8-38. The Email

I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX is the Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either gonna be okay. No, stop. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. But we have each other. FX's the bear, the final season, all episodes now streaming on Disney. So good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60% off brands like Rag and Bone, Levi's, Adidas and free people. Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack foreign. Welcome back to Tag Team, the Pokemon trading card games premier podcasting duo. My name is JW Crew and I am joined as always by my good, good friend Andrew Mahone. In today's episode, we are going to be covering the world's invitation email that I received as well as some interesting news surrounding it. We are going to be talking about the launch of the AI Battle competition in Japan. We'll dip into the mailbag and then we'll hit a dual release pocket and TCG set release, as well as what Andrew has been testing in the new format for Pitch Darkness. But before we get into all that, Andrew, how are you doing today? Pitch Darkness, bro. Pitch darkness. Pitch black. Pitch Darkness. How do you say it? And how do you say black in your language? Pitch Darkness. Holy smokes, dude. Pitch Black. I'm chilling, man. I'm. I'm doing well. I had a good stream today with Jesse. We got to play the new Pitch Black format. We've got the 6K doubleheader coming up at full grip games July 18th and 19th. It's looking like the event may sell out, so that's really exciting and the event looks like it's going to be a big one. So very excited about that. Then we've got the Full Grip 5K Invitational for the players who earn their invite to it for placing well at one of our three Ks throughout the season. Pitch Black event is one of the last opportunities for players to do so, and. And that's going to be a lot of fun too. So I know Jesse's getting geared up for that because he did not qualify for Worlds this year. But you know who did? This, man. Right here. Let's go. Never in doubt. I knew you had never in doubt, right? Well, you, you, you. You guessed it right. You predicted it. I did. You were Team J Dub JW hangs on. I did didn't realize that you were going to be the last player invited. Yeah. But you know, well, this is like, okay, this is like a Brock Purdy situation. You know how much I love sports analogies for the Pokemon trading Card Game. This is like, you know, I'm. I'm essentially Mr. Irrelevant. And so that's what's going to make, you know, the top four run at this year's World Championships all the sweeter. Because I shouldn't have been there. You know, and by all accounts, even Pokemon arguably said I shouldn't have been there. There was just said it. By the way, thank you to, you know, anyone on the team that is listening to this that may have had any involvement in this decision. They did accept all bubbled players last year despite the play point disparity. So they've kept that up this year and it seemed relatively consistent throughout the year for travel awards at the very least. I know there are a handful of players that had received travel awards even though they were on the bubble. Made us sweat it out a little bit for Worlds. But they did invite all of the bubbled players in North America and presumably the other regions for this year's World Championships. But interestingly, I got a separate follow up email from the Pokemon company and I'll read it here. I don't necessarily think I want to put it up on the screen, but they talk about. For Worlds 2026, we were evaluating invitations and prizing based on championship point totals during the qualification period. Per section 4.6.5 of the tournament Rules Handbook, the Play Pokemon program will track play points as a tie breaking tool. This tie breaking tool may be used in exceptional circumstances to break championship point ties. We kind of knew this. This language was introduced last year and it was a cause of concern for players on the bubble last year for the World Championships. Next paragraph says after evaluating all championship point ties for this event, we have chosen not to use play points as a tie breaking tool for this tournament. Instead, we have chosen to honor all championship point ties as though they were tied with the highest ranked player with those same championship points. So essentially they're letting the bubble in. This is the interesting part. We are sending this email to you to note specifically we have made an exception to our policy and similar exceptions should not be expected to be honored for future events. Congratulations, etc. That's like a very interesting last sentence there. We are sending this email to you to note specifically we have made an exception to our policy and similar exception shouldn't be expected to be honored for future events. So it seems like the events team at the Pokemon Company International are really clinging to this play point tiebreaker, even though they have yet to, from my knowledge, actually enforce it. Yeah. They want you to know that this is not like the new norm. This is not to be expected. Right. They want to be very clear that just because they invited all of the bubble players last year and this year, that those were actually both exceptions and not. Not something to be looked at as guidance going forward for how they're going to handle it. Yeah. It's interesting, right, because you know, on the one hand, I think there are a couple ways to read this. Right. It's like they were worried, the events team were worried about the dextero headline that I had teased from our last episode. Right. They were worried about the public backlash that could occur if a notable trainer like myself were to have been excluded from the world Championships. You know, that's. I don't think that's actually the case. Right. That, that doesn't seem as logical as this next point where they are, you know, bringing this playpoint tiebreaker back up and just kind of re establishing that as, as their, you know, as something that they, I don't know, threaten or that they could use in the future in case there ever becomes a bubble that is just unwieldy, that becomes too large. You know, if you have a bubble of like 50 or 100 players, you know, or even more than that. Right. Where it just gets out of control and there's no real way to separate players in a reasonable manner, you can enforce a play point system that can, you know, kind of cut that massive bubble. I think it played out in my favor if that was the case because, you know, you're looking at maybe a dozen players across all regions that were on this bubble. But you know, it is kind of puzzling that they do seem to be holding firm to this play point tie breaking system because as we know, play points can be gamed. Right. We were talking about this just before. Yes. Episode. Like I have in the, like I have in the past. There's no real benefit up until this point where they've used play points as a tiebreaker. But you know, past seasons, like I've been registered for leagues for months that I didn't go to that I may not have even been in the same state of. Well, league leaders will just report, like all people. Yeah. Attending their leagues. You know, I mean, that's, that's not necessarily, that's not necessarily widespread, but that is something that happens. It's something that happens. So I'm just saying, like the play point system can be gamed. It may not even be 100% accurate how many play points like each of those players has earned. Everybody knows that there are leagues out there that falsely report play points, right? And if you do actually use play points as a tiebreaker, then you kind of open that can of worms, right? And you open the door for players to start trying to call out, you know, leagues and stuff. And then you have to address that. Like, up until this point, like Pokemon hasn't really ever cared, right? Because it doesn't really matter. Doesn't matter for anything. But then all of a sudden when you make play points matter for something. And that's why leagues will just report them, right? Because it makes the numbers look good, right? If I have and they get more products showing up every week and you get, you know, more stuff allocated and stuff. And I'm not saying that like, you know, I've just heard of leagues doing this. That's, that's the thing. It's like, I don't, you know, I haven't experienced it myself in a while, but like historically, throughout the game's past, like, I've certainly, certainly remember seeing stuff like this happening. So it is a. It makes sense to me that Pokemon would pick something to be a tiebreaker because again, you know, they can't have 50 more players than expected showing up to the world championships. So I do think that they need something in place, you know, play points, whatever. That's, it's fine. I mean, how else out they to do it? I mean, it's maybe, maybe it's like play points of premier events, regionals and above. You know, I could see that as maybe being. Because that's actually enforced, right? You have to check in, you have to play, you know, a certain number of rounds, right? Like, I could see that as maybe being a little bit more reasonable if they are going to use play points specifically. But yeah, you can't really count like even league cups or league challenges because at least anecdotally there are cases where, you know, you don't have enough players to fire a league challenge, right? And then someone, you know, signs up and now they have, you know, the four players necessary to get that tournament to fire, you know, something like that, right? It's fudged in a way either around challenges, cops, leagues. No, I think this discussion though, because like, how, how would you rather see it done, right? It's something that I've Been thinking about just now, and for me, I'd rather. I would much rather have the tiebreaker be on like the best finish. I think the best finish from the player. Well, okay, actually. And there's. There's actually a couple. There's actually like two other ways. So best finish, I think is probably the. Because I. I would prefer. Much prefer a performance based. Yes. 100% tiebreaker. Right. Play points are not a performance based tiebreaker. And in fact, it's more. I say more impressive, but it should be, in theory more impressive to have