When I found myself engaging in the Pokemon trading card hobby early this year, I not only discovered an exciting new hobby, but that I came into it at possibly the worst time.

As a child of the 1990’s I grew up enamored with the world of Pokemon. I can remember begging to go to which ever fast-food restaurant was giving out Pokemon happy meal toys after church on Wednesday nights, watching the animated series and played many of the franchise releases on Gameboy well into high school. I can also remember the trauma of watching Ash Ketchum die at the hands of Mewtwo in the first Pokemon Movie before being revived with the tears of his Pokemon companions — the 90’s and early 2000’s were definitely a different era for children’s entertainment.

Despite my interest in all other things Pokemon, I somehow never developed much of an interest in collecting, trading or playing the actual trading cards. That is, until late last year.

I’m honestly not sure what led me to download the Pokemon Pocket TCG game from the app store in November 2024. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the app had only been released several weeks prior, so it may have been suggested to me. More likely, I stumbled across it out of sheer boredom. Either way, I found myself playing the game during the majority of what little downtime I have.

In many ways, Pocket TCG is similar to actual competitive Pokemon play. You collect virtual cards in the app to construct 20-card decks, which are then used to battle online competitors. Now, anybody who knows me can attest to the fact that I am very competitively driven, and this game was no different than any other aspect of my life. I had much more fun when I was winning. But, I ended up finding something just a little lacking and wanted to scratch a little more of a tangible itch by engaging in actual real-life competitions.

During a Pokemon match, opponents face-off with their respective deck of 60 cards. Each time you knock out an opponents Pokemon, you are able to draw one of your six “prize cards” until none are left, or your opponent has no other Pokemon in play. While the rules may seem simple on the surface an incredible amount of strategy and planning go into fine-tuning a deck to ensure you are able to draw the cards you need, when you need them.

I began researching some of the top-level competitive decks and found one that seemed to align with how I like to play strategic games — I ended up building a Dragapult/Charizard deck for any curious readers — and set out on the mission of obtaining my cards.

That is where I began to run into my first problem. Where I had remembered a plethora of Pokemon cards in big retail stores, I found mostly empty shelves.

I had not realized that Pokemon was in the throws of a resurgence in popularity. Most people, like myself, had rediscovered their appreciation of Pokemon upon the release of the Pocket TCG app and become re-engaged with the hobby. Combined with the release of several immensely popular series of cards within the same time frame this had created a far greater demand than supply.

Luckily, I also discovered a community of people, both online and in-person, who were more than welcoming and ready to offer assistance to newcomers such as myself.

Websites such as tcgplayer.com offer single cards a player may need to build their decks. As do many local trading card/hobby stores such as Gamers and Geeks, located on Hwy. 157. The Pokemon Company has also released another app, Pokemon TCG Live, which lets you engage in standard gameplay using real cards to test potential decklists before making any purchases.

Gamers and Geeks hosts weekly Pokemon tournaments each Monday night where a “Pokemon Professor” is able to assist new players in developing strategies and offering suggestions for improvement. Once a month the shop hosts a “Battle League Challenge,” a more serious level of competition that gives points to each ranked player and awards prizes or store credit.

I competed in my first tournament Monday, February 25, and my freshly completed Dragapult deck delivered a sixth-place finish out of the twelve competitors — which I feel is pretty good all things considered.

As competitive as I may be, my favorite part of the hobby has been the involvement with my family. My wife has been working on constructing her own deck, and we play against each other during the evening after we put our son to bed. He has even started to develop his own interest in Pokemon. Although at three-years old, he isn’t quite ready for the card game, but has taken up throwing a toy Pokeball at us and our dogs while screaming, “I choose you.” He also enjoys the animated series. He likes to tell us that Jigglypuff — which he pronounces Riggelypuff — is his favorite and regularly “shocks” me while pretending to be Pikachu.

While I may not be able to attend tournaments each week, I’ve now made a few adjustments to my deck and am preparing to compete again in the near future. I may not ever be able to “catch ‘em all,” but one other thing I’ve discovered about Pokemon is that sometimes it isn’t about what you don’t have, but about appreciating what you do and learning to use it to your advantage.

Patrick Camp may be reached by email at patrick.camp@cullmantimes.com or by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 238.