Pokeballing:The Pre-Release

So in the coming weeks we get our first real peek at Dark Explorers with prereleases April 28th-29th and May 5th-6th. Dark Explorers is the next set in our so far young EX format, and will bring us great cards such as Darkrai EX, Tornadus EX(maybe), Raikou EX, Dark Patch and Dark Claw.

A prerelease is possibly one of the most unpredictable tournaments in the Pokemon season. Not really knowing   what you will be running or playing against makes preparing for it nearly impossible. Also Pokemon prerelease tournaments play shorter 4 prize games as opposed to the normal 6 prize games.

Here is a run down on what will happen at a prerelease.
1. You arrive at the location and register for the event.
2. Once the event starts each player will be given 6 packs of cards to build a 40 card with (tournament organizers provide energy).
3. Next you enter a short (4+ rounds pending on number of players) tournament playing 4 prize games.
4. At the end of the tournaments a deck box will be handed out with the prerelease card and two more packs.

While there is no real way to prepare for certain decks that you may see, you can however be prepared to build the best deck possible. I have been to 3 prereleases myself (Undaunted, Call of Legends, Emerging Powers), and at these 3 my pulls ranged from meh (CoL, EP) to great(UD). Even with my not so great pulls having a good knowledge of the sets helped me build reliable decks to finish with okay records.

Certain things you can do
1. Take a good look at the set of the tournament you are attending. Make sure to pay attention to what the heavy favoured type is (eg Undaunted was mostly Dark and Steel). This will allow to be have a frame of a deck in mind if you pull cards that help those themes. This is also helpful for teching in weakness (eg. The Hitmonlee from Undaunted was heavy played as tech to counter Dark decks).
2. Always make sure to separate your cards when you open packs. Sorting your cards that you pull into Pokemon and Trainer will help you to not overlook any good cards you might have pulled.
3. Energy is your friend. Given the fact that most sets now don't really sport a lot of good trainers heavier Energy lines can be game breaking as you will be running more heavy Energy attackers.

Prerelease tournaments are a lot of fun and a good way to test your deck building skills. Prerelease tournaments are also a very good way for newer players to build a card pool very quickly as 8 packs of cards is a lot of packs for a newer player who doesn't have a lot of cards to begin with.

Dark Explorers Pre-releases begin April 28th-29th and end May 5th-6th, and the set releases May 9th.
Cost: 35 (great price for what you get)