less play points than more play points. Right. So. So that's not a great indicator of strength of the player. But I would like to see either, you know, what you were mentioning there, or I would actually like, what if. And imagine. Just stay with me here, Andrew. I know this is gonna be hard to conceptualize. What if TCG Live was good enough that. You've lost me. You've lost me already right there. But go on. What if TCG was good enough? Yeah. That you could hold like a play in tournament. No shot. That to me is the worst way to do it. You could hold a plan. Like, it'd be like, not even remotely ready to be like. It'd be like, the qualification period is over. The NBA playing. No, the qualification period is over, dude. But that would be. That would be, you know, kind of like a. Like a. Like a. Like a guaranteed way. There are so many. There are so many. No, I disagree. I disagree with that. I think that there are. The qualification period, in my mind is the season that everybody competed in. It has a start date as an end date. Right, Right. And there are so many ways that you could compare players. You could do win loss ratio. That's like elo. Yeah, I actually don't. Like, you literally do elo. I would rather see ELO done. Right. Yeah, there. And that would be so easy to do. Right. Well, they already do it. I think they already. Or they have recently tracked eloquence. So you could just do elo. I'd rather have that. So, like, in my mind, no, having an extra tournament is nonsense. I would rather there are way more metrics that are not being tapped into that you can measure a player's season by like so many actually. And like, any of those is better than play points. Like literally any of them. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. 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Yeah, it's certainly an interesting, especially because, like, during a player's, like, season, I mean, if you think about it as like, athletic competition, you're at your peak during those months when you're grinding. Right now, players are finally getting a break. They're like, a lot of them are on vacation, spending time with their family, like, you know, doing that kind of stuff. The last thing you want is, like a last chance for Worlds Qualifier. Like right now. This would be the worst thing ever, actually. Yeah, well, I'd win, right? I'd be more dedicated. Yeah, I'm sure. So. So that's it. Yeah, I. I got the. I got the invite. Some would say, you know, by the skin of my teeth, Mr. Irrelevant, you know, did I earn it? Did I just have to have, you know, threaten the. Threaten the Dextero headline? I. You know, we'll be talking about this for years to come, you know, and I'm sure I'll get. I'll get plenty of flack in the friend group, you know, about. About this. But, you know, overall, I, like, am I. Am I happy with how the season went? Not really. Do I think that it was, you know, worth a world's invite? Like. Yeah, probably. I mean, to be honest, you know, with. Well, it literally was because they gave it to me. But yeah, just barely, though. Yeah, that. Just barely. The borderline. Yep. Well, and I think if you look back on the season, like, I think that's. That's pretty reasonable. Like, actually, like, it wasn't the season that I wanted to have and I didn't have like, the necessarily the deep run that I wanted, but, you know, a cash finish, I think is like, almost a requisite. I know that there are players that are playing in worlds that, like, didn't get a cash finish, which is fine. Right. Big deal. Like, they May have gone to an SBE and gotten a lot of points there or, you know, just had very consistent, like, top 60 fours. Like, not really a problem there in my opinion either. But, yeah, I represent, like, a top 1% player with the number of points that I gained and, like, I was consistent in my day twos and my finishes. Like, I think it's a fairly reasonable bar for players. Like, if you're looking for next season, hey, I want to get my world's invite. Here's what I did, right? It's like one cash finish. So that's like a top 32 or a top 64. Top 32 at a regional, top 64 at an IC. Um, and then pretty much day two finishes in that kind of top half right of day two. Top 64, top 128 for every. You had, like, one decent finish and a bunch of baloney, dude. And then you maxed out locals. And then you max out locals. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, totally, totally. But some people can't even max out locals. I'm. You know, I'm just saying locals aren't. I have always said my personal metric for. In a. An idealist sense, in my mind, people who do not have a chance to top eight regionals in a season should not be qualifying for Worlds. I would argue that your top 32, when you do top 32, a regional, you are in the conversation of finishing in the top eight. Yeah, you're like, one realm of, like, one thing is tweaked a little bit differently, and you're in top eight. Right? Like, that's how close you are when you're in the top 32. So in. In my opinion, players that are cashing events are the kinds of players who should be going to Worlds right now. If you didn't have that cash event this year, I would say that the resume doesn't impress me enough. But, like, saying that, like. Okay, I would agree. I would frankly agree there was a point in the season where you could have conceivably top eight at an event. Right? Like, okay, so sure. Not to say that any, you know, only players who top eight regionals belong at Worlds. I think anybody who is in the conversation for top eight in a regional should be at Worlds. And in my mind, you're in the conversation for top hitting a regional when you top 32 original. So, like, that's kind of where I'm at with it because, like, if you're. Honestly, if you're, like, getting dogged, you know, at the regional level and in day twos. Worlds is just those players in day two. That's all worlds is. That's like worlds is going to be those day two players, right? So like if you can't keep up with those day two players at regionals, like you don't necessarily need to be at the world Championships. Now you should keep working until you are going toe to toe with those day two players and doing well in that field. Then you will naturally get to a place where you're caching events. And when you are finally caching events, you will earn your world's immunity. You will. Right, because we saw, I mean this was kind of like the bare minimum of what someone could do to qualify. You went to one IC, right? You, you top 32'd one regional and then it was a bunch of mid and you maxed out locals like, you know, that was, that's it. Yeah, it was pretty good. I was solid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the day two finishes are not like bad, but they're also. It's not exceptional, you know? Yeah, it's not, it's not something that I'm like, oh, you know this, this cross is here. Like, no, not really. You're a three time regional champ, bro. Like, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. But it got you in the door. It got me in the door. And now you get to be a great story, man. I, I like, yeah, I'm already envisioning the, you know, the world's booklet, you know, getting my deck printed. All that shouldn't have even been there. That's what I'm talking about. And I'm going to need your help by the way, because I have three children, you only have one child. So I feel like you can kind of, you know, help me out like with the testing and the, and the list building and everything. Oh, 100%, dude. I'm in now. I told you I'm in. I'm back, bro. I'm playing. My win is your win. I understand that. All right, so I'll have a rate we can discuss surprise money. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean for sure. To be your dedicated testing partner, I think it's like, you know, maybe a solid 5% is fair. Okay. I think I could, I could swing that. Yeah, I think I could swing. That's funny. That is funny. But yeah, good stuff. I mean, have you seen some of the, some of the prices for even, you know, getting in the door? You get as a world's competitor a couple of passes to the event. That includes xp, that includes the arena Experience. Those have been selling for, like, three to five hundred dollars a pop. Oh, yeah, man. Well, I'm really excited. I'm really excited that you're going to be here because, you know, obviously me and my family are going to be there, too, as I'm going to be a featured creator at Worlds. This is my first time ever doing that. You know, like, I've qualified for six Worlds, but this is my first time being invited, like, on the accolades of being a creator. So, like, that's pretty cool. And it's something that I'll remember and, you know, be proud of for years to come that this was the year that I got invited to be a creator there. So that's something that I'm excited about. And. And, yeah, getting to spend, you know, time with you. You know, my family will be there. I don't know. I imagine your family will be at home, right? Yeah, it's. I mean, we have a newborn. We have a newborn, right. It's like if the family, you know, if the family was a bit older, I think everyone would be there for sure. For sure. All right, well, you'll get to do some Uncle JW time with. With our baby boy, then. That's right. That's right. That'll be fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We'll have to set up some dinners or something. For sure. So. All right. Talk about the AI competition. I know when you saw this, your heart must have dropped, Andrew, but. Well, yeah, because AI sucks. But this is not. Well, but this is not AI this is not generative AI. Classic AI yes, in the same. Not generative A. AI the. The Pokemon Company launches AI competition to build the strongest Pokemon TCG player, featuring $300,000 in prizes. So this is out of the Pokemon company in Japan. And they're saying here the. The article reads, pokemon Company has launched the Pokemon TCG AI Battle Challenge competition that invites developers from around the world to create AI players capable of competing against one another in Pokemon TCG matches. The mission statement reads, AI has faced other strategic tabletop games like Chess, Shogi and Go. It's kind of ironic that we just talked about that in the last episode. Now AI takes on a new challenge, the Pokemon Trading Card Game. There are thousands of cards to choose