Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

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What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, November 6th, 2024. Of course, I am your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined by Blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. Snowbike, Mike. Tim, sorry to interrupt your intro really quick, but I do need the panel's help right now. Okay. All right, I have a snorlax on the line here in this wonder pick.

One through five. I always like to go with number two, which is the top middle. I always go two and every single one. But I'm going to leave it up to the panel. How do we get the snorlack? I always go five. You go five. I always go five.

I go with where it was originally. I go one or four. I go with the original spot. I go one or four because I've never had one be in the original spot. So I go one or four. We got to believe in the card. We got two fives because it was in the five spot. You went with one or four.

Yeah, that's usually what I do. Wow. All right. I'm going to go with five for the boys here on the right hand side. Let's see what happens. Damn. We missed it. Now let's see who guessed right.

Was it Andy? Maybe it was in the two spot. We'll find out. You know, we're just, we're opening up cards. It was in the two spot. Two spot. Two spot, everybody. And of course, we also have Andy Cortez. Hello, welcome and everybody. Welcome. Welcome. What a day. What a day for me. We get to talk about Pokemon. And I love it.

And I'm not alone. It's not just me. Blavron and blabber and blather. And I have people to blabber too. It's not just a card game that Tim is the only one playing. I'm so excited about this. Earlier, Bless did bring up something very, very important about the cell phone game ads with Homelander in him. Yes. With Anthony Star. Which I didn't know. I thought I was the only one getting these things. So it was really comforting to know that other people are getting these ads.

Get them all the time. The funniest thing that I, the funniest observation I had about it was that they bring an Anthony Star and he said, all right, mate, you know, what do you want me to do on these on these ad, mate? And they're like, speak in your homelander accent. You're Anthony Star, but speak with your American homelander accent. And he was like, what the fuck? That is a good point.

They're like, no, no, no, like, everybody knows you for the American accent. Like, you already don't have the blonde hair in this ad. We need you to talk like Homelander for this ad. That's crazy. He's got a multressy accent. Hell, yeah. Come on. Oh, shit.

I'm not sure that I knew he was Australian. Yeah. I just assumed, you know what I mean? Every time we do in reviewer screencasts and stuff, like, Andy always is talking about the accents. Nick's talking shit about the accents. And I'm always like, I don't know about these accents. I just trust the. people.

And so, dude, it happens every single time. It's the British, like, in the Australians, I guess. But the Australians, usually I can tell. There's something about the Australians trying to do an American accent where I'm like, nah, you're Australian. You're not going to get me. Nah, you're not going to get me. They do such a great job because they were, they grew up with American media,

dominating their lives. We have so much to catch up on where, like, we barely had Harry Potter sort of hitting the, you know, hitting American media, right? But like, they grew up with all of the hits. So they're really, really damn good at doing American accents. Andy's a smart cookie. Yeah, they're listening to Beyonce and other Americans. Many other Americans.

All the American media they're out there watching and listening to. Oh, man. Let me tell you what, Tim. I just drowned myself in a lot of retail therapy last night. Yeah. I had a couple of, well, so I've been, here's something that, to sort of call back to a recent kind of funny podcast, where Tim was wondering, where are these unaccounted Andy hours?

Yeah, you weren't even on that episode. No, but I heard you from out there. That's when I was playing the PS5 Pro. And I heard these unaccounted Andy hours. And something I've been doing recently, I've been munching on some gummies. Them gummies that make you feel good. That kind of make you relaxed, you know.

And the first batch that I had bought, not very strong. they were like all right if you take two these you should feel really really really really good and I took two at one point I was like

nothing's hidden right now you know I took two again nothing's hit it no no no but like don't play that game something about that batch just like wasn't hidden about another one

and for whatever reason I was telling Roger this outside this was about like last week and I was recording a Dragon Age video for YouTube and I'm I get to the point I had already eaten the gummy right

and it hadn't like set in yet but I get to the point where it's time for me to create my Inquisitor. I already have my character created. I just imported it, right? And I was like, all right, YouTube, what I'm going to do is pause the recording right now. I'm going to create my Inquisitor.

I might unpause just to kind of show you the process. And it hit in that creation moment, Tim. And I swear to Christ, about 45 minutes in Tim, I just kind of realized, I find myself, like, I think I caught myself in the reflection of like my camera or something. And I was just like, and I looked at myself and I was like

oh my I'm recording a video wait so is there funny this? No there's no it was paused this whole time unfortunately but in that moment I'm like I can't go back to just recording this video I am way like I forgot everything that I was doing like I forgot I was making a video there's no way I could go back to just like

all right now we're back into the video again I'm just like fucking just like so whatever it is about this recent batch that I bought is like way stronger than what the last one was. Like two last times wasn't hidden and I know it's like oh maybe you gotta get easy no I'd been eating them for a while but like the two

whatever it is about this one really really hit. So the unaccounted hours to him last night were just some gummies. Mike invited me to play some Apex and some Halo Infinite where they brought back a bunch of classic stuff and I was like I'm going to eat some gummies. I'm going to work on this like Elbin Ring sweater or whatever

and I'm going to watch some Arcane and I'm going to buy some snacks and I'm just going to drown my feelings and eat my feelings away and holy cow, I forgot like how much you just want to eat whenever you're stoned because I like, I ate so much, I snack so much, Tim.

So many reduced fat cheeses. I love that the disaster. And I bought my first Pokemon cards. Physical. No, in here. In here, okay. No, no, no. In the video game.

That's where I was just like, that's my real tough. Because you're like retail therapy And I love that it just goes to gummies And a lot of stats It's like okay No no no no no Okay

And tomorrow I'm prepping for A League of Legends Valerant gun drop That I will be spending An in an inane amount of money for How much you spend it? Huh? What does that actually look like?

Oh we don't know yet But it's never Let's take it at 7999 to a buck 19 Shut the fuck up Tim you don't understand Valerant You don't understand When you get the combo

It's gonna be like five guns But you only want one That type of thing? Yeah, but it's still like not good. It's not good. I don't, I look. No, I get it. I'm part of the problem.

I know. You don't got to scold me. It's, I'm awful. You know, like, if I had to show you all how much I spent on Valorant, I would, you would have to pry that information out of me. I mean, without getting too, too, to legitimately, this gun that you're looking forward to, why do you want it? Is it just an aesthetic thing? So they're partnering. Arcane season two is coming out.

Okay. Yeah. And they'd had an arcane season one drop back in the day where they gave you. Jinxes like revolver pistol and it looks so fucking sick. And they're doing it again with, I believe, a vandal gun and the melee gauntlets that Vi uses. And I'm also rewatching season one on Blu-ray 4K and it looks so damn good. I'm just so back into it. But if I were to put an estimate on what the gun and what the gauntlets are, I'm going to assume $6999.

Wow. And is that for you? Is it a no-brainer purchase? Um, probably not the van, probably not the punching gauntlets. I'll probably just buy the gun and that's probably going to be a ridiculous amount. I'm not proud of it, 30 bucks.

Oh, so you can buy it like piece. Yeah, but you always like spend a little bit more at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Tim, right now the gun bundles that are out right now are like $80, $90. Mm-hmm. Whenever they do their champions bundle where it's like,

all right, here's the big end of the year tournament where all the teams, the best teams fight against each other, here's a $90 bundle. And it's always just really, really bad stuff. Mike, you're sitting here. You have a piece of paper and a ped. And you're writing notes down.

Is it about Pokemon or? It's about Pokemon. It's pretty wild that today is the one day on the podcast where we're like allowed to stare at our cell phones. Yeah. Because we're talking about Pokemon on the cell phone and it's exciting to me. Right. It's like I, Tim, am really blown away because, you know, we're going to talk about it. But I enjoyed Marvel Snap.

I had a good time with Marvel Snap. But I fell off very quickly on that. I didn't think I was going to buy into this. And then all I know is during the weekend, I gave up my entire weekend of this game. And I was lost in it. And I've been having so much fun. I've been staying up way too late. I've been,

I've been letting the computer battle for me in auto battles and just watching it happen. That's how into this game I am right now. So it's a good day of like, we're just talking Pokemon the car. Yeah, but what are you writing down? I'm just writing down some of the things in my mind. Okay, okay. I thought you were like scheming something. Well, I did write.

I did write, I did write, I did write where Zandie. I did write, where's Andy? Oh, he's eating special gummies, you know what I mean? Because we need to know. Where was Andy? Where's those are the unaccounted hours? You wrote all that down? He did, yeah.

Where's Andy? He's eating special gummies, and he also wrote Pokemon TCGP. Three genetic apex. He's also writing down kind of cutesy, though. I'm doing my best to be better at the handwriting. I'm trying my best. That's good for you. You know what I mean?

Yeah, you got to practice. His journal reads like something you'd find, like, Alan Wake. You know what I mean? Just like a video game collector. Yeah, yeah. This is not a real person. This is not a real person. Where's Andy?

He's eating special gummy. Pokemon TCGP, genetic apex. All right, everybody. This is the kind of funny games cast each and every day. We get together to talk about video games, previews, reviews, reviews, predictions, all of that, the big topics that you need to know about. But you already know that. If you wanted to support us going above and beyond, you need the kind of funny membership.

