It is SUCH a pain to edit scans on an old laptop with no good programs on it! Grrr! I need my baby back! Thank goodness all of the scans are out of the way now!

I get to play Brawl tonight because my Resident Adviser (R.A.) obtained it from a friend! If anything of interest occurs related to Pokemon, I will post about it! Today is such a great day... much better than all of the chaos that occurred during this past week.

Darkrai to be Obtainable Through Toys "R" Us - Darkrai will be obtainable through Toys "R" Us, as we were told last year after the Manaphy downloads occurred. According to PokeBeach member Jeremy, his Toys "R" Us store recently started displaying a sign with a picture of Darkrai that reads "Catch Darkrai!" April was listed on the sign as when the event would occur, and it said more details would follow soon.

Since the slogan on the sign is "Catch Darkrai" and not "Download Darkrai," Toys R Us may simply be giving out information on how to unlock the in-game event for capturing it, the method most likely being through a Mystery Gift download at the store. In this way, Darkrai will probably not be available for direct download, unlike Manaphy. The programmed event for capturing Darkrai within Diamond and Pearl occurs after you receive the "Member's Card" from the delivery man at the Mart (upon receiving the Mystery Gift). Once you have it, you can sleep at the hotel in Canalave City, where you will have a nightmare that takes you to New Moon Island. You will then have the opportunity to battle and capture Darkrai there. Again, this method of receiving Darkrai in the United States is only based on the slogan of the poster - it may be for direct download, and it may not be.

I will try to visit a Toys R Us tomorrow with my newfound appreciation for riding the bus, or call one, or ask people to check them out when they go to confirm or expand upon this information. We'll keep you updated!

Complete Gallery of Great Encounters Scans! - Blizzard has kindly sent us the remaining scans we were missing for Great Encounters, allowing us to complete our gallery! You can check them out here: [Great Encounters set list and scans]. I also WISH I could publicly thank the person involved in scanning the other prerelease cards, but that would obviously get them into trouble, so I'll just say "thank you" from me to you for all of your hard work and dedication, even when you yourself are going through a tough time. I am sure most website viewers appreciate it as well!

If the scan page does not show new links for you (as in, some of the card names are not links), refresh the page a couple of times, or clear your cache.

You can also view a scan of the Darkrai deck sleeve and the Great Encounter advertisement poster below. Click the thumbnails for larger images.

Great Encounters Theme Deck Lists - I wrote out all of the lists during our prerelease today, and you can check out their contents below! Normally, I would make a page for them for our theme deck section, but since I am literally deleting the website in a few months for the new one, there is no point.

Endless Night (Darkrai)
1x Darkrai (#4) (Special Holo)
2x Cacturne
4x Cacnea
1x Beedrill
2x Kakuna
4x Weedle
1x Houndoom
4x Houndour
4x Slugma
2x Zangoose
2x Quick Ball
2x Energy Search
2x Potion
1x Leftovers
2x Roseanne's Research
2x Amulet Coin
10x Grass Energy
8x Fire Energy
6x Darkness Energy

Infinite Space (Palkia)
1x Palkia (Special Holo)
1x Exploud
2x Loudred
4x Whismur
1x Slowking
4x Slowpoke
4x Buizel
2x Arbok
4x Ekans
2x Krabby
2x Dusk Ball
2x Energy Search
2x Potion
1x Moonlight Stadium
2x Felicity's Drawing
2x Amulet Coin
16x Water Energy
8x Psychic Energy

Eternal Time (Dialga)
1x Dialga (Special Holo)
1x Porygon-Z
2x Porygon2
4x Porygon
2x Solrock
2x Lunatone
1x Primeape
4x Mankey
4x Makuhita
2x Togepi
2x Skarmory
2x Poke Ball
2x Energy Search
2x Switch
1x Amulet Coin
2x Professor Oak's Visit
2x Leftovers
16x Fighting Energy
8x Metal Energy

Just got back from the prerelease, and it was awesome! We showed the Darkrai movie, and the kids loved it! The only bad part was having to take four buses home and walking part of the way due to the bus system misprinting their schedules and routes. :p It was still an awesome day, though!

