#competitive ptcg

[karaptcg]

Twitter is like basically useless now, so I'm going to try to establish a cult of Pokemon TCG players here instead. Welcome to the thunder dome.

One of the bigger problems I've had trying to find other people that play the game on this site is that the #pokemon tcg and #ptcg tags are cluttered with collectors and players alike, which means you have to wade through a proverbial ocean of pictures of pretty cards to find decklists. I have nothing but love for the collectors, but I'd like to not have to do that.

I'm gonna be tagging my posts with #competitive ptcg and maybe see if I can get others that are in this niche to do that too eventually cuz it sounds cool.

[hideandseaking]

I don’t know if it would help but I’m here to say that Im genuinely very sorry about what happened AND to distract you while getting some information for myself ♡

Its about ptcg

How did you start playing? How was your first tournament? What do you enjoy most about playing?

I have a ton more questions so let me know if you’re chill with me asking more

have a very good day!!!

LMAO well thank you for the kind regards it really does help. I'll survive and get over it but man it does sting!!

I started playing ptcg is a little complicated because I had a lot of false starts 😂 when I was 11, I saw this dual starter deck box set with a VHS that taught you how to play and I begged my dad to get it for me. I wanted to play and checked the event locator and the nearest place was over an hour away and my parents said no and since neither my brother nor no one at school wanted to play I kinda just knew how to play with no outlet. Made random (and very bad) decks until I was 17 and that's when PTCGO came out and I started to play then. I didn't really grasp how nuanced and competitive the game could get until I caught the 2013 world championship stream by happenstance and I was hooked into playing since!

I didn't get a local scene until this last year though which is surprising but not really because the one comic and card store that's been around for decades hates the ptcg scene and then I went to law school and had to study for the bar exam and then covid hit so I was at a financial and time burden on playing locals until early 2023 when a local shop opened up for sanctioned tournaments

My first tournament then was a scarlet and violet prerelease in March 2023 and my now-ex encouraged me to go cause she knew how much I loved playing and how I wanted to try to play competitively someday so I went even though I knew no one and was so nervous.... and I won the prerelease which was a really cool confidence boost! I proceeded to play constantly in 2023 and now I have 258 championship points just from locals and 20 from Pittsburgh regionals for a top 512 placement 😭😂 So I've only been playing competitively for this year but I have many years of online playing experience

What I love most about playing ptcg is such a crazy question cause I love pretty much all of it 🤔 Like I love the ptcg community because they're all so friendly and encouraging and some of my closest friends have come from my local scene. I love the game because when you hit the right stuff during a sequence and get a crazy play off you feel like the coolest person ever 😂 I love the competitive scene because you can see your progress even after just a few months and it's so rewarding since the skill ceiling is so high

Feel free to ask questions!! I'll do my best to answer them but my social battery is a little low with everything going on!!

[sexhaver]

This may be the utilitarian in me, but it feels really silly for a game like MtG cards to have price points based on solely scarcity and not usability in play, given it’s a card game people actually like… play competitively. For PTCG it makes some sense; the poke card tournaments aren’t as vital to their success as collection, and that was how they were pushed in commercials. I get it from a collector’s standpoint but it seems like an even bigger waste to blow thousands on MtG than getting a first edition base set charizard for 25K.

GALLANT says: "MTG cards are priced based on supply and demand like every other commodity; the issue is that WOTC directly controls the supply via limited print runs and drives demand by pushing the power level of cards to make them more desireable. printing a very rare but powerful card in a set means that collectors will have to buy more packs of that set on average to pull a copy of that card. this, in turn, increases the price of that card on the secondary market."

GOOFUS says: "Cardstock printers are only $300 :)"

[fishing-lesbian-catgirl]

I started typing this post about one particular Pokémon thing but then it spiraled into a long rambling rant-like thing so I’ll just put it behind a read more. Idk, read if you want my Pokémon opinions I guess.

