Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the IP2 podcast.
Speaker: I'm Shay Ashby and as always I'm joined by Felix Chung.
Speaker: Today we are also joined by a special guest, Simon Denning.
Speaker: You may know him as one of the members of Push the Point.
Speaker: He's also a world's competitor, a fab dad.
Speaker: Simon, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Thanks for having me guys.
Speaker: Simon, can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
Speaker: Who is Simon?
Speaker: Who is Simon?
Speaker: I mean, Shay hit some of the notes there.
Speaker: I mean, I'm definitely a fab dad.
Speaker: I've got two kids.
Speaker: They're currently seven and four, and I try and keep them as busy as I can.
Speaker: I am a physician, an anesthesiologist for you North American people over there.
Speaker: And yeah, that keeps me pretty busy, to be fair.
Speaker: Between family and work, that keeps me pretty busy.
Speaker: Flesh and blood...
Speaker: Competitive level stuff came from the COVID pandemic, to be fair.
Speaker: I had, well, as everyone did, we had lockdown.
Speaker: We were unable to get out and play competitive sports or games or anything.
Speaker: And I took to a newly pressed card game called Flesh and Blood to scratch that competitive itch.
Speaker: And that was all the way back in the summer of 2020 when everyone was going a bit stir crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, it's done me really well.
Speaker: I've really enjoyed playing it.
Speaker: a good level.
Speaker: I wouldn't say a high level, a good level.
Speaker: I played in Worlds 2022 and came 99th, so I'm pretty proud of that.
Speaker: And now the main focus is on the podcast, which you mentioned, Push the Point podcast with my co-presenters Hamish and Dan Tripp.
Speaker: And it's given us a new lease of life almost within the game.
Speaker: We've casted events, we've done deck techs and hero deep dives, and we do a podcast every two weeks.
Speaker: uh it's just it it's a great way to keep us interested in the game and abreast of the hot topics and uh yeah keep keep a finger on the pulse as it were yeah one of the longest running podcasts i believe for for flesh and blood uh you're in the triple digits for episodes are you or am i thinking so we have no we have uh 60 plus episodes
Speaker: We've been going for a couple of years now, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker: But if you look at the number of videos we've put out, we've had interviews, deck techs, hero deep dives, as I say.
Speaker: The podcast episodes aren't necessarily a true reflection on the content that we've been putting out.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: No, that's really interesting.
Speaker: And certainly that does keep you engaged.
Speaker: Should we call you Dr. Denning?
Speaker: I mean, technically that is my work name, but I don't really bring that into Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: It's a bit weird.
Speaker: So Flesh and Blood, or I guess any hobby or game, just allows you to drop all your...
Speaker: all of your baggage at the door, doesn't it?
Speaker: You go into the event space or you go into your local game store, wherever you're going, and it allows you to just drop that at the door and you get to know people for who they are and what they're interested in.
Speaker: Nothing to do with, well, what's your job?
Speaker: What do you do?
Speaker: That doesn't really matter when you sat down across from someone at the card table.
Speaker: That's one of the things I love about the local game store scene.
Speaker: You can meet people from all over the world and
Speaker: who do incredible things in their, in their hobby time or with their, with their own efforts.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to come down to what's your professional and what's your job or,
Speaker: It's a freedom.
Speaker: We're well aware of this.
Speaker: Felix brought this up in the very first episode of the IP2 podcast.
Speaker: And we just talked about it on the last one is that, you know, third place concept of places that you can go where you just get to hang out with people and everybody's on the same level.
Speaker: And everything like you said, outside of that door is, you know,
Speaker: essentially irrelevant unless somebody wants to bring it into play and everybody's on equal footing and we're all here to just enjoy you know tonight this evening as we play you know this game together and one of the things that was very clear this year at worlds in barcelona um right from the moment james white gave his um keynote speech on the thursday evening for the player reception was ever since legends story studios has has come into um the gaming arena as it were
Speaker: they've been clear that one of their main priorities is to bring people together in the flesh and blood to play great games.
Speaker: They say it every time.
Speaker: When you see James White talk about it, he has a real strength of feeling about this and a real emotional tie to this concept.
Speaker: In Barcelona, it just struck true the whole weekend.
Speaker: Having over 1,000 people there, well over 1,000 people there sitting down for different events, everything from commoner side events, UPF side events, all the way up to world championship level competition.
Speaker: I must have played people from 15 or so different countries.
Speaker: And over 29 games I played over the three days of the weekend, I maybe had one opponent that was less than interactive.
Speaker: And I think that was more their anxiety than it was their willingness to interact.
Speaker: Like everyone had something nice to say.
Speaker: Everyone had like, what country are you from?
Speaker: And how long have you been playing Flesh and Blood?
Speaker: And what's your favorite hero?
Speaker: What's your main?
Speaker: And it was just, there was some great conversations to be had all weekend.
Speaker: And it really embodied that bringing people together to play great card games.
Speaker: Yeah, we absolutely cannot wait to dive more into your experience with worlds here.
Speaker: But before we before Shay takes it away there, I would like to ask, what are you drinking today, Simon?
Speaker: What am I doing?
Speaker: Thank you very much for asking, Felix.
Speaker: I have a Brewdog Oktoberfest lager.
Speaker: It's it's it's kind of festival lager.
Speaker: I have had it before and it is
Speaker: 4.7% is quite a quite a nice light German style lager as you would expect from the Oktoberfest.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And what are you drinking share?
Speaker: Um, I rooted around my fridge before we started and I found a Stella, which is also a lager, a 5.0% alcohol.
Speaker: I am also a lager drinker.
Speaker: I'm not a big dark or IPA guy.
Speaker: So this is just what I found in my fridge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just like a light, smooth beers.
Speaker: Uh, and this, I'm not a huge beer drinker actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not in my twenties anymore.
Speaker: And what's your normal go-to shake?
Speaker: Come on, give us a, uh,
Speaker: Something like Stella or like a Coors Banquet.
Speaker: Just a light lager.
Speaker: Light lager.
Speaker: Felix, what are you drinking?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: So this is a very boring answer.
Speaker: I'm drinking a Coke Zero.
Speaker: I do not drink, but I'm happy to be a designated driver.
Speaker: And it's something I've been for a long time in my life.
Speaker: So cheers.
Speaker: Cheers.
Speaker: Thank you for having me on, guys.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks for being here.
Speaker: So question for you about like sort of booze, I guess.
Speaker: Is like, is it just like, do you really enjoy booze?
Speaker: Is it just a UK thing that I don't really know how to phrase it the way I want to phrase it.
Speaker: So I'll be completely honest.
Speaker: I, I, I don't drink a huge amount.
Speaker: Like I, I, I wouldn't class myself as a, a big consumer of alcohol.
Speaker: However, when we first started Push to Point podcast, it was just, I don't know how Hamish brought it up, but it was just one of those, go and grab a beer and we'll talk about that.
Speaker: And it will be like, he didn't want, Hamish is basically our creative director.
Speaker: He deals with a lot of the ideas.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: he didn't want that standard opening spiel to a podcast.
Speaker: He wanted the conversation to be free flowing as we started.
Speaker: And one of the ways of doing that was talking about what's been going on at home and what we're drinking.
Speaker: And if, if no one listened to our podcast, we would still make it because it's a great excuse to get together every couple of weeks and talk about things that are going on.
Speaker: And it, it's another lesson I learned from the COVID pandemic.
Speaker: pandemic is you need time to process thoughts and chat with friends.
Speaker: And if you can mark out that time as a two hour period every two weeks, then why not?
Speaker: You put everything else in your schedule.
Speaker: You schedule your work, you schedule your family time, you schedule social events.
Speaker: Why not schedule the time to decompress with your friends who play an amazing card game?
Speaker: um and up until episode like eight we'd never met each other in person it was all online so okay yeah i don't drink a huge amount of alcohol every now and then you'll go out for drinks with friends and you'll you'll do a few pints but um you're right i think it probably is more ingrained in uk culture there's more of a beer drinking culture than than i encountered in canada but um i mean you guys have got loads of microbreweries popping up here and there you've got
Speaker: You've got a big local brew scene, which is really cool.
Speaker: I've seen it in Toronto.
Speaker: I've seen it in the Vancouver area, I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah, there was an article last month that came out.
Speaker: Yeah, I think because in October, yeah, last month that came out.
Speaker: It was like the 42, where is all of Calgary's microbreweries ranked?
Speaker: And it was like 42 microbreweries and nanobreweries on the list.
Speaker: I was like, holy cow.
Speaker: Like I knew we had a bunch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I didn't realize we had that many microbreweries.
Speaker: So yeah, you're not wrong.
Speaker: We also like our beer out here too, I think on a general consumer basis.
Speaker: So, but...
Speaker: I guess enough about beer for now.
Speaker: Can you talk to us and our listeners about where you're from?
Speaker: Where do you live?
Speaker: What the scene is like over in the UK?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I currently live in a city called Nottingham, which...
Speaker: You may recognize the name from Robin Hood, Sheriff of Nottingham.
Speaker: It's a really good board game.
Speaker: It's basically in the center of the UK.
Speaker: It's the region called the East Midlands.
Speaker: We've got a city in the suburbs of about a million people.
Speaker: I think the city itself is about 300,000 people and the surrounding area brings it to about a million people.
Speaker: And locally to me, there are three game stores that have flesh and blood nights every week within about a 20 to 30 minute drive.
Speaker: We've been running events since 2020 or 2021 when things opened up again.
Speaker: And we get anywhere between four and 12 people at each armory.
Speaker: I think having three events in the local area has stung us a little bit recently because people spread themselves out rather than focusing on one big weekly thing.
Speaker: But yeah, we have a good mix.
Speaker: We have different people turn up at different stores.
