Coming back from my last review about one week later than expected, since I wanted to have it cleaned up end-of-Feb but hey, here we are.
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Review (Ch.1)
…Perhaps not to Soon™ as I had said, but stuff is mostly here.
The day of new adventure comes. After all, it’s time to MAKE MONEY!!! Dread it, run from it, expenditures always come.
As I laid in bed, I considered the space of my new home. It certainly gave room to breathe, but had a certain… emptiness about it.
Consider:
acquiring things to decorate homes costs money. Money that we have yet to make! Instead, enjoy the free space. Once the Diogenes hits strong and your living room is full of stack of boxes of VHS movies about card game players you’ll never watch, it’s
never coming back.
Armed with my ‘FlashFire!’ deck, the members of the Grass Club should make for the best test run since fire would give me the advantage.
My two OCs with Flash Fire approve.
Free piece of advice if you ever plan on cross-posting this to sites like AO3: leave a section link to, or an extra copy of, the deck listing that was provided in the previous paragraph. It’s more mechanical information that’s useful for those who are following things more closely to the point, and saves those who care from keeping an extra tab open.
(Then again, who am I kidding, if a reader of yours is gonna track the mechanics that closely, they likely already have three extra tabs open
solely because of this fic, lol)
So, “
Mister”™ engages in a healthy and environmentally productive activity like walking, instead of taking the bus or a cab (I take it there’s no Uber in this economy?). Following the mental track towards the first opponents, but also enjoying the trip in the meanwhile. Basically the whole meal. It is, at least, a traversed and regular enough path that it seems some improvements like wooden bridges, hopefully with maintenance… I do wonder who is paying for that, tho. Presumably there’s another,
more practical road towards the Grass Club that has better vehicular capability (perhaps a bike lane, if going by their likely theming)
and sees better maintenance?
Oh well. When has walking into the wilds
ever killed anyone. This is not, after all, a world with variegated wild Pokémon, let alone a PMD world :p.
Sometimes one would even catch wild Doduo cutting through! There had been one recently, judging from the tracks across the path.
DUN DUN DUUUUUN
It is time. Tracker mode activate! Follow the tracks and get to the critter and use a Pokéball to– oh right…
Riiiight. Card games.
Challenge the Doduo to a card game.
I soon arrived at the fork in the trail. After taking the path to the right, it wasn’t long until I was met with a break in the trees and a view of the side of the Grass Club!
Excuse me but…
why would you choose that???
Like, honestly, if you are gonna ruin a good suit that you don’t have money to wash, by wandering about in the woods, hey do at least try and get a free Doduo out of the exercise!
Walking in, the Club sure does try sticking to the theme, with an unpaved interior lounge. “
Mister”™ wonders who not just plant some grass there and honestly while I can’t think of much good reasons, the need for extra maintenance does is one. Nothing that a holed brick road can’t fix (and it allows for decent drainage).
Being dapper never hurt anyone, and I wasn’t going to have the ladies in the all-girl club put up with anything less than my best.
Attire in order, I crossed the threshold of the Grass Club.
Well now of course it’s never hurt anyone… except the pocket lining. Can you think how costly it’s gonna keep this nice suit washed from dirt, pollen and stuff? Like, that’s money we don’t currently have!
(If the gains from these battles today are gone to buying sports shoes, I’ll can only laugh)
I began to glance about the room.
I first noticed Brittany.
Ah yes.
First blood!
Sorry if I’m proooobably overidealizing how cool card game combat is like, once again, YGO is at fault.
Unfortunately, my great success that day was where my trouble began with getting opponents to duel me…
On the one hand, yes, that was gonna stink in the end. On the other hand, I feel like people from the Grass Club would be the more willing to experiment against a new deck, in particular if it’s from a reputable contender. If Nikki’s still around she can speak well on the situation and help us advance the plot! :p
No Karens? We’re good.
Because she looked so much like Nikki from long ago, it stirred many feelings in me; adoration, nostalgia, hope… and deep regret.
No no no
no, “
Mister”™, there can be only one feeling.
BLOOODLUST!!
Or fear of running out of coin. Either is fine.
My thinking back then was so narrow-minded; to have the life you want and the girl you want, you had to become the best at the Pokemon TCG!
Take it from a certain Ashnime: that doesn’t work lol.
