Daniel Altavilla
Author Archive
Bio: I am a 24 year old student aiming to receive a Masters in Kinesiology. I used to play Pokémon full-time and racked up some Masters Division accolades. I have been playing since 2004, when I was 7 years old. Going on 17 years in the game, I have now pushed back to part-time Pokémon TCG to further my education and advance toward my career path. I am passionate about content creation and offer coaching services and a Patreon with a Discord server.
My Players Cup II Experience (So Far), Moving Forward to Phase 2, and Two Favs: Excadrill Control + Excadrill Beatdown “The meta has been constantly shifting with the amount of online events happening nowadays. We can gather results from an average of one online event per day to figure out what deck would be the best choice for the PCII, so in a sense we are being spoiled by the influx of events lately. On the other hand, the amount of events with so little on the line means that players are more likely to make slight edits to their lists or switch up variants for their archetype of choice completely, with the rare case of a player deciding to…
Seniors Top 8 US Nationals 2011 Lookback with Yanmega/Kingdra “It was July 2011 and I had just arrived in Indianapolis with my Samurott BLW 32/Donphan Prime deck. I was excited for Nationals, because I had tested all summer long, and since it was my last year as a Senior I was ready to go out with a boom. The night before the tourney, I bumped into my good buddy Michael Diaz in our hotel. He kindly invited me into his hotel room to test, and I, of course, accepted his invitation, ready to test my Samurott deck out on players other than my cousin and father. Upon arrival to Mike’s…
Anxiety, Superstitions, and Personal Rituals “Anxiety is a feeling of inner discord achieved through overreaction to a situation one might find intimidating. It often comes with fatigue, nervousness, fretfulness, tension, and worst of all for the Pokémon community, inability to concentrate. Anxiety has the ability to spark nervous reactions within a player, which could be in the form of shuffling your hand non-stop, constantly moving your legs or fixing your chair, or biting your fingernails, to provide a few examples. These are what I see in most nervous Pokémon players, including myself. We all know this information for the most part, but what we don’t…
Stage 2s, Week 2 Contenders, and Mini 1st Place GA Regs Report “Blastoise has been an incredible play for the last couple seasons, and during States this year, it really shined, due to the sudden drop in popularity of Virizion/Genesect. After this success, though, VirGen’s numbers increased yet again, and Blastoise seemed to be the worse play over RayBoar. Many have their opinions on the decks (Dylan Bryan mentioned his thoughts in his article), so I’ll list what I think are the pros and cons of Blastoise here. Pros Blastoise can beat Trevenant thanks to Keldeo’s Rush In Ability. Black Kyurem-EX has 10 more HP than Rayquaza-EX, which makes a huge difference…
2014 Florida Regionals 6th Place Masters Report “Hello! I’m Daniel Altavilla, a 10-year Pokemon Trading Card Game player and 9-year Organized Play competitor. I’ve had many great times, met incredible people, and played countless engaging games throughout the years, but none can compare to the memories made, the new people I’ve been introduced to, and the intense battles I’ve experienced this year, my third year as a Master. Florida Regionals this past weekend was an outstanding tournament, one I’ll never forget, especially because I earned one of the biggest accomplishments of my Pokemon career. Due to the lasting impact this tournament will have on me, I decided it…
In ancient times, it was unbeatable thanks to its powerful lower body, but it went extinct anyway after it depleted all its plant-based food sources. (Dracozolt)
5 articles written
11× Worlds qualifier
Playing since 2004
@daxptcg
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