Christopher Schemanske
Author Archive
Buzzwole/Lycanroc @ São Paulo, Tournament Takeaways, and Evolution in Penalty Process “I’m going to start off looking at my personal run in the tournament this weekend, then later get into some of the stickier more judge-side issues that players should be aware of and consider heading into future events. Going into this event, the most important goal was simply to earn some points to keep pace in the Top 16 race (we could discuss all day the health of making that decision over considering the goal to simply be winning the tournament, but I’ll just pass on that). With that in mind, riskier plays like Greninja BREAK, Tapu Bulu-GX/Vikavolt, and any crazy…
A Partway Look at the 2018 North American Circuit by the Numbers “Personally, a big mystery in the recent growth of the game has been trying to analyze whether there are materially more players involved in the game or whether we’re simply seeing the same players attend more tournaments. This section will try to deal with that question, among other things. The following two paragraphs, and table following, summarize all of the findings I made in this respect. Afterwards, there’s further analysis and a bit more breakdown by Regional. At least 4990 unique Masters Division players have entered 11 TCG Regionals in North America this year—a total of 8125 event entries, for an…
Christopher on Portland, Psychology of Gameplay, and Standard as a Field “Getting into actual content, we’re recently off Portland Regionals—by the magic of me forgetting to edit Xander’s report in a timely manner, you can read his report as of yesterday, which conveniently parlays into me talking about the event more. Unfortunately, I can’t claim that I brilliantly set up this progression of events, but I’ll take happy accidents where I can get them. As you might’ve heard, I played Lucario-GX in Portland—with a list featuring oddities like Pokemon Catcher and heavy Regirock-EX. For your convenience in considering the deck’s viability, my matchups were as follows: Portland 466 Masters Lucario/Regirock R1…
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The Rampardos Revealed and Christopher’s Other Top Standard Picks for Charlotte Regionals “Here’s where we’re at: I’ve played as many games as you, if not less, with this deck. Yet, I’ve been assured it is highly playable moving into Charlotte. Xander and Travis have thrown me a list to base this article on, and here it is: I’ve been told the following are techs I should consider in the deck: 4th Guzma 2nd Max Potion Parallel City 4th Choice Band Bastiodon UPR The general idea here? Zoroark-GX runs this format. There’s no doubt about that in anyone’s mind—it’s very simply the most prevalent attacker in the game right now. Rampardos, for a…
Profiles of Trevenant, Dugtrio, Toad/Glaceon, and Greninja for Costa Mesa Expanded “Yes, even in the face of a format with Dark set to reign over all, this still is a serious suggestion. As it happens, Zoroark can have a little trouble finding Energy under Item Lock. Nowadays, we also have things like Tapu Lele to sneak in with Counter Energy, which makes the whole deck all the more interesting. I’ve been testing against a plethora of Zoroark variants, and it actually works out far better than I initially expected. Most of them have no idea what to do when faced with Turn 1 Item Lock, which makes life far easier. Zorua only…
When it isn’t battling, it keeps Dreepy in the holes on its horns. Once a fight starts, it launches the Dreepy like supersonic missiles. (Dragapult)
Surveying the Prize Structure in the Cash Era of Regional Tournaments “I set out with a pretty simple goal: tabulate the total cash, scholarships, AMEX travel, and Visa gift cards awarded to top finishers at North American Regionals last season. I kept this to North America for a few simple reasons: I can easily get attendance data for those tournaments. labs.pokegym.net has a wealth of past attendance data, and this situation is no exception. Some international events have VGC, some do not—it would be more of a headache than worthwhile, for this illustrative exercise, to figure out which is which. Furthermore, some international events have been previously authorized to run with…
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Christopher’s Recap of Oceania Internationals and Preview of Collinsville Ultra Prism “When I left my last article in Alex’s capable hands, I genuinely had no idea what I would play in Oceania. The tournament was a day and a half or so away, so that wasn’t yet an emergency, but I definitely would’ve preferred a more solid idea. Gardevoir was an option, as was Drampa/Garbodor. Buzzwole was on my mind, but I’d say Gardevoir was probably my “first” choice—in this case, all that meant was that it was my backup plan if nothing else better presented itself. Had I played Gardevoir, I don’t believe things would’ve gone all that well. We…