You get the shows ad-free. You can watch live as we record them, and you get a daily exclusive Gregway. Today's Gregway is all him breaking down his thoughts on how the election went. So you can check that. that out if you are a kind of funny member. Little housekeeping for you. Speaking to Greg, he's going to the Big Apple, New York City, where he is going to be at the limited run store with Kevin Smith, Jason Mews, and Jared Petty doing a fun little

meet and greet 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, so you should definitely go check him out there. You can RSVP at kind of funny.com slash n.C. And also, Greg wrote a whole little bit here that I didn't understand, but it was actually really impressive. So if you want to hear him sing it out loud, go check out kind of funny games daily. There was a whole song and dance that we haven't been doing less. I didn't know. I didn't know.

He's going to be mad at you. Oh, I know. Because he did tell you, you got to bring it. And you didn't bring it right at you. He brought it. There's no way that I can possibly. You have Andy here. Andy could have sang.

Here he comes. Yeah. I checked him for you. Greg, Greg's going to be happy for me because I checked it. Oh, my God. He's walking in so angry grabbing this mic. Roger's panic and trying to figure out how to turn it on. What is he?

Oh, man. The news. And he wants to be a part of it. And that's the limited run games in shop five hop up in New York City. Saturday, see in New York. A lot of people are very excited about this. A lot of people very excited about this. And I've been encouraged in everyone that brings it up in all of our live streams,

all of our shows of like, go out there. Greg is going to send it. Greg is going to be out there. he's going to be meeting and greet and he's going to give you the full Greg and it's like this is your chance go hang out with Greg have some fun it's a really good time this is a fun aside the amount of people who've been like oh man I can't believe you're coming to New York we you should go to this bar and do a meeting

greet I'm like no whole reason I'm coming to New York is doing mean greet the limited runs thing and they're all fucking day Saturday get your asses out there fuck kind of funny dot com slash N Y C C um style gym also asked Andy has that sour Skittles drink I'm excited to try it out And I also brought my original Skittles C4 energy drink to sort of like beyond brand. But Cool Greg texted me this morning. I was like, you're coming in a day?

Which I had a panic attack about because I didn't switch my car's clock. And I was like, oh my God, it's 1130. I'm supposed to be okay. And then I looked at my phone. I was, no, don't freak out. But Cool, Greg, bought me this as a gift. I'm excited to sort of mix and match with my. You're about to taste the rainbow today.

Me and Roger had those already. We had those during the Dead Rising Stream, me and Roger. Yeah, it was like, yeah, it's not good. Yeah, it was like that. After this, Greg's playing some Dragon Age to the Vale Guard. Thank you to our Patreon producer, Celaney 20 and Carl Jacobs, and blessing for being very patient as we get through the synchroses. It's been so long.

I just want to talk about Pokemon. Today we brought you by Thasmophobia. Better help, but we'll tell you about that later. Let's get into it. The topic of the show. Tots. Tots. Tots. Tocomon.

Tating card game pocket is taken over the world. Taking over kind of funny. I could not be more thrilled. build. When Marvel Snap dropped two years ago, I was obsessed and I had to peel myself away from it. It was taking over my life too much. I dedicated

hard, earned cash and time to that game for over a year and I had to back away Geotap Harris, excuse me, Giattoeathees, still to this day, plays every single day and night, multiple times a day she's playing Marvel Snap. She is in

she hasn't spent a single penny on the game, but she loves it. Is obsessed with it. When they announced that this game was happening in one of the Pokemon directs, I lost my shit. Bless I'm like, this looks like Marvel snap for Pokemon. Holy crap, they're going to get me. And here we are. I am gotten. But Bless, I want to let you off the bench. Talk to me about Pokemon trading card game pocket. I've told the story before, but sometime I think it was last week, I was having a conversation with Greg on KFTD. And I made the statement of, I'm pretty sure that my top 10 list for the year was already

And I might be the first person in the company that already has the locked in top 10 lists for 2024. And then the very next day, this game came out and prove me wrong. It is ridiculous how addicted I am to this game, how I think excited I am to like continue playing and opening packs and, you know, getting into the battles and doing all this stuff. I am similar to Mike in the sense that I played Marvel Snap. I really like Marvel Snap. I come back to Marvel Snap every now and then. But Pokemon TCG has its hooks in me in a very different way. way in a way that might be a little bit unhealthy because I think there's a little bit of

randomization slash that uh that gotcha that that gotcha that gateway into gambling that like you know we don't want to talk about what we'll talk about right like I'm into it to an extent where I'm like oh no they got my ass and I do not like playing games on my phone that much I do not like stuff that is super randomized I think that's part of the reason why I never let myself get too into Marvel snap is because like I don't like having to like earn things randomly and get cards that going to mess with the meta and going to like affect the way I play. Pokemon TCG is that. And I think it's the combination of it being Pokemon.

And so it's nostalgic. It is giving me the Pokemon card stuff that I liked as a kid, right? I'm seeing the same designs that I remember from being a kid. It is actually teaching me the card game, which I never learned how to play. And I know it's a dumb down version of the card game. But I really do like the rule set of this card game a lot, this dumb down version of it. I think it works for what it is. I think it's snappy.

I think it's quick enough for what it needs to be. It has some flaws. I think going first in the card, in the, in the battling is not good. Which is weird because I would say that the actual core Pokemon trading card game, like this is a dumb down version. Not significantly, though. Like there's some clear changes in terms of the numbers and in terms of some of the stuff. But like overall, it is the same rule set.

But playing the actual card game, going first is a major advantage. I don't know why they have it here. We're going second is clearly the better thing. Yeah, I roll heads on a on a coin flip at the beginning. And I'm like, fuck. Oh man, like I wish I was going second here because it's such a clear advantage. And so I hope they fix that. You know, there are things here and there in terms of the meta that I think, you know,

things are locked in very quickly on what the meta is right now. And I think that'll grow and evolve as new packs get released and all that. And I think that's just, I mean, it's Pokemon, right? That's the way that it, oh, of all of all I see we did there. How did you feel about realizing like, oh, fighting types have ground? I was very shocked by that. I mean, again, it brought me back to when I had had the cards as a kid. And I knew back then that it didn't make sense

because I think it was the same thing. Yeah, I remember people telling us during the Pokemon stream the rules, I was like, oh shit, I didn't know that's how the card worked. Yeah, because it's limited because like they don't, there has to be balanced for the card game, even a different type of balance than the actual game has. So they kind of break it down into like these Pokemon

are represented by groups that make sense that have the very clear rock paper scissors advantage against the others. But it is pretty interesting even where it's like, you know, it's not the game logic where fire, leaf, and water. it's not like water is it's not like Leif's

good against water electric is you know what I mean so like the you only get that one weakness which I think is it's interesting and you have to like you also have to read into every card because I was surprised when I was I was in a battle against a Maltris X and I was like oh I got a blast voice of course I'm going to take them out and then you click the card and you realize

that it's actually electric Pokemon because the flying type because the flying and so like there's things here and there where I'm like oh man all right you have to you have to think about this in a different way that you traditionally think about Pokemon which makes sense because it's a card game, different ruleset, all that stuff. We got to make these flying Pokemon a bit more grounded. Remember, Mike?

There's a lot to talk about here, so I'm excited as we get into this discussion. But right now, I'm having such a blast. It definitely has its flaws, though. And we're going to have to talk about those, too. But if I'm giving it a score, currently, I'm giving it an 8.5 out of 10 for me. Yeah. Snow, Michael, Michael, where you at? You are the card game poppy here at kind of funny.

I love a good card game, Tim, and it is impressive with how much I am enjoying this. I'm having a blast. Just like, Bless, I am in that 8 to 9 range. I think this is a great game. This is a lot of fun on my phone. And it's tough to get me the game on my phone, right? I think we've had multiple KFGDs where I'm always looking at Greg. Like, you know, he's bringing up Monster Hunter pocket on his game.

And I'm like, I just don't play anything on my phone. I'm not interested in that. I'm always at the desk we're playing games. And I need something to pull me off, like, what could be that phone game? And this is this. This is that. I spent all weekend with it. I really enjoy the collecting side of it.

I love opening packs. Of course, it's random. It's the loop box scenario. But like, it's fun. It reminds me of when we were opening packs all pandemic together, having a great time with that, buying Pokemon cards and hoping for the best. My flaws are it's a little slow.

I do wish it was a little snappier when it comes to battles. I wish it was a little more wow factor. I think the presentation of Marvel Snap was so high that when you play this, you're like, man, Pokemon, you could do a little bit better than that. Like elevate it just a little bit. We'll talk about the event today. but, you know, I just finished the event and there's like, so lackluster,

it's missing the pizzazz of, hey, you completed this. Here's the card that you should have earned. Congratulations. Like, it just wasn't there. So that was for me, like, you're just lacking on the presentation. When it comes to the battle,

I think it's so simplified and fun and easy to learn and jump on. And, of course, master if you want to get deeper into it. I love the collecting side of things. I love seeing my binder fill up if you want to create a binder or just your collection in general, scrolling and going, what do I got? What do I don't have? All in all, right now after the first week of

this, I love it. I can't get enough of it. And so, yeah, I'm right there with you, bless. I'll give it 8.5. 8.5. Awesome. Andy Cortez, are you as addicted as we are? Yeah, the addiction really kind of set in over the last 24 hours where I, I was, as you all were doing the kind of funny podcast, I had taken myself off of that podcast so I can kind of like, you know, play a little bit with the PS5 pro. and we were talking about Pokemon just in general. And one of my... Initially, I was like, I like collecting. I don't really care about battling.

