Roy: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And we're broadcasting here fr from the heart of Texas. This is Lorcana League Night with Christopher: Christopher. Roy: And Roy. Today's topics we'll be covering today is the previous European championships, recent changes they made to the tournament structure, and also supporting local game stores. So let's go ahead and start off with the meat and potatoes of the European Championships. looks like here from the top of it, we'll cover the top four decks though. So first place winning Amber Embril Aggro, Eleanor, aka the formerly dogs but now not dogs. Emerald Steel, which is which was in the top seven, if I remember correctly, in the North American championships. The new bad boy on the scene, which is the the House of Mouse, aka Mickey and Min Mini Combo, and in fourth place, your const your constant pain in your rear, which is mid range Yurpal. Christopher: Which is surprising because that won last time during the NAC championships, and here it is at a measly fourth. And the craziest part is that wasn't the most significant deck in the entire tournament. So what is Roy: Yeah. Christopher: your read on the fact that once again we have a top four, which last time three Green Steels and then Europol w winning at on top, and we See one Green Steel, one Europol, one deck we've never seen before, and a deck that came from last time we saw it was months ago. And some L CQs and now it here it is winning a EU championship. What's going on here, Roy? I'm confused. Roy: don't be confused. it's called evolution. If you know anything about evolution, when something doesn't work for for the deck that's constantly beating everything and and it gets thrown to the s wayside though, it evolves. As I see here, it runs the standard fare of like your light drops and such though. But surprisingly enough, I think this time around, there's one copy of Mushu. So there's there's that that trigger that draws you cards. And above everything else, a new A new card that I've actually kind of curious about, which is Mickey Mouse Expedition. four ink, two three, two quest. This character has to play exerted, while this character exerted win one of your other characters' quests. Chosen opposing characters get negative two power until your next turn. So I think this is the one of the turnaround cards that makes trading a little bit better against those mid mid range decks. Christopher: It's an interesting replacement because we were seeing a lot of this type of aggro style, but instead Pocahontas. so that way no one is allowed to challenge. the fact that this Mickey Mouse is doing something similar to that, but and also the deck is more toys focused versus princess focused. Do we think that this is just an ish the a fact that either possible solution is valid and you can go with plan A, plan B, aggro has a lot of viability in different directions depending on its matchup. If it can really dodge possibly what do you think the matchup here is that that it was able to avoid in order to to allow it to win out. Roy: I think to be perfectly honest, Agra is a great deck by itself. But I think the number one deck that it ran into or doesn't want to run into is the the Mickey Mouse deck, which actually was showing up significantly. But looking at the stats over here, it looks like it only made it into the top four. But I think they didn't match up against each other though in the finals. So that's that's my assumption because the finals were Amber, Emerald, and Emerald Steel. Christopher: So two things I want to highlight in terms of the meta of this tournament. First off, of the top eight decks, there were seven unique decks. This is unheard of in most games. I I I can't think of a Hearthstone tournament. you have to bring three decks, one deck's banned, and of those three decks, everyone is carrying if the even a person is an aggro player, the and like the deck that's super powerful is control. The y you know, they bring the deck, whatever the deck is, and and every single deck list has at least one copy of someone else's deck. I know we're only bringing one deck here, but still with such a wide field, we're we have a crazy variety. Roy: Yeah. It's one of the things I love seeing, especially in major terms like this, though. Because you can you could basically win with I think deck in this format, in this current meta, though. It is almost perfect. Except that you're saying this the same four instead of the same eight, though. But that's just split in hairs at this point. I welcome this as far as like a a very not only top four, but a top eight as well. If we go all the way down to top eight, purple Purple Ruby and songs and retro were actually in that top eight as well, which is amazing to me. So one hundred percent I'm I'm for a meta that is actually this diverse and this exciting. Christopher: Now, what would you say to the people who and and these are mostly like the top end players who are saying this more than anything, that's saying that they actually hate this meta more than any other meta, which is I think super crazy, but still, what what what would you what what would you think about their stance on that? Roy: I know what their stance is basically because they can't they can't predict it. Players like that on the top end, they want to be able to pr predict everything on the dot and just be thorough with it. They don't like to leave anything to the chance whatsoever. Christopher: And I think that's an interesting counter argument. Because you're you're right. They they they see there's this one other other element of skill, which is this deck building, that hey, I know what I'm going to be placing fighting against. So if I build my you know, I can show my skill to edge out my win rate by including