Do you recall your very first experiance with the Pokemon-TCG

[JandPDS]

The thread on do your friends and family know you play Pokemon got me thinking about how my family got sent down on this long and strange path of Pokemon Organized play. So I thought it might be cool to hear other peoples stories on how they happened to get involved in this truly fantastic game, and the incredible community of players that are associated with it.

Here is our story....


It turns out that it is my father-in-laws fault that we started playing to begin with. Back when Pokemon-TCG 1st came out, the release coincided with the Grand Opening of the Flagship Wizards of the Coast retail store in the Northgate Mall in Seattle. We did not go to the Grand Opening, but my father-in law did and on his way home he stopped off our apartment to tell us about the cool new game store that just opened up. Then he gave us a present as he left and it was the Base Set Starter Deck.

We had no idea at the time what pokemon was let alone Pokemon-TCG. I was aware that Red and Blue existed for the Gameboy but at the time it had zero interest for me. Besides that the only familiarity that I had with Pokemon was that a Cartoon about it in Japan caused a bunch of kids to go into sizures. After he left I asked my wife why he would give us this "game"? She was just as puzzled about the strange gift as I was and we promptly set it on our bookcase and forgot about it.

Then about a month later it was a rain soaked stormy night so we decided to not go out and stay home for the evening. After not finding anything interesting on TV I happened to remember that silly game that we had received weeks earlier. I asked my wife if she wanted to try it out as we had nothing better to do. She agreed so I found it and opened it up to read the instructions. I had never played a trading card game prior to this. I had heard of Magic but I thought a game with cards was a real silly idea, compared to the standard boardgames that I was used to. But as I read thorough the instructions it actually seemed kinda interesting, but I still figured that we would play one game and then put it away, probably to never touch it again.

So we divided the cards into the two 30 card decks per the instructions, I explained the rules and we began to play. The first game probably took no more then 10 minuets to play (3 prizes) And when we were done we both kind of looked at eachother from across the table. I asked my wife if she enjoyed the game, and she said "Yes!" I told her that I had enjoyed it to, way more then I had expected to. I asked if she wanted to play another and she hurriedly agreed. After one game it seemed we were both hooked for good. We must have played for about an hour that first night each winning a fair number of games.

Then after we were done I read though the entire rule book and realized that we were literally just playing with half a deck, and that a regular game was made up of 60 cards each. I asked her if she wanted to buy some cards so that we could each have our own decks, and she agreed. The next day we purchased our first booster packs of countless packs to come, and the rest about 10 years later is history.

 

[The Gorn]

I was traveling a lot on business back in 1998 and was spending a lot of time on plane. I enjoy reading but decided I needed to find something else to do with my time. I decided to buy a Gameboy but didn't know anything about the games. My daughter, Caitlin (who was 6 at the time) heard that Pokemon was fun. So I got Pokemon Blue. I loved the Gameboy game and so did Caitlin. It really was a lot of fun. I remember playing it at my in-laws house over Thanksgiving and on the drive back home, stopping at KFC for dinner and buying the 4 Pokemon beanies (Dratini, Zubat, Seel, and Vulpix) that were some of the first things offered here in the US.

When we heard that the card game was coming out, we were at Target that weekend. I remember opening packs and getting Seels and Dewgongs. Fun!

We tried playing the game and were totally confused. We gave it a try, but there was something about the instructions that I just could no comprehend - deck, discard pile, prizes. ??? I was baffled. I knew we'd figure it out, but I was baffled.

On the Internet, someone posted a simplified set of instructions. I printed those off and took them with me on a business trip. One night I sat in my hotel room with my cards and my instructions and figured it out. Bingo! I got back home and we started playing for real.

It's hard to believe that this September will be the 10th anniversary of Pokemon Blue and Red. It's also interesting that this game (and so many people in it) has been such an integral part of our lives for so long.

 

[homeofmew]

o yes it was back during pallet/kanto league 1999 when i first started playing
one year before in NYC I saw some Japanese base set pokemon cards, and the dealer was like
"buy these this is the next big American thing and its from Japan."
it was fun earnimg badges. I did not know about competitive play back then.