I don't... I'm clearly not understanding the rules, right? I'm... Why can't I evolve this Pokemon? There's a lot of stuff that I just didn't understand. A lot of that's just like me not paying attention fully because you're on your phone. You might be doing other stuff.

But yesterday, when I really kind of got into the groove of battling, I started to enjoy it a lot, even more than I already was. Because at first, it's like, it's... It's hitting every sort of piece of your brain that makes Andy happy. It's fling, fling, sparkles, all this, everything that you could want. It's due into your brain. You're like, ah, you get that hit of serotonin and you just feel good about yourself. But the battling, I was like, I'm probably not going to worry about that portion of it.

I'll just be opening a pack a day or whatever. And once I started battling, once I kind of overheard blessing talking about creating your custom decks or whatever and having you make a fire deck and a normal deck or make it whatever, you know. I have so many decks. I hate that they limit us, but I'm also so happy they live at us. Dude, I'm so, I wanted to bring that up because the fact that they limit you at 15 decks, oh, I didn't know that. I'm at 11 right now and I'm like, fuck, dude, I need more than 15.

You're wild. I need more than 15 decks. I'm on the other side of like, give me some more rental decks. Give me a better way to rent decks and be able to play with the rental decks. I don't even know what rental decks do. I'm not even there yet, right? But I do, I do appreciate that level of customization. reminds you a lot of playing Queen's Blood

and making whatever sort of this deck is going to be the one that I use against this enemy and whatever. I think I'm still kind of hesitant on how does that meta transfer against wanting to play more seriously against other people?

It's set up really well for you, me, a beginner at the card game when you are going up against a fire type and it says, recommended water. And you're like, all right, cool. I mean, make a water deck. And all that stuff makes a lot more sense to me.

But I don't, it still feels to me like it would be a bit questionable when you hop into a game with other people and trying to figure out the best practices. Bless is already talking about like the meta cars that you should be using and stuff like that. And I feel like that's where it may kind of lose me. But maybe I still just stick around for these events where I'm playing against a computer and having a really good time. I want you guys to get there. And getting and also feeling really competent going up the. ladder because initially when I didn't really understand the rules and I'm losing, you know, beginner and intermediate matches, I'm like, ah, this isn't for me. But now at the point where

I'm winning like the most expert matches, like, oh, this feels good. I feel like I am outsmarting this. At first, I was just going to hit auto and let them play out, but I do enjoy the active aspect of, and the meta sort of achievements of whenever you're doing one of these computer matches and you see the meta achievements of don't lose a Pokemon. it's like oh cool okay that's gonna be that that adds in a lot of strata of i'm gonna pull this Pokemon put him back on the bench at the right moment hit him with that Sabrina card to then swap out that extremely op Pokemon with somebody weak on their bench i love it i'm really enjoying the strategy of it um i do agree with mike in some uh circumstances regarding the flare and the

sort of pizzazz of it all um i i love a lot of these animations i sent one through to assets i don't know if Roger can prep that whenever. But like opening a really sick-ass card is awesome and it feels cool. I still need this one. And when you get ones that are like the super special full card art. So cool. And they sort of do this crazy animation.

It's so awesome. And it's just like, oh, wow, you went above and beyond on this car. That's really dope. The Charzard X one is. Yeah. I've pulled this morning in front of Blets and Roger. And it was a moment. It was like, oh, shit, I did it, y'all. It's awesome. And there's also like, not only, there's a multitude do the ways to play, but the, um, I wish that sending the cards to the decks was a different,

uh, it feels weird and kind of redundant to see them added to your decks and then swipe up to add to your deck. It does until you no longer are getting new cards every five seconds. Oh, true. I was right there with you. I'm like, there's so many clicks that I don't need to be doing. But now that I have so many of the cards and there's so few left, it's nice to have that moment of like, wait, which one did I get and see it actually fill in?

Then I'm like, okay, so I think that going forward, that's actually a good feature, whereas I was with you that it's just kind of annoying in the early days when every time you're getting new cards. I do like the sort of tactile feel of whenever, when your Pokemon has a move and you flip a coin, it doesn't feel like an automated animation, even though you can kind of see the similarities in a lot of the different animations of this coin flipping, but it's still you like, With your thumb on the coin, you're not just hitting the button and it just tosses. Like, I like that sort of feel and it feels like I'm doing that.

I just wish everything else felt that way too, because it's obvious that whenever you open these cards, it's not tracing exactly where you're doing. It's giving you like three different animations. It's not tracing where your finger is, where you're cutting. Yeah. I wish that was like one to one. That's just like a tiny little nitpick. And the swiping of the cards up into the decks. Maybe I need to switch my phone to be, to tape, right now it's set to like where it's not doing 120.

hurts or whatever. It just doesn't look as smooth as it can be when I flip everything into my decks and that's another tiny little thing about presentation but I think they killed it in a lot of other areas as well. I'm having a great time with it. So far I'd give it an 8 out of 10. I think it's a great little product and a game that I was more than happy

to give $20 on my hard earned money to it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Sadness free last night. I'm absolutely loving this game. In terms of score I think I'd probably aired closer to like a 7-5 at this point but knowing that this is very early and I'm seeing the signs of

oh I think that this this could get up to being a 8.5 or even a 9 if they can continue to release new sets and like make more things matter I think clearly right now not having trades not having PVP battles actually get you any rewards I feel like those are two things that I'm like

once they add that stuff in I feel like there's a lot of room for growth but to give them credit where it's due now which I very much think it is they really focus on what works and they focused on knowing that they have entire generation of kids that played Pokemon cards or sorry collected Pokemon cards but didn't play Pokemon cards yeah yeah that's me and that's me and uh what are these energy cards so I don't know

the hell these things do and they work a little bit differently in this versus the the core game but um like in the core game you actually need to they're part of your deck and you like actually have to put the you have to draw the energy cards and then put them on otherwise where this it's like every turn you get the energy just to and you can't attack without same Everything else like that is the same. It's just you don't get the energy every turn. Like you need to draw energies for your deck.

And decks are not 20 cards. There are a lot more. There's part of me that feels like I would be way more into Pokemon Go if it was like this. Like if it was you're playing the game like normal instead of like the little just swiping your finger to do shit. Again, I haven't played Pokemon Go in about six years or whatever. But I would enjoy the, there's part of me that wants like this sort of augmented reality. I want more than just cards on the screen. I want, you know, in a similar way

when you just have your little Pokemon running around your camp in any of the recent games that have come out and you take a little screenshots of them and switch. I wish there was like part of that aspect to make it feel a bit more like personal. I don't know. I like that they focus on the cards in this,

that it is very much authentic version of the card game to the point that I think they do a really good job of onboarding people like us to learn how to play the game. And then I was similarly, I had the exact same journey you did, Andy. I want to collect them. I don't think I want to do this battle stuff.

Did a couple battles of mine. I still don't want to play this Pokemon car game. Like that's where I'm at. And almost immediately I was like, okay, now I'm in. And I feel like the way that the CPU battles, the event battles that you do as you go kind of from easy mode all the way to expert,

I think they did a really good job of getting the difficulty to make you feel like you're actually getting better as you go through. And then the strategy of the challenges, The strategy of the, I got to get through this whole thing without losing any Pokemon or I got to deal this much damage. It makes you think about the cards, the way that they want you to think about the cards

to get better about understanding how to play the game so that you get to the point now that I've done all these challenges or the majority of the challenges at least. And now I'm like, oh, I have my head wrapped around this game. Like, I can make a deck. I understand what I like and what I don't like and the strategies that play here. And I think that is very well done,

the onboarding process of them, like making the battles and all that. stuff matter to people that I feel might be against that stuff. How the hell am I supposed to be to star you without a four star like Pokemon? That's crazy. Dude, when star, if you see star me coming, man. Yeah. When star me comes in, I don't know. That's a strong card right there. Um, but yeah, it's like that type of stuff though, like coming up with the counters for that, like thinking of like, oh shit, when you see that building almost, you're like, what am I going to do here? I love it. Like, I'm in. I'm in just like bless it. It's insane how much I have fallen into the

battling stuff where I it was it was very interesting talking around the office and learn that I think most people here are like more into the collecting stuff and like building like you know finding all the different cards and unlocking the charzartex and doing all that stuff I think at the start for sure at the start for sure and like I think immediately pretty quickly I was like oh I want to battle and the loop of getting into battling while I'm doing like the solo stuff right against the CPU and doing the challenges and learning the different matchups of the different types and then jumping into online I probably done somewhere between like 60 70 online battles. And you get nothing from it, except fun. 15 XP. 15 XP if you win, which is nothing. But I am absolutely hooked on it because I'm in it for the love of the game. Like, that's the thing is, I'm at the point where I don't, I would love there was more XP. I don't go to fuck about the XP though. Like, I am in this for the love of the game.