certain cards that help me win more. and I can see that argument because at this highest level of play, these people are being able to show off that yes, I know the ins and outs of the game. Now they play for so long, you know, even the top players will make mistakes now and then. But for the most part, like we see nearly perfect gameplay, very consistent, very strong gameplay, and then the variations of, hey, I just brought this one tool that was hoping to give me this edge and this one matchup, and I expect to draw it, which which would win. On the flip side, they're having to really like, okay, I can't specialize my deck in that way. I I don't know what I'm gonna see. No one was expecting House of Mouse to return. And the fact that the second element thing I was going bring up, one fourth of the tournament was House of Mouse. It was flooding the tournament. No one was expecting it. And I think that we see that, wow, this is a very, very refreshing tool that it's it's funny because top players would just make fun of us as like, well, this is a deck for a five-year-old. Any idiot could play this deck, and yet You know, why are they not bringing it if it's such a good deck, such an easy deck to to play and it's still winning? It look at it. Look at it it's in the top four. What do you think there? Roy: I I think I agree with you a hundred percent. They can't they can't edge out people likewise though. Like I see this in poker players too, because they like to keep, you know, betting in a certain pattern or not presenting their tells whatsoever on and you gotta understand top players of this caliber, they enjoy consistency to the max. If I could win with this deck for the next eight tournaments though, that should be able to pay for everything. So I understand there's a there's a monetary incentive to win these tournaments though, but at the same time you have to understand. Elements of luck need to be applied so that everybody has a chance. And that's what everybody just wants at this point. Christopher: London is coming up this upcoming weekend and what do you think? What do you think you're gonna see from what we saw in Europe? are we going to expect to see a counter to our current thing? Is Kevin going to be the winner for for Europe now? are we going to see it absolutely turned up its side its head and it's going to go back to Europal once more just to to flip it around? What what is heading it for the meta, if you could guess? Roy: This point If we're going in an agro mid-range pattern, so aggro wins, mid-range wins, aggro wins, mid-range wins, they're kinda like duking it out. I think a control deck might actually take it. Like a brand new control deck. Maybe the one that I'm run running right now, because I'm starting to see it creep up as far as they now officially named the archetype that I'm playing Princess Control, which is you run princesses, you ramp up, clear the board, and then you follow up with whatever finisher that you want. Namely I've been running the version that runs the black cauldron, so that way when I sweep up everything I could basically just pop him out of the ground left and right. Christopher: gives you that good cycle back. What are you seeing as the counter to that deck? Because right now we've seen that there is no deck that can win every single matchup. what is your weakest matchup with that deck? Roy: Well, with my personal ramp control deck, the weakest matchup is aggro. That's why that's what gets pushes a lot of it down. If I don't meet any aggro decks whatsoever, then I'm good to go for the tournament. In the previous set of championships, I ran across two aggro decks and one tribal deck, dealing with the the Floodborne or Divine Lane, such like that. But I remember that matchup, he just he just stopped me two zero. And the first one was against House of Mouse and th they were playing like a Avro aggro heavy version of it though and just slam you know a five questing shift that's constantly putting me on a four turn clock or three turn clock sometimes though depending on that so but a lot of lessons I learned so I've adjusted my deck accordingly to deal with aggro of that caliber but I'm also moving towards other control decks that might actually have better tools. Namely retro retro evolution device Christopher: Well, I think you kinda called out, you know, the fact that you're you you even saw House of Mouse in your last tournament, so this isn't super new and there are variations with aggro, to bring the listeners up, what makes House of Mouse such an unfortunate deck for to play against? So imagine this conundrum. Turn one, you know, they play a one drop, turn two, they play, you know, a normal two drop, they exert their one drop and then they shift in a seven drop card that w if you were to remove it, they're now ramped up to five ink. Next turn they'll be at six. And they can Roy: Yeah. Yep. Christopher: play a five-five war that quests for three or a six six war that quests for two on turn three. What are you going Roy: Yep. Yep. Christopher: to do with that? Or suppose, okay, you know what? That's a lot of ramping. I can't deal with that. Well, you leave it, it quests for five. Let's talk Roy: Yeah. Christopher: about the amazing counters for for what you have there. Okay, so best case scenario: Iago. On your turn two, you went first, you played your Iago, and you ran it into the house of mouse. You lost a character, they ramped to five, and maybe you had a one drop there that, you know, will wisps, and now you have Put down three, and here comes your mighty three drop to face that field. And your deck for an Iago, which will be a Yerpil deck, they're not gonna be the strongest things. Okay, that's fine. Aggro decks. Let's go for the aggro theory. Let's say say, you know what? I