Pokémon fan Verive “trolls” tournament judges with an extravagant jumbo deck

The picture is very funny: There are all kinds of matches taking place as part of the North American International Championships of the Pokémon TCG, and in the middle of it all there is a player whose cards seem very, very large compared to others, while his hands, with which he plays the Holds TCG cards, looks super small. That was where Pokémon TCG fanatic Matthew Verive entered, playing his deck with jumbo cards that aren’t typically easy to get hold of — at least not necessarily in enough quantities to build a playable deck.

Matthew’s jumbo tickets leave the wardens speechless

Verive has been working on putting together a full deck of jumbo cards for quite some time, which isn’t easy because the big cards are custom-made for new decks. In other words: these jumbos can only be obtained from special editions. In addition, they are not intended for use in tournament conditions. Matthew Verive also learned a reason for this during his relatively brief appearance at NAICs.

“For those who’re wondering,” he tweeted, “I lost the first game, my opponent threw the second game (to force a third match, just for fun) and then my deck got checked.” In a next tweet he writes that this was probably the longest deck check he had ever observed. “The deck was brought back to me with the words ‘we’re still not sure if this is playable,'” says Verive. He should then address the overseers again after the completed round.

The laughs are on Matthew’s side

The Pokémon fan then lost the third match and was eliminated from the competition as a result – he would have retired anyway, as he writes. Verive later found out why the jumbo tickets are problematic with the organizers of the tournament. “If I hadn’t been eliminated, I probably would have been disqualified,” said Verive. “Because of marked cards! The jumbo cards are not cut with the same high precision as the standard cards and therefore some cards can understandably be recognized.” Here is the entire deck in its glory.

By the way, Matthew Verive doesn’t recommend you to emulate him. He’s pretty certain that in the not-too-distant future, the rules for Pokémon TCG tournaments will be adjusted to prevent players from running out with jumbo cards. “For Show”, however, Verive’s deck met all requirements – the players (and we too) had to smile at the sight of the deck made of jumbo cards.