Bulbagarden

Having more Spell/Trap card removals would definitely had helped against decks like Amazoness. Enemy Control is super useful and has helped me out plenty of times during PvP duels. It's just frustrating whenever they special summon a monster and then quickly take control on mine to instantly defeat me. Using Enemy Control to work against Dakini's effect is pretty handy though.

That's one reason why I'm surprised that I've been able to avoid as much spoilers as I have lately. Some threads really discuss the leaks more openly than a lot of people would be comfortable with. This is one reason why I haven't been in the video game section here for months. It would be way too easy to see a leak there. I remember seeing the Alola starters final forms leak in one of the threads there years ago. I kind fell in love with Scorbunny and Grookey the moment they appeared. I went for the Scorbunny badge when I first saw that feature, but Grookey would be a close second. I just find it so cute, happy and underrated compared to Scrobunny and Sobble. I can kind of see why you'd thought I'd be more of a Sobble person. It is cute and sad looking in most official artwork to be instantly sympathetic. I like it, but it just hasn't clicked with me as much as it as with other people. I often do use the Water starter in one of the first games in a new generation. It's possible that seeing the evolved forms could still affect my choices, but I'm pretty set on Scorbunny and Grookey for now. I appreciate your reassurance. I got the impression that they may not officially reveal the starter evolved forms before the games release from some interviews, but due to the leaks and the games' release date being so close, I could see them being revealed just to create more hype for the games.

I appreciate your concern. I spend more time focusing on making sure that other people are doing fine than on myself, but I try to at least keep my own feelings and mental state in mind too.

Yeah it's a shame to see almost all Spell and Trap removal being SR or above. To me for a while there it basically just meant to run Jinzo and hope I'd avoid any problematic Spells. For a while there when Buster Blader and it's fusion were a main deck I remember people constantly using Enemy Control to take control of the fusion monster not realizing it couldn't directly attack, and effectively wasting their Spell. I can understand your frustration though, I'd gone away from that method myself. Instead I just make them walk into attack lowering cards to end a duel, like Shrink or Wall of Disruption. Yeah it was the only quick way to deal with Dakini by far.

I know what you mean there. I don't know how I've avoided almost all info of anything new short of 2 characters, and besides the starters and mascots only knowing of one other new Pokemon myself. It seems silly trying to think it's possible to avoid main spoilers while rather actively using the forums but hey we made it this far. Yeah I guess I just felt you'd have found it very cute and as a reason you'd feel a connection for wanting to use a Sobble. But I guess I'm glad you ultimately leaned towards the Scorbunny side either way since that was the choice for me since day one haha. That's a valid point about them maybe not revealing them but at the same time I could for sure seeing a final trailer video or something like that coming out in this final week showing them off. I mean never know until we hit that point.

It's my pleasure. So you're like me in that regard then. I generally try to see to it that others are feeling fine over myself. So I guess that being said, along with, well other reasons of course, is why I say about knowing you're doing well and whatnot.

I don't think I've used Jinzo too much beyond some farm decks, but that was a good way to counter the Amazoness deck. There are plenty of card effects I completely miss or forget like that too. I really wish that they would restrict Power of the Guardians. It's a Normal type Spell, but it's so overpowered and it's really frustrating when I see players use two copies on one monster. It was helpful for the Kiryu events, but it is just beyond frustrating in the PvP matchups. I also feel like this current event is too short, but maybe I was just too frustrated to be more proactive with it due to the lousy luck I've been having with the different decks I've tried out.

Yeah, I would have thought that avoiding these kind of leaks would be virtually impossible myself given how I talk about Pokemon all the time online, but it seems to be working out. That is a reasonable assumption since Sobble seems to be one of the popular Galar starters and I think a lot of people felt that kind of connection with it. Scorbunny is just way too cute to resist for me. Same with Grookey. They did release that trailer covering all of the currently revealed Pokemon, so that could be a way to gear up for another big announcement later this month. I don't know if they'd put out a trailer to deal with the leaks, but I wouldn't blame them if they did just so that the starters could be officially revealed sooner rather than later.

Yeah, that is basically what I do as well. I want to be happy of course, but I want to make sure that other people are feeling happy and fine first. I appreciate that you wanted to check on me too.

Yeah using things like Jinzo, or Horus was the only way I'd play PvP for a while there was just too much backrow trouble to worry about. I mostly try to spend a few seconds reading stuff on the field before making a move, only cause I don't wanna waste a valuable card, cause I mean who doesn't miss a bunch of card effects? Can't remember them all, short of stuff you constantly use. I am a bit surprised to see it hasn't actually been limited yet, because for a while I did see Power of the Guardians in almost any deck in PvP as it doesn't have a restriction of any kind, and being a normal rarity card should mean everyone has 3 copies of it. Maybe next time it'll be hit. Nah it probably was too short of an event. I mean I really didn't participate much in it as the daily free lottery gave me copies of the new cards, but being frustrated with it certainly never helps. That goes back to say why I don't like all the heavily focused PvP events. Have you tried using Blackwings any during this?