can outrun this deck as fast as I can. You're playing play Princess Aggro, which Roy: huh. Christopher: I'm going to put down my one drop. I'm going to put down my two more one drops on turn two. Okay, I'm going to be quest room for three. Sure, they're going to quest for five next turn. Okay, now I'm going to put down my four drop on turn three. Alright. Well, they're questing for five. And I'm questing for three again. And then they quest for five again. Okay, they're at fifteen. They're putting down more things, you know, possibly getting ready to shift down another Mickey. what am I gonna be doing? and now that they're running Todd and Yeah, if they r run Tob, you know, another counter that you could see out of the retro evolutionary device, Cherno Dogs, they might put in they would intentionally might put in like a Milo Thatch. So that way when they when you banish their Mickey Mouse and put that into their deck, they pop out their Milo thatch, discard a card, and just bounce your Mickey your your Chernobyl back into your hand, and it's like, Whoop, you just lost your evolution chain. So there's not a lot of great counter plays because each counter plays instead of giving a solution it just puts you into another problem. My favorite Roy: Yeah. Christopher: mouse house deck that I've been running lately is heavy aggro we have Eleanor we have queen it goes super wide super fast you stop ramping at generally at three and then you know what you either dealing with a mouse house and then allowing me shift in At three, I usually get my Mickeys in, that gives me more lore, and my upper cost is usually pretty much just four. And then you have to deal with a very wide board, so I can outpace you. And you're spending a lot of resources to drop all take care of a five-five that costs me one card from hand. That's great. It's Roy: Well here Christopher: super powerful. Roy: Yeah. Here's here's also a solution that I've actually discovered though. Playing the new Retro Evolution deck. Retro Evolution device comes on turn three. So the number one card that I believe that will actually decimate that that house of mouse is Chernobyl. Because you're not destroying it. Or you you're not banishing it though. You're sending it back to the the middle of your deck. And if I remember correctly, the other cards go in there as well, if they're connected to Christopher: Yes, yes it will. Roy: Yeah, so Turnabox seems to be the the premium. but there's the limiting factor. It's not inkable, it's a five drop, that's why evolutionary device, you could step three to five and then s go from five to seven and start controlling the board that way. Christopher: Yeah. There there there is a couple of counterplays and that's where Todd comes in. because people have been putting in and what Todd does is a it's a one two that when you play it, you look at your top c draw two cards, discard one. And they intentionally discard a heavy hitter if they're running into a evolutionary deck. whether it's Milo, whether it it's Willard, Wilfrid, the big elephant, that's a six six quest for two. so that way if you you know, okay, fine, you you hit me with a churnobog, I'll counter. And I'll put that turnobog back in your hand. And not only did you lose your turn of, you also lost your evolutionary chain. Which puts evol Roy: Yeah. Christopher: I mean it the the deck has some really, really, really, really good counters. My version, my pure aggro version, you're absolutely right. That that churnabog would would put me in a very tough situation. I have no counter for that to that pure aggro, but there are Roy: Yeah. Christopher: a lot of There's a lot of flavor. And and kind of I guess what we're talking about is the fact that we are seeing how balanced the cards are against each other. You can go in a lot of different directions. You have like, okay, if I draw right and I get the cards that I that I use to counter it, I'm gonna be set. I've never seen you draw Scared Sightless against an aggro deck with your princess control deck, but I've seen you draw it in other times. But man, if you could Roy: the card's name is Spooky Sight. Yep. Christopher: Spooky Sight, right, right. Spooky sight. if you can if you could ever get Spooky Sight out and just be able to wipe out, you know, all those that one two one one one drop on turn, you know, I c think you can usually do it on turn three or four at least. Roy: Yeah. Christopher: yeah, that th that that's in the game. like it they they they will slowly trickle in stuff. They don't have enough draw in order to to really keep keep going and is it spooky sight of three or less cost or three or less stroke? Roy: Three or less cost. Christopher: Yeah, so that even hits their three their three drops too. So yeah, that Roy: A lot of people forget that, yeah. Christopher: gets a huge tempo swing and sure you ramp them, but against aggro jacks, who cares? They're the aggro their problem is card draw, not the strength of their their their individual cards. Roy: there there's also one more though, but that's in the Princess Control deck. World's Greatest Criminal Mind is a three c three ink. So that could take care of the the combo right there. Christopher: It's true. You you loot it's the same problem with the Ago though. that it comes out out one turn l later. But the funny thing is it is an instant. so you or it is a song, so you can you can play it instantly and and sing it out. So you could sing Roy: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christopher: it, lose a card, but it's at at that point, I think I honestly think that the best counter for it is maybe Mother knows best. It's to put put it back in your hand. Put that thing backward. Roy: Interesting. Okay. And just making well yeah, that's the sign Mother knows best. That's hilarious. Christopher: yeah. Anyways. That is that is my my I love the fact that House of Mouse has come back. it is a deck I've been playing around with a bit, and I think it's a super super powerful deck that people have I thought we're sleeping on. I I I play the Roy: No. Christopher: aggro version just because everyone's just kept talking about this deck's so bad. No, no, th this card's never gonna be useful, and here it is. I I think it's gonna win London, honestly. I think people are going to start figuring out how to win those edge cases and and really tempo it up and it's a great deck for stamina because your decision is play biggest thing, make them sweat. Play biggest thing, make them sweat. It's the hard question is, do you ink or not? And that's Roy: Yeah. Christopher: that's a great problem to have. Roy: Yeah, I I got a couple of tools inside of Retro Evolution device. namely Sven, Tauran. Tarran is a five five rush though, so you immediately take care of that. And I'm going to try the Elsa package in there. So Christopher: You have to, because it's gonna exert other characters. the awarded Roy: huh. Christopher: characters, it's the only way for you to be able to because I don't think you're choosing them. I think it just exerts their their their characters and I I only have to select it. if that's so, then like yeah, that that gives a great way for you to just start ramping up and and tempoing removing characters without and if it if it doesn't, there's still some good targets. Roy: Spirit and Winter it it it actually says when you play this character exert up to two chosen characters. So that's targeting right there. So sorry. Sorry to bust your bubble. Christopher: yeah. Okay. Roy: But I got other ways around it though. You know, in a worst case scenario I'll just do malicious meaning scary prince, Prince Philip and just, you know, be done with it. So it's a Christopher: Maybe I need to let you borrow my demonos, because let me tell you that that that that's I think House of Mouse is going to be here to stay for a while and you'll need that AoE targeting that that it provides. Roy: Damona's posting at forty dollars right now though. Like and the Christopher: I was so glad to get a full play set for I think I only paid twenty five back when I got my Dimonas. Roy: Yeah, but it's like no, d this has everything what you want in a card. It refills your hand. It it basically exerts all their characters so that, you know, you could start running running people into them and it's just like, it's it's too much in one card. It's definitely a forty dollar card though. I wouldn't say it's better than Dumbo as far as like, you know, cost and everything though, but it's like a it's an automatically like a, you know, banish on site right there. Christopher: Are we being presumptuous by just discounting aggro again? Agro just what? And here we are talking about we care about Europal, we care about other control decks, we care about house and mouse. Is is princess toys something we should really also be focusing on? Like, all right, we need to make sure to come up with a solution for. Roy: No, as far as aggro goes though, there are certain matches that it does favor and there's other matchups that it does though. It either is or is is not though. So it's that it's that tree in the forest. You know, either either you benefit from it or you don't benefit from running into it, depending on what you are. Christopher: Does retro evolutionary device have a lot of tools? I can malicious mean takes but it's a turn five for it to come down, and that's a lot of questing. They'll be easily at fifteen sixteen sometimes. So and Roy: All control yeah. It's it's a known fact that all control decks, regardless of whatever configuration or combo that they use, though, will have difficulties dealing with aggro. But the reason why that that in this entire game that they have issues with is that we don't have a version of lightning bolt. We don't guide a simple one cost, deal three damage. If we did that, too powerful. That would be like a rare twenty dollar card though, and everybody would be running it in those colors specifically. That's why they never made the lightning bolt. They made lightning bolt with stipulations, which was just terror that flaps in the night. But that's the only closest thing you ever get to a lightning bolt. Lightning bolt, in my opinion, is probably the most perfect card ever constructed as far as dealing with multiple things though. Either it'll end somebody's game or it'll end somebody's character, and that's it at a certain point in the game. For one. One one resource. Christopher: There are one there's one deck I can think of that consistently runs He Hurled his Lightning Bolt, which can do a great job of removing some of the Eleanors, some of the more problematic characters, because most of them are four health, except for that one Woody, which I don't think that's actually the thing that's causing that deck to win. Roy: Right. Christopher: And that is robots. Is it the time for robots to come back? Roy: I would like to see robots show up and peek their head out though, especially with Demona in Chew, though, because they challenge great, they got great recovery, they're really good against aggro, and I think they just need a couple more tools, though. I mean, we always we always keep on beating this drum of next set, next, next set though. But it when it comes to tournament play, you gotta concentrate on the now though. But there needs to be more like tools to be anti-aggro, in my opinion, in order to. maybe bounce it out though, but then you run the risk of pushing aggro completely out of the meta, which is needed in order to bounce it out. Christopher: don't see any tools for robots though to take care of