Pokémon TCG in Japan: Tokyo's everyday league life

Hey people,

I hope you haven't forgotten about me, yet.

And even if you did, I have no right to be angry at you.

I know I haven't written an article in a long time and this article is not nearly long or interesting enough to make up for that, but it's a start.

A start in the new season, where hopefully i will find time to write more articles and give you more insight on the japanese Pokemon TCG life.

This article will cover the time I spent in Tokyo visiting several shops there, going to small tournaments and getting in touch with the people. I will not cover every deck I faced and every game I played. This is not a tournament report, but a try to give you a picture of what the league and community looks like in Japan. I was very close to writing off the Pokémon TCG in Japan completely due to the frustration from earlier competitions and a missing sense of a community.

During my week in Tokyo my faith in the japanese Pokémon community got restored and even succeded all expectations I've ever had.

I already knew that there are shops that host daily tournaments and when asking where those were I was provided a video that sent me straight to the most frequented shop in Akihabara, Tokyo, called Nanahachiya. It's well known by players all over the Tokyo area.

I went there and the very helping shop owner explained that the tournaments were at 19:00 on workdays and 11:00 and 14:00 on weekends. Since I was on vacation I went to every tournament that I could catch in one week.

The Tournaments:

Since the shop is pretty small there are usually not more than 16-20 people participating, sometimes there are even under 10. The entrance fee is 300 yen, wich right now equals about $2,50 and you are sure to get one promotional card pack and one pack of the newest set. I was very positively surprised by the tournament structure, which was not like the other tournaments i have visited in Japan, but more like our leage challenges. 3-4 rounds of best of one.

If you want to learn about how bigger japanese tournaments are structured read my report about the Tokyo Battle Festa.

This swiss structure is, as you might guess, much more fun, since you are not instantly elliminated if you lose and you get to keep on playing and will be rewarded even if you are not the number one. The rounds of 30 min also provide a more relaxed atmosphere, where playing faster or slower can not change your overall record in the tournament.

The Games:

I played many games. To be more specific: to many to remember them all.

I had only brought my Virizion/Genesect/MManectric deck for the first week, since I was backpacking and Pokémon Card decks are heavy. That's why the only variety in my games came from my opponents using different decks. But even though the location is very similar to our league locations the people coming there change every day. The decks I do remember playing agains before Emerald Break (Roaring Skies) came out were variations of:

Donphan, Landorus/Bats, Yveltal, Mega Absol, MManectric/Rayquaza/Eelectric, Pyroar, MManectric/Black Kyurem, Trevenant/Accelgor/Silent Lab, Charizard/Bats, Klingklang/Plasma Klingklang/Heatran, Camerupt EX/Magma's Camerupt and many more, that i don't remember.

I lost as many as I won and had to admit, that the locals were some really good players.

Most of the Gym Challenges I finished somewhere in the middle, except for the last one, the day i finally won my first tournament in Japan.

I continued my travel towards Osaka and further south, to come back to Tokyo 4 weeks later for my second visit, which will be coverd in the next article, together with my Pokémon Center adventures.

If you want to check out pictures and reports from my travel (another reason why I didn't write here) visit thise FB page: To get myself a Sword

Here are some, to get you an idea, of what I was doing while I was not writing.