TCG Community Interview #4: @randomswitchgamer

I spoke with @randomswitchgamer, a member of the TCG community! Here are his answers to my questions!

Q: What was the first TCG you ever collected or played?

A:  It's really hard to remember that far back, I know I was very young...I know I had Pokemon cards at some point, but I don't really remember when exactly...but I'm sure at that age anyway I wasn't playing Pokemon, I probably just had some cards cause someone in the family knew I loved the Gen 1 games...I do remember two instances as a kid of having TCGs

One being Yu-Gi-Oh cards and playing them with my brother and best friend from like 3rd or 4th grade (so I must have been around 7-9 years old depending on that specific time frame) and heading over to his place and him and his neighbor had cards and we would just build decks and play and learn that way...I remember having my own set of cards and one day losing them at a church we went to one time and I don't really remember what was in that stack other than Judge Man...don't know why but that's always stuck with me hahaha

And the other instance was I believe a gift for either mine or my brother's birthday or a holiday or something my grandmother from my father's side knew we like card games, but didn't know anything about them so even though we played Yu-Gi-Oh, she got us two Magic starter decks, which I remember one vividly being a mono green deck, but I don't remember what the decks were...I think there was a treefolk in there, but again...no fucking clue 

Q: Which TCGs do you currently collect/play?

A: So...I've been away from TCGs for a while now...mostly because of work and other things in life (as others will relate to)...

I used to play a lot of games...The 3 Pillars for sure, but at most Yu-Gi-Oh, even though I was more of a fan of the Pokemons property and hadn't really played the TCG that much even though I was surrounded by it a lot and only really had played fun decks in Yu-Gi-Oh like Final Countdown mixed with Jackpot 7 as one example, I practically dwelled in my local card shop in Hawaii from middle school up til after high school into my 20s...but I've always played then VS System (before it changed into what it is now as an LCG, I think?) and back then I felt I was good enough at the game, but not til way later had my skills in that game grew to somewhere I could be comfortable with saying good...

But I was also relatively known as the guy that played a lot of games outside of the 3 Pillars or the fun deck guy within Yu-Gi-Oh or some shit...

I played Maple Story TCG when that came out, I hadn't played it but I tried learning My Little Pony when that came out, I was obsessed with Huntik as I thought it had huge potential, I was late to Chaotic but still really enjoyed playing the game after it kind of died out...again VS System I believe I started around the Heralds of Galactus set and continued for years after the game was discontinued...Futurecard Buddyfight was a game that I really tried to be competitive in ..I started the growth of the game in Hawaii, and I got it to where my locals and our rival store got competitive and made an actual regionals tournament alongside Cardfight Vanguard...I unfortunately only made top 8 at that regionals and soon after because of a specific deck that came out, made me leave the game in total...("The Chaos" deck which I did make and played, but it was too good a deck and I hated where the game was going because of it)

Like I mentioned though I stopped playing card games, just merely a spectator...and it wasn't til recently (passed 2 years or so) did I start getting back into watching card games ..and February of this year did I download TTS and start playing and learning new TCGs...so games I play now (and soon more regularly after I finish moving (I'm in the middle of a move)) are Alpha Clash, Backrooms TCG, Boundless, Cards the Universe and Everything (CUE), Clan Wars TCG, Disney Lorcana (which at the time of typing this, isn't out yet), Game of Skate (which again, isn't fully out yet), soon a game called GeoPals (which is mostly still in development, but they have cards and will be the world's first Geo Cache TCG), GRIM the Card Game, Legions of Will, I AM CHAMPION (which I haven't actually played yet, just watched a lot of their videos and I'm a big fan), Magic the Gathering (which has lessend since the Pinkerton situation), Marvel Snap, Nostalgix, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and many other discontinued games like BeyBlade, My Little Pony, Chaotic, Huntik, Vs System, NeoPets, and again...just many many other games  (sorry this was insanely long!

Q: What's your favorite card in your collection?

A:  My favorite card in my collection is Mojo, Ruler of Mojoworld, which is currently packed up, but I gave TradingCardGirl an image of the card...

This is a VS System card, and one of the games mechanics, like in a lot of games, is the affiliation system where characters will fall into a certain affiliation; Gotham Knights, Team Superman, Avengers, X-Men, etc (I think there is like 75+ team affiliations)...groups within team affiliations can team attack and reinforce each other in combat...you can use "team-up" cards to "crossover" team affiliations so you could run a Teen Titans/X-Men deck if you wanted to...

