History of Japanese TCGs #4: Pokémon's First Big Tournaments (1998-1999)

We take a look at Japan's first big tournaments for the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and how new cards from the vending and Gym series created two opposite yet equally degenerate strategies: hand locking and hand destruction.

[@Luther7718]

I hope the algorithm picks you up soon, these videos are great

[@MyHeroMYLIFE]

I TOTALLY AGREE!!!

[@redheadphones6]

These videos are amazing. They go into so much more detail than other videos, actually diving into the specific people behind the card game rather than just rambling off good cards. The history here is amazing, almost like a documentary. It's also really interesting from a western perspective to hear how the original market for the game affected the game worldwide. Really great stuff, and I hope you continue this series.

[@HeyElKappa]

For anyone interested, PTCGArchive have just uploaded the results and some decklists for major Japanese events from 1997-2010.

[@TheDan14]

watching the whole series a second time, here's a comment because this should be top of the list for tcg history searches

[@anavaeru]

So glad I found this series! Binge watching it all now and it's informative and interesting :)

[@Kuikkamies]

Republishing these videos with lower volume VGM and better enunciation would make these golden.

[@Iamsososorry]

your videos are awesome. so glad I found this.

[@rayciannello2268]

This is a fantastic series

[@ptcg-teamdark6182]

thank u so much abaout the japanes pokemon time , so hard to find infos for it, would be nice to see decks and other things from that time...

[@BOB-yb1db]

Even though I never really played the Pokemon TCG, it's fascinating to hear, that it's faced balancing issues like Yu-Gi-Oh

[@rescuerex7031]

yeah basically every TCG was a complete mess in the early days of TCG's

[@chozo914]

Awesome vids