I will be posting the rest of the scans tonight, excluding Cresselia Lv.X and Darkrai Lv.X, so if anyone got them today, please e-mail us a high-quality scan: wpm@pokebeach.com. I also have all three theme deck lists, the Darkrai sleeve, and a picture of the Darkrai poster to post.

We will also have news regarding how to get Darkrai in Diamond and Pearl, but since I have only received confirmation about it from one person, I can't call it 100% true yet.

Going to dinner now! Adios, Ariados!

BREAKING NEWS: This was JUST said 10 seconds ago on Cartoon Network, right after the three-episode marathon ended: "And be sure to catch the U.S. premier of 'The Rise of Darkrai' [on Cartoon Network], months before it plays in theaters!" POKEMON IS GOING TO BE IN THEATERS AGAIN!! Will we have movie downloads to get Darkrai, just like in Japan?

10th Movie Air Date - UC Irvine's television is all in the Eastern time zone, so I literally just saw this information on Cartoon Network 10 seconds ago during the new Pokemon episode marathon...

The Rise of Darkrai will air on Cartoon Network on Sunday, February 24th, at 7:00 PM! The commercial that revealed this information showed several clips from the movie, including one with Darkrai's voice, and it sounded much more dark, slow, and fuzzy when compared to the Japanese voice actor. It said "Do not come near," which is exactly what it said in the Japanese version, so this is already a good indication the movie is being translated well. Tonio's voice was also heard in the trailer, and it fit his personality well, in my opinion. Alice's voice was too brief to judge.

Be sure to read the previous news story, and check out our [Great Encounters set list and scans] - there are 92 of them!

I rode the public bus for the first time in my life yesterday and took my laptop to Circuit City to get fixed, since that is where it was bought. It seems that it was a hardware and software issue causing the problem, but they won't be able to fix it for a few days. Luckily, I explained to them how I have extremely important website work to do, so one of the tech guys kindly grabbed some of my files for me, since the hard drive is still reachable. He couldn't grab everything because I have the scan files scattered all over the place, so I just took what I could get. I think we only missed around 9 of them, which is no big deal, since I will be asking my source to resend me the files (I will probably have them edited and uploaded by the end of the day).

I would also like to thank Katie, Amy, and Andrew for each letting me use their laptops last night and right now. I used them to edit the remaining scans all the way until 4 AM, then woke up again to finish them at 8 (without my beloved Photoshop, making everything take five times longer). As of now, even though some of the scans are still missing because the tech guy couldn't find them on my hard drive, we are only really missing Porygon-Z, Cresselia Lv.X, Darkrai Lv.X, and Palkia Lv.X, so if you get any of these cards on Saturday, please send us in a high-quality scan at 300 DPI!

92 Great Encounters Scans! - Hey, what's that to the right? Could it be the card everyone has wanted?! Click it for a surprise.

The full [Great Encounters] set list is now up and running! It contains links to all of our scans now, so you don't have to scroll through all of the news stories.

As for the "Phione Scandal" yesterday involving a small group of the community getting mad over the fake scan, I think some of you need to take a chill pill. If you can't take a joke, then don't come here - I play pranks all the time, and if you don't like that, no one is forcing you to type in this website's URL. In fact, once the new website goes up and it has a new back end, I will gladly prevent you from coming here all together. Until I am paid for my free services, or am under contract by someone that sets out certain guidelines for me, I'll do what I want. I've had a rough week, and if I want to play a joke, I will, especially after all the rudeness going on. I. don't. owe. you. people. anything. I'm pretty sure I've done enough for you all over the years, especially during this week with all that is going on in my life (much of which you do not know about). 'Tis all.

