Hi there. In this Pokemon TCG post, I do a blog of a Pitch Black Pokemon TCG Prerelease.
Pitch Black is based off the Abyss Eye set in Japan. It is rare for a main set and a prerelease to be held in July.
Note: This post is long.
Prerelease Events are casual tournament events where participants have access to Pokemon cards before the release date. For me I go to prerelease events instead of buying booster boxes. Booster box prices are out of control and scalpers have entered this space. A booster box with 36 packs is at least 300 CAD. A prerelease kit has 4 packs, a preconstructed deck and a chance to win more packs for 35 CAD to 45 CAD (depending on store).
Different local stores have their own pricing for tournament fees, tournament structure, prizing and dates. Pitch Black Prerelease events are held from July 4 to July 12. After paying a tournament fee, each participant receives one Build and Battle Kit. Usually two extra packs are given on top of the kit but it depends on the store.
In each Build and Battle Kit, you get one of four promo cards with its associated preconstructed 40 card deck and 4 booster packs inside.
This time around, I head to Face to Face Games in the east part of Toronto. They have a second location in Montreal and a third location in Rotterdam, Netherlands out of all places.
The Toronto location is sort of near the Greektown area and near Scarborough. The closest TTC subway stop is either Greenwood or Coxwell station. Then from either station you walk for about 5 minutes.
I have been to Face to Face Games a couple of times in the past to pick up certain Pokemon cards whenever I happen to be in Toronto. Their prices are good only if they have stuff available. They tend to have new Pokemon singles cards late and focus more on Magic The Gathering and as of late Riftbound TCG (League of Legends). Their play area looks big and I kind of wanted to play there for a while. As I have Saturdays off in the summer I can actually play there for once.
The tournament fee I paid for was 35 CAD. I sign up around 2 weeks before the event.
Then I check the website again 3 days before the event. The price turns into 45 CAD. ?????!!!
Dynamic pricing at play here. Hmm. Interesting I guess. Book early to get cheaper fees?!
At this event, there is a deck building phase after receiving the Build & Battle Kit. This deck building phase takes around 30 minutes usually. You open your build and battle kit, open packs, make a deck and insert cards into sleeves. If there is extra time, you can do some practice play rounds. Then you play 3 best of one rounds. Each round is usually 25 minutes or 30 minutes long. It depends on the store and it may not be advertised.
With Face to Face Games, you get 2 extra packs for each round win. This one is kind of crazy as a lot of Toronto card stores do 1 pack per win. Two packs per win makes it a bit more competitive I think.
It is also worth noting that they don't give extra packs with receiving your Build and Battle Kit.
As there are kids with their parents in this event, it is an age modified tournament. The Juniors 12 years and younger play against each other. There were around 10 Juniors which made this place kid-friendly.
The Seniors aged 13 to 18 played with the Masters players (aged 18 and up). There were around 20 players aged 13 and up. In total, around 30 players at this prerelease. A good amount of players.
After receiving my items and getting the instructions to start deck building, I open my stuff right away. I get the Dhelmise deck in which I was super happy about. The cards in the preconstructed deck can go towards testing a future competitive deck archetype after this prerelease.
From the packs, I did get 2 more copies Dhelmise which further boosts this deck. One Mega Excadrill ex is nice but I can't use it here. The illustration rare card of Armarouge is nice. I got some nice pulls overall.
When it came to modifying my deck, I did not need to do too much. Minus 1 Sinistcha for a Rust Syndicate Grunt. Minus 2 Psychic Energy then add 2 Dhelmise. I might have cut one Banette to make room for something else.
Three Dhelmise in this is super powerful in prerelease. This 40 card deck looks very similar to the competitive 60 card version like this deck from Japan.
My opponent was an older person. A father who brought his teenage son (I think) to the event. He played the Bastiodon deck.
