Play to Your Outs

The Muses are recapping a huge weekend after hosting a 57-player Lorcana tournament at Games Outpost! Brittany, Nikki, and Lesley break down the decks that showed up, what converted into Top 16, some standout off-meta choices, and what the event may tell us about the field heading into the LCQ.

They also talk about tournament stamina, creating events that feel welcoming to both competitive and newer players, and why sportsmanship matters just as much as playing well. Plus, the crew catches up on the latest Lorcana announcements, including Format Coconut, upcoming D23 events, Attack of the Vine Set Championships, The Great Honey Rescue, and a little preview of what’s ahead for the Muses’ 100th episode.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram/Faceboook/BlueSky - @thelorcanamuses
Twitter/X: @lorcanamusespod
TikTok: @thelorcanamusespodcast


**The Lorcana Muses Podcast uses trademarks and/or copyrights associated with Disney Lorcana TCG, used under Ravensburger’s Community Code Policy (https://cdn.ravensburger.com/lorcana/community-code-en). We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. This podcast is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Disney or Ravensburger. For more information about Disney Lorcana TCG, visit https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello everyone and welcome to the Lorcana Muses podcast. I'm Brittany. I'm Nikki and I'm Leslie. And we had a really awesome beginning of our weekend. I guess technically we're on Sunday now, but we had our Lorcana Muses tournament. So that's gonna spot to spend most of our time talking about today. Uh and we had such a great turnout. And I just wanted to say thank you again to our community for being amazing and for continuing to support us.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

So yeah, it was amazing. Like you guys did such a good job of organizing, and it's probably one of the best run tournaments that I've been to with that many players. We almost had 60. We did at the beginning of the day, but people obviously life happens and people drop last second and stuff. But it was so fun as a player.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Well, I'm I'm glad everybody had fun because yeah, we ended up with 57 players and it didn't even feel that overwhelming in this space. Like when people were getting there and everybody was standing, it felt a little bit yeah full. Definitely. But once people started sitting down and playing, it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Yeah, and shout out to Games Outpost for hosting and putting up prizing and just helping organize because it was it was really well put together from a player perspective.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, I'm I'm glad I we we worked behind the scenes to try to make sure everything was put together ahead of time. Big shout out to Andrew, the manager, because he worked hand in hand to make sure everything was set up ahead of time. And like to Dom and Kyle, who are employees there, they made sure that the play hub was running well and did a lot of the pre-work before the tournament. So I really appreciate you know partnering with them and how well they, you know, worked with us to make sure everything was running. Our lore guide, Lee Lord guide, Logan, who's part of our team, he did an amazing job. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yes, he did.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

And big shout out to him because he's gonna be a lore guide at the upcoming nationals event. So super excited to have a nationals level uh lore guide at our tournament. And then thank you to Nikki for helping with tournament organizing with me. And then the biggest shout out to Nate because Nate is a teammate of ours who just continuously goes above and beyond when we do events and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Um, he created a whole tournament organizer website. It's amazing to help run this tournament specifically. And he wants to help like have it be used for other tournaments in the beginning. And we were his guinea pig tournament, but it ran really well. We ran all our raffles through it. We were able to put like lore guide calls in it, we were able to put time extensions in like a book. And it I am always so thoroughly impressed by him. He is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

And we're thankful to so thankful that shout out to Nate.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, like I like the event went well because we just had such a great sport team around us, and I had a fun time, you know, being the TO and And the community was just amazing too. It was it was the the energy in the room was so positive for the most part, and just like how people interacted was great. I really loved how we had some people cosplaying and we had um we had some newer players. It was like their first tournament ever, like they haven't even played in a set chance. And then we had some players, you know, that are already qualified nationally. So we had such a wide range of players. We had people come from Tucson. Yeah, we had people drive from Tucson, and it was it was such a great feeling in the room. And I think people played a long time because we had lots of raffles that were all donated by community members and team members, and so I think that that helped keep people in the room.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

You know, raffles are always fun because it's not it's not always dependent on, you know, top cut. So that's why I love to have both.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

I mean, the amount of raffling it we you called it a 1k initially. I think you and Daryl ended up putting up about 2K in prizing, and then a lot of people donated. And I think, like you said, probably over four 4K worth of prizing is raffled off, which is absolutely amazing how much our community came together just to make this really fun experience. And a lot of people were there practicing for the LCQ. And so I think having this big tournament before made a lot of people feel really confident and and going to nationals and trying to make it there. So I think it was a good, it was such a great tournament. And and you can feel how excited everyone was to be there amongst really great players and and like to practice and learn. And it was it was a good experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Well, I'm I'm really glad to hear it. And I and I I know that a lot of people like were thankful yesterday as they were playing, but they they really were like, I really needed this practice. I wanted this high quality time. Um, I really like how we stayed mostly on our time schedule because it was already gonna be a long day because we had we played six rounds and then we did top cut to 16. Um, so we were there for a long time. So I was like, because we started the tournament around 12:30, wasn't quite uh 1230, like 1245, I think is when we ended up starting.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Which is pretty on time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