Speaker: They all run it slightly differently.
Speaker: Some have a rotation of Blitz and CC and Limited and some stick to Blitz and then do Limited every one or two months.
Speaker: But yeah, it's a good scene up until... Even now, I'd say, is a very competitive scene.
Speaker: We've had some of the top players in the country regularly attending our events and...
Speaker: It puts an interesting question out there with flesh and blood.
Speaker: Obviously, the game itself is very competitive in itself.
Speaker: It engenders a high level play and it's looking like the big events are very competitive events.
Speaker: So how do you tone that down for a local game scene and get new players involved when they're going to get beaten every week by these competitive players that come in and take all the cold falls?
Speaker: So these are the sort of questions we're trying to answer at the moment.
Speaker: And the round the table product and the social play kit seem to be aimed at trying to help that.
Speaker: But it's about trying to get those people involved.
Speaker: So I think we've had a good scene.
Speaker: We're just trying to now move on to the next level where we've got a regular...
Speaker: stream of new players that are interested in the game.
Speaker: And I think that probably holds true for a lot of local flesh and blood scenes.
Speaker: And maybe over generalizing slightly.
Speaker: No, I, I, you've touched on a lot of things that are similar to our scene as well.
Speaker: I would say we're not as competitive probably as you guys are, but we also still suffer in that we have many nights of flesh and blood to choose from, which, you know, could lead to less attendance over each night.
Speaker: So that, that's very similar out here.
Speaker: And we are always talking about what is the, what, what are the ways we can help facilitate the growth of the community?
Speaker: That's part of, part of why Felix and I started this podcast.
Speaker: um and the upf and fun nights and i think he said also changing um outside of like a standard classic constructed night outside of a standard blitz night and maybe putting restrictions on the format like go like maybe only one majestic or no legendaries or
Speaker: heroes that aren't popular, you know, kind of like seeing if the community would engage with that level is, is maybe something to do.
Speaker: And then there was also the, the change in the philosophy and handing out promos that LSS changed where you don't have to handle, um, the cold foil to the winner.
Speaker: You can just randomize it.
Speaker: I think that's a really good one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, sanctioned by LSS to help facilitate new people playing.
Speaker: And then the, the people that,
Speaker: try hard because they want those cold foils.
Speaker: Maybe they back off a little bit because like, well, it doesn't matter, right?
Speaker: Like if I do well, it doesn't matter unless you're counting your overall wins in gem or something like that.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: I think it's tricky.
Speaker: I think there are genuinely, and I would have put myself in this category 18 months ago,
Speaker: Just people who like to win.
Speaker: And you take, whether it's the top tier deck or whether it's your favorite deck and you go along to win, it's high powered and you want to get those wins because it makes you feel good inside.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: there are also new people that turn up and you don't want to wipe the floor with them because you want them to come back.
Speaker: So one of the great things that we've already mentioned is that there's a number of different character types of players within the Flesh and Blood community.
Speaker: And it takes a bit of everyone to keep a community going and keep a community flourishing.
Speaker: One of the things I noticed at Worlds, again, was the focus from LSS on...
Speaker: trying to really take the next step with Flesh and Blood now.
Speaker: The game's been around for four years.
Speaker: Yeah, four years now.
Speaker: And it's stood the test of time until now.
Speaker: I mean, it's pushed onto the top...
Speaker: five games in terms of player base and sales but when was the last time you saw flesh and blood appear at a large gaming con when was the last time you heard it talked about at these big events it tends to have kept itself to itself and i know lss have plans to to push forward and get a presence at these games conventions where there will be disillusioned magic players and disillusioned yugioh players and and
Speaker: People have got a bit fed up with Pokemon and they will want to try something new.
Speaker: And I think all three of us can agree that the game's mechanics stand by themselves and ask good questions.
Speaker: Every time you play the game, you know
Speaker: why you lost or why you won because you made certain decisions and you can improve those decision making skills.
Speaker: So the variance in this game is there, but it's lower than other card games that I've heard or played.
Speaker: And I think it really rewards practice.
Speaker: It really rewards
Speaker: repetitions with certain decks.
Speaker: And I think the key thing to stress to new players coming in to bring it back to that point is if you get practice with a certain deck that you enjoy playing, you will get better and you will beat people.
Speaker: And it really rewards that style of progression.
Speaker: Yeah, that's something I've been thinking about over the summer, like when Gen Con happened.
Speaker: There was a post on Reddit and somebody was like, you know, it's flesh and blood at Gen Con.
Speaker: It's like North America's largest analog gaming convention and they weren't there.
Speaker: And it makes you wonder why aren't they there?
Speaker: I feel like they probably know of the big board game conventions in like Germany and North America and in the UK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I feel like they're probably choosing to not be there for a reason.
Speaker: What that reason is, I don't know.
Speaker: But like you mentioned, I hope to see them expand into those areas to reach out into those marketplaces and get that visibility that maybe we're lacking.
Speaker: I know we're entrenched in the, the, the sphere of fab and the franchise.
Speaker: So I don't know what it's like to be on the outside.
Speaker: Like, I don't know how many people still don't know about fab still aren't aware of it.
Speaker: Like I feel like people have to be aware of the game, but maybe they just haven't invested any time into learning about what flesh and blood is because it's not like you just mentioned one of those, the big three, big four games.
Speaker: And there's a lot of rumors that circulate about games, whether it's Flesh and Blood or One Piece or Dragon Ball Super.
Speaker: you get half-truths and mistruths from people who have played the game in passing, right?
Speaker: So you'll get someone to say, oh, yeah, I've heard about Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: It's really expensive to get into.
Speaker: Or the local scene doesn't have enough people to play what they want to play regularly.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Pick and choose.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: You can answer most of these questions.
Speaker: If you're in the game, we know that's not strictly true.
Speaker: You can perform quite well at a local armory level with a Blitz deck you pick up off the shelf.
Speaker: They're pretty good.
Speaker: And the scene is only going to be as good as the people playing in it.
Speaker: So if you can get new people in and build a following, then you're away.
Speaker: I think these big conventions come with a big cost, honestly.
Speaker: I think if you're going to send people around the world or get your local teams to go and set up for three days, that's a big cost.
Speaker: And once you start appearing at these conventions, you have to continue appearing at these conventions.
Speaker: Otherwise, people start to ask questions like, oh, where's flesh and blood gone?
Speaker: Why are they not here this year?
Speaker: So I think you're absolutely right, Shay.
Speaker: I think LSS have their reasons for staying clear of them so far, and they've built a community around the game which is supportive.
Speaker: It's growing.
Speaker: It has a very positive outlook compared to some of the other less supportive gaming communities, should we say?
Speaker: Worldwide,
Speaker: There are so many people out there who I would just love to take for a beer on the flesh and blood scene.
Speaker: You can go and sit down with them in a bar and you can have a chat about the game, about life, whatever, and everyone's positive.
Speaker: It's great to see.
Speaker: So LSS have built that community.
Speaker: And now they're going to start expanding into the wider world in the convention scene.
Speaker: And that's probably because they have a bit more money to do that and a few more key members of staff that they can send to these big events to make sure they put out the product that they want people to see and not just a community level event that...
Speaker: may be very variable, whether it's in Canada or US or UK or Germany or wherever.
Speaker: So I think they do have their reason.
Speaker: And this is just speculation.
Speaker: I don't know anything.
Speaker: But it seems like they've been biding their time for a reason.
Speaker: And now is the time to go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did you want to jump in, Felix?
Speaker: No, just soaking up everything.
Speaker: And one of the best parts about interviewing people like yourself and people from all over the world is just hearing, you know, different people's thoughts about their own local communities and why their local communities are important to them.
Speaker: And, you know, the passion is the same, no matter if it's someone from New Zealand or US, Canada, UK.
Speaker: It's just wonderful to hear that.
Speaker: You had mentioned something in your last statement, Simon, about how you'd like to take people for a beer.
Speaker: That got me really happy and excited when you said that because I was like, you know what?
Speaker: I feel like a lot of the people that I've interacted with on social media, over webcam in the early days, and even the few international events that I've been to,
Speaker: everybody feels like a friend.
Speaker: And you could easily sit down with a group of people that play fab and feel safe and have a good time and create this amazing memory that I don't think you could do in a lot of other spaces.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mentioned just before we started recording, I bumped into a few people that I knew from the old webcam days at Worlds in Barcelona.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I've not spoken to them over webcam or in person for over a year.
Speaker: And yet you slip into conversation with them like you were there yesterday.
Speaker: And like, what hero have you brought with you?
Speaker: What decks have you got with you?
Speaker: How has your testing been?
Speaker: Like, how's life been going?
Speaker: Where are you living right now?
Speaker: And you're absolutely right.
Speaker: Everyone feels like a friend, whether it's someone that you've played with
Speaker: sporadically for three years, four years now, whether it's someone that you play with regularly on your scene, you have the common language of an amazing game and everything else is surplus to that.
Speaker: It's an incredible feeling and the community is so supportive and it just, yeah, I've not met really any bad eggs in the community.
Speaker: There may be people that think they're the villains, but compared to some games out there, I think this is just, it's amazing.
Speaker: But even still, like you mentioned villains, even if they are true or not true villains, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: That pool of people is very small.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: The one that comes to mind, because he plays the part very well in the UK is Matt Falks, right?
Speaker: Matt Falks, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So everyone knows the name Matt Falks.
Speaker: And if you go and read the interviews that he's done before PT Baltimore or PT Leal or A1 PT Leal, but...
Speaker: he he he hams it up he plays the role of villain very well and if you actually speak to him he's got a lot of good things to say he's a nice guy like i've i've not really had any terrible interactions with him and he's he's always got a smile on his face like he he walks around and he he's he's made a good living from the game already and um
Speaker: he plays at a high level, but he rubs people up the wrong way when he wants to rub people up the right.
Speaker: I don't think he, I don't think it's a, um, I think it's more of an act and a way that he gets by in masking his, his persona to present.
Speaker: Again, it comes back to presenting the person that you want to present.
Speaker: And I think he does that well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think he's doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Intentionally.
Speaker: I met him at the first worlds in San Jose, um,
Speaker: And he was a delight to hang out with for the five minutes.
Speaker: You know, I just stopped him passing by.
Speaker: He was wearing Carolina's chain outfit.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That was a good one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I was just going to say, just to expand on that a little bit, you know, you mentioned Matthew Falks, but also, you know, this has happened before, especially with the UK community in particular, where, you know, it was Matt.
Speaker: And then just earlier this year was Jamie.
Speaker: And everyone within the UK community appeared to rally around these people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know what events you could be talking about, Felix.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: But is there something special, I guess, about the UK scene?
Speaker: Because the whole scene seems very tight-knit and protective of each other, if I can characterize it that way, just very unified.
Speaker: Like, just saying, you know, these are great people, why are you...
Speaker: you know, maybe certain things could be handled better, but like, is it all very together kind of scene?
Speaker: Yeah, good.
Speaker: Very good question.
Speaker: And let me just start by saying
Speaker: We've had a UK community discord since like August, October 2020.
Speaker: So the UK discord has been going for a long time.
Speaker: We've had three nationals now and the events that you may have alluded to have always been based around the big streamed tournaments that happen at a national level.
Speaker: Now, I wouldn't say the UK scene is particularly cohesive between events like this.
Speaker: However, when something happens like that on stream, the people at the event know what actually happened.
Speaker: And there are characters within the UK scene, but it's almost like that national mentality of, well, they might be a bit
Speaker: weird but they're our weird like you can't you can't tell us they're bad yeah like they're ours that we're going to stick up for them and um the uk scene is is
Speaker: is small enough that, I mean, the UK itself is an island, right?
Speaker: So it's small enough that you can get to a lot of the events.
Speaker: If you wanted to drive around the country and visit multiple different parts of the country to go to events, you could do.
Speaker: You could do events over the weekend on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, ProQuest, for example, or RTNs.
Speaker: You couldn't travel.
Speaker: So you get to meet a lot of the people around and on the scene, and you tend to know the characters at nationals and big events.
Speaker: And there's a bit of a chip on a shoulder mentality.
Speaker: Like the UK has had some really good players who have performed really well on the world scene and on the national scene.
Speaker: who maybe don't get the credit they deserve because they're not from the US or they're not from Europe, Germany, France, they're not from New Zealand.
Speaker: We get overlooked a lot because our scene is relatively small in comparison to the US, which has got thousands of players and New Zealand where the game started and Europe have got many more players as a whole because we're on our little island.
Speaker: So I think there's that groupthink mentality of like, yes, we know they're crazy people and they maybe push the limits of the game, but they're our crazy people and we're going to stick up for them because we all think we don't get the recognition we deserve as a national player.
Speaker: And we know we've got good players and we know when they perform that they've performed on their own merits.
Speaker: They've not cheated.
Speaker: They've not sharked anyone.
Speaker: They have gone out there and performed.
Speaker: And for you to then put it down to one thing you saw on stream last year is not fair.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: That was very, very well spoken.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Thanks for that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in general, you know, it's just kind of funny the way things have shaken out over the last few years.
Speaker: But honestly, the UK national streams have been excellent watches for the past three years consistently.
Speaker: So hats off to all the excellent players there.
Speaker: Yeah, so not just the players, but the people running the stream as well.
Speaker: So give a shout out to Tabletop24 and Baz the Bard who have run the stream the last three years in a row.
Speaker: And to my colleagues on Push the Point, Tripp and Sean.
Speaker: Sean is our newest Push the Point member who came on board with a streaming setup and does extremely well with his kit wandering around London and the rest of the country streaming smaller events like RTNs and ProQuest.
Speaker: But they casted two days of games for Nationals and did extremely well, just the two of them, this year.
Speaker: But that whole setup, Living Realms came to Tabletop24, who run the streaming setup, and Baz the Bard, who does the emceeing, and then us to do some casting.
Speaker: It's a great community feel.
Speaker: And we know the people with casting.
Speaker: We know the people we're talking about.
Speaker: and the product we can put out there is fantastic.
Speaker: You're right, there have been some events that have... I say events, there have been minor gameplay things that have sparked debate across the community, but really they're not that big in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker: We've seen worse on streams from...
Speaker: PTs and worlds and we've seen players disqualified at these big events and in the UK we've it's just contention it's like it's noise because of noise but it seems to get the viewers so who cares yeah yeah for sure I mean the game is very difficult to play I'm sure I make many errors and we shortcut so much the game is built on a process a turn process that involves many more steps than people verbalizing unless you're playing Kano
Speaker: uh or icelander so we shortcut so much and it's no wonder that sometimes some of these things slip but generally the game is played at such a high level on every stream we watch like whether it's canada the us germany uk new zealand like the quality of gameplay if you take a look at it is phenomenal and um it's a testament to the players playing at that level that that they get so much right and so little wrong exactly
Speaker: Yeah, you made a good point that I never really thought of, too, that you have three separate groups or people that are doing like the streaming setups.
Speaker: Like you guys are commentating, like you said, Bass is emceeing.
Speaker: Somebody else is doing the traveling production.
Speaker: and I never really thought of how community encompassing that actually is.
Speaker: And that's actually really cool to hear.
Speaker: Like I've watched a bunch of Baz's stuff.
Speaker: I think he puts on a really good stream.
Speaker: I love the interviews that he, he does after each matchups with the players.
Speaker: It's all, it's,
Speaker: all really good and somebody like myself who is definitely entrenched in the game i appreciate the effort that you know you guys are doing even casting like the smaller events we had a battle hardened here in vancouver last month that had no no visibility to the what the greater world audience and i thought that was kind of a missed opportunity but we don't really have anybody here in canada it wasn't wouldn't have been profitable enough to like
Speaker: pay somebody to come over from the U S to, to stream it.
Speaker: So, you know, people out there do appreciate that those smaller streams are happening.
Speaker: Cause you know, like I said, we had a missed opportunity and I love watching PQs and seeing what people are, are doing on the other side of the world.
Speaker: And that's, that's really awesome that you guys are able to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker: And it's a bit of a balance, isn't it?
Speaker: Like, you've got Ethan Van Sant over in the States, like driving around like a crazy guy with a car full of kit and trying to raise money for that because he puts in so much effort and gets so many people on board and you can't do that for free.
Speaker: You've got to be careful.
Speaker: If you start offering your services for free to get into that zone, then people start taking that for granted and they want to do it for free.
Speaker: But as you've said, it brings so much value to events.
Speaker: We need to try and get TOs on board to reimburse the people that are actually broadcasting these to the world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know there are some big game stores in Canada that act as TOs and the US and we've got living realms here in the UK.
Speaker: whether it comes from them or whether it comes from LSS, the people that promote the game, the casters, the streamers, the content creators that get involved with this need some sort of kickback, whether it's special promos, whether it's products, whether it's cash.
Speaker: There needs to be some way of reimbursing these people who, one, give up the time to play.
Speaker: By casting, you can't play in the event.
Speaker: And two, they're...
Speaker: as you've said, they're presenting such a strong product to the world.
Speaker: This is what's going to get the game to the next level over Magic or Pokemon.
Speaker: It needs to be a good product that's put out there.
Speaker: And the community take pride in the work they do.
Speaker: but they can't do it for free forever.
Speaker: No, and that's a long-term thinking strategy as well.
Speaker: Everybody's looking at it short-term right now.
Speaker: Okay, well, it costs this store, this TO money to have that person.
Speaker: We can't sacrifice those financial gains.
Speaker: And you're right, if we can get some support somewhere else from LSS to encourage people to do it, as well as the TOs to run those streams, then hopefully, like you said, in the long term, down the road...
Speaker: it becomes less financially burdened.
Speaker: We get more exposure to the game because then people can watch it and be like, oh, you know what?
Speaker: I don't have to go to my local game store to go check this game out in person.
Speaker: I can watch it on YouTube live or Twitch or whatever and get maybe some extra engagement from people that otherwise wouldn't.
Speaker: So I think that's a really, really good point.
Speaker: Move on.
Speaker: You had talked about Worlds already a little bit.
Speaker: So this was your second Worlds, only you didn't get to participate in the main event this time.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: How was your trip to Worlds or was there anything that you wanted to share that you hadn't already talked about earlier in the episode?
Speaker: So I would say Worlds Barcelona 2023 was a step above San Jose 2022.
Speaker: Not because of just a tent?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Partly because of the tent.
Speaker: I mean, you joke, but it was noticeable that you walked to the event space, which was a proper convention hall.
Speaker: There were flesh and blood banners the size of a building outside.
Speaker: it was a grand entrance like you walked up you walked in through these doors and up through these steps uh marble steps sorry marble steps as you go up and then it opens up on the left you've got the midtown merchant corner like uh area straight ahead you've got the prize wall as soon as you walk in it's there on the right you've got all the play space and um
Speaker: split into different areas and there was a definite worlds area where you needed a wristband to get in and I'll come back to that in a bit but it was a good space it was well set out and it felt like worlds
Speaker: whether you played in San Jose or not, it felt rushed and it didn't feel like Worlds.
Speaker: The best event I went to that year, 2022, was Pro Tour New Jersey, which felt like the main event.
Speaker: And San Jose just didn't live up to that.
Speaker: And that was the juxtaposition in my head.
Speaker: I was comparing and contrasting the two, both on US soil.