 

[WinkWinkNudgeNudge]

Lets see, there were seemingly hundreds of pokemon cards laying around the house. I'm not really sure where my kids got them. On several occasions I read the instructions and tried build decks and teach my son to play. We must have bought a grass starter deck at some point because it was the only type of energy we had more than twenty of. By the time we sorted them out and put them in stacks that bore a vague semblance to a deck it took an hour or two. Then we would play perhaps one game. Next time I looked the cards were back in a jumbled mess. We did this several times and I got faster at making bad decks. The best investment ever was two sets of sleeves. Once the decks were sleeved I hid them high in an unreachable closet. Then we were able to play several times without rebuilding decks.

So one Saturday while looking for something fun and interesting to do. I came across the Pokemon TCG website and found out that there was a City Championship in Brooklyn. We live in NJ. I read the rules and such and it said that all we needed was a deck and we just happened to have one in the closet. We hopped in the car with the deck and about a thousand loose cards in a shoebox. When we got there we registered him for his POP id had he deck checked (amazingly it was leagal) and he proceeded to lose every single game. I felt sorry for him but when he got back to school and his friends found out that he had played in a City Championship he was an instant celeb. He become the go to guy for all things pokemon.

So I knew that I had thrown him to the wolves playing a starter deck at City's. I figured that I had better get him a better deck. I found Pojo card of the day. I figured if a made a deck from all the cards rated 4 and 5 he would have a better chance. I tried that for a while but it didn't go anywhere. Finally I found brief article on Metagross/Dragonite deck and bought singles off the web and built the deck. (Kind of blew it buying non-delta beldums to go with Holon Castform - I wonder why it wasn't fast)

With new deck we search out a league the closet league wasn't that close but we headed off to Time Warp in Ceder a brought a book for and our new deck for my son. When we gott there the LL suggested that I play. After sitting through hours at City's, I was happy to do something else. So I got a POP id and played. The next event was the DP pre-release back in Brooklyn. Bought a lot of DP, found the gym, dowmloaded Redshark and now spend entirely too much time and money. But we do enjoy it.

 

[smileydude560]

Pokemon came out when i was very little. i remember a friend of my brothers getting a deck from a friend. then he rigged the deck to make me lose when we split the deck. then i got boosters and at one point, i had a blastiose. then my mom threw away every card we had, exept blastoise. i hid that. then a couple of years later she let me and my two younger brothers start to play pokemon. that was DP era.

 

[afstandopleren]

lol at the father-in-law part.

When I was 10 I already got fascinated by Pokemon. (It's hard not to)
Needles to say, I wanted to do more than just collecting and trading.

Sadly, my parents where against me spending money on 'useless' cards.
And after the hype cooled down at my school, my dad managed to throw away every card I had collected.
I only managed to save a few.

Then, when I was 15, I got intrested in playing the tcg game.
I searched for others that would want to play the actual game but many where scared to picked on because they liked Pokemon.

And when I was 17 I discovered that there where actual leagues and that a new league had started just a few miles from my home.

 

[ugly psyducky]

What a great thread. Here's my story ...

My eldest son Quinn (he was 6 at the time) had a friend up the street who was moving and gave him a Pokemon card to "remeber him by" it was a NG Marill. He absolutely loved the card and I think was a little sad that his friend had left, so I took him to the local hobby store and sure enough the had a big bin of cards for 10 cents each. So we bought about 100 of them and headed home (we of course took a pass on all the boring energy and trainer cards). Going to the hobby store and buying a few cards with their (my youngest Patrick always wants to do what his older brother does) allowance became a bit of a Saturday tradition on our way to do the Grocery shopping .

By the summer they had amassed a small pencil case full of cards, and were both enrolled in a summer day camp. Quinn begged to take a few of his favourite cards to school, and so away he went with a couple of prized cards (I can't even remember what they were). He came home from school very excited, his "friend" from school had traded him a "really good" card for 3 of the cards he'd taken-- of course Quinn had given the kid his cards and his "friend" was going to bring the card the next day. Of course that didn't happen and I had to explain to him the whole concept of getting a fair trade. I had no idea how the cards worked from a rarity perspective, I collected baseball and hockey cards growing up so I knew there had to be something online about value, so I took a look. It was at that point I learned there was a game associated with the cards. I read the rules, and thought --- Hmmm -- this is an interesting way to teach math and logic skills so why don't we give it a try. I got the idea why energies were needed, so back to the store where I bought every energy card in the whole bin (yep... I still have those in a box for building decks at league). We missed the rule about only having 4 of any one card in a deck, so for a while I played a deck with 15 potions in it.