And then we did 50 minute rounds, and then most of those rounds are over time, didn't take that much longer. Yeah. So like the turns. The turns went pretty fast. So I think like each round took about an hour, and then we did a few raffles in between. So sometimes sometimes it was like an hour and five minutes, depending on that. We did most of our raffles during the middle, like in the rounds instead of in between the rounds. Um, but we had some higher, like we had lots of enchanteds and things like that. We raffled off that we wanted everyone to be see who got him. Um and then we did some like bundled raffles.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Yep. So it was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah. And I think it was a really good indicator of where kind of the meta is at. In general, there were some decks that I was expecting to see that I didn't see. Yeah. Because I got to see every, every list, right? And every because we had everybody deckless were required. And so it was percentage-wise, they were about what I expected. But where that breakdown was was kind of where I kind of didn't see that happening as much. So Amber Amethyst was the highest percentage in the room. Like 25, yeah, 25, 26%. With 57 decks, it makes the math kind of funny a little awkward. A little awkward.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

25 plus percent, basically. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Um, because there was 15 of them in the room. Most of those deck lists were the mid-range control. Yeah. Like some of them had raging storm, some of them did not. So they were all some iteration of that. There was one that was a Pocahontas. Yeah, it was a Pocahontas build. But uh other than that, they were all very similar, you know, six to six to eight card swing, but in general, teching for each other or teching for the amber emerald matches. There was 14 amber emeralds in the room, so about 25%.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Very expected.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, very expected. But what was not expected is there was only two that were not like the song. Yeah, there was one that was the aggro like Royals build, and then one was like a like a toys build, but an off meta toys build. Yeah, and then the other, the other 12 basically were some variation of the songs build.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yeah, but even the variations of the songs were so different.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, because like some were on the retro evolution device and some were not.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Some were a hybrid, like with the Eleanor in there. Yeah, some were not. So it was like one of the things I really like about this set is how even within the same color combinations, how wide that variety is. Yeah. It's not the same 56 cards that everybody's running.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

No, it was definitely like there was a core like 45 cards, basically, or 46 cards. And then from there it was a difference, but they were teching for each other, teching for the amphitheatre. It was very interesting. And then we had nine amethyst steel in the room. Most of those were the Mal Diablo kind of build. There were robots too, but I think there's only two robots.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Yeah, I played against a robots player in my first round. It was very interesting, but we'll leave it as that.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

No more comment. But then, so that was about 17% of the field. And then Amber Ruby was the next highest at 11%. There were six of them in the room. Five of those were the boosties build for variation of that deck, but boosties as the basics. Um, and then one was a panda song list. Uh it was so fun. It's so fun. It's so fun. And then we had four Ruby Amethysts, so about seven percent of the room. Those were all very like some most of them were on like the evasive Tinkerbell I guess.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Yeah, that comes to making its rounds.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

It has, but it's because it won the CCT.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Yeah, well, it's the cycle that we always talk about, right? Because like nobody was running evasive, everybody took out their evasive removal, so then this deck's coming around, and then everyone's gonna have their invasive. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I'm like, oh, and horseman's rights are coming back. Yeah, yes, exactly. Uh and then we had three Amber Steel, all three decks were vastly different for the Amber Steel builds.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Very different.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Um, and so like one was like a princess variation, and then one was like more of a mid-range, and the other one was a like very strong on the songs.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yes, traditional, more traditional amber steel. I actually was really excited. Um, I played that person, Austin. Yeah, yeah, Austin, yes, super nice guy. I was super excited to like play him because I saw that and we were both sitting there and playing, and I was like, I love Leelo's stitch, and he's like, I love your mat because it has stitch on it. And we were just like gushing at each other because I was like, oh my god, kindred souls.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, no, it was great because he watched somebody open an enchanted Ohana from some of the prize. So excited. And he was so excited for it. And so it was like he almost bought it. He did almost bought it. But yeah, huge shout out to Austin because he ended up in the top two with his Amber Steel the Lilo and Stitch song very.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yeah, I was like, that was the very first deck I tried to make work in the set was a Lilo and Stitch deck.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, no, and he was like running Tweekly for the Alien Raw and things like that too. And he was running the Lilo that gives the ability to challenge ready characters. That was doing a lot of things. Oh, 100%. So it was it was really working. I was impressed me. I was there were some decks that I was like just thoroughly impressed by like how well they were being piloted because you look at the list and you don't think it's gonna be go as well as it did, and then you just like watch the pilot, and like the pilot skill would just so impressive. And Austin was one of those in the room where I was just like watching their run throughout the day, and it was just impressive. He knew his deck like inside. For sure, yeah, for sure. He definitely had been practicing a lot. We had two Ruby Steel in the room. So, you know, that's one of those our friend Tiffany. Yeah, she loves her Ruby Steel. I love she did the violet uh dash shift stuff. So that's always a fun one. We had two emerald amethysts in the room, they were very different decks, yeah, very different decks. One was like the uh source of the vine list, and so he had three source of the vines, one out against one of his opponents. And uh he it was really funny watching his opponent try to man like talk about they had to talk about the when that trigger goes off because it goes off bef at the end of your turn. But if you get the lore before you have to pay the price, you don't have to pay the price.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

That's really interesting. Like if you win from a reasoning, you don't have to pay it.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

That's that's actually really good to know.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Because your lore happens before their lore happens.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

Correct. Yeah. So that's where that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah. So it was definitely because I had watched a um Googly Glimmers video on it in the week, just trying to prep for the event. Yeah. Um, because you know, as the TO, you're kind of like the third or the you're like a backup of the for the judges. So I did a little bit of research, and that was one of the ones where I'm like, this might come up. I don't know how many people have played Source of the Vine, but it's definitely an interesting like when does the trigger go off?