I have very bad news (at least for me). My laptop has been acting up for the past week, and this afternoon it finally died (RIGHT AFTER I turned in my Criminology mini essay - thank the Lord!) It refuses to start, and apparently, the only way I can repair it is if I have a Windows Vista disc. Since it came installed with Vista, they didn't give me a disk (like they used to do in the old days), so I have to take it in to get repaired. Unfortunately, that means the scans have to go with it - I have no way of accessing them.

Today, I WAS going to trick everyone by posting a fake Phione scan that I made (so you would all think it was the surprise until I revealed the real one), but my plan obviously will not be carried out now. I planted a thumbnail of it in the Great Encounters scan directory last night, but no one saw it, so I IM'd its link to a few people, posted a link to it on our own forums (pretending to be a user who found it - I am sure this is where most people saw the link), and finally some people saw it and went around posting the link (ironically claiming they discovered it on their own, or "obtained it" exclusively - silly billies). You can see its thumbnail to the right, obviously (I didn't upload the large version because it would have obviously revealed it as a fake). I think I did a pretty good job on it, even though the template has some glaring errors. :p

Anyways, I am using a dorm friend's laptop right now, and need to go back to my room. Hopefully, by some miracle, someone in my hall will have a Vista CD (although that doesn't necessarily mean it will fix the laptop). If not, I will have to take the laptop in tomorrow to get fixed, and they usually take a week or two to do so. :( We'll see what happens, though.

Geez, some people have become so impatient and rude about me posting scans during this past week, especially yesterday, that it is a little unsettling. I hope you guys realize that I am still a human like most of you, and that I have other work, priorities, and problems in life that I need to deal with first. Family > School > Pokemon. Please remember to show some consideration and respect when emailing me or posting on my forums. Instead of being inconsiderate, it might be more effective to say "thank you" to someone who is going out of their way to post information for you, just as you would hopefully thank other humans in your lives who help you. I don't get paid to do this and have to make time in a busy schedule to update this site, and having to read so many rude comments from people doesn't exactly make me want to continue.

In response to the numerous e-mails I keep receiving about Weezing's Poke-Body, yes, it is stackable. The card was not mistranslated, unlike Banette and Electrode. If you have any other questions about cards, feel free to e-mail me!

20 More "Great Encounters" Scans - I have edited the batch of scans I was planning on posting yesterday, in addition to a few more cards. This batch does not include the "surprise," since I do not think I will have time to edit it and the other cards in its batch tonight. Some people seem to think the surprise is going to be something TOTALLY awesome, but it's really nothing too special (I suppose it is my fault for over-hyping it a little in the first scan story). It is just a popular card some people were not sure made it into the set, and you'll find out what it is tomorrow for sure.

Since I have one more midterm tomorrow, a mini Criminology essay (2 pages), and random Humanities homework and reading, I will most likely not have time to edit a second batch of scans tonight, though I will try my best to do so. I don't want to stay up until 5:00 again trying to finish homework, though. :/

Tomorrow night, I will post the ENTIRE set list, and perhaps all of our remaining scans. Then on Friday, I will post the Darkrai deck sleeve scan, the Great Encounters advertisement poster, and a PDF printout of all our scans for you to take to the prereleases to remind you of what each of the cards do.

Click the thumbnails below for larger images. To discuss these cards and Great Encounters, check out this forum thread.

Sceptile contains an error in consistency with regard to previous Pokemon cards. Anyone notice it?

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Lucario in Action, Mt. Coronet Stadium! - Several new videos of Lucario in Super Smash Brothers Brawl have been posted on YouTube, and you can view one of them below! It shows Lucario fighting on several stages, including Mt. Coronet's Spear Pillar field. Lucario's attacks remind me a lot of Mewtwo's...

I have not finished a Humanities essay that is due today at 2:00 PM, so I will not have time to edit the next batch of scans until the afternoon. I may just wait until night and post two batches at once, revealing the "surprise," but we'll see.

