Yeah, probably. Well, no, but you have that. You have that. It clears 330. No, you have the. What's the. The metal welder. I mean it's not as good as. Oh yeah. Blacksmith. The metal blacksmith. Blacksmith. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. So. So you have that. There's that. It's true to be. Yeah, yeah, it clears 330. There's that. So. Yeah. And it's just telling you though, this is going to lose. This is going to lose to my Mega Heat Tran Ex Oracor. Dude. I was just going to say all these. All these like kind of interesting Stage one ex's that we've been. That we've been hyping up. Just get bodied by Mega heatran. I'm telling you, Mega heatran is going to be crazy. I'm predicting it. I'm putting that out there right now. Get your. I'm calling the shot. Well, and the game designers know that Mega heatran is going to be crazy because that's why they haven't released it yet. Correct. It's going to be like Volcanion EX2. It's going to be like the second iteration of. Because they've just been rehashing things. Right. That's all they do these days, just rehash things. Dude. So it's going to be like that for sure. Dude. That'd be awesome. The Toucan. Dude, don't go. Don't. Don't go past my two cannon. I wasn't. Yeah, I was definitely going to. Going to go right to that one. You were going to read. You'll read Toucan and you read this one, bro. Let me. All right, Cool. To Cannon. Thank you. Thank you. I want to read him to cannon. 150 hit points. Stage two single price. I hate that I'm laughing already. But it's got the ability Sky Draw. Okay. Draw a card. Pretty good. If you have four Toucan and set up, you're drawing four cards. So true. And then it's got the Feather Rondo attack for one colorless Energy. Mind you, that's the best. That's the best attack cost you could possibly have. Next to free. Okay. One colorless energy. 60 damage. Plus 20 more damage for each bench. Pokemon in play, both yours and your opponents. Okay. So if you have a full bench of five. Your opponent has a full bench of five. That's 260 damage for one energy. That's pretty good. But if you have A bench of ace. Your opponent has a bench of five. Then you're doing. Yeah, 320. That. That. That is pretty cool. That. That is. That is very cool. In fact, not gonna be good. But I mean, it's like, cool, though. Well, I was. I was just kind of laughing. Like, I was really having a hard time focusing because when you're talking about, like, the. The colorless requirement and being like, next to free, I was like, oh, that might be an interesting episode. Like, we. We do a tier list of all the attack costs. It's like S tier is a free attack, and this would probably be a tier, like high. A single colorless. I mean, maybe there's something there. I don't know. Like, again, the. The whole frame is not like. I. I feel like we discussed these cards and maybe in. In episodes prior or years prior, it might have been like, oh, yeah, this card is. Is awful. Like, it's trash and I'll never see play. But then we always look through the lens of current format and yes, this is a terrible card in current format. There's, like, no way around it. Like, you have a lot of snipe decks. Dragapult is S Tier. There's just no way around this card being not good in current standard. But like, post rotation, like, the power level goes down, you just never know, right? Yeah, I don't know. I'll pick it up, I suppose. Sil Valley, another colorless ability buddy called. Once during your turn, you may use disability if you have no cards in your hand. Search your deck for a supporter, reveal it, put it in your hand, then shelf for your deck. Air slash 3 colorless. 130 damage. Discard one energy attached to this Pokemon. Dude, it's for the freaking Granbull deck or whatever. The new. What's the new Granbull? Yeah, it's the. Who it. It's the. Yes, it's the new Granbull deck. Yes. You'll play this in the new Grand Bull deck. The new grand. Who is the new grandma? I don't know, dude. It's slow, bro. It's slow, bro. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yeah. Yes, we did talk about him. Yes. 210 for. For one. 210 for one. Dude, it's slow, bro. Silvalli. That's the deck. That's crazy. It's there. They literally just. I mean, they gave you the can deck right there. They just literally put it right there. Yeah, I know. All right. Bomb. Birdier. This combos really well with one of the other cards. In this set delivery challenge, flip two coins of both our heads, search your deck for a Pokemon and put it onto your bench. Then shuffle your deck. So we're talking Pokemon, okay? We're not talking about a Basic or a stage one. We're talking any Pokemon. You could. You could even Bomb Birdier and get another Bomb Birdier and put it onto your bench. Like that's the power level that we're talking about here. And this combos with the Retry badge tool, you attach to one of your colorless Pokemon and you can reflip for the attack one time. So I think this brings like a, like a two coin flip probability. Brings it to like 40 some percent. Right? So if you have to get two heads, you can reflip. You go from a 25 chance to roughly a 40 chance with this attack with the. With this tool attached. So still kind of tough. I mean, you got to get the two still really attached. Yeah, yeah, tough. I mean, but imagine though. Imagine. I mean, wouldn't you be better off just like use it in rare candy to evolve? Yeah, I mean, okay, that's, that's maybe more guaranteed, right? But which is. Which is a similar amount of deck space. You're like two Energy on a bumper here with like a funny tool card attached. This is 40%. You tell me if I get. Okay, I get this hundred hit point idiot into the active spot with 2 energy on it. Put a dumb little badge on it and then. Well, first of all, first of all, how are you gonna rare candy under Badoo? Answer me that. Yeah, that's what I thought. So I'd rather Tatsugi and, and, and think about this. You could play for Bombirdier and no other basics. I would rather, I'd rather tattoo. You could guarantee that you start the Bomb Birdier. I'd rather tattoo Geary Ex. Yep. Well, that's why we're. We're so different, Andrew. All right, so we got the Dark Bell, we got some Fossils, we got the Heroic Bomb. Another tool, the Pokemon this card is attached to is not a mega and takes 240 or more damage from your opponent's active mega. Place 12 damage counters on the attacking Pokemon, then discard this card. So this is like. I mean, this is kind of like, like almost like a spec levels, but just with Megas, it's cool because it's for non Roblox Pokemon, right? Yeah, yeah. Like you could put that in your slow protection deck. I'm saying, dude, I mean, really smack up a freaking Mega. They really didn't play 240. More damage than you place. 