Chasing Wins and Chasing Cards
Why Pokémon is a Global Phenomenon and a Local Favorite
By Jade Darr
Tournaments like this one invite a strong sense of identity and community at Darkside Games.
You could easily miss Darkside Games even if you were looking for it. It’s a card shop tucked away in an unassuming shopping mall caddy-corner to the South Point casino. The most notable indicator of its existence hangs above the venue, a riff on the classic Welcome to Las Vegas sign that boasts the shop’s name. But among all the bold advertisements and shop names that adorn Las Vegas’s countless shopping malls, Darkside Games appears to be just another hobby shop. That is, until you walk in the door.
Darkside Games is the sort of place that acts as a great poster child for card gaming as a whole. Naysayers might associate the hobby with smelly, antisocial gamers who congregate in messy spaces, but Darkside is anything but in both design and clientele. The first room in Darkside is a well-organized marketplace of cards, boasting extensive displays of card singles and products ranging from brand new releases to decades-old products. The adjacent room is the gaming space, which is populated by cleanly-arranged and labeled tables as well as a streaming setup complete with lights where a spotlight match can be professionally filmed and broadcast.
The venue hosts tournaments for all kinds of card games. But I’m only here for one thing: the titanic media franchise that is Pokémon.
I arrive at Darkside on Feb. 17 for a Pokémon league cup, which is a step up from the local tournaments hosted at the game store weekly. I’ve been to Darkside many times to collect Pokémon cards, and there are only fifty or so people in the venue, but I can’t help feeling out of place and intimidated. Everyone is either chatting with a group of friends, sitting down for some warm-up matches, or honing their decks for the tournament. In short, everyone looks like they know what they’re doing. I’ll learn over the course of the tournament that I know even less about what I’m doing than I initially thought.
At the beginning of the tournament, I quickly discover that I’ve failed to write out the cards in my deck, a requirement that ensures that everyone is playing with legal cards. I mess up the opening moves of several games. I misplay and misread constantly, learning that the online program I’ve been practicing on essentially holds your hand and reminds you to do things you might otherwise forget. I lose four matches, win one against a player who gets ridiculously unlucky with his deck, and tie a girl who looks like she’s in elementary school because she accidentally runs down the clock before she can inevitably beat me.
In short, I had a blast.
No, really. Despite every mistake and fumble I make, I find myself constantly granted patience and guidance over the course of the tournament. The initial stress I have melts away as player after player gives me reassurance, giving me extra time to think and make the moves I think I need to make. This is the spirit of the community: inviting, diverse, and understanding. Before the day is over, several players have offered to sit down and discuss their experiences with the card game. They echo exactly what I’ve been feeling the whole day long.
“The Pokémon community is extremely welcoming in different ways compared to other card games,” says Yul Gweon, a local player who tells me ‘yes!’ before I can even finish asking him for an interview. “I think it’s because we have such a wide variety of, you know, people in the community. We offer a lot of different things to other people that make sense. I've met chess people, TV actors, dancers, stuff like that, and we can all kind of connect. And I'm not saying that Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic and other card games don't have that, but in Pokémon there's so much more for me.”
That friendliness goes beyond casual interaction, too. Caleb Tomas, another local player, says that players often travel together to larger tournaments and help each other build decks.
“Honestly, the TCG Community here in Vegas, they're all friendly — they're nice,” he says. “They're willing to help each other out. Like, we'll give each other cards if we see someone trying to build a deck.”
This kindness extends not only to new players and community members, but also those who might be visiting for an event.
“I think if everyone just knew how polite the people are, then I think more people would go,” says Cato Nicholas, who’s traveled here from Arizona with a friend to compete. “Because it's a really nice social atmosphere.”
It’s the sort of thing I wish I’d known so much earlier. After experiencing the kindness of the community, I feel almost foolish for the fears and hesitations that might have otherwise held me back from competing. It’s especially striking to me because of the dreams I’ve held ever since I was a kid.
When I was younger, I often imagined becoming a gaming champion. I daydreamed about walking into a room and being recognized as a winner: a creative force and competitive threat. One year I’d imagine myself blazing through a Dance Dance Revolution competition, nailing the hardest levels with ease; the next, I’d picture myself leaping up a Super Smash Brothers Melee bracket with my favorite character, Sheik. But actually buckling down and chasing such dreams can be intimidating, and it took nearly three decades for me to attend my first gaming tournament. This drive to be a champion is a common feeling, and perhaps it is also my own version of the American Dream. It’s also one of the keys to success for Pokémon as a franchise.
Ever since Pokémon were created in 1996, they have been a cultural phenomenon. Honestly, that’s putting it lightly: Pokémon is the most profitable media franchise of all time, pulling in over ninety billion dollars between merch, cards, television shows, and more since it was established. Several early television ads for Pokémon are strikingly surreal and memorable to this day. One particular ad even showcased an evil driver luring Pokemon into his bus, then using a hydraulic press to literally flatten them into his Gameboy.