SPEAKER_03 12:15

Weird interaction for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

So that it was just fun to watch. But having three of them out was just diabolical. Diabolical. That was our teammate Tony. I always loved it. Interesting things. Yeah, so we we there was a Sapphire Steel Duck Techtives list. Yes, and and then there was an Amber Sapphire list, which I never saw. I never saw it anywhere, but I saw, but I was like doing the deck list, and I'm like, I never saw it actually being played.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

But somebody was running an Amber Seth Amber Sapphire. Yeah, Amber Sapphire is fun. I mean, that's one of the decks that I was contemplating bringing to the LCK, but I'm spinning out too. Yeah, no, I I still as we all are.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yeah, I as I as I watched all these decks, I was like, oh, maybe watching these decks being played will help me decide what I want to play. And it really didn't help.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

No, it's so overwhelming because it's like, oh my gosh, that looks so fun. Yeah, I was like interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

I was watching like people play boosties and I, you know, love my Ruby cards, and so I was like watching and it's like, oh, maybe I want to go back to playing.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Well, like, I mean, uh Zach, top cut Zach. Yes, he he went undefeated while on the boosties deck in in Swiss.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, in Swiss. And then he when he was played in top 16, he he got yeah bounced out.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Yeah. But I I was saying, like, I saw you coming over when watching him play, and I could see it in your eyes. I'm like, oh Brittany's gonna go back to boosties. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

I done his deck check and it's like, oh, boosties, all right.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

There was a couple of them, which was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, there I mean, yeah. For the boost, there was five boosties decks in the room, and three or two of them made it to top 16.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Yes, and I I mean it's a good deck, so it's not unexpected, but yeah, we talked about it before, but like the Boosties deck is too slow to so it was actually really pleasantly surprising that like people were able to play, finish on time, and do really, really well with it.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

I for the most part was very happy with how people were playing for time.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

You know, as somebody that was like watching the clock thoroughly trying to keep people on top on time, only had to give like one warning about you know, some slow playing, which for such a big tournament, I thought was a pretty good call. Yeah. Um somebody told me I was a little mean when I talked about slow play as an announcement. So I do apologize if me mentioning slow play came across as aggressive. I just didn't want to stay all night. No, I was like, okay, I will apologize for that. I wasn't sure how it came across, but my sassiness sometimes came across as a little bit, you know, extra sassy.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah. It was a warning with some extra spice.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, it was just it was just a spicy warning. I was like, they were like, yeah, you maybe as a tournament organizer, you need to be a little nicer with how you communicate that. And like, that's fair. Fair. It's fair, it's fair. It's like it's not just the locals, but yeah, like our top 16, the conversion rate was kind of crazy. We ended up with like 30% amber amethyst, 30% amber emerald, and then 12% amber ruby, which it was 12% amber ruby, which it was 11% in the overall room. So like it had a pretty good conversion rate. Yeah, yeah. And like one of the emerald ambers, amethyst made it. And then we had it one of the amber steel. So like overall, the top 16 cut was pretty good. And then we had four ink combos. 50% of the top eight was amber amethyst, and then we had 25% was emerald amber. Then we did amber steel and emerald, emerald amethyst, and then top four was amber steel, two amber amethyst, one amber, emerald, emerald amber, and then our top two was amber steel and amber emerald. And our winner was an amber emerald. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Shout out to Teacher of Math.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Teacher of Math, Michael, he was big, big Mikey Mike and the boys as his team name. And then he his deck was called Eddie Coddle is my goat. And we're not posting any deck list until after the LCQ, uh, which was a promise to our community, so that uh if they are bringing this deck there, that they have it as a surprise.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yes. Although yeah, I mean most of these decks are pretty typical, but I do like that the like we said, it's a wide range of tech. Yeah, you know? Um so I think it's pretty interesting how we can run the same color combination or play style, but like everybody throws in their own little spice to try and and uh yeah differentiate their deck and and hopefully help with the mirror match.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, and I know that uh Mike Michael like does a lot of playtesting. Oh yeah. Lots and lots. So I know he definitely had practiced that mirror a lot, probably with Eddie.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Probably I was I was impressed by some of the decks in the room and the choices that were made. I actually brought a trophy.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yes, I was gonna mention that because it was so cool. You guys name a goat trophy for the most creative deck.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, and so uh one of the most creative decks was it was her first tournament. And so her deck was like a princess very princess deck, but was playing princesses like the aerial traveler card and some some other cards that were just like really good choices.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Like I was a lot of dwarfs were in it too.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah, it was just like I really liked the choices that were made and and what she did, and it was just creative deck choices. Very interesting. And and she was she was playing and she was having a really great time.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

