#pokemon tcg competition

[gecko998]

My entry for the Pokemon Illustration contest 2024!

I am not one of the selected artists unfortunately, but I enjoyed painting it

[beesgav]

I guess I should upload this now? Didn't make top 300 and prooobably should have just cropped it and submitted it as a standard card, but I'm still happy with it

[purplecritter]

They're out there discussing the ethical implication of the Pokémon Gardevoir being on the asexual spectrum...

[magentaink18]

My fatal flaw with competitive Pokémon is that I use the Pokémon I like and not the Pokémon that are good. I use such low tier Pokémon for VGC and for TCG I use a bunch of different Pokémon instead of just picking multiple of a few so I can narrow down my strategy and increase the probability of drawing cards of the Pokémon I can effectively use. But fuck you I'm here to have fun and get a silly low amount of championship points ^_^

[higunky]

the "trainers should battle with their favorite pokemon" quote becoming a debate is so funny bc like. how can you see someone fighting with their team that they chose and think they couldn't possibly love those pokemon. it means "you should enjoy battling no matter what your favorite pokemon is" not "you need to bring weak pokemon to every battle"

[alyo]

The finals at the Sacramento Regional Championships was so fun to watch, big congrats to Alexander Flatos for winning it all with Lugia VSTAR and also to Finalist Niccolo Abate with a really neat surprise deck!

[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.

[connorbarritos]

Tournament Report. Riley's Retro #8 (PRC-EV0) 1st/17

Hey y'all, yesterday I played in an online tournament hosted by one of my favorite twitch streamers, RileyWrenTCG, and ended up winning with Volcanion! I had a lot of fun in this tournament, and I want to talk about the deck and what lead me to play it. But first, we need to discuss the format. I will also provide links for cards and decks.

The Format (PRC-EVO)

This particular format took place after the 2016 World Championships, containing the sets Primal Clash and everything up to Evolutions (the last XY set). The most notable tournament using this format was the 2016 European International Championships where Yveltal/Garbodor ran through the competition, and the last tournament being Fortaleza Regionals in Brazil, Feb. 2017, where Darkrai Dragons took the win with Volcanion taking 3 out of the top 4 spots. Other decks that were prominent in this era are Vespiquen/Zebstrika, Mega Gardevoir STS, and Mega Mewtwo. Now, let's take a look at the deck that I played and the following matchups throughout the tournament.

Volcanion

I ended up playing Volcanion as a last minute decision more than anything. I was actually going to play a Mega Altaria deck, but after some playtesting I decided not to. I ended up going with something I never had the opportunity to play within the era this tournament was set in. Now, I do have experience playing Volcanion, it just came a bit later when Gardevoir GX was out and about. Anyways, Volcanion the deck is another one of these fast and aggressive decks that populate this format. Volcanion EX has an amazing ability in Steam Up, which allows you to discard a Fire energy from your hand so your BASIC Fire type Pokemon do 30 more damage. This ability stacks, which means you can use the ability per Volcanion EX you have in play. You can power Volcanion EX up easily with both Max Elixir, look at the top 6 cards in your deck and attack a basic energy you find to one of your benched basic Pokemon, and with baby Volcanion with the Power heater attack, choose two bench Pokémon and attach one Fire energy to both of those Pokémon. Eventually, you will have Volcanion EX dealing lots of damage while also having a hefty 180 HP. However, this list is not optimal. I'd personally cut two Float Stone to add two Fighting Fury Belt, which gives you 40 more HP AND lets you deal 10 more damage. I'd also cut Pokémon Catcher entirely and add a second Lysandre and three Escape Rope. Overall, the deck worked phenomenally regardless of what I think was missing as stated just earlier. I mean, I literally won the tournament with it. Anyways, time for matchups!

Matchups

R1: Mega Ray W. Should've lost this one, but my opponent threw away all of their Sky Fields, which lets them do more damage, and their Float Stones, so I literally used Lysandre to stall until I know I could take the win late game.

R2: Raikou/Electrode W. This matchup is tricky since they also played a Jolteon EX, but I was able to get rid of it early and just ko everything afterword.

R3: Turbo Dark W. They couldn't hit Max Elixirs or set up any relevant attackers, so it just a landslide victory.

R4: Yveltal/Garb ID. We decided to intentionally draw so we could guarantee a top 4 berth for the both of us since we were both 3-0 going into this round. We did not play and took a needed break.

Top 4: Vespiquen/Zebstrika LWW. This was definitely the toughest matchup of the night. Without Fighting Fury Belt, I didn't have the health to keep the bees from one-shotting everything. It was very apperent in game 1. Games 2 and 3, however, my opponent couldn't keep up with the prize trade; whether it be them not being able to find the pieces to keep up, or me being able to knock out a Shaymin EX to further my lead. On to finals.

