I don't mind at all. Poker went from being a fun way to make a side income, into being a chore to maintain the Grinderschool business. After about a decade of that, it just stopped having any appeal. At the time I stopped playing, online poker had also seen a massive skill shift, so that tactics which used to win at $600NL ($3/$6) were needed to win consistently at $100NL ($0.50/$1).

@@Vinishowww it's supposed to be funny!

also, its erza still on it?

@@Vinishowww Ezra played Klawf with pretty mixed results in Baltimore. He's not going to Louisville, so he's taking a well-earned break to let the dust settle a bit on the format before LAIC. I also haven't tested Klawf much in Stellar Crown format. Drago has been doing me very right in basically every matchup except Bolt, so it's hard to put it down.

@@sparkysizzletcg Thanks!

@@TheFDream Thank you for the well wishes! I'm back home now. Groggily starting my way on the recovery journey.

Thanks!

Ezra and I sort of concluded Klawf wasn't workable in the current meta, mostly due to Regidrago. But I will keep the idea as an option for a future video for sure. I appreciate the suggestion!

@@HoopaHideout Pokémon: 8 3 Bibarel BRS 121 2 Bidoof BRS 120 1 Manaphy BRS 41 1 Radiant Hisuian Sneasler LOR 123 2 Brute Bonnet PAR 123 3 Klawf PAR 105 PH 1 Bidoof CRZ 111 3 Cramorant LOR 50 Trainer: 20 4 Ultra Ball SVI 196 2 Switch SVI 194 1 Buddy-Buddy Poffin TEF 144 1 Hisuian Heavy Ball ASR 146 2 Lost Vacuum CRZ 135 1 Hassel TWM 151 4 Iono PAL 185 1 Night Stretcher SFA 61 1 Super Rod PAL 188 1 Technical Machine: Crisis Punch PAF 90 1 Perilous Jungle TEF 156 1 Prime Catcher TEF 157 2 Boss's Orders SHF 58 3 Nest Ball SVI 181 1 Rescue Board TEF 159 4 Colress's Experiment LOR 155 2 Binding Mochi SFA 55 4 Ancient Booster Energy Capsule PAR 159 2 Artazon PAL 171 2 Arven SVI 166 Energy: 1 4 Double Turbo Energy BRS 151 Total Cards: 60 I understand that for sure. This is what I have been using

@sunset7424 Garde was and continues to be a top tier deck, for sure. NAIC showed us the beginnings of how powerful Munkidori is in the deck. Now we see it hitting 300 to the active w drifloon while simultaneously putting 60 damage anywhere!

@@garym7937 Are you playing the SIT beldum? He can dig you out of some bad situations. But I'll also say that sometimes I question the frequency of bad hands that Live can deal out...

@@Rad_Builds I know you did!

And thanks!

If he needed to do so, he could have attached as much of the energy as possible off of the first retrieval, then drawn with Bibarel and discarded some of those cards to get 4 more energy (instead of discarding 2 while retreating 2 away). So he could have hit for at least 360 if needed, but possibly higher.

@mtmkgaming2777 For a while, Dragapult was making this deck look like it was done. But you're right that the meta seems to have shifted back to make it a better pick again. I haven't tested it recently, but I remember Lugia being a fine matchup as the deck was before. That makes me think that our main issue is Legacy Energy, which Sinnoh would deal with handily. So I like that change. I'm torn on the Bianca vs Penny question. For me, Penny was rarely about picking up an injured Pokémon, and much more about removing potential targets (specifically the ex) until they are ready to be used. I like Bianca in theory, but it doesn't achieve the same purposes Penny did.

@HoopaHideout ahhh, true. So the use of penny was more about the risk of ex. Since like in your other vids, you only want him when there is something baby moon can't take out. Glad I asked cause I wasn't thinking that way! Thanks for the quick response!

@mtmkgaming2777 You're welcome! And like I said, I'm not 100% on the Penny vs Bianca's decision. Best way to decide is to pick one to play and every time you see it, make a note indicating if you want it to be Penny or Bianca. Make no now if it isn't relevant. After you have a couple dozen notes about it, you'll know which one works better for you.

@@minded.outside Unfair stamp could be ok. But losing out on the item based gust feels pretty bad. Max Belt to do 270 with Calamity Storm sounds decent except that there's such a huge difference between 270 and 280

@@brian.webster Thanks!

Sorry, but there are a large number of things I disagree with in that comparison. First, professional sports are a completely different thing than a competitive hobby. If you can find me a single person who is paid millions to spend all year training Pokémon, I'll record a video of myself eating a card. Second, Little Timmy wouldn't be told by the NFL that he's in the running for the super bowl in the first place. Third, Timmy's chance at making it to the world championships of children's football have a while lot more to do with his ability to play football and a while lot less to do with his ability to do a scrimmage in Brazil and/ or England.

@@HoopaHideout I disagree with professional sports being different. If you look at other sports people still enjoy playing them even if they have no ambitions of chasing it competitively. It is the same in Pokémon also it can be a competitive hobby and have a serious world championships. Second nobody is telling little timmy he can qualify for the super bowl. Pokémon has very clearly laid out what you need to do to qualify for worlds. And based on the information they have given us that should most certainly be enough to give you an idea of whether or not you can make it. third there is no discrimination between regions if you look at what percentage of the OCE player base will qualify for worlds vs the percentage from NA or EU that percentage is a lot higher because they just have a much smaller playerbase. it makes sense that there would be a smaller pool of good players in a smaller region.

@aidantauber4699 I wasn't saying that where you live determined how hard it was (though I definitely think Oceania got the shaft). I was saying that the means to play in all three ICs has way more impact this season than it should. I literally held league tonight and learned that the senior who won all of our locals last year had changed his mind about going for an invite this year, because his family can't afford to send him to the number of events it is likely to take to make top 100. That has nothing to do with his ability and everything to do with the crappy invite structure.

@@HoopaHideout The invite structure has always required a pretty sizeable amount of money to get your invite. Pokemon is not the great equalizer of life though. It isn't there job to fix the injustices of the world. It has always been much more doable to get your invite if you had the finances to travel to more events. And also no if anything it is easier to get your invite in OCE than it is in most other regions.

Your goal for the season also doesn't have to be worlds. If you can only afford to attend 1 or 2 majors then make that your goal for the season doing well at the events you can go to. And then reevaluate, maybe you feel after that you could go farther either in terms of doing better at the same tournament next year and keeping your goals the same or maybe you do well enough that it feels reasonable that you will be able to get to worlds without breaking the bank. Another thing about setting yourself up for your 1 or 2 majors is that Pokemon has a very big cash prizing pool that is available for every tournament so maybe your goal is just a cash finish and maybe if you do well enough it could free up your finances to be ableto attend more events.

Yep. On Twitter: @masters_tcg

I know, right!?!?!!

The list Ezra played only had one boss, and played Cobalion instead. I do not think Cobalion is worth the space, but I could see reasons for playing a Grant instead, and/or a defiance belt.

@@HoopaHideout thank you I might play a defiance belt

pls play cobalion so helpful for charizard matchup for the last attack with crisis punch or against ancient box as roaring moon 1 prizer hp is 240 and cobalion isnt limited

@newton-l3j Against Ancient Box, we can just Lost Vacuum away their tool. We are playing 4 vacuums after all. If you're facing a lot of Charizard, then yes, you probably do want to run Cobalion. The meta at NAIC showed Zard being pretty out of favor.

@@HoopaHideout true but as you said lost vaccum with a cram if cobalion is on bench 1 shots

We tried Max Belt for a while, that was part of our attempts to keep Electrode working. Will definitely test some more with it in there.

This list is a tad dated on that it came from before the major Japanese tournament that helped reshape lists for NAIC. That said, I don't think it's mandatory to play Pokestop (a top 32 list at NAIC ran Jamming Tower instead) and I'd even argue that you don't necessarily need to dedicate deck space to getting rid of Collapsed. After the first few turns, the deck can mostly function fine without a 5th bench spot.

@@HoopaHideout so with jamming also no charms for the own bolts then? Thought they would be quite Important to run

You only play down the Jamming Towers in matchups where they help you. Specifically against Garde. You have Charm attached, then they load up a charmed drifloon, then you play Jamming Tower and get two prizes.

Sure thing! Glad to hear we inspired you!

I think both of these ideas are worth trying. The draw from Miriam might be enough to offset it being a supporter, and Hassel might dig deep enough to be worthwhile. To decide for sure, I'd put them in for a couple dozen games and each time they came up, is make a note as to whether I wanted the new card or the old one.