So I gave her the the goat because I like I like seeing you know decks being utilized in a unique way. For sure. And she was so sweet too.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

She was like, Oh my god, I won the goat, dude. I think that just like made her day, which is so cool. I I like and like competitive, serious tournaments. Obviously, people are there to practice for bigger tournaments. And so, you know, all the top players I think got a lot of value out of it. But I think a lot of the players who are at their first tournament, they're you know, or they're they don't go to big ones very often, or they just want to come and hang out with friends and have fun, like they people got stuff out of that too. And I think that was very well run because it often feels like the because this game's getting so popular and competitive, you get to a point where it feels very exclusive to competitive players. So I really liked that both sides of the game got to experience something really cool out of it.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, that's my biggest uh as a tournament organizer, because this is the third or I think it's actually the fourth tournament that the muses have put on of various types, right? Um and I want to say that that's my biggest takeaway every time is I want it to feel balanced between competitive and community, which is you know, part of our biggest part of push as muses is community and and um competitive, both sides having a place and a voice in Marcana, but I feel like both sides should have a place and a part in tournaments.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Yeah, and and like I I because I washed out of the tournament, I was able to talk with like, you know, obviously there's always the competitive players, and then I talked with like the not as competitive players, and they were all having a blast. And I love that and a lot of them were saying, you know, actually this inspires me to be more competitive, and like I see all these players playing really well, and I want to be that there. And I think that's like so great, but it it's not in a way that's like intimidating because everyone, most of people in our community are so awesome, and like there's no like I'm a top player and you're not, so I'm not gonna talk to you. You know, everyone was hanging out, having a good time, and it was it was really fun to watch and and be a part of for sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

I enjoyed it. I mean, I stayed in the back guarding the raffles because, like, we talked about we had a good chunk of money and raffles, so you know, we've heard unfortunately about things getting taken at tournaments. So yeah, I wanted to be sure that nobody missed out. So my eye was always on the door.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

No, yeah, no, Nikki organized all the raffles that I had been gathering and pulled together and I had like a broad bucket.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I'm like, okay, here's all the prizes, and now we need to put them into piles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

It was so it was just really fun. I keep saying that, but I it was a really fun day yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

I'm really glad. I I'm very hypercritical of myself uh often about all things, but um, especially when it comes to like running events, and I always look for all the things that could have gone wrong or could have done better. So I always appreciate like the positive feedback too, because I want to be able to hear what went well too, but I only ever see what goes wrong.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Yes, as we all do. It's not a shocking revelation. Very typical of us.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

But yeah, I I think it I think we honestly could run even a bigger one. I think so.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

I think it would be a big goal for a local chair.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah, goal is to run a bigger tournament locally. We would have to have a bigger space because 60 was was the amount of chairs.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Volunteer staff.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yes, yes, that's true. Four people, like we we made it work, and four people plus the two store employees. So like I think that was the right amount for this tournament. But if it was more people, it would yeah, we it would need more bodies, a little army. And then people were like, Where's the stream? You streamed the last one. Yeah. And it's like uh we didn't stream this one because people wanted to practice more for the CCQ and LCQ because we have some people going to the D23 C CQ and then the LCQ. So we didn't stream it this time, but we definitely take the feedback.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

We will most likely, I'm not gonna guarantee it, but we'll most likely stream the next.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

Yeah, and you guys do always try to stream events. I mean, you help with like other events happening together. Like streaming, but um by request of the community, and we didn't this time.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

So yeah, no, we had we had some people ask for it and some people didn't ask for it, and then people were at the event, where's the stream? Yeah, well, we'd also have to have another lore guide. Like we already had two for the main room. We would have to have a third one for that tournament. Or just the stream. Um, and then we'd have to have people casting the stream because I don't want to just have an empty stream.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Yeah.

unknown 22:06

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

So it is there's a open follow. They know what's going on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I mean, it's just uh there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to doing streaming, which is great. And we like doing that part, but that does add like six more people. But yeah. I I'm impressed. I'm excited. I really liked how it gave us like a taste of the meta. What I was surprised we didn't see was more of the Amber Emerald aggro decks. Yes. Yeah, I thought I would wear it. And we saw we saw no toys. We saw the one toy list that wasn't a full meta deck. So it wasn't quite the same.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Yeah, the deck that everyone was saying toys was gonna eat the new dogs.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, and there were there were none in the room.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Turns out Circle of Life is stronger.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah, the Circle of Life song build was definitely the one that was the most in the room besides the Amber Amethyst. Yes. And we had two of like the princess decks that were amber amethysts, and so technically there were more of the Amber Emerald songs than anything else.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Well, I I was surprised by the number of amber amethysts too, because before this tournament, a lot of people were saying that amber amethyst was like kind of dying out, right? Yeah. And then we had some and then half like a quarter of the room was Amber Amethysts.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Well, yeah, and I just I think locally we have a lot of people who like playing it. Yeah. So like that is part of it. Um part of why I was like not wanting to play it anymore is because the mirror matches the mirror matches are take a very long time.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Yeah, we talked about that last week as like the mirror matches, and I brought Amber Emerald to this tournament and I was also worried about the mirror match. I won't share what tech I had in there for the mirror match, but it was fun though, still.