The next thing you know Quinn found out about the card scans on Pokebeach, and proceded to memorize every card he could find, he learned about the new series cards including Ex's and was mad keen to get them for Christmas. So Santa headed off to the Toy R Us store (the local hobby shop didn't sell any new Pokemon product at that time) and started buying HP / CG and DF packs, going back to the car and openning them. Soon enough I had pulled a Salamence d / Mighteyna / Crawdaunt ex and oh yes a Charizard* d. I put them into a binder and they were the big present from Santa on Christmas day. Soon after that Quinn caught wind of the Power Keepers pre-release tournament on the Beach and off we went. We found out about League play and competitive tournaments and we've become the First Family of Pokemon in Georgetown since then.

Now I run my own league out of the local community centre, with around 40 players. Act as a Leader for another League. At the end of the day the game is great, but what makes it incredible is the people who play it.

 

[edwarpy]

Great thread JandPDS, I really like hearing everyone's story.

Nate brings it up about once a month, usually right when we're in the middle of a harried playtesting
session fine tuning our GG and Magmotar decks:

'Hey Dad, member when we started playing?'.
'Yup, better look out...Solar Beam 50!'
'Here comes Square Attack!'
'Whatever, c'mon, hurry up I gotta get this deck ready!'

We started when Nate brought a handful of Yuckio cards home one day, I guess some kid on the
school bus gave them to him. Well, I love games! I looked at the cards and it seemed interesting.
I bought a couple of starter decks the next day, but then I looked at the cards...ugh! I didn't really
want my seven year old summoning Morbid Ghoul from the Graveyard. So I convinced him this game
sucks, and went to find something more appropriate. Of course the right on game was Pokemon!

So we exchanged for a couple of Hidden Legends starters, Bellosom vs. Metagross. Now this game
rocks! So many more options, so much more fun. Nothing better than Square Attack, flip 4, you gotta
get 3 head to win, do flips that roll under the couch count? We were hooked. By the way, he was really
bummed when we had to play sitting at tables! Why can't everyone just play on the floor? Ha!

The game is great for seven year old reading, vocabulary, and math. We played every night! I still
wear him out, 'You ready for another?'. He learned more words for burn than anyone. What's
Combustion? What Cinder? What's Char? We had great fun with the math, 60 x 2 - 10. O man,
four tails in a row! What are the chances? Let's figure it out! 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 1 outta 16 times!

Nate became my personal Pokedex soon, knew every attack, power, and hit point. We still talk
about wild deck ideas on the way to school everyday. Definately worth the price of admission!

Ok, I ran out of punctuation marks, story over!!!

 

[Phazon Elite]

Ahh, fond memories . . .

I mostly grew up in a little town named Sweet Home, and we had exactly one bowling alley. At this bowling alley, there was a vending machine that had stickers, pogs, and single Pokemon cards. So I put a quarter in and received my first Pokemon card: Base Blastoise, which was way cooler than my friend's Ponyta. I was instantly hooked and soon whined at my mom until she got me a theme deck (y'know, those really awesome old ones with six total trainers. good times). I had already played the GBA games (and had a pimp Lv. 93 Charizard that knew four Fire moves), but I had never known that a Pokemon TCG existed (nor had I ever played any TCG, so it took a while to get used to). I didn't have internet access at that time, so my Pokemon TCG knowledge came from the old Beckett (sp?) magazines. In there, I learned the awesome strategy of Alakazam stall. Life was good.

Then, my parents took me to Toys 'r' Us, and we found out that I could play Pokemon there!!! Of course, mom had me go me the next day, which brings me to something that has stuck with me even to this day. We got there late (Toys 'r' Us was a good hour away from where we lived), and the Gym Leader didn't have any more open slots, so he told me that I wouldn't be able to play. My mom and I (especially poor little 12-year-old me) felt really, really bad about it, and that's when the unthinkable happened: this random high-school-aged kid got up and told me that I could play instead of him. Man, I was so happy. Granted, I did terrible (the only game I won was due to my Jungle Lickitung's infinite Tongue Wrap heads), but I had a lot of fun, and I learned that that's what Pokemon's all about, which probably explains my overly excited attitude at tournaments today. Seriously, no bearded man has been this happy since Chuck Norris first read all those Chuck Norris facts online.