house and mouse. They have no five damage. It's four. They caps at four. All their most of the robots are four until like turn they they have the shift four six six robots. I mean, like that's Roy: Yeah. Christopher: also the second problem that robots have is against controls, because they're it's a mid-range deck. You run into control, Roy: Yeah. Christopher: you you just easily get hit with it all the anti control tools and you don't have the pacing. None of them are heavy questers, they just really challenge well out against aggro. Roy: I don't know, maybe we'll I keep on forgetting the name of this this this card that you you the source of divine. There's gotta Christopher: yes. Roy: be there has to be a place for that card. I've been trying to trying to put in different things though, but I think I might actually start building Kevin towards Source of Divine in order to shore up his weakness. Christopher: And and Kevin Source of the Vine deck, that's the same construction as Touchgrass, right? Roy: Basically. Christopher: Yeah, yeah. The touch the touch paradise and that because the number one thing that Touch Paradise has a problem with is aggro. I think Source of the Vine, especially since Touchgrass does a really good job of cheating out a lot of things. And normally if you do a full item control Kevin list You have, okay, I don't want any locations. you have just one location, the aggro Amberry location, and you try to get that Kevin out fast, and you know, use items to control and destroy. and then you you finish off with Kevin, but then you know, with the touchgrass, you you can move that Kevin to touch paradise, you have you get your three cards and you quest with your Kevin, put it back on top of your deck, so you can you know just consistently rush out a bunch of lore as well to really combo. Yeah, I just I guess Source of the Vine, since you could use Buzz's arm to get that out a lot quicker and a lot cheaper, might be the way Roy: Yep. Yep. Christopher: for you to slow down and use that to remove some of your aggro threats. Roy: Also, Green has a bunch of tools that reduces quest. So they could they could have they be like, Okay, well I'm just gonna run into the foot source of divine though. It's like, well, no, you're gonna be questing for zero, most of your little creatures. So you s trust Christopher: What was that? Trust in me that that does that where yeah. Roy: I love that card. I've been running two two them and it's great though, because if they they have no cre if they have no characters on the board and they're sitting on a couple cards in their hand waiting to wind up against you, just drop two cards out of the hand, which is perfect. Christopher: If I remember correctly, Source of the Vine, you multiple source of the Vine does not make someone have to pay more to protect themselves from remove from having to pay more so they they don't lose. It's so you pay one and if you have four source of the vine, then what ends up happening is if you don't pay that one, your opponent gets four lore. So it really makes you have to pay that one. But if you do pay that one per character, then they get zero lore. you don't have to pay four in order to stop each individual trigger of Source of the Vine. Or does it work per trigger? So you pay one to stop this trigger, then you have to p pay one to stop the next trigger, then one to stop the next trigger. Roy: Okay. So it reads here, siphon. Whenever an opposing character quests, you gain one lore unless their player pla pays one ink though. So you'd have to tax it. So I think it does stack. So if you have two of these out, then they have to pay two each each time. If I remember how that works. Yeah, but having two Christopher: That is vicious. Roy: Yeah, having two out is pretty devastating, though. And on top of that, you're gaining two lore every turn by just by a simple activation every single turn. So you're it has it has something within it that'll that'll help you race with lore. And then you could exert it for just just gaining one lore. So Christopher: When was it? it because there's the Stegosaurus that the I think the the item no items deck, I think it was a blue green no items deck, wasn't it? Where it was all about like you use your stegosaurus for ha hard removal, you had cracker jack for for cycling items. Roy: Yeah. Christopher: yeah, I think I think you could combine that with the Kevin deck. You do Source of the Vine, you use a lot of the Cheating Out, use Malice, Potion Potion of Malice. You still have the Stegosaur, you have your Kevin for Roy: huh. Christopher: removal. and the fact that you can draw three with touch grass is is really powerful. Maybe put a linear two in there too to keep cycling, t you know, touching gratuitous amounts of grass, might be a very, Roy: Yeah. Christopher: very powerful combination. That'd be interesting. Roy: Yeah, 'cause if you take out the ra yeah, you take out the raging storms and the other like amber color and you replace it with amethyst, you could basically take out battering rams, which is the weakest card in that deck, and then maybe make it a twelve amethyst and the rest green, because it's it's primarily a mono green deck with the splash or whatever. So I don't know. I'll be shopping it in my head and doing some theorycraft and doing some experiments online. But I I wanna lean on that idea a little bit going up against Agrove, 'cause that's the number one deck that it falls against though. You got three or four characters in a row and they're running after you and it's like, I wish I had two more buzz's arms so I just, you know, rage and storm on turn five or four. That'd be great. That's the dream. That's the secret to that deck though. once again I'll reiterate if you have three buzz's arms out, it