Kenny Wisdom
Author Archive
On Gardevoir and Drampa/Garbodor for Utah and Improving Your Pace of Play “Although passport and visa issues have prevented me from casting most of this season’s major events, most of you know that I first and foremost consider myself a caster. I don’t really have aspirations to be one of the best players in the world, and if given the choice, I would always choose to provide coverage of International and Worlds-level events. It’s where I think I’m better suited and, most importantly, what I enjoy the most. With that being said, I love playing in Pokemon tournaments, and I try to make it out to the west coast Regionals that are…
Kenny’s Look at All Aspects of Casting Competitive Pokémon TCG “The number one question I get asked is how to break into commentating. Assuming that your goals are to some day commentate official events for TPCi (which, again, I do not represent in any way), I think you would be well served to look at how each of the current North American casters have broken in: grassroots commentary. Not to say that breaking into grassroots commentary is easy. I’m actually pretty lucky (in almost all aspects of life, really, but that’s an article for another day) in that I was noticed (along with Jeremy) for our YouTube channel (RIP), and…
Kenny on the State of Expanded, Luck, and Upcoming Events “A few months ago I wrote an article talking about what I would add or remove from the Expanded ban list. Shortly thereafter the ban list was updated with no changes (as expected). I didn’t hear too many disagreements about what I wrote, but with two Regionals having happened since, I wanted to touch on a few of the thoughts I’ve seen expressed on social media lately. Q: “Is Expanded broken?” A: I don’t think Expanded is broken, but I do wonder how fun it is. Above anything else, the point of a format (and a game as a whole)…
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Kenny Wisdom on Greninja BREAK for Your Next Expanded Event “I originally wrote something like “Greninja lists are mostly the same, but I wanna go over some key cards here” for this section. The next thing I knew I had written almost 2,000 words on those key cards, and suddenly, this description felt a little less honest. While it’s true that, due to the nature of Greninja itself, you’re going to get a lot of lists that look more or less the same, I think it’s very important to make sure you’re examining every possible decision and actively aware of the choices you’re making. Hopefully the 2,000 words below will…
Discussing the Expanded Format Banned List and Possible Revisions “Let me use this time to say that I’m not a game designer or developer, nor am I an employee of TPCi. All of the opinions expressed in this article are just that, opinions. I definitely spend more time than the average person thinking about this sort of stuff, but I am far from an expert or professional. I can’t speak to the exact motivations of any group or organization that I’m not a part of. I can only use my brain to produce the best thoughts I can, and put them into words for all of you. With that…
When ________ is content, the cream it secretes from its hands becomes sweeter and richer. (Alcremie)
Kenny Wisdom on the Community and What You Can Do About It “Before we get started, I want to make one thing very clear: I am the author of this article because my position of influence allows me to reach the widest number of people, but ultimately, I could not and would not write this independently. The things I’m about to say, the experiences I’m going to share, and the solutions I’m going to offer have all been shared with me and suggested by women. Listening to affected groups about the things that affect them is a big part of what this article is about, but we’ll get to that later. For…
Kenny’s Guide to Success in Tournament Preparation and Progression “You’ll read a lot of articles that tell you to get plenty of sleep and make sure you eat a nutritious breakfast. While I think you should be doing these things, I don’t think it needs to be repeated here. Of course you are going to function best on enough sleep and enough calories. This should be obvious to anyone with a SixPrizes account, though I admit it is easier said than done. The only thing I’d like to add in this realm is that I don’t think you should break from your personal routine all that much. If you’re…
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The Comprehensive Look at What Kenny Wisdom will be Playing (and Eating!) in Vancouver “Pablo Meza did a great job of going over the current Standard metagame, so I won’t bore you with a rehash of that information. Instead, I’ll just get straight to the point and say that I’ll be playing a Gardevoir-GX deck in Vancouver, and I think you have to have a pretty good reason not to be doing the same. There’s a lot to consider with this deck, so I reserve the right to make small tweaks over the next few days, but I can’t imagine a world where I’m not sleeving up something like this come Saturday morning. Usually…
Thoughts on the Game from a Commentator’s Perspective “The concept of teams has been around since the beginning of the game. One person can only do so much, and it’s natural to find other people that have similar goals to you and try to practice with them. Even if you’ve never considered yourself a part of a formal team, if you’re a competitive player, you can probably think of a handful of people that you regularly test or travel with, or at the very least bounce ideas off of. This season, we’ve seen the concept be turned on it’s head with the introduction of sponsorships. It seems like…
Revisiting Mulligans, Benching Out, and First Turn Rules “I’ve spent the most time pondering potential changes to the mulligan rules. The current mulligan rule works like this: If a player has no Basic Pokémon in their opening hand, they reveal their hand to their opponent, shuffle it back into their deck, and draw a new hand (and repeat this process until they do draw a Basic Pokemon). Each time the player is forced to redraw, their opponent has the option to draw an extra card (beyond their original seven). This rule exists to encourage decks to be built with an adequate amount of Basic Pokemon. I feel, however, that it…
It secretly marks potential targets with a scent. By following the scent, it stalks its targets and steals from them when they least expect it. (Thievul)
Three Ideas for Improving League Challenges “As I discussed in my previous article on the subject, I think one of the most frustrating things about League Challenges are that they exist in a space where players are ostensibly not supposed to take them seriously, but due to the fact that they award Championship Points, competitive players are basically required to test for, attend, and attempt to win as many of them as possible. While this may not seem like an inherent problem, I do think that it introduces two very real issues into the community: No one wants to play LCs, but they have to, because…
Tips on Card Storage and a New Season Mailbag “Most of you reading this article maintain some sort of collection. Whether it’s just a few Standard staples or a playset of everything since 2004, Pokémon players own some amount of cards and with that comes the need to organize them. The goal of this article is to explain why proper storage and organization is important, and give a few handy tips on how to best store your cards. Firstly, I think organization is incredibly important. I’m someone who tries to organize and structure all aspects of my life to save myself the most time and frustration possible. I find that, for…
Kenny Wisdom’s 2015 World Championship Adventures “I always like to plan my flights to be overnight, or otherwise to allow me to land in my destination city sometime in the morning local time. This is because I have no trouble sleeping on flights, and sleeping on a flight is basically time travel. For Worlds, I had booked a flight that left Seattle at 9:00 PM and landed in Boston around 8:00 AM. Perfect! That would allow me roughly eight hours of sleep, and I would be more or less adjusted to the time zone difference. As luck would have it, this is the first flight in…
1st Place Water Gym Tournament Report! “I hope you all enjoyed this tournament report! I know that it isn’t particularly helpful for Worlds/Boston Open testing, but I felt the tournament was unique and interesting enough to warrant an article. The biggest point I want to get across is how incredible the Water Gym is for our community. Ever since my first Water Gym back in 2009, it has been my favorite tournament of the year. The way that the community comes together and contributes to having a fun, relaxing day all in the name of Pokémon is amazing, and a testament to how deep the connections…
Thoughts on the Boston Open at Worlds 2015 “I’m going to let you in on a secret: I go to Worlds every year, regardless of whether I’m qualified or what side events are being held. I’ll likely always attend Worlds until either I die or the Pokémon TCG does, barring any unforeseeable financial or scheduling issues. I love Worlds, and I use the event as an excuse to take a small vacation and see friends. However, I realize that I am privileged to be able to do this. Not everyone has the time or financial capability to fly to a multiple-day event without some kind of incentive. In the…
It emits psychic energy to observe and study what’s around it—and what’s around it can include things over six miles away. (Orbeetle)
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