Episode 42: Side Conversation: Playing and Judging in Brazil with Mateus Quibao
About this episode
<p>This week, John is joined by guest Mateus Quibao to provide some insight into how Pokemon functions in Brazil, and the LATAM region as a whole. Mateus is a long-time judge and player who has transitioned to being a store owner hoping to shed some light on the differences between NA and LATAM Pokemon from a macro perspective.</p>
This episode is published by Battle Frontier - A Pokemon TCG Podcast.
Transcript
Machine transcript — exact wording may vary.
Hello and welcome to the Battle Frontier podcast, where we aim to help you level up in your journey as a competitive player. This week we have a special episode. I'm here with my friend Mateusz Kibau. Sorry, I butchered that already. I'm trying to learn Portuguese on my own and it's not going, it's going okay. Yeah, lots of different sounds. Very different than English. But, yep, I met Mateusz at LAIC this year, or I guess, yeah, the end of last year, to be specific. And we hit it off really well. We're, I think, good friends now, I can say.
And it's been great to see his perspective and kind of have him weigh in once in a while about what's going on in Brazil. But I feel like a lot of our listeners would appreciate that. And so I wanted to just kind of get to know you a little bit better and get to know more about organized play in Brazil. Just a quick housekeeping note. Aaron is out again this week. He had another family emergency that he had to attend to. So he's with us in spirit, but not in person. But everything should be back to normal next week.
We should have a good episode in the lead up to Worlds releasing earlier next week. I know we've had kind of a later release schedule than we would have liked, but that's just kind of how life is. And there's not a whole lot to talk about in the lead up to Worlds. So it's kind of nice to have some episodes like this where we had a senior on. We had Omar Cortes, who got second place at NAIC as a senior. Had him on about three weeks ago, and now we have another guest on. So it's exciting to have that.
But I've done enough talking already. Mateus, tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get into Pokémon and then how did you become a judge and all that kind of stuff? Sure thing, John. So thank you for having me, of course. I really appreciate it. I really like talking and talking about Pokémon for sure. So I don't see myself as a person without Pokémon. I think I started playing Pokémon and getting into Pokémon stuff with the Game Boy that was black and white. I played Pokémon Yellow on that thing, and it was awful.
And when I first got my hands on a Game Boy Color, I was like, wow, this thing is magic. And then I remember at school seeing my friends play Gold and Silver. And I have that scene still in my mind of Ralligator using Surf. And the animation going all the way through the screen was like, man, I love this game. I love these beasts. And that's when I got into Pokémon. My friends were playing cards at school. You know the first starter decks that had Mewtwo? I remember it had Mewtwo and Haunter and those jungle and fossil starter decks.
That was when I got into Pokémon. So I have a kind of similar experience. I remember Pokémon Mania sweeping the U.S. And was it like 1996 when it came through Brazil? Was it the same time or was it a little bit later? I think because of translation and dubbing, it was a little bit later. But it was around at that time. I remember I was in third grade, so it should be around 1998, 1999 maximum. Okay, so that's kind of when the cards came out in the U.S. too, I think, after all that. Yeah, I think cards came here in Brazil at almost the same time.
Sure. So that's what got you into it. And you said you played a little bit of the card game. When did you start judging and getting more involved in the competitive side of the game? Yeah, judging comes really late in my life. I played a lot when I was a child. We didn't have that much support at the beginning. Because at the beginning Pokémon TCG was printed by Wizards of the Coast, right? So Wizards of the Coast, we had to import those projects here to Brazil. So they were a little bit more expensive, more scarce here.
We didn't have Portuguese translations at the beginning. And when it started for me, my mom was not that really into buying me pieces of cardboard. So I was like, yeah, sure, I'll collect whatever I have. And because I grew up in a very small town here in Brazil, we had leagues. They were in the shopping mall. I was in the food cart of the shopping mall from the city that I lived. So I would go on Saturday mornings and trade some cards with some of the people that were there. But mostly child play with my friends.