Please report back with what you try, I'm curious

@brian.webster Will do. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with multiple additional Klawf videos between now and Worlds.

​@@HoopaHideout Hassel is a straight upgrade to pokegears. Card's insane. It seems like it's just extra copies of Colress except Colress is just a bit better at thinning. Unsure if I would want to go -1 Iono for a Hassel. My gut tells me to go -1 arven +1 hassel but my brain tells me this probably would not be a good idea. I would never go back to pokegear but I also HATE pokegear. Miriam is probably good but I think I need a lot more games to properly evaluate it. I have a couple more questions when it comes to playing the deck - How do you sequence Bibarel and Colress? I imagine one is using Bib first before Colress in most situations? - When it comes to Ace Specs, can you provide a bit more detail on why we don't play cards like Unfair Stamp or the box? Prime Catcher probably is just BIS, but I'm curious as to the reasoning for not including the other cards. The box in particular seems like it gets a lot of things that this deck likes. - This is probably a video in of itself but I would be very interested in a tournament report. I'm very curious as to what Ezra had to play against to make it all the way to top 8. This is a very cool deck. Before this, my main 1 prizer deck I was probably going to play for this format was Ancient Box but considering some complaints I have with Ancient Box (very supporter and rad ninja reliant, some hands just don't really function, a lot of these ancient cards I am only putting in the deck because they're ancient cards and they might as well just be textless. Pokestop and Shoes engine is fun tho) and Klawf just seems like it has a lot more going for it than Ancient Box (Bibarel Engine, I can play actual supporters, 4 Vac, Better typing).

@@FrightFur I'm glad you're enjoying the deck idea! It really is it's own thing! Bare in mind that at least half the reason we play Colress is to push for 4 in the Lost Zone T1 so that Cram can be our first-turn attacker when applicable. As far as Ace Specs, if we played anything else, we would definitely need to add more gust. There are already a lot of matchups which leave us wishing we had more, so reducing it would hurt. Secret Box as an alternative doesn't sound very good to me. It feels too costly, and often I think the cards you discard would end up including several of the cards the Box searches for. Unfair Stamp could be good if we overcome our need for gust in other ways. So far, it hasn't risen to the point that the trade off seems worthwhile, but we'll continue testing it between now and worlds, for sure.

You're welcome!

Same here

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.

That is not how it works, as the ability is only once per turn, so you would need 4 different iron valiant along with 4 switch cards to do 80 damage, which is barely enough to kill a basic pokemon

I appreciate the question! I think the downsides of the 1 retreat are too great to make that a viable option for a Moon Deck. You can still beat Dragapult just from out-speeding them. But I don't think this is the best way to play Roaring Moon anymore, and my testing backs that up. The two ways that I've had success with Moon as of late are inside a Lost Box engine, and when paired with Darkrai + Squawk/Lumineon/Mew and tons of energy switches and patches to create a super-turbo build that can take a T1 KO over 60% of the time. I'll cover the Darkrai build soon in an upcoming video.

I don't feel like I need a third Nest Ball. As to Lumineon, I haven't often wished for it, and I don't think you could afford the bench space while also allotting for Pidgeot, Xatu, Cleffa/Rotom, multiple dragon lines, and sometimes Alakazam. Lumineon just doesn't do enough to take up a bench spot.

Thanks for the kind words! And you're welcome! I couldn't find anything that worked the way I wanted, but I was able to get there. I have swapped the TM Devo for a lost vacuum, but otherwise this is same list I'm playing now.

Hey, I saw that you commented with your own list, but it's not showing the comment for some reason. I can't find it to review. Could you send it to me on Twitter or Discord? I am @JGB146 on Twitch and JGB146 on Discord.

@@HoopaHideout I deleted it because I keep making changes and editing the deck. I will message you on discord with my current deck(s) im testing

@@lxmercyxl9982 Sounds good. I kind of like the direction you were headed overall. You could stream attacks somewhat well, unless ohko'd twice in a row.

I can, and will. But I'm actively coaching students over Dragapult, so Greninja will be a side-project and be slower moving than the content around Dragapult.

I haven't tried the Pideot/NeoUpper builds, beyond thinking over what they bring to the table. Essentially getting an extra Dragapult out of Scoop Up Cyclone just seems too good. I'll definitely put some more reps into all the builds once the cards are out on PTCGL.