The event has two prize packs per win. Apparently you can negotiate the prizing with your opponent before you start your round. The judge/organizer gives each pairing two packs. You and the opponent can decide if it is winner takes 2 packs, you split one each before you start or you split one pack each and winner chooses the pack. I decide to split and do one pack each. I got the deck archetype I wanted and decide to not be too greedy even though my deck is really good.
When the game started and we flipped over cards, I had to call Judge right away. His opening Pokemon was a Fossil. A Fossil card is an Item card but it is treated as a Pokemon once it is in play. To resolve this, my opponent would have to mulligan the hand and redo his setup. For me, my setup is okay.
We then officially start the game. I win this one fairly comfortably as I get Dhelmise up and running in turn 2. The opponent's setup and hand was probably not good. Bastiodon decks can take time to setup if they have no Rare Candy.
After this round, there was some loud woman diagonally across on my right. She talks too much and loud. My opponent had to get her to calm down lol. She finds out I run 3 Dhelmise and gets really scared. "I don't want to face you" or something along those lines. She also thinks I get an easy 3-0.
Most of the time I try to confirm the opponent is right by asking their name. If I get it wrong, the opponent would understand, be easy going and I find the right time. This time I got it wrong. The girl did not say anything but gave me a dirty look. Whoops.
I thought the table number said 26 but it was 28. I go over to the right spot.
My opponent was someone I have seen before from a previous event around four months ago. A father who brought his son to a competitive standard event.
Before we started, we agree on splitting the two packs.
I win the coin flip and decided to go second on my turn. There was a chance I could go for a first turn if the opponent is not able to Bench a backup Pokemon. The opponent had a Miraidon and Vikavolt deck.
It turned out that me going second was right. The opponent had no Benched Pokemon. Just the Grubbin in the active. I had two Ultra Balls in hand and a Psychic Energy to make a good sequence. I had to do something like Ultra Ball to discard 2 Hide 'n Sneak Pokemon for another Pokemon. Then use second Ultra Ball to discard 2 more. At this point I have 4 Hide 'n' Sneak Pokemon in the discard which allowed me to use Dhelmise and one Psychic Energy for the quick win.
We played a practice match afterwards. There was a lot of spare time.
I win this second match. Having 3 Dhelmise is just broken. My opponent knew this too. Vikavolt setups and 2 Energy is much slower than back to back Dhelmise one energy attacks. It is a one sided matchup.
Before round 3 started, I was chatting with a kid I have seen at previous prerelease events. He is a crafty kid and shared his Bastiodon deck idea. He managed to get more Fossil cards from his packs and 3 Relicanth. Bench 5 Fossils to get Relicanth hitting for 160 damage in the early game. He cut Skarmory from this deck too.
My opponent in round 3 was someone I have seen before. It was the mother of the kid I chatted with.
Before starting, we agreed on splitting the 2 packs. My opponent played the Slowbro deck.
I had a comfortable win in the end here. Mutiple Dhelmise were setup plus I had 4 Hide 'n' Sneak Pokemon in the discard pile early on. From there, attack with Dhelmise 4 times to win.
In the past 5 to 7 prereleases, I would get 2 wins and 1 loss each. This time I got the 3 wins and 0 losses. Very nice. I did get super lucky with the deck, the extra 2 Dhelmise from the packs and the games. My games were really straight forward and easy to play. I had favourable matchups and no mirror match. Maybe a regular kid would do well with my deck and get at least 2 wins out of 3 rounds.
At the end of round three, I got this nice pull.
It was a Slowbro full art. My round 3 opponent wanted this Slowbro art card. She got jealous lol.
I think from round 2 I got this full art Rampardos ex.
This event turned out really well for me. I got super lucky with the pulls, deck and matchups.
It was my first time playing at Face to Face Games Toronto. I had the Saturday off which is rare for my schedule. The vibes are more relaxed here. Seeing kids play with their parents is kind of wholesome too. The event lasted just over 2 hours. From 11 AM to just past 1PM. I exit happy, navigate through the rain and get lunch. I booked a second prerelease at 4PM.
Thank you for reading.