Yeah, you'd think spending a bunch of free time online talking about Pokemon would prompt to leading yourself being spoiled about a new batch of games incredibly easily, but apparently not. Seems like you've got some good fortune in that regard at least being that you have managed to avoid a lot of info. I'll give you that on Scorbunny, it is super cute indeed. Guess I just thought you'd find Sobble to be just as cute, but Grookey is a cutie too so I can understand why you'd want to go with that one as your second choice. Plus like you said earlier too they could release one final trailer, not only because of any leaks, but also to create some more hype for these games. Not that I think they need any more hype at this point as it's a new Gen on a new system but still.

Which is rather understandable of course. And hey it's no problem, I mean I've really got no reason to not wanna check up on how you are, and to make sure you're feeling fine.

I'm kind of surprised that a card that powerful is just a normal kind of rarity. It's really difficult to remove the Spell once it's activated and giving the monster five hundred attack points with every attack just seems so overpowered, at least with how Duel Links currently is. I would have expected it to be hit this time around considering how easily abused it is for a lot of decks. I tend to get frustrated with the PvP events too, but they usually don't feel that short. I tried using Blackwings once, but my phone ran out of power before the match finished. I was trying to go with the Samurai Six deck, but I keep either getting bad hands or I'll face someone with a Red Eyes deck.

Yeah, I'm still surprised that I've avoided as much information as I have. I guess I should have expected someone to break the street date on the games, but I wish that there was a way for Nintendo to make sure that this kind of stuff doesn't happen. I'm sure that they don't want any of their games, let alone a popular title like Pokemon, to be leaked entirely before the release date. All of the Galar starters are quite cute and it is possible that Sobble will grow on me more after I see its evolved forms. That happened with Froakie. I originally thought of choosing Chespin instead back in X/Y, but the starter evolved forms changed my mind back then, so something similar to that could happen here. I'd love a big cool final trailer. Nearly all of the trailers have left me more hyped for Sword/Shield. I appreciate that you'd want to do that all the same.

It seems like a lot of really good cards are actually of the normal rarity oddly enough. Something like Restructer Revolution has been limited for a very long time now all because of that one skill of Anzu's. It's funny because like you say 500 points doesn't really seem like all that much, but it is enough to really trip a person up here. It's actually at the point where in some decks if I have room for another card if the deck doesn't have a set theme, or I use some equip cards myself I run a copy of Tailor of the Fickle so I can steal that copy of Power of the Guardians and turn the duel in my favor. A bit of a wacky attempt but it's saved my bacon before. Yeah I can understand that, like I said before I really try to avoid PvP duels, because they annoy me to the point where I wanna throw my phone sometimes. I think you should look into, and give Blackwings a try again at some point. At least whenever I use them it always seems easy to spam the field, and get out quick Synchros.

Yeah I remember that being a big issue back in the days of X/Y coming out. I'd remember seeing on tumblr that places in Canada broke the street day by a few days and sold some copies of the games. Wouldn't have been as big a deal a gen prior when Japan got the games earlier than we did, but now with it getting a worldwide simultaneous release it would be a much bigger issue, and like you said a major way to see a lot of spoilers that we otherwise wouldn't want to see. At least nowadays with breeding, and whatnot it would be easy enough for you to also get your hands on a Sobble if it does grow enough on you to the point that you'd like one without giving up one of your other choices. While I've been avoiding all trailers myself in an attempt to be surprised, and wowed by everything when I get to play it myself, a final trailer in the final week would still be a pretty cool thing. Even if it's just used as a commercial. Well I'm glad you feel that way, either way though you shoulda know, and figure I'd do that for you.

An extra five hundred attacks points is definitely enough to trip people up, especially when it makes it more difficult to defeat the monster. That sounds like a pretty unique way to get around Power of the Guardians though. I had somewhat better luck with a Blackwing deck, but I still had some defeats. I tried a Red Eyes deck that didn't work out as well as I thought it would. I'll try out another Samurai Six deck, but if that doesn't work, then I'll probably try another Blackwings deck. Even though it makes sense for this event to be exclusive for the 5D's characters, I think that threw me off a bit considering that I haven't used most of them for awhile. I've been primarily using Judai/Yubel outside of farm decks, so that could be part of the issue here.

