Trading

Card trading is a central part of Pokémon TCG. For one thing, it's the only way to get some of the cards that are no longer in circulation. For another, it's a faster way to get specific cards you need for a deck you're building. If you don't trade, you have to rely on chance when you purchase a deck or booster pack. There's nothing more frustrating than plunking down a few bucks for a booster pack, tearing it open, and finding three Mareeps, three Spoinks, and a bunch of other cards you don't need. Besides, there's a real aura of cool surrounding a well-stocked portfolio of cards. When you casually remark, "See if there's anything you're interested in" as you hand over a binder filled to capacity with sheetfuls of rare, powerful, or beautiful cards, you are mos' def the dude of the moment.

To trade you have to let go of a card that's got to have some value to it. That's hard. I have no use for a Gardevoir EX and yet, I can't bring myself to put it up for trade. I could probably get the very cards I need, and yet, I can't bring myself to put it up for trade.

There are some very interesting lessons about life in this game, and two of the ones I've encountered are the same: you gotta give to get. I had to let go of the need to have all my favorite families in my deck at once; my deck was clearly more powerful with duplicates of just two family lines. And, I'm going to have to put some of my favorite cards on the trading block in order to get the cards I need. Or as Sting might say, "If you love someone, let them go" (Yes, he says "them" instead of him/her, and to think he was an English teacher before he started rocking and rolling.)

I Finally Won

Yes, it's true. I did finally win. I actually won three times. I beat Kim (he was helping me think through the moves though and so that doesn't really count in my mind). I beat Laura, Sarah's friend, and I beat Sarah. Now I have beaten Sarah at home on occasion, but not 'in public.' Alas, as a mature adult I couldn't do any sort of end zone dance, but I was tempted.

I suppose what made me really happy was that a couple of the Gym's players took me a little more seriously. Two very sharp players asked me to play, and then proceeded to wipe the floor with me of course. LOL. But it *did* take them a while longer than I thought it would.

I noticed I'm still slow. I miss things. Opportunities. Often choices come up in the game, and the decision you make will have consequences for several rounds. Here's an example. I had Dark Tyranitar out with three Energies attached, one of which was a Dark Energy. Do I do Grind or Spinning tail?

1 energy = Grind (10+) Does 10 damage plus 10 more damage for each Energy attached to Dark Tyranitar.
2 energies, one of which is a Dark Energy = Spinning Tail - Does 20 damage to each of your opponent's Pokemon.

Grind would yield 50 hit points on one guy: 10+( 3*10) + 10 extra for the Dark Energy. But, Spinning Tail would do 20 points of damage to all Pokemon on the bench, as well as 30 to the defending Pokemon (because of the Dark Energy bonus). So do I try to faint the main guy or do I try to wear down the bench where even nastier Pokemon were being built up with Energies on each turn. If I knock the main guy out, I draw a prize card, and it seemed like I was going to need to win whenever I could.

But wait, there's more to this decision. For sitting in my hand is the infamous Ancient Technical Machine card, Rock. This card is sooooo sweet, if you use it at the right moment. The card is a Trainer card that offers a substitute attack, and what an attack. You play it and your opponent has to devolve each of his Pokemon, i.e., remove the highest Evolution card on each Pokemon. That card goes back into the player's hand.

Now you may be thinking, "So what, he can re-evolve next turn." Well, yes...and no, because when he removes the highest card, he cannot remove the damage counters on that Pokemon. Those remain, and are thus transferred onto the card below which he reveals. The lower evolution or basic card that is left has lower hit points. So... his 150 point Blastoise EX card with only 70 points of damage on it, is devolved to reveal a Wartortle with a mere 60 hit points, and boom, his Wartortle is fainted. Bye, bye. And though he keeps the Blastoise EX in his hand, he no longer has a Wartortle handy to evolve. Yeah, baby, that's what I'm talking about. But wait, it gets better. This de-evolution process hits ALL his cards on the bench too. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

There you go. I had to think...for like a half a second. LOL. I got two KOs out of that card, the defending Pokemon and one guy on the bench! Sweet.

He did, however, beat me in the end. As I watched his moves I realized that my deck was pretty good, but I needed some better Trainers.

Good players often take a long time to play each turn, and it isn't because they're slow thinkers. They know their cards well. Why the hold up? They are playing lots of Trainer cards of all sorts, ones that let them draw cards: Energy, Pokemon basics, Evolutions, and of course, more Trainers. You can play an unlimited number of Trainer cards each turn, and this is in addition to the actual 'turn' itself: laying down an Energy, evolving Pokemon, and using an 'attack.' It's kind of fun to watch; they just run through a whole series of card moves while I sit there with my mouth hanging open, like Bambi in the headlights of the oncoming car. Boom, in one turn like that the whole complexion of the game has changed. I want to be able to do that too!