Then I got into a group of very close friends when we grew up. And we liked card games overall. So that kind of child thing. We played Yu-Gi-Oh!, we played Magic, we played Lord of the Rings. And we played Pokemon as well. But for some time I stopped playing the TCG and I was mainly focused on the video game. But no competitive play, just playing the game. I came back to Pokemon, the TCG, in 2015, 2016, during the end of Black and White era. And beginning of Black and White and beginning of X and Y.
Yeah, I think that was in 2016, something around that time. Yeah, that sounds about right. The Vegas and all that. Exactly, yeah. I remember I came back because of Mega Rayquaza. I was like, yeah, I need to play that. Yeah, of course I had that deck. But I never really focused on playing too much. I really enjoy more the aspect of the gathering with my friends than playing. Discussing cards, discussing decklists, and collecting and getting how to get the most valuable card. The rarest version of the card.
I'm always more focused on that than the playing. And we got to play for like two years when I got back into it. I remember I stopped playing, I think on the first block of Sun and Moon, that I stopped playing the TCG. Because I was in college and I started working. It was like my final years of college and I started working in the shop from the city that I live in right now. Didn't have Pokemon support. The owner of the shop was more of a Magic the Gathering guy. So he didn't know what projects to buy, he didn't know how to support League.
He was just like, I remember that once we were talking to him, he was like, Yeah, you guys play Pokemon, I'm gonna buy some cards for you guys. And he showed up with a bunch of, I think it was Breakthrough, the set from X and Y, right? And he got like a bunch of products. It never sold because it was already old. So he opened them all for himself. And that was the kind of support that we had. So because of that, the community kind of died. And I went and shifted into Magic the Gathering. And Magic was what got me into judging and competitive play.
So I started playing Magic the Gathering, first Commander with my friends, then I changed into 1v1 competitive, more specifically Legacy playing. And because of Legacy, I started judging. And almost like a cycle, my Magic group started dying and they were all migrating to Pokemon because it was at the beginning of the Sword and Shield era for the TCG. So I remember my friends, not the beginning, it was like the middle of the Sword and Shield era, because they were playing with Palkia V-Star and Arceus V-Star, all that stuff.
V-Star was a little later. Exactly. They were already playing, but it was at that time that I started, Oh, I'm gonna pay attention to that because there is a Pokemon that I like, Lugia. And Lugia and Giratina. Is that your favorite? One of my favorite Pokemon, yeah. That is a very tough question. Who would be your favorite? I would say, big parenthesis, my favorite Pokemon is Tyranitar. But I have tiers of favorite Pokemon. My favorite legendary Pokemon are Lugia and Ho-Oh. Nice. But Tyranitar is my favorite from, I would say, the regular Pokemon.
Yeah, they're all pretty cool. So it sounds all like HeartGoldSilver era, kind of, when you got into it. Well, I guess Yellow is a little bit before that, but yeah, like the Gold and Silver era kind of legendaries and Pokemon from that era. Yeah, it was mainly, yeah, it was, I think it was the bulk of what I played was during the Gold and Silver era. Because I had like a Game Boy later in my childhood, but I played a lot through emulators on the computer. I played Gold and Silver on the computer.
So, yeah, so I played a lot. Like, my brother and I would spend the whole night like trying to understand what the game was, because we didn't speak English. And there is no Portuguese for those games. So you'd have to find a way to play the game and understand what the characters are asking you to do. Or you'd go, like, and find, like, a breakthrough. What's the name of, in English, like, there is like step-by-step... Like a play guide, yeah. Yeah, a play guide. Yeah, that's interesting. Like, I mean, I guess I'm very privileged in that I've lived in the US my whole life and have never really had an issue of, you know, stuff being region-specific.