from, but only 60 cards in each deck. There are matchups, draw order, and a multitude of gameplay strategies to be explored. Again, making it a much more complex game than something like chess, than something like Go. But a game where every card played reveals a new path in a vast Array of new possibilities. It is AI's turn to play. What can we expect to see? And so essentially they've built this platform for players to submit their AI bots that play TCG matches against each other. And there's like a leaderboard. I don't know how much you've gotten into this, Andrew. That's pretty cool. I don't know anything about coding or like, you know, computer programming or anything really. So this is all like, this is all out of my league. I figure that you're going to be a little bit better at kind of talking about the implications of this. As someone who's kind of more familiar with this kind of stuff. Yeah, I think, like, in broad strokes, I think it's really cool. I think it's very difficult for me to conceptualize how a bot or an AI system could learn how to navigate the Pokemon trading card game given a changing set of cards. That's what I'm having a hard time grasping, right? Like, I understand how an AI could, could learn to play a singular format 100% because that's no different than chess or like Go or anything like that. That is like a. There's like a fixed number of pieces and combinations, though. Grand and massive it is if you know a fixed amount of data that you're working with. Right. Whereas like, where, like, how could an AI, in the way that you program it, learn new strategies with new cards as they release and get added to the pool? Right. That is where my mind starts to blow. And like, really, like, could you really do that? Could like an AI, you know, take in the newest set of cards from like the game designers and spew out like a top tier deck? Right, yes, like that. Right. Could an AI do that? That is like a weird thing to start thinking about and also I think, like, kind of fascinating from like a game design standpoint, like game theory and stuff like that. I actually think that those questions are kind of interesting. You know, I am an AI doomer when it comes to the creative sides of things, you know, being plagiarized and kind of being bastardized or whatever. But when it comes to this kind of stuff where we're talking about like, game theory and things like that and AI's potential to help push our knowledge and, and conception of games and strategies, I think that that is actually kind of interesting because at the end of the day, that's all just problem solving, right? And there are like, there are like, answers, right? There are questions and there are answers, and it's not really like oh, well, like you're taking the creativity away. Like. No, it's just, I think it's fascinating kind of, you know, figuring out different answers to questions and all of that. So that to me is just fun and I think it should be fun seeing what players come up with. Yeah, it's, I mean I'm, I'm most interested in how the AI and I haven't dabbled, frankly. Haven't dabbled. I haven't had time to like really look into this as much as I wanted to. But I do plan on, you know, there's a three month window here, so if you're thinking, if at all like this would be interesting for you, you know, check it out. Right. And I plan on doing that sometime, hopefully this next month. But what I'm very interested in is the deck building portion of it. Like kind of you're talking about, right? Not necessarily the in game strategy. I think that's really unique and obviously a huge component of this. But the deck building is what I am kind of geeking out about because, you know, if you leave an AI to their own devices to build a deck and then play it against each other, like what kind of decisions would a, a computer make, right. When they don't have, you know, maybe like a, like an emotional connection to any of these cards or a, you know, some kind of like feeling about certain cards. Right. When it's, when it's purely objective reasoning that is driving the decisions behind the decks, I think that's like to me going to be the most interesting thing to come out of all this is not necessarily what happens in the game, although that, you know, surely the AI will make plays that will confuse or astonish us, but where they get to with regards to, you know, a final deck list, right. What is a crustal deck list look like from you or I versus what does a crustal decklist look like from an AI? This could be wildly different things. And I've seen a few mentions of decks surrounding this on Twitter. And like I've seen, you know, Charon is like a very important card in some of these decks that I've seen from some of the, the teams on the leaderboard. And that just like is like very interesting, right, because we don't think of Charon or whatever they're calling it, you know, the draw three, the generic draw three card as being particularly strong. But apparently, at least in these early stages of these AI bots that are playing one another, it's really good to have that big hand size. So that's what I'm excited about. And, you know, I'm hoping that. That. That is, you know, revealed more and more and that we see some really interesting combinations and strategies regarding deck building, for sure. So, yeah, if you'd like to get in on this. The competition concludes at the end of August, so still a couple more months from which to build your own AI agents. I think they recommend working with the team. So if you have people that, you know are interested in joining this, there's serious prizes. Right. So each team receives $30,000. I mean, that's not chump change, you know, for a couple months of work, 30 grand. Could be cool. Could be cool. Let's dip into the mailbag here. Andrew, we had. We had some questions last week. Condor Club says a varsity sweater instead of a hoodie would be. Would be sick. You brought that up. In terms of the world's merchandise, anything that you're hoping to see, I mean, obviously you're getting an invite. You're probably getting priority into the Pokemon Center. What are you going to buy this year? Like, is there anything that you're really excited for? I think I get, like, kind of a welcome kit that will be maybe somewhat similar to a competitor kit now with the competitor exclusive stuff, but, like, we'll have some of that. So I'm stoked about that. Just like, any of the stuff that kind of has, like, the world's year flavor on it, I kind of. I like that stuff. The double deck boxes for me from each year are kind of a big thing. Natalie and I collect those. We keep a lot of decks in them. They just have a lot of utility for someone with a lot of cards. So those are cool. They always have the artwork from each year on them. So I'll be looking out for a double deck box. Something I'm really excited about, actually, is like, the. What? The San Francisco Giants baseball collab. Are you. Are you going? I think so. So, yeah, I wasn't sure if I should. If I should buy into that or not. I think that the custom jersey that they're doing that year for, that is really cool. So are you going to keep it or are you just going to get a. I want to keep it. You want to use it? Because, like, I was, like, I was thinking about it. Cool. I wouldn't wear this, so the only reason that I would go is to sell it. And, like, is that worth doing? Oh, I think it's so cool. Probably. Really? I think it's a really cool jersey. I don't think the Players are. I don't think the players are wearing it. I think it's just a. No, no, I don't care if the players wear it. It's just like a cool custom jersey. Like to me like the, the. I don't know, kind of the, the fact that they're like collabing with like a, a professional sports team, like that kind of crossover stuff. I feel like like a one off crossover like that just to me is like. Yeah, you just. That's such a cool thing, right? They've never really done it before with like professional sports team. So like, like imagine if there was like a. Imagine if there was a Pokemon NFL crossover jersey. Sure. That would go bazingas, right? Sure. Imagine if there was like a pro soccer Pokemon crossover jersey that would go nuts. Right? To me, like, yeah, this is a really cool thing. I just think that the jersey. So like for me I think that Giants jersey is like one of the coolest things that they're doing this year, personally. Dang. That's one of the things I'm most excited about. Dang. Now you got me thinking. Yeah, it's like literally like the mo. It's like an exclusive Pokemon sports team crossover. Something that they've like never done before. It's so cool. But like watching baseball, like you gotta stay until. Dude, you go, oh, I have to go to a baseball game. Oh, I have to have a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a twenty dollar beer and a fifteen. Dude, how will I handle it? How will I handle the baseball game? Oh, it's gonna be beautiful. San Diego. How can I possibly do this? Or San Francisco? Sorry, San Francisco in the summer. Must, must have, it's probably already sold out anyway. Probably won't be seeing you there. Okay, well that's, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Double deck boxes are a big deal I think for me. Skateboards. What about you? I think you're off the skateboards. You're off the skateboards, right? You're not a skateboard gooner anymore, are you? Well, here's the thing is that the first run of Bear Walker skateboards I was like really into because that again, it was like a novel first time they ever did it, really cool thing. But like now they've done so many of them and to be honest like I got to a point where I had maybe like close to 20 skateboards and it was just like dude, I need to, I need to down. So this is like, this is Ridiculous, right? And I changed up the whole vibe of my studio to be something that couldn't easily be replicated because I was like, at a certain point anybody can buy these skateboards and put them behind them now. Right? Like, it kind of became like a thing. Like lots of people had them in their offices and things like that. And that's good, you know, for Bear Walker. Like, congratulations. Really cool, right? And good for Pokemon. But like I wanted something a little bit different. So I sold out all of my boards and now I have the custom graffiti wall in my background