Speaker: One felt like...
Speaker: It had all this effort and time and grandiose gesturing towards it in New Jersey.
Speaker: And one felt like it had been rushed and it was like the left behind child that needed to be pushed into the limelight.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: the gameplay at San Jose was fantastic.
Speaker: Like I enjoyed every minute of sitting down and playing other people and the community doesn't change, but the, the event itself felt rushed, unfortunately.
Speaker: And that, and things like the player reception on the Thursday night where the queue was three hours long outside and the food all ran out and, um, people missed the James White keynote because they were still queuing and that didn't help.
Speaker: But, um, this year felt a lot better.
Speaker: The, the,
Speaker: Thursday night player reception was well attended.
Speaker: Would I have paid 60 to 90 euros to get in?
Speaker: If I hadn't been able to get a ticket then no because the food wasn't that plentiful and
Speaker: There wasn't that much.
Speaker: They advertised an open bar and it was a paid open bar.
Speaker: It wasn't a free bar.
Speaker: You had to go in and pay for your drink.
Speaker: There wasn't that much provided for your 90 euros.
Speaker: But being there in the space with these Worlds players was fantastic.
Speaker: And you can get in there and network and see the James White keynote, which was full of passion and...
Speaker: incredibly they laid out the roadmap for 2024's competitive play and and some of the big events up until july august time they're already out there the dates are already there um which is new for lss but welcomed yes um and then the the gameplay at worlds was fantastic saturday sunday went pretty smoothly the calling and the battle hunt ran really well friday there was a bit of an issue and if if anyone was there they'll know
Speaker: you guys are probably aware the Sagrada Familiar promos were given out as certain side events.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So it was given each world's competitor got one promo and then there were a number of side events over the weekend that you could spend a little bit more money for and you would get a promo.
Speaker: So what does everyone do?
Speaker: They sign up for all of the events or as many as they can to try and get as many of these promos.
Speaker: On the Friday...
Speaker: the tournament organizers didn't close signups because the queue was so big.
Speaker: They didn't actually close signups for the first one of those events.
Speaker: It should have been 10 a.m.
Speaker: start, didn't start till gone half past 10 because they didn't close the signup desk.
Speaker: They weren't strict with it.
Speaker: They just let people carry on signing up.
Speaker: And that had a push on effect for the rest of the day.
Speaker: So the team sealed that was due to start at 11 o'clock.
Speaker: Sorry, I'm ranting now.
Speaker: But the team sealed that was due to start at 11 o'clock
Speaker: Players didn't, they got their products, I believe, at about two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker: Like they'd open their sealed pools by two o'clock.
Speaker: They didn't start their first game until after half past two in the afternoon when it should have started at 11.
Speaker: There were problems with space.
Speaker: There were problems with product.
Speaker: There weren't enough judges.
Speaker: I don't think they correctly anticipated how much demand there would be for these promo events.
Speaker: And then there was a Blitz event that was due to start at 12, and that didn't start until half one, and it got pushed back.
Speaker: And what they ended up doing was saying that the last round of each of those events was a bye.
Speaker: Everyone got an extra win, and you got more tickets, ticks for the prize wall, but it shortened.
Speaker: They tried to make up some of the time there.
Speaker: That was Friday.
Speaker: I mean, it was a bit of a...
Speaker: a poor show, but the rest of the weekend went really well and they learned from their mistakes on the fly.
Speaker: As I say, the calling went well.
Speaker: It was sealed, so you had the same sealed deck for eight or nine rounds, eight rounds, sorry, which was a long time.
Speaker: I went three, three drop and went off to play in another side of it.
Speaker: And the battle hardened on the Sunday was living legend format, which is fantastic fun, but dominated by Starvo, as you probably saw, and was nine rounds of CC.
Speaker: So that didn't finish until very late in the day.
Speaker: And if you were in the top eight, you ended up playing until nearly 10 o'clock at night.
Speaker: It's a long day.
Speaker: It's a long day.
Speaker: It started at 9.30 and finished at 10.30 in the evening.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: With all that being, sorry, that was a long way of saying like it was really fun.
Speaker: There was some logistical issues, but it was really fun.
Speaker: And the atmosphere in the room, as I said earlier, was just buzzing.
Speaker: Like there was so many people.
Speaker: On the topic of Sagrada side events, there was a sealed side event on the Sunday afternoon.
Speaker: It was the last Sagrada promo event.
Speaker: There were 960 players.
Speaker: for a four round sealed event wow it was the largest I think they declared it the largest flesh and blood event ever wow and that was on a Sunday afternoon like yeah it was phenomenal it was great to be a part of that's amazing I think we're still in the growing pains part of it like this is the second worlds event they have put on many other events but yes you know
Speaker: San Jose wasn't perfect.
Speaker: I like to live in the world of, I was there back in the days of first flesh and blood when we didn't have the population and the finances to have all these.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: That's the space I live in because yeah, there was a lot of struggles there.
Speaker: It is kind of disappointing to hear some of the stuff that you talked about for Barcelona as well.
Speaker: But I think too, again, it's different TOs every time, right?
Speaker: Different TOs every time.
Speaker: And they do seem to be learning.
Speaker: But the thing that,
Speaker: I don't want to sound negative because the events, when you get there, they're fantastic.
Speaker: You were at Worlds 2022.
Speaker: The atmosphere, the players, they were all great fun and you could wander around and have a great time.
Speaker: For me, it was that contrast of how PT New Jersey went versus how Worlds went.
Speaker: It was like they should have just done the same thing they did in New Jersey and made it...
Speaker: a similar event and it felt lesser like world should be the primary thing on the calendar for everyone it was different tos in 2022 as well so well so yeah so new jersey and san jose were both by channel fireball were they okay
Speaker: Before they moved over to Star City Games.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: And then in Europe, we've had Tournament Center who did PT Lille and they've done multiple callings and now they've done Worlds.
Speaker: So I don't know where the hiccup on the Friday was.
Speaker: Maybe they just needed to be more strict about who's signing up and when they closed everything down.
Speaker: but they didn't seem to have enough judges and they didn't seem to be able to get the product where it needed to be for these sealed events.
Speaker: So I'm sure they're learning their lessons.
Speaker: I'm not, I'm not, the overall weekend was extremely positive, but there were definitely some logistical factors that, that could have done better.
Speaker: Well, in an event, I don't want to keep parking on it, but at an event like Worlds, a mistake is compounded by a thousandfold because of the amount of people that it impacts.
Speaker: And just handing out product to 900 people takes a long time.
Speaker: And if you're starting late or you can't find it, it's going to take even more time.
Speaker: So yeah, it just kind of is what it is.
Speaker: So what was your top memory for Barcelona?
Speaker: My top memory for Barcelona...
Speaker: um oh easy we had uh an amazing norwegian guy um i believe his name was magne um who came with beers like he just came up to he came and found me and uh dan trip we were stood together and he was like i have these beers for you i haven't brought them with me right now but i'll come and find you tomorrow and bring them to you these beers were a norwegian ipa at 10 percent
Speaker: And it tasted like a normal beer, but it would just get you wrecked on one bottle.
Speaker: Yeah, it was lovely to chat to him.
Speaker: He'd obviously listened to the podcast for a long time and he knew exactly what he was doing, bringing us the right beer.
Speaker: He'd managed to bring it all the way from Norway.
Speaker: It was one of those...
Speaker: We do something in our office every other Monday night and we record a podcast.
Speaker: And yet there are people from all over the world who know what we talk about and who we are.
Speaker: And it was the epitome of the flesh and blood community and how positive and supportive they are.
Speaker: Just one question from me about Worlds.
Speaker: And I did watch the keynote stream.
Speaker: The audio appeared to be coming from James's lapel, so I couldn't hear.
Speaker: But was there a big crowd roar when Kasai got revealed?
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: Yeah, the new Kasai adult and Blitz hero went down very, very well.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Alongside the Kasai hero reveal, there were some card reveals and along with Kasai's mercenary background, she can now make a little army of allies and it just looks great.
Speaker: They really seem to have put a lot of effort into heavy hitters as a set from what we've seen so far and
Speaker: I know the bright lights maybe hasn't been as well received because it's all been mech.
Speaker: And then if you don't like mech, then the set itself seems a bit inert.
Speaker: But Brute, Guardian and Warrior does cover quite a lot of the population base for the game.
Speaker: And yeah, it looks great fun.
Speaker: Yeah, I just remember we saw the keynote where the new Prism was revealed for Dust Till Dawn, and I heard the big crowd reaction.
Speaker: I just missed that from the keynote this time, so I'm really glad to hear there was a big share.
Speaker: Yeah, they had some audio issues, but yeah, it was a big roar.
Speaker: And that keynote just seemed to give...
Speaker: it just ramped up like they were announcing dates and and big events and back to two pro tours a year and um nationals are going to be in june time before the summer and like really yeah crazy more money on on offer for the prizes like some big changes next year coming i want to move back into a little bit of your your personal life if we could for a little bit
Speaker: You've spoken about being a fab dad and you have to balance that with a difficult job.
Speaker: Where does flesh and blood sit within your life among these other things?
Speaker: Yeah, this is again a very valid question.
Speaker: I mean, if you want to list, it's family first, work second, and then probably flesh and blood third at the moment.
Speaker: It encompasses a lot of my social time and a lot of my mental health time, basically.
Speaker: um obviously family is going to come first like there's there's nothing that's gonna trump family and big events for them come first yeah work you i work on call shifts as if you listen to the podcast you know like i i work on call i do i work
Speaker: during the week i work some weekends i work some nights um you can't get can't really get around that like you can you can book leave when you know some big flesh and blood events coming on but um not always within a small relatively small department it's not always easy um but yeah in terms of hobby space it's it's
Speaker: It's my go-to and it has been for the last three years and in no small part because of the community and the people around the game.
