NAME: Ryan Harvey, a.k.a. "fubarduck"
RANKING: #16 (as of 10/29/1999)
CITY / STATE: West, TX
AGE: 16
LOCATION: Game Closet
5301 Bosque Blvd # 236
Lake Air Mall
Waco, TX
(254) 751-7251

[POJO] What do you like best about the PokeMon TCG?
[RH] Looked up to by little kids; first successful trading card game besides Magic.

[POJO] What do you dislike about the PokeMon TCG?
[RH] Redundancy of gameplay; many situations decided more by luck (coin flips).

[POJO] Do you find casual play or organized competition to be more fun? Why?
[RH] Organized competition is definitely more fun. Being a competitive person, I find casual play very dull and pointless. Also, in organized competition, it is easier to enforce the rules of the game.

[POJO] Where do you usually play?
[RH] Game Closet -- Waco, TX

[POJO] How often do you participate in organized tournaments?
[RH] Monthly / Bi-Monthly

[POJO] What was you most thrilling victory?
[RH] My most thrilling victory was against Patrick Clancy in a game we were play testing. I started out with a Dratini; my opponent had a 50 HP Basic Pokemon. I went first and played a Double Colorless Energy and did 10 damage to his Pokemon. My opponent's Pokemon failed on his paralysis attempt and gave me the go again. On my 2nd turn, I evolved Dratini to Dragonair, played a second Double Colorless Energy on it, and used Slam. I successfully flipped two heads in a row and took the victory.

[POJO] What was your most crushing defeat?
[RH] My most crushing defeat was against Scott Gerhardt. Scott and I played a lot of Magic together before Pokemon had ever come around. We trash talked a lot about Pokemon when it came out, arguing about who had the better deck. He told me to come up to a tourney in Plano at Rama Llama Comics, so I did, and he didn't even show up. I won that tourney 5-0, so the pressure built up even more for me to succeed against him. Finally, I returned to Rama Llama in a couple of weeks and faced Scott the final round of the tournament. I was playing a Rain Dance deck and Scott was playing his Haymaker variant. I was up on prizes on him, but was unfortunately about to deck myself. Fortunately, time was called right in the nick of time for me after 20 minutes (of which I did not stall), but the judge at Rama Llama forced us to finish our game, ignoring the DCI-enforced time limit rule. Upon hearing this nonsense, I went out in style by Oaking my remaining deck away. I felt like I was cheated out of my win, but I didn't care enough about my Pokemon rating to make a big deal of it.

[POJO] Who is your toughest competition? Why?
[RH] My toughest competition, I must say, is Scott. Although he has no chance against me in Magic, the simplicity of Pokemon puts us on an even pedestal.

[POJO] What is your favorite card? Why?
[RH] See below -- you asked the same question twice :)

[POJO] What kind of deck to you dread having to play against?
[RH] The deck I dread the most is the Rain Dance deck. Although I do fear Haymaker, there's nothing worse than having to deal with a second turn Blastoise with full energy in my opinion.

[POJO] What does it mean to you to be ranked as one of the best Pokemon TCG players in the world?
[RH] I like telling my friends and little kids about it, it makes me sound important, when I'm actually not.

[POJO] Do you play the Pokemon video game?
[RH] I used to play the Pokemon video game. When it first came out in America for Game Boy, my best friend and me both went out and bought a Game Boy Color. I bought Pokemon Blue, and he bought Pokemon Red so we'd be able to get them all. Eventually, it became a fad in our small nerd clique, and I quit playing after I had beaten the game several times, and competition had been corrupted by a couple of people purchasing Gamesharks. Anyway, this is what led me and my friend to eventually playing the card game together. After he introduced me to the game, he quit shortly after, and I played competitively to fill the void of my friend.

[POJO] Do you watch the Pokemon Animated Series?
[RH] I don't make plans to watch it, but if I'm channel surfing and see it on, I'll watch it in preference to most other shows.

[POJO] Do you have a collection of Pokemon toys?
[RH] I have a Jigglypuff doll that turns inside out into a Poke-ball that I won in one of the tournaments here. I like playing with it and throwing it around pretending I'm a Pokemon master. However, I tire of the façade very quickly, and will probably auction the cute, lovable Pokemon on Ebay.

[POJO] Do you have a favorite card? Favorite video game character? Favorite animated series character?

[RH] My favorite card (in Pokemon) would have to be Lass. Although I didn't play it in most of my recent decks, Lass was the key to the first deck I played and won a tournament with (the one at Rama Llama). I was always tempted to throw one in upon building the rest of my decks, but rarely found room for her. I have lots of video game characters that I think are really cool, mostly from RPGs. I think I have a favorite for almost every Squaresoft game. A few that come to mind are Shadow from Final Fantasy III, Magus from Chrono Trigger, Vincent from Final Fantasy VII, and Billy from Xenogears. Out of all video games though, my favorite is probably Yoshimitsu from the Tekken series. He's a cool sort of cyborg ninja that wields a sword with a bright green aura. He's the one I imagine myself as whenever I want to take out my aggression on somebody. From an animated series, my favorite character is probably Homer Simpson. The Simpsons is the best cartoon, so its only natural that my favorite character be from my favorite animated series.

[POJO] Anything else you would like to add to this interview?

[RH] I don't play Pokemon or Magic on a regular basis anymore for many reasons. First of all, I don't actually own any cards. I sold my Pokemon collection to some kid over summer and haven't played since. Secondly, I don't have as much time to dedicate to the creation of decks, working on ideas, and talking about the games. I still go to Game Closet in Waco every once in a while because I have a few friends there, and the owner of the store is a very good friend of mine so I usually just go and talk to him. If I'm really bored on a Saturday and feel like getting up early, I'll make it down sometimes for a local tournament, but it has been a while since I've even made that effort. I'd like to say I'm too busy with my girlfriend to keep playing, but I've been a bachelor all my life. If you'd like to learn more about me, my life, or other non-Pokemon related endeavors, I'm working on my Web page at http://fubarduck.freeservers.com. The page may not be finished for a while, but feel free to check it out if you like.