But a far more significant factor is that the world of Pokémon, like the world of Harry Potter, boasts an absurd amount of features that have near-universal appeal. It’s full of fantastical creatures with their own unique abilities, powers and appeals. The narratives are anchored by a slew of ambitious young protagonists that can change the world around them. And the typing of the Pokemon offers something for each personality: cute fairy Pokémon that make for adorable pillows, edgy-looking dark and poison types suited for mischief-makers, and everything in between from dragons to dolphins to deities. Being able to find Pokémon you love, and then integrate them into a team that you travel, battle and bond with, provides an extremely appealing experience that sticks with many players for life.
“Growing up it was always the designs of the Pokémon,” says Caleb, talking about what first drew him into the world of Pokémon. “Pokémon Sapphire was my first game. So seeing Groudon, Kyogre for the first time, I was completely mind blown. Being able to like have them on your team and fight with them was great, collecting all these Pokémon and building the best team that I thought was the coolest and the strongest.”
Reel in a winner at Darkside Games.
The excellent design of the animal-like creatures, combined with the sheer number of Pokémon in existence, virtually guarantees that everyone will find at least one Pokémon they love. In fact, it goes farther than that. The theory that each of the thousand-plus Pokémon is someone’s favorite was nearly proven in a 2019 reddit poll, where 805 of the existing 809 received a vote as someone’s favorite . It’s not just sheer quantity, then, but the strength of each Pokémon’s design and personality that makes their world a place of affection and wonder.
The bonds between Pokémon fans and their Pokémon is strengthened through the wide range of ways Pokémon can be interacted with and appreciated. The video games offer players a chance to adventure with their Pokémon, raising them from small, relatively weak creatures to juggernauts that can win championships, defeat evil syndicates and even save the world. The franchise’s anime and movies offer a more passive gate into the world, with the very recent Pokémon Concierge show, a stop-motion delight, bringing a whole new level of coziness and cuteness to the franchise. On top of all this, you have the Pokémon Trading Card Game, a phenomenon in and of itself that has seen radical bursts of popularity and cultural relevance over its 27-year lifespan.
And this is where Las Vegas comes in.
***
The world of the Pokémon Trading Card Game seems relatively simple on its surface. Collectors buy cards they like and display them in binders or in individual cases. They might buy single, specific cards, or more likely, booster packs with random contents that could possibly contain rare cards worth more than the pack itself. Trading with friends adds another level of fun, and it allows the hobby to feel almost collaborative — each collection being the product of your own cards and those of collectors around you. Collecting and opening cards is another memory that often sticks with players decades after they find themselves buying their first cards.
“I remember I was in a Target way back when HeartGold SoulSilver (a set of Pokémon cards released in 2010) was out and I asked my grandparents to get me a box,” recalls Yul. “I remember it was a Groudon promo box. That's the first kind of encounter I had with Pokémon cards and I remember opening it, one pack a day, and it was just the most fun thing I've ever done. And that memory stuck with me for so long.”
The collection mentality is certainly a common cadence in Las Vegas, where stores full of crazy knick-knacks and niche hobby items can be found in every other shopping mall. But even moreso, the card hobby contains two other aspects that are even more familiar to Las Vegas: gambling and competition.
The aforementioned booster packs are essentially gambles in and of themselves. Most modern booster packs contain a single ‘rare’ card that, despite its categorization, isn’t ‘rare’ at all; very few ‘rare’ cards sell for much more than a few coins. The cards collectors are chasing are usually ‘ultra rare’ cards that only show up every five or so packs, and in fact, the real chase cards are far rarer and can be worth hundreds of dollars. Collectors can rip open hundreds, even thousands, of packs without finding the specific card they are looking for.
Cato remembers, with slight disbelief, when he split a Fusion Strike booster box with a friend and opened eighteen packs of Pokémon cards. According to TCG player, one of the leading online card shops, the chance of pulling a card that is an ultra rare V card (a powerful holographic card where the Pokémon is displayed over the entirety of the card) or something better is about 20%. By that logic, Cato should have pulled about three or four of those cards.
“I got terrible pulls from that,” he tells me. “I didn't get a single V from that. Not one V in the entire box.”
The rush of the chase, combined with the increasingly complex and experimental art used for rare cards these days, makes opening a pack a thrilling, miniature gambling experience that is only strengthened by the intoxicating nostalgia many hobbyists feel for Pokémon.
The Pokémon universe is sprawling and diverse, as mirrored by walls of merchandise and playing cards at shops like 888 Collectibles.
On the opposite side of the spectrum is the competitive card game. Players often forgo the gambling aspect of the hobby and buy single cards they need to build an effective deck. Each deck is limited to exactly sixty cards, and players craft decks that can consistently provide the necessary Pokémon and resources they need to knock out their opponents’ Pokémon before their opponent can do the same. Once a player has crafted a deck, they have to test it repeatedly to make sure it’s actually equipped to do what it is designed to do. Decks can fail in so many different ways. You could fail to draw a card that you need because there’s not enough copies in your deck, or you could have too many copies of one card which ends up ‘clogging’ the deck. Sometimes, your cards simply aren’t powerful enough to beat the other decks you’re up against, and you have to start from scratch. Testing a deck often involves losing hideously, in embarrassing fashion, when you simply can’t get the cards you need into your hand. Even good decks can ‘brick’ in this way and fail due to bad drawing luck.