Love of the game. I am like, I am all in on learning the meta. And, you know, I have a deck that is like the Mue 2X and a Gardivore deck that is like, probably one of the more popular ones, one of the more strong decks right now. right there's that there's the pachu x deck that's very powerful and then there's like charzart x that is also very powerful the idea of building these decks around like your key cards i think is really cool and it was a really cool learning experience to kind of understand that that is what this game is going for hey find like a few of your strongest cards and mold everything around

getting those cards to the surface and then have that be what what the thrust is of the battle i wish you got more to my little snap man dude i'd love it i mean i i do love normal snap right but i think this is just clicking more for me because it is almost way more simplified. I think Marvel Snap has a thing of, it has the locations, right? And the locations keep you on your toes and you can never guess where a battle is going to go. Whereas so much of Pokemon TCG Pocket is straight up, hey, here's like a five-minute match, right?

It can go longer, of course. But like, you know, it is a succinct thing where strategy is above all. And so, like, if you have a Articuno or whatever that you need to, like, get to the front, your deck is built around getting them to the front and figuring out. how to like get that win faster than your opponent. I think it's so fun. Like I'm in the process of trying to find decks that are going to go up against the Me Too X guard of war decks.

And like I feel so good about, you know, going into my card list being like, all right, I like what Arbach does as an ability where he can like, you know, trap people in and do 60 damage. I'm going to pair that because it's dark, so it does good against psychic. I'm going to pair that with my wiggly tough X that has like a very strong damage. Right. And like right now that's working for me in a way that is. so satisfying and that was just me being trying to be original right that was me building my own strategy around it and I'm looking through my cards and I'm like there's so much I can do I faced Mike the other

day with like a psychic thunder deck yes we had a lot of fun battling we had a lot of fun battling and I think the strategy here like the actual gameplay of the battles is so fun and for me has reinforced so much of the card collecting because now I am like oh I need a few more thunder or electric Pokemon totally I need that al-cazam or oh I need that EX version of this one right like each version and what move does that version do what did you laughing at? But the day where you guys were on the podcast, I just love a lot of the different sort of art, obviously, in this game,

and the full art cards and the different art styles that they play with. And I had gotten a really awesome Al-A-Zam, E-X, that full art, it looked fantastic, cool, real, real different-looking sort of art. And I was like, check this one out, bless, I just got this one. And he was like, oh, my God.

If I had an Al-A-A-A-A-Cazam E-X, it would fix everything. It's been, dude, it's been days. Such an honest statement. It's been days I've not gotten that Al-A-Zam. I love it. And it's, you got one, too? I got that Al-A-Zam. I have that, too.

That Al-A-Zam is a flashy car. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love the auto-build deck for you. Like, for me, I was big on the rental decks. I love that, like, you brought up, Tim. They do such a good job from a beginner all the way down to expert of kind of getting the training wheels on, you're moving, you're learning, you're reading the challenges going,

okay, how do I do that? And I love that they were like, hey, we have decks pre-built for you you that you can use up to 10 times. I love that. And then when I was ready to build my own deck, you know, I was like, okay, well, I got to pick 20 cards. What am I doing? I love that you can just auto pick grass types, auto pick psychic type. And just get right into the battle. There doesn't have to be, hey, I'm blessing and I'm going super deep into the strategy. We can just play. And then there's that next level where you go, hey, I'm going to read all. all these cards, I'm gonna really figure out what I want. I love that.

I think it happens naturally, though. Like doing the auto build of like, all right, cool, I'm going up against, you know, whatever, fucking grass. So I'm gonna use a fire deck and you build the fire deck. And the auto build one. And as you're playing it, you're like, man, I don't like half these cards. Yeah.

So then you go in, you change those out for cards you actually do want. And all of a sudden, it just starts unlocking new things. It's very satisfying. The balance, I think, is really good for this version of the game. Because for me, the balance really is, all right, I know that I need one or two EX cards. I know that I want to get like maybe the stage three evolution cards because those are going to be strong. But then you do need the cards that are the non-evolution chain ones, right?

Like the card, like a Hitmon chain, for example, that can just come out. Yeah, have that jab and be a powerful one and done card that I'm going to, you know, hopefully get, hopefully draw first. Boom, bust that out. Have that for a couple rounds while I power up some other cards and switch it out, you know, like. Or put out a big tank guy. Yeah, or put on a big tank. Like, let him take the hits. Like you build on the bench and then a lot of the back.

I love building on the bench. I've had so many battles feel like they're going back and forth. Again, for these battles that are not that long, right? It's not like I'm playing Yu-Gi-o out here. It's taking us like 20 minutes. These are like maybe five-minute matches where it is like it's coming down to the last move from me of, oh, this can go either way. Yeah, it feels it feels really good. One thing I want to talk about is the focus on collecting.

That's something that Marvel Snap doesn't have and was actually a big letdown for me, like, until the end, even until now. Like, I'm a collector. I'm a completionist when it comes to things. I like having them all. I've got to catch them all. They've been telling me that since I was eight years old, okay? And I like having the checklist of like, oh, I'm missing this one.

I really want this one, whatever. I feel like Marvel Snap very quickly, it became clear, oh, you're never going to have them all. Like, there's no way to have them all. And there's so many variants and so much out there. And eventually this game's going to get that way, too. I appreciate that this is a set. They will have expansions,

just like the actual card game. But it feels manageable to be able to get at least the base set of course all the secret rairs and stuff are going to be a little bit harder, which is good But I appreciate that the collecting and battling almost seem like they're on equal footing in this game Yeah, and it seems like that's going to continue to go forward like you actually opening the booster packs like Snap doesn't have that like snap there are you know loopbox type things you get and the presentation is way better But there's nothing like opening a booster pack and the way that they've been able to simulate that feeling and that's insane of like going through each card and like hoping you get a big hit it's so it's thrilling you know like it gives you all the the things that you want to feel good in your brain uh but then there's that extra level that bruce is talking about of like man i'm seeing cards and even though not the rare card oh i've been needing this for this deck i wanted i only had one of this card now i have two that i can use like this is awesome yeah or you're you have like two out of the three and you're like shit i need that middle one for the full evolution and then you go to like the buyer card because you're like i need this i need to I need to be able to battle because I have the final evolution.

I need this middle. I've done that twice now where it's like, I have to have it because I need to be able to battle this. A venosaur would change everything for me and then also a second, a second Misty would do so much. Oh man, what does Missy do? What's Missy doing?

Misty's insane. So you put her down and she's a support card that boost water type, obviously. Where do you get her as? What pack? Well, I think she's in any of the packs. Yeah, she's just like a random. Oh, shit. What do you get?

But you flip coins and every heads that you get, you get water energy. And the moment you get tails, it stops. But, like, there's certain Pokemon, like, I think, lap, laplice or blastois that if you just get, like, oh, if you have three, it does 20, but for every additional energy, it's 40 more damage. So, you know, pair that with this and, like, you can fuck people stay. Misty's a dope card to have.

I had an awesome sort of, you know, 5,000 IQ play the other day, which is super common. But for me, I just felt super smart doing it where, I have two victories. They have two. I've already... The next person to knock out a Pokemon wins the match or whatever. And it's just to be playing against the computer or whatever.

But the computer does a thing where on the harder difficulties, they will play more like a human. And they'll still make dumb mistakes. Like I will where I just forget a mechanic. I'm like, oh, shit. I forgot I had that card. I could have thrown out or whatever. But they put one of their weaker Pokemon.

back on the bench because they were about to die and they put out one of the stronger Pokemon on the bench but I had that electric horse that can attack anybody regardless of whether they're on the bench or not and did that to the one on the bench and immediately killed it because it was within the damage range

it had 30 health that attack was 30 and was able to kill like oh man I just outsmart you stupid computers and it feels awesome like I didn't know that there was that level of depth to this yeah the retreat system is really well done as well like you can pull cards out and get back up in there. That is a lot of fun to be able to master

that. That's a good time. Yeah. Zebra Strika. Yeah. Blitzel evolves into that. I got some stats for us. I want to talk about. Real quick, I want to get to that. I just want to say it's really funny for me because obviously I am a 35-year-old man. I grew up with the beginning of Pokemon. So like the Gen 1 and 2 will always be my favorite. Those Pokemon

to me are like the obvious core. I'm not alone. So many So many people have that same story. Nintendo and Pokemon company clearly go back to the well of the original the Canto Pokemon over and over because they sell the familiarity, there's nostalgia and all that stuff. But because of my

addiction to Scarlet and Violet in the last couple of years and then Pokemon Go, I am just way, I've played every generation of Pokemon, but I am way more familiar with all of these motherfuckers now. So it's like playing this and seeing people pop up, I'm like, man, I know all of their names. This is crazy

cool. Go for it, Mike. Yeah, here's some stats for all of you to just track where we're at right now because I love the friends list where I can go and see your featured cards, your binders that you want to show off. But I also, you know, I've been trying to catch up to bless this whole weekend. But at the tippity top, we have Tim Getty's level 22. That's 1400 cards collected here. Whoa. Andy is level 15 with the devil's number.