12. Yeah. 240. It's. I mean, really? I think it should be lower. It should be like 200. Well, I'm not even. I'm trying to think of Pokemon that do 240. Mega Pokemon that do 240 or more. It's like the first one that comes to mind. This so bad. Like Mega Kangaskhan that flips heads. It's like that does 240. Well. 250. Mega low punny. Like Mega Lopunny does 240. Yeah. Is it 240? It's. Yes. Should be, right. 60 plus 220. Is it? No, it's 60 plus 180. Am I. Am I crazy? It's 60 plus 170. That's right. Because it doesn't. Dude, it doesn't hit. I knew it doesn't hit. Raging Bolt. I knew it didn't. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah, my math is off there. Yeah, that's. That's crazy. Yikes. Yeah. Megalopony doesn't even trigger it. Yeah. Yeah. What are Mega Pokemon that do 240 or more? I mean, Kangaskhan, there's like. Does The Venusaur do 240? Does Jungle dump do 240? Just like. I'm trying to bring up the Rolodex of, like. The Megas are just so underwhelming that I don't even know the numbers on Mega Frost last when you have a really big hand, it is Mega venusaur does do 240. Does. You were right. You're right. Okay. All right. Mega Frost last if you have a really big hand. Yeah, but the problem is in my. In my slow. In my Slowbro deck, I'm only gonna have a zero card. That's true. Gladian's Decisive Battle Supporter released in this mini set. During this turn, attacks by your Pokemon that do not have a rule box. Deal 80 more damage to your opponent's active. You can only play this if it's. If it's the only card in your hand. By the way, that's kind of the. The. The trade off there. But plus 80. I mean, I. I see that for the Slow Bro deck, dude. Yes, exactly. So now you're doing 290 and then 320 with the Bangles. Jeez. Wait. The stack might cook. Actually, I just so valid for this. The stack might cook. Hold on. We might have to be slow Bro heads. Slow burst. What is that? What is that freaking Larry Skill Supporter do Isn't it like discard your hand, get a Pokemon and energy and like something else. Yes. So they, they, they slow rolled the slowbro deck this whole time. They did the release of Larry. Larry's skill was literally made for this. Get your full art. Larry's now a Pokemon, a supporter and a basic energy. Yeah. Oh, that sucks. It gets the supporter. You could just fail the supporter. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And you just go get your slowbro and your energy for it. Exactly, exactly. Bank. I mean, so you could play because you need something to like discard the hand. That's true. So I feel like Larry's skill probably makes sense. Right? Because like you could so valley for. Oh no, because you. So you can't so valley when you have a hand. I don't know, man. You need something that's going to burn your hand down. Well, you could. Well, it's. It'd be for the next turn. Right. It's like you top deck something that you can play and then you can still valley for something else. Yeah. Anyway, the Rust Syndicate Grunt. You can only play this card if one of your Pokemon was knocked out during the opponent's last turn. Discard one energy attached to one of your opponent's Pokemon. So again, control heads. Rejoice. Gwyn. We discussed this one, but maybe bears repeating. Discard two Pokemon from your hand and draw three for each Pokemon discarded. Really a big fan of of these sorts of cards. And then of course we have the fossil excavation site. Talk about that getting out. Two trainer cards with antique. Basically the fossil trainers put them onto your bench. Doesn't end your turn notably. And then the Bolty Lightning and Shadowy Darkness Lightning we covered and the Darkness we did, I think also cover, but prevents all damage done to your opponents by your opponent's attacks to the bench. Darkness Pokemon this card is attached to. So overall like a pretty mid set. I think we're somewhat like high on these cards after rotation. Right. It seems like some of these cards are like pick them up while they're extremely cheap and non playable because then they might, you know, go up a couple cents when they become playable. Yeah. To me it's like the Lightning Energy. That's just like a. Yeah, but you don't even have the card. You don't even have a. I just need a place. You don't even have a main character to play it on. It doesn't matter, bro. There will be one. There will be one. I don't know. I think there are people that are thinking about post rotation already. So if you are one of Those people please comment down below and let us know what the bolty lightning energy is going to be good on. If there is anything right now or if we're just all holding out hope that there's going to be something. Because I guess. Mega Manectric, dude. Yeah, Mega Manectric. The Mega Frost or Mega Electros maybe. Right? Because you're probably already playing in the lightning deck and electric line, so that could be kind of cool. Anyway, let's get into the mailbag before we discuss the results from the last couple regionals. Card prices are going crazy. Talked about this on the last podcast. My wife and I are collecting Sayda cards, English only, and they are estimated at around $3,000 raw. I still think it'd be a fun because I know you're. You're going through and you're cataloging a lot of what you have. I think that might be a fun episode. So long as we don't dox ourselves and let people know where they can steal our multi tens of thousand dollar collections. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Natalie and I have been, we've been really getting into the end of the collection, kind of organizing it, cataloging it, all that. It's been fun. I'm just. Collecting is fun, you know, it's a fun hobby. Yeah, for sure. Yep. Thanks for a bit of collector chat. I'm a Mew collector. Haven't picked up anything in a while. Very glad I bought what I did in 2020 through 2024. Yeah, I've been getting a lot of posts on my feed about 2020. You know, 2024 prices, like some of this stuff for especially vintage was absurd. Just absurdly cheap. Right. He's talking about shining for 50 expedition Mew Hollow for 120. I just can't bring myself to buy Muse, you know, specifically that, that card, that, that character at 2026 price, things got crazier. Yeah, it's just crazy. There was like the pandemic bump and then there was a slight lull and it's like everybody who was like kind of hip was like, oh yeah, now's the time to buy. Right? And it was another huge spike. Like it's just been going up since. It's so nuts. It's so nuts. It's hilarious. Imagining JW and Andrew being 60 years old playing 2018 Worlds format. Is it hilarious? Funny something that. No, it's not funny because it's maybe closer to reality than we might see. But I've been telling Natalie that I think that we should. I mean like all the cards that we kind of collect from playing. Just keep those decks and format spill kind of after they rotate. That's what I'm doing right now. So that you just, like, keep cataloging them, right? And it's like, I get that, like, you know, you don't call those your retro decks, like, your 2024 decks or not retro decks. But they will be. But they will be. And, you know, so you might as well just keep them, you know, and then. And then all of a sudden, in 10 years, you're like, oh, yeah, Remember what it was like to play. Play Chen, pal? Yeah, dude, ten power iron hands. Yeah, that's. I mean, that's why I'm not. I'm not doing a lot of selling of current staples. Like, I'm acquiring them. And then just like, you know, again, like, you're talking about 2024, 2023, 2024. That's when I was really starting to, like, kind of pick up multiple decks at a time, right? So I could. I could just have. Yeah. Before that card prices and just where I was at in life, I. I didn't really like having, you know, more than one deck. Like, I couldn't really afford to have more than one deck built at. But now as I get older and, like, card prices are a bit cheaper, at least for the basic printing of things. Like, that is definitely my strategy is just to, you know, to buy the cheap cards, you know, try to trade for things when I can, or, like, get, you know, bulk discounts, you know, buying through Full Grab or buying through other stores, and then just keep all that stuff, right? Not, like, liquidating it after rotation, you know, I can't tell you how crazy it is to, like, go. You know, I'll be, like, in my office, right? I, like, walk downstairs to Full Grip. I'm like, yo, I got to pick up three meows. It's, like, cool. It's like 20 bucks. Like, what the. Dude. Absolutely insane, right? I mean, just at the different points in the game that we've played, it's just such an insanely cheap time to play and such an insanely cheap time to build decks. Like, what a awesome time to be a Pokemon TCG player. Like, really, in the grand scheme of all the years that we've played, dude, it is just so chill. I know. It's crazy. And there's. There's things about it that I lament, right? Like, it'll never have. We'll never have. And we talked about this. Like, we'll never have the scrappy attitude of Competitive playback that'll just never come back. You know, as long as the prizing stays where it is or increases. Right. It will never have that like scrappiness of you know, 2013, 2014. Right. Where like there wasn't a lot of, you know, meta review and there wasn't a lot of content being created and a lot of information was being shared kind of person to person or on forums which had very low reach back in the day. We'll never have that scrappiness back. But there certainly is a positive. Right. And that's we get product for cheap because it's been corporatized and you know, the collector hypebeast market is just, you know, rip and ship market is just opening so much product these days that man. That it's funneling all sick. I know, I know. One of the, one of the benefits of the hypebeast and just the crazy product. So. Yep. Is that they do not want that mid rarity crap, bro. Give it to me. Let me get my grubby little hands all over it. Pass it right over here. Seagrove says, laughing so hard about the Mimikyu copying regidrago for Dialga GX and the Bundlebee crisis Punch. Nerds loving nerdy things is so great. Yeah, I mean we gotta, I don't know, maybe the older we get, like maybe when our kids get like in high school or something and I can just like, you know, not feel guilty. We could like do. Do a retreat. Like a yearly retreat. Pokemon only retreat. Yeah, man. Yeah. Retro formats. Yeah man. Yeah. You're speaking my language, dude. Okay. I'm loving that. Okay. Cabin. Cabin. Retreat. Cabin. Maybe maybe you know, in I don't know like a national park, something Take a hike in the morning when it's cooler. Come back grind, bruise, bonfire. Dude, could be like imagine like imagine like we got to be so cool to like. We never really were in a place where we could do this. But I've heard of like teams, you know, like doing week long boot camp like and lead up to big tournaments and things like that where they just like live together for a week and do nothing but like play cards. Right. I mean that's the kind of thing that would be very beneficial for tournament prep. I mean it's like the ideal scenario. Like if you're a real grinder, that's the kind of thing that you're going to want to be doing. Right? Us personally, we were never really in like we had boot camp sessions. Right. You know, maybe weekends, like a weekend where we boot camp but like a week, like a week, like a live in week, right? Where you're just a jobless idiot. Just. Yeah, there's something there. There's something there for sure. IMT Main says the ticketing system for Pokemon XP this year has been infuriating. The stated purpose of XP was to make worlds more accessible, but the process is the same. Opaque lottery. Kid has to go because of the birthday. We wanted to go to California anyway. Almost a month after invites were supposed to be going out. We're still just waiting. If there aren't butts in seats. And this gets back to what we talked about last week with the, with the arena in San Francisco, the basketball arena that they're hosting the finals in or championship Sunday