This is in response to the quesion on pojo.com’s concerning why so many of the best players come from the same area.
The #1 reason so many of the best players come from the same area is because many of the places that have “sanctioned” tournments don’t take or sumbit tournaments reports. My local store holds sanctioned Magic tournaments and reports them, but does not send in reports for Pokemon. I’m 24 and this other player who’s 12 or 13, we are always in the top seats out of 40 players every week. But neither of us are ranked because neither shop we paly at reports the tournament (although they do advertise it as sanctioned tournemnets and do register DCI members).
I’ve tried to keep too much of my own personal “rant” out of this letter. I hope my criticism is helpful and is informative. I really am a nice guy and am usually the last person to complain about anything.
I know one of the store owners personally and his impression is that kids just don’t care about their “national” rankings they just want to play, also, parent are another issue with 8-11 year olds (read below). However, my frined and I have recently stopped playing DCI store tournaments every week because it gains us nothing. Instead we go to Toys ‘r us and help kids build better decks and teach them deck theory.
Out of the 40 people who play at the main store, 8 really care about rankings, but off the 40 kids who play, only 20-25 are registered with the DCI. Some parents won’t let kids register with the DCI, so to keep from alienating some kids from tournament play...the store doesn’t take DCI numbers and therefore doesn’t record the tournament.
It is my hope that if the DCI starts a tournament tour, that there won’t be “ranking” requirements. Or hopefully they will at least let kids with “x” number of badges from the league play. Write now I’m woking my way throught the badges because it’s the only way in my area (which is a 1,101,234 pop. metro city) to be “ranked.”
The tournaments are worthless.
It is my personal opinion that some of the best players aren’t even registered and/or aren’t even ranked. I’ve seen some of the “upper-middle” register players, and although they’re good I know several kids at toys’ r us (that aren’t registered) that are better players anmd deck builders than them. There are many holes in the Pokmeon ranking system.
(I intentionally did not mention which city I am in because I don’t want to get any of the stores in trouble with the DCI.)- Matt