TCG, Order and Chaos

The Pokémon TCG, as a phenomenon, has been around for a long time, but I've only gotten into it only early this year. Meanwhile, in the rest of my local area, the phenomenon in its localized version has only caught on for a few weeks or so, albeit massively in a way. My interactions with the two sides of the phenomenon, the general side and the localized side, have been quite eventful, though also unpredictable, in particular through what has transpired lately with me personally and everything else TCG. It could be described as "order and chaos".

First up, the competitions are in full swing. One such competition takes place in a faraway locale, and interest was so great that the competition - or actually competitions, since it's both today and tomorrow - involve two sessions instead of one, with plenty of Trainers in each. I'm not competing in them, as my resources necessitate other struggles, but a friend whom I know very well is competing in the second session of tomorrow's competition. And he should, because he spent an amount that I wouldn't exactly spend with the things I've got going on right now. I hope it goes well.

Meanwhile, in my local area, there is actually a competition that's scheduled for the very next week, but by reports, it is already full, and it essentially entails buying a new deck, which I'm utterly divided about. As well, today there was a competition, but an informal one, and one that I only heard about moments after it had started. There was also one that is not as far away as the other one above, also continuing until tomorrow, but alas, I'm troubled by transportation, more so than I would be normally. And yet, some of my Pokémon figure friends who possess decks are already in it. I find myself struggling with all of these - part of the "chaos".

Even with all the "chaos", I find myself still enjoying the gameplay of the TCG, and what helps to accomplish that is the electronic TCGO implementation. Everything is neat and orderly - more so than I can ever hope to accomplish with real cards, especially in my current situation - and the challenge features are nice. So is one of my friends who play, even though my friend's network connection isn't always great; that friend helped with playing a few matches today, and while the results were mixed, they kept myself in line. All in all, there was much order with a slight bit of chaos.

Thanks to playing the TCGO briefly beforehand, I was also able to keep myself in check when I finally was able to use the deck I received last week against someone else in physical battle. That person also described a few terms that I could use to help with order in the match. The result was that I finally won a physical battle, though due to a bit of technicality; I lost the rest (two out of three), but that was primarily because I was up against a full constructed deck, while my deck is still purely my starter deck. Further, some of the chaos that occurred with the TCGO also happened with the physical TCG; sometimes I'd get too few Pokémon, not enough Trainer cards, too many Energy cards, and so on and so forth. I'm sure I also haven't thoroughly explored the potential of my starter deck in its pure state. This may be order, or this may be chaos.

All told, everything that has happened with the (localized) TCG has been rather frenzied, with so much going on here, there, and everywhere. That is indeed a realization of "chaos", if nothing else. But even with all that, it seems I've managed to find a semblance of "order" by playing more effectively with the help of others as well as the TCGO. It's practically up to me to continue to find this "order" with all that I need to do for the TCG in all its forms. By then, I hope that I'll have made total sense of this particular Pokémon phenomenon through everything that it has to offer.

One year ago: Artistic Routine
Two years ago: Pokémon Song, Indonesian Flavor