does, and I'll remind everybody, there's a PSA. It does reduce the cost of actions. Remember that. It's not only for getting Christopher: Yes. Roy: items out. Christopher: Which, I mean again, also help makes your source of the vine a lot cheaper. So instead of it being four, you get that out as on turn three. So buzz arm, source of the vine, and then turn four, you know, maybe another buzz arm and another source of the vine. Whew, that makes someone put someone like, okay, you having to do two and I don't think there's AoE item removal right now, is there? there's Roy: there is sabotage. Christopher: that's Ruby, isn't it? Roy: No, that's that's that is green. That's a that's emerald. Christopher: Herald has a lot of flame tools. Okay, yeah. I don't Roy: Yeah, it's a it's a fun color. Christopher: Yeah, okay, okay. well that's Yeah, a lot of tournament options coming up. Maybe someone in London hears this podcast and we get to see it played out on stage and the top players get to Roy: Listen, Christopher: determine. Roy: listen, the more times I see Kevin, whether it be a top thirty two or top sixteen, I'm happy to see 'cause I'm just like, yeah, people are playing this deck and they're actually you know, comboing out though. So I'm always happy. I always refer to Underdog. Christopher: Maybe steel's not this wait, touch the sky has to be steel. Yeah. So we can't do Source of the Divine and Touch the Sky, unfortunately. Yeah, there's hopes. well. Well, what what have you been seeing with your Kevin deck, the the the Kevin deck that makes you really excited for it? Roy: Well, there was a couple of cards that are spoiled. I'm gonna mention and highlight right now and just say straight up though. Honey Lemon will fit in that deck though. She's green. she so when you when you get rid of one of your items though, you get an ink drop. So there's there's your ramp right there. And I think it happens whenever she comes into play and when she quests. So she's a active active recycler though. So I might see see the Stegosaurus pop up again so you can recycle and do it again and deal three and Just basically do that rotating thing. Thing where it just drops in, drops out, and then just control the board that way. Christopher: Yeah. And then all you need is well, even though you won't have Touch the Sky there, you would have the draw that you would need in order for all that recycling to pay off from touch the sky into Paradise Falls. So yeah, I could see Roy: Mm-hmm. Christopher: that being a really, really, really good comb fast combination too. Roy: Okay. And on that note, the next the next thing that we'd be covering right now is the changes to the tournament structure. So Chris, go ahead and take take point on this one as far as what are the highlights. Christopher: Yeah, so season three is coming up right after the World Championships. I personally am excited for it. I know that one of the other notes of season three is hey, they're adding a brand new tournament scene for young adults and smallers to join in, and I'm glad to see that, but also they changed up the tournament structure, so there's going to be a lot more Lorcana. There's a main event, which is now instead of two days, three days. where they have 4,000 invitees, a little bit more, but yeah, 4,000 invitees on day one, where they just, you know, play through its closed deck list, you never know what you're gonna run into. And then after that, the next day is a Swiss format. And for the Swiss format, they're going to be able to play out. It's not gonna be instantly you lose a game, you're gone home for the rest of the day, which could We see a lot of and I've heard a lot of frustration. Sometimes you just have a bad matchup and someone who who's really, really good just like gets just bounced out and they it would have been great to see him on the final day. And the final day is gonna be single elimination and then top eight, and then the top eight of course will get world invite. now that's great, awesome, fun to see. The second more exciting element to it is the fact that Infinity is also going to be a s a second event. now the they will not be able to get the Hades during this event. Only the top eight from the main tournament is going to be able to get the Hades. Infinities is just going to be a two-day event. something similar where they're gonna have the Swiss for the first day, and then they're going to be top eight for the second day. I believe First day is close decklist and second day is open deck list, but they might both be open decklist. there so which one fun thing, since now all main core tournaments are going to have a side infinity tournaments, you won't have the big gaps while we wait for one person to another person. They can double stream. So, like, you know, we're there's a break in the main event. if they offset the infinity a little bit, what could happen is we can then watch the infinity tournament in between. So we have this nice bouncing from one to the other and while probably a little bit bombarding, you'll be able to get a lot more Lorcana. The second thing that they could do, which would be also really exciting, is they could do dual streams. They could have a second channel just for infinite infinity content, and also for for kids events, while having their main channel cover the the main core tournament. So I'm really, really excited to be inundated with all the Lorcana going on. I know that you can't have everything nice. The big complaint I'm hearing is people have been trying to game placements where they may run into an opponent, and especially on day two, the w during when there was second elimination for day two, or sorry, one in elimination, you weren't getting eliminated for draws. So they would just agree to a draw with their opponent. and