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!

Featured Writer: Matijs Moree - 3rd in Regionals - a Secret Deck analysis

I didn't see this one coming...

Hi everyone!

As there have been quite a few rogue decks popping up lately in the international tournaments, today you’ll get a special treat from a (hopefully) already familiar writer for you – Matijs Moree. I dared to say that no good rogues would ever be possible be competitive in the current format, but he proved me wrong with his VERY innovative decks, which led him to 3^rd of Spring Regionals!

I hope, I’ll get Kumis’ article soon as well, so you will get more articles from the innovative parts of the format. At the moment, I’m just stuck with the most competitive metagame decks in order to get the trip to Worlds!

Also, before we start the article, remember to tell your opinion about possible The Deck Out - playmats on my Facebook or Twitter page! If there are enough people who would like to see The Deck Out -playmats to happen, it will happen. I won't get any money from them, so I'll negotiate the price as low as possible.


Anyways, I’ll let Matijs’ take away from here, enjoy!

And the 2nd place goes to...The BDIF!

I'll soon run out of Landorus EX pictures!

Hello everyone!

If you are following me on Facebook or on Twitter, you already know that I finally was able to reach the Finals in our last States Championships! What deck did I play? Well, after looking at my Thursday’s blog entry, I think you can very well guess what deck I played – Landorus EX.

As I was able to once again get a good placement, I guaranteed one bye for my Nationals, which I’m very happy about, because I have played in so few tournaments compared to the other players who got the bye (all of them have played at least double the amount of tournaments compared to me).

Also, there were some VERY strange games in this tournament and I can easily say that this was the weirdest tournament; I’ve played the whole season. Anyways, let’s start with the deck list!

The Best Deck In the Format

Better than ever.

Hello everyone!

Today I’ll be discussing the (in)arguable BDIF of the current format – Landorus EX/Tornadus EX/Mewtwo EX/ (Garbodor). Once an underdog - now the best deck in the format. What happened to the former BDIF Blastoise/Keldeo EX and why is Landorus EX quickly become the best card in the format even though it’s still a Water weak Pokémon?

The deck got no new attackers from the Plasma Storm, but something happened to the deck to make it as good as it is now. What then happened? That’s what I’m to find out in today’s entry.

Let’s start by looking at the skeleton list of the deck.

Darkrai / Lasers rolling the States

Warp Point > Escape Rope

Hello everyone!


It’s been a while since I last made an old school tournament report. It was fun playing in a tournament with a new format since ECC was with the older format. I also felt like – spoiler alert – the tournament went very well even though I didn’t win the whole thing. Also, at last league we built the decks from the MD-on format and I once again understood why I back in the days loved the game. It was 5% coin flipping, 80% skill (playing and deckbuilding), 15% luck. Nowadays, the numbers are pretty much the other way around…

I also want to thank especially Simon Eriksen and Tord Reklev for the input for the deck. I took the risk that there would be no Klinklangs and it paid off. The problems. I had this deck were pretty interesting (not the usual Darkrai EX problems). I also had SixPrizes.com dice with me in the tournament and I would be forced to give a die to each person who wins me. My goal was to let one die slip away. Did I succeed? Let’s start the report, so we can find out!

How to counter Klinklang with the top tier

Seriously? My favorite Pokémon is playable!

Hello everyone!

One of the hottest topics in the States Championships discussion has been Plasma Klinklang. Is it really viable? If it is a viable deck, the question is, is it a threat to your deck and what you need to do in order to counter it? For some reason Klinklang is always a very heated topic and this year it isn’t no different. And it seems that John Roberts II is still a believer of Klinklang as well!

Today, I’ll be concentrating on how to counter Klinklang with the top3 metagame decks of the moment – Eelektrik, Darkrai EX and Blastoise. No Landorus EX variants, even though the seems to be arguably the best deck in the format at the moment? That’s mainly, because most of the best doing Landorus EX variants out there run Garbdoror, which automatically shuts down Klinklang.

So, what do you need to do if you’re running the other top tier decks that can’t afford running Garbodor in their lists? That’s what I’m here to find out.