"Collected, but never learned to play"

[DigiMatt]

A while back, when there was a Facebook fad of posting your favorite Pokemon as your display picture, which brought about a lot of "I collected Pokemon cards, but never learned how to play" pages. I never understood this. The moment the first Pokemon cards came out, I got a Charizard theme dack, took it home, read all the cards,opened the rule book and dtarted to teach myself. Even split the deck into 30 card decks using the second types, like the trainer kits do now, and played against myself. Kids my age didnt know how to play, wouldnt learn, and so with no one to play with, I quit TCG just before the Rocket sets.

I got my nephew his first cards at the same age that I started(3rd grade ages), and when I started to teach him how, he got all Mr. Grumpy Pants because he could only attach 1 energy per turn. This was years ago. Even now, my sister/his mom will play his version of the TCG and make up rules for the heck of it as they play(if I were a parent, I would want my kid to know that in games and life, rules allow us equality and give a sense of direction). And all but two kids in my League knew how to play before coming, and the others were saying how they played without evolving and no energies and stuff(basically Pokemon War).

Is this behavior is normal for ages 9-16 towards gaming? Or was I just a very anal little boy?

 

[Glace]

I'm 13 and I don't play like that. Then again I'm really competitve (at everything) and would never do that.

Maybe ages 8-10 do though. Not sure.

 

[Zyflair]

Collecting Pokemon cards were once a fad, but for some reason, it was not as popular to play the TCG. And honestly, around the base set and even up to the neo set eras, the released cards didn't have enough unique game mechanics to spur up interesting games. Neo Sneasel just proved that the most effective method of winning was just flat out beat down at the time.

 

[Brave Vesperia]

I've been collecting since I was around 7 or 8 so about 2001-2004 I just collected the cards, then, I bought a theme deck (the ex sandstorm Armaldo one) at gamestop, one day me and my brother were looking at the card isle in walmart back in 2005 and 2 people who went to league told me and my brother about it, so a few weeks of begging later, I signed up at league and now have been playing casually for 6 years and competitively for 4 years. If your looking to learn how to play or for people to play with, you should go to league it's really fun and I highly recomend it. Also as for made up rules and stuff like that, I never made up any rules, I just played the game very incorectly before I learned how to play for real.

 

[The-Kaiser]

Ive been collecting since it came out and I still do

 

[Flygon Jedi Master]

The last time I ignored the 1 energy turn per turn rule was when I was about 4/5...it's pretty immature for a 3rd grader to go grumpy on the rules like that. I used to have my dad read me all the cards in the starter kit when he got home from work....Ah, good times

Get the kid a starter kit with 30 cards decks like you had. Or just make a deck where you don't need more than one energy to attack with, like Jumpluff.