I will always regret being a coward in middle school when Pokémon black and white came out. I bought it but then quickly returned it because I despised Patrat, the monkey trio, vanillite and a few other Pokémon from the BW early game and I was afraid if my classmates found out I was still playing Pokémon they would make fun of me (even more than they already did). So I ended up missing out on the games with the best sprites and, apparently the best story from what I’ve been told, in the whole series. Then Pokémon made the disappointing jump to 3D with XY, a game whose only meaningful contribution was mega evolution. Then we got ORAS which I thought was perfect. And then Sun and Moon which I loved, but was immediately soured when then they tricked me into buying the same exact game with Ultra Sun when I was expecting it to be like BW2, and then every game since then has been more and more disappointing. I thought sword and shield was fine when I played it, I quite enjoyed my playthrough because at the time I was just starting to transition and I found the games fashion to be very fun and Wooloo, Hatterene, and Dracovish we’re all Pokémon I adored (hated the starters though). Then Pokémon made the move of giving another studio the job of creating the Diamond and Pearl remake but gave them no creative freedom so the game is exactly the same but with an art style and 3D Pokémon models that I find significantly less appealing than the original game’s charming sprites (even if the load times are better). Then we got PLA which was an interesting semi-spin-off that immediately lost everyone’s attention because they waited like 5 minutes before announcing Scarlet and Violet, which are looking like they’re going in the exact opposite direction of literally everything I enjoy about Pokémon.

All this is to say that I guess Pokémon really isn’t for me anymore. I guess that’s fine. I feel entitled to being sad about parting ways from something I was obsessed since I was 4. I deeply wish they would spend far longer developing their games instead of pushing them out with ridiculous deadlines and crunch time, but I know they won’t because people aren’t going to stop playing Pokémon, and the plushies are where the money comes from anyway. Even competitive Pokémon went in a direction I completely despise. I guess whenever I get the itch to play Pokémon again I’ll replay an old game or delve deep into the growing romhack scene.

If Pokémon ever wants to win back the incredibly specific fan group that I’m in, they’ll spend years developing a new battle revolution or something with all Pokémon and moves in it (to fix competitive) and with animated 3D Pokémon that actually have the extremely charming character that they did back in battle revolution. This will literally never happen because there are more than double the Pokémon there were when battle revolution came out, the mainline games are already in 3D (even though I think the Pokémon look bad), and Pokémon doesn’t really care that much about their competitive scene. Or maybe they could win me back if they just stopped doing this ridiculous yearly release schedule and took a couple years to make a good game, but that makes less money so that also won’t happen.

(Don’t get me started on the PTCG I could rant waaaaaaaay longer than this about the PTCG)

[jirachikyon-blog]

Pokemon Orlando Tcg

Hello I'm looking for any players that live in Orlando that plays tcg often and want to start a team or something like that? Id like to travel around states and have new experiences with. Honestly want this to be as serious and big as it can get.This game honestly makes me happy and I dont think I will stop playing anytime soon so why not just add it as a part of my life full force hahahah. And Id like to have some people with me that I can call life friends. Anyone that is interested lmk. Ty

ps. When I say team I mean like I want it all. Playmats, shirts, streaming channel, the works. I was on a team in the past called TheMetaDeck. I felt it was going the right direction but things sadly just fell off. I’d like to have something like that again but better. I guess I’m asking and wanting a lot but hey gotta go big. But I def know that things do take time.

[undauntedtcg]

Welcome!

I’m a Pokemon TCG player who doesn’t feel like paying for hosting or getting a WordPress account. Here, you’ll find pretty much everything I do within the realm of PTCG. This blog is primarily a way to hold myself accountable for testing and to document the events I play in from locals to worlds, but hopefully a few other people can find some value in the insights of a scrub like me.

I’ve been playing off and on since I was in juniors division way back in 2013 (with no notable results, might I add). The last couple years I’ve been getting more into the competitive sphere, but haven’t achieved an invite because my ability to travel is quite limited and my local area isn’t brimming with events. This year is the time I’m hoping to change that and my first step will be attending the Richmond Regional Championships. Depending on how I perform there, who knows how the rest of the season will go! But I have a couple months to test and feel like I’ll be more prepared for this tournament than any other that I’ve attended.

[pipermaycosplays]

Okay....why was Wossy demonetized?? All his content is original and he doesnt repeat content ever. One of the most family friendly channels. Though Im not much into competitive PTCG, I love his videos. ~MistyMay

[karaptcg]

Road to 2024 Worlds: Week 2

Just one event this weekend and it was a little like 15 player League Challenge. I've been super busy lately and it's early on in the season so hopefully I don't get punished too hard for not going to literally every event all the time because that is expensive and exhausting.

Saturday, Aug. 5: League Challenge, 4th Place (3-3)

I played turbo Lost Box again for the hell of it. Still a pretty awful list but the deck is so powerful it doesn't often matter. I honestly didn't miss Raikou at all this event. (I finally found my copy of it though so I can play a better deck next time!)