While Las Vegas is clearly the gaming and gambling capital of the world, one might not expect something like Pokémon to thrive in a city so clearly designed for adults. There’s something timeless about Pokémon that makes it appeal to those across generations. For my generation, Pokémon holds a lot of nostalgia, and the game is complex enough to be satisfying for advanced players.
When Caleb, Cato and Yul walk me through their decks and why they use them, each player gravitates to different decks and plays them for different reasons. Cato loves decks that can get Pokémon into play and power them up quickly, which allows for fast victories if the deck gets going. Yul loves decks that involve intense strategy and appeal to his particular way of thinking.
Meanwhile, Caleb has been ramping up the seriousness of his own play, and looks to winrates and matchup data to determine which deck will give him the best chance at victory. There really are an incredible amount of play styles and variation, and anyone can find their own niche. It gives me hope after my own tournament experience, where I played a deck I enjoyed, but found myself getting trampled by better decks and better players.
The players aren’t the only reason that successful Pokémon tournaments are so dynamic. Over the course of Darkside’s tournaments, rounds run like clockwork. Lists outlining who and where each competitor is playing are posted each round, and it takes less than ten minutes to transition from the end of one round to the beginning of the next. Judges are on hand to settle any disputes.
A giveaway of store product each round adds to the goodwill and structure of the event, and after each winner is announced, everyone claps and cheers. You can tell that this is a venue that has been running these events, and running them well, for quite a long time.
Every tournament, I end up taking home something I never thought I’d own, meeting people I would never have met otherwise. When I come back for a second tournament, I run into five people I’ve already met. They greet me excitedly, ask about my deck and my plans for the future, and compliment the vintage play mat I dug out of my closet. Even the young girl I tied with sees me, bounds over, and with a big smile, asks if I’m the same person she played last tournament.
But I can’t talk about playing Pokémon without digging a bit more into what brought me into the hobby in the first place. Before I ever played the game, I was a collector, and my wallet has never forgiven me for discovering the collector’s paradise that is 888 Collectibles. The Shanghai Plaza shop, though small, is loaded with a kaleidoscopic array of products including plushies, figures and cards.
This might seem like pretty standard stuff for a locally-owned collector’s shop. But, there’s something that 888 has that makes it truly special, and it’s the sort of thing that the average shopper may not even notice after a visit. That special factor comes in the form of a connection to Japan that, in terms of Pokémon cards, is far more substantial than one might expect.
“I think that the variety of the cards that 888 has — pack selection, product singles, especially foreign product packs and singles — is phenomenal,” says Yul. “It would be awesome if they had a play space, but I know that their location is a little bit small.”
What Yul is referring to is a massive selection of rare and beautiful cards that are on offer in the shops’ glass displays. However, the foreign products Yul is talking about are an even greater contributor to 888 Collectibles’ success. It’s one of the very few stores in the United States that sells Japanese Pokémon cards. Now, you might be thinking, Why would anyone want to buy Japanese Pokémon cards when English cards are more readily available and can be played in U.S. tournaments? The answer is three-fold.
First of all, Japanese cards are ‘seeded’ differently than English cards, meaning they contain a set number of each kind of card, rarity-wise. This makes the gambling aspect of opening packs diverse as well. English boxes also contain about twice as many cards as Japanese boxes, and they cost twice as much with no guarantee of receiving any rare cards. .
Secondly, the prices for Japanese cards are often higher or lower than those of their English versions. Some Japanese cards are far more affordable than their English counterparts, while others are far more expensive. This can be due to anything from how the card was released — some cards that are released in standard Japanese sets become ‘promo’ cards in English, where they can be purchased in a specific product — to differing popularity trends for different card types.
Finally, Japanese card quality is significantly better than English cards. The texturing and colors on rare Japanese cards is strikingly more vibrant than their English counterparts. Just having the option to buy Japanese cards or English cards opens up the ways the hobby can be pursued and enjoyed. Having a store like 888 in Las Vegas is a godsend for any Pokémon collector, and it has been visited by many members of the Pokémon community at large, including PokéRev, who runs one of the largest Pokémon channels on YouTube.
***
So many people in my generation know the Pokémon theme song by heart. I want to be the very best, like no one ever was… It’s linked to the dreams we have all our lives, even though what we’re ‘best’ at might change person to person. The idea behind Pokémon is that teamwork, discipline, kindness and strategy ultimately helps us reach our goals. It’s a perfect anchor for a community engaged in competitive, strategic thinking.
It’s incredible to walk into a venue for the second or third time and find yourself greeted by several members of the community who remember your name, your job, and even what deck you played. Each game I play, I find myself chatting with my opponent about the game, about the art, and sometimes, just about life in general. We bring parts of who we are to the experience. Cato’s interest in game design, Yul’s fascination with psychology and people-reading, Caleb’s analytical business-oriented mindset, and my own creativity and excitement of art all impacts how we play and enjoy the hobby.
This is a community with a truly open door. In a place like Las Vegas, where every door leads to an adventure, why wouldn’t you take a deep breath and walk through?
