Avacyn Restored Midnight Prerelease at Gameshaven!

Hi, I'm Helly the Helvault. Nice to meet you!

So Constantine, Justin and myself decided to go for the Avacyn Restored Midnight Prerelease tournament event at Gameshaven. 35 Bucks for 7 Boosters, you get 6 Boosters with which to build a deck(or 2) from, and you play a few rounds of swiss to see how many boosters you win.

It was an interesting interesting experience.

A few hours before the event, we're just stoning there~

The biggest challenge was making it through the whole day until Midnight without falling asleep...except that when the event finally started, I was awake and hyper as a jackrabbit.

So the event started, and we're asked to sit randomly for the deck building. We were passed these checklists to submit your deck and submit which cards you received in your cardpool.
Usually, for sealed tournaments like these, you would be swapping your cardpools. HOWEVER, since it's a prerelease, Gameshaven's staff said that there would be no cardpool swapping. Thank Lord.
JaY, one of Con's buddies, pulled a foil Tamiyo. One of the rarest cards in the set!

My Six boosters. You have to admit that the booster pack art is prettyyyyy

So after you're distributed the packs, you're allowed to open it and make your decks. Minimum of 40 cards, as opposed to the usual 60.

Devinn, Con and JaY are all at the same table as I am, for deckbuilding.

The conversation between my friends and I were pretty sporadic, since we were all building our decks. xD
 Me: "Con I'm doing Green White"
Con: "Awesome man. Red"
Me: "Huh?"
Con: "Miracles."
Me: "Got any?"
Con: "No."
...

Yeah. For good reason^^; I was concentrated on my own decks. xD

You see that despair in my eyes? That's not despair, it's merely fatigue. 

So, I managed to form two decks, Green-White and Red-Blue decks...
And funnily enough, the spare deck was so much better than my main deck, the Green-White one.^^

In the end, I managed to pull off a 1W-2L-1Draw record. Not bad for a newbie, and I have to say that the Draw was one of the best matches I've ever played before. :)

Team Tableflip, and JK's Helvault~

So that was the midnight prerelease.

Not pictured: Justin, Con and I stoning and heading to Bedok for Macdonald's in the morning. xD

-Ry

Kamen Rider Fourze: Never liked JK...but DAMNNNN

"This script is disgusting."

Battle Factory Beta, in retrospect.

The First Box, dated 14/4/2012

Project: Battle Factory: Singles
Project Leader: Justin Lok.
Resources and Advising: Ryan Loh.
Summary: Distribute a whole bunch of Pokemon from a set box among 10 or so people, and observe the member's reaction to a previously unreleased box of Pokemon, and see how they build with the tools they are given. Participants are supposed to force a trade, with the winner being able to choose the Pokemon to be traded.

Notes:
1)Ry's box was imbalanced.
From one glance, you can tell how imbalanced this box is. xD We have stuff that really really tanks in Singles format, we have DOUBLES things(not me, blame Justin.), we have outdated sets(hello Tyraniboah).
The item choices were not optimised. We have good stuff, we have bad stuff. My boxes were chosen because I have an immense library of competitively ready Pokemon from since my 4th Generation career. As start April 2012, I have a total of 140 Competitively ready Pokemon across the board. SO, Justin was in charge of selecting from those 120:)

2)"What the hell is this Gliscor, Ry?!"
I quote Su on this. xD Gliscor was a baton pass set!

Things we could improve on:
1)Selection.
Admittedly, one thing that tanked badly was that the selection was a TAD imbalanced. This was INTENTIONAL. We were trying to observe how people perceive valuable Pokemon. Which Pokemon got picked up FIRST.
Since the participants in Battle Factory Beta were close friends of Justin and Ry, you do notice the subtle differences. People chose Pokemon they have seen me use before, be it effectively or experimentally. Of course, there were little things like Sugi forgetting the Registeel(I USED IT WHEN WE WERE STILL AT THE CATHAY E2MAX.:D)

2)Distribution.
It's Battle Factory. The whole POINT of Battle Factory was the player's ability to make use of Pokemon based on their knowledge of a Pokemon's possible usage.
Problem: Setup. The amount of time it takes to distribute the Pokemon and collect them back has been the biggest problem Justin and I had, ever since the conception of the idea. When he initially approached me, this was the conversation that went between us:

Justin: Battle Factory.

Ry: Impractical. Distributing is a bitch, collecting even more so.

Justin:...True.

Hell, without his drive an insistence that this idea would take off, I would have to admit sheepishly, I thought it wouldn't work.

With 10 participants, distribution took half an hour, a lot faster than my projected. It takes cooperation from the participants, of course. For now, I think that we have overcome that stumbling block. With enough preparation beforehand, distribution isn't too much of a problem.


So now what?


Was Battle Factory a success? I like to believe so, we were met with a tad underwhelming response, but we can't wait for the official release.

Thanks for attending! :)

-Ry

Pokémon TCG, Magic and why I betrayed my own people. xD

A few of you have been aware that I've started playing Magic the Gathering, correct?

WHY!? Why have you betrayed us, Ry? Why have you betrayed the Pokemon TCG?

Story.

_____

This is the prerelease picture of the upcoming expansion set, Avacyn Restored.

The story behind Magic the Gathering is really deep, and I really love the themes that are prevalent in most of the sets.
So, wait, Ry! POKEMON STORY SUCKS? TRAITOR TRAITOR.
Yeah, shut up, morons. When was the last time the Pokemon TCG pursued a separate story that isn't already in the Video Games?

...
Thought so.

See, the way Magic works, is that every year, they release 3/4 sets that are part of a "block".
Like in the Ravnica block in 2008ish, it had Ravnica, Guildpact and Dissension.
then in the current 2011/2012 block, it's Innistrad, Dark Assension and now, Avacyn Restored.

Magic the Gathering is a brilliant cardgame in that sense. The story is optional, but with it, a lot of cards just make SENSE.

The writing is brilliant, the strategy is genius, and having brilliant developers behind it like Mark Rosewater, makes me feel good.
_______

NOW, back to Pokemon TCG, how many playstyles are there? 2.
Aggro and Durant.

(seriously.)
Pokemon focuses on pulling out your Pokemon fast, and hit the opponent before they can counteract. In Magic, we call such a playstyle, "aggro."

...
I guess that's why I've stopped Pokemon TCG for the moment. It's not the fault of the Community(Trust me, I really love you guys, Team Robo/Magma/Rocket! It's not your fault. It's the game's fault. It bores me...)

Ry out~