(ad)venturing in to TCG

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

My local game shop has started running Yugi-oh and Pokémon friendly tournaments. They've run of each so far. I don't have anything to do with Yugi-oh at all, but I've been collecting Pokémon cards for a number of years now. So I decided it time I learnt how to play the game properly. In this thread I plan to document my adventures, and hopefully other people will either learn from my experiences, or offer me (and others) some helpful advice.

Having had no one to play against in the past, I knew going into this that I'd have to start at the bottom of a steep learning curve. Taking a HeartGold SoulSilver theme deck (with one card changed), I new my chances of winning anything were slim. Chances increased thanks to a low turnout. With the exception of me, there was a 9 year old who had even less knowledge than I did and a uni student who actually had a very good deck.

It was tough not to destroy a 9 year old who had built his deck by just putting in Pokémon cards he thought looked good and had about 2 energy cards in the deck. Still, he was happy to learn how to play the game, and even happier when we traded some cards (as was I when I got a card I'd been looking for to complete a legend card in my collection.)

Of course, the guy with the good deck absolutely destroyed me, which was no surprise to either of us. His basic strategy was centred around a Leafeon LvX and a Sceptile (from Great Encounters set). Between the Lefeon lvX’s attack that allowed him to boost the damage of his the attack based on number of energy in play while the Sceptile turned every 1 grass energy card into 2 grass energy cards. Throw in a different Sceptile (from Stormfront) that allowed him to move grass energy from one Pokémon to another at will, and you’ve got a deadly combo right there, allowing him to do some massive damage (his average was in the 200's while the most he did was 500+ in one attack). It was a deadly and very effective strategy.

I came away from the event with three things, one of which I knew going in - I would need to build my own deck. The other two pieces of info were about what I wanted in the deck, more level 1 and 2 Pokémon and trainer cards that allow me to get to them quicker.

The next step, is obviously to build the deck, but without a starting point this is actually a tougher job than it sounds. It also doesn't help that I've only really kept my shiny cards in a nice, easy to get at place (in card folders in a drawer), my normal cards were just shoved away and forgotten about, so I wasn't sure what I was even working with. So the next job, cataloguing my collection.

I've only indexed all my cards from Diamond and Pearl set, as that is currently the oldest legal set in modified play. The way I think about it, is if you make a modified deck, then no matter if these friendly tournament rules are modified or unlimited, you are still guaranteed to have a legal deck. After spending several evenings on this, I finally came up with a list of all the cards I own (from DP onwards). Turns out, I have a lot.

Indexing my cards had the added benefit of reading all the cards to see what does what, and started giving me ideas as to what I want to put in my deck. As a fan of the dark types, I'm drawn towards dark type Pokémon, and as it turns out, the same is for the TCG.

I've decided to build a dark type deck, which I know is dangerous to start off with as I'm constantly weak to fighting types. Worse is most are 2x weak. Still, the idea is a starting point and I plan to evolve this deck as I go along. I also wish I had another couple of copies of some cards, but unfortunately I will have to make do for now.

That's all for the first entry. I should have 2 weeks to finish indexing all my cards (I have some theme decks to break apart and list all the cards from) and build my deck before the store does it's next friendly tournament. The low turnout hasn't stopped them running them yet, as t was only the first one they've done, but if they don't pick up, this all could be for nothing.

If you have any comments, questions or advice – don’t hesitate to post them

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

I'm back with another entry into my decent into the TCG side, and boy is this a good one. First thing to note was that the store took a bit more time to hype up this event, giving a better chance for more people to show up. And show up they did, with a good 16 people partaking in the card game and a few additional people having random DS battles off in another corner. Most were like me when i began, people who hadn't played the game simply because they never knew anybody to play against. This changed for a lot of players today, and hopefully most will be back for the next event in 2 weeks. If we can get this amount of people to constantly turnout, plus more when the uni kids come back to town, then we could become an official organized play event... which will be nice.

Anyway, onto my adventures today. I was using the deck I built (with great help from Raikou Trainer) in this thread. I wanted to see how well it would do, thinking about what I need to change. Annoyingly, not a lot needs changing and how I've played the deck works better than I expected. I say annoyingly because come September the 1st, half the deck will be illegal and although we're running Unlimited rules for these matches, if we ever became official I'd need a Modified deck anyway, so best to keep it up to date. I did make some mistakes with the deck, Forgot Darkrai LvX's pokebody almost everytime i evolved into it and used its attack. I'd also forgotten that my Weevile could find me any card in my deck until near the end of the day, something that i really could have used in one match when i was waiting for Moonlit Stadium. I'd also fogotten an effect of one of my Tyranitar's moves, but more on that in a bit.

