Friday, March 30, 2012

Ask Esa: Answer Time!


Answer time!
Hi everyone!

It’s already Friday, so a great time for the third entry of this week. Last week, I introduced you to my new series: “Ask Esa”. Alongside with that I also wanted to hear YOUR The Deck Out –stories, if you have benefitted from my articles. I got a decent amount of questions for the “Ask Esa” –series but I only got a few The Deck Out –stories. I really hope that you’ll e-mail, Facebook or Twitter me you’re the Deck Out –stories because I know a lot of people, who have them!

Anyways, the topic of this entry is “Ask Esa”. Today, I’ll reveal – in my opinion – the most interesting questions, I received and I’ll answer them, the best I can. I hope you enjoy this and I hope you will send me a lot of questions for the future “Ask Esa”’s as well, so I can make this entry series a regular part of my blog as well. However, let’s get into the questions of the very first “Ask Esa: Answer Time!”.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Deck Out goes global: Spain

Burgos Cathedral in Burgos, Spain
Hi everyone!

As promised, this week, I’ll be making 3 entries and that’s why there will be another entry already today. I’ve been very busy during the last few weeks so I’m happy to get back to normal rhytm and concentrate on the blog.

Today’s The Deck Out goes global’s country is a country, which I’ve personally visited – Spain. Did you even know that Spain had an Organized Play? I didn’t and in fact they don’t even have a one! However, that doesn’t stop them from playing Pokémon TCG and hoping that once their community is big enough, they’ll one day have an Organized Play in their country, which will lure even more players into the community. So, let’s look what The Deck Out goes global has in store for today!

Monday, March 26, 2012

Last tournament before Nationals with Celebi/Mewtwo EX!


At the moment, I'm as clueless as Mr. Imakuni
Hi everyone!

On Saturday, I played in my – probably last – tournament of the year before Nationals. If you’ve been following my tournament reports regularly, you know that I need CPs to get 2 byes for our National Championships. You also know that I failed miserably with my Tornadus tech in my Celebi/Mewtwo EX deck in the last State Championships.

This tournament unfortunately wasn’t that different from the last tournament where I failed. However, I learnt from my mistakes and fixed my list. My final list for this tournament looked a bit more like me.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Ask Esa & Share your The Deck Out story

Hi everyone!

Today should've been another entry of the series The Deck Out goes global but instead of that, I decided to do what I promised to do in my New Year's entry. There I said that I keep getting so many e-mails from you everyone daily that I can't answer all of them in timely manner. However, that's why I decided to now start the "Ask Esa" entries, where you can e-mail me your questions or put them in the comment field and I'll ask all the questions in the same entry. Many of you are asking same things and fixes for same decks, so I can easily combine them that way and do a "mini-entry" about those decks at the same time as answering your questions.

If you don't want to show your decklist to the public, that's fine and then I'll only e-mail you the answer to your question. Of course, I hope that most of you are open with your lists and questions so I can make this series worthwhile of reading even for those who haven't sent me in a question. After all, I'm open with my lists, haha. The questions, I'm ready to answer are anything Pokémon TCG related; it can be for example about your deck, upcoming sets and my opinions about them, my favourite decks in the format or even my pesonal Pokémon TCG things. I'll answer to any question the best way I can.

The other thing I want you to do is share YOUR The Deck Out story. I know many people who have used my lists for testing or even tournament winning decks. If you have benefited from my blog or lists somehow, I would be very glad to know hear about it. That's a way to increase my blog's credibility at the same time as getting some more versatile content to my blog. I'm also very happy every time, I hear that someone has found my blog useful since after all, I'm doing this for you - the readers. I'll add The Deck Out stories to my blog anonymously or with nickname, if I get enough them and I sure hope I do get enough them. You can send your The Deck Out -stories to my e-mail as well as questions.

For the end, here are all the channel's you can contact me with.

E-mail: Thedeckout@gmail.com
Facebook
Twitter

I hope everyone is active and that I'll get a lot of contacts all over the world!

Thanks for reading and please, contact me one way or another.

Monday, March 19, 2012

States report with Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus


And the "LVP" award goes to...
Hi everyone!

So I was in my first States this year and it was a pretty important tournament for me because in our bye system, I was only 4th (top4 gets two byes for Nationals). I would only have 1 tournament before Nationals after this tournament, so the importance of the tournament was HUGE. I had to do well, if I wanted to keep up with the race with our bye system.

