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Attendance at Tournaments, Commentating (Drama in Storytelling), the Grind, Marketing, and a Funny Story “There was some chatter on Facebook about how attendance was down at tournaments, possibly due to the Expanded format or rising prices. I wondered if there was a way to get a little bit of science applied to the problem. I asked Christopher Schemanske if he had a data set I could use for a quick linear regression and of course he did. So here is what I did: I looked at every Regional in the last three years and scored it on several attributes… Format Year Quarter (to attempt to control for “people stop playing at a certain point”)…
A Top 16 Collinsville Tournament Report with PikaRom “Hey whatโs up my guys! My name is Evan Gregory, and I play the Pokรฉmon TCG competitively. I have played rather casually for about five years now, hitting a couple of Regionals here and there; however, this year, since worlds is in D.C., I have decided to shoot for my worlds invite. Starting with a poor Q1 with only 2 Challenge wins and a Cup top 16, I turned things around at Roanoke, where I placed top 32 with Blacephalon. After that I cranked out a Cup win, top 4, and top 8. Then taking a break through January, skipping…
Discussing the Dominance of Zoroark-GX in the Entirety of the TCG “The first question in any design room is “Do we want this card to be strong?” If the answer is no, you (the reader) can very quickly see a common example of this. Simply look up any set in Pokemon TCG history, display some portion of the set on the screen, close your eyes, and point to a random point on the screen. Congratulations! Approximately 75% of the time you’ll choose a card that will never be competitive. Perhaps 15% of the time you’ll point at a playable. Some 5% will be strong, and the last 5% will be very…
6P Podcast Ep. 27 “On today’s episode, Mike is joined by Maryland players Nguyen Tran and Charlie Lockyerโfresh off Top 8 at the latest Regional Championships in Roanoke, VA. They discuss their successful Virginia runs, the state of the Standard format, and give a peek into Expanded for Anaheim. iTunes SoundCloud
Christopher’s Look Back at Portland, ft. Trevenant BREAK Report & First Thoughts on Lost Thunder “Over the summer, we saw what was primed to be the biggest shakeup in Expanded’s history: bans of Wally, Ghetsis, Puzzle of Time, and Hex Manaic were shown their way to the ban list, seemingly ending Zoroark’s death grip on the format. The lead-up to the weekend was optimistic, and I don’t think we’ve ever covered as many decks in one tournament’s preparation as we did with Portland. As this weekend showed us, none of this was quite the case. Instead, Zoroark did reemerge from the bans a more oppressive version of itself, which raises significant questions about where the…
Little can stand up to its psycho cut. Unleashed from this Pokรฉmon’s horn, the move will punch a hole right through a thick metal sheet. (Galarian Rapidash)
‘Exploring Expanded’ with an Eye toward Portland’s Regional Championships “On this episode, Mike is joined byย Israel Sosa, Phinnegan Lynch, and Tyler Ninomura to discuss the new look of the Expanded format heading into the first large Expanded event of the year: Portland Regionals! iTunes SoundCloud
Friday Flyer #7: A Few More Expanded Notes and Nuggets “Hello everyone! Another week down, and this time, we moved thoroughly into the Expanded frontier. Travis, Pablo, and I had a trio of articles going into the larger format as we evolve past the bans it received this summer. It’s going to be an interesting format, and I’m curious to see what works out from here. Next week, I’ll do the October mailbag, so if you have any Pokemon questions for my address next week, feel free to drop them my way. ย I’ll Tweet out some reminders throughout the week, and try to fit them into the articles where I…
A Top 8 Senior Worlds Buzzwole/Lycanroc Report “This is the list I used day one. I chose to play Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX as I felt it gave me the best shot at finishing a set in fifty minutesโan appealing feature given the rigor of the World Championships. There is not much to say about it, since it was fairly conventional, except for the fact that it was optimized for the Buzzwole-GX/Lycanroc-GX mirror and the Rayquaza-GX matchup. As such, I cut back on counts that did not affect these matchups, specifically Brooklet Hill and Float Stone. In this respect, the deck functioned as planned, though I did not end up…
