Here we go guys, the nineteenth installment of 2 Champs and a Chump. Go download us here or on iTunes .

Also, I have a couple apologies to make this episode.

1. The tardiness of the episode release. We normally try to have it up in the morning, but for some reason it took 5 upload attempts throughout the day before it succeeded. I thought I had that problem conquered, but it appears not.

2. You'll notice that the audio quality is quite a bit worse than normal this episode. It will likely sound overly echo-y and tinny. The problem being that I factory reset my phone last week and forgot to change the default recording settings when we went to record again, so it recorded in the super compressed 3gp format (that makes an hour podcast a 5 MB file- for reference, a 5 MB mp3 is probably a 4 or 5 minute song). This should be easily rectified in the future. On the plus side, I did more research on cleaning up and tweaking audio files through Audacity, so you should find the levels to be done a bit more professionally from here on out.

In other news, does anyone agree with our lists this time around? What would have been your #1?

Kennon said:

Looking forward to listening this evening/tomorrow.

Kennon said:

Hopefully I think this should be fixed for next weeks episode, I think I've finally found a strange bug that could have caused this. My testing since I made the change has been 100% successful.

did you guys even mention rings in this episode? or greg refer to 'his' champ card? ~you guys are dropping the ball... big time.

Egads! I think you might be right! See, this is what happens when Zeiler isn't around to keep us on the straight and narrow.

Really great episode guys, nice work! I especially liked the Targ box discussion...that's *exactly* how I was hoping you guys would break things down: (1) top 5, (2) most innovative/interesting, (3) thematic...hit's all the right categories.

On your FAQ discussion, I thought it was good...not really balanced in the sense that there wasn't much of an opposing view there. It might have been cool to call Alec and get his thoughts on the FAQ, or at least another opposing view. On the other hand, nobody promised completely balanced, and it's definitely good that you throw out your own views rather than putter around trying to find justifications on both sides, especially if you don't believe them. Overall I liked this part of the discussion, but think you could have hit the 5 out of 5 (rather than just a "4") if you had reached out to someone via interview, guest appearance, etc.

On the quality of the sound, it's definitely obvious, and at first I wasn't sure I would make it through the whole episode. The banter was actually really good this time though. After you started getting into the meat of the episode, and especially once you began discussing the Targ box, I didn't even notice the sound quality...you guys had my full attention.

Nice job!

The Nick-ler said:

Greg did mention his Champion Agenda as well as referencing his 2004 championship (although no calls to resurrect Flea Bottom yet).

But, I don't think Rings got mentioned at all 0.o

Rings, baby, I'm so sorry!

Wasn't there a Rings mention in the last 3 minutes? I could have sworn so.

Same here...I thought I heard a mumbled mention of rings as the show was wrapping up.

Kennon said:

~I am not even going to listen out of protest. Even if there is a mumble somewhere at the end. Weak.

Just kidding, I will get to it this afternoon! Unluckily I don't have a subway ride to listen (wait, that is a good thing)!

Did you guys ever explain why you say "Danger Zone" at the end?

Is that some Top Gun 1980s reference?

Well, in kind of a roundabout way. It's actually a reference to our love of the tv show Archer. Whose title character yells "Danger Zone!" several times. I'm assuming his joke is a reference to the Top Gun movie, though.

Kennon said:

Oh dang, I watch Archer and I didn't catch that hah how silly of me!

You need to call Kenny Loggins then.

You know, I find it quite amusing that the vast majority of the comments have to do with forgetting to give shout outs to people or things and there are absolutely no disagreements with our discussion of the cards.

Kennon said:

Well, there wasn't much to disagree with at this point. I think your Top 5 from Queen of Dragons was spot on although I am not convinced on Ambush from Plains getting an overall #5 since it is still limited to Targ character only but I haven't tested it yet so you lot could be right about that. Even if someone disagreed with some of your favorite cards thats just personal opinion so not much to argue about. My only complaint on QoD was not any new legendary cards like Baelor Breakspear

Kennon said:

Yeah, the content was pretty spot on IMHO. You can always nit pick the top 5, but overall it was hit fine.

~There wasn't the usual chump sillyness like the Fury plots are balanced

Sooo.... does that make episode 19 officially our best episode ever?

Kennon said:

My favorite episode. I'm a little disappointed that you guys didn't go over the interesting new cards much at all. Perhaps in a future episode?

Kennon said:

I would say no, mainly since:

1. there wasn't much (any?) disagreement. Not that their should have been, but a little friction helps usually.

2. Z wasn't there. You can't have a Chump sandwitch without two pieces of Champ bread.

That being said, it was the best in the way of organization, hearing people, etc. That was nice. The quality is certainly getting better.

~At least that is what I heard, until I stopped listening...

Discussion on the Targ box was good -- nice breakdown.

Kind of wish the FAQ discussion wasn't so one-sided (not that I really disagreed). I would have enjoyed hearing what someone on the other side of the coin had to say (even though I have a pretty good idea of what they'd say) or at least someone more sympathetic to the other side. I'm not saying you should compromise your views, but sometimes other/multiple viewpoints adds flavor.

Yeah, normally I'm not above playing devil's advocate so that we have some discussion, but the problem is that this time around I quite simply thought it was the perfect answer.

Kennon said: