Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Pokemon Center TA vs TM Prerelease Report: Things are looking UP

J

JohnnyBlaze

New Member
Sunday March 14 - Pokemon Center Prerelease Team Aqua vs. Team Magma tourney

I would say there were roughly 150 participants, more so than the City Championship. Let me start off by saying that there were improvements made from last time. Mainly their tournament software system was functioning properly, pairings were printed out and posted for each round, they used match up sheets for each player to sign after their game, and they purchased a Megaphone to make announcements. Also I got a chance to meet Leslie Siu, from PUSA. She was there to witness and take notes and offer support. So that was definitely nice to see.

There is still room for improvements but it is a start. They ran out of energy cards and had to use proxy cards for Water Energy. There was a lunch break after the 1st round and that could have been very easy for players to change their decks as no deck lists were used. With the new cards there were plenty of rules disputes and I witnessed 2 major incidents in which players were yelling at other players and even at the judges. Someone had ruled that the Team Aqua Energy provided the +damage due to the Dark Energy it provided.

I did see and talk with Magnechu, PokePop, and Mozart Rules from Pokegym. The decks that we made out of our boosters were as follows:

Johnny Blaze deck

Pokemon – 16
1 – Team Magma Groudon
2x – Team Magma Rhyhorn
1 – Team Magma Rhydon #11 Holo
2x – Team Magma Zangoose
2x – Team Magma Numel
1 – Team Magma Camerupt
2 – Team Magma Houndoor
4x – Team Aqua Corphish
1 – Team Aqua Crawdunt #14 Rare

Trainers – 7
2x – Team Magma Schemer
1 – Team Magma Hideout
1 – Team Magma Belt
1 – Team Aqua Belt
1 – Team Magma Ball
1 – Strength Charm

Energy – 17
Fire – 6
Water – 5
Fighting – 6

Round 1 vs. Mike
Mike had the early advantage and basically steamrolled me this match. I was able to take 1 prize with Team Magma’s Camerupt. Other than that he got out everything faster. I think he used the Holo Rhydon to win.

0-1

Round 2 vs. Ben
Ben had a Team Aqua Kyogre and the annoying Spheal that has auto Sleep with 1 W energy. I was able to get out 5 Team Magma Pokes and my Team Magma Groudon cleaned up 3 prizes. When he used the Auto Sleep on me for 3 turns straight I did not wake up he then used Team Aqua Machine and chose Poison to k.o. me. My Rhydon took the last prize to win.

1-1
3pts

Round 3 had a Bye
2-1
6 pts.

Round 4 vs. Frankie D.
Frankie is a regular at Pokemon Center. This was my best match of the day. His TA Sharpedo took a couple early prizes. Then we were both down to 1 Prize each. He had burned my Groudon with the Team Aqua Machine. I flipped tails twice on burn and the rest of the times I was flipping heads the last time it counted to ko his last Poke I flipped a tails to kill myself on the burn.

2-2
6pts.

Round 5 vs. Mike
He had some low HP Pokes that couldn’t do too much. I kept on using the Search for family attack with TM Zangoose and filled my bench to do 60 a turn. I won in like 4 turns.

3-2
9pts.

Round 6 vs. Nick
Nick was running various Electric with TA Holo Manectric with Sharpedo. He got the 1st prize with Sharpedo. I played the Magma Gym to hurt his AquaPokes he was playing on the bench. I was building my Holo Rhydon and took the next 2 prizes then my Groudon on the bench came up and won the game for me.

4-2
12 pts.

Unfortunately 12 pts was not enough to place in the 15+. My friend Tim went 5-1 in the 15+ and only got 4th place which we were surprised with.

Here is the deck that my son Nick drafted and took 1st place with in the 10 and under. And won a booster Box of Team Aqua vs. Team Magma.

Pokemon –21
1 – Team Aqua Carvahna
1 – Team Aqua Electrike
2 – Squirtle
4 – Team Aqua Spheal
2 – Team Aqua Sealeo
1 – Team Aqua Walrien #6 120 hp Holo one
3 – Team Aqua Poochyena
1 – Team Aqua Mightyena #37
2 – Team Aqua Mightyena #30
3 – Team Magma Rhyhorn
1 – Team Magma Rhydon

Trainers – 4
1 – Team Aqua Conspirator
1 – Team Aqua Belt
1 – Team Aqua Schemer
1 – Team Magma Schemer

Energy- 15
8 – Water
6 – Fighting
1 – Magma Energy
 
Thank you for the detailed report. I am glad to see that things were better.

150 players? Wow!

Any player who yells at a judge, even when the judge makes such a stupid ruling as you described, should be evicted from tournament.
 