Oh yeah. I remember hearing about stores in Canada breaking the street date for X/Y. I pretty much saw most of the X/Y Pokedex online as well. I'm kind of surprised that the whole Galar Pokedex hasn't been leaked, or at least that I haven't heard of that. I think only a few new Pokemon have been leaked, but the bulk of the conversation has been about the starters as far as I'm aware at least. Since it isn't a datamine kind of situation, maybe it would be harder to leak everything, which would be good. That was a big issue for both the sixth and seventh generations and I was hoping that we wouldn't have to worry about it with these games. When there was a few months in between releases, I didn't mind looking into the new Pokemon either, but now that the games are released worldwide, I'm okay with just waiting until the games come out to find out more about the entire new generation. It's been a long time since I've had multiple starters on a team, but trading for a Sobble and breeding it could be a possibility. Depending on what new and returning Water type Pokemon are in the Galar Pokedex, I'll probably be okay with just waiting until the next game, whatever that could be, to raise a Sobble, but that might be something to keep in mind if I can't find another Water type for one of my teams.

Wow, I wouldn't be able to avoid all trailers. I can understand wanting to be wowed by everything, but it would be extremely difficult for me to avoid the officially released information and trailers. Granted, I've watched pretty much all of the announcements live at good old 6AM and then I look around for fanart and gifs, but the fact that you've been able to avoid the trailers is pretty impressive. If they do make a final trailer, I'm sure it would be about the starter evolutions and it would be more than a short commercial. It's just an easy instant way to create more hype for the games, especially when people have wanted to see their evolved forms nearly all year. Even with the leaks, getting official artwork, gameplay footage and details on the official site would really create more buzz. I figured that you would want to make sure that I was doing okay. I just think it was sweet and wanted you to know that I appreciate it.

Yeah, being that I refuse to try to obtain every card as I like to save some gems for when certain new packs come out I try to improvise in a lot of decks and find some good filler cards to run. Feel like Duel Links is the best place you can attempt to splash in a random card, at least more so than in a traditional 40 card deck. Well that's pretty understandable so I can see why you'd be tripped up so much. Whenever an event rolls around I tend to just stick in that world for the time being so when not doing this event myself I've been only in the DM world using Yami Yugi due to that roaming Weevil event. At least by the time the next PvP event rolls out it shouldn't be 5D's exclusive so you should be able to go back to using whoever you feel more comfortable with, and whichever deck you'd feel works best.

It certainly was an unfortunate situation back then. I remember staying off the net for a few days after that so I could walk into X/Y with at least some surprises. It certainly does look like this time around unlike the prior gens info has been kept under wrap a bit better. I mean heck I remember even seeing on here people showing anger that the monthly announcements from magazines weren't releasing much info at all. Gen 5 was the only time I'd looked into any info with that several month gap. Had Gen 6 had the same gap as well I'd have probably looked more into it then. Well I hear you on that one. Outside of Yellow I'd never used a team with more than one starter on it myself so I can definitely see where you're coming from with that one. I'm sure there's bound to be at least one Water-type you'll like within this Pokedex other than Sobble so makes sense if you end up waiting for another game to use one.

Well you're dedicated, or passionate, whichever you prefer. I mean there is absolutely nothing wrong at all wanting to watch the announcements at 6AM, and then proceed to look up anything related to it immediately after. I try to do things to distract my attention, keep my mind off of them so I won't see anything, more so in the event that I'd rather not see something I may not like and feel more eh towards the games. It does tend to help too though that when the trailers, and info had dropped I was at work at the time, and thus pre-occupied with other obligations I had to tend to. A good commercial can cause enough buzz too as back when Gen 4 was coming out the commercial for it featured mainly just the starters and Lucario, but it was enough to actually convince me to start playing Pokemon again. But you're probably right, it would probably be a full-fledged final trailer they would release so everyone can see what they're getting into with the final forms of the starters. Of course. I mean, naturally I know you appreciate it cause that's just the nature I've come to know from you, but either way I'm glad you feel that way about it.

I usually save up my Gems for the new packs too. I try not to spend too much money on the game outside of sales and structure decks. I've been using Anzu to farm Weevil myself. She is just perfect for farm decks, but Yami Yugi is a pretty great choice too. I did manage to find a better version of a Samurai Six deck to use, but I only made it to the Elite Cup. I was hoping to get at least another couple of rewards, but I would have had to win about thirty more duels to get everything. It was way too tedious and short. This is easily one of the weakest events in Duel Links,

I don't know if I could avoid the Internet for a few days. I'm just so used to it and I use it to talk to people online, so that would be pretty difficult. People have been upset that they've been releasing small amounts of information this time around. As much as I love getting a ton of Pokemon news to wake up to in the morning, I honestly kind of prefer this method. They provide a good amount of information to get people excited for the games, but not too much to where we feel overwhelmed either. It's a nice balance. It is disappointing that the entire Pokedex was apparently leaked, especially when I was thinking just yesterday that it was only a handful of new Pokemon that were leaked, but I guess i should have expected that. It's just going to make it more difficult to avoid spoilers when now the discussion has moved from the starter evolutions to what Pokemon made the Galar Pokedex cut. I haven't looked that up or even the amount of Pokemon in the Galar Pokedex. I just hope that it doesn't kick off another huge wave of backlash due to not wanting to deal with more negativity on the games, as well as how that would make avoiding spoilers more difficult.