and I'm like, well that's, you know, that to me is neat. So I'm doing that now. I do have four Pokemon skateboards actually, but they are not the Bear Walker ones. I have four from the Japanese Shibuya Pokemon center that are graffiti designed skateboards. They are different than. They're like actual like street skateboards. I have those like on a rack hanging on my wall in my studio and they kind of like match the whole graffiti vibe of like the rest of the studio that I have going on. So yeah, I still own four Pokemon skateboards still. But I am hard cut off on buying anymore. Like, I'm good, bro. Yeah, I'm good now. I did see Santa Cruz is actually doing a collab with Pokemon soon. That one. That one. But it's a Pokemon trading card game collab, not just Pokemon. Yeah, it's a trading card game collab which to me is like, dang, dude, you're really hitting the nail on the head here. But I still think I'm good on those because those are just going to be hype, beasted and well, but they're right. I think the problem with that and like what's kind of awkward, what's kind of awkward and why I don't love it is like there is still that gotcha element, right where they're like packing the. They're putting the skateboards in packs and like you have a 1 in 500 chance of opening a gold one. And it's like, I'm good, bro. Like, I get it. I just, I. It kind of makes me cringe when they do that because the core product is that. And so when you're gotcha ties, the merch around that, it just, I don't know, it's not my favorite thing of our culture right now. But like I said, I'm good on the. I'm good on the skateboards, man. Like that those looked cool, but again, like, I'm good. I've got some skateboards you know, I'm chilling. Yep, yep. Absolutely. Okay. So one thing I wanted to point out, and we got some comments on this. We were a little bit dismissive of the Paradise Resort promo. And I just want to walk through this because I saw this post on Twitter and it makes complete sense. So Nick says, can't get over how good each of the Pokemon choices are for San Francisco. It's set on Lombard Street. Right. So that's the Windy street, which we, you know, are all. We all know. Right. But here are the different Pokemon. Our Chaladon represents the Golden Gate Bridge, or at least in theory, represents the Golden Gate Bridge. The Spheal represents. There's very famous Pier 39, I think. Yeah, I've been there. We may have gone there the last time and. Yeah, yeah, I've been there. Yeah, there's. There's like. Yeah, yeah. So they have sea lions there. Fido is apparently a very. And I. I think this is like a. Like a bread store or something. Charjabug is representing the cable cars. Now, that's kind of hard to see, but it's a. It is a bit of a reach. That one's. That one's not the riding along the road there, I guess. And then Klaw representing the Rock Crabs. A Gimme Ghoul representing the Gold Rush. And then Sylveon just representing gay people. That's fun. I think that's fun. And I do think that there was obviously thought put into the Pokemon, like, which one should we have for San Francisco? It's cool. Yeah, yeah. And Sudowoodo representing Trees. Trees in San Francisco. And Psyduck being. Psyduck. Yeah. So all I'm saying is I was. And I think we just generally were like, this is a fine. This is a fine promo. But I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, jw. It's cool that they picked these Pokemon and that they tie in, but this looks like every other worlds promo I've ever seen. It just does. Like, at a glance, the art style is exactly the same. It looks kind of exactly like every other one does at a glance. I can't really tell this apart from many of the other ones that we've had in years past that. Yeah. It doesn't, like, stand out to me. It's not like. It's like a. It's not like, like, oh, wow. Like, the. The style on this card is like, really unique. Like. No, it's not. It's. They look kind of like Clipart Pokemon. You know, they're it's nice, but, like, it's not stylized at all. It's just, you know, it looks like a World's promo. I think it's fine. Safe to say you're not buying my promos this year. I will not be buying your promos. No. I'll give them to you for a sweet deal. No, I won't. No, I won't. Do you want to know what's nuts? Yeah, what's up? I just remember selling my packets of World's promos for, like, 50 bucks. $80. Yeah. 80 bucks. Yep. Yeah, be like, 80 bucks. Like, I remember, like, pre pandemic. Like, you know, Sean Lydon would be going around being like, hey, bro, what you doing with those worlds from. I got 80 bucks for them right here, you know, and it was just like, the easiest, like. Yup, thanks. I know. I know. In the trading rooms, man, you're like, you know, haggling. Yeah. 75. $80 for these. For these facts. I think I sold one of them. I. I kept the other ones because I'm like, oh, these are kind of cool. Like, I'll just throw it in a shoebox. I did sell, I think, one, and then I opened one pack another year, and then I have, like, two or three that are sealed somewhere. But, yeah, it's. Natalie still has her 2015 champions festivals. Dude. But she sold. She sold. So she had the set open, right? And, like, in a binder. But she sold the Japanese one, like, I mean, like, years ago for, like, over a thousand dollars. I mean, it was. It was expensive. Like, it was, like. The Japanese one was, like, starting to get really pricey. We were like, whoa, hold up. Like, we don't necessarily need this, like, around here, like, because you still. You get, like, all the different languages or at least, like, a handful of different languages for the. For the world championship promo. It's what comes in the pack, right? Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. I think I may have. Yeah, I may have sold that as well. 2015. That was. That was Nash. Wait, Boston did. Boston. Boston. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely sold a Japanese promo once for, like, you're saying, like, a ridiculous amount. Yeah, those get pricey. Yes. Yeah. Very, very wise to do that. Yeah. Breaking it up, like, really makes sense, too. Like, you could break it up and, like, grade the ones that you want. You know, maybe grade the English one, and then you could sell the Japanese one, obviously, is going to go for a pretty penny. And then, you know, you could dole out, like, the Spanish and Portuguese. Like, you could sell those for 50 bucks or something. Exactly. But the English and the Japanese ones are usually the most expensive out of there, the Japanese ones, because there's just not that high of a quantity of them. But there is a huge Japanese player base. Yes. You know, for the amount of Japanese players that there are, there are not a lot of them that get to go to Worlds. Right. And participate. So, like, there's just not a lot of those cards in circulation. Food Train 8 says tiebreaks for the Worlds invite should be the best. Izuki tournament finish. I still have your Azuki hat in my studio. You, like, left it. I know, I know. I need it back. I have your Azuki. The beanie. You have the beanie. I need that back all the time. I do have it. I have it in my studio. You left it in a tournament, dude. Bring it to World. To Worlds. Yeah, I actually have a good fit. Okay. Dude, I have. I have the premium fit, and I actually do need a hat to, like, round it out. My wife, for Father's Day, she had some. She had some credit at Macy's, and she bought me, like, a matching, you know, T shirt, short combo, but it's like a textured, like, fabric. I'm dying to. I'm dying to envision how the Yazuki beanie ties this whole. And then. Yeah, and then you wear. You wear it. It's like, you wear that because it's probably pretty similar. And then I got the gold chain, so I put the gold chain on, and then I wear the textured T shirt, shorts, and then I have, like, some nice white shoes. And then I have the. Yeah, I have the beanie, so I think it's going to work out really well. That might be my. That might be my day one fit, and I'll figure out a day two fit. Sheesh. And then I'll have to figure out a championship Sunday fit, but. Right, right, right. You got to have something picked out. That's right. You can't. Can't just be, like, wearing the. Wearing the jersey that they give you. No, no, no, no. Not in this house. Not in this house. I had a lot of support. Thank you to the Sox. Thank you to the JW Army. I saw every comment. I appreciate it if you send in a support ticket. I just want to say thank you. You guys are the real ones. Appreciate it. Dude, it's crazy Road. Yeah, I was kind of sweating it there, man. I was kind of sweating it there. I know you were. I wasn't worried for you, but I now realize after the email, you Got that. Maybe I should have been a little more worried for you. And I think after seeing that, after seeing that email, I will be worried for whoever's there next year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess long and short of it, like, go to as many events as possible. You know, register for as many leagues as you can. Yeah, yeah. If you're, if you're a mid level player or if you think you're going to have a mid level season next year, make sure you're not caught slacking. So. All right, Upper mid, dude. Upper, mid, upper, mid. Yeah, okay. Upper, mid, upper. I'll give myself that. It's still top 1%, you know, that's what I'm saying. Give me something there. All right, we got some new TCG sets. This is very interesting. This is a very interesting article from Poke beach here. Storm Emerald and Delta Rain TCG sets officially teased alongside Pocket's Ruler of the Sky. So this is a dual release between the TCG and Pocket, something that we have not seen. Pocket has a very frequent, very rapid release schedule. It's like every six weeks or something. And then we get a core TCG set, you know, every two and a half months or so. This is the first time that they are syncing these releases. Pokemon Japan has simultaneously revealed the long awaited Storm Emerald set along with a new Ruler of the sky set for Pokemon TCG Pocket. Both sets will feature a Mega Rayquaza EX and release on July 31st. Okay. In English. So that's really interesting, right. Japan is syncing their core TCG with Pocket, at least for this one set. Right. To. To bring the hype around. Mega Rayquaza. In English, Storm Emerald will release as. And this might prick up the ears of the old heads listening to this podcast. Will release as Delta rain on November 6th. This is the first time we're learning of the English set name and release date. So there's a couple things. Yeah. First, yes, the English release name has Delta in its name. You'll know if you've played the TCG for. You know, two decades ago, there was a whole subset of cards that were Delta Species cards that were unique typings to what you would normally see on the card. And this kind of theory is carrying over into this release when they showed a picture of the Rayquaza art, that everything is grayed out in terms of identifiers or distinguishers, except for just kind of like a hint of. Of blue here along the outside. So there's maybe a thought. Some people are thinking, okay, then the set is called Delta Rain. And they're teasing a Rayquaza that has a little bit of blue around the edge. Like, could there be a rehash of the Delta mechanic? And the other interesting thing about this is that Japan is getting the set released on July 31st. We're getting it on November 6th. So there's going to be like a. A very long window that we haven't seen in quite a while where, you know, Japan will have, you know, essentially a format that we, like, may never get to play. Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox games. Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know, those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips? That's the energy State Farm brings to insurance. With over 19,000 local agents, they help you find the coverage that fits in your needs so you can spend less time worrying about insurance and more time enjoying the ride. Download the State Farm app or go online@statefarm.com like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Yeah, they will. And that honestly is kind of the way that things had been historically with us in Japan. Them getting sets months ahead of time and playing formats that we never get to play here. Because a lot of times, you know, our sets would be like two of Japan sets, right? So, like, they would get a set and then play like, with that set as, like, a format, and then they get a second set, right? And then we would get a set that combined those last two sets and then we would only, like, catch up once we got, like, that Mega set or whatever. So this kind of seems like it's going to be one of those situations where they get Storm Emerald and then they will also get like a fall set, right? Which only makes sense. And then both of those sets, their fall set, and Storm Emerald will combine to make our Delta Rain. Now, what it sounds like to me is that they might be getting a freaking Delta Species set or something like that in the fall, and then we are gonna have to sandwich that with freaking Rayquaza. And then it would be like, you know, that would be Delta Rain, you know. Yeah, there was. I mean, there there's some. But then, but then Storm Emerald like, like is the Rayquaza Delta Species, in which case, like Japan would be getting Delta species Pokemon starting July 31st. We would know starting July 31st if there's Delta Species Pokemon. Right. So is there. So I don't know the exact lore of the Delta species. Is there some tie in like with. With this island and so like storms. The coolest thing about the Delta Species mechanic is that it is. It is a completely TCG based lore. It's like there's. There's like this. This all what, like Holland island or something? Yep. Where scientists are doing experiments on Pokemon and that they change types. Right. And that's like kind of the. The thing of it. And that kind of thing was really cool. It's the kind of thing that they used to do with Pokemon cards, you know, 20 years ago is that not everything had to be a video game tie in. And this wasn't a video game tie in. So I think that Pokemon is in a really unique position now once again where they can do more kind of fun, whimsical TCG only lore and mechanics. Because they finally decided to chill out on the video game release schedule. Right. Trying to pump a new freaking game out every year. Right. And then obviously when they're pumping a new video game out every year, they have to try and tie every single little thing into the video games. And then also they've moved competitive play from the video games over to champions. So now they can just handle competitive VGC through champions. TCG is also kind of freed up to do its own thing because there isn't a video game coming out every single year. So like now you could do the cool stuff like Delta Species. That's my like tinfoil hat theory. You wish, bro. You wish. But these are, I mean, these are just iconic cards, you know, especially some of the exs, you know, some of the playables. Right. You know, you have the muse. You have the Rayquaza, the lightning type Rayquaza. Great card of its time. You know, things like Nidoqueen. Just. Just so unique and interesting among the dual type Pokemon too. It's cool. Yeah. The dual types, dude. Yeah, man. Like a charizard that's lightning and metal. That's so weird. Gets, man. It's so weird. And they're like different. The crazy thing is, is that they had the Terra thing, right? Yes. But they didn't do anything. And the terror. Well, and they really didn't. They had some Pokemon that were like not their proper Types, Right. I mean, this is like you have a darkness Charizard. You have like a grass Esparthra, you have like, you know, stuff like that going on. But it didn't have the same kind of magic that the Delta Pokemon had. And also, much to my dismay, I hated that. Like that whole mechanic was reserved only for rule box Pokemon. Right. So it was reserved only for Pokemon Ex. Like you like Tera Pokemon literally couldn't be non Ex's. There's no such thing as a single price Terror Pokemon. But Delta species, as you can see here, there's a psychic type, Trico. There's a metal type, Pikachu. These are not rule box Pokemon. These are just your run of the mill guys who are from Delta, you know, from the Holland island or whatever, you know. Yeah. So that to me is like part of what makes the Delta set so cool, is that it's not just like, oh, well, here's a funny type, Charizard evolved from normal Charmander evolved from normal Charmeleon. Like, oh, here's a freaking. Here's a freaking other Ex for you. And he's like a different type. Like, no, there's a couple things that really make it stand out to me. It's like the whole set has to kind of embody the theme all the way down the line to little guys, your Dratinis, your Dragonairs, everything. And then also the dual typing is also a key part of the Delta species. Like the, the blended backgrounds. You know, we see the Mewtwo there, fire and metal, the Rayquaza there, lightning and metal. Those blended backgrounds looking super sleek, that kind of thing. They haven't done dual types like that in, in a long time. I mean, in the XY block they did dual types, but they did like the kind of diagonal cut in the card to signify the dual types. Lately with dual type Pokemon, they've just been giving Pokemon an ability that makes them two different types instead of actually putting the two different types on the card. That to me is. That just sucks. Right. In comparison, it's not nearly as cool. Right. So, yep. I hope they do something neat like this, but one can hope. Yeah, one can hope. I mean, do you feel like that is maybe what they're teasing here? I just don't see it. What is the Delta? Like, what could Delta. Why would. Why would you put Delta in the name of the English trading card game? If you're not calling back, what does Delta mean? I feel like I saw something like Rayquaza's Alpha Omega. You Know Delta, right? Alpha is water, Omega's Earth, and Delta's the sky or something. I don't know exactly what that refers to, but, like, Rayquaza, I think, ties in somehow. Delta Sky, Delta. Well, then you got Team Aqua, Team Magma, right? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know, man. But it's cool. This is cool. It's cool. All that to say. Very good stuff. Looking forward to that. All right, let's talk about Pitch Black new set. There's no way we're getting Delta Species, bro. There's no way. I sat there and I thought about it for a second. We're getting trolled. Yeah, no, imagine. Imagine, bro. No, trolled. Trolled. We're getting trolled. Yeah. They're just gonna release it, like, call it Delta Rain, and then be like, oh, there was a set 20 years ago with Delta stuff and people really liked it. Whatever. That's not what we're doing here. Like, it's just gonna be like that. You're a hater. No, I believe, I believe. I think they'll do something. Cool. All right. Pitch Black or Pitch Darkness, as you called it. What did I say? No, I didn't say that. I said Pitch Black. You literally said. No, no, I was. I. Dude, you're ruining it. I was going to go edit it so that I said Pitch Black. Sorry, I've been attending to a newborn. Sorry. I don't know the exact names of the sets that are going to be released. Yeah, it's the only Pokemon TCG set named after a Mountain Dew flavor. Dude, come on. True. So the new Pitch Black meta has been played in Japan, but in Japan, they. They don't even have, like, city leagues going on right now. They have gym battles which are even smaller than city leagues. So they have like, some locals going on in. In this new meta, but nothing too serious. Except there was, of course, their national championships, the Japan Championships. So, like, that took place in the Pitch Black format, but that's like, really the only kind of data point we have as far as, like, a large scale tournament goes. For some reason, I don't even. Are the results up? No, I don't think they are. I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, so they're on. They're on Pokecabook if you go there. Yeah, but the Japan Championships, you'd have to have, like a translator built in. Poke Book. Yeah. Translate this thing to Japanese. To English. From Japanese. Yeah, you can ask your AI bot to do it. Dude. No, no, it's a browser. It's a browser. It's a browser tab. I don't even know if it'll work. But anyways, at the. At the. At the Japan Championships it was this like kind of big basic slot box deck that won. And the second place deck was the new Hide and Sneak deck. Which is the ghostly camouflage as you see it. Yep. Translated there. So this is brand new archetype coming out pitch