846 results for: 2012–2014
On the Tail of the Big Three “Rebooting Genesect Handling Yveltal Revisiting Aromatisse Mewtwo Strikes Back Conclusion Nicholena’s last article is a great resource for lists of popular decks. Everything that her article didn’t cover, Dylan Bryan’s did. Even though there haven’t been a ton of articles strictly focusing on deck analysis lately, both of those authors covered everything my article here won’t. This is the time of year that rewards risk taking and quick thinking. Below you’ll find an article that I hope can guide readers to being more proficient at both. I played in my first event of the season last week at a diverse City Championship…
The Cities Metagame and the Two Most Pliable Plays “The Metagame Virizion/Genesect Night March Aromatisse and Bronzong Variants Seismitoad Variants Pyroar Yveltal Variants Donphan Conclusion The first weekend of City Championships is usually the most chaotic. There are a lot of different cards from the new set being hyped and nobody knows exactly what to expect, rather they only have a general idea. I think this is really exciting because you get to see tons of variety and witness cards you overlooked perform well and in the end the best decks rise to the top. This year, the standout deck was Donphan with the most wins and both Virizion/Genesect…
Kevin’s Brief City Championship Reports (Weeks 1 Through 3) “Popular Plays: Donphan, Yveltal, Plasma The Donphan hype was at an all-time high leading up to the 2014-15 City Championships. After all, the deck dominated Regionals and with the latest set, Phantom Forces, it became much more of a threat than it already was. Any good player knew that if your deck wasn’t beating Donphan, you probably weren’t winning week 1. The deck I tested heavily was Seismitoad-EX/Manectric-EX/Drifblim BW64. In theory, you were able to beat all of the top decks and throughout testing things were looking good. Seismitoad and Manectric abused the same card pool, and Drifblim allowed for…
The Dreaded Bubble, IDs, SosaRai, and Commentary on the Not-So-New Theory “As always, I try to focus my writing here at SixPrizes on a broader topic, delving into more deeper and substantial issues, but for this article, I couldn’t quite think of one particular thing to devote my article to. Instead, I have to decided to break up my sections into a handful of “buzz topics” that have recently occupied my thoughts on the game. I saw it fitting to introduce the article with those thoughts on Cities, but I have several more to write on, all unique and different, so I hope you look forward to getting into some hot…
A Look at the Evolution of Communication in Pokémon TCG “Pojo was the original hub for the competitive community, and it shows. An interviewer asked a 14-year-old Colin Moll what he had for lunch, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Pojo is a true artifact of its time, emoticons, unedited interviews, text speak and all. To be honest, I don’t know what was appealing about the website in the early 2000s, but I have a feeling it was because content elsewhere wasn’t any better. Articles about Pokemon TCG were undoubtedly hard to come by. It wasn’t until the player base expanded that experienced players had any incentive to write quality…
When it contracts its body, over 220 pounds of sand sprays from its nose. If it ever runs out of sand, it becomes disheartened. (Sandaconda)
How to Have Success at a Series of Cities “The Georgia Marathon during the 2013-2014 season was my first one ever. I had no idea what to expect, which made the entire trip that much more captivating. I did, however, have a decent amount of prior experience with the format. Prior to driving down to Newnan, GA for my first tournament of the 10-event chain, I had attended two City Championships and was lucky enough to place into the finals of both of them. I had experience with a changing metagame, but the timeline was from one weekend to the next — much different from day to day. Unlike…
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Applied Mathematics and Economics to Pokémon “Game Theory Example 1: In-Game Analysis Example 2: Metagame Analysis Making Top Cut Conclusion Game theory, also known as interactive decision theory, allows us to look at the possible outcomes of a situation and pick the most optimal line of play. This is one of the more advanced ways to look at in-game decisions, as well as deck choices. There is quite a lot of simplification that has to be done in order to make the underlying concepts comprehensible, so let’s assume that the probabilities that play into the outcomes have been approximated and generalized for a range of different variables. One…
On Being a Positive Contributor to the Pokémon Community “In my mind, the reason that you want to be a good ambassador for the game is a simple one — you love playing Pokemon, you want to see Pokemon succeed so that you can continue to play Pokemon, and Pokemon is more likely to succeed if its community is a caring, welcoming, passionate one. It’s easy to disregard the feelings or opinions of others, and it’s certainly easy to go about living your life in such a way that you offer no compromises. However, taking a look at the paragraph above, it should be easy to understand why being…