Well I just had so much fun watching the Sword/Shield announcement live that I wanted to keep doing that whenever possible. I could have just checked Serebii out first thing in the morning instead, but I would have missed out on the surprise factor a bit and I was also happy that the new starters weren't leaked for once. I'd be able to distract myself for awhile, but I'd see stuff related to the announcement or trailer the moment I'd come here practically anyway. I just really hope that they'll reveal some of the information soon. I wish that the games came out this week instead of next week, but it hopefully won't be too long of a wait for the 15th to finally come here.

It's convenient enough when willing to skip some packs too. I'm skipping over this current Mini box as most of the cards, short of the Yosenju cards personally, but with Sawatari not being a character until who knows when I don't feel a need for them right now. I'm not even bothering to farm, which is why I'm rolling with Yami Yugi since in the last few months there's been a bunch of support for Dark Magician so felt like rolling with using it for now. Anzu is pretty good to use though. Well that's at least a plus that you could improve your deck, and end up getting more of the rewards out of it. I feel you on that one though, that's why I didn't put in much effort short of getting those 50 daily gems. Makes me have to ask though which event did you dislike more, this one or the first Kiryu unlock event?

That's very understandable for sure. Every time I take a bit of a break I do feel like it is rather tough myself so I can see where you're coming from there. I too felt that it's certainly better that we got small pieces of info only. I mean if every aspect of a game is going to be given to me before I get it then that may sway my mind if I'd want it or not, rather than just getting it and seeing how I feel about it myself. Granted with Pokemon short of getting out of being a fan of it as a whole it wouldn't happen where I'd just skip a game, but I think you understood my point there. That is certainly an unfortunate situation since we'd just spent the past few days saying about how you've been able to avoid seeing too much info towards the games. Even still as long as you tiptoe carefully around you can probably avoid most of the new info. Even if there's backlash who cares right? I mean you're still going to get, and (hopefully) enjoy the games no matter what so I wouldn't let it get to me if I were you.

Fair enough. The most important thing is that you enjoyed whatever info they gave out and as such taking that into account I can easily understand why you'd like to keep seeing new live announcements when they'd come out. Plus I'm sure it was more fun, and maybe easier to be wowed watching the new info drop live rather than just looking it up later on anyways. Well I do suppose that's a valid point. I think I've just been lucky more than anything else to be able to turn my head, stay mildly distracted, and avoid any major spoilers. But heck nothing wrong with taking the path you've been with info either. The 15th is only right around the corner so I wouldn't worry about the final wait now. That's only a week and a half and lately time has seemed to be flying by so before you know it it'll already be next Friday morning where you wake up all excited for the day.

I can understand that. I try to go through each box in case I'll need the new cards for a farm deck or I want to try out one of the new archetypes. Although, it does get really annoying to go through a ton of packs when I'm just looking for a handful of Super Rare and Ultra Rare cards. I haven't gotten all of the new support for Dark Magician yet, but there are a lot of good options for that archetypes for Yami Yugi. I wasn't sure at first, but I think that I dislike this Turbo Duel event more than the first Kiryu unlock event. As frustrating and tedious as the first Kiryu event was, I was able to get all of the event rewards available. I think I needed to win about sixty PvP duels in order to get all of the rewards available, which is just far too much and clearly favors the players who do spend the money to get decks full of Ultra Rare cards. I could only get coins with each duel, but there should have been the usual Event Points where you got the rewards the more you dueled, not the more times you won the cup itself. It just might be the worst event in Duel Links thus far.

Yeah, I understand that. That's a big reason why I don't want to see the leaks before getting the games. I don't want unofficially revealed information to sway my opinions of the games before I even get them. I just want to play through the games to form my own opinions on it. I'm still hoping we'll get another trailer within the next week or so, but at least the new overview trailer is pretty cool. I just don't like seeing a lot of negativity towards stuff that I like, especially when the Pokedex controversy overshadowed everything else about the games for awhile. The backlash doesn't usually impact my own opinion or enjoyment, but it can make discussing the games more difficult or annoying too. I kind of just swore off going to the Sword/Shield section here much earlier than I normally would have primarily because of how much people were complaining about the National Dex issue.

