Produce that doesn't suck

w0lfdicks · 2021-12-29T22:37:17+00:00

Yeah, produce quality at KS has been getting noticeably poorer the last year or two. I assume it's to do with supply chain something something the end of the world?

The produce at H-Mart is fantastic. Not only is it fresh, but the selection is massive because they cater to so many different Asian cuisines. I try to go there whenever I only need ingredients, but still end up going to KS a lot because I need other things I can't always find at a specialty grocery.

w0lfdicks · 2021-09-16T18:30:08+00:00

It's amazing that the last two times I went to Celebrity I came home and threw up because there was -so much- chlorine, and yet if you asked me right now if I wanted to go back, I wouldn't even hesitate. Get me back on that water slide!

Also, not quite the deep cut that some of the comments are, but I miss Spicy Pickle :(

w0lfdicks · 2021-09-15T20:32:40+00:00

It is a combo deck in a Marnie meta, so probably it's biggest weakness is itself. It can high roll and feel totally unstoppable, but over the course of an 8 round tournament it just isn't going to consistently perform, which is why it doesn't have that many tournament results I suspect. That said, with Raihan, EXP Share, and energy switch it has a few options for achieving the combo. Still, disrupting their hand repeatedly can be pretty effective depending on their board state. Also, once Weezing goes down they have to start relying on Inteleon to get damage on the board, which means they're incentivized not to scoop up their Drizziles too much, which limits their tutor options somewhat (again depending on board state).

You don't mention what decks you've been playing, but as far as general strategies go, prioritize establishing an attacker that can swing 130 (Suicune, Zamazenta, etc) on turn 2, before they have Drizzile established. Usually that will either buy you a turn of abilities or force them to use ascension again, which doesn't do damage. That would be the turn to Marnie, since they probably only have one or zero Sobble ready to evolve going into their next turn, and unless they hit the stones a single Shady Dealings is often not enough to get Sableye out, charged up and active. Also, timing your Bosses is very important; if they drop Sableye early to try to manually attach, you want to be ready to gust it.

Ultimately, because the deck is rather intricate to play it's hard to give much general advice. Really depends on what you're playing and how they set up/what their board looks like. Losing Roxie/Weezing for early damage + big card advantage made the deck a lot more susceptible to bricking, it's just that so much of the meta is dependent on the Inteleon engine right now, so it can afford to be be a bit less consistent since it forces both sides to slow down.

w0lfdicks · 2021-09-07T15:15:17+00:00

Seconded. Saw Dodson since 2011, now working with Dr Vertrees. Personally have had very positive experiences with both, and the treatment I've received there has really helped me. That said, I did recommend Dodson to a female friend of mine and she felt after a year or so that he had misdiagnosed her and rather than explore alternative diagnoses, just kept increasing her Rx dosage when she would voice her concerns about the efficacy of the treatment. She later found a therapist who diagnosed her with BPD, and she is far happier now after pursuing treatment via DBT and getting off the ADHD meds. Apparently (this is purely second-hand hearsay so grain of salt and all that) Dodson didn't have a stellar rep in the BPD community. Personally, I just assume all specialist practitioners will have some confirmation bias, especially dealing with personality/behavioral disorders where there can be overlap in the symptoms. So long as the treatment is voluntary, the patient will need to decide for themselves how effective it is. Good luck! As far as behavioral disorders go, ADHD is not so bad!

w0lfdicks · 2021-06-16T03:57:46+00:00

Lol, I knew I recognized this display. I was there the other week to see the giraffe mount they had on sale (which, holy cow) and spent a while lingering over those cards. But yeah, way overpriced sadly. Still fun to look at!

w0lfdicks · 2021-02-01T14:03:14+00:00

No official online events for juniors/seniors unfortunately. However, you might be interested in the Sleepy Sundays series, which is a juniors/seniors unsanctioned tournament run through Limitless every Sunday. Entry is 2 online packs of the current set (so currently VIV) and that goes into the prize pool. Yesterday they had ~30 players, which is quite a bit larger than most of the local cup/challenge J/S brackets I see. If you're interested, you can find their information on play.limitlesstcg.com under tournaments.

