Hi there. Here is blog 02 of my Chaos Rising Pokemon TCG Prerelease event. This is 30 minutes after the first Chaos Rising prerelease in blog 01.
This one happened to be on Mother's Day (in Canada). Maybe the Pokemon Company made a booking error having prereleases possible on Mother's Day.
Note that this post is kind of long. Read and see what you want. I did copy and paste some stuff in blog 01 onto here. (Sorry.)
Prerelease Event Info & Tournament Structure
Prerelease events are casual tournament events where players/participants open packs early before the release date.
Different stores have different tournament structures and prizing. This second one was at Banana Games. Their price was 45 CAD instead of 40 CAD before 13% tax. They do an extra 2 packs before deckbuilding. More cards to work with here.
More prerelease info can be found in my previous posts or from a Youtube guide such as this one:
Deckbuilding
The deck I got was different. From my build and battle kit, I got the Ampharos deck.
From the extra packs, I did get some Pokemon ex. Mega Pyroar was not really usable due to energy typing. I did use one Mincinno and one Cincinno ex that I pulled. (Pokemon Proxies images.)
I made some small adjustments to the deck. Minus 2 Emolga for two Speed Deoxys I pulled. Minus 2 Lightning Energy for 2 Psychic Energy. To make room for the one Mincinno and one Cincinno ex I think I cut the one Ultra Ball from the deck and one Lightning Energy.
Round One
During deckbuilding, there was one guy was loud and kind of annoying. He would talk out loud to his peers and I think he talked about how he was just skill diff his opponents. Whatever that means. Prereleases are mostly random. You play with random cards against random decks with random opponents. There is skill diff in decision making and how you play though. That is maybe 50 % of the time.
I was locked in and ignored him during deckbuilding. It turned out he was my round one opponent. I have never met this guy before but I think he is a regular player. Not sure.
I was up against his Goodra deck with maybe a Trevanant.
I do take the early lead. One key moment was me using Judge so that the Ampharos gets the attack boost from its ability. Instead of 140 damage, 240 damage was needed to one hit knockout his Goodra with my Ampharos.
In the mid game I lose some momentum. I think his Goodra knocked out my Ampharos. He also used Meowstick to attack me and move energy. At this point, I had to resort to using Cincinno ex as my final attacker to try to get my final Prize card.
There was some back and forth going on. My plan was to get one more energy for Cincinno ex to get 120 damage for my last knockout. I do end up getting the topdeck card Energy card I needed, attach Energy, attack and win. It was a close match. I barely win.
The opponent did not say much. I suspect he went away fast, went to gossip with his friends. There are some young players in cliques at these places.
Round Two
When I was saw the pairing, I was downpaired against someone with a 0 loss and 1 win record. This is kind of suspect to me. My record against downpaired opponents is not great. In a few instances, I was the downpaired opponent with a worse record than the opponent and managed to win.
Round one opponent was on my left. I don't know if he knew my opponent. He told my opponent to Beat him up (him as in me). I think he was joking but that is a weird thing to say anywhere. (Looking back I should have been confrontational and reported for possible harassment/taunting. But I was locked in.)
The opponent's deck was Delphox with Ninetales. What was weird right away was that this guy was playing really fast. Very fast as if he has a flight to catch. So okay, this guy is a regular or maybe pro. I thought to myself Wtf is this? Why go so hard a casual prerelease?. At a few points, I matched his speed because I can if I wanted to.
Long story short, I lose this one badly even though this game was kind of long. Ampharos cannot one hit knockout a 160 HP Delphox without matching hand size. The opponent would just retreat and use a new attacker. I regretted not putting a Keldeo in the deck instead of Deoxys.
This loss was just weird. I did not play badly overall but the matchup is kind of unfavoured for Ampharos. Some of my turns were not great. This guy was playing fast and every turn he had further setup with/without an attack. Cincinno ex did not really save me either.
Imagine a new player to the Pokemon TCG goes up against this guy. Some guy who is playing very fast, hand shuffling too much. I am 99% sure the new player would be uncomfortable.
I walked out of the room for a break, use the washroom, regroup myself, see some kids play Beyblade.
This event was either before my break or after. My round one opponent with Goodra lost to a Crobat player. It was interesting to see him lose and go 0 wins and 2 losses. Very interesting. Karma at play? Maybe I did not have to be confrontational after all. He got "beat up" also.
Round Three Versus Crobat Deck
I am at 1 win and 1 loss. Round 3 was my brother's round 1 opponent. I knew the deck he was playing. It was a Crobat deck.
My first turn was going second. I did manage to knockout one Zubat with a Surfer to draw cards plus Emolga.
When his Crobat came in to attack my Deoxys, I had one Ampharos ready to go for the revenge Knockout. Even with his Special Red Card to try to slow me down, I had too much setup and attackers for him to handle. This was a comfortable win.
This opponent was much more friendlier than the first two opponents. Round one guy probably got tilted or something when I won a close match due to RNG. Round two guy was going hard at max speed at a casual prerelease. This guy seemed more normal and older.
From talking to my opponent, he mentioned that he cut out Qwilfish in favour of more Roxie's Performance. His deck adjustments were weird. He actually made his preconstructed deck worse in some ways.
Post Tournament + Notes
Again, I finish with 2 wins and 1 loss. This is still good. The two extra packs I got each had a Pokemon ex. Even though not an illustration rare, these were solid pulls.
Generally I don't pull special illustration rares from prereleases. From this prerelease, I got more Pokemon ex than expected.
I do have a third Chaos Rising prerelease post in the works. At first I was not sure about attending a third but I have an checkup appointment in Toronto that was made years ago. It made sense to do a prerelease then go to my medical checkup appointment.
At this Banana Games store, there are a few weird players that go too hard at a casual prerelease event. They kind of ruin the spirit of the casual event. There is a Professor Oak quote that goes: "There's a time and place for everything, but not now,".
I can go hard too but not for prereleases. A & C Games near University of Toronto and Chinatown has a more friendly, laid back and mature vibe. There are still some good players there (not well known top players but some solid players).
After this event, my brother and I go to IKEA to buy a few items. Then we dine out for dinner.
I do have something planned in the next week. At first I did not want to a third prerelease. Since I was visiting Toronto again, I was like okay why not? Third prerelease Chaos Rising blog coming soon.
Thank you for reading.