Mojo gains his attack stat for each character you control WITHOUT a team affiliation, and characters without team affiliations cannot team attack or reinforce as they don't technically share a team affiliation, because though they are all unaffiliated, they aren't affiliated or associated with one another...I thought that that was very interesting so this was a deck that I work on since I started til WAAYYYY after the game discontinued at making it work...and this was the first time me doing so in the TCG space...and from winning a tournament once with this deck, beating one of the best players at the time at my locals with Unaffiliated, and getting to a point where I made this deck a rather respected deck at my locals, makes this deck one of the most meaningful TCG things I have with me, but as the leader of the deck, Mojo is my favorite TCG anything EVER made...

He singlehandedly helped me grow in the habit of reading as many cards as I card within any respected TCG...Mojo has helped me learn deck building themes and strategies, and has overall given me the passion to take something that others in a TCG might not think it'd be good...but making it not just playable, but good enough that others recognize it...even if it's not "top tier"...Mojo really helped me overcome a lot of trials in TCGs...I love you Moji boy!

Q: What's your favorite TCG to play?

A: I think it's clear that VS System was and still probably is my favorite game to play, even after it's discontinuing...between the Galactus raid format that released and big multiplayer battles, my friends and I had our time with this game...it'll forever hold a place in my heart

Honorable mentions though will be the Panini Dragon Ball Z reboot (RIP) and Futurecard Buddyfight...

And shout-out the Game of Skate as that'll probably be one of my new main games!

Q: Which part of the hobby do you enjoy more, collecting or playing, and why?

A: I guess you could throw this under playing, but I honestly love deck building and reading cards the most out of all TCGs...also just learning as many TCGs as possible...learning a game's mechanics that make it either unique or even similar to other games is awesome and a great brain exercise...unlocking combos in your mind's eye or maybe reading something in one game that helps you learn a mechanic that you might not have fully understood in another game...the Prof says it best "Reading the card, explains the card" but also it goes to reading the cards help understand the games more sometimes than the rulebooks...even though rulebooks most of the time are great tutorials for learning the game, sometimes a mechanic is just best learned by playing it out...

So I guess it's a long roundabout way of saying I prefer playing...but it's really mostly deckbuilding, playtesting those builds and just reading a bunch of cards!

Q: What do you hope to see more of in the TCG community? What do you hope to see less of?

A: Honestly more love...more inclusions...TCGs help grow families and communities and provide a safe space to go and just have fun...yes arguments, scandals and thievery are all things we see happen, but for the most part it connects people that don't know each other's backgrounds, beliefs, orientations identities, etc and that's beautiful! We can talk and have fun about how the ban list sucks for this reason, or how that card connects to me on a personal level or whatever...The fantastical worlds these games provide us help bridge a gap that it's hard to find in other platforms

And it's amazing that TCGs can bring people together whether it's virtually around the world or in Flesh and Blood (Ahhhhhhh?! Get it? GET IT?!?!!?!!?!)

Something I want to see less of is a lot of shaming and toxicity I see a lot in some communities...like take for instance the latest (at the time of this interview) MTG with the Pinkerton situation...so many unfortunate souls sided with Wizards not because of the details of what occurred in some cases (like, yes on one hand someone fucked up by sending this person the wrong set...a future set, which is troubling, but the choice of actions that had taken place was definitely the wrong way to go) but some of these people sided with Wizards  just because the Pinkertons were the ones hired to perform this already ridiculous situation, and you mostly know that's the case cause once MTG made Aragorn have a different skin tone in their latest Lord of the Rings crossover set these same bigots who supported Wizards for hiring the Pinkertons are now slandering Magic because they made a famously fair toned character darker and that's ridiculous...

Or the kid that had a "hire a girlfriend" service to have someone come over to his place to play Yu-Gi-Oh with...it was a fucked up situation to see people making fun of this kid who clearly just wanted social interaction but for whatever the reason may be, had a hard time finding it...but the story itself was so hard warming as the hired girlfriend started bringing her own Yu-Gi-Oh deck to play with, which is freaking awesome...I don't know where the story is at today, but whether they hooked up or they are just friends that's what I love about TCGs...bringing people closer together and just having the time of our lives playing paper games with our friends...

Or a creator that includes a plus sized person or includes a character that identifies on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum or a player who might be on these spectrums of size, identity or even on the autistic spectrum or the amount of melanin in their genes...I still see people being slandered and it makes me upset, like come on...grow up! it's not hard to act civilized and treat everyone how you want to be treated; loved and accepted...