So because there were a lot more people this time than last, we had a proper format to play with. Since we dont know how most people run Pokemon Tournaments, we stuck with the system they used for thier Yugi-oh events (that are both successful and the store is now an official organized play for them). The system is called Swiss Points System and works that they randomly match people for the first round, you get 30 minutes total play to try and get the best 2 out of 3 matches (which most of the time is tough to do in pokemon as they're slower games). The Winner get 3 points and Losser gets 1 point. For the second round, they match winners vs winners and lossers v loosers and carry on. At the end of 3 rounds they total up the points to find the top 2 players to play in a final match. If there is no clear winner, then you start adding all the points of all the people they've faced against (win or lose). For example, if you have 3 people with 9 points, they start looking at all the people they've played against, if 2 of them have played against people who have 7 points each, which the other has played against one person with 3 points and 2 players with 7, then the first two players will go to the final as they have a total of 30 points while the 3rd guy has 26.

So my first round match started off against the same 9 year old i fought at the last event. He's now got a pre-con deck, knows the rules a lot better and is overall a better player. Unfortunatly his precon Arceus deck couldnt stand a chance against my Tyranitar Prime with Darkrai LvX pokebody boosting his damage output. I'd managed to start with Sableye and he had problems getting energy cards to start off with, leaving me with loads of time to set up properly. Once done, i was hitting for an easy 160 damage. He did make me take all my prize cards, as at one point it looked like he had an empty bench, but then he managed to get 2 basic pokemon on there, so i had to knock them out. Round 1 victory for me anyway.

Round 2 was a bit more of a tougher match. Although again, i started with sabyele so it gave me the ability to set up. At one point he did knock my saybele out, but i had a second on the bench, letting me continue using its impersonate ability to use supporter cards to set up how i want my pokemon to be, getting all the energy and pokemon cards i need. After beating him in one round, we tried to have a second round, but time ranout and I had to be declared the winner (something we aggreed on before starting the second round).

So I'm two wins up going into round 3 and this match was a bit tougher. After setting up i came into contact with a Tropious. I dont know what set it was from, but it had fly. Fly does 30 damage to me, plus if he fliped a heads then all effects from any attacks including damage - and he got a lot of heads. This is where i made a mistake. I'd forgotten that Tyranitar Prime's Power Claw attack by-passes all effects on the defending Pokemon, So instead I used Darkness Howl to attack his bench. After 3 turns i did knock out 2 pokemon on his bench, taking 2 prize cards, then he missed a turn with heads and i then destoryed anything else that was left wining the round. We managed to play a second round, which I again won by taking out all the pokemon he managed to play onto the field and being unable to play anymore. This time, however, i noticed the effect on Tyranitar Primes Power claw and took out that tropious the second i got a chance.

So I won all 3 matches I played, and I was the only person to do so, guaranteeing my place in the final. They had to work out who was playing me, as even when they added all the scores, 2 players managed to have the same points. They decided which one would face me in the final by looking at the win streak. Since one person won his first 2 matches and lost the third, while the second won one match, lost the second and won the thrid, the first person was to play me in the final. The problem was that he was my 3rd match opponent, someone who i'd already beaten in 2 rounds. But still he soldered on.

He did make me fight for it though, he took 2 prize cards while I set up (something i wasnt worried about, as while setting up I figured this may happen, thankfully I prepared for it, putting another sableye on the bench to carry on from the first). Once i'd powered up everything, however, i then went to town, doing 160 damage thanks to Darkrai Lvx. I then added yet another card to Tyranitar, just for a slightly bit more damage. His final Pokemon was a Giratina, who was weak to dark and I'd hit for 340 damage, way more than the 100HP it had, thus claiming my final Prize Card and winning the game. Unfortunatly we didnt have the time to play a second or third round, and my opponent graciously claimed that I'd won the tournament. A great result for me, my deck, and Raikou Trainer who helped me build it.

My prize for winning the tournament, 3 booster packs, 1 Platinum, 1 HeartGold SoulSilver and 1 HS Unleashed. Not a bad prize, which was made even better by what cards were in the packs. In both the HGSS pack and the Unleased pack were the Secret Rare cards for the set. Yes, that's right, I've managed to get BOTH Alph Lithograph cards randomly from 2 booster packs picked as a prize. And boy do I feel happy about that. Everybody who was still around agreed that this must have been one of the luckest drawings from the packs that could have happend.

So that went better than expected. I wont be making any changes to the deck before the next event in two weeks, although I know personally I could do with something better to pull trainer and stadium cards (especially my moonlit stadium card), although Weavile may be used for that a bit more. I could also do with attaching more energy per turn, but without the Spiritomb that was suggested to be by Raikou Trainer, I dont know how I'll do that.

Any Comments or advice, or anything at all, please feel free to chime up. And dont say anything about double posting, this is sort of a diary so I'm able to double post if neccessary in this thread (also I'm an admin, so I get to bend that rule if I need to).

[Raikou Trainer]

Congrats on winning the tournament! I'm glad my fixes to your deck helped out.

The Tropius that gave you a bit of trouble was from Rising Rivals, BTW.

Also, you got VERY lucky on your Alph Lithograph pulls. You know the odds of pulling one is about 1 in 3 boxes? (that's 1 in 108 packs!)

[WhoKnows_WhoCares]

1 in 108? I had no idea on how rare secret rare cards were, although now i do...

So if the chances are 1 in 108 each, then pulling both would be 1 in 11,664 packs....... wow, i feel even more lucky now i know the odds