Speaker: But also...
Speaker: As I said, I've played at a relatively competitive level and it scratches that competitive itch.
Speaker: I've consciously made the decision to step back from that level because I didn't feel like I could continue to practice and compete and test at that level after 2022 with all of these other factors in my life.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: The game itself, once you know the mechanics of the game and you understand what you're looking for, you can play a relatively semi-competitive or semi-casual level and enjoy it.
Speaker: fairly well like you don't need to be testing five nights a week you don't need to be um building the top tier decks every week you can just enjoy the rep the reps on the hero that you like in my case it's katsu on on cc um and you can enjoy that and you can go to armories and and compete you can play limited you can
Speaker: you can go to your pro quests and maybe luck into a top four and get RTN top four to get a qualification for nationals or you can just grind XP and play events as much as possible if you've got the time.
Speaker: There are so many options and I've found taking my foot off the gas a little bit has really allowed me to appreciate the game for what it is rather than just winning.
Speaker: Yeah, head down and just grinding it out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Your children, you mentioned they're four and seven.
Speaker: Do you take them to events like Armories or anything like that?
Speaker: I've not yet.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I mean, no, I've not yet.
Speaker: The Armories are in the evenings when they'll probably be in bed.
Speaker: And if we go on a weekend, they're not going to sit still for four hours while I play.
Speaker: That being said, I am getting my seven-year-old daughter into Pokemon.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: There will come a time, I'm sure, when we go along to the local game stores, Pokemon Club, and allow... They've known Flesh and Blood cards around the house ever since they were teeny tiny, and now we're getting them into Pokemon.
Speaker: They can collect the cards, they can know them from the cartoons, and they can enjoy playing the game because it's relatively simple compared to something like Flesh and Blood.
Speaker: But just getting them into that space where...
Speaker: You can leave all your worries at the door and you can just play some games and not have to worry about anything else.
Speaker: We'll be a good place.
Speaker: And we play on the kitchen table at home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a good way to avoid screen time sometimes.
Speaker: And it's problem solving.
Speaker: It's reading, it's writing, it's spelling, it's maths.
Speaker: You can incorporate any learning that you want into these games.
Speaker: You can make it as educational or as not as you want.
Speaker: But they're developing skills, problem solving and otherwise that will do them well later in life.
Speaker: And if you can do that at the age of six or seven and build it into their routine, then why not?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They also socialization as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially for kids that grew up during a COVID pandemic and maybe haven't been as well socialized as they would have been five or six years prior.
Speaker: I find when I take Allura to some Flesh and Blood events, she's not playing, she's not interested in the game yet.
Speaker: Maybe she never will be.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: But I take her for socialization.
Speaker: So whether it's if other kids are there, there are not usually too many other kids where we go.
Speaker: But she also gets to, she can socialize with adults, which is a skill that is definitely required.
Speaker: I think is potentially missing from some generations coming up.
Speaker: And she likes to come because she gets snacks.
Speaker: Honestly, that's why she says yes when she comes because she's a good motivation factor.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So she gets to go get a bag of chips and a drink from the fridge.
Speaker: But again, with the socializing, I give her my debit card and she goes and pays and she, she does these transactions on her own.
Speaker: So it gives her some independence and I really liked that.
Speaker: And when there's other children, she goes and hangs out with those other children, make some friends.
Speaker: She, uh, uh, one of our clubs here, Ogres Gaming, the owner, sometimes his kids are in the store and she made great friends with them one evening and it was super fun to watch.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: Their mom came up and like, can we take photos of your kid?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah, totally.
Speaker: I'm like, can I do the same thing?
Speaker: And it just, it was more socialization just outside of like the fab group for me.
Speaker: Like it was other people that are involved in the store and you just, I don't know, it was just a really good time.
Speaker: And I really enjoy that.
Speaker: And I think that's a very powerful thing to set upon our children.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I like to take it whenever I can.
Speaker: Like you said, mentioned though, like it's usually often late at night.
Speaker: So we don't usually get to do it.
Speaker: Now you mention it, we went to a small local gaming convention, there must have been like 60, 80 people there.
Speaker: And they had some Flesh and Blood welcome decks, but they weren't the highlight, but they were teaching kids how to play Pokemon and Lorcanum, and there were other board games and miniature games and just...
Speaker: just temporary tables set up in an event hall where they could have these, these games set up.
Speaker: And I turned around and my, my daughter was like, I want to play Pokemon.
Speaker: And the guy taught us a couple of games of Pokemon.
Speaker: It was great fun.
Speaker: Next minute, she's off to one side and playing a board game called crash octopus.
Speaker: I think it was like a brightly colored game with miniature pieces and bits to do.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: Again, every social interaction is a different person and they're learning about social skills and how to talk to people and manners and how to say please and thank you and how do you do this and how do you play this game?
Speaker: Yeah, it was really good to see and you don't really think about it until you're there, but kids grow up very quickly and you can expose them to these sorts of events and why not get them into that space?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And another thing for me as well is it's a, it's time with my child.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and like you said, it's not screen time.
Speaker: We're not watching TV.
Speaker: She's not on our tablet.
Speaker: You know, we get to chit chat in the car while we're driving to and from, and even there she'll, she'll come up to me and ask me questions while I'm playing.
Speaker: And, you know, we just get to,
Speaker: Spend time together, which is another way to spend time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just one more question on this topic.
Speaker: You had kind of mentioned that you're sort of stepping back from, I guess, being a competitive flesh and blood player.
Speaker: You know, what ultimately led to that decision?
Speaker: Is it that you want to spend more time with the players?
Speaker: the podcast or your family or it's just it's too much all at once to be competitive and be you know work being a professional as well be on call you know what kind of ultimately led to you kind of taking a little step back yeah again like very insightful question um i think it was more the fact i was putting on putting so much pressure on myself to win games that it took the enjoyment out of playing the game like i'd broken it down to a
Speaker: a mechanical process of like, this card needs to do this and this card needs to do that rather than actually enjoying the flow of the game and recognizing the ability of my opponent and the way they've built their deck and the flow of the game.
Speaker: And I think stepping back and making it a bit more casual for me has allowed me to
Speaker: like explore katsu as a cc hero and i went through a a tiger's katsu phase and i really enjoyed just the look on people's faces when they realized what you were trying to do and um playing a bit more differently like just just not not building the s tier deck and taking the cookie cutter down to the game store and and
Speaker: wiping the floor with people and then struggling at PQs because everyone's playing the same thing.
Speaker: Same stuff, yeah.
Speaker: I think it came back to my first Nationals experience in the UK, 2021.
Speaker: I built with a friend, Jason Hamer, in the UK community, we built a tall Earthbriar deck where you were predominantly Earth cards and you were building these big attacks.
Speaker: And it did me well.
Speaker: It got me to third, fourth place, semi-final stage of Nats.
Speaker: People weren't expecting it because it was slightly left field.
Speaker: And then I went... Once I got that result, I then thought, well, I need to be competitive and I need to play the top deck and I need to do that.
Speaker: And it just took all the enjoyment out of the game.
Speaker: And I did that for about a year.
Speaker: I ended up playing things like Fi and... Chain was fun, to be fair.
Speaker: I didn't go down the Starvo route, but...
Speaker: um yeah just it took all the enjoyment out of it and and i was focusing too much on the games i lost and missed out on money places or or then actually the games i enjoyed playing and winning and and not winning because the game was still fun because this game is fun whether you win or lose like you will have fun in a game yeah you're speaking my language with the tall earthbriar and the tiger katsu um i definitely live in the world of
Speaker: not the norm of what people are playing and yeah you're there's a huge enjoyment when somebody's like i don't know what you're doing yeah i don't know how to play against you um i'm not the biggest fan of jank i i think you can you can go too far one way but yep um but yeah sitting down with a deck that that fundamentally works but maybe it's not top tier power and it just confuses people it's like it's amazing
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, my, I guess my stance on something like jank or pseudo jank is what are you trying to do in the event?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Are you trying to win the event or are you just trying to top it?
Speaker: And I, I'll stand by that.
Speaker: Something that's not normal to what people are seeing can get you into the top eight.
Speaker: It might not win when people have access to looking at deck lists or footage of watching you play.
Speaker: But, you know, if you set a reasonable goal with a deck that's good but not S here, I think you can get there because people don't know how to play against it because they've never seen it before.
Speaker: And, you know, I've certainly found success trying things like that.
Speaker: And so I enjoy it like that.
Speaker: And I find that...
Speaker: when you're, I don't know, for me, when you're trying to be like ultra competitive, like you said, the, the, it takes away the fun cause you're so focused on winning.
Speaker: And then you set a bar when, whether that bar is reasonable or not, you set a bar somewhere.
Speaker: And if you don't achieve that bar, then you, you can get frustrated, you get down on yourself.
Speaker: Was all of this time I spent doing this worth it.
Speaker: And you second, you,
Speaker: guess what you're doing when this is a hobby for a lot of us yeah and in my mind it should be fun you know and that's the point of playing it so yeah 100% enjoyable and and you make the really good point of actually you almost invalidate the time that you've spent playing the game because it's not been productive in the way you wanted it to be productive and actually you
Speaker: we'll go back to that frame saying right we're here to play amazing card games in the in the flesh and blood and the it the process of playing the game is the reward not the result of the game yeah the conversations you have with the other player the the interactions and the body language you read from them and
Speaker: the way that you can shake hands at the beginning of the game and at the end of the game.
Speaker: And whether you win or lose, you've come out with a new friend.
Speaker: Those are the benefits of the game, not whether you've got a W or an L in the column at the end, right?
Speaker: Yep, 100%.