666. Oh, nice. You have 666 cards, Andy. Bless is 17 with 518 cards. And I am level 16. with 481 cards right now. So Andy's probably not battling as much. If you have more cards than me,

but you're like a lower level. He's collected. No, I started battling recently, but then I, yeah, once I spent that 20 spot last night, I just, but I've also been really lucky finding car, wait, so is that counting the amount?

That's all the cards you're collected, because then when you go to the collection, they show you the decks, right? I have 164 cards out of 226 available right now. So I'm trying to, to collect them all, but I am, as you can see, almost close to 100 away, like 80 away right now.

I want to keep talking about like the numbers of where we're at with all this stuff, but I want to do that after. A quick word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by Phasmophobia. The genre-defining horror game is finally out now on consoles. Yes, that's right. The phenomenon that is phasmophobia has finally entered console early access on PS5, PSVR2, and Xbox series X-NS,

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Visit betterhelp.com slash Kind of Funny today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Kind of Funny. And we're back. We're talking about all the numbers in this game. My collection, there's a lot of stuff. Let's talk about the financial side of this for just a second. Okay.

Because obviously there's, I think the game's pretty good about giving you free things to do. There are many economies in this game. A lot of cool-down meters. A lot of like, you're building this stuff. You buy this thing with this blue thing. You buy that thing with the purple thing. You buy this with the gold thing. There's just a lot.

And I feel like these games are often overwhelming in the beginning. But then you start to understand. You're like, okay, I get what all these things mean. I was surprised that a new challenger entered the fray with these events, like the Lapris event that's happening right now, with its own economy. Yes, the Lapris has its own blue ticket system for you to have tries to continue to battle in it. So it has the cool down meter, just like you would see on your card opening of like, it's clearly trying to slow you down a little bit

to not complete the event in 24 hours like I have done. It's like, hey, this is like a seven-day event. Slow it down a little bit. You don't have to be here every single day, but it does have its own one. It's interesting. Every time you complete one of the challenges, it gives you a blue ticket,

so you're building up blue tickets by winning. So it's like you should have enough to complete it, but if you mess up, you waste a blue ticket, which then now you're playing the game of, okay, now I've run out. I have to wait the 10 hours. So it's an interesting one. It's not bad.

you don't have to pay for it, but you can't pay technically to recharge it just like your wonderpicks or your hourglasses. I'm happy about this event being here because already I had the complaint after what one week of playing that the game already is feeling like it's getting a little bit stale in certain places. Mainly like pack openings, I am getting so many duplicates now. Like every pack right now for me is duplicates until I get the last few cards that I'm missing. And then even the battling, it feels like the we've come down, like I mentioned before, right, we've come down to a few different meta decks that people are, are battling around. I think having the events is a nice like, oh snap, all right, cool. Here's something new to come back to you.

But then you get into the challenges, which I was just telling you during the break, Mike, that I'm not a big fan to doing these challenges. They feel tedious to me. I don't want to battle the same deck 20 times. Yeah, I think that's just the padding one, right? Like, I think that's clearly like the, hey, there's a, this doesn't end until the 17th of November. If we're on the fifth right now, that's 12 days.

It's a two full week thing. So they're clearly trying to be like, hey, you don't have to rush this. down, just hang out, have some fun. And with that, bless, I'm so with you, because it is super tedious. However, I feel like all of them are good until you get to that 21, right? Like, the rest of the challenges, I'm here for this. I like this. This feels like a fair, strategic thing for the most part, like, things that are worth doing.

The 20, though, makes sense to me because each win you get, you get another one of those promo boosters. And I'm like, okay, cool, I'm doing this tedious thing to get the promo booster. But once I get all four of the promos, I'm out. I'm out. I just wish they spread it maybe between the challenge. My thing is battling the same deck 20 times, that for me is like, okay, I don't want to do this. If it was five each, that brings me back to, I don't know if you guys ever played the Yu-Gi-Oh, what was it called?

It was like a Yu-Gio tournament game on GBA where you, like, it was the same year battling a CPU, but each of them you had to beat five times and then move on to the next one. That felt like the perfect amount for, like, battling the same deck. When it comes to like 20 times, I'm like, oh, it's so a lot. Yeah, I think the problem that I run into, Mike, was not getting, not feeling rewarded for. for completing either one of the brackets or many of the brackets, because you do all of them, and you are getting rewarded for the individual sort of meta-game achievements, where it's don't lose a Pokemon in this match,

kill this Pokemon with an electric-type move or whatever. And those feel great because you get rewards, and you see the little things pop up. But you'll see, based on each difficulty, there are five little meta-achievements within each one of them, these little sub-objectives. And I didn't really feel like I was, I'd complete one, and I might complete a whole ass row and be like,

ooh, I can't wait to hit the home button and see all the stuff. And I'd get none. I was like, oh, really? You're getting the pink promo packs that Tim brought up each time you wear. You go to gifts? And then one by one open the promo packs. Yeah, and the issue is, oh, no, no, no. Well, like, you're talking about the event, right?

The rapper's one. You know, I'm just talking about like clearing out the five in easy, the five in intermediate, the five an expert or whatever. That's where I was feeling like I wasn't getting a whole lot of rewards there. And also, this one currency, it looks like a little bottle. Those the hour glasses or the glitter. I think it's the shine dust. Yeah, there's so much.

It feels like a first, like, the first time I hopped in a destiny. Lights on. Oh, shit, what the fuck. Yeah, no, it's the flares, I think is what they call it. So, like, Marvel Snap has a similar thing. Marvel's something kind of built around this where you click. the cards and the more of the cards you get, you can kind of combine them and fuse them, and then you get the gold outline and the, you know, it's a shiny outline.

And then you get all these, like, different variations and like, yeah, there's a flare system here where you can, like, upgrade your cards when you have multiple with the shine stuff. I haven't, I did it like for one card and I'm like, so far I'm really not into it. Yeah, I was very under one by it. Yeah, it's, I think a pretty big letdown for me. Yeah. Like, I feel that, Andy, because like the one that you're talking about on the normal side, you're doing those challenges so you can unlock more ticket currency to them buy hourglasses

to get more cardbacks to then level up to add to your collection. Like that all makes sense and like it is rewarding when you're first doing it. Then once you've completed it all, it's a massive slowdown. For me that I told Tim at the beginning of the day was the laparice event was very underwhelming for me presentation-wise because I completed it last night. And there I am battling through two, three, four, five to get all the way to expert, right? And I'm expecting at the end to have a big old confetti parade on my screen, have the laparice card show up and say, congratulations.

you've completed this challenge. Here it is. And Tim's like, oh, you didn't get it? And I was like, no, at the end it doesn't show you anything. No, I had already opened the Lapris card from all of my random promo packs. And I already had one. And it's like, well, that was really lackluster of like, I completed this. And at the end, just for the developers out there, when you finish the expert five out of five on any event,

that should be the, hey, here's your crowning jewel card that I should earn. That's how this has to go. You get the card and it has one of those illustrator animation. things to go along with it. I get that they're trying to keep those as like full, like fun poll surprises, but like I'm with you there, Mike. Like we should just be getting the card for completing the season or completing the event.

That was a major letdown. Like it's cool. In addition to these promo packs. Yeah, I love the promo packs. I thought that was a fun, different idea of like one card. You got the special logo. Sure,

there's not many of them. So you're going to get duplicates of them. But like, I like that. But yeah, at the end, you got to have something big, the wow factor of making me want to complete that.

Right. So like for Andy here or for any of you, if you've already gotten the Lappas card, there's no reason for you to spend the next 12 days doing this if you don't want it. You know what I mean? Like, why would I complete this if I've already pulled it? Yeah, like, so where are you guys at in terms of the solo battles of the challenge is done?

Because for the Lopris one, I'm at 13 out of 14. I have like four more matches I got to do to be done with the 20. I've done 14 out of 14, 21 out 21 and 28 out 28 of 28 of easy, medium hard. And I have 11 out of 30 for the expert solo battle. I just need to, that's a grind. I just need to keep going back. I am exactly like you. I've completed the Lapris event.

But when the expert stuff here, I'm only four out of 30. So I've only won them once. I've never dove into it because now it's going to get tough for me. Are you earning more rewards as he do these objectives? Okay. Because I kind of just gave up on them. Yes, you're earning more blue tickets to then spend on hourglasses and thinking. And that's why I have a lot more cards in you, I think.

Because I haven't been doing, I've only done like two actual multiplayer against other people matches type games. But the rest of it has just been playing against a computer. or getting a lot of rewards. Anytime I complete a bunch of matches, then I get rewards that I exchange for all of the hourglasses and I get a new pack, you know? Gotcha. I'm about to get a new pack here in six minutes.

