Great article, in many ways, if not all, I can relate to this article!
(I believe you made a typo under the header Build Your Deck In Advance, where you spelled weather instead of whether. ) lol
I stopped going to pre-releases, mostly because of the price, I remember back when $25 got 8 packs, a promo, sealed pack of sleeves (great trade value at worlds, especially now), and there were a few packs to win for top place finishes. And the after draft was $20 for 6 packs and top 4 received a few packs (out of 32 players) 4-3-1-1 prize structure if I remember correctly. I know pre-releases were even cheaper before I started going, but this was well below retail price, and almost 2-3 weeks before the cards came out (also before Walmart started doing early releases.) I do think the pre-releases are now more suited to newer players which is great, but I preferred they way they were before.
I stopped buying many sealed products, especially the special boxes and tins. I purchased a ton of these as a kid, especially $9.99 3 pack blisters. Lately I have realized I can buy larger quantities and for lower prices all over the internet, but I will get to that one day in my own article
These appealed to me as a kid, because the packs were for retail price (besides blisters, which were better), because they contained something else, which I thought of as essentially free. And a few items I would empty my wallet for, such as the Darkrai/Cresselia Legend box and the Dialga/Palkia Legend box which were $15-16 contained 4 booster packs and 2 Lv.X cards each! Another Item I splurged on was a double collector album box which had 5 booster packs and 2 mini binders, but only because they were on sale for $11.99 at my local game store. I wouldn't have bought them otherwise, because it came with bad sets at the time, which is probably why they were on sale.
But more recently, I have essentially stopped opening booster packs. Partly because I am in and out of the game, and partly because I can usually trade some of my cards and get some promo versions of the cards for cheap, somewhat recently the likes of Darkrai EX and Yveltal EX. The only sealed booster packs I buy now are cheap booster boxes at tournaments (about $70) or from Black Friday deals at Target (50% discount). Which is pretty good actually, I picked up tins from target for $10 a piece, I didn't have to pay tax, as I ordered it online, and it came from another state. Occasionally I buy Japanese booster packs, but that is a story for another day.
I think I covered the next part a bit, I just play non-holo versions of cards, unless I don't have a cheaper version, and the same goes for full arts and secret rares, those get to sit in my binder. I like to avoid expensive meta cards, although they can definitely rise, they can fall much harder. Before Golden ultra ball or full art N had the chance to quadruple in price, cards such as Luxray GL Lv.X crashed hard (100 to 0 real quick). And although there was no cheaper version of the card, I do remember when golden pokemon catcher dropped hard, and I know that was hugely due to the new ruling, however that changed the way I viewed the BW full arts and secret rare trainers.
Knowing the meta and trading for newer cards ties into this a bit, avoiding rotating cards, but then again it is easy for me to say, as I haven't been a seriously competitive player for a few years now, so I just dumped cards such as my VS seekers at worlds last weekend. That was after I heard they might be reprinted in the next arena deck (I think that is what it is called, with rayquaza and keldeo), assuming there would be a price drop soon, something notably similar was when it happened with ultra ball, possibly with the red genesect deck. But because I don't plan on playing this season, I traded 7 VS seekers for 6 promo charizard EX full arts and 6 packs of Japanese sleeves (each pack was a full set of 65, 2 wailord, 2 blastoise, and 2 xerneas). I expect what I traded for to hold decent value over time, compared to the vs seekers, I may be wrong, but it felt like a good deal.
As far as deck choice, it is completely true that cheap decks can even be the BDIF at times. Personally, because I haven't been a serious player for some time now, I prefer these cheaper deck options, and if I am just going to a league challenge, I have used unknown in place of shaymins. But seriously, I remember darkrai was reasonably cheap when blastoise keldeo was also big, especially with the addition of Black Kyurem EX. I won't say too much more about decks, as I am certainly no expert. However you definitely should build your deck in advance, I have realized that I am relatively smart, so with minimal practice, I could pull off decent results (and by minimal practice, I mean making my deck 5 minutes before registration closes at regionals, more than once!) I can remember tons of misplays that I have made simply because a lack of practice, and knowing the game. During spring regionals with set up until Next Destinies, I played a catcher and knocked out a non EX pokemon, with only 2 prizes left, when I could have done enough damage to knock out an EX attacker, mainly because I hadn't played with EX cards until that match. Which was the first of the tournament, I went on to win 4 consecutive rounds and lost the last two, in the last round losing to the Jason Martinez, who I N'd down to 1 card, and he drew into a professor juniper which he got multiple cards he needed off of, otherwise I had the game, and if I had gone 5-2, I would have made cut.
