12 results for: philosophy
Philosophies for Becoming a Better Player During the Offseason (or This Unexpected Break in Organized Play) “The first step is to label where you want to improve. Quantifiable goals are best, but it’s difficult to quantify without rattling off hoped tournament placings. If possible, narrow down the area of your game that you want to improve. Do you want to learn one deck really well? Learn more decks? Sequencing? Playing faster? There are a million questions to ask. From there, you should formulate a plan of improvement. What strategy will you employ to actually achieve your goal? Watch VODs? Play many games on PTCGO? Hire a coach? Once again, the possibilities go on. There’s reason to…
A Three-Step Plan for Preparing for the Return of the Pokémon TCG “My idea is to facilitate enjoyable, productive, and consistent training. To have fun training, set aside some time to play Pokémon TCG in the way that most amuses you. After all, I believe you started playing Pokémon TCG because you somehow found the game fun. To have productive training, try to practice the things that you didn’t have the time or opportunity to investigate. Maybe those Control decks that have always frustrated you can be… interesting and fun? And to do consistent training, it is important to establish a routine. Start playing slowly and then increase the pace. I’ll talk…
On Doing Homework, the Archetypes Masters, and Three Reasons Why Comfort is Key in Expanded “In the Standard format and at most levels of competition, I would encourage talented players to not worry too much about their inexperience with a deck, and to rely on their skill at the game to carry them. The reason for this way of thinking is largely that in most formats there is a best deck, or a small handful of “decks to beat” that are clearly better than anything else. When this is the case, I believe it’s correct for most players to pick the deck with the best matchup spread, even if that comes at the cost of…
How to Approach a “Solved” Format and Kenny’s Play for Denver (Zoroark/Lycanroc/Lucario) “This puts players in a situation that I always find interesting: Do you continue to do what you’ve done for most of the format, just jamming what you feel is the best deck and hoping for the best? Do you try to find a rogue deck that has good match ups versus your expected metagame? Do you try out some spicy new tech in an established archetype that you hope will give you an edge? Does the answer to any of these questions change if you’re also attending the European International Championship later this month? My days of worrying about…
Pikachu & Zekrom-GX/Electric.dec, Lost March (SUM–TEU, Pre-Oceania IC), and Some Commentary on the Recent DQs and Suspensions “First of all, I want the record to show that I don’t think TAG TEAM GX cards are particularly good for the game. I expect that most of these cards will either be too powerful—bordering on oppressive—or they won’t be good enough to see competitive play. Either result is not great and I don’t believe the card type is going to lead to fun, engaging gameplay. I would love to be wrong about this, but I haven’t had too much fun playing with the cards yet and I don’t think there’s enough design space to make these cards interesting. They…
It wraps prey up with its heated body, cooking them in its coils. Once they’re well-done, it will voraciously nibble them down to the last morsel. (Sizzlipede)
Betting on Ourselves as People and Players “Confucius (551–479 BCE) derived from Kongzi (Master Kong, Confucius being the latinization of his name by Jesuit missionaries) was born in the state of Lu during the Summer and Autumn Period shortly after the beginning of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The violence of this time period was unprecedented in the proto-Chinese world and many different groups, both militarily and intellectually, were striving for power and attempted to conquer using any means necessary. Confucius himself was not after power, but was merely attempting to foster education and virtue. Many of his teachings share sentiments like “do unto others” of the often-quoted…
Top 8 St. Louis Regionals Report, Net Decking Revisited, and Dialogue on Cheating “If I can bother you to think all the way back to my last article (December!), I wrote a lengthy bit on my distaste with net decking. Dylan’s quasi-invention of the Donphan archetype led to many copying him at Fall Regionals and it would end up becoming one of the most popular decks throughout all of City Championships. However, after this past weekend, the deck just absolutely died by Winter Regionals. This, I believe, can be attributed to the fact that a lot of the deck’s popularity was largely a result of its status as a “flavor of the month.”…
Ethical Dilemmas in the Pokémon TCG “Asking for a concession is when one player asks their opponent to let them have the win. This happens more and more commonly as players get closer earning their World Championships invites. This is a pretty hot-button issue right now and for the first time TPCi has actually made it illegal to ask your opponent for a concession. According to this year’s tournament guidelines (section 10.1), repeatedly doing so can be penalized as coercion. I think it was a smart call by TPCi to stop players from being able to ask for concessions. Being asked made a lot of players feel uncomfortable,…
An Investigation on Preconceived Notions “Fast forward a week or two after the Kansas State Championship and I had the upcoming Kansas City Regional Championship to begin preparing for. Having already bagged my invite alleviated a ton of pressure and allowed for me to prepare for the event in a different way. Had I not had my invite, I honestly think I would have just played Blastoise again and also made plans to attend the events in Wisconsin and Ontario (talk about a load off my wallet). Instead, I knew that I wanted to play something fun and was closely looking at Andrew Wamboldt’s Flygon/Dusknoir/Accelgor…
Dealing with Loss in a Competitive Setting “When I was trying to pitch myself to acquire an Underground spot, I claimed that I would land somewhere in the middle of Jay and Erik (you’ll find quickly that this “middle way” approach is a common theme in almost everything that I do). I am a less fit and decorated player than Jay but perhaps I can make up for that in succinct diction, careful wordplay and literary prowess while also demonstrating the same capacity for a strict testing regiment and an expectation for results. In regards to Erik, I can safely say that I lack the artistic oneness…
On days when blizzards blow through, it comes down to where people live. It stashes food in the snowball on its head, taking it home for later. (Galarian Darmanitan)
When it gets down on all fours as if to beg for forgiveness, it’s trying to lure opponents in so that it can stab them with its spear-like hair. (Morgrem)
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