Yeah, because I'm not really focused on the objectives. The objectives from here are a nice bonus of if I happen to beat this CPU under 12 turns, great, or if I happen to, like, do this much damage, great. But for me, I'm more so about just beating all of them and then going back to online. And so for all of them, I have complete. But, yeah, for me, it is, like, for the beginner, I have 9 out of 14.

For intermediate, I have 17 out of 21. For advanced, I have 18 out of 28. And then for expert, I have 4 out of 30. And once you're going to skyrocket once you do those, right? You have so many cards. Giving you the currency to then go buy hourglasses, do they go buy more packs. So your level will increase because of that.

So, yeah, you should be doing those. I know you've been enjoying just doing the battle, but like in your off time, you should be doing those because that's going to feed them. I might then focus in on that. I like doing online so much, though. Oh, yeah, that's the cool part. It's right.

That's where I get into the rental pack. I wish it was a better way to see the rental packs and rent them. I love that like you just earn them kind of randomly. You get them like after you complete challenges like, hey, here's a Brock fighting deck. Like have it for 10 rounds. I wish it was a better way of like, hey, me as a beginner or just enjoying those packs. Let me rent them or let me extend the time. Let me see them.

Have you run into that, though? Because 10 to me seems like the right amount. 10 is the right amount, Tim. Well, there's a couple in like the later stages where like you could lose about five in losses. and you're like, ah, I wish I had those back. But as of right now, I just enjoyed the rental pack so much, I wish I could rent them and have them more in my day. Also, there's any devs watching, you're listening?

The, when you're creating a, when you're editing a deck, the quantity of how many of those cards you have covers up the rarity of it. I hate it. And I would love for that to just move somewhere else, because I'm trying to get these little meta objectives of beat this train or beat this deck without a, with only a one, two, or three, three diamond rarity or whatever.

So that means you can't have any of your X cards, which is like a good thing to know, but I'm still not there with the knowledge of knowing which are one, two, and three. I've also had a couple weird glitches where there's one of the expert ones that I'm trying to do that has that same challenge, and I

definitely do not have any that are above two. Rarity or rarity? And I'm not getting credit for it. I'm like, you motherfuckers, I want this. Okay, let's talk about swiping the card a little bit. Clip in the card. Andy said you spend about $20 on this thing? Yes, $20. And then I did that other... You did the free premium pass right now that hasn't charged yet because it's two free weeks.

You gotta set a reminder. Okay, I will. I'll let you know. He won't. I got you. Yeah. And then bless, you are very anti-microtransactions. Very anti-microtransactions. I did swipe the card though. I spent $10. I spent $10 on gold so I can do, I just needed to do at least one open 10 packs. Like I wanted open the 10 packs. Yeah, and it felt great. Even though a lot of duplicates in there, a lot of duplicates. But like, I don't know why I started to try to do a Trump accent. A lot of duplicates.

A lot of duplicates. But did that. And then, yeah, I got the free premium pass. And I don't, I'm still like in between on if I'm going to pay for the premium pass once the two weeks are up. If I'm still as hooked as I am now, that I think, yeah. But I'm trying to resist it because I like saving money. Mike, you're the king of swiping the card.

And, you know, a lot of people heard yesterday on games daily, I had not swiped the card. I am happy to report that last night I did break and I spent 90 to report. I'm happy to report. I did spend 99 cents for five gold because I needed to beat the lapar's event because my mind was like let's finish this. I had to buy five more blue tickets to get it over with.

So I am only 99 cents in. That's a good restraint. Yeah, I've completed that. It's just like you're 16 out of 20 and it's like, okay, let's go. Let's get this over with. And it's like, oh, that's 20 hours. I'm like, no, no, no.

So I just bought it. They gave me the five tickets. I won and now I'm happy. So it's not good. Obviously I love Pokemon cards. They got me by the balls with this stuff. So I was like, I knew I was going to at least swipe a bit on this thing.

But I'm a fan when it comes to, I've said this forever about Marvel Snap specifically. I have so much fun playing that game. And like I feel like they deserve money for the time that they put into making such a great game that I'm enjoying so much. So I was always a fan of Marvel Snap of I bought the season pass every month. Yeah. Like that's what I did for sure.

And that's my plan. with this as well. I'm with blessed that we'll see if it keeps up. I don't know how long I'm going to last doing this, but once they start charging for the season seasonal thing, it's $10 a month, right? Yeah, $9.99. That sounds right to me am I cool. If y'all keep up

deserving it, you deserve it. What do you think would make you keep ongoing? Would it be some sort of tie into the world decks or whatever? Like, or your home or whatever? No, I mean, they'll never do that. But, like, I feel like just a nice level of events.

Like if we get something like this lafress thing, like every week. Every two weeks, that would be awesome. I was going to ask about cadence. Like, when do you think we get new packs to open? A new set, I think it's going to, I think they said three months or so. Oh my gosh. That's too long. I know, but the thing is, I don't want to get overwhelmed too.

I get it. That's the problem. It's like, you just, it turns into just noise when there's a million different things. I do think they're clearly already showing this. There's the promo cards. So I do think that if we're getting these smaller little sets with update cards, I feel like that will satiate to like, hey, you're getting some new cards to add to your deck and add some spice, but not overwhelming

you with just, like, way too many options because what you don't want plus is for the meta to get figured out so quickly with wider breadth of cards, and it's just people playing the same cards. It's so good, though. I just want more. Like, I feel like what's the basketball player in Uncut Gems,

when what's his name showed him the chain or whatever? Kevin Garnan. He was like, what would you show me if I can't have it? Like, why would you show me if I can't have it? Like, give me more Nintendo. If you want more, my company. Get Pokemon trading card. game live or whatever it's wrong. Like you can play the full real game, right?

And like, uh, even for me, when you buy it actually, that's a card accidentally, or that's a game accidentally downloaded. I thought it was this. That's so funny. Download it. I created my character. I was like, man, this guy looks like Killion Murphy. And then everybody on Twitter was like, what did you download? I didn't create a character. I was like, oh shit.

Sarri-on says a mini set's coming out December 16th. That's great. Yeah. Like, yeah. I just feel like a little boost the juice into this. But, um, when you buy actual physical Pokemon cards, each booster pack comes with one card that gives you a digital booster pack in Pokemon Trading Kong Game Live.

Oh, that's cool. So it's like you're collecting cards there too. But sorry, to go back to it, I definitely have spent the most money on this game out of anything here. I spent $70 so far on this game. And my justification for that is I was like, $70,

price of a video game. I want to just make the jump here on this one and see what that would look like and how it differs compared to others' experiences. Clearly, I have a lot more. cars than y'all. Yes, you have $1,600. Having said that, having

those has made me want to do everything even more. So, like, I have done most of the challenges and I've definitely done all the hourglasses. You get the current season and keep going. I'm now at a point, though, even more so than y'all where I'm like, when I get a booster pack, I'm like, there's no chance I'm getting something new.

Yeah, he needs the rare. I need the rarest of the rare. I need that trade to open up, man. But I'm not planning on spending any more on it, at least for this season. I think some big wins for them on the shop side of things if we're talking micro transactions. Of course, you have the gold,

which will help you speed boost a lot of this stuff. But they are selling accessory packs, right? Like they have this Guadivar set right here where you can buy with a special coin. You'll get the play mat. You'll get the play cards. Like you start putting that with some of people's favorite Pokemon, the gang guards, the Charzards, the Pikachu's.

I think 22 bucks is a lot. But like you get a fair amount of things in here. I think you're going to really win with that. You're going to get people buying that stuff right away. Me and Mike were going back and forth the other day. a little bit because I like some of the cosmetic stuff they do here. Like I like the unique mats that you can set in the backing of the card and even the coin thing. I like being able to customize that and I can't wait for them to unlock more of that stuff.

How do you guys feel about the cosmetic stuff? They're fucking hideous, dude. That's one of my biggest problems. I'm with you. I love it. I want more. I have the whole EV set right now. Like I have the EV Evolution mat.

I have the EV card deck. I feel like Pomeranians. Big fan all around. But the problem is I feel like the implementation is just kind of trash. Like, especially when you versus your opponent, like, every turn it, like, changes what the mat looks like, the effects of it, just how busy everything, how hard it is to read. I'm just not a fan of that for the most part. I was telling us, I said, I wish you'd just picked one or the other. Like, it's either Tim's backdrop or my backdrop.