It definitely has been more fun and exciting to be wowed by the announcements live than just reading up about it on Serebii when I first wake up. That made the initial announcement to Sword/Shield much more fun for me, especially when the announcement hadn't been leaked for once. I still think it's pretty impressive to avoid major spoilers for the games. Yeah, the next few days might pass by faster than I think they will. The months can go by slow, fast or somehow both at the same time. I'm just kind of anxious due to my excitement for the games, as well as trying to avoid spoilers. I am still surprised with how relatively well I have been able to avoid leaks, especially with the starter evolutions, so hopefully that streak of luck will continue.

That's understandable, as long as I like one card in the new box then I'll try to go through some of them to get it. That was especially true for Power Tool Dragon, and Ancient Fairy Dragon as I'd wanted to own all the signer based dragon cards even if I didn't care for the rest of the pack they were in. That makes plenty of sense. I was fortunate enough to pull Magician Navigation pretty early, but it took a while to snag Palladium Oracle Mahad. I've gotta agree with you on this one, this event was just awful. The Kiryu event, as iffy as it was, had plenty of room and opportunity to get all the rewards easily enough. This was just a real bad event all around at distributing rewards. Way too focused on the PvP aspect which like you said really only heavily favors one side. Hopefully they don't try another event like this one for quite some time.

Yeah knowing important details ahead of time can really impact gameplay I feel. For example I was informed about something in the most recent Fire Emblem game before reaching that point in the game myself, but finding out about it ahead of time was enough to make me decide to stop playing, and put the game on the shelf. Something like Pokemon which I've cared about more or less for 20 years now I'd rather not have something like that happen here so that's why I try to turn a blind eye to everything. Yeah, you've made that point when it came to how you felt about Arc-V vs others feelings about it, and it's understandable I mean who wants to see a bunch of negativity towards something you enjoy? It makes sense why you'd avoid going near that area though as the Dex issue was certainly enough issue to cause major arguments everywhere really. It definitely could make talking about things a lot harder given you don't always know how the other person feels about said topic.

Well that's good at least that you were able to really enjoy yourself seeing the announcements live even at the cost of potentially some extra sleep. Wish I could have known what that was like myself to see the initial announcement over being sent a link on Facebook cause I was at work at the time. Well I certainly do try my best to turn a blind eye to any amount of information. Right, I mean it's already 9pm now so the day is almost over, but it feels like I'd just sent you my prior message about 10 minutes ago only which just goes to show how fast the time is flying by. But that does make a lot of sense, I mean excitement towards a game can certainly cause a good deal of anxiousness. There'd been times in the past where I'd be unable to sleep the night before getting a game because I'd be too excited, similar to trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. I have no doubt that your good fortune with avoiding seeing any major spoilers at this point.

My luck with getting the Ultra Rare cards is a bit shaky. Sometimes I'll be able to get most of them without having to go through too many packs, but sometimes I won't get them until the last few packs of the box. It's a bit annoying, but at least I'm usually able to get them without too much of a hassle. It helps that it's relatively easy to collect gems too, so it doesn't take me too long to get the maximum amount again. This event would have been okay if we just got the usual Event Point system where we get rewards based on that instead of the number of times we've won. They'll probably do this event again. I just hope that they'll improve upon it like they did with the Kiryu event.

I can definitely understand not wanting something like that happen with Pokemon. Admittedly, I'm not sure if there is anything that could make me stop playing the games myself, especially when even the National Dex issue didn't enrage me like it did with other fans, but I can understand that concern all the same. Yeah, I was actually thinking of the situation with Arc V when I mentioned the whole overwhelming negativity issue. Constant negativity was a huge reason why I swore off Yu-Gi-Oh! sites. As frustrating as the whole National Dex issue has become, at least it hasn't gotten to that extreme point for me. It probably also helps that I don't venture into the Video Game sections too often too. I'm not sure how I'll handle talking about Sword/Shield once I do progress far enough in those games, but hopefully I'll enjoy them.

Now we're almost a week away from the release date, which almost feels unreal to me in a way. There has been so much hype for the games that I almost can't believe that we're this close to actually playing them. Next Thursday night is going to be quite exciting. I'm sure that Gamestop will have plush toys of the Galar starters too. I don't know if I could afford to get all three of them, but it would be quite tempting to say the least.

Yeah, I know what you mean there, for Super Rare ones too. It's like when the pack with Harpie's Hunting Ground came out in my first pack I pulled a copy of it, so I figured I'd just reset that box right then to try to pull a second copy a bit easier, but then like the pack with Dark Magician of Chaos? Didn't pull that until there was only 2 packs left in the box. Even now I'm having trouble pulling Chocolate Magician Girl and Chaos Sorcerer. It certainly does help that it's easier enough to farm Gems yeah. I like trying to be at 9999 when a new pack comes out with cards I want so I know I'm set to go deep into the box to pull them. Yeah if we'd had a point system to go along with the number of wins at least it wouldn't have felt so bad, but the way this event was laid out just gave me no motivation to want to play it at all. With any luck it will be revamped in a big way next time it rolls around.

