Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

How did you start?

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PokePharos

Member
Hello! PokePharos here with a short story about how I began my journey into pokemon TCG! After reading (or before), I am interested to know your story and how pokemon TCG makes you feel. If you're having a hard time getting started, you can start off by telling when you started, why the cards are interesting to you, and similar facts. Thanks and enjoy my little story :smile:


In 1999 I began collecting pokemon cards with a few friends from my 4th/5th grade class. I never once played the card game, I only wanted to get each and every card from each set. I stopped collecting around the time the first Celebi card was released, I'm assuming this was around 2001-2002. I'm not positive though.

In 2009 I found my entire old school collection pokemon cards! A close friend of mine and myself began making decks from these cards to learn the game for the first time! After a while of playing we wanted to experience some of the newer pokemon cards. A few months later we were on battle roads with very powerful decks! I'll never forget the feeling. Soon after battle roads I had to sell my collection to help support my son.

At the end of 2012-present I just recently began to play once again. I've never forgotten how happy pokemon cards make me feel and how many awesome memories they bring back to me every time I see them. It's a really fun way to bring friends together and meet new ones. I love the light-hearted feeling of pokemon, along with the competitive atmosphere at tournaments. It's always fun for me and it always will be.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story! I hope it sparked some ideas for you. I would love to hear some of your stories. Thanks!
 
7 years ago at comic-con. Err... there was a demo. I found a bunch of people who played this in addition to what I used to play: Yu-Gi-Oh. I built a no trainer deck serioudly, and went 3-0 in grinders that year.
 
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I started with the Pokemon TCG GBC game. I literally got every single card in it since I played it so much (barring the Card Pop! ones). I saw a Latias Blister box and decided to pair it with the Latios promo, Feraligatr Prime, Blastoise PL, and Metagross UL to give them all free retreat. I eventually got better and during that same season I won a Regionals (I was a senior). That just made me want to keep on playing.
 
My interest in the card game began around the time jungle was released. I remember watching my friends battle and trade cards and wanting to join in on the fun. One of my friends gave me my first card, an Abra, and I began collecting from there. I almost completed the first five sets, but I'm still missing a few cards here and there and at some point I do want to finish them. I eventually stopped collecting cards as I did not have the financial means to support my hobby at the time.

However, recently I purchased a few boosters and opening those packs brought to mind many fond memories from when I was younger. Now I want to begin collecting again more than ever,
 
I started in 1998 when Pokemon started, it was a month after my birthday and I still couldn't think of what to buy then I walked past a card shop and wanted a look inside. I saw a card game called Pokemon and I was interested in it because of the look of the monsters so since I had enough money I bought a booster box and I've been playing ever since. I took a break when HGSS came out because I got my 1st pack of HGSS and drew Jynx in that pack. It had that weird thing on the picture and I thought It was fake. I got back into TCG when BLW came out because I saw Pokemon Catcher and I knew that this format would a lot of fun.
 
This happened about three years ago. My brother was browsing the web, and he came upon the Pokemon Official Webpage, and was curious about it. he found out how to play, (but he wasn't very good) and bought some packs of cards and tried to play without energies. I asked him how to play, and he taught me how to play. (kinda) After that, we taught my other brother, and my dad how to play, and we ended up at tournaments and learned how to really play. (with energies)
I've played seriously ever since.
 
My brother got the Pokemon Blue video game in 1999, and I enjoyed playing it when he would let me. I subscribed to Nintendo Power at the time, and one of the issues had a Shadowless Charmeleon included. A few months later, the "E3" Pikachu was dispersed in the magazine, and one of my friends taught me how to play. Labor Day of that year, I got the 2-player starter set from Base Set, and the rest is history.

(I have played continuously since 1999, even during several of the "dark ages" of the game.)
 
I started collecting the cards around 2000. None of my friends played the TCG, so we all just traded and colllected. I loved buying singles in particular. I also liked trading and getting great deals. I stopped buying around the Gym Leader/Challenge sets.

I got back into it around 2005 when I got my cards out of the attic, made a deck, and played against my neighbor friend. I then found a league at KB Toys and had fun. I learned about the modified format and was shocked that nearly all my cards were "banned." I became competitive and played for a couple years. I quit once the league broke up and the next nearest league only had little kids. It just wasn't fun anymore!

Now, 2013, I'm re-joining the game. I found out a card shop with a league exists only a 4 minute walk from where I live! I was happy to see that great cards like Mewtwo EX and Darkrai EX are affordable as tin promos. Looked like a good time for me to get back into the game. Today I went to league for the first time in five years and had fun.
 
It was in 2007, I believe, when my brother and I were bored, and looking to see what was on TV. We came across Pokemon, and since nothing else was on, we decided to watch it.