Nice turnout! glad things were better on this go around.
will u be going to Denville this sunday?
 
Rather than addressing a personal question to someone via the board, please use the private message or email functions available by clicking on the person's name and accessing their profile. This helps keep threads on-topic.

Thanks for understanding :)
'mom
 
Nice to see you again there, Johnny!
Even though my son and I didn't do as well, we had a good time. We left after the 4th round. My son wanted to play more rounds, but we had a long trip back home and school the next day.
I will say there were problems with the lack of deck lists, though.
The Pokemon Center had boosters and precons for TMvTA on sale already, so it was very easy for any player to pick up a lot of extra cards.
Two of the decks that I battled against looked and played like constructed decks! Nothing I can prove, but it was amazing watching them set up so quickly.

Finally, they never went over the rules of Limited before the start. Many people built decks of more than 40 cards and'or played with 6 prizes.
I plan on writing up some suggestions for Leslie Sui, the new Special Event Manager for the Pokemon Center, so Johnny, if you want, please send me any suggestions to include.
 
I didn't do too well either and dropped out so I could get home.

Cheating was a problem and it isn't penalized hard enough. I was told (but did not see it myself) that a player was caught twice taking cards out of a binder and received no penalty at all (I think the first instance warrant a disqualification, at least for anyone above 10).

The lack of deck lists was hard to accept, particularly given that a lot of players had bought cards before the start of the tournament.

I was also paired with an 11-year old girl in the first round (I am more than 4 times that). She played really well and I lost, but that isn't supposed to happen.
 
Re pairings: I have to say that my son and I were always were paired up with age-appropriate opponents.
 
150 players is very impressive!

Can anyone tell me how the tournament was run as there must be lessons that I can learn from someone who has successfully run a very large tournament using TMS.

How big was the event team? How many judges?

In my event report I've put down three hours of delays due solely to TMS causing me grief in ways that Reporter never did!.
 
Pcny

Mainly their tournament software system was functioning properly, pairings were printed out and posted for each round, they used match up sheets for each player to sign after their game




It is great to hear that the PCNY is finally making headway in the way tournaments are run. What software are they using that permits printing of pairings and match sheets?

It is unfortunate that cheating is still rampant at the tournaments, and the judges still do not have the respectof the players. One step at a time, I guess.

It sounds like they are finally investing in organize play events with someone dedicated to this aspect of their business. There's nothing worse than traveling several hours to an event, only to experience incompetent staff or cheating. Let's hope that things will continually improve at the PCNY, enough that my boys and the group we travel with will want to go back there for premier events. As it stands now, they have no desire whatsoever to go back. However, I will continue to point out the progress being made at PCNY with the hope that they will someday desire to go back to the Center.
 
Hey! i was there too!! see, when they put up the pairings, I wasn't there!!! I had to spend 20 minutes talking and they eventually put me in, but I had to wait 15 minutes for them to get more tables. I won 5 times and lost once, but for some odd reason, I didn't get a prize because their computers said that i only won 3 times, but the judges KNEW I won 5 times. so, they pulled me aside and secretly gave me a box AND an extra absol!! so, technically, I won. :)
 
The only reason that the Tournament Software System worked so well was only because they were lucky that the PTO from Time-Warp Comics, Ceder Grove,NJ was there to play. The system crashed entering the first pairings,So they asked him for help He was only able to play 2 rounds because of all the problems they had. That is the only reason everything seemed to go so well. the reason they were able to print pairings ,they were usingthe new program that still has a lot of bugs in it (1.7 I think its called)
There was a lot of cheating going on. Why is it that the cards were being sold on Saterday before the Pre-release, then not have the players fill out the pre-release sheet to list the cards that were pulled from the packs, that was done at all the Pre-releases my son and I have played at so far. Does the PCNY have there own set of rules. As for the Judges, they are just the store employes.that is why the rulings were so bad.
You still have to understand.they are trying. There TO is still out of work, due to his accident. This was the first time they asked an outsider for help.
 
And it was good that they did. I was wondering why the owner of Time Warp was hanging out at the head table.
Props to him.
I had a good time with his assistant one round when both of our opponents forfeited.
 
Ah, we missed you at Milford.
JohnnyBlaze said:
With the new cards there were plenty of rules disputes and I witnessed 2 major incidents in which players were yelling at other players and even at the judges. Someone had ruled that the Team Aqua Energy provided the +damage due to the Dark Energy it provided.
Click to expand...
Oh that's just ridiculous! Basic rule: energy is just energy, unless it has
text! Sounds like a simple concept to me.

:unknown-b
 
babayaga said:
Ah, we missed you at Milford.

