The best Tournament I have ever been to!

My First Pokemon Regional Tournament

. I used to play the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game for about 12 years before deciding to quit and switch to Pokemon in September of last year. Yu-Gi-Oh! has just become too fast paced and a skilless game, to me, to continue spending money on and playing in tournaments. For those of you who play card games competitively might know that a format being "Oh, I won the coin flip? GG, my friend" is incredibly unhealthy and un-fun for everyone.

It has been almost 2 weeks since I went to Portland, Oregon to play The Pokemon Trading Card Game at a higher level than just a locals. I have only been playing for about 6 months and I decided, last minute, that I really wanted to go to this big tournament. I wanted to experience higher level play to see where I was on the spectrum and also to see how people act at a higher level in comparison to the other card games I have played in the past. It was by far the best experience I've ever had playing at a tournament, not just the 6 months of Pokemon, but also the entire 12 years of playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is saying a lot.

I played a deck called Archie's Blastoise at the main event tournament as it has become my favorite deck of all time. The point of the deck is to use the card called "Archie's Ace in the Hole" to get a Blastoise onto my bench turn one and  vomit up Water Energy onto a Pokemon called "Keldeo-EX". Keldeo is a Pokemon that gets more and more powerful with every Water Energy attached to him making Blastoise a perfect partner for him to drown my opponent in the waters of a loss. I put a lot of effort into making this deck as consistent as possible and make sure that I can get out Blastoise turn one or turn two every game. And it worked, I did exactly that. 

My friends, newly met through Pokemon, have told me the deck just isn't consistent enough or strong enough to compete in the meta right now. I disregarded their warnings and played it anyway! I proceeded to get Blastoise out every single game turn one or turn two and it was the best my deck has ever preformed for me out of all the tournaments I have entered it in. But, sadly, I lost almost every round anyway. I ended up learning exactly what was wrong with the deck and why it just wasn't good enough in the current meta to compete and get me those sweet wins. Keldeo just isn't as oppressive as he used to be as well as there being many ways to bring out Blastoise and kill him to shut off my energy acceleration to a screeching halt. it makes me sad, but it is still my favorite deck and I will continue to build on it and work on it until it becomes the best deck in the format again!

  

I didn't lose every game though, I just happen to drop all the important ones and couldn't make it to the top. It was exciting and fun to play my cards exactly how I wanted  and watch my opponents be amazed at how fluid my deck was preforming in front of them. One guy even asked, "How expensive is your deck?" I have spent too much money making this deck as shiny and golden as possible because Blastoise deserves only the best, so it was only natural for at least one person to ask that. 

Now, this was a two-day event and they had side tournaments for people who didn't make it through to day two for the main event. Some friends and I entered mini tournaments all throughout the day and had a ton of fun there too with winning prizes and playing in entertaining side events. One example is I entered a "Theme Deck Tournament". The way this one worked was everyone who joined was given a theme deck made by the Pokemon judges that were overseeing the events and we were to battle each other using only the cards in the theme decks. You got tickets for entering and you got even more for winning. It was kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese with trading cards. It was by far one the most fun I've had with not entering a main tournament during a big event like this.

At the end of the day my friends and I pooled our tickets together and got some nice prizes, such as some deck boxes, card packs, and even a nice playmat that I've had my eye on for a while. We all left pretty happy with how the day turned out.

I was glad I decided to go last minute and I would trade (pun-intended) it for anything. Thank you Pokemon Company International for the great experience and I am going to be going to future events when I feel I am ready!