Jak is one of the UK’s top players, achieving every tournament win while a Senior, with multiple Battle Road, City Championship, State Championship wins in addition to placing first at the UK National Championships. He’s continued this form into his first year as a Master, winning a Worlds invite for a 4th consecutive year in a row, as well as achieving a 6-0 Swiss finish at the London State Championships, beating Sami Sekkoum, a US State Champion and a UK State Champion along the way. He also writes for Pojo’s Card of the Day, edits the Front Page articles for the Pokegym, and writes for the ProPokemon Store.
Question: Let’s start off with your username. You’re known on most of the major Pokemon Forums and communies (Pojo, Pokegym, Heytrainer, Sixprizes), as Baby Mario. What made you decide to go with this username?
At the time I was thinking of signing up for forums, I was playing Mario Kart Wii a lot. The character I always used for that was Baby Mario, so I ended up using the name. If I realised it was a name that I would get stuck with, and be known by, I would probably have given it a bit more thought.
Question: You’re a fellow British player, and European players in general can often be looked down upon as being less competitive, compared to the playerbases in North America and Japan especially. Do you feel that there’s a difference there, or that this is a misconception?
I think there are some great players and deckbuliders in Europe, who often have a slightly different take on the game than North American players. If you look at the success of European players at Worlds (especially when you consider the numbers involved), this more or less proves the point. There’s no denying, though, that the European playerbase is much smaller and there is a lesser concentration of top quality players than you get in the US. As for Japan, they obviously have some brilliant and legendary players like Yamato and Yuta. I do think that because there is a lot of mystique associated with the Japanese game (resulting from our lack of reliable knowledge), that this adds to their reputation.
Question: You post on several different forums, which ones do you feel that players can get the most from?
The good thing about the expansion in the number of forums is that it creates more discussion and gives players more choice. PokeGym does a great job of catering to a huge membership and keeping it a safe place to post. Six Prizes is like a small, friendly site, while Hey Trainer is much more relaxed, and has some great players who (mostly) just want to talk about Pokémon.
Question: The World Championships was announced to be held in Hawaii this year, which a lot of people feel is too expensive a destination for it to be held there every other year. Considering Europeans typically pay some of the highest prices for Worlds (Flights to the US are around $1000, and $1500 to Hawaii), and you’ve attended the last 4 World Championships, do you feel that it is worth the expense?
If you like Pokémon AT ALL, then it is definitely worth the expense of going to Worlds. Nothing else really compares to it in terms of spectacle, the opportunity to meet people, and the sense that you are involved in something special. I know a lot of people think that Hawaii is very expensive and a long distance away (which it is), but it is truly a great destination. The Island itself is an amazing landscape, and there is so much to see and do. I don’t mind Pokémon holding Worlds in Hawaii at all.
Question: Playing at the World Championships last year has given you the opportunity to play against players from a range of countries. What 5 countries do you feel have the best chance of producing a World Champion in the Masters next year?
1. USA – they have so many top players, and also the numbers to dominate
2. Japan – they always bring something new and surprising, along with their great play skills
3. UK – well, we do have the best player in the World in Sami Sekkoum ;)
4. Norway – has an impressive history of achievement for such a small country
5. Italy – The most impressive nation in terms of average result per player in 2011
Question: You write for the ProPokemon Store, which sells Premium Content at a cost to players. Why do you think that these articles cost money as opposed to the free content currently avaliable on the internet, and are they worth the expense?
The thing with Premium Content is that I don’t believe it takes anything away from those people who choose not to purchase it. Instead it creates more quality material for those willing to pay the fee. I know that I wouldn’t write such extensive and detailed articles if it wasn’t for Premium Content. The knowledge that people are going to be paying for your work also drives you to produce better quality. The other thing that it means is that players get the articles they need in advance of a series of tournaments. The Premium Content on ProPokemon is there to anticipate the metagame and prepare players, in addition to give them well known lists for established meta decks.
Question: You also released a new article on the ProPokemon Store last week, talking about your Top 5 plays for Battle Roads, Regional Championships and the Prague Cup. Tell us more about your article.
Well, basically the title is self-explanatory (!). I go over what I think will be the most commonly played decks for Battle Roads. I give my lists for each one (along with alternative takes on a couple of decks) and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses: all things players need to take into consideration when choosing a deck.
Question: You’ve been playing for a while, how did you first get into Pokemon?
Actually, my dark secret is that I used to be a Yu-Gi-Oh player. I was pretty good, and was competitive against much older players when I was about 9-10 years old (the game didn’t have age divisions back then). One weekend I went to a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, and to be honest I wasn’t really enjoying myself so much: the game itself has a lot of flaws and sometimes the players are less than friendly. In the same room, there was a small Pokémon tournament going on and the people playing just looked to be having so much more fun than I was. I’d always liked the Pokémon themselves (my brother collected the cards when they first came out), so it seemed like a good idea to make the switch. I have never regretted it since.
Question: What do you feel is your best ever achievement in the game, and why was it so important to you?
Of course winning UK Nationals as a Senior and qualifying for Worlds every year means a lot to me. But I still feel that my best achievement was going X-0 in Swiss at last year’s London States against a field including Sami and all the top UK players. This was important to me because it was my first year in Masters and I felt that it proved to everyone that I could cut it in the toughest age division.
Question: What’s your best game you’ve ever played?
Probably it’s still the game I played in the first round of the 2009 World Championships against Malik from Malaysia. He was playing Gardy/Gallade, while I was running Dark Flygon. Malik managed to get a full set up by his third turn. I dragged up a Claydol with Trapinch SW and then used Azelf’s Lock Up for several turns to enable me to get set up myself. I then shuffled in one Gardy with Dusknoir DP and sniped his Gardy X with Flygon X for game. It was a really intense match that I had to play faultlessly to win. Malik is a great guy and a great opponent, which just made the whole experience even more satisfying.