Friday Flyer #2: An Examination of the 19 Point Day 2 Cutoff “Seven days are all that separate North America’s player base from the first Regional Championship of the 2019 Championship Series. Of course, we’re looking at a bit longer for Europe, and Latin America is getting a head start with a Regional tomorrowโand all lag behind Oceania’s Melbourne Open. Nevertheless, for many of the people that play Pokemon, Oaks will be their first shot at the SM-on situation in a large tournament. “What am I reading???” โ Welcome to our new weekly column, where I’ll be taking every Friday to go through some smaller issue that isn’t fit for a full…
Podcast Ep. 23: Decks for Philadelphia Regionals “On today’s episode, Mike is joined byย Russell LaParre, Chris Leandro, and Carl Barone to discuss the new format and top plays for Philadelphia Regionalsโbut, of course, not exclusive to Philadelphia! A must-listen for anyone looking to succeed in the upcoming format. iTunes SoundCloud
The faster a ________ can beat out a rhythm with its two sticks, the more respect it wins from its peers. (Thwackey)
The Debut Friday Flyer, with Farewells and Thoughts “Welcome to the first edition of the Friday Flyer! In addition to me still not really being sure whether it should be Flyer or Flier, it’s a bit of an odd time to talk Pokemon. Fortunately, Pablo kicked us off earlier this week with our first looks at the Sun and Moon-on rotation. At this point, play is mere hours from beginning in the first tier-2 tournament of the year using the format, as the Melbourne Open will kick off. If, at this point you’re going “what on earth am I reading?”, it’s a good time to head back to…
The Halliburton Report from Worlds, incl. Top 4 Worlds Juniors Report “Right after my last article, we headed to Toronto. For two years, I have offered my eldest son a choice of birthday presents or a father/son regionals trip. Both years he has opted for the trip so this year we crossed the border and headed to Toronto. He had his first poutine, so I already knew the trip was a wild success. Unfortunately, we decided to play BuzzRoc because we could not find a deck that consistently beat it. We felt like this was a bit of a trap because historically, when we just lemmingly follow the herd and play…
A SixPrizes Site Update and Christopher’s 2018 World Championship Recap “We’re super excited to have a number of new initiatives to share with you this year. Through what we have planned, we believe it’ll be easier than ever to integrate SixPrizes with the rest of your Pokemon experience, communicate with the writers and your fellow subscribers, and, most importantly, take your game to the next level.ย We’ve always had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do with Fridays. It’s really too late in the week for most of us to learn anything new to impact the upcoming weekend’s tournaments, and full-fledged articles on things that aren’t specific…
A Grimer (Primer!) on Competitive Pokรฉmon TCG Play “So youโve got the right behaviours, but what do you do with them? Before you dive in and start doing things for their own sake, itโs worth understanding the structure you play within. If your goal is to earn a day 1 invitation, what threshold do you need to reach, and how should you approach it? Using the 2017/2018 season, you would have needed 400 points in North America. The season is divided in 4 Quarters, which each had a best finish limit of 100CP at local events with uncapped Regionals/SPE/Internationals. Much derided for the ability to โjust win 8…
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A Look Back at a Year of Junior Competition, NAIC Nuggets, and Pokรฉparent Open Profile “The 2018 Championship Series saw only slight increases in attendance at the Regional level, but the number of Worlds qualifiers in North America doubled from 66 last year to 126 this year. The lowering of the invite threshold to 350 CP, guaranteed Top 4 points at League Cups, and four quarters of Cups put an invite within reach of many more players this year. For reference, though, 126 invites is still lower than 2015 (157) and 2016 (154), which had a very different series structure known for City, State, and National Championships. An increasing number of invites means more competitors…
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It attacks with rapid beats of its stick. As it strikes with amazing speed, it gets more and more pumped. (Grookey)