Speaker: Now, you were a Viserai player back in the day, though, right, Shay?
Speaker: You were Runeblade from the beginning.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, in the last couple of years, I've stepped off Runeblade.
Speaker: But yeah, I played Viserai to begin with.
Speaker: But I was almost predominantly like an OTK style Viserai.
Speaker: So when Agro Viserai with Maverian Skies came out, I never adjusted to that.
Speaker: I just can't play what everybody else is doing.
Speaker: So, yes, I have friends like you, Shay, who will not play the meta deck.
Speaker: Whatever happens, they will not play the meta deck.
Speaker: And I think Viserai in the early days epitomized that.
Speaker: type of deck right they they there was potential power in viscery from the very beginning the fact that you could do mixed damage on arcane and physical but the downside was you needed non-attack actions and attack actions in the right ratios and if they didn't come out if you had one or the other you would just die um
Speaker: I think that LSS have done that really well.
Speaker: They've made heroes that draw people in.
Speaker: The background, the lore behind Viserai, the look of the hero, the purple and black and greys and the story behind him, the artwork, it just looks great and it draws people in.
Speaker: Azalea similarly has a bit of a cult but has never been successful.
Speaker: There are people who will play heroes and talents and classes in this game because they like what they see and not because of how successful the deck is.
Speaker: And I think that is the marker of...
Speaker: how good this game is because you can still rock up at your local pq with a non-competitive deck and just like you say you can get top eight because no one knows what the hell they're doing when they play it like or play against it should i say and if there's anything new players should know is like you can just pick it doesn't have to be expensive you can pick a class and you can go all in and you can build a semi-competitive deck for relative good value and
Speaker: Just enjoy it.
Speaker: Just play it because you like the theme.
Speaker: Play it because you like the mechanics.
Speaker: Play it because you like something about that deck.
Speaker: Yeah, you're echoing something that we've talked about a lot.
Speaker: Number one, the original draw to the game is a hero's artistic style, maybe a play style, some sort of theme.
Speaker: That's why they're like, yep, I'm playing Azalea.
Speaker: Cool ranger assassin chick looks badass.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you've touched on it.
Speaker: You if you become like a hero agnostic player to begin with.
Speaker: The time you put into that hero will eventually yield results.
Speaker: It might be a difficult uphill battle, but you will eventually yield results.
Speaker: You'll learn your matchups.
Speaker: You'll learn your win conditions, what your power cards are, how you want to see them.
Speaker: And eventually you get rewarded for that.
Speaker: And then maybe you start to branch out into something that's best here or whatever.
Speaker: But I think that's a really, you know, you touched on a really good point already.
Speaker: And we've talked about it a bunch that that's a mark of a good game to get people in through theme and through identity and those people sticking with that.
Speaker: And I don't know, there's something about the game that happens.
Speaker: Almost everybody is like, yeah, I am.
Speaker: I was this hero.
Speaker: I played this hero all of the time until I decided to branch out.
Speaker: But I was like,
Speaker: You know, stone dead on playing the one hero and getting your reps in.
Speaker: Well, whether it's your blonde waifu or your dragons or your ninja theme or your dark magic theme, like there's something for everyone.
Speaker: And it's just it's great to see.
Speaker: And it's interesting where people's personalities go.
Speaker: Simon, was it difficult for you to switch gears as you described from being a more competitive player that was building those meta decks and trying your hardest to win as many games as possible?
Speaker: Like, was there something within you that was fighting that or was it more a relief when you adapted that mentality and this is what you felt like you should have been engaging with the game all along?
Speaker: Like, how was that process for you?
Speaker: I mean, all of the above at different times.
Speaker: Again, I wouldn't say I was ever like...
Speaker: one of the top players in the UK.
Speaker: There were many better players around.
Speaker: I did well at the first nationals and I tried to stay competitive.
Speaker: Like Shea was saying, it's about trying to top these events and get qualification to the next one.
Speaker: I was just lucky I got in the game very early and I could leverage that practice that I'd had on the game for so long against new players that were coming in from Magic and other big card games that had these transferable skills and were looking at the game in a slightly different way.
Speaker: but yeah I would say it was a very jarring experience like one recognizing that you don't really have the time to do that and that you're fighting against the tide that is going a current that's going way too fast like you have to realize that you're not getting the results and then you have to turn that around and say well why aren't I getting the results is it because I'm
Speaker: not playing the game right is it because i'm not practicing enough is it because i'm not playing the right deck or is it a mixture of all of the above and it it probably is a mixture um and when you're working eight till six monday to friday uh chuck in a few uh night shifts and weekends and family time and you've got maybe three hours of practice time a week which turns out to be your local armory it's not
Speaker: It's not viable.
Speaker: We would have had many, many arguments as a, as a married couple here.
Speaker: It, many more arguments, shall I say, if I didn't continue to push.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: To be on that bandwagon.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: my wife Nikki has been incredibly supportive, incredibly supportive.
Speaker: Like I went to PT1, I went to Worlds, she looks after the kids while I go and she doesn't really ask for anything in return because she knows how much the game means to me and how rewarding I find it to be at these big events and to be competing at these big events.
Speaker: But
Speaker: There comes a point when you can't be at every PQ every weekend because your kids then don't know who you are because they're not seeing you.
Speaker: And if you're not going to be at the events every week, then you're not going to be competing at the top events because you're not qualifying and you're not practicing.
Speaker: It's a big toll, but I think it was the right time for me to recognize and reflect on what was happening in my life.
Speaker: And I found another way to be involved and another way to be enjoying the game through both content creation and semi-casual play.
Speaker: You touched on something that's sort of come to pass for myself as well recently.
Speaker: The last three years of playing Flesh and Blood has consumed a lot of me.
Speaker: And recently with bright lights, I've, I came to the conclusion that I can't keep collecting the manner that I keep collecting.
Speaker: And the most relief that I've found is giving up fab space.
Speaker: So not collecting as much.
Speaker: I only attended one skirmish this season and not feeling, I guess, FOMO essentially.
Speaker: And it's been so hard.
Speaker: relieving for me personally like internally not sitting there going man i really have to go to the skirmish i really want to get like this prize or i really want to play i don't want to miss out it's been like the greatest feeling in the last like month or two to just let go of a little bit of fab and i think it's healthy for me as well as my relationship with my family and my wife and to hear you say it is like kind of like give me like goosebumps thinking but i'm like yeah it's been
Speaker: just, I don't know, relief.
Speaker: And it's made me happier.
Speaker: Like, I play the game and I enjoy the game and I have a lot of fun.
Speaker: I'm not a super competitive person, but it's made me happier to just sort of like relax and let it just be a hobby and be fun again.
Speaker: So thanks for like kind of bringing that up for me because it kind of like, yeah, it feels good.
Speaker: Well, just having you verbalize it in that way and the lack of FOMO is a real, yeah, it's a real release, isn't it?
Speaker: Like I was saying behind me, I've got,
Speaker: 10 sets of flesh and blood in binders and they're not master sets, but I've got functional play sets of every card pretty much minus a couple of fables in the first 10 sets of the game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as you say, that takes a lot personally, that takes a lot financially, that takes a lot of expectation and what you're going to do with those cards and, um,
Speaker: My wife asks a lot of questions about the cards that I own.
Speaker: But Bright Lights, I'm not a big mech player.
Speaker: I've got through limited play, I've got a set of commons and rares, and I've not gone out and spent a huge amount of money on two cases of product because I wanted to open packs and see what gems I could find.
Speaker: I've not gone and bought a set of Majestics or Legendaries.
Speaker: yeah just not having that fomo not having to worry about do i need to be at a skirmish next weekend like can i just book something and take the kids to the zoo or to the to the local uh petting farm like whatever just enjoy time with family and i'm not i'm not trying to paint a picture that i've been a neglectful parent for three years like it's about it's always a balance um and don't get me wrong the kids
Speaker: the kids being part of a journey to competitive play has been amazing.
Speaker: Like they've been watching me practice on webcam back in the day and,
Speaker: the the the minute my daughter turned around and said could actually for one could actually for two like playing ira i was like oh this maybe this has gone too far but um but they do learn and they do see what it's like to put effort in and get rewards out right they they see what that process is um so it's not all bad on the family but there definitely is a balance and um
Speaker: It's been a bit of a relief to step back and be able to enjoy it from a content creator's perspective and not have to be out every weekend, one day every weekend at an event and not have to explain to my wife why I need to be at the next skirmish or PQ or RTM.
Speaker: You bring up another good point that like my daughter as well.
Speaker: She quits when something gets hard.
Speaker: She just quits.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it drives me nuts.
Speaker: And to I don't know, like, you know, practicing for competitive events and stuff and then yielding results is pseudo tangible for her.
Speaker: You know, all I can do is talk about my experience, about how much effort I put in and where it got me.
Speaker: um to try and show her that yeah effort can will eventually yield results somewhere and it's important that you don't give up and i'm you know struggling with time to time to instill that in her that you have to try to get better and you can't quit when it's hard but yeah she does often ask me she's like she'll be like oh you know so people are coming over and i'll be like yep travis and felix are coming over we're gonna practice and like she's like okay is it for a big event and she'll ask questions and it's a fun little conversation to have with yeah
Speaker: you know, so I really enjoy that.
Speaker: Sorry Felix, I cut you off there.
Speaker: That's all good.
Speaker: It's just really interesting to hear you describe this journey because it's so easy for people to get their identities wrapped up in being a champion or being really good at the game.
Speaker: I mean, even I think to myself when I was in my early 20s, I'm like, yeah, anything that I do, I want to be really good at.
Speaker: I want to be, I'm going to play WoW.
Speaker: I'm going to be the gladiator of PvP.
Speaker: I'm going to be the top 0.5%.
