Charles Randall Larenas-Leach

Hey guys! I recently got Top Eight at Iowa States. Luckily, my win-and-in Round Seven was captured on film: Thank you to Ryan Alperstein AKA Bullados for recording and posting the video. You can check out his channel  here , he puts out some really cool content. Also, look forward to a set review of Fates Collide coming up sometime in the near future. I hope you enjoy!

How I felt about Standard coming out of Cities Before States, I had 119 Championship Points, and every single one of those was from tournaments in the Expanded format. At the Standard Cities that I played in, I felt lost and I couldn’t escape the feeling that I just didn’t have a good handle on the format. I was spoiled by the speed and consistency of Expanded. I did make top cut at a few Cities, but they were all Expanded; I was still fumbling around in the dark when it came to Standard. Luckily States has now passed netting me eighty points. In the process, I got to play a deck that I hadn’t gotten to play with before in my frenzy of Expanded Battle Compressor-focused decks. At the end of Cities, I watched the Some1’s PC video regarding Gallade/Octillery and after playing some games with the deck, I was enamored with it. It seemed so improbable that a deck without Shaymin that ran minimal Ultra Ball could succeed, but it functioned! It got my wheels spinning as to how t...

When I returned from my two year hiatus in 2014 to get back into Pokemon, I made a few decisions to help me become a better player and save money. As a senior, my parents did not let me purchase cards online, and I went to every prerelease. This meant that my only way to get cards was by opening packs, which led to me building some suboptimal decks.  I feel bad when I open a pack, because the pack is instantly worth less once you open it, on average. Since getting back into the game, I don't buy or open packs, so I certainly don't attend Prereleases. Instead, I spend what I would have spent at Prerelease on singles, trying to keep the cost below $25, which was the price of the Prereleases I went to. I want to give you an insight into the process in which I buy cards from a new set. I guess which cards I will need, while trying to stay on a budget. This has ended up saving me money since I came back, and I've done it all without opening a single pack. Here are the cards ...