Tego
New Member
Hello, Pokégym
From late-August to late-December, I lived in Hirakata-shi in Osaka, Japan. Halfway between central Osaka and Kyoto, Hirakata-shi has easy access to both of these famous cities, as well as many other well-known and interesting places such as Kobe and Nara. During the course of my 4 months in Japan, I was fortunate enough to be able to be present at three (very) different big Pokémon events in three different cities: The "Cocoa Cup" in Osaka in early November, the "Pocket Monster Diamond Pearl Battle Festa" in Kobe and a "Gym Official" event in Kyoto.
My initial plan when I first arrived in Japan on August 22nd - when I had flown in directly from Los Angeles where I just had a blast judging the 2006 Pokémon World Championships and was geared up for more Pokémon action - was to attend a Pokémon "league" (or the Japanese equalment) every week and really get to know the Japanese metagame. My plan was to return to the game as a player again after 3 years of just judging, TOing and ... training up future Pokémon masters.
<br><br>However, I soon found out that due to massive amounts of work with my two Japanese language courses and the two other courses I took at Kansai Gaidai University, it was hard to find time for Pokémon. Add the fact that I mostly spent weekends on discovering Japan and traveling around, and you can see it was hard to attend a Saturday or Sunday League-like gathering. So my <a href="http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41120">initial promise to the Pokégym</a> couldn't be held up. Instead of becoming the "inside man" I settled on being an observer. <br><br>I went to events, and took pictures and video of them, which I'd now love to finally show the Pokegym's members. (I was gonna post this report just before New Year's, but it unfortunately got delayed numerous times) I also participated in some tournaments, mostly half-deck ones, and failed horribly. XD Or actually, I lost at first because I wasn't aware of the huge differences in deck-building there are between Half-Decks and Standard (60 card) decks. Apart from the initial obvious differences (half as many cards in total, and a regular maximum of 2 cards instead of 4), there's a lot of other stuff to consider and learn. After some trying and failing and learning, I at least managed to - in the very end - win slightly more matches than I lost. ;x<br><br>The three events I went to were very, very different in every single way. First there was the Cocoa Cup, an unofficial and fan-made private tournament. With 48 participants, it was quite big, and every participant (except for me, I guess ) was a great player. Invited players included such celebrities as the current Japanese National Champion, former Champions and Worlds attendants, and the current 10 and under World Champion! The event was very well-organized by a group of volunteers lead by none other than nanimonoka, the only (?) Japanese Poké
gym member. What especially impressed me, apart from the good structure and professional execution of the tournament, was that there - despite a lack of entry fee - were great prizes, all paid by the organizers! Now that's generosity and enthusiasm. The tournament was very competitive, with an army of high-class players and a focus on winning, and the day ending with crowning one winner.<br><br>The second event, The Pokémon Festa, was very different on many points, mainly that it was an official event (so official, in fact, that PCL themselves were present) and that it was much less competitive. It was a promotional event for the new Diamond & Pearl generation of Pokémon products. As the Diamond & Pearl video games for Nintendo DS had just been released, and the card game expansion with the same name was set for a release the following week, and the Nintendo Wii game was well underway, there were lots of exciting new products to show the public. So what better thing to do, then, than to just rent a whole convention center and stuff it full of all the latest in Pokémon? It was a convention center of the size we'd use for a multi-platform gaming convention in my home country of Norway, but in Japan they apparently have no problems at all filling the whole hall with hundreds (or thousands? I frankly don't know) of Pokémon enthusiasts. The TCG room of the event focused just as much on learning new players how to play the game than it did on letting current players battle it out. Attending players had the chance to win special promo cards and get a chance to challenge PCL members.