My mom walked in the room, and she said "You guys like Pokemon? I think there's a card game about it." She started explaining how, when she was in college, she played Magic: The Gathering and she really liked it.

So we went to Target, and she bought a theme deck + a couple booster packs for both me and my brother.

My brother, who was only 5 at the time, soon got frustrated with it because he couldn't remember all the rules, and he quit.

Zoom to 2009, when I was just fading out of the Pokemon phase, I saw Jason Klaczynski's 2008 World Championships deck. It was my birthday, so my parents said I could get it. That taught me how to build decks with real engines and such (basically meaning, that I found out the importance of draw support and Trainer cards, and that I didn't need 20-30 energy in every deck).

The next year, 2010, we stopped by a Hobbytown USA store, and I saw a poster for a Pokemon League. I was, again, starting to fade out from the whole Pokemon thing, but I decided to go anyway.

The league leader told me about competitive tournaments and helped me with my deck, and soon I was able to go to my first event: the 2010 California State Championships.

I failed with a 2-4 record in Juniors (with one of my wins being a Bye), but I was immediately hooked.

And I've been playing ever since. :smile:



side note: my brother DID join back in the game in 2011, and he's really improved. he enjoys the game as well
 
It was the year 2011...I didn't know anything about pokemon, first time I ever heard of it... I was breaking into a house to find some treasures and found binders of cards...I threw them into my bag... Found out they're worth stuff... Looked them up... First I saw a complete 1st edition shadowless set... I was happy they're worth about 2k... Then I saw a complete jungle + error , fossil, team rocket, meh they're worth under $500 ... chump change... Then I saw the neo series... I was filled with joy when I saw the complete 1st edition shiny pokemon... Then I saw the complete Gold star and a ton of old and new EX, lvl X pokemon... I was like CA-CHING! Ever since then I try to find more cards that worth a lot of money. Then a lot of people went onto pokegym and read this story and spent the last minute wasting their time on a big lie!
 
let's see... 8 years ago, my cousin had a bunch of commons & uncommons from about base set to Neo Discorvery, maybe? Anyways, he gave me maybe 80 random ones and I thought they were pretty cool. 1/2 a year later, I heard about how there was a strategy game involved, and I read theme deck rulebooks. Then, I played the TCG video game on GBC (spent hours and hours on that thing), until I felt like I finally figured out how it worked (sort of).

I looked into the current sets, and bought theme decks whenever I had extra money. For the next few years, I played at the very bottom of playing the game the right way, piecing theme decks and packs from tins together to make random, hopeless decks. Sooner or later, I looked up information about leagues, and started attending weekly.

One Saturday, I walked in, and found out there was some thing called a Prerelease happening instead of the usual league, so I paid the entrance fee and had a great time. I continued in such a way for a while, until I found out about states, and attended. I used some horrible quad Venusar CG deck. For years, I built my own garbage decks, attended leagues, BRs, PRs, and States, until finally, finally, I woke up to the competitive reality of the TCG. This was around the second half of the DP block, when I finally realized what meta decks were.

Not long afterwards, I started building my own real decks. So now here we are today, and I am an 85% self made player. Speaking from experience, I can definitely say that it's much easier and faster if you have friends that are good at the game, or you can start from scratch like me and take the better part of a decade to get up to speed XD .
 
elam18 said:
It was the year 2011...I didn't know anything about pokemon, first time I ever heard of it... I was breaking into a house to find some treasures and found binders of cards...I threw them into my bag... Found out they're worth stuff... Looked them up... First I saw a complete 1st edition shadowless set... I was happy they're worth about 2k... Then I saw a complete jungle + error , fossil, team rocket, meh they're worth under $500 ... chump change... Then I saw the neo series... I was filled with joy when I saw the complete 1st edition shiny pokemon... Then I saw the complete Gold star and a ton of old and new EX, lvl X pokemon... I was like CA-CHING! Ever since then I try to find more cards that worth a lot of money. Then a lot of people went onto pokegym and read this story and spent the last minute wasting their time on a big lie!
Click to expand...

I'm not really looking for replies as such. I would just like authentic and fond memories of beginning pokemon. Thank you for your input anyways.

Everyone else, Thanks for the replies. I love reading these stories before bed! They're wonderful.
 