in. If there aren't butts and seats, organizers have nobody to blame but themselves. So it sounds like they are going through a big struggle with trying to get into Pokemon xp and that's a shame. Yeah, I have, I've heard lots of frustrations about the system for that. So, you know, but that, isn't that just so, you know, like typical? Well, talk about the scrappiness of Pokemon. Right? At least we haven't given up so difficult. At least. At least some of the old, you know, vestiges of the good old days, like, aren't completely gone. Yeah. Yeah. Still as hard as ever for sure. Right? Still as hard as ever to. To get things organized. So sad to hear that. Let's see. Caledon. Let's see. Oh. Oh, yeah, this is a good, this is a good comment. I did want to call this out because thank you to our listeners that commented and liked on the last video. Only 78 people can like the video. No, we got that up to over 100. I'd like to make that the goal for this podcast as well. If you are on YouTube, please make sure to like and subscribe. If you're over on Spotify, leave us a comment and engage over there as well. But that is important to the health and success of the podcast. So thank you for doing that. Let's head on over to the results from Utrecht and Campinas. Where do you want to start, Andrew? Because I think the story for both of these tournaments was that yes, Dragapult was very well represented, did very well. But it didn't win. It didn't win. Notably. True. Well, true. I actually think, you know what the, the biggest storyline that everybody's talking about. Yes. What is everybody talking about is that Alakazam is fraudulent. I should have taken your money. I know. You should have Yes, I should have, bro. Although it did get top eight in Brazil. So I said western regional. That is a West. What do you want, dude? What? Just say it. Just say, like, top eight of Brazil. You can't be in the. You can't be, like, publicly Western. Wow. I lost. I lost. You can't be publicly and privately, like, discounting whole player race. Okay. You can't just be like, oh, it's. It's in Japan. It doesn't count. Like I said western tournament. And then you're like, oh, it can't be like the Philippines. Because it has to be a western, bro. Yeah, so it's got top eight, dude. I lost the bet. I didn't realize I lost the bet. You got farmed, bro. You got farmed. I should have taken your money. God, it top 80 Brazil. Let's take a look. I can't. I can't believe it. Top eight it Brazil. I can't believe. I can believe it. I am astounded. Right? Dude, the Brazil. The Brazilians are cookers, bro. Did you see what Gustavo played? Yes, I did. Look at that. And look at this, dude. It's got the Dedenne Yan mega deck. It's got that Dedenne in here, the Dedenny right now. It's got the handheld fans. It's got Forest. So. So you're like, forest. It's got three forests. You can set up the Rellor Rabska combo. Like, this is major cookage right here. Eco Forest plus Lana's get back the raps guy. I mean, they might be onto something here. I want to take a look at the matchups. See Dragapult, win, win, win. So they went 3 and 1 against Dragapult. Holy crap. Instead of playing the battle, it's like. Instead of playing the battle cage, which Dragapult can easily counter, you're playing forest to get out Rabsco, right? Yeah. And I think. I mean, they also play the psyduck as well, but I think at a certain point, like, your bench gets really clogged. You're playing Psyduck, Rabsca and Genesect. Like, those are all very relevant in the Dragapult dusknoir matchup. And just Dragapult as a whole. Like, you're, you know, you're definitely looking at Genesect and Rapsco, but yeah, I would imagine, like, is this broken, dude? It could be. I. I think the Dedenne is probably. I think the Dennis. Yeah. What's the Denny doing? So get back in hands, Hammer. Well, no, it's. I Mean, so it could get back like your, your Lana's or your forest. Right. So you can set up the Rapsca turn after turn. So like you could go into Dedenne after that gets knocked out or maybe even before. Right. To put back like Alana's into your hand. I think that's probably kind of cope. But you're keeping that card in a lot of cases against Dragapult. Right. Because they only. If you're not taking a knockout, then they only have judge. If they're only playing one judge, then you know, it's decently likely. Right. So they're just taking that one prize and then leaving the Rabsca and it gives you a card back plus you get draw for turn. So that's plus two cards. Just, you know, during that turn. Right. In most cases, again, thinking through the lens of Dragapult, because that's the only real deck in the format. Yeah, I don't know, this, this might be worth looking at. I know you're still kind of fishing for what to play for indie. So hopefully this gives you some. Hopefully this gives you some inspiration. So we got, I mean, Dragon Ball very well represented. Like, let's not, you know, sugarcoat it by any means. Like, obviously Dragon Ball did not win either regional, but it was in finals in both cases. And in both cases, two of the top four were Dragapult and it littered heavily the top tables. Interesting note. Yeah, go ahead. Playing at a regional this weekend, I would have played Hydra Apple. Well, let's take a look. I was just going to go there. Matthias Metricardi with an undefeated record in Brazil with Hydrapple. Ogre Pond. Walk me through this because we saw hydrapple perform top 64 in LA regionals a couple weeks ago. That was piloted by Brandon Salazar. He got 37th, I believe. Yeah. So top 64 finish from him. And I feel like, you know, we definitely gave Hydrappola a second look after that performance. He had some notes on the deck and, you know, now we see it, you know, being backed up, right. That, that idea being backed up here in Brazil. Walk us through this deck and I know you've been playing a bit of it online, so kind of give some thoughts and like, are you surprised to see this go as far as I would have played, I would have played Hydrapple this weekend. I think that this was the weekend to play it because it is very good against Dragapult and Dragapult was kind of. Dragapult play was reaching kind of like a fever pitch. And I think that this was like basically the Meganium deck. You take out the Arboliva, you