So I'm looking for Trainers, more on that next post.

A Few Words on Finesse

When my (step)son, JT, was into D&D and later Magic, I used to find it highly amusing to watch him and his friends 'play.' Very often they would sit around a table, pour out all their game acoutrements (decks, dice, figures) and then proceed to spend the next half hour or more trying to finesse the dice rolls to build the best possible characters and teams of characters. I mean, sometimes they wouldn't even play the game, just spend all their time making the team.

Okay, I get it now.

Yesterday evening, Sarah and I spent a good bit of time making decks and remaking decks and tweaking decks and talking about it all. I suppose this means that I'm finally starting to 'see' how the game works. I found myself saying things like "I'm going to need some draw cards" or even more specifically, "I'm going to need some draws for Evolutions." I was also thinking about how to counter cards that can do bench damage or how to draw down my deck to increase the odds of finding what I needed to find, fast.

Almost every time we play, Sarah and I also debrief the game. "Wow I gotta get my Basics out faster." or "Man, I don't have enough Dark Energies." Then we look at our decks and try to improve them to deal with that problem. Of course, it turns out that the luck of a good shuffle is responsible for a lot of the difference in the way your game unfolds. We have learned some cool shuffles from other players at Cities and at the Gym. We have each suffered through an unrelenting hand of Evolved cards with no Basics to put them on, or a handful of Energy and no Basics to power up, or a handful of trainers that can't be used with the current cards. It's funny and frustrating.

However, there is also the intelligence of the player as a key factor. I can't tell you how many times one or the other of us has declared, after playing a card, "Oh man, I can't believe I did that!" An important element in TCG, especially for the 'real' players, is strategy. And, the key to strategy is mindfulness. You have one card out in front as the Defending Pokemon. But you have to think about your bench (the 0-5 cards you have laid down as active and available) and your hand and the odds of drawing various cards in your deck. Here's an example of a slow mind, in this case, mine:

I have a card out there that has 60 of 70 hit points taken; this guy's about to die. But he has a great attack and it would be a shame to lose him. He can do 60 points of damage to the opposing card. So I 'retreat' him to the bench, which costs me one Energy card, and I bring out another card to attack. The other card is good. But my opponent has a card that can hit the bench for 10 pts as part of its attack and suddenly, my big bad dude is dead. (Actually, we don't say dead in Pokemon; this is a kid friendly game and Pokemon don't die, they faint.). Here's the stupid part. In my hand I have Mr. Briney's Compassion, a card that lets you take your active Pokemon back into your hand, thereby healing it completely, and of course, protecting it from attack. And, I wouldn't have lost the Energy card either. DOH! I was just too slow to see that possibility.

Here's a more positive example. I was looking to fill out my deck, having determined my main line of Pokemon, my Energies, and my Trainers. I was flipping through my binder of cards (yeah, lol, like I have a lot of cards...NOT), and I noticed this weird little card all by itself: Lunatone. Things to notice about Lunatone. First, Cosmic Draw. For one generic/any kind of Energy, Lunatone will let me draw three cards if my opponent has any Evolved Pokemon in play. People evolve their cards pretty quickly to get the better attacks. This card will almost always get me at least two rounds of card drawing before being knocked out. Remember I'm already normally drawing one card each turn, so now I'm getting FOUR cards each turn. That's just awesome. And, if I need to, I can toss a Psych Energy on Lunatone and do a decent attack of Lunar Blast for 30 points.

So it turns out there's more here than first meets the eye. I'm still intrigued by this game.

Modded and Unlimited

A few weeks ago, when I was looking through Sarah's vast box of Pokemon cards which she's collected over the past few years, I got very excited about making a 'Psych' deck. I set to work constructing a deck of mostly pysch energy Pokemon: my favorite, Mewtwo, and the evolution line of Abra > Kadabra > Alakazam. (How could you not love a joke like that?) I was excited because there were enough of the Abra family to really make a decent deck, and MewTwo EX was a nice add (LOL, like I know!).

I made the deck and played it with Sarah a few times. When we went to the Pokemon Gym meetings I heard folks asking each other about modded or unlimited decks. Someone wanted to play with someone else, but only with a "modded" deck. This modded distinction references a new product line of cards, apparently built to make a better balanced card game. Now I'm not totally clear on when 'modded' (as in modified) starts, but several players have told me that the 'old' cards have black lines between attacks, new ones do not. Also most of the new cards have this sort of faint dotted pokeball motif in the background.