Since the tournament was important, I had to play the BDIF in my opinion – Celebi/Mewtwo/Tornadus. Well, to be completely honest, more like Celebi/Mewtwo with Tornadus tech. The previous list of mine worked very well in the ECC and I was very comfortable with the list and deck I played back then, so I only made a few changes to the decklist.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Mewtwo EX & Eelektrik

To play or not to play - that is the question.
Hello all The Deck Out readers!

You know what day today is? That’s right - Mewtwo EX day. In fact, today is the last day of Mewtwo EX series! Today’s Mewtwo EX deck is the deck, which took the whole Japan by storm. It has yet been the most played and successful Mewtwo EX deck in Japan and is still doing fine even while Dark Rush has been released. It also seems that it’s no different in the west, Eelektrik variants are all over the top spots in the first weekend of States.

Unlike in west, in Japan Eelektrik/Zekrom was all the rage even before Mewtwo EX was released. The Japanese meta was a combination of Chandelure and Eelektrik/Zekrom decks. As we all know, Eelektrik/Zekrom never got the same attention in the U.S. while the format was HGSS-NVI but Eelektrik/Magnezone replaced its place in the metagame. Fitting Mewtwo EX in the Eelektrik/Magnezone is so much more difficult than to an ordinary Eelektrik/Zekrom and that’s the main reason why the deck’s that have been doing well in the State Championships have been Eelektrik/Zekrom variants, not Magnezone/Eelektrik variants.

In this entry, I’ll discuss the Eelektrik/Zekrom in general but I won’t forget other variants either. This is a full breakdown of everything you need to know about Eelektrik/Zekrom decks.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Deck Out goes global: Norway

Norway has a lot of mountains
Hello all The Deck Out followers!


In today’s The Deck Out goes global, I’ll take a look at a country that’s very close to Finland – Norway. I think Norway should be familiar to everyone since it’s Worlds’ richest country. Norway also has done very well in the Pokémon TCG along the years. Khanh Le placed second in the World Championships of 2008 and Norwegians took this year’s ECC by storm as well.

Let’s take a look what this country has hid inside its Pokémon TCG history.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Mewtwo EX & ReshiPlosion

Reshiram EX isn't part of this deck - find out why!
Hi to all The Deck Out followers!

Typhlosion/Reshiram – the most played deck in the World Championships. The endless no-brainer mirror matches frustrated everyone who was playing in the Worlds last year. However, due the rise of Chandelure, Kyurem and Ross.dec the ReshiPlosion list its winning momentum. However, can a single card like Mewtwo EX change ReshiPlosion back to the winning path? I guess we’ll find out.

This will probably be the second last article of this Mewtwo EX series – last being Zekrom.

Monday, March 5, 2012

The Decklist Out update + Glossary of Pokémon TCG!

Hi everyone!


I've worked really hard the past few days to make this update to happen. The State Championships are on their way Next Destinies was released a while ago. So, it's about a time for me to update The Decklist Out with a whole new over 20 decklists that all are updated with Next Destinies! I hope you find the lists useful for your play testing and that you can link it to the new players that are still wondering what kind of decks does this format have.

I didn't stop updating The Deck Out to The Decklist Out. I felt that my site missed something and while scrolling around the internet, it came to me - of course, I was missing a Pokémon TCG Glossary, which can explain terms and history of Pokémon TCG for newer and even for experienced players. To make the Glossary of Pokémon TCG as good as possible, I need your input for it. Please check it out and let me know in the comments or by e-mail if it misses terms/abbreviations or something else. Every suggestion is welcome so that I can make it as comprehensible as possible. I'm pretty sure that I missed something since it was such a huge job to make it happen.

I'll post the Glossary of Pokémon TCG to this entry so everyone can take a quick look at it. Let me know what I missed and enjoy the renewed decklists of The Deck List Out!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Deck Out goes global: Brazil


Brazil is a famous soccer country
Hey all The Deck Out followers!

Today is a time for another goes global entry. Today’s entry is about country named Brazil. I know all of you are familiar with the country and you know at least something about it. For example, a Brazilian player won World Championships in Juniors division last year! For me Brazil reminds me of very good soccer players and of course Samba. Lol, at the stereotypes.

Anyways, this entry isn’t about stereotypes but learning about the Pokémon TCG community of Brazil. It has experienced a lot of ups and downs during its journey but at the moment things are looking very good. So, let’s see what does the history and story of Brazil’s Pokémon TCG include!