Oh that's just ridiculous! Basic rule: energy is just energy, unless it has
text! Sounds like a simple concept to me.

:unknown-b
Click to expand...

True enough and it is a prime example why the prof programme is so necessary.

If I was an inexperienced employee who had been asked to help at a competition, I'd probably make the same mistake. I would have done some homework and studied the rulebook and discovered that you add in the darkness energy effect when figuring out the damage.

I have finaly managed to get hold of a copy of 1.07 (after the event). It isn't available to us mere TOs. I wasted 6 hours downloading 1.06 twice from the OP website. Grrr. It was only when I mentioned this in passing to our OP provider that it transpired that 1.07 is PTO only.

Have to say that my barber isn't very happy about my involvement with Pokemon OP :D

-----------

How did registration work at Pokemon Center? 150 players at 1 minute per player is a long long time? Was the tournament run in seperate age groups? Did the majority of players know their POP IDs? Did PCNY have a large stock of blank POP IDs?
 
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How did registration work at Pokemon Center? 150 players at 1 minute per player is a long long time? Was the tournament run in seperate age groups? Did the majority of players know their POP IDs? Did PCNY have a large stock of blank POP IDs?-NoPoke
Click to expand...

NoPoke - Start time was scheduled for 11:00 am. From my past experience anticipate not to start on time at the Center. When we arrived at 10:00 am there was already a huge line inside of the store to sign up and play. Basically a player fills out a half sheet of paper with their name, age, and POP ID and then pays for the event at the cash register. You then are given the Prerelease card with your receipt. Make sure you keep your receipt as those are collected in return for the booster packs. For those without POP Id's there was a seperate line to wait in and get assigned you r ID's.

I would say when pairings went up start time was around 12:30 pm.
 
And, unfortunately, there was no direction as to which line to get in for what.
I had my POP ID, but my son needed one and we wasted a long time on the wrong line.
At least I wasted. My sons were off playing Pokemon Channel...
 
Man! 150 players! That's gotta be a record for a pre-release!

There's always room for improvement. 150 players is tough for anyone to handle. Any suggestions for improvement should take that fact into account.

Man! I've gotta go to the PC someday!
 
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Yeah, I'm giving them a lot of leeway on time delays because of this.
However, things could go smoother in future events if this size crowd is anticipated, and based on the growth the game is seeing, it's wise to expect these large numbers to continue, especially at the Pokemon Center.
 
Wow. This was such a great improvement over the other tourneys and such that PC has run. It's just wow.

When I got there, I wasn't expecting this many kids, usually, there isn't. The max that I've seen at PC was maybe 80. Handling 150 kids was no easy task for the judges. Not at all. Especially since there was about *counts* four real PC employees and about another three (maybe more?) outsiders. 7:150 is a heavy ratio. I'm definitley gonna have to give props to PC for that part.
Decklists would have been nice, but imagine how long that would have taken. And as the people that were there know, the locals can get QUITE loud and abnoxious. They wouldn't have taken this lightly.
Cheating was a VERY big issue. My two losses (I went 4-2) were against two players' decks that played, as Pop said, like Constructed decks. I only I wish I decided to cut their decks...
The worst part was that still some kids got paired up with kids/adults from other age groups. My friend Sam, who's 14, got put in the 15+ age group then after was told that they changed the group to 14+ and 10-13. I don't know if this was true, but Sam would have come in 1st in 11-14 but came in 7th in 15+. I want to know how that panned out...
Anyway, nice report Johnny. Nice to meet you there!! Pop, I missed you!! I didn't see, mainly because I didn't look. ;) Woulda been cool to meet ya. Bah, I've talked to much...

Over and out,
~Magnechu
 
Improvement!? Was I the only one there? Ok now I'm gong to have to bash the PC a bit =P.
1. They did not use Nintendo Software!!!
2. Byes were counted as zero points
3. There were no decklists!!!!!!!!!! This made everyone around me cheat =P.
4. They had this tourney registered under John Hershberger who wasn't there.
5. There was a 14 year old in the 15+ division.
6. One undefeated girl got 2nd place when someone with a loss won 1st in 11-14.
7. Improper rulings were given in every instance that they were needed! Always!!!
8. Prizes were given behind peoples backs! My friend was bribed (so to speak) with a box to be quiet that they gave his box to someone else by mistake.
9. They didn't have enough energy cards.
10. No rankings were increased (ths is the worst part to me as I am #1 global in limited right now)
11. Their print jobs printed incorrect points on a few occasions.
12. They did not monitor the packs correctly and gave one person 6 packs twice.
13. They wasted my time and _____ed me off again!
 
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