The Evolution of Trade – A Pokémon Quirk

Some players new to Pokémon wonder why certain features work the way that they do in the game. One of them is when you trade certain mons, this will cause them to evolve.

But why?

New experiences help us grow, and same goes with Pokémon. But not all experiences are good.

Haunter needs th despair and sadness it feels from being sent away by its trainer in order to evolve into Gengar.
Machoke needs grief mixed with loss of the trainer to achieve stronger willpower, this allows them to evolve into Machamp.
Kadabra gains depression by being traded, this leads to psychotic powers allowing it to evolve into Alakazam.
Graveler evolves into Golem but this can only happen through a trade when its heart is cracked and broken, causing immense stress.

There's only so much they can experience with one trainer, so by being traded away into the hands of another trainer, they learn a lot more, triggering their evolution. It could be the sadness of being traded away that contributes to this experience, it could be the ability to learn how to trust another trainer.

But this is all fine and good, a little on the sad side, and a little stupid in my opinion because it is basically on and off, you could have a bad trainer who treats them poorly and trade them to a nice trainer, this would be the opposite, and it wouldn't create the desired effect, yet, it does.

The real reason it to encourage players and kids to buy the link cable and trade with friends. So you have to trade them so that the Pokémon Company and Nintendo make money.

Check That Game Freak

Have you ever wanted to collect all of the cards, and I mean all of the cards? Then it is time to start printing out some checklists. And it just so happens that I have a couple of them for you to get started with.

Game Freak released them a while ago and I am glad that they did, since it is neat having them printed out and slipped into a binder, seeing what you have and don't have, and drooling over the names of cards you may never find.

I love the lists, but I will mention that none of them are actually 100% complete. Unfortunately, the checklist do not include the secret rares.

Base Sets

Base Set Checklist

Base set checklist

Base Set 2 Checklist

Base set 2 checklist

Jungle

Jungle set checklist

Fossil

Fossil set checklist

Rocket

Rocket set checklist

Gym Heroes

Gym Heroes set checklist

Gym Challenge

Gym Challenge set checklist

Neo Genesis

Neo Genesis set checklist

Neo Discovery

Neo Discovery set checklist

Collecting Nostalgia

When you do something long enough, when you engage in a hobby for years it is both modern, fresh and familiar, but it also brings with it a certain amount of nostalgia.

The nostalgia is a great feeling, and one that should be cherished. I love to have something physical when it comes to Pokémon. The smell of new blister packs. The sensation of opening something that it filled with a little bit of wonder. It is great. The online game and Go are both good. But the physical game, that is where I find myself having the most fun. Don' get me wrong, collecting your sixth lvl 100 in the video game, catching the 280th Rattata in Go or playing the card game online is definitely fun.

But for me it's not the same as with the TCG.

Every card is a small piece of art.

Collecting now as an adult also reduces my deep sadness that comes up when I think what happened to my shoebox full of cards.

Collecting is something that keeps the game interesting. When I started there were only 151 Pokémon. Today…

I have completed the Goldstars, Shinings, both Black & White secret rares, full arts, Breaks, Legends, Primes, first 4 sets, 95% of all Charizards including a 1st edition base Charizard, own 5 crystal holo cards including Charizard. My collecting now contains more than 29,000 cards and out of that number, over 900 are Ultra rare/ secret rare cards.

As a kid I dreamed of having an awesome collection.

You know the kind, the one that my parents would never buy for me because they thought it was a waste of money.

Now that I'm older I get to collect the holographic cards that came out when I was little, I look forward to the end of each month to buy another!

People still tell me that this is a waste of money, but it isn't their money, nor do I tell them what they should spend theirs on. I simply love collecting and if it fulfills me then it is none of their business.

Pokémon A Generational Mix

I know that people feel so-so about this. Some love to mix and match. I am one of them. Others love to keep their deck clean and only build with one generation.

One way people do this is by running through a generation, building a deck and then testing it. If they can't balance the deck they will go and mix in other cards. This works. But it is still playing on the idea of staying with a single generation as the base. This can lead to weaknesses that that generation brings with it.

For me this does not apply because I go by theme. I always do fire/water/grass (or electric) and often dark/fighting/psychic type trios, too. Like this I can use whatever Pokemon I like in the position that I feel is the best. This goes back to my rogue deck style of play, but it is also a strong strategy. I prefer having a mix of new stuff and old favorites on my teams, although I do also enjoy familiarizing myself with new Pokémon, and I do enjoy team building with limitations in mind.

Sometimes you just want to have a team tat plays strong against a certain other team. After all the game is about the experience.