Exploring Ultra Prism and First Looks at Magnezone and Empoleon “(spoiler: it’s a short list) Without much doubt, I think the combination of Solgaleo—or whatever that Necrozma thing is supposed to be—and Magnezone is among the more intriguing options in the new set. I’ve heard a good number of thoughts indicating a belief that the hype is perhaps too extreme, but generally speaking, when the card designers gift a combo so obviously, it tends to be useful at some point in its legal lifespan. I’m not saying it’s going to run through St. Louis—maybe it needs rotation in order to eventually shine. But, at some point in its lifespan, I…
Talking Texas, Exploring Expanded, and Synthesizing Sydney Standard “As I start writing this, my brother is sitting on his win-and-in with the Groudon list we both played today, and should he manage to pull that out and get on a run tomorrow, this will sound a lot different than if he loses right now. So that I get the same impression across either way, here’s how I ended up with Groudon: A read that Night March would be big. As it happens, I think this was only a mild miss—Night March was mildly present, but not the overwhelming entity some thought it’d be. I was confident in the Night…
Thoughts on the Events of Memphis and Moving Expanded Toward Texas “I want to introduce some of you to a match slip, as I get the impression you may not be properly acquainted. This is the best example we have in the 6P system: Now, this wasn’t the specific type of slip in use this weekend, but it’s going to help us get to the point of the matter here just as well as any other. Any match slip will have your name, Player ID, current record, table number, and some other useful information. In addition, there’ll be a place to mark Win or Tie, as appropriate. Most players know this…
The skin on its face is impervious to attack, but breathing difficulties made this Pokémon go extinct anyway. (Arctovish)
A Guide to Putting Yourself in the Best Position to Succeed in the Pokémon TCG “This is simple, folks. Okay, but actually: I do want to highlight my League Cup this weekend as an illustrative example. Gardevoir did very well at the last Cup in Michigan, sweeping something like half of Top 8, so I expected people to counter it. It did not help my situation that Michigan, and especially this venue, has always been somewhat inclined toward Metagross—plus, I’d just written about Metagross, too. So, when I saw a sea of Metagross, Silvally, and other Metal-stuff comprising about half of the field in Round 1, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Nevertheless, I went 4-2…
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On Gardevoir’s Guard of the Format, Metagross’ Merit, and the Math Behind Memphis Regionals “I’m pretty sure that your desire to read about Gardevoir is roughly the same as mine is to write about it (or mine to find more pictures of it for articles). In honor of that plight, I’ll keep it quick today: I firmly believe Gardevoir is the best deck in the format. Nearly nothing that’s readily playable in the format consistently beats it, and I find its mirror match usually somewhat enjoyable. Games where one player manages to do absolutely nothing are relatively rare, making it usually a decent affair. Golisopod doesn’t consistently beat it when the players are evenly matched and…
Christopher’s 2017 European International Championships 3rd Place Weekend Review “We’ve been in a bit of a lull since Vancouver provided us the last Regional Championship over a month ago. In fact, in something of a rarity these days, before London players were coming off two full weekends where the most competitive event anyone on earth could play was a League Challenge. Shining Legends never really got a good introduction to competitive play; League Cups and ARG inherently aren’t the same as regional-scale events. Coupling that with the fact that Crimson Invasion became legal only on the first day of play, the stage was set for something crazy to go…
Summarizing and Analyzing the November 2017 Updates to the Pokémon TCG Rules Documents “Access Link Change Log: In the case of a discrepancy between the content of the English – language version of this document and that of any other version of this document, the English – language version shall take priority. Section 4: The contents of any player’s deck or team may be published by the Organizer at any time once the event has begun, provided that this information is publicly accessible and that the publication of such data is part of an initiative that provides additional value to those watching or following the event. Section 5: Players may be required to…
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Evaluating the Top Card of Crimson Invasion and Zoroark-GX & Sableye for San Jose Expanded “Crimson Invasion doesn’t have quite the treasure trove of useful cards that some recent sets have, but it does have a few cards that threaten to transform the playability of a lot of already-released concepts. Travis gave us a great look at this idea last week, taking a look at the effects Counter Energy might have on the format. Counter Energy is the single most prolific example of the idea I describe, but it’s far from the only. Even its direct counterpart in Counter Catcher has some potential in this vein, as it’ll be able to aid concepts like Golisopod…
No matter who you are, if you bring strong emotions near this Pokémon, it will silence you violently. (Hattrem)
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