put in the Hydrapple and the Hydrapple just reaches those one hit KOs very quickly. The problems with the Meganium Teal Mask deck are that Teal Mask just only has 200 hit points. And when you invest all that energy into Teal Mask and then have it get knocked out, is annoying to build them up over and over again. But with the Hydrapple, the Hydrapple with Meganium setup is only taking one energy and you can kind of like spread your energy out like amongst the board to kind of have this very stable board state. Hydrapples ability ripening charge also like heals things which is nice. You can like prevent yourself from getting mathed out by Dragapult while just taking like very clean one hit kos. It is an awesome feeling. You only need 5 energy in play with Meganium in order to hit one hit knockouts on stage 2 pokemon ex with syrup storm it and you can one hit ko absolutely anything. To me this feels like the premier like two prize one hit KO deck. I like the Hydrapple deck much better than Raging Bolt. I actually think it's. It's just better than Raging Bolt. Yeah, it's. It's a harder. It's a harder HP threshold to hit. And then if you're two shotting it, obviously you know, the healing comes into play. You could potentially like switch it or retreat it into another Pokemon and continue to heal it off on the bench. So yeah, I do agree that 330 is. Is a big help for the deck, right. Because you're able to accelerate energy with the ability. You're able to accelerate energy with your ogre ponds. And then assuming you can get up a Meganium, you're just like doubling all that, right? Double it and give it to the next person in the form of just a massive syrup storm. So yeah, really interesting archetype. I think that you know by now Hydraula is certainly supplanted Arboliva. Unfortunately for all the Arbelievers out there, I do think like I have always believed in the Meganium deck, but I do think that high Drapp gives the deck more staying power for longer. Right. With with Arboliva you're like really set on getting the Arboliva on the first turn. You can get the stadium down and attack. And like if you don't do that and if you have like you're under item lock or you just have a bad hand, it's a lot Harder for you to come back in that game. But Hydrapple gives you that big body that you can, you know, cheese a turn just because it's a huge guy and you could potentially like heal yourself. Pivot out to something else. Pivot out to another Hydra apple and. And just continue the. Continue attacking and. And continue progressing your board. So interesting stuff here. I. I expect this. Yeah. Unfair stamp. Yeah. Fair stamp and swing with the 330 hit point Pokemon. That is one hit KO and things. I mean, that's just a nasty combo, right? Yeah, dude. Yep. Absolutely. I expect this deck to pick up and play significantly. The thing is. The thing is, is that there's always like. I think that Hydrapple was the play this weekend. The thing is, is that like dragapult decks can just very easily slot moltres. So. Yeah, but that, that is like. Yes, that's good and certainly that helps, right, because you're putting a. A lot of pressure on the hydra apple or just one shotting and ogre pond. Like both of these. Those things are very good. But is. Is moltres worth it? Right? That's the question I think is. Yeah. Yeah. I think like it was not worth it. It was getting cut from list because slot box was like on a start like a stark decline and raging bolt decks are still not like being adopted by the masses. But I think the HydraFL deck is a deck that actually is. Is the type of deck that could go viral. Right. So I almost think like, if you're going to indie. And I hate to say this because I like the high drapple deck and I kind of like want to play it, but I feel like the correct thing for dragapult players to do is to play them all trades now. Because now it's like you don't just have one deck that you're checking. There are like a bunch of decks. Any of the slot box decks, any of the ants. You get this deck which you take a very bad matchup towards and the moltres takes a bad matchup. I think I saw like Omnipoke post it. Like the Hydrapple deck is one of the few decks that actually has a very good dragapult matchup. And I think the single moltres can allow you to flip that matchup for one card. You flip a matchup like, and if it's going to be a matchup that you might see a couple times. Yeah, that's crazy. I think as well. I just also want to note this and it becomes a lot more obvious when you look at what, you know, made it to day two. But I think the general. I feel like this archetype is generally being underplayed and that's Dragapult Dusknoir and that actually handles, I, in my opinion, like these mega and high HP multi prize Pokemon. Right. With the Dusknoir in place. Right. If you're able to get the Dusknoir plus a Dragapult attack, you're just like clearing the lopunny, you're clearing the Hydrapple. And if we look at the day two breakdown, it was like the 10th most played deck. And that to me is like that deck is just criminally underplayed because outside and, and I understand why it's. It's underplayed. Right. It. It struggles because you're playing cards that are not particularly good for mirror in a meta game that's dominated by other Dragon Ball decks that are just not including that Dust nor line. But if you're looking to beat like with your Dragon Ball deck, if you're looking to beat these Lopani, Dust, Dudunsparce, Hydrapple rockets, Mewtwo, you know, Lucario, these kinds of decks, you play the Dusknoir package. If you're looking to beat Mirror, which is also like pretty smart, you play Dragon Ball, the Dunsparce or straight Dragon Ball. And so I feel like a lot of the results from this weekend were because generally speaking, Dragon Ball Dustnora was underplayed. Yeah, no, I mean like, I get it because I like Dragapult Dust nor. It's my favorite way to play it. But yeah, I have to acknowledge that it's tough in the mirror. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Mirror sucks for sure. Mirror sucks for sure. I mean, to some extent it's like a coin flip, right? Like it's, it's whoever gets a buddy buddy popping turn one into a Lily's turn two into like one Draclok and an energy drop. Right. So like to some extent it's. It's somewhat coin flippy, right? It's like you're both going to try to bedo each other. You're both just trying to get energy drops into Dracloaks into. Did you open Lily? Did you open your cloaks? You know, did you get the turn two Dracloaks out? Like, these are the kinds of questions that you're asking in Dragonpoint here. Did I get the first boss? Like, yep. Did I get the first phantom dive on a significant target? You know, that's. Yeah. You know, and the Dust nor line does like slightly take away from that. Right. Because it doesn't help actively. Yeah, you're just. You're just not beating. You're not beating straight Dragon Ball. I like Dragon Ball hammers, which I presume is what a lot of this stray dragapult was. I mean, you're just not. You're not clearing that. No. I'm a little bit surprised at some of these other matchup percentages here. Raging Bolt, I think it's probably still going to be bad. But end Zorc, like, I. I do think at least what I've been playing on ladder, you are just able to knock out those orcs pretty quickly if you're able to get up into, you know, double. Well, double stage twos. Right. Dragon Ball Dusknort turn two. I've been finding that fairly easy to do or at least pick off a large percentage of the Zork board with the Dusknoir package. So that's a little bit surprising. But even against Lop, favorable against Alakazam, the Rockets Mewtwo again, also doesn't really make sense for my testing. And then, yeah, the garchomp. Some of these numbers aren't really making sense based on what I have been playing. But perhaps that's just like a day one, day two thing. So here's day two. Yeah. Relative. I mean, not a lot of matchup data relatively even for Dragon Ball Dusknoir. In any case, let's get back to kind of the overarching themes we had. Like you mentioned, the rise of Hydrapple had a lot of dusk. Nor I think another surprise. Rockets meet you in the top four of Campinas. Sheesh. Let's take a look at how many Dragapult they played. Not a ton. 1, 2, 3, 4. Yeah, I mean, Dragon Ball is going to be your premier matchup. I do feel like the Hammers kind of like throw a wrench in it. They did end up losing to a straight Dragon Ball in Francisco and. Oh, straight track Bolt like, didn't play hammers. Okay. I don't know how you're beating this or how you're beating Mewtwo with this dragapult list, but, you know, maybe there was some breakage or something. But that is the premier opponent, especially a slow dragapult that gives you an extra turn to set up. You should just be feasting on that. But anyway, top four for Rockets Mewtwo. The Rockets Mewtwo believers like, this might be all they need heading into Indianapolis. Might see. We will see. And then Utrecht. This was the rise of Lopani Dunsparce. So hail obernulti got top 8 in LA with this new archetype and Miel Slav Pose Ledney who I actually played earlier this year in a goldengo versus Gardevoir matchup on stream in Toronto. Oh, cool. He, I. I don't want to say perfected the deck, but it, but it is like a lot more streamlined from what I remember from Hale's list, which is not an indictment on Hale. It's just saying, you know, players got more time with the list and you know, kind of optimized it and led to. Led to a win for Miloslav. Now what, what's interesting, we're going to go to matchups. How many Dragon Ball do you think he played? Because that is the premier. Like a slow pulled. Yeah is like the deck you want to see with this. He played nine straight, dude. Bro, he played nine straight. Look at this. Nine straight. What? 12 total. It's crazy. Yeah, he. He went nine in a row. He played three in the first four rounds. So he went 12 total Dragapult over the day. And that's again the matchup that you like really want to see. Particularly slowpalt. Yeah. Because they're giving you an extra turn to set up again. That's kind of like the point here. These counter decks are really preying upon or hoping that, you know, the Dragon Pult does not like turn to rare candy Crispin. Dragonbolt attack like that is very detrimental in a lot of cases. But by and large that's not what's happening here. If they give you that extra turn, you can reliably stabilize, set up your dadun sparse and then just have your draw engine where you're able to find your lilies and recycle your dead ends over the course of the game. So when 11 and 111 and. Or sorry, 101 and 1. I do see a tie here by. By Oscar against Miloslav. So 10:1 and 1 against Drag Pult on the day with their Lopani Dunspar stick. Dude, it's time to play Mega Lucario. Dude, I don't even. This deck is so sick. I mean, I love Moltres as a card. I actually think that. I think Moltres. And I hate to say this because I kind of like the Hydra apple deck. Right. You know, and I kind of like wish I could have played it, but I feel like this past weekend was the weekend for Hydrapple and I feel like, you know, Indy is the weekend for Moltres. Like that's just. It's Such a good card. I think it's no wonder the winning deck had a mole trays in it. And a deck. Not just a deck that had a mole trays in it, but a deck that can really utilize Moltres very effectively and just like kind of come down with the Moltres out of nowhere. Yeah. Four bosses orders, three air balloons, you know, dudunsparce, which can run Runaway draw out of the active spot. You can just bring down the Moltres, take a KO at any point, lead the game that way, and your opponent has to answer it. And then you have Megalopony, who's just like the premier Pokemon at taking those cheap knockouts on your like, basic ex Pokemon. It's so sick. I mean, I love it. If you're a. If you're a Dragon Ball player, how do you counter Lopunny? I mean, Dusknoir certainly. I think, yeah, you can. You could certainly use. Use Dusknoir. That's probably the answer, right? So is like the Megalopony Strat to like then play a Psyduck next, right? It was the next evolution of this deck to include Psyduck so that you don't get smacked by a dust Norm. Maybe, you know, you do have three Battle Cage. That's crazy. Well, it's three Battle Cage, four Mist Energy, right? Like, how much more? And then you obviously have your four Wallies, your four poke gear, right? It's like, how much more can you tech for a deck like Dragapult with this, right? It's like, yeah, I think. I think the Psyduck, like, is