<br><br>The last event was a Gym Official event. On this event, PCL were not present. However, other official workers were present and held an interesting kind of tournament. If you won a certain number of matches, you could win unique DP-themed sleeves currently only available through that event. I'll go more into the system of the "tournament" later, but needless to say it was really fun and different.<br><br>
<b>Cocoa Cup</b><br><br>11/11-2006
Osaka (<i>Oh-saka</i>)<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030605.jpg"><br>
Players getting ready to play, while the staff do some announcements on the speakers.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030591.jpg"><br>
First, three rounds of Half-Deck matches were played. After this, the best players went on to a Standard deck-playoff. Which of course was bad news for me, since I was considerably stronger in normal 60-card matches. So I went 0-3 in Half Deck and was out of the tourney. XD
Btw, can you spot the World Champion?<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030639.jpg"><br>
After the 3 rounds of Half-Deck, the Side Events started. One table was turned into a "challenge the guest" table, similar to what we saw at Worlds 2006. Well-known Japanese players took on challengers, and I was to my surprise asked to take a seat and be a "guest" as well. Which felt kind of right, though - being the only non-Japanese player I ever saw at any tournament, I indeed felt like a guest.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030644.jpg"><br>
Playoff match. The player to the right ended up winning the entire tournament with his Arcanine ex/Electrode ex deck. It's interesting how this combinbation seems to be a huge archetype in Japan, while it never saw play in "our" Modified even when both cards were legal (although the two cards have seperately been stars of two other, different decks)<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030653.jpg"><br>
The guests on the guest table ...<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030649.jpg"><br>
... attracted more and more prospectors. <br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030654.jpg"><br>
Here are the challengers - and their prospectors!<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030660.jpg"><br>
Back to the playoffs. Juperami (the Banette ex archetype) on the bottom and Electrode ex/Arcanine ex on top seemed to be the two most successful 60-card decks of the tournament.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030625.jpg"><br>
In the right, wearing the white and purple shirt, sits Japan's National Champion in the Masters age category. He had constructed an all new deck idea for this tournament, which took everyone by surprise.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030668.jpg"><br>
Here's an intriguing Arbok d/Fossil deck I never quite understood, VS good old Metanite.<br><br>Finally, here's a short video from the finals!<br>
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From late-August to late-December, I lived in Hirakata-shi in Osaka, Japan. Halfway between central Osaka and Kyoto, Hirakata-shi has easy access to both of these famous cities, as well as many other well-known and interesting places such as Kobe and Nara. During the course of my 4 months in Japan, I was fortunate enough to be able to be present at three (very) different big Pokémon events in three different cities: The "Cocoa Cup" in Osaka in early November, the "Pocket Monster Diamond Pearl Battle Festa" in Kobe and a "Gym Official" event in Kyoto.
My initial plan when I first arrived in Japan on August 22nd - when I had flown in directly from Los Angeles where I just had a blast judging the 2006 Pokémon World Championships and was geared up for more Pokémon action - was to attend a Pokémon "league" (or the Japanese equalment) every week and really get to know the Japanese metagame. My plan was to return to the game as a player again after 3 years of just judging, TOing and ... training up future Pokémon masters.
