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.
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