Also, oooh reminiscing mode! (I really enjoyed the reminiscing scene from the prologue)
Those were the best days of my life. So full of possibility and wonder, yet without the full weight of responsibility
Teenagers! [*shakes fist*]
So we have a triangle thing going on in the past. You know the triangle. No, not the
starter triangle! There was “
Mister”™, there was Nikki, and there was Isaac. Friends (or even friends-with-benefits) become more distant as time goes on, and in the end, sometimes three’s too much for a duet, I guess.
In my pursuit of her… I had left her behind…
Banger lines of 2026 (well, 2025) that would make Plato not envy our current times.
In the end, sometimes when you dedicate too much to a craft, all you are left with in the end is the need, the need for speed. Often people say spite is a
powerful motivator and in this case there even seems to be a bit of it here powering our MC’s way to Championdom, but also the usual advice that comes along with is is that the top is a lonely place, as we already saw in the prologue.
My grandfather’s words yet again rang true: That it is not the destination in life that is important… but the journey.
Did I vote yet for more Grandpa screentime? No? Just sayin’, I’d totally befine with it.
We are thrown back to reality, however, with Heather already explaining that the meta is locked and there’s no point in a trade you know is locked into a losing match. Reminds me a bit of the impressions some of the characters get during
Last Year at Marienbad, a movie precisely about a player locked into a game with a very specific meta.
I gave my best confident smile. “Heather! Today things are far different! I am already the Champion! Today I am here to give your club the first crack at winning against my new all-common card deck; ‘FlashFire!’ I drew my deck from my pocket and fanned a few cards out for her to see.
Important lesson in life: if you have no rizz, have “car salesman charm” as a backup plan. [*sagenods*]
As soon as she’s explained the new testing meta, heather goes on to find cannon foddercompetitors. The idea of “no rare cards in the deck” already helps sell the experimentation if the idea of getting a première of the new deck doesn’t already.
Also, Nikki is there.
Come on, we all know what that stare is for.
DUN DUN DUUUUN.
(Also, another life lesson: good rizz begins with good eye contact, so get to training that one NOW!)
Suddenly Brittany approached and held out her deck, snapping me away from my thoughts. “You’re on, Mister!”
And we’re ON!!! We get the Battle Tarp, courtesy of our protag, and we can get to experience the new deck.
She turned her gaze away from the roof and back to me with her head titled with widened eyes. “I sure was surprised when I learned that, past beginner-level, almost all duelists play on the floor!”
Don’t let YGO-ers learn that! They are already enough of an issue as-is! XD
We get some nice pre-battle conversation (it’s not really
banter, it’s noticeably more casual and geared towards reminiscing and comparing the
outside world than anything else) and then we get striaght to the hand, which includes
Gust of Wind, a card that triggers switchouts. This might get interesting for the opening session, in-universe, because it means the strategy is to test the deck’s viability against as wide a portion of the opponent’s deck in a single go as possible.
She proceeded to her turn and drew a card, attaching her energy for the turn on her benched Bellsprout Lv. 11. An odd choice considering her Scyther Lv. 23 in the active slot was left with none.
I do have faith in a Scyther! Ever one that is merely a drawing! Those things are dangerous and can handle themselves, and also most art I can recall of the trading cards up to about the EX era makes them look quite cool.
This meant I drew four cards instead of doing nothing. As for my cards:
[…] Ponyta Lv. 8
And the flame begins.
“Don’t think you can scare me with all those cards! You can still only attach one energy per turn and you can’t evolve any mon the first turn they are placed! Also, you can only attack once per round!”
Bold words for cannon fodder! But also, a decent if sliiiightly forced way to get reminded of some of the most basic rules that one could reasonably believe, sometimes, are taken for granted.
Ponyta Lv. 8 is set in position and we get the first attack in
not a Fire attack but a kick this time so as to not rely on random chance (that also costs stock). The response is to bench a Weedle and then set things up to rotate Scyther off the turn immediately, costing us cool bug screentime but also gives us the first KO in favour of “
Mister”™, with Bellsprout Lv. 11 going down.
Subsequent operations have Brittany bring in a Pinsir which is no Scyther alas, but things are well set up so that “
Mister”™ can keep his opponent from building up an upper hand, and while our glorious Ponyta gets PSN’d in the process, a quickie
Switch fixes that.
Brittany dragged the fingers of both hands across her face. “Why are ALL your coin-flips heads?! Nooo!”
Because he’s a
head in the game! Get it? A-
head? No?
And as further proof that “
Mister”™ is a
head, he brings our glorious Ponyta back and proceeds to KO another opponent card in the process, making a 2-out-of 4.