<br><br>However, I soon found out that due to massive amounts of work with my two Japanese language courses and the two other courses I took at Kansai Gaidai University, it was hard to find time for Pokémon. Add the fact that I mostly spent weekends on discovering Japan and traveling around, and you can see it was hard to attend a Saturday or Sunday League-like gathering. So my <a href="http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41120">initial promise to the Pokégym</a> couldn't be held up. Instead of becoming the "inside man" I settled on being an observer. <br><br>I went to events, and took pictures and video of them, which I'd now love to finally show the Pokegym's members. (I was gonna post this report just before New Year's, but it unfortunately got delayed numerous times) I also participated in some tournaments, mostly half-deck ones, and failed horribly. XD Or actually, I lost at first because I wasn't aware of the huge differences in deck-building there are between Half-Decks and Standard (60 card) decks. Apart from the initial obvious differences (half as many cards in total, and a regular maximum of 2 cards instead of 4), there's a lot of other stuff to consider and learn. After some trying and failing and learning, I at least managed to - in the very end - win slightly more matches than I lost. ;x<br><br>The three events I went to were very, very different in every single way. First there was the Cocoa Cup, an unofficial and fan-made private tournament. With 48 participants, it was quite big, and every participant (except for me, I guess ) was a great player. Invited players included such celebrities as the current Japanese National Champion, former Champions and Worlds attendants, and the current 10 and under World Champion! The event was very well-organized by a group of volunteers lead by none other than nanimonoka, the only (?) Japanese Pokégym member. What especially impressed me, apart from the good structure and professional execution of the tournament, was that there - despite a lack of entry fee - were great prizes, all paid by the organizers! Now that's generosity and enthusiasm. The tournament was very competitive, with an army of high-class players and a focus on winning, and the day ending with crowning one winner.<br><br>The second event, The Pokémon Festa, was very different on many points, mainly that it was an official event (so official, in fact, that PCL themselves were present) and that it was much less competitive. It was a promotional event for the new Diamond & Pearl generation of Pokémon products. As the Diamond & Pearl video games for Nintendo DS had just been released, and the card game expansion with the same name was set for a release the following week, and the Nintendo Wii game was well underway, there were lots of exciting new products to show the public. So what better thing to do, then, than to just rent a whole convention center and stuff it full of all the latest in Pokémon? It was a convention center of the size we'd use for a multi-platform gaming convention in my home country of Norway, but in Japan they apparently have no problems at all filling the whole hall with hundreds (or thousands? I frankly don't know) of Pokémon enthusiasts. The TCG room of the event focused just as much on learning new players how to play the game than it did on letting current players battle it out. Attending players had the chance to win special promo cards and get a chance to challenge PCL members.<br><br>The last event was a Gym Official event. On this event, PCL were not present. However, other official workers were present and held an interesting kind of tournament. If you won a certain number of matches, you could win unique DP-themed sleeves currently only available through that event. I'll go more into the system of the "tournament" later, but needless to say it was really fun and different.<br><br>
<b>Cocoa Cup</b><br><br>11/11-2006
Osaka (<i>Oh-saka</i>)<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030605.jpg"><br>
Players getting ready to play, while the staff do some announcements on the speakers.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030591.jpg"><br>
First, three rounds of Half-Deck matches were played. After this, the best players went on to a Standard deck-playoff. Which of course was bad news for me, since I was considerably stronger in normal 60-card matches. So I went 0-3 in Half Deck and was out of the tourney. XD
Btw, can you spot the World Champion?
<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030639.jpg"><br>After the 3 rounds of Half-Deck, the Side Events started. One table was turned into a "challenge the guest" table, similar to what we saw at Worlds 2006. Well-known Japanese players took on challengers, and I was to my surprise asked to take a seat and be a "guest" as well.
Which felt kind of right, though - being the only non-Japanese player I ever saw at any tournament, I indeed felt like a guest.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030644.jpg"><br>Playoff match. The player to the right ended up winning the entire tournament with his Arcanine ex/Electrode ex deck. It's interesting how this combinbation seems to be a huge archetype in Japan, while it never saw play in "our" Modified even when both cards were legal (although the two cards have seperately been stars of two other, different decks)<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030653.jpg"><br>
The guests on the guest table ...<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030649.jpg"><br>
... attracted more and more prospectors. <br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030654.jpg"><br>
Here are the challengers - and their prospectors!<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030660.jpg"><br>
Back to the playoffs. Juperami (the Banette ex archetype) on the bottom and Electrode ex/Arcanine ex on top seemed to be the two most successful 60-card decks of the tournament.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030625.jpg"><br>
In the right, wearing the white and purple shirt, sits Japan's National Champion in the Masters age category. He had constructed an all new deck idea for this tournament, which took everyone by surprise.<br><br><img src="http://eskil.vestre.net/pokemon/japanreport/cocoa/P1030668.jpg"><br>
Here's an intriguing Arbok d/Fossil deck I never quite understood, VS good old Metanite.<br><br>Finally, here's a short video from the finals!<br>
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