Well I start collecting the cards when I was a child (first card was one that me and my sister found in the gutter with half of it ripped up) didn't have energy so didnt play and started to fade away from Pokemon. A few years latter I visted my cousins and since they liked Mc D we got some promos. This Mc D trip helped me get back to Pokemon so I went to a tournament with a deck that was Gengar, Kapotops EX, and some guys from fossil sets at this time it was the HGSS- ON so I didn't have a good deck. So I got lent a deck the BDIF at that time Gothitelle and that weird jelly guy. I went on Pokemon.com to find more tournaments and I found out about league so I kept going to build my collection and to find out about prereleases (been to next destinies, dark explorers, and bounderies crossed prereleases) and that's my story. :thumb:
 
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My Pokemon story is a long story spanning all the way back to America's inception, in 1998, when I got my first handheld, a GBC and Pokemon Red for Christmas. Don't worry I'll just give an abridged version. Flash forward a few months, when I learned about the glory of the TCG, and began playing it occasionally with friends. (Anyone else remember when people would bring cards to school and they'd get confiscated). I rarely went to events, but I did go to one when Gym Heroes launched. After I moved from PA I had fewer people to play with and played less frequently, until I found a group that played. Unfortunately they all abandoned it in favor of Yu-gi-oh.

Around the time of Neo Destiny I got my first taste of league at a WotC store in a local mall. Unfortunately it closed shortly there after. I occasionally collected cards, mainly starter decks through the entirety of e series, and part of the early ex sets.

Shortly after the release of Firered and Leafgreen one of my friends told me about a new local league location, and that as they say was that. I started attending prereleases starting with EX Emerald, and started to do better in tournaments over the following two years. Then came the last Gym Challenge events that POP ever held. I managed to get first place with my Meganium/Mew/Manectric deck and got a spot at Worlds 2006. As you might expect I was really excited. Unfortunately that Worlds wasn't all good news, as even though I made 124th (which I don't think was too shabby, especially for a rogue deck), my deck was stolen just after that portion of the event. I was heartbroken, but thanks to the AMAZING friends I had (and still have) I managed to remake some of it.

The following year wasn't all that impressive, but the year after that was both the real arrival of DP (the first set was released just before Worlds) and my debut as a master. It wasn't the most glorious year, as it was both my least favorite format (all my loathing of GG), but I also wasn't used to the significantly different meta of masters.

Since then I've been to two more Worlds, the later I nearly lost my deck again due to my lack of sleep, and have continued to enjoy the game as it has changed so much over the years.
 
I first started when I was at some friends house of my parents and one of their kids gave me some Pokemon cards he was collecting. I got more interested and bought cards at Walmart. Then I wanted to play. I still couldn't read the attacks at the time, but I still tried. I continued to play and started to get better cards after years of playing. Now I try to attend as many events near me as possible and dedicate hours to Pokemon.
 
My brother and I, early in '97 were having trouble in school (With bullies and not being able to perform academically due to the fear and stress of never knowing what was around the proverbial corner in school), we walked into a hobby shop. My brother saw Pokemon cards from the Jungle expansion and immediately wanted to buy some, so I spent my allowance I had saved on roughly 30 packs of Jungle and Base Set and two them decks. My mother was in the hospital at this time as well, so we had to wait to open them in the hospital waiting room. We opened them, and we began to learn to play.

Roughly at the end of the 2004 season is when we began to increase our playing. We would spend anywhere from 2 to 8 hours a day playing Pokemon, perfecting our deck building skills, strategizing, and just shooting the breeze with our esteemed hobby. In 2005, we upped that to at least 4 hours a day, where I began the wonderful journey to the World Championships, I went undefeated in the Grinder, earning my invite, while my brother went x-1 and missed due all of the undefeateds only making it in. In 2007 I managed to pull out another Grinder win going 7-0, making it into the main event where I finished 24th overall, losing in top 32. Had some unfortunate life events happened who knows what could have happened

Needless to say, we have been playing ever since, never missing any major event, up until 2008 dealing with some major life events and in 2009 when I joined the Air Force, but it didn't deter us from playing, just on a smaller scale.

We are starting to pick it back up now that I am getting retired from the Air Force.
 
Purchased Red and Blue versions of the Gamaeboy, as RPG's are my thing. Found out sometime later- there was a card game and Toys R Us had a league.

I have kids, and my son was really interested in the whole aspect of Pokemon because I had given the video games a try.

Have been a Poke-parent since, on and off with the card game. I mostly enjoy staffing events, but I am still the VG'r at heart.

My youngest is 4, and seems to be a promising Pokemon fan of the card game, ut plays Pokemon video games.
My oldest son was the reason to be into Pokemon as athing for us to do as a hobby and be social, and through the times- all 6 of my kids have made Pokemon a part of their lives in one way or another. (3 step kids, 2 from a previous relationschip, and 1 shared with my current wife.)

Since the days of Base set until now, and from Red and Blue- you can say that Pokemon has a long history with this Video game Ninja.
 
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