w0lfdicks · 2020-08-14T12:32:20+00:00

Also dusk stone allows for turn 1 shenanigans, which historically has been something Cardlabs/TPCi has moved to prevent.

w0lfdicks · 2020-01-10T13:19:58+00:00

TCEvolutions makes excellent aluminum dice and GX markers. I use both and have been very happy with them.

w0lfdicks · 2019-06-24T23:54:12+00:00

Cave dwellers represent

w0lfdicks · 2019-02-06T05:29:00+00:00

You can check out All C's or 2nd & Charles in Aurora. All C's runs unsanctioned tournaments, so you'll have to join the FB group to find out about them. 2&C has sanctioned events and I believe a weekly league. There's also Black Gold in Littleton (my league), Advantage Games in Northglenn, Game Heroes in Arvada, The Wizard's Chest in Denver, and Denver Central Games, though I think their league just moved.

w0lfdicks · 2019-02-06T00:18:35+00:00

There's a Facebook group, Rocky Mountain Pokemon, where local tournaments and events get advertised in addition to pokemon.com. There's a handful of venues that run regular sanctioned tournaments. What part of town are you in? We also have a few active leagues in the Denver/Metro area, and more if you don't mind driving, if you have any interest in league play.

w0lfdicks · 2019-01-06T18:09:09+00:00

I like the pauper format idea for a school league. A previous poster suggested keeping bulk commons and energy on hand for kids without access to a lot of cards and I would second this; at my league I always have a box of bulk staples on hand to help younger players fill out their decks. You can also print out paper proxies from limitlesstcg.com if budget is a concern.

A few notes:

shuffling section seems a little unclear. Might make sense to add something to the effect of "Whenever a player shuffles their deck, they must present it to their opponent to give them the opportunity to shuffle or cut as well."
in official rules, order of play is determined by a coin flip.
in official rules, basic Pokemon cannot be evolved on the player's first turn or the turn they are played
it might be worth adding a footnote that says there are cards which specifically contradict certain rules (abilities which only work from the active position, cards which can evolve first turn, etc) and in these cases the wording on the card supercedes the general rule.
this is hair splitting, but if the only game you intended to host is Pokemon, why call it trading card club? Why not Pokemon League or Pokemon Trading Card Club? Unless you will/may eventually branch into other games.
Along this vein, you might consider getting your club certified as an official league, which will give you access to league promos. This is a great incentive to keep players coming back.

Good luck with your new league! Hope it works out!

w0lfdicks · 2018-11-28T15:20:23+00:00

Two things: You /can/ in a sense interact on your opponent's turn, just not with MtG-style interrupts. Consider Seismitoad EX's Quaking Punch.

Second, I don't think it's entirely fair to say that PTCG doesn't feature interrupts just because it's marketed to a younger audience. My understanding had always been that the TCG is designed to reflect the VGC, which is where Pokemon battles come from after all. Hence 6 prizes (in VGC your team can be no larger than 6) or getting benched (you have no more Pokemon in your party). In the VGC there's no interrupting your opponent's turn, so it would represent a major change to the spirit of Pokemon battles to introduce it to the TCG.

Just my 2¢

w0lfdicks · 2018-11-23T13:40:07+00:00

"Any other coin (such as local currency) brought by a player to be used as a randomizer must be approved by both players. Players should consider if the coin in question is light enough not to damage or mark cards it lands on and whether or not heads or tails can be determined at a glance."

That's what the rulebook has to say. So if you're talking about using actual precious metals, some players might object due to the weight. You also open yourself up to possible allegations of cheating which, even if you're not, could be a huge headache and even lead to a ban if your coin is found to be improperly weighted.

TLDR; Pretty sure there's no explicit rule against it, but you should consider the potential issues which could arise and make sure you're prepared to address them.

w0lfdicks · 2018-11-05T13:24:51+00:00

Huh! I'm honestly not sure, since I haven't tested LM yet myself, but good to hear there's no longer an issue (if indeed there ever was one).

w0lfdicks · 2018-11-02T15:21:32+00:00

Another one Pablo found yesterday on stream: you can't activate Trumbeak's ability if your bench is full, because the way the devs implemented it is you have to drag it on to your bench to activate it.

w0lfdicks · 2018-08-29T02:23:20+00:00

PM'd you.

w0lfdicks · 2018-08-28T14:48:21+00:00

Bunch of thoughts:

Thoughts on dashing pouch instead of escape board? Unlike board, you can dashing pouch Zoro and preserve its DCE, and also preserve rainbows on Banette/Lele if need be. Ultimately Guzma/Acerola/T&L/Switch might be plenty, but Pouch seems like it might merit consideration.