But, yeah. It's kind of cool to think that were it not for that one kid's kindness towards a sad little me, I might not be playing this game today.

 

[BloodDraek]

Ok here is how I got into the TCG

When I was like 5 years old I think pokemon had just come out and my brother loved it so much. Getting all the games, an extensive pokemon collection. I always watched my bro and mom play the pokemon tcg together. They had so much fun watching how my mom accidentally flipped the coin into her coffee. I wanted to play too but my little brain was not smart enough to comprehend TCGs yet.

About 1 year or so later, Yu-gi-oh came out and it was insanely popular. My mom bought my brother his first starter deck of yugioh at a place called outer limits. I asked if she would buy me one too and she did. That question is actually a question I regret and most likely always will for the rest of my life. With me and my bro playing we played at weekly tournaments at Outer limits. Every week we payed 5 bucks and got knocked out first round. Years later when I was about 8-9 Outer limits went out of buisness. I was crushed. In search for a new place to play Yu-Gi-OH and Duel Masters the only place I found that my mom would take me to was Timewarp comics and games.

I had played Duel masters for about 3 years. When I was 11 I got Top 4 in a big tournament with no age divisions so I was pretty happy. However Duel Masters was discontinued. I continued playing Yu-Gi-OH for about 5 more months and in that 5 month period I won my first tournament. In October of 2006 I relized. I had played Yu-gi-OH for 6 years and only won 1 tournament with countless times of frustration. I also relized at that moment that I was playing the wrong game. I thought of when my brother played and how much joy it brought him. Since I saw that TimeWarp was having a pre-release for a new set soon, I decided it was a good idea since I loved pre-releases with Duel Masters.

When I went there it was one of the best times I had ever had. Although I was very confused since Dragonite Ex was grass, Gatr was electric. After that I made a hole bunch of friends, and a hole bunch of enemies. I just wished I had done it sooner.

So really if I hadn't played Yu-Gi-oH I would have never ended up playing pokemon.

 

[bullados]

I don't remember my first encounter with the video game. I had it at least in 5th grade, and I played it every day on the bus ride home from school. I remember that the school actually banned the game during recess and "between" periods (we ran like a Jr. High at that point). The GBC that I played Blue on still works, though it's scratched worse than anything you've ever seen before.

I do remember my first encounter with the TCG, though. In 6th grade, one of my friends had a birthday party, and gave away as goodie bags theme decks from one of the original sets. I got the Kangaskhan theme deck. Within a month of getting that theme deck, I was a regular League attendee with a fairly decent collection, but with a REALLY crappy deck (Blastoise/Dewgong/Gyarados/Lapras/DkDragonair 10 Trainers). I still have the Kangaskhan that came in that theme deck, though it's pretty beat up and almost unplayable. It's the only card in my entire collection that I'll never get rid of, because it's that card's fault that I'm here right now. I don't regret anything, though.

 

[TLesky]

My story starts like many other parents. Our son, in grade school at the time, brings a Pokemon card home from school one day. He says " Dad, look at this really cool card that little Joey from down the street let me borrow. It is a Pokemon card, and I want some. The kids at school are playing games with them, and trading and everything." So, trying to be the good parent, I check into these things to try to learn what they were about. After a week or so, and not realy getting it, I started buying packs for my son.

Well as our little girl saw her big brother with these things, and how much fun he was having with them, although he had no idea how to play with rules, she decided that she wanted some too. So now I am up to 2 packs every time we go to the store, and to be honest, I still had no idea what they were for or what to do with them. I did, however, figure out that they did have value. So I bought the kids binders to put the cards in. The problem was, no matter how many packs they got, they really werent getting the cards they wanted. Well, not knowing you could go on ebay and buy exactly what you wanted, I started buying a pack for myself to increase our chances of getting the good stuff. It also doubled as a good incentive for my kids to complete menial tasks to get the cards they want from me.

