Foreword
This article isn’t much like what you’ve come to expect from an article. Well, that’s half true.
From an article, you except us, the perceived “pros” to tell you through our work the ultimate strategies, thought processes, and decklists required to take your game to the top, and potentially as high as “us”.
However, I don’t see myself as high as the other writers, either. I feel like I’m somewhere in-between. I’ve only had a small amount of true experience at this game, and I feel that I’m in a position where I’m rising very quickly in the perceptions that other players have of me. Some of this is because of my YouTube show, while some of it is because of my performance.
This article, while containing no deck list, contains all of the strategy and thought process that I know. Literally all of it, from beginning to end, and how I’ve obtained it. Some of you will find this article to drag on, or contain little that you didn’t already know. What I’m hoping is that everyone can take something back from this story that will help you become a player that gets the respect you deserve. There’s a little bit of everything in here, and I hope you enjoy it.
Immediately into writing this article, I feel pretty strange. For a while now, I’ve been debating whether myself as a player am worth the hype that I receive. I know that the YouTube show that I do, Prof-It!, probably skews everyone’s perception of me as a player.
I think that because of Prof-It!, everyone perceives me as this grizzled veteran to the game with a handful of Pokémon TCG knowledge that has been developed over a long time. This just isn’t true.
The truth is, I stopped playing the competitive TCG around when Wizards of the Coast collapsed in 2002. I wasn’t even a teenager. After it seemed that my favorite card game was gone for good, I moved on to other games.
I played a LOT of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and probably had my most success there. It was a complex game, but the game had a poor community, and an even staler metagame than we have now (I played around the dreaded Chaos era). I hopped from game to game and experienced several fallouts. Even if I was doing well in a new game, I found myself missing Pokémon.
During this time, I always kept up to date on the winning decks each year, and I’d check the set lists after each pack was released. But that’s the extent of my knowledge from the past—all I did was read up on who won. I was like your casual sports fan—I know who won the world series each year and the big players, but I couldn’t tell you the main dynamics of each season.
So when I came back into the game in 2008, I was about as nooby as they come—even less knowledgeable than you guys are now.
I have played so far in a total of about 2 seasons right now. I started right in the middle of City Championships 2008. I also went to one States, no regional, a few Battle Roads, and no Nationals. That season, I won 2 City’s and top cut states, but didn’t really achieve anything that any regular player could.
2009-2010 was my first “real” season. I attended every major tournament series with the exception of Worlds. Because it was announced that Worlds would be in Hawaii, I didn’t take my rating seriously—I knew that I’d never be able to afford it.
Despite this knowledge coming into the season, I played my best and landed much closer to getting an invite than I expected (I got something like top 60 in a top 40 invite selection). That season, I won a few Cities and Battle Roads, bombed States, won Regionals, and top cut Nationals.
If I was fighting for a World’s invite, I would have taken States more seriously.
Even then, this season is where I noticed a change in the way people perceived me as a player. I won regionals with a deck that was still not completely mastered by the community, and people began to flood my inbox by storm.
People wanted to know my lists, wanted to know how I practiced, and better players wanted to start testing with me. I gave nationals my best shot, and while I didn’t necessarily live up to my hype, I achieved a result that I’m proud of.
This year, I’ve been trying to take all that hype from last year and apply it to this year. I’ve won a couple battle roads, and just one City’s so far. My rating is at decent shape sitting around 1700, but it’s going to take these big events to determine if I’m really “that good”.
This year I’m going to Worlds no matter what, and I’m hoping it’ll be on an invite. People’s perception of me as a player is caught in the middle: somewhere right in-between “decent player” and “pro”. I might not be one of the best of the best yet, but being considered in the running for it is good enough for me.
I feel like a rookie who just got into the NBA—maybe I’ll be the next Lebron James, or maybe I’ll just be a forgettable player.
Even though I’m the least “pro” player of the Underground staff, I think it helps me relate with you guys the most. We don’t play this game for the prizes—you could probably make more money working a part-time job and extending your hours to cover the time you’d normally spend playing Pokémon.
We play the game for fun, but we compete in the game in order to earn respect. We want to be considered by others for our opinions, and we want people rooting for us to win the big events.
I’m somewhere in the middle between Chris Fulop and you guys. While my story might not be complete, or even exciting, I feel like this article is something that many of you aspiring players could take something out of.
While I might not be a “pro” yet, my progress has been (arguably) very fast. The Regional that I won was the first I ever played in, and last year’s top cut at Nationals was also my first. This article will aim at teaching you guys how to start being considered by other players and start performing well at big events quickly.
Where to begin?