Old MewTwo
New MewTwo EX

Whatever.

Now I looked at my psych deck and realized it was all old cards.

That's partly why I ended up with a modded deck of Dark Team Rocket Returns guys. Those were the only new cards I had. LOL.

I have also learned, the hard way, to be very careful buying booster packs and such at places like Toys R Us or Target. Some of them are 'old' cards. You have to know which decks they're from. To the best of my knowledge modded includes cards from the following sets: Expedition, Aquapolis, Skyridge, R&S, Sandstorm, Dragon, HIdden Legends, Leaf Green and Fire Red, and maybe others I don't know.

I was very bummed to have all these unmodded cards, or rather, for Sarah to have all these unmodded cards. But, oh joy, you can still use them sometimes. THere are 'unlimited' events in which all cards are possible. And, at the gym, some kids like to play the old decks.

So there you have it on modded and unlimited.

Tweakin'

Sarah and I decided to attend the City Championships in El Segundo. It was free, no entry fee, and you could play some and get a small pack of cards. Once you get into Pokemon TCG (Trading Card Game) you tend to get a little nuts about getting good cards to use or trade. Besides it was Saturday of the long Thanksgiving holiday and Sarah was reaching the ennui that only kids on vacation have the luxury of suffering.

When we got to the library where the event was being held we were immediately pleasantly surprised by two things. First, almost everyone from our local Pokemon Gym was there. Ah, friendlies! And second, there were girls, not a lot, but more than we'd expected, about seven or eight (out of probably sixty or more people), all ages and ethnicities. Gotta dig that!

City Championship is a different kind of event than the Prerelease. You bring your own deck. It's about how well you and your deck do against others in your group. =gulp= First thing we had to do was submit a deck list of each card in our deck. Once that deck list is turned in, it's locked in for the day; you can't change it. Suddenly I knew why Kim had sent the Gym members that Excel template. Sure would have been easier to just bring along the printout.

We played all day. I think we got four rounds in. I lost all four. Sarah was playing in the 10 and under category, which she will be able to enjoy for another week before she has to move up to the 11-14 year old group. That's a tough group. She managed a fourth place with two wins and three losses. She got a couple of card packets. I was hoping to get the crumbs of her discards.

Fortunately, I have no ego investment in being cool. When the kids (yeah, KIDS, from 10 to the 20-somethings) beat me, I'd ask them about their deck. Why do you use that trainer? I don't get why you moved the energy from this card to that one. How many Basic Pokemon do you have in your deck? How many energies? You get an insight or two from each person. Some kids are marvelously articulate about their deck strategies; others just grunt inaudibly.

After the City I tweaked my deck. Even while I was playing, and losing, I could see what needed to be changed. You learn something everytime you play, and especially when you play against lots of different kinds of decks and players. I'm still learning the obvious beginner stuff. I was having trouble getting my Basics out, the fundamental cards upon which the Evolutions are built. My evolution cards were killler, but without a basic to build on, Dark Tyranitar couldn't come out and play.

First epiphany: Oh, duh, why did I have so many different 'lines' or families of Pokemon in my deck: Zubat, Larvitar, Onix, Ekans. The answer, of course, is that I liked them, the way a child likes to have ALL the different Sesame Street characters, not just Elmo or Cookie Monster. Each of those Basic cards has subsequent evolutions. Zube and Larvi go three stages. That's a bit of a wait time when you're drawing from a 60 card deck.

Zubat > Dark Golbat > Dark Crobat
Larvitar > Dark Pupitar > Dark Tyranitar
Onix > Dark Steelix
Ekans > Dark Arbok

A deck is not a show case; it is a strategic plan. I needed to commit to fewer families, so I picked two with good attacks: Zubat and Larvitar and their evolutions. Dark Golbat has a great 30 pt. hit with ambush for just one energy card, and the subsequent Dark Crobat can hit the bench AND heal itself. Sweet. Dark Tyranitar is just an awesome card. Period. That reduction in scope let me put in lots of multiples and increase the odds of drawing the cards I need from my deck at the time I needed them. Everyone knows this, except us beginners. It's okay to love your cards, to like the shiny holo of Torchic, but that's what your binder is for, not your deck.

Okay, so here we are way down the page and I'm just rambling about my first insight about my deck. I've changed it so many times already. I know it's still not quite right. I have 'trainer' problems, but I'll work those out in another posting.

Tomorrow night is Gym night. I'm hoping to play Kim and Dan and get some expert advice.