Can This Make Me a World Champion? - The Difference VGC Notebook

A notebook review is somewhat uncharted territory for me. I've read a lot of information from hobbyists about notebooks and pens, but I don't really claim to know much about them. Still, when Wolfe Glick announced his VGC notebook, I felt like I had to give it a try. Is it a fancy gimmick, or does it really provide the World Champ Difference? Only one way to find out.

The Use Case

Note-taking has been a weakness of mine in the Pokémon TCG. In that game, keeping track of both your deck state and your opponent's is critical, and I was never very good at quickly transferring information onto a page. Likewise, it wasn't something I had even considered trying in the VGC, since it's something I only ever got into casually. However, with the recent release of Pokémon Champions, a dedicated VGC notebook seemed like a good way to practice taking things even more seriously.

I'd argue note-taking isn't as important as it once was in the era of open team sheets and the game tracking and displaying a lot of important information for you. Still, it continues to have some utility. Being able to notate and flag things about your opponent's team is useful, since you aren't allowed to write on their team sheet. There are also situations where you can't see critical information, such as replacing a knocked-out Pokémon, so having the game state notated lets you make informed decisions without having to have the number of Tailwind turns remaining memorized. Lastly, you can keep track of things like damage calculations and opponents's behavior to refer to later in the match or even further in the future.

Enter the Difference VGC Notebook, designed by 2016 Pokémon World Champion Wolfe Glick. He designed a very specific layout to easily keep track of all this information over the course of a match in an organized manner that's easy to write and easy to read again later. There have been VGC notebook products before, but most of them are out of print at this point, and this is the most modern interpretation of the concept I've seen. So, how good is the notebook, and is it worth the price?

Look and Feel

The Difference notebook is a full 8.5" x 11" 150-page hardcover notebook. 149 of those pages are printed for Wolfey's VGC notes on both sides, giving you space for recording up to 298 matches.

The cover is claims to be a polyurethane leather, but it feels more like a vinyl wrap over a cardboard core. Visually, the design is very stunning, but functionally this is a bit of a miss. PU leather has a tendency to break down quickly, and can do so in under a year under normal use. This is not a cheap notebook, and I would have liked to see something a bit more robust for the cover.

The paper inside the notebook is 150 GSM, which is on the higher side for a notebook. This means you shouldn't have too many issues with ink bleeding through the page. I'm not enough of a paper connoisseur to tell if the pages have any kind of coating applied. These kinds of coatings can interact with oils on your skin to cause skipping,, which is not ideal in the middle of a match. After a few minutes of touching, I wasn't able to get the ink on the paper to skip, so it's probably at least good enough to last the duration of a 3-game match, but you can always get an artist glove pretty inexpensively if you're super paranoid about it.

The notebook is ring-bound. I've had issues with pages slipping out of the rings in other ring-bound notebooks, but it's still a higher quality binding than spiral or glue, and it's more versatile than sewn or staple bindings, so I think it's the correct choice for something like this. It also doesn't seem like the pages will slip out of this binding too easily, but it's still worth checking occasionally to make sure your pages are all in place.

Unfortunately, the quality control doesn't seem to be particularly good. Mine came with several pages misprinted and bent. At the time of writing, I've opened a support case with Juniper Creates, the company that handled the manufacturing and distribution, but I haven't gotten a resolution yet.

Usability

Of course, the biggest factor in the quality of a notebook is how easy it is to write in. My preferred pen is loaded with a Fisher Space Pen refill with black ink and a medium point. Obviously I don't have time to try every pen on the market, so this is the one I'll be using for my testing.

Overall, I'd say the quality of the paper is quite good. The ink flowed onto the page without needing too much pressure, and the thick paper shines, as I had no issues with ink bleed. Wet ink will smear on the page, so that's something to consider (and another reason to grab an artist glove if that's really going to bother you), but overall I think the quality of the paper is pretty good.

As for actually using the notebook in games, the notebook includes a QR code explaining the layout and demonstrating it in a real VGC match. It's overall very well thought out and organized (as expected from a Pokémon World Champion) and pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it. It does take some practice to learn how to take effective notes (and know exactly when it's safe to look away to take notes), but it's certainly less intimidating than starting with a blank lined sheet.

Conclusion

A product is only as good as its price, and $35 USD is pretty steep. At that price point, I would have liked to see some higher quality materials on the cover and maybe a few more usable pages. I would also expect better QA for a premium product like this. If you're going to put a premium price tag on a product, you have to be willing to put in the work that goes with that, and it feels like Juniper Creates missed the mark there. Still, if your goal is just to support Wolfe and you're interested in getting into VGC, there aren't a lot of other options that fulfill both roles.

Currently the notebook is out of stock on the site, but you can always sign up for the mailing list to see if it's possible to drum up enough interest for Wolfe and Juniper Creates to do a second run.