Some of the friends that introduced my son to the game started coming home with him after school to see his colection, at this time the cards had been banned from the school. When they saw the collection we had ammassed, they said there was a league at the hobby store in town. I didnt know how any of that worked, or what we needed, but I figured it was something to do with these cards I had spent so much money on, and it sounded like a good hobby.

Well 5 years later, I am a PTO, a league leader, and work many major events. I think back to the kids that introduced us to the game and the league. Problem is, they are all long out of the game, and we are still obsessed. We have made so many great friends from all over the world and had too many wonderful memories along the way, I am not sure what I will do if our journey with Pokemon ever ends. I said 5 years ago that when my kids were done playing. I was done playing. Now I dont know if I can ever stop playing. It is such a huge part of my life and I love spending time with all the people I have met, I dont know how I could ever fill that void.

Soory my story is so long. I guess I just like to talk too much.

Troy:thumb:

 

[SolarPichu]

My first experience with the TCG happened as a result of my obsession with the games and the cartoon. I was first hesitant in playing because not all the Pokemon were represented in card form at the time, and I heard the rules were not that similar to the perfection of the games; to me, the card game looked like a gimmick. Either way, once Jungle was released, I bought my first booster pack at a comic book store to "try it out" and I got a first edition holo Kangaskhan. The store owner told me about the Pokemon League and how you could compete for badges, which I found interesting. Once I had enough cards to make a deck, I came to league, and although I lost every battle, I had so much fun seeing all the other decks. I've been playing the Pokemon TCG ever since!

 

[Muscovy Level X]

My first encounter with the TCG (not Pokemon, I was already a fan) came when we unpacked some of my spetbrother's old stuff when my dad and his girlfriend moved. In one of the boxes I found a bunch of random cards (mostly energy). Sean (the owner of the cards) said that my sister and I could have a bunch of them if we wanted. So we took our ill, then asked if we could get a pack or 2. I'm pretty sure my dad viewed this as juninile (then at least, he strongly supports me now), but he obliged and bought us (me my sister and Sean) some ex Sandstorm packs. Prety quickly we figured out how the game worked (we weren't good stratagits).
The next day we visited our grandparents, and brought our jumbled card colection to play. Imediatly they saw hw much fun we were having, and bought us a few more cards.
So then after the weekend we returned home. Of course, we imediantly went "Hey mom! Look what we've got!" (give us a break, we were 10 and 6). She hatd it, thought it was dumb, and told us not to bug her about it again.
Meanwhile, our collections grew (thanks grampa!), but we didn't have that many people to play with. Sure, there was people at school, but it wasn't great. No one really wanted to play, and most just wanted to cheat the first graders. Especialy because of the last act, the school wasn't very tolerating (it was a few months before they banned them). Some of the "Duties" as we called them were plain old mean, putting a few people on garbage duty or confiscating cards without much of a reason (while they turned a blind eye to bullying, but I digress). So school was out, and I needed beter oponents (I was still quite a noob, but I was better than my sister). I needed somwhere to play...

Shortly after, I found my solutuon in some sort of ex deoxys promo box. It was basicly an add for POP. I ran to the computer, and searched for events in Victoria... nothing. (I found a league that was near my dad's but I was only there once a month).
A few desprate months later, a league started in Victoria! I was thrilled! My sister and I ran down there to find one noob (who now runs the league, and is still a noob), and a grumy girl who forgot here cards.
This is when things changed, that day at league. My sister (I've written about her before). Was one of those "ex cards=own" sort o people. She ran a ridiculous deck with not enough energy and no other 2 card were the same. She was playing the other guy, and losing. They both had awful decks, and it was all luck of who got the right energy.
When we left, she was near tears, and complained that it was a dumb game, all luck, and she never wanted to play again.

And then I got to go to the Delta Species Prerelease and got into competative POP play.

And to this day my sister still lives by her decision. She is so stuborn that she will atoumaticly not do something if someone tries to convince her. I know she'd be a good player, but all I get is spite when I try to get her involved. (For refrence, I've wrote about her having depresion in the RTC, and I thought it would do her good to get involved in something.

Thanks for those who took the time to read this.

 

[The Gorn]

It also doubled as a good incentive for my kids to complete menial tasks to get the cards they want from me.

