A Chat With Andrew Finch by Edo (hrzic@hawaii.edu) Saturday, August 21st was the day of the "Hawai'i Trainer Tour/Showdown". During this day, two of the winners would go to the Tropical Mega-Battle the following week on the 25th and 26th. I intended to go to the store that was having the tournament and see if I could help out, but since there was such a small turnout (approximately sixteen people), they had enough people to cover the match. I was a bit dismayed that I couldn't help out, but I did get a chance to talk to Andrew Finch about the current state of affairs of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. If you don't know who Andrew Finch is (like I didn't until today), in a nutshell, he is responsible for getting people to play Wizards of the Coast card games. This is in the form of tournaments and such. He is the creator of the Pokemon League here in the United States, and also evaluates some things such as packaging for cards and such. He was kind enough to allow me to ask a number of questions of him. I don't have a word-for-word transcript, but I will go over the major topics that I asked and his answers. Naturally, the majority of the questions were about things that are on the minds of the Pokemon TCG community in general. "FOSSIL" MEW AND PROMOTIONAL CARDS Unofficially from Mr. Finch's mouth, Mew will NOT be in the upcoming Fossil set. Mew will be released as a Promotional card through the Pokemon League, in January. But how does one get the promo cards? He said that a majority of the cards will be released through the Pokemon League. The way to actually get the cards is to play in Pokemon TCG events and such, and collect points. Just as you get a Badge for collecting a certain number of points, you will pick up a promotional card for a certain amount of points (I don't believe that he gave me a concrete number, but rather an example of "100"). The good thing is that there will be a different card each season. Another good thing is that it won't be a "I have my one promo," such as some tournament leagues for other card games do. If you accrue more points, you will get more of that particular promo. So, by the end of the season, you could conceivably have five (or more) copies of that card, so that the players can trade with them. This system is to reward the players more than the collectors-- after all, Mr. Finch is there to get players to play the game, rather than view the cards as pretty pictures. THE "TARGETED" AGE Wizard's target audience is the kids for the Pokemon TCG, and this means ages nine through twelve. They have no real plans to increase the age bracket at the current time. POKEMON GIFT SET In stores now, there is a Pokemon TCG "Gift Set". It contains a Two-Player starter set, a Jungle Starter Deck (in smaller packaging than normal, and the one that I saw was the "Water Blast" deck), a Jungle Booster pack, and a playing mat. The material of the play mat is a little thicker than poster stock. I expressed my dismay that Wizards didn't make a cloth mat. He laughed, and said that they are trying to do it, and the reason that they haven't released one as of yet is they keep rejecting the cloth material (i.e. they currently haven't found a good-enough quality). Also, the Gift Set is limited edition--they only printed a certain number. They will print another set later on, but it will probably may not be the same as the current set. Wizards is also considering in making some sort of "tokens" for various aspects of the game, with a near consistency of "poker chips". This little quip was overheard from him in another conversation, and I didn't ask him about it later. This COULD mean that we will be getting a high-quality coin like those in the Japanese theme decks. METRONOME Mr. Finch also had a cohort with him, a man by the name of Robert Gutschera. He assists with Research and Development for the Pokemon TCG. I brought up the "Metronome Issue" for him to consider. The Metronome Issue is a translation "error" that has crept into the game. Since Wizards uses the name of the Pokemon in its own attack text, rather than the "itself" that is in the Japanese version, there are some problems when copying attacks. I explained the entire matter to him, and giving examples such as doing 160 damage to Chansey, and he responded by saying that he really hadn't thought that it would have been a problem. I asked him if he could bring pass it along to the R and D team for consideration, and he said that he would. Hopefully, we will see the "true" ruling for Metronome. Mr. Gutschera said that this is most likely an error in communication between the translators and the developers. THE TROPICAL MEGA-BATTLE I asked Mr. Finch if he was responsible for creating this event, and he said no. Media Factory was already going to do the Japanese Nationals [here] in Hawai'i, and since the Pokemon TCG has been released in the United States, they contacted Wizards of the Coast and asked if they wanted to do some sort of collaborative event. The Tropical Mega-Battle will consist of two days. The first day will have two separate tournaments: the Japanese Nationals, and the U.S. Nationals. The second day will be the "international" day--that is, the Japanese and U.S. kids will battle each other. Mr. Finch said that it will be set up so that one Japanese kid will battle one U.S. kid. They will have a graphical pamphlet that will have all of the cards in both English and Japanese for the ease of referring to. In the "international" day, both that Japanese and U.S. kids can only use cards from the Basic Set and the Jungle Set, so everyone is on the same level. I informed him that it would be a most edifying experience for both the Japanese and U.S. children "who's common language is the Pokemon card game." There will be a few translators to make sure that there are no foul-ups in debates. The current setup for this is that there are eighteen kids from Japan and twenty kids from the United States (eighteen from the mainland U.S., and two from Hawai'i) that will be in the event. The Tropical Mega-Battle will NOT be open to the public at large. They wanted to create a laid-back atmosphere so that there isn't a lot of pressure. It is supposed to be a cultural exchange, and the less pressure that is put on that, the better. There will be some media coverage, though. Other than that, he didn't elaborate. I expressed interest in helping out, and if possible, I may be able to cover the Tropical Mega-Battle for the PokeGym. In the end, I thanked him for his time, and asked if I may use our chat in an editorial. He said yes.