By Becca Mander
An integral part of the Pokemon adventure is the team you carry with you, to support you and share your journey. I should think that at some point, most enthusiasts will have thought about their perfect Pokemon team – for video game competitors, it’s all about the ‘sweepers’, the ‘leaders’, the ‘walls’; basically the reduction of your team into key cogs in a well-oiled, efficient machine. A gamer might play Chandelure for his awesome special attack stat… but he may in reality hate the sight of Chandelure.
Card gamers want three things: consistency, consistency and, of course, consistency. This leads them to play multiple copies of the same card. In a Resiboar deck, your ‘team’ of six may end up consisting of two Reshiram, an Emboar, a Cleffa and two Ninetales. Wait, don’t I remember reading that Reshiram is a unique Pokemon? So how come two exist in this trainer’s party? And there really seems to be a fiery theme happening here – what happens if an opposing trainer lets loose with a devastating Hydro Cannon during a spontaneous battle? While these problems are unlikely to cause any stress in the card game, if Pokemon were real, they are things I would certainly consider before selecting my trusty team of six.
So, disliking the reification of the video game, and the lopsided parties of the card game, I ask myself, and everyone else: ‘If Pokemon were real, who would make the cut for your team?’ Here’s mine.
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