You're right there, because after all I don't think it would prevent me from playing Pokemon either. When I'd stopped playing it many years ago it was more along the lines of I'd just felt bored with it during those early teen years. I think I mentioned this once before but while the Dex issue certainly did irk me a bit, it wasn't enough to make me want to cancel my pre-order, or think about not playing it in any way. Yeah it's still a shame I hadn't met you back during the days of Arc-V cause it would have been good to have someone to talk to who felt so positive about the series like I did. Even if the National Dex situation was as bad as maybe the Arc-V one got I somehow don't see you swearing off of Pokemon sites and walking away, or at least not here anyway. I'm sure you're going to enjoy the games just fine though.

And now at this point next week I assume we'll both be playing the games which really feels unreal. I can't imagine this next week will drag on at all. It's going to be next Friday in a snap. I'm actually tempted to call out of work next Friday to play Sword, but I'll probably go in since I have to wait for my copy to be delivered anyways. Well if you felt like getting any, but didn't want to get them all you could always hold off on getting Sobble until a later time just like you planned to do in the games.

I rarely reset the box before getting all of the packs, especially when I'll still usually need another copy of a Super Rare card once I get to the last few. I wait until I'm extremely close to 9999 gems. I can easily get about half of a box with just the gems, so that's pretty helpful. It's still a lot easier to get gems in Duel Links compared to Pokemon Masters. Although, they are at least trying to increase the rewards. It's still more tedious by comparison, but it's at least an effort. The current Duel Links event is better, although I'm still annoyed at how minimal the DSOD world is. I just hope that we'll get Yugi playable in that world soon too.

I can understand feeling bored with it. A lot of people kind of fall in and out of the games and anime like that. I can understand why people are upset about the National Dex and there are some valid points. I just think it's too overwhelmingly negative and overshadows too much of the actual game. It might have bothered me more if I transferred my Pokemon more frequently, but since I primarily just use whatever new Pokemon are available and I don't set out to complete the Pokedex, it didn't really phase me. It would have been nice to talk about Arc V as it was airing for me as well. One of the reasons why I got hooked into the series so early was from all of the speculations and theories I read about. It just made talking about Arc V more fun. It would be much harder to avoid Pokemon sites by comparison. Not only because of being a moderator, but also because I've been coming here much longer. I only went to a couple of Yu-Gi-Oh! specific sites before swearing them off for good.

Yeah, counting down the days already makes me feel like the week will go by fast. I'll be picking up my copies at GameStop as soon as possible. I was really tempted to pre-order my games at the Pokemon Center. The pre-order bonus was a set of little plush toy keychains of the Galar starters, which is so much better than the posters GameStop offers. I stuck with GamesStop since I was worried about possibly not getting the games until Saturday. Plus, there are three or four GameStop stores within my area, so it's pretty easy to get the games on Friday. I thought about only getting one or two of the plush toys, but then I'd feel kind of bad leaving one of them out. I'm quite the sentimental person like that, but I'll keep that in mind.

That's perfectly understandable. I never reset the box myself outside of that one time I listed, and it was pointless anyway as I still only even have one copy of Harpie's Hunting Ground. Yeah the gems easily seem like they cover plenty of the box, especially if you aren't even interested in getting every card in them anyway. Oh did they start to improve Masters? For the 4 days or so I played it they did seem pretty cheap with the gems over there which really didn't help with the iffy chance of getting a good character pull, unlike in Duel Links where you're at least guaranteed to get the card you're hunting for at some point. The event now is fine, but the drop rates stink, I'm having no luck getting any SR or UR cards to drop from duels. The Circuit event is just fine though as that's dropping a good amount of gems. I like using Sera for it. I didn't know what deck to give her so I'd built a Gravekeepers one, and I got to say it seems really strong in Duel Links. More so now that Necrovalley is available.

Yeah, but at this point that was 14 years ago, and I've long since come back into being a fan so it's all good anyways. That's very understandable. I know I said this a few months ago, but I can see view points from both sides of the fence, but like you said it's far too negative at times. I mean if that's all you're focused on instead of at least looking at other points of the game well that's pretty bad. One aspect like this shouldn't be a main selling point, or at least I'd hope not, and shouldn't be enough of a reason to be super negative. Maybe in the first few days sure, but not as time went on. Yeah I'll agree with you there. Plus with how interesting the story was, and well written almost immediately. It would have been a lot of fun to chitchat about every Sunday evening. Yeah, I mean I looked beyond you being a moderator here, but more in the realm of how long you've spent here, and friendships I doubt you'd just want to randomly abandon. Plus with how much of a Pokemon fan you just seem to be in general overall.

