Impact Crater: Plasma Freeze

Thundurus EX is finally here.

Hello everyone!

As the Plasma Freeze prereleases took place last weekend, we finally have all the scans from the set. So it’s time for another Impact Crater! As you very well know, in Impact Crater –entries, I take a look at impactful and not-so-impactful cards from the new set and analyze what they mean for the upcoming metagame.

I want to start by saying that Plasma Freeze is one of the most impactful sets of the season –probably the most impactful. The reason for this are the new Plasma Pokémon, which will help to produce whole new decks and if you are familiar with my Eye on Japan –articles, you know that they may become the dominating force in the metagame.

Ok! Let’s get going.

The Deck Out-playmat contest: Finalists!

Hi everyone!

So after yesterday’s canard, it’s time to get back on track. I’m feeling great as for a moment I thought I had lost my chance for the travel award, but thankfully that wasn’t true. My hopes are alive and kicking as are the hopes for many other players as well.

Anyways, finally I have decided the final two designs from the contest. For many of you these finalists aren’t surprising and in the end I decided to go with both of them. The finalists are…

Designs 8 and 18! You can find the pictures below from this entry: http://www.thedeckout.com/2013/04/the-deck-out-playmat-contest-nominees.html


I believe they are the most neutral ones and even though number 13 got the most votes and I personally love it, it doesn’t portrait The Deck Out as well as the designs 8 and 18. I already e-mailed both of the finalists about their designs and asked to improve them. I’m still looking into copyrights of the number 8, so it may be that number 18 wins, because of the copyright issues, but what you think. Should I only have one mat or do you think it’s good to have two options for The Deck Out-playmat? Feel free to comment on that.

Also, as Plasma Freeze prereleases will begin this weekend, my Plasma Freeze coverage will begin next week! So excited to see if there are any surprises in the set list of Plasma Freeze!

P.S. One-hit-Ko.com released a 6 months old interview of me yesterday! Check it out even though it's a bit outdated... http://www.onehitko.com/2013/04/24/so-you-want-to-be-a-master-esa-juntunen/

Breaking News! Travel Award info!

Breaking News!

The travel awards are given just like before! And the Finnish main TO read the e-mail incorrectly... Thank goodness, I still have a chance to get the trip!

Thanks for Eskil for clearing this up! Gotta love social media.

10 years of competitive Pokémon TCG: The Misplay

Even the deck names were more
creative in the past!

Hello everyone!


Note before reading: In order to continue reading this entry, read first the part 1 of this series, which can be found form the link below. There is no point of you reading this entry, if you haven’t read the first part.

- 2004

I decided to make a next entry of this series before the Impact Crater of Plasma Freeze, because we don’t yet have the official card list of Plasma Freeze. Once we get that, I’ll start a full cover on Plasma Freeze!

Now that you have hopefully read the first entry let us recap where we are at. The 13-year old me has just been to his first Worlds Championships and has won his first National Championship title. Now he has come back from Orlando with his family and hears with his big brother that they could establish their own Pokémon TCG league to Hyvinkää – their home town! My big brother went to a local toy store and the owner agreed to have a league inside the shop’s back cafeteria (I think there was a car repair shop and a toy store in the same building, what a combo).  

Anyways, it’s autumn 2004 and I’m 13-years old. Let’s see where the story leads me next.

The Deck Out - playmat contest - time to vote!

Artis in the midst of work.

Hi everyone!


After putting up the playmat design contest, I didn’t know how many entries to expect. I guessed I would get something like 5 or at max 10. However, after 15 days, I was positively surprised that I got even more than 10 designs! And the designs are more awesome than I could even imagine! It will be very difficult to decide the one best one and for that I need YOUR help. 

The idea of the voting is pretty simple. Look at the contestants from the downer entry of my blog and vote for your favorite (you can only vote for one design) from the upper right corner, where you can find the poll. From the 3 most popular designs, I’ll choose a winner. However, as I make the last call, I might choose even a design that isn’t in the most popular 3 designs (this is to prevent any possible vote manipulation). However, I want to every single one of you to vote, so I can know what would you like to see as The Deck Out playmat.

Also, if you have any comments considering the designs or what you wouldn’t want to buy and explanations for your point of view, I would highly appreciate writing them to the comments section. What I was very surprised of was that a LOT of these designs’ were designed by girls even though the usual belief is that Pokémon TCG isn’t that popular among girls. I believe most of these designs were done by girls!

Thanks for all the great designers that put their heart and soul to these designs. I can’t describe how grateful I am to everyone and how impressed I was by everyone!

Let the voting begin!

