Pokemon TCG dilemma
I went to the Noble Victories prerelease last weekend, and it was so much fun! It made me want to play the Pokemon TCG again. (It used to be one of my favorite hobbies, but I quit during college due to lack of time and lack of money.) I have the time now and money isn't as much of an issue. The main two problems are:
1. The only tournament legal cards I have are the ones that I got from the prerelease. All of my old cards were cycled out.
2. My local league has been invaded by the people I hate.
I know that hate is a strong word, but I have never felt so ostracized.
My best friend used to run the local Pokemon league. The weekly members were my group of friends, a few random players that were our age, and a lot of younger kids that lived in my town. We hosted weekly tournaments as well as the standard league. It was fun, and it was a good environment for the kids. Some of their parents even started playing so they could share one of their kid's hobbies.
There was another group of Pokemon TCG players in town, but they went to a different league. They were all boys, all around my age, and were super competitive. They were good friends with each other, but they never liked my friends and me. (They never mentioned why, but I think it's probably because they didn't think we were legitimate competition since we were all girls.) When I played them at cities/states/regionals and won, they would complain about losing to a girl and say "you just got lucky" or "that wouldn't have happened had my Pokemon not been in my prizes". It wasn't just an occasional thing. Sometimes they would rant for half an hour about how unfair it was that they lost. When I played against them and lost, on the other hand, they would act like it was inevitable and would criticize me for any minor mistakes I made during the game. I'll admit that I wasn't the best TCG player, but I was at least as good as some of them, and I placed in the top 8 or top 4 of cities/states relatively often.
I mean, I try not to whine about "waaah, it's becuz I'm a womenz!", but I cannot think of a single other reason that these boys are consistently rude to my friends and me. For a while I hoped that they would grow out of it, but I've known them for almost ten years and they've yet to mature.
It's really depressing, because I can't help but think that if I was male, they would have gladly been friends with me, or at least reluctantly accepted me into their group. I normally don't care about my gender, but I hate that these boys treat me like I'm an idiot and a newbie when I'm at least as good as some of them and have been playing for the same amount of time. The only difference is that I don't treat Pokemon like it's serious business and throw tantrums when I lose.
Anyway, these guys have invaded our local league and driven all the younger players away, along with most of my friends. I've been back to the league once or twice and it was filled with testosterone. I can put up with these guys well enough when I only have to see them four or five times a year for tournaments, but dealing with this stuff every week is draining.
tl;dr: I would love to start playing again, but I don't know if being insulted and looked down on every week is worth it. I have a bad feeling that they will be even worse than they were in the past, now that I don't have many decent cards to build a deck with.
I have considered other TCG games. I tried my hand at the Yugioh TCG in college, and it was fun... but I will still have the "only girl in a crowd of boys" problem, and none of my friends play Yugioh. I've also tried Magic, but I didn't like it enough to spend a ton of money on building a deck and keeping up with the new sets.
1. The only tournament legal cards I have are the ones that I got from the prerelease. All of my old cards were cycled out.
2. My local league has been invaded by the people I hate.
I know that hate is a strong word, but I have never felt so ostracized.
My best friend used to run the local Pokemon league. The weekly members were my group of friends, a few random players that were our age, and a lot of younger kids that lived in my town. We hosted weekly tournaments as well as the standard league. It was fun, and it was a good environment for the kids. Some of their parents even started playing so they could share one of their kid's hobbies.
There was another group of Pokemon TCG players in town, but they went to a different league. They were all boys, all around my age, and were super competitive. They were good friends with each other, but they never liked my friends and me. (They never mentioned why, but I think it's probably because they didn't think we were legitimate competition since we were all girls.) When I played them at cities/states/regionals and won, they would complain about losing to a girl and say "you just got lucky" or "that wouldn't have happened had my Pokemon not been in my prizes". It wasn't just an occasional thing. Sometimes they would rant for half an hour about how unfair it was that they lost. When I played against them and lost, on the other hand, they would act like it was inevitable and would criticize me for any minor mistakes I made during the game. I'll admit that I wasn't the best TCG player, but I was at least as good as some of them, and I placed in the top 8 or top 4 of cities/states relatively often.
I mean, I try not to whine about "waaah, it's becuz I'm a womenz!", but I cannot think of a single other reason that these boys are consistently rude to my friends and me. For a while I hoped that they would grow out of it, but I've known them for almost ten years and they've yet to mature.
It's really depressing, because I can't help but think that if I was male, they would have gladly been friends with me, or at least reluctantly accepted me into their group. I normally don't care about my gender, but I hate that these boys treat me like I'm an idiot and a newbie when I'm at least as good as some of them and have been playing for the same amount of time. The only difference is that I don't treat Pokemon like it's serious business and throw tantrums when I lose.
Anyway, these guys have invaded our local league and driven all the younger players away, along with most of my friends. I've been back to the league once or twice and it was filled with testosterone. I can put up with these guys well enough when I only have to see them four or five times a year for tournaments, but dealing with this stuff every week is draining.
tl;dr: I would love to start playing again, but I don't know if being insulted and looked down on every week is worth it. I have a bad feeling that they will be even worse than they were in the past, now that I don't have many decent cards to build a deck with.
I have considered other TCG games. I tried my hand at the Yugioh TCG in college, and it was fun... but I will still have the "only girl in a crowd of boys" problem, and none of my friends play Yugioh. I've also tried Magic, but I didn't like it enough to spend a ton of money on building a deck and keeping up with the new sets.