Yeah cause now here we are almost finished with Saturday so we'll be entering the week the games are coming out, so like I said it's gonna be going by super fast. That's a good safe bet then. I just went with ordering my copy from Amazon like I normally do since I figure it can just be delivered to the house on the release date while I'm at work. Saves me the extra stop needing to pick it up when I get out for the day. Though it does stink you have to miss out on a bonus you'd enjoy more. Well that does sound really sweet, and cute too actually so I can easily see why you don't want to go without getting all 3 of them.

It is a bit annoying how frequently they add in new boxes to Duel Links, but I can see why they'd want to add in as many cards as they can whenever possible. They are handing out free gems through rewards and log-in bonuses more often now. It's still more tedious to farm free gems, but at least it is possible to try to find trainers without having to spend a few dollars on paid gems. The rates are still pretty terrible though. I have had absolutely terrible luck with the previous spotlight events, so they still need to work on that. I've gotten a couple of Ultra Rare cards from duels, but I haven't farmed too much just yet. I'm saving up the items I need for the duels first. I'm still trying to figure out what deck to use as Sera. Gravekeepers sounds pretty neat, but I haven't gotten some of the necessary cards to make that deck work yet.

Yeah, I can understand both sides too and I can understand the backlash to a degree. Fans have been complaining about the games for quite some time and the National Dex was probably the last straw for a lot of people. I just feel like that aspect takes up too much attention away from what the games have to offer. Plus, I really hate it when people downplay behavior like people sending threats or harassing the developers as just a minority. Even if that is the case, that isn't really a good defense for that kind of attitude and behavior. It definitely would have been nice to have another positive area to talk about Arc V, especially when I would see nothing but complaints around season two. It also helps that aside from Serebii, my experiences with Pokemon forums haven't been anywhere near as bad as what I've dealt with through Yu-Gi-Oh! sites.

I still wish that they would officially reveal the starter evolved forms before Friday, but at least I feel confident in being able to avoid spoilers until I get the games. I thought about pre-ordering the games from Amazon myself since they're usually able to get pre-orders shipped out fast enough to where I'd get them on the day they come out. But I'd still have to wait a bit longer to play them and the pre-order bonus wasn't really that appealing for me either. Getting posters isn't too bad, but I do miss the days of getting figurines as pre-order gifts. That's nice of you to say. Thank you. I'll have to see how much they are and if they have them on Friday. It would be really tempting to go on a fun Pokemon shopping spree, but with the holidays right around the corner, I also want to make sure that I have more than enough funds for Christmas shopping. I'll just have to think about my options once I get down there on Friday.

Yeah I mean it took me until the second to last pack to finally pull Chocolate Magician Girl, and that's with now a new Mini Box having come out, and now a new full Box coming. I skipped the former, but I do want to pull some from the new one to get some of the new Blackwing cards. I do understand the urge to add new packs, especially now with 4 worlds but it can be a bit difficult to try to keep up with the meta with new packs coming out twice a month. Well that's a plus that they're seemingly trying to improve on things as far as in-game currency goes over there. Hopefully you'll be able to get any of the upcoming characters that you'd want. I'm not even bothering to farm just yet, just aiming to beat the free duels against her before needing to spend the items to challenger her at the gate, but still. Yeah I'm liking Gravekeepers with her. While the deck is more meant for Ishizu given her skills, and lines for said cards I like her ability "Wave of Enlightenment" since it'll boost a few of the monsters including the key one, Supernaturalist. Stinks you haven't gotten all the needed cards yet for it though.

It is a shame things had to go so far the way it did. I guess I'm not too surprised though. Even if it wasn't for the National Dex issue there would have been some other major issue people would have found with the games before their release. I mean a series of this much popularity, running for this long it's just bound to happen. I could see why people would complain about season two, not that I'd justify such complaints myself, but I would see bits of it being complained about by others too. Overall I can't blame you for leaving you any Yu-Gi-Oh! based site after all of that though. That's good that you've been able to luck out hanging out on Pokemon sites for the most part with no desire to leave though. I guess if you ever did feel like leaving here I couldn't entirely blame you as the thought had crossed my mind in the past about myself doing so.

At this point it's just a small handful of days now so you should be good to go on the avoiding the spoilers before Friday. That's a good point, I mean sometimes when it comes to Amazon you are bound to be on the back of the truck with deliveries. There's been times where I'll get a delivery from them at 5pm, and other times when they show up at 8am so you never really know what you might be getting so I don't blame you for just going in person to pick up your games. Of course, you're very welcome. That's true, what with the holidays coming up you don't wanna shortchange yourself too much on money even if you do want those three. I'm sure you'll make whatever decision you feel is best, and right come Friday.