black. It's got all these little guys in it. And that right there is the list that got second place at the Japan Championships. It is basically a Dhelmise deck. You've got this Dhelmise attacker that can do 170 for one but you have to have four Pokemon with the hide and sneak ability in the discard pile in order to use it. And the Hide and Sneak ability makes the Pokemon that has the ability immune to effects of attacks and abilities. So can't be Dusknoird, can't be Monkey Doried, can't be hits with Dragapult's Phantom dive damage counters. So that's good. That certainly helps things when it comes to being like a little guy. Single prize deck. And then of course since Dhelmise is psychic type, you play it with Lily's Clefairy. You hit Dragapult for weakness. One hit KO170 damage for one is like pretty respectable for a single prize deck anyway. And then the what Poltchageist, right, has this attack that spreads four damage counters to all the opponent's Pokemon. So if you're up against a deck that has ex Pokemon like Teal Mask, Ogrepon and stuff like that, you know. Two hit KO ing all your opponents Teal Mask Ogre ponds with Dhelmise is like not kind of hard to do. Yeah but if you could soften them all up with like a blanket Poltchage first or Sinistra, I forget which one is which. And then. And then you could finish the finish it off with with a Dhelmise for 170. They are also playing the what the legacy energy there which can make it so that you don't give up prize a turn. It's a pretty neat little deck. Jesse and I got some hands on with it today. And I think this particular list is weak to Dragapult Dusknoir. It doesn't play Psyduck or anything. So like Dusknoir can still make some stuff happen against this deck. Even though there's the built in protection from the hide and sneak ability. Dhelmize doesn't have it. Neither does the Dun Sparse. Neither Does Lily's clefairy ex. So, like, you have all these Pokemon that are still weak to those things. And Unfair Stamp is still a heck of a card. You know, Rockets Watchtowers is quite good. So this deck is not like the Dragapult Slayer, right? Like, I wouldn't take a look at this new archetype and be like, oh, well, Dragapult's dead. Dragapult's dead. The format is saved. Like, can this deck compete with Dragapult? Sure. Does it slaughter it outright? No, it is still like a contested matchup, as almost all of Dragapult's counters have been so far. Right. Like, there's still, like, a game to be played. It's still pretty close, but you're kind of talking. You're kind of talking, though, more Dragon Ball Dusknoir being favored, which I, you know, again, this list specifically doesn't have Psyduck. Maybe you could put Psyduck in. Maybe that makes it a bit closer, but that kind of tracks. Right? It's like, if you're able to take multiple prizes in a turn and weave in some kind of hand disruption, yeah, that's going to be the route to victory. And that's, you know, what Dragon Ball Dust Nord does really well. But do you think that this deck, like, to me, this deck should throttle, like, most other variants rate? No. Like, no rare candy Dragapult Hammers list, Like, yeah, sure. Like, it should probably beat that. But Dragapult is a deck that doesn't need to remain like, I think Dragapult as a whole doesn't. Is a deck that doesn't need to stay stagnant. Right. Dragapult. The thing about Dragapult is that there's like, a bunch of different ways to play it. So, like, you should be playing it to adapt with the metagame. Right. And if there's like this new hot deck on the block that's just going to throttle straight Dragapult. Don't play straight Dragon. Don't play the most predictable version of Dragapult that this deck is like, definitely going to, you know, to contend best with, you know, tweak your Dragon Ball deck to have some finesse, to have some answers. I did find that the Hammers are quite good against, like, Legacy energy and things like that. That. That's a thing that I, I heard my chatters talking about today is they said that, like, in Japan, they're not really playing as many hammers as we do in the west. So, like, Legacy energy is maybe better there than it would Be in the west, you know, maybe secret box is better. Jesse and I were playing. Tried playing the deck with secret box. I think secret box seems like a, like a great ace back for this deck, considering you want to get guys in the discard pile. Yeah. But yeah, cool. So it's certainly a new contender. It got second place at a huge 7,000 player Japanese tournament. Like that's something to think about. Yeah, I think that it's certainly intriguing and I think we were like, it was hit and miss on our prediction. Right. I think we were saying basically like, oh, I don't think the spread strategy is particularly strong. But we said, you know, maybe there would be some opening for, you know, a single prize. Basic doing 170 being good. Right. And you know, we did leave that door open kind of in our analysis of the deck. So to see it perform well, I mean, maybe it performed a bit above expectations, but that's kind of where I was envisioning the archetype going. Right. Is really not so much about the spread, not so much about the Spiritomb and the Synastra, but more about the Dhelmise. Right. Just swinging for, for big damage. So interesting stuff. Yeah. Cool, cool, cool, cool deck. And excited to see how it evolves here in the West. There's a couple other decks that I wanted to bring up that, you know, maybe you've thought about. Certainly you've seen on tier lists. I have seen the Mega Excadrill deck. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean if we look, if we look at the. This deck just seems like very okay. Oh, I see it there on the tier three, the Mega Excadrill seems okay. It's got this attack that does 90 for 2 energy and discards the top two cards of the opponent's deck. I mean, that's pretty solid. It knocks out your, your Dracloaks, it knocks out your, your Dreepies, your budews, all that stuff. So just like a quick attack that gets in there and disrupts the opponent by discarding the top two cards at a deck. Second attack does 330 damage if you have five energy attached to it. It's something like what base 200 and does 130 more if you have two more energy attached to it. So a lot of these lists are playing the Matang Engine and this was actually a deck that I saw on stream. Josh Frink played to Naic, didn't end up doing too well, but was on stream as a featured match. Jesse and I also tested a version of the kind of Metang Metagross metal deck with heat trans. Like we tested this on Deckbusters like, you know, a month and a half ago. And it's just one of those decks that's like, you have to get the turn one trolley. It doesn't really have draw power. I mean, looking at that list right there, there are no Lily's determinations in it. You don't really have that ability to churn through your deck. You're kind of always playing off the top. Now, the nice thing is once you do get that trolley playoff, I mean, you do play off the board very well because you've got the Genesect dx. The Genesect DX searches out the Metangs and your excadrills. So then you're just going, right, you go, turn one, I'm going to petrol for Trolley, trolley for one Genesect, a couple of Beldam, a couple of Drillbur and I'm good. And then, you know, and I also turn one GeneSect, go find two Matang your Go Bud. Turn two, I evolve into four Matang and start blasting. Right. Like, that's a pretty cool deck. But it's not that deep though, is the thing. And there's not really a lot of draw. Like the deck sets itself up and starts blasting, which is fun. But I do think that there are maybe some weaknesses to how the deck plays too. But it could be all right. It could be okay. Yeah, you do have the Metagross in there. It does 300. So, yeah. I think what intrigues me about the Excadrill is and that we don't really see a lot with many other decks right now with, I guess, the exception of, you know, any deck that might play Crushing Hammer is that, you know, it's pretty strong disruption, right, from the extra just discarding two random cards off the top of the deck. There is going to be that kind of lottery element, right. It could in fact help your opponent to have those cards in the discard pile. They, you know, you might discard an important Pokemon and they can rescue stretch right back or, or sorry, night stretch right back. Or you might discard, you know, cards that were dead cards that they didn't want to top deck and now they get a better top deck. But I think that, you know, with the, the way that lists are being constructed right now, you know, all the cards are like very crucial by and large for a lot of these decks. And discarding, you know, two very important cards can like make or Break a game, right? Two recovery cards or two energy cards, you know, against certain decks it can can be really oppressive. So that's like this being maybe not the strongest archetype, but it has a place here only for the fact that, you know, if you get a little bit lucky, you can really take over a game. There is another card that I'm wondering if you have seen a bit of, and that's Toucannon. Now this one is really exciting to me because it reminds me of cards that I've really enjoyed in the past. You know, I think back to some of my first decks that I really just like felt like, wow. I had a. A perfect 60 was the Empoleon and. And that card had a diving draw ability. You could discard one and draw two. This two cannon has a parallel, but it's. It's just a singular draw one. And then the Empoleon had an attack command for a single Energy. You're doing you know, 10 times the amount of Pokemon in play. So similar here the two cannon, you're doing 60 plus 20 times the amount of Pokemon in play. So definitely a buff there. But this Toucan is really like interesting to me. It gives us another draw that's not just dracloak, another single prize draw that's not just Dracloak option for decks that have the space. Curious if you thought about this deck at all, either as a standalone archetype or in combination with some other existing archetype. I'm gonna be honest. I think that Toucannon is really cool for Gym Leader Challenge. I think that this is a GLC card through and through. Yeah, it's attack does what, 60 plus 20 more for each bench Pokemon. So if you and your opponent have a full bench