You can check the designs from here: http://www.thedeckout.com/2013/04/the-deck-out-playmat-contest-nominees.html

The Deck Out playmat contest - nominees!

Design 13 with larger TheDeckOut.com text

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Design5

Design 6

Design 6 with card places

Design 7

Design 7 without card places

Design 8

Design N without N and more emphasis on The Deck Out.com

Design 9

Design 10

Design 11

Design 12

Design 13

Design 14

Design 15

Design 16

Design 17

Design 18

Design 19

Spring Regionals: The last hurrah of the metagame as we know it

Blastoise is not dead yet!

Hello everyone!



After a rogue –article and nostalgia article, it’s time to get to the present format. The Spring Regionals will be held this weekend and they are the last tournaments to be played with a BW-Plasma Storm format. After that the metagame we once knew will be turned upside down and lots of shifts will happen between tiers.

Today, I’ll look into the decks that I predict will win the Regionals and analyze if there is any space for surprise contenders. After all, a winner of Regional Championships gets a whopping 120 Championship Points! For the U.S. players these are the last meaningful tournament before National Championships, which makes it huge.

Also, I would like to remind everyone that the deadline for The Deck Out –playmat design contest is 15^th of April, so if you have time and energy to design me a playmat, please do! I have already gotten a pile of great entries, but the more options I have the better! I’ll put all the playmat designs to the vote 15^th of April, so be sure to vote your favorite mat!

Let’s get going and start with the current BDIF.

10 years of competitive Pokémon TCG: Esa begins

Metwtwo EX, I choose you!

Hello everyone!


As 70% of you wanted articles about historical decks of Pokémon TCG, I decided to take it one step further. It’s my 10^th anniversary as a competitive Pokémon TCG player, so I thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at the history of my Pokémon TCG career and how I ended up being the player, who I am at the moment.

Not only, I will talk about me, myself and I, but I’ll also take a look at how Pokémon TCG and especially organized play and PUI/PCI/whatever it is now, has been developing during the years and how the most legendary players in the game have got their position in the game. Before starting this 10-part series, I want to emphasize that all the things I say in this series are only my point of view and not the “fact”. I may be biased here and there, I may be bitter here and there and I can be simply annoyed at times, but that’s all part of the human nature, so I hope you forgive me even if you disagree with me.

The years I have experienced will have a lot of drama, revelations, funny moments, weird moments and simply irritating moments and I’m sure you will enjoy these recaps of seasons no matter if you have been playing back then or not. I will also include decklists of my (about) Nationals and Worlds’ decks to each of my articles, so you can see very easily how I have been developing as a player year-by-year. And believe or not, I was VERY bad in the beginning of my competitive career. I am excited to share my experiences with you and I hope that reading these entries are experience for you as well and that some of you can learn something from these.

Let the nostalgia begin!

The Deck Out - playmat design contest

I need help... Seriously!

Hello everyone and happy April fools day!


Even though it's April fools day, this entry isn't an April fool. If you have been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that I got an interesting proposal about The Deck Out -playmats. I asked your opinion about it on Facebook and Twitter and the reception was a lot more positive than I thought it would be, so I decided to approve of the idea.

Anyways, as I will try to make the price as low as possible and I'm so bad at drawing / photoshopping, I need a help from you for The Deck Out -playmat design. The idea is similar to thetopcut.net's playmat design contest. If you have free time and are capable with photoshop / designing, feel free to send in your design for The Deck Out - playmat to my e-mail address: thedeckout@gmail.com .

I don't expect to get a lot of designs, but even one good design will be enough. So, if you are willing to help me with that and make the playmats less expensive for everyone, please send me your design! I don't know how many of you have the time for that, but in the end all I need is one simple, but good design.

Here are what I wish from the design.

- A size of 24,5 inches by 14,5 inches
- Simple design (can be very similar to the topcut's, which can be found here: http://thetopcut.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TheTopCut-1024x601.jpg ). However, if you feel like being creative, you can do something completely different. I'm very bad at arts, so I don't know what looks good and what doesn't. I completely trust your opinion about it.
- Colors different shades of Blue and/or Green.

Optional:

- Places for deck, discard pile, active Pokémon, benched Pokémon etc.


Note: You are the artist, so if you have a vision, just ignore my wishes for the design and do what you want to do!


So, simple as that. If you have time and energy to do it, please share your design with me sending it to my e-mail. If I get a lot of entries, I will let the public vote for the winner. The contest will end 15th of April, so be sure to submit your entries by then!


Feel free to comment or ask anything considering the design contest in the comments or by sending me an e-mail.

Thanks a lot for the best readers a blog can have!