Yeah. And speaking a language that's, you know, pretty popular. It's very common, I guess. So, like, yeah, you touched on organized play being kind of in shopping malls and very, like, on the fringe of things, not front and center. Has that always been with Pokémon? Like, I guess it seems like more recently that you guys have had some more support. But is there still issues today with stuff getting translated correctly or just organized play in general? What does it look like in Brazil? If I'm a player and I want to go play Pokémon somewhere, what do I have to do?
Two interesting things that you mentioned. One, I think I can go and touch this shorter topic, which is translation. Translation is pretty good in Brazil right now for cards. Like, we have plenty of cards in, like, you can find cards in Portuguese easily. It's not that difficult, and it's very cheap. It is one of the good things that Copac has done for us here. We have the boosters in the packs, just like the Japanese ones. Not necessarily a foil or a rare within it, but it's very cheap. You can find it for less than two dollars, two American dollars here.
So it's very, very cheap. But some translation issues. Like, I'm pretty sure, I think Squakabiliax was translated wrong in Portuguese. It doesn't say that the ability works in your first turn. It says, like, once during your turn. Just that, in Portuguese. So I remember at pre-releases or at the first weeks of, since, like, when the set came out, people were using Squakabiliax ability every single turn. I was like, no, please don't do that. But, you know, just a single, like, I think there is another card that has a similar issue.
They forgot to print, like, just during your first turn. But nothing major. Like, we have plenty of available cards in Portuguese. It's pretty simple and pretty cheap. It is one of the problems that we have here right now. And I would say, like, a good problem to have is that we are finally having English cards back in the market. Because now we have a company that is responsible for bringing English cards into Brazilian market. Because otherwise it was just Copagui in Portuguese. So English cards are getting more affordable.
And they are good, for example, for collection, I would say. Because they have more value. Like, if I have, like, just the set that just came out. Like, Black Bolt and White Flare. If you get a complete white Ration EX in Portuguese, its value is almost as half as it is in English. Because who wants to collect a card like that in Portuguese? Only Brazilian people. That's crazy. I mean, and that's in the US too. Like, that's one thing I've always found interesting. Is English always has its higher value stuff.
Like, compared to Japanese even. Like, the cards look better. The production value is just higher in Japan. They look nice. But, like, for whatever reason, that doesn't drive the price. It's always the English price. For whatever reason, it's focused on that. Like, the same card in English is worth twice as much as it is in Japanese. Yeah. English is, after all, an international language. Sure. So, if you're a collector in Brazil and a collector in France, I don't have a French card, but I have an English card.
And the French collector can say, yeah, sure, I'll take that. Yeah, that's fair. And it justifies the price. It doesn't mean that it's fair, I would say. Yeah, I guess so. So, talking about translations, and then also organized play. So, if you're a new player in Brazil, is there still leagues at a local level? What does that look like on a local level? Yeah, so, leagues, like, very recently, at least here in my city, I am responsible for the leagues right now here in my city. The only shop that does it.
But it's becoming more common. I think since the pandemic, the TCG game exploded, right? Everybody, the collection aspect of it, the playability of the game has gathered a lot of people. So the game has grown a lot since 2020. And I've seen Copagui, the main distributor here in Brazil, struggle with it a little bit, but mainly on supporting the shops, the LGSs with the leagues. But the leagues happen. They are working. There is a lot of local leagues. You see a lot of league challenges, league cups being organized in my region, in the cities around me.
So if you come from abroad and you want to play Pokemon, you will find somewhere to play. The most difficult problem that we faced, and now seems to be getting better, is the support for the leagues, meaning promotional product. Prize packs were a problem. Up until series four, we had never had a prize pack before. Copagui would translate some of the promos that were present in the pack, and they would send out the promos separately. So we would receive bulks of like bosses orders with the stamp or double turbo energy.
They would never come into the sorted pack. They would come into bulks of cards and you would have to be distributing. So what we would do is like, I would get like, oh, I have 20 players. So I'll get 20 random promos, shuffle them and tell the players to pick one. Cause we didn't have enough to distribute like one of each for every player that participated in the league. So we'd have to go around and rational like the promos that we had. But apart from that, the organization of local events has been like very good for the past, I would say two, three years, which are the years that I am involved with organized play since I got back into the game.
