Pokemon’s newest release for its wildly popular trading card game, Heart Gold, Soul Silver, is scheduled to be available in stores on February 10th. A pre-release event was held on January 30th at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. Not only were the new cards available almost two weeks before the official release, three events were offered for the 47 attendees to participate in.
A constructed deck tournament was the main event, boasting 36 players, 6 from the junior division, 10 from senior, and 20 from the master division. For a reasonable $25 fee, players received 6 booster packs of the new set which they used to build their 40 card deck. A high level of excitement was pervasive in the room as the packs were opened. Shouts about which anticipated rare card was pulled occasionally pierced the buzzing chatter.
Once the decks were built the contestants were paired randomly for five rounds of tournament action. The games were just for fun and the records didn’t really matter. Everyone who participated was awarded two booster packs. While the tournament was taking place our event coordinator, Jim Bauman, awarded two prizes to players who’s names were drawn at random.
In addition to the constructed deck tournament there were games played with pre-constructed theme decks. 11 players participated and were obviously having a great time. Each player who completed the theme deck event received 4 booster packs at the end.
Jim was very excited about the turnout and hopes that it will carry over to the upcoming state championship tournament which will be held in Boise. “With States coming up we can use all the players we can get,” Jim said.