Speaker: I'm going to play StarCraft.
Speaker: I'm going to be masters.
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: whatever the case may be, it's so easy to get wrapped up, like your identity, you put so much of your self-worth into it, but it's not healthy.
Speaker: And I do worry sometimes, like a lot of the marketing for this game even is like compete on the Pro Tour.
Speaker: There's a million and a half dollars, but that could be setting someone up for some false expectations.
Speaker: And even more, what about all the people that prepare for events and don't top eight and then they bounce off the game?
Speaker: Like we, we talk about attracting new players, but locally there are quite a few people that pick up the game, give it a shot for one PQ season.
Speaker: They don't get the results and then it's off to something else.
Speaker: Like that's another class of players.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was going to say that that is another cohort of players.
Speaker: Like we, we all see them.
Speaker: They they've come to flesh and blood because they've tried magic and they've tried Yu-Gi-Oh!
Speaker: and they've tried one piece and they, like they think they can make a go of it.
Speaker: And that I,
Speaker: that sort of player they wouldn't necessarily stay in any particular game unless they're winning um and that that that's fine that's their choice like if they're not going to enjoy the game because they're not winning then why play the game if you're not winning um i can i can see that i don't i don't know about the false expectations i think
Speaker: I think like you say, you get into these things and you think, I can be the best.
Speaker: And you set out and you find a group of people who you can practice with and you test and test and test and you put the effort in.
Speaker: And one or two PQ seasons later, you realize, is this working or is this not working?
Speaker: And I think it's healthy to reflect on that and work out whether this is worth your effort or not.
Speaker: And if you can identify a couple of areas that you can improve on,
Speaker: and that yields results, that's part of the process.
Speaker: It's almost a scientific process of change the variable, keep a control, do the results differ?
Speaker: And if that's working for you, go for it.
Speaker: I just realized that the control of my family life meant that I wasn't able to change the variable of how much practice I could put in
Speaker: and the results were going in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: every player is entitled to play the game for their own reasons.
Speaker: And there will be people on the pro tour circuit who consistently bubble or they consistently just get like the 32nd to 64th money.
Speaker: And for them, that's enough because that pays for the next round, right?
Speaker: That pays for the next pro tour event or it pays for the hotel for the current pro tour event.
Speaker: And just because you're not coming first or eighth or 16th, like it doesn't make your...
Speaker: involvement in the game any less valid you're there to do what you want to do and if that's come top 64 at these big events consistently do it like that's an amazing achievement to be that consistent on a pro tour level um but for me i i was bubbling around that point and i and i just decided that wasn't viable with the amount of effort i was putting in so why not take that step back and be a bit more casual and and enjoy what i could of the game
Speaker: around the periphery.
Speaker: For sure.
Speaker: Well, I'd like to ask you about Push the Point here and being a voice in the flesh and blood community.
Speaker: And I mean, have you done anything like content creation, like making a podcast, making videos before flesh and blood?
Speaker: absolutely not this is all new um so if you want a bit of backstory if you've not really heard of push the point before uh dear listeners um hamish is our creative force he is our he is our ball of energy and our driving force for for pretty much all that we do um at the beginning of the our flesh and blood journey we were playing events online and
Speaker: after a relatively big skirmish event, I think he got us all to get the top eight together to talk about the event and why we'd chosen our heroes and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And he was doing that for a podcast for someone else.
Speaker: From that...
Speaker: He re-evaluated what he was doing with this other person and decided to change tack.
Speaker: And myself and Dan Tripp were two people that he valued interviewing in that process.
Speaker: We both brought different things to the table.
Speaker: And I'd never done content creation.
Speaker: I'd never done video.
Speaker: I'd never done audio, editing, none of that.
Speaker: but he felt like our opinions differed and our thought processes differed enough that we would make a good team.
Speaker: And Dan Tripp, again, added in to the trio, we would make a good three.
Speaker: And we all, as you probably still see today, we all have slightly different viewpoints.
Speaker: We all come from a slightly different angle and it works, but we'd never met each other in person before we did our first few episodes.
Speaker: The pilot episode that we did was
Speaker: absolute garbage and um we released it to a group of close friends who were very supportive um but we we also felt that it was garbage so we we canned that one and did did another first episode which was better and if you listen to any of our first sort of 20 30 podcasts you'll you'll hear us grow every episode into a new team like
Speaker: every week we learn something new about each other or how we interact with each other.
Speaker: And eventually we'll start throwing jibes at each other and we'll, we'll be comfortable insulting each other as a form of humor.
Speaker: And that continues to this day.
Speaker: Um, it, you, you say voice in the community.
Speaker: I, I, I don't think we're, well, I don't know.
Speaker: Hamish might say differently, but I don't feel like we're deserving of, of that sort of moniker yet.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: We, I mean, we, we're always aiming to improve, but.
Speaker: From our point of view, we're just three guys who get together, drink a bit of beer and talk about some flesh and blood, but also some personal bits and home life and what's going on in the world of us.
Speaker: We always said from the very beginning, if we weren't enjoying the process of recording and the process of chatting, then we'd stop because if you're not enjoying it, you're not going to sit down and edit it.
Speaker: You're not going to get it out and put out the product that you want people to see.
Speaker: So that's the guiding ethos behind it.
Speaker: But as you say, people come up to us at events and people say hello and we give out dice and stickers and enjoy meeting people that...
Speaker: listen to us and it's a pretty crazy experience to be sat down from someone that lives in Australia or America or Canada and they're like yeah I've heard your podcast like I listen to you regularly or I've seen that deck take you did with Briar or Katsu or it's crazy it just blows my mind sometimes obviously the mustache has got a bit of a cult following now and people notice me more because of the mustache which is great
Speaker: I like that a lot.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's definitely different.
Speaker: I was sat opposite Mara Farris at Worlds for, I think it was for the sealed event, the final sealed event.
Speaker: And I sort of introduced myself.
Speaker: I said, oh, Mara, like, hi, I'm Simon.
Speaker: She's like, I know who you are.
Speaker: You're quite distinctive.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, yeah, got this on my face.
Speaker: So it was quite nice.
Speaker: It was one of those weird moments where actually she gets a lot of attention.
Speaker: She's big on Twitter.
Speaker: She's been invited to the Invitational in New Zealand.
Speaker: And she was like, oh, yeah, I know who you are.
Speaker: It was just completely strange, not out of body experience, but it was just like one of those Czech moments where you're like, really?
Speaker: What have I done to deserve that?
Speaker: But yeah, I wouldn't trade the last three years in for anything.
Speaker: It's been a journey of fun and self-discovery and effort and reward.
Speaker: And yeah, I wouldn't trade it in for the world.
Speaker: It's been a great experience.
Speaker: And I hope I continue to be in the game and around the game for a long time yet.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting to hear you say, you know, because you have been doing this podcast for quite some time and you have had a frank look at yourself in the way that you engage with the game, just cutting back to the core, you know, the core ways in which you enjoy it.
Speaker: But, you know, to many people making something like a podcast and videos and deck text and interviews could be a grind.
Speaker: It could be work.
Speaker: Like what keeps that
Speaker: positive and enjoyable in the way that you continue to engage with the game today.
Speaker: So, I mean, anyone who knows us knows Hamish does the majority of the product that we put out, which if I'm honest, I don't know how he does it.
Speaker: Like his love for this game and his love for talking to people, maybe it's just talking.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe he just loves talking, but he just loves being out there and getting people's opinions on the game.
Speaker: And he's an inspiration to both Tripp and I in terms of
Speaker: how you interact with people and having no fear, just going up to people like Zach Bunn and saying, Hey, we want you on the podcast.
Speaker: Like, can you come and do a spot with us?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, it's not a grind because we enjoy the process, right?
Speaker: It's not about the outcome.
Speaker: If you enjoy the process, the outcome will follow.
Speaker: And at its core, it's just sitting down with your friends for two hours every other week and enjoying a chat.
Speaker: Like we talk for about half an hour before we record.
Speaker: and then we record for maybe an hour or so and a bit of a debrief, a less formal debrief afterwards.
Speaker: And you may have had a beer or two and words flow freely and you can just be yourself and talk to your friends.
Speaker: And honestly, even though we'd never met each other before the game, Hamish and Tripp and now Sean have become some of my best friends because you interact with them sometimes more than you do with friends that live locally to you.
Speaker: Can you share a bit more about the dynamic of the team, the push the point team that you mentioned that you're not local?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Geographically, how far away are you from each other?
Speaker: I'm the furthest north in Nottingham and I'm about an hour north of Kettering where Hamish lives.
Speaker: Kettering itself is about an hour and a half north of London where Trip and Sean live.
Speaker: So we're spread out over a few hundred miles.
Speaker: I mean, in terms of the dynamic, you'd probably say I was the dad of the podcast.
Speaker: I'm the straight-laced, sensible guy.
Speaker: Reasonable.
Speaker: Reasonable, yeah.
Speaker: Trips the sort of bougie teenager with left-field opinions and a bit of a...
Speaker: an odd comedic influence.
Speaker: And then Hamish is the, the, the child of the family who's got unlimited energy.
Speaker: And it's not about whether he should start something.
Speaker: It's just about when he's going to start it and how he's going to about doing that.
Speaker: Like he has no filter and that's great.
Speaker: Like that keeps us going and he will just say whatever comes into his mind and it keeps us honest and it keeps us, it keeps us on board and
Speaker: It keeps us moving forward.
Speaker: He's been the biggest reason that we've pushed forward and continue to grow as a podcast.
Speaker: And he'll come to us with ideas.
Speaker: I think when we started...
Speaker: We were doing an interview as like a middle section of the podcast.
Speaker: And then he came to us and said, I think we should split the interview out of the podcast and make it its own thing.
