Is This Card Going To Ruin The World Championships | Uncommon Energy Episode 213

Now at Lowe's Faster Quotes Start at the Lowes Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on lowe's.com right from the Lowe's Pro desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. Morning Decisions how about a creamy Mocha Frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Uncommon Energy Podcast. On this week's episode we're going to be talking about registration for the first couple of tournaments going live today. If you're listening to this podcast episode, the day it releases today is the start of the new season in terms of, you know, registering for it at least. If you want to go to one of the first four tournaments anywhere in the world, be sure to be looking out for that registration. We'll talk about all of that and some of the news around it as well. We will go over a couple of tips for first time World's competitors. Every single world, there's always a decent amount of people who it is their first world championships and for some people it may be their only ever world championships. So we're gonna talk through just ways to enjoy the experience and how to best approach it for first time competitors. If you find yourself in those shoes, we will of course have guess that flavor text everyone's favorite segment of the podcast. And then we're gonna wrap up this week by giving our thoughts on the early World Championships metagame and perhaps its dominance by one specific card. You know what it is. Delmise from the hide and sneak deck of course. And then we will wrap up this week's episode with our bonus episode as we always do, exclusive to YouTube channel members and Spotify subscribers. My name is Chip Richie, joined here as always by my friend and co host after a week off, Azul. Gg. What's up Azul? How we doing? How have your last two weeks been? Been pretty good. Just been doing a lot of streaming, playing with the new cards, obviously playing the Pokemon TCG in general. I think I said on the last week's episode that I was feeling a little bit of dragapult feeling fatigue. That hasn't really gone away too much. Like, I took the. Like, I took this weekend off from streaming. Just didn't stream over the whole weekend. I think that's been something I'll probably do a little bit more until we get into the new season. Just not. Not, like, forcing myself to, like, want to stream, like, every single day or to only taking one day off. Taking a couple of days off a week isn't, like, a bad thing to try and compensate for the kind of dull format that we got going on right now. It's not too exciting. Besides that, been doing some bouldering. My first pair of bouldering shoes the couple days ago now. So getting into that more regularly, so that's been fun. And it's funny how a side quest in Australia, like, became an actual hobby for you. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. No, I really. I really, really enjoy it. So I'm not, obviously not very good at it yet. I can only climb the gym that I'm at. I can only climb, like, the first two levels. But it's like, I know gyms are, like, different with, like, their level systems, so the system they have there is, like, the. Well, I think everything is kind of graded on, like, the. Or most things, like, graded on, like, the V scale or whatever. But, like, for, like, the climbs at the. The gym I go to, I can climb, like, V0 to V1 and V1 to V2, but I've not been able to climb a V2 to V3 yet. I think that's, like the next challenge. So, Yu-Gi-Oh it's been fun getting into it. Gonna probably try and go, like, once or twice a week and just kind of keep working. So you're, like, hanging out over on these walls over here. You're not, like, you're not going vertically. It's all, like, mixed in together. Like, there'll be, like, a really hard climb right next to. And all the. And the climbs, like, intertwined and everything as well. So it's like you just kind of follow up based on, like, the. The gym that I might. You follow based on, like, the color of the. The holds. Yu-Gi-Oh But, Yu-Gi-Oh it's been fun getting into that and be doing more of that in the future. And then I think there's anything else that I've been up to. No, that's kind of been it. Pokemon and bouldering, that's been it for me. What about you, Chip, though? How was your. Was your week off? It was good. Yu-Gi-Oh We went to the beach with my family. We do one big, like, Extended family, beach week a year. Like, each summer we all get together and get together at the beach house and had a great time. My son Samuel actually caught his first ever fish, which is a. A huge moment in the life of a boy. Have you ever caught a fish, Aul? I. I actually just don't remember. Like, wait, you went on a deep sea trip and. Or like, you went out on a charter right in. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh To catch anything on that charter? No. Okay. No, Caleb caught one. We're out there. Well, maybe. Maybe I'll take you fishing, buddy. And it can be a big moment in the life of this boy as well. I feel like I have, but I just don't remember if I have or have not ever. Like, it's not something I do regularly or anything or any. Anyone in my family does. Like, my immediate family. Yu-Gi-Oh Does any kind of, like, fishing type stuff. Yu-Gi-Oh no. I mean, I'm sure I'll get around to it one day for sure if I haven't. But. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't remember ever doing it. I remember like, being, like, out by, like, the ocean or a river where people were fishing some. Like, so I don't even know. Like, sometimes, like, I think my uncles, we went out sometimes and they were fishing. I don't know if I ever caught anything, though, but I don't remember. Yu-Gi-Oh my brother and I, we grew up going fishing with, like, my dad and my uncle. So, like, definitely something. I've done plenty in my life, but not as much really in my adult life. Like, we kind of will take one sporadic charter offshore fishing trip once every, like, three or four years as a group. My dad, brother and I and uncle and like, maybe a couple other of my dad's friends or something like that. But it's been a couple years since we've done that, so we really, really kind of. The only time I fish is like, this week at the beach with my family. Get out there. And Samuel was getting really interested in it. He likes watching. Have you ever heard of the outdoor boys on YouTube? He's a pretty big. He's the. He lives in Alaska. He does like, these, like, survival, like, bush camping and stuff. And he has three young children that like, go and do these things with him. And Samuel has enjoyed watching some of those, like, outdoorsy videos and stuff. So he was kind of excited about going fishing with papa and catching a fish. But it was actually with me that he caught his first fish. And he was so proud and so excited. Look at, look at how happy he was, man. He'll tell you, it was his pump. It was a pompano. We let it go. And the first thing he said was, can I catch my second fish now? He was already ready for another one. He was Zebra ready. But it was a great time and fun memory, for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I've definitely seen. I think you actually introduced me into the outdoor boys. I think you're the first person actually showed me them. Okay, nice. Yu-Gi-Oh And I'd watched some of their videos since then, but, Yu-Gi-Oh very interesting. I mean, those videos. A very interesting character. The. I don't even know his name. I just normalize the outdoor boys. Yu-Gi-Oh his name's Luke. Yu-Gi-Oh If you're into, like, outdoorsy stuff, that's a great. A great. I mean, he doesn't really make videos anymore, but his son actually posts videos, which is what Samuel's been watching more recently. He likes watching that, too, because the younger brothers are in it, too, and the youngest one is probably kind of close to what Samuel's. Are they, like, some of the old videos, Right. Like, because he's been making videos for years, the boys are like, what Samuel's age is now, so it's kind of, like, cool to. He gets to see kind of, like, the things they do and stuff. But also. Besides that, though, this past weekend, did go see the new Spider man movie, Brand New Day. What you think? It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It wasn't bad. I do think. What would you rate? What would you give it out of 10? I gave it like, a seven out of 10. Okay, okay. Seven out of 10, maybe. Yu-Gi-Oh probably right at like, a seven out of 10. I don't really do the decimal points very much, but I wonder how. I always wonder how people. When someone says, like, I give that, like, a 6.7, it's like, bro, how do you, like, what is the. Why'd you say, like, 2706 7? I. I literally. That was. That was literally just subconscious, probably. But, like, how do you. Like. I mean, I'm sure that I. Well, I search. Some people do and some people don't. There's like. I don't know. I just said it. I just felt like it was that. But I'm sure some people actually have, like, a real grading scale. Like, people who actually are, like, movie reviewers or food reviewers or whatever. Like, I'm just like, keep it at a point. 5. Like 5.5.5, 6, so on and so forth. Like, how are we. How are you getting into the nitty gritty of. Oh, that Is a. That's an 8.3 right there. Yu-Gi-Oh that's the. Like, how do you. Yu-Gi-Oh What's the difference between an 8.3 and an 8.4? Like, really? Yu-Gi-Oh I would assume that, like, the. The. The big numbers are like some kind of cut off. Like, if it's in the 8 range, it means something. If it. Yu-Gi-Oh Reaches into the nines, it means something. And then it's like 1 through 10 and, like, how they feel about it in that gradient. A seven for me is like, it's like a movie that I'm glad I saw in the movie theater. A movie I will probably watch again at some point, but it wasn't like, something I feel like I want to go see again or, like, am looking forward to watching it when it comes out on streaming or anything like that. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh it was. I think my brother said this, and I think I agree with him because I went and saw it with him and a couple other people, that it was his least favorite of the Tom Holland Spider man movies. Oh, really? I think I agree with. After kind of thinking about it a little bit, I don't think any of the other ones I would put at below a 7, but this is the least. His least favorite. You agree that this is the worst of the Tom Hollands? It's not bad, but it's not bad. I think all the other ones are pretty mid. So I think, like, I think specifically I really enjoyed the last one, but that was definitely the worst of them. I think, like, the quality of the movie is not the best, but it was like. It was very much just like a nostalgia punch in the. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, which I was. Was very much there for. I loved watching it in the theater, but like, I also said afterwards it felt like, dude, some of the dialogue in the movie is actually just laughable. Like, it sounds like it was written by Yu-Gi-Oh Some of the, like, scenarios and things that come up, they're like driving points of the movie for. That wasn't very good either. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh that one was actually. Actually, that one was maybe the worst one. I don't know. Maybe they're tied. So actually, honestly, that's the one before the one with all the Spider Man. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh the one before the one with all the spider man. And I actually. This is the fourth one now, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Okay. So. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. Yu-Gi-Oh I thought they were. I thought Far From Home. I thought Far From Home was pretty good. Fine. Yu-Gi-Oh I thought it was fine. And then I can't even Remember the first one now Homecoming. Who was the villain in the first one? Vulture. I definitely saw it. Vulture obviously did not leave an impression. I mean, it came out in like 2017 or something like that, I think. Yu-Gi-Oh true. I mean, I remember. I mean, I remember the Dark Knight. Like. Like, Yu-Gi-Oh there's some movies leaving impression, I guess. Some don't. Yu-Gi-Oh I didn't think any of them were that great. Like, they were all fine and fun to watch. I'm like, I don't regret watching them, I think. I don't think I give any of the other three higher than a seven, a nine, but I think I would give them all an eight or seven. Okay. Okay. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh The Odyssey was like an eight, I would say. Really? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I haven't seen either of those yet. I'm probably gonna try and wait to see the Odyssey in the big theater in San Francisco. But we talked about this before, so recording. It's Beckett up for. Yu-Gi-Oh you're cooked, buddy. Well, Yu-Gi-Oh but I mean, if it keeps selling out, surely at some point a date will open up where I. I don't even know how they open up the tickets for those for that theater or not. Or they open it like on Monday for the next. The next week following. I mean, like, till like September, basically. For those who don't know, the Odyssey was filmed with IMAX cameras, specifically using 70 millimeter film. And there's only like 20 something theaters in the entire country that Show IMAX in 70 millimeter, like in its true cut. So if you want to see like the true cut, you got to go to like one of these 20 theaters. And one of them is in San Francisco. But the closest one to me in Raleigh is like in Buxton, Georgia, I think, which is like six hours away. So that was the one in. The one in San Francisco is like. Besides, like, literally the front row is like all sold out till September or something. So, Yu-Gi-Oh maybe going later in the year. But I'm down to like. I'm not like pressed to like go see it or anything, so I'm down to like, wait until it. I don't even know if I will go see the Spider man in theaters, to be honest. I might wait until it's on streaming. The. The Odyssey to me almost feels like similar to like Avatar, right? Where Avatar. The quality of the movie, like, it's a fine movie, but like, you saw it for like, the technical visual. Yu-Gi-Oh The visuals. Right. And that was like what made it great and made it so successful. The Odyssey almost feels a Little similar to that. Like, I think that the storytelling and the, you know, driving plot lines or whatever in the Odyssey are. Are better than the ones in Avatar, for example, but. And the visuals aren't quite as like, great as, like, it's not as like, like Avatar was doing something new in unique. They were like, pioneering and this isn't really doing that. But like the visuals that they captured because they. Christopher Nolan is very much like. Like they're not in a studio. Right. They're like out on a wooden boat in the sea. Make getting these shots and stuff. So I think that's like, the part of it I really appreciated seeing in the theater and would have liked to have seen it in the full 70 millimeter cup. But now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's pro desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo. Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in the. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on lowe's.com right from the Lowes pro desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. Hear that? That's now crispy and McCrispy strips meeting. Creamy Caesar sauce sounds extra crispy. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. Not this time. Did not. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It definitely sounds like it's worth the. Worth waiting for the experience. And I'm not. Yu-Gi-Oh like I said, I'm not pressed, so I'll wait for that to eventually see it. One last thing. Oh, go ahead. NFL season officially, unofficially, starts on Thursday. Preseason, AKA the NFL hall of Fame game. The Carolina Panthers versus the Arizona Cardinals in Canton, Ohio. Happening this Thursday. It's a great time of year, buddy. There we go. That's all I gotta say. Wait, so this is not even like a. They do. They do pre season games, like, fully broadcasted and everything? Yu-Gi-Oh they. They show them, but it's not like a big thing or anything like that. Like, most of the people who are playing these games will probably. They're, like, fighting for some of the last couple roster spots. Okay, because I was gonna say like. I was gonna say like the. They can't play a best of three in the finals, but they'll play a preseason game at the same physicality level. But no, like. Like Bryce Young, our starting quarterback, is not starting. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Okay, so I'm not even gonna dress. Yu-Gi-Oh okay, that makes sense. That makes way more sense then, because I was gonna be like, man, can we get a best of three? Dude, a best of three NFL Finals would be so hype. I don't know. I'm the only one who feels. I know. It's. Yu-Gi-Oh I know it's not. It's not possible, but it would be pretty sick. I don't know. That's the one. It's still fun to watch, but it's, like, definitely less satisfying than something like a best two out of three. It would have to be over the course of, like, a month. Like, there'd have to be, like, 10 days between games. They do three weeks a game a week. They could do a game a week, right? They could, man, but it's. It's. That's taxing. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh for sure. For sure. No, I don't think it'll. I mean, they added one game, like, what, three or four years ago now. Has it been that long? How long has it been? They added like a 17th game to the season. Yu-Gi-Oh it was like two years ago. Yu-Gi-Oh All right, well, first thing, we can kick off with. New season registrations are happening literally today. Actually, will one of them have already happened by the time this is out? And they are actually happening for every region. Every region. First regional registration is happening today. So no matter where you live in the world, if you plan to go to the first regional in your region, make sure you are tuned in on Arcanine for the time when it goes live. Yu-Gi-Oh by the time this episode goes live, the registration will have already happened and assuredly sold out for the Brisbane Regional Champions Championships in Australia as those events are very capped and. Yu-Gi-Oh but, Yu-Gi-Oh first four events up today, Brisbane Frankfurt Receif. Pardon me. I learned how to pronounce this. I already forgot. I learned how to pronounce this on stream today or yesterday, but I don't remember. Did not stick. Was helping me. Yu-Gi-Oh And then Baltimore, of course, in the US the first four. I actually do wonder, and, I mean, I kind of feel this way about the format, but I guess I wonder if this will actually carry over because I feel like quite a few people in my chat kind of feel share the same sentiment. The game's kind of boring right now. Like, I've. Like, I've had people come into my chat and be like, is it a good time to get into the game right now? And I've told them, if you got other things you can do with your time, other games you want to try out, come back after rotation because I genuinely feel. What kind of community ambassador is this? That's how I genuinely. I don't want people to join the game and be like, wait, this sucks. What the heck? All right. And then dip. Like I've been telling people, like, hey, if you. I mean, if you don't have anything better to do and you really want to get into it, go for it. But like, if not, I'd wait till rotation to get into the game because it's just the format kind of sucks. And currently, of course, we don't know for sure we know what's coming out in the next two sets. We don't know what's going to come out in the January set, but I don't think anything's coming out that's going to dethrone Dragapult. I hope I'm wrong. It's gonna be a while until we can really tell that for sure. I've seen some, I mean, lots of propaganda on the timeline recently, but it's like these are just like gym battles, Japan results. Like, this is nothing to really put too much weight into. And Dragapult can adapt pretty well. So I don't think you actually want them to come out with something in the last set before rotation that beats Dragapults. I mean, if it's a mimic you that says knockout Dragon Ball, I'm down, like, that would be fine. They could also. I guess we'll talk about this more later. But Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, if they came out with something like that, it'd be fine. So. But I wonder if that'll like, affect like, maybe some of these events. Not capping like, or like the, the less cat or the less competitive casual players, like, they're still competitive. They show up, they want to get today too. They want to do their, like, do their best. But it's like, man, maybe I'll just one-of-one go to Frankfurt and I'll go to, like, a different European regional instead. Like, I'll wait until a new set drops or something like that. I, like, I wouldn't be shocked if, like, we'd see probably not Brisbane and probably not the one in Brazil, but I could see Baltimore, Frankfurt not capping for that reason. Like, if people are just kind of burnt out on the current format. I think you're capping on that, buddy. We'll see. I don't want it to happen, but it wouldn't like shock me if, if we don't see a cap. And that's like a big reason for that to happen, of course, it would be hard to know what the reason is, but wouldn't be shocked. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, there's always, in theory, like, we've just been the last, like five years. It's just been like bigger and bigger and bigger. Right. Events are getting growing and growing. In theory, there's a taper off point. Right. We haven't. I don't know. Have we kind of hit that? Have we found that? I don't know that we quite have yet. I feel like we. I think it's definitely slowed down since post. Like the. This. The first full season post Covid. The first two full seasons post Covid were like massive. It felt like. And it feels like it has slowed down. But we haven't plateaued for sure. We definitely haven't plateaued. Well, they were massive, but like, compared to what we had had before. Yu-Gi-Oh but the growth doesn't feel. I feel like we've reached the upper limit. Like, we've kind of seen that we're hitting like the upper limit. We're reaching some of these tournaments because, Yu-Gi-Oh there was a couple of regionals last season. Some of the early ones where it's like they sold out, but it took like two or three weeks to sell out. Right. We had a couple of those happen. Obviously, like, NAIC and EYC are a different story. Bigger events, more people want to go. And we'll see this year how they've adjusted for that. We maybe don't see an adjustment for London, but I think, obviously, I think everyone has the expectation for NAIC being massive. Right. Like, I think we're going to see them really push the boundaries. I think that will fill up for sure. I think we'll still sell out basically instantly, no matter how many seats they get. So there's still. I think, like, that's where there's still a lot of room for growth. Like the regionals, I think we're hitting the upper limits of the. The potential. But ics, at least EUIC and naic, I think we still have a lot of room for bigger tournaments there. One cool thing about the registration for these tournaments is it was actually tweeted by Play Pokemon that these registrations were going live, which someone, correct me if I'm wrong, I think this is the first time that's ever happened. They've done it for ICs before, but this is the first time for regionals that I can remember, at least that they've tweeted out and posted when registration is going live and like supported by graphics and everything as well. Yu-Gi-Oh And this is something that should have been happening for a while. I mean, we had like a. There was like a weird period of time where it's like sometimes there was no one tweeting about it. And then we had like three different organizers, specifically here in North America and Europe had kind of a similar situation. And they would tweet about it. And then it was like arcade. I think RK9 was picking up the slack last year, last season, and they were basically tweeting every time. And they might still be tweeting. I'm sure they tweeted something about these ones coming up here for Arcanine. But, like, Play Pokemon really should have been tweeting about this the whole time where it's like, it makes no sense for there not to be like a central point where all this information is kind of flooded through. And now we have the website Trainer Championships. Right. That's a big resource that is now being that now exists in the Pokemon competitive Pokemon TCG space. Or is this just for tcg? Or is this for all of them? Right. It's not just like. I mean, it's just the events. Not like tcg. Yu-Gi-Oh it's just the event. Yes. So this is a big resource just for the space in general, not just the tcg, where it has all the information there as it gets put out into the universe. So this is like the place to go to just be updated with everything. Still probably want to follow RK9 and the tournament organizers for your local region on Twitter as well as Play Pokemon now. Like, they would tweet about the IC registrations going up. But I think you're right. This is the first time that I can remember them ever tweeting about registration information going live for regionals. But this is something they should have been doing. Like, they are the Play Pokemon account. It's not the official Pokemon account. Like, they're. The point of Play Pokemon is organized play. Like, why are we not tweeting about event registrations as they're happening? Like, I don't think anyone's going to be annoyed by them filling their feed with event registration tweets. Like, that's why you follow Play Pokemon is for that information. So fun. Little East Easter egg here too, with all of the Pokemon pictured on each of the perspective things we got. Kangaskhan, the closest thing we've got to a kangaroo as a Pokemon we got. I don't really know what the sword reference is. I'm not gonna lie with Frankfurt. But then we got Receive, which just by quickly looking off the coast of Receive looks like there's a lot of diving and like exploring in the ocean and stuff that happens just looking at pictures. So I wonder if there's like seahorse references here, stuff like that, perhaps. And then Baltimore, a Ravens reference maybe with the Corvinites playing into each of the locations. That's kind of cool. Pokemon Play Pokemon. The Play Pokemon Twitter person is tapped into. Tell me what the sword means in Frankfurt though, someone. What's the. What's the lore here? No idea. Or. I mean it has a shield, right? As well. Like it's got a sword and a shield. Yu-Gi-Oh but they Aegislash has like the defense mode and the attack mode and they intentionally posted the one in this mode. So which mode is that? Is that attacker defense? Well, I'll let you guess by the fact that the sword is out. Oh. So I guess it's. Yu-Gi-Oh Attack mode then. Sure. Where's Frank Red is Germany, right? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know, maybe someone, maybe someone in the comments can enlighten us or maybe, maybe there's no references supposed to be there at all and they just like pick these four Pokemon and three of them work and one of them doesn't and that's actually what happened there. Possible. Another thing we wanted to talk about was just prices for these tournaments. We don't know yet what the price of Brisbane or not Brisbane, sorry, Baltimore is going to be. I guess we will know by the time we record our next episode or anything like that. You guys may know, listening to this, how much Baltimore is going to be. But tournaments have been getting more expensive year over year traditionally. Looking at the other three events, Brisbane, about 38 US dollars. I think it's. What, what was it? 55 Australian dollars receive 45 US it was like 230 of their currency, Frankfurt, $80. It was €70. And actually it was more than €70. It was posted that it was going to be €80, which was a big increase. But then they changed that apparently at some point. Yu-Gi-Oh I remember some people like, like it being talked about and obviously like the price of events seems to be going up year after year for the most part. Sometimes it sticks around for two years. So there was like seemingly some complaints and talk about it, but I don't know if it's in response to the complaints or if it's just an error to begin with. It's hard to say to be honest. What is the reasoning for the change? And it was posted on Trainer Championships as 80 and now 70. So it may be just an error on their part. It wasn't like, actually, like, listed for that on RK9 or anything. I don't believe. Yu-Gi-Oh it's hard to tell for sure. And once again, with this thing, it's, like, really hard to gauge, like, how much is it worth to be able to Whatnot a Pokemon Regional championships? Like, I feel like people are gonna say it, you know? Yu-Gi-Oh that's a conclusion we always come to. Like, obviously, like, I think if they charge a thousand dollars a ticket, it's like, okay, that's egregious. But, like, $70, $80, a hundred dollars. Also, like, another thing that I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually discuss that I actually have thought of for the first time is like, generally there's like a standard, right. For the entry fee for a season for regionals. And then, like, the ICS, like, each IC is potentially different, right? The ICs are a little bit different. But, like, would it be that bad if one regional cost 100, another one cost 80 based on, like, how much money they had to spend to put on the event in terms of the location, the hall? Like, it's not ridiculous. Right? And. But they don't do that. Right. There's usually a standard set for the season per region. Right. Maybe some of the European ones are sometimes, like five or ten dollars different. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm. I don't totally know. I'm trying to, like, think back. I think it's been pretty consistent in the U.S. Yu-Gi-Oh Like in the. For the North American regionals. I feel like. I don't know. What were they last year? Was it $70 last year? Yu-Gi-Oh and they were all 70 bucks. I'm pretty sure if I can remember correctly. Or maybe the Canadian one was a little bit different because of currency exchange. Yu-Gi-Oh currency exchange. So maybe it was like, roughly 70 U.S. but I feel like we don't see them adjust much. But it wouldn't be crazy if they did. Right. Because venue venues cost different prices. Right. Or whatever other price factors might get involved for one tournament versus another. So charging more for one or less. Also, perhaps this is just the cost of, like, having tournaments in places like, you know, Chicago, as opposed to Peoria. Right. Like, we're not having tournaments in kind of these middle of nowhere cities in the US Anymore. Yu-Gi-Oh That is going to be the most remote city we're going to this year so far. Like Louisville, probably. That could be how gaming gen. And that's like, another thing. And maybe that's how gaming chan like plans like, like maybe because we had Peoria they could be like okay, across the board we can like cut the cut how much every registration cost by $10. Maybe they plan well back then it was different organizers. Oh that's true as well. It was different organizers. Yu-Gi-Oh Back then I guess it was a universal across organization. I don't even remember. I feel like it was different. Some were more expensive than others which would make sense for the the situation. And that's like another thing as well. Yu-Gi-Oh If we're not going to Peoria like theoretically registration is going to go up which Yu-Gi-Oh I feel like people don't really take into account. I mean we'll see how much Baltimore ends up being. I'm sure if it's more than last year the people will come out and be like complaining, all that kind of stuff and and like potentially it is justified but it's just like so hard to tell if it is justified because like we just don't know what their turnaround looks like. They should be making money. Right. Gaming meant gaming gen should make money by running this event a 4. They're a for profit organization or whatever so they need to make some money because we want them to keep running the events and get better at running the events and they have gotten better. So it's one of those things to keep in mind that it is they're trying to make money and they should be able to make money from running the events. Now it Lowe's faster quotes started. The Lowe's pro desk got a materialist handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a free photo. Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on Lowes.com right from the Lowe's pro desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Well, with worlds coming up, Azul for many of our listeners perhaps it will be their first time competing at the World Championships. Maybe it'll be your first time just going attending the world Championships. I think most of our conversation here will kind of cater mostly to Competitors specifically. But even if you're just going to Whatnot as a spectator, perhaps you can glean some information here. I mean, I guess for Azul, I mean, is this your first time going as a spectator to Worlds? Have you always gone as a competitor? Previously, no. 1. The first year in DC, I didn't have my World's Invite, so that one I played in the Last Chance qualifier. I guess so I competed in that. But, Yu-Gi-Oh I'd have my invite that year. But besides, didn't get there on the lcq. No, no. I think I lost the first round, if I remember correctly. Was it like, play until you're eliminated thing? Yu-Gi-Oh And then they took the top exit amount of undefeateds or something like that? Yu-Gi-Oh it was the best of one. I don't even remember. This one's pretty egregious. But I Wonder, it was 2014. Were we still playing best of one? No, it was my sort of three at that point. I think it was best of three. Three. Yu-Gi-Oh But Yu-Gi-Oh it was like basically one-of-one until you're eliminated. So if you lost the match, you were just out. You were done. Do you remember what you played? Yu-Gi-Oh just big basics. Right. You. Lander is right. You. The deck that one-of-one Nationals. Yu-Gi-Oh I didn't have garbage in there now. Or the. I know. Yu-Gi-Oh Or I didn't have all. I don't think I played the Driftloon. I don't remember. I know Ross played Driftloon at NATS that year and I think he played at Worlds as well. I think he got like top 16 at Worlds or something. Something like that. Big basics with the drift balloon. Drift blim, Drift balloon, whatever. Bam. So, Yu-Gi-Oh I've gone as a. As a participant, non competitor before. I guess this will be different for you, though, because you're going like, as a creator. So you're gonna. Yu-Gi-Oh Do a. That's like a different experience in and of itself as well, right? Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. You're gonna get like wind and dined a little bit, you know? Yu-Gi-Oh maybe a bit. Yu-Gi-Oh For anyone who's unaware, I am going to World still as a partner content creator. So shout out to Pokemon for that opportunity. I'll be doing some meet and greets at the event as well on Saturday and Sunday, which they're listed on this. The Pokemon schedule page right now for Worlds, but they don't have times tied to them yet, but I assume those will be added eventually on that page would be my guess, but. So if you're interested in meeting me at Worlds, I will be doing Those meet and greets on Saturday and Sunday. Also be around the venue I'm sure at some points. But you'll know where I'll be for two specific times throughout the the weekend. I'll be there for sure on Saturday and Sunday. But Yu-Gi-Oh some of the tips we were going to give for first time worlds competitors. One thing that I always say to people because for you know, many people if their first time they may not qualify again in the future, right. This could be your like one World Championships. You know, some people maybe they had time this year to qualify compete, may not have that time in the future, whatever's going on right in life. So definitely just as a little cliche but like enjoy the experience, take it in. You've worked hard to get the qualification right so try to not let that pass you by. I also always tell people to play every single round, even if you start one in three, one and four, whatever. You can't make it into day two anymore. Just keep playing. You've made it that far, there will be people there for you to play. People do play out the entire event regardless of record. So try to just see it all the way through is what I would say for sure. I played it out at my first worlds. It was only six rounds of day one. You only had to one-of-one four rounds as well to make it today. Two, I only one-of-one two rounds unfortunately. But I did play all of my six rounds. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh it's definitely worth the, worth playing it out especially if it's your first time. I mean I guess if you're in really bad spirits after like getting knocked out of like furthering your tournament run, maybe it's understandable. But I think like I think you, Yu-Gi-Oh most people would probably regret not playing out the last couple rounds. I guess maybe that keeps in the moment. It will probably feel bad and you might have a hard time just kind of locking like just even worrying about your games. But also like maybe there's something to enjoy in playing those games when you get to those moments of like you know, just have a. And you, you don't have to have as much stress on yourself in those games because they don't mean as much. Right? Yu-Gi-Oh You actually bringing up that. I don't fully remember how the world's formats were of past but at least like post covet up until like last season, like you bring it up that you only need to like whatever go four and two to get to day two. Like a lot of worlds formats, especially during like the, a lot of worlds for Instance used to be pretty gimmicky, to be honest. But like the, the way the way Worlds is played now is like, like ics, I think used to be most ICS used to be harder to one-of-one than Worlds for a lot of years. Now we're on, now we're on track where it's like we're basically playing the same format at worlds as ICs and you're just getting the best of the best. So like it's harder to one-of-one Worlds than it is ICs now. But like, like, like, like even the year that I got top four worlds, like that Worlds format was like. I don't want to say like Mickey, but it was like more gimmicky than like playing. There was a gajillion people. In day one, you were automatically qualified for day two, so you didn't even have to play in day one. And then in day two, I had to go like five one, one. Like Yu-Gi-Oh it was a big league cup. Yu-Gi-Oh pretty competitive league cup. But like winning like I feel like winning Naic was harder than winning that tournament. When I one-of-one Naic, I only got top four at that world. Like top four in that world was easier than, than winning Naic. So you just had to play less games, right? So you face less matches. Even though the competitors are stronger. Yu-Gi-Oh even though the competitors are stronger. It doesn't make up for the amount of matches you have to one-of-one Winning the matches is harder than, than beating the, the level of player you had to play against for sure. So I was just like, Yu-Gi-Oh you bring that up. Like I, I talked about that on my stream recently. Like talking about like, I don't. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't fully remember like the pre Covid worlds, all those formats and then before like pre2016, 2017, what all those worlds looked like. But like the first two to three worlds post Covid, the format of those worlds was definitely. I don't know, Mickey is maybe the best way to say it. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh it's not like to that extreme, but Yu-Gi-Oh the Worlds has gotten like. The format we have now is definitely the most competitive. Worlds has been for, for a large chunk of world championships for sure. But I think it was always weird. The format was always weird because there's so. There's so few players at Worlds compared to like the big nationals and ICs and stuff like that. But I think now the system is like in a really good spot. Just a off tangent based on you saying that bringing up your previous experience. Another point we have Here is. Don't be distracted by the fanfare. There's a lot of stuff going on at Worlds, way more than any regionals, way more than even ICs. Worlds is like the biggest production, the biggest event of the year by far. It's not even close. There's going to be a gajillion things to see, a gajillion things to do, but while you're still alive in the tournament, while you still have a chance to make it into day two, make it into top cut, make it in to the next round. Right. Try to not let. Not be worried about, oh, I could go do an artist signing tomorrow. Don't worry about the artist signing tomorrow. Worry about trying to play in day two tomorrow. Yu-Gi-Oh I think so. I think, like, the. For there's a lot of things you can do and see, but if you're. If you're competing, I think you'd regret not giving it your all and being focused as possible. Even though I know, like, especially in. It might be a little bit different now, though. Like, it's. I know in years past, like, not last season, but the season before that, when you just had to earn like 500 championship points to get Worlds in my. That was the goal for a lot of people and a lot of people. And it was, like, fine for that to be the goal a lot of people didn't really care about. They didn't care, but they didn't. The goal was to get to the world, to get to Worlds. Winning Worlds wasn't really the goal for a lot of people during those seasons, which was fine. Right? That was the system we were in. The system now has changed, though. Like the whole season you're competing against everyone else for one of those top 125 spots. I feel like the mentality of players going into Worlds for. For the better. I think they definitely made the game less toxic. We've talked about that multiple times. Yu-Gi-Oh I think the people who show up to play in the tournament now, like, the goal is to, like, do the best that they can. So I think in years past, the mentality was a little bit different, but I feel like people are on, like, give a little bit more. I don't know what is the word I'm looking for? Cutthroat. Not cutthroat, but, like, I don't. Competitive, locked in, stuff like that. But Yu-Gi-Oh definitely try and make that. I would. I'd say you probably regret it if you don't, like, continue having that mentality for. Throughout the. Throughout the competition. Don't worry. The Azul GG meet and greet is definitely not gonna fill up, so you'll be able to get in still on Sunday. You don't gotta. Yu-Gi-Oh there'll be. There'll be space on Sunday. So, Yu-Gi-Oh don't be distracted by the fanfare. But also at the same time, trying to enjoy it. It's kind of, like, hard. Those are two things to try to balance. Because all the different unique stuff at Worlds is part of what makes Worlds so unique now. It's changed a lot. Just even in the last, like, three years. Like, three years ago, they weren't bringing in all these artists and panels and, like, doing all these. Like, a lot of that programming stuff has changed a lot just recently. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, now it is Pokemon XP and Pokemon Worlds right now. Now it is like this bigger event. Well, I don't know if they're doing this every year, I guess. Have they even talked about that? Or is this like a. There was something that was posted at some point that said during some po. It talks about Pokemon xp, like, being at some world championship. So I don't know if it's going to be every year or what. Honestly, like, I mean, I guess we'll have to see fully what. They have everything going on here, but so far it's felt. I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh we'll have to just see what the event is. So far, I feel like Pokemon xp, I haven't seen enough people talking about that and what that's bringing to the event or what that event is outside of the World Championships. Like, what is. Like, I feel like I haven't seen as much, like, talk about that. I mean, obviously I feel like it's good that the competitions and Worlds are, like, the bigger thing, but, like, how is Pokemon XP like, elevating this event that other Worlds didn't have previously? I guess I've kind of, like, missed that in terms of, like, what it's supposed to be. Obviously, I'll probably figure out more of what that is when we actually go to the event in a couple weeks and experience it all and see it all and be in the mix and everything. But, Yu-Gi-Oh I feel like just. It hasn't been like. I just don't understand what the difference is this year now that it's called Pokemon XP and Pokemon Worlds instead of just Pokemon Worlds. Maybe it's just like a little bit more of everything. Yu-Gi-Oh I almost wonder if it's kind of like just a naming change to, like, kind of try to. Because, like, Worlds was becoming a lot more about the stuff than it was about the competition. It felt like in the last couple years, if they're not running this alongside Worlds every year, then it's going to be like Worlds is still going to go back to just kind of what it was before this year. Right. In terms of like all the other stuff around it, they're still going to probably want to have a big event that's outside of the competitions. Right. Things to do outside the competition. Because like all this kind of stuff they had with like the panels and like guest people, they had all this stuff at Worlds previously, right. None of this is like, there's maybe more this year. Yu-Gi-Oh But I, I kind of had, maybe I just had higher expectations for what Pokemon XP was going to be. But of course the event hasn't happened yet, so I guess I'll truly have my, my take. Well, if you're looking for all the different things to do, you can find the daily schedule which has a bunch of the programming stuff that's happening. And like, I think some of these you do have like, some of this is like just general stuff happening. Collect and trade. Right. That happens at every Pokemon tournament. But I mean, one thing I saw a lot of people post about, create your own clay Pokemon with Yukimori. That's pretty cool, right? Yu-Gi-Oh One of the like most well known Pokemon artists getting to kind of be a part of like a workshop maybe. Yu-Gi-Oh we'll lead a workshop where participants can make their very own clay. Ditto model. So I think you have to like sign up for the interest list for this stuff as well, which just went live this week. So make sure you get on to those interest lists if there's some of the stuff you want to do. Now I will also say, right, like the whole point of this, like whole bullet point is like not being distracted by the fanfare. So like, I think it's good to like look at some of this stuff. Maybe try to find something you'd like to do on Saturday or Sunday. Right. But like approach the day Friday being like, I'm not, I'm gonna miss my appointment. You know, like you, you like worry about competing first and then if you don't get there, you still got stuff to do. I don't know. Yu-Gi-Oh I will say you did say the interest list opens up this week, but actually closed this week. Open until open until Monday. Yu-Gi-Oh everything's closed. But I'm sure everyone who like, hopefully if you had anything you wanted to sign up for, you would have already been able. You already signed up for it don't worry. There will be spots at the Azul Gigi meet and greet. I will be there. Yu-Gi-Oh So Yu-Gi-Oh a lot to do. Lots to see if you're competing though. Focus on competing. Yu-Gi-Oh I think like, like you're saying, I think a lot of people probably have that mentality. Like I said, just the shift in how you earn your invite I think has like the people who earn their invite now are just going to be more competitive, more locked in, more trying to give it their all just based on the system to get there to get your world's invite. You know, it's going to naturally 10 lead towards those kind of people making it and getting their word invite and being playing here at San Francisco. The goal is to try and do your best at the world championships. Whereas previously it did feel like sometimes the goal was just to earn your world championship invite, which is, like I said, is fine for the times. Times have changed though. I think a new breed of competitors are going to be who we see showing up at the world championships. So how Azul do you think players should be approaching these last couple of weeks? Right. We're three and a half weeks away from the tournament. When should they lock in their deck? When should they lock in their 60? Should they approach this preparation these last couple weeks different than they've approached the preparation before for regionals or ICs. What do you think now it Lowe's faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo. Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote. Quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on lowe's.com right from the Lowe's Pro desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. I mean, you probably should have locked in your deck at this point already. Maybe you're like gonna pick the deck between like two different decks this week or something like that. And you really shouldn't. You should always be like trying to evolve your process and make it better and more. What's the word I'm looking for your Process should always try and be refined. But like I was looking for the specific word of like making it more time efficient, your process more efficient. I don't know, I think I'm looking for a better word. There's a better word out there but I can't think of what is it? What it is. You should always be trying to refine your process, making it better. But like you probably shouldn't do anything too drastically different going to the Worlds than like I've, I've had. I've heard some people have some takes like for the bigger tournaments like the ICs or Worlds. You should play like a riskier deck because you're going to be up against better competition. So you should play a deck that like has higher variants. So like if you just get lucky, well you just one-of-one Worlds because you got really lucky. I just don't think that really exists. Like I, I just don't think that it's gonna ever work out in your favor that way. Like you don't think you did more than 50 on your crimomatics at your top four run. Got a little lucky? I don't think so. All my wins were pretty easy to be honest. Like I don't know, it's just like donking people. So like I went to game three against one-of-one and then I donked his slacking ex. So it's like I did. I don't. I one-of-one a lot of games on like turn one with at that Worlds. I mean he's pretty good at that though, right? Turn one attack knockout. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So I would say and what we're talking about process, don't change it. Yu-Gi-Oh I, I like people have like I've had that talks with players in the past where it's like their, their thought process is like just play. It's world championships. Everyone's really, really good. The only way you can separate yourself is being luckier than them. So just play like a high roll deck. I just like, I think it's a bad mentality. I just don't also just don't think the numbers work ever out in your favor in that way. You should just play a deck, good deck. They've been that you can become that you're going to be comfortable with gonna be played well with it on the day of the tournament. And obviously you could do that with a quote unquote high roll deck. But I don't even. I just don't think that really exists in the Pokemon TCC to that level where gonna end up winning Worlds because You got or crushing Hammerheads in a row. I mean, if you're playing Hammer Pole, it's not a bad play. But I don't know, Crushing Hammers and Raging Bolts for whatever catcher. Raging Blue Ice probably not a good play, even though you could hit a lot of heads on Pokemon catchers. Right. So, Yu-Gi-Oh just kind of do. Do what you did to get you there to Worlds and just kind of repeat it. Always be improving the process. But, like, there shouldn't be some major mindset or practice change. But just because it's the World Championships, you're still prepping and practicing for a Pokemon tournament. And then the last bullet point we have here is to not be scared to call a judge or. Which is true for every tournament, but specifically for Worlds as well. If you're having a hard time communicating with your opponent because they are from a different country and you do not speak the same language, do not be afraid to raise your hand and ask for a translator, because they have translators for every single spoken language at the World Championships available for that specific reason. Yu-Gi-Oh Don't be intimidated by, you know, just the fact of the language barrier or don't feel like under more pressure or something like that to like, not call it. Because the World Championships are going to be just like. It's just going to be like more stressful, more intense situations, whatever called. But still call a judge. Can't read one of your opponent's card. They're playing some obscure card. You don't exactly know how it works. Get a translator involved. It's quick, it's easy. That's why the judges are there. That's why they have translators for every language that's present at World. So Yu-Gi-Oh don't feel. And we say that a lot in general for just even major tournaments, especially for newer players. But in this setting, it's. There's other reasons to call a judge, and there normally is. Or there's more reasons if you do not recognize a card college and ask for a translation. Yu-Gi-Oh dude, but I. It's so funny that you say it like that because, like, I have stories of, like, me playing, like, some more obscure card. My opponent picks it up, like, reads it both. It's, you know, it's North American region. We both speak English. Read English. And then they play into the card one-of-one And it's just like, it doesn't even matter if you have a translator. And sometimes a translator might not save you if you're just gonna play into the card. I had a buddy one time at a league Cup. I don't remember. I may have told the story on the podcast before, but it was during the sun and moon time frame. He was playing Buzz Rock, Buzzwole, GX Lichen Rock gx. And his opponent benched a circuitry gx and he Beckett it up. Reddit used bloodthirsty eyes and tried to attack with it with a Pokemon that had a strong energy on it. We were like, what were you reading on the card? That was. He's like, I was scared of the GX attack. That's the only thing he read. You don't know what the rest of the card does, but you just don't read it. Basic Pokemon with an ability. No, I don't need to read that, you know. Yu-Gi-Oh So for those who are uninitiated on these cards, the circuitry did not take any damage because the Pokemon he tried to attack with had a special energy and it has an ability that prevents that. So, Yu-Gi-Oh make sure you. Yu-Gi-Oh so if. Read your opponent's cards if you can. And if you can't, call a translator. Yu-Gi-Oh exactly. Exactly. Definitely. Always a move. Always be aware of what your opponent's cars can and then don't forget what they do immediately after that. Remember what they do. That's it. Any other tips, Azul, that we don't have written down? I guess maybe try not to. Like we talked about, like I just said, it's gonna be a more stressful situation, there's gonna be more pressure. But like, try not to like put. I mean, it's hard. It's like hard to say and like hard to do. Try not to put that pressure on yourself, that stress on yourself. Actually, this is something I've been talking about a lot recently and I just, I don't know, watch a segment in or. It was an interview with like an esports player and they were talking about like, this is something I've been talking. I admit, like when people like ask me for like more advanced tips or like things they can do, I think, I think like some kind of like meditation, breathing technique, something like that to do in between rounds to like re center yourself and re level yourself would be like a really good thing to do. And I forget there's some. Some interview with like an esports player recently. I don't know if it was CS Go or Call of Duty or something, but they talked about like they have like a performance coach and like that's one thing they applied to their gameplay recently was just before each map breathing technique level themselves, you know, start at Neutral and then get into the game. Something like that. So I don't know. Something like that. If you, if you find some. If you. If you're someone who finds yourself constantly being like stressed out and pressured between rounds of a tournament, I think, like, looking into something like that could be very beneficial. If you're someone who, you know, high anxiety or something like that. And the world championship is going to just be that much more. Yu-Gi-Oh You know, you've been to majors in the past, but Worlds is bigger, it's brighter. So I don't know, maybe something. Look into something like that. If that's your experience. Just like trying to reset going into the next round. Whether you made a mistake or you got unlucky or whatever it might be, or it's just a lot to take in going into the next round of the tournament after the previous round you just played looking at some kind of breathing techniques, some kind of yoga, zen type stuff to resetting yourself between each. Between rounds would be beneficial. All right, well, from there, Zul, we can roll into guess that flavor text where each week you or I picks a card for the other host to read and then tries to or Pixa card to read the flavor text to the other host and has the other host try to guess which Pokemon is featured on that card. Would you keep score? Currently, Azul is in the lead still. How are you? I really don't feel like this is correct, but I guess it is. You're up 45 to 42. Yep. Three points ahead. And we are closing it by the end of the year. So I've got what, two more weeks, I guess. Yu-Gi-Oh We each have two more. This is it. Yu-Gi-Oh Down to the wire. We do have three lifelines that you can use. If you don't use any lifelines, you get four points. But then for each lifeline you use, you do lose one of those four points. The lifelines are what set the card is from what stage the card is. And read an attack name. And it is my turn this week to pick a card for Azul. And I've got it ready for you, buddy, if you are ready to hear it. I'm ready, Chip. It drives away opponents by excreting a sticky liquid that can dissolve anything. Its eyes devolved so it can't see anything. Read it again. It drives away opponents by excreting a sticky liquid that can dissolve anything. What's so funny, man? You're laughing this argument going because you're chuckling. That can dissolve anything. Its eyes devolved so it can't see anything. So I am actually aware of one Pokemon that you wouldn't think would be blind that doesn't have vision, but I don't think it's this Pokemon. What's that? Pokemon. But it could be. All right, we did it. One more time. It drives away opponents by excreting a sticky liquid that can dissolve anything. Its eyes develop devolved. Excuse me. So it can't see anything. But doesn't have eyes or. Yu-Gi-Oh it doesn't have eyes in it, so it doesn't have eyes. So it could be the Pokemon I'm thinking about. I don't think that Pokemon is excreting a sticky liquid. I mean, it sounds like it could be Goomy or Goodra, but those Pokemon have eyes. All right, I'm gonna need to use some lifelines here. Let's go with an attack name. Gentle Slap. Oh, harder now. Gentle Slap excretes a sticky liquid doesn't have eyes. All right, what set is the card from? I might just end up using all me. It is from Phantom Forces XY Phantom Forces. That's a Nightmarch set. It is the Night March set. Okay. And then. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess what stage is the card? Sounds like a basic or stage one. It is a stage one. Okay, so it's not. No, I don't think it's the Pokemon I'm thinking of. All right, read me the flavor text one more time. It drives away opponents by excreting a sticky liquid that can dissolve anything. Its eyes devolved, so it can't see anything. Dude, I have no idea now what this is. So it's like. I mean, it's like a sticky liquid. I mean, that dissolves anything. So it sounds like an acid. So some kind of poison type, obviously. Stage one. Gentle Slap on a stage one. Who is that? Now it's making me think that it has to be, like, some Pokemon with an ability to, like, make up for the fact that his attack is Gentle Slap. Oh, could it be Musharma? Us Sharma could not have eyes. I could see a de evolving. I don't see Musharma Discretion excreting a sticky liquid, but it fits the time frame, I think, as well. I'm going to go with Musharma. Lock it in. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't. I can't picture Musharma having eyes. So it could not have eyes. But Azul. It is not Musharna. You did have me a little nervous there, because it is Sligu. Oh, it is. It does have eyes, but there. But it is Gumi and Gudra. I was sweating. Yu-Gi-Oh but Gujarat has eyes, right? Okay. Does it not see you? I see in my head, I was thinking it does it not have eyes? There are eyes, but you just can't see then I guess. Or unless Goodra can see, but Sliggy can't. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess Sliggy can't. Brogumi looks like it has eyes as well, but we might also not be able to see. Yu-Gi-Oh I just like, I. I could in my head, I was like, well, they have eyes. It sounds like they don't have eyes. I knew I Goldin give you the gooey attack. Oh, wait, how is it where it says it's eyes devolved so it can't see anything? Yu-Gi-Oh I guess that means it still has eyes. It's not. Otherwise it would have been worded like. Or so it evolved and no longer has eyes. But it's. Yu-Gi-Oh So I guess I could have. I should have come to the conclusion that it could still have had eyes. In my head, I was like, like listening to it. I was assuming that it just doesn't have eyes. But I was like, I remember the whole. And I was worried too. Like a stage one with gentle slap that you didn't think about. You didn't verbalize at least saying, like, maybe it's something that can still evolve again, you know? Sure. Yu-Gi-Oh That would have been a good thought. Because he has a weaker attack. That makes sense. That would be. It would go from a stage one to a stage two for sure. Yu-Gi-Oh All right. Well, kind of close. I was on the right. I was worried too, because as I was thinking about, I was like, dang, bro. This Gujra was also played in the Ross's initial Shock Lock build. I don't know if you remember. I do not know. You don't remember. Why was it so that people Goldin put the tool on the garbage door? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh And then you could. He could Shock Lock lower it. Yu-Gi-Oh no, I do not remember. Yu-Gi-Oh dude. At that. It was at that Daytona regionals that everyone played Necrozma Garb the Tool Drop Garb deck or. No, no. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh it was. It was Dimension Valley. Garboder, you remember you beat Grant and top eight. Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It was at that tournament that Ross played Shock Lock for the first time. And I remember people walking around saying like, dude, there is some random Dragon Pokemon on Ross's bench. Like, what is it? What could this Pokemon be? And then I ended up doing that. I played Sam Chin in the last round. Who was playing Shockwock as well. Playing this deck was any good? Did you beat him? We ties. What were you playing? You were playing the carpenter. I was playing the charisma carb. Yu-Gi-Oh Or not. It was Dimension Valley garb. I don't remember if Necrozma was in that build or not. I think it was. Yu-Gi-Oh I think it was. Yu-Gi-Oh Because that's how you beat Turbo Dark Ray and then cleaned up. Yu-Gi-Oh I see the build here right now. It's got the Goodra 201 Gujra line. Yu-Gi-Oh Who Celebi. What does a Celebi do that. Well, that was how you used pickup. Oh, what the heck. Yu-Gi-Oh we eventually got the energy that allowed you. Oh, this build was so much worse. Yep. Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, my gosh. Yu-Gi-Oh I think. I think one of the. If I remember correctly, then one of the limiting factors of this build was just. It wasn't that consistent. Like, there's so many more factors involved. Yu-Gi-Oh it kept. It got better as time went on too, because, like, eventually Shining Celebi came out. Right. So you use Celeb X to use time recall, and then. Oh, all of a sudden there's not a. There's a non ex you can have on your bench that lets you reuse these attacks and then eventually memory energy comes out that you can. Yu-Gi-Oh Memory energy, I think is when it got that I got really good. But prior to that, it was a little bit iffy. This deck only costs $4,000. Now it. Faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo. Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on Lowes.com right from the Lowes Pro desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that. And loaves. Hear that? That's now crispy. And McCrispy strips meeting creamy Caesar sauce. Sounds extra crispy. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. It's got to be what the tropical beaches and the computer searches. What is it like costing? It's just tropical Pokemon. What are these worth? Solid G. What? Near mint or probably. I think this only goes by near mint prices. But, man, the Sligo. Yu-Gi-Oh I should have been able to get there, to be honest. And it makes sense. It makes sense too, as well. Everything else about it, I seem to get these Pikachu promos are also worth $80 or $20. It's because there's multiple of them. Oh, there's a different print of it that the optimal Pikachu in what's called why. Yu-Gi-Oh but it was only a promo. It looks like it was three different promo prints. Is that one better though? Does it matter? They're probably oh maybe 70 HP. Did all the other Pikachu's have 6? It has thunder. It has thunder wave. You can flip point of heads to paralyze. That's got to be the reason because you play lightning energy in this build. But once you get memory energy, it doesn't matter probably what Pikachu you have. There's probably like a call for family one that might be better. Yu-Gi-Oh I'm sure if there was an optimal basic. Ross played it in this deck, you know, like. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh definitely. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh Well, we talked about world first time competitors. Pitch Black has been out for a while now, right? Yu-Gi-Oh almost a month. Almost three weeks. Yu-Gi-Oh And Dragon Ball's still kind of the top dog, it feels like for sure. By a lot. Yu-Gi-Oh So there's been a lot of kind of discussion online just about how good Dragapult is just compared to everything else. Like the graphs from Pokebook. Like you know, it's S tier and then like 18 things are in here or whatever and there's nothing else in between except maybe another Dragapult variant or something like that. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean I. It's not. It's just kind of been a theme since rotation. Right. Dragapult has been the best deck, it's been the strongest card and not enough has changed to mix that up. So we are in this situation where it's like we're heading into Worlds and people are just like saying this is. Like I said a couple weeks ago, I wouldn't be surprised if Dragon Blue Ice 40 of the day one metagame. And I read the feel even more like that now than I did two weeks ago. I read part of the the preview here of Grant Manley's article on Poker beach and he says, personally I'm expecting upwards of 50 Dragapult at Worlds. And I think actually like the question came up in my chat the other day as well and someone was like, I think it'll be 50. What do you think? And I was like, I don't think it'll hit 50, but I wouldn't be surprised like if it is 50, it's like, Yu-Gi-Oh I guess like. But like it's. That's A lot. That is a lot. But at Worlds generally the meta gets more narrow. Like the best players gonna play the best decks, their process. Like one of the things is just like the better you get at the game, the better you get at identifying that. No, there probably isn't something to figure out with Mega Greninja or no Talks box just isn't good. Whereas like, you know, like the. When you like have a broader field, there's more people asking more questions about things, but there's like less questions to ask when you're. When your process is more refined and you're just focused on getting the best result possible. Right. Like you're going all in to try and just get the best result out of the tournament. And then you end up on stuff like what Drago was what percentage at Worlds two years ago and even last year it was, it was just like Goldin Go Dragon Pulse. Right. We're like the big three by a lot. I don't even remember what the fourth most popular deck was at that world. Maybe it was Grim Snarl or Zork at Worlds 24, day one. This is whenever we had the old system, I think still. Right. Or was this. Okay, so it's still okay. It was still only 24. Okay. There's some other stuff there. And then got up to 28. Honestly, those numbers felt. This was before. This was like Reggie Drago's coming out party. Like was this tournament. Like people knew heading into Worlds it was going to be good, but like, Yu-Gi-Oh we hadn't had a tournament in the format of Reggie Drago existing. True, true. That is true. Yu-Gi-Oh See, I guess I could see it being 50. It does seem like a lot though, looking at last year's Worlds Goldin Go 25, Dragapult 24. Yu-Gi-Oh that's back to back 20s. Like, it's insane. Like we just looked at the. It was like 50 of the metagame was two decks. Yu-Gi-Oh And one of them rotated and then this one rotated and this one rotated and this one rotated and this one is terrible. And now it's just Dragon Ball. Yu-Gi-Oh To take on all that percentage by themselves. Yu-Gi-Oh I mean, Yu-Gi-Oh like I said, I could see it being 50. If that's the case though, does it open up for a crystal for like a James Kowalski Lily's clefairy box deck? Right. Like, are those decks now real meta game plays? Yu-Gi-Oh it definitely does. I mean he's got to kind of run the numbers and be like, is it worth like how many people will go to that thought process? Though, because at the end of the day, it's like if it's only 50 of the meta, you don't one-of-one every time either. Right. We even saw James go to game three right in the. In the finals of Naic. And the first two games were pretty competitive, right? Like the third game, not as much, but the first two games are pretty competitive. Yu-Gi-Oh So you're not gonna one-of-one all the time. And then like, how much does your deck just like lose to a lot of the other stuff? The answer is like, you lose to a lot like that. James's deck specifically. I don't think you're beating Extra Drill. I don't think you're beating Festival Lead. Obviously you can. There's a lot of room in the deck to beat other things more often if you want to. You can kind of pick which matchups you tech for outside of the Dragon Ball matchup, but you're not gonna be able to get as wide of a matchup spread as Dragonfold has. I think you're not going to beat Dragon Ball 100 of the time either. So. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. It's gonna be interesting. I think we will see. We're gonna see a mix of everything. Like, we're gonna see a lot of Dragon Ball, it's gonna do very well, but we will see some hard counter decks go pretty deep for sure. And potentially we even see kind of maybe a repeat of Naic where we see a clefairy box or something like that. Take it all down. So at Naic it was all about Hammer, Dragapult, this Dragapult Dusknor, and then Blaziken kind of bringing it up from behind. But all of them had decent success. All of them in Top Cut, all of them in top 16 as well. But heading into this worlds, it feels like there's been a lot more discussion around Blaziken compared to the other builds. Why do you think that is and do you think that's just why? I know in the past you've disliked the Blaziken build a lot compared to the other Dragon Ball builds. Is that still true? I mean, I just like it because it has like the worst mirror match. I think. I think both the other ones are favored into Dragon Ball Blaziken like Pulp Hammers and Pult. No, I think just have an edge against Paul Blaziken. So that's like the reason I would. It's not by a lot. And like your matchup, your mirror match as Ball Blaziken is like fine. I think some of the driving factors for the popularity of Blaziken are definitely the new decks that came out of the set. Exadrill and Hide and Sneak or like Delmise more so. And both of those decks have kind of proven to not be like a new powerhouse. I don't think we expected either of them to be on Dragapult's level. I think that was one of the initial driving factors for wanting to play Dragon Ball. Blaziken was like, oh, it's favored against the new decks, or like, it handles the new decks the best. But if the new decks just aren't that good, then I. And I think what we've started to see is like, Blaziken is becoming less popular. People are gravitating more towards the builds that are better in the Mirror Match and come Worlds. It could be pretty close between all three, to be honest, in terms of popularity right now. Blaze against the front runner, I think, in popularity, but I think it's starting to shift back more towards hammer builds or even like cape builds. I've been running to some cape builds on Ladder recently. Kind of like the. Are you up there? One the. No, not right now. So, no, I don't have like any deep intel on like high ladder placements or high ladder players, what they're playing. Who one-of-one the European Regional though? Was it Mateus? It was Mateus. Right. But the European, Yu-Gi-Oh with the. The Dragon. Yu-Gi-Oh like. Like, builds like that. I've been. I've been running to some people playing builds like that where it's like, no Hammers, heroes, cape. So I guess you could say there's like four different ways to play the deck. Right. Although that one kind of aligns closest with just like the hammer, the straightforward hammer build. There's like pulled hammers, Straight Pulse, Paul Dust, nor Paul Blaziken. Straight Straight Pulp will be the least popular for sure. And then between the other three Blazkins, the most popular right now. But I could see it being pretty close, like each of them being like 10 or 12 of the metagame. At Worlds, roughly everyone has their. Their favorite and they're all good for their own reasons. So one-of-one Rob tweeted today, accepting Dragapult ex been defeated. He's given up anyways. Is this like a sentiment that you feel like we'll see from a lot of players? So it's just like Dragapult's just better than everything else by a pretty good margin. I'm just gonna play Dragapults. I think players like it's kind of interesting. There's like there's players who are kind of a little bit more flexible in there. I feel like one-of-one like a pretty like he's one of the best players and he's pretty flexible in like switching up decks right. Like we don't expect him to show up with Dragon Ball to every tournament. Right. But it's like the Hedricks, the new dwarfs like Henry Chow at this point like I think they're all gonna be playing Dragon Pulse I think but then there's gonna be that there's gonna be people like you know like Kowalski who just one-of-one asc. I don't think he'll be playing Dragon Balls right. But someone like one-of-one he's he. one-of-one gonna play what he thinks is the best play for the tournament. So I wouldn't be surprised to see him convert. And a lot of players who like are kind of in that, that mindset of like what can I figure out what I want like an edge in terms of my play. What do I think is gonna be the best play? I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of those players who try and find that edge converting to dragapults and then we'll see the people who are going to go all in on what do I think gives me the best chance of beating Dragon Ball but not just like losing to everything else. And I think we'll see players like toward fill that gap like I. I would predict toward will not play Dragon Ball that worlds. So I think some people are going to give up like one-of-one and people are probably more in the realm of like always trying to find the best play for a tournament. I think we'll some people see some players stay a little bit more hard headed and stick with trying to find an answer as opposed to giving up and playing poll. We're gonna do more talk about the other decks next week. But if you had to pick let's say to roll up to worlds with a non dragapult deck right now what do you think gives you the best shots? I don't know. I think there's a lot to still investigate with festival lead actually. Whose build was it recently? Who just one-of-one the Doom tournament? Frank. Frank one-of-one the Doom tournament with an interesting 2:2 Sea King build. And I've been thinking about like investing more into seeking in the Dragon Ball matchup Specifically it allows you to like I think there's like lines you can take with that where you can get psyduck reinvest invested in the deck and you could even like play a thick Arabska line. So that would be like the number one deck I'd be investigating further would be Festival Lead. But if I like had to just pick one right now without like doing that, I don't know, maybe I go the Kowalski route. Just play, play something like that. Like I wouldn't be like, obviously James is exact 60 from NAIC, but like Zebra anti dragapult deck. And then figure out what's most important to be besides that crust. I guess Crustle kind of fills that gap as well. Crustle like, but I get Crustle does like lose to the two new decks. Actually loses to like the three. Festival Lead isn't really a new deck, but it kind of feels like it is a new deck from Pitch Black. Like Gladiator did so much for that deck. So losing to like the big new three decks, Hide and Sneak, Exadrill and Festival Lead would be kind of tough to want to take that, take that path. And you never know which Pulp players are going to put the Chi you or whatever in the deck as well to beat you. So I think I would like lean towards something like a. Like the all out Blitzel Decker or maybe even Slow King. That's something I would play if I had to pick right now. And it wasn't Dragapult. Did you have anything that was on your mind? Ship or. I mean it's basically just like are you in the camp of like. I don't think that there's been tournaments before where you like in the past when Gardevoir was a bdif, people would say like I can, I'll lose to the bdif but I'll beat everything else. Yu-Gi-Oh And been okay with that. You can't do that for this, Cannot do that. Yu-Gi-Oh you've been able to do that for a while, but. And now the question is just like, should I play something that can just solo the BDIF and then lose to everything else or most. You could probably. We're getting closer to that than. That's like more acceptable. Yes. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh So that's why I would like lean towards that way of like a Slow King or something. Like, I mean Slow King isn't like bad against other stuff. Slow King is like actually a decently well rounded deck. But I think one of the biggest strengths of Slow King is it does seem to have like a favorite dragapult matchup. Can be a little bit iffy. Obviously there's like more play to it. But like Walsky's deck, you'd be feeling pretty confident against Dragon Pult, so I would. Yu-Gi-Oh And that. Those. Those like, do seem like you mentioned If Dragon Ball's 50 of the metagame and like, theoretically, as the tournament progresses, like, Dragon Ball will become almost even more likely to hit. It'll probably have like a positive one-of-one rate in the tournament or, you know, more likely to play against that as the tournament progresses. There's like, that going for you. But Yu-Gi-Oh it feels like there's not really a wrong answer in terms of like, which mindset to kind of pick though. That's like kind of the cool thing that's always existed in Pokemon. You can play the bdif. You can play an anti BDIF deck deck. You can try and find something in the middle. Like, I almost felt like for Naic, the. The deck that was kind of in the middle was like Zorark. It's like you are like favorite against Dragapults and you have like a decently wide range against other stuff, especially with like the tone builds that we saw from like Tord and Liam and stuff like that. So I felt like that deck was maybe that fit that niche of like the next best deck that can kind of do it. All behind Dragapult was like these tone builds of Zoroark. I don't know how much Zork will see at Worlds because it didn't feel like it's like that strong of a play. It wasn't anything like it was that stronger played nasc, but it was good. Is this. Does it still feel as good for Worlds? Now that has to deal with the extra drill and the festival leads and stuff like that. It's a little bit weaker, but once again, Blue Ice going to be more popular probably as well. So you saw that to lean on now it loads faster. Quotes started the Lowe's Pro desk got a materialist handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo. Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in store or on lowe's.com right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's. Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino Drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Like I said, we'll talk more about kind of other metagame things. We'll talk about Zoar, we'll talk about other slot boxy things. Rockets, Mewtwo, Crustle, all Slow King, all this stuff we'll talk about a little bit more next. Next week as we get closer to Worlds. And then I guess we'll probably do our tier list kind of early this year. We'll probably still do it the. We'll put it out the Monday before Worlds. I guess that's kind of what we've been doing, so we'll stick with that. But Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. It's seeming like it's gonna be a Dragapult filled world. It's seeming like Dragapult got a pretty good shot to take it all down. Yu-Gi-Oh I am gonna be. There will be some people coming up with some cool stuff though, I think. I think we're gonna see some players come up with some cool things as trying. Like they might be like one one off tournament decks. Like how good is like I don't think like James's deck isn't that good of a deck, right? It's very much. I don't even know how good that deck would run outside of Naic because I feel like Naic Dragon Blue Ice more concentrated than it was even at the regionals previous. Right. So it's like the deck overall is not that good. It was a really good play for Naic. Put a really good pilot behind it like James. The success is obviously there. We can see more decks like that at Worlds for sure where you're a little bit more all in on pulse and we're probably gonna see some people come with some cool answers for Dragapult and maybe the metagame in general, but they'll probably be like very much world specific decks. Like how good will they be past Worlds going into the next season? Probably not that strong for the first couple regionals that are going to still be in the same format but. But I think we will see some, some cool answers that players were able to come up with. So I'm excited to just kind of see it. I'm like, I'm making like people asking me tons of questions about Worlds in my chat and stuff. Like I'm not really trying to make too many predictions for Worlds. I'm just excited to kind of wait and see the competition itself and see how everything plays out. Because Yu-Gi-Oh I think there'll be some interesting stuff for sure. Maybe some interesting new builds of Dragon Ball. Like, maybe Dragon Ball could actually be cool. You know what I'm saying? Come up with. Okay, buddy. There's been some builds out there with Dark Bell, you know. That's a card. It's a new card. That's a new card. I don't know if it's cool with Dragapult, though. No, it's pretty uncool, actually. Every card that you can play in Dragon Ball makes, they're like, mind is pretty good. What if I could mind bend and Phantom dive at the same time? Yu-Gi-Oh that's actually how I felt about. Did we even talk about this card on the podcast? I don't even know if we talked about this card. The. The Ezumero or Azurill. Oh, no, we have. Yu-Gi-Oh that is a new card that's come out since last week's episode that we haven't talked about yet. Okay, maybe there was a couple cards that came out. Oh, because, like, Legendary Lava Lake. We didn't talk about that, did we? No, we haven't talked about that. Yu-Gi-Oh Okay. So there was a couple cars. I thought there was two. And then when we were talking about talking before, it sounded like we were. Yu-Gi-Oh there was a couple cards. But, like, I read this Azurill, and I was like, that's kind of a cool card. But I was like, that could be good in Dragapult. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't like this card anymore. They should. They should preemptively ban this card because you could play this card in Dragonfall. So, Yu-Gi-Oh whenever there's like a. It's the same thing with Dark Bell. It's like, I don't know if it's that good in Dragapult, but, like, if you saw it, if you played against a Dragon Ball with it in the deck, it's like, that's not terrible in there. Like, sure, maybe it's not optimal, but, like, any card that it feels like comes out where it's like, hey, this isn't terrible in Dragon Ball. It's like, man, should this card even exist? I don't know if this card should exist. Colorless Search or. Sorry, no. Energy cost Search deck for an energy card and attach it to one of your benched Pokemon. When was the last time I actually. This is so. Anyone. This is a baby Pokemon, and they usually, like, do baby Pokemon in waves. But when was the last time a baby Pokemon released? How many sets ago has it been since we got a baby? Oh, it's not that been that long. Because we had Tyrogue pretty recently. Right. Yu-Gi-Oh Tyrogue was a Mega Evolution base, I think. Yu-Gi-Oh Like, as like the first time it had come out. Yu-Gi-Oh Mega Evolution base. Was there any other ones? Like, the bonsai was in? Like, I was kind of surprised. Rivals. I was kind of surprised to see this because I was like, wait, weren't they done with babies? But I guess they're kind of just keeping them around a little bit. All the way back in Obsidian Flames. I don't mind them just having, like, these decent, like, early game support. Mostly early game support. Pokemon, although Badoo can find its moments throughout a game. Mid, early, late, doesn't really matter. This is probably gonna be more of a little bit of an early game. But it's nice to have something also that you can play that can kind of match instead of sitting there and being like two. I kill the bedou to get unfair stamped. Can you even KO because your item locked like, okay. As you Marrow, I'm start to load up my guys to respond to your dragapults. So it's probably. This is probably gonna be better balancing into dragapult giving deck something to do while they're just sitting there getting itchy pollen as opposed to not doing really anything. So it probably one-of-one Although I could see this being played in Dragon Ball. This actually doesn't seem terrible in Dragon Ball at all. Especially if you want to, like, respond to, like, some more aggressive strategies from your opponent. What else would this be good in? Just something that needs a lot of energy or, like, I don't know, could you ever fit this into Slow King or something like that? Because you've got those turns where it's like, after you ditch all your energy, you, like, are really far ahead in the Prizm trade. You don't really do anything those turns. Right. So you could just, like, go into this guy and juice a guy. We have smooshum still for the that, but you could be out energy at that point. It's also fine Boomerang energy, which is kind of cool. Well, I don't know if this translation is correct. I assume it is, but it says search for an energy card. I think it is energy. It is energy card. So that would be the reason. Right over Smoochum. Yu-Gi-Oh Get your boomerangs. Also, once you're out of basic energy, you can find telepathic still. Because that's a big reason that Smoochum's less played now. It feels like it's because the special energy are just so good. Right in Slow King. Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh You don't have as many targets, it's always going to clog up your bench later on and then be able to get value out of it later. Like, mid late game is basically impossible after you've used it once. But this you can still get value out of in the mid late game. But honestly, this does just kind of seem pretty good in Dragon Ball because the way you, like, set it up as well. So if you open a drippy, you just attach to a bench 3P, you're against a more aggressive deck. They knock out. You push Ezuro, and then you like load up like three Dracloaks with energy on your bench or something like that and just go wide with your energy so they can't really. And then from there, back to back, Dragon Ball attacks or something like that to close out the game. See it could see it. You want to talk about the stadium real quick while we're here? Yu-Gi-Oh Yu-Gi-Oh It's the other big card that got revealed since last Legendary Lava Lake. You do need both pieces in order to put it into play. What we got here, we got, oh, the classic showdown. Steelix and Heatmore. Yep. One for the ages. Evolution Pokemon in play, both yours and your opponents have no abilities. Yu-Gi-Oh So I don't. I feel like this is like, really targeting anything specific. I mean, you could argue Dracloak, but I actually think this is maybe going to be best played in Dragon Balls. Yu-Gi-Oh I did see that sentiment from someone. It's like, oh, Yu-Gi-Oh I can shut down your cloak. And then it's like you realize, oh, this is better than Watchtower. Yu-Gi-Oh But the best way to find it is actually with your cloak. So let's. The other way I could see this being played is in like, maybe like a cool tank Kangaskhan deck where you just like sit there with your first Kangasan. They draw three Prizm cards and go, okay, cool. Special red card, Legendary Lava. Like, second Kangasan, start swinging Kangaskhan decks. But also, this seems kind of good in Dragapult. Unfair stamp. Special red card, Legendary Lava. Like. And sure, you show off your own Dracloaks, but like, you also just unfair stamp your opponent and took away their abilities as well. A lot of the best abilities right now in the game are on basic Pokemon. So like, outside of Dracloak into Dunsparce, like, I mean, it's mostly basic Pokemon, right? It's like Pheasantipity, Kangaskhan, Latias, Petrons. Like, these are all basic Pokemon. Dork gets shut down. Yu-Gi-Oh it kind of sucks. Yu-Gi-Oh kind of sucks. Like cards like toxtricity are getting like caught in the crossfire of maybe this card's intended. Like I don't know what this is like really focusing down. Maybe it's just hopefully like I just hope this card is not good in dragapults. Like I hope that it doesn't become like one of its main uses. Like that's just where it becomes like annoying. But I could definitely see its best home being in dragapult. Maybe mirror matches get really weird and like you're both just kind of sitting there being like, well if I attack first, I'm gonna get unfair Stamp Legendary lava lakes. The our own engine. Is that the guy's name? Aaron Engine in Dragon Pulse possible. Gotta find the stadium. Well, I don't know. You see enough cards. You probably don't need that to find your lava lakes, to be honest. So Yu-Gi-Oh you probably just. I was gonna like set up your crispins or whatever because you're not getting judged. Yu-Gi-Oh I don't know. I guess I just kind of have like a little bit of like ptsd. Like whenever I see a card come out, it's just like you could play this in Dragon Ball and just the idea of that is just like bro, can we hopefully it's just not good in Dragon Ball. But like I thought about it and I was like this does not see like depending what the rest of the meta game looks like, obviously if it's evolution based. I do feel like a big part of these legendary stadiums though because they're so cost inefficient in terms of the space they have to take up and just actually drawing into them and getting them in play. I don't think they'll be very good constants in a meta game. You'll have to like find moments at major tournaments to take advantage of playing these cards. It's like, oh, no one's playing stadiums right now. Legendary Summit is just broken, right? Or it's like, oh, evolutions are creeping up on the rise by a lot. I can adjust this list to actually play Legendary Lava Lake or something like that. Because as soon as like a deck, like a top deck starts playing these, everyone's just gonna be like, okay, I'm just gonna put like an extra stadium in my deck. And it's just like I just don't care that you play this card anymore or something like that. So Yu-Gi-Oh or actually chi and pow as well. Right? Chi and pow just gets rid of this thing. I forgot about that does do that. Yu-Gi-Oh it Only discards one half of it. That would be funny if that's how that works. The other half just sticks in. Sticks in play. And then you could just play one half to three. You have to pull out your stadium card from the sleeve and rip it in half to replace the other half. Or people would go. That's when people start pointing a 3:1 line. They run one of 1/2 and three of the other half. And then you have to guess as the chi and pow player which one they run one of. So they can't just immediately replace. It becomes like a whole mind game. A meta in a meta in a meta. I'm waiting for that decklist error where someone submits three one split on accident on Arcanine by clicking too fast or something. Yu-Gi-Oh Oh, especially like writing it down. That's when I could see it happening for sure. Someone like so this like writes four of one of them or something. Or they write two of two of each, but they put the same number for both or something. Yu-Gi-Oh it'll happen for sure. Someone's gonna get bodied. So you don't write. Wait, actually that's interesting. How do you write this on a decklist? Because you don't write the. Oh true. You don't write set numbers. You don't write the number for the cards. So do you write four Legendary Lava Lake? Yu-Gi-Oh that's what you would do, right? You probably have to specify on the decklist, like you just have to write 2 and 2 and then put the number next to next to it for like locals and cups and challenges and stuff like that. Interesting. It's a good question. All right, buddy, you got any other thoughts or anything before we get out of here to our bonus Obsidian, no. Yu-Gi-Oh we'll dive a little bit deeper in the future on the metagame, but Yu-Gi-Oh send us out. Well, thanks a bunch as always to everyone for listening. A good bit of rambling this episode, but I feel like there's some ramble enjoyers out there for sure. Especially the the intro talking about movies and stuff. But Yu-Gi-Oh if you enjoyed be sure to leave us a like a review rating comment. Subscribe those things help us out a bunch. Let us know you're enjoying the podcast and want to see more. Also helps more people to discover it as well. If you want to stay up to date with the podcast and also myself and Azul, the best place to do it is over on X. You can follow myself at Chip Richie Azul at Azul GG and you can follow the podcast at uncommonergy Yu-Gi-Oh Appreciate the support, as always. And we'll talk to you all next Wednesday, 7am Eastern.