The new Blackwings cards look pretty cool. I think that they included some of Crow's Arc V cards too, which is great. It might take me awhile to get all of the necessary cards to make a better Blackwings deck, but that should be fun to use once I get there. I usually try to do the same method for event duelists. I try to save up items, rely on the free duels and them spend a ton of items to rank up the rewards. I just finished farming Sera. I may try a couple of more duels to get some of the special jewels to trade cards later on. I haven't been able to get a lot of key cards lately, mainly due to not wanting to get too low on gems and I haven't gotten the two recent structure decks yet. I'm tempted to do that with the Dark Magician deck since I'm curious to try out a new kind of deck for the PvP. I might try out another Cyber Dragon deck instead though.

Yeah, there probably would have been some big complaints. While fans usually had complains with every generation, it seems like it has gotten worse over time and I don't think it's just due to the problems with each generation or Game Freak. I still remember people throwing fits over not having older Pokemon in B/W available until the post storymode. At this point, it just feels like there is a lot of fan entitlement and downright awful behavior. When people are demanding people to lose their jobs or harassing people due to being positive towards the games, then they really crossed the line and makes me even more indifferent towards the whole issue. While there were some valid complaints about season two, a lot of it just didn't make sense to me. Fans kept acting like it was filler or that there was some massive downgrade in the writing. The vast majority of the complaints just came off like people were impatient, especially when the events of the Synchro arc were important for both character and plot developments. That always annoyed me so much. I also feel like season one was put on such a massive pedestal that anything that didn't match to some fans' ideas for the series was automatically dismissed as being bad or boring. It reminds me a lot of the backlash towards the second season of 5D's, although I actually agree with a lot of the common complaints towards that series.

I've thought about just choosing my starters without even looking up their evolved forms beforehand after getting the games on Friday. I could just choose my starters and see their first evolved forms to see my immediate reactions. It would be the first time I could be completely surprised by what my starters evolve into. I don't know if I'll do that, especially when pretty much all of the Pokemon will be available on Serebii by Friday or Saturday, but it is an interesting thought. I've been using Amazon for a long time and oddly enough, I think only one order was lost in the mail. My orders usually come during the late morning or early afternoon, but I wouldn't want to risk not getting the games until late on Friday. I'm still amazed that we're this close to the new games. At least the week is going by at a good pace.

Yeah they have some of the Arc-V cards he used in this pack. There's so many Blackwing cards now that you could probably easily make 5 or 6 different decks with them instead of the one standard version we could earlier with just the cards from the one pack. I think for now I'll just be content pulling Gale the Whirlwind, though with how my luck could be I might pull all the other new Blackwing cards before pulling that one anyways. I really put off facing her. I have over 1100 of the event item, and am just sitting under 3 million points so I might go spam duel her a bunch tonight and see how far I get in the point area. I was pretty tempted to get the new Dark Magician deck myself as well, but with how deep I'd went into pulling cards in the prior main box I felt I could afford the 1000 gems on this deck. If it was only 500 like others I'd have probably bought it. Cyber Dragon is bound to get a bit more support eventually. I think there's still some good, non-Xyz cards missing.

Yeah, it certainly is a bit crazy the way people seem to handle the situations. Of course I put a lot of blame on social media in general too. Prior to the days of Gen 5 coming out I hadn't used much internet, if any, as I feel a lot of people were in the same realm, and as such there wasn't major room to find out game info, or area to go to complain. Now with sites like Twitter, or Facebook where they make official posts it just seems like a place where people are always found complaining. Generally for rather unvalid reasons too. I guess it's just how things are going to go from now on no matter how many new Gens come out. Season two needed to be set in a slower pace like it was I feel. I mean we couldn't just get an immediate explanation on who Yugo, or Yuri were. Or why there was more than one world exactly. I could understand if people were complaining about us needing to be reintroduced to Crow, and Jack like they were new characters, but their backgrounds being explained only took what, 5 minutes of screen time? As you said it was rather important for them to explain and talk about new characters, and help develop the story even more, which honestly paid off big time.

You could always also flip a coin if you could just have it truly narrowed down to only two choices. But the idea of being surprised of what a starter evolves into is actually a lot of fun, at least from my personal experience. I did that for the first 4 Gens, and it was pretty fun, even if it did on occasion make me decide to start playing from the beginning again. That's a fair point. I mean yesterday I'd gotten a delivery from there at 5:45pm so I can easily see why you would be worried as you wouldn't want to be getting the games that late into the day. Yep, at this point now today is almost over so it's just one more full day before we hit that release day.