Yes, it will. But with all the gust we're playing, Rabsca isn't going to last long.

Should have the first match up this weekend.

Thanks!

A good way to think about it is: you want to go second every game except the games where your opponent wants to go first. Specifically, against Chien Pao and Dialga, you want to go first so that you have more time and setup available before your opponent can do anything meaningful.

Glad to help!

Congrats on making Arceus for the first time! That's awesome! Yes, you should definitely prize check during your first search, every time. Sometimes, the way that PTCGL clumps things together, I think it is possible to do sufficient prize checking on a single pass through the deck on your way to the energy, but it would have been worth mentioning for sure. I strongly disagree with playing Mew ex in this version of the deck. The weak 2 prize liability is almost never worth the draw it would provide, so long as you're using your dunsparces and greninja correctly. There are plenty of times during the late game that I know my opponent will lose if they don't deal with the threat that is already developed, so I leave one or even multiple dudunsparces on the bench, just in case they Iono me. Around half of my losses come from my opponent taking advantage of it when I'm forced to open a 2-prizer. Adding another 2-prizer into the mix makes that worse IMO. I've finally switched the list up, but only to swap a Moon ex for a Flutter Mane, to improve the matchup against Lost engine decks and to reduce the amount of times I start Moon ex while not reducing my total damage output.

I'm glad you're finding them helpful! I like the Darkrai Moon variant a lot too. There are some crazy plays that you can pull off, but the sequencing there can get really weird. I actually played that version in a challenge last weekend. Only 4 masters showed, so it wasn't much of a tournament, but I will do a video excerpt from my second round showing a crazy play that more led to a game-winning state.

I do offer coaching, but I am not on metafy. For now, I arrange it privately over discord. I am JGB146 on discord ( and if you need the full # string, it's JGB146#8419 ) .

@@HoopaHideout I was able to get 3rd in an 8 person cup BO3. I tied against Charizard twice and was able to get good games from other decks. Im going to NAIC but I have been going back and forth with moon variants. I absolutely enjoy both decks but the play style is very different from one another. I did go to a previous cup where I did play the dundunsparce variant but I mulligan many times and was not able to pull a good finish.

@ElgarBenavides mulligans are purely a function of how many basics you're playing. With either of the lists I run for Moon, you should have 11 or 12 basics, and that gives you a 19-22% chance at getting a mulligan. That's on par with most other decks, and better than many. That said, it's easy to have short term bad luck give you a ton of them, and also possible that insufficient shuffling or suboptimal technique could enter into the number of mulligans someone sees. Shuffling should include at least 8 full reps in which the two halves of the deck are given the opportunity to interleave where the tip and bottom cards change every time. For the record, riffle shuffles are suboptimal in my opinion because you have to pay a lot of attention to your technique to keep from having the same cards stay on top.

Glad you enjoy them! Feedback like this is amazingly motivational!

Wow! Thank you!

YES

Hi Gabrielle! Thank you for the support! Generally speaking, between Greninja's concealed cards, the multiple pal pads, the multiple pokegears, the Pokestops, and the ability to get multiple attackers ready after a couple of turns of playing Professor Sada's Vitality... usually that is enough to get past an opponent playing Roxanne or Iono (kissara/petra). As to devolution, I think a lot of Zard decks are prepared for that card, which means playing one or two copies isn't enough to win the match against them.

@@HoopaHideout Thank you for the answer❤

I don't think there are any ancient Pokémon to use in its place that require less than two energy for attacks.

Glad you like it! I've had a harder time securing the next guest than I expected, but we'll do more of these soon!

Thanks for the video btw, this was an awesome list and breakdown!

I've seen it played. I'm on the fence about it. In a vacuum, I prefer defiance band to Cobalion, since it helps in more matches. But Cobalion is more searchable which might be enough to make up for it. It's probably worth testing all three ways to see what works.

@@HoopaHideout oooh Defiance Band is a great call too! I will test it out. Thanks for the reply!

Cobalion cannot be energized with sada and it has 2 retreat, so your opponent can just win the game by stalling.

@@GoOKuSj33 that's a good point! Will keep an eye out for that! Thanks

Next up on my agenda is a review of a tough win with DD Moon against Charizard.

@@HoopaHideout can’t wait 🙏