Sorry, I got really side tracked there, I guess I got a bit stuck in the past! As far as travel costs and food, I couldn't agree more. This year in San Francisco I only had to drive about 1 hour each way, everyday, but I carpooled with a friend, and we brought homemade lunch, croissants, apples, granola bars, water bottles, and pizza. We did go out to McDonalds once, but that was less than $5 each. That may not seem like much, but when I went to Hawaii in 2010, the Hilton was quite expensive, and I don't remember any close places for food between rounds. And about traveling with others, I felt as though most of the strong players in my area had siblings or even parents into the game, but no matter how hard I tried, my family could never get into pokemon. And for that reason, as a kid (literally until now) I wasn't able to go to tournaments that weren't local, because of the costs. My family could afford it, they just didn't consider it vacation, or worthwhile, for those long weekends down south, from SF bay area to San Diego (8 hour drive with no traffic and no stops...). So the only tournaments far away that I attended were Worlds '10, '11, and '13, and this year which was close. This played a huge role in preventing me from playing much. I don't know how else to put it in perspective, that once a year a regionals is an hour from my house, and then the next closest one is 10 hours away. So I hope all of you guys and gals out there can find people to travel with! I certainly plan on it, hopefully even for Anaheim in a year from now.
Lastly regarding free stuff, at first I thought it would be referring to the random tiny goodies handed out by some staff, including inflatable pokeballs, cool bookmarks, and other goodies from the past. I remember I tried to get one of each thing at first, because I loved pokemon. When I was a little older I did the same thing, but because I thought I could trade or sell the stuff, and now I stopped because some kid will enjoy it more than I will, and I don't need to take up any more space with pokemon in my house. But when it comes to booster packs and you are nearing those last few rounds, you might as well take your chances, unless of course, the opportunity cost is too high. But at that same regionals I talked about earlier, I remember there were 19 juniors, and 9-16 place got 9 booster packs, so after turning up, your odds were pretty good, so if you know your odds are decent, and you have an hour left, it might be worth the wait. Let's say you do get the 9 boosters, you could sell them very reasonably and easily for $20, but you could get closer to $30 if you find the right buyer, which could pay for your food that day, and gas if you don't live far from the event.
I forgot to mention commons and uncommons are still worth something, even at the bulk rate of 6 cents a piece, that seriously adds up. If you open 1 booster box, that cost $90 online shipped, you will get 360 cards if we say 30% are decent, or at least worth more than the 6 cents rate, it leaves you with about 250 cards that might not mean much to you, well 6 cents a piece makes $15. I would say that is a decent amount, especially if you have ever opened a 6 box case, because that means you basically get another box entirely free! Or you can be nice and let kids take a few extras from you. I remember one time at my league, a guy had a giant binder of holo rares and a few Lv.X from the Diamond and Pearl era, and he told me and a few other kids he had free cards for us (don't worry, it was right in front of the league leader, we didn't jump into the big white van). He was just handing out extras to us, and I ended up with 54 cards, 2 were Lv.X and the rest were all holo rares! When I say you can give some kids some extras, you obviously don't need to, and probably shouldn't go that far, but you can always make someones day with a few cards, just think about that before you rip any cards (which I have been guilty of 3 times.) When I was younger, I once drew on a card because my cousin did and I though it was really fun, but my mom told me never to do that again. The next time I had an already beaten up card, and I split it, and lastly I was "testing" the quality of a Japanese common, but even that was many years ago, and I definitely wouldn't destroy cards again, as there is nothing to gain from it, and it upsets me when youtubers do it for attention.
Anyway, I actually think I could write a helpful article on collecting, someday, when I'm not super busy. (Not that I didn't write an article like response right now
- Pieter
