Hi pojo and pojoholics, this is matt again to talk again *sigh* the state of pokemon. Now we have all heard from different people about this and this is just my take on it. So lets just get right into it!

First I would like to say that I soooooo hope wizards, creatures, nintendo, everyone out there in pokemon is listening to, not only me, but everyone else righting these articles on pojo! These people have great ideas that would improve the game. So with that said, now we can REALLY get started :)

Ok, so what is the state of things in pokemon? Well it has now come, or is coming EXTREMELY close to the point were people just start to say "Gosh, why do I play this game, it’s the same ol’ stuff all the time, wiggly this, hay that, nuts to this I am goin’ back to magic." This I would like to say is not good (of course in this situation wizards wouldn’t mind, everyone goin’ back to magic :P) So why are people saying this? Well let me try to explain this from me view. I feel a tcg keeps going because new things start happening to do, to try, to challenge, and to master, and just stopping doing that is gonna start to drive players away.

Now I must say, I have not played many tcg’s in my time. Pokemon was my very first tcg and I instently became addicted to it! There were so many things to do, and ways to win, and combos, and all that, the possibilities were endless and it seemed that this could never die out because of all the cards to play. Then I started to come into the world of poke-players. Going to tournaments helped me see what was good and what was bad. I soon learned what to play and good strategies, and I started to win a lot more against these good players. And that went on for a while and no one saw what was coming. When wizards had the STS they could see that problem and attempted to fix it their way (its to bad that wizards is under all this legal mumbo-jumbo about not being able to ban cards, which I will talk more l8er about). So their attempt failed. Proposition 15/3 backfired on them really, and just mad people want to play hay and wiggly more. So here we are, in a turning point in the game of pokemon. Everyone who is involved in the game (as in corporations and stuff) must be VERY careful which path they take. They cant take the cheap way out and just try to make money the ez way and just let it go as it is and keep releasing sets and think people are gonna buy them. That is not what we all want. We don’t want new sets that aren’t gonna do anything but make the problem worse. They have to do something quickly, and I mean quickly, or else everyone is gonna leave pokemon because it is the same thing all over, and that is what will kill a tcg.

Me personally, have only played 3 tcgs (and omg, one of them ISN’T magic!). I have played pokemon, mlb showdown, and dragonball z, and I will tell you why I left them. IT WAS THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER! Showdown all you did was roll a dice and get out the whole time, occasionly getting a hit but getting out anyway before you can get a point (which I personally am not that fond of baseball in the first place). Dragonballz seemed like a cool game at the time, I learned to play, and it was a lot of fun. But then I learned all it was was raising anger and getting to a bigger level to win. And that was it really. Of course I should cut some slack to these games, because I started playing without a lot of sets out, and not many options, but that is the way it was taking. That is why a lot of these games aren’t that popular, there is no point really. Pokemon and magic lasted and they had more options and ways to play, more strategies then one, and isn’t dominated by the same thing over and over and over and, well, you get the point.

So here we are, playing our trapper, hay, wiggly, whatever waiting and waiting for something big to happen to pokemon. I feel the only thing to do at this point is to hit this problem head on and just start…

BANNING I know people have different views on this subject, but if feel this is the only thing that can be done to save pokemon. Lets face, like it or not, your losing interest in the game because it’s the same thing over and over, so drastic measures must be taken. You know who should be banned, wiggly, buzz, tr zapdos, trap, sneak, ior, ect. Most of the cards that dominate the play field and make this game unfun and unfair to people. Someone may have a great, cool idea for a deck that is original and is fun, but it’ll just go down to trap like everything else. I remember I saw this cool original idea on pojo, the kazam stall with tentacool and I thought that was so creative and so fun I had to try it. Well guess what happened? Hay and trap ate tentacool, put kazam away, and snuck out with poor chansey’s egg. So I began to see what was going on. And now we just have to face the facts and start banning cards and leveling the play field, bring back blastoise (we miss ya you big lugg!), make blaine’s ninetails a card that can be played, help meganium get off to a nice, "wild growth" ;), and all the other old buds. Don’t ya think it would be fun to see these guys out there playing eachother and it coming down to who was built the better deck and who is the better player, and not who goes first, or who gets out oak first. Banning cards is the best solution in my opinion, and would probably solve our big problem.

So that is it, we know what could happen to pokemon, depending on what everyone does. I hope that we make the right decision (not knowing what that will be). I would like to see old cards become playable again, and not it become just the same thing. The other night I was playing my dad with my trapper, and he said "I see why your brother doesn’t want to play you any more, your know fun to play. I cant to anything here with you just oaking through your deck and killing me first turn." I then proceded to talk with him, agreeing and building a fun deck for him to play against, and me to play with. The game of pokemon is becoming less and less fun with every move we make. Lets try and keep it fun and make the right moves and keep it alive and going. I look foreward to neo2 and hope that by then we will have a solution to our problem, if not, who knows? Pokemon may just become a fad of the past, and I don’t want that, and I don’t think many others do either.

This is matt a., wishing luck to all the players out there, and to the companies and corporations that make pokemon possible, please, act fast, time is running out. Til next time, keep playing!

Email your thoughts, decks, comments, whatever to me at janet52@gateway.net (p.s. this is muh mom's pc, not mine! :P)