they people argued that this allowed certain players to bypass the intent and not show okay the best players are miss maybe at the top, it's people who are just kind of getting free buys effectively to get through, as other people who are playing best of one get get to go on to the next level. I think that that's a little overblown because of the fact that the first two days are shrinking the field enough by the term the third day comes through, it's really going to be the top of the top. There's going to be a lot of visibility on who's playing what. And we could have more earnest discussions over it. What do you think, Roy? Roy: I agree with you on the same part, but from the perspective of playing in tournaments, the reason why people actually do the the ties in in intentionally though, it's just to make the whole tournament run faster though. So how many tenants are gonna be at this this this tournament just on average though? Let's take a look at the numbers. Christopher: So the main event is going to have over four thousand players, the secondary event is thousand players. So it's gonna be five thousand players, four at one, one at one at the other. Roy: Okay. So when you have tournaments of that size, you're gonna it becomes a necessary evil in order to have people just basically say, we're gonna split or we're gonna tie or anything for that matter, just to make everything go faster, or else you're gonna be there for a total of 16 hours. It's crazy. If you do if you've done anything for sixteen hours straight, it is insane. It's it's mind boggling. And on top of everything else, it just causes so much fatigue. You want your players to play at the best possible. state of mind. And on top of that, it just lowers the chances of people just, you know, underst I I understand I understand from perspective of people, it's like, that's not fair. That's like free buys. It's like, well, you gotta you gotta understand one thing, when it comes to tournament structure though. Speed is king. So you you gotta get everything through and just be done with it whatsoever though. And if you're in a position that you're actually complaining about buys or people basically saying like, I tie for this, I tie for that though, then you you just have to have a better better record overall though. I mean, you're gonna have to do your best in the first three or four rounds and then that way you get that option. See, put yourself in that position and then you definitely want want to start moving things along. Christopher: I think that treating ties as losses hurt control players because control players are going to have a lot of situations, especially with the fact that it's not just highest lore wins. It's you have to actually like win the game within five turns. Roy: Yeah. Christopher: there's there's so many control decks that you know if the control deck runs into another control deck, you're you're end up going to be grinding against each other. It it's gonna be like, I I've only got a character to stick more than one turn and it's gone the turn after that. I only got a quest one time. Yeah. Roy: It it's brutal. I have actually had to wipe the board because of one character because it was that close. So I I feel it. Christopher: I personally am excited. one other interesting element is if you are in the main event, you can't go to the secondary event. And it could be the fact that the secondary there might be like two core events and then a third infinity event that's going on. the I did not directly see the presentation, unfortunately, which Ravenberger put out, but I did see like the red comments of the presentation. So I have to vicariously live through this information from From what I'm hearing. So either way, what do you think of the fact that if someone gets knocked out day one, they can't join day two? Roy: I'm sorry, you're you're playing at a professional level. you'll have to you'll have to accept the consequences of whatever outcomes come come come might be though. No mercy. No mercy, especially in the in the children's card game. Christopher: Yes, no, absolutely. No fun. We're here at ON Alright. Well, I guess that moves on to our last topic, which you know, we just participated in ourselves earlier today. it was one of our local game stores one-year anniversary, and we did our part in order to to join in that game store. And I think that supporting local game stores just super, super important. I got a pack there today. I'm I'm very excited to to open that today as a our cold one. so big shout out from that game store. I I I I know I've heard you constantly, you know, support local. We're we're only going to be able to play this game because of our local game stores. any thoughts around that? Roy: Yeah, other than the fact that you must have for your local game stores cause number one to give you a place to play though. But once again I'll reiterate, you gotta build a community. The community I saw today though, very, very great b great vibes in that place though. Very family oriented too. A lot of kids and a lot of adults coming out there. I seen like casual players and competitor players actually bring their their kids and I don't know. I ran into a couple competitive guys and they're actually getting their sons into the game though. So we might we might be seeing like if this game goes on for a very long time, we might see dynasties here pretty soon, which I'm excited about. Christopher: absolutely. And that's one of the things that I did is I actually helped out with teaching young ones on how to play. helped them through the we had the event officially was a pack rush, but they also had balloon animals, which I thought was great for like, you know, kids too young to play and also pizza. they didn't have cake