The Ultra Pulls

Oh hey, another post about a children's card game! It's another pre-release so you know the drill: I spend $30, have fun playing a few games, and end up not taking any rare cards home. Or so I thought. Turns out, Ultra Prism had some ultra surprises for me (and I promise not to overuse the word "ultra").

After failing to catch an Omastar in a Pokémon Go raid, We got our deck boxes to open up our first four packs of cards. I carefully opened the booster pack, and to my surprise ...

Yep, that's a secret rare Glaceon GX card. Apparently, it's worth $80. It's safe to assume that I was freaking out. After so many pre-releases of common cards, I finally got something rare! This easily topped the full art Lugia EX during Ancient Origins. I showed a few people this card, and pretty much everyone played the "I'm going to runaway with your card" joke. It was annoying -- please don't do that. Unfortunately, I didn't get an Eevee in my packs, so I couldn't use Glaceon GX in the tournament. However, I did get some useful cards to play with.

If you read my last pre-release post, you might remember that you also get an evolution pack at every event. This time around, they made the evolution deck more cohesive with the promo card you got. For instance, I got a promo Lucario, so I had two sets of the Garchomp line and Cynthia to help combo with the Precognitive Aura ability. I hate Garchomp, but that's besides the point.

 

Pro: This combo works really well.
Con: Garchomp is stupid and I hate it.

What really made the deck scary was the addition of Darkrai Prism. Prism cards are a new mechanic introduced with the Ultra Prism set. You're only allowed one prism card with the same name (so I can't have two Darkrai Prism cards in the same deck), and they go to the Lost Zone when knocked out (not the usual discard pile). It'll be cool to see if the Lost Zone mechanic will be utilized like it was in the Heartgold/Soulsilver era.

Besides the awesome shininess, Darkrai Prism is a terror as soon as it hits the field. Not only does it get two dark energies from your hand when you put it on your bench, but it does a lot of damage and requires the opponent to flip two coins to wake up -- no wonder they limited it to one per deck! Darkrai Prism worked well with Lucario and Garchomp since Lucario could fish it out of your deck and Garchomp has free retreat cost for when you're ready to unleash a never-ending nightmare.

How can something so shiny be so evil?

So how did this deck fare? Eh, it did alright. I got off Darkrai Prism's attack often enough, but my opponent flipped two heads to immediately wake up! Every other time I used Abyssal Sleep, I knocked out the opponent. After winning two out of three matches, I got the final four packs and didn't pull anything noteworthy. Content with my Glaceon GX, I left ... I didn't want to deal with anyone trying to "runaway" with my card.

As this new set was heavily focused on Generation 4 Pokémon, I didn't get any Alola cards to cross off my list. But hey, I had fun! Plus, I might even build a Lucario/Garchomp deck? It's surprisingly cheap now that I have most of the tech cards needed to make it work. All in all, I had an ultra good time.

I'm sorry, I won't use "ultra" again!

"I'm Addicted To You, But I Know That You're Toxic"

It was a Saturday like any other Saturday. My Snorlax-self lazily used Rollout out of bed to take a shower and Refresh my Sleep condition. But what would this weekend entail? Endless naps, Netflix, and a jar of queso awaited me, but then a sudden realization. I quickly looked at my calendar and remembered there was a pre-release for the new TCG expansion, Burning Shadows, happening that day. I've been an avid collector of the cards. However, I reached my goal and got at least one card of every species ... until Sun and Moon. As you know, collecting 'em all is a liiittle more expensive than catching 'em all. But would I take the plunge and get back into this addiction? You're reading this blogpost, so the answer's obviously yes. After all, going to a pre-release would be a great way to get a lot of Alola-native Pokémon, right? Well, not exactly.


There were no legendary contents inside.

Ah yes, the fancy Ho-oh box carried not a single rare card. The pre-release operated a bit differently where you start off with four packs and an evolution pack with predetermined cards so you had something playable, but I was still ticked off. I mean, when your rarest card is a non-holo Slowking, you'd be salty too! But of course, too much sodium in your system is toxic, so that became the inspiration for my pre-release deck.


The evolution pack came with two Toxicroaks, which had the ability to poison the opponent and do 30 damage for two energies. That might not seem like much, but I also managed to pull a Seviper and get another one in the evolution pack. Seviper's ability, More Poison, adds an additional counter to a poisoned Pokémon. Since they stack, Toxicroak could reliably do 60 damage per turn. Thanks to Nest Ball and Timer Ball being able to search out key Pokémon, this strategy was relatively easy to pull off. I also added a Meowstic and Bouffalant for additional attackers -- they proved helpful in certain situations.

For such a bad pull, I surprisingly did well! My first opponent had a full-art Marshadow-GX (jealous!), but it was easy to take down due to its Psychic weakness. The next two decks I fought had Dark Pokémon, so I unfortunately fell to one due to not setting up on time. The other, however, was heavily damaged since I got both Toxicroak and Seviper out. My eventual win condition was to power up Meowstic with his Hand Kinesis attack. The attack does 10 damage for each card in your hand, which was easy to power up thanks to draw cards like Professor Kukui. The last match featured a Toxicroak, but I got mine setup first to outpace my opponent and hit for weakness. Winning three out of four matches, I qualified for top cut which meant I got an extra pack!


Speaking of packs, check out those abs!

So what did this mean for pulling rare cards? Absolutely nothing! Yes, the only rare card I got from the extra pull was a holo Zygarde. And yes, I did get some Alola Pokémon, so that means I'm back to collecting. Darn you, Burning Shadows. Your trap was super effective.

Well, here we go again!



Hokus Pinkus: The XY Prerelease

Back when I went to my first trading card prerelease in 2011, I wanted to take my brother to one. I had a blast last time and wanted to share that experience with him. Plus, bringing him along would mean more cards for our collection :P. So yesterday, we attended the Pokémon X and Y prerelease over at Strikezone.

Basically, a prerelease is a tournament where you pay $30 for 6 packs of cards from the upcoming set. From there, you build  a 40-card deck and play 3 matches. Afterwards, you receive 2 more packs and a promo

card. I highly doubt the $5 entrance fee increase from last time was due to inflation, but what can you do.

We arrived at Strikezone around 12:30 and signed in. Mike, the event coordinator, surprisingly recognized us. It took me a second, but I realized he knew us because of my brother's back-to-back VGC regional titles.

When we received our cards, Mike suggested new players to go to the far table if they needed help. I looked over at my brother, and he just gave me a sly smile and stayed seated. A few minutes later, I had to walk over and helped him build his deck. Why is that boy crazy?

He managed to get good pulls, including a Venusaur-EX and Xerneas. While Venusaur is one of my favorite Pokémon, that card looks U-G-L-Y! His girth can't be contained in such a small card border. The trading card artwork never can capture Venusaur's grace. Regardless, it's a good card and helped my brother win 2 out of 3 matches.

I was equally lucky in my pulls. The first card I got was an Yveltal-EX. I then got Shadow Circle, a stadium card that takes away weakness if your Pokémon has Dark energy. Like my brother, I won the majority of my matches, but I never once pulled out Yveltal or Shadow Circle. So how did I win?

WIGGLYTUFF!

Wigglytuff has an interesting move called "Hocus Pinkus." For 3 energies, Hokus Pinkus inflicts 60 damage and prevents the opposing Pokémon from attacking next turn. 60 damage is good enough to knock out Basic Pokémon and is a great way to stun your opponent. Originally, Wigglytuff was meant to stall until I set up Yveltal, but she managed to win on her own. The only match I didn't get Wigglytuff was the time I lost. What can I say, you can't handle the power of Hocus Pinkus!

Afterwards, my brother and I traded some cards to help complete our collection. My personal favorite was Wobuffet. He looks just like an action figure! We then had a quick battle with some folks on the 3DS, traded some more, and left. It was great to bond with fellow Pokémon trainers and expand our collection, but I had the most fun because of my brother. Afterall, Pokémon is a shared experience. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better prerelease. Well...maybe if I got a Slurpuff card, that would have been sweet.