Here's how it went: T vs Miraidon T vs Lost Tina W vs Mew W vs Chien-Pao

Starting 0-0-2 is very fun in these tournaments. I was pretty checked out after the second one! But winning the next two guaranteed 4th and the possibility of that happening scared 2 people away from IDing so...small victories?

I actually ended up pairing into the only 3-0 (who also happened to be a friend I've been playing with since I was like 14) in the last round which was a little weird to me as there were other people with better records than my 1-0-2 that could've paired him instead. That man had been drawing god hands all day and he finally hit the end of the streak against me. Good beats, I guess?

Puts us at 20/600.

[karaptcg]

Road to 2024 Worlds: Week 1

This was my first weekend of competitive play for the new season. Here's what I got up to:

Friday, Jul. 21: Weekly League, 3rd place(2-0-2)

No CP awarding going on here, but I do these to get games in with a couple of friends every now and then. I played Gardevoir with a Lost Vacuum and a split of Forest and Sky Seal Stone.

Here's how it went: T vs United Wings W vs Palkia T vs Lugia SS W vs Fusion Mew

Played against my testing partner in the last round and absolutely blew him away with the Sky Seal Stone he didn't know I put in my deck. We usually know each other's lists very well, but he had just gotten back from vacation and I took our resulting testing drought as a fun opportunity to surprise him.

Saturday, Jul. 22: League Cup, 20th Place (3-3)

Played the same list as the day before. Daniel Altavilla, Chip Richey and his brother were there playing, along with a few other local friends. The cup ended up with 40 players and was an absolute blast.

Here's how it went: W vs Inteleon Urshifu L vs Lugia L vs ArcUmbreon W vs Fusion Mew L vs Chien-Pao W vs Lugia SS

So close but so far. I can't say I didn't have fun though. I definitely had variance not go my way a good number of times.

In Round 2, I played a Temple of Sinnoh and Iono'd my opponent to 2 cards. I needed them to whiff a counter stadium for a turn to have a chance and they...didn't. Kind of unlucky, given that they hadn't thinned their deck much that game but such is life.

In Round 3, I lost after missing a highly probable Boss's Orders for game. On my final turn, I had 9 cards left in deck. I drew for turn, taking me down to 8. I used Mew's Mysterious Tale finding an Ultra Ball, thinning my deck down to 7. I used Refinement to draw 2 cards, taking me down to 5. Then, I played the Ultra Ball to find Shining Arcana Gardevoir, played it and used Shining Arcana to draw 2 more cards, leaving my deck at 2. My 2 remaining Boss's Orders were in the bottom 3 cards. Woof.

The other loss I'm honestly not sure how I managed. I had some awkward draws but it felt okay-ish. I probably just made a couple misplays that I can't remember. No X-2's made cut that day so I didn't feel too bad about it.

A friend ended up taking it down with UrshiInteleon. I probably would not have fared well in that top cut anyways.

Going 3-3 at my first League Cup of the season is a time honored tradition with 3 seasons of history behind it, so...yeah. Tradition!

Sunday, Jul. 23: League Challenge, 3rd place (2-0-1)

I was conflicted on if I even wanted to go to this one. I hadn't heard good things about recent changes made to this store, but I decided that Championship Points are more important than well run events so there I went.

I was a little burnt out on Gardie, so I decided to sleeve up Turbo Lost Box, turn my brain off and have some fun. I couldn't find my copy of Raikou V and didn't have extra Forest Seal Stones handy so I ended up just playing a weird suboptimal list. It was just a small event after all. Most of the more invested players in the area travelled the extra hour to the League Cup that happened on the same day.

Here's how it went: T vs Chien Pao W vs Lugia W vs Lugia

There was supposed to be a fourth round, but the organizer made a mistake. I wanted to play more Poke, so I was left a little disappointed but it is what it is. There were 3 2-0-1s by the end and my resistance ended up being the worst.

One story I really do want to share is that my round 3 opponent conceded after seeing his opening hand, packed up all his stuff and declared "I'm going to go home, get drunk and watch Tokyo Ghoul." and then did exactly that. My opening hand was fire and I'm a little sad I didn't get to play it out but at least I got a funny story out of it.

My testing partner ended up getting first with Fusion Mew though! The car came home with 25 CP so...profit?

That was the whole weekend for me! Pretty uneventful but I got to play three days of Poke so I have minimal complaints.

10/???

[hideandseaking]

Won another local ptcg tournament and people were commenting that I should play competitively 🥺