unknown 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

I I love for the most part, I love our community and I keep raving about it. But like after yesterday, I it just reaffirmed how awesome the Arizona community is because like how appreciative everyone was of having a big tournament right before the LCQ, how enthusiastic people were, and and like people cheering each other on with the raffles and and like winning, and and even when you're not winning, like there's people cheering you on and and helping you out. So it's pretty it's I say this every week, but I love our community.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

I'm sure people have figured it out, but yeah, it's it's still good to hear it all the time, right? That bigger shirt.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

I love our community.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Yeah, no, I I would wear that shirt. That's true for the most part. I mean, even I had a bad experience, but it's still like for the most part, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Yeah, I mean, the rest of your day went well. Yeah. So, you know, you got to come back in the back raffle room and then and you're cooled down because it was.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Oh my god, it was so hot with 60 people in the room and being like 120 degrees outside. It was I mean, that's something that I do want to talk about, though, is one thing I'm realizing is I feel like I am a pretty decent pilot of my deck. But when it comes to competitive play, sometimes my brain just doesn't want to brain. And the mental resistance and fortitude of competing long days, it's it's a skill and it's really admirable for people who have that skill or like how to build up that skill. That's something that I want to work on. It's like my biggest goal is to be have more mental fortitude. Yeah. So you just like want to build up your stamina. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I yesterday obviously played against really good players too, and they played a really good game, but I definitely missed some triggers because it was so hot in the room that my brain just like shut off. I was like, I can't think. And I don't know how people, you know, people go to like magic and Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments and it's like the worst conditions ever because they're all nerds and like, you know, tournament organizers don't often care about whether you're uncomfortable or not. And and like you still come out on top. And and then that's like something that I want to be able to do, but I'm a very spoiled girly and I like my comforting things, you know, like air conditioning, like air conditioning and airflow. But shout out to the store because they did turn the air down and help like cool off the place.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

It's just with 60 people in that room was and it was just and it was starting to just get hot outside and just like very combetting that.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah, I do appreciate that our Lurcana community, much more so than other card games, have better hygiene. I feel like that is an understatement because if it was 60 people in a room sweating and they didn't have good hygiene, it would have been so much more.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

I would have been out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Well, as it was like the night before they had had the magic pre-release, and when we walked in in the morning, it was a little bit stinky. Yeah. Part of that is because the air conditioning had been broken earlier in the week. Oh gosh. So they had been actively fixing it. Yeah. Which is part of why it was warm is they were the air conditioning was still basically on recovery mode. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, no, the magic event the night before had been full and they had rented out the additional space. Oh gosh. Yeah. That was further down, further down the way. Um, and they had like a hundred players between the two spaces. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

I mean, it it's understandable. You get a bunch of people together, it's gonna not smell great, but especially in the Arizona heat. But like I said, I do appreciate that most of our community, more so than other card games, do a better job of maintaining hygiene.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So yeah, I I I mean, it's especially right at the beginning of this game, I was always so I was discouraged often because a lot of the players didn't have the same hygiene expectations. Um, but I have a very sensitive nose. And so like there are certain stores that I don't play at because of the store itself, because of the other games. I can't spend time in the space because of that. Because I I just it makes me nauseous sometimes. Like just having that odor. Just like the same thing with like bathrooms. I just feel like it's just not it is it shows your lack of inclusivity when you don't have clean restrooms, when you don't have a hygiene policy, things like that. That I'm not gonna say it's only men, but it is predominantly.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

It's because the like card community or card game community is priority.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Uh yeah. And so like, I'm not saying that all of these men don't have hygiene qual like like as a priority for themselves, but when the stores make it a priority, when the players make it a priority, when it's part of their requirements for players to be utilizing good hygiene practices within the store, yeah, that makes a big difference. Yeah. And like that's my I was like for tournament organizing like Lorcana Fran, she um makes sure that the restrooms at her wherever she does tournaments like are like high quality, have the available ability for like like changing tables and things in restrooms so that it's more family oriented. So I'm always like really impressed by this way she organizes things like that. And that's something that I want to strive for if we end up doing things outside of just a game store. Yeah. Just to make sure that you know, a big shout out because like Zach like tries to get the child care for the top kit game once. Those things make it more accessible. More accessible for more people, and it makes it to where our community stays strong in lots of ways.

