Soapbox: The Pokémon European International Championships Made Me Fall In Love With TCG

Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim lays his cards on the table after visiting the Pokémon European International Championships...

Head into my brain. Take a left at 'Obscure Zelda Knowledge,' go past the door marked 'Ideas for Cat Costumes #3' and then turn right when you hit the recording of the Hamilton soundtrack playing on loop. There you will find a dusty old cabinet marked 'Things I Will Definitely Learn.'

Most of the drawers in this cabinet are crusty and rusted shut. Working your way down from the top of 'Things I Will Definitely Learn', you'll find 'Piano,' 'French,' 'Pixel Art,' and, right above 'D&D,' you'll spot one titled 'Pokémon Trading Card Game'. But wait a second, this drawer has been forced open! Well-thumbed files from 2003 sit at the front, followed by other, less looked-at dates from every 2-3 years since. At the back sits a pristine white folder marked 2024. It's happening. I'm going in (again).

The Pokémon European International Championships are to blame for all this. I had assumed that the TCG drawer was long welded shut, but here I am, blowtorch in hand, ready to see what it has to offer once more.

My relationship with Pokémon cards has been one of peaks and troughs, consisting of intense collecting phases and long 'whack that folder in a cupboard and forget about it for the next five years' dry spells. I collected the cards because I loved the art, but the intimidating ruleset of the TCG itself kept me at arm's reach — "Bench Pokémon"? "Prize Cards"? "Energy"? Nah, I'll stick to the pretty pictures, thank you.

But then I attended the 2024 Pokémon European International Championships and all that changed. It turns out, that seeing the game played by people who don't need to consult a video tutorial before every turn results in a very different game. I know, who would've thought it?! I learnt the ropes in the event's Play Lab, saw thousands (yes, thousands) of competitors play in the opening 'Swiss Rounds,' watched players get whittled down to the top four by day two and was comfortably seated for the grand finals on day three.

To be clear, even at the time of the finals, I was still clueless about what 99% of the cards do. As I understand it, Trainer Cards each have their own unique effects on the game and the pros play so quickly that there's not enough time for a noob like me to be reading the summary text on each and every one of them. What I did grow to understand, however, was the vibe of the game.

I worked out what each player was trying to do and started to see the different ways that they might do it. Of course, every Trainer from the Juniors (born in 2005 or later) right up to the Masters (born 2000 or earlier) was thinking far, far further ahead than I was, but for the first time, I had some semblance of what was going on. I could see the matrix.

Here's what I grasped: a player's main objective is to knock out all of their opponent's Pokémon (of which there can be up to six on the table, just like in the video games). To attack, the player has to use the correct energy cards, which whittle down the opposition's HP based on the attack's power and effectiveness. Players can also use a bunch of Trainer cards, evolution cards and the like to boost the player's hand or make things more challenging for the opponent. Perhaps not the most accurate rundown, but there's an introduction to the basics on YouTube, if you're interested.

Basically, it's Pokémon. The thing that had always put me off, however, is that it didn't look like Pokémon. Cards sit in varying piles on the playmats, stacks are moved, rotated and flipped to signify different effects and at no point does one card actually leap into the sky and pummel the other one as I had seen on TV.

The way around this? Watching with people who know what's going on. The finals — particularly the Masters' competition between Tord Reklev and Isaiah Bradner — are a wild environment and when something good (or bad) happens, you know about it. Huge waves of cheers went up during a back-and-forth section of Reklev and Bradner's first game, while there were gasps and heads in hands after the Junior division's Yohann Cote drew a particularly unlucky selection of Prize Cards (secretly revealed to those watching on the screens overhead).

This was no longer a card game with complicated rules and constant 'just let me check the instructions' pauses — it was a football match (I assume — I try to stay as far away from all discussions of football as I can). Thanks to these cheers, I began to work out what was 'good' and, conversely, what was 'bad'. So yes, you better believe that I was on my feet by the time that the last plays were made.

All this is to say, that for the first time, I have seen the light of Pokémon outside of the video games. The TCG is complicated and I am certain that I will never be able to play at the speed of anyone who I witnessed this weekend. But I am determined to give it a go.

I have restarted my card collection after discovering that my old Diamond and Pearl-era deck had been one of the many casualties of a 'Do you mind if I clear your childhood bedroom, darling?' catastrophe. I have turned to the Game Boy Color's TCG experience on NSO for the first time — not quite as deep of an experience as what I witnessed at EUIC, but a retro delight nonetheless. And, armed with a passing knowledge at this point, I'm boldly heading into the TCG Live (and eventually, Pocket) app.

To seven-year-old me making pack opening videos with his friends, we're so back. And to my bank balance, I'm so sorry.

Do you have any advice for a Pokémon TCG noob like me? Let me know in the comments below.