of five in GLC, you know, then you're doing 260 damage for one, which is like bananas in in Gym Leader Challenge, right? So for like a format full of single price Pokemon, you're one hit koing like the biggest bads in the format. Wailord, all that. And it's got a nice little draw one ability and it attacks for one energy, which just jives really well with like the colorless deck that's playing like Fan, Rotom and Hopps, Cramer Ant and stuff like that, right. So like it kind of fits right in to what the colorless decks are doing in GLC right now. So I think this is a great GLC card in standard. I think it's completely troll. I think that like Dragapult, Dusknoir, spreading damage. Counters just kind of like handles this to be honest. Maybe I'm just not seeing the vision but like in order to expand your bench to eight, you've got to have a Teal mask in play. So you got to have a Teal mask or like some sort of Terra Pokemon, right? So like you're going to have to have some sort of exact on your bench. And then your attacker has 100 and you know, 50 hit points, you know, which is not that many. Piggyback is 70, Trumbeak is is 90. Those guys don't like inspire confidence. They don't do anything. So then you have to play it with like the, the Noctowl engine, right? So you've got like the Noctowls which are not good in standard format right now. Which kind of mind blowing but like the Noctowl engine is not inspiring confidence in standard currently. Do I think that the Non Terra Bird is what finally makes Knocktowl good in standard? Absolutely not. Like I don't think that that the Trumbeak or the freaking Toucanon or whatever. I don't think the Toucanon is like the linchpin that's going to like unlock knock towel decks in standard. I don't think it's that high power level of a card because there are a lot of really good Terra Pokemon Ex right now that are not being played in standard with the Noctowl engine. You've got rockets, watchtowers running around. You've got unfair stamp out the wazoo. Just like that kind of stuff has really inhibited these kinds of decks from doing well. And I think that that doesn't change with Toucanon. I think this is kind of like a fun deck. Will you be able to win games with it on ladder? Sure. Will you see some YouTube videos about it? Absolutely. It's certainly a new strategy that you can play. Is it like a top regional strategy? No, I don't think so. No. Yeah. Interesting, Interesting. Last deck that I want to ask about because it's, you know, I have have seen it crop up in some results is the Mega Darkrai. Have you put much effort into this archetype? I've seen it a bit on like Japanese Twitter and this is the last one I want to ask about today. Obviously there's a lot more content in the set. There really is. Yeah. I think this is a great set. There's like the card that I'm most excited about actually is Gwyn. I think that opens up a lot of things for A lot of these setup decks. But regardless, we'll talk more. We have, you know, obviously next week's episode. We have a lot of time between now and worlds to go over this, so I just want to briefly hit on this Mega Darkrai. Walk me through what you've thought about this card and how you've seen it played and whether or not you think it's, you know, it's good or not. I. I think that the, you know, the card could be strong. I'm really curious about the Cursed Bell. Like, that seems like a good card. That's something that I want to mess around with, certainly in this new format. I'm just curious where your thoughts are with Mega Darkrai and kind of the Dark Archetypes out of Pitch Black. The Dark decks really kind of feel like they. They feel like they're right there. Like there's something there. It feels like because you've got the toxtricity, which juices energy into play at the cost of damaging your guys, you've got Monkey Dory to negate that downside of putting damage counters on your guys and makes use of the same energy you're already playing in the deck. You've got Mega Dark Rye, which is a newcomer. Right. Previously, we only had Mega Absol, which, funny enough, I don't see, like, hardly any of these decks splashing. Interesting. Mega Absolute. To me, like, that's. I think Mega Absol seems like a crazy card right now. Yeah, I think Mega. Absolutely Mega Absolute here, dude. Yeah. I mean, I've been thinking. I mean, imagine. Imagine, like, here's. In my head, I'm like, Mega Absol is cracked. When you go, you know, stamp or special red card plus bell plus discard a card from the opponent's hand. Like, that seems like a combo that, like, we should be exploring. But maybe I'm. Well, that was my biggest criticism of the Darkrai list I've been seeing out of Japan. Is that, like, how is there not a one of Mega Absol in all of these? Like, that, to me, seems absolutely nuts. So that was the first thing I did when I built this deck, because I have a deck similar to these kinds of lists, but there's a Mega Absol in there. And the Darkrai, honestly, I mean, being able to just delete something is incredible. We saw that with Roaring Moon EX a couple formats ago. Roaring Moon Ex similarly kind of popped up in a Vmax format, where it could just delete something and take three prizes at the cost of doing lots of damage to itself. This card isn't out yet. Jw, what are you doing? You're looking for it on PKM cards? Yeah, I thought maybe they might have it. Oh dude, you got to go to PokemonProxies.com oh true, true, true. Okay. Yeah, Pokemon Proxies. I just want to make sure that we have it up for the deer. Pokemonproxies.com so the mega Darkrai Exact card, its first attack does like 110 plus 110 if you've got any damage counters on your bench. Obviously toxtricity enables that the Dusk Raid attack for two Darkness Energy and then Abyss Eye. If your opponent's active Pokemon is affected by a special condition, it's automatically failed. You could just play that with a new Dark Bell item card, which confuses your opponent's. Well, it confuses both active except for any Darkness Pokemon. So it confuses your opponent's active Pokemon. Won't confuse your Pokemon because your Darkness type and then you just delete it with Abyssi. And that is a pretty easy combo to put together. To be honest. It is very easy to do as anybody who played like Hypnotoxic laser in like the Dark decks knew from back in the day. Like 3 energy on a Darkrai EX and. And like hypnotoxic laser. Yeah, I do that all the time. Right. Like that's the same kind of thing that this is eliciting. Except instead of doing 90 damage and 32 avenge like dark rife of Dark Explorers, you are just knocking out whatever is in front of you. Which is a very kind of tempting prospect when you're thinking about these big Stage 2 Pokemon EX or even Mega Pokemon that you could be facing down. So for me, the Mega Darkrai deck seems eraly in a similar spot to Roaring Moon Ex meta wise. Okay. From formats ago. So if you want to kind of conceptualize it in your head, this deck is. Is exactly that's interesting to think about because good at doing what Roaring Mood did. But it is also exactly bad against single prize decks. Just like Roaring Moon was. Well, the deck isn't going to be able to compete with like single prize decks, I mean, or grass decks. Yeah, sure. The problem with Roaring Moon, right, Was that you were damaging yourself. So that did leave it. And there were maybe worse single prize attackers back then when Roaring Moon was relevant. But because of the damage that you were taking, like it didn't really matter. So that that kind of like intrigues me about the Mega Darkrai is like you have so much more HP and you're saying that you're not really able to capitalize on that. The single prize decks. I mean, dude, you give up three prize. Yeah. It's still a two hit ko, right? On something from. You do have the new Ku, which is nice. Right? Like, so Chi Yu is a single prizer that you can kind of throw up against the. Yeah, there you go. Right. The Spiraling envy attack does 110 for one. If you have two or more damage counters on the Chi you. So if you set up a toxtricity and then accelerate the energy to the Chi Yu with toxicity, you place the two damage counters on it, then you're doing 110 for one. That's pretty good. And if you could just recur the Chi Yu. I mean, we see a lot of these Darkrai lists are playing like multiple night stretchers, like three even. So that you could just bring back the Chiu over and over again and kind of just keep slogging away at single prize Pokemon with it, which is not like bad. You do have the monkey dory stuff that you can do as well. Yeah, I just like. I just feel like, am I crazy? Am I crazy though, to think that, you know. Okay, yes. You could like recur the Chi you over and over. Doesn't Mega Absol just seem way better? Right? Like, you knock out the one prizer, you put their hand down to three, three or two, and then you just rip the other good card out of their hand. Like that seems way better. Yes. I'm telling you, the deck, the Dark Deck, needs to have not only Mega Darkrai, but also Mega Absol. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. Jeez. And do you think. Do you think. Do you think it's legit? Do you think this is legit? Do you think this is like a real strategy? Or do you think it's like fringe? Fringe Meta. Okay, so here is like the problem I think with it is that you, your Mecha Darkrai is getting like one hit KO'd by like Zorks, right? There's a lot of like two prizers that can trade into the three prizer really well. So that is quite bad. And I don't know that you have a way to win those trades. So like, I think that Mega Darkrai is going to win trades against like dragapults. I think you could just. Maybe you could do that. But then any two prize attacking deck, like Raging Bolts or like Zorark or Meganium, those three in particular, right? Those are three of like the biggest, maybe two prize attacking decks. I think all those are going to absolutely have their way with you, which to me is not a very exciting prospect for a deck. So it's. It's tough there, right? Like, because what are you offering? You don't have a very good two prize attacker that, like, trades well into other two prize attackers. If Mega Darkrai was only gave up two prizes, we'd be talking, but it doesn't, and neither does Mega Absol. So there's just opportunities for your opponents to take advantage of you and win that prize trade, I think, a little too easily. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, I'm curious to see what you come up with with this deck. Because I. I was thinking, man, the bell seems so good. Like, I've been trying to think of ways to get Mega Absol working, because, yeah, ripping a card from hand seems so good. Right now we're talking about, you know, how good it is for, you know, disruption cards. There just aren't a ton of them. And like, why isn't Mega Absol being played? Speaking of disruption cards, kind of last card. Is this real? Is this real? Is the Bastiodon a thing? Is this legit? Okay, so actually, we've been talking about and playing the Fossils. Yeah, quite a bit. I think that in order for Bastiodon to be good, you have to have two setups, which is incredibly cringe because its ability literally only works if it's on the bench. So your opponent can just boss it into the active and knock it out unimpeded, which is, like, terrible. Right? Like, your whole ability is supposed to be denying your opponent. Like, I set this guy up to try and deny you the ability to attack, and all you have to do is play one of the many bosses orders in your decks to bring me up and knock me out. And all that work I did putting the freaking Fossils into play, evolving them up with rare candies, all that nonsense is for naught if you just knock it out. So that has been an incredibly frustrating part of the Bastiodon thing. So then you're like, okay, well, in order for Bastiodon to be effective, I have to have two set up so that even if my opponent bosses one in the active, I still have one on the bench that is turning off my opponent's ability. So then you're like in a very narrow kind of deck here, because at this point, I'm playing a deck that's got a very thick fossil engine. Yeah, you're like, devoting not just a fossil engine, but to the Bastiodon. Right. You can't just Splash a Bastiodon and have it be effective. That is not going to be a thing. You're probably into the stadium. You're probably into at least three of the Shield Fossils. You're probably into at least three Bastiodons because you have to have two in play, right? So, like, you are into so many cards to do this. So then almost you're like, you are a control deck. Like, because I don't think that in my experience, trying to set up the Bastiodon with the Rampartos is like, if you put any energy into setting up Rampardos and maybe. So like, I have one Rampardos and one Bastiodon set up on, like turn two or three, your opponent guss up. They. They hit you with the double whammy. Not only do they push your Rampartos out of the active spot, which resets its attack, right? So it only does 150. You have to attack twice in a row for it to like, do 300, right? So like, they hit you with a double whammy of pushing your Rampartos out of the active spot and then knock out your Bastiodon and then it's like, oh, well, this just sucks, right? So, like, the whole strategy kind of collapses there. So I think that Bastiodon is maybe better than Rampardos because I think that Rampardos kind of gets outclassed by Mega Lucario and Cynthia's Garchomp. To be honest, I think Cynthia's Garchomp is probably like the premier, like, big, beefy fighting guy just because it can have 400 hit points. Both are weak to grass. Lucario is weak to psychic. None of the weaknesses are good on these fighting guys. But Bastiodon is probably the most interesting card. But you have to dedicate so much space to it and you have to ask yourself, well, like, what kind of deck are we actually playing? Am I playing a control deck with like LGM's and Dideni's and hammers? Am I playing like some sort of like, big basic attacker deck that is extremely low maintenance and then just also has Bastiodons like kind of on the wings to enable me to attack? I think, you know, like the evil tall Archaeops style decks where like you just have like this kind of big basic with the most disruptive fossil guy you could possibly pair with it? Like, I can almost imagine that kind of thing being a thing. Where is it like a Mega Kangaskhan Mega Kangaskhan Bastiodon deck where I just am attacking with Mega Kangaskhans while also having bastiodons. Sure. Is that a thing? I don't know. Like, but that kind of. That. That's the kind of way that my mind is going with it. Right. Did you see the Iron Thorns bastiation deck? I heard about it in my twitch chat. But, like, Iron Thorns doesn't seem like a very good Pokemon to me right now in standard, but, you know. Yeah, I'm open to being wrong, but. Yeah, well, that's what we said two years ago. It stops Trekloak. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. Bastion on is very interesting, but I'm with you here. Right. It doesn't read particularly well when you're. You know, you have four treat, right? You have cards like feasandipity in every deck. You just boss up a bastiodon. You can get some snipes off. That seems horrible. You know, Dragapult is you, like, have to play the special metal with it. Right. You, like, have to retreat it because it's got four retreat like air balloons. Not doing it. Like, are you playing switch? I guess, yeah. Then that's more cards you have to commit. Yep, yep. Exactly. Exactly. So, all right, well, where is your testing leading you then? Like, you know, you've put in a bit of time with Jesse in this format. Where are you kind of coalescing? Like, what are the decks that are rising to the top? And, like, what do you want to put more time into at this point? This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. 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If I was going to Worlds this year, I'd be grinding Pultener and grass stuff. Those would be the two decks that I'd be taking the most seriously. Jesse is really into the. Well, Venusaur Meganium deck. Got top four at the Japan Championships. It's kind of like the Hydrapple decks, except it's playing Mega Venusaur instead of Hydrapple. And it's got one of Mega Mega Meganium in there as well. And you just kind of like. It's like a grass box deck. You're moving energy around, you're doing big damage, all that. What's the benefit there? It's just. There's no one hit KO Dex. It's just. It's just. He's just got a lot of hp. Just Jesse's like, yeah, you just put a Venusaur in their face, turn two and tell them to do something about it. Usually they don't. And then like, God forbid, you wally the thing and then, you know, they're really having a bad time. So it's. Yeah, it's. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Jesse definitely stunted on me today playing Mega Excadrill with the Venusaur deck. It wasn't close. He just absolutely annihilated me and made a pretty convincing show of it. But like, I'm not saying there has to be the Mega Venusaur deck. I think Hydrapple is also extremely good. Jesse did say he was playing on TCG live with the Venusaur deck and was like laddering or whatever and played against Andrew Hedrick twice on ladder playing and he was playing Hydrapple both times that he played him. So, like, you know, Hedrick's looking at testing at least, is like putting some time into Hydrapple as well. I think the Hydrapple is one of those decks that can compete with the little guys and can compete with Dragapult. I think it's one of those few decks that can actually give Dragapult to run for its money. I have been testing Hydrapple personally with Secret Box. Right now that special red card is out because I want the deck to have that little bit of extra boost of consistency. I feel like that was like one of the things that. One of the only things that's holding it back for me is is that the bricky opens in some games. So I'm just trying to see is there a way that you can build the deck that maybe hasn't been uncovered yet that just makes it as Smooth operating as possible because I think that there is something there that could be very potent for Worlds. I would not be surprised to see a Hydrapple deck in top eight of Worlds for sure. So those, those would be the two avenues that I'd be, I'd be looking at, especially with the power level of Zoroark. And I think that Zorc is a very strong contender as well with the Tomes. I think that that's a very good deck that players with looking to kind of like flex their skill expression will be gravitating towards decks like Zoroark. So that would make the appeal of Hydra even higher for me, I think. I think honestly at this point in my season, if I was going to Worlds, I'd probably just be logging nothing but Hydrapple games between here and August. And I would just intend to go into Worlds and beat all the Pulse and Zorc players that I see because I expect a lot of high level players to pick those two decks. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting you say that because. Yeah. What is really contending with High Drapple right now? I mean you, I guess you have, you know, pulled hammers, right. You can do anything with, with a couple of hammerheads and, and hand disruption, but that's a good matchup by and large for, for High Trapple. So that's what I'm saying, dude. Something to think about. That is what I'm saying. Something to think about. Well, and I think if you play the secret box, you could play the festival grounds, dude. And then, and then you could double attack, bro. You could double attack the single prize decks. Oh, and then the festival grounds. And then that actually protects you against the, the bell, the curse bell, because you can't be, you know, can't be hit by special conditions. It's, it's all coming together. It's all coming together saying dude, I'm saying. Okay, so okay, let's play right here. I'm earning my 5%. I was gonna say 5%. 5% post tax cut. Post tax cut of the earnings. Anyway, that's gonna, that's gonna do it for today. We have a lot more to dive into from this meta, so I hope you'll join us again next week, but that's going to do it here. If you want to get more plugged into Tag team, you can find us over on x.com @real John Walter for myself at enjoyfriendforandrew@tag team Pokemon for the podcast. It's gonna do it for today. Thank you to all the sock accounts. Thank you to the JW army and the little flexors for the support tickets and the words of encouragement this last week. We got there. The world's invite could not have been achieved without you. 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