it. But we're talking about a deck that is just fully built out to be Dragapult and. And ironic or I don't know, ironic. I'm not sure if that's the right word. But Miloslav went to game threes in all of his top cut rounds. So, like, the good Dragon Ball players have the lines like, we're not even talking that this is, you know, a free matchup. Like, it is. It is far from a free matchup for this deck. So if you are thinking about playing Lopani da Dunsparce to, you know, your locals or to Indianapolis or to Naic, like, you do want to know what Dragapult can do against you, right? Because we saw, you know, Hassan, we saw, you know, Mealslav earlier in stream matches against Dragapult. There are. There are ways you have plays as the Dragon Ball player, especially if you play hammers. You know, you get a hammer, you knock out a Dunsparce, you could play something like, like the Rockets Watchtower and play the stamp, and then, like, things can just go wrong as the Rockets Watchtower could certainly be a part of this, right? Yeah, I think so. Up until the point Rockets Watchtower has kind of been like, do I really need it? Like, occasional stops me out, I guess. Right. But, like, you could just see, you know, a three Watchtower list or something like that. But the thing about making these kind of really harsh tech, like, harsh techs is that no deck in the format right now is as well represented as Dragonfall. So if you're, like, hard teching for anything, it's always making sense to hard tech against Dragonfall, which is starting to make me feel uneasy about playing it, because people are just going to show up with decks that have, you know, 15 cards dedicated to beating exclusively you. Right. And. Yeah, but it's so. It's so good. It's. That's the problem with Dragon Ball, though, is, like, it's so good. It can beat those things. So. Yes, I hear you, I hear you. But you have plays like, whichever dragapult variant you play, you have routes into anything. Especially, like, even the ones that are trying so hard to. To beat you or counter. You do. You do have routes into everything, and that's why it's. It's such an insane deck. Yeah. So. So one other deck that I'd like to highlight here before we wrap up the episode. This one's for Jesse. So, Jesse, I know you're listening, and I know you've been messing. Messaging Josh Zapdos TCG Content Creator Zapdos TCG Top four with Rockets honchkrow. Let's talk about this deck. What do you think, Andrew? Like, oh, my God. Jesse's been yapping my ear off about it, man. He's excited. He was right? He's so excited. I mean, like, here's the thing. I think Joshua, if you look at his matches, I think he went like four and one against Dragapult, which, like, insane, right? No, four, five. He went five. One, two. And then you presume against. I mean, you presume these last two. I. I think these were IDs, or certainly the. The round 14, I believe was an ID, right? To. To lock up cut, because he had gone 11 and one up to that point. So I. I do believe these two were. Were intentional. So if you look at, like, true matchup percentage, 5 and 1 against Dragon. I know. And I'm like, if. I mean, if I could replicate that, then with this deck, then this is all I would play. Yes, for sure. I. I think that even I was talking to Jesse and Jesse's like, yeah, I think it's slightly unfavorable. Like, dude, he went 51 against Dragonfall. If it's slightly unfavorable and you go 5 1, I mean that's a dream run for sure. I think Jesse was saying he's like, it's maybe 40, 60 or 45, 55. Well, I'm trying to. Yeah. Wait, 45, 45, 65 or sorry. 35, 65. Haunch winning. No, no. 45, 45, 55. Hunch losing haunches. The 45. I see, yeah, I see. Yeah. I mean we saw the strategy from Joshua on stream, right, Against Dragon Ball is like you keep the Mercros and you keep at least one. Right. If they're not playing Dusk nor you just have to bench one Articuno and then you just do not evolve the murkrows. And that, that, that kind of sets you up a little bit, right? Because then, then you take a knockout and they can stamp you and it makes it. So you need one extra piece. But that, you know that, that is, that's the Strat. You got the Roto sticks. You got a four counter Roto stick. I actually am a big fan of that. Reminds me a lot of electric generator. Favorite part of the deck. Yeah. Yep. And it's just like better because it's, it's a hot. It's a more high rolly card than something like Pokegear. Poke gear is maybe a bit more consistent for the turn ones, but the Roto stick is going to get you what you need later in the game, right. When you need those two and three, you need extra supporters. The six supporters. To knock out a Dragon Pulse stick is getting you to like in crunch time, you know, it's so good. Exactly. So I, I really like this list. I mean it certainly feels optimized. Right. For, for the, the meta. Right. You got 444 of all the Rocket supporters got the four Roto stick. Like you're just getting what you need throughout the duration of the game. So I don't know. What would you play then? I. I think let's, let's kind of close it with that question. Andrew is like you're going to Indy or you're prepping for Indy here. This is going to be your one major of the season. It's gonna be your one major that. I went to Wisconsin, dude. I did three. Oh, you went to Wisconsin this year? Milwaukee. Milwaukee, yeah. That's what I meant. I forgot how. Yeah. So three. That went third regional. Yeah. So anyway, not great. I also. Yes. But anyways, so it's my third regional this year, which I didn't play in a single regional last year. So, like this things are. We're. We're, you know, we're getting back at it. But yeah, I don't know. Dragapult, Dusknoir is what I would have played a couple weeks ago. Right. And then if the tournament was this weekend, I would have played Hydrapple. And since the tournament is in two weeks and I have to like, be informed by this meta now I have to think about what I'm gonna play in two weeks. I would love to play the Hank Crow deck. I would love to play the Honda. Okay, do it then. If I could convince myself that you won't, bro, you won't. If I can convince myself that it is, you know, tenable and like, not just a pile going into Dragapult. I mean, I've seen the deck just whiff energy so many times. Whiff