That's good. Yeah, that's something I guess I was thinking about. Do you guys get play mats for your league cups? We get them now, but we would get them like, I don't know, two, three seasons after the play mat was already done. Like it would happen that a shop would have a play mat and the winner of the play mat had played, I don't know, that cup three seasons ago. And they would never show at the shop anymore because he was probably from another city that came to your town to play the league cup.
And the store would have, like the shop would have a play mat left because the owner never came back to claim it. That's unfortunate, but yeah, not surprising. I mean, I'm sure logistics. So are the play mats made in Brazil or are they imported from somewhere? I think they're all imported, but still they come through, cause they come in English. They still have champion written on it. It's not in Portuguese. So I'm pretty sure they are imported, but probably through Copac. So Copac must be the one with TPCI in contact with them and then importing them here.
Now we've talked a little bit about Copac and I, as an outsider looking in, I'm trying to wrap my head around. So they print the cards, they translate the cards to Portuguese, they supply you guys with league materials, supply the distributor for local game stores. And I guess it sounds like the distributor for bigger stores as well. And they also up until recently were running tournaments, right? Like they were the ones responsible for LAIC and for regionals, correct? So that's something we don't really have in the US.
It's there's like distributors separate from event organizers. And there's like organized play is its own thing where Pokemon TPCI takes care of that in the US. So I guess that's one thing that's very different is we don't have one organization or one business running everything. So not to put you on the hot seat, but how has that been with Copac? I know that there's been some potential changes in the last little bit. Do you wanna talk about that? Sure. I don't know if that's public or not. We can cut that if it is.
Yeah, it is already public. They are not the ones are responsible for the organized play anymore. And one of their companion companies were are taking over crane and they have already putting out like all the information for staffing for the next two events that we are having. Regional, the Belo Horizonte regional and the LAIC. I hope you applied Chuck for the LAIC. I definitely did. I hope to see you here. I'm very, like I said, I'm practicing my Portuguese. It's still bad, but little by little, hopefully.
Sorry. Yeah, but going back, touching a little bit on Copac and on the previous topic that we were talking about organized play. One of the things that we lack here in Brazil and that is a big problem. You might have seen it on X, which is the amount of regional level tournament that we have here. It is too few for such a big region. Latin America only has a few regionals if you compare it to the US and to Europe as a whole. So what, for those that, cause you know, Americans are terrible with geography.
So considering like, what is the population of Brazil in comparison to the US? Is it like two thirds or is it about the same? You are asking a very hard question. I'm sorry. Not that I'm bad at geography, just that I don't have that number on my head right now. Yeah, but Brazilian population is estimated to be 212 million people. Okay. So not that much smaller than the United States. And US is 340 million people. Oops. Yeah. 340, 200, yeah. Two thirds, I'm sorry. Yeah. So, and you guys definitely don't have two thirds.
You don't have six regionals a year, you know. No, like Latin America as a whole has six regionals and US has six regionals, only one country. And when we say Latin America, it is Mexico and everything that comes down from Mexico. So Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia. And you've probably realized or seen at international level championships, not only at LAIC, but there is a lot of Chilean competitors that take like very high spots. Fernando, the last world champion was from Chile, right?
And I think they have like, yeah. And there is like one regional from Santiago and that's it from their country. They are playing every single Brazilian regional that we have. So they have to travel here to Brazil to play. And it's not a close trip. It is not that close. Brazil is a huge country. Yeah. How long is the flight? I mean, I guess I'm putting on the spot again, but. Yeah, but I would say like. It's probably like six to seven hours or something like that. Yeah, something around that, I would say, yeah.