EDIT #2: Added a picture of Lucario's Final Smash and a picture from the game with a Mewtwo silhouette (both in the Lucario news story below the G.E. scans).

EDIT: Added a new news story below the scans showing Lucario in SSBB.

It's so fun trying to edit scans when one of your eyes is leaking like a broken faucet and your nose keeps making yo-yo's with its contents. For those of you who think I am purposefully holding back on posting all of the scans at once, I'm not - I'm editing them in groups each night. Doing them all at once would probably leave my laptop wet and my eye even worst, and all I need is another fried laptop. :D

Even More "Great Encounters" Scans - We now have 43 Great Encounters scans, with many more to come! Tonight, you can view 14 new cards below (click the thumbnails for larger scans). For the scans we have already posted, scroll down this page and look at the past few news stories. More scans will be posted tomorrow!

To discuss these cards and the actual set, or to read what other people have to say, you can read or post in this forum thread. On Thursday or Friday night, I will post a Darkrai sleeve scan and a picture of the Great Encounters advertisement poster. The more forum discussion we get, the earlier the pictures will be posted!

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You can read the original English translations of the above cards (and of other cards in the set) by checking out these links: [DP3: Shining Darkness translations], [DP4: Moon Hunting / Night Dashing translations].

Lucario Screenshots from SSBB - Below you can see Lucario in several video stills from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. The first screenshot is of the selection screen, showing Lucario's character avatar. The rest of the screenshots introduce Lucario as a playable character in the game and display his Aura-guiding abilities, which he uses to find Snake. Click the thumbnails below for larger images.

More Great Encounters Scans! - I will continue to post Great Encounters scans and information until Friday night, so keep checking back here! Be sure to tell all of your friends where they can see an early peek of the newest set before the prereleases!

Click the thumbnails below for larger images. To discuss these cards and the actual set (as well as the news story below this regarding SSBB), check out this forum thread.

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Pokemon Trainer in Action! - More videos of Pokemon Trainer from Super Smash Bros. Brawl have been posted on YouTube, and you can view a couple of them below. The first one shows a two-minute match with Charizard, Squirtle, and Ivysaur, depicting how well and differently they each fight. The second video confirms that you can choose which Pokemon to send out when selecting Pokemon Trainer as your character, and shows the different colors you can choose for each Pokemon (the announcer says their Japanese names so Englishy). The third video is another fight with Pokemon Trainer, but this time against Pikachu, and with different colored Pokemon in action!

I have midterms to study for and a semi-serious eye infection that makes it hard to look at the computer screen, so updates may only involve Great Encounters during this next week.

First "Great Encounters" Scans - It is really handy to own a Dialga, Palkia, and Darkrai when you are a webmaster. Dialga can forward time to the future, Palkia can tear open space and allow one to travel wherever they want, and Darkrai can scare the security guards guarding the gold.

Below we have our first real scans of Great Encounters, one week before the prereleases, and three weeks before the set is officially released! Click the thumbnails below for larger pictures, and hover over the right and left sides of each image, clicking "Next" or "Previous," to scroll through the scans like a slide show. I am only posting around 15 scans each night of the week until Friday night, depending on how much discussion we get on our forums in regards to the cards. The more detailed discussion we get, the more cards I will post! The less we get, well...

Wailord still wins the set's art contest. :D

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To discuss the above cards and Great Encounters, check out this forum thread.

Some people will be happy about something on Wednesday night... that's when "it" will be posted.

Funny Mistake on Darkrai.com - If you have not been here since the afternoon, be sure to read the previous news story regarding Darkrai.com! If you have already seen it, this should give you a laugh.

It looks like whoever worked on the Darkrai website accidentally left some text in when communicating with another coworker. Anyone can easily miss the text when glancing at the website, but if you read everything closely...

... you will not miss it! Thanks go to Aqua Smeargle for pointing this out!