knockouts so many times. I've seen the deck just brick. But. But you have the time. That's the argument, right? It's like. That's the. That's the argument is because you. You're going against multi prize decks. So you can afford to lose. You can afford to lose turns. Like, you don't need to attack every single turn. Right? I mean, that. That's. I know you don't. That's the like on first stamped into like, into like, like no energy and just weird stuff. I don't know. Like, I would so like, you can't even take that turn off to like go use deceit or whatever. It's. I would love to play it. So would be. It would be cool deck to play. I mean, I like the mega low punny deck. I think that's a cool deck. I could certainly see myself playing that. I. I can't see myself playing a single prize deck other than like honchkrow maybe. So, like, I can't see myself playing like the Apples. I can't see myself playing Alakazam. That doesn't really seem like it, but the haunch core deck with the top four performance, I mean, Joshua's been working on the deck too. He's been working on playing it like, I mean, what top 32 and then top forward? I mean, this is the best season he says he's ever had in his career, I think. So I'm excited for him. He's Doing great. Yeah. I can see myself playing this. I think it's kind of come on the back of a Honchkrow, like you said, a couple of caches here with the deck, and really one of the few notable players investing into the archetype, I guess, outside of Jesse Parker. It depends on if you consider him a notable player or not, but, you know. Yeah, one. One of the few. Yeah. Jesse's been hype on it since. Since we started testing this format. Yes. So. And I know Jesse's been messaging Joshua and they've been like, yeah, it's really. It's really tough with Jesse. And don't take this the wrong way, but, like, he's also been extremely high in Lucario. And so, you know, you. You like a deeply unserious. You just have to, like. You just have to, like, like, like, there's the duality of man. Right? You have, like, a Mega Lucario on one shoulder and a. And a hunch crow on the other, and it's like, who do I listen to? It's like, are either of these good decks? Like, Mega Lucario is poisoning my thoughts on. On Honchkrow. Like, I can't take a Mega Lucario main seriously when they bring up other decks, but I feel like I just. I. I feel like I. I've fallen away from Dragapult, which is. Which is. No, dude, Dragon. Dragon Ball's, like, by far, by far, far. Like, leaps and bounds ahead of any other deck. And if you're playing it into a field, the idea of playing, like, nine Dragonfall straight makes me want to vomit. Dude, I. Yeah, but just be better. Just be better, bro. You're going to be better. So, like, like that. No, it is like, dude. Well, it is kind of like that. Mirrors are so like that. You know they are, dude. I know, I know. But you just have to play straight pull. You have to play enough bosses orders. You got to play enough crispin, and you just got to pray that you open your cloaks and your lilies and that you set up while your opponent doesn't and that you get that first key boss's orders, and your opponent scoops. You got to be the one doling those out, right? Maybe there's a way. If I did play Dragapult, it's like you want to. If you play Dragon Ball, you want to play, like, the straightest straight you can, right? So that you could do that to your opponent more often than not. And then you're going to get farmed by all the people who are like who are playing the decks that beat Straight Paul? Playing the decks? Yeah, the mega decks that would lose to something like Dusknoir Pultnor. Right. But as polt nor you're not winning in the margins against Straight Pole because Straight Pole is winning those games in the margins. So like it's tough. I want to play a deck that I feel like is extremely consistent. That's what I want. So like let me put you on a deck that has four cards that can get any supporter that you choose out of your deck and in fact they have a supporter that you can grab, you can play on the first turn of the game and four of a card that can search out multiple supporters from the top four cards of your deck. Could I interest you in a deck like that? You might be able to. That's crazy. All right, well I look forward to seeing what you put together on stream this week. Yes, for sure. And also before we go, big shout out to full group games. We've got the 6K double header chaos rising happening this weekend. I am going to be casting the standard $3,000 tournaments happening on Saturday the 23rd with Jesse Parker. Actually I'm going to be casting with Jesse. Jesse's popping over after his shift at work so I'll have the first round or so by myself but then Jesse will join me for the rest of the day. So definitely make sure to tune into that if you are available on Saturday. But if you're in the area, well then sign up because it is going to be an awesome event. We've got the standard event 3k on Saturday and then the gym leader challenge 3k on Sunday and I'm going to be playing in that gym leader challenge 3k. Very excited about that. Going to be the first major cash GLC tournament that I've played in at Full Grip. As you know, played in the 1k in Conway that was pretty cool a couple weeks ago so very much looking forward to that. Definitely make sure to sign up if you are in the area. It is a great time and I look forward to casting the standard event. The gym leader challenge event is going to be cast as well but going to be co cast by a couple of special guests who I have hired in hand selected position. Very nice. Yes, very nice. Well good. I mean I'll have a new baby so yeah, I'll probably have a little bit of time to watch. So there you go. Looking forward to it man. Well that's going to do it for the episode today. If you enjoyed, please make sure to engage on whatever platform you're on YouTube, please make sure to like and subscribe. If you're on Spotify, leave a comment and a review. But that's going to do it for us today. If you want to get more plugged into Tag Team, you can find us over on X the Everything app, realjohnwalter for myself, njoyfriendforandrew, and at Tag Team Pokemon for the podcast. We thank you all so much for your continued listenership and we will catch you on the next one.