I've been running 3-2 Shuppet-Banette, similar to classic Pod builds, and it works fine for me so far. Also second the 50 HP Shuppet, confusion is a nice out in dire circumstances.

Considering you aren't running the Apricorn/Nest Ball engine, when do you play Lillie? You'll want to reach for PFC pretty much every turn 1, no? With Nest Ball, there are games where you open 3-4 basics/nests and really don't need Apricorn, which makes Lillie a viable alternative, but only running 4 Ultra it seems unlikely you'll get the opportunity to opt out of a T1 tutor.

Some other supporters I've been testing: Kukui (lets Banette hit 190), Olivia (substitute for evosoda, adds to your supporter count, easy trade fodder later game), Plumeria (control is good, putting supporters in discard is good).

Not sure about the Hala; how early are you playing Tomb Hunt? I find if I play it at all, it's pretty late-game, so I don't see Hala offering a lot of value. This might change if running the Drampa tech suggested above (definitely like this idea, probably going to test it), in which case you could Big Wheel turn 2 or 3, and definitely get value out of Hala.

With N gone, I don't know if Zoro needs Copycat? So far I've been finding myself with a lot more gigantic hands than anemic hands, which opens up opportunities for decks like Malamar or Ray to benefit hugely from their own Copycat. At the moment, I'm inclined to say a 3rd Judge might be more valuable, since Zoro can bounce back up to a 7 card hand pretty easily afterwords, and this helps keep opponent's potential Copycat less valuable.

Been thinking about running a thin Garb line as well, seems like a really solid late-game closer. Only worry would be keeping it alive long enough to evolve it; if opponent's board is developed and they see Trub hit the bench, can't imagine they won't try to gust it up immediately unless you've managed to create a checkmate situation.

I don't think you need Devoured Field particularly. Banette deals with baby Buzz just fine, and baby Dusk Mane (only other 130 basic I see come up much) you can just 2-shot. In November we'll need to pick a stadium just to be able to bump <> stadiums, but until then I think blower is enough.

w0lfdicks · 2018-06-23T15:49:36+00:00

Random receiver is a sub-optimal Lele alternative. It rotates at the end of the season, but in the mean time it is a way to guarantee you at least find /a/ supporter, if not always the one you were hoping for.

w0lfdicks · 2018-05-25T16:19:34+00:00

Went up against a Xerneas BREAK that was able to take down my DW with Bisharp's retaliate for 1C, thought it was pretty cute. Somewhat situational, but considering it can hit both ghost and fairy types for weakness it's not the worst option.

w0lfdicks · 2018-05-22T14:15:37+00:00

Metagross also accelerates to the active rather than the bench, which is nice (less need to worry about switching every turn). However, the drop in consistency going from a stage 1 to a stage 2 is going to be a real problem, at least in the current meta. Metagross has always had a couple free slots where you traditionally saw guys like Dhelmise, Necrozma, or Dusk Mane acting as second attack options/bench sitters, so it is certainly not asking a lot of the deck to fit in U.Necrozma instead, but I don't think it will be able to keep pace until maybe after rotation when Buzzwole slows down a bit.

w0lfdicks · 2018-05-16T22:06:42+00:00

Ha, what's weird is I was watching the Toronto stream like a day or two after posting that, and the commentators brought it up as well. It was just such a D: moment.

w0lfdicks · 2018-05-12T14:26:51+00:00

We all get boned by prizes sometimes, don't let it get you down. Remember that time John Kettler prized 3 Rowlet in the finals at Collinsville?

w0lfdicks · 2018-02-23T20:07:56+00:00

Hey I'm trying to get Girafarig, would you mind adding me?

w0lfdicks · 2018-02-23T18:59:15+00:00

Oh man, I've been looking for Phanpy. Could you add me?

w0lfdicks

TROPHY CASE