Like, I just don't like that changes every single round because it is just constantly changing so fast. I mean, I wish you could just change the opacity on it because, like, you know, make the cards be the main thing. Yeah. I'm looking at the MUTU one now. And I think my main issue with it. it is it just seems like a muteu jpeg that is just like put on there as opposed to being designed around being a playfield

and that's the real game you know people when you buy play mats at Target like that's what they look like they are just jpegs you're just playing on but like that's always been an issue I've had and you know Mike was talking about just the presentation of it all and in some places like the big illustration animations those are amazing

but I feel like everything else is multiple steps down from what Marvel Snap gives you and Marvel Snap just does it so well and the sound of Marvel Snap is incredible. The sound design here is, I think, bad. The music in this game is bad. Oh, dude, I have the music off. I eventually turned it out too. I turn the sound off every time I play. But it is so not Pokemon. Like, Pokemon is known for amazing soundtracks. I am incredibly let down by just the sound overall in this game. Which might sound like a weird dip-pick thing. But it's like, no, man. It's part of the experience. It doesn't feel premium. Yeah, they got some stuff going on. They also have like an Erica bonus you can buy, which has a play mad, a little card frame. Because remember, you can show off your cards with card frames. binders as well. So they've clearly thought of

like, what else can we do for people that want to showcase their cards? How what can we get into? So they have that. They also have the MUTU set right now, which is kind of interesting. You can buy with gold cards, which I like. I don't know if you all have seen on the main one, they have the special ones, which I'm not getting special tickets. Dude, so like, it is

Pokemon currency. And then like, you can go to the main store with your tickets and buying just like, special shop tickets, it's like, I haven't gotten up to 300. I mean, if I didn't spend anything on any hourglass, maybe I'd get close. but like where is this coming from? I don't know.

I don't know. That's an odd currency I would like to learn more about because I don't see how that cycle is happening. It's not happening in front of me right now. But the MUTU stuff, it's like, I don't love MUTU. I'm not going to spend my gold tickets right now on a MUTU play mat that I don't love MUTU with. But you put more in there, I'm in.

You know, now I'm playing the game for sure. All right, it's time to open my pack. It's been six minutes. So I want to talk about, yeah, pack tendencies and stuff. So we started at the top of the show. show when I do the wonder picks, I always go for the second card, right? They offer you five. I choose the top middle, the second card.

Whenever I do packs, I always go, I spin it twice to the left, and I click on the second pack on the left. I look for the ones that have the bend. You're still, you're a bend believer? I'm still, I'm holding out hope. Because I swear to God, every single time I'm like, ah, this bend stuff is bullshit. I go on Twitter. I go, I go on threads.

And somebody's like, oh, I just unlocked five rairs. I'm like, oh. I mean, they've confirmed, confirmed that the moment. that you even click on the first pack to go in, the cards you're gonna get are already chosen. So it doesn't matter what on the carousel. Yeah, but what if they're lying? What's on the carousel?

Yeah. Also, BS, if you flip the pack around, then you open it backwards, fix that. Yeah. Why am I opening the cards one by one backwards? Just flip it. No, I love it. I think that's such a fun feature.

I mean that. No, because people, people like to open the cards that way, where it's like, you know, you get that extra moment. Extra hesitation. So you are now the fault. You are the father. All right, here we go. Which one should I go for?

MUTU. So actually, that is a question that I have that I don't have confirmation on. Do the different things have different? So people in the chat were saying that Missy was exclusive to Pikachu's pack. Because I know when you're looking at the Pikachu, Mutu, or Charzard packs,

there is the picture at the top. And they change. See, I assume that those were the exclusive ones and everything else was the same. I just don't know because, like, in the actual card games, like anytime there's a new expansion set, like, or even the original, like the base set was, Charzar, Venusaur, and Blastoys, the cards were all the same. On the inside, it didn't matter which one you got.

I always felt like whenever I was picking, that I always felt like if I'm picking Pikachu, I get more of like the electric type of Pokemon. Cedoy says you can look at the drop rate for each pack and they do have some that are exclusive to each of them at rarity. Okay. So I need to check out that bottom left thing. I need that out of the offering rates right there.

Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Well, I don't know which one to go for, but, like, I wish I knew which ones I had opened the most of. See, okay, that was, I was going to bring that up. I wish there was more stats to tell you, like, oh, you've opened up this pack 50 million times. Yeah. So I can, because I'm pretty sure I use my temple on the Charzard, but I'm, my memory man, in my old age, it's fading.

So I'm like, I'm opening up more Charzards, and I'm like, am I just wasting my time here because I keep getting fucking cocooners and shit. I keep getting this ugly-ass fucking fish with lips. Like, I'm tired of that damn. Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Oh, man. Blessing, you pulled that MUTU, EX, 0.22%. Then there's some other ones here, the EX's. The gold ones.

0.055% for some of those other ones. Do any of you have any of like the golden M2 charreds aren't at Pikachu? Those are the crowns, yeah. I have not unlocked a crown one yet. That's 0.013%. I'm saving up for it though, because how much of those costs are you going to spend the pack points or whatever they're called?

Yeah. It's like 500? $2,500. Or $2,500. $2,500. Yeah, I'm holding off on buying anything with those pack points because I'm like, it's going to be those at the end of the day. Yeah, I spend them for the first time because I had up to $500 already. I had like five something.

Yeah. I bought my holographic growl. Or no, Arcan I mean. I spent mine on a regular Charmillion. Yeah, you had to have it, right? Yeah, it was the middle one. I was the middle. I was the problem.

And I couldn't use the Charzartx. So I needed that Charmillion. Yeah, a lot of the full arch, 400. hundred right there for the pack point exchange there. And then, yeah, it's going to go up even higher after that. 1250. That's cool. Love that.

I'm so excited about this that we're also in on this. And I've had multiple conversations with different permutations of us that I want to play the actual game. Like I've never actually played the card game. And I bought that, um, the collector's edition, uh, where they had the three pre-made decks that like are perfectly balanced against each other or whatever, not perfectly, but balanced against each other. Can we play mobile rules?

well I mean I feel like that's it I think that we'll have enough of understanding that we'll be able to like jump in and like play with maybe like Googling here and there when we get stuck on because like I don't understand the like turn the card left for paralyzed turn the card right for asleep I'm like I don't fucking know what the hell you're doing

but this seems pretty simple shit right but anyways I I sleeved up all the cards over the weekend because I was like I think I might need to bring it here we might need to do a stream I'm just playing so Did you pick a pack?

I don't know which pack to choose Should I go with Charzard? Yeah, go with Charzard. Everybody loves Zard. Charzard. I feel like that's probably the one I have opened up the most, though. That's one thing I'm worried about. Yeah, I know for a fact that I opened up the most Pikachu Pack,

so I can always just go from the other side now. I keep going on. Which one has, I think it's Charzard that has Alacazard, like the EX, cool Alacazard. So I definitely opened up a lot of Charzart. Like, maybe twice as much Charzart as anything else. I have to close the app. One thing.

Okay, keep time. Yeah, yeah. else have one to open? Have you guys, are you guys jumping over to your friends list? Like, for me, I've been tracking you guys all weekend, right? I've been tracking everyone, which I love. But are you? I'm not been doing that. I'm trying to find those unaccounted four hours from you. We'll figure out those unaccounted four hours. We can spend some time together. But like, I like, I mean, the whole point is showcasing your cool cards, right? So you see the pin emblems that we've gotten, Andy's got the peek at you. See, okay, I do like doing that. I do like looking at the

and then I'll go into Tim's, right? And like, I'm looking for his, what's he showcasing right now? always showcasing the cute EV. He's got a mute, too. Like, that's what I think that's a big thing about. Look at that. Yeah, having friends with. It's freaking adorable, man. That's what they want you to do.

They want you to showcase. So Andy. Your cute card. What are my complaints is that the, like the menu UI, I think it's a little bit messy and weird. Because I, I thought like three different times that I was showcasing stuff and I just didn't. It was private.

You have a private. And it's very unclear. And I finally figured it out. So now you all can look at my bind. Or now I can go to like your achievements. And I can see that Tim has, you know, he's collected. over a hundred lightning cards. And I just, I like seeing where you all are at.

I think they've done a really good job. And when you have a friend, you can see what they're doing and showcase all that cool stuff from your binders to your cards. That's what it's all about. All right. Here you go, Rodge. Prep the one. Let's get an extreme close up.

There we go. Extreme close up, Rodge. I don't know. Oh, Barrett's on it. Barrett's doing it. Barrett's doing it. Okay. Stupid asside, Doug.

Well, let me make the screen darker. Sure your notifications are off. Greg's in Texas. Yeah, Greg. Yeah, you're right. Side duck. Farfetch, that's a good card. That's a hot card right now.

See, everybody's saying Farfetch is hot. Stupid lips fish. Oh, yeah. Stupid fucking lips fish. You ask for it, you get it. Polly Whirl. Stupid ass. So here's the thing about Farfetch.

It's one energy for 40, which is great. As just like we're talking about the Hitmon chance, it's even better. But the extra thing that makes it better is any energy works for it because it's colorless. I guess I prefer to go with a me elf because I'm drawing an extra card. And like my first card isn't dying anyway because I'm getting them the fuck out of there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My turn number three, it's not even gonna be there anymore. What's that, what's the Miaoth evolution?

Persian. Man, that person's pretty sick. That cat is yoked in that car, bro. Fucking, ugh, fucking cranked up. Oh, Raj is going. What do we got to go around here? Oh, little growl. You got a growliff, my favorite.

Harris. Harris. Pinser. Oh, hey. Well, actually, no, I don't like this one because it could hurt itself. Oh, what's this? Oh, that's a good one. The infu?