That's, yeah. That's like a transcontinental flight in the US. Yeah, exactly. You're going across the country. Yeah. Man, yeah, it's got to be challenging. So say you're a Brazilian player and you're like, oh, I want to go for my world's invite. So we talked a little bit about there not being a large number of local events. Like you said, I don't know, where you live isn't a huge city. But like if you say live in a mid-sized city, like, I'm going to really look stupid. But like Belo, how big is Belo Horizonte?
Like that's not a small city, but not a huge one, right? No, no, it's one of the capital. It's the capital of one of the states here in Brazil. So like that would be a good, yeah, like that's comparable to Richmond, where I am. Yeah, it has 2.3 million people. So yeah, a little bit bigger than Richmond. But how many leagues would you expect to be in that city? Like just as a comparison, like. If I were to compare, like for example, I live in a city that is 10 times smaller than Belo Horizonte and there is only one shop.
There is only us here that we are organizing. So I would say approximately, I don't know, 10, 15 leagues you'll be able to play at a big city. I know that Sao Paulo, which is the biggest city in Brazil, and it's closer to me, like a three hour ride from where I live, I can get to Sao Paulo. There is a lot, I would say there is like easily 15 to 20 leagues that you can play there. The problem is living in a very big city like Sao Paulo, you'd have to travel a lot, like 30, 40 minutes to get into an LGS, but like subway ride or Uber ride.
But of course there is plenty of opportunity. That's good. So locally, it's not too difficult. It just sounds like at the regional level it can be really difficult to travel. Yeah, very difficult. Like imagine that the only event that we have scheduled for Brazil up until the LAIC November is the regional in Belo Horizonte in October. And we don't have anything else scheduled up until next year. And we still don't have anything in the calendar. Like we know that usually we have one event before LAIC, and then LAIC, and two at the beginning of the year, like usually March and April or something closer to that.
And that's the calendar for Brazilian events before the whole season. So three, four maximum regional level championships in the country. Yeah, that's tough. I mean, the bar's a little lower, like the, I think, but like it's still very, very competitive for sure when it comes to comparing it to the US. So like if I was a Brazilian player, and I'm like, OK, I'm trying to get my world's invite. I have to do well at this regional. I have to go to LAIC. How fast do tournaments cap in South America? Like is it in Brazil?
Like when they posted, OK, registration's open. How long do you have before it fills up completely too? 30 minutes. OK. So if you're for LAIC, if you're not there sitting in a chair trying to get in. Exactly. Like last year, what happens, like I, of course, working at the shop and playing with my friends for quite some time. We have a big group of people. And whenever the event is open, we all jump into the website to try to get our spots. And last year, one of our friends missed their spot because they were working.
And we tried through each other's computer to get a spot for them. But you're logged into your account. You have to log out and log into theirs. You buy yours, and then you get to get theirs. It was difficult. They missed it. And then we were hoping to get the second wave. He got on the second wave, but he was very lucky because he was exactly like, at the time they opened it, he was already there pressing F5. Please, please, please, let me get it. Yeah, sounds somewhat similar. The US has been going through that too.
Just event sizes exceeding demand. And you guys have regionals that are pretty big at this point, right? How big was Sao Paulo last year? And how big do you expect stuff to be this year? If I'm not mistaken, I was checking these days. I think Sao Paulo regional was the biggest regional that we had here in Latin America. I think it was, I have limitless here open. I was just like checking. You're much more prepared than I am, which is embarrassing. Don't be embarrassed. I think it was, where is it?
Yeah, 1,142 players. Considering the biggest regional that we had here in Latin America. And oh, no, sorry. Oh, Rio de Janeiro was almost the biggest one, like difference of three people. OK. Yeah, three people. So it's a little less than, because we get up to 2,000 now in most of our regionals, at least on the East Coast. It's a little different with different locations, like Vancouver and Milwaukee are a little smaller, because they're harder to get to. But Atlanta or Orlando always get pretty big, like Charlotte last year or a couple of years ago.
