Yes, I Play a Children's Card Game

While I've collected Pokémon cards for the longest time, I never got into the game until earlier this year. So this past Sunday, I went to the prerelease tournament for the newest trading card expansion, Noble Victories. At a prerelease tournament, you pay $25 and receive six booster packs of unreleased cards. You then build a 40 card deck, compete with other players, and see who will win. Needless to say, I lost horribly in the first round. But hey, I got some sweet cards out of it and two more booster packs to boot!

  

Everyone who entered gets a promo Victini. While low on HP, you get a 25 percent chance to dish out 120 damage with V-blast! That is pretty crazy to be honest. It has a cool design as well. If you had the Fire Victini on the bench, you could use its ability Victory Star to redo a bad coin flip.





I pulled this Haxorus from a pack! Haxorus is one of my brother's favorite Pokémon, so I can't wait to show it to him. Competitively speaking, I can't say that Haxorus is good or bad. 120 damage with Giga Impact is a lot, but not being able to attack the next turn is a downfall. Dual Chop requires good coin flips, but it can go for a max of 100 damage. Colorless Pokémon are great for any team mainly because any basic energy card could be attached to them. If anything else, the design looks cool enough.



I got both Conkeldurrs that were released during Noble Victories. This holographic one in particular was pretty cool. Besides looking pretty, this card is pretty decent in battle. Its ability Craftmanship gives an additional 20 HP for every fighting energy that's attached. Conkeldurr is already bulky without this ability. The added HP makes it a behemoth to take down. Top Down may look like an average attack, but good coin flips can literally devour your opponent's deck. I was planning on using this at the prerelease, but I didn't get a Gurdurr to evolve it from. Just my luck.




 Eviolite is great for Basic Pokémon like Druddigon, Kyurem, or Zekrom. Basically, any damage done by attacks is reduced by 20 after applying resistance and weakness. This also helps avoid damage that Pokémon can take while sitting on the bench. This is a pretty cool card, so I was quite excited when I got a reverse holo version of it. Like I said, this card works well with strong Basic Pokémon like Druddigon and Kyurem. Did I get any of those Pokémon? Nope. 



  I might not have the best luck when getting cards from booster packs, but it was fun to go regardless. I met cool people, made new friends, and got some new cards to add to my collection. I hope to attend another prerelease in the future with my brother, but in the meantime I still have two booster packs with his name on it.