I think, no, it's the other one. Yeah, that's the one that. And that's a weird fighting. I need us to do like a Pokemon, like trivia thing. Like I guess a Game Showdown episode, but I want to be on it. So Roger, I'm putting this on you. Yeah, I'm done. I want to do some Pokemon trivia with Tim.

I love it. Yeah. I'll leave to play. Who's that Pokemon? Oh, that'd be fun. Actually, I'll host it. Because that sounds fun to put together. Can you just challenge me to draw Pokemon?

I would love to do that. Yeah, he's good at that. He's really good. I just off the top of my brain. Yeah, but can we judge it? She's like a portrait amount of Pokemon. No, Roger. I hate you, Roger.

I never have to be like Oh, it's happening again Draw blast toys I'm going to draw human Yeah, it looks great Yeah I mean You got shout out They got Dex mission

So you have your dailies You have your deck stuff So like they're keeping you attached to it Of you can keep hurting You can keep playing You can keep having fun with it Or you can just play and enjoy it Or you can go crazy with it

They're doing a good job with this one For the first week I'm impressed I am with Bless of like Clearly you got us I want more I would like to see At the end of the month maybe a new big pack of cards

that we can open a new three stack and then you can go to like the three month cycle but I do think by the end of the month I'm gonna be so maxed out that I won't have much pulling me at the very at the very least like you need the events like you need something to keep people in in the time between the seasons because

it's only taking me a week before I'm starting to cool down on the stuff that I can earn I was surprised I mean I'm right there with you guys I was surprised the Lappers thing happened so quickly because when they were like oh here's the chancey and Miaotha Vair And I was like, oh, I don't like, it's extra things to open, which is nice. But I was like, if this is what events look like, it's kind of a letdown,

but getting the laparce thing, I'm like, okay. I told less, I was like, man, I got hit at 11 p.m. at night when I thought there's nothing more. It's like, oh, okay, I'm in. Let's go. You know, it's perfect. Greg Miller, welcome to the stage. Is that serious? What is he eating? Some rice.

Can you imagine you eat cereal out of that? There he is. You got him. That's a good looking for you guys. You know, Tim, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So I just wanted to come out here once again. You know, I texted Mike Penis. But again, it was part of the joke.

Again, I'm not asking to see his or show mine. It's a joke when he's using his phone on the, but he doesn't react to them. Yeah. I don't know if he has his text turned off or what, but. It just doesn't wait. Don't give me a start. I got to come out and I got to make it clear. You know what I mean?

Got to make it clear. I'm like, I'm in Costco with Roger and Dick. And this, you know, we can start ramping down the show right away. Oh, no. Costco with Roger and Nick. Talk about silent society. There's thousands of people in the Costco. You don't hear a single ringer.

Nobody's cell phone goes off. We live in a silent society. We got to bring the ringers back. We got to bring the ringers back. The thing is, you can. It's under your control. No, because if I do it, then everybody looks at me. There's a thousand people.

Nobody does. You're so afraid of people looking at you. Because you're so normal. Yeah. You shave your goatee after a day because, quote, Nobody talked about it. Nobody talked about it. Oh my God.

Well, everybody, talking in the comments below about Mike's goate that is now gone about the silent society and about how obsessed with Pokemon trading card game pocket you are.

Please share your friend codes in the comments if you're looking for friends. I'm not trying to add too many people right now because I don't know because I made the, not a mistake. Pokemon Go works very differently,

but I have 400 friends in that shit and it causes a lot of issues for me. I want to see what they start doing. See, as somebody who I posted my friend code for an hour on my Instagram story, I had to take it down because they have a friend request limit. So like only maybe like 15 people could request me at a time. And also you can only have a maximum like 99 people. Yes. I've maxed out my friend requests pending right now because people try to add me and it's like, oh, you're maxed out.

I'm like, okay. So that happened in a minute. And then I was like, well, if only have 99 slots, like I want to make sure that I have like I have people I know. I would have liked to have as many people as possible. I have my best friends, the three people on this desk. Plus, you took so long to add me. Were you, like, trying to avoid me? No, I just was like,

here's the thing to him. Everyone added me except you. Wait, did people add you like last week or something? Yeah. I put, I put myself in that random slack. Only Tim added me. So what was up with that, guys? I thought you were trying to be private.

I didn't know. I don't just fuck around. I just run around. But we got some super chat. Samson L says my biggest gripe is just the card pool is so small and the meta's figured out already. Also, no ranked mode yet, but I love the mechanics. Yeah, I think that that's all very true. I feel like adding some type of rank mode with rewards would go a long way.

Ranged mode would change my life. Well, they also have right now you could put, you could showcase your record. So that's a good start at least of like they don't have a rank mode. But you can at least show that he's 30 and seven right now. Like that's cool. But it only says wins though, right? It doesn't say how many games you play. It just says I have 25 wins.

Okay. And I'm like, we'll tell. Pretty good. Yeah, but you know. You get 100 you post on Twitter. People are like, damn, he's killing it. That's true. That's what you can do, Liz.

I've played a thousand battles, though. Dean 8149 says a pretty obvious move for them was making this set very gen 1 focused. I'm curious to see what new sets look like. I like the newer Mons, but 151 sells. Yeah, man, 151 sells. Also, clearly, like, let's just talk about this art in the room. Like, they don't have the Charzard card yet. Like, they, I feel like they did a lot of wise calls about, like,

some of the original art is there. Like, they haven't fully went the original card set yet. You know what they're talking about? Wait, what's the Charzar card? The original Charzard card where he's like fire blasting towards the camera. Yeah, it's the one that everyone wants. Oh, this guy. Yeah.

They'll get to it eventually. Oh, they'll get to it. You know, they'll get to it. That's fire. And then Squilly Squill says, do you all know about the secret objective to get Mew? I do. Do you all know about this? I saw people posting Mew.

Okay, talk about it. Let's get it. So it's a secret challenge. So there's secret challenges here, which I love. If you don't want to hear it, now's your time to back away, but I need to know. That's, I don't think is a spoiler. I'm just telling the people who guys. Yeah.

But this is, uh, if you get one card of each of the original 150, you unlock a view. Cool. The fancy animation illustrator card. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, I must be close. I'm not.

I have like, I think I have 207 out of the 226. Um, but a lot of those. A lot of those are Gen 1. I love also, just one quick little thing, whenever you hit a, a certain number of milestone, then giving you a cute little poke effect. Yeah. Like, you've unlocked, you know, 420, and that's it, the Pokemon, you know, Waves that much.

Smoking it up, you know, whatever. I love that they have these number milestones that are attached to just Pokemon lore based on, you know, the original one, you unlocked 150 Pokemon that just like the original 150 or 151, whatever. Like, I think it's pretty cute. And then Joshy G says, I'm out here beating you two EX decks with Pidgett. Okay. Say that to a Victorian child.

I would like you to teach me that because Blessing put the smackdown on me. He had a WigglyTuff that put my Pokemon to sleep. Dude, people are asleep. No pun intended. People are sleeping on the Wigley Tuff. And then I put you in a paralyzed state for a little bit. You did. You did.

Blessing got me 2-1 right now, but I did get lucky. I got him stuck in paralyzed. Whereas, like, we were flipping the coin. I was like, please God, just like keep him stuck. I love the amount of luck in this game. I actually think it's a strategy mixed with a lot of coin flipping. Yep. Peter's thing.

Pidgeeat? Pidgeeot? I don't know. It's one of those things that I, when I was little, I thought I was Pidgett. And I just always thought I always thought. I was wondering what a Pitch it was. Mike, put it on the books. I don't know how or when or how, but like, I want to first to 10, or first to five.

How do we stream this? Yeah, because like- You can. You can do it straight from your phone. Well, how do I do it from my phone? Because I got an iPhone. So there was an option while I was in a battle. On the top right, there was like a little icon, and I clicked into it,

and it brought up a new menu that said, um, YouTube streaming. streaming. In the game. Yeah, in the freaking game. It sounds like I like one of those playgrounds secrets. I guess I can like,

I guess I can screen record on Discord and send it to Discord and we could have Station 1 pick up my Discord and pick up like blessings. There's so, you can just screen share. I don't know. What's a screen share? These are things we'll talk about later. I figure out how to the HTML.

Tim, Tim, he had to call Kevin A6 to go. You just click it. Tim, Kevin A. A.S. had to go to his house and plug in a monitor to the graphics car. You said it was top right? Oh, you have an iPhone, right?

Middle, middle. Oh, sick. So you guys can just emulate Andrew. I tried to do that, but then it went to be to virtualize or some shit. And then I tried it and then it was too much. Virtualize? It was like turn on virtualization on your PC. And so I went out to a menu and it was like the native menu that wasn't my computer.

It was a totally different thing. I got scared. I got so scared. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm changing some streams up, y'all. Changing the stream schedule. I got this. That's awesome. I dragged down from the top and then a little game icon is on the top right.

Top right game icon. See, I'm not getting that. You got a special phone. But me, I gotta turn that on. YouTube live stream. I'm gonna go live right now. Is there like a game app? Are you Samsung?

We're gonna stream Dragon Age after this. I'm sure at some point we'll talk more Pokemon and all that. But until next time, I love you all. Goodbye. Bye everyone.