What PTCGO Can Learn from Hearthstone, Blizzard’s Latest Cash Cow “Blizzard Entertainment is probably a company that most of you are either familiar with or have at least heard about. Some of their biggest successes include StarCraft, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft, which are well known in the gaming community. Blizzard excels at two things: making highly addictive strategy games and getting its customers to eagerly open their wallets. Recently Blizzard branched out from its safety net of genres and decided to try its hand at an online card game based off the Warcraft mythology called Hearthstone. The reputation of the company alone made me eager to try the game and…
Surviving Cities, the “Careers,” and Underdogs “Surviving the Games The “Careers” Donphan Yveltal Virizion/Genesect The Underdogs Metal Seismitoad/Garbodor Pyroar Yveltal/Manectric Night March Conclusion I know this may not be everyone’s style, but for me, having a core group of friends and testing partners has really made this round of Cities much more bearable. Even on the days I don’t do well, it’s definitely nice to have friends around to either commiserate with or live vicariously through. Having a team mindset can really turn a less than stellar tournament run into a positive experience. I scrubbed out the first two Cities I attended this season, but I…
It will bravely challenge any opponent, no matter how powerful. This Pokémon benefits from every battle—even a defeat increases its strength a bit. (Rookidee)
North American PTCG Power Rankings (Vol. 2) “Initially, I had planned on keeping this list to a consistent 10, but I couldn’t help but give Mia and honorary 11th place once again. Recall last time that she held the number 11 spot on my last rankings following her 11th place finish at the World Championship. At the Regional Championship in British Columbia, Mia once again showed her affinity with the number and bubbled at an unfortunate 11th place. What makes this achievement more noteworthy is that she was still piloting the ol’ faithful Darkrai/Dusknoir which everyone had written off as being illegitimate. Props to Mia for sticking to…
The VS Seeker Engine Explained and Its Application to the Top Decks “The Logic of the VS Seeker Engine and When NOT to Use It Why I Run Jirachi in Almost Everything The Top Decks – Now Featuring VS Seeker! Virizion/Genesect Donphan Yveltal/Seismitoad Seismitoad/Garbodor Manectric/Toad Honorable Mentions Quad Reshiram Plasma (TDK) Conclusion The concept of the VS Seeker engine in a deck essentially requires a player to cut back on cards such as Professor Juniper, N, and Colress in order to make space for VS Seeker. By leaving high counts of the Supporters you want to open with and lower counts of the ones you’ll want later, you create a system in…
A Discussion on the Flawed Structure of League Challenges “I’ll come right out with it: I think League Challenges should not be part of the competitive invite structure. I know that they are designed to be entry level tournaments for people to get a feel for the tournament atmosphere, which begs the question as to why they are then part of the invite structure at all. Not only that, they can also be worth up to a staggering one-third of an invite! If you live in an area where there are few to no League Challenges, then you are inherently at a disadvantage to someone who lives in an area…
Five Brotherly Interviews on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of the Pokémon TCG “Ryan and Kyle Sabelhaus Kevin and Erik Nance Michael and Frank Diaz Daniel and David Lopez Dan and Dave Richard Where are you from and how long have you been playing? Kyle: Hello! We’ve been playing competitively since 2004 when our family moved to Florida, and we currently live and play in South Carolina. Our neighborhood development was new; so many kids were moving into it just like us. When we went to help one of these kids move, we found his Pokémon card collection and it reminded us of all the fun we had when we first played. After that…
A Mini-Guide for Those Playing to the Tune of 300 CP “Post-Cities Assessments Teching in the Current Format “Strategic Dissonance” Revisited Rogue Meanderings Conclusion Normally I encourage a proactive approach to this game, one in which players thoughtfully form a list and playtest preemptively for whatever the occasion. Lately, however, this has turned into a strict case of “do as I say, not as I do.” Like I mentioned before, I’ve recently taken over the role of “stay-at-home dad” with my family, and kids as young as my daughter eat or destroy cards, not play them. Add to that the disinterest I’ve had with the game because of the lacking details…
If this weak Pokémon is by itself, a mere child could defeat it. But if ______ has friends to help it train, it can evolve and become much stronger. (Dreepy)
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