Introduction...
In this first piece I would like to portray how I have come to playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game and my first footsteps into organised play events and how I am looking to develop further as an individual to hopefully gain a more educated understanding of the meta and skill needed to be successful as well as enjoying a brilliantly community lead game.
From The Start...
Since the age of 5 I have enjoyed playing Pokémon games of all varieties, it has only been since the last year I have developed a love of the trading card game competitively. I don’t have much history in playing card games other than collecting pretty shiny cards from various games. I collected Pokémon cards when I was still in primary school, I was always trying to complete the entire 151 in card form. I have always been a completionist in which ever game I have played, years of Runescape (we all played it), Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Mario and many more. All to get that satisfaction when the progression bar has reached 100%, this is not unfamiliar with all the Pokémon games. The first Pokémon game I ever received was on the Gameboy Color and I sat there for hours at a time trying to complete the Kanto PokéDex, with my little yellow friend following me around. Today I still attempt to do the same, although much easier through wifi trades and the amount of other players around my area who also have 3DS systems. Although Gaming has been a big part of my life as a stress reliever between the ages of 12-18 I lost my love of Pokémon all together as there were much more interesting things in the world as I grew up such as Football, FPS games and going out. But I wouldn't be writing about Pokémon at this moment if that didn't change!
A Passion Reignited...
The first time I got back into Pokémon was around October 2016, this was when I picked up my first few booster packs for the first time since the age of 9. I picked up some Roaring Skies packs as from watching a few Youtube videos from creators such as Derium’s Pokémon and The Pokemon Evolutionaries, I understood that to get into playing Pokémon competitively you needed the core staples of decks. In these packs I was able to pick up multiple Ultra Balls, Trainer’s Mail and Switches, but nothing compared to the feeling of opening my first pack and the rare was the golden bordered VS Seeker to which from that moment I have been hooked on Pokémon ever since. From then my first ever participation in organised play was the Evolutions PreRelease which was the first time I had played with the proper rulings of the TCG and not playground rules! This was such an enjoyable experience and even was able to bag myself the prized Charizard PreRelease Promo card to which I was over the moon with getting as that day it was one in 3 opened on the day.
Where To Now?...
Since that day, for me it has been a goal to make myself more involved with the Pokémon community to develop myself as a player in which ever way possible. This has lead me to participate in numerous events since, mainly at the Pokémon League at my local model shop which has held an excellent training ground to develop my skills and to make some great friends since walking into the shop for the first time at the Sun and Moon base set PreRelease. These friends are what drive me to play Pokémon as it is now a passion rather than just a hobby now. From this we have developed our own little testing group with numerous ideas for the local meta game, deck lists and best of all ironing out any imperfections with our play. This is not saying we are perfect players but we are learning from every game to get better as we go, this is while we bounce off of each other for cards and help in plays when we analyse the best way to have an advantage of a game plan in most match ups. Being as involved as I am now in my local shop it allows me to really feel I am part of something bigger than I expected when I first opened my first pack late last 2016, to now participating in some of the biggest Pokémon tournaments held in the UK.
Which brings me onto my reason for opening this blog section, I want to try to document my own development in posts to show how my understanding of the game has adapted over each article and to help with my writing skills as I look to write more in-depth and creative pieces of work.
Feedback on all of my pieces are welcome and will be constructively used for my next article.
Charlie