That's so funny, because I would get my daughter (who was 6-7 at the time) to do math problems for packs of Pokemon cards. Do 100 problems and you get a pack. To her it seemed like a lot, but I would say "Ok, let's do a few and see how it goes." So I'd give her 10 easy ones. See, not so hard. Then I'd give her 10 more and 5 more after that. See, we're 1/4 of the way there. Do that many again and you'll be half-way!

It worked great. She DEFINITELY learned her math (we kept doing it for years - she would have never learned how to multiply and divide fractions without Pokemon cards!).

 

[tglilly]

It all started back when base set was releaced and packs were impossible to find. My cousents had piles of cards and they were laying all over there house. I pick up one of the cards that was in there toy box and it was a base set charmander. I really like the art on the cards and I picked up some more and saw that there was a yellow card (pikachu)and a brown card (machop). I asked if I could have a few since they had so many cards and they did. It became where if they got extra cards they woudl give them to me. My mother saw me colecting these cards and told me that I was too old to play these card games and wanted me to throw them away. I was too intrested in the cards to want to get rid of them so I keep them hidden until my mother released that I was hooked and I was not going to quit. My father did not really care about the game but he tried it out with me by buying a starter deck, and we taught each other how to play. I quickly learn the rules of the game but my dad was confused and quickly lost intrest. I then got my cousin's interested in the game and soon we started to buy lot's of booster packs from our allowances. Soon I got board of always kicking my cousents butt at the game and was gong to stop playing when he found a card shop close to us that was hosting a league. I was so excited but really shy and after I got regesterd I decited to play a game vs. my cousent to get warmed up. I foud out that alot of the people there were really good and I was suprised that I won a few of my matches agenst the "top" players there. ( I also meet my futcher husband there as well ) I was having so much fun plaing everyone there but sadly as time went by alot of players lost intrest and the leage there died away. After a few months I found that another league and soon after that I found out about bigger tournys. At my first tourny I placed 3rd place at a citty champeons. Today I still play at the same leage and I some times help judge the local tournaments. I also have 3 sons and I hope once they get old enough to understand the cards that they will play with there mother.

 

[secretsof2113]

With the TCG...it was the kids that I babysat for. They picked up a couple of the jungle theme decks when that set first came out, and they wanted me to learn how to play too. I saw the cards and thought they were pretty cool looking, and the next day, I picked up a couple of the theme decks and some packs, and we started building decks and learning how to play. We traded with each other, and began going to a local league that opened in the area. It was really a lot of fun, and ended up being that way until all of our leagues closed down when Neo came out. I retired on the game for a while, and years later, a friend of mine got me back into the game again, and the rest.....is history.

 

[Umbreon777]

When the TCG first came out, I was visiting my cousins in New Mexico where he told me about "Pokemon". Being around 8 at the time, this stuff was amazing. We started watching the show and I decided to buy the Machamp theme deck. For another 5-6 years, I didnt really do much but collect. Then in 2004, I decided to throw some cards together and actually try to play. So I read the rule book a few times and made a Blaine deck. Come around July of 2005, I visited a different cousin in Michigan where he showed me his cards from Dragon. I thought the new cards were pretty cool, so I bought a pack of Emerald and Team Rocket Returns. I remember getting Deoxys speed and a reverse Dark Pupitar. He then covinced me to join a Pokemon league. When I got back home to Indiana, I looked online and found a league 10 minutes from my house. Ever since then, Ive been playing competitively. My first tourny was the CC at Indianapolis.

BLAMO!

 

[Scizor Master CLR]

Wow. I was like...12? It was a family day at one of the school's here and one of my friends (and his friends) had 2 long tables and were trying to get kids to play with them. I was given the Water Blast theme deck from the Jungle expansion. I was beat because my Eevees died and my one Vaporeon had no energy. I quickly became as interested in the card game as I was with Pokémon Blue.

That was a decade ago... O_O

 

[ColdCoates90]

I was 9 and had a lot of pokemon cards, but all I did was collect and trade. I never battled because the rules confused me. One day my dad looked through the starer deck rules and taught me how to play, using the Machamp starter deck split into two 30 card decks. My favorite card was Growlithe and I always envied my Dad went it ended up in his deck and not mine. : )