Finals: Raikou/Electrode LWW. Game one I started Hoopa EX and couldn't really find ways to knock anything out, so I scooped it up early and went to game 2. During game 2, I was able to knock out Jolteon EX by flipping heads on Pokemon Catcher twice in a row, the first one taking it out of the active to reset its effect, and the second one to bring it back to the active. They couldn't recover after that, so on to game 3! In the last game of the series, I start with a rough Sycamore discarding 3 out my 4 Max Elixir, but I find a Volcanion and an energy to start building up a Volcanion EX. Towards the end of the game, my opponent made the mistake to break their Jolteon EX lock they had going, while I had ZERO cards in hand, to use Shaymin EX's Sky Return attack to put itself back into the hand so I wouldn't be able to Lysandre it and knock it out. During my turn I top decked a VS Seeker, which allowed me to grab a supporter card from my discard pile and put it into my hand. I, of course, grabbed Sycamore to draw 7 seven cards and found a Pokémon Catcher. On their turn they promoted Raikou instead of Jolteon EX after Sky Return, I'm assuming to prevent Jolteon EX from getting knocked out. All I needed to do was to flip heads on Pokemon Catcher to win. I shook the card in game, as a way to find luck, and played the Catcher. And to my surprise, I flipped heads! I immediatly brought up Jolteon EX, used Volcanion EX's Steam Up ability, and took the knock out to go to one last prize card! My opponent then just passed the turn back to me, and it was all over--I had won.

After the tournament was over, I was so happy. I jumped from my desk chair and did a silent pop-off in my room. Even though it was a small event compared to others, I'm still really proud of myself! I had an amazing time playing, and I'm really excited for the next Riley's Retro event! Also, thank y'all for reading. If you want to see me in action from this tournament, my games were streamed on Riley's twitch channel here (please check her out she's cool). Huge shout out to Alex Wilson for providing the list I used tonight from PTCG Legends, his website has a ton of decks from throughout the ages of Pokémon TCG, even with streams of past World Championships. Please check it out! You can play in tournaments like the one I played in HERE on PlayLimitless, a website the hosts online Pokémon TCG, Pokémon VGC, and Digimon TCG tournaments every day of the week!

Thank y'all so much for reading,

-Connor B.

[bulbagarden]

Fortuitous news my friends, Pokemon Company's TCG division has disqualified the contest entrants for the Card Illustration 2024 competition that used AI to create their pieces.

Massive W for both the community and artists, and congratulations to all artists who entered!

[creepinbones]

Thinking about how magic players (at least commander) have decks at different levels and ones just for fun

But pokemon people just have full meta decks (that aren't fun necessarily) just designed to win

:(

[mischievousdunsparce]

Finally getting around to posting. Had a banger weekend at the pokemon tourneys. Got 1st in my first Challenge with Gardy EX. Then came 2nd with Meowceus (Meowscarada/Arceus) in another tourneys.

Gardy is as everyone already knows really really good. Flattened a Mew (with two ralts prized) and miradon folds like a lawn chair. The chien-pao matchup is non-existent if you respect the frog. You have to make an effort for lost box but luckily I didn't have to deal with the two lost boxes running around. Arctina is probably the best matchup. Just big boys doing big damage.

Meowceus is a turd but it's a fun turd and it makes people squirm because they have no idea what to do when the 3 damage counter snipes start hitting. It's a fun math deck but not like a nothing but math deck like lost box.

[friendo]

they banned me from all northeastern pokemon tcg competitions because I kept telling everyone about my "very special cards" and bringing these bad boys out

[yamujiburo]

OK SO I HAVE TO ASK

I play competitive Pokemon TCG and I loved path to the peak. Lot of competitive players do! I've come up with tons of jokes imagining our Pokemon on a battle field like the cartoon, like a bidoof knocking out a Charizard ex (or trying to).

But my main question here is if you can answer, did they tell you cards before release? The oddish promo for league is a given sure, but I noticed some of the cards wouldn't be out by the time you likely started the process. I realized this when I thought of the fact animation (another thing I love) takes a long time from A to B! And if they did let you see cards early what did that feel like?

Idk why but I've been following a while and it's been itching my brain! I realized I could try and ask!

We had a TCG consultant who laid out decks and existing cards for us to use that would make sense but there were a few where we could just make up our own cards! But they didn’t tell us any of the new releases while we were working on it in 2022

I’m sure the design teams were more involved with that stuff after we (the boarding teams) were offboarded tho!

[leotide]

Last year I created some entries for the Pokemon TCG illustration competition, and now I can finally share them!

As soon as I saw that feraligatr was in the lineup I was keen 😆 Even though they didn't make it through I'm glad I entered, and that provides fuel to try again next time!

去年ポケモンのアートを作りました、今見せることができる! オーダイルが大好き、このコンペティションで頑張った。次回もう!

[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/???