I think we had 2,400 in San Antonio or something like that. I have to look it up. That was all, yeah. Yeah, it gets overwhelming. And I know, has the staff been like, so we've seen a growth in the amount of players I want to play. And we've talked a lot about maybe the growth of the game on that level. But you staff events, I'm curious, has the development of staff been a good thing in Brazil? Like, have you seen new judges come to the front and rise to the occasion? Or is there still a lot of struggles whenever you have a regional and rulings get messed up and days go long and all that kind of stuff?
Where are you guys at with all that? I think there are two different ideas of what you're saying. I think we have plenty of staff. What I feel like, I don't know how it is in the US, but at least here in Brazil and at the shops that I am involved with, people have the illusion that being a staff or being a judge, being a professor is easy because you just have to fill those 10 questions on the Pokemon. Page and you are already a judge. You're already a professor and you know everything that needs to be known about the game so I always hear from Organization from leads here in the regionals in Brazil that there was like plenty of people Interested in that wanted to be called there is a bunch of people that gets rejected for the events Usually the same people because that you usually see the same people every event because of course People that have been going through they know how the game works. They've been working for events. They know how the event works It all helps but I don't I don't see a shortage of staffing what I see is a Bad quality of staffing like people there because of this impression what it has happened with me in my shop before people has Like people saw me carrying the boxes of the pricing of my payment It is not like I've worked for this. They were like, wow, you get so much product I want to be a professor as well so I I've noticed that this is a trend here in Brazil like people get excited about the pricing and they're like I want to do that as well and Every regional level championship they call new staffing because they need to train people They need to keep the group growing and to prepare people for the bigger events that we are having So you see those people that have never worked at an event before or have no clue what the game is about Just like surface level knowledge of the game They are there staffing the event with you and then it gets all messy or people that want there is a lot of people that are pretty sure that they know 100% the game and The rulings last like extra 40 minutes in time And it drags a lot because they never Had like they were never humble enough to say hey, I don't know how to solve that Let me call my lead. Let me call my my the staff lead. Let me call the head judge They can solve that for me They were always this happened at a regional level event here that kept the person kept trying to discuss And they were like in an argument with the players at one point rather than call the head judge and say hey wrap this up please so I Feel at least these were that was happening in the previous events that I participated. I Feel like it is part of growth Like you have to call new people I was once a new judge a new professor at the program I'm pretty sure I've never done that before But I never behaved like that But I think it's part of hey, I need to keep this community growing I need to To to make these more of prepare people for the future for the bigger events for the more important events Yeah, and I will say I'm not gonna say like the US or TPC I up here has it perfect, but there definitely seems to be a lot more involvement with the RPCs like the regional professor like Yeah, we do but it's like a faraway idea. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean So there's that and like there's meetups and there seems to be like a little bit more Emphasis on development like last year. I was we had a nice meetup in Northern, Virginia Maybe like two and a half hours from my house Where we met up with people from all over the East Coast area And like had a had a little talk about what makes a good professor and all this kind of stuff Yeah, so I definitely would love to see something like that implemented more in your region And I'm sure TPC is focusing on that like you said they do have an RPC But yeah, I don't know it definitely there definitely is kind of some of that entitlement or Like what can judging do for me like kind of the mixed I Feel like a lot of people get into judging for the wrong reason Yeah, thankfully they don't last out very long because if you're not excited to be a Pokemon judge, you know when it's hard You know, you're not gonna want to do it at the higher level and like Yeah, I think people see you come in with the big box of booster boxes and the judge had Like oh, that's really cool, you know, oh you get to do that. Oh, that's awesome. And then yeah, well I had to You know get yelled at and I had to figure out Logistics for stuff for side events for people that didn't know what was going on. Yeah, you know just And like it's great but and I don't I think any judge That stays with it and is successful finds the motivation Elsewhere they find that they want to do the best for the players that are playing the game They want to create a community like you said You don't get into Pokemon for it sounds like you personally didn't get into Pokemon for the competitive aspect of it You did it for the community aspect of it And I think that really it does help with judging when you're focused on the community when you focus on the players. So yeah judging got me to this like we are talking because Right. Yeah, we were judging and we got to know each other and we got to hang out and now we're discussing some stuff and I think this is Richer for me then like of course, I it's not that I don't value who goes for competitive It's an industry of its own now This is what I value the most like the connections the people that you meet along the way Is there professional players in Brazil for Pokemon like people that do it for their full-time job?