SPEAKER_03 29:15

Yeah. Once again, the community is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Yep, I know Leslie's choice is present this year.

unknown 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

And like I, you know what, I'll just tell the story because it's like I've alluded to it. But my round one opponent basically raged quit after our game. And it was really frustrating because I felt like I played really well. And we talked about this last week, where we were like, when you feel like you're playing really well and uh you come like you win from behind, which is what happened, because he was kicking my butt and obviously very happy about kicking my butt. And then when I turned the game around, he got very frustrated. And it's like, I totally understand the frustration. And he did, to his credit, say, I'm not upset with you, I'm just upset with the meta right now. But it at the moment when that anger or like not, you know, not being a good sport about it directed at you, it's very difficult to not take it personally. Yeah. And very nicely, there were several people around me after he left that said, Hey, don't take it personally, like it's not your fault. And that I really appreciate that. So focusing, focusing on that positive, but it's just a game at the end of the day. And like I am as competitive as like people come. I love doing well at competitions. I love like challenging myself, right? But there's also a good sport, like ways to be a good sport about it, whether you win or lose. And I think that's something we talked about last week a lot. And I think we need to continue talking about it because as this game gets elevated, more and more people like are getting serious about it. Yeah. Um, but you can still be serious and competitive without being completely rude to your part, like to your play uh competitor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

And just that's part of having sportsmanship, right? Because like you have to be have grace winning and losing. Yes. And you can feel all the feelings you want to feel, but you don't put that on your opponent.

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Right. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Um and even if your deck bricks, you don't need to say those things out loud. You don't need to be like, you won because I bricked. Well, those words don't need to be said out loud. They still won.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yeah. And I mean, I I get I get it because I get frustrated and I'm like, my deck just completely bricked. But I'm always like, that's not on you. Like you played really well, you know, like that was a good game. I one notable game I played against David, somebody in our community. And afterwards, he was super sweet. He helped me like analyze what I could have done differently, what I misplayed, things like that, where it's like, I should have done this instead, I should have done that, or you know, whatever. And I was talking through with him, but it was like nothing on him that was like, like, I would have won if I did this instead, right? It was just how do I learn from this? And we had a really good conversation and I really enjoyed that. And most of our community is like that. Yeah. But yeah, the the first game I played, he was already winning on board. And I was like, I think he's gonna win this game, but I'm gonna play to my outs. And I did, and I ended up winning the game. And it made me like I was really proud of myself for the way I handled it. Because I'm not usually like sometimes people give up too easily, and I I'm guilty of that very often. But then the way the reaction came after the game kind of took away like how a little bit of how I was like so proud of myself. And anybody who's been listening knows I have confidence issues. So that was the first time where I was like, wow, I played that really well. I feel good about myself. And then like just the reaction. Well, I I don't like saying that because I don't think other people should be able to take anything away from your experience. Yeah, like he doesn't have that power over me. He can't take away my win. But as a woman, when you play against a bigger male physically, right? And they act that aggressive, I was shaking after he left because intimidation. Yeah, yeah, and it's not right, like that should not take place. No, um, and I can handle myself, like I can handle myself, but it's still scary because like you don't know what's gonna happen. Yes, the reality is, you know, there is a possibility of violence, and I hope it never happens in our game in our community. But as a woman, that's something you have to think about, and it's really frustrating when it happens because other and other people noticed. So it wasn't just me. We could hear it in the back, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

And it was like you could hear that so loud, you know, because there were so many people. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

So that's just something to be mindful of because as we bring more people into the community, I think it's important to realize how your demeanor can come off as threatening to other people sometimes over a game at the end of the day. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

I just also like I don't want dismissive language to be part of what's happening when when you win or lose against somebody. And even if you're friendly with a person or you are considered friends with each other, we have enough people in this community that need the positivity more than anything else. And you might use that as like gamer bro mentality, but that's just toxic.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Yeah. Yeah. I heard like I had a talk with someone about the conversation they had after their game where they're like, Yeah, I won, but I really robbed him. And then the other person's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I I would have won if I didn't brick. And it's just like, you didn't though. It doesn't matter. Like, like the person played well, otherwise they wouldn't have won. Yeah. You know, and like I I've come back from games where I've bricked, right? Because the other person made a misplay, or I was able to find the tools, or I dug my way out of a problem, right? And it's like it's skill in both directions. So variance happens, but it's also like you don't blame your phone. Like, don't say I should have won that. You know, that's just rude.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

No, it's it's discounting people's skill. It's also discounting, like, you know, variance happens, but also like what those again are thoughts that don't need to be happening out loud.

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

And you don't need to make yourself feel better, right? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

I mean, if you do, those are inside thoughts as we're doing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

And so, like, m that it's a it's a frustrating point because we want people to advocate for themselves more. Yes. And that's why we talk about it on the podcast is like we're not trying to harp on people individually, but like as a community as a whole, we need to just make sure that people are advocating for themselves personally. But if we see activities like that, just call people out on it. Yeah. Because the more people are getting called out for, you know, just rude behavior. Yeah, yeah. Or just like just not taking the win or the loss well. Like it's it's it is a game at the end of the game, end of the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

And we've had a good game. But you you shouldn't go in, I'm gonna win this thing, all of it.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

Yeah, I mean, there's like confidence. Yeah, you know, it's like I feel good, I feel like I can win this. Like that's different than I'm gonna win everything because I'm better than everyone, right? Like exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah, there's a difference between confidence and pluckiness, yes, and arrogance.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