Speaker: And it was like, oh, that's going to make more work.
Speaker: Do we have time for that?
Speaker: And it works.
Speaker: Like it gives us extra, it allows us to use the podcast for us and it gives us extra content to put on the YouTube algorithm and, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, just simple little things like that.
Speaker: He's always thinking about how we can make things better.
Speaker: And I love him for that.
Speaker: He's just always thinking about pushing forward.
Speaker: And it's incredible to watch.
Speaker: His process, if he has one, is phenomenal.
Speaker: Yeah, I say the same thing about Felix a lot of the time.
Speaker: He's the one steering the ship and making sure that it's moving forward.
Speaker: So I definitely can appreciate it from the side that you're talking about.
Speaker: I'm guessing you guys don't have official roles within the team, but do you and Dan have something that you're contributing to the team or...
Speaker: Because obviously you said that Hamish is your creative director.
Speaker: He kind of makes sure it's going.
Speaker: Do you and Dan have anything that are specific?
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, Dan is definitely on the creative spectrum as well.
Speaker: And whenever we do spoilers, Dan will come up with a script within hours.
Speaker: And just like from a concept...
Speaker: we we rarely know what the card is and he'll just come up with this concept of like what can we do for a script it's going to be about two minutes long like can he'll just come up with these prose verse things and and he's incredible with that he's very good at allowing us like to reflect on ourselves and throws in questions during the podcast and
Speaker: He had a bit of a background in the lore of the game.
Speaker: He had his own YouTube channel called Finders Library and it's still out there if you want to go and see it.
Speaker: He really takes deep dives into the lore of the game.
Speaker: He's on the creative side as well and he definitely enjoys that.
Speaker: I'm here for organization and keeping people in line.
Speaker: That's my role at the moment.
Speaker: I try and keep the podcast moving in one direction.
Speaker: And, um, uh, I deal weirdly with finances now, like we have a Patreon and we have money coming in from YouTube and I'm, I'm trying to make sure we get reimbursed for computer upgrades and microphone upgrades.
Speaker: And, um, nothing is what you would call profit, but it definitely helps to have some money coming in to, to cover things like dice and stickers.
Speaker: And, uh, what else have we done for, Oh, metal fab tokens.
Speaker: And, and, um,
Speaker: little trinkets that we can give to patrons and enthusiasts that we meet out in the world of the game.
Speaker: With having something like sponsors and a Patreon, does that change the feel on the back end for you guys that it's becoming less hobby, being more businessy, or is it still in its honeymoon phase and it's still enjoyable on that and it's, you know, cool that it's happening, that you're getting this kind of recognition?
Speaker: So there's definitely that.
Speaker: It definitely changes something on the back end.
Speaker: Like you have a different accountability and a different responsibility to the people that are giving you money, basically.
Speaker: They're hard-earned cash.
Speaker: And although it's a voluntary scheme, a scheme, a voluntary program, whatever you want to call it, I get told off for calling it a scheme.
Speaker: Apparently, Americans think it's some kind of dodgy pyramid scheme.
Speaker: Yeah, it sounds different over here, but I think people understand what you mean.
Speaker: The Patreon model is pretty good, actually.
Speaker: We're very clear to our patrons that there are certain perks they get and we've brought sponsors on board and a single seller and a Metafab tokens get early access to the podcast as well.
Speaker: And it's nothing crazy, but it's little perks and people just seem to want to give us a little bit of money.
Speaker: It's not much.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be.
Speaker: It's just, as you say, the recognition of people that listen and they want to provide you with a bit of support.
Speaker: And it means a huge amount.
Speaker: You can't deny that it just adds an element of, wow, what's going on?
Speaker: Mind-blowing stuff going on.
Speaker: And yeah, as I say, it just goes towards upkeep of the podcast and equipment.
Speaker: And we've tried to do some special things for our patrons in terms of sending out Metafab tokens to them all over the world, wherever they live and posting packs out to them from sponsors.
Speaker: And we do a podcast live draw of who wins six packs at the moment per podcast.
Speaker: And yeah, it pays for things like that, which is,
Speaker: Which is nice, but it's never going to make us millionaires.
Speaker: Not yet.
Speaker: Getting back to talking about the group.
Speaker: Do you guys spend much time talking outside of like when you're recording?
Speaker: Obviously, you guys are geographically not close.
Speaker: So, yeah, do you spend more time talking?
Speaker: You can obviously see the friendship grow through the time of the podcast.
Speaker: So yeah, just wondering if you spend more time talking, do you guys go over to each other's, you know, for barbecue on a Saturday with the fam?
Speaker: Yeah, we've tried.
Speaker: That's a sore subject at the moment, because we've tried for the last two summers to organize a barbecue with all the families, but it's not it's not come to fruition, which is a real shame.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: You'd think we'd make it work, but we haven't yet.
Speaker: It's a silly thing, but Hamish has a fab den in his garden.
Speaker: He's got like an outhouse that he's built that we should all go and spend time enjoying the game and having a barbecue with the families, but we've not managed to sort it yet.
Speaker: So that's a failing on all of our parts, but we have a group chat.
Speaker: And since adding Sean, it's...
Speaker: So as I said earlier, Sean Cherry is a guy who's been in the game since the early days as well.
Speaker: Like we've known him since the first lot of events and he decided to set up on his own as Armory Knights, a YouTube channel that did streaming of Armories and PQs and RTNs.
Speaker: And he came to us and said, how would you feel about me coming on board and doing the streaming for Push to Point instead?
Speaker: And I think that took some of his responsibilities like off of himself and added it to the group.
Speaker: It was a bit easier for him to manage that way.
Speaker: Um, and it's been great to have that.
Speaker: Um, he's, he's even more organized than I tried to be like, he gets us writing spreadsheets and recording like how we've done this and that and keeping it all in line.
Speaker: He's very process driven, which is great.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: but we've got this group chat with the four of us in it and it's pretty active actually most days something's being talked about whether it's a new idea or when are we doing the podcast or what beers have we got this week and like generally don't reveal that too early like it's a podcast surprise normally yeah but there's usually something going on and
Speaker: like discussing news in the game and making sure that we're up to date.
Speaker: Like it, it's, it's pretty fun.
Speaker: And when the best times for this group are around spoiler seasons, because the creative juices go to overdrive and it's like, it's like the ultimate brainstorming session.
Speaker: Like nothing's off limits.
Speaker: People just jump in and they're like, what about this?
Speaker: What about this?
Speaker: How should we do this?
Speaker: And can we, is this achievable?
Speaker: Like it's a, it's a wonder to behold sometimes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a, that sounds cool to have sort of like an open space to just throw out ideas without fear of being laughed at.
Speaker: It's a great space to be in.
Speaker: I have one more question sort of relating to the push the point team.
Speaker: I'm a big fan of like insider knowledge and behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker: Is there something that you can share that either audience might not know about push the point?
Speaker: Oh man, that's a really good question.
Speaker: um i mean unless you want the revelation that dan tripp is actually james white's son uh the hair yeah the hair the dress code yeah uh no um what what would people not know about us i'm a bit stumped on that one
Speaker: Really put you on the spot there.
Speaker: Yeah, I should have thought about something.
Speaker: She's really been going after you with a drinking question and then asking what you actually did.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: He's even fighting me today.
Speaker: I think it's probably more that we've been in the game since very early days in the UK and we all started playing in online armories and TTS and
Speaker: Like it's just one of those friendship bonds that's formed over the last three years.
Speaker: I don't think there's anything crazy about it, but it's like almost forged by fire, isn't it?
Speaker: You're chucked in at the deep end and we've been on this journey and all three of us are different now to that we would have been three years ago.
Speaker: And in good ways, we've grown together.
Speaker: I can't say anything crazy out there, but it's just been a wonder to behold.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much for everything over the last 90 minutes plus here.
Speaker: And the time has absolutely flew by.
Speaker: It has flown.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Before we wrap things up fully here, I would like to ask if you think about the last three years and everything that's happened within flesh and blood from the very early days to...
Speaker: to just going to Barcelona.
Speaker: Like if you had to pick a favorite moment, could you share that with everyone?
Speaker: So, yeah, 100% my favorite moment was the first time I'd ever traveled internationally for a gaming event, and that was for Pro Tour New Jersey.
Speaker: And for the context, you have to know that the game had been played with people like Shay online.
Speaker: for nearly a year before PT1 came around, over a year before PT1 came around.
Speaker: And it was like,
Speaker: the culmination of all of these different worldwide communities coming together and you were meeting people that you'd been playing with or testing with online for a year and you'd never met them in person.
Speaker: It was like, it was the craziest experience, but just absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker: And yeah, it was, it's hard to describe how comforting that was meeting all of these people that you've never met, but they're your friends.
Speaker: And yeah, the whole community feels like that.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: So we'll wrap up here, I guess, with the socials.
Speaker: If anybody wanted to reach out to you and contact you, what would be the best way to contact you?
Speaker: So we are on YouTube as Push the Point Podcast.
Speaker: We are on Twitter as Push the Point One.
Speaker: That still annoys me to this day.
Speaker: And yeah, we don't have a Facebook or an Instagram, but come and find us on YouTube.
Speaker: You can get the podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker: And you can come and badger us on Twitter anytime you like.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: We'll take you up on that.
Speaker: And for us, you can find us on YouTube, IP2 Podcast, on Twitter, IP2 Podcast, and on Blue Sky, IP2 Podcast.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Do Canadians have a nickname for Stella?
Speaker: Like in the UK, it's often coined a wife beater because, uh, because of the population that tend to drink Stella.
Speaker: No, those would probably be something like that would probably be like, uh, uh, Pilsners out here, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, would be the population that I would associate with it, that drink it.
Speaker: But, uh,