I know there's a couple of streamers and such like content creators. Yeah But do you guys have Pokemon like like a little figure or something like that in your community? I think the closer that we have to this is like William has a video Pedro Pertuzzi the we had like Wada Gustavo Wada was one of the biggest ones, but they are not professionals in the meaning that they are Living of that they still play and they do a lot of stuff. Like I know they do coaching But it is not like their own only income. I know like Gustavo Wada was studying to be a doctor And Also works, I know Pedro Pertuzzi also works on another stuff that is not Pokemon related so it's pretty tough because Brazil has a lot of complicated issues regarding games like taxes are too high and You have to be Forgot the expression what I was going for but it is almost as Like you people don't see you you have to find the people who sees you and it is on Content creation. I think that where they found the best So I know a lot of people that they have like this side job of content creation. It gets them a lot of money Yeah. Yeah, definitely That's been a kind of an interesting thing in its own right with Pokemon after kovat. I feel like you know, you have the whole new collector space a whole new content creation space That I mean we're doing some of that now, but I think it's more of a passion project yeah a second job for me for sure, but I'm I'm Curious where do you think the game will be going in the next few years? You know, you got a new distributor you got A new organizer. It sounds like for regionals and yeah a new one for LA I see is Kovac still doing LA I see or is it somebody new? No, it's new. It's all the same this thing Company crazy, how do you think crane will do moving forward? I mean, I don't want to put you on the hot seat Hopefully they don't watch this and like this guy doesn't like us. Yeah No, I just see positive stuff like I felt like Copac being the only responsible for every aspect of the game was Not a problem, but it was clear that they were not handling every aspect of the game So I felt like it was a good thing for them to let that go Leave that to another person to another come not a person but another company that can probably do it better than you Or at least will be a hundred percent only committed to that I think like me as you said at some point like Koppagi was translating printing Distributing and not only for Brazil, but to the whole South America so they would distribute to every country in South America, so it is a huge endeavor and You probably have to realize at some point that you are not handling everything We still have even though we have cards in Portuguese They're printed here in Brazil and there's plenty of it We still have issues with quantity as the same as you guys have in the u.s Like we don't have enough products shops can't buy enough products We just got today we just got the shipment of Black Bolton white flair tech stickers and I got ten of each That was the maximum that I could order and those in English Okay, but in Portuguese I got 36 and 24 of each that was the maximum and they were all sold out in two days in the shop Yeah, we had our weekly meet yesterday Most of them sold out yesterday. Most of them were sold yesterday. There was like five Left from it like black boat was all over on the spot And there's like a couple of white flares still left, but they will not last until next week I'm pretty sure and that's it. Like there will be no second placement of order just that one and only and Supplies and and you don't get product and When you mix everything with organized play with big events, I'm pretty sure they were not handling everything and Letting probably TPC I down. So I I don't have inside info I wish I had at least some gossip to know like exactly what happened But I I see this as like a good change Let Koppagi do Koppagi stuff. Let the other do their own and Hopefully we can get bigger events and more events we are hoping For a Pokemon Center installment here in Brazil. We've never had it Mateus thank you so much for joining us here. I appreciate your insight and perspective on so many things It's been a real pleasure talking with you And I hope to see you at LA I see if not a little bit sooner and put that prep, you know Keep in touch. We'll definitely want to see how your collections coming But uh, thank you so much for joining us on the battlefront tier I will be back next week with Aaron and we will be covering some of the world's content coming into worlds I'll be there as a judge and Aaron will be there as a player. So we're definitely excited to See how that shakes out again. Thank you Mateus and I appreciate everything and have a good week everybody