And arrogance. And there's a fine line all of those directions, right? Like it's about how you present yourself and how you communicate with people. And I mean, it's it's a skill just like anything else. Yes. And communication is not always everybody's best skill, but being able to remind people that, hey, the way you're communicating that is rude.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Yeah. Like calling people out on it helps them. Some people need to hear it.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Well, I think that's the thing too, because I mean, we're all nerds at the end of the day, right? Not everybody, like you said, has good communication skills. I don't think a lot of it is intentional. I think it's just, you know, when like as competitive people, when you are experiencing and going through it and there's a frustration, like you say things out loud that you shouldn't say, but you don't really realize that you're saying it. And so when I talk about like these bad experiences, it's not the person itself that I had the bad experience with. It's just like I understand where they're coming from, um, but also like a learning moment for them and other people to not behave that way. Yeah. So yeah, that's that's my take from it, honestly. But yeah, I I want to shout out to Chris, my partner, because he went 5-0 on his deck and like he was super excited about it. He played really well. He went into top 16 in the and first seed. Um, so I was super proud of him. Um, but then in the top 16, his deck stopped decking, which happens. But uh, and it makes me actually extra proud of him because he handled it very well.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Um and so that's just like something that I want to highlight because he I mean, coming off 5-0 from a tournament and and then just like completely losing in round, you know, the first round is our of top 16. Um, I can understand like being upset about that. But he was obviously upset. Yeah. But he's very much just like it that variance struck me, you know. And and his opponent played really well. So it's like that combination, yeah. Yeah, I know, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

So yeah, no, Daryl played very well too. So he was also in the top 16. So big shout out to him. I really I had to like take a step back as a wife, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Like I know.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

So I was like, I couldn't, I like tried to not cheering him on. Yeah, no, I was like, I couldn't show any bias or anything. Um, so I like didn't go and check on him as much as I normally do in a tournament. Um so I had I was like, yeah, no, Daryl played really well too.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

But I was like, well, honestly, like shout out to you guys because like being able to balance that, like you're the tournament organizer, husband's competing, so you obviously want to cheer him on, and it's like it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And you did a really good job of like staying neutral and any judge calls and stuff, like you let Logan handle it, and yeah, it just was well, and then I mean, I mean, and I know our community trusts us, like to like, but we made sure that you know, like you couldn't win any raffle prizes. And when any raffle prizes, you both ended up like ours, our wheel, both of you had won at some point, but we because you're on you know, our team leadership, we couldn't have you win things.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Yeah, Daryl and I both sat out of the raffle, and I was really sad about it because like some of the enchanteds you were raffling off were so gorgeous.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, no, and I mean it's just just like one of those things where like, okay, like I'm sure the community wouldn't be that upset about it, but also right. It's just that we it's it is a digital spin, but yeah, you know, it it just was it was the right thing to change.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

At the end of the day, like when I make decisions, I'm always like, what's the right thing to do? Regardless of how people, you know. Yeah. And so it was just like, yeah, it's it's just not right.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

But yeah, so like any of the prizing, like they had, you know, top 16 had to get to top 16 to get any prizing for Daryl, um, for sure. And then yeah, anything like I couldn't do his deck check um when we did deck checks for top 16, I made sure that somebody else did it. Um like Nikki, Nikki did his deck check, and then like Logan's dad was also playing in the tournament. So the judge calls for that, we had Nate, our second judge, yeah doing those. So it was definitely just like we had backups in place just in case, but just to be like really if anybody knows anything about Daryl and I is like we're pretty good about just making sure that things are pretty fair. Yeah, everything can be fair, as fair as possible, as fair as possible.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Um we're all humans, and yeah, like any anything like that wasn't, you know, quote unquote fair was very unintentional, and I don't think there was any issues, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah, and so it was just definitely like uh we we tried to balance out everything as much as possible, and you know, that's as especially for like a local tournament, that's as but what much as you can do, yeah without having people not play.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

Yeah, I when we were first talking about the tournament, I was like, Oh, can I not play in it?

SPEAKER_01 40:45

No, no, no, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

Um, but I was I was as a player in the tournament, it was very fun, just overall. So I don't know. I think that was a success from our perspective.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

So I'm glad it was like a year in organizing. Yeah. Well, I mean, not not the whole organizing piece, but like we'd been gathering raffle prizing for that long. So that's why we had so much raffle prizing because we kept on pushing back when our tournament was gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Yeah, and and like everybody showing up and and just like the energy and the room was fun.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

So well, speaking of energy, we had the lore cast this week where they talked about some new like Yeah, they talked about uh they talked a little about format coconut, and there are some new apparently Brittany is not a fan of the coconut. Obviously, they're talking about how the name may change. I think it's probably gonna stay. I think people probably like to say coconut, but you know, they keep adding cards and just different texts for it. I haven't played it myself, but they also announced a few things, you know, that are happening with D23. They unveiled the new book that's coming out, uh, The Quest of Wonders. It'll also have a uh Piousis promo. That art is so pretty.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

It's so pretty, the princess art.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yeah, I really like the white background. It just feels like the character pops. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Which, sorry, subject change, but you guys actually broke apart a princess collection box and graffled off the cards. And I think that was really exciting for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Yeah, no, we people were really I think some of them are more excited about those than the enchanted.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

I think so too. But yeah, thank you again to you and Daryl for like a lot of that prizing was from so anyway, sorry, change of subject. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

