Hello, everyone! Long-time lurker, first time poster. I actually just signed up today because I realized I never bothered to make an account despite visiting this site frequently for years. At this point I don't even remember how I originally came to discover PokéBeach, but it was probably because of the TCG scans that used to be hosted here. I enjoyed checking out TCG cards even during the period of time when I stopped playing/collecting. (Which was during the EX Ruby/Sapphire days!) I became somewhat interested again when HeartGold/SoulSilver was released, but I found that I had nobody else in my life locally who really cared about the games or cards so I didn't bother with the cards, and I even stopped playing the games after HeartGold. I actually didn't play/buy any pokemon merchandise whatsoever until the release of the XY-FlashFire TCG expansion. The PTCGO program was in beta (I think...?) and it was free, so I gave that a whirl. I found that I really enjoyed casual play, but found the intense competitive side of it to be annoying.
I infrequently played PTCGO for awhile until I eventually decided that I would try buying real cards again. I ended up buying some theme decks and a few booster packs and started playing with real cards when XY-Phantom Forces came out. I discovered that while a few cards were both fun and balanced in the BW era, I detested most of them because of the absurdity in their power when compared to the Unlimited sets. (Base~NeoDestiny, which comprised the majority of my cards) XY-onward was strong enough to keep pace with BW, but seemed a lot more balanced when you removed things like Hypnotoxic Laser and whatnot, so I made a point to only play XY-onward with the very few people that I had available to play with. When my then-girlfriend at the time (Currently my wife) Bought an Elite Trainer Box for me (My very first one ever -- XY-PrimalClash) we made better decks and started to play with each other much more frequently. We were into it pretty heavily, frequenting card shops and by the time XY-BREAKPoint came out, we had enough card shop credit to buy two entire booster boxes full. Since we didn't play competitively we would end up selling off most of the EX cards and Secret Rares to recoup costs of playing casually.
Generations came out and my wife really enjoyed collecting the pins and liked how cute the radiant collection was, but that was the point where we slowed way down on collecting and playing. We only have very limited quantity of XY-FatesCollide and onward, and we decided to buy singles if we really needed something. We also started using monochrome print-out proxies to test things instead of just making impulse buys. I have been sort of curious about the competitive scene but some of the people I have tried playing against have been less-than-agreeable, and the decks they use have been largely copies of each other and really unoriginal. That could have just been poor luck, though. As for online-play, I have a lot of unopened booster packs on PTCGO as I really don't play anymore, save to use it as an interactive card-Dex. As far as videogames go, I finally decided to play pokemon again when OmegaRuby came out, and I definitely do not regret that decision. What a lovely remake! I played XY later on and really did not like it, save for the fashion-aspect of it, but since PokéMon Sun has that, I gave my copy of PokéMon Y to my sister. PokéMon Sun&Moon has really gotten me more excited about both the games and TCG. The Sun&Moon set looks great and I am tempted to buy a booster box again. I figured if I am going to buy cards more frequently, I might as well consider finding more people to play with, or at the very least to talk about the cards with.
tl;dr: Hi, I am some random chick that has been lurking for a long time but have decided to become a bit more social, as PokéMon Sun&Moon has gotten me more into the video games and way more into the TCG. I am considering playing TCG competitively if I can find a fun and friendly way to get into it. My favorite pokémon is Shuckle and my favorite game is PokéMon Gold Version. Let's chat!