Scyther comes next for the screentime wins, with a Grass Energy attached for good measure, and the paper critter nails the screentime by taking out our Glorious Ponyta!
Brittany nodded while smiling. “Awesome! When you use this deck I can actually KO your mon!”
Ooooh the fresh breath of actually facing some
risk in life.
With two Bill, surely I would draw something of use! I played both of them:
[…] Dark Rapidash
Aaaaah good ol’
environmental storytelling. Was this a shōnen fight and not a TCG, this could be reparsed as our once-defeated and glorious Ponyta taking the cuffs off and bulking up for the comeback.
I swapped Dark Rapidash back to the deck for a Ponyta Lv. 8 and played it.
Noooo! I mean yes, but noooo!
Anyway it all means cool Ponyta screentime. Continuation of the attack however falls upon Voltorb’s task to complete and that suffices to bring Scyther down to half HP. To secure that particular win, we get to evolve the Ponyta and with increased attack, Scyther goes down by the end of the turn.
One more attack and the game would be mine!
—
famous last words.
Brittany decided to go down swinging. She brought out a Bellsprout Lv. 11,
Kudos to her, and also thematically fitting wording.
Still, in the end that’s of no help and “
Mister”™ secures what I’m reading is a 4-1 win.
Kristin steps in next, and could have featured good Scyther and Venomoth screentime, but the rundown is offscreen and very similar to what Brittany went through, so I’m guessing it was a 4-2 at best. Dark Rapidash earned its offscreentime (I just coined that word) awesomeness here.
Kristin had tears running down her face. “What IS this?! How can I lose to a deck of ALL COMMONS!?”
—
famous questions uttered by French aristocracy.
This leaves
Heather as the last opponent and she at least comes in with the attitude to make an effort for a different experience.
Alas, it was not meant to be, and her deck goes down in flames as well, although she still has enough confidence and regain that she hopes the experience was useful as a
deck test scenario, as originally intended.
I replied back softly, […] “If all goes well, I’ll also test my deck against your mother.”
Oh you
silly+, there are more ways to recoup that lost time besides, ahem, sliding your deck against the mother* XD.
Aaaaanyway, that’s one test session done, and as the first team to ever lose against the new deck the Grass Club does send the wish to have
everyone else get pummeled so that they are not remembered unfondly as the “only jokers to lose against the upstart”, I guess. Still, good wishes are good wishes.
My time in the club was short indeed. All-commons or not, type advantage was type advantage.
And this is one way the TCG is different from the mainline games, where at least for the regualr game, level difference trumps everything else barring type immunities.
Before I left the club, I caught Nikki with a determined look upon her face. Now was not the time for our duel, though…
Yup,
that look.
Not yet. But oooh is
that conversation going to be interesting.
My next destination would be the Water Club.
There we go then, for next review, my scoring will be 8.8/Too Much Water!
All in all a good chapter with a lot of hidden (and not) promises for lore and character interaction. Seeing the “paper cutout” screentime for Ponyta and Scyther was pretty good because honestly Ponyta (Rapidash) and Scyther are really cool mons.
The idea of testing the new deck “ground up” and more in-the-bare, in the sense of going against cannon fodder from the get-go instead of running an experimental test against a second-tier opponent, as one would probably be inclined to do when one already has standing experience so as to “shortcircuit” the experiment, does stand as an interesting indicator that this is, so far, as much for the love of the game as is for getting back to the competitive circuit somehow. When you love the game, one of the easiest ways to share the love of the game is with beginners, after all, no matter how advanced level you are. That’s a thign that
Monster Hunter multiplayer has taught me, and is a standing evidence that “
Mister”™ is willing to take the time and do the actual legwork of getting his new deck well tested.
And if he gets to enjoy it in the meantime and catch a IRL (in-universe) Doduo along the road, the better!
But still, that fork on the road that led to the Doduo on the untaken path but to the competitive sport on the taken road does serve a nice narrative parallel to the fork in “
Mister”™’s past life (and love-life), what with the questions that now emerge about the untaken path.
Will we get more? Will the potential villain that would be the other pupil of Ms. Wem, that I invented in last review, learn about this recent “re-development” of longing stares and kidnap Heather and/or Nikki as bargaining chips in the Final Duel? Will “
Mister”™ actually get to catch or adopt a Doduo? Will he have to hand-wash his suit for a couple weeks until the economy improves? (real 2026 vibes btw)
WHO KNOWS!!! SO STAY TUNED!!