They did verify that the CCQ will run live August 15th. So tune in. And then the biggest thing I think was Attack of the Vine Set Champs start September 5th.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

So it's already happening. I know. I was like, I feel like we're gonna go, we're gonna get back from the LCQ in the following weekend. We are in set champs. It's all of September. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

So and also the Great Honey Rescue will be available October 2nd. So I guess there will be, you know, stuff on the play hubs you can go play in your stores.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

The stores I like that they're doing more of the commun, like pushing for more community play in that regard. Like the honey rescue, they did like the um pack rush buzz promo stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's like just more bringing in more casual players, which I think is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

Yeah, yeah. I am not I really liked the Jafar and Ursula, like Lumineer's quests games. I like both of those. I'm hoping the honey rescue is very similar to those and like how they play out, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Yeah, but still waiting for obstacles in the real game.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

I really like obstacles, but Winnie the Pooh is just like not my favorite IP. And so I'm just like not excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

You know, that's blasphemous to like 50% of it.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

I understand. It's kind of funny because like I really like Tigger.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah, like a lot. I love Tigger, but Winnie the Pooh is just and it's it's fun, because I used to love Winnie the Pooh. I grew up loving Winnie the Pooh all the time. But for Lurcana specifically, it's like not my favorite art.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Yeah, the card has been like the cards have been underwater.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Like like Honey Wizard, I know people like love that card. I am so underwhelmed by that card. I can just like, but it's just lovely.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Well, and you have to think about the art has evolved so much.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Well, yeah, I get it. So I just think that I feel like a lot of the art on the Winnie the Pooh cards is very static to me. And a big reason I like a lot of the arts that I do is I love seeing motion and art, and I just don't see that as much in some of those cards.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Yeah. That's fair. It's usually like your sitting or standing.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Or you're. Yeah, but which is part of why I like the tigger cards out of all of those. Yeah, because he's bouncing. Yeah, like because like I have the Tigger pirate captain. That one's so like I have that enchanted.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Yeah, the card itself was card.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Also I played that card. Yeah. Um yeah, I just as a whole, the IP is just not my favorite. When it comes to Lorcana, I actually like Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_03 44:55

But uh Although the Winnie and Pooh Enchanted, I said Winnie and Pooh, Winnie the Pooh Enchanted, um, the set was really pretty.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

It was really pretty. This one, much better than the other one. Yeah, that's not so which is I feel like so blasphemous because it's such a it's such an expensive uh enchanted. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

The honey was like so sought after.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

And it's just it just feels kind of dark to me.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

And I just don't yeah, I do like the art style, but it's not a cart that I'm like, I want from the collection.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

No, it's like a $500 enchanted. Not that I don't have $500 enchanted, but I don't have that one.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

Yeah, the market being crazy is something we cannot get into in this episode. But it is No, it is it is still crazy. It's extremely wild and it just keeps on going and down. Now it's like, what?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

It's because people want to bling bling that you'll have your deck, and then just there's just not enough epics in the world to fill out all those decks.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

I'm excited because from the prize box that Chris got, we pulled an enchanted Ohana. It's such a so we are that's our second one. He gave the first one to me, and now he has one, and it's just like, oh gosh, it's so you know and Steve.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Yeah, it's which is great because another player opened that one of their prize troves uh from troves. Yeah, they're their troves that enchanted all the time.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yeah, they also opened an enchanted Ohana. Yeah, they're like, if you want to buy product, buy your games outpost because apparently their product is hot.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, no, they well, and then a friend of ours opened uh iconic there from one of their troves. So yeah, cracked troves. We've also had multiple multi-enchanted troves. Yes, yes, yes, yes. They whoever their distributed is, they give them the enchanted troves. All the best cards.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

We say that, but they're gonna like clean out their seeds. Yeah, I know. We're giving away our seat trip here.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

Oh no. All right, well, that's about all the time we have for this week, but we're super excited to continue talking to you guys. And we're getting excited because we're getting ready to get do our episode, our hundredth episode. Yeah. We're gonna be doing it live from the LCQ Nationals weekend. We're not quite sure what day yet, but not sure how.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

We're hoping that the Wi-Fi is strong at the Disneyland Hotel.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

But uh, but yeah, we're gonna we're gonna do our best to do a live episode um for a hundredth episode over there. And hopefully, I'll have to phone in.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Hopefully, you'll be able to phone in.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

Well, I mean, it's an honestly a big congrats to you, Brittany, because you've been you are the start of this team, honestly, and and you've carried it through two years now. Yep. So it's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Well, it's fun. It's fun work. Um I'm I I I love this podcast. I love our team, I love our community, and I am just forever grateful for everything that you know Lorcana has brought to me personally. Yes. And just, you know, I just love you guys.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

Well, on that sappy note, we are continuing community play testing on Sundays at 3 p.m. So come join us before the LCQ. Get your practice in.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Get your exactly every of today, which this episode will be coming out after Sunday. Right. Right. Um, but we'll have one more before the LCQ.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

So next week will be the last one.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, that that that is for this the LCQ, and then we have all the set champs.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

Yes, yes. But I was saying like the last practice day. Correct. All right. Well, and with that, happy quest day. Happy Questy.