Precious Memories Blog 1st post!

Ok, as some people may know, I currently play a card game called "Precious Memories". It's available only in Japan, currently. Here's a link to the official website:
Official Site!
A link to the wiki (in japanese) - The Wiki


As you can see, it's an anime-based card game. The current sets available in the card game are as followed (in order of release):
-K-ON! (5/28/2010)
-Hidamari Sketch (9/10/2010 + 12/24/2010 starter deck release)
-K-ON! part 2 (11/26/2010)
-Bakemonogatari (Ghostory) (1/28/2011)
-Katanagatari (Sword Story) (2/25/2011)
-K-ON!! part 1 (4/1/2011)
-Ookami san to shichinin no nakamatachi (Ookami san and seven companions) (4/29/2011)
-Shinryaku! Ika Musume (Invasion! Ika Musume) (5/27/2011)

The following series are set to be released in the future:
-Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls (Many Beautiful Samurai Girls) - (6/30/2011 release)
-Ore no imoutou ga konna ni kawaii wake ga nai (There's no way my little sister could be this cute) - (7/29/2011 release)
-Mahou Shojo Madoka Majika (Magical Girl Madoka Majika) - 8/31/2011 release)
-WORKING!! - (9/2011 release)
-Denpa onna to seishun otoko (fall 2011 release)
-K-ON!! part 2 (fall 2011 release)
-A-channel (winter 2011 release)
-Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai (We still don't know the name of the flower we saw that day) aka AnoHana (winter 2011 release)

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So as you can see, there's many sets, and while it had a slow start when it first came out, sets are now coming out at the rate of 1 set a month. This means that the metagame is constantly changing! There are always new decks and new cards coming! With no sets being rotated out like in MtG, constructed format shows off a wide variety of possibilities! With the large amount of card stores in Japan, there are tourneys happening practically everyday! These tournaments offer promotional cards as prizes, giving a special promotional card to everyone who enters, as well as an additional promo card to the top 3 placers of the tournament. The top 3 promo card is generally another version of an already existing card (different art, or a foil version, or whatnot). So far, only the June promotional top 3 card is a card that can only be obtained by getting top 3 in a tournament. There are also large events that happen, too, in which they give out special cards for that, as well. This is all for the first post, as this is just a general outline of the card game!

"Where can I get these cards if I don't live in Japan?"
-There's a couple of options. First is using amiami.com, which is generally the best import store online. You just go to their English website and type in "precious memories". You should get this page:
Amiami.jp

There, they sell starter kits, booster boxes, and starter boxes. There's generally no point in buying a box of starters, as it's the same cards over and over. It's generally a much better idea to buy a single starter, and then boosters if you want to get started. Amazon.co.jp also sells them, but you may have to use a 3rd party to get them shipped to you. If anyone else has found places that sell them online that ship internationally, please let me know!

The next post will contain rules, how to win, and the basics you need to know to play the game!