Most apologies for this becoming political like that...sorry

Q: What are your thoughts on the new indie and homemade TCGs that have been coming out recently? Which one is your personal favorite?

A: I'm pretty sure I answered this, but Game of Skate...I'm a skateboarder (which answers a future question....oooooooooo, spoilers) and seeing how Josh and Mikey, who are also skaters, adapted the IRL Game of Skate (which if you don't know, it's like H.O.R.S.E. in basketball, and if you still don't know...Google ) and they've incorporated the fantastical universe of TCGs and made it into something that feels like a perfect marriage of both! Shout out to that team!

And I HAVE to throw out some honorable mentions because just one game can't keep my ADHD ass satisfied haha so Nostalgix TCG, I'm lookin' at you baby! Super cool idea, super fun game...Dragon Mill FTW (I love when a game has a mill win/con deck...I'm THAT asshole)

And Backrooms TCG and I AM CHAMPION are games that have a VERY FUN single player format that if you're looking to just pass the time while watching a YouTube video or whatever...these games could be fun to just bust out and see if you could beat the game before the game beats you 

Q: Are there any hobbies you have outside of trading card games?

A: Nope...hahaha I'm kidding, yes I love skateboarding, I remember my brother used to do it and so I tried, ate shit and that was tha...I got a Walmart board at some point and just used it to cruise around, until I tried to Ollie or Shuv-It, I can't remember and I basically did it...so it got me into investing money in getting a Mini Logo board cause they were always cheap and a cheap set up to practice...I used to watch so many videos that I'd download off Limewire or whenever YouTube started popping off or just random websites back then that had videos or clips...and I'd studying...

Though I can Kickflip, Tre Flip, Impossible, Dolphin Flip, Hospital, Hard Flip and some other technical flat ground flip tricks in various stances....I really had my passion from my Mount Rushmore of skaters that helped me find my style in Mike Vallely #1, Richie Jackson, William Spencer (who was also the stuntman for Andrew Garfield's Spiderman, fun fact) and Gou Miyagi...look these dudes up, cause their amazing and if you want to know my style of skating, it's really based around these 4 amazing dudes!

Outside of skating I also love food, I do most of the cooking at home for the wife and I and I've been working in kitchens for basically all of my adult life...my first job was making "snow" or like shaved iced using milk based formulas instead of water, so they'd shave it really pretty and creamy ribbons of whatever the flavor is as opposed to shaved ice which shaves in small shards of ice that they then add the syrup to, which both are amazing, don't get me wrong! Then I worked in a pseudo-fast food burger joint in Hawaii called Teddy's Bigger Burger which was like Hawaii's In and Out or Shake Shake...and I worked there for like 5 years I believe and I left and changed my professional path to retail...which I worked at Uniqlo (a Japanese clothing brand) for 5 months before I left on good terms due to just missing working in a kitchen...I started at Quiora in Hawaii which was a more fine dining meets casual inside a Ritz Carlton with an amazing beach view...made it to Kitchen Lead, but was offered the Sous Chef position before kitchen leader, which I turned down as my now wife and I planned on moving out from Hawaii to try to start saving for the future, as Hawaii is crazy expensive to live...so I was at Quiora for about 2 years, before we left to Illinois which I now work at an eSport Bar and Arcade in Skokie, IL called Ignite Gaming Lounge, check us out  and I am now one of the two kitchen leads and I love this kitchen as it's the perfect marriage of both my love for gaming and my love of food!

I watch a lot of food YouTubers and look up recipes even if I don't have time to make these things at the moment...I love lookjng at other cultures and the way they make their signature dishes and seeing the whole world through food is an amazing and beautiful thing!

Q: What do you like best about the community?

A: So far everyone in the card game communities since my return to them has been amazing...many people supporting their favorite game(s) and even branching out to learn a few more...it's awesome...I love just chatting to many players and even cars game creators and seeing others communicate in such beautiful ways...

And also many people supporting my return to playing card games has been amazing as well and Ive met a lot of people who I look forward to talking to including TradingCardGirl, so thank you for this interview, I know this got a crazy at a point, again most sincere apologies, but I also know that you and a lot of your readers will now know me personally a bit more which is awesome! Much love to you TradingCardGirl and to all the readers!

For more, follow @randomswitchgamer on Instagram