Roy: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christopher: today. I I've in other events they th they brought cake, which I think's still really great and they had crafts too for, you know, if we just wanna go and Have some fun while your your sibling or your parent is is out there playing. And as someone who are a bit more versed in the game, you know, it I I'm always happy to go in there and help the younger ones say, like, this is how you play, Lorcana. This is this is how you do it. one trick I use for teaching is making sure both players play with the hands up. They they put the hands in front of them. The above that they put their ink and above that they put the actual cards which they can quest with. so that way it's it's again they're learning. they built some I've seen some fun and interesting decks. one with five Maui Hawks that were in a deck. And you know what? They they're learning. Not a tournament, and we're here to help teach them like, hey, you know, this is the the proper way to play, but I'm I'm glad that they it's important. to find what element of the game they love. And also, if you have the time, if you have the availability, go to your game store, help out new people every time. I I've I've heard a lot of people ask for help that that want to get in it that's we're just starting out as collectors and exp with all as much content that's being sold and p and IPs that's being added. I think that it's it's a great thing to, you know, be able to have hopefully more people not just come for the the family fun events, but also come down to League Knight because I think a League Knight is a good in between for getting ready for tournaments and then actually playing like somewhat seriously because there's a little bit of money at stake and you get, you know, hopefully a pack, maybe two packs, depending on the game store at the end of your league night to go, all right, I got there. I got my packs worth of League of of League Knight entry fee to go in and you know what? I learned a little bit, so Roy: Awesome. Well, on that note, let's go ahead and end the show with an just opening up a nice cold one though. So what do you got today for us, Chris? Christopher: I got an attack of the vine that I got at League Night today. And what about yourself? Yeah, another one. Roy: Well me too. All right. Christopher: Let's open these up. Roy: Okay. Christopher: I'll go first. Roy: Okay. I'll read out. And we got blue Sully. Bestie Assemble, love that card. OmniDroid. Christopher: I can take it a mouse. Roy: Yep. Gaston. Finally. Mother Gothel? Petrify. Morph? Christopher: Underrated card. I think it's great. Roy: Yeah. Yeah. Todd? Christopher: We were just talking about you. Roy: Yep. That is Rapunzel's Tower. Okay. Randall Boggs? Christopher: Fun card there. Roy: Fine part. Christopher: Not a good card, but it's still interesting. it's enchanted! Roy: Whoa. Christopher: That's so great! Roy: Yeah. Christopher: look at that, Miranda! I love it! Roy: Okay, that's fire. Christopher: Yeah All right. Roy: Which Merida is that? that's the one okay. The Wisp the Wisp? What is it? The Wisp. Christopher: It is the Wisp Conjurer. And she's really good too, Roy: Like what's p codger? Christopher: because it says this character may interplay exerted to draw a card during your turn when another character of yours interplays exerted, you may draw a card. which is like, you know, put you put some bodyguards with her. You can draw a lot of cards, a lot of great cycle, a lot of good ways to to really bulk up your your your s your board, so that's a good pull. Roy: Let's let's see that let's see that again. I wanna see that. Wow. Christopher: Yeah. Roy: That is gorgeous. Okay, let's see if I can beat that then. Christopher: All right. I'm excited. Roy: there we go. Okay, starting from the beginning. Let's go here. All right. Christopher: We got also a Sully. Wait a minute. Did you get my pack? Roy: Shh, that'd be funny. No. Christopher: some turning red characters. Pedril. Omnibot. Well again, I Roy: I'm on the trunk. Christopher: just drew that card. Yizma. Okay, we got some variety in here. Maleficent, a nice one drop to shift onto your bigger Maleficent. A potato. Okay. Roy: The potato Nice. Christopher: Tinker Bell. Nice. Pacha? Okay. Hopper, go Roy: Copper. Christopher: with my Todd. Ooh, Pocahontas. Nice. Roy: Hunt us And we got Hey via the park Christopher: Ooh, Violet Par, really good one. And the shiny of the day. Ooh, an epic. Nice. Roy: The hundred A hundred acre wood. Christopher: that's so good. Roy: That's that's going on my pood deck. Christopher: You know what? It hey and epics also really, really nice. Roy: Yeah. Christopher: You know, speaking of community support, I guess one thing we can do to support our community, we will set up a raffle. it'll probably be up by next podcast for this enchanted. So, if you want to win this enchanted, we will have the rules on our Discord. Join our Discord. Make sure to like and subscribe. Also, it'll be In our description, the link for our Discord. And if you have anything that you'd like to see us talk about, you can add it to the Discord. You can add in if you want to win this card in our show notes or it's sorry in our comment section. We would love to hear all the excited people who can get maybe their first enchanted in their cle collection. Roy: And in the comments below, especially on this episode, tell us how you're contributing to your local gaming store or how your local gaming store is contributing to you. Okay, well I think we solved League Night this week though, but other than that, I bid you ado, Chris. I'll see you again once again